Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 By Colin Rickards

In a crowded and dilapidated Port-au-Prince police station, which currently serves as working space for the Government of Haiti, President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive appointed CARICOM as their country’s designated agent for post-earthquake discussions with the International Community.
Leading the team from the 14-member regional bloc -- of which Haiti is a member -- were CARICOM Chair Roosevelt Skerrit, the Prime Minister of Dominica, and Secretary-General Edwin Carrington. This was two weeks ago, and CARICOM then named former Prime Minister of Jamaica P.J. Patterson as the organization’s Special Envoy on Haiti.
Interestingly, as Patterson has noted, when CARICOM participates at international meetings it does so “not as a regional organization,” but as “a Community of 14 sovereign states.”
This will mean that Patterson will have lots of muscle, and will play a pivotal role, at next month’s United Nations “technical conference” in New York. It is being held to coordinate economic assistance and emergency relief aid, and help sensitize nations, international donors and financial institutions to Haiti’s needs.
Debt forgiveness has to be the order of the day, and the countries of the G7 have already done this, including France, with “cancelled” Haiti’s remaining debt of 58 million Euros. According to figures gathered by OXFAM, Haiti still owes US$900 million, most of it to international financial institutions.
Those who speak of “reparations” believe that France should give Haiti US$21 billion, computed as today’s value of the 150 Gold Francs which the French extracted as the price for recognizing Haiti’s Independence.
Rather to my surprise a fairly loud anti-media lobby is developing among some agenda-driven Johnny-Come-Lately “Haiti experts.” These vociferous individuals appear to be the kind of people who always run to the media when they want publicity. If they don’t get it, or don’t like what is written about them, or reporters unearth disreputable matters, they turn on their Benefactors-That-Weren’t, screaming about “media bias” and Capitalism.
I suspect that some of these anti-media people had to go to an atlas to see where Haiti is located, as I’ve actually talked to people who initially thought it was in the South Seas. Apparently, Haiti and Tahiti sound alike to untutored ears.
As a valuable counter to the many “know nothings” who are cluttering up the Internet with their drivel, it is good to be able to report that Haiti-born scholar Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Professor of Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will be in town early next month to speak at York University and the University of Toronto. The author of several books on Haiti, he will deliver two lectures while here.
The first will be called “New Paradigms for National Development -- As If People Matter” and will be given at 12:30 p.m. at York University’s Vanier College on Wednesday, March 3.
The second, which is the annual Michael Baptista Lecture, presented by York’s Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, will be given the following day. It is being co-sponsored by the University of Toronto’s Caribbean Studies Program.
Called “The Haitian Apocalypse and Rebirth,” it will be at New College’s William Doo Auditorium (45 Willcocks Street) at 7:00 p.m. on March 4. Both events are co-sponsored by A Different Booklist bookstore.
“‘Apocalyptic’ is usually the word applied to the entire thrust of Haitian history by reporters and pundits with scant knowledge of Haitian history and culture,” says Bellegarde-Smith. “It is high time that North Americans learn about a society to which they are intimately linked for ill and good.”
He has a PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics and is the author of Haiti: The Breached Citadel, published in revised form in 2004, and one of the finest books on Haiti for years. He is also a Vodou scholar, has written extensively on the subject and takes pride in his status as a “oungan asogwe,” the highest ranking achievable as a priest of Vodou.
Concurrently with both of Bellegarde’s lectures there will be a Haitian Art Exhibition and a silent auction of paintings. The money raised will go to Children in Crisis bibliotherapy and the Creole literacy project of IBBY Haiti, a volunteer non-governmental organization with official status in UNESCO and UNICEF, which is committed to the principles of the United Nations’ 1990 International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Fundraisers for Haiti are still on the calendars of many organizations, and ion Thursday, February 25, Sway magazine is hosting a star-studded event in Liberty Village at WIDEawake Entertainment Group premises (171 East Liberty Street, Unit 310), a state-of-the-art studio and entertainment facility.
The line-up of performers runs the gamut, from the well known Dan Hill, accompanied by Joe Sealy, and Juno Award-winner Sean Jones, to former Sugar Jones member Maiko Watson and up-and-comer Keysha Fanfair.
The organizers are working with the Haitian Consulate General to establish a scholarship fund for Haitian refugees, enthusiastically supported by Consul General Eric Pierre, who says that “a scholarship fund will be very important for encouraging students who now face financial difficulties to still achieve their dreams and fulfill their goals.”

Relations between Haiti and the United States and Canada have not always been harmonious, says Bellegarde-Smith, as “proximity has not made for good neighbors.” Nevertheless, he says that Haitians “take solace” in their belief in U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Governor-General Michaelle Jean, as well as in the expected vigilance of “the hundreds of thousands of Haitians now Canadian or American citizens.”
“It augurs well for a different historical course between our three nations,” he says, yet wonders: “What can we now expect? What will transpire in the foreseable future?”
He may well ask.

The vultures are already gathering and -- while it should be possible to keep out the Haliburtons and their ilk -- there are already two scandals brewing about large and untendered contracts being given out by US-AID.