- Détails
- Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti
Trump to Haitians awaiting green cards: You can’t come to the U.S., wait in Haiti
The Trump administration is ending an Obama-era immigration program that allowed thousands of Haitians who were eligible to receive a green card in two years to wait it out in the United States with relatives.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that it was ending the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program, and will now decide whether to allow Haitians to travel to the U.S. to await their lawful permanent resident status on a case-by-case and humanitarian basis.
The decision, USCIS said, is consistent with a 2017 executive order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements. The order limits access to asylum, expands the use of detention, enhances enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, and ensures that parole into the U.S. is exercised on a case-by-case basis.
USAID Awards New Agreement to Tackle Human Trafficking in Haiti
Port-au-Prince, July 31, 2019- In an effort to increase public awareness and protect victims, USAID signed a four-year cooperative agreement with the LUMOS Foundation to support a major acceleration of the Haitian government’s and civil society’s efforts to deliver transformative progress on the endemic issue of human trafficking, with a special focus on child trafficking and the thousands of children victim to cross-border trafficking and who have been placed in institutionalized care and domestic servitude.
This project will be implemented nationwide from 2019 to 2023 with an overarching goal of strengthening the capacity of the Haitian Government, local authorities and civil society to prevent, recognize, respond and prevent trafficking. USAID and LUMOS will increase public awareness of the dangers, legal consequences, and various forms of trafficking; develop and implement victim-centered services to provide protection and assistance to trafficked persons at the national and departmental levels; and enable the National Counter-Trafficking Committee (NCTC), L'Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR), and partners to more effectively coordinate counter Trafficking in Persons activities.
“There are many reasons vulnerable citizens can become trafficked - from their socio-economic conditions, to geographic locations, or their age,” said Acting Mission Director Gary Juste. “In Haiti, these situations tend to manifest themselves among children or those living along the border with Dominican Republic. I look forward to USAID continuing its progress with the Government of Haiti to provide resources for victims and ensure that traffickers are brought to justice.”
This new project will build upon previous anti-trafficking successes by the Government of Haiti with support from the U.S. government. In the last seven years, the government of Haiti has closed several abusive orphanages and worked to reconstruct its foster care system to support child trafficking victims and reduce vulnerability to abuse. The government also increased the number of trained police; deployed its first class of border police trained to detect and combat trafficking; and increased coordination and oversight of its anti-trafficking efforts.
In Haiti, at least 30,000 children live in institutions, most of them in abusive orphanages where they are often subject to trafficking. Another form of trafficking in Haiti can be found within the widespread practice of placing children with other families to perform domestic worker, known as restavèks. In exchange for performing domestic tasks, children of families too poor to care for them should receive some sort of care and education from the receiving family. However, this practice is often characterized by children that are physically abused while in domestic servitude, unpaid for their work and prevented from attending school. In 2016, UNICEF published a report on children in domesticity, which estimated that 400,000 children are involved in domestic work; of those, 207,000 under age 15 are in unacceptable conditions.
\Lawsuit filed by Little Haiti resident over new development
Magic City Mega Complex developers plan to build 17 buildings in area
MIAMI - A development debate is creating controversy in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood.
The Magic City Mega Complex got the green light to transform the neighborhood, but now one resident's new lawsuit is holding it up.
Warren Perry didn't get to give his say on the issue with the city commission because he's a renter not a property owner.
He is suing for standing. Whether he gets it or not remains to be seen.
Perry and some others are opposed to not only the size of the development, but the entertainment components that they fear will create noise from traffic and ruin the quality of life.
Developers said it will enhance the area and have promised to bring programs to the area and other benefits.
Although he is a renter, Perry maintains that he is a resident and, as such, has just as much stake in the neighborhood.
"It's too large for the scale of the community," Perry said about the new development.
Perry's lawsuit is the latest attempt to stop the development after it got final approvals five weeks ago.
Haiti senator tied to kidnapping committed by notorious gang leader, police say
A Haiti senator who recently questioned his own qualifications to hold public office is being tied to one of several kidnappings carried out by a notorious Haitian gang leader.
Haiti National Police sources say an investigation into several kidnappings by infamous gang leader Arnel Joseph, who was arrested last week, reveal that during one of the kidnappings the gang leader was in contact with Haitian senator Garcia Delva.
The victim was a neighbor of Delva’s who had been kidnapped along with two of his employees in March as they drove from Léogâne to Port-au-Prince. During negotiations to secure the group’s release, the businessman’s wife reached out to Delva for help.
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Unbeknownst to the victim’s wife, police say, Delva had already spoken with the gang leader, first on his cellphone and then seconds later on the kidnap victim’s telephone. The kidnapped group was eventually released after a ransom of $110,500 was paid.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Pierre Esperance, a human rights advocate who is familiar with the police investigation, said of Delva. “He is a deportee of the United States who is implicated in wrongdoing and he’s repeating what he used to do before. He has dirtied the image of the Senate like other senators.”
Delva, 45, did not return calls from the Miami Herald seeking comment. Founder and lead singer of the Haitian konpa band Mass Konpa, Delva earlier this year expressed his desire to run for president of Haiti and recently said during a live radio broadcast that there are many more Haitian citizens “who are are much more qualified than myself to be senator.”
Telling Haitians they should have the courage to run for office, he said: “I don’t want you to have another senator like me.”
This is not the first time that Joseph has been tied to Delva, who was charged with battery in 2000 in Miami-Dade County.
In April, the head of the Senate’s justice commission, Sen. Jean-Renel Senatus, told reporters that “there were a total of 24 phone conversations, some of which lasted 15 minutes, 92 seconds, others which lasted a minute” between Delva and Joseph. Senatus, a former government prosecutor, said the calls were made between Feb. 7 and Feb. 22. During that period, Joseph was being sought by Haitian police and even appeared, alongside members of his gang, at an anti-government protest near the presidential palace openly brandishing his gun.
“The Senate has only one thing to do in this case and it is to remove Sen. Delva’s immunity,” said Esperance, who visited Joseph on Tuesday.
The allegation involving Delva raises questions about the credibility of the Haitian Parliament, which has been derided as “legal bandits,” given the number of lawmakers with criminal histories. It also underscores concerns about the collusion between those in power in Haiti and gangs. In a detailed U.N. report on a gang-led massacre in the La Saline slum in November, human-rights investigators raised a number of concerns about the abuses committed against residents and the alleged involvement of government officials..
The allegation involving Delva raises questions about the credibility of the Haitian Parliament, which has been derided as “legal bandits,” given the number of lawmakers with criminal histories. It also underscores concerns about the collusion between those in power in Haiti and gangs. In a detailed U.N. report on a gang-led massacre in the La Saline slum in November, human-rights investigators raised a number of concerns about the abuses committed against residents and the alleged involvement of government officials..
At the time of his arrest, Joseph was preparing to head into surgery for a wounded leg when specialized Haiti National Police units swooped into Bonne Fin hospital in Les Cayes and arrested him. Laying on the ground naked as reporters took photos and videotaped him, Joseph said in Creole that his leg had been wounded during a shootout with a rival gang, Ti Sourit.
Considered Haiti’s most wanted fugitive, Joseph had spent more than a year eluding police as his gang terrorized residents in Port-au-Prince’s Village de Dieu slum and in the Artibonite Valley, where earlier this year the gang attacked a police station
On Wednesday, Joseph was released from a local hospital, after finally having surgery on his leg, and into the custody of the judicial police. That same day, Police Chief Michel-Ange Gédéon, who has been lauded for Joseph’s arrest, announced the arrest of nine other members of Joseph’s gangs. Gédéon and his top brass also appeared before the Senate in a closed-door hearing to discuss the current state of security and Joseph, who police said raised tens of thousands of dollars through ransom-kidnappings and other criminal activities.
During the hearing, police were also questioned about the allegations concerning Delva. Delva was present during the questioning.
“The polices said they were 98 percent certain Sen. Delva is involved in kidnapping with Arnel Joseph,” said Sen. Patrice Dumont, who was present during the questioning.
Dumont said that based on police revelations, he wrote to the Senate bureau asking that Delva, who serves as vice treasurer, not continue to assume the role. Dumont said the Senate’s internal rules do not permit him or any other senator to ask Delva to resign or for them to remove his immunity, which all Haitian lawmakers have. The Senate, he said, can vote to authorize Delva to present himself before the courts, should a Haitian judge ask him to. something Dumont said he’s prepared to do if a judge were to ask.
“There is just too much evidence,” Dumont said.
AG RACINE LEADS MULTISTATE COALITION CHALLENGING TRUMP’S MOVE TO GUT PROTECTIONS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS FLEEING PERSECUTION
21 Attorneys General Argue Changes to Asylum Standards Violate Federal Law and Judicial Precedent
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today led a group of 21 State Attorneys General to challenge the Trump administration’s proposed changes to asylum standards. If implemented, these changes would allow the Executive branch to arbitrarily deny asylum claims to immigrants seeking haven from domestic or gang violence. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Grace v. Barr before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, AG Racine and his counterparts argue that these stringent revisions—which would effectively bar asylum claims based on domestic or gang-related violence—go against longstanding federal law and judicial precedent, undermining the rule of law itself.
“Denying asylum to people fleeing persecution in their home countries will mean forsaking victims of gang and domestic violence, particularly vulnerable women and children, to unspeakable fates,” said AG Racine. “We cannot allow this administration to abandon our values for the sake of their unlawful, fear-based agenda. Our coalition of State Attorneys General is urging the Judiciary to police the administration’s compliance with longstanding statutes and legal precedents, which these changes seek to undermine. The president may believe that he is above the law, but his administration must still follow it.”
The District of Columbia and partner states filed this amicus brief in Grace v. Barr, in support of the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Trump administration’s heightened asylum standards. The lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the ACLU of Texas, and the ACLU of D.C., in response to a policy former Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented in June 2018.
Sessions articulated this policy change in Matter of A-B-, while intervening in the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)’s decision to grant a Salvadoran woman asylum based on her claim of spousal abuse. In his ruling, Sessions broke sharply from existing precedent to argue that BIA should reject asylum claims regarding domestic or gang violence. Shortly after, the United States Customs and Immigration Service issued guidelines for implementing this policy, emphasizing denial of such claims.
In December 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia struck down the change, ruling it incompatible with existing law. The Department of Justice is now appealing the ruling in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
In this amicus brief, the states collectively argue that the District Court’s decision to reject the administration’s heightened standards should be upheld, on the basis that:
- The standards violate established federal law: A near categorical bar to asylum claims based on domestic or gang violence, as Matter of A-B-recommends, would illegally prevent victims of such violence from attaining asylum protection. The asylum process is rooted in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Among other things, that legislation makes it legal for anyone who arrives at the U.S. border to apply for asylum over a “well-founded fear of persecution” in one’s home country. Subsequent court cases have validated the legitimacy of claims made based on gang or domestic violence.
- The standards are inconsistent with state, federal, and international policies protecting victims of violence: All 50 states have enacted provisions in their criminal and civil codes to protect victims of domestic violence, and the federal government has acknowledged the need to assist immigrant women who have been victimized by domestic violence. Both have dedicated programs and resources to gang violence prevention.Furthermore, in signing the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the United States vowed to protect individuals escaping persecution. The Trump administration’s policy clashes with these commitments.
- The standards restrict states’ abilities to grow their economies: Immigrants make significant contributions to the economy, and American society more broadly. This is evident in D.C., where more than one in seven residents, and one in six workers, is an immigrant. It’s also borne out in study after study, and through recent experience nationwide. For example, nearly half of all new residents in the Great Lakes region between 2000-2015 were foreign-born, arriving at a moment when the region’s population growth lagged behind the national average. This influx of foreign-born residents boosted jobs and wages in the region. Given that the majority of asylum grantees are of working age and can contribute to a state’s economic activity, the Trump administration’s standards would limit states’ access to a valuable source of labor.
AG Racine is leading today’s friend-of-the-court brief and is joined by Attorneys General from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
The brief as filed in Grace v. Barr is available at: https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/Grace-v-Barr-Amicus.pdf
This is the latest effort by AG Racine to protect established federal immigration policy, defend asylum rights, and stand up for immigrants in the District and nationwide. In 2018, AG Racine led a similar coalition of states in filing an amicus brief in this case, then referred to as Grace v. Sessions, while it was under review in the District Court for the District of Columbia. He also joined with other Attorneys General to take action against the Trump administration to protect public safety funding for “sanctuary” cities; prevent attempts to close the Southern border to asylum seekers; block immigration-related conditions on law enforcement grants; stop a cruel family separation policy; keep longtime District residents from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras from losing their protected status; fight for hard-working “dreamers” to stay in the United States; and to oppose the “Muslim travel ban.”
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The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) works to protect and defend District residents, enforce District laws, and provide legal advice to D.C. government agencies. Karl A. Racine leads OAG as the first elected Attorney General of the District of Columbia. Visit www.oag.dc.gov to learn more.
- Détails
- Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti
La Culture haïtienne est-elle aussi en voie de disparition ?
LA VALLEE DE JACMEL, 10 Août – On se plaint qu’il n’existe pas de salles de cinéma en Haïti, les dernières ont disparu avec le séisme du 12 janvier 2010, mais est-ce une si grande perte quand on sait ce qui se produit aujourd’hui comme oeuvres cinématographiques ?
Jusqu’à Miami que ce ne sont que de très jeunes qui se bousculent à l’entrée des salles.
Celles-ci pourvues certes de toutes les dernières trouvailles en matière technologique. Car le cinéma aujourd’hui n’est plus ce qu’il était.
Fini le temps où l’on se bousculait au Rex, au Capitole, à l’Impérial ou au Triomphe pour les dernières œuvres des metteurs en scène français Claude Chabrol ou Costa Gavras (L’Aveu) ou américains Francis Ford Coppola ou Georges Lucas (Star Wars), aujourd’hui le cinéma n’est pas une affaire de savoir bien raconter une histoire (la Guerre du Vietnam est déjà loin et l’Espace est colonisé depuis belle lurette, le président Trump ne déclare-t-il pas que Mars sera bientôt habité … par les Américains bien sûr, America first !), le cinéma nouveau, qu’il ne faut pas comprendre avec le nouveau cinéma comme on disait nouveau roman qui signifie une révolution dans le domaine, l’œuvre cinématographique aujourd’hui est davantage le produit d’une compétition à coups de trouvailles technologiques : les multiples possibilités que procure le montage numérique passant avant le fait culturel cinématographique proprement dit.
Or ce sont les grandes compagnies (‘Majors’) qui font la distribution dans les métropoles ou plutôt mégapoles comme Miami.
Aussi faut-il attendre leur passage à la télé - européenne (de préférence) - pour voir les deux derniers films de Raoul Peck : ‘Young Karl Marx’ et ‘I’m not your negro’ sur la vie et l’œuvre de l’écrivain afro-africain James Baldwin.
Fini le temps où aux Etats-Unis la télévision publique (PBS) ou la chaine BRAVO passait des chefs d’œuvres culturels (musique, danse, cinéma …).
Cela a diminué depuis que l’administration fédérale, sous l’influence des élus Républicains, a décidé de réduire les subventions nécessaires.
Quant à la télévision en Haïti, elle ne possède pas les droits de reproduction.
Cette redirection de l’art cinématographique vers la primauté du technologique est peut-être l’une des causes aussi de l’arrêt observé dans une production cinématographique haïtienne naissante.
Y compris à l’extérieur (Etats-Unis, Canada).
L’une de nos vedettes ne s’est-elle pas reconvertie dans la politique. C’est Nice Simon, aujourd’hui mairesse élue de Tabarre.
Le Ciné Institute de Jacmel fait de moins en moins parler de lui.
Une tentative de ciné club ces dernières années à Pétionville, on n’en entend plus rien non plus.
Pas une note de solfège ...
Que nous reste-t-il ? La musique. Presque totalement dominée par le Rap créole et le ‘Rabòday.’
Ou cette nouvelle création des vacances d’été 2019 appelée ‘Car Wash’ (les jeunes qui bloquent toute circulation dans un quartier pour danser et faire la fête … dans un monde de total dénuement, hélas).
Cependant cela ne mène pas loin en fait de patrimoine culturel.
Nos nouveaux musiciens - comme le proclamait, s’en glorifiait même l’un d’entre eux, un certain Joseph Michel Martelly, profession troubadour - ne savent pas une note de solfège.
D’où nous viendront les nouveaux Guy Durosier, Antalcidas Murat, Gérald Merceron, Issa El Saieh, Joe Trouillot, Martha Jean Claude, Frantz Casséus, Carmen Brouard, Micheline Laudun Denis, voire Ludovic Lamothe, Justin Elie et leurs œuvres restées immortelles ?
Si l’Etat haïtien ne se décide pas hic et nunc (ici et maintenant) à investir profondément dans la culture. Mais la vraie.
Disparaître corps et biens ...
Notre pays fait peur actuellement. Haïti laisse l’impression de s’enfoncer dans la disparition totale, corps et biens (enfin ce qu’il en reste).
Sur les plans économique et structurel c’est le néant total. On ne voit rien à l’horizon. Tout le monde le constate et le répète.
Mais comme avait dit un de nos écrivains au lendemain du séisme de janvier 2010 : Quand tout aura disparu, en Haïti il nous restera la culture !
Oui mais la culture n’est pas un simple don de Dieu, n’est pas la science infuse mais avant tout une accumulation d’expériences vécues.
Pour nos gouvernants actuels, cette culture-là consiste en des millions déversés aux élus locaux pour la fête patronale.
Or jusqu’à ce jour notre pays pullule de jeunes passionnés par le théâtre, la grande musique ou la danse classique comme on l’a vu lors de la tournée en Haïti en 2016-2017 des orchestres philarmoniques des universités de Yale et de Cornell qui, avec notre Orchestre philarmonique de Sainte Trinité, ont donné des concerts en plein air (au Champ de Mars comme au Palais Sans Souci, de Milot - Cap-Haïtien) tout comme les nombreuses compagnies de danse locales qui ont accompagné la tournée du Martha Graham Dance Company à Port-au-Prince comme à Jacmel.
Ce n’est pas souhaiter la disparition totale de notre pays comme cela semble avoir commencé, que de rappeler que si Haïti survivra par sa culture, il n’est pas trop tôt pour commencer à renforcer cette dernière.
Et cela vaut aussi pour ce qu’on appelle le secteur privé.
Evidemment !
Marcus-Haïti en Marche, 10 Août 2019
L’EVENEMENT
Grand-Ravine ou l’Etat Haïtien mis en fuite par les Gangs p.1
POLITIQUE
Reprise annoncée (mais avortée) de la séance de mise en accusation de Jovenel Moïse p.1
La montagne aurait-elle accouché d’une souris ? p.6
LUTTE ANTI-CORRUPTION
Pourquoi Premier ministre et Ministre de la planification ? p.1
PROFESSION JOURNALISTE
Pour une Presse Libre mais aussi Responsable p.1
DANS LE MONDE
Réseaux sociaux sur la sellette p.1
HAITI DEMAIN ?
La Culture haïtienne est-elle aussi en voie de disparition ? p.1
Chatiman nan Doub Sans p.13
SCIENCES
Le racisme ‘scientifique’ renait de ses cendres p.2
LUTTE CONTRE L’INSECURITE
13 personnes tuées, dont 11 présumés bandits et 1 policier p.2
67 nouveaux commissaires de police diplômés p.9
LA ROUTE TUE
22 morts dont 4 enfants ... p.2
Levée de la grève des transports à la frontière Mallepasse-Jimani p.3
OUR ENGLISH SPECIAL
63 years of hurricanes (1954-2017) p.10
COOPERATION
Départ des policiers rwandais p.11
DEVELOPPEMENT
Union des nations sud-américaines UNASUR p.13
PATRIMWAN
Dr Marie Rose Bleus nonmen ‘Principal’ nan Lakeview Elementary p.15
Insécurité : Au moins 13 personnes tuées, dont 11 bandits et 1 policier durant le week-end
ALIX LAROCHE12 août 2019
HPN - Environ treize (13) personnes ont été tuées au cours du week-end. Parmi elles, on a dénombré au moins 11 présumés bandits et un policier, ont rapporté plusieurs médias de la capitale.
D'après le commissaire de police, responsable de la juridiction de Thomazeau où opère un gang dénommé : « les 400 mawozo », 8 présumés bandits de ce gang, dont le chef, ont trouvé la mort, le samedi 10 août, dans le cadre d’un affrontement avec un gang rival. La police et le juge de paix qui ont été sur les lieux n'ont pas pu faire le constat légal des corps séparés de leur tête et calcinés, a fait savoir aussi l'officier de police.
Pendant la même période, trois autres bandits ont été stoppés par la police au niveau de Tabarre. Les forces de l’ordre étaient en train d’exécuter un mandat contre un nommé « Ti chinois », soupçonné d’implication dans l’assassinat d’un policier et de sa femme sous les yeux de leur fille de 5 ans.
Attaqués à coup de feu par des individus sur les lieux, les policiers qui ont répliqué, ont pu stopper trois des malfrats, a rapporté de son côté dans les médias, le porte-parole de la PNH, Michel-Ange Louis-Jeune.
D’autre part, a-t-on appris, des gens ont, de nouveau, été abattus à Martissant, notamment au niveau de Bréa où les gangs armés font la loi. Un policier a été également tué à Martissant 1 dans des circonstances non encore élucidées.
Alix Laroche
Insécurité : Deux hommes, dont un policier national, tués par balles à Martissant
P-au-P, 12 août 2019 [AlterPresse] --- Deux personnes, dont un policier national, ont été tuées par balles, dans la soirée du dimanche 11 août 2019, dans le quartier de Martissant (périphérie sud de la capitale), par des individus armés, selon les informations rassemblées par l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Le policier appartient à la 22e promotion de la Police nationale d’Haïti (Pnh).
Un syndicaliste de transports publics, Romain Morancy, a été tué par balles, dans l’après-midi du jeudi 8 août 2019, à Martissant, non loin du commissariat de police, par des individus armés non identifiés.
Le jeudi 1er août 2019, Peterson Paul, employé de la banque commerciale Unibank, a été aussi abattu à Martissant, ainsi qu’une infirmière, dont l’identité n’a pas été révélée.
Le mardi 30 juillet 2019, des individus armés ont abattu par balles, dans cette zone, un agent de la 26e promotion de la Police nationale d’Haïti (Pnh), Salomon Saint-Louis.
INTEMPERIES: 27 familles sinistrées à Port-au-Prince après les pluies torrentielles du 9 août 2019 (Haïti Standard)
10 août 2019.- Les responsables du Comité communal de protection civile (CCPC), à la Mairie de Port-au-Prince, ont recensé 27 familles sinistrées après les récentes pluies qui se sont abattues sur la Capitale et ses environs, dans la soirée du 9 août 2019. Les personnes sinistrées ont été recensées suite aux inondations survenues dans le quartier de Canapé-Vert, notamment au niveau des rues Faustin 1er et Bois patate.
Transports : 22 morts, dont 4 enfants, dans une quarantaine d’accidents, du 5 au 11 août 2019
P-au-P, 12 août 2019 [AlterPresse] --- 22 morts, dont 4 enfants, tel est le bilan d’une quarantaine d’accidents de la route, survenus du lundi 5 au dimanche 11 août 2019, en Haïti, selon les informations rassemblées par l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Au total, ces accidents ont fait 176 victimes, selon les précisions de l’organisation haïtienne Services techniques et opérationnels pour pallier aux accidents (Stop accidents).
24 morts ont été dénombrés dans plus d’une trentaine d’accidents de la route, pour la semaine allant du lundi 29 juillet au dimanche 4 août 2019, avait fait savoir Stop accidents.
L’organisation n’a pas cessé d’appeler les autorités à mettre en place des dispositions concrètes et efficaces pour prévenir les accidents de la circulation sur le territoire national.
Une marche contre l’insécurité routière a été organisée, le dimanche 4 août 2019, par Stop accidents avec plusieurs partenaires, à Port-au-Prince, pour marquer le premier anniversaire de la mort d’une jeune étudiante en sciences infirmières, Wingie Charles, tuée dans un accident de la route à Fontamara 27 (périphérie sud de la capitale, Port-au-Prince).
Le 4 août 2018, Wingie Charles s’apprêtait à aller présenter, justement, son mémoire de sortie sur la sécurité routière.
Transports : 13 blessés, dont plusieurs graves, dans un accident de la route
Dépêches
lundi 12 août 2019
P-au-P, 12 août 2019 [AlterPresse] --- 13 blessés, dont plusieurs graves, ont été enregistrés, dans un accident de la route, le dimanche 11 août 2019, sur la route nationale numéro 1, au niveau de Carriès (nord de la capitale), selon les informations obtenues par l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Parmi les blessés, figurent des étudiants de l’Institut national d’administration, de gestion et des hautes études internationales (Inaghei), de l’Université d’Etat d’Haïti (Ueh), qui revenaient des funérailles de la mère d’un de leurs camarades.
Une quinzaine de morts ont été recensés dans trois accidents de la route, survenus le dimanche 4 août 2019, dans la Grande Anse (Sud-Ouest) et à Port-au-Prince.
DES ÉCRIVAINS HAÏTIENS PRENNENT POSITION ET EXIGENT LA DÉMISSION DE JOVENEL MOÏSE DU POUVOIR
LETTRE OUVERTE DES ECRIVAINES ET ECRIVAINS HAÏTIENS A LA NATION
Citoyennes, Citoyens,
Nous ne sommes pas d’accord avec la façon dont nous sommes gouvernés. De cela nous sommes tous convaincus aujourd’hui. Ce consensus puissant est porteur d’une vague qui s’est amorcée il y a quelques mois et qui ne s’arrêtera pas. Le spectacle dégradant que le Président de la République, le gouvernement et la majorité parlementaire donnent à la Nation et au monde est honteux. Nous vivons en direct la déroute d’un gouvernement dépassé, juste préoccupé à sauver ses privilèges et son butin mal acquis sur le dos de la Nation.
Nous sommes indignés. Mais c’est signe que nous sommes vivants et pugnaces. Cette descente aux enfers de la nation est la conséquence d’un système social basé sur l’exclusion et un trop-plein d’inégalités se traduisant en politique par une succession de régimes ou de tentatives autoritaires, loin de tous principes d’équité et de justice sociale. Nous n’en voulons plus.
Nous saluons le courage des hommes et des femmes de ce pays, des jeunes en particulier qui refusant par milliers de baisser les bras, se battent contre l’obscurité qui veut nous recouvrir. Et la rue rebelle, incandescente, imprévisible, déverse sporadiquement ses coulées de rage et de frustration légitime à travers les villes. Criant : Nous n’en pouvons plus d’avoir faim. Nous n’en pouvons plus de souffrir de la négation de nos besoins élémentaires pendant qu’on nous dépouille.
Dans la vie de chaque peuple viennent ces moments où il doit engager son histoire et son destin. Il est venu le temps du changement. Nous unissons nos voix à celles qui demandent la démission du président de la République. Mais disons-le d’emblée, haut et clair, aucune transformation durable de notre société ne se fera sans que soient pris en compte les valeurs et les principes qui seuls peuvent assurer l’avènement d’une société plus juste, solidaire et fraternelle.
Aucune construction démocratique n’est possible en Haïti sans la réduction des inégalités, sans une nouvelle éthique et des moyens pour soutenir le service public dans la valorisation du bien commun.
Aider à construire cette démocratie mais surtout croire que c’est une construction possible, tel est notre combat.
Pour l’heure, il nous incombe de prendre les décisions qui s’imposent sans perdre davantage de temps, et dans l’union.
L’union fait la force! Construisons-là cette union. Prenons au mot les propositions de nos représentants économiques et sociaux, religieux, communautaires, associatifs. Construisons un gouvernement d’unité nationale. Construisons une stratégie prioritaire de redressement de l’État de droit. Cela fait des lustres que nous parlons de conférence nationale, d’états généraux. Mais rien de cela ne sera possible s’il n’y a pas de confiance autour de la table. Ayons le courage de dire tout haut là où le bât blesse. La méfiance, les jalousies, les rivalités, le marronnage, les soifs matérielles nous divisent et nous paralysent surtout. Construisons la confiance et la tolérance pour avancer vers des solutions qui nous ressemblent et nous rassemblent.
Le premier acte susceptible de restaurer la confiance est la tenue légitime du procès PétroCaribe. Une étape essentielle dans notre processus de transformation. Pétrocaribe sera le procès de nos douleurs que nous n’avons pas pu évacuer ensemble après le 12 janvier 2010. Ce sera le procès de tous les génocides éparpillés dans notre histoire, ces morts qui attendent que nous les libérions de notre mémoire endormie. Le procès Pétrocaribe sera surtout l’occasion pour chaque haïtienne et chaque haïtien de s’interroger sur le rapport que nous entretenons avec le bien public, ce qui appartient à tous et est bon pour tous.
Et puis, préparons-nous à voter quand le temps viendra. Préparons-nous à voter dès aujourd’hui mais sur la base de politiques, de stratégies et de programmes d’intérêt national et local à l’édification desquels nous aurons contribué individuellement et collectivement, en particulier dans le cadre de nos organisations institutionnelles, professionnelles et communautaires.
Le mot qui sauve aujourd’hui est ensemble. Nos jeunes l’ont compris. Le mot de la survie est relation. Relation entre les générations. Relation entre les quartiers. Relation entre les groupes sectoriels, sociaux et professionnels. Que les filles et les femmes d’Haïti continuent leurs avancées vers les territoires sociaux et politiques comme ces femmes au Soudan au cœur de la révolte contre un régime décrié. Ensemble sans fausse pudeur. Dépouillés de nos egos trop lourds pour nos vies. Relation avec nos sœurs et frères haïtiens de la diaspora qui souffrent avec nous, qui veulent participer avec nous au grand chantier de reconstruction de notre société. Nous n’avons plus beaucoup de temps. Il n’est plus question de s’adapter vaille que vaille à un système qui ne fonctionne plus. Plus question de se taire et de faire semblant que les choses vont changer comme si cela allait de soi.
Citoyennes et citoyens,
Nous écrivains Haïtiens voulons continuer d’être utiles à la nation en maintenant vive la parole qui alerte, questionne, critique et suscite la conscience critique. Nous voulons d’un État de droit pouvant nous garantir un vrai procès Pétrocaribe historique. Nous voulons de vrais projets sociaux en faveur des populations vulnérables. Nous voulons des politiques publiques cohérentes favorisant la production nationale, l’investissement, l’éducation pour tous, les libertés individuelles, la liberté d’expression, la culture… Nous invitons chacun à jouer son rôle citoyen et à travailler à l’avènement de l’Haïti que nous voulons.
Guy Régis Jr.
James Noël
Néhémy Pierre Dahomey
Marie Andrée Etienne
Frankétienne
Evelyne Trouillot
Verly Dabel
Jean D’Amérique
Lyonel Trouillot
Dieulermesson Petit-Frère
Barbara Prezeau Stefenson
Gary Klang
Kettly Mars
Jacques Adler Jean Pierre
André Fouad
Yanick Lahens
Gary Victor
Béo Monteau
Jean-Robert Léonidas
Verly Dabel
Mirline Pierre
Elsie Suréna
Anthony Phelps
Guy Gérald Ménard
Eddy Toussaint Tontongi
Faubert Bolivar
Makenzy Orcel
Stephane Martelly
Source:
http://www.maghaiti.org/des-ecrivains-haitiens-prennent-position-et-exigent-la-d...
Médias : Attaque armée contre le journaliste Luckson Saint-Vil
P-au-P, 07 août 2019 [AlterPresse] --- Une attaque armée a été perpétrée, dans la soirée du mardi 06 août 2019, par des individus non identifiés, contre le journaliste à l’agence en ligne Loop Haïti, Luckson Saint-vil, dans la commune de Léogâne (sud de la capitale), apprend l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Le véhicule du journaliste a essuyé plusieurs projectiles, au moment où il en examinait un des pneus.
Luckson Saint-vil est sorti sain et sauf de cette attaque armée, qui survient plus d’un mois après qu’il a porté plainte, suite à des menaces de mort dont il faisait l’objet.
Ancien journaliste de radio Métropole, Saint-Vil a décroché le Prix du jeune journaliste en Haïti ((2016) et le Prix Chaffanjon (2019).
Dans la soirée du mardi 16 juillet 2019, le véhicule du rédacteur en chef de radio Solidarité, Kendi Zidor, avait également essuyé plusieurs projectiles, à Delmas 60.
Insécurité : Un syndicaliste du transport en commun tué
HPN - Par la voix d’un des responsables du syndicat des transporteurs haïtien, Méhu Changeux, HPN a appris qu’une réponse sérieuse sera donnée à l’État dans les prochains jours, pour forcer les autorités à assumer leurs responsabilités face au climat d’insécurité, notamment dans l’aile sud de la capitale (Martissant) où les bandits opèrent en toute quiétude pendant qu’ils tuent des citoyens sans mobile apparent.
Méhu Changeux a fait cette déclaration suite à l’assassinat jeudi après-midi au niveau de Martissant 1, du nommé Charles Morancy, responsable du syndicat des bus du Sud.
Sans toutefois être clair concernant la nature du mouvement des transporteurs, le syndicaliste a annoncé les couleurs. Afin de porter le gouvernement à adopter les mesures nécessaires, une éventuelle paralysie du secteur pourrait bientôt être l’un des sujets de l’actualité.
Selon des informations parvenues à la rédaction de HPN, des bandits armés qui intimaient l’ordre à Charles Morancy d’arrêter alors qu’il était au volant de son véhicule, ont tiré en direction de ce dernier. Le conducteur a ainsi été froidement abattu pour n’avoir pas exécuté l’ordre des malfrats.
L’incident s’est produit aux environs de 5 heures 30 de l’après-midi à hauteur de Martissant 1, non loin du sous-commissariat de la zone, a déploré Méhu Changeux.
Ce dernier a expliqué que c'est grâce à un blindé de la police que le juge de paix a pu faire le constat du corps sans vie de Charles Morancy. Le syndicaliste presse les responsables de la sécurité publique de faire le nécessaire pour mettre hors d’état de nuire ces individus armés qui sèment le deuil partout.
Ce dernier assassinat, soulignons-le, vient allonger en l'espace d'une semaine, la liste des victimes par balles dans ce quartier qui constitue désormais un véritable enfer pour riverains et passants, mais aussi un défi majeur pour la police mise souvent en déroute par les bandits.
Alix Laroche
... « C’est une fierté pour eux de conserver cette langue. « Le créole n’est ni un dialecte ni un patois. C’est une langue », poursuit le chroniqueur qui participe à l’enseignement de la langue créole. » ...
« Bannzil Kreyòl-Kiba », une organisation socioculturelle dont la présidence est assurée par le journaliste cubain et descendant d’Haïtiens, Hilario Batista Félix, se veut un espace prônant la conservation de la culture créole à Cuba et dans la Caraïbe. Depuis plusieurs années, elle anime ateliers et conférences en vue d’œuvrer à la promotion et à la diffusion de la langue créole.
« Le créole est la deuxième langue la plus parlée à Cuba », annonce tout de go Hilario Batista Félix, animateur d’une émission quotidienne réalisée, entre 2h30 et 3h de l'après-midi, en créole sur la station de radio « Habana Cuba ». Selon lui, il devient urgent de préserver cet état de fait, un objectif que l’organisation dont il est tributaire veut atteindre. « Cuba est un pays créolophone au même titre que la Guadeloupe, la Martinique et Haïti », a-t-il déclaré comme pour motiver cette passion.
Estimés entre 300 000 et 400 000, les descendants d’Haïtiens, des Cubains à part entière, représentent un pourcentage non négligeable dans la population cubaine et sont, en majorité, concentrés dans les villes de Camagüey, Guantanamo, Santiago et de La Havane. Ils ont hérité du créole de leurs parents, des immigrants d’avant-révolution (1959), des coupeurs de canne essentiellement. C’est une fierté pour eux de conserver cette langue. « Le créole n’est ni un dialecte ni un patois. C’est une langue », poursuit le chroniqueur qui participe à l’enseignement de la langue créole.
Plusieurs activités sont réalisées pour l’émancipation de cette langue, à commencer par les « aprèmidi kreyòl » où l’association met en avant la culture haïtienne par des représentations de troupes de danse et de groupes musicaux. Du fait que les mets typiques sont très appréciés, l’art culinaire haïtien n’est point négligé. Selon Hilario Batista Félix, « ce travail est nécessaire, sinon nous allons oublier notre histoire et nos origines et perdre notre identité ».
Cependant, il regrette l’absence des autorités haïtiennes à ses côtés dans cette lutte. « Nous n’avons reçu qu’une résolution de l’Académie du créole haïtien », a-t-il fustigé. Abondant dans le même sens, Consuelo Doris Diaz, une journaliste, traductrice et interprète de la langue créole, membre de la Coordination nationale de la communauté haïtienne à Cuba, a déclaré qu’ « Haïti n’envoyait que ses besoins au peuple cubain. »
Il est à souligner que l’appellation du regroupement « Bannzil Kreyòl » signifie « plusieurs îles parlant le créole ». De ce fait, il s’agit, pour eux, de se réunir pour encourager l’étude et la conservation non seulement de cette langue mais aussi de la culture créole. Pour ce faire, l’échange des expériences est nécessaire et passe par une concertation entre les acteurs du secteur.
Parlement : reprise de la séance de mise en accusation du Président fixée pour ce lundi
HPN - C’est ce lundi 12 août 2019 que les députés reprendront la séance spéciale sur la mise en accusation du président Jovenel Moïse. Cette séance organisée à la demande des députés de l’opposition et qui avait débuté le mercredi 7 août dernier, avait été mise en continuation après une demande de soumission de documents par les députés accusateurs au bureau de la Chambre.
Ces documents sollicités préalablement, devraient être soumis à l’assemblée pour étayer les arguments de mise en accusation contre le chef de l'Etat. Parmi ces documents figure le procès verbal de la séance d’interpellation de l’ancien premier ministre Jack Guy Lafontant, le 15 juillet 2018.
Les observateurs sont très sceptiques quant à l'aboutissement de la démarche de mise en accusation du Président Jovenel Moïse. Toutefois certains observateurs pensent que, quelle que soit l’issue des discussions, celles-ci risquent de provoquer une radicalisation des positions des acteurs politiques.
Le leader du parti Unir-Haïti, Clarens Renois, est de ceux-là. S’il reconnaît que les députés ont bien fait de prendre la voie légale pour forcer au départ du président Jovenel Moïse, Clarens Renois estime que la séance sur la mise en accusation a été marquée par trop d’improvisation.
Il n’y a pas eu de préparatifs nécessaires pour faciliter sa bonne tenue, a dit M. Renois. De son côté, Rosemond Pradel, numéro 2 de la Fusion, est du même avis. Il pense que les parlementaires devraient profiter de cette occasion pour plancher sur la loi d’application de la Constitution sur la mise en accusation d’un président en fonction.
Ce débat nous aura permis de comprendre que le président n’est pas intouchable, a indiqué M. Pradel.
Sécurité : Graduation de 656 policières et policiers de la 30e promotion de la Police nationale d’Haïti
P-au-P, 08 août 2019 [AlterPresse]--- 656 nouvelles policières et nouveaux policiers, dont 516 hommes et 140 femmes, ont prêté serment, le jeudi 8 août 2019, lors de la cérémonie de graduation de la 30e promotion de la Police nationale d’Haïti (Pnh), à laquelle a assisté l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
« La sécurité implique des moyens pour la Direction centrale de la police administrative, pour nos directions départementales, nos commissariats et sous-commissariats, nos unités spécialisées pour prévenir la criminalité », déclare le directeur général de la Pnh, Michel-Ange Gédéon dans un discours de circonstance.
Le haut commandement de la Pnh préconise la nuse à disponibilité de moyens adequats, devant permettre à la Direction centrale de la police judiciaire (Dcpj) de mieux conduire des enquêtes et d’identifier les criminels qui sèment le deuil au sein de la communauté.
Doivent aussi être ciblés, dans ces investigations, ceux qui sont de mèche avec les malfrats, ceux qui alimentent ces malfaiteurs, tant en armes qu’en munitions, aussi bien qu’en espèces.
La sécurité, dénominateur commun du vivre ensemble, est transversale à toutes les institutions, rappelle Michel-Ange Gédéon, qui exhorte les nouvelles policières et les nouveaux policiers nationaux à insister, dans l’exercice de leur fonction, sur le respect des droits des citoyens, et à promouvoir une bonne image de l’institution.
Pour sa part, le président Jovenel Moïse demande aux nouveaux cadres de la police nationale d’assumer pleinement leurs responsabilités dans l’intérêt de la nation.
Jovenel Moïse plaide en faveur d’une meilleure professionnalisation et modernisation de la Pnh, du renforcement des capacités opérationnelles de ses structures, ce pour une consolidation de la sécurité, dans toutes les communes et sections communales du pays.
« Les défis à relever sont énormes, et vos capacités à intervenir rapidement et efficacement sont limitées »’, reconnait le président la République.
La cérémonie de graduation de la 30e promotion de la Police nationale d’Haïti s’est déroulée, ce jeudi 8 août 2019, en présence du président Jovenel Moïse, du premier ministre démissionnaire Jean Michel Lapin et des officiels du gouvernement démissionnaire, de hauts gradés de la Pnh ainsi que des diplomates haïtiens et étrangers.
Cependant le contexte est marqué par une nette recrudescence d’actes de banditisme un peu partout sur le territoire national.
Au cours de ce mois d’août 2019, la Commission épiscopale nationale (catholique romaine) Justice et Paix (Ce-Jilap) a alerté sur la situation d’insécurité inquiétante, qui règne dans la zone métropolitaine de Port-au-Prince, en particulier à Martissant (périphérie sud de la capitale).
D’avril à juin 2019, 123 personnes y ont été victimes d’actes de violences, d’après la Jilap, soulignant combien d’autres phénomènes, comme le kidnapping (enlèvement et séquestration de personnes) refont surface dans le pays.
Insécurité : Arrestation du chef de gang Tony Dérilus , soupçonné d’implication dans la tuerie de juillet 2019 à La Saline
P-au-P, 06 août 2019 [AlterPresse] --- Le nommé Tony Dérilus, alias King Toto, un chef de gang du quartier Bwa Dòm, à La Saline (non loin du bord de mer de Port-au-Prince) et son bras droit Guitho Louis, alias Cerceau, ont été arrêtés, dans la soirée du lundi 5 août 2019, à Martissant (sud de la capitale), selon les informations parvenues à l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
Lors de leur arrestation, ils avaient en leur possession un pistolet de calibre 9 mm.
Tony Dérilus, alias King Toto, est soupçonné d’implication dans le nouveau massacre, perpétré du 5 au 13 juillet 2019 à La Saline.
Au moins vingt (20) personnes ont perdu la vie à La Saline, deux (2) sont portées disparues et six (6) autres sont blessées par balles, dans cette tuerie de juillet 2019, selon le Réseau national de défense des droits humains (Rnddh).
Une tuerie, commise préalablement les 1er et 13 novembre 2018, avait fait au moins 71 morts, selon un rapport, publié par le Rnddh ainsi que d’autres organisations des droits humains.
Les personnes, coupables des crimes perpétrés à La Saline, doivent répondre de leurs actes devant la justice, ont par ailleurs souhaité l’ambassade de France en Haïti ainsi que le secrétaire général de l’Organisations des Nations unies (Onu), António Guterres.
- Détails
- Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti
The autopsy report of Toussaint Louverture enters the MUPANAH
The Haitian National Pantheon Museum (MUPANAH) welcomed in August new objects in its collection, including the autopsy report of the famous Toussaint Louverture. Emmelie Prophet, Director of the institution, was quick to announce the news and invite visitors to come and discover the new exhibits at the MUPANAH.
In terms of collections, the last 24 months have been fruitful for the Museum of the Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH), which is 36 years old. Royal clothing, a vase dated to the Amerindian age, sashes of former Haitian presidents among others joined the collection of the institution responsible for conserving, protecting and valuing the country’s historical and cultural heritage.
Haiti president indictment session postponed for second time
The session devoted to the analysis of the request for the indictment of President Jovenel Moïse was postponed Monday afternoon due to security problems. Gary Bodeau, the speaker of the chamber of deputies, announced the continuation of the session arguing the lack of serenity in the room.
A climate of tension prevailed in the area and in front of the Legislative Palace during the day as dozens of opposition protesters clashed with police in front of the building.
The police used tear gas on several occasions to repel the demonstrators who threw stones at the building. Several windshields of vehicles were broken by demonstrators who launched slogans against Moïse and parliamentarians of the majority
Gang violence increases in Port-au-Prince
In recent days, armed gangs have escalated the violence in Martissant, a district south of the capital. Three people, including a policeman, were killed by the gangs over the weekend. The policeman ensured the safety of a young migrant in Chile who was visiting his parents.
Residents are upset over the lack of reaction from the police. For instance, parents of a trade unionist were unable to have the support of a police patrol for a judge to draw up a record of the death.
Travelers bound for Port-au-Prince from Miami will soon face fewer options
Starting on Aug. 20, American Airlines is once again reducing its direct flights from Miami to Port-au-Prince, cutting the number of daily flights from two to one.
The change is due to American Airlines’ cancellations of about 115 daily flights because of the ongoing grounding of the Boeing 737 Max jets, said American Airlines spokeswoman Martha Pantin.
The reduced Haiti flight scheduled is supposed to last until Nov. 2.
Though not the only airline to fly to Haiti — Air France, Delta, JetBlue and Spirit all fly out of the U.S. — American has long been the dominant player in Haiti travel. It has its own second floor departure lounge at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince and occupies six check-in reservation counters compared to JetBlue’s four.
Spirit Airlines, which flew its last flight from Fort Lauderdale to Cap-Haitien, the country’s second largest city, on June 18, said unrest and operational issues were behind its decision to suspend service. “We have not determined a restart date,” spokesman Derek Dombrowski said.
Haiti’s tourism market has been taking a huge hit since last July. First, mass protests and rioting over a proposed fuel hike led to the temporary cancellations of international flights. Then in February, more anti-government protests and a nine day shut-down of the country led the U.S., Canada and France to all raise their travel warnings. The decision prompted the booking company, Expedia, to remove all Haiti flights and hotels from its site.
The reduction in air travel comes just as Haiti’s tourism market appears to be on the mend. In June, the U.S. State Department reduced its travel warning from Level 4 to 3. And last month, the diaspora, the country’s biggest market, began returning along with its musicians, who launched summer tours with packed street and bikini beach parties, and sold-out concerts.
Edwidge Danticat Returns to Haiti In New Stories
Edwidge Danticat’s collection Everything Inside explores the ethereal and urgent influence of Haiti on its stories’ characters
By Gabrielle Bellot
“Sometimes people know our most vulnerable places,” Edwidge Danticat says. “Because of that, we do things we know we shouldn’t do—things that have tragic outcomes. This is the kind of conflict that I’m drawn to: people asking very hard questions.”
In Danticat’s new collection, Everything Inside (Knopf, Aug.), these questions may explore romantic infidelity, broken pacts, or the identity of a long-lost parent; sometimes, they involve the labyrinthine question of whether to return to Haiti—the country—from Little Haiti in Miami, where many of the stories take place. Danticat says that above all, she wished to “show all the layers” of the women in her new stories when they make their decisions—good, bad, and everything in between. And it is this core idea—women faced with choices at once mundane and magnitudinous—that perhaps best characterizes Everything Inside.
But Haiti’s history is also one of astonishing rebellion and of ordinary people just trying to get by—facts often ignored by American media, which insists on painting Haiti as an epicenter of suffering. This is what Danticat’s fiction has sought to capture, too, through the tenderness and resilience of its characters. Rather than focusing solely on the ravages, she also shows Haiti’s beauty, geographically and culturally. Her work has always been quietly revolutionary in both its explicit depiction of tragedy and its examination of deep interpersonal relationships.
Danticat’s newest collection takes this idea further, presenting Haitians, Americans, and Haitian-Americans who have varying degrees of distance from the Caribbean nation. Some of the characters have never experienced the horrors that Danticat’s earlier characters fled; many live in America. In these stories, Haiti’s enduring presence feels more ethereal—urgent in a different way for this new generation.
Exile, to be sure, has always defined Danticat’s work, in all of its protean, poignant forms—be it political, geographic, cultural, or existential. And though Everything Inside focuses perhaps most on interpersonal distances, Danticat’s American characters are still connected to Haiti, and so, she observes, they must face “the flip side of exile: whether or not to return.” When these characters do travel to Haiti, she notes, they don’t wish solely to see monuments to loss; they want to see “the pretty places,” too—“the multiplicity of Haiti and of their ancestry.”
It’s important, Danticat says, that Everything Inside not be read purely as a text of a particular cultural moment—partly because she considers books to be “always behind the cultural moment”—but rather as something as much of the present as the past and future. She decries what she identifies as the day-to-day grotesquerie of the American political present. Obliquely, her book, with its focus on transnational figures who have family in Haiti and America, critiques both the closed-border sentiments of the Trump administration and governmental corruption in Haiti. Her characters “are in the middle” of all this, she says, just “trying to keep it together” in a volatile world.
But in the end, Danticat says, this is a collection about people and the complex interactions and decisions they share. Its tenderness feels striking in a hectic 2019. In the end, we are left with these characters’ brutal, banal, and beautiful moments, like a wide night luminous, every so often, with firefly stars.
Trump’s Racism Against Haitians on Display Again: Ending the Much-Needed Haitian Family Reunification Program Hurts Thousands of Haitians!
Family Action Network Movement (FANM)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rhenie Dalger, Steve Forester
Phone: 786-280-9062, 786-877-6999
Email:
Who: Former AILA President: Ira Kurzban, Immigration Advocates, Faith and Community Leaders, FANM members.
What: Trump Administration to Terminate the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program
When: Wednesday, August 14, 2019,
Time: 10:30 AM
Where: FANM : 100 N.E. 84 Street, Miami , Florida 33138
Trump’s Racism Against Haitians on Display Again: Ending the Much-Needed Haitian Family Reunification Program Hurts Thousands of Haitians!
Trump’s DHS on August 2nd announced its intention to end the Haitian Family Reunification Program (HFRP), which it began strangling when he took office in January, 2017.
From “shithole countries” and saying Haitians “all have AIDS,” to asking bipartisan senators “why would we want any more Haitians?” and saying he prefers “Norwegians,” to ending Haiti’s TPS and inclusion in the H-2A and H-2B programs, this is yet more evidence of his anti-Haitian actions and animus.
Speeding up legal immigration from Haiti was urged by bi-partisan supporters as a way to help Haiti recover after 2010’s quake, which killed at least 250,000 and devastated the nation. Although not created until March, 2015 and too-limited in scope, about 8,300 beneficiaries (who’d each waited about ten years in Haiti!) of DHS-approved visa petitions have joined their families under the program.
HFRP operated by invitation only to qualifying petitioners (as beneficiaries who’d been waiting in Haiti for years finally came within 42 months of getting visas), but Trump’s DHS intentionally never issued any invitations, effectively strangling it.
Former American Immigration Lawyers Association President Ira Kurzban, long a champion of equal treatment for Haitians, said, "The decision of the Trump White House to end this program is simply one more racist act against Haitians that began with his calling Haiti a “shithole” country and then cutting all benefits to Haitians including TPS , the H-2A, and H-2B programs.”
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) immigration policy coordinator Steve Forester, one of the program’s champions said, “Just like ending Haiti TPS, this again demonstrates Trump’s racism and disregard for the rule of law; it hurts the United States by impeding Haiti’s recovery from the quake, 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, the ongoing imported cholera epidemic, and it again shows Trump lied when he told Haitian-Americans he cared about the hundreds of thousands who died in the earthquake.”
“Terminating yet another legal and badly needed program clearly shows that the Trump administration real intent is to stop the flow of black and brown immigrants coming into this country, period,” said Marleine Bastien, Family Action Network Movement Executive Director. "Why else would he stop a bona fide , legal program when Haiti is going through such a high level of instability, human rights violations, and violence? The ending of the HFRP, continuous ICE raids, and targeting legal immigrants who use welfare benefits show that President Trump real issue is not about legal or illegal immigration; it is about preventing Black and Browns to come or remain in the United States.”
Family Action Network Movement (FANM) formerly known as Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami, Inc)/ Haitian Women of Miami is a private not-for-profit organization dedicated to the social, economic, financial and political empowerment of low to moderate-income families….to give them the tools to transform their communities.
- Détails
- Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti
HATIANS WILL NO LONGER NEED A VISA TO TRAVEL TO RUSSIA
August 24, 2019. - The Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edmond Bocchit, announced, in the newspaper Le Nouvelliste, that soon Haitians will be able to go to Russia without needing a visa and it will be the same for Russians wishing to visit Haiti. Minister Edmond Bocchit made these statements after meeting with the Russian Ambassador, Vladimir Fedorovich Zaemsky, accredited in Haiti and whose residence is in Caracas (Venezuela).
LACK OF FUEL
August 23, 2019. - For nearly two weeks, there has been a shortage of fuel in the Nippes Department, particularly in the municipality of Miragoâne, where the few service stations that have fuel are not ready to serve customers. Motorbike taxi drivers quickly adjusted the price of their fare, due to the scarcity of gasoline seen through service stations.
A YOUNG ARTIST CHARTS THE JOURNEY FROM HAITI TO HOOD
By Doreen St Félix in The New Yorker
Daveed Baptiste’s mother could not secure the proper paperwork allowing her to travel from Haiti to America, so she made the painful but not uncommon decision to send her three children without her.
But, in his self-directed maturation, distanced from the choke of tradition that parents pass down, Baptiste loosened himself from the mantra placed on Haitian children, the three Ls: lekol, legliz, lakay. School, church, home. His mind wandered to New York City and its downtown saints. He watched “Paris Is Burning,” and documentaries on Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who himself was born to a Haitian father. He grew infatuated with Destiny’s Child. His brother loved 50 Cent. “You’re thrown into the American version of blackness,” Baptiste told me recently, over the phone. “You learn to be a Negro.”
“Haiti to Hood” is a theatrical series, focussed on the nostalgic power of materials. And the nostalgia is not simply personal; Baptiste’s models appear in two sets, a living room and a bedroom, which are cluttered with objects that symbolize the activity of surviving under empire. “Before my father had dipped out on us,” he told me, “we spent a lot of time indoors, inside the house. I was trapped in the crib.” Baptiste loves spending time in the homes of other people, intuiting their personalities not only from the objects accrued but from their juxtaposition. He thinks about the politics of food, how one’s tastes convey class, and culture—for Haitian families, jugs of Tampico juice and bags of Madame Gougousse rice. He also thinks about cultural consumption; on the puckered walls of his bedroom scenes are posters advertising “Grand Theft Auto,” barbershop cuts, Pokéman cards, and sneaker colorways. Above a table, a photograph of John F. Kennedy smiles, and Destiny’s Child poses.
The photographs, at first glance, seem like they could be documentary. In fact, they are heavily constructed. Baptiste is a tinkerer of surfaces. “Haiti to Hood” was shot in his studio at Parsons, where he is studying fashion design. According to his artist’s statement, he used textiles such as “denim, wool, and cotton satins to make furniture slipcovers, floor textures, and table cloths,” giving the photos a dimension of tactile trompe-l’oeil. The walls are made of dyed felt; he digitally rendered patterns and printed them on fabrics that are fashioned to look like curtains and sheets. “Nothing is thrown away, everything is used until it breaks,” he told me, referencing the duct-taped chairs in his living-room still-lifes.
What excites me about Baptiste is his prismatic approach to disciplines, his cyclical twining of the mediums of photography, direction, and fashion design. When we spoke on the phone, he was in Turkey, attending a three-week residency. He was spending eight hours in a factory learning about denim production. He worried that if we got into the bloodied history of cotton and indigo production, he would keep me on the phone too long. In truth, I could have talked to him for hours.
Haitians seek to ban ‘Sweet Micky’ from appearing at New York’s West Indian Day Parade
AUGUST 22, 2019 07:06 PM, UPDATED AUGUST 23, 2019 07:24 PM
- It is where Caribbean culture and celebration intersect with American life.
- Every Labor Day, hundreds of thousands of revelers, carrying their nations’ flags, crowd New York City’s Eastern Parkway for theWest Indian Day Parade, dancing to the beat of steel drums and carnival rhythms behind extravagant floats and elaborate foot bands adorned in colorful sequined costumes, feathers and masks.
- But this year, there is one carnival performer some Haitian Americans don’t want to see: former Haiti president Michel Martelly, also known as “Sweet Micky,” the name for his anti-establishment, raucous alter-ego stage performer.
- In an open letter to Democratic presidential hopeful and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Haitian activists and organizations are asking that Martelly be banned from participating in all activities surrounding this year’s West Indian Day Parade. As New Yorkers, they say, they should not be subjected to the former president’s foul-mouthed incendiary speech and misogynistic performance antics that include attacks on women, and his political enemies and critics.
- “His presence at the West Indian Parade is dangerous for women and goes against the values that make New York City a good place to live,” the signers of the letter, written in English and French, said. “In the era of #MeToo, the participation of Michel Martelly in activities that celebrate diversity in a city that values gender equality and mutual respect appears indecent and incoherent.”
This is not the first time that Martelly, who served as president of Haiti from 2011-16, has faced opposition to his controversial performances.
Last year, two major Haitian cities banned him from their pre-Ash Wednesday Carnival celebrations after women’s groups, religious leaders and human rights activists protested his appearance following an unfiltered, foul-mouthed rant against his critics at a January concert in Port-au-Prince.
Then earlier this year, Haitian Quebecers in Canada, citing misogynistic statements and alleged complicity in the corruption scandal surrounding his presidency, launched a similar protest. They wrote to both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante asking that Martelly be blocked from performing in Montreal.
Three days before the scheduled March 22 concert, Martelly released a video on social media saying that his performance had to be canceled due to two of his musicians facing visa problems.
The most recent protest against Martelly’s “Sweet Micky” alter ego comes as Haitians in New York are increasingly flexing their political muscle and winning public offices, and as the ex-president’s own popularity appears to be waning.
Martelly’s concerts and appearances, which once attracted crowds, are receiving a lukewarm reception in some quarters as Haitians everywhere grow increasingly frustrated and exhausted with their country’s dismal reality: no working government, increased gang violence, fuel shortages, soaring food prices, 18 percent inflation and a rapidly deteriorating domestic currency, to name a few.
At the center of the blame in the growing socioeconomic and political crisis is Martelly’s hand-picked successor, President Jovenel Moïse. An inexperienced politician who had never held public office, Moïse survived an impeachment vote on Thursday by the Lower Chamber of Deputies, 53-3 againstimpeachment.
But the victory could well be short-lived, as political allies in the upper Chamber of the Senate line up to sink his latest choice for prime minister — the fourth in three years — amid continued calls for his resignation. Anti-corruption activists and political opponents accuse Moïse of not governing and have cited a government audit implicating him in the Venezuelan aid corruption scandal surrounding Martelly’s administration.
Haiti President Michel Martelly, also known as 'Sweet Micky,' entertaining a U.N. delegation from the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) last May at Brasserie Quartier Latin in, Pétionville.
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Though Martelly holds no official post in Moïse’s administration, some politicians and foreign diplomats say he still wields considerable power and influence, like deciding who should occupy what ministries in future governments. There is also belief that he is mounting his own presidential bid.
Martelly, who performed on Wednesday in Trinidad at the Caribbean Festival of Arts, CARIFESTA, could not be reached for comment. But on stage and in interviews, he has told critics to keep their hands off “Sweet Micky.” He’s always sought to separate his controversial, gyrating stage persona from the politician, dismissing his antics as being done in good humor.
But Garry Pierre-Pierre, founder and former publisher of the New York-based Haitian Times, said that while some Haitians may still buy that argument, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make that distinction given Sweet Micky’s lascivious public rants against enemies and recent music like his Carnival méringue “Ba’ l Bannann Nan” (Give her the Banana) deriding renowned Haiti journalist Liliane Pierre-Paul.
In the open letter to de Blasio copied to other New York politicians, the song’s lyrics are described this way: “This carnivalesque merengue presented the President as a doctor who called his audience to insert various objects in the private parts of Liliane Pierre-Paul.”
A critic of Martelly during his presidency, Pierre-Paul is a 1990 recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage Award in Journalism who is credited with helping champion press freedom in Haiti. During the Duvalier dictatorship, she was arrested, tortured and forced into exile.
Attacking Pierre-Paul isn’t his only fault, the letter says. During Martelly’s appearance at the West Indian Day Parade last year he lashed out at a reveler who inquired about the squandering of billions of dollars in the Venezuelan aid corruption scandal overshadowing his administration and PHTK political party. He told the reveler that he had hid the money in the private parts of the reveler’s wife.
“It’s getting to the point where people are tired,” said Pierre-Pierre, citing other examples of Sweet Micky’s vulgarity. “It’s unbecoming of an ex-president. You would think that would command a certain level of responsibility and respect. But for him it’s the opposite.”
In a letter signed by the president of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, and shared with the Miami Herald, association president Jean Joseph confirmed that registration had closed for participants. There are only four Haitian groups that are registered: T-Vice, Tony Mix, Kreyòl La and Banboche, a costumed band.
Edens Desbas, one of the signers of the open letter to de Blasio, said they needed stronger guarantees about the parade, which celebrates 52 years this year. Citing Martelly’s penchant for jumping on stage to join the party even when not on the billing, Desbas said they want de Blasio to “give an executive order to the police to prevent him from going on any of the floats.”
So far, no word from de Blasio, who himself has paraded down the parkway, albeit not in costume. His office did not respond for comment.
Miami Herald - Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
First black woman nominated to be Marine brigadier general
By Sophie Tatum, CNN
Washington (CNN) Marine Corps Col. Lorna Mahlock has been nominated to serve as the first black female brigadier general, the Marine Corps media office said.
Mahlock was nominated by President Donald Trump, and Defense Secretary James Mattis announced the nomination on Tuesday.
According to his announcement, Mahlock is currently the deputy director of the Operations, Plans, Policies, and Operations Directorate at the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington. Her nomination was one of several by the President that Mattis announced Tuesday.
Last year, an infantry battalion at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina received the first female infantry Marines, who were set to serve in the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, with specializations as rifleman, machine gun and mortar, 1st Lt. John McCombs, a Marines spokesman, said at the time.
Scientist who called out Bolsonaro on Amazon deforestation is fired
(CNN) Brazil has fired the head of a government agency that found a steep rise in deforestation in the Amazon, following a public spat with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Ricardo Galvão, the director of Brazil's National Space and Research Institute (INPE), said he was terminated on Friday after defending satellite data that showed deforestation was 88% higher in June compared to a year ago.
Galvão said in a video statement on Facebook that the agency let him go after a meeting with Brazil's Minister of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications, Marcos Pontes.
He added that the scientific institute would continue to operate and it would now be up to Pontes to decide on his successor. An advisor to Pontes confirmed Galvão's comments to state news agency Agencia Brasil.
- Détails
- Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti
AP Interview: Haitian president pledges to outlast troubles
CHRISTOPHER GILLETTE, Associated Press - President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview in his office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's president says he will serve out his term despite rising violence, poor economic performance and months of protests over unresolved allegations of corruption in his predecessor's administration.
President Jovenel Moise pledged in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday to respect the findings of a commission investigating the corruption allegations.
"It takes a lot of courage to stay in power, but I am pledging to you to have the courage to continue moving forward," Moise said, saying he would resist pressure to resign.
Moise was named in two reports resulting from a corruption investigation by judicial authorities into the spending of funds from Petrocaribe, a Venezuelan government program that provided subsidized oil to Caribbean nations. Protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets in recent months in demonstrations prompted by the findings of widespread fraud in government contracts awarded to contractors to build roads, buildings and administer social programs.
Moise was described as receiving potentially improper payments as a private contractor to build a road in northern Haiti before he became president.
The audits revealed millions of dollars of aid money siphoned off by contractors for shoddy and substandard work, like an overpass built over busy Delmas avenue that cost more than $30 million, but should have cost around $2 million.
Once revealed, the extent of the corruption sparked widespread protests and street violence, and calls for Moise to step down.
Moise has refused to resign, though he promised to criminally charge anyone found by the audit board to have stolen funds from the government.
"Of course we must know the truth and the truth about this investigation must be released. That is very important. The investigation must reveal the truth so that justice can be served and the guilty jailed. Those who misspent the government's money, they should be arrested and locked up," Moise said Wednesday.
The protests, economic downturn and increasing insecurity and gang-related crime have made Moise's political future uncertain despite his determination to stay in power.
Moise said he was not concerned about more allegations of his involvement in potentially improper contracting, saying: "The judicial audit does not involve the executive branch. This is a concern of the judicial branch."
The president insisted that Haiti must move beyond the crisis and let the judicial process play out.
"We must go beyond talking about the survival of the government, because political stability in Haiti is the most important thing for us," he said. "If the opposition wants power they must participate in democratic elections and win the vote of the people."
HAITIAN NATIONAL POLICE
He caught one of Haiti’s most wanted criminals. Now the nation’s top cop is out of a job
A month after arresting one of Haiti’s most wanted gang leaders and exposing a troubling connection between gang leaders and a member of the nation’s parliament, the head of the country’s beleaguered police force is out of a job.
Haiti National Police Director Michel-Ange Gédéon was told on Monday by Haiti President Jovenel Moïse that he would not be staying on, and that his replacement would be announced as early as Tuesday morning.
The president did not say who the next chief would be. But those familiar with the decision said the choices come down to two individuals: Normil Rameau, Gédéon’s one-time No. 2 and former head of Haiti’s Central Directorate of the Judicial Police; and Noel Charles Nazaire, the head of the country’s prison system. Rameau, who is currently assigned to the Haitian embassy in Washington, was told last week by the presidential palace to report to Port-au-Prince.
“Under my tenure, bandits always had to be worried regardless of their political affiliation,” Gédéon, 46, said Monday, summarizing his three years as Haiti’s top cop.
In Haiti, he said, bandits are everywhere — in the city, in the countryside, the slums and the villas — and Haitians must continue to “fight mercilessly against bandits and traffickers of all kinds.”
Gédéon was appointed to the job in 2016 by interim Haiti President Jocelerme Privert and ratified by the Haitian Senate, but his mandate expired last week. Moïse, who has authority under the constitution to appoint the police chief, could have named him to a second term. Some observers in the international community, which funds most of the police force, wanted him to keep Gédéon on the job.
But despite months of lobbying by foreign diplomats in Port-au-Prince for continuity in the 15,937-member police force, Moïse decided to let Gédéon go and appoint his own chief.
The switch in command comes as Haiti continues to undergo a worsening political and economic crisis with no functioning government and Moïse continues to face calls for his resignation from political opponents and anti-corruption grassroots activists. It also comes as the United Nations prepares to permanently end its peacekeeping operation in October after 15 years.
Rebuilding the Haiti National Police and training police officers have been key priorities for the U.N.., which in its most recent report from the secretary-general to the U.N. Security Council warned that “without stronger support from the government and the international community, Haiti’s police force risks losing the gains” in professionalization it has achieved.
Some of those gains, Gédéon said, came under his tenure. He credits his administration with not only making the police more professional, but less political. Among some of the measures carried out under his leadership: adding more women to the force; providing more training opportunities for officers at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington and similar institutions in Chile; and promoting officers to middle management positions.
Another significant achievement, he said, was tackling corruption in the force. Under his leadership, the institution recovered 834 weapons from no-longer-active officers and recuperated thousands of dollars in money that was still being paid to fired or deceased cops.
But that’s not all, said Pierre Esperance, a leading human rights advocate in Haiti, who initially was unsure about Gédéon, the former police chief of west region — which includes Port-au-Prince. Gédéon had been dismissed by former Haitian President Michel Martelly and spent two years on the sidelines before being tapped by Privert.
“Our experience with Gédéon has been nothing but positive. Under him, the police had courage,” Esperance said, referring to two police investigations, one on the November 2018 massacre in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, in which two presidential appointees were implicated, and the other on gang leader Arnel Joseph, which exposed his relationship with Sen. Garcia Delva.
The first police chief to rise through the ranks and not the army, Gédéon is widely respected among officers who view him as an inspiration in a country where former police chiefs usually came out of the military.
Still, he and Moïse have a contentious relationship at best. Supporters of the president often wanted Gédéon to be repressive against protesters, and didn’t like his push back on their attempts to politicize the police. With few resources, he regularly led a force that was ill-equipped to intervene in gang-affected areas, or even regular policing.
“He’s a professional. He always listened to his officers. However, he was working with bare bones. People sometimes commend the job the police are doing but they have no idea under what conditions they do it with,” Esperance said. “Gédéon spent three exceptional years as the head of the police where the executive fought him for no reason. [Gédéon] was loyal to the authorities.”
If there is another trait that Gédéon should be commended for, Esperance said, it’s the fact he “doesn’t do repression against the protesters.”
Still, Gédéon has come under fire as Haiti has witnessed a resurgence in gang activities and insecurity in the past three years. Last July, when protesters shut the country down for three days, many questioned whether Gédéon and the police were up to the task.
“The [HNP] is often singled out for every spurt of acts of banditry because our society is facing a lack of training and information,” Gédéon said Monday. “The police cannot fight disorder alone and can only take social control; other actors and social groups must be involved. Security is a collective job.”
Gédéon leaves the job after his cops made two of the most highly celebrated arrests in recent memory: drug trafficker and rebel leader Guy Philippe, and Joseph, the wanted gang leader.
Philippe, a newly elected Haitian senator at the time of his capture by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Haitian police, was arrested in January 2017, months after Gédéon officially took over. Joseph’s arrest came last month after a manhunt that lasted more than two years.
Joseph’s arrest briefly sparked a campaign among some in the population for a renewal of Gédéon’s term by Moïse.
Frustrated by his inability to control the police, Moïse told an audience in Miami at a public meeting he planned to ask his prime minister to invite him to a gathering of the police council so that he could give directives on security measures. Later his administration told Gédéon that he had to run all administrative changes by the prime minister first.
Parliament member Jerry Tardieu, who introduced a law in 2016 to modernize Haiti’s police force, said if Gédéon and Moïse enjoyed a better relationship the police could have accomplished more.
“If I were the president, I would have rallied him to my side and given him all of the resources he needed,” Tardieu said. “I think his three years were diminished by the fact that the president never trusted him and did not allow him much margin to maneuver. He could have done more, but had to pay a price because of this ongoing suspicion on the part the president.”
Gédéon conceded that the “up-and-down” relationship had “counterproductive consequences for both the security governance and political governance.”
He added that while he has always stressed that the Haiti National Police needs to “remain apolitical and a public service institution,” few people are tolerant of individuals who adhere to this philosophy.
“In a society as polarized and confrontational as Haiti, the desire to have control over the country’s public force, be it the army or the police, has always tried almost every government.”
American Airlines, Spirit reduce service to Haiti just as tourism appears to make comeback
AUGUST 13, 2019 12:13 PM, UPDATED AUGUST 13, 2019
Year: 2010. Passengers were waiting to depart with bittersweet feelings of returning to a home they may not recognize, and for some, going back to families no longer intact. AA has not been flying to Haiti since the January 12 quake. BY
Travelers bound for Port-au-Prince from Miami will soon face fewer options.
Starting on Aug. 20, American Airlines is once again reducing its direct flights from Miami to Port-au-Prince, cutting the number of daily flights from two to one.
The change is due to American Airlines’ cancellations of about 115 daily flights because of the ongoing grounding of the Boeing 737 Max jets, said American Airlines spokeswoman Martha Pantin.
The reduced Haiti flight schedule is supposed to last until Nov. 2.
Though not the only airline to fly to Haiti — Air France, Delta, JetBlue and Spirit all fly out of the U.S. — American has long been the dominant player in Haiti travel. It has its own second floor departure lounge at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince and occupies six check-in reservation counters compared to JetBlue’s four.
Spirit Airlines, which flew its last flight from Fort Lauderdale to Cap-Haitien, the country’s second largest city, on June 18, said unrest and operational issues were behind its decision to suspend service. “We have not determined a restart date,” spokesman Derek Dombrowski said.
Haiti’s tourism market has been taking a huge hit since last July. First, mass protests and rioting over a proposed fuel hike led to temporary cancellations of international flights. Then in February, more anti-government protests and a nine-day shutdown of the country led the U.S., Canada and France to all raise their travel warnings. The decision prompted the booking company Expedia to temporarily remove all Haiti flights and hotels from its site.
The reduction in air travel options comes just as Haiti’s tourism market appears to be on the mend. In June, the U.S. State Department reduced its travel warning from Level 4 to 3. And last month, the diaspora, the country’s biggest market, began returning along with its musicians, who launched summer tours with packed street and bikini beach parties, and sold-out concerts.
“The more the Haitian community promotes Haiti or travel to Haiti, the more the airlines are reducing flights, canceling flights or overcharging on tickets to Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien airports,” said Wanda Tima, founder of the L’union Suite and the Haitian American, the largest Haitian American social media platforms. “So how are we supposed to boost tourism or vacation home if we keep losing flights and being forced to pay for pricier tickets.”
The only U.S. carrier with daily flights to Port-au-Prince, American competes only with Air France out of Miami. But where AIr France offers only one daily flight out of Miami International Airport to Port-au-Prince, American currently provides two options: 6:01 a.m. and 10:51 a.m.
“The early flight is very popular,” said Joubert Pascal, a former airline employee who works protocol at MIA on behalf of the Haiti consulate in Miami. “Business people can come for the weekend and leave on Monday early enough to get to work.”
Under the reduced schedule, Pantin said the daily flight will depart Miami International Airport at 2:39 p.m. and arrive at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince at 4:46 p.m. The Miami-bound flight will depart at 5:46 p.m. and arrive at 8 p.m.
Pascal, like others, also raises concerns about the new time change given Haiti’s security issues and the fact that many of the Haiti-bound passengers do not live in Port-au-Prince and have to travel by public bus or car to their final destination. “I’ve spoken to the manager here in Miami about that. They told me the decision was made out of Dallas,” where American is based, Pascal said.
The new time change means some travelers may need to spend the night in Port-au-Prince, or forgo travel on American altogether where ticket prices are already high. Booking eight days ahead, a round-trip ticket for someone looking to travel on Aug. 20 with a return a week later would pay $1,484.
“Where’s the logic here?” said Georges Sassine, head of the Association of Haiti Industries and a frequent traveler from Port-au-Prince to Washington with a stopover in Miami. “All the flights from Haiti are already the highest passenger per mile ticket that we pay.”
“Why is that?” he said, before turning to Haiti’s ongoing political turmoil and lack of a functional government to answer his own question. “There is no one in the government to put their foot down and to say to American either they change course, or we get somebody else.”
This is the second time in a year that American has announced a reduction in its service to Haiti. Last August, American announced that it would no longer fly direct to Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport or New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The decision reduced the number of American Airlines flights to Haiti each day from six to four — with all four, including a daily flight to Cap-Haitien, departing from MIA. The cuts were part of a series of reductions, including the end of service into Scotland’s Glasgow Airport and Mexico’s Puebla International Airport, the U.S. carrier said at the time.
Richard Buteau, owner of the Karibe Hotel in Petionville, Haiti, said the travel warning is affecting the country's tourism industry and is unfair to the Haitian people.
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Pantin said the latest reduction is part of a number of changes that have come into play at the beginning of August and throughout the fall. For example, there will be changes to Dominican-bound flights, with American reducing its five daily flights to Santo Domingo to four on Oct. 20. Other destinations in the country will also lose a flight each starting on Aug. 19.
The airline is also operating a reduced schedule to Cap-Haitien. Starting Sept. 4, American will operate four flights a week: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Then starting on Nov. 21, it will increase to five weekly with no flights on Wednesdays and Fridays, and will return back to daily service on Dec. 18, Pantin said.
“Changes are made after careful evaluation,” said Pantin, adding that American has been servicing Haiti for more than 45 years and “our goal is to minimize the impact to the smallest number of customers.”
Haiti travelers, however, don’t see it that way. The decision, they say, means that only those with deep pockets or part of American Airlines’ loyalty points program will be able to afford the steep prices that will ensue as a result of too little supply and high demand.
Guy Francois, Haiti’s former minister for Haitians living abroad, said American appears to be handing over the market to JetBlue, which has added flights out of Fort Lauderdale in addition to maintaining direct service from New York and Orlando.
Francois said last month he was forced to fly into Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic from Miami aboard American because the airline was charging $1,000 for a one-way fare to Port-au-Prince compared to $199 to Santo Domingo. The Dominican Republic and Haiti both share the same island of Hispaniola.
This week, Francois said, he was faced with a similar dilemma after one-way fares aboard American were between $1,200 and $1,600 because the two daily flights to Port-au-Prince were full.
“They knew demand would be up during the summer and they didn’t add a flight,” he said, noting that two extra flights were added on the Santo Domingo-Miami route.
As for the recent decision, he said, he’s baffled and said it’s not without consequences.
“I don’t see why they are reducing it to one flight,” Francois said “A lot of American Airlines customers have started to fly JetBlue now. They are going to allow JetBlue to take over the market.”
Coast Guard intercepts 146 Haitians at sea. But 90 more made it to the Turks and Caicos
AUGUST 14, 2019 02:14 PM, UPDATED AUGUST 16, 2019
- Haitian migrants intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard on the deck of the Cutter William Trump. BY
One Haitian freighter arrived in the Turks and Caicos on Saturday, ferrying at least 26 men and 11 women. Then on Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted another freighter at sea, this time with 146 people on board, including several children.
And on Monday, a third boat made landfall in the Turks and Caicos with 53 migrants aboard.
The unusual surge of 236 migrants coming from Haiti in recent days created enough alarm that the Turks and Caicos minister of immigration is threatening to shut down legal migration from Haiti to his British Overseas Territory.
“Enough is enough,” Immigration Minister Vaden Delroy Williams said Wednesday, noting that it may be time to consider “stopping the first-time work permits for Haitian nationals if this continues.”
“While I understand what’s going on in Haiti and what the Haitian people are experiencing there, we must protect the Turks and Caicos Islands for future generations.”
The territory, located 137 miles from Haiti’s north coast and 372 miles from Miami, has become a popular stepping stone for desperate Haitians trying to flee their nation’s economic and political turmoil. It is also one of the few islands in the Caribbean that offers legal migration from Haiti through a work-permit process.
Williams called on Haitian nationals living in the Turks and Caicos to discourage their families and friends from seeking entry by illegal vessels.
“This process will not work for you,” he said, directing his comments at Haitians illegally migrating. “If this continues, you will never be able to work or live peacefully or to become legal. We will find you, deport you and place you on the Stop List, so you will never be able to enter the TCI ever again. We will no longer allow individuals who break the law to come into these islands to become legal residents.”
On Wednesday, Williams said there are 119 individuals being housed in the islands’ detention center in Providenciales, the country’s main tourist hub. The center has a maximum capacity of 165 people. At least 90 of the individuals — all Haitians — arrived over the weekend after Turks and Caicos immigration and police officers discovered two wooden Haitian sloops, approximately 30 feet long each.
The first vessel arrived Saturday morning, and landed within the Malcolm Beach area of Providenciales. After a search of the area, officials found 37 Haitians, including 11 females.
Two days later on Monday, another vessel transporting 53 Haitians, including 12 females and a child, was intercepted by the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Marine Branch.
But that’s not all.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that it, too, had picked up Haitian migrants at sea: 146 of them traveling in a 40-foot sail freighter.
The Coast Guard said its William Trump cutter intercepted the boat with 120 men, 22 women and four children aboard on Sunday, about 69 miles north of Ile de la Tortue on Haiti’s northwest coast. The Trump (named after a World War II veteran and no relation to President Donald Trump) loaded the migrants onto the Coast Guard Cutter Resolute, which then took them back to Haiti on Tuesday.
That’s at least 236 Haitians who have attempted to flee their politically volatile nation in three days.
A Haitian-American activist who has helped more than 3,000 migrants since May talks about the tragic stories behind their treacherous journey.
“A strong message has to be sent to the Haitian immigrants who are coming here and to those who are helping them to come here and stay here,” said Williams.
He said he plans to meet with immigration enforcement officials and police so they can figure out how to find Haitians who illegally entered the island chain and were not apprehended.
“We simply cannot allow them to come here illegally, live here illegally and work here illegally. We have to find them and deal with them,” he said in a statement.
While the U.S. Coast Guard has returned its boatload of migrants, those apprehended in the Turks and Caicos remain in custody and will be repatriated back to Haiti.