Outsiders EXPECT burning tires in Haiti...not accurate reporting

Radio Caribes FM - Haiti

September 21, 2012 saw yet another in a series of large demonstrations across Haiti. The largest protests were registered in Cap Haitien and La Cayes, Haiti's second and third largest cities respectively, against what many protestors called "the corruption of the Martelly regime." Thousands took to the streets chanting slogans such as "Down with Martelly and the pink hunger," a clear reference to the color associated with the president's election campaign and his supporters. While Haitian news outlets such as Radio Caraibe, Radio Vision 2000 and Le Matin reported on the demonstrations, the only foreign news agencies to write about them appeared to be RFI and AlterPress.

AlterPress

On the same day, the new US Ambassador to Haiti, Pamela A. White, inaugurated her new personal twitter account @AmbPWhite. As news of the protests against Martelly began to spread throughout Haiti,  Ambassador White tweeted her disapproval, "These demonstrations are SO unfortunate. Burning tires will not change a thing. They will turn off international business interests."

This was immediately followed by the US Ambassador's admonishment, "Outsiders EXPECT burning tires in Haiti. Let's not give them what they have learned to expect but a better way forward - like talking." Now exactly who White was referring to as "outsiders," given that she was only sworn into her post on July 18, remained unclear. That she seems to either be unaware or disingenuous, about the increasing evidence of growing corruption in the current Haitian government and the commiserate misery and hunger facing Haitians, was crystal clear. What she failed to acknowledge is that the thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets against corruption and hunger in Haiti were "talking" in the only way they felt possible even as she was dismissing them as merely "burning tires." They have been "talking" for several months now and no one in power seems to be listening to them especially Martelly and, apparently, the US Embassy.

More interesting was that not a single US news outlet filed a story in English on the demonstrations. Most conspicuously absent in their coverage was the The Miami Herald whose Caribbean correspondent, Jacqueline Charles, was busy tweeting about Haitian news of the protests throughout the morning despite claiming to be on vacation. Ironically, Charles had been among the first the same day to endorse Ambassador White's new twitter account with the now famous hash-tag #FF or Follow Friday. Ambassador White responded by heaping praise upon her for an article she recently wrote about a multimillion-dollar Haiti seaport project. The US Ambassador genuflected "@jacquiecharles wonderful piece in the Miami Herald, thank you for comprehensive reporting."

Unfortunately, Charles "comprehensive reporting" did not include a single word written for the The Miami Herald about the protests against Martelly rocking Haiti. Not a word published despite her clear knowledge of events including tweeting a picture of Martelly and the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, UNESCO Special Envoy for Haiti "at a new University outside O' Cap, where tires r burning."

To say that The Miami Herald was conspicuously absent in covering what has to be the largest protests against corruption in Haiti in recent memory is an understatement. This is especially true in light of The Miami Herald's zealous and extensive coverage of past political scandal and corruption allegedly involving former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Writing about government kickbacks in a telecommunications scandal in Haiti dating back to the early 2000s, The Miami Herald printed on July 10, "Aristide is not identified by name in the indictment. But defense attorneys say “Official B” referenced in the corruption indictment is indeed the ex-president." Reuters would later write of The Miami Herald's assertion, "A lawyer for Aristide vehemently denied the allegation, which could not be independently confirmed." Without a shred of evidence, The Miami Herald would then go so far as to try to connect Aristide to the assassination of the father of one of the defendants in the case, "He was assassinated just days after The Miami Herald reported in March that the son was cooperating with the Justice Department in a related kickback probe into deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide." Yes, The Miami Herald is well-known for its own brand of "comprehensive reporting" about corruption in Haiti.

With all the great interest and attention The Miami Herald paid to past corruption cases in Haiti, would it be too much to expect they might ink something, anything, about recent large anti-corruption protests in the country?  Apparently not when the US Ambassador is obsessed with burning tires harming Haiti's image with foreign investors or when demonstrators are targeting Martelly and his cronies.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/10/2890083/ex-haiti-official-sentenced-to.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/10/2890083/ex-haiti-official-sentenced-to.html#storylink=cpy

Martelly stacking the deck for the next elections in Haiti

Martelly stacking the deck for the next elections in Haiti

Kevin Pina interviews Haitian political analyst Frantz Jerome on the details of just how Michel Martelly, aka Sweet Mickey, has stacked the new Permanent Election Council (CEP) in his favor before the next round of balloting in Haiti.

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Tribute to missing human rights activist in Haiti: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

Flashpoints recognizes and pays tribute to missing human rights activist in Haiti: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. August 12th marked the five year anniversary of his kidnapping and disappearance. Kevin Pina interviews Haitian grassroots activist Jocelyn Gaye in NY for more about the life of Lovinsky.

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Son of Dr. Louis Roy, "Father of Haiti's 1987 constitution", condemns new amendments

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Kevin Pina interviews Sebastien Roy, the son of "the father of Haiti's constitution" for Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. Segment first aired on July 2, 2012.

Haiti's new "Constitutional Amendments" re-establishes Laws arbitrarily limiting the basic rights and liberties of citizens

Haiti's President Martelly recently published a french-language Decree putting in "force"  a lenghty and troubling series of Amendments to the country's 1987 Constitution (all the while disregarding the legal and still in force 1987 Creole version)

Amongst these amendments is the abrogation of article 297 of the 1987 Constitution,  which repealed all arbitrary Laws and Decrees adopted during the infamous and bloody  Duvalier dictatorship. This article had taken the pains to single out 4 specific and notorioulsy arbitrary and discriminatory laws that had marked Haiti's  social and political history.

1987 Constitution: ARTICLE 297:All laws, all decree laws, all decrees arbitrarily limiting the basic rights and liberties of citizens, in particular:

a. The decree law of September 5, 1935 on supertitious beliefs; (thereby banning Vaudou once again)

b. The law of August 2, 1977 establishing the Court of State Security (Tribunal de la Sureté de l'État). 

c. The law of July 28, 1975 placing the lands of the Artibonite Valley in a special status; (thereby negating the fledging national efforts at agrarian reform)

d. The law of April 29, 1969 condemning all imported doctrines;    (thereby attacking freedom of thought and expression, political association of freedom of association)

Are and shall remain repealed.

Through this specific amendment to the 1987 Constitution, The Martelly-Lamothe Government has thereby legally re-instituted all these Laws.

It may be of interest to examine the consequence of the re-establishment of just one of these Laws, the law of April 29, 1969 condemning all imported doctrines, and it's vigourous condemnation  done at the time by the Inter-Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of American States (7 sept. 1988):

RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF INVESTIGATION, OPINION, EXPRESSION AND DISSEMINATION OF IDEAS, AND RIGHT TO RELIGIOUSFREEDOM AND FREEDOM OF WORSHIP 

The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man 

Article III:Every person has the right freely to profess a religious faith and to manifest and practice it both in public and private. 

Article IV:Every person has the right to freedom of investigation, of opinion, and of the expression and dissemination of ideas, by any medium whatsoever.

1 A. Freedom of investigation, opinion, expression and dissemination          

1. Article 26 of the 1957 Constitution sets forth the right to freedom of expression in the following terms:         

 Everyone has the right to express his opinion on any matter and in any means within his power. The expression of thought, whatever form it takes, may not be subject to prior censorship except when a state of war has been declared.          

Abuses of the right to freedom of speech shall be defined and punished by law, but this shall not infringe upon the right of the freedom of speech. The underlined phrase was deleted from the 1964/1971 text currently in force (Article 26).    

Current Haitian legislation contains a number of legal provisions that place considerable restrictions on the freedom of speech. The most important of these is Duvalier's Law of April 28, 1969:          

Article 1.  Communist activities, no matter what their form, are hereby declared crimes against the security of the State: all verbal or written, public or private expressions of communist teaching; all propagation of communist or anarchist doctrine by lectures, speeches, conversations, reading, public or private meetings; by tracts, placards, periodicals, newspaper articles, brochures, books, pictures, all written correspondence or verbal contact with local or foreign associations, or with persons involved in spreading communist or anarchist ideas, and receiving, collecting or providing funds directly or indirectly for the propagation of such ideas;          

Article 2.  All those, in whatever capacity: bookseller; owner or manager of a printing establishment; owner, manager or lessor of public or private meeting halls; owner, lessor or lessee of residences, religious minister, missionary, preacher, professor, primary school teacher, etc., who may have suggested or facilitated execution of such crimes, or harbored or given assistance to the authors of those crimes shall be declared guilty of the very same crimes;          

Article 3. Individuals prosecuted under Articles 1 and 2 of the present law shall be tried before a permanent military court martial proceeding;          

Article 4.The authors of an accomplices in crimes listed above shall receive the death penalty, and their goods and chattels shall be confiscated and sold for the benefit of the State;          

Article 5. All individuals seized in flagrante delicto engaged in anarchist or terrorist activities are declared outlaws;          

Article 6. The present law repeals all laws or provisions of laws, all decrees or provisions of decrees, all decree-laws or provisions of decree-laws that are contrary to it, and it shall be diligently executed by the State Secretaries for the Interior, Defense and/or Justice, as appropriate.          

Done in the Legislature, Port-au-Prince, this 28th day of April 1969, in the 166th year of Independence. 

*****

The above provisions punish the mere expression of certain ideas or the mere profession, even in private, of certain articles of political belief by the death penalty. No specific action against the duly constituted powers of the state nor the creation of a danger for those powers is needed to make it a crime. Secondly, there is no specific legal definition of the ideologies condemned by this law.

  In short, the very broad principle of power granted under Article 2 can only serve as a brake or obstacle to free expression and dissemination of ideas in general. The same latitude is found in the decree of August 6, 1958 which punishes with imprisonment “authors and propagators of false information and rumors that could disturb the peace.”

The dissemination of ideas by the broadcast media or written press is regulated, in addition to the aforementioned provisions, by a decree-law of June 13, 1950  and by a decree of August 26, 1957

The former decree-law imposes fines and prison on the press for insulting or libeling the President of the Republic, but the truth of the allegation may not be used as a defense (Articles 7 and 13). The second decree takes up the theme of the earlier decree, and calls for additional sentences for authors of “designs, engravings, pictures, writings or any other mode of expression of though (which) is intended to undermine the authority of one or more members of the constituent bodies of the State” (Articles 2 and 3).

Jean-Sebastien Roy
Tel: (809) 359-6085 / (809)685-7431 Republique Dominicaine
(509) 3862-8237  Haiti