[HaitiReport] Haiti Report for November 13, 2007
 
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:10:58 -0600 (CST)

Haiti Report for November 13, 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.

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IN THIS REPORT:
- Dominican Republic Officials Criticize UN Report on Racism
- Residents in Cite Soleil Accuse Authorities of Abandoning Them
After Noel
- Senator Boulos Faces Dismissal For Deceiving Authorities About
Citizenship
- World Bank Announces it Will Make $4 Million Immediately Available
- Gunshots Fired at Radio-Tele Ginen
- UN Peacekeepers Likely to Stay Several More Years
- Carrefour Slums Instead of Beaches
- Wyclef Jean Pledges to Support Young People
- Edwidge Danticat: Dont let new AIDS study scapegoat Haitians

Dominican Republic Officials Criticize UN Report on Racism:
Discrimination against Haitians and their descendants "only exists in
the minds of a few sick people" who wish to do the Dominican Republic
harm, said governing coalition legislator Josi Taveras in response to
a critical report by United Nations observers. Foreign Minister
Carlos Morales also "deplored" the report by U.N. experts, saying
their activities in the country had been "a prefabricated set-up,"
according to an official communiqui released in Santo Domingo on
Tuesday. The preliminary views of the U.N. experts on racism and
minority issues are that there is "a profound and entrenched problem
of racism and discrimination against such groups as Haitians,
Dominicans of Haitian descent, and more generally against blacks
within Dominican society." "While there is no legislation that is
clearly discriminatory on the face (of it), some laws have a
discriminatory impact, including those in regard to migration, civil
status and the granting of Dominican citizenship to persons of
Haitian heritage born in the Dominican Republic, the experts said in
a press release issued in Geneva. Taveras, however, rejected these
observations, and told IPS that "its impossible to get to know the
national reality in the few days that the U.N. delegation was here."
"There may be isolated cases, but discrimination is not a general
problem in this country," said Taveras, of the National Progressive
Force (FNP), an ultra-rightwing party allied to the governing
Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

Doudou Dihne of Senegal, U.N. special rapporteur on racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and Gay McDougall
from the United States, a U.N. independent expert on minority issues,
made a preliminary presentation on Monday of their impressions and
the data they had collected since their arrival in the Dominican
Republic at the invitation of the government on Oct. 23. Their final
report will be delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The experts goal was to gather first-hand information about possible
cases of segregation of and discrimination against Haitian
immigrants, which have been denounced repeatedly by local and
international human rights groups. Dihne and McDougall confirmed the
existence of arbitrary policies and practices, which are sometimes
applied retroactively. For instance, "young people who were born in
the Dominican Republic of Haitian parents spoke of their concerns
regarding their ability to attend university since they are unable to
obtain the required cedula (identity card)," they said. A circular
put out in March by the office of the civil registrar instructed
officials to closely examine birth certificates when issuing copies,
or any document relevant to civil status, in case they were issued
irregularly in the past to people with foreign parents who have not
proved their legal residency or status in the Dominican Republic.
This has led to low level functionaries questioning or confiscating
documents belonging to people of Haitian descent, the U.N. experts
found.

In August, the founder and leader of the Dominican-Haitian Womens
Movement (MUDHA), Sonia Pierre, accused the civil registry offices of
demanding that Dominicans of Haitian descent present their parents
documents in order to issue birth certificates. And in fact the FNP
asked registry officials to revoke Pierres Dominican citizenship, on
the pretext that her parents had not been legal residents when she
obtained it, in 1963. Pierres parents came to the Dominican Republic
in 1954 to work on the sugarcane plantations. After her case made
international headlines, the investigation into the legality of her
documents was called off. Racism and discrimination against Haitian
immigrants and their children or grandchildren born in the Dominican
Republic are frequent complaints, which have been taken up by local
and foreign non-governmental organisations.

Foreign Minister Morales, however, rejected the U.N. experts
observations outright. In his communiqui, he said that "the report
given by this lady and gentleman lacks solid evidence and appears to
echo the voices of those traitors who are only interested in taking
advantage of the situation." "We do not find it surprising that,
without being closely familiar with the situation in our country, the
rapporteurs were able to make their diagnosis in just a few brief
days, because we know what underlies this," he said. In his view,
"for a long time there have been unpatriotic Dominicans involved in
lucrative institutions who have been playing along with foreign
countries that compete with the Dominican Republic in sectors such as
tourism, trade and investment in different branches of the economy."
He stated that the government of the Dominican Republic would not
tolerate "anyone coming in from outside wanting to judge our laws and
our constitution. Our border with Haiti has its problems, this is our
reality and it must be understood. It is important not to confuse
national sovereignty with indifference, and not to confuse security
with xenophobia," he said. (IPS, 10/31)

Residents in Cite Soleil Accuse Authorities of Abandoning Them After
Noel:
Residents of a notorious Haitian slum lashed out at local authorities
Monday for abandoning them in the recovery from Tropical Storm Noel,
and said U.N. troops and Haitian officials failed to protect one
shelter from marauding gangs. Protesters blocked roads and burned
tires on the outskirts of the Cite
Soleil slum to demand the government clean up after Noel, whose heavy
rains and flooding killed 148 people in the Caribbean and left tens
of thousands
homeless. Evacuees who spent four days in the overcrowded National
School under U.N. protection said international troops abandoned the
school Friday,
leaving them defenseless against outside criminals who robbed them in
the dead of night. U.N. spokesmen said the shelter was turned over to
Haitian authorities shortly after sundown, and that Friday's incident
was a fight over food by evacuees who had not been fed until that
evening. Evacuees said Haitian authorities never arrived, that
attackers came from outside the shelter when they were left alone in
the dark without a generator. The Haitian civil protection department
did not return phone messages Monday. On Monday, the anger was
directed at Cite Soleil municipal officials, who protesters said were
pocketing aid for themselves and ignoring outlying areas hit hardest
by flooding. One group pumped their fists and shouted, "The mayor is
a liar!"    "In the state that the country is in now, the government
can't help us," said Joseph Bernard, a leader at a church sheltering
more than 400 people since Tuesday. "We're asking all the
international organizations to give us whatever aid they can." (AP,
11/5)

Senator Boulos Faces Dismissal For Deceiving Authorities About
Citizenship:
A U.S. citizen of Arab decent, who has been elected at Haiti s
senate, now faces dismissal and possible arrest after Haitian
officials found he had fraudulently obtained a Haitian passport and
allegedly made false statements before election authorities. Senator
Rudolph Boulos, who is part of one of the countrys wealthiest and
most powerful families, was born on April 28, 1951, in Manhattan ,
New York (USA), according to official documents of which copies have
been obtained by CMC. Those documents have shown that Boulos had been
using lately a U.S. passport, confirming that he has U.S. citizenship
 which disqualifies him to occupy a seat at the Haitian senate. But
he continues to claim he is Haitian. I have never renounced my
Haitian nationality, Boulos told reporters. I have been targeted
for political reasons, because I stand against a plan uttered by
certain authorities to restore a dictatorship in the country, he
said. But Haitian officials maintained Boulos  who is part of a
family with a long tradition of doing business in Haiti  is a U.S.
citizen and should leave Parliament. We have documented evidence
that Mr. Boulos is a U.S. citizen. Therefore he is not allowed to
seat at the Haitian senate, said a high-ranking government official
who spoke to CMC on condition of anonymity. 

"If Mr. Boulos does not give up the senate seat he has obtained
fraudulently, he runs the risk of being arrested and prosecuted, the
same authorized source told CMC. He still has time to choose. The
Haitian constitution provides any Haitian citizen who has obtained a
foreign citizenship loses the Haitian nationality and therefore is
banned from running for parliament offices and for president. In a
document signed by Boulos before immigration authorities, he admitted
that the Haitian passport he has obtained in August 31, 2005, was his
very first Haitian passport. But Boulos  who was born in Manhattan
( New York ) on April 28, 1951  had been living in Washington for
years and has gone on numerous trips during the past years. The
president of the senate, Joseph Lambert, said he was expecting
official notification of the fact from judicial and government
authorities before acting and has announced the senate would launch
its own investigation. If it is confirmed that senator Boulos
possess a U.S. passport, he will be simply dismissed, said Lambert
inviting Boulos to voluntarily resign if he really holds a U.S.
passport. (Caribbean Media Corp, 11/8)

World Bank Announces it Will Make $4 Million Immediately Available:
As thousands of Haitians remain homeless from Tropical Storm Noel,
the World Bank Wednesday announced that it's immediately making
available $4 million to the government of Haiti to assist in the
recovery effort. The funds are being redirected from ongoing projects
and also include a $7 million grant for long-term rehabilitation and
reconstruction. ''Bank staff are on the ground assessing the damage
jointly with the United Nations, the government and other
organizations, and discussing with authorities how best the bank can
support their recovery efforts,'' Pamela Cox, the World Bank's vice
president for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a press
release. ''As well as quick assistance to help those most in need
now, we are increasing support for Haiti in strengthening capacity to
mitigate and respond to disasters, to reduce the human, physical and
economic impact of future storms,'' Cox said. Haiti's civil
protection office is reporting that 10,226 individuals are homeless
and 18,712 people remain in shelters. Also, there are now 1,853
destroyed homes and 8,735 others are damaged. In addition to
infrastructure damages, major losses are being reported in
agriculture. Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard reported Wednesday that
since Thursday it has saved 59 lives in neighboring Dominican
Republic, assisted 22,175 lives, distributed 27,344 rations of food
and 72,940 rations of water. Tropical Storm Noel is responsible for
taking the lives of more than 83 Dominicans in neighboring Dominican
Republic since the storm made landfall on Oct. 31. (MIami Herald, 11/7)

Gunshots Fired at Radio-Tele Ginen:
Gunshots were fired at Radio-Tele Ginen (RTG) during the morning of
Tuesday, November 6, in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. The attack
injured a female street vendor who was subsequently hospitalized
according to RTG employees. A front-side window of one of RTG's
yellow jeeps lay shattered on asphalt in front of the station. RTG is
popular with both rich and poor in Haiti. The broadcaster is
respected in poor neighborhoods because it often gave a voice to the
residents of Lavalas strongholds while the de facto government of
2004-2006 was in power. Delmas Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of the
community in which RTG is located, visited the station after the
attack. He denounced the "bandits" responsible, but added that he did
not believe the attack was part of a campaign to muzzle the press.
However, he added that an investigation was being carried out to
determine if anything broadcast by RTG might have provoked violence.

The director of RTG, Jean Lucien Borges, stated that the attack was
typical of other attacks on journalists in Haiti. However, he could
not say what, if anything, broadcast by RTG had provoked the attack.
Asked what impact the attack would have on the morale of RTG
employees Borges replied by comparing RTG to a boat that takes to sea
regardless of the weather and "follows its compass" undaunted. RTG's
appeal across the political spectrum was apparent after the attack.
The station was visited by members of Fanmi Lavalas but also by
staunch Lavalas opponents such as RNDDH (Riseau National de Difense
des Droits Humains) and representatives of privately owned media.
Another group, Reporters Sans Frontihres (RSF), which has ignored
many deadly attacks on poor pro-Lavalas journalists, immediately
issued a statement about the attack on RTG.

The attack occurred on the heels of a recent spate of death threats
that Reuters journalist Joseph Guyler Delva has reported receiving.
Delva is also the director of SOS, a commission launched to
investigate the killings of journalists. Delva has suggested there
may be a link with the threats against him and Senator Rudolph
Boulos, a founding board member of the Haitian elite's lobbyist
organization in Washington D.C., the Haiti Democracy Project. Last
month Delva revealed on Radio Melodie FM that Senator Boulos holds US
citizenship and that according to Haiti's constitution it is illegal
for a Haitian senator to hold a foreign passport. Delva has also
revealed that Boulos, claiming senatorial immunity, has refused to
respond to questions of Judge Fritzner Fils-Aimi in regards to the
investigation into the killing of Haiti's most well known journalist
Jean Dominique of Haiti Inter. (Haitianalysis.com, 11/9)

UN Peacekeepers Likely to Stay Several More Years:
U.N. peacekeepers will likely remain in Haiti for several more years
because the troubled Caribbean country is not close to managing its
own security, the mission's new chief envoy said Thursday. Hedi
Annabi, in his first interview since assuming control of a 7,800-
member U.N. force and hundreds of international staff in Haiti, told
The Associated Press that the U.N. mission has made great strides,
but will not seek to leave the volatile country anytime soon. "The
security situation is extremely fragile. And if we were to downsize
dramatically there would be a vacuum that would be immediately
backfilled by the same people that were there when we got started,"
said Annabi, sitting in his office in the hills above Port-au-Prince.
When asked how long that might take, Annabi said: "You don't create a
security force, a police force, in two or three years. ... It takes
10, 15, 20 years."

Many Haitians have been calling on the U.N. force to foster
development in the country, but Annabi said Thursday that is not the
role of U.N. troops. "What we do is we create the environment in
which job creation, investment and economic reconstruction can take
place. We don't do it ourselves," Annabi said. The Tunisian diplomat
has already had his share of challenges since arriving in Haiti a
little more than a week ago. On Oct. 28, Tropical Storm Noel began
dumping water on an already rain-soaked country, killing at least 66
Haitians and creating thousands of refugees. With the government
unable to deal with the crisis, U.N. peacekeepers were dispatched to
set up shelters and manage the flow of displaced people. Annabi paid
a visit to one overcrowded shelter on Nov. 1 in the Port-au-Prince
slum of Cite Soleil. Evacuees who just moments before had been
cursing soldiers erupted into cheers and gathered around the
baldheaded, bespectacled man. That Annabi could even visit the slum
was considered a victory of sorts. Little more than a year ago, while
accompanying then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Annabi had to tour
the slum in an armored vehicle for fear of gang attacks.

Annabi also already had to deal with a sex scandal involving 108 Sri
Lankan peacekeepers and three commanders who were expelled amid
allegations that soldiers patronized underage prostitutes. He
expressed regret for the incident and said a probe is continuing.
Annabi comes to Haiti after nearly a decade as the U.N.'s assistant
secretary-general for peacekeeping operations. Though he visited the
Caribbean nation several times as part of his oversight role, he
acknowledges he is "not an expert on Haiti." "I learned during the
period when I dealt with Southeast Asia that you don't necessarily
become an expert even after 10 years," Annabi said. "The more you
learn, the more you discover there is more to learn." (AP, 11/9)

Carrefour Slums Instead of Beaches:
Carrefour is one of the most impoverished and populous districts of
Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. It is located several miles
from downtown Port-au-Prince, flanked on the west by the bay of La
Gonave and to the east by the bay of Hospital Mountain. Among
Carrefour's many slums Souray is the most impoverished, amazingly
given the wealth generating potential of its beaches. How did beaches
become slums? Massive migration from the countryside since the second
half of the 20th century has vastly outpaced the willingness and
capacity of the public and private sector to provide jobs, education
and housing. The poor quickly occupy the few abandoned buildings in
Carrefour. Squatters take up property on the beaches, as did those
who migrated to other poor communities such as Site Soley, Lasalin,
Site de Letenel and Site de Dye. Souray residents are often reduced
to using large rags to divide their shacks up into rooms. They
subsist as best they can. Old men gather excitingly to play dominos,
a popular past time amongst the poor.

Relentless population pressure forces people to use the sea as a dump
so that the slum can expand. Old men try to eke out a living by
fishing in the polluted sea. These fishermen have no technical or
economic assistance from the state Agriculture department. Women
often work as street vendors. They make a little money by selling
fish or fruit, barely enough to feed their own children. In Carrefour
the government has not provided them with a decent public market. It
has become common now for district police to arrest "informal"
merchants or illegally seize their merchandise, as the poor cannot
afford a legal vendor permit. The families of Carrefour often live on
less than one US dollar per day and suffer from malnutrition. The
lack of access to potable water and basic health care further
compounds the problem. Few can afford to attend school. With few
options young people are put at high risk of going into prostitution
and crime.

Carrefour and its slum of Souray sit obscenely close to the splendor
of Haiti's National Palace. Residents comment how their community has
barely ever benefited, as politicians, NGOs and businessmen pass
their community over. The government's police and UN soldiers seem
only to take notice when gang violence or popular protests erupt. To
tackle the increasing poverty and decay of urbanization on
communities like Souray, the answer lies in a revitalization of
Haiti's agricultural system. Haitian agriculture must be rescued from
further neoliberal "reforms" and the damage inflicted from previous
"reforms" must be repaired. Higher tariffs on foreign agricultural
products and an improved road network could help revitalize Haiti's
agricultural economy. Only a strong agricultural economy can halt the
influx of rural populations into urban slums like Souray. The
residents of Souray say that they do not want indiscriminate
assaults by UN soldiers and the police but instead a sane and
compassionate policy. (Haitianalysis.com, 11/12)

Wyclef Jean Pledges to Support Young People:
Rap star Wyclef Jean has pledged to support young people in Haiti
during his first visit since the country's president made him roving
ambassador. Speaking to the Associated Press, the star said he wanted
to "teach kids how to move the country forward".  The 35-year-old,
who was born in Haiti, said his charity Yele-Haiti would help finance
the youth projects. He aims to offer counselling for jailed child
gang members, plus football training and computer facilities.
Lobbying politicians: "If you want to change a country,
unfortunately, you're not going to be able to help eight million
people at one time," he said. "But if you can get one or two or three
and start to make that change, that will make the difference," he
added. Jean said his next step as ambassador would be to start
lobbying politicians in Washington to help promote development in
Haiti. "I'm always going to assist my country in the best way I can,"
he said. The singer gained fame as a member of the hip hop trio The
Fugees, who won Grammys in 1996 for their album The Score and single
Killing Me Softly. Haiti's government credits Jean with successfully
lobbying the US Congress for a "passage of a trade" bill expected to
help create textile manufacturing jobs in Haiti.  (BBC, 11/13)

Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean was given a hero's welcome in one of Haiti's
most destitute slums on Monday, riding the shoulders of his cheering
countrymen to the site of a small-business project he helped develop.
On his first trip to Haiti since being named a roving ambassador by
President Rene Preval in January, the musician met legislators and
accompanied Czech model Petra Nemcova to a school in the neighborhood
where he was born. Jean, who moved to Brooklyn as a young boy, then
changed into a pinstriped suit to ask a luncheon crowd of
businessmen, the U.N. envoy and nearly every major foreign ambassador
for aid. "We need all your money, we need all y'all's support, but
let's put it to programs ... that teach kids how to move the country
forward," Jean told dignitaries in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

In the port slum of Cite Soleil, Jean, who had success as a member of
the Grammy-winning group The Fugees and as a solo artist, was carried
along by a crowd of 1,000 people who yelled his name and danced past
bullet-scarred shacks. At one point, Jean bowed his head in silent
prayer. "I asked for benediction upon this place, for all these
kids," Jean told The Associated Press. Nemcova, who founded her own
charity after she was injured and her boyfriend killed in a
catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, joined Jean in visiting an
adjacent cooperative sponsored by Jean's charity group, Yele Haiti.
The cooperative restaurant  one of 10 planned for Port-au-Prince 
will employ 15 local women when it opens in December, selling meals
from about 70 cents to $1.40. (AP, 11/13)

Edwidge Danticat: Dont let new AIDS study scapegoat Haitians
A new study on the early path of the AIDS epidemic threatens to
stigmatize Haitians and Haitian-Americans once again. Late last
month, a group of researchers published a study that concluded that
the explosion of the AIDS pandemic in the United States resulted from
the virus first being brought from the Congo to Haiti around 1966 and
then to the United States after a single migration of the virus out
of Haiti in or around 1969. Now I am not a scientist and I dont
pretend to understand every detail of the research conducted by the
group, led by Michael Worobey of the department of ecology and
evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. (The study was
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.)
But prominent physicians argue that the groups conclusions are
highly debatable. And, by pinning the blame on a Haitian immigrant
host, they could have potentially devastating consequences.

Worobey and his colleagues based their study on the blood samples
taken from five Haitians in the early 1980s, patients who all
happened to have been treated by a collaborator in the study, Dr.
Arthur Pitchenik of the department of medicine at the University of
Miami. Dr. Pitchenik had collected and sent their blood samples to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The
Haitians blood samples were later compared with 117 other samples
from non-Haitians, and the Haitians appeared to have the oldest
strain outside of Africa. The scientific value of the research, we
are told, is  aside from historical curiosity  to help study
mutations for a potential AIDS vaccine, which would indeed be good
news for everyone. But one of the critical problems with the study is
how sweeping a conclusion it draws from research that involves such a
tiny group of people. This is very slender evidence on which to base
such a grand claim, Dr. Paul Farmer, a professor of medical
anthropology who has been fighting the AIDS epidemic in Haiti, told
the Miami Herald.

Whats more, the study places inordinate significance on its Haitian
immigrant host when other carriers are equally if not more
plausible. First of all, there were only a relatively small number of
Haitians working in the Congo, and of these, many chose not to return
to Haiti because it was under a brutal dictatorship at the time.
Second, there were plenty of missionaries, aid workers, Peace Corps
volunteers and revolutionaries returning from the Congo to the United
States and other parts of the world who also could have spread the
virus. Previous claims on the origins of the AIDS epidemic have
proven to be wrong, so we should look at the current one with a great
degree of caution. The hunter theory that blamed Africans for eating
bush meat, the vaccine theory that blamed scientists for making
guinea pigs out of millions of people, and the Patient Zero theory
that blamed one promiscuous Canadian flight attendant all
have for the most part been abandoned.

The problem with the Haitian hypothesis is that by the time it is
further elaborated, vetted, debated, clarified and scientifically
contested, the lives of thousands of people may be irrevocably
altered, just as they were in the early 1980s, when as the only high-
risk group identified by nationality, Haitians lost jobs, friends,
homes and the freedom to emigrate. At that time, a struggling Haitian
tourism industry was crushed. Children, including myself, were
taunted or beaten in school by their peers. One child shot himself in
a school cafeteria in shame. Haitians who tried to donate blood faced
a ban by the Food and Drug Administration, which eventually realized
that banning donors by nationality was not the answer as much as more
thorough screening of the entire blood supply. Already, in one public
discussion in Miami, a caller on a radio talk show jeered that all
Haitians should be kept out of the United States. The truth is, as
long as the pandemic exists, it is all of our problem, however it
started, whoever carried it, and whoever is now infected by it.
Stigmatizing Haitians will do nothing to solve that problem. (The
Progressive, 11/7)
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