*******
Massacre in Haiti by Jafrikayiti
(Jean St. Vil)

*******
Martin Luther King and the Man on the Road to Cite Soleil : The cry is always the same "we want to be free" by Jafrikayiti (Jean St. Vil)
*******

Africa: In Solidarity with Site Soley
by Jacques Depelchin, Allafrica.com, March 22, 2007

Haiti's most valuable asset: Its people -
Their land, Gods and Dessalines' legacy

The Haitians Gods, the Gods of immemorial Africa, cannot be embodied without Haitian corporeal existence. The Gods are part of the land and depend on human devotees for their embodiment on earth. (The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti, its creeds, values and struggle)
***********************

Haitians living abroad prop up Haiti's economy, sending more than $1.65billion in cash to relatives
***********************

Does the Western economic calculation of wealth fit Haiti - fit Dessalines idea of wealth distribution?

"(n)o other national group anywhere in the world sends money home in higher proportion (than Haitians living abroad.)"

90% of the agricultural workers in the Dominican Republic are Haitian, according to a report from the IDB and the World Bank

AHP News - February 15, 2007 - English translation (Unofficial) |Source: <mlhaiti@cornernet.com>

Port-au-Prince, February 15, 2006 (AHP)- Hardly any agricultural activity would take place in the Dominican Republic without the participation of Haitian nationals, according to a study by the Inter-American development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank into the question of poverty in the Dominican Republic.

Haitian manual labor is so important in this sector that Dominican peasant leaders have admitted that the country's growth is in large part due to the contributions of Haitian immigrants to the agricultural sector or to the growth of exports.

A whole series of agricultural products such as rice, bananas, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, tomatoes, vegetables and sugar benefit from Haitian labor, according to the report. Haitians also are employed in cleaning, watering and security activities on the plantations in addition to weighing and loading goods, the report observes.

Estimates made by the Dominican chamber of commerce and by producer Victorio Valerio indicate that Haitian involvement in rice production is so significant that it amounts to 100% of the work force in some cases.

At the national level, statistics indicate that nine out of 10 agricultural workers are Haitian.

In the report, the IDB and the World Bank acknowledge that their study is limited because there is very little information on the Haitian presence in the Dominican Republic.

Another report prepared by the Jesuit Service for refugees and Immigrants in the Dominican Republic concludes that the tomato industry based largely in Azua, San José, Ocoa in the south and northwest of the country employ a large number of Haitians, estimated at 60 to 70% of agricultural workers.

AHP February 15, 2007 2:00 PM
***
See also: Haiti is 3rd largest Dominican export over US $147 million in 2006

***********************

Haiti remittances top US$1.6b
March 21, 2007, Jamaica Gleaner


Haitians living abroad propped up the economy of their impoverished Caribbean homeland by sending more than $1.65 billion in cash to relatives last year, according to a report from the Inter-American Development Bank.

That sum represented twice Haiti's national budget and 30 per cent of its gross domestic product, said Jean Geneus, Haiti's minister in charge of Haitians living abroad.

"Remittances are the most important economic factor in Haiti today," said Donald Terry, the manager of the IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund.

The study was presented on Tuesday to a group of political and economic decision-makers in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.

Terry said an estimated US$400 million in food and other gifts were also sent home by Haitians living abroad, bringing the total remittances to more than US$2 billion. Haiti, a former French colony trying to establish democracy after decades of violence, dictatorship and military rule, is the poorest country in the Americas. Most of its eight million people scrape by on less than US$2 a day.

No absentee ballots

Haitians living abroad complain Haiti welcomes their money but not their participation in politics. Haitians abroad could not vote in the last election because there were no absentee ballots and those with dual citizenship cannot vote or run for office because the constitution considers them foreigners.

The study, conducted by Bendixen & Associates for the IDB, found 31 per cent of adults living in Haiti, or 1.1 million people, receive remittances regularly.
"Eighty-one per cent of Haitians living in the United States and Canada send money home on a regular basis," said Sergio Bendixen, who directed the survey. "No other national group anywhere in the world sends money home in higher proportion."

The report said 70 per cent of emigrants from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and 60 per cent of Mexicans send money to their families back home.

The study found that about 1.5 million Haitian-born adults are living and working abroad and that 80 per cent of them send money to relatives on a regular basis, with an average of US$150 at a time.

Does the Western economic model and calculation of econmic wealth fit Haiti, fit Dessalines' idea of wealth distribution?


...In terms of GDP.

A countries average GDP is what is used to define how large (successful/ unsuccessful) a country's economy is.

Haiti's GDP is what is used by the World Bank and other IFI's to place it last in the Western Hemisphere as the "poorest."

The question is, should we actually accept this as a legitimate indicator of Haiti's comparative economy or lack of economy.

GDP is defined generally as:
"The GDP of a country is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. It is also considered the sum of value added at every stage of production of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. Until the 1980s the term GNP or gross national product was used in the United States(USA). The two terms GDP and GNP are almost identical - and yet entirely different; GDP being concerned with the region in which income is generated and GNP (or GNI - Gross National Income) being a measure of the accrual of income to a region. The most common approach to measuring and understanding GDP is the expenditure method:

GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports - imports."
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Gross_domestic_ product

In Haiti, who is counting the INFORMAL ECONOMY, the Madam Sarah (marketwomen) trade, et al. ("...Haiti is a country filled with "non-workers." With an "informal sector" that is the economic backbone of Ti Pèp La - the masses in Haiti..." HLLN Regarding OPL and Batay Ouvrye.)

Who is putting a monetary value on the property of the poor in Haiti? Property they have owned for generations and which, in a capitalist setting, would be marked and given a market value?

But most importantly, if in St. Kitts for instance, the vast majority of the people are averaging making, let's say $700 per year. But the Marriott Hotel, the Island's largest employer, is making, lets say, $500 million a year. Now if GDP is calculated by taking the $500 million and averaging it with the $700s per year to get the country's GDP, is this really the average wealth of folks in St. Kitts? Remember the Marriott exports most of this $500 million out of St. Kitts.

Haiti is necessarily tagged as "poorest" BECAUSE there are LESS foreign corporations in Haiti than anywhere else in the Caribbean. Why? Because the poor in Haiti OWN more than the poor anywhere else in the Caribbean. Is "Western Development" (which would necessarily equal FOREIGN companies owning more in Haiti) and their calculation of GDP really indicative of true Haitian wealth and what Dessalines would call "development? "

These are important and critical consideration.

Just as U.S. (electoral-college) "democracy" was homegrown, over a century to fit the U.S. and cannot be arbitrarily fitted to other places, (U.S. democracy cannot be exported to Haiti) neither also can US/Breton-Wood idea of wealth and economic development, be applicable to Haitians, especially if that means Haiti would be a corporate "haven" with foreign "skilled" workers flown in, the native Haitian generally relegated to being maid and butler, with a Haitian army (police) foreign-trained to protect the foreigners at the expense of the native Haitian's freedom and personal liberties and all the good land and properties owned by foreigners.

Wouldn't Haiti then just be Jamaica? Jamaica has the highest gang and murder rate. Yet, because foreigners own most of the wealth, their white corporate media play down the poverty and inequities and give it a very good image for tourism and "economic development. "

Haitians must define for themselves, in Dessalines fashion, what good Haitian economic development would look like. The models being presented, through the economic, legal, social and political prism of Haiti's subjugators, go against the Revolutionary Maroon's and Dessalines' struggle for equitable division of Haitian assets amongst Haitians.

"Haiti, 'the poorest country of the, so-called, "Western" hemisphere' reads the lamentation billboards of the Western media. As if Haiti and its poverty is a stain on the image expected to be projected by the West. Or a tortuous way of warning those who might be interested in following the same route? You shall be crushed so badly that no one else would be tempted to think outside of the path traced by the discoverers and abolitionists...Is it not true that we keep hearing that the only way to improve the lot of humanity is to forget our humanity in order to save ourselves later, by following the very mindset which has brought us to such a precarious point?...," (Africa: In Solidarity with Site Soley by Jacques Depelchin)

From the beginning to now, the Haitian way was other than that of the "discoverers." There is important work to be done by good Haiti economist on what a Haitianist economy would look like.
*********************
No other national group anywhere in the world sends money home in higher proportion than Haitians living abroad

The Haitian Diaspora holds up the common man/woman - Ti pèp la - in Haiti. Always has. Not international aid, a great percentage of which, if not most goes to folks who are unemployed in the donor country, or who are being "rewarded" for positions taken that is in the interest of the donor country that most times undermines Haiti.

The fact that Haitians are helping Haitians is critical and cannot be sweeped under the table as if it was a bad thing or in terms of given it a negative swing. It is a positive that Haitians living abroad have not forgotten their homeland and families. It is an important asset of Haiti. And Haitians living abroad should be recognized and encouraged further to invest and participate in the economic development of Haiti. In fact, the ordinary Haitian is the ONLY one who will have the necessary desire to stay the course of development inspite of ALL the issues because of the personal angle: family, relative, homeland, sense of belonging, sense of pride.

However, although it is EXTREMELY important to commend our people for what they do to help Haiti, and to recognize that the more than $2billion Haitians living abroad send to Haiti per year (in 2006) is MORE than ANY total international aid that trickles down to the common, everyday Haitian in Haiti, there is a BETTER WAY TO SEND THE MONEY so that its IMPACT is doubled, quadrupled.

Western Union pretty much, as American Airlines, has a monopoly on Haitian trade from those living in the diaspora.

What is the dollar profit figure on their transfer fees and other charges? Should it afford Haiti leverage?

No one will do this for us. In terms of Haitian development, I've always counted out the Haitian government. The elites and economic classes are not paying taxes to run free of the vicious circle of foreign aid "help." and its humiliating conditions and strings attached. The national industries own by the state are always gutted in coup detat, corruption, et al. Moreover, in my lifetime, my experience with Haiti work, illustrate how the traditional enemies of Haitian development ALWAYS go through the government TO contain Haiti in poverty and chaos with the carrot of "foreign aid," or "humanitarian assistance" that does little more than bring dependency. But still we must move forward and the current Haitian Diaspora is one of Haiti's single most important untapped asset. Something Haiti has not had in the numbers and significance it has now,

This means we have more reach, more rights and leverage abilities than ever before.

What percentage of the fees being collected by Western Union and others on the more than $2 billion (sent in 2006 for instance) can be expected to be re-invested by the company in impoverished Haitian communities under stress in Haiti and abroad?

More precisely, if the Haitian government or an authentic Haitian business organization formed a Haitian DEVELOPMENT BANK and asked Haitians to pass their monies that are being sent to relatives through this transfer bank, why couldn't that bank then turn around and BORROW monies (credit lines) for development projects in Haiti, on a percentage of the expected transfers and thereby LEVERAGE this more than $2billion per year in order to help develop Haiti.

Over ten years ago, I put that question to the Haitian government then in power and the Minister of Haitians in the Diaspora. Over ten years ago, I also put before these entities the idea of encouraging Haitians living in the diaspora, who are retired, to come live in Haiti and thereby spent their (many of these retirees have fixed social security payments coming in regularly) pensions and income IN HAITI. This is another way of meeting the needs of Haitians at home and abroad and leveraging to our own benefit. Isn't self-reliance, self-determination - a way other than what amounts to begging and accepting malevolent charity, with all its attendant offensive and debilitating foreign strings and dependency entrapments - what Jean Jacques Dessalines required of his descendants?

The dual citizen question is also involved here and as everyone knows HLLN pushed to try and get that passed. It was eventually passed, before the second coup detat, under the Aristide 2000 administration, with only another seating Legislature required to confirm it. But with the 2004 bicentennial coup d'etat, this is all up in the air again, for the powers-that-be would prefer that only the small reactionary-Haitian-elites at home and in the diaspora, holding up the interest of the Neocon(colonialist) and former enslavers, have a say in Haitian affairs.

So there we are. Still, it is critical that enough Haitian consensus is formed so that the money sent per year to Haiti is leveraged towards a Haitianist development model- it is on the fluidity of money that the U.S. stock market is run and billionaires are made. Why shouldn't Haitians take advantage of all that is available in the financial markets with this more than $2billion per year asset?

In a series of articles written for the October 17, 2006 bicentennial commemoration of the life and works of Dessalines, I wrote for HLLN that: "Haiti's liberator and founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets of the Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he was assassinated by the Mullato sons of France. That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust - organized exclusion of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite - continues (with Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue to resist the return of despots, tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority in Haiti from sharing in the country's wealth and assets." (See also, Kanga Mundele: Our mission to live free or die trying, Another Haitian Independence Day under occupation; The Legacy of Impunity of One Sector-Who killed Dessalines?; The Legacy of Impunity:The Neoconlonialist inciting political instability is the problem. Haiti is underdeveloped in crime, corruption, violence, compared to other nations, all, by Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent)

Frankly, it is up to each and every Haitian capable to make a way out of no way for Haiti to beat its great powerful enemies at their own game, but on our own battlefields, upholding Dessalines law and ideals with our own and very substantial and indomitable inner and outer sources. The Haitian government may help. But, in my experience any initiative they take that denies BIG BUSINESS their umpteenth profit, will be used against Haiti and Haitians, living at home and abroad.

Kenbe la, pa lage.

Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent, Esq.
Founder and Chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
(Dedicated to protecting the full civil, human, and cultural rights of Haitians living at home and abroad)
March 21, 2007 

Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!

"When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped...........If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want and all that is left is a compromise." Robert Fritz

Pèralte Speaks!

_______________
The
Crucifiction of Emmanuel "Dread" Wilme,
a historical
perspective

Urge the Caribbean Community to stand firm in not recognizing the illegal Latortue regime: