12130: This Week in Haiti 20:10 5/22/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                         May 22 - 28, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 10

AGREEMENT ON DRUG TRAFFICKING

Haiti and the U.S. signed an agreement in Port-au-Prince on drug
trafficking on May 15. The accord grants Haiti $680,000 to beef
up its anti-drug trafficking efforts.

"We agreed to cooperate on several projects in the training of
specialized units of the National Police dedicated to fighting
drug trafficking," U.S. ambassador to Haiti Brian Dean Curran
said. "If all goes well, we could see more financial resources in
this area in the years to come."

At the signature ceremony, Foreign Affairs Minister Joseph
Philippe Antonio said that "the signing of this text is one more
step" taken by Haitian authorities against drug trafficking.
Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said that "we do not produce drugs in
Haiti but our territory is used as a transit point by drug
traffickers."

But Deputies Wilner Content and Milien Rommage complained that
the amount given Haiti by the U.S. to fight drug trafficking
falls far short of what is needed and is pitiful compared to what
is given to other countries. "$600,000 is a puny sum which a drug
dealer might spend in the course of an evening out dancing,"
Content remarked.

The accord comes after a group of U.S. anti-drug trafficking
"experts" visited Haiti last month. They met with President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide at the National Palace on Apr. 30.

In a May 14 press conference in Port-au-Prince, Ben Dupuy,
secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), laid the
blame for the world's drug problem on the policies and
machinations of developing countries, particularly the U.S..

"The developed countries have managed to devalue all the crops
produced by the underdeveloped countries, which could allow them
to export and generate revenues to import manufactured products,"
Dupuy said. "Coffee, cotton, and cocoa are examples. Thus the
peasant loses interest in growing these crops. So, in certain
countries in Latin America, the peasants have no alternative but
to cultivate products having much more value on the market, such
as marijuana and cocaine. If Washington and the developed
countries really want to combat drugs, they must first stop their
manipulation of world food prices and allow them to rise so that
these countries have income."

Furthermore, Dupuy added, "the U.S. should patrol its own borders
rather than asking other countries to be its border police."

OUANAMINTHE:
MOBILIZATION AGAINST FREE TRADE ZONE

On May 18, Haitian Flag Day, peasants near this northeastern town
had a large rally in the rural section called Pitobè, on the
Marie Bahoux plain, to protest the Haitian government's decision
to set up a free trade zone there (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20,
No. 4, 4/10/02) . The demonstrators protested that the proposed
factories would pave over one of the rare tracts of fertile land
in the Northeast and condemn displaced peasants to work in
assembly factories in terrible conditions for pitiful wages.

One of the speakers was a Colombian missionary who described the
miserable conditions in free trade zones in Colombia and the
Dominican Republic. Abuse, injustice, and exploitation were the
rule, he said.

The Haitian Platform for an Alternative Development (PAPDA) sent
delegations to Marie Bahoux on Apr. 9 and May 3 to gather
information and bring solidarity to the peasants there. According
to a PAPDA report, the free trade zone will only "impoverish the
Haitian peasantry and reduce it to a new slavery." According to
the National Association of Haitian Agro-Professionals (ANDAH),
before proceeding with the zone, the government must carry out a
study "on the potential of the [Marie Bahoux] area and its
importance in local and national food production."

Meanwhile, the Haitian Parliament has announced, rather tardily,
that it will soon deliberate on free trade zone legislation.

PETIT GOÂVE:
POLICE ARREST MAN ACCUSED IN JOURNALIST SLAYING

Haitian police have arrested a leader of the group accused of
killing radio journalist Brignol Lindor last Dec. 3 in this
southern town (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 39, 12/12/01).

Fritz Doudoute, one of the leaders of the pro-Lavalas "Dòmi nan
bwa" (Sleep in the Woods) popular organization, was picked up on
May 6 and went before a judge on May 8.

"We heard Doudoute and his case is now before the examining
magistrate," said Dumerzier Bellande, the local government
representative. "He has now been returned to jail."

Doudoute admitted that he was a member of "Dòmi nan bwa" and
practically acknowledged that Lindor's killing was a political
payback for the near-fatal beating of a pro-Lavalas militant the
day before by partisans of the Democratic Convergence, an
opposition front.

"They didn't know that Brignol was a journalist," Doudoute
declared, referring to the mob that fatally attacked Lindor
because "he was with the Convergence, he was one of them."

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