Friday, October 11, 2019
Demonstrators in Haiti Are Fighting for an Uncertain Future
Edwidge Danticat. New Yorker. October 10, 2019
Early in his term as President of Haiti, in a cartoon that was either meant to caution or mock him, Jovenel Moïse is shown dressed as a Haitian superhero. Eyes closed, he’s standing in the barely lit home of a Haitian family, where he announces that in twenty-three months they will have electricity twenty-four hours a day—even as the father reads a book by candle light and the mother presses clothes with a charcoal-fuelled iron. The couple more or less ignores him while only their baby cheers him on.
In the accompanying article by the journalist Roberson Alphonse, published in Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste newspaper, on August 10, 2017, Moïse is quoted as saying, “When I say the entire country will have electricity twenty-four hours a day in twenty-three months, I will do it.” He added that a President “shouldn’t have to promise that. It’s an obligation, a necessity. A country must have electricity, water, and roads.”
It’s been thirty-two months since Moïse was sworn into office after a contested, fraud-plagued, two-round election cycle in which only eighteen per cent of eligible voters participated. In a country of more than ten million people, about six hundred thousand voted for him. Even before taking his Presidential oath, Moïse was accused by Haiti’s Central Financial Intelligence Unit (ucref) of having laundered millions of dollars. A few months into his term, he fired the director of ucref—a move that probably led to Moïse being cleared of the laundering charges, which he has denied.
Unknown to most Haitians until he was handpicked by his predecessor, Michel Martelly—who also came to power through elections mired in fraud—Moïse was presented as a successful rural businessman from outside Haiti’s political class, a banana exporter nicknamed Nèg Bannann, or Banana Man. Less advertised was that he was also an auto-parts dealer and a supposed road-construction magnate. According to two reports published earlier this year by Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, in 2014, before he’d officially become a Presidential candidate, Moïse received more than a million dollars from Martelly’s government, funds that were allocated for road construction and repair in the northern region of the country. The government auditors report that Moïse was paid twice for the same contract, once as the head of Agritrans and again as the leader of another firm, called Betexs. The two firms were listed as having the same staff and projects, as well as the same government patent and tax-identification number. The road for which the money was doubly paid shows no sign of having been constructed or repaired. Moïse also got more than a hundred thousand dollars for another one of his companies, Comphener S.A., to install solar panels on street lamps.
The funds allegedly pilfered in these schemes came from Venezuela’s Petrocaribe oil program, which Haiti joined in 2006. Through the Petrocaribe agreement, the Haitian government bought oil from Venezuela, paid sixty per cent of the purchase price within ninety days, then deferred the rest of the debt, at a one-per-cent interest rate, over twenty-five years. The Haitian government controlled the sale of the oil and was supposed to use those funds for development projects, including infrastructure, agriculture, education, sanitation, and health. This debt to Venezuela has grown to almost two billion dollars over the past decade.
On July 6, 2018, Moïse’s government announced that it was raising the price of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene between thirty-eight and fifty-one per cent, in order to qualify for low-interest loans from the International Monetary Fund. Huge nationwide demonstrations followed. I was in Haiti at the time, and it was clear that most Haitians were fed up with all the corruption, as well as Moïse’s ineptitude at addressing the country’s urgent problems. His silence and disappearance during difficult times has not worked in his favor, either.
In the summer of 2018, Haiti was already facing high rates of unemployment, rising inflation, a growing budget deficit, currency devaluation, and spikes in gang violence, all of which have grown considerably worse in the past year. Moïse’s government reversed its decision on the gas hike after twenty-four hours, but the protests continued. They were later amplified by the Petrochallengers, mostly young Haitians who started demanding accountability for the Petrocaribe funds, on the streets, and online.
On November 13, 2018, seventy-three men, women, and children were wounded, tortured, hacked with machetes, and set on fire in La Saline, an impoverished neighborhood of Port-au-Prince where residents had participated in Petrocaribe protests. Among them, fifty-nine were reportedly killed. Seven women were raped, and many houses were ransacked or burned, according to the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains. Witnesses accused two top government officials close to Moïse, Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan and Fednel Monchéry, of having been among those who helped to plan the La Saline massacre and providing area gang members with weapons and police uniforms. Both men, who have denied the allegations, remained in the government's employ—Monchéry as the executive director of the interior ministry, and Duplan as Moïse’s representative for La Saline and the surrounding area—until a few weeks ago, when they were fired by Moïse as the protests intensified. Moïse has not directly denounced the La Saline massacre, nor has his government sought to prosecute any of the perpetrators. The government has also not provided any medical, financial, or security support to the survivors. The killings in La Saline reminded Haitians—especially those living in destitute, gang-controlled areas—what can happen when people in power want their resistance smashed.
In February, 2019, the frequency and size of the protests grew, starting on the second anniversary of Moïse’s inauguration and the thirty-third anniversary of the end of the thirty-year Duvalier dictatorship. Schools and businesses were closed for ten days and public transportation was generally halted in what became known as peyi lòk, or Operation Lockdown. During peyi lòk, thirty-four people were reported to have died and a hundred and two injured. Venezuela, which is dealing with its own political and economic crisis, is no longer providing discounted fuel to Haiti, so the Haitian government now buys fuel from U.S.-based energy traders, to whom the government has been chronically in arrears. This led to recurring blackouts and gas shortages this past summer.
Peyi lòk returned in full force in September, in the midst of a widespread fuel shortage. Haiti has now been on lockdown for a month, with large demonstrations taking place almost every day. Schools have not been opened. The sick can’t get to hospitals, where resources are also dwindling. Those who are not at the demonstrations lock themselves up at home until there’s a reprieve, during which they go out and buy food, which has become exorbitantly expensive, and water, of which there is a shortage in some areas. Haitians from all walks of life have been calling for Moïse’s resignation, including Catholic and Protestant clergy, artists and intellectuals, university professors, business people, bar associations, and the various groups and parties that make up the political opposition.
Moïse has repeatedly said he will not resign. In his most recent pre-recorded address—released on September 25th, at 2 a.m.—he told Haitians that he’s heard their cries and is aware of their despair. He called for unity and dialogue. He promised not to respond to violence with violence. The streets, where some police officers have used live ammunition to disperse protesters, tell a different story. The senator from Moïse’s party who fired a pistol outside the parliament building last month, wounding a photojournalist and security guard, also tells another story. As does the massacre in La Saline.
Looking back at that 2017 cartoon of Moïse being derided as a would-be superhero, I am reminded that it is the Haitian people who have always exhibited superhuman traits and who have had to continue to do so over the past year. They have been dodging bullets and enduring tear gas and water cannons while, for the most part, not being able to eat regularly, or send their children to school, or go to a decent hospital when they are sick, or afford the medicine they need. I know from speaking with many young people in my own family and beyond that they know Moïse is just the latest manifestation of bigger and broader structural and institutional problems. They are also aware that, like generations of Haitians before them, they are fighting for a very uncertain future.
Haitians Looking To CARICOM For Help Resolving Latest Protests
Paul Clarke. Jamaica Gleaner. October 10, 2019
Haiti has been reeling again from another in a series of deadly protests, ignited by calls for President Jovenel Moise to step down amid allegations that he has mishandled the economy and which has led to chronic food and fuel shortages.
Seventeen people have been killed across the country during the nearly one-month long series of protests that have pitted the country’s security forces against angry protesters.
Various reports from the capital, Port-au-Prince, indicate that the clashes have become more intense over recent days.
CARICOM Chairman Allan Chastanet told The Gleaner from Taiwan on Tuesday that a technical team that was being put together for a fact-finding mission to Haiti had been placed on hold as the situation had worsened.
“I know that the situation is getting worse there. I know that we were due to first send a technical team to go there, but unfortunately, with the current crisis, that visit by the technical team has been postponed,” he said.
Julia Abellard, a Haitian national who lives in the capital, also expressed fear that the already strenuous situation could further escalate and is urging neighbouring countries such as Jamaica to step in to try and offer some assistance.
Abellard further explained that people in areas that were most affected by the 2010 earthquake, are the worst hit as a consequence of the ongoing protests as neither aid nor whatever little supplies available can make it through the many roadblocks mounted by angry protesters.
“It is bad here. Some people have no food, and all the gas stations are closed, so motorists can’t move to help their families. People here are so concerned about the clashes and fear it could get worse for us,” she said.
Before the newest round of protests began in early September, Haiti’s economy was already flailing. The country had seen a reduction in funds from PetroCaribe, a Venezuela-subsidised oil initiative, given the drop in oil prices, and international aid for recovery from the devastating 2010 earthquake was dwindling.
The government turned to Haiti’s central bank for money, which sparked a devaluation of the Haitian gourde, which led to a spike in inflation. Before 2015, the exchange rate was 40 gourdes to US$1. Now, it’s nearly 100 gourdes for US$1.
Meanwhile, at least two CARICOM member states have reportedly reintroduced visa requirements for Haitian nationals. And while the restrictions apply to holders of ordinary passports, it does not apply to Haitians who are holders of diplomatic or official passports or those who are holders of US, UK, or Canadian visas.
Dominica announced their reversal days after Hurricane Dorian slammed into parts of The Bahamas, which has a large Haitian population.
The Dominican Ministry of Justice, Immigration and National Security noted that the government had, with immediate effect, reintroduced visa requirements for Haitian nationals entering Dominica.
Deep in Guatemala's jungle, drugs and murder are new neighbors to palm oil
Sofia Menchu. Reuters. October 8, 2019
SEMUY II, Guatemala (Reuters) - Bulletholes scar a wall in the only school in Semuy II, a remote village in northeastern Guatemala where three soldiers were shot dead early in September as they searched for jungle landing strips used by drug traffickers.
In the village school’s classrooms, books and open notebooks gathered dust on the desks, while on a board, the fateful date of the shootings was written in red ink: “September 3.”
President Jimmy Morales said the soldiers were killed by villagers protecting a drug shipment. In response, the government gave the army temporary emergency powers over a vast swathe of surrounding territory, leading to some startling discoveries.
Searches uncovered coca plantations and cocaine laboratories, including in Semuy II’s municipality of El Estor, suggesting drug gangs have been operating freely in an area better known for its natural beauty, mining and African palm. The deaths occurred on the fringes of the Pataxte estate that supplies palm oil to Nestle and Cargill, with authorities saying landing strips on the estate had been used by traffickers.
“We’ve found landing strips, some of them clandestine. There are some strips that are legal, but there’s evidence of planes landing with illicit goods,” General Luis Alberto Morales, deputy head of the presidential general staff, told Reuters.
Ministry of Defense spokesman Oscar Perez said investigators had also found the remains of torched planes in the wider area, a tell-tale sign the strips were being used for trafficking.
The discovery is a dramatic development in the drug war that brings fields and laboratories used to make cocaine closer to the U.S. market than ever before.
The development led Guatemala’s interior minister to declare that the country was now a cocaine producing nation - a distinction previously reserved for Andean countries in South America.
Images provided by the government of the army’s discoveries show what appears to be a well-built laboratory, which Morales said could produce up to half a tonne of cocaine a day. He said the government had discovered 1.5 million coca plants along with the labs, estimating a street value of $800 million.
Such numbers may be inflated. While Andean plantations vary widely in density of plants per hectare, it would be hard to fit so many plants on the apparently small areas of land so far discovered by the soldiers in the wake of the killings. Only last year, Guatemala discovered a small field of coca for the first time.
However, the discovery of sophisticated laboratories fits with recent trends of Colombian gangs exporting half-processed cocaine to finish the product in countries with less strict policing, said Hernando Bernal, an official from the United Nations drugs and crime agency’s illicit crop monitoring program.
The U.S. embassy in Guatemala declined to comment for this story.
FEAR, ISOLATION
The events of Tuesday, Sept. 3 are murky. Around noon, a patrol of nine soldiers with weapons at the ready tried to cross the village of Semuy II, the first time military officials had been seen in years, locals and authorities agree. At this point, the versions diverge.
Authorities say the villagers ambushed the soldiers and shot three of them behind the school. Villagers say soldiers sparked a dispute and fired off rounds into the air, and then armed locals opened fire on the soldiers.
However, none could say who had fired the fatal shots and no one has been arrested by the investigating authorities.
Speaking in the hills behind the village where he farms cocoa, community leader Vicente Perez, 43, denied the government’s accusation that the villagers were growing drugs and protecting traffickers.
“Everything the president is saying is a lie,” Perez said. While he did not witness the shootings, he said it seemed that collective fear led the situation to spiral out of control.
Soldiers and police had not been seen in the area since he was a child, during Guatemala’s civil war, he said, adding that the soldiers should have requested permission from the elders of the village before passing through.
According to Edgar Caal, a marine who survived the attack, more than a hundred locals waited with shotguns, machetes, sticks and stones, and before attacking issued the patrol a warning: “Whoever comes to this village is already a dead man,” he related in a video released by the government.
“We ran for our lives,” the young marine said from a hospital bed while the camera took in other injured comrades with scars on their hands, wrists and backs.
PALM ESTATES
Any uptick in violence and drug trafficking in the area could create problems for local producers of palm oil, the world’s second-most popular type of oil, used in consumer products ranging from soap to chocolate.
Wedged between a jungle-clad hillside and a sprawling palm estate, Semuy II is built on land donated by NaturAceites, a company owned by one of Guatemala’s richest families, which delivers the oil to commodities giants Cargill and Nestle.
“Ten strips belonging to NaturAceites have been found in the area. That doesn’t mean that the (company) is using them, but they have been used by people who engage in illegal trafficking,” Morales, the general, said.
NaturAceites said the killings were unrelated to its operations and did not take place on its land. It said it had two airstrips in the area and that every unauthorized landing on its property had been reported to the Guatemalan authorities.
Reuters could not independently verify the number of NaturAceites landing strips in the area.
Hector Herrera, sustainability director at the company, said the government should do more to improve the quality of life for the locals, most of whom eke out a hard-scrabble existence without basic services.
“What is required in the area is the permanent and holistic presence of the state to provide solutions to what the communities lack,” he said.
In reply to requests for comment on the killings, drug trade and conditions in Semuy II, Nestle said it was “immediately contacting all our suppliers who supply directly from NaturAceites to gather further information.” Cargill said that to date, NaturAceites had been found to be operating to its standards but that if it were found to be acting illegally it would take action.
Some Semuy II villagers said they were afraid both of the military camped out under the towering palms, and of what the future holds once the soldiers leave.
Ruth Rax, a 30-year-old housewife who lives opposite the school where the marines were gunned down, said in Q’eqchi she saw villagers open fire, but did not know who shot the soldiers.
“We don’t know how this will end once the military have gone,” she said.
SEMUY II, Guatemala (Reuters) - Bulletholes scar a wall in the only school in Semuy II, a remote village in northeastern Guatemala where three soldiers were shot dead early in September as they searched for jungle landing strips used by drug traffickers.
In the village school’s classrooms, books and open notebooks gathered dust on the desks, while on a board, the fateful date of the shootings was written in red ink: “September 3.”
President Jimmy Morales said the soldiers were killed by villagers protecting a drug shipment. In response, the government gave the army temporary emergency powers over a vast swathe of surrounding territory, leading to some startling discoveries.
Searches uncovered coca plantations and cocaine laboratories, including in Semuy II’s municipality of El Estor, suggesting drug gangs have been operating freely in an area better known for its natural beauty, mining and African palm. The deaths occurred on the fringes of the Pataxte estate that supplies palm oil to Nestle and Cargill, with authorities saying landing strips on the estate had been used by traffickers.
“We’ve found landing strips, some of them clandestine. There are some strips that are legal, but there’s evidence of planes landing with illicit goods,” General Luis Alberto Morales, deputy head of the presidential general staff, told Reuters.
Ministry of Defense spokesman Oscar Perez said investigators had also found the remains of torched planes in the wider area, a tell-tale sign the strips were being used for trafficking.
The discovery is a dramatic development in the drug war that brings fields and laboratories used to make cocaine closer to the U.S. market than ever before.
The development led Guatemala’s interior minister to declare that the country was now a cocaine producing nation - a distinction previously reserved for Andean countries in South America.
Images provided by the government of the army’s discoveries show what appears to be a well-built laboratory, which Morales said could produce up to half a tonne of cocaine a day. He said the government had discovered 1.5 million coca plants along with the labs, estimating a street value of $800 million.
Such numbers may be inflated. While Andean plantations vary widely in density of plants per hectare, it would be hard to fit so many plants on the apparently small areas of land so far discovered by the soldiers in the wake of the killings. Only last year, Guatemala discovered a small field of coca for the first time.
However, the discovery of sophisticated laboratories fits with recent trends of Colombian gangs exporting half-processed cocaine to finish the product in countries with less strict policing, said Hernando Bernal, an official from the United Nations drugs and crime agency’s illicit crop monitoring program.
The U.S. embassy in Guatemala declined to comment for this story.
FEAR, ISOLATION
The events of Tuesday, Sept. 3 are murky. Around noon, a patrol of nine soldiers with weapons at the ready tried to cross the village of Semuy II, the first time military officials had been seen in years, locals and authorities agree. At this point, the versions diverge.
Authorities say the villagers ambushed the soldiers and shot three of them behind the school. Villagers say soldiers sparked a dispute and fired off rounds into the air, and then armed locals opened fire on the soldiers.
However, none could say who had fired the fatal shots and no one has been arrested by the investigating authorities.
Speaking in the hills behind the village where he farms cocoa, community leader Vicente Perez, 43, denied the government’s accusation that the villagers were growing drugs and protecting traffickers.
“Everything the president is saying is a lie,” Perez said. While he did not witness the shootings, he said it seemed that collective fear led the situation to spiral out of control.
Soldiers and police had not been seen in the area since he was a child, during Guatemala’s civil war, he said, adding that the soldiers should have requested permission from the elders of the village before passing through.
According to Edgar Caal, a marine who survived the attack, more than a hundred locals waited with shotguns, machetes, sticks and stones, and before attacking issued the patrol a warning: “Whoever comes to this village is already a dead man,” he related in a video released by the government.
“We ran for our lives,” the young marine said from a hospital bed while the camera took in other injured comrades with scars on their hands, wrists and backs.
PALM ESTATES
Any uptick in violence and drug trafficking in the area could create problems for local producers of palm oil, the world’s second-most popular type of oil, used in consumer products ranging from soap to chocolate.
Wedged between a jungle-clad hillside and a sprawling palm estate, Semuy II is built on land donated by NaturAceites, a company owned by one of Guatemala’s richest families, which delivers the oil to commodities giants Cargill and Nestle.
“Ten strips belonging to NaturAceites have been found in the area. That doesn’t mean that the (company) is using them, but they have been used by people who engage in illegal trafficking,” Morales, the general, said.
NaturAceites said the killings were unrelated to its operations and did not take place on its land. It said it had two airstrips in the area and that every unauthorized landing on its property had been reported to the Guatemalan authorities.
Reuters could not independently verify the number of NaturAceites landing strips in the area.
Hector Herrera, sustainability director at the company, said the government should do more to improve the quality of life for the locals, most of whom eke out a hard-scrabble existence without basic services.
“What is required in the area is the permanent and holistic presence of the state to provide solutions to what the communities lack,” he said.
In reply to requests for comment on the killings, drug trade and conditions in Semuy II, Nestle said it was “immediately contacting all our suppliers who supply directly from NaturAceites to gather further information.” Cargill said that to date, NaturAceites had been found to be operating to its standards but that if it were found to be acting illegally it would take action.
Some Semuy II villagers said they were afraid both of the military camped out under the towering palms, and of what the future holds once the soldiers leave.
Ruth Rax, a 30-year-old housewife who lives opposite the school where the marines were gunned down, said in Q’eqchi she saw villagers open fire, but did not know who shot the soldiers.
“We don’t know how this will end once the military have gone,” she said.
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