By David L. Wilson, Upside Down World
April 17, 2012
Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake. Mark Schuller and Pablo Morales, editors. Kumarian Press, 2012. Paperback, 288 pages, $24.95.
Earthquakes may be hard to predict, but it should have been easy to foresee the disaster that would result from the sort of quake that hit Haiti in January 2010. Haiti’s failure to recover in the two years since was just as predictable.
The structural problems that turned a bad earthquake into a cataclysm go all the way back to Haiti’s colonial history, but the immediate causes are much more recent. [...]
Read the full article:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3582--why-haiti-wasnt-built-back-better
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
"Haiti--Open for Business" and Interview With Batay Ouvriye's Yannick Etienne
Haiti--Open for Business
Haiti Grassroots Watch/Ayiti Kale Je
November 29, 2011
“Haiti is open for business.”
That’s what President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly said on November 28 at a ceremony inaugurating a giant industrial zone being built in the north of Haiti.
Across Haiti and abroad, Martelly, his government, and “advisors” like former President Bill Clinton have been pushing Haiti as a foreign investor’s dream come true.
“We are ready for new ideas and new businesses, and are creating the conditions necessary for Haiti to become a natural and attractive destination for foreign investment,” the new president said last fall in New York City. [...]
See the full report:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/29/haiti-open-for-business.html
Controversy over Haiti’s development
The Stream, Al Jazeera
November 30, 2011
A new industrial park in Haiti will create jobs, but is it leading the country in a “race to the bottom”? [...]
[Includes discussion with Yannick Etienne, a spokesperson for Batay Ouvriye, which is involved in organizing the SOTA union for assembly plant workers.]
See the full report:
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/controversy-over-haiti%E2%80%99s-development-0021890
See also:
Investigation Finds Evidence of Violations of Union Rights in Garment Industry
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/investigation-finds-evidence-of-violations-of-union-rights-in-garment-industry
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
Haiti Grassroots Watch/Ayiti Kale Je
November 29, 2011
 |
| From Haiti Grassroots Watch |
That’s what President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly said on November 28 at a ceremony inaugurating a giant industrial zone being built in the north of Haiti.
Across Haiti and abroad, Martelly, his government, and “advisors” like former President Bill Clinton have been pushing Haiti as a foreign investor’s dream come true.
“We are ready for new ideas and new businesses, and are creating the conditions necessary for Haiti to become a natural and attractive destination for foreign investment,” the new president said last fall in New York City. [...]
See the full report:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/29/haiti-open-for-business.html
Controversy over Haiti’s development
The Stream, Al Jazeera
November 30, 2011
A new industrial park in Haiti will create jobs, but is it leading the country in a “race to the bottom”? [...]
[Includes discussion with Yannick Etienne, a spokesperson for Batay Ouvriye, which is involved in organizing the SOTA union for assembly plant workers.]
See the full report:
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/controversy-over-haiti%E2%80%99s-development-0021890
See also:
Investigation Finds Evidence of Violations of Union Rights in Garment Industry
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/investigation-finds-evidence-of-violations-of-union-rights-in-garment-industry
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Five years for a drop of water
Ayiti Kale Je-Haiti Grassroots Watch
November 3, 2011
Port-au-Prince, 4 November 2011 – Two-and-a-half million dollars (US$2.5 million) to supply water to several marginal neighborhoods in the capital. Approved in 2006. But, five years later, the water isn’t running yet. Children are still in the streets bearing bottles and buckets.
The project is almost finished. “The end of October,” according to the funder. But not yet.
Why? And why five years? Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) and the students at the State University’s Faculty of Human Sciences investigated. [...]
Read the full article:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/3/five-years-for-a-drop-of-water.html
November 3, 2011
Port-au-Prince, 4 November 2011 – Two-and-a-half million dollars (US$2.5 million) to supply water to several marginal neighborhoods in the capital. Approved in 2006. But, five years later, the water isn’t running yet. Children are still in the streets bearing bottles and buckets.
The project is almost finished. “The end of October,” according to the funder. But not yet.
Why? And why five years? Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) and the students at the State University’s Faculty of Human Sciences investigated. [...]
Read the full article:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/3/five-years-for-a-drop-of-water.html
Friday, August 26, 2011
January 12 victims - Abandoned like a stray dog
Ayiti Kale Je-Haiti Grassroots Watch
August 22, 2011
Eighty thousand tiny houses dot the cities and countryside in the capital and other parts of Haiti devastated by the January 12, 2010, earthquake that killed up to 230,000, damaged or destroyed 171,584 homes and displaced over a million people.
The Bill Clinton-led Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) has approved $254.5 million worth of housing repair and reconstruction projects that will reportedly fix, upgrade or build about 41,759 housing units.
The new government – led by singer Joseph Michel Martelly – recently organized “Reconstruction Week.” Among other activities, Clinton and the president inaugurated a “housing exposition” with over 60 model homes and a new mortgage program called “Kay Pa M” (“My House”).
Does that mean the reconstruction is off to a good start? Will the 634,000 people still living in Haiti’s 1,001 camps, and the undoubtedly tens of thousands of others living in unsafe and even condemned structures, soon move to safe housing?
Far from it, Haiti Grassroots Watch discovered. [...]
Read the articles, watch the video:
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/8/22/january-12-victims-abandoned-like-a-stray-dog.html
August 22, 2011
Eighty thousand tiny houses dot the cities and countryside in the capital and other parts of Haiti devastated by the January 12, 2010, earthquake that killed up to 230,000, damaged or destroyed 171,584 homes and displaced over a million people.
The Bill Clinton-led Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) has approved $254.5 million worth of housing repair and reconstruction projects that will reportedly fix, upgrade or build about 41,759 housing units.
The new government – led by singer Joseph Michel Martelly – recently organized “Reconstruction Week.” Among other activities, Clinton and the president inaugurated a “housing exposition” with over 60 model homes and a new mortgage program called “Kay Pa M” (“My House”).
Does that mean the reconstruction is off to a good start? Will the 634,000 people still living in Haiti’s 1,001 camps, and the undoubtedly tens of thousands of others living in unsafe and even condemned structures, soon move to safe housing?
Far from it, Haiti Grassroots Watch discovered. [...]
Read the articles, watch the video:
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/8/22/january-12-victims-abandoned-like-a-stray-dog.html
Friday, July 22, 2011
Cash for Work – At What Cost
By Haiti Grassroots Watch
July 18, 2011
“You have to ‘negotiate’ to get a job in the program.”
“Some of us put up with sexual harassment in order to get the tiny amount for survival.”
“The foremen… give the jobs to their relatives and girlfriends.”
“Around here, we don’t think these jobs are really in our interest.”
These are just some of the comments from participants in a so-called “humanitarian” program in the Ravine Pintade neighborhood in the Haitian capital.
The comments aren’t just random, and the program is not unique. It's one of dozens of “Cash for Work” programs, employing thousands of people, going on around the country. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/7/18/cash-for-work-at-what-cost.html
Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of AlterPresse, the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the community radios of the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA).
July 18, 2011
“You have to ‘negotiate’ to get a job in the program.”
“Some of us put up with sexual harassment in order to get the tiny amount for survival.”
“The foremen… give the jobs to their relatives and girlfriends.”
“Around here, we don’t think these jobs are really in our interest.”
These are just some of the comments from participants in a so-called “humanitarian” program in the Ravine Pintade neighborhood in the Haitian capital.
The comments aren’t just random, and the program is not unique. It's one of dozens of “Cash for Work” programs, employing thousands of people, going on around the country. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/7/18/cash-for-work-at-what-cost.html
Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of AlterPresse, the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the community radios of the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA).
Friday, July 1, 2011
Haiti 1994: The Forgotten Intervention
Lessons for Libya?
One thing that was striking about the run-up to the invasion is how rarely we heard from the many Haitians who struggled for Aristide's return but opposed any US military action.
by David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
July 1, 2011
On the night of September 29, 1991, Haitian army officers launched a coup d'état against the country's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. By the next afternoon, soldiers had arrested Aristide and had started gunning down coup opponents in the street. The toll would reach more than 3,000 over the next three years.
US liberals didn't take long to see that the Haitian crisis could provide a good test case for the newly fashionable doctrine of "humanitarian intervention." [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10053
One thing that was striking about the run-up to the invasion is how rarely we heard from the many Haitians who struggled for Aristide's return but opposed any US military action.
by David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
July 1, 2011
On the night of September 29, 1991, Haitian army officers launched a coup d'état against the country's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. By the next afternoon, soldiers had arrested Aristide and had started gunning down coup opponents in the street. The toll would reach more than 3,000 over the next three years.
US liberals didn't take long to see that the Haitian crisis could provide a good test case for the newly fashionable doctrine of "humanitarian intervention." [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10053
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Growing Ties Between Mexican and U.S. Labor
By David Bacon, Americas Program
June 14, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article of a series on border solidarity by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. All articles in the series were originally published in the Institute for Transnational Social Change’s report Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity. To download a PDF of the entire report, click here.
IN Mexico, the NAFTA debate led to the organization of the Action Network Opposing Free Trade (RMALC), which in turn helped to spark the relationship between the U.E. and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT). That relationship, examined in detail in several books, remains a model for solidarity between two unions, based on equality and mutual interest, preserving each union’s ability to make its own decisions autonomously. It has been a relationship based on real campaigns on the ground – organizing drives, strikes, and resistance to proposals like the PRI labor law reform. Rank-and-file workers in both unions have played an important part in those efforts. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/4858
June 14, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article of a series on border solidarity by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. All articles in the series were originally published in the Institute for Transnational Social Change’s report Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity. To download a PDF of the entire report, click here.
IN Mexico, the NAFTA debate led to the organization of the Action Network Opposing Free Trade (RMALC), which in turn helped to spark the relationship between the U.E. and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT). That relationship, examined in detail in several books, remains a model for solidarity between two unions, based on equality and mutual interest, preserving each union’s ability to make its own decisions autonomously. It has been a relationship based on real campaigns on the ground – organizing drives, strikes, and resistance to proposals like the PRI labor law reform. Rank-and-file workers in both unions have played an important part in those efforts. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/4858
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