This Week in Haiti 15:9 5/21/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit "This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES newsweekly. For information on other news in French and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100, (fax) HAITI PROGRES "Le journal qui offre une alternative" * THIS WEEK IN HAITI * May 21 - 27, 1997 Vol. 15, No. 9 HOW U.S. "AID" PROMOTES FAMINE "Food is power," said Senator Hubert Humphrey of U.S. foreign assistance in 1974, "and in a very real sense, it is our extra measure of power." Since the Second World War, the U.S. government has used this "power" to persuade hungry nations to toe its political line while helping giant U.S. food corporations to muscle into new markets. This dynamic is well illustrated in a new report just released by the independent aid agency Grassroots International entitled "Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti" by Laurie Richardson. "U.S. food aid to Haiti furthers U.S. economic interests, not Haitian development," asserts the report, which is chock full of well-annotated and well-presented research and figures to buttress its findings. Food aid is also "used by the U.S. government to entice and/or pressure the government of Haiti to adopt neoliberal, export-oriented economic policies" and "to help open new markets for U.S. production" while it "drives down cereal prices, thus discouraging Haitian peasants from producing food crops for local consumption and shifting them instead to export crops." While the destructive self-serving nature of "food aid" is not exactly news, Richardson's first-hand investigations in the Haitian countryside offer valuable new examples of how U.S. "humanitarian" assistance and "jobs-creation programs" have undercut Haitian farmers and Haiti's food security. Take, for example, the case of two road improvement contracts administered in 1994-1995 in Haiti's Northwest by CARE, which works hand in glove with the U.S. State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID) in Haiti and throughout the Third World. CARE scheduled road-work during the critical autumn planting season, luring people off the land to work for a little cash on a project which local residents consider non-essential. "When the U.S. provides work at the very time when people should be planting or harvesting, it is as though they want us to lose," one peasant organizer from the region told Richardson. Today, the same Northwest region is engulfed in a severe famine affecting more than 350,000 Haitians who have taken to eating weeds, seeds, roots, wood, cats and dogs to survive. "At the same time people are starving, farmers are seeing their efforts to increase food production undermined by U.S. policies and U.S.-funded aid projects," said Tim Wise, executive director of Grassroots International. Responding to the report, U.S. government officials have said that it is foolish to suggest that Haiti could produce its own food and be self-sufficient, even though 65% of the population gains its livelihood from agriculture. "Grassroots International seems to be against the principle associated with free market economies," one official said. The report blasts the notion of "export-led development" as well as U.S. government pressure on Haiti to reduce tariffs and implement policies which "undermine Haitian food producers and weaken the development of democratic institutions in Haiti." However, the report, by its own admission, does not critique the Haitian government (nor certain government-affiliated peasant organizations which Grassroots International supports) which has proved to be a willing accomplice in the anti-development schemes of Washington and the international lenders. Another weakness of the report lies not in its content, but rather in its proposed purpose. Wise wants the report to "be a wake-up call for U.S. policymakers," and the report's main recommendation is that "aid policies and programs should support the goal of enhancing Haiti's food security by supporting Haitian food producers." The call is futile. The process which is destroying Haiti's food production and transforming peasants into refugees, factory workers and slum-dwellers is the necessary result of the relentless prowling appetite of U.S. capital, which no policymaker can curb. Haiti's only escape from growing food dependency and hunger will not come from enlightenment in Washington nor scattered "self-help projects," but rather from the struggle of the Haitian people for a government which rejects foreign military occupation, embraces self-determination and offers a genuine agrarian reform. (Copies of "Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy" are available for $10 from Grassroots International, 179 Boylston Street, Fourth Floor, Boston, MA 02130 Tel: 617-524-1400.) STUDENT PROTESTS ROCK HAITI (HIB) PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 16 - Because the Haitian government failed to respect an accord it signed with teachers and was unable to handle the ensuing protests, Haiti's students and teachers are rising up. Almost everywhere throughout the country, public "lycees" [high schools] have now been closed for two weeks because of a strike "without end" called by public school teachers' unions angry at the government's deception on the Protocole d'Accord signed last February [see Haiti Info v.5 #6]. That has led students, who mostly support the teachers, to demand that the government resolve this issue quickly so that they do not miss the end of the year and fail the upcoming Baccalaureate exams. [During fierce protests, police have shot and killed seven students, according to the Port-au-Prince branch of the Catholic Church-linked Justice and Peace Commission. "The police put the bodies in bags and then leave with them without anybody knowing where they go with the bodies," Justice and Peace said in a May 16 statement. Furthermore, police have hunted down wounded students who had gone to the General Hospital for treatment, despite a ban against any guns on hospital grounds. - HP.] The turmoil, made worse by the government's response to the protests with force (not surprising, given the orientation it is taking), has created a situation ripe for political infiltration by Macoutes and right-wing politicians trying to make a comeback, or by pseudo popular organizations trying to seize an opportunity. Provocateurs from various camps are spreading confusion and creating conditions to discredit the teachers' and students' movements. Government's Incapacity Again The government's incapacity and anti-popular policies have shown through once again. After mostly ignoring the strike for the first week, this week it has been making threats and frequently resorting to using the police Force d'Intervention Rapide (FIR). But the government cannot deny the validity of the teachers' demands. Minister of Education Jacques Edouard Alexis has said many times that they are "just" and that "I understand and share them," but he has also claimed that he accomplished what he can in the Protocole and has warned he may impose "sanctions foreseen in the Constitution and the law" on strikers. What is clear today, however, is that the government never really intended to honor the accord. Yesterday Alexis said bluntly: "There are a number of things that they are asking for that cannot be resolved right now. I am clear on that. I won't lie about it." New materials, infrastructure improvements, and an 82% raise (that was promised back in 1995) are not possible, he said. "We don't have the money," he said. "Dialogue and negotiation are needed." Many Student Protests After the first week of the strike, angry public school students, seeing the exam date draw near, took to the streets, erecting barricades and protesting. In St. Marc and in Port-au-Prince, they tried to get private school students to join them, and when they refused, rock battles erupted. "We haven't been to school in two weeks and the exams are coming up, while the private schools just keep operating," one student complained, echoing a frustration heard over and over again. (This further discrediting of the public system, which accounts for only 30% of the schools, cannot displease the government and its tutors who, in the logic of privatization, would not mind if public education disappeared altogether.) Police confronted protestors with teargas or pepper gas, sometimes beating them or roughing them up. In St. Marc on May 14, the confrontations landed three students in the hospital. In the capital, the situation deteriorated. On May 14, hundreds of students gathered in the yard of the Lycee Alexandre Petion. Police tried to invade the school, and a battle broke out. Students threw rocks at the police or at passing vehicles, and officers, some in civilian clothing, threw rocks back, shot in the air and launched teargas. They shot at least one passerby. People in the surrounding popular neighborhood of Bel-Aire threw up barricades and at times cheered on the students, who sometimes chanted and sang slogans like: "Open our school now!", "Pay the teachers!" and "Down with Alexis!" At one point U.N. troops showed up but soon left. Hours later, masked and black-clad FIR police arrived and took over the schoolyard. The scene was repeated yesterday. All day students fought police, throwing rocks and even a few molotov cocktails, lighting on fire a nearby Tribunal de Paix, a police truck and a journalist's car. The windshields of a dozen other vehicles were broken. Police eventually took over the yard again. Over a dozen students were injured. At least four went to the hospital, two or three with gunshot wounds. There were a number of arrests reported, but police have not given any details. Some people also attacked a nearby large Catholic school, breaking windows of buildings and cars. Today few students were seen in the streets or around the school. Instead, gangs roamed the downtown streets, some of them calling for the government to resign. Dozens of car windshields and some storefront windows were smashed. Schools and businesses closed and downtown was emptied out by noon. Teachers Remain Determined The union which called the strike, Union Nationale des Normaliens d'Haiti (UNNOH) today condemned the police brutality and rejected the government's cries of poverty. "When it is a question of wasting money, buying the latest model car, they have money. When they need to intoxicate people, they have money!" Josue Merilien, a UNNOH leader, said. The main demand of UNNOH, which had announced the strike last month, is that the accord be honored. For instance, the accord calls for all back salaries to be paid, but three months later, few have received checks, UNNOH said. It calls for "actions beginning immediately" to supply schools with water, electricity, toilets and other infrastructure, and a commission to oversee the accord's application. UNNOH says nothing has begun, and is also demanding a presidential decree to make the commission official. On May 15, over 200 teachers, with some private school teachers and students in solidarity, marched through the city with posters saying things like: "Do the children of Alexis and Preval sit on rocks to learn?" and "8.72% [of the budget] for this education: destroyed schools, without benches without blackboards!" Support for Teachers and Students Several sectors have announced their support for the teachers and their rejection of the state's failure to undertake its responsibilities. KOREGA (Komite Rezistans Grandans) said the strike was "just and legitimate" and that the crisis stems from "the application of the neoliberal plan." KOREGA called for the accord to be respected and for the exams to be delayed so students have time to make up the missed classes. The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations blamed the education crisis and the latest developments on the government's failure to deal with the social situation in general. "It is regrettable that the political power... does not accept its responsibilities," the Platform said. "The police should not be replacing the government... [to] resolve the crisis with bullets and blows." The Platform asked the police to analyze the situation and the actions of the FIR, and expressed its concern about the capacity of the government to handle the crisis. The Port-au-Prince branch of Justice and Peace announced it supports the teachers and harshly criticized the government for its lack of will to solve the problem. It also denounced police for entering the Lycee Petion, demanded the release of arrested students, and wondered if the force is not just another army "carrying out repression to satisfy a little group of people in power... applying anti-democratic policies?" Justice et Paix called for people not to "stand by and sleep but to rise up to defend democracy and the constitution." The Assemblee Populaire Nationale (APN) criticized the government's policies of reconciliation and lack of justice that have allowed Macoutes to infiltrate, and also deplored the fact that the government claims it is broke and then wastes money on things like last month's mass concert by The Fugees. "There is a series of wasted or pilfered monies while teachers, public employees, are told to tighten their belts," APN said. "We think this situation cannot go on, and is a proof that the government should cease following the policies being dictated to it." [This article is adapted from Haiti Info, Vol. 5 No. 12, 5/17/97] WILL HAITI'S RULING PARTY BOYCOTT ITS OWN ELECTIONS? (HIB) PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 16 - Inter-Lavalas election conflicts are leading the country towards a major institutional crisis as fighting between Oganizasyon Politik Lavalas (OPL) and Fanmi Lavalas (FL) is carried into the arena of the state. Earlier this month, the Chamber of Deputies, where OPL has a majority, voted a resolution asking the Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP) to hold off announcing the final results of the Apr. 6 races until it had ruled on the controversy surrounding blank ballots. (The CEP had tossed the ballots out, and the OPL says this lowered the ballot pool and gave FL candidates illegal majorities. FL won two Senate seats, and in both cases OPL was the runner-up.) The deputies' resolution came on top of a similar request by OPL General Coordinator Gerard Pierre-Charles and from Prime Minister Rosny Smarth, an OPL member. The CEP responded that it was independent and ignored the deputies, Pierre-Charles and the Prime Minister. [The CEP also pointed out that blank ballots have been discarded in all previous elections during 1995 and questioned why the OPL is only now making an issue of the practice. - HP] On May 5, it announced the final results and said that run-offs, many of them between FL and OPL candidates, will be May 25. This week, OPL continued its protests, first accusing the CEP of violating the Constitution and Haitian laws, and then on May 14, announcing that it would not participate in the second round. OPL also called for the annulment of the races, and the firing and judgement of the CEP, declaring "the democratic process is in danger." Ignoring the conflict, the FL is continuing its offensive. Meeting with FL candidates and newly elected officials this week, Jean Bertrand Aristide called on people to vote May 25 to give "a lesson." "There are people who betrayed us... When a person betrays you, you have to make a note... They pretend they are with Lavalas, but they betrayed us," he intoned, and launched his own accusation: "We have many candidates for Senator that won. Unfortunately, they changed the numbers." On May 15, FL candidates denounced "traitors" and "freeloaders" and West Dept. Senate candidate Yvon Neptune, said the "high cost of living and all the other problems... are not accidents. They are programmed." Suddenly, in the midst of all this and a month after O.A.S. election observers endorsed the races, Colin Granderson, head of the O.A.S./U.N. Civilian Mission, threw more doubt on the CEP, writing that he had "certain observations" about the elections, "the rates of participation near or exceeding 100% of those registered," and other "troubling" reports that "allow doubts about the good faith of certain officials." Institutional Impasse on Horizon If the OPL-FL conflict persists, there are several possible scenarios. According to the Constitution, the CEP is an independent body with the final word on electoral law, so for it to be judged, parliament would have to enter into open conflict with the CEP and constitute a High Court. What would happen to the election results and the second round, especially of the CEP were found "guilty"? The OPL-majority in the Chamber could also block parliament by refusing to validate the new Senators. With OPL out of the second round, will the CEP go ahead anyway? If it does, the OPL will certainly do everything possible to insure those elected never take office. That would also block parliament. Pierre-Charles has called for President Rene Preval, who has so far remained mute, to intervene. If he does not, with its majority, OPL can effectively create a blockage between the parliament and the executive. It can also have Smarth step down and pull out of the government altogether, which would also end cooperation between the parliamentary and executive branches. All of this, logical consequences of the OPL-FL battle for political space, are ingredients for an institutional impasse. From the point of view of the popular masses, it is one more reason for their disaffection with the totally discredited Lavalas power, from whom nothing can be expected. But it is also creating the conditions for the installation of a more and more authoritarian regime. In that sense, it is significant that the U.S. has so far remained silent, waiting for the right moment and looking for the right political personnel. Not surprisingly either, amidst the confusion and threats, the subject of the U.N. troop extension came up again. Attending a May 10 summit of the U.S. and 14 Caribbean nations in Barbados, Preval met privately with President Bill to, in his own words, "touch base on how the situation is in Haiti, how programs are advancing, how they can continue aiding us." Preval asked for, and got, Clinton's support to extend the U.N. presence until November. Preval enthusiastically participated in the Caribbean summit, part of the preparations for the hemispheric free trade zone for 2005. "We need to be present everywhere where there are negotiations, because with this integration, this globalization, a person who stays on his own, will not negotiate with anyone," he said at the airport. "You are left out." In other news, parliament ended its first session, recognizing its very "weak" list of accomplishments. In effect, it did little more than vote the two neoliberal laws, approve some loans and contracts and, seven months into the fiscal year, approve the budget. [This article is adapted from Haiti Info, Vol. 5 No. 12, 5/17/97] All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. 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