Just Reconstruction

February 29, 2012
by Deepa Panchang and Beverly Bell
                                                                       
“I am optimistic that in 18 months, yes, we will be autonomous in our decisions. But right now I have to assume... that we are not.”[i] With these words, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive watched a swath of his government’s decision-making power shift into foreign hands in early 2010.

February 16, 2012

by Deepa Panchang, Beverly Bell, and Tory Field

As Americans were gearing up for last week’s Super Bowl championship, Haiti’s president Michel Martelly was on a plane to the World Economic Forum to recruit players interested in what one businessman dubbed “the Super Bowl of Disasters” – Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.[1] The Irish-owned cell phone company Digicel footed his trip there, and hosted a regional business tour complete with a gala ball before his return to a country still reeling from crisis conditions in housing, jobs, and basic rights.[2]

By Deepa Panchang

February 2, 2012

In a 2011 Forum on the Crisis of Housing in Haiti, a group of camp residents and advocates asked “grassroots organizations and all other movements to mobilize with us on the housing issue so that we can achieve this dream of justice and liberty.” Today, with more than 500,000 people still living under sun-scorched tarps two years after the earthquake of January, 2010, the Haitian housing rights movement continues to gain urgency. Demanding comprehensive housing policy in the long term and decent, secure housing in the short term, the groups that comprise the movement have created detailed prescriptions for how to resolve the crisis. They are up against a lot, however, since most entities in charge of housing have not sought to “mobilize with” the movement; rather, they have come in with their own ideas.

By Alexis Erkert
January 19, 2012

Remember, you are marching today for those who couldn’t be here, To say to them, “We haven’t forgotten. We’ll never forget.” And to say to those that are still here, We will take a stand for the rebuilding of Haiti.  – Right to Housing Collective, January 12, 2012

Speech given by Marie Frantz Joachim
January 12, 2012
National Coordination of Women's Organizations (KONAP) Gathering

"We lost, we lost, we lost, we lost… a lot.

But, we haven’t lost our hope. We haven’t lost our courage and determination."

By Alexis Erkert and Beverly Bell

As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory.

Haitians displaced by the earthquake two years ago face many crises, but perhaps none worse than ongoing homelessness. One of the 520,000 people still living in displacement camps, [i] Dieula Croissey describes conditions where she lives in Cité Soleil: “We’re living in insecurity, our lives are threatened, our daughters are used.” In addition to insecurity and violence, especially against women, people living in camps face deteriorating shelter materials – shredding plastic tarps and tattered tents – hunger, and lack of adequate water or toilets. Despite Haiti’s declining rates of cholera infection,[ii] the dearth of sanitation options leaves real risk for contracting the disease. 

Originally posted here by Haiti Grassroots Watch.

That’s what President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly said on November 28 at a ceremony inaugurating a giant industrial zone being built in the north of Haiti.

Across Haiti and abroad, Martelly, his government, and “advisors” like former President Bill Clinton have been pushing Haiti as a foreign investor’s dream come true.