Toutotan tèt ou poko koupe, espere met chapo
January 10, 2024 - January 24, 2025
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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Toutotan tèt ou poko koupe, espere met chapo
As long as you have a head, you can hope to wear a hat
(Haitian proverb)Lizay
This newsletter returns from our hiatus in the middle of so much uncertainty. As we witness Haiti’s continued destabilized state with an increasingly disappointing presidential council at the helm, the United States enters another Trump presidency. Under Biden’s presidency, we saw Haitians whipped at the border, and then later on offered a temporary legal path into the United States. Today, many of those same Haitians are left vulnerable wondering where their next protections will come from as ICE raids increase around the country. Meanwhile, Haiti continues to reel. It makes one wonder what was the end game.
Woy Magazine turned 10 years old on January 1st, the new year, and the anniversary of Haitian Independence. We want to once again extend our invitation to think through these events together through this newsletter. We want to invite you to contextualize with us, understanding that events in Haiti do not happen in a vacuum. We want to invite you to keep a record of things together, remembering that our struggle began well before Trump took office. Sometimes, we will get certain things wrong, sometimes we will ask the wrong questions, and sometimes we will give in to distractions. That’s why all of this is a learning process. Through the increasing fear and confusion, one important thing we can do is continue to read together, learn together, and analyze together.
Thank you for your patience with us as we got some much-needed rest. We have some new projects coming that we hope you will find meaningful.
Nathalie ‘Talie’ Cerin Lead Editor | Woy Magazine
CHAY LA | Main Story
Le Sud à la une
This week in Haiti, the southern regions uncharacteristically dominated the local headlines and airwaves over the political gridlock and violence of the armed groups in Pòtoprens and Latibonit. On January 22nd Gustavo Petro, the President of Colombia, visited the city of Jakmèl for a few hours to meet with the Haitian government and sign a partnership agreement focused on commerce, defense, and agriculture.
Jakmèl was chosen as the site for this visit to commemorate Simon Bolivar’s stay in the city in 1816 where he sought support from Haiti in its fight against colonial Spain. In a speech for the occasion, President Petro explained that his country was indebted to Haiti for its role in Colombia’s liberation. Bolivar who is the father of Latin American liberation was also instrumental in freeing Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia
Petro also apologized to the Haitian people for the role individual Colombian citizens played in Jovenel Moise’s assassination which further destabilized the country. Last year, Petro also acknowledged that guns, ammunition, and drugs from Colombia fuel the operations of the armed groups of Haiti.
The Haitian presidency, currently led by Lesly Voltaire, spent nearly 4 million dollars preparing for Petro's visit. This included extending the landing strip at the Jakmèl airport, cleaning the city, road repairs, and supplying electricity for the first time in three years. What real change can such a visit bring to a town like Jakmèl? There is much talk of making Jakmèl the tourism capital of Latin America in conjunction with this visit. But we know well the limits of the promises of tourism and how it often leads to displacement and dispossession of peasant land, like what happened in Ilavach.
For now, this visit seems to counter Haiti's isolation on the international stage, reminds the world of Haiti's contributions, and emphasizes that Haiti's security problems are part of transnational criminal systems.
The second major event that took place in the South was the long-awaited inauguration of the port in St Louis du Sud. This international port was built by private individuals like businessman Pierre Leger backed by 1,500 shareholders. This project was started in the 1990s with little support from the government over the years. The growing isolation of the southern regions due to the armed groups' occupation of Route Nationale #2 of the ports in Port-au-Prince finally brought the government on board the project. Other efforts are being led by civil society groups like Nou Bouke Tann, in a bid to open the Grand Sud to the world, such as an international airport in Okay. While such projects are not insignificant, more substantive investments in fishing and farming would be more beneficial to change the lives of Haitians in the South.
POLITIK/POLEMIK
Petro’s visit and inauguration of the port are considered accomplishments for the transitional presidential council (CPT), currently under Leslie Voltaire’s leadership. However, the council continues to suffer from a lack of credibility, in part due to the corruption scandal and the continued tenure of the three accused members. CPT members are also criticized for divvying up among themselves funds budgeted for intelligence each month, instead of making them available to an agency in desperate need, like the Haitian National Police (PNH).
Pwomès se dèt
Welcome to the latest edition of Woy Magazine’s biweekly newsletter, providing you with must-know news and commentary on Haiti and our Diaspora.
Since last year, the PNH & the Multinational Security Support Mission’s foreign troops made some progress fighting the Gran Grif gang in Ti Rivyè, Latibonit, even arresting the former legislator Profane Victor, the leader of the gang. But their interventions are still too limited and they are spread thin because of the number of armed groups. Places like Waf Jeremi where there was a massacre of mostly elderly people at the end of the year, in the heart of Pòtoprens, are beyond the government’s control. On Christmas day, at the reopening of the General Hospital, two journalists and one police agent died, and many others were injured.
MSS Mission Update
217 more Kenyan police officers arrived on January 18th to reinforce the 400 officers who initiated the deployment. The mission has also received reinforcements with the arrival of 75 Guatemalan soldiers.
This expensive mission’s efforts have proved ineffective, faced with a notable change in the gang’s strategy in 2024. So far, they’ve consolidated their power through the Viv Ansanm coalition and expanded their control over the territory. In a recent policy brief, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime explained that this has had significant ramifications on daily life in Haiti thanks to its capacity to extort the population and carry out violence as a means of asserting its influence over the occupied territories. The gangs have also managed to embed themselves in Haiti’s political and economic system by participating in the public debate and influencing the transition. This would have been impossible without a significant arsenal of weapons, which had been an issue for the Kenya Mission from the beginning.
IMIGRASYON
Lamayòt
On January 20th, Donald Trump was sworn into office for his second term and many are wondering what this will mean for Haitians in the face of his mass deportation plans. As promised, Trump has already made moves to roll back Biden's parole program which allowed thousands of Haitians to move to the US at the border and by applying through a US-based sponsor. These policies aim for the status of immigrants who followed legal pathways into the United States, which has been described as unprecedented.
“The memo, signed Thursday night by the acting head of the Homeland Security Department, offers ICE officials a road map on how to use expansive powers that were long reserved only for encounters at the southern border to quickly remove migrants. It also appears to give the officials the ability to expel migrants in two major Biden-era programs [namely humanitarian parole] that have allowed more than a million people to enter the country temporarily. […]
The decision indicates that President Trump will try to use every facet of the immigration enforcement apparatus to crack down on a system he has long said has been abused, and that he intends to target not just those who sneaked across the border but even those who followed previously authorized pathways to enter.” - (Source: NY Times)
KILTIRÈL
KANAVAL 2025
Carnival season is upon us and a number of towns throughout the country including Okay, Jakmèl, Wanament, Okap, and Fò Libète saw performers and revelers in the streets celebrating this cherished and longstanding tradition last Sunday.
After a forced hiatus over the last three years, the official national carnival parade, organized by the central government, will take place in the northeastern town of Fò Libète this year, from March 2nd to March 4th. This is a first in the town's history, and several of Haiti’s most esteemed bands, including Tropicana d’Haiti, Boukman Eksperyans, RAM, Kreyòl La, and T-Vice, are expected to take part in the festivities.
DEGI | Recommendations before you go
RNDDH Report on Life in the Displacement Camps in Port au Prince
Bravo, Woy! Good to see you again. Excellent edition.