Miami fires manager of Little Haiti Cultural Center for second time in six years
Miami City Manager Art Noriega has fired Sandy Dorsainvil, the manager of the Little Haiti Cultural Center.
The dismissal — the second time in six years that a top administrator has fired Dorsainvil — ends what has been a tumultuous relationship between the city government and the director of a cultural hub that hosts the Caribbean Marketplace, a fine art gallery and a theater.
Noriega signed her termination letter May 27, catching Dorsainvil by surprise because she had decided to resign weeks earlier amid tensions with city management. Internal emails show Dorsainvil had verbally resigned May 10 during an “emotional” meeting with management, but she later tried to rescind her comments after consulting with her employee union. After more disagreement with the city, Dorsainvil decided to maintain her resignation.
The night before she was fired, the center had held a farewell for Dorsainvil at the opening of an art exhibit, Bèl Fanm . She was let go less than a week before her last day.
In his letter, Noriega wrote that Dorsainvil was insubordinate and broke several city rules leading up a five-day suspension in mid-May, during which he said she violated policies again by sending emails from her work account. The city manager wrote that in April and May, Dorsainvil had improperly signed off on a city contract and violated city purchasing policies when she spent $2,000 on an electronic billboard to promote Haitian Heritage Month without necessary approvals.
On Thursday, Dorsainvil told the Miami Herald she acknowledges that paperwork should’ve been done correctly and city processes should’ve been followed, but the cultural center was too understaffed for her to get work done without breaking some rules.
“I know I’m not perfect,” Dorsainvil said. “But what I can say with 100% certainty is the errors that occurred were because I am one person. I did not have the staff to accomplish what they wanted accomplished the way they wanted it done.”
The fired manager of the Haitian Cultural Center, Sandy Dorsainvil Haitian Cultural Center
Dorsainvil said she does not plan to contest her firing. She had managed the cultural center since May 2013, with a break after the first time she was fired.
In April 2016, Dorsainvil was suddenly fired when her boss suspected she was embezzling money. Her firing caused an uproar among her supporters in Miami’s Haitian community, and it led some commissioners to unsuccessfully push for the firing of Daniel Alfonso, the city manager at the time.
A three-year inquiry led to no charges after investigators found no evidence that Dorsainvil had stolen or diverted any money from the facility. She was later reinstated.
The latest firing came a week after controversy over a planned musical performance by former Haitian President Michel Martelly, also known as “Sweet Micky,” at the cultural center. Activists in Miami’s Haitian community decried Martelly and planned to protest the May 25 event. Martelly has faced accusations of corruption since leaving office, and his political party has been blamed for political unrest and increasing gang violence in Haiti.
Miami police barred Martelly from performing , citing safety concerns. In 2018, Dorsainvil defended a decision to invite Martelly to perform in Little Haiti.
Noriega’s letter did not mention Martelly, and Dorsainvil said she didn’t think her dismissal had anything to do with the concert. She suggested that she and the city did not see eye to eye on how to properly support the cultural center.
“The goal is not for the center to succeed. I don’t know what the goal is, but all of the dots don’t align,” Dorsainvil said. “If you want a public facility to succeed, you give it the staff it needs, the resources it needs.”
Residents participate in Afro-dances during a Fèt Chanpèt event at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. Devoun Cetoute/Miami Herald file photo
https://insightcrime.org/news/haiti-gangs-recruiting-arming-more-children/
Haiti Gangs Recruiting, Arming More Children
CARIBBEAN / 3 JUN 2022 BY ALESSANDRO FORD EN
Gangs in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince are rounding up homeless and at-risk teens, who are increasingly being used as foot soldiers in gang wars that have forced schools to close and engulfed neighborhoods.
Homeless minors are disappearing from streets and shelters as armed groups recruit them with offers of money and security. One shelter near the National Palace was down to nearly 10 percent capacity, having been targeted by the Ti Lapli, Bougoy and 100 Jours gangs, reported Spanish news agency EFE on May 30.
The child recruitment reports come just weeks after United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet expressed alarm at the extreme gang violence in Port-au-Prince, which has caused thousands of families to flee. The UN noted in a news release the gangs were using minors as combatants and killing them for being informants to rivals. The gangs are also imposing control through sexual violence, including raping children as young as ten.
By early May, gang violence forced the closure of almost 1,700 schools and deprived half a million children of access to education, according to UNICEF, the UN’s children’s rights body.
“Giving children weapons to fight and using them as soldiers or spies is a violation of their child rights and condemned by both national and international laws,” Bruno Maes, UNICEF Representative in Haiti, said in the news release.
Gangs arming children in Haiti drew attention in early April, when a videocirculated on social media of a boy carrying an M4 rifle. In the video, the boy proclaims his gang membership while wielding the firearm. The video was shot in the fiercely contested neighborhood of Martissant, at the capital's southern entrance.
InSight Crime Analysis
In Haiti – as in countries like Colombia, Argentina and Mexico – urban gangs have long used minors in supporting roles, such as lookouts and couriers for arms or drugs. But escalating gang warfare in Haiti's capital has led youths to be press-ganged and recruited for street battles.
Child recruitment in Haiti first became visible in the early 2000s, when the country’s fledgling gangs took advantage of political and economic chaos to recruit vulnerable children. The gangs offered them food and safety, according to a 2008 report by the non-governmental organization Child Soldiers International.
In return, notes the report, the children served as messengers, watched over kidnap victims and even conducted sabotage missions against UN peacekeepers, such as one case in which very young children cut the brake cables of UN tanks during an operation to arrest gang leaders.
Child combatants existed, but they were relatively rare. Previously, many gang leaders in Martissant would not even allow young children to hang around their soldiers, said Eric Calpas, a researcher who has studied gangs in Haiti. Around 2018, when sporadic gang violence escalated into a criminal war in Port-au-Prince, Haiti began to see a significant increase in minors equipped with firearms.
“Today, because of the war situation … they are forced to recruit really broadly: adults and teenagers and children as young as 10 to 12 years old,” Calpas said.
Two hotspots for child recruitment have been the battleground districts of Martissant and Croix-des-Bouquets, where conflicts have raged since mid-2021. According to Calpas, Haiti’s most notorious gang, 400 Mawozo, is the worst offender, relying on intimidation to force minors into its ranks as it wages an expansionist campaign across the capital's northern areas.
However, the majority of underage recruits join willingly, says Calpas, seeking emotional belonging as much as food and shelter. In this, they resemble more the child aspirants of Central American street gangs like the MS13 than the often forced conscripts of Colombia’s rural armed groups.
Certain Haitian gang leaders today began as child recruits, notes Calpas, mirroring many of their Central American counterparts.
Joseph Alfred via groups.io <joe_alfred=
sam. 4 juin 22:22 (il y a 12 heures)
The next government of Haiti shall use this documented article from a prestigious US media to launch a lawsuit against the United States and France.
Where is the Haitian Diaspora? The Haitian Diaspora could have been more useful to Haiti if it was organized.
There is a case !!! against France and the United States. Also, the former US president confessed and there should be compensation.
Make sure you know the moral character of the people you are dealing with in Haiti and the Diaspora.
It is fair game to use your own words against you in due time.
My Dad and Mom taught me this: if someone is not going to be useful to me or has nothing to gain from my success in my future, drop that person. I follow their advice religiously. I help you, you help me. It is not going to be one way !!!
Peace !!!