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Emily Steemers

Haiti's largest political party banned from election process | San Francisco Bay View - 0 views

  • Fanmi Lavalas, President Aristide’s political party, the most popular and strongest political party in Haiti, has again been banned from participating in elections. Gaillot Dorsinvil, president of the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council, selected and operating at the whims of Haitian President Rene Preval, said that Fanmi Lavalas’ registration papers did not meet all legal requirements.
  • Still, that the majority of Haitians are EXCLUDED from participating in elections is of no great concern to key stakeholders like U.N. Envoy Bill Clinton, George Soros, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
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    Pre-earthquake politics
Emily Steemers

Despite Years of Crushing Poverty, Hope Grows in Haiti | PBS NewsHour | Jan. 11, 2010 |... - 0 views

  • WANDA BIANCHINI, training consultant: What we have are a lot of students that have never worked at all any place. They need to learn everything, from the work ethic, to running the machines, to sewing, to threading. The very first day, they were a little intimidated by it.
  • KIRA KAY: This initiative is being funded with U.S. government dollars. It represents a significant rethink of foreign aid, harnessing the potential of the private sector to rebuild a fragile country alongside more traditional humanitarian assistance.
  • Haiti is still a struggling country, to be sure. But, for the first time in years, there is a palpable feeling of hope here. And ground zero is this industrial park, where factories mothballed during years of instability are now being brought back to life.
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  • But after the ouster of the Duvaliers, the country spiraled into chaos, coups and street violence from within, and a United Nations economic embargo enforced by U.S. warships. Investors fled. So did thousands of Haitians, many heading for U.S. shores in rickety boats. By 2006, Haiti had hit a miserable low point.
  • But, just as Sassine was closing his doors, the tide started to turn. The election of President Rene Preval reduced political strife and brought in a series of reforms. With Preval's blessing, a United Nations peacekeeping force already in the country resolved to get tough on the crippling gang violence, even taking casualties. Within months, the urban warfare had largely stopped. Haiti's population has mostly accepted the peacekeepers, especially the Brazilians, whose own experience with city slums helped them understand the job here.
  • The task of rebuilding Haiti is undeniably huge. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. More than half its people live on just a dollar a day. Public services like health care and a free education are almost nonexistent.
  • We are a country where 70 percent of the people are not working. The capacity to increase your internal revenue is almost zero. I believe creating an environment to create jobs is my main concern as a prime minister today. Attracting new investors coming from Haiti or coming from abroad, but mainly creating jobs, creating a better environment for investments, from there, I believe you can tackle all the problems.
  • But all this promise of Haiti's expanding garment industry, even if lasts, isn't enough to pull this country entirely back from the brink. That's in large part because more than 60 percent of the population here lives in the countryside and risks being left out of Haiti's moment of hope, as investment money gets funneled into the city.
  • ight now, the needs are so great here in terms of employment, any employment, really. I understand the needs that people see in terms of making sure that workers are treated fairly and compensated fairly. Those are part of the provisions that are in the HOPE bill, where Haiti has agreed to allow representatives from foreign labor organizations into the factories to look to make an assessment at how these workers are being treated.
  • The United Nations peacekeeping force won't stay here forever. So, it's focusing on rehabilitating and expanding Haiti's police force, to one day, perhaps soon, take its place. It's a tall order to find, vet and educate the 14,000 new officers needed, and there currently aren't enough weapons for them anyway.
  • A recent training exercise focused on protecting the country's political leaders from potential attack. The exercise highlights fears of political instability here. And tensions have indeed heightened recently. Fifteen political parties, including that of deposed, but still popular former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, were banned from elections coming up next February.
  • KIRA KAY: U.S. Ambassador Merten says, bluntly, Haiti doesn't have many more chances to get this right. KENNETH MERTEN: We really need them to -- to understand that this may be the last time that they are going to have this level of international community interest and willingness to help out, particularly financially, quite honestly. KIRA KAY: This may be the last time donors are really going to put so much effort into Haiti.
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    IRONY
Martha Harding

Political background - Haiti - power - 0 views

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    This is an encyclopedia dedicated to giving histories about nations. This source provides brief colonization and political summarization of Haiti. 
Emily Steemers

The Assault on Haitian Democracy - 0 views

  • Much is at stake in this key election, scheduled for November 28. The winner will be responsible for the colossal task of rebuilding the nation’s shattered infrastructure and psyche after the January 12 earthquake.
  • However, international elites continue to support and fund an election that openly excludes the political party Famni Lavalas, the party founded by former Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide.
  • Not only has Lavalas been excluded from Haiti’s political process by the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), its supporters are continually intimidated and violently suppressed by a United Nations army that continues to be in Haiti six years after the 2004 coup that ousted Aristide from the presidency.
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    Aug 23, 2010: Discussion of Haitian democracy post-earthquake (Wyclef Jean, etc)
Emily Steemers

Haiti needs long-term attention - 0 views

  • One thing is clear. Haiti has suffered an unprecedented blow to all sectors of society. Only a few short days ago, positive stories were emerging from Haiti. People were talking about political stability, nascent economic growth and a long-deserved and hard-earned sense of optimism about the future. Businesses were reinvesting in the nation, bringing new jobs; and elections were scheduled for the end of February. The timing of this tragedy could not have been worse. Despite the recent gains, the earthquake and its deadly impact pose the greatest threat yet to the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
  • The sheer scale of physical destruction, economic devastation, and human suffering is enormous, and carries with it not only the obvious immediate challenges, but more serious long-term implications for the country's future. Haiti will need a major realignment of its infrastructure as well as its strategies to ensure more effective implementation of policies that can eventually mitigate the impact of natural disasters.
  • The solidarity and support from sister countries throughout the Americas will also be instrumental in fostering a climate of peace and security. This support will be even more important in the months and years ahead as Haiti works to simply return to its condition prior to the earthquake. Haiti's private sector and civil society, as well as its diaspora communities, will have to assume a major role in the country's reconstruction through an injection of human, social and financial capital.
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  • The time for collective and sustained long-term action is now. As hard as it may be to imagine, failure to act could result in even greater losses of the recent social, political and security gains. From the crippling effects of this disaster, Haiti's government, legislators, private sector, civil society and diaspora (with the support of the international community) must transform this tragedy into a moment to engineer a sustainable framework for Haiti's future development.
Emily Steemers

After hurricane Ike, Haiti copes with aid delays - CSMonitor.com - 0 views

  • Before hurricane Ike hit, Haitians were already suffering from skyrocketing food prices that sparked nationwide protests and forced out the prime minister in April.
  • Now, nearly two weeks after a muddy deluge killed more than 100 and left tens of thousands homeless in this city, hunger is rampant as humanitarian aid is delayed and prices soar even higher.
  • Four years ago, tropical storm Jeanne killed some 3,000 people in this city and the surrounding area. The death toll from Hanna has not been as high, but Gonaives residents and aid workers say that in many ways the devastation has been worse.
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  • But the biggest stumbling block to delivering aid, according to Rene Wagemans, who is coordinating the UN's relief efforts, has been avoiding violence. "We feel tension rising," says Ms. Wagemans. "The last thing we want are riots during the distribution."
  • "Long-term solutions are very complicated," says Yolene Surena, who heads the government's relief efforts in Gonaives. She proposes launching major infrastructure projects, strictly enforcing building codes, and even building a "new city" on higher ground.
  • But these are lofty plans for a cash-strapped government and international donors perpetually preoccupied with insecurity and political tumult in Port-au-Prince.
  • In the wake of the uprising against rising food prices in April, President René Préval vowed to boost national production, and donors announced new plans to invest in the agricultural sector, especially in the fertile rice-growing region of the Artibonite, of which Gonaives is the capital.
  • But these projects will likely be set back, as the recent string of storms have destroyed crops throughout the country and caused flooding of the Artibonite's rice fields.As often happens in Haiti, tackling the root of the problem has taken a back seat to facing the latest crisis.
Emily Steemers

Rebuilding Haiti, Better Than Before : NPR - 0 views

  • We need to start not throwing money at the problem but starting investing more in the solutions and try to create a social business where people don't feel they're entitled to free things but try to create a system - very difficult, it's easier to say than to do - but trying to create a social business where people don't expect everything for free, that they have to start working and creating a system where they will feed people by making sure that the economy is helped by buying locally. Let's not send more food. Let's send food the first week, but after, let's work with the local farmers to make sure that those farmers become part of the solution of creating jobs, of making sure that the economy is self-sustaining. And this is - this should be the beginning of, hopefully, a long but beautiful recovery.
  • Mr. ANDRES: Very conflicted. What the last caller mentioned, it's what's happening, but you know, it's - as he said, it's part of the economy of rebuilding. Unfortunately, this is part of our world - is people that have everything, and these people that have nothing. I mean, a place like Haiti, you see everyone working side by side. You're in a hotel having a perfect meal, and right across from your hotel, literally two meters, three, five meters away from the door, you have a camp. And that makes you think. That makes you think. And this is why I came back and I incorporated these organizations that right now we are only three, four people, all central kitchen, with the intention of feeding the world in a clean sustainable way.
  • What I realize is that the people feel as if they're not getting involved in the solution to the problem. They're just waiting around, not knowing what's going on. Until, as the chef just said, until we get them involved, until we show them the solution have to come from within, no matter what we do, we will not bring about the solution to that situation. As he said, we - the people will feel a sense of entitlement, as if everything is owed(ph) to them, or we're going to bring everything free to them. If you give me every day, I'm going to hope to get something from you every day. If you do not show me how to fish, when you're not around, how am I going to survive? If my economy is not sustainable, doable, how I'm going to survive when you're not around to bring me food?
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