What's Up Little Haiti

Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 5 mai 2021

Kidnappers release 6 Catholics, others

BY THE HAITIAN TIMES APR. 30, 2021

At least nine people kidnapped were set free separately on Thursday in Port-au-Prince, including the six remaining Catholics that “400 Mawozo” gang members took hostage earlier this month.

Reports did not mention whether a ransom was paid for any of the victims.

The Catholics, initially a group of 10, were kidnapped in Croix-des-Bouquets, a town six miles from Port-au-Prince April 11. One worshipper was released days later after the gang members received USD $50,000, according to local reports. The gang members set free three more worshippers a week ago without ransom.

The churchgoers included five priests, two nuns and three members of a priest’s family. One priest and one nun are of French nationality.

Also released Thursday are Youri Dérival, a psychology student, Marie Josette Malvoisin, a professor and Manuel Gaston Orival, a former police commissioner.

Orival was kidnapped on Tuesday in his home at Avenue Pouplard in Port-au-Prince. News of his release brought much relief and joy to his neighborhood. Source

US House Foreign Affairs Committee : « No elections under the current administration in Haiti will be free, fair, and credible »

26 avril 2021

Washington, D.C. – Today, Representatives Gregory W. Meeks, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, co-led a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken encouraging the United States to reassess its policies in Haiti.

The letter, signed by 68 members, including every Democrat on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee, calls on the Biden administration to withhold funding for the constitutional referendum proposed by Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and warns of the dangers of pushing forward with flawed elections later this year.

“Listen to the voices of Haitian civil society and grassroots organizations, who have been clear that no elections under the current administration in Haiti will be free, fair, and credible. The State Department should instead focus on the underlying democratic legitimacy issues identified by Haiti’s civil society and support a Haiti-led process for change. Elections held without meeting internationally accepted standards for participation and legitimacy will only further undermine faith in democratic governance, waste scarce resources and perpetuate a cycle of political instability and violence.”

The full text of the letter can be found here and below:

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write to express our serious and urgent concerns regarding the quickly deteriorating situation in Haiti. Although we appreciate your personal engagement with Haiti, and the State Department’s recent criticism of some of the unconstitutional actions by the administration of President Jovenel Moïse, we believe it is past time for a more significant review of U.S. policy in Haiti. We look forward to working with you to make this a reality.

We encourage you to support the sovereignty of the U.S.’s oldest neighbor in the hemisphere by reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the principles of democracy and rule of law. The Biden Administration inherited a multifaceted crisis (constitutional, human rights, economic, social) that the actions of the previous administration exacerbated. However, we must also recognize that the crisis of today did not start yesterday. For decades, the international community has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help Haiti achieve political stability and a representative democracy. In order to move forward more productively, we must acknowledge that these efforts have failed to achieve their desired results, and that continuing along the same path will only exacerbate the situation.

Nationwide unrest and political turmoil have increased significantly since 2018 and have brought about severe instability and political violence. In January 2020, the mandates of all but 10 members of the Haitian Parliament and all Haitian mayors were terminated due to delayed elections, leaving President Jovenel Moïse to run the country without any legislative oversight. He has since abused his rule by decree powers in direct violation of the Haitian Constitution.

As a result of the political instability, a crashing economy, lockdown from protests, and street gang violence, the Haitian federal government is failing to meet even the most basic needs of its citizens. The Moïse administration lacks the credibility and legitimacy to oversee a constitutional referendum scheduled for June 2021 or to administer elections that are free and fair. The proposed constitutional reform, which legal experts maintain is unconstitutional, would further concentrate executive power.

Parliamentary, local, and presidential elections set for Fall 2021 could increase the risk of violence throughout the country significantly. We are also concerned about inclusiveness of elections, lack of preparedness of electoral institutions to hold elections, as well as the unconstitutional composition of the provisional electoral council. Further, we are deeply concerned by the risk of gender-based violence against Haitian women and girls, as increased political violence and a weak legal system foster widespread impunity for heinous gender-based crimes.

Despite this alarming situation, the State Department has been insistent, both in public and in private briefings with members, that elections – now scheduled for later this year – are the only path forward. While elections will clearly be needed in the near future to restore democratic order, we remain deeply concerned that any electoral process held under the current administration will fail to be free, fair, or credible and that continued U.S. insistence on elections at all costs will only make this outcome more likely. President Barack Obama’s former Ambassador to Haiti, Pamela White, made clear during her testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March that legitimate elections are not possible in the current context. Witnesses from Haitian civil society agreed strenuously.

Considering these factors, we urge the State Department to:

Make clear that the U.S. will not provide any support, financial or technical, to facilitate the proposed constitutional referendum, including through multilateral institutions. We take note that, in briefings with members, Department of State officials have said they do not think moving forward with the referendum is appropriate. However, both the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations mission in Haiti (BINUH), have offered vocal support for the process. We urge the Department of State to use its voice and vote within these institutions to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are not spent in support of this referendum.
Listen to the voices of Haitian civil society and grassroots organizations, who have been clear that no elections under the current administration in Haiti will be free, fair, and credible. The State Department should instead focus on the underlying democratic legitimacy issues identified by Haiti’s civil society and support a Haiti-led process for change. Elections held without meeting internationally accepted standards for participation and legitimacy will only further undermine faith in democratic governance, waste scarce resources and perpetuate a cycle of political instability and violence.
Clearly identify and communicate to Congress what specific metrics you will use to evaluate whether Haiti’s elections will be free and fair, including a realistic timeline for achieving those necessary predicates.
Refrain from opining on constitutional interpretations in Haiti, specifically regarding the dispute over the mandate of Mr. Moïse. We note that myriad legal experts in Haiti, including the Federation of Haitian Bar Associations, and a broad cross-section of civil society have offered a different interpretation to that of the Department of State. Rather than taking sides in an internal political dispute, the U.S. must listen to and recognize all voices. It is the Haitian people who will determine the legitimacy of their leaders, and not any foreign government.
Promote the protection of human rights and the rule of law by enforcing Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on individuals credibly implicated in abuses. We take note of the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions on three individuals, including two former government officials, for their role in the La Saline massacre this past December. This positive development must be expanded upon further.
Combat corruption and impunity by tasking U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), to investigate compliance with U.S. tax laws on the part of Haitian politicians and private sector actors with interests in the U.S. Such an investigation should also look at the use of U.S. financial institutions in money laundering operations as well as the networks that traffic arms and drugs through Haiti.
Support the redesignation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian migrants living in the U.S. and put a temporary freeze on all Title 42 related expulsions to Haiti. We note that, amid the current political crisis, the Department of Homeland Security has expelled more than an estimated 1,500 individuals to Haiti just since early February, despite awareness that those returned to Haiti “may face harm.” It is vital that the U.S. comply with U.S. and international legal obligations and allow all migrants access to the asylum system.
Refocus and reform U.S. policy in Haiti through the appointment of a trusted and credible actor to serve as Special Representative for Haiti. Such a position could oversee a top-to-bottom review of U.S. foreign assistance, as well as work to bring disparate actors, both within Haiti but also within the international community, together with the view towards supporting a Haitian-led strategy of democratic development. A high-level appointment would not only open channels for communication within your Department but send a clear message about Haiti’s importance to you and to the rest of the Biden administration.
Hold high-level consultations with Haitian civil society and diaspora groups to hear their concerns and recommendations for a democratic path forward.

We thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to your response.

‘Descent into hell’: Kidnapping explosion terrorizes Haiti

A wave of kidnappings is sweeping Haiti. But even in a country growing inured to horrific abductions, the case of five-year-old Olslina Janneus sparked outrage.

Olslina was snatched off the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince in late January as she was playing. The child's corpse, bearing signs of strangulation, turned up a week later, according to her mother, Nadege Saint Hilaire, a peanut vendor who said she couldn't pay the $4,000 ransom. Saint Hilaire's cries filled the airwaves as she spoke to a few local radio stations seeking help raising funds to cover funeral costs.

Saint Hilaire is now in hiding after receiving death threats, she said, from the same gang that killed her daughter. "I wasn't supposed to go to the radio to denounce what had happened," she told Reuters.

Police in her impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhood, Martissant, told Reuters they were investigating the case.

Haiti’s epidemic of kidnappings is the latest crisis to befall this Caribbean island nation of around 11 million people, roiled by deepening political unrest and economic misery. Kidnappings last year tripled to 234 cases compared to 2019, according to official data compiled by the United Nations.

The real figures are likely much higher because many Haitians don't report abductions, fearing retribution from criminal gangs, according to attorney Gedeon Jean, director of the nonprofit Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research in Port-au-Prince. He said the research center recorded 796 kidnappings last year.

Haiti's national police force did not respond to a request for comment. President Jovenel Moise has said repeatedly that his government is doing all it can, and has put more resources into anti-kidnapping efforts. Still, he publicly acknowledged on April 14 that “kidnappings have become generalized” and that efforts to combat persistent insecurity have been "ineffective."

Human rights activists and a new report from Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic allege that Moise’s government has allied itself with violent criminal gangs to maintain its grip on power and to suppress dissent. Opposition groups have called for Moise to resign and hand power to a transitional government that would delay presidential and legislative elections slated for September until the nation is stable enough to ensure a free and fair contest.

Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph denied those allegations and the report's findings. He said anti-democratic forces are whipping up violence to destabilize Moise's administration in an election year. “They are fomenting the gangs to stop there being elections,” Joseph told Reuters.

Criminals have targeted some poor people, like Saint Hilaire, for modest sums. Many more victims come from the ranks of the Haitian middle class - teachers, priests, civil servants, small business owners. Such targets aren't rich enough to afford bodyguards but have enough assets or connections to scrape up a ransom.

In one of the most high-profile recent cases, five Catholic priests, two nuns and three laymen were kidnapped on April 11 in the commune of Croix-des-Bouquets, northeast of the capital. Four members of the group were subsequently released and six are still missing, according to an April 25 statement by the Society of Priests of St. Jacques, a French missionary society linked to four of the kidnapped priests. An official with that group declined to comment on whether a ransom was paid.

“For some time now, we have been witnessing the descent into hell of Haitian society,” the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince said in a statement earlier this month.

‘KILLING THE ECONOMY’

Haiti last experienced a major surge in kidnappings and gang violence after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, prompting the United Nations to send in a peacekeeping force.

The departure of that force in October 2019 was followed by a resurgence in gang crime, according to human-rights activists, who say kidnapping has proven lucrative at a time when Haiti's economy is teetering.

Rights activists say politics also play a role. They allege Moise’s government has harnessed criminal groups to terrorize neighborhoods known as opposition strongholds and to quell public dissent amid street protests that have rocked the country the past three years.

The report released April 22 by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School alleges “high-level government involvement in the planning, execution and cover-up” of three gang-led attacks on poor neighborhoods between 2018 and 2020 that left at least 240 civilians dead. The report relied on investigations of the attacks by Haitian and international human rights experts. It alleges the government provided gangs with money, weapons and vehicles and shielded them from prosecution.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury in December sanctioned reputed Haitian gang leader Jimmy Cherizier and two former Moise administration officials - Fednel Monchery and Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan - for helping orchestrate one of the attacks. All three have denied wrongdoing.

Kidnapping is an outgrowth of impunity for criminal organizations, according to Rosy Auguste Ducena, program manager of the Port-au-Prince-based National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.

"We are talking about a regime that has allied itself with armed gangs," Ducena said.

Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent denied any government alliance with gangs. He told Reuters in December that the wave of kidnappings was the work of political enemies seeking to undermine Moise "by creating a sense of chaos."

The rise in kidnappings has petrified many Haitians. The heads of seven private business associations this month issued a joint statement saying they had reached "a saturation point" with soaring crime. They endorsed a nationwide work stoppage that occurred on April 15 to protest Haiti’s security crisis.

"Kidnapping is killing the economy," said Haitian economist Etzer Emile. He said the tourism and entertainment sectors have withered.

Moise's administration says it is working hard to end the terror. Two years ago it revived a commission aimed at disarming gang members and reintegrating them into society. Over the past year, the government has increased the police budget and solicited advice from Colombia, which once battled its own kidnapping epidemic. In March, Haiti created an anti-kidnapping task force to attack the problem with tactics such as tracing laundered ransom money.

Still, four policemen died last month in a gun battle with alleged criminals in a slum where kidnapping victims are often held. The government declared a month-long state of emergency in gang-controlled neighborhoods. Yet abductions continue to mount.

Moise, who has opted not to seek re-election this September, has defied the opposition's calls for him to step down early. On April 14 he issued a statement saying he aimed to form a government of national unity to better tackle the "pressing problem of insecurity."

HOODS, GUNS AND TORTURE

Many Haitians remain skeptical - and on edge.

One victim was a 29-year-old doctor. He was kidnapped in his own vehicle last November after leaving the Port-au-Prince hospital where he had just finished an overnight shift. He told Reuters his story on condition of anonymity.

At dawn, four armed assailants hustled him into the back seat, threw a hood over his head and held him at gunpoint as they drove, he said. His captors eventually tossed him into a room with three other abductees - a man and two women - who had been snatched earlier.

The physician said his kidnappers ordered him to phone his family to request $500,000 for his release. The first two people he tried said they couldn’t pay. The kidnappers slapped him and delivered a threat.

"They said that if I called a third person that didn't give me a satisfying response, they would kill me," he said.

The doctor's girlfriend said she and three friends negotiated with the gang. She wouldn't say how much they paid, fearful of becoming targets for other criminals.

The doctor said he reported his abduction to Haiti's national anti-kidnapping police unit. That unit did not respond to requests for comment.

The physician does not know the fate of his fellow abductees. He said the kidnappers poured melted Styrofoam on their skin because their families had yet to pay up.

Saint Hilaire, the mother of the young girl who was kidnapped and murdered, said she continues to watch her back after speaking publicly about the abduction.

The kidnappers “told me to make sure I never ran into them, because they would kill me,” she said.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 29 avril 2021

PHTK, Moise’s political party, opposes upcoming referendum

Liné Balthazar, president of the PHTK, said the political party rejects the constitutional referendum planned for June 27.

Balthazar said logistically, the process will be a fiasco, that the draft Constitution is a reproduction of an authoritarian model and that no consensus has been reached. Several other political parties have also opposed the referendum, which Haiti president Jovenel Moïse has organized.

The PHTK is the political party that brought Moïse to power in 2016. It is unclear what the party’s stance may mean for Moïse’s standing in the party.

Haiti’s Catholic Church begins speaking out amid swirling crises

Agence France-Presse

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Might the Catholic Church help chart a way out of the multiple crises facing Haiti?

By openly criticizing governmental “inaction” and demonstrating last week its capacity for wide-scale mobilization, the church has made clear it plans to take a more direct role in addressing the daunting challenges facing this small Caribbean island.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is grappling with multiple crises including out-of-control gang violence and months of political instability.

In recent days, Haiti’s Catholic Church has found itself thrust into the spotlight over the still-unresolved abduction of 10 people, including seven Catholic clergy.

The shocking kidnapping on April 11 sent shock waves across the island and beyond.

It was the final straw for many increasingly exasperated Haitians, forcing Jovenel Moise, the country’s widely criticized president, to announce on Wednesday a reshuffling of the government.

Official ‘impotence’

“The Catholic Church can help bring about change. The country needs it,” said Andre Michel, a member of the opposition.

Catholicism is the dominant religion in Haiti.

The church “enjoys great confidence among the majority of the population,” said Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois, in an exclusive interview with AFP a few days after Moise named Claude Joseph as the new prime minister.

In difficult moments, the cardinal said, people expect “a word from the Catholic Church,” as it stands with them “in the most abandoned and remote parts of the country.”

Denouncing the “impotence” of the authorities in the face of a troubling spike in kidnappings, Langlois said an effective means had to be found to “stem this crisis.”

While emphasizing that church officials are “not in a position for now to play the role of mediator,” Langlois — the first Haitian cardinal — said he was weighing “other means to help find a solution to a crisis that has gone on too long.”

In 2014, at a time of high tension, the cardinal took part in talks between the executive branch and political parties.

On Thursday, the church, joined by many businesses and schools, observed a work stoppage to demand the liberation of the hostages — among them five Haitian clergy members, and a French priest and a nun — bringing economic activity to a standstill.

Catholic masses have quickly been transformed into a protest movement against the authorities.

By launching this national movement, the Catholic Church has proved “its importance in a country with a strong religious tradition,” said Reginald Boulos, a businessman and political figure who sees the church as “a moral force.”

‘Descent into hell’

On Monday, the archdiocese of Port-au-Prince issued a statement deploring “the descent into hell of Haitian society” and denouncing as unprecedented the “violence of armed gangs.”

It added that the “public authorities” were not “immune from suspicion.”

This more direct approach by Catholic officials “may offer some hope of resolving this crisis,” said sociologist Auguste D’Meza. But he added that the church alone “is not strong enough to play an important role in this transition.”

The church hierarchy in Haiti has long been dominated by French priests. In the 1950s they engaged in a power struggle with Haiti’s former “president for life,” Francois Duvalier.

“Papa Doc” Duvalier had revived the island’s voodoo traditions as part of a fierce assault on Haitian Catholicism, finally obtaining from the Vatican the power to name the Catholic hierarchy, helping to consolidate his authoritarian regime.

That opened an era of church subordination to the state, which continued during the reign of his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as “Baby Doc.”

But under Pope John-Paul II, the Catholic Church sided with the forces of change that eventually led to the downfall of the Duvalier dynasty.

So with its recent criticism, the church has returned to the more forthcoming attitude of the early 1980s, D’Meza said.

0670/haitis-catholic-church-begins-speaking-out-amid-swirling-crises

Kidnappers release all but two captives

All but two of the 10 people kidnapped on April 11 have been released. The last two captives are a French nun and a French priest - abducted in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets.

The attack happened when the Catholic clergy were on their way to the installation of a new parish priest.

A police source told AFP that a gang calling itself 400 Mazowo was most probably behind the abduction.

Kidnappings have surged in Haiti, with the Catholic Church describing the situation as "a descent into hell".

Roman Catholic institutions including schools and universities closed Wednesday across Haiti in a three-day protest to demand the release of five priests, two nuns and three other people kidnapped more than a week ago amid a spike in violence that the government is struggling to control.

Catholic officials also organized Masses to pray for those kidnapped — at least two of whom are French — as they tolled the bells at noon at St. Pierre church in Pétionville, where hundreds gathered to show their support.

“No one is safe,” said 65-year-old Margaret Jean Louis. “I’m hoping the people kidnapped will make it out safely.”

The April 11 kidnapping of the priests, nuns and three relatives of one of the priests in the capital of Port-au-Prince is one of the most shocking recent abductions in Haiti, which saw a 200% increase in kidnappings last year, according to the United Nations.

Those kidnapped were identified as nuns Anne-Marie Dorcelus and Agnès Bordeau, priests Michel Briand, Evens Joseph, Jean-Nicaise Millien, Joël Thomas and Hugues Baptiste and three relatives of another priest. Briand was identified as French.

Critics Say The U.S. Isn't Doing Enough To Help Haiti With Its Deteriorating Security

Carrie Kahn

NPR

Heavily armed gangs are fueling a crippling spasm of crime in Haiti. Kidnappings have more than tripled in the last year. Five priests and two nuns are among those most recently abducted, sparking protests by the Catholic Church on the Caribbean island. Critics charge the U.S. is not doing enough to find a solution out of Haiti's current crisis.

Bells in churches across Haiti rang out at noon as an act of protest. Catholic leaders have closed all their schools and other businesses for three days.

But pews are full with parishioners praying for peace in the capital. Smith Silvera was one of the faithful who came to a recent Mass. "They may kill me today, but nobody can live in this situation anymore," said Silvera. "We must have liberation and freedom for all."

Gangs have taken control of many areas of Port-au-Prince, unleashing a spate of brazen kidnappings and attacks that has shocked Haitians, even those accustomed to the country's high crime rate. This month, armed gunmen burst into a church, snatching the pastor and three other people during a Mass streaming over the Internet; the director of an orphanage says gang members broke in, sexually assaulting two girls; and seven Catholic officials, two of whom are French, were abducted nearly two weeks ago. Their kidnappers demand a million-dollar ransom.

Kesnar Pharnel is an economic consultant and radio host in Port-au-Prince. “Difficult is an understatement in Haiti right now,” he said. “Because people - we are so desperate. We don't know what's going on. We are living under a very stressful situation right now in Haiti.”

Haiti's spiraling violence and continual political turmoil have left the economy in shambles. The U.N. has warned that more than 4.4 million Haitians don't have enough food. Opponents want current president Jovenel Moise out. They insist his term ended in February, but Moise says he still has another year because he started his term late. The U.S. has backed that claim. Moise says the way out of this crisis is through a referendum this June on a new constitution. Velina Elysee Charlier, an activist in Haiti, says that constitution would just give him more powers.

“Not only is it illegal, but it has no credibility, no trust from us the people,” said Charlier. She added that Moise's attempt to reform the constitution is a clear power grab. “We do not have a constitution problem in Haiti. We have an impunity and corruption problem in Haiti.

The country is not capable of holding credible elections anytime soon, says political science professor at the University of Virginia, Robert Fatton. “The idea of having elections at this time, you know, is absolutely crazy. You can't have elections given the conditions in Haiti.”

Opponents want a transitional government to take over. It's unclear what the Biden administration is going to do. For now, it backs Moise. Fulton Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America, says that's a mistake.

“We dash over to the person that promised us the greatest stability, that promises the most expedient solution rather than the solution that's going to lead to a better outcome over the longer term,” he said.

Observers warn of a migrant crisis if conditions don't improve soon. This week, two boats packed with nearly 400 Haitians were intercepted off waters north of the island.

Saint-Fleur sworn in as council member in Miami Shores, first Haitian-American

BY ONZ CHERY APR. 22, 2021

More by Onz Chery

Katia Saint-Fleur, Miami Shores' first ever Haitian-American council member. Katia Saint-Fleur's Facebook Images

Katia Saint-Fleur highlighted her Haitian-American immigrant roots in a speechafter she was sworn in as a council member in Miami Shores Tuesday.

“To be able to live in a country where you can be the daughter of immigrant parents who worked as hard as my parents have worked, to live in a community you dreamed of living in as a child and now to represent that community as a council member is something that I will never forget,” Saint-Fleur said during the ceremony at Miami Shores Village Community Center.

Saint-Fleur said she will also never forget how the Miami Shores residents rooted for her and trusted her.

Miami Shores has about 10,000 residents with 14 percent of them being Black and 70 percent white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The village is about two miles from Little Haiti.

Four candidates ran to fill three seats on the Miami Shores’ five-member council. Saint-Fleur finished third in the voting, accumulating 1,037 votes, just 22 votes more than the fourth-place runner, Jonathan Meltz.

The top two vote-getters became mayor and vice-mayor. Sandra Harris, who received the most votes, became Mayor of Miami Shores. She is the second Black woman to be in that role. Daniel Marinberg finished second to be elected as vice-mayor.

Mayor Harris and Marinberg will serve a four-year term while Saint-Fleur will be in office for two years.

Before becoming a councilwoman, Saint-Fleur was the legislative aide of Oscar Braynon, a former member of the Florida senate. She was also the principal at KSF & Associates, a firm that specializes in helping non-profit enterprises with the state legislative process.

Saint-Fleur vowed to go above and beyond in her new role as councilwoman.

“I will wake up every day and give a thousand percent of myself to make every one of you proud,” Saint-Fleur said. “This village is beautiful. Our goal I believe―I’ve met and spoken to everyone [in the council]―is to sustain that beauty.”

Report Finds Haitian Government Complicit in Crimes Against Humanity

April 22, 2021

Haitian human rights coalition, Harvard clinic release new analysis of state-sanctioned massacres

(April 22, 2021, Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Cambridge, MA) — Three deadly massacres targeting impoverished neighborhoods in Haiti were carried out with Haitian government support and amount to crimes against humanity, according to a report released today by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the Observatoire Haïtien des Crimes contre l’humanité (OHCCH). The report points to evidence that the gang-led attacks were resourced and supported by state actors, ranging from high-ranking officials in the Moïse administration to the Haitian National Police.

The report, “Killing with Impunity: State-Sanctioned Massacres in Haiti,” analyzes three attacks that took place between 2018-2020, which have together killed at least 240 civilians. The massacres targeted the Port-au-Prince neighborhoods of La Saline, Bel-Air, and Cité Soleil, which have played a leading role in organizing protests demanding government accountability for corruption and other human rights violations.

“Moïse’s government has been pushing the story that the attacks are merely gang infighting, but the evidence demonstrates high-level government involvement in the planning, execution and cover-up of the attacks,” said Mario Joseph, Managing Attorney of Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, a member organization of OHCCH.

The report relies on investigations by Haitian and international human rights experts that show that senior Moïse administration officials planned the attacks or otherwise assisted by providing the gangs with money, weapons, or vehicles. Off-duty police officers and resources were utilized to carry out the attacks. The Haitian National Police repeatedly failed to intervene to protect civilians despite the sites of the attacks being in close proximity to multiple police stations. In each attack, gangs arrived in the targeted neighborhood, shot at residents indiscriminately, raped women, and burnt and looted houses. The massacres repeatedly involved gangs affiliated with the G9 alliance led by Jimmy Chérizier, which reportedly enjoys government connections.

“We found that Moïse’s failure to stop or respond to attacks initiated by his subordinates may make the President himself liable for crimes against humanity,” said Beatrice Lindstrom, a Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Clinic who supervised the research and drafting of the report. “This should serve as a wake-up call to the international community to stand up for human rights, fully investigate allegations of serious abuses, and do its part to hold perpetrators accountable,” she added.

The report comes amidst a deepening crisis for democracy and human rights in Haiti. Widespread demonstrations have gripped the nation, with large swaths of the population protesting government corruption, rising insecurity, and Moise’s increasingly authoritarian conduct. Notably, to repress dissent, Moise has criminalized common forms of protest and created an intelligence agency to provide surveillance of the political opposition. Attacks against civilians, including the assassination of prominent government critics, have largely been carried out with impunity. Although most experts and much of civil society agree that President Moïse’s constitutional mandate ended on February 7, 2021, he has refused to step down, insisting that an illegal constitutional referendum take place before elections for his replacement.

The finding that the attacks amount to crimes against humanity strengthens the prospects for accountability. In addition to imposing an international obligation on the Haitian government to prosecute the people responsible, it opens the door to prosecutions in national and international courts outside of Haiti. It also means that perpetrators can be pursued indefinitely as no statutes of limitations apply.

“Just like Haiti’s former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier eventually had to stand trial for his brutal repression decades after he left office, the perpetrators of today’s massacres can no longer escape justice by relying on statutes of limitations,” Joseph added.

The UN has raised alarm that the ongoing lack of accountability for massacres has fostered an enabling environment for further carnage. Yet another attack on Bel-Air earlier this month bore striking similarities to the massacres analysed in the report.

“The attacks covered in the report are particularly severe and well-documented, but they are part of a widespread, systematic campaign of violence and intimidation of political dissidents,” said Pierre Esperance, Executive Director of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), an OHCCH member that has led independent investigations into repeated attacks on impoverished neighborhoods. RNDDH has documented at least 11 massacres over the course of Moise’s presidency.

The report relies on evidence collected by a range of Haitian and international actors over the last few years and analyzes it under international criminal law. Harvard Law School students Joey Bui JD’21 and Nathalie Gunasekera JD’21 led the research and drafting of the report under Lindstrom’s supervision.

Read the report in English, French, and Haitian Creole.

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Contact:

International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School

Beatrice Lindstrom, Clinical Instructor
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Observatoire Haïtien des crimes contre l’humanité

Mario Joseph, Managing Attorney, Bureau des Advocats Internationaux
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Hérold Jean-François, Journalist
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About the Observatoire Haïtien des crimes contre l’humanité (OHCCH): OHCCH is a consortium of Haitian civil society organizations and prominent leaders that came together in October 2020 with a mission of monitoring human rights violations in Haiti that may amount to crimes against humanity. Members include the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH) and individual civil society leaders and prominent lawyers.

About the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School: The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School works to protect the human rights of clients and communities around the world. Through supervised practice, students learn the responsibilities and skills of human rights lawyering. Learn more at http://hrp.law.harvard.edu/. Follow the Clinic on social media: Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School on Facebook, @HarvardLawHRP on Twitter, and humanrightsharvardlaw on Instagram.

Cash-strapped Haiti has an image problem. The government is spending thousands to fix it

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April 20, 2021

More than 4.4 million are facing a hunger crisis. Inflation remains in the double digits and poverty is rising.

But none of that is stopping Haiti’s cash-strapped government from digging into its meager coffers to pay expensive U.S. lobbyists to help its embattled president, who is increasingly facing criticism from members of Congress and calls from Haitians to step down.

In the last month, the impoverished nation has added at least four new high-powered members to its lobbying team in the United States, according to foreign registration filings with the U.S. Justice Department. The new hires include a former U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, a former chief of staff at the Organization of American States and two influential Democratic donors.

It’s all part of President Jovenel Moïse’s effort to get positive international press as detractors accuse him of trying to install a dictatorship with autocratic policies and a push to change the country’s constitution through a controversial June 27 referendum that Haitian legal experts say is illegal.

The government’s spending on lobbyists comes as domestic revenues are down, public spending is up and the country’s budget deficit is growing at an alarming rate, according to information provided by economists during a recent international summit on Haiti’s finances and economy. Meanwhile, the United Nations recently announced that it was looking for $235 million for 1.5 million Haitians facing food insecurity, which leaves another 2.9 million people still uncovered by the country’s national budget.

“I find it doubly tragic that money is being spent to support American lobbyists who use political access to get things done and taking the food out of the mouths of hungry Haitians. But two, the whole purpose is to circumvent democratic process,” said Fulton Armstrong, a Haiti expert and senior faculty fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University.

Records show that the Haitian government contracts amount to at least $804,000 a year in lobbying fees. The actual amount, however, is much higher. One of the firms, Mercury Public Affairs, routes its Haiti contract through Mercury International UK Ltd office, according to the firm’s disclosure, and it is unclear what the total contract is worth because it has not been disclosed publicly.

On the other side of the lobbying efforts to counter the government’s message are the Estopinan Group LLC, run by Art Estopinan, a former chief of staff to Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. The firm is representing businessman Dr. Reginald Boulos, who has emerged as a vocal critic of Moïse.

“Our focus has been on the deteriorating human rights situation in Haiti with all of the kidnappings and the violence that have been breaking the country apart,” said Estopinan, who worked for Ros-Lehtinen for 27 years.

Most of the Haitian government’s contracts list the nation’s embassy in Washington and its ambassador, Bocchit Edmond, as the contractors. The contracts are tied to a larger pool of dollars being spent by the Haitian government on billboards and banners touting a controversial June constitutional referendum, trips by ministers and members of the provisional electoral council to support and explain the initiative, and citizen outreach at home and abroad.

“Events in Washington have wide repercussions, especially for small, insular states facing tremendous challenges,” Edmond said. “At present, our country is dealing with serious security issues that require pursuing all avenues to obtain assistance. National security is a costly business, for all states.”

He added that with the U.S. concentrating on its own issues, vulnerable countries like Haiti must find ways to get their voices heard in the corridors of power.

“Haiti is by no means the only country that is working very hard to reach influential policy makers in Congress and in the new administration, which is concentrating on internal issues,” Edmond said. “We are working hard to enlist Haiti’s friends, in all corridors of power, to help broker a solution to the political impasse at home.”

Many Haitians and some members of Congress are calling on the Biden administration to take a tougher stance on Moïse, amid concerns about corruption and human rights violations as Haiti becomes enveloped in a deadly crime wave, political chaos and a bitter constitutional crisis.

Haitians demonstrate during a protest to denounce the draft constitutional referendum carried by the President Jovenel Moise on March 28, 2021, in Port-au-Prince. VALERIE BAERISWYL AFP via Getty Images

Moïse’s detractors say they no longer recognize him as president because his terms ended on Feb. 7, and contend that no credible, fair or transparent elections can be held this year because the electoral commission unilaterally appointed by him lacks legitimacy and credibility. They have been advocating instead for a transitional government, a view shared by some U.S. lawmakers.

Moïse, who has been ruling by decree for the past 15 months, has pushed back. Refusing calls to step down, he has declared that his term ends in February 2022, a view shared by the Biden administration and pushed by lobbyists in press releases, opinion pieces and meetings.

Last month influential Democratic donor Ralph Patino registered his Coral Gables law firm, Patino and Associates, as lobbying on behalf of the Haitian government. Patino is a Democratic fundraiser who helped with Hispanic outreach on behalf of President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. In his firm’s U.S. government filing, Patino said he was contracted for $37,000 a month by the Haitian government.

Patino and Edmond signed a contract in late February and the firm began representing Haiti on March 4. It explained that its role is to consult and provide strategic advice to the Haitian Embassy to consolidate a positive relationship with the U.S.

Patino’s monthly fee is more than most U.S. municipalities pay for Washington lobbyists. According to the documents, the Haitian government was expected to pay $74,000 in advance for March and April to the firm.

To help with the Haiti account, Patino has brought on former U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James Walter Brewster Jr. In his filing, Brewster listed himself as a part-time consultant and said he would be paid $15,300. It is unclear if that is monthly. Brewster could not be reached and Patino said his firm doesn’t comment on clients’ contracts. .

In addition to Patino and Brewster, two other influential lobbyists were also tapped by Miami-based Latin America Advisory Group, which signed a contract last year with the Haitian government. The firm increased its monthly fee from $8,000 to $25,000 a month after extending its contract through January 2022.

Latin America Advisory Group has brought on Carlos Suarez, a partner at Continental Strategy of Coral Gables, and Los Angeles-based Democratic fundraiser and celebrity adviser Ronald Eric Baldwin to assist with lobbying efforts on behalf of Haiti, according to filings.

Suarez said his role is limited. He’s using his contacts, he said, to ensure that free and fair elections take place in Haiti and “to make sure that accurate information is being delivered and not hearsay.”

Baldwin, who served as executive director for almost four years in Port-au-Prince for actor Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization after the devastating 2010 earthquake, said he decided to get involved in Haiti after watching the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on March 12 about the country’s ongoing crisis.

“The way that it was presented just felt very incomplete at best,” Baldwin said. “I’m not a professional lobbyist. My connection to Haiti is pretty personal.”

Suarez is a former acting assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He and Baldwin are each getting paid $7,000 a month. Suarez formerly served as chief of staff to former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States Carlos Trujillo, who also is his partner at the firm and not involved in the account.

Damian Merlo, the founder of Latin America Advisory Group, said he decided to augment his team with Suarez and Baldwin because of their knowledge of the country.

“I’ve worked in Haiti for nearly 10 years...and was part of Moïse’s campaign team, and am working to better inform U.S. policymakers on the situation in Haiti and to work toward a much needed constitutional referendum and even more important presidential, legislative and local elections,” said Merlo, confirming that Trujillo is not involved in the account.

Also on the Haiti account is the global public relations firm Mercury Public Affairs.

Haiti first turned to Mercury in 2018 after it was reported that President Donald Trump described the country as a “shithole” during a White House meeting. Mercury was hired to manage the country’s “print, television, radio and digital media presence by crafting their narrative,” according to its filing at the time.

That year, Mercury LLC registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as representing the president of Haiti. Vanessa Lamothe, Haiti’s then ambassador to France and cousin of its former prime minister, was listed as the contact for the firm to provide media relations services for the president of Haiti.

The arrangement with Mercury has been difficult to track, although in 2019 it listed $312,935 in fees billed to the Embassy of Haiti in Washington as of May 31. Though one of its principal lobbyists on the Haiti contract is former Democratic lawmaker Joe Garcia, payments are made through Mercury’s U.K. office. In its February 2018 registration it listed at the time, a project fee of $10,000 and said it would be paid on a month-to-month basis after December.

Neither Garcia nor Mercury’s vice president responded to a request for comment.

Also with a government lobbying contract is Johanna LeBlanc. In a March 2019 filing, LeBlanc said she was being paid $5,000 a month to interact with “U.S. government officials and public entities in order to promote the interests of the State of Haiti and its citizens in the United States.”

LeBlanc did not respond to either a text or email seeking comment.

Armstrong, the Haiti expert, said when it comes to U.S. foreign policy toward the troubled Caribbean nation, the Biden administration is seemingly reluctant to come up with a new strategy. In that context, the Haitian government’s lobbying efforts just may work.

“You have an administration that is not well-informed, not well-engaged; doesn’t have any senior officials with Haiti experience, doesn’t have a senior assistant secretary of state for Latin America and the acting doesn’t know these issues,” he said.

Miami Herald/McClatchy DC Bureau reporter Alex Daugherty contributed to this report.

Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 13 avril 2021

Haiti wants to ‘change the narrative’ about the country. OK, start with COVID vaccines | Editorial

BY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD

APRIL 09, 2021 01:30 PM, UPDATED 2 HOURS 27 MINUTES AGO

Haiti is already plagued by enough issues. Deep political turmoil. Extreme poverty. Armed gangs terrorizing people. A wave of kidnappings for ransom.

And now, this: Not a single COVID vaccine has been administered in the country.

Five weeks after other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have started receiving vaccines through COVAX, a group backed by the World Health Organization, Haiti still hasn’t gotten any.

There are a few reasons, according to an April 9 Miami Herald story: the lack of a sufficient health infrastructure, not enough planning, logistical delays and concerns about the safety of AstraZeneca vaccines, which have faced setbacks in the United Kingdom and European Union after blood-clotting worries.

But the result is that a country of about 11 million people hasn’t even begun vaccinating its population.

So far, Haiti appears to have been lucky. The country allowed the three-day Carnival celebration to go on in February this year, even though the pre-Lenten celebration was barred in other countries across the region because of the pandemic. Many residents still do not wear masks.

Yet the country’s official COVID-19 numbers have been remarkably low.

Haiti’s foreign minister, Claude Joseph, told the Editorial Board there have been about 300 deaths. The number WHO cites is even lower: 252 confirmed deaths, with about 12,800 infections.

In a country with scarce medical facilities, those numbers are probably far from accurate, but, even so, it seems that Haiti has not been a hotspot of infection.

That is truly a blessing in a country that needs every blessing it can get.

And it’s going to need more than luck. If there is one thing we have learned in a year of pandemic, it’s that the virus isn’t easily defeated. It’s mutating, and some of those variants are more contagious and may cause more severe disease.

Cost isn’t a factor. Haiti is among 10 countries in the Americas that will receive vaccines free through COVAX.

The responsible thing for Haiti to do is get vaccines into as many arms as possible — quickly — so infections don’t suddenly blow up. Even in Florida, where 3.7 million people are now fully vaccinated, public-health experts are keeping a careful eye on the rising number of infections after spring break.

Joseph, the foreign minister, told the Board that Haiti wants to recast the prevailing narrative about the country, starting with free, fair and safe elections this year. President Jovenel Moïse has been ruling by decree for more than a year.

A peaceful and speedy transfer of power would certainly go a long way toward changing Haiti’s image.

But elections are still months off. Vaccines are available now. It’s time for the government to be open and honest about the reasons Haitians still don’t have access to them. It’s time to get vulnerable people vaccinated.

The Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, the WHO’s Americas branch, told Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles that Haiti and the international community are working hard to get vaccines there as soon as possible. Good to hear.

We understand the Haitian government has many problems to solve. But a lack of vaccines doesn’t have to be one of them. If Haiti wants to change its narrative, it needs to tell its citizens — and the international community — why it hasn’t begun vaccinating its citizens against the terrible scourge of COVID-19.

Joseph said that “2021 is a crucial year for Haiti.” We couldn’t agree more. Getting vaccines to the people now is the perfect place to start — and it’s already overdue.

Gang attack in Haiti neighborhood leaves bodies, homes charred

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April 02, 2021

They arrived unannounced, brandishing heavy artillery as they scaled the rooftops of houses, firing shots and setting homes ablaze.

While some residents managed to escape amid the billows of black smoke and tear gas, others became trapped and died inside their burning houses. The Thursday assault on residents inside the poor, pro-opposition neighborhood of Bel Air in Haiti’s capital was the third large attack in less than two years.

It occurred within walking distance of Haiti’s presidential palace and was perpetrated by gang members affiliated with Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a fired policeman-turned-powerful gang chief who is wanted in several massacres, including the slaughter of dozens of men, women and children in a 2018 attack in Port-au-Prince’s La Saline slum.

Chérizier, who is also accused of being behind a November 2019 attack in Bel Air, called a press conference Friday where he assumed responsibility for the latest assault, casting it as a response to attacks committed against his powerful gang alliance known as G-9 and Family and Allies.

“Everyone knows that once there is an action, there will be a reaction,” said Chérizier, claiming that six of his members were killed during Thursday’s incident before rattling off their names.

In December, Chérizier and two former Haitian government officials were sanctioned by the United States for the La Saline massacre. Despite the sanction and his being wanted by the Haiti National Police, he continues to walk free.

On Friday, as the gunshots resumed and fleeing residents prepared to spend another night exposed to the elements on the sprawling Champ de Mars public plaza outside the presidential palace, it was still unclear how many had been killed or injured, and how many homes had been torched.

“We know that there were a lot, a lot of people who were forced to abandon the area,” said Pierre Esperance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, one of several groups investigating the bloody assault. “There are people who were injured, houses that were burned down, but it’s difficult right now to have a tally.”

Marie Yolene Gilles, who runs Fondasyon Je Klere, or Eyes Wide Open Foundation, said getting into the community remained impossible. Her initial investigation revealed that some residents had been burned while still inside their homes.

“It’s not prudent for people to go in there,” Gilles said, adding she could hear the shots all the way across the capital shortly after 6:30 p.m.

Gilles and Esperance, along with a community leader, said the attack had nothing to do with gang infighting. They all said it was to break the resistance of Bel Air, which is considered an opposition stronghold, and to prevent residents from taking to the streets in anti-government protests, which have increased in recent weeks.

“The attack in Bel Air is a repeat of a series of attacks by gangs close to the power in place that have been done against Bel Air. They want ... to take control of Bel Air and prevent those who are resisting the government from doing so,” Gilles said.

The attack is also the result of the impunity that Chérizier and his fellow gang members have come to enjoy under the administration of President Jovenel Moïse, Gilles added. “They have never pursued them, they have never arrested them, they have never judged them for the crimes they have committed and they have never condemned them.”

During his press conference Chérizier defended himself against charges of human-rights abuses while also lashing out at journalists, members of Haiti’s opposition and the business sector, which he said was not interested in seeing change in Haiti. He said if one member of the alliance is attacked, then all are attacked.

Chérizier also pushed back against allegations that he and his federation of gangs wanted to take control of Bel Air for the Moïse government. He accused Haiti’s opposition of supplying guns and cash to Bel Air so residents could attack his alliance. Human rights groups have accused the government of doing the same with Chérizier and his alliance, which have been accused of being behind Haiti’s widening insecurity and alarming spike in kidnappings.

“We are not into fighting among us, we are not into kidnapping,” Chérizier said. “We made peace so that we could finish with the fighting in the ghettos. It’s because we made peace to end the fighting in the ghetto, it’s the reason why there are some... who to have political capital, are trying to destabilize G-9.

“What happened in Bel Air has nothing to do with fighting for territory, to take control of Bel Air and that’s why we attacked Bel Air,” he said, before fielding questions from journalists.

Two residents who spoke to the Herald on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said Thursday’s attack had been escalating for several days and came to a head when the armed men invaded the community. Both residents had their homes torched.

“They attacked us, they set houses on fire, it wasn’t just a little damage that was done in Bel Air,” said a mother of two.

The woman said her sister was forced to run during the incident when a gang member grabbed her, threatened to rape her and the woman responded she’d rather be killed instead. “The gun got stuck and my sister ran,” said the woman, describing how the gang member tried to shoot her sister.

She refuted claims that Thursday’s assault was the result of an attack against the G-9 alliance.

“We are not involved in anything, we practically don’t go out, even to the protests,” she said. “Since the 31st of August, they started attacking us. I don’t know why.”’

A spokesperson for Haiti’s National Police did not respond to a Miami Herald request for comment. Last year, the United Nations issued a report focused on a three-day outbreak of gang violence in Bel Air on Nov. 4-6, 2019. U.N. investigators accused Haitian police of failing to protect residents from corrupt officers and gang leaders.

At least three people died in the violence while six others were injured and 30 families were left homeless after their houses were set on fire, the U.N. said. Investigators also noted that the attacks also allegedly involved three active members of the Haiti National Police.

The U.N. accused Chérizier of being behind the attack, even though he denied involvement while offering to compensate victims who lost their homes.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article250400641.html

“Poor Rich Haiti”: How Imperialists and Local Oligarchy Have Sought to Destroy Haitian Agriculture

From Haiti, Lautaro Rivara unpacks the tired trope of “poor rich Haiti,” highlighting the role of foreign capital and local elites in the destruction of life in the countryside

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Does the oft-repeated refrain that “Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere” explain anything? Is it a poor country or an impoverished country? Or perhaps it is unsuspectedly rich? Are its indifferent friends in the West really not interested in the country? Why then do the United States and European countries seem to be so zealous about the “Haitian thing”? In a series of notes and based on fieldwork carried out in four departments of the country, we will focus on understanding the “poor rich Haiti” and some of the initiatives of what has been called its “reconstruction” since 2010. We will discuss the economic interests of Western powers, expressed through initiatives such as industrial parks, mining operations, enclave tourism ventures, land grabbing and agricultural free zones.

Haiti’s borders are curious. The small country is bordered to the east by the Dominican Republic, dividing in two the territory of the island of Hispaniola. To the west it borders the Caribbean Sea and to the south, a forgotten maritime border with the Republic of Colombia. But what interests us here is a border that is not entirely imaginary: to the north and northeast, although the maps would like to indicate otherwise, Haiti borders the United States.

It is here, in this region, that most US economic interests – and also those of its smaller partners – are concentrated. This is the case of Canada, that peculiar North American colony that in turn colonizes others. But also those of France, Germany and other European nations. In this and the following notes, we will talk about industrial parks, mining and speculation, enclave tourism ventures, land grabbing and agricultural free trade zones. This does not include some unholy initiatives in other parts of the country, such as the seizure of entire islands, drug trafficking or tax havens where the money comes in dirty and goes out free of guilt and sin.

But it is in the northeast region of this “poor rich” country that the power enjoyed by the current de facto president, Jovenel Moïse, has been amassed. He has made this territory his personal fiefdom. His modus operandi has been land grabbing and the true foundation of his power, his economic alliances with transnational capital, both legal and extralegal.

For this, we will travel to the heart of the communities affected by what, after the devastating earthquake of 2010, has become known as the “Reconstruction of Haiti”. In this first note, we will talk – paraphrasing Eduardo Galeano – about the “Banana King” Jovenel Moïse and his numerous agricultural courtiers. But first, let’s take a look at the situation of the rural areas and the local peasantry.

Barefoot

One out of every two inhabitants of the country lives in the countryside. But an even higher percentage of the population, around 66%, depends on and subsists in relation to rural areas and agricultural production. According to a study by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the urban population has only overtaken the rural population in the last five years, and the current difference is only about 100,000 people.

Land everywhere is finite and vital. But it is even more so in a territory covered by extensive mountain ranges, and where the agricultural frontier is receding with every meter gained by deforestation and desertification – today the country retains barely 2 percent of its original vegetation cover. It is not surprising, then, that a large part of the peasant population is poor: they are the so-called pyè atè, the “pata en tierra”, the barefoot.

For a long time, however, an unprecedentedly radical measure was at least able to guarantee Haitians a piece of land on which to produce and reproduce life. Since the revolutionary constitution of 1805, land ownership was denied to foreigners on the grounds of sovereignty and national dignity, becoming an obstacle to the full implementation of capitalism on the island. At least until the definitive abolition of this prohibition in 1915, under the mantle of the American occupation.

Today, there are around 600,000 farms in Haiti, organized in small plots – jaden – of between 0.5 and 1.8 hectares. Peasant agriculture is mostly family and traditional, but there are many different forms of land ownership, work and usage: family landowners, tenant farmers, tenant farmers, day laborers, sharecroppers, etc. The tools used are rustic, often no more than the traditional pickaxe and machete, usually without draft animals, without any kind of machinery, without chemical fertilizers, with native seeds, all under a rain-fed agricultural regime. Despite the enormous contribution of peasant agriculture to national wealth – around 25 percent of GDP – the state’s contributions to the sector are practically nonexistent.

On the other side of rural life, a select group of families, usually living abroad, as well as a handful of transnational corporations, still concentrate around half of the available land and in many cases, worse still, keep it unproductive.

A requiem for the free market

Eat what you don’t produce and don’t eat what you produce. This is the secret of the offshoring and financialized export agriculture that has been promoted in the country in recent decades. A fundamental milestone in its implementation was the policy of trade and financial liberalization imposed in the mid-1980s, with the help of the International Monetary Fund, the US State Department and the enthusiastic action of the ineffable Bill Clinton – a self-styled “friend of Haiti” whose friendship, however, nobody here wants to reciprocate.

In the mid-1990s, this policy deepened, with tariffs on rice imports falling from 35 percent to 3 percent under external pressure. In the same year, the US invested 60 billion dollars to subsidize its own rice production. So-called dumping resulted in Haiti’s production falling by over 50% from 130,000 to 60,000 tons. The selling prices of the peasantry, exposed to unfair competition with the hyper-subsidized American farmer, led to the ruin and exodus of thousands and thousands of peasants. A vicious circle of agricultural ruin, unemployment, hunger, foreign food aid, impossibility of competing with the “free” food sent to the country, and again more ruin, unemployment, hunger, etc., was generated.

As a result, Haiti went from being practically self-sufficient in the production of the staple grain of its national diet to importing it massively. Although the case of rice is the most dramatic, it is far from the only one. The nation went from importing less than 20 percent of its food in the early 1980s to importing more than 55 percent from abroad today, mainly from the United States and the Dominican Republic.

This cycle resulted in the partial destruction of traditional peasant agriculture. Some may call it “subsistence”, but for the local peasant it was instead an agriculture of “abundance”, if we consider how trade liberalization has generalized the phenomenon of hunger today. On the other hand, the relationship between food assistance and hunger is direct, as was the case with the “Tikè Manje” program and others developed by USAID, through voucher systems that only allow the population to have access to North American products.

Agritrans S.A.: the flagship

In this scorched earth scenario, after the devastating earthquake of January 2010, the project of transnational, deterritorialized and financialized agriculture began to take shape. Transnational, due to the dominant influence of external capital, beyond the resounding publicity of certain local “entrepreneurs”. It is deterritorialized because the local space becomes a kind of non-place for the capitals that mold the territory in their image and likeness: bananas from Haiti or Guadeloupe, soya from Brazil or Paraguay, sugar cane from the Caribbean or European beet sugar, etc., are all the same. And it is financialized because what this agriculture tends to produce is not food, but foreign currency. In short, it is an agriculture that satisfies only the hunger for capital accumulation.

A cautious detour with a good local guide allowed us to enter the lands of Agritrans S.A., the company of de facto president Jovenel Moïse, which became famous for its involvement in one of the largest embezzlements of public funds in the country’s history, amounting to a quarter of the national GDP. This was confirmed by Senate investigations – before its closure in January 2020 – and by the Supreme Audit Court, before its reduction, by presidential decree, to nothing more than a mere consultative body.

The inhabitants of the Limonade and Terrier-Rouge area, in the North-East Department, are in awe of all things related to this fabled expanse of land. And for those who feel neither fear nor respect, there are armed guards to remind them. They told us to stop and threatened to shoot as soon as the motorbike we were traveling on around their perimeter on National Route 6 slowed down. Unable to film or photograph the accesses, we had to clandestinely enter the estate through some twisted wire fences on the side of a canal. Surprisingly, a barren plain then spread out before us. Whether because of the environmental damage resulting from intensive production without crop rotation, or perhaps because the tenure of these lands today serves more the assertion of local power than the process of real accumulation, we saw not even a trace of a cultivated field. Today, Agritrans S.A. is a huge, uncultivated estate, surrounded by crowds of peasants who cannot even get access to a “handkerchief of land”, as the locals eloquently put it.

The “Nourribio” project was set up here in 2013, on the land of the man who would later become the country’s president. The 1,000 hectares in front of us were donated for a project that envisaged the intensive production of bananas, mainly for export to Western countries. It also took the form of a free zone, exempt from taxes and other charges. The land for its establishment was expropriated from 3,000 peasants and granted in concession for a renewable term of 25 years. The aforementioned promises of employment fell far short of expectations: only 200 people were being employed, according to informationfrom 2014. And the people who lost land? The small amount of their compensation was spent on the basic necessities of everyday life. With no land to work or produce, their “beneficiaries” soon found themselves unemployed, expelled to the capital, expelled abroad, or reduced to starvation, if not a combination of all of the above.

According to the specialist Georges Eddy Lucien, in the face of the banana production crisis in the French overseas departments (Guadeloupe and Martinique), “the Northeast – of Haiti – appears in the eyes of investors and international institutions as an ideal alternative territory, where production costs (labor, available land) are much lower…”. The impoverishment of Haitian workers has meant that the wages of an agricultural worker can be 25 times lower – 25 times! Not to mention if we compare it with the average wages of a Frenchman or a North American.

History is a boomerang. The first shipment of Agritrans bananas arrived at the port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2015. The same port that flourished during the slave trade and during the reign of Leopold II. A century ago, thousands of kilos of ivory and rubber, the product of slave exploitation in the Belgian Congo, arrived there. Today, it is bananas from Haiti, produced by one of the most impoverished workforces on the planet.

Operation dispossession

However, at least the construction of Agritrans S.A. involved mechanisms that we will call quasi-legal – although not moral – through the expropriation and compensation of peasant properties, measures taken perhaps because of the international visibility of the project.

But the policy of land grabbing has deepened in recent years, according to the leaders of the main peasant organizations during a recent colloquium on the subject held in the central region. There, for example, the national government ceded by decree no less than 8,600 hectares of fertile land to the Apaid family, one of the richest in the country. Another agricultural free trade zone is supposed to be built there, but this time for the production and export of stevia for the multinational Coca-Cola

But back to the Northeast. After long walks along impassable rural roads, flooded by rain, mud and state neglect, we were able to visit several communities that have suffered and are today facing the dispossession of their lands by local landowners, foreign companies and armed gangs.

In Terrier Rouge, Irené Cinic Antoine of the “Small planters” movement told us that she has owned a large plot of 6,000 hectares of land since 1986. In 1995, under the progressive government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the process to legalize their tenure began. Since then, the common lands have been divided between agriculture, charcoal trees and livestock. Their ownership rights were even published in the official state newspaper, but the documents were later disappeared by anonymous hands.

We also talk to Christiane Fonrose and her husband, as they stoke the fire on the mountain of earth inside which burns the wood that will be turned into charcoal. It is one of the few remaining means of survival in the region, although its ecological costs are well known to all, particularly to the peasantry. From his unshakeable faith, Fonrose tells us: “The land is God’s thing, which God created for us. Before creating his children, God created the earth. (…) But then they took the earth out of our hands. Today we have nowhere to plant, nowhere to graze some small animals, the children cannot go to school (…) We are in a very difficult situation”.

We were also able to visit peasant organizations in Grand Basin who are currently resisting the permanent hostility of invisible actors who are trying to take over land that was ceded to them by the state, again during the Aristide era. After another long trek along the difficult rural roads, our interview had to be conducted in the pouring rain, as even the roofs and doors of the small house on the plot were stolen. Here, on the edge of mineral-rich mountains, 1,500 organized peasants have been able to work 148 kawo of land (about 200 hectares) to produce sugar cane, maize, manioc and even honey and kleren – a peasant sugar cane brandy – in a sovereign and agro-ecological way.

A little over a year ago, a heavily armed group broke in, disrupting their crops, stealing or killing their animals, destroying fences, buildings and their meager agricultural implements. Evidently these were neither neighbors nor amateurs, as the operation involved the deployment of expensive bulldozers. Even today, the land that was taken remains unproductive, and the peasants are constantly threatened not to try to recover it. So far, no state body has given them any response. “Without the land, outside the land, we peasants are worthless. We voted for them ourselves, but it seems that they don’t need us anymore,” concludes Antoine.

Today there are barely 350 people left, including only a handful of young people: most of them have been forced to migrate to the capital Port-au-Prince or even abroad. In the long siege they have been suffering since then. The National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INARA) has hardly dared to take sides with them. Coincidentally, according to recent reports, the Moïse government is seeking to eliminate this body in the new constitution it is now preparing. According to Wilson Messidor, leader of MOPAG, the project to dispossess them of their land would be closely linked to the mining resources in the area, and to the construction of the so-called villages, semi-closed residential neighborhoods that USAID is building for the workers in the free trade zones.

USAID appears, in fact, as the de facto civil authority in these territories, and its projects are constantly growing and multiplying, as indicated by the numerous signs on the roadsides. According to an anonymous Cuban engineer, the US mega-cooperation organization operates through loans and projects, indebting the state and the communities, in order to guarantee control of strategic areas for their water and mineral resources.

It matters little, following Eduardo Galeano’s metaphor, whether the monarch is King Banana, Queen Stevia or King Manufacture. Haiti continues to be determined by the blessings of nature and the curses of those who dominate history. We will continue, in the next note, to unravel the mysteries of this “poor rich country” which, in the international division of labor, has been subjected to the task of exporting poverty and importing humanitarian aid. We will talk about the export processing zones and the bizarre project to turn Haiti into the “Taiwan of America”..

Lautaro Rivara is a sociologist, researcher and poet. As a trained journalist, he participated as an activist in different spaces of communications work, covering tasks of editing, writing, radio broadcasts, and photography. During his two years in the Jean-Jacques Dessalines Brigade in Haiti he was responsible for communications and carried out political education with Haitian people’s movements in this area. He writes regularly in people’s media projects of Argentina and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean including Nodal, ALAI, Telesur, Resumen Latinoamericano, Pressenza, la RedH, Notas, Haití Liberte, Alcarajo, and more.

All images in this article are from the author

The original source of this article is Peoples Dispatch

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Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 6 avril 2021

U.S. House Foreign Affairs chair opposes Haiti referendum

THE HAITIAN TIMES - Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks said that the current status quo in Haiti, including an increase in kidnapping and gang violence, is unsustainable.

Meeks, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the comments during a Zoom meeting which was broadcast live on Facebook on Wednesday evening. Comments and shares on social media indicate that the event was viewed by more than 400 people, including members of the Haitian community.“I will continue to urge the Department of State to use their voice and vote within [international] institutions to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not spent in support of this referendum,” said Meeks, a Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, during the town hall. Meeks and several other members of Congress have been critical of Moise this year, going so far as to challenge the U.S. State Department’s position by calling for a transitional government.

They were live on Facebook when an armed man stormed in and kidnapped them in Haiti

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

For Haiti, it was a new low.

Four people, including a pastor and a well-known pianist, were kidnapped late Thursday night — and it all played out live on social media.

The group, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Gospel Kreyòl Ministry Church in Diquini on the outskirts of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, were performing live on Facebook and YouTube in a studio adjacent to their church when a heavily armed man walked up to the stage and abducted them. The incident was confirmed by Dr. Gregory M. Figaro, whose father, Greger Figaro, is the founder of the ministry.

“If this can happen, then anything is possible in the country because there is no respect for any institution, whether it’s a church or school,” Figaro told the Miami Herald. “They are even grabbing people from inside their home.”

Figaro said he was present during the incident, which many Haitians initially thought was an April Fools’ joke or poorly acted skit. He heard a knock on the door, then saw a man standing in the doorway with a gun. “At first I couldn’t believe it,” he said. Then after the man was hit by the door, Figaro said, he saw the armed men enter. Figaro and others immediately ran for a small hallway inside the studio to take cover.

There were 10 to 15 people present during the livestream, he said. The armed bandits, he said, numbered between eight and nine and came in two vehicles.

“It was only after I heard one of the women, the one on the video, crying in the hallway that I realized what had just happened,” Figaro said. “When we came out of the hallway, we saw that the guys had left.”

The kidnapped individuals included two technicians, Steven Jérôme and Francisco Dorival, along with pastor Audalus Estimé and musician Welmyr Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre is a well-known pianist who has performed alongside Beethova Obas, a famous Haitian musician and composer based in Europe. Two women who were also in the studio managed to get away, Figaro said.

Obas immediately took to Twitter after hearing the news, asking for Jean-Pierre’s freedom in Creole and English.

“Welmyr my little brother, I know your love for this country #LibereWelmyr#welmyrjeanpierre#FreeWelmyr.”

An unmasked heavily armed man wearing a dark shirt then appears on the screen motioning for them to come with him. The woman managed to get away when the man went back to grab Estimé.

There are no words for the level of impunity and complete lack of accountability in Haiti under Moïse. I will not be quiet. Let’s stop talking nonsense about legitimate elections being possible under these circumstances. We must work for change, right now.

— Rep. Andy Levin (@RepAndyLevin) April 2, 2021

The kidnapping unfolded on Holy Thursday, during what is traditionally a deeply religious week in Haiti, with revivals in Protestant churches and Mass and processions in Catholic churches. It has shaken not just the Adventist community but Haitians in and outside of the country, who fear that the country’s proliferating armed gangs are becoming increasingly emboldened as insecurity spreads.

“The situation is hard. We should not be talking about this. We are currently in Holy Week,” Obas told the Herald from Belgium. “It’s Holy Thursday and this guy enters a church and kidnaps people in front of a camera. It’s a sanctuary, you should have respect for this place.”

GANG ATTACK IN HAITI NEIGHBORHOOD LEAVES BODIES, HOMES CHARRED.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

They arrived unannounced, brandishing heavy artillery as they scaled the rooftops of houses, firing shots and setting homes ablaze.

While some residents managed to escape amid the billows of black smoke and tear gas, others became trapped and died inside their burning houses. The Thursday assault on residents inside the poor, pro-opposition neighborhood of Bel Air in Haiti’s capital was the third large attack in less than two years. It occurred within walking distance of Haiti’s presidential palace and was perpetrated by gang members affiliated with Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a fired policeman-turned-powerful gang chief who is wanted in several massacres, including the slaughter of dozens of men, women and children in a 2018 attack in Port-au-Prince’s La Saline slum.

Chérizier, who is also accused of being behind a November 2019 attack in Bel Air, called a press conference Friday where he assumed responsibility for the latest assault, casting it as a response to attacks committed against his powerful gang alliance known as G-9 and Family and Allies.

“Everyone knows that once there is an action, there will be a reaction,” said Chérizier, claiming that six of his members were killed during Thursday’s incident before rattling off their names.

In December, Chérizier and two former Haitian government officials were sanctioned by the United States for the La Saline massacre. Despite the sanction and his being wanted by the Haiti National Police, he continues to walk free.

On Friday, as the gunshots resumed and fleeing residents prepared to spend another night exposed to the elements on the sprawling Champ de Mars public plaza outside the presidential palace, it was still unclear how many had been killed or injured, and how many homes had been torched.

“We know that there were a lot, a lot of people who were forced to abandon the area,” said Pierre Esperance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, one of several groups investigating the bloody assault. “There are people who were injured, houses that were burned down, but it’s difficult right now to have a tally.”

Marie Yolene Gilles, who runs Fondasyon Je Klere, or Eyes Wide Open Foundation, said getting into the community remained impossible. Her initial investigation revealed that some residents had been burned while still inside their homes.

Raymond Joseph to Gregory Meeks

Lettre de l’Ambassadeur Raymond A. Joseph addressée à Nathaniel Hezekiah, Chef de cabinet adjoint au Bureau du Député Gregory Meeks, Président de la Commission des Affaires Etrangères de la Chambre des Représentants

-----------------

Dear Mr. Hezekiah!

I am sorry to disturb you on this special Friday, but a very disturbing event that occurred in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, last evening must be brought to the attention of Congressman Gregory Meeks, who has been instrumental in getting the nation to focus on what is happening in Haiti.

For me, it is the last drop that makes the vase to overflow. Thursday evening, heavily armed bandits entered a Seventh Day Adventist Church in Por-au-Prince and kidnapped the pastor, Audalus Estimé, along with three members of his church, while he was preaching, and disappeared with them.

While nothing is said about ransom, I believe this is a dire warning to the Protestants of Haiti for having organized peaceful mammoth anti-government demonstrations on February 28, March 28 and 29. That’s the response of the de facto President Jovenel Moïse, in effect saying that’s what is in store for all who oppose his dictatorship, especially the Protestants.

We’re asking that the Chairman of the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee consider this situation an emergency and have him reach out to the State Department and the White House to take swift appropriate measures, not only to have the victims released, but to send a strong message to the regime that this has to be its last action in the series of criminal acts that have been perpetrated by the illegal government.

Sincerely yours,

Raymond Alcide Joseph

Former ambassador of Haiti to the US, (2005-2010)

Co-Founder-publisher of the Haiti-Observateur weekly in NYC (1971-present)

Biden Should Create A Haiti Development Corps

The Haitian Times

The Conversation | By Garry Pierre-Pierre | Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

So far, the majority of Americans like the job that President Joe Biden is doing. He recently signed a $1.9 trillion package that saw most of us getting $1400 stimulus money and he is preparing a $3 trillion bill to tackle eroding infrastructure and the environment among other challenges. We’re feeling optimistic as the vaccine roll out is ahead of schedule. After four years under that previous guy, we welcome sane and steady leadership.

But Mr. President in the matter of Haiti, I need a little bit of your time. I know you’re busy, but this is urgent. Since its founding as a republic in 1804, Haiti has had a complicated relationship with the United States. We’ve vacillated from seeing America as our best friend one day and worse enemy the next day.

America has helped create the richest diaspora and we are working on building a stronger and sophisticated Haitian community as we carve out our niche in our beloved America. Lately, it seems that a day doesn’t go by without some hideous or heinous incident taking place in Haiti. Just the other day, a bus carrying soccer players from Belize was stopped by a group of former police officers who have turned into a gang. And I can go on and on, but I won’t because this news site does that on a daily basis.

Over the years, as Haiti finds itself in yet another crisis, the United States has had good intentions and tried many different approaches. Unfortunately, the US has not been consistent and has abandoned Haiti at its worst moment, knowing that the mission had not been accomplished. I’m thinking when President Bill Clinton took a political gamble when he sent in 20,000 soldiers to restore democracy in Haiti in 1994.

Facing withering criticism from the Republican, Clinton pulled out of Haiti keenly aware that the job was not finished. That created the mess that we’re living through today. I believe it is time that the U.S re-engages with Haiti in a novel way. Enlist the Haitian Americans to help rebuild their beloved homeland.

At the rate it is going- increase insecurity, grinding poverty and a looming political showdown – Haiti will need another intervention. If or when things blow up, America needs to try a new approach to turn things around.

After the earthquake, the U.S. State Department created a pilot program sending Haitian American police officers from the New York City Police Department to help train the Haitian National Police officers. That program was going well and getting traction until Donald Trump cut the funding in his effort to gut that agency.

The force that the Pentagon sent to Haiti in 1994, included scores of Haitian American soldiers some of whom I interviewed for a story for the New York Times. These soldiers were so proud to be in Haiti defending democracy in their birth land for their new country. It was heady stuff for them and one of the highlights of their life, if not their glory days.

The NYPD pilot project should be extended across all ministries in Haiti where you have highly competent Haitian Americans working with Haitian counterparts to help reform the administrative state so Haiti can create jobs and provide a better future for its citizens.

I believe that even if the political situation ameliorates, the underlying issues remain unaddressed because the country doesn’t have the manpower to properly run the bureaucracy.

That’s why I think that Washington has to make the creation of a Haiti Development Corps, the central tenet of its Haiti policy.

Haiti has suffered from a chronic and consistent brain drain. The best and the brightest are whisked away to flourish in other lands that provide them with opportunity Haiti simply cannot.

The NYPD program and the Pentagon choice of soldiers show that American leaders know whom to turn to when they really want to address the issue of Haiti: Americans of Haitian ancestry.

This Corps will consist of highly qualified, mostly Haitian professionals attached to a ministry to work alongside their Haitian counterparts. The selection process must be rigorous and highly selective. The successful applicants would have a proven track record in their field.

The Corps should require a 2-year commitment and members’ salaries will be underwritten by the State Department and the applicant’s employer. This program should be disbanded after 25 years, enough time to stabilize the country and attract private investors and once and for all break this pernicious cycle of instability that has marred the country since its founding.

Who would lead such a project? There is an abundance of Americans of Haitian ancestry that have defended U.S. interests in a variety of capacity across the world and it is time we give them a chance to change the conditions in Haiti. They have skin in their games. Many promised their fathers that they would leave Haiti a better place than they left it.

Three people come to mind to head this herculean task, but any one of them is more than able to tackle this challenge and ensure the success of this program.

In no particular order: One is Patrick Gaspard, a long-time political operative and former campaign manager for the first Obama run for the presidency. Gaspard later headed the Democratic National Committee before being nominated ambassador to South Africa.

Another person that comes to mind is Jacques Jiha, an economist with private and public sector experience. Jiha has held various deputy positions as a state and city comptroller, travelling the world over to invest in the state’s pension funds. He was NYC Finance Commissioner before he was tapped by Mayor Bill de Blasio to be the city’s finance czar to steer the city’s economy as the pandemic flattened it.

. There is also ret. Marine Corps Col Mario Lapaix, who was the Pentagon’s top liaison in Haiti. Col Lapaix also worked for years in various high-level positions in NYC government, including assistant commissioner, at the Emergency Management Operations and Planning. Col Lapaix’s experience goes way beyond Haiti. He was the first chief of staff of Marine Forces Africa in support of AFRICOM in Djibouti. Col Lapaix During the U.S Operation “Iraqi Freedom in 2006/2007, he served as the 4^th Civil Affairs Group Commander and Director of all civil military operations in Al Anbar Province and played an integral part in the province’s recovery from local government failures and industrial challenges.

If we continue to approach Haiti in the same way it will be akin to washing your hands and wiping them on the floor to quote an old Haitian saying. It’s time we try a bold and innovative approach.

haiti development corps haiti reform