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Taiwan condemned China on Wednesday for seeking to use vaccines for political gain after Taipei’s diplomatic ally Honduras said it was considering opening an office in China in a bid to acquire much needed COVID-19 shots.
Honduras does not have formal relations with China and is one of a group of Latin American nations that have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said that to buy Chinese vaccines, he would do as the Chinese had suggested and look for a “diplomatic bridge”. read more
Several Latin American nations are receiving Chinese vaccines, but countries that have built ties with Taipei rather than Beijing, such as Honduras and Guatemala, are not.
Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said China was trying to use the same methods it did with Paraguay, another Taiwanese ally that Taipei has complained of Beijing trying to push into a vaccines-for-recognition deal. read more
“This clearly proves that following the vaccine crisis in Paraguay, the Chinese government is once again using vaccines to exchange political and diplomatic benefits for countries that are in urgent need, a shameful act of disregarding humanitarian needs,” Ou said.
Honduras has reaffirmed its ties with Taiwan, and Taiwan promises to help to the best of its ability to alleviate the health crisis, including working with “like-minded” countries, she added, a reference to democracies such as the United States, the European Union and India.
In Beijing, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said China was committed to helping provide vaccines to the developing world as a public good.
China hopes that “relevant countries can appropriately handle Taiwan-related issues according to the one China principle” she added, which states that Taiwan is part of China.
Beijing has been gradually whittling away at Taiwan’s diplomatic allies – now down to just 15 countries – which has alarmed Washington, nervous about an increased Chinese presence in Latin America and the Pacific where those allies are concentrated.
Reuters- Hellen Ñañez has suffered enough tragedy for a lifetime. The Peruvian 28-year-old mother has mourned the death of 13 close relatives since the pandemic struck last year: uncles, cousins, a grandfather. Now her dad is fighting for his life.
Hellen Nanez, who lost 13 relatives to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and whose father is being treated for COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Unit, visits the grave of her aunt, who died in June 2020 of COVID-19, in Pisco, Peru, May 9, 2021. Picture taken May 9, 2021. REUTERS/Alessandro Cinque – RC28CN9DIM91
On a recent day in a dusty cemetery in the Pacific port town of Pisco, Ñañez visited the graves of relatives lost to COVID-19.
“The truth is, I don’t have any more tears,” said Ñañez, who dropped out of studying psychology to work and help pay her father’s medical bills. “This is taking away our family. It’s taking away our dreams, our tranquility and stability.”
Ñañez’s story is a grim reflection of the tragedy unfolding in Latin America, a resource-rich but politically volatile region of some 650 million people stretching from Mexico to the near-Antarctic southern tips of Chile and Argentina.
The region has recorded 958,023 coronavirus-related fatalities, a Reuters tally shows, some 28% of the global death toll. It is set to hit the 1 million mark this month, which will make it the second region to do so after Europe.
But unlike wealthier Europe and North America, Latin American nations have lacked the financial firepower to keep people from sliding deep into poverty; underfunded healthcare systems have strained and inoculation programs have stalled.
Regional leaders from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador have come under fire for their handling of the pandemic, while a string of health ministers have been fired.
“We Peruvians are dying, Mr President. We are dying every day,” Miriam Mota, a relative of a coronavirus patient in Lima told Reuters, beseeching the country’s leader, Francisco Sagasti, to do more to help bring the crisis under control.
“There are no vaccines. There are no intensive care beds. There are no medicines. Please, for humanity’s sake, help us!”
Peru has officially confirmed 1.85 million COVID-19 cases and some 64,000 deaths, but that toll could be three times as high in reality, experts say. The country’s national death register has linked 171,000 deaths to the virus.
‘PEOPLE ARE FED UP’
Latin America’s crisis has been driven by regional juggernaut Brazil, which has recorded the most deaths globally after the United States and where right-wing President Bolsonaro has long railed against lockdown measures and backed unproven cures.
The emergence of virus mutations in the country, including the more transmissible P1 variant, has been linked to the severity of Brazil’s outbreak. It has also driven surges in infections in neighboring countries, including Uruguay and Bolivia.
Now there are signs that the pandemic, which has torn through regional economies and driven a spike in poverty, will have a longer-term ripple effect, stoking unrest, rattling industries and driving voters at the polls.
Colombia has been roiled by deadly protests over a now-shelved tax reform and poverty; Chile is moving towards a sharp tax hike on copper miners; Peru’s polarized presidential election race is being led by a socialist teacher who is a political outsider.
“People are fed up and obviously tired of everything that has happened lately,” Paula Velez said in front of a burned-out police station in Colombian capital Bogota, set on fire in the protests.
‘I DON’T WANT TO LOSE HIM’
Public health experts say Latin America has suffered an outsized hit from the pandemic, both in terms of health and growth, rattling fragile economies with high debt levels, steep inequality and where many work in less secure informal jobs.
Unlike North America, Europe or Asia, the region has also lacked the high-tech infrastructure to rapidly develop or manufacture vaccines.
A deal to produce the Oxford University-AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine by firms in Argentina and Mexico has been stalled by manufacturing hold-ups, and many Latin American countries are reliant on insufficient supplies of Chinese and Russian vaccines.
A cottage industry has developed for wealthier Latin Americans to travel to Florida and Texas to get their shots. But for the less affluent, that is not an option.
“I have been looking for work for a year and a half and I can’t wait for my vaccine,” said Rio de Janeiro resident Marco Antonio Pinto, who like others in the city was disappointed last week when an immunization center quickly ran out of vaccines.
“They are playing with the people, thinking that we are animals. We aren’t animals: we are human beings. We pay taxes. We pay for everything,” he said.
Back in Peru, Ñañez is now fighting to save the life of her father, who has been in the intensive care unit of a hospital for more than two weeks, receiving medicine to reduce the ravages of the disease and on a mechanical respirator.
Ñañez, who has a two-year-old child, has turned to making soap at home and selling it on the street or in shops in Pisco, a coastal town set amid arid desert landscapes.
She said her bank loans had run dry and the family had incurred enormous debts of some 100,000 soles ($26,500) to buy medicines, medical oxygen – and funeral expenses. While hope was low, she was determined to battle for her dad.
“I’m not going to lose him. I don’t want to lose anyone else. My dad can’t leave me,” Ñañez said, sobbing, outside the hospital where she has come to check on the health of her father, who is in a coma.
“I have been standing here for 17 days in front of the hospital and I know that he is going to make it. I do not think that life can be so unfair if it has taken so much from me and now it also wants to take away my father.”
=================================================
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key events from the last few hours:
The Netherlands expects to further relax coronavirus restrictions next week, giving the green light to sex workers and zoos so long as cases keep falling, prime minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday.
Major US airlines have weighed in alongside UK carriers to urge the reopening of transatlantic travel, calling on governments in Washington and London to arrange a summit as soon as possible.
Burger chain McDonald’s has announced it is partnering with the White House to promote vaccination information on its coffee cups. Separately, Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a new program with Lyft and Uber which will offer free rides to anyone going to a vaccination site to get vaccinated.
Pfizer has asked the UK medical regulator for permission to use its Covid-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in Britain, the Telegraph has reported.
Teachers in Buenos Aires are demanding a return to virtual learning due to the increase in cases of coronavirus since the return of students.
Brazil recorded 72,715 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,311 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario said on Tuesday they would stop offering first doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, with Ontario citing evidence that the risk of rare blood clots is somewhat higher than previously estimated.
Brazil’s federal government on Tuesday nationally suspended the vaccination of pregnant women with the AstraZeneca shot, after an expectant mother in Rio de Janeiro died from a stroke possibly related to the inoculation.
===========================================
CANADA
The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario said on Tuesday they would stop offering first doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, with Ontario citing evidence that the risk of rare blood clots is somewhat higher than previously estimated.Alberta said it took the same step only because it was unclear when more shipments of the vaccine might arrive, and not due to concern about side effects, Reuters reports.
Officials in Ontario said roughly one in 60,000 people who received the vaccine in the province, eight in total, developed the complication, which involves blood clots accompanied by a low level of platelets, cells in the blood that help it to clot.
Regulators and expert groups in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe had previously estimated that the risk was between one in 95,000 and one in 130,000.
Ontario’s chief medical officer David Williams said, “We maintain that those who received their first dose with the AstraZeneca vaccine did absolutely the right thing to prevent illness and protect their families, loved ones and communities.”
Three deaths in Canada have been linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Officials said the vaccine is effective, and noted that alternative vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are increasingly available. Canada has distributed just over 20 million doses of various COVID vaccines, and 11.6% were AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
Experts have said it is likely fine to mix COVID-19 vaccines, and a trial underway in the UK is looking at the question directly.
==============================================
BRAZIL
Brazil recorded 72,715 additional confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,311 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
Brazil has registered nearly 15.3 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 425,540, according to ministry data.
The reported death toll from nearly two weeks of anti-government protests in Colombia rose past 40 on Tuesday, a day ahead of a planned national strike, while major cities warned of a prolonged peak in COVID-19 cases due to demonstrations.
Violent protests fueled by outrage at a now-canceled tax plan began on April 28. Demonstrator demands have expanded to include a basic income, an end to police violence and the withdrawal of a long-debated health reform.
Colombian student activist Lucas Villa was declared brain dead Monday night, nearly a week after he was shot eight times at a peaceful protest against President Ivan Duque’s government, CNN Espanol reported, citing a statement from San Jorge de Pereira University Hospital where he was being treated.
His family and the government also confirmed his death on social media Tuesday.
The 37-year-old was one of three students shot by unknown gunmen on motorcycles at a demonstration on the evening of May 5 in Pereira, central Colombia.
“Continue dancing in each cloud and make everyone there happy, like you did here,” his sister, Nicole Villa wrote in a post on Instagram.
The death caused consternation in Colombia, as Villa was a well-known figure in Pereira, and doctors at San Jorge Hospital had expressed hopes he might recover from his wounds.
Duque commented on the protester’s death on Twitter writing: “We stand with the Villa family with deep sadness after the news of Lucas’ death. I repeat what I [said to] Mauricio, his father, that this becomes the opportunity to come together and reject violence. To the responsible [I wish] all the power of the law.”
The government is offering a reward of 100 million Colombian pesos ($27,000) in exchange for any “information to capture those responsible,” Minister of Defense Diego Molano wrote on Twitter, before expressing “all our commitment to finding those guilty for this atrocious crime.”
Smaller protests and road blockades have continued daily around the country. Unions and student groups have called for a national strike on Wednesday after a meeting with President Ivan Duque left them at odds with the government. read more
Colombia’s human rights ombudsman said it had received reports of the deaths of 41 civilians and one police officer. It is verifying if they are directly connected to the protests.
The police and its ESMAD riot squad are presumed responsible for 11 killings, the ombudsman has previously said, while it classed seven deaths as unrelated to the marches themselves.
“We call for all necessary measures to be taken to put an end to the violence that is bleeding Colombia dry,” the ombudsman’s office said on Twitter.
Local advocacy group Temblores says 40 protesters have allegedly been killed by police, while Human Rights Watch said it has received 46 credible reports of protest deaths and verified 13.
So far three police officers are facing murder charges connected to demonstrator deaths.
Duque visited the city of Cali – a focal point for protests – for a second day in a row on Tuesday and announced poor and working class students at public universities and technical schools will pay no tuition next semester.
The center-right president lacks strong backing in Congress, where his tax proposal, which would have expanded items subject to sales tax, was heavily criticized. His term ends in August next year.
The three largest cities in Colombia, which has recorded nearly 79,000 COVID-19 deaths, are now bracing for an extended third peak in coronavirus cases and over-stretched intensive care units, local authorities said.
Capital Bogota is confronting a “hospital collapse,” Mayor Claudia Lopez said in a press conference on Monday, and will not see infections drop this week as previously predicted.
A fall in infections will not come until the end of May, Lopez said, adding that protests make quarantine restrictions nearly unenforceable, although she extended a curfew and restriction on alcohol sales.
Medellin, whose ICUs have been at or near full-capacity for weeks, is preparing for a possible crisis, health secretary Andree Uribe told Reuters in a video.
“We know there will be an increase in cases, we’re on alert, we are carrying out actions for early identification, like testing everyone who participated in the marches,” she said.
In Cali, demonstrations are likely to extend a current peak, health secretary Miyerlandi Torres said.
“We’re worried about marchers who don’t comply with any of the self-protection protocols like physical distancing and the use of face masks,” she said. “And with the presence of strains like the British one, which are highly contagious, it’s indicated the figures won’t fall in the short term.”
Cali’s ICUs are about 95% occupied, according to local government figures.
Illegal miners inside a protected area in the Brazilian Amazon opened fire on an indigenous community using automatic weapons, local leaders say.
The Yanomami group said they responded with bows and arrows, and shotguns. One indigenous person and four miners were injured.
An estimated 20,000 illegal gold miners are in the Yanomami area, Brazil’s largest protected indigenous reserve.
Violence in the Amazon has increased under President Jair Bolsonaro.
The far-right president, a critic of the size of the indigenous reserves, has promised to open some of them to agriculture and mining. His government has weakened environmental protections, and critics say his rhetoric has emboldened illegal activity in the region.
Junior Hekurari Yanomami, from the Yanomami-Ye’kuanna group, said the half-hour shootout happened on Monday in the Palimiú community in Roraima state, near the border with Venezuela. About 930 people live in the area.
A video that purportedly shows the incident captured the moment a boat passed by the community and gunshots were heard. About a dozen women and children who were gathered near the Uraricoera river were seen running for cover amid desperate shouts.
The river is used by illegal miners, known locally as garimpeiros, to transport petrol and other goods to their camps. According to Mr Hekurari Yanomami, the community had set up barricades to try to prevent the miners from entering their territory.
He said three of the miners had been killed in the confrontation, but Brazil’s federal police said later it could not confirm the number.
A search for illegal miners, of which thousands operate in the Yanomami reserve in Brazil (file photo)
Transcripts of audio messages shared in groups used by illegal miners and published by the non-profit group Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) suggest the community was attacked after they seized petrol that was to be sent to a mining camp.
The messages also say the attackers were allegedly affiliated to a criminal organisation. Experts say the area is controlled by members of the São Paulo-based Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Brazil’s largest criminal group that is linked to drug and arms trafficking.
In a letter to federal authorities, Mr Hekurari Yanomami called for “urgent action to stop the spiral of violence in the area and to guarantee the security of the community”. He said members of the indigenous group were sheltering in the jungle as the miners had threatened to retaliate.
It was the third incident between indigenous people and illegal miners in the area in two weeks. “Everybody is scared,” he said in a video.
A local co-ordinator of the indigenous agency, Funai, said the situation was “serious” and because there was the “imminent risk of further conflict” it would not be able to send a team to investigate the incident without security protection.
Work by garimpeiros intensified after President Bolsonaro took office in 2019, the report said. Mining camps, once located in areas deep in the jungle, were getting closer to indigenous villages, it added, increasing the risk of conflict.
Rivers used by indigenous communities are being contaminated by mercury that is released from mining, while miners are also believed to have brought diseases to the area, including Covid-19 and malaria.
President Bolsonaro, who is supported by powerful agribusiness leaders and is likely to run for re-election next year, has long questioned the need for large indigenous reserves in the rainforest.
Activists and indigenous groups have denounced his government’s lack of action against illegal logging and mining in protected areas, and say environmental enforcement remains underfunded.
The Hill- A majority of global chief information security officers (CISOs) surveyed as part of a report released Wednesday said they feel their organizations are unprepared to face a cyberattack, despite many believing they will face an attack in the next year.
The report, compiled by cybersecurity group Proofpoint, was based on a survey of 1,400 CISOs in 14 different countries including the United States. The results highlighted a brutal year for security professionals struggling to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Organizational cyber preparedness is still a major concern, and more than a year into this pandemic, it really changed the threat landscape, 66 percent of CISOs feel their organization is unprepared to cope with a targeted cyberattack in 2021,” Lucia Milică, global resident CISO at Proofpoint and the report’s lead author, told The Hill ahead of the report’s release.
The findings of the survey revealed that CISOs are overworked and overwhelmed after a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more daily activities online, giving cyber criminals more targets for attack.
Around 64 percent of CISOs said they believe they will face some form of cyberattack in the next 12 months.
Many of these concerns were due to increased remote work, with more than half of the CISOs surveyed agreeing with the notion that a hybrid work environment had made their jobs more difficult, and 60 percent seeing an increase in targeted attacks due to remote work over the past year.
Additionally, many security leaders felt a perceived lack of understanding from company leadership, with only 25 percent reporting that their boards were on the same page with them in terms of cybersecurity threats and resources.
“2020 has elevated the CISO role to where you have continuous visibility into the executive board level, but the expectations from the business on their functions seem excessive,” Milică said.
The cybersecurity leaders cited a broad range of cyberattacks they feared could impact their businesses, but zeroed in particularly on concerns around business email compromise, insider threats within their organizations, supply chain attacks and ransomware.
Their concerns were voiced following a year in which cyberattacks multiplied at an ever-increasing rate.
Hospitals, schools and government organizations have all been targeted by ransomware attacks amid the COVID-19 pandemic, along with critical infrastructure, such as the recent attack that forced the Colonial Pipeline Company to temporarily shut down its operations.
The U.S. was also hit by a series of major cyberattacks with widespread impacts, including the SolarWinds attack, which involved Russian hackers compromising nine federal agencies and 100 private sector groups. New vulnerabilities on Microsoft’s Exchange Server, exploited by both Chinese and Russian hackers, compromised potentially thousands more organizations.
“CISOs are on high alert across a range of different threats,” Milică said. “As you’ve seen the last 12 months, they have been really faced with a relentless attack landscape.”
With the attacks increasing and the future of work likely to be a more hybrid landscape in the wake of the pandemic, other industry leaders pushed for more resources and support for overburdened CISOs.
“The ‘good enough’ approach of the past 12 months will simply not work in the long term: with businesses unlikely to ever return to pre-pandemic working practices, the mandate to strengthen cyber security defenses has never been more pressing,” Ryan Kalember, executive vice president of Cybersecurity Strategy for Proofpoint, said in a statement Wednesday.
“The findings from our report emphasize that CISOs need the tools to mitigate risk and develop a strategy that takes a people-centric approach to cybersecurity protection to address ever-changing conditions, like those experienced by organizations throughout the pandemic,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) offered fiery criticism of Republicans on Tuesday for efforts around the country to tighten voter laws amid unproven claims made by former President Trump that the 2020 election was stolen.
Schumer, speaking at a Senate Rules Committee meeting on a sweeping elections overhaul bill, accused Republicans of trying to act upon the “big lie that the election was stolen” to “placate” and “please” Trump.
“Unfortunately, the big lie is spreading like a cancer among Republicans. It’s enveloping and consuming the Republican Party, in both houses of Congress,” Schumer said.
Schumer pointed to the likely ousting of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as House Republican Conference chair. Frustration with Cheney has boiled over among House Republicans after she’s pushed back against Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen.
“Liz Cheney spoke truth to power, and for that, she’s being fired,” Schumer said.
Schumer also criticized Republicans for not pushing back against state laws that add restrictions on the ability to vote.
“Every Republican in this room knows Joe Biden won the election fair and square. Every Republican knows that Donald Trump perpetrated the big lie. But the price of admission in today’s Republican Party is silence in the face of provable lies,” Schumer said.
The Senate Rules Committee is set to vote on a sweeping bill to overhaul elections that has divided Congress along party lines.
The Senate standoff comes as numerous state legislatures across the country have introduced legislation to place restrictions on voting in the wake of the 2020 election, which Trump and his allies have falsely claimed was stolen. Dozens of challenges from Trump’s legal team were dismissed by the courts, however, and election experts have said there is no evidence of widespread fraud.
The Brennan Center for Justice found that as of March 24, legislatures have introduced 361 bills with “restrictive provisions” in 47 states.
“In democracy, when you lose an election, you try to persuade more voters to vote for you. You don’t try to ban the other side from voting. That’s what [Viktor] Orban does, that’s what [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan does, that’s what dictators do,” Schumer said on Tuesday, referring to the leaders of Hungary and Turkey.
He added that the state laws “carry the stench of impression, the smell of bigotry.”
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking at the Rules Committee hearing, argued that the Democratic bill was “cooked up” after the 2016 election, when Trump defeated then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“The truth is quite simple: Our Democracy is not in crisis and we aren’t going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it,” McConnell said.
“None of the shifting made up rationales for this sweeping set of changes hold any water at all,” McConnell added.
A furious fire early Tuesday morning has completely destroyed a Butlers Village shop that has served the community for decades.
Butlers Domino College owned by Clarence Jeffers went up in flames sometime after midnight (Tuesday, May 11). Villagers stood and witnessed as the shop that provided them with bread, beverage food and domino matches burnt to the ground.
At this time the cause of the fire has not been determined. More to this story as it becomes available.
Britain’s parliamentary ethics watchdog confirmed Monday that she is investigating Prime Minister Boris Johnson over a vacation in the Caribbean just before the coronavirus pandemic.
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone listed Johnson as one of nine lawmakers who are under investigation for potential breaches of Parliament’s code of conduct.
The probe concerns a New Year’s break on the island of Mustique that Johnson took with his fiancée Carrie Symonds in December 2019 and January 2020.
(Photo credit: @islandmustique/Facebook)
Johnson has declared the stay as a as a “benefit in kind” from businessman David Ross, who has a villa on the island. Ross initially said he did not pay for the vacation, but later said he “facilitated” accommodation valued at 15,000 pounds ($21,000).
Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said the prime minister “transparently declared the benefit in kind.”
“Clearly the rules are set out and it’s important that everyone abides by them, as the prime minister has done throughout,” he said.
Johnson is facing a separate probe into who paid for renovations to his official Downing Street residence in London. The Electoral Commission is looking into whether any funds used to pay for renovating the apartment should have been declared under the law on political donations, amid claims Johnson received a loan from his Conservative Party for the work.
Haiti’s president is holding a controversial referendum next month on overhauling the 1987 Constitution. His Ambassador to the U.S., Bocchit Edmond, defends it.
Next month, Haiti will hold a referendum on reforming its 1987 Constitution. Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is pushing the change. He says it could make the country’s often dysfunctional government more effective – and give the Haitian diaspora more involvement in that government.
His opponents — and many legal experts — say the referendum itself is unconstitutional and could lead instead to more authoritarian government.
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During a visit to Miami last week, Haiti’s Ambassador to the U.S. — and former foreign minister — Bocchit Edmond spoke with WLRN’s Tim Padgett about the referendum’s proposals, President Moïse and Haiti’s numerous current crises.
Here are excerpts from their conversation, which have been edited for clarity.
WLRN: Most Haitian constitutional experts argue that reforming the country’s charter requires a more complicated process than just a referendum. Why does President Moïse think doing it this way is constitutional?
EDMOND: I must tell you that this is not an exercise to modify the current constitution. We’re talking about a new text, a new constitution. There is nothing in the current constitution that forbids that. There is an independent committee put in place led by a former president of the republic, and a draft document that is being circulated to receive comments and suggestions. That finished text will be put on the referendum for the people to decide. But this is the way it’s done in any democratic society.
Haiti’s Ambassador to the U.S., Bocchit Edmond, speaking to the U.N. as Haiti’s foreign minister in 2019.
Why do you think so many Haitians, according to polls, want a new constitution?
Because they have lived it – and they realize it is almost impossible to have good governance with this current constitution. For example, in Haiti, once the president names the prime minister he cannot fire him. Only the Parliament can. We understand the 1987 Constitution was written right after the end of a dictatorship in Haiti and it wanted to limit executive powers. But now that prime minister has more power than the president – a prime minister who has never been elected by the people.
What’s more, a Haitian president takes office in February and often we find ourselves in May without a government because the Parliament still hasn’t approved a prime minister to run the government. And that can favor corruption in negotiations with parliamentarians. Therefore we have a big problem of governance in Haiti.
And this is why President Moïse wants to replace the position of prime minister with a vice president reporting directly to the president.
Of course, there is no other way we can solve this problem.
Do you also think it’s good for Haitian democracy to eliminate Haiti’s Senate, as the new constitution would do, and create a simple unicameral legislature?
Most Haitians will tell you the Senate is not popular, that it’s not very effective and a waste of money. Personally, I may not see it that way but that would be the will of the people.
Haiti’s problems are the result of political instability — because of political instability we cannot attract investment — and the new constitution will open a path for political stability.
Bocchit Edmond
At the same time right now, the U.N. says almost half of Haitians are going hungry. The criminal violence situation, especially the wave of kidnappings for ransom, is alarming. Is it fair for critics to suggest President Moïse should be more focused on those problems than on overhauling Haiti’s constitution?
Remember, those issues are the results of political instability. Because of political instability, the country cannot attract investment. The new constitution may not solve those problems right away but at least it’s going to create a path for political stability.
ELECTRIFYING HAITI
One of the most controversial proposals was to let Haitian presidents serve two consecutive five-year terms. (Note: Right now, they have to wait five years before they can run again.) Critics fear that if referendum voters approve a change like that, President Moïse will simply run again in presidential elections scheduled for September. Will he?
No. The new draft, the new text, of the constitution does not allow a president to be re-elected president [for consecutive terms]. President Moïse cannot be re-elected under the new constitution. And let me make it clear for them that he’s not seeking reelection.
Dieu Nalio Chery
A Haitian protester holds up the country’s Constitution during a demonstration against President Jovenel Moise last year.
His opponents fear that possibility, I guess, because they say Mr. Moïse has become an authoritarian leader. He’s ruled by decree for the past year; he’s prevented parliamentary elections from being held. You feel those accusations are unfair?
They are unfair because they are not true. President Moïse twice sent the Parliament $50 million from the national budget for the legislative election? And he sent the electoral law to the Parliament. None of [it was] voted on, none of [it]. But he couldn’t force the parliament to vote on the law.
And those parliamentary elections will finally be held in September as well?
Yes.
President Moïse’s supporters say he’s not part of Haiti’s corrupt elite and that he’s doing good things for regular Haitians. What is he doing right that you feel we in the international media might be ignoring?
Yeah, let me give an example. There are places in Haiti that for the last 217 years have never seen electricity. But President Moïse is electrifying these places, and installing solar powered pumps to distribute water for the small farmers. This is a good thing to applaud.
Of special interest to Haitian expats here in South Florida is a proposal to let members of the diaspora run for President and other high offices in Haiti.
Right, because we understand that Haiti cannot be a progressive country without the contribution of our diaspora. Most of our intellectual elite is in the diaspora today. Haitians abroad have lived democracy, they’re practicing it. And so we feel it would be best for Haiti to have those people participating in its reconstruction
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