Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 30 juin 2021

 SENATOR RUBIO PRESS

Sen. Rubio: "We have a moral duty and a responsibility to engage with and jointly work with all of the island’s stakeholders for the future of the Haitian people."

DISPLACEMENTS DUE TO GANG VIOLENCE IN PORT-APRINCE

Situation Report No 2

This report is produced by OCHA Haiti in collaboration with humanitarian partners. It covers the period from 8 to 14 June 2021 and is based on the information and data available to date. The next report will be issued on or around 20 June.

•  Since 1 June, an upsurge in inter-gang clashes has caused the displacement of an estimated 10,000 civilians in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The inter-gang violence and clashes are having a direct and indirect impact on the whole population of that area. Frequent shootings and regular roadblocks are limiting access to entire neighbourhoods and spreading fear among the population. 

•  Local authorities, the Haitian Red-Cross, national and local NGOs are playing a vital role in responding to the most urgent needs but due to limited resources available and limited access, less than a third of the IDPs is currently receiving assistance and no assistance is provided to host families or the stranded population of Martissant. 

•  The initial response provided is partly drawn from preparedness stocks for the hurricane season. While partners are taking these exceptional measures, this will affect the response capacities of the humanitarian partners to potential hurricane impacts. As such, funding for these operations and for the replenishment of these contingency stocks is urgently needed. 

•  Gender-based violence is reported among the displaced population, with sexual abuse, including rape, among IDPs, in host families and as offer of “sex for shelter”. The ongoing insecurity is limiting capacities for monitoring and addressing support requests. 

•  The current situation is also having an impact on other departments, especially in the Southern Peninsula, due to limitations on the movement of people and goods. 

•  The United Nations are calling for an end to the violence to allow the civilian population to return to their neighbourhoods and resume their daily life and allow humanitarian access to the victims. 


         The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to Coordinate the global emergency response to save lives and protect people in humanitarian crises. We advocate for effective and principled humanitarian action by all, for all. www.unocha.org

         HUMANITARIAN CONSEQUENCES

         In Martissant, the recent upsurge in inter-gang clashes took a turn for the worse over the past days resulting in the burning and looting of houses, deaths and injuries amongst the civilian population. Gang members attacked several police stations in Martissant and neighbourhood and assaulted two journalists who were reporting on the displacement situation. Residents reported that some corpses remain unattended on the streets and that gang members are requesting money to deliver the deceased to their relatives.

         A large community of more than 1,500 people have settled in the Carrefour Sports Centre but the local authorities have indicated that current sites are not suitable for long-term stay and that beyond the next few weeks, the displaced should be returning or move to other suitable locations.

         CHALLENGES

         One of the main challenges is access and security for humanitarian aid deliveries. Because of the security situation, access to some of the IDP sites, in particular Carrefour and Bas-Delmas areas, is difficult from Port-au-Prince. In Martissant, 'windows' of a few hours are allowing for the safe transit of certain deliveries with an escort. However, the situation is highly volatile, requiring humanitarian partners (including the Haitian Red Cross and local and national NGOs) to negotiate access and take all possible security risk mitigation measures. Partners are looking at the best possible relief delivery solutions, including the use of the UNHAS helicopter and coastal (sea) route. Current access limitations require a well-coordinated and streamlined logistical response from partners, including the consolidation of cargo to limit the number of deliveries required.

         These constraints also directly affect the Haitian population. Particularly worrisome are reports of limited access to health facilities and basic services to and from affected neighbourhoods. People are trapped in their neighbourhoods and unable to freely move. Images have circulated of pedestrians walking, at the request of gangs, with their arms raised in the air.

         Limited access also affects the humanitarian partners’ ability to identify the needs and locating displaced people who are not within identified sites remains a significant challenge, as many are dispersed across the metropolitan area or have relocated in the provinces with relatives.

         In addition to the challenges mentioned above, a strategy for long term resettlement of IDPs having lost their homes to destruction and fires is needed as well as a sustainable solution for the temporarily displaced population currently sheltered in large facilities such as the Sports Centre. In those large sites, the risks of COVID-19 spread and protection remains a concern.

         Amid all these considerations, the operating environment still remains that of a pandemic. Since May 2021, COVID-19 infections and fatalities rose more than fivefold following the arrival of new variants. Officially, Haiti has recorded 15,895 infections and 333 deaths from COVID-19 as of 5 June among its 11 million people. Although these numbers are relatively low compared to elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, data is limited due to low testing rates, leading many to believe that the real numbers are much higher. Additionally, hospital overcrowding due to COVID-19 is reducing capacities to care for the injured and those affected by violence, including GBV. This is of concern for both the population and the humanitarian staff. Several confirmed cases have been reported within the humanitarian community, with some requiring medevac. As such, the humanitarian response requires COVID-19 containment and mitigation measures for both staff and the IDP population, especially those sheltered in crowded spaces.

         Several donors are supporting response efforts of implementing agencies (e.g. ECHO and BHA) but available resources remain limited.

         HUMANITARIAN NEEDS

         At least 5,500 of recently displaced people from Martissant, Delmas 75, Bas-Delmas, and Saint-Martin are in immediate need of assistance. According to local authorities and local partners on the ground, the most urgent needs are drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter, food, bedding kits, access to health and nutrition assistance, and psychosocial support.

FAKE RICE

Foreign entrepreneurs are selling a fake version of Madan Gousse Rice

AyiboPost.com

“Madan Gougous” rice inundate the Haitian market. Officials in charge of cultivation matters at the Ministry of Agriculture say they think the “Madan Gougous” rice variety may still exist, while according to multiple farmers interviewed, it has long disappeared from the country.

Haiti has not produced “Madan Gougous” rice since the 1990s, according to the testimony of several large farmers. Due to the international reputation of this rice, foreign countries continue to use its name. Some of this fake “Madan Gougous” rice landed in Haiti.

“There was a disease called black straw that ravaged “Madan Gougous” and “Lakrèt” rice fields”. Even the “Lakrèt” rice was hard to find for a time. It is because of this disease that the farmers came up with the TCS rice, but the disease did not spread throughout the whole Artibonite plains. “There were “Madan Gougous” rice fields elsewhere, which is why I think it may still exist”. But after Hurricane George in 1998, Haiti lost the “Madan Gougous” rice variety.

AYISYEN MELE

By Garry Pierre-Pierre | The Conversation

Haitian Times

Growing up in Haiti, I remember that when we left home for school, or went elsewhere, no one had a key. Only the help of the house kept watch. Doors were left wide open during the day, to be locked up only when we went to bed at night. For most people at the time, you locked your doors out of a sense of routine, not out of fear for your safety.

But back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, Port-au-Prince was a sleepy, mostly middle-class city. Bel Air, Turgeau, Carrefour Feuilles and other neighborhoods were artist colonies where novelists mingled with sculptors and teachers. Downtown was largely left to commerce and was a hub of transport. 

Petion-ville was an ex-burb and Delmas was a mostly wooded area. 

We’ve come a long way since those tranquil days, when the worry was more about Papa Doc goons, the Tonton Macoutes. But at that time, the rules  were clear. Stay away from politics and don’t speak ill of the wise old doctor turned dictator, and you were fine. 

The other fear we harbored was the mythical loup garou, known in Vodou lore to be a spirit that can cast spells on you or “eat” bad children. 

Today, we find ourselves talking about internally displaced people fleeing Bel Air, which is caught up in fratricidal gang warfare. How did we get here? The decline of Port-au-Prince, once a wondrous Caribbean city where foreign diplomats sent their children to the public schools for quality education started during that idyllic period I recall.

The musicians, functionaries, teachers, and the other professionals began a slow migration out of the city and the country. Old neighbors reunited on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Montreal. The Canadian government, looking to increase its ranks of French speakers, offered professionals legal status and in many cases, a job equal to what they were doing in Haiti. 

My parents were part of that early exodus. I would join them in 1975 — June 24 to be exact. It was one of those searing moments in a person’s life, even at that tender young age. I was ambiguous about coming to America. I missed my friends and the soccer matches and the table tennis tournaments. 

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 23 juin 2021

 
 Opinion: Haiti’s ‘descent into hell’ will only accelerate without proper elections
 
 Editorial Board
 The Washington Post 
 June 13, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
 
 Elections are no guarantee of democracy, let alone good governance, but one thing is indisputable: Without them, Haiti has no chance. For the past four years the country has been governed by Jovenel Moïse, an inept autocrat who has neutered parliament and independent institutions while presiding over, and likely abetting, a tableau of urban gang violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion and intimidation that has made life intolerable for millions. On top of that, a deadly new wave of covid-19 has lately swept the country, whose already rickety public health system is overwhelmed. Virtually no one has been vaccinated against the virus.
 
 No scenario for improving Haiti’s prospects — not for good governance, nor for transitioning to order from chaos in the streets — is plausible without elections that would produce new and legitimate leadership. Mr. Moïse has paid lip service to going forward with balloting this fall, for parliament and a successor president. He has devoted far more attention to pushing a referendum, already twice postponed, to redraw the country’s constitution, a probably illegal undertaking that has only intensified already riotous domestic political discord.
 
 A delegation from the Organization of American States has been in Haiti last week, pressing Mr. Moïse and opposition parties to move forward with elections. That message is all the more critical given specious suggestions that, in place of an actual vote, the country could make do in the meantime with some ill-defined transitional government upon the completion of Mr. Moïse’s term next February. The last time Haiti tried that, in 2016, what was meant to be a 120-day provisional administration dragged on for a year — deepening instability and confusion about the country’s future.
 
 Much of the current anarchy is directly attributable to Mr. Moïse, who has contrived to establish what amounts to one-man misrule. In the absence of legislative elections, he has allowed Haiti’s parliament to wither into nothingness, while installing his own toadies as mayors to replace elected ones across the country. In a country of 11 million people, no legislation can be passed, because so few lawmakers remain. If Haitians do not go to the polls this fall, the terms of every single one of the few remaining elected officials will expire in February. That is a recipe for pandemonium.
 
 There is now a real prospect of full-blown anarchy, and resulting waves of boat people fleeing to safer shores. The United States, France, the United Nations, the OAS and other influential parties must act before that happens. Mr. Moïse must go, and be replaced in free and fair elections. They will certainly not set everything right in Haiti, but without them you can bet things will get worse.
 
 Much of the current anarchy is directly attributable to Mr. Moïse, who has contrived to establish what amounts to one-man misrule. In the absence of legislative elections, he has allowed Haiti’s parliament to wither into nothingness, while installing his own toadies as mayors to replace elected ones across the country. In a country of 11 million people, no legislation can be passed, because so few lawmakers remain. If Haitians do not go to the polls this fall, the terms of every single one of the few remaining elected officials will expire in February. That is a recipe for pandemonium.
There is now a real prospect of full-blown anarchy, and resulting waves of boat people fleeing to safer shores. The United States, France, the United Nations, the OAS and other influential parties must act before that happens. Mr. Moïse must go, and be replaced in free and fair elections. They will certainly not set everything right in Haiti, but without them you can bet things will get worse.

GUY SANSARICQ / REFLECTIONS ON THE READINGS OF THE TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (June 20th, 2021) Job 38, 1 + 8-11; Psalm 197; 2 Corinthians 5, 14-17; Mark 4, 35-41 By +Guy Sansaricq.

Weathermen are precious! They predict weather changes and the movement of the winds but have no control over the wild forces of nature. The Scriptures of the day state that God is the one who exercises total control over everything. Job in the first reading uses this image skillfully.

In the Gospel excerpt, we see Jesus rebuking a threatening wind and commanding the stormy sea to quiet down. At once the wind ceased and calm was restored. Jesus is thus shown as endowed with divine power. The Apostles, witnesses of the event were filled with awe. Are we? Yes He is Lord!

It is this Jesus whom we adore. He is the one to whom we address our supplication in times of distress. We need to be reminded of these stories so that we may learn to approach his throne of mercy with greater trust. We may say that through Christ, God has visited us!

The mighty deeds of Christ have been clearly displayed! May we live with the full assurance that he is truly the Lord whose power and mercy are boundless! Let us call on him to calm down the furious winds of terrorism and violence that threaten our very existence; let us incessantly call on him to calm down our fears and anxieties in the face of the world’s uncertainties and threats. He calls us to repent and become a new creation (2nd reading). Why should we arrogantly stand in defiance of the One whom the winds and the seas obey?

WHO THEN IS THIS ONE WHOM THE WIND AND THE SEA OBEY?

PRESS RELEASE

Haiti Gang violence hinders humanitarian assistance amidst COVID-19 upsurge

Port-au-Prince, 14 June 2021 - A new wave of gang violence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince forced nearly 8,500 women and children to flee their homes in just two weeks, UNICEF alerted today.

Since early June, new clashes between rival armed gangs have erupted in the urban areas of Martissant, Fontamara and Delmas and led to hundreds of houses being burned down or damaged.

“Every time, clashes between armed groups are more violent and every time more women and children are forced to flee their homes,” said Bruno Maes, UNICEF Haiti Representative. “Since the beginning of this year, insecurity has been escalating. But the capital city is now facing an urban guerrilla, with thousands of children and women caught in the crossfire. The displaced families I’ve talked to have lost everything and urgently need clean water, food, personal hygiene items, mattresses, blankets and clothes.”

In just two weeks, 2,045 women and 2,146 children have found refuge in the other areas of the capital city such as Carrefour and Bas Delmas. In addition, some 5,110 other displaced people including approximately 2095 women and 2,199 children are reported to be housed by host families in Carrefour or
other neighbouring areas or left to other parts of the country.

For the past nine months, escalating violence and criminal acts in the capital city of Haiti have caused the displacement of more than 13,900 people, according to the UN office in charge of humanitarian coordination (UNOCHA) with
approximately 5,695 women and 5,984 children. About 650,000 people are currently affected by displacement in Haiti, with 500,000 in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince.

A survey conducted by UNICEF in May reveals that one in five young people in Haiti believes that violence prevents children from going to school, and nearly one in two reports that fear is the main effect of violence on children.

This recent spike of violence unravels amidst the upsurge of COVID-19 cases in Haiti. From 1 April to 5 June 2021, confirmed cases have risen from 12,840 to 16,079, with a lethality rate increasing from 1.95% to 2.15%. During the same period, Haiti registered more than 27 per cent of all 346 deaths since the onset of the pandemic last year.

about 8,500 women and children displaced by ‘urban

guerrilla’ in two weeks

“COVID-19 cases in Haiti have never been so high since the beginning of the pandemic but right now, some patients are dying because armed gang violence prevents ambulances from reaching them oxygen and emergency treatment,” said Bruno Maes. “That is unacceptable. Health workers must immediately have full access to all areas to transport patients who need emergency assistance, and their lifesaving job should not be hampered by armed groups. Providing humanitarian aid to displaced women and children in shelters is not good enough. Many are still left without any humanitarian assistance in host families. Unless we regain access to areas affected by gang violence, more lives are at risk of being lost.”

Amidst growing insecurity and gang violence in the capital city, UNICEF is urgently calling on the armed groups to provide all humanitarian actors with unrestricted access to affected populations.

This upsurge of violence also erupted in the hurricanes season with fears of increased and frequent rains doubling risks of water-borne diseases and acute respiratory infections for children. Many children suffer from malnutrition in urban areas of Port-au-Prince like Martissant and Fontamara with high rates of vulnerability and limited access to basic social services.

Despite constrained humanitarian access to the area of Martissant and Fontamara, UNICEF was able to quickly distribute emergency items to the displaced women and children sheltered in a gymnasium earlier last week, including 700 hygiene kits, 700 jerry cans, 20 five-family hygiene kits, 10,000 masks, 212 mattresses and 70 plastic tarpaulins.

UNICEF is also supporting with medical items an integrated mobile health clinic to screen and treat malnutrition among displaced children and providing antenatal consultations and HIV testing to pregnant women.

For 2021, UNICEF is seeking US$48.9 million to meet the humanitarian needs of 1.5 million people in Haiti including over 700,000 children, a situation which has been significantly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, this humanitarian appeal has remained almost completely underfunded.

###

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone.

For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit https://www.unicef.org/lac/en.

USAID’s ATTEINDRE Project Will Help 11,000 Small Businesses 

in the North, Central, and South Departments Create Jobs

 [Port-au-Prince] – The U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will help 11,000 underserved businesses in the North, Central, and South departments of Haiti access the technical support, financial services, and skilled labor they need to become profitable.  To date, USAID’s ATTEINDRE project, implemented in partnership with Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), has awarded grants to seven companies providing business advisory and financial services that will serve micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), including single mothers and fisherfolk.

 U.S. Chargé d’Affaires a.i. to Haiti Nicole Theriot commented, “Small businesses in Haiti work in a challenging environment and face multiple barriers that impede their growth.  Through programs like USAID’s ATTEINDRE project, the U.S. government is working to increase opportunities for Haitian entrepreneurs and help them overcome those obstacles, so they can grow their businesses and create more jobs for a secure and sustainable future.” 

 With USAID support, ATTEINDRE is awarding grants to leading Haitian business service providers, including STRATÈGE, Agence d’Investissement et de Développement d’Entreprises (AIDE), Centre d’Entrepreneurship et de Leadership en Haïti (CEDEL), and Centre de Formation et d’Encadrement Technique (CFET).  The grants will provide qualifying MSMEs with technical assistance and training to help them expand their operations, access credit, and increase their revenues.  

 For example, STRATÈGE will support 2,500 MSMEs in the manioc value chain across the North, North-East, and Central departments with training on modern production techniques, as well as helping 120 MSMEs access short-term financing from local village savings and loan associations.  STRATÈGE also aims to help existing informal manioc producer associations, encompassing 600 manioc producers, processors, packagers, service providers, and distributors, complete their legal registration and reinforce their capacity and governance structures.  Becoming legal associations will enable them to receive bulk agricultural loans from financial institutions and then retail the loans to their members or apply for grants for agricultural projects as a single entity.

 In the communes of Limonade, Caracol, Ferrier, and Perches, AIDE will offer a seven-month training program to 200 MSMEs, empowering them to create new jobs in their communities with a focus on women and youth.  AIDE Executive Director Herrick Dessources explains: “Organizations cannot generate enough employment alone, and we need the private sector.  Through the ATTEINDRE grant, we can reinforce businesses.  This helps generate household income that improves lives and offers access to education, health, housing, and more.”  

 With grants from the ATTEINDRE project, CEDEL and CFET will expand their services to the central plateau, offer training and coaching, as well as help formalize MSMEs in the region.  CEDEL will enlarge an existing program directed at 400 youth across Mirebalais, Hinche, Lascahobas, and Maïssade.  Applications for the CEDEL program are available through a wide range of partners such as the Chamber of Commerce, universities, and various women/youth/religious groups.  Prospective applicants can also stay tuned for announcements via the CEDEL Haiti Facebook page:       (https://web.facebook.com/cedelhaiti).

 To foster economic inclusivity in Haiti, the ATTEINDRE project is supporting Sonje Ayiti Organization (SOA), a women’s association that will provide workforce development services for 500 single mothers between the ages of 18 and 35, with at least one child in school.  Training will focus on leadership, personal development, food production and processing, and other management tools that will enable women in the SOA network to grow their businesses.  

 USAID’s ATTEINDRE project will also help Action pour la Coopération avec la Micro Entreprise (ACME) and Konsèy Nasyonal Finansman Popilè (KNFP), both well-known micro finance institutions, to expand access to credit for MSMEs.  The ATTEINDRE project will help ACME expand its new solar energy credit product to 700 rural clients in the North, South, and Central departments.  KNFP will develop a credit union in Les Anglais and connect it to the village savings and loans associations of Chardonnières.  Fusing together livelihoods with environmental awareness, KNFP will partner with the Haitian Ocean Project to train and certify fisherfolk on sustainable fishing practices that protect both their livelihood and the ocean.

 USAID Haiti Acting Mission Director Christine Djondo noted, “Supporting local businesses is a key part of USAID’s worldwide strategy of helping partner countries drive their own economic growth.  We are very excited that MSMEs in the North, Central, and South departments will now receive the essential services, training, and credit they need, through USAID support, to grow and create jobs.”

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 17 juin 2021

 WILL THE U.S. FINALLY CORRECT ITS COURSE IN HAÏTI ?

By AMY WILENTZ

JUNE 8, 2021 3 AM PT

This month may prove to be crucial for Haiti’s future. Americans used to think that any country’s political problems — and thus all its other difficulties — could be solved with a good, solid, democratic, U.S.- supported election.

But in many countries where we’ve proposed and followed through with backing for such elections, problems have continued or even been exacerbated. Haiti is one extreme example.

One reason for this, in Haiti as elsewhere, is that when the U.S. wants to help support and certify democratic elections, it usually already has a preferred dog in the race.

And that dog is not always a good dog.

In Haiti today, the dog also has many masters, who are collectively known as the Core Group, which consists of powerful outside advisors including the U.S., France, Canada, the Organization of American States and the U.N. Together they have supported specific candidates in past elections, viewing these as change vehicles for Haiti. Unfortunately, two things are true: These vehicles have a tendency to break down. And no Haitian government can exist without ongoing Core Group support.

Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moise, whose marred election was certified by the OAS in 2016, has been one such failure, and on a grand scale. After much controversy, he was finally seated as president in 2017, with Core Group backing.

But over time, Moise, theoretically chosen to bring Haiti along the democratic road, has shown himself to be a natural autocrat. Since early 2020, he has ruled by decree. He has not held legislative elections, letting Haiti’s law-making body become utterly depopulated through term-limit attrition and termination by Moise himself. He has also replaced mayors around the country with his own choices as each terms out, consolidating his hold on the central government and on the countryside.

He sent troops against Haiti’s Supreme Court and closed it down. He has arrested and jailed his political opponents and their family members, presided over grotesque corruption that has impoverished Haiti further, and failed to address — and is thought to have encouraged — escalating violence in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere.

He has ignored the COVID-19 crisis, while accepting international funds to address it. No vaccinations have been given in the country.

Gang killings and kidnappings have shut down businesses and schools. People are afraid to go out, and the police have been cowed into passivity by brutal killings of officers. In effect, these gangs — heavily armed and well-organized — run the streets of Haiti. They are a rivalrous and vicious cohort, several with proven ties to the Moise government and various nefarious Haitian businessmen.

The gangs attack nurses, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, priests, ministers, nuns, the occasional foreign visitor and assorted professionals, as well as police officers — it can seem as if they are targeting Haiti’s future.

Often, after an attack, a kidnapping, an assassination, a massacre, the government issues no statement, provides no response. As the weeks tick by, the gangs grow stronger.

In the midst of this dark situation, Moise has remained in power in spite of reasonable opposition claims that his term ended by law in February. He says his presidency will come to its grand finale in February 2022. Certainly he has overstayed his welcome with the Haitian people.

Moise has also announced that he will hold presidential and legislative elections, but only after a national referendum that would make autocratic changes to the Haitian Constitution. The referendum and the elections would be under Moise’s control and would take place in the ongoing atmosphere of extreme instability and danger in which voters’ security cannot be assured.

Until now, the U.S., along with the Core Group, has backed Moise’s claim to his extra year of rule. And until now, Haiti’s traditional international advisors have not publicly suggested Moise’s rule is corrupt and violent.

Pity the members of the Core Group, because the only explanation for their behavior is fear; they haven’t had the imagination to envision a Haiti without a despot at the wheel. The belief among those who advise Haiti has often been that, as the saying goes, you pick Haiti up and it explodes in your face.

Last month, the Biden administration reinstated Temporary Protected Status for about 100,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S., citing “serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses” among other woes preventing their safe return home.

The TPS reinstatement, with its implicit judgment of Moise’s regime, has brought hope to many Haitians. In recent days, the U.N. has also seemed to distance itself from Moise. Maybe the U.S. is shifting course, and the constitutional changes and votes proposed by Moise will never come to be. Perhaps his ruinous vision for Haiti finally went too far even for his friends and supporters in the Core Group.

A little whisper of hope is fluttering around Port-au-Prince, with the news that in next few days, a five-member team from the OAS will visit Haiti to discuss the current crisis and possible solutions. Rumors are bouncing back and forth on WhatsApp, and suddenly among opposition parties and grass-roots organizers, the prospect of an OAS Haiti delegation is being greeted less with distrust than with a degree of optimism. One wonders how the gangs will welcome the team, however.

If nothing comes of this visit, there’s no telling toward what dark star Moise will next point the prow of his sinking ship of state.

Amy Wilentz is the author of “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier” and “Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti,” among other books. 

OPINIONWORLD & NATIONOP-ED

U.S. to send vaccines to Latin America, Caribbean as COVID cases and deaths are surging

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JUNE 03, 2021

UPDATED JUNE 03, 2021 06:08 PM

The Biden administration announced Thursday it will donate by month’s end millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Latin America and the Caribbean, where increased movement between countries and relaxed public health measures are causing the deadly coronavirus and its variants to spread.

While the United States has about 51 percent of its population vaccinated, the rest of the region continues to see mounting infections and hospitalizations amid low vaccination rates. The World Health Organization and its regional arm, the Pan American Health Organization, have been pleading for months that the U.S. and other rich countries with surplus vaccines share their extra supplies with poorer countries.

The bulk of the 25 million U.S. doses will be given through the U.N.-backed vaccine global access platform known as COVAX, which is aimed at getting shots in the arms of people in poor and middle-income countries. Of the 19 million doses that the administration said it would donate via COVAX, six million are directed at South and Central America nations as well as the Caribbean Community.

“This vaccine strategy is a vital component of our overall global strategy to lead the world in the fight to defeat COVID-19, including emergency public health assistance and aid to stop the spread and building global public health capacity and readiness to beat not just this pandemic, but the next one,” the White House said in a statement.

Another six million vaccine doses will be donated directly to several countries that are considered strategic foreign policy partners, some of whom are struggling with surging infection rates, including Mexico, Canada and Haiti. This list also includes South Korea, Ukraine, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.

Poverty-stricken and politically unstable, Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere that has not yet administered a single shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. The White House announcement said its dose-sharing approach prioritizes Latin America and the Caribbean on a per capita basis, favoring populous countries.

ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (JUNE 13TH, 2021)
Ez. 17, 22-24;Ps. 92; 2 Cor. 5, 6-10; Mk 4, 26-34 By +Guy Sansaricq.

The key teaching of the day comes in the form of a simple parable borrowed from nature. A small seed is planted in the ground and slowly grows up to become a huge tree. Prophet Ezekiel used this image when God’s people was held captive in Babylon. He compared them to a seed buried underground that will mysteriously become a great nation in the future.

It’s a message of HOPE. The Church faced tremendous obstacles in its initial days. Even today we sometimes experience discouragement when we look around and observe that the modern world ignores the Gospel. People don’t seem to resonate with joy when the word of God is proclaimed. Stories of brutality and violence make up the stuff of evening news.

We do not need to be disheartened. There is an undefeatable power in the truth and the grace of Jesus-Christ. The ultimate victory of the KINGDOM is assured. Happy are those who never lose hope! The line of Paul in the 2nd reading adds new strength to this message: we walk by faith and not by sight. Just like the growth of planted seeds cannot be observed by the farmer, we too do not see or perceive the secret spread of the KINGDOM. Yet beyond all the signs of death that we see all around, God’s work of life continues unabated.

Dismiss all forms of despair. Hold firm to faith and hope! Victorious is our GOD!

SEAN PENN ON LAURENT LAMOTHE, MARTELLY AND PREVAL

“This book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people,” Penn writes

Samson Amore | June 10, 2021 @ 1:47 PM

While this book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people, so does it subtly infuse the omnipresence delegated by its leadership to provide the flesh of the hands that were on, and what demanded a ubiquitous hands-on political commitment: The hands of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. I had been designated Ambassador-at-Large for Haiti, and as such, found myself in daily, if not multi-daily, conversations, bi-lateral negotiations, and diplomatic visits with Laurent Lamothe. I watched him give a minimum of seventeen hours a day to his country for the time of his service. I watched as he built systems of subsidies and empowerment for women, road constructions, training for the national police. I watched as he visited with the displaced in the camps in which my organization worked. I watched as he expedited legitimate adoptions of parentless children. And I joined, on a daily basis, as one more of those who placed extraordinary demand upon him. But I also remember at the end of so many long days and nights, being in a small group of confidantes, saying, “Mr. Prime Minister, it’s time you get some sleep.” If he wasn’t going to listen to Rene Preval, he wasn’t going to listen to me. His activities in support of his country have not waned since his resignation. Let this book be your introduction to an extraordinary man and country.”

Penn is also the subject of a new documentary about his philanthropy called “Citizen Penn,” which is now streaming on Discovery+.

“The Hands of the Prime Minister” releases June 15 but is available for preorder. The book’s synopsis says it tells the story of how Lamothe’s work from 2012 to 2015 helped create and manage a “hands-on, inclusive government set up” that helped Haiti briefly rebound from decades of disasters, both “man-made and natural.”

“This book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people,” Penn writes in the introduction. He added, “where I have seen courage, love and inspiration, I have never seen a greater level of it than among the people of this ever challenged nation.”

Lamonthe was Haiti’s longest-serving prime minister in the country’s modern history, despite having held the position for less than three years. He was elected in 2012 and resigned in 2014. In 2015 Lamonthe said “my government’s top priority was to serve these vulnerable citizens who had always been forgotten by traditional politicians and the political class.”

Holsinger said in a statement Thursday, “in following Laurent throughout the interview process for this book, I was able to provide a deep-dive into the changes made during his time in office. His common sense solutions, made by listening to the people, provided remarkable outcomes. What he created in record time still exists today–he essentially rebuilt a country in 31 months.”

According to the Guardian, Penn’s interest with Haiti began after the country was rocked by a massive earthquake in 2010, killing over 300,000 people. Shortly afterward, Penn was named ambassador-at-large for the country. “Citizen Penn” director Don Hardy told the paper that also was in part the beginning of the “Citizen Penn” documentary.

“I saw him hurriedly set up some way for a plane to get into Haiti with supplies, watched it right in front of me,” Hardy told the Guardian. “He was on the first plane he could get. I reached out to his assistant to ask if Sean needed someone there on site to film what was going on, and she said yes. A couple weeks later, myself and a few friends were there on the ground shooting footage that could go out to news organizations and show what was going on.”

Check out the full foreward from Penn below.

“It was January 2010 when a confluence of circumstances and fate first brought me to Haiti. Having intermittently lived and continuously worked in Haiti these last six years following the devastating earthquake that was felt around the world, I have learned many things about its glorious people and the challenges of their country’s history and future. I have worked among its poor, its wealthy, and its leadership in equal parts. I’ve seen people of both its courage and its corruption within all three of these groups. But where I have seen courage, love and inspiration, I have never seen a greater level of it than among the people of this ever challenged nation.

Not long after the earthquake was Haiti hit with yet another devastating blow that only in the impoverished world could yield seven thousand deaths from a disease imminently curable where there is clean water and education: Cholera. And it was during that bacteria’s devastating campaign against the Haitian people that the election process had restarted and a new president was to be elected.

I met the man who would be President, Michel Martelly, in the middle of the night during a period of great social unrest. His passion and intelligence were unquestionable. Yet still, like all Haiti’s presidents in the post Duvalier years, would he and his cabinet face the extraordinary burden of leading within the architecture of a constitution that had been written as a reactionary testament to the violations of dictatorships that had come before. The power of the president and the prime minster he would appoint were sure to be tested.

That same night I was introduced to another man, soon to be confirmed as Haiti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Lamothe. I was taken by his sharp mind and clarity of purpose. Just a few short months later, I had requested of the former President of Haiti, Rene Preval, that he meet with the new Foreign Minister of the opposition party, Lamothe. It was my hope, at once, to scratch the surface in bridging political divides, but more particularly, as my respect for President Preval’s political wisdom was great, it seemed to me the guidance of this elder statesman could be of some value to the younger man whose business history was formidable but who had held no political office prior to his engagement as Foreign Minister.

We sat in the Miami home owned by the wife of Preval. He had greeted us warmly at the door, and now the discussion had begun. Many things were discussed that night. But what I remember most keenly was the advice of President Preval to the younger Lamothe—that Lamothe and his President select eight agenda items that they would bear all their energy toward accomplishing for the full five years of their administration. Preval was a political chess master. He had deep knowledge of the restrictions by constitution on paper and the constitution of its people. And yet, as wise as President Preval’s words may have been, what was clear in the post earthquake phenomenon—the monies flowing into foreign designed projects for indigenous consumption—that in Haiti’s new world, the eight suggested agenda items would quickly rise to a demand for a focus on eight hundred. Disagreements between President Martelly and his sworn Prime Minister soon led to Foreign Minister Lamothe’s rise to selection as Haiti’s Prime Minister, a position he held for nearly three years, the longest of any Prime Minister in contemporary Haiti.

While this book and its images reflect a common spirit of a beautiful country and its people, so does it subtly infuse the omnipresence delegated by its leadership to provide the flesh of the hands that were on, and what demanded a ubiquitous hands-on political commitment: The hands of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. I had been designated Ambassador-at-Large for Haiti, and as such, found myself in daily, if not multi-daily, conversations, bi-lateral negotiations, and diplomatic visits with Laurent Lamothe. I watched him give a minimum of seventeen hours a day to his country for the time of his service. I watched as he built systems of subsidies and empowerment for women, road constructions, training for the national police. I watched as he visited with the displaced in the camps in which my organization worked. I watched as he expedited legitimate adoptions of parentless children. And I joined, on a daily basis, as one more of those who placed extraordinary demand upon him. But I also remember at the end of so many long days and nights, being in a small group of confidantes, saying, “Mr. Prime Minister, it’s time you get some sleep.” If he wasn’t going to listen to Rene Preval, he wasn’t going to listen to me. His activities in support of his country have not waned since his resignation. Let this book be your introduction to an extraordinary man and country.”

Sean Penn Details Ties to Political Confidant and Ex-Haiti PM Laurent Lamothe in Biography Intro

Reseau Citadelle - Cyrus Sibert

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 11 juin 2021

Naomi Osaka Quits the French Open 

The four-time Grand Slam winner was fined after refusing to appear at a news conference. She wrote on Instagram that she had suffered from bouts of depression since 2018.

May 31, 2021

Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

PARIS — Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open one day after officials threatened to expel her from the season’s second Grand Slam tournament if she continued to refuse to attend news conferences after her matches.

The move was a dramatic turn in the high-stakes standoff between the most powerful officials in tennis and Osaka, the world’s highest paid female athlete and a generational star who has quickly evolved into the most magnetic new figure in the sport.

“I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris. I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” Osaka wrote on Instagram. “More importantly I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly. The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.”

Never before has such a consequential star exited an event as big as the French Open over something that nearly every top tennis player has said in recent days is as much a part of being on the tour as lengthy travel schedules. The clash also stood in stark contrast to last summer, when tennis officials suspended play at the Western & Southern Open after Osaka announced she would not play her semifinal match to draw attention to the issue of police violence against Black people following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

The suspension of play, a move that several sports undertook as athletes threatened a boycott, allowed Osaka to remain in the tournament. She won her postponed semifinal match and then defaulted the final because of an injury.

Last Wednesday, seemingly with little warning to any tennis officials, Osaka posted on Instagram and Twitter her decision to skip all press obligations during the French Open because the experience harms the mental health of players, especially when they have to answer questions following a defeat.

“If the organizations think they can keep saying, ‘do press or you’re going to get fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh,” Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam tournament winner, wrote. She said she would accept any fines levied against her for skipping the news conferences and requested that the funds be donated to a charity dedicated to mental health.

In her statement on Monday, Osaka wrote that she “gets huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media.

“So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” she wrote. “I announced it preemptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that. I wrote privately to the tournament apologizing and saying that I would be more than happy to speak with them after the tournament as the Slams are intense.”

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Players are subject to fines of up to $20,000 for skipping a news conference, though the fines have historically been far less. Still, tour officials and most players have long believed that news conferences, though uncomfortable at times, are important for the promotion of the sport.

After learning of Osaka’s decision, the WTA Tour said Friday it welcomed a dialogue with her about mental health but stood by its position on press obligations for players. “Professional athletes have a responsibility to their sport and their fans to speak to the media surrounding their competition, allowing them the opportunity to share their perspective and tell their story,” the WTA said.

Osaka gave an on-court interview but did not do a news conference after her first-round match.

Osaka gave an on-court interview but did not do a news conference after her first-round match.Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

Osaka, however, refused to bend, even as several other major players, including the No. 3 men’s player Rafael Nadal and No. 1 women’s player Ashleigh Barty, said they disagreed with Osaka and that speaking to the news media was part of the job. Osaka, who made more than $50 million last year in endorsements and prize money, did not appear for a media day news conference and skipped a news conference after her first-round win over Patricia Maria Tig on Sunday in straight sets.

Osaka did take three questions from an on-court interviewer, Fabrice Santoro, after the match and a few more queries on her way off the court from Wowow, the Japanese broadcaster with which she is under contract.

Within hours she was fined $15,000 by the French Open tournament referee. In addition, the leaders of the four Grand Slam tournaments — the Australian, French and United States Opens and Wimbledon — warned that she risked harsher penalties, including being defaulted from the tournament, if she continued not to fulfill her media obligations.

In the statement, signed by Jayne Hrdlicka, the head of Tennis Australia; Gilles Moretton, president of the France Tennis Federation; Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis Club; and Mike McNulty, chairman of the United States Tennis Association; the officials said they had reached out to Osaka to open a discussion about both her well being and concerns she had about news conferences and mental health.

Osaka, they said, refused to engage with them, leaving them with no choice but to pursue significant penalties to help ensure that Osaka did not gain an advantage over her competitors.

“We want to underline that rules are in place to ensure all players are treated exactly the same, no matter their stature, beliefs or achievement,” the officials stated. “As a sport there is nothing more important than ensuring no player has an unfair advantage over another, which unfortunately is the case in this situation if one player refuses to dedicate time to participate in media commitments while the others all honor their commitments.”

In her Instagram post Osaka also wrote, “I’m gonna take some time away from the court now, but when the time is right I really want to work with the Tour to discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans.”

Matthew Futterman is a veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.” @mattfutterman

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (June 6rd, 2021)
Ex. 24, 3-8; Ps. 116; He. 9, 11-15; Mk. 14, 12-16 + 22-26. By +Guy Sansaricq

We celebrate today the mystery of CHRIST’S REAL PRESENCE in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. At mass, we do not simply perform a memorial service through which we simply remember what Jesus did. We MAKE PRESENT the sacrifice HE performed for us on Calvary. The LAMB of SACRIFICE is mysteriously made available to us. We are called to ‘EAT THE BREAD AND DRINK THE CUP. ” We are called to “Drink the blood that flowed from the side of the REDEEMER and while doing so to pledge our total adherence to the NEW COVENANT.

”Jesus said: “He who eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood shall have everlasting life and I will raise Him up on the last day.” He who meditates on this text and also on John 6 and 1 Cor. 10 and so many other texts cannot disregard or reject this central teaching.

This is a key tenet of our faith universally accepted from Jesus’ time to the sixteen century, the time of the reformation. The rejection of this teaching constitutes a serious mutilation of the inviolable deposit of the faith. But today we are not involved in discussions.

We stand humbly as witnesses of this great Mystery of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. We obey his command to eat and drink in faith the bread that has become His body, the wine turned into HIS blood. We commit ourselves to LIVE IN COMMUNION WITH HIM. Accepting the Eucharist is actually accepting Jesus the seed of eternal Life, the food of the journey!

Constitutional Referendum: How the International Community is Supporting an Illegal Power Grab in Haiti

“New Constitution: We Will Vote.” 

The billboards are plastered across Port-au-Prince and throughout the country, as the government launches an all-out push ahead of a referendum planned for next month. The government is holding televised “debates,” printing ballots, lobbying international organizations, and apparently laying the groundwork for what it claims is a necessary effort to put Haiti’s governance on a path to success. 

The catch? The campaign is only happening on one side. The entire effort is contested by myriad civil society organizations, grassroots groups, and political parties, all of whom maintain that the referendum is an illegal power grab on the part of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. In fact, over the last week, a number of prominent political actors have called on the population to revolt against the referendum and use whatever means possible to prevent the vote from taking place. 

[For a more detailed discussion on the specifics of the constitutional reform, and why many in Haiti are so adamantly opposed to it, the Haitian Studies Associated recently hosted a roundtable discussion with leading Haitian experts on the subject.] 

Haiti is not the only country in the hemisphere currently debating constitutional reform. Last fall in Chile, voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of creating a new charter, and then earlier this month elected representatives responsible for drafting the new text. The constitutional convention’s work is expected to take many months, and the vote on the new text is not expected until sometime in mid-2022. There are regulations mandating the involvement of traditionally marginalized groups, including women and the nation’s Indigenous population. 

By contrast, Haiti’s new charter was drafted by a small commission composed entirely of members handpicked by the president. On June 27, when Haitians are being asked to go to the polls, they will have to vote on the entirety of the new text with a simple “yes” or “no,” even though they have yet to see the final version. The commission did not issue a first draft of the proposed changes until January, and released it only in French, which the vast majority of Haitians do not speak. It released a revised version in late May, a month before the scheduled vote, and plans to issue one more version in June.

This week, after meeting with Moïse, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, reiterated the official position of the international community that, thus far, preparations for the referendum “have not been sufficiently transparent or inclusive.” The US’s public position is that its preference is for the Haitian government to first focus on holding legislative and presidential elections this fall before tackling the constitution controversy. For the last 17 months, Haiti has been without a functioning parliament, allowing the entire referendum process to unfold with President Moïse ruling by decree and without legislative oversight. 

For many in Haiti, Moïse shouldn’t be in the National Palace anymore, let alone oversee the creation of a new constitution. Legal experts, human rights organizations, religious entities, and a broad-based network of civil society organizations contend that Moïse’s presidential mandate ended on February 7, 2021. They maintain that not only is his reform effort illegal, but that there is no chance for free, fair, or credible elections to be held under his watch at all. Last month, 69 members of the US Congress wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing their agreement. 

“We have repeatedly stated that constitutional reform is for the Haitian people to decide,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told the press in late April. “We’ve emphasized to the Haitian government that the US government will not provide financial support for a constitutional referendum.” But, while the US isn’t providing direct support, that does not mean its policy is not de facto enabling the referendum. 

The International Community’s Silent Support

The international community has remained largely silent on the question of the referendum. The Core Group, which consists of the US, Canada, Brazil, France, the EU, the UN, and the OAS, among others, issued a statement in April noting that the process was not sufficiently transparent or inclusive. Nevertheless, international actors have refrained from explicitly calling for its cancellation or even its delay. Further, both the UN and the OAS are actively providing support for the referendum, despite their public statements of concern. 

These two multilateral organizations have provided technical assistance to the commission tasked with drafting the new text since it was formed last fall. The OAS even helped with revisions to the text in an attempt to remove some of the more controversial aspects in the original. The UN, meanwhile, has helped to procure sensitive voting materials for the electoral council overseeing the referendum and has an agreement in place to provide logistics for holding the vote. The UN is also helping to advise the national police on an electoral security strategy. 

But, more important than this technical assistance is the international community’s insistence on the holding of elections this fall. It is simply impossible to separate elections from the referendum, and donor support for the former is making the latter more likely by the day. 

For starters, the new constitution would drastically alter the political landscape; for example, replacing the post of prime minister with a vice president, and abolishing the Senate altogether. Additionally, the draft text, if approved, mandates the government to institute a new electoral law. How can one speak of organizing elections in a few months when nobody even knows what posts will actually be contested, or under what laws? Clearly, the elections depend to a great degree on what happens in June. 

Further, the international push for elections papers over valid criticisms of the broader voting process. The current electoral council was appointed by decree by the president, contrary to the law; the supreme court refused to swear in the new members. This is the electoral council that is set to oversee both the referendum and the elections later this year. By supporting their management of elections, one inherently supports their management of the referendum. 

The US support for the illegal electoral council goes even further. Through USAID, the US government has spent $12.6 million since Moïse was elected in support of “elections and political processes.” Most of that money goes to US-based entities like the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republic Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The organizations implement their own programs, and so do not necessarily equate to “direct” support to the referendum or to elections. 

But, in late March, acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Julie Chung tweeted: “The U.S., via @USAID_Haiti, is helping the Haitian people prepare for elections by providing technical support to the @cep_haiti, strengthening political parties and NGOs, and increasing the participation of women in Haitian politics.”

The US may not be directly funding the referendum, but make no mistake, the policies of the international community are going a long way toward ensuring the controversial referendum takes place as scheduled.