US: No More Financial Help to Conclude Haiti Elections
By DAVID MCFADDEN, ASSOCIATED PRESSPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Jul 7, 2016
The United States has suspended financial assistance to Haiti's electoral authorities as they plan to redo a presidential vote that a special commission found was marred by widespread fraud.
At a Washington press briefing Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the decision to stop funding a Haitian electoral cycle that began in 2015 did not "signal a reduction in U.S. support for the people or development of Haiti."
He framed the decision as a simple budgeting matter by the U.S., which is Haiti's largest donor. He said Washington did not plan to spend additional taxpayer money for two more voting rounds in the hemisphere's poorest country but would "maintain assistance in other key priority areas."
"We believe it's the sound thing to do, the right thing to do for the people of Haiti in the long-term," Kirby said.
Last year, U.S. taxpayers contributed $33 million for a three-round Haitian electoral cycle that was intended to elect a president, parliament members and numerous other offices. But the presidential runoff was repeatedly scrapped amid deep public suspicions of fraud and violent protests.
It wasn't immediately clear what the absence of U.S. funding would mean for Haiti's revamped Provisional Electoral Council, which organizes balloting in a country where elections are never easy.
But new council chief Leopold Berlanger did not sound concerned by the U.S. decision or a possible ripple effect with other foreign donors amid a lingering political impasse.
"I think if you are a real sovereign country you should get the means to fund your own elections," he told The Associated Press.
Under Berlanger, the council annulled the disputed presidential election and called a new vote, as recommended by a special commission that reported finding what appeared to be significant fraud and professional misconduct.
A total of 27 presidential candidates are now expected to run in the redo vote in October. A runoff would take place in January.
Last month, Kenneth Merten, the U.S. State Department's special coordinator for Haiti, said the U.S. was "disappointed" with the decision to redo the vote because impoverished Haiti could have avoided its leadership muddle if it had stuck to agreed-upon timetables earlier.
Caretaker President Jocelerme Privert's 120-day mandate heading an interim administration expired June 14 but the fragmented parliament is blocking a vote on extending his term or paving the way for a new interim leader.
ELECTIONS WITHOUT MONEY FROM THE WHITE MAN: “YES WE CAN !”
For once, members of the international community aren’t stepping over one other to finance Haiti’s elections. The United States and the European Union have already clearly informed that they will not provide a penny for the elections; other donors such as France, Brazil and Japan still haven’t made any promises, even though the election machine is already in motion.
Despite the lack of external financing to organize the elections, the Haitian leaders in power are not panicking. The provisional president is even confident that the elections will take place even without funds from the international community. Since July 1st , Jocelerme Privert has known that one of the main investors in the elections, the United States, would not be providing any funds this time. "We going to put everything in place so that these elections are financed by domestic resources, and this in spite of our limited means and the volume of debts inherited from the Martelly administration,” Privert told Le Nouveliste last Monday in an exclusive interview.
Of the 55 million dollars that it will cost to organize the elections, the government said that it had already 30 millions, and needs only a little more than 15 millions.
At the level of the Haitian private sector, people think that the country should take advantage of this situation to free itself from its dependence on the international community to organize the elections. Several presidential candidates interviewed by Le Nouvellise, think that the United States, unintentionally, offered the country a possibility of showing that it can organize its own elections. It is an act of national sovereignty.
It should be noted, that according to The Center for Economic and Policy Research, an American watchdog group, out of the $33 million the United States contributed for the electoral process in Haiti in 2015, $30.45 million were used to finance the UNOPS, the UNDP, the OEA, the IFES, and the NDI. The American money was spent in the name of Haiti but not in Haiti, nor for Haiti during the last elections, estimated the group.
In the meantime, the Provisional Electoral Counsel is progressing in the preparations to organize the presidential election as well as senatorial elections. The first round is scheduled for October 9th.
JULY 1, 2016 8:52 PM
South Florida man arrested on charges of impregnating a 10-year-old
MIAMI HERALD
BY ALEX HARRIS
As soon as his flight from Haiti landed in Miami, a 47-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of impregnating a 10-year-old.
Raymond Vincent was “expelled from Haiti” by the Haitian government, wrote Detective Tracy Figone, spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, in an email. He was arrested Friday on a Fort Lauderdale arrest warrant. He was charged with sexual battery on a child under 12 and lewd lascivious conduct.
Investigators told Miami Herald news partner CBS4 Vincent was a family friend of the young girl, who showed up to a hospital in February complaining of stomach pains. She was pregnant.
Meanwhile, police said, Vincent fled to Haiti. U.S. Marshals flew to Port-au-Prince and brought him back to Fort Lauderdale detectives.
He was found not guilty on four counts of child molestation in 2012, records show. At the time, Local10 reported, he was a youth pastor at a Pompano Beach church. Investigators told the station Vincent lured the young girl inside his home with food, and the girl said he’d molested her twice in 2011 as well.
Alex Harris: 305-376-5005, @harrisalexc
VISIT IN HAITI OF A DELEGATION FROM THE COAHUALA STATE OF MEXICO
On Thursday, July 7th, a delegation from Coahuila, one of Mexico’s 32 states, arrived in Port-au-Prince, with the aim of promoting economic, cultural relations and tourism between Mexico and Haiti. The delegation met Jessy C. Petit-Frère, Minister of Trade and Industry, Didier Hyppolyte, Minister of Tourism and Creative Industries, Latin-Americans ambassadors, chambers of commerce members and entrepreneurs.
José Antonio Gutiérrez Jardón, Leader of the delegation and Secretary of Economic development, Competitiveness and Tourism of the State of Coahuila, invited the Minister of Trade as well as the Haitian private sector to participate in the "ALADI Expo," a Latin American event to increase and strengthen the trade in the region. It will take place from October 19th to 21st, in Coahuila, Mexico.
The sectors which participate in the ALADI Expo are: food and drinks, car parts, leather and, pharmaceutical products, produced by the chemical and plastic industry, textiles, clothes, shoes, iron or steel articles and electrical equipment. The ALADI Expo Mexico 2016 is an opportunity for Haitian entrepreneurs and industrialists to strengthen the diversity of their economic relations.
The Horror of Zika in Haiti
Journal Star - A wonderful friend of ours, Karen Bultje, who is a missionary in Haiti, has been caring for a young man named Claudy in her home for several days. Claudy lives in the Kenscoff mountains above Port-au-Prince. He recently became ill with a high fever, rash, and severe pain. He also began having weakness in his legs which prevented him from walking. His mother and family carried him down the mountains and he went by motorcycle taxi and tap-taps to Karen’s home in Port.
Karen and her nursing staff took Claudy to a local hospital where he was examined but he was sent back to Karen’s home. They said there was nothing they could do for Claudy. The family is not able to pay for care in any local private hospital in Port and the public hospitals are on strike.
The worry tonight is that Claudy has Zika virus (not proven yet) with a neurologic complication of Zika called Guillain-Barré. Guillain-Barré is an autoimmune disease that attacks the nerves exiting the spine which can cause weakness and numbness in the legs. If the paralysis progresses it can paralyze the diaphragm and make breathing impossible. Claudy is still breathing ok but we don’t know for how much longer. (Zika most likely causes microcephaly too which is a neurologic disaster for the newborn.)
Tonight Karen’s staff took Claudy to another hospital in Port-au-Prince. This hospital has two ventilators and both are being used. So Claudy is being observed in triage and if his breathing becomes difficult, his trachea will be intubated and he will be manually bagged to keep him alive.
Karen is searching for a helicopter to transport him to the new hospital in Mirebalais which is about two hours by road from here. However, it is dark now and nothing can happen until morning regarding transport.
Scientists believe Zika has been in Haiti since 2014—long before it was obvious that Zika was spreading fast in Brazil. Officially no cases of Zika were reported in Haiti until January 2016. Since then there have been more than 2,600 cases of Zika reported here. This number underestimates the true cases for many reasons. (Most people infected with Zika are not ill, hospitals in Haiti often don’t test for Zika, and patients have no money to pay for the test in the first place.)