News
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| 18/6/06 |
Haiti Report for June 18, 2006 |
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The Haiti Report is a compilation and summary of events as described in Haiti and international media prepared by Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY. It does not reflect the opinions of any individual or organization. This service is intended to create a better understanding of the situation in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a variety of perspectives on the situation. To make a donation to support this service: Konbit Pou Ayiti, 7 Wall Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930. IN THIS REPORT: New Outbreak of Violence in Port-au-Prince Results in 12 Dead: Gunmen near the Cite Soleil slum exchanged fire on Wednesday in a fight over sports equipment and giant television screens offered by a nongovernmental group to give underprivileged youngsters a chance to watch World Cup soccer being broadcast from Germany. It was unclear whether anyone was injured in that incident. Similar gunfights occurred in Cite Soleil last week. Police have also reported several kidnappings over the past few days, though the numbers are well below those seen last year when as many as 10 people a day were abducted at gunpoint and held for ransom, they said. A member of the lower house of parliament, Aodont Bien-Aime, escaped a kidnapping attempt earlier this week but was injured in a car accident as he tried to outrun armed bandits who were pursuing him. Police are determined to crack down on criminal gangs, Leurebours said, but it is a tough job since illegal armed groups have refused to give up their weapons. “The Haitian police, backed by U.N. troops, remain very vigilant, because armed groups can decide any time to take up weapons again,’’ Leurebours said. (Reuters, 6/15) Dominican Republic Begins Construction of Highway Linking to Haiti: President Bachelet Highlights Chile’s Support for Haiti: Meanwhile, President Bachelet highlighted her visit to Haiti as an important indicator of Chile’s contribution to ensuring social and political stability in the poorest country in the Americas. “We have been in Haiti for more than two years, doing humanitarian work, because we understand that countries receive respect not only for their abilities to develop a successful economy, with a solid democracy, and political and social stability. That is an important part of it, but our country has a certain stature, and receives respect when it can do work beyond its borders, supporting global issues that affect us and matter to us as well,” she pointed out. Later, President Bachelet highlighted Chile’s ties with countries like the Dominican Republic, and others in the Caribbean, in that they all prioritize a more just and representative international order for all nations. “President Fernandez’s administration and ours fully agree about the importance of multilateralism, and the need for a reform of the United Nations and its Security Council as well,” she declared. (US Fed News, 6/12) Making Haiti a Tourist Destination: Roughly 300,000 people of Haitian heritage live in South Florida , according to the U.S. Census. Haiti was known as the “Pearl of the Antilles” for centuries before a series of unstable governments, the proliferation of HIV and AIDS, a stinging U.S. embargo and rampant poverty overtook the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. ”A new generation is growing up in the United States that have no reason to go to Haiti if we don’t prepare Haiti for their return,” said Magaly Prezeau of MWM & Associates. ”What better way than to make Haiti their tourist destination, for students to go to for Spring Break and for grandmas to retire.” A billboard at Northwest 27th Avenue and Sunrise Boulevard, just west of Interstate 95 in Broward, shows sunny skies, a blue water beach and an inviting chair in contrast to the typical depiction of Haiti, where chaos looms and killings and anarchy appear to be an everyday thing. Prezeau’s company wants to change Haiti’s negative image. They’ve spent $250,000 and plan to invest up to $1 million on advertising campaigns throughout the United States and Canada. Ads also will run on Haitian radio and television. More than 112,000 tourists and roughly 369,000 cruise ship passengers visited Haiti in 2005, according to the country’s Department of Tourism. Nathalie Liautaud of the Caribbean-Central American Action — the Washington D.C.-based organization that promotes economic development in the region — said the majority of tourists come from the United States because of the large number of Haitian immigrants here. Since 1986, Labadee on Haiti’s northern coast, has served as a stop for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Haiti has about 1,000 hotel rooms, two international airports and some smaller airports. Neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, made more than $5.2 billion from tourism in 2004. Haiti has a long way to go before it becomes like the Dominican Republic, said author Anthony Hattenbach, 68, who lives in Miami. His family owned two resorts in Haiti. He won’t return because of the violence. He also fears the kidnappings. His recently released book, Stars Over Haiti, tells of celebrities and others visiting the island to vacation at resorts like his family’s and others throughout the late 1950s until the late 1980s. The Duvalier regimes and the first ouster of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide soon followed by the U.S. embargo in 1991, finally took its toll on the tourism in a country formerly known for its nightclubs, villas, art galleries and ports. “Now that Haiti has gotten successfully through these elections, there seems to be at least now a reduction in the violence” said Susan Purcell, an expert in Haitian affairs at the University of Miami. ”Before the election, you didn’t know whether the mobs would take to the streets or whether the turnout would be a fiasco.” The U.S. Department of State continues to issue warnings to individuals traveling to Haiti. Their Web site, www.state.gov, urges U.S. citizens to exercise caution and warns of kidnappings, spontaneous demonstrations and violent confrontations between armed groups. ”I don’t think [the warning] is valid anymore,” said Ralph Latortue, vice consul general for the Haitian consulate in Miami. “There were some kidnappings in Port-au-Prince, but the rest of the country has been secure.” Also, in early 2005 Haiti repaid its arrears to the World Bank putting it on better footing to receive loans; recently the country was readmitted to the 15-nation Caribbean community known as Caricom after a more than two-year absence. Meanwhile, promoters are hoping that the recent positive developments will encourage more visitors to see what Haiti offers. Getting away from the capital is where the true beauty of the island lays, Prezeau said. Garoute and her husband went to L’Isle a Vache, a tiny island off the coast, accessible only by boat. They swam in a waterfall in Saut Machurine. They climbed mountains and snorkeled, she said. “It was almost as if you were walking back in time,” Garoute said. (South Florida Sun Sentinel, 6/12) Killers of Journalists Enjoy Immunity in Haiti: Delva, 40, is the Reuters correspondent in Haiti and as such he has to chart the turbulent times in one of the world’s poorest and most unstable countries. There has rarely been a time of tranquillity there in his lifetime and over the past few years, the threats have come from all parts of the political spectrum. ”Killers of journalists enjoy 100% immunity,” said Delva on a visit this month to Britain where he was a speaker at the International Press Institute conference in Edinburgh and a guest of the Haiti Support Group. “Jailing and beating journalists is normal.” Three journalists were murdered there last year and Delva has been active in trying to bring to justice those who carried out the murders. Last December, one of his colleagues, Watson Désir, was kidnapped by a gang in Cité Soleil, one of the most dangerous areas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Delva had not only to cover the kidnapping but also to try to negotiate his friend’s freedom. “Someone called and I was given the kidnappers’ number. They started by asking for $80,000 and I said ‘come on guys, where are you going to find that kind of money?’” The ransom demand was finally negotiated down to $4,500 and Delva was told that he had to go to Cité Soleil alone with the money. He was turned back at a UN checkpoint and told that it was too volatile to enter Cité Soleil at that time. The kidnappers rang to ask him what was happening, so he made a second attempt to reach them which ended in a burst of heavy gunfire, and again Delva was unable to get through. “They rang me again and said ‘do you need him?’ – in other words they were going to kill him so I ran the car through the UN [checkpoint].” Once in Cité Soleil he was approached by the kidnapper and was allowed to take Désir in exchange for the money but not before another burst of heavy gunfire. Such incidents have become part of life for Delva and many of his colleagues. Dozens have now left Haiti for jobs in the US, Canada and France but Delva says he intends to stay. He is angry that the investigation into the murder of Jean Dominique of Radio Haiti, who was gunned down six years ago, has still found no culprits. At the moment, he says, many young Haitians still want to become journalists but their families try to dissuade them. “Their parents say ‘it’s a bad profession, you’re going to get killed, you’re going to get harassed’.” He is pinning his hopes on the future and the setting up of a media centre where journalists will be able to pool resources and experiences and which will provide newcomers with training. Delva, who started his career in broadcasting, said that there is no tradition of investigative journalism in Haiti and that had allowed corrupt politicians and business people to believe they could act with impunity. “Once they know that everyone will know about their misappropriation of public funds they will be more careful about what they do and that will be good for everyone.” Last year, Delva and other journalists formed SOS Journalistes, of which he is secretary-general, to try to highlight and campaign for greater protection and freedom for journalists. It has already had some success when a group of them forced a judge to free a journalist who had criticised the judge. He himself has turned down offers of protection, not least, he says with a smile, because he might be more at risk from the people who were assigned to look after him. One of the problems is that, even if a politician does not personally threaten the media, their supporters may take offence at critical coverage and make their own threats. Some journalists, he said, had even accepted money from politicians just because they needed it to send their children to school. ”But we are not just demanding freedom for journalists, we have to create conditions where everyone is free from fear,” he said before flying back to cover the latest developments in a country which has just successfully weathered a stormy election of a new president, but where there will never be any shortage of work for a journalist in pursuit of a story. (The Guardian, 6/12) New Prime Minister Calls for Haitian Sovereignty: Alexis was referring to the 9,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force deployed to stabilise the troubled country. Alexis blamed the presence of foreign army personnel in Haiti on civil society organizations and politicians who failed to reach a compromise in dealing with the political crisis which preceded the Aristide’s ouster. ”We saw it coming, but we failed to behave and to do what it took to avoid it,” he insisted. But to rid the country of foreign troops, the country’s new leaders believed efforts aimed at building a professional, well-equipped and well-trained police force should be completed. According to the Haitian constitution, only the armed national security forces are allowed to operate in the country. “No other armed forces can exist on the national territory,” says the constitution. In a speech on flag day last 18 May, president Rene Preval deplored that Haitians were no longer the masters of their land because of the presence of the foreign soldiers. He appealed to Haitians from across the political and social spectrum to make peace in order make the presence foreign military unnecessary. Several political groups have denounced what they describe as a foreign occupation of Haiti, the first independent black republic of the world but UN officials have repeatedly argued that the UN peacekeeping mission was not an occupying force. Alexis’ government’s programme received overwhelmingly support from Parliament with 84 deputies of 85 approving it on Wednesday after the Senate had given him a unanimous vote of confidence the day before. Alexis said he would also immediately address the cases of the political prisoners jailed under the interim government of outgoing Prime Minister Gerard Latortue. (Caribbean Media Corporation, 6/9) New Government Reveals Plans to Audit State Institutions: During this time, “The Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Disputes” carried out an inventory of the national palace’s administration, as requested by President Préval. Meanwhile, another source close to the new government told AHP that officials and employees in the public service that have carried out their duties with professionalism and competence do not have anything to fear. “What we want is that the population receives the services to which they have a right. What we want is that public servants uphold their commitments,” stated a top-official, adding that those who meet this criteria have no reason to worry. He further stated that the new government does not plan on launching a witch hunt. Hundreds of officials and state employees were fired, for the most part without any reason given, following the forced departure of President Aristide on February 29, 2004. The principal public institutions concerned are the National Telephone Company (Téléco), the National Ports Authority (APN), the National Office of Old-Age Insurance (ONA), and Haiti’s National Television (TNH). In some cases, dismissed employees were arrested when they asked for compensation. (AHP, 6/13) Social Pacification Program (PAS) Central to Council of Ministers Meeting: Clashes in Gonaives: Political Party Calls for Local and Municipal Elections: Haitian Government to Confirm Positions of High-Ranking Police: British and Irish NGO’s Call on CARICOM to Assist Haiti: As CARICOM is an entity with an economic focus, the statement makes a number of recommendations on ways that Haiti could economically benefit from its membership of CARICOM. These include the offer of duty and quota-free access for key Haitian goods which have significant potential to reduce poverty in Haiti, ensuring that flexibility on tariffs is maintained for Haiti within CARICOM, and the development of a Caribbean-wide investment framework, with the inclusion of Haiti, to ensure that the benefits of foreign investment in the region are harnessed for development purposes. The Haiti Support Group’s Charles Arthur said that the idea for the recommendations to CARICOM was first mooted during a meeting in London with Reginald Dumas, the Trinidadian diplomat who was UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s Special Adviser on Haiti between February – August 2004. In late May, Reginald Dumas criticized what he saw as CARCIOM’s failure to meet and talk with new president René Préval since his election in February. In an interview with BBC Caribbean, Dumas said, “This is amazing. They should have re-engaged already. The longer they wait, the more marginalized they become. I’ve been disappointed, frankly”. Dumas said the regional body should have re-engaged with Haiti before René Préval’s inauguration as President in mid-May. He said, “What’s important in Haiti above all is the welfare of the Haitian people. CARICOM spent too much time talking about the need for free and fair elections and how Aristide left, and not enough time talking about what they could do to assist the people”. The Haiti Support Group’s Arthur said he shared Dumas’ frustration. “If CARICOM really wants to help Haiti, it needs to act quicker. Haiti is enjoying a rare period of relative stability and everyone needs to take advantage of this and the generalized sense of optimism.” He added, “We must be aware that the new government in Haiti is enjoying a honeymoon period that will inevitably come to an end soon. If big changes don’t take place rapidily, Haiti runs the risk of falling back into hopelessness and despair.” (Alterpresse, 6/16) HOPE Act Replaces the Stalled HERO Act: A spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee, Ianthe Jackson, said the timing of any debate on HOPE was unclear. As recently as January, the few apparel manufacturers still in business in Port-au-Prince were having to close sporadically because of gang violence and riots in the slums that consume all but a few tiny enclaves in this capital city. ”Every day you lose in a factory is a complete loss,” said AG Textiles owner Georges Sassine, noting that he has to pay employees even when flaming barricades block their way to work. “It’s not like commerce, where if you have to close you’ll sell tomorrow the sugar you didn’t sell today.” Economists and foreign analysts have identified the garment industry as the most promising for kick-starting an economy on its knees. The Sonapi industrial park here once produced Major League baseballs, brassieres and electronics. Now it is home almost exclusively to manufacturers of knit garments. Contracts for the other products began migrating to China in the 1980s and disappeared altogether during the turmoil of the last two decades. “We as an industry are the only ones who can create jobs quickly,” said Sassine, whose plant employs 600 people who make sweatshirts for Canadian company Gildan Activewear Inc. “We just need to receive orders and execute them. We have capacity that is not used or is underused.” He says he could hire 300 more workers if HOPE passes, based on an expected boom in orders for the U.S. market. Sassine’s plant, like others doing business with Western countries, is certified by the nonprofit group Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production for maintaining accepted standards for garment workers, including regulated hours, adequate ventilation and healthcare. ”Our customers want to know their goods are not being made in sweatshops or with child labor,” Sassine said. “This is our guarantee that the goods are made by socially responsible factories.” He points to the lunchtime scene around the industrial park as evidence that a boost for the garment industry would have a ripple effect in the capital’s economy. Outside the walled compound of giant assembly plants, vendors display secondhand clothes, fresh fruits and vegetables, housewares and handicrafts, catering to those earning paychecks. At noon, dozens of vendors like Fabre haul in crude wheeled carts carrying food and soft drinks. Richard Coles, whose family owns the Multitex factory that produces 150,000 dozen T-shirts a week for customers such as Hanes, J.C. Penney Co., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says the preferential trade terms accorded by the HOPE Act would be a far more effective way for the U.S. government to help the Haitian economy than foreign aid. ”It forces everyone to work and modernize to capitalize on it,” he said of the duty-free access. Part of the legislation offers tariff relief on some clothing made of woven fabrics, which Coles said would offer Haitian manufacturers an opportunity to diversity the industry here, which is 90% knits. Working woven fabric is more labor-intensive, he said, offering the prospect of more jobs and higher revenues. To sew a dozen T-shirts from knitted fabric, U.S. and Canadian apparel companies pay Haitian factories $1.60 to $1.80 for the labor. To sew jeans or trousers from woven cloth, manufacturers get $20 to $35 per dozen. Coles said he trusted newly elected President Rene Preval’s commitment to help revive the garment industry, breaking with other business leaders who have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the new government. But even some business leaders who opposed Preval have become bullish on the garment industry’s outlook. Minimum wage in Haiti is less than $2 a day, compared with more than $5 in the neighboring Dominican Republic and most of Central America. Jean-Edouard Baker, the older brother of an unsuccessful challenger to Preval and a fellow garment maker, has drawn up plans for a free-trade zone in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets, just east of the capital airport. The current president of the Haitian Industrialists Assn., Baker accompanied Preval on a March visit to Washington, where they lobbied congressional leaders to pass the HOPE Act “to send a clear signal that Haiti is back open for business.” Newly appointed Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis has promised to streamline business-licensing procedures to make Haiti an attractive venue for foreign manufacturers, Baker said. The new government is also working to ensure a reliable supply of electricity and water to the existing industrial park and to the site of the proposed free zone, he added. In an analysis of the HERO and HOPE proposals, the Washington think tank Inter-American Dialogue concluded that because the garment industry “presents itself as one of few opportunities for growth and new employment in an otherwise anemic economy,” passage of one of the tariff relief measures would be an effective way to aid Haiti. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has also weighed in on the subject, saying that “it is time to end Haiti’s unmerited suffering” and urging Congress to act before the summer recess. ”If the U.S. Congress would pass this HOPE bill, it would be a good thing for the Haitian economy and would help Haiti recover some of what it has lost” over the last 15 years to unrest and China, said Andre Apaid, who owns five factories that produce 200,000 dozen T-shirts a week for export. Revival of apparel manufacturing here would have a stabilizing effect and would discourage Haitians from taking to the seas in flimsy boats in hopes of reaching Florida or the Bahamas to find black-market employment, said Jean Pierre Mangones, an official with the International Organization for Migration. The IOM has been lobbying Washington to pass the HOPE Act to convince Haitians that their best prospects might be at home. (LA Times, 6/17) IMF Visits Haiti to Discuss Economic Plans: The negotiations are also a test of the willingness of Préval to commit his administration to potentially sweeping changes, officials say. ’’The international community has got to keep Préval and his cabinet on a very strict regimen of reforms,’’ said Roger Noriega of the pro-business American Enterprise Institute. He said ending contraband and corruption at Haiti’s notoriously porous ports is especially important. “It is the heart of all evils.’’ More importantly, Singh told The Miami Herald in a phone interview, the IMF program would signal to investors and donors that Haiti is serious about tackling its chronic political instability and economic mismanagement. Haiti has been on an economic decline for decades but its political situation worsened in 2004. The IMF gave the country about $30 million in assistance for the transition government that, Gajdeczka said, undertook some reforms like curtailing government spending and drafting a new banking law. (Miami Herald, 6/16) Mr. Anoop Singh, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today in Port-au-Prince: ”I am delighted to have had the opportunity of visiting Haiti for the first time. I have had the privilege of meeting President René Garcia Préval, Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, Economy and Finance Minister Daniel Dorsainvil, Vice-Governor of the Central Bank of Haiti, Philippe Lahens, and other members of the economic team. Tomorrow, I will also meet with a wide spectrum of civil society representatives, the private sector, NGOs, clergy and the academic community. President Préval has emphasized to me his government’s commitment to economic reforms that would ensure rising prosperity for all Haitians, building on the political opening afforded by the recent election process. I congratulated the President on the smooth transition to a newly elected government with broad participation from the political spectrum. Haiti faces a unique historical opportunity to fully normalize its political and economic situation and I conveyed the IMF’s determination to assist in the process to the fullest extent feasible under our mandate. In this context, a staff team lead by Mr. Przemek Gajdeczka will start discussions next week with the government on a medium-term economic program that we hope to support under the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). “The economic team has already developed a vision for the medium-term economic program. They intend to firmly maintain, and entrench, the macroeconomic stability that has been painstakingly built over the recent period under the IMF’s Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance. Structural reforms, including raising and better targeting social spending, strengthening economic governance, and improving the investment environment, will aim at creating conditions for a higher rate of economic growth and reducing Haiti’s high poverty—that will be a particular focus of the program. ”A PRGF would also be a key step for Haiti in qualifying for debt forgiveness under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and, more generally, catalyzing economic support from the wider international community. We hope that the PRGF program could be finalized this year. ”Haiti’s performance under the IMF’s Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance, approved in October 2005 has been broadly satisfactory. Macroeconomic indicators have strengthened and progress has been made in implementing key structural reforms. Net international reserves have increased substantially and the gourde has been broadly stable.” (IMF, 6/16) Former Minister Jocelerme Privert Release Ordered: |
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