By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net:
MANY times in life we are confronted with the truth that ignorance is bliss..
But less we become too blind to our own self-destructive ways, let us not forget that "when you're dumb, you're dangerous".
A truth all too uncomfortable to accept is the fact that neither the abolition of slavery, majority rule, independence, civil rights, nor Christianization, restored the humanity, identity, position of power or culture of African people, now dispersed around the globe.
In the Bahamas, immigration officers regularly conduct raids on the Haitian community at job sites in the early morning, or bus stops in the mid afternoon. When a Haitian child returns home from school to a vandalized and empty house, what sort of humanity is there to speak of for that child? This is the unspoken reality of disempowered African people, in this instance Haitians in the Bahamas. Parents deported to Haiti with no consideration for their children. Children abandoned by the State, many times left to wonder the streets until a relative or community member absorbs them into the family.
African people, a classification for all people of African descent, have been so far removed from themselves they have virtually lost the ability to progress, to unify, to function at an optimum level, to move forward as a people. Almost every day this is played out, not in history class, but in headline news.
Atlanta, Georgia billboard: "Black children are an endangered species".
Voice of America: "UN Calls for Action to Prevent Spread of HIV/AIDS in Haiti". Jamaica Observer: "Jamaican government failing crime fight".
National Press Review:" Genital herpes hits black women hardest".
Seven-Sided Cube: "Deadly massacre in Nigeria didn't even spare infants".
Seattle Local: "Rate of black men's imprisonment rising".
Freeport News: "Chilling crime statistics".
Far from progress, the African community is on the path to self destruction..
This is no secret, examples abound, and this is no coincidence, but who really wants to look at the real reasons why. Reasons exist - rap music, no respect for elders, violent video games, drugs, homosexuality, the devil - but most are little more than symptoms, fantasies, illusions or white lies.
What of the deep wounds, festering below the surface, starving the African of vitality, depriving the African of self-knowledge, making the African prone to participate in his own demise?
Having been emasculated by the dehumanising experience of the Maafa, or centuries of suffering through slavery, imperialism, colonialisation, post-colonialism, and Willie Lynch inspired behaviour, most Africans are zombies to their own condition.
Many people tire to hear African people speak about slavery and its associated conditions because they lack an appreciation for the fact that colonial narratives persist today to the great detriment of African people.
Many people encourage the African community to forgive and forget, to move on, and to see modern society as a post-racial society, only because they lack an understanding of the lies, damned lies and the lying liars that perpetuate the myths.
I recall an elder advising me on dealing with someone who had done me wrong, forgive, but don't forget. I recall an African American civil rights activist saying, what we seek is not post-racial; because the racial identify of the African community is important culturally and spiritually.
The movement is for integration not assimilation, and in some instances, the desire is for separate but equal institutions.
The highest order of resistance is needed in the African community to push back, to challenge the thinking that slavery does not matter. Slavery is not just about physical barriers, many of which have been removed, or mental chains, many of which have been theorised, slavery is a symbol for the real and tangible loss of identity, loss of power and loss of culture, continually corroding the foundations on which African communities try to build.
The perpetuation of slavery-derived colonial narratives occur to the detriment of African people, most powerfully because it deprives African people of self-knowledge. These narratives will never be challenged or changed by the ruling minority class, the dominant culture, deniers of their existence, by assimilationists, or other races for which they have no negative impact. The African community will only be restored when it restores its own sense of "Nyon Nyor Nyan", which means "Who are we?" in the Grand Dakar Wolof language of West Africa.
Anyone educated in the formal education system, under established institutional structures, will be hard pressed to understand these perspectives. Anyone engaged in self-discovery - tantamount to awakening one's African consciousness at some level - might share a glimmer of understanding. Sadly, many who participate in this journey reach only as far as intellectual engagement, stopping just short of applying their knowledge to restore their way of life, stopping just short of where their real power lies.
My family is a living testament of this. Most Bahamian families do not contemplate the question: should we send the children to church? That is a given. To be a good Christian in a Christian nation, children must go to church. So I was surprised to hear my father recount the story about his argument with my mother over whether or not my brother and I should be sent to church.
My father was never sold on the idea of Church, thinking Sunday was the day for the family to spend together on the beach, and share Sunday dinner. Beyond that, he had fundamental problems with religion. Although he grew up grounded in a Church going family, Western religion never satisfied his spiritual needs. In the end, he gave in to my mother's wishes, for the sake of peace making. In the case of my mother, she knew of no alternative to satisfy the family's spiritual needs, so church was it.
Why all the scepticism of that which is so called holy? I completely understand my father's sentiments today, because African people have suffered greatly from the destructive colonial narratives about African history, culture and identity; from lies, dammed lies, and lying liars, the biggest of which have been perpetuated by Christians.
Christians, particularly Christian missionaries, are responsible for some of the greatest atrocities to the African race and they continue to wield their power to the death of the African spirit. It would serve African people well never to forget this fact, particularly as they seek to restore some semblance of order to their communities.
Unfortunately, there is little spiritual or intellectual freedom in the Bahamas to critically examine the Christianization of African people, without being oppressed, ostracized, or damned to hell. This process is important not to bash Christianity, or instruct Christians on how to be Christians, but for African people to take back rights to their own spirituality.
The Haitian case study is a clear example of how colonial narratives work their magic, a type of magic far worse than the 'black magic' of Hollywood's invention, Vodou portrayed in images of sorcery, zombies, bad spells and evil spirits. The seeds of intolerance, self-hate and division planted to turn Vodou into Satan and all things evil are the same seeds sewn to blind African people of their traditional African cultural practices. Many of these practices are retained in the West today, and they have the potential to be sources of great pride and vehicles for strengthening the African community.
Last month news emerged out of Haiti of Christian Evangelicals violently disrupting a Vodou ceremony being conducted for deceased earthquake victims..
According to Haitian police, protesters were responding to calls from their pastor, who urged his followers to attack the ceremony. The evangelicals threw rocks at practitioners, urinated on their Vévé, or sacred religious symbols, and vandalised their altars that contained offerings of food and rum for the ancestors.
Around the same time news emerged that Christian missionary groups were discriminating against Vodou practitioners in the distribution of relief supplies, using the aid as bargaining chips for buying souls. Some Vodou practitioners reportedly converted to Christianity out of fear they might lose the opportunity to receive badly needed supplies.
Since the January 12 earthquake, Catholics, Baptists, Scientologists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other missionaries flocked to Haiti. The presence of Christian missionaries in Haiti is nothing new. Over the years, the army of Christian aid organisations have grown so large they virtually run Haiti's social services.
The relationship is not strictly benevolent, because for hundreds of years Christian missionaries have tried to entrench the colonial narrative equating Vodou with devil worship. Their efforts suffered a major blow in 2003, when Haiti's Catholic President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide declared Vodou an official religion of Haiti, setting out regulations for Vodou ceremonies, such as marriage, to have equal status to Christian ones.
It was no surprise then to hear Christian evangelical Pat Robertson speak of Haiti's pact with the devil. This is how the lie goes. A black witch doctor slave named Boukman and a Vodou priestess Cecile Fatiman presided over a pagan ritual on 14 August 1791 in which participants sacrificed a pig and drank its blood in order to form a pack with the devil in exchange for freedom from the French. On August 22, 1791, the Africans entered into a rebellion that persisted - not without setbacks - until Haiti declared itself free: the first free African republic.
As convenient a lie the 'pact with the devil' story may be, this colonial narrative, invented originally by Christian missionaries to demonize African liberationists and Vodou practitioners, is a corruption of actual historic events that should be a source of pride and strength for the African community. Instead, it is a source of shame and scandal; a mechanism to deny African people knowledge of one of the most important meetings and ceremonies perhaps to the entire emancipation and independence movement.
The story of the meeting at Bwa Kayiman in the northern mountains of Haiti some say is an amalgamation of two historical meetings: one a planning meeting, the other a Vodou ceremony. Whether it was one or two, the basis of the meeting was to unify the various African groups originating from different places in Africa, speaking different languages, and living on different plantations in Haiti. The Africans summoned the sacred energies of the universe and the power of the ancestors to support them on their mission to launch the liberation war. There was likely the ritual sacrificing of an animal and spilling of blood which is not only common in African tradition, but in secular and sacred rituals across the globe.
As a child, you learn one of the most sacred pacts two friends and make is to prick the hand of the other and exchange a handshake of blood. Christians ritually use blood in the Holy Communion. The ritual use of blood is not unique to traditional African culture.
There is a famous prayer, widely believed in Haiti to have been delivered by Boukman at the ceremony: "The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer.
The white man's god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It's He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It's He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men's god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts."
This information is the basis on which Christian missionaries and colonizers believed Haiti made a pact with the devil. This is the basis on which the myth continues to be perpetuated. This is just one example of the countless lies, dammed lies and lying liars.
Clearly, there was no pact with the devil; this was a highly spiritual initiation ceremony calling on the spirit of God to prepare the African warriors for the ensuing battle. If Christians believe this to be a "pact with the devil" then sobeit; this simply reveals their lack of knowledge and perspective, and their linear way of thinking.
If in order to elevate African people out of poverty; liberate African people from mental slavery; and restore the functioning of the traditional African community, the cost were a so called "pack with the devil", that deal would be signed, sealed and delivered. I certainly would book myself on a one-way ticket to the eternal inferno.
The Christianisation project has rendered African people an impotent lot, with most African people living in hell on earth already, consoled only by a great faith in eternal life after death. With this thought I am always reminded of the 'great prophet' Jimmy Cliff, who said: "Well, they tell me of a pie up in the sky, waiting for me when I die, but between the day you're born and when you die, they never seem to hear even your cry. So as sure as the sun will shine, I'm gonna get my share now, what's mine."
The impact of colonial narratives is not just born out in the lies themselves, but also in the lies of omission implicit in the telling of these stories. This became apparent to me when I realized that although I rejected the colonial image of Vodou, I had no understanding of what the real Vodou was.
Recently, my level of understanding evolved. Where I would have once spoken about Voodoo, I now speak about Vodou, because Vodou, spelt as such, is considered the most correct phonetic English translation from the Fon language word "Vodun", which means sacred energies, and Voodoo too readily conjures up the invented Hollywood image.
"Haitian deities are living entities, living energies in nature. The energies in Vodun are not perfect like the Catholic Saints. No. They mirror the imperfect world and are found always in the universe and may be elevated or not. In Vodun, there are no middlemen between you and what is good, sacred and divine. Your highest self is in you, or you may allow the mass consciousness to take you over," writes Marguerite Laurent, an award winning playwright, performance poet, political and social commentator, author and human rights attorney, in her essay on counter-colonial narratives on Vodun.
Vodun, as you will find is consistent with many traditional spiritual practices, is very unlike modern religions, in that it has no prescribed doctrine. There is a priestly order, but these community leaders are often keepers of the secrets of the community, keepers of the community's oral history, and vehicles for the community to govern itself and elevate its sacred values.
"It's an African tradition, a way of life, a psychology, philosophy, art, mythology for taping into and understanding and controlling human nature; it's the use of herbs, prescient dreams, a healing way of being, of excavating the unconscious and bringing forth the sacred energies that we all are essentially a part of," writes Ms Laurent.
The Hollywood version of 'Voodoo' is far removed from the real practice of Vodou, just as the truth of 'Haiti's pack with the devil' is far removed from the truth of the events giving birth to Haiti's 13-year liberation war.
Narrative
Although I always suspected and at some point knew the colonial narrative of Vodou was false, I had no idea what the truth was, or where the source of unfiltered truth resided. The only frame of reference I had to approach Vodou was still the negative perspective shaped by the colonial view I rejected. I realized the same was true with my understanding of traditional African culture.
The colonial narrative instructs me that Africans had no history, Africans had no inventors, Africans had no advanced medical technologies, Africans had no religion or valid world views, Africans worshiped many gods, Africans were primitive in this that and the next. I knew the colonial narratives were false, but I had no concept of what the unfiltered truth was. I suspect that was the same problem my father faced when he had to contemplate the question: should the children go to church.
I came to learn that in the area of religion and spirituality, there is a rich African culture that is perhaps becoming increasingly more relevant in modern times. The Bahamas has its very own African religious retention, Obeah, but this practice is merely written off as devil worship or black magic. Very little work has been done in the study of Obeah towards its recognition as a valid, albeit endangered, African retention in the Bahamas.
The Bahamas is even lagging in the Caribbean, where places like Jamaica, have elevated religious retentions like Revivalism and Kumina, even if only at a ceremonial level.
Although Obeah, in its present day form, does not retain the type of structure, with collective rituals found in Haitian Vodou or Afro-Cuban Lucumi tradition, or Trinidadian Shouter Baptists, it is still has a valid story to tell of "Nyon Nyor Nyan".
The knowledge that other living African traditions have to share with us is vast. In contrast to the colonial narrative about life and death, heaven and hell, which is based on a linear model, the Bantu-Kongo cosmology of the Kikongo people teach us about the coil of life on which past, present and future exist on an unbroken continuum. Life has no beginning or end; it merely constitutes a cycle of unending change. This gives birth to the central importance of ancestors, because the energy of a person never truly dies. Below the invisible wall between the physical and spiritual world lies the ancestral realm. The physical world is capable of interacting with the spiritual world, because the continuum is fluid.
The primacy of the ancestors is consistent in all traditional African religions, and based on this world view the failure of African people to cultivate a relationship with their ancestors could be a source of their demise. Dr Fu-Kiau Bunseki, a traditional Bantu healer, suggests that each living human being is a seed of a seed of a seed of a seed of a seed of a seed of a seed of a seed. There is a perpetual transfer of form and energy from one seed or generation or ancestor to another.
Ancestor
The inclination to remember and the desire to reconnect is deeply rooted in African tradition. In African culture the genesis of each individual flows from the original ancestor who was given life from the hands of the Creator, not the parents from which one was born. The honouring of one's ancestors is a recognition of that continuation, a recognition of the shoulders upon which each person stands.
The Dagara people of present day Burkina Faso teach us about the relationship between the ancestors and community. "For the Dagara people, death results in simply a different form of belonging to the community. It is a lesson from nature that change is the norm, that the world is defined by eternal cycles of decline and regeneration. Death is not a separation but a different form of communion, a higher form of connectedness with the community," writes Malidoma Some in "The Healing Wisdom of Africa".
African cultures have a systems approach to living, unlike the compartmentalized worldview typically found in the West. In African culture, the individual is an integral part of the community, just as each part of the body is essential to the functioning of the whole. This notion of the part to the whole is related to the concept of destiny.
Yoruba culture has something important to teach us about destiny. In the order for the community or the whole to function properly, each part has to be aligned with its purpose. A person's individual destiny is discovered in Yoruba culture through divination. Divination is based on binary code, which is the basic language the modern computer operates on. This ancient African technology is used to intuit the patterns of creation which contain the physical and spiritual DNA of a person. These dimensions are inseparable, as the physical aspect of a person is simply the manifestation of the spirit.
A visit to the career counselor is insufficient to determine one's true destiny.
The condition of the West is chaotic in the Yoruba world view, because individuals primarily determine their roles in society based on the pursuit of a personal passions or consumerist wants. Destiny helps to bring the individual into alignment with the community, with nature, with the universe and with themselves.
The Rastafari community provides an interesting case study for the impact embracing African culture can have on African men, who bear the brunt of the criticism for societal ills.
While the Rastafari community is not a homogenous group, consisting of various liturgical and non-liturgical orders, there are various elements that unify the way of life of the Rasta man, which are all deeply rooted in African tradition.
The fact that Rastafari is a relatively modern practice does not take away from its grounding. Rastafari men are respectful, enterprising, self-sufficient, family-oriented, and highly spiritual.
This is the model of the man for which the wider society elusively seeks. Perhaps we have much to learn from them.
This discussion of African spiritual traditions is in no way exhaustive.
Rather, it serves to shed a ray of light on an entire system of knowledge that most African people are not exposed to because of the omissions symptomatic of colonial narratives.
The limited exposure that is gained is so heavily influenced by these colonial narratives that their point of view is invariably distorted. African spiritual traditions are not evil, devilish, pagan, or polytheistic.
On the contrary, they are an essential part of who we are and keys to restoring the African community.
This acknowledgement can only come with the discarding of the colonial mask.
If African people would give up the pleasure of basking in the bliss of ignorance, and suffer through the pain of their own enlightenment, they might just discover the reality of "Nyon Nyor Nyan".
March 15, 2010
tribune242
An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Tonton Macoutes: The central nervous system of Haiti's reign of terror
By David Aponte, COHA Research Associate
A Malediction on Haitian Society
Few countries in the hemisphere have suffered through such an extensive run of unqualified repressive regimes and military dictatorships as Haiti. The nearly thirty years of harsh rule under François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier that ended in 1986, are likely the most infamous epoch in the painful history of this small French-Creole nation that occupies the western third of the Caribbean island of La Hispaniola. Certainly, the main tool for the maintenance of the regime’s grasp on the population through much of this period was the “Tonton Macoutes,” renamed in 1971 as the Milice de Voluntaires de la Sécurité Nationale —MVSN (Volunteers for National Security). Although this organization no longer formally exists, its legacy of paramilitary violence and sheer brutality still contorts Haitian modern political and economic cultures.
The Birth of Terror
In 1959, only two years after becoming president, “Papa Doc” created a paramilitary force that would report only to him and would be fully empowered to use unremitting violence to maintain the new administration’s authority to summarily dispose of its enemies. This marked the birth of one of the most brutal paramilitary organizations in the hemisphere and was justified by the leader’s profound paranoia towards the threat posed by the regular armed forces. Haiti’s military began to steadily lose a great deal of authority with the consolidation of the François Duvalier regime, which it would not recover until 1986, when the pressure coming from senior military officers played a major role in the fall of Jean-Claude. A spate of coups followed, with military figures occupying the vacancy left by “Baby Doc.”
The Haitians nicknamed this warlord-led goon squad the “Tonton Macoutes,” after the Creole translation of a common myth, about an “uncle” (Tonton) who kidnaps and punishes obstreperous kids by snaring them in a gunnysack (Macoute) and carrying them off to be consumed at breakfast. Consequently, these torturers, kidnapers and extortionists were feared not only by children, but also by the country’s general population, as well as by opposition members and business men not willing to make enforced pay-offs to the authorities. The militia consisted mostly of illiterate fanatics that were converted into ruthless zombie-like gunmen. Their straw hats, blue denim shirts, dark glasses and machetes remain indelibly etched in the minds of millions of Haitians.
Ever since its establishment, this brutal organization had free rein to act unreservedly, disregarding any ethical or civil rights of the citizenry that might interfere with its indiscriminate violence. They were not accountable to any state branch, court or elected body, but rather only to their leader, “Papa Doc.”
The Second Most Feared Man in Haiti
The dictator’s hold on power was guaranteed by the secret police’s terror campaign, and usually, the head of the “Macoutes,” was considered to be extremely close to the dictator. This was especially true under President François Duvalier. Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the “Tonton Macoutes” throughout the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s, for two reasons: first, because he was considered perhaps the most powerful and influential man in Haiti during the transition from “Papa” to “Baby Doc,” and second, because of his unique brand of cruelty that enabled him to become very rich and earned him the nickname “Vampire of the Caribbean.”
As a result of his close relationship with “Papa Doc,” Luckner climbed rapidly up Haiti’s power structure and he became the chief plotter of the extortions carried out by his henchmen. Later, he profited by supplying corpses and blood to universities and hospitals in the United States. His brutality was manifest whenever there was a shortage of what he considered raw material (corpses). In that case, he did not hesitate to kill innocent people to facilitate the growth of his “industry.”
In 1971, following an altercation with the Duvalier family regarding his role in post-“Papa Doc” Haiti, Luckner fled to Miami. Nevertheless, he remained an ardent supporter of the Haitian regime until his death in October of 2006. He stated once in the British newspaper The Independent that a “good Duvalierist is prepared to kill his children (for Duvalier) and expects his children to kill their parents for him.” This sentiment displays the rationale of the “Tonton Macoutes,” a goon squad, which was fiercely loyal to but one family and not in any way in the service of the nation or its people. Even though there are some MSVN leaders that were never formally identified in the recent history of Haiti, such as Roger Lafontant, they all are clear examples of the power that the organization and its leaders had and continue to possess to one degree or another, in contemporary Haiti.
Mysticism and Reality
A key characteristic of the structure of the MSVN was that some of the most important members of the “Tonton Macoutes” were vodou leaders, with this belief system currently practiced by roughly half of the country’s population. This religious affiliation gave the “Macoutes” a sense of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public, which allowed them to perform horrific acts without any form of retribution from the Haitian population at large. What this means is that “the ‘Tontons Macoutes’ were part of a conscious strategy to identify spiritual forces and nationalism with loyalty to Duvalier, and to instill fear in [his] opponents.” From their methods to their choice of clothes, vodou always played an important role in their actions.
However, despite the religious nature of vodou, the facts as well as the numbers speak for themselves. These merciless killers murdered over 60,000 Haitians and many more were forced to flee their homes. Consequently, Haiti suffered an unparalleled and crippling brain drain that robbed the small country of many of its most educated citizens.
The militia created a sense of fear through continuous threats against the public as well as frequent random executions. The “Tonton Macoutes” often stoned and burned people alive, regularly following such rites by hanging bodies of their victims in the street as a warning to the population at large. The diversity of the victims was also a measure of the “Macoutes’” cruelty. They could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had the temerity to support an opposing politician, all the way to an accommodating foreign diplomat or even a business man who refused to “donate” money for public works (the public works being the pockets of corrupt officials and even the dictator himself).
The Role of the US
For decades, the situation in Haiti kept deteriorating without any calls for international intervention. Although the United States was a preeminently active and interested participant in the development of Haiti’s political culture, it failed to speak out against such atrocities—not even during human rights-focused administrations such as Jimmy Carter’s—as a result of Cold War logic. Washington was certainly far more interested in supporting a pro-American tyrant whose purported task was to stop the spread of communism in the region, rather than protecting the Haitian people by supporting a healthy democracy and a responsible authority in Port-au-Prince. Butch Ashton, a business man who made his fortune during the Duvalier dictatorship by establishing corporations such as Citrus (a fruit exporter) and the Toyota dealership in the country’s capital, vehemently claims that the Tonton Macoute militia was trained by the U.S. Marine Corps and that the highest levels of the American government were complicit in this arrangement.
The US has been an active supporter, albeit from the shadows, even years after the “Tonton Macoute” reign of violence officially was over. The Human Rights Watch reported on Haiti in 2004 and stated, “The United States, notably, showed little enthusiasm for the prosecution of past abuses. Indeed, it even impeded accountability by removing to the US thousands of documents from military and paramilitary headquarters, allowing notorious abusers to flee Haiti, and repeatedly giving safe haven to paramilitary leaders.”
The “Tonton Macoutes”: Legacy and Transformation
The darkness of the “Tonton Macoutes” era may have seemed to subside upon the official dismemberment of the organization, which occurred after “Baby Doc” fled Haiti for France in 1986. However, massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned by the Macoutes continued during the following decade. After 1991, when Aristide was illegally forced to leave the presidency, the vestiges of the MVSN became known as “attachés,” or savage groups of vigilantes attached to government security forces, or crooked political organizations which had the ability to use force against its foes. Consequently, a number of small paramilitary bodies were organized to work with these mafias as “stability” keepers. A good number of these new bodies were being formed by former “Macoutes.” Many of these militias remained nostalgic for the good old days of Duvalierism, with some even attempting to ignite their own reign of terror.
The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990’s emerged as a political presence just as sadistic as the MVSN: the “Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti—FRAPH,” which Toronto Star’s crack journalist Linda Diebel described as modern-Macoutes and not as the political party they claimed to be. The reporter declared that the FRAPH, under goon figure Emmanuel Constant, was even worse than the Duvalierist militia because it was no longer subordinate to one absolute authority. The FRAPH also cooperated with the regular army to persecute Aristide’s followers; this made them even more dangerous than the “Tonton Macoutes”, because in the old days the militia and the legal armed forces were more rivals than allies. This paramilitary group also extended its influence far outside La Hispaniola to diasporas throughout the world, “Fraph also had a presence abroad, with offices in New York, Miami, Montreal and other cities with large Haitian exile communities.”
These ghosts from the past still torment Haitian and U.S. policy: last year a group of civic activists accused the Obama administration of turning a blind-eye to the criminal activity being practiced against Aristide backers and supporters of his Fanmi Lavalas party. The group that was trying to prevent the participation of Haiti’s most popular party in the 2010 elections through the use of indiscriminate violence and political pressure was led by a former paramilitary leader convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and money laundering, Guy Philippe.
There a long history of paramilitary violence in Haiti that seems all but unstoppable, regardless of whatever government may be in charge. As Professor Robert Maguire observed in 2002, “the unabated power struggle among the country’s politicians has been joined by a renewal of the kind of paramilitary violence that the vast majority of Haitians hoped had ended with the disbandment of the Haitian Armed Forces in 1995.” But there are some other issues that feed the existence of the paramilitary phenomenon: these factors include drug trafficking, rampant poverty, demoralized police forces, and the primacy of the interests of the elite. All of these factors explain why the remnants of the “Tonton Macoutes” are still a very important part of Haiti’s political and social heritage, even as they and their descendents continue to fragment into small groups with different interests, maintaining their penchant for violence and chaos.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, visit www.coha.org
March 15, 2010
caribbeannetnews
A Malediction on Haitian Society
Few countries in the hemisphere have suffered through such an extensive run of unqualified repressive regimes and military dictatorships as Haiti. The nearly thirty years of harsh rule under François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier that ended in 1986, are likely the most infamous epoch in the painful history of this small French-Creole nation that occupies the western third of the Caribbean island of La Hispaniola. Certainly, the main tool for the maintenance of the regime’s grasp on the population through much of this period was the “Tonton Macoutes,” renamed in 1971 as the Milice de Voluntaires de la Sécurité Nationale —MVSN (Volunteers for National Security). Although this organization no longer formally exists, its legacy of paramilitary violence and sheer brutality still contorts Haitian modern political and economic cultures.
The Birth of Terror
In 1959, only two years after becoming president, “Papa Doc” created a paramilitary force that would report only to him and would be fully empowered to use unremitting violence to maintain the new administration’s authority to summarily dispose of its enemies. This marked the birth of one of the most brutal paramilitary organizations in the hemisphere and was justified by the leader’s profound paranoia towards the threat posed by the regular armed forces. Haiti’s military began to steadily lose a great deal of authority with the consolidation of the François Duvalier regime, which it would not recover until 1986, when the pressure coming from senior military officers played a major role in the fall of Jean-Claude. A spate of coups followed, with military figures occupying the vacancy left by “Baby Doc.”
The Haitians nicknamed this warlord-led goon squad the “Tonton Macoutes,” after the Creole translation of a common myth, about an “uncle” (Tonton) who kidnaps and punishes obstreperous kids by snaring them in a gunnysack (Macoute) and carrying them off to be consumed at breakfast. Consequently, these torturers, kidnapers and extortionists were feared not only by children, but also by the country’s general population, as well as by opposition members and business men not willing to make enforced pay-offs to the authorities. The militia consisted mostly of illiterate fanatics that were converted into ruthless zombie-like gunmen. Their straw hats, blue denim shirts, dark glasses and machetes remain indelibly etched in the minds of millions of Haitians.
Ever since its establishment, this brutal organization had free rein to act unreservedly, disregarding any ethical or civil rights of the citizenry that might interfere with its indiscriminate violence. They were not accountable to any state branch, court or elected body, but rather only to their leader, “Papa Doc.”
The Second Most Feared Man in Haiti
The dictator’s hold on power was guaranteed by the secret police’s terror campaign, and usually, the head of the “Macoutes,” was considered to be extremely close to the dictator. This was especially true under President François Duvalier. Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the “Tonton Macoutes” throughout the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s, for two reasons: first, because he was considered perhaps the most powerful and influential man in Haiti during the transition from “Papa” to “Baby Doc,” and second, because of his unique brand of cruelty that enabled him to become very rich and earned him the nickname “Vampire of the Caribbean.”
As a result of his close relationship with “Papa Doc,” Luckner climbed rapidly up Haiti’s power structure and he became the chief plotter of the extortions carried out by his henchmen. Later, he profited by supplying corpses and blood to universities and hospitals in the United States. His brutality was manifest whenever there was a shortage of what he considered raw material (corpses). In that case, he did not hesitate to kill innocent people to facilitate the growth of his “industry.”
In 1971, following an altercation with the Duvalier family regarding his role in post-“Papa Doc” Haiti, Luckner fled to Miami. Nevertheless, he remained an ardent supporter of the Haitian regime until his death in October of 2006. He stated once in the British newspaper The Independent that a “good Duvalierist is prepared to kill his children (for Duvalier) and expects his children to kill their parents for him.” This sentiment displays the rationale of the “Tonton Macoutes,” a goon squad, which was fiercely loyal to but one family and not in any way in the service of the nation or its people. Even though there are some MSVN leaders that were never formally identified in the recent history of Haiti, such as Roger Lafontant, they all are clear examples of the power that the organization and its leaders had and continue to possess to one degree or another, in contemporary Haiti.
Mysticism and Reality
A key characteristic of the structure of the MSVN was that some of the most important members of the “Tonton Macoutes” were vodou leaders, with this belief system currently practiced by roughly half of the country’s population. This religious affiliation gave the “Macoutes” a sense of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public, which allowed them to perform horrific acts without any form of retribution from the Haitian population at large. What this means is that “the ‘Tontons Macoutes’ were part of a conscious strategy to identify spiritual forces and nationalism with loyalty to Duvalier, and to instill fear in [his] opponents.” From their methods to their choice of clothes, vodou always played an important role in their actions.
However, despite the religious nature of vodou, the facts as well as the numbers speak for themselves. These merciless killers murdered over 60,000 Haitians and many more were forced to flee their homes. Consequently, Haiti suffered an unparalleled and crippling brain drain that robbed the small country of many of its most educated citizens.
The militia created a sense of fear through continuous threats against the public as well as frequent random executions. The “Tonton Macoutes” often stoned and burned people alive, regularly following such rites by hanging bodies of their victims in the street as a warning to the population at large. The diversity of the victims was also a measure of the “Macoutes’” cruelty. They could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had the temerity to support an opposing politician, all the way to an accommodating foreign diplomat or even a business man who refused to “donate” money for public works (the public works being the pockets of corrupt officials and even the dictator himself).
The Role of the US
For decades, the situation in Haiti kept deteriorating without any calls for international intervention. Although the United States was a preeminently active and interested participant in the development of Haiti’s political culture, it failed to speak out against such atrocities—not even during human rights-focused administrations such as Jimmy Carter’s—as a result of Cold War logic. Washington was certainly far more interested in supporting a pro-American tyrant whose purported task was to stop the spread of communism in the region, rather than protecting the Haitian people by supporting a healthy democracy and a responsible authority in Port-au-Prince. Butch Ashton, a business man who made his fortune during the Duvalier dictatorship by establishing corporations such as Citrus (a fruit exporter) and the Toyota dealership in the country’s capital, vehemently claims that the Tonton Macoute militia was trained by the U.S. Marine Corps and that the highest levels of the American government were complicit in this arrangement.
The US has been an active supporter, albeit from the shadows, even years after the “Tonton Macoute” reign of violence officially was over. The Human Rights Watch reported on Haiti in 2004 and stated, “The United States, notably, showed little enthusiasm for the prosecution of past abuses. Indeed, it even impeded accountability by removing to the US thousands of documents from military and paramilitary headquarters, allowing notorious abusers to flee Haiti, and repeatedly giving safe haven to paramilitary leaders.”
The “Tonton Macoutes”: Legacy and Transformation
The darkness of the “Tonton Macoutes” era may have seemed to subside upon the official dismemberment of the organization, which occurred after “Baby Doc” fled Haiti for France in 1986. However, massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned by the Macoutes continued during the following decade. After 1991, when Aristide was illegally forced to leave the presidency, the vestiges of the MVSN became known as “attachés,” or savage groups of vigilantes attached to government security forces, or crooked political organizations which had the ability to use force against its foes. Consequently, a number of small paramilitary bodies were organized to work with these mafias as “stability” keepers. A good number of these new bodies were being formed by former “Macoutes.” Many of these militias remained nostalgic for the good old days of Duvalierism, with some even attempting to ignite their own reign of terror.
The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990’s emerged as a political presence just as sadistic as the MVSN: the “Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti—FRAPH,” which Toronto Star’s crack journalist Linda Diebel described as modern-Macoutes and not as the political party they claimed to be. The reporter declared that the FRAPH, under goon figure Emmanuel Constant, was even worse than the Duvalierist militia because it was no longer subordinate to one absolute authority. The FRAPH also cooperated with the regular army to persecute Aristide’s followers; this made them even more dangerous than the “Tonton Macoutes”, because in the old days the militia and the legal armed forces were more rivals than allies. This paramilitary group also extended its influence far outside La Hispaniola to diasporas throughout the world, “Fraph also had a presence abroad, with offices in New York, Miami, Montreal and other cities with large Haitian exile communities.”
These ghosts from the past still torment Haitian and U.S. policy: last year a group of civic activists accused the Obama administration of turning a blind-eye to the criminal activity being practiced against Aristide backers and supporters of his Fanmi Lavalas party. The group that was trying to prevent the participation of Haiti’s most popular party in the 2010 elections through the use of indiscriminate violence and political pressure was led by a former paramilitary leader convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and money laundering, Guy Philippe.
There a long history of paramilitary violence in Haiti that seems all but unstoppable, regardless of whatever government may be in charge. As Professor Robert Maguire observed in 2002, “the unabated power struggle among the country’s politicians has been joined by a renewal of the kind of paramilitary violence that the vast majority of Haitians hoped had ended with the disbandment of the Haitian Armed Forces in 1995.” But there are some other issues that feed the existence of the paramilitary phenomenon: these factors include drug trafficking, rampant poverty, demoralized police forces, and the primacy of the interests of the elite. All of these factors explain why the remnants of the “Tonton Macoutes” are still a very important part of Haiti’s political and social heritage, even as they and their descendents continue to fragment into small groups with different interests, maintaining their penchant for violence and chaos.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, visit www.coha.org
March 15, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The President of Haiti and the concept of leadership
By Jean H Charles:
The earthquake of January 12, 2010 that shook Port au Prince and its surrounding areas could not find a country so ill prepared for such catastrophe as the Republic of Haiti. It has no building code enforcement mechanism, property insurance is not mandatory; squatting on public land (and on private property) by internal migrants is not prevented by public authority and the Haitian government has failed to heed the advice of national and international experts in preparing its people for elementary steps to be taken in case of an earthquake disaster.
Countless people have died because they have rushed into crumbling buildings thinking they were facing the end of this earth. By contrast, similar or stronger earthquakes in San Francisco, have produced only 64 deaths, and in Chile 200 deaths. Haiti may have more than 500.000 deaths, making this disaster one of the most devastating events in modern history!
It is as such, proper and fit to look into the leadership style of the Haitian government, in particular its president, Rene Preval, to understand why there is such a large discrepancy in the protection of life and lamb in Haiti. I have met President Preval twice in my life. I met him some five years ago, when he was out of power (Preval has been president of Haiti twice) in the bucolic village of Marmelade where he retreated after his first term as president. I was the guest of one of the advisers of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his trip to Marmelade as the village was celebrating its patron Saint, Mary Magdalena. My friend was representing the president at the official Catholic mass in the village fiesta.
After the ceremony, friends and officials were invited to the president’s parental home for what I was expecting to be a small gathering with some coffee, Haitian patties and the customary pumpkin soup. To my distress, Preval (not president then) did not offer anything to his guests. I later presented to Mr. Preval my congratulations for dotting his village with the rudiments of good living that I am expecting to see in all the other villages of Haiti: a good school, access to internet, paved streets, a bamboo furniture factory. I suggested to him that such aura of welfare should be extended to the other two surrounding villages of Dondon and St Michel, creating as such a halo of sustainable growth in the region.
He left me thirsty for an answer or even an explanation of why he could not go further. I met President Preval again last year at a meeting arranged by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York while he was an official guest of the annual Conference. I shared with him the project for the decentralization of Haiti, while using some of the funds of the Petro Caribe dollars (an arrangement where Haiti receives oil from Venezuela below market price with 60% paid up front and 40% financed with a soft loan to be repaid in 25 years at one per cent interest) to initiate such a policy. His non-commitment as well as the non-engagement of his economic advisers is symptomatic of the style of government of President Rene Preval.
The president of Haiti does not understand that the buck stops with him. His most important task is to make decision. He would engage commissions for different tasks, but when the commission is over, the president must decide on one alternative or the other, yet the work of one commission after the other is catalogued into a drawer with no cause for action.
President Rene Preval comes from a middle class family in the northern part of Haiti. His father, Claude Preval, was a competent agronomist with a sterling reputation who scaled the rank of public service to become a Minister of Agriculture under President Paul Magloire. Rene did his elementary studies at George Marc College run by a friend of the family, one of the best mathematicians that Haiti has ever had. He was sent later to Brussels to complete his professional studies. To the deception of his father, young Rene was more interested in Marxist dialectic than in pursuing a regular course of study leading to a professional degree. He enrolled on his own in Lumumba University in Moscow.
On his return to Haiti he tried a bakery business, where he reconnected with some friends from Brussels, in particular Claudette Antoine Werleigh, who was engaged with Jean Bertrand Aristide in the underground movement to uproot the dictatorial and military regime of the Duvaliers. He was presented to Aristide by Werleigh; history has it they became like Siamese brothers.
From 1991 until today 2010, in the last twenty years President Rene Preval has occupied one way or the other the seat of power in Haiti. I have again, with permission of a friend, attended a Lavalas-Lewpwa meeting in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti, where the members have pledged they would hold power for the next forty years in Haiti.
President Preval’s most important task in ruling Haiti has been to uphold that pledge. No decision is taken without that goal in mind. On his last visit with President Barack Obama last Wednesday, his main request was not to help the millions of Haitians get out of the fetid and horrid tent cities into their ancestral villages with all the amenities that would retain them there; it was instead to get 100 million dollars to conduct an election where he would manipulate the electoral machine to perpetuate his grip unto power.
President Preval and his Siamese brother Jean Bertrand Arisitide during these last twenty years (20) have managed to sink Haiti into an abyss much deeper than the twin father and son Duvaliers have done in their thirty five (35) years of bad and dictatorial governance. He is proud of two achievements: road building and governance continuity. Yet these trophies are pregnant with the seed of corruption. Employees and government officials known as graft specialists are maintained or promoted. The program of road building is funded through the Petro Caribe trust that the president refuses to put into the regular public treasury account for transparency and accountability.
Leadership is the complex set of character that distinguishes one leader from the other. After the depression of 1929, President Herbert Hoover believed that the government should stay out the personal lives of the citizens, as such prolonging the crisis. By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon assuming office in 1933, brought a pro-active leadership, offering a new deal to the American citizens, while instilling into the men and the women of America to live according to their means; pennies were saved, belts were tightened. His motto: “The only fear we have to fear is fear itself”, resonates again today. The president used the crisis to attack several fronts at the same time, funding to revitalize business, food and shelter for the needy and job creation in the big projects that last again today; America was reborn, stronger and better.
After the 9/11 attacks, the rest of the world saw itself as American, we thought frivolity was no more a cashable currency but this expression of good will was squandered and not turned into a new blood to push forward the American manifest destiny.
Haiti’s disaster lesson could go to waste if President Preval does not change course in his style of leadership. As President Obama just told President Preval, the country is set for another disaster as the hurricane and the rainy season is on the way. The world cannot continue to look at Haiti with the same detachment that it did in Rwanda or in Burma.
President Preval, as well as his Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, keeps complaining about the ill-engagement of the international organizations in Haiti yet the appointment of a strong Minister of Coordination with the NGOs (with a small portion of their funding going towards financing that Ministry) would go a long way in helping service providers and Haitian refugees to receive much needed solace.
A project of decentralization with adequate funding going towards the small villages will propel Haiti into an orbit it has never been in before. An influential member of the Preval government has told me he has not been able to convince the government that he should engage into that path, instead of building the tent cities. The horde of refugees is needed for election time. Buying each vote with a token is easier and preferable to the government than the welfare of each individual.
For those guardians of the status quo in Haiti, the souls of those half a million unnecessary deaths will haunt you at night, scratching your feet and preventing the benefit of a peaceful night while turning your days into a mortal zombie!
As I have said in previous columns before the earthquake, the year 2010 is a turning point for Haiti; the whole legislative body, all the mayors, and all the sheriffs of the rural villages as well as a new president must be elected.
As goes Haiti, so goes the rest of the world! It was first to uproot the world order of slavery in 1804; it was again first to propagate the people’s revolution of 1986, it was first to start the food riot in 2004, questioning the developed world payback to their agriculture industry; the chain of earthquakes in this decade has started first with Haiti.
Helping to usher a democratic, fair and competent leader in Haiti, away from the plethora of corrupt, inept and non sensitive Presidents that Haiti have known for the past 60 years, will be the signal that this world is ready to enjoy a string of a better years to come!
March 13, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The earthquake of January 12, 2010 that shook Port au Prince and its surrounding areas could not find a country so ill prepared for such catastrophe as the Republic of Haiti. It has no building code enforcement mechanism, property insurance is not mandatory; squatting on public land (and on private property) by internal migrants is not prevented by public authority and the Haitian government has failed to heed the advice of national and international experts in preparing its people for elementary steps to be taken in case of an earthquake disaster.
Countless people have died because they have rushed into crumbling buildings thinking they were facing the end of this earth. By contrast, similar or stronger earthquakes in San Francisco, have produced only 64 deaths, and in Chile 200 deaths. Haiti may have more than 500.000 deaths, making this disaster one of the most devastating events in modern history! It is as such, proper and fit to look into the leadership style of the Haitian government, in particular its president, Rene Preval, to understand why there is such a large discrepancy in the protection of life and lamb in Haiti. I have met President Preval twice in my life. I met him some five years ago, when he was out of power (Preval has been president of Haiti twice) in the bucolic village of Marmelade where he retreated after his first term as president. I was the guest of one of the advisers of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his trip to Marmelade as the village was celebrating its patron Saint, Mary Magdalena. My friend was representing the president at the official Catholic mass in the village fiesta.
After the ceremony, friends and officials were invited to the president’s parental home for what I was expecting to be a small gathering with some coffee, Haitian patties and the customary pumpkin soup. To my distress, Preval (not president then) did not offer anything to his guests. I later presented to Mr. Preval my congratulations for dotting his village with the rudiments of good living that I am expecting to see in all the other villages of Haiti: a good school, access to internet, paved streets, a bamboo furniture factory. I suggested to him that such aura of welfare should be extended to the other two surrounding villages of Dondon and St Michel, creating as such a halo of sustainable growth in the region.
He left me thirsty for an answer or even an explanation of why he could not go further. I met President Preval again last year at a meeting arranged by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York while he was an official guest of the annual Conference. I shared with him the project for the decentralization of Haiti, while using some of the funds of the Petro Caribe dollars (an arrangement where Haiti receives oil from Venezuela below market price with 60% paid up front and 40% financed with a soft loan to be repaid in 25 years at one per cent interest) to initiate such a policy. His non-commitment as well as the non-engagement of his economic advisers is symptomatic of the style of government of President Rene Preval.
The president of Haiti does not understand that the buck stops with him. His most important task is to make decision. He would engage commissions for different tasks, but when the commission is over, the president must decide on one alternative or the other, yet the work of one commission after the other is catalogued into a drawer with no cause for action.
President Rene Preval comes from a middle class family in the northern part of Haiti. His father, Claude Preval, was a competent agronomist with a sterling reputation who scaled the rank of public service to become a Minister of Agriculture under President Paul Magloire. Rene did his elementary studies at George Marc College run by a friend of the family, one of the best mathematicians that Haiti has ever had. He was sent later to Brussels to complete his professional studies. To the deception of his father, young Rene was more interested in Marxist dialectic than in pursuing a regular course of study leading to a professional degree. He enrolled on his own in Lumumba University in Moscow.
On his return to Haiti he tried a bakery business, where he reconnected with some friends from Brussels, in particular Claudette Antoine Werleigh, who was engaged with Jean Bertrand Aristide in the underground movement to uproot the dictatorial and military regime of the Duvaliers. He was presented to Aristide by Werleigh; history has it they became like Siamese brothers.
From 1991 until today 2010, in the last twenty years President Rene Preval has occupied one way or the other the seat of power in Haiti. I have again, with permission of a friend, attended a Lavalas-Lewpwa meeting in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti, where the members have pledged they would hold power for the next forty years in Haiti.
President Preval’s most important task in ruling Haiti has been to uphold that pledge. No decision is taken without that goal in mind. On his last visit with President Barack Obama last Wednesday, his main request was not to help the millions of Haitians get out of the fetid and horrid tent cities into their ancestral villages with all the amenities that would retain them there; it was instead to get 100 million dollars to conduct an election where he would manipulate the electoral machine to perpetuate his grip unto power.
President Preval and his Siamese brother Jean Bertrand Arisitide during these last twenty years (20) have managed to sink Haiti into an abyss much deeper than the twin father and son Duvaliers have done in their thirty five (35) years of bad and dictatorial governance. He is proud of two achievements: road building and governance continuity. Yet these trophies are pregnant with the seed of corruption. Employees and government officials known as graft specialists are maintained or promoted. The program of road building is funded through the Petro Caribe trust that the president refuses to put into the regular public treasury account for transparency and accountability.
Leadership is the complex set of character that distinguishes one leader from the other. After the depression of 1929, President Herbert Hoover believed that the government should stay out the personal lives of the citizens, as such prolonging the crisis. By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon assuming office in 1933, brought a pro-active leadership, offering a new deal to the American citizens, while instilling into the men and the women of America to live according to their means; pennies were saved, belts were tightened. His motto: “The only fear we have to fear is fear itself”, resonates again today. The president used the crisis to attack several fronts at the same time, funding to revitalize business, food and shelter for the needy and job creation in the big projects that last again today; America was reborn, stronger and better.
After the 9/11 attacks, the rest of the world saw itself as American, we thought frivolity was no more a cashable currency but this expression of good will was squandered and not turned into a new blood to push forward the American manifest destiny.
Haiti’s disaster lesson could go to waste if President Preval does not change course in his style of leadership. As President Obama just told President Preval, the country is set for another disaster as the hurricane and the rainy season is on the way. The world cannot continue to look at Haiti with the same detachment that it did in Rwanda or in Burma.
President Preval, as well as his Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, keeps complaining about the ill-engagement of the international organizations in Haiti yet the appointment of a strong Minister of Coordination with the NGOs (with a small portion of their funding going towards financing that Ministry) would go a long way in helping service providers and Haitian refugees to receive much needed solace.
A project of decentralization with adequate funding going towards the small villages will propel Haiti into an orbit it has never been in before. An influential member of the Preval government has told me he has not been able to convince the government that he should engage into that path, instead of building the tent cities. The horde of refugees is needed for election time. Buying each vote with a token is easier and preferable to the government than the welfare of each individual.
For those guardians of the status quo in Haiti, the souls of those half a million unnecessary deaths will haunt you at night, scratching your feet and preventing the benefit of a peaceful night while turning your days into a mortal zombie!
As I have said in previous columns before the earthquake, the year 2010 is a turning point for Haiti; the whole legislative body, all the mayors, and all the sheriffs of the rural villages as well as a new president must be elected.
As goes Haiti, so goes the rest of the world! It was first to uproot the world order of slavery in 1804; it was again first to propagate the people’s revolution of 1986, it was first to start the food riot in 2004, questioning the developed world payback to their agriculture industry; the chain of earthquakes in this decade has started first with Haiti.
Helping to usher a democratic, fair and competent leader in Haiti, away from the plethora of corrupt, inept and non sensitive Presidents that Haiti have known for the past 60 years, will be the signal that this world is ready to enjoy a string of a better years to come!
March 13, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Friday, March 12, 2010
Harpooning Caribbean Tourism: Swallowing a dead rat
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops.
As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops. As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Bahamas: Time for income tax?
By Scott Armstrong ~ Guardian Business Editor ~ scott@nasguard.com
twitter.com/guardianbiz:
While the news was being digested that The Bahamas was now back on the the international tax white list, one well-known financier called for the government to look again at the nation's tax structure.
Paul Moss, managing director of the financial services company Dominion Management Services Ltd, welcomed the news that The Bahamas had signed the 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) he warned that it would only be a question of time before the G20 and the OECD wanted more.
He said: "While the government should be congratulated for having acted appropriately to have the Bahamas removed off the grey list, it is a momentary victory as it will not be long before the OECD coming knocking again with more demands.
"When you give them an inch they take the proverbial mile and this is why I have called for the Bahamas to change its tax structure so that we could avoid these kinds of demands. We ought to now become proactive by introducing income tax with a low flat rate so we are no longer accused of being a tax heaven which makes us at the whim of the OECD.
"I am tired of saying it but sometimes you must repeat until our leaders get it. Only when we become a taxed jurisdiction (income tax) would we be left lone.
"Now is the perfect opportunity for us to engage in this dialog and seek to sign double taxation agreement with every country in the world if necessary.
"This is serious business and we cannot afford to continue to be reactionary in this regard. I now call on the professionals in private practice and the government to sit and maturely map out a new tax regime which will also have the desired affect of bring more money to the treasury as we as making it more equitable for the poor".
Thursday March 11, 2010
thenassauguardian
twitter.com/guardianbiz:
While the news was being digested that The Bahamas was now back on the the international tax white list, one well-known financier called for the government to look again at the nation's tax structure.
Paul Moss, managing director of the financial services company Dominion Management Services Ltd, welcomed the news that The Bahamas had signed the 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) he warned that it would only be a question of time before the G20 and the OECD wanted more.
He said: "While the government should be congratulated for having acted appropriately to have the Bahamas removed off the grey list, it is a momentary victory as it will not be long before the OECD coming knocking again with more demands.
"When you give them an inch they take the proverbial mile and this is why I have called for the Bahamas to change its tax structure so that we could avoid these kinds of demands. We ought to now become proactive by introducing income tax with a low flat rate so we are no longer accused of being a tax heaven which makes us at the whim of the OECD.
"I am tired of saying it but sometimes you must repeat until our leaders get it. Only when we become a taxed jurisdiction (income tax) would we be left lone.
"Now is the perfect opportunity for us to engage in this dialog and seek to sign double taxation agreement with every country in the world if necessary.
"This is serious business and we cannot afford to continue to be reactionary in this regard. I now call on the professionals in private practice and the government to sit and maturely map out a new tax regime which will also have the desired affect of bring more money to the treasury as we as making it more equitable for the poor".
Thursday March 11, 2010
thenassauguardian
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
RESTAVEK...: A HIDDEN EVIL
Insight - tribune242:
"The restavek culture is being exported from Haiti to other Caribbean countries. It is very much slavery and I think it's going to increase exponentially now."
-Aaron Cohen
I WOULD wager that few Bahamians lose sleep contemplating the tortures endured by an 11-year-old girl forced into the sex trade, or imagine themselves in the shoes of a young boy, barely a toddler, sold to strangers and forced to work tirelessly for his survival.
For most people, the ability to empathise with extreme suffering decreases in proportion to its distance from their normal experience, and most of us in the Bahamas are thankful these scenarios play themselves out elsewhere.
However according to one human rights pioneer, we are fooling ourselves - modern day slaves are being trafficked in this country right under our noses and the trade may be set to explode.
American activist Aaron Cohen is widely considered to be the world's foremost expert on modern-day slavery. He is credited with rescuing numerous young girls from enslavement as sex workers and many young men from child soldiering camps.
He travels the world to shed light on the reality that the trade in human beings is alive and well in virtually every modern society. He notes that with 27 million slaves worldwide and another million sold into slavery each year, there are more enslaved people now than at any time in human history.
When I spoke with Mr Cohen, he was leaving New York after giving a speech at the UN on the status of women. Later this month, he is off to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to talk about what he considers an issue of the utmost urgency - the fallout from the earthquake in Haiti, which was until recently a central hub for the trafficking of humans.
Mr Cohen told me he believes the disaster in Haiti has severely curtailed the ability of organised crime to use that country for the transshipment of domestic and sex slaves, and that other countries in the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and the Bahamas, are prime candidates to take up the slack.
He said: "I think the effect of the disaster on slavery in the Caribbean is going to be this: number one, there is going to be more poverty in Haiti and therefore an exodus; that's already being witnessed statistically.
"Second, in the past, in human trafficking just like in drugs and arms trafficking, you have criminal organisations that use countries of origin, transit and destination to operate their illicit businesses. Haiti previously was both a destination country and a transit country. Girls coming out of the Dominican Republic were transited out of Haiti to Europe, to the Bahamas, to Jamaica, to the United States. What's going to happen now is, because of the increased scrutiny in Haiti because of the international presence, we're going to see this transit business spread to the nearby Caribbean."
As proof, Mr Cohen pointed to what happened after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a capital of organised crime, drug and human trafficking.
"When the disaster occurred, there was an 80 per cent increase in murders in Houston, Texas. There was the same increase in human trafficking, and now Houston is the hub of human trafficking in the United States. I would imagine that's what's going to happen to the Bahamas," he said.
Mr Cohen noted that the existing culture of illegal immigration from Haiti makes the Bahamas a particularly "soft target" and therefore an ideal replacement as a transit location for captive people.
"It is highly probable, if not statistically provable, that the Bahamas will have an increase in human trafficking from the disaster in Haiti," he said.
According to Mr Cohen, what makes modern-day slavery particularly insidious is the fact that it is largely invisible.
The transatlantic slave trade, while monstrous, was at least tangible and had limits, could be argued against and protested.
Now, slavery is a covert phenomenon, and those who take part in it - either by smuggling someone else's children or selling their own - may only do so once or twice in their lives out of financial necessity. It is governed by no rules or central authorities, respects no treaties or boundaries, and is immune to rational or moral entreaties.
"You can buy crystal vases in a store and they are very transparent, but paper cups aren't, and they're disposable," Mr Cohen said. "Slavery is like that -- it is no longer an item that stays in the family for a lifetime; it's a disposable commodity, so it's very hidden."
He noted two additional factors that obscure the signs of human trafficking in the Bahamas in particular. Firstly, the reluctance of law enforcement to aggressively tackle prostitution - which often relies on foreign women tricked or forced into the sex trade. The occasional raids aside, virtually every resident of Nassau can name at least one brothel operating without interference from the police.
The second factor is the introduction, through illegal immigration, of the Haitian "restavek" system.
Restavek - which means in Creole "one who stays with" - is a system whereby poor rural families send their children to stay with and work for urban families as domestic servants. They are usually between the ages of five and 14, as Haitian law requires workers 15 and older to be paid. Sometimes the children are sold, but sometimes no money changes hands.
Cultural standards are of course relative - as seen in the International Labour Organisation's condemnation of the use of packing boys in Bahamian supermarkets - and in Haiti, the system is seen as a normal facet of society.
But anti-slavery campaigners like Mr Cohen emphasise that the lack of regulation means these children are often subjected to severe abuse and exploitation. "I don't even like to use the term domestic servants," he said, "because it conjures up an image of some moral, legal employment model and that's not what we're talking about."
He added that the likelihood of physical and sexual abuse increases when the system is transplanted outside Haiti, particularly to countries like the Bahamas, where the immigrant population is subjected to discrimination and often treated as subhuman.
Jean-Robert Cadet, founder of the Restavek Foundation which works to raise awareness of this phenomenon, was once a restavek himself. He says that as a "domestic slave", he endured years of physical and emotional abuse, working seven days a week with no pay and no time for recreation or rest. According to his website, restavekfreedom.org, there are an estimated 300,000 restavek children in Haiti.
Mr Cohen is eager to investigate the extent of the problem here, but as a rule does not request government co-operation for his investigations, as authorities in many countries are themselves tied up in the trafficking of drugs, arms and people.
His organisation, Causecast, tries instead to work with non-governmental organisations and human rights activists to identify, interview and hopefully rescue victims of human trafficking, while gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute offenders. Unfortunately, he says, the modern slave trade is hidden in the Bahamas to such an extent that even local activists are unaware of it.
He said: "One of the reasons we chose not to come to the Bahamas is because although we know the restavek culture has spilled over to that country and the sex trafficking trail (leads there), I don't have an organisation there that I can partner with as far as infrastructure and support.
"I spoke to a number of activists who told me there is no slavery, and I sort of took a step back when I heard that. I thought, 'My goodness, even some of the activists who are interested in combating this problem think that there is no slavery'.
"But there is no way around the fact that slavery is the fastest growing illegal enterprise in the world. It has already passed arms sales to become the number two illicit business in the world, period.
"The fact that the restaveks are there would indicate to me that there is an enormous amount of exploitation going on in the Bahamas and the country is at risk of falling into the tentacles of organised crime in the Caribbean.
"When someone says there is no slavery, it's because they haven't educated themselves on the issue properly."
So, is Mr Cohen right? His views are certainly supported by the United States government.
The US State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons report states that "Haitian women, men, and children are trafficked into the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, the United States, Europe, Canada, and Jamaica for exploitation in domestic service, agriculture, and construction. Trafficked Dominican women and girls are forced into prostitution."
The report further notes that the Bahamas is a destination country for "men and women trafficked from Haiti and other Caribbean countries primarily for the purpose of forced labour, and women from Jamaica and other countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation."
In 2008, parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Prevention and Suppression Act which sets out penalties for offenders that range from three years to life imprisonment.
The State Department's report acknowledged this, but criticised the continuing tendency of law enforcement to conflate human trafficking with human smuggling - the transportation of persons engaging in illegal immigration voluntarily.
It also said the Bahamas failed to take steps to identify the casualties of the trade among vulnerable populations - such as foreign women and girls engaged in prostitution or women and girls intercepted while being smuggled in for this purpose - preferring to repatriate them as violators of immigration laws rather than offer them help as victims.
According to Mr Cohen, addressing this last point is vital. He said: "The average age of a woman who is prostituted is 11 years old. That makes them victims. They should not be treated as the criminals.
"The Bahamas needs to wake up and move towards the model the Scandinavians have created. Here's how it works: they have criminalised the demand, but they recognise that you cannot arrest a prostitute who is 14 and servicing a client who is 42 and then treat her like the criminal and let him go free. Yet that's happening even in the United States. The women, the victims, should be decriminalised and receive services and the Johns should face criminal prosecution."
He feels that treating such women merely as illegal immigrants - not to mention the children we send back to Haiti on a regular basis without inquiring about their identity or circumstances - amounts to punishing slaves for their condition of slavery and heaping further misery upon people who have already endured unimaginable suffering.
What do you think?
Email:
pnunez@tribunemedia.net
March 08, 2010
tribune242
"The restavek culture is being exported from Haiti to other Caribbean countries. It is very much slavery and I think it's going to increase exponentially now."
-Aaron Cohen
I WOULD wager that few Bahamians lose sleep contemplating the tortures endured by an 11-year-old girl forced into the sex trade, or imagine themselves in the shoes of a young boy, barely a toddler, sold to strangers and forced to work tirelessly for his survival.
For most people, the ability to empathise with extreme suffering decreases in proportion to its distance from their normal experience, and most of us in the Bahamas are thankful these scenarios play themselves out elsewhere.
However according to one human rights pioneer, we are fooling ourselves - modern day slaves are being trafficked in this country right under our noses and the trade may be set to explode.
American activist Aaron Cohen is widely considered to be the world's foremost expert on modern-day slavery. He is credited with rescuing numerous young girls from enslavement as sex workers and many young men from child soldiering camps.
He travels the world to shed light on the reality that the trade in human beings is alive and well in virtually every modern society. He notes that with 27 million slaves worldwide and another million sold into slavery each year, there are more enslaved people now than at any time in human history.
When I spoke with Mr Cohen, he was leaving New York after giving a speech at the UN on the status of women. Later this month, he is off to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to talk about what he considers an issue of the utmost urgency - the fallout from the earthquake in Haiti, which was until recently a central hub for the trafficking of humans.
Mr Cohen told me he believes the disaster in Haiti has severely curtailed the ability of organised crime to use that country for the transshipment of domestic and sex slaves, and that other countries in the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and the Bahamas, are prime candidates to take up the slack.
He said: "I think the effect of the disaster on slavery in the Caribbean is going to be this: number one, there is going to be more poverty in Haiti and therefore an exodus; that's already being witnessed statistically.
"Second, in the past, in human trafficking just like in drugs and arms trafficking, you have criminal organisations that use countries of origin, transit and destination to operate their illicit businesses. Haiti previously was both a destination country and a transit country. Girls coming out of the Dominican Republic were transited out of Haiti to Europe, to the Bahamas, to Jamaica, to the United States. What's going to happen now is, because of the increased scrutiny in Haiti because of the international presence, we're going to see this transit business spread to the nearby Caribbean."
As proof, Mr Cohen pointed to what happened after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a capital of organised crime, drug and human trafficking.
"When the disaster occurred, there was an 80 per cent increase in murders in Houston, Texas. There was the same increase in human trafficking, and now Houston is the hub of human trafficking in the United States. I would imagine that's what's going to happen to the Bahamas," he said.
Mr Cohen noted that the existing culture of illegal immigration from Haiti makes the Bahamas a particularly "soft target" and therefore an ideal replacement as a transit location for captive people.
"It is highly probable, if not statistically provable, that the Bahamas will have an increase in human trafficking from the disaster in Haiti," he said.
According to Mr Cohen, what makes modern-day slavery particularly insidious is the fact that it is largely invisible.
The transatlantic slave trade, while monstrous, was at least tangible and had limits, could be argued against and protested.
Now, slavery is a covert phenomenon, and those who take part in it - either by smuggling someone else's children or selling their own - may only do so once or twice in their lives out of financial necessity. It is governed by no rules or central authorities, respects no treaties or boundaries, and is immune to rational or moral entreaties.
"You can buy crystal vases in a store and they are very transparent, but paper cups aren't, and they're disposable," Mr Cohen said. "Slavery is like that -- it is no longer an item that stays in the family for a lifetime; it's a disposable commodity, so it's very hidden."
He noted two additional factors that obscure the signs of human trafficking in the Bahamas in particular. Firstly, the reluctance of law enforcement to aggressively tackle prostitution - which often relies on foreign women tricked or forced into the sex trade. The occasional raids aside, virtually every resident of Nassau can name at least one brothel operating without interference from the police.
The second factor is the introduction, through illegal immigration, of the Haitian "restavek" system.
Restavek - which means in Creole "one who stays with" - is a system whereby poor rural families send their children to stay with and work for urban families as domestic servants. They are usually between the ages of five and 14, as Haitian law requires workers 15 and older to be paid. Sometimes the children are sold, but sometimes no money changes hands.
Cultural standards are of course relative - as seen in the International Labour Organisation's condemnation of the use of packing boys in Bahamian supermarkets - and in Haiti, the system is seen as a normal facet of society.
But anti-slavery campaigners like Mr Cohen emphasise that the lack of regulation means these children are often subjected to severe abuse and exploitation. "I don't even like to use the term domestic servants," he said, "because it conjures up an image of some moral, legal employment model and that's not what we're talking about."
He added that the likelihood of physical and sexual abuse increases when the system is transplanted outside Haiti, particularly to countries like the Bahamas, where the immigrant population is subjected to discrimination and often treated as subhuman.
Jean-Robert Cadet, founder of the Restavek Foundation which works to raise awareness of this phenomenon, was once a restavek himself. He says that as a "domestic slave", he endured years of physical and emotional abuse, working seven days a week with no pay and no time for recreation or rest. According to his website, restavekfreedom.org, there are an estimated 300,000 restavek children in Haiti.
Mr Cohen is eager to investigate the extent of the problem here, but as a rule does not request government co-operation for his investigations, as authorities in many countries are themselves tied up in the trafficking of drugs, arms and people.
His organisation, Causecast, tries instead to work with non-governmental organisations and human rights activists to identify, interview and hopefully rescue victims of human trafficking, while gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute offenders. Unfortunately, he says, the modern slave trade is hidden in the Bahamas to such an extent that even local activists are unaware of it.
He said: "One of the reasons we chose not to come to the Bahamas is because although we know the restavek culture has spilled over to that country and the sex trafficking trail (leads there), I don't have an organisation there that I can partner with as far as infrastructure and support.
"I spoke to a number of activists who told me there is no slavery, and I sort of took a step back when I heard that. I thought, 'My goodness, even some of the activists who are interested in combating this problem think that there is no slavery'.
"But there is no way around the fact that slavery is the fastest growing illegal enterprise in the world. It has already passed arms sales to become the number two illicit business in the world, period.
"The fact that the restaveks are there would indicate to me that there is an enormous amount of exploitation going on in the Bahamas and the country is at risk of falling into the tentacles of organised crime in the Caribbean.
"When someone says there is no slavery, it's because they haven't educated themselves on the issue properly."
So, is Mr Cohen right? His views are certainly supported by the United States government.
The US State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons report states that "Haitian women, men, and children are trafficked into the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, the United States, Europe, Canada, and Jamaica for exploitation in domestic service, agriculture, and construction. Trafficked Dominican women and girls are forced into prostitution."
The report further notes that the Bahamas is a destination country for "men and women trafficked from Haiti and other Caribbean countries primarily for the purpose of forced labour, and women from Jamaica and other countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation."
In 2008, parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Prevention and Suppression Act which sets out penalties for offenders that range from three years to life imprisonment.
The State Department's report acknowledged this, but criticised the continuing tendency of law enforcement to conflate human trafficking with human smuggling - the transportation of persons engaging in illegal immigration voluntarily.
It also said the Bahamas failed to take steps to identify the casualties of the trade among vulnerable populations - such as foreign women and girls engaged in prostitution or women and girls intercepted while being smuggled in for this purpose - preferring to repatriate them as violators of immigration laws rather than offer them help as victims.
According to Mr Cohen, addressing this last point is vital. He said: "The average age of a woman who is prostituted is 11 years old. That makes them victims. They should not be treated as the criminals.
"The Bahamas needs to wake up and move towards the model the Scandinavians have created. Here's how it works: they have criminalised the demand, but they recognise that you cannot arrest a prostitute who is 14 and servicing a client who is 42 and then treat her like the criminal and let him go free. Yet that's happening even in the United States. The women, the victims, should be decriminalised and receive services and the Johns should face criminal prosecution."
He feels that treating such women merely as illegal immigrants - not to mention the children we send back to Haiti on a regular basis without inquiring about their identity or circumstances - amounts to punishing slaves for their condition of slavery and heaping further misery upon people who have already endured unimaginable suffering.
What do you think?
Email:
pnunez@tribunemedia.net
March 08, 2010
tribune242
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Hugo Chavez Frias: "We are not Anti-American, We are Anti-Imperialism"
By Cindy Sheehan:
My request to interview President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela was finally granted on March 2nd while we were down in Montevideo, Uruguay with President Chavez for the inauguration of the new left-ish president and freedom fighter, Jose Mujica.
The reasons I went down to Venezuela with my team of two cameramen were two-fold.
First of all, I just got tired of all the misinformation that is spread in the US about President Chavez and the people’s Bolivarian Revolution. In only one example, the National Endowment for Democracy (another Orwellian named agency that receives federal money to supplant democracy) spends millions of dollars every year in Venezuela trying to destabilize Chavez’s democratically elected government.
The other reason we went to Venezuela was to be inspired and energized by the revolution and try to inspire and energize others in the states to rise up against the oppressive ruling class here and take power back into our own hands.
Empowerment of the poorest or least educated citizens of Venezuela is the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution. President Chavez said in the interview that “Power has five principles” and the first one is Education and he calls Venezuela a “big school.” Indeed since the revolution began 11 years ago, literacy rate has risen significantly to where now 99% of the population is now literate.
People Power is another principle of power and we witnessed this in a very dramatic fashion in the barrio of San Agustin in Caracas. San Agustin was a shantytown built on the sides of some very steep and tall hills—the only way the citizens could get to and from their homes was to climb up and down some very steep and treacherous stairs. Well, two years ago, the neighborhood formed a committee and proposed that the government build a tram through the hills and on January 20th, the dreams of the citizens of San Agustin became a reality and the Metro Cable was christened. Not only did the residents get a new tram, but many of the shacks were torn down and new apartments were built. Residents had priority for low, or no, interest loans to buy the apartments.
Even though I am very afraid of heights, I rode the Metro Cable to the top of the hill and we were awarded with amazing views of Caracas and the distant mountains. All the red, gleaming tramcars are given names of places in Venezuela or revolutionary slogans. But our “treat” was still ahead of us when we made our way down the side of the hill by those steep and treacherous stairs. In combination with the stairs and the heat, by the time we were at the bottom, my legs were shaking like Jello and my heart was thumping. I could not even imagine walking up those stairs! Young children, pregnant women, pregnant women with young children, old people, etc, had to go up and down the stairs to get to an from their homes! With the installation of the tram, the lives of the people of San Agustin were improved immeasurably and it is all due to the education and sense of empowerment that comes from organizing and ultimate victory.
The Metro Cable serves about 12,000 people per day at a cost of ten cents per round trip ticket—and all of the employees come from the barrio.
After the trip up the hill and steep climb down, we met with the community organizers after a traditional Venezuelan lunch of beans, rice, fried plantains and a little bit of meat for the meat eaters. Note: the “traditional” Venezuelan lunch is identical to the traditional Venezuelan breakfast and is very yummy.
About 98% of the organizers were women who spoke very articulately and passionately about how their lives have improved since Chavez arose to power from the people’s revolution and how they would defend Chavez and the revolution with their very lives.
Knowledge is power and perhaps that’s why before the Revolution, only primary school was free and fees were charged for secondary education. Now in Venezuela, school is free all the way through doctoral studies. We see how the ruling class in our own country is gutting education and are tying to make it as difficult as possible to get a University education. A smart and thinking public is a dangerous public.
There is so much to write about our trip and about the Bolivarian Revolution that this will have to be a series of articles by necessity. We learned so much!
Also, my complete interview with President Chavez will be available soon in audio and video and then a full-length documentary entitled:TODOS SOMOS AMERICANOS (We are all Americans) will hopefully be available and premiere by June 1st.
There is a very touching scene at the end of my interview with President Chavez when President Evo Morales of Bolivia comes in the room. President Morales was also in Montevideo for Mujica’s inauguration.
I asked both the presidents if they had any words of inspiration for the people of the US. They both emphasized the need for grassroots unity, but they especially wanted to stress their affection for the people of the US.
With President Morales standing by his side and nodding vigorously, President Chavez said: “We are NOT anti-American, we ARE anti-Imperialism.”
Yo tambien, mis hermanos.
March 8th 2010
venezuelanalysis
My request to interview President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela was finally granted on March 2nd while we were down in Montevideo, Uruguay with President Chavez for the inauguration of the new left-ish president and freedom fighter, Jose Mujica.
The reasons I went down to Venezuela with my team of two cameramen were two-fold.
First of all, I just got tired of all the misinformation that is spread in the US about President Chavez and the people’s Bolivarian Revolution. In only one example, the National Endowment for Democracy (another Orwellian named agency that receives federal money to supplant democracy) spends millions of dollars every year in Venezuela trying to destabilize Chavez’s democratically elected government.
The other reason we went to Venezuela was to be inspired and energized by the revolution and try to inspire and energize others in the states to rise up against the oppressive ruling class here and take power back into our own hands.
Empowerment of the poorest or least educated citizens of Venezuela is the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution. President Chavez said in the interview that “Power has five principles” and the first one is Education and he calls Venezuela a “big school.” Indeed since the revolution began 11 years ago, literacy rate has risen significantly to where now 99% of the population is now literate.
People Power is another principle of power and we witnessed this in a very dramatic fashion in the barrio of San Agustin in Caracas. San Agustin was a shantytown built on the sides of some very steep and tall hills—the only way the citizens could get to and from their homes was to climb up and down some very steep and treacherous stairs. Well, two years ago, the neighborhood formed a committee and proposed that the government build a tram through the hills and on January 20th, the dreams of the citizens of San Agustin became a reality and the Metro Cable was christened. Not only did the residents get a new tram, but many of the shacks were torn down and new apartments were built. Residents had priority for low, or no, interest loans to buy the apartments.
Even though I am very afraid of heights, I rode the Metro Cable to the top of the hill and we were awarded with amazing views of Caracas and the distant mountains. All the red, gleaming tramcars are given names of places in Venezuela or revolutionary slogans. But our “treat” was still ahead of us when we made our way down the side of the hill by those steep and treacherous stairs. In combination with the stairs and the heat, by the time we were at the bottom, my legs were shaking like Jello and my heart was thumping. I could not even imagine walking up those stairs! Young children, pregnant women, pregnant women with young children, old people, etc, had to go up and down the stairs to get to an from their homes! With the installation of the tram, the lives of the people of San Agustin were improved immeasurably and it is all due to the education and sense of empowerment that comes from organizing and ultimate victory.
The Metro Cable serves about 12,000 people per day at a cost of ten cents per round trip ticket—and all of the employees come from the barrio.
After the trip up the hill and steep climb down, we met with the community organizers after a traditional Venezuelan lunch of beans, rice, fried plantains and a little bit of meat for the meat eaters. Note: the “traditional” Venezuelan lunch is identical to the traditional Venezuelan breakfast and is very yummy.
About 98% of the organizers were women who spoke very articulately and passionately about how their lives have improved since Chavez arose to power from the people’s revolution and how they would defend Chavez and the revolution with their very lives.
Knowledge is power and perhaps that’s why before the Revolution, only primary school was free and fees were charged for secondary education. Now in Venezuela, school is free all the way through doctoral studies. We see how the ruling class in our own country is gutting education and are tying to make it as difficult as possible to get a University education. A smart and thinking public is a dangerous public.
There is so much to write about our trip and about the Bolivarian Revolution that this will have to be a series of articles by necessity. We learned so much!
Also, my complete interview with President Chavez will be available soon in audio and video and then a full-length documentary entitled:TODOS SOMOS AMERICANOS (We are all Americans) will hopefully be available and premiere by June 1st.
There is a very touching scene at the end of my interview with President Chavez when President Evo Morales of Bolivia comes in the room. President Morales was also in Montevideo for Mujica’s inauguration.
I asked both the presidents if they had any words of inspiration for the people of the US. They both emphasized the need for grassroots unity, but they especially wanted to stress their affection for the people of the US.
With President Morales standing by his side and nodding vigorously, President Chavez said: “We are NOT anti-American, we ARE anti-Imperialism.”
Yo tambien, mis hermanos.
March 8th 2010
venezuelanalysis
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