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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Haitian Sankofa
Woy Magazine is excited to announce our second thematic series of 2021: Heritage, Remembrance and Dyaspora. Through a series of essays, digital posts and online events, we’ll explore what it means to carry Haitian culture and identity overseas, and how this diversifies the overall Haitian experience. Stay tuned for more information, and be sure to join our Patreon for first dibs on all upcoming content.
New Lows and a Little High
This week kicked off with news of yet another case of incredible violence taking place in one of Port-au-Prince’s working class/poor neighborhoods. On Monday, Le Nouvelliste reported that a pregnant teenager along with two others were shot and killed after they were caught in the crossfires of two gangs in Cité Soleil. Seven others were injured.
While incredibly disturbing, this young lady is not the first expecting woman to become a casualty of Haiti’s insecurity crisis:
Cela fait un bail depuis que la justice ne parvient plus à verbaliser les victimes de cette guerre qui s’enlise. L’an dernier, une autre jeune femme enceinte, Guirlande Police, avait été tuée par balle. Les hommes d’Iscart, membre de G-9, avaient été indexés, comme dans l’homicide de Marrydjuna Fleurimond, un nourrisson de huit mois.
As an update on the last high-profile kidnapping, on Friday morning, many were relieved to hear that the remaining nuns and priests kidnapped weeks ago were finally released by their captors.
Heightened Tensions
Despite the news of the Catholic church members being freed, it is safe to say that tensions across Haiti are mounting as kidnappings and gang-related violence continue to paralyze the country.
According to Rezo Nòdwes, the Haitian press has reported at least 20 kidnapping cases in the month of April alone. While students in the capital protested the kidnapping of their classmate Youry Valery Léonard Dérival earlier in the week, the people of Ti Gwav took to the streets to call attention to and denounce the abduction of their fellow towns-person Wilkens Dicette.
Building off of these activations, union organizations Antèn ouvriye Ayiti and La Confédération des travailleuses et travailleurs haitiens have announced their own marches that will take place on the first and second of May to call out not only the ruling party’s demolishment of security, but also their tanking of Haiti’s already fragile agricultural sector:
Depuis 10 ans qu’ils sont au pouvoir, le régime du Parti haïtien tèt kale (Phtk), ses alliés et l’impérialisme international ont provoqué, dans le pays, un retour en arrière de plus de 50 ans. Ils ont détruit toutes les institutions, les ressources du pays et mis au plus bas niveau la production agricole », déplore Antèn ouvriye Ayiti.
Avec cette entreprise de kidnapping, que Phtk a mis sur pied, plusieurs familles se sont appauvries. Les victimes et leurs familles ont de gros problèmes psychologiques. (Source: AlterPresse)
Meanwhile in the States…
After more than 50 members of Congress signed on to a letter demanding the U.S. do so, the U.S. State Department announced that they would not be providing any financial backing to the regime headed by Jovenel Moïse for its upcoming referendum. A spokesman for the department explained:
We have repeatedly stated that constitutional reform is for the Haitian people to decide. We've emphasized to the Haitian government that the US government will not provide financial support for a constitutional referendum. (Source: Reuters)
This is the latest in a series of setbacks for Jovenel’s planned changes to the Constitution. Last week, we reported that members of the Port-au-Prince Bar, as well as former presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat, declared that the proposed referendum is illegal. Even the leader of Jovenel’s Tèt Kale party has gone on record to say “neither he nor the political party supports the president’s proposed June 27 referendum to overhaul the country’s constitution.” (Source: Woy Magazine)
Forgotten Promises
In addition to the aforementioned letter, more than 500 immigration advocates and human rights activists signed on to an open letter, coordinated by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, directed at U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas demanding that they immediately renew the Temporary Protected Status program for Haiti.
The letter states:
With an increasingly authoritarian president who has been ruling unconstitutionally without a parliament for over a year, now claiming his mandate extends through January 2022, and with well-attended daily protests in response, the political situation is unstable, fragile and extremely dangerous. (Source: The Hill)
This move by immigration activists signifies their latest demand for President Biden to deliver on promises he made to the Haitian-American community in Florida just days before the November 2020 elections. As of February 1, 2021, the Biden Administration has deported more than 1,000 immigrants, including children and infants, to Haiti, surpassing numbers reached by the Trump Administration in a single year. (Source: The Guardian)
Food for Thought
Dr. Fania Ogé is the first woman to receive a doctorate degree from L’Institut des Sciences des Technologies et des Études Avancées d’Haïti (ISTEAH), and thanks to the power of Zoom you can watch her defend her PhD thesis titled, “Mise en oeuvre d’une démarche de gestion prévisionnelle des ressources humaines dans les universités .” Her work explores the challenges Haiti’s universities face when it comes to lack of human resources, and how it relates to the modernization of Haitian public administration services. You can watch the full defense here.
Visual Stimulation
Following the success of their Lòk Mondyal digital series, Ti Seri Ayiti have announced that they will soon drop their second season. Their first project, which spans 23 episodes, explores how the COVID-19 pandemic soon became a metaphor for the corruption and insecurity plaguing Haiti. Ti Seri Ayiti was created and is run by duo Eliezer Guérismé and Samuel Suffren. You can check out some of their work below:
Fokal’s film docuseries MARDI.doc premiered a new project, “32 ans après,” which tells the story of Theatre Forum, a group of actors attempting to depict life under the Duvalier regime through a play. You can watch the entire piece here.
Have a fantastic and safe weekend! We’ll see you all next week!
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