New America Media - Caribbean

Venezuela’s Foreign Policy Without Chávez: The End of ALBA?

2013-03-06T08:45:00Z

Hugo Chávez Frias, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, passed away on March 5, 2013, due to severe health complications. For at least the past year and half, the Venezuelan head of state had been battling cancer that continued to appear in spite of several surgeries. He traveled to Cuba for a new round of treatment this past December 2012, naming his vice President, Nicolas Maduro, as his successor, should the worst happen.

Now, the question is whether Maduro will respect the country’s constitution and call for new presidential elections within the constitutional period of 30 days. The Venezuelan opposition has not yet elected a candidate, though all eyes are on Henrique Capriles Radonski, who ran and lost to Chávez for the presidency in the October 7, 2012 elections. He was reelected as the governor as the state of Miranda in the recent December 16 regional elections.

Venezuela has had the same president since 1998, with Chávez creating a very particular foreign policy. A critical question will be how will the post-Chávez Venezuelan government organize its relations and initiatives with other states, and how vastly will they differ from Chávez’s vision.

ALBA

Regarding foreign policy, a critical question is what will become of Chávez’s pet project, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). This bloc is made up of nations whose presidents were friendly to Chávez, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. President Correa recently said that the revolution was larger than one man and would continue even in the event of Chavez’s death. Nevertheless, it is debatable whether any of ALBA’s heads of state, including Maduro, are charismatic enough and have the same interest in the alliance to keep it afloat. Correa was recently reelected and Morales is scheduled to run for a new presidential term in 2014; likely to be reelected. It remains to be seen whether any will be able to carry out Chavez’s vision.

Oil and Petro Caribe

Chávez used oil recourses to not only improve the quality of life of poor Venezuelans, but also as an integral part of his foreign policy. After coming to power, he expelled Western oil companies operating in the country and replaced them with Chinese and Russian based companies. In addition, Venezuela donated millions of barrels of oil to needy Caribbean states, particularly Cuba, but also countries like Trinidad and Tobago.

Without Chávez, it is questionable how Venezuela’s oil will be extracted. Should elections be called for and Capriles Radonski comes to power, would he accept, once again, Western oil companies? Furthermore, even if Maduro continues to govern, will Venezuela continue to provide such high quantities of oil, essentially as gifts, to Cuba and other regional states?

Venezuela-U.S. relations

Finally, an important consideration will be the Caracas-Washington relationship be in the coming years, having been shaped mainly around the personalities of their leadership in the past decade. For example, US Venezuela relations were fairly strained while Chávez and George W. Bush were in power. Chávez went as far as memorably calling Bush “the devil” during a UN conference in New York. When Barack Obama was elected President, there was a general feeling that relations would improve. Indeed, Obama and Chávez met during a summit of the Americas, with both leaders shaking hands and Chávez giving the American head of state a book as a gift. While relations during Chávez and Obama’s first presidential term did not worsen, neither did they improve as desired. One complicated factor was the U.S. maintenance of the Cuban embargo. Chávez regarded Fidel Castro as his mentor. The U.S. also prevented Cuba from attending the April 2012 Summit of the Americas in Colombia, with Cuba’s allies protesting the decision.

Without Chávez, how will Washington-Caracas relations be affected? Obviously, much will have to do with whether Maduro remains in power or Capriles enters the presidency. Maduro may end up not being as hardlined as Chávez while Capriles may seek improved relations with Washington for economic reasons.

Conclusions

Venezuela in the post Chávez era will certainly look different than when he was alive: the question is how different. Will Maduro, who rose up the ranks from bus driver to become foreign minister and vice president, remain faithful to his mentor’s socialist vision? Or will Capriles, or another opposition candidate, win the presidency and take the country in a different direction, potentially making it resemble Venezuela’s pre-Chávez era?

A critical aspect of Venezuela’s post Chávez government is how its foreign policy will be structured. During his tenure, Chávez determined much of Venezuela’s foreign policies in accordance with his ideologies. It will be of interest to see whether the ministry of foreign affairs and its diplomatic corps will have more impact on future policies.

W. Alex Sanchez is a Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Amnesty slams Jamaica over delayed report on Tivoli hunt for Dudus

2013-01-22T19:19:09Z

Amnesty International has described as “outrageous” the ongoing delays in the presentation of a report into the deadly 2010 law enforcement operation in Tivoli Gardens, aimed at arresting suspected gang leader Christopher “Dudus” Coke.

Public Defender Earl Witter failed to meet yet another deadline to present the report to Parliament on Tuesday.

The human rights watchdog promptly reacted with a strongly worded statement the following day.

“Continued delays in the investigation into the killing of 73 people in May 2010 during an operation by security forces in West Kingston could be letting people get away with murder,” said an Amnesty spokesperson in the release.

The human rights champion protested the protracted delays in a letter sent to House Speaker Michael Peart.

“It is outrageous that nearly three years since the Tivoli Gardens killings the Jamaican authorities are far from being able to answer the many questions that remain,” said Special Advisor at Amnesty International Javier Zúñiga.

“By failing to ensure that those responsible for the killings, disappearances and arbitrary arrests that took place in Tivoli in 2010 … , the Jamaican authorities are simply sending the message that human rights abuses are permitted and won’t be punished,” the statement continued. Read more here.

Pink Ribbons to Haiti

2012-12-26T20:06:55Z

Image: On International Women's Day, rural Haitian women gathered to learn about breast and cervical cancer. In Haiti, as in many other developing countries, women rarely seek medical help for cancer until it's too late.

This story is part of a special series, Cancer’s New Battleground — the Developing World.
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Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Having breast cancer here often means no care at all, or care that’s too costly for any common person to afford, or a lot of initial missteps.

“I felt something in my breast that hurt,” says a woman who asked to be identified only by her first name - Merlyn.

She’s a big woman in tight braids, with a tough look on her face and a forceful way of speaking. But, she admits, she was scared.

“It hurt,” she says. “It formed a mass. I didn’t know what it was.”

Merlyn says the lump grew so large that it broke through her skin. Her clothes couldn’t cover it. Local doctors were no help.

Merlyn eventually got referred a clinic run by Haitians and Americans from Partners in Health, a medical charity that has launched a new push to fight cancer.

“The reason we’re taking it on is similar to the reasons we’ve taken on other illnesses,” says Dr. Sara Stulac, who heads the group’s oncology program.
“People are suffering in the countries where we work, and there’s something we can do about it.”

Preparing for the Fight

In the little Haitian town of Cange, Partners in Health’s sister organization — known in the local language (Kreyol) as Zanmi Lasante — runs a clinic.

The clinic has been setting up cancer treatment rooms, lining up supplies, and training workers on cancer issues. They are focusing on breast and cervical cancers - the most common cancers among Haitian women.

Dealing with breast cancer in a place like Haiti takes effort and compromise.
The effort starts with the patients. When Merlyn showed up at the clinic with advanced breast cancer, she got a mastectomy. Now every two weeks she takes a 12-hour trip on one of Haiti’s creaky and overcrowded buses to get to the clinic for chemotherapy.

Merlyn says she is bucking what her neighbors say.

“If you get cancer, people say you’re going to die because there’s no treatment for it,” she explains. “They say even if you see a doctor, you won’t find a solution. That’s the talk.”

The breast cancer statistics for women like Merlyn are grim.

“I don’t have a definite number, but I can say that it’s very bad,” says Dr. Ruth Damuse, who is heading the oncology efforts at Zanmi Lasante. “Like half of the women, they will die.”

Damuse says the biggest problem is women coming in late, long after they’ve noticed the initial lump. And a lot of women don’t come in at all. So Damuse takes every opportunity to preach early diagnosis.

Reaching Out

On International Women’s Day, Damuse traveled a few towns over from her clinic to attend a rally and teach-in. Several hundred women sat in the large lobby of a new hospital that was under construction.

Damuse took the podium and asked the crowd a question: “Which cancer most affects women?”

The crowd murmured. No one knew the answer.

“We’re going to talk about breast cancer,” Damuse continued.

On two screens flanking the podium, Damuse showed pictures of breast cancer patients like Merlyn, with tumors coming out of their chests. She told the women how to check themselves for suspicious lumps. She said treatment makes a difference.

The women sitting next to me said it was all new to them.

Cancer care is a new thing in many developing countries. With all the other health problems facing the poor, there has been little interest in cancer treatment among local and international health experts.

Sara Stulac of Partners In Health says for a medical charity like hers, focusing on cancer means getting organized. “You do have to make sure that you have access to advice, to diagnoses, to medications.”

And patients need some sort of social support system to help them get to the hospital. That is no small order in countries with bad roads - or no roads.

With patients coming in so late, diagnosis and treatment often fail, so last year the Haiti medical workers received training in how to use painkillers and provide other comfort care for people dying of cancer.

Help from Abroad

For medical advice, the clinic in Haiti relies on experts at the renowned Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The doctors and nurses in Haiti check in once a week with Dana Farber. They gather around a speakerphone in a simple stucco house near the hospital.

During one call, seven patients were up for discussion. Four were women with breast cancer.

Dr. Lawrence Shulman, head of Dana Farber, joined the call from Boston. He had been sent the patients’ medical histories, lab results, and what X-rays were available.

One woman had had a mastectomy last fall, but the cancer returned. Shulman suggested a different kind of chemotherapy.

Another young woman had a breast lump removed. In the US, lumpectomies generally require weeks of daily radiation treatments after the surgery, but Zanmi Lasante doesn’t have any way to administer radiation. So Shulman suggested a full breast removal.

“She needs to go back and have a mastectomy,” Shulman said over the phone. “Then she needs five years of tamoxifen.”

The tamoxifen costs just pennies a day, affordable even in Haiti. And there are other opportunities to keep costs down. In Haiti - for unknown reasons - breast cancer mostly hits women in their 20s and 30s, and mammography does not work well in women this age, so Zanmi Lasante doesn’t offer it.

Cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and after-care can be costly, however. Partners in Health provides all of this for free and relies on donors to finance it.

Making Cancer a Priority

Sara Stulac, the head of Partners In Health’s cancer program, admits that her team is taking on a big challenge in a country with many other problems.

“I think some people would say we shouldn’t [tackle cancer], but the fact is people are suffering and dying,” she says. “We can’t save all of them, and we can’t save the same group of patients with the same group of diagnoses that we can in the US, but there is so much suffering that we can avoid, and there are so many cancers that we can treat.”

People used to say that AIDS drugs were too costly and too difficult to deliver in developing countries, yet millions of people with HIV in places like Africa and Haiti are now being saved. Stulac says there’s no reason that can’t happen with cancer.

This story was reported with assistance from Ansel Herz. The series was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Haiti’s Homeless Fight Back

2012-10-18T09:15:00Z

Photo courtesy of PRI's The World

When the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, many in the impoverished country lost what little they had.

Nearly three years later, about 400,000 remain homeless. Many are still living in tent camps. And they’re at risk of eviction.

But these days, there’s some push-back.

On a recent Sunday morning outside of Port-au-Prince, impeccably dressed men, women and children file into the huge Grace Church. But across the lawn, a corrugated metal fence hides a different scene — several hundred tents and makeshift shelters.

This is Grace Village camp. No one here attends the church next door.

They’re angry about the horrible conditions here. They’re especially angry at the landlord, the church pastor, who’s been trying to get them off his property.

A church representative says they’re just evicting trouble-makers and trying to help those with some means to relocate.

But many camp residents say the pastor and his associates are using sinister tactics.

Frantsy Alexandre emerges from a tent with a large manila envelope. He pulls out an x-ray of his torso and a signed letter on medical stationery.

He says, “The camp manager was going to destroy my neighbor’s tent, so I said, ‘You can’t do that’ and blocked his way… He came back with a security guard and beat me with a baton. I went to the police but they ignored me.”

So Alexandre went to the courthouse, where they told him to document his injuries.

“I talked to an evicted camp resident who’s been fighting this kind of abuse,” he says, “and he said we need to report what happens to the attorney.”

The attorney is Patrice Florvilus. After the earthquake, he formed an organization that represents residents of tent camps who’ve been threatened with eviction.

“Our strategy is to stop evictions by making landlords follow the law,” Florvilus says, “which can mean a lengthy legal process. And that’s what the landlord wants to avoid.”

This doesn’t always work, but a legal defeat can sometimes turn into a de facto victory. In one case, the mayor of Delmas ordered families off government land. A court upheld the eviction order. But then the mayor backed off – locals say because of organized opposition.

But there are also a lot of failures.

Jackson Doliscar is a community organizer who says getting people to believe in the power of grassroots activism has been a major challenge. In 1990, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide made his successful bid for president, he encouraged Haitians to organize for change. But the hoped-for improvements didn’t materialize. Doliscar thinks that people in Haiti today are desperate enough to try again.

“When things are more difficult for people,” he says, “like they’re having problems with the landlord, they say, ‘If I don’t join the organization today, I’ll be thrown out.’ So they join the organization.”

After the earthquake, Doliscar’s grassroots group joined forces with 25 others to form a housing rights coalition. One of their projects is a slum called Jalousie. It’s in a precarious spot on a hillside overlooking the city. This summer the government ordered residents to evacuate.

Government officials deny they ever planned to force Jalousie residents from their homes. They have been encouraging hundreds to leave, in exchange for money to relocate. But many fear being homeless again after spending more than a year living in the streets after the earthquake.

Marie Michel Moise lived in a tent in a city park with her young children for more than two years. She says she finally got funds to move into a tin shack in Jalousie, the only neighborhood she could afford. When I ask her where she would live if she had the choice, she laughs at the idea. “If you don’t work in this country,” she says, “you don’t have a choice.”

And yet Moise says she believes people can make a difference by taking to the streets and pressuring the government. I ask if she’s afraid she’ll be forced to leave, and she shakes her head. “No,” she says. “We had a demonstration, and they said they wouldn’t destroy our homes.”

But things aren’t quite that easy. Even some supporters of Haiti’s housing rights movement say popular protests are no silver bullet.

Alexis Erkert works with Other Worlds, an organization of women that supports grassroots groups around the globe. She says Haitian authorities often dismiss the activists.

“Last time they did have a sit-in, they managed to get a meeting with [a Ministry of Social Affairs staff member],” she says, “but then they asked for an email address or phone number for follow-up, and they were just laughed at and kicked out.”

I ask if she thinks the movement can succeed. “Not without the international solidarity piece,” she says.

In other words, If Haitian officials won’t listen to Port-au-Prince’s poorest, they might pay attention to their overseas allies, at least those in donor countries.

Reported by PRI’s The World, a co-production of WGBH/Boston, Public Radio International, and the BBC World Service. Support for The World’s Immigrant Lives project comes from the Rita Allen Foundation.

Ecologists Protest Slaughter of Birds That Can Fly Through Hurricanes

2012-08-26T08:45:00Z

Photo: Whimbrels, like the one shown above, are large shorebirds that can brave their way through hurricanes, only to fall prey to hunters.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--As hurricane season gets under way and Tropical Storm Isaac bears down on the Caribbean and maybe on to Florida, biologists are paying particular attention to this fall’s shorebird migration.

Researchers at the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) in Williamsburg, Va., have documented incredible feats of endurance by migrating Whimbrels (large shorebirds with long, down-curved bills) flying through storms, only to fall foul to the guns of unregulated hunting on islands, such as Guadeloupe and Martinique, as well as Barbados, French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana.

100 MPH Through Hurricanes

Using satellite transmitters attached to the birds, researchers tracked one Whimbrel – named Hope – through a large tropical storm in 2011. She took 27 hours averaging just nine miles per hour to fly nonstop through the storm to get to the center. Then she flew at an average of almost 100 mph for 1.5 hours out the back end, using the power of the storm to “slingshot” her towards land.

“Our research is documenting some of the truly amazing dynamics of bird migrations. In addition to the simply staggering distances these birds travel – often thousands of miles at a time, nonstop – we are also observing what could be described as jaw dropping physical feats involving storms,” said Fletcher Smith, lead biologist on the tracking project.

He added, “These herculean efforts leave the birds exhausted and in need of a safe haven to rest and refuel. Unfortunately there are few of these locations in the Lesser Antilles, [small islands in the Caribbean north of Venezuela].

Some locals gather at recreational shooting swamps in the Caribbean to slaughter with impunity everything that flies by. They claimed perhaps their most notable bird victims last year: two Whimbrels named Machi and Goshen that were being tracked by Smith’s team.

Over a lifetime Machi is estimated to have flown 27,000 migration miles and made it through Tropical Storm Maria. Goshen had flown 14,000 miles, including several hours battling Hurricane Irene last year. Forced to land in Guadalupe, an area they had avoided in previous recorded migrations, they were then killed by the unregulated hunters.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and other bird conservation groups expressed outraged at the continued tolerance of the shooting ranges, especially in Guadeloupe.

France Could Stop Mass Killing

“This mass slaughter of birds has to stop,” said George Fenwick, president of American Bird Conservancy.

Fenwick stressed, “These shooting parties are the antithesis of everything the hunting community stands for here in the U.S. They don’t care about the impact they have on the environment, give nothing back in the way of permit fees to promote conservation efforts, and sometimes don’t even bother to collect the birds they shoot.”

In a letter to the French Ministry of Ecology – which has an oversight role on the island – ABC requested that it to “take immediate measures to stop unregulated and unmonitored shooting on the island of Guadeloupe.”

The letter also referenced “the pressure that unregulated hunting has on shorebirds in this French department,” and demanded that “the Ministry of Ecology put a stop to this barbaric practice in all French departments of [Latin] America and adopt practices that protect avian wildlife in this hemisphere.”

“Sometimes something good can come out of something bad and in this case, I believe the good that may emerge is that island conservation groups and regulators will begin to take a more critical view of how to more effectively manage hunting practices in their communities,” Fenwick said.

The shorebird-tracking project is a collaborative effort between the Center for Conservation Biology, the Canadian Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, and Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

The project will ultimately track 20 migrating Whimbrels to better understand migratory pathways and locations that are critical for this declining species. The study has tracked Whimbrels for more than 185,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) since 2008.

Threat of Tourism, Development

According to ABC, shooting swamps are one of several threats birds face in the Caribbean. In addition, wetlands throughout the islands are vanishing due to increasing tourism development, agriculture and urban expansion.

More than half of the wetlands that remain are seriously degraded by the cutting of mangroves and coastal forest. Add to that pollution, water mismanagement and natural catastrophes, such as droughts and hurricanes. As a result, many threatened birds that rely on these Caribbean wetlands are now declining.

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is nonprofit group working to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.

Will Chevron Ever Come Clean?

2012-08-11T10:20:00Z

For thousands of people in the San Francisco Bay Area communities of Richmond, North Richmond, San Pablo, and El Cerrito, last Monday was a night of terror.

Explosions and a massive fire shook Chevron's giant refinery in Richmond starting around 6:15 p.m. Our own Jessica Meskus, the associate art director of Sierra magazine, lives about four miles from the refinery and got home at about 6:30:

I heard the sirens go off. It happens every once in a while. I've lived there three years. When it happens, you close your doors and windows, and you wait for someone to tell you what's going on. So I went outside to get Wilma, my tortoise, from the backyard and make sure my dogs Lex, Leela, and Moose were inside. As I bent down to pick up Wilma, I heard the second explosion and saw a huge plume of black smoke lift into the sky.
As soon as I heard the explosion, I yelled at my husband and screamed at our neighbors to lock up their house. We live downwind and it was coming straight at us. The sirens were going. We didn't know if it was an attack or something else. When you live in Richmond, you know there's a refinery there. But you just hope that it's safe.

It was about 15 minutes before anything came on the news. We had no warning call, which we get sometimes. We didn't know if we should jump in the car or what. The smoke completely blocked the sun.

Thankfully, only two minor injuries from the explosion were reported at the refinery and among the 100 firefighters who battled for five hours to contain the blaze. But that 4,000-foot high plume of black smoke that blacked out the sun was visible from all over the Bay Area, and it was filled with particulate matter, sulfur compounds, and other toxins. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that area hospitals logged 1,700 emergency room visits by people suffering from respiratory problems, vomiting, severe headaches and more.

Jessica and her husband followed the standard procedure to "shelter in place":

We stayed in our house and sealed the doors with painter's tape. Some people use plastic and cover the whole thing. Luckily, we have good airtight windows. My husband still woke up with inflamed throat the next morning.
A Chevron spokesperson apologized for "inconveniencing our neighbors." But the knowledge that it's not safe to breathe in your own home is not an inconvenience, it's terror. Going to the emergency room is always scary, but going to an ER that's seeing hundreds of other people for similar symptoms, while a black mushroom cloud spreads over your neighborhood? That's terror.

It's also part of a pattern of failure by Chevron and regulators to protect the public. In 2010, Chevron agreed to install a real-time ground level air-monitoring system to detect hazardous air pollution in communities near the refinery. Now, state regulators are saying that there is little risk, but you can't find what you don't look for... that monitoring system was never installed.

A spokesperson for California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health said, "Investigators have notified us that Chevron's emergency response was excellent." But Chevron knew about a leak at about 4:15. They didn't shut down the plant. And they waited to report a problem, despite the requirement that it report emergencies like this immediately. The San Jose Mercury News has reported on how the emergency warning system failed. Jessica notes that she "never heard from Chevron or authorities." Her first thoughts on hearing the explosion were to protect her pets and to warn her neighbors -- a lesson lost on Chevron.

To add insult to injury, now Chevron and its apologists have tried to blame its problems on community members who stopped an expansion of the massive refinery. But the Sierra Club, and the refinery workers whom we collaborate with through the BlueGreen Alliance, know that the only thing standing in the way of safety improvements at the Richmond refinery is Chevron itself.

Residents of the East Bay -- and that includes Berkeley and Oakland, which are also downwind of the plant -- must now contend with the aftermath of toxic smoke that made its way into the homes and lungs of an entire community. The most vulnerable, those with asthma or other health problems that compromise their bodies' defenses, will not just be "inconvenienced." And everyone, no matter how healthy, faces unknown long-term health effects. That is terror.

The Sierra Club stands with Communities for a Better Environment in demanding a few obvious things from Chevron and from the State of California:

A community-based investigation of the accident, paid for by Chevron but independent and overseen by members of the community. We need to know went wrong and how this kind of accident can be prevented.

Broader community compensation that goes beyond reimbursing medical bills and firefighting costs. When the BART system shut down, for instance, it isolated communities and people lost work.

Chevron needs to stop blaming everyone else for its problems. This argument, in the words of Richmond community organizer Andres Soto, is both disingenuous and outrageous: "The crude unit that exploded had nothing to do with Chevron's expansion proposal."

Another of the Sierra Club's local partners, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, notes that Chevron had $13.7 billion in profits in the first two quarters of 2012 and asks, "how much is enough to assure safety of this refinery?"

At a facility that is California's #1 producer of greenhouse gasses, in a county that produces more hazardous materials per capita and square mile than any other in the state, Chevron must do a lot better.

Michael Brune is the Sierra Club's executive director.

Pastor Abducted in Egypt a Standout

2012-07-18T20:27:06Z

The image of the Rev. Michel Louis, a Boston clergyman who asked the abductor in Egypt's Sinai to take him captive instead of a female fellow traveler, has been shown around the world since the international incident began unfolding over the weekend.

But long before the graying, 61-year-old pastor made a valiant stand on foreign soil, Boston-area leaders say Louis has stood out in his community.

Recently the pastor, who immigrated to the United States from Haiti as a young man, worked with the Haitian reunification program, Massachusetts state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry told The Root. "He helps get the word out to his parishioners and to the community. He makes announcements at church. He makes sure that people get the paperwork they need," so that family members in Haiti can come to America to be with relatives.

When Forry first learned that Louis had been taken, along with Lissa Alphonse and a translator, Haytham Ragab, she said she was shocked. "This was the fourth time he had been over there," Forry said. She was not aware of any incidents on previous trips. "It's a blessing that he and the others have been released and that his health is fine."

Read the rest here.

First Havana-Miami Cargo Service Marks Sea Change for Cuba Past and Future

2012-07-16T07:10:00Z

Photo: Last week, the Bolivian ship, Ana Cecelia, the “Peace Boat,” set sail with the first regular cargo service between Miami and Havana in a half-century, marking a new era.

MIAMI, Fla.—When the Bolivian merchant ship, the Ana Cecelia, docked in Havana from Miami last Friday--ambitiously labeled “Peace Boat” on its side—it was set to unload its humble cargo of bedding and mattresses bound for the Cuban populace.

But the little-reported voyage quietly marked the first regularly scheduled commerce allowed between the United States and Cuba in a half-century—and a sea change for Cubans on both sides of the 90-mile journey. In doing so, though, it also exposed a humanitarian barrier between affluent white Cuba and its largely non-white and impoverished population.

Since the Cuban revolution rolled into Havana on New Year’s Eve 1959, exiled Cubans in South Florida have offered a narrative of their Homeland Recovered: Once Castro is ousted, they believed, they would return to rebuild and renew their country. And since October 1960, their desire for repatriation has been supported by a U.S.-imposed embargo on commercial and economic exchanges with Cuba, imposed by the United States.

The exiles’ narrative envisioned a return to Cuba as it was during Camelot--when sugar cane, tobacco and beautiful beaches would be the basis of a restored economy, and where fresh capital inflows would modernize Havana--and the whole of Cuba.

Humanitarian Shipments

The world, however, has changed dramatically since then. There is a glut of sugar on the world markets. Almost no one smokes cigars any longer. In the intervening decades Cancun, Cozumel and the Maya Riviera have risen from the barren beaches of nearby Mexico, giving the world a Caribbean playground unrivaled anywhere.

There has also been a dramatic demographic shift in Cuba: a constant exodus over five decades of the largely white professional middle class has transformed this island nation into a society heavily populated by people of color--who have no money.

Against that background sailed the newly restored cargo service between Havana and Miami—the first commercial link between those ports of call. The “Peace Boat’s” first shipment, which left the Port of Miami on July 11 and docked in Havana 48 hours later, included humanitarian aid--mattresses and bedding.

Organized under the auspices of CubaPAK, a purchasing agent for the Cuban regime, the operator of the vessel is the International Port Corporation (IPC), which received licenses from the United States Department of Commerce and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The ship’s registration and crew are Bolivian.

"It's a difficult, very complicated [process] we have requested through many stages," Leonardo Adega Sánchez, a spokesman for IPC, told reporters. “We are the first to do so. There have been many people who've tried and given up, so complicated it is. We must take into account the regulations of the U.S. and Cuba, and the character of the citizenship in both countries. The idea originated two years ago when we decided it was worth working on sending humanitarian aid to the island."

The nature of the cargo reflects the passage of time, and the deteriorating conditions on the island-nation long governed by a white-minority government.

Of Cuba’s 11.2 million people, fewer than 720,000 are members of the Communist Party. The entire Politburo consists of European-descendant whites, who rule over a nation comprised of people of color. With the Fidel Castro ceding power to his brother Raúl, there has not been a passing of leadership to a younger generation. Cuba remains stuck in the twilight of the Cold War reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s.

In contrast, there has been a demographic shift of Cubans--in the United States. The generation that toasted each New Year’s Eve in Miami with the melancholic, “Next Year, in Havana!” diminishes with each passing day. The new generation of Cuban-Americans, born in the U.S., and who only know Cuba from stories told by elderly relatives, has different dreams.

Their ambition is to succeed in the U.S. Whether it is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., or Hollywood columnist Perez Hilton, Cuban Americans have only a passing interest in the dreams of their parents and grandparents.

Hilton (whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.), the fabulous gossip-monger in Los Angeles, is firmly entrenched in celebrity culture outside the Washington Beltway.

Rubio, the GOP’s fabulist U.S. Senator from Florida, is the flavor of the season inside the Beltway. Other Cuban Americans, such as actress Cameron Díaz and CNN broadcaster Soledad O’Brien, are more preoccupied with their lives and careers in their chosen fields than in fantasies about restoring Havana’s crumbling seaside boulevard, the Malecón.

Cuba’s Tired Generation

Compare that with the tired generation of Cuban Americans, fast becoming irrelevant, such as Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Now age 60, she has been represented Florida’s 18th congressional district with promises of a “free” Cuba since she was first elected in 1989. In that time, though, she has not been able to deliver much more than free pastelito de guayaba (Cuban guava pastry) to occasional constituents who visit her office at the U.S. Capitol.

It is true that, driving around Miami and Hialeah one sees bumper stickers that read “No Castro, No Problem” and “Cuba: We Will Rebuild You.” But these are on old cars, driven by seniors.

For her part, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, a member in good standing of the congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, dashed off an angry letter to the Office of Foreign Assets Control seeking assurance that IPC is not in “violation of any provision of the law, specifically the Helms-Burton [1996, a statute that extends the U.S. embargo on Cuba], which determines that no ship coming into Cuba, and taking part in trade in goods, may enter a U.S. port in order to load or unload cargo for a period of 180 days after the ship departed from Cuba.”

The contrast between the past and the present could not be starker than if the reestablished commercial ferry service were of a humanitarian aid in nature.

But wait! It is!

The Ana Cecelia had the slogan, “Peaceboat” painted on its side, a ridiculous reminder of the nature of trade between the U.S. and Cuba. If Karl Marx once envisioned the withering away of the state, this is the harsh reality of the withering away of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. The ship that will ferry bedding and foodstuffs to Cuba, the island of starving of socialists and comatose communists, is Orwellian in double-speak!

Carl Hiaasen, the satirical novelist from South Florida, could not have made up such an absurd situation.

Thus, while the young and ambitious Marco Rubio looks toward a future that may very well lead him to the White House, Ileanan Ros-Lehtinen looks to the past, to a modest vessel departing the port of Miami bound for Havana, loaded with donated mattresses. So the Revolution-weary Cubans can rest their tired heads and dream of the day when they will wake up in the 21st century.

Haitian-Americans Feel Chill of Florida’s Voting Purge

2012-06-27T15:45:54Z

Voting rights advocates in Florida are anxiously awaiting a ruling from the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee on a legal challenge by the Department of Justice to the state’s attempts to purge its voting roles.

Another lawsuit, filed last week by The Advancement Project in partnership with other litigants, is one of several that contends efforts by Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner to remove registered voters from the state’s rolls violates federal law.

“Florida targeted our plaintiffs only because they are naturalized citizens who got a driver’s license or state ID when they were lawful immigrants, and they became naturalized citizens later in time,” said Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, director of the Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program. “Federal voting laws provide clear protections against this type of harassment of perfectly eligible voters.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include an individual Haitian-American and a Haitian-American civic organization. Supporters are hopeful the court will issue a restraining order against Florida’s purge at a hearing today.

“Our complaint in federal court in Miami demonstrates that Florida’s purge impacts black, Latino and Asian citizens at a glaringly disproportionate rate,” added Culliton-Gonzalez. “This purge violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, for which people marched and risked their lives to protect our fundamental voting rights—and it applies equally to all U.S. citizens.”

For the Haitian community, news of the purge initiative has had a chilling effect on civic participation.

Estimates put the number of Haitian Americans in Florida at roughly 500,000, though on the state’s motor vehicle list they and others from the Caribbean basin are categorized as black alongside African Americans.

Haitian Americans “tend to vote Democratic along with the majority of voters from the African diaspora,” noted one observer, who speculated one reason may have to do with the fact that Temporary Protected Status has been granted to immigrant members of their community under Democratic presidents. “Collectively, the Caribbean community, like Hispanics, is becoming a powerful voting bloc.”

In May, Detzner urged Florida’s county election officials to use the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles records to determine whether any non-citizens are on their voting rolls. Those officials mailed letters advising recipients they had 30 days to respond with proof of citizenship. Should recipients not respond, their names are to be placed in a newspaper for another 30-day notification period. Failure to reply -- even if one is a citizen -- is cause for removal from registered voter rolls.

The issue has taken on a partisan edge in a state with a Republican governor and state legislature, where controversy over ballots and race have cast doubts on the legitimacy and accuracy of voting counts in previous national elections.

At 29, Florida holds the largest bloc of electoral votes among the ten swing-states deemed key to November’s elections.

The purge initiative “will be a major disaster for the Haitian-American community and for individuals from other groups with a hyphenated first name or last name,” said Jean-Robert Lafortune, chair of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, which is affiliated with Veye Yo, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

“For instance, my name, which is Jean-Robert, could easily fall under the no match - no vote compliance,” he added.

The Advancement Project lawsuit follows several others, including one filed against Detzner by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the provisions of the National Voter Registration Act. The law prohibits election officials from conducting wholesale purge initiatives 90 days before a federal election.

In its defense, the state contends it started the process long before the upcoming August 14 primary, asserting that its requests for citizenship lists from the Department of Homeland Security, which were denied, left it no choice but to proceed with the records from its motor vehicle voter registrations.

Part of the charges brought against Detzner involve the more than 2,600 names culled from motor vehicle records, all naturalized Americans. “Any state program or activity designed to ensure the maintenance of accurate and current voter registration rolls ‘shall be uniform, nondiscriminatory and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965,’” the suit stated.

Some 82 percent of those on the state’s purge list were “people of color,” it added, and therefore the statistical impact on the Asian, black, and Hispanic community is also in violation of Section 2 of the VRA, which protects minority voters.

“The state position is, minority groups’ participation in the Florida electoral system does not matter,” insisted Lafortune. “I guess Florida voters will pay the price at the polls if the current secretary’s strategy and tactics to purge the eligible voter lists remains unchallenged.”

Part of that price, says Carolyn Thompson, Voter Protection Advocate for the Advancement Project, is questioning whether one’s citizenship is valid. As immigrants, she explained, many come from countries where governments conduct repressive measures against perceived political opponents.

“Sometimes people are reluctant to come forward, though more are starting to do so,” she said. “But sometimes, because of their unfamiliarity with the language, they may not fully understand the letter they have received.”

More importantly, anyone who has received a letter likely will be subject to challenge when arriving at the polls.

Though someone who is challenged may vote provisionally, Thompson said those ballots are held to a higher level of scrutiny and typically result in minor voter errors that can disqualify them.

“Fifty-one percent of the provisional ballots were thrown out in 2008,” Thompson said. “Voting with a provisional ballot is like second-class citizenship and Florida is imposing a two-tiered system of voting, one for citizens who were born here and one for naturalized Americans – immigrants -- who were not.”

"Our goal," said Culliton-Gonzalez of the lawsuit, "is to end voting purges permanently, not just 90 days before an election."

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States Shouldn't Tamper with Voting Rights Act

2012-04-24T08:50:00Z

Since the beginning of 2011, states across the country have passed new laws restricting the right to vote. From voter ID to curbs on early voting and registration drives, these controversial measures could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote this year, including a disproportionate number of minority, young, and elderly voters. The photo ID law passed by Texas, for example, could prevent hundreds of thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot, including a disproportionate number of minorities, as the data shows.

Voting rights advocates are fighting these laws in the courts, but in addition to these direct attacks on the franchise, opponents are now threatening a cornerstone of American civil rights law — the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

Decades ago, our nation passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to combat discrimination in voting. It has successfully protected voters against decades of discriminatory measures that had disenfranchised African Americans, Latinos, and many other Americans. The VRA was even reauthorized in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, and it was signed by President George W. Bush. Elected officials in both parties recognized the VRA is still needed because discrimination against minority voters continues to this day. For example, in recent years, the Justice Department forced Texas to stop discriminatory actions against voters at historically black colleges and universities.

Under Section 5 of the VRA, changes to election laws in certain states with a demonstrated history of discrimination, like Texas, must be “pre-cleared” (reviewed and approved) by the Department of Justice or a D.C. federal court before they can be implemented. To obtain pre-clearance of its photo ID law, all Texas needed to do was demonstrate that this law does not make minority voters worse off. The state could not do it.

“Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card,” wrote Justice Department official Thomas Perez in a letter denying pre-clearance.

Because the state wants to implement this discriminatory law, and because the Voting Rights Act prevents them from doing so, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has claimed in federal court that Section 5 of the VRA is unconstitutional.

Following a year that saw the biggest rollbacks of voting rights in a generation, the actions of Texas and other states prove the continuing need for the protections provided by the Voting Rights Act. It also underscores the urgency of maintaining strong civil rights laws.

To be sure, all Americans want to protect the integrity of our elections. But there are better options than requiring voters to produce the kind of government-issued ID that one in ten voters do not have, including 25 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Latinos.

America has made great progress toward guaranteeing the fundamental right to vote for all our eligible citizens. We cannot afford to turn back the clock to an era when politically motivated laws prevented too many of us from exercising our constitutional right to vote. The Voting Rights Act forbids and prevents such activity and must be upheld.

Myrna Pérez serves as Senior Counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Fair Pay for 2.5 Million Home Care Aides Facing Industry Opposition

2012-02-16T08:00:00Z

Photo: President Barack Obama proposed new fair-employment protections for home care workers in December. Shown behind Obama in the pink turtleneck is Filipina immigrant Thelma Reza, who called the speech “historic.” Public input on the rule change ends March 12. (White House Photo by Pete Souza)

NEW YORK--Every day, Thelma Reza goes to the home of an elderly couple in Los Angeles to care for them. As a home care worker, Thelma provides her clients with critical assistance for daily activities many of us take for granted, such as bathing, dressing, using the toilet and getting around their home.

Thelma, an immigrant from the Philippines, often works long hours, sometimes staying with her clients around the clock.

For her difficult, stressful, and often dangerous labor, Thelma earns just $35 a day. Because Thelma is a home care worker, she is excluded from the federal law that guarantees most other workers the right to earn a minimum wage and receive time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

Obama Proposes Changes

Recently, however, President Obama and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) took a step that may finally ensure a fair wage for Reza and the 2.5 million home care and personal assistance workers who support elders and people with disabilities.

At a White House press conference in December, Obama announced a plan to amend the federal labor law that currently excludes home care workers from minimum-wage and overtime protections.

DOL is soliciting public comments on the proposed plan through March 12, and the home health industry has wasted no time in filing arguments that the change would burden home care companies.

The industry recommends instead that Congress alter the rules and also increase provider payment levels from Medicaid or other third-party payers. Otherwise, they say, provides will be compelled to “reduce the availability of care to the elderly and infirm.”

But the DOL projects that the cost of compliance with the proposed rule change would be a negligible fraction of the industry’s $84 billion revenue – just one-tenth of 1 percent of the cost.

DOL will issue the final revised regulation after the comment period closes and full consideration of public input is considered. We believe that home care workers should wait no longer for fair and safe working conditions.

If implemented, the president’s proposed regulation would have a huge effect on the field of home care--one of the fastest-growing service industries in the country. Total revenue was estimated to be more than $84 billion in 2009, up from roughly $40 billion in 2001, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That home care has continued to grow at such a robust pace, even during the economic downturn, is proof that demand for home help is greater than ever before. As the boomer generation enters retirement age--about 10,000 boomers will turn 65 every day for most of the next two decades--and as their elderly parents continue living longer--the demand for home care is not likely to slow any time soon.

Overwhelmingly, the workers supplying that care are women. Almost 90 percent of the home care workforce is female, according to an analysis of national occupational data by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a nonprofit organization advocating for long-term care reform.

Home care workers are also disproportionately nonwhite. Roughly half are people of color--and approximately a quarter of these workers are foreign-born.

Poverty Wages for Crucial Care

These workers are paid poverty-level wages for providing crucial care to elders and people with disabilities. The average home care worker earned just $9.40 an hour in 2010, and about half worked less than 40 hours per week.

With annual wages averaging below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, more than 40 percent of home care workers are forced to rely on public benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid.

In addition, few occupations carry greater risk of on-the-job injury and illness than home care work. In 2010, one-third of injured home care workers missed a month or more of work (and wages) because of their injuries.

The low wages, inadequate hours, and high injury risk associated with home care work combine to contribute to massive turnover in the field--between 44 to 65 percent each year, according to various estimates.

This turnover has a negative effect on elders and people with disabilities, who find it difficult to cope with a revolving door of unfamiliar faces entering their homes.

Numerous studies over the years have shown a correlation between high workforce instability and low quality of care. If home care jobs don’t improve soon, millions of aging boomers and their very elderly parents will be unable to find the high quality care necessary to remain in their own communities during their retirement years.

That is why it is long past time for the largely female and immigrant home care workforce to be guaranteed at least the most basic wage protections available to workers under federal law.

Current Rule a Vestige of the Past

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was first enacted in 1938 and assured a minimum wage, extra pay for overtime and other basic protections for the vast majority of workers in the United States. But since 1974, when Congress amended FLSA, the “companionship exemption” has excluded “companions to the elderly and infirm” from these basic rights.

The 1974 rule is a vestige of an earlier era when a neighbor or family friend would sit with Grandma or Grandpa, so home care workers should not be subject to the same labor standards as those in other fields.

But the companionship exemption provided a potentially exploitable loophole for home care employers to legally pay their workers less than minimum wage and less than time-and-a-half for overtime.

The current rule is simply not fair. America’s home care workers provide the skills needed to ensure our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors and friends get proper meals when they can no longer cook for themselves, don’t fall in the shower and break a hip, take their medications at the right times, and remain as healthy and active as possible—at home, not in a nursing institution.

Providing basic labor protections for home care workers is a sign of respect that what they do is real work. Thelma Reza, who was at the White House when Obama announced the proposal, called the president’s announcement “historic.” She declared, “Our work is finally being recognized.”

Now is the crucial time for public comment. The public can learn more about this vital issue for home care workers--and home care recipients—and how to add their voices to the debate by visiting PHI’s Campaign for Fair Pay.

Jodi Sturgeon is the vice president of the nonprofit advocacy group the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute. And Ai-Jen Poo is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an alliance of domestic workers in 19 cities and 11 states.

Puerto Rican Migration Continues at Record Pace

2012-01-18T08:00:00Z

Puerto Rico residents continued their exodus from the island over the past year during tough economic times, with the local population shrinking by 19,099 residents, or 0.51 percent, the biggest percentage loss by far of any U.S. jurisdiction, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population loss was due to migration to the U.S., with a net 35,469 residents lost to out-migration, while island births outpaced deaths by 16,370 during the 15-month period covered by the new Census data, which runs April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011.

The drop-more than double the average annual population loss reflected in the 2010 Census for the previous decade- is part of the first new U.S. population estimate released by the bureau since the 2010 Census, which showed the island's population had declined by 82,821 people, or 2.2 percent, over the past decade.

The population dive is bad news for Puerto Rico for several reasons. The island will receive less federal funding in many programs, and it means less demand for housing, cars and a wide range of services, which will only add to the challenge of trying to lift Puerto Rico's economy from its prolonged economic downturn.

The wide-scale migration, moreover, will add to the aging of the island's population, and many observers worry Puerto Rico is losing among its brightest and best-trained professionals, who are leaving to seek better opportunities stateside.

"A decrease in population is the hallmark of a sick society, where people do not have enough faith in the future to increase family size or to commit to live for the long term," said Sergio Marxuach, policy director at the Center for the New Economy. "It is also negative for economic growth, since there will be fewer people working, earning money, investing, saving and consuming."

Back in October, an Ipsos poll commissioned by WAPA-TV found 45 percent of islanders have considered leaving Puerto Rico in search of a better quality of life, with the majority of those setting their sights on the States. One-quarter (25 percent) of those who have considered a move from the island have taken concrete steps to do so, the poll found.

Projected over the entire population, the poll results indicate some 1.5 million people would consider leaving the island, while 419,000 of those have at least started a plan to move.

Marxuach noted that the latest data is based on a sample, which has a significantly larger margin of error than the decennial Census.

However, he said the finding that the island continues to lose population at a significant rate is a worrisome trend.

A few years ago, Puerto Rico had more population than 24 states but is now estimated to have more population than 21. At one time, statehood would have meant six representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives; at current population levels, Puerto Rico would get five.

Puerto Rico's population was pegged at 3,725,789 in the 2010 Census, down from the 3,808,610 registered in the 2000 Census. It marked the first time the local population had declined between census counts.

The 2010 Census also showed there were 4.7 million Puerto Ricans living in the States, which was the first time more Puerto Ricans lived stateside than on the island. Only one state, Michigan, registered a drop in population in the 2010 Census, dipping 0.6 percent.

While the 19,099 drop over the 15-month period ending July 2011 is more than double the average annual population loss reflected in the 2010 Census, most observers believe migration really began to pick up in 2006 with the onset of Puerto Rico's prolonged economic recession. Besides Puerto Rico, three other states lost population during that period: Rhode Island, which lost 1,300 residents, or 0.12 percent of its population; Michigan, which lost 7,400 residents or 0.08%; and Maine, which lost 200 or 0.01 percent.

The new Census estimates show the lowest U.S. growth rate since the mid-1940s, with the nation's population increasing by 2.8 million, or 0.92 percent, over the 15-month period. Texas gained more people than any other state between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2011 (529,000), followed by California (438,000), Florida (256,000), Georgia (128,000) and North Carolina (121,000), according to the Census. Combined, these five states accounted for slightly more than half the nation's total population growth.

"The nation's overall growth rate is now at its lowest point since before the baby boom," said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves. "Our nation is constantly changing, and these estimates provide us with our first measure of how much each state has grown or declined in total population since Census Day 2010."

People's Party wins in Jamaican Election

2012-01-04T23:03:57Z

Portmore, Jamaica - Another four years was needed to make it happen, but “woman time” has arrived in this Caribbean nation.

Portia Simpson Miller last week led the opposition party to victory in Jamaica’s election, positioning her to serve as prime minister for a full five-year term. With her People’s National Party capturing exactly two-thirds of the 63 seats in parliament, the outcome met the definition of a landslide and defied predictions of a close election.

Supporters had rallied around the seasoned parliamentarian known as “Sista P” by declaring in Jamaican Patois, “It’s woman time.”

Simpson Miller, 66, had served as the country’s first female prime minister for a year and a half until the 2007 election in which the Jamaica Labor Party narrowly won.

This time the ruling Jamaica Labor Party was on the defensive because of a series of corruption scandals that prompted the resignation of several government officials, including Bruce Golding, then the prime minister. The party had been out of power for 18 years before winning a majority in 2007.

Golding quit after initially rejecting an American demand that his government detain and extradite an indicted drug dealer, Christopher “Dudus” Cooke, straining diplomatic relations with the United States. In 2010, the government finally sent a massive number of police and soldiers to search for Cooke in his heavily armed gang’s territory — which Golding represented in parliament. The raid led to more than 70 deaths in Kingston, the capital.

read more here.

Puerto Rico Launches App to Aid Police

2011-11-17T19:32:01Z

Have you witnessed a crime? If you are in Puerto Rico there is now an app for that.

The Puerto Rican government on Monday launched a special cell-phone line, BastaYaPR, that will allow citizens to report tips to the police to help fight crime.

Gov. Luis Fortuño said in a press release that by calling 34302020 people will find it "easier, safer and more effective" to provide anonymous tips to authorities to combat crime, which has resulted in almost 1,000 murders so far this year.

"I know that together we can achieve a safer Puerto Rico. When each one of us takes responsibility and contributes to guaranteeing law and order, all Puerto Rico will feel a change in security," Fortuño emphasized.

The cell-phone campaign follows those launched for regular landlines and using the Web page www.3432020.com via which police have received more than 47,000 tips.

"The information received via 3432020 has been indispensable in being able to identify and arrest criminals, for which we thank the courage and civic responsibility of the thousands of citizens who are contributing to safeguarding our public safety," Fortuño said.

The application for the program will only be available on iPhones and Android cell phones.

The app makes it easy to send photos and video along with GPS coordinates. People can choose to provide their names or make an anonymous tip. The application was developed with an anti-crime group whose name translates as "Enough, already Puerto Rico."

BastaYaPR is a nonprofit foundation created by the parents of murder victim Andres Romero Rodriguez.

Haiti Jails U.S. Deportees in Filthy Conditions, Without Cause

2011-11-14T08:30:00Z

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The United States has deported more than 250 Haitians since January knowing that one in two will be jailed without charges in facilities so filthy they pose life-threatening health risks.

An investigation by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found that the Obama administration has not followed its own policy of seeking alternatives to deportation when there are serious medical and humanitarian concerns.

“What’s distinct about the situation in Haiti is that, unlike in other countries, people are immediately jailed, and the conditions in Haitian jails are condemned universally for violating human rights,” said Rebecca Sharpless of the University of Miami Law School Immigration Clinic, which helps immigrants appeal deportation orders.

The health risks for incarcerated deportees have increased significantly since October 2010, when a cholera outbreak began that has infected about 470,000 people and killed more than 6,500, including some prisoners.

International health experts say deportees in Haiti’s jails are at risk of contracting cholera, which can spread rapidly in overcrowded cells that lack clean water, soap and waste disposal. Once exposed to cholera, victims can die in less than 24 hours.

In January, 34-year-old deportee Wildrick Guerrier, whose Florida criminal record included convictions for battery and possession of a firearm, died from what doctors described as cholera-like symptoms two days after being released from the holding cell where he became ill --one of the same cells where deportees are incarcerated today.

Haitian authorities said they place about half of all deportees in jails to monitor what they term “serious criminals” -- a largely arbitrary determination. These detentions, which have lasted as long as 11 days, violate Haitian law and United Nations treaties when deportees have not been charged with crimes in Haiti.

One day after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s capital, the U.S. government suspended deportations. Since then, the United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have lobbied countries to halt deportations due to worsening conditions in Haiti.

“The crisis has not gone away,” said Michel Forst, the U.N. independent expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti. “The most important help the international community can give to Haiti is to suspend the forced return of Haitians.”

Still, the Department of Homeland Security resumed deportations to Haiti on Jan. 20 -- the very same day the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning urging Americans to avoid Haiti due to health risks and lawlessness.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said deportations to Haiti resumed because a U.S. Supreme Court decision required detainees to be released after 180 days. That requirement, they said, would have placed “some detained Haitian nationals with significant criminal records into U.S. communities, which in turn poses a significant threat to the American public.”

Barbara Gonzalez, ICE’s press secretary, said in an email that the agency would “prioritize those who pose the greatest threat to the community.”

But FCIR found at least three deportees arriving in August and September were convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and three-quarters of all Haitian deportees in recent years had no criminal convictions at all, according to immigration records.

“The hypocrisy is stunning,” Sharpless said. “U.S. officials have known for a long time that it’s dangerous to send people back to jail in Haiti. They also knew that the cholera outbreak raised the stakes even higher because cholera and Haitian jails are a deadly combination. Yet they decided to resume deportations anyway.”

Detention -- an unexpected homecoming

On the morning of Aug. 9, Franco Coby, a 24-year-old who was born in Haiti but grew up in Fort Myers, Fla., stepped off a plane in Port-au-Prince. He served nearly two years in a Florida prison for selling cocaine to a police informant, followed by four months in an immigration detention center.

Haitian police loaded the 43 deportees on two white buses.

“To me, I’m in a foreign country even though it’s my birthplace,” said Frantz Fils-Aime, 29, a deportee from New York City who was convicted in 2008 of selling cocaine.

Florence Elie, the head of Haiti’s Citizen Protection Ministry, entered one of the buses and explained that deportees must report weekly as part of an 18-month probation -- although no Haitian law allows for such preemptive supervision. She also addressed a rumor that circulated among the deportees: Some will be briefly put in “administrative retention,” meaning jail.

The next morning, Coby was at the Commissariat Petionville, a jail across the street from one of Haiti’s 900 post-earthquake displacement camps.

Haitian police placed Coby in one of the jail’s two cramped 20-by-10-foot cells, along with Filis-Aime, another New Yorker and deportees from Georgia and Michigan. Over the next seven days, they shared the cell with two to 15 others. At times, there wasn’t enough space for everyone to sleep on the bare concrete. A strong odor of feces wafted from the broken toilet in the back.

“I got bumps growing all over my skin, man. I don’t know if I’m allergic to something or what,” Coby said, after his first night in jail. “I been feeling sick; my stomach is tearing me up. Today I ate some rice, and it ran straight through me.”

Dr. John May, president of Health Through Walls, a North Miami nonprofit that works to improve jail conditions in foreign nations, travels frequently to Haiti. He visited the facility where Coby and the other deportees were held four weeks after their release.

“This is what we see everywhere,” May said. “Tuberculosis would thrive in this environment, certainly skin conditions like scabies, which we see often. And most seriously and concerning in Haiti recently is cholera, and it would just take one person with cholera here and it would quickly spread to the others.”

Cholera is spread primarily through feces and can result in severe vomiting and diarrhea. “Any situation that doesn’t have a lot of good hygiene is a great setting for the spread of cholera, which is what we have here,” May said.

When asked if such conditions pose life-threatening health risks, Chairman of Haiti’s Commission in Charge of Deportees Pierre Wilner Casseus said only that deportees who appear ill are released immediately.

Medical care denied

Sometimes jailhouse conditions in Haiti complicate existing medical problems, as they did for Jeff Dorne, a longtime Boston resident diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Dorne served six years in prison for a 2003 rape conviction in New Jersey.

Haitian authorities immediately imprisoned him -- without charge -- in the same cell where Coby later would be held. Dorne’s illness required him to take four medications daily, so U.S. immigration officers sent a one-month supply of the prescriptions to Haiti’s judicial police. But jails in Haiti do not have medical personnel and Haitian police are not trained in basic medical care.

On Dorne’s first night in the Petionville jail, the municipal police gave him the medication, and then, according to Dorne, held onto -- or lost -- the remaining pills.

“The prescription said every night. So Saturday night I asked the chief officer, ‘Can you get my medication for me?’ ” Dorne said. “They told me they can’t find it. Every day I asked them for it. After two, three days, I stopped asking.”

During his next few days in jail, Dorne said some of the symptoms that had subsided after he began psychiatric treatment in the New Jersey prison returned.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “My hands started shaking.”

Dr. John May said mentally ill inmates face grave risks because they are often unable to negotiate for themselves.

“A person who requires antipsychotic medications … could rapidly deteriorate without having them,” May said.

The police officer in charge of that jail said he was not familiar with Dorne’s case.

An April 1 ICE memorandum explaining the decision to resume deportations said alternatives would be considered in cases where medical and humanitarian concerns exist. Yet, as in Dorne’s case, Haitians with documented medical problems continue to be deported from the United States.

Immigration attorneys in the United States are fighting deportations of individual Haitians under the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture, which forbids governments from deporting people to countries where they will undergo “severe pain or suffering.” In April, a mentally ill Haitian immigrant in Miami had his deportation deferred on the grounds that the conditions in a Haitian jail could meet that standard in his case.

Freedom roulette

Haiti’s Commission in Charge of Deportees includes representatives from four government ministries and the independent Office of Citizen Protection. Once the deportees arrive in Haiti and are transferred to the judicial police holding station, commission members decide who will go free -- and who will be incarcerated.

The process is largely ad hoc. No written policy exists, and there is little consensus among members of the deportee commission about the primary purpose of the detentions.

Aramick Louis, secretary of state for public security, said detentions are meant for deportees’ protection during the “vulnerable” transition to Haiti.

Frederic Leconte, the commissioner of Haiti’s judicial police, said the detentions allow the state time to understand each individual’s situation -- even though the U.S. government provides detailed files on each deportee two weeks prior to arrival, and FCIR was unable to document any instances in which detained deportees were interviewed or even observed directly by officials.

Haitian law does not allow someone to be jailed based on the possibility he may commit a crime in the future.

“This is what I fought against,” said Privat Precil, the director general of Haiti’s Ministry of Justice from 2002 to 2004. “It is just a police policy that is not legal under Haitian law.”

Reporter Jacob Kushner produced this story for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, with additional reporting for California Watch. His research was supported by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund and the Investigative News Network.