Letter to Globe and Mail on two year anniversary of earthquake

Letter to Globe and Mail's Campbell Clark

Vancouver BC
Jan 7, 2012
 
Hello Mr. Clark,
 
 
For the past two years, we have been very much hoping that the Globe would develop a more critical capacity in its publishing on Haiti. That's not a criticism of you or any other writer, it's a criticism of how much space and research time that the paper apparently allows on the subject of Haiti. The op-ed page, for example, has visibly been closed to critical commentary by seasoned Haiti advocates.
 
We are sending background information to journalists in Canada in conjunction with the two-year anniversary of the earthquake. Let us know if you would like to receive the several dossiers we have compiled. Much of the material in question is posted on our website www.canadahaitiaction.ca and is posted regularly to our mail list.
 
Note in our "Letters to election officials" feature on the website the recent letter by Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird to the fact-finding delegation to Haiti that we helped to initiate. The letter is in reply to the report written by the delegation of its findings and published on August 4, 2011. We will be writing a reply to Minister Baird. In a nutshell, we note that his positive presentation of Haiti (and that of Minister Oda cited in your article) is somewhat belied by his year-end interview with La Presse in which he says Canada is "Not at all happy" with the performance of the Martelly government. (See my article on this subject on our news page.)
 
Note further in this regard our website front page news story of the deepening troubles of the Martelly-led government in Haiti. There is an emerging possibility that the government could fall due to the mounting concern over the greed and corruption of Martelly and his family and entourage as well as the soon-to-reemerge issue of the citizenships of both Martelly and Prime Minister Conille... The Haitian constitution is crystal clear: the citizen of a foreign land is not entitled to run for public office.
 
President Martelly, you will recall, is the product of an electoral process that was entirely financed by the U.S., Canada and Europe and whose first round was described by CBC and other reporters on the spot as a "fraud" and a "complete sham." Less than 25% of Haitians voted. Martelly was the third place finisher in the first round of voting but acceded to the second round when the OAS and U.S. threatened to cut off aid to Haiti if the second place finisher was not booted out of the exercise by the appointed and unconstitutional Electoral Commission of the time (he was). Latest news has Mr. Martelly giving the boot to that 'provisional' unconstitutional electoral commission and appointing a new, equally unconstitutional, 'provisional' electoral commission of his own.
 
Best wishes,
Roger Annis
Canada Haiti Action Network
778 858 5179