A 24-hour national general strike against the economic policies of Dominican president Leonel Fernández was “95 to 100%” effective, according to the organizers. But there was significant violence, with at least three people reported killed.
Villagers in northeastern Haiti say they were never consulted or even warned about plans to build a huge new industrial park on land where many of them have been farming for some 20 years.
Several Haitian social organizations called on the UN “peacekeeprs” to pay reparations to the victims of a cholera epidemic that appeared to originate at a UN base last October.
The distribution of international aid after the devastating January 2010 earthquake in southern Haiti has been slow and in some ways counterproductive, according to a UN report.
Thousands of Haitian peasants marched to demand food sovereignty, the restoration of the environment and the development of agriculture “adapted to the reality of our country.”
Haitians left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake demonstrated in Port-au-Prince to demand action on the housing situation and an end to forced evictions from the displaced persons camps.
US cables released by WikiLeaks show that “[t]he US embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners…to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers” in 2009.
WikiLeaks is releasing 1,918 previously unpublished diplomatic cables concerning Haiti to the weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté—the first revealing the details of US pressure to keep Haiti out of the Venezuela-led PetroCaribe program.
US Homeland Security is extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians for another 18 months, but it continues to deport “criminal” Haitians, exposing them to life-threatening dangers.
Armed with machetes and knives, Haitian national police and local officials destroyed some 200 tents in a Port-au-Prince camp set up by people left homeless in last year’s earthquake.
Popular Haitian singer Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) was sworn in as his country’s 56th president amid a blackout in the capital—after a failed effort to amend the Constitution to allow presidents two consecutive terms.
166,000 homeless Haitians are threatened with eviction from their displaced persons camps while the Clinton Bush Fund spends $2 million building a luxury hotel.
