[HaitiReport] Haiti Report for November 1, 2007
 
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 09:59:05 -0500 (CDT)

Haiti Report for November 1, 2007

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
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IN THIS REPORT:
- Preval's Proposed Constitutional Changes Spark Political Debate
- UN Experts Visit Dominican Republic to Assess Racism
- Maryse Narcisse, Second Lavalas Leader Kidnapped and Released;
Pierre-Antoine Still Missing
- Tropical Storm Noel Leaves Flooding, Mudslides and At Least 58 Dead
- Swiss Filmmaker Kidnapped and Freed
- Haiti Takes a Step Towards the Caribbean Community Single Market
and Economy
- UN Peacekeepers Give Aid to Mark United Nations Day
- OAS Calls for Improved Coordination of Aid Programs
- UN Peacekeepers Talk of Transition from Operative to Eminently
Preventative Mission
- Dominican and Venezuelan Governments to work on Border Highway
- Brazilian Defense Ministry Wants to Send More Troops to Haiti
- Report on Origin of AIDS for US Creates Controversy
- Federation of the Friends of Nature Statement in Wake of Dean

Preval's Proposed Constitutional Changes Spark Political Debate:
Elections for a third of the Haitian senate are delayed. Electoral
council members are under investigation. And President Reni Prival
has set off a firestorm by proposing a reform of the constitution.
After some 18 months of relative political calm, Haiti is in the
midst of a blistering and politically charged debate that's stirring
concerns of yet another plunge into political crisis. At stake is not
just the fragile coalition government that Prival has built since
taking office in May 2006, but his credibility as he struggles, with
the international community looking over his shoulder, to address
Haiti's vexing problems. ''This is a distraction that Haiti can ill
afford at this point,'' said one foreign diplomat who asked for
anonymity because of the polarizing nature of the debate.

The turbulence, slowly building for weeks, came to a head Oct. 17,
when Prival told Haiti's 8.5 million citizens that the 20-year-old
constitution is a ''source of instability'' that requires "profound
modifications.'' His declaration, coupled with a lack of specifics on
what parts of the constitution he wants to change, immediately
sparked complaints from opponents and even many supporters that
constitutional reform should not be a top priority at this time. Some
critics accuse Prival of ''manufacturing a crisis'' to divert
attention from his government's lack of progress in addressing
Haiti's grinding poverty, while others say he's seeking to gain
authoritarian rule.

''I am not interested in becoming president again after 2011,''
Prival told The Miami Herald, addressing for the first time
speculation that he wants to change the constitution to allow him to
seek a third presidential term. ``When I leave office on the seventh
of February 2011, I would like to leave a country [with] long-term
stability for long-term development.'' But he added that such
progress would be difficult under a constitution that bans back-to-
back presidential terms, allows parliament to fire the prime minister
and requires national elections every two years -- largely financed
with foreign aid. "Are we always going to the international community
[to seek funds], or are we going to change the constitution to say we
are going to have one election every five years, every six years?''
he said. ``I've asked the nation to reflect on certain aspects . . .
that I believe make the constitution an element of instability.''

Many Haitians say the very mention of reforms has created
instability, as evidenced by the intense political bickering and deep
distrust that re-emerged in recent days. ''This is not the climate to
have this kind of debate,'' said opposition leader Mirlande Manigat,
citing the fragility of Haiti's political and social environment.
"The government lacks credibility, and they will lose even more
credibility if they continue to pursue this.'' Manigat, an expert on
the constitution who even wrote a book a couple of years ago pleading
for reforms, said she has not changed her position on the need for
changes but that the country now faces more pressing problems. ''What
causes political stability in a country? It's when people see a bunch
of problems and they see no solution for them. Dissatisfaction,
frustration. That is what exists right now,'' Manigat said. ``I hope
there will not be a social explosion in this country because of . . .
the degree to which misery exists.''

Prival argues that the constitution, adopted after the collapse of
the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship, focused too much on checks
on power to make sure no new tyranny would arise, is too bureaucratic
and expensive to maintain and has never been fully implemented. ''In
20 years, we've never had political stability because we were always
fighting against the dictator,'' Prival said, sitting in the east
wing of the presidential palace overlooking the Champ de Mars plaza.
"Today, we are creating a government where there is representation by
everyone in the parliament, and this has provided political
stability. But this political stability has to continue.'' In recent
days, Prival has been quietly meeting with political and business
leaders to discuss the reform effort. But many Haitian distrust him,
recalling his first presidential term, 1996-2001, when a dispute over
elections led him to effectively close down parliament.

Adding to the turbulence has been Prival's recent proposals to
dissolve the current Provisional Electoral Council, known as CEP,
amid allegations of corruptions and delays in two critical
elections.  Prival says he wants to replace the CEP with a new nine-
member board better capable of guaranteeing the neutrality of
elections. Critics say Prival should simply follow the current
constitution, which lays out the procedure for creating an electoral
council. But that process first requires the election of a group of
county government-like officials -- a layer of government mandated by
the constitution. Prival supporters say he opposes the new layer
because it would add hundreds more to the government's payroll and 10
new posts to his cabinet. Also fueling the political tensions is the
lack of a date for elections to replace 11 senators, whose terms
expire Jan. 14. The elections were due Nov. 25, and Prival has shown
little interest in pushing the issue.

The president's critics say maintaining the constitutionally required
schedule for elections, as expensive and frequent as they are, is
critical to the rebuilding of democracy here.  Though in public
foreign diplomats are staying out of the fray, privately they are
very concerned. ''Since 1804, no government in place in 200 years of
independence did amend or change the constitution to serve the
community,'' said Georges Michel, a historian and one of the 59
framers of the current Haitian Constitution, which was modeled after
Belgium and intentionally written to keep dictators at bay. ''If
President Prival is not stopped in this venture, he's going to put
the whole process in jeopardy and even his own presidency in
jeopardy,'' added Michel, who has vowed to protect the constitution.
``If he makes a
maneuver of force on the constitution he will have an uprising
against him . . . and they will invest all energy and resources to
overthrow him and expel him from power like they did [former
President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide. I do not want this to happen. Reni
Prival has been my friend for 30 years, and I want to save my friend
Reni from himself.'' (Miami Herald, 11/1)

UN Experts Visit Dominican Republic to Assess Racism:
Gay McDougall, who is visiting the Dominican Republic to verify the
existence or non-existence of racism in the country has told the
press that she was surprised at yesterday's Senate resolution
describing her visit here as part of an international conspiracy
against the Dominican Republic. She and her colleague, Senegalese
Doudou Diene, explained that they were not UN officials, as had been
reported in the press, and said that they were independent
professionals chosen by the UN Committee on Human Rights to study the
racial problem in the DR. McDougall is a former executive director of
the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington, D.C. She was
a judge in the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award that honored Sonia
Pierre for her activism in favor of improving life for Haitians in
the Dominican Republic. In an online press release from the RFK at
the time, she stated her position: "The level of violence against
Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic is
alarming', said Gay McDougall, RFK Human Rights Award Judge and UN
independent expert on minority issues. 'At a time when even second
and third generation ethnic Haitians are targets of brutal human
rights abuses, Sonia Pierre has risen as the most profound leader in
the nation's movement for minority rights.'" (DR Daily News, 10/26)

Two United Nations experts says racism is a "profound and entrenched"
problem in the Dominican Republic, triggering denunciations by the
government of a conspiracy to defame the country. The UN experts on
racism and minorities said in a preliminary report after a week-long
visit to the Caribbean country that they had found no official
government policy of discrimination. "There is nevertheless a
profound and entrenched problem of racism and discrimination against
such groups as Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent and more
generally against blacks in Dominican society," they said. Faced with
grinding poverty, environmental devastation and widespread
unemployment, up to a million Haitians are believed to have crossed
illicitly into the neighbouring and far more prosperous Dominican
Republic in search of work. The two countries share the Caribbean
island of Hispaniola.

Doudou Diene, the UN Special Rapporteur on racism and related
intolerance, and Gay McDougall, the UN Independent Expert on minority
issues, said the cultural depth of racism in the hemisphere, the
Haitian occupation and racism under Trujillo all contributed. "This
legacy remains today and helps to perpetuate negative and racist
perceptions of Haitians, those of Haitian descent, and more generally
against blacks in Dominican society," they said in their findings,
which will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council. Dominican
Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso called the report a set-up,
saying it reflected the views of "traitors" who had a financial
interest in pushing the view abroad of the Dominican Republic as
racist. He also indicated the envoys had misunderstood the Dominican
Republic's relations with impoverished Haiti. "Our border with Haiti
has its own problems, is part of our reality and must be understood,"
Morales Troncoso said. "It's important not to confuse national
sovereignty with indifference and not to confuse security with
xenophobia." (Reuters, 10/31)

Maryse Narcisse, Second Lavalas Leader Kidnapped and Released; Pierre-
Antoine Still Missing:
An official with ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas
political movement was abducted at gunpoint Saturday, October 27,
2007. Dr. Maryse Narcisse acted as spokesperson for exiled President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and belongs to the five-member Executive
Committee for Fanmi Lavalas. She was taken at gunpoint in front of
her home in the area of Petion-Ville in Haiti's capital early
Saturday evening. Narcisse is the second high-profile figure of the
Lavalas movement abducted in the past three months. Lovinsky Pierre-
Antoine was last seen on the evening of Sunday, August 12, 2007 after
meeting with a US human rights delegation visiting Haiti. He has not
been heard from since. Mr. Pierre-Antoine had announced his intention
to file as a Lavalas candidate for the next round of parliamentary
elections in Haiti. Recent abductions have led to fear among Lavalas
supporters that a campaign targeting their leadership has begun as
they continue to organize for an upcoming convention to be held on
December 16 in Port au Prince. That date commemorates the 17-year
anniversary of Aristide's first election to Haiti's presidency in Dec.
1990. (Haiti Information Project, 10/29)

The spokeswoman of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi
Lavalas party has been kidnapped, Haitian police confirmed Tuesday.
Maryse Narcisse and an unidentified man traveling with her
disappeared late Saturday, national police spokesman Frantz Lerebours
said. No further details were available. It is the second recent
kidnapping involving a Lavalas official. High-profile activist
Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, who had received threats because of his ties
to Aristide, disappeared more than two months ago. Police said they
have no leads in that case. Aristide was toppled in a 2004 revolt and
now lives in South Africa. (AP, 10/30)

An official with ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas
political movement was released this morning after being held for
three days by unknown captors. Dr. M aryse Narcisse was taken at
gunpoint on Saturday from in front of her home and was the second
high-profile figure of the Lavalas movement abducted in the past
three months. Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine was last seen on the
evening of August 12 after meeting with a US human rights delegation
visiting Haiti. He was abducted following his announcement of his
intention to file as a Lavalas candidate in the next round of
parliamentary elections in Haiti. He has not been heard from since.
(Haiti Information Project, 10/31)

Tropical Storm Noel Leaves Flooding, Mudslides and At Least 58 Dead:
Tropical Storm Noel lashed Haiti with heavy rains early Monday as it
moved across the impoverished Caribbean nation, generating fears of
flash flooding on deforested hills often blanketed by rows of flimsy
shacks. Noel, the 14th named storm of the Atlantic season, was
expected to drop as much as 20 inches of rain on Haiti and the
Dominican Republic which share the island of Hispaniola before
heading on a path east of Cuba toward the Bahamas. The storm weakened
overnight as it encountered Hispaniola's mountainous terrain but
still poses a serious threat to Haiti, which is recovering from
floods that killed at least 37 and sent more than 4,000 people to
shelters earlier this month. Noel had sustained winds of about 45 mph
and is expected to move over or near Haiti's western coast Monday,
according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. At 8 a.m.
EDT, Noel's poorly organized center was located near the Haitian
capital of Port-au-Prince, forecasters said.

Dominican authorities said at least 600 people had been evacuated as
the storm touched off landslides, flooded rivers and pushed storm
surges onto Santo Domingo's seaside boulevard. Swollen rivers also
forced evacuations in Cabaret, a town north of Port-au-Prince where
floods killed at least 23 people earlier this month, said Marie Alta
Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's civil protection agency. "We are
working hard to make sure everything goes well and that every citizen
knows a cyclone is coming," Jean-Baptiste said Sunday. It could take
days for Haitian authorities to learn of flooding in some parts of
the country, where communications are limited. (AP, 10/29)

The tail end of Tropical Storm Noel triggered mudslides and floods in
the Dominican Republic and Haiti as the death toll rose to 60 on
Wednesday  deadlier than all but one Atlantic hurricane this season.
The slow-moving storm lurched out of Cuba and stalled over the
Atlantic, but was projected to skirt Florida and batter the Bahamas,
the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. With rain still falling two
days after the storm hit, rescuers were struggling to reach
communities cut off by flooding on the island of Hispaniola. As they
did, they found a rising toll of death and damage  at least 41 dead
in the Dominican Republic, 18 in Haiti and one in Jamaica. At least
50,500 Dominicans fled their homes, 12,000 of which were damaged,
said Luis Antonio Luna, head of the Emergencies Commission. Flooding
also forced the evacuation of about 1,000 prisoners from a prison
north of the Dominican capital. Luna said officials were trying to
reach dozens of isolated communities, but bad weather, a lack of
helicopters and damage to bridges and highways slowed rescue efforts.

In neighboring Haiti, floods rushed through houses in the Cite Soleil
slum, carrying away a 3-year-old boy as relatives frantically shouted
for help and tried unsuccessfully to reach him through the muddy,
debris-filled water. Two people were killed when their house
collapsed in a mudslide in the hillside suburb of Petionville, and at
least three others died in Jacmel, where officials said 150 people
were trapped on rooftops awaiting aid. Some Haitian shelters were
overwhelmed by evacuees. One in Cite Soleil, guarded by U.N. troops,
had one blanket for every two people. Noel is the deadliest Caribbean
storm since Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Haiti in 2004, killing 1,500
people and triggering widespread flooding and mudslides before it
became a hurricane. An additional 900 people were reported missing
and presumed dead. (AP, 10/30)

The death toll from Tropical Storm Noel's rampage through the
Caribbean rose to at least 59 on Wednesday as torrents of water swept
away entire families in the Dominican Republic. Floods forced people
to climb onto their roofs or to perch on trees in affected areas of
the Dominican Republic, where at least 41 people were killed and
another 38 were reported missing. In one neighborhood of Santo
Domingo, entire houses disappeared under the flood waters. Noel
barreled across the Dominican Republic on Sunday, and slammed Haiti
the next day. On Wednesday, Noel's sequels continued to wreak havoc
over Hispaniola, the island the two countries share, as the storm
moved across Cuba, emerged in the Atlantic Ocean and targeted the
Bahamas. "The situation is still dangerous and the number of deaths
could rise," said Luis Luna Palino, who heads the Dominican
Republic's National Emergencies Center (CNE). "Rescuing people is
becoming difficult because the rains are continuing," Palino told
local radio, adding that floods had cut off 39 communities in the
south of the country, where one third of the population was left
without power. "The worst of the situation is the flooding of
rivers," he said. More than 25,500 people fled their homes, over
6,000 homes were damaged, and 10 bridges collapsed, authorities said.
Dominican President Leonel Fernandez announced a three million dollar
relief package for storm victims.

In Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican
Republic, there were at least 18 storm-related deaths, including a 14-
year old girl and her mother killed when an uprooted tree crushed
their house in the capital. Heavy rains swept away and destroyed
homes in three departments, said Marie Alta Jean Baptiste, head of
the country's civil protection agency. Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-
Edouard Alexis said 1.5 million dollars had been set aside to assist
storm victims.

In Cuba, where some 9,000 people were evacuated, dozens of homes were
damaged or destroyed, and floods cut off several areas. Local radio
reported that numerous coffee fields were under water. The Cuban
Institute of Meteorology warned that much of the soil along Noel's
path was already saturated from previous heavy rainfall, and urged
residents be on the lookout for flooding. Authorities feared further
floods and mudslides as the storm drenched Caribbean nations already
soaked by weeks of steady rains. "These rains ... especially in
Hispaniola and Cuba, are expected to cause life-threatening floods
and mudslides," said forecaster James Franklin, of the Miami-based
National Hurricane Center. (AFP, 10/30)

Swiss Filmmaker Kidnapped and Freed:
Swiss filmmaker Thomas Noreille was freed by his abductors in Haiti
on Monday, nine days after he was kidnapped, the Swiss Foreign
Ministry said. Noreille, who has made a number of documentary films
about Haiti, is in good health and has been in touch with his family,
officials said. It was unclear whether a ransom had been paid.
Noreille was taken Oct. 20 by three gunmen while driving with a
Haitian woman in Petionville, a relatively wealthy district in the
hills east of Port-au-Prince that is home to many foreigners and
diplomats. Relatives had received a ransom demand for an undisclosed
amount, officials said in Haiti. Haitian authorities detained at
least seven people for questioning in the case, including the woman
who was with him at the time of his abduction, police said. Foreign
Ministry officials declined to go into any details about the release
on grounds that they did not want to jeopardize the investigation.
Ministry spokesman Jean-Philippe Jeannerat said only that the release
of Noreille was not as a result of a police operation. But the
ministry expressed its appreciation for the work of Haitian
officials. (AP, 10/29)

Haiti Takes a Step Towards the Caribbean Community Single Market and
Economy:
Haiti has ratified the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, moving the
former French colony one step closer to participating in the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSM),
CARICOM Secretary General Edwin Carrington said here on Tuesday.
Carrington told reporters that the Haitian Parliament had ratified
the revised treaty and it would now require a period of 90 days
before it is deposited at the CARICOM Secretariat. "We obviously have
to mount not one but maybe several field missions into Haiti to
discuss with them now the various aspects of the implementation
process," Carrington said. Haiti's accession to the CSME was halted
due to the political upheaval and the eventual ousting from power of
then president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, in late February, 2004.
(Jamaica Gleaner, 10/25)

UN Peacekeepers Give Aid to Mark United Nations Day:
UN peacekeepers gave medical checkups and passed out food at schools
and orphanages across this impoverished Caribbean nation to mark
United Nations Day on Wednesday. About a dozen events were scheduled
in poor districts of the Haitian countryside and the capital of Port-
au-Prince, where soldiers and police from the 9,000-member UN
peacekeeping force were scheduled to show films and distribute sports
equipment. Brazilian soldiers handed out small bags of food at an
orphanage in the seaside slum of Cite Soleil, while 200 people waited
at a school and orphanage in the neighborhood of Tabarre to see
doctors from the Nepalese Army. Bernadette Valdemont, 33, cradled her
toddler, Vansen, who was crying after three days of fever. ``I hadn't
taken him to a doctor yet. Lucky for us this was happening today,''
she said. Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, has hosted a
multinational UN force since riots followed the ouster of former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. The U.N. Security Council
voted unanimously this month to extend the troops mission in Haiti
through at least October 2008. (AP, 10/25)

OAS Calls for Improved Coordination of Aid Programs:
The Organization of American States (OAS) and nine Latin American
countries have called on the international community to improve
coordination in their aid programs for Haiti and not to let down
their guard, so that the progress achieved by president Reni Privals
government is not lost. Representatives of the governments of
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru
and Uruguay, all of which contribute troops to the United Nations
peacekeeping force in Haiti (Minustah) met in Buenos Aires to study
ways in which aid for Haiti could be made most effective. In his
opening address, Argentinas foreign Minister Jorge Taiana listed all
the areas where Haiti is undergoing progress in politics, economics
and security, stressing the need for the international community to
contribute to this process by honoring its commitments. Aid for
Haiti presents a dual challenge: allow for effective spending of
resources committed and supporting the government with the aim of
ensuring that funding support may be absorbed by its executing
government agencies, he added. (Dominican Today, 10/27)

UN Peacekeepers Talk of Transition from Operative to Eminently
Preventative Mission:
NIGHT WAS closing in on the squalid streets of Cite Soleil as two
white armoured tanks carrying members of the Brazilian army's Seventh
Infantry Division rolled into Port-au-Prince's most notorious
shantytown. Through the green and black haze of their night vision
goggles the soldiers squinted out at their surroundings: crumbling
shacks with gaping holes gouged out of them by automatic gunfire;
stray dogs picking at foetid mounds of rubbish; the occasional
kerosene fire flickering eerily in the darkness. A year ago this
desolate setting might also have been accompanied by the crackle of
gunfire. But tonight the streets were silent. "They haven't shot at
us since March," boasted Colonel Carlos Jorge, a hulking army veteran
from the south of Brazil.

Until a year ago, UN peacekeepers such as Jorge were fighting street-
to-street battles against heavily armed gangs in Haiti's capital. Now
they talk of the end of an "operative" phase and the beginning of an
"eminently preventative" one, meaning that, for now at least, the
storm of violence is easing. "We can't say that the violence problem
is completely resolved," cautioned Ricardo Pilar, the commander of
the Brazilian marines in Port-au-Prince. "There are still some
focuses of violence to eliminate. But Haiti is moving forward
slowly."  But now, more than three years on, the Brazilians claim to
have achieved a "pacification", however fragile.

An abandoned market at the heart of Cite Soleil that once served as a
hideout for local gangsters has been transformed into a UN
stronghold, circled by barbed wire and peace-keepers armed with Para-
Fal assault rifles. In the nearby slum of Bois Neuf, a former
kidnapping den has become a UN base. Haiti also has a new president -
Rene Preval, who was elected in February 2006 pledging to rid his
country of the label "failed state" and now claims to be doing
exactly that. The question is how long can the "pacification" last?
Robert Montenald, a 32-year-old social worker from Bel-Air, said that
unless fundamental problems such as health care, unemployment and
education were addressed, the peace was unlikely to last.

At Camp Charlie, the largest Brazilian military base in Haiti's
capital, the only certainty most soldiers have is the number of days
until they return home. Few are optimistic about the long-term future
of the country they will leave behind. "Those people who shot at us
are still out there," said Colonel Julio Cesar de Sales, who commands
the seventh contingent of Brazilian troops. "They don't shoot because
there is no need. But if the reconstruction does not come, I really
don't know what might happen."  (Sunday Herald, 10/30)

Dominican and Venezuelan Governments to work on Border Highway:
The Dominican and Venezuelan governments agreed to seek a definitive
solution to the problems of the International Highway that spans most
of the border with Haiti, bolster the border crossings and expand
health programs to control tropical diseases. Border council
ambassador Radhames Batista said initiatives develop the Dominican-
Haiti border were drafted during a meeting held today, which needs
only the signature of Foreign Relations minister Carlos Morales. He
said the Congress is ready to draft legislation to regulate the
development the zone along the countrys border, including
allocations, and the creation of a Ministry of Borders, to manage the
resources and follow up the projects being carried out. Batista said
the International Highway, which spans the country from north to
south, sparks trade and cultural exchange between the countrys
western provinces. (Dominican Today, 10/26)

Brazilian Defense Ministry Wants to Send More Troops to Haiti:
Brazil should send more troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission that
it leads in Haiti to help with the country's reconstruction, the
Brazilian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. The 9,000-strong force
in the Caribbean state includes some 1,200 Brazilians. Earlier this
month, the United Nations extended the mission's mandate by a year.
"My position is that the Brazilian personnel in Haiti has to be
increased to work for reconstruction," Nelson Jobim told a
Congressional commission on foreign relations and defense. Military
construction and engineering experts now in Haiti were "absolutely
essential" for developing Haiti's infrastructure, he said. Jobim did
not say how many additional troops the ministry proposed to send.
Brazil's ambassador to Haiti said earlier this month the force should
change its priorities to focus less on security and more on helping
development. Haiti has been relatively stable in recent months
following more than two years of political and gang violence before
and after the fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president
ousted in a rebellion in February 2004. (Reuters, 10/31)

Report on Origin of AIDS for US Creates Controversy:
A new scientific finding that AIDS came to the United States from
Africa via Haiti, probably arriving in Miami as early as 1969, stoked
controversy among researchers and Haitians on Tuesday -- reopening
deep wounds over the medical community's role in perpetuating a
stigma against people from the island. Published in this week's
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study aims to
better explain the origin of AIDS, whose history involves a virus
with a sketchy story line that began in Africa in the 1930s and
emerged in Los Angeles in 1981. The findings were based, in part, on
blood samples taken from about 20 Haitian patients at Jackson
Memorial Hospital as early as 1979. The samples were frozen, stored
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and
reanalyzed by the study's authors, including a researcher at the
University of Miami.

''We were seeing patients at Jackson Memorial with what we now call
AIDS, and at the time we didn't even know it,'' said Dr. Arthur
Pitchenik, co-author of the study and a professor of medicine at the
University of Miami Medical School. ``I started seeing Haitian
immigrant patients with TB. They would get better from the TB only to
die three to six months later from what we now call AIDS.'' Dr.
Michael Gottlieb, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the
University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the original
discoverers of AIDS, said the analysis placed the HIV virus that
causes it in the United States nearly a decade earlier than
previously believed. ''It's pretty clear evidence for Haiti as a
stepping-stone,'' he said. ``The suggestion that the infection was
further below our radar than I'd previously suspected is kind of
unnerving.'' ''This is very credible work,'' added Dr. Margaret
Fischl, a pioneering UM AIDS researcher. ``Their approach is the way
it should be done. Some of my colleagues think this is really
remarkable work.''

The findings drew immediate anger from Miami's Haitian community and
raised concerns among some AIDS scientists, as well. ''People are
going crazy,'' said Dr. Laurinus Pierre, executive director of the
Center for Haitian Studies in Little Haiti. Pierre said he has fought
stigmas against Haitians from the first days of AIDS, in which
researchers blamed the epidemic on the ''Four Hs'' -- homosexuals,
Haitians, hemophiliacs and heroin addicts. In February 1990, the Food
and Drug Administration barred Haitians from donating blood in the
United States, a policy that ignited scores of protests and highly
publicized boycotts of blood drives. By December 1990, the FDA had
scrapped its policy and developed a more rigorous screening of all
blood donors. To many, the policy pushed an already taboo subject in
the Haitian community deeper in the shadows and discouraged many from
seeking treatment, a phenomenon some say the latest findings could
cause to happen again.

''This does a disservice to the Haitian community, who feel like they
already went through this 20 years ago,'' said Dr. Paul Farmer,
professor of medical anthropology at Harvard University and a founder
of Partners in Health, an international research and aid organization
active in fighting AIDS in Haiti. ``This is very slender evidence on
which to base such a grand claim.'' ''I don't think this is very
helpful,'' said Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, a professor of medicine at the
Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York. ``People
love to play history, and it would be great to figure out who Patient
Zero was. But there are doubts.''

The study's lead author, Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona
evolutionary biologist, defended his methodology Tuesday and denied
any disservice to the Haitian community. Worobey and his co-authors
analyzed the frozen blood samples from about 20 of Pitchenik's
Haitian patients at Jackson from the late '70s and early '80s. They
set up a medical timeline that they say indicates the HIV virus
arrived in Haiti in 1966 and in Miami by 1969. Worobey said he
estimated the timing of the virus' arrival by taking samples of the
virus from the late 1970s to 2000. By knowing the rate at which the
viruses mutate, he said he was able to create a picture of what the
virus looked like in 1969. And by comparing viruses from the United
States and Haiti during this time, he could deduce when the virus
arrived in the States. ''It's a common technique used in genetic
analysis and human evolution,'' Worobey said Tuesday.

The study concludes that AIDS arrived in Haiti after Haitians went to
the Democratic Republic of Congo as workers after that country won
independence in 1960. It debunks the original ''Patient Zero'' theory
that said the HIV virus came to Los Angeles via a gay Canadian flight
attendant named Gaetan Dugas. That theory was created by Dr. William
Darrow and others at the CDC and turned into the 1987 book /And the
Band Played On/, by journalist Randy Shilts. Darrow later repudiated
his own study. Pitchenik said he realized this week's study would be
controversial in the Haitian community. ''I want to stress that this
has nothing to do with race or sex or color of skin, and we should
not stigmatize any particular group,'' he said. "It's not whether
you're Haitian or homosexual. It's the high-risk behavior you engage
in. Whether you have unprotected sex, whether you're a drug user
sharing needles.'' In Haiti, where 6 percent of the population was
HIV-infected in 2003, the situation has improved, with HIV rates
dropping to 2 percent by 2006, the CDC says. (Miami Herald, 10/31)

The Empire State Medical Association is highly concerned about the
claims by Michael Worobey  that "AIDS virus invaded the United States
in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected
immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic
epidemic". We reject the comments that "researchers think an unknown
single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami
or New York, and the virus circulated for years -- first in the U.S.
population and then to other nations." Gilbert and Worobey, analyzed
samples from only five of these Haitian immigrants dating from 1982
and 1983. They also looked at genetic data from 117 more early AIDS
patients from around the world. This genetic analysis allowed them to
calibrate the molecular clock of the strain of HIV that has spread
most widely, and calculated when it arrived first in Haiti from
Africa and then in the United States. The researchers virtually ruled
out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States
from Africa, setting a 99.8 percent probability that Haiti was the
steppingstone.

For Haiti, the history of HIV/AIDS represents stigma, discrimination,
and racism.  In 1982, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) incorrectly inferred that Haitians were at increased for
acquiring HIV as a racial group (1).  HIV/AIDS therefore became known
as the "4H Disease", affecting homosexuals, heroin addicts,
hemophiliacs, and Haitians.   This resulted in unprecedented national
stigmatization and devastating economic, social, and psychological
consequences, decimating the tourist industry in this island nation.
As reported at the time: "Haiti has been made an international pariah
by AIDS.  Boycotted by tourists and investors, it has lost millions
of dollars and thousands of jobs at a time when half the work force
is jobless.  Even exports are being shunned by some (2)."  In 1985,
when it became clear that Haitians share the same risk factors as
other groups, the CDC dropped the Haitian association, but it was too
late.   HIV and Haiti were inextricably linked in the minds of the
general public. Haiti's economy has never recovered.

Gilbert et al once again link HIV and Haiti, stating: "Subtype B
likely moved from Africa to Haiti in or around 1966" and then on to
the U.S.  Their entire hypothesis is based on virus isolated from
five Haitian-Americans who were living in Miami in 1982-83.  No other
information is provided except that they "entered the U.S. after 1975
and progressed to AIDS by 1981 and hence were presumably infected
with HIV-1 before entering the U.S."  A host of questions remain.
What were their risk activities? Where had they traveled?   Did they
have sex with Americans in Haiti?  We do know that the average time
of progression of HIV infection to AIDS and to death in the pre-ART
era was 4.5 and 7.4 years, respectively  - these intervals are
consistent with the five subjects acquiring the infection in the U.S,
which limits the validity of their findings (3).  The authors go on
to state: "The HIV-1 epidemic in Haiti exhibits a greater range of
viral genetic diversity that the rest of the world's subtype B
combined".  The authors have not studied the virus in Haiti.  Where
are the data to support this claim? They also state that their aim is
to combine phylogenetic, molecular evolutionary, historical, and
epidemiological perspectives in an attempt to reconstruct the history
of the subtype B pandemic. However, epidemiology studies conducted in
Haiti do not support the author's hypothesis.  If the virus was in
circulation in Haiti since 1966, there would not have been a much
higher male: female ratio in the early years of the epidemic (80% of
the first Haitian patients were male in the early 1980's) which
rapidly generalized as they spread the virus to their female partners
(4,5).  In addition, reviews of large samples of banked blood from
the 1970's failed to yield a single case of HIV and thousands of
autopsies did not diagnose an AIDS defining illness until 1978 (6).
Furthermore, only one case of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) was noted by
Haitian dermatologists prior to 1979 (7). KS is easily recognizable
and it would not have been missed by Haitian dermatologists for over
a decade. Haiti has overcome enormous obstacles and mounted one of
the world's most successful responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Yet,
the authors restate prejudices advanced two decades ago in the
publication of Pitchenik et al (8): "Haitians in Haiti and elsewhere
are at risk of AIDS".  People of all ethnicities in every country are
at risk.  Scientists need to be very responsible in their assertions,
lest they do great harm. (Empire State Medical Association Denounces
Incomplete Research Claims made
by Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Worobey on "HIV Coming from
Haiti" (www.nyesma.org)

Federation of the Friends of Nature Statement in Wake of Dean:
How many deaths, how many disappeared must the nation endure every
rainy season, every time there is a natural calamity before it faces
reality? " Haiti was spared:" this statement, quoted in the
international media in the morning of August 19, 2007, following the
passage of Hurricane Dean, demonstrates the concern of "others" given
Haiti's vulnerability to bad weather resulting from the degradation
of its environment. If Hurricane Dean, a strength 4 hurricane, had
hit our country harder, the loss in human life and property would
have reached unthinkable levels. The rains of recent days have
impacted practically the whole nation. Yet, we are talking about low
pressure systems that affected most of the Caribbean islands. Have
our neighbors experienced as many deaths?

Our country, given its geographical position, must confront,
practically during 5 months of every year, a hurricane season in
addition to seasonal rains whose impact is more and more destructive
and deadly. To reduce our vulnerability will require that adequate
and permanent financial, material and human resources be put in place
within the context of a declaration of a state of emergency on behalf
of the environment. It is commendable that there be good state
performance in terms of the state reacting to disasters and
rehabilitating affected areas. Such interventions are, however,
punctual and reactive. It is absolutely essential today that the
stress be put on prevention, involving permanent activities that will
guarantee a genuine and sustainable development, one of the main
features of which will be precisely the reduction of risk factors
associated with natural catastrophes.

The Republic of Port-au-Prince had already forgotten Hurricane Dean
and within a few days we and the others perhaps will forget the
floods of late September and early October 2007. Let us not wait for
our capital -- made up today of more than 50% slums -- to be hit head
on by a hurricane, a torrential rain, an earthquake, or whatever
calamity with the potential to produce great material destruction and
losses in human life, to implement this declaration of a state of
emergency. Global warming is now complicating our local and regional
challenges. After 20 years of requests it is essential to rethink
this declaration of a state of emergency and to implement it while
taking into account the lessons learned.

In recent years crucial issues --including territorial management,
zoning, delimitation and  effective surveillance of protected areas,
city planning, cadaster, land reform, energy policy, demographic
growth, etc.-- have for all practical purposes been ignored,
neglected or poorly managed by the powers that be. We cannot continue
to treat such issues of national importance in a manner that is
virtual, emotional, or as taboo subjects left to the care of
"others." They must be dealt with without delay in order to take the
decisions that national interest dictates. The PAE (Environmental
National Action Plan) of 1998 was a good first step that incorporated
sound ideas. Eleven years have  elapsed since.

Much of that thinking is still valid. The time has come to implement
these ideas. The time has arrived to come up with consensual
decisions and to act in order to pass on a livable patrimony to
future generations. Haitians here and abroad must not repeat the same
hesitations and errors of the last 20 years. If "others"  do not
concern themselves with our environment, what sector among us will
take the correct initiatives? The executive branch, the legislature,
the judiciary or civil society?

We must all pitch in!
Federation des amis de la nature (FAN), Port-au-Prince, October 2007,
E-mail:fanhaiti@yahoo com (Le Matin, 10/23, Translated by Max Blanchet)
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