mardi 3 février 2015

Immigration Rules in Bahamas Sweep Up Haitians.-

NASSAU, Bahamas — Kenson Timothee was walking down the street when a uniformed officer asked him a question that sends Bahamians of Haitian descent like him into a panic these days: Do you have a passport?

Mr. Timothee, who was born in the Bahamas to illegal Haitian immigrants, wound up jailed in immigration detention for six weeks. He is one of hundreds of people swept up in a fiercely debated new immigration policy in the Bahamas requiring everyone to hold a passport, a rule that human rights groups say unfairly targets people of Haitian descent.

Mr. Timothee had proof that he was born in the Bahamas, but because he had trouble obtaining his absentee father's birth certificate, his application for Bahamian citizenship was never completed.

"I showed them that I had applied for citizenship, but they said that wasn't good enough; as far as they are concerned, you are not Bahamian, you are Haitian, and you need to get deported," Mr. Timothee said. "I don't know anything about Haiti."

On Thursday, the Bahamian government announced that the new policy would go a step further: By next fall, schools will be asked to ensure that every child has a student permit. The annual $125 permit and a passport with a residency stamp will be required even of children born in the Bahamas who do not hold Bahamian citizenship.

The tough new policy echoes similar stances around the region, where new citizenship policies and anti-immigration measures have overwhelmingly affected Haitians, who are fleeing the hemisphere's poorest country and are the most likely group to migrate illegally in great numbers. The top court in the Dominican Republic ruled in 2013 that the children of illegal immigrants, even if they are born in the country, did not have the right to citizenship.

Facing an international backlash, the Dominican government came up with a plan to prevent tens of thousands of people from becoming stateless, but months later, few people had managed to complete the process. With few successes to tout, in October the Dominican government extended the application period for another three months.

In Turks and Caicos, a top immigration official vowed early in 2013 to hunt down and capture Haitians illegally in the country, promising to make their lives "unbearable." The country had already changed its immigration policies in 2012, making it harder for children of immigrants to obtain residency. Last year, Turks and Caicos said it would deploy drones to stop Haitian migration.

In Brazil, politicians considered closing a border with Peru last year to stem the tide of Haitians, and last month, Canada announced that it would resume deporting Haitians.

Here in the Bahamas, Mr. Timothee's arrest coincided with stepped-up immigration raids in predominantly Haitian shantytowns, where people who lacked passports or work permits were apprehended. When illegal immigrants ran from officers, the agents knocked down doors and took their children, and the photos of toddlers being carried away circulated widely on social media.

Since the policy took effect Nov. 1, children born in the Bahamas have been deported with their parents, and others with Haitian-sounding names have been pulled from school classrooms, human rights observers said. The government acknowledges that even Bahamian citizens with French surnames are frequently arrested by mistake. In September alone, 241 Haitians were deported, according to government figures.

Though 85 percent of Bahamians support the new policy according to one poll, it has set off a round of international condemnation. A Florida legislator called for a tourism boycott of the Bahamas and organized a protest at the nation's Miami consulate. Citing some of the more alarming cases, including that of a pregnant Haitian woman who gave birth on an immigration detention center floor aided only by other detainees, several international groups have asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene.

Immigration officials in the Bahamas say their policies do not target any particular group, provide a better sense of who is living in their country, and could deter thousands of Haitian migrants from taking to the high seas each year in boats that often sink.

"We had situations where 100 people were showing up every day; that's unsustainable," said Frederick A. Mitchell, the Bahamian foreign minister. "That situation had spiraled out of control."

Annette M. Martínez Orabona, director of the Caribbean Institute for Human Rights, said she recently visited the Bahamas to investigate the new policy, arguing that it fit into a broad context of immigration crackdowns in the region.

"It's all guided by discriminatory practices toward persons of Haitian origin," she said.

Children like Mr. Timothee's 5-year-old daughter are in a particularly precarious legal situation, she said. If nationality is passed down by blood and Mr. Timothee has no citizenship, then what passport would his daughter get?

"The third generation is in a black hole," Ms. Martínez said.

In the Bahamas, the Constitution says that people born there to parents who were not citizens have the right to apply for citizenship between their 18th and 19th birthdays. In a country where one in 10 Bahamians is of Haitian descent, many people never apply, and others face years of administrative delays, leaving an untold number of people in the country without documentation.

The new policy forces them to apply for a passport from their parents' country of origin. Americans who have children in the Bahamas regularly get United States passports for them, and this is no different, Mr. Mitchell said.

"There's nothing wrong with being Haitian," Mr. Mitchell said.

But the people affected by the new policy are leery of obtaining citizenship from Haiti, a country most of them have never visited.

"It's a trick," said Fred R. Smith, a civil rights lawyer in the Bahamas who has become the policy's most vocal critic. "Once you apply for a Haitian passport, you're already a citizen of another country, and you no longer fit into a category where the Bahamas is under an obligation to give you citizenship. You are no longer stateless."

He said the government had routinely descended on an area, apprehended a few hundred people, and "hauled off" anyone who could not produce papers on the spot. The majority of detainees are released when their relatives or employers come to the detention center with their paperwork.

Some people have been deported even though they were born in the Bahamas. People like Mr. Timothee, whose citizenship status is pending, wind up in limbo. Others, like Rose St. Fleur, have been sent home with an admonishment to carry their paperwork.

Ms. St. Fleur, a 29-year-old Bahamian citizen, said she had been picked up twice since October. She was 32 weeks pregnant when neighbors watched agents drag her down the street onto a bus, she and her neighbors said.

"When they asked me my name and I told them, they said, 'That's a foreign last name,' " Ms. St. Fleur said. "I told them, 'Yes, but I am a Bahamian citizen.' " She said they replied, "You still have to come with us."

Many people have not been able to obtain documents because the paperwork required, including certified copies of both parents' birth certificates, is difficult to obtain. The Haitian government, itself crippled by political infighting and a halting recovery from the earthquake five years ago, has been unable to speedily produce records for the hundreds of thousands of people in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas who are suddenly in need of decades-old birth records.

Because of delays in obtaining Haitian passports, thousands of Bahamians are now at risk of having no nationality at all.

"The person who may have a delay in getting papers is not stateless," Dwight L. Beneby, the Bahamas' assistant director of immigration. "It's not that we're trying to get rid of people or trying to get out of giving them citizenship. If you are here, let's know who you are."

Francois Guillaume II, who was Haiti's minister of Haitians living abroad when the policy was announced, said the new policy came without warning.

"It's troubling when we have cases of people who have never lived in Haiti and are sent to a country that is completely foreign to them," said Mr. Guillaume, who lost his position in a recent ministerial shuffle. "It must be traumatizing for them."

Most of the Bahamian-born deportees were children, but one was 18 years old, and it was unclear why she was not given the opportunity to seek legal residency, he said.

"I don't think there is an anti-Haitian sentiment in the area; I believe there are countries experiencing social pressure and are trying to look for solutions," Mr. Guillaume said. "Some solutions are rash. Sometimes they are politically motivated. Nonetheless, we hope the solutions respect international norms."

Correction: February 3, 2015 
Because of an editing error, a picture caption on Saturday for an article about a new immigration policy in the Bahamas that critics say unfairly targets Haitians misstated the effects of the policy on the two boys shown, born in the Bahamas but of Haitian descent. The boys have always been considered Haitian; that is not among the policy changes. (The new policy requires everyone to hold a passport, and as of next fall will also require all schoolchildren who are not citizens to have a student residency permit.)
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A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Haitians Are Swept Up as Bahamas Tightens Immigration Rules. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, 
But you can't fool all the people all the time."
 (
Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, 
Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.
) dixit Abraham Lincoln.

Les syndicalistes ont fait preuve de responsabilité!

Certains diront qu'ils auraient du continuer la grève pour obtenir une baisse encore plus conséquente du carburant. Je leur dis que Rome ne s'est pas faite en un jour! 

Dans un pays où l'économie reste encore anémiée, les acteurs sociaux doivent privilégier la voix du dialogue pour résoudre leurs differends avec les autorités. 

 Aujoud'hui, les forces vives de la nation et l'Etat haïtien doivent discuter constamment  sur les grands dossiers devant engager le pays afin de garantir les droits de tous et de toutes . 

La grève du lundi 2 février a prouvé que les forces sociales sont conscientes du rôle avant-gardiste qu'elles doivent jouer par rapport aux revendications des masses. 

En levant la grève, les syndicalistes ont pris leur distance avec ceux qui voulaient capitaliser sur leur mouvement à d'autres fins. 

Enfin, la population va pouvoir vaquer à ses occupations ce mardi.

Gary BODEAU 
____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, 
But you can't fool all the people all the time."
 (
Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, 
Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.
) dixit Abraham Lincoln.

lundi 2 février 2015

Le Gouvernement de la République et les syndicats sont convenus de baisser les prix des produits pétroliers à la pompe.-



Communiqué

Port-au-Prince, le mardi 3 février 2015.- Le bureau de communication de la Primature informe la population en général et la presse en particulier que, suite aux négociations engagées le lundi 2 février entre le gouvernement et les syndicats de transport, les prix des produits pétroliers ont été revus à la baisse.

Ainsi, les  prix ont été fixés comme suit :

le prix du gallon de l'essence passe de 215 gourdes à 195 gourdes ;
le prix du gallon de diesel passe de 177 gourdes à 157 gourdes ;
le prix du gallon de kérosène passe de 171 gourdes à 156 gourdes.
 
Au terme des négociations, les deux parties sont convenues de former un comité de suivi des engagements. Ce comité a, pendant un mois, pour mission de fixer les prix définitifs des produits pétroliers en fonction de la fluctuation du prix du baril de pétrole sur le marché international.
 
Cette structure est composée de sept membres : quatre représentants de l'exécutif  (en l'occurrence les ministres des Affaires sociales et du Travail, de l'Intérieur et des Collectivités territoriales, un membre du cabinet du Premier ministre et un représentant de la présidence) et trois représentants des syndicats de transport.   
 
Le Premier ministre Evans Paul est heureux d'avoir contribué à la levée de la grève, et souhaite déjà la reprise normale des activités dès ce mardi 3 février. 

Bureau de Communication
de la Primature





Lavalas/PNH : Photo et parole célèbre de la Policière Marie Christine Jeune...

Pour l'histoire: Photo et parole célèbre de la Policière Marie Christine Jeune avant son assassinat par les hommes de main d'Aristide. : " La constitution m'interdit de serrer les mains d'un bandit armé. S'ils remettent leurs armes à la police je ferai la paix avec eux président. "



Pour l'histoire la photo, de gauche à droite: Chef de gang de cite Soleil, jeneral Titi, Jean Bertrand Aristide, la policière Marie Christine Jeune qui au cours de cette rencontre a refusé de serrer les mains des bandits, Fourrel Celestin, bras droit d'Aristide nommé chef de la police que le sénat avait refusé de confirmer. 

Policière Marie Christine Jeune fut - par la suite - assassinée par des hommes de gangs d'Aristide. Elle fut torturée avant d'etre exécutée. Son organe sexuel avait présenté des traces de viol.
____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, But you can't fool all the people all the time."
(Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.) dixit Abraham Lincoln.

Ann pale de FONDS PETROCARIBE : Investissement dans le développement territorial et économique.-

Extrait.-

Le premier axe d'intervention des fonds PétroCaribe relève du développement territorial et économique. Le contexte ayant suivi les chocs naturels de 2010 et de 2012, puis les considérations économiques, ont conduit à un investissement important dans les branches d'activités relatives à cet axe de développement. Ces domaines d'interventions tels que les infrastructures, l'agriculture, l'énergie et l'appui aux Micros, Petites et Moyennes Entreprises (MPMEs) sont stratégiques, tenant compte de leur effet de levier sur le reste de l'économie.

En effet, le tremblement de terre de 2010 et les ouragans qui ont suivi ont d'une part détruit les infrastructures de base de l'économie mais, d'autre part, ont aussi donné l'opportunité de mieux construire les bases pour une croissance économique inclusive et durable. Le produit intérieur brut du pays avait chuté de près de 5,1 % pour l'année 2010 et la destruction des infrastructures était évaluée à 120 % du Pib par les experts de l' « Évaluation des besoins Post désastre ». Pour rattraper ce retard important et positionner Haïti sur la voie du développement, des investissements plus substantiels devraient être stratégiquement canalisés pour le développement territorial et une croissance économique plus vigoureuse.

Dans ce contexte, le gouvernement de la république d'Haïti avait fait le choix d'investir dans le développement des infrastructures de base facilitant la circulation des biens et des services et qui soutiennent la croissance.

Les investissements publics dans les infrastructures répondent aux préoccupations suivantes mais non limitées à celles-ci :
1) améliorer le réseau routier pour relier les pôles de développement; 2) faciliterlecommerceextérieuretlesinvestissementsprivés;
3) réduire la vulnérabilité de nos villes et protéger l'environnement.

Par exemple, la route Cayes – Jérémie devrait désenclaver la région de la Grand'anse qui constitue un poumon de la production agricole du Pôle Sud du pays; la modernisation des infrastructures de transport devra contribuer à éliminer certains obstacles à la compétitivité du pays et enfin les programmes de rénovation urbaine (Port-de- Paix, Jacmel...) et de protection des bassins versants doivent contribuer à réhabiliter l'environnement et à diminuer les risques des chocs naturels. Les investissements dans les bâtiments et travaux publics devraient aussi aider au relèvement économique en créant des emplois particulièrement dans la zone métropolitaine dévastée.

Cette stratégie de priorisation d'investir dans l'aménagement du territoire est aussi liée à la modernisation et la valorisation de certains secteurs clés de l'économie dont l'agriculture et le tourisme. D'abord, le secteur agricole demeure particulièrement stratégique car elle a employé plus de 36 % de la population active en 2007 et les investissements dans le secteur constituaient une composante stratégique dans l'amélioration de la sécurité alimentaire. Il est aussi important de remarquer que l'agriculture représentait près de 25 % du Pib et que toute croissance importante du dit secteur contribuerait au reste de l'économie. Ensuite, le choix du tourisme a été fondamental considérant l'objectif du gouvernement de remettre Haïti sur la carte touristique internationale. En effet, Haïti a le potentiel d'avoir une part de marché plus significative dans les 20 millions  de touristes internationaux qui visitent les Caraïbes.

Un autre secteur privilégié des allocations des fonds PetroCaribe est l'énergie. Les investissements dans l'énergie ont eu la double vocation de supporter le tissu productif pour réduire les couts de production des entrepreneurs mais aussi bien de faciliter l'éclairage public pour favoriser la vie communautaire et contribuer à la sécurité.

Le rationnel d'intervention ci-dessus répond au cadre du Plan Stratégique de développement d'Haïti (PSdH) et de la politique du gouvernement. En effet, dans les résolutions de Petro Caribe pour la période du 12 mai 2011 au 10 septembre 2014, une somme totale de plus de 907 millions $ a été budgétisée à l'axe de développement territorial et économique. Les infrastructures ont reçu des fonds pour un montant de près de 512,8 millions $ et les investissements dans l'agriculture s'élèvent à près de 38,4 millions $. Le secteur touristique a été budgétisé dans les différentes résolutions pour une enveloppe de 10 985 000 $ et a reçu 4 % du montant. D'autres projets économiques comme, par exemple, la stabilisation des prix des produits de base, l'appui à la formalisation et à la capitalisation de microentreprises recensées pour un montant de près de 96 millions $. Dans l'ensemble pour les projets de l'axe de développement territorial et économique, près de 82 % des montants prévus dans les résolutions ont été transférés aux projets.

Les investissements réalisés dans les secteurs d'activités relatifs au développement territorial ont dans une large mesure contribué au renouement avec la croissance économique. En effet, suivant les estimations de l'institut d'Haïti de Statistiques et de l'informatique (IHSI) l'économie a crû de plus de 4 % en 2013. Cette redynamisation de l'économie a été particulièrement soutenue pour l'année 2013 par la croissance des branches d'activités telles que les bâtiments et travaux publics ayant crû de 9,29 %, l'agriculture de plus de 4 %, le commerce, restaurants et Hôtels accusant une augmentation de près de 4,88 %. De même, le nombre de touristes ayant visité Haïti a augmenté de 20,2 % par rapport à 2012 suite aux investissements dans le secteur et d'autres interventions pour le renforcement de l'industrie touristique. 
 
____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, 
But you can't fool all the people all the time."
 (
Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, 
Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.
) dixit Abraham Lincoln.

Mutinerie de la Police dans la zone métropolitaine.-

Concernant l'appel à la grève générale de ce 2 février 2015, la presse haïtienne rapporte un comportement complice de la police dans le blocage de la capitale haïtienne. 

Sur tous les médias, c'est le meme constat : La police n'a pas protégé ceux qui voulaient vaquer normalement à leurs occupations habituelles. Dans le département de l'ouest, la PNH n'a pas exécuté les ordres du gouvernement qui dans un communiqué, donnait garantie à la population que l'ordre public serait respecté.

La PNH à ainsi adopté une position POLITIQUE consistant à laisser faire. 

L'institution policière a t-elle été infiltrée? Compte t-elle adopter des positions politiques? Refuse t-elle d'exécuter les ordres du nouveau Premier Ministre Evans Paul? Perd -elle confiance dans la détermination du pouvoir en place, prêt à tout négocier, sans prendre en compte l'avenir des serviteurs loyaux? Sommes nous à la veille d'une nouvelle période d'immixtion de la force publique dans le jeu politique?

Cyrus Sibert, Cap-Haitien, Haiti
2 février 2015
____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, But you can't fool all the people all the time."
Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.) dixit Abraham Lincoln.

dimanche 1 février 2015

Maine man accused of defaming former priest says he defied a court order to protect more kids from sex abuse

Paul Kendrick, an outspoken advocate for victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, stands outside the Falmouth home of former Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Bishop Richard Malone in this 2012 file photo.

Troy R. Bennett | BDN

Paul Kendrick, an outspoken advocate for victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, stands outside the Falmouth home of former Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Bishop Richard Malone in this 2012 file photo.
By Seth Koenig, BDN Staff
Posted Jan. 30, 2015, at 4:40 p.m.
PORTLAND, Maine — Child sex abuse victims rights advocate Paul Kendrick told a federal judge Friday he defied a court order and distributed confidential information because he believed more children were in imminent danger of abuse.
Former Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld and a nonprofit in which he's involved are suing Kendrick for defamation — Kendrick publicly accused the former priest of sexually abusing children — at the same time that Geilenfeld is facing potential criminal sex abuse charges in Haiti.
Attorneys for Geilenfeld and the nonprofit Hearts With Haiti are now seeking heavy sanctions against Kendrick for releasing confidential emails, as well as excerpts from depositions and a private investigation, gathered in the discovery process of their defamation lawsuit against Kendrick.
On Friday, Kendrick testified in a U.S. District Court hearing in Portland on those proposed sanctions. Attorney Devin Deane, representing Hearts With Haiti and Geilenfeld, said he's seeking monetary sanctions of $50,000, a finding of contempt of court against Kendrick and a default judgment in favor of his clients, among other things.
Deane said Kendrick had been warned by Magistrate Judge John Rich not to distribute confidential court documents, but blatantly defied a court order by doing so again. The attorney urged the court to severely punish Kendrick for the second incident, because the prior warning was not an adequate deterrent.
"This type of outrageous … contempt is unprecedented, and because it's unprecedented, we're asking for serious sanctions," Deane said during Friday's hearing. "The defendant knew what the rules were — they were very clear — and [he] willfully violated them."
Hearts With Haiti is a North Carolina nonprofit that raises money for three orphanages and a day school in Haiti run by Geilenfeld.
Kendrick has insisted Geilenfeld abused the Haitian boys he took in at the facilities. About 19 months after Geilenfeld and the nonprofit filed their lawsuit against Kendrick, Geilenfeld was arrested in Haiti on sex abuse charges.
"These kids had no place to live, nothing to eat. He took them in, and do you know what he called [the abuse]? He called it 'the sacrifice,'" Kendrick told Deane in court Friday under cross examination. "You can become a part of the solution of ending child abuse or you can be part of the problem. You're a part of the problem."
Geilenfeld, a former Catholic brother, remains in a Haiti jail, and the court there will issue its equivalent of a probable cause determination within the next 30-60 days, Deane said in the Friday hearing.
Deane said that will determine whether Geilenfeld goes to trial on the criminal charges in Haiti.
U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock said Friday it would be difficult for him to rule on the proposed sanctions without knowing whether Geilenfeld is actually guilty or not.
"If [Geilenfeld] is prosecuted and convicted down there, it's a whole 'nother ball game," Woodcock told the attorneys in the case Friday.
While the judge acknowledged the seriousness of defying a court order, he also noted that the information Kendrick released — either through widely distributed emails or posts on a colleague's blog — would be made public anyway if the defamation case here goes to trial.
Woodcock did not immediately rule on the sanctions Friday, and hinted that he would wait to see the results of the Haiti criminal case and local defamation trial before deciding what Kendrick's punishment for releasing the confidential information should be.
If the sex abuse accusations turn out to be false, he reasoned, the dispersal of the damaging information would warrant more severe sanctions than if Geilenfeld was indeed guilty of the crimes.
Kendrick, who was represented in court Friday by attorney F. David Walker IV, testified that some of the information he released was at the time publicly available on the federal court system website, but conceded that in hindsight, he did violate the court's confidentiality order in most of the instances alleged by Deane.
Kendrick said he felt compelled to disseminate the information to alert Haitian authorities and other advocates that children there remained in danger of abuse.
In one such case, he released an excerpt from a private investigation indicating a member of the controversial North American Man/Boy Love Association — a pedophile advocacy group — kept a private room on the orphanage campus.
"There's a bigger thing going on here than the defamation [lawsuit]," Kendrick told the court Friday. "It's about preventing the least fortunate of children in Haiti from getting raped every day." 
____________________
RESEAU CITADELLE : LE COURAGE DE DIRE LAVERITE!!!
"You can fool some people sometimes, 
But you can't fool all the people all the time."
 (
Vous pouvez tromper quelques personnes, parfois, 
Mais vous ne pouvez pas tromper tout le monde tout le temps.
) dixit Abraham Lincoln.