Common Dreams

by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas

Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with over nine million people, was devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010. Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded.  The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per Haitian) and over $2 billion in recovery aid (about $173 per Haitian) over the last two years. Continue reading Haiti: Seven Places Where Earthquake Money Did and Did Not Go →

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 20, 2011 (IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch) – Ever since being elected earlier this year, Haitian President Michel Martelly and his team have been betting Haiti’s reconstruction on foreign investors.

“We are ready for new ideas and new businesses, and are creating the conditions necessary for Haiti to become a natural and attractive destination for foreign investment,” the new president said at a meeting in New York City last fall.

“The window of opportunity is now,” an aide added. “Haiti has a new president and a new way of thinking about foreign investments and job creation.” Continue reading Haiti Open for Business →

Common Dreams

by Bill Quigley and Lauren Carasik

Common Dreams

With nearly 600,000 internally displaced persons still in camps, the scale of Haiti’s homeless problem remains daunting.

by Bill Quigley

Mathias O is 34 years old.  He is one of about 600,000 people still homeless from the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  He lives with his wife and her 2 year old under a homemade shelter made out of several tarps.  They sleep on the rocky ground inside.  The side tarp walls are reinforced by pieces of cardboard boxes taped together.  Candles provide the only inside light at night.  There is no running water.  No electricity.  They live near a canal and suffer from lots of mosquitoes.  There are hundreds of families living in tents beside him.  This is the third tent community he has lived in since the earthquake. Continue reading Wave of Illegal, Senseless and Violent Evictions Swells in Port au Prince →

Common Dreams
With nearly 600,000 internally displaced persons still in camps, the scale of Haiti’s homeless problem remains daunting.
by Bill Quigley
Mathias O is 34 years old.  He is one of about 600,000 people still homeless from the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  He lives with his wife and her 2 year old under a homemade shelter made out of several tarps.  They sleep on the rocky ground inside.  The side tarp walls are reinforced by pieces of cardboard boxes taped together.  Candles provide the only inside light at night.  There is no running water.  No electricity.  They live near a canal and suffer from lots of mosquitoes.  There are hundreds of families living in tents beside him.  This is the third tent community he has lived in since the earthquake. Continue reading Wave of Illegal, Senseless and Violent Evictions Swells in Port au Prince →

Pambazuka News
Beverly Bell
Last spring, Haiti’s minister of agriculture gave agribusiness giant Monsanto permission to ‘donate’ 505 tonnes of seeds to Haiti ‘to support the reconstruction effort’. A year later, Beverly Bell asks what has become of the seeds that Monsanto gave, and ‘how real was the fear of Haitian farmer organizations that the donation was a Trojan horse?’ Continue reading Monsanto in Haiti →

BBC

Haiti’s former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide has left South Africa to return to his home country after seven years in exile, officials say.  He is expected in Port-au-Prince early on Friday, two days before Haiti’s presidential run-off vote. Continue reading Haiti ex-leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide ‘returning home’ →

Common Dreams

by Beverly Bell

While the eyes of the world are on Haiti’s illegitimate elections and the return of the deposed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, about 1.5 million displaced earthquake survivors continue to live in sub-human conditions. In the absence of large-scale or systemic responses by the government, international community, or aid organizations, progressive civil society organizations are evolving strategies to win the right to housing. “We’re supporting earthquake victims who are organizing themselves to form a social movement to claim their rights, first, for quality housing and, second, against being evicted,” said human rights lawyer Patrice Florvilus. Overall conditions in the camps have not improved since their spontaneous creation a year ago. Continue reading The Right to Housing for Internally Displaced Haitians →