All posts in category Haiti

Haiti: Déjà Vu All Over Again

By Fulton Armstrong

Police get in position as the protesters escalate their chants/ Ben Piven/ Flickr/ Creative Commons License

Despite the Haitian government’s postponement of a referendum on a Constitution drafted by a committee hand-picked by President Jovenel Moïse, the President’s power grab looks likely to persist, almost certainly prolonging and deepening the country’s current crisis. Moïse has ruled by decree since January 2020 because – in part owing to his own obstructionism – legislative elections in 2019 were postponed and a new legislature could not be seated. He has also insisted that delays in his inauguration in 2017 entitle him to a one-year extension of his term, until February 2022. Political tensions have triggered large, violent protests and catalyzed a surge in murders, kidnappings (up 200 percent over 2020), and other crimes – a deterioration that the Catholic Church calls “a descent into hell.” Gangs, often acting as surrogates for political factions, have been terrorizing neighborhoods and have attacked nine police stations in the past week, according to the Miami Herald.

  • Most controversial among Moïse’s actions has been a new Constitution drafted by a closed group of his allies and a referendum on it originally planned for June 27. The new Constitution would give him significantly greater powers by, for example, eliminating the post of Prime Minister and making the Legislature a unicameral body easier for the President to control. Many observers view it as mostly a tool to consolidate his one-man rule and increase impunity. Although Moïse has denied he intends to seek a second turn, his Constitution would allow him one.
  • Criticism of the Constitution and referendum has been widespread. The entire political opposition has condemned it, as has the Catholic Church. Even the head of Moïse’s Parti Tèt Kale has publicly opposed it. Thousands of demonstrators have spontaneously taken to the streets in generally peaceful protests, while massacres by pro-government forces have escalated in slums generally supportive of the opposition.  

The international community, which has been permissive of Moïse as he’s pursued most of his plans over the past year-plus, criticized his efforts to ram through the Constitution – lamenting the lack of transparency and the narrow participation in its drafting – and finally pressed him to suspend the referendum. But it is also quietly facilitating some of the steps required to lead up to such a vote.

  • OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro in February criticized Moïse’s human rights record, but the OAS has embraced his claim to an extended term and, while expressing concern about process issues, was not forceful against the Constitution gambit. Indeed, an OAS mission visiting Port-au-Prince this week will focus on the surge in violence and preparations for future elections, not stopping his Constitution.
  • The Biden Administration has been slow to take a stance on Moïse’s machinations – not announcing opposition to the referendum until this week. It has criticized his inability to quell the violence without linking it to his policies or agenda. Announcing last week that the United States was extending Temporary Protective Status for 100,000 Haitians, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas noted that Haiti is “currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”  

Haitian crises have been so deep and long in recent decades that this one is difficult to distinguish from others, but it is a perfect storm of a sustained political power grab amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its massive economic hit. Moïse is almost certain to push for his new Constitution as a condition for holding elections. Haitian elites have never heeded lofty appeals for them to build democracy and make compromises. They expertly exploit the international community’s reluctance to punish them because of the harm it will cause the Haitian people. (UNICEF reports that severe acute malnutrition among young children has doubled over the past year.) Cooperation between government opponents in Haiti and the Diaspora has introduced an element of protest and resistance not seen since the mid-1980, but the international community still heeds primarily local political and economic elites.

  • Washington’s hesitance to become more forceful probably reflects the view that it has no better alternative than tolerating Moïse. If so, it would suggest the Biden Administration has not learned the lessons – such as that the elites are unreliable partners – of the failed U.S. pledge during Barack Obama’s presidency to help Haiti “Build Back Better” after the 2010 earthquake and the Trump Administration’s coddling of Moïse in return for his opposition to Venezuela at the OAS. The State Department’s belated opposition to Moïse’s referendum, however, may be a sign that it is listening to the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Haiti Caucus’s urging that the Administration get out of its “source bubble” and reach out to constructive opposition voices.

June 10, 2021

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by clalsstaff on June 10, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 10, 2021

https://aulablog.net/2021/06/10/haiti-deja-vu-all-over-again/

Haiti: Is Anyone Listening?

By Fulton Armstrong

Protesters take to the streets in 2018 over the government's misuse of funds from PetroCaribe.

Protesters take to the streets in 2018 over the government’s misuse of funds from PetroCaribe– once again the subject of public anger/ Rony D’Haiti/ Wikimedia Commons/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manifestation_Haiti.jpg

As Haiti enters a fifth week of protests, President Jovenel Moïse’s support for U.S. policies on Venezuela and Taiwan appears to have secured him Washington’s backing, but his government is in tatters and his opponents don’t look likely to fold soon. For weeks, tens of thousands of protesters have held targeted marches in Port-au-Prince and provincial cities across the country demanding Moïse’s resignation. Violence by demonstrators and police has caused 17 deaths and hundreds of injuries, including the shooting of several journalists, according to human rights monitors. School closures have left up to 2 million children without class and the food supplements they receive there.

  • Protesters originally took to the streets to protest fuel shortages caused by government insolvency, but corruption – including the misappropriation of an estimated $2 billion dollars in profits from the sale of fuel under Venezuela’s previous PetroCaribe program – has become the overwhelming issue. Opposition leaders cite Superior Court audits implicating Moïse and other government officials past and present in schemes to personally profit from PetroCaribe security forces’ use of clubs and tear gas (and unconfirmed use of live ammunition) against demonstrators has further fueled anger in the streets. Haiti’s Catholic Bishops have blamed Moïse for the showdown, and their “Justice and Peace Commission” has publicly called for his resignation.
  • Moïse’s leadership has been unsteady throughout the crisis. He was out of public view entirely for one week, returning only in a pre-recorded radio address broadcast at 2:00 am on September 25 that called for calm and dangled the prospect of a “government of national unity.” Since his inauguration in January 2017, he has lived under the shadow of suspicious vote counts and has either failed to get Prime Ministers confirmed by Parliament or to build a good working relationship with them. The country hasn’t had a budget for two years, and a projected 20 percent inflation during 2019 and mere 1.5 percent growth further drive popular fury.

Moïse is clearly winning the competition for international support. However, he has gained U.S. silence about the evidence of his and senior allies’ involvement in PetroCaribe under Venezuelan Presidents Chávez and Maduro. During the UN General Assembly two weeks ago, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Moïse’s Foreign Minister, Bocchit Edmond, with whom he “reaffirmed the strength of the U.S.-Haiti partnership and shared hope that Haiti’s political stakeholders would soon identify a path to forming a government that remains firmly rooted in democracy and the rule of law.”

  • The opposition’s calls for support have been much less successful. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican widely seen as President Trump’s top advisor on hemispheric affairs, said it was not the “proper job of the United States to call on a democratically elected President [Moïse] to step down.” (Rubio had praised Moïse for supporting U.S. sanctions to remove Maduro and for preserving diplomatic relations with Taiwan.) The senior Democrat in the U.S. Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last week also cited Moïse’s position on Maduro as important.
  • UN officials last week issued a “statement of concern,” noting that the protests were hindering aid deliveries and could lead to a humanitarian crisis. The UN remained neutral, however, and called on “everyone” to refrain from the use of violence. An unofficial OAS delegation to Haiti organized by individuals close to Senator Rubio in June told the opposition to “back off,” according to press reports, and reportedly told Moïse that he should “start governing” but it was “not going to ask him to resign.” Overall, however, the OAS has kept a very low profile, especially during the current crisis.

Haitian politicians have often turned to foreign friends and multilateral organizations to rescue them from crises – which they surely stir up themselves – but the international community, rather than addressing fundamental problems, often tries to paper over highly contested elections (like Moïse’s) and institutional weaknesses. The billions in PetroCaribe revenues that have vanished during the past two presidencies – including that of Moïse’s mentor, Michel Martelly – is strong circumstantial evidence that the opposition’s calls for investigation of the current administration have merit. But Moïse seems to be betting – correctly so far – that support for Washington’s priorities, such as condemning alleged corruption and undemocratic practices in other countries, buys him space to snub opponents’ demands. The UN and OAS just don’t seem to want to get more deeply involved, but the opposition, which has surprised many with the length and level of protests, doesn’t seem ready to give up.

October 11, 2019

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by clalsstaff on October 11, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 11, 2019

https://aulablog.net/2019/10/11/haiti-is-anyone-listening/

Haiti: Building Democratic Institutions?

By Fulton Armstrong

A bus burning with thick clouds of black smoke billowing above it, and two men on a motorcycle riding by.

Riots in Haiti, February 2019 / AP/ Wiki Images / Creative Commons

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is trying to end a months-long political crisis by dumping his Prime Minister, but he doesn’t seem to be addressing the underlying causes of last month’s violent protests, and scandal continues to swirl around his apparent role in a bizarre operation involving heavily armed U.S. “security specialists.” Protesters who took the streets in early February accused Moïse and close allies, including former President Michel Martelly, of diverting billions of dollars gained from the sale of fuel under Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program – money that should have gone to development programs – before he took office in 2017. They also complained about the continued economic decline under Moïse. Roadblocks around Port-au-Prince and elsewhere brought the country to a halt. Some 41 deaths were reported. The U.S. Embassy evacuated non-emergency personnel and warned persons “not travel to Haiti due to crime and civil unrest.”

  • Moïse made no public statements until after eight days of rioting, when he said, “I hear you.” Reiterating his pledge to resist opponents calling for him to step down, he said, “I will not leave the country in the hands of armed gangs and drug traffickers.” He mobilized supporters in Congress to pass a no-confidence resolution removing Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant, with whom he had been publicly feuding, just days after the six-month anniversary of his appointment, at which point he could legally be removed from office. But Moïse has not addressed the corruption charges, nor announced any plans to revitalize the economy except by negotiating a new loan from the IMF.

The appearance and disappearance of U.S. operations specialists, who were armed with assault weapons, drones, satellite phones, and other equipment, remain a mystery. Members of the team have offered different versions of the purpose of their mission, perhaps reflecting different cover stories they’d been given, but several scenarios involve moving something sensitive – money, people, or computer technology – out of or into the Central Bank, with Moïse seemingly at the heart of the mission. The team was arrested before the operation could be completed, and Moïse and his Justice Minister got them released. The U.S. Embassy helped spring them from police custody and helped them depart the country even before they could be arraigned. U.S. authorities, after meeting them planeside in Miami, released them without charge. (The Embassy reportedly told the Minister of Justice that the U.S. Government would bring arms trafficking charges against them.)

  • Moïse’s opponents claim that Washington aided the exfiltration in return for his increasingly close alignment with President Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s priorities, including Haiti’s first-ever vote in January on a resolution rejecting the legitimacy of Venezuelan President Maduro’s second term. Perhaps related: U.S. support was important in the IMF decision earlier this month to extend loans for $229 million at 0 percent interest. The deal will move ahead after Moïse gets a new Prime Minister confirmed. Rubio visited Moïse in Haiti last week, and Trump met the Haitian President, along with other Caribbean leaders who voted with the United States on Venezuela, last Friday at Mar-a-Lago.

If precedent is any guide, Prime Minister Céant almost certainly had a hand in stimulating the February riots, and his accusation that the U.S. security team members were “terrorists” seems far-fetched and politically motivated. But he may have correctly sensed that the armed operations team’s purpose involved an effort by Moïse or his powerful mentor, former President Michel Martelly, to shut down any additional snooping into their activities and the whereabouts of the Petrocaribe profits. Moïse appears likely to continue looking for ways to curry favor with Washington as a means of gaining U.S. support and forbearance. Indeed, U.S. willingness to hustle the security team out of the country before they could face a judge would suggest that Moïse knows how to poke holes in the United States’ stated commitment to the rule of law and democratic institutions.

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by clalsstaff on March 26, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 26, 2019

https://aulablog.net/2019/03/26/haiti-building-democratic-institutions/

Haiti: Increasingly Alone

By Fulton Armstrong

A bird's eye view of a residential neighborhood in Haiti

A residential neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. / UNICEF Canada / Flickr / Creative Commons

Haiti’s international backers are increasingly leaving the impoverished Caribbean country to its own devices, but Port-au-Prince remains woefully ill-prepared to face its many challenges alone.  Competing priorities and distractions seem to be the main causes of the international retrenchment.  Perceptions that international aid, particularly the billions of dollars in assistance since the 2010 earthquake, has been squandered – as well as general “donor fatigue” worldwide – appear to be secondary factors.

  • The United Nations, two months after the inauguration of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in February 2017, determined that Haitian institutions were sufficiently strong for the UN to withdraw last October the remaining 2,300 peacekeepers in the Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) that had been deployed since the 2004 military coup. In its place, the UN is establishing this April a small “Mission for Justice Support” (MINUJUSTH), meant to strengthen the justice system, policing, and human rights protections – leaving all security responsibilities to Haiti’s 15,000-man police force.
  • International support for UN efforts to stem the cholera epidemic caused by UN peacekeepers after the devastating earthquake in 2010 has been lacking. About 10,000 Haitians (of an estimated 817,000 infected) have died, including 159 (of 14,000 new cases) reported in 2017.  The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last month that only $4.8 million out of the $34.5 million requested for cholera response has been funded.
  • The United States, Haiti’s biggest benefactor (having disbursed at least $3.9 billion in post-2010 earthquake aid), is pulling back in disruptive ways. The administration of President Donald Trump, who while campaigning in 2016 pledged to be Haiti’s “biggest champion,” in November announced suspension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 59,000 Haitians living legally in the United States since the earthquake – giving them until March 19 to leave the country or face deportation.  Trump’s reported reference to Haiti and Africa as “shitholes” during a meeting with U.S. Congressmen last month also infuriated Haitians.
  • Food aid continues to flow, but donors have come through with less than half of the $56 million the UN urgently called for in the wake of Hurricane Matthew last October. The World Food Program reports that 50 percent of Haiti’s 10.7 million people are undernourished – including 1.3 million in “Phase 3 crisis” and 3 million in “Phase 2 stress.”
  • Even international partners have disappointed Haiti as well. Reports that Oxfam personnel held sex parties and paid for sex have prompted admissions that some staff’s behavior was “totally unacceptable.”  The group’s Haiti country director has conceded that he made “mistakes” by having a sexual relationship with a woman and was aware of the parties and prostitutes.  Other reports indicate that Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) repatriated 17 employees for “misconduct” that the organization is not willing to discuss.

President Moïse, who two weeks ago completed his first year in office, has had few options for dealing with these challenges.  His appeals for international support are falling on deaf or distracted ears.  It is by now well established that the international community’s “pledges of aid” invariably fall short of stated commitments, but defending his poor but proud nation from being called obscenities by the U.S. President is a task that his hapless predecessors did not have to deal with.  To prepare for the withdrawal of MINUSTAH, he has reconstituted a Haitian National Army – a force of 3,000-5,000 whom he promises will “help the people … not be an army of repression” – but the move has reopened fresh wounds from years of military abuses.  He has condemned the “sexual predator” international staff who exploit “needy people in their moment of greatest vulnerability,” but he needs to maintain good relations with NGOs in general, since they have often become the sole suppliers of public goods that ideally would be provided by the state.  Haitians’ frustration was palpable last week when a fire destroyed much of Port-au-Prince’s famous Marché en Fer (Iron Market), a historic symbol of popular commerce rebuilt after the earthquake which has become a profitable tourist destination – another sign that fate is simply not on their side.

February 20, 2018

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by clalsstaff on February 20, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on February 20, 2018

https://aulablog.net/2018/02/20/haiti-increasingly-alone/

Haiti: Yet More Challenges Ahead for President Moïse

By Emma Fawcett*

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A group of peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) prepare for departure from the island. / UN Photo / Isaac Billy / Flickr / Creative Commons

Haiti’s new president, Jovenel Moïse, has helped the country overcome the long political crisis that preceded his election, but he faces losing two long-running forms of support from the international community.  MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping operation that has been in place for 13 years – successor to similar missions since 1994 – will depart this autumn, necessitating an expansion in Haiti’s domestic police force.  The U.S. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, providing temporary legal residency to some 58,000 Haitians in the United States since the 2010 earthquake, appears likely to end in January 2018.

  • MINUSTAH has long been the backbone of Haitian internal security, for which Haiti’s own forces lack competence and credibility. The UN’s demobilization began in May, when units from Chile, Uruguay, and Peru returned home.  Brazilian units remain in the country to oversee the return of equipment and disassembly of base facilities.  Operations will officially cease on October 15.  MINUSTAH is one of the United Nation’s longest running peacekeeping missions, and its loss will have a significant impact even though its operations have been plagued by tragic (and criminal) missteps.  It was responsible for bringing cholera to Haiti; the epidemic has since killed more than 10,000 people.  In addition, an Associated Press investigation revealed nearly 2,000 accounts of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers, including about 300 perpetrated against minors.  While the UN has a “zero tolerance” policy against sexual exploitation, it does not have the power to prosecute perpetrators – and holding troops accountable is the responsibility of their home governments.  Sri Lanka has declined to investigate more than 100 of its soldiers, who were sent home in 2007 after sexual abuse allegations.
  • The Haitian government requested an 18-month extension to the TPS program, but U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly opted to extend by just six months. While Kelly said the program will be reevaluated before the current extension expires, his statement has effectively signaled the end of the program, noting that the short extension “should allow Haitian TPS recipients … time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States” and give the Haitian government time to prepare for their repatriation.  The Haitian government has argued that it is ill equipped to manage an influx of returnees, and that the remittances provided by those in the TPS program are vital to Haiti’s continued recovery.

More than seven years after the deadly earthquake, Haiti’s recovery remains elusive, and the departure of MINUSTAH and potential end of the TPS program portend a rocky road ahead for a new government that is just barely getting some traction.  The end of both forms of support for Haiti represent donor fatigue – not Haitian achievement of benchmarks of progress.  Port-au-Prince couldn’t reasonably expect the UN to continue providing it security support for another 20 years, but Moïse is about to bear the brunt of series of predecessors who failed to prepare the nation for the UN’s departure.  The support Haiti has received from the international community has always fallen short of promises; nearly $10 billion in pledges for post-earthquake assistance never materialized.  But donors also point out that Haiti has often failed to uphold its end of the bargain; the protracted election crisis caused many to withdraw budgetary support.  While both the UN peacekeeping mission and U.S. immigration policy have been at times poorly executed, their absence will be a major blow, if nothing else because changes on both fronts are proof that Haiti is no longer anyone’s priority.  Moïse’s administration has much to tackle – bolstering the national police force and preparing for the arrival of potentially tens of thousands of TPS returnees without adequate resources for either task – while he addresses 14 percent inflation and a bloated civil service.  Looking for homegrown solutions would be a huge challenge for any country, especially one struggling with as many fundamentals as Haiti.

May 31, 2017

* Emma Fawcett is an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at American University and a monitoring and evaluation specialist with an international NGO.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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by clalsstaff on May 31, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 31, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/05/31/haiti-yet-more-challenges-ahead-for-president-moise/

Haiti’s Electoral Crisis Finally Concludes, for Now

By Emma Fawcett*

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Newly inaugurated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse speaks with the Dominican press. / Karla Sepúlveda / Presidencia República Dominicana / Flickr / Creative Commons

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, inaugurated this week following an 18-month electoral crisis, is likely to have a short honeymoon before the country’s multiple crises hit him hard.  While the transfer of power was long overdue – after a year of transitional rule by interim President Jocelerme Privert – questions remain about Moïse’s ability to govern.  He is a 48-year-old businessman with no political or governing experience.  The election delays suppressed voter turnout to a paltry 21 percent, so the 55 percent of votes that he won amounts to just 9.6 percent of registered voters.  Tensions remain high among the other 53 former presidential candidates.

  • Challenges to Moïse’s term in office have already emerged. While Haitian presidential terms are five years, some constitutional experts believe that Moïse lost a year due to the electoral crisis – that interim President Privert’s year in office counted – and therefore that he has only four years remaining.
  • Moïse already faces allegations of corruption. In a case he claims is politically motivated, he has been under investigation for money laundering since irregularities in his bank transfers were first discovered in 2013.  Four opposition senators last week requested additional information about the investigative judge’s findings, and another former presidential candidate has filed as a plaintiff in the case.  The judge’s order and the prosecutor’s intentions have not been made public, but the investigation has been expanded to include interviews of Moïse’s wife and several other associates.  Several senators boycotted the inauguration in protest.

Haitian economic and social problems remain severe.  The mandate for MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission that has been in place for the last 12 years, expires in mid-April.  Foreign assistance has continued to decline, although Hurricane Matthew caused $2.8 billion in damage last October and another 30,000 cases of cholera are expected this year.  Thousands of Haitians have fled the island, including about 5,000 currently awaiting entry on the US-Mexico border.  Inflation exceeds 14 percent a year, and growth for 2017 is expected to be -0.6 percent.  Even the budget for Moïse’s inauguration was slashed by 50 percent in light of austerity measures, although several foreign presidents and a U.S. delegation led by Omarosa Manigault, a former reality TV star and assistant to President Trump, attended.

Moïse faces tremendous challenges – without anything resembling a popular mandate.  If he is prosecuted, moreover, Haiti could be rapidly plunged back into political instability.  But  foreign media indicate that many Haitians hope that his business background as a banana exporter and auto parts dealer will help him revive the economy, especially the agricultural and textile sectors.  Moïse has indicated repeatedly that he hopes to preserve and expand Haiti’s preferential trade agreements with the United States: “President Trump and I are entrepreneurs, and all an entrepreneur wants is results, and therefore I hope we’ll put everything in place to make sure we deliver for our peoples.”  With the electoral uncertainty finally over, Moïse is slightly better positioned than his two most recent predecessors – transitional President Privert and embattled President Michel Martelly – to foster political stability, engage the diaspora, and encourage foreign direct investment.  But with so many competing priorities and the distraction of his money laundering case, it will be enormously difficult for the new president to serve “all Haitians” as his inaugural address promised.

February 9, 2017

 * Emma Fawcett is an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at American University.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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by clalsstaff on February 9, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on February 9, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/02/09/haitis-electoral-crisis-finally-concludes-for-now/

Haiti: Hurricane Matthew’s Devastating Impact

By Emma Fawcett*

Group of Haitians unpacking supplies

A citizen of Beaumont, Haiti unloads hurricane relief supplies from USAID on October 13, 2016. / U.S. Air Force / Photo by Tech. Sgt. Russ Scalf / Flickr / Creative Commons

Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall on Haiti’s southwestern claw on October 4, devastated citizens’ lives, homes, and businesses – and set back much more across the country.  Some 546 are reported dead, and 128 are still listed as missing.  According to World Bank estimates, the Category 4 hurricane caused nearly $2 billion in damages, including $600 million in the agricultural sector.  The hard-hit southern peninsula provides about one-third of Port-au-Prince’s food supply, and the losses of crops and fishing equipment have long-term implications for food security.  Ninety percent of the homes in the South and Grand’Anse regions were damaged or destroyed, and according to the Environment Ministry, the storm sped up deforestation and has destroyed more recently planted trees.  The relief efforts have been poorly coordinated by Haiti’s interim government, resulting in press reports of looted aid convoys and sporadic protests.

The storm has also set back almost every key initiative underway in Haiti.

  • Just two months after the United Nations finally acknowledged its role in bringing cholera to the country in 2010 (for which it subsequently proposed an aid package that includes restitution to victims), flooding and contaminated water have led to a dramatic increase in the number of cholera cases. An estimated 3,400 new cases have been reported in just the last four weeks.  With help from the World Health Organization, the Haitian Ministry of Health will begin administering 1 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine, but addressing cholera also necessitates serious improvements in access to safe water and sanitation.
  • Haiti’s elections, scheduled for October 9 and already a year overdue, were rescheduled once more due to the hurricane. They are now set for November 20, but foreign observers and candidates alike indicate that major obstacles remain.  More than 770 schools, which are typically used as polling stations, were destroyed by the storm, and roads throughout the south remain impassable.

Once again, it falls to the international community to lend Haiti a hand, but donors have been sluggish.  During a visit in mid-October, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was “disappointed by the response of the international community.”  Less than a third of the UN’s $120 million appeal for immediate hurricane relief has been raised – and the UN was already struggling to raise funds for its separate cholera fund.  Donor fatigue in the United States, where the government contributed several billion in tax dollars and more than half of citizens made private donations following the 2010 earthquake, has been deepened by widespread perceptions that money was wasted.  Poor coordination, wasteful spending by aid agencies, and political stagnation have meant that Haiti has little to show for the $9 billion in earthquake relief.  (The Red Cross, for example, spent $500 million on various projects, but, despite its stated focus on housing, famously built just six permanent homes.)  Canada’s anticipated assumption of leadership of MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission, from Brazil by the end of the year may help energize aid efforts.  Canada has a large Haitian diaspora population and Prime Minister Trudeau has signaled interest in taking a larger role in Haiti’s recovery, but Canada’s contributions to hurricane relief are still dwarfed by those of the United States.  Once again, Haiti lurches from one crisis to another – and it will continue to until aid and development efforts are better coordinated and the country achieves some measure of political stability.

October 31, 2016

* Emma Fawcett recently completed a Ph.D. in International Relations at American University.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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by clalsstaff on October 31, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 31, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/10/31/haiti-hurricane-matthews-devastating-impact/

Zika Overshadows Haiti’s Continuing Cholera Epidemic

By Emma Fawcett *

Haiti Cholera Treatment Center

Inside a cholera treatment center in Haiti. Photo Credit: CDC Global / Flickr / Creative Commons

As the number of Zika victims rises into the tens of thousands and dominates the media, Haiti’s cholera outbreak rages on – reaching 785,530 cases and 9,361 deaths since 2010.  According to the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population, more than 3,500 people were infected and 26 died in June alone.  Ten communes in Haiti’s Center and West departments are on “red alert,” indicating a surge of cholera cases.  This surge is expected to continue throughout hurricane season, as the increased rainfall leads to further contamination of open water sources.  Recent research by Doctors Without Borders has indicated that, if anything, the Ministry’s death tolls have understated the severity of the epidemic, as several of the hardest hit communities experienced death counts three times higher than officially recorded.

  • Unlike Zika, cholera can be prevented through hand-washing and water purification, but campaigns to distribute soap and chlorine tablets and increase public education have met with limited success. Moreover, those infected require immediate treatment with intravenous fluids and oral rehydration therapy, and there are too few cholera treatment centers to handle the number of patients.

The crisis is all the more dismaying because cholera is not endemic to Haiti.  The disease was brought to the country in the wake of the 2010 earthquake by Nepalese United Nations peacekeepers with poor sanitation controls.  The UN delayed by more than a year the release of its own audit report, which found that wastewater was not properly managed or treated and was released directly into a tributary of the Artibonite River.  The UN has been sued in New York federal court by a group of 5,000 cholera victims, who have demanded that the UN provide a national water and sanitation system, pay reparations to victims, and issue a public apology.  The UN claims that international treaties give it immunity.  The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals.  Some 130 members of the U.S. Congress, in a rare bipartisan effort, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry accusing the UN of failing to “comply with its legal and moral obligations” to assist cholera victims and noting that “the State Department’s failure to take more leadership in the diplomatic realm might be perceived … as a limited commitment to an accountable and credible UN.”

Public awareness of Haiti’s ongoing cholera epidemic – one of many tragedies in the hemisphere’s poorest country – has been eclipsed by fears about the Zika virus.  While the more than one thousand reported cases of microcephaly are devastating and frightening, Zika is very rarely fatal.  Unlike Zika, cholera has not spread throughout the hemisphere or grabbed headlines at the Olympics, and so the disease rages on in a country plagued by political dysfunction and grinding poverty.  Virtually every institution has abdicated responsibility.  The United Nations has been accused of actively covering up its own role, and its attempts at combating the epidemic have been slow and poorly executed.  Haiti’s medical residents and interns have been on strike for the last four months, protesting low pay and poor conditions, resulting in the closure of many public hospitals.  The Haitian government has been more focused on political infighting and securing international funding for its next round of elections than for additional cholera support, and even nongovernmental organizations render most healthcare services in haphazard fashion.  While bureaucrats point fingers, politicians dawdle, and global attention turns elsewhere, Haiti’s poorest continue to suffer through the worst cholera outbreak in recent history largely in silence. 

August 15, 2016

*Emma Fawcett recently completed a PhD in International Relations at American University.  Her doctoral thesis focused on the political economy of tourism and development in four Caribbean case studies: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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Haiti: Crisis Upon Crisis

By Fulton Armstrong

Haiti OAS

OAS Secretary General Almagro visits Haiti. Photo Credit: OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

Haiti is stumbling, again, from one crisis into another, but the timing of this ongoing mess puts the United States and other international partners in a particularly bad position.  The country’s political institutions are dysfunctional, without an elected executive nor fully legitimate legislature, and efforts to rebuild them continue to be haphazard.  Under Interim President Jocelerme Privert (formerly leader of the Senate), the government has missed another deadline for resolving disputes over the first round of presidential elections held last October and re-running them or scheduling the second round.  Instead, Privert, who assumed the Presidency in February, on 28 April formed a five-member “verification panel” to take yet another look at allegations of first-round fraud and determine which candidates should participate in the runoff, with a 30-day deadline.  The deadline for Privert to step down passed on 14 May.

  • The move coincides with growing perceptions that Privert is enjoying the perquisites of the job and may be dragging things out on purpose. Both sides to the contested elections – supporters of Jovenel Moïse, former President Martelly’s hand-picked successor, and the opposition party’s Jude Célestin – are mobilizing crowds, some numbering thousands, for almost-daily protests.  Calls for Privert to resign are growing intense as suspicions of his own ambitions and imputed bias for or against one of the candidates surge.  Several dozen gunmen, allegedly directed by an enemy of Privert, shot up a police station in the southern city of Les Cayes earlier this week, resulting in six dead.
  • International reactions to Privert’s delays have been mixed but predictably of frustration.  The former leader of an official OAS mission to Haiti in early April supported the verification process, and OAS Secretary General Almagro said recently that elections “shouldn’t be rushed.”  But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last month condemned “this process of delay” and urged Haiti’s “so-called leaders” to act.  His Special Coordinator for Haiti Affairs, veteran diplomat Kenneth Merten, called the new verification process a “black box” and said it was “opaque and non-democratic.”

The political mess coincides with other serious challenges.

  • The World Food Program (WFP) is increasingly concerned about hunger caused by a three-year drought, aggravated by El Niño, and the country’s economic situation. Some 3.6 million Haitians (one third of the population) face “food insecurity,” including 1.5 million who are “severely food insecure.”  A U.S. program to send Haiti surplus peanuts, which is one of Haitian farmers’ most successful crops, has deflated prices and further hurt local food production.
  • Shortages of medical supplies, worsened by corruption, have prompted doctors to conduct strikes. High-profile cases, including the death of a bleeding pregnant woman at the entrance of the Port-au-Prince General Hospital, have led to dramatic demonstrations, on at least one occasion parading around a victim’s corpse.
  • Fear of spread of the Zika virus is rampant. The University of Florida recently confirmed that Zika was present in Haiti before the outbreak in Brazil last year.  (Carried by the same mosquito, Aedes aegypti, it was mistakenly identified as chikungunya, which has almost identical symptoms except microencephaly.)  Haiti’s cholera epidemic, which has killed 9,200 people since 2010, continues to claim about 50 lives a month, according to some estimates.

The usual threats by the United States and Haiti’s other international partners to suspend aid if the government doesn’t resolve the political impasse have been muted presumably because they’re unlikely to be credible while such major threats to Haitian citizens’ wellbeing loom large.  Haiti’s political and economic elites assume that the outsiders will care for the Haitian people and continue bailing the country out while they pursue their internecine struggles.  Former President Martelly, who is not free from blame for the elections impasse, has been in Miami these days to promote his autobiography ($50 a copy) and reestablish himself as a naughty boy Kompa musician.  The international community is, once again, in a lose-lose situation.  A previous caretaker government, headed by Gérard Latortue, lasted two years (2004-2006).  The United States and others can ill afford a deeper humanitarian disaster, so while Haitian elites fiddle, outsiders will try to put out the fires.

May 19, 2016

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Haiti: Postponed Elections, Ever-Deepening Crisis

By Emma Fawcett*

Haiti Elections 2016

Photo Credit: mackendy mentor, Kurious, and KeshtoKar (modified) / YouTube, Pixabay, and Wikimedia Commons / Licensed for noncommercial reuse

Postponement of Haiti’s protracted electoral process has triggered a seemingly existential crisis.  The January 24 vote, a runoff to select a president, was postponed indefinitely in the face of violent protests challenging the legitimacy of the first round in October.  Those elections trimmed the field of 54 presidential candidates down to two: President Martelly’s hand-picked successor, banana exporter Jovenel Moïse, and opposition candidate Jude Célestin.  While that round was mostly peaceful and the vote tallies were upheld by most outside observers (including the OAS), Haitian human rights groups and dissidents cited widespread cases of fraud and other irregularities.  Célestin disputed the count and boycotted the runoff, which he says Martelly rigged to install Moïse.  Martelly has dismissed the accusations, and the embattled Provisional Electoral Council has been unable to assuage the opposition alliance’s concerns.  Last week’s postponement of the runoff was the second, but the clock is ticking louder now because Martelly is scheduled to, and reaffirmed his intent to, step down on February 7.

  • The postponement triggered international pleas for a speedy resolution. The U.S. State Department condemned “electoral intimidation, destruction of property, and violence”; while the OAS, the UN, and the EU all issued calls for Haitians to come together to end the crisis.

International efforts to foster elections as a means of laying groundwork for political and economic stability in Haiti have repeatedly stumbled, even when stretching the rules to accommodate Haitian reality.  The OAS and the State Department intervened on Martelly’s behalf in the 2011 election by pushing him into the runoff and asking opponents to stand down.  In addition to providing up to $4 billion dollars in economic and reconstruction aid, the United States has since spent more than $30 million on the elections, and continued to push for them to go ahead as recently as January 21.  But these efforts have backfired, as members of opposition parties, the Haitian private sector, and the Catholic Church regard the electoral process as illegitimate and increasingly resent what they feel is U.S. interference.  The political crisis also jeopardizes economic development that Washington has encouraged.  Royal Caribbean, a cruise line that leases a recreational area on Haiti’s northern coast, skipped its port call in Labadie several times over the past week because small boats of protesters approached its ships. Protesters also threw rocks at the windows of the new Marriott hotel in Port-au-Prince.

Haitian democracy is – yet again – at a perilous juncture.  Martelly’s departure from office on February 7 will be disruptive, but his strong-arm tactics and entourage of shady characters threatened a peaceful transition of power anyway.  (His critics point out that an extension of his term in office is what he has sought all along.)  U.S. officials have spoken publicly of a transitional government emerging, but selecting one and imbuing it with credibility will be a massive task.  Business leaders have proposed that a “consensus” prime minister head an interim government for six months, during which a new Electoral Council would coordinate new elections, but the negotiations lack transparency.  If the government, the protesters, and the business community are unable to reach an agreement – as seems likely at this point – Haiti will face a power vacuum with increased violence that will be even more difficult to resolve. 

January 28, 2016

*Emma Fawcett is a PhD candidate in International Relations at American University.  Her doctoral thesis focuses on the political economy of tourism and development in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Mexican Caribbean.

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by clalsstaff on January 28, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 28, 2016

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