For $10 Billion of "Promises" Haiti Surrenders its Sovereignty By Kim Ives

April 28, 2010Leave a comment

25 April, 2010 — Global Research

It was fitting that the Mar. 31 ‘International Donors Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti’ was held in the Trusteeship Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York. At the event, Haitian President René Préval in effect turned over the keys to Haiti to a consortium of foreign banks and governments, which will decide how (to use the conference’s principal slogan) to ‘build back better’ the country devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

This ‘better’ Haiti envisions some 25,000 farmers providing Coca-Cola with mangos for a new Odwalla brand drink, 100,000 workers assembling clothing and electronics for the U.S. market in sweatshops under HOPE II legislation, and thousands more finding jobs as guides, waiters, cleaners and drivers when Haiti becomes a new tourist destination.

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Haiti’s Yawning Leadership Vacuum: René Préval Runs his Crisis of Confidence Quietly, if at all

March 25, 2010Leave a comment

25 March, 2010 — Council on Hemispheric Affairs by COHA Research Associate Ritika Singh

With the UN Haiti Donors’ Conference about to begin on March 31, 2010 in New York, an evaluation of President Préval’s leadership is necessary and unavoidable.
Considering the Haitian President’s spectacularly failed performance in the earthquake’s aftermath, donors may want to maintain close levels of involvement in the implementation of aid programs in order to ensure a properly enriched allocation of resources will be awarded.
Aristide – Préval: A genteel relationship minted in purgatory.
The very question remains regarding the magnitude of President René Préval’s involvement in the leadership of efforts to reconstruct the island and whether Haiti’s rehabilitation will be entirely a function of the island’s NGO’s, or of the government’s (which has never failed hither to drop the ball in major areas of responsibility) ability to play a major role in guiding rehabilitation efforts.

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Mass protests greet Sarkozy visit to Haiti By Alex Lantier

February 26, 2010Leave a comment

19 February 2010 — WSWS

French President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled for a one-day visit to Haiti on February 17, amid rising popular opposition to the Western-backed Préval government and international tensions over how to rebuild the country. The US military occupied Haiti after the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people, wounded over 250,000, and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

Sarkozy, the first French head of state ever to visit Haiti, was greeted with street protests by thousands of Haitians demanding the return of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ousted by a US- and French-backed coup in 2004, Aristide was flownto the Central African Republic, a former French colony. Aristide now lives in exile in South Africa. President René Préval, a former prime minister under Aristide in the 1990s, came to power in 2006 in elections supervised by the provisional government of Boniface Alexandre that was installed by the coup.

Préval tried to address the crowd outside the presidential palace. However, crowds shouted him down, and Préval left in a luxury Jeep, surrounded by bodyguards.

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HaitiReport 11 January, 2010: Elections Without Voters: Eroding Participation in Haiti

January 11, 2010Leave a comment

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.

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Haiti Report for December 30, 2009

December 30, 20092 Comments

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:

– Prime Minister Pierre-Louis Removed and Replaced with Jean-Max Bellerive
– Charles Arthur, Haiti Support Group: New Government Won’t Bring Change
– Upcoming Elections in February
– Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas Party Barred from February Legislative Elections, Along with Other Parties
– UN Peacekeeping Mission Urges Officials to Justify Barring Lavalas and Other Parties
– Opposition Groups Threaten to Disrupt Elections
– Aristide Speaks Out Against Possible “Selections” instead of “Elections”
– OAS will Monitor Election but Won’t Help Organize
– HAITI Don’t honor tainted election, BY BRIAN CONCANNON JR. and IRA KURZBAN
– Statement of the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN): “Haiti: Flawed election in the making”
– Lawyers Worldwide Warn Against Danger of “Electoral Charade” in Haiti
– U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters Criticizes Electoral Council
– New Hotels Rising in Port-au-Prince
– Italian Journalist Mortally Wounded During Robbery
– Environment News
– Solar Energy Brings Light to Boucan Carre Hospital in Haiti
– Environment Minister Germain at Copenhagen Climate Summit
– Haiti and the Dominican Republic Sign Agreement to Protect Lakes on the Border
– President Rene Preval Remarries
– Brazil Spending More in Haiti Than the UN is Refunding

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Electoral Sham in Haiti By Stephen Lendman

April 21, 2009Leave a comment

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.

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