haiti

By:
Wadner Pierre

1882-2007 marks 125 years of the miraculous healing of the Haitian people from the scourge of Verette which ravaged the country at that time. According to what we have learned, the bishops of that time gathered in prayer with the faithful in Bel'Air in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel, and asked for a blessing for the people who had perished from this epidemic. Grace was dropped from the sky and all the people who were infected with this disease were cured.

1942-2007 marks the 65th years of the official consecration of Haiti. Our Lady of Perpetual Help at that time existed under the term of President Elie Lescot, a mulatto. According to historical testimony, there had been a kind of hunt against Voodoo priests (who were called 'Defeated'), as if this faith prevented the country from continuing on the road of progress. So why do we celebrate this date, 65 years later?

At that time the sons and daughters of Haiti who practiced Voodoo had difficulty explaining their religion. Most of them were black, while the president of that time was a mulatto. Similarly, the current president of the Haitian Conference of Bishops, Mgr. Louis Kébreau, is also a mulatto. He has often harshly criticized the democratically elected governments but has never lifted a finger to condemn the abuses against the people of Haiti during the reign of defacto government (2004-2006).

By: Wadner Pierre

"I am not a visitor. It is my country. I come when I want, only I have a lot of things to do to the United States with the various Haitian communities, and I travel frequently. I am only here for an appointment with the honorable judges of the Court of Appeal in Port on Monday, November 26, 2007 at 10:00 AM. I respect the justice of my country” - so stated Father Gérard Jean-Juste to journalists shortly after stepping off a plane in Port-au-Prince.

Accompanied by his lawyer Mario Joseph, of the Bureau des Avocats Internaux (BAI), the priest arrived one half hour early for his court appointment. At 11:30 am the hearing began with the three judges of the Court of Appeal: Ms. Lise Pierre Pierre, Mr. Daran and Mr. Eddy Joseph Lebrun. Father Gérard Jean-Juste has been battling charges against him since July of 2005 despite international protests in which even Amnesty International participated.

Jean-Juste is charged with the notoriously vague allegation of "criminal association", as well as illegal possession of weapons. After questioning, the court asked Jean-Juste to summarize his defense.

In response to the charge of "criminal associations" he stated "As a priest my boss is Jesus, then the Bishops, and after them my people are my associates. I am not a member of an association of 'malefactors', but a member of an association of benefactors, and in this association Jesus is the boss."

Canadian photographer Darren Ell's films, photographs, interviews, podcasts and weblinks about Canada's involvement in the 2004 coup d'état in Haiti and its ongoing impact is all online now with the National FilmBoard of Canada website Citizenshift. This work was released several months ago, but there were problems with the video pieces. Everything is now fully functioning! So dive in and learn!

Yves Engler is the co-author with Anthony Fenton of the most significant book on Canada's involvement in the 2004 overthrow of democracy in Haiti: Canada in Haiti: Waging War On the Poor Majority. The full audio interview with Yves Engler regarding Canada's involvement in the crisis in Haiti since 2004 is now online with the NFB website Citizenshift. The interview develops further ideas not presented in the video interviews published in Darren Ell's Citizenshift dossier about Haiti and Canada. In particular, Yves addresses the role of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canadian Embassy in blocking meaningful progress in Haiti.

Canadian photographer Darren Ell and the National FilmBoard website CitizenShift have published a new online resource about Canada and the 2004 coup d'état in Canada. The site includes new short films and captioned photographs by Ell as well as photos by young Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre; it also includes podcasted interviews, links to important websites, as well as texts and links to interviews Ell has published about the ongoing impact of the coup. The focus of all the material is Canada's involvement in the coup, it's violent legacy, and digital tools for getting involved. It's called The Damage Done: Canada and the Coup in Haiti

Darren Ell may be reached at darren.e@sympatico.ca

It has been over a month since the kidnapping of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Roger Annis, a member of the Canada Haiti Action Network and one of the last people to have seen Antoine in Port-au-Prince, recently wrote this statement on the international media's silence related to his kidnapping.

[Photo by Darren Ell]

Paul Farmer, a graduate doctor of the University of Harvard, originating in the center of also titular Florida of a doctorate in Anthropology, came for the first time to Haiti in 1981 after having worked with Haitian immigrants on farms of Florida and Carolina. And he founded "Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health" at Cange, in the central region of Haiti.

There health is free for all, the poor people come from all over the region just to receive health care, and “Zanmi Lasante” it is one of NGOs in Haiti which works closely with Haitian people. Dr. Farmer wants to provide Health for the poor because the poorest people don't have any money to go to the hospital, but they have the right to health care. Some Americans Doctors come to work free and they love to give their time for those who need treatment.

"Plateau Central," "Hinche” or City of Chalmagne Peralte, the 3rd national road whom link it from "Port-Au-Prince" to "Cap-Haitian" doesn't build; it is very difficult to go there. It is an injustice against the people who are living at "Plateau Central", said lawyer Mario Joseph who drove me.

One week like volunteer has Socio-educational Complex and Medical at Cange, it is an occasion to be useful and request with the poorest and most vulnerable persons.

nwanpi(at)gmail.com

An anonymous source recently pointed out the markedly partisan bias of the U.S. government's crackdown on drug trafficking in Haiti. According to the source, the six biggest Haitian drug traffickers at the time of the coup d’etat of February 29, 2004 were Jean Nesly Lucien, Fourel Celestin, Oriel Jean, Guy Philippe, Dany Toussaint and Youri Latortue.

For the good summary of the general case of the critics of the pig eradication program in Haiti, see the excerpt below from Free speech, neo-colonialism and micro-powered broadcasting in Haiti.

Anse d’Hainault’s isolation, however, did not save it from an earlier agricultural catastrophe: the eradication of the kreyol pig. In the early 80s, while the dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was still in power, there was a rumored outbreak of African swine fever among Haiti’s pigs. At the behest of the US government, ever mindful of the interests of its pork industry, the Haitian government wiped out nearly the entire pig population.

In Haiti, the divide between the capital and the rest of the country, between center and periphery is so great that one author has spoken of the “two worlds” of Haiti. Yet life in the periphery is not totally unconnected to the tumultuous events of the center. Anse d’Hainault, a seaside fishing village that has the distinction of the town furthest from Port-au-Prince, gave us a first-hand view of this dynamic.

On our way from the airport to the center of Jeremie, a town on the tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula, we pass a contingent of UN soldiers decked out in shorts and Oakley shades going for a jog along the road. Our driver informs us that this is part of their usual routine: down to the beach for some swimming or volleyball in the day, jogging in the afternoon, a little game of soccer in the evening. In other words, a military man’s Club Med. It’s deployments like these that have earned MINUSTAH the popular nickname of “TOURISTAH” among Haitians.

* Note : The names of the guilty have been changed to protect the innocent *

On our first full day in Port-au-Prince, Aude and I hit the ground running. A Haitian friend in Montreal had arranged for us to meet with Madame Beauchamp, a Senator, to further a legislative project he'd been working for years. Our mission was simple enough: hand over a few documents and briefly discuss the project with the Senator.

I've just published a new article about the UN's propaganda machine in Haiti and the way it has been misrepresenting its humanitarian work in the country. The article deals with the mass arrests in February in Cite Soleil and the photo ops and lies that followed each phase of these arrests. These lies continue to this day via the UN News Service and were unexamined by Canadian journalist Jean-Michel Leprince (Radio-Canada) when he was embedded with MINUSTAH in February during these missions. To read the article, go to Montreal Serai Magazine.

When in Haiti recently, I conducted an extensive interview with Mario Joseph, the head lawyer of the Bureau des avocats internationaux, the only legal firm working on the tens of thousands of human rights violations that preceeded and followed the Feb 29th, 2007 coup d'etat. In the interview, Mario discusses the impact of the coup on the justice system, the struggle to rebuild the rule of law, the thorny problem of MINUSTAH, the continued problem of foreign (including Canadian) hypocrisy and more.

Can anyone have info or links regarding the Quebec Government's involvement in education in Haiti? darren.e@sympatico.ca

One of the few Haitian journalists reporting from the point of view of the poor majority needs your assistance. Wadner Pierre has been regularly contributing to important solidarity sites such as HaitiAction and HaitiAnalysis and the Institute for Democracy and Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), but his camera is barely functioning. Darren Ell and the IJDH are selling 8x10 photographs taken by Wadner and Darren in the last year in Haiti to raise money for a new camera.

The need for strong independent voices in Haiti is greater than ever. Here is your chance to support the work of a young Haitian photojournalist whose work is appearing on HaitiAction.net, Haitianalysis and other media important to the struggle for democracy. Wadner Pierre has been living and working with Father Gerard Jean-Juste for the last ten years. For the last two years, he has been reporting and photographing important human rights issues in Haiti. He brings to the world information and analysis directly from Haiti’s poor, something absent in the mainstream media.

To see the latest version of facts by Canadian mainstream TV on recent operations in Cite Soleil, go to the link below. It's in French, but my summary and criticism below is in English.

http://www.radio-canada.ca/actualite/v2/tj22h/#

It's a report called "Au coeur du mal" (Into the heart of Evil) by a big dude with Radio-Canada: Jean-Michel Le Prince. Let's ignore the title of the report. His report just reached probably over a million Quebecois and a couple hundred thousand Francophones outside of Quebec. In the report, he's embedded with the MINUSTAH troops and follows the recent mass arrests and gang hunt in Cite Soleil. I was there for the end of the operation. Check out the report and blog in your comments. Here's mine:

A representative of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti has asked me to remind people to the work they are doing with women in Haiti as a way of marking International Women's Day. If you go to their site, you'll find the following the informationl below.

English Site: http://www.msf.ca/en/news/newsreleases/2007/021907_haiti.html

French Site:
http://www.msf.ca/fr/news/newsreleases/2007/021907_haiti.html

- a brief introductory article to the Jude Anne hospital project
- web video interview with our Head of Mission on obstetric needs of women in Port au Prince
- photo slide show with captions

Almost every night in Haiti I would unwind at the end of the day by walking down from my hotel to a local family's shop, buy a beer, then sit with the owner and his family, chatting about various things with them and friends that came by. Five children, two parents, two chickens, 8 chicks and a cat lived in a 200 square foot home. His farm habits came from a previous life led in the countryside, fitting the pattern of growing chaotic urbanization in Haiti. Eventually, the father asked me for financial help for his girl's education (Haiti has one of the most privatized education systems in the world, or so I was told, and so it certainly seemed).

Mario Joseph, the leading human rights lawyer in Haiti, granted me a long interview yesterday in Port-au-Prince. We discussed many things (published soon), but when I asked him about what activists should be doing in Canada and the US, he said: "Keep your eyes wide open, watch your governments closely, be sophisticated in your research." He expressed deep gratitude as well to all those who have been working for democracy in Haiti.

In part 2 of my interview with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, now online at HaitiAction.net, Lovinsky talks about what he calls the "ongoing coup d'etat of 2004." He talks about the lack of services to help heal the scars of the thousands of victims of 2004. He speaks of the bureacracy and judiciary staffed by Latortue's people who ensure that the victims will not see justice. He points to how this problem ensures impunity for the perpetrators. He discusses the danger of a potential preparation of yet another coup d'etat by such initiatives as the creation of a parallel police force using the 800 former members of the dreaded Haitian Army who are now in the Haitian National Police.

The two part photo essay about recent arrests and spin by MINUSTAH is now online at Haitianalysis.com As the title of this blog entry suggests, the title of the photo essay is "Brutalized and Abandoned." The photo essay addresses mass arrests, lies about social services in Cité Soleil and the demands of the victims of MINUSTAH.

I couldn't help but notice the lack of journalists in Cité Soleil yesterday as we interviewed yet another person who spoke of a neighbor being illegally arrested by MINUSTAH forces. MINUSTAH now claims they have "a nice catch," meaning over 60 "armed marauders" in the last month. Seeing as we connected with five cases who said the victims of the arrests had nothing to do with crime at all (and this was definitely not an exhaustive investigation) the question can at least be raised as to the legality of MINUSTAH operations in Haiti (yet once again). I haven't seen that question asked of MINUSTAH, but maybe I didn't catch it.

As we entered Cite Soleil this morning with Brian Concannon, founder of the IJDH (Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti) we got a call saying a crowd had gathered outside one of the MINUSTAH headquarters in the Boston quarter of the Cite. We pulled up and sure enough there was a group of about 15 people facing the two armored MINUSTAH vehicules. Someone had been arrested that the crowd felt shouldn't have been arrested and they were demanding he be released. As has been the way every time we pull up with cameras, the MINUSTAH troops run away. All the soldiers piled into the vehicules and took off.

To find out the scale of lies coming out of MINUSTAH on the ground, read any of the UN News Service press releases in the last two weeks. According to interviews we have conducted in Cite Soleil, and according to a source in the Cite today, the arrests continue to be arbitrary. People are being arrested who have nothing to do with what the UN is calling "gangs" or "criminals" or "bandits" No warrents are issued. This is only part of the lie. Every UN communique in the last two weeks talks of setting up health clinics and transforming former gang leaders homes into community centres. Again, complete lies easily verifiable by a stroll through these areas.

Been in haiti for two weeks. Some content is now online. Check HaitiAction.net for a two part interview with Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, coordinator of the 30th of September Foundation that works with the victims of the coup d'états of 1991 and 2004. Also check my new photo essay, done with local photojournalist Wadner Pierre, on Haitianalysis.com. Pretty gripping. Finally, if you to keep up to speed on my wanderings, read my blog with the NFB website Citizenshift. Eventually I'll be putting together a full dossier for them with interviews I'm conducting with human rights people, former pol