Provisional government to be installed while Martelly leaves office
Associated Press
Saturday 6 February 2016
Top Haitian leaders have reached an agreement to install a provisional government less than a day before the President, Michel Martelly, is scheduled to step down, an official with the Organization of American States (OAS) told the Associated Press.
Special mission leader Ronald Sanders said the interim president will be elected by parliament for a term of 120 days. He said the prime minister, Evans Paul, will remain in his position until lawmakers confirm a replacement in upcoming days.
The interim government will continue an electoral process that began last year. It will hold a second round of presidential and legislative elections on April 24. A new president is scheduled to be installed on May 14 and will rule Haiti for the next five years.
“The country now has an opportunity for a fresh start,” Sanders said, adding that parliament would invite nominations for an interim president soon.
The deal, if it holds, will prevent an institutional vacuum when Martelly leaves office on Sunday, and creates a roadmap for an elected leader to replace him in a few months. But there appeared to be no break in opposition protests in the capital on Saturday and recent violence suggests discord is likely to continue.
Sanders said the deal was signed overnight following “very animated” negotiations on Friday between Martelly, the two leaders of Haiti’s bicameral legislature, and numerous lawmakers. Sanders, an Antiguan diplomat, is mission leader and chairman of the 35-nation OAS’ permanent council.
A senior member of Haiti’s ruling party, who was not authorized to talk to the media, told the Associated Press that lawmakers will meet on Sunday to start the process to elect an interim president.
The OAS mission had been observing negotiations to resolve a standoff over a disputed round of voting in August and October that led officials to suspend a runoff election that had been scheduled for 24 January.
Opposition leaders have repeatedly said Martelly could not be part of the process, but Sanders, who stressed he was a witness and not a participant in the talks, said the deal was reached by elected officials who have the authority to do so.
“I don’t think that anybody could say that it was a cooked-up agreement because it was done by people who didn’t have the right or the authority to do it,” Sanders said. “Indeed, there are no other two sets of entities in this country that could have signed a legitimate agreement.”
When asked if a commission would be set up to verify results of the contested 25 October vote, Sanders said: “I would not discount the idea that there would be some form of verification.”
Haiti’s provisional electoral council [which no longer exists and a new one, preferably an independent one, will have to be created by the new president] has repeatedly rejected opposition demands for an independent review of the election results, fuelling suspicions of vote-rigging.
OAS officials have held more than 25 meetings since they arrived last Sunday, but never met with Jude Célestin, a candidate who had been boycotting the presidential runoff, despite numerous invitations to him.
The OAS, however, did meet with other members of the opposition alliance, which includes Célestin.
That alliance has been critical of the OAS mission, saying it would interfere in efforts to resolve the political crisis. The group had been seeking a transitional government led by a Supreme Court leader to ensure a commission verifies the disputed election results. Célestin was boycotting despite official returns that showed him coming in second and winning a spot in the runoff against Martelly’s preferred successor, Jovenel Moïse.
Shortly after the deal was reached, an anti-government protest broke out in downtown Port-au-Prince, and a radio station reported that more than a dozen men in the green uniforms of Haiti’s disbanded military [originally disbanded years ago under President Aristide but recently reinstated by President Martelly] burned down a police station on a road leading to the coastal town of Arcahaie, north of the capital. The station said they also robbed a small bank, burned cars and fired guns into the air [without any interference whatsoever by the national police]. Calls to officials to ask about the reports went unanswered.
It was not clear if the incidents were related to the new agreement. AP
Inauguration of the new Ministry of the Interior
Last Thursday President Michel Martelly, went to the Champ de Mars for the inauguration of a building that will house the Ministry of the Interior, and other government offices.
Among the officials present were: Lener Renauld, Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs and Ardouin Zephirin, Minister of the Interior, members of the diplomatic corps, as well as VIPs form the private sector.
This construction is situated at the corner of Paul VI and Lord Guilloux Streets, formerly the location of the General Tax Office (DGI), which was destroyed during the earthquake of 2010. It is part of the Administrative City project.
"This new realization shows once more the efforts achieved by my administration for the reconstruction of the country," declared President Martelly, satisfied to have laid the foundations for the reconstruction of the City Center still called "the Administrative Center."
This 5-story building was financed by the Treasury and PetroCaribe funds. It will includes offices, meeting rooms, an infirmary, a cafeteria, a parking area with a capacity of 120 vehicles, and an underground parking lot for about thirty vehicles. The building will also include three elevators and two fire escapes. "All measures were taken to make sure that the construction of this building met modern standards," reassured the Engineer Clément Bélizaire, Executive director of the UCLBP.
US MARINES OFF SHORE – READY TO INTERVENE AT THE FIRST SUGGESTION OF VIOLENCE
Secretary of State John Kerry deployed Ambassador Kenneth Merten to Haiti last night, for a meeting with outgoing President Martelly – to ensure his safe departure is guaranteed on Sunday, Feb 7th. As a precautionary measure, SOUTHCOM has ordered the mobilization of a Strategic Amphibious Platoon, of the United States Marine Corp, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. A unit of this type is made up of 300 officers and men.
This is a precautionary measure in case of civil unrest in Haiti, where over 25,000 United States Citizens reside. SOUTHCOM is planning this contingency to protect American lives against any violent acts.
Troops can be launched off a Tarawa Class assault vessel, probably holding off the coast of Haiti, at this time.
Haiti leader departs as he came: amid uncertainty, disorder
By DAVID McFADDEN
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Michel Martelly came to office promising a stronger Haiti following a messy election that provoked widespread skepticism. He left power this Sunday at the close of his five-year term with few accomplishments and a legacy clouded by a new political crisis.
The singer-turned-politician had urged Haitians to set aside deep divisions at his May 2011 inauguration. But his hostile relations with Parliament resulted in gridlock.
Many Haitians say Martelly squandered a golden opportunity to turn impoverished Haiti around as international aid poured into the country following a devastating 2010 earthquake that flattened much of the capital and surrounding areas. The disaster killed an estimated 300,000 people.
"He said he'd help the population and I hoped it was true. But here we are still struggling, same as ever," said fruit vendor Nadine Suzie, selling oranges on a street corner by piles of smoldering garbage. Haiti has long been one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world.
Some who worked with him closely see Martelly as a charismatic but flawed leader who doomed his presidency by surrounding himself with an entourage of unsavory cronies, including a number from his previous career as "Sweet Micky," the self-proclaimed "bad boy" of Haitian pop music.
"It hurts me to say this because I still like him as a person, but the Martelly years were a big zero. There were people around him who were very corrupt and money had a way of disappearing," said Georges Sassine, a prominent industrialist who was tasked with overseeing the country's industrial parks until he was abruptly replaced in 2013.
Martelly's former prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, who was forced to resign under pressure in late 2014 after some 2 ½ years in office, is distancing himself from the president during his shambolic last days. He asserts Haiti made clear gains during their partnership but political feuding over the last year has rolled them back.
Lamothe told The Associated Press that the endless infighting between the president and Parliament "brought Haiti back to its old days of gridlock and self-serving policies that collapsed the economy and destroyed any progress that was achieved."
The dysfunction deepened last year when the mandates of the entire lower house and a third of the Senate expired in the absence of elections, leaving Martelly to rule by decree.
Martelly came to office after winning an election process marred by allegations of fraud, and only international pressure got him in the runoff. He leaves on Sunday, less than a day after he and Haitian lawmakers reached an agreement to form a short-term provisional government under an interim president who will serve until a newly elected leader can take power May 14.
Violent opposition protests and deep suspicions of electoral fraud favoring his chosen candidate, Jovenel Moise, derailed a scheduled runoff last month.
Martelly, through a party official, declined to be interviewed for this article. But at a Saturday ceremony with legislative leaders, the president somberly said: "Even though I didn't accomplish everything I hoped to get done for Haiti, we did our best."
While he's unpopular with some of those in the political class and many struggling to raise families, the forceful, self-confident leader still has many admirers among the young.
"This is the first government in my lifetime that's worked to build up basic infrastructure," said 25-year-old student Pierre Richardson Olson in Haiti's crowded capital. "That's worth something, isn't it?"
Martelly's most ardent supporters insist he's been Haiti's best leader, while hardline critics often characterize him as a dictator who enriched himself illegally. His legacy is more complicated than either of those extremes.
Kenneth Merten, the U.S. State Department's special coordinator for Haiti, said it's easy to lose sight of accomplishments made during the Martelly years amid the current disorder.
"I think we would have all hoped to see that more was accomplished. But I think it's important for people who don't really know Haiti to understand that there has been progress made," said Merten, attributing gains in large part to partnerships with the U.S. and other foreign powers that supported the pro-business president.
Haiti has more paved roads, more children in school, a stronger police force and less extreme poverty. The World Bank said that the local economy had its best performance in decades, with a real growth rate averaging 3.3 percent yearly from 2011 to 2014. Parts of the capital have seen new construction, including major hotel chains, and the number of people in dismal tent camps has dropped from 1.5 million after the quake to about 60,000 now.
But these gains, spurred by international aid, are fragile. Haiti's chronic problems of widespread poverty, lack of opportunity and exclusion remain entrenched.
Martelly's government relied so heavily on Venezuela's Petrocaribe trade initiative, which provided subsidized oil to allied nations, that Haiti's debt to Caracas is nearly $2 billion. His government used savings from the program to fund building and social programs.
One of Martelly's final acts in office was releasing a Carnival song under his stage name, aiming sexually suggestive lyrics at a respected female journalist amid the political crisis. Some former insiders see this as a sign that he was never all that serious about improving Haiti.
"I think he saw power as an excuse to party," said Chantal Elie, a foreign affairs adviser to Martelly who quit after a year because she was fed up with various tensions, including, allegedly, frequent sexist comments by the president and officials close to him.
VICKY JEUDY WINS A SAG AWARD IN LOS ANGELES
The Haitian-American actress Vicky Jeudy took home her second SAG Award for her performance on the Netflix series "Orange is the New Black" last weekend at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles. During her red carpet entrance, while posing with the actor Léonardo Dicaprio, the star accidentally let her right breast show, a moment which photographers did not miss to immortalize.
Rodney Joseph, best "Chief Petty Officer" of the USA
Chief Rodne Joseph, a native of Gonaïves, has served in U.S. Navy for 17 years.
As "Division Leading Chief Petty Officer" he manages 30 sailors at 5 recruiting stations, bringing to the U.S. Navy candidates of the highest quality.
Joseph was chosen as "Navy Recruiting Command Division Leading Chief Petty Officer" of the year. He received this honor in a national competition, making him the best "Division Leading Chief Petty Officer" in the country.
"I cannot take all the credit for this honor," declared Joseph. "I owe it to a phenomenal team of recruiters, and it was a privilege to guide them towards their full potential."
Note that "Navy Recruiting Command" consists of 26 recuitment districts divided into Divisions.