Haiti Political Blog

Ron Maggard preaching in Thomassin, preparing the Church Planting Conference with Frances as they are getting ready to go to the next town where they are were invited to teach Haitian national pastors about church planting.

It is a great blessing and opportunity for Ron and the church. This Baptist fellowship has 143 pastors all seem very excited and ready are to learn!.

The Haitian government has nominated Guyler C. Delva as the country’s candidate for the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. That is one big opportunity to Guyler to rise among the top journalist in Haiti.

The National Assembly Opened 19 Jan 2008 not without drama. New Leaders emerged as head of the Parlment Assembly. Now haitians have their eyes on Doctor Kelly C. Bastien, the First Senator from the North. He became President of the Senate on January 17th, 2008, which means he the President of the National Assembly after a group of 26 senators voted for Kelly C. Bastien.

As for this week haitian political drama, i’ts all about Double Nationality.
Yes indeed the newly elected Vice President of the Senate was born in USA, but he never rejected his Haitian Nationality, which means he is an Haitian and therefore is elegibible to be elected and siege as a Senator.

Is that true?

One famous lawyer said:
Yes because Haitian Institutions are not strong enough - what if a haitian woman, he said, near the border have to be rushed to the nearest hospital and that it happened to be in Dominican Republic next door, she gives birth to a child…

Is the child Haitian or Dominican?

Are you ready for Haiti Carnaval 2008?
Haitians all around the globe are thinking about carnaval in haiti. Are you going to the carnaval this year? The theme is “Environment Protection”!

Do you prefer to watch the carnaval over the internet?

here are some links :

Coverage Haiti Carnaval 2008
Haiti Carnaval 2008 Videos
Haiti Carnaval Musique Racine
Haiti Carnaval Musique Rap 2008

Hédi Annadi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti, briefs the press
8 January 2008 – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti will continue to help the Government to improve border security in 2008, the Organization’s top official in the Caribbean nation has pledged.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Hedi Annabi told a news conference yesterday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, that UN peacekeepers are already deploying at the four main points of entry into Haiti, will soon patrol the seaports and, at a later stage, also deploy a maritime unit.

The mission, known as MINUSTAH and set up in set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace after an insurgency forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile, will also continue in improving state administration and reforming the judicial sector of the impoverished country.

Mr. Annabi called for an effective partnership between Haitians, MINUSTAH and the international financial community to make concrete progress in all fields.

“It must be recognized that, whatever its good intentions, MINUSTAH has neither the mandate nor the necessary resources to solve the fundamental problems posed by the creation of jobs, provision of food, health and education, and more generally improving the standard of living of the population,” he said. “That solution depends on an increase in investments and re-launching the economy.”

Meanwhile, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Ann M. Veneman has just completed a working visit to Haiti, during which she met with UN and Haitian authorities to discuss conditions for children and possible areas of strengthened cooperation.

“Haiti is a country that has so much poverty, and it’s a country where you find it very difficult to believe that you’re only a three-hour plane ride from New York,” she said of her first visit as agency chief.

“Only 50 per cent of the primary-age children are in primary school. Forty per cent of the children are not getting regular vaccinations for childhood diseases. And there are many, many protection issues in this country, from violence against children to sexual violence to trafficking, to a whole range of other issues.

“And so, this is a country in which children need health, they need education, they need protection. And UNICEF is working in all three of those areas, to try to make a difference in the lives of the children.”

During her stay, Ms. Veneman visited more than a half dozen programmes that receive UNICEF support, including Lakay-Lakou project, which includes a shelter for street children, who are especially vulnerable to violence and abuse. More than 375 boys and girls come here to receive basic services such as food, health and education.

Another stop was the Choscal hospital, which treats more than 3,000 children for malnutrition every month. UNICEF has supported the centre since 2005 as part of its ongoing commitment to improving access to basic health services for children and women, especially children under the age of five and pregnant women.

Ms. Veneman toured a programme managed by AVSI, a UNICEF partner that gives psychosocial support to children affected by armed violence – an all-too-common reality for children living in Cité Soleil, one of the Haitian capital’s most dangerous areas.

She also visited programmes for children and women affected by HIV and AIDS. Thousands of children are living with HIV in Haiti, a situation further complicated by the fact that almost half a million young people under 18 have lost one or both parents, many of them to AIDS.

Via DominicanToday.com: Fearing bird flu, Haiti bans imports of Dominican Republic fowl.

The Haitian Government prohibited the import of birds from countries affected by bird flu, especially Dominican Republic, just days after the presence of the H5N2 virus was confirmed in the country.

In a statement issued yesterday and read by radio Métropole, the Agriculture Ministry said an import permit will be required for all poultry products including chickens and their derivatives, disposition which includes cockfight roosters.

Toussaint Jolivert, of the Quarantine Department, said the Ministry sent technicians to the border and that the measures in ports and airports were reinforced.

Dominican Livestock Department director Angel Faxas yesterday told the Associated Press he’ll speak with the Haitian authorities to “see what can be done” to rescind the measure.

In an official declaration made at the Plaza Hotel, Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 1st 2008, Vodou Organizations througout Haiti, regrouped under a national controlling body for Haitian Vodou, named Konferasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen - KNVA, choose their supreme spiritual leader: François Max Gesner Beauvoir

In this historic declaration, KNVA reviewed the Haitian History from 1503 till today 2008. They showed “how the Christians went to Africa divided 21 African Tribes brought our ancestors to Haiti to be slaves in the name of their God”. They continued to show that these Africans did not speak the same language, did not have the same color, they even fought among themselves, but when they arrived in Haiti, they only thing they had in common VODOU”.

KNVA declared: that it is VODOU, 288 years later, after all the sufferings, all the kinds of inhuman treatments, forced our ancestors to gather in a political reunion - “The Bwa Kayiman Reunion” and decided to be free forever and liberate this land from those that wanted them to stay and be slaves.

KNVA mentioned the role played throughout history to break the chains of slavery, by Makandal, Jean François, Biassou, Cola Janm koupe, Agnès and others . KNVA mentioned how during the night of August 13, 1791, 200 men and just 1 woman got together, discussed and decided on a plan to liberate all the slaves. And it is upon the decision made that night that revolution started in Haiti with the slogan “Cut all heads - Burn all houses”. Boukman and many others died during the first battles but the revolution continued and on January 1st 1804 Dessalines declared in Gonaives that we are free and will never be slaves again.
KNVA also accused Francois Duvalier of using Vodou, opening the country to all sorts of religion, particularly the protestants and Adventists, but never did anything for Vodou. He is the one that renewed the Concordat - the religious pact with Catholic Christians in Rome, named commonly in Haiti, “The Concordat of Shame”. His son Jean Claude Duvalier to make sure that Vodou in Haiti received a big blow, he gave the orders to kill all the pigs in the country so that Vodou do not have the original Haitian pig to offer to the “Lwas” (The Vodou Spirits).

Among all Haitians Presidents, KNVA gave President Jean Bertrand Aristide, credits to having listen to Spirit - “The Ginen Spirit”, and proclaiming a decree April 4th 2003, giving The Vodou Religion in Haiti full rights to be as a Religion and Practice all Religious Ceremonies related to Vodou freely and legally.

But what hurts the most, all those practicing Vodou in Haiti, is the fact the President Rene Preval choose not to seat with Vodou, not to include Vodou in the newly formed CEP - the institution that will control the elections in Haiti in 2008, where all the religious sectors are represented except the Vodou Sector.

KNVA furiously proclaimed that “this is Preval’s biggest political mistake and he is going to pay for it.” They went further to say that “Rene Preval before the elections went and visited all major Vodou Temples in Haiti, asked to vote for him, received the traditional “Koule Tèt” (Cleansing of the head), got the 3 Leaves from the Vodou Sector, used the 3 leafs as a political symbol for his political party Lespwa”, and now Rene Preval want to exclude Vodou completely. That is why “Vodou in Haiti, decided today January 1st 2008 to take back 2 of the 3 leaves given to Preval for power”, finally went to say KNVA.

That is why KNVA is asking today all Haitians from all Vodou Cults, to stand up, mobilize, and create magic spells of all sorts to be sent to those against Vodou in Haiti. “They All must be moved out of the country” declared KNVA to the nation.

And as of today, loudly said KNVA, Haitian Vodou is 1, united, religiously under 1 religious leader named Ati François Max Gesner Beauvoir, who is now the Head of the Haitian Vodou Religion and in the months to come will proceed with the national religious ceremonies to glorify and honor their new leader.

Reginald Bailly
Archivex Haiti
http://www.archivex-ht.com