Prison Aid to Haiti for Captive Slave Labor

By Dady Chery Haiti Chery Haiti’s incarceration rate of roughly 100 prisoners per 100,000 citizens in 2016 was the lowest in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, there is a systematic campaign underway for more prisons. Canada and Norway have each given one … Continue reading →

Haiti’s Open Vein at Caracol Industrial Park

By Dady Chery Haiti Chery Haitians, who previously sold their kin as outright slaves and sugar-cane cutters, continue to sell them into sweatshops and other horrific work environments at home and abroad. Consider the case of Caracol Industrial Park, in … Continue reading →

Homage to My Mothers: Restavek, Vodou, and Haiti’s Stolen Children

By Dady Chery Haiti Chery “There are no orphans in Haiti!” After a long silence at the other end of the line, my friend Jordan murmurs: “Come again?” He must be thinking I lost my senses. I realize how I … Continue reading →

Haiti: Wrecking Ball Capitalism in Real Time

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. How does one drag a people with a sense of enough into the capitalist enterprise? In Haiti, this process is exposed in all its hideousness as it happens in real time.

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Haiti’s Assembly Workers Promised 87 Cents Per Hour

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s sweatshop factory owners enjoy unprecedented duty free and quota-free access to the U.S. market, and only prison wages come close to the scandalously low 30 to 50 cents/hour earned by Haiti’s workers.

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Deadly Denim

By Staff, International Labor Rights Forum. Two separate fires in Pakistan killed more than 300 trapped workers: 289 workers in a Karachi apparel factory (sweatshop) and 25 workers in a Lahore shoe factory on Tuesday September 11, 2012. National Trade Union Federation of Pakistan (NTUF) leader Nasir Mansoor called this the “darkest and saddest day in the history of Pakistan’s labor movement.” The fires are considered to be the logical result of the low prices buyers offer the factories and the quick deliveries they demand.

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World’s Coral Reefs in State of Emergency | Arrecifes en situación de emergencia | Arrecifes em situação de emergência

By Stephen Leahy, IPS | Envolverde. Threats to coral reefs have gone from worrisome to dire. Bleaching, overfishing, pollution and disease have largely wiped out the fabulous coral communities of the Caribbean, which has lost 80 percent of its corals since the 1970s, say scientists at the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS). (English | Spanish | Portuguese)

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Top Five Reasons Why Caracol Industrial Park is Disastrous for Haiti

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Caracol Bay area was slated to be a World Heritage Site and Marine Park because of its breathtaking barrier reef, mangroves, and migratory birds. The area is also the site of archaeological finds including Guacanagaric, one of the largest and most complete Taino Indian villages. The area has been converted into the massive Caracol Industrial Park (or Free-Trade zone, FTZ) that is expected to pollute the Trou du Nord River and the bay and get served by a deep-water port.

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Poor Little Rich Haiti to Be Fleeced of Copper-Silver-Gold Via Caracol Deep-Water Port

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Plans are under way for Canadian and US corporations to mine Haiti’s northeast area near Caracol, which has been discovered to contain a wealth of silver and gold, in addition to copper. As in the Dominican Republic’s Pueblo Viejo project, construction of the mines will involve dynamiting of mountains, and the ore will be extracted by an opencast (or open-pit) mining process that contaminates large volumes of water with cyanide. UPDATES: Attempts to issue mining permits to the US’ VCS Mining LLC and Canada’s SOMINE SA, without any environmental impact assessment (EIA) were thwarted by Haiti’s Senate in January 2013. Plans to dredge a deep-sea port in the pristine Bay of Fort Liberte were scrapped in April 2014.

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Caracol Free-Trade Zone Jeopardizes Natural and Cultural Heritage | La zone franche de Caracol met en péril le patrimoine naturel et culturel du Nord-Est

By Rachelle Charlier Doucet, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A massive industrial park is scheduled to open in the Caracol Bay area of Haiti, although no plan is in place to mitigate the park’s impact on a region that has been proposed as a World Heritage Site for its ecological, historical, and archaeological importance. (English | French)

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EU Projects Environmentally, Socially Unsound | Ajustar y vigilar mejor los proyectos de la UE

By Bari Bates, IPS. Dozens of European Union-funded projects across several European countries are ‘environmentally or socially unsound’, according to an interactive map created by a joint effort between CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe. Evidently, the EU has now turned on European protected habitats. In Haiti, for example, the EU has funded the Caracol Industrial Park.

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Caracol Haiti Industrial Park With Projected Adverse Environmental Impact | Caracol, un parc industriel d’Haïti Parc qui aurait un impact environnemental négatif

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 6 of 7. The same week over 300 agricultural plots in Caracol, Haiti, were unexpectedly destroyed, the Haitian government signed an agreement with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IDB, and Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading to convert the lands into an industrial park. This park will dump its wastes into a bay with extensive coraf reefs and one of the country’s last mangrove forests. (English | French)

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Fertile Land Seized for New Sweatshop Zone | Un déficit d’information publique sur le parc industriel du nord

By Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus, Alter Presse. “It’s the most fertile area we have at Caracol…. It’s inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park.” – Resident Renel Pierre (English | French)

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