Haiti – Rebuilding: President Martelly to Speak at Columbia’s World Leaders Forum | Foreign Policy Blogs

Haiti – Rebuilding: President Martelly to Speak at Columbia’s World Leaders Forum | Foreign Policy Blogs

Haiti – Rape Scandal: Peacekeepers Brought Revolting Sexual Abuse Culture, not Peace

Haiti – Rape Scandal: Peacekeepers Brought Revolting Sexual Abuse Culture, not Peace

Haiti – Politics: President Martelly Took a Third First-step at Jumpstarting his Government

Haiti – Politics: President Martelly Took a Third First-step at Jumpstarting his Government

Aristide and Haiti, a Love Affair or Simply Serious Hunger for Strong Leadership?

During the last four months, Haiti experienced violent political uprising, a shocking reemergence of an ex dictator, dubious recount of fraudulent votes and a historic debate between candidates Mirlande Manigat and Martelly ahead of their run off elections on March 20. However, none of these events generated as much excitement in Haiti as the second coming of twice elected and twice deposed, ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ending his seven-year exile in South Africa.

The former president landed in Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture Airport on Friday morning onboard a private jet and emerged to a greeting mob of journalists and supporters eager to catch a glimpse of him. “The problem is exclusion,” he proclaimed in his address to supporters. “And the solution is inclusion, inclusion for all Haitian people as human beings,” he continued.

Aristide became the first democratically elected president of Haiti in February 1991, but suffered a military coup seven months later. He reclaimed office in 1994 aided by President Clinton and his 20,000 U.S. marines. He overwhelmingly won the presidency again in 2001 with 92 percent of the vote, but large-scale insecurity, mismanagement, drug allegations and chaos resulted in political unrest and another coup in 2004. While the Bush administration called his ousting a voluntary departure, Aristide maintained that the Americans kidnapped him and his family, and forced them into exile.

His speech in the VIP lounge of the airport unloaded a mixture of poetry, languages, nostalgia, parabolas, sympathy, emotions and gratitude. “If you could put your ears close to my chest,” he said. “You would hear and feel my heart’s fastest rhythm singing a soothing melody of healing for Haiti our mother who need to inhale the air of dignity to outlive shame,” he told supporters. “If my heart was a house, I would know how many rooms all the victims would need so they could stop sleeping on the streets, in the mud and under tents,” he said. The crowd listening to his remarks outside the airport reacted jubilantly as it grew exponentially. One ecstatic supporter, Jean-Exeter Versailles, 33, told the Time: “He represents our father. I’m happy to welcome my father back home.”

Actor Danny Glover who shared the trip home with Aristide exclaimed, “It’s one of the most beautiful moments for the Haitian people,” speaking to the Associated Press (AP). “It is a historic moment for the Haitian people,” he added. Glover is a long time friend and strong supporter of ex-President Aristide. “I flew to Johannesburg to accompany my friend back home. We have a long history together. He is my friend and I am in support of his return to help the Haitian people rebuild, to be a part of all the wonderful things that he championed as president,” Glover told Agence France Press.

The Provisional Electoral Council barred Aristide’s party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in the recent elections on some technicalities, a sobering moment for the popular leader whose aides feared if he waited until the next inaugural address, he could be in exile forever. In spite of tremendous pressure from the U.S. to prevent or delay Aristide’s trip home, his persistence materialized. Thousands of cheering fans greeted him at the airport as security struggled to get him inside.

President Obama and the United Nations characterized Aristide’s return to Haiti two days before the scheduled second round of the elections as a destabilizing factor that could potentially derail an already delicate process. According to some polls, popular singer Michel “Sweet Micky Martelly, 50, enjoys a two-point lead over Manigat a 70-year-old academician and former first lady: Martelly 50.8 percent to Manigat 48.2 percent with a 1.27 percent margin of error. As they draw big crowds on the campaign trail, some of their rallies got increasingly violent prompting several organizations to denounce the acts.

For his part, Aristide not only denounced violence, but also insisted that he had no political ambitions and wanted to contribute to the rebuilding of the shattered country. Speaking to Democracy Now, a news organization who covered his homecoming trip, the former leader reaffirmed, “I share their happiness, I share their hope. I renew my commitment to help the in the field of education and when we move together toward such a goal, a difference will be made.” While both of the candidates strategically declared their support for the former leader to return home, little surfaced about their willingness to solicit his help or even keep him in the country once elected. Meanwhile, Aristide remains largely popular among an electorate hungry for strong leadership. His bodyguards and the police had to use tear gas to get him inside his home in Tabarre near the capital as thousands struggled to touch him. At least for now, his fans eager for directions will have to decipher his coded message. “We’re going to stay wherever he is until he tells us what to do,” said 44-year-old minibus driver Tony Forest to the AP, “We will vote for the candidate he picks.” However, many think tanks argued that Aristide, a deliberate metaphorical speaker, already delivered his message to his followers. Meanwhile, the anxious nation waits for the voting polls to open on Sunday to choose their next leader.

Rapadoo,

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Manigat and Martelly's Real Opponents in the Haitian Presidential

Former first lady and presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat has written several books over her professional career, including her 2002 publication, Etre Femme in Haiti Hier et Aujourdhui that explored the evolution of women in Haitian society throughout its history. Her counterpart, Michel Martelly, spent the latter half of his 49 years writing an interesting chapter of Haitian culture through his music, most importantly, by bridging the gap between “classical Kompa”—ethnic Haitian music—and the “nouvelle generation Kompa” of the 1980s. As the two candidates travel the country ahead of the second round run-off generating excitement and accumulating votes, it is ironical their fiercest opponent is not each other.

The increased competitiveness of the run-off has baffled academia and political communities prompting scholars to compile lists of characterizations depicting Martelly as an unqualified, irrational candidate. Martelly had alarming deficiencies in education, statesmanship, and principles of morality; hence, should not have even passed the first round, let alone seriously challenging Manigat for every vote in the second round, they reasoned. Although not misplaced, those pointed criticisms revealed a veil of ignorance in academia. They have grossly underestimated Martelly’s enormous popularity, his ability to excite fans as an accomplished entertainer and the electorate’s fatigue of the political elite’s abysmal failures.

Sympathizers of the Martelly bandwagon have expressed in a common, frustrating tone: “We have tried intellectuals from academia since inception and they have produced absolutely nothing, it’s time to take a chance on the unconventional,” a rationale that is not misplaced either. Evidently, that segment of the population has lost faith in the intellectuals and their leadership abilities, indicating a hunger for some pragmatic leadership. Therefore, these fans have not only acknowledged Martelly’s shortcomings, but have also embraced them in the name of change.

Calling Martelly unorthodox or irrational is by no mean an exaggeration. Far from being a conformist, the popular singer had never placed morality and conventional wisdom at the forefront of his agenda nor had me made any effort to hide it. Consequently, he has struggled to establish the difference between “Sweet Micky” the entertainer who takes his pants off on stage to entertain his fans and Michel Martelly, the candidate who vows pragmatism and radical changes in the country’s political structure. As he staked his claim to the presidency, the past that brought him so much fame has constituted, thus far, his steepest challenge.

His carefree attitude, open admission of illicit drug use, sexually explicit recordings, indecent exposures on stage and attacks on education have provided his opponents plenty of ammunitions to motivate defectors whom have complained: “We [Haiti] are so bad now, anybody thinks he/she can be president, even Micky.” This has in fact been the recurring theme in Manigat’s campaign. “Vote morality,” would invoke the former first lady struggling with her own demons.

Her opponents perceive the Sorbonne-educate, PhD scholar, author and educator as the face of academia, a stoic reminder of the Haitian political élite and everything that has gone wrong with the country over the past two centuries. Nevertheless, those perceptions have not been her toughest challenge. She could easily crush the competition had she been able to overcome inherent gender-based inequities inhibiting a significant segment of the electorate. “She is a woman,” many often reasoned, “What could she do when facing tough diplomatic upheavals?” That line of rhetoric is similar to the barrage of ideological deterrence Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced, in 2008, during her race with President Barrack Obama for the democratic nomination. On the campaign trail, Secretary Clinton often compared herself with male figures to gain the respect of her male constituency and signal her toughness and resolve.

This parallel between Manigat and Clinton illustrates the depth of on Manigat’s challenges. If the gender gap could negatively affect Secretary Clinton in the US, a modeled democracy, its influence would be even more disastrous in Haiti, a country with little History in civil rights and virtually no systematic legislative authority in human rights. If elected, Manigat would become the first woman to run the highest office, a historical accomplishment not welcomed by many.

On the campaign trail, Manigat embraced her femininity and even argued that it was the kind of revolution Haiti necessitated to cause a rupture in the discriminating elitism of the reigning political class. Meanwhile her ability to break the famous glass ceiling remains, to a large extent, in the hands of that important segment of the population who believes that male dominance is a divine authority. Similarly, Martelly’s success depends on his ability to divorce his past and win over voters who feel that immoral leaders are unfit for the presidency.

Rapadoo,

Puzzling Re-emergence of "Baby Doc" Duvalier in Haiti

As the ousting of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali sent shock waves and fear through the Arab world, ex-dictatorJean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier stunned the Western world with his surprised return on Jan. 16, 2011, developments that left political pundits puzzling. “It’s such a critically important moment for Haiti and this guy to drop in from nowhere is very strange,” said Robert Maguire, associate professor of International Affairs at Trinity University in Washington, D.C. to the Miami Herald. “What does he bring to Haiti, aside from a lot of confusion. Does he come back with political pretensions? We just don’t know,” he added.

Amid massive anti-government demonstrations that originated in Gonaives, north of the capital, Duvalier and his wife, Michelle Bennett boarded an US military aircraft in destination to France on Jan. 7, 1986 leaving the power he inherited from his ill father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, in 1971. The self-proclaimed president for life ruled Haiti with an iron fist through his infamous personal militia “tonton macout” causing a massive migration of Haitians to the shores of Miami.

He came to help his country he told flocks of reporters behind the shield national police and UN peacekeepers. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive expressed disbelief claiming his government knew nothing about Duvalier’s return until he was airborne. “This time I’m totally lost. No way I’m going to believe the French didn’t know,” Bellerive told The Miami Herald. “We’re informed one hour before he landed with his passport ‘perime’ (expired) so this should at least have brought some attention!”

Duvalier’s Air France flight landed at Toussaint Louverture Airport shortly before 6 p.m. where he met a sea of reporters desperately trying to catch a glimpse of him. After waiting about four hours in the diplomatic lounge at the airport, the 59-year-old emerged to a growing, cheering crowd and left quickly in the back seat of an SUV.

Duvalier left the diplomatic community speechless as his well-orchestrated return caught everyone by surprise. As many scholars scramble around for more information about the intentions of the former dictator, “At least in the short term, the Haitian political chessboard has changed and changed utterly,” said Robert Fatton, Jr., a government and foreign affairs professor at the University of Virginia. “We need more information from the French, the United States and the Haitian governments before arriving at a sensible idea of this event.”

Meanwhile, Duvalier told Radio Caraibes. “I’m not here for politics, I’m here for the reconstruction of Haiti.” Veronique Roy, his longtime companion, told reporter he planned to stay three days and will hold a news conference on Monday.

Rapadoo,

Anniversary Media Blitz of Haiti (1)

Still strong one year later

Port-au-Prince, Haiti— Year 2010 was arguably the longest of Haiti’s 206-year history, reflect some historians on the plurality of unprecedented events taken place in the country starting on January 12. Some recalled with upmost clarity and disbelief as global television screens bled horrific images of apocalyptic episodes seared into memory months after months. If the magnitude 7.0 earthquakes did not steal someone’s mom, dad, uncle, limbs, friends or neighbors— at the very least, it stole barrels of tears. As the first anniversary sneaks up on surviving Haitians, buckets more will flood the overwhelming emotions they will feel on that day.

While no stranger to chaos of catastrophic proportions, nothing could prepare Haitians for such a tumultuous year. Historically, Haitians have survived their colonial overlords, imperial invaders and occupiers, several violent revolutions, authoritarian dictators, political mediocrity and international dismissal; nevertheless, the succession of ill-fated events of 2010 was inconceivable even by wildest Hollywood accounts.

With an estimated population of 9.8 million people, 3 million of whom lived in the epicenter of the earthquake, the loss of life was colossal. Novices to earthquakes, Haitians—young or old-- had nowhere to run, no one to turn to, no emergency response system in place or any infrastructure to provide shelter as more than 230,000 lives succumbed to 20 million cubic meters of cement blocks.

Consequently, the immediacy with which the world responded to the devastation captured hearts and mind of Haitians everywhere. Global pledges did not lack empathy, monies, non-governmental organizations (NGO), UN peacekeepers, philanthropists, and regular humanitarians to help the victims, nor did they lack unscrupulous child traffickers and other type of criminals seeking to prey on the vulnerable. Worldwide media migrated to Haiti and, according to their coverage, were in culture shock seeing inhumane condition humans lived in.

News organizations told tales of a prehistoric people living on less than two dollars a day, led by a government deeply rooted in corruption. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they emphasized, lacked fundamental necessities, infrastructure, and leadership and would be lost absent a strong international humanitarian presence. It was the story of a population, nearly 50 percent of which was illiterate, caught in the pre-industrial era, and then there were survivor stories, amazing rescue images.

For Haitians however, confusion, gargantuan losses and chaos highlighted their side of the story. It was about finding moms, teachers, husbands, sons and daughters muted by the debris or among burning corpses on the roadsides. Their story featured another routine foreign invasion with more than 12,000 uncontrollable NGOs carrying a $1-billion purse donated on behalf of the affected and 24,000 foreign troops sometimes bearing contemptuous residual sentiments from a lengthy history of crippling international policies. It was a race against time and the gripping suspense of unpredictability.

The Haitian saga evolved in sporadic leaps and bounces over the last 12 months with hundreds of aftershocks, ineffective governance, temporary shelters turned into permanent housing, rapes, floods and Tropical Storm Thomas. Furthermore, imported cholera snatched more than 3,500 additional lives, including 45 voodoo lynching prompted by ignorance and fear. Post-election violence soon stole the headlines prompting Edmund Mulet, UN’s top man in Haiti, to threaten to disown them unless government officials changed existing discourse.

Please read part 2 below:

Rapadoo,

via Rapadoo Observateur www.rapadoo.com

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• Help For Haiti Slow, Frustrating (npr.org)
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Anniversary Media Blitz of Haiti (2)

Please read part 1 first

Still strong one year later

Largely under the media’s radar, encouraging signs of progress offered glimpses of hope to many Haitians, including the emergence of an ambitious 20-year plan promising the reinvention of Haiti’s education system with a projected $4.3 billion expenditure over a two-year period. In addition, this plan would provide free or nearly free education from kindergarten through the 12 grades and a new $15 million 320-bed teaching hospital would be constructed in Mirebalais, a town in central Haiti.  The government would also build 625 new primary schools tripling the number of publicly financed schools. It would also retrain 90 percent of the country’s teaching force — 50,000 people — to teach the new curriculum, and it would train 2,500 new teachers a year, many through a program patterned on Teach for America.

Among many other significant programs were the Haiti Hope Project (HHP) that brought together a coalition of businesses, government, and civil society partners to invest about $8 million to develop a sustainable mango industry in the country. Coca Cola, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (DBHF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Multilateral Investment Funds (MIF) led HHP initiatives. The World Food Program provided work and food for many Haitian families and coordinated efforts of the four major medical organizations (the Red Cross, MSF, Doctors of the World and FRIEND) have made medical care available to them. However, the introduction of the cholera strand to the Western world did no justice to remarkable and sometimes exhausting efforts of the medical community. Many other significant and positive contributions, immersed in the agony of the victims and fraudulent election fracas, went unnoticed.

On Jan. 12, 2011, Haiti will experience a media blitz similar to the six-month anniversary spotlight. Media corporations, big and small, will raid the capital and small town to report on reconstruction processes. After all, Haiti’s trauma fit well with the media’s framing mechanisms: drama, villains, victims and heroes.

We urge foreign Journalists -- with the support of the Haitian press community – to engage in robust community relation efforts and capture the Haitian experience contextually and objectively. This would guarantee news coverage that works ‘for’ Haitians as opposed to a repetitive story ‘about’ a prehistoric people with awkward cultural norms. In addition, this comprehensive approach would also help Haiti take advantage of a constellation of factors holding potential for success.

We also encourage journalists to resist usual episodic framing devices by trying to understand the conundrum that is the Haitian actuality and refrain from using reporting styles requiring them to detach their values from the stories and actors. These practices would only project an illusion of objectivity and fairness in their coverage.

Evidently, the Haitian people have a story to tell, a human tragedy told from their perspective. Without a profound understanding of their way of life, tangible solutions could be as elusive as they were in 2010, a sure way to build resentment for the foreigners and possibly derail recovery efforts. The role of Haitians in pulling their country from under the rubble is pivotal and the media has a responsibility to voice the voiceless, demand transparency from all of the actors and expose unethical practices. As many observers have alleged, the most deceptive humanitarian heist may be taking place in Haiti while the level of squalor and desperation lingers unabated.

It is not the actions of individuals the make them heroes, rather the values and meanings attached to those actions. On the anniversary of its darkest day, Haiti is undoubtedly full of Heroes on the heels of disruptive year 2010 and the first thousand of them would probably not be foreign internationals.

Rapadoo,

Via Rapadoo Observateur www.rapadoo.com

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• Help For Haiti Slow, Frustrating (npr.org)
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Haiti on Africa's Mind

Home away from home

President Abdoulaye Wade welcoming Haitians students

“Welcome to the home of your ancestors,” declared Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in October 2010, welcoming 163 young Haitians to the campuses of may leading Senegalese universities, including the School Polytechnique of Tièce, the Faculty of Agronomy of Bambay and Cheikh Anta Diop University in downtown Dakar. “Your ancestors left here by physical force; you have returned through moral force,” he added. The Associated Press reported Wade’s initiative to offer free housing and 163 scholarships for young Haitians to study at Senegal’s largest universities, in the wake of the of the Jan. 12 cataclysmic earthquake, met harsh criticism at home. Senegal’s national media branded the project grandiose and egocentric amid the country continuing struggles with poverty, rising unemployment and occasional student demonstrations. Yet, Wade maintained, the young Haitians were neither strangers nor refugees, but members of the Senegalese family.

Recipient of Rwandan scholarship

Although controversial, the decision did not prevent Rwanda from following Wade’s lead. The Rwandan government offered Six Scholarships for Haitian students to pursue their education at the National University of Rwanda beginning in January 2011. Haitian Minister of Youth, Sports and Civic action, Evans Lescouflair, recently visited the country and met with James Musoni, the minister of local government in anticipation of the students’ arrival.

Recipients of Senegalese scholarships

Most recently, Benin took turn offering an additional 110 scholarships to Haitians eager to pursue a higher education. Le Nouvelliste, a leading Haitian newspaper, reported qualified candidates would leave Haiti be between Jan. 3 and 6, 2011 to study, among many tracks, Business Administration, Biological, environmental, technological and social sciences. Students awarded the scholarships later this month would need to obtain 65 percent or better on the qualifying exams that took place on Thursday Dec 23.

Benin’s offer was not the first of its kind made to the Haitian government. In fact, the two countries have been working jointly on similar projects even before the devastating earthquake. The Nouvelliste indicated Haitians officials were reluctant to accept Benin’s offer due to prior complaints of neglect and hardship by Haitians students currently studying there on scholarships. However, Lescouflair accepted the offer after receiving official written confirmation from the Benin officials guaranteeing shelter, food and education for the winning candidates.

Students applying for Benin scholarships

Haitian officials contended, these encouraging programs, although far from perfection, will help contemporaries of African ancestors invest in the future of their states plagued by an alarming illiteracy rate and a serious shortage of competent intellectuals to lead future generations.

Contextualizing the projects, "We are giving the rest of the world a lesson in humanity. Senegal has shown that it's in the hearts of the poor that you can find the gift of generosity," said historian Iba Der Thiam, vice president of the National Assembly. "A country that is neither rich nor developed has agreed to share the little it has with its brothers," he added.

Rapadoo,

Haitian Electorate with Nothing Else to Lose

Martelly snuck into the back door

Tire burning in protest of contested election results

Port-au-Prince, Haiti—Rumors spread like California wild fires the week following the Nov. 28 Haitian elections. Sparks of violent protests flared sporadically until the coalition of 12 candidates retracted earlier calls for cancellation of the elections and decided the discredited Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) should at least count the votes.

Those developments had set the stage up for an atmosphere loaded with suspicions, speculations and anxiety as candidates attacked each other all week-long. However, much of their distrust and disgusts targeted the CEP questioning its ability or lack there of to administer impartial vote tabulations.

Facing serious fraud allegations and numerous counts of voter intimidation, INITE, the party of President Rene Preval,

Jude Celestin, presidential candidate of the INITE party

engaged in some clever political maneuvering by playing down expectations. INITE representatives publicly acknowledged a possible defeat in the elections, suggesting– even with the accusations– they may not have gotten enough vote to make it to the second round, a strategy that worked well by deflecting would be angry criticisms aimed at them over the allegations. Nevertheless, that strategy may have backfired on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the CEP announced INITE’s unexpected qualification to the second round with 22.4 percent of the votes. Consequently, the party’s headquarter in Port-au-prince found itself in the bulls’ eye of vindictive fires and fuming rage.

Meanwhile, popular singer Michel Martelly felt a strong populist wind at his back following his inspiring anti-establishment rhetoric that led to symbolic calls for cancellations of the elections. The candidate, at times, seemed overconfident and even

Third place candidate, Michel Martelly (Sweet Micky)

bold. “If the results come out in favor of Jude Celestin and myself, I will reject them because he does not have the popularity nor the support system to make it to the second round,” he declared in a midweek press conference. Some called the statements unwise or premature political miscalculations, but Martelly– not known for his political correctness— positioned himself as a possible winner with that move. Nevertheless, the CEP did not have any kind words for him when it announced Martelly was a disappointing third with 21.8 percent of the votes. He would have missed the second round by some 6,845 votes. Rejecting the results, his devout supporters violently stormed the public sphere immediately after the announcements expressing disapproval and disappointments. As a result, conspiracy theories became prevalent on Tuesday night: the difference in votes between Martelly and Jude Celestin of INITE would be a direct result of Celestin’s alleged mischief.

For her part, Mirlande Manigat was strategic over the course of the suspenseful week staying away from swirling speculations of her leading in early vote counts. Therefore, the CEP’s announcement of her winning 31.9 percent of the votes to lead the race was not a surprise. She would square off with Celestin in

Leading candidate Mirlande Manigat

the second round scheduled for Jan. 16, 2011; however, that scenario is not likely since international observers and government officials have had to walk a political landmine. The apparent peaceful atmosphere is fragile and necessitates intricate balancing to appease the protesters and prevent further chaos. As a result, pundits speculate a compromise could be in the making where all three candidates could take part in the second round. However, the constitutionality of such compromise remains questionable.

While protestors fought for democratic ends, they used the most undemocratic means and took the country deep into the familiar realm of lawlessness. Absent any symbolic show of unity and leadership to denounce the despicable acts of violence in the most robust of terms, that angry electorate, with nothing else to lose but their very soul, will not stop until transparency and fairness ensure that their choices are prioritized.

Rapadoo,

Related Articles

• Haiti delays publication of disputed vote results (thestar.com)
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• Haitian presidential candidate calls for entirely new vote, not runoff (cnn.com)
• Haitian candidate calls for calm (bbc.co.uk)
• Haiti seeks international help to resolve election dispute (alternet.org)
• Officials asks Haitian president to delay election results (cnn.com)
• Haiti’s leading candidate speaks against council (thehimalayantimes.com)