=?x-unknown?q?21776=3A__Esser=3A_Rice=3A_From_Food_to_Secur?==?x-unknown?q?ity_Issue=A0?=

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Club Haiti
http://www.telepark.de/clubhaiti/start.html

May 8, 2004


Rice: From Food to Security Issue 

The price of rice has almost doubled since the ouster of President
Aristide on February 29th. To confront what has become a cause of
severe hardship and a source of potential unrest, the Minister for
Commerce, Ms Daniele Saint-Lot, has invited industry leaders to
discuss remedies. Thirty five of the leading industrialists and rice
importers followed her calling and brainstormed in three separate
working groups. Among them: Castro Arboite, André Apaid, Kenneth
Michel, Jacques Khawly, Anthony Virginie Saint-Pierre, Georges Saati
and Emile Obas. Their intense intellectual effort led to recommend a
principle of "non-intervention of the Haitian state" and a cut in
half of total importation costs, i.e. revenue to the Haitian state.
They claimed a substantial part of the price hike to be caused by
increased security concerns in the country, private and state
corruption as well as irresponsible wholesellers which would buy a
50kg pack of imported rice at US$ 26 and resell it at US$ 40 (the
Haitian states share is US$ 4,80 currently and proposed to dip to
between US$ 2 and 3). Recently a rice depot under the control of the
Ministry of Social Affairs has been ransacked, presumably by the same
individuals which had attacked trucks loaded with rice leaving the
industrial parc near Port-au-Prince where the depot is located. This
in a country where the majority of rice consumed was home-grown just
two decades ago - a source of living for Haitian farmers, now slum
dwellers, willfully destroyed by international donor organizations
and business interests. [Source: HPN / APH]
.