Konbit Pou Ayiti

IN THIS REPORT:
- New Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis
- Haitian Olympic Athlete
- Ex-Soldiers Occupy Buildings in Cap-Haitien and Ouanaminthe
- FAO is Distributing Seeds and Tools
- European Union GIving $5 Million in Face of Rising Food Prices
- At Least 29 Killed in Truck Accident
- $19 Million Judgment Upheld Against "Toto" Constant
- Dominican Army Reinforcement in Response to Former Haitian Solders
-  Less than 2% of Aid Promised to Hungry Haitians has been Distributed

New Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis:
Haiti's Senate on Thursday ratified economist Michele Pierre-Louis, President Rene Preval's third choice for prime minister, ending a three-month impasse after the last government was dismissed over food price riots. Twelve senators voted in favor of the nomination of Pierre-Louis, a director of a foundation that provides libraries, youth education programs and women's networks in the impoverished Caribbean country. Five senators abstained and none voted against the nomination. Pierre-Louis' nomination had already passed the lower house of parliament. "The ratification of Ms. Pierre-Louis today takes us a step closer to the normalization of the political situation," said Sen. Eddy Bastien of the Democratic Alliance.
 
Pierre-Louis has been the director of FOKAL, a foundation supported by billionaire investor George Soros' Open Society Institute."She is a great woman with a lot of administrative skills and enjoying a lot of respect for her honesty and her social work," said Sen. Joseph Lambert of Preval's political movement Lespwa. Pierre-Louis will have to appear before both legislative chambers in separate sessions to present a formal declaration of her policies before taking office. She would become Haiti's second female prime minister after Claudette Werleigh, who was appointed by then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995. Haiti had one female president, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, who served in 1990. (Editing by Jim Loney)  (Reuters, 7/31)
 
Haiti's new prime minister on Tuesday downplayed expectations as she tries to revive the government of this divided and desperately poor country. Michele Pierre-Louis, an educator who heads a branch of billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute, said she is consulting with leaders of the 19 political parties represented in Parliament, and trying to smooth political divisions. "It's going to be very difficult," the 61-year-old prime minister told reporters at her first news conference since being nominated. "To govern this country is not going to be easy." (AP, 8/5)

Haitian Olympic Athlete:
The last time Haiti won an Olympic medal was in 1928 when Silvio Cator took silver in the men’s long jump. Nadine Faustin-Parker knows her chances of ending that drought in Beijing are slim; her goal is to go one better than she did in Athens and reach the final of the 100-metre hurdles. But she has an ulterior motive for wanting to shine at the Olympic Games. Faustin-Parker was born in Brussels in 1976 to Haitian parents and has lived most of her life in New York. Running was always a big part of that life, but when the time came to choose which country to represent, she never had much doubt. “My parents have always kept me close to my Haitian roots, so I never felt just because I was outside the country that I wasn’t a part of it,” she explained.
 
Faustin-Parker is already Haiti’s most successful ever female track athlete. “Competing for Haiti gave me a purpose,” she said. “I enjoy the challenge of trying to put a country on the map. Some Haitian youths are ashamed of their roots, and that’s something I never was so I try to make them understand they have a lot to be happy about.” Faustin-Parker’s first Olympic Games were in 2000, when injury restricted her to the quarter-finals, and although she ran a personal best four years later it was not enough to make the final. Now, however, she is convinced her time has come. “I would not be competing right now if I didn’t believe it,” says Faustin-Parker. According to her website, the “NAD” in Nadine stands for Never Accept Defeat.
 
Working part-time at the University of North Carolina as Director of Track and Field Operations, Faustin-Parker hopes one day to become a sports ambassador for Haiti. “The better I perform at the Games, the easier it will be to make contacts and gain sponsors,” she explains. “I really want to build a track in Haiti. I see what track and field has done all over the world for the youth. It can really help somebody move forward in life.”  (Olympic.org, 8/6)
 
Ex-Soldiers Occupy Buildings in Cap-Haitien and Ouanaminthe:
About 200 ex-soldiers occupied former military buildings in northern Haiti on Tuesday to demand the reinstatement of the disbanded army and 14 years of back pay, the group's leader and witnesses said. The men took over the buildings in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, and in Ouanaminthe, a town on the border with the Dominican Republic. A bloody rebellion of former soldiers and street gangs in 2004 led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who fled Haiti for exile in Africa. Aristide disbanded the army in 1995, but former soldiers say that was illegal and have periodically demanded back pay. "We are mobilized because we want the army back," Milot Laguerre, a former army officer who claimed to be the group's leader, told local radio. "The government has to pay our salaries and we want to provide security for the population."
 
The men who occupied the Cap-Haitien former army headquarters, now used as government offices, wore military-style uniforms but no weapons were seen, according to radio correspondents at the scene. Those who took over the army building in Ouanaminthe had pistols and clubs, the reporters said. Eucher Luc Joseph, secretary of state for public safety, said the government would not long tolerate the takeover. "When you have weapons and you occupy public buildings illegally, state authorities have the responsibility to dislodge you, by force if necessary," Joseph said. "It should be clear that such behavior will never be tolerated." There was no sign that U.N. peacekeeping troops, who have been providing security in the impoverished Caribbean nation since shortly after Aristide's 2004 ouster, or the national police had intervened, radio reports said. (Reuters, 7/29)
 
Dozens of ex-soldiers emerged from a former military headquarters in northern Haiti on Wednesday in a peaceful end to a 24-hour standoff with police and U.N. peacekeepers, officials said. The former soldiers seized onetime army buildings in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, and in Ouanaminthe, a town on the border with the Dominican Republic, on Tuesday to demand the reinstatement of the disbanded army and 14 years of back pay. Police said the men ended their occupation in Cap-Haitien just over 24 hours after it started and were loaded into buses for transport to police headquarters. "We were ready to take them out by force because they had refused to leave voluntarily but finally they understood we were serious and they decided to leave," a police official in Cap-Haitien said on local radio.
 
It was not immediately clear if those who took over the former army building in Ouanaminthe had also given up. Dozens of U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police took up positions around the occupied buildings after the former soldiers seized them on Tuesday afternoon. Tensions mounted a few hours later when civilians supporting the ex-soldiers' demands hurled rocks at the international troops. The leader of the ex-soldiers, Milot Laguerre, said they were surrendering voluntarily because of the civilian supporters among them. "We military were ready to die instead of surrendering because we are quite within our rights, but we did not want to put the lives of the civilians accompanying us in danger," he said on local radio. (Reuters, 7/30)
 
FAO is Distributing Seeds and Tools:
A U.N food agency says it has started distributing seeds and tools to thousands of farmers in Haiti. The impoverished Caribbean nation has been one of the hardest hit countries in the global food crisis. Soaring food prices led to deadly riots in April. The Food and Agriculture Organization says one in five Haitian children is chronically undernourished. The Rome-based agency says it is giving some 600 tons in bean, maize and sorghum seeds as well as hoes and machetes to 70,000 families. It says the US$4 million donation will help with the current planting season. FAO said Monday it would need an extra US$64 million to help around 500,000 needy families for the next three planting seasons. (AP, 8/4)
 
European Union GIving $5 Million in Face of Rising Food Prices:
The European Union says it will give nearly $5 million to help impoverished Haitians cope with spiraling food prices. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports the EU aid adds to assistance from other international organizations for Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Announced at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday, the $4.6 million in aid to Haiti brings to more than $12 million the European Union has earmarked for Haiti this year. The EU says the assistance will help provide food, health care, clean water and hygiene to about 1.5 million people in Haiti and will focus on women, children and small farms.
 
John Clancy, spokesman for the European Commission - the EU's executive branch - says the assistance comes on top of other international aid for Haiti. On Monday, the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization announced it was distributing seeds and tools to thousands of Haitian farmers. "Three million to address the continued social and economic situation particularly for the vulnerable populations on the island," said Clancy. "Haiti, as you're aware, is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The instability there has of course compounded the difficult situation the population has been facing, particularly since April troubles linked to the increase in food prices globally and particularly in Haiti."
 
Soaring food prices led to deadly riots in Haiti in April that forced the country's prime minister to resign. Experts say the political void compounded Haiti's problems, leaving the Caribbean country unable to sign foreign aid deals. Relief agencies have complained of problems shipping food and supplies to Haiti. The situation has become so dire that there are reports of people eating mud cakes in some slums. Relief workers hope matters will be eased with the Haitian senate's ratification of Michele Pierre-Louis as the country's new prime minister last week, making her only the second woman to hold that office in Haiti. Spiraling food prices have led to hard times and unrest in a number of developing countries. Last month, the European Commission approved a plan to give $1.5 billion to farmers in Africa to cope with high food prices and boost production of food crops there. (VOA, 8/5)
 
At Least 29 Killed in Truck Accident:
U.N. peacekeepers say at least 29 people were killed when a large truck carrying people and merchandise collided with three pickups in southern Haiti. More than 50 people, mostly women and children, have been treated for injuries from Saturday's crash east of the town of Cavaillon. U.N. spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese said Sunday that the truck was unable to stop when a pickup slowed suddenly. It plowed into two vehicles, swerved into an oncoming third and flipped over. Peacekeepers treated and evacuated many of the injured. Five were taken by U.N. helicopters to a Port-au-Prince hospital. (AP, 7/27)
 
$19 Million Judgment Upheld Against "Toto" Constant:
Ruling Comes Days After Constant Found Guilty on All Counts in New York Mortgage Fraud Case
Yesterday, a U.S. federal court rejected attempts by former Haitian death squad leader Emanuel "Toto" Constant to have a 2004 case against him dismissed and the $19 million judgment for victims of his brutal regime of murder, rape and other torture revoked. Last week, Constant, who had been living in Queens, NY, was found guilty of mortgage fraud and awaits sentencing.

 "The judge has rejected Constant's attempt to create his own fictional account of the paramilitary death squad FRAPH and his role in its atrocities," said CCR Senior Attorney Jennie Green. "The $19 million judgment being upheld and a forthcoming jail sentence for mortgage fraud begin to bring justice for what he did to the people of Haiti and New York." In the early 1990's, Constant led the Haitian paramilitary death squad known as FRAPH (the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress), responsible for more than 5,000 murders and untold dismemberment, rapes and other torture and violence.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) filed the case on behalf of Constant's victims for crimes against humanity, attempted summary execution, and rape and other torture. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP acted as pro bonoco-counsel in this matter.  Two of the three plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit were gang-raped in front of their families.  A third was attacked by two FRAPH operatives and left for dead.

The judge noted in his decision yesterday that Constant had chosen to ignore the charges and proceedings against him, and rejected his attempt to have the case dismissed by arguing that he did not act together with the military regime in Haiti, writing that "Constant presents no evidence of his bald self-serving assertions that FRAPH did not have anything to do with the government of Haiti" and, "there is no conceivable doubt that defendant was the leader of FRAPH, a violent and brutal paramilitary organization."  (7/31)

Dominican Army Reinforcement in Response to Former Haitian Solders:
The Dominican Army last night reinforced its patrols along the border zone in this Northwest province, after the beginning of protests in several Haitian cities began yesterday afternoon, including Cape Haitien, Fort Liberte and Ouanaminthe, which is adjacent to the Dominican Republic. Border Security Corp (Cesfront) agents reinforced checkpoints and military posts  scattered along the towns Dajabón, Manzanillo, Montecristi and Loma de Cabrera, and at 10 p.m. troops of the Army's 10th Infantry Battalion were deployed to support the buildup. Army colonel Atahualpa Valenzuela said that another military contingent had left on trucks from the 4th Brigade, in Mao, to support the guards posted at the border bridge crossing in nearby Dajabon. The news agencies Associated Press and Reuters report that ex members of the Haitian Army are occupied a former military building in Cape Haitien, the country's second largest city. (Dominican Today, 7/30)

Less than 2% of Aid Promised to Hungry Haitians has been Distributed:
Every inch of Rivilade Filsame's body hurt, from his swollen, empty stomach to his dried-out, wrinkled skin. The 18-month-old had been crying for so long in the hospital malnutrition ward that his mother no longer tried to console him. After soaring food prices led to deadly riots in April, the U.S. and the U.N. promised millions of dollars in aid to poor families as well as help for farmers to break Haiti's dependence on imported food. But three months later, The Associated Press has learned that only a fraction of a key U.S. food pledge -- less than 2 percent as of early July -- has been distributed. Even those who oversee the food-aid programs say they are stopgap measures, while programs to create jobs and help Haitian farmers to increase production are more critical to ending the country's chronic hunger once and for all.

But right now, aid workers say, the poorest families need immediate help, and little of the emergency food promised has reached them. Most of what has reached Haiti is stuck in port. Nearly all the rest is still inside warehouses -- victim of high fuel prices, bad roads and a weak national government. Barely any food at all has gone to the desperate countryside, where more than half of Haiti's 8.7 million people live. Even in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti's most fertile region, child malnutrition is rampant. Farmers -- reeling from last year's floods and a dry spring and lacking equipment that was promised to increase their yields -- are eating the very seeds they should be planting to avoid future hunger. "Kids who would have been moderately malnourished last year are severely malnourished this year," said Adeline Azrack, spokeswoman for Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles. "Families that were once just vulnerable are now in crisis."

With families eating through their meager food savings and with the hurricane season in full swing, food riots could return. On Thursday, U.N. police said, a small group of demonstrators burned tires and threw rocks at police and U.N. peacekeepers in Les Cayes, where the April riots began. "Life is even more difficult than it was in April," said Pierre Antoinier St.-Cyr, who works in agricultural development in Les Cayes. "Community organizations are meeting weekly to see if they are going to start the protests again." The April riots spread from the countryside to Port-au-Prince and left at least six Haitians and a U.N. peacekeeper dead. The prime minister was dismissed in their wake, and he still hasn't been replaced. They also caused an outpouring of international pledges.

The U.S. government and U.N. World Food Program promised a combined total of $117 million this year in food and agricultural aid. That included more than 40,000 tons of beans, rice and other food intended to quell the emergency. But a U.S. Agency for International Development report obtained by The Associated Press says that as of early July, less than 2 percent of that had been distributed. (AP, 7/21)