24214: Hermantin ( news)Haitian traders face rough waters (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Posted on Mon, Jan. 31, 2005





Haitian traders face rough waters

By JOE MOZINGO

Miami Herald


NASSAU, Bahamas - The Haitian sloops ride the wind into port like rare
tropical birds, their colorful hulls creaking and groaning, their ragged
sails billowing against a backdrop of luxury cruise ships and beach resorts.

Vacationers watch from the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort as the low wooden
boats wrap up their 500-mile journey - ostensibly to sell sacks of Haitian
charcoal to barbecue joints like Go Go Ribs in Nassau.

It is a rare glimpse of history, not invented by a tourism board.

The Haitian sea traders travel like they have for 200 years, in rickety,
hand-hewn ships up to 70 feet long and painted in ways that make a rainbow
look drab. No motor, no radio, no running lights - just patched-up canvas
sails, splintered rudders and crooked masts.

The sailors rely on experience passed down for generations to navigate the
Bahamas' labyrinthine currents, shoals and reefs and survive sudden,
devastating storms.

But now politics may sink them. As the Bahamas cracks down on illegal
immigration and drug running from Haiti - and anti-Haitian rhetoric sweeps
across this island nation - the sailors have found themselves in the midst
of a squall.

``They are the ones responsible for bringing all the cocaine into the
Bahamas,'' said Deputy Minister of Immigration Weston Saunders. ``My
thinking is that the charcoal is just a front. When you see a boat coming
into Nassau with 10 to 15 bags of charcoal and nothing else ... come on.''

In February, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force seized a 55-foot sloop in
Nassau allegedly carrying 110 pounds of marijuana. The previous July, they
seized 22 sloops in the harbor for carrying illegal migrants.

The Haitian sailors on the wharf at Nassau insist that, by and large, they
are legitimate traders just trying to make a living off charcoal, one of the
few commodities in their region of northern Haiti.

Their profits are scant, they say, but higher than if they sailed the
charcoal to Haiti's main market in Port-au-Prince. They complain the Bahamas
reduced their meager earnings by prohibiting the importation of bananas,
yams, peanuts and other produce.

Fasilien Lavassier, 31, still finds the long journey worth it. Sailing is
what he lives for.

``I love it,'' he says, rolling in the translucent-green water aboard the
Betty Anne. ``Some day I'd like to go to a mariners' school to learn more.''

He had arrived the previous night and just finished lugging the sacks of
charcoal to the dock in a tiny, motorless dinghy.

With steady northeast winds, the red, white and blue Betty Anne took five
days to make the trip from the town of Port-de-Paix, where most of the
sloops come from. When the wind dies and their sails go slack, it can take
more than a week.

Lavassier, a husband with a child on the way, says he is not afraid of the
journey, even during tropical storms.

``The Haitian people are people who God keeps in his eyes,'' he says.

The 60-foot ship was hewn by machete from native trees - Haitian oak, pine
and tamarind. It has no marine radio or outboard engine. Long sticks are
kept aboard to help push off of sandbars. Down in the voluminous hull, sacks
of charcoal and chunks of limestone provide ballast. The 2-year-old sloop
moans like a dying whale in heavy chop.

The crew sleeps in small cupboard-like compartments at the stern. They catch
fish on the way and cook in a charcoal. This bright windy morning, a big
barracuda is drying on the deck.

The crew members brush their teeth and climb into the low, leaking dinghy
for a trip into town. They rock and fight the current towards the dock, as
chop sprays across the bow and curious tourists whip by on Jet Skis.

There are a dozen sloops in the harbor today, like ancient Chinese junks
moored in modern Hong Kong.

Many are loaded up for the journey back to Haiti with all sorts of goods
that some of the estimated 75,000 Haitians living in the Bahamas are sending
back to their families at home - mattresses, bicycles, doors, windows, sacks
of rice and flour, car batteries.

``The conditions are so bad in Haiti, we come here and try to make a
living,'' said Frank Augustin, who owns one of the sloops.

Augustin, a Haitian who now lives in the Bahamas, said the fees he charges
for cargo on the way back to Haiti supplements his business. For customers,
it's a lot cheaper than Federal Express.

Augustin had to clean houses for years before he could afford one of the
boats, and he still barely gets by. The last trip his crew made took a week
one way with 250 bags of charcoal, which he sold to Go-Go Ribs for $10 each.
He said his profit was minimal.

Bahamian naval officials say the trade is extremely dangerous. When the
smugglers are intercepted, the sloops are often found overloaded with people
and structurally unseaworthy.

``A lot of those are destroyed at sea,'' said Lt. Darren Henrick, spokesman
for Royal Bahamas Defense Forces. Because the ships are wood, with no motor
or radio, the radars of bigger ships do not pick them up.

``They have no running lights,'' Henrick said. ``You have to be careful at
night. You could just plow right through these things.''

Despite the hazards, Henrick has a deep respect for the seamanship of the
traders who sail all the way into Nassau.

``They manage to accomplish this magnificent feat,'' he said.