Men Build Hand Washing Stations in Haiti
These two men are creating hand washing stations out of repurposed water drums in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19 in Haiti. Meet the founders of #DroumLóv
Haiti Reopens International Airports, Borders Amid Pandemic
WASHINGTON/PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haiti reopened its two international airports in Port-au-Prince and Cape Haitian, as well as four official border crossings in Anse-a-Pitres, Malpasse, Belladere and Ouanaminthe on Tuesday.
President Jovenel Moïse announced the news in a national address.
The airports closed to all nonlocal flights on March 16 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but exceptions were made for some nonlocal flights, including to fly people who were stuck in Haiti back to their home countries.
Safety measures
Officials told VOA that safety measures are in place to limit vehicular traffic in and around the airport, with special attention paid to passenger pick-up and drop-off zones. Agents will limit the number of passengers around airline check-in counters and security check points. Face masks are mandatory.
"Security agents will accompany passengers going through immigration, where we placed signs indicating where they should stand in adherence with social distancing measures," Joseph Frantz Sedras, director of equipment for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, told VOA Creole.
Protective glass barriers are in place at all agent counters, and procedures are in place to keep passenger lines moving forward.
Sedras told VOA that social distancing will be mandated at every step of the departure and arrival process and that security agents will search passengers and their luggage before they reach the immigration area. In addition, counters and equipment will be disinfected often, he said.
"When the passenger reaches the departure lounge, he/she will be allowed to occupy every other seat in accordance with social distancing guidelines," Sedras said. "These measures will be mandated throughout the departure lounge."
Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed throughout the airport for passenger and employee use.
COVID-19 infections
Haiti currently has 5,933 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data published by the published health ministry on June 29. That number is an increase of more 1,000 cases since June 20 when the confirmed infection toll stood at 4,916. The current death toll is 105.
Health officials say the hardest-hit regions are the northeast, west and Artibonite departments, but there is speculation that the toll could be higher nationwide, where fear of stigmatization keeps people from seeking medical treatment.
Diaspora travel
Travelers from the Haitian diaspora are essential to the country's economy, according to Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe. During a visit to the Port-au-Prince airport before its reopening, he told VOA Creole he recognizes their desire to tend to property, as well as attending annual religious festivals.
"I can't keep them from coming to dance at the festivals. And if the airport in Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic) is open and we are not, Haitians will find a way to get here somehow," he said.
With regards to the pandemic and its spread, the prime minister said he consulted the country's top health experts on a timeline but was not given an answer.
"Community transmission is an issue. There are many people who say they have a fever or a cold, they insist it's not corona(virus). But we know how Haitians are. I guess if I had it, I would say I didn't, too. So, all we can do is reinforce the security measures and preventative measures already in place," he said.
Jouthe said hand washing and wearing masks are a necessity, even though they are not always comfortable.
Criticism
Opposition Sen. Jean Renel Senatus told VOA that he, too, understands there are people who need to travel to Haiti to deal with important matters, but he doubts the government's information about the current COVID-19 situation.
He also expressed concern about the surge in U.S. cases.
"We've heard that cases are spiking in Miami. And most of the planes arriving in Haiti are coming from Miami, Florida," the senator said.
Scheduled flights
Eleven flights are scheduled to arrive in Haiti on July 1, according to FlightRadar24, a website that tracks air traffic worldwide in real time. Among those, five flights from U.S. carriers American Airlines, Spirit and JetBlue departing from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York City, are due to arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time.
Frederick Douglass was named Minister to Haiti on this day in 1889
hen Frederick Douglass was appointed by Republican President Benjamin Harrison as the next U.S. Minister Resident and Consul General to the Republic of Haiti in 1889, the well-known abolitionist, author and orator was 72 years old. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass, a former slave, had escaped to freedom in 1838, marking the beginning of a journey that still astounds to this day.
His appointment as Minister in 1889 was not a first for African Americans as Republican Presidential administrations had previously appointed African Americans to serve at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as a reward for black political support.
Douglass was the fourth black American to hold the position, however, his appointment came at a time when Haiti was “more than a diplomatic prize in the political spoils system,” wrote Douglass’ biographer William McFeeley.
Essentially, while African Americans viewed Haiti as a symbol of the liberation and autonomy of black people, for the U.S., the island nation “remained of crucial strategic importance in the time of coal-fired, steam-powered warships,” according to a report by the National Archives History Office.
Thus, the Harrison administration believed that Douglass moving to Haiti was “an intelligent and a liberal move.” Douglass arrived in Haiti at a time the island nation had just emerged from a revolution in which the government of President François Deny Légitime, who had been considered a political pawn of the French in the Caribbean, was overthrown.
During the unrest, the U.S. supported Légitime’s opponent, a former military general known as Florvil Hyppolite, by supplying his insurgents with arms shipments and naval support. In return, the Harrison administration expected Hyppolite to give his full backing to the lease of Haitian territory at Môle St. Nicolas for a future American naval facility.
A report by Black Perspectives of the AAIHS said Haiti’s Môle St. Nicolas “was a desirable prize because of its location at the northern entrance to the Windward Passage, its ample harbors, and its defensible geographic features.” Helping Hyppolite come to power, the Harrison administration expected talks to begin on plans to give the Haitian port town to it.
Douglass’ mission in Haiti was to obtain approval of this plan from Hyppolite and his government. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi joined the abolitionist as co-negotiator but things didn’t go as Douglass expected when the Harrison administration attempted to use force to acquire the Môle.
Douglass, within two months of assuming office, got to know that American naval officers had begun “scouting the conditions at Môle” and news soon spread in Haiti and the U.S. that Hyppolite planned to cede part of Haitian territory to the U.S. as a reward for helping bring him to power.
Amid criticisms from Hyppolite’s political enemies, Black Perspectives reports that on New Year’s Day, 1891, Haiti’s foreign minister Anténor Firmin visited Douglass, where he condemned a U.S. newspaper for stating that Hyppolite had promised the Môle to the U.S.
Douglass thought the newspaper report was “baseless”, nevertheless, he stressed the U.S. government’s willingness to lease, rent, or purchase the Môle according to “proper means . . . consistent with the peace and welfare of Hayti.”
With that same stance, Douglass and Gherardi, in late January of 1891, met with Hyppolite and Firmin and convinced them to approve the lease pending the approval of the legislative body. Douglass, during the meeting, promised that “the concession asked for was in the line of good neighborhood and advanced civilization, and in every way consistent with the autonomy of Haiti.”
On February 2, a formal written application for the lease was submitted yet political opposition and the arrival of five more American warships ruined the likelihood of having an agreement, according to the report by the National Archives History Office. In April, Douglass alerted the State Department that Haiti has declined lease of the Môle, the report added.
Douglass, accepting that his mission did not yield the desired result, applied for leave but remained in Port-au-Prince for a while to help in protecting refugees fleeing violence arising out of Hyppolite’s military actions.
Douglass later returned to the U.S., resigning on July 31, 1891. White critics and U.S. newspapers soon blamed him for the failed negotiations for the Môle, claiming that Douglass was too sympathetic to Haitians. Douglass responded.
According to Black Perspectives, “first, Douglass pointed out, the United States had given Gherardi a role for which he had no preparation solely because he was white and Haitians were supposed to be more willing to defer to a white man. That assumption was laughable, Douglass suggested.
“It showed a stunning ignorance of Haitian history. Besides…even if a white diplomat could have exploited Haitians, a supposedly great country like the United States should ‘ask nothing of Haïti on grounds less just and reasonable than those upon which they would ask anything of France or England.’”
When France extorted Haiti – the greatest heist in history
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, there have been calls for defunding police departments and demands for the removal of statues. The issue of reparations for slavery has also resurfaced.
Much of the reparations debate has revolved around whether the United States and the United Kingdom should finally compensate some of their citizens for the economic and social costs of slavery that still linger today.
But to me, there’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations than that of Haiti.
I’m a specialist on colonialism and slavery, and what France did to the Haitian people after the Haitian Revolution is a particularly notorious examples of colonial theft. France instituted slavery on the island in the 17th century, but, in the late 18th century, the enslaved population rebelled and eventually declared independence. Yet, somehow, in the 19th century, the thinking went that the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated, rather than the other way around.
Just as the legacy of slavery in the United States has created a gross economic disparity between Black and white Americans, the tax on its freedom that France forced Haiti to pay – referred to as an “indemnity” at the time – severely damaged the newly independent country’s ability to prosper.
The cost of independence
Haiti officially declared its independence from France in 1804. In October 1806, the country was split into two, with Alexandre Pétion ruling in the south and Henry Christophe ruling in the north.
Despite the fact that both of Haiti’s rulers were veterans of the Haitian Revolution, the French had never quite given up on reconquering their former colony.
In 1814 King Louis XVIII, who had helped overthrow Napoléon earlier that year, sent three commissioners to Haiti to assess the willingness of the country’s rulers to surrender. Christophe, having made himself a king in 1811, remained obstinate in the face of France’s exposed plan to bring back slavery. Threatening war, the most prominent member of Christophe’s cabinet, Baron de Vastey, insisted,“ Our independence will be guaranteed by the tips of our bayonets!”
In contrast, Pétion, the ruler of the south, was willing to negotiate, hoping that the country might be able to pay France for recognition of its independence.
In 1803, Napoléon had sold Louisiana to the United States for 15 million francs. Using this number as his compass, Pétion proposed paying the same amount. Unwilling to compromise with those he viewed as “runaway slaves,” Louis XVIII rejected the offer.
Pétion died suddenly in 1818, but Jean-Pierre Boyer, his successor, kept up the negotiations. Talks, however, continued to stall due to Christophe’s stubborn opposition.
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“Any indemnification of the ex-colonists,” Christophe’s government stated, was “inadmissible.”
Once Christophe died in October 1820, Boyer was able to reunify the two sides of the country. However, even with the obstacle of Christophe gone, Boyer repeatedly failed to successfully negotiate France’s recognition of independence. Determined to gain at least suzerainty over the island – which would have made Haiti a protectorate of France – Louis XVIII’s successor, Charles X, rebuked the two commissioners Boyer sent to Paris in 1824 to try to negotiate an indemnity in exchange for recognition.
On April 17, 1825, the French king suddenly changed his mind. He issued a decree stating France would recognize Haitian independence but only at the price of 150 million francs – or 10 times the amount the U.S. had paid for the Louisiana territory. The sum was meant to compensate the French colonists for their lost revenues from slavery.
Baron de Mackau, whom Charles X sent to deliver the ordinance, arrived in Haiti in July, accompanied by a squadron of 14 brigs of war carrying more than 500 cannons.
Rejection of the ordinance almost certainly meant war. This was not diplomacy. It was extortion.
With the threat of violence looming, on July 11, 1825, Boyer signed the fatal document, which stated, “The present inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingue shall pay … in five equal installments … the sum of 150,000,000 francs, destined to indemnify the former colonists.”
French prosperity built on Haitian poverty
Newspaper articles from the period reveal that the French king knew the Haitian government was hardly capable of making these payments, as the total was more than 10 times Haiti’s annual budget. The rest of the world seemed to agree that the amount was absurd. One British journalist noted that the “enormous price” constituted a “sum which few states in Europe could bear to sacrifice.”
Forced to borrow 30 million francs from French banks to make the first two payments, it was hardly a surprise to anyone when Haiti defaulted soon thereafter. Still, the new French king sent another expedition in 1838 with 12 warships to force the Haitian president’s hand. The 1838 revision, inaccurately labeled “Traité d’Amitié” – or “Treaty of Friendship” – reduced the outstanding amount owed to 60 million francs, but the Haitian government was once again ordered to take out crushing loans to pay the balance.
Although the colonists claimed that the indemnity would only cover one-twelfth the value of their lost properties, including the people they claimed as their slaves, the total amount of 90 million francs was actually five times France’s annual budget.
The Haitian people suffered the brunt of the consequences of France’s theft. Boyer levied draconian taxes in order to pay back the loans. And while Christophe had been busy developing a national school system during his reign, under Boyer, and all subsequent presidents, such projects had to be put on hold. Moreover, researchers have found that the independence debt and the resulting drain on the Haitian treasury were directly responsible not only for the underfunding of education in 20th-century Haiti, but also lack of health care and the country’s inability to develop public infrastructure.
Contemporary assessments, furthermore, reveal that with the interest from all the loans, which were not completely paid off until 1947, Haitians ended up paying more than twice the value of the colonists’ claims. Recognizing the gravity of this scandal, French economist Thomas Piketty acknowledged that France should repay at least US$28 billion to Haiti in restitution.
A debt that’s both moral and material
Former French presidents, from Jacques Chirac, to Nicolas Sarkozy, to François Hollande, have a history of punishing, skirting or downplaying Haitian demands for recompense.
In May 2015, when French President François Hollande became only France’s second head of state to visit Haiti, he admitted that his country needed to “settle the debt.” Later, realizing he had unwittingly provided fuel for the legal claims already prepared by attorney Ira Kurzban on behalf of the Haitian people – former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had demanded formal recompense in 2002 – Hollande clarified that he meant France’s debt was merely “moral.”
To deny that the consequences of slavery were also material is to deny French history itself. France belatedly abolished slavery in 1848 in its remaining colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion and French Guyana, which are still territories of France today. Afterwards, the French government demonstrated once again its understanding of slavery’s relationship to economics when it took it upon itself to financially compensate the former “owners” of enslaved people.
The resulting racial wealth gap is no metaphor. In metropolitan France 14.1% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, in contrast, where more than 80% of the population is of African descent, the poverty rates are 38% and 46%, respectively. The poverty rate in Haiti is even more dire at 59%. And whereas the median annual income of a French family is $31,112, it’s only $450 for a Haitian family.
These discrepancies are the concrete consequence of stolen labor from generations of Africans and their descendants. And because the indemnity Haiti paid to France is the first and only time a formerly enslaved people were forced to compensate those who had once enslaved them, Haiti should be at the center of the global movement for reparations.
NJ Gov. Phil Murphy Nominates Fabiana Pierre-Louis To The State’s Highest Court
On Friday, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy will announce his first pick for the state’s Supreme Court since taking office, and it will be a historic one.
Murphy will nominate Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, to be the next associate justice of the state’s highest court. If the state Senate confirms the nomination, Pierre-Louis will be the first Black woman to ever sit on the court.
Pierre-Louis, 39, has not only worked in private practice, but has also worked as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice for years.
“It’s hard to put into words the honor that it is to be nominated to the highest court in the state of New Jersey,” Pierre-Louis told ESSENCE. “My goal, particularly as a prosecutor, was always to pursue justice and fairness in the law…It’s just a remarkable opportunity to continue in the very proud tradition of this state’s Supreme Court.”
The daughter of immigrants from Haiti, and a first-generation American, Pierre-Louis believes she will bring a unique perspective to the court if confirmed.
“I am a Black woman. I am the child of immigrants from Haiti. I am someone who is a first generation American citizen here in this country, [the] first person in my family to attend law school, to become a lawyer, someone who’s also lived in a variety of inner cities throughout my life, beginning with my early childhood in Brooklyn, then followed by the remainder of my childhood in Irvington, New Jersey,” she said. “All those experiences bring a unique perspective to the Court that currently is not there.”
To the governor, the nomination was a no-brainer, given his own belief that a judiciary should reflect the diversity in the state.
“A core tenet of my Administration is a commitment to an independent, fair-minded judiciary that reflects the immense diversity of our great state,” Murphy told ESSENCE. “As a first-generation American, Fabiana brings both a sharp legal acumen and the perspective of her own past that will greatly benefit the proceedings of our state’s highest court.”
“New Jersey is a very diverse state,” Pierre-Louis echoing the governor’s statements. “It is extremely important for the judiciary and other government bodies to be a reflection of the community that they serve. So, having people of diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives sitting on the highest court in these states certainly inspires confidence that the court will rule and have these diverse perspectives in ruling on extremely important cases.”
Pierre-Louis’ own work speaks volumes for her. She graduated from Rutgers Law School with High Honors before going on to clerk for Justice John Wallace Jr. during the 2006-2007 Supreme Court term. From there she went to Montgomery McCracken for about three years, before moving to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey in 2010. In 2012, she moved to the Trenton office, and four years later she would be the first woman of color to be Attorney-in-Charge. In that role, she supervised all aspects of criminal matters handled by the office, while also investigating and prosecuting her own caseload, inclusive of matters from child exploitation offenses, to national security matters, to public corruption matters and more.
While in Trenton, Pierre-Louis helped to create the Trenton Reentry Court, which provides assistance to returning citizens to help reacclimating to society.
In 2018, she became the first woman of color to serve as Attorney-in-Charge of U.S. Attorney’s Office in Camden, later returning to private practice in 2019.
“My experience speaks volumes with regard to my ability to take on this position and to successfully execute the duties of an associate justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. I’ve practiced in private practice at a law firm doing civil work. I’ve also been a federal prosecutor,” Pierre-Louis said. “I’ve supervised a wide variety of cases and gained the respect of not only the judiciary but of my colleagues and even defense attorneys that I have worked on cases with. And I think my integrity, my open-mindedness, and my ability to communicate well with others is something that has helped me succeed throughout my career.”
If confirmed, Pierre-Louis will be the first Black judge to sit on the court since 2010, when then-Gov. Chris Christie stirred controversy and outrage in the state after failing to renominate then-Justice John Wallace Jr. to a tenured term.
In the New Jersey State Supreme Court, a justice is initially confirmed for seven years. After those seven years, once a justice has served with good behavior and made sound decisions (regardless of who may or may not agree with said decisions), they are typically renominated and reconfirmed for a tenured term, which automatically expires once the justice turns 70, regardless of if that justice was initially chosen by a governor of a different party.
Wallace has been the only justice that has been denied tenure since the state Constitution was adopted in 1947. At the time, he was the court’s only Black justice (and only the second Black person to ever sit on the court), and his tenured term would have automatically expired when he had reached 70 in less than two years.
The fallout was swift, and Christie’s Judiciary Advisory Panel all resigned en masse to protest the then-governor’s decision to replace Wallace. Democrats balked, with the Democrat-led senauntil Justice Walter Timpone was confirmed and sworn in 2016.
It is Timpone’s seat that Pierre-Louis will fill if confirmed, as the justice will reach the mandatory age of retirement in November.
Pierre-Louis’ nomination comes at a time when the nation is in turmoil and many have flooded to the streets demanding justice for Black Lives and accountability from the police, but Murphy stressed that his selection did not come as a result of the current national discourse.
“In addition to her esteemed legal career, Fabiana’s humility, empathy, and character are all traits that make her well-suited to become the first Black woman and the next Associate Justice to serve on New Jersey’s Supreme Court,” Murphy said in a statement.
“I have not chosen to nominate Fabiana because of the current national discussion around race. However, given the challenges which are being brought to the forefront of our society, and the questions which will undoubtedly rise to reach our Supreme Court – core issues of socioeconomic equality and equity – there is no better meeting of an individual and the times,” he added.
Pierre-Louis told ESSENCE that she seeks to be a “fair, open-minded” justice, if nominated.
“I certainly believe that I would…have the ability to listen to all arguments from all sides and make a determination after having done so and looked at the facts and the law before me to make determinations about whether I believe there was an error on the lower court below or not,” she said.
“I think the New Jersey Supreme Court is a perfect model of a very strong court in this country that has historically been very independent,” she added. “I think the role of a Supreme Court justice is to review the cases and ensure that fairness and justice results no matter what the political atmosphere is at the time.”
By: BY BREANNA EDWARDS for Essence.com | June 5, 2020
The 22-year-old Japanese tennis player racked up $37 million in earnings in the past year, more than any other female athlete in history.
Naomi Osaka was only a year old when Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam title in 1999. Nineteen years later, Osaka beat Williams at the U.S. Open final to win her first Grand Slam. It was one of the most controversial matches in Open history, involving three code violations called against Williams. Now the 22-year-old ace has beaten her legendary rival once again, this time for bragging rights as the highest-paid female athlete in the world.
Osaka earned $37.4 million the last 12 months from prize money and endorsements, $1.4 million more than Serena, setting an all-time earnings record for a female athlete in a single year; Maria Sharapova previously held the record with $29.7 million in 2015.
Osaka ranks No. 29 among the 100 highest-paid athletes while Williams is No. 33. It’s the first time since 2016 that two women have made the ranks of the 100 highest-paid athletes, with the full 2020 list set for release next week.
“To those outside the tennis world, Osaka is a relatively fresh face with a great back story,” says David Carter, a sports business professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business. “Combine that with being youthful and bicultural, two attributes that help her resonate with younger, global audiences, and the result is the emergence of a global sports marketing icon.”
The ascension puts an end to a decisive winning streak for Williams, who has been the world’s highest-paid female athlete each of the past four years, with annual pre-tax income ranging from $18 million to $29 million. The 23-time Grand Slam champion has collected almost $300 million during her career from endorsers that have swarmed the 38-year-old star.
Osaka’s rise to the head of the charts was a perfect convergence of several factors. She first proved herself on the court, with back-to-back Grand Slam titles at the 2018 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open. That plus her heritage—a Japanese mother and a Haitian-American father—helped separate her from the pack; at only 20 when she won her Open title, she had a cool factor and an engaging personality.
Osaka’s roots are crucial to her endorsement stardom. She was born in Japan. When she was 3, she and her family moved to the U.S., settling on Long Island and then heading to Florida; her older sister, Mari, also plays on the pro circuit.
She turned pro in 2014, a month before her 16th birthday. She cracked the WTA’s top 40 in 2016 and won her first title in March 2018 at Indian Wells. In the 12 months that followed, she became the first Japanese player to win a Slam, and the first Asian tennis player ever to be ranked No. 1 in the world.
Osaka held dual citizenship growing up but made the wise choice to represent Japan ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, now postponed to 2021. The decision made her an even hotter commodity for Olympic sponsors, like Procter & Gamble, All Nippon Airways and Nissin, which signed endorsement deals with Osaka to use her around marketing for the Games. She is expected to be one of the faces of the Olympics, which had triggered unprecedented levels of excitement among the Japanese public before the coronavirus outbreak.
A Decade Of Highest-Paid Female Athletes
Tennis has been a winning strategy for the highest-paid female athletes. Before Naomi Osaka arrived on the scene, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams were the top-earning women of the decade, holding the top spot for five and four years, respectively.
The last top-earning female athlete outside of Williams and Sharapova was Serena’s sister Venus in 2003. Tennis remains the only route for women to rank alongside the top-paid male sports stars. Sharapova, Li Na, Serena Williams and now Osaka are the only women to rank among the 100 top earners in sports since 2012. The highest-paid female athlete every year since Forbes started tracking the data in 1990 has been a tennis player, with Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis the top earners for most of the 1990s.
Tennis players are walking billboards in the only major global sport where men and women have some level of equality in their paychecks, thanks to similarly sized audiences tuning in to watch tournaments. Prize money at the four Grand Slam events has been even since 2007, although men still earn more at lower-level tourneys.
The demographics of the tennis fan make sponsoring top players attractive for brands. At the U.S. Open last year, attendance skewed in favor of women by a ratio of 56 to 44, a rarity at big-time sporting events; 78% held at least a bachelor’s degree versus 35% for the U.S. overall; the average household income was $216,000. This is a group with significant disposable income, ready to buy apparel, sporting equipment, cars, watches and financial services.
Steering Osaka’s brand is powerhouse tennis agency IMG, which leaned on its history with breakout female tennis stars when Osaka started blowing up, having represented Sharapova and Li. Stuart Duguid is her lead agent at IMG.
The apparel deal is almost always the biggest endorsement for tennis stars, and Osaka’s timing was perfect there as well as she hit the open market just after winning two Grand Slams. It triggered a free agency bidding war between Nike and Adidas—her previous apparel sponsor. The Swoosh emerged on top and paid her more than $10 million last year in an agreement that runs through 2025.
Osaka secured an extremely rare but lucrative provision in her Nike contract. The sportswear giant always requires its tennis players to be clad in Nike gear from head to toe, without any other logos on their shirts or hats. This is lucrative real estate for marketers because cameras focus closely on the player as they serve or get set to return serve.
Nike never made an exemption for Williams, Sharapova, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi or any of the other marketable tennis stars in its stable. The only exception until last year was China’s Li; Osaka became the second, thanks to massive leverage with Sharapova headed for retirement and Williams turning 39 this year. Her “patch” deals are with All Nippon Airways, MasterCard and ramen noodle maker Nissin Foods.
Nike plans to launch an Osaka streetwear line in Japan in the fourth quarter, featuring hoodies, leggings and shirts, as well as a new collection each season. There will not be any tennis apparel.
Osaka now has 15 endorsement partners, including global brands like Nissan Motor, Shiseido and Yonex, whose tennis racquets she has used for more than a decade; almost all are worth seven figures annually.
Sharapova was 17 when she defeated Williams to win the 2004 Wimbledon crown. IMG quickly mobilized to lock up lucrative long-term deals for the Russian, who ranked as the highest-paid female athlete for 11 years before injuries and a suspension for taking a banned substance dented her earnings.
IMG got an education on marketing a female Asian tennis star with China’s Li. She became the first Grand Slam singles champion from Asia, man or woman, when she captured the 2011 French Open at age 29. IMG quickly secured seven multimillion-dollar deals, pushing her off-court earnings from $2 million to $20 million. She challenged Sharapova as the sport’s top earner until her retirement in 2014.
IMG used its expertise in Japan with Kei Nishikori, who has never won a Grand Slam but is the most successful Japanese male player ever, resulting in an endorsement portfolio worth $30 million a year.
Sharapova, Li and Nishikori paved the way for Osaka’s marketing breakthrough. “We were fortunate to have a very sophisticated office in Tokyo that already had the experience with Kei,” IMG’s head of tennis Max Eisenbud told Forbes last year. “The relationships in that region are important.”
With plenty of endorsement cash, Osaka partnered with several brands last year, with significant equity components, including emerging sports drink BodyArmor and Hyperice, which makes recovery and movement products.
BodyArmor marketing exec Mike Fedele says Osaka was one of the inspirations for its “Only You” ad campaign launched this week. “Naomi is fiercely dedicated to perfecting her game on the court and a huge part of that is what she does off the court with her training, nutrition and hydration,”he says.
“I’m really interested in seeing a young business grow and adding value to that process,” Osaka told Forbes last year. “I tasked my team with finding brands that align with my personality and my interests.”
Brands are lining up to get into the Naomi Osaka business.
Biden Campaign Adds Karine Jean-Pierre As Senior Adviser
Joe Biden has hired Karine Jean-Pierre, a veteran African American political strategist, as a senior adviser to his presidential campaign as the presumptive Democratic nominee pivots to the general election campaign.
Jean-Pierre will advise on strategy, communications and engaging with key communities, including African Americans, women and progressives.
“This really is the most important general election in generations,” Jean-Pierre told The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom, in an exclusive interview Monday night. “I’ve known Joe Biden for 10 years now. I believe he’s a man of integrity, he’s a man who knows how to lead, he’s a man who knows how to use the levers of government to help people and he’s the man who could beat Donald Trump in November. For me, as a black woman, I just could not sit this out.”
Jean-Pierre, 43, will begin her role with the Biden campaign next week. She gained prominence in 2008 as the southeast regional political director for then-candidate Barack Obama’s history-making presidential campaign.
She served in the Obama White House as regional political director before working as deputy battleground states director on his 2012 reelection. In the latter role, Jean-Pierre handled political engagement in key states including Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Born in Martinique to Haitian parents and raised in New York, Jean-Pierre worked on former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s 2016 Democratic presidential bid before joining liberal group MoveOn as chief public affairs officer. She is also an MSNBC political analyst.ADnull
Separately, the Biden campaign announced Tuesday that it hired Obama campaign alum Julie Chavez Rodriguez — who previously worked as co-national political director for Sen. Kamala D. Harris’s presidential campaign — as a senior adviser, making her the highest-profile Latina to join the team as Biden struggles to shore up his support with Hispanic voters headed into November.
Biden’s swift rise this spring was fueled largely by black voters — particularly black women, who are regarded as the backbone of the party and seen as key to a winning general election coalition in the fall. Energizing these voters will be crucial to the record turnout needed to topple Trump. Black turnout was down in 2016 from historic highs in 2012 and 2008, when the country elected its first African American president.
Jean-Pierre said her hiring signals that Biden “understands how he became the presumptive nominee.”
“Black voters, black women, have helped him get to this point,” she said. “When everybody was counting him out, black voters spoke out. I am so proud and excited as a black woman watching how black women have exerted their power … we had to say loud and clear this (the actions of the Trump administration) is not okay.”
Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to Obama, called Jean-Pierre “a superstar” who shares Biden’s values of equality, fairness and justice.
“She will be able to communicate his agenda in an authentic way that I think will resonate importantly with African American women, but also with the entire country,” Jarrett said in a telephone interview. “It’s a coup for vice president Biden and his campaign.”
By Errin Haines | The 19th and The Washington Post May 20, 2020
This story is part of a collaboration between The Washington Post and The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics and policy.
Haiti Becomes CARICOM Country with Highest COVID-19 Cases
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti has become the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country with the highest number of positive cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) after the country recorded 77 news cases on Monday.
The Ministry of Public Health said that the new cases bring to 533, the number of people who have tested positive for the virus since the first case in Haiti on March 19.
It said that the death toll also increased by on to 21.
Jamaica had been the CARICOM country with the highest number of positive cases of the virus that was first detected in China last December and blamed for 315, 488 deaths and 4. Million others being infected globally.
Jamaica’s health ministry on Monday said no new cases had been reported and that the total remained at 520 with nine deaths.
On Sunday, Haiti recorded nearly 100 positive cases and the Ministry of Public Health in its latest statement said that the number of active cases now stands at 491 cases with the number of suspected cases followed being 2,120 cases.
It said that the number of people hospitalized is 253 while 1,330 persons remain in quarantine at home.
The Lived Experiences That Shaped Haitian Flag Day
The butt of anti-immigrant jokes. Fistfights after school. Inner-shame in public spaces. Haitian-Americans across social media say it wasn’t always cool to be Haitian.
Their parents who emigrated to the United States by boat or by plane, legally or illegally, experienced vicious anti-Haitian sentiments that spilled into their childhood. Wedged between cultures, their coming-of-age stories are ripe with resilience, as their strict parents kept them bound to their traditional roots — an airtight proximity to the homeland through a Haitian value system, food, dance, and music:
Lekol, Legliz, Lakay (School, Church and Home).
And as the Haitian diaspora increases their influence online, they’re controlling their own stories — stories once marred by dehumanizing narratives. But for many first-generation Haitian-Americans, Haitian Flag Day isn't really an ode to national pride, it’s a celebration of the variety of lived experiences that make up Haitian culture and identity.
Two internet influencers, Wanda Tima and Success Jr., say dignity and respect is currency in a country that too often devalues their worth. They explain why their content and individual stories reach across cultural differences, and how Haitians are celebrating Haitian Flag Day, May 18, during Haitian Heritage Month.
Whenda “Wanda” Tima, founder of L’Union Suite:
Wanda Tima is the founder and owner of L’Union Suite, an established media gateway for all things Haitian. With appearances in Forbes, BET and Black Entreprise, and nearly 500,000 combined followers on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, Tima says being forced to navigate multiple spaces inspired her to create L’Union Suite.
Wanda Living Between Two Worlds: “I have all these other connections from Okap, Cape-Haitien, where my family .. is from. And then I was raised in Turks and Caicos and Grand Turk and Provo for the first half of my life,” Tima told WLRN. “And then I moved to the U.S. in South Florida and have lived in South Florida ever since.” Tima says she consumed everything about Haitian culture in South Florida — the music, food, and church services.
“But then I'm also very Turks Islander. And I was very American because there was this missing connection piece like living in two different spaces at all times and not knowing how to even blend two,” Tima said.
The Creation of L’Union Suite: Tima says she sought a better understanding of Haiti, researching its history and culture — the diaspora stretches from Brazil, Cuba and the Bahamas to Chile, Canada and the United States. She was mostly inspired by Haitians in professional spaces — doctors, musicians, and Haitians “in the boardrooms.”
“And people are doing some of the most amazing things, you know, in the world. You know, are Haitian. We're creating our own narrative. We know our pain. We know our stuff. And we know what's going on in our country. We know what's going on at home, you know, but at the same time, we can't allow the world to just tell only the pain and the suffering story. That's not our only story.”
How Are Haitians Celebrating Haitian Flag Day: “So, social media is definitely, highly red and blue for the whole month [the colors of the Haitian flag]. There's more food. There's more people speaking Creole. There's more connecting."
"The comments sections are definitely, you know, more engaging. So, no, we definitely know how to find each other no matter where we are in the world. All May.”
Success St Fleur, Jr:
Sketch comedian Success Jr is known for his coming-of-age viral videos that invite viewers inside his traditional Haitian-American home. With a combined 287,000 dedicated followers on Instagram and Facebook, Success, who goes by Success Jr, produces situational comedy that is filled with insider jokes about traditional Haitian upbringing. His videos, produced with a mixture of English and Haitian Creole, often seek to “bridge the Haitian and American cultural gap.”
Success Jr playing his popular Manman Junior character.CREDIT SUCCESS JR
Success Jr Living Between Two Worlds: “My upbringing was tough — being most of my upbringing was in the early '90s, and, you know, we weren't accepted and we didn't accept ourselves. So we tried to hide it, “ Success Jr told WLRN.
“Now we have other nationalities that want to celebrate the flag with us. And they are also enjoying our culture where we used to get beat up for it. And now we have people like these same bullies, now they're wanting to join us in celebrating the first black independent country.”
The Creation of Success Jr: “I see my page as like therapy. I didn't even realize when I started this. Like so many of us are raised some way alike, like identical,” Success Jr said. “And I have people who come up to me as they're like, ‘hey, I feel like you're my family. Like you grew up in the next room from me.’
How Are Haitians Celebrating Haitian Flag Day: Success Jr says normally Kompas music revelers would get together and celebrate Haitian Flag Day, but the COVID-19 pandemic this year is forcing people to celebrate online.
“Kompas fest has been in our tradition for the past 20-plus years, so everybody knows Kompas fest, and you got like the new generation such as DJ Stakz, who brings New York, Boston, Montreal, and all those northeast cities — he brings them all down to Miami, and we all celebrate together.”
UN response to Haiti cholera epidemic lambasted by its own rights monitors
- 13 top officials denounced ‘illusory’ promises to Haitian people
- Disease brought to Haiti by UN peacekeepers killed 10,000
Thirteen UN rights monitors have unleashed blistering criticism of the United Nations for its “deeply disappointing” failure to make amends for having brought cholera to Haiti causing the deaths of at least 10,000 people.
In a letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, the independent monitors excoriate the world body for making “illusory” promises to the Haitian people. They note that having pledged $400m for a cholera clean-up mission, the UN has raised just $21m and spent “a pitiful” $3m.
“This is a deeply disappointing showing following the loss of 10,000 lives,” the letter states.
Scientific evidence has conclusively shown that cholera was imported into the country by sick Nepalese UN peacekeepers who were relocated in 2010 to Haiti to help with a devastating earthquake. The UN failed to screen the Nepalese force for the disease, which could have been done before they deployed from Nepal for less than $2,000.
For six years the UN denied any involvement in the transmission of the cholera bacterium. In 2016 it issued a fudged apology, but has continued to resist accepting any legal responsibility or to pay compensation.
Philip Alston, the UN monitor on extreme poverty and human rights who is lead signatory of the letter, told the Guardian that the UN’s failings were put into clear relief by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The world is rightly focused on the horrors of Covid-19 and losing thousands of people. But 10,000 people died in Haiti and there was no response,” he said.
Alston, who prepared a report to the UN general assembly on Haiti’s cholera disaster in 2016, added: “What upsets me most is that the UN has still not acknowledged its responsibility for taking cholera to Haiti.”
Cholera appears to have been halted in Haiti with the last case reported in January 2019. Even then, the bulk of the public health work devoted to root out the illness was carried out by local health workers and aid groups and not by the UN.
In December 2016, the then UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, made an apology of sorts, but it was carefully worded to avoid any legal accountability. He said: “We did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and spread in Haiti.”
Alston said: “There continues to be an explicit refusal to accept any formal responsibility, let alone legal responsibility.”
The independent UN monitors who signed the letter include Leilani Farha, special rapporteur on adequate housing; Léo Heller, special rapporteur on water and sanitation; and five members of the working group of experts on people of African descent.
The lack of any compensation for the cholera disaster has had serious consequences for thousands of people in the poverty-stricken country. Many of those who died in the epidemic were the main income earners of their families, and their deaths had catastrophic implications for those left behind.
Alston told the Guardian that having studied the cholera disaster over many years he had concluded that the UN’s reprehensible conduct could only be understood by accepting that “an element of racism is involved here”.
He said: “If this happened to a white community in a country with any standing globally the UN wouldn’t have done – and wouldn’t have been able to do – nothing. But this is Haiti, a country which has largely been written off.”
In a statement, a UN spokesman said: “Since taking office, the Secretary-General has been strongly committed to supporting the people of Haiti and the fight against cholera. He reiterates the UN’s deep regrets for the loss of life and suffering caused by the cholera epidemic.”
Haiti releases over 300 detainees to prevent COVID-19 spread
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Apr. 18. CMC – The Government of Haiti has released just over 300 detainees in the country’s 19 prisons in an effort to control and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Officials in the National Penitentiary Authority (APN), recently informed the United Nations and non-governmental organizations of its needs in terms of infection prevention and control.
The NPA said this is in accordance with national and global advocacy, adding that 12 children have also been released from detention.
“To date, 322 detainees have already been released from Haitian prisons, including 21 women and 12 minors.”
Most of the detainees were in prolonged pre-trial detention while others were convicted for minor crimes, nearing the end of their sentence, or had co-morbidities linked to the COVID-19.
According to UNICEF, in Haiti, more than 11,000 people are detained in prisons listed – of this number, over 200 are minors.
From Haiti to Chile, a Singer Bridges Styles – and Cultures
With Haitian rhythms and Spanish lyrics, Ralph Jean Baptiste shows integration is possible for other migrants.
SANTIAGO, CHILE — Escápate conmigo otra vez, sings Ralph Jean Baptiste in his Santiago apartment, over a demo track of slow R&B beats. His rhythmic Haitian accent deepens the melody of the Spanish lyrics.
Although born and raised speaking French Creole in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, Baptiste, 29, writes all his songs in Spanish. He moved to Chile after Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010, with dreams of a music career in tow.
“To get to audiences in Chile you have to sing in Spanish. They’ve never heard anything in French or Creole. I had to adapt,” he said.
Adapt—he says the word as if it is inherently natural to him. Baptiste has had to adapt daily to be accepted in his new homeland. Beat by beat, over nine years of performances, he built a name for himself, and in 2019, Baptiste was finally able to release his first album, Rafa.
Musicians have always been a nomadic sort, and Baptiste is no different. He had spent time in the Dominican Republic, where he learned Spanish, so after the earthquake struck, Baptiste chose to pursue his music in Latin America — unlike the 46,000 displaced Haitians who sought asylum in the United States He settled in Chile after short stints in Peru and Argentina.
Baptiste was among the first in what would become a surge of Haitian migrants in Chile. The country had granted fewer than a 1,000 visas to Haitians between 2005 and 2009, and when Baptiste arrived in 2010, only 713 Haitians received Chilean working visas — a marked difference from 2018, when 126,000 were granted.
Haitians were the first black, non-Spanish-speaking migrant group to arrive in Chile. They stood out. “When I arrived people looked at me strangely. They hadn’t seen Afros before. They touched my skin for luck,” Baptiste told AQ. “I have faced a lot of discrimination and rejection.”
When pressed to explain, Baptiste breaks into a broad smile and laughs. “I don’t like to remember the bad times.”
Beyond discrimination, being a migrant compounds the economic challenges that already exist for aspiring artists, said Dr. Marisol Facuse, who researches migration and music at the University of Chile.
“It is very hard for migrants to live off music, especially for migrants who don’t have networks, and Haitians are a community in Chile that isn’t very integrated culturally,” Facuse told AQ. “The question of survival is the biggest barrier.”
Baptiste performs at a special show for migrants at a Valparaiso music festival in 2018.
But survive Baptiste has, and his positive outlook provides a model of the kind of integration possible for migrants with the right support and attitude. His song “Aguante” (Endurance) sums up his experience living in a foreign land:
I had to leave everything and go far / to start from zero on a long road. / It has not been easy, but you have to move forward / cry and laugh / life has to be lived.
“I’m inspired by his character and strength,” said Charlie Checkz, who produced several of Baptiste’s songs, including “Aguante.” Checkz values the Haitian musician’s unique contribution to Chile’s musical scene.
“We combine rhythms — us as Chileans, and his Haitian music and culture. We put that in the music.”
Baptiste describes his music as worldly, priding himself on the unique fusion of styles he creates, mixing Chilean urban and cumbia sounds with African rhythms and North American soul. In his music videos, he celebrates Chilean traditions — such as performing the country’s national dance, Cueca — reflecting his embrace of Chile’s culture.
And in spite of the challenges, Baptiste notes that things are changing for the better. “Around three years ago there started to be more inclusion for migrants,” he said. In 2018, he performed at an annual festival for migrant artists, organized by Chile’s cultural ministry. Last year, he won a state-funded grant to support migrants in music, which enabled him to record and produce two music videos. Things were starting to look up.
However, the momentum he was building came to an abrupt halt when the mass protests broke out in Chile last October. The following months were tense and violent — people died in clashes with the police, festivals were canceled, and few people went out to concerts.
“I had to cancel all my shows. I haven’t been able to perform since November,” Baptiste said.
However, he is sympathetic to the struggle of the Chileans. It’s a frustration shared by the migrant community, he explained. In August 2018, Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, claimed to be “putting the house in order” when he signed a reform outlining stricter migration policies. Three months later, the government began flying some Haitians back to their country in what it called a “humanitarian return plan.”
“People who needed help, he just sent them back,” Baptiste said.
“Chile is a complicated country,” Baptiste added. “And Chileans are fighting for a fairer life. They should include migrants in that too.”
Baptiste believes his role as a musician is important in giving voice to his community.
“A lot of Haitians would like to say something, but they can’t because they don’t speak Spanish or they just aren’t heard,” he said.
“In my songs, I can pass on the message of what they feel.”
'Our heritage is abandoned': burning of Haitian church fuels anger at politicians
Damage to part of Unesco world heritage site is emblematic of uncaring government, critics say.
Cultural leaders in Haiti have described the gutting by fire of a celebrated 200-year-old church as an avoidable tragedy that highlights the fragility of the Caribbean nation’s patrimony – and the need to preserve its historical treasures.
The Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception church in the town of Milot is part of a Unesco world heritage site that includes the ruins of the Sans Souci palace and the Citadelle Laferrière, an imposing fort that looms over Haiti’s northern plains.
Fire tore through the church on Monday, causing its distinctive black wooden dome to collapse. The cause of the blaze has not been determined, but some saw it as indicative of the malaise of misrule that has long bedeviled the island – some of it locally rooted, and some imported by more powerful neighbors.
“[For years] we have been asking the state to ensure the protection of these colonial dwellings, which are important as monuments of slavery, yet nothing has been done,” said Laënnec Hurbon, a sociologist with the State University of Haiti.
“But the state spends its time buying luxurious cars for ministers, functionaries and parliamentarians. It is therefore not surprising that everything concerning the national heritage is abandoned.”
The church was constructed between 1810 and 1813 by Henri Christophe, one of a cadre of revolutionary leaders including Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines who helped Haiti oust the French and end the system of slavery.
Christophe went on to declare himself King Henry I and ruled in autocratic splendour over northern Haiti until his death by suicide in 1820 amid a protracted civil war.
On Christophe’s death, the church was ransacked, and its dome had collapsed following an 1842 earthquake. In the 1970s, the renowned Haitian architect Albert Mangonès led an effort to restore the complex. It was named a world heritage site in 1982.
Some worry the legacy that the buildings at Milot attest to is being lost amid Haiti’s current political upheaval.
“The structural inequalities in our society mean there has never been an education accessible to all that would teach the idea of the common good,” says the Haitian author Yanick Lahens.
Haiti has been shaken by often violent unrest for months, prompted in part by a long multibillion-dollar corruption scandal which has engulfed the administration of President Jovenel Moïse.
Despite the political battles, however, the church seems to pierce to the heart of Haiti’s national identity, across party lines.
In a letter to the government after the fire, educational and civil society figures called on the nation’s political leaders to “stop this denial of our history as a people [as] only these monuments remain, testimonies of our history of struggles, suffering and hope.”
One former president, Prosper Avril, who ruled the country from 1988 to 1990, has called for a taskforce to protect the country’s cultural heritage.
In a land that often seems beset by internecine political vendettas, some hope that even in this dire moment, the church’s reconstruction might serve as a point of unity.
“The royal chapel of Milot is a testimony to the history of our people,” said Erol Josué, director of Haiti’s national bureau of ethnology (BNE). “The Haitian state should engage all layers of the population in its reconstruction, because this is our heritage.”
We are not prepared at all': Haiti, already impoverished, confronts a pandemic
With barely 60 ventilators for 11 million people, Haiti is the most vulnerable nation in the Americas to the coronavirus. While many countries would struggle to cope with a serious spread of Covid-19, Haiti might never recover from one.
The reality inside Haiti's intensive care units is even bleaker than that number - taken from a 2019 study - suggests. According to Stephan Dragon, a respiratory therapist in the capital, Port-au-Prince, the true number of ventilators is actually closer to 40, and maybe 20 of those aren't working.
"We also have a very, very limited group of doctors who know how to operate them," Mr Dragon said.
The Haitian government has recently attempted to buy much-needed equipment - from ventilators to PPE, including tens of thousands of facemasks from Cuba - but Haitian healthcare practitioners like Mr Dragon fear it is too little, too late.
"To tell you the truth, we are not prepared at all," he said.
So far, this small impoverished nation has only registered three deaths from the virus and 40 confirmed cases, but many more cases may be going unreported, especially in remote areas.
Levels of testing are low and enforcement of social distancing is patchy at best. The Haitian population also suffers high levels of diabetes and other health conditions, and a major coronavirus outbreak would place an unbearable strain on a collapsing healthcare system.
Haiti's ability to respond is confounded by its economic straits. Around 60% of Haitians live below the poverty line and many face a stark choice: either go about your daily business and run the risk of contracting COVID-19, or stay indoors, as the government advises, and be unable to put food on the table.
It is little wonder that so many are taking their chances.
That is the dilemma facing Jean Raymond and his family. He lives in Furcy, a mountainous village outside of Port-au-Prince where most families scratch a meagre living from land.
Jean Raymond, however, isn't a farmer but a motorbike taxi driver, part of Haiti's vast informal economy. Rremaining indoors is not an option if he is to feed his wife and two young children, he said.
"It's impossible for me to not leave the house," he said. "If I'm obligated to stay in my home, what would we eat?"
Jean Raymond's wife, Lucienne, criticised the government for failing to show enough support in the village. "We want to respect the rules but we can't," she said. "I see what governments are doing in other countries, but here they aren't doing anything."
In the absence of the state, it has fallen to local grassroots organisations to carry out basic but vital tasks. Clean water is a precious commodity in Furcy - indeed it is a scarce resource across Haiti - and one environmentalist group called Ekoloji pou Ayiti has prepared dozens of water canisters to make handwashing stations in some of the neediest communities.
Given the deep distrust of NGOs in Haiti, it was crucial to "make sure the community leaders were part of the project," said Max Faublas, co-founder of Ekoloji pou Ayiti.
As well as building 88 water stations, the group showed people how to make their own hand-sanitiser using vinegar. They have also tried to tackle widespread misinformation with a public education campaign on the importance of wearing a facemask, avoiding handshakes and disinfecting shoes and clothes.
Still, although members of the community appreciate the rules in theory, putting them into practice can be hard. For example, Jean Raymond and his family live with his parents - six people in a tiny home, all living on top of each other.
And if social distancing is difficult in rural Furcy, it is almost out of the question for many in Haiti's sprawling, densely-populated shantytowns.
In Port-au-Prince, market days have been cut back, creating further demand for basic food supplies. Some are growing desperate. There have been chaotic scenes outside food distribution points and trucks selling bread. The government has been distributing food parcels to the most vulnerable households but many are angry at having to jostle and compete in a crowd for food.
"The way they are distributing food is humiliating," one resident, Mesmin Louigene, told the Reuters news agency. "People do not respect social distancing. The government should organise it better. I'm very concerned at the sanitary conditions, it's very worrying."
That the looming healthcare crisis is a great threat to Haiti is of little surprise - that is true of most of Latin America and the Caribbean. What's especially deadly in the region's poorest country though is the combination of the pandemic and a crippling economic crisis. In a bid to stave off further economic ruin, the Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe said this week the country's textile factories would re-open later this month, but the move runs contrary to advice from the Pan American Health Organisation to keep lockdown restrictions in place.
In Furcy, Jean Raymond was under no illusions about what a major COVID-19 outbreak would mean to his village.
"If Coronavirus comes into my community, it would be a disaster. We don't have a hospital or even a good road. The conditions we live in…" his voice trailed off.
"There's no way. We will all die if coronavirus comes here."
Haiti in Canada Health System Link-Up
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti is seeking to strengthen its health system by developing enhanced cooperation with Canada.
This was one topic discussed during a meeting between Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe and the Canadian Ambassador accredited to Haiti, Stuart Savage.
During the recent meeting, Savage said he was open to any request from the Haitian Government relating to the consolidation and extension of its body of health workers, the need for equipment for health infrastructure in the country.
He stressed that synergy must be developed in order to provide proportional responses to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Jouthe informed Savage that Haiti had already placed orders for more than 400 tonnes of medical equipment and he hopes to acquire powerful sprayers for disinfecting urban spaces.
The Prime Minister also informed the Canadian diplomat that steps were underway with the Minister of Finance to open a solidarity account intended to collect funds from donors, the private sector and citizens wishing to help the country to face the health crisis in which the country engages.
He also mentioned, among other things, the program of distributing food kits to the most vulnerable people in society.
Another Protest In The Capital of Haiti After Journalist Arrestation
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – In March 2020, the media reported that the Haitian Government announced the first two cases of coronavirus in Haiti before the cases reached to 16, but however the Haitian Government failed to tell the media and the Haitian population the names of the victims as proof.
Days later after the Haitian Government announced the first two cases in the country, the World Bank and the USAID donated millions of dollars to Haiti to deal with the COVID-19, but unfortunately, some health organizations across Haiti said President Jovenel Moise and Prime Minister Jouthe Joseph failed to release the names of the people infected with the COVID-19.
“They said there are cases of COVID-19 in the country but Ministère de la Santé Publique failed to release the names of the people infected to some health organizations”, said Mr. Evans Jean, a healthcare worker at Hôpital De L’Ofatma located in Port-Au-Prince.
According to a press conference on Thursday, political leaders, journalists, the whole population, even the opposition leaders across the country have doubts about the COVID-19 in Haiti. After the reports of the 16 cases in Haiti, here’s what a political leader in Haiti said about the current situation in the country. He said:
“I don’t think the COVID-19 is a joke but how come President Jovenel Moise and Prime Minister Jouthe Joseph ordered masks from China to give the population in Haiti when everyone knows the COVID-19 is originally from China. Unfortunately, after the Haitian Government reported cases of COVID-19 in Haiti, those 3 questions came in my mind. My first question is, How the COVID-19 arrived in Haiti?, my second question is, Who took it to Haiti?, and the third question is, What are the steps the Haitian Government is taking to stop the COVID-19 from spreading across Haiti since they said there are cases?”, said Mr. Werley Nortreus, a political leader and the founder of Vanyan Sòlda Ayiti and A New Haiti Before 2045 (ANHB 2045).
On Friday, another protest broke out across the capital of Haiti after the arrestation of Mr. Louko Desir after saying a speech on Radio Télé Eclair during his popular radio show called Matin Debat. From some reports, the journalist and the radio host was released from Jail hours later. Although everyone is wondering what are the reasons behind the arrestation of Mr. Louko Desir, however, Mr. Louko Desir believes that he got arrested for saying something on his radio show.
According to local media like Bon Déjeuner! Radio (BDR! Live) and Radio Télé Eclair, Mr. Louko Desir who is a Journalist and the host of Matin Debat at Radio Télé Eclair were arrested after saying the Haitian Government is lying about the COVID-19 in Haiti. After Mr. Louko Desir said that there are no cases of COVID-19 in Haiti, he was arrested shortly after that speech on the radio.
“Pa gen Koronaviris Ayiti vre, epi kale je nou paske nou pa dwe asepte Prezidan Jovenel Moise voye chache mask lachin kote maladi a ye pou vin touye moun tankou poul Ayiti”, said Journalist Louko Desir on Radio Télé Eclair, before he was arrested a day later by the Haitian Government.
After the arrest of Mr. Louko Desir, a protest broke out in the Capital of Haiti and videos show that the protesters took the buckets that were donated by the USAID to the streets then burnt them. From some reports, most of the buckets that were donated by the USAID for the COVID-19 got burnt by angry protesters across the Capital of Haiti.
According to reports, most leaders across the country are against the arrest of Mr. Louko Desir because they said no one deserves to be arrested for simply saying something on his own radio show.
“No one deserves to be put in jail or prison for simply defending the population in Haiti”, said some protesters while burning some buckets that were donated by the USAID for the COVID-19.
“IRRESPONSIBLE AND DANGEROUS”: U.S. DEPORTS HAITIANS DESPITE CORONAVIRUS RISKS
THE UNITED STATES, the new epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, deported 61 Haitians on April 7 despite warnings that such deportations could contribute to the spread of the virus in Haiti. Public health experts fear that an outbreak could have particularly deadly consequences for the impoverished island nation, where many people lack access to basic necessities like health care and food.
Haiti lacks the resources to cope with a major outbreak of Covid-19, warned Cate Oswald, chief policy and partnership officer for Partners in Health, a Boston-based global health nonprofit whose Haitian sister organization, Zanmi Lasante, is coordinating with Haiti’s government to respond to the virus. For its population of 11 million people, Haiti has just 124 ICU beds and the ability to ventilate less than 70 patients, according to a 2019 study by the Research and Education Consortium for Acute Care in Haiti. “I’m nervous to see how this new disease has overwhelmed even the better-resourced health care systems,” Oswald told The Intercept.
To prevent the virus’s spread, the Haitian government has closed schools and most factories and is encouraging people to adopt social distancing measures. However, the majority of Haitians live on less than $2 a day and many work in the informal sector. The significant depreciation of the value of local currency and skyrocketing inflation have driven up prices of basic necessities like food. For people already struggling to feed their families, staying home is a luxury few can afford. And in the markets and public transit systems that informal sector workers depend on, it is often all but impossible to adhere to the social distancing guidelines recommended by public health authorities.
The weaknesses of Haiti’s health care system, and the precarious conditions in which many Haitians live, have both been identified as factors in the deadly toll of the cholera outbreak that killed an estimated 10,000 Haitians between 2010 and 2018. Oswald points out that other nations were able to help Haiti respond to the cholera epidemic by sending medical personnel and supplies. She fears that international assistance will be less forthcoming amid the Covid-19 pandemic because governments around the world are already struggling to respond to outbreaks within their own borders.
In this context, Oswald said, U.S. deportations to Haiti are “irresponsible and dangerous from a public health standpoint.” Because none of the 61 migrants the U.S. deported had been tested for the coronavirus, the Haitian government was forced to divert its scarce resources into quarantine measures. “It is certainly adding a strain to the already overburdened system that has been set up,” she said.
While more than 545,000 people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, Haiti has reported 33 cases of infection and three deaths from Covid-19. Given how limited testing has been in Haiti — only 365 tests had been carried out nationwide as of April 9 — Oswald suspects that the actual number of cases could be much higher.
A Haitian public servant involved in Haiti’s coronavirus response agreed with this assessment. “There could be a lot of infections and some deaths that are not reported,” the official, who declined to be named over concerns of retaliation, told The Intercept. He warned that in addition to “creating stress on an already vulnerable system,” the U.S. deportations are “creating a very dangerous precedent.”
The deportations, which were carried out via a plane chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, took place weeks after the Haitian government officially closed its borders in the wake of discovering the country’s first two coronavirus cases.
For its population of 11 million people, Haiti has just 124 ICU beds and the ability to ventilate less than 70 patients.
Haiti’s foreign minister, Claude Joseph, said he pleaded with the U.S. government to suspend the scheduled deportation flight. Partners in Health, which is calling for a moratorium on all deportations amid the pandemic, also mobilized to try to stop the U.S. from deporting the Haitian migrants, as did the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a Boston-based human rights group, and several U.S. members of Congress. A lawyer representing one of the Haitian migrants who was scheduled to be deported spoke out about the public health risks, pointing out that his client had been detained in two separate ICE facilities with reported Covid-19 cases.
Despite these concerns, and the U.S. government’s own public advisories, which emphasize the need to “avoid all international travel due to the global impact of Covid-19,” the U.S. deportation flight proceeded as scheduled. Yet seven of the Haitians on board were removed at the last minute. Among those yanked from the plane was the man who was potentially exposed to the virus in ICE custody. ICE did not provide a public explanation for its actions and did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment. The man’s wife later reported that he had been taken to another ICE facility where a detainee had tested positive for the virus.
Oswald, who participated in the mobilization to stop the deportations, said the outcome left her extremely frustrated. “It showed me the powers that exist in that system,” she said, and “that we all need to be advocating for an end to deportations during this time.”
COVID-19: Killer of Black, Brown and Poor of US and Haiti
We are supposed to be thinking this week about the health disparities in the United States based on race and ethnicity, since the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, and even USA Today are going on about it. This is the hot topic presumably because of a recent analysis of the demographics of COVID-19 deaths by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Such an analysis, however, cannot be found. Instead, the public health departments of several US states simultaneously published their COVID-19 racial breakdowns. One cannot help but suspect that this orchestrated and sudden discovery of the institutional racism of the US is nothing but an election-year ploy to sway Black and Hispanic voters from one to another of two politically parties that care nothing about them. Politicians have learned, from Obama’s speechwriters, that when they state a problem accurately while not promising to do anything about it, they leave everyone in the room thinking that they’ve said they will address the problem. But nothing ever gets done: not by the overtly xenophobic and racist political party that courts far-right elements at home and abroad, and not by the metrosexual party that says all the right things but embraces the same xenophobic and racist policies on the quiet.
Nevertheless, these data should make us think more deeply about why the poorer citizens of this country are dying in greater numbers from a virus that, in principle, does not discriminate by race and ethnicity. For a while the CDC trumpeted the fact that 90 percent of the people hospitalized for COVID-19 had underlying health problems like old age, pulmonary or cardiovascular issues, diabetes, or cancer. Since many of these problems are linked to obesity, this has been used as a way to blame the victim. To be blunt about it, some writers stopped just short of declaring, particularly to the populations of states with large Black and Latino populations: “It’s your fault that you’re dying, because you’re fat.” To this I say: “No. You’re dying because you’re poor.”
If you had been fat, middle class and in relatively poor health, you would have fled your city and worked from your vacation home. You would have scrupulously observed the directives to shelter at home, ordered deliveries of groceries, wine and take-out foods, and still got your paychecks. And if you had been obese, rich and in poor health, you would have done the same things and maybe also worried about the stock market making you less rich. But even if you had schmoozed with people like Prince Charles and caught SARS-CoV-2 from them, you would have had a platinum health insurance policy, and you would have received excellent care and been unlikely to die from COVID-19.
In Louisiana, for example, the chance of a black person dying from COVID-19 is 70 percent, although African-Americans represent only 32 percent of the state’s population. By contrast, a white person has only a 29 percent chance of dying although this demographic represents 62 percent of the population. The figures in Illinois and several other states are also gruesome. Even in areas like California and New York City, where the data in the aggregate appear not to belie any institutional racism, if one dissects away the areas with a large black population, the same pattern emerges. As startling as these figures might be, however, they would be far worse if they were broken down by income and wealth. But I believe the idea is to make us think about race before we begin to form a thought about class: much like a red cape distracts an enraged bull from impaling a matador.
A major factor that makes the poor more vulnerable to being killed by SARS-CoV-2 is their job. The poor are overwhelmingly employed in more exposed jobs, like care of children, the mentally ill and the elderly; janitorial work; low-level hospital jobs; transit jobs like bus driving, and jobs as baristas and grocery clerks. Many such workers must keep two or three jobs to make ends meet, in a system that denies them full-time work so they get no health insurance. Consequently, they come into contact with many more people at work, usually in situations where they are enclosed in poorly ventilated spaces. To get to work, the poorest of such workers take public buses and trains, which are often crowded and also poorly ventilated. At home, they live in larger family groups in neighborhoods where the air and water are often polluted. Finally, for the poor, the next paycheck takes priority over all other issues, including health problems. And so the poor age prematurely: most never find a moment to care for themselves and work till they’re used up.
As dire as the situation might appear in the US, it is far worse in the developing world, where many governments are inimical to their populations and propped up from outside. In Haiti, for example, the so-called government, which is now reduced to only the executive branch, has done everything in its power to create an emergency situation that will cause aid money to flow to a small group of politicians. Despite the raging pandemic, on March 17, Haiti left its airports open to flights to and from the US and Cuba. Deportations from the US, including a recent one from Louisiana, continue. A Cuban medical contingent of 1,500 people left Haiti on March 22, to care for the Cuban sick, the passengers of a cruise ship, and the Italian sick. This was terrible news, because the Cuban health brigades have been the main protection of Haitians from health NGOs. Such NGOs are, for the most part, unqualified. Furthermore, they are often predatory and less interested in healing the sick than in conducting drug trials for big Western pharmaceutical companies. After a brief shutdown, on March 30 Haiti reopened its assembly factories to manufacture medical gowns and masks. Despite the supposed greater distance between workers, this situation effectively gathered large numbers of women in fluorescently lit boxes with appalling ventilation. The government also chose to roll out its National ID Distribution around the same time, forcing long lines of people to stand around together for hours.
Why would a government be so eager to kill its own citizens? I believe the incentive is the lucrative business of supplying human subjects to big Western pharmaceutical companies for their drug trials. On April 2, Haiti got $20 million from the World Bank, which required COVID-19 deaths as a precondition for its donation.
Indeed the deathwatch has started again in Haiti, this time for COVID-19 instead of the cholera that was permitted to kill 10,000 people. So far, two people have died from the viral infection and human neglect: a 55-year old lawyer from the Ministry of Justice, and an unidentified 69-year-old woman. The cause of the first death is being contested by the man’s family. Whether or not it is correct is hardly worth one’s attention, because most of the news from the country is a tissue of lies. As of April 7, only 270 tests had been done, although the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) supposedly had in hand 2,000 tests and ordered 10,000 more. Most of the tests were administered to politicians — and no doubt their families too — on the order of the prime minister, who demanded testing of all the country’s ministries. Indeed, 187 of those 270 tests were in the West Department, where the capital city and politicians are.
To say that the COVID-19 pandemic is compounded by societal problems is an understatement. In Haiti, for example, the diaspora’s remittances account for about 30 percent of the GDP, but everywhere the diaspora is losing its jobs because of the global economic shutdown. Haiti is a place where people walk for miles and then stand in line for hours to buy their water, where even the street markets sell mainly imported produce and dry goods, and where the exchange rate has deteriorated from 75 to 100 Haitian gourdes per US dollar. The Minister of Public Works says he is ready to bury 1,000 to 1,500 people. The scenario for Haiti is quite analogous to that of most the developing world, with only changes in the details. Let us hope the poor bury their governments first.
Haiti and the US Covid-19 Crises–Closer Than We Think
Haiti has a population of 11 million and reports 31 cases of confirmed coronavirus and one death as of today (April 10, 2020). Several hundred diagnostic PCR tests have been done.
The Dominican Republic (DR) has 10 million people and shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The DR reported several days ago that they have 2,349 coronavirus cases with 118 deaths. Thousands of Dominicans have been tested.
I always wonder how many Haitians and Dominicans have coronavirus signs and symptoms which have not been recognized and have not been reported. Probably many.
Since the summer of 2015, hundreds of thousands of people with Haitian blood have been sent back to Haiti from the Dominican Republic. However, within the last couple of weeks, thousands of Haitians in the DR have been fleeing back to Haiti to escape the virus. They fear not only the viral illness but what could happen to them by their Dominican neighbors if they show signs of the virus.
Jacqueline Charles/Miami Herald 4/9/2020–
“A daily exodus of Haitians fleeing the rapid increase of coronavirus cases in the neighboring Dominican Republic — many evading military patrols and medical screenings as they sneak back into Haiti through the closed land border — is raising concerns about Haiti’s ability to halt the spread of the deadly virus.
“Even in normal situations, managing the flows at the borders is incredibly difficult,” said Giuseppe Loprete, the country director for the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration. The agency has adapted its tracking of migrant flow along the 224 miles dividing Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola to support the ongoing preparedness and response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.”
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During recent months in Haiti, healthcare workers have staged numerous walkouts, protesting a lack of essential supplies and abysmal sanitary conditions in Haitian hospitals. Unsurprisingly, hospitals in Port are reporting they are utterly unprepared to face the looming pandemic. Medical staff have limited access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and quarantine rooms (in public hospitals) are nowhere near fit for that purpose. (Haiti Support Blog)
Consequently, Haitian doctors and nurses who work in Haiti’s public hospitals, have publically said that they will not care for Covid-19 patients unless they have the proper PPE. And they don’t really believe that the Haitian government will be providing it for them.
And why doesn’t Haiti have PPE? Well, I cannot say for sure, but is anyone surprised? Their dysfunctional health care system does not have much of anything.
However, there was an article from the New York Times yesterday which spins the situation a little differently and describes “modern-day piracy” which may limit some countries from having adequate supplies to fight the virus.
The Times (April 9, 2020)–
“As the United States and European Union countries compete to acquire scarce medical equipment to combat the coronavirus, another troubling divide is also emerging, with poorer countries losing out to wealthier ones in the global scrum for masks and testing materials.
“Scientists in Africa and Latin America have been told by manufacturers that orders for vital testing kits cannot be filled for months, because the supply chain is in upheaval and almost everything they produce is going to America or Europe. All countries report steep price increases, from testing kits to masks.”
And even if the Haitian health care providers had the requisite PPE, so what? Haiti has only 130 ICU beds in the entire country and most of them are not functional. And there are an estimated 64 ventilators in the country–but ventilators don’t run themselves and need to be controlled by highly trained physicians who are able to monitor the settings while evaluating the patient’s clinical status at the same time.
It is easy to understand how Haitian medical staff may lack PPE, but what about the United States? The US medical providers have been short on PPE also. How can this be?
And to make matters worse, threats have been made against numerous doctors and nurses by their hospital administration when they spoke out on social media and reported that their workplace was not safe because PPE was not sufficient to protect themselves and their patients in the face of the growing Covid-19 pandemic. Both physicians and nurses in the States have lost their jobs for stating this. And many other healthcare professionals have said they feel they can’t tell their story for fear they too will face disciplinary action from their employer, as reported by Medscape Medical News.
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Currently, the US is in the middle of social distancing. However, this public health maneuver attempting to “beat the virus” has been politicized.
The Hill (April 9, 2020)–
“Attorney General William Barr late Wednesday suggested that the federal government in May should begin relaxing some of the “draconian” social distancing restrictions imposed throughout the U.S.
“Barr said in an interview with Fox News that the U.S. had to be “very careful” to ensure some of the measures being “adopted are fully justified, and there are not alternative ways of protecting people” amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“I think, you know, when this — when this period of time is — at the end of April expires, I think we have to allow people to adapt more than we have and not just tell people to go home and hide under the bed, but allow them to use other ways — social distancing and other means — to protect themselves,” he said.
“Leading health experts have continually called for keeping social distancing requirements in place until the U.S. sees a significant and consistent drop in the number of hospitalizations from the virus. Those requirements have devastated the economy, leading to a wave of business closures and a surge in unemployment applications.”
In short, human lives compete against the economy and time will tell which wins out.
In Haiti, where people live on top of each other, it is very hard for the poor to practice social distancing for so many reasons. The poor in Haiti are like the poor in the United States–they both need to provide for their families during this pandemic.
“…the government of President Moïse Jovenel has called for people to isolate themselves, stay home, frequently wash their hands and engage in social distancing.
“But on $2.41 a day or less, it is hard to feed yourself and your family and buy the soap, and in many instances, the water, needed to wash your hands. Most poor Haitian families live in a single room, which makes social distancing impractical, especially since their neighbors are just a wall away.
“If people don’t go out to work, they starve.”
And on Twitter today was this Tweet which is nauseating–
And if the challenges in Haiti are not big enough, many Haitians do not believe that coronavirus even exists in Haiti. They believe it is a white man’s disease that they will not get.
However, data from the United States is telling a different story.
USA Today (April 9, 2020)–
“Black Americans are overwhelmingly dying of the coronavirus at much higher rates compared to others in some major cities. But most federal officials and states are not keeping track or releasing racial data on coronavirus victims.
“While black residents make up about 29% of Chicago’s population, a whopping 72% of the city’s residents who have died from COVID-19 so far are black. And according to the public health commissioner, 52% of those testing positive are black.”
And in New York City—
“As of Wednesday morning, more than 3,500 residents had died of coronavirus, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported. That figure does not count more who died at home and were not tested for the virus.
“Black and Latino city residents have died from coronavirus at twice the rate of white or Asian New Yorkers, preliminary data released Wednesday by city officials shows.
“Latinos have died at a rate of 22.8 per 100,000 residents and black New Yorkers at a rate of 19.8 per 100,000 the analysis shows.
“By comparison, whites in New York City with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have died at a rate of 10.2 — and Asians at a rate of 8.4 — per 100,000 people.
“Health disparities and access to care play a key role. Many essential workers holding down jobs like driving buses, childcare or in grocery stores are black. As the pandemic continues to take a toll on health and economics, there are calls for addressing underlying racial inequities.”
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Conclusion–
Eric Topol, MD reports in Medscape his view of this pandemic–
“The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States will go down as the worst public health disaster in the history of the country. The loss of lives will make 9/11 and so many other catastrophes appear much smaller in their scale of devastation. Perhaps what we in the medical community will remember most is how our country betrayed us at the moment when our efforts were needed most.”
And in Haiti, Dr. Ernst Noël, of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, in Port-au-Prince, believes that a projection of 800,000 deaths from COVID-19 is not an exaggeration.
Other Haitian experts are talking about 1,000 deaths per day in Haiti by May and the distinct possibility of burying bodies in mass graves as was done after the Haitian earthquake in 2010.
I hope all of these predictions will be wrong. But looking 700 miles north and seeing what is happening with Covid-19 in the States, Haiti most likely will not be spared.
Haiti's crowded prisons a coronavirus catastrophe waiting to happen
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — Imagine the struggle of containing the coronavirus if it hits Haiti's hellish prison system, the world's most overcrowded, where filthy, sometimes windowless cells meant to house 20 people are teeming with up to 80, unable to even go outside for fresh air.
The poorest country in the Americas has reported only one coronavirus death out of 25 recorded cases so far. But activists and officials fear the prison network is an epidemiological ticking time bomb.
The system is a mess, from a new women's prison built in 2016 to crumbling provincial jails that over time have become places for long-term detention rather than short stays. All of them are overcrowded.
Haiti has 11,300 people behind bars — most of them waiting to go on trial, sometimes for years—- in conditions that human rights activists liken to torture.
“Prison cells in Haiti are small rooms with space for 10 to 20 people if you use the rule of 4.5 square meters per prisoner,” said Marie Rosy Auguste Ducena of the National Human Rights Network. That works out to about seven feet by seven feet per man or woman.
“But these cells hold up to 80 people. So you can just imagine the levels of overcrowding these people are forced to endure,” she added.
“The cells are also very poorly lit and have little ventilation, so the prisoners become very weak,” said Auguste.
Because there is not money to hire enough guards, prisoners are not allowed outside to get fresh air or exercise, said Auguste.
Human rights groups have complained for decades about the appalling conditions in Haiti's prisons.
But now, as the novel coronavirus sweeps the globe and even countries as rich as the United States struggle to keep prisoners safe — sometimes simply releasing them — Haiti is in a race against time.
The idea is to thin out the prison population before coronavirus hits the destitute Caribbean nation in earnest and conceivably spreads like wildfire through the inmates.
Charles Nazaire Noel, the director of the national prison system, said he has sent the Justice Ministry a list of 600 prisoners as candidates for release.
“That is not much,” Nazaire added, although he is making up a second list that would comprise only people awaiting trial.
Indeed, that is the case for a staggering three-quarters of the prison population. And some have been held even longer than they would be if found guilty of the crime they are accused of.
“There are people in prison for stealing a cellphone or a goat. For petty larceny like that, they are supposed to spend a year in prison. But some have been in prison for five or six years,” said Nazaire.
SHORTAGE OF MASKS
He said he has warned the government time and time again about the dangerous conditions in the prison system, to no avail.
“Our prison overcrowding has reached a limit. The government should have been aware of this,” said Nazaire.
Another threat comes from a shortage of protective masks for prison guards.
“Prison guards and other employees are people who go home at night. They are potential COVID-19 vectors for the prison system,” said Auguste.
“If COVID-19 makes it into the prisons, we will be facing an absolute catastrophe,” she warned.