Recent Feature Articles

"Impossible" to house Haiti's displaced under current political conditions, says international report

By Roger Annis, published on the Haiti blog on Rabble.ca, April 19, 2012

Two recently published reports on housing and shelter in Haiti paint a disturbing picture.

A 13-page, report by UN Habitat, published (in French) in January 2012, says housing policy for Haitians is in a state of "laissez-faire" (free for all). There is no official policy or strategic guidelines in place on the part of the Haitian government and its international

Evictions mar Canada's resettlement project in Haiti

By Stuart Neatby, published on Embassy Magazine, April 11, 2012

"I don't have any other place to go," said Narcysse Lud, as she stood in her makeshift wood-and-tarp shelter. She and her four-year-old daughter had been living in Champ de Mars, a tent camp located in the central plaza of Haiti's capital city. "I would like to continue to live here, but they'll destroy my house," she said.

New agreements between Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba for social and economic development

By Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) News Service, April 10, 2012

Haïti Liberté and Le Nouvelliste newspapers as well as Radio Tête à Tête are reporting on new agreements for social and economic development that have been reached between the governments of Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela.

A meeting on March 2, 3 of Haiti’s Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe and Vice Foreign Minister Dr. Temir Porras of Venezuela concluded with agreements valued at $369 million, including:

Spectacular corruption charges rock Martelly regime

By Kim Ives, Haiti Liberté, edition of April 4, 2012, www.haitiliberte.com

Follow the money, says the old adage of investigative journalism. A crusading Dominican journalist did just that with dozens of financial documents from some Dominican construction firms and uncovered shocking results.

Comprehensive New York Times article on the cholera epidemic in Haiti

Publication of such an article as the following in the New York Times suggests that the UN's efforts to dodge responsiblity for the cholera outbreak are doomed. Then the real work of providing a potable water and sanitation infrastructure in Haiti can be stepped up. This is the ultimate purpose of the lawsuit spearheaded by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and others. It is disappointing that the article provides no detail of the lawsuit and its lead agencies, referring to those who have initiated the action on behalf of 5,000-plus victims as, simply, "the lawyers ."--Website editors

In Haiti, global failures on a cholera epidemic

By Deborah Sontag, New York Times, March 31, 2012

Martelly's 'education plan' for Haiti is a failed private enterprise model

By Travis Ross and Roger Annis, published on the Haiti blog of Rabble.ca, March 21, 2012

When President Michel Martelly was elected in April of 2011 he made a promise to create space for all Haitian children at school. Soon after, he announced his intention to tax all international phone calls as well as money transfers in and out of Haiti in order to fund the policy.

Exhuming failed prosecutions: Washington renews its campaign against Aristide

Newly Revealed WikiLeaks Show Long History of Fruitless U.S. Pursuit

By Kim Ives, Haiti Liberté, March 21, 2012

Haiti’s former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide “is once again in the crosshairs of the U.S. government,” reported the Miami Herald on Mar. 4, “this time for allegedly pocketing millions of dollars in bribes from Miami businesses that brokered long-distance phone deals” with TELECO, the once state-owned phone company. (TELECO was privatized in 2010.)

New study by Haiti Grassroots Watch on housing and shelter, March 2012

Shelters That Don’t Shelter the Needy

A new study by Haiti Grassroots Watch

By Milo Milfort, Enel Beaulière, Francy Innocent / Haiti Grassroots Watch, Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Hills above Léogâne, HAITI – Almost half of the emergency shelters distributed by the British organization Tearfund in the mountains above Léogâne remain uninhabited six months after they were built. A two-month investigation by the Haiti Grassroots

Study by Haiti Grassroots Watch on sanitation and water supply in earthquake zone

Reconstruction money flushed away?

A compilation of studies on the state of sanitation services and protection of groundwater aquifers in the earthquake zone
Published on Haiti Grassroots Watch, March 8, 2012

Introduction:
Millions spent by the international community to empty over 11,000 "port-a-potties" has now dried up, leaving a half-million internally displaced people with no place to "go," literally. Online, it looks like two U.S.-based charities are making good on their promise to build 10,000 homes, and the money flows in… but not to build 10,000 houses - journalists could only find a few dozen. Earthquake refugees dump the ecological free toilets supplied by an Irish aid agency and instead dig to install familiar flush toilets

Review of 'Haiti: The Aftershocks of History'

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, Laurent Dubois, Metropolitan Books, 2012, 418 pp.
Reviewed by Roger Annis
(This review was originally published in the International Socialist Review, March 2012, under the title 'Haiti from independence to occupation'.)

The Haitian people have been at the forefront of many of the events that shaped the modern world. They staged the first and only successful revolution against slavery, intersected with a profound agrarian reform. They faced down the barbarity of the U.S. military occupation of 1915-34 and ultimately drove the occupiers out.

Recent Feature Articles

In Haiti, global failures on a cholera epidemic

Reconstruction money flushed away?

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