Byenveni! 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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Let’s Play Hardball
This week the Belizean national football team was briefly held by armed men in Haiti’s capitol while in town for a World Cup qualifier game. The team was accosted while en route from the airport — despite having a police escort, though thankfully, no one on the team was physically hurt during the brief altercation. The Football Federation of Belize later confirmed the events in a statement that expressed their “disappointment and disgust” at the incident.
Following the popularity of the viral #FreeHaiti Twitter hashtag that continues to serve as a rallying point for Haitians at home and abroad, a new wave of protests denouncing Haiti’s mass insecurity issues are set to commence this Sunday.
Voices from the Ground
In the March 16 episode of Fwote Lide on AlterRadio, the founder and president of Mouvman Peyizan Papay, Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, spoke to the show’s host about the challenges landowners in the countryside are facing with land theft and forced displacement for business interests. As you may remember, last month Woy Magazine highlighted that Jovenel Moïse issued a decree expelling farmers from their land to create a new agribusiness zone for the likes of Andre Apaid and his family.
That same month feminist organization Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA) condemned the decree as it seizes at least 13 hectares of land owned by their members:
En raison de l'importance agricole de Savane-Diane, en 2018, elle fut classée parmi les 5 domaines prioritaires garantissant l'autosuffisance alimentaire du pays, par le ministère de l'Agriculture. Or, à notre grand étonnement, le 8 février 2021, l'ancien président, qui a gagné les élections sur la base du discours qu’il allait nourrir toute la population, et l'ancien ministre de l'Agriculture, qui est payé par la population pour définir des stratégies afin d’atteindre cet objectif, prennent un arrêt déclarant ce même espace zone franche pour une culture d’exportation. (Source: Le Nouvelliste)
Mouvman Peyizan Papay and Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongrè Papay recently organized a two day conference in Hinche to discuss and plan mobilizations against the ongoing land grabs:
Colloque national contre l’accaparement des terres en Haïti, marche contre l’accaparement des terres et le pillage des biens des familles paysannes sont parmi d’autres actions, posées ou envisagées.
Ces mobilisations paysannes devraient aider à mettre un frein aux actions criminelles, perpétrées sur la ferme de Papaye, et à renforcer le processus de lutte contre ce phénomène d’accaparement des terres, visant l’élimination de l’agriculture paysanne en Haïti, au profit de l’agriculture industrielle et de l’exploitation minière, espèrent le Mouvman peyizan Papay et le Mouvman peyizan nasyonal kongrè Papay. (Source: Alterpresse)
The episode also featured a segment with the head of the Union des Normaliens Haitiens Josue Merilien to discuss the union’s 30th anniversary. You may remember that a warrant was issued for Merilien’s arrest last fall, as the government considered him an instigator of the student protests to demand better classroom conditions. (Source: Rezo Nòdwes)
You can listen to the entire episode here.
Ghost Schools
Following up on their investigation into the missing PetroCaribe funds for abandoned state projects in IlaVach, the Ayiti Nou Vle A team is back with another social audit, this time looking into a promised building and edifice rehabilitation program for schools scattered around the country. The assessment, which looked at 16 schools across all 10 departments of the nation, found some rather disturbing yet unsurprising results: poor teacher and student attendance, weak infrastructure and unfinished construction plans just to name a few of the issues. The documentary also closely examines the companies hired to build and oversee the completion of this project. The findings? There may be some ties to some known political entities like PHTK.
You can watch the visual audit report below, and be sure to check out this interactive infographic breaking down findings for all 16 schools here.
And here’s the IlaVach video, in case you missed it:
The UN Speaks
In their first official statement on Haiti since 2017, the United Nations Security Council urged the country, once more, to hold elections:
The Security Council urges all political stakeholders in Haiti to set aside their differences in the interest of the people of Haiti, to engage constructively to enable the organization of upcoming elections and to ensure elections take place in a peaceful environment, and calls on the international community to support Haiti in this endeavor… (Source: Yahoo News)
The statement also expressed concern for “human rights violations” taking place, but failed to mention their ongoing support for Jovenel Moïse whose presidential term, under the Haitian constitution, ended on February 7, 2021.
The full statement can be found here.
All the News That’s Fit to Print
Less than a week after Axios offered what can only be described as free PR to the Moïse regime, the New York Times published a story inaccurately painting Jovenel as a legitimate leader at a career-defining crossroads. Focusing solely on the new constitution being pushed through by the ex-president, the article analyzes the country’s capabilities of churning better voter turnout:
Mr. Moïse says he, too, is concerned about voter participation.
“There is a silent majority,” he said. “Many Haitians don’t want to participate in something they think will be violent. We need peace and stability to encourage people to vote.”
As the June referendum on the Constitution approaches, the government is trying to register five million voters, Mr. Moïse said. His goal, he said, is to inject the process with more legitimacy than his presidency had.
However, the piece fails to take into account the illegitimacy of the subject they’ve interviewed, the incredible role the U.S., Canada, France, the UN and OAS have played in the country’s latest constitutional woes, or the irony that someone overstepping the mandate terms being laid out by the current constitution is now expected to oversee the June referendums on the country’s laws as well as legislative elections.
Numbers Don’t Lie
What the New York Times refrained from publishing in their article the London Review of Books had no problem saying clearly, thanks to writer Pooja Bhatia. In her latest piece for the LRB, “Haitian Democracy,” Bhatia reminds us that it was poor voter turnout which, in part, landed Jovenel Moïse the seat of the presidency:
No leader is universally scorned, but Jovenel Moïse comes close. Turnout was 18 per cent in the elections that made him president of Haiti in 2016. Since then there have been government-linked massacres, including one that killed at least seventy people, a spike in kidnappings, an uptick in murders, rampant inflation, blatant corruption and pervasive fear.
She also accurately assesses the now-familiar pattern used by the United States to mastermind Haiti’s democratic process, or lack thereof:
That’s the American way in Haiti. The US exercises influence without acknowledging it; subverts genuine democrats and then claims they lacked popular support; props up autocrats and ignores both the letter and the spirit of the law in the name of stability and ‘what’s best for Haitians’; preaches self-reliance while flooding Haitian markets with rice grown in Arkansas; evangelises human rights while denying asylum-seekers a chance to show credible fear; propounds elections instead of democracy.
Se Sa, Papa
The American denial of asylum-seekers Bhatia mentions was on full display this week when the twitter account for the U.S. Embassy tweeted a quote tile graphic of President Joe Biden’s recent remarks geared towards immigrants desperate to emigrate to America:
The quote comes from a March 16 interview the president did with ABC News where he was asked about the reported increasing number of child migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Translating the quote in Kreyòl was salt in the wound to many who have repeatedly called out Biden’s failed promises to “have the backs” of Black supporters and to put an end to Trump-era policies that continue to harm many immigrants. As you may remember, Joe Biden campaigned in Florida’s Little Haiti towards the end of his presidential run:
According to a new report from the Guardian, the Biden Administration has now deported “more Haitians in a few weeks than the Trump Administration did in a whole year” using Trump’s Title 42 policy.
These deportations come as Haiti’s conditions under the Jovenel Moïse regime continue to deteriorate with an ever-growing unemployment problem, deregulation of the gourde and the mounting cases of kidnappings and senseless killings by government-backed gangs — a regime which continues to receive unwavering support from Biden.
Batay Fanm
Working conditions for women the world-over leave a lot to be desired, and Haiti is no exception. In a new short documentary, women’s rights organization Dantò explores the abuses and hardships Haitian women face in factories, including sexual harassment and assault, no proper lunch breaks, lack of resources to practice basic hygiene and exposure to harmful chemicals:
Haiti to the World
Earlier this week it was announced that the 5th annual Musée Rara Léogane will be taking place from March 26 to April 4:
Ce sont « Medic Haïti » et l’Association touristique des palmes et de l’ouest qui organisent cette exposition annuelle au cours de laquelle, les responsables collectent des matériels, instruments, vêtements et musiques du Rara pour la création du musée, poursuit Jean Chenet Ulysse.
Ce dernier affirme que cela va permettre à la population et aux touristes de mieux connaitre l’histoire, la culture, l’origine et les différents aspects de l’évolution du Rara. Il contribuera aussi dans le développement du tourisme et le renforcement de l’économie haïtienne, renchérit M. Ulysse. (Source: Vant Bèf Info)
Also, Haiti made history this week by submitting its very first cultural item, our beloved Soup Joumou, for UNESCO consideration as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Dans un communiqué publié le jeudi 25 mars, l’ambassadrice, déléguée permanente d’Haïti auprès de l’Unesco, Dominique Dupuy, a officiellement informé le pays que la «Soup joumou», « à travers les savoirs, les savoir-faire et les pratiques qui y sont liés, fait aujourd’hui l’objet d’une candidature officielle à l’inscription sur la Liste représentative du patrimoine culturel immatériel de l’humanité, dans le cadre de la Convention de 2003 de l’Unesco. La Soupe de l’indépendance avait été inscrite par le ministre de la Culture, Pradel Henriquez, au Registre national du patrimoine culturel immatériel haïtien dès le mois de décembre 2020. » (Source: Le Nouvelliste)
Have a fun and restful weekend, friends! Maybe even make some Soup to celebrate?
We’ll see you next week!
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