State Department Appoints Haiti Coordinator;Snubs Haitian-Americans S.Lucas

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State Department Appoints Haiti-Coordinator; Snubs Haitian-Americans
By Stanley Lucas
September 30, 2010

This week the State Department announced a new Special Coordinator for Haiti, Thomas Adams.

Adams currently serves as the Coordinator of Assistance to Europe and Eurasia.

Haitian-Americans certainly applaud the creation of this position as aid has been haphazard and largely ineffective over the past eight months, and everyone hopes that Adams will be able to bring some coordination to the chaos.

However, it is curious that out of the two million Haitian-Americans in the U.S., not one of them was qualified for this job?

This is the second snub the Haitian-American community has seen for these recovery oversight positions.

Earlier this year, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced the appointment of a six-member Board of Directors of which not a single members is Haitian.

In fact, Haitian-Americans have been largely left out of the rebuilding process.

We are starting to wonder why that is?

After the Chilean earthquake, Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela, a Chilean-American, was appointed to oversee aid to Chile.

The State Department appointed Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad to serve as Ambassador to Afghanistan.

The U.S. Ambassador to Romania is of Romanian descent.

The Ambassador to Argentina, D. Héctor Marcos Timerman, was an Argentine journalist exiled in the U.S. It seems that for other countries, it is their policy to appoint people of national descent to key positions, but not for Haiti.

In May, Haitian Diaspora gathered in Washington, DC at the OAS to put forth recommendations for how to rebuild Haiti and commit their support to the recovery process.

At that conference, a Haiti Diaspora Federation was created, and while it does not have the far-reaching representation that we had hoped it would, they did promise to advocate on behalf of the Haitian Diaspora community.

Where were they in this process?

They were supposed to be conducting outreach to the U.S. State Department.

Either they tried to advocate for the appointment of a Haitian-American and failed; or they engaged the State Department and are just a rubberstamp for their decisions.

Either way it is a big failure of leadership and representation of the Diaspora interests.

Will the 24 Haitian-American elected officials register their concern with the State Department?

Will the hundreds of Haitian-American organizations ask questions about why there is no Haitian-American representation in the recovery process?

Secretary Clinton Designates Special Coordinator for Haiti

Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 30, 2010

The Secretary is pleased to announce the appointment of Thomas C. Adams as Haiti Special Coordinator.

The Haiti Special Coordinator's office will oversee U.S. government engagement with Haiti, including diplomatic relations and the implementation of a reconstruction strategy in partnership with the Government of Haiti, and other donors.

Mr. Adams brings over 35 years of government experience to the Department's long term recovery effort in Haiti.

He previously served as Coordinator of Assistance to Europe and Eurasia from 2005 to 2008, where he was responsible for the design and implementation of all U.S. assistance to the 29 countries that emerged from communism in Europe and Eurasia.

In this capacity, he supervised a staff of 35 and controlled the annual allocation of approximately $800 million of assistance, as well as coordinated an additional $1.5 billion of assistance by other agencies of the U.S. Government directed towards helping the target countries make the transition to full democracies and market economies.

Mr. Adams is a graduate of the University of Virginia and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.

He speaks French, Swahili, and Hungarian.

He is a 2010 recipient of the Department of State's Director General's Cup and was awarded three Meritorious and two Superior Honor Awards over the course of his career.

Valerie Jumelle, September 30 2010, 4:09 PM

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