Haiti News Updates on Wednesdays and Fridays (may change to one day a week).
UN troops in Haiti are called MINUSTAH and MINUSTAH was caught dumping sewage near a Haitian river. This is unacceptable! (Please see action alert below) It was just last year the Nepalese troops were caught dumping sewage in the Artibonite river. Haitians fear another cholera outbreak.
This week (US Puppet) President Martelly continues to travel, evict homeless families from IDP camps, and stubbornly refuse to nominate a candidate for prime minister who the Haitian Parliament will appoint. So far he has nominated two ultra-right wing candidates.
Wikileaks reveals that after the 2004 coup the US and UN oversaw the remaking of the Haitian police force. They purged Aristide loyalists, of whom many, were jailed and, according to reports, some were killed, and they appointed ex-army and ex-paramilitary to the police force.
ACTION ALERT
From Twitter
the Haitian Blogger @thezenhaitian thezenhaitian
Call to action: Stop UN from dumping its fecal matter in Haiti's rivers contact @StateDept (212)-415-4062 (212)-963-1234
RED ALERT - MINUSTAH Caught Dumping Feces Near Guayamouc River In Hinche Haiti:
The residents of Sully are very angry. Area residents are in fear. Many local residents are affraid to take the road that leads that part of Sully where, Alterpresse reports, there is a foul smell coming from the dumped feces.
The fear of another Cholera outbreak!
The Guayamouc river is a large water source for Haiti's central plateau. Guayamouc flows for 113 km from the Massif du Nord, through the central plateau, into the Artibonite River.
New York: During an All-Day Demonstration, Hundreds Demand “UN Out of Haiti!” by Kim Ives:
On August 5, Haitians and their international supporters held a boisterous eight-hour demonstration in front of the United Nations General Headquarters in Manhattan to demand the immediate withdrawal of UN occupation troops from Haiti and the payment of reparations to the families of the 6,000 Haitians who have now been killed by a cholera epidemic. The disease was imported into Haiti by UN troops last October....
Generally, the UN Security Council renews MINUSTAH’s mandate for one year every year. The last mandate expires on October 15, 2011, and most Haitians are demanding that it not be renewed.
However, Washington and its allies want to keep the occupation in place, even now after seven and a half years. “A premature departure of MINUSTAH would leave the [Haitian] government...vulnerable to...resurgent populist and anti-market economy political forces—reversing gains of the last two years,” wrote US Ambassador Janet Sanderson in an October 1, 2008 secret embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Haïti Liberté. MINUSTAH “is an indispensable tool in realizing core USG [US government] policy interests in Haiti.”
UPDATE: Martelly 3rd nomination for prime minister Evans Paul?
Sources: Evans Paul to be 3rd Designated Prime Minister:
Given the level of credibility it has acquired in recent times in terms of the political class and its long history of militant, Paul Evans should be able to be admitted to parliament, whose members show some hostility from the presidency that they feel too arrogant.
Meanwhile it's impatience at the Legislative Palace. MPs believe that the president has taken too long to restart consultations to appoint a new prime minister. Until Tuesday, the presidents of both chambers were not consulted on the choice of a personality.
More about Evans Paul below...
MUST READ: Wikileaks WikiLeaks Reveal: U.S. and UN Officials Oversaw Integration of Ex-Army Paramilitaries into Haiti’s Police Force:
Throughout 2004 and 2005, Haiti’s unelected de facto authorities, working alongside foreign officials, integrated at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country’s police force, secret U.S. Embassy cables reveal....
Hundreds of police considered loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few killed, according to numerous sources interviewed.
At the same time, former soldiers from the disbanded Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH), who were assembled in a paramilitary “rebel” force which worked with the country’s elite opposition to bring down Aristide, were stationed – officially and unofficially – in many towns across the country....
Millions of dollars in funding for the demobilization and integration of the FAdH was gathered — mainly through the UN and the U.S. — but officials also looked to other governments for funding.
Immediately after the coup, the integration process was carried out by officials of the so-called Interim Government of Haiti (IGOH), under U.S., OAS and UN supervision. Then, starting in November 2004, a longer-term apparatus, the UN’s DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration) program, was set up. Part of its duties included a continued integration of some of the paramilitaries into the Haitian National Police (HNP).
The U.S. Embassy cables go into detail about the integration of paramilitaries into the HNP and other government agencies. One of the most revealing cables is titled “Haiti’s Northern Ex-Military Turn Over Weapons; Some to Enter National Police.”
MUST READ: US Role in Recovery Effort How the World Failed Haiti | Rolling Stone Politics: Read about Philanthrocapitalism- I find the term and philosophy behind it offensive.
At the forefront of this effort is private-sector investment being leveraged to build the kind of infrastructure needed to promote economic development and attract foreign corporations: roads, power lines, factories, markets. "The hope," explains Matthew Bishop, co-author of Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, "is that using the private sector will be a lot more efficient. Traditional aid has been extremely wasteful. When it is allowed to take the lead, the private sector is more likely to try something new or entrepreneurial."
This May, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that of the $1.14 billion allocated by Congress for Haiti last year, only $184 million has been "obligated."
The article goes on to give a detailed account of the US State Departments handling of the recovery effort and of the State Deptartment's rationale.
In Washington, meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was pursuing a Haiti strategy that dovetailed neatly with her husband's efforts. Within the State Department, Haiti was viewed, in the words of one official, as a "laboratory": a petri dish in which America could prove that it could be a force for good in the world. The impulse falls squarely within the Clinton doctrine known as "smart power," which stresses the importance of diplomacy and development to further U.S. interests....
Before the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, Hillary made it a priority for the State Department to review past US Haiti policy and weed out the failed programs. It is both telling and disconcerting that she then chose to enact the very policy that has taken Haiti from a poor country, but one able to feed itself, to a poor and starving country. Bill Clinton apologized for the policy, although he continues to support it!
Hillary appointed Cheryl Mills who was inexperienced in disaster relief and who did not think she needed experience. She managed to alienate just about everyone involved in recovery effort.
The US PLAN: (Same as the American Plan called the Death Plan by Haitians)
They paid particular attention to a strategy drawn up by Oxford University economist Paul Collier, who maintained that with its low-paid workforce and loose labor regulations, Haiti could become a major supplier for the apparel industry. The ideas weren't dissimilar from the policies that had been foisted on Haiti as far back as the Duvalier era. "That same model of T-shirt manufacturing was tried in the 1970s, and was an utter failure," notes a U.N. official. "The entire model is based on paying people so little that it doesn't activate the economy. It keeps the labor force subsisting, but there's not enough surplus in their salaries to do more than keep their family alive."
Mills nonetheless embraced Collier's idea, as did Bill Clinton, who made a special trip to Haiti in the fall of 2009, escorting international CEOs around Haiti's farms and factories and promoting its tourism potential. Manufacturing, Clinton believed, was "a great opportunity, not only for investors to come and make a profit but for the people of Haiti to have a more secure and a more broadly shared, prosperous future." He also envisioned a myriad of other possibilities, from tourist hotels to outsourced call centers.
HISTORY: This is troubling because:
Haiti After the Coup - Institute for Global Labour & Human Rights: What The USAID KNEW: WAGES DOWN- And What Hillary, Bill and Cheryl know about the policy they choose!
WHAT USAID KNEW: EXPORTS UP -- WAGES DOWN
USAID knew that legally mandated worker health and pension benefits were not being paid by either domestic or U.S. companies operating in Haiti.17
USAID also knew that Haitian wages, expressed in U.S. dollars, had fallen 39 percent from 1983 to 1991.18
But even this underestimates the severity of the wage cuts. Since benefits were also not being paid, the dollar value of Haitian wages had actually fallen 56 percent between 1983 and 1991. And this wage decline coincided with a virtual doubling of Haitian apparel exports to the U.S.
USAID Disastrous Plan for Haiti: Travesty in Haiti Chapter 7
The American Plan
The “American Plan” was designed by the US to destroy Haiti's farm economy, thereby forcing Haitians to compete for sweatshop jobs and opening the Haitian market to heavily subsidized US agricultural products. This policy was predicated on using Haiti's "advantage of poverty” to provide cheap labor for US and International Corporations (mainly in the garment industry). The US would move their factories and sweatshop jobs to Haiti, where they could exploit the cheap labor and take advantage of the lack of regulations and unions and benefit from the minimal taxes and tariffs. The American Plan was imposed on Haiti by US policy makers and implemented by the USAID, IMF and IFI's "restructuring" programs. Supposedly this was to provide jobs for Haitians. This deliberate plan— to destroy Haiti's farm economy to open the Haitian market to US agricultural industries and to provide US corporations with cheap labor— is well documented. The US forced Haiti to reduce or eliminate tariffs. Haiti was not allowed to subsidize its farmers. The US, on the other hand, heavily subsidized its own farmers. These subsidies, along with the low tariffs, allowed US agricultural industries to sell products for much less money.
For example, rice is Haiti's staple food. The US dumped cheap rice in Haiti, and Haiti's small farmers could not compete. So Haiti went from being able to feed itself "but poor" to starving and poor. "By 1995 the subsidies provided by the US to its domestic rice industry had risen to around 40% of its retail value, but in that same year the Haitian government was forced to cut the tariff on foreign rice to just 3%. Previously self-sufficient in rice, Haiti is now flooded with subsidized American rice that trades at around 70% of the price of its indigenous competition.... Domestic production is undercut even more by the vast amounts of additional ‘free’ American rice that are dumped on Haiti every year through the ministry of USAID grantees,..." (Damming The Flood, P.5) (Clinton apologizedin 2010 to Haiti for his trade policy that destroyed Haiti's ability to feed itself. He said that his policy may have been good for the farmers in Arkansas but they hurt Haiti. However he apologized for the part of the plan, the destruction of the Haitian farm economy, only after the destruction was complete and he continues to be the face of the effort to enact the second part of the plan, i.e., sweatshops. Clinotn still advocates for and did not apologize for the sweatshop trade bills).
United States Issues New Travel Warning for Haiti: US preemptively justifying Martelly's campaign of violence against Haiti's poor?
Evictions
Haiti mayor says he plans to clear huge quake camp: Martelly's smear IDPs (Haitian poor) campaign picks up steam.
The government has reservations about the approach, Rouzier added, but he did not elaborate. He said he was traveling with President Michel Martelly.
Jason cited an "act of banditry" in the public square as a reason for officials wanting to clear away the camp, which has become a shantytown complete with barber shops, boutiques and restaurants and is a symbol of Haiti's post-quake misery.
"We are going to respond next week," Jason told The Associated Press.
About 20 students have been burning tires at the plaza in recent days in a call for justice after a fellow student was shot and wounded during a robbery for his laptop computer.
Jason said officials are figuring out a plan to compensate the camp residents but didn't answer questions asking how much they would get.
Haiti's homeless displaced again - Americas - Al Jazeera
Mark Schuller and Mark Snyder: In Haiti, Inaction Speaks Louder Than Words:
As the U.N. Police stood their watch at the camps entrance. The purported landowner and municipal government used many of the same tactics that over 40,000 evicted IDPs and 125,000 more facing eviction have experienced since they sought refuge on private and public property since the January 2010 earthquake. The residents of Django were offered 125USD to leave their tarp shelters. Though about 100 families accepted the funding, many protested the offer said to be far too little to enable better living conditions elsewhere. Camp residents were then beaten by police and agents of the landowner. The IDPs were threatened with guns and machetes. Their shelters and the camp's latrines were destroyed. Men wearing shirts of the Mayor of Delmas' agents made verbal threats, saying the will suffer worse than illegal evictions at other camps. ...
Cholera
@HaitiAidWatch Haiti Watch Blog
Updated MSPP #cholera numbers through end of July: 5968 deaths, 419511 cases, 222359 hospitalizations. 1325 cases/day, 12 deaths/day #Haiti
@HaitiInfoProj "The Quake That Brought Back Cholera" or "How I covered up the UN's role in importing cholera to Haiti"
[AlterPress] UN once again caught emptying contents of septic tanks near river
The State of Cholera, and Water, in Haiti
The orderlies’ urgent shuffling broke the grim quiet of the cholera treatment center in Mirebelais, near the origin of the outbreak, as they rushed seventy-year-old Clercius Vileus in on a stretcher. A subsistence farmer, Vileus draws his water from a well near the Artibonite River. He knew it might be tainted, said the young man who brought him in, but it was the only water they had to drink. Vileus grew sick. But he was accustomed to stomach bugs, so he waited a day before coming into town for help. His eyes had an intense, otherworldly glow. When Dr. Wesler Lambert reached out and pinch the skin on his thin stomach, it remained puckered into a wrinkly fold: he was severely dehydrated. Without help, the doctor said, Vileus would probably be dead within hours....
Martelly
Remarks of President Martelly on the political crisis [Martelly Dictatorship]
Concerning the option to govern by decree and the Constitution
"All the options are there, I must say that I don't think to them today, because I continue to work, I my case I advance well [...] one of the document that prevents us to progress is the Constitution, a Constitution that was voted in 1987, when we finally came out of the dictatorship of the Executive. By wanting to avoid the possibility that this situation appening again, we're going a little too far on the other side... and today, we see that we experiencing simply a dictatorship of the legislative power."
Ask Haitians whether voters or big business chose their singing president | Gary Younge
They [the US] pressured the former Haitian president, René Préval, to undermine the popular democratic will in the interests of greater profits for garment manufacturers until he created two-tier minimum wage with workers in the textile industry getting just £1.86 a day.
Two years later, during presidential elections, the US was back, interfering even as it preached democracy and good governance. The country's main party, Fanmi Lavalas, was excluded and turnout was only 24%. The former singer Michel Martelly – who has previously allied himself with coup leaders and a convicted human rights abuser – was elected with the help of a Spanish marketing company.
From the archive, 23 July 1971: Tontons in the dark | From the Guardian | The Guardian: Martelly is an admitted Macoute!
MINUSTAH
UPDATE: Disengagement of the Brazilian forces in Haiti:
Already in 2010, as Foreign Minister under the government Lula, Amorim expressed the necessity of replacing the military presence in Haiti by engineers and social workers to collaborate in the development and the economy of Haiti.
Internationally, the time is in military disengagement and of the economic point of view, Brazilian growth is faltering and the mission has already cost to the Brazilian taxpayers $1 billion BRL (1 BRL - ± 0.61 U.S. dollars). The end of Brazil's participation in the peacekeeping force in Haiti should be one of the first measures adopted by the new Minister.
At a meeting with military commanders last Saturday, Celso Amorim stated that it was time to think about a strategy of withdrawal. A withdrawal that he wishes progressive in order to prevent a "prejudice" to the security in Haiti.
New Brazilian Def Min Weighs Withdrawal of Peacekeepers in Haiti
Amorim, the former Foreign Minister made two visits to Haiti and believes that the Brazilian mission comes to an end with the strengthening of democracy and economic growth.
@HaitiAidWatch New Brazilian defense minister, Celso Amorim, comes out in support of withdrawal of MINUSTAH troops from Haiti.
And
Edwidge Danticat Reflects on Port-au-Prince - The Daily Beast:
Built for 200,000 people yet home to more than 2 million, Port-au-Prince is a city that constantly reminds you of the obvious, as though you were a 6-year-old. No, not everything is broken. And no, not all the people are dead. It is a city that everything—political upheaval, fires, hurricanes, the earthquake—has conspired to destroy, yet still it carries on. The still-leaning houses and the rubble that has begun to grow weeds, the tent camps that have become micro-cities of their own, all bear their own testimony to a city that should have ground to a halt long ago, yet continues to persevere.
'The Caribbean Writer' dedicates silver anniversary to Haiti -Features- Virgin Islands Daily News:
Rampage of the Cathedral, unanimous condemnation
Jean Zacheee Duraci, Representative of the Episcopal Church within the coallition "Religion for the Peace", asks the police authorities to make every effort to apprehend the perpetrators of these acts of vandalism made on August 6. "The Muslim, voodoo, Protestants and all other religious denominations are together with the Catholic Church, in this event."
Mirlande Manigat has doubts on the program of free education
"...If there is a party which has the parliamentary majority, meaning 16 Senators and 50 Deputies, is this one who has to choose the Prime Minister, but if you do not have a party with a majority, you need to sit with them [the parliamentarians] in order to agree, there is no other solution. [...] The current situation has reached a dangerous level of decay... I personally do not see a positive outlook for our country, because we are entered into a spiral of escalation, it means I am strong, strong you are [...] We will see who will win the battle... I do not think that it's a good thing for the country...
UPDATE: Martelly 3rd nomination for prime minister Evans Paul?
Sources: Evans Paul to be 3rd Designated Prime Minister:
Given the level of credibility it has acquired in recent times in terms of the political class and its long history of militant, Paul Evans should be able to be admitted to parliament, whose members show some hostility from the presidency that they feel too arrogant.
Meanwhile it's impatience at the Legislative Palace. MPs believe that the president has taken too long to restart consultations to appoint a new prime minister. Until Tuesday, the presidents of both chambers were not consulted on the choice of a personality.
I read about Evans Paul in Damming The Flood:
The International Republican Institute (IRI), amazingly enough, negotiated a peace between General Avril and two of his famous torture victims, Evans Paul and Serge Gilles. In 1989, Avril arrested them at an anti-Duvalier demonstration and after torturing them broadcast pictures of their bloody, beaten bodies on national TV. In 1994, Avril owed both Gilles and Paul quite a bit of money. In a Miami court, they had won a large settlement from Avril. The IRI somehow got Avril to write an apology letter to Paul, and it persuaded Paul and Gilles to drop the lawsuit. Avril and Paul went on together to form a a new Haitian Conference of Political Parties. This alliance opened the door for the centrist opposition to unite with the far-right.
More from Damming The Flood:
Fronted by a charismatic ex-Lavalassian like Evans Paul, the CD provided the instrument that would finally allow members of the old hard-line elite Duvalierist and ex-military opposition to Aristide to present themselves with a pluralist and Democratic face. As Kim Ives explains, the CD provided a suitably respectable institutional form for a perverse "macouto-bourgeois" alliance, in which members of the liberal bourgeoisie represented by civil society grouplets like the Association of Haitian Industries or the Haitian Chamber of Commerce (along with self-styled social-democratic political parties like the OPL, PANPRA and KONAKOM) could temporarily throw in their lot with the neo-Macoute "Forces of their age-old rival, the landed oligarchy or grandons," represented by openly Duvalierist or neo-feudal parties like Prosper Avril's CREDDO, Hubert de Ronceray's MDN, Reynold Georges' ALA-MPSN and Pastor Luc Mesadieu's MOCHRENA.
(Damming the Flood, P 95-6)
Kevin Pina: "Saved Evans Paul's life in Oct. 1991 when the military wanted to kill him in front via @HaitiInfoProj
HaitiInfoProj HaitiInfoProject
Martelly's PM designate in Haiti implicated in bombing campaign (CD) bit.ly/oCjIJD
Evans Paul has certainly come a long way since he was Mayor of Port au Prince
and I saw him beat into a coma on October 7, 1991 by the Haitian military.
Then he was standing on the principle of democracy and the need for the
military to negotiate for the return of President Aristide. Having interviewed
him several times, the only explanation I can offer for his change in
direction is a variant of the Stockholm syndrome whereby the abused takes on
attributes of the abuser. It is a sad chapter in the life of a man who
sacrificed so much for democracy and once enjoyed the respect and admiration
of his own people.
Reliable Haiti Sources
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Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
IJDH Does amazing work in Haiti. I donate to them whenever I can. Please support IJDH's work.
IJDH draws on its founders’ internationally-acclaimed success accompanying Haiti’s poor majority in the fields of law, medicine and social justice activism. We seek the restoration of the rule of law and democracy in the short term, and work for the long-term sustainable change necessary to avert Haiti’s next crisis.
"For friends of Haiti who seek to support a progressive and principled human rights organization that gets its facts right and does not erase history, look no further than the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti."
— Paul Farmer, Co-Founder, Partners in Health
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
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Twitter AP Reporter:
@KatzOnEarth Jonathan M. Katz
Danticat: To make a difference support grassroots women's organizations ... that deal with gender violence including FAVILEK & @IJDH
6 Jul via web Unfavorite Undo Retweet Reply
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The Aristide Foundation for Democracy (AFD) was created in 1996 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the first democratically elected president of Haiti) with a simple principle in mind: "The promise of democracy can only be fulfilled if all sectors of Haitian society are able to actively participate in the democratic life of the nation."
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Haiti Emergency Relief Foundation (HERF):
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for political prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – are funneling needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. They are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support. All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.
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Partners in Health At its root, our mission is both medical and moral. It is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well—from pressuring drug manufacturers, to lobbying policy makers, to providing medical care and social services. Whatever it takes. Just as we would do if a member of our own family—or we ourselves—were ill. |
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods(SOIL)
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. We believe that the path to sustainability is through transformation, of both disempowered people and discarded materials, turning apathy and pollution into valuable resources. |
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