28701: (comment) Chamberlain: Wilful disinformation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

On 10 June 2004, the Associated Press carried the following story (duly
passed on to the Corbett list and posted at the time):


                         Dominican-Haiti Trade


AP  10/06/2004 09:58
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press

   By PETER PRENGAMAN
   Associated Press Writer

   SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- A Dominican factory that makes
Levi's jeans in a Haitian free-trade zone plans to close its doors and lay
off 700 Haitian employees because of labor disputes, company officials said
Wednesday.
   Grupo M, one of the Dominican Republic's largest free-trade zone
companies, built the $10 million factory a year ago in the border town of
Quanaminthe, Haiti.
   The decision is a blow to Haiti, the Americas' poorest country, where
most people are jobless and the political situation has become more fragile
since the February rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   "This has been a very difficult decision, and we've done everything to
avoid it," Grupo M spokeswoman Rosa Taveras said. "The majority of people
want to keep working but it's a radical group that pushed us to this
point."
   Workers at the factory, who make about 750 Haitian Gourds $18 a week and
have no health benefits, have been pushing for higher wages and a medical
plan over the last two months.
   About 100 workers went on strike Monday and stopped workers from
crossing a picket line, Grupo M said. Though production resumed Tuesday,
the company said it needed to make a change.
   The decision was made "for security reasons in the face of threats and
violent actions by a group of activists called Batay Ouvriye," Grupo M
President Fernando Capellan said.
   Representatives of Batay Ouvriye could not be reached for comment.
   Free-trade zones in the two countries are areas where companies can
manufacture goods without having to pay import taxes on raw materials or
export taxes on the final product.
   Companies operating in free-trade zones are a leading employer in the
Dominican Republic, with 530 of them employing 170,833 people in 2002,
officials said.
   Despite the proximity to Haiti, only a few companies have set up shop
across the border.

____________________

A week or so ago, Google News (at least) had a technical hiccup for a few
hours and regurgitated this story and several others (all clearly dated
2004) from the Haiti Info website.  They were picked up by people
apparently intent on twisting events to fit their own purposes.  They
falsely presented this story about Grupo M as dated June 200_6_.

The latest of these attempts at propaganda appeared today in a "report"
(see below) from Indy Media (again picked up by Google News, which is run
by a machine, not humans).  It is identical to the AP's 2004 story (except
for changing the AP's "rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide" to "the 2004 ouster of the elected government of" -- apparently
er... nobody opposed Aristide), until the start of the fifth paragraph,
when a rant begins against Batay Ouvriye, interspersed with the last three
paragraphs of the AP story.

I leave Corbetteers to ponder the intent of those who have dishonestly
changed the date on the story, and how they feel about the credibility of
Indy Bay Update, some of whose authors and associates are well known to
this list as shrill advocates of openness and "truth" where Haiti is
concerned.


        Greg Chamberlain


____________________

Haiti: 700 Workers to Loose Jobs due to U.S. State Department funded Batay
Ouvriye
by Indy Bay Update
Sunday Jul 23rd, 2006 1:40 PM

Haiti Labor Update

A Dominican factory that makes Levi's jeans in a Haitian free-trade zone
plans to close its doors and lay off 700 Haitian employees because of labor
disputes, company officials said in early June 2006.

Grupo M, one of the Dominican Republic's largest free-trade zone companies,
built the $10 million factory a year ago in the border town of Ouanaminthe,
Haiti. The decision is a blow to Haiti, the Americas' poorest country,
where most people are jobless and the political situation has become more
fragile since the 2004 ouster of the elected government of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "This has been a very difficult decision, and we've
done everything to avoid it," Grupo M spokeswoman Rosa Taveras said. "The
majority of people want to keep working but it's a radical group that
pushed us to this point."

Workers at the factory, who make about 750 Haitian Gourds $18 a week and
have no health benefits, have been pushing for higher wages and a medical
plan over the last two months. About 100 workers went on strike for a day
in early June and stopped workers from crossing a picket line, Grupo M
said. Though production resumed Tuesday, the company said it needed to make
a change.

The decision was made "for security reasons in the face of threats and
violent actions by a group of activists called Batay Ouvriye," Grupo M
President Fernando Capellan said.

Representatives of Batay Ouvriye could not be reached for comment.

[rant begins]

Batay Ouvriye has been the recipient of nearly half a million dollars in
program funding emanating from the U.S. State Department, a relationship
which started soon after Batay Ouvriye rallied for the departure of Haiti's
constitutional government in 2004. An illegal coup d'etat occurred on Feb
29, 2004 after numerous foreign funded Haitian organizations called for the
constitutional government's departure and armed paramilitaries invaded the
country. The coup has resulted in over two years of human rights hell for
Haitians.

While foreign labor institutions (ORIT, AFL-CIO) dependent on funding from
wealthy governments have supported Batay Ouvriye and other essentially
pro-coup labor groups (CSH) they have remained on a strict path of ignoring
the thousands of laid off civil servant workers who were fired under the
harsh privatization plans of IMF/World Bank accords set into motion by the
illegal Latortue interim government. In recent weeks these laid off civil
servants have launched protests in Port-au-Prince. They have called for the
release of political prisoners and the numerous civil servants who remain
illegally in Haitian prisons without being formally charged. Meanwhile,
foreign labor institutions present in Haiti (ICFTU,etc) refuse to
investigate the IMF/Latortue privatization lay offs.

The Free-trade zones (FTZ) in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are areas
where companies can manufacture goods without having to pay import taxes on
raw materials or export taxes on the final product. Prior to the coup, the
constitutional government, after years of an elite supported foreign aid
embargo, was forced into allowing the set up of one FTZ in the north of the
island. Although it continued to refuse IMF privatization demands and it
was able to negotiate the right of workers within the FTZ to organize, the
Batay Ouvriye and other foreign sponsored organizations heavily criticized
the legal government for setting up the FTZ claiming it was a government of
"criminals".

Companies operating in free-trade zones are a leading employer in the
Dominican Republic, with 530 of them employing 170,833 people in 2002,
officials said. Despite the proximity to Haiti, only a few companies have
set up shop across the border as Haiti is seen as violent and unstable
after years of elite sabotage of elected governments. One prominent labor
leader wishing to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal states, "Haiti
needs jobs and the money these companies in the FTZ pay is better than all
the Apaid and other sweatshops pay. We should not be driving these
companies away, now 700 workers will loose jobs. We need jobs for people to
eat.?


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