Lors du match ouverture du groupe A de la coupe féminine de la Caraïbes regroupant huit nations de la zone, les grenadières ont infligé une cinglante 5-0 à la sélection des Bermudes.
Les haïtiennes sont engagées avec sept autres sélections dans un tournoi préliminaire qualificatif pour la coupe du monde Fifa 2014.
Haïti et la Jamaïque faisant office de favorites partagent le groupe A avec Porto-Rico et Les Bermude.
Le groupe B est composé de Trinidad and Tobago pays organisateur, St Kitts-Nevis, Antigua-Barbuda and Martinique.
Les quatre demi-finalistes, donc les deux premiers de chaque groupe rejoindront les sélections des US, du Mexico, du Costa Rica et Guatemala pour un tournoi final de la CONCACAF en octobre prochain. Les trois premières seront directement qualifiées tandis que le quatrième aura accès à un match de barrage. Le Canda comme pays organisateur a déjà sa qualification en poche.
Haïti menée par l’entraineur expérimenté polonais Shek Borkowski, avec un palmarès intéressant forgé avec des clubs de femmes en Amérique et en Russie.
La sélections haïtienne s’appuient sur une continuité et sur l’expérience de six joueurs qui portaient les couleurs nationales déjà il y a quatre ans mais qui avaient été battues 5-0 par la sélection américaine lors des éliminatoires de la coupe du monde antérieure, une des meilleures du monde.
Parmi les points forts de la sélection Haïtienne les experts comptent un stopper d’une qualité exceptionnelle dans la personne du Capitaine Kencia Marseille, un solide et virevoltant milieu défensive Shanna Hudson, un ailier gauche explosif, Manoucheka Pierre-Louis.
On déplore l’absence d’une vraie tueuse en attaque.
Alors que la Jamaïque battait Porto-Rico 4-0, Haïti a dominé complètement une faible équipe des Bermudes. Déjà à la fin de la première mi-temps Haïti menait par trois buts à zéro se rendant le match plus facile grâce à des buts de Marie Jean Pierre, Linsay Zullo et Manoucheka Pierre –Louis,
Malgré une meilleure prestation des Bermudes en deuxième mi-temps, les haïtiennes aggraveront le avec des annotation de Wisline Dolcé et Jenerve Charles.
Le prochain match de la sélection haïtienne l'opposera à celle de Porto-Rico .
jeudi 21 août 2014
Opening wins for Haiti
By Ian Prescott ian.prescott@trinidadexpress.com
Haiti similarly dominated Bermuda. Haiti has a Polish head-coach Shek Borkowski, who has won with women’s club teams in America and Russia. Fielding an experienced team containing six members of the national team which four years ago lost 5-0 to the US in World Cup qualifying, Haiti also possessed an exceptional stopper in captain Kencia Marcseille, a solid bruising defensive midfielder Shanna Hudson, a penetrative left-winger Manoucheka Pierre-Louis, but non-lethal strikers.
Haiti led 3-0 at the half. First, perennial off-side striker Marie Jean Pierre put in a rebound from close up for the opening goal in the eighth minute, before midfielder Linsay Zullo’s forceful solo run ended with a low shot down the centre of goal in the 37th minute. Left wide midfielder Pierre-Louis gratefully accepted a gift three minute later when an errent clearance picked her out at the back post, where she scored.
Bermuda were marginally better in the second half, where all three goals came in the dying minutes. A fierce 30-yard shot from central midfielder Wisline Dolce made it 4-0 for Haiti in the 86th minute, before Shaunte Todd emphatically replied for Bermuda with a similar long-range shot just a minute later.
Substitute striker Jenerve Charles then made it 5-1 by shooting past advancing Bermudan keeper Jaeda Smith, after running onto a through ball. Later, Bermuda’s Todd almost repeated her long goal from a free-kick, while Haiti’s Jean Pierre, twice, also missed a near open goal, before she was taken off.
The Women’s Caribbean Cup is being contested by Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Bermuda in Group A, while Group B contain host Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts-Nevis, Antigua-Barbuda and Martinique.
The four semi-finalists from the eight-team tournament join the US, Mexico, Costa Rica (Central America Group 2 winners) and Guatemala (Central America Group I winners) for the CONCACAF Championship in October, when the top three teams qualify automatically, and the fourth team win a play-off spot to the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Another CONCACAF team Canada also qualifies as World Cup host.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sports/Opening-wins-for-Haiti-and-Jamaica--272100711.html
Haiti similarly dominated Bermuda. Haiti has a Polish head-coach Shek Borkowski, who has won with women’s club teams in America and Russia. Fielding an experienced team containing six members of the national team which four years ago lost 5-0 to the US in World Cup qualifying, Haiti also possessed an exceptional stopper in captain Kencia Marcseille, a solid bruising defensive midfielder Shanna Hudson, a penetrative left-winger Manoucheka Pierre-Louis, but non-lethal strikers.
Haiti led 3-0 at the half. First, perennial off-side striker Marie Jean Pierre put in a rebound from close up for the opening goal in the eighth minute, before midfielder Linsay Zullo’s forceful solo run ended with a low shot down the centre of goal in the 37th minute. Left wide midfielder Pierre-Louis gratefully accepted a gift three minute later when an errent clearance picked her out at the back post, where she scored.
Bermuda were marginally better in the second half, where all three goals came in the dying minutes. A fierce 30-yard shot from central midfielder Wisline Dolce made it 4-0 for Haiti in the 86th minute, before Shaunte Todd emphatically replied for Bermuda with a similar long-range shot just a minute later.
Substitute striker Jenerve Charles then made it 5-1 by shooting past advancing Bermudan keeper Jaeda Smith, after running onto a through ball. Later, Bermuda’s Todd almost repeated her long goal from a free-kick, while Haiti’s Jean Pierre, twice, also missed a near open goal, before she was taken off.
The Women’s Caribbean Cup is being contested by Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Bermuda in Group A, while Group B contain host Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts-Nevis, Antigua-Barbuda and Martinique.
The four semi-finalists from the eight-team tournament join the US, Mexico, Costa Rica (Central America Group 2 winners) and Guatemala (Central America Group I winners) for the CONCACAF Championship in October, when the top three teams qualify automatically, and the fourth team win a play-off spot to the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Another CONCACAF team Canada also qualifies as World Cup host.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sports/Opening-wins-for-Haiti-and-Jamaica--272100711.html
Haitian Nationals Busted With False Belizean Visas At P.G.I.A.
Aug 20, 2014
Two Haitian nationals carrying passports with fake Belizean visas were busted by Immigration authorities at the Phillip Goldson Airport on Tuesday. The men, thirty-two-year-old Donald Gedeon and thirty-six-year-old Choubert Senat, arrived in Belize on the Avianca flight from El Salvador with Haitian passports.
They attracted attention because they seemed to be lingering at the back of the line.
The officer on duty requested their passports and embarkation forms, which were incomplete. The address on the said forms was Belmopan, with no address or house number.
The visas in the passports were immediately recognized as counterfeit, since they lacked security features and were noticeably different.
The men would tell authorities only that they paid five hundred US for the visas.
Both Haitian nationals appeared in court this afternoon and were charged with attempting to use a permit/visa which was not issued to be used by lawful authority.
They pleaded guilty and were fined two thousand dollars, in default one year in prison. Upon payment of the fine, both men would have been placed on a flight back home.
But by four thirty this afternoon neither Senat nor Gedeon were able to meet the fines.
Both were escorted to the Belize Central Prison.
http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/102915
Two Haitian nationals carrying passports with fake Belizean visas were busted by Immigration authorities at the Phillip Goldson Airport on Tuesday. The men, thirty-two-year-old Donald Gedeon and thirty-six-year-old Choubert Senat, arrived in Belize on the Avianca flight from El Salvador with Haitian passports.
They attracted attention because they seemed to be lingering at the back of the line.
The officer on duty requested their passports and embarkation forms, which were incomplete. The address on the said forms was Belmopan, with no address or house number.
The visas in the passports were immediately recognized as counterfeit, since they lacked security features and were noticeably different.
The men would tell authorities only that they paid five hundred US for the visas.
Both Haitian nationals appeared in court this afternoon and were charged with attempting to use a permit/visa which was not issued to be used by lawful authority.
They pleaded guilty and were fined two thousand dollars, in default one year in prison. Upon payment of the fine, both men would have been placed on a flight back home.
But by four thirty this afternoon neither Senat nor Gedeon were able to meet the fines.
Both were escorted to the Belize Central Prison.
http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/102915
RBDF apprehends 124 illegal Haitian migrants in Southern Bahamas
By Royal Bahamas Defence Force
Aug 20, 2014 - 6:34:37 PM Coral Harbour Base, 20 August, 2014 (RBDF) - The Royal Bahamas Defence Force apprehended one hundred and twenty-four (124) Haitian Migrants at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, 19th August, 2014, while on routine patrol in the Southern Bahamas.
The white fifty-five (55) feet sailing sloop was intercepted at approximately twenty-nine nautical miles (29nm) off Flamingo Cay Light in the Northern Ragged Island Chain by Defence Force Patrol Craft HMBS Arthur Dion Hanna under the Command of Lieutenant Commander Christoper Darville. A search of the vessel resulted in the apprehension of undocumented Haitian Nationals consisting of one hundred(100) males, sixteen(16) females, and eight (8) children.
The Migrants were subsequently taken into custody and are currently being transported to Coral Harbour Base where they will be handed over to Immigration Authority for further processing.
The Commander Defence Force, Commodore Roderick Bowe, expresses his thanks and appreciation for the assistance received from the Cuban Border Guard and The United States Coast Guard in providing critical information which culminated in the apprehension of the migrant vessel.
http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/publish/local/RBDF_apprehends_illegal_Haitian_migrants_in_Southern_Bahamas36524.shtml
Aug 20, 2014 - 6:34:37 PM Coral Harbour Base, 20 August, 2014 (RBDF) - The Royal Bahamas Defence Force apprehended one hundred and twenty-four (124) Haitian Migrants at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, 19th August, 2014, while on routine patrol in the Southern Bahamas.
The white fifty-five (55) feet sailing sloop was intercepted at approximately twenty-nine nautical miles (29nm) off Flamingo Cay Light in the Northern Ragged Island Chain by Defence Force Patrol Craft HMBS Arthur Dion Hanna under the Command of Lieutenant Commander Christoper Darville. A search of the vessel resulted in the apprehension of undocumented Haitian Nationals consisting of one hundred(100) males, sixteen(16) females, and eight (8) children.
The Migrants were subsequently taken into custody and are currently being transported to Coral Harbour Base where they will be handed over to Immigration Authority for further processing.
The Commander Defence Force, Commodore Roderick Bowe, expresses his thanks and appreciation for the assistance received from the Cuban Border Guard and The United States Coast Guard in providing critical information which culminated in the apprehension of the migrant vessel.
http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/publish/local/RBDF_apprehends_illegal_Haitian_migrants_in_Southern_Bahamas36524.shtml
« RestringHaiti” Provides Repaired instruments to Haitian music Students
by Phil Bolton | August 20, 2014
On Jan. 12, 2010, Lizzy Sandlin was a 12-year-old eighth grader at the Atlanta International School busily studying the courses required on the international baccalaureate diploma track and practicing the viola, her instrument of choice.
Before starting at the international school the year before, she had spent eight years inGermany with her parents where her father had been rector of an Episcopal church in Frankfurtand an avid musician who plays the viola as well.
It was her father who first told her about Haitiand the Holy Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, she recalled in an interview with Global Atlanta.
“My Dad has always told me about this music school in Haiti, where the director of the school is a violist and Episcopal priest — just like him,” she said.
She recalled hearing about the Jan. 12 catastrophic earthquake and its aftershocks that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians that fateful month.
But she didn’t comprehend the extent of the devastation until visiting Haiti two years later to teach viola lessons at the Holy Trinity Music School.
The school is affiliated with Haiti’s Episcopal Cathedral, which was destroyed, as were its outlying buildings for academic, trade and music classes. Additionally, its three grand pianos, 20 upright pianos and a music library were destroyed as well.
“Although I was there nearly two years after the earthquake few rebuilding efforts had been made,” she said. “I saw the circumstance many of the students themselves were living in, and how music was a way for them to escape.”
Their passion to play was obvious, she said. But the earthquake claimed many of the instruments, and many of the surviving instruments had missing parts.
“It was hard to see so many passionate young musicians, my age and younger, who loved playing, but had no instrument to play on,” she added.
“Some of the students I taught didn’t have their own instruments and would spend the first half of their lesson times looking for someone who didn’t need theirs right then.”
Even those who were able to find a violin or a viola to play, they couldn’t count on the instrument having all four strings.
“These were never things that I have had to even think about,” she said. “I knew that I had to help the students in whatever way I could, so I started collecting donations from various people around the country.”
Her first steps were to launch a blog and compile a list of musicians to whom she wrote asking for their help. The initial responses were positive.
For instance, the San Antonio Symphony sent bags of supplies including a variety of instruments parts. Heidi Castleman, a viola professor at the Julliard School at theLincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and a family friend, sent some 200 worn strings.
Lizzy managed to collect five boxes of instruments, strings, bows, pegs, other parts and rosin, which she sent off to Port-au-Prince.
Meanwhile, the music education at the school continued in Haiti with lessons in all the orchestral instruments, piano and voice.
In view of her early success and the responsiveness of the Haitian students, she decided to form a nonprofit to further their support and learned to fill out the application for a 501(c) 3 status.
Hence RestringHaiti Inc. came to life. Before it was an official nonprofit, Lizzy managed to send three violins and a viola to the music school. Once the initiative became a legal entity, however, she stepped up the fundraisers, benefit concerts and instrument drives and it has been a conduit for many more including 15 violins from the Lovett School in Atlanta.
“I got those this spring,” she said, “and since most of them needed some work done before they could be played, I spent about a month working at Stephanie Voss’ violin shop here in Atlanta, fixing them up to be shipped down to Haiti.”
Her next step in regards to what inevitably is to be a “lifelong mission” for her, according toGinger Fay, her Upper School Counselor at the Atlanta International School, is to visit Haiti again so she can teach the students how to secure their own supplies and instruments and learn to repair them — just as she did.
Meanwhile, she has continued her own involvement with the Atlanta Young Singers, participating with this musical group, one of several with which she has been involved over the years, on a summer tour in Europe to compete in the World Choir Games, an international competition that was held in Riga, Latvia.
Currently she is starting her freshman year at Barnard College in New York. She said that she isn’t totally certain about what to study but has an interest in international politics, human rights and French, which she wants to learn “at least enough to be able to communicate better with people in Haiti.”
http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/27109/restringhaiti-provides-repaired-instruments-to-haitian-music-students/
On Jan. 12, 2010, Lizzy Sandlin was a 12-year-old eighth grader at the Atlanta International School busily studying the courses required on the international baccalaureate diploma track and practicing the viola, her instrument of choice.
Before starting at the international school the year before, she had spent eight years inGermany with her parents where her father had been rector of an Episcopal church in Frankfurtand an avid musician who plays the viola as well.
It was her father who first told her about Haitiand the Holy Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, she recalled in an interview with Global Atlanta.
“My Dad has always told me about this music school in Haiti, where the director of the school is a violist and Episcopal priest — just like him,” she said.
She recalled hearing about the Jan. 12 catastrophic earthquake and its aftershocks that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians that fateful month.
But she didn’t comprehend the extent of the devastation until visiting Haiti two years later to teach viola lessons at the Holy Trinity Music School.
The school is affiliated with Haiti’s Episcopal Cathedral, which was destroyed, as were its outlying buildings for academic, trade and music classes. Additionally, its three grand pianos, 20 upright pianos and a music library were destroyed as well.
“Although I was there nearly two years after the earthquake few rebuilding efforts had been made,” she said. “I saw the circumstance many of the students themselves were living in, and how music was a way for them to escape.”
Their passion to play was obvious, she said. But the earthquake claimed many of the instruments, and many of the surviving instruments had missing parts.
“It was hard to see so many passionate young musicians, my age and younger, who loved playing, but had no instrument to play on,” she added.
“Some of the students I taught didn’t have their own instruments and would spend the first half of their lesson times looking for someone who didn’t need theirs right then.”
Even those who were able to find a violin or a viola to play, they couldn’t count on the instrument having all four strings.
“These were never things that I have had to even think about,” she said. “I knew that I had to help the students in whatever way I could, so I started collecting donations from various people around the country.”
Her first steps were to launch a blog and compile a list of musicians to whom she wrote asking for their help. The initial responses were positive.
For instance, the San Antonio Symphony sent bags of supplies including a variety of instruments parts. Heidi Castleman, a viola professor at the Julliard School at theLincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and a family friend, sent some 200 worn strings.
Lizzy managed to collect five boxes of instruments, strings, bows, pegs, other parts and rosin, which she sent off to Port-au-Prince.
Meanwhile, the music education at the school continued in Haiti with lessons in all the orchestral instruments, piano and voice.
In view of her early success and the responsiveness of the Haitian students, she decided to form a nonprofit to further their support and learned to fill out the application for a 501(c) 3 status.
Hence RestringHaiti Inc. came to life. Before it was an official nonprofit, Lizzy managed to send three violins and a viola to the music school. Once the initiative became a legal entity, however, she stepped up the fundraisers, benefit concerts and instrument drives and it has been a conduit for many more including 15 violins from the Lovett School in Atlanta.
“I got those this spring,” she said, “and since most of them needed some work done before they could be played, I spent about a month working at Stephanie Voss’ violin shop here in Atlanta, fixing them up to be shipped down to Haiti.”
Her next step in regards to what inevitably is to be a “lifelong mission” for her, according toGinger Fay, her Upper School Counselor at the Atlanta International School, is to visit Haiti again so she can teach the students how to secure their own supplies and instruments and learn to repair them — just as she did.
Meanwhile, she has continued her own involvement with the Atlanta Young Singers, participating with this musical group, one of several with which she has been involved over the years, on a summer tour in Europe to compete in the World Choir Games, an international competition that was held in Riga, Latvia.
Currently she is starting her freshman year at Barnard College in New York. She said that she isn’t totally certain about what to study but has an interest in international politics, human rights and French, which she wants to learn “at least enough to be able to communicate better with people in Haiti.”
http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/27109/restringhaiti-provides-repaired-instruments-to-haitian-music-students/
Haitian Migrants Turn Toward Brazil
BY E. C. GOGOLAK
At 7:30 on a recent morning, dozens of people were already outside the Brazilian embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a white stucco building in the suburb of Pétionville. Often there are hundreds, some with visa appointments, and many more waiting in hopes of one. Workers hurried up the slope to the upscale enclave from the dusty downtown below; Jalousie, a shantytown of pastel-painted cinderblock homes, hovered above. “Today makes one year and six months that I’ve been coming here every day,” said Saintadele Ladouceur, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of two. She is from Delmas, one of the Port-au-Prince districts hit hardest by the earthquake in 2010.
The 7.0-magnitude quake, which leveled much of Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, killed an estimated two hundred and thirty thousand people, and left more than a million and a half homeless. It was, as Paul Farmer has put it, an “acute-on-chronic” event: there were countless chronic problems in Haiti, but they became acute after the earthquake. The World Bank estimates that about eighty per cent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. .
At just past eight o’clock, a call of “Silence. Silence. Silence!” rose from the crowd outside the embassy. The phone lines had opened, and anyone with a cell phone was trying to get a visa appointment. The embassy does not have an online system for the visa process because applicants have limited access to computers. Embassy officials also decided that it would be better to give everyone a chance each day than to set appointment times weeks or months in advance. There was a collective sigh of frustration: a busy tone. The officials told me that, on an average day, they miss more than twelve hundred calls. With a staff of six, they can take no more than forty appointments daily. .
Embassy personnel often advise the crowd to leave, and ask local authorities for police enforcement to keep order outside. But they undermined their own guidelines last year by briefly accepting applications from the people outside, whether or not they had appointments. They found that it didn’t help. “People who could not get an appointment would spend night and day outside the building and, during business hours, even block the access of those who had an appointment,” said the embassy vice-consul, Daniel Arneiro. Now, he said, “I suppose they think there’s always a chance.” The staff has the list of people with appointments for the day, and goes to the door to let them in, one by one. Getting the appointment, as Arneiro put it, “is like winning the lottery.” .
As far back as the seventies, Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told me, Haitians described emigration as “cheche lavi,” or looking for life. For decades, most Haitian emigrants left for the United States, now home to more than half a million documented Haitian immigrants, who send more than a billion dollars in remittances to their home country each year. But, since the early eighties, the U.S. government has engaged in an increasingly restrictive policy of deterrence and expedited return. Brazil’s immigration policy is comparatively lax, its labor market famously strong, and, for the first time, Haitians are leaving, in significant numbers, for the south. More than twenty thousand Haitians have moved to Brazil since the earthquake. “It’s my dream because, if I went over there, I’d get a job, no problem,” André Desir, a young man from downtown Port-au-Prince, said. “Right now I don’t feel good. This is all I can think about.” .
The strict U.S. immigration policy is based on the premise that the majority of Haitians fleeing the country are running from poverty rather than political persecution. In the days after the earthquake, a U.S. Air Force cargo plane outfitted with radio transmitters flew over the country, broadcasting a recorded message from Haiti’s ambassador in Washington. “If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case,” it blasted in Creole. Still, the U.S. offered temporary protected status to undocumented Haitians who had arrived before the earthquake, and put a halt to deportations. The status was later extended to Haitians who had arrived in the year after the quake, but the annual cap on visas for Haitians hardly increased. Despite the efforts of advocates and policymakers, Haitians whose visa petitions have been granted still have to wait several years, because of the backlog created by entry limits. In January of 2011, deportations resumed. In recent months, in northwest Haiti, Coast Guard helicopters have been heard hovering overhead, and cutters have been seen from the shore. .
The Brazilian story is different. Though Brazil, historically, has been a nation of migrants, economic crises starting in the late seventies turned the country into a source of emigrants; the exodus reached its height with the economic depression that followed the fall of the military dictatorship, in 1985. Until recent years, immigration to Brazil “was not an issue, primarily because it was almost non-existent,” Paulo Abrão, the Brazilian National Secretary of Justice, told me. But, as Brazil’s economy has grown into the largest in South America, and the seventh-largest in the world, it has become a magnet for workers from poorer Latin American countries and beyond. Earlier this year, unemployment fell to a near-record low of 4.9 per cent, and over the past decade, some forty million Brazilians have joined the middle class. Meanwhile, the labor supply has fallen short of the country’s growth in labor-intensive sectors like construction. .
Since the ouster of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004—it was the second time he was deposed—Brazil has led the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, and some twenty-two hundred Brazilian troops have been stationed there. After the earthquake, word spread in Haiti about opportunities in Brazil, particularly as part of the lead-up to the 2014 World Cup, and to the 2016 Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro. For Haitians, however, Brazilian visas haven’t been easy to come by. For tourist visas, applicants must prove that they have the resources to fund the trip; for work visas, a Brazilian employer must start the application. A new smuggling industry has emerged to help Haitians traverse what is known as “the jungle route.” Undocumented Haitians pay as much as four thousand dollars, which amounts to months of work for one family, to get to Brazil. The trip is perilous, and can take more than three months. Migrants typically take flights from the Dominican Republic to Panama to Ecuador or Peru, where they meet “coyotes,” who take them by land into the Amazon and across the border. .
Without visas, they present themselves as refugees, seeking asylum, but, because they aren’t fleeing persecution, they aren’t eligible for refugee status. Brazil, however, has not deported them, and, instead, has granted them visas. “They’re already there, half a world a way, and Brazil wouldn’t deny them,” said Arneiro. By the end of 2011, about sixteen hundred Haitians had been granted visas this way. But Brazil was slow to process their papers, and the situation was deteriorating. In January, 2012, there were about two thousand Haitians stuck in Brazil’s Amazonian outpost towns, waiting for documents that would allow them to leave for the cities and find work. .
That month, in Port-au-Prince, the Brazilian government started issuing Haitians what it called “humanitarian visas,” which are residential visas granted for humanitarian reasons, in hopes of limiting the number of migrants taking the jungle route. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff visited the city that February, and declared, “We are ready to receive Haitian citizens who choose to look for new opportunities in Brazil.” A hundred visas started to be issued monthly, but the number of migrants crossing the jungle border did not decline. In the first seven months of 2013, four thousand Haitians arrived in Brasiléia, a small border town in the state of Acre that has become a welcome mat for undocumented migrants. In a further effort last summer, Brazil announced that it would lift the quota on visas for Haitians. As of June, the Brazilian embassy in Haiti had granted more than ten thousand humanitarian visas, and it continues to issue as many as possible, given its operational capacity. .
The line was long and tense. A screaming match erupted about whether the people with visa appointments were lucky or had paid off someone inside. (The embassy has said that there are no bribes.) Six security guards stood on the steps of the embassy, ready to disrupt the fights that often break out at its doors. Water vendors passed through the crowd, and a steady stream of cars and motorbikes rolled by, some dropping people off outside the embassy. .
James Novembre, a thirty-eight-year-old father of two, stood outside a car in front of the embassy. He had tried to get a U.S. visa three times, but didn’t have any luck, so he looked to Brazil instead; his younger brother lives in Brasília. Among the lucky ones, he had already received the visa, and was stopping by the embassy to submit documents for his family’s visa process before his flight to São Paulo that evening. He used to own a small beverage-distribution company, but was robbed at gunpoint at the end of last year. Once he paid back his loans, he had nothing left. “I feel excited because I am going to get a job and help my family,” he said. “Because I cannot get work here.”
By mid-afternoon, rain clouds hovered over Port-au-Prince. People who had already been in the embassy, whose papers were ready, stepped past the double doors again to receive their visas. One by one, they emerged, smiling and carrying crisp manila envelopes. The rest of the crowd, those without appointments, who had returned day after day to try their luck, watched them. Pedro Lahens strode down the steps flashing a smile, clutching the envelope. Twenty-two years old, he had been trying to get the visa for a year, and plans to go to São Paulo once he saves enough money to buy a ticket. “I’ve been suffering a long time, since after the earthquake,” he said. A car passed by, swathed in Brazilian flags. “If I could, I would throw a party tonight.”
At 7:30 on a recent morning, dozens of people were already outside the Brazilian embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a white stucco building in the suburb of Pétionville. Often there are hundreds, some with visa appointments, and many more waiting in hopes of one. Workers hurried up the slope to the upscale enclave from the dusty downtown below; Jalousie, a shantytown of pastel-painted cinderblock homes, hovered above. “Today makes one year and six months that I’ve been coming here every day,” said Saintadele Ladouceur, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of two. She is from Delmas, one of the Port-au-Prince districts hit hardest by the earthquake in 2010.
The 7.0-magnitude quake, which leveled much of Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, killed an estimated two hundred and thirty thousand people, and left more than a million and a half homeless. It was, as Paul Farmer has put it, an “acute-on-chronic” event: there were countless chronic problems in Haiti, but they became acute after the earthquake. The World Bank estimates that about eighty per cent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. .
At just past eight o’clock, a call of “Silence. Silence. Silence!” rose from the crowd outside the embassy. The phone lines had opened, and anyone with a cell phone was trying to get a visa appointment. The embassy does not have an online system for the visa process because applicants have limited access to computers. Embassy officials also decided that it would be better to give everyone a chance each day than to set appointment times weeks or months in advance. There was a collective sigh of frustration: a busy tone. The officials told me that, on an average day, they miss more than twelve hundred calls. With a staff of six, they can take no more than forty appointments daily. .
Embassy personnel often advise the crowd to leave, and ask local authorities for police enforcement to keep order outside. But they undermined their own guidelines last year by briefly accepting applications from the people outside, whether or not they had appointments. They found that it didn’t help. “People who could not get an appointment would spend night and day outside the building and, during business hours, even block the access of those who had an appointment,” said the embassy vice-consul, Daniel Arneiro. Now, he said, “I suppose they think there’s always a chance.” The staff has the list of people with appointments for the day, and goes to the door to let them in, one by one. Getting the appointment, as Arneiro put it, “is like winning the lottery.” .
As far back as the seventies, Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told me, Haitians described emigration as “cheche lavi,” or looking for life. For decades, most Haitian emigrants left for the United States, now home to more than half a million documented Haitian immigrants, who send more than a billion dollars in remittances to their home country each year. But, since the early eighties, the U.S. government has engaged in an increasingly restrictive policy of deterrence and expedited return. Brazil’s immigration policy is comparatively lax, its labor market famously strong, and, for the first time, Haitians are leaving, in significant numbers, for the south. More than twenty thousand Haitians have moved to Brazil since the earthquake. “It’s my dream because, if I went over there, I’d get a job, no problem,” André Desir, a young man from downtown Port-au-Prince, said. “Right now I don’t feel good. This is all I can think about.” .
The strict U.S. immigration policy is based on the premise that the majority of Haitians fleeing the country are running from poverty rather than political persecution. In the days after the earthquake, a U.S. Air Force cargo plane outfitted with radio transmitters flew over the country, broadcasting a recorded message from Haiti’s ambassador in Washington. “If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case,” it blasted in Creole. Still, the U.S. offered temporary protected status to undocumented Haitians who had arrived before the earthquake, and put a halt to deportations. The status was later extended to Haitians who had arrived in the year after the quake, but the annual cap on visas for Haitians hardly increased. Despite the efforts of advocates and policymakers, Haitians whose visa petitions have been granted still have to wait several years, because of the backlog created by entry limits. In January of 2011, deportations resumed. In recent months, in northwest Haiti, Coast Guard helicopters have been heard hovering overhead, and cutters have been seen from the shore. .
The Brazilian story is different. Though Brazil, historically, has been a nation of migrants, economic crises starting in the late seventies turned the country into a source of emigrants; the exodus reached its height with the economic depression that followed the fall of the military dictatorship, in 1985. Until recent years, immigration to Brazil “was not an issue, primarily because it was almost non-existent,” Paulo Abrão, the Brazilian National Secretary of Justice, told me. But, as Brazil’s economy has grown into the largest in South America, and the seventh-largest in the world, it has become a magnet for workers from poorer Latin American countries and beyond. Earlier this year, unemployment fell to a near-record low of 4.9 per cent, and over the past decade, some forty million Brazilians have joined the middle class. Meanwhile, the labor supply has fallen short of the country’s growth in labor-intensive sectors like construction. .
Since the ouster of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004—it was the second time he was deposed—Brazil has led the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, and some twenty-two hundred Brazilian troops have been stationed there. After the earthquake, word spread in Haiti about opportunities in Brazil, particularly as part of the lead-up to the 2014 World Cup, and to the 2016 Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro. For Haitians, however, Brazilian visas haven’t been easy to come by. For tourist visas, applicants must prove that they have the resources to fund the trip; for work visas, a Brazilian employer must start the application. A new smuggling industry has emerged to help Haitians traverse what is known as “the jungle route.” Undocumented Haitians pay as much as four thousand dollars, which amounts to months of work for one family, to get to Brazil. The trip is perilous, and can take more than three months. Migrants typically take flights from the Dominican Republic to Panama to Ecuador or Peru, where they meet “coyotes,” who take them by land into the Amazon and across the border. .
Without visas, they present themselves as refugees, seeking asylum, but, because they aren’t fleeing persecution, they aren’t eligible for refugee status. Brazil, however, has not deported them, and, instead, has granted them visas. “They’re already there, half a world a way, and Brazil wouldn’t deny them,” said Arneiro. By the end of 2011, about sixteen hundred Haitians had been granted visas this way. But Brazil was slow to process their papers, and the situation was deteriorating. In January, 2012, there were about two thousand Haitians stuck in Brazil’s Amazonian outpost towns, waiting for documents that would allow them to leave for the cities and find work. .
That month, in Port-au-Prince, the Brazilian government started issuing Haitians what it called “humanitarian visas,” which are residential visas granted for humanitarian reasons, in hopes of limiting the number of migrants taking the jungle route. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff visited the city that February, and declared, “We are ready to receive Haitian citizens who choose to look for new opportunities in Brazil.” A hundred visas started to be issued monthly, but the number of migrants crossing the jungle border did not decline. In the first seven months of 2013, four thousand Haitians arrived in Brasiléia, a small border town in the state of Acre that has become a welcome mat for undocumented migrants. In a further effort last summer, Brazil announced that it would lift the quota on visas for Haitians. As of June, the Brazilian embassy in Haiti had granted more than ten thousand humanitarian visas, and it continues to issue as many as possible, given its operational capacity. .
The line was long and tense. A screaming match erupted about whether the people with visa appointments were lucky or had paid off someone inside. (The embassy has said that there are no bribes.) Six security guards stood on the steps of the embassy, ready to disrupt the fights that often break out at its doors. Water vendors passed through the crowd, and a steady stream of cars and motorbikes rolled by, some dropping people off outside the embassy. .
James Novembre, a thirty-eight-year-old father of two, stood outside a car in front of the embassy. He had tried to get a U.S. visa three times, but didn’t have any luck, so he looked to Brazil instead; his younger brother lives in Brasília. Among the lucky ones, he had already received the visa, and was stopping by the embassy to submit documents for his family’s visa process before his flight to São Paulo that evening. He used to own a small beverage-distribution company, but was robbed at gunpoint at the end of last year. Once he paid back his loans, he had nothing left. “I feel excited because I am going to get a job and help my family,” he said. “Because I cannot get work here.”
By mid-afternoon, rain clouds hovered over Port-au-Prince. People who had already been in the embassy, whose papers were ready, stepped past the double doors again to receive their visas. One by one, they emerged, smiling and carrying crisp manila envelopes. The rest of the crowd, those without appointments, who had returned day after day to try their luck, watched them. Pedro Lahens strode down the steps flashing a smile, clutching the envelope. Twenty-two years old, he had been trying to get the visa for a year, and plans to go to São Paulo once he saves enough money to buy a ticket. “I’ve been suffering a long time, since after the earthquake,” he said. A car passed by, swathed in Brazilian flags. “If I could, I would throw a party tonight.”
Throwback Thursday: Katherine Dunham's fast for Haiti
News-DemocratAugust 21, 2014
Katherine Dunham always used her body to express herself, so in February 1992 when she disagreed with U.S. policy towards Haiti she used it to protest.
At age 82 she starved herself. Dunham’s fast for Haiti is this week’s Throwback Thursday.
“There is no point in fasting unless it accomplishes something,” Dunham said on Feb. 12, 1992, at her home in East St. Louis. “I hope it won’t go on for three or six months, but I’m well prepared to fast.”
For 47 days the world-renowned dancer, choreographer, anthropologist and humanitarian consumed only water and cranberry juice to protest the ouster of Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s decision to detain or deport many of the 16,000 Haitian refugees who fled the coup on Sept. 30, 1991. The elderly woman fasted against her doctor’s advice and through a hospitalization that came a little more than two weeks into her protest.
Her ties to the Caribbean nation were strong, dating back to 1935 when she went there to study dance on a Roosevelt Fellowship. She owned an estate there in addition to making East St. Louis her home for more than 30 years.
“People have asked me why East St. Louis and people have asked me why Haiti. I’ve decided that most people think of these two places as the ends of the world and that there is no point of my being there. Well I think that’s just why I should be there. I’ve always been periodically militant, activist and strongly against social injustice,” Dunham said.
Aristide, Jesse Jackson and the woman who would unseat U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon, Carol Mosely Braun, all visited Dunham at her home on Day 46 to ask her to end her fast. She refused, saying her goals were not yet realized.
But Day 47 was the end. Aristide asked Dunham to accompany him back to Haiti, so she resumed eating to build strength for the trip.
Dunham in 1999 moved to New York City, which is where she died in her sleep on May 21, 2006, at age 96. She considered East St. Louis her adopted hometown and had plans to permanently return before her 97th birthday celebration.
Her 35-acre estate in Port-au-Prince is a botanical garden and her East St. Louis home is a museum, but both have been troubled as a result of the poverty surrounding them. Her costumes, artwork and much of what she collected as a choreographer and anthropologist is now housed at the Missouri History Museum.
Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/21/3319605/throwback-thursday-katherine-dunhams.html#storylink=cpy
Katherine Dunham always used her body to express herself, so in February 1992 when she disagreed with U.S. policy towards Haiti she used it to protest.
At age 82 she starved herself. Dunham’s fast for Haiti is this week’s Throwback Thursday.
“There is no point in fasting unless it accomplishes something,” Dunham said on Feb. 12, 1992, at her home in East St. Louis. “I hope it won’t go on for three or six months, but I’m well prepared to fast.”
For 47 days the world-renowned dancer, choreographer, anthropologist and humanitarian consumed only water and cranberry juice to protest the ouster of Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s decision to detain or deport many of the 16,000 Haitian refugees who fled the coup on Sept. 30, 1991. The elderly woman fasted against her doctor’s advice and through a hospitalization that came a little more than two weeks into her protest.
Her ties to the Caribbean nation were strong, dating back to 1935 when she went there to study dance on a Roosevelt Fellowship. She owned an estate there in addition to making East St. Louis her home for more than 30 years.
“People have asked me why East St. Louis and people have asked me why Haiti. I’ve decided that most people think of these two places as the ends of the world and that there is no point of my being there. Well I think that’s just why I should be there. I’ve always been periodically militant, activist and strongly against social injustice,” Dunham said.
Aristide, Jesse Jackson and the woman who would unseat U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon, Carol Mosely Braun, all visited Dunham at her home on Day 46 to ask her to end her fast. She refused, saying her goals were not yet realized.
But Day 47 was the end. Aristide asked Dunham to accompany him back to Haiti, so she resumed eating to build strength for the trip.
Dunham in 1999 moved to New York City, which is where she died in her sleep on May 21, 2006, at age 96. She considered East St. Louis her adopted hometown and had plans to permanently return before her 97th birthday celebration.
Her 35-acre estate in Port-au-Prince is a botanical garden and her East St. Louis home is a museum, but both have been troubled as a result of the poverty surrounding them. Her costumes, artwork and much of what she collected as a choreographer and anthropologist is now housed at the Missouri History Museum.
Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2014/08/21/3319605/throwback-thursday-katherine-dunhams.html#storylink=cpy
With employees' help, Vivint sends thousands of meals to Haiti
Vivint, one of Provo's local companies and a home technology giant, is pushing community initiatives and getting them done. What many might not realize beyond the orange logo, home security and summer sales jobs, is that the company is involved in a significant amount of service and monetary donations in both local and global communities.Take last week as a major example. More than 700 employees took time during two and half work days to assemble meals for orphaned children in Haiti. The international project wasn't random either -- it aligns with Vivint's goal for the next several years to reach out to special needs children both in Utah County and abroad -- as it takes on a humanitarian area it feels needs stronger support.
"For the next five years, we will be focusing on kids who have an intellectual disability," said Holly Mero-Bench, Director of Vivint Gives Back. "We're evolving as a company and foundation. We looked at different causes and thought 'Where can we put resources, time and effort?' The cause we arrived at was children with intellectual disabilities. All of the projects that we do this year and moving forward will be centered around intellectual disabilities."
In less than three days, Vivint employees and their families managed to assemble a staggering 217,000 meal kits which will provide 595 kids in Haiti with daily meals for a year. The orphanage in Haiti specifically takes in and cares for special needs children. Not only did employees take time from their days to volunteer, but they raised and donated the $47,000 themselves required to purchase the necessary food supplies.
Vivint partnered with the Feed My Starving Children, a non-profit organization that has provided more than 600 million packaged meals to malnourished children across the world, for a fourth consecutive year. Vivint worked with the organization to pick a situation that met the initiatives and goals set to aid children with intellectual disabilities.
"Because of our previous partnership, we talked about the best location with kids that have those special needs," Mero-Bench said. "The center in Haiti takes in those kids."
Out of more than 70 countries in the world the non-profit aids, the needs in Haiti top the board. To date, FMSC has shipped more than 244,000,000 meals to Haiti with the help of companies like Vivint. To put the magnitude of the number of meals prepared via Vivint in the last four years with FMSC into perspective, the meals for the 2,000-plus children that have received the food could provide sustenance here to four to five elementary schools for an entire year.
According to FMSC, the meals packaged by volunteers are made of a rice or potato base and are designed for malnourished children in order to improve health, growth and physical well-being.
The meals from Vivint are being shipped to the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission by boat and will arrive within the next two months.
Daily Herald Community & Business Editor Jordan Carroll can be reached at jcarroll@heraldextra.com or on Twitter @jordanec.
Haiti Goes Latin, sur un air de salsa
Une compilation qui ravive des liens oubliés
Haiti Goes Latin20/08/2014 -
Patrie du compas, avec des groupes qui ont marqué l’histoire de la musique comme Tabou Combo, Haïti fait aussi partie de la planète salsa. C’est ce que vient rappeler la compilation Haiti Goes Latin, qui rassemble des titres enregistrés entre 1976 et 1984, quand les cuivres soufflaient sur les braises des rythmes latinos pour les rendre toujours plus ardents.
Il suffit parfois de jeter un œil sur une mappemonde pour comprendre la logique de certains phénomènes musicaux, même si la géographie n’apporte qu’une explication partielle. Entre les côtes cubaines et haïtiennes, il y a moins d’une centaine de kilomètres, ce qui fait de la première République noire le voisin le plus immédiat de la patrie de la révolution socialiste à la mode caribéenne. Difficile d’imaginer qu’une telle proximité n’ait pas produit ses effets, même si de part et d’autre du détroit qui porte le nom de Passage du vent, des identités culturelles fortes se sont développées.
Difficile aussi de concevoir que la salsa ait joué à saute-mouton au dessus des mornes haïtiens pour relier La Havane à Porto-Rico, un peu plus à l’Est dans la mer des Caraïbes, parfois via New-York et ses communautés exilées. Et bien que Port-au-Prince se soit mis à vibrer au rythme du compas à partir des années 60 puis surtout durant la décennie suivante, les musiciens locaux n’ont pas échappé à l’influence des artistes étiquetés Fania (Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto…), label américain qui est à la vague latine ce que Motown est à la soul.
A travers une dizaine de titres parus dans la période 1976-1984 et parfaitement nettoyés pour offrir un son impeccable, la compilationHaiti Goes Latin – à ne pas confondre avec un album de la même époque et portant le même nom, enregistré par Les Docteurs du rythme – s’est attachée à souligner cette spécificité, décryptant aussi le phénomène sur le plan historico-musical dans un livret très instructif.
Une demi-douzaine de chanteurs et groupes sont présents sur cette sélection, dominée par les Frères Dejean, une des formations phares du pays à l’époque, qui accompagnent aussi les projets plus personnels de leur batteur Tuco Bouzi, illustrés ici par Tuco’s Jam et Tuco’s Jam #3 très empreints de latin jazz. Avec My Angel’s Smile, joué par le bassiste Alix Jacques, le propos prend des accents brésiliens. Le piano est bien là, comme sur le morceau d’ouverture Boss du Caribbean Sextet, mais l’arrivée des claviers modernes commence à se faire sentir, entre autre sur l’interprétation du traditionnel L’Artibonite. Leur utilisation extensive finira, des années plus tard, par transformer la musique haïtienne.
Compilation Haiti Goes Latin (Celluloïd/Rue Stendhal) 2014
Page Facebook de Haiti Goes Latin
Par Bertrand Lavaine
TAGS : Salsa - Haïti - album
http://www.rfimusique.com/actu-musique/salsa/album/20140820-haiti-goes-latin-salsa
El doble filo del turismo en Haití: convertir el paraíso en negocio
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| Playas inexporadas en Île-à-Vache/ Iolanda Fresnillo |
"Nos enteramos porque vinieron a poner la primera piedra del aeropuerto. Este proyecto no es para nosotros", dice un habitante de una de las localidades afectadas
Derribos, desplazamientos forzosos, o planes de macrocomplejos sin previo aviso son algunas de las denuncias por las que la población de Ile-a-vache se ha levantado
Iolanda Fresnillo
Haití, cuatro años después del terremoto: el espejismo de la reconstrucción
"¿Te gusta Haití?", preguntan a menudo los haitianos. "Es un país muy bello". La respuesta les sorprende, acostumbrados a la imagen negativa que el mundo tiene de su país. Pero más allá de los tópicos sobre miseria, desastres naturales y conflictos que azotan Haití desde hace siglos, es un país que desborda belleza natural, convirtiéndolo en un activo para uno de los sectores económicos más dinámicos a nivel global pero con un doble filo: el turismo. Derribos, desplazamientos forzosos, o planes de macrocomplejos sin previo aviso son algunas de las denuncias que enturbian esta actividad.
El Gobierno haitiano se ha propuesto aprovechar el potencial turístico del país. En el marco de la estrategia " Haití, abierto a los negocios", el gobierno haitiano ha fijado la vista en el turismo como una de las estrategias principales para "estimular el crecimiento de la economía nacional", centrando los esfuerzos en la atracción de inversiones extranjeras y en transformar la imagen de Haití de un lugar al que ayudar, a un lugar al que viajar y con el que hacer negocios. Para el Ministerio de Turismo los retos son de imagen: "La mala percepción de la que es víctima el país a nivel internacional y la inconsciencia de la población haitiana de las riquezas turísticas y de la importancia del sector para la economía nacional".
Pero la percepción de una parte del pueblo haitiano es bien diferente: el sector crítico define el plan como una estrategia desarrollada en beneficio de una élite que no revertirá en las comunidades. Sus sospechas ponen el foco en hechos concretos, como que el gobierno garantice a las empresas extranjeras " vacaciones fiscales" si invierten en turismo o 15 años sin pagar impuestos ni costes aduaneros.
El Ministerio de Turismo argumenta que además del empleo y la formación profesional que acompañan los proyectos turísticos, se negocia con los inversores para que estos inviertan "entre un 8 y un 10% de sus beneficios en proyectos vitales para la población". Pero dichas inversiones y las promesas de trabajo digno raramente acaban cumpliéndose en Haití.
Con el fin de que así sea, algunas comunidades afectadas por los planes del gobierno están empezando a organizarse y movilizarse, bajo la premisa que, si es sin el pueblo, el crecimiento y el desarrollo no es para el pueblo. El principal ejemplo de esta tensión entre la estrategia del gobierno y las necesidades de la población local es el proyecto que se está llevando casi toda la atención de medios e inversores: Île-a-vache.
Cómo convertir el paraíso en negocio
Île-à-vache es lo que en el imaginario occidental definiríamos como un paraíso y, en palabras del Ministerio de Turismo, un verdadero tesoro: "Île-à-vache representa una de las últimas auténticas islas del tesoro de todo el Caribe. Natural, no explorada, no explotada y del todo única; se trata de un verdadero paraíso en estado puro, una rareza en el mundo de hoy".
El plan para Île-a-vache incluye la construcción de 1.200 plazas turísticas, una carretera, un aeropuerto, un campo de golf, un puerto, electrificación, pozos de agua y diversas infraestructuras sociales. Parte de las infraestructuras van a ser pagadas con fondos venezolanos de PetroCaribe. El proyecto se presenta bajo etiquetas como: turismo sostenible de baja intensidad, respeto a la integridad cultural y ambiental de la zona, espíritu comunitario o reparto equitativo de los beneficios. Pero la población de Île-à-Vache tiene razones para desconfiar de esas etiquetas.Disculpen, aquí vive gente "No nos oponemos al turismo, sabemos que con el turismo llegaran hospitales y escuelas, pero este proyecto es demasiado grande para la isla", se lamenta Antoine Pierre, un joven que participa en una de las actividades informativas que ha preparado KOPI, el colectivo campesino de Île-a-vache. La población se siente abrumada y ninguneada.
"En mayo de 2013 el gobierno declara la Isla ‘zona reservada para el desarrollo turístico’. Nos enteramos porque vinieron en agosto a poner la primera piedra del aeropuerto. Sin el aval de la población de la isla. Este proyecto no es para nosotros". El joven Laini Marcdonald, uno de los líderes de KOPI, se reunió junto con otros líderes comunitarios con la ministra de turismo. "En diez minutos liquidó el problema, sin explicaciones, sin aclarar la viabilidad social del proyecto". Pocos días antes habían visto como, sin previo aviso, las excavadoras empezaban la construcción de la carretera, arrasando cultivos a su paso. El propio plan del Gobierno para Île-à-vache establece que "nos aseguramos siempre de consultar a los vecinos inmediatos e iniciar un diálogo constructivo". Desde el Ministerio afirman que "el proyecto ha sido diseñado para los residentes de la comunidad y será ejecutado con su participación". Sin embargo, la falta de vías de participación e información en las primeras etapas del proceso ha llevado a las especulaciones y al rechazo.
En diciembre de 2013 empezaron las movilizaciones en la isla contra los planes del gobierno. De 10 policías se pasó a medio centenar de fuerzas especiales para reprimir las primeras manifestaciones, que se han quedado en la isla. La población habla de militarización y hay diversasdenuncias de lesiones contra la policía.
Uno de los momentos más tensos ocurrió en febrero de 2014, cuando fue detenido Jean Matulnès Lamy, líder de la comunidad y muy activo en la radio comunitaria local, así como en las movilizaciones contra el proyecto. No hay cargos contra él y meses después sigue en la cárcel. Su padre, a quien todos llaman "Papa Maltunès" pide justicia: "si es culpable que sea juzgado como tal, pero ahora lo tienen retenido sólo por su oposición al proyecto".
"Si nos quitan la agricultura ¿cómo viviremos?" Uno de los temas más espinosos es el de las expropiaciones y el desplazamiento de la población. En las reuniones organizadas por KOPI y a las que asisten centenares de ciudadanas, corre como la pólvora el rumor de que "sólo 5 familias de agricultores y 5 familias de pescadores de cada localidad serán seleccionadas para poder trabajar por los hoteles, el resto tendrán que marcharse".
El Ministerio es tajante en esta cuestión: "No existen ningún plan de relocalización de los habitantes fuera de Île-à-Vache. Vamos a reubicar a aquellas familias cuyas viviendas se verán afectadas por la construcción de zonas hoteleras (estamos hablando de un centenar de casas) a zonas en Ile-a-Vache que el Gobierno les brinde con servicios básicos". El problema es que nadie sabe qué familias ni cómo ni cuando. En Madame Bernard, la principal localidad de la isla, se han empezado a marcar algunas casas para su derribo, pero las familias que las habitan no han sido informadas aún.
Casas marcadas para ser derrumbadas en Madame Bernard, Île-à-vache/ Iolanda Fresnillo "Si nos desposeen de la agricultura y la pesca ¿cómo viviremos? Es un genocidio cultural y un suicidio colectivo aceptar este proyecto" se indigna Laini. "Nos quieren convertir en obreros agrícolas al servicio de los hoteles ¡nosotros somos agricultores!" añade Antoine.
"Ésta isla ha sido abandonada por el gobierno durante décadas, y ahora nos prometen escuelas, hospitales, pozos de agua potable y centros comunitarios" añade Kenold, también de KOPI, que se une a la conversación. De camino a una de las reuniones informativas que han organizado en la isla, insisten en que no están en contra de los visitantes, pero la condición es que la población se beneficie de ello.El gobierno, al ser preguntado por los beneficios para la población, habla de empleo, de programas de pesca, agricultura y formación, de agua potable y energía solar. Pero en Île-à-Vache desconfían de las promesas del Ministerio. Confían, eso sí, en que ganarán esta batalla: "Las obras de la carretera y el aeropuerto ya están paradas por las movilizaciones. ¡Claro que somos optimistas!", sonríe Kenold.
Mujeres cantan en reunión informativa sobre el proyecto Île-à-vache 'Cantando se lucha mejo'r: “Tenemos patatas, tenemos pescado, no necesitamos este proyecto"./ I. F.
El proyecto Este artículo forma parte del proyecto “Haití, los otros terremotos”, de su autora, Iolanda Fresnillo. Para saber más, sobre Haití y sobre Île-à-vache, podéis consultar la web http://haitiotrosterremotos.info
http://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/Turismo-Haiti-convertir-paraiso-negocio_0_291171394.html
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