UN fires Ricardo Seitenfus for Advocating for Haiti
By Leogane Magazine on December 25, 2010After an interview with the Swiss journal “Le Temps” where he pointed the finger at the international community as Haiti’s main progress stoppers, Ricardo Seitenfus, was relieved from his duty as the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the OAS, which shows that the truth must not be known by Haitians and whoever is advocating for Haitians is the enemy of the International community; thus will be severly reprimanded.
“Haiti is not Iraq, Haiti is not Afghanistan, Haiti is not in a war situation, and Haiti is not an international threat” he said but since 2004, there have been over 10.000 Casques Bleus on the soil of Haiti.
Ricardo said that the presence of MINUSTAH in Haiti is counter-productive.
Ricardo told “Le Temps” that the biggest mistake of Haiti was to become free and independent in 1804; something that pissed off France and portrayed Haitians as being rogue.
Haiti is also paying the price for being so geographically near to the United Sates that waited until 1865 to recognize the independence of Haiti.
“UN mission in Haiti is to freeze the government and to transform Haitians in prisoners of their own island. The international forces in Haiti shape the relationship between Haiti and the international,” he continued.
“The Occident is a colonialist, racist, and a world of slavery that based its richness on the exploitation of third world countries, he also reported.
The United States through the intervention of the United Stations never knew how to treat Haiti and that is the reason they are applying the article 7 of the UN charter to deploy thousands of troops to Haiti in order to protect their own interests.
“In spite of many international aids that the country receives, Haiti is the breathing proof that the UN mission has miserably failed,” he affirmed when questioned about NGO’s roles in Haiti.
The international community is armed with the desire to remake Haiti but they should come to the conclusion that, after the cholera breakout that followed the earthquake of 12 January, they had led the country toward the wrong direction.
The perverted and the distorted relationship and the inefficacity of the Haitian government are the main causes of Haiti’s slow disaster recovery.
NGOs are in Haiti to benefit from the “malheur of Haitians.”
Ricardo told the reporter about the NGOs’ mistakes after the earthquake that the import of food, good, water, etc had negatively affected the local production. Due to the lack of assertive leaders and the absence of laws in Haiti, it was a great opportunity for NGOs to see Haiti as a laboratory where they could come test their latest technologies.
“The throw of big numbers (about $11 billions) for the reconstruction attracted NGOs who decide to go to Haiti not as humanitarians but as businessmen,” he blatantly said.
Haiti’s situation is a challenge that we (UN) cannot comprehend because we fail to comprehend the Haitian’s soul. Haiti is the worst of the world and there are too many entities trying to help the country. Their help lead to nothing but chaos.
Haiti needs doctors, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, etc because Haiti is too complex to quickly jump in it like we know who Haitians are and what their needs can be.
Ricardo pleaded that “compassion is necessary but charity should not be the engine of international relations” and January 12 showed him that there was a great potential for Haitian solidarity because on the day of the earthquake, he witnessed how each Haitian became the Good Samaritan for each Haitian.
“We need to rethink how we do business in Haiti as well as offering better exportation opportunities for Haitians. It is the independence, the sovereignty, fair trade, and the respect for others that should be.” he suggested.
After this lengthy interview with “Le Temps,” that displayed how poorly the UN has been mismanaging Haiti since 1990, Ricardo Seitenfus, who was two months shy from completing his diplomatic duties in Haiti, was called back by his parent government. He was fired and his diplomatic future is currently uncertain.
Bobb Q Rousseau
© 2010, Léogâne Magazine. All rights reserved.
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In Haiti, tension builds
against visiting helpers
The curious case of Paul Waggoner, who ferried medical supplies, highlights an uneasiness between foreigners and locals in post-quake, cholera-infected Haiti.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
TDANIEL@MIAMIHERALD.COM
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Gaunt and unshaven, Paul Waggoner stepped out of his closet-sized cell at the Haitian National Penitentiary in downtown Port-au-Prince this past Monday for five minutes of casual banter, tight hugs and handwritten fan letters.
It had been more than a week since Haitian police jailed the 32-year-old Florida native on kidnapping charges, and he still couldn't believe he was locked up. After all, he came to Haiti to help.
``Frustrating,'' said Waggoner, a native of DeFuniak Springs in Florida.
Waggoner is accused of kidnapping a 15-month-old boy after the father brought the baby to a hospital for urgent medical care. Waggoner, a former carpenter who ferried medical supplies for relief groups, and others say the baby died of several illnesses, and the father failed to claim the body before it was cremated.
Waggoner's story highlights how international relief workers with good intentions have clashed with Haitians after the January earthquake pummeled Port-au-Prince and other major cities.
When the 7.0-magnitude quake wiped out almost all local institutions, a parallel one popped up with full force: a thousands-strong community of foreign do-gooders. While no one denies that international relief organizations saved countless lives by bringing much-needed water, food and medical care, many Haitians believe their presence in post-quake Haiti has fomented tension between foreigners and locals.
CULTURE GAP
Foreign aid workers have been accused of dressing inappropriately, driving up the cost of living, and breaking rules to get things done.
Just weeks after the Jan. 12 quake, police arrested a group of Idaho missionaries on kidnapping charges after they tried to bus 33 Haitian children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic.
``We have to think hard about our actions when we leave our countries to go somewhere to help,'' said Julie Schindall, a spokeswoman at Oxfam International, a relief group handling sanitation.
Before the earthquake, the number of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, in Haiti was as high as 10,000, giving the country one of the highest number of private, nonprofit aid agencies per capita in the world. Today, the number is believed to be much higher because not all NGOs register with the Haitian government. They vary in size and scope from the United Nations peacekeeping force to mom-and-pop operations, similar to the one run by Waggoner.
The influx of foreigners is evident throughout the country.
Large white SUVs marked with NGO logos contribute to the knot of traffic in Port-au-Prince, a city with too few streets for three million people.
The arrival of so many foreigners has proved to be a mixed blessing: Relief workers have employed cadres of drivers, interpreters and security guards, boosting business for rental car companies and restaurants. But some perceive aid workers to project an air of entitlement and superiority, less than mindful of cultural norms.
``People in Haiti are very concerned about relief workers and how they act and how they dress,'' said Karl Jean-Louis, executive director of the Haiti Aid Watchdog, a nonprofit monitoring the flow of humanitarian aid into the nation.
Jean-Louis said some aid workers offend their hosts by frequently showing up to government meetings in T-shirts, shorts and even flip-flops, paying little attention to dress codes in a country where officials often wear suits.
``It's very inappropriate,'' said Jean-Louis, who is organizing a Jan. 4 conference in Port-au-Prince to discuss the impact of international aid. ``People should know better.''
The friction between foreigners and Haitians has become violent. In November, reports surfaced that a United Nations peacekeeping mission had failed to maintain its septic tanks and could have been responsible for bringing cholera into the country, which has killed more than 2,500 people. Protesters called for the peacekeeping mission's departure as they lobbed rocks at U.N. troops and bases in cities in the northern and western parts of the country.
Two weeks ago, after officials released disputed elections results that unleashed two days of unrest in Port-au-Prince, volunteers hiking in the hills south of Port-au-Prince encountered a group of locals who pointed their fingers at them and yelled, ``cholera.'' Volunteers in the back of a pickup truck traveling to the quake-battered town of Leogane met the same response.
``They were a little unnerving, but that's all it was,'' said Aaron Mason, a spokesman for All Hands Volunteers, a nonprofit building schools and compost toilets in Leogane.
The Waggoner case also serves as a poignant reminder that Haiti has had a long and complicated relationship with the outside world since a slave revolt against the French secured the country's independence in 1804. In the world's first black republic, the foreigner is viewed at once as a savior and a saboteur.
Experts note that post-disaster tension between aid workers and survivors is almost inevitable, from Haiti to the Gulf after Hurricane Katrina.
``When there's a prolonged crisis such as a natural catastrophe or war, there's a tremendous amount of psychological trauma,'' said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. ``Relief agencies naturally make expectations around security, material goods and recovery. But when those expectations are unmet, resentment develops.''
Josiane Hudicourt-Barnes, an educator whose mother opened the Haitian Community Hospital as an outpatient clinic in 1984, remembers how foreigners from the United States, Sweden and U.S. Virgin Islands stepped in to perform operations at the hospital when the shocked staff failed to show up immediately after the quake. In one incident that irked local staff members, American volunteers broke the door to a blood bank.
``In an American view: `I'm trying to save a life and I'm going to get that blood,' '' said Hudicourt-Barnes, who served as a liaison between foreign medical workers and hospital administrators.
BABY DISPUTE
Waggoner's problems at the Haitian Community Hospital, she said, came after hospital staff returned and declined to take responsibility for the baby that had died. Hospital staff refused to sign the death certificate, she said.
The medical director could not be reached for comment.
Waggoner and his supporters -- they've set up a legal defense fund on the group's website -- believe the charges are bogus and that the father is trying to extort the defendant. The father could not be reached for comment.
When he's released, Waggoner hopes to continue relief work in Haiti.
``Maybe this was the most fulfilling work he's had,'' Hudicourt-Barnes said. ``This whole situation gave him a higher purpose than being a carpenter.''
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Immortal Technique: Haiti a police state run by US & UN
Haiti marks six months since a massive earthquake shook the already poor nation. Billions of dollars have been donated to help the country rebuild but half a year later, the impoverished island nation still is dire straits. RT spoke to rapper and activist Immortal Technique, who recently spent time in Haiti. He argued that there is no long term vision in Haiti, referring to the nation as a military and police state run by the United States and the UN.
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US Worker Held in Haiti Jail Says He's Being Extorted
>via: http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/16/us-worker-held-in-haiti-jail-says-hes-being...
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Would-be Haitian contractors
miss out on aid
By Martha MendozaAP National Writer / December 12, 2010
"You can imagine that if we can't win the contracts ourselves, we become totally dependent on foreign companies and nonprofits, and there is not much hope in that," he said. "We may not have the extended capacity of a U.S. company, but we are respectable. We keep good books and records, we have foreign suppliers, we have good credit, we pay our taxes and our customs dues."
Out of every $100 of U.S. contracts now paid out to rebuild Haiti, Haitian firms have successfully won $1.60, The Associated Press has found in a review of contracts since the earthquake on Jan. 12. And the largest initial U.S. contractors hired fewer Haitians than planned.
There are many reasons for the disparity. Among them, US AID is more familiar with some U.S. contractors and gave out some no-bid contracts out of urgency, and fears the corruption that is rife in Haiti. On the Haitian side, there is a limited understanding of U.S. government practices.
But using foreign aid to give local companies contracts is one of the most important aspects of reconstruction, says Clare Lockhart, chief executive officer of the Institute for State Effectiveness.
"You can't just provide manual jobs. You need to contract with companies so that the middle tier managers and owners of companies have a stake in the legal system and rule of law, and ultimately a stake in the success of their political system and their economy," she says.
Of the 1,583 U.S. contracts given so far in Haiti totaling $267 million, only 20 -- worth $4.3 million -- are going to Haitian-owned companies. And an audit this fall by US AID's Inspector General found that more than 70 percent of the funds given to the two largest U.S. contractors for a cash for work project in Haiti was spent on equipment and materials. As a result, just 8,000 Haitians a day were being hired by June, instead of the planned 25,000 a day, according to the IG.
The contractors, Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, and Chemonics International of Washington D.C., which received more than $31 million each in no-bid contracts, responded to AP in an email saying that together with several other contractors, they had employed 25,000 Haitians a day. Now, they said, 10 months after the earthquake, "priorities have evolved beyond a focus on temporary employment," a program that has paid Haitian workers $18 million in wages.
US AID says it is committed to increasing the amount of contracts going to Haitians.
"We already are engaging with Haitian communities to make them aware of how they can partner with us," said Janice Laurente, a spokeperson for US AID.
Economists say giving contracts to local businesses creates jobs, which help build the private sector. Also, most donors would rather see local businesses thrive than foreign companies profiting from a disaster.
Harvard Business School economist Eric Werker, who researches foreign aid, says the spillover effects go beyond the aid itself.
"Some are obvious, like salaries and profits that stay in the local economy, but there are also ways to increase capacity of local firms by giving them progressively larger contracts," says Werker.
But there are many hurdles to signing a contract with Haitians.
The first is a no-bid process: 25 percent of the contracts went directly to U.S. contractors without even giving Haitians a chance to bid on them, sometimes because the needs were so urgent there wasn't time to go through a formal bidding process. In addition, some government requests for local Haitian subcontractors and expertise are published only in English, limiting access for many Haitians who speak Creole.
Also, at times of catastrophe, it can be easier to use an established contractor with a strong record than a previously unknown local one. The Haitian economy was so decimated by the earthquake that it was hard at first even to get wood or tarps for shelters without importing them. Now, even though there are Haitian companies providing many products and services, the pattern of using foreign ones continues.
And finally, it's more complicated to contract directly in countries like Haiti, where corruption is rife. There has been price-gouging among some would-be Haitian contractors.
The unprecedented promise of $9 billion in aid, with the U.S. as a top giver, at first raised hope of rebuilding and even of a new and brighter future for the tragedy-prone island. But fewer than 10 percent of those funds have made it past the "promise" stage.
While Chemonics and DAI are the largest single recipients, the bulk of the funds have gone to beltway contractors as well: firms in Virginia received the most funds of any state, $45.3 million, followed closely by Maryland, $44.6 million. Another $31.7 million went to companies based in the District of Columbia.
The U.S. foreign aid contracts to Haiti since the earthquake have gone to an array of almost entirely U.S.-based goods and services, from bullet-proof vehicles ordered Nov. 18 by the Centers for Disease Control from a Miami-based firm to $24,000 in dental supplies for U.S. Navy medical providers in June from a Chesapeake, Virginia, firm. Yet bullet-proof vehicles and dental supplies are available from Haitian companies, according to the nonprofit Peace Dividend Trust.
"Frankly, it's a shame and a serious opportunity lost," says Edward Rees of the Peace Dividend Trust. His organization put together a business portal, offering everything from security services to catering, and is training Haitians on how to bid for contracts and grants. "No one is systematically tracking how many contracts have gone to Haitian companies."
The lack of local spending in Haiti is similar to that in most other countries receiving U.S. aid, although economist Werker said Haiti is likely at the low end of the spectrum. But Rees contrasts Haiti with Afghanistan, where -- backed by Peace Dividend Trust -- U.S. Army General David H. Petraeus ordered his commanders to "Hire Afghans first, buy Afghan products, and build Afghan capacity."
The results in Afghanistan are encouraging: A recent study found that 37 percent of $2 billion in annual international aid is now being used to buy locally-produced Afghan goods and services, up from 31 percent a few years ago.
The AP review focused on contracts from the U.S. government, which spent an immediate $1.1 billion in U.S. humanitarian assistance after the earthquake, and promised another $1.15 billion for reconstruction. In November, the first $120 million of the pledged reconstruction funds were tranferred to the World Bank-run Haiti Reconstruction Fund, according to the State Department.
In addition to government aid, more than $1 billion has come from nonprofit charities, most of which try to buy local, said Samuel A. Worthington, president of InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international nongovernmental organizations. He represents nonprofits managing about 90 percent of the U.S. donations that were directed to Haiti after the quake.
Worthington says there is no system to count how much has gone to Haitian-owned companies.
"There is a very strong bias to ensure as much local procurement as possible, and as much spending in the local economy," says Worthington. "Our bottom line is to serve as many people as possible and get the best price, to spread those dollars."