13 December 2013 — Haïti Liberté
Last week, for the first time in its history, the Fanmi Lavalas (Lavalas Family) party publicly cast out two of its leading members. It hadn’t done this for other prominent members, such as Dany Toussaint in 2003, Leslie Voltaire in 2004, or Mario Dupuy in 2011, all of whom, in one way or another, betrayed the party by allying with right-wing political enemies.
28 November 2011 — COHA
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Courtney Frantz
23 January, 2011 — Sun-Sentinal
The controversy over the return of the infamous dictator, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, to Haiti, is in many ways a distraction. Certainly, it is important he stand trial for crimes against humanity, including the murder and torture of opponents.
But there is another crime being committed against Haiti right now: Foreign powers are trying to rob Haitians once again of their democratic rights. More than 200 years after Haiti liberated itself from slavery and from France, the rich countries still seem to have a great fear of Haitians governing themselves.
26 November, 2010 — Institute for Public Accuracy
Alex Main, [in Haiti], main@cepr.net and via Dan Beeton, beeton@cepr.net, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/relief-and-reconstruction-watch
Policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “These elections were already highly problematic before the cholera epidemic began to spread. Haiti’s electoral authority — the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council] — suffers from a lack of credibility; legitimate parties have been excluded from participating in the legislative elections, and very few effective measures have been taken to ensure that Haiti’s over 1.3 million displaced people would have access to the polls. As a result of these problems, there was already a high probability that voter turnout would be very low and that the elections would be widely seen as illegitimate. Now, with an uncontrollable and fatal epidemic further complicating the lives of Haitians, it is patently obvious that the elections should be postponed and measures should be taken to correct the current flaws in the electoral process.”
NICOLAS ROSSIER, nicrossier@gmail.com
Rossier is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes “Aristide and the Endless Revolution.” He recently interviewed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian president who was ousted in 2004. Video excerpts at Grit TV: http://is.gd/hIzVa
See also transcript of interview at “An Exclusive Interview With Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide” http://is.gd/hIzXL
EZILI DANTO, erzilidanto@yahoo.com, http://open.salon.com/blog/ezili_danto, http://ezilidanto.com
Danto is president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She said today: “Obama denounced the recent ‘elections’ in Burma as ‘neither free nor fair.’ The Haitian ‘elections’ are also neither free nor fair. The largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, is excluded, as it has been in every election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004. Who will be able to vote is not clear — over 1.3 million earthquake victims are displaced, many don’t know which polling place to go to, don’t have their IDs and the country is in the middle of a cholera outbreak that the CDC says is non-Haitian and originated from South Asia. This environment will minimize the voice of most of the people while amplifying that of the Haitian oligarchy, mostly sustained by NGO and U.S. aid funds, living in the luxurious Petionville hills, who have their IDs and are not displaced.
“Another issue is that whoever is elected will have so little power. The UN, Bill Clinton and other foreigners through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission largely run the country but are not accountable to the Haitian people.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
25 November 25, 2010 — Global Research– The Guardian – 2010-11-23
Almost everyone now accepts that the United Nations brought cholera to Haiti last month. The evidence is overwhelming and many experts (including the head of Harvard University’s microbiology department, cholera specialist John Mekalanos) made up their minds to that effect several weeks ago.
Poverty and a lack of rudimentary infrastructure compels much of Haiti’s population to drink untreated water, but there has been no cholera there for decades. Haitians have no experience with – and therefore little resistance to – the disease. All the bacterial samples taken from Haitian patients are identical and match a strain endemic in southern Asia. Cholera broke out in Nepal over the summer, and in mid-October a new detachment of Nepalese UN troops arrived at their Haitian base in Mirebalais, near the Artibonite river. A few days later Haitians living downstream of the base started to get sick and the disease spread rapidly throughout the region. On 27 October, journalists visited Mirebalais and found evidence that untreated waste from UN latrines was pouring directly into an Artibonite tributary.
22 November, 2010 — http://blog4haiti.hpp4haiti.com/
80% of the population is ready to go to the polls and attorney Jean Henry Céant will be president of Haiti with 53% of votes, indicates the survey conducted by the Haitian Priorities Project of the elections of November 28, 2010.
According to a recent survey conducted by Haitian Priorities Project spearheaded by 50 of its members dispatched around the country to all ten departments, reporting on the progress of the upcoming elections of 28 November 2010.
The people as a whole are prepared to sanction the government Préval/Bellerive in the next few days. This has been revealed by individuals interviewed for more than two weeks across the country.
30 July, 2010 — IPS News
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 30, 2010 (IPS) – After weeks of delays, Haitian President René Préval confirmed this month that presidential and legislative elections will take place on Nov. 28. The U.N. and Western donor nations are pledging millions of dollars in support of the polls, but with at least 1.5 million people still homeless from the January earthquake, questions loom over how to ensure voter participation.
In the last round of senatorial elections before the earthquake, less than three percent of the electorate participated. Fanmi Lavalas, widely seen as the most popular political party in the country, was excluded from the election on technical grounds, along with some other parties. Now, the party has again been banned from participating in the November polls.
International donors have expressed disappointment at Haiti’s failure to hold inclusive elections, but have continued to fund them.
10 February, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
The world’s sole superpower behaves as if Haitian sovereignty no longer exists. Notions of legality are wholly absent in America’s occupation of Haiti, where the U.S. poses as the internationally recognized authority. Washington arrogantly improvises the terms of the Haitian ‘protectorate.’
‘The Haitian people ‘need democracy and self determination, said the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition.’
Proud Haiti has been reduced to a de facto ‘protectorate’ of the United States – a grotesque form of non-sovereignty in which the subjugated nation is ‘protected’ by its worst enemy. Namibia under white-ruled South African administration comes to mind, although in Haiti’s case the United Nations does not even pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, acting instead as agent and enforcer for the superpower.
As Haiti writhes under the agony of hundreds of thousands dead, Bill Clinton picks through the bones in search of prime tourist spots and mango plantation sites. America’s most successful snake oil salesman is pleased to do the Haitian people’s thinking, planning and dreaming for them – and quite willing to speak for the afflicted country, as well. ‘This is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be,” Clinton told the global oligarchs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In one sweeping sentence, Clinton claimed a kind of sovereignty over the Haitian people’s very imaginations, assigning himself the right to filter what was good or bad about Haiti’s past, and what is permissible in the future. Haitians are no longer allowed to possess their own dreams and remembrances, which have apparently been placed in United Nations trusteeship, under control of UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton.
27 January, 2010 — The Bay View
The Bay View is introducing this interview with an urgent action alert from the Haiti Action Committee, co-founded by Pierre Labossiere, urging readers to “stand in solidarity with Haiti” and call the White House, the State Department and their Congress members today.
—
Haiti Action Committee Action Alert: Rebuilding Haiti with the Democratic Movement
Jan. 27 – In the aftermath of the devastating 7.0 earthquake, Haitian children, women and men are now suffering through a man-made disaster. Over one week ago, Obama promised, “The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble and to deliver the humanitarian relief.” But instead of delivering on this commitment, he has allowed the military response to take priority, resulting in thousands of preventable deaths.
As Haitians organize to rebuild their lives in the midst of an escalated military occupation, we demand that the Obama administration stop its destructive interference in Haiti. Haitians must be at the head of relief efforts and the long term rebuilding of their country. Fanmi Lavalas, the democratic grassroots movement of Haiti, must be at the center of any legitimate rebuilding process.
On behalf of our sisters and brothers in Haiti who have yet to see any relief and are beginning the process of reconstructing their country, we make the following demands on the Obama administration:
11 January, 2010 — Haiti Report
Elections Without Voters
Eroding Participation in Haiti
By: Melinda Miles, Konbit Pou Ayiti
Twenty years after its first democratic elections, Haiti is preparing for a vote to fill all but one seat in its Chamber of Deputies and ten of its thirty Senate seats. However, as the election date of February 28 rapidly approaches, the United States and other donor countries should withhold funding and observers from what is shaping up to be a selection rather than an election.
Recent reports and statements about the elections have focused on one key issue that is likely to undermine the election: The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), appointed by President Rene Preval, has excluded fifteen political parties from fielding candidates in the February contest. However, even if these parties are included in the election, the disenfranchisement of the majority of Haitians will still render the results of the election invalid.
U.S. Foreign Policy: Building Pluralism in Haiti – Until Now
After two decades of working to encourage political pluralism in Haiti, including the disbursement of millions of dollars to political parties labeled the “opposition,” the U.S. has an obligation to condemn the CEP for excluding fifteen well-known political parties. Ten years ago the U.S. and the international community boycotted elections because opposition parties themselves chose to not participate, accusing that CEP of being controlled by the Fanmi Lavalas party. Today some of these same parties are being intentionally excluded from participating, along side the Fanmi Lavalas party.
30 December, 2009 — Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY
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 Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930.
IN THIS REPORT:
6 May, 2009 – haitianalysis.com
Haiti’s Lavalas movement effectively destroyed the credibility of the April 19 Senate election through a successful boycott campaign called Operation Closed Door. Even the most generous electoral count puts participation at less than 10 percent in the capital of Port-au-Prince, while the actual figure may be as low as 3 percent nationwide.
According to Rene Civil, one of the spokespersons for Operation Closed Door: “What we are seeing is the non-violent resistance of the Haitian people to undemocratic elections. There is no way they will be able to call the senators elected in this process legitimate. You cannot hold elections without the majority political party.”
22 April, 2009
What if a national election was held and virtually no one showed up? That’s precisely what happened in Haiti. On April 19, scheduled senatorial elections were to fill 12 open seats. However, after majority Fanmi Lavalas (FL) candidates were disqualified on a first time ever procedural technicality, party leaders called for a national boycott, and Haitians responded overwhelmingly with estimates of as few as 3% of eligible voters participating.
According to Rene Civil, one of the boycott’s leaders:
“What we (saw was) the non-violent resistance of the Haitian people to undemocratic elections. There is no way they will be able to call Senators elected in this process legitimate. You cannot hold elections with the majority political party” excluded.
Ronald Fareau, another leader, added:
“We want to congratulate the international community for their hypocrisy in these elections. They spent over $17 million on another electoral fraud in Haiti while our people continue to suffer from malnutrition and illiteracy.”
Whoever wins, it will be impossible to call the results legitimate
On April 19, sham elections were held to fill 12 open seats in the 30-member Haitian Senate, but most Haitians refused to go along.
Earlier in February on procedural grounds, Haiti’s Provisional Election Council (CEP) disqualified Fanmi Lavalas (FL) candidates from participating, the party most Haitians support.
Mass outrage and apprehension showed up in Priorities Project (HPP) pre-election polls with only 5% of eligible voters stating an intention to participate.
HPP’s Jacob Francois told Inter Press Service (IPS):
‘We organized our census primarily through town hall meetings, where organizers spoke to people in groups and individually. From this we tallied the opinions of what we estimated to be 65,000 from an eight million population.’ From this sampling, a 5% participation rate was calculated.
Francois added: ‘They just do not learn. They can’t exclude a major party,’ and do it on a first time ever procedural technicality, ‘that’s total exclusion. It will undermine the entire process. In addition, the CEP has no business (interfering with) the internal affairs of Lavalas,’ or taking orders from Washington to do it.
Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said in a press release:
‘I cannot help but express my concern about the possibility that an important group of Haitian citizens might feel that they are not being represented in this process.’
In a pre-election radio interview, one Haitian activist said:
‘In the matter of elections, basically what you have is a decision to explode Fanmi Lavalas (FL)….with the complicity of President Rene Preval (and the international community)….because everyone knows FL is the majority party in the country.’
Meanwhile, the Haiti Information Project (HIP) reported at 3:00PM on April 19 that ‘today’s senatorial elections (are) a total failure.’ Port-au-Prince polling stations ‘had more election workers and police than actual voters.’ Normally busy city streets were ‘virtually deserted. A rough exit sampling from journalists (on the ground) shows that voter turnout may be as low as 3%.’
Astonishing. Imagine holding a national election and virtually no one shows up. Because of clear electoral rigging, FL leaders urged Haitians to support a national boycott. In overwhelming numbers, they complied by staying home and not voting. Whoever wins, it will be impossible to call the results legitimate.
—
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at:
#
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
20 April, 2009
NEW YORK, Apr 17 (IPS) – Weekend senatorial elections in Haiti are mired in controversy as Fanmi Lavalas (FL), the political party widely backed by the poor majority, has been disqualified.
As the global financial crisis unfolds, U.N. officials in New York City and Port-au-Prince are struggling to defend a troubled electoral process while gathering donor aid.
Meanwhile, a recent study by the Florida-based advocacy organisation Haiti Priorities Project (HPP) has found widespread popular apprehension and disaffection among Haitians ahead of the upcoming senatorial elections.
19 April, 2009
The U.S. government has a new strategy to stop Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas party from winning elections in Haiti.
Keeping Aristide in exile and Fanmi Lavalas off the ballot in Haiti is easier than arranging another coup, like the two Washington administrations previously pulled off against Aristide.
Of course, the U.S. foreign policy operatives will never admit that this is U.S. policy. Even though it was U.S. security agents that forced President Aristide onto a U.S. plane on Feb. 29, 2004, and flew him to Africa.
16 April 16, 2009
Obama’s First Foreign Policy Disaster?
The Obama administration and the international community have largely remained silent the past two weeks concerning a decision by Haiti’s election council to move forward with controversial Senate elections scheduled for April 19. A visit in early March by former president Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to ‘draw attention to Haiti and promote development,’ an international donors conference on Haiti held in Washington D.C. yesterday, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Haiti today, have only temporarily distracted attention away from the controversial election.
17 April, 2009
Few people anywhere have suffered more for so long, yet endure and keep struggling for change. For brief periods under Jean-Bertand Aristide, they got it until a US-led February 29, 2004 coup d’etat forced him into exile where he remains Haiti’s symbolic leader – for his supporters, still head of the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) party he founded in 1996 to reestablish links between local Lavalas branches and its parliamentary representatives.
From then to now, nothing has been the same. UN paramilitaries occupy the country. Washington effectively controls it. President Rene Preval got a choice – go along or pay the price. He submitted knowing what awaits him if he resists. Nonetheless, he’s disappointed bitterly.
Haitians suffered dearly as a result, deeply impoverished, at times starving, denied the most basic essentials, plagued by violence, a brutal occupier, police repression, an odious and onerous debt, and exploitive sweatshop conditions for those lucky enough to have a job in a country plagued by unemployment and deprivation.
13 April, 2009
According to a survey conducted by Haitian Priorities Project, 70 members were allocated in ten departments within Haiti monitoring the progress of the electoral contests for April 19 2009. Based on the findings, only 5% of potential voters nationwide say they are ready to go to the polls in order to elect 12 senators for the upcoming elections on April of this year.
Two Consecutive lists were presented, one with the allowed names accepted by the Electoral College (CEP), and the other with the names of the candidates admitted by the CEP including those 12 candidates of Fanmi Lavalas. A great percentage of candidates admitted by the CEP, that the population is not familiar with, being aware of their names or presence in the upcoming elections in April.
Source: Black Commentator
September 18, 2008
Slightly more than a year ago, a Haitian associate of mine was kidnapped in Haiti and, from the looks of it, was murdered. His body has not been recovered and nothing has been heard from him. Despite significant international attention to his case, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, a noted Haitian activist and leader, an associate of deposed President Jean Bertrand Aristide, has been “disappeared.”
The New Dark Age 