Amid controversy and offers of support, Haiti has a new transitional council

by Jim Hodgson

More than 40 church, labour and aid organizations called on Canada to support Haiti’s transitional council (CPT) and to provide additional aid.

But divisions within the council—formed April 12 to preside until new elections can be held—became apparent April 30 after the council chose its chair, former senator Edgar Leblanc Fils, and named an interim prime minister, Fritz Bélizaire. The CPT is made up of a range of political actors, including some who supported the former, relatively progressive, presidents Jean-Bertrand Aristide and René Préval, and others who supported the more recent U.S.-backed presidents Michel Martelly and Jovenel Moïse, along with civil society and business sector representatives.

With the Bélizaire announcement, it became clear that four of the seven voting members of the CPT had formed what they called an “indissoluble majority block.” 

This manner of working, writes journalist Gotson Pierre of Alterpresse, was not foreseen in the multi-party agreement on April 3 nor in the April 12 decree that created the CPT. “Can such a block derail the transition? In such a case, of what use would it be?” he asked. 

Then on May 8, it became apparent that the role of CPT chair will revolve among the four long-time politicians who comprise the so-called indissoluble block. 

This move was strongly criticized as “absurd” and a sign of “a serious problem in Haitian political culture” where “political actors defend their personal and clan interests to the detriment of national interests.” Political scientist Joseph Harold Pierre said the CPT chair needs to have a strong rapport with the international community, something that cannot develop in just five months.

Canadian response to the multidimensional crisis in Haiti

These concerns are important. One might have expected that decisions would be taken by consensus, especially given that the CPT includes two non-voting civil society representatives.

Even so, this transitional council still seems to be the best way forward in the face of an unprecedented crime wave, rulers that no-one elected, and the imminent arrival of an international police force led by Kenya. 

A letter endorsed by about 40 organizations that were brought together by the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI), the Concertation pour Haïti (CPH) and Cooperation Canada calls on Canada to support the CPT, stand against arms trafficking to Haiti, and to deploy appropriate humanitarian aid.

Part of the letter states:

1. Support the political transition process

Canada should recognize and support the recently sworn-in Transitional Presidential Council so that it can implement the “Political Accord for a Peaceful and Orderly Transition” as quickly as possible. This agreement, despite its imperfections, offers the opportunity to restore constitutional normalcy, the proper functioning of institutions and legal order for Haitians. 

Canada should insist on the broad and effective representation of all segments of society, particularly women, youth and the diaspora, within the transitional bodies provided for in the Political Accord. The participants deplored the fact that only one of the nine appointed members of the Presidential Council was a woman (without a deliberative voice). Furthermore, to enable Haitians to take their destiny back into their own hands, Canada should help recall the place and role of the diplomatic corps in Haiti, whose sometimes excessive interference in national affairs offends national dignity. 

Canada should take note of past mistakes and exercise increased vigilance to restore integrity and honesty in governance while preventing the violation of human rights in Haiti. 

2. Take a stand against arms trafficking to Haiti

Canada should engage in courageous and uncompromising advocacy with the United States to stop arms trafficking to Haiti, based on the recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 

Canada must encourage international responses guided by the will of the Transitional Presidential Council and the institutions of the Political Agreement for a Peaceful and Orderly Transition to restore security, promote law enforcement and support Haiti’s coastal defense. This requires providing the security forces (police and army) with logistical and financial support, without which the situation will remain precarious, hampering any progress towards democracy. For its part, Canada must be transparent and consider legal proceedings or the imposition of sanctions (seizure of funds or travel ban) against those involved in the transport. 

3. Deploy appropriate humanitarian aid

Any sustainable solution for the well-being of Haitians requires a paradigm shift. Canada must reconsider the current project-based approach to humanitarian aid, which too often fails to reach the most vulnerable people and the most affected territories. Together with civil society organizations, Canada should initiate a new way of coordinating humanitarian and development actions to support local economies, promote local expertise and respect the dignity of populations. To this end, Canada should implement the triple nexus approach, combining interventions structured in the humanitarian, development and peace (including social cohesion) fields. 

Faced with a multifaceted crisis and immense humanitarian needs, Canada should also increase and diversify its funding to reach more of the sectors affected (agriculture, health, protection of civilians, hygiene and sanitation, shelter, education, economic support, etc.), while considering the question of access to the services offered. At a time when the population has witnessed the airlift of diplomats being evacuated and given that almost 50% of the population is at risk of acute food insecurity by June 2024 (IPC, 2024), it is essential to ensure that access to aid is facilitated throughout the country. 

Being Haiti’s second biggest donor is not enough. The above recommendations are part of an overall call for greater coherence in Canada’s foreign policy towards Haiti. Canada can once again demonstrate its values and feminist approach to promoting peace and security in the world by becoming a champion of Haiti’s cause in the international community. 

Human rights, ecology, in the spotlight as Canada-Ecuador trade talks move forward

Behind all the bad-news headlines from Ecuador these days (political murders, gang violence, a government crackdown, a police raid on the Mexican embassy), Indigenous people and environmental groups continue to organize in opposition to resource extraction industries.

On April 21, they claimed victory when voters rejected two government proposals that would have fortified investments by transnational corporations and provided “flexibility” in their ways of contracting workers. Those victories, however, are overshadowed by approval of a range of security measures that, in turn, provoke greater concern about human rights under President Daniel Noboa.

Headlines in English about the April 21 referendum focused on President Noboa’s security agenda. La Jornada (Mexico) and TeleSUR (Venezuela) examined Noboa’s failure to advance his market-oriented economic agenda.

The proposals to expand public security that were approved include: involvement of the armed forces in fighting crime, increased penalties for serious crimes, the possibility of extradition of citizens to face charges in other countries, seizure of illicitly-obtained good, and restrictions on private ownership of weapons.

In contrast, the package of measures sought by corporations were rejected: international arbitration of investment and trade disputes, and a measure that would establish time-limited contracts and hourly-work—the “flexibility” to replace permanent, full-time jobs. 

Meanwhile, in the face of human rights and security concerns, Canada is pressing ahead with plans for a free trade agreement with the South American nation.

Canada’s objectives for negotiating this FTA look nice: “a modern, ambitious and inclusive trade agreement, reflecting the latest approaches, including in areas such as digital trade, trade and gender, environment and labour.” Mention is made of women, Indigenous peoples and labour rights.

But it is the experience of Indigenous people in Ecuador with Canadian mining companies and with the Chevron Texaco oil giant that drives opposition to free trade and one of its hallmarks: protection of foreign investors.

Canadians have seen the harmful effects of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) processes, both with corporate lawsuits against Canada and others involving Canadian companies overseas. (One of the latter with which I became very involved was that launched by mining companies against the government of El Salvador after it rejected an application to re-open a gold mine in Cabañas department. Salvadoran water defenders and their international allies won that fight, but such victories are rare—and our victory has provoked a cruel response by the present government.)

Stuart Trew of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) points to a “litany of expensive and controversial ISDS awards against Ecuador involving natural resources” that led the former government of Rafael Correa to withdraw his country from ISDS processes. Constitutional reforms in 2008 include a ban on such arbitrations, and it was this article of the constitution that the Noboa government sought to amend in the referendum. 

Throughout the lead-up to the vote, the Union of People Affected by Texaco/Chevron Operations (UDAPT), the Indigenous and peasant movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and others like Acción Ecológica campaigned to ensure the “no” vote.

On its website, Acción Ecológica maintains ongoing actions on mining, petroleum, protection of nature defenders, and free trade.

Christian Pino, a lawyer who specializes in investment law, welcomed the result, saying that approval of international arbitration of investment disputes would have benefited the transnationals and those Ecuadorans who hold their investments in offshore “fiscal paradises.”

I like to say that I have been fighting free trade since 1848, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described it in The Communist Manifesto as “that single, unconscionable freedom” that drowns all others. But no: more like 1988, when Canadians gave Brian Mulroney a mandate to sign the first FTA with the United States, abandoning more than a century of caution in Canada-U.S. trade relations, transforming modes of production, and provoking the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. 

So this is not our first free trade fight or struggle to defend human and ecological rights in the face of resource extraction companies. As these FTA negotiations proceed, bear two things in mind: 

  • In the Harper years, when Canada was negotiating free trade with Colombia, we called for a “human rights impact assessment” (HRIA) but ended up with a fake mechanism that has failed to protect rights. 
  • We also pressed for a ombudsperson who could press for accountability by Canadian companies operating overseas so as to protect individuals and organizations who complain about abuses. But we ended up with a toothless office, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), that has no investigatory power.

CCPA, together with MiningWatch Canada and Amnesty International, have amplified the concerns of Ecuadoran organizations and shared them with Canadian parliamentarians.

While any Canada-Ecuador FTA cannot now include ISDS, the deal could still exacerbate the human rights situation in Ecuador.

“Amnesty International Canada’s Human Rights Agenda for Canada calls for guarantees that no free trade agreement will advance without meaningful consultation with affected Indigenous Peoples and their organizations and their free, prior and informed consent. The organization is also calling for credible, independent human rights and environment impact assessment of any proposed trade agreement,” states an April 30 news release from the three Canadian organizations.

We can do better this time.

No Ecuador trade deal without human rights, consultation and consent

If you too wish to express your concern about Canada’s free trade plans for Ecuador, Amnesty International has set up a page from which you can send a message to Trade Minister Mary Ng telling Canada to put human rights and the environment first.

Haitian claim for slavery reparations at the heart of a UN forum

by Jim Hodgson

A United Nations forum on the historic wrongs committed against people of African descent is building momentum in favour of an international tribunal on atrocities dating back to the transatlantic trade of enslaved people.

When the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) held its third session in less than two years in Geneva in mid-April, African and Caribbean governments together with civil society organizations pressed forward with plans to create a tribunal that would be similar to that which oversaw the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Proponents say such a tribunal would help establish legal norms for international and historical reparations claims.

Supporters include many members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), made up of 15 member states, and the African Union (AU), which includes 55 states—and Antonio Guterres, the UN General Secretary. “We call for reparatory justice frameworks, to help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination,” he said March 25.

Supporters argue that Western countries and institutions that continue to benefit from the wealth slavery generated should be held accountable, particularly given ongoing legacies of racial discrimination. Opponents say that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for historical slavery.

The World Council of Churches was among faith-based and civil society organizations that came together at the PFPAD forum to examine what states and other actors may do to redress the historic exploitation and harms that Africans and people of African descent have suffered. (You can learn more here about global ecumenical efforts to overcome racism, discrimination and xenophobia.)

Righting the wrongs in Haiti

Given that Haiti’s claim for reparations is among the strongest, the voices of Haitian civil society groups and their diaspora counterparts were heard at the PFPAD forum. 

Those groups used the forum to put a spotlight on the crucial role that Haiti played in the struggle to end slavery. “To recognize the historic context is essential to understand the unique position of Haiti in the global struggle for justice and egality,” they said in a statement before the forum. Participating groups—including the Montana Accord network and of the Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy (HAFFD)—said they strongly approve calls for reparations to Haiti.

Le Marron Inconnu, and in the background, the National Palace before the 2010 earthquake.

Haiti was born as an independent nation in 1804 after the enslaved people revolted against their French colonial masters. The values of “liberté, égalité et fraternité,” expressed in the triumph of the French Revolution in 1789, resonated among slaves in Saint-Domingue, France’s richest colony. In 1804, the world’s first successful slave rebellion resulted in the birth of the Republic of Haiti. 

Beginning in 1825, France squeezed an “independence debt” from Haiti that adds up to at least $21 billion in today’s dollars. That estimate comes from The New York Times, but backers of the reparations claim say the amount is much higher.

“It’s $21 billion plus 200 years of interest that France has enjoyed so we’re talking more like $150 billion, $200 billion or more,” Jemima Pierre, professor of Global Race at the University of British Columbia, told Reuters.

Despite the obvious injustice of that debt, France continues to resist pressure to join in reparations. In August 2010, about 100 prominent academics, authors, and human rights activists signed on to an open letter to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that the case for repayment was “morally, economically, and legally unassailable.” France dismissed the petition, pointing to its record of delivering other aid to Haiti and not addressing the legitimacy of the debt.

“What’s important is that it’s time that France recognises this and we move forward,” Haitian civil society activist Monique Clesca told Reuters. France, whose development agency has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Haiti, has previously referred to a “moral debt” owed to Haiti.