22737: Haiti Reborn: Join DC Demo at ICF Donors Meeting! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti Reborn <haiti@quixote.org>

Give an hour to Haiti!

On Tuesday, July 20th international donors will be meeting to make
pledges for Haiti's reconstruction plan, the Interim Cooperation
Framework (ICF). But this plan was created by an illegitimate de facto
regime without the input of Haitian actors or non-governmental
organizations, in a climate of escalating violence and human rights
abuses. The majority of violence is targeting supporters of the deposed
Lavalas government.

PLEASE JOIN US for a short demonstration outside the meeting at the
World Bank's Preston Auditorium!

WHEN: Tuesday, 8-9am (we know it's early, that's why we're promising donuts)
WHERE: World Bank's Main Complex, 1818 H Street, NW – the Farragut West
Metro stop (Orange or Blue) – come to the corner of Pennsylvania and H.
WHO: The Quixote Center, Haiti Action Committee, 50 Years Is Enough
Network, Jubilee USA Network, EPICA, Office of the Americas, Haiti For
Change, Marin Interfaith Task Force, TransAfrica Forum



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

HAITI’S TAINTED ECONOMIC PLAN RISKS HUGE WASTE OF DONOR FUNDS

Human Rights Groups Charge Kofi Annan & Colin Powell Attempt to
Legitimize Program “Designed by and for Foreigners” at July 19-20
Meeting at World Bank

Washington, DC: As international donors convene a meeting to pledge
their financial support for Haiti’s Interim Cooperation Framework (ICF),
a broad range of civil society critics warns that the program’s failure
to include Haitian priorities and perspectives puts it at risk of
wasting nearly a billion dollars in donor funds.

“Just as the 1994 reconstruction program in Haiti fell far short of its
goals, largely because of the failure to involve Haitians in the
planning, so the donors’ meeting on Monday and Tuesday could end up
sending $924 million into the pockets of foreigners and Haitian elite,
with little reaching the people in need,” said Melinda Miles,
Co-Director of the Quixote Center. Miles warned, “such high-level
endorsement of the plan is likely to discourage people from looking at
its provisions and provenance more seriously. It has no legitimacy among
Haitians, and is, in large part, designed by and for the benefit of
foreigners and an unconstitutional regime.”

The ICF follows the standard prescriptions of the World Bank and IMF for
impoverished countries. It recommends more free trade zones (home to
“sweatshop” factories and very low wages) and export agriculture. Njoki
Njehu of the 50 Years Is Enough Network said, “These policies have been
imposed throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa, and they
have harmed rather than benefited the impoverished majorities. On the
other hand, they have facilitated huge increases in profits for
multinational corporations that can get labor and commodities at
ever-lower prices.”

The ICF has been designed by economic advisers, most of them from
outside Haiti, including the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) and the World Bank. Representatives of the U.S.-supported de
facto regime in Haiti were scarce, and token civil society input came
after the document was largely completed. Even the Council of Eminent
Persons, the body established by the U.S. and other powers which
appointed Latortue after the coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, reports that it was unaware of the process and never consulted.

Olivia Goumbri of the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the
Caribbean (EPICA) characterizes the ICF as “one more step in the
disenfranchisement of the Haitian people,” a process that has included
“the continual brutalization of the impoverished majority, with violence
and blatant human rights abuses overlooked by the international
community. We are shocked by the silence and lack of response from the
U.S. and UN towards continuing human rights abuses and we condemn
violence that is focusing on supporters of the deposed Lavalas
government. The de facto Latortue regime in Haiti does not have a
mandate from the Haitian people and is not empowered to enter into
long-term contracts or loan agreements.”

The dangers represented by the loans were underlined by Marie Clarke,
National Coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network: “Haiti’s loans from the
1994 reconstruction aid package will come due this year, doubling the
country’s debt service payments. Before entering into new loan
agreements, the best way that the donor community can start to assist in
Haiti’s development is to release desperately needed resources by
canceling Haiti’s odious debts. The pending loans are odious debt in the
making. We cannot be assured that these funds will benefit the Haitian
people. Creditors should heed the example of Iraq; they can not expect
the Haitian people to repay these loans in the future.” Clarke made the
connection between the call for debt cancellation for Iraq, another case
of odious debt, and the reality: creditors are knowingly pledging funds
to a regime that has no mandate from its people and is actively involved
in political persecution and human rights abuses, with no guarantee that
the loans will be protected from corruption or used to benefit the
majority of the Haitian people.

A pillar of Haiti’s failed 1994 reconstruction plan, privatization of
state-owned enterprises, is likewise central to the ICF. When Haiti fell
behind on the privatization schedule, the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund withheld funding for nearly five years. This embargo
widened to include funding from the Inter-American Bank and the U.S.
government, choking the country through denial of access to capital and
credit. Now that Haiti’s constitutional government has been forced from
power and replaced by a privatization-friendly U.S.-backed regime, the
international community is rallying to pour hundreds of millions into Haiti.

Njoki Njehu, Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network states, “the
question of privatization is a serious and controversial one. It must be
decided by a democratically elected government, and should expand,
rather than contract, the availability of essential services to the
broadest segment of the population.”

Most importantly, international donors are risking complete failure by
putting money into the hands of an undemocratic, unconstitutional regime
that has no legitimacy, and in a climate of impunity and rampant human
rights abuses. “The violent disruption of Haiti’s democratic order has
exacerbated the grinding poverty in which the majority of Haitians
live,” explained Miles of the Quixote Center, “and true development can
only take place in the context of stable democracy and respect for the
Haitian Constitution.”

Contact:
Melinda Miles, Quixote Center, 301-699-0042, 240-432-7414
Njoki Njehu, 50 Years Is Enough Network, 202-463-2265, 202-746-4318
Marie Clarke, Jubilee USA Network, 202-783-0215, 202-255-7849
Olivia Goumbri, EPICA, 202-332-0292
Haiti Action Committee

Other sponsoring organizations:
Office of the Americas, Los Angeles, CA
TransAfrica Forum, Washington, DC
Global Justice, Washington, DC
Marin Interfaith Task Force, Marin County, CA
Haiti For Change, Washington, DC