16146: This Week in Haiti 21:18 7/16/2003 (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 *

                      July 16 - 22, 2003
                         Vol. 21, No. 18


CONTROVERSIAL FREE TRADE ZONE TO START SOON

Near Haiti's northeastern border town of Ouanaminthe, three gleaming new
hangars stand on what was once the most precious farmland in this barren,
hungry corner of the country. This land was part of the fertile Maribahoux
plain, an area called Pitobert.

Now peasants' plots have been bulldozed and paved over to build the first of
17 "free trade zones" (FTZ) which are planned to extend along the entire
length of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Some 800 workers are being trained to work in the three initial plants,
which government officials say will begin functioning sometime later this
month.

To hear the Haitian government tell it, these zones are going to bring jobs
and development to the region. There have been promises made that, beginning
in September, there will be free schooling for all Ouanaminthe's children,
round the clock electricity, a potable water network, and a new paved road
to Cap Haïtien, the north's main city to the west.

But this rosy picture contrasts sharply with the harsh reality of Cité
Soleil. This sprawling slum of dingy tin and cardboard shacks set amid
meandering open sewage canals and smoking garbage heaps is the by-product of
Haiti's first FTZ - the Industrial Park near the Port-au-Prince airport  -
launched under the Duvalier regime in the early 1970s.

An army of Haitian and Dominican workers toil from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. building
the factories, customs area, and access road to the Dominican Republic,
through which all the zone's products are destined to flow. Dominican
workers are doing most of the skilled work like carpentry, electrical wiring
and plumbing. Haitian workers are mostly laborers, digging ditches,
hammering stakes, and carrying iron rods and cement sacks. Dominicans are
paid 800 pesos (US$24) a day and Haitians only 35 (US$1.06), another
harbinger of discrepancies to come.

There is yet a third class of construction worker: Haitians living in the
Dominican Republic. They are being paid 375 pesos (US$11.36) a day.

Heavily-armed Dominican soldiers watch over the work inside the zone, while
large detachments of Haitian police guard activities on the outside. The
zone also has its own private security force, headed by a Haitian who is a
renowned criminal in the Northeast.

Most Haitians, including those around Ouanaminthe, did not learn about the
project to build FTZs on the Maribahoux plain until President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide and his Dominican counterpart Hipolito Mejia alighted in the area
on Apr. 8, 2002 and dug the first ceremonial shovels-full of dirt (see Haïti
Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 4, 4/10/02).Three months later, Ben Dupuy, secretary
general of the National Popular Party (PPN), made public a secret
"Trilateral Agreement" between Haiti, the DR, and the United States which
would effectively turn a 5 km corridor along the 375 km border into a
"Border Zone" filled with industrial parks, highways, and airports (see
Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 17, 7/10/02). This is the prime feature of the
U.S. State Department-championed "Hispaniola Plan," which aims to convert
the foreign debt of Haiti and the DR into "tripartite" (read U.S.)
controlled territory i.e. the "Border Zone." The PPN and many other
progressive organizations have strongly condemned this scheme

On June 20, Haiti's Commerce and Industry Minister announced his approval of
two more free trade zones. The first, approved last December, has the
Industrial Development Company, a Haitian-Dominican consortium, building a
zone on 160 acres near Ouanaminthe (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 47,
2/5/03). The second, signed on June 11, allows the Hispaniola Investment
Company (HINSA) to build a 400 square kilometer zone in Drouillard, near
Cité Soleil.

Many peasants on the Maribarahoux plain are bitter, not only about their
expropriation, but about never being consulted or informed of the Haitian
government's plans for the region. Some 54 peasants so far are being forced
to sell their land, but only 14 have so far accepted payment, according to
Gaston Etienne, an agricultural engineer with the Pitobert Farmers' Defense
Committee.

Etienne also notes that the Haitian government has turned a blind eye to the
destruction of farmland in Pitobert. "The new law on free trade zones does
take into account what we have said to them," he said. "The text specifies
that farming areas are to be exempt. But the authorities couldn't care
 less."


DOMINICAN GENERAL CALLS HAITI, WITH DESTABLIZATION GROWING, A "THREAT"

The head of the Dominican Republic's Armed Forces, Lieutenant General José
Miguel Soto Jiminez, said of Haiti last week that "the situation in this
country could be a threat to the Dominican state." The statement has caused
a furor in Haiti.

Although Dominican authorities have made similar remarks in the past, this
time it was different. The DR's military chief was uttering the remark
during a military-organized seminar entitled "The Border: A Priority on the
National Agenda for the 21st Century." There is also heightened tension
between the two countries since the DR is allowing former Haitian soldiers
intent on overthrowing the Haitian government to use its territory as a
rear-base for their regular attacks against Haiti (see Haïti Progrès, Vol.
21, No. 2, 3/26/03).

These guerrilla attacks are escalating as opposition formations, like the
so-called "Group of 184" organizations and its "Caravan of Hope," step up
their destabilization campaign against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's
government. On July 12, the Group of 184 sent its Caravan - accompanied by
foreign diplomats - into the highly volatile and pro-Aristide slum of Cité
Soleil. A rock-throwing melee ensued resulting in many wounded, including
five journalists, among them Haïti Progrès reporter Carlasse Alex. Interior
Minister Jocilerme Privert also said that three people were killed in the
confrontation, without revealing identities, affiliations, or circumstances.

"A knowing provocation to violence under the guise of free speech, is not
protected under any country's laws, including the United States, and no one
should expect governmental authorities in Haiti to tolerate such actions,"
said Ira Kurzban, the Haitian government's lawyer.

"What were they doing there?" asked Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) about the
184's Caravan during July 15 Senate hearings on U.S. policy towards Haiti.
He questioned if it was not similar to Protestants marching every July
through Catholic parts of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Many trace the opposition's destabilization campaign and Dominican
authorities' aggressive words to the same source: Washington.

"The Dominican Army is just an appendage, an extension of the U.S. Army,"
said Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), in a
June 14 press conference. "It is totally submissive to Washington's
policies. The proof is that the Dominican Army is now going to send 300 of
its troops to Iraq." Dupuy noted that this was probably arranged during
President Hipolito Mejia's meeting with U.S. President George Bush in May.

"The military's seminar in the Dominican Republic was held to prepare
international public opinion for an eventual peace-keeping intervention into
Haiti," Dupuy said. "The role of the 184 is precisely to create trouble so
that they can say there is anarchy, an extraordinary situation in the
country."

Dupuy warned the Haitian government to take the 184 Group's provocation and
Jiminez's declaration "very seriously."

"There is a proverb that says that those who want peace, prepare for war,"
he said, "because those people need war. They are already starting a civil
war."

WBAI HAITI SPECIALS ON JULY 26

The Haitian Collective at WBAI will host a special on Haiti on WBAI 99.5 FM
in New York from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, 2003 to mark the 88th
anniversary of the first U.S. military invasion of Haiti. The program will
feature interviews with an expert on the first U.S. occupation and a segment
on the links between neighbors Haiti and Cuba on the 50th anniversary of the
attack on the Moncada Garrison, the start of the Cuban Revolution. The
continuing crisis in Haiti will also be discussed. The program can be heard
on the Internet at www.wbai.org.


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

                               -30-