Road trip: Bassin Zim

Getting out of Port-au-Prince is the very worst part of any road trip. In Croix-des-Bouquets, cars and motorcycles compete for limited road space with crowded tap-taps emblazoned with slogans like The Good Shepherd, Mèsi Jezi (Thank you, Jesus), Dieu est avec nous (God is with us), and Bondye Konnen (God knows) and Jazz la (Jazz). As part of an astute political analogy, Amy Willentz recently wrote, "These colorfully painted and meticulously decorated jitneys honk and rattle and seem to promise a breezy world of Caribbean fun and speed. But motionless in the endless traffic jams, inside all is darkness and jumble, heat and noise, and suffocation."

We can keep moving on the motorcycle, threading in and out of lines of traffic, though I am almost clocked in the head by a pink floor fan. Its owner clutches the side of a tap-tap with one hand, and the fan and a 3-tiered corner shelf unit with the other.

At the desolate base of Morne Cabrit, Goat Mountain, we pass tidy rows of candy-colored houses. It looks like 3,000 toy blocks were plunked into the middle of the desert under a postcard-blue sky. There are no trees. There is no surrounding infrastructure. This controversial (because Haiti faces a housing crisis, and no-one knows who will live in these houses...) project was financed by the Venezuelan Petro-Caribe Fund to the tune of $44 million. Across the highway, a backdrop of scrub and cacti frames a donkey nuzzling her foal.

Route National 3 winds up the mountain overlooking Lake Azuei and beyond, Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic. Ignoring flashy new billboards warning of the dangers of overloaded motor vehicles, tap-taps hurtle towards Port-au-Prince piled impossibly high with plantains, breadfruit and mangoes. Trucks from the opposite direction carry red, mesh bags of garlic and plastic washtubs - imports from across the border.

The air cools as we continue to climb. There are more trees and, from Morne Blanc, a stunning view of the Central Plateau. In Terre Rouge, we pass a restaurant called "Slave Bar Resto." Wooden stalls will overflow on market day to make the road nearly impassable, but for now they sit empty just past an empty military base. Formerly a UN base, it was also occupied last year by members of the former FAd'H (Haitian Armed Forces) when they were vying to get their jobs back. Near Mirebalais we pass another base, this one used by Nepalese UN troops. It is here that cholera was introduced to Haiti in 2010, from sewage that the UN dumped into a tributary of the Artibonite river. In accidental irony an NGO sign across the road reminds passers-by, Dlo se lavi. Water is life.

Mirebalais is happening these days. There's a spiffy new park at the entrance to the city, with a welcome sign missing the "M" in "Mirebalais." The new Partners in Health teaching hospital has been inaugurated three times, perhaps appropriate given the contribution it will make to healthcare provision in Haiti. For old times' sake (...Ben used to work in Mirebalais part-time), we stop at the Buena Bar-Resto for a meal under the raised eyebrows of Papa Doc Duvalier. Si dye and the Haitian justice system vle, Jean-Claude, son and heir to Papa's dictatorship, may face charges of crimes against humanity. The hearings are dragging out, though, and neither the government nor international community seem inclined to push for a trial. Across the country, victims' families have just commemorated a particularly bloody day for which justice has never been served.

Too close to the Buena Bar-Resto's dictator, a second hand ticks around the face of Jesus clock. Jesus is blond-haired, blue-eyed. A flat-screen on the opposite wall is televising Au nom de l'honneur, which as best as I can tell is a French-language Jordanian soap opera set in Switzerland.

We spend the night at a Mennonite retreat center nestled into a valley in Marouge, just outside of Mirebalais. New friends Jon, Samuel, Widner, Wadner and Gonzales knock mangoes out of trees with precision and play the latest rap music videos on an i-pod touch.

From Marouge, the highway (gloriously paved with funding from the European Union) winds along the Artibonite river and past the Peligre dam, a tragedy of a project that flooded agricultural land and doesn't supply Haiti with as nearly as much electricity as it could.

Through Cange where Dr. Paul Farmer built his first hospital, Thomonde, Savane Longue, Savanette Cabrale, Marmon... Fields of maize and beans stretch out beyond breadfruit, mango, and calabash trees. Bare mountaintops rise above. Brightly painted houses with the pitched roofs and tall shutters of traditional Haitian architecture are made of split palm logs. An elevated house for grain storage and one or two ancestral tombs, carefully maintained in deference to the dead, complete each lakou. We pass a cockfighting ring, a mechanic's shop, the signature red flag that rises above a peristyle, and three billboards advertising the cellular company Digicel, a borlette special, and an NGO hand-washing campaign. 

In Hinche we order juice and a plate of spaghetti for a good Haitian breakfast. The Relais Bar-Resto also seems to be a favorite of local politicians, ostentatiously sporting revolvers in the back of their pants.

Hinche is the capital of the Central Plateau and the 1886 birthplace of Charlemagne Péralte, who led the Caco guerrilla resistance against the US occupation. A bust of Péralte stands at the center of the public plaza, and in fading pastoral mural of peasant farmers, Taino Indians and vodou practitioners, he wears a suit and holds a Haitian flag.

It's market day, and the dusty edge of town is a swarm of vendors, come in from the surrounding countryside by donkey or on foot. The road northeast of Hinche bumps through Papaye, the base of Haiti's largest organized peasant movement, the Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP). We realize how worn out the shocks are on Ben's motorcycle. It is hot, the landscape barren.

Suddenly, the road makes a sharp turn and ends in an oasis: a 65-foot cascade of white water surrounded by trees. UN soldiers are sunning themselves on rocks at the base. The pool here is usually a brilliant blue, but heavy rains before our visit have made it murky.

Above, smaller cascades tumble into three successive pools, Candelabra, Arc-en-ciel, and Wells. We sit overlooking the uppermost pool and our pint-sized guides, Midlove and Roslyn, regale us with stories of the hungry loa, spirits, that live in underwater caves. A blan came swimming here with a gold tooth, wearing a chain around his neck. He drowned. You can't swim wearing any jewelry, they say, lest you attract the unwanted attention of a loa. Fortunately, you can protect yourself by leaving money in a cave ("We can show you where!") as an offering. Then, after your swim the loa will come to you in a dream and tell you which borlette numbers to play. "You'll win enough money to buy a motorcycle."

When I point out that we already have a motorcyle, Midlove nudges Roslyn and whispers into her ear. "Our mother drowned in this pool," Roslyn says with a sneaky grin. "She left us orphaned with no money and no-one to care for us."

A small grotto closest to the base of the falls is studded with moss-covered stalactite and smells powerfully of the rum serviteur pour here in supplication.

Further up the trail, Midlove and Rosyln pick deftly over slippery river rock and lead us into a stunning cathedral of a cave. Shafts of sunlight shine in from an opening in the roof and bats whirl overhead.

Trying to soak in the majesty of the space, I ask the growing crowd of children with us to please be quiet, but they're excited to show us the mouth of an underground passageway that they say leads to the Dominican Republic. Nearby: a corona bottle of kleren, twine wound tightly around a stalactite, charred evidence of a small fire.

Caves were also ritual spaces for the island's first inhabitants and there are fading Taino petroglyphs on the walls of the cavern. They're hard to see among the modern-day graffiti, but as our eyes adjust we begin to pick out carvings of cartoonesque stick figures, a spider, and other images.

While not exactly the idyllic day picnicking at a waterfall that I had imagined, we manage to pay off our guides and hide in the woods to eat lunch before we climb back on our bike. In the end, we've only driven 140 miles round-trip, but it feels like 500.

Human Rights Day

Today, folks all over the world are celebrating the 63rd anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

This week also heralds the 20th anniversary of several Haitian human rights organizations, including the 7-member Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) and the Action Group for Repatriates and Refugees (GARR). The timing is no coincidence. A military coup d'etat took out democratically-elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in September 1991 and the period following the coup marked a time of mass popular resistance against the civil and political repression of an illegimitate military regime backed by the United States.

 POHDH: 20 years of struggle for the respect of Human Rights

Yesterday I attended a commemorative event at POHDH. Although members of POHDH's executive committee talked about the pressing human rights needs in Haiti today, lack of government accountability and the structural and ideological barriers to economic & social rights, they also emphasized that huge gains have been made in the last twenty years.

Human rights discourse has seeped into politics, entertainment and even general conversation in a big way as Haitians are in general more aware of their rights. Many more media outlets exist, demonstrating increased liberty of expression, and popular organizing is commonplace in all sectors (small farmers, factory workers, displaced people, women, youth...).

And, as evidenced yesterday, more protests are taking place. In St. Marc, cholera victims demonstrated in front of the MINUSTAH (the UN peacekeeping mission) base, asking that their claims for reparations be acknowledged and responded to by the UN. The event was organized by the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI). BAI and their stateside partner, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) have recently filed a landmark case against the UN on behalf of over 5,000 cholera victims.

Yesterday, too, the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV) a women's rights group supporting victims of rape and gender-based violence, hosted a sit-in in front of the Haitian Parliament during which they delivered an open letter on women's protection to the President of the Senate. Meanwhile, GARR hosted a packed-out day of remembrance for renowned Haitian-Dominican activist Sonia Pierre who passed away last week. 

Towards the end of the event yesterday, Antonal Mortimé, POHDH's Executive Secretary, pointed out that increased awareness, free media and popular protests are quantitative versus qualitative in terms of impacting people's access to very necessary social and economic rights like education, food, water, healthcare and liveable housing. Still, he said, they are important steps towards a society in which human rights and dignity are respected.

Here's to twenty years of struggle towards that vision.

Regarding MINUSTAH

One of the last things I did before I left MCC was co-author this position statement on MINUSTAH, the UN's peacekeeping mission in Haiti. If you're inclined to read it, get a cup of coffee and find a comfortable place to sit - it's lengthy. It draws from the analysis and research of many people, from former MCC service workers to MCC's Haitian partner organizations to research students and international human rights groups. For some reason the formatting of this blog didn't allow me to copy and paste the footnotes, so if you'd like a legit copy, complete with citations and the Appendix (Benchmarks for MINUSTAH’s withdrawal, as outlined in the August 2008 Report of the Secretary General), please let me know.


Submission to the UN Security Council
Recommendations for Future of the MINUSTAH Mission to Haiti
June 30, 2011

It has long been acknowledged that Haiti needs sustained commitment from the international community for socio-economic development, and this need has become more pressing since the devastating earthquake in January 2010. MCC and LAMP commend the attention being given to Haiti in this regard. However, we wish to highlight that insecurity in Haiti is not a result of warring groups or armed conflict, but rather a byproduct of poverty with deep historical and structural roots. We believe, along with the Haitian civil society organizations with whom we work, that stability, rule of law and socio-economic development in Haiti are not, nor should be, dependent on an international military presence. Therefore, we urge the United Nations to work towards the termination of the MINUSTAH mission in Haiti as soon as possible with a strategy that can build long-term sustainable peace.

In the upcoming deliberations concerning the renewal of Resolution 1944, we ask the Security Council to review MINUSTAH’s presence in Haiti, addressing five specific concerns: 1) mission legitimacy, 2) the inappropriate use of military forces, 3) allegations of human rights abuses, 4) the need for greater mandate clarity, and 5) the feasibility of current benchmarks for timely withdrawal. Finally, we recommend that the Security Council to prepare a concrete timeline for the mission’s full withdrawal from Haiti.

1. Mission Legitimacy
MINUSTAH violates articles 8.1, 263-1, 98-3.3, and 139 in the Haitian Constitution, which affirm Haitian sovereignty and note that any international agreement, treaty, or covenant must be ratified by the Haitian National Assembly. MINUSTAH was authorized in 2004 by former Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, an unelected official, who did not seek the proper approval of the Haitian legislature for the mission’s presence. The lack of this legislative endorsement enforces the perception within the Haitian population of MINUSTAH as an unwelcome occupying force.

2.The Military Component
The military component of MINUSTAH’s presence is inappropriate in the current Haitian context for the following reasons.

Perception of MINUSTAH
With no warring parties, armed conflict, peace agreement to enforce, or threat of civil war, a military presence is unnecessary. The utility of MINUSTAH is countered by the perception by the Haitian population of MINUSTAH as being a heavily armed occupying force conjuring fear rather than a sense of safety. A well-trained police force of Haitians serving and protecting Haitians would be more effective and appropriate given the situation.

Relative Peace in Haiti and Comparable Countries without Peacekeeping Missions
There are countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region with much higher levels of insecurity that are not host to Peacekeeping Missions. In Jamaica, with a population of 2.6 million, there were 1428 reported murders in 2010. It is reported that approximately 700 homicides, out of a population of almost 9 million, took place in Haiti in the last year. Haiti has had a democratically elected government in place since 2006 and the recent peaceful transition of power to an opposition political party can be cited as further indication of the country’s relative stability. In fact, this fulfills one of the key benchmarks elaborated in 2008 for MINUSTAH’s withdrawal [see Appendix].

Government’s Request to Remove Chapter VII from Mandate
Prior to the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1840 in October 2008, President Rene Preval requested that reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter be removed from MINUSTAH’s mandate , which would effectively eliminate the mission’s authorization to use force for reasons other than self-defense.

Responding to the Most Pressing Security Needs
A military component is inappropriate to meet protection needs of the most vulnerable in the Haitian population. An example of this is the persistent lack of preventative measures within the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Port au Prince. Lack of security and lighting has exacerbated gender-based violence (GBV). MINUSTAH itself has recognized that its mandate and the wider responsibilities of the international community require a reinforced effort to protect IDPs, including women and children, from their exceptionally vulnerable circumstances.

As of January 6, 2011, KOFAVIV, a Haitian grassroots women’s organization, documented over 640 cases of rape since the earthquake. SOFA, a Haitian Women’s Health Organization, documented 718 cases of gender based violence in their clinic from January to June 2010. Doctors without Borders reported 68 cases of rape in April 2010 at one of their clinics in Port-au-Prince. The vast majority of women living in camps who were interviewed reported being raped by two or more individuals, almost always armed and at night.

All of this occurs despite the presence of 8,651 military personnel and 3,146 UNPOL members on the ground. There is still a troubling lack of internal patrols within Haiti’s approximately 1,100 IDP camps. Since Human Rights Observers have started critiquing the lack of security in camps there has been in an increase in camp security. Currently there is a permanent presence of a 200-strong UNPOL force in 6 high-risk camps, in combination with daily patrols in 70 other priority areas. However, that leaves over 1,000 camps without any permanent presence or daily patrols. GBV in the camp is a much more real security risk than civil war, further highlighting the ineffectiveness of a peace-keeping force versus FPUs and civil police forces.

FPU’s as a More Viable Solution
Formed Police Units (FPUs) are more suitably trained for the security situation in Haiti than military forces. Military soldiers are not trained to handle the kind of civil unrest that frequently occurs in Haiti and this has been demonstrated time and again.

Most recently, during the first round of the 2010 presidential elections, MCC election monitors in the Artibonite were present in multiple voting centers when partisans stormed the centers, ripped ballots and stole ballot boxes while MINUSTAH soldiers stood by. A similar situation occurred in Cite Soleil. LAMP election observers in Soleil 19 were present when INITE party representatives took over a polling station and refused to allow non-INITE supporters to vote. A massive riot broke out, while dozens of MINUSTAH soldiers present were unable to respond. In such a situation, civilian police or FPUs would have had the training and experience to safeguard the election process. Military soldiers are not trained or equipped to make arrests, protect perpetrators and victims, investigate offenses, or submit police reports and fact finding papers that are the basis of criminal cases. It has been our experience that soldiers trained for combat actually pose a danger in situations of civil unrest. As such, we recognize that the military contingent should no longer be a part of the mission.

The perceived lack of legitimacy combined with the perception of the UN as an “occupying force” will persist so long as there is a presence of military personnel and equipment. Increasing the civilian police presence while decreasing the military presence would strengthen the PNH and allow them to begin taking over some of the roles currently carried out by soldiers and FPUs.

3. Human Rights Abuses
It is of additional concern that MINUSTAH soldiers have been implicated in human rights violations. We acknowledge that MINUSTAH’s mission is difficult and that causalities can occur, even when forces are attempting to protect a population. However, we believe that when unnecessary force is used, international agents in Haiti must be held accountable. LAMP’s co-founder and legal director first began documenting MINUSTAH human rights abuses in Cite Soleil in 2004 following the coup d’etat. Since then, LAMP has discovered and reported on abuses of power by MINUSTAH forces including use of excessive force to counter demonstrations. Other studies and reports have identified MINUSTAH soldiers as issuing threats of death, physical harm, and sexual violence. To date these allegations have not been investigated or addressed.

There have been numerous allegations of sexual exploitation perpetrated by MINUSTAH soldiers, none of which have been prosecuted by Haitian or international authorities. The Sri Lankan battalion was repatriated in 2007 after numerous allegations of transactional sex with underage girls and with the promise that Sri Lanka would pursue the case. To date there has been no information available on the prosecution of the battalion.

MINUSTAH soldiers in Haiti must respect Haitians’ human rights. Failure to investigate and prosecute human rights violations only delegitimizes the accomplishments of the mission.

Cholera
On October 21, 2010, Haiti’s Health Ministry recorded over 1,000 cases of a cholera-like illness and 135 associated deaths in the Artibonite region. These were the first cases of cholera reported in Haiti in at least 60 years. By February 9, 2011, the Ministry of Health recorded 4,549 cholera-related deaths and 231,070 people infected. In early May, a UN panel linked cholera to a UN base in Mirebalais housing Nepalese soldiers. To date, no definitive responses have been carried out to address the violation of the Haitian population’s right to adequate water.

4. Mandate Clarity
Since MINUSTAH does not have a traditional peace-monitoring mandate, it has been difficult to determine specifically how the mission ought to operate. Similar peacekeeping missions in Africa have been implemented to monitor peace agreements. Such is the case in Sudan, where UNMIS ensured implementation of the country’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where MONUC was invited to observe the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. In the absence of such an agreement, MINUSTAH’s mission has been difficult to define and carry out.
The successes of MINUSTAH, such as decreased kidnapping rates and gang activity, have not hastened their departure, but rather expanded their role. The March 2011 Report of the Secretary General (S/2011/183) and current MINUSTAH mandate (S/RES/1944) describe the ever-increasing roles filled by MINUSTAH that are outside traditional peacekeeping and security-provision mandates, such as HIV/AIDS training and counseling programs, building dams and water catchment systems, managing cash for work programs, media campaigns for female legislative candidates, repairing schools, building roads, environmental awareness-raising on diaspora television stations in the United States, etc.

These are necessary objectives that will certainly affect sustainable growth in Haiti and that merit funding, but they do not require military personnel, and MINUSTAH’s highly publicized involvement in these efforts risks compromising the rest of the UN’s relief and development work in the eyes of much of the population. United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has programs in place to foster economic growth and strengthen the police and judicial systems such as the Rule of Law program to train magistrates and legal professionals.

MINUSTAH’s role in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake and in reconstruction efforts, has been heavily criticized by aid workers in Haiti and Haitian civil society, who fear that the militarization of aid unfairly criminalizes Haitians. Globally, soldiers are not trained to carry out relief with tact and compassion but rather operate in the mindset of a conflict scenario. We would reiterate that a military response to social and economic problems often leads to increased violence and is ineffective in dealing with the root of structural problems.

As such, we question proposals to further integrate international efforts to reconstruct and develop Haiti with the existing mandate of the mission.

5. Benchmarks for Withdrawal
The August 2008 Report of the Secretary General (S/2008/586) outlines benchmarks for MINUSTAH’s withdrawal. Paragraph 74 of the August 2008 resolution states, “It is clear that if the benchmarks are met, Haiti will still need long-term support. However, they should help to identify a critical threshold of stability beyond which a peacekeeping presence could be progressively reduced and ultimately withdraw, and the country could contemplate reversion to a normal framework of bilateral and multilateral assistance.”

Despite the vague nature of the benchmarks, we are concerned that little reference has been made to them in subsequent mandates and reports. It would appear that there are currently no indicators by which MINUSTAH is measuring its effectiveness with the goal of eventual withdrawal from Haiti.

At this juncture it seems unclear whether or not all of these benchmarks need to be met before MINUSTAH can withdraw. MCC and LAMP respectfully question the appropriateness of requiring that socio-economic benchmarks be met by a military operation.

A MINUSTAH mandate that eliminates the military component of the mission and places more emphasis on police training and monitoring would create measurable indicators allowing the for the mission’s withdrawal.

Recommendations
Based on the above discussion, MCC and LAMP would like to make the following recommendations to the UN Security Council concerning the future of MINUSTAH.

Short-Term Recommendations:

1. Address the absence of legal legitimacy for MINUSTAH’s presence by seeking approval for the mission from the Haitian National Assembly in accordance with Article 139 of the Haitian Constitution.
2. Eliminate the Chapter VII Military Component of MINUSTAH and focus on police training and monitoring. 
3. Separate the security and humanitarian components of MINUSTAH’s mandate, so that other UN agencies and NGOs can fulfill humanitarian and development functions independently from the mission and thus discontinue any further militarization of aid. 
4. Respond to allegations of human rights violations perpetrated by members of MINUSTAH by investigating credible allegations and responding appropriately. 
5. Improve security in the IDP camps, particularly against gender-based violence, through additional patrols of camps, installation of lighting and other security measures. 
6. Re-evaluate and re-introduce benchmarks for MINUSTAH’s withdrawal into MINUSTAH’s 2011-2012 mandate.

Long-Term Recommendation:

Formulate an explicit timeline for MINUSTAH’s full withdrawal in coordination with the Haitian government. Close collaboration with the Haitian government will enable both parties to identify priority structural and capacity needs that must be addressed before MINUSTAH can be successfully terminated. Long-term sustainable development and peace is dependent upon the ability of the Haitian government to continue state-building activities in the absence of MINUSTAH.


About the Submitting Organizations:
____________________________________________________________________________________
MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) is the relief, development and peace building arm of Anabaptist churches in the US and Canada and has been working in Haiti for 53 years. MCC Haiti’s advocacy program seeks to address the root causes of poverty, injustice and violence in Haiti. MCC also supports partner organizations engaged in education, job training, literacy, conflict resolution and human rights.
MCC’s United Nations Liaison Office strives to be a voice for those with whom MCC works around the world.
____________________________________________________________________________________
The LAMP for Haiti Foundation Human Rights Program (LAMP) advocates for the respect and protection of basic human rights in the areas of greatest misery and poverty in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince. LAMP works at the cross section of human rights and medicine, housing both a human rights law office and a medical clinic in Bois Neuf, Cite Soleil, a slum of Port-au-Prince.

Thoughts

Not only do UN troops continue to rain teargas and rubber bullets on protesters in Petionville, but it's also literally raining. An off-season morning rain is unusual on both counts. I can't help but wonder if the rain is intentional - Creator and Creation trying to keep things calm. The sound of the rain mostly masks the noise of a protest taking place in the Petionville market, about 500 feet from where I sit, also protesting. 

I may not be out in the streets, but as a foreigner that cares about this country and whose job it is to advocate for structural justice, I protest too. From my couch and on my laptop, I protest election results that maintain the status quo in direct opposition of the will of the Haitian people. I protest the morning's headlines that read, "Haiti protests blocking relief efforts" and "Demonstrations in Haiti Crimp Northwest Aid Efforts," as if this story is about us, unable to fix Haiti because the Haitians that we're here to save won't stop burning tires. I protest the headline that reads "Supporters of losing Haiti candidate take to the streets," as if Michel Martelly is a sore loser; whereas from my perspective, this isn't about Martelly at all. It's about the right to vote. I protest the narrative that insinuates that it's somehow Haitians' fault that they have no voice. To be fair, I also protest the narrative that insinuates that the situation in Haiti is entirely the fault of NGOs and donor countries and multilateral institutions (not that we don't have a lot to do with it). I protest the perception that all of the demonstrations taking place are violent. I also protest that many of them are - and not just when provoked by UN soldiers - and this makes me sad.

In the midst of all of this protesting, I feel pretty powerless. And yet, as a foreigner with a laptop that works for an NGO and has access to advocacy offices in DC, Ottawa and at the UN, I sadly have a hell of a lot more power than the thousands of people in the streets who are being disparaged by the international media while they face tear gas, rubber bullets and flash grenades in the rain to fight for their right to make their voices heard. And so do you.

We need to try hear beyond the news headlines and join in these protests by demanding that our governments (who funded 3/4 of these elections) assist in efforts to review election fraud and pressure the Haitian government to release legitimate final election results.

Elections in the Artibonite

The Artibonite Department has a reputation for being cho (hot) during elections. This post-election morning we left Desarmes at 8:00 AM, heading to Port-Au-Prince via Mirebalais. We were greeted by a convoy of more than 5 MINUSTAH trucks and tanks, frantically motioning at us to turn around. It seems that a roadblock had been constructed ahead by protesters frustrated with yesterday's election. Not wanting to risk that things might turn ugly, we turned around to come back through Saint Marc. I was wary of being behind so many UN vehicles, because in my experience their mere presence incites the kind of violence that we were trying to avoid. When we got to Deschapelles, an angry group was constructing a roadblock in front of us out of tires and rocks but we negotiated our way through and made it back to Port-Au-Prince without incident.

I was with three other election monitors from RNDDH, the Reseau National de Defense de Droits Humains (National Human Rights Defense Network), one of the most prominent Haitian human rights organizations and an MCC partner since 1995. We spent Sunday traveling through the Artibonite as election monitor supervisors - checking in on RNDDH election monitors stationed in voting centers throughout the Department, and also doing monitoring of our own in each center that we visited.

In brief, the day was exhausting and discouraging.

We began the day at 5:30 AM in Desarmes, where the voting center opened more or less on time. By the time MCC staff in Desarmes showed up to vote after church, though, the center had run out of ballots. From Desarmes, we drove far beyond Gonaives through five rivers on a rutted out road to Ennery and Savane Carée. There, I was astounded by the number of people that had turned out to vote. Because vehicles are not allowed to circulate on election day, many voters in rural places had to walk miles to reach a voting center.

From where I stood in the corner of a voting station at the Ecole Nationale de Savane Carée, I could see the voters' ballots as they chose their candidates. The representatives of each political party (mandatè) were even closer to the cardboard partition that was an attempt to provide voters with privacy. Sporadic arguments broke out among the mandatè as they watched people vote.

Approaching Gonaives around 12:00, we came across the first of several places where we would witness the elections end prematurely because of unrest. In Minguette, a small riot was taking place on the road in front of us as the police arrested a mandatè from Ayiti ann Aksyon who had apparently punched a representative of Alternative. Rock throwing ensued as voters who had lined up to vote left without casting their ballots.

Everywhere we went, but particularly at the centers in Gonaives, registered voters were unable to find their names on electoral rolls. In Gonaives there was also a discrepancy between the electoral rolls posted outside of each voting station and the lists of registered voters inside. Although the situation was calm while we were there, rumors of violence throughout the day kept many voters at home. Flipping through the list of voters in one voting station, I noticed that less than 20% of the names listed had signatures next to them. While we were there, we received a call that a voting center in Cawo, where RNDDH had posted an observer, had yet to receive any ballots.

Part of our mandate as observers was to monitor the ballot counting process, preferably in a voting center close to Desarmes so that we wouldn't be out long after dark. We decided to head towards Verrettes, where we hoped to be by 4:00 PM when the elections ended. Our plan was to stop in l'Estere and Desdunes to check on our monitors on the way. We were within sight of the voting center in l'Estere when we noticed a crowd forming. Suddenly the crowd started running towards our vehicle and away from rocks and police bullets. We heard that members of Inite, the party currently in power, were behind the disruption, but didn't stick around long enough to confirm.

On a long detour through Marchand Dessalines, we came across an empty voting center scattered with ballots in Pont Benoit. The MINUSTAH soldiers stationed in front told us that Inite mandatè disrupted the ballot counting when it became clear that they were losing to Mirlande Manigat's RNDP party. We received reports of this happening in other parts of the Artibonite, as well.

Our last stop was the Ecole Nationale de Seguy in Petite Riviere de l'Artibonite. Just as the ballot counting got underway, mandatè started hearing reports of incidents and violence elsewhere. We pulled away just as it looked like the agitated crowd was about to storm one of the voting stations.

MCCers acting as monitoring supervisors in each of Haiti's ten departments report many of the same incidents, including many, many people unable to vote because their names were not listed on electoral rolls, as well as stealing and burning of ballots and cases of disruption and violence.

Although I'm frustrated by what I've seen and heard, it's hard to tell at this point whether all of the irregularities, incidents and, in some cases, outright fraud, will actually change the outcome of the elections. My impression is that the country is tensely awaiting the results, which should be announced within the week, to know how to react to what were clearly not free and fair elections.

THAT was an election?

After the day we've had here, it's stunning to look at my latest headlines page and see "Bulldog fear after toddler death" but no mention of the elections in Haiti -- how voters with registration cards were turned away from voting centers because their names were left off of electoral rolls, how Inite party members disrupted the counting of ballets in numerous places when they saw they were losing to RDNP, how some voting centers never received ballots and others didn't receive enough, how protesters exchanged rocks with Haitian National Police bullets in the Artibonite, how ballots were stolen and ballot boxes stuffed, how 13 out of 15 candidates are calling for the elections to be annulled and how thousands have taken to the streets of Port-Au-Prince to peacefully protest.

Equally stunning is the UN's announcement that the elections went well. I wouldn't even call what I saw today elections.

I wish I had the energy to tell you more about my day of monitoring or even upload a photo or two (though Ben's pictures from Port-Au-Prince will be much, much better, I'm sure). I'm still in the Artibonite and, god-willing, will be returning to Port-Au-Prince tomorrow morning. More then.

Seguin, Again

Happy hikers and a rainbow at sunset when we reached the top:

Our favorite way to spend a weekend in Haiti. Pictures from the last two times we hiked up here and here (taken with the Ricoh).

Made in Haiti: A Good Thing?

Alexis Erkert Depp

If you’re wearing Gap, Calvin Klein or Levi Strauss jeans there’s a chance that I’ve met the worker that made your belt loops or your waistband. If you’ve recently bought Hanes underwear or a Maidenform bra, check the label. Was it made in Haiti? If not, the next pair you buy probably will be.

As part of an effort to help Haiti rebuild its economy after the earthquake, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in May of this year to extend U.S. trade preferences to Haiti through 2020 and nearly triple duty-free quotas for Haitian garment exports to the U.S. Last month the World Bank, Haiti and the U.S. signed an agreement with a South Korean clothing producer, Sae-A to build another free-trade garment assembly factory in Haiti.

Garment assembly plants that employ low-wage laborers in poor countries have been seen as a powerful strategy for economic development for several decades. But who really benefits from these factories?

In August, I visited CODEVI, a free trade zone made up of 6 garment assembly factories in Ounaminthe, in Haiti’s North-East Department on the border with the Dominican Republic. A free trade zone is an area of a country where normal trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas are eliminated and bureaucratic requirements, like minimum wage laws, are lowered in hopes of attracting businesses and foreign investments.

Attracting foreign investment in this way was part of Haiti’s “Poverty Reduction Strategy” plan prior to the earthquake and continues to be a priority now for the Haitian government, the world’s International Financial Institutions, donor countries and, of course, multinational companies looking to capitalize on Haiti’s high unemployment and cheap labor. Note that this list of advocates doesn’t include Haitian factory workers, most of whom work full-time and remain in poverty.

Yannick Etienne is the director of the Haitian workers rights’ organization, Batay Ouvriye and tirelessly advocates for workers’ basic rights. Etienne believes, “It is evident that this model of development with free trade zones as its backbone for creating jobs is a failure. It creates wealth for the foreign investors and local factory owners but more misery for the workers. It's a model that sacrifices the future of our youth and puts our country in a more dependent framework. That type of international aid won't bring the change Haitian people envisioned for themselves.”

I spoke to some of the workers from the factories in Ounaminthe during their lunch hour. Thousands of workers were crowded under make-shift tin roofs in the 95 degree heat, eating their main meal of the day, diri Miami (imported rice) and sos pwa (bean sauce).

These workers are barely scraping by. They have a union and have succeeded in demanding a pay raise. They have also succeeded in getting factory owners to hire a Haitian doctor. Nevertheless, they must meet the taxing quota of 4,000 units a week to make 800 gourdes ($20.00 U.S.) a week, which is less than the legal Haitian minimum wage. If they don’t meet weekly quotas, they are paid 600 gourdes ($15.00). They spend more than $10.00 a week just to feed their families.

Higher-paid staff and supervisors are mostly Dominican. The free trade zone employs approximately 6,000 workers, most of whom are younger than 35 years old. 75% of the workforce is women and workers report that sexual harassment is common. Workers are not provided with filtered drinking water and are docked a ¼ of a week’s pay if they miss a single day of work. Workers tell me that they hope for a better future for their children, but that they themselves don’t have any other options.

The economy in and around Ounaminthe is depressed. It is in one of the most fertile agricultural areas of Haiti and yet rice farmers in nearby Ferier cannot sell more than 3,000 tons of rice this year because of Dominican trade barriers on imported rice and an influx of food aid post-earthquake. Meanwhile, factory workers eat “Miami rice” because it’s cheaper.

Support for this kind of economic growth in Haiti is complex. No-one can argue that Haiti doesn’t need more jobs. The production for export factories employ approximately 25,000 Haitians and that number is growing. But, most Haitians would argue that production for export is not a sustainable long-term solution to the country’s lagging economy.

According to Camille Chalmers, Executive director of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA), “Free trade zones are not a good way to advance economic growth in general because working conditions are poor and this kind of activity has almost no connection to the rest of the country’s economy. It is also unreliable [as a long-term source for employment].”

Although these types of garment factories have provided consumers with increasingly cheap clothes and other goods and have enabled multinational companies to post record profits, as a development model it has repeatedly failed in Haiti and the rest of Latin America to improve the living conditions of the majority of people.

This was abundantly clear to me in my visit to Ounaminthe. Young and able-bodied workers there are working full-time for a wage that will never allow them to break out of the cycle of poverty. The Haitian government doesn’t fully benefit from taxes because CODEVI is a free trade zone. Haitian shipping companies don’t benefit because materials are shipped in and out from the Dominican Republic. The local economy is weakened as it becomes increasingly dependent on the whims of an external market. It’s clear that long-term, the true beneficiaries are not Haitians but rather the companies that own the factories and us, as consumers.

If the Haitian economy is increasingly dependent on cheap labor for growth, it is as much because we want to pay less for our jeans as it is because clothing companies are making a profit. If we truly believe that all human beings have equal rights, then we have a responsibility to support local economic development in Haiti that is determined by and for Haitians. Haitians tell me they want jobs that are sustainable and that will provide them with living wages. On our part, support for this kind of development can begin with ethical and informed consumption.

As I watched the thousands of workers crossing the bridge on their way back to work after their lunch break, I wondered whether I would be willing to pay a higher price for my jeans so that others could live a life of dignity and well-being. So, the question is: Who makes your jeans?

Alexis Erkert Depp coordinates MCC Haiti’s advocacy program. 

Download Justice in a Land of Plenty, a resource for worship and advocacy on trade justice.

Check out MCC’s trade justice campaign and actions you can take.

_______________________________________________________________________________ 

To read more about this issue:

“Re-building Haiti: “The Sweatshop Hoax" 

“Haiti’s Garment Industry Hanging By a Thread”

"Poverty Wage Assembly Plants as Development Strategy in Haiti"

More than an Earthquake: Conversations with Haitians

This article was written by Adrienne Wiebe, MCC Policy Analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean, after she participated in the advocacy delegation I hosted in August. In it, she does a much better job than I ever have of introducing you to some of the people and organizations that MCC has the privilege of supporting and to the vision of Haiti they are working towards.

“We are working for life against forces of death.” “Planting trees is giving life.” “Change happens as we heal from our slave past, and restore dignity and pride in ourselves.”

More than a month after a visit to Haiti with an MCC Advocacy Delegation in August this year, I can still hear the voices of the people I met.

Haiti has been at the centre of world news because of the devastating earthquake that struck the capital city, Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, killing 230,000 people, leaving one-million people homeless, and destroying much of the city’s infrastructure and economy. The primary purpose of the trip was to explore the advocacy issues in the aftermath of the earthquake. However, I got a glimpse of a country that is much more than the most recent political or natural disaster that we hear about on the news.

“Beyond the mountains are more mountains” is a well-known Haitian proverb describing a country that is seemingly more mountainous than Switzerland. This lush, tropical island was known as the “Pearl of the Antilles” during the 1700s; the richest French territory in the New World. Sugar and coffee were produced by a brutally efficient economy based on slaves imported from Africa after the indigenous population had been exterminated. Yet by the 1980s, this bountiful land was environmentally ravaged; 98% of the land has been deforested as a result of an impoverished population in need of cooking fuel and land to cultivate for food. Deforestation has caused severe loss of topsoil, declining agricultural productivity, and increased flooding and landslides.

Jean Remy Azor, Reforestation Program Coordinator of a project that MCC has supported since 1983, is working to change this situation, one tree at a time.

“We all have an obligation, especially Christians, to repair the destruction that we have brought about in God’s creation. Birds and animals live on the earth and haven’t damaged it; we humans have done the damage. So in this sense, planting trees is giving life. ” The 22 communities involved in the program Remy coordinates now produce and plant approximately 450,000 years per year. This part of the Artibonite Valley has become a delicious green oasis in contrast to the surrounding barren hills.

Nixon Boumba, an energetic advocacy worker with MCC and a university student, told me about Haiti’s powerful history. His determination to continue to work for change is evident despite the fact that he lost hundreds of classmates in the earthquake as university buildings collapsed, and his family still lives in a makeshift shelter with no running water seven months after the disaster.

Boumba situates Haiti’s current situation within a broader historical context. “The whole history of Haiti is a confrontation with imperialism – Spanish colonialism, French colonialism, slavery, racism, American occupation [1915-1934] and now neo-liberal economic and political systems...The slave rebellion against France and becoming the first black independent country [1804] was of extraordinary significance on the world stage,” says Boumba. He points out that Haiti set the stage for the independence movements of other Latin American countries in the early 1800s and was a critical influence in dismantling slavery in the United States.

More recently, Haiti set a precedent in Latin America as the only country that had the audacity to twice elect a former priest with a liberation theology perspective, President (Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and 2001). He advocated a "preferential option for the poor" and his government strove to move Haiti from "from absolute misery to a dignified poverty." Aristide was also twice removed violently from office (1994, 2004), a common fate of Latin American leaders who attempt to change the status quo. Despite setbacks, Boumba believes that: “We Haitians [need to] continue working for life against forces of death.”

Haiti has a predominantly Black population, and the dynamics of racism and social class that exist throughout Latin America are intensified here. A social hierarchy continues to exist in Haiti that privileges light skin over dark skin, and foreign over local. For example, Haitian Creole is based on 18th Century French mixed with African and Ameri-Indian languages, Arabic, and Spanish. It is spoken by 90% of Haitians. Yet until about 20 years ago, French was the only official language and was used in the educational system, the media, and the government. French is still viewed widely as the only language of status, though only a small percentage of Haitians speak French fluently.

This social history continues to impact Haiti today, according to Ari Nicolas, Coordinator of MCC partner organization, Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal/Support Local Production, (KPL). Nicolas thinks that Haitians have internalized a sense of inferiority. “Haitians are raised to believe that they are inferior. This is a product of being slaves. For 500 years we have been taught this. Whatever comes from outside is better. For example, our hair is not good because it is black and curly, not blond and straight. There is a lack of self-confidence and pride.” Nicolas works to promote the consumption of local food and goods, as a means of rebuilding a sustainable local economy, but also as a means of “creating a new mentality [and] a new society.”

Walking through a noisy street market with Junya Eugene and Margaret Baron, also staff members of KPL, they explain how Haiti has gone from being basically self-sufficient in food production to dependent on imported food in just twenty years. This is partly because trade liberalization imposed by international financial institutions has made imported (and subsidized) American food cheaper than locally grown food, putting farmers out of business. Two live chickens that will eventually be our lunch dangle upside-down from my fingers as we check out rice prices: locally produced rice costs 1.5 times more than imported American rice.

Haitian lack of self-confidence and pride is part of the problem, according to KPL staff. Imported American rice and other foods are widely viewed as superior to Haitian rice and traditional foods. For example, Haitians say they do not eat corn, but they love eating Corn Flakes. In response, KPL has produced a dramatic series of videos filmed in the market that are regularly aired on national television to demonstrate the importance of purchasing local goods and services (available for viewing on the web).

Haiti has the unenviable distinction of being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 80% of Haitians live on less than $2 per day. Health indicators are the poorest in Latin America. Life expectancy is 61 years in Haiti compared to 82 years in Canada and 78 in the USA. Over 12% of children die before the age of 5 years old, compared to less than 2% in Canada and the USA. Adult literacy is 53%, and parents struggle to pay private school fees because of destruction of the public education system due cuts to government spending on service imposed by the international financial institutions in the 1990s.

“The earthquake exacerbated the pre-existing problems of housing, security, and food,” according to Antonal Mortime, Executive Secretary of POHDH (Plat-forme des Organisations Haitiennes des Droits Humains/Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations). Haitian activists, like Mortime, have an integrated view of human rights that includes political rights as well as social rights, such as the right to food, education, and housing. For Mortime post-earthquake reconstruction is an opportunity to build a more equitable society. ”Our priority is now to advocate internationally regarding social rights, such as education and food, and to create a base to launch a new Haiti.”

Rosy Auguste and Vilès Alizar, at RNDDH (Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains/National Human Rights Defense Network) also emphasized the need for profound change in the reconstruction process. According to Alizar, “The word ‘reconstruction’ for Haitians, is not about rebuilding the National Palace and individual houses, rather it is about building a new Haiti with everything, services, schools, and so on… what would redeem the earthquake would be to construct a new society. The priority now is decentralization and participation.”

Many Haitian civil society organizations stressed the need for decentralization in the reconstruction process because all services tend to be concentrated in Port-au-Prince. Haitians must come to the city for everything: schooling beyond elementary levels, documentation (i.e. land titles, driver’s licences), other government services and jobs. As a result, thousands of people have migrated to the city, though the urban infrastructure cannot support the current population. The earthquake’s impact was all the more devastating because of over-crowding and lack of quality building construction.

“The earthquake not only shook the earth, but also the hearts and minds of people… not only on January 12, but they are still shaking,” says Jean Valéry Vital-Herne, the National Coordinator for Defi Miche/Micah Challenge, another MCC partner organization. “If the church would stand strong for six months, we would have a social earthquake.” Vital-Herne recognizes the challenges for Protestants, Catholics and spiritualists, practitioners of Vodou, to work together. Vodou is a belief system based on a syncretism of the African culture brought by slaves and historic Catholicism. Catholicism has been the official religion of the country since 1860, and Protestant churches have been established in Haiti for about 100 years. Vital-Herne thinks that, “The church is Haiti has been a conformist church… but it needs to be an alternative; be the light of the world, and salt of the earth.” Most importantly for me as a foreigner, Vital-Herne asked that, “the global church stand in solidarity with Haiti and respect the Haitian vision.”

What sticks with me, weeks after my visit, is that for five centuries, Haiti has experienced the destructive impacts of the major global developments: colonialism, racism, environmental exploitation, unequal economic growth, and, most recently, devastating natural disasters exacerbated by poverty. Despite all this, I discovered that there is much more to Haiti than just the latest crisis, and there are many, many Haitians who are working to build a more life-giving society . I hope that we as North Americans listen to what they are telling us, learn from them, and walk with them as they continue to work “for life against the forces of death.”

How to Write about Haiti

Independent journalist in Haiti, Ansel Hertz, whom we know and respect, wrote this great piece of satire a few weeks ago. It reflects many of our frustrations with the common narrative about Haiti, not limited to but certainly magnified by the post-earthquake context.

Actor Sean Penn, who is helping manage a camp of displaced earthquake victims in Haiti, is making pointed criticisms of journalists for dropping the ball on coverage of Haiti. He’s wrong. I’ve been on the ground in Port-au-Prince working as an independent journalist for the past ten months. I’m an earthquake survivor who’s seen the big-time reporters come and go. They’re doing such a stellar job and I want to help out, so I’ve written this handy guide for when they come back on the one-year anniversary of the January quake! (Cross-published on the Huffington Post, inspired by this piece in Granta.)

For starters, always use the phrase ‘the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.’ Your audience must be reminded again of Haiti’s exceptional poverty. It’s doubtful that other articles have mentioned this fact.

You are struck by the ‘resilience’ of the Haitian people. They will survive no matter how poor they are. They are stoic, they rarely complain, and so they are admirable. The best poor person is one who suffers quietly. A two-sentence quote about their misery fitting neatly into your story is all that’s needed.

On your last visit you became enchanted with Haiti. You are in love with its colorful culture and feel compelled to return. You care so much about these hard-working people. You are here to help them. You are their voice. They cannot speak for themselves.


Don’t listen if the Haitians speak loudly or become unruly. You might be in danger, get out of there. Protests are not to be taken seriously. The participants were probably all paid to be there. All Haitian politicians are corrupt or incompetent. Find a foreign authority on Haiti to talk in stern terms about how they must shape up or cede power to incorruptible outsiders.

The US Embassy and United Nations always issue warnings that demonstrations are security threats. It is all social unrest. If protesters are beaten, gassed, or shot at by UN peacekeepers, they probably deserved it for getting out of control. Do not investigate their constant claims of being abused.

It was so violent right after the January 2010 earthquake. ‘Looters’ fought over goods ‘stolen’ from collapsed stores. Escaped prisoners were causing mayhem. It wasn’t necessary to be clear about how many people were actually hurt or died in fighting. The point is that it was scary.

Now many of those looters are ‘squatters’ in ‘squalid’ camps. Their tent cities are ‘teeming’ with people, like anthills. You saw your colleagues use these words over and over in their reports, so you should too. You do not have time to check a thesaurus before deadline.

Point out that Port-au-Prince is overcrowded. Do not mention large empty plots of green land around the city. Of course, it is not possible to explain that occupying US Marines forcibly initiated Haiti’s shift from distributed, rural growth to centralized governance in the capital city. It will not fit within your word count. Besides, it is ancient history.

If you must mention Haiti’s history, refer vaguely to Haiti’s long line of power-hungry, corrupt rulers. The ‘iron-fisted’ Duvaliers, for example. Don’t mention 35 years of US support for that dictatorship. The slave revolt on which Haiti was founded was ‘bloody’ and ‘brutal.’ These words do not apply to modern American offensives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today, Cite Soleil is the most dangerous slum in the world. There is no need to back up this claim with evidence. It is ‘sprawling.’ Again, there’s no time for the thesaurus. Talk about ruthless gangs, bullet holes, pigs and trash. Filth everywhere. Desperate people are eating cookies made of dirt and mud! That always grabs the reader’s attention.

Stick close to your hired security or embed yourself with UN troops. You can’t walk out on your own to profile generous, regular folk living in tight-knit neighborhoods. They are helpless victims, grabbing whatever aid they can. You haven’t seen them calmly dividing food amongst themselves, even though it’s common practice.

Better to report on groups that periodically enter from outside to deliver food to starving kids (take photos!). Don’t talk to the youth of Cite Soleil about how proud they are of where they come from. Probably gang members. Almost everyone here supports ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But their views aren’t relevant. There is no need to bring politics into your story.

You can’t forget to do another story about restaveks. Child slaves. It’s so shocking. There is little new information about restaveks, so just recycle old statistics. Present it as a uniquely Haitian phenomenon. Enslaved Haitian farmworkers in southern Florida, for example, aren’t nearly as interesting.

When you come back here in six months, there will still be a lot of desperate poor people who have received little to no help. There are many big, inefficient foreign NGOs in Haiti. Clearly something is wrong. Breathless outrage is the appropriate tone.

But do not try to get to the bottom of the issue. Be sure to mention that aid workers are doing the best they can. Their positive intentions matter more than the results. Don’t name names of individuals or groups who are performing poorly. Reports about food stocks sitting idly in individual warehouses are good. Investigations into why NGOs are failing to effect progress in Haiti are boring and too difficult. Do not explore Haitian-led alternatives to foreign development schemes. There are none. Basically, don’t do any reporting that could change the system.

On the other hand, everyone here loves Bill Clinton and Wyclef Jean. There are no dissenting views on this point. Never mind that neither lives here. Never mind that Clinton admitted to destroying Haiti’s domestic rice economy in the ’90s. Never mind that Jean’s organization has repeatedly mismanaged relief funds. That’s all in the past. They represent Haiti’s best hope for the future. Their voices matter, which means the media must pay close attention to them, which means their voices matter, which means the media must …

Finally, when you visit Haiti again: Stay in the same expensive hotels. Don’t live close to the people. Produce lots of stories and make money. Pull up in your rented SUV to a camp of people who lost their homes, still living under the wind and rain. Step out into the mud with your waterproof boots. Fresh notepad in hand. That ragged-looking woman is yelling at you that she needs help, not another foreigner taking her photo. Her 3-year-old boy is standing there, clinging to her leg. Her arms are raised, mouth agape, and you can’t understand her because you don’t speak Haitian Creole.

Remove the lens cap and snap away. And when you’ve captured enough of Haiti’s drama, fly away back home.

Ansel's website here. 

Disaster to Decentralization

Sorry, folks. I embedded the wrong film here yesterday. THIS is the one I intended to post. It'll be worth your time, I promise. Download the study guide and take the film to class or use it in a small group. You can download it for free here.



Disaster to Decentralization study guide [english][french][spanish]

What is True

This article from the LA Times, "Haitians still wait for recovery" has gotten a lot of attention over the past day and 1/2. I first saw it when it came up as the first article on my Haiti google alerts yesterday morning. Later in the day, a family member emailed it to us to ask if what the article says about the situation in Haiti is true. I've since seen it posted and/or linked to on various blogs and facebook.

The article says, "Real reconstruction has yet to begin, while the people suffer in ramshackle housing in overcrowded camps...", that rubble removal has not yet really started and on and on. The article places most of the blame on the Haitian government, citing that "the government in Port-au-Prince has lapsed into the classic pattern of corruption, inefficiency and delay that holds the country hostage."

This is all true - we face these uncomfortable realities everyday as we work for as organization that is trying to provide relief and plan reconstruction work- but it's also not the whole truth.

It's true that based on a recent shelter cluster report only 2,000 transitional shelters have been built by international NGOs and that tarps and tents that were distributed within the first 3 months already need to be replaced - which according to the statistics, leaves 1 million people vulnerable to the rains. But it's also true that Haitians have been building their OWN temporary shelters since just days after the earthquake. They are demolishing their own unsafe houses (see Ben's Portraits of Port-Au-Prince slideshow below) and moving their own rubble.

It's true that the international community is frustrated with and has largely pointed blame towards the Haitian government for the way things are going. But, it's also true that thus far, only 2% of the pledges for aid that have made to Haiti have been delivered. Brazil is the only country that has fulfilled its pledge from the UN donor conference. Without this money, it is unrealistic to expect the weakened Haitian government to be able to meet the world's expectations.

It's also true that from around the world, people are still expressing their solidarity with Haiti. For the past two weeks a group of Mennonites from Paraguay were here to work alongside Haitians doing rubble removal. They were absolutely blown away by how hard the work was and by how much has already been accomplished with the limited equipment and tools available to most Haitians. One told us that when they drove through Port-Au-Prince upon arrival and saw how much rubble litters the city almost six months after the earthquake, they thought that Haitians must be lazy. Now, two weeks later he says he cannot fathom how hard the people of Port-Au-Prince must have worked to have made so much progress.

It is also true that this month people in 23 communities in the Artibonite are planting trees that have been grown by Haitian tree nurseries (see Ben's latest post).

People are living their lives, cooking meals, doing laundry, visiting with neighbors, going to the salon, caring for their children, going to work, attending church... Living in an IDP camp does not keep most Haitians from dressing much nicer than I do every day (I cannot imagine that I would show up at work in heels if I had no home even if wearing nice shoes is culturally very important). People without formal jobs continue to eek out a living selling fruit or sunglasses or used clothes on the street. Children are playing (even in the rain).

Maybe all of this sounds callous - like I don't care that the IDP camps in Port-Au-Prince have swollen to 1.5 million people, that they are "congested beyond imagination," that it's hurricane season and that public toilets are overflowing. It's not that at all. I care deeply about Haiti, which is why I think it's important that we acknowledge the whole truth.

The international community gauges the situation in Haiti based on the numbers of shelters and temporary schools and clinics they themselves build, the tonnes of food aid distributed, the number of water filters... But what Haitians are doing for themselves to carry on with their own lives, the food that Haitian farmers are growing that is being sold in the market, the work of Haitian human rights organizations and Haitian development organizations and community associations are carrying out- all this doesn't figure into the official reports. Shouldn't it, though? Shouldn't this be the most important part of the equation? Long after the relief organizations pull out, Haitians will still be here doing what they've always done to survive the past 200 years of internal conflict, natural disasters, external interventions, structural adjustment policies (and let's face it, the work of well-meaning aid agencies). And they'll be singing, dancing, dressing well, producing some of the world's most compelling art, watching soccer games, drinking rum and playing dominoes along the way.

Portraits of Port-Au-Prince - Images by Ben Depp

-Alexis from Ben's account

Sunset and rain in the Artibonite valley

La Réserve de la Forêt des Pins

Over the weekend we discovered a Haitian paradise. Ben and I are mountain people. We love love love the outdoors and love trees and cool air and mist and everything that comes along with mountain forests. Although we hike regularly in Kenscoff and from time to time make the trek to Seguin, we just haven't quite been getting our being-outdoors-in-the-mountains fix. Until now. A short three hours southeast from Port-Au-Prince is la Réserve de la Forêt des Pins (the Pine Forest reserve) - elevation almost 6,000 feet. The Ministry of the Environment maintains at least 13 wooden cabins (we saw 13, anyway) in the forest that date from the 1940's. Trees, trails, amazing flora, and barely anyone around... clearly heaven in Haiti.

Flamingo Watching

While Ben stayed home and kept his knee elevated, I celebrated Fèt Drapo by paying some flamingos a visit in Trou Caiman. That first picture is of the leaky, unsteady boats that took us across a choppy lake. Though the boat ride was nothing short of scary, seeing these gorgeous birds in flight was well worthwhile. The Caiman Flamingo is supposed to be distinctive from other flamingos, but I'm not exactly sure how. See Sharon's account of our trip (slightly more descriptive than mine) here.

Status of the Greater Flamingo in Haiti

Abstract:
Although flamingos in Haiti can still be found in most areas of their historical range, survey results indicate that numbers have declined drastically over the last 50 years. The coastal mangrove lagoons between Grand Saline and Gonaives, the inland lakes of Etang Saumatre and Trou Caiman, and Ile de la Gonave have been, and remained, the major areas used by flamingos. The species has been extripated from areas with high human population densities (Ile a Vache, Les Cayes, and Cap-Haitien). No evidence of breeding activity was obtained. The last nesting colony known to occur in Haiti was reported in 1928. Available data suggest that Haiti is mostly utilized by flamingos for feeding and roosting during non-breeding, winter dispersal from Great Inagua, and perhaps Cuba. Flamingo numbers in Haiti are estimated at about 900 (+-600) birds. Population trends in Haiti are likely declining due to increasing human disturbance, habitat degradation, and exploitation for food and trade.

Full article here.

Jose A. Ottenwalder, Charles A. Woods, Galen B. Rathburn, John B. Thorbjarnarson. Colonial Waterbirds, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1990).

-posted by Lexi