By Dady Chery, News Junkie Post | 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.
By Dady Chery, News Junkie Post | Haiti Chery. USAID’s goals were originally to diminish the threat of communism and open new markets for the US; these have expanded to include: developing “countries’ policies and institutions” and even “rebuilding government.”
Haiti’s Opposition Parties Draft a Manifesto
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Convention of Political Parties, headed by former senator Turneb Delpe, held a national conference of 30 political parties and civilian organizations in Cap Haitien on Monday and Tuesday October 15-16 to formulate solutions to Haiti’s current crises and counter the Martelly-Lamothe regime as a united front. Together the political parties and civilian organizations drafted The manifesto of Cap-Haitien. UPDATE: Full text of manifesto included in French and English.
Mountains Behind Protests
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s most populous cities erupted in protest in early September, and some areas remain more or less in a state of continuous protest against human rights abuses, soaring food prices, 80 per cent unemployment, crashing agriculture, government corruption and racism, and many other severe political and economic ills.
Soaring Food Prices in Haiti (+ Video, Sep 19, 2012)
By Ricardo Pierre Placide, Le Matin | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Over the past several months, Haitian households have faced an unprecedented 40% increase on average in the prices of essential commodities such as eggs, rice, sugar, and flour. (English | French).
By Staff (WJL), HPN | Staff, Nouvel Observateur via RadioTV Caraibes | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Residents from the Jalousie neighborhood of Petion-Ville took to the streets on Thursday, July 12 to call for a halt to the measures from Haiti’s Ministry of the Environment to demolish thousands of their homes. “It’s not right that a person should be offered only 20,000 gourdes (US $465) after his house is demolished,” said a protestor. UPDATED on July 30, Aug 2. (English | French)
By Inside Story Americas, AlJazeera | YouTube. This interview of Anand Naidoo with Melinda Miles, Jean Yves Point Du Jour and Kevin Edmonds addresses why many of hundreds of thousands of Haitians who were left homeless after the 2010 earthquake are being forcibly evicted.
By Staff (spp), Radio Kiskeya | Translation and editorial by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In two incidents on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Saturday July 7, angry citizens lynched three suspected robbers before burning their bodies with lit tires, AFP reports, quoting police and witnesses. (English | French | Creole)
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 park because of its breathtaking barrier reef, mangroves, and migratory birds. The area is also the site of several major archaeological finds, including Guacanagaric, one of the largest and most complete Taino Indian villages. Instead, the area has been converted into the massive Caracol Industrial Park (or Caracol 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.
By Staff (TB), Haiti Libre | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Local importers of fertilizers and the Haitian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Monday June 25 to fix the price of a bag of nitrogenous fertilizer at US $21 and a bag of sulfate fertilizer at $13. The chemical fertilizer is cheap now that it is subsidized. After the native strains of rice, corn, and other crops have vanished, the fertilizer will cost its full price.
ALBA PRESS RELEASE, Granma | Translation by Rachael Boothroyd for Venezuelanalysis. Resolution from the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) for the immediate withdrawal of USAID from member countries of the alliance. (English | Spanish)
By Pierre Ricardo Placide, Le Matin. After a 20% drop in Haiti’s agricultural production last year, the agricultural sector is under threat of a more drastic reduction of food supply. This situation could exacerbate food insecurity in the most vulnerable households in the Departments of the North, Northeast, South, Artibonite and Central Plateau. (English | French)
Help Haiti’s Farmers, End Rice Subsidies
By Jacob Kushner, Global Post | U.S. Farm Bill 2012, Develop Trade Law | Environmental Working Group | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. U.S. Farm Bill 2012 could reverse a decades-long policy of agricultural subsidies that has undercut Haiti’s local rice production. Call for an end to all U.S. rice subsidies.
U.S. and Dominican Republic Killing Haitian Organic Egg, Poultry Production
By Ronel Odatte (kft and rc), AlterPresse | Translation and editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Small farmers from Haiti’s Central Plateau are losing their livelihood due to a massive influx of eggs and poultry into the country from abroad; likewise farmers of freshwater fish from the same region are being driven to bankruptcy by a massive and incessant influx of fish from the Dominican Republic and United States. (English | French)