What is preventing Haiti from having a Golden Age
Dispelling myths about Haiti. Why I respectfully disagree with YouTuber RealLifeLore
A few days ago I happened to watch a video about Haiti on YouTube. The video is titled Why Haiti is Dying & the DR is Booming, and it immediately caught my attention because this is a subject I’ve already written about and I’m very interested in.
Since I’m now going to criticize RealLifeLore’s video (yes, you guessed that right) I should start by giving RealLifeLore his due, and acknowledge that a lot of the context he gives for the Haitian situation is right on point.
What I do have an issue with is his assertion that a major cause of the divergence between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is the fact that the DR has large mineral resources while Haiti doesn’t. You can listen to his argument at the 48 minute mark.
The Dominican Republic has had far more mineral wealth discovered than Haiti has, which includes the location of what’s literally the largest and most profitable gold mine in all of Latin America and the 13th largest gold mine discovered in the entire world1. The Pueblo Viejo mine. This single huuuge gold mine currently represents around 2% of the Dominican Republic’s entire GDP now, and it’s become the country’s single largest corporate tax payer, having paid more than 2.6 billion dollars in taxes just between 2013 and 2020. By contrast, Haiti has exactly zero existing mines currently in operation, and there haven’t ever been any discoveries made in the country that are as significant as Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic.
I turns out Haiti is also sitting on a gold mine, or more precisely two, the Morne Bossa gold deposit and the Grand Bois deposit.
Both of these gold fields, together with several other prospective mineral deposits, are located in the Haitian mountain range known as the Massif du Nord, which is the western extension of the Cordillera Central mountains of the DR, the area were the Pueblo Viejo mine is located.
For context, this is a map of some of the current exploration and prospective mining concessions in Haiti, including Morne Bossa and Grand Bois.
You might object to the comparison between Pueblo Viejo on the one hand with its reserves of 6.55 million ounces of gold, and Morne Bossa and Grand Bois on the other hand which together have approximately 740,000 ounces of gold. It’s an order of magnitude difference to be sure.
Yet that is not the whole extent of Haiti’s mineral wealth. To give a better depiction of the extent of Haiti’s wealth I’ll quote a paper by C.E. Nelson, J.A. Proenza, J.F. Lewis and J. López-Kramer (2011), “The metallogenic evolution of the Greater Antilles”, detailing some of the mineral deposits (Gold, Silver and Copper) found in Haiti. I’m very sorry about the large amount of technical language:
The Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic and Massif du Nord in Haiti represent the trace of the Greater Antilles volcanic arc across Hispaniola… Early Cretaceous tholeiitic volcanic rocks host the Pueblo Viejo and Bayaguana districts in the Dominican Republic… Epithermal deposits are strongly developed in these Late Cretaceous volcanic arc rocks in the western Cordillera Central (Restauración district) of the Dominican Republic and its extension into the Massif du Nord district in Haiti…Grand Bois is the largest epithermal deposit known to date from the Massif du Nord. Morne Bossa (Milot) located south of Cap-Hatien in the Milot-Grande Rivière area is also a gold oxide deposit…Faille B is a low sulfidation epithermal Au-Ag quartz vein deposit… La Mine prospect refers to three significant occurrences of epithermal gold, silver and base metal mineralization located in the northernmost exposures the Late Cretaceous volcano-sedimentary sequences of the La Mine Series in the Massif du Nord… Porphyry copper mineralization, closely associated with epithermal mineralization of the same Late Cretaceous age, is widespread in the Massif du Nord district of Haiti…The Memé and Casseus copper-gold skarn deposits of Haiti are found in limestone pendants within the Terre Neuve intrusion…. Terre Neuve intrusive rocks lie along a northwest trending structure in the Terre Neuve Massif separate from the Massif du Nord to the north.
I hope that gives a sense of the large mining potential of Haiti. And this mining potential is corroborated by the number of prospects and mines reported by the mining claims site The Diggings.
Though this last piece of information should be taken with a grain of salt. The number of producers listed by The Diggings would seem to imply that Haiti has approximately half as many producers as the DR, but this is not the case since The Diggings lists all producers, former and current.
And Haiti did formerly have a mining industry during the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s profiting not just from the Gold, Silver and Copper deposits that I’ve already mentioned but also from bauxite deposits.
Jamaica produced its first bauxite in 1952 followed by Haiti in 1957 and the Dominican Republic in 1959. The industry thrived and, by 1957, Jamaica was the world’s leading producer of aluminum. Production from Jamaica has continued to increase over the years to current levels of around 15 million metric tonnes (Mt) per year of bauxite and 4Mt of alumina, accounting for roughly 10% of Jamaica’s gross domestic product (GDP)….Bauxite mines in Haiti and the Dominican Republic closed in 1982 and 1991.
If that mining potential is real the obvious question is why is it not being developed, why did mining in Haiti stop and why it has not resumed now, when it’s essential for Haiti’s economic growth.
René Préval
I think it’s very important to examine in some detail the political history of Haiti during former president René Préval’s first and second times in office, from 1996 to 2001 and then from 2006 to 2011, in order to understand what has happened to Haiti’s mining industry, or lack thereof.
I’ll begin by quoting some bits from René Préval’s Wikipedia bio.
[Préval] studied agronomy… also studied geothermal sciences at the University of Pisa in Pisa, Italy. He left Haiti with his family in 1963.
His father Claude Préval, an agronomist also, had risen to the position of Minister of Agriculture in the government of Général Paul Magloire, the predecessor of Duvalier. Leaving Haiti because his political past presented him as a potential opponent,
You might recall from my previous post on Haiti that the emigration of highly skilled Haitians during the 1960’s was a common occurrence. Let’s continue.
Préval returned to Haiti and obtained a position with the National Institute for Mineral Resources. In 1988, he opened a bakery in Port-au-Prince with some business partners. While operating his company, he continued to be active in political circles and charity work, such as providing bread to the orphanage of Salesian Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with whom he developed a close relationship…Préval served as his Prime Minister from 13 February to 11 October 1991, going into exile following the 30 September 1991 military coup.
The future president studied geothermal sciences and worked in Haiti’s National Institute for Mineral Resources before going into politics. That sounds like someone who might be interested in developing Haiti’s mineral resources if given the chance to do so.
So it comes as no surprise that he encouraged foreign mining companies to explore Haiti’s mountains during his first presidency, granting prospecting and exploration permits in 1997 to the St. Genevieve Mining Company.
And then, in May 2005, during the provisional presidency of Boniface Alexandre, mining company SOMINE signed a convention with the Haitian government taking over from St. Genevieve Mining and started prospecting and then drilling exploration holes in the Blondin-Douvray area.
After completing its drilling holes at the end of Preval’s second presidency, SOMINE announces the discovery of copper and gold deposits in Blondin-Douvray, stating its intention to keep exploring and to eventually start mining in Blondin-Douvray.
Preval’s government not only encouraged mining exploration2 but also completed an important milestone in 2006 by passing a new environmental law for Haiti to ensure that mining will proceed respecting the country’s natural resources.
Slowly but surely Haiti seemed on its way to becoming a mining country again.
Shouting, tears and deadlock
But then in February 2013 this happened:
Outraged that they have not been consulted, this week Haitian senators called for a moratorium on all activities connected with recently granted gold and copper mining permits… In a resolution approved by 15 of 16 senators present, the lawmakers also demanded the establishment of a commission to review all of the current mining contracts and “a national debate on the country’s mineral resources”… The resolution decried “the genocide that accompanied the pillage of our mineral resources in the 15th century”, the foreign mining experiences of the 20th century which caused “trauma”…
The supposed outrage of the Haitian senate3 was triggered by the new president Michel Martelly’s issue of an exploitation permit in December 2012 to SOMINE.
At the time it seemed that Martelly’s government, inaugurated in May 2011, was completing the last steps needed to allow the development of Haiti’s mineral resources, including the issue of another exploration permit in December 2012 to Eurasian Minerals for the Grand Bois gold deposit. But this future was not going to be.
At a special hearing on Jan. 22, senators accused BME director Ludner Remarais of subverting the law.
“In 20 years the parliament has never ratified any mining conventions,” Senator Steven Benoit (West) thundered, while Senator Andris Riché (Grande Anse) shouted: “We must not accept wacky contracts that seek to bury the people.”
“I am sorry the Senate was never contacted,” Remarais responded, tears in his eyes.
This dramatic scene took place more than 10 years ago, and from then until today no mining operation has started in Haiti.
The stated reason for this political deadlock is that Haitian senators want to get paid be consulted before issuing any mining license, so they can make sure their pockets get lined the Haitian state and Haitian people get a fair deal.
As long as the current mining legal framework is in place, the obsolete mining law of 1976, the Haitian Senate can block mining companies indefinitely.
Before assuming the Haitian Senate is a corrupt and petty band of demagogues, let’s take a look at the specific reasons given for blocking new mining permits.
How to be a good Haitian senator
One of the main reasons invoked for asking for a bribe before approving permits not approving permits is that the current law sets the royalties rate to be paid to the Haitian state at 2.5%, which is a low rate.
This is exactly true. And it’s also the reason why Martelly’s prime minister Laurent Lamothe presented a draft for a new mining law in August 2014, based in the mining laws that are currently enacted in most Latin American countries, which includes a proposed royalty of 4% for precious metals such as gold4.
This proposed rate is in line with the rates applied in several Latin American countries: 3.5% in Brazil, 5 to 8% in Ecuador, 3% in Cuba5 and 4% in Colombia. Even taking the charitable view that Haitian senators think a 4% rate is still too low, Lamothe had publicly mentioned higher rates before presenting the law before the Senate and that makes me think he was open to discussing higher rates.
After more than 9 years the new draft law has not been approved by the Haitian Senate. I’m sure the Haitian Senate’s displeasure with the proposed law has nothing to do with it taking the approval of each and every mining permit out of their hands, and into the hands of the technical Bureau of Mining and Energy (BME). That would seem petty.
Another commonly cited reason, particularly raised by NGOs concerned with keeping Haiti in need of charity so they can keep running their charity business the welfare of the Haitian people is the danger of environmental pollution created by the proposed mining operations.
This ignores the fact that, as I’ve already mentioned, Haiti has an environmental protection framework.
It also assumes those criticizing the proposed mining operations possess the power of clairvoyance which allows them to see these future environmental disasters without basing their opinion on any precedent because there hasn’t been any mining in Haiti for more than 40 years. They just know it’s going to happen.
Finally, an additional reason invoked for not allowing mining in Haiti is the weakness of institutions in Haiti, particularly due to their lack of resources, human and budgetary.
The BME had a budget of only one million dollars in 2012 which sounds very inadequate for an agency in charge of supervising a large mining industry, potentially an industry producing hundreds of millions - or billions - in mineral products.
But then, 4% of a billion dollars is 40 million dollars, just in royalties.
That might seem like peanuts for NGOs used to spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars with little to show for it in the long term, but I see no reason to assume that the geologists and engineers of the Bureau of Mines and Energy will be as incompetent as the average Haitian NGO employee.
A conclusion, sort of
Haiti is most definitely not poorer than the Dominican Republic because of a lack of mineral resources. It’s poorer because the majority of its political class see no benefit for themselves in developing a mining industry in Haiti, and because the parallel and unelected power constituted by many Haitian NGOs see no benefit for themselves in developing a mining industry in Haiti.
Certainly Haiti is also poorer for other reasons, unrelated to its mineral wealth, and you can get a good idea of what some of those reasons are by watching RealLifeLore’s video and by reading my previous post on Haiti.
If you want to know more about this issue and you can read French - or maybe you’re really good with Google Translate - I suggest you take a cursory glace at the proposed mining law.
Consider this a nitpick, but Pueblo Viejo is definitely not the largest gold mine in Latin America. Pascua Lama, Lobo-Marte and Cerro Casale in Chile, Yanacocha in Peru and Los Filos in Mexico are larger.
Including the exploration of gold deposits in the Grand Bois area in 2008: https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/1037100/infinity-stone-ventures-announces-acquisition-of-tesla-iron-project-and-leadership-changes-1037100.html
The Haitian Senate is composed of 30 senators, not 16. I don’t think I need to spell what that means. Also, Haiti didn’t exist in the 15th century… and I’ll reserve my opinion on what political “trauma” means.
The proposed rate varies between 3.5% and 5% for different minerals. See Article 235: https://www.accountabilitycounsel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Draft-law-with-explanatory-memo-and-model-convention.pdf
Yes, even Cuba has a modern mining law. https://minedocs.com/23/Antilles-Gold-CP-09062022.pdf
Where do these NGOs come from? How could they possibly get wind that a country like Haiti, which carries no international weight /might/ start mining?