Investissements trop faibles pour favoriser la croissance économiqued’Haiti

Investissements trop faibles pour favoriser la croissance économique d’Haiti

Source: alterpresse

P-au-P, 15 juin 2015 [AlterPresse] --- Les investissements prévus dans le budget rectificatif 2014-2015 seraient insuffisants pour favoriser la croissance économique et la creation d’emplois durables en Haiti, analysent des experts haïtiens, environ 3 mois après la promulgation de la loi des finances modifiée.

Depuis plus de 20 ans, le budget national n’a jamais fait avancer économiquement le pays en raison du fait que les fonds d’investissements proviennent en grande partie de l’aide internationale, explique l’économiste et professeur d’Université, Eddy Labossière, dans une interview accordée à AlterPresse.
Dans un contexte marqué par une forte décote de la gourde, Labossière indique que plus de 60 % des fonds de ce budget sont pris en charge par la coopération internationale. Le plus souvent, beaucoup de ces montants ne sont pas décaissés.
Dans le budget rectificatif 2014-2015, les investissements ont chuté de 16.5 % alors qu’une légère modification a été apportée aux dépenses de fonctionnement à moins de 3 %.
« En Haïti, le budget n’a jamais été utilisé comme un véritable outil de politique publique, mais comme un budget de fonctionnement », regrette Labossière pour qui « les résultats attendus vont être encore négatifs » après l’amputation du budget de 10% des fonds attendus suite à sa révision.
Passant de 122. 6 milliards de gourdes à 109. 7 milliards de gourdes, l’enveloppe budgétaire a connu une variation de 10. 7 % de moins, soit une réduction de 12, 9 milliards de gourdes par rapport au budget initial.
Le taux de croissance réelle de l’économie, évalué à 4, 6% dans le budget initial est revu à la baisse, soit à 2, 5% dans le budget rectificatif 2014-2015.
Le budget de l’exercice 2013-2014 était de 118 milliards de gourdes.
La réduction actuelle de l’enveloppe budgétaire résulte de la baisse des ressources provenant des fonds Petro Caribe, la réalisation des prochaines élections durant l’année 2015 pour les collectivités locales, les 119 députes et les deux tiers du sénat de la République, a expliqué le gouvernement.
Depuis le 12 janvier 2015, le parlement haïtien est dysfonctionnel. Seulement dix sénateurs sont restés en fonction.
Ce parlement est « budgétivore », reconnait Eddy Labossière rappelant que les dépenses mensuelles pour un sénateur s’élèvent à 14 mille dollars américains et pour un député à 12 mille dollars.
Le budget révisé, priorités et doutes exprimés
Adopté en conseil des ministres le 18 mars 2015, le budget rectificatif (2014-2015) a été promulgué dans le journal officiel Le Moniteur du vendredi 27 mars 2015, sans passer par le parlement.
La promotion de la croissance, de l’emploi, du développement des Petites moyennes entreprises (Pme) constituent, entre autres, les grandes orientations et priorités du gouvernement dans ce budget révisé.
Ce budget ne va rien changer aux conditions de travail des ouvriers et ouvrières, qui demeurent « très graves », déplore Reginald Jules, membre de la direction du syndicat « Antèn ouvriye » (Antenne ouvrière).
« Le traitement salarial et physique des ouvriers est inhumain. A chaque forme de protestation ouvrière pour exiger de meilleures conditions de traitement, les patrons augmentent leurs travaux en guise de sanctions », dénonce le syndicaliste.
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Sujet Connexe: 

La France achète du riz à Haïti pour aider les producteurs qui investissent 

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Il souligne la nécessité d’un accompagnement en santé ainsi qu’un ajustement salarial pour les travailleurs haïtiens à cause de l’augmentation du coût de la vie.
Il faut, à présent, plus de 50 gourdes pour un dollar américain alors que ce taux de change était de 47 gourdes en décembre 2014.
Insuffisance d’investissements et impacts des politiques néolibérales
Les faibles ressources investies par l’Etat ne sont pas capables de permettre la création d’emplois durables, estime l’économiste Camille Chalmers et également directeur exécutif de la Plateforme haïtienne de plaidoyer pour un développement alternatif (Papda) qui dit observer un ralentissement des activités économiques.
Le gouvernement haïtien a préféré opter pour une application des politiques néolibérales qui ont causé du tort au pays depuis plusieurs années, fustige-t-il.
Les dirigeants haïtiens ont parié sur les secteurs externes et non locaux, l’interventionnisme en économie et la sous-traitante, incapables, dit-il, de conduire à une croissance économique durable.
Les conditions ne sont pas réunies pour attirer de bons investissements privés, déplore Chalmers appelant le gouvernement à miser, de préférence, sur l’épargne nationale et réduire la dépendance économique par rapport à l’extérieur sur le plan alimentaire.
L’économiste plaide pour une réorientation des liquidités vers des investissements productifs dans l’agriculture et l’industrie.
Ceci contribuerait, selon lui, à créer beaucoup plus d’emplois dans une perspective de rompre avec la déprime et le désespoir de la plupart des jeunes condamnés au chômage. [emb kft gp apr 15/06/2015 13 : 30]

Where is the Outrage? – Tenuous Relations of Human Rights and Migration

By Angelique V. Nixon and Alissa Trotz ::

It seems we are at a breaking point with state treatment of Haitian migrants and persons of Haitian descent, particularly in the Dominican Republic and The Bahamas. Beyond the issue of people being rendered stateless, there are disturbing reports about abusive treatment and human rights violations in The Bahamas’ detention center, mass deportations from the Dominican Republic, and the separation of families in both places. Haitian migrants and their children remain some of the most vulnerable people, and this continues to be more evident in the recent changes to immigration enforcement policies in The Bahamas and Dominican Republic. These grave conditions for Haitian migrants and people of Haitian ancestry across the Caribbean bring starkly into focus the tenuous meaning of rights and who gets to access protection. Further, pervasive xenophobic attitudes towards certain migrants, and specifically anti-Haitian sentiment, remain an underlying yet clearly serious concern facing us as a region.

In the opening months of this year, there were reports of possible lynchings of two Black men in the Dominican Republic. Videos also surfaced of the public humiliation and beating of a Black man and woman, which some have linked to anti-Haitian sentiment on the island (Reginald Dumas, On Being Haitian, Trinidad & Tobago Express, 10 & 11 March 2015).

Furthermore, reports from the Bahamas (end of 2014 into 2015) have raised serious concerns about the treatment of Haitian migrants and issues of citizenship. Specifically, these include: the rounding up of Haitian or Haitian descended children and persons (those undocumented as well as those seeking citizenship); the poor and inhumane conditions of the detention facility; reports of abuse by immigration officers; the content of the policy and reforms to immigration law; the deadly slow pace of resolving citizenship for persons who apply at age 18; and the targeting of Haitians in the enforcement of changes in immigration policy.

While some of these concerns are not new, the enforcement of the new immigration policy has been the source of recent concerns. In November 2014, the Ministry of Immigration in The Bahamas announced its new policy that calls for all non-citizens in the country to carry their passports and proof of residency, while children born to non-citizen parents must have a school permit. Since the enforcement of this policy, there have been reports of mass raids in known Haitian communities, and hundreds of people have been held in an overcrowded detention facility and then deported. This new policy has raised urgent questions about whether it will violate the rights of children – who technically by law are entitled to attend school (every child living in the Bahamas has a right to an education, and the country is also party to the Convention of the Rights of the Child). Children born to non-nationals are not automatically citizens but rather have to apply at 18 for status. While the Bahamas government has insisted that they won’t be “infringing on children’s rights,” official statements have emphasized that the Bahamas will be acting in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that children will also be educated pending decisions on whether they are ‘repatriated’ (this is the terminology used by Bahamian state officials) or allowed to remain on the island.

But it’s unclear how the policy will be enforced and particularly what will happen to children unable to produce a student permit come September.

Bahamian lawyers and human rights groups have responded to this policy change and immigration enforcement in several ways. Fred Smith, President of the Grand Bahamas Human Rights Association (GBHRA), has led a campaign against the government and called on international human rights agencies to respond. He asserts that the “government’s mass round-up policy is unconstitutional and a flagrant violation of the fundamental concept that individuals are innocent until proven guilty.” Describing the government’s approach as “institutional terrorism, if by that term we mean an inhuman and degrading policy designed to strike fear in the hearts of an entire community,” Smith argues “they are breeding ‘Haitian hatred’, racism and discrimination. It seems The Bahamas is now into ethnic cleansing.” (Source)

While the term ethnic cleansing may seem extreme to some, its use by Fred Smith draws attention to what he names as a ‘shock and awe’ policy. Rather than address immigration issues on a case-by-case basis, since November, migrants in the Bahamas have faced nighttime raids, separation of families, and overcrowding in the detention center. There are widespread reports of abusive treatment of migrants (of women migrants in particular) inside the detention center and during the process of “apprehension” and “deportation.” One incident that received major attention (with several articles in the Bahamas’ Tribune and Jamaica’s Gleaner) was the rape of a Jamaican detainee by a senior immigration officer, who was eventually put on leave.

This story has raised awareness about some of the issues at the detention center and with the horrific treatment of migrants, and in her case, she was held by immigration even though she had papers (spousal permit); she has brought charges against the state. (Source) The reports that haven’t received media attention are equally disturbing, as is the silence around what some describe as a targeting of people of Haitian descent and their children. Recently, a Bahamian-born woman of Haitian descent was denied maternal care in the hospital and her child denied access to school (Ava Turnquest, reporting in The Tribune, 12 & 28 April 2015). She has since filed for legal action over the immigration policy and violation of her and her child’s rights. (Source)

On 30th January, the New York Times published an article titled “Immigration Rules in Bahamas Sweep up Haitians,” which highlighted the stories of people being deported and children being deprived of status, while it also made some comparison to the rest of the region (glaringly missing, though, was any comparison to the United States’ policies on immigration and constant deportation of Haitians and ill treatment of migrants in detention centers around the country, a state of affairs described vividly by Edwidge Danticat in her 2007 book, Brother, I’m Dying).

The New York Times article provoked strong responses in Bahamian newspapers, including one that highlights the Minister of Immigration’s dismissal of the article as based on exaggerated claims and accusations from civic activists.

On 13th February 2015, however, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted a submission for precautionary measures filed by the Caribbean Institute for Human Rights (ICADH), the International Human Rights Clinic of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, School of Law, and Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights on behalf of over 200 detainees being held at the Carmichael Road Detention Center in Nassau, The Bahamas. The Commission’s analysis concluded that the situation was serious and urgent and that measures were indeed necessary to protect persons from irreparable harm. And the Commission sent a list of requirements of response and action to the government of the Bahamas (Resolution 4/2015). (See the full text of the resolution here)

On 20th March 2015, representatives from The Bahamas government were asked directly about these issues and more during the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) hearing on the human rights situation of migrants in the Bahamas held. (All the hearings are available online and open access through the OAS website.) The petitioners (including Grand Bahamas Human Rights Association and the Caribbean Institute for Human Rights) presented their findings, which included reports of discrimination and ill treatment of persons being held in the detention center and rounded up in mass raids. They also discussed developments since enforcement of the new immigration policy, and how the government’s push to make amendments to immigration law after the implementation of new policy can been deemed unconstitutional. In their submission, petitioners also raised the issue of intimidation and threats to human rights defenders.

The Bahamas government was represented by the Minister of State in the Attorney General’s Ministry, who strongly refuted the petitioners’ report, defended Bahamas’ history of respect for human rights, insisted that the state has not violated human rights of migrant persons, and claimed that the detention facilities are in good order with provisions in place to charge officers who violated the rights of detainees. They also informed the Commission that the policy will now include the implementation of a “belonger’s permit” which would allow persons born in the Bahamas without status to stay in the country (i.e. children born in the Bahamas to non-nationals have the right to apply for citizenship at 18). They contested the notion that these children have a “right” to citizenship (since the Bahamas has Jus Sanguinis rules: citizenship is determined by having one or both parents who are citizens and not on birthplace), and they insisting that such children were not being denied the right to attend school; hence the new policy would not be violating any rights. The state also offered an invitation to the Commission for a country visit.

Not surprisingly, these two reports offered strikingly different understandings of what is happening on the ground to migrant persons and to people of Haitian descent in particular. Further, they disclose very different views on “rights” to citizenship, how this actually works in the Bahamas and who is targeted by these new policies and possible changes to immigration law. What is clear, regardless of the position of the Government of the Bahamas, is that migrant persons of Haitian descent are the most vulnerable and there are serious and urgent concerns about the detention center and how the policy is being enforced.

After the representatives of the Bahamian state presented their report, Tracy Robinson, Commissioner and country rapporteur for the Bahamas, specifically called for state response to the following concerns: official efforts to prevent violence against migrants; the granting of due process and interpreters for migrants being detained; issues at the detention center in terms of overcrowding and ill treatment; and access to the detention center for human rights defenders. Noting that “[t]he state has a duty to exercise due diligence to prevent the violence as well, not simply to prosecute it when it happens,” Robinson also raised important questions in relation to the standing of the new policy viz existing immigration law and how the Bahamian state would address concerns raised about violations of rights and citizenship.

In her concluding remarks, IACHR President Rose-Marie Antoine reprised the Commission’s concerns regarding the criminalizing of persons through this new immigration policy and the targeting of persons suspected of being non-nationals. She asked about the use of enforcement and exactly how the policy/law will be implemented and the use of detention for persons who do not have passports on them. The gender dimension of citizenship was also explicitly identified as bearing specifically on ways in which this new immigration policy/law would render persons “stateless” (a child born in the Bahamas with a Bahamian father is automatically granted citizenship, whereas if a Bahamian woman is married to a non-national, their child is not granted citizenship but rather has to “apply” at 18). The state was asked to respond to these issues and allegations in writing and in due course. The official Bahamian response was brief, noting that the overcrowding of the detention center was “situational,” insisting that the Bahamian Government does provide due process for migrants, and indicating that a written report that responded to the other queries would be forthcoming. (The hearing is available on the OAS website: here)

Meanwhile, following the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Tribunal Ruling 168-13 and change of citizenship policy in September 2013, in May 2014, the DR passed Law 169-14 that established “A special set of rules for persons born in the national territory who are irregularly registered in the Dominican Civil Registry, and rules about naturalization.” The regularization plan, originally giving people just 18 months to request Dominican citizenship for children born to undocumented migrants, came to an end in February and was extended for another 90 days (amidst opposition from the right) to 15th June 2015. The government has announced that no more extensions will be granted. When the final deadline is reached, it means that overnight thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent will be rendered without status or the right to stay in the country of their birth. This is widely regarded as a violation of rights to citizenship as birthright is stripped away from people who are most vulnerable (Haitian migrants, Haitian Dominicans, and their children). And with this policy change, the DR will be able to legally deport Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian ancestry – which they have already been doing for years – even as they depend on their labor and exploit their limbo/stateless status. The Dominican government has claimed that there would be no mass deportations and the approach will be on a case by case basis; in late May it was reported that the foreign affairs minister of Haiti (Lener Reneaud) met his counterpart from the Dominican Republic (Andrés Navarro), to finalise a “Protocol for deportations” (thanks to Arturo Victoriano for clarification and translation).

All this has happened in spite of CARICOM’s response and civil organizations’ protests and petitions. And the June 15 deadline looms, with barely any notice across the region and internationally (with the exception of the Huffington Post and independent media.

In 2013 and 2014, there was a lot more attention to the issue; several critiqued the ruling and offered context for understanding the tenuous history and relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (for example, see Richard Andre’s interview with Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat in Americas Quarterly, and Myriam Chancy’s powerful reflectionpublished and shared on several sites including CaribVoices, The Haitian Times, and Repeating Islands, among others.). The authors of this article have both written about these issues (including Angelique Nixon’s article titled, “Limbo Citizens or Stateless People?: Human Rights, Migration, and the Future for Dominicans of Haitian Ancestry“, carried on Groundation Grenada’s website, and Alissa Trotz in two columns for the Stabroek Newspaper in Guyana). Following a successful campaign by activists/academics/academic-activists in the region and diaspora, CARICOM denounced the ruling and also delayed the DR’s bid for entry into the regional organization.

As Myriam Chancy argues, the ruling creates and reinforces civic death for Dominicans of Haitian descent as well as Haitian migrants across the region (and for Haitian migrants around the region): “This issue of creating civic death is what we need to most be alarmed about in the face of increasing social and economic inequality, forced migration, and environmental challenges facing the region; we are living in uncertain and dangerous times. And while we don’t want to support or replicate neocolonial paradigms upon each other in the region, we must find ways to hold each other accountable for any violations of human rights; and I would further argue that we must find more ethical ways to deal with migration and rights across the region, especially for our Haitian brothers and sisters” (“Apartheid in the Americas: Are You Haitian?” 24 October 2013). Chancy’s poignant remarks resonate even more clearly in this moment.

The ruling and subsequent enforcement of change in citizenship status have been widely regarded as a political and humanitarian crisis in the DR. And with the recent abuses and mass roundups of Haitians in the Bahamas (a situation that CARICOM seems unable to find a response to, despite being in the country for its 26th Inter-Sessional meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government where an explicit commitment was made to the organization’s ongoing no business as usual policy with the DR), it seems the region is far from finding more ethical ways to deal with migration and citizenship rights. What is striking indeed, is the similarity not only in the rhetoric between the Bahamian and Dominican governments but also in the solutions being proposed.

While there has been some media attention to these issues across the region, and even some international reports, there has been a surprising silence and lack of outrage. Certainly, human rights violations around immigration and detention centers are far from new news. But there are several troubling questions that should prompt our concern, outrage and commitment to change. It is clear that people of Haitian descent continue to be targeted unjustly and overtly in new immigration policies as they are scapegoated as “the problem” underlying social ills in various contexts (as migrant communities so often are). It is also clear that women migrants in detention need serious and dire attention, as more reports of violations at the detention center in the Bahamas have surfaced in the past few months (from the case of the Jamaican woman who filed charges in April to most recently reportedin the Tribune on 9th June, another immigration officer was suspended following an accusation and investigation of “inappropriate conduct.”)

With recovery efforts still underway in post earthquake Haiti, this assault on migrants and persons of Haitian ancestry urgently underscores just how much work there is left to do across our Caribbean. It is time to call out anti-Haitian sentiments and xenophobia that underpin much of the migration and citizenship issues in the region. It is time to forge and create responses that are regional in focus and promote solidarity and solutions grounded in social justice. It is time to find better ways of dealing with migration, citizenship, regional movement, and labor. And it is time to develop stronger and intersectional approaches to these issues that take into account class, gender and other differences and inequality.

We must keep visioning a just future – one with dignity and freedom for Haiti and Haitians all over the world, for all migrants who have similar experiences, for the Caribbean and all Caribbean people – in which we come together across our differences to create and build regional solidarity.

Angelique V. Nixon is a writer, artist, teacher, scholar, activist, and poet – born and raised in Nassau, The Bahamas. She is committed to the struggle for gender, racial, and sexual equality and movements for social justice. Angelique earned a Ph.D. in English specializing in Caribbean literature, postcolonial studies, and gender studies at the University of Florida, and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Africana Studies at New York University. Her research and teaching areas include Caribbean studies, African diaspora literatures, feminist and postcolonial theories, gender and sexuality studies, and transnational migrations. Her research, cultural criticism, and poetry have been published widely. She works with a number of community-based organizations, including the grassroots healing collective Ayiti Resurrect working in Leogane, Haiti focusing on women’s empowerment, sustainability, education, and health. She is co-chair of theCaribbean IRN, which connects activists, researchers, and artists who do work on diverse genders and sexualities. Angelique is a Fulbright Scholar with the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Alissa Trotz is Guyanese and lives in Toronto, where she teaches Caribbean Studies and Women and Gender Studies, at the University of Toronto. She is also Associate Faculty at the Dame Nita Barrow Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the Cave Hill Campus of The University of the West Indies. She has published essays on the gendered politics of neoliberalism, social reproduction and women’s activism; gender, coloniality and violence; women and transnational migration; and the state and the diaspora option in the Caribbean. She edits a weekly newspaper column, In the Diaspora, in the Stabroek News, a Guyanese independent newspaper, and is a member of Red Thread Women’s Organization in Guyana.

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Blog affiliated with Haiti Connexion Network

Role of Hillary Clinton’s brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows

By Kevin Sullivan and Rosalind S. Helderman March 20 at 12:26 PM  
MORNE BOSSA, Haiti — Drive down the rutted dirt road a couple of miles to the guardhouse, then hike 15 minutes up to the overgrown hilltop, and there it is: a piece of 3 1/2 -inch-wide PVC pipe sticking out of the ground.

This is what, at least for the time being, a gold mine looks like.

It also has become a potentially problematic issue for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she considers a second presidential run, after it was revealed this month that in 2013 her brother was added to the advisory board of the company that owns the mine.

A man walks with a horse close to the guardhouse of VCS Mining, which mines gold in Haiti and has raised controversy by naming Tony Rodham, brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, to its board. (Andres Martinez Casares/For The Washington Post)

Tony Rodham’s involvement with the mine, which has become a source of controversy in Haiti because of concern about potential environmental damage and the belief that the project will primarily benefit foreign investors, was first revealed in publicity about an upcoming book on the Clintons by author Peter Schweizer.

In interviews with The Washington Post, both Rodham and the chief executive officer of Delaware-based VCS Mining said they were introduced at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative — an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation that critics have long alleged invites a blurring of its charitable mission with the business interests of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their corporate donors.

 VCS Mining has been taking samples via this piece of PVC pipe sticking out of the ground on a hillside in Morne Bossa, Haiti. (Andres Martinez Casares/For The Washington Post)

 VCS Mining has been taking samples via this piece of PVC pipe sticking out of the ground on a hillside in Morne Bossa, Haiti. (Andres Martinez Casares/For The Washington Post)
Asked whether he attends CGI meetings to explore personal business opportunities, Rodham responded, “No, I go to see old friends. But you never know what can happen.”

All sides deny that the Clintons had any role in Rodham’s appointment to the VCS advisory board.

Rodham said he has not been involved in any other deals through connections made at CGI. He said that he has never spoken to his sister or her husband about the Haiti project and that he does not think VCS chief executive and president Angelo Viard, a Democratic donor, approached him because of his family ties. Rodham declined to say who introduced him to Viard; Viard said he could not remember.

“I’m a very accomplished person in my own right,” Rodham said. He said his work with the company is to try to find investors, which he said has been challenging because of a lack of interest in Haiti.

“I raise money for a lot of people,” he said. “That’s what I basically do.”

Rodham, a former repo man, prison guard and private detective, has long been a source of controversy for the Clintons. Among other things, he and his brother, Hugh, caused consternation in the Clinton White House in 1999 for trying to operate a hazelnut-processing business in the Republic of Georgia with political opponents of the Georgian president, who was a U.S. ally at the time.

 VCS Mining’s collected samples of rocks are bagged on the hillside in Morne Bossa. (Andres Martinez Casares/For The Washington Post)
[Tony Rodham linked to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe ]

VCS Mining’s collected samples of rocks are bagged on the hillside in Morne Bossa. (Andres Martinez Casares/For The Washington Post)

Viard said that he paid to become a member of CGI so he could attend two of the organization’s meetings, and that he met Rodham at a gathering in 2012. (Foundation officials said Viard paid a $20,000 membership fee in 2013.)

“You try to be a member so you can meet people in the same industry,” Viard said. He said he attended CGI as “a pure marketing operation.”

He said he ultimately stopped attending CGI meetings after realizing that they were largely designed for charities to mingle with possible donors. He said he thinks commitments made at CGI have done a lot of good in the developing world.

Rodham joined the board in October 2013, nine months after Hillary Clinton stepped down as secretary of state. Viard said he put Rodham on the board not because of his family connections, but because he worked for a firm, Gulf Coast Funds Management, that had access to investors.

Viard said that he and Rodham never discussed the Clintons, and that he never talked to the Clintons about Rodham. A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation said that Bill Clinton does not know Viard, and a spokesman for Hillary Clinton said she also does not know him.

In December 2012, VCS won one of the first two gold-mining permits the Haitian government had issued in more than 50 years. The project was immediately slammed by members of the Haitian Senate, who called it a potential environmental disaster and “a waste of resources.” The backlash caused the government to put the permits on hold.

Viard stressed that Rodham was not involved in the effort to win the permit from the Haitian government, which was granted months before Rodham joined the board.

He said Rodham was compensated with stock options that will not vest unless the project is a success. He said Rodham has not landed any investors, adding, “It sounds like people were not interested in Haiti.”

Rodham confirmed that he has received stock options in VCS and that they have not yet vested, saying, “Never seen ’em.”

“I’m just trying to help him out a little bit. If it ever accomplishes anything, great,” Rodham said of Viard, adding that the people of Haiti “got a bad deal” — saddled with poverty and then hit in 2010 by a devastating earthquake — and that he hoped the gold mine could help in its recovery.

The Clintons have been longtime advocates for development in Haiti, especially since the earthquake. Bill Clinton, as the United Nations’ special envoy to the nation, and Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, were primary forces in the emergency relief response and later efforts to create long-term development plans for the ravaged country.

But the Clintons’ image in Haiti has slipped in recent months as Haitians increasingly complain that Clinton-backed projects have often helped the country’s elite and international business investors more than they have helped poor Haitians.

Defenders of the Clintons call such criticism untrue and unfair and largely pressed by the Clintons’ political enemies. They argue that Clinton-funded programs have brought millions of dollars in investment to Haiti and have created jobs for thousands of Haitians.

But news that a Clinton family member is helping the mining company attract more foreign investors has deepened suspicion.

“Rodham is an independent guy, but this is tricky; it’s not a good sign for him to be on the board of a mining company here in Haiti,” said Leslie Voltaire, a former Haitian government official who worked closely with the Clintons after the earthquake. “The Clintons are seen as being in power here. You have to be very cautious that your family does not intervene in business here.”

Jean-Max Bellerive, a former prime minister and a potential presidential candidate in elections expected later this year, joined the VCS advisory board at the same time as Rodham.

When the mine permit was suspended in early 2013, Bellerive said, Viard hired him for $8,000 to help him understand Haitian governmental procedures, as well as to introduce him to Haitian senators and advise him on how to persuade them to support the mine project.

Bellerive said that Viard offered compensation when he joined the advisory board a few months later, but that he refused it. He said he had mixed feelings about the project because he was worried about potential environmental damage and unsure whether the Haitian government was equipped to regulate such a complex enterprise.

He said he hoped that by joining the board, he would help ensure that the project was handled “responsibly.” But he said he has had “close to zero” involvement with it.

Bellerive said he was comfortable with his decision to join VCS, but thinks Rodham made a mistake.

“If I was Tony Rodham, I would not have been on the board,” he said. “He knows he did nothing illegal, but it has a high political price for his sister.”

Kevin Sullivan is a Post senior correspondent. He is a longtime foreign correspondent who has been based in Tokyo, Mexico City and London, and also served as the Post’s Sunday and Features Editor.

Rosalind Helderman is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for the Washington Post.

Haïti/République Dominicaine : Restitution de matériel de pêche auxHaïtiens par les garde-côtes dominicains

GARR (Groupe d'Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés)

mercredi, 21 janvier 2015 05:52 Haïti/République Dominicaine : Restitution de matériel de pêche aux Haïtiens par les garde-côtes dominicains            Des pêcheurs haitiens Les autorités dominicaines ont remis, le mardi 20 janvier 2015, un moteur appartenant aux pêcheurs haïtiens. Ce moteur faisait partie d’un lot de matériels de pêche qui ont été confisqués lors de l’opération de la marine dominicaine dans les eaux frontalières haïtiennes, le 2 janvier écoulé. Les autres matériels ont été déjà remis aux pécheurs, a appris le GARR. Au terme d’une rencontre binationale organisée à Pedernales, République Dominicaine, à  laquelle ont pris part des représentants d’associations de pêcheurs haïtiens et dominicains, des autorités locales  haïtiennes et dominicaines et des représentants d’organisations travaillant à la frontière, une entente a été trouvée entre les garde-côtes dominicains et les pêcheurs haïtiens. Cette rencontre qui n’est pas la dernière, avait pour objectif de formaliser l’activité des pêcheurs haïtiens et dominicains. Elle visait également à  promouvoir un climat de paix et d’harmonie entre les deux peuples voisins partageant la même île, a rapporté Jean Kelermann Jasmin, représentant du GARR à cette réunion binationale. Les autorités locales dominicaines ont proposé aux pêcheurs haïtiens d’utiliser le zinc au lieu de se servir d’un filet quand ils doivent pêcher dans la ligne frontalière maritime de la République Dominicaine. Le filet, selon elles,  ne fait qu’attraper des poissons qui ne sont pas encore arrivés à maturité. Les représentants des pêcheurs haïtiens ont profité de ces échanges qui ont duré 3 heures, pour  réclamer la restitution d’autres matériels de pêche qu’ils disent  avoir été confisqués depuis l’année 2013 par les garde-côtes dominicains. Les responsables dominicains ont promis de les restituer au cours de la prochaine rencontre binationale prévue à Pedernales, le 31 janvier 2015. L’octroi d’un permis aux pêcheurs figurera parmi les points qui seront discutés lors de la prochaine réunion. Le GARR salue les efforts consentis par les autorités des deux Etats et des organisations de la société civile haïtienne et dominicaine travaillant des deux côtés de la frontière en vue d’une entente favorable aux protagonistes.

Nouvelles d'Haiti & Diaspora du 23-29 juin 2014. Focus: le jeune Manigat...