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jeudi 27 décembre 2007

Border CrossingsA Global Trek to Poor Nations, From Poorer Ones

Un article paru dans une édition du New York Times qui nous est parvenu attaché à un courrier électronique racontant la problématique des relations entre Haïti et la République Dominicaine dans une de ses facettes les plus conflictuelles.
Nous le soumettons donc à nos lecteurs anglophones de façon à leur offrir des éléments en plus pour leur compréhension et leur approche du problème.

Bonne lecture à tous
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"By JASON DePARLE
JUAN GÓMEZ, Dominican Republic — The scrap-wood shanties on a muddy hillside are a poor man’s promised land.
They have leaky roofs and dirt floors, with no lights or running water. But hundreds of Haitian migrants have risked their lives to come here and work the surrounding fields, and they are part of a global trend: migrants who move to poor countries from even poorer ones.
Among them is Anes Moises, 45, a dark-skinned man with flecks of gray hair, who has worked the Dominican banana fields for more than a decade, always illegally. Farm bosses pay him $5 a day and tell him that Haitians stink. Soldiers have called him a dark-skinned “devil” and deported him four times.
Still, with the average income in the Dominican Republic six times as much as in Haiti, Mr. Moises has answered each expulsion by hiring a smuggler to bribe the border guards and guide him back in.
“We are forced to come back here — not because we like it, but because we are poor,” he said. “When we cross the border, we are a little better off. We are able to buy shoes and maybe a chicken.”
Across the developing world, migrants move to other poor countries nearly as often as they move to rich ones. Yet their numbers and hardships are often overlooked.
They typically start poorer than migrants to rich countries, earn less money and are more likely to travel illegally, which raises the odds of abuse. They usually move to countries that offer migrants less legal protection and fewer services than wealthy nations do. Yet their earnings help sustain some of the poorest people on the globe.
There are 74 million “south to south” migrants, according to the World Bank, which uses the term to describe anyone moving from one developing country to another, regardless of geography. The bank estimates that they send home $18 billion to $55 billion a year. (The bank also estimates that 82 million migrants have moved “south to north,” or from poor countries to rich ones.)
Nicaraguans build Costa Rican buildings. Paraguayans pick Argentine crops. Nepalis dig Indian mines. Indonesians clean Malaysian homes. Farm hands from Burkina Faso tend the fields in Ivory Coast. Some save for more expensive journeys north, while others find the move from one poor land to another all they will ever afford. With rich countries tightening their borders, migration within the developing world is likely to grow.
“South to south migration is not only huge, it reaches a different class of people,” said Patricia Weiss Fagen, a researcher at Georgetown University. “These are very, very poor people sending money to even poorer people and they often reach very rural areas where most remittances don’t go.”
The Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic, its neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, has been large, longstanding and filled with strife. The Spanish-speaking Dominicans still refer angrily to a Haitian occupation that ended in 1844. The Creole-speaking Haitians point to 1937, when a Dominican massacre along the border is estimated to have taken the lives of tens of thousands of Haitians.
Haitian workers started coming in large numbers nearly a century ago, as seasonal help in sugar cane fields. But many now work year-round on farms or urban construction sites, which raises their visibility and the chance for conflict. Estimates vary greatly, but Dominican officials put Haitian migrants at one million, or 11 percent of the population.
As Haitians see it, the problems go beyond hard work and low pay to the systemic violation of their rights. Dominicans profit from their labor, they say, but deny them work papers, deport them at will and discriminate on the belief that Haitians have darker skin.
“There is no justice here,” Mr. Moises said.
Dominicans often present themselves as generous neighbors of limited means, forced to bear the burden of Haiti’s failed state, indigence and epidemic disease. They say they offer Haitians jobs and health care — 30 percent of the public health budget is spent on Haitians, government officials say — while enduring lectures about human rights from countries far from the fray.
“Ay-yai-yai-yai,” said Gen. Adriano Silverio Rodríguez, the commander of a new border force, when describing how Americans would respond if they shared a border with a country as troubled as Haiti. “That wall they’re building — it would be longer and taller.”
Per capita income in the Dominican Republic is $2,850; in Haiti it is $480.
The clash of civilizations can be seen along the Massacre River, a muddy, waist-deep waterway that divides them. On the Dominican side, Dajabón is a market town of 10,000 people, with paved streets, public utilities and a new Internet cafe. Its Haitian counterpart, Ouanaminthe, is seven or eight times as big, with no municipal lights or running water. The dirt roads are filled with trash and pigs.
Twice a week, Dominicans open the bridge, and thousands of Haitians rush across to buy goods that are scarce on their side: eggs, nails, flour, concrete, carrots, salami, juice, cooking oil, chickens and plastic chairs. Guards patrol the area, trying to ensure the Haitians’ return.
Bribery and violence are common. In a case now before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Dominican soldiers are accused of indiscriminately firing on a smuggler’s truck, killing six Haitians. Two dozen Haitians in a smuggler’s truck suffocated last year. Their bodies were dumped on the road.
Unwritten Rules
The village of Juan Gómez lies 35 miles east of the border, past three military checkpoints that search for illegal migrants. But its illegal migrants, like Mr. Moises, live in plain view. Their open presence points to the capricious unwritten rules: Haitians caught at the border are usually sent back, while those needed by employers are often left to stay, at least until someone objects.
“We do not intervene in the workplace,” said Carlos Amarante Baret, the Dominican immigration director. “We understand the needs of the agricultural sector.” He acknowledged that the situation “benefits the landowner.”
Gathered here at a small hilltop church squeezed among the shanties, the workers talked of the hardships they had fled and those they had encountered. Jacqueline Bayard said the threat of deportation left the workers powerless. Katline Auguste said the lack of legal papers had kept her from visiting her children in Haiti for three years.
Lorvil Seus said he lived in fear of vigilante violence, as in a famed incident in nearby Hatillo Palma, in which a Haitian pastor was killed — and 2,000 Haitians deported — after the murder of a Dominican woman. Reprisal killings spread, and three Haitians were burned to death near the capital, Santo Domingo.
Mr. Moises voiced gratitude as well as complaints, explaining that he had once walked from Haiti with his malarial daughter in his arms, and Dominican doctors had saved her. “We can only thank them because they helped us,” he said.
Dominican society, in his view, is complex. Some politicians want Haitians deported, he said, but employers “need us to work.” Poor Dominicans claim Haitians are stealing jobs, but refuse those jobs themselves. Officers sometimes order raids to curry political favor, he added, but low-paid soldiers want the Haitians around to extort bribes. “It’s a business they have,” he said.
“We are living in their country,” he said. “We have to take it.”
Colliding Interests
Dominican officials often say that the colliding interests that surround immigration are similar to those in the United States, but that poor countries like theirs have fewer resources to cope. Carlos Morales Troncoso, the Dominican foreign minister, said that the solution to the Haitians’ problems was to promote development in Haiti and urged the United States to do more. “The developed countries talk a lot about Haiti, but the necessary aid just doesn’t come,” he said. By providing jobs, he said, “we do more than the whole international community combined.”
Some south to south migrants are “pushed” by wars and political crises. Others are “pulled” by jobs and better wages. Some follow seasonal work. Some put down roots. Some countries — Argentina is one — have been quick to give amnesty to migrants. Others, including Nigeria and Indonesia, have subjected them to mass deportations.
Many countries simultaneously send and receive large migrations. One reason there are jobs for Haitians is that so many Dominicans have left for the United States. The president, Leonel Fernández, was largely reared in New York City.
That exposes what Dilip Ratha, an economist at the World Bank, calls a common double standard. “Many countries want good treatment for their own people abroad but they don’t treat immigrants well themselves,” he said.
Egyptian police officers killed 26 Sudanese migrants last year in an attack on their squatter camp. An Indian film star, Hritik Roshan, set off a deadly riot in Katmandu, Nepal, in 2000 when he was quoted as saying he “hated” the Nepalis. Costa Ricans sometimes deride Nicaraguans as “Nicas.” In 2005, two Rottweilers killed a Nicaraguan suspected of being a burglar, as an approving crowd watched. Jokes flooded the country, praising the dogs.
Still, Manuel Orozco of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research group, warned against viewing south to south migration solely in a negative light. He estimates that Haitians in the Dominican Republic send home $135 million a year.
“Destination countries benefit from foreign labor,” Mr. Orozco said, while migrants get jobs. The challenge, he said, is to create policies that “promote development for both countries, while protecting migrants and their families.”
“Just letting migration happen is not good enough,” he added.
The Dominican Republic has no such framework. This year alone, the conditions of its Haitians have been the focus of two documentary films, a photo exhibit in Paris and a United Nations investigation that found “a profound and entrenched problem of racism.”
Who Is a Citizen?
One battle now playing out involves the right to citizenship, which the Dominican Constitution promises to anyone born on Dominican soil except the children of diplomats and visitors “in transit.” But in 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that illegal immigrants were essentially in transit — though some lived in the country for decades — and therefore their children had no citizenship rights.
Critics say that the ruling conflicts with international law, including a decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights two months earlier. They also said the government was using it to deny papers to Dominicans of Haitian descent, impeding their ability to work, study and vote.
Nationalists are trying to get the anti-citizenship provisions written into the Constitution.
“We could have hundreds of thousands of so-called Dominican nationals who on cultural, emotional and political grounds would see themselves as Haitian,” said Pelegrín Castillo, a leading nationalist legislator.
“Every day there are more Haitians in the Dominican Republic,” he added. “We are overwhelmed.”
For many Haitians, the journey ends where it began — in the muddy border town of Ouanaminthe, which receives scores of deported migrants each week. Most arrive penniless. Some sleep in City Hall.
Wesbert Sertil, 27, was among the unfortunates. Tired of hearing his in-laws complain that he could not feed his children, he borrowed $50 a year ago and boarded a smuggler’s truck. But the construction work he found was sporadic, and he sent money home just twice, totaling $90.
He was leaving work one day when military men asked for his papers. After a few days in a border-town jail, he was sleeping in abandoned houses, and asking a religious group for food.
His village was an eight-hour bus ride away, and the family that had urged him to go was unaware of his pending return. Smugglers approached him on the streets, but Mr. Sertil planned to use any money he could scrounge to buy a ticket home. “I got desperate and went to the Dominican Republic,” he said. “I’m not going back again.”
He noted that there were plenty of Haitians willing to take his place.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
"

René Préval promet d’en finir avec le kidnapping en 2008

Reconnaissant que les voeux de l’année dernière ne s’étaient pas concrétisés, le chef de l’Etat a lancé une sévère mise en garde aux bandits en présence de plusieurs centaines d’enfants réunis au Palais National pour la Noël
mercredi 26 décembre 2007,
Radio Kiskeya

Le Président René Préval a appelé dimanche à la fin du kidnapping en Haïti, particulièrement contre les tout-petits, et a promis de mettre fin en 2008 à ce phénomène, lors d’une fête qui réunissait au Palais National (siège de la Présidence) plusieurs centaines d’enfants à l’occasion de la Noël.
Se plaignant de n’avoir pu tenir une promesse faite l’année dernière au même endroit, le chef de l’Etat a reconnu que les bandits l’avaient fait mentir. Il a constaté qu’une vague d’enlèvements s’est abattue sur le pays au cours des deux derniers mois alors que tout allait bien jusque là.
"Messieurs les bandits, donnez donc une chance aux enfants", s’est exclamé le chef de l’Etat en levant les yeux au ciel au milieu d’un groupe d’enfants ajoutant "si vous ne leur accordez pas cette chance, c’est Mario Andrésol, le chef de la Police Nationale, qui se chargera de le faire".
Il en a profité pour féliciter M. Andrésol et les policiers pour le bon travail accompli tout au long de l’année dans la lutte contre le kidnapping. "Losrqu’on a échoué, il faut encore essayer. Je promets une année 2008 sans kidnapping et la police mettra tous les kidnappeurs sous les verrous", a conclu René Préval en invitant les enfants à prendre leurs études au sérieux afin d’assurer plus tard la relève.
Le Président était notamment entouré de la ministre à la condition féminine, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassègue et du secrétaire d’Etat à l’intégration des handicapés, le Dr Michel Péan.
L’animation de cette fête des enfants a été assurée par la chanteuse Tifane et un magicien haïtien.
Le chanteur Jacques Sauveur Jean, proche du pouvoir, qui faisait office de maître de cérémonie, a déclaré que "René Préval était et resterait le numéro un parce qu’il fait partie de ceux qui aiment Haïti profondément".
Le gouvernement a poursuivi mardi, le jour de Noël, les opérations de distribution de jouets et de cadeaux aux nécessiteux, notamment au centre sportif de Carrefour (banlieue sud de la capitale) où le Premier ministre Jacques-Edouard Alexis et son ministre des affaires sociales, Gérald Germain étaient présents. spp/Radio Kiskeya
http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article4555
Commentaires:
Ce n’est ni convaincant ni dissuasif, un président qui regarde vers le ciel les bras ouverts pour supplier les kidnappeurs de laisser une chance aux enfants. Il est vrai que l’on était un peu habitué au fameux « JE VEUX ET JE PEUX » accompagné d’un regard rouge menaçant et asymétrique d’un ancien président dont le message était surtout adressés à des fanatiques ayant subi la mutation en horde de chiens enragés.
Le kidnapping reste un problème de taille qui doit être réglé par des solutions proportionnelles et à la hauteur des dégâts causés à la société. Aujourd’hui la victoire sur l’instabilité politique prend l’allure de leurre et de mirage devant les profonds chambardements qui ne cessent de désarticuler le tissu social.
Il faut finir avec ce type d’insécurité qui est l’apanage de bandits de grands chemins de connivence avec les sans scrupules qui poussent un peu partout comme les mauvaises herbes.
Il faut prendre le problème à bras le corps !
La prière ne suffit pas toujours pour faire fuir le chien téméraire qui vous barre la route. Quelques fois il suffit, tout en récitant le je vous salue marie pleine de grâce de se baisser et de s’approprier, au cas ou, d’une bonne « galette ».. . et le chemin se vide de son obstacle criard.

Affaire Socabank/Nouvel arrêt de la Cour d’Appel : Franck Ciné et consorts doivent encore rester en prison

Le tribunal réclame un supplément d’information
mercredi 26 décembre 2007,
Radio Kiskeya

Le PDG de la compagnie de téléphonie mobile haïtienne Haïtel, Franck Ciné, et d’autres ex-administrateurs et actionnaires de la Société Caribéenne de Banque (SOCABANK) réputée en faillite frauduleuse, devront encore rester en prison, la Cour d’Appel de Port-au-Prince ayant rendu public ce mercredi un nouvel arrêt réclamant cette fois-ci un supplément d’information sur le dossier.
Ce faisant, la Cour s’est une fois de plus gardé de se prononcer sur la demande de main levée du mandat d’écrou formulée par la défense du PDG de Haïtel, en raison de la détérioration continue de l’état de santé de ce dernier.
La semaine dernière, à la demande de la Cour, les avocats de Ciné avaient soumis un dossier médical actualisé de leur client démontrant qu’il se trouve dans un état critique et que son admission dans un centre spécialisé à l’étranger s’avère d’une urgente nécessité.
L’un des avocats de la défense, l’ancien ministre de la justice du premier gouvernement Préval/Alexis (1996-2001), Me Camille Leblanc, a critiqué la décision prise par le tribunal, jugeant qu’il existe désormais une volonté manifeste de maintenir ses clients en prison le plus longtemps que possible.
Outre l’affaire de la SOCABANK dans laquelle Franck Ciné est poursuivi à titre d’actionnaire de cette banque maintenant absorbée par la Banque Nationale de Crédit (BNC, banque commerciale d’Etat), le PDG de Haïtel se trouve également par-devant la justice dans le cadre d’un contentieux avec la Téléco (compagnie nationale de télécommunications) à laquelle son entreprise doit plusieurs millions de dollars. [jmd/RK]
http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article4562
Ceux qui parlent de politisation de ce dossier dans un sens ou dans l'autre devrait carrément donner des détails pour l'édification des curieux....

Amélioration dans les opérations de dédouanement des marchandises suite à des semaines de blocage

Le président de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie d’Haïti souhaite la présence du SGS dans tous les ports de province
mercredi 26 décembre 2007,
Radio Kiskeya

Des dispositions ont été prises en vue de débloquer la situation au niveau des douanes où, en pleine période de fêtes de fin d’année, les marchandises importées ne pouvaient pas être dédouanées.
Le président de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie d’Haïti (CCIH) qui confirme l’entrée en vigueur de ces mesures, précise que les difficultés au dédouanement étaient en relation directe avec les défectuosités d’un système de « scanner » mis en place récemment et les complications liées à l’émission des bordereaux de douane uniquement à Port-au-Prince, particulièrement pour les véhicules importés.
Le problème est sur le point d’être résolu et, déjà, une certaine amélioration est constatée, a relevé M. Jean Robert Argant.
Souhaitant le renforcement des mesures adoptées, le président de la CCIH a suggéré la présence désormais dans tous les ports de province du Service Général de Surveillance (SGS) qui faciliterait le contrôle et la vérification des conteneurs et donc le dédouanement rapide des marchandises. Parallèlement, dit-il, la lutte contre la contrebande s’en trouverait renforcée.
Au parlement, le ministre de l’Economie et des finances, Daniel Dorsainvil, accompagné du secrétaire d’Etat des finances, Sylvain Lafalaise, du directeur général des douanes, Jean Jacques Valentin et du directeur général de l’Autorité Portuaire Nationale (APN), Evens Charles, a confirmé mercredi les mesures d’assouplissement des formalités de douane dans les ports et les douanes. Quant à la vie chère, il a estimé qu’il s’agit d’un phénomène mondial aggravé, sur le plan local, par les dégâts causés par la récente tempête tropicale Noël.
Des parlementaires ont récemment dénoncé la cherté de la vie et l’incapacité du gouvernement à apaiser les souffrances des couches les plus défavorisées de la population. Ils ont, pour la plupart, établi un lien direct entre l’augmentation des prix des produits de première nécessité et le blocage des marchandises en douane dû aux mesures drastiques de contrôle adoptées dans le cadre de la politique gouvernementale de lutte contre la contrebande et la corruption.
Certains députés ont menacé de renvoyer le gouvernement à la rentrée parlementaire en janvier 2008 ou de démissionner si rien n’est fait d’ici là en faveur de la population.[jmd/RK]
http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article4563
oh lala..!
Comme il a bon dos la tempête Noel!
C'était qui ou quoi les responsable juste avant ces intempéries?