Weeks of widespread protest have paralysed parts of Haiti. Demonstrators are calling for the country's president, Jovenel Moïse, to resign from office, but despite violence and charges of corruption he has so far refused to stand down
From Chile to Ecuador and Bolivia to Haiti police and protesters are clashing on the streets, but what are the common threads and will they lead to change?
Tanks on the streets in Chile. Barricades and bloodshed in Bolivia. Weeks of unrest that have pushed Haiti to the brink and forced Ecuador’s president to relocate his government.
“This is a social revolution,” said Andrea Lyn, a 61-year-old actor who took to the streets of Santiago this week. “It is us saying: ‘No more’.”
Continue reading...Killing of Néhémie Joseph throws fresh fuel on crisis as protesters demand Jovenel Moïse’s resignation
Haitian protesters have clashed with police in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, hours after a journalist who had covered previous anti-government protests was found shot to death in his car.
The killing of Néhémie Joseph, a reporter with Radio Méga, has thrown fresh fuel on the mounting crisis in Haiti that has seen political turmoil in the impoverished Caribbean island.
Continue reading...After an earthquake struck in 2010, the US pledged to help rebuild the Caribbean country. A decade later, nothing better symbolises the failure of these efforts than the story of a new port that was promised, but never built. By Jacob Kushner
When Bill and Hillary Clinton travelled to the Caribbean nation of Haiti as newlyweds in 1975, they were enchanted. Bill had recently lost a race for Congress back home in Arkansas, but by the time they returned to the US, he had set his mind to running for Arkansas state attorney general, a decision which would put him on the path to the White House. “We have had a deep connection to and with Haiti ever since,” Hillary later said.
Over the next four decades, the Clintons became increasingly involved in Haiti, working to reshape the country in profound ways. As US president in the 1990s, Bill lobbied for sweeping changes to Haiti’s agricultural sector that significantly increased the country’s dependence on American food crops. In 1994, three years after a military coup in Haiti, Bill ordered a US invasion that overthrew the junta and restored the country’s democratically elected president to power. Fifteen years later, Bill was appointed United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti, tasked with helping the country to develop its private sector and invigorate its economy. By 2010, the Clintons were two of Haiti’s largest benefactors. Their personal philanthropic fund, The Clinton Foundation, had 34 projects in the country, focused on things such as creating jobs.
Continue reading...Swamped by sewage and prone to floods, Cité Soleil is a hotbed for gangs and violence. But for a lucky few, an education initiative offers a glimpse of a better future
Billy Lafalaise has spent much of his 16 years avoiding the allure of gang life in one of the world’s most notorious slums. He was born in Cité Soleil, the sprawling shantytown of Haiti’s downtrodden and chaotic capital, Port-au-Prince.
“Everyone wants to be in a gang here,” Billy says, his mother Jinette nodding in agreement. “And every gang is always looking for recruits.”
Continue reading...Victims of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed at least 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands more, are petitioning the US supreme court on Tuesday to hold the UN accountable for having brought the disease to the stricken country.
The nine supreme court justices will meet in conference to discuss whether to hear Laventure v UN as one of their cases of the new term. The petition goes to the heart of the question: should the world body be answerable in domestic courts for the harm it causes people it is there to serve?
Continue reading...Two men including a photojournalist have been shot and injured by a Haitian senator who opened fire outside the country’s parliament, amid chaotic scenes as the government attempted to confirm the appointment of a new prime minister.
Chery Dieu-Nalio, an Associated Press photographer, was wounded in the face and a second man, Leon Leblanc, a security guard and driver, was also injured in the incident in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Monday.
Continue reading...A nation that suffered under the Duvalier dictators is collapsing as corruption and a failing economy take their toll
Last Sunday, Rony Marceline was riding his motorbike out of Ouanaminthe, a muggy, colourful town on Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, on a mission that within a few days has become commonplace: transporting yellow plastic containers of petrol. He hit a lorry and the canister split, enveloping him and his passenger, an as yet unnamed woman, in flames.
Until that moment, the newly necessary practice of carrying cans of fuel had been the subject of meme humour in this country where the petrol is running out and the usually intense traffic is stuttering to a halt. In one, an elegant woman carries a can under the caption: “the new accessory”. But now there is no joking: now the whole country is ready to explode.
Continue reading...The tourist destination relies on a life support system of fishermen, hotel workers and laborers. They’ve been hardest hit
Holidaymakers queuing at immigration at the Bahamas’ Nassau airport are still serenaded by three pink-shirted men playing jovial music. They are still sunbathing on the beaches and still swimming in the sea. It is as if nothing has changed in paradise.
Yet 40 minutes away by plane, on the Abaco Islands, heaven turns to hell. The Mudd, a shantytown that was home to the Bahamas’ biggest Haitian immigrant community, has been obliterated by Hurricane Dorian as if by a massive bomb.
Continue reading...Damning Charity Commission report warns incidents in country were not isolated events
There were “serious problems with the culture, morale and behaviour” of Oxfam staff in Haiti according to a damning report which has found that the charity failed to disclose allegations of child abuse.
The Charity Commission report surveyed 7,000 pieces of evidence related to allegations that Oxfam had covered up its investigation into staff paying for sex while working on the response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Continue reading...Demonstrations over missing $4bn in development funds leave police overstretched, allowing 78 inmates to escape
The impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, hit by days of violent demonstrations that have claimed four lives, has suffered a mass prison breakout after 78 inmates escaped while police were dealing with protesters.
The demonstrations, the culmination of months of anti-corruption protests over the fate of almost $4bn (£3.1bn) in missing funds earmarked for social development – delivered via a controversial deal for Venezuelan petrol – have swelled in recent days under the slogan: “Kot kòb Petrocaribe a?” (“Where’s the Petrocaribe money?”).
Continue reading...Near the bottom of the island of Hispaniola in south-east Haiti is a forgotten village, cut off from its own country, and slowly emptying as its residents leave. As well as health services or electricity, Boucan Ferdinand also lost its only road to the nearest town, Bois Negresse, in devastating floods in 2004. Some of its residents have left for the capital, Port-au-Prince, while others cling onto a precarious life. Many have crossed illegally into the more prosperous neighbouring Dominican Republic
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