Half-Hour for Haiti: Keep $1 Million Per Week In Haiti

There have been many headlines lately about Haitians eating cookies made of salt, butter and dirt. The dirt cookies may be news, but they certainly are not new. Desperately hungry Haitians have been eating them throughout the 13 years I’ve worked on Haiti issues, and the cookies will be eaten long after the recent headlines, and any charity generated by them, fade away.

The root causes of Haiti's hunger....

February 12, 2008

 

Update: Thanks to everyone who wrote in support of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine last month. Unfortunately there is still no news of him, but we need to keep fighting, as hard as Lovinsky would fight if it were another human rights activist missing.

 

There have been many headlines lately about Haitians eating cookies made of salt, butter and dirt. The dirt cookies may be news, but they certainly are not new. Desperately hungry Haitians have been eating them throughout the 13 years I’ve worked on Haiti issues, and the cookies will be eaten long after the recent headlines, and any charity generated by them, fade away.

The root causes of Haiti’s hunger are not recent events (although high gas prices are certainly an aggravating factor). Haiti’s hunger is the result of structural injustices that for centuries have forced Haiti’s poor to struggle on a tilted playing field. The solution to Haiti’s hunger is not charity, but justice. The ability to obtain this justice lies as much with those of us who benefit from the tilted playing field (people with access to email, telephones, and the voter rolls of powerful countries) as it does in Haiti.

 

One of the most obvious structural injustices is the diversion, by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, of nearly $1 million per week from Haiti. The Banks were set up (and funded by our tax dollars) to fight poverty, not generate it. Almost half the loans in question went to dictators like the Duvaliers, who spent the money on fur coats and death squads. This needs to stop, and you can join a bi-partisan effort in Congress to keep a million dollars per week in Haiti with the action alert below. For more information relating to Haiti’s debt, see our new website section, Cancel Haiti's Odious and Onerous Debt.

 

Coming Attractions: Sustainable change in Haiti requires sustained international solidarity. A good place to start is the 3rd Annual International Day of Solidarity with the Haitian People on February 29. Last year the event brought together over 60 events on 5 continents. If there is not an event in your area, consider organizing one: everything from large protests to getting a few friends assembled to think about Haiti or view a movie is welcome.

 

Damming the Flood: We’ve mailed all our orders of Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment, so if yours hasn’t arrived by early next week, let us know. We’ve had nothing but good reviews from people who read it. We’ll take one more round of orders before the book gets to stores in April. Click here for prices and ordering information, or call us at 541-432-0597.

 

This week’s alert: Comes from the Jubilee USA Network, a network of groups working on debt cancellation for Haiti and other poor countries, and IJDH.

 

 

Haiti’s Supporters in Congress Need Your Help!

 

February 12, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Representatives Maxine Waters (D- CA) and Spencer Bachus (R- AL) are calling on their colleagues to sign their bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of the Treasury (below) urging him to 1) expedite the cancellation of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other multilateral financial institutions, and 2) urge an immediate suspension of debt service payments from Haiti.

 

Both Representatives have gone out on a limb for the poor of Haiti, and now they need you to tell your Representative to stand up with them. Haitians need you too: recent headlines remind us of Haitians eating cookies made of salt, butter and dirt, because they cannot afford food. While Haitians are forced to eat dirt, their government is forced to send almost $1 million each week in debt service to wealthy banks that were established to fight poverty. Over half of Haiti’s outstanding loans went to dictators like Francois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who spent the money on fur coats, fast cars and death squads. Haiti’s poor are now repaying the loans, by eating dirt and by foregoing elementary education and basic healthcare.

 

The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) recognized that Haiti’s debt is unjust when they accepted Haiti into their debt cancellation programs last year. But these programs would only cancel about half of Haiti’s debt, after more waiting (a year or more) and only if Haiti makes changes to its economy that could exacerbate hunger (see Debt Cancellation for Haiti: No Reason for Further Delays, by the Center for Economic Policy Research).

 

Representatives Waters and Bachus have also introduced H. Res. 241, the Haiti Debt Cancellation Resolution, but they felt that issuing a quicker letter right now is warranted by the extreme suffering in Haiti. Their letter also seeks to broaden its appeal to Republican House Members who understand that debt relief is the just, the decent and the right thing to do, but disagree with H.Res. 241’s stance against IFI conditions placed on debt relief. The letter seeks to immediately alleviate poverty in Haiti by immediately stopping Haiti’s payments to the international financial institutions, which would allow the government to immediately invest the money in public services that can save lives.

 

$1 million per week would go a long way in Haiti, where half the population struggles to survive on $1 US per day or less. Please do what you can to keep that money in Haiti.

 

A call-in script is below. If you need more information, including fact sheets, analyses and an activist toolkit, see the Haiti Debt Cancellation section of www.HaitiJustice.org, or http://www.JubileeUSA.org.

 

Phone Script to call your Member to cancel Haiti's debt!    

 

(If you are pressed for time, just saying the first paragraph will help. If you can, go through the whole script). If your Representative has not co-sponsored H.Res. 241, ask her or him to do that too!

 

My name is XXX and I live in YYYY. I support debt cancellation to release resources to fight poverty in Haiti. I am calling to encourage Representative XXX to sign on to the bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, urging the immediate cancellation of Haiti's debt.

 

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere. Close to one in four children are chronically malnourished. People are forced to eat cakes made of dirt, because they have nothing else. At the same time, the government is forced to send almost $1 million per week to the World Bank and other banks that were set up to fight poverty.

 

   
The bi-partisan letter was issued by Representatives Spencer Bachus and Maxine Waters. To sign on or for more information, please contact Kathleen Sengstock in Representative Maxine Waters’ office at (202) 225-2201.
Thank you for your time!

 

__________________________________________

 

February 8, 2008

 

Support Debt Cancellation for Haiti

 

Dear Colleague:

 

       We ask you to join us in sending a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury to urge him to use his influence to expedite the cancellation of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other multilateral financial institutions and to urge an immediate suspension of all further debt service payments from Haiti to these institutions.

 

            These institutions have already agreed to cancel Haiti’s debts, but under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, Haiti must complete a number of final steps before receiving debt cancellation.  However, Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere – many believe it should have been admitted to the HIPC process ten years ago – and for a number of reasons would benefit from an immediate cessation of debt service payments.

 

            Haiti endured two hurricanes last year, following three years of civil conflict and decades of environmental devastation.  Tens of thousands of people have either lost their homes or seen them severely damaged.  Thousands remain in temporary shelters, and the combination of the two storms last year has devastated harvests throughout the island.

 

            Given these circumstance, we feel that the people of Haiti would be better served if the government could use its limited resources to address the environmental crisis, improve healthcare, expand access to education, and reform the justice system.  Haiti’s government has already agreed to use the savings from debt service relief for these purposes.

 

       Please join us in urging the Secretary of the Treasury to do everything in his power to suspend Haiti’s debt service payments and expedite debt cancellation for Haiti.  The letter is on the reverse.  If you have any questions or would like to sign on to the letter, please contact Kathleen Sengstock of Congresswoman Waters' staff at 52201.

 

Sincerely,

 

___________________________                 __________________________

 

Maxine Waters                                                   Spencer Bachus

 

___________________________________________

 

February __, 2008

 

The Honorable Henry M. Paulson, Jr.

 

Secretary of the Treasury

 

Department of the Treasury

 

1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

 

Washington, DC  20220

 

Dear Secretary Paulson:

 

           We urge you to use your influence to expedite the cancellation of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other multilateral financial institutions and to urge an immediate suspension of all further debt service payments from Haiti to these institutions. 

 

            As you know, these institutions have already agreed to cancel Haiti’s debts, but under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, Haiti must complete a number of final steps before receiving debt cancellation.  However, Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere – many believe it should have been admitted to the HIPC process ten years ago – and for a number of reasons would benefit from an immediate cessation of debt service payments.

 

            Haiti endured two hurricanes last year, following three years of civil conflict and decades of environmental devastation.  Tens of thousands of people have either lost their homes or seen them severely damaged.  Thousands remain in temporary shelters, and the combination of the two storms last year has devastated harvests throughout the island.

 

            Given these circumstances, we feel that the people of Haiti would be better served if the government could use its limited resources to address the environmental crisis, improve healthcare, expand access to education, and reform the justice system.  Haiti’s government has already agreed to use the savings from debt service relief for these purposes.

 

          We think it would be best if Haiti reached the “completion point” for the HIPC process immediately and had its debts cancelled.  In the interim, before such cancellation takes place, we urge you to call for an immediate suspension of all further debt service payments from Haiti to the multilateral financial institutions.  We understand that Haiti is scheduled to send $48.7 million to these institutions in 2008. Clearly, this money would be better spent on basic infrastructure and poverty reduction for the Haitian people.

 

            We appreciate your continuing support for debt cancellation for poor countries, and we hope you will do everything in your power to suspend Haiti’s debt service payments and expedite debt cancellation for Haiti.

 

Sincerely,

 

_____________________

 

For more information about the Half-Hour for Haiti Program, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, or human rights in Haiti, see http://www.HaitiJustice.org. To receive Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alerts once per week, send an email to HalfHour4Haiti@ijdh.org.

Comments

[Dr Emmanuel Justima]

________________________________________
MY COMMENTS ON NEW BOOK FROM SIMON & SCHUSTER AND THE PASSAGE ABOUT JUSTIMA AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND CHILD SLAVERY IN HAITI
________________________________________

The new book from Simon & Schuster (A Crime So Monstrous Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery By E. Benjamin Skinner This Edition: Hardcover Publication Date: March 11, 2008)is out and it talks about Domestic Servitude in Haiti that the author Mr. Skinner calls "Child Slavery".

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?pid=592022&tab=1&agid=2

The way CHAPTER ONE of this book is written, it is as if the former head of security at my presidential campaign's headquarter for the Presidential Elections of February 2006 in Haiti, Bernavil Lerhomme, was engaging around the last trimester of 2005, in an open and systematic trade of children for slavery that he might have ran directly out of my campaign headquarter and that seemingly (at least it can be implied or inferred to) I knew about it, I knew what Lerhomme was up to, while he was "moonlighting" for me as head of security for the headquarter, and that I either condoned or never said a word about the whole thing.

Mr Skinner described me as "smartly dressed", a description that can be interpreted to be more of a subtraction by addition as it is not germane to the subject of child slavery he was describing except if that personally offended him to find a Haitian "smartly dressed". What is implied here, Haitians are not supposed to be "smartly dressed". They must all still be crawling as half-humans, so enshrouded that they are in both their existential “ennui” and powerlessness as the elite or so enshrouded that they are in their misery and negative economic growth and wholesale dysfunctionality as the middle class or the working poor. That is such a picture that should have emerged when he met me, a picture which is more intuitive and more in line with what’s expected of Haitians, for it is this very stereo-type picture that makes us, we Haitians, worthy of pity and of the world’s charity and that justifies the way our motherland is marketed and branded for us and without our consent as the most laggard and backward in the Western Hemisphere, curiously every time the word Haiti is uttered anywhere and we can’t seem to get rid of that tag glued on our back as our country last name. And thanks to that tag and thanks to that picture, out of pity or out of the goodness of their heart, there is a perpetual rush to our Haiti, in an unending waltz of photo-opps after photo-opps, of people who say they come to our rescue, helpless Haitians that we are, since for them there is no end in sight when finally they can help us make it happen instead, taking our country and ourselves to make the quantum leap forward that must definitively and irreversibly change our life conditions so as we may live, at last, like real human beings live in the 21st century.

We, Haitians of a new generation, have not seen a rush of people interested in that yet and I am sorry I disappointed Mr. Skinner in making that new Haitian (that is fighting to emerge) looks good.

Mr. Skinner stated as he met me, I introduced myself as “one of the smartest Haitians in the world". So much for contextualizing a conversation and for intellectual probity! I trust Mr. Skinner's readers are intelligent readers and they will ask themselves how would you meet someone who is running for the supreme "magistrate" of the State and the first thing he would say to you in introducing himself would be to arrogantly brand himself as” one of the smartest Haitians in the world"? If he is endowed with just one ounce of that level of smartness, this would not be very smart of him.

I don't know what would make me introduce myself specifically as such except that in my response to Mr. Skinner's leading question, I tried to put in context for him that Haiti has now the greatest number of educated Haitians in its entire history since 1804 and as one of them I stated to Mr. Skinner as I state often to others_ which is for me naturally staying on message_ ’to whom much has been given much is required and that we, the greatest number of educated Haitians since 1804, can be the second greatest generation of Haitians in History if we answer the social historic generational call to use our education to effectively manipulate the structural and infrastructural conditions and reality of Haiti to such extent that we transform lives and every day reality for Haitians for Haiti today's needs and its tomorrow's aspirations and demands.’

Also, Mr. Skinner stated I said one of the pledges of my campaign was "greater rights for restavek" (the name given to people doing domestic work in Haiti. Read “Reste Avec” or living in with). We never discussed such. I would have told Mr Skinner “slavery” is slavery whichever way you cut it and that my presidential campaign pledge would not be simply to just give greater rights to children in slavery or in modern day captivity, in the form of domestic servitude, but to liberate them from such conditions and to obtain that they become "domestic workers" rather than "domestic servants" and that they get paid about 7 times less what their employers would earn as total annual income (if their employer makes $ 49,000 a year they would have to pay them $ 7000 a year as a domestic employee up to a cap of $70,000 a year) based on our cardinal belief that in any construction system and for its structural stability and integrity "the floor is linked to the ceiling" as in the constructing of a stable and just and perennial society. Otherwise, those at the top of the socio-economic ladder would tend to run away as they lift themselves up and neglect to reach down and lift also those upon the shoulders they are getting their bounce of.

No, Mr. Skinner did not ask me about child slavery and some of my staff who was there can testify to that. Everybody in Haiti and outside Haiti knows I want to bring a new day in Haiti, I want to break, not tinker with, the traditional, the old cake of custom and bring about 2 key things that have been lacking, innovation and technical change, in every area of Haitian life. My position, as it has been reported extensively, is that you cannot continue to "ameliorate" what is no longer “ameliorable", improving what is no longer improvable. How could my campaign for the presidency of my country amounts to nothing more than just "greater rights" for the "restaveks"? Every Haitian or foreign journalist who has ever approached me knows that I salute at every turn I take the Haitian people for winning their existential struggle by themselves, without much help from a real visionary and transformational leader with a culture of delivering tangible, life-changing, profound results until now and that to pick up from such existential standpoint, my change platform calls not just for a "mieux-etre" or a "better off" for each one of them but for a "plus-etre" a quality of life in elevation; not just helping people that are surviving now to finally live but helping them, with life-changing sensible and significant transformations of the country and of their lives to compensate the fact they have been waiting as a people for so long for that change; since 1804; my platform calls for not just " better surviving and coping" and “living” but for ushering the day of "living well" for each Haitian, finally in a Haiti that finally delivers on the promise of its birth made to the grand-parents of each one of us.

I would be very inconsistent and blatantly hypocritical if suddenly I would simply want just "greater rights" for children in captivity or in slavery and not their total emancipation from slavery or from servitude conditions so each one of these children can be transformed into a licensed domestic worker who earns a real living on a living wage, paid in US Dollars or its equivalent, by those who can afford to hire their service for their households, in an economy that must be “dollarized” or “euro-nized” if it is to be poised for real sizable wealth creation, accumulation and distribution that restores the island to its glory days when it was The Kuwait of its time in size and economic output. Haiti can because Haitians can. I refuse to believe it was simply our masters who could make the land prosper and that we are destined to work eternally for them rather than becoming really the masters of our own domain which is our Haiti. This is why I talk about a 25-30 year vision that can stir the soul of all Haitians and make them want another shot at glory for our country and I leave incremental improvements to others who see us still in that situation for another 200 years.

Children should not work. But If Children must work, let them be bona fide workers protected by a body of laws that make sure not only they "live well" ,proportionately to those who think they cannot take care of all the demands of their household without having at their house such licensed domestic helpers, but that these young licensed domestic workers attains also a comparable status as hotel workers and be protected enough so they amass the financial resources over time and are given the work schedule to go the school of their choosing, in preparing themselves to graduate as early as they can from their domestic worker situation and move up to the next socio-economic status and class which is from working class to middle class. That has been my aim for all those who works hard and plays by the rules in any just society and especially in this new Haitian society I want to bring about and that my fellow Haitians would render me extremely humble if, next time around, they elect me to usher it in. Had Mr. Skinner asked, he would have known these are my long held views.

This is a very serious and important subject and I give Benjamin Skinner credit for tackling it. There was no reason in my view for him to pose as a journalist for one group of us and as a humanitarian for another, to sneak in and trick people in order to get out information which is, to me, critical for an investigation of child slavery in Haiti which is a very legitimate investigation. Later in that same chapter one, Mr. Skinner admits his dishonesty in dealing with my former security aide. He wrote:
"The potential for fraud was
enormous. Assuming for a moment
that Benavil smelled my
humanitarian bluff, who is to say
he would provide me with a girl
genuinely poised to enter
slavery? Perhaps he would give me
the child of a friend of the
family who was poor but not in
danger, as a way for a blanc to
pay for school".

Therefore he admits that my aide was merely trying to provide chiefly a socio-economic service, albeit one that we all can condemn, of finding children for domestic servitude, and as in the case of recruiters or head-hunters who provide candidates who ultimately the boss may date, that may not have been a chief concern of Mr Lerhomme who was trying to make an honest living. Still, had Mr. Skinner told me that he found out Bernavil Lerhomme, my security aide, was willing to engage into finding children for child sex slavery, I would have acted swiftly. But Mr. Skinner would not have had much of a story to tell, would he? It is a shame how one can profit out of the misfortune of others on the cover of "humanitarian bluff", his words, not mine.

Mr. Skinner wanted a story, he got one. Now, I trust beyond that he is genuinely interested in that complex social problem and wants to report also on all structural and systemic efforts to uproot that socio-economic evil. For, there will continue to be an issue of child sex slavery or of child in domestic servitude or of child in sweat shops or of child labor in any society that does not continually create an explosion of opportunities, of plenty and of abundance for families to be able to stir themselves and their children away from such falsehoods, and from hunger and from lack and graduate their whole family from one socio-economic class to another, in one generation, without the need to get their child engaged in making a living or in helping the family making ends meet. This is a major complicated issue and I cannot fault needy parents who are preoccupied with the here and now to survive and may not discern among people there to help them help themselves and people who pretext aiding or pretext to be genuinely interested in pushing their child while in actuality they seek sexual gratification or to work that child like a horse in a state of apparent perpetual bondage.

It is still not too late for Mr. Skinner to not take this issue as an intellectual exercise and a Manichean moral view of you are right, you are wrong. I invite him to reach back to me and to reach to those who are in the trenches and who are busy like me figuring out how to turn for good, over a span of 25 years, life conditions in Haiti for children, for young adults, for women, for peasants, for the working poor, for the middle class and yes also for the new investors and the new "bourgeoisie" class that is trying to emerge to lead us to a new Haiti. Mr. Skinner will find, while we don't have all the answers, we are working on them and on a platform for their implementations, soon, God willing.

On a sadder note, I invite you to read the following passage of the except of Chapter One:

“The problem of child slavery in
Haiti has deep roots in society. And
the problem has spread well beyond
aiti's Borders...”

This is the first time (and I read quite a lot)and this is the worst diminutive I have seen somebody using when writing the name of my country. Even in Creole or in indigenous Taino, I know Ayiti, never “aiti” in small cap and minuscule like it does not even matter, referring to the country of about 10 millions proud people living an already difficult life in the island and of about 2 millions living outside the island who still cannot get the country out of their blood even if they were to try hard enough.This is most appalling and I ask for an apology from the author and from the publisher, to Haiti and to Haitians, because its editors should have caught that ultimately disrespect, a young author butchering the name of a country, although poor and down now and not out and which, nonetheless, had made historic contributions to mankind and the universal.

Go at the bottom of Mr. Skinner's Except of Chapter One to read about the comments I am referring to

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?pid=592022&tab=1&agid=2

Emmanuel Justima
emmanuel_fondationjustima@voila.fr
________________________________________