Under Tents: Taking Action for Haiti’s Homeless

by: Kevin Edmonds
Originally posted July 6, 2012 on NACLA

On July 2, Haitian grassroots organizations and their international allies launched a housing rights campaign called ‘Under Tents’ in response to the failure the Haitian government to “address Haiti’s epidemic of homelessness.” According to Haiti Liberté, the campaign will press for congressional and parliamentary action in the U.S., Canada, and Europe to support the construction of housing for displaced Haitians. Central to the campaign is an online petition addressed to President Martelly, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other senior Haitian and American officials to take action to combat Haiti’s severe housing crisis.

Reading recent headlines however, it would be easy—albeit mistaken—to think that progress was being made on the housing front. On July 26, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) reported that the number of displaced Haitians living in the camps had dropped below 400,000 from a high of nearly 1.5 million in the immediate aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. What the IOM didn’t tell the public was where the displaced people had gone, and why so many had left the camps.
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In the News: Too Soon for Carnival: Sweeping Haiti’s 400,000 Poor Back Under the Rug

For those who haven’t been to Haiti for a while, or for those who have never been but have seen the hell on earth portrayed in the media, the fact that Champs-de-Mars and other plazas in Port-au-Prince are no longer home to thousands of people is a symbol of progress.

Celebrating this “liberation” of public spaces, President Martelly is planning a Carnival des Fleurs, a tradition under Duvalier, scheduled to begin July 29, a day after the anniversary of the 1915 U.S. invasion.

For the 390,276 people the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates who are still under ripped sheets of plastic or tarp, it’s too soon to celebrate.

Many believe this relocation of camps on highly-visible areas is akin to sweeping the garbage off the floor only to have it out of sight and out of mind, in someone else’s backyard. Where are people going?

For its part, the IOM is keeping track of people they have relocated in the 16/6 program. But the 16/6 camps only account for 5 percent of the total camp population.

And for the others? “Nou pa konnen.” We don’t know.

Read the rest at the Huffington Post

Haiti’s earthquake victims step up demands for housing

By Roger Annis & Kim Ives, July 4, 2012

The following article was published on the Haiti blog of Rabble.ca. It also appears in the July 4 issue of Haiti Liberté newsweekly.

The plight of some 400,000 Haitians still living under tarps and tents since the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake has surged into the streets and headlines in recent weeks, highlighting one of Haiti’s most explosive and intractable issues. A new grassroots campaign, an international petition, several new reports, and street demonstrations are underscoring the problem’s urgency.

On May 31, dozens of protesters mobilized by the Forces for Reflection and Action on Housing Matters (FRAKKA) demonstrated in front of the office of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to denounce the broken promises of Haitian government officials to provide housing for earthquake victims. “We in FRAKKA have noted the growing speed of forced expulsions against the displaced people camps,” said Rénel Sanon, FRAKKA’s Secretary General.

For almost one year now, the government of President Michel Martelly has trumpeted a program entitled ‘16/6’ under which about 30,000 residents of six large camps would be resettled to their original but repaired 16 neighborhoods, all of which were badly damaged by the quake. The program has been heavily supported by foreign governments, including Canada. To encourage people to leave camps, residents were told they will receive a one-year rental subsidy of $500 per family.

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In the News: The legality or not of President Martelly’s proposed constitutional changes

Interview with lawyers Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon: How President Martelly’s proposed constitutional changes are illegal

Interview by Kim Ives and Roger Leduc, published in Haiti Liberte, June 14, 2012

Haitian President Joseph Michel Martelly recently announced his intention to publish amendments to Haiti’s 1987 Constitution during the month of June. Once published in the government’s official journal Le Moniteur, laws are supposed to go into effect. But according to Haiti’s existing 1987 Constitution, amendments made during one administration are not supposed to take effect until the following administration.

Martelly’s plan to publish the amendments, which were partially and faultily drafted under Haiti’s last president, René Préval (2006-2011), has provoked a storm of protest among constitutional scholars, lawyers, politicians, and activists who charge that it would be patently illegal. But the U.S. and its allies continue to push Martelly to publish the amendments despite widespread and vehement objections.

On June 7, Kim Ives and Roger Leduc interviewed Mario Joseph, the lead lawyer of the Office of International Lawyers (BAI) based in Port-au-Prince, and lawyer Brian Concannon of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) on the radio program “Haiti: The Struggle Continues,” broadcast every Thursday from 9 to 10 p.m. on the Pacifica Network’s WBAI-FM in New York (streamed live and archived on www.wbai.org). What follows is an edited version of that interview. Mario Joseph’s responses in Kreyòl have been translated into English.

Kim Ives: Brian, can you briefly explain what are the key amendments to the Constitution that have been drafted, and what has gone wrong with their publication?

Brian Concannon: One overarching theme which is often lost in this discussion is the whole idea of why you have a constitution. Constitutions are by design hard to amend because they are supposed to set down your bedrock principles that can’t be changed quickly or easily. Constitutions are hard to change, you have to do it with a two-thirds vote, and, in almost all constitutions, you need to do it through some specialized procedure. The basic problem here is that the Haitian Constitution’s drafters made amendments a fairly easy procedure.

The way you’re supposed to do it is this. An outgoing legislature in its last session votes a law, and then the next legislature – which comes in with the next president – votes on the same law, up or down, just after an election, after the people have had an opportunity to have some say. The people get their input by having the elections.

What happened was this: in October 2009, the outgoing legislature voted a law, and then in 2011, a new legislature changed it, making a very different law. The hard part is that nobody really knows what that law is. The legislature claims that it has one version; former President Préval claims that he has another version. There’s lots of problems with both versions, and nobody really knows what’s in both.

A lot of people like some of the proposed changes, like those which allow double nationality and set a goal of 30% participation of women in government. But some of the changes might affect the fundamental democratic structure of the country. For example, the new law allows the president to name local officials instead of having them be elected; it changes the terms of senators and deputies in ways that might suggest the changes should not be made in the haphazard way they’ve been done.

Read the rest at the CHAN website.

In the News: UN peacekeepers not about to leave Haiti

Originally posted at Al Jazeera’s blog

Port-au-Prince, Haiti – A bas Kolera, a bas Minista,– Creole for “down with cholera, down with MINUSTAH,” the United Nation peacekeeping force in Haiti – can be seen spray-painted across Port-au-Prince. One national newspaper headline recently read, “MINUSTAH must go.” And the refrain of a popular song by the Haitian band Brothers Posse mocks UN soldiers.

After years of scandal, including allegations of sexual abuse and accusations of introducing cholera into the country, many Haitians want the UN’s third-largest peacekeeping force to leave.

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In the News: Michel Martelly’s Electoral Coup d’Etat

by Roger Annis, originally posted at Haiti Liberté

Haiti finds itself today with a neo-Duvalierist as President-elect, thanks to a concerted effort by foreign powers to continue thwarting the social justice aspirations of the Haitian people.

Michel Martelly is closely associated with Haiti’s extreme right that twice overthrew elected governments (in 1991 and 2004). He told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio’s The Current on April 7 that Haiti has been “going in the wrong direction for the last 25 years,” which corresponds to the time during which the Haitian people have been trying to overcome the legacies of impunity, dependence, and underdevelopment left to them by the Duvalier tyranny.

Martelly has vowed to reconstitute the notorious Armed Forces of Haiti or FAdH, which former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded in 1995 due to its penchant for making coup d’états and committing massive human rights violations. Former and would-be soldiers are already training in camps around Haiti and waiting for their call to service.

Martelly also says that Haiti’s economic and social development depends on convincing more foreign investors to set up shop in Haiti, sweatshops in particular.

The two-round election that landed him in power was foreignfunded and inspired. The United States, Canada and Europe paid at least $29 million to finance it. The victor acknowledges his campaign costs – $1 million in the first round and $6 million in the second round – were largely covered by “friends” in the United States. He refuses to say who they are.

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