28401: Haiti Progres (News) This Week in Haiti 24:8 5/3/2006 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

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                        HAITI PROGRES
             "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                   * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      May 3 - 9, 2006
                      Vol. 24, No. 8

PRÉVAL VISITS VENEZUELA AND CANADA:
ONE WARM RECEPTION, ONE COOL

With his May 14 inauguration drawing near, Haitian president-elect René
Préval concluded just over a month of international travels with visits
to Venezuela and Canada this past week. The contrasting receptions he
received in Caracas and Ottawa - respectively friendly and frosty -
suggest that Préval may face difficulties in trying to draw support for
Haiti's battered economy from politically opposed quarters in a rapidly
polarizing hemisphere.

In one corner of the political ring sit the United States and Canada,
whose governments supported the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état against former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Both governments also lavished
millions of dollars in aid and training - usually via terribly
misnomered "non-governmental organizations" - on the parties of Préval's
political rivals in the months leading up to the national elections held
in February and April.

In the other corner sit Cuba and Venezuela, whose socialist governments
are mounting a growing political challenge to North American hegemony in
the hemisphere, inspiring anti-neoliberal uprisings throughout the
hemisphere where elections are bringing new progressive leaders to power
in countries like Bolivia and Peru.

First, Préval visited the U.S. at the end of March for talks with
officials of the U.S. government and international financial
institutions (IFIs) in Washington, and United Nations officials in New
York (see Haiti Progres, Vol. 24, No. 3, 3/29/2006). During that visit,
Préval and his advisors declared that his government would be willing to
follow the strict and unpopular guidelines laid down by Washington and
its IFIs for the neo-liberal adjustments demanded to obtain always
coveted but always elusive North American aid and investment.

Then Préval visited Cuba for a week in mid-April, after which many
concrete projects and exchanges in the domains of health and technical
assistance were announced (see Haiti Progres, Vol. 24, No. 6,
4/19/2006).

Less than a week after his return to Haiti, Préval made a two-day trip
on April 24 and 25 to Venezuela, where he met with President Hugo Chavez
and agreed to Venezuela's Caribbean regional oil pact, Petrocaribe. The
Venezuelans showered him with honors and promises of aid in health,
education and energy.

"I received a fantastic reception in Venezuela," Préval declared on his
return to Haiti.

In contrast, a week later, Préval traveled to Canada on April 30 for a
visit that the Canadian Press agency called "almost invisible, with few
of the normal trappings associated with a foreign dignitary."

"There were no news releases or briefings on his meetings with Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay or Gov.
Gen. Michaelle Jean," the CP reported. "There was no joint news
conference. The prime minister's office made no announcement of the
visit beforehand."

A far more lavish reception was given to lame-duck de facto Prime
Minister Gérard Latortue when he visited Canada on Mar. 10 for no
apparent reason (see Haiti Progres, Vol. 24 No. 1, 3/15/2006).

Michel Sanon, a Montreal-based Haitian activist and poet, said that
members of the Haitian community in Canada "are left to wonder why
Canadian leaders of the 21st century show so much interest in unelected
and illegitimate leaders imposed on the Haitian people by foreign
powers, while they do their best to keep democratically elected leaders
in the shadows, or even to contribute to their removal from office by
force." (The Venezuelan government never recognized the de facto
government.)

Members of Préval's entourage were even prohibited from accompanying the
president-elect to Canada because their names appeared on a Canadian
government "blacklist" of people it accuses of crimes against humanity,
Reuters' correspondent Guy Delva reported May 1. Among those cited on
the list were former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, who served
during Préval's first term as President from 1996 to 2001 and who now
heads the president-elect's transition team. Also on the list are Préval
's former Health Minister Rudolph Mallebranche and former Préval advisor
Philippe Rouzier, now a senior official of the United Nations
Development Program in Haiti.

Several other former ministers and other officials of the Préval and
Aristide administrations were on the list, Delva reported.

"This is outrageous," Alexis told Reuters. "It is an insult to all
honest Haitians and we demand a public apology from the Canadian
government." Although Ottawa subsequently granted Alexis a visa, he
refused to accompany Préval, feeling the matter was still unclear.
Préval was outraged by the list and visa denials, Reuters reported,
citing members of his entourage.

The only concrete aid to be announced from the visit was a $48 million
grant "to promote good governance and democracy in Haiti," which is
usually code for a project that will do just the opposite.

In contrast, Haiti came away with a lot more from Venezuela.. The
Petrocaribe deal requires Caribbean countries to pay 60% of the cost for
fuel up front but allows them to finance the remainder through loans -
with 1% interest - over 25 years.

"For 2004-2005, for example, Haiti's petroleum usage came to $254.5
million," Préval explained in the press conference on his return. "Now
60% of $254.5 million comes to about $150 million, which we would have
to pay. But the remaining 40%, which amounts to about $100 million, can
be used to create a development fund."

Préval will sign the Petrocaribe accord on May 15, the day after his
inauguration, which Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel will
attend. Venezuela will also help the Haitian state build a petroleum
storage facility. Presently Haiti only has privately owned tank farms.

One journalist asked Préval when he returned from Caracas if there would
be "consequences" for Haiti building links with Venezuela, which
Washington increasingly sees as a regional threat. "The problems between
the United States and Venezuela are problems that those two countries
have to resolve themselves," Préval responded. "It does not affect Haiti
in any way."

But there may indeed be "consequences" if Préval is too friendly with
Cuba and Venezuela, Washington's principal nemeses in the Americas. One
must wonder whether Préval's subdued reception in Ottawa, now in the
hands of the Conservative Party, was a message from the U.S./Canada
axis. Canada's role as Washington's proxy and enforcer in Haiti is not
new. In 2003, Canada hosted a high-level meeting of hemisphere diplomats
called the "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti," where Aristide's overthrow was
mapped out. Predictably, no Haitian government officials were invited
(see Haiti Progres, Vol. 20, No. 51, 3/5/03).

Likewise, today, Canada's rude treatment of Préval this week may be a
warning, transmitted primarily from Washington, that he had better
choose his friends carefully.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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