Saturday, September 17, 2016

After being driven from Gonaïves...

...By the mighty folks of Raboteau and driven to collapse by the Pitit Desalin partisans of Moïse Jean-Charles in Au Cap, while former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide convalesced in hospital, the following WhatsApp message, purportedly from a sector of his political party, was making the rounds...

NÒT POU LAPRÈS.-

Baz Fanmi lavalas nan LWÈS aprann ak anpil kontènasyon kantite zak deblozay ke eki Youri Latòti ak Jovenel Moise fè sou kòtèj Maryz Nasis ak Prezidan Aristid. Nou kontan tande nouvel sa paske leve plum sou do nou pou nou anonse nouvèl sa. " Youri di Jovenel se nan elikoptè lap fè kanpay nan Lwès la, eske nap ka kenbe replik sa? Lavalas la pral pase sou fyèl nou manman pitit mare vant. Sa nou fè a nou swete nou ka kenbe l.

Moise Jeanchal, nou pran nouvèl saw fè okap la, nou pral sèvi avew ou byen konen kijan lavalas la desann nou pral remèt ou monen pyès ou nan lwès la. Ou mèt tou rete OKAP

Bon si prezidan an mouri menm pap gen eleksyon nap few regret ou te fe sa.

Lavalas leve kanpe nan tout peyi a depi se kote PHTK ak Pitit Desalin ap fè kanpay kraze yo paske yo atake papa demokrasi a.

Baz Fanmi Lwes

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Book Talk: "Haiti Will Not Perish" with Michael Deibert



Here is the video of my talk on Haiti at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Thank you so much to Severine Autesserre for making it happen.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Michel Martelly letter to Haiti interim Preisdent Jocelerme Privert

Friday, April 15, 2016
MJM/0416/008
Port-au-Prince, le 15 avril 2016

Son Excellence
Monsieur Jocelerme PRIVERT
Président Provisoire
Palais National

Monsieur le Président Provisoire,
 
Deux mois après la fin de mon mandat et après avoir négocié et signé avec vous, en votre qualité de Président du Sénat, conjointement avec le Président de la Chambre des Députés, un accord de sortie de crise, le pays est menacé par une crise plus profonde que je voulais éviter.
 
En effet, en signant cet accord, j’ai voulu éviter au pays une crise politique après le coup du 22 janvier 2016 et contribuer à l'exercice du jeu démocratique; c’est dans cet esprit que j’ai quitté mes fonctions à la date prévue par la Constitution, en m’assurant, comme il a été prévu, que le pouvoir soit transmis, le 14 mai 2016, à un Président légitime, issu d’élections.
 
Dois-je encore vous rappeler, Monsieur le Président Provisoire, que cet accord a été rédigé par vos soins, suivant vos propres termes et conditions et vous en êtes, par la suite, devenu le principal bénéficiaire, responsable direct de sa mise en œuvre ?
 
Il est inconcevable qu'après deux présidences à vie consécutives, ayant duré trente ans, le pays ne parvienne, trente ans plus tard, à organiser des élections qui ne fassent l’objet de contestation et qu’il soit toujours utile de se référer à l’arbitrage de la communauté internationale pour trancher. Ce constat choque tant les observateurs nationaux qu’étrangers.
 
Il est anormal que certains politiciens haïtiens recourent à tous les stratagèmes, du mieux qu'ils peuvent, pour empêcher la tenue d’élections et que l'on offre au monde entier le spectacle navrant qu'eux tous n’étaient motivés que par des intérêts personnels et mesquins. Un grand nombre de ceux qui se sont montrés hostiles à la tenue des élections se sont fait nommer au gouvernement de transition qu’ils veulent convertir en gouvernement définitif, sans recourir à la voie des urnes, en utilisant tous les artifices. La nouvelle donne consiste à séparer à l’amiable, copain-copain, le pouvoir exécutif avec les sénateurs, comme une sorte de butin de guerre que l’on repartit entre des officiers vainqueurs. Le Sénat est rendu quasiment dysfonctionnel aujourd’hui parce qu’aux sénateurs sont offertes des fonctions administratives à titre de récompense - les Sénateurs abandonnant le Parlement pour devenir ministres. Cette approche ne va pas tenir la route, Monsieur le Président provisoire.
 
Le Gouvernement actuel se donne un agenda étendu voire illimité qui ne correspond nullement à son mandat, circonscrit dans l’accord signé entre vous et moi le 5 février 2016. Cette démarche ne va pas permettre de résoudre la crise, elle va plutôt l’aggraver.
 
Il est urgent d'engager le processus d'organisation du second tour des élections présidentielles et qu’un gouvernement légitime soit mis en place dans les délais prévus. Il serait raisonnable que l'on cesse d'utiliser des subterfuges pour grignoter quelques mois sur les mandats des élus à des fins inavouables. Le pays ne pourra pas tirer avantage de la répétition de cette situation consistant en cette pratique de vouloir remplacer un gouvernement constitutionnel par un gouvernement provisoire, et le renvoi des élections réglementaires sine die pour laisser un certain temps de gestion à ce gouvernement provisoire. Je voudrais en connaitre la motivation... Une telle situation va continuer à augmenter la précarité et entacher l'image du pays aux yeux de nos partenaires- bien entendu ceux qui n'ont aucun intérêt dans cette situation... C’est la raison principale qui m’a porté à choisir, parmi toutes les options, de signer l'accord du 5 février et partir le 7 février suivant.
 
Les stratèges de ce gouvernement, qui se croient seuls sur la planète, instaurent la persécution sous toutes ses formes pour parvenir à leurs fins. Leur programme majeur a pour nom la "demartellisation". Ce programme consiste à humilier mes anciens collaborateurs et paradoxalement, ceux-là même qui m'ont accompagné jusqu'aux derniers jours de mon mandat. Cette manière de faire démontre l'incohérence et l'inconsistance de ces persécutions qui fragilisent la démocratie et anéantissent l'esprit démocratique. Une première tactique a consisté à les accuser de choses auxquelles ils sont complètement étrangers, que personne n'a établi. Quand ils considèrent devoir se défendre, ils sont directement menacés, accusés de contester des déclarations du Président et privés de leur liberté de mouvement. Un Commissaire du Gouvernement, ex-député du peuple, qui n’est pas juge des comptes des fonctionnaires et des Grands commis de l’Etat, commence par établir une liste d’interdiction de départ avant même d’avoir entendu ses victimes ou d’avoir vu les dossiers qui leur seraient imputables.
 
Je crois en la nécessité de tout administrateur de l’Etat de rendre compte de sa gestion, cependant si la justice est aveugle, elle ne doit pas se laisser aveugler.
 
Que la nation prenne garde et reste vigilante pour que la nécessaire et indispensable lutte contre la corruption ne fournisse l’occasion de commettre des injustices criardes, même au nom de la raison d’Etat, autrement comme l’avait si bien dit le Président René Préval, dans une situation semblable «peu de citoyens honnêtes, compétents et sérieux accepteront de se mettre au service de leur pays en se persuadant que l’Etat ne peut être habité que par des malveillants et des médiocres» (sic)
Je n’ai pas signé l’accord du 5 février pour encourager la violation des droits individuels. Combien de fois ne vous est-il pas arrivé, Monsieur le Président provisoire, de vous prononcer dans des domaines qui ne sont pas les vôtres, en déni des prérogatives et responsabilités des institutions légalement constituées. En déclarant par exemple, plus d'une fois, aux membres du PHTK que leur candidat à la Présidence est classé en 5eme position alors que vous n’êtes pas membre du Conseil électoral ! Qui donc comptez-vous classer en première position, Monsieur le Président ?
 
Je vous invite patriotiquement à vous dépasser et à vous éloigner du chant des sirènes, car les chantres ne connaissent pas la douleur ni les responsabilités d’un président de la République. Eux croient que tout lui est possible. Malheur à un président qui croit qu’il peut tout faire. Le seul recours d’un chef d’Etat devant ces situations, c’est la loi ; il doit avoir recours en permanence à la loi. Cela m’a évité bien des égarements même s’il m’a laissé des inimitiés au sein de mon propre camp. De toute manière, il y a un choix à faire. Il y a beaucoup de voies. Moi j’ai choisi de voir les choses avec hauteur, sans roublardise. Nous devons laisser le temps des dictatures et des violences politiques derrière nous et renoncer à vouloir contrôler le pouvoir par tous les moyens, au risque de maintenir le pays dans l’indignité et le dénuement de ses citoyens.
 
Si nous voulons travailler à l’instauration de la démocratie en Haïti, nous devons nous y consacrer de manière déterminée et sérieuse, de toute notre force, de tout notre être et de toute notre pensée, tellement la tentation d’aller dans le sens contraire est grande. Le seul garant, c’est le respect de nos institutions.
 
C’est dans ce sens que j’avais choisi de rendre visite à tous les anciens Chefs d’Etat vivant dans le pays. Cette décision n’avait pas fait l’unanimité autour de moi. Mais ma volonté de rassembler toutes les élites et toutes les forces du pays pour l’avènement d’une ère de progrès me l’avait dicté. Je l’ai fait pour rassurer. Durant mon administration, les libertés politiques ont atteint leur apogée, la presse, le paroxysme de la liberté. Mes ministres s’exprimaient librement et je n’ai jamais trouvé aucun mal à l’expression de positions contraires. Je n’étais pas le Chef mais le coordonnateur. Je n’ai jamais considéré que j’étais le juge des actes de mes prédécesseurs ou de leurs ministres. Je n’étais pas obligé de marcher sur leurs voies, je pouvais revenir sur certaines de leurs décisions, sans essayer de les mettre en cause. Parce que la Constitution, qui doit être notre boussole, a fixé la responsabilité de chacun et de chaque institution. Sur mon bureau et ma table de chevet, il y avait toujours un exemplaire de la Constitution. Un Président de la République ne doit jamais être lassé de lire et de relire la Constitution.
 
Je sais que vous connaissez ce texte par cœur. On vous attribue, à tort ou à raison, une connaissance approfondie des questions administratives. Je vous encourage à lire et à relire la Constitution, nos lois administratives, les textes de procédure administrative et civile tous les jours et à ne pas vous en écarter, comme je vous supplie, pour le bien du pays, de ne pas vous écarter du texte de l’accord du 5 février que nous avons signé. La patrie vous sera reconnaissante. Ainsi votre rêve sera comblé, vos vœux exhaussés. Vous aurez acquis estime et respect aux yeux des Haïtiens et des partenaires internationaux engagés à nos côtés dans la rédemption du pays. L’Histoire vous rendra témoignage comme un grand patriote… Avant vous, d’autres ont essayé d’aller dans le sens contraire de l’Histoire, ils l’ont tous regretté.
 
Les évènements de ces derniers jours m’ont motivé à vous écrire cette lettre. Je le fais en toute humilité et dans un élan patriotique, pendant qu’il est encore temps. Mon patriotisme me commande de vous recommander de ne pas céder à la tentation de ceux qui n’attendront pas le second chant du coq pour vous lâcher.
 
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Président provisoire, les assurances de ma très haute considération.

Michel Joseph MARTELLY
56è Président de la République d’Haïti

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

‘Rotten system’ blamed as Haiti’s election ends in stalemate

Sunday 14 February 2016 19.58 GMT

‘Rotten system’ blamed as Haiti’s election ends in stalemate

Outgoing president Michel Martelly cuts a deal on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Duvaliers

Michael Deibert in Port-au-Prince 

The Guardian

(Read original article here)

The sun finally broke through the clouds in Haiti’s capital on Friday, puddles glistening under its rays on streets filled with the sound of schoolchildren singing, the roar of moto-taxis and the lilt of market women calling to one another in Creole, Haiti’s poetic local language.

Haiti needed some relief, and not just because of its out-of-season rains. February is an auspicious month here, and this year – on 7 February – the nation was to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship with the inauguration of a newly elected president. The ascension was to be the fruit of a three-part election cycle that began last summer, an endeavour that the United States spent $30m supporting.

Things didn’t work out quite that way. The first round of legislative elections in August were marked by such a high degree of violence and fraud that they had to be cancelled in several areas, yet were signed off by the international community. The second round, held in October, made it to the end of the day, but immediately erupted in controversy when it was announced that President Michel Martelly’s chosen executive successor, Jovenel Moïse, known as Neg Bannan (Banana Man), had finished first. In second place and heading to a runoff against Moïse was former government official
Jude Célestin, whom Martelly had defeated in his own race for office five years ago.

Opposition parties and local electoral observers cried fraud, with many local commentators pointing out that the international community backing the elections had remained largely silent as Martelly had ruled by decree after failing to hold any elections in the previous years of his government.

“Suddenly the international community says an elected president has to replace an elected president. But they didn’t have that position when they closed the parliament or when they replaced 144 mayors,” said Jean-Max Bellerive, who was prime minister under Martelly’s predecessor, René Préval. “They accepted the destruction of the whole structure of our democracy.”

The dispute led to an ever-more chaotic series of street demonstrations by those who support Moïse’s PHTK party and their opponents: at a demonstration in January, some opposition supporters chanted “Netwaye zam nou” (“We are cleaning our guns”), while at another, a protester told an AFP reporter that demonstrators would have “machetes and stones” in hand to prevent the holding of the presidential runoff on 24 January. Armed men claiming to be members of Haiti’s disbanded army paraded through the capital, pointing their weapons at civilians (one of their number was beaten to death by anti-government protesters in unclear circumstances). The electoral council – which has the task of overseeing the elections and is now accused of rigging them – fell apart and the elections were cancelled.

To make things even more surreal, the date for the transition this year fell during carnival, and Martelly, a former star of Haiti’s sinuous compas music, performing as Sweet Micky, chose it as the moment to release a sexually suggestive carnival song viciously mocking his critics and alluding to Moïse, titled Bal bannann nan (Give Her the Banana).

Hours before Martelly’s term was to end, he cut a deal with Haiti’s parliament, allowing his prime minister, Evans Paul, to take care of the day-to-day business of government after the end of the former’s term, and a provisional president to be voted into office and installed this weekend. The provisional president will govern until presidential and legislative elections are held on 24 April and a new president is sworn in on 14 May.

Following the announcement of the deal, a group of opposition presidential candidates, known collectively as the G8, issued a press release calling the accord “a parliamentary coup” and saying they would not support it. Members of Haiti’s parliament – elected in this same round of disputed elections – saw things differently.

“We reached an accord with Martelly that avoided civil war and chaos, and we’re continuing to work to elect a provisional president,” said senator Jean Baptiste Bien Aimé, a senator from the Fanmi Lavalas party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and part of the bicameral commission tasked with selecting a provisional president.

A few hundred protesters gathered last week in front of the church where Aristide preached in the slum of La Saline. Under a drizzling rain that turned the downtown streets into slippery paths of grey mud, they chanted, drank tafia (raw rum) and waved photos of Aristide before embarking on a brief march.

“We continue our demonstrations to tell the government that we need a real negotiation,” said Arnel Bélizaire, a former deputy in Haiti’s lower house of parliament and current senate candidate, known for marching with an M4 assault rifle dangling from a strap around his neck, which he had apparently left at home. “We’ve been doing this since 1986 and the people are still suffering. What parliament has done is completely illegal.”

As Haiti’s politicians debate, beyond the capital the country is facing its worst food insecurity in 15 years, partly from a prolonged drought. The gourde, Haiti’s currency, has also dramatically depreciated.

Many argue, though, that in a country marked by almost total political impunity, where politicians accused of grievous crimes continue to recycle themselves in various guises, the mere holding of elections is just a cosmetic salve to a deeper and more structural malaise.

“It’s not just personalities,” said Sylvie Bajeux, one of Haiti’s leading human rights advocates and whose organisation, the Centre Oecuménique des Droits de l’Homme, was part of a group of civilian observers of the election. “It’s the entire system. A rotten system.”

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Haiti dances nervously towards bitterly contested presidential election

Thursday 21 January 2016 13.54 GMT

Haiti dances nervously towards bitterly contested presidential election

Carnival begins on 7 February, the same day it is set to swear in a new leader – unless the vote is delayed. But a mood of foreboding dogs Haiti’s murky politics

Michael Deibert in Port-au-Prince 

The Guardian

(Read the original article here)

They marched in their thousands to the throb of drums and the incantatory wail of the long bamboo wind instruments Haitians call vaksin. Joyously waving flags and chanting, the multitude surged from the wealthy suburb of Pétionville down the traffic-clogged Route de Frères, where phantasmal swirls of dust were illuminated by the lights of cars and the kerosene flames of women selling patties.

Haiti is days away from a bitterly contested presidential election, but this was no political rally. The crowd was following a rara band, street musicians whose appearance marks the run-up to carnival, which this year begins on 7 February – the same day Haiti is slated to inaugurate a new president.
Just hours later, however, the peaceful revellers were replaced by an angry rock-throwing mob protesting against alleged vote-rigging by President Michel Martelly on behalf of his designated successor Jovenel Moïse, an agribusinessman from the country’s north.

Opposition parties and local observers have also charged that the election’s first round in November was marred by fraud. The leading opposition candidate, Jude Célestin, has said that he will not compete in the second round this Sunday and legitimize a “farce” (which the United States spent $30m supporting).

Late on Wednesday night, Haiti’s senate voted to recommend that Haiti’s electoral body, known as the CEP, should delay the vote, though it was unclear if this will happen.

A sense of dread and foreboding has settled on Haiti’s political elite.

“Between now and 7 February we are on a razor’s edge and anything can happen,” said a former Martelly adviser.

Despite a lower rate of violent crime than many other countries in the region, elections in Haiti are often fraught affairs. In 1987, during the first election after the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship, voters were massacred by Duvalierist forces. During the 2000 elections that brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide back to power, opposition politicians were killed.

In the 2010 elections in which Martelly triumphed, only mass street protests (and, some charge, international pressure) saw him advance to the second round past Célestin, the former head of the state construction company, after the first round was allegedly rigged by the outgoing president, René Préval.

Since his inauguration in 2011, Martelly, a former singer turned rightwing populist with political links to the Duvalier dynasty, has overseen many carnivals but held no elections. He seemed at times unsure if his place was among competent public officials or shady cronies both within and without the political arena.

Nevertheless, under Martelly, and his former prime minister, the telecoms mogul Laurent Lamothe, Haiti appeared to be inching forward after years of decline. Roads were paved, investment began to return, and an international airport was inaugurated in the country’s second largest city, Cap-Haïtien, opening the historical treasures of the north to tourism.

Haiti’s political opposition consists of an assortment of career politicians, ideologically promiscuous opportunists and occasional true believers whose commitment to democracy is questionable.

Along with Célestin – who has long been dogged by dark rumours connected to the 2009 disappearance of a government official – the best-known candidates are a former senator, Moïse Jean-Charles, and Maryse Narcisse, who is seen as a stand-in for Aristide.

“This is not my struggle, but the struggle of the Haitian people,” said Jean-Charles, who has been one of the government’s most vociferous critics. “We will modify our strategy, continuing our mobilisation with strikes, civil disobedience … We need good governance, political and economic stability.”

(One of Jean-Charles’s entourage was more explicit, confiding that Martelly and Jovenel Moïse would be dechouked, a reference to the violence directed at Duvalier’s supporters after the fall of his regime. At protests this week, marchers chanted for the deaths of Martelly and the CEP president, Pierre Louis Opont.)

But many Haitians are not inclined to take to the streets to support either Martelly or his opponents.

“I didn’t vote. Vote for who?” asks Louino Robillard, one of the leaders of Solèy Leve, a collaborative social movement founded in the capital’s Cité Soleil slum. “Look at all of those politicians and all of those rich people and all of those organisations here. What have they done?”

Those who have appeared at political events do little to allay fears for Haitian democracy: one participant in recent opposition rallies is Franco Camille, an Aristide loyalist who was indicted for his alleged role in the 2000 murder of Haiti’s most famous journalist, Jean Dominique.

Martelly’s own orbit consists of men like Woodly “Sonson La Familia” Ethéart, the accused head of an organised crime ring freed under questionable circumstances last year, and Daniel Evinx, a resort owner and suspected drug trafficker who disappeared in early 2014. According to a source familiar with the investigation, police subsequently found a body near the northern town of Anse-Rouge they believed to be that of the missing hotelier, though the discovery was never made public.

Despite all this, the UN and the “Core Group” of international actors in Haiti (Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the US, the European Union and the Organization of American States) appear convinced the elections should go forward.

“Proceeding with the electoral calendar as provided by the Haitian constitution will avoid going into an extra-constitutional, de-facto government leadership crisis,” Kenneth Merten, the United States’ Haiti special coordinator wrote in an email.

The capital’s restless slums dot Port-au-Prince like a living reproach to the lack of vision of Haiti’s political leaders – and the international community upon whose support they depend.

Martelly’s predecessor Préval launched a disarmament and reintegration programme for the capital’s gangs, but after several years of calm, Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s biggest slum, has begun to bleed again. Leaders of armed groups with alleged links to the government such as Gabriel Jean Pierre and Ti Houngan appear to be flexing their muscles, although to portray them as strictly gangsters misses that nearly all such leaders have set up “foundations” to aid their communities, and say they are helping the forgotten.

But armed men are not the only face of Cité Soleil. Louino Robillard’s Solèy Leve initiated a Cité Soleil peace prize to honour and encourage young people trying to make a difference, and community groups like the Sant Kominote Altènatif Ak Lapè work diligently to reduce conflict.

“These children need a real school,” says Christly Jackson, the 50-year-old head of a primary school in Cité Soleil that lacks just about everything but rough wooden benches and a blackboard. “And when they become adults, they don’t have jobs and our hunger continues.”

In the capital’s southern hills, the districts of Grand Ravine and Ti Bois are now at peace. A gang war raged between the neighborhoods a decade ago, but the communities, aided by the Irish NGO Concern and the local group Lakou Lapè, have worked to make peaceful coexistence durable.

That does not mean the prospect of violence has disappeared. At the entrance to Grand Ravine, visitors are met by a gang leader nicknamed – like the president – Tèt Kale and about a dozen men with pistols in their waistbands who keep a close eye on visitors.

Up the hill from the improvised checkpoint, in a spotless office, members of a local community self-help group called Plasmagra meet.

“We have been able to put peace in this community, and would like to continue with its development,” says 32-year-old Nicolson Joachim. As he speaks, children play football in the street and a young artist daubs Caribbean beach scenes on to canvases in hopes of selling them later.

Despite the apparent calm, some observers fear that the government and the opposition are playing with fire.

“What the government, the opposition and the international community don’t know is that right now those guys in the slums are thinking they’re always the victims, and if something happens they will be victims again,” says Mario Andrésol, a former chief of Haiti’s national police and presidential candidate. “But they are not just going to stay and die in Cité Soleil and those other areas forever. That’s what the oligarchy also has to understand. Today we’re in a situation that could explode at any time.”

Minustah, the UN stabilisation mission, is drawing down after a dozen years in Haiti, leaving the country much as it found it, amid a government crisis of legitimacy, with a politicised police and a recalcitrant political opposition, and with the added gift of cholera, which UN soldiers introduced in 2010.

Despite the role Haitians have played in their country’s ongoing political trench warfare, many feel this particular crisis has the international community’s fingerprints all over it. Writing in Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste this past week, the author Lyonel Trouillot asked those abroad: “Do you know what they are doing here in your name?”