Archive - Sep 2010

by Wadner Pierre

The Dominican president, Lionel Fernandez offered 800 soldiers to reinforce the U N mission in Haiti after the January 12 earthquake that destroyed the Haiti’s capital and its surroundings. Dominican Today published an article entitled “Reported decision to send Dominican troops to Haiti”on September 27.

According to this article 680 Dominican soldiers will join the UN peacekeeping mission or MINUSTAH in Haiti. the firs group of soldiers already trained and most of them are from the Special Operations Command (COE). Military sources told the El DÍa newspaper, “a move that would draw the rebuke nationwide,” said this article.

The UN mission in Haiti is known as an occupation force since its beginning. People who are against the 29 February coup d’état perceive the UN mission in Haiti as a guardian of international coup d’état carried by the United States, France and Canada against the Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 29, 2004.
The decision of the Dominican government to send troops in Haiti proved the participation of the Dominican government in destabilizing Haiti.

By Wadner Pierre

GONAIVES, Sep 20, 2010 (IPS) - "I'm going to do everything possible to raise my daughter. My daughter is my future. And I can see my future in her," says Mirlene Saint Juste, a rice merchant in the Opoto market of Gonaives in northern Haiti.

Haitian women like Saint Juste who work as street vendors are widely viewed as one of the country's main economic engines. Their loud sales pitch on busy market days has earned them the affectionate nickname "Madame Sara", after a type of yellow bird in the countryside that loves to sing.

Cetoute Sadila, now middle-aged, has worked since she was 15 at the Lester market in the valley of Artibonite, Haiti's largest department.

"I have been selling rice here since I was little girl," she says. "I used to sell a medium-sized can of rice for 30 gourdes (74 cents). Now, I have to sell it for 105 gourdes (about 2.60 U.S. dollars) because the fertiliser is very expensive." Still, Sadila said she is able to send her children to school and university.

Not all are so lucky. While Artibonite, and its capital, Gonaives, were largely spared by the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, Port-au-Prince and its surrounds suffered colossal damage.

The slow pace of recovery has pushed women who were already on the brink of destitution over the edge.

Rosemene Mondesir is a single mother of seven children who has lived in a displaced persons camp for the last eight months. "I have always been the mother and father of my children - before and after the earthquake," she says. "I need assistance to feed and send them to school."

For immediate Release: September 13, 2010
CONTACT: Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Etant Dupain, 509-3497-1717
Washington, DC: Melinda Miles, 413-923-8435

Photos by Wadner Pierre

EIGHT MONTHS AFTER QUAKE, STILL NO SCHOOLS AVAILABLE FOR MAJORITY OF DISPLACED CHILDREN

PORT-AU-PRINCE: On Monday September 13th at 11am EST (10am in Haiti) residents of more than a dozen camps for internally displaced people will demonstrate in front of the National Palace to demand the right to education. They are also calling for decent housing because they are living in fear during this hurricane season.

As children all over the world returned to school this month, the majority of Haitian earthquake survivors are still living under tarps, tents and sheets without access to basic services and have no schools or educational programs for their children to attend. Since food distributions were halted months ago, in many camps the children are beginning to have orange hair, a sign of malnutrition.

Eight months after the earthquake, non-governmental organizations have enormous amounts of money in their accounts and protests are multiplying to demand that funds be used to meet the immediate needs of earthquake victims. Tents distributed months ago have shredded and been destroyed by the searing sun by day and rains that force victims to stand without sleeping under tents, tarps and sheets nearly every night.