Don’t rush Haiti’s presidential vote

The Miami Herald
Sir Ronald Sanders
4/20/2016
 


Supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Jovenel Moise hold a demonstration in Port-au-Prince to demand that a final round of voting not be postponed any longer. No date for the election has been set by the interim government. Dieu Nalio Chery AP
 

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Peace and development will be endangered in Haiti if the United States and other nations insist that the interim government holds the second round of a truncated election for president without a verification process of last October’s round of voting.

The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, who visited Haiti last week, was right to say that the Haitian authorities should be given time to organize the elections. He had invited me to accompany him to Haiti because I had led an earlier OAS mission that oversaw an agreement between the political players that led to the creation of an interim government after former President Michel Martelly left office in February when his term expired. Although I could not join him on this visit, I fully endorse his statement.

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Among the observer groups at the Oct. 25 elections was the OAS. At the time, we faced continuous claims from Haitians that the OAS contributed to foisting flawed election results by declaring them acceptable. Of course, this allegation was robustly resisted not only because it was absolutely untrue, but also because we knew it had become a convenient political crutch for all the candidates who had performed badly at the polls.

But, resisting an ill-conceived belief does not extinguish it, particularly as other observer missions declared that the elections were plagued by irregularities. The admission that, while numerous, the irregularities were not significant enough to materially affect the outcome of the elections did little to assuage suspicion. Like a sore that has been allowed to fester for almost six months, suspicion of the elections has spread more widely in the Haitian body politic.

The Oct. 25 elections delivered a runoff between Jovenel Moïse of Martelly’s PHTK party after he received 32.76 percent of the vote and Jude Célestin of the LAPEH party, who received 25.29 percent. The other 50 candidates shared less than 32 percent. That run-off was not completed before Martelly was due to leave office.

It was that failure to hold the second round of elections amid political confusion and simmering violence that led to the Feb.5 political agreement to establish an interim government that would hold runoff elections on April 24 and install an elected president on May 14. (Haiti’s government and elections council have acknowledged that the elections will not happen on Sunday and have not yet set a date).

As it turned out, continuing distrust between the political actors within and outside the National Assembly required a longer period of time than anticipated to select an interim president and prime minister. The same distrust continues to haunt the second round of the elections. The specter of a flawed first round election hangs ominously over the second. This is why the majority of political players are insisting on verification. The argument is simple: If the first round was tainted, however strenuous the scrutiny of the second round, the entire process is contaminated.

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Any president in Haiti who is not widely regarded as legitimately elected with a mandate to govern, will not be able to hold the country together and to give it the leadership it needs for tough choices that lie ahead. In such circumstances, the persistent poverty and underdevelopment that has plagued Haiti will deepen and the potential for political conflict and civil strife will intensify.

Consequently, the U.N. forces in Haiti that contributing countries are keen to withdraw will be compelled to remain, and the flow of refugees to the United States particularly will re-surge.
Against this background, it is far better to verify the first round elections before proceeding with the second. I was heartened by a reported statement on behalf of the United States by its Special Coordinator on Haiti, Ambassador Ken Merten, to the effect that if Haiti wants a verification process it should do so quickly.

Once the verification is complete, elections can follow quickly.

What the international community should now do is provide Haiti’s new nine-member provisional electoral council, headed by Léopold Berlanger, with the tools it needs to establish a verification committee and set it to work.

If Jovenel Moïse and Jude Célestin, who emerged from the first round as contenders, have faith in their electability, they should have no fear of verification and of their capacity for one to triumph over the other in a free and fair process.

Peanut Surplus?

You may be aware of a brewing controversy going on about the U.S. proposal to send surplus peanuts to Haiti. There are two sides to the argument.  It is complex.  All we can do is get as much information as we can to decide which side we agree with.  Will U.S. food intervention wipe out Haitian peanut farmers in their attempt to be sustainable?  Or should the U.S. be subsidizing Haiti with their surplus food in an attempt to help Haiti while they move towards sustainability?   Or is it not even a "we" issue and the decision should be solely a Haitian decision?

We offer one of many articles covering this issue.

If you are are on the side against this U.S. proposal you can sign this White House petition:
Cancel the planned USDA dumping of US peanuts on the Haitian market

Come to your own conclusion, but hopefully it is an informed conclusion.
Donation of surplus peanuts from US dismays Haiti farmers

The Washington Post
David McFadden
4/15/2016

In this April 12, 2016 photo, sacs full of peanuts are displayed for sale in the Croix-des-Bossales market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Subsistence farmers in Haiti and economic development experts say they are dismayed by a planned influx of American-grown peanuts from a U.S. agricultural surplus that they fear could undercut a vital cash crop in the impoverished Caribbean nation. (Dieu Nalio Chery/Associated Press)

 
MIREBALAIS, Haiti — The barefoot farmer oversees three teenage workers as they attack weeds with spades in a sunbaked field of peanut plants, a vital cash crop often grown on Haiti’s marginal farmland.


If he’s lucky, Francois Merilus will reap a meager harvest amid a lengthy drought that has shriveled yields and worsened Haiti’s chronic hunger. Now the subsistence farmer is dismayed by what he believes could be the latest challenge to his ability to eke out a living: free peanuts arriving from the U.S. as humanitarian aid.


“Foreign peanuts can only make things harder for us,” said Merilus, whose organic farm in central Haiti is plowed by oxen and maintained without pesticides or chemical fertilizers only because he could never dream of affording them.


A recently announced plan to ship 500 metric tons of surplus American peanuts to help feed 140,000 malnourished schoolchildren in Haiti has set off a fierce debate over whether such food aid is a humanitarian necessity or a counterproductive gesture.


Critics say agricultural surplus aid and heavily subsidized food imports do more harm than good by undercutting local farmers and pushing the hemisphere’s poorest nation farther from self-sufficiency.
“This program does nothing to boost capacity in Haiti and does nothing to address consistent food insecurity,” said Oxfam America senior researcher Marc Cohen.


While an online petition is circulating calling for President Barack Obama’s administration to stop surplus “dumping” on Haiti, the U.S. government and the U.N. food agency are defending the aid program, which they say represents only 1.4 percent of Haiti’s average annual peanut production.


They say critics don’t take into account how dismal Haitian harvests have been and how badly struggling children need more nutrition. As many as 30 percent of Haitian youngsters suffer from chronic malnutrition, and the cumulative impact of a three-year drought is so severe that Haiti is facing “unprecedented food insecurity,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.


“If this donation arrives in Haiti, it is doubtful it will make any difference to the economy, but for sure it will make a difference in improving the diets of the most vulnerable children attending schools,” said Alejandro Chicheri, a U.N. World Food Program spokesman.


The humanitarian program calls for packaged, dry-roasted peanuts from a vast U.S. stockpile to be distributed as morning snacks to youngsters in rural schools. Over 600 schools are already receiving daily hot meals with donated U.S. bulgur wheat, green peas and vegetable oil.


To prevent leakage into the Haitian marketplace, the U.S. is designing a monitoring program with the U.N. food agency to ensure the peanuts go only to the targeted children, said Matt Herrick, communications director with the U.S. Agriculture Department.


Herrick said the argument that the U.S. should simply source Haitian peanuts doesn’t take into consideration the fact that the local supply has a high incidence of aflatoxin, a carcinogenic fungus that grows on moldy peanuts. While the USDA is funding research into the use of local peanuts in emergency rations and school feeding programs, he said for now “the only factory in Haiti that produces peanut-based food rations to address the current health and nutrition crisis has routinely had to import aflatoxin-free peanuts.”


The donation from the American peanut stockpile, which saw an influx of a whopping 113,167 metric tons from U.S. farmers last year, is being made in coordination with Haiti’s interim government. Senior officials at Haiti’s agriculture ministry and its food security unit declined to comment.


The peanut contribution is a minuscule addition to the billions of U.S. dollars in assistance that have flowed into Haiti aimed at promoting stability, health and prosperity. The U.S. has long been the largest donor of foreign aid that Haiti is dependent on.


But Haiti has a complicated relationship with foreigners who provide aid and there is no shortage of Haitians who insist the United States, which occupied the country from 1919 until 1934, has a vested interest in keeping their homeland economically dependent.


The troubled history of U.S. involvement in Haitian agricultural policy has done nothing to ease these suspicions.


In the early 1980s, fearing Haiti’s Creole pigs could spread African swine fever amid a deadly outbreak, the U.S. Congress authorized $23 million to slaughter local pigs and replace them with hybrid pigs from Iowa. The imported pigs struggled to adapt, often became sick and had few litters.


For Haitians, the most bitterly remembered example is the collapse of the local rice market.
Haiti was largely self-sufficient in rice by the mid-1980s. But in subsequent years, Haiti repeatedly slashed tariffs on cheaper imported rice at the behest of the U.S. and the World Bank. As a result, U.S. subsidized rice inundated the market and the Caribbean country roughly the size of Maryland is now the second-biggest export destination for American rice growers, according to the USA Rice Federation.


“If the U.S. really wanted to help Haiti they would focus on serious work improving irrigation and farmers’ access to credit,” said Haitian economist and activist Camille Chalmers, who argues that the peanut aid is mainly about drawing down the U.S. stockpile and benefiting American agribusiness.


But efforts to lead Haiti to self-sufficiency face a slew of chronic obstacles, including political gridlock or instability, severe environmental degradation and neglected rural infrastructure. Although almost 80 percent of rural households farm, the agriculture sector with its persistent litany of natural disasters receives less than 4 percent of Haiti’s budget.


Some international aid experts, like Cohen of Oxfam America, warn that the U.S. peanut donation could eventually become another cautionary tale about humanitarian aid from a wealthy nation that undermines a flimsy economy in a poor one.


If this agricultural surplus aid results in a “consistent policy of shipping U.S. peanuts into a market that has the potential to supply itself then it very well could cause lasting damage to Haiti’s fragile agricultural sector,” he said.

Water?

I love my cat, Bella Luna.


One of our nightly rituals is I empty her nearly full water dish and refill it to the top with fresh water.  I feel she is grateful, even though she has never said as much.  I do know it makes me feel better.

But last night, I heard in church that it's probable pets in America enjoy healthier lives than most people who live in developing nations.  This doesn't even include those who now find themselves with no nation.  It was a humbling thought for me.

Last night as I filled Bella Luna's water dish it was with a new consciousness.  An uneasy awareness I already knew in the back of my head, but it was more comfortable there than staring me in the face.  I hesitated before placing her water dish down, causing her to look up at me.  For a moment we both took a moment.  A pause.  An important pause.

I am aware of many water projects there are in Haiti.  But I also know they are hit or miss as to who benefits from them and even those projects always linger under the dark cloud of continuation.

While Bella Luna and I rarely find ourselves thirsty, we still suffer from thirst.

No, I do not have the solution, which opens me up to being guilty of merely adding to the too much rhetoric which already exists.  One can't drink the rhetoric.

What I do know is I can continue the search for a solution.  A solution not only of me, but one which includes the entire world community.  As for specifically in the nation of Haiti, I ask Haitians, what do you think the solution is to fill your cups daily with the life of fresh water?

The facts.

42% of the Haitian population has no access to drinking water
Haiti Libre
22/03/2016

As part of World Water Day, celebrated March 22, the UN in Haiti reiterate their support for the country in its efforts to improve access of the population to safe drinking water and sanitation and alert to the fact that 42% of the Haitian population still lacks access to safe drinking water.

Regarding sanitation, the UN welcomes the increase of 18% to 28% of percentage of population with access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2015. However, still 7.6 million Haitians lack essential facilities for good health and the prevention of waterborne diseases. According to recent studies by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in Haiti, the death rate in children under 5 is 88 per 1,000 children . Water scarcity and water-borne diseases are among the leading causes of death and worsening child malnutrition, causing a hindrance to their intellectual and physical development.

The United Nations Country Team and the Minustah stressed that universal access to safe water and sanitation is a critical development challenge in Haiti. This right is recognized as a fundamental right by the United Nations General Assembly since 2010 and priority in the agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this regard, the UN supports Haiti's efforts to develop a national policy on water and sanitation and to reform the legal framework based on the rights of citizens to have access to public water services and sanitation.

Moreover, the UN said that women, girls and young children are most affected by lack of access to clean water in a context where about 56% of the population needs more than 30 minutes walk to get water, a task predominantly conducted by children and women. Women are also more vulnerable to lack of water which causes impact on reproductive health and maternity.

Finally note that safe access to water is limited to 35% of the population living in urban areas (1.7 million of the 5 million people living in urban areas) and the risk of waterborne diseases remains high because of the population concentration. Access to clean water is even more limited in rural areas (48%) and also among the most vulnerable, including displaced people living in extreme poverty and those affected by the migration issue with the Dominican Republic.

New Bishop-Elect

The Diocese of Hinche has a new bishop-elect.
4/04/2016

This is Desinord Jean who was ordained a priest in 1994. Mr. Jean Just been appointed, on April 4 by the Vatican to take up this new function. He takes over from Bishop Simon Pierre Saint Hillien, died of cancer. 

Pontifical Acts, 04.04.2016
Msgr. Désinord Jean as bishop of Hinche (area 3,000, population 595,000, Catholics 396,500, priests 67, religious 101), Haiti.

The bishop-elect was born in Furcy, Haiti, in 1967 and was ordained a priest in 1994. He studied social communications at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and has served in a number of roles including parish vicar, professor at the Catechetic Office of Port-au-Prince, and teacher of philosophy at the major seminary.

He is currently director general of "Radio Télé Soleil", teacher of theology in the major seminary, executive secretary for social communication and coordinator of the national "Etoile Radio Catholique" network, and spokesman for the archdiocese of Port-au-Prince.