What's Up Little Haiti

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.

Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 26 aout 2015

Launch of Carifesta

The Gardens of the MUPANAH were the showcase last Thursday evening, at an official welcome reception organized by the Ministry of Culture in honor of the main delegations already in Haiti to participate in the 12th edition of the CARIFESTA. The cocktail took place in the presence of the Prime Minister Evans Paul, in the presence of Minister of Culture Ditney Johanne Rateau and of Minister of Tourism Stéphanie Balmir Villedrouin. The director of the Mupanah, Michèle Frish, was the host of the evening which ended in the middle of the night.

Then the next day, August 21^st, it was "CARIFESTA XII. “Let the party begin" proclaimed President Michel Martelly at the kiosk Occide Jeanty, to officially open the XII edition of this cultural festival. The president addressed in English the guests coming from the Caribbean “who had believed in Haiti and accepted its application to organize the festival.”

The day before, the Prime Minister, Evans Paul, also thanked the guests who helped Haiti organize this big cultural party.

Friday afternoon began with an artistic parade in the streets of Port-au-Prince; a parade rich in the colors of the various Caribbean nations. As for the kiosk Occide Jeanty, many saw it for the first time in the magnificence of the renovation. The kiosk was the final destination of the parade.

This ceremony was a display of the arts and colors. As for Haitian culture, it was represented by greatly renowned Haitian artists: Mikaben, J-Perry, Renette Désir, and Rutschelle Guillaum. They interpreted the hymn of the festival, a composition by Junior Hantz Mercier and Mikaben who surpassed themselves.

A show of sound, light, artistic parade and folk dances made up the opening of the ten days of festivities, with artists coming from various nations of the Caribbean community,

A parade of nations followed. It included delegations carrying their respective flag, as well as taptaps decorated in the colors of 22 nations and symbolically representing a Caribbean known for its diversity.

Unfortunately the rain came along and ended the evening prematurely, just as icons of Haitian music had taken the stage of the kiosk Occide Jeanty: Emeline Michel, Edy François and James Germain to name a few. All of whom had come to participation in the concert. The rain also forced the cancellation of a performance by the group “Taboo Combo.”

But in spite of the rain, as well as technical difficulties, the beauty of the show created immense enthusiasm and the Caribbean started to dance even in the rain!

US senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul trades suits for scrubs on Haiti mission to fight cataract

Presidential candidate and ophthalmologist visits western hemisphere’s poorest country to restore vision to hundreds as he acknowledges political struggles.

Mathieux Saint Fleur has been virtually blind for two decades. In less than 24 hours, he will see again. As the 75-year-old Haitian patient lies on an operating table, a US eye surgeon turned politician reassures him, in broken Creole that the surgery is almost over.

“People need to be encouraged it’s not much longer,” said Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist by training, without taking his eyes off Saint Fleur.

As many of Paul’s competitors courted voters in Iowa and New Hampshire over the last week, Kentucky’s fiery junior senator joined a team of eye surgeons on a four-day mission to Haiti, giving vision to nearly 200 who would not have been blind if they lived in the US. Here in the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, “curable blindness” from common ailments such as cataracts is the norm.

But despite the humanitarian focus of the visit, Paul’s precarious place in the 2016 presidential contest was never quite forgotten.

Paul acknowledged his recent struggle during an interview at a Cap-Haitien hotel, where razor wire protects the outer walls and raw sewage flows into the nearby ocean.

“It’s sort of like a schoolyard. Once you got ’em down, everybody piles on,” Paul said of the 2016 contest. “And I’ve been under a dog pile for a couple of weeks.”

There may be cause for optimism, however, in the form of Gary Heavin, a cigar-chomping billionaire Republican donor who was at Paul’s side in Haiti for much of the week, having arrived with the senator and some of the other doctors on his private jet.

At the eye center, at least, it was easy to find evidence that Paul’s privately funded mission made a difference. The trip was organised by the University of Utah’s Moran Eye Center, which regularly leads trips designed to train local doctors and address “curable blindness” in poor areas around the world.

Cataract surgeries often take no longer than 20 minutes, allowing teams of volunteer surgeons to perform dozens in a single day. The Haiti group completed 109 surgeries in the three days Paul was on hand and expected to finish nearly 200 by the time the full group left the country on Saturday.

On Tuesday morning, the day after his surgery, Saint Fleur sat in a room crowded with patients quietly waiting for the bandages to come off. He was speechless for a few moments after the white gauze was peeled away. Then he began to smile.

“I see! I see!” he said, joy spreading across his face. With shaking hands, he began reaching out for nearby medical staff, hugging anyone he could and affectionately touching their faces.

“I love you,” he told a nurse. “Yesterday I couldn’t see!”

Saint Fleur then spoke directly to Paul: “If it’s for money, I could not do this. I have no money,” he said through an interpreter. “God sent you to me.”

Cholera, climate change fuel Haiti's humanitarian crisis: UN

Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Climate change, cholera and the return of thousands of emigrants from the neighboring Dominican Republican are fueling a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, the UN warned.

The impoverished Caribbean nation is facing a deluge of problems, pushing an already vulnerable population closer to the edge, said Enzo di Taranto, who heads Haiti's UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among these pressures is a new cholera outbreak. Cases are up 300 percent in the first months of 2015 compared to the same period last year, di Taranto said in an interview with AFP.

Haiti -- the poorest country in the Americas -- is already suffering from chronic instability and struggling to recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people and crippled the nation's infrastructure.

A cholera outbreak after the quake was blamed on UN peacekeepers' poor hygiene.

According to UN data, nearly 20,000 people have been affected and 170 killed by the disease since the beginning of the year.

More than 8,800 Haitians have died of cholera since it appeared in October 2010 and, even today, cases recorded in Haiti surpass the total number of people with the disease elsewhere in the world.

Out of an estimated population of 10 million, around three million Haitians still are drinking dirty water, OCHA said.

Beyond the increase in cholera, the humanitarian situation in the country is worsening because of a "convergence of several factors," di Taranto said.

"The devaluation of the gourde (Haitian currency), which means an increase in the price of baseline products like medicine, food and water; the drought which has hit many regions in the country; and also the repatriation of Haitians from the Dominican Republic," are all contributing, he said.

- Families with nothing -

In June, the neighboring Dominican Republic introduced a tough new immigration policy, prompting 60,000 Haitians to leave the country.

Many ended up back in Haiti, straining an already vulnerable system.

The uncontrolled flow is exerting a "demographic pressure on the already very weak health system in Haiti and on the supply of food and water," di Taranto said.

He said the problems are especially bad in the southeastern community of Anse-a-Pitres.

Many families who returned from the Dominican Republic are living hand-to-mouth in shanties.

The effects of climate change are also encroaching. The summer drought previously confined to country's north has crept into the south.

"In the Cayes region and the Macaya natural park, water sources are dry," di Taranto said. "It's a problem that's spreading."

Haiti, which has lost 98 percent of its forest cover, has seen worsening agricultural conditions and topsoil erosion.

Because of this, the warm air current from "El Nino" is affecting Haiti more than other countries in the region.

"We need to launch public rural development programs which let us confront these climatological dynamics that we can't control," di Taranto said.

To address the immediate humanitarian emergency, OCHA estimates it will need around $25 million in the next four to six months.

But five years after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people, international aid for Haiti is diminishing.

It's a situation that directly threatens help for more than 60,000 victims of the quake who are still living in camps.

To access a broader pool of potential donors, the United Nations is planning an online crowdfunding campaign and also using celebrities to draw attention to the cause.

The last such visit was from the singer Beyonce in May.

State Department Cautiously Criticizes Dominican Deportations

A mild rebuke from the Obama administration isn’t doing it for many activists.

Roque Planas

Reporter, Latino Voices, The Huffington Post

The State Department on Friday gently scolded the Dominican Republic for its resumption of deportations, urging the country's government to avoid deporting people to Haiti if they had once held a claim to Dominican citizenship.

The statement was a notable departure for the Obama administration, which has otherwise remained largely silent in recent months as the Dominican government’s widely criticized immigration regularization process wound to a close.

“We recognize the prerogative of the Dominican Republic to remove individuals from its territory who are present without authorization,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner wrote in the statement. “At the same time, we urge the Dominican Republic to avoid mass deportations and to conduct any deportations in a transparent manner that fully respects the human rights of deportees.”

But for many human rights groups that have long protested the Dominican government’s actions, the State Department's remarks didn’t go far enough.

Francesca Menes, a co-coordinator of the #Rights4AllInDR campaign, says her U.S. coalition of Dominican and Haitian expat groups aims to pressure the U.S. government into taking more direct action to curb deportations in the Dominican Republic.

“Our expectation was that there was going to be some kind of intervening to hold the Dominican government accountable, rather than releasing some statement,” Menes told The WorldPost. "The Dominican Republic is so close to us and we’re just watching from afar.”

In this photo taken on Jan. 29, 2011, a Haitian woman gathers her belongings while shouting that she was only working and not doing anything wrong, after being detained by Dominican specialized military border officers in Jimani, Dominican Republic.

Menes said she was disappointed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hasn't spoken about the issue, given the Clinton family’s close ties to Haiti. She noted that former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is competing with Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, recently met with Haitian and Dominican immigrants in Florida to discuss the crisis.

Clinton “has a national platform that she could use to speak up and she hasn’t,” Menes said. “[O’Malley] just taking that initiative meant a lot to us, as opposed to Hillary, who also came down here, but chose to only meet with the Cuban community.”

The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wade McMullen, an attorney with RFK Human Rights, said that deportations in the Dominican Republic are carried out much more rapidly than in the United States and with little opportunity to appeal the decision.

“Some of the people who have been deported have reported that there’s no process at all,” McMullen told The WorldPost. “They just get picked up, put on a bus and sent to the border. It’s extremely quick... We’re really concerned that this process doesn’t comply with the Dominican government’s international human rights obligations.”

The Dominican Republic resumed deportations last week, according to local reports, after largely suspending them for a year and a half to give people a chance to comply with the new immigration normalization plan. Thousands of undocumented Haitians began leaving the Dominican Republic voluntarily when the June 17 deadline passed. Settlement camps have sprung up across the border in Haiti to receive the migrating Haitians, according to NPR.

A series of legal changes since 2004 have eliminated the concept of birthright citizenship in the Dominican Republic. The newer standard was enshrined in the country’s 2010 constitution, and a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling applied the standard retroactively, leaving thousands of people who'd once qualified for citizenship effectively stateless -- including an estimated 60,000 children.

Facing an onslaught of international criticism over the court’s ruling, the Dominican government implemented a plan to normalize the status of undocumented Haitians and to restore citizenship to Dominican-born people with undocumented parents who had previously qualified for citizenship.

But human rights groups largely panned the plan. Some 56,000 people who previously held passports, national IDs or other documentation identifying them as Dominican nationals had their citizenship restored under the plan. However, fewer than 9,000 people who were born in the country but lacked such documents, or else had difficulty obtaining them, applied to register as foreigners with an expedited pathway to citizenship before a February deadline. June 17 was the last day for undocumented immigrants, including people left stateless by the new policies, to register with the Dominican government as foreigners with the possibility of obtaining a provisional visa.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the Dominican government’s new immigration and citizenship system, warning that the policies could lead to the deportations of thousands of Dominican-born people made stateless through the process. The vast majority of the estimated 200,000 stateless people in the Dominican Republic are of Haitian descent and black, fueling suspicions that racism played some role in creating the policies.

Dominican officials aren't likely to be very receptive to the foreign criticism. President Danilo Medina has defended the country's immigration and citizenship scheme as an issue of sovereignty, saying in speeches that he won’t bow to the interests of international nongovernmental organizations. Medina administration officials have pointed out that the United States routinely deports Haitians and other foreign nationals over the protests of U.S. immigrant rights advocates.

CARIFESTA

The following is the scheduled program of nine remaining days of this celebration of Caribbean Culture

These nine days will take place simultaneously in 5 planned cities: Jacmel, Port-au-Prince, Cayes, Gonaïves and in Cap-Haïtien.

CARIFESTA XII, official programming

Inauguration of the exhibit "Shared Memories"

On Saturday morning, First Lady Sophia Martelly, Honorary President of the Museum of the Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH), Dithny Joan Raton, Minister of Culture and Michèle G. Frisch, the Chief Executive Officer of the MUPANAH, inaugurated the exhibitb"Shared Memories" in the presence of the members of the official delegation of CARICOM led by its General Secretary, Irwin Larocque, accompanied by his assistant, Dr. Douglas Slater.

Conceived within the framework of the Festival of the Arts of the Caribbean (CARIFESTA XII Haïti 2015), this exhibit tells of the exceptional story of Haiti in the Caribbean context. A story marked by the revolutionary fights that led to the collapse of the slave colonial system in Haiti and the other islands of the Caribbean.

This exhibits also opens on the Creole identity, as an intercultural factor stemming from striking episodes of the history of humanity, as the conquests, the colonization, the atrocities of slavery, the resistances as well as the revolts.

To visit in the MUPANAH from August 23rd until October 22nd, 2015.

Grand Market is awaiting for you!

Last Saturday afternoon, the official inauguration of "Grand Market" took place.

Grand Market consists more than 100 exhibitors of small business craftsmen and women; more than 25 working restaurants serving throughout the day; a fashion stage, and a music stage for artistic representations every evening starting at 6:00 am p.m. Let us call recall that the Grand Market occupies the following streets: Magny, Saint Honoré, Magloire Ambroise, Capois and Legitime.

Ambassador Pamela White says Good bye …

After three years of service in Haiti, Ambassador Pamela White is leaving. In her last speech, she was eager to underline that she arrived "enthusiastic" and that she was leaving with the same feeling.

For her, the Haitian politicians are intelligent and passionate about their country. The main problem, she stressed, is that they blame each other and are unable to get along about common projects for their country.

Pamela White was also eager to speak about the corruption: "It is at every level," she said, adding, "There is a price to pay for anything here." During her interview with the newspaper Le Nouveliste, the American ambassador spoke for a long time about this plague. She said she had spoken about it not only with President Michel Martelly, but also with Minister of Justice Pierre Richard Casimthe ir. Even when she sees a street protest, Pamela White cannot refrain from wondering: "Who paid this time to make people take to the streets".

And then the ambassadress spoke about the ULCC, the Unity to Fight Against Corruption, financed largely by the United States. She said she was sorry about the departure of Colonel Atouriste, who was at the head of the institution. "He was not even given the opportunity to take to the courts cases of corruption that the ULCC had discovered.”

She was also questioned about the country’s national police force, the PNH which, according to White, had made a lot of progress, and become much more professional, thanks to 100 million dollars spent by the United States to equip the force. Drug trafficking had also decreased a lot, said the ambassador. The DEA was very satisfied with the work made by the BLTS, the Brigade to Fight Against Narcotics, which in 2015 was able to intercept more illegal drugs than it had during the previous 5 years

During the meeting, Pamela White was very open. It was as if she confided to “Le Nouveliste.” But for several years American ambassadors upon their departure have behaved this way.

It's as if they wanted to unload all that they had on their conscience by sharing everything that they had liked, and everything that hadn’t worked. In short, Pamela White is not different from those who preceded her in this office, which is so critical in Haiti.

Détails: Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti; Création : 1 septembre 2015

As Florida Preps for Storm That Was Erika, Caribbean Tallies Damage

Only remnants of the tropical storm that used to be Erika barreled toward Florida on Sunday night, but the state was still preparing for what the National Weather Service described as strong winds and heavy rain, and the governor was still urging vigilance.

Erika began weakening Saturday after it killed at least 20 people in the Caribbean last week and caused Florida Gov. Rick Scott to issue a state of emergency Friday. Flood watches were in effect from southern Georgia to Miami, The Weather Channel reported, and rip currents were expected all the way to the Carolinas.

In the Caribbean, hard-hit countries were still tallying the damage.

In Dominica, where nearly 13 inches of rain fell in as many hours, according to The Weather Channel, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit recounted Erika's "monumental" destruction in an emotional televised address: Bridges had been washed away, he said. Highways and roads were destroyed. At least 20 people were dead, and more were missing.

"This is a period of national tragedy," he said, adding that the storm had damaged "nearly every community" on the island.

"We have, in essence, to rebuild Dominica," he said.

In Puerto Rico, 200,000 people lost power and million of dollars in crops were destroyed. In Haiti, mudslides blocked roads, a prison was evacuated and rain appeared to have caused firey truck crash killed four people and injured 11 others.

NBC Miami: Erika Dissipates Over Hispanola; Remnants to Affect South Florida

In the Pacific, meanwhile, Hurricane Ignacio was churning toward Hawaii. The storm — once a Category 4 system — had begun weakening by late Sunday morning, a trend that was expected to continue in the coming days, The Weather Channel reported.

Tropical storm watches were in effect for the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe, according to the National Weather Service, and the storm's center is expected to pass by the state to the north on Monday and Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.

Erika is a particularly wet storm, and was expected to dump up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain across the drought-stricken region.

Given how weak the storm is and how dry Puerto Rico and parts of Florida have been, "it could be a net benefit, this thing," said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel.

The center of Erika was located about 25 miles (45 kilometers) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and was moving west at about 21 mph (33 kph), the Hurricane Center said. The storm's maximum sustained winds dropped slightly to 45 mph (75 kph).

The storm previously slid to the south of Puerto Rico, knocking out power to more than 200,000 people and causing more than $16 million in damage to crops including plantains, bananas and coffee, but causing no major damage or injuries.

Dominica, meanwhile, was struggling in the aftermath. Assistant Police Superintendent Claude Weekes said authorities still haven't been able to access many areas in the mountainous island because of impassable roads and bridges. "The aftermath is loads of damage," he said. "It really has been devastating."

An elderly blind man and two children were killed when a mudslide engulfed their home in the southeast of Dominica. Another man was found dead in the capital following a mudslide at his home.

People on the island told of narrowly escaping being engulfed by water as Erika downed trees and power lines while unleashing heavy floods that swept cars down streets and ripped scaffolding off some buildings.

"I was preparing to go to work when all of a sudden I heard this loud noise and saw the place flooded with water," said Shanie James, a 30-year-old mother who works at a bakery. "We had to run for survival."

Mudslides destroyed dozens of homes across Dominica, including that of 46-year-old security guard Peter Julian, who had joined friends after leaving work.

"When I returned, I saw that my house that I have lived in for over 20 years was gone," he said. "I am blessed to be alive. God was not ready for me ... I have lost everything and now have to start all over again."

Meanwhile in the Pacific, Ignacio strengthened into a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph). It was centered about 785 miles (1,260 kilometers) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and was moving northwest near 8 mph (13 kph).

Also in the Pacific, Jimena turned into a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph (165 kph). It was centered about 1,135 miles (1,825 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. It does not pose a threat to land.

Erika death toll: 20 deaths in Dominica

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Tropical Storm Erika began to lose steam Friday as it dumped rain over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but it left behind a trail of destruction that included at least twenty people killed on the small eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, authorities said.

Heavy winds from the storm toppled trees and power lines in the Dominican Republic as it began to cut across neighboring Haiti.

Erika's heavy rains set off floods and mudslides in Dominica that are now blamed for at least a dozen deaths, the government said. At least two dozen people remained missing and authorities warned the death toll could rise.

"There are additional bodies recovered but it is an ongoing operation," Police Chief Daniel Carbon said, declining to provide specifics. "It will take us a couple of days to recover as many bodies as we can. So the count will increase."

CARIFESTA showcase continues in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) - Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Irwin LaRoque, toured the exhibition booths Grand Market at the Caribbean Festival of the Arts (CARIFESTA), last week, as the French speaking Caribbean nation pulled out all the stops for the event.

The 12th edition of CARIFESTA opened on Friday, August 21^st with LaRoque saying it was a historic occasion for Haiti and the region.

He added that he was pleased to see that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)“ responded to the call to celebrate in Haiti as it hosts CARIFESTA for the first time.

LaRocque reiterated the CARICOM heads of government, ministers of culture and the artistic community’s commitment to the implementation of a new and improved CARIFESTA, stating that everyone should do their best to ensure that each edition of the festival is in line with the region’s mission and brings us closer to the goal of presenting a “world-renowned mega festival of Caribbean cultural and artistic excellence that brings economic benefits, unites the region and excites all peoples”.

The nine day festival continued with fashion shows and performances from groups representing the member states.

CARIFESTA is the region’s roving multi-disciplinary mega event that showcases the cultural expressions of artists in more than 30 countries in the region.

It was established in 1972 by regional government leaders to celebrate the arts, foster a vision of Caribbean unity and to positively advance Caribbean culture regionally and internationally.

Haiti snubs Dominican Republic´s “owners”

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic´s biggest truckers union (Fenatrado) – dubbed the country´s “owners” for their often violent strikes with apparent impunity- complained recently that Haiti´s government has exacerbated their walkout now in its fourth week, by failing to show up for previously agreed meetings.

Fenatrado president Blas Peralta said a scheduled meeting on Monday was rescheduled for Tuesday and then suspended “for no apparent reason,” and there hasn’t been any communication with the Haitians since.

He said after more than three weeks since the flow of trucks has been halted, senior Haitian government officials agreed to meet to solve the deadlock and resume the haul of freight, interrupted when several truckers were victims of attacks.

"For Monday, we agreed a meeting with Haitian authorities, without explanation we were left waiting. Then we met on Tuesday and Thursday we told we would get a response. But it is Saturday and we still haven’t heard from them," Peralta said.

“There are sectors who want chaos both in this country and in Haiti. We believed that we would by now have a solution to this problem on Wednesday and wasn’t resolved. A commission was convened in Jimani (west), they were there that day to reach an agreement and the next day the Haitian government would sign it, but we´re still waiting."

The construction project for the Ministry of the Public works is moving forward quickly!

The three-story building that will shelter the Ministry of the Public Works, Transportation and Communications, financed by the European Union with 4,168,413 euros, is moving forward quickly and is two months away from completion.

Charles Jean Jacques, the national regulator of the European Development Fund (FED), accompanied by foreign and Haitian technicians working on the site, visited the construction site situated on Delmas 33 to ask about the state of progress of the infrastructure. This visit is the second by the regulator following the last one April http: // www.haitilibre.com/article-13725-haiti-reconstruction-suivi-du-chantier-du-nou-nouveau-ministere-des-travaux-publics.html

Together with Édouard Excellent, Coordinator and Emmanuel Fexile, Technical Adviser, the National Regulator explored the three-story building and received explanations and answers to his questions. During his visit, he explained the advantages of completing the project on time according to schedule.

Engineer Vincenzo Candido, Project Manager of the firm R.I.S.P.A on this construction site, said, "The next stages are: the electrification, the plumbing, the installation of ceramic tiles and the air conditioning. The installation of doors and windows and the completion of the roof will come then." Objectives, he believes, can be reached according to schedule.

Mrs. Martine Desruisseaux, the architect for the project, is also confident but careful, asserting "There is reason to hope that everything will take place as expected."

Let us remember that this project, which started in July, 2014 should be finished by the end of October, 2015 (in spite of a 3 month delay).

LES MISERABLES ACTOR KYLE JEAN BAPTISTE DIES AT 21

Broadway actor Kyle Jean-Baptiste has died after falling off his mother’s fire escape. He was 21.

Jean-Baptiste made Broadway history as the understudy for “Les Miserables” character Jean Valjean. When Jean-Baptiste stepped into the role, he became both the youngest actor to do so and the first African-American actor to play Valjean on Broadway. When he was not filling in as Valjean, the actor played the roles of Constable and Courfeyrac in the musical.

The company of “Les Mis” released the following statement on Jean-Baptiste’s death: “The entire ‘Les Miserables’ family is shocked and devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of Kyle, a remarkable young talent and tremendous person who made magic — and history — in his Broadway debut. We send our deepest condolences to his family and ask that you respect their privacy in this unimaginably difficult time.”

Broadway veteran Kristin Chenoweth tweeted her condolences, sending her “love and hugs to his family” and the “Les Mis” cast.

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