Haiti
Haiti Report for March 31, 2009 (Melinda Miles)
Haiti Report for March 31, 2009
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.
IN THIS REPORT:
- Canada to Strengthen Vocational Training Center in PAP
- US Officials Inaugurate New Police Station in Cite Soleil
- Former President Clinton Sees Hope in Haiti
- Haitian Police to be UN Peacekeepers in Chad
- Dangers of Giving Birth in Haiti
- Former CEO of Haiti's National Pension Fund Arrested
- According to UN Mission, Poverty Undermines Security in Haiti
- Suffering Continues in Gonaives, and Still No Storm Evacuation Plans
- Haitians Returned to Haiti After Boat Capsizes Near Turks and Caicos
- UN Secretary General Op Ed in New York Times: Haiti?s Big Chance
Canada to Strengthen Vocational Training Center in PAP:
The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, today announced a major initiative that will help Haiti build a skilled workforce necessary for sustained economic growth. This support will strengthen the CANADO (Centre de Formation Professionnelle d'Haiti) as it upgrades training programs and facilities to ensure alignment with labour market needs. As part of the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) Skills for Employment initiative, the Government of Canada is investing $13.3 million over six years to strengthen the Haiti Vocational Training Centre in Port-au-Prince, also known as the CANADO (Centre de Formation Professionnelle d' Haiti). In line with Haiti's efforts to upgrade its skills training, the Centre will modernize curricula, upgrade facilities and workshops, and enhance "train-the-trainer"
programs, ensuring programs are in line with labour market needs and available to both women and men. "This Skills for Employment initiative is an integral part of our support to Haiti to build a stronger economy," said Minister Oda, who visited the CANADO during her visit to Haiti March 15th to 18th. "A skilled workforce will strengthen the foundation of businesses and industries as well as improve the community's social stability. Canada, and institutions such as College Montmorency, has the tools to provide the necessary know-how and help develop a qualified workforce in developing countries around the world. That's what the Skills for Employment initiative aims to do." This initiative is a key element of Canada's long-term commitment to Haiti and follows on the Prime Minister's commitment to increase Canada's engagement in the Americas. The training provided under this initiative will help Haitian women, men and youth gain the skills to fully participate in the economic and social development of their communities. For further information on the initiative announced today and other Canadian aid initiatives in Haiti, please refer to the attached backgrounder or visit CIDA's web site at: http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/Haiti-e. (Marketwire, 3/27)
US Officials Inaugurate New Police Station in Cite Soleil:
U.S. officials have inaugurated a $1 million police station in a Haitian slum once dominated by gangs. The walled Cite Soleil (see-teh
soh-LAY) commissariat will house 32 Haitian police. U.N. peacekeepers led by Brazil have provided the only real security in the sprawling oceanside neighborhood since the 2004 ouster of former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide. The U.S. Embassy says the expansion of the former U.N. base is part of the Pentagon's $20 million Haiti Stabilization Initiative to strengthen government institutions in Cite Soleil. U.S.
Ambassador Janet Sanderson praised efforts to rebuild Haiti's police force at the station's inauguration Wednesday. (AP 3/27)
Former President Clinton Sees Hope in Haiti:
Former President Bill Clinton's love for Haiti and its people was renewed this week as he saw for himself the hope that the country offers despite its grinding poverty, history of political upheavals and other ongoing challenges. 'I have followed Haiti for more than three decades. This is the first time I have really believed that the country has the chance to slip the bounds of poverty, and escape the heritage of oppressive government and misgovernment and abuse of people that have held people down too long,' Clinton said Tuesday, wrapping up a visit to the Caribbean nation. "The message I want to send to the rest of the world is what the man in the factory, the factory owner told me today: These people work hard and they work smart...tell the world Haiti is a good place to invest.' As he walked through a T-shirt factory he helped make possible when he visited Haiti as president in 1995, Clinton was immediately greeted with a crush of applause. Poor factory workers whose earnings depend on how many T-shirts they stitch in a day, stopped their sewing machines and stood to their feet clapping. As he walked past their work station, they rushed to shake his hands.
For the workers, the welcome wasn't just because this was the American president who restored democracy to Haiti when he returned deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994 following a military coup. He also was the person who had made their jobs possible. Among those who had joined Clinton on his 1995 visit were representatives of Sara Lee, now Hanes brand. They returned after Clinton left, and created thousands of jobs that still exist today -- 1,500 of them in the factory Clinton toured. Those jobs have since been further strengthened with the passing of the duty-free HOPE legislation, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by Clinton's predecessor, former President George W. Bush. In an exclusive interview with The Miami Herald afterward, Clinton said that while he was moved by the warm reception, it was the fact that the factory was still standing, and Hanes still operating in Haiti, that moved him. 'They wouldn't be there after all the upheavals of the last 13 years, political and natural, if the Haitian people weren't committed to hard work, smart work, to building a more modern future,' Clinton said.
Clinton has pledged to use his Clinton Global Initiative, which meets at the opening of the UN General Assembly in September every year and attracts business people from all around the world and the United States to talk about what he's seen in Haiti. He's also pledged to tout the country's potential -- and needs -- ahead of next month's donor's conference in Washington, D.C. Haiti is seeking billions of dollars to reduce poverty over the next three years here, but immediately needs $125 million to plug a budget shortfall created after high food and fuel prices last year triggered violent riots and government paralysis. The shocks were then followed by four storms that hit Haiti in rapid succession, killing nearly 800 people and creating nearly $1 billion in damage. (Miami Herald, 3/10)
Clinton's fourth visit to Haiti concluded just as four South Florida members of congress secured a 45-minute hearing with new U.S.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The lawmakers say they were heartened by the meeting. They left without promises, but said they believed Napolitano was receptive to their plea for temporary protected status (TPS) on behalf of an estimated 30,000 Haitians who are scheduled to be deported back to a storm- ravaged Haiti. "We believe they are seriously taking it under review,"
said U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek, D-Miami. "Members were pleased just to get a meeting. In the past, a meeting wasn?t granted, letters weren't responded to." DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said "no decision has been made on TPS at this time." Following the meeting, Napolitano was scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who immediately afterward attended a bilateral meeting between President Barack Obama and Ban, the UN Secretary General. Both Ban and the former president Clinton were already en route to Washington when Congressmen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Alcee Hastings and Meek sat down with Napolitano. Neither man made any statements about Haitians' domestic problems, choosing instead to focus their diplomatic mission on Haiti's humanitarian and development needs.
Before boarding the Boeing 757, Ban told reporters that he planned to speak to Obama about a number of global and regional issues, including Haiti. "I will explain to him and the Secretary of State what I have seen together with former President Clinton, that with the active support of the last four years of [the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti] we have helped the Haitian government and people restore peace and stability, and establish rule of law. But there remains much more to be done. "The international community, I think, has an obligation to see the people of Haiti recover and enjoy a decent life." Ban and Clinton both pledged to focus their efforts on next month's upcoming donor's conference in Washington. Haitians and others have warned that if the country doesn't get the money it needs to plug a budget shortfall and reduce poverty over the next three years, civil unrest could erupt. (Miami Herald, 3/11)
Haitian Police to be UN Peacekeepers in Chad:
The United Nations says it will deploy a group of Haitian police as peacekeepers for the first time. A spokeswoman for the 9,000-strong U.N. force in Haiti says at least five officers will join a new mission in Chad. The yearlong assignment involves monitoring Chadian police responsible for refugees from the war in neighboring Darfur. A Haitian lawmaker criticized the initiative announced Wednesday, noting that parts of Haiti still have no police. The U.N. says the Haitian peacekeepers will receive valuable training they can later put to use back home. The Brazil-led peacekeeping force has made major strides in restoring calm and reducing gang violence in Haiti since a 2004 revolt. (AP, 3/19)
Dangers of Giving Birth in Haiti:
Giving birth is dangerous business for Haiti's poor, who suffer the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. Some 630 of every 100,000 women died of pregnancy-related causes in 2006 - more than five times the Latin American and Caribbean average, according to the United Nations. The problem is heartbreakingly simple: Millions of women either cannot access health care, or cannot afford it. Haitian health officials made significant strides last year with a program to waive entrance fees - the equivalent of 25 to 64 cents a day - for pregnant mothers at public hospitals. But the women must pay for almost everything else, from doctors' gloves and syringes to medicine, food and transportation, said Jacqueline Ramon, a maternity ward nurse at Port-au-Prince's General Hospital. "It's never, ever going to work unless we say some things are not meant to be sold, and safe motherhood is one of them," said Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician.
In rural towns where his nonprofit Partners in Health provides free health care, Farmer said the maternal mortality rate is less than one- tenth the national average. Maternal health is one of the issues the Clinton Global Initiative and U.N. agencies are emphasizing, part of a wider call for increased aid and investment that Bill Clinton and U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made in a visit to Haiti last week. For $40 million a year, and likely even less, Farmer said, comprehensive care could be given to all pregnant Haitian women.
The issue is likely to be discussed at a long-delayed international donors conference on Haiti scheduled for April 13-14 in Washington.
Haiti faces as much as a $100 million budget shortfall after large- scale emergency spending following four destructive storms in 2008.
Other steps are also needed in this country of nearly 10 million, including preventing unwanted pregnancies and lowering the highest birthrate in the Western Hemisphere - almost 36 births per 1,000 people. The situation turned critical last fall when Port-au-Prince's public hospitals went on strike during the fall peak birthing season - nine months after Carnival. With mothers forced to turn to a handful of not-for-profits, the cramped, 66-bed Jude Anne maternity hospital run by Doctors Without Borders Holland in central Port-au-Prince became, in the words of obstetrician Dr. Wendy Lai, a "war zone."
Women were giving birth on the floor, in the waiting room, on staircases and in bathrooms. One died before doctors could attend to her. "They had nowhere to go," said Lai, a Canadian. "This has been described as a baby factory. On a normal day, we line them up and catch the babies."
Some things are improving. Doctors Without Borders recently moved to a larger facility after 2 1/2 years in a building so cramped, doctors could not walk around some patients' beds. Haitian mothers are disproportionately threatened by the disorders of eclampsia and pre- eclampsia, which bring high blood pressure, excess protein and swelling, and can cause seizures, heart failure, brain hemorrhages and death. Though seen all over the world, the incidents are much higher in Haiti - 14 in every 2,000 pregnancies compared with a rate of 1 in 2,000 to 3,000 pregnancies in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Because they are caused by pregnancy, the only cure for the disorders is to deliver the baby. (AP, 3/22)
Former CEO of Haiti's National Pension Fund Arrested:
The former CEO of Haiti's national pension fund has been arrested and jailed on money laundering charges. Radio Kiskeya says Sandro Joseph was arrested at home Thursday and taken in handcuffs to Port-au- Prince's National Penitentiary. Prosecutors confirmed the report Friday but declined to comment. Joseph's lawyer, Me Annibal Coffy, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper he would challenge the warrant. Joseph resigned last year from his government-appointed post at the National Old-Age Insurance Office following corruption allegations. Officials have not said how much money he is suspected of laundering or named others allegedly involved. A trial date has not been set. (AP, 3/21)
According to UN Mission, Poverty Undermines Security in Haiti:
A report from a U.N. fact-finding mission to Haiti said widespread poverty is undermining ongoing operations to stabilize the country.
U.N. Ambassador Jorge Urbina recently led a delegation to Haiti on a four-day mission. Urbina said that despite a push by the United Nations to help security forces in Haiti stabilize the country, poverty and vulnerability to disasters is limiting the impact, the United Nations reported. The United Nations has been working closely with police agencies in Haiti in a move to counter the threat of transnational criminal groups that have based their operations in the country. Urbina said that while security-sector and judicial reforms are making progress, widespread poverty is undermining stability. "It does appear that there is a window of opportunity to enable the consolidation of stability and the undertaking of a process of sustainable development," Urbina told the Security Council, according to the United Nations. (Dominican Today, 3/22)
Suffering Continues in Gonaives, and Still No Storm Evacuation Plans:
Even now, well before hurricane season, Jean Hubert tries to tamp down the panic that wells up in his chest whenever dark clouds mass overhead. More than 30 inches of rain fell in one night in Gona?ves.
His unease multiplies if even stray raindrops splatter through his corrugated roof. Its seemingly robust support boards snapped like matchsticks in the cascading floodwaters last year, puncturing random holes in the flimsy tin. ?I live with one foot out the door,? explains Mr. Hubert, a 35-year-old high school teacher ready to run for the hills at the slightest suggestion of a storm. Outside his four-room, cinder block shanty, the havoc visited across this city in central Haiti by a string of hurricanes six months ago remains readily apparent. Mr. Hubert?s home now sits four or five feet below the narrow street. The mud that choked every house, excavated by hand and carted into the road, has hardened into an uneven chain of mounds, solid like concrete. Pedestrians negotiating its choppy surface look down on the tin roofs while trampling household items jutting out of the dirt ? here a woman?s bright red pump, there a turquoise plastic comb.
The fear of the next big storm infects the whole town. Everyone knows that the rains should start in April, and that by June hurricanes can begin to form out in the Atlantic ? the deadly season lasting until November. Mr. Hubert complains that the city has no evacuation plan, that the same chaos that left him sitting on a neighbor?s roof the last time for three days, his five children crying from hunger, could well unspool all over again like a recurring nightmare. City Hall, basically a two-story house on the main square, lacks the bustle one might expect in a city still recuperating from storms that hit like a battering ram. Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike ? all but the first one were hurricanes ? landed within the space of a month last August and September. It was Hanna that really pummeled Gona?ves, the fourth largest city in Haiti, with 300,000 inhabitants. No other city in Haiti absorbed so much punishment. More than 30 inches of rain fell overnight. The deforested hills, less than 2 percent of them covered by trees, sent the spill-off crashing down into La Quinte River, the wall of water and mud eventually cresting at 15 feet above its banks.
By the time it receded from the city streets, the flood had killed 466 inhabitants; another 235 just disappeared and are presumed dead. Of the city?s 33,000 buildings, 5,441 collapsed and some 22,300 others were damaged. Nationally, damages came to a total of $900 million, or nearly 15 percent of the gross domestic product. ?All it takes is one cloud, and everyone asks me when they will be evacuated,? groused the deputy mayor, Jean-Fran?ois Adolphe, when asked about the mood here.
The City Council tried to develop a plan, he said, but readily admitted it was basically fruitless. The city does not have a place to shelter anyone, not to mention the means to ferry its inhabitants to higher ground. Mr. Adolphe rated the chances of a hurricane hitting this year at 30 percent, and flatly denied a rumor that the mayor and his two deputies had bought houses in the hills. He noted brightly that the national toll from the 2008 storms was under 800 dead, down from 3,000 when Hurricane Jeanne struck in 2004, which meant officials must be doing something right.
The main hangover is the mud. Estimates of just how much mud slithered into Gona?ves range up to a square mile filled with a bit more than three feet of goop. Mr. Adolphe thought the city had hit on a happy solution to getting rid of it ? neighborhood teams paid for the work as they moved from one quarter to the next. But, he said, residents cleaned their own streets and shrugged off other areas, appearing only every two weeks to collect a small salary. ?They are not really interested in doing community work,? he said. For their part, residents complain bitterly that the government is missing in action.
They reserve praise for Venezuela alone. It paid for the new Sim?n Bol?var power plant, which provides the city with some 16 hours of electricity daily. The United Nations also hired 21,000 people to build terraces in the hills around the city, paying them $2 cash and
$3 in food for each day worked. But less than 2 percent of what needs to be done to shore up the watershed has been completed, said Alex Ceus, the director of the terracing program. ?The little that has been done is insufficient to protect the city,? he said. On the hill next to the fresh terraces, experienced hands point out the smooth bumps of previous efforts. The force of water spilled by Hurricane Hanna erased terraces too.
Right after the floods, the United Nations organized a worldwide appeal for $127 million for recovery efforts, but only about half has been donated. Each storm seems to compound the previous lashing. Right outside the southern approach to Gona?ves, a sprawling lake several miles across now covers a once arid plain. Water laps against the windowsills of abandoned houses, their curtains flapping in the stiff breeze. The water hides a raised highway that was being built because the same area flooded in 2004. Most Haitian roads are abysmal moonscapes, but the 25-minute detour that National Route 1 now takes around the lake is a particularly rough, unpaved road, with muscular buses barreling along giving no quarter to smaller vehicles. At first, people forced from their homes thought the lake might at least provide fish to eat. But after a couple of men drowned when their skiff capsized in the strong winds, the nearby residents, still living in tents, said they no longer ventured near the water.
Drowning is not a fear only by the lake. In the downtown communal market, Pierre Exante, a mattress seller, grimaced as his eyes darted over the oozing cesspool of black water and garbage abutting his store, the foul stench and worse reputation keeping customers away.
Four people have drowned in it, Mr. Exante said. Not that the rest of the market is very busy. One stall owner said she got more beggars than customers ? the storm killed the local economy. Residents say endless such problems fill their days and nights with dread. Nicole J.
Clervius is the local director for Fonkoze, a microcredit lender that is helping businesses struggle back to life. ?People cannot sleep, they are always on alert,? she said. ?It?s like they are always waiting for something to come.? (NYT, 3/23)
Haitians Returned to Haiti After Boat Capsizes Near Turks and Caicos:
The U.S. Embassy says 146 migrants were returned to Haiti after their boat began to sink near the Turks and Caicos Islands. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mari Tolliver said Tuesday that the U.S. Coast Guard took the migrants off the sinking craft on March 18 and returned them to the northern Haitian port of Cap-Haitien two days later. One migrant was treated for tetanus. The migrants were frustrated about having to return to Haiti. They told their rescuers they were angry at President Rene Preval for failing to alleviate poverty. Preval is asking U.S.
officials to temporarily halt deportations to Haiti. Some 30,000 Haitians in the United States are eligible for deportation, though only a handful face an immediate threat. (AP, 3/25)
UN Secretary General Op Ed in New York Times: Haiti?s Big Chance By BAN KI-MOON It is easy to visit Haiti and see only poverty. But when I visited recently with former President Bill Clinton, we saw opportunity. Yes, Haiti remains desperately poor. It has yet to fully recover from last year?s devastating hurricanes, not to mention decades of malign dictatorship. Yet we can report what President Ren? Pr?val told us:
?Haiti is at a turning point.? It can slide backwards into darkness and deeper misery, sacrificing all the country?s progress and hard work with the United Nations and international community. Or it can break out, into the light toward a brighter and more hopeful future.
Next month, major international donors will gather in Washington to consider further help for this unfortunate land, so battered by forces beyond its control. Outwardly, there seems little cause of optimism.
The financial crisis has crimped aid budgets. Haiti?s own problems ?
runaway population growth, acute shortages of food and life?s basic necessities, environmental degradation ? often appear insuperable.
Yet in fact, Haiti stands a better chance than almost any emerging economy, not only to weather the current economic storms but to prosper. The reason: new U.S. trade legislation, passed last year, throws open a huge window of opportunity. HOPE II, as the act is known, offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets for the next nine years. No other nation enjoys a similar advantage. This is a foundation to build on. It is a chance to consolidate the progress Haiti has made in winning a measure of political stability, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and move beyond aid to genuine economic development. Given the country?s massive unemployment, particularly among youth, that means one thing above all
else: jobs. My special adviser on Haiti, the Oxford University development economist Paul Collier, has worked with the government to devise a strategy. It identifies specific steps and policies to create those jobs, with particular emphasis on the country?s traditional strengths ? the garment industry and agriculture. Among them: enacting new regulations lowering port fees (among the highest in the
Caribbean) and creating the sort of industrial ?clusters? that have come to dominate global trade.
In practical terms, this means dramatically expanding the country?s export zones, so that a new generation of textile firms can invest and do business in one place. By creating a market sufficiently large to generate economies of scale, they can drive down production costs and, once a certain threshold is crossed, spark potentially explosive growth constrained only by the size of the labor pool. That may seem ambitious in a country of 9 million people, where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day and half of the food is imported. Yet we know it can work. We have seen it happen in Bangladesh, which boasts a garment industry supporting 2.5 million jobs. We have seen it happen in Uganda and Rwanda. President Clinton and I saw many good signs during our trip, both large and small. One day we visited an elementary school in Cit? Soleil, a slum in Port au Prince long controlled by violent gangs before U.N. peacekeepers reclaimed it. It did my heart good to see these children. They were well-fed, thanks to the U.N. World Food Program. Even better, they were happy and they were learning ? as children should. It was a sign of more normal times.
We visited a second school, as well ? this one for gifted students called HELP, short for the Haitian Education Leadership Program. With money raised privately in the United States, it provides scholarships to the very poorest Haitian children who could not otherwise dream of attending university. All these young people go on to lead productive careers. They make good salaries. They embark upon lives of promise ?
and virtually all of them stay in Haiti. I told these young people that I thought of them as ?seeds of hope,? for they represent a better tomorrow.To an outsider, it is striking how modest the obstacles are in relation to Haiti?s potential. Visiting a clean and efficient factory in the capital, we met workers earning $7 a day making T- shirts for export ? vaulting them into the Haitian middle class. Under HOPE II, the owner figures he can double or triple production within a year. All this is why, in Washington, we will be asking donors to invest in Haiti, to step beyond traditional humanitarian aid. This is Haiti?s moment, a break-out opportunity for one of the poorest nations to lift itself toward a future of real economic prospects and genuine hope. (NYT Op-Ed, 3/30)
Haiti Report for March 31, 2009
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.
IN THIS REPORT:
- Canada to Strengthen Vocational Training Center in PAP
- US Officials Inaugurate New Police Station in Cite Soleil
- Former President Clinton Sees Hope in Haiti
- Haitian Police to be UN Peacekeepers in Chad
- Dangers of Giving Birth in Haiti
- Former CEO of Haiti's National Pension Fund Arrested
- According to UN Mission, Poverty Undermines Security in Haiti
- Suffering Continues in Gonaives, and Still No Storm Evacuation Plans
- Haitians Returned to Haiti After Boat Capsizes Near Turks and Caicos
- UN Secretary General Op Ed in New York Times: Haiti?s Big Chance
Canada to Strengthen Vocational Training Center in PAP:
The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, today announced a major initiative that will help Haiti build a skilled workforce necessary for sustained economic growth. This support will strengthen the CANADO (Centre de Formation Professionnelle d'Haiti) as it upgrades training programs and facilities to ensure alignment with labour market needs. As part of the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) Skills for Employment initiative, the Government of Canada is investing $13.3 million over six years to strengthen the Haiti Vocational Training Centre in Port-au-Prince, also known as the CANADO (Centre de Formation Professionnelle d' Haiti). In line with Haiti's efforts to upgrade its skills training, the Centre will modernize curricula, upgrade facilities and workshops, and enhance "train-the-trainer"
programs, ensuring programs are in line with labour market needs and available to both women and men. "This Skills for Employment initiative is an integral part of our support to Haiti to build a stronger economy," said Minister Oda, who visited the CANADO during her visit to Haiti March 15th to 18th. "A skilled workforce will strengthen the foundation of businesses and industries as well as improve the community's social stability. Canada, and institutions such as College Montmorency, has the tools to provide the necessary know-how and help develop a qualified workforce in developing countries around the world. That's what the Skills for Employment initiative aims to do." This initiative is a key element of Canada's long-term commitment to Haiti and follows on the Prime Minister's commitment to increase Canada's engagement in the Americas. The training provided under this initiative will help Haitian women, men and youth gain the skills to fully participate in the economic and social development of their communities. For further information on the initiative announced today and other Canadian aid initiatives in Haiti, please refer to the attached backgrounder or visit CIDA's web site at: http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/Haiti-e. (Marketwire, 3/27)
US Officials Inaugurate New Police Station in Cite Soleil:
U.S. officials have inaugurated a $1 million police station in a Haitian slum once dominated by gangs. The walled Cite Soleil (see-teh
soh-LAY) commissariat will house 32 Haitian police. U.N. peacekeepers led by Brazil have provided the only real security in the sprawling oceanside neighborhood since the 2004 ouster of former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide. The U.S. Embassy says the expansion of the former U.N. base is part of the Pentagon's $20 million Haiti Stabilization Initiative to strengthen government institutions in Cite Soleil. U.S.
Ambassador Janet Sanderson praised efforts to rebuild Haiti's police force at the station's inauguration Wednesday. (AP 3/27)
Former President Clinton Sees Hope in Haiti:
Former President Bill Clinton's love for Haiti and its people was renewed this week as he saw for himself the hope that the country offers despite its grinding poverty, history of political upheavals and other ongoing challenges. 'I have followed Haiti for more than three decades. This is the first time I have really believed that the country has the chance to slip the bounds of poverty, and escape the heritage of oppressive government and misgovernment and abuse of people that have held people down too long,' Clinton said Tuesday, wrapping up a visit to the Caribbean nation. "The message I want to send to the rest of the world is what the man in the factory, the factory owner told me today: These people work hard and they work smart...tell the world Haiti is a good place to invest.' As he walked through a T-shirt factory he helped make possible when he visited Haiti as president in 1995, Clinton was immediately greeted with a crush of applause. Poor factory workers whose earnings depend on how many T-shirts they stitch in a day, stopped their sewing machines and stood to their feet clapping. As he walked past their work station, they rushed to shake his hands.
For the workers, the welcome wasn't just because this was the American president who restored democracy to Haiti when he returned deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994 following a military coup. He also was the person who had made their jobs possible. Among those who had joined Clinton on his 1995 visit were representatives of Sara Lee, now Hanes brand. They returned after Clinton left, and created thousands of jobs that still exist today -- 1,500 of them in the factory Clinton toured. Those jobs have since been further strengthened with the passing of the duty-free HOPE legislation, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by Clinton's predecessor, former President George W. Bush. In an exclusive interview with The Miami Herald afterward, Clinton said that while he was moved by the warm reception, it was the fact that the factory was still standing, and Hanes still operating in Haiti, that moved him. 'They wouldn't be there after all the upheavals of the last 13 years, political and natural, if the Haitian people weren't committed to hard work, smart work, to building a more modern future,' Clinton said.
Clinton has pledged to use his Clinton Global Initiative, which meets at the opening of the UN General Assembly in September every year and attracts business people from all around the world and the United States to talk about what he's seen in Haiti. He's also pledged to tout the country's potential -- and needs -- ahead of next month's donor's conference in Washington, D.C. Haiti is seeking billions of dollars to reduce poverty over the next three years here, but immediately needs $125 million to plug a budget shortfall created after high food and fuel prices last year triggered violent riots and government paralysis. The shocks were then followed by four storms that hit Haiti in rapid succession, killing nearly 800 people and creating nearly $1 billion in damage. (Miami Herald, 3/10)
Clinton's fourth visit to Haiti concluded just as four South Florida members of congress secured a 45-minute hearing with new U.S.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The lawmakers say they were heartened by the meeting. They left without promises, but said they believed Napolitano was receptive to their plea for temporary protected status (TPS) on behalf of an estimated 30,000 Haitians who are scheduled to be deported back to a storm- ravaged Haiti. "We believe they are seriously taking it under review,"
said U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek, D-Miami. "Members were pleased just to get a meeting. In the past, a meeting wasn?t granted, letters weren't responded to." DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said "no decision has been made on TPS at this time." Following the meeting, Napolitano was scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who immediately afterward attended a bilateral meeting between President Barack Obama and Ban, the UN Secretary General. Both Ban and the former president Clinton were already en route to Washington when Congressmen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Alcee Hastings and Meek sat down with Napolitano. Neither man made any statements about Haitians' domestic problems, choosing instead to focus their diplomatic mission on Haiti's humanitarian and development needs.
Before boarding the Boeing 757, Ban told reporters that he planned to speak to Obama about a number of global and regional issues, including Haiti. "I will explain to him and the Secretary of State what I have seen together with former President Clinton, that with the active support of the last four years of [the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti] we have helped the Haitian government and people restore peace and stability, and establish rule of law. But there remains much more to be done. "The international community, I think, has an obligation to see the people of Haiti recover and enjoy a decent life." Ban and Clinton both pledged to focus their efforts on next month's upcoming donor's conference in Washington. Haitians and others have warned that if the country doesn't get the money it needs to plug a budget shortfall and reduce poverty over the next three years, civil unrest could erupt. (Miami Herald, 3/11)
Haitian Police to be UN Peacekeepers in Chad:
The United Nations says it will deploy a group of Haitian police as peacekeepers for the first time. A spokeswoman for the 9,000-strong U.N. force in Haiti says at least five officers will join a new mission in Chad. The yearlong assignment involves monitoring Chadian police responsible for refugees from the war in neighboring Darfur. A Haitian lawmaker criticized the initiative announced Wednesday, noting that parts of Haiti still have no police. The U.N. says the Haitian peacekeepers will receive valuable training they can later put to use back home. The Brazil-led peacekeeping force has made major strides in restoring calm and reducing gang violence in Haiti since a 2004 revolt. (AP, 3/19)
Dangers of Giving Birth in Haiti:
Giving birth is dangerous business for Haiti's poor, who suffer the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. Some 630 of every 100,000 women died of pregnancy-related causes in 2006 - more than five times the Latin American and Caribbean average, according to the United Nations. The problem is heartbreakingly simple: Millions of women either cannot access health care, or cannot afford it. Haitian health officials made significant strides last year with a program to waive entrance fees - the equivalent of 25 to 64 cents a day - for pregnant mothers at public hospitals. But the women must pay for almost everything else, from doctors' gloves and syringes to medicine, food and transportation, said Jacqueline Ramon, a maternity ward nurse at Port-au-Prince's General Hospital. "It's never, ever going to work unless we say some things are not meant to be sold, and safe motherhood is one of them," said Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician.
In rural towns where his nonprofit Partners in Health provides free health care, Farmer said the maternal mortality rate is less than one- tenth the national average. Maternal health is one of the issues the Clinton Global Initiative and U.N. agencies are emphasizing, part of a wider call for increased aid and investment that Bill Clinton and U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made in a visit to Haiti last week. For $40 million a year, and likely even less, Farmer said, comprehensive care could be given to all pregnant Haitian women.
The issue is likely to be discussed at a long-delayed international donors conference on Haiti scheduled for April 13-14 in Washington.
Haiti faces as much as a $100 million budget shortfall after large- scale emergency spending following four destructive storms in 2008.
Other steps are also needed in this country of nearly 10 million, including preventing unwanted pregnancies and lowering the highest birthrate in the Western Hemisphere - almost 36 births per 1,000 people. The situation turned critical last fall when Port-au-Prince's public hospitals went on strike during the fall peak birthing season - nine months after Carnival. With mothers forced to turn to a handful of not-for-profits, the cramped, 66-bed Jude Anne maternity hospital run by Doctors Without Borders Holland in central Port-au-Prince became, in the words of obstetrician Dr. Wendy Lai, a "war zone."
Women were giving birth on the floor, in the waiting room, on staircases and in bathrooms. One died before doctors could attend to her. "They had nowhere to go," said Lai, a Canadian. "This has been described as a baby factory. On a normal day, we line them up and catch the babies."
Some things are improving. Doctors Without Borders recently moved to a larger facility after 2 1/2 years in a building so cramped, doctors could not walk around some patients' beds. Haitian mothers are disproportionately threatened by the disorders of eclampsia and pre- eclampsia, which bring high blood pressure, excess protein and swelling, and can cause seizures, heart failure, brain hemorrhages and death. Though seen all over the world, the incidents are much higher in Haiti - 14 in every 2,000 pregnancies compared with a rate of 1 in 2,000 to 3,000 pregnancies in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Because they are caused by pregnancy, the only cure for the disorders is to deliver the baby. (AP, 3/22)
Former CEO of Haiti's National Pension Fund Arrested:
The former CEO of Haiti's national pension fund has been arrested and jailed on money laundering charges. Radio Kiskeya says Sandro Joseph was arrested at home Thursday and taken in handcuffs to Port-au- Prince's National Penitentiary. Prosecutors confirmed the report Friday but declined to comment. Joseph's lawyer, Me Annibal Coffy, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper he would challenge the warrant. Joseph resigned last year from his government-appointed post at the National Old-Age Insurance Office following corruption allegations. Officials have not said how much money he is suspected of laundering or named others allegedly involved. A trial date has not been set. (AP, 3/21)
According to UN Mission, Poverty Undermines Security in Haiti:
A report from a U.N. fact-finding mission to Haiti said widespread poverty is undermining ongoing operations to stabilize the country.
U.N. Ambassador Jorge Urbina recently led a delegation to Haiti on a four-day mission. Urbina said that despite a push by the United Nations to help security forces in Haiti stabilize the country, poverty and vulnerability to disasters is limiting the impact, the United Nations reported. The United Nations has been working closely with police agencies in Haiti in a move to counter the threat of transnational criminal groups that have based their operations in the country. Urbina said that while security-sector and judicial reforms are making progress, widespread poverty is undermining stability. "It does appear that there is a window of opportunity to enable the consolidation of stability and the undertaking of a process of sustainable development," Urbina told the Security Council, according to the United Nations. (Dominican Today, 3/22)
Suffering Continues in Gonaives, and Still No Storm Evacuation Plans:
Even now, well before hurricane season, Jean Hubert tries to tamp down the panic that wells up in his chest whenever dark clouds mass overhead. More than 30 inches of rain fell in one night in Gona?ves.
His unease multiplies if even stray raindrops splatter through his corrugated roof. Its seemingly robust support boards snapped like matchsticks in the cascading floodwaters last year, puncturing random holes in the flimsy tin. ?I live with one foot out the door,? explains Mr. Hubert, a 35-year-old high school teacher ready to run for the hills at the slightest suggestion of a storm. Outside his four-room, cinder block shanty, the havoc visited across this city in central Haiti by a string of hurricanes six months ago remains readily apparent. Mr. Hubert?s home now sits four or five feet below the narrow street. The mud that choked every house, excavated by hand and carted into the road, has hardened into an uneven chain of mounds, solid like concrete. Pedestrians negotiating its choppy surface look down on the tin roofs while trampling household items jutting out of the dirt ? here a woman?s bright red pump, there a turquoise plastic comb.
The fear of the next big storm infects the whole town. Everyone knows that the rains should start in April, and that by June hurricanes can begin to form out in the Atlantic ? the deadly season lasting until November. Mr. Hubert complains that the city has no evacuation plan, that the same chaos that left him sitting on a neighbor?s roof the last time for three days, his five children crying from hunger, could well unspool all over again like a recurring nightmare. City Hall, basically a two-story house on the main square, lacks the bustle one might expect in a city still recuperating from storms that hit like a battering ram. Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike ? all but the first one were hurricanes ? landed within the space of a month last August and September. It was Hanna that really pummeled Gona?ves, the fourth largest city in Haiti, with 300,000 inhabitants. No other city in Haiti absorbed so much punishment. More than 30 inches of rain fell overnight. The deforested hills, less than 2 percent of them covered by trees, sent the spill-off crashing down into La Quinte River, the wall of water and mud eventually cresting at 15 feet above its banks.
By the time it receded from the city streets, the flood had killed 466 inhabitants; another 235 just disappeared and are presumed dead. Of the city?s 33,000 buildings, 5,441 collapsed and some 22,300 others were damaged. Nationally, damages came to a total of $900 million, or nearly 15 percent of the gross domestic product. ?All it takes is one cloud, and everyone asks me when they will be evacuated,? groused the deputy mayor, Jean-Fran?ois Adolphe, when asked about the mood here.
The City Council tried to develop a plan, he said, but readily admitted it was basically fruitless. The city does not have a place to shelter anyone, not to mention the means to ferry its inhabitants to higher ground. Mr. Adolphe rated the chances of a hurricane hitting this year at 30 percent, and flatly denied a rumor that the mayor and his two deputies had bought houses in the hills. He noted brightly that the national toll from the 2008 storms was under 800 dead, down from 3,000 when Hurricane Jeanne struck in 2004, which meant officials must be doing something right.
The main hangover is the mud. Estimates of just how much mud slithered into Gona?ves range up to a square mile filled with a bit more than three feet of goop. Mr. Adolphe thought the city had hit on a happy solution to getting rid of it ? neighborhood teams paid for the work as they moved from one quarter to the next. But, he said, residents cleaned their own streets and shrugged off other areas, appearing only every two weeks to collect a small salary. ?They are not really interested in doing community work,? he said. For their part, residents complain bitterly that the government is missing in action.
They reserve praise for Venezuela alone. It paid for the new Sim?n Bol?var power plant, which provides the city with some 16 hours of electricity daily. The United Nations also hired 21,000 people to build terraces in the hills around the city, paying them $2 cash and
$3 in food for each day worked. But less than 2 percent of what needs to be done to shore up the watershed has been completed, said Alex Ceus, the director of the terracing program. ?The little that has been done is insufficient to protect the city,? he said. On the hill next to the fresh terraces, experienced hands point out the smooth bumps of previous efforts. The force of water spilled by Hurricane Hanna erased terraces too.
Right after the floods, the United Nations organized a worldwide appeal for $127 million for recovery efforts, but only about half has been donated. Each storm seems to compound the previous lashing. Right outside the southern approach to Gona?ves, a sprawling lake several miles across now covers a once arid plain. Water laps against the windowsills of abandoned houses, their curtains flapping in the stiff breeze. The water hides a raised highway that was being built because the same area flooded in 2004. Most Haitian roads are abysmal moonscapes, but the 25-minute detour that National Route 1 now takes around the lake is a particularly rough, unpaved road, with muscular buses barreling along giving no quarter to smaller vehicles. At first, people forced from their homes thought the lake might at least provide fish to eat. But after a couple of men drowned when their skiff capsized in the strong winds, the nearby residents, still living in tents, said they no longer ventured near the water.
Drowning is not a fear only by the lake. In the downtown communal market, Pierre Exante, a mattress seller, grimaced as his eyes darted over the oozing cesspool of black water and garbage abutting his store, the foul stench and worse reputation keeping customers away.
Four people have drowned in it, Mr. Exante said. Not that the rest of the market is very busy. One stall owner said she got more beggars than customers ? the storm killed the local economy. Residents say endless such problems fill their days and nights with dread. Nicole J.
Clervius is the local director for Fonkoze, a microcredit lender that is helping businesses struggle back to life. ?People cannot sleep, they are always on alert,? she said. ?It?s like they are always waiting for something to come.? (NYT, 3/23)
Haitians Returned to Haiti After Boat Capsizes Near Turks and Caicos:
The U.S. Embassy says 146 migrants were returned to Haiti after their boat began to sink near the Turks and Caicos Islands. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mari Tolliver said Tuesday that the U.S. Coast Guard took the migrants off the sinking craft on March 18 and returned them to the northern Haitian port of Cap-Haitien two days later. One migrant was treated for tetanus. The migrants were frustrated about having to return to Haiti. They told their rescuers they were angry at President Rene Preval for failing to alleviate poverty. Preval is asking U.S.
officials to temporarily halt deportations to Haiti. Some 30,000 Haitians in the United States are eligible for deportation, though only a handful face an immediate threat. (AP, 3/25)
UN Secretary General Op Ed in New York Times: Haiti?s Big Chance By BAN KI-MOON It is easy to visit Haiti and see only poverty. But when I visited recently with former President Bill Clinton, we saw opportunity. Yes, Haiti remains desperately poor. It has yet to fully recover from last year?s devastating hurricanes, not to mention decades of malign dictatorship. Yet we can report what President Ren? Pr?val told us:
?Haiti is at a turning point.? It can slide backwards into darkness and deeper misery, sacrificing all the country?s progress and hard work with the United Nations and international community. Or it can break out, into the light toward a brighter and more hopeful future.
Next month, major international donors will gather in Washington to consider further help for this unfortunate land, so battered by forces beyond its control. Outwardly, there seems little cause of optimism.
The financial crisis has crimped aid budgets. Haiti?s own problems ?
runaway population growth, acute shortages of food and life?s basic necessities, environmental degradation ? often appear insuperable.
Yet in fact, Haiti stands a better chance than almost any emerging economy, not only to weather the current economic storms but to prosper. The reason: new U.S. trade legislation, passed last year, throws open a huge window of opportunity. HOPE II, as the act is known, offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets for the next nine years. No other nation enjoys a similar advantage. This is a foundation to build on. It is a chance to consolidate the progress Haiti has made in winning a measure of political stability, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and move beyond aid to genuine economic development. Given the country?s massive unemployment, particularly among youth, that means one thing above all
else: jobs. My special adviser on Haiti, the Oxford University development economist Paul Collier, has worked with the government to devise a strategy. It identifies specific steps and policies to create those jobs, with particular emphasis on the country?s traditional strengths ? the garment industry and agriculture. Among them: enacting new regulations lowering port fees (among the highest in the
Caribbean) and creating the sort of industrial ?clusters? that have come to dominate global trade.
In practical terms, this means dramatically expanding the country?s export zones, so that a new generation of textile firms can invest and do business in one place. By creating a market sufficiently large to generate economies of scale, they can drive down production costs and, once a certain threshold is crossed, spark potentially explosive growth constrained only by the size of the labor pool. That may seem ambitious in a country of 9 million people, where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day and half of the food is imported. Yet we know it can work. We have seen it happen in Bangladesh, which boasts a garment industry supporting 2.5 million jobs. We have seen it happen in Uganda and Rwanda. President Clinton and I saw many good signs during our trip, both large and small. One day we visited an elementary school in Cit? Soleil, a slum in Port au Prince long controlled by violent gangs before U.N. peacekeepers reclaimed it. It did my heart good to see these children. They were well-fed, thanks to the U.N. World Food Program. Even better, they were happy and they were learning ? as children should. It was a sign of more normal times.
We visited a second school, as well ? this one for gifted students called HELP, short for the Haitian Education Leadership Program. With money raised privately in the United States, it provides scholarships to the very poorest Haitian children who could not otherwise dream of attending university. All these young people go on to lead productive careers. They make good salaries. They embark upon lives of promise ?
and virtually all of them stay in Haiti. I told these young people that I thought of them as ?seeds of hope,? for they represent a better tomorrow.To an outsider, it is striking how modest the obstacles are in relation to Haiti?s potential. Visiting a clean and efficient factory in the capital, we met workers earning $7 a day making T- shirts for export ? vaulting them into the Haitian middle class. Under HOPE II, the owner figures he can double or triple production within a year. All this is why, in Washington, we will be asking donors to invest in Haiti, to step beyond traditional humanitarian aid. This is Haiti?s moment, a break-out opportunity for one of the poorest nations to lift itself toward a future of real economic prospects and genuine hope. (NYT Op-Ed, 3/30)
Cigna Global Health
Get a quote in 2 minutes from our partner, Cigna Global Health.
Get Quote
Living in Haiti Guide
Guide to Living in Haiti covering expat life, local culture, finding a home, diversity and more.
Haiti Forum
Join our Haiti forum to meet other expats and talk about living in Haiti.
Contribute
Help other expats and newcomers by answering questions about the challenges and adventures of living in Haiti.
Best Places to Live in Haiti
In this article, we highlight some of the best places for international families to live in Haiti.
23 Expats Talk about Healthcare & Health Insurance in Haiti
Expats living in Haiti talk about their own experiences with healthcare, hospital visits, emergencies, finding a doctor, buying health insurance in Haiti and more.
Pros & Cons of Living in Haiti
Take off your rose-colored glasses and learn what expats have to say about the biggest challenges and the greatest rewards of living in Haiti.
Additional Information: