Vessel carrying as many as 200 Haitians capsizes
By Vivian Tyson, Associated Press Writer
28 July 2009
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos – A vessel carrying as many as 200 Haitian migrants capsized and sank near the Turks and Caicos Islands on Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard said. One survivor said the boat struck a reef as they tried to elude police.
About 70 passengers were stranded on a reef and four bodies were recovered, said Petty Officer Third Class Sabrina Elgammal, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami. The rest of the passengers were missing and feared dead.
"Our main goal right now is just to get everybody out of the water and get medical attention for those who need it," Elgammal said.
The shipwreck happened around 2 p.m. Monday and by late evening Turks and Caicos authorities using small boats had rescued about 40 of the people stranded on the reef, located 2 miles (3 kilometers) southeast of West Caicos island. The Coast Guard and island authorities were evacuating the others, according to a Coast Guard statement.
The boat had been at sea for three days when passengers saw a police vessel and accidentally steered the boat onto a reef as they tried to hide, survivor Alces Julien told The Associated Press at a hospital were some of the rescued were receiving treatment.
Elgammal said information from survivors indicates that between 160 and 200 people were on board when the vessel capsized near this island chain southeast of the Bahamas. She said the cause of the accident is under investigation.
Two Coast Guard helicopters were on the scene and a cutter was en route to join the search for survivors.
Haitians routinely take to the seas in rickety, overcrowded boats in hopes of escaping poverty in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
In May 2007, an overcrowded sloop carrying more than 160 migrants capsized off the Turks and Caicos Islands. Some of the victims were eaten by sharks. The 78 people who survived accused a Turks and Caicos patrol boat of ramming their vessel as they approached shore and towing them into deeper water.
In May, a boat carrying at about 30 undocumented mainly Haitian migrants capsized off Florida's coast, killing at least nine people, including a pregnant woman.
____
Associated Press writer Mike Melia contributed to this report from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Réponse du Conseil Electoral Provisoire à la lettre ouverte du Vice-président Rodol Pierre
Port-au-Prince, le 21 juillet 2009
Objet : Réponse du Conseil Electoral Provisoire à la lettre ouverte du Vice-président, Monsieur Rodol Pierre en date du 20 juillet 2009.
Monsieur le Vice-président,
Le Conseil Electoral Provisoire, dans son intégration - exception faite de l’auteur de la correspondance citée en objet, vous-même, M. Rodol Pierre - exprime sa stupéfaction et son indignation face à la lettre affligeante et insultante que vous avez adressée au Président de l’Institution, Monsieur Frantz Gérard VERRET.
Le Conseil Electoral Provisoire estime que vos offenses au Président VERRET atteignent, en fait, tous les Conseillers solidairement responsables du fonctionnement de l’Institution électorale, d’autant plus que vous êtes et demeurez le seul dissident face aux résultats des Sénatoriales de 2009 publiés en toute probité sur rapport du Centre de Tabulation et de Vote et à partir des jugements prononcés par les Organes contentieux qui ont eu à siéger en toute autonomie pour traiter les contestation déposées au greffe du CEP, selon le prescrit de la Loi Electorale de juillet 2008. On tiendra, pour l’histoire, que vous faisiez partie de deux de ces Organes contentieux.
Faut-il vous rappeler, M. le Vice-président qu’aux termes de l’article 191 de cette loi électorale, les décisions arrêtées par le BCEN ne sont susceptibles d’aucun recours ?
Dans le cas spécifique faisant l’objet de votre correspondance (paragraphe 2), le BCEN, Tribunal Electoral de dernière instance, a rendu, en date du 16 juillet 2009, une décision souveraine en faveur du plaignant Francky Pierre Exius. Cette décision, prise unanimement par les cinq juges siégeant et consignée par le greffier du jour, ordonne au CEP d’afficher les nouveaux résultats pour les suites que de droit.
Au regard de la loi Electorale, le candidat Francky Pierre Exius est effectivement sorti gagnant des sénatoriales partielles pour le département du Sud.
Monsieur le Vice-président, votre prétendue injonction au C.E.P de porter le nom de votre candidat favori, Monsieur Joseph Benoit LAGUERRE sur la liste des résultats définitifs, en dépit de la décision souveraine du Tribunal Electoral est mesquine, inacceptable et, contraire à toute déontologie et à l’esprit d’impartialité qui doit guider les décisions des membres du Conseil. Elle mérite la plus grande réprobation.
Certes, l’un de vos droits élémentaires de citoyen est la liberté d’opinion et son corollaire nécessaire dans une démocratie, la liberté d’expression consacrée par la Constitution haïtienne de 1987. Aussi, nul ne saurait vous empêcher d’exprimer, au sein du Conseil, des préoccupations sur un aspect ou un autre de son fonctionnement tel le déroulement du processus électoral. Cependant, sans avoir jamais soulevé un malaise quelconque au sujet des résultats des élections, vous avez osé choisir la voie de la calomnie et du scandale comme mode de règlement d’un prétendu différend. Quelle infamie ! Vous donnez donc l’occasion aux détracteurs du CEP et à tous ceux qui ne jurent que par le sabotage des institutions de notre pays, qui ne vivent que de l’instabilité politique - ces matraqueurs de démocratie - l’occasion d’agrémenter leurs élucubrations et de réussir leur complot !!! Probablement, vous n’êtes pas à votre coup d’essai.
Etiez-vous lucide, Conseiller, au moment de rédiger votre lettre ?
Le CEP s’insurge encore une fois contre ces accusations dénuées de tout fondement et tient à vous dire, publiquement, qu’elles sapent l’engagement de cohésion pris par le collectif auquel nous appartenons depuis le jour de notre investiture. Mieux encore, votre attitude transgresse un principe sacré de déontologie prescrit à l’article 10 - alinéas c et d) des règlements généraux du CEP.
« Les membres du Conseil d’Administration sont tenus, dans l’exercice de leur fonction, au respect de certaines règles et obligation, dont les plus importantes sont les suivantes :
c) traiter avec la confidentialité nécessaire, sans déroger au principe de la transparence, toutes les questions intéressant les affaires de l’institution.
d) se tenir à l’obligation de réserve. Les communications publiques officielles doivent être autorisées par le Conseil d’Administration qui désigne alors un de ses membres, ou une personne dûment préposée, à prendre la parole au nom de l’institution. »
Monsieur le Vice-président, vous avez violé les Règlements Généraux du CEP, vous avez violé les principes de déontologie et d’éthiques essentiels dans la conduite des affaires de l’Etat par un corps de nature collégiale.
Votre attitude attentatoire à la crédibilité du CEP, à l’honneur de son Président et de ses membres est indigne du Vice-président d’une institution aussi prestigieuse que celle que nous dirigeons.
Trop tard pour laver le linge en famille ! Le CEP exige de vous des explications et des excuses publiques. Le dédain manifesté pour vos Collègues a un prix. Aussi, avec ce baroud d’honneur que vous avez tenté pour prendre partie en faveur de votre Parti, nous espérons que vous aurez le courage de faire le geste qui s’impose en la circonstance, puisque vous avez finalement mis bas les masques.
Salutations distinguées.
Suivent les signatures :
Frantz Gérard S. VERRET Président Léonel D. RAPHAEL Secrétaire Général Gaillot DORSINVIL Trésorier Laurette CROYANCE Conseillère Ginette CHERUBIN Conseillère Jacques BELZIN Conseiller Fritz ROSEME Conseiller François JASMIN Conseiller
C.C. : Président de la République, le Premier ministre, le Président du Sénat, le Président de la Chambre des députés, le Directeur Général du CEP, la Société civile, les Partis politiques, la Presse.
Objet : Réponse du Conseil Electoral Provisoire à la lettre ouverte du Vice-président, Monsieur Rodol Pierre en date du 20 juillet 2009.
Monsieur le Vice-président,
Le Conseil Electoral Provisoire, dans son intégration - exception faite de l’auteur de la correspondance citée en objet, vous-même, M. Rodol Pierre - exprime sa stupéfaction et son indignation face à la lettre affligeante et insultante que vous avez adressée au Président de l’Institution, Monsieur Frantz Gérard VERRET.
Le Conseil Electoral Provisoire estime que vos offenses au Président VERRET atteignent, en fait, tous les Conseillers solidairement responsables du fonctionnement de l’Institution électorale, d’autant plus que vous êtes et demeurez le seul dissident face aux résultats des Sénatoriales de 2009 publiés en toute probité sur rapport du Centre de Tabulation et de Vote et à partir des jugements prononcés par les Organes contentieux qui ont eu à siéger en toute autonomie pour traiter les contestation déposées au greffe du CEP, selon le prescrit de la Loi Electorale de juillet 2008. On tiendra, pour l’histoire, que vous faisiez partie de deux de ces Organes contentieux.
Faut-il vous rappeler, M. le Vice-président qu’aux termes de l’article 191 de cette loi électorale, les décisions arrêtées par le BCEN ne sont susceptibles d’aucun recours ?
Dans le cas spécifique faisant l’objet de votre correspondance (paragraphe 2), le BCEN, Tribunal Electoral de dernière instance, a rendu, en date du 16 juillet 2009, une décision souveraine en faveur du plaignant Francky Pierre Exius. Cette décision, prise unanimement par les cinq juges siégeant et consignée par le greffier du jour, ordonne au CEP d’afficher les nouveaux résultats pour les suites que de droit.
Au regard de la loi Electorale, le candidat Francky Pierre Exius est effectivement sorti gagnant des sénatoriales partielles pour le département du Sud.
Monsieur le Vice-président, votre prétendue injonction au C.E.P de porter le nom de votre candidat favori, Monsieur Joseph Benoit LAGUERRE sur la liste des résultats définitifs, en dépit de la décision souveraine du Tribunal Electoral est mesquine, inacceptable et, contraire à toute déontologie et à l’esprit d’impartialité qui doit guider les décisions des membres du Conseil. Elle mérite la plus grande réprobation.
Certes, l’un de vos droits élémentaires de citoyen est la liberté d’opinion et son corollaire nécessaire dans une démocratie, la liberté d’expression consacrée par la Constitution haïtienne de 1987. Aussi, nul ne saurait vous empêcher d’exprimer, au sein du Conseil, des préoccupations sur un aspect ou un autre de son fonctionnement tel le déroulement du processus électoral. Cependant, sans avoir jamais soulevé un malaise quelconque au sujet des résultats des élections, vous avez osé choisir la voie de la calomnie et du scandale comme mode de règlement d’un prétendu différend. Quelle infamie ! Vous donnez donc l’occasion aux détracteurs du CEP et à tous ceux qui ne jurent que par le sabotage des institutions de notre pays, qui ne vivent que de l’instabilité politique - ces matraqueurs de démocratie - l’occasion d’agrémenter leurs élucubrations et de réussir leur complot !!! Probablement, vous n’êtes pas à votre coup d’essai.
Etiez-vous lucide, Conseiller, au moment de rédiger votre lettre ?
Le CEP s’insurge encore une fois contre ces accusations dénuées de tout fondement et tient à vous dire, publiquement, qu’elles sapent l’engagement de cohésion pris par le collectif auquel nous appartenons depuis le jour de notre investiture. Mieux encore, votre attitude transgresse un principe sacré de déontologie prescrit à l’article 10 - alinéas c et d) des règlements généraux du CEP.
« Les membres du Conseil d’Administration sont tenus, dans l’exercice de leur fonction, au respect de certaines règles et obligation, dont les plus importantes sont les suivantes :
c) traiter avec la confidentialité nécessaire, sans déroger au principe de la transparence, toutes les questions intéressant les affaires de l’institution.
d) se tenir à l’obligation de réserve. Les communications publiques officielles doivent être autorisées par le Conseil d’Administration qui désigne alors un de ses membres, ou une personne dûment préposée, à prendre la parole au nom de l’institution. »
Monsieur le Vice-président, vous avez violé les Règlements Généraux du CEP, vous avez violé les principes de déontologie et d’éthiques essentiels dans la conduite des affaires de l’Etat par un corps de nature collégiale.
Votre attitude attentatoire à la crédibilité du CEP, à l’honneur de son Président et de ses membres est indigne du Vice-président d’une institution aussi prestigieuse que celle que nous dirigeons.
Trop tard pour laver le linge en famille ! Le CEP exige de vous des explications et des excuses publiques. Le dédain manifesté pour vos Collègues a un prix. Aussi, avec ce baroud d’honneur que vous avez tenté pour prendre partie en faveur de votre Parti, nous espérons que vous aurez le courage de faire le geste qui s’impose en la circonstance, puisque vous avez finalement mis bas les masques.
Salutations distinguées.
Suivent les signatures :
Frantz Gérard S. VERRET Président Léonel D. RAPHAEL Secrétaire Général Gaillot DORSINVIL Trésorier Laurette CROYANCE Conseillère Ginette CHERUBIN Conseillère Jacques BELZIN Conseiller Fritz ROSEME Conseiller François JASMIN Conseiller
C.C. : Président de la République, le Premier ministre, le Président du Sénat, le Président de la Chambre des députés, le Directeur Général du CEP, la Société civile, les Partis politiques, la Presse.
Lettre ouverte au Président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire de Rodol Pierre
Port-au-Prince, le 20 juillet 2009
Lettre ouverte au Président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, M. Frantz Gérard Verret
Monsieur Frantz Gérard Verret Président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire En ses bureaux
Monsieur le Président,
Faisant suite à la publication d’une note de presse portant votre signature, dans la nuit du vendredi 17 au 18 juillet 2009 dans laquelle il est fait mention des noms de onze « Sénateurs élus » dans le cadre des élections sénatoriales de 2009 qui ont eu lieu à travers les dix départements géographiques du pays, je me trouve dans l’obligation de vous adresser cette correspondance en vue d’avoir des informations plus précises vu que ces résultats ne reflètent pas la réalité.
En effet, à la date ci-dessus indiquée et très tard dans l’après-midi, au moment de laisser les locaux du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, le nom du Sénateur élu du Département du Sud, Joseph Benoit Laguerre figurait clairement sur la liste des résultats définitifs en attente de publication, conformément à la décision du Bureau du Contentieux Electoral National (BCEN) dont vous avez fait office du président. Cependant, c’est avec beaucoup de stupéfaction que j’ai appris qu’un autre résultat a été publié, sans savoir de quelle manière le premier résultat a-t-il été modifie, au préjudice du Sénateur qui a été constitutionnellement et légalement élu en l’occurrence, M. Joseph Benoit Laguerre.
Vous vous rappelez, Monsieur le Président, l’intervention écrite que j’avais faite dans le dossier du Département du Nord et celui des Nippes, une situation qui avait suscite l’incompréhension des uns et des autres. La presse en a été informée et certains secteurs politiques en ont profité pour dénaturer les faits dans leurs propres intérêts. Aujourd’hui, c’est sur la base de l’honnêteté, du sérieux et du respect de la démocratie que j’intervienne dans le dossier du Département du Sud en vue de dénoncer le caractère arbitraire des dernières décisions que vous avez fait publier dans la presse.
Par rapport au serment que nous avons prêté, celui, entre autres, de respecter la Constitution et la loi Electorale, je vous invite au strict respect des premiers résultats auxquels figurait le nom de Joseph Benoit Laguerre, comme Sénateur élu pour le Sud. Aussi, profité-je de cette occasion pour décliner mes responsabilités dans cet acte anti-démocratique et qui pourrait entraîner la mise en accusation des Conseillers Electoraux. Vous devez reconnaître que ce coup pourrait avoir des conséquences graves sur notre système démocratique. Je pense que l’opinion nationale et internationale vous rendra responsable de toutes les conséquences que ces résultats pourraient entraîner au pays.
En effectuant, sous pression externe, des modifications aux résultats définitifs, vous avez entre autres, contribué à alimenter les débats concernant la validation des pouvoirs des élus au Sénat de la République. En Attendant que le tir soit rectifié, je m’oppose catégoriquement à la publication de ces résultats que vous avez fabriqués dans la nuit du 17 au 18 juillet, spécialement ceux du Département du Sud qui ne reflètent pas le choix de sa population. L’histoire des Conseils Electoraux en Haïti doit nous interpeller la conscience et nous devons coûte que coûte, éviter de répéter les mêmes erreurs de nos prédécesseurs pour ne pas connaître le même sort qu’eux. La nation nous regarde, Monsieur le Président. Nous devons aussi éviter à ce que votre décision arbitraire ne contribue davantage au déchirement de notre société et à la fragilité de notre système électoral dont vous serez l’un des principaux responsables. J’en profite pour vous informer que la note de presse que vous avez signée et publiée n’engage, en aucun cas, ma responsabilité au Conseil Électoral Provisoire.
Concernant les Procès-verbaux reconnus manquants par le Centre de Tabulation et de l’OEA (Ref : lettre adressée au Président du CEP le 02 juillet 2009 signée du Coordonnateur dudit Centre et du Coordonnateur Général de l’OEA), surtout au niveau du Département du Sud, au regard des dispositions de l’article 166 de la loi Electorale, si vous n’étiez pas complice de cette situation, le Conseil Electoral Provisoire aurait pour obligation, avant même la publication de ces résultats, de rechercher, aux fins de tabulation, tous ces procès-verbaux qui faisaient, à bon droit, l’objet de contestations et les causes de leur disparition
Dans l’éventualité où ces procès-verbaux n’auraient pas été retrouvés pour une raison ou pour une autre, vous avez vous-même ordonné, en Conseil, tenant compte de la fragilité de la situation électorale du sud, la formation d’une Commission indépendante avec la participation des deux candidats rivaux ou de leurs représentants. Cette décision a été consignée dans les registres destinés à cet effet. Cette Commission avait pour mission de procéder au recomptage des bulletins des Bureaux de vote manquants et d’enquêter sur les causes de la disparition de ces procès-verbaux. Le respect des votes de la population où ces procès-verbaux ont été portés disparus imposait cette décision au Conseil Electoral Provisoire et vous en étiez conscient. Cette Commission a-t-elle été formée ? Quels ont été ses membres ? Quel a été le résultat ? Détenteur du rapport des incidents qui s’étaient produits dans le Plateau Central, en ma qualité de vice-président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, je demande à ce que celui du département du Sud me soit également communiqué. Dans le cas contraire, la formation de cette Commission se révèle indispensable avant la publication de tout résultat définitif pour le département du Sud. En conséquence, je déclare nul et non avenu tout ce qui pourrait venir à l’encontre des faits que j’ai avancés à travers cette correspondance.
Aussi avons-nous compris que, si le Conseil Electoral Provisoire que vous présidez avait fait son travail, aucun procès-verbal n’aurait été porté disparu ; alors que plus d’une demi-douzaine de PV n’ont pas été retrouvée dans une seule commune, notamment à Saint-Jean du Sud où M. Joseph Benoit Laguerre est originaire. C’est un crime lorsque vous avez constaté que M. Laguerre disposait plus d’un millier de votes à travers des procès-verbaux non annulés et non comptabilisés qu’il avait soumis au Conseil Electoral Provisoire dans une lettre datée du 30 juin 2009. Pourtant dans les résultats que vous avez frauduleusement fabriqués, vous avez déclaré M. Laguerre perdant pour 17 voix. Pourquoi nous autres politiciens, nous n’adoptons pas la politique du Président Préval qui prône la paix dans ce pays en encourageant la participation de tous les secteurs dans la vie nationale, pour le respect des droits de chaque haïtien.
Juridiquement, M. Laguerre ne devait pas être pénalisé pour n’avoir pas pu prouver lui-même les votes qu’il a obtenus à travers ces procès-verbaux manquants, en fournissant des photocopies de ces documents au BCEN que vous avez présidé. Pourtant, les originaux de ces procès-verbaux, vous ont été déjà soumis, aux fins de tabulation, dans la même correspondance du 30 juin 2009 et dont une copie m’a été acheminée. C’était la responsabilité morale du Conseil électoral Provisoire de retrouver les procès-verbaux égarés, afin de les tabuler fidèlement pour être intégrés aux résultats définitifs (article 166 de la loi Electorale). Pour commettre votre forfait, vous vous êtes catégoriquement opposé à la tabulation de l’original du procès-verbal : SE4444, du Centre de vote du Vieux Chemin à Saint-Jean du Sud, publié sans résultat sur le site du CEP). Dans ce procès-verbal, l’intéressé avait obtenu 155 voix contre 6 pour son rival de LESPWA. Ce document a été régulièrement soumis au greffe du BCEN le 14 juillet 2009. Ce qui constitue des circonstances aggravantes par rapport à votre forfait.
Dans un système démocratique, pour que les résultats soient crédibles, le Conseil Electoral doit s’assurer que tous les votes valides de la population soient comptabilisés avant la publication définitive de ces résultats. Ce, pour éviter que ces derniers ne soient pas influencés au profit d’un candidat quelconque. Notre Conseil doit s’efforcer afin de finir avec les pratiques de disparition de procès-verbaux qui favorisent toujours et injustement la victoire d’un candidat. En ce qui concerne le Sud, vous devez reconnaître que vous avez péché pour avoir modifié les résultats. A toutes fins utiles, j’en profite pour dénoncer, aux yeux de la communauté nationale et internationale, le caractère arbitraire de votre décision puisque le temps d’imposer des législateurs au peuple haïtien est totalement révolu. En attendant qu’une enquête soit diligentée autour du dossier du Département du Sud afin que le meilleur gagne, je vous demande de bien vouloir surseoir sur la publication de ces résultats, dits « définitifs » pour être entachés d’irrégularités et de fraudes graves.
Monsieur le Président, il nous faudra sortir la tête haute dans les élections sénatoriales de 2009 puisqu’elles constituent notre première étape dans le long chemin que nous avons à parcourir dans le cadre de cet exercice démocratique. Souffrez que je vous dise que la manière dont vous avez traité le dossier des Candidats aux Sénatoriales du Sud prouve que vous n’avez pas décidé de faire de la Constitution et de la loi Electorale, votre boussole. Il est impérieux que vous rectifiez le tir par le respect du choix de la population du Sud, rien que pour vous sauver l’honneur et celui des autres membres du Conseil que vous dirigez. Si les résultats de cette première expérience sont truqués, quelle confiance le peuple haïtien peut-il placer en nous dans la réalisation des prochaines élections ?
Tout en vous informant que cette correspondance sera distribuée dans la presse et adressée aux différentes instances du pays, et en espérant que ces recommandations retiendront votre meilleure attention en faveur de l’avenir de notre institution électorale et du respect scrupuleux du choix de la population, je saisis l’occasion pour vous renouveler, Monsieur le Président, l’expression de mes patriotiques salutations.
Rodol Pierre Vice-président du CEP
Lettre ouverte au Président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, M. Frantz Gérard Verret
Monsieur Frantz Gérard Verret Président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire En ses bureaux
Monsieur le Président,
Faisant suite à la publication d’une note de presse portant votre signature, dans la nuit du vendredi 17 au 18 juillet 2009 dans laquelle il est fait mention des noms de onze « Sénateurs élus » dans le cadre des élections sénatoriales de 2009 qui ont eu lieu à travers les dix départements géographiques du pays, je me trouve dans l’obligation de vous adresser cette correspondance en vue d’avoir des informations plus précises vu que ces résultats ne reflètent pas la réalité.
En effet, à la date ci-dessus indiquée et très tard dans l’après-midi, au moment de laisser les locaux du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, le nom du Sénateur élu du Département du Sud, Joseph Benoit Laguerre figurait clairement sur la liste des résultats définitifs en attente de publication, conformément à la décision du Bureau du Contentieux Electoral National (BCEN) dont vous avez fait office du président. Cependant, c’est avec beaucoup de stupéfaction que j’ai appris qu’un autre résultat a été publié, sans savoir de quelle manière le premier résultat a-t-il été modifie, au préjudice du Sénateur qui a été constitutionnellement et légalement élu en l’occurrence, M. Joseph Benoit Laguerre.
Vous vous rappelez, Monsieur le Président, l’intervention écrite que j’avais faite dans le dossier du Département du Nord et celui des Nippes, une situation qui avait suscite l’incompréhension des uns et des autres. La presse en a été informée et certains secteurs politiques en ont profité pour dénaturer les faits dans leurs propres intérêts. Aujourd’hui, c’est sur la base de l’honnêteté, du sérieux et du respect de la démocratie que j’intervienne dans le dossier du Département du Sud en vue de dénoncer le caractère arbitraire des dernières décisions que vous avez fait publier dans la presse.
Par rapport au serment que nous avons prêté, celui, entre autres, de respecter la Constitution et la loi Electorale, je vous invite au strict respect des premiers résultats auxquels figurait le nom de Joseph Benoit Laguerre, comme Sénateur élu pour le Sud. Aussi, profité-je de cette occasion pour décliner mes responsabilités dans cet acte anti-démocratique et qui pourrait entraîner la mise en accusation des Conseillers Electoraux. Vous devez reconnaître que ce coup pourrait avoir des conséquences graves sur notre système démocratique. Je pense que l’opinion nationale et internationale vous rendra responsable de toutes les conséquences que ces résultats pourraient entraîner au pays.
En effectuant, sous pression externe, des modifications aux résultats définitifs, vous avez entre autres, contribué à alimenter les débats concernant la validation des pouvoirs des élus au Sénat de la République. En Attendant que le tir soit rectifié, je m’oppose catégoriquement à la publication de ces résultats que vous avez fabriqués dans la nuit du 17 au 18 juillet, spécialement ceux du Département du Sud qui ne reflètent pas le choix de sa population. L’histoire des Conseils Electoraux en Haïti doit nous interpeller la conscience et nous devons coûte que coûte, éviter de répéter les mêmes erreurs de nos prédécesseurs pour ne pas connaître le même sort qu’eux. La nation nous regarde, Monsieur le Président. Nous devons aussi éviter à ce que votre décision arbitraire ne contribue davantage au déchirement de notre société et à la fragilité de notre système électoral dont vous serez l’un des principaux responsables. J’en profite pour vous informer que la note de presse que vous avez signée et publiée n’engage, en aucun cas, ma responsabilité au Conseil Électoral Provisoire.
Concernant les Procès-verbaux reconnus manquants par le Centre de Tabulation et de l’OEA (Ref : lettre adressée au Président du CEP le 02 juillet 2009 signée du Coordonnateur dudit Centre et du Coordonnateur Général de l’OEA), surtout au niveau du Département du Sud, au regard des dispositions de l’article 166 de la loi Electorale, si vous n’étiez pas complice de cette situation, le Conseil Electoral Provisoire aurait pour obligation, avant même la publication de ces résultats, de rechercher, aux fins de tabulation, tous ces procès-verbaux qui faisaient, à bon droit, l’objet de contestations et les causes de leur disparition
Dans l’éventualité où ces procès-verbaux n’auraient pas été retrouvés pour une raison ou pour une autre, vous avez vous-même ordonné, en Conseil, tenant compte de la fragilité de la situation électorale du sud, la formation d’une Commission indépendante avec la participation des deux candidats rivaux ou de leurs représentants. Cette décision a été consignée dans les registres destinés à cet effet. Cette Commission avait pour mission de procéder au recomptage des bulletins des Bureaux de vote manquants et d’enquêter sur les causes de la disparition de ces procès-verbaux. Le respect des votes de la population où ces procès-verbaux ont été portés disparus imposait cette décision au Conseil Electoral Provisoire et vous en étiez conscient. Cette Commission a-t-elle été formée ? Quels ont été ses membres ? Quel a été le résultat ? Détenteur du rapport des incidents qui s’étaient produits dans le Plateau Central, en ma qualité de vice-président du Conseil Electoral Provisoire, je demande à ce que celui du département du Sud me soit également communiqué. Dans le cas contraire, la formation de cette Commission se révèle indispensable avant la publication de tout résultat définitif pour le département du Sud. En conséquence, je déclare nul et non avenu tout ce qui pourrait venir à l’encontre des faits que j’ai avancés à travers cette correspondance.
Aussi avons-nous compris que, si le Conseil Electoral Provisoire que vous présidez avait fait son travail, aucun procès-verbal n’aurait été porté disparu ; alors que plus d’une demi-douzaine de PV n’ont pas été retrouvée dans une seule commune, notamment à Saint-Jean du Sud où M. Joseph Benoit Laguerre est originaire. C’est un crime lorsque vous avez constaté que M. Laguerre disposait plus d’un millier de votes à travers des procès-verbaux non annulés et non comptabilisés qu’il avait soumis au Conseil Electoral Provisoire dans une lettre datée du 30 juin 2009. Pourtant dans les résultats que vous avez frauduleusement fabriqués, vous avez déclaré M. Laguerre perdant pour 17 voix. Pourquoi nous autres politiciens, nous n’adoptons pas la politique du Président Préval qui prône la paix dans ce pays en encourageant la participation de tous les secteurs dans la vie nationale, pour le respect des droits de chaque haïtien.
Juridiquement, M. Laguerre ne devait pas être pénalisé pour n’avoir pas pu prouver lui-même les votes qu’il a obtenus à travers ces procès-verbaux manquants, en fournissant des photocopies de ces documents au BCEN que vous avez présidé. Pourtant, les originaux de ces procès-verbaux, vous ont été déjà soumis, aux fins de tabulation, dans la même correspondance du 30 juin 2009 et dont une copie m’a été acheminée. C’était la responsabilité morale du Conseil électoral Provisoire de retrouver les procès-verbaux égarés, afin de les tabuler fidèlement pour être intégrés aux résultats définitifs (article 166 de la loi Electorale). Pour commettre votre forfait, vous vous êtes catégoriquement opposé à la tabulation de l’original du procès-verbal : SE4444, du Centre de vote du Vieux Chemin à Saint-Jean du Sud, publié sans résultat sur le site du CEP). Dans ce procès-verbal, l’intéressé avait obtenu 155 voix contre 6 pour son rival de LESPWA. Ce document a été régulièrement soumis au greffe du BCEN le 14 juillet 2009. Ce qui constitue des circonstances aggravantes par rapport à votre forfait.
Dans un système démocratique, pour que les résultats soient crédibles, le Conseil Electoral doit s’assurer que tous les votes valides de la population soient comptabilisés avant la publication définitive de ces résultats. Ce, pour éviter que ces derniers ne soient pas influencés au profit d’un candidat quelconque. Notre Conseil doit s’efforcer afin de finir avec les pratiques de disparition de procès-verbaux qui favorisent toujours et injustement la victoire d’un candidat. En ce qui concerne le Sud, vous devez reconnaître que vous avez péché pour avoir modifié les résultats. A toutes fins utiles, j’en profite pour dénoncer, aux yeux de la communauté nationale et internationale, le caractère arbitraire de votre décision puisque le temps d’imposer des législateurs au peuple haïtien est totalement révolu. En attendant qu’une enquête soit diligentée autour du dossier du Département du Sud afin que le meilleur gagne, je vous demande de bien vouloir surseoir sur la publication de ces résultats, dits « définitifs » pour être entachés d’irrégularités et de fraudes graves.
Monsieur le Président, il nous faudra sortir la tête haute dans les élections sénatoriales de 2009 puisqu’elles constituent notre première étape dans le long chemin que nous avons à parcourir dans le cadre de cet exercice démocratique. Souffrez que je vous dise que la manière dont vous avez traité le dossier des Candidats aux Sénatoriales du Sud prouve que vous n’avez pas décidé de faire de la Constitution et de la loi Electorale, votre boussole. Il est impérieux que vous rectifiez le tir par le respect du choix de la population du Sud, rien que pour vous sauver l’honneur et celui des autres membres du Conseil que vous dirigez. Si les résultats de cette première expérience sont truqués, quelle confiance le peuple haïtien peut-il placer en nous dans la réalisation des prochaines élections ?
Tout en vous informant que cette correspondance sera distribuée dans la presse et adressée aux différentes instances du pays, et en espérant que ces recommandations retiendront votre meilleure attention en faveur de l’avenir de notre institution électorale et du respect scrupuleux du choix de la population, je saisis l’occasion pour vous renouveler, Monsieur le Président, l’expression de mes patriotiques salutations.
Rodol Pierre Vice-président du CEP
Friday, July 24, 2009
Décès en prison du puissant chef de gang Evens Jeune dit "Evens Ti Kouto"
Haïti-Décès
Décès en prison du puissant chef de gang Evens Jeune dit "Evens Ti Kouto"
Il aurait succombé à une « longue maladie »
vendredi 24 juillet 2009,
Radio Kiskeya
(Read the original article here)
Le redoutable chef de gang de Cité Soleil (banlieue nord de Port-au-Prince) Evens Jeune alias "Evens Ti Kouto" (Petit Couteau) est décédé vendredi matin au Pénitencier National suite à une "maladie qu’il aurait longuement supportée", a appris Radio Kiskeya de sources dignes de foi.
Après avoir longtemps régné en maître et seigneur dans le quartier de Boston (Cité Soleil) au lendemain du départ en février 2004 de l’ancien président Jean Bertrand Aristide, Evens Jeune avait pris le maquis dans le Sud, au fort de l’offensive conjointe de la Police Nationale d’Haïti et des casques bleus de l’ONU contre les groupes armés disséminés dans divers quartiers défavorisés de la zone métropolitaine de Port-au-Prince.
Activement recherché, il allait finalement tomber dans les filets de la police des Cayes (Sud) le 13 mars 2007. Repéré dans la section communale de Laurent, Evens Jeune vivait sous le nom Pierre Jacques.
Evens Jeune a longtemps semé la terreur à Boston, un des 34 quartiers de Cité Soleil. Il avait été formellement inculpé et jeté en prison le 11 avril 2007 sous le chef d’accusation de «séquestration et enlèvement ».
Le sobriquet de « Ti Kouto » dont Evens Jeune s’affublait était en rapport avec sa manie morbide de dépecer ses victimes. [jmd/Radio Kiskeya]
Décès en prison du puissant chef de gang Evens Jeune dit "Evens Ti Kouto"
Il aurait succombé à une « longue maladie »
vendredi 24 juillet 2009,
Radio Kiskeya
(Read the original article here)
Le redoutable chef de gang de Cité Soleil (banlieue nord de Port-au-Prince) Evens Jeune alias "Evens Ti Kouto" (Petit Couteau) est décédé vendredi matin au Pénitencier National suite à une "maladie qu’il aurait longuement supportée", a appris Radio Kiskeya de sources dignes de foi.
Après avoir longtemps régné en maître et seigneur dans le quartier de Boston (Cité Soleil) au lendemain du départ en février 2004 de l’ancien président Jean Bertrand Aristide, Evens Jeune avait pris le maquis dans le Sud, au fort de l’offensive conjointe de la Police Nationale d’Haïti et des casques bleus de l’ONU contre les groupes armés disséminés dans divers quartiers défavorisés de la zone métropolitaine de Port-au-Prince.
Activement recherché, il allait finalement tomber dans les filets de la police des Cayes (Sud) le 13 mars 2007. Repéré dans la section communale de Laurent, Evens Jeune vivait sous le nom Pierre Jacques.
Evens Jeune a longtemps semé la terreur à Boston, un des 34 quartiers de Cité Soleil. Il avait été formellement inculpé et jeté en prison le 11 avril 2007 sous le chef d’accusation de «séquestration et enlèvement ».
Le sobriquet de « Ti Kouto » dont Evens Jeune s’affublait était en rapport avec sa manie morbide de dépecer ses victimes. [jmd/Radio Kiskeya]
Haiti-Massacre paysans Jean Rabel : Tèt Kole se souvient et revendique
Haiti-Massacre paysans Jean Rabel : Tèt Kole se souvient et revendique
jeudi 23 juillet 2009
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P, 23 juil. 09 [AlterPresse] --- Reconnaitre la date du 23 juillet comme la journée nationale des paysans : c’est la revendication formulée par l’organisation Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen à l’occasion du 22 e anniversaire du massacre perpétré, en 1987, contre les paysans de Jean Rabel (Nord-Ouest), dans une note transmise à l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
139 paysans ont trouvé la mort le 23 juillet 1987 dans la commune de Jean Rabel. Les victimes attendent encore justice et réparation, rappelle l’organisation paysanne.
Un propriétaire terrien, arrêté sous le premier mandat de René Garcia Préval [1996-2001] en relation avec le massacre de Jean Rabel, a été relâché alors qu’il s’était vanté à l’époque d’avoir tué plus d’un millier de personnes.
« 22 ans après, malgré les cris de Tèt Kole et la solidarité avec d’autres organisations tous les 23 juillet, date du massacre, les paysans n’ont jamais manqué une occasion de réclamer justice et réparation pour les victimes et leurs familles, tous les présumés criminels ayant pris part à ce massacre vont et viennent sans crainte, au vu et au su des autorités du pays, les responsables n’ont jamais pris aucune décision pour arrêter les criminels, les juger et dédommager les victimes ainsi que leurs familles ;22 ans après la justice et la reforme agraire ne figurent même pas dans leur agenda », déplore Tèt Kole.
Le massacre de Jean Rabel, qui fait partie des pages les plus sombres de l’histoire d’Haïti au 20e siècle, est une réponse de l’armée en complicité avec un secteur de l’église pour réprimer les paysannes et paysans qui, en mai 2006, ont manifesté par milliers dans les rues pour dénoncer notamment les injustices et les abus, et demander de la justice sociale.
L’organisation paysanne profite de ce 22 e anniversaire pour réclamer la relance de l’agriculture nationale, un programme de réforme agraire intégrale, une politique environnementale pour empêcher le déboisement dans le pays.
« Prendre la décision et la responsabilité de légaliser toutes les terres de l’État, actuellement occupées par des paysans dans le pays, particulièrement dans le département du Nord-Ouest, les communes de Port de Paix, Jean Rabel, Mole Saint Nicolas et ‘’Baie de Henne’’ ».
La publication de la loi sur le salaire minimum à 200.00 gourdes (environ 5.00 dollars américaions ; US $ 1.00 = 41.50 gourdes aujourd’hui) et l’arrêt du processus de privatisation des entreprises publiques, des dossiers de l’actualité, font aussi partie des revendications de Tèt Kole. [kft rc apr 23/07/2009 16 :05]
jeudi 23 juillet 2009
(Read the original article here)
P-au-P, 23 juil. 09 [AlterPresse] --- Reconnaitre la date du 23 juillet comme la journée nationale des paysans : c’est la revendication formulée par l’organisation Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen à l’occasion du 22 e anniversaire du massacre perpétré, en 1987, contre les paysans de Jean Rabel (Nord-Ouest), dans une note transmise à l’agence en ligne AlterPresse.
139 paysans ont trouvé la mort le 23 juillet 1987 dans la commune de Jean Rabel. Les victimes attendent encore justice et réparation, rappelle l’organisation paysanne.
Un propriétaire terrien, arrêté sous le premier mandat de René Garcia Préval [1996-2001] en relation avec le massacre de Jean Rabel, a été relâché alors qu’il s’était vanté à l’époque d’avoir tué plus d’un millier de personnes.
« 22 ans après, malgré les cris de Tèt Kole et la solidarité avec d’autres organisations tous les 23 juillet, date du massacre, les paysans n’ont jamais manqué une occasion de réclamer justice et réparation pour les victimes et leurs familles, tous les présumés criminels ayant pris part à ce massacre vont et viennent sans crainte, au vu et au su des autorités du pays, les responsables n’ont jamais pris aucune décision pour arrêter les criminels, les juger et dédommager les victimes ainsi que leurs familles ;22 ans après la justice et la reforme agraire ne figurent même pas dans leur agenda », déplore Tèt Kole.
Le massacre de Jean Rabel, qui fait partie des pages les plus sombres de l’histoire d’Haïti au 20e siècle, est une réponse de l’armée en complicité avec un secteur de l’église pour réprimer les paysannes et paysans qui, en mai 2006, ont manifesté par milliers dans les rues pour dénoncer notamment les injustices et les abus, et demander de la justice sociale.
L’organisation paysanne profite de ce 22 e anniversaire pour réclamer la relance de l’agriculture nationale, un programme de réforme agraire intégrale, une politique environnementale pour empêcher le déboisement dans le pays.
« Prendre la décision et la responsabilité de légaliser toutes les terres de l’État, actuellement occupées par des paysans dans le pays, particulièrement dans le département du Nord-Ouest, les communes de Port de Paix, Jean Rabel, Mole Saint Nicolas et ‘’Baie de Henne’’ ».
La publication de la loi sur le salaire minimum à 200.00 gourdes (environ 5.00 dollars américaions ; US $ 1.00 = 41.50 gourdes aujourd’hui) et l’arrêt du processus de privatisation des entreprises publiques, des dossiers de l’actualité, font aussi partie des revendications de Tèt Kole. [kft rc apr 23/07/2009 16 :05]
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A note to Richard Morse
Greetings, Richard, from the immigrant banlieues - lieue de ban - of Paris. You will recall the last time we met was here in the city this past spring, after your band Ram followed the brilliant Haitian jazzman Thurgot Theodat for a most enjoyable evening of Haitian music. We chatted briefly after the concert was over, and though I can't say that I agreed with your rather rambling denunciation of Barack Obama at the time, the conversation was pleasant enough.
I confess to, if not surprise, then bemusement as, having followed Haiti pretty closely since my first visit there in 1997, reading a note you had posted to a Haiti list-serv on my recent piece in the Washington Times (Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti), a note which a friend forwarded to me and which read as follows:
If I had read Michael Diebert's recent piece in the Washington Times while living in New York or Miami, i would have assumed that everything in Haiti is fine; however, I live in Port-au-Prince. I guess being a journalist can be like being in a band; sometimes people hire you to say things or sing things.
I’m not so bothered that you didn’t spell my name correctly (a common enough mistake, even among my detractors), but the last comment, that independent journalists such as myself are “paid” to say things, is indeed a curious one. Though I could never afford to stay at the Hotel Oloffson, the hotel you run in Port-au-Prince, many journalists have over the years, and you have certainly profited from your relationship with them. As such, I would have thought you would have been more knowledgeable about the often half-starved finances of journalists who travel to Haiti on their own dime and then try and sell articles after they have written them. As you know, accusing people of taking money from here or there in Haiti can often be a nice excuse for getting them killed.
As someone who enjoys a listen to Puritan Vodou now and again, my advice to you would be not to become too irascible and irrational. Unlike musicians, the job of journalists is to listen to people, to judge a situation from the ground up, and to report it, whether one likes the way it is going or not.
Perhaps some day, Richard, we can switch places: I will manage the Oloffson for a month and you can try and live off the money I make as a freelance journalist for a month. For my part, I often do miss Ayiti Chérie here in my lieue de ban, and, for your part, I bet even with your many years in Haiti, you could still learn some things on those long tap-tap rides among moun deyo and those commutes around Port-au-Prince in taxis stuffed to overflowing that I still take. Even for someone like me whose job puts them elbow-deep in man’s inhumanity to man in various corners in the world, my recent trip to Haiti revealed ever-so-much cautious hope among the people there today, a dramatic change from the charnel house I saw the country as upon my previous visit there during the Martissant gang wars of 2006.
Predicting disaster in Haiti is an easy game, because more often than not, if the country’s history is anything to go on, you will be proved right. But there are always opinions in Haiti besides one’s own, valid ones at that, and you, like me, always have the opportunity to learn new things. Step out from behind the gates of the Oloffson sometime. You might be amazed at the country that you find there.
There are a lot of faces I see in my head when I think of Haiti, of Haitians working diligently and honestly to improve their country, despite its rancid political class and the irresponsible economic elite. It’s easy to scoff at and spit on their efforts but, like you, as someone who grew up in the “country to the north” and had so many advantages that your average Haitian will never have, I never really thought it was my place to do so.
A Haitian whose father was imprisoned by Jean-Claude Duvalier for thirty-three months in Fort Dimanche once told me, of his hope for Haiti, that "everyone has their own skills, everyone can bring their own particles of sand to help build the wall.”
I know that cynicism is fashionable but, despite the great odds stacked against Haiti, I haven't lost hope that better may yet come.
I confess to, if not surprise, then bemusement as, having followed Haiti pretty closely since my first visit there in 1997, reading a note you had posted to a Haiti list-serv on my recent piece in the Washington Times (Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti), a note which a friend forwarded to me and which read as follows:
If I had read Michael Diebert's recent piece in the Washington Times while living in New York or Miami, i would have assumed that everything in Haiti is fine; however, I live in Port-au-Prince. I guess being a journalist can be like being in a band; sometimes people hire you to say things or sing things.
I’m not so bothered that you didn’t spell my name correctly (a common enough mistake, even among my detractors), but the last comment, that independent journalists such as myself are “paid” to say things, is indeed a curious one. Though I could never afford to stay at the Hotel Oloffson, the hotel you run in Port-au-Prince, many journalists have over the years, and you have certainly profited from your relationship with them. As such, I would have thought you would have been more knowledgeable about the often half-starved finances of journalists who travel to Haiti on their own dime and then try and sell articles after they have written them. As you know, accusing people of taking money from here or there in Haiti can often be a nice excuse for getting them killed.
As someone who enjoys a listen to Puritan Vodou now and again, my advice to you would be not to become too irascible and irrational. Unlike musicians, the job of journalists is to listen to people, to judge a situation from the ground up, and to report it, whether one likes the way it is going or not.
Perhaps some day, Richard, we can switch places: I will manage the Oloffson for a month and you can try and live off the money I make as a freelance journalist for a month. For my part, I often do miss Ayiti Chérie here in my lieue de ban, and, for your part, I bet even with your many years in Haiti, you could still learn some things on those long tap-tap rides among moun deyo and those commutes around Port-au-Prince in taxis stuffed to overflowing that I still take. Even for someone like me whose job puts them elbow-deep in man’s inhumanity to man in various corners in the world, my recent trip to Haiti revealed ever-so-much cautious hope among the people there today, a dramatic change from the charnel house I saw the country as upon my previous visit there during the Martissant gang wars of 2006.
Predicting disaster in Haiti is an easy game, because more often than not, if the country’s history is anything to go on, you will be proved right. But there are always opinions in Haiti besides one’s own, valid ones at that, and you, like me, always have the opportunity to learn new things. Step out from behind the gates of the Oloffson sometime. You might be amazed at the country that you find there.
There are a lot of faces I see in my head when I think of Haiti, of Haitians working diligently and honestly to improve their country, despite its rancid political class and the irresponsible economic elite. It’s easy to scoff at and spit on their efforts but, like you, as someone who grew up in the “country to the north” and had so many advantages that your average Haitian will never have, I never really thought it was my place to do so.
A Haitian whose father was imprisoned by Jean-Claude Duvalier for thirty-three months in Fort Dimanche once told me, of his hope for Haiti, that "everyone has their own skills, everyone can bring their own particles of sand to help build the wall.”
I know that cynicism is fashionable but, despite the great odds stacked against Haiti, I haven't lost hope that better may yet come.
Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen konferans de près
20-07-09
Tèt kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen
Konferans de près nan okazyon 22 e anivèsè masak ti peyizan Jan Rabèl ak Bocho yo, ki gen pou tèm:
Ann goumen pou refè peyi Dayiti,Nan relanse agrikilti ti peyizan yo, Nan rebati anviwonman an, atravè yon pwogram refòm agrè entegre.
23 Jiye 1987-23 jiyè 2009 safè 22 lane depi grandon,chèf seksyon ,lame Dayiti ,choukèt lawouze ak yon sektè nan legliz la te mete tèt ansanm pou yo reyalize yon gwo masak sou ti peyizan gwoupman tèt ansanm Jan Rabè ak Bochan yo ,yon jou ti peyizan Tèt kole pap janm bliye.
Premye me 1986 plis pase 10 mil peyizan te desann nan lari Jan Rabèl pou denonse abi, enjistis yap sibi kòm peyizan,responasab peyi a mete deyò nan tout sevis ki genyen nan sosyete a ,tankou edikasyon, sante,dlo potab,pandan yap peye taks nan kontribisyon san konnen kisa otorite peyi a ap regle ak lajan sa yo ,evènmam sa a ta pral monte kolè grandon ki genyen nan rejiyon an yo asasinen 139 peyizan.
Kriminèl yo te mete tèt yo ansanm ,yo asasinen 139 peyizan malere poutèt peyizan yo tap reklame jistis sosyal ,pou tè leta ki te anba men grandon yo peyizan yo tap mande pou dlo kap gaspiye nan twa rivyè dwe sèvi pou awoze vale twa rivyè, plèn delab jiska mòl Sen Nikola, kriminèl yo te asasinen peyizan yo poutèt yo tap mande akonpayman teknik pou travay tè yon an pi bon kondisyon.
Kriminèl yo te reyalize masak 23 jiyė 1987 poutèt peyizan yo tap denonse plan amriken te genyen pou peyi a depi epok 80 yo kap kontinye jis jounen jodia pandan yap kontinye kenbe vant popilasyon an nan voye achte manje lòt bò dlo, ba yo sinistre pou kraze pwodiksyon nasyonal la patikilyèman pwodiksyon agrikol ti peyizan yo.
Kriminèl yo te òganize masak 23 jiye sou ti peyizan Jan Rabèl ak Bochan yo poutèt yo tap mande pou leta fè rebwazman nan tèt mòn yo pou anpeche dlo pote ale ti kras tè yo nan lanmè, poutèt yo tap reklame jistis sosyal ,poutèt yo tap mande pou tè leta kinan men grandon vin nan men peyizan yo, pou yo travay paske atik 36 konstitisyon peyi a di tè dwe rete nan men moun kap travay tè, olye yo fè sa yo pito ap fè konplo ak kominote entènasyonal la patikilyèman gouvènman Etazini pou plante gwo metiyen (jatrofa) sou tè yo.,yon pwojè anti peyizan ki pral fini nèt agrikilti peyi a patikilyèman agrikilti ti peyizan yo.
Kriminèl yo fè masak 23 jiye 1987 la paske peyizan Jan Rabel yo tap mande pou tè leta yo rebwasepou ti peyizan jwen tè pou yo travay pou gen manje nan peyi a ,pou grangou kaba pou pitit pèp la jwen manje pou yon manje .
22 lane aprè malgre rèl Tèt Kole ak solidarite lot òganizasyon chak 23 jiye kise dat masak ti peyizan Jan Rabèl yo,peyizan yo pa janm rate okasyon pou mande jistis ak reparasyon pou viktim yo ak anmiy viktim yo, tout prezime kriminèl ki te reyalize masak la ap pwonmennen anba je tout otorite peyi a, responsab yo pa janm pran desizyon pou arete kriminèl yo, jije yo epi dedomaje viktim ak fanmiy yo,22 lane aprè jistis ak refòm agrè pa meenm enskri nan kaye responsab peyi a.
Nan okasyon 22 e anivèsè masak la TètKole di gouvènman an responsab peyi a pran responsabilitel pou viktim yo ak paran viktim yo jwenn jistis ak reparasyon jan lalwa dil la pandan TèT Kole Ti peyizan Ayisyen ap tann nan menl repons sou ansanm revandikasyon say o:
Rekonèt 23 jiye kòm jounen nasyonal peyizan
Yon pwogram refòm agrè entegral
Sispann privatize antrepriz piblik yo
Pibliye lwa sou sale minimòm nan jounal monitè,jan palmantè votel la (200 G) la pou pèp la rale yon souf.
Pran desizyon ak responsabilite pou legalize tout tè leta ti peyizan okipe nan peyi a,patikilyèman nan depatman nodwès komin : Pod pè, Jan Rabèl,mòl sennikola ak Bèdeyèn .
Relanse agriklti peyi a ,patikilyèman pwodiksyon agrikol ti peyizan yo
Gen yon politik pou rezoud pwoblem anviwonman peyi a pou anpeche twòp pye bwa koupe
Ann goumen pou refè peyi a, Nanrelanse agrikilti ti peyizan yo, Nan rebati anviwonman an,atravè yon pwogram refòm agrè entegre.
Ann kontinye batay nan inite popilè nan bonjan òganizasyon gran moun .Viv lit pèp la patikilyèman lit peyizan yo,aba jatrofa plan lanmò.
Pou komite ekzekitif nasyonal Tèt kole ti peyizan Ayisyen:
Jean Baptiste Rosnel Gertha Louisama Jean Jacques Henrilus
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
HAITI: "We Have Never Had Justice"
HAITI: "We Have Never Had Justice"
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
ST. MARC, Jul 21, 2009 (IPS) - Amazil Jean-Baptiste remembers when they came to kill her son.
"They killed my boy and burned my boy," says Jean-Baptiste, a careworn 49-year-old who lives in a dilapidated structure without running water in this bustling port town 80 kilometres north of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. "And I am still suffering."
It was February 2004, and Haiti was in the midst of a chaotic rebellion against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. North of St. Marc, a formerly loyal street gang known as the Cannibal Army had risen up against the president and, joined by former members of the country's disbanded army, proceeded to overrun police barracks and seize control of towns throughout northern Haiti.
On Feb. 7, a lightly-armed anti-Aristide group, the Rassemblement des militants conséquents de Saint-Marc (Ramicos), based in the neighbourhood of La Scierie where Amazil Jean-Baptiste lived, took advantage of the chaos to drive government forces from the town, seizing the local police station, which they then set on fire.
Two days later, the combined forces of the Police Nationale de Haiti (PNH), the Unité de Sécurité de la Garde du Palais National (USGPN) and a local paramilitary organisation named Bale Wouze ("Clean Sweep") retook much of the city. By Feb. 11, Bale Wouze - headed by a former parliamentary representative of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas political party named Amanus Mayette- had commenced the battle to retake the La Scierie.
What would follow would raise questions about Haiti's ability to give justice to victims and punish the guilty that persist to this day.
As Amazil Jean-Baptiste returned home, she found her son, Kenol St. Gilles, a 23-year-old carpenter with no political affiliation, groaning with a bullet in each thigh. Taking him to the home of a local pastor for aid, she watched as seven armed men, including three dressed in police uniforms, accused St. Gilles of being a Ramicos militant who had shot at them. He was dragged from the house, beaten unconscious and thrown into a burning cement depot, where he died.
Residents of the town tell of other crimes - the decapitation of unarmed Ramicos member Leroy Joseph, the killing of Ramicos second-in-command Nixon François, the gang rape by Bale Wouze members of a 21-year-old woman in the ruins of the burned-out commissariat - that were allegedly committed during or immediately following the recapture of St. Marc by pro-Aristide forces.
Witnesses recount how several people were slain and tossed into the burning remnants of the Ramicos headquarters, while still others were gunned down by police firing from a helicopter as they tried to flee over a nearby mountain, Morne Calvaire.
"They came here and they massacred people," says resident Marc Ariel Narcisse, 44. "A grenade thrown into my mother's house exploded, and the house caught fire. My cousin, Bob Narcisse, was killed there."
Following those dark days, the victims of the St. Marc killings formed the Association des Victimes du Génocide de la Scierie (AVIGES) to advocate on their behalf. But their struggle has exposed the highly politicised and often unresponsive nature of justice in Haiti, a country struggling to build democratic institutions after decades of dictatorship.
Links between armed pressure groups and the spheres of official power have long been a fact of political life here.
Faustin Soulouque, who crowned himself emperor of Haiti in 1852, was supported by groups of impoverished partisans called zinglins, while the Duvalier family dictatorship that ruled from 1957 until 1986 utilised the Tontons Macoutes, a murderous paramilitary band named after a traditional Haitian boogeyman.
The government of Aristide, who returned to office in 2001 after ruling the country for two periods in the 1990s, allied itself with his own armed partisans, often referred to as chimere after a mythical fire-breathing demon.
Of these latter groups, Bale Wouze had a reputation as one of the fiercest, and, by February 2004, its links with Haiti's National Palace were largely indisputable, especially given the presence in St. Marc of the USGPN, a unit directly responsible for the president's personal security.
On Feb. 9, as St. Marc was retaken by government forces, and as security forces and Bale Wouze members patrolled its streets together, Aristide's prime minister, Yvon Neptune, also serving as the head of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, flew into the city, giving a press conference during which he stated that "the national police force alone cannot re-establish order".
Witnesses in La Scierie describe how one of Bale Wouze's leading members, a government employee named Ronald Dauphin, known to residents as "Black Ronald", patrolled St. Marc in a police uniform, even though he was in no way affiliated with the police.
When the author of this article visited St. Marc in February 2004, shortly after Bale Wouze's raid into La Scierie, he interviewed USGPN personnel and Bale Wouze members patrolling the city as a single armed unit in tandem the PNH. A local priest told IPS matter-of-factly at the time of Bale Wouze that, "These people don't make arrests, they kill."
Interviewed by the Miami Herald in St. Marc in February 2004, Amanus Mayette was surrounded by Bale Wouze members and proclaimed his affiliation with the organisation.
"Amanus Mayette, Black Ronald, Somoza, these people killed my son," Amazil Jean-Baptiste explains in a trembling voice, listing the names of some of those who she says took part in her son's slaying.
Following Aristide's overthrow later that month, several members of Bale Wouze were lynched as they tried to flee St. Marc, while Yvon Neptune turned himself over to the interim government that ruled Haiti from March 2004 until the inauguration of President René Préval in May 2006.
Held in prison without trial until his May 2006 release on humanitarian grounds, a May 2008 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Haitian state had violated 11 separate provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights in its detention of Neptune, though stressing that it was "not a criminal court in which the criminal responsibility of an individual can be examined".
After being jailed for three years without trial, former Bale Wouze leader Amanus Mayette was freed from prison in April 2007. Arrested in 2004, Ronald Dauphin subsequently escaped from jail, and was re-arrested during the course of an anti-kidnapping raid in Haiti's capital in July 2006. Despite several chaotic public hearings, to date, none of the accused for the killings in La Scierie has ever gone to trial.
"In our system, the criminal becomes a victim because the system doesn't work," laments Pierre Espérance, director of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), which has pushed for criminal prosecutions in the La Scierie case.
Espérance himself survived a 1999 assassination attempt for which no one was ever prosecuted.
"But historically, the authorities here are so involved in corruption and human rights violations they feel very comfortable with impunity," he says.
According to RNDDH figures, nearly 81 percent of Haiti's prisoners are waiting for their cases to be heard before a judge, a situation that some hope may be improved by the re-opening of Haiti's school for magistrates, which recently renewed activities after being shuttered for many years.
Frustratingly for the people of St. Marc, however, the events of February 2004 have become a political football among Haiti's various political actors.
The United Nations independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, in a 2005 statement dismissed allegations of a massacre and described what occurred as "a clash", a characterisation that seemed unaware of the fact that not all among those victimised had any affiliation with Haiti's political opposition.
Conversely, a member of a Human Rights Watch delegation that visited St. Marc a month after the killings concluded that at least 27 people had been murdered by pro-government forces between Feb. 11 and Aristide's flight into exile.
Their claims are treated with shrugging indifference by the Préval government and the United Nations, and the people of La Scierie appear to be resigned that their struggle for justice will be a long, though hopefully not fruitless, one.
"We need justice, we demand justice, because we have never had justice," says Amazil Jean-Baptiste, as another member of AVIGES stands nearby, wearing a t-shirt reading 'We won't forget 11 February 2004' in Haiti's native Kreyol language.
"I just want justice for my son," she says.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | The dark afternoon clouds that gradually roll over Haiti's capital herald the beginning of the rainy season, but the early-morning bursts of sunshine might more accurately capture the national mood these days.
While the country remains desperately poor, it is more peaceful than it has been in years - no small feat in a place with a volatile political history. Some of the credit goes to the United Nations and President Rene Preval.
A few years ago, the authority of the state did not extend much beyond Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs controlled neighborhoods. Since the inauguration of Mr. Preval in May 2006, however, a fragile calm has prevailed.
The capital's boisterous population again feels safe enough to patronize downtown bars and kerosine-lit roadside stands late into the evening. Billboards that once extolled the infallibility of a succession of "maximum leaders" now carry messages about the importance of respect between the population and the police as well as decry discrimination against the disabled.
Ruled by priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice in the 1990s and from 2001 until his ouster in February 2004, Haiti saw violent urban warfare between heavily armed Aristide partisans and security forces, who inflicted collective punishment under an interim government in power from 2004 until Mr. Preval's inauguration.
Working with a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, Haiti's government has made great strides in recent months in professionalizing security forces that were historically brutal and corrupt.
"The capacity of the police has improved quite significantly ... and the image of the police has begun to change within the society," says Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat who heads MINUSTAH.
"The level of respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of the press, is at a historically remarkable level," he said.
In addition, according to MINUSTAH, the number of kidnappings has fallen dramatically, from more than 500 in 2006 to about 50 during the first six months of this year.
A projected five-year U.N.-supported police-reform program is in its third year of implementation, providing Haiti with 9,200 police officers - a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the end of this year and to 14,000 by the end of 2011.
The force began with only 3,500, of whom more than 1,500 had to be dismissed for poor conduct.
The surge in police recruits is a far cry from the situation that existed between September 2004 and June 2005, during which a police officer was killed every five days, according to U.N. statistics.
Some observers here credit the leadership of Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, a respected civil society activist, who was appointed prime minister in September 2008.
Ms. Pierre-Louis lauds the U.N. mission, which is heavily Latin American, for helping to stabilize the country.
"It's a new paradigm for regional cooperation," she told The Washington Times. "They have their own interests, of course, but let's make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us."
In a country where voting has sometimes boded ill for civil order, midterm elections in April, with a runoff in June, for Haiti's Senate were poorly attended but largely peaceful, with poll workers and observers directing voters and tabulating votes in a professional fashion. The desultory participation, however, led Mr. Preval to warn that Haiti's "political class should wonder about this abstention" as he cast his own ballot at a Port-au-Prince school.
Haiti still faces massive challenges. Largely deforested, the country was battered by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike in 2008, which collectively killed at least 600 people.
Beyond the capital, after the shabby-chic resorts on the Cote des Arcadins, Haiti's Route Nationale 1 is a pot-holed, crumbling wreck long before it reaches the northern cities of Gonaives and Cap-Haitien.
Poverty and the scramble to find basic necessities remain a constant fact of life for the majority of the 8.5 million population. The social peace that has been restored is fragile and could easily fray if tangible gains are not seen in the day-to-day lives of Haitians.
One exception to the national calm are noisy and occasionally violent demonstrations by university students and other political pressure groups in the capital.
Haiti's Senate voted in May to support a law raising the minimum wage to about $4.90 per day, a 300 percent increase. Mr. Preval has not signed the measure, citing his fear that it would jeopardize Haiti's already fragile employment sector. In response, students have held regular protests, during which dozens of cars have been burned and protesters have squared off against U.N. troops and Haitian security forces. Two demonstrators have been killed.
"They chose not to listen to us, and we were obligated to peacefully mobilize about our concerns and the question about the minimum salary," said Beneche Martial, a student at the state university's medical school.
Nevertheless, there is a tenuous hopefulness here for the first time in many years.
In June, the Inter-American Development Bank approved $120 million in grants for 2010 to help Haiti improve infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Also last month, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion owed to them by Haiti, erasing almost two-thirds of the country's outstanding debt.
The scourge of HIV/AIDS is also diminishing, with the rate of infection among pregnant women halved from 6.2 percent in 1993 to 3.1 percent, according to the U.N.
A U.N. report in December suggested that revived garment production might point the way for economic revival, saying that "it is striking how modest are the impediments to competitiveness, relative to the huge opportunities offered by the fundamentals" in the country.
For a nation viewed as a potential "failed state" not long ago, such news cannot help but be encouraging.
Tentative calm brings optimism to a 'failed' Haiti
Michael Deibert
The Washington Times
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | The dark afternoon clouds that gradually roll over Haiti's capital herald the beginning of the rainy season, but the early-morning bursts of sunshine might more accurately capture the national mood these days.
While the country remains desperately poor, it is more peaceful than it has been in years - no small feat in a place with a volatile political history. Some of the credit goes to the United Nations and President Rene Preval.
A few years ago, the authority of the state did not extend much beyond Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs controlled neighborhoods. Since the inauguration of Mr. Preval in May 2006, however, a fragile calm has prevailed.
The capital's boisterous population again feels safe enough to patronize downtown bars and kerosine-lit roadside stands late into the evening. Billboards that once extolled the infallibility of a succession of "maximum leaders" now carry messages about the importance of respect between the population and the police as well as decry discrimination against the disabled.
Ruled by priest-turned-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice in the 1990s and from 2001 until his ouster in February 2004, Haiti saw violent urban warfare between heavily armed Aristide partisans and security forces, who inflicted collective punishment under an interim government in power from 2004 until Mr. Preval's inauguration.
Working with a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, Haiti's government has made great strides in recent months in professionalizing security forces that were historically brutal and corrupt.
"The capacity of the police has improved quite significantly ... and the image of the police has begun to change within the society," says Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat who heads MINUSTAH.
"The level of respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of the press, is at a historically remarkable level," he said.
In addition, according to MINUSTAH, the number of kidnappings has fallen dramatically, from more than 500 in 2006 to about 50 during the first six months of this year.
A projected five-year U.N.-supported police-reform program is in its third year of implementation, providing Haiti with 9,200 police officers - a number projected to grow to 10,000 by the end of this year and to 14,000 by the end of 2011.
The force began with only 3,500, of whom more than 1,500 had to be dismissed for poor conduct.
The surge in police recruits is a far cry from the situation that existed between September 2004 and June 2005, during which a police officer was killed every five days, according to U.N. statistics.
Some observers here credit the leadership of Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, a respected civil society activist, who was appointed prime minister in September 2008.
Ms. Pierre-Louis lauds the U.N. mission, which is heavily Latin American, for helping to stabilize the country.
"It's a new paradigm for regional cooperation," she told The Washington Times. "They have their own interests, of course, but let's make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us."
In a country where voting has sometimes boded ill for civil order, midterm elections in April, with a runoff in June, for Haiti's Senate were poorly attended but largely peaceful, with poll workers and observers directing voters and tabulating votes in a professional fashion. The desultory participation, however, led Mr. Preval to warn that Haiti's "political class should wonder about this abstention" as he cast his own ballot at a Port-au-Prince school.
Haiti still faces massive challenges. Largely deforested, the country was battered by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike in 2008, which collectively killed at least 600 people.
Beyond the capital, after the shabby-chic resorts on the Cote des Arcadins, Haiti's Route Nationale 1 is a pot-holed, crumbling wreck long before it reaches the northern cities of Gonaives and Cap-Haitien.
Poverty and the scramble to find basic necessities remain a constant fact of life for the majority of the 8.5 million population. The social peace that has been restored is fragile and could easily fray if tangible gains are not seen in the day-to-day lives of Haitians.
One exception to the national calm are noisy and occasionally violent demonstrations by university students and other political pressure groups in the capital.
Haiti's Senate voted in May to support a law raising the minimum wage to about $4.90 per day, a 300 percent increase. Mr. Preval has not signed the measure, citing his fear that it would jeopardize Haiti's already fragile employment sector. In response, students have held regular protests, during which dozens of cars have been burned and protesters have squared off against U.N. troops and Haitian security forces. Two demonstrators have been killed.
"They chose not to listen to us, and we were obligated to peacefully mobilize about our concerns and the question about the minimum salary," said Beneche Martial, a student at the state university's medical school.
Nevertheless, there is a tenuous hopefulness here for the first time in many years.
In June, the Inter-American Development Bank approved $120 million in grants for 2010 to help Haiti improve infrastructure, basic services and disaster prevention.
Also last month, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank collectively canceled $1.2 billion owed to them by Haiti, erasing almost two-thirds of the country's outstanding debt.
The scourge of HIV/AIDS is also diminishing, with the rate of infection among pregnant women halved from 6.2 percent in 1993 to 3.1 percent, according to the U.N.
A U.N. report in December suggested that revived garment production might point the way for economic revival, saying that "it is striking how modest are the impediments to competitiveness, relative to the huge opportunities offered by the fundamentals" in the country.
For a nation viewed as a potential "failed state" not long ago, such news cannot help but be encouraging.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Aristide's SA high life to continue
(Note: If Mr. Aristide's circle of defenders has now been whittled down to the likes of veteran perjurer and unfulfilled triggerman Patrick Elie, his influence has sunk very low indeed. MD)
Aristide's SA high life to continue
July 05 2009 at 02:12PM
By Fiona Forde
The Sunday Independent
(Read the original article here)
A chauffeur-driven white Mercedes pulls up at the entrance to Unisa's Samuel Pauw building, with a BMW in tow, from which security guards emerge to escort the former head of state the few metres to his fifth-floor office. One guard walks in front of him. The other follows a few steps behind.
An ante-room leading to his main office is guarded under lock and key, even when he is inside. A side room houses his security guards who keep watch whenever he is around.
Outside, the engine of his Mercedes purrs all day long, for fear he will have to make a quick escape. This is Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former president of Haiti, who controversially remains exiled in South Africa, his multimillion-rand lifestyle and protection package here bankrolled by taxpayers.
Thabo Mbeki's government afforded him, his wife and two daughters shelter here in 2004 when he was ousted from office in Port-au-Prince shortly after his second term began. Because he was a head of state, the South African government also agreed to "cover the costs of the stay of President Aristide, his family, staff and entourage in South Africa", according to Parliament's records in 2006. "The monthly costs of his accommodation, transport, office support staff and security are similar to the cost normally incurred for a South African cabinet minister," the official record reads.
Sue van der Merwe, the deputy minister for international relations, has confirmed the agreement is still in place, though she was unable to put a tally on the cost to the taxpayer to date, or confirm for how much longer the agreement would remain in place.
Yet it is said that Aristide was a wealthy man when he fled his impoverished country five years ago, though what became of his money is something that continues to elude the authorities.
When asked if he brought any money into South Africa, Van der Merwe said she did not know.
Allegations of corruption continue to haunt Aristide and investigations are ongoing. His critics suggest that his wealth is vast, so vast that he could well afford to foot his own bill here… and more.
Gerard Latortue, a former United Nations official who headed the interim government after Aristide fled, told The Sunday Independent that Aristide's wealth was undisputed in most circles. "And yes, of course, he could pay his way in South Africa. This man is a multi-millionaire."
However, according to Van der Merwe, "Mr Aristide would like to go back to Haiti" now, but she said the local authorities were concerned for his safety.
It is a view that was confirmed by Patrick Elie, Aristide's close friend and former defence minister.
"Yes, he would like to come back," Elie said from his Port-au- Prince home. "But to do what exactly, I don't know. This is something that cannot be improvised. It would be very, very delicate."
In response, Haiti's foreign minister, Alrich Nicolas, said that, "under the constitution, Aristide can come back", but he would not be drawn on the fate he might face if he did.
Aristide, biding his time at Unisa, is unlikely to test those uncertain waters.
Shortly after his arrival in 2004, Aristide, who was then 50, was offered a research position at the human sciences faculty, which he still holds to this day.
Some years later his wife, Mildred, took up a post at the Centre for African Renaissance Studies, which is also housed at Unisa, and which she still holds today. However, neither of them draws a salary, according to Unisa spokesperson Doreen Gough. "They only have the use of the offices they occupy to carry out their work," she said.
Aristide, a former priest and long-time scholar of theology, was awarded a doctorate by Unisa in 2006 for his comparative study of Haitian Creole and Zulu in a body of work called Umoya Wamagama, or The Spirit of the Word. He was lauded a brilliant mind for the parallels he had drawn between the two languages and the inferences he made about their linguistic histories. His graduation was a big celebration, and the photos of himself and Mbeki on the day paint a picture of contentment.
Some months later, however, his research was called into disrepute when three prominent African linguists said his work made a mockery of local languages. Spelling errors were also found in some of the Zulu words, which weakened the comparisons he was making.
Fellow academics cried foul when it was discovered that the professor who promoted the thesis was also the man who corrected it.
However, Aristide withstood the criticism and the doctorate remained intact.
"He really enjoys intellectual and academic life," claims Elie.
It is unclear, though, what contribution Aristide is making to Unisa's body of academic work.
Aristide's SA high life to continue
July 05 2009 at 02:12PM
By Fiona Forde
The Sunday Independent
(Read the original article here)
A chauffeur-driven white Mercedes pulls up at the entrance to Unisa's Samuel Pauw building, with a BMW in tow, from which security guards emerge to escort the former head of state the few metres to his fifth-floor office. One guard walks in front of him. The other follows a few steps behind.
An ante-room leading to his main office is guarded under lock and key, even when he is inside. A side room houses his security guards who keep watch whenever he is around.
Outside, the engine of his Mercedes purrs all day long, for fear he will have to make a quick escape. This is Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former president of Haiti, who controversially remains exiled in South Africa, his multimillion-rand lifestyle and protection package here bankrolled by taxpayers.
Thabo Mbeki's government afforded him, his wife and two daughters shelter here in 2004 when he was ousted from office in Port-au-Prince shortly after his second term began. Because he was a head of state, the South African government also agreed to "cover the costs of the stay of President Aristide, his family, staff and entourage in South Africa", according to Parliament's records in 2006. "The monthly costs of his accommodation, transport, office support staff and security are similar to the cost normally incurred for a South African cabinet minister," the official record reads.
Sue van der Merwe, the deputy minister for international relations, has confirmed the agreement is still in place, though she was unable to put a tally on the cost to the taxpayer to date, or confirm for how much longer the agreement would remain in place.
Yet it is said that Aristide was a wealthy man when he fled his impoverished country five years ago, though what became of his money is something that continues to elude the authorities.
When asked if he brought any money into South Africa, Van der Merwe said she did not know.
Allegations of corruption continue to haunt Aristide and investigations are ongoing. His critics suggest that his wealth is vast, so vast that he could well afford to foot his own bill here… and more.
Gerard Latortue, a former United Nations official who headed the interim government after Aristide fled, told The Sunday Independent that Aristide's wealth was undisputed in most circles. "And yes, of course, he could pay his way in South Africa. This man is a multi-millionaire."
However, according to Van der Merwe, "Mr Aristide would like to go back to Haiti" now, but she said the local authorities were concerned for his safety.
It is a view that was confirmed by Patrick Elie, Aristide's close friend and former defence minister.
"Yes, he would like to come back," Elie said from his Port-au- Prince home. "But to do what exactly, I don't know. This is something that cannot be improvised. It would be very, very delicate."
In response, Haiti's foreign minister, Alrich Nicolas, said that, "under the constitution, Aristide can come back", but he would not be drawn on the fate he might face if he did.
Aristide, biding his time at Unisa, is unlikely to test those uncertain waters.
Shortly after his arrival in 2004, Aristide, who was then 50, was offered a research position at the human sciences faculty, which he still holds to this day.
Some years later his wife, Mildred, took up a post at the Centre for African Renaissance Studies, which is also housed at Unisa, and which she still holds today. However, neither of them draws a salary, according to Unisa spokesperson Doreen Gough. "They only have the use of the offices they occupy to carry out their work," she said.
Aristide, a former priest and long-time scholar of theology, was awarded a doctorate by Unisa in 2006 for his comparative study of Haitian Creole and Zulu in a body of work called Umoya Wamagama, or The Spirit of the Word. He was lauded a brilliant mind for the parallels he had drawn between the two languages and the inferences he made about their linguistic histories. His graduation was a big celebration, and the photos of himself and Mbeki on the day paint a picture of contentment.
Some months later, however, his research was called into disrepute when three prominent African linguists said his work made a mockery of local languages. Spelling errors were also found in some of the Zulu words, which weakened the comparisons he was making.
Fellow academics cried foul when it was discovered that the professor who promoted the thesis was also the man who corrected it.
However, Aristide withstood the criticism and the doctorate remained intact.
"He really enjoys intellectual and academic life," claims Elie.
It is unclear, though, what contribution Aristide is making to Unisa's body of academic work.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
HAITI: Deportees from U.S. Face Culture Shock, Retain Hope
HAITI: Deportees from U.S. Face Culture Shock, Retain Hope
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 8, 2009 (IPS) - In the shadow of the Eglise Sainte Claire in the Petite Place Cazeau neighbourhood of Haiti’s bustling capital, Frantz Saintil is visiting his daughter and reflecting on the more than two decades he spent abroad before finding himself back in his native country of Haiti seven years ago.
"It didn’t take me long to become very Americanised," says Saintil, 34, who left Haiti for Canada and eventually the United States with his family when he was six years old.
"I like baseball and apple pie and everything American. I didn’t want to be identified as Haitian and discriminated against. I didn’t understand their way of dress, their musical preferences. I was more into rock, some R&B, country music. I didn’t identify with them at all."
Saintil is one of 3,250 Haitians that Department of Homeland Security figures show were deported from the United States back to Haiti on the basis of criminal convictions between 1997 and 2005. A soft-spoken man who was a permanent legal resident when a nolo contendere ("no contest") plea to an assault charge in Colorado landed him in prison at 19, after serving his sentence Saintil was subsequently deported to Haiti, a country he barely knew.
"When you don’t identify yourself as an immigrant or a foreigner, it’s when you get in trouble that all these things come to fruition," says Saintil of his experience with the U.S. justice system, speaking a measured, American-accented English in contrast to the boisterous Kreyol being shouted at a nearby football match.
"When you realise that you’re detained to be deported, then you start to identify (as Haitian), at that point you can’t deny it," he said.
Saintil is not alone. A recent study by the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) found, upon analysing deportation data from Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, that almost 30,000 criminal offenders had been deported to those countries between 1990 and 2005.
Even more strikingly, according to migration data in El Salvador, between 2006 and 2008 some 14,608 deportees with criminal records were sent back from the U.S. to the Central American country of 7 million, home to such transnational criminal syndicates as the Mara Salvatrucha and a nation with one of the world’s highest homicide rates.
It is thus a delicate issue, with deportees who have left their birth countries at very young ages - and having become culturally and linguistically American - being digested through the U.S. prison system and then spit out to their familial homelands only to confront a wall of mutual misunderstanding.
According to figures supplied by the Centre Oecuménique des Droits de l'Homme (the Ecumenical Centre for Human Rights or CEDH), a Haitian human rights group, the average age of deportees when they left Haiti was between four and seven years old.
Having become assimilated in the United States, deportees suffered severe culture shock when returning to Haiti, where a lifestyle unfamiliar to most is expressed in a language that only a few had been able to master with any degree of proficiency while abroad.
"What we request from the authorities of Canada and the U.S. is to take into account the family factor when considering the nature of the delinquency which leads to the decision of deportation," says CEDH’s director, Jean-Claude Bajeux. "And it is essential that the governments involved in a policy of returning people to Haiti make an evaluation of the precarious situation in this country."
Add to the mix Haiti's dire economic condition - with 80 percent of the population living under the poverty line and GDP per capita of just 1,300 dollars per year - and periodic political unrest that sees politicians only too willing to use pools of jobless young men as muscle in the country’s political wars, one quickly sees how the deportees, or dp’s, as they call themselves, marked with the stigma of forced exit from a country that many Haitians regard as the promised land, have a tough row to hoe once they step off the plane in Port-au-Prince.
In December 2006, for example, with no hard evidence supporting his claim, then-Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis blamed deportees from the U.S. for helping to spur the country's at-the-time spiraling kidnapping rates. The fearsome reputation of such gangs as Florida’s Zoe Pound, a Haitian-identified clique that specialises in robbing drug dealers of their product and money, often with extreme violence, only adds to the trepidation with which local Haitians view the deportees.
It is a reputation that some among their number feel is undeserved.
"If there was a way to integrate us into society, it wouldn’t be such a hardship on us," says Junior Telusca, who moved with his family to Florida at age three and was returned to Haiti after doing two years in prison on a drug conviction. "There’s only one thing I want, and that’s to integrate into this society, to get a job, pay for my child’s school and live my life."
Deportees often mix a certain wistfulness for the land they have been exiled from with a stated desire to try and gain some sort of advantage, both spiritual and material, from their particular status. In recent years, local organisations such as the Fondation haïtienne des familles des rapatriés have attempted to build some sort of solidarity among the newly-returned.
In tandem with Haiti's Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Interior, the International Organisation for Migration has recently developed a program focusing on deportee reintegration into Haitian society that focuses on such aspects as micro-enterprise support and language training.
But for many, it has been anything but an easy lesson.
"Life in the States is great, in all senses of the word," says Frantz Saintil. "But if you get a second chance to be free, then you’ve got to make the best of it. If I can affect the life of even one person, even it is by teaching them English, to me that is a big step. There is no telling what that person might become."
"And I am hopeful that one day I will get to see the United States again," he added.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press).
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 8, 2009 (IPS) - In the shadow of the Eglise Sainte Claire in the Petite Place Cazeau neighbourhood of Haiti’s bustling capital, Frantz Saintil is visiting his daughter and reflecting on the more than two decades he spent abroad before finding himself back in his native country of Haiti seven years ago.
"It didn’t take me long to become very Americanised," says Saintil, 34, who left Haiti for Canada and eventually the United States with his family when he was six years old.
"I like baseball and apple pie and everything American. I didn’t want to be identified as Haitian and discriminated against. I didn’t understand their way of dress, their musical preferences. I was more into rock, some R&B, country music. I didn’t identify with them at all."
Saintil is one of 3,250 Haitians that Department of Homeland Security figures show were deported from the United States back to Haiti on the basis of criminal convictions between 1997 and 2005. A soft-spoken man who was a permanent legal resident when a nolo contendere ("no contest") plea to an assault charge in Colorado landed him in prison at 19, after serving his sentence Saintil was subsequently deported to Haiti, a country he barely knew.
"When you don’t identify yourself as an immigrant or a foreigner, it’s when you get in trouble that all these things come to fruition," says Saintil of his experience with the U.S. justice system, speaking a measured, American-accented English in contrast to the boisterous Kreyol being shouted at a nearby football match.
"When you realise that you’re detained to be deported, then you start to identify (as Haitian), at that point you can’t deny it," he said.
Saintil is not alone. A recent study by the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) found, upon analysing deportation data from Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, that almost 30,000 criminal offenders had been deported to those countries between 1990 and 2005.
Even more strikingly, according to migration data in El Salvador, between 2006 and 2008 some 14,608 deportees with criminal records were sent back from the U.S. to the Central American country of 7 million, home to such transnational criminal syndicates as the Mara Salvatrucha and a nation with one of the world’s highest homicide rates.
It is thus a delicate issue, with deportees who have left their birth countries at very young ages - and having become culturally and linguistically American - being digested through the U.S. prison system and then spit out to their familial homelands only to confront a wall of mutual misunderstanding.
According to figures supplied by the Centre Oecuménique des Droits de l'Homme (the Ecumenical Centre for Human Rights or CEDH), a Haitian human rights group, the average age of deportees when they left Haiti was between four and seven years old.
Having become assimilated in the United States, deportees suffered severe culture shock when returning to Haiti, where a lifestyle unfamiliar to most is expressed in a language that only a few had been able to master with any degree of proficiency while abroad.
"What we request from the authorities of Canada and the U.S. is to take into account the family factor when considering the nature of the delinquency which leads to the decision of deportation," says CEDH’s director, Jean-Claude Bajeux. "And it is essential that the governments involved in a policy of returning people to Haiti make an evaluation of the precarious situation in this country."
Add to the mix Haiti's dire economic condition - with 80 percent of the population living under the poverty line and GDP per capita of just 1,300 dollars per year - and periodic political unrest that sees politicians only too willing to use pools of jobless young men as muscle in the country’s political wars, one quickly sees how the deportees, or dp’s, as they call themselves, marked with the stigma of forced exit from a country that many Haitians regard as the promised land, have a tough row to hoe once they step off the plane in Port-au-Prince.
In December 2006, for example, with no hard evidence supporting his claim, then-Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis blamed deportees from the U.S. for helping to spur the country's at-the-time spiraling kidnapping rates. The fearsome reputation of such gangs as Florida’s Zoe Pound, a Haitian-identified clique that specialises in robbing drug dealers of their product and money, often with extreme violence, only adds to the trepidation with which local Haitians view the deportees.
It is a reputation that some among their number feel is undeserved.
"If there was a way to integrate us into society, it wouldn’t be such a hardship on us," says Junior Telusca, who moved with his family to Florida at age three and was returned to Haiti after doing two years in prison on a drug conviction. "There’s only one thing I want, and that’s to integrate into this society, to get a job, pay for my child’s school and live my life."
Deportees often mix a certain wistfulness for the land they have been exiled from with a stated desire to try and gain some sort of advantage, both spiritual and material, from their particular status. In recent years, local organisations such as the Fondation haïtienne des familles des rapatriés have attempted to build some sort of solidarity among the newly-returned.
In tandem with Haiti's Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Interior, the International Organisation for Migration has recently developed a program focusing on deportee reintegration into Haitian society that focuses on such aspects as micro-enterprise support and language training.
But for many, it has been anything but an easy lesson.
"Life in the States is great, in all senses of the word," says Frantz Saintil. "But if you get a second chance to be free, then you’ve got to make the best of it. If I can affect the life of even one person, even it is by teaching them English, to me that is a big step. There is no telling what that person might become."
"And I am hopeful that one day I will get to see the United States again," he added.
Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press).
Friday, July 3, 2009
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3, 2009 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
Studying in the United States and France before returning to Haiti in 1977, she has been a close confidante of Haitian President René Préval for over 40 years. After having worked in a variety of private and public sector jobs in Haiti, she and Préval opened a bakery which catered to the poor in Haiti’s capital in 1982.
Active in the first government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pierre-Louis was among the first to denounce the 1991 military coup against Aristide during an interview with Radio France Internationale.
After Aristide’s return by a U.S.-led multinational force in 1994, Pierre-Louis opened the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation or FOKAL) in 1995 with support from businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
An organisation conceived to support sectors in Haitian society most likely to bring about social change, FOKAL has been responsible for the creation of a network of over 50 community libraries throughout Haiti, a cultural centre and library for economically disadvantaged children and youths in Haiti’s capital, a debate programme for young people, and an initiative to supply running water to the nearly 80 percent of Haitians who don’t have regular access to it.
Since her installation as Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis has presided over a stabilising of the security situation in this often politically unstable country, weathered the fallout and relief efforts after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and traveled both within Haiti and internationally to plead her government’s case.
IPS contributor Michael Deibert sat down with Prime Minster Pierre-Louis in Port-au-Prince on Jun. 21 to hear her thoughts about where the country is heading.
IPS: Could you speak a little bit about your background?
MPL: I was born in Jérémie, and my parents were people extremely dedicated to the country. My father and my mother were raised during the U.S. occupation, and that whole generation was very nationalistic, it was very important to be proud of your country, to love your country, to know your country.
My involvement started very early because I was involved in youth groups against Duvalier, which at the time was very dangerous. There were lots of groups that were fighting clandestinely against the dictatorship, and I lost a lot of friends who disappeared.
One day you would hear that [the government] got them and put them in jail and you would never hear from them again. So I was marked by this situation, and even when I went to study abroad, Haiti was always in my mind.
IPS: How did you find your involvement in the first Aristide government?
MPL: It was very exhilarating, at the beginning. Everybody in the world was saying finally Haiti is going to come out, finally democracy is going to be built...When the 1991 coup occurred, I was probably the first person to give an interview and say, no matter what, the coup was unjustified. Aristide was our president and he was elected democratically and we’re going to fight for him to stay in power.
Those were very long years, and something happened to the country and to the president. When he came back, I think things got really rough, we really started going down the drain. Somehow, something very deep happened in the mind of this country, and we have not really put our finger specifically on it.
IPS: What did you feel was different after the return of Aristide in 1994?
MPL: The man himself had changed. He was married, he was into money, he was into corruption. He invented the Petits Projets de la Presidence [a corruption-riddled system of presidential largesse]. I don’t think he had escaped from the Haitian president’s syndrome, which is stay in power by all means.
There are many Haitian presidents who have fallen into that trap. Once that is your perspective and that is your project, all means are used...I don’t think we know our history very well, and we fall into the same trap over and over again. It’s unfortunate that we keep making the same mistakes
IPS: What political lessons should Haiti and the international community draw from the collapse of the second Aristide government in 2004 and the international intervention that followed?
MPL: For a long time, a lot of the elite would say that Haiti was not ready for democracy, and I was totally against that. It’s not because people are poor and they are illiterate that they are not ready for democracy. When you go to the people at the bottom, I have a deep feeling that these people really want things to change, and they are waiting for the leadership that will not bring miracles but will show them the way and not lie to them.
All the elites - the mulatto elites, the university elites, the union elites, the peasant elites - are like a huge elephant sitting on this country and you cannot move it, because there is no political class, because there are no political parties, and everyone becomes corrupted and perverted. If you can’t go into that system, the system rejects you. And so far we have not found the wrench that will move this thing.
IPS: Do you think the presence of the United Nations mission is important, and how are relations between your government and the mission?
MPL: From 1991 to 2008, there have been seven U.N. missions here, and they have all been asked for by the Haitian government. That means there is a problem.
When people say it’s a matter of sovereignty, I say that Haiti is a sovereign country and nobody change that. But in two areas, we have lost the exercise of our sovereignty: Control of the territory and food security.
We are dependent on outside forces, outside markets, for both. If we really want to do something, let’s work to recover the full capacity of our sovereignty now. That would mean really building a national public security force, and making sure we could massively invest in agriculture, which would be justice to the Haitian peasant.
When Aristide left and the interim government came in, the police were corrupt, politicized and inefficient. It takes a while before you can reverse that trend, but I think if there is one area today where we can feel the progress, it’s the police.
As Prime Minister you are also are chief of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, and I take that very seriously, because security is a major issue. We lack training, munitions and arms, but I think we have done a great job. It’s embarrassing to have foreign forces in your country, I am not happy about that. But if we don’t make the effort to regain our capacity to control our territory, they will stay forever.
IPS: What are your thoughts on the recent mid-term elections in Haiti?
MPL: In 2006, the population responded with dignity and order, and were proud to be part of [the elections]. And I have told those in parliament: "You are young. You want to have a career? Remember that in the past elections 95 percent of you were not returned to office. You think the people are not watching, that they are not judging? They are watching. They are not stupid."
There are hands that didn’t want these elections to take place, because it changes the configuration of the senate, which is now very powerful. Chaos is good for a few sectors, and the most destabilising factor here today is drug trafficking, whether by plane or by ship. And it’s polluting politics
The recovery of Haiti - justice system, health, education - should be planned over 10, 15, 20 years. We now have a good relationship within the region, with Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and it’s a new paradigm for regional cooperation. They have their own interests, of course, but let’s make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us.
Michael Deibert is a Senior Fellow at New York’s World Policy Institute and the author of "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti" (Seven Stories Press).
Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
Inter Press Service
(Read the original article here)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3, 2009 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
Studying in the United States and France before returning to Haiti in 1977, she has been a close confidante of Haitian President René Préval for over 40 years. After having worked in a variety of private and public sector jobs in Haiti, she and Préval opened a bakery which catered to the poor in Haiti’s capital in 1982.
Active in the first government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pierre-Louis was among the first to denounce the 1991 military coup against Aristide during an interview with Radio France Internationale.
After Aristide’s return by a U.S.-led multinational force in 1994, Pierre-Louis opened the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (Knowledge and Freedom Foundation or FOKAL) in 1995 with support from businessman and philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
An organisation conceived to support sectors in Haitian society most likely to bring about social change, FOKAL has been responsible for the creation of a network of over 50 community libraries throughout Haiti, a cultural centre and library for economically disadvantaged children and youths in Haiti’s capital, a debate programme for young people, and an initiative to supply running water to the nearly 80 percent of Haitians who don’t have regular access to it.
Since her installation as Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis has presided over a stabilising of the security situation in this often politically unstable country, weathered the fallout and relief efforts after a trio of hurricanes killed at least 600 people last year and traveled both within Haiti and internationally to plead her government’s case.
IPS contributor Michael Deibert sat down with Prime Minster Pierre-Louis in Port-au-Prince on Jun. 21 to hear her thoughts about where the country is heading.
IPS: Could you speak a little bit about your background?
MPL: I was born in Jérémie, and my parents were people extremely dedicated to the country. My father and my mother were raised during the U.S. occupation, and that whole generation was very nationalistic, it was very important to be proud of your country, to love your country, to know your country.
My involvement started very early because I was involved in youth groups against Duvalier, which at the time was very dangerous. There were lots of groups that were fighting clandestinely against the dictatorship, and I lost a lot of friends who disappeared.
One day you would hear that [the government] got them and put them in jail and you would never hear from them again. So I was marked by this situation, and even when I went to study abroad, Haiti was always in my mind.
IPS: How did you find your involvement in the first Aristide government?
MPL: It was very exhilarating, at the beginning. Everybody in the world was saying finally Haiti is going to come out, finally democracy is going to be built...When the 1991 coup occurred, I was probably the first person to give an interview and say, no matter what, the coup was unjustified. Aristide was our president and he was elected democratically and we’re going to fight for him to stay in power.
Those were very long years, and something happened to the country and to the president. When he came back, I think things got really rough, we really started going down the drain. Somehow, something very deep happened in the mind of this country, and we have not really put our finger specifically on it.
IPS: What did you feel was different after the return of Aristide in 1994?
MPL: The man himself had changed. He was married, he was into money, he was into corruption. He invented the Petits Projets de la Presidence [a corruption-riddled system of presidential largesse]. I don’t think he had escaped from the Haitian president’s syndrome, which is stay in power by all means.
There are many Haitian presidents who have fallen into that trap. Once that is your perspective and that is your project, all means are used...I don’t think we know our history very well, and we fall into the same trap over and over again. It’s unfortunate that we keep making the same mistakes
IPS: What political lessons should Haiti and the international community draw from the collapse of the second Aristide government in 2004 and the international intervention that followed?
MPL: For a long time, a lot of the elite would say that Haiti was not ready for democracy, and I was totally against that. It’s not because people are poor and they are illiterate that they are not ready for democracy. When you go to the people at the bottom, I have a deep feeling that these people really want things to change, and they are waiting for the leadership that will not bring miracles but will show them the way and not lie to them.
All the elites - the mulatto elites, the university elites, the union elites, the peasant elites - are like a huge elephant sitting on this country and you cannot move it, because there is no political class, because there are no political parties, and everyone becomes corrupted and perverted. If you can’t go into that system, the system rejects you. And so far we have not found the wrench that will move this thing.
IPS: Do you think the presence of the United Nations mission is important, and how are relations between your government and the mission?
MPL: From 1991 to 2008, there have been seven U.N. missions here, and they have all been asked for by the Haitian government. That means there is a problem.
When people say it’s a matter of sovereignty, I say that Haiti is a sovereign country and nobody change that. But in two areas, we have lost the exercise of our sovereignty: Control of the territory and food security.
We are dependent on outside forces, outside markets, for both. If we really want to do something, let’s work to recover the full capacity of our sovereignty now. That would mean really building a national public security force, and making sure we could massively invest in agriculture, which would be justice to the Haitian peasant.
When Aristide left and the interim government came in, the police were corrupt, politicized and inefficient. It takes a while before you can reverse that trend, but I think if there is one area today where we can feel the progress, it’s the police.
As Prime Minister you are also are chief of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, and I take that very seriously, because security is a major issue. We lack training, munitions and arms, but I think we have done a great job. It’s embarrassing to have foreign forces in your country, I am not happy about that. But if we don’t make the effort to regain our capacity to control our territory, they will stay forever.
IPS: What are your thoughts on the recent mid-term elections in Haiti?
MPL: In 2006, the population responded with dignity and order, and were proud to be part of [the elections]. And I have told those in parliament: "You are young. You want to have a career? Remember that in the past elections 95 percent of you were not returned to office. You think the people are not watching, that they are not judging? They are watching. They are not stupid."
There are hands that didn’t want these elections to take place, because it changes the configuration of the senate, which is now very powerful. Chaos is good for a few sectors, and the most destabilising factor here today is drug trafficking, whether by plane or by ship. And it’s polluting politics
The recovery of Haiti - justice system, health, education - should be planned over 10, 15, 20 years. We now have a good relationship within the region, with Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and it’s a new paradigm for regional cooperation. They have their own interests, of course, but let’s make the best of the opportunities that are offered to us.
Michael Deibert is a Senior Fellow at New York’s World Policy Institute and the author of "Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti" (Seven Stories Press).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
