New Book Details Failures of International Response to Haiti in 14 Years Since Earthquake

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --

"With precision, empathy, and an engaging narrative style, Johnston shines a light on the relentless battle for and against Haiti, challenging readers to confront the injustices inflicted upon a nation that continues to resist against all odds."

– Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I'm Dying

Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti
Jake Johnston

St. Martin's Press | $30.00 | Hardcover | January 30, 2024 | 384 Pages | 9781250284679

About half of US families donated to relief efforts following Haiti's devastating January 2010 earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people. Fourteen years later, the answer to the question, "where did the money go?" remains shrouded in mystery; Haiti has no sitting elected officials; violent armed groups have taken over much of the capital; and it is still unclear who all was behind the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, or why he was murdered.

Beginning just after the 2010 earthquake, researcher and investigative journalist Jake Johnston began following the money, scrutinizing aid and recovery projects that were a boon to Beltway contractors but that rarely seemed to deliver much for the Haitian people and had long lasting political effects. Along the way, he dug into controversies around the UN mission in Haiti, political scandals in DC and Port-au-Prince, massacres and political repression in some of Haiti's poorest neighborhoods, fraudulent elections, and a bizarre presidential assassination plot.

Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti represents the culmination of Johnston's efforts so far — a definitive work examining the many things the international community got wrong in responding to one of Haiti's worst-ever disasters, and the lessons to be learned. Johnston portrays a Haitian populace surviving and pulling together for Haiti's future despite the actions, and motives, of rich countries that historically have intervened in Haiti in pursuit of their own interests.

"Jake Johnston's Aid State is a harrowing journey into the heart of modern neocolonial darkness, revealing the thick network of international organizations, including the United Nations, that have occupied Haiti for decades. In the name of humanitarian aid and development, the occupiers have brought sexual abuse, disease, and death. Johnston writes movingly about a country and its people that survives under permanent occupation. An indispensable book."

– Greg Grandin is a professor of history at Yale University and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

About the Author:

Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. Jake Johnston has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University and an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. At CEPR his research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund, and US foreign policy. He is the lead author for CEPR's Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch blog and his articles and op-eds have been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, Le Monde Diplomatique, Boston Review, and Al Jazeera.

SOURCE The Center For Economic and Policy Research