Continental Conference to End MINUSTAH

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Delegates from around the world will converge on Port-au-Prince May 31 to take part in a two-day Continental Conference aimed at bringing an end to the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti or MINUSTAH, which marks its ninth anniversary on Jun. 1.

Cholera Legal Suit Against the UN Takes Shape: Lawyers Seek Haitian Claimants in New York

by Kim Ives   (Haiti Liberte)                                                

On May 8, lawyers representing over 5,000 Haitian cholera victims told the United Nations that they are taking the world body to court in 60 days if it doesn’t accept responsibility for introducing the deadly microbe into Haiti’s waters.

Two Years After His Return, Aristide Finally Speaks Out

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide called for national unity to tackle the problem of hunger in Haiti and thanked the Haitian people for their massive show of solidarity the day before when thousands joined him in a slow procession through Port-au-Prince back his residence from making a court deposition on May 8.

            “Yesterday, was an ordinary day, but you made it into an extraordinary day, and I say thank you,” Aristide said on May 9 to about 20 journalists assembled in his home’s Spartan study, where he has spent most of the past two years since his return to Haiti from a seven year exile on Mar. 18, 2011. Since that day, when thousands also accompanied him home, it was the first time he has spoken publicly.

After Aristide Testifies to Investigating Judge: Massive March Signals Lavalas Movement’s Resurrection

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Well over 15,000 people poured out from all corners of Haiti's capital to march alongside the cortege of cars that carried former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide back to his home in Tabarre from the Port-au-Prince courthouse he visited on May 8.

            Thousands more massed along sidewalks and on rooftops to cheer the procession on, waving flags and wearing small photos of Aristide in their hair, pinned to their clothing, or stuck in their hats.

ONA: Senate Uncovers Stupefying Corruption

by Yves Pierre-Louis (Haiti Liberte)

Since President Michel Martelly’s accession to power two years ago, corruption has become the hallmark of his regime. The State’s entire administration is in decline, marred by bribery, waste, mismanagement, illegal and arbitrary dismissals, and incompetence.

            The latest corruption scandal to erupt is in the National Insurance Office for the Elderly (ONA), Haiti’s social security institution which is supposed to manage the contributions of Haitian workers in the private sector to ensure their welfare as regulated by the Labor Code.

Despite Losing $1 Billion in Iraq, DynCorp Given Haiti Troop Contract

by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

This article reveals how Washington is still investing in Haiti’s military occupation, not winding it down. HL

In an Apr. 9 press release, DynCorp International announced that the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) had awarded the company with a $48.6 million contract. The purpose of the contract is to “recruit and support up to 100 UNPOL and 10 U.N. Corrections Advisors. DI will also provide logistics support to the Haitian National Police (HNP) Academy and each academy class. In addition, DI will supply five high-level French and Haitian Creole speaking subject matter experts to advise senior HNP officials.”

Lawyer Mario Joseph is Finalist for Swiss Human Rights Award

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

The Switzerland-based Martin Ennals Foundation and the City of Geneva have announced that Haitian human rights lawyer Mario Joseph of the Port-au-Prince-based International Lawyers Office (BAI) is one of three finalists for the Martin Ennals Award.

Protest against high prices and hunger

by Yves Pierre-Louis (Haiti Liberte)

On Apr. 11, 2013, several popular organizations from the capital’s poor neighborhoods, grouped in a coalition called the Heads Together of Popular Organizations (Tèt kole òganizasyon popilè yo), marched in protest against Haiti’s high cost of living, hunger, and unemployment with the slogan “Let’s Rise Up Against This Exploitative Hunger” (“Ann leve kanpe kont grangou kaletèt sa" offers word-play on the slogan “Tètkale” – meaning “completely” or “bald” – of President Michel Martelly’s government.) Starting in the poor neighborhood of Fort National in the north of the capital, hundreds of demonstrators marched through Port-au-Prince’s streets to protest the deteriorating conditions of slum dwellers in Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhoods including Fort National, Bel Air, Saint-Martin, Solino , La Saline, Cité Soleil, and Martissant.

Canadian Freeze of Aid to Haiti, the Precursor to CIDA's Demise

By: Matthew Davidson - HaitiAnalysis 

     Representing a new Canadian vision for international development, the Canadian government recently announced that it is merging the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Shocked, critics decried that "Canada's international effort[i] to help people living in poverty" is unlikely to substantially address or mitigate global poverty or inequality if CIDA's priority is to "advance Canada's long-term prosperity and security". However, the Canadian government had already indicated that changes were coming. By freezing aid to Haiti, the Conservatives signalled what could be expected for Canadian development practice elsewhere. 

Senator Moïse Jean-Charles Visits Brazil and Argentina

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Senator Moïse Jean-Charles is presently on a speaking tour in Brazil and Argentina to raise consciousness about and to campaign against the continued military occupation of Haiti by troops of the so-called United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti or MINUSTAH. June 1^st will mark the 9^th anniversary of MINUSTAH’s deployment in Haiti, a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and of the Haitian Constitution. A major demonstration calling for MINUSTAH’s immediate withdrawal will be held in Haiti on that date, with participants coming from across Latin America.

Wikileaks Exhumed Cables Reveal: How the U.S. Resumed Military Aid to Duvalier

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

A chorus of outrage is building against former Haitian president Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier as he sits in the dock of a Haitian court, charged with crimes against humanity during his 15-year rule. However, the U.S. government remains strangely and completely silent. A 40-year-old trove of diplomatic cables, newly unearthed by WikiLeaks, helps explain why.

Inter-American Commission Grants Protection to IDP Camp Facing Eviction

by the Center for Economic and Policy Research

Last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures in favor of the 567 families that have been under constant threat of eviction in the Grace Village camp. Given the “imminent” threat to those in the camp, the IACHR urged the Government of Haiti:

The number of Haitian boat people is increasing

by Yves Pierre-Louis (haiti Liberte)

Hundreds of Haitians, since the beginning of 2013, continue to risk their lives to seek a better life abroad, to escape poverty, hunger, unemployment, and poor living conditions. Promises of change and millions or even billions of dollars released in the name of alleviating poverty in Haiti never seem able to actually improve the living conditions of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest people.

            Haitians living in the most remote corners of the country have no choice but to flee to the Dominican Republic, Florida, and other Caribbean Islands.

Congratulations to HaitiAnalysis Contributor Wadner Pierre for Graduating with his BA in Journalism!

Tassel Script Graduation Invitation

Personalized graduation invitations & thank you cards by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Cholera in the Age of Privatized Water

by Isabeau Doucet (Haiti Liberte)

I contracted cholera two years ago by the breezy beaches of Port Salut, while attempting to escape burnout, a broken heart, and the lingering pangs of Dengue fever in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

            Cholera’s not a whole lot different from food poisoning and is no big deal if you have a clean toilet, potable water, know how to treat it, and aren’t malnourished.

            But in hunger-wracked Haiti, where there is no sewage system and where water and sanitation are almost completely privatized, cholera has been a death sentence for over 8,000 people. According to a host of scientific studies (including the UN’s own investigators), the South Asian strain of the disease was likely imported by UN troops from Nepal in October 2010. Having sickened over 640,000, it is now the worst cholera epidemic in modern history.

How Fitting That Michael Deibert Lauds Rory Carroll’s book about Hugo Chavez

by Joe Emersberger

Is there anything more heartwarming than to see one dishonest corporate journalist applaud another?

Michael Deibert is a former Reuters journalist and author of “Notes from the Last Testament”, a long winded and mendacious whitewash of the US-led coup that ousted Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, in 2004.

Justin Podur fully exposed Deibert when they debated years ago.

In this exchange that I had with Deibert on Truthdig’s website, Deibert made the bizarre claim that I belonged to a political current that tried to deny former Haitian president Rene Preval his 2006 election victory. [1] When I asked Deibert how in the world he could justify such nonsense (which was the exact opposite of the truth) he went silent – of course, because he made it up.

Hugo Chavez' legacy in Haiti and Latin America

By Kim Ives - Haiti Liberte, March 17th 2013

Tens of thousands of Haitians spontaneously poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince on the morning of Mar. 12, 2007. President Hugo Chavez had just arrived in Haiti all but unannounced, and a multitude, shrieking and singing with glee, joined him in jogging alongside the motorcade of Haiti’s then President René Préval on its way to the National Palace (later destroyed in the 2010 earthquake).

There, Chavez announced that Venezuela would help Haiti by building power stations, expanding electricity networks, improving airports, supplying garbage trucks, and supporting widely-deployed Cuban medical teams. But the centerpiece of the gifts Chavez brought Haiti was 14,000 barrels of oil a day, a Godsend in a country that has been plagued by blackouts and power shortages for decades.

Is the Caracol Industrial Park Worth the Risk?

By Haiti Grassroots Watch (Haiti Liberte)

Last October, officials from the Haitian government and a number of foreign governments and institutions, who call themselves“friends of Haiti,” saw their dream become a reality. Finally, there was earthquake reconstruction progress worth celebrating with the inauguration of the giant Caracol Industrial Park (PIC), which, according to its backers, will someday host 20,000 or maybe even 65,000 jobs.

Haiti’s Oscar Awards

By Mark Schuller (Haiti Liberte)

On Feb. 26, Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, who now acts as Haitian President Michel Martelly’s “Ambassador-at-Large,” extolled the progress Haiti has made since the 2010 earthquake as “extraordinary.”

            There has indeed been some progress, and Penn has worked hard to resettle and improve the living standards of tens of thousands of people in one of the capital’s largest internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. However, Penn’s recent declaration is best understood as an infomercial, selling President Martelly – a.k.a. compas musician “Sweet Micky” – and reading his lines for a government show called “Haiti is open for business,” a slogan recently challenged by the U.N.

            Penn’s performance distracts attention from other grim realities, particularly the almost 350,000 people still living under tents in Haiti. But he is far from the only actor playing make-believe. Here’s a list of what might be considered Haiti’s Oscar-winning performances.

PetroCaribe’s Oil to the Poor: Chavez’s Legacy in Haiti and Latin America

By Kim Ives - Haiti Liberte

Tens of thousands of Haitians spontaneously poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince on the morning of Mar. 12, 2007. President Hugo Chavez had just arrived in Haiti all but unannounced, and a multitude, shrieking and singing with glee, joined him in jogging alongside the motorcade of Haiti’s then President René Préval on its way to the National Palace (later destroyed in the 2010 earthquake).

            There, Chavez announced that Venezuela would help Haiti by building power stations, expanding electricity networks, improving airports, supplying garbage trucks, and supporting widely-deployed Cuban medical teams. But the centerpiece of the gifts Chavez brought Haiti was 14,000 barrels of oil a day, a Godsend in a country that has been plagued by blackouts and power shortages for decades.

Former Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier’s First Court Hearing

By Yves Pierre-Louis and Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

On Feb. 28, 2013, former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier had to show up at the Port-au-Prince Appeals Court to hear various charges against him for crimes against humanity. After not responding to three previous summonses in February,  the former “President for Life” had to bow to the court’s authority or risk arrest for contempt.

            Duvalier was due to report to court again on Mar. 7, but his lawyer claims that he is sick in an unspecified hospital.

            Nonetheless, many suspect that the hearings summoning Duvalier are nothing more than “show business” aimed at rubber-stamping the Jan. 30, 2012 finding of examining magistrate Jean Carvès. He ruled that the statue of limitations has expired for prosecuting Duvalier for his human rights crimes. These hearings are for an appeal to overturn that ruling.

Morne Bossa Neighbors Nervous

by Haiti Grassroots Watch and Inter Press Service

The population of Cardouche, a small village about 12 kilometers south of Cap-Haïtien in Haiti’s North department, is nervous about three new mining exploitation permits granted last December in an opaque and secretive process.

            Located near the Morne Bossa deposit, the Cadouche economy is based mostly on agriculture. Families work day and night to take care of their needs. And they ask themselves if they are invisible to the authorities in Haiti’s capital.

            Recently, over a hundred people living in Cardouche met to learn more about the mining industry. One after another, they asked questions and expressed their frustrations.

            “Until today, not one single member of the government or of the company has consulted the population to hear our complaints or ask for our agreement to the mining of the Morne Bossa deposits,” said Mezadieu Toussaint, a teacher and farmer in his fifties. “If the mine benefits the population, that would be wonderful. But we are worried that it will poison our environment.”

Haitian Senate Calls for Halt to Mining Activities

by Haiti Grassroots Watch and Inter Press Service

Outraged that they have not been consulted, this week Haitian senators called for a moratorium on all activities connected with recently granted gold and copper mining permits.

            In a resolution approved by 15 of 16 senators present, the lawmakers also demanded the establishment of a commission to review all of the current mining contracts and “a national debate on the country’s mineral resources.”

            The resolution – voted Feb. 20 in reaction to three new gold and copper mining permits issued late last year by the government – decried “the genocide that accompanied the pillage of our mineral resources in the 15th century”, “the waste of resources… since the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake,” the foreign mining experiences of the 20th century which caused “trauma,” and “the incapacity of our country to calmly undertake negotiations related to its mineral resources in a context of political disequilibrium.”

Is Martelly’s “Free School” Program Really Working?

(for Haiti Liberte)

Port-au-Prince, Feb. 13, 2013 – “PSUGO – A victory for students!” banners and posters all over the capital and provincial cities proclaim. Photos show smiling, handsome students in clean uniforms.

            The Program for Universal Free and Obligatory Education (Programme de scolarisation universelle gratuite et obligatoire - PSUGO) seeks to educate “more than a million” students per year for five years, according to the Ministry of National Education and Professional Training (Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de formation professionnelle – MENFP). But is the US$43 million-a-year program a “victory” for students?

WikiLeaked Cables Raise Question: Did the U.S. Green-Light Duvalier’s Return in 2011?

By Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Feb. 7, 2013 promises to be a hot day in Haiti.

            Thousands of Haitians are planning to march through Port-au-Prince to protest President Michel Martelly’s patent corruption and drift toward a repressive neo-Duvalierist dictatorship.

            At the same time, former President-for-Life Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier will be personally appearing in the capital’s Appeals Court to answer a challenge by his regime’s victims.

            One year ago, Investigating Judge Carves Jean ruled that Duvalier should not be prosecuted for the many crimes against humanity committed under his 15-year rule from 1971 to 1986, including extrajudicial executions and jailings. Human rights groups like Amnesty International and its Haitian counterparts cried foul, as did over a dozen of people who had filed human rights complaints against Duvalier following his return to Haiti in January 2011. They appealed.  Ironically, Judge Jean Joseph Lebrun, the head of the Appeals Court, set the hearing for final arguments against Judge Carves Jean’s ruling for the 27^th anniversary of the Duvalier regime’s fall.

Accident in St. Marc: MINUSTAH continues to sow mourning

by Yves Pierre-Louis (Haiti Liberte)

In Saint-Marc, Dieudaline Jérôme, a 13-year-old schoolgirl, was killed on Fri., Jan. 25, 2013 by a vehicle driven by soldiers of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), as the foreign forces occupying Haiti are called. At around 8 a.m., a Nissan Patrol SUV with UN license plate 24499 struck the motorcycle carrying Dieudaline to school. The motorcycle driver was seriously injured, while Dieudaline, who was sitting on the back, was mortally wounded. Although she was urgently transported to the hospital, she could not be saved.

            The tragic death of this young girl has once again stirred the anger of Haitians against the presence of UN forces on Haitian territory. The population of Saint-Marc took to the streets to demand the departure of “peacekeepers,” throwing stones at their base and vehicles and paralyzing all activities in the town.

With Cabinet Reshuffle and Proposal to Trim Senate Terms, Martelly Regime Veers Hard Right

by Thomas Péralte  (Haiti Liberte)                                         

                       

President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe reshuffled their cabinet last week for the third time in nine months. The new cabinet comprises 23 ministers and 10 secretaries of state. The previous government of President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive was less bloated but more effective with only 18 ministers and just a few secretaries of state.

World Bank and IMF Forecasts Follow Predictable Pattern for Haiti, Venezuela

by Arthur Phillips and Stephan Lefebvre    (CEPR Americas Blog)

The World Bank has joined the “doom and gloom” chorus on Venezuela’s economy. And in Haiti, the Washington-based institution again appears overly optimistic.

On Tuesday, January 15, the World Bank released its latest global economic forecast, which projects 2013 global GDP growth at 3.4%, up 0.4% from its preliminary estimate for 2012 and down a half a percentage point from its previous forecast in June. The Bank emphasized that the low rates were largely a result of sluggish growth in the U.S. and Europe. As for Latin America and the Caribbean, the regional predicted growth for 2013 is listed at 3.6%, up more than half a point from the estimated figure for 2012.

Phoenix Project: Controversial Garbage-Powered Plant Faces Uncertain Future

by Haiti Grassroots Watch (Haiti Liberte)

For more than two years, teams of U.S. and Haitian businesspeople have been working on massive public-private business deal: a factory that would transform garbage from the capital into electricity, a resource so rare in Haiti, only 30% of the population has access.

            But the Phoenix Project involves a technology potentially so dangerous that it has been outlawed in some cities and countries. It would also commit Haiti to a 30-year contract.

            The project emerged following the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. U.S. businesspeople said they came up with the idea because they wanted to take part in the reconstruction but “do more than make a profit.”

Unrest in St. Marc

by Tony Savino (Haiti Liberte)

Haitian police in St. Marc grabbed and severely beat a popular teacher from a street band slowly winding along Route Nationale #1 on Sunday night, Jan. 20. The police did not like that the rara procession, a traditional practice in the days before Carnaval, was blocking traffic and reportedly grabbed the teacher at random and beat him up. As one local business owner commented, "the cops messed with the wrong person this time, because the teacher is a mild-mannered gentleman who is well-known and respected in the community."

A Review of Haiti’s New Dictatorship: Sovereignty vs. Intervention

by Isabeau Doucet (Haiti Liberte)

During the build up to and aftermath of the 2004 overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s popular priest-turned-president, the Haitian and international press reported two conflicting narratives. Even in the left-wing media office of ZNet, where Justin Podur was an editor, stories filed from Haiti just “didn’t add up.”

            “One is a story about a leader becoming a dictator and getting overthrown, leaving a basket-case country in a basket-case condition. The second is the story of a popular movement being thwarted in its struggle for democracy and development and ending with a new dictatorship imposed upon it,” writes Podur, Associate Professor in environmental studies at Toronto’s York University, in his new book, Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation.

IJDH’s Take on Recent Délille Probe

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Brian Concannon is a founder and director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). He has had a ring-side seat to legal affairs in Haiti for almost two decades, acting as a UN Human Rights Officer, helping to prosecute human rights crimes in Haiti following the 1991-1994 coup d’état, representing former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune before the  Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and presently acting as a lead lawyer in the suit of 5,000 Haitian cholera victims against the United Nations.

            In an interview with Haïti Liberté, Concannon said that he views Port-au-Prince District Attorney Lucmane Délille’s recent opening of an investigation of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide “in the context of a long history of baseless complaints against Aristide.”

Lavalas Masses Rise up Against Aristide’s Political Persecution

by Isabelle Papillon (Haiti Liberte)

When Lucmane Délille, Port-au-Prince’s district attorney, summoned former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to appear before him on Wednesday, Jan. 9 to answer patently frivolous complaints, it caused a great awakening of the Lavalas masses, greatly alarming those in Haiti and abroad who thought it was time to behead Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Family.

            Indeed, tensions ran high that day when thousands of Aristide’s supporters massed outside the courthouse where Aristide was summoned to appear before Délille at 10 a.m.. Similar outpourings took place in Haiti’s major cities like Cap Haïtien, Gonaïves, and Jérémie. However, when the prosecutor saw the crowds, he decided, at the urging of Aristide’s lawyers, to go meet with the former head of state at his home in Tabarre, on the northern outskirts of the capital.

Three Years after Haiti Earthquake: Hundreds of Thousands Homeless Despite Billions Funneled to NGOs, Contractors, and Internationals

by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas  (Haiti Liberte)

Despite billions in aid which were supposed to go to the Haitian people, hundreds of thousands are still homeless, living in shanty tent camps as the effects from the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake remain.

            According to Oxfam International, the earthquake killed 250,000 people and injured another 300,000.  Some 360,000 Haitians are still displaced and living hand to mouth in 496 tent camps across the country according to the International Organization of Migration.  Most eat only one meal a day. 

Tumultuous Year Ahead in Haiti: Martelly Regime Presents Aristide a Warrant, Duvalier a Diplomatic Passport

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

                                               

When former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti on Jan. 16, 2011, a state prosecutor visited him two days later about the many crimes against humanity his regime committed from 1971 to 1986 as well as the over $500 million he and his cronies are documented as pilfering from Haiti’s treasury. But after neo-Duvalierist President Michel Martelly’s government came to power in May 2011 via a Washington-engineered illegal election two months earlier, Haiti’s investigation of Duvalier all but stopped. In January 2012, a Martelly-aligned judge dismissed the multiple massive human rights charges against him.

Letter to Mark Tran of the UK Guardian

Dear Mark Tran:

You wrote of Haiti that

“About 6% of the population have been infected [with cholera] and more than 7,500 people have died – a higher toll than the political instability that brought the peacekeepers to Haiti in 2004.”

It was a US led coup that brought MINUSTAH to Haiti. Referring to the coup as “political instability” obscures that crucial fact.

US troops flew Haiti’s democratically elected government, Jean Bertrand Aristide, out of Haiti while Canadian troops guarded Haiti’s international airport. The US and its allies easily brushed off calls made by CARICOM and the African Union, among others, for the UN to formally investigate Aristide's claim that he was kidnapped.

Make a donation to Haiti by reading and speaking up about it

by Joe Emersberger

Please donate the time required to read the books about Haiti that I discuss below, at least one of them, and then speak up about what you learn.

An impressive, and growing, body of work explains how the "international community" (the USA and a handful of allies) worked with the Haitian elite to make a murderous and very successful assault on Haitian democracy as the twenty-first century began. It is an assault that continues today as the generosity that millions of people around the world displayed towards Haitians after an earthquake has been scandalously wasted and even used to bolster the Haitian and foreign elites who run Haiti. Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" thoroughly refutes the lies that were sold, and are still sold, about the "international community's" role in Haiti since 2000. Unfortunately, Hallward's book was written before the 2010 earthquake that killed perhaps as many as 250,000 Haitians, and before Wikileaks' release of US embassy cables. Thankfully, two new books about Haiti - Justin Podur's "Haiti's New Dictatorship" and Jeb Sprague "Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti" - update and greatly expand on Hallward’s work.

Montreal: Screening of “Haiti: Where Did the Money Go” and “Baseball In the Time of Cholera”

by Canada Haiti Action Network

Cinema Politica Concordia is hosting the screening of two outstanding films, “Haiti: Where Did the Money Go” and “Baseball In the Time of Cholera” on Mon., Jan. 21, 2013 at 7:00 pm in Room H-110, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, Canada. The showings will be followed by a panel discussion. The panelists are to be announced.

            In the United States alone, half of all households gave a total of $1.4 billion to charities after the January 2010 earthquake, yet almost two years later more than half a million people still lived in squalid camps. Only a few had access to drinking water. Sanitation was woefully inadequate. Malnutrition and cholera were on the rise. What happened?

Accord to Break Electoral Council Stand-Off between Martelly and Parliament Appears “Stillborn”

by Isabelle L. Papillon (Haiti Liberte)

Poor governance, disregard of Haiti’s laws, a tendency to ride roughshod over other institutions and branches of government, and a lack of a spirit of compromise from the right-wing regime headed by President Joseph Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Salvador Lamothe, with the support of the U.S., France, and Canada, have plunged Haiti for months into a political crisis.

How a World Bank “success” undermines Haitian democracy

by Haiti Grassroots Watch (Haiti Liberte)

A $61 million, eight-year World Bank community development project implemented across half of Haiti has successfully repaired roads, built schools, and distributed livestock. However, the Project for Participatory Community Development (PRODEP) – Projet de développement communautaire participatif  –  has also undermined an already weak state, damaged Haiti’s “social tissue,” carried out what could be called “social and political reengineering,” and raised questions of waste and corruption.

UN Gives Journalism Prize to Investigation Exposing UN Responsibility for Cholera – And Still Won’t Accept Responsibility

by Dan Beeton and Jake Johnson (CEPR)

Tonight, in a ceremony presided over by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, BBC correspondent Mark Doyle and producer Piers Scholfield will be presented with an award from the U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA). The award, one of many to be handed out, is described by the UNCA as being for “the best coverage of the United Nations and its agencies.” Certainly by “best” they do not mean the most flattering. The BBC radio documentary that earned Scholfield and Doyle the prize was an investigation into the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti, which over the past two years has killed over 7,800 and sickened over 625,000. A host of scientific evidence, as well as on the ground reporting, including by Doyle and Scholfield, has pinpointed a U.N. military base as the source of the outbreak.

UN Responds to Cholera Crisis in Haiti with Repackaged Aid

by Roger Annis (Haiti Liberte)

In a short ceremony in New York on Dec. 11, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced what appeared to be an important nod to international grassroots pressure to fund a universal treatment and prevention program for cholera in Haiti. He said that  $215 million from bilateral and multilateral donors and $23.5 million from the UN’s own coffers were being pledged to a plan by the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to limit the spread of cholera and eventually eliminate the disease from the island that the two countries share.

More Pressure Necessary to Get Desperately Needed Clean Water to Haiti

by Mark Weisbrot (for Al Jazeera English)

More than two years and nearly 7,800 deaths after U.N. troops brought the dread disease of cholera to Haiti, a plan has finally been put forward to do something to get rid of it.  While we are still a long way from implementation, there are important lessons to be learned from this experience.

The Kidnapping of Maryse Cinéus

Her Family Says They Now Live in Fear

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Four men, including a policeman, kidnapped Maryse Cinéus, 36, from her home in Croix des Bouquets on May 12, 2012, according to her family. The business woman is presumed to be dead.

Uprising in Jérémie

by Isabelle L Papillon (Haiti Liberte)

Violent protests shook the southwestern city of Jérémie for four consecutive days from Nov. 27  to Nov. 30. The town’s angry population blocked the vehicles of the Brazilian construction company Construtora OAS, which was contracted under the administration of René Préval (2006-2010) to build 70 kilometers of road linking Jérémie with the southern city of Aux Cayes. The US$95 million road project, for the leg from Jérémie to Camp Perrin, was financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Canadian government.

SOA Watch: We’re Still there Until the School of Americas Is Closed

by Wadner Pierre (originally published by The Maroon)

For the first time in two years, a group of Loyola students traveled to a US military- sponsored school in 

Fort Benning, Ga. to protest the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests and their two workers.

It has been 23 years since six Jesuit priests and their two workers were murdered at the Creighton University 

Mystery Still Surrounds Young Man’s Death

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Shots rang out during a demonstration on Nov. 16 on Rue Oswald Durand near the Economy and Finance Ministry Annex, in front of the State University’s Law School.

            Afterwards, Daniel Stanley Florestal, 19, lay dead. His body is still lying in the state hospital’s morgue.

New Arrest in the Brandt Kidnapping Case

by Thomas Péralte (Haiti Liberte)

Haitian authorities have captured another alleged member of the kidnapping ring headed by Haitian elite businessman Clifford Brandt. Haitian immigration officers arrested Mathurin Kerwens Jacques at the border town of Malpasse on Nov. 20 as he tried to cross into the Dominican Republic. Jacques was taken to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) in Port-au-Prince.

La reconstitution de l’armée ferait repartir Haïti 30 ans en arrière.

Par Jeb Sprague - Le Grand Soir

Le Gouvernement haïtien prépare le retour de l’armée haïtienne, pourtant dissoute, qui a été une institution coupable de nombreux crimes perpétrés dans le pays. Au même moment, des unités spéciales de la police ont été utilisées pour chasser les victimes du tremblement de terre hors des campements de fortune.

Alors que la société civile et les organisations populaires d’Haïti mènent une campagne contre un éventuel retour de l’ère de la répression duvaliériste, les citoyens américains, dominicains, et français devraient être mis au courant de l’appui historique que leur gouvernement a donné aux forces armées militaires et paramilitaires haïtiennes, ainsi qu’aux forces de sécurité.

Who is Really Leading Reconstruction Efforts in Haiti?

By: Haiti Relief & Reconstruction Watch, Center for Economic and Policy Research

After decades of bypassing the Haitian government in the provision of aid, after the 2010 earthquake there was an acknowledgment by international NGOs and donors that this time had to be different. The sentiment was summed up well by Nigel Fisher, the deputy special representative for MINUSTAH in Haiti when he told The Nation: “Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are here delivering aid, but they are doing functions that should be done by the Haitians…You cannot complain about failures of the Haitian state if you don’t support it to grow stronger. For decades, we have not invested in that very much.”

            And yet, as HRRW and others have documented time and time again, just as in the past, the Haitian government, civil society and businesses were largely bypassed again. Less than one percent (PDF) of humanitarian aid went to the Haitian government or Haitian organizations in the 18 months after the earthquake. Just over one percent of the $450 million or so in USAID contracts have gone to Haitian firms. Furthermore, there have been consistent complaints from government officials that they are not consulted by international partners. Nevertheless, donors continue to tout the “Haitian-led” reconstruction effort. Another quote from Kathie Klarreich and Linda Polman’s recent Nation article makes it clear this is nothing more than rhetoric:

Hurricane Sandy is another blow to Haiti

by Roger Annis (for Haiti Liberte)

Hurricane Sandy struck another heavy blow to Haiti on Oct. 23 and 24, 2012. At least 54 people died, and dozens more are missing. Several tens of thousands of people were flooded out of their homes or earthquake survivor camps.

            There are some 370,000 people stuck in appalling conditions in the camps while hundreds of thousands more have gone back to damaged homes or whatever other inadequate shelter they can find.

Canada’s media reports, and doesn’t report, on Sandy in Haiti

The Montreal daily La Presse assigned Gabrielle Duchaine to report from Haiti in the aftermath of the hurricane. Her reporting was the most substantive to appear in Canada. She wrote two informative articles on the difficult conditions she observed in the south of Haiti where Hurricane Sandy struck hardest, including dealing a severe blow to food production.

Assassinated Cop Led Kidnapping Ring from Pernier Police Station

Police officials never moved against him despite kidnapping victim’s complaint

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Heavily armed assailants gunned down Police Division Inspector Yves Michel Bellefleur in a hail of bullets on the morning of Fri., Nov. 9 near the Gérald Bataille circle in Tabarre.

            A police spokesman and some media have presented the killing as a response from criminals to the Oct. 22 arrest of prominent Haitian businessman Clifford Brandt and several others – including policemen and ex-policemen – for kidnapping.

            However, a former police official told Haïti Liberté that Inspector Bellefleur was in fact working with Clifford Brandt’s criminal organization and led a kidnapping ring based in the police station of Pernier, which, not coincidentally, is the same neighborhood that Clifford Brandt’s abductees, Coralie and Nicolas Moscoso, were found and freed (see Haïti Liberté, Oct. 31, 2012).

MINUSTAH and RNDDH Have a Great Deal for Which They Should Answer

By: Joe Emersberger, Jeb Sprague, and Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis

Dan Beeton, over at CEPR’s very useful Haiti blog, reported that

A new human rights report reaffirms the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti’s (MINUSTAH) responsibility for causing the cholera epidemic that has now killed over 7,600 and infected over 600,000.

There is no doubt that much of the report’s depiction of Haiti’s present human rights situation rings very true. Unfortunately, there is an appalling gap in the recent history that the report provides to explain why Haiti is in its present state. There is no mention in the report of the 2004 coup that ousted Haiti’s democratically elected government. There is no mention of the violent repression under the UN installed Latortue dictatorship that followed the coup -  at least 4000 political murders (overwhelmingly of partisans of the ousted government) according to study published in the Lancet medical journal. Numerous human rights studies (such as those published through the Miami University of School of Law, Harvard, the National Lawyers Guild, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits, the organization Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti, and (belatedly) Amnesty International) further documented the greatly heightened political violence that took place during the post-coup period.  

It is not difficult to figure out why the report could not deal honestly with the 2004 coup or its consequences. One of the organizations responsible for authoring the report – RNDDH (formerly NCHR-Haiti) – was, quite literally, the official human rights group of the Latortue dictatorship. Immigration attorney Thomas Griffin reported in 2004:

The United Nations must cure Haiti of the cholera epidemic it caused

By: Mark Weisbrot - UK Guardian

Before Hurricane Sandy slammed into the east coast of the United States, it killed 54 people in Haiti and left tens of thousands more homeless. Haiti is especially vulnerable because of its poor infrastructure and environmental destruction, so people die there – as they did during the  earthquake in January 2010 – in greater numbers than they would in other countries subject to the same natural disasters.

But there is one disaster that was brought to Haiti directly by people, not by nature. It was not caused by shifting tectonic plates or extreme weather (or climate change). That disaster is the cholera epidemic that struck Haiti two years ago. Most people I talk to don't even know that United Nations troops brought this deadly disease to Haiti in October of 2010. There hadn't been anycholera in Haiti for at least 100 years, if ever, until some UN troops from South Asia dumped human waste into a tributary of the country's main water supply. Since then, more than 7,600 Haitians have died and over 600,000 have gotten sick.

Reconstituir al ejército hará que Haití revierta a un pasado de 30 años atrás

Por Jeb Sprague - La República

El gobierno Haitiano está haciendo planes para reconstituir al disuelto ejército, una institución responsable de muchos de los peores crímenes cometidos en la historia del país. Al mismo tiempo, el gobierno ha movilizado policías especiales para sacar de sus campamentos a los damnificados por el terremoto de 2010.

Mientras que la sociedad civil y las organizaciones populares en Haití están haciendo campañas en contra de un retorno a la época represiva de la dictadura  duvalierista, los ciudadanos de Estados Unidos y la Repùblica Dominicana debemos ser conscientes de la larga historia de apoyo que han dado nuestros gobiernos a los militares y paramilitares de Haití.

Haiti's hunger games: Disastrous food policy bites hands that feed

by Phillip Wearne, Haiti Briefing

One màmit (5.75lb tin) of rice? 150 Haitian Gourdes (about $3.57), up 50% since July. Corn meal? At 100 Gourdes per màmit, that has doubled in the past year. Beans? Well, they are only 210 Gourdes, a mere 40% increase.

            It is a measure of the scale of the food price crisis that Haitians are now using the word goudougoudou – their imitation of the sound of ground rumbling in the 2010 earthquake – to denote hunger pains. Soaring food prices mean the hungriest country in the Americas is getting hungrier.

“Border of Lights” Marks Massacre Anniversary

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Some 200 people gathered in the border town of Dajabón, in northwestern Dominican Republic, from October 4-6 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the “Parsley Massacre” in 1937, when Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the slaughter of some 20,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent in an ethnic cleansing along the Dominican-Haitian border. The massacre took place over the course of about five days.

            The three-day event marking the bloodshed was entitled “Borders of Light.”

Arrest of Brandt for kidnapping explodes myths

Police Chief Orélus seeks to remove “bad seeds” on force

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

On Oct. 22, the Haitian National Police (PNH) arrested Clifford Brandt, the scion of a prominent Haitian bourgeois family, on charges of leading a kidnapping ring which includes other wealthy Haitians as well as policemen and former policemen. The ring allegedly kidnapped Coralie and Nicolas Moscoso, aged 23 and 24 respectively, the children of another bourgeois family, for a ransom of $2.5 million. Brandt led the police to the two bound and blindfolded abductees in a house in the Pernier section of the capital. The Moscoso kids were then freed.

Haiti's excluded majority opposes army's re-creation

By: Jeb Sprague - Jamaica Observer

[The entire version of the shortened article published in the Jamaica Observer is published below.]

FOLLOWING the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010, the country's small right wing has had a political comeback. As with the shocking return of former dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in early-2011 (who remains unaccountable for his crimes), through a controversial and very poorly attended election, musician Michel Martelly, a longtime Duvalierist, was able to woo a small part of the population as an “outsider” candidate.

Since the 2004 coup d’état in Haiti, there has been a clear rollback of the slow but positive reforms that had been undertaken by Haiti's popularly elected governments. Judicial rulings that had held accountable some of the country's most violent criminals were overturned. As we now know through WikiLeaks, 400 paramilitaries were integrated into Haiti's revamped post-coup police force. A UN force has also remained in the country since mid-2004.

For-Profit Folly in Haiti: Development-Industrial Complex Can't Deliver Reconstruction After Earthquake

by Jake Johnston, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Over the past few decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has seen its staff level drop significantly at the same time as the amount of money under its discretion has rapidly increased. Over this time, USAID has stepped up its reliance on for-profit contractors to fill the void. The result, as Hillary Clinton stated in her confirmation hearing (USAID is part of the State Department), is that USAID has “turned into more of a contracting agency than an operational agency with the ability to deliver.”

To be sure, there are efforts are underway to slowly fix this. In the meantime, the status quo reigns, with perhaps nowhere serving as a better example of the pitfalls than Haiti. Since the devastating earthquake in January 2010, USAID has awarded some $450 million in contracts – with 70 percent of them going to DC-area contractors, the so-called “beltway bandits”. The largest USAID contractor in Haiti (and the world, for that matter), Chemonics has received some $177 million of this total. With such a large amount of resources going to one company, you might expect there to be vigilant oversight and strict guidelines. Unfortunately, you would be mistaken.

Demonstration, Delegation, and Community Meeting Demand UN Troops Leave Haiti

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Despite cold weather, over 100 people protested in Ralph Bunche Park in front of the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan on Oct. 12 as the Security Council renewed the mandate of UN troops in Haiti for one more year.

            The day before, a 10-person international delegation led by Haitian Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles met with UN officials to argue against renewal of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti, known by its acronym MINUSTAH (see accompanying article). After the meeting, the delegation reported what was said at the encounter to the Haitian community at the offices of Haiti Liberte newspaper in Brooklyn.