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Haiti at a crossroads

By Institute for Justice & Democracy (IJDH) staff, May 22, 2019 (The first of three parts) I. Introduction Haiti is in the midst of an escalating political crisis that has repeatedly paralyzed the nation. Tens of thousands have been taking to the streets to protest President Jovenel Moïse’s corruption, economic mismanagement and impunity for human rig…
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Residents of Haiti's main hospital strike against lack of resourc…

By AFP, May 22, 2019 With no oxygen in intensive care or gloves in the emergency room, residents at Haiti's largest hospital have gone on strike to protest the filthy environment and demand six months of back pay. "We have almost nothing when we talk about emergency services," said Emmanuel Desrosiers, 24, one of the doctors-in-training at the State Univer…
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Haiti's Market Women resist market forces

By Haiti Action Committee, May 26, 2019 "On a plain high in the mountains of Haiti one day a week thousands of people still gather. This is the marketplace of my childhood…The sights and the smells and the noise and the color overwhelm you. Everyone comes. If you don’t come you will miss everything…Goods are displayed in every direction: onions, leeks, corn…
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Without Venezuela’s oil, Haiti struggles to keep lights on

By Ralph Thomassaint Joseph, Associated Press, May 17, 2019 When her daughter was 4 years old, Jennifer Jean started a small catering business in Bourdon, a lower middle-class district of the Haitian capital. Starting with the occasional wedding or corporate meeting, she grew the business into a venture that earned her as much as $1,000 a month, enough to…
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Jean André Victor and his self-proclaimed president

By Catherine Charlemagne, Haiti Liberté, May 15, 2019 We imagine that many people read and reread agronomist Jean André Victor’s text entitled “What is a self-proclaimed President?” published in the newspaper Le Nouvelliste of Wed., May 8, 2019. It was a presentation of the radical opposition’s intention to name a self-appointed President to replace current…
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Dozens brutally killed, raped in Haiti massacre, police say. ‘Even you…

By Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, May 15, 2019 It is one of Haiti’s most violent and impoverished neighborhoods, a no-go zone next to the Haitian Parliament that has become ground zero in a resurgence of gang-related and possibly politically motivated violence. Now six months after dozens of people were tortured and killed in the worst massacre in Haiti…
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The Haitian prime minister’s cabinet is still incomplete

By Prensa Latina, May 7, 2019  Less than two days before presenting his political statement to the Senate, Prime Minister Jean Michel Lapin has not finished selecting his cabinet this Tue. May 7, confirmed Gary Bodeau, the Chamber of Deputies’ president. Bodeau criticized President Jovenel Moïse for forming a government without taking into account the depu…
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Canadian Foreign Policy

Canada’s defence minister promoting arms sales to anti-democratic, repressive regimes

By Yves Engler, Canadian Dimension, May 10, 2019

Last Friday, members of Mouvement Québécois pour la Paix interrupted a $135-a-plate luncheon to confront defence minister Harjit Sajjan. At the event sponsored by SNC Lavalin, Bombardier, Rio Tinto, etc., we called for cutting military spending, for Canada to withdraw from NATO and an end to weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

While Sajjan’s responsibility for NATO and military spending are straightforward, his role in fueling the Saudi led war in Yemen is less obvious. But, the Department of National Defence (DND) plays a substantial role in Canadian arms exports to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

As he did the last three years, Sajjan is set to speak at the CANSEC arms bazar in Ottawa later this month. For more than two…

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