12981: Re 12898: ADIH description of the Free Zones, Border development... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@arczip.com

ADIH’s statement on the free zone agreement between Haiti and the DR is
quite welcome, although it does not absolve the Haitian government from its
obligation to make known to the Nation the terms of its agreement with the
Dominican government.  Nothing but full disclosure will convince the people
of Haiti that the government is not lying.

ADIH appears to dismiss our recent discussion here as totally uninformed and
completely confused.  What makes it difficult to challenge ADIH on this
issue is that if anybody knows, they know.  Richard Coles, ADIH’s former
president, is after all a member of the "Commission Présidentielle pour la
Gestion du Fonds de Developpement Frontalier République d'Haiti -
République Dominicaine" appointed by Aristide on August 23, 2001.  ADIH
seems to imply that there has been no agreement signed to date.  But what
happened in Maribahoux points to more than just a “letter of intent.”   Even
in Haiti, you don’t expel people from their productive farmlands, with just a
letter of intent in hand.

>From the very beginning, I never claimed any direct personal knowledge of
the facts in question.  I’m not a member of the “elite,” I’m not privy to such
information.  Neither are my low-level Lavalas contacts. Instead, I cited three
sources, PAPDA, Alterpresse and Haiti-Progrès, which proved to be reliable
in the past.  The point, as I explained to Hyppolite Pierre, is that there are at
least two agreements in question: one already signed by the Lavalas and
Mejia governments which account for the Maribahoux groundbreaking and
Aristide’s declaration below; and an anticipated one between the US, the DR
and Haiti, pertaining to debt reduction and the Hispaniola Fund.  Here are
some relevant excerpts, along with the URL where you can read the full text
of what the above groups said on the subject:

[Jane Regan (PAPDA), in a Jun 26, 2002 article
http://www.lapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=2887]:

“While keeping the Haitian Parliament, local authorities and the public in the
dark, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government had negotiated a deal
with Washington and Dominican politicians and businesspeople to turn 80
hectares in northeastern Haiti into a free trade zone.

“According to the plan, rather than pay back debt to the US government and
multilateral lenders, the Haitian and Dominican governments will pay into the
"Hispaniola Fund," which will be used for infrastructure projects and free
trade zones on the border between both countries.

“[But] peasants, their supporters and development specialists, furious about
the secrecy surrounding the plan, are outraged that the first site chosen is one
of the few fertile areas in the region.

“The Maribaroux Plain produces rice, corn, beans, manioc, avocados,
mangos, plantains and bananas, feeding not only its inhabitants and the
nearby town of Ouanaminthe, but also sending truckloads of produce across
the border to the Dominican Republic. A recent study indicates that with
proper irrigation and agricultural support, the plain could produce much more
and could boost the country’s yearly rice production, which currently runs a
deficit of about 215,000 tons, by 6,000 tons.

“Dominican textile entrepreneurs have other ideas when they think about the
plain.  “The details of the free trade zone became public in Haiti on April 8,
when Aristide and his Dominican counterpart, Hipólito Mejía, suddenly
appeared on the leveled Maribaroux fields.

“While Haitian riot police kept protesting local peasants away and before a
crowd of mostly trucked in peasants, the two presidents broke ground.
Aristide solemnly said he was "baptizing... the first child" of a "marriage
without perspective divorce" between two countries which he hoped would
produce ‘many more children.’"

[Haiti-Progres, “Moving ahead on the Hispaniola Fund plan,”  July 10, 2002)
www.haiti-progres.com/2002/sm020710/eng07-10.html]:

“The Haiti-DR Bilateral Commission met yesterday at the Ministry of
Foreign Relations and decided to move ahead on the Hispaniola Fund Plan.
The plan would be funded with money primarily from the release of the
Dominican Republic debt with the US. It would be used to plant trees, save
river basins, build industrial free zones, hydroelectric dams, ports, highways,
and develop small and medium-size businesses along the border with Haiti.

“In the meeting, both governments agreed to prepare a concrete agenda to
begin lobbying for the creation of the fund. The scope of the fund has been
expanded to include other donations from the United States, Canada, Europe
and Asia, said Santiago Tejada, in charge of trade negotiations for the
Ministry of Foreign Relations.

“Haiti’s Minister of Finance Gustave Flaubert said that the Haitian private
sector is motivated by the advances in the creation of the fund given the lack
of investment in Haiti. “We are very pleased to work with our Dominican
friends. This is creating a synergy among the two countries that will increase
the programs to benefit both nations,” he said.”

[Ronald Colbert, Alter Presse, April 12, 2002
www.ansedhainault.com/Nouvelles/id19.htm]
(Automatic web translation from french):

“Under the pretext of job creation, Haiti’s leaders decided this week to yield
part of Haiti’s territory for the establishment of a free zone in the frontier area
of the North-East for the benefit of international economic interests, in
particular Dominican.

"’5% of the Haitian territory will be handed over to make room for the free
zone projects,’ explains Haitian engineer-agronomist Dimitri Norris who
expressed himself in the aftermath of a press conference given on April 8,
2002 by the Platform Haitienne de Plaidoyer for an Alternative Development
(PAPDA) and the Group of appui to the Repatriates and Réfugiés (GARR) to
denounce the agreements sealed in hiding-place by the national authorities
with the Dominican Republic.

“The projects under consideration between the two countries will encompass
5 km on both sides of the 300 km long border, according to a ‘Trilateral co-
operation agreement between the governments of the Dominican Republic,
the Republic of Haiti and the United States of America.’

“AlterPress could not confirm whether that agreement has been already
signed. However, the trilateral agreement in question circumscribes the 5
kilometers within a limit ranging between the Atlantic Ocean in North and the
Caribbean Sea in the South.

“Jocelerme Privert, Interior Minister of the Lavalas government, affirmed at
the private station of Télémax television that "the Haitian State is free" in its
decisions concerning the free zone with Ouanaminthe and that this is "a
political choice" related to the needs (requests) of Dominican investors  . . .”

Daniel Simidor
karioka9@arczip.com