The Dominion - Haiti

Haiti's Void Vote

Moira Peters — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:11:00 +0000

No clear winners, many clear losers

"We denounce a massive fraud that is occurring across the country ... We demand the cancellation pure and simple of these skewed elections," the 12 presidential candidates, which included all main opposition groups, said in a statement read to reporters at a Port-au-Prince hotel. They accused the outgoing President Rene Preval's Inite (Unity) coalition of rigging the vote in favour of its candidate, Jules Celestin.
—Rory Carroll, reporting today, November 29, 2010, for The Guardian

This news is an unfortunate but not unexpected outcome of yesterday's presidential and legislative elections in Haiti. Crushed by the January 2010 earthquake and devastated by this month's cholera outbreak, the majority of Haitians couldn't vote for their preferred candidate, as the popular Famni Lavalas party was excluded from elections on a technicality.

Below, a collection of images and analyses of yesterday's election gives a limited view of the election's outcome; this week will be critical as election results will not be released until Sunday, December 5.

Unless otherwise indicated, the photos here were taken yesterday, November 28, 2010, during Haiti's presidential and legislative elections by Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste, a Haitian photojournalist.

Haiti Elections.Empty Polls

Prayers more hopeful

Haiti Elections.Police Van

Haiti Elections.Riot Cop

Haiti Elections.Voting in the Rubble

Haiti Elections.Voting in the Tent

Haiti Elections.Sign

Haitians to Refuse Tomorrow's "Selections"

Martin Lukacs — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:36:19 +0000

Living in tents, dying of cholera, the majority can't vote for their candidate anyway

HAITI, NOVEMBER 27—On the eve of presidential and legislative elections in Haiti, skepticism and disenchantment among Haitians is widespread.

"I am not going to vote," said Elause Jacques, a mother of two who runs a cyber cafe with her husband in Port-au-Prince. "I have no candidate."

Jacques' sentiment is shared by many Haitians, who may be turning away from the polls by the millions in an act of silent protest against the exclusion of Haiti’s popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas (FL), and the spending of millions on elections instead of badly needed healthcare and infrastructure.

The backdrop to the elections is grim: more than a million people remain homeless after the January earthquake, and now the country is confronted by a cholera epidemic that has already taken 1,500 lives.

FL has reiterated its position to boycott tomorrow's elections, after being excluded by Haiti’s Interim Election Commission (CEP), which is hand-picked by the government.

“It [FL] is not supporting any candidate, it doesn't have anybody representing it, and it is not sending anybody to represent it,” said the party in a statement. The statement also criticized the United Nations representative in Haiti, Edmund Mulet, for “having no respect for the Haitian people,” and President Rene Preval for running a "ungrateful hypocritical regime which has come to bury the memory of our ancestors.”

The CEP is facing other problems. In the days prior to the vote, many Haitians have still not received their electoral IDs.

“As President Aristide said, the November 28 elections will not be elections, but selections,” said a unidentified Haitian women, while waiting for her flight to Haiti from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida.

Former president Jean Bertrand Aristide, interviewed in mid-November by film-maker Nicolas Rossier in South Africa, where he is living under forced-exile, criticized the Haitian government and some of its international allies for betraying the Haitian people.

"When we say democracy we have to mean what we say,” said Aristide, who was deposed in 2004 by the United States, France and Canada. “Unfortunately, this is not the case for Haiti. They talk about democracy but they refuse to organize free and fair democratic elections. It is as if in the US they could organize an election without the Democrats."

Criticism of the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas has been issued from some quarters.

In a letter sent to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Maxine Water and 45 congress members urged the US government to ensure that the elections in Haiti are fair, free and democratic.

The letter called on the US government to "state unequivocally that it will not provide funding for elections that do not meet these minimum, basic democratic requirements."

The members of Congress recalled a previous CEP decision to exclude Fanmi Lavalas: "A previous CEP, with many of the same members, also excluded Fanmi Lavalas and other parties from Senatorial elections in April 2009. Haitian voters boycotted, and most observers estimated a three-to-six per cent voter turnout."

In a report to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar called on the Haitian government to reform the CEP.

Meanwhile, President Preval continues to appeal to Haitians to vote while reiterating his support for the CEP.

Eleven months after an earthquake ruined the capital and its surrounding areas, the situation remains dire. Several months after the first cases of cholera were discovered in the Down Central Plateau and Artibonite regions—one of Haiti's few agricultural centres—over 1,500 people have died and over 30,000 have been hospitalized. Haitians' already low trust in the United Nations troops has taken another hit, as mounting evidence indicates Nepalese forces were responsible for spreading the disease.

“Why spend all these millions for these elections while our people are dying from cholera?” said Haitian singer Lord Divers Morsa. “Why don’t we spend the money to buy anti-cholera shots or vaccines?”

Others question the priorities of President Preval and his support for Jude Celestin, the candidate of INITE or UNITY, Preval’s party.

“President Preval is using the state’s resources to back up Jude Celestin, his friend,” said Maude Salomon. “But he doesn’t care for people. Cholera is killing us, but Jude found millions of dollars to campaign.”

The international community has pledged several millions of dollars to organize the presidential and legislative elections. Yet critics point out that the same countries have disbursed only a fraction of the money that was pledged to rebuild the country after the January earthquake.

Another concern cited by critics is that the names of people who died during the earthquake remain as eligible voters on the CEP’s electoral list. This news was disclosed in a meeting in Washington by Chief of the Joint OAS-CARICOM (Organization of American States-Caribbean Community) Electoral Observation Mission in Haiti, Ambassador Colin Granderson. Many are asking the question: to whom will the CEP attribute the votes of dead Haitians?

A day before the elections, the mood seems to indicate that not many will vote tomorrow. And in the face of unfair elections and a growing health disaster, the prospects for the struggle for social justice and a state of law are likely to remain uncertain and fragile.

Wadner Pierre is a Haitian photojournalist who currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2007, he won a Project Censored Award for his investigative journalism work on the impact of media and corruption in military policies.

Haiti elections

Haiti Nine Months On

Martin Lukacs — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:18:24 +0000

Donor money spent on a road map no-one can read

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—“Nothing! Nothing! We’ve seen nothing!” chanted the crowd of internally displaced people (IDP) in Port-au-Prince on October 6. They were pursuing former US president Bill Clinton after his photo-op in their squalid camp. Clinton was on his way to the third Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) meeting in downtown Port-au-Prince. Ironically, the camp is considered one of the capital's best, thanks to the attention brought to it by actor Sean Penn.

Similar chants were echoed at a demonstration of about 200 IDPs on October 12 in front of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive’s offices, where the IHRC is based. At that action, called exactly nine months after the quake, protesters delivered a letter demanding respect for their Constitutionally guaranteed right to housing, a moratorium on forced expulsions and an end to the “masquerade aid” of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The IHRC, co-chaired by Clinton and Bellerive, is the body that decides how to spend money donated to rebuilding Haiti after the January 12, 2010, earthquake. This month’s meeting took place by teleconference, and journalists were invited to follow it by calling a US-based number. This immediately excluded any Haitian who could not afford the three-hour-long international call.

Some journalists crowded into the PM’s press room to listen to the meeting over a small pod-like speaker that looked like an oversized video game joystick. The teleconference’s sound quality was poor, static-filled and at times unintelligible. I was sitting closest to the speaker and straining to make out what was being said. All seven of the foreign white journalists in the room were seated around the conference table where the mini-speaker sat. Only three of approximately 20 Haitians present were seated around the table; the rest were in chairs along the walls of the room, out of earshot of the muffled voices deciding their country’s fate.

As if to underscore this irony, most of the conference was conducted in English. French statements were translated into English, but not vice versa. Nothing was presented in or translated into Kreyol, the national language, making it even more difficult for Haitians to know where the millions of dollars are going. The whole exercise felt amateurish. The conference call plodded along, casual and faltering. The IHRC board did not seem bothered by frequent interruptions and confusion, as though voting on the investment of millions of dollars was a banal hobby.

Reginald Boulos, an industrialist from one of Haiti's most powerful families and a staunch backer of the 2004 coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, insisted that meetings should begin with a progress update on projects to ensure transparency and accountability, implying that even IHRC board members have little information on the whereabouts of previously approved money. His minor reservations and criticisms were later trumpeted by Clinton as "fierce debate and vigorous participation on the part of the Haitian members of the board."

The session took place during Haiti’s “back-to-school” week, and at the subsequent press conference Clinton claimed that 80 per cent of children who were in school before the earthquake are now back in class. It was unclear how he obtained that figure two days into the new term, and many schools didn’t resume class until the following week.

At its last meeting in August, the IHRC approved $94 million—a much needed investment— to prepare schools for the new academic year. Haiti ranks alongside Somalia and Eritrea as one of the worst places on the planet to be a schoolchild. Only half of Haiti’s children attended (mostly private) schools before January 12; the quake destroyed about 90 per cent of those schools. Only $26 million of the $94 million has been funded. Fewer kids are in class than ever before, and Haiti’s Ministry of Education says it still hasn’t seen any of the money allocated to schools.

The press release given to journalists after the IHRC meeting stated that UNICEF gave $100 million to “support the Haitian government and civil society in the fight against gender-based violence.” But during the meeting, there was no mention of the UNICEF money, only concerns that a $10.6 million UN population fund for women and girls’ “gender equality impact is not yet approved,” according to one of the board members.

It is unclear where UNICEF’s $100 million has gone. Merina Zuluanie of FAVILEK (Women Victims Stand Up), a grassroots organization that has been providing medical, legal, and moral support for women and children victims of sexual abuse and violence for over 15 years, said her group has not received any IHRC or UNICEF funding.

I spoke with Malia Villard Appolon, the coordinator of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims), a coalition of raped women. KOFAVIV members have taken charge of their own security in camps—organizing escorts to protect women going to the toilets, handing out whistles to women at risk, raising awareness of women's vulnerability and organizing groups of men to take shifts patrolling their areas of residence. Before the earthquake, KOFAVIV had an office with a clinic, doctor, nurse, psychologist, laboratory and everything in place to accommodate rape victims. That was all destroyed on January 12 but since then, Malia says, “we have received nothing from UNICEF.”

None of this might may come as a surprise, nine months on, if you consider that Haiti’s main national hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince looks much like it did in the aftermath of the quake: hallways and pharmacies full of rubble; people waiting outside for treatment; operations being conducted in tents; the pediatrics unit damaged beyond repair. Dr. Claude Surena, the head of the Haitian Medical Association, and regional health director, said he has an 18-month strategy to get the health sector back on its feet, but he can’t move ahead with anything until donor funds arrive. According to the IHRC website, $17 million was approved and funded on August 17. So why is the place still in shambles?

“I think we’re making progress with the road reconstruction and agriculture sectors,” said Clinton, without going into specifics. The IHRC website says $464.8 million in road construction and rehabilitation projects were funded back in August for some 389 kilometres of road. The site's sections on “Job Creation” and “Institutional” assessment of public buildings, indicate $0 funding has been provided. "Housing" has received $13.4 million and "Education," $26 million.

As a recent study by Oxfam (or a visit to any market) shows, Clinton has taken no measures to lobby for a reversal of his administration’s trade policies—policies for which he took personal responsibility back in March—which decimated Haiti’s rice crops by flooding the market with heavily subsidized Arkansas rice.

The Haitian elite on the IHRC has funded itself (thanks to the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank) with $24.5 million of $35 million over five years to “establish a partial credit guarantee fund for enterprise development,” according to the IHRC website. Meanwhile, the same IHRC board has released no funding for the $65 million earmarked over the next 12 months to “create 300,000 temporary jobs across the country, focusing on populations touched by the earthquake.” Neither has the project to “assess public buildings in the 10 departments”—$1 million over five months—been funded. A mere $13.4 million has been provided for housing, Haiti’s most critical need.

At the post-meeting press conference, when asked “what of the IHRC funding is being given to help people in the camps,” Clinton interrupted the journalist, dodged the question, and spoke of the need to implement a mortgage system. This exchange reveals why Clinton heads the IHRC. His priorities are to facilitate banks providing mortgages, the wealthy elite finding credit, and businesses having roads to bus in their workers and ship out their sweatshop assembled garments and electronics. Job-creation and housing for Haiti’s 1.5 million homeless people suffering in squalid camps will just have to wait.

Isabeau Doucet is an independent journalist, story-teller and artist based in Haiti. This article was originally published by Haiti Liberte.

Clinton in Port-au-Prince

Silent Coup in Haiti, Part II

Tim McSorley — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 05:46:57 +0000

Experts, organizers assess the country's democratic crisis

Read Part I of this interview.

Darren Ell: What has been the reaction in Canadian and American political circles to the banning of Fanmi Lavalas from the 2010 elections?

Roger Annis: I'm not aware of a single Canadian political party or representative aware of the undemocratic character of the upcoming election in Haiti or voicing concern about it. Interestingly, the federal government is by all accounts following developments closely. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon was in Haiti for three days in early May to get a first-hand look at Canada's support for prisons and police training and equipping. He announced new spending in those areas and he was an early voice speaking in support of a sham election.

Haiti Liberte has called the sham election "the first order of business of the Haiti Interim Reconstruction Commission." In other words, while we were treated to words and speeches by the foreign powers following the earthquake in favor of meaningful aid and reconstruction, what we have received is an inadequate or failed relief effort combined with a near-stealth plan to impose a fraudulent election that will, again in the words of Haiti Liberte, "lead the country towards a deepening dependence on the imperialist countries, feet and hands tied as in the olden days of slavery."

Brian Concannon: There has been very little interest in American political circles. Representative Maxine Waters, who regularly stands up for justice in Haiti, has been trying to raise interest in the US House of Representatives, with little result so far. Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a report in June that strongly criticized the political party exclusions, and suggested that the US reconsider its support for the flawed process. That report had little impact.

The US Administration, like much of the official International Community, believes that President Preval’s team has done a good job managing Haiti, including advances in financial accountability and transparency, and would like to see that team continue to run Haiti. This is a short-term expedient that will come back to haunt the US, Canada and other countries because the elections will not produce a government with the political or moral legitimacy to effectively implement a reconstruction plan. The government will have to make very difficult decisions (such as about rural versus urban spending, initiatives supporting the middle class versus the poor, etcetera) and request its citizenry—already tired and angry—to make more sacrifices. This will be very difficult for a government lacking popular support.

To some extent, the Haitian government and MINUSTAH (the UN forces) will be able to keep basic peace by force of arms, but that will not allow effective governance. I also fear that citizens who feel they cannot choose their government through the ballot will engage in more disruptive tactics, which will lead to social unrest and possibly a violent response by the police and MINUSTAH, which will in turn touch off a cycle of violence.

Akinyele Umoja: A minority has called for the inclusion of Lavalas because they know if they don’t, the elections could be easily exposed as unfair. Others hope for some minor Lavalas representative to be included and co-opted into a different platform. The dominant view remains unchanged. The blocking of Lavalas has the blessing of the US and surely the blessing of Bill Clinton.

How about Canadian and American media? We hear a lot about Wyclef Jean but nothing about Fanmi Lavalas.

Roger Annis: Canada's media has failed to inform Canadians about the flawed election in the making, including the formal exclusion of Haiti's only mass representative party, Fanmi Lavalas. This is not simply oversight or ignorance. I have conducted extensive correspondence with programs and senior news editors at CBC Radio about this matter, for several months now. They are either disbelieving or disinterested. The same can be said for the editors of Canada's print media.

This is not a proper response from a serious media outlet, but sadly, Haiti does not seem to merit the same standard of journalism that might apply to similar situations in other countries. Imagine, for a moment, that the government in Venezuela was conducting that country's electoral affairs in a way similar to Rene Preval's discredited regime in Haiti. Canada's editors and news writers would be screaming, and writing, at the top of their lungs. And we wouldn't hear the end of it from the federal government.

All this places major responsibilities before the Haiti solidarity movement and to anyone else in Canada concerned about Haiti's fate. Will we let this sham electoral process pass unchallenged? I am confident that we won't, that we will find the means to assist the people of Haiti who are waging the battle for democracy, social justice and electoral accountability. That's what got the Canada Haiti Action Network started in the first place, in 2004, and it's where we must keep moving.

Nora Rasman: Due to his international notoriety, Wyclef Jean brought the elections issue to the forefront for a short time when he declared his candidacy, was rejected and repealed. It is positive that any attention around elections has been generated, but very little media coverage has addressed the fundamental problems with the upcoming elections. If the immediate concerns of those affected by the quake are not addressed, the reconstruction and long-term rebuilding process will exclude the Haitian majority and increase the possibility of political instability.

Brian Concannon: The mainstream American media has a bias towards covering personalities over policies in all elections, including our own. Reporters and editors claim that it’s what Americans like to read. The Wyclef Jean coverage carries that bias to an extreme. It has devoted extensive space to a clearly ineligible candidate with no political experience running with a party that has never won any elected office. At the same time, it ignores the disqualification of the party that has won every free election held in Haiti for 20 years, always by a landslide.

The US equivalent to what’s happening in Haiti would be President Obama forming a new party before our 2012 elections, and announcing that the Democrats and Republicans were disqualified, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—who was born in Austria and thus constitutionally barred from the Presidency—announcing his candidacy, then the press foaming at the mouth about how his entry into the race has energized action hero movie fans, while ignoring the disqualification of the parties that win every election.

Kim Ives: Wyclef Jean made it clear that he would head a pro-US administration and work with the UN and USAID. Meanwhile, Washington and its media are trying to “turn the page” on the Lavalas movement. The first stage is always to ignore and minimize it. If FL continues to stymie Washington’s agenda in Haiti, the mainstream media will set about demonizing the FL and its leaders, just as it did six years ago.

Is it fair to say that the international community does not want to see democracy in Haiti? And if so, why, especially considering Haiti’s great need and the sums of money promised for reconstruction by the international community?

Brian Concannon: The international community wants to see a “democracy” in Haiti that betrays the desires of Haitian voters in favor of the dictates of the international community and Haitian elites. This is obviously problematic from a moral and ethical perspective, but it is equally problematic from the perspective of a North American taxpayer. President John F. Kennedy famously remarked that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” The International Community seems intent on proving this maxim over and over. As long as Haitian voters are not allowed to choose their leaders, there will be violence in Haiti (mostly coming from anti-democratic forces, but some from democratic forces as well), which will imperil any money provided for Haiti’s reconstruction, and provoke continued expensive military intervention in Haiti.

Akinyele Umoja: I resent the term “international community” because it doesn’t refer to the people in these countries. It refers to very specific interests in the US, France and Canada. In the US, the Monroe Doctrine states clearly that the US will control the Caribbean and the Americas to suit its needs. The US doesn’t like any country that seeks a political or economic course independent of its own. Ordinary people would support democracy in Haiti, but they get so much disinformation that they don’t know what’s really going on.

Kim Ives: The US, France and Canada cannot tolerate any sovereign and nationalist state in Latin America, least of all Haiti. Their subversion and coups d’etat of the past show that clearly. In particular, the US won’t stand for it because of Haiti’s geopolitical position across the strategic Windward Passage from socialist Cuba and its sharing of the island with the Dominican Republic (DR), an important US ally and business partner. Any radical progressive social change in Haiti would have a huge impact on the DR, where many Haitian migrants and Haitian ancestry Dominicans live, many travelling back and forth between the two countries.

Haiti is also, after Cuba, the most populous nation in the Caribbean, and in many ways, Latin America's most African country. Racism has played a major role in Haiti's subjugation, denigration, and constant political crises—stoked by North America and Europe since Haiti's ground-breaking 1804 revolution.

The great sums of money promised to Haiti after the quake are primarily earmarked to go to US contractors like Halliburton, DynCorp, and Kellogg Brown & Root [now KBR]. The “reconstruction” is a golden opportunity to channel billions to the Pentagon’s principal contractors and rebuild Haiti as Washington sees fit (ie; more like Puerto Rico, a US colony whose national economic independence has been almost completely repressed, subjugated or consumed by US multinationals, which have polluted the environment, doctored the legal and political system and corrupted the Indigenous culture). This is why the US has essentially taken over the Haitian government through the Interim Commission to Reconstruct Haiti (CIRH).

How important is this election to Haitians, especially given the struggle for survival since the earthquake?

Nora Rasman: The exclusion of FL has added skepticism to people’s views on the usefulness of these elections. For many of the camp leaders and those living in camps, elections are not a priority because there are so many other outstanding immediate issues on the table, including securing basic goods and services on a daily basis. People affected by the earthquake—particularly those who have been internally displaced—are challenged to obtain consistent access to food, water, health, sanitation and washing services, education or job opportunities.

Akinyele Umoja: In the camps, the main issue is survival: safety, health and food. But people are tying it to politics. They see themselves as Lavalas, so they feel that if their party was allowed to participate, they would be interested in the elections, but with the current group of candidates, they just see it as a sham that will not help them at all.

What can concerned citizens in Canada and the US do about this issue?

Brian Concannon: Concerned citizens outside of Haiti need to protect our ideals, our tax dollars and Haitian voters against our own governments’ polices, by 1) staying informed about Haiti, and 2) staying involved. The IJDH has a program called "Half-Hour for Haiti," which helps people do both. Anyone can sign up on our website.

Nora Rasman: Concerned citizens abroad can argue for free, fair and transparent elections to move forward. Holding your government, as well as national and international non-governmental organizations, accountable for their activities is of the utmost importance. To this end, we suggest that people become engaged by contacting their elected officials to tell them the crisis on the ground has not ended while emphasizing the need for Haitian civil society organizations to be part of the long-term planning for reconstruction, including the electoral process. Or building concrete relationships with solidarity organizations in Haiti, the US and Canada, organizations that support a fair and representative electoral processes.

Akinyele Umoja: We need to challenge our own governments. In the US, we need to ask ourselves the question of how Aristide can be returned to the country because we took him away. We need to understand our own government’s involvement in the impoverishment of Haiti. If people hadn’t stood up around the world against apartheid in South Africa, it wouldn’t have fallen, and we need to do the same work around the issue of Haiti.

Kim Ives: People should provide material and financial support to the resistance being carried out by coalitions like PLONBAVIL, groups like the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and Bureau des avocats internationaux (BAI), and media like Haiti Liberte.

Originally from Saskatchewan, Darren Ell is a teacher, photographer and freelance journalist residing in Montreal. Between 2006 and 2008, he documented the legacy of the 2004 coup d’etat in online publications with the Citizenshift, The Dominion and Haiti Action. His photographic installation on this subject, Haiti Holdup, was exhibited at Concordia University in Montreal.

Fanmi Lavalas Haiti

Silent Coup in Haiti, Part I

Martin Lukacs — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 07:09:34 +0000

Experts, organizers assess the country's democratic crisis

MONTREAL—Once again, the people of Haiti are being denied the government of their choosing. While mainstream media has focused public attention on ineligible candidates such as hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean, the most popular political party in Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas, has been banned from the November 28, 2010, Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Fanmi Lavalas (Lavalas, or FL) grew out of the Lavalas movement that brought down the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship and ushered Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1991. In 2000, during the last democratic election the party was permitted to participate in, it won 90 per cent of Haitians' votes, the equivalent of Canada’s Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green parties combined; or the equivalent of the US's combined electoral support for Republicans and Democrats.

Lavalas' progressive democratic program and Aristide’s goal of lifting Haiti from “misery to poverty with dignity” has always been an unsavoury proposal for Haiti’s narrow elite and their supporters abroad. Two bloody coups d’etat have unseated Aristide: the first in 1991, backed by the US, and the second in 2004, supported also by Canada and France. In each case, thousands of FL activists and supporters were murdered and imprisoned, and Aristide was sent to exile in February 2004. Since the 2004 coup, FL has been banned from participating in Haitian politics.

Support for the party remains strong, though it currently faces significant challenges beyond its exclusion from the elections. The government of Rene Preval, on the other hand, is widely unpopular, especially in the aftermath of the catastrophic January, 2010 earthquake. An estimated 1.7 million survivors now live in unsafe, unsanitary makeshift camps for the internally displaced, facing food insecurity and forced evictions. It is in this climate that the November 2010 elections will be held.

To discuss the crisis of democracy, The Dominion spoke with some key political figures on the ground in Haiti and abroad. Brian Concannon is a founder and director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), a US-based grassroots organization that does human rights advocacy and pursues legal cases in Haitian, US and international courts. Kim Ives is a member of the editorial board of Haiti Liberte, a progressive Haitian newspaper. Roger Annis is one of Canada’s foremost Haiti solidarity activists and a member of Canada Haiti Action Network. Akinyele Umoja is an Associate Professor of African-American Studies at Georgia State University and founding member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. He recently returned from meetings with popular organizations in Haiti. Nora Rasman is the Interim Director of Latin America and Caribbean Policy at TransAfrica Forum. She specializes in UN interventions in Haiti and has extensive post-earthquake experience on the ground in Haiti.

Darren Ell: Is there any way of knowing if Fanmi Lavalas is as popular today as it was prior to the earthquake?

Brian Concannon: The best way of measuring its popular support would be through a fair election, but the Haitian government is not allowing that to happen. Other indicators of its popularity, which have correlated to electoral landslides in the past, point to continuing support for Lavalas. These measures include my own surveys of people I meet in Haiti, attendance at demonstrations, statements from grassroots leaders and perhaps most indicative, the efforts that Lavalas opponents at home and abroad are making to prevent the Haitian people from freely choosing their leaders.

Kim Ives: Anybody doing a cursory sidewalk poll can establish FL’s support in a few hours. In March 2010, I asked dozens of people: “In the quake’s aftermath, would you like to see the return of President Aristide?” The responses came back 90 per cent in favor, 10 per cent against. Another key indicator of that support was the success of the April and June 2009 nationwide boycotts of the partial Senate elections, where less than five per cent of the population participated because FL was excluded.

What is the reason for Fanmi Lavalas’ popularity?

Brian Concannon: When I have asked this question, Haitian voters—many of them critical of some FL policies or leaders—usually say, “Because Lavalas (or President Aristide) has not betrayed the Haitian people.” Voters believe that FL at least tries to implement progressive policies designed to promote social equality in Haiti and improve the lives of the majority of Haitians who are poor, and resists pressure from Haitian elites and the international community to increase social inequality.

Akinyele Umoja: Lavalas has won every election they’ve run in, but the US, French and Canadian Governments all have interests in Haiti and don’t want to see the Lavalas agenda put forward. FL invests in people, emphasizing infrastructure investment in schools, roads and hospitals. That is not the priority of foreign interest or the Haitian elite. It’s quite shocking that despite the repression people have endured for voting for Lavalas in the past they still remain loyal to the party.

Kim Ives: Besides their investment in the poor majority, FL really is the people. There are dozens of different bases (“baz”), often with rivalries and political differences. The national leadership is weak and not really respected, but the idea and symbol of popular power still remains with FL and Aristide.

What is the current state of Fanmi Lavalas? How organized is it and how did the earthquake affect it? Are there splits in the party?

Akinyele Umoja: As someone who has worked in the civil rights movement in the US where repression was long and intense, I know that repression has a negative effect on any such movement. Party representatives I met in Haiti suggested that this has occurred in Haiti and that the movement is not consolidated. Yet it seems to have widespread support. On the celebration of Aristide’s birthday on July 15, 12,000 people marched. If they can do that, they can mobilize people politically now.

Kim Ives: FL is rent by splits, has weak national leadership, and has a very ambiguous official program, all of which is complained about by its entire membership base. It is organized around small groups called Ti Fanmi which often have disputes with each other. Aristide designates its leaders but they are unpopular with or unknown to the base. While the base might remain strongly attached to Aristide, it often resents and rejects his appointees. This is currently the situation with, for example, Dr. Maryse Narcisse.

Despite this leadership void at the top, the mid-level Lavalas leaders are very strong and dynamic. Many of them are leaders in coalitions like PLONBAVIL and Tet Kole Oganizasyon Popile. They generally are more radical than the official party line, calling for things like an end to the foreign military occupation of Haiti (a call Narcisse has never made), the overhaul of the Provisional Electoral Council (Conseil Electoral Provisoire, or CEP) that approves candidates, Preval’s resignation and the formation of a provisional government to hold elections. Much of this Lavalas base has also been involved in the defence of women subject to rape in the IDP camps, and the defence of the IDP camp residents from eviction by landowners.

How does Fanmi Lavalas’ platform differ from that of other candidates?

Kim Ives: Generally, candidates in Haiti have very conventional and harmless platforms, calling futilely for things like jobs, education, health, roads and so on. FL’s last “program” was released 11 years ago and was called “Investir dans l’Humain” (Invest in People), but FL has always been defined, despite attempts to dilute its message and ranks, by the program put forward by the Lavalas movement leaders, headed by Aristide in 1990, who called for Haiti’s “second independence,” meaning a break with the US, France and Canada, taxation of Haiti’s rich to benefit the poor, and the political marginalization of anti-democratic forces like the Duvalierists and neo-Duvalierists. But officially in 2010, FL is not proposing anything radically different from any of the other candidates.

Why have so many observers stated that the CEP,the organization that approves the official list of candidates, is not credible?

Brian Concannon: The CEP was chosen in 2009 through an unconstitutional process that gave the president undue influence over the choice of councillors. Over the past year, the Council has confirmed the fears of observers across the political spectrum that it would advance the interests of the president’s party over the interests of the constitution and Haiti’s voters. The Council’s most egregious act has been the unjustified disqualification of 14 political parties from across the spectrum, including FL, from the legislative elections. A detailed analysis of the problematic nature of the CEP is available on the IJDH website.

Why has the CEP banned Fanmi Lavalas from the electoral process?

Brian Concannon: The CEP provided verbal justifications for FL’s banning from the upcoming 2010 legislative elections, none of which was formally stated in a legal document, and none of which is legally justified. The Council initially claimed that a mandate sent by President Aristide to allow another party leader to register FL candidates was not authentic, then that it was not appropriately notarized. When both those claims were disproven, the Council changed course and said that FL’s failure to file some documents before the April 2009 Senatorial elections (from which FL was also illegally excluded) prevented its participation in the elections.

FL was banned from the upcoming 2010 Presidential elections by a CEP decree that parties could not register unless the head of the party registered in person. Haitian law provides no basis for such a claim. In Haiti as in Canada or the US, people are freely allowed to delegate authority through authenticated written instruments. This action by the CEP was clearly aimed at FL, because it is the only party whose leader is in involuntary exile.

If Fanmi Lavalas cannot run candidates, what choices are left to Haitians?

Kim Ives: Many Haitians will seek to boycott the November elections if they go forward (and that is a big “if”) or to disrupt them in other ways. Some may support the candidacies of the “stealth” Lavalas candidates—those who are posturing to be seen as Aristide's heir: Jean Henry Ceant, Yvon Neptune, Leslie Voltaire, Yves Christallin or Dr. Gerard Blot.

The IJDH has detailed the challenges the earthquake created for elections: the loss of innumerable identification cards, identifying the deceased in the electoral lists, the destruction of polling stations and the displacement of the population. They have also stated that “if elections are not held, Haiti’s extraordinary difficulties will be compounded by the lack of a credible, democratic power in Haiti.” What could be the consequences for Haiti if credible elections are not held? How is this going to play out on the ground in Haiti given the post-earthquake reality?

Kim Ives: If credible elections are not held, which is likely, a large percentage of the population will boycott the polling. Alternatively, the population could, in an unofficial manner, vote in large numbers for one of the “stealth” Lavalas candidates, or possibly even for former Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis if he continues to make Aristide’s return one of his principle planks.

Under the first scenario, the “winner” of the election will be seen as illegitimate by the population, leaving a very fragile political situation. The slightest incident (historically, usually the shooting of children) could set off riots and calls for the president’s resignation. This is, of course, why the UN occupation troops remain deployed in Haiti: to repress precisely this type of popular uprising.

In the second scenario, if one of the “stealth” Lavalas candidates manages to get a popular following and “take” the vote in some way, then that candidate would come into office with a great deal of popular expectations riding on him. He will then either betray that popular trust put in him by toeing the line like Preval did, or try to challenge the restrictions placed on him by the UN forces, the Interim Commission to Reconstruct Haiti and the international financial institutions. If he does this, he will quickly be demonized and eliminated in one way or another. Betrayal however is the most likely outcome.

In either case, the constellation of progressive groups orbiting the offices of the Bureau des avocats internationaux (BAI) and Haiti Liberte will continue to gain strength and credibility, as their predictions of either bogus elections or a betraying leader are borne out. This embryonic resistance front, in turn, will eventually crystallize into a more organized and disciplined organization or a broad social movement under the leadership of a symbolic leader, similar to what is happening in Latin America.

How this later aftermath would play out depends on whether Aristide returns or not. If Aristide did return, it would only be if one of the “stealth” Lavalas candidates, or Alexis, wins. On his return, although he would devote himself to his university and foundation, Aristide would become a huge power broker. However, Washington will do everything in its considerable power to prevent Aristide’s return.

Originally from Saskatchewan, Darren Ell is a teacher, photographer and freelance journalist residing in Montreal. Between 2006 and 2008, he documented the legacy of the 2004 coup d’etat in online publication with the Citizenshift, The Dominion and Haiti Action. His photographic installation on this subject,Haiti Holdup, was exhibited at Concordia University in Montreal.

Fanmi Lavalas Haiti

Clinton Apology to Haiti Surprises NS Activists

Moira Peters — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:21:18 +0000

Former US president calls dumping cheap rice "a mistake"

HALIFAX—Nova Scotia activists are expressing surprise that former US president Bill Clinton has apologized for flooding Haiti with cheap American rice beginning in the mid 1990s. During testimony before a US Senate committee last month, Clinton admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports made it impossible for Haitian farmers to compete in their domestic economy. The trade policy forced farmers off land and undercut Haiti's ability to feed itself.

“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake,” Clinton—now a UN special envoy to Haiti—told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 10. “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

“I would like to believe that Clinton has had a change of heart,” wrote Heidi Verheul of the Halifax Peace Coalition in an e-mail. “But he actually needs to do something to challenge the free market shock doctrine economic policies that are being designed to further subjugate and impoverish Haiti,” she added. “The policies of aid and development in Haiti have continuously served to undermine democracy [and] local economies, and have driven tens of thousands of people from their land, enslaved them in sweatshops, makeshift homes, and absolute grinding, miserable poverty.”

Clinton’s apology attracted scant media attention in the US and none in Canada. It was included as part of an Associated Press news agency report that was published March 20 by the Washington Post. The AP report from Haiti’s earthquake-ravaged capital, Port au Prince, suggests world leaders are reconsidering trade and aid policies that make poor countries dependent on rich ones. It quotes UN aid official John Holmes as saying that poor countries, like Haiti, need to become more self-sufficient by rebuilding their own food production.

“A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have...resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed,” Holmes told AP. “That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti’s a prime example. I think this is where we should start."

The Clinton administration forced Jean Bertrand Aristide to agree to cut rice tariffs drastically when the US restored the Haitian president to power in October 1994. Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, had been overthrown by a US-backed military coup in 1991. In return for $770 million in international loans and aid, Aristide was required to agree to a business-friendly “structural adjustment” program that, aside from cutting food tariffs, also included freezing the minimum wage, cutting the size of the civil service, and privatizing public utilities. (Aristide annoyed the US by being slow to implement such policies, making Clinton’s apology last month all the more surprising.)

Janet Eaton, trade and environment campaigner for Sierra Club Canada, said members of the global democracy movement have long known about the failures of the globalized food system, and Clinton’s apology to Haitians only reinforced what many activists have talked and written about for years.

“When high-profile leaders admit that economic globalization isn’t working, then it’s time for governments to get on board and look at alternatives.” Eaton added. “It is time to admit that these failures exist and put an end to the aggressive free trade frenzy that is now occurring in Canada, the US and Europe as they vie for foreign markets, raw materials and unfettered free trade.”

Eaton pointed to one alternative in Nova Scotia—a Food Policy Council, which was formally established at a meeting in Truro on April 19. Farmers, consumers, academics, policy analysts and organizations were promoting food security for all Nova Scotians by focusing on ways to grow more of our own food. Eaton contended that growing more local food would help curtail climate change, reduce dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuels and alleviate global poverty.

She added, “Haiti should be seen as a metaphor for what can happen on a planetary level if we fail to recognize the crisis we face.”

Bruce Wark is a freelance journalist based in Fall River, NS. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

clinton in haiti

Funding Axe Sharpened by Foreign Policy

Moira Peters — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:49:54 +0000

Cuts to NGOs in line with Canada’s stance on Palestine

TORONTO—An internal struggle over funding human rights groups that are critical of Israel was waged behind closed doors at the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, commonly known as Rights and Democracy (R&D).

After a January 7 board meeting, that battle was thrust into the public eye.

A newly appointed member of the board, David Matas, who is also legal counsel for right-wing B'nai B'rith Canada, brought forward a motion to repudiate the funding to one Israeli and two Palestinian human rights groups.

“These organizations were all on the same side: critical of Israel,” he told The Dominion.

Remy Beauregard, President of R&D, had previously supported these grants, but at the meeting he switched his position and the vote passed unanimously, with one abstention.

That night Beauregard died of a heart attack. His widow would blame his death on stress and the “harassment” he suffered at the hands of the board. Four days after his death, nearly the entire staff of the organization wrote a letter demanding that three members of the board resign.

“Your complete misunderstanding of your role as directors of Rights and Democracy makes you unfit to remain on the board of directors," they said. The letter was addressed to the same members of the board who were pushing to have Beauregard removed as president of R&D, and who had written an unfavourable performance review of Beauregard in the Spring of 2009.

While R&D is often perceived as a non-governmental organization (NGO), the federal government funds the group and makes appointments to the Board of Directors. In November, the feds appointed Matas and Michael Van Pelt to the board. This shifted the composition of the board, weighting it in opposition of R&D’s funding to groups in Israel and Palestine.

Warren Allmand, a former president of R&D, believes the Conservatives were stacking the board.

“If you want to effect that kind of change at a place like Rights and Democracy, you look for people who have that point of view. You don't give them instructions; you know what they stand for already,” he said.

The January 7 board meeting was the first since the new government appointments. Different versions of what happened at the meeting emerged: Canadian Press called the meeting “vitriolic,” while Matas, who was at the meeting, called it “calm, polite [and] orderly,” noting the only thing that was “unusual was that two [board members] quit and walked out. ”

Matas said he believes when Beauregard voted in favour of repudiating the grants to the three human rights groups he had genuinely changed his mind.

“When Beauregard went to bed the night, he died with the realization that those three grants which he had spent so much time and effort defending...were wrongly made.” He also suggested a more cynical explanation might be that “Beauregard changed his views because of the shifting composition and majority in the board.”

R&D received over $11 million from the federal government in 2009, and spends millions of dollars on grants and overseas charitable programs. The three grants at the centre of the controversy were for $10,000 each to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group with programs in Occupied Palestinian Terriories, and to Palestinian human rights groups Al Haq, based in the West Bank, and Al Mezan, based in Gaza. These groups all write reports on human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine. B'Tselem recently won an award for its program to facilitate citizen journalism by providing video cameras for Palestinians to document rights abuses and post those videos on YouTube.

All three groups have been criticized by NGO Monitor, an organization whose purpose is to expose the “anti-Israel agendas” of other NGOs. It was originally a joint project of B’nai B'rith International and the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, but Monitor is now an independent NGO.

The repudiation of the three grants took place in the context of a series of events since the Gaza War, a conflict which began in December 2008 and lasted three weeks. During that time, over 1,000 rockets were fired into Israel and numerous airstrikes, missiles and ground troops attacked the Gaza Strip. All sides agree that 13 Israelis and over 1,000 Palestinians died.

After a ceasefire, many groups believed Gaza was suffering a humanitarian crisis. In February 2009, R&D approved the grants to B'Tselem, Al Haq, and Al Mezan. Allmand claims that before dispersing these funds the staff at R&D checked and found the groups “had also received money over the last few years from CIDA [the Canadian International Development Agency] and the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

The United Nations launched a fact-finding mission on the conflict in Gaza in April 2009, and in September it released the Goldstone Report. Human rights groups had contributed much testimony to the report, which accused Israel of war crimes.

NGO Monitor was one of many groups that criticized the report for relying on the testimony from NGOs they consider biased against Israel. Im Tirtzu, an Israeli ultra-nationalist group, recently placed a controversial ad in the Jerusalem Post which targeted the New Israel Fund (NIF), a group that fundraises in the West for human rights groups operating inside Israel, including B'Tselem.

The Israeli government is also cracking down on human rights groups. The Israeli newspaper Haartz reported in January that the Interior Ministry has stopped issuing work visas to foreign nationals who work in NGOs.

In an August 2009 story in US magazine Counterpunch, Jonathan Cook wrote, “Israel's foreign ministry...has issued instructions to all its embassies abroad to question their host governments about whether they fund such activities.”

The Israeli Embassy in Canada refused to comment on this statement.

Other shifts in the funding of Canadian NGOs have taken place. Alternatives—a left-leaning NGO based in Montreal—and KAIROS—a church-based NGO that promotes social justice—have not had their CIDA funding renewed. While Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda claimed the groups did not meet CIDA's new priorities, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney had a different explanation.

On a trip to Israel in December he explained how the Canadian government was combating anti-Semitism.

“We have defunded organizations, most recently KAIROS, who have been taking a leading role in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] Campaign.”

Mary Corkery, Executive Director of KAIROS, said KAIROS is not a leader of the BDS Campaign, and that the group's stance supports some ideas behind the campaign and not others.

“It needs to be taken back,” she said, referring to Kenney's remarks. “The real issue for us is that he said the way he is combating anti-Semitism is by cutting our funding.” KAIROS has asked Kenney for a retraction of his statements. So far none has been made.

“In conversations that we have had with other NGOs it has of course created a chill,” said Corkery. “There is fear of being in support of Palestinian people and groups, who essentially are struggling for land and livelihood.”

Asked which groups were feeling this pressure, she responded, “The chill is such that people don't want to be named.”

“The policy of the Canadian government in terms of Israel and Palestine has changed but there hasn't been a public discussion about that,” said Corkery, referring to the strong pro-Israel stances the Harper government has taken since being elected.

“That has definitely affected [R&D],” she said.

While the controversy at R&D swirls around funding to groups in the Middle East, it remains unclear if this signals an attempt by the Canadian government to align all international NGO funding with government policy.

“I think they are quite open about that; my understanding is that the government wants to align volunteer sector aid ... [with] defence and trade,” said Corkery.

Solidarity activists in Haiti have already seen R&D as advancing Canadian foreign policy agendas. R&D supported and legitimized the 2004 coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, activists in solidarity with Colombia have noted R&D supports groups that denounce both President Uribe and the proposed Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Matas said he believes the dispute at R&D is specifically about the group's role in the Middle East. “Elsewhere in the world I can't see any change as a result of this controversy. ”

However, with respect to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon—which were led by foreign-funded NGOs—he acknowledged the political objectives of R&D.

“The notion that Canada might be seen to be independent of NGOs it finances through an arm's length organization has become illusory in light of the heightened suspicion of that sort of funding. The political objective of appearance of non-interference intended by the arm's length relationship is no longer attainable through a structure like Rights and Democracy,” he said.

Allmand sees the dispute at R&D as part of the Conservative Government's broader approach.

“Either by refusing or cutting funding, stacking boards, or refusing to cooperate, they’re cutting back on organizations that are supposed to be arm's length,” he said. “They're using these oganizations in partisan ways.”

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto.

Carmelle Wolfson provided files for this story. Wolfson is a Canadian journalist based in Israel/Palestine and an editor at The Daily Nuisance.

Funding Axe

Writing Off Sovereignty

dru — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:24:58 +0000

Quebec media on Haiti since the earthquake

In the five weeks following the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Quebec’s mainstream French-language media focused a considerable amount of attention on the devastated nation. What follows is a critical look at the opinions expressed by columnists during this time. Their ideas on three themes are examined: (1) The Reconstruction Process; (2) Haiti’s poverty; and (3) Attitudes towards former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his party, Fanmi Lavalas.

Looking ahead: the reconstruction process

When opinion writers look to the future, Haiti is depicted as a clean slate, a country bereft of capable people. Hope for the future and leadership in the reconstruction process are to be found not within the Haitian majority population but in the diaspora, the Haitian business elite and the international community. Journalists’ ideas and the ideas of the people they quote or interview are distinctly colonial and there is virtually no diversity of opinion. Haitian sovereignty and the building of a strong Haitian state are seen as unimportant, and the extraordinary ability of the Haitian population to mobilize and create progressive political programs is overlooked. A new Haiti is to be imposed, it would appear, by the few on the many.

Vincent Marissal is a columnist for La Presse in Montreal and a prominent figure on the Quebec media landscape. One month after the earthquake, he called for the international community to "impose the required decisions.” Responding to an urgent plea by the World Bank to strengthen the Government of Haiti, Marissal said: “How do we say cut the crap in Creole?...The word is strongly displeasing to Haitians, and this is understandable, but the solution starts with trusteeship, or protectorate if this word is less troubling to sensitive types.” More concretely, Marissal suggests ignoring democratic procedures and imposing an elite government: “...[W]e must install, for the next five years, an emergency government composed of several respected Haitian personalities, including members of the diaspora and representatives of the international community, whose mandate would be to restore order and security, save and give security to the victims, establish and supervise the reconstruction plan and follow the money carefully.”

Marissal suggests that “respected industrialist” Charles Henry Baker could be one of the “respected personalities” on the new political scene. Marissal’s colleague at La Presse, Philippe Mercure, later ran a puff piece on Baker entitled “The big-hearted entrepreneur.” Mercure did not mention that “big-hearted” Baker is a key member of the reviled Haitian business elite whose millions dodge government coffers; that in 2009 he opposed paying his sweatshop employees more than US$2 per day; that his pro-coup d’état organization, the Group of 184, promoted armed UN attacks on heavily populated slums following the 2004 coup d’etat; and that he was supported by 8.2 per cent of the Haitian population in the 2006 Presidential election.

Writing in Actualite, Quebec’s largest selling news magazine, editor-in-chief Carole Beaulieu continues themes she developed in 2004 when she suggested annexing Haiti and turning it into Canada’s 11th province. In 2010, she writes: “The Haitian government is an empty shell...Let’s speak frankly. When the cadavers are piling up, when people are being amputated by saws with no anesthesia, when hundreds of thousands of people are hungry, Haitian pride, which is outraged at attacks on sovereignty, is inappropriate...Reconstruction needs a leader in which Haitians can have confidence and who can rally foreign powers, someone who knows that decentralizing the economy and building roads to allow peasants to sell their products in cities is more important than rebuilding the national palace...Why not [Canadian Governor-General] Michaelle Jean? She is on good terms with Barak Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy and knows the language and culture of the country. What’s more, her mandate as Governor-General ends soon.”

Little matter that since the earthquake thousands of people regularly take to the streets in Port-au-Prince carrying signs showing the face of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, not Michaelle Jean. For Beaulieu, the wishes of Haitians seem to matter little, but she assures us that her ideas are not colonial in nature: “No foreign country wants to take over Haiti! Who would want a miserable country with no resources other than the sun and the smiles on the faces of her inhabitants?”

Disrespect for Haitian sovereignty continues. Also writing in Actualite, journalist Michel Arseneault introduces his article on the reconstruction of Haiti by quoting his interview subject, Haitian geographer Jean-Marie Theodat: “The international community must now do everything to help a population with no other options, even if it means taking a chip out of Haitian sovereignty. A state unable to coordinate foreign aid must let others take on the responsibility.”

Actualite’s Jonathan Trudel interviews Haitian-born Quebec sociologist Franklin Midy about solutions for the future. Midy proposes 16 solutions for Haiti. Number 11 is called, “Supporting the State.” We learn that in Haiti’s current government, “competent people remain; they’re not all dead, and it is important to give them work and responsibility. To avoid the collapse of the state, the international community must ensure that the salaries of nurses, teachers, police officers and bureaucrats are paid.” Other than this, the Haitian state is absent from Midy’s reconstruction effort. The only initiative in which the state appears to be involved (in conjunction with the UN) is in encouraging people to move to the countryside from Port-au-Prince.

Actualite’s interview choices mirror those of 2004 when “specialists” were telling Haitians to make room for an international trusteeship. In 2010, Jean-Frederic Legare-Tremblay interviews former Quebec Liberal politician Gerard Latulippe, current director of the National Democratic Institute in Haiti. After resurrecting old lies by criminalizing Aristide and his followers (the majority of Haitians), Latulippe states: “...I see no other way than by imposing a trusteeship run by the international community... This means that during the reconstruction of the political institutions, decisions will be made by a group of people appointed by the Security Council of the United Nations who would run the country.” Latulippe and Actualite seem to have forgotten the murderous legacy of the 2004 trusteeship.

In Quebec City’s Journal de Quebec, columnist Jean-Jacques Samson reminds us of the incompetence of Haitians living in Haiti: “Since they can’t do it alone, Haitians will have to count on international aid for many years. The brilliant Haitian minds that emigrated to developed countries will have to return to their country of origin to show leadership. They must be the first to believe in a future for Haiti so that the citizens of donor countries believe.”

Francois Brousseau, writing for Le Devoir, states: “...A profound awakening is necessary—by foreign countries and Haitian elites—as to the inadequacy of everything that has been attempted until now.” For aid to work, he states that a sort of “cultural revolution” is needed in Haiti. Brousseau neglects to mention that ordinary Haitians already had their cultural revolution long ago, without any help from foreigners or elites, and created a progressive democratic movement. Not only that, but what they achieved was hardly inadequate. On the contrary, the program of the Lavalas movement, had it been supported and not crushed by violence, could have solved many of the problems created by colonialism.

Looking back: reasons for Haiti’s poverty

Journalists used the earthquake as an opportunity to discuss the history of Haiti’s misery. French and American colonial practices are explained with varying degrees of detail, but Canada’s role in the 2004 coup d’etat is unexplained. In fact, five weeks of copious journalistic output in Quebec produced one sentence mentioning (not explaining) that Canada was involved in a coup d’etat in 2004, validating the thesis of Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model—whereby mainstream media toes the line of existing power structures and points the finger elsewhere.

One week after the earthquake, Quebec journalist Chantal Hebert recommends in her blog with La Presse that Michael Ignatieff and Denis Coderre patch up their differences so Coderre could handle the Haiti dossier. During the last trusteeship in Haiti, Coderre was special advisor to Haiti and skilfully ensured that blame for Canada’s role in the coup be deflected. Hebert’s suggestion, if realized, would guarantee more of the same.

Shockingly, several high-profile journalists look to Haitian cultural “defects” to explain Haiti’s economic woes. There is no corresponding inquiry into US, French or Canadian cultural flaws that would induce these nations to sack Haiti. Richard Hetu, for example, a New York correspondent for La Presse explored the reasons for Haiti’s poverty in his blog. He relates uncritically the ideas of New York columnist David Brooks who notes that even though over 10,000 NGOs in Haiti “are doing the Lord’s work...even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.” For Brooks, the “thorny issue of culture" is the root of Haiti’s poverty. Quoting Lawrence E. Harrison’s book, The Central Liberal Truth, Brooks points out that “Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences,” such as “the voodoo religion” and “high levels of social mistrust...difficulty internalizing responsibility, and faulty child-rearing practices”.

Patrick Lagace is a prominent columnist with La Presse in Montréal. In no uncertain terms, he attributes Haitian misery to passivity: “...Sorry, but Haitians collectively are horribly, depressingly and dangerously passive...I believe I’ve described the urgency with enough compassion to have the right, just once, to say that by their passivity, Haitians actively contribute to their misery.” Twisting historical fact in new ways, Lagace claims Haitians were too passive to oust their own elected president (Aristide), whom he describes as a dictator: “No one is ever brutal with Haiti for fear of being called insensitive or racist. Haitians don’t need it anyway. They’re already brutal amongst themselves, tolerating dictators and putchistes. And when an elected president screws them, it’s the US marines who kick him out, not Haitians.”

Francois Brousseau, like Lagace, also muses as to the cultural roots of Haiti’s poverty. “Perhaps there is something in the local culture...something that blocks things such as economic development, an enterprising spirit, construction and projects.” He wonders also if voodoo and superstitions do not "stuff Haitian minds with a dreadful fatalism.”

Attitudes toward Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas

Quebec mainstream media attitudes toward former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide—despite voluminous and widely published research dispelling the lies about his second presidency—have not changed since prior to the 2004 coup. He is consistently depicted as a megalomaniac, a dictator, a last-ditch hope for desperate Haitians, and a danger to Haiti. The real story of his ouster is apparently not worth sharing with the Quebec public, perhaps because it involves Quebec political figures and NGOs.

Furthermore, the tendency to focus only on Aristide and not on the grassroots movement that brought him to power (or the corrupt opposition that undermined him) has the added benefit of keeping the Quebec public unaware that there is a coherent democratic force in Haiti. We are not told, for example, that in 2009, the party Aristide created, Fanmi Lavalas, the largest political organization in Haiti, was banned from elections. Nor are we told that 90 per cent of the voters boycotted the election. Why is this dynamic democratic political force not being discussed or supported by Quebec mainstream commentators?

Evoking old disinformation, Vincent Marissal likens public demands for the return of Aristide to the pleas of desperate people clinging to a former dictator for help. “It’s not for nothing that we see banners and graffiti demanding the return of Aristide. People are looking for a glimmer of hope, even if it means looking into the darkest corners of their recent past.”

Michel Arseneault did not challenge his interview subject, Jean-Marie Theodat, after his absurd reply to Arseneault’s inquiry as to whether Aristide should return to Haiti: “If he returned, it would be like adding another layer to the destruction already caused by the earthquake.”

Brousseau portrays Aristide as a sort of madman: “...The dark episode of February 2004...when the US of George Bush, together with Canada and France as sidekicks, apprehended the elected president in his home and sent him into exile, a Jean-Bertrand Aristide with all his very real errors, prey to his visions.”

Finally, Quebec caricaturists expressed themselves when after the earthquake Aristide requested to return to Haiti from an illegal US-imposed exile. Serge Chapleau, caricaturist for La Presse, portrays a feeble Aristide waving a feeble Haitian flag. The caption reads: “When it rains, it pours.” (A similar translation would be, “Bad things come in twos.”) In Sherbrooke’s La Tribune, caricaturist Herve Philippe portrays Aristide holding a halo above his head and we read the following: “The former Haitian president in exile, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, capitalizes on the chaos in Haiti to stage a comeback by posing as the Messiah.” In Gatineau’s Le Droit, caricaturist Bado shows us Baby Doc riding a wooden horse yelling: “If Aristide can do it, so can I!”

Conclusion

If the function of media in a democratic society is to provide its citizens with the information and ideas they need to take meaningful action in their democracy, then Quebec’s opinion writers have failed dramatically. Quebec, home to one of the world’s largest Haitian diaspora populations, is being told that Haiti should once again be controlled by everything but the will of its own majority population; that Canadian crimes in Haiti are not worth mentioning; that Haitians possess cultural flaws that perpetuate their suffering; and that Haiti’s most popular political figure and the party he led—the most popular in the country—have no place in Haiti’s future. It is clear that unless Quebeckers read outside the mainstream media they will support ideas destined to perpetuate the errors of the past and prolong the suffering of the people of Haiti.

This article originally appeared in Haiti Analysis.

Sources

Arseneault, Michel. "Il faut rebâtir par le bas!" Actualité. March 1, 2010, pp 18-21.

Beaulieu, Carole. Et si on anexait Haïti?. Actualité. April 1, 2004.

Beaulieu, Carole. "Haïti: parlons franchement!" Actualité. March 1, 2010, p. 9.

Brousseau, François. « Les conditions de la renaissance. » January 18, 2010.

Brousseau, François. “Commentaire – les damnés de la terre.” Le Devoir, January 14, 2010.

Brousseau, François. « Reconstruire. » Le Devoir. January 25, 2010.

Cyberpresse.ca. “Caricatures du 10 au 16 janvier, 2010.”

Facal, Joseph. Les sept plaies d'Haïti. Le Journal de Montréal. January 18, 2010.

Hébert, Chantal. Sortir Denis Coderre des boules à mites? Actualité.com. January 18, 2010.

Hétu, Richard. "Pourquoi Haïti est-il si pauvre?" La Presse Blog. Januay 15, 2010.

Lagacé, Patrick. "Haïti, malade de ses charades." La Presse. January 30, 2010.

Légaré-Tremblay, Jean-Frédéric. «Urgent ! Vide politique à combler» Actualité. January 28, 2010.

Marissal, Vincent. "En attendant la secousse politique." La Presse. February 6, 2010.

Marissal, Vincent. "Le temps d’agir." La Presse. February 12, 2010.

Mercure, Philippe. "Charles-Henri Baker: l'entrepreneur au grand-coeur." La Presse. February 17, 2010, p. A18.

Samson, Jean-Jacques. Un nouvel Haïti. Le Journal de Québec. January 19, 2010.

Trudel, Jonathan. "16 solutions pour l'avenir." Actualité. March 1, 2010. p. 22-24.

Boy in Cite Soleil

Securing Haiti

hillarybain — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:29:05 +0000

Soldiers vs doctors in post-earthquake Haiti

VANCOUVER—Within hours of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Cuban doctors, Chinese search and rescue teams and Venezuelan medical professionals were on the ground. When the US military took control of Port-au-Prince Airport, however, they prioritized landing soldiers instead of humanitarian supplies, according to humanitarian organizations like Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) and Amnesty International. The militarization of disaster relief has led to harsh condemnation of what critics call an American-led occupation of Haiti.

Speaking to the heavy reliance on military troops, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez observed that “thousands of men are disembarking in Haiti as if it were a war.” Chavez’s sentiments echoed his counterparts in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Beleaguered with increasingly bad press about Iraq and Afghanistan, Western armed forces have an opportunity to highlight their humanitarian face in Haiti. But, some wonder, with what costs?

Military-led versus the civilian-oriented approach favoured by regional countries highlights a difference in approach to disaster relief. Fusing humanitarianism and the military, both the US and Canada say that order must come first to prevent the descent into chaos. Alternatively, Nicaragua told the UN General Assembly that “Haiti needs doctors, engineers, teachers, construction materials. It needs to strengthen its agricultural production; it doesn’t need soldiers.”

Venezuela is providing Haiti free fuel, delivered along with other aid shipments through the Dominican Republic.

Cuba and Venezuela have co-operated to deliver health services to Haiti, according to Al Jazeera’s Tom Fawthrop. Cuban doctors are specially trained for disaster relief and have proven themselves during the earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia in 2005 and 2006. Washington declined Havana’s aid during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

However, regional groups, states and humanitarian organizations have had difficulty accessing Haiti. As MSF’s Francoise Saulnier explained to Reuters, “Urgent and vital attention to the people has been delayed (for) military logistics.” As planes and supplies are delayed or re-routed, doctors have had to employ impromptu measures, such as hand-operated breathing devices and saws for amputations, according to media reports.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was unable to secure US approval to land in Port-au-Prince in January, even though Haiti is a member state. Instead, they have had to form their base for disaster relief in Jamaica.

As the Responsibility to Protect doctrine was invoked in 2004 to justify Haiti’s military occupation, disaster relief justifies the current military intervention. Some 27,000 foreign soldiers are currently stationed in Haiti.

The Canadian Forces contingent consists of 2,046 military personnel, including the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), a Naval Task Group, six Griffon helicopters, an urban rescue and recovery team, a detachment of military police, a field hospital, and a sizable Land Force presence, including a light infantry battalion.

Yves Engler, co-author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, describes the militarized response: “Canada sent 2,000 troops while disaster relief teams in Calgary, Toronto and other cities were told to stay at home.” Engler sees this response as a “dangerous sign for a continuation of long-standing policy.”

The policy Engler is referring to is the political interference in Haitian democracy emanating from the ousting of democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004: a move planned by Washington, Ottawa and Paris. In his recently published Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Engler documents how Canadian elite JTF-2 forces secured the airport while 500 Canadian soldiers patrolled the streets and engaged in counterinsurgency operations against Aristide supporters.

In the post-earthquake context, the Canadian military is present in a different capacity. Engler explains that there is “no doubt that Canadian troops are fulfilling a humanitarian function, but troops are not the preferable option.” Engler says doctors and search and rescue teams should be on the ground, not soldiers.

There is growing fear from regional states that the US is establishing a large, permanent military base in Haiti with Canadian support. Recently on the A-Infos Radio Project, Anthony Fenton, co-author of Canada In Haiti, said that states such as Nicaragua and Venezuela have expressed concern that Haiti is becoming "a launching pad for destabilization and continuing Western military and economic hegemony for the entire hemisphere.” With a long-term American presence in Haiti, the US can further its strategic interest in the Caribbean/Latin American region, much like it’s doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US influence in Latin America has declined in the past decade, explained in part by the strengthening of grassroots democratic governments in countries like Venezuela and Bolivia. Caracas and Havana’s leadership in establishing the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) Trade Bloc based on social issues rather than trade-liberalization, for example, has been a direct challenge to the US-led attempts at establishing the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This movement, combined with the crisis in Haiti, has led analysts like Engler to believe there is “some concern [in the US] that the earthquake would [increase] Venezuelan and Cuban involvement in Haitian affairs.” Increased Haitian involvement with ALBA would strengthen this movement, which has already attracted eight states.

As Michel Chossudovsky, Editor for The Centre for Research on Globalization and visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, writes: "In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti."

Andrew Crosby is a writer, musician, and member of the Vancouver Media Coop. Ajay Parasram is a researcher and writer.

Soldiers in Haiti

Haiti : Depictions of Aristide in 2010 Quebec Mainstream Media

darren ell — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:33:47 +0000

One decade since the last round of disinformation about former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide kicked into high gear, Quebec mainstream print media has proven itself impervious to historical fact. According to columnists, editors and political cartoonists in Quebec’s most influential print media, Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a lunatic, a dictator on par with Baby Doc, a last-ditch hope for desperate Haitians, and a danger to Haiti. Here’s some of what the chroniclers of our time have been saying to the majority French population in Quebec. The translations to English are mine.

The principle columnist on Haiti for La Presse in Montreal has been Vincent Marissal, a popular figure on the Quebec media landscape. Reporting from Port-au-Prince, he mused about who should replace Préval (a failed leader who he feels should be replaced with no democratic process) :
« Obviously, several leaders are totally inappropriate, but as long as the opposition doesn’t find someone capable of rallying people and creating a concensus, it will be wasting its energy. It’s not for nothing that we see banners and graffiti demanding the return of Aristide. People are looking for a glimmer of hope, even if it means looking into the darkest corners of their recent past. »(1)

Haiti: Quebec Journalist calls for imposed regime in Haiti

darren ell — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:06:32 +0000

In his February 12th column, Vincent Marissal, chronicler for La Presse in Montreal, called for an imposed tutelage for five years in Haiti. He proposed it should be made up of unnamed well-known Haitian personalities, members of the diaspora and the international community. According to him, the failed relief effort in Haiti is to be blamed entirely on the Préval administration, which has lost all legitimacy in Haiti and should thereby be replaced from the outside. Below is a response I have written to Mr. Marissal. I encourage you to draft your own, in English or French. He can be reached at vincent.marissal@lapresse.ca

Here is a link to his original article: (http://www.cyberpresse.ca/opinions/chroniqueurs/vincent-marissal/201002/12/01-948858-le-temps-dagir.php)

Montreal, February 14th, 2010

Dear Mr. Marissal,

Canada in Haiti, Haiti in Canada

Moira Peters — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:15:13 +0000

Earthquake does little to shake Canada's stance on Haiti

MONTREAL—One week after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened Port-au-Prince on January 12, NGOs urged Jason Kenney—Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism—to adopt a series of extraordinary measures to facilitate the coming of Haitians to Canada.

The first concern was to broaden the family reunification program, so that brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews could join their relatives in Canada, rather than only reuniting parents and children.

Kenney made it clear on January 18 that there would be no special considerations for Haitians; that immigration rules would remain the same for everyone. However, he said, pending cases would be dealt with more quickly.

He also said that students, tourists or workers already in Canada under a temporary visa would be allowed to stay longer.

But that’s about it. Extended stays and the promise to expedite pending applications was all Ottawa had to offer the Haitian community.

According to Stephan Reichhold, director of the Roundtable of Service Organizations for Refugee and Immigrant People (Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes), Ottawa has been less generous so far with Haitians than with populations hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, or victims of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka last year.

In January 2005, a week after the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, Canada opened its doors “on a case-by-case basis, other close family members [than the ones usually eligible] of Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have been and continue to be seriously and personally affected by the disaster.” Additionally, application processing fees were suspended for victims of the tsunami.

It is simply not true, as Kenney claimed, that immigration rules can never be modified, said Reichhold, who added that Canada broadened its definition of the family in 1999, during the civil war in Kosovo.

“Kenney has the power to change the rules temporarily and make an exception if he wishes,” said Reichhold.

When reminded that Canada had special ties with Haiti, Kenney replied that Canada had ties with many countries.

Reichhold believes Canada’s current electoral mapping might play a role here.

“There are not even 1,000 Haitians living in Toronto,” he said. “Most Haitians live in Quebec. I think that making an exception for Haitians is not politically profitable to this government, which has already put a cross on Quebec,” he said.

A Leger Marketing-Le Devoir survey showed last Tuesday that 75 per cent of Quebecois are “unsatisfied” with the Harper administration, and 43 per cent are “very unsatisfied.”

The Conservative Party only gets 18 per cent of Quebec voters’ intentions.

According to Statistics Canada, of the 82,000 Haitians who immigrated in Canada, about 75,000—90 per cent—have settled in Quebec. The province’s Haitian community is now 130,000 strong.

In comparison, only eight per cent live in Ontario, and only one per cent in both Alberta and BC.

Implementing special measures would thus mean the federal government spending a lot of money on a community mostly concentrated in Quebec. The bills could prove to be unpopular to the rest of the country.

That might be why Kenney was so quick to welcome Quebec’s decision to use its prerogative and allow Haitians in Canada to sponsor members of their extended family. The province—not Ottawa—would assume the bills.

That does not mean that Canada does not want to be involved at all. But it seems that, rather than having Haitians come to Canada, Canada will go to the Haitians. As hundreds of additional Canadian troops are expected to join relief efforts in Jacmel and Leogane in the coming days, it is obvious that Canada is determined to play in the opening act in helping Haiti to get back on its feet.

Canadian involvement in Haiti is not new. In fact, in the last decade, both Canada and the US have played a critical role in Haitian politics.

CBC news reported that Canada is among 19 of the world’s major lenders that have promised to cancel Haiti’s foreign debt obligations. Last year, Canada canceled the $2.3 million debt owed by Haiti. As of September, 2008, Haiti’s total foreign debt was estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be US$1.8 billion.

According to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) website, Canada has contributed $135 million so far towards the relief effort in Haiti, including $60 million directed towards UN agencies.

In comparison, the Canadian government donated a total of $425 million, to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Of the $425 million, CIDA contributed a total of $383 million until March 2009, which went to projects such as building permanent housing for families in affected tsunami areas, supporting vocational and business training programs, and strengthening local NGOs and local and national governments.

On paper, it seems Canada is doing a lot for Haiti and its people, but many believe the country has the potential to do more.

The indispensable help Canada and the US are bringing today to UN operations in Haiti—refurbishing the airports and ports, clearing debris and erecting tents—must not overshadow its numerous, and often appalling, interferences in Haitian affairs in the last decade.

In May, 2000, the populist leftist Famni Lavalas party won the legislative elections, though many irregularities were reported by the Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observation mission. Opposition parties accused the government party of fraud and the US suspended aid to Haiti.

Canada and the European nations followed suit by suspending assistance to the newly-elected government.

In November, 2000, opposition parties boycotted the Presidential election and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was easily elected.

Though Canada cut its aid to Haiti after the 2000 elections, it continued to send money to anti-Aristide NGOs in Haiti, with the effect of destabilizing the government. According to Yves Engler, author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, Canada used its contributions to local NGOs as a political tool.

At the beginning of 2003, Canada organized a secret conference about the future of Haiti’s government. No Haitian officials were invited. According to Engler, during this secret meeting—held under the government of Jean Chretien—both the 2004 Haitian rebellion and the subsequent coup were planned.

According to journalist Michel Vastel, the removal of Aristide from office and the reintegration of the Haitian Army—abolished in 1995 by Aristide—were considered by Canadian and French officials during the conference. Also discussed was the option of putting the country under trusteeship.

On February 29, 2004, after a three-week rebellion allegedly supported by the US, Aristide was flown on a US airplane to Central Africa Republic.

When interim president Boniface Alexandre asked the UN Security Council for a peacekeeping force, the US sent 1,000 Marines the same day, followed by 550 Canadian troops.

In June, 2004, the Canadian, US and Chilean troops deployed to Haiti passed under the control of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), led by the Brazilian Army.

During the two-year interim government of Alexandre, the US and Canada secured their hold on Haiti—more specifically, on the Ministry of Justice, headed by Bernard Gousse, a USAID employee; the Deputy Minister of Justice, Philippe Vixamar, was a CIDA employee.

Since then, Canada has been responsible for the formation of the Haitian National Police (HNP). About 100 RCMP officers have been in Haiti since 2004 to oversee CIVPOL, the UN mission that integrates the military dismissed by Aristide into the new police corp.

Two of these RCMP officers were killed by the earthquake.

During the February, 2006, election, René Préval, of the Lespwa coalition, was elected President.

Préval has been backing the UN mission in Haiti, unlike Aristide and many Lavalas members who accused MINUSTAH of leading repressive actions against their supporters, refering to the July 6, 2005, and December 22, 2006, MINUSTAH incursions in the shantytown of Cite-Soleil, where dozens of civilians were killed—respectively 23 and 12, according to Engler.

Préval also supports US involvement in Haiti, while many still condemn it, suggesting the US prioritizes military rule over helping the people of Haiti.

Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) has expressed its concerns about the militarization of relief efforts in Haiti. CHAN spokesperson Roger Annis stated in the release, “Earthquake victims need food, water, medical treatment and shelter, not more guns pointed at them.”

Haitian expat photojournalist, Wadner Pierre, also pointed out in his blog
that the people of Haiti can work together to help each other, but with so many organizations involved in the relief effort, the voice of the Haitians is being silenced.

Rather than taking over, Pierre recommends the US and Canada work collectively with the people of Haiti for the country to move forward to rebuild.

“The help of Canada is greatly welcome, but we cannot forget that Canada contributes to put Haiti in this situation that it is today, for Canada did not support democracy in Haiti,” he said.

There are reasons to believe history will not repeat itself. Unlike what happened during the unpopular 2003 Ottawa Initiative, where three countries discussed the future of a country without it being represented by its own government, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is expected to attend the January 25 donors meeting in Montreal.

Kriya Govender is a journalism intern with The Dominion.

Antoine Dion-Ortega is a journalism student at Concordia University and an intern with The Dominion.

Photographs by Jean Ristil, independent photojournalist living in Port-au-Prince. Ristil lost two children, and his mother, in the earthquake last Tuesday.

Haiti Thumbnail

Haiti 5

Haiti 6

Haiti 7

“Build Back Better,” Says Dr. Paul Farmer, UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti: Part I

WadnerPierre — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:14:39 +0000

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DSC_0349.JPG

By: Wadner Pierre

Since 1983, Dr. Paul Farmer has been working in the Cange locality of the Central department of Haiti. His organization Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health) has won international recognition for its work. In August, former US President Bill Clinton, currently the UN Special Envoy for Haiti, appointed Farmer as his Deputy Special Envoy.

In early September, Farmer toured Haiti for the first time in his official capacity with the UN. The stated goal of the mission, whose motto is “build back better,” is to explore short and long term solutions to Haiti’s ongoing economic crisis. Haiti’s educational system, environmental problems and agricultural productivity were addressed in discussions with numerous sectors.

Farmer explained:

“We are not coming to dictate to people who have already been working in Haiti, but we can coordinate their work to make for better results. During my five days I met and listened to everybody, the President, the Prime Minister and other ministers in the government. And I met with the private sector, MINUSTAH, NGOs and the farmers.” Farmer stressed, “When I talk about the private sector, I don’t mean big business people only, but the ‘Madanm Sara’ [street merchants], the peasants who represent an incredible workforce for this country. We need to sustain them. And we also need to make sure that these people find capital to grow their crops and small businesses. And finally, their children should be able to go to school.”

However, Dr. Farmer noted, “This is not a political mission, but a mission to help people build back better Haiti. Haiti has its own potentialities and we can use them to develop Haiti.”

Boycott Shuts Down Haiti Elections

dru — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:27:44 +0000

Leading political party excluded from polls again

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—A second successful boycott of Senate elections, called by Haiti's Fanmi Lavalas party, poses a serious challenge to the credibility of their results, says a spokeperson for the Lavalas party. President Rene Preval's handpicked Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP) barred Fanmi Lavalas from participation in the elections—held in April and June of 2009—on a technicality.

The June 21 boycott called for by Lavalas was called "Operation Closed Door 2." The campaign urged voters to stay away from the polls. Rene Civil, one of the leaders of the boycott campaign, stated, "They have to hold the elections again and allow Fanmi Lavalas to participate or face having a parliament that is not recognized as legitimate by the Haitian people. They will swear [the newly elected officials] into office but no one is going to take them seriously."

Buses and taxis operated throughout election day, unlike during the first round of Senate elections held April 19. Most voters did not take advantage of the lifting of the transportation ban and stayed home. Journalists in Haiti's nine departments provided reports throughout the day of napping poll workers and near-empty ballot boxes.

Brazilian ambassador Igor Kipman arrived with a group of observers at a large polling station on the outskirts of the sprawling pro-Lavalas slum of Cite Soleil. Kipman's menacing security staff and the visiting observers stood virtually alone in the facility as the ambassador commented, "These are great elections. I'm very happy with today's results."

Canadian Ambassador Gilles Rivard, who at one point made a mild call for political reconciliation with regard to Lavalas' exclusion, told Agence Haitien Presse (AHP) that he considered the elections legitimate.

The last time the party was allowed to participate in an election—in 2000—Fanmi Lavalas won 73 out of 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and 26 out of 27 seats in the Senate. In the same election, Lavalas Presidential candidate Jean-Bertrand Aristide won with 91.81 per cent of the vote. The Lavalas-led government was removed by a coup d'état backed by Canada, France and the United States. Aristide was removed from office and forced into exile, and a campaign of violence and intimidation forced most Lavalas members into hiding or exile.

AHP summed up the situation, "Indeed, the election was marked by very low participation, perhaps more pronounced than in the first round at the national level. On 19 April, the Electoral Council had tried to explain the success of the first boycott by threats allegedly made against the elections, or because the transit system was not authorized."

This analysis stood in contrast to the official English report of the elections provided by the Associated Press, which sought to downplay the effect of the boycott. "Haitians fed up with chronic poverty and unresponsive leaders stayed away from Senate run-off elections Sunday, ignoring government efforts to improve on the paltry voter turnout that undercut the first round of voting in April."

The Portuguese language daily Folha repeated assertions made by CEP president Gerard Frantz Verret that protesters handed out threatening leaflets during the funeral of popular Catholic priest and Lavalas supporter Father Gerard Jean-Juste. The CEP official claimed that the leaflets "contained death threats against citizens who dare to vote."

While no leaflet was presented to back up the claim, Verret also demanded that the Ministry of Justice take "public action in motion against all those who undertake to invite the people to abstain from voting and against those who intend to endanger lives and property." The move was widely seen as an attempt to intimidate members of the Lavalas Mobilization Commission—the organizers of the boycott—ahead of last Sunday's election.

The sporadic violence and clashes between Preval's ruling Lespwa party and its rivals at the polls were unrelated to the non-violent election boycott called by Fanmi Lavalas.

The June 21 election was preceded by an incident on June 18 involving UN forces during the funeral procession of Father Jean-Juste. Witnesses reported that Brazilian soldiers with the UN military mission opened fire after attempting to arrest one of the mourners. A second mourner was killed and the UN has since denied the shooting, claiming that the victim had been killed by either a rock thrown by the crowd or by a blunt instrument. Eyewitnesses and reporters on the scene have countered that the UN is trying to cover up the affair and that the victim was felled by a shot fired by Brazilian soldiers as mourners left Haiti's national cathedral.

The international community and most notably the Obama administration financed and endorsed the controversial Senate elections. While exact figures are difficult to obtain, it is estimated that the two rounds of Senate elections cost over $17 million. Among Haiti's nine million inhabitants, the average wage is estimated to be below $2 per day.

Kevin Pina is a journalist and filmmaker who has been covering events in Haiti since 1991. A version of this article previously appeared on HaitiAction.net.

Polling Station 2

Kipman

Death Watch in Haiti's Jails

dru — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:01:36 +0000

MONTREAL—Located in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti's largest jail looks like a stage piece: a blue and white fortress with high walls and square turrets of the type favoured by operatic drama.

But inside the compound—guarded by UN soldiers and protected by an Armored Personnel Carrier—a tragedy of a more contemporary and mundane sort is playing out.

Constructed in 1918 by US Marines eager to consolidate their occupation of Haiti, the National Penitentiary was designed to hold eight hundred prisoners. With only minor expansions since then, the facility now crams four thousand male inmates into an area of two thousand square meters.

At a density of two detainees per square meter, conditions in the jail are undercut by four times the minimum standard established by the International Red Cross, which calls for an allowance of two square meters per inmate.

Eyewitness accounts paint the picture of a packed environment inside the cell blocks, with prisoners' health further undermined by poor lighting and ventilation, a vitamin-deficient diet, and the prevalence of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.

Since the overthrow of Haiti's democracy in 2004, the country's prison population has more than doubled, rising from 3,500 shortly before the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to 8,000 today.

Haitian human rights lawyer Evel Fanfan estimates that six thousand people were arrested in Port-au-Prince because of their political loyalties in March 2004, the month following Aristide's ousting. Although some were released soon afterward, since that time both the Haitian police and the UN peacekeepeing mission MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) have conducted aggressive operations in poor sectors of the capital, drag-netting youth at a faster rate than the Haitian judicial system can process.

Brian Concannon, a lawyer who directs an Oregon-based Haiti solidarity organization, describes a typical Haitian inmate:

"They are almost all poor," responds Concannon. "Over 80 per cent have not been convicted of anything. Many don't have a lawyer; most have been tortured."

Concannon's group, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, works in association with the Port-au-Prince based Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), an advocacy group which was financed by Haiti's elected government until its funding was cut following the 2004 coup.

Visiting the BAI office, I met my first case study of the post-coup Haiti incarceration pattern: Michaelle LaFrance, a former TV journalist who says she was arrested for wearing dreadlocks. Seated in the shaded courtyard of the building, LaFrance does her best to convey to me the atmosphere of class tension that gripped Port-au-Prince during the weeks before President Aristide's overthrow.

Because Aristide invested in social spending, and applied protectionist measures to sustain Haiti's economy, he remained popular with the poor. He also drew the ire of neoliberal-minded donor nations, including the US and Canada, which moved to undermine him by channeling money to middle class-based opposition groups. In a repeat of scenes seen in Venezuela and elsewhere, affluent Haitians flooded the streets of the capital, calling the elected government illegitimate, and demanding Aristide's resignation. During this period, telejournalist LaFrance was physically assaulted while covering an opposition demonstration.

Following Aristide's departure on February 29, a posse of former Haitian soldiers aligned with the middle-class opposition occupied the city. The names of wanted persons were read on the radio, and anyone or anything associated with grassroots activism immediately became suspect.

Shortly after February 29, recalls LaFrance, who was 24 at the time, "The police came to my house. They took everything."

She describes the feelings of fear and uncertainty during the three days she spent confined at the local police station. "I wrote on the wall, 'God help me,'" she says."I thought two things: either they'd kill me, or I'd be out in a few years.”

Denounced by a neighbour, LaFrance says her dreadlocks stigmatized her because they were interpreted as a statement of loyalty to the poorer classes. Social profiling stories are common in a context where both the Haitian police and members of the hastily-constructed UN mission—dominated by the same countries that helped undercut Aristide—accept a middle-class narrative portraying Aristide's followers as a violent mob that needs to be controlled by force.

Many of the men and women clogging Haiti's jail system are in fact minor casualties in the campaign of class repression. Arrested during an anti-gang sweep, fingered by a neighbour, or picked up for talking too loudly or angrily, they are warehoused for months to years while awaiting trial on vague or difficult-to-prove charges such as "associating with miscreants." In the case of known political organizers, however, the charges can be more specific.

Ronald Dauphin, now 43 and Haiti's longest-serving prisoner, was arrested by paramilitaries on March 1, 2004, the day after President Aristide was forced from office. A member of Aristide's party and a port official from the city of Saint Marc, Dauphin was accused of participating in a massacre which reportedly occurred when anti-government paramilitaries clashed with police outside Saint Marc on February 11. Through more than five years of incarceration, Dauphin has maintained his innocence. The case has never gone to trial.

Dauphin's 27 co-accused in the case include former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, pro-Aristide activists, and at least one cabinet member. In a pre-trial indictment handed down in 2005, many details of the Saint Marc incident remain fuzzy. The document cites fifty killed, but identifies only eight casualties from the February 11 events, and furnishes no evidence about the whereabouts of missing bodies. Named witnesses claim that Dauphin was present during the clash, but do not specifically link him to either of the offenses for which he is accused: murder and arson. Writing in French, investigating Judge Cluny-Jules instead argues that Dauphin has been denounced by "la clameur publique," broadly translatable as by rumour.

While most observers do not dispute that some sort of armed conflict arose between members of pro- and anti-government forces on February 11, it has yet to be demonstrated that government agents overstepped the bounds of a legitimate police action, or targeted non-combatants.

I briefly met Dauphin at the National Penitentiary in April 2007, three months after one of his co-defendants in the Saint Marc (also known as the La Scierie) case, Wantales Lormejuste, died from untreated tuberculosis in the same facility. Though there were legitimate concerns about Dauphin's health—he suffers from a prostate condition—in 2007 he looked alert and was standing on two feet.

In the intervening two years Dauphin's well-being has declined dramatically.

Traveling to Haiti in April 2009 as part of a union delegation, California teacher Seth Donnely heard disturbing reports that Dauphin suffered from an acute, untreated illness. Accompanied by other delegates, Donnely arrived at the National Penitentiary on April 16 for a scheduled visit.

Upon arrival, he says, "Dauphin was in fact very ill. He had to be carried out in the courtyard by other prisoners...During our visit, he collapsed. [He] was unconscious with his eyes wide open. He was not responding to pressure that was being applied by the health care professionals [there were two nurses on the delegation] to his sternum."

In spite of complaints about headaches and abdominal pain, Dauphin had not been authorized to leave the jail for medical treatment. The nurses concluded that Dauphin "may have a septic infection that was spreading through his upper body."

Many of Haiti's grassroots activists believe that extending pre-trial detention is a government tactic to neutralize or even kill unwelcome political actors without the worry of having to build a legal case against them.

According to documents released to researcher Anthony Fenton under an access to information request, in March 2004 a Haitian NGO known as the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) asked for and received $100,000 from Canada's development agency to prosecute the authors of the alleged massacre of La Scierie. NCHR's membership had previously stated a position which identified it closely with the anti-Aristide camp. In its funding request the NCHR promised to disburse money through a "victims" fund to citizens who had suffered from political violence in Saint Marc.

The incidents that were eligible for compensation were limited to those which had occurred from February 9 to 29, excluding victims of the wave of violence against Aristide supporters that crested after the fall of the government on February 29.

Using Canada's money, the NCHR thus conducted a publicity and legal campaign to push for the incarceration of pro-Aristide actors. But neither the NCHR nor the Canadian government has subsequently pushed for a trial, suggesting that open-ended detention, rather than due legal process, may be what they're after.

Scratch the surface of the debate on how to improve jail conditions in Haiti, and two different tactics emerge: increase the amount of floor space by expanding or constructing jails, or reduce the number of prisoners by releasing those held on vague suspicions or for petty crimes.

While the latter approach is favoured by social justice advocates, Canada and most big donors see "security" and the elimination of crime as the overriding priority for Haiti. This "security" priority requires more state investment in jail-building, and training police and judges. The logic behind this elaborate investment strategy is that foreign investors—especially in the manufacturing sector—will be attracted when they feel safe and to achieve this, Haiti must tackle criminality by disbanding gangs. In the years after the 2004 coup, a series of high-profile kidnappings, sometimes of foreigners, gave Haiti a bad name, and may have scared off investment.

According to many Haitians, the problem of security has been sensationalized to justify class-based repression. Most of those imprisoned are extremely poor and have been the victims of social and political profiling. Many prisoners are being held for petty crimes for which they would not have been targeted if it was not for their low social status.

Patrick Elie, a Port-au-Prince-based activist and former cabinet member, sees the path to economic development in Haitian-based agriculture, rather than investor-based manufacturing. According to Elie, most of Haiti's current crime is poverty-related, and for this reason investing in incarceration as a deterrent is a futile exercise. Jail construction and security measures are expensive, gobbling up scarce resources that could otherwise be invested in schools or agriculture, which would help reduce poverty in the long term.

"When you have 70 per cent unemployment, and you build more jails, you'll be building jails 'til Kingdom come," he says.

With Haiti still occupied by UN soldiers, the made-in-Canada ideology seems dominant for the time being. Under international pressure, the government of President Rene Preval, who succeeded Aristide, has promised to double the number of Haitian police officers, from 7,000 to 14,000 by 2011. Similarly, a quick glance at CIDA's website shows that a high number of big ticket projects funded in Haiti are directed toward "governance measures," including a commitment to build a new police academy at the cost of $18.1 million by 2014.

Chris Scott is a member of the Montreal chapter of the Canada Haiti Action Network.

National Penitentiary