Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 8 juillet 2015

Deputy Castillo demands to remove the Dominican diplomatic staff accredited in Haiti

The Dominican Deputy Vinicio Castillo Semán, of the Progressive National Force    (FNP), (the ultra-nationalist right) asked President Danilo Medina to remove the Dominican diplomatic staff accredited in Haiti, for fear of demonstrations in Haiti against the Dominican Republic because of his immigration policy.

"Haiti declared a diplomatic war against the Dominican Republic. Danilo should remove the diplomatic staff in Haiti, where they will be at risk in the next weeks," writes the Member of Parliament on his Twitter account. Assuring that the Government of Haiti "is going to toughen its offensive against the Dominican Republic, manipulating its population to cause an angry outburst against the Dominicans ".

President Martelly at the 36th meeting of the conference of the heads of state of the Caribbean

Last Thursday, President Michel Martelly left the country and headed to Bridgetown (Barbados) to participate in the 36th regular meeting of the Conference of the Heads of State and/or Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), under the chair of Prime Minister Barbadian Freudel Stuart.

Accompanied by, among others, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Lener, and the Minister of Justice, Pierre Richard Casimir, the Head of State attended the official launch ceremony of this 36th ordinary meeting of the leaders of this community. He acknowledged the warm welcome reserved for the Haitian delegation by the Barbados authorities.

These conferences addressed several key issues, in particular the sustainable development of the community internationally, and relations with the Dominican Republic.

President Martelly’s Speech

The President of the Republic, Joseph Michel Martelly, has changed his tone and speech regarding the repatriations of Haitians and Dominicans denationalized by the Dominican Republic, observed the on-line AlterPresse agency.

During the 36th summit of heads of Caribbean state and government, Martelly has called for multilateral negotiations regarding the repatriations-evictions by the Dominican Republic.

During the plenary session last Friday, Martelly condemned, for the first time, the Dominican policy towards the Haitian migrants and the Dominican citizens denying them citizenship by a ruling taken in 2013.

The Dominican government prefers to speak about citizens' "voluntary departure" Haitian citizens towards their country.

It is, in fact, about "often violent deportations,” specified Michel Martelly in his speech on July 3rd, 2015.

While recognizing the right of Haiti’s neighboring country to decide on its own migratory policy, Martelly also pointed out that the political administration in Santo Domingo refused, in all the meetings, categorically to negotiate a protocol on the process and the mechanisms for repatriations.

Martelly especially called upon CARICOM, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations Organization (UNO).

"The international community cannot keep silent, when people, whose labor was exploited during several decades, are being chased away, without having the possibility of receiving a pension, let alone regain their heritage," asserted Martelly.

Martelly’s intervention, on July 3rd, 2015, at the CARICOM summit seemed to follow the position taken this week by his Prime Minister Evans Paul, who, in a communiqué, deeply criticized the night repatriation (from Wednesday, July 1st till Thursday, July 2nd, 2015) of 21 migrants.

OAS urges Caribbean countries to take advantage of Panama Canal expansion

JAMAICA OBSERVER

WASHINGTON (CMC) – The Inter-American Committee on Ports (CIP) of the Organization of American States (OAS) wants Caribbean countries to take advantage of commercial opportunities offered by the Panama Canal expansion.

Addressing the opening of a three-day meeting on Wednesday, Executive Secretary for Integral Development of the OAS, Sherry Tross, recalled that more than 80 per cent of world trade is transported by sea, and noted that the redevelopment of the Panama Canal will increase traffic and maritime trade worldwide.

“This increased capacity not only implies savings for world trade, but has the potential to increase trade between Latin America and the world,” she said.

“The impending expansion of the Panama Canal presents both challenges and opportunities for the entire region,” she added. “This expansion has the potential to stimulate trade in the region and, as we know, has already spurred infrastructure development designed to increase port capacity for large vessels post-Panama.”

The OAS official also said the increase in maritime traffic requires OAS member-states to modernize their laws, guidelines and regulations for the implementation and enforcement of international safety standards.

During the meeting, OAS member-states are expected to discuss the prospects for strengthening regional port dialogue in order to promote competitiveness in the sector with the imminent enlargement of the Panama Canal.

Inauguration of Port Lafito

The President of the Republic, Mister Michel Joseph Martelly, took part on Thursday, July 2nd, in Lafito, in the inauguration of the new port.

In the presence of members of government, the managing director of the National Harbour Authority (APN), Alix Célestin, representatives of the private sector, and police authorities, the Head of State praised the efforts of all those who participated in the realization of this big project. President Martelly took the opportunity to indicate the importance of the construction of these infrastructures in the process of economic and tourist development in Haiti.

For his part, the managing director of the APN, Alix Célestin, indicated that the realization of this project was the result of a real partnership between the Group Biggio, the Haitian State and several entrepreneurs from the Haitian private sector.

Gilbert Biggio thanked President Martelly and the Managing director of the APN who contributed to the realization of the new Lafito Port.

This multifunctional terminal shelters the deepest port in the country, with 12 meters of draft and 450 meters of mooring berth. Initiated by the Group Biggio, this project, which cost $150 million, is part of Global Lafito Project. This big first in the Haitian maritime and harbor sector has the potential to create 20,000 jobs in the next four years.

Sen. Durbin in Haiti

CHICAGO (AP) -- The office of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois says he has met with officials in Haiti to discuss the status of U.S. assistance programs more than five years after an earthquake killed thousands.

A news release from Durbin's office says he and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida were in Haiti over the weekend. The release says they met with Haiti President Michel Martelly, U.S. Ambassador Pamela White and other officials. Durbin said in the release that he's "encouraged" by recovery efforts that he has seen.

Discussions also addressed Haitian border issues after its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, said it would start deporting some non-citizens.

Durbin's office says it was his third trip to Haiti in 10 years.

Haiti - Economy: Haiti owes more than $2 billion to Venezuela

Haiti Libre – Friday (June 26th) in a press conference, the Venezuelan Ambassador Pedro Antonio C. Gonzalez reiterated the commitment of his government to pursue the PetroCaribe cooperation agreement with the Haitian government, which has funded nearly 300 projects and recalled that on 29 June PetroCaribe will celebrate its 10th anniversary, with the participation of a Haitian delegation to Venezuela that will travel to Venezuela for this anniversary.

The Ambassador recalled that this fund is part of efforts to consolidate the ideology of Hugo Chavez and to promote the elimination of social inequalities. According to Pedro Antonio C. Gonzalez, the funds are used in projects related to the needs of the Haitian population.

How the PetroCaribe funds work:

The Office of Monetization plays an intermediary role between the Venezuelan supplier PDVSA Petroleo S.A. and local oil companies in Haiti. To each delivery PDVSA Petroleo SA bills the BMPAD which in turn provides the bill to local oil companies who pay the state 100% of the FOB value of the cargo.

According to the price of oil on the international market, the Haitian Government transfer 40% to 75% of the amounts collected, to the PDVSA Petroleo SA. The remaining balance must be paid by Haiti, over 25 years at an annual interest rate of 1% after a grace period of 2 years. The change in the percentage retained by Haiti depends on the price of the barrel, the higher the price of oil is, the higher the portion retained by Haiti down and vice versa.

Part financed over 25 years with 1% annual interest including 2 years of grace:

If the price of barrel is $150 or more: Part Cash 30% - Part Funded 70%

Between $80 and $100. Part Cash 50%: Part Funded 50%

Between $50 and $80. Part Cash 60%: Part Funded 40%

Between $40 and $50. Part Cash 70%: Part Funded 30%

Part financed over 17 years with 2% annual interest including 2 years of grace:

If the price per barrel is between $30 and $40: Part Cash 75%: Part Funded 25%

234 projects funded by the PetroCaribe funds:

This PetroCaribe agreement, signed by Haiti on May 14, 2006 with the Venezuelan government. has helped to finance between 2011 and 2014, 234 projects for nearly $1.2 billion. All the details on these investments are available in a report of over 200 pages, which summarizes and illustrates all public interventions undertaken for 31 months under the Martelly-Lamothe administration through this mechanism.

Download the PetroCaribe Report: http://www.haitilibre.com/docs/GZS_13183_Bilan_PetroCaribe_2015-02-23.pdf :

According to the Bureau of Monetization of Development Assistance Programs (BMPAD) the PetroCaribe long-term debt, accumulated as of January 31, 2015, to be paid over 25 years amounted to nearly 2 billion US dollars (1,999,265,940.11).

IDB funds for Haiti

WASHINGTON, (CMC) –The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Tuesday said it would provide a US$15 million grant to Haiti for a sustainable artisan-fishing development project in the south of the country.

It said fishing is a key socioeconomic sector in Haiti, generating some 77,000 full-time jobs. Artisan fishing still remains the predominant type of marine fishing in the country and takes place in 420 localities in 9 of the 10 departments.

The project seeks to improve artisan fishermen’s productivity and income in the Grand’Anse, Sud and Sud-Est departments by providing improved public services for the fishing sector.

These are the most productive departments in terms of fishing and house most of the fishing localities, which has made them a key priority for the government. Additionally, institution-strengthening and capacity-generation activities will benefit all fishing communities in the country.

The new grant complements other financing sources for the projects, including a US$2.7 million grant from the Spanish Cooperation Agency for International Development (AECID) and US$1.5 million in local funding.

The IDB is Haiti’s largest multilateral donor. In the past four years it has provided US$1.2 billion in grants and disbursed more than US$686 million to support the country’s economic recovery and its long-term development investment in areas such as agriculture, water and sanitation, transportation, energy, education and private sector development.

Approximately 200 of 300 prisoners who escaped from the Prison of Croix-des-Bouquets again under lock and key

The search continues at the level of the head office of the Criminal Investigation Department (DCPJ) to catch all of the escaped prisoners.

Those were the words of the National police force inspector Garry Desrosiers.

For the moment only 200 of those who escaped from the civil prison of Croix-des-Bouquets in August, 2014, have been returned to their cells, added the spokesperson of the PNH.

Garry Desrosiers again called upon the population to collaborate with the PNH and to alert the police immediately about any suspicious fact.

Approximately 300 prisoners, including criminals, escaped, on Sunday, August 10th, 2014, from the civil prison of Croix-des-Bouquets.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 15 juillet 2015

 Haiti in the international Exhibition of Milan: Expo Milano 2015

This exhibit during which Haiti was honored on July 10th presented Haitian fashion, farming, and cooking. This day was especially dedicated to Haiti.

A total of 150 countries were present in Milan for the occasion. Among them the United States, Germany, Italy, England, Japan France, Argentina, Brazil, Angola Qatar, Nepal, Haiti, Togo, Zimbabwe and the Dominican Republic.

Every country had a pavilion revealing the identity of the country with its customs and its traditions. Haiti’s pavilion was offered by Italy and would have cost 1.2 million dollars, according to the newspaper The Nouvelliste.  

A small detached pavilion but decorated with a lot of care, revealing the country’s original flavor.

We noticed in Milan the presence of the Prime Minister Evans Paul, the husband of the designer Maguy Durcé.

There were also designers and stylists such as Sybille Denis Touat, Maguy Durcé, Maelle David, Michaëlle Baussan, Miko Guillaume. Daphnée Karen Floréal, Michel Chateigne, Marie Lucie Cadet (MALOU), Stella Jean. The cooking of Gladys D. Nazemi and her collaborators was very appreciate judging by the crowd that rushed for three hours to go taste the popular, delicious dishes which make our country unique.

This was not the first time that Haiti was present at this exhibit. Under the government of President Dumarsais Estimé, Haiti was even the host country of the World Fair.

It was in 1950, for the occasion of the bicentennial of the city of Port-au-Prince.

The year’s theme was: "Feed the planet, Energy for life." During his presentation, the Prime Minister was eager to underline that "The participation of Haiti with Expo Milano 2015, had a double significance. It is a question for Haiti, on the one hand to protect the historical heritage of the Amerindians by presenting their nutritional best practice, for the benefit of its population of more than 10 million inhabitants and, on the other hand, to share its heritage with the visitors of the universal exhibit.

The head of government paid tribute to Gladys Exil Guyteau, commissioner at Expo Milano 2015 who, "Thanks to her dedication, and her patriotism outdid herself to ensure the Haiti’s participation."

The Italian authorities had been eager to offer a copious lunch to the Haitian delegation and the Prime Minister offered a book to the Italian authorities highlighting the places of interest of the country.

Monseigneur Pierre André Pierre was a member of the Haitian delegation in Milan. "Ayiti paka pa la," he declared with pride. He mentioned the partnership between Notre the Dame University of Haiti, the University of Milan Aquaplus, AVSI and the Rotary club of Milan who all contributed to the searches for the development of the MORINGA (Benzolive) in the country.

Maguy Durcé, special adviser to the Prime Minister and the coordinator of Haiti’s participation in Expo Milano 2015, underlined to The Nouvelliste that Haiti’s participation in the event had not exceeded 200,000 dollars thanks to the Italian authorities who donated the pavilion.

Expo Milano 2015 will continue until October 31st, 2015. Like the other countries, Haiti is not going to close the doors of its pavilion, even if it already had its special day on July 10th.

At the beginning of renovation of the runway of the airport …

Work on the rehabilitation of the runway of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport began on Tuesday, July 7^th. The work aims at returning the runway in compliance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The Haitian authorities agreed to complete these projects to avoid penalties from the ICAO. The recent inspections revealed that the runway is unfit to support the loads of jumbo jets. The basement of the platform must be treated to allow it to have a stronger support structure, explained the engineer Jean Marie Vorbe.

The work will allow the width of the runway to be enlarged. It will go from 42 to 60 meters following the recommendations of the ICAO. At the same time the width of the traffic lane, which channels the traffic towards the main terminal, will be practically doubled going from 23 to 44 meters.

The work will be realized over one year by the Haitian firm Vorbe and Son Construction and Razel, a French company that specializes in civil engineering.

The last renovation work on the runway was completed in 1988 by the French firm, Fougerolle. Twenty-seven years later a new rehabilitation is essential, explained Vorbe.

Under Michel Martelly's administration, several renovation projects have been realized at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, more notably the enlargement of the departure and arrival rooms.

Statelessness at the UN: Reaffirming the Right to Nationality

By: Sebastian Kohn & Katrine Thomasen

Today the UN’s Human Rights Council—a body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world—passed an important resolution on the right to nationality, focusing specifically on women and children. This is an important step to further strengthen international legal norms in this area. It is also a strong indication of increasing understanding and concern for those who have no nationality anywhere—the stateless—and those who experience severe discrimination when they attempt to obtain proof of their nationality.  

The resolution is the culmination of nearly two years of advocacy by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The idea was proposed to the US Department of State in the autumn of 2010 as a measure to strengthen children’s right to nationality, an issue that overlaps in significant ways with the department’s concern with discrimination against women in nationality laws and practices. In early June 2012, a draft resolution was presented to other states in Geneva—where the Human Rights Council meets three times every year—after which negotiations about the content began. The Justice Initiative made an intervention during the session of the council to highlight the importance of this resolution.

Statelessness affects more than 12 million people around the world, among whom the most vulnerable are children. The Justice Initiative estimates that as many as five million may be minors. The consequences of lack of nationality are numerous and severe. Many stateless children grow up in extreme poverty and are denied basic rights and services such as access to education and health care. Stateless children’s lack of identity documentation limits their freedom of movement. They are subject to arbitrary deportations and prolonged detentions, are vulnerable to social exclusion, trafficking and exploitation—including child labor.

Perhaps the most detrimental consequence of statelessness for children is with respect to education. While some countries do offer educational opportunities to stateless children, many do not. In Malaysia, stateless children of Indian, Filipino, or Indonesian descent in Selangor and Sabah are frequently denied access to basic education in state schools: if a child’s birth certificate has “foreigner” written on it, or if the child doesn’t have a birth certificate at all, the child is simply unable to enroll. Similarly, in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case of Yean and Bosico v. The Dominican Republic, the two applicants—both children—had been arbitrarily denied Dominican nationality. As a result they were barred from going to school since identity documents were a pre-requisite to enroll. Denying children a right to education can cripple entire communities for generations to come.

Few stateless children are able to obtain passports or other travel documents. This has serious implications for their right to freedom of movement, and bars them from travelling abroad to visit relatives or pursue educational opportunities. Similarly, the right to healthcare and social security is severely compromised for many stateless children. Statelessness jeopardizes their parents’ economic opportunities, and many grow up under conditions of extreme poverty, where access to medical treatment and immunizations are scarce.

Evidence from some parts of the world suggests that stateless children are at greater risk of human trafficking and other forms of exploitation. This connection is evident in the case of the Hill Tribes in Thailand, for example, who—because they are not ethnic Thais—have struggled with statelessness for generations.

The resolution by the Human Rights Council acknowledges these important challenges faced by stateless children and calls on governments around the world to reform legislation that discriminates against women. Indeed, one important cause of statelessness among children is the violation of women’s right to confer nationality to their off-springs. According to UNHCR, at least 26 countries still have gender discriminatory nationality laws. For example, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—both members of the Human Rights Council—do not allow their female citizens to transmit nationality to their children. In a place like Kuwait, where an estimated 100,000 people are stateless, children of a Kuwaiti woman and a stateless man thus inherit the father’s predicament. On a positive note, many countries including most of North Africa, have recently reformed their nationality laws.

The resolution highlights many important international legal norms, including the right to free birth registration—a crucial measure to reduce the risk of statelessness. The resolution also calls upon states to protect the right to due process in all nationality-related matters, and to provide effective remedies where the right to nationality has been violated.

The resolution does, unfortunately, fall short of accepted treaty standards on one point. More than 100 countries have an explicit obligation to grant nationality to children born on their territories who would otherwise be stateless. This obligation is also implicit in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by all but two countries. The council resolution, however, only encourages states to “facilitate, in accordance with their national law, the acquisition of nationality by children born on their territories or to their nationals abroad who would otherwise be stateless.” Moreover, the resolution fails to acknowledge the right to nationality for children not born in the country where they habitually reside. International law requires states to ensure that all stateless children have access to nationality through a process of facilitated naturalization, regardless of place of birth. Unfortunately this provision—which was proposed by Costa Rica—was opposed by several states including Algeria, China, Egypt and Iran and was struck from the draft resolution.

Nevertheless, the resolution reiterates many of the crucial norms in this area. It was unanimously adopted and does as such represent a broad consensus among governments about the state of international law in this area.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 22 juillet 2015

Chelsea Clinton, Donna Shalala to visit Clinton Foundation projects in Haiti July 28-29

Trip will highlight Clinton Foundation partnerships and programs working in Haiti to encourage economic growth and development, empower girls and women, and support small businesses

On Tuesday, July 28, and Wednesday, July 29, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton and Clinton Foundation President Donna Shalala will lead a group of philanthropists, business leaders, and Clinton Foundation supporters to visit Foundation efforts that are supporting the development and growth of the Haitian agriculture, health, entrepreneurship, and business sectors. Chelsea Clinton will also host a No Ceilings Conversation on empowering Haitian girls and women as entrepreneurs.

Illustrating the Clinton Foundation’s innovative philanthropic model, efforts in Haiti take a multi-faceted approach in fostering sustainable economic development with a shared goal of increasing opportunities for girls and women. This includes helping to raise emergency relief funds; providing grants to local organizations; and creating partnerships between public, private, and nonprofit organizations.

Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation has helped raise more than $36 million for Haiti, including relief funds and projects that are focused on supporting Haiti’s small and medium businesses; improving livelihoods; enhancing education; and exploring the nexus of agriculture, energy, and the environment. Today, the Clinton Foundation focuses on creating sustainable economic growth in priority sectors of energy, tourism, agriculture, and artisans/manufacturing. The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, has also created a social enterprise in Haiti that works to address market opportunities in local supply and distribution chains.

Additionally, through the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, CGI members have made more than 100 Commitments to Action focused on Haiti, which will be valued over $500 million when fully funded and implemented. Now in its seventh year, CGI’s Haiti Action Network has a significant focus on creating sustainable jobs and encouraging investment in the country.

RSVP AND TRANSPORTATION NOTE: The Clinton Foundation will provide transportation to reporters in Haiti for these site visits. If you have an interest in covering the events and taking our transportation between sites, please reply to Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser. with your name and outlet as soon as possible. Availability is very limited. Requests will be accommodated on a first-come, first-serve basis.

25 Boat people Haitian discovered to Boyton Beach

Last Saturday morning a boat transporting illegal migrants reached the North entrance of Boynton Beach, near the Boynton Inlet, in Palm Beach County Florida.

After a fisherman alerted authorities via radio, at about 10:30 am, that a boat had docked and that numerous people aboard had then fled, Officer Darin Hederian went on site and found the boat empty of its passengers and alerted Boynton Beach Police “Dispatch.”

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the Coast Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Manalapan Police assisted the Boynton Beach Police in the search operations, which resulted in finding 27 migrants hidden in bushes along State Road A1A, among whom 25 were of Haitian origin.

According to initial information the migrants left the Bahamas and none needed medical care when they arrived on the beach. They were turned in to the "US BORDER PATROL" for questioning. The agency will later decide if they will be returned to their country.

Obama silent on stateless Haitians

Politicians, activists want President to stop Dominican Republic’s anti-immigrant policy

Carolyn Guniss | 7/15/2015

The silence from Congress, the U.S. State Department and President Barack Obama is troubling on civic and human rights violation by the Dominican Republic against Haitian-descendents living in Dominican Republic, said politicians, human rights activists and lawyers.

On a conference call Thursday, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and human rights activists told representatives from the state department that stripping aways citizenship from Haitians by the Dominican Republic is not an immigration issue as it is presented but a human rights violation and they wanted to know why Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama himself have not condemned the action.

“FIU Professor Ediberto Roman correctly says its as if the U.S. government suddenly had issued a ruling stripping all Black Americans or all Armenian-Americans, Italian-Americans, or any minority that had been living in the US for generations of citizenship. And then created a flawed and arbitrary registration process and tried to hide behind the rubric of immigration when what they really had done was a massive human rights violations of rendering a whole class of its citizens stateless because you don’t like their color or ethnicity, even though they’ve been present in the country for generations and born there,” said Steve Forester, Immigration Policy Coordinator, with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola. For generations Haitians, have migrated to the Dominican Republic to work in agriculture, construction and service industries. But in 2010 -- the same year as the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti destabilizing even further the poorest nation in the western hemisphere -- the Dominican Republic high court passed a constitutional amendment that limits citizenship to children of legal immigrants, or those with one Dominican parent. A 2013 court ruling made the law retroactive to 1929. In 2014, the Dominican Republic passed another law, saying it was creating a pathway to citizenship. It would allow those in the Dominican Republic registry to have their citizenship restored and others could get naturalized if they could produce required documentation by June 17. The cost of not meeting the deadline was deportation, some to a country they had never visited. Haitian descendants living in the Dominican Republic may or may not speak French or Creole, since Spanish is the language spoken in Dominican Republic. That deadline has passed and thousands of Haitian descendants did not have the documents, and may be forced to leave.

People on the call asked for “a more a high-level focus” and questioned the silence from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Some on the call asked for economic sanctions through a presidential executive order.

Representatives from the state department said Kerry had spoken privately to Danilo Medina,president of Dominican Republic, in hopes to find a diplomatic solution to the island’s anti-immigration policy.

“This call has been very helpful to the U.S. so we can understand public opinion on this. At the same time the Department of State has to make clear that the Dominican Republic is an independent, sovereign nation,” said Kent Brokenshire, deputy coordinator at the State Department. He points out that the policy came from the island’s highest court.

‘Dominican sovereignty not negotiable’

Santo Domingo.-Dominican Republic last Wednesday rejected any attempt to obstruct its sovereignty and self-determination, in response to the Haitian Government’s reiterated request for a protocol to negotiate the deportation their undocumented nationals.

In response to the statements by Haiti Foreign minister Lener Renauld at a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, his Dominican counterpart Pedro Verges said Santo Domingo measures the situation in Haiti 'with the same yardstick " it measure its relations with other states.

"No other member of the inter-American community or any part of the world negotiates the terms of its immigration laws with another nation simply because it’s a sovereign right of States," Verges said.

Haiti still needs more than $30 million for elections

A top U.S. official stunned some Washington lawmakers Wednesday with testimony that Haiti needs as much as $50 million to carry out successful elections this year.

The declaration during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere hearing comes just three weeks before Haiti is scheduled to hold the first of three critical elections.

“There is a fairly good chance (the election) will happen,” Thomas Adams, the State Department’s special coordinator for Haiti, said about the scheduled Aug. 9 elections to restore Haiti’s parliament. “But there are still a few issues left. One is a lack of funding.”

Adam’s whopping $50 million figure during his testimony caused Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to ask, “How many people live in Haiti?”

“Eleven million,” Adams said.

“And you need $50 million to pull off an election?” Boxer said.

Adams revelation during the hearing, chaired by Florida Republican and U.S. presidential candidate Marco Rubio, came a day before a United Nations’ donor conference in New York to help fill Haiti’s funding gap. U.N. officials and Haitian Prime Minister Evans Paul, who will be attending, hope to raise $31 million to cover the second and possibly third rounds of voting.

Adams said his higher figure includes other costs, such as electoral observation and support for the Haitian National Police, which will have to shoulder most of the responsibility for security.

“It is a complex electoral process,” a high-ranking U.N. official said during a briefing about Thursday’s conference, describing Haiti’s election timetable as “a major undertaking.”

With almost every elected office up for grabs, about 40,000 candidates have registered for 6,102 posts, including president. Runoffs for the legislative races are scheduled for Oct. 25, which is also the first round of presidential elections. Voting for local elections, which should have been held in 2011, also will be held that day.

Should no one win the presidential race outright, runoffs are scheduled for Dec. 27.

U.N. officials acknowledge that some challenges remain including excluded candidates insisting on their reinstatement by the Provisional Electoral Council, but say Haiti is on track.

“All things considered, this council for the first time, has been a council that has managed to build up a certain degree of credibility with the actors in the process where at the middle of 2014, for instance, there were many political parties who indicated that they would not go to elections under this administration,” the U.N. official said. “Across the board, political parties have signed up to participate, the candidates have signed up to participate.”

At the hearing, Rubio, who also noted concerns about Haiti’s ongoing border dispute with the Dominican Republic and U.S. spending in Haiti, said he is now “cautiously optimistic that a new democratically elected government will be inaugurated.”

“When Haiti is stable and prosperous, America benefits,” he said. “When Haiti is unstable, unsecure and lacking in opportunity for its people, it creates vacuums where criminal gangs — or worse — can operate. And it can lead to migratory pressures in the U.S. — or disastrous and deadly tragedies on the high seas.”

Elections sign of a vibrant democracy

BY HERVÉ LADSOUS AND JESSICA FAIETA

Haiti will reach a major historic milestone this summer. Starting Aug. 9, some 6 million Haitians will choose 1,280 representatives for local administrations, 140 mayors, 139 Parliamentarians and, finally, their president. The several rounds of electoral processes could last until the end of the year.

It has not been easy to arrive at this moment. The Haitian people have been waiting three years for these elections. Parliament has been absent since January. Haiti has made significant strides to restore confidence in the political process and to hold elections on time. The electoral council, appointed in January, has been impressive in taking on several challenging technical, logistical and financial tasks aiming to ensure a credible, inclusive and transparent process. The electoral law and calendar were promulgated in March, the majority of political parties have fielded candidates and the national police have been working to ensure a secure environment for the elections.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, the United Nations Development Program and other U.N. partners have invested significant effort over recent years to strengthen national electoral capabilities.

Much work has already been accomplished, but much more needs to be done to complete elections of such scale and complexity. Thus far, the joint effort by the national authorities and international donors has generated enough resources to finance only the first round of polls on Aug. 9.

We cannot stop here. We appeal to all of Haiti’s international partners to step up their efforts and support Haiti in crossing the finish line of this march toward peace and stability. While important contributions have been received from Haiti’s partners, there is a crucial gap that needs to be filled. Without this support, the completion of the electoral cycle risks being jeopardized, as does Haiti’s hard-won progress.

These elections will mark the longest period of institutional stability that the country has enjoyed in its recent history. It will be the second time since 2006 that a democratically elected president will hand over power to his successor. The process will have a positive effect on the sub-region, promoting socioeconomic development and regional stability.

While it is important for Haiti’s international partners to continue to lend their generous support to the country’s democratic process, it is equally crucial for Haiti’s government to manage this properly and ensure its institutions have all that is required to fully take charge of the elections.

On July 16, the United Nations, the prime minister of Haiti, government officials and international partners are to meet in New York, a major opportunity to reaffirm our common commitment to the democratic consolidation of the country and our solidarity with its people’s aspirations and hopes for progress.

The people of Haiti have struggled for decades to consolidate democracy in the country. In 1986, a popular uprising removed the Duvalier regime. Today, in 2015, there are over 38,000 candidates for the local elections alone. A vibrant democracy is alive and well in Haiti, and the Haitian people recognize that governance is everyone’s responsibility.

Across the globe in countries where democracy, good governance and respect for the rule of law is the norm, political power is contested through peaceful and democratic means. Citizens adopt peaceful and democratic methods to solve the problems they face. Dialogue and tolerance become the order of the day. Haiti, one of the world’s oldest democracies, is ready for this transition and deserves our full support.

HERVÉ LADSOUS IS THE UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR THE UNITED NATIONS DEPARTMENT OF PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS. JESSICA FAIETA IS U.N. ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL AND U.N. DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (UNDP) DIRECTOR FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN.

U.S. official hopeful that cash-strapped Haiti can hold elections

WASHINGTON

There is a "fairly good chance" legislative elections in Haiti will happen as scheduled in August, a U.S. State Department official said on Wednesday, adding that the United States will provide more funds to assure polling goes smoothly.

The United States will also ask other countries at the United Nations in New York for pledges of money on Thursday to pay for the elections in the impoverished nation, Tom Adams, State Department Special Coordinator for Haiti told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.

Haiti needs another $50 million for three upcoming elections this year. The first, scheduled Aug. 9 is for every seat in the Chamber of Deputies and 20 of 30 Senate seats. Parliament dissolved Jan. 12 after President Michel Martelly's government failed to organize elections and the terms ran out for most sitting members.

Senator Marco Rubio, the chairman of the subcommittee, asked Adams if he believes Martelly will cede power after the October presidential election and a possible December runoff.

Adams replied; "He wants to have them, and he wants to leave (office) in February."

Many fear political violence and do not trust elections officials to handle possible disruptions. Some well-known candidates, such as former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and university rector Jacky Lumarque, were deemed ineligible.

The provisional electoral council, which ultimately decides who appears on the ballot, determined neither of the two had passed the required investigations into their use of government finances. Both Lamothe and Lumarque have publicly contested their removals.

Concerns over electoral violence have heightened after the July 1 drawdown of United Nations peacekeepers, with the troop force now cut to 2,370 soldiers and 2,600 police, from a peak of more than 13,300 uniformed officers.

Adams told the subcommittee the Haitian National Police does not have enough officers to control the entire country. He said Haiti needs 30,000 local police but only has 12,000.

Adams said elections were still feasible, and were badly needed to accelerate reforms to open the country up to more foreign investment.

(Reporting by Peter Granitz in Port-au-Prince and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by David Adams and Andrew Hay)

VOLUNTARY RETURNS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC TOWARDS HAITI?

Haiti / Dominican Republic figures communicated by the DPC

According to the last report of the Management of the Disaster and Emergency Services of Haiti, from June 21^st till July 9^th, 2015, 19,138 people from the Dominican Republic arrived in Haiti, both by official means and by non-official means, from the Haitian-Dominican border.

Of these 19,138 people, 6,116 entered through official entry points, and 13,022 by non-official entry points.

8,480 entered by Ouanaminthe, 2,829 by Belladère, 1,725 by Lascahobas, 1,609 by Cornillon, 1,509 by Ganthie, 1,306 by Anse-à-Pitre, 848 by Savanette, 275 by Thomassique, 142 by Capotille, 114 by Cerca-La-Source, 113 by Fond-verrettes, 87 by Thomonde, 65 by Mont-Organize, 22 by Carice, 8 by Ferrier and 6 by Thomazeau.

Sources used at the official posts are: the Management of the Immigration and the Emigration of the Ministry of the Interior and Regions; and for the non-official Points the National Office of the Migration, city halls and the Coordinators of CASEC and Structures of the Disaster and Emergency Services of 4 border departments.

In terms of needs, the DPC underlines in its report the necessity: to strengthen the mechanisms to monitor on the border the people arriving from the Dominican Republic; the strengthening of the structures to document and welcome those arriving; the strengthening of structures specialized in the reception of the vulnerable groups; and the identification of the specific cases of protection for people at risk of being stateless.

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.