Time, By Tim Padgett / Port-au-Prince, Wednesday, Aug. 04, 2010
Hip-hop, more than most pop genres, is something of a pulpit, urban fire
and brimstone garbed in baggy pants and backward caps. So it's little wonder
that one of the music form's icons, Haitian-American superstar Wyclef Jean,
is the son of a Nazarene preacher ‹ or that he likens himself, as a child of
the Haitian diaspora, to a modern-day Moses, destined to return and lead his
people out of bondage. Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake, which ravaged the western
hemisphere's poorest country and killed more than 200,000 people, was the
biblical event that sealed his calling. After days of helping ferry mangled
Haitian corpses to morgues, Jean felt as if he'd "finished the journey from
my basket in the bulrushes to standing in front of the burning bush," he
told me this week. "I knew I'd have to take the next step."
That would be running for President of Haiti. Jean told TIME he is going to
announce his candidacy for the Nov. 28 election just days before the Aug. 7
deadline. One plan that was discussed, loaded with as much Mosaic symbolism
as a news cycle can hold, called for him to declare his candidacy on Aug. 5
upon arriving in Port-au-Prince from New York City, where he grew up after
leaving Haiti with his family at age 9. "If not for the earthquake, I
probably would have waited another 10 years before doing this," Jean says.
"The quake drove home to me that Haiti can't wait another 10 years for us to
bring it into the 21st century." Jean sees no contradiction between his life
as an artist and his ambitions as a politician. "If I can't take five years
out to serve my country as President," he argues, "then everything I've been
singing about, like equal rights, doesn't mean anything."
It's tempting to dismiss this as flaky performance art, a publicity stunt
from the same guy who just a few years ago recorded a number called
"President" that included the refrain "If I was President." But Jean's
chances as well as his motives seem solid. And there are good reasons for
Haitians ‹ and the U.S.-led international donor community, which is
bankrolling Haiti's long slog to the 21st century ‹ to take this particular
hip-hop politician seriously. Pop-culture celebrity hardly disqualifies you
from high office today. (The last time I looked, an action hero was still
running California.) And in Haiti, where half the population of about 9
million is under age 25, it's an asset as golden as a rapper's chains. Amid
Haiti's gray postquake rubble, Jean is far more popular with that young
cohort than their chronically corrupt and inept mainstream politicians are,
and he'll likely galvanize youth participation in the election.
More important, Jean stands to prove that fame can do more than lift voter
turnout ‹ or raise millions of dollars for earthquake victims, as his Yéle
Haiti (Haiti Freedom Cry) foundation has this year. His presidential run,
win or lose, could build a long-awaited bridge between Haiti and its
diaspora: a legion of expatriates and their progeny, many of them successful
in pursuits spanning every field, who number 800,000 in the U.S. alone.
International aid managers agree that Haiti really can't recover from the
quake unless it taps into the education, capital, entrepreneurial drive and
love for mother country that Jean epitomizes ‹ even if his French (one of
Haiti's official languages) is poor and his Creole (the other) is rusty. "A
lot of Haitians are excited about this," says Marvel Dandin, a popular
Port-au-Prince radio broadcaster. "Given the awful situation in Haiti right
now," he says, "most people don't care if the President speaks fluent
Creole."
Accentuating the Positive
Jean's celebrity candidacy at least promises to keep an erratic media more
regularly focused on Haiti's awful situation. International donors have
pledged some $10 billion in aid, but seven months after the earthquake,
mountains of shattered concrete still choke Port-au-Prince's streets, and
more than a million people remain homeless, trapped in squalid tent cities
as a sclerotic government bureaucracy and loosely organized aid groups
struggle to relocate them to decent temporary shelters. The Caribbean
hurricane season, which reaches its peak in about a month, threatens to make
conditions even uglier.
Jean has spent most of his life trying to show the world the positive side
of star-crossed Haiti. Despite his Brooklyn and New Jersey upbringing ‹
where he recalls weekly "beat up a Haitian" days at his schools ‹ he proudly
embraced the nation, even when, in the 1980s and '90s, Haiti was an abject
byword for boat people, AIDS and dictators. "A lot of us focused on
assimilation in the U.S.," says Jean's younger brother Sam, a New York
entertainment lawyer. "Clef was unabashedly proud to be Haitian long before
it was in vogue." So much so that Jean never took U.S. citizenship, instead
carrying a Haitian passport on his international concert tours.
Jean brought Haiti and its culture into his Grammy-winning music too. As a
member of the groundbreaking hip-hop group the Fugees (short for refugees)
in the mid-'90s, and then as a solo act, Jean built compas, rasin and other
Haitian rhythms into hits like "Gone Till November." His work earned him a
reputation as Haiti's Bob Marley, helping foreigners unearth the vibrant
culture so often buried under the misery. Not that he left out the misery:
like Marley's songs, Jean's exude a raw but poetic social content. The video
for his 2007 hit "Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)," which examines exploitation
both sexual and national, is set in a camp for refugees facing deportation.
Now he wants to move beyond music. Jean has gotten so involved with not just
the culture but the cause of Haiti that he feels it's only logical to follow
other artist-to-statesman career trajectories. (He mentions Ronald Reagan
and former Czech President Vaclav Havel as examples of the type.) Yéle Haiti
has secured scholarships and aid for thousands of destitute Haitian kids;
since the earthquake, the Yéle Corps has given Haitians jobs removing rubble
and housing the displaced. Jean sits through the kind of development
conferences in Washington and Europe that would bore most do-gooder celebs
to tears. "I want to be part of a different kind of celebrity," he says,
"one that thinks not just about charity but policy." He's been noticed; in
2007, Haitian President René Préval appointed Jean as an ambassador at
large.
Yet serious doubts persist that Jean is ready for a role beyond that of
goodwill envoy ‹ most of them focused on his controversial management of
Yéle Haiti. Shortly after the quake, when Jean had been all but canonized
for his Haiti work, skeptics pointed out that his foundation had been paying
hundreds of thousands of dollars to production companies owned by him or his
associates. Florida, where the charity has an office, has sanctioned it four
times in the past six years for disclosure violations, and watchdogs like
Charity Navigator have questioned it for filing tax returns that were
"beyond late." Jean has acknowledged the questionable payments but blamed
them on accounting errors. He insists the problems have been fixed since he
hired a reputable Washington accounting firm to whip Yéle Haiti's books into
shape. "I took responsibility," he says. "I took the bullet."
Not the Elite's Favorite Son
More shots may be fired at his claim of eligibility for the presidency. A
candidate is required to have resided in Haiti for five consecutive years.
Jean's advisers insist that the nine years he lived in the country after
birth satisfy that criterion. But Haiti's political and business elites ‹
who, after living through the populist ordeal of former Roman Catholic
priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide's two presidencies in the 1990s and 2000s,
aren't exactly thrilled about the prospects of a diaspora hip-hopper getting
elected ‹ are likely to grab any challenge they can throw at Jean.
That Haitian political class, it should be remembered, has its own epic
shortcomings, whether measured by incompetence or venality. (No other
Haitian politician has yet declared a run for the presidency, although
Jean's uncle Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., is reportedly
mulling his own campaign.) Haiti's traditional elite class has shown an
utter failure ‹ and lack of will ‹ to reform a medieval land-ownership
system, something that is vital to getting the country's crucial
population-relocation project going. Most Haitians consider President Préval
to have been all but AWOL since the quake, and tales of bureaucratic
shakedowns to get foreign-donated relief equipment and supplies out of
customs are appallingly commonplace.
Against that backdrop, Haitian voters may well decide that Jean and his
reformist party, Ensemble Nous Faut (We Must Do It Together), could do no
worse than the old guard and could shake things up for the better. His
campaign slogan, "Face à Face" (Face to Face), he says, is a signal that
"the old school will have to fall in line with a new model. Haitian
government will finally be conducted out in the open."
Outside Haiti, Jean has little trouble finding support. Many diaspora
leaders are rooting for him. (He's married to a Haitian American, New York
fashion designer Marie Claudinette.) But given the long-held disdain the
island elite holds for expats, the diaspora's hope is tempered. "I think
Wyclef's candidacy is going to surprise a lot of people," says Florida state
representative Phillip Brutus, a Haitian American from Miami and a candidate
for the U.S. Congress. "But I fear that if you parachute him into the
Haitian presidency, the culture of corruption and cronyism there may well
eat him alive."
Jean insists he's not playing "the naive idealist." He gets much of his
platform, he says, "right out of the playbook" of former U.S. President Bill
Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti, whose pragmatic vision of
bringing business, government and civil society together for development
ventures was bearing fruit on the island before the earthquake hit. "I'm the
only man who can stand in the middle and get the diaspora and Haiti's elite
families to cooperate that same way," says Jean. (It's not a ridiculous
claim: If Ivory Coast soccer phenom Didier Drogba could bring his country's
warring factions together a few years ago, who's to say Jean can't use his
renown to succeed in Haiti?) Jean's priority ‹ one he shares with Haiti's
Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, who is one of Haiti's few respected pols
but is unlikely to run for President ‹ is to disperse both power and
population from overcrowded Port-au-Prince and revive Haiti's fallow
agricultural sector with new rural communities tied to schools, clinics and
businesses.
His secret weapon, Jean says, is that Haiti's "enormous youth population
doesn't believe in [its] politicians anymore." On one Port-au-Prince street
corner, an unemployed tough, Sydney Meristal, 23, says he will vote for the
first time in November because of Jean. "Wyclef loves Haiti. He has ideas
for Haiti," says Meristal, idling away the time on his motorcycle. "He'll
win." But Steve Burr-Renauld, 23, who hails from an affluent family in the
capital, doesn't think a hip-hop star has the credentials to run. "What if
[American rapper] Jay-Z became President of the U.S.?" he asks. "That would
never happen." If Jean were elected President of Haiti, Burr-Renauld warns,
it would be like another earthquake aftershock.
Jean admits that "it's a hard thing for people to take artists seriously"
in the political arena. In the chorus of "President" ‹ "I'd get elected on
Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday and back to work on
Monday" ‹ Jean makes you wonder if he takes politics all that seriously
himself. But the verses remind you that he's in Old Testament earnestness
about it: "The radio won't play this song/ They call this rebel music/ But
how can you refuse it, children of Moses?"
‹ With reporting by Jessica Desvarieux / Port-au-Prince
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
HAITI SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE
By Beverly Bell
July 12, 2010
Haiti during the World Cup is much like my hometown of New Orleans was
during the Superbowl. Don’t try to make plans with anyone to do anything
during a game. I make the mistake of trying to go to a cell phone office during that time; employees sit hypnotized in front of the big-screen TV, unwilling to be
distracted by clients.
From the cell phone store I catch a taxi to a women’s meeting.
As usual, everyone in the cab is sharing stories about evenman la, the
event. You hear the word all day long. (In New Orleans, four and half years
later, the same is true of ‘Katrina.’) Six months later,
with a little distance and a lot of moxie, many of the stories of misery
have evolved into dramatic tales, complete with humor. The driver and the
four other passengers wedged into the little Nissan are laughing loudly at
one such account.
I tell them I am amazed that they can laugh. The man against whom my thigh
is jammed says, “If you stay traumatized all the time, it’s not good for
you. You have to find joy to diminish it.”
In some ways, everything has changed since the earthquake. Almost one in
seven are living in streets or camps in wretched conditions. No
comprehensive, or even piecemeal, plan for addressing homelessness has been
revealed by anyone in power, except to move them from one tent city to
another. Hurricane season is underway, but no preparations have been made to
protect those living under bed sheets or pieces of nylon.
Food aid has been suspended except as “food for work.” Water aid is soon to
be suspended, too, since Haitian businessmen have complained that it is
undermining their profits. Many of the free clinics that were created in the
humanitarian outpouring after the disaster have closed up shop.
Imagine that six months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians were still
trapped in the Superdome and the Arena. Imagine that they were not given
food or even, usually, drinking water. That they shared filthy
port-o-potties with thousands and that they had to stand in long lines in
the hot sun to get buckets of water for bathing. That they had no
electricity or lighting to speak of, not even flash lights. That the
government had never announced a plan to get them out of there and back into
homes, or even checked to see how they were doing.
A commission, half-composed of foreigners, today has formal oversight over
Haiti and its reconstruction.
It was elected by no one and accountable to no one. It issues no reports,
gives no State of the Union address. There is no number to call to learn its
position on a given topic or to register one’s opposition. I’ve heard
numerous people here bitterly refer to U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton,
co-director of this Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, as
‘president of Haiti.’
But in many ways, Haiti is the same as it ever was. The elected government
and its associates – what is sometimes referred to here as the political
class – are, as always, apathetic in the face of desperate citizens’ needs.
One young woman said to me “the Haitian government is deaf, dumb, and mute.”
Ricardo commented, “From the first second after the earthquake, the
government fled. Not the first minute, the first second.”
As they’ve been for many decades, demonstrations are (excepting, as
mentioned, during the World Cup) one outlet for the anger of marginalized
Haitian citizens, who have no other advocacy options within the formal
system. Citizens regularly take to the streets to demand housing for the
displaced, good education, and support of national agricultural production.
They have recently protested violence by the U.N. security mission,
non-payment of wages to state workers and teachers, and the introduction of
toxic Monsanto seeds, among other complaints.
Grassroots organizations still meet regularly to develop their strategies
for political change, as they have throughout history. Across the country on
any given day, small groups perch on broken chairs under tarps in refugee
camps, huddle amidst rubble in the courtyards of earthquake-destroyed
schools, or sweat under thatched-roof gazebos. Despite all, they remain
convinced that, as the slogan adapted from the World Social Forum says,
another Haiti is possible – or at least that they can win more justice than
they currently have. They are developing pressure points for housing rights
and protection against rape for those in camps. Some plan information
campaigns aimed at sweatshop workers, others programs to politicize youth.
The agendas are seemingly endless.
Haiti is the same in much more plebeian ways, too. No one on the block where
I’m staying can breathe for two days because of the thick and putrid smoke
from wood charcoal being made up the ravine. Flies and the mosquitoes change
shifts at sunset and sunrise, while sweat pulls 24-hour shifts. Pigs forage
in garbage piles downtown. For a few cents, people purchase from street
vendors meals of sugar cane, or fried bananas, or cassava bread and peanut
butter with cayenne. They wear shoes cracked down the middle of the sole
that, most anywhere else, would have been thrown away long ago.
Boys fly homemade kites and girls carry water. Motorcycles zip by with as
many as five people on them. Salesmen stand at the front of buses and
display jars of dark liquid which they tell their audience will cure
fibroids, high blood pressure, and eczema. Little boys stand facing out from
the walls to urinate, men stand facing towards the walls to urinate. Women
pull thin flowered handkerchiefs from their bras and slowly unwrap them to
produce crumpled gourd notes.
People insist on giving you a cup of coffee as though they had nothing else
to do in the world. Women walk through the streets with baskets on their
head, chanting in loud voices, “I got peas, I got carrots, I got cabbage.”
Pedestrians pause on the sidewalk to wipe the thick dust off their shoes
with a little scrap of toilet paper, though the shoes will become filthy
again momentarily. Men sit on chairs in sidewalk barber shops, getting
shaves. Girls flap down the streets in backless sandals, swinging their
behinds. Neighbors break up coupling cats, because who needs more kittens?
As always, to disarm hostile situations, many make their voices supplicatory
and call each other cheri. In crowded streets, people anger easily and laugh
easily. They engage in gestures of great tenderness and harsh meanness. They
show impressive generosity and rip off the most vulnerable.
Now it’s Saturday night, and neighbors do what they do everywhere that is
big on community and short on funds: gather on stoops and curbs to talk.
Mirlene, who used to cook for a friend of mine, walks up the street to meet
me. We haven’t seen each other since the earthquake, so we arrange ourselves
on a curb, tuck the excess cloth of our skirts under our knees, and begin
with the only possible topic: the event.
While we’re talking, a couple of men come join us. I offer them my
condolences for the loss of Argentina. One lifts his hands heavenward and
says, “We’re resigned.” Then: “We’ve lost the battle, but we haven’t lost
the war.”
“Spoken like a true Haitian,” I tell him.
*Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years.
She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of
Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds,
www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic
alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy
Studies.*
July 12, 2010
Haiti during the World Cup is much like my hometown of New Orleans was
during the Superbowl. Don’t try to make plans with anyone to do anything
during a game. I make the mistake of trying to go to a cell phone office during that time; employees sit hypnotized in front of the big-screen TV, unwilling to be
distracted by clients.
From the cell phone store I catch a taxi to a women’s meeting.
As usual, everyone in the cab is sharing stories about evenman la, the
event. You hear the word all day long. (In New Orleans, four and half years
later, the same is true of ‘Katrina.’) Six months later,
with a little distance and a lot of moxie, many of the stories of misery
have evolved into dramatic tales, complete with humor. The driver and the
four other passengers wedged into the little Nissan are laughing loudly at
one such account.
I tell them I am amazed that they can laugh. The man against whom my thigh
is jammed says, “If you stay traumatized all the time, it’s not good for
you. You have to find joy to diminish it.”
In some ways, everything has changed since the earthquake. Almost one in
seven are living in streets or camps in wretched conditions. No
comprehensive, or even piecemeal, plan for addressing homelessness has been
revealed by anyone in power, except to move them from one tent city to
another. Hurricane season is underway, but no preparations have been made to
protect those living under bed sheets or pieces of nylon.
Food aid has been suspended except as “food for work.” Water aid is soon to
be suspended, too, since Haitian businessmen have complained that it is
undermining their profits. Many of the free clinics that were created in the
humanitarian outpouring after the disaster have closed up shop.
Imagine that six months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians were still
trapped in the Superdome and the Arena. Imagine that they were not given
food or even, usually, drinking water. That they shared filthy
port-o-potties with thousands and that they had to stand in long lines in
the hot sun to get buckets of water for bathing. That they had no
electricity or lighting to speak of, not even flash lights. That the
government had never announced a plan to get them out of there and back into
homes, or even checked to see how they were doing.
A commission, half-composed of foreigners, today has formal oversight over
Haiti and its reconstruction.
It was elected by no one and accountable to no one. It issues no reports,
gives no State of the Union address. There is no number to call to learn its
position on a given topic or to register one’s opposition. I’ve heard
numerous people here bitterly refer to U.N. Special Envoy Bill Clinton,
co-director of this Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, as
‘president of Haiti.’
But in many ways, Haiti is the same as it ever was. The elected government
and its associates – what is sometimes referred to here as the political
class – are, as always, apathetic in the face of desperate citizens’ needs.
One young woman said to me “the Haitian government is deaf, dumb, and mute.”
Ricardo commented, “From the first second after the earthquake, the
government fled. Not the first minute, the first second.”
As they’ve been for many decades, demonstrations are (excepting, as
mentioned, during the World Cup) one outlet for the anger of marginalized
Haitian citizens, who have no other advocacy options within the formal
system. Citizens regularly take to the streets to demand housing for the
displaced, good education, and support of national agricultural production.
They have recently protested violence by the U.N. security mission,
non-payment of wages to state workers and teachers, and the introduction of
toxic Monsanto seeds, among other complaints.
Grassroots organizations still meet regularly to develop their strategies
for political change, as they have throughout history. Across the country on
any given day, small groups perch on broken chairs under tarps in refugee
camps, huddle amidst rubble in the courtyards of earthquake-destroyed
schools, or sweat under thatched-roof gazebos. Despite all, they remain
convinced that, as the slogan adapted from the World Social Forum says,
another Haiti is possible – or at least that they can win more justice than
they currently have. They are developing pressure points for housing rights
and protection against rape for those in camps. Some plan information
campaigns aimed at sweatshop workers, others programs to politicize youth.
The agendas are seemingly endless.
Haiti is the same in much more plebeian ways, too. No one on the block where
I’m staying can breathe for two days because of the thick and putrid smoke
from wood charcoal being made up the ravine. Flies and the mosquitoes change
shifts at sunset and sunrise, while sweat pulls 24-hour shifts. Pigs forage
in garbage piles downtown. For a few cents, people purchase from street
vendors meals of sugar cane, or fried bananas, or cassava bread and peanut
butter with cayenne. They wear shoes cracked down the middle of the sole
that, most anywhere else, would have been thrown away long ago.
Boys fly homemade kites and girls carry water. Motorcycles zip by with as
many as five people on them. Salesmen stand at the front of buses and
display jars of dark liquid which they tell their audience will cure
fibroids, high blood pressure, and eczema. Little boys stand facing out from
the walls to urinate, men stand facing towards the walls to urinate. Women
pull thin flowered handkerchiefs from their bras and slowly unwrap them to
produce crumpled gourd notes.
People insist on giving you a cup of coffee as though they had nothing else
to do in the world. Women walk through the streets with baskets on their
head, chanting in loud voices, “I got peas, I got carrots, I got cabbage.”
Pedestrians pause on the sidewalk to wipe the thick dust off their shoes
with a little scrap of toilet paper, though the shoes will become filthy
again momentarily. Men sit on chairs in sidewalk barber shops, getting
shaves. Girls flap down the streets in backless sandals, swinging their
behinds. Neighbors break up coupling cats, because who needs more kittens?
As always, to disarm hostile situations, many make their voices supplicatory
and call each other cheri. In crowded streets, people anger easily and laugh
easily. They engage in gestures of great tenderness and harsh meanness. They
show impressive generosity and rip off the most vulnerable.
Now it’s Saturday night, and neighbors do what they do everywhere that is
big on community and short on funds: gather on stoops and curbs to talk.
Mirlene, who used to cook for a friend of mine, walks up the street to meet
me. We haven’t seen each other since the earthquake, so we arrange ourselves
on a curb, tuck the excess cloth of our skirts under our knees, and begin
with the only possible topic: the event.
While we’re talking, a couple of men come join us. I offer them my
condolences for the loss of Argentina. One lifts his hands heavenward and
says, “We’re resigned.” Then: “We’ve lost the battle, but we haven’t lost
the war.”
“Spoken like a true Haitian,” I tell him.
*Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years.
She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of
Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds,
www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic
alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy
Studies.*
Monday, June 28, 2010
Travel Warning?
Hmm....In a way I understand-but then again...Not really. Keep your citizens safe USA...Let the others suffer when you could step up and do something about it because your sitting comforatable in your living room watching your cable television surfing the web on your latop drinking your beer sipping your wine oblivious to the reality occurring still in Haiti after the January Earthquake...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Travel Warning - Haiti
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
June 24, 2010
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the situation in Haiti in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince. This replaces the Travel Warning for Haiti dated March 15, 2010, and provides updated information for U.S. citizens in Haiti.
The Department of State strongly urges U.S. citizens to avoid travel to Haiti. The January 12 earthquake caused significant damage to key infrastructure and access to basic services remains limited. The country continues to experience shortages of food, drinking water, transportation and adequate shelter. The earthquake significantly reduced the capacity of Port-au-Prince’s medical facilities and inadequate public sanitation poses serious health risks. While the Embassy's ability to provide emergency consular services has improved in the months following the earthquake, it is still limited. The level of violent crime in Port-au-Prince, including murder and kidnapping, remains high.
Those wishing to assist in Haiti relief efforts should be aware that despite their good intentions, travel to Haiti will increase the burden on a system already struggling to support those in need on the ground. Those wishing to volunteer their services are advised that Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are reporting that their capacity to absorb additional volunteers is limited. Cash donations are the most effective way to help the relief effort in Haiti. Cash allows established organizations to purchase the exact type and quantity of items needed to help those affected by the earthquake without having to pay the high costs associated with transporting physical donations to Haiti. Financial contributions can be transferred quickly and reduce the challenges posed by limited staff, equipment, and space. Cash donations also support Haiti's local economy and ensure that culturally and environmentally appropriate assistance is rendered. The
following website has information on how to assist in the Haiti earthquake relief effort: http://www.whitehouse.gov/HaitiEarthquake
U.S. citizens who intend to work for an organization involved in relief efforts in Haiti should be aware that living conditions are difficult, and the availability of food supplies, clean drinking water and adequate shelter in Haiti is limited. U.S. citizens seeking work with a relief organization should confirm before traveling to Haiti that the organization has the capability to provide food, water, transportation, and shelter for its paid and volunteer workers. All relief organizations should have a security plan in place for their personnel.
Strong aftershocks are likely for months after an earthquake. In the event of an aftershock, persons outside should avoid falling debris by moving to open spaces, away from walls, windows, buildings and other structures that may collapse. If indoors, take shelter beside furniture, not underneath. Avoid damaged buildings and downed power lines. Do not use matches, lighters, candles, or any open flame in case there are disrupted gas lines.
U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in Haiti despite this warning are reminded that there remains a persistent danger of violent crime, including armed robbery, homicide, and kidnapping. In particular, there have been a number of recent cases in which travelers arriving in Port-au-Prince on flights from the United States were attacked and robbed while traveling in cars away from the airport. At least two American citizens have been shot and killed in such incidents in recent months. Police authorities believe criminals may be targeting travelers arriving on flights from the United States, following them, and attacking once they are out of the area. Travelers are advised to use extra caution in arranging transportation from the airport. Most kidnappings are criminal in nature, and the kidnappers make no distinctions of nationality, race, gender, or age. Some kidnap victims have been killed, shot, sexually assaulted, or physically abused. While the
capacity and capabilities of the Haitian National Police have improved since 2006, the presence of UN stabilization force (MINUSTAH) peacekeeping troops and UN-formed police units remain critical to maintaining an adequate level of security throughout the country. The lack of civil protections in Haiti, as well as the limited capability of local law enforcement to resolve crime, further compounds the security threat to American citizens.
While MINUSTAH remains fully deployed and is assisting the Government of Haiti in providing security, travel is always hazardous within Port-au-Prince. U.S. Embassy personnel are under an Embassy-imposed curfew and must remain in their homes or in U.S. government facilities during the curfew. Some areas are off-limits to Embassy staff after dark, including downtown Port-au-Prince. The Embassy restricts travel by its staff to some areas outside of Port-au-Prince because of the prevailing road, weather, or security conditions. This may constrain our ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens outside Port-au-Prince. Demonstrations and violence may occasionally limit Embassy operations to emergency services, even within Port-au-Prince.
U.S. citizens who choose to travel to Haiti despite this Travel Warning are urged to register their travel through the State Department's travel registration website. The Embassy of the United States Port-au-Prince Haiti is located at Boulevard du 15 October, Tabarre 41, Tabarre, Haiti, telephone: (509) (2) 229-8000, facsimile: (509) (2) 229-8027, email: acspap@state.gov American Citizens Services Unit office hours are 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Consular Section is closed on U.S. and local holidays. After hours, weekend & holidays: Please call Post One (U.S. Marine Guard) at (509) (2) 229-8000. The Marine guard will connect you with the Embassy Duty Officer.
While the Embassy’s ability to provide emergency consular services is limited, registration will enable receipt of warden messages via email. Current information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the United States, or for callers outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except U.S. federal holidays.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So...How on Earth can the United States Government claim that it is doing everything in its power to support Haiti-the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere previous to the Earthquake when now what they need more than ever is volunteers and individuals with the specific skills pertaining to rebuilding infrastructure and aiding those in the medical field who continue to work on and care for those affected by this travesty...I hope this upsets and outrages not only those in Haiti and who have been there but those who simply have a heart and care for their fellow human brothers and sisters mothers and fathers...Ignore this message of ignorance and misunderstanding, talk and listen to those who have been there and who have seen the reality of this catastrophe-Yes, it is a mess but how can one say that minimal water and food supplies is something to be worried about when the whole of Haiti is dealing with this and suffering because of it? The people of Haiti are beautiful people full of spirit and hope and need not only this from those in the position to help but they need courage from these people too.
Step Up.
Do the right thing.
Get involved.
Question Authority.
Love and let live.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Travel Warning - Haiti
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
June 24, 2010
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the situation in Haiti in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince. This replaces the Travel Warning for Haiti dated March 15, 2010, and provides updated information for U.S. citizens in Haiti.
The Department of State strongly urges U.S. citizens to avoid travel to Haiti. The January 12 earthquake caused significant damage to key infrastructure and access to basic services remains limited. The country continues to experience shortages of food, drinking water, transportation and adequate shelter. The earthquake significantly reduced the capacity of Port-au-Prince’s medical facilities and inadequate public sanitation poses serious health risks. While the Embassy's ability to provide emergency consular services has improved in the months following the earthquake, it is still limited. The level of violent crime in Port-au-Prince, including murder and kidnapping, remains high.
Those wishing to assist in Haiti relief efforts should be aware that despite their good intentions, travel to Haiti will increase the burden on a system already struggling to support those in need on the ground. Those wishing to volunteer their services are advised that Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are reporting that their capacity to absorb additional volunteers is limited. Cash donations are the most effective way to help the relief effort in Haiti. Cash allows established organizations to purchase the exact type and quantity of items needed to help those affected by the earthquake without having to pay the high costs associated with transporting physical donations to Haiti. Financial contributions can be transferred quickly and reduce the challenges posed by limited staff, equipment, and space. Cash donations also support Haiti's local economy and ensure that culturally and environmentally appropriate assistance is rendered. The
following website has information on how to assist in the Haiti earthquake relief effort: http://www.whitehouse.gov/HaitiEarthquake
U.S. citizens who intend to work for an organization involved in relief efforts in Haiti should be aware that living conditions are difficult, and the availability of food supplies, clean drinking water and adequate shelter in Haiti is limited. U.S. citizens seeking work with a relief organization should confirm before traveling to Haiti that the organization has the capability to provide food, water, transportation, and shelter for its paid and volunteer workers. All relief organizations should have a security plan in place for their personnel.
Strong aftershocks are likely for months after an earthquake. In the event of an aftershock, persons outside should avoid falling debris by moving to open spaces, away from walls, windows, buildings and other structures that may collapse. If indoors, take shelter beside furniture, not underneath. Avoid damaged buildings and downed power lines. Do not use matches, lighters, candles, or any open flame in case there are disrupted gas lines.
U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in Haiti despite this warning are reminded that there remains a persistent danger of violent crime, including armed robbery, homicide, and kidnapping. In particular, there have been a number of recent cases in which travelers arriving in Port-au-Prince on flights from the United States were attacked and robbed while traveling in cars away from the airport. At least two American citizens have been shot and killed in such incidents in recent months. Police authorities believe criminals may be targeting travelers arriving on flights from the United States, following them, and attacking once they are out of the area. Travelers are advised to use extra caution in arranging transportation from the airport. Most kidnappings are criminal in nature, and the kidnappers make no distinctions of nationality, race, gender, or age. Some kidnap victims have been killed, shot, sexually assaulted, or physically abused. While the
capacity and capabilities of the Haitian National Police have improved since 2006, the presence of UN stabilization force (MINUSTAH) peacekeeping troops and UN-formed police units remain critical to maintaining an adequate level of security throughout the country. The lack of civil protections in Haiti, as well as the limited capability of local law enforcement to resolve crime, further compounds the security threat to American citizens.
While MINUSTAH remains fully deployed and is assisting the Government of Haiti in providing security, travel is always hazardous within Port-au-Prince. U.S. Embassy personnel are under an Embassy-imposed curfew and must remain in their homes or in U.S. government facilities during the curfew. Some areas are off-limits to Embassy staff after dark, including downtown Port-au-Prince. The Embassy restricts travel by its staff to some areas outside of Port-au-Prince because of the prevailing road, weather, or security conditions. This may constrain our ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens outside Port-au-Prince. Demonstrations and violence may occasionally limit Embassy operations to emergency services, even within Port-au-Prince.
U.S. citizens who choose to travel to Haiti despite this Travel Warning are urged to register their travel through the State Department's travel registration website. The Embassy of the United States Port-au-Prince Haiti is located at Boulevard du 15 October, Tabarre 41, Tabarre, Haiti, telephone: (509) (2) 229-8000, facsimile: (509) (2) 229-8027, email: acspap@state.gov American Citizens Services Unit office hours are 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Consular Section is closed on U.S. and local holidays. After hours, weekend & holidays: Please call Post One (U.S. Marine Guard) at (509) (2) 229-8000. The Marine guard will connect you with the Embassy Duty Officer.
While the Embassy’s ability to provide emergency consular services is limited, registration will enable receipt of warden messages via email. Current information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the United States, or for callers outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except U.S. federal holidays.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So...How on Earth can the United States Government claim that it is doing everything in its power to support Haiti-the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere previous to the Earthquake when now what they need more than ever is volunteers and individuals with the specific skills pertaining to rebuilding infrastructure and aiding those in the medical field who continue to work on and care for those affected by this travesty...I hope this upsets and outrages not only those in Haiti and who have been there but those who simply have a heart and care for their fellow human brothers and sisters mothers and fathers...Ignore this message of ignorance and misunderstanding, talk and listen to those who have been there and who have seen the reality of this catastrophe-Yes, it is a mess but how can one say that minimal water and food supplies is something to be worried about when the whole of Haiti is dealing with this and suffering because of it? The people of Haiti are beautiful people full of spirit and hope and need not only this from those in the position to help but they need courage from these people too.
Step Up.
Do the right thing.
Get involved.
Question Authority.
Love and let live.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Miami Herald Article...
(Miami Herald, June 5, 2010)
A visitor finds sorrow and pain -- and beauty and kindness -- in Haiti
By TORY FIELD
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- We saw a woman selling dirt today. Dirt to eat. Walking downtown by the palace. Along Champs de Mars, which used to be a big open space but now is crammed tight with tents and tarps and cardboard and sheet-made homes pushed in to every scrap of bare ground. She was selling candy and crackers and dirt baked with salt and butter into small discs for eating.
I am remembering the conversation I overheard again and again in the United States right after the earthquake. People saying that they don't understand how Haiti has been the victim of so much hardship -- poverty, violence, coups, hurricanes and now this.
It is clear, from one minute being here, or from a few clear voices telling the history, that this latest tragedy is piled on top of a much larger mountain of pain. And that mountain is not the work of God or Mother Earth, but the work of humans inflicted on other humans. And that is a completely unnecessary, avoidable suffering, piled up for over 500 years.
...Le Marron Inconnu, "The Unknown Slave"- this beautiful sculpture, sits in what was once a large open space, by Champs de Mars, near the palace. Now it is completely surrounded by tents.
We are trying to take some pictures for the articles we are writing, but each time I pull it out I feel shameful. My friend and co-worker Deb, who is here documenting the effects of the earthquake and the work of popular movements, tells me when she was in Cite Soleil years ago she remembers graffiti that said, ``Tourist, do not take a picture of my suffering.''
Yesterday we took a taxi to go visit Marise.
....Marise is part of an organization in Port-au-Prince called KOFAVIV, working to ensure women's rights. She is the mother of five, the three youngest of whom she is now living with in a home built out of sticks and tarps.
We got in the taxi on the way to visit her, and a few minutes into the drive we were laughing with the driver about some little thing. And then Deb asked him, as she does of most everyone she talks to, if he lost anyone in the earthquake.
He pulled out a tiny picture, the size you get for school pictures of his beautiful little 8-year-old girl.
She was out playing in the yard near a wall when the earthquake happened and the wall fell on her. He dug her out himself and she had already passed. He wanted to take her to the countryside to bury her and was trying to gather the money to arrange getting there.
He waited three days, but after three days he could not wait any longer. So he had to wrap her carefully in a sheet and carry her into the street. Front-end loaders were coming through the streets to scoop up the bodies left on the curbs. He could not stand to leave her in the street to be scooped up by a machine. The only thing he could do was wrap her in a sheet and place her gently in the bucket of the front end loader himself -- to be driven away and buried in a mass grave. He says he thinks of her every minute.
"I am resigned,'' he says.
I hesitate repeating this story. This story that is not mine, but only witnessed, knowing that I, who am writing it, and you who are reading it, can be touched and then move on through the day, while someone else forever lives the depths of it. I wonder what greater purpose it serves, or if it numbs people to suffering to hear people's hard stories.
My hope is that maybe, in some complex configuration, that connects strangers across the world . . . some steady simple equation of ripple effects. . . that a heart hurting for this little girl will connect to some resolve to love larger.
The strength to nurture some other precious life.
Marise gets in the cab with us with kisses for everyone including the driver, whom she has never met. I imagine there is an undercurrent of understanding that they don't yet know about.
He says, ``I see my daughter all the time, especially when I am eating.'' She says, ``I cannot eat.''
We walk down the road to the house Marise has created. She is lovely and dignified and full of grief. I won't tell you her story right now. Only so much heartbreak can fit in one letter.
And though the heartbreak seems endless, there is so much more to be told. Endless gifts and lessons and beauty.
...Beauty like friendships that persist without spoken language, like the warmth and kindness I have been shown every day I have been here. Beauty like neighbors who daily watch out for each other, like doctors who do their work in the streets and clinics each day because their hearts demand it...
Beauty like the strength of so many Haitian people who despite countless reasons to feel hopeless are coming together hopeful and determined to rebuild something beautiful.
The author works with Other Worlds, an education and organizing collaborative that documents political, economic, and social alternatives that are flourishing around the world.
This piece is an excerpt from her daily journal.
A visitor finds sorrow and pain -- and beauty and kindness -- in Haiti
By TORY FIELD
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- We saw a woman selling dirt today. Dirt to eat. Walking downtown by the palace. Along Champs de Mars, which used to be a big open space but now is crammed tight with tents and tarps and cardboard and sheet-made homes pushed in to every scrap of bare ground. She was selling candy and crackers and dirt baked with salt and butter into small discs for eating.
I am remembering the conversation I overheard again and again in the United States right after the earthquake. People saying that they don't understand how Haiti has been the victim of so much hardship -- poverty, violence, coups, hurricanes and now this.
It is clear, from one minute being here, or from a few clear voices telling the history, that this latest tragedy is piled on top of a much larger mountain of pain. And that mountain is not the work of God or Mother Earth, but the work of humans inflicted on other humans. And that is a completely unnecessary, avoidable suffering, piled up for over 500 years.
...Le Marron Inconnu, "The Unknown Slave"- this beautiful sculpture, sits in what was once a large open space, by Champs de Mars, near the palace. Now it is completely surrounded by tents.
We are trying to take some pictures for the articles we are writing, but each time I pull it out I feel shameful. My friend and co-worker Deb, who is here documenting the effects of the earthquake and the work of popular movements, tells me when she was in Cite Soleil years ago she remembers graffiti that said, ``Tourist, do not take a picture of my suffering.''
Yesterday we took a taxi to go visit Marise.
....Marise is part of an organization in Port-au-Prince called KOFAVIV, working to ensure women's rights. She is the mother of five, the three youngest of whom she is now living with in a home built out of sticks and tarps.
We got in the taxi on the way to visit her, and a few minutes into the drive we were laughing with the driver about some little thing. And then Deb asked him, as she does of most everyone she talks to, if he lost anyone in the earthquake.
He pulled out a tiny picture, the size you get for school pictures of his beautiful little 8-year-old girl.
She was out playing in the yard near a wall when the earthquake happened and the wall fell on her. He dug her out himself and she had already passed. He wanted to take her to the countryside to bury her and was trying to gather the money to arrange getting there.
He waited three days, but after three days he could not wait any longer. So he had to wrap her carefully in a sheet and carry her into the street. Front-end loaders were coming through the streets to scoop up the bodies left on the curbs. He could not stand to leave her in the street to be scooped up by a machine. The only thing he could do was wrap her in a sheet and place her gently in the bucket of the front end loader himself -- to be driven away and buried in a mass grave. He says he thinks of her every minute.
"I am resigned,'' he says.
I hesitate repeating this story. This story that is not mine, but only witnessed, knowing that I, who am writing it, and you who are reading it, can be touched and then move on through the day, while someone else forever lives the depths of it. I wonder what greater purpose it serves, or if it numbs people to suffering to hear people's hard stories.
My hope is that maybe, in some complex configuration, that connects strangers across the world . . . some steady simple equation of ripple effects. . . that a heart hurting for this little girl will connect to some resolve to love larger.
The strength to nurture some other precious life.
Marise gets in the cab with us with kisses for everyone including the driver, whom she has never met. I imagine there is an undercurrent of understanding that they don't yet know about.
He says, ``I see my daughter all the time, especially when I am eating.'' She says, ``I cannot eat.''
We walk down the road to the house Marise has created. She is lovely and dignified and full of grief. I won't tell you her story right now. Only so much heartbreak can fit in one letter.
And though the heartbreak seems endless, there is so much more to be told. Endless gifts and lessons and beauty.
...Beauty like friendships that persist without spoken language, like the warmth and kindness I have been shown every day I have been here. Beauty like neighbors who daily watch out for each other, like doctors who do their work in the streets and clinics each day because their hearts demand it...
Beauty like the strength of so many Haitian people who despite countless reasons to feel hopeless are coming together hopeful and determined to rebuild something beautiful.
The author works with Other Worlds, an education and organizing collaborative that documents political, economic, and social alternatives that are flourishing around the world.
This piece is an excerpt from her daily journal.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Link to Pictures
Some of these pictures are somewhat graphic and may be disturbing, especially those under 18.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cal.hopwood/Haiti#
http://picasaweb.google.com/cal.hopwood/Haiti#
The Continuos Struggle
For months now after the EarthQuake Haitians have continued to suffer from lack of food, shelter, water, education...there is simple a lack of infrastructure there that is unfathomable to most living here in America or another global powerhouse of a country. Although many may have felt they did their part by sending a text to the Red Cross and therefore donating $10, this did very little in the long run. The Red Cross is interested in making money just like any other business and most organizations that received donation money to bring relief to those in Haiti who needed it didn't use the money how it needed to be used. So much more needs to be done, and awareness needs to be brought to those who will listen. Haiti has needed and still needs it more than ever now...This is a an article written recently by a Haitian about the situation down there. (Meaning the rest of this blog post is in no way my writing nor was I apart of the process in producing this article)
Haiti Liberte
AS NEW "EMERGENCY LAW" PASSES:
MAPOUD CONDEMNS CIRH AND GOVERNMENT'S QUAKE RESPONSE
by Yves Pierre-Louis
On Thursday, Apr. 15, 2010, Haiti's Senate ratified President René Préval's "emergency law" which allows him and the Haitian Interim Reconstruction Commission (CIRH) to rule by decree and fiat for the next 18 months.
The CIRH is controlled by foreigners, which has outraged Haitians. Headed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the Commission is composed of 15 foreigners (13 voting) and only 12 Haitians (11 voting) and will lead Haiti's post-quake reconstruction.
The Senate's vote comes after Deputies passed the bill on Apr. 8 (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 3, No. 39, 4/14/2010). The "emergency law" went into effect after being published in Le Moniteur, the official government publication, on Apr. 19.
On Friday, Apr. 16, the Unified Popular Masses for Development (MAPOUD), a grouping of peasant, youth, student, union and popular organizations, called a press conference at the "Ba de le" Restaurant to give its position on Haiti's political situation. MAPOUD leaders René Civil and Semereste "Pasteur" Boliere fiercely criticized the Préval/Bellerive government as being incapable of resolving the nation's problems.
Three months after the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake, they said, thousands of Haitians are still living in the street, enduring sun, rain, dust, dew and hunger despite many millions of dollars having been received and squandered by the Haitian government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Préval and Bellerive have only carried out the dictates of the big imperialist countries, MAPOUD said, putting the country in trusteeship under the "emergency law." Meanwhile, people can't get housing, food or education.
"The opening of schools was a catastrophe," said Semereste Boliere. Schools were supposed to open on Apr. 1. "A majority of establishments are not cleaned up. There is no assistance for parents who lost everything under rubble. There are no measures to aid parents who don't have money to pay school for the rest of the year. In high schools that were opened, kids went but they did not find teachers such as at Lycée Jeune Fille, Lycée Marie-Jeanne, Lycée Pétion, etc.."
Boliere charged that the Haitian government was not consulting with any progressive sectors but was simply following "a policy of abandoning the people."
"What's worse," Boliere concluded, "these racketeer parliamentarians got together with the vision-less, corrupt government to continue squeezing the masses, following the dictates of the international community, with a so-called 'emergency law' which gives them the right to make more money off the people's misery. MAPOUD asks all principled organizations, all leaders who care for people more than power, all valiant Haitian men and women to shake off their sleep and rise up to block the death plan of Préval and his acolytes."
René Civil called for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return from South Africa, and Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) president Gaillot Dorsainvil's removal and the formation of a new CEP.
Civil also vowed that "even though the racketeer senators and deputies passed it, we will continue to oppose the 'emergency law' and try to block it."
Civil called on other Lavalas Family popular organizations to join with MAPOUD in resisting Préval's "anti-people" policies.
At about 11:30 a.m., as the press conference was ending and René Civil finished talking to television cameras, three armed men created panic in front of the "Ba de le" Restaurant, which is on Rue Capois in Port-au-Prince. The armed men entered a Digicel store underneath the restaurant, where they shot three times a Digicel client, an unidentified man in his fifties. They did not rob him or anyone else but left the victim on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. Some passers-by rushed the victim to the hospital. A few street merchants said that they had seen the gunmen loitering in the area before the shooting, buying cigarettes and candies.
After about 30 minutes, the police arrived with a young man in handcuffs in the back of a pick-up. One observer said the man was one of the bandits, but other observers said none of the gunmen resembled the man. The police may have made a mistake.
Some people at the scene speculated that the bizarre shooting was in fact orchestrated by the government to intimidate MAPOUD and other Préval government critics. This has happened in other parts of Haiti.
We have learned that in the southern city of Cayes, the Préval government's representative is persecuting Lavalas militants. Ti Pistol Siméon was mobilizing in the area, and Préval's representative put out a warrant for his arrest so as to block a demonstration he was organizing against the "emergency law."
On Monday, Apr. 19, several hundred people took to the streets to demonstrate against the "emergency law" in Gonaives, Hinche, and Miragoane. In Port-au-Prince, mobilizations are planned for this week.
Some progressive militants have expressed concern about MAPOUD's participation in a new front called "Tet Kole" (Heads Together), which includes parties like Union, UCCADE, Konbit, Ansanm Nou Fò and platforms like Rasanble. Eyebrows have been raised because the new front also includes the political front, Alternative, headed by Evans Paul of the party KID. Paul was a vocal supporter of the 2004 coup d'état against Aristide.
In the press conference, René Civil did not address the questions raised by MAPOUD's alliance with Evans Paul. However, the "Tet Kole" front has not generated a lot of press or public attention.
GAS SHORTAGE MAKES HARD LIFE HARDER IN HAITI
by Yves Pierre-Louis
Since the weekend of April 10, there has been a severe gas shortage in Haiti. Tap tap and taxi drivers have great difficulty finding an open gas pump. Even if they do, they rarely can buy for more than 1000 gourdes (about $25).
Drivers might spend a whole day in a gas line where there is lots of yelling and fighting. Public transportation drivers take one day to find gas, and another day to work. During the day they work, they double fares: a five gourdes ride (12 cents) is now 10 gourdes (24 cents), a 10 gourdes ride is now 20 gourdes (48 cents), a 25 gourdes fare (62 cents) is now 50 gourdes ($1.24), and so on.
Also, drivers now ask for their money before they pull out with a passenger. There are no regulations so drivers can do what they want. Some drivers even take off without giving passengers change.
With the shortage, a gallon of gas now costs 300 to 400 gourdes ($7.50 - $10) in the street. Gallons are sold out of plastic jugs in front of the pumps, right under the noses of the authorities. Again, there are no regulations and distributors do as they wish.
Drivers say that the more expensive gas forces them to raise fares.
This gas shortage has practically paralyzed all activity in the capital. Many people have to walk to work or school though streets that are still filled with rubble.
It is mainly the poor - workers, small merchants, students - who have to walk many kilometers under the blazing sun. With traffic much lighter, the rich in new air-conditioned cars speed down largely open streets, sending dust from rubble onto pedestrians.
Economy and Finance Minister Ronald Beaudin has claimed that the shortage is caused by the late arrival of a gas tanker. He said the boat would arrive in Port-au-Prince by Sunday, April 18 and that others are on the way.
However, at press time on Tuesday, April 20, gas pumps around the capital are still closed. Black market hawkers are still selling what appears to be gas out of plastic jugs, but some drivers have reported that the liquid, whatever it contains, has wrecked their engines.
Many people don't buy Beaudin's explanation. Haitians know that Venezuela signed an accord to deliver the equivalent of 114 barrels of gas each day to Haiti. Has the Préval/Bellerive government not respected that accord? Could the shortage signal a problem between the Haitian and Venezuelan governments?
All articles copyrighted Haiti Liberte. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Liberte.
Haiti Liberte
AS NEW "EMERGENCY LAW" PASSES:
MAPOUD CONDEMNS CIRH AND GOVERNMENT'S QUAKE RESPONSE
by Yves Pierre-Louis
On Thursday, Apr. 15, 2010, Haiti's Senate ratified President René Préval's "emergency law" which allows him and the Haitian Interim Reconstruction Commission (CIRH) to rule by decree and fiat for the next 18 months.
The CIRH is controlled by foreigners, which has outraged Haitians. Headed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the Commission is composed of 15 foreigners (13 voting) and only 12 Haitians (11 voting) and will lead Haiti's post-quake reconstruction.
The Senate's vote comes after Deputies passed the bill on Apr. 8 (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 3, No. 39, 4/14/2010). The "emergency law" went into effect after being published in Le Moniteur, the official government publication, on Apr. 19.
On Friday, Apr. 16, the Unified Popular Masses for Development (MAPOUD), a grouping of peasant, youth, student, union and popular organizations, called a press conference at the "Ba de le" Restaurant to give its position on Haiti's political situation. MAPOUD leaders René Civil and Semereste "Pasteur" Boliere fiercely criticized the Préval/Bellerive government as being incapable of resolving the nation's problems.
Three months after the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake, they said, thousands of Haitians are still living in the street, enduring sun, rain, dust, dew and hunger despite many millions of dollars having been received and squandered by the Haitian government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Préval and Bellerive have only carried out the dictates of the big imperialist countries, MAPOUD said, putting the country in trusteeship under the "emergency law." Meanwhile, people can't get housing, food or education.
"The opening of schools was a catastrophe," said Semereste Boliere. Schools were supposed to open on Apr. 1. "A majority of establishments are not cleaned up. There is no assistance for parents who lost everything under rubble. There are no measures to aid parents who don't have money to pay school for the rest of the year. In high schools that were opened, kids went but they did not find teachers such as at Lycée Jeune Fille, Lycée Marie-Jeanne, Lycée Pétion, etc.."
Boliere charged that the Haitian government was not consulting with any progressive sectors but was simply following "a policy of abandoning the people."
"What's worse," Boliere concluded, "these racketeer parliamentarians got together with the vision-less, corrupt government to continue squeezing the masses, following the dictates of the international community, with a so-called 'emergency law' which gives them the right to make more money off the people's misery. MAPOUD asks all principled organizations, all leaders who care for people more than power, all valiant Haitian men and women to shake off their sleep and rise up to block the death plan of Préval and his acolytes."
René Civil called for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return from South Africa, and Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) president Gaillot Dorsainvil's removal and the formation of a new CEP.
Civil also vowed that "even though the racketeer senators and deputies passed it, we will continue to oppose the 'emergency law' and try to block it."
Civil called on other Lavalas Family popular organizations to join with MAPOUD in resisting Préval's "anti-people" policies.
At about 11:30 a.m., as the press conference was ending and René Civil finished talking to television cameras, three armed men created panic in front of the "Ba de le" Restaurant, which is on Rue Capois in Port-au-Prince. The armed men entered a Digicel store underneath the restaurant, where they shot three times a Digicel client, an unidentified man in his fifties. They did not rob him or anyone else but left the victim on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. Some passers-by rushed the victim to the hospital. A few street merchants said that they had seen the gunmen loitering in the area before the shooting, buying cigarettes and candies.
After about 30 minutes, the police arrived with a young man in handcuffs in the back of a pick-up. One observer said the man was one of the bandits, but other observers said none of the gunmen resembled the man. The police may have made a mistake.
Some people at the scene speculated that the bizarre shooting was in fact orchestrated by the government to intimidate MAPOUD and other Préval government critics. This has happened in other parts of Haiti.
We have learned that in the southern city of Cayes, the Préval government's representative is persecuting Lavalas militants. Ti Pistol Siméon was mobilizing in the area, and Préval's representative put out a warrant for his arrest so as to block a demonstration he was organizing against the "emergency law."
On Monday, Apr. 19, several hundred people took to the streets to demonstrate against the "emergency law" in Gonaives, Hinche, and Miragoane. In Port-au-Prince, mobilizations are planned for this week.
Some progressive militants have expressed concern about MAPOUD's participation in a new front called "Tet Kole" (Heads Together), which includes parties like Union, UCCADE, Konbit, Ansanm Nou Fò and platforms like Rasanble. Eyebrows have been raised because the new front also includes the political front, Alternative, headed by Evans Paul of the party KID. Paul was a vocal supporter of the 2004 coup d'état against Aristide.
In the press conference, René Civil did not address the questions raised by MAPOUD's alliance with Evans Paul. However, the "Tet Kole" front has not generated a lot of press or public attention.
GAS SHORTAGE MAKES HARD LIFE HARDER IN HAITI
by Yves Pierre-Louis
Since the weekend of April 10, there has been a severe gas shortage in Haiti. Tap tap and taxi drivers have great difficulty finding an open gas pump. Even if they do, they rarely can buy for more than 1000 gourdes (about $25).
Drivers might spend a whole day in a gas line where there is lots of yelling and fighting. Public transportation drivers take one day to find gas, and another day to work. During the day they work, they double fares: a five gourdes ride (12 cents) is now 10 gourdes (24 cents), a 10 gourdes ride is now 20 gourdes (48 cents), a 25 gourdes fare (62 cents) is now 50 gourdes ($1.24), and so on.
Also, drivers now ask for their money before they pull out with a passenger. There are no regulations so drivers can do what they want. Some drivers even take off without giving passengers change.
With the shortage, a gallon of gas now costs 300 to 400 gourdes ($7.50 - $10) in the street. Gallons are sold out of plastic jugs in front of the pumps, right under the noses of the authorities. Again, there are no regulations and distributors do as they wish.
Drivers say that the more expensive gas forces them to raise fares.
This gas shortage has practically paralyzed all activity in the capital. Many people have to walk to work or school though streets that are still filled with rubble.
It is mainly the poor - workers, small merchants, students - who have to walk many kilometers under the blazing sun. With traffic much lighter, the rich in new air-conditioned cars speed down largely open streets, sending dust from rubble onto pedestrians.
Economy and Finance Minister Ronald Beaudin has claimed that the shortage is caused by the late arrival of a gas tanker. He said the boat would arrive in Port-au-Prince by Sunday, April 18 and that others are on the way.
However, at press time on Tuesday, April 20, gas pumps around the capital are still closed. Black market hawkers are still selling what appears to be gas out of plastic jugs, but some drivers have reported that the liquid, whatever it contains, has wrecked their engines.
Many people don't buy Beaudin's explanation. Haitians know that Venezuela signed an accord to deliver the equivalent of 114 barrels of gas each day to Haiti. Has the Préval/Bellerive government not respected that accord? Could the shortage signal a problem between the Haitian and Venezuelan governments?
All articles copyrighted Haiti Liberte. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
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