Over the last few weeks there have been some key developments in the broader political context in Haiti.
For a good overview of those developments, see the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti’s summary report of human rights concerns through the end of October. From the introduction of that report:
Although pandemic precautions have not permitted Quixote Center staff to visit our Haitian counterparts this year, we have kept in regular touch with our partners via virtual meetings twice a month. Because of those close connections, we were able to broadcast the need for increasing deposits in the seed bank and many of you truly delivered to meet this need. We received the report below yesterday and wanted to share some highlights with you.
For this week's Black History Month series at the Quixote Center, we are republishing a post from 2020 on Charlemagne Péralte, who resisted the U.S. occupation of Haiti and remains a legendary symbol of Haitian Liberty today.
The struggle of [hu]man[s] against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Milan Kundera, the Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Several years ago a breed of weevil began infesting sweet potato crops in the area around Gros Morne, ruining many harvests. In response, the team at the Jean Marie Vincent Formation Center went to work developing a weevil resistance strain of sweet potatoes, and have been introducing this to farmers. Below are some photos from a project site in Perou, a satellite nursery for sweet potatoes, Aneus (red shirt) and Teligene (white shirt) check on sweet potatoes.
The headlines on Haiti are once again sensational. Haiti is “on the brink,” “burning,” facing “barbarism” and so on. To be clear, Haiti is facing another trough in the decades long up and down struggle for democracy and accountability.
The CDC order is designed to accomplish under the guise of public health a dismantling of legal protections governing border arrivals that the Trump administration has been unable to achieve under the immigration laws. Lucas Guttentag, Just Security
On 11 August, 2020, the hen house celebrated the one-year anniversary of the arrival of the first 1,000 hens. The hen house provides low-cost eggs to community groups for resale in the local market. The Quixote Center helped fund the solar powered water pump for the hen house. The hen house is committed to using feed that is 100% grown locally. This is a goal that is close to being met.
The notorious paramilitaries of the past, the Tonton Macoute and FRAPH may be gone today, but the people of Haiti are once again under the threat of the presence of armed groups acting with impunity. The use of armed gangs by political actors in Haiti (and many other places, including the U.S.) to “keep order” is hardly a new phenomenon. However, over the last several years, as protests against the PHTK government have grown, these gangs have been mobilized in what seems a coordinated fashion. They are heavily armed, and have engaged in multiple attacks on communities.
This week the Franciscan Network on Migration’s monthly Facebook Live broadcast, En Camino, or "On the way," featured staff of the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the Quixote Center discussed the situation of Haitians crossing through Central America and Mexico. You can watch below.
On June 23, the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Emmanuel “Toto” Constant to Haiti. Constant was arrested as he arrived in Port-au-Prince, based on a 2000 conviction for the massacre of political opponents at Raboteau, Haiti. In 1994, at the time of the massacre, Constant was head of a paramilitary organization called the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which is known to have engaged in widespread human rights violations, including murder, rape, and torture. When U.S.
