Haiti Liberte 4 Fevrier 2015

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Perspectives L’IJDH dénonce l’ambassadrice US aux Nations Unies Samantha Power Remémoration 100 ans d’occupation d’Haïti ! Les propos de l’ambassadrice Samantha Power : « le pouvoir aux mains d’une seule personne est constitutionnel en Haïti», est incorrect et dangereux.» L ’Institut pour la Justice et la Démocratie en Haïti (IJDH) a réagi à la déclaration faite par l’ambassadrice américaine aux Nations Unies Samantha Power à savoir que le fait par le Président Martelly de gouverner par décret sans un Parlement est «autorisé par la Constitution d’Haïti». L’IJDH dit qu’elle «est incorrecte de fait, et dangereuse en tant que fondement de politique. L’ambassadrice Power a fait cette déclaration le 29 Janvier, lors d’un briefing à l’ONU à propos de la mission du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies en Haïti, du 23 au 25 janvier. Des élections n’ont pas eu lieu en Haïti depuis plus de trois ans, entraînant des vacances au niveau de tous les sièges au Parlement ; sauf dix sièges au Sénat, ainsi que de tous les bureaux élus locaux. Le même jour de l’exposé de l’Ambassadrice Power, vingt groupes haïtiens de droits humains ont dénoncé l’installation inconstitutionnelle d’un gouvernement sans l’approbation du Parlement. « Rien dans la Constitution d’Haïti ne permet le pouvoir d’exercer par une seule personne. La Constitution a clairement exigé des élections législatives en 2011 et 2014, ce à quoi le gouvernement a failli, créant ce vide inconstitutionnel », a déclaré Nicole Phillips, une avocate du staff de l’IJDH. L’avocate Phillips a averti qu’«une mauvaise interprétation d’un fait aussi fondamental pourrait conduire à de dangereuses pratiques de mauvaise information. Considérant le grand rôle joué par l’ONU et les Etats-Unis en Haïti, l’enjeu est grand.» Le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies contrôle la MINUSTAH, la Mission de maintien de la paix en Haïti, qui dépensera plus de 500 millions de dollars cette année. L’IJDH a noté que la déclaration de l’ambassadrice Power a reconnu les dangers potentiels d’un pouvoir présidentiel sans un contrôle de l’action gouvernementale, et a vivement exhorté à ce que se tiennent «des élections libres, justes et inclusives, dès que possible.» Mais le Directeur exécutif de l’IJDH, Brian Concannon, a averti L’ambassadrice américaine aux Nations Unies Samantha Power que «la pression que ces propos ont placé sur l’Exécutif haïtien a été minée par l’échec de la déclaration à placer les responsabilités sur le président Martelly qui en premier lieu a créé la crise.» L’ONU et le gouvernement des Etats-Unis ont été critiqués en Haïti et à l’étranger pour le soutien aveugle offert au Président Martelly. Bien que les causes de la crise soient complexes, la plupart des observateurs conviennent qu’un un rôle important revient à la mise en place par le Président Martelly d’une série de conseils électoraux qui n’ont pas réussi à se conformer à la Constitution et qui ont maximisé son influence sur les élections. L’avocate Phillips a ajouté que «la crise politique en Haïti a été générée par un non-respect de la Constitution. Si Brian Concannon la communauté internationale veut contribuer à une solution à la crise, il lui faut critiquer les pratiques illégales, non les cautionner.» Pour plus d’informations sur les questions juridiques liées à la crise politique en Haïti, voir le document de l’IJDH : Assurer des élections équitables en Haïti: analyse juridique d’événements récents. Contact: Nicole Phillips, Avocate. Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (San Francisco), nicole@ijdh.org, Tél. 510-715-2855 Brian Concannon, Jr., Avocat. Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (Boston), brian@ijdh. org, Tél.1-617-652-0876-2630029 (English, French, Creole) Boston 30 Janvier 2015 L'ambassade des Etats-Unis en Haiti Dans le cadre de la remémoration du centenaire de l’occupation américaine du 28 juillet 1915 au 28 juillet 2015, plusieurs organisations de la société civile et du mouvement social et populaire ont lancé diverses activités pour sensibiliser le peuple haïtien sur la question de l’occupation et exiger le départ de la Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH). L’occupation américaine en Haïti a duré 19 longues années (1915-1934). La MINUSTAH compte déjà 11 ans sur le territoire national sous les yeux d’une élite politique et économique dégoutante et répugnante qui ne lutte que pour le contrôle du pouvoir politique. Elle se fout de la souveraineté nationale et de la dignité du peuple haïtien. Il est écrit dans l’Acte de l’Indépendance d’Haïti, proclamée le premier Janvier 1804 : « de renoncer à jamais à la France, de mourir plutôt que de vivre sous sa domination et de combattre jusqu’au dernier soupir pour l’Indépendance, » donc pour la sauvegarde de la souveraineté de la première République nègre du monde. Qui lutte aujourd’hui pour préserver l’Indépendance acquise dans le sang de nos ancêtres et la souveraineté nationale ? Dans cet ordre d’idées, le Mouvement de Liberté, l’Egalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité (MOLEGHAF) et le Mouvement de Développement National (MODENA) se sont mis d’accord pour organiser une série d’activités pour marquer le centenaire de ce premier affront à l’indépendance et la souveraineté d’Haïti. Ils comptent organiser un sit-in devant l’ambassade des Etats-Unis en Haïti, sise à Tabarre, le 28 de chaque mois, jusqu’au 28 juillet 2015 pour continuer de dénoncer non seulement la présence des soldats des Nations Unies sur la terre de Dessalines, mais également l’ingérence des grandes puissances étrangères dans les affaires internes d’Haïti. Le Premier sit-in a été réalisé le mercredi 28 janvier dernier devant l’ambassade Yankee. « A bas occupation ! A bas impérialisme ! A bas ingérence étrangère ! A bas Pamela Ann White ! A bas Sandra Honoré ! Le pays n’est pas à vendre. » Tels sont les cris des militants anti-occupations et anti-impérialistes. Il est important de savoir que l’occupation étrangère d’un territoire, n’a d’autre objectif que de piller les ressources naturelles du pays hôte. Il faut lutter assidûment pour la combattre, selon le secrétaire général du MOLEGHAF, Oxygène David. Le prochain sit-in est fixé pour le vendredi 27 février 2015 devant l’ambassade des Etats-Unis à Port-au-Prince, a-t-il annoncé. Ces activités ont besoin de la solidarité de nos compatriotes tant en Haïti qu’à l’étranger. La lutte pour la désoccupation du territoire est l’affaire de tous les Haïtiens conséquents ici et ailleurs. An n pote kole pou n mete MINUSTAH deyò nan peyi a. An n pote kole pou di gwo peyi enperyalis yo sispann foure bouch nan zafè politik Ayiti. NICLAS EXPRESS INCOME TAX & INSURANCE AGENCY 6234 NE 2nd Avenue Miami, FL 33138 Also: Immigration Services Insurance: Auto • Life • Home • Commercial 1655 N. Federal Highway Hollywood, FL 33020 954.544.4405 Niclas Pierre Office: 305.759.8244 • 305.759.8485 Cell: 305.409.0213 Fast Refund Guarino Funeral Home Serving the Haitian Community for Over 30 Years 9222 Flatlands Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11236 718-257-2890 8 Haiti Liberté/Haitian Times Vol. 8 • No. 30 • Du 4 au 10 Fevrier 2015
This Week in Haiti Portrait of an Uprising: After Quake’s Fifth Anniversary, Political Aftershocks Continue Rocking Haiti On Feb. 2, a national transport strike left streets around Haiti empty, with occasional protest pyres of burning tires. This scene is from Port-au-Prince. Thousands marched through the capital on Jan. 11, 2015 to demand Martelly resign and UN troops leave. They were met by tear-gas, rubber bullets, and water cannon. by Kim Ives Port-au-Prince’s hilltop slum of Fort National offers a perfect example of the irony, agony, and struggle that grip Haiti today. Its rocky moonscape is littered with piles of dirt, debris, and garbage. Untold hundreds of residents died here when the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake destroyed eight out of ten of the closely-packed cinderblock and tin shacks which crowded – and today again crowd – dark narrow corridors down which sewage runs. Flies and rats cohabit this grim warren with large families whose children in doorways (often barricaded by no more than a curtain) squat like frogs, leaping away when a stranger passes. Looking out across Fort National’s patchwork of tin rooftops, tendrils of twisted rusting iron rebar reach out of unfinished cinderblock walls, like fingers beseeching the heavens for manna. At the top of this neighborhood perched on top of the capital’s highest downtown hill is a giant billboard that once showed an architect’s vision of a leafy flowered apartment complex with wide walkways and well-dressed people. This construction project, to be carried out by a Dominican construction firm under a contested no-bid contract, was to be funded with $174 million of the more than $13 billion in international aid pledged to Haiti after the earthquake. The sign, along with its promise, has long since faded, like so many projects trumpeted in Haiti after the earthquake. Less than half of the $13 billion has ever been dispersed, and beyond a few luxury hotels and a giant assembly park in the north, far from the earthquake area, it is hard to see much change in Haiti’s harsh realities after the world’s outpouring of support. Where did Fort National’s $174 million go? Daniel Tercier/Haïti Liberté Kim Ives/Haïti Liberté “We were told by Martelly’s officials that about $44 million of it supposedly went to build about 3000 small homes out in the remote desert by Morne à Cabri,” said former Sen. Moïse Jean- Charles. “But when I asked Martelly’s Finance Minister in a Senate hearing where the rest of the money went, he just smiled. At least, I thought, that was honest.” The Fort National neighborhood is also home to Fort National, a fortress built by Haiti’s founding father Gen. Jean- Jacques Dessalines to guard against feared French, English, or Spanish reprisals or recolonization attempts after Haiti’s Jan. 1, 1804 independence proclamation, the first in Latin America. However, today, this garrison built to repel foreign invaders is occupied by them: troops of the hated United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti or MINUSTAH. Deployed in Haiti since Jun. 1, 2004, the Brazilian-led force, now about 7,500, has been responsible for massacres, rapes, sexual abuse, and, most notoriously, the import of cholera in October 2010. Outhouses leaking Nepalese UN soldiers’ feces infected Haiti’s largest river and set off the world’s worst cholera epidemic, which has now claimed about 9,000 Haitian lives. Despite three lawsuits being brought against it in New York, the UN refuses any responsibility for the outbreak. The faded sign announcing neverbuilt housing and the machine-gun toting silhouettes of UN soldiers atop the walls of Dessalines’ fortifications are among the constant goads that make Fort National’s residents among the most militant, organized, and mobilized in Port-au-Prince. The neighborhood is home to the Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity among Haitians (MOLEGHAF), a popular organization which is central in the political party Dessalines Coordination (KOD), formed last February. Greeted by residents like the neighborhood’s mayor, Oxygène David, 40, is a leader of both organizations and lives in an earthquakedamaged one-room hovel buried deep within Fort National’s winding corridors. A former telephone-pole wire-splicer for the state telephone company TELECO, Oxygène lost his job in 2008 when the public enterprise was privatized under former President René Préval. Oxygène became a leader of Haiti’s anti-neoliberal mobilization, organizing weekly picketlines in front of the Social Affairs Ministry demanding back pay and reparations. For his militancy, he was twice thrown in jail for months – without trial – under both Presidents Préval and Martelly. Throughout the night of Jan. 11 until 5 a.m., to mark the earthquake’s fifth anniversary, hundreds of Fort National residents thronged around a stage erected in a vacant lot near the top of the neighborhood. The event was organized by several local “baz” – small associations of young people – but the principal one was “Baz Rezistans”, the Resistance Base, whose members are part of MO- LEGHAF. Most of the night consisted of Haitian musicians performing rasin (roots) and rap music with a sharply political theme. But there were also political speeches. “We have to remain mobilized to fight against the (s)elections they are going to try to foist upon us,” Oxygène told the crowd. “There can be no free, fair, and sovereign elections unless Martelly resigns and the MINUSTAH leaves. The coming electoral fever is going to intoxicate and corrupt many people, making them ready to accept anything. But we must stand firm and not let them hand us another bogus election like that of 2011.” In 2011, Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS), and MINUSTAH intervened in Haiti’s sovereign elections to push out of the run-off Préval’s favored presidential candidate, Jude Céléstin, and replace him with former konpa singer and right-wing cheerleader Martelly, who eventually won the race. As the then OAS Ambassador to Haiti Ricardo Seitenfus later put it: “Washington and its allies didn’t just overrule Haiti’s electoral council; they overruled the Haitian electorate.” He called the pollings, held on Nov. 28, 2010 and Mar. 20, 2011, “an electoral coup.” Haitians, by and large, also saw this power-play but, still reeling from the earthquake, resigned themselves to it, generally saying: “Let’s see what Martelly can do.” What he did over the next three and a half years, since his May 14, 2011 inauguration, was establish a neo- Duvalierist regime whose hallmarks were blatant corruption, impunity, repression, intimidation, ineffectiveness, and waste, all smothered in the most shameless and expensive propaganda proclaiming everywhere that “Haiti is advancing.” Scheduled parliamentary and municipal elections were never held (although three carnivals annually were), resulting in Parliament’s expiration on Jan. 12. As demonstrations grew in size and frequency in the months leading up to the date, so did repression, swelling the next demonstration, and Haiti entered a political vicious circle. Martelly’s opposition has three principal currents which remain, until now, basically united. First, there is the Patriotic Movement of the Democratic Opposition (MOPOD), a coalition led mostly by traditional “political class” leaders like Turneb Delpé, Martelly’s 2011 challenger Mirlande Manigat, and former deputy Serge Jean-Louis. Then there is former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Family Political Organization, whose current nominal leader, Dr. Maryse Narcisse, most recently characterized the party as the “moderate opposition.” Finally, there is the Dessalinien current, which is composed of KOD and the Platform of Dessalines’ Children (PPD), led by former Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles. (MOPOD recently changed its “D” to signify Dessalines too.) The opposition-led nationwide uprising resulted in the Dec. 13 resignation of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe (Martelly’s long-time business partner) as well as the freeing of political prisoners, the replacement of a Martelly pawn who headed the Supreme Court, and the naming of a new electoral council. Despite these concessions, the weekly, and sometimes daily, demonstrations of thousands continue, although met by teargas, rubber bullets, and water cannon. Every concession the government is forced to make seems like a provocation given Haiti’s revolutionary mood. Just this week, on Feb. 2 and 3, general transport strikes paralyzed the country, leaving usually vehicle-choked streets eerily empty, with burning-tire barricades along major thoroughfares. Last week, a gallon of gas in Haiti still cost a government-fixed 215 gourdes ($4.58) per gallon while the U.S. average is $2 a gallon. On the night of Feb. 2, the government of Martelly’s new Prime Minister Evans Paul signed an agreement with transport unions lowering the gas price to 195 gourdes ($4.15) per gallon. But the deal has made the population hopping mad. “The strike was a complete success nationwide, the streets without cars everywhere, and all we got was a 43 cent reduction?” said one irate demonstrator. “That’s crazy. This is exactly why Martelly has to go.” Every week, another delegation of officials from North America or Europe arrives to bring their support to the embattled Martelly regime. At the end of January, it was the UN Security Council and the Club of Madrid which made threeday visits. It is no surprise that former Bolivian President and Club of Madrid Vice-President Jorge Quiroga, on leaving Haiti on Jan. 28, called on MINUSTAH to “strengthen its presence in Haiti” and invited the UN, OAS, and European Union to send an "on-site mission to observe the electoral process." Imperialist “observer” missions of this nature have intervened and screwed up Haitian elections in 2000, 2006, and 2011. “Haiti’s deliverance will not come from the so-called international community,” said Henriot Dorcent, another Dessalines Coordination leader. “In fact, Haiti’s deliverance from poverty, injustice, and political instability will only come when the Haitian people stop them from meddling in our internal affairs. That is what we in KOD, and most of the Haitian people, are fighting for today.” On Jan. 28, militants of MO- LEGHAF and the Movement of National Development (MODENA) held a picket line in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tabarre on the outskirts of the capital. It was the first of seven monthly anti-imperialist actions leading up to Jul. 28, 2015, the 100th anniversary of the first U.S. Marine occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. The demonstrators had great difficulty getting to the embassy, having to beg for and borrow even car fare to travel there. “Our struggle today is much like that of Jean-Jacques Dessalines two centuries ago or of [anti-occupation guerilla leader] Charlemagne Péralte fighting the Americans a century ago,” said Oxygène David. “The empire has put Martelly in power as a puppet to carry out their agenda and surrounded him with an occupation army for protection. But like our ancestors, we will continue fighting until both the puppet and his protectors are gone. This is the kind of determination the Haitian people have shown in the past, and it is the same determination we will show again today.” Vol. 8 • No. 30 • Du 4 au 10 Fevrier 2015 Haiti Liberté/Haitian Times 9
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Haiti Liberte 4 Fevrier 2015

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