Welcome to the latest edition of Woy Magazine’s biweekly newsletter, providing you with must-know news and commentary on Haiti and our Diaspora.
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Chen souke ke l sou moun li konnen
Dogs wag their tails at people they know
(Haitian proverb)
CHAY LA | Main Story
Construction continues
If you have been following along in the news or on this newsletter, there is a canal construction at the heart of a dispute at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. (See previous newsletters for context)
The Haitian government finally officially sent a delegation to meet with the committee leading the construction of the canal in the Northeast department. This comes two months after citizens of Wanament and Ferye resumed work on the canal after it had been abandoned by the government following the death of Jovenel Moise. Officials from the Agriculture, Commerce, and Environment Ministries promised technical and financial support to the project. The canal’s biggest support continues to be individuals and collectives of Haitians in the country and abroad. They continue to make money and in-kind donations and to visit the site with much jubilation. One such group from Montreal called Mouvman Kanal Pap Kanpe (MKPK) is raising funds to set up a community agriculture bank so that farmers of the Maribaroux Plain can access credit.
The Haitian border in Wanament remains closed.
In the meantime, President Luis Abinader and Joe Biden met last week. In a tweet, Biden asserted that US ties with the Dominican Republic were stronger than ever.
The two leaders discussed how our two countries can continue to closely cooperate to create sustainable economic development for our people, including through the Americas Partnership, and take action to combat climate change. During the meeting, the leaders also discussed the security situation in Haiti, as well as developments on the deployment of a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission for Haiti. (Source: The White House)
That Abinader and his government have cemented their place as a discriminatory government, with little to no respect for Haitian people or the Haitian state, must not have made the agenda. From ruthless immigration policies to unequal policies on shared water resources —it isn’t surprising that the DR would partner with the United States to usher in another foreign intervention.
More recently, in what was considered by some as an act of provocation, Dominican soldiers appeared with guns drawn near the canal under construction to intimidate Haitians. The construction of the canal carries on, nonetheless. Haitians understand the construction of the canal to be a question of national sovereignty, with the backdrop of an impending intervention. May we address the international community on foreign military intervention with this same spirit.
As the war on Gaza unfolds, it is important to show our solidarity with the Palestinian people. The legacy of 1804 established Haiti as a people that stands with all oppressed peoples and calls for liberation. Haiti’s founders understood that Western hegemony meant that the fate of Haitian people was inextricably linked to that of other colonized people around the world. This has not changed today. The unelected government imposed on Haiti today recently voted against a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire (due to its ties to the US). And yet, Haitian people in the Dominican Republic have much in common with the people of Palestine, where the indiscriminate deportation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent has been unfolding in mass.
In 2022 alone, an estimated 171,000 deportations were carried out, mainly targeting Haitians. When the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called to suspend these deportations, Abinader proclaimed that the deportations would not only continue but that they would increase. And he has definitely held his promise.
Dominicans of Haitian descent have also been rendered stateless. You might also recall the denationalization campaign to revoke the citizenship of an estimated 300,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent back in 2013. In a constitutional court ruling, citizens born of foreign parents after 1929 were required to prove their parents’ immigration status to retain their nationality.
Young people impacted by the ruling mobilized, pushing the government of Danilo Medina to introduce Law 169-14, which divided the people affected into two groups. Those in Group A, who already had Dominican identity documents, regained their nationality but were added to a racially segregated civil registry. Those in Group B, [sic], lost their citizenship status but were allowed to enter a regularization plan for foreigners, with the promise that they would be eligible for naturalized citizenship in two years. (Source: NACLA)
POLITIK / POLEMIK
League of bandi legal
An investigative report by the UN Expert Panel was recently released detailing what many Haitians already knew was happening under Michel Martelly’s regime — a regime that was expressly supported by the United States.
The United States government intervened in the 2011 elections, putting Martelly through the second round by way of the OAS, continuing to back him as protests roared across the country throughout his term for not holding local and national elections and for corruption.
In the report, Martelly and other political and business elite are said to have armed and used gangs to advance their interests — intimidating, suppressing uprisings, and even massacring Haitians as they saw fit.
Since François Duvalier’s tenure (see annex 2) and in particular since the presidential mandate of Michel Martelly, gangs have been used to disrupt political processes, intimidate the opposition and the general population and secure votes and economic profits (see paras. 69–81). They proliferated further from 2018 onwards(see annex 3) as a tool for the political and business elite, as well as senior governmental officials, to suppress popular mobilization – for instance, in response to contentious affairs, such as the Petrocaribe scandal – commit massacres (e.g., La Saline) . (Source: United Nations Security Council)
The report also discusses the diversion of PetroCaribe funds, where the most egregious misappropriations were found to have taken place under Martelly and Laurent Lamothe’s terms in office. As the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation and Prime Minister, Lamothe authorized the disbursement of $668.8 million dollars, while most Haitians continued to toil in poverty. That is over a quarter of the $4 billion soft loan from Venezuela, intended for economic and social development.
These atrocities were the rallying cry of a social movement led by anti-corruption activists. Now that the international community is up to speed, what will they do to help Haitians rid the country of these people who’ve plagued the country for the past decade?
The UN Security Council has thus far voted to renew the sanctions regime on Haiti, including a targeted arms embargo, travel ban, and asset freeze established in October 2022.
Those designated for sanctions have been deemed directly or indirectly responsible for or complicit in actions that threaten the peace, security or stability of the country. The resolution directs the Security Council Committee on Haiti to update the list of designated individuals and entities swiftly, taking into account reports submitted by the Panel of Experts on Haiti, put in place by resolution 2653 (2022) that established the sanctions regime and the Committee to monitor and assist with compliance.
By the text, the Council reaffirmed that all Member States shall take the necessary measures to prevent the supply, sale or transfer to Haiti of small arms, light weapons and ammunition, as well as taking steps to stop their illicit trafficking and diversion. It also encouraged the Government of Haiti to reinforce the weapons and ammunition management capacity of the Haitian National Police. (Source: United Nations)
On the international front, Frandley Denis Julien argues that countries could decide to go beyond the UN sanctions. If the United States classifies the gangs as terrorist groups, there will be legal repercussions for those involved in gangs, particularly those who were involved in the kidnapping of US citizens. The 192 members of the United Nations will also be required to follow the sanctions, and INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) will be involved to put them in place.
What now?
Does the Haitian justice sector have the capacity to move forward with the Petrocaribe trials and other cases? Is there any political will for that? Since the UN report on the criminality of Haitian politicians in recent years, what have some Haitians proposed?
Ayiti Nou Vle A (ANVA) is calling for greater transparency on the part of the international community while encouraging institutional cooperation in monitoring the sanctions in Haiti. Their aim is to address the great challenge of circumventing international sanctions in Haiti by adopting a proactive, multilateral, and collaborative approach between national institutions and international partners.
The Montana Accord proposes a transition led by a two-headed governmental system modeled after the 1987 Constitution’s constitutional regime in view of establishing the conditions for national stability, with the goal of restoring constitutional normality and democratic order. Several bodies have been devised to fill the various roles and institutional vacancies needed for the transitional process, including a National Transition Council (CNT) charged with selecting the President of the Transition and the Prime Minister head of government.
As for Ariel Henry’s transition agreement, it has yet to be implemented. A reminder that Henry has been in office for nearly two years and was nominated by a president whose mandate was largely disputed himself. Henry’s mandate is supposed to be up by Feb. 7, 2024, based on the stated timeline.
Even Mirlande Manigat, constitutional law professor and former presidential candidate, is turning against Henry. In an interview dating back to March 2023, Mme Manigat, 1 of the 3 members of the High Council for the Transition (HCT)—created under the December 21 agreement— admitted that the institution was barely functional. She went on to say that this body—charged with the task of organizing elections to replace Henry by Feb. 7, 2024—lacked basic office supplies like paper, even revealing that they had to go so far as to protest because they “[could not] be treated this way.”
“We can’t even find a single sheet of paper. We are facing difficulties in functioning as an institution. We cannot recruit any personnel because we don’t have a budget. We have had to protest, arguing that we cannot be treated this way. We hope that the people we are speaking with will show good faith and we will be able to function like any other state institution.” (Source: Le Nouvelliste)
On Nov. 2, just 4 months ahead of the Feb. 7 deadline, Mme Manigat said in an interview that the process had failed because of Henry—who did not respect the deadline. Meanwhile, the country continues to move closer and closer toward another year with Henry at its helm.
Migrasyon
Exodus
In recent months, Haitians have been flocking to Nicaragua, where no entry visas are not required for entry, by chartering their own planes. A similar pattern was observed in Cuba. From August to October 2023, over 260 chartered planes landed in Managua, carrying over 30,000 Haitians. These flights were recently suspended following a migration summit held in Mexico, which Ariel Henry attended, along with 11 other Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The Haiti-Nicaragua flights began in August and have grown from seven flights a day to as many as 15 daily charters. There are also charter flights from the neighboring Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos carrying Haitians, who pay as much as $4,000 per seat for the trip. […]
As news finally spread Monday afternoon about the decision, angry Haitians lashed out at the government, demanding that Prime Minister Ariel Henry reimburse them and tell the public what plans he has to keep them safe from gangs and provide economic opportunities. (Source: Miami Herald)
KILTIRÈL
Gede
On Nov. 2, Fèt Gede, Haiti’s “Festival of the Dead,” was celebrated. These celebrations take place every year to pay homage to the dead. Practitioners celebrate by getting dressed up as Gede and making their way to local cemeteries (or their chosen lakou) to perform rituals and make offerings of money, candles, food, and kleren—paying their respects to the deceased.
Bon Fèt Gonayiv
November 4th was the city of Gonayiv’s Fèt Chanpèt or patron festival. Gonayiv is an important city, most notably for being the location where Haitian independence was officially declared.
Recently, like many other cities and towns throughout the country, it has been providing a new home to many people leaving the greater Port-au-Prince region. To learn more about how Haitians are making the decision to move to Gonayiv and how the city has received them, check out an article written by Lesly Succès for the Christian Science Monitor in partnership with the International Women’s Media Foundation and Woy Magazine.
Displaced people have brought tangible innovation, such as more fleets of tap-taps, privately owned vans used as shared taxis. And existing companies and institutions are putting down new roots outside of Port-au-Prince in communities that can welcome them. Quisqueya University, one of the capital’s top universities, moved its Agriculture School to Mirebalais in Central Haiti, and a renowned international music festival, the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival, left its namesake city and was held in the north for the first time in the festival’s 16 years. (Source: The Christian Science Monitor)