Salut! Welcome to the latest edition of Woy Magazine’s weekly newsletter, providing you with must-know news and commentary on Haiti and our Diaspora.
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Protest, Under a Microscope
This week, Woy Magazine published two new exclusive pieces interrogating the politics of protest. First up, Melodie Cerin tackled the transformation she’s realized in her feelings towards the burning of tires. In Haiti, burning tires is a sign of protest, usually carried out by young people expressing their frustrations for their cause. In her op-ed, Cerin writes:
Hearing adults talk of it as trouble when I was a kid, along with internalizing messages of Haitian protestors as menacing people senselessly erecting walls of fire in the international media shaped my fear of it subconsciously.
Burning tires is the most aggressive form of nonviolent protest, in that it is a form of property damage, but one that is contained. It disrupts and creates dramatic images, serving as an expression of grievance and political statement that onlookers will not be able to ignore. It also has a tactical use of drawing the eye of the media, both local and international.
In his piece interrogating the viral #FreeHaiti digital campaign, Etant Dupain surveys the concept of liberation and “freeing” Haiti in the 21st century:
Freeing Haiti in 2021 means the same thing it meant in 1791. It is true we are no longer in slavery, but we are still under the domination of the United Nations, United States, and the European Union. The alliance between the corrupt Haitian elite and imperialist countries is not an accident. When you place it in its proper historical context, you understand better why they support corruption, impunity and massacres. There is no true liberation for Haiti without a true movement against all systems of oppression. It is not an accident that the economic elite in Haiti that supports the establishing of dictatorship in the country resembles the colonizers in our history.
#FreeHaiti
The hashtag which Etant analyzes is an organic, grassroots digital campaign that has taken a life of its own in the past week. The tag was created by medical student and activist Chrismy Augustin — who was inspired by the #FreeSenegal movement — to express the frustrations of bad governance in Haiti. The rallying cry has grown into a collective, international movement calling out the crimes of the Jovenel Moïse regime and decades of societal and state failures:
“A generation is taking a beating,” said Chrismy Augustin, 24, a medical student in Port-au-Prince who for days had been signing off his Haiti tweets #FreeHaiti under his handle @LikeChrisssand watched the hashtag go viral over the weekend as Haiti wrestled with its latest crisis. “You feel like the future of the country is dying.” (Source: Miami Herald)
The hashtag, which has been used by international celebrities continues to trend as Haitians both at home and in the diaspora lament the gross negligence and crimes committed over the years by both domestic and international leaders and powers. It is also being used as an opportunity by many Haitians, who’ve long felt invisible and voiceless, to vent their frustrations with the many ways their human rights have been ignored and violated by the state:
This is the second viral digital protest to happen under the Moïse government. In 2018, one tweet by filmmaker Gilbert Mirambeau Jr. sparked the accountability movement to know the whereabouts of the PetroCaribe funds. According to one protestor, the two movements are interlinked:
“The #FreeHaiti challenge, is a continuation of this call, with more youth, and more help, as well, from inside and outside the country. It won’t die because it’s us as youth that started it, it’s us as people who do not want to fly away from Haiti that started it. This is our country, this is our fight. (Source: Miami Herald)
Be Kind, Rewind
One of the blatant crimes rediscovered during this social media protest are those of Laurent Lamothe, who served as prime minister under the Michel Martelly government from 2012 to 2014. Despite being heralded in Western media for supposedly managing “key infrastructure projects,” Lamothe has long been suspected of being partly responsible for the mismanagement surrounding the Venezuela PetroCaribe funds.
And that’s for good reason.
As revealed in a thread by twitter user @c_abiga_il, Lamothe has allegedly run what can only be described as an African/Black diaspora-wide telecommunications ruse. Prior to becoming PM, Lamothe co-founded a company, Global Voice Group (GVG), which offers to assist African nations in battling telecom fraud by taxing incoming international calls and sifting out pirate numbers; claiming the extra funds could go to nation-building funds for education and infrastructure:
These are companies that offer to monitor incoming calls on behalf of Africa’s telecoms regulators and to stamp out abuse. These companies, which are negotiating deals with several African governments, are challenging the profit-taking of the big Western-based telephone companies. Their promise to African governments is that they will cut fraud and boost revenues from the telecom sector. (Source: The Africa Report)
Yet, the company has faced multiple allegations of abuse and fraud in a number of these African countries
However the company’s expansion in some African countries was no smooth ride. Many have questioned Global Voice Group’s integrity as well as the usefulness of its service. In some countries, like Senegal, some people even went on to say that Global Voice Group was only there to tax inbound international phone calls while funnelling money to ruthless dictators and profiting out of the operation. (Source: RadioKiskeya)
A similar initiative was later implemented in Haiti, with reports claiming that $15 million were collected for the country’s education fund within the first six months of establishment. (Source: SGS Report) However, there are no additional reports verifying this amount nor its use in the country’s national education fund. We should note Haiti’s version of the program was not installed by GVG but instead a company going by SGS, which also is said to have ties to Lamothe, who once claimed that he would not bring his business to the country:
What role does Global Voice play in the management of incoming international calls in Haiti ? Shall it be playing a role, what is its involvement in collecting money for the National Education Fund ?
However, Lamothe has stated that his company would not take contracts in Haiti to avoid conflict of interest. (Source: RadioKiskeya)
We should note that a class action suit was filed against Michel Martelly and companies such as Western Union and Digicel for such noted taxes. The court papers read:
The Defendants conspired and entered into two horizontal price-fixing agreements, circulars #98, #7, and Presidential Order, to compel consumers to pay an extra $1.50 on every money transfer effectuated to and from Haiti; as well as charging consumers in the United States $0.05 per minute on every international call placed to and from Haiti. Plaintiffs and other remitters must call the beneficiaries of the money transfer to provide them with the money transfer control number (MTCN) in order for them to collect the monies remitted to them. 3. This scam by the defendants was a ruse to steal money from Plaintiffs and other Class members under the guise that the collected funds resulted from a lawful tax imposed by the Haitian Government in order to fund free and compulsory education; when in truth, the funds collected went to serve the Defendants’ personal and private needs.
Failures of a State
Additional failures of the government have been on full display thanks to recent on-the-ground protests that have taken place across the country this week. Doctors working at the Justinien Hospital in Okap declared an indefinite strike, citing poor working conditions including lack of needed materials to treat patients:
Les grévistes réclament des responsables du Ministère de la santé publique et de la population, l’exécution des travaux de réhabilitation du bâtiment de l’hôpital qui se trouve en très mauvais état.
Aussi, demandent-ils aux autorités concernées de doter ce centre hospitalier des matériels de travail et des intrants nécessaires afin que les employés puissent travailler dans de meilleures conditions. (Source: Vant Bèf Info)
And local human rights organizations demanded accountability for the abuse committed by five APENA agents upon 25 women in custody:
A Raid Gone Wrong (Trigger Warning)
More outrage against the Moïse regime spilled forth following a disastrous gang raid that reportedly left five SWAT officers dead, and eight more wounded. Taking place in the working class/impoverished neighborhood of Vilaj de Dieu, the operation took a deadly turn as gangs overtook armored vehicles and stole ammunition. The bodies of the dead officers were said to be mutilated and held hostage by the gangs:
During a live broadcast Saturday of the popular political talk radio show Ranmase on Radio Caraibes, the sister of one of the slain SWAT officers, Wislet Desilus, pleaded for her brother’s body. She said that the gang had requested $2 million in order for her mother to receive his corpse. (Source: Miami Herald)
Long suspected to be receiving government-backing, many Haitians believe the raid’s failure is a sign of how much power gangs have acquired under Jovenel’s watch. In an interview days after the raid, gang leader, TiLapli, claims to have received weapons from both the Martelly and Moïse administrations:
We should also note that a national police official went on a local television program where he revealed the gangs may have been privy to insider information which allowed them to out-maneuver the SWAT officers during the raid:
The End Goal?
So, what would be the end goal of possibly staging a trap for SWAT officers? Some believe this could be a way for Jovenel to affirm his stronghold on the country via international intervention and occupations from intergovernmental bodies and forums like the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS).
These ideas may not be as far off as they may sound. Immediately after declaring a state of emergency in gang strongholds, Jovenel appealed to the UN and the OAS for assistance.
Jovenel detailed his plea in a statement:
“This Tuesday, March 16, I had an interview with UN Secretary-General António Guterres. I asked the UN for technical and logistical support for the PNH, in order to combat banditry in Haiti and strengthen the poverty reduction program.
“During the said meeting, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and I discussed the issue of the inter-Haitian national dialogue. I remain convinced that through this dialogue we will manage to resolve the current crisis and together build a more just, united and prosperous Haiti.” (Source: NY Carib News)
It is no secret that Haiti is still reeling from the aftershocks of previous occupations including the MINUSTAH mission and the 20th century American occupation. The former created the cholera epidemic, and the latter helped birth a number of the country’s current ills including continual undermining of the constitution and land theft of peasants and small landowners:
The stripping of this constitutional amendment opened Haiti up for business, and the businesses came in like swarming bees. They came singing the tunes of the Admiral, promising millions of dollars in investments, in job creation and economic uplift. Some of these companies we can name: The Haitian-American Sugar Company, The National Citi Bank of New York, the Haitian-American Pineapple Company, Dyewood of Boston. Thousands of peasants lost their lands, lands owned by them for generations; they now had to work for big foreign corporations for meager wages. (Source: Woy Magazine)
What’s in a News Story?
With so much news coming out of Haiti, Western media have been grappling with ways to analyze and present current events. However, they continue to miss the mark. On Wednesday, U.S.-based Axios published excerpts from an email from the co-head of a public affairs firm hired by the Haitian government, Mercury, which argues that the country’s current constitutional crisis mirrors that of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by white supremacists. The news piece also linked to an op-ed the firm pitched to the Georgia-based Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper on behalf of Ambassador Bocchit Edmond.
The piece, however, failed to mention Haiti’s constitutional mandate that invalidates Jovenel’s current hold to power, and the odd and rather ironic choice of paper for Edmond’s proposed op-ed. Georgia is currently facing a number of disenfranchisement bills poised to become law — a direct act of revenge by state Republicans in response to the results of the last general election. Edmond, in comparison, represents an illegitimate government that has set up an illegal electoral commission responsible for overseeing a rather ambitious election calendar which includes voting on a controversial constitutional referendum.
You’re on Your Own
More decrees from the Moïse gang. This time, they’re letting Haitians know that the government is not responsible for any side effects folks may experience after receiving the COVID vaccine. This isn’t helpful in a country that already suffers from low vaccination participation rates due to poor health infrastructures:
Jean Eddy Saint Paul, professor of sociology at CUNY Brooklyn College, said vaccine hesitancy in Haiti is complicated – there has long been a deep mistrust of foreign meddling due to Haiti’s colonial past, but there has also been little tolerance for leaders who fail to deliver on promises before asking even more of the masses.
“If it was a government in which people trusted, people would be open to the vaccine,” Saint Paul said. Some also fear vaccines will be used to curb birth rates and “depopulate” the world of Haitians, the professor added. Sassenrath of UNFPA said there was some evidence that more Haitian women were opting not to get birth control injections, but the data was limited. (Source: The New Humanitarian)
Fanm Yo Pale
As Women’s History Month continues along Haitian feminists/womanists are pushing ahead with various activations and events to discuss the state of Haitian women today. Fondation Toya launched a new gender-based violence awareness campaign: “Pa fè kòm si w pa wè.” Check out the video, below:
Local group Marijàn Ayiti held a panel event featuring sociologist Dr. Sabine Lamour, and activist Antoinette Duclair, with Farah Liboiron as moderator. You can check out the full conversation here.
Ansanm Pou Nou Vanse
This week, Haiti Cultural Exchange named their five artists for the #HCXRASINLAKAY responding to the theme “Fanm.” Overall, the organization hopes to fund 10 artists exploring the issues and concepts of “womanhood, gender, sexuality, the environment and general leadership.” The first five artists are:
Mikaelle Cartwright
Pascale Faubias
Veroneque Ignace
Love Soulèy
Jessica Saintvil Ulysse
You can learn more about the open call here.
Have a fantastic weekend! We’ll see you all next Friday!
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