New Haiti Diary series: I have been posting Haiti news Updates in Black Kos comments since Haiti's devastating Earthquake. After many suggestions to make diary,
Haiti News Updates on Wednesdays and Fridays (may change to one day week) at 5:00 Pacific time.
Frequent Updates
Please let me know if link is not working or other mistake, thanks!
Action Alert::
Urgent Call Senator Boxer: Show that Californians still care about earthquake victims in Haiti:
Please urge Senator Barbara Boxer to support this bill in the Senate. The bill, at no additional cost to the American taxpayer, requires President Obama to report on the status of post-earthquake humanitarian, reconstruction and development efforts in Haiti as well as on-going U.S. government programs. USAID and the U.S. Special Coordinator for Haiti will be required to assess progress in the following areas:
To call:
Call Senator Boxer’s office at 202–224‑3553 and select the option to leave a comment or speak to a staffer.
“My name is ____ and I am a resident of California. I am calling to urge Senator Boxer to use her leadership to garner support for a Senate version of H.R. 1016 calling for progress in Haiti through more accountability in aid efforts.
In just few minutes, you can help support progress in Haiti by bringing more accountability! Thank you for your time and help.
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For past News Update diaries
here (tag Haiti News Update)
- MUST READ:
- WikiLeaks Haiti Wikileaks Spark Political Furor and Elite Drama by Dan Coughlin: The Mevs' have some explaining to do!
The release of secret U.S. Embassy cables has provoked a maelstrom in Haitian politics, threatening the approval of a prime minister-designate, damaging the career of a leading right-wing politician, and throwing Haiti’s tiny and ultra-rich elite into a paroxysm of public mea culpas.
“So it is with humility and simplicity devoid of artifice that I want to offer you my sincerest apologies,” wrote Fritz Mevs, the leader of one Haiti’s richest families, in an open letter to Senator Youri Latortue, one of Haiti’s most powerful right-wing politicians and a key ally of new Haitian President Michel Martelly.
And Martelly's disturbing choice for Prime Minister:
Meanwhile, parliamentary approval for President Michel Martelly’s pick for prime minister, Bernard Gousse, took a major blow with the publication of secret U.S. Embassy reports that he was a “complete failure both on the security and justice fronts” when he served as Justice.
At the center of this cabal, according to Mevs, was prominent attorney Gary Lissade, formerly a lead counsel for the military government of Gen. Raoul Cedras in the early 1990s. Today, Lissade sits, alongside Reginald Boulos, on the board of the Clinton co-chaired IHRC.
Foley wrote that although his Embassy “cannot confirm whether the alleged cabal of political insiders allied with South American narco-traffickers is controlling the gangs, we have seen indications of alliances between drug dealers, criminal gangs and political forces that could threaten to make just such a scenario possible via the election of narco-funded politicians.”
- For more about the Mevs here. More about the Boulos' here
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- From Jan 2011 A Class Analysis of Baby Doc:
Throughout most of its 207 years, Haiti has had two ruling classes: the grandon, Haiti’s big landowning class, and the comprador bourgeoisie, an import-export merchant class based in the coastal cities, primarily the capital, Port-au-Prince. These two ruling groups carried out a bitter rivalry for political power in the capital, control of which gave one an upper hand over the other. This rivalry explains why Haiti’s history is checkered with at least 32 coups d’état. The grandon often organized rural militias which would run bourgeois presidents out of the capital, and the bourgeoisie often ousted grandon presidents with the standing city-based Army....
- Haiti Liberte does outstanding investigating and reporting. Definitely worth subscribing to and if you can afford a donation....
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- The Shelters That Clinton Built The second of two installments By Isabel Macdonald and Isabeau Doucet
(Article currently available to subscribers only)
Two weeks into Haiti’s hurricane season, The Nation visited some of the Clinton shelters with Kit Miyamoto, a California-based structural engineer contracted by USAID and the Haitian government to assess the safety of buildings in Port-au-Prince. Standing in front of one of the trailers, Miyamoto looked doubtful when asked whether, in his professional view, these structures were, as the Clinton Foundation has repeatedly claimed, “hurricane- proof.” In the world of engineering, buildings are rarely considered to be truly hurricane-proof, explained Miya- moto, who said he had never heard of a wooden trailer being used as a hur-ricane shelter, let alone being referred to as a hurricane-proof building. “To be hurricane-proof you a need a heavier structure with concrete or blocks,” he explained....
Léogane’s Department of Civil Protection may also be operating on this assumption. At the Léogane town hall, a derelict white paint-chipped building that looks stately in contrast to the 17-month-old tent camp nearby, DCP coordinator Philippe Joseph explained the municipality’s plans for community out- reach in the event of a hurricane. “We’ll send scouts with megaphones and tell people to gather their papers and go to the Clinton Foundation shelters,” he said as he sketched a rough map, indicating the best routes to the dual-purpose school buildings from the geographic zones most vulnerable to storms.
Asked if he believed the trailers would offer adequate protection during a hurricane, Joseph seemed taken aback: Clinton had himself said that these were hurricane-proof shelters, he said.
In a jungly field on the outskirts of Léogane, four of the 20 Clinton classrooms sit empty at another school, Coeur de Jesus. Because of the trail- ers’ leaky roofs, puddles form on the floor that need to be mopped up by the maintenance staff. As school director Antoine Beauvais explained, the new 16-by-40-foot trailers were too bulky to fit in the cramped residential area where his school was previously locat- ed. But for lack of toilet facilities or running water provided by the foundation for the newly created remote campus, the school has been unable to use its new trailer classrooms
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Kit Miyamoto, a California-based structural engineer contracted by USAID and the Haitian government to assess the safety of buildings in Port-au-Prince said that the most important elements for the public safety was how well the shelters’ limitations were explained to the community...
Bel dan pa di zanmi
(Just because someone is smiling at you doesn't mean they're your friend)
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Inside Haiti's "Hurricane Proof" Trailers from Canadian Centre for Investigativ on Vimeo.
Instead of finding the supportive ally it had on countless issues since South Floridian Gerard Latortue was plucked from retirement and installed as prime minister, the U.S. found a resisting partner. .
It was one of the few times that Latortue, installed after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power, attempted to stand up to Haiti’s most powerful ally, according to confidential cables obtained by WikiLeaks and shared with McClatchy newspapers.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian President Michel Martelly will ask a reconstruction commission to extend its mandate a year.
A government official says Martelly will formally make the request at Friday's board meeting of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.
Aristide
As thousands of locals from the capital’s poorest slums, as well as activists from the Lavalas movement congregated inside the Aristide foundation, hundreds took part in medical exams. Medicines and food were also provided.
Work such as this has been going on for years. The Foundation’s Soulaje Lesprit Moun project has worked in seven camps to organize discussion and mutual aid groups. When the resources are available the Foundation has held mobile medical clinics in a number of camps.
Fanm ayisyen pap kase: Respecting the right to health of Haitian women and girls (Health and Human Rights: An International Journal):
Introduction: Overview of health and human rights in the context of rape in displacement scenarios
Violence against women and girls is one of the most pervasive violations of universal human rights. It affects half of the world’s population across cultures, nationalities, regions, and income levels and women and girls are subjected to it in various forms. Gender-based violence (GBV) is an instrument of power and a means of maintaining a status quo that favors men and boys.2 In past centuries, violence against women was accepted as part of everyday life. In various patriarchal societies, a woman was first her father’s property and then her husband’s.
Martelly's troubling Prime Minister Choice
Martelly's housing plan: Evictions from IDP camps, drive residents to woods and move on to further enrich elite (my opinion)
As reported by the Associated Press, Camp Sylvio Cator is part of the Haitian Government’s plan for relocation of IDPs in Haiti. President Martelly presented a strategy to relocate the residents of six large camps back into reconstructed neighborhoods. Despite the fact that the president’s housing and reconstruction advisor, Patrick Rouzier, stated that the administration’s plans are not yet underway and Mayor Jason is acting on his own, Martelly all but directly gave the green light for evictions when he refused to denounce those perpetrated by Mayor Wilson of the Delmas neighborhood. At the date of this writing, Martelly’s office has not released an official comment on the recent actions of Mayor Jason, which occurred with judicial consent. If this eviction is any indication of Martelly’s plans for return and relocation, the IDPs will have another uphill battle after eighteen months of struggle. His administration’s inaction in this case will be percieved as additional permission for land owners and local government leaders to rid themselves of their most vulnerable populations.
As with other camps, the coercion and intimidation used to ensure the IDPs would leave camps without the provision of acceptable alternative housing solutions began over a year ago. When someone is starving, you very rarely need to offer them a menu if you want to feed them. After eighteen months of living in a precarious situation, with fear and increasing intimidation, families are quick to choose a stipend over a violent forced eviction regardless of the fact that they have no where else to go.
Backed up by the National Police of Haiti (PNH) and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), on July 15 Port-au-Prince authorities began evicting some 400-450 families from the parking lot of the Sylvio Cator soccer stadium, where they had been living after being displaced by a January 2010 earthquake. The authorities said the eviction was necessary so that workers could get the stadium ready for an Aug. 4 match between two teams in the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF).
Last month, members of a Canadian fact-finding delegation were told by leaders of Haiti's largest peasant organization that they and the rest of the peasant movement remain on the sidelines of consultations and decisions over Haiti's post-earthquake future. So, while many Haitians will welcome industrial investment (and fight so that trade unions and decent wages will be recognized), the needed priority on agriculture is still not being addressed. Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil... (The more things change, the more they stay the same...)
The comments aren’t just random, and the program is not unique. It's one of dozens of “Cash for Work” programs, employing thousands of people, going on around the country.
An in-depth study of the Ravine Pintade program discovered:
Corruption – Thirty percent (30%) of the beneficiaries say they had to pay a kickback for their job.
Sexual abuse – Ten percent (10%) of women beneficiaries say "their friends" had to give sexual favors to get a position.
Social conflict – Many beneficiaries and neighbors say that the program has caused strife, between inhabitants and foremen.
While the EU and the WFP have begun efforts to increase local procurement of food aid, the U.S. has lagged behind its peers. In December of 2010 the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights—in partnership with Partners In Health and Zanmi Lasante released a report looking at U.S. food aid policies in Haiti, entitled “Sak Vid Pa Kanpe: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Human Rights in Haiti.” The preface notes:
U.S. food aid—bound by requirements that U.S. assistance earmarked for food be based on the “donation” of U.S.-produced food delivered by U.S. shipping companies—is either given out to the poor (as direct food assistance) or sold by NGOs to support their overhead and operating costs (a process known as monetization). This type of food aid can undermine local production of food by falsely reducing the price of food that can be garnered by farmers, often leading to financial ruin and forcing people to abandon agriculture as a livelihood altogether. If done differently, food aid could be effectively tailored to address urgent needs without harming the local economy, while also encouraging local agriculture and production, for example through the use of local or regional purchase of commodities by donor countries.
Media
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.
"I believe that IJDH, as small as it is, offers something important to Haitians who continue, amazingly, to believe in and struggle for genuine democracy and for human rights that are meant for all humans. To build a justice system that works for the Haitian poor rather than against them will require precisely the sort of pragmatic solidarity embraced by IJDH" — 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
[Edwidge]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 When the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, ZL resources were in place to deliver aid. In addition to providing care to the hundreds of thousands who fled to Haiti’s Central Plateau and Artibonite regions, ZL established health outposts at four camps for internally displaced people in Port-au-Prince. ZL also supported the city’s General Hospital (HUEH) by facilitating the placement of volunteer surgeons, physicians and nurses, and by aiding the hospital’s Haitian leadership. In March 2010, PIH/ZL announced a 3-year, $125 million plan to help Haiti build back better.
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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. |
NEWS ORGANIZATIONS: