Thursday, July 7, 2011
Watch this video if you love #Haiti. How does it relate to what your are doing?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Cascade Pichon: The Pichon Waterfall Teaser Trailer
More to come once I figure out how to import these android videos into iMovie Version 2008
Saturday, April 16, 2011
A road in Thiotte with the Pine Forest on the mountain in the background.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Basin Zim. #Haiti's undeveloped Y.S. Falls, Jamaica (w/@arikia)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Rival Candidates Claim Victory in Election Result Delay
stay the same..
Rival Candidates Claim Victory in Election
Result Delay
Published on Monday, 23 September 1957 Written by Samuel Maxime
On Monday, Haitian citizens tensely waited for the results of Sunday's
elections hoping that the next president could bring peace to the country. According to the Associated Press, before the counting of the votes even
began, Former Senator Louis Dejoie and his supporters threatened to burn
down Port-au-Prince if Dejoie did not come out the victor of the presidency. Rival presidential candidate, Dr. Francois Duvalier, a physician, claimed
victory in the election, as well. Due to long delays in the reporting from
tabulation centers in Port-au-Prince, no trending information will be
available until Wednesday.
No Enthusiasm for the Boycott
The third presidential candidate, Clement Jumelle, earlier on, called for a
boycott of the election claiming that there was fraud involved. This marked the first time women had the right to vote in Haiti, and
according to the Ministry of Justice, 81% of the 1.6 million registered
voters cast ballots. This would indicate that few heard the calls of
Jumelle. Since last December, Haiti has been plagued by election violence as it has
tried to find its leader. Provisional President Antonio Kebreau said that
the voting this time around was peaceful. There were very few incidents, one
was where a soldier shot down a voter who attacked him and two minor
incidents unrelated occurred in different parts of the country. Kebreau and two other men seized power on June 14 with a military junta and
2500 well trained soldiers and police.
Candidates Spar as Results are Delayed
The first data is expected to be known late Monday but with delays in
reporting at tabulation centers in Port-au-Prince, no real trend can be
determined until Wednesday. Duvalier, 48, is a doctor and has pledged honesty in government. He said he
would seek U.S. and U.N. aid in developing the nation's agricultural and
natural resources if elected. Duvalier began charging the Dejoie campaign of using large sums of money to
buy votes. Dejoie partisans returned charges at Duvalier claiming that the
military had rigged the election in Duvalier's favor. Dejoie, 61, is a mulatto plantation owner who promised industrial progress
through out his campaign. He campaigned saying that he would be able to get
$90 million in U.S. dollars to aid the country.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Intellectual Impunity: Why I'm Not Signing The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti's Letter Supporting Aristide's Return
Why are the undersigned lawyers supporting this petition? What good do they think this will do for Haiti? Haiti is a mess and Aristide was instrumental along with a long list of failed leaders in getting Haiti here. Haiti is a failed state in every sense. What good can Aristide's return bring? Ask yourself what role he expects to play? Why is he rushing back on the eve of the election? Whoever wins this election wont take office for a few months and will not have any authority over him just as they have none now. His stated fear that the next next president will not let him enter is unfounded. Any message he wants to send he can do so via radio, email, telephone, twitter etc, insuring his freedom of speech. Why now? I doubt that his rush back is an act of good faith. His professed intentions are belied by the firestorm he is causing by his impending return.
This petition is foolishness. Aristide’s return, Duvalier enjoying the cool mountain air here and a completely unprepared candidate like Michel Martelly (I hope he wins) so close to the presidency are all evidence of the state of our country. We have no politicians, no men/women with the vision and will to be in Haiti and direct her. In that vacuum men like Martelly are on the verge of the presidency. Drug dealers and murders are being elected to parliament. Impunity reigns.
The idea of "principle" that the signers of this letter are citing has Haiti all but dead. Democracy as practiced here has brought her nothing in the last 25 years. She is a nation in name only with no roads worth speaking of, trees for shade, local food security or steady power generation. The capital city is no less than a massive slum with inadequate garbage clean up, non-functioning infrastructure, rampant building code violations, impunity and corruption. Every wall is a public urinal, every gully a trash can. Every piece of clear road, is a license for scores of vehicles (private, ngo and diplomatic alike) to drive on the wrong side of the road to tie up the traffic more intractably further down the road; all as the police sit by and do nothing.
Right now, as you read this note, shanty towns are filling every space on every road. I’m not talking about the temp to perm tent cities resulting from the earthquake. I am talking about small houses cut into hill sides with no services or infrastructure whatsoever. They are mostly built on solid looking foundations composed of river rock and cement. Who is building these one room homes? Is it the people supposedly making $2 a day? I seriously doubt it. Someone is building these houses in violation of every construction code in the law and renting them out. In the process they contribute to the choking urban sprawl with not one citation or cease and desist order from government or a care for urban planning.
Environmental impunity! For god-sake the trees are almost gone. A drive down any road shows the trunks of tall thin trees for rent to be used as support posts in some makeshift construction project. Nearly every meal consumed in Haiti is cooked on charcoal made from other trees. The meals cooked are usually imported US rice and imported US chicken; the American answer to Haitian food security. The sugar cane consumed in the streets, the limes used to prepare food are being imported from the Dominican Republic for lack of domestic production and degraded land.
The biggest crime committed by Haitians themselves and by the international community is the silence with which they face this epidemic of impunity. The return to Haiti of Duvalier, at best, one of its worst leaders, under the protection of police escort, to dine at fine restaurants and enjoy the International Jazz Festival is no less than a sad joke; no less than Haiti's naked emperor moment. (Now we are awaiting another failed and corrupt leader who learned well the message of impunity in Duvalier's return.) After all, what will it take to prosecute these men? We are not talking about mounting an anti-cholera program or housing reconstruction with its huge costs. We are talking about arresting them if appropriate, taking testimony from their victims, evaluating the facts, and coming up with a credible result for better or for worse and under the rule of law of the Haitian constitution. After all, killing and embezzling is still illegal in Haiti.
I, for one, reject this petition on the basis that it supports everything that is wrong with Haiti today. It is an argument for more impunity, the one thing Haiti has too much of.
Alain Armand
www.twitter.com/thehaitian
| --- On Wed, 3/16/11, Brian Concannon <brian@ijdh.org> wrote:
|
Friday, February 4, 2011
Horseback Riding Lessons In #Haiti Taught by Pan American Champion Paco Gonzales
Friday, January 14, 2011
This is what's wrong w/ business in #Haiti. Why customs reform matters to the little guy.
A good friend of mine who owned and drives a tap tap (local bus) sold his tap tap to upgrade his life. He sells the pickup to buy a ticket and visa to Venezuela. When in Venezuela he bulk buys womens undergarments to resell in Haiti. First thing that happens to him is that the Haitian shipper took to 4 months to ship is product. When the product arrived in Haiti, the Haitian customs employees stole 12 dozen sets of his merchandise. This is a typical story of how customs operates in Haiti. This is what holds back the small entrepreneur in Haiti. This is why customs reform matters to the small entrepreneur. This guy lives in 2 rooms in a house with his daughter that he pays $700/yr rent. The guys tap tap was an old wreck of truck that he got by on. He has the vision and determination to get to Venezuela to move up the economic food chain despite his lack of college education, family wealth or opportunity. Haiti must reform its custom and port operations now.
