Statement of the US Embassy in Haiti on the Political Impasse
The U.S. Government strongly supports the efforts by President Martelly to arrive at a global political consensus to resolve the political impasse in Haiti. The U.S. Government notes with grave concern that despite the President's wide-ranging concessions, parliament has not voted an electoral law to allow for 2015 elections. In the short time remaining before the constitutionally mandated end of the current parliament on January 12, we urge all parties to agree on a framework for parliamentary mandates, a new Provisional Electoral Council, passage of amendments to the electoral law, and the formation of a government of consensus. The USG strongly urges the parties to find a solution which ensures continuity of Haiti's republican institutions in accordance with the Constitution. However, if such a solution cannot be reached by January 12, the U.S. will continue to work with President Martelly and whatever legitimate Haitian government institutions remain to safeguard the significant gains we have achieved together since the January 12, 2010 earthquake. The Haitian people have the right to elect their leaders, and in these circumstances the U.S. would expect the President to use his executive powers responsibly to organize inclusive, credible and transparent elections, in an expeditious manner.
UN Security Council heading to Haiti to press for elections
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council is heading to Haiti later this month with a message for President Michel Martelly: It's past time to urgently organize credible elections.
Chile's U.N. Ambassador Cristian Barros Melet, the current council president, told reporters Monday that elections must take place "in order to normalize the legislative process and the presidential process."
Haiti faces an uncertain political future in upcoming months, with Senatorial seats expiring on Jan. 12, exactly five years after a devastating earthquake struck the nation of 10 million people. If the election isn't held in the next week — which is virtually impossible — Martelly will rule by decree.
During the Security Council's Jan. 23-25 visit, Barros Melet said the unanimous message from the 15 members will be that "the priority of the president of Haiti should be to develop a credible electoral timetable — a timetable that is also feasible and can be implemented."
Martelly's administration was supposed to call elections in 2011 for 20 seats in the 30-member Senate, all 99 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies and 140 municipal positions. He has blamed legislators for blocking a vote that would lead to approval of an electoral law.
Martelly, who is to leave office in 2016, could sign a decree allowing Haiti to hold elections in the first half of the year.
Barros Melet said the council will also be visiting the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, which is being reduced from its current strength, which at the start of November stood at nearly 5,000 troops and 2,300 police.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY KERRY
January 9, 2015
Marking Five Years Since the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti
Haiti and the world mark on Monday five years since the devastating 2010 earthquake hit Haiti. On January 12, 2010, our close friend and neighbor suffered an unimaginable blow: The earthquake left an estimated 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured, countless homes and businesses leveled, and 1.5 million Haitians homeless. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones they left behind.
After the tremors stopped, Haitians worked tirelessly to rebuild their nation. Their progress is remarkable. Rubble no longer impedes reconstruction. The number of displaced persons in tent camps is down more than 90 percent. Basic health indicators are improving. More children are attending primary schools. New jobs are created every day. And Haiti has achieved positive economic growth for each of the past four years.
I’m proud that millions of Americans generously donated to Haiti’s relief, including Len and Cherylann Gengel – two Massachusetts natives who opened an orphanage in Grand Goave in honor of their daughter, Britney, who died in the earthquake. The United States Government, too, has worked closely with the Haitian government, NGOs, and the Haitian people to help make a difference. Over the past five years, the United States has made available $4 billion for relief and longer-term reconstruction efforts. That support ensured 70,000 Haitian farmers have higher crop yields and incomes; 328,000 displaced Haitians found alternative shelter; nearly half of all Haitians can access basic health services at a U.S. supported facility; 3,300 new police officers were trained and commissioned; and some 5,000 jobs to date were created at the Caracol Industrial Park. Despite this progress, much remains to be done. The years ahead will demand sustained international support for Haiti’s development.
But, first and foremost, Haiti’s success requires greater political stability. As the world reflects on this somber anniversary, I urge Haiti’s leaders to do what is right for their people’s future. Only with increased stability, including the holding of free and fair elections, now overdue, can Haiti ensure the rights of its citizens and attract the foreign investment needed to create economic opportunity and reduce poverty. The example of President Martelly, who is working hard to make real compromises, is one to emulate. I call on Haiti’s leaders to settle outstanding issues blocking the organization of parliamentary elections as soon as possible.
Today – just as we did five years ago – the United States stands firmly with the Haitian people in their efforts to forge a more prosperous, secure, and democratic future. Together we can achieve these goals, because, in the words of Haiti’s motto and coat of arms, l’union fait la force – unity makes strength.
Pope names new envoy to Haiti on 5th anniversary of devastating quake
Published January 10, 2015Associated Press
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has named a new envoy to Haiti as he emphasized that much work still needs to be done to rebuild the country five years after the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
The Vatican announced Saturday the appointment of Archbishop Eugene Martin Nugent as papal nuncio to Haiti. Nugent has been the church's nuncio to Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles, as well as apostolic delegate in the nearby Comoros Islands.
The pope earlier addressed a meeting on Haiti organized by the pontifical commission for Latin America, expressing gratitude "to all those who in numerous ways came to the aid of the Haitian people" after the quake.
The pontiff noted that while much has been done to rebuild Haiti, "we cannot ignore the fact that much remains to be done."
Haiti 5 years after quake, still troubled
DAVID McFADDEN
Jan 10th 2015 12:26AMPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Before the earth shook and turned their lives upside down, Rosena Dordor was like millions of poor Haitians, living with her family in a cramped home with no running water or sanitation, struggling to get by and fearing the next rent increase would force them out.
Today, nearly five years after the devastating 7.0 earthquake, Dordor has a new place to live with her husband and five children: a one-room shack with a plastic tarp for a roof and walls made of scrap metal and salvaged wood. It's perched on a cactus- and scrub-covered hillside, a long walk from the nearest source of water, and meals are cooked over fire pits.
Life is still a struggle in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, but Dordor's new settlement does offer a measure of freedom because there is no landlord for her family or for the tens of thousands of other homesteaders who rushed to stake a claim in arid hills after the government expropriated a barren zone of 18,500 acres (7,500 hectares) just north of Port-au-Prince following the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake.
"We love this place because we have made it our home with our own hands and hearts," Dordor said on a recent morning while shucking castor beans for a hair product she sells to neighbors. The area was initially only meant to house those stuck in tent shelters considered most at risk for floods or landslides, but it is growing so fast that U.S. State Department officials say the settlement could soon be considered Haiti's second largest city.
The country's complicated housing problems are perhaps the biggest drag on an uneven recovery that has nonetheless improved the lives of many poor Haitians, who say they prefer their living situations now compared to before the quake.
The disaster prompted a huge influx of international assistance, with governments and aid groups arriving to offer both immediate help and long-term development. One of the worst natural disasters of modern times, the quake killed an estimated 300,000 people, damaged or destroyed more than 300,000 buildings in densely packed Port-au-Prince and largely obliterated the government, toppling nearly all ministry buildings. Prisons and police stations crumbled into ruins.
Officials repeatedly said they would be "building back better," and in many ways they have made progress toward that goal.
The two-lane highway running nearly 100 miles from Port-au-Prince to Gonaives is a smooth river of asphalt, not the bone-jarring, off-road experience it was before the quake. There's a new international airport in Cap-Haitien, and hundreds of new schools. Several new hotels have opened, including known brands such as Best Western for the first time in decades. Direct foreign investment in Haiti reached $250 million last year, up from $4 million in 2001, according to the government.
Today, work crews in downtown Port-au-Prince are raising frames for new government offices. The rubble of the national palace has been removed. The wrecked historic Iron Market was rebuilt by Haiti's biggest employer, mobile phone company Digicel. The grim camps and shantytowns that once sheltered some 1.5 million people now hold about 80,000, and the government says they will all be moved out by mid-2015. The police force is being professionalized while growing from about 8,000 officers to roughly 12,000.
Yet the recovery has been uneven at best, plagued by poor planning and accusations of graft. And a worsening political standoff is one sign that progress since the disaster is tenuous.
President Michel Martelly, a former pop star who took office in May 2011, has been embroiled in a stalemate with lawmakers over parliamentary elections, delayed for over three years. Many fear a failure to resolve the gridlock could plunge the country back into familiar chaos.
Critics, meanwhile, say the construction of new slums is not an answer to Haiti's many problems.
"If the international community wants to pat itself on the back for building new Haitian shantytowns, with the collusion of the Martelly government, fine. I don't see evidence of sustainable change for the better," Amy Wilentz, author of "Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti," and other works about the Caribbean nation, said via email.
Many poor Haitians say their lives have been complicated by a rising cost of living and lack of jobs, and they put the blame squarely on the government for failing to create opportunities.
"I love my country but it's still struggling thanks to our politicians," said Genyca Wilhelm, a former math teacher who hopes to find work by training to be a car mechanic. "Our international friends have been helping us, yes, but Haiti will always be Haiti. That is good news and bad news."
More than $12.4 billion in humanitarian and development aid and debt relief was pledged by more than 50 countries and international agencies, with at least 80 percent of that disbursed, according to the United Nations.
The U.S., the largest individual donor, provided $1.3 billion in humanitarian aid and committed an additional $2.7 billion for longer-term reconstruction and development, nearly two-thirds of which has been disbursed. American aid has been channeled toward rebuilding the infrastructure and economy, improving health care and law enforcement. It included developing an industrial park in northern Haiti as part of a strategy to encourage development outside Port-au-Prince.
Economic growth is what Haiti needs most, said Thomas C. Adams, the State Department's special coordinator for Haiti.
The economy has had modest growth since 2011 and if the country can keep that pace for 25 years or so, it could become a middle-income country like neighboring Dominican Republic, Adams said.
"Whether they can continue depends on whether they can maintain stability and attract foreign investment, because foreign aid by itself is not enough to fix everything in Haiti," he said.
Some Haitians dared to dream that the aid flowing in after the disaster would make their lives dramatically better. Etienne Edeva, who lives a short drive from Dordor's homestead in a planned area known as Camp Corail, now says it was unrealistic to expect so much change for troubled Haiti.
"We're living in darkness here, but miserable or not we're getting by and making the best of it," said Edeva, who runs a bakery out of her home.
On the sunbaked hillsides north of the capital, Haitians are taking care of things on their own even as the government asks for U.S. help in planning the growing towns. Though poor, Haitian families here remain hopeful and, happy with the bit of progress they've made, they have no desire to return to the Port-au-Prince slums where landlords kept jacking up rents.
Modest businesses have opened in the settlements: barber shops, food stalls, lottery shops, hardware stores selling rebar and wood. Small scrapwood churches and enterprising Voodoo priests bring in the faithful. The wealthiest homesteaders have graduated from homes of tarp and timber to cinderblock.
Outside her hillside shack, Dordor says she has no plans to live anywhere else
"It's either God or death that will move me from here," she said. "In the name of God, we will build a concrete house here someday."
With her children gathered around her, a gust of wind shook the tarp ceiling of their crudely made but cherished home.
Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Miami contributed to this report.
Haiti protesters rally to demand president's departure as political stalemate continues
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Protesters burned tires and threw rocks at police during the latest anti-government demonstration in Haiti's capital amid a bitter political stalemate over long-delayed elections.
The gathering of mostly young men reached a peak of about 1,500 Saturday as protesters called for the departure of President Michel Martelly.
Riot police fired tear gas and sprayed water from an armored vehicle, dispersing the crowd near where the National Palace stood before it collapsed in Haiti's 2010 earthquake.
There has been no letup in violent protests since last month's resignation of Martelly's prime minister and other concessions aimed at resolving the stalemate holding up legislative elections.
Haiti faces an uncertain political future in coming days with Senate seats expiring Monday. If a last-minute agreement isn't reached, Martelly will soon rule by decree.
There is no Ebola case in Haiti, says acting PM
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — Health officials have dismissed reports that a case of Ebola has been detected in the country.
On Saturday, Dr Florence D Guillaume, minister of public health, told the Haitian Caribbean News Network that the reports of an Ebola case being detected in the vicinity of Petite Riviere de l'Artibonite, in the northern region of the country were totally false.
"There are ill-intentioned people spreading such rumours," said Guillaume, the acting prime minister
According to Guillaume, the depoliticisation of the health sector was "an essential principle for the restoration of trust and confidence in the response to provide to individuals who require care and services for prevention, maintaining or the restoration of their health in case of illness".
The Ministry of Health has, meanwhile, called on the population "to remain calm and to respect all disclosed prevention regulations while making the duty, if any were needed, to reassure every one of the effectiveness of the vigilance system in place to reduce significantly the risk of contamination of our country".
Ebola is an infectious and generally fatal disease marked by fever and severe internal bleeding, spread through contact with infected body fluids.
There is no known cure for the Ebola virus which has killed more than 7,000 people, mainly in West Africa.