WILL THE U.S. FINALLY CORRECT ITS COURSE IN HAÏTI ?
By AMY WILENTZ
JUNE 8, 2021 3 AM PT
This month may prove to be crucial for Haiti’s future. Americans used to think that any country’s political problems — and thus all its other difficulties — could be solved with a good, solid, democratic, U.S.- supported election.
But in many countries where we’ve proposed and followed through with backing for such elections, problems have continued or even been exacerbated. Haiti is one extreme example.
One reason for this, in Haiti as elsewhere, is that when the U.S. wants to help support and certify democratic elections, it usually already has a preferred dog in the race.
And that dog is not always a good dog.
In Haiti today, the dog also has many masters, who are collectively known as the Core Group, which consists of powerful outside advisors including the U.S., France, Canada, the Organization of American States and the U.N. Together they have supported specific candidates in past elections, viewing these as change vehicles for Haiti. Unfortunately, two things are true: These vehicles have a tendency to break down. And no Haitian government can exist without ongoing Core Group support.
Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moise, whose marred election was certified by the OAS in 2016, has been one such failure, and on a grand scale. After much controversy, he was finally seated as president in 2017, with Core Group backing.
But over time, Moise, theoretically chosen to bring Haiti along the democratic road, has shown himself to be a natural autocrat. Since early 2020, he has ruled by decree. He has not held legislative elections, letting Haiti’s law-making body become utterly depopulated through term-limit attrition and termination by Moise himself. He has also replaced mayors around the country with his own choices as each terms out, consolidating his hold on the central government and on the countryside.
He sent troops against Haiti’s Supreme Court and closed it down. He has arrested and jailed his political opponents and their family members, presided over grotesque corruption that has impoverished Haiti further, and failed to address — and is thought to have encouraged — escalating violence in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere.
He has ignored the COVID-19 crisis, while accepting international funds to address it. No vaccinations have been given in the country.
Gang killings and kidnappings have shut down businesses and schools. People are afraid to go out, and the police have been cowed into passivity by brutal killings of officers. In effect, these gangs — heavily armed and well-organized — run the streets of Haiti. They are a rivalrous and vicious cohort, several with proven ties to the Moise government and various nefarious Haitian businessmen.
The gangs attack nurses, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, priests, ministers, nuns, the occasional foreign visitor and assorted professionals, as well as police officers — it can seem as if they are targeting Haiti’s future.
Often, after an attack, a kidnapping, an assassination, a massacre, the government issues no statement, provides no response. As the weeks tick by, the gangs grow stronger.
In the midst of this dark situation, Moise has remained in power in spite of reasonable opposition claims that his term ended by law in February. He says his presidency will come to its grand finale in February 2022. Certainly he has overstayed his welcome with the Haitian people.
Moise has also announced that he will hold presidential and legislative elections, but only after a national referendum that would make autocratic changes to the Haitian Constitution. The referendum and the elections would be under Moise’s control and would take place in the ongoing atmosphere of extreme instability and danger in which voters’ security cannot be assured.
Until now, the U.S., along with the Core Group, has backed Moise’s claim to his extra year of rule. And until now, Haiti’s traditional international advisors have not publicly suggested Moise’s rule is corrupt and violent.
Pity the members of the Core Group, because the only explanation for their behavior is fear; they haven’t had the imagination to envision a Haiti without a despot at the wheel. The belief among those who advise Haiti has often been that, as the saying goes, you pick Haiti up and it explodes in your face.
Last month, the Biden administration reinstated Temporary Protected Status for about 100,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S., citing “serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses” among other woes preventing their safe return home.
The TPS reinstatement, with its implicit judgment of Moise’s regime, has brought hope to many Haitians. In recent days, the U.N. has also seemed to distance itself from Moise. Maybe the U.S. is shifting course, and the constitutional changes and votes proposed by Moise will never come to be. Perhaps his ruinous vision for Haiti finally went too far even for his friends and supporters in the Core Group.
A little whisper of hope is fluttering around Port-au-Prince, with the news that in next few days, a five-member team from the OAS will visit Haiti to discuss the current crisis and possible solutions. Rumors are bouncing back and forth on WhatsApp, and suddenly among opposition parties and grass-roots organizers, the prospect of an OAS Haiti delegation is being greeted less with distrust than with a degree of optimism. One wonders how the gangs will welcome the team, however.
If nothing comes of this visit, there’s no telling toward what dark star Moise will next point the prow of his sinking ship of state.
Amy Wilentz is the author of “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier” and “Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti,” among other books.
OPINIONWORLD & NATIONOP-ED
U.S. to send vaccines to Latin America, Caribbean as COVID cases and deaths are surging
JUNE 03, 2021
UPDATED JUNE 03, 2021 06:08 PM
The Biden administration announced Thursday it will donate by month’s end millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Latin America and the Caribbean, where increased movement between countries and relaxed public health measures are causing the deadly coronavirus and its variants to spread.
While the United States has about 51 percent of its population vaccinated, the rest of the region continues to see mounting infections and hospitalizations amid low vaccination rates. The World Health Organization and its regional arm, the Pan American Health Organization, have been pleading for months that the U.S. and other rich countries with surplus vaccines share their extra supplies with poorer countries.
The bulk of the 25 million U.S. doses will be given through the U.N.-backed vaccine global access platform known as COVAX, which is aimed at getting shots in the arms of people in poor and middle-income countries. Of the 19 million doses that the administration said it would donate via COVAX, six million are directed at South and Central America nations as well as the Caribbean Community.
“This vaccine strategy is a vital component of our overall global strategy to lead the world in the fight to defeat COVID-19, including emergency public health assistance and aid to stop the spread and building global public health capacity and readiness to beat not just this pandemic, but the next one,” the White House said in a statement.
Another six million vaccine doses will be donated directly to several countries that are considered strategic foreign policy partners, some of whom are struggling with surging infection rates, including Mexico, Canada and Haiti. This list also includes South Korea, Ukraine, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.
Poverty-stricken and politically unstable, Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere that has not yet administered a single shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. The White House announcement said its dose-sharing approach prioritizes Latin America and the Caribbean on a per capita basis, favoring populous countries.
ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (JUNE 13TH, 2021)
Ez. 17, 22-24;Ps. 92; 2 Cor. 5, 6-10; Mk 4, 26-34 By +Guy Sansaricq.
The key teaching of the day comes in the form of a simple parable borrowed from nature. A small seed is planted in the ground and slowly grows up to become a huge tree. Prophet Ezekiel used this image when God’s people was held captive in Babylon. He compared them to a seed buried underground that will mysteriously become a great nation in the future.
It’s a message of HOPE. The Church faced tremendous obstacles in its initial days. Even today we sometimes experience discouragement when we look around and observe that the modern world ignores the Gospel. People don’t seem to resonate with joy when the word of God is proclaimed. Stories of brutality and violence make up the stuff of evening news.
We do not need to be disheartened. There is an undefeatable power in the truth and the grace of Jesus-Christ. The ultimate victory of the KINGDOM is assured. Happy are those who never lose hope! The line of Paul in the 2nd reading adds new strength to this message: we walk by faith and not by sight. Just like the growth of planted seeds cannot be observed by the farmer, we too do not see or perceive the secret spread of the KINGDOM. Yet beyond all the signs of death that we see all around, God’s work of life continues unabated.
Dismiss all forms of despair. Hold firm to faith and hope! Victorious is our GOD!
SEAN PENN ON LAURENT LAMOTHE, MARTELLY AND PREVAL
“This book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people,” Penn writes
Samson Amore | June 10, 2021 @ 1:47 PM
While this book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people, so does it subtly infuse the omnipresence delegated by its leadership to provide the flesh of the hands that were on, and what demanded a ubiquitous hands-on political commitment: The hands of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. I had been designated Ambassador-at-Large for Haiti, and as such, found myself in daily, if not multi-daily, conversations, bi-lateral negotiations, and diplomatic visits with Laurent Lamothe. I watched him give a minimum of seventeen hours a day to his country for the time of his service. I watched as he built systems of subsidies and empowerment for women, road constructions, training for the national police. I watched as he visited with the displaced in the camps in which my organization worked. I watched as he expedited legitimate adoptions of parentless children. And I joined, on a daily basis, as one more of those who placed extraordinary demand upon him. But I also remember at the end of so many long days and nights, being in a small group of confidantes, saying, “Mr. Prime Minister, it’s time you get some sleep.” If he wasn’t going to listen to Rene Preval, he wasn’t going to listen to me. His activities in support of his country have not waned since his resignation. Let this book be your introduction to an extraordinary man and country.”
Penn is also the subject of a new documentary about his philanthropy called “Citizen Penn,” which is now streaming on Discovery+.
“The Hands of the Prime Minister” releases June 15 but is available for preorder. The book’s synopsis says it tells the story of how Lamothe’s work from 2012 to 2015 helped create and manage a “hands-on, inclusive government set up” that helped Haiti briefly rebound from decades of disasters, both “man-made and natural.”
“This book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people,” Penn writes in the introduction. He added, “where I have seen courage, love and inspiration, I have never seen a greater level of it than among the people of this ever challenged nation.”
Lamonthe was Haiti’s longest-serving prime minister in the country’s modern history, despite having held the position for less than three years. He was elected in 2012 and resigned in 2014. In 2015 Lamonthe said “my government’s top priority was to serve these vulnerable citizens who had always been forgotten by traditional politicians and the political class.”
Holsinger said in a statement Thursday, “in following Laurent throughout the interview process for this book, I was able to provide a deep-dive into the changes made during his time in office. His common sense solutions, made by listening to the people, provided remarkable outcomes. What he created in record time still exists today–he essentially rebuilt a country in 31 months.”
According to the Guardian, Penn’s interest with Haiti began after the country was rocked by a massive earthquake in 2010, killing over 300,000 people. Shortly afterward, Penn was named ambassador-at-large for the country. “Citizen Penn” director Don Hardy told the paper that also was in part the beginning of the “Citizen Penn” documentary.
“I saw him hurriedly set up some way for a plane to get into Haiti with supplies, watched it right in front of me,” Hardy told the Guardian. “He was on the first plane he could get. I reached out to his assistant to ask if Sean needed someone there on site to film what was going on, and she said yes. A couple weeks later, myself and a few friends were there on the ground shooting footage that could go out to news organizations and show what was going on.”
Check out the full foreward from Penn below.
“It was January 2010 when a confluence of circumstances and fate first brought me to Haiti. Having intermittently lived and continuously worked in Haiti these last six years following the devastating earthquake that was felt around the world, I have learned many things about its glorious people and the challenges of their country’s history and future. I have worked among its poor, its wealthy, and its leadership in equal parts. I’ve seen people of both its courage and its corruption within all three of these groups. But where I have seen courage, love and inspiration, I have never seen a greater level of it than among the people of this ever challenged nation.
Not long after the earthquake was Haiti hit with yet another devastating blow that only in the impoverished world could yield seven thousand deaths from a disease imminently curable where there is clean water and education: Cholera. And it was during that bacteria’s devastating campaign against the Haitian people that the election process had restarted and a new president was to be elected.
I met the man who would be President, Michel Martelly, in the middle of the night during a period of great social unrest. His passion and intelligence were unquestionable. Yet still, like all Haiti’s presidents in the post Duvalier years, would he and his cabinet face the extraordinary burden of leading within the architecture of a constitution that had been written as a reactionary testament to the violations of dictatorships that had come before. The power of the president and the prime minster he would appoint were sure to be tested.
That same night I was introduced to another man, soon to be confirmed as Haiti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Lamothe. I was taken by his sharp mind and clarity of purpose. Just a few short months later, I had requested of the former President of Haiti, Rene Preval, that he meet with the new Foreign Minister of the opposition party, Lamothe. It was my hope, at once, to scratch the surface in bridging political divides, but more particularly, as my respect for President Preval’s political wisdom was great, it seemed to me the guidance of this elder statesman could be of some value to the younger man whose business history was formidable but who had held no political office prior to his engagement as Foreign Minister.
We sat in the Miami home owned by the wife of Preval. He had greeted us warmly at the door, and now the discussion had begun. Many things were discussed that night. But what I remember most keenly was the advice of President Preval to the younger Lamothe—that Lamothe and his President select eight agenda items that they would bear all their energy toward accomplishing for the full five years of their administration. Preval was a political chess master. He had deep knowledge of the restrictions by constitution on paper and the constitution of its people. And yet, as wise as President Preval’s words may have been, what was clear in the post earthquake phenomenon—the monies flowing into foreign designed projects for indigenous consumption—that in Haiti’s new world, the eight suggested agenda items would quickly rise to a demand for a focus on eight hundred. Disagreements between President Martelly and his sworn Prime Minister soon led to Foreign Minister Lamothe’s rise to selection as Haiti’s Prime Minister, a position he held for nearly three years, the longest of any Prime Minister in contemporary Haiti.
While this book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people, so does it subtly infuse the omnipresence delegated by its leadership to provide the flesh of the hands that were on, and what demanded a ubiquitous hands-on political commitment: The hands of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. I had been designated Ambassador-at-Large for Haiti, and as such, found myself in daily, if not multi-daily, conversations, bi-lateral negotiations, and diplomatic visits with Laurent Lamothe. I watched him give a minimum of seventeen hours a day to his country for the time of his service. I watched as he built systems of subsidies and empowerment for women, road constructions, training for the national police. I watched as he visited with the displaced in the camps in which my organization worked. I watched as he expedited legitimate adoptions of parentless children. And I joined, on a daily basis, as one more of those who placed extraordinary demand upon him. But I also remember at the end of so many long days and nights, being in a small group of confidantes, saying, “Mr. Prime Minister, it’s time you get some sleep.” If he wasn’t going to listen to Rene Preval, he wasn’t going to listen to me. His activities in support of his country have not waned since his resignation. Let this book be your introduction to an extraordinary man and country.”
Sean Penn Details Ties to Political Confidant and Ex-Haiti PM Laurent Lamothe in Biography Intro
Reseau Citadelle - Cyrus Sibert