14516: This Week in Haiti 20:44 1/15/2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <editor@haitiprogres.com>.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      January 15 - 21, 2003
                          Vol. 20, No. 44

GONAÏVES:
MAN SHOT AMIDST PROTESTS AND HOLD-UPS

On Jan. 8, the Citizens Front to Liberate Haiti, a small group of
young people who support the Democratic Convergence opposition
front, set up burning tire barricades blocking National Road #1
in Dekawo, a neighborhood straddling Gonaïves' southern entrance.

They demanded that fuel prices be lowered and that President Jean
Bertrand Aristide resign.

A group of heavily armed men gathered behind a bakery that
morning and threw rocks at school kids, taxi drivers, and
passers-by in an attempt to have them return home. They stopped
several trucks coming from the North, stealing money, jewelry and
other valuables from the passengers.

Around 10 a.m. a police detachment arrived to remove the
barricades. In circumstances which are not yet clear, Saurel
Volny, 28, was shot. He was taken to La Providence Hospital,
where he died.

Opposition partisans accuse the police of shooting Volny, but the
police vigorously deny the charge. "Contrary to the information
put out by several radio stations that the police carried out
this act, they did not," said police spokesman Jean Dady Siméon.
"When returning from dismantling a barricade, one of the
policemen saw this guy on the ground. For quite a while now the
police in Gonaïves have had a difficult situation on their hands,
but they have never fired on the people. We don't think that
because today some people put up some barricades that the police
are going to start shooting. Bandits in Dekawo are behind this.
They were shooting and there was a victim among the people, who
then themselves took to the street and cleared away the
barricades."

But barricades went up again on Jan. 9, paralyzing the city. On
National Road #1, opposition protestors smashed several car
windshields.

Demonstrations continued on Jan. 10. In one melee, opposition
demonstrators took three weapons off of two policemen. Ephraïm
Aristide, leader of the Citizens Front, said that the barricades
and demonstrations would continue until Aristide steps down.

ARTIBONITE:
FERTILIZER CORRUPTION?

Peasants in Haiti's lush rice-growing Artibonite Valley are
outraged by the soaring price of fertilizer, which has seen a
400% increase in the past two months.

They charge that merchants are hoarding fertilizer and then
jacking up the price. This practice could be facilitated by
fertilizer's arcane distribution method.

The government-run Organization for the Development of the
Artibonite Valley (ODVA) receives a shipment of fertilizer and
then distributes coupons to planter associations. The coupons,
which are valid for only two days, allow the associations to buy
a bag of fertilizer direct from ODVA for 170 gourdes ($4.59). The
association pays for the fertilizer at the local branch of
SocaBank, and then returns to ODVA to pick up the quantity of
sacks they paid for.

>From August through October, the government delivered fertilizer
to ODVA. During that time, a bag of fertilizer sold in local
stores for 225 to 250 gourdes ($6.08 - $6.76). But after the
shipments stopped, the price shot up during November and December
to 1100 gourdes ($29.73).

It is rumored that some planter associations, unable to meet the
two day deadline, sell their coupons to merchants, who buy the
fertilizer cheaply to make a killing later. Others question if
racketeers set up phony planter associations to buy up fertilizer
with coupons to sell on the black market. There are also charges
that ODVA employees sell coupons on the side.

"We will block the National Highway running through the
Artibonite if ODVA doesn't come up with some fertilizer to
distribute to the peasants," André St. Louis of the Federation of
Planters' Associations told Radio Ginen. "Peasants can't afford a
a bag of fertilizer for 1100 or 1150 gourdes. It's impossible."

JACMEL:
BISHOP DENOUNCED AS RAPIST

Someone is out to get Jacmel's Bishop Guy Poula. Last weekend,
many walls in town were covered with graffiti denouncing him.

"Monseigneur Poula, head of the rapists, has gotten many young
girls pregnant in Jacmel while he has his girlfriend overseas,"
said one wall.

Flyers with a similar message were also circulating around the
city, calling on Catholic Church authorities to bring charges
against the bishop.

Haïti Progrès tried to contact Mgr. Poula about the charges but
was told he is out of town on a retreat. But Jacmel Mayor Hugue
Paul denounced the person or people writing on walls as
"cowards," saying that graffiti is no way to deal with these
charges, which may be groundless.

RITES OF PASSAGE
by Wendy François

Homestead Senior High School is located in Homestead, Florida.
Just off the last exit on the Florida Turnpike, it is the
southernmost school on the United States mainland. It sits at the
gateway to one of the biggest U.S. tourist attractions, the
beautiful Florida Keys.

But what makes this school even more unique is its heavy
concentration of immigrant students, many of whom are Haitian.
They have good manners, epic stories, and a rich culture. They
also come from a different reality, one of economic hardship and
political instability. When they come to the U.S., they must
adapt and forge a new identity, while fighting to maintain their
native one.

"It's different," comments student Jimmy François "You have a lot
more choices, a lot more freedom."

This creates a pleasant dilemma: pleasant because these students
are in search of more choices and freedom; a dilemma because
there is no guidebook which explains how to navigate the trials
or temptations of assimilating a new culture.

While learning new customs and often a new language, they endure
culture shock, homesickness, and hostility from U.S.-born kids.
At Homestead High, this has resulted in a few skirmishes between
African-American and Haitian-American students.

Therefore, Haitian students in the U.S. go through two rites of
passage. The first is the search for stability and identity that
everyone experiences during their adolescent years. The second
rite of passage, and often the more daunting one, is traversing
from a foreign culture to that of the U.S. At Homestead High and
many other schools, the line between the two is thin, and often
too heavily protected by U.S. adolescents who are defending their
fear of the unknown culture - which is the only reality that the
Haitian students know.

Assimilation. Acculturation. Acceptance. These are abstract terms
to the average citizen. But immigrants, and even first-generation
citizens, experience these grand concepts on a very personal and
painful level. We must do our part in our schools and society to
ensure that the proper mediation and communication are available,
so that all cultures can get along. In the meantime, Haitian
youths are left with one option - to "Kenbe la," the Creole
phrase for "Hang in there."

WENDY FRANÇOIS is a senior and class valedictorian at Homestead
Senior High School. On the National Honor Roll in 2000 and 2001,
she also hosts a local radio show on issues affecting Haitian
teenagers.

All articles copyrighted Haïti Progrès. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haïti Progrès.

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