Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 29 juillet 2015

 Western Union and Sogexpress Innovate: Remittances to Fund Renewable Energy in Haiti

New Klere Ayiti initiative seeks to address Haiti’s energy poverty

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a leader in global payment services, and Western Union Agent Sogexpress, a leading Haitian money transfer and payment services company and subsidiary of Sogebank, today launched a new platform that enables the Haitian diaspora to use remittances to finance renewable energy products for families and friends in Haiti, where only 28 percent of the population has access to electricity.

“Comprehensive Planning for Electric Power Supply in Haiti – Expansion of the Supply for Electricity Generation”

The platform features a dedicated website that allows local customers and senders living abroad to pre-order the solar light kit of their choice at www.klereayiti.com. They then use their order number to complete payment at participating Western Union Agent locations around the world via the Western Union® Quick PaySM platform. Orders will be fulfilled by Sogexpress in three to five working days.

Western Union and Sogexpress’ corporate commitments provide an ecological and viable solution to address Haiti’s “energy poverty” challenge. The two companies are key partners of the ‘Klere Ayiti’ – “Light-up Haiti” – initiative made possible by technical assistance funded by the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and provided by Arc Finance. The objective of ‘Klere Ayiti’ is to catalyze new commercial business models that will increase consumer access to clean energy in Haiti. The model is based on one piloted in a previous MIF-Arc Finance-Sogexpress project executed in 2012 to 2013. The remittance platform will add a new financing option to enable Haitians to access larger systems that have economic, health, and social benefits.

Sean Mason, Vice President for Western Union in the Caribbean said, “The Klere Ayiti initiative is a real life example of the positive impact Western Union aims to achieve when we say we are Moving Money for Better. Through our services, we have seen the quality of life improve, education levels lift, jobs created and economies grow. We are committed to the collaborative approach of delivering renewable energy products, through a technologically innovative process of purpose-directed payments, with multiple benefits for the people of Haiti.”

Franck Lanoix, Sogexpress Executive Vice President, is enthusiastic about the initiative and the impact that solar energy will have on the lives of everyday Haitians at home and in small businesses. “At Sogexpress we want to help all Haitians benefit from our natural resource – an abundance of sunlight. With these solar lighting kits children can study at night, families will feel more safe and secure, businesses can stay open longer and people can charge their phones. Having a cleaner and more accessible alternative for electricity with the solar light kits has the potential to transform the lives of millions of Haitians,” he said.

Haiti receives substantial remittances inflows every year – approximately US$2 billion in 2014 according to the Multilateral Investment Fund. Remittances represent over 20 percent of GDP2 - mainly from the million-plus Haitians living in the United States and Canada. The average monthly remittance size is US$60 to $200, and a substantial portion of this is used to pay for energy, including fuel for lighting, cooking and transportation.

Documents Show Red Cross May Not Know How It Spent Millions In Haiti

The American Red Cross is under pressure this week to answer detailed questions from Congress about how it spent the nearly half-billion dollars it raised after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Some of those answers might be difficult to come by. New documents obtained by NPR and ProPublica reveal that the Red Cross may not have an accurate accounting of how all the money was spent.

The reports — internal assessments from 2012 of the group's health and water projects — found the charity failed in many cases to monitor its own spending, oversee its projects and even know whether the projects were successful. The documents also cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the Red Cross' public claims of success.

One report found the Red Cross had "no correct process for monitoring project spending."

Another pointed to $10 million the charity gave to other nonprofits to fight the spread of cholera. The review found the Red Cross did not evaluate any of the work by these other nonprofits, did not seem to know if any of the objectives had been achieved and wasn't aware that one of the nonprofits mismanaged its funds.

The review concludes: "It is too late to tend to this."

"It is very heartbreaking," says Bonnie Kittle, who was one of the independent reviewers hired by the Red Cross and author of one of the reports. She described her findings in an interview with NPR: "The only real advantage that the American Red Cross had over other organizations was that it had this huge amount of money. Otherwise it was very handicapped."

The Red Cross declined NPR and ProPublica's request for comment on the reports. In a statement, Red Cross spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis said NPR and ProPublica have "mischaracterized" the Red Cross' work, stating "we will no longer respond to your requests."

The findings parallel NPR and ProPublica's earlier reporting about the Red Cross' troubled efforts to help Haiti recover from the 2010 earthquake. The charity has so far declined to explain how the almost $500 million was spent, what programs it ran and what its expenses were.

In explaining the troubles in its Haiti program, the Red Cross has previously cited the challenges of operating in one of the world's poorest countries, particularly confusion over land ownership and title.

But the internal assessments also lay blame on American Red Cross headquarters in Washington. The report on health projects found: "In large part because of the centralized decision-making, most if not all of the directly implemented projects in Haiti are behind schedule."

The report also found that Red Cross figures about how many people it claims to have helped on one project were "fairly meaningless."

Kittle says the Red Cross provided Haitians with important skills and Red Cross workers on the ground were passionate and dedicated. She also says local Red Cross managers in Haiti implemented training after her report to try to correct some of the problems.

Additionally, according to one report, one aspect of the Red Cross' response went well — a hygiene promotion project that was already underway and was quickly refocused on battling cholera: "The rapid scale up of cholera prevention activities in the camps likely helped save many lives."

But overall, Kittle says the Red Cross was unable to shift from its expertise — emergency relief — to rebuilding in a developing country and was unable to properly manage the programs it implemented. She pointed to one $24 million neighborhood project in Campeche, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, where residents were once promised new homes but have not received them.

"It's really easy to be very disappointed when you hear those numbers — the amounts of money," she says. "And the little it seems that they were able to accomplish."

According to the reports, many of the managers had little meaningful interaction with local residents. One senior manager couldn't speak French or Creole, hindering efforts to interact with the community. One report found turnover was so high among senior staff that at one point 20 out of 24 managers in Haiti decided not to renew their contracts.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley has asked the Red Cross to respond by Wednesday to more than a dozen detailed questions about how it spent the money in Haiti and what exactly that money achieved.

TeleSur - Dominican Republic Rejects Dialogue with Haiti with Bias Claims

The head of the OAS has called for the two countries to discuss tensions, but Dominican officials accuse him of being biased on migration issues. The government of the Dominican Republic has rejected a dialogue with Haiti requested by the head of the Organization of American States, saying Secretary General Luis Almagro is biased when it comes to the issue of the immigration situation on the Caribbean island. Dominican Vice President Margarita Cedeno said Friday that “Almagro showed not to have an impartial stance on immigration issues between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which disqualifies him from exercising his role as a neutral entity.” Almagro mostró no tener postura imparcial ante tema migratorio entre RD-Haití, lo cual lo descalifica para ejercer su rol como ente neutral — Margarita Cedeño (@margaritacdf) July 17, 2015 “Almagro showed not to have an impartial stance on immigration issues between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which disqualifies him from exercising his role as a neutral entity.” Cedeno's comments, reiterated on her Twitter account, support earlier statements by Dominican Foreign Minister Andres Navarro, who also said the Dominican government is unwilling to discuss immigration issues with Haiti. Navarro accused Almagro of hindering the role the OAS is intended to play in the region and predicted the OAS would deliver a “biased” report on the migration and human rights situation on the shared Caribbean island. The response comes after OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro asked the Dominican Republic and Haiti to sit and talk about the tensions that have recently flared between the two neighboring countries.

Haiti has accused the Dominican Republic of violating the human rights of Haitian migrants and provoking a humanitarian crisis on the shared island through immigration policies that are discriminatory towards Haitians. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic has insisted it has a right to self-determine immigration law as a sovereign issue and has demanded an apology from Haiti for hurling criticisms at its policies. “We have the inalienable right to regulate foreign presence in our territory,” said Cedeno, “respecting human rights.”

Some may have misinterpreted Almagro's request for dialogue as a call for unification of the island, as the OAS chief later issued a clarification on his Twitter account. “I called for dialogue between two countries that share one island, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A different interpretation is a misinterpretation,” wrote Almagro. Llamé al diálogo a dos países q comparten una isla #RepDom #Haiti. Una interpretación distinta es tergiversación. https://t.co/qoV1rsPDWS — Luis Almagro (@Almagro_OEA2015) July 17, 2015 “I called for dialogue between two countries that share one island, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A different interpretation is a misinterpretation.”

The call for dialogue comes after an OAS mission visiting the Dominican Republic and Haiti to meet with state officials and civil society to assess the migration plight concluded earlier this week. A report from the delegation is expected before the end of the year. OAS delegation conducts visits in Dominican-Haitian border areas. (Photo: OAS) Longstanding tensions between the two countries on the shared island of Hispaniola have intensified recently, as tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans face mass deportation from the Dominican Republic and poverty-stricken Haiti lacks the resources to support a massive influx of migrants.

In 2013, a Dominican court decision to retroactively strip Haitian descendents of citizenship instantly made some half a million people stateless. A recent deadline for undocumented migrants to register with authorities as part of a state regularization plan has essentially been a mass deportation order for Haitian descendents, with limited spaces available and many challenges navigating the process. Tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans have been forced to leave “voluntarily” under pressure and threats or been deported.

Human rights activists say this law just shows the Dominican Republic's long history of discrimination against Haitians. Migration from Haiti to the Dominican Republic is a generations-old phenomenon dating back to the late 1800's. Haitian migrants have long provided a foundational labor force for the Dominican sugar industry, one of the country's most important exports.

The worst of US immigration policy is reflected in the Dominican Republic

Dan-el Padilla Peralta

Dark-skinned and nappy-headed, I fit the profile of a person of Haitian descent. Since the 1990s, the Dominican state has made a habit of denying papers to descendants of Haitians born in the Dominican Republic (and even people who look Haitian). And in a now-infamous ruling handed down in September 2013, the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal left hundreds of thousands of people – many of them born in the DR – effectively stateless.

The Dominican Republic's mass Haitian deportation reflects its racist history

Despite this, I wasn’t too concerned when I rode the subway to the Dominican Consulate in New York City to renew my passport 16 months ago. I’d completed this routine errand several times before without incident. On this visit, my lack of a cédula, the national identification card for Dominican citizens, became a problem. Having lived in the US almost my whole life, I’d never possessed or needed a cédula. I admitted as much to the consular officer, and prepared myself to be chastised in bureaucratese. Instead he looked me in the eye and asked: “Are you Haitian?”

At that moment I realized just how much trouble not having that flimsy card might cause me.

Behind the officer’s question I sensed a threat: if he declined to renew my passport on the grounds that I was “Haitian”, I would be deprived of the documentation I needed to prove my nationality. After being undocumented for much of my childhood in the US, I’d been granted F-1 student visa status to pursue my doctoral studies at Stanford. If the DR rejected my passport renewal request, I’d be cast into an immigration limbo.

Dominican birth certificate in hand, I remonstrated with the officer. An hour and a half later, I walked out of the embassy with my new passport. My patria’s determination to isolate and remove Haitians through the refinements of immigration policy had not harmed me. I was lucky.

Back home, many are not. In the year since my consular visit, the Dominican government’s enforcement of the ruling and the new “Regularization Plan” implemented in its wake has created nightmares worthy of Kafka. Those suspected of being “Haitian” and who cannot produce satisfactory evidence of two Dominican-born parents are now subject to deportation unless they succeed in regularizing their status with the Dominican authorities. To do so, many applicants must obtain documentation from both the Dominican and Haitian governments. While difficult and costly for actual Haitian migrants, this undertaking is near-impossible for Dominican-born applicants with no connections to Haiti. No surprise, then, that only 4,600 of the approximately 290,000 men, women and children who have registered to begin the process of obtaining residence permits from the Dominican Interior Ministry had received them by this year’s June 17 deadline.

This immigration policy has enjoyed broad support from the Dominican public and from the country’s most prominent politicians. Former president of the Dominican Republic Leonel Fernández recently penned an op-ed that dismissed concerns voiced in American and European media outlets as “an effort to degrade and smear us before the international community, something that we as a generous and caring people do not deserve.”

Directly attacking international reporting of the plan, op-eds in other national publications make much fuss about the differences between Haitians and Dominicans but conveniently downplay or dismiss the role of anti-Haitianism and racism in the reification of these “differences.” These same op-eds also show no awareness of the long history of withholding documentation in order to keep marginalized people excluded – by making their daily lives ever more precarious, their bodies ever more vulnerable to the state’s violence.

The predicament of hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Haitian descendants in my home country resonates with me because I know what it is like to be black and undocumented: to be rendered doubly marginal. In my forthcoming memoir, I’ve tried to show how America’s inflexible and punitive immigration policies result in absurd and unjust outcomes.

It has been dismaying to see the Dominican government adopt a similar approach to immigration while making use of American border-policing expertise. It has been equally dismaying to see the Dominican government take up another American practice: lobbying. In the aftermath of the ruling, the Dominican government enlisted the services of the Washington law firm Steptoe and Johnson LLP for the purposes of “consolidating and strengthening the image of the Dominican State in the eyes of the international public opinion [sic] regarding the Decision.” In the carefully curated talking points being circulated to members of Congress, the Dominican government has sought to minimize the extent of the dislocations and upheavals inflicted on immigrants and descendants of immigrants through its policies.

May this effort at spin fail.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 5 aout 2015

 Chelsea Clinton in Haiti to visit family foundation projects

Evens Sanon, Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Last Tuesday, Chelsea Clinton encouraged women to educate themselves and learn how to be more independent during a trip to Haiti to oversee projects financed by the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton met with local entrepreneurs as she traveled to businesses in the capital of Port-au-Prince with a group of investors and philanthropists as part of the two-day trip. She also hosted a meeting with foundation President Donna Shalala to talk about women's roles in the Haitian workforce and their access to markets.

"We need programs ... to help close the gap so that girls and young women who haven't had the chance to get educated don't live with the burden of illiteracy their whole lives," said Clinton, who is the foundations vice chair.

The Clinton Foundation says it has helped raise more than $30 million for Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton founded the global charity after leaving the White House. The foundation's finances have received intense scrutiny as Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the White House.

Dominicans reject OAS offer to organize meeting with Haiti

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Dominican Republic last Wednesday rejected an offer by the Organization of American States to organize talks with Haiti on resolving a tense dispute between the two neighbors over citizenship and legal residency.

OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro proposed that the Washington-based organization plan a meeting between the Caribbean countries that share the island of Hispaniola "to find paths of solution to the present difficulties," among other recommendations.

But in Santo Domingo, Dominican Foreign Minister Andres Navarro said his government never requested or requires OAS mediation. He said the Dominican Republic is ready to resume bilateral talks once Haiti "abandons its attitude to discredit the Dominican Republic."

Navarro and other Dominican authorities have asserted that Haiti is spearheading an international campaign to make them look bad.

Bocchit Edmond, Haiti's ambassador to the OAS, welcomed the secretary-general's offer and said he would appoint a representative to resume talks under the guidance of the regional organization.

The Dominican Republic has been under international scrutiny for immigration policies that tend to affect mostly Haitians and people of Haitian descent, who tend to be darker skinned than most Dominicans and can find themselves victims of racial discrimination.

In September 2013, the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court ruled that children born in the country to non-citizens did not qualify for automatic citizenship because their migrant parents were "in transit." Most of those affected were Haitians.

Dominican officials created a program for people who were born in the country but never obtained a birth certificate or other identification. Before a February deadline, only some 9,000 people applied for the program that let them register as foreigners and become naturalized citizens.

Rights activists fear that Dominican-born people are vulnerable to mass deportations as foreigners. The Dominican government denies this.

The situation has strained relations between the two countries. They have long had a fraught history, with generations of Haitians crossing into the Dominican Republic to take low-wage jobs. The migrants have encountered periodic crackdowns.

Killing Haitian Democracy

The US’s repeated interventions in Haiti have left a legacy of despotism.

by Robert Fatton Jr

On July 28, 1915 the United States invaded Haiti, and imposed its diktat on the nation for close to two decades. The immediate pretext for the military intervention was the country’s chronic political instability that had culminated in the overthrow, mob killing, and bloody dismemberment of President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

The American takeover was in tune with the Monroe Doctrine, first declared in 1823, that justified the United States presumption that it had the unilateral right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Latin America. But it was not until the late 1800s when America had become a major world capitalist power that it actually acquired the capacity to fulfill its extra-continental imperial ambitions. In 1898 it seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam and soon afterwards took control of the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

The US’s goal was to transform the Caribbean into an “American Mediterranean” inoculated from the influence of French, German, and Spanish power.

The 1915 invasion was in fact the culmination of America’s earlier interferences in Haiti — on eight separate occasions US marines had temporarily landed to allegedly “protect American lives and property.” The latter part of this claim was more accurate than the former, for these earlier skirmishes served to solidify and enhance the presence of American financial banking interests.

This priority became clear when, on December 17, 1914, US marines, acting on the orders of US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, forcibly removed Haiti’s entire gold reserve — valued at $500,000 — from the vaults of Banque Nationale. The bullion was transported to New York on the gunboat Machias and deposited in the National City Bank.

American imperialism had thus announced its designs; it was bent on undercutting French and German economic dominance as well as signaling to Haitian authorities that they would be forced to pay their debt to US private banks. From Washington’s perspective, Haiti had to establish a political order serving American economic and strategic objectives. Ultimately, the means to that end was an occupation.

The first task of the occupiers was to select a new president to replace Sam. Rosalvo Bobo, who headed a caco army that led the insurrection ending with Sam’s brutal demise, was on the verge of moving into the Palais National. The United States, however, had other ideas. Washington viewed Bobo as too nationalistic to assume the reins of power.

While Capt. Edward Beach, the chief of staff of Adm. Caperton who led the Marines’ takeover of Haiti, acknowledged Bobo’s immense popularity, he deemed him “utterly unsuited to be Haiti’s President” because he was “an idealist and dreamer.” In fact, Beach informed Bobo that the United States considered him “a menace and a curse to [Haiti]” and thus forbade him to stand as a candidate for the presidency.

A revolutionary nationalist like Bobo was inimical to American interests. While he was being forced into exile and his cacos were launching a futile uprising against the occupying forces, Adm. Caperton installed a new president who would “realize that Haiti must agree to any terms laid down by the United States.” This new president was Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave.

The US not only imposed the unpopular Dartiguenave on Haiti, it also compelled Haitian authorities to sign a treaty legalizing the occupation. Caperton had orders “to remove all opposition” to the treaty’s ratification. If that failed, the United States had every intention to “retain control” and “proceed to complete the pacification of Haiti.”

Not surprisingly, on November 11, 1915 the Haitian Senate ratified the treaty and placed the country under an American protectorate. The United States was to take full control of the country’s military, law enforcement, and financial system. The repressive and fraudulent means by which the occupation was rendered officially “legal” symbolized what “democracy” and “constitutional rule” meant under imperial rule.

Not satisfied with the mere ratification of the treaty, the United States sought to compel the Haitian National Assembly to adopt a new constitution made in Washington. Faced with the assembly’s opposition, Maj. Smedley Butler, the head of the Gendarmerie d’Haiti — the military contingent created by the United States to replace the Haitian army that it had disbanded — arbitrarily dissolved the assembly.

Having no room to maneuver, Dartiguenave signed the decree of dissolution. In waging their own coup d’état, the occupying forces continued a long-held practice of Haitian politics, but they modernized it. As Butler proclaimed, the gendarmerie had to dissolve the assembly “by genuinely Marine Corps methods” because it had become “so impudent.”

The “impudence” of the assembly partly stemmed from its refusal to grant foreigners the right to own property in Haiti. The US found this refusal unacceptable and decided that a coup was warranted to impose the laws of the capitalist market.

Armed with military power, imbued with an imperial mentality, and convinced of their “manifest destiny” and racial superiority, the American occupiers expected deference and obedience from Haitians. In fact, the key American policymakers in both Washington and Port-au-Prince entertained racist phobias and stereotypes and were bewildered by Haitian culture.

At best, the occupiers regarded Haitians as the product of a bizarre mixture of African and Latin cultures who had to be treated like children lacking the education, maturity, and discipline for self-government. At worst, Haitians were like their African forbears, inferior human beings, “savages,” “cannibals,” “gooks,” and “niggers.”

Robert Lansing, the secretary of state in the Woodrow Wilson administration, exemplified the racist American view:

The experience of Liberia and Haiti show that the African race are devoid of any capacity for political organization and lack genius for government. Unquestionably there is in them an inherent tendency to revert to savagery and to cast aside the shackles of civilization which are irksome to their physical nature . . . It is that which makes the Negro problem practically unsolvable.

For the occupiers, Haitians thus had no capacity to run their own affairs or even appreciate the alleged benefits of America’s invasion. As High Commissioner Russell put it, “Haitian mentality only recognizes force, and appeal to reason and logic is unthinkable.”

And indeed, the American-led gendarmerie used brutal force to impose its grip on Haitian society and squash all opposition. Adm. Caperton declared martial law on September 3, 1915. It would last fourteen years, facilitating the establishment of a new regime of corvée (forced, unpaid labor), as well as the brutal suppression of the caco guerrilla resistance against American forces.

Overseen by the repressive control of the gendarmerie, the unpopular corvée system compelled peasants to work as virtual “slave gangs.” The massive mobilization of coerced labor helped build roads that reached remote areas of the territory; the creation of a viable network of transportation was not merely a means of spurring economic and commercial development, but a result of American strategic considerations.

Putting down the cacos who had supported Bobo and joined the popular guerrillas of Charlemagne Péralte required the penetration of the countryside to prevent any further recruitment of peasants into the forces of resistance.

The corvée system of forced labor extraction,and the military repression of the guerrillas were thus symbiotically connected. Riddled with abuse, the corvée failed to stifle opposition, however. Instead, coercing the peasantry to labor on infrastructural projects just fueled greater resistance to the occupation.

Popular support for the cacos grew, and soon there was an embryonic movement of national liberation with an increasingly sophisticated guerrilla force under the leadership of Péralte. Péralte, who called himself Chef Suprême de la Révolution en Haïti, explained that he was fighting the occupiers to gain Haiti’s liberation from American imperialism.

In the eyes of American authorities, however, the cacos, Péralte, and his supporters were nothing but “bandits,” “criminals,” and “killers” who had to be thoroughly “pacified.” And so they were. Péralte was shot on November 1, 1919 and his successor, Benoît Batraville, suffered a similar fate on May 19 of the following year. By 1921 the American pacification of the country was virtually complete. Some 2,000 thousand insurgents had been killed, and more than 11,000 of their sympathizers had been incarcerated.

Still, pacification did not imply popular acquiescence. It is true that the traditional Haitian elites initially collaborated with and even welcomed American imperialism. But as they experienced the unmitigated racism of the occupying forces, the elites turned against them and espoused varied forms of nationalist resistance.

While not inclined to back the caco insurgents, these elites developed a sense of nationhood that curbed the significance of color but had little impact on the salience of class identities. In the eyes of most Haitians, those who had participated actively in the occupation machinery, like President Dartiguenave or his successor, Louis Borno, were opportunistic collaborators or simply traitors.

In fact, many of these collaborators had authoritarian reflexes and shared some of the paternalistic and racist ideology of their American overlords. Convinced that Haitians were not prepared for any democratic form of self-government, these elites believed in the despotisme éclairé of the plus capables (the enlightened despotism of the most capable).

In addition, from their privileged class position they regarded the rest of their compatriots — especially the peasantry — with contempt. In an official letter to the nation’s prefects, President Borno openly expressed this disdain:

Our rural population, which represents nine-tenths of the Haitian population, is almost totally illiterate, ignorant and poor . . . it is still incapable of exercising the right to vote, and would be the easy prey of those bold speculators whose conscience hesitates at no lie.

[The] present electoral body . . . is characterized by a flagrant inability to assume . . . the heavy responsibilities of a political action.

Borno was a dictator, but a dictator under American control. His rule embodied what Haitians called la dictature bicéphale, the “dual despotism” of American imperialism and its domestic clients. This regime of repression had unintended consequences. It intensified the level of nationalist resistance to the occupation and contributed to a convergence of interests between intellectuals, students, public workers, and peasants.

This growing mobilization against the occupation precipitated the 1929 Marchaterre massacre, when some fifteen hundred peasants protesting high taxation confronted armed marines who then opened fire on the crowd. Twenty-four Haitians died and fifty-one were wounded. The massacre set in motion a series of events that would eventually lead the United States to reassess its policies and presence in Haiti.

President Herbert Hoover created a commission whose primary objective was to investigate “when and how we are to withdraw from Haiti.” The commission — which took the name of its chair, Cameron Forbes, who served in the Philippines as chief constabulary and then as governor — acknowledged that the US had not accomplished its mission and that it had failed “to understand the social problems of Haiti.”

While the commission astonishingly claimed that the occupation’s failure was due to the “brusque attempt to plant democracy there by drill and harrow” and to “its determination to set up a middle class,” it ultimately recommended the withdrawal of the United States from Haiti.

The commission advised, however, that the withdrawal not be immediate, but rather that it should take place only after the successful “Haitianization” of the public services as well as the gendarmerie. Forbes also understood that President Borno had no legitimacy and could be sacrificed. Borno was forced to retire and arrange the election of an interim successor who would in turn organize general elections. Sténio Vincent, a moderate nationalist who favored a gradual, negotiated ending to the occupation, thus became president in November 1930.

Vincent’s gradualism was in tune with the Forbes Commission’s recommendation for the accelerated Haitianization of the commanding ranks of the government and the eventual withdrawal of all American troops. While Forbes and Vincent operated on the assumption that the United States’ withdrawal would not occur until 1936, the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 altered events.

Roosevelt’s new “Good Neighbor” strategy toward Latin America was rooted in the premise that direct occupation through military intervention was expensive, counterproductive, and in most instances unnecessary. It was not that the forceful occupation of another country was precluded; it simply became a last resort.

Roosevelt understood that in Latin America, the United States could impose its hegemony through local allies and surrogates, especially through military corps and officers that it had trained, organized, and equipped. It is this perspective that explains the American decision to withdraw from Haiti. In fact, what Haitians came to call “second independence” arrived two months earlier than expected. On a visit to Cape Haitien, in the north of the country, Roosevelt announced that the American occupation would end on August 15, 1934.

After close to twenty years of dual dictatorship, Haitians were left with a changed nation. American rule had contributed to the centralization of power in Port-au-Prince and the modernization of the monarchical presidentialism that had always characterized Haitian politics. With the American occupation, praetorian power came to reside in the barracks of the capital, which had supplanted the regional armed bands that had hitherto been decisive in the making, and unmaking, of political regimes.

Moreover, the subordination of the Haitian president to American marine forces had nurtured a politics of military vetoes and interference that would eventually undermine civilian authority and help incite the numerous coups of post-occupation Haiti. To remain in office, the executive would have to depend on the support of the military, which had been centralized in Port-au-Prince.

The supremacy of Port-au-Prince also implied the privileging of urban classes to the detriment of the rural population. Peasants continued to be excluded from the moral community of les plus capables, and they came under a strict policing regime of law and order.

The occupation never intended to cut the roots of authoritarianism; instead, it planted them in a more rational and modern terrain. By establishing a communication network that became a means of policing and punishing the population, and by creating a more effective and disciplined coercive force, American rule left a legacy of authoritarian and centralized power. It suppressed whatever democratic and popular forms of accountability and protests it confronted, and nurtured the old patterns of fraudulent electoral practices, giving the armed forces ultimate veto on who would rule Haiti.

Elections during the occupation, and for more than seventy years afterward, were never truly free and fair. In most cases, the outcome of elections had less to do with the actual popular vote than with compromises reached between Haiti’s ruling classes and imperial forces. Thus, elections lacked the degree of honesty and openness required to define a democratic order. The occupation imposed its rule through fraud, violence, and deceit, and little changed after it ended.

It is true that the imperial presence from 1915 to 1934 contributed to the building of a modest infrastructure of roads and clinics, but it did so with the most paternalistic and racist energy. American authorities convinced themselves that their mission was to bring development and civilization to Haiti. They presumed that Haitians were utterly incapable of doing so on their own. Not surprisingly, they used methods of command and control to achieve their project, a practice that reinforced the existing authoritarian patterns of unaccountable, undemocratic governance.

Interestingly, when one examines the strategy and rhetoric from the 1915–1934 occupation, one can see that it foreshadowed the contemporary “modernization” and “failed states” theories that have justified western interventionism during and after the Cold War era. Except for its unmitigated racism, the old interventionism differs little from the twenty-first century doctrines of “humanitarian militarism” and “responsibility to protect.”

In fact, since the fall of the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship in 1986 and the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, the country has been involved in an unending democratic transition marred by persistent imperial interventions that have transformed it into a quasi-protectorate of the international community.

Foreign powers, particularly the United States and to a lesser extent France and Canada, have regarded Haiti as a “failed state” that could not function without the massive political, military, and economic presence of outsiders.

One hundred years after the first American occupation and three decades after Jean-Claude Duvalier’s popular ouster, Haiti has been reoccupied twice by American marines, who have paved the way for the current, interminable, and humiliating presence of a United Nations “peace-keeping” force. The imperial language has barely changed. American rhetoric justifies occupation in the name of “stability,” “domestic security,” and the dangers of “populist and anti-market political forces.” The US continues to promise the development of a modern capitalist economy, a middle class society, and a democratic order.

That all of these occupations failed miserably to achieve these goals indicate the obdurate limits and contradictions of any project of development sponsored and imposed by imperial forces. These occupations warn us also about the justifications, dangers, and vicissitudes of interventions in the current era of neoliberal globalization.

Facilitated by the corruptions of its ruling classes, old and new imperial interventions have consistently failed to deliver what they promise; in fact, they have condemned Haiti to virtual trusteeship, a vassal country suffering from a recurring emergency syndrome.

Stop arbitrary deportations of Dominicans of Haitian descent, says UN

A UN working group warns the government of the Dominican Republic that expulsions risk violating international laws as well as its own constitution

UN experts have called on the government of the Dominican Republic to stop the “arbitrary deportations” of Dominicans of Haitian descent, warning that its actions risk violating international laws as well as the country’s own constitution.

The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said the Dominican Republic also needed to address allegations that racial profiling was being used during the deportation of people of Haitian heritage.

Two years ago, the Dominican constitutional court used a retroactive reinterpretation of the country’s law to strip thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent of their citizenship. It ruled that while anyone born in the Dominican Republic between 1929 and 2010 was entitled to citizenship, those born to parents who were in the country as undocumented migrants were not.

Previously, all children born on Dominican soil, except those considered to be in transit, such as the children of foreign diplomats, were granted citizenship. This included hundreds of thousands of children born to immigrants, once their birth was registered.

The 2013 ruling led to an international outcry and prompted the government of President Danilo Medina to introduce a naturalization law and allow those whose birth was never registered in the Dominican Republic to apply for residency permits as foreigners. After two years, they can apply for naturalization.

However, only about 300 of the 250,000 Dominican Haitians who applied for permits had received them by the time the application period elapsed in June, and as many as 500,000 undocumented people living in the Dominican Republic now face potential deportation.

According to the UN group, 19,000 people have left the Dominican Republic for Haiti since 21 June because of fears over what will happen to them when the deportations officially begin next month.

Mireille Fanon Mendès-France, who heads the UN panel, said the departures were being driven by problems in getting the documents needed for naturalization and regularization, coupled with a lack of information on the deportation plan and reports of people being forcibly removed.

“No one should be deported when there are legal and valid reasons to stay,” she said. “Migrants are entitled to protection and Dominicans of Haitian descent have the right to reside safely in the territory, as well as children born in the Dominican Republic who are legally registered.”

Mendès-France also reminded Santa Domingo of its national and international obligations, adding: “The Dominican Republic cannot violate international norms or those of the inter-American system of human rights protection, and especially not violate its own constitution.”

The group echoed its call for the government to adopt the necessary legal measures to restore Dominican citizenship for all those born in the country, but not registered at birth.

It also urged the Dominican Republic to introduce “effective and transparent” legislation to tackle the discrimination and exclusion faced by Haitian migrants and people of Haitian descent in the country.

“The Dominican Republic does not recognise the existence of a structural problem of racism and xenophobia, but it must address these issues as a matter of priority so the country can live free from tension and fear,” said Mendès-France.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) also called for a halt to the arbitrary deportations, claiming that Dominicans of Haitian descent were being denied basic rights and were unable to register the births of their children, enrol at school or college, work in the formal economy or travel around the country without fear of being expelled.

A report by the group – based on interviews with more than 100 affected people, community leaders, legal experts, government officials and human rights activists – documented more than 60 cases in which Dominicans of Haitian descent were detained and, in some instances, forcibly removed from the country despite having the correct documentation.

At the end of June, the Haitian Prime Minister, Evans Paul, warned that the Dominican Republic’s crackdown on migrants was creating a humanitarian crisis, with 14,000 people crossing the border into Haiti in less than a week.

Santo Domingo, however, has accused Port-au-Prince of using the situation as a means of diverting attention from Haiti’s own social and political problems, including long-delayed elections. Medina’s government denies that any “massive deportations” have taken place and has told Haiti to put its own house in order before criticising others.

“The Haitian government needs to do its job and stop using the Dominican Republic as an excuse for avoiding its responsibilities to its people,” the government said in a strongly worded recent statement.

“It needs to govern its people, creating investment opportunities and jobs for its citizens, guaranteeing the right to education and health, providing its nationals with documents and fulfilling its commitment to hold legislative and municipal elections on 9 August and presidential ones on 25 October.”

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 12 aout 2015

 Dominican truckers block border crossings into Haiti

By EZEQUIEL ABIU LOPEZ

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The main truckers union in the Dominican Republic on Monday blocked transport of all freight through border crossings into neighboring Haiti, citing concerns about their safety.

The Dominican truckers said they were protesting recent violence against them while in Haiti. They asserted that some 60 trucks were pelted with rocks in recent days and some were looted.

Union leader Blas Peralta said the blockade will continue until Haiti provides better security on its side of the border. For now, Dominican trucks are being unloaded at the border crossings and Haitian buyers must arrange transport for goods.

Normally, some 200 trucks each day carry tons of food, construction materials and other items across the border on the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the two countries. Haiti is the Dominican Republic's biggest export market after the United States.

It's the second protest so far this year by Dominican truckers. In March, they refused to cross the border for several days amid protests in Haiti about the treatment of Haitian citizens in the Dominican Republic.

The truckers' latest protest comes as the Dominican Republic is under international scrutiny for immigration policies that affect mostly Haitians and people of Haitian descent.

There was a June 17 deadline for migrants to apply for legal residency under a controversial program aimed at regulating the flow of migrants across the porous border with Haiti. Authorities have warned that anyone without proof of legal residency faces deportation.

Haitian Prime Minister Evans Paul has warned that deportations into Haiti could create a "humanitarian crisis."

Has the international community failed Haiti?

By Owen Bennett-Jones

BBC News

Since its shattering earthquake five years ago Haiti has received billions of dollars of foreign aid. But for all the international largesse the country remains impoverished and ill-governed and many believe this weekend's delayed elections - like so many other election days in Haiti - will be marred by politically-motivated violence.

When the January 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed more than 200,000 Haitians, aid flowed in. Shocked by the dreadful TV images of the disaster, nearly half of American households contributed money to relief work in the country. And around the world many others joined them.

The United Nations estimates that since the earthquake international donors have pledged more than $10 billion of aid to Haiti. Over half of that money has already been spent.

The US Congress has calculated that if one includes commitments running through to 2020, the pledges amount to $13.4 billion. That includes a US government allocation of $4 billion, of which $3 billion has already been spent. The money helps keep thousands of foreign NGOs active in Haiti.

Culture of dependency?

Despite all this activity, some Haitians have never left the displacement camps that were set up immediately after the earthquake. Others live in slums that have no running water, electricity or sewage facilities.

Even if some families have never recovered from the earthquake, the aid agencies' emphasis has shifted from emergency relief to long-term reconstruction projects.

The Clinton Foundation, one of the leading foreign agencies in the country, has been an active donor ever since the earthquake. While Bill Clinton served as the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, Hillary Clinton, both as US Secretary of State and subsequently through the Clinton Foundation, has tried to keep international attention focused on helping the country.

Critics of the aid programs - including those run by the Clintons - argue that a culture of aid dependency has developed in Haiti and that government systems in the country are weak in part because international aid staff are performing functions that should be carried out by local officials.

A report by the US Institute of Peace once suggested that Haiti was a "Republic of NGOs" which were able to cream off local talent by offering higher salaries than the government could afford.

Other complaints include claims that most of the American aid money has been spent on contracts with American companies and that many aid agency employees cannot speak French or Creole.

There have also been cases of aid donations having been subjected to an agency's administration charges before the envisaged aid project is handed on to another NGO that in turn imposes its overhead costs.

Earlier this year a joint report by ProPublica/NPR claimed that the half a billion dollars that had been raised by the American Red Cross for Haiti relief had led to a string of poorly-managed projects and dubious claims of success.

Bright spots

Even though Haiti remains the poorest country in the Americas with a GDP per capita of just $846, the record of the last five years is not universally bleak.

According to the World Bank, the school participation rate of children since the earthquake has risen from 78% to 90%. Between 1980 and 2013 life expectancy at birth increased by 12.3 years. And some projects have clearly transformed the lives of beneficiaries.

But Haiti is a long way from breaking out of its chronic poverty.

It lags far behind the Dominican Republic with which it shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Fifty years ago both countries had similar GDP per capita rates. Today there is a huge gap between them. Despite both having similar sized populations, the Dominican Republic has more than half a million government employees, while Haiti has fewer than 60,000.

Poor infrastructure, a history of foreign interference, chronic political repression and instability and extreme inequality are all cited as some of the long-term causes of Haiti's failure to flourish.

And despite the best efforts of the international community, many of those underlying problems are likely to hold the country back for years to come.

For more on this story, listen to Newshour Extra on the BBC iPlayer or download the podcast.

Haiti President Michel Martelly embroiled in sexism row

Three officials in Haiti's governing coalition announced their resignation on Wednesday in protest at a remark President Michel Martelly made at a campaign rally last week.

The remark was directed at a woman in the audience who had criticized Martelly and his administration.

According to Haitian media, Martelly told her to "go get a man and go into the bushes" at the rally in Miragoane.

A presidential adviser said Martelly's words had been distorted.

Martelly, who is in the final year of his five-year-term, is a former singer of Haitian dance music known for his flamboyant style and sometimes colorful language.

'Unbecoming behavior'

The row was triggered by President Martelly's reaction to a woman at a campaign rally in the port city of Miragoane on 29 July.

The woman complained about the failure of the government to provide electricity to her area, prompting Martelly's hostile response, which in turn was greeted by cheers and clapping from the audience.

In response to the incident, Women's Affairs Minister Yves Rose Morquette, Social Affairs Minister Victor Benoit and Secretary of State for Alphabetization Mozart Clerisson announced on Wednesday that they would step down from their posts.

They all belong to the Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats party, which is part of the governing coalition.

Party leader Edmonde Supplice Beauzile said Martelly's behavior was "unbecoming" to a head of state.

Supplice Beauzile is running for president in the upcoming presidential election in October, in which Martelly will not be able to stand again.

She said that "by insulting this woman, he has insulted all Haitian women".

"Such behavior is a shame for the country," she added.

She also urged voters to "punish" candidates for Martelly's party standing in Sunday's legislative election.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 20 aout 2015

 RD-HAITI: It’s official! Repatriations began!

Since Thursday, August 13th, agents of the Dominican immigration have been in the streets throughout the country, verifying the immigration status of foreigners, in search of all the immigrants (of any nationality) whose status in not in order.

As a result, dozens of illegal immigrants were immediately taken to the Welcome Center (Transit) of Haïna.

These foreigners are not registered on the PNRH, the National Plan to Regulate Foreigners. Thus they are not authorized to stay on Dominican territory.

On Friday morning, some of our fellow countrymen who were released, as they were registered on the PNRE, underlined that they were treated well at the time of their arrest. They also praised the quality of the Welcome Center.

Others who were arrested, approximately 20 illegal Haitians who had not managed to qualify for the PNRE after having completed the identification forms according to International Conventions, were sent back to Haiti aboard a minibus in two groups of 10.  They were handed over to Haitian authorities in Elias Piña and Dajabon.

Until now the immigrants, whose status was checked in the center of Haina, are all Haitians. They were arrested on the base of Mirador Sur, on the Avenue Jose Contreras and at km 8 and 9 of Carretera Sanchez.

It should be recalled that before the beginning of these repatriations, the Ministry of Dominican Defense trained for several months 2,000 soldiers, who learned among other things: Haitian Creole, human rights, migratory intervention, and the use of technology for biometric checks. In addition, they conducted five simulation exercises along the Dominican-Haiti border.

March of Haitians in NY to denounce the decision of the Dominican Republic

The coalition to defend human rights in the Dominican Republic, accompanied by more than about fifteen organizations, organized a peaceful march on  August 14^th in New York to denounce publicly the decision of the Dominican Republic to deport Dominicans of Haitian origin in Haiti, learnt HPN.

"We do not want to remain indifferent. We want to take to the street and to denounce publicly the injustice of the Dominican Republic by denationalizing Dominicans of Haitian origin while violating international standards and norms on the subject," said one of the initiators of the movement, Lesly Thomas to HPN.

The march was scheduled to leave Brooklyn, Eastern Parkway at 9 am in the morning and take Flatbush Avenue toward the Brooklyn Bridge. It was scheduled to end in front of City Hall.

"We mobilized the majority of the Haitian churches in New York, and the media of the Haitian community. We have supporters who cover the social media and certain celebrities support the movement, such as Emmeline Michel and Wyclef Jean," said Thomas.

"The march is not only [for] Haitians, but also it is to defend human rights, because those concerned are Dominicans of Haitian origin," specified Thomas who wants to draw the attention of the international media and American president Barak Obama concerning this inequitable treatment of Dominicans of Haitian origin.

USA-HAITI: Kenneth Merten was scheduled to officially begin on Monday, August 17th.

The former ambassador of the United States in Haiti, Kenneth H. Merten, will officially take office on Monday, August 17th as special coordinator for Haiti to the State Department.

He succeeds Thomas Adam.

Merten, according to a press release from the U. S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, served as special coordinator for Haiti and as assistant-secretary to the Office of Business in charge of the Western Hemisphere since the middle of August, 2015. He was an ambassador twice previously. Most recently an ambassador of the United States in the Republic of Croatia from 2012 till 2015, and ambassador of the United States in Haiti from 2009 till 2012. He was also executive secretary to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and prior to that to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Haitian media did not hesitate to underline that it was Kenneth Merten who had come to the aid of President Michel Martelly when the Senate tried to dismiss him from his post due to his foreign nationality. During a ceremony at the national Palace, Kenneth Merten had declared that President Martelly does not have U. S. citizenship. Consequently, he was accused by the opposition parties of supporting the administration in office.

Here's What went wrong with Haiti's Elections by David Kroeker Maus

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, August 10, 2015 (AMG) — The official results from [last week’s] first round of legislative elections won’t be announced for 10 days, but as polls closed last night, the numbers were coming in nevertheless: 54 voting centers (5% of the total) forced to close because of violence and intimidation; at least 5 people killed, and 137 arrested for election-day violence or disruption.

The long-awaited elections, the country’s first in over four years, had been greeted with enthusiasm and energy from the candidates and political parties: 128 different parties registered to participate in the election, and during the last two months, every available surface – from telephone poles to broken-down cars left on the roadside – was plastered with campaign posters.

But the response from the general public was a shrug: even before reports of violence at voting centers discouraged would-be voters from turning up, most analysts were predicting very low turnout.

The sheer scale of the election — all the positions that should have been contested during the last four years are now being contested in the same year — combined with the staggering number of political parties fielding candidates, meant that this election was always going to be a logistical challenge.

To these logistical impediments were added a number of political hurdles, some of which arose during the course of the campaign, but many of which have much deeper roots. All these combined to create a strange mix of apathy and instability that cast a pall over elections that were supposed to return Haiti to democratic normalcy.

Here’s what went wrong.

Official laxity and denial: Throughout the day, as reports of irregularities and attacks on polling stations multiplied, various officials, from the President on down, continued to insist that everything was under control. Indeed, the head of the Provisional Electoral Council (known by its French acronym CEP) triumphantly declared that the skeptics who questioned the CEP’s ability to organize a free and fair election had been proved wrong.

This naïveté, or else outright denial, in the face of apparent instability also characterized the Haitian authorities’ response to pre-election day violence. Even when several candidates were attacked in the weeks leading up to the election, the CEP and police insisted that the violence was unrelated to the campaign.

This attitude of denial appears to have influenced security planning for the election, as guards at voting centers were either unprepared to handle attacks by partisans or totally absent. Some eyewitnesses reported that police didn’t arrive at a voting center that was ransacked in Cité Soleil until one hour later, whilst another report indicated that three officers had been present when the tension started, but failed to intervene.

Party Observers: One measure meant to increase transparency of the voting process was allowing political parties to send representatives to the voting centers to observe both the actual vote and the counting afterward. In theory, having representatives of every side should reduce the potential for irregularities that favor one particular party. But in practice, allowing all 128 parties to send a representative to all 1,508 voting centers was logistically impossible.

One the eve of the election, as party observers waited up to 12 hours to get their credentials, the CEP decided at the eleventh hour to allow only five observers per voting center, but without a clear formula for how those spots would be distributed amongst the parties. This led to mass confusion on Election Day, as observers from different parties at some of the larger voting centers fought, pushed and shoved one another out of the way, trying to make their way in. In at least a few of the voting centers, the vandalism of ballot boxes was perpetrated by disgruntled party observers who’d been denied access.

Late opening: Although all voting centers were officially scheduled to open at 6am, actual opening times varied widely across the country. A crowd-sourced map of election incidents showed reports that some voting centers didn’t open until 11am.

The official ballots for the election, which were imported by UNDP from Dubai, didn’t arrive in Port-au-Prince until just over a week before the election, and some polling places still hadn’t received their ballots by Sunday morning.

There also seemed to have been a bit of carelessness in the printing of the ballots.

“Indelible ink:”

The CEP’s assurances that the ink used to mark who had already voted was ‘indelible’ proved not to be universally true shortly after the first voters left their polling places. While some voters were indeed left with ink stains on their fingers, many were able to easily wash it off with nothing but water, raising questions about whether some voters would be able to vote multiple times.

Foreign intervention in previous election: Although not immediately apparent, the intervention of the ‘international community’ (specifically the US and Canada) during the country’s last election cycle in 2010-11 had a profound effect on this one.

After results from the first round of presidential voting in 2010 showed Michel Martelly in third place, his supporters took to the streets to protest the outcome, demanding that their candidate be included in the second-round run-off. The Organization of American States (OAS) obliged and intervened, declaring the first-round results null and void, and replacing Jude Célestin, who had come in second, with Martelly on the second-round ballot.

This blatant foreign intervention had at least two effects: It drastically reduced Haitian voters’ confidence in the efficacy of their votes, contributing to a general lack of trust in elections, and thus widespread apathy (if not antipathy) toward this particular election. Secondly, it legitimized the role of partisan instigators in determining election results.

Having managed to cancel out 5% of the votes before they were even tabulated, rowdy partisans have already made their mark on this election, and, following the example of 2010, may strike again when official results are announced next week.

Illogical voting registration: Another recurring problem on Sunday was voters showing up to polling places and being turned away when their names were not found on the lists. This can be attributed, at least in part, to the haphazard and illogical way in which registered voters were assigned a polling place. For example, Daniel, a resident of Delmas — a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince that lies east of the city center — was assigned to a voting center in Carrefour, a city west of Port-au-Prince. Yves, who was registered to vote in the southern city of Jacmel, was assigned to a voting center in the rural hinterland.

Many of those who knew before Election Day that they had been registered in faraway voting centers chose to stay home. But others, assuming they could vote at the center nearest their home, showed up only to be disappointed.

Accessibility: For the minority of Haitians who still trusted the integrity of the elections and wanted to vote, an additional obstacle was put in place: the government announced that no public transport would be allowed on Election Day. Although this ban wasn’t strictly enforced — I saw several ‘tap-taps’ (pickup trucks converted into buses) on the roads of Port-au-Prince yesterday — it certainly acted as a deterrent, thus discouraging those would-be voters who had been assigned to vote at polling places far from their home.

Some of these problems can be addressed before Haiti’s presidential elections on October 25; many cannot. After what they saw yesterday, Haitian voters will require a lot of convincing.

$36 million [US] spent on Haiti's elections how?

Written by Staff Writer on 10 August 2015.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) - Where did $36 million [US] spent on legislative elections in Haiti go? There are countries in Africa, of the same population size as Haiti, which spend $8 million on good elections.

Rwanda, with a population of 11.7 million, organizes good elections where results are returned within 24 hours. Their 2013 legislative elections cost $8 million [US].

With the technology available in 2015, it takes Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council weeks to publish results for poorly held and contested elections.

CEP President Pierre Louis Opont could not give turnout figures during a press conference that followed the closure of all polling centers throughout the territory. Opont hadn't even a ballpark to give journalists which posed questions mainly about the election administrator revoked for trying to "manipulate the process", according to him.

A scandal during the process may give some clues about the spending decisions of the Haitian electoral council. When local publishing houses offered quotes of $4 million [US] to print election ballots, the CEP president instead opted for a $10 million [US] printer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Reliable and secure tourist taxis …

Last Thursday, at a press conference, the Ministry of the Tourism and the Creative Industries (MTIC) launched a project of support for the tourist taxi drivers of the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The aim is to establish a reliable and secure transport service for visitors from the hotels of Pétion-Ville and the City center.

For that purpose, six new tourist taxis were present to the representatives of two associations of tour guides: the Association of Independent Drivers for the Development of the Tourism (ACIDT), and the Association of Tour Guides of Haiti (ACGH).

"The MTIC gave itself the task of supporting the drivers of these associations by enabling them to have the proper training, as well as a fleet of cars adapted to provide optimal tourist transport to the tourists who choose  Haiti …" declared, Maryse Noel, Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry.

It should be noted that the drivers of the ACIDT and the ACGH have received a two-month training to offer a service that is adequate to the visitors during their stay.

For her part, Johanne Barthelemy, the Assistant Coordinator of the department of Promotion, Travel and Events of the MTIC, explained that in agreement with the drivers, a price list of fares and the address and phone number of these associations, will from now on be on-line on the Ministry’s promotional site.

These exclusive taxis which can transport a maximum of three passengers will be at the service of the customers in four Pétion-Ville Hotels and in two hotels based at the heart of the Haitian capital.