Ex-Haitian coup leader Guy Philippe gets nine years in US prison
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — A former Haitian coup leader and elected senator was sentenced to nine years in a US federal prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to conspiring to launder drug money.
Guy Philippe, a 49-year-old former senior police officer convicted of taking bribes from drug traffickers, had entered his guilty plea in April in exchange for a reduced sentence.
He had evaded law enforcement for nearly a decade and was arrested in Haiti on January 5, just days before he was to be sworn in as a senator -- which would have given him immunity from prosecution.
Philippe was elected to the Haitian parliament in November. He had close ties to the country's President Jovenel Moise.
In 2004, he helped lead an armed rebellion against then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was forced to flee the country.
The US drug charges had been hanging over him since 2005.
In his guilty plea, Philippe admitted he had abused his position as a high-ranking police officer to protect narcotics shipments headed to the United States between 1999 and 2003.
Philippe gave some of the bribe money to other Haitian police and security personnel to ensure their cooperation, the US Justice Department said.
His cut was used to buy a house in Florida, for his use and that of his family while in the US.
In one instance, Philippe was said to have wired $376,000 in drug proceeds to his joint bank account in Miami from banks in Haiti and Ecuador using the names of others.
He also admitted to organising $70,000 in drug money to be deposited into his account in amounts under the $10,000 level that triggers US reporting requirements.
Haiti’s Growth in 2017 year is worse than in 2016
According to preliminary estimates by the Directorate of Economic Statistics of the Ministry of Finance, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 1.4% in 2016, a growth rate well below the target of 3.6% that the authorities had set at the beginning of the fiscal year (October 2015 to September 2016). Marked by social and political turbulence (movements of strikes, street demonstrations especially in the first half), the year 2016 was rather difficult for economic agents.
The agricultural sector that had plagued the Haitian economy in 2015 was largely responsible for GDP growth in 2016. According to preliminary estimates based on partial and provisional data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, the alue added at constant prices of the sectors: forestry, livestock and fisheries, increased from 3,131 million gourdes in 2015 to 3,226 million gourdes in 2016, an increase of 3.0%, against a fall of 5.4% the previous year.
Among the other industries that contributed to GDP growth in 2016 include the 1.5% increase in manufacturing, which was led by the food industries (4.0%) and the Papermaking and printing (3.9%), which benefited in particular of electoral activities. Unlike previous years, the Building and Public Works sector has virtually stagnated at + 0.2%...
From a global demand perspective, growth was driven by a 1.2% increase in consumption and 1.1% in total investment. Consumption was supported in part by the 7% increase in diaspora remittances and the 12% increase in the public administration payroll. Given that public investment has fallen, the overall increase in private investment can be attributed to the private sector (2.2% increase in foreign direct investment and a 17% increase in loans granted to the private sector by the financial system). The slight increase of 0.7% in exports was mainly due to the exchange rate.
The year 2016 was also marked by a sharp depreciation of the gourde against the US dollar, from 51.8 gourdes per US dollar in September 2015 to 65.2 gourdes in September 2016, a drop of almost 26%. This depreciation of the Haitian currency impacted inflation, which, contrary to the forecast of 6.2% at the beginning of the year, reached 12.5% year-on-year at the end of the fiscal year (September 2016) [14.2% in November 2016].
In terms of prospects, it should be noted that the fiscal year 2017 is badly started because of the major natural hazards that hit the country in early October. Gains obtenained particularly in the crop of spring 2016, was almost canceled by the passage of Hurricane Matthew in at least 4 of the 10 departments of the country (Great South). This natural disaster has severely decapitated farmers, pastoralists and fishermen. If adequate actions are not taken with a view to appropriate recapitalization, this situation risks undermining the expected 2.2% performance of the Haitian economy in 2017.
Forecasts that the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) revised downward sharply for 2017 to 1% instead of the 2.2% set as target by the Government of Haiti.
The recycling of soaps helps unmarried mothers in Cite Soleil
Reducing the volume of waste, allowing vulnerable women to find decent work, and reducing the risks of diseases: the recycling of soap pieces left by guests at luxury hotels, is having inestimable socioeconomic impact in Haiti.
After four months in Southeast Asia, where she discovered this concept, Laure Bottinelli founded the Anacoana Company with two partners in January, 2016. It is the first and only recycler of soap in Haiti.
The enterprise has attracted 25 hotels in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, a weekend destination for foreigners living in the capital.
"We are always enthusiastic to participate in national productions. There is also an educational component related to hygiene, with the cholera crisis we have here," said Maï Cardozo Stefanson, who is in charge at Montana, a famous hotel in the capital.
"In Haiti, there is never any waste: the poverty is such that everything is reused in one way or another. Usually, the staff would retrieve the soap for its personal use," she said. "Today, they collect the worn pieces and give them to Laure. In return, they receive clean soap that has been reconditioned.”
When retrieved from hotel rooms, the soap is totally disinfected, then grated and melted to be reconditioned: a task completed by three employees of the company.
"I did not return to Haiti to create another NGO," insists Laure Bottinelli, the 28-year-old business manager." To be a legal corporation, you must have women who are under contract".
"Some do not know how to read or write but it was clearly explained to them what employment is all about, that there were rules to be respected but that they also had rights which protected them," them, she explained.
Priority is given to unmarried mothers
In a country where the informal is the standard, she also likes specifying that her compagisteredregistered with commercial and fiscal authorities.
Only Haitian organic products are used to perfume the soap, and the packaging is biodegradable. The small company aims to be responsible and social, by giving priority to unmarried mothers who need employment.
"This work, it is the Good Lord who brought it to us. My small business was not enough to pay for the school of my children, the food, the rent," tells Magoiana Frémond, while carefully packing a coffee-scented soap.
"Anacaona helps the country and helps me a lot: my children are in school, they eat every day. Before, I rented a place. Now I have started building myself a house," praised this mother of five.
A part of the production is distributed in schools in Jacmel, but the company has booked orders, in particular from the French cosmetics chain Yves Rocher.
The small company thus manages simultaneously its commercial development and its social action to contribute to the reduction of waterborne diseases in Haiti.
Due to a lack of access to safe drinking water, the diarrheic diseases are one of the first causes of infant mortality in the country, according to the World Health Organization.
The epidemic of cholera, which has raged since 2010, caused the death of about 10,000 people. In addition, 72 % of the inhabitants have no toilet in their homes.
Anacaona works in particular with teachers from partnering schools to educate students about sanitation rules.
In Cite Solei, which makes up the largest slum in the Caribbean, the company also employs community agents.
These "hygiene ambassadors" circulated around this neighborhood where they themselves live, knocking on rusty steel sheet steels which act as front doors to evaluate the sanitary knowledge of the residents and remind them of the essential rules.
"Now, every time people meet me in the neighborhood, they think again about the advice that we had given them," said Judeline Joseph, who is 25. "Sometimes, they do not have the means to buy treated water but, also, some forget simply to take the precautions that really are useful."
With little money to combat cholera in Haiti, U.N. names new fundraising chief
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
A former top State Department official and head of the United Nations’ World Food Program has been tapped to develop a comprehensive fundraising strategy to finance the U.N.’s plan to clean up cholera in Haiti — a disease introduced there by U.N. peacekeepers.
Josette Sheeran’s appointment as a high-level envoy for Haiti was announced Tuesday by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. The announcement comes two days before a planned U.N. Security Council visit to the country on Thursday so members can see firsthand how the 13-year U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is continuing its withdrawal of peacekeeping battalions and foreign police units ahead of the mission’s permanent closure in October.
Named as one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes magazine when she was head of the World Food Program from 2007 to 2012, Sheeran is the third senior U.N. official chosen to help the world body raise funds to rid Haiti of the epidemic. But her role will be much broader than cholera fundraising, said U.N. officials who likened it to that of former President Bill Clinton, who was appointed U.N. special envoy for Haiti in 2009. As Guterres’ special envoy, Sheeran will support national efforts to reach Haiti’s 2030 sustainable development goals, as well as guide the approach to eliminate cholera in Haiti.
Scientific studies have traced the introduction of cholera in Haiti to Nepalese soldiers stationed near a river in the rural town of Mirebalais in the Central Plateau region after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake. Since October of that year, more than 800,000 Haitians have been sickened by cholera and more than 9,000 killed, according to the country’s health ministry.
“She has accepted with a salary of $1 per year,” Guterres said, “to be fully engaged in fundraising for a program that indeed until now has received very little support from the point of view of the people and from the point of view of the U.N.”
Sheeran steps into the role as humanitarian agencies in Haiti such as the World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization face serious funding shortages that threaten to reverse progress made on controlling the water-borne disease. The U.N. has been struggling to raise $400 million to fight it.
Last week, U.N. Deputy-General Secretary Amina J. Mohammed, while presenting Guterres’ latest fundraising push and report on cholera, told member states that only $2.7 million had been raised, and now only $183,000 was left. The bulk of that money was raised by Sheeran’s predecessor, Dr. David Nabarro, a British physician with more than 30 years of public health experience who previously had raised $3.5 billion for the Ebola fight.
Despite Nabarro’s success with Ebola, he ran into resistance on cholera, as the United States and other member states refused to contribute to the trust fund. Pedro Medrano Rojas, the retired Chilean diplomat who had the job before Nabarro, also left his 18-month tenure in 2015 disappointed by the international community’s failure to “acknowledge the fact that we have in Haiti the largest epidemic in the Western Hemisphere.”
In February, Guterres wrote to nations asking if they intended to make voluntary cholera contributions and received a lukewarm response. Now, he’s asking countries to turn over $40.5 million to the cholera fund, money that will be left over when the mission in Haiti ends.
So far, that plan has garnered little interest. The U.S. said it supports the idea in principle but “is not in a position to contribute in this way.”
The U.N. has struggled to raise money for Haiti, not just for cholera but also for other humanitarian efforts including last year’s Hurricane Matthew response and recovery. While some observers blame the lengthy list of crises around the globe for the reluctance to pay for cholera cleanup, others blame Haiti fatigue.
Sheeran has experience in attracting world attention to burgeoning problems. In 2008, as food prices dramatically increased, Sheeran warned of a worldwide food crisis and heavily lobbied the United States and other governments for additional aid.
She currently heads the nonprofit Asia Society, and will remain in that job as she champions Haiti. Sheeran previously served in several high-level U.N. roles and as vice chair of the World Economic Forum. Prior to her 2007 appointment as the head of the World Food Program, Sheeran served as undersecretary for economic, energy and agricultural affairs at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, and as deputy U.S. trade representative in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.