16861: (Bellegarde-Smith)Haiti: Maribahoux, Ouanaminthe free zone update (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>


Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 06:59:43 EDT
From: Tttnhm@aol.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:  ;
Subject: Haiti: Maribahoux, Ouanaminthe free zone update

Haiti: Maribahoux, Ouanaminthe free zone update - 30 September 2003 - issued
by the Haiti Support Group

The first factory at the new free trade zone near Maribahoux, Ouanaminthe,
north-east Haiti, opened in August 2003. Three hundred workers have been hired
to assemble Levi Jeans in the first of three factories to be built by the
Dominican company, Grupo M, on a 150,000m2 site. This is the first phase of a
larger 'Haiti Zona Franca Project' covering a 500,000m2 site on the border of Haiti
and the Dominican Republic. (For background information on this controversial
project and the World Bank's plan to finance it with a US$23million loan, see
the Haiti Support Group web site: www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org).

Campaigner's worst fears about workers' rights have been confirmed with the
news that these employees have been forbidden to organise themselves or discuss
politics while inside the zone.

The International Finance Corporation's optimism regarding Grupo M's respect
for workers' rights is shown to be completely misplaced as, within weeks of
the first factory opening, twenty workers are fired for daring to ask for
improved conditions.

Concerns for workers' rights have increased following the July 16th report in
the Haiti Progres newspaper that Grupo M's private security force for the new
free zone is headed by a Haitian who is a renowned criminal in the northeast
of Haiti.

Meanwhile, Villardouin Joseph, a member of the local peasant farmers
association, the Pitobert Defence Committee, has  finally been released from prison on
September 4th. Joseph had been arrested by police on May 22nd on the pretext
of involvement with active resistance to the seizure and clearance of
peasants' farmland for the construction of the free zone.

On his release, which took place without him having been charged with any
offence, Joseph spoke of how for the first few days after his arrest he was kept
under close police surveillance, with a police officer even accompanying him
to the toilet. A short time later he had been transferred from the local jail
in Ouanaminthe to the prison in Fort Liberte where he was detained for months
as a 'political prisoner''. Unlike other prisoners, he was prevented from
listening to the radio. No paperwork relating to his arrest and detention was
presented to him, and during his three and half months in prison he did not appear
before any judge.

(sources: Batay Ouvriye, Haiti Progres, Groupe d'Appui aux Rapatries et
Refugies - GARR)
k