Billions to Haiti, Little to Haitians

In this photo, lawyer Bill Quigley talks to thousands of SOA Watch supporters in Fort Benning, Ga in Nov. 2012. Eh urged the matchers to keep the pressure on until the School of Americas is closed.  Photo by Wadner Pierre.

 By Bill Quigley- Originally published on HuffingtonPost

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

The earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010, killing, according to Oxfam International, 250,000 people and injuring another 300,000; 360,000 Haitians are still displaced and living hand to mouth in 496 tent camps across the country, according to the International Organization of Migration. Most eat only one meal a day.

Cholera followed the earthquake. Now widely blamed on poor sanitation by UN troops, it has claimed7,750 lives and sickened more than half a million. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and its Haitian partner Bureau des Avocats Internationaux have filed legal claims against the UN on behalf of thousands of cholera victims. Recently the Haitian government likewise demanded more than $2 billion from the international community to address the scourge of cholera.

Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 55 percent of the population living below the poverty line of $1.25 a day. About 60 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, the primary source of income in rural areas. Haiti imports more than 55 percent of its food. The average Haitian eats only 73 percent of the daily minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. Even before the earthquake 40 percent of households (3.8 million people) were undernourished and 3 of 10 children suffered from chronic malnutrition.

Despite an outpouring of global compassion, some estimate as high as $3 billion in individual donations and another $6 billion in governmental assistance, too little has changed. Part of the problem is that the international community and non-government organizations (Haiti has sometimes been called the Republic of NGOs) has bypassed Haitian non-governmental agencies and the Haitian government itself. The Center for Global Development analysis of where they money went concluded that overall less than 10 percent went to the government of Haiti and less than 1 percent went to Haitian organizations and businesses. A full one-third of the humanitarian funding for Haiti was actually returned to donor countries to reimburse them for their own civil and military work in the country and the majority of the rest went to international NGOs and private contractors.

With hundreds of thousands of people still displaced, the international community has built less than 5,000 new homes. Despite the fact that crime and murder are low in Haiti (Haiti had a murder rate of 6.9 of every hundred thousand, while New Orleans has a rate of 58), huge amounts of money are spent on a UN force which many Haitians do not want. The annual budget of the United Nations “peacekeeping” mission, MINUSTAH, for 2012-13, or $644 million, would pay for the construction of more than 58,000 homes at $11,000 per home.

There are many stories of projects hatched by big names in the international community into which millions of donated dollars were poured only to be abandoned because the result was of no use to the Haitian people. For example, internationals created a model housing community in Zoranje. A $2 million project built 60 houses that now sit abandoned, according to Haiti Grassroots Watch.

Deborah Sontag in the New York Times tells the stories of many other bungles in a critical article which reported only a very small percentage of the funds have been focused on creating permanent housing for the hundreds of thousands displaced. Many expect 200,000 will be still in displacement camps a year from now.

The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people still displaced by the earthquake have no other housing options. Those who were renters cannot find places to stay because there is a dramatic shortage of rental housing. Many of those who owned homes before the earthquake have been forced to move back into their despite the fact that these homes are unsafe. A survey by USAID found that housing options are so few that people have moved back into more than 50,000 “red” buildings that engineers said should be demolished.

Most of the people living under tents are on private property and are subjected to official and private violence in forced evictions, according to Oxfam. More than 60,000 have been forcibly evicted from over 150 tent camps with little legal protection. Oxfam reports many in camps fear leaving their camps to seek work or food worried that their tents and belongings will be destroyed in their absence.

Dozens of Haitian human rights organizations and international allies are organizing against forced evictions in a campaign called Under Tents Haiti.

The fact that these problems remain despite billions in aid is mostly the result of the failure of the international community to connect with Haitian civil society and to work with the Haitian government. Certainly the Haitian government has demonstrated problems but how can a nation be expected to grow unless it leads its own reconstruction? Likewise, Haitian civil society, its churches, its human rights and community organizations, can be real partners in the rebuilding of the country. But the international community has to take the time to work in a respectful relationship with Haiti. Or else the disasters of the earthquake and hurricanes will keep hammering our sisters and brothers in Haiti, the people in our hemisphere who have already been victimized far too frequently.

Bill Quigley is the Current director of Loyola Law Clinic at New Orleans, and CCR Associate Legal Director

 Amber Ramanauskas  contributed to this articleco

SOA Watch: We’re Still there Until the School of Americas Is Closed DEC 2

By Wadner Pierre- originally published by The Maroon

For the first time in two years, a group of Loyola students traveled to a US military- sponsored school in Fort Benning, Ga. to protest the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests and their two workers.

Hundreds of thousands protesters continue as rally against the U.S.-sponsored military school in the Fort Benning, Ga. Photo by Wadner Pierre

It has been 23 years since six Jesuit priests and their two workers were murdered at the Creighton University in El Salvador. The perpetrators of this crime were alleged to be trained at the School of Americas. For more than two decades the School of Americas Watch, a national organization, has begun a campaign to close the military school. The School Of Americas Watch annual protest coincides with the anniversary of the death of the six Jesuit priests.

Business sophomore, Katie O'Dowd had no idea about the protest until her freshman year at Loyola through her involvement in LUCAP. She said she was struck by the many young people engaged in the movement. “I always want to advocate for the School of Americas Watch. I’ll continue to ask students to go in this protest,” she said.

O’Dowd said she hopes the school will be closed. In 1990, former naval officer and Catholic priest Roy Bourgeois started School Of Americas Watch in a house near the gate of the US military school in Fort Benning, Ga.

Twenty-two years have passed, but the goal has remained the same. Some progress has been made with a half-dozen Latin American countries like Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, which withdrew their troops from this school.

Two decades after Bourgeois founded School Of Americas Watch, thousands of students, teachers and human activists including lawyers from all over the world have joined the protest every year with one goal to “Close the School of Americas.”

The School of Americas, which now goes by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is known for training soldiers who have been responsible for killing people in their own countries. Loyola University New Orleans celebrates the lives of the six Jesuits and other victims of some of the School Of Americas allegedly trained military death squads every year through the “Martyrs Mass” in the peace quad. The university planted six trees and named them after each of the six Jesuit priests.

The Rev. Ismael Moreno Coto S.J., left, and the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, and founder of the School of Americas, right ,lead the anti School of Americas protest in Fort Benning, Ga. This year marked the 22nd anniversary of the protest aiming to close thande US-sponsored military school. Photo By Wadner Pierre

The Rev. Bourgeois S.J., in a prayer to bless the protesters said, “May love and mercy go with you, may you speak in solidarity with those who have been silent by death and repression.”

Bourgeois also believes that the voice of the School of Americas’ victims will be heard all over the American continent.

“Through your witness, may their voice be heard, here at the School of Americas, in the White House, in the halls of Congress and the heart of people all across the Americas,” he said.

This year, a delegation of the School Of Americas Watch movement met with President Barrack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough. Loyola’s Law Clinic director, Bill Quigley was among the School Of Americas Watch delegates.

Quigley said McDonough told the delegation that he knows about the School Of Americas and people in his family have been asking him to close this school for years.

“We thank his family and people he went to school with and the other folks. But it’s clear that this is just a step of this journey we are on. We have to push him,” Quigley said to the protesters.

Quigley urged School Of America Watch supporters to keep the pressure on with hope that Obama’s second administration may close the military school. “We are going to close the School of Americas,” said Quigley.

Loyola students hope the School Of Americas will be closed one day, though they do not know when and how long it will take. They also know their actions to support the School Of Americas Watch movement matter.

Sociology seniors Ellen Rice, left, and Camille Fiess, right, carry a symbolic coffin with cross at the 2012 SOA Watch protest. The annual protest coincided with the 22nd anniversary of the deaths of the six Jesuits and two workers in El Salvador. Photo by Wadner Pierre

Biology senior Carissa Marston, who attended the protest for the first time, said she will use her experience in her upcoming presentation for her Latin American class and continue to advocate for the closing of the School of Americas.

“I think I have more to contribute as far as the conversation about militarism and what SOA actually does and why it should be closed,” she said. LUCAP adviser, Joseph Deegan said students had to pay a $25 fee this year and special funding was available for those who could not afford to pay. Deegan said LUCAP financed this trip through a donation from Kevin Poorman, who currently serves as a chair on the Board of Trustees.

The School of Americas Watch protestors have made a promise that has become their slogan: “We will be there until this school is closed.”

Mass communication senior and The Maroon Photo Editor Wadner Pierre traveled with LUCAP to SOA Watch. He can be reached at wpierre@loyno.edu

Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti

Belen Fernandez- Al Jazeera English Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine. Pulse Media Books RSS

Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti

Haiti's brutal paramilitary campaigns received scant media coverage, while "political violence" was decried at length. Last Modified: 04 Oct 2012 10:20 inShare Email Print Share Feedback

The Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti was instrumental in the 2004 coup d'état that deposed Aristide [EPA]

In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, certain media outlets painted a picture of a country overrun by looters and at the mercy of gang members and other criminals, including thousands of prisoners jolted free by the quake. Relevant details were ignored, such as the contention by prominent Haitian human rights attorney Mario Joseph that80 per cent of said prisoners had never been charged. The media effort perhaps aided in rendering less incongruous in the eyes of the international public the deployment of a sizeable US military force to deal with quake-affected people who did not seemingly require military attention. A Reuters dispatch from one week after the disaster - which reported "marauding looters", "scavengers and looters swarm[ing] over damaged stores", "increasingly lawless streets" and "[h]eavily armed gang members" - offered the following plea from policeman Dorsainvil Robenson: "Haiti needs help ... the Americans are welcome here. But where are they? We need them here on the street with us."  The whereabouts of the ever-elusive Americans are of course hinted at two paragraphs later, when we learn that "the White House said more than 11,000 US military personnel are on the ground, on ships offshore or en route". Elsewhere, French Co-operation Minister Alain Joyandet was quoted as commenting in reference to seemingly skewed US priorities: "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti". As foreign military monopolised the Port-au-Prince airport, teams of paramedics and first responders were delayed in the critical hours immediately following the earthquake.  Subscribers to the fantasy that the US is somehow qualified to counteract violence and install order in the Caribbean nation would do well to peruse a new book entitled Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, in which author Jeb Sprague masterfully documents - among other topics - the detrimental role of US and fellow international actors in Haitian history. Offering new evidence obtained through interviews and a massive amount of formerly classified US government documents, the book clarifies how Haiti's post-quake reconstruction rests on a foundation of total impunity achieved by the country's most brutal paramilitaries and their financiers. Legacy of violence As Sprague notes, the US occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 under "the pretext of possible German encroachment during the First World War… caused the deaths of an estimated 15,000 Haitians and saw the imposition of slave labour". It also imposed "a modern army, one that would continue the US occupation long after US troops were gone", functioning on behalf of the Haitian elite and their American counterparts. Observes Sprague: "The US occupation wedded the country’s future to North American business interests."    Witness - Stranded: The Stateless Haitian Later, during the reign of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in the 1960s, US Marines trained the dictator’s Tonton Macoutes paramilitary force, known for "leaving bodies of their victims hanging in public, a clear warning to anyone stepping out of line, most especially leftists, socialists and pro-democracy activists". Linked to the business elite and the military itself, the Macoutes were "vital for upholding a system based on severe inequality and class privilege".  Following the transfer of power to Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, a brutal counter-insurgency force known as the Leopards was trained and equipped "by former US marine instructors who were working through a company (Aerotrade, Inc and Aerotrade International, Inc) under contract with the CIA and signed off by the US Department of State".  Prior to becoming Haiti's first democratically elected president in early 1991, the young liberation theologian, Jean-Bertrand Aristide "denounced the historic role of the United States in founding, arming and training Haiti's military, which had been responsible for so much of the violence in Haitian history". Sprague quotes Aristide: "They [the United States] set up the Haitian Army, they trained it to work against the people". Indeed, it would be difficult to argue that the army was working for the people by massacring citizens attempting to vote in 1987, or by overthrowing the newly elected Aristide in September 1991 and slaughtering his supporters.  Aristide's coup-inducing crimes included inviting street children and homeless persons to breakfast at the National Palace and endeavouring to raise the daily minimum wage from $1.76 to $2.94. As Joanne Landy wrote in the New York Times in 1994, the latter effort was "vigorously opposed by the US Agency for International Development because of the threat such an increase would pose to the 'business climate', particularly to American companies paying rock-bottom wages to workers in Haiti".  Aside from USAID, another relevant euphemism from the coup period was the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a paramilitary organisation intimately linked to the Haitian military that assumed the task of terrorising the non-elite masses under the military junta. "Internal US government documents reveal that FRAPH was founded in part at the behest of the US Defence Intelligence Agency," Sprague notes.  Recycling brutality  After years of brutality and corruption, the military dictatorship faced growing resistance at home and abroad. Aristide was thus reinserted in his lawful post in 1994 in exchange for, inter alia, committing to be more attentive to the needs of the US agriculture industry and drastically slashing tariffs on imported rice.  Upon reinstatement, he logically moved - with overwhelming public support - to disband the armed forces and the section chiefs (the hated rural constabulary). His government, and the elected governments that followed him, also gathered testimonials from thousands of victims of paramilitary violence and undertook judicial proceedings to prosecute military and paramilitary criminals.  However, as researcher Eirin Mobekk has critically pointed out and Sprague has underscored, "only the army as an institution was dissolved… In a country where the army had run political life for decades it was an illusion to think that its networks would disappear with the removal of uniforms and the use of its buildings for other purposes". US contributions to the dissolution of the army included maneouvering to insert allied Haitian ex-military officials into what was supposed to be a civilian police force and eliminating officers seen as overly loyal to Aristide or less than enthusiastic about the coup. Some Haitian police officers were trained in the United States, where they were susceptible to overtures by the CIA, which also funded various FRAPH leaders and other paramilitaries.  Given the high level of impunity enjoyed by military and paramilitary members who had committed atrocities - not to mention US insistence on a full amnesty for the coup perpetrators - it is somewhat less than astonishing that Aristide's re-election in 2000 also culminated in a coup d'état. Instrumental in the overthrow was the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti (FLRN), which as Sprague explains was "led by renegade police officials who were from among the same ex-FAd'H [Haitian Armed Forces] pushed into the country’s new security force by the United States in the late 1990s".  Backed by some wealthy Haitians, neo-Duvalierists, sweatshop owners, and government and army officials from the neighbouring Dominican Republic (who didn't want Aristide's anti-military, pro-human rights rhetoric rubbing off on their own citizenry), the FLRN staged incursions into Haiti from Dominican territory with the ultimate goal of forcing the re-establishment of the Haitian army. Of course, the sign of any good army is its ability to safeguard the domestic population, and these incursions provided the FLRN with an opportunity to showcase its skills - which it did by massacring and assaulting supporters of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party, often with sickening tactics. Citing formerly classified US embassy cables, Sprague uncovers how a small but powerful fifth column within the government was also working to undermine Aristide.   WikiLeaks documents probe US-Haiti relations According to Sprague, it is likely that French and US intelligence facilitated the paramilitary insurgency in some way, while "the International Republican Institute (an organisation funded by the US government that promotes 'democratisation programmes' around the world) provided a forum through which the [Haitian] political opposition strengthened its ties with the paramilitaries". As journalist Max Blumenthal has documented, the IRI benefitted in its underhanded dealings from the diplomacy of Roger Noriega, an Iran-Contra-era figure recycled into the Bush II administration along with his Cold War Manichean fantasies according to which Aristide and anyone else with less than extreme right-wing political convictions is a communist demon.   Sprague aptly comments that US' "knowledge that [sectors of] Haiti's 'business community' [were] strongly backing paramilitary terror underscores the cynicism of Washington’s constant demands that Aristide seek 'compromise' with his 'peaceful opponents'". In the end, the compromise consisted of Aristide's removal on a US military plane to the Central African Republic in 2004 and the installation of Gerard Latortue as head of state. The ensuing peace is recalled by historian Greg Grandin:  "During Latortue's brief stint in office, 2004 - 2006, Haiti experienced some 4,000 political murders, according to The Lancet - while hundreds of Fanmi Lavalas members, Aristide supporters, and social movement leaders were locked up - usually on bogus charges. Latortue's friends in Washington looked the other way."  Sprague, meanwhile, observes that "Bill Clinton's [former] policy of inserting a handful of ex-FAd’H criminals into Haiti's police force… was now put on steroids" and that "in 2004 -5 the United States and the UN oversaw the recycling of 400 ex-army paramilitaries into a revamped police force" - paving the way for yet more repetitions of history.  Media coups  Why is it that Haiti's brutal paramilitary campaigns received scant international press attention while quantitatively and qualitatively inferior political violence by a small number of Fanmi Lavalas supporters (which occurred in the context of clashes with the opposition) was decried at length?  Obviously, media coverage is shaped by geopolitical and financial interests, with the terms of events defined by the powerful. This is how, for example, terrorism conducted by the US and Israel becomes "counter-terrorism", "self-defence" and "democracy promotion" in the Western mainstream media.  Sprague documents how, in the case of Haiti, the press in the US, France, Canada and other locales undertook to demonise Aristide and rebrand the violent and unpopular uprising against him as non-violent and popular. As US-trained FLRN commander Guy Philippe remarked to journalist Isabel McDonald following the coup: "[The] international media, the media leaders helped us a lot. And thanks to them we were able to overthrow the dictator. And without them I don't think that we could have". "Obviously, media coverage is shaped by geopolitical and financial interests, with the terms of events defined by the powerful." In an essay for the London Review of Books, Paul Farmer describes how Aristide was made the scapegoat for crimes committed by the very people who overthrew him. Summarising Philippe's pre-coup history, which involved reincarnation as a police chief following the demobilisation of the military, Farmer writes:  "During his tenure, the UN International Civilian Mission learned, dozens of suspected gang members were summarily executed, most of them by police under the command of Philippe's deputy. The US embassy has also implicated Philippe in drug smuggling during his police career. Crimes committed in large part by ex-military policemen are often pinned on Aristide, even though he sought to prevent coup-happy human rights abusers from ending up in these posts."  Farmer also noted that "Philippe has been quoted as saying that the man he most admires is Pinochet". The bloody legacy of the Chilean dictator offers a reminder of how helpful US-backed coups and violence can be when it comes to introducing neoliberal reforms.  After the second overthrow of Aristide, Sprague writes, the temporary regime set about "securing [Haiti] as a platform through which global capital could flow freely", in accordance with instructions from the IMF and other interested parties:  "The interim government laid off between eight and ten thousand civil sector workers, many from the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince. Other programmes under the Aristide government, such as subsidised rice for the poor, literacy centres and water supply projects, came to a halt following the coup d'état."  The long-fantasised-about mass privatisation of Haitian state assets, however, appeared more difficult to pull off - until, that is, the country was shattered by the 2010 earthquake and control over Haiti's energy, water and other sectors was divvied up between international players like the World Bank and USAID. The 2011 debut of singer-turned-head of state Michel Martelly, elected with the support of a mere 16.7 per cent of the electorate and described by former Financial Times journalist Matt Kennard as a "shock president" prepared to enforce economic shock therapy, seems to have set the stage for the conversion of Haiti into a neoliberal fairytale kingdom.  It is fitting that Martelly, whose presidential objectives include a resurrection of the Haitian armed forces rather than the pursuit of projects benefitting the majority of the nation's citizens, is himself a longtime close associate of Duvalier's paramilitary Tonton Macoutes.  Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in 2011. She is a member of the Jacobian Magazine editorial board, and her articles have appeared in the  London Review of Books blog, AlterNet and many other publications. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Outsiders EXPECT burning tires in Haiti … not accurate reporting

by Kevin Pina

Friday, Sept. 21, saw yet another in a series of large demonstrations across Haiti. The largest protests were registered in Cap Haitien and La Cayes, Haiti’s second and third largest cities, against what many protestors called “the corruption of the Martelly regime.”

Chanting “Down with Martelly and the pink hunger,” referring to President Martelly’s campaign color, Haitians protesting his corrupt regime filled the streets of Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city. – Photo: Radio Caribes FM, Haiti

Newly assigned U.S. Ambassador Pamela White dismissed the demonstrations of real, legitimate anger at Haiti’s huge and growing economic disparity as “SO unfortunate. Burning tires will not change a thing. They will turn off international business interests.” – Photo: AlterPress

Thousands took to the streets chanting slogans such as “Down with Martelly and the pink hunger,” a clear reference to the color associated with the president’s election campaign and his supporters. While Haitian news outlets such as Radio Caraibe, Radio Vision 2000 and Le Matin reported on the demonstrations, the only foreign news agencies to write about them appear to be RFI and AlterPress.

On the same day, the new U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Pamela A. White, inaugurated her new personal Twitter account @AmbPWhite. As news of the protests against Martelly began to spread throughout Haiti, Ambassador White tweeted her disapproval: “These demonstrations are SO unfortunate. Burning tires will not change a thing. They will turn off international business interests.”

This was immediately followed by the U.S. ambassador’s admonishment: “Outsiders EXPECT burning tires in Haiti. Let’s not give them what they have learned to expect but a better way forward – like talking.” Now exactly who White was referring to as “outsiders,” given that she was only sworn into her post on July 18, remained unclear. 

That she seems to either be unaware or disingenuous about the increasing evidence of growing corruption in the current Haitian government and the commiserate misery and hunger facing Haitians was crystal clear.

What she failed to acknowledge is that the thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets against corruption and hunger in Haiti were “talking” in the only way they felt possible, even as she was dismissing them as merely “burning tires.” They have been “talking” for several months now and no one in power seems to be listening to them, especially Martelly and, apparently, the U.S. Embassy.

More interesting was that not a single U.S. news outlet filed a story in English on the demonstrations. Most conspicuously absent in their coverage was The Miami Herald, whose Caribbean correspondent, Jacqueline Charles, was busy tweeting about Haitian news of the protests throughout the morning despite claiming to be on vacation.

Ironically, Charles had been among the first the same day to endorse Ambassador White’s new Twitter account with the now famous hash-tag #FF or Follow Friday. Ambassador White responded by heaping praise upon her for an article she recently wrote about a multimillion-dollar Haiti seaport project. The U.S. ambassador genuflected to “@jacquiecharles wonderful piece in the Miami Herald; thank you for comprehensive reporting.”

Unfortunately, Charles’ “comprehensive reporting” did not include a single word written for The Miami Herald about the protests against Martelly rocking Haiti. Not a word published despite her clear knowledge of events, including tweeting a picture of Martelly and the Right Honorable Michaëlle Jean, UNESCO special envoy for Haiti “at a new University outside O’ Cap, where tires r burning.”

To say that The Miami Herald was conspicuously absent in covering what has to be the largest protests against corruption in Haiti in recent memory is an understatement. This is especially true in light of The Miami Herald’s zealous and extensive coverage of past political scandal and corruption allegedly involving former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Writing about government kickbacks in a telecommunications scandal in Haiti dating back to the early 2000s, The Miami Herald printed on July 10: “Aristide is not identified by name in the indictment. But defense attorneys say ‘Official B’ referenced in the corruption indictment is indeed the ex-president.” Reuters would later write of The Miami Herald’s assertion, “A lawyer for Aristide vehemently denied the allegation, which could not be independently confirmed.”

Without a shred of evidence, The Miami Herald would then go so far as to try to connect Aristide to the assassination of the father of one of the defendants in the case, “He was assassinated just days after The Miami Herald reported in March that the son was cooperating with the Justice Department in a related kickback probe into deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.” Yes, The Miami Herald is well-known for its own brand of “comprehensive reporting” about corruption in Haiti.

With all the great interest and attention The Miami Herald paid to past corruption cases in Haiti, would it be too much to expect they might ink something, anything, about recent large anti-corruption protests in the country? Apparently not, when the U.S. ambassador is obsessed with burning tires harming Haiti’s image with foreign investors or when demonstrators are targeting Martelly and his cronies.

Kevin Pina, founding editor of the Haiti Information Project (HIP), winner of the Project Censored 2008 Real News Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and senior producer for Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio, can be reached at hip@teledyol.net.

Haiti: No more words, people want deeds

BY G. DUNKEL-Workers World.org

Photo by Frantz Etienne

A number of strong, militant protests against the government of Michel Martelly have taken place in Cap-Haitien, the second largest city in Haiti, in the past few weeks. Demonstrators have burned tires and held mass marches. Haitian cops and Minustah — the United Nation’s occupying force in Haiti — using tear gas and live rounds, fired into the air, forcing demonstrations back from government offices.

Some 20 popular organizations and outspoken opposition figures Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles and activist leader Pierrot Augustin called the protests. Michel Martelly is the Haitian president that the U.S. maneuvered to install last year.

These protests condemned government indifference, corruption, lawlessness, the high cost of living, environmental degradation and, above all, Martelly’s broken promises — all general issues throughout Haiti. They also challenged a land-grab local big shots with ties to the Martelly regime were trying to pull off. The high cost of living had become painfully obvious to parents who couldn’t pay for the supplies and fees their children needed to return to school. (Haïti-Liberté, Sept. 19)

Marchers yelled, “Down with Martelly! Down with corruption! Down with expulsions! Down with the high cost of living!” “Expulsions” is the term Haitians use to describe what happens when a big landowner kicks peasants off land that the peasants have been tilling, sometimes for decades, to eke out a living.

Protests, general strikes, picket lines and marches over these issues took place in many other parts of the country, as well as in Cap-Haitien.

In Les Cayes, Haiti’s third largest city, people widely honored the Sept. 14 general strike. Most businesses were closed, including gas stations, public markets and mass transportation. Small business owners in the south of Haiti, where Les Cayes is located, previously supported Martelly but have moved into opposition over growing lawlessness and arbitrary taxation along with blatant corruption. The even poorer workers, peasants and unemployed of Les Cayes gave them plenty of support.

The day before the strike, the state secretary for communications, Joseph Guyler C. Delva, showed up in Les Cayes with 400,000 gourdes ($10,000 U.S.) to bribe local leaders to call it off.

When Delva debated a local opposition figure named Gabriel Fortune at the Les Cayes radio station, demonstrators, many of them former Martelly supporters, gathered outside the station and accused Delva of being “a defender of the devil” and the Martelly government’s “propaganda chief.” (Haïti-Liberté, Sept. 19) The cops had to be called to get Delva out of the station safely.

The many demonstrations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, protested the general issues of corruption, incompetence and subservience to foreign financial institutions and raised the particular needs of the organizations calling the protest. On Sept. 10, the National Union of Haiti’s University Teachers (UNNOH), led by professor Josue Merilien, marched through Port-au-Prince to demand open access to the school system in Haiti for all students and decent wages for professors.

The next day, the Movement for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for Haitians (Moleghaf) demonstrated for job creation, a change in the living conditions of marginalized populations and a lower cost of living.

On Sept. 12, the Platform of Victimized Employees of Public Enterprises (Pevep), consisting of hundreds of people laid off illegally and arbitrarily from state enterprises, demonstrated to get their jobs back. Pevep says these dismissals were the result of neoliberal policies that the U.S. government and international financial institutions forced on Haiti. Even though the children of Pevep members were on the march, when they went by the earthquake-wrecked National Palace, which is currently being torn down by an NGO, the cops attacked with tear gas.

More demonstrations took place in Port-au-Prince and smaller Haitian cities, and there have been calls issued for some later in September. Popular anger against the Martelly clique is growing and events don’t seem to be breaking his way.