Author: Janine Mendes-Franco

Repeating Islands links to a mainstream media report claiming that Haitians want the U.S. to take over, a concept which the blogger finds odd: “I have been wondering how long it would take before the US press began to report that the Haitian population wanted the Americans to take over. Given the widespread suspicion throughout Haiti of United States’ designs on the nation and the memory of historically-recent debacles associated with the US…it is hard to believe that this sentiment is as prevalent…”

“I feel a terror that almost doesn’t let me type, but I want to tell those who today threatened me and my family, that when one reaches a certain level of panic, higher doses don’t make any difference. I will not stop writing, or Twittering; I have no plans to close my blog, nor abandon the practice of thinking with my own mind…”: Cuba's Generation Y holds fast to her beliefs.

Bermudian bloggers have little faith in their Finance Minister's competence.

Annie Paul tells a tale of a supposed Haitian earthquake refugee who turns out to be “a famished Jamaican fisherman or as the Observer put it, ‘a Jamaican mute from Windsor Castle, Portland.'”

Repeating Islands links to a story about the importance of breast milk for the infant victims of Haiti's earthquake.

“When iHeard Apple called the device iPad, iImmediately thought of tampons and iAm a man. iThink Apple has unwittingly provided fodder for stand up comedians and may have to change the name to something like iTouch-Big, iMoses or iAintKnow”: Trinidad and Tobago's This Beach Called Life has a lot to say about the new Apple offering, while KnowTnT.com blogs about the trademark implications of its name.

The last thing that Haiti needs as it faces the monumental task of recovering from the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and its environs on January 12 is a lack of good governance. Yet, some members of the Haitian blogosphere are bracing themselves for more of the same when it comes to the 2010 earthquake recovery effort.

Twitter, as has been the case since the dolorous news broke, proved the quickest way to transmit opinions: Musician and hotelier Richard Morse, who has been regularly tweeting as RAMhaiti, continues to be quite candid with his:

What happened to money from 6 years of devastation.Big Black Hole.Go visit Gonaives if u don't believe me.We need new people involved,NOW

Six years ago was presumably September 2004: About 3,000 people died when Tropical Storm Jeanne unleashed her wrath on the northeastern end of the island, causing disastrous floods and mudslides in Gonaïves. Calamity struck again in September 2008, thanks to a seemingly unending succession of storms which battered the already beleaguered country.

The recovery process becomes more complicated when Haiti's political climate comes into play. Morse seems to have little faith that relief money will get into the hands of those who will use it properly:

Has anyone ever heard of an audit??? Historically, devastation funds don't go where they're supposed to. What's the difference this time??

He explains in a later tweet:

Haiti's former Prime Minister asked for an audit so she was dumped. The team that's now in place feared the audit.

He is referring to Michèle Pierre-Louis, who, after President René Préval nominated her for the post in June 2008, faced a tough battle for approval by the country's Parliament. She was eventually confirmed, but lasted just over a year in the post, causing some bloggers to question the circumstances of her discharge. But that wasn't the only controversial development in the country's political arena: Fanmi Lavalas, the party of ousted former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, which still enjoys considerable grassroots support in Haiti, was barred from contesting the country's next elections, which had been carded to take place at the end of February this year.

Morse continues:

OUT WITH THE OLD; IN WITH THE NEW. Let's hear what the candidates want. Let's hear what the PEOPLE want. No one wants current STATUS QUO

Haiti falls at position 168 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's 2009 Corruption Perception Index ranking. Morse unabashedly refers to 2009 as “the YEAR of FRAUD” in Haiti, adding in another Twitter update:

It's not recovery if it's embedded in FRAUD and CORRUPTION.Did you see those elections last year? Internat. Comm. 100% approve @ZOEmagazine

He also responds to @ZOEmagazine quite sardonically:

If Haiti is part of IMF auditing system, then why is no one in JAIL? @ZOEmagazine

…but is careful to clarify his statements:

The UN was becoming part of the problem.Never said anything about disappearing AID and approved fraudulent elections @Dohnanyi

Morse is not the only Haitian blogger talking about alleged corruption on Twitter. thehaitian puts the practice in context with this tweet:

You can not expect an underpaid or unpaid govt workforce to not be corrupt. Hospital staff and teachers can go years w/out pay.#haiti

Still, he concedes that the government's track record leaves something to be desired:

Quick. Who trusts the Haitian govt to rebuild even one govt building? Honest question.#haiti

RAMhaiti seems to concur, sharing a bit of his own experience:

I'm getting visits from people.They're concerned about how the AID to Haiti is going 2 be distributed. Very concerned about locals in charge

thehaitian yearns for transparency in the way the aid money is disbursed:

I need to know where all this money is going to go. I really do. Is the point to get back to where we were? That's a bad idea.#haiti

…and suggests that:

Any funds going to the haitian govt should require a top to bottom rebuilding of the tax collection office and property rights reform#haiti

Interestingly enough, New American Media conducted a poll of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. and one of the major findings revealed that:

Haitians in the United States appear to have lost confidence in the current Haitian government and its handling of the aftermath of the earthquake. Three-fifths of the respondents agree that the Haitian government has practically disappeared since the earthquake and 63 percent disapprove of the reaction of President Rene Preval and the Haitian government to the earthquake. The concern about the ability of the Haitian government to deal with the crisis is so strong that a majority of Haitians in the United States feel that officials from the United Nations and the international community should govern Haiti “at the very least until it recovers from this catastrophe.” And the poll reveals that most Haitians are not concerned about the large American military presence in their country.

Other netizens also put in their two cents' worth on Twitter, with a critical contribution to the discourse coming from melindayiti:

We need to have a voice in the plan for Haiti, more importantly, our HAITIAN partners need to be the ones creating that plan for #Haiti

Finally, meandering posts a link on his blog to the Haiti Business Portal and suggests that the international community also has a critical role to play:

$1-3 billion is coming Haiti’s way: maybe more Will the crowd pay attention, or will they buy their relief, recovery, and reconstruction goods and services abroad? At the risk of being politically incorrect, perhaps the international community might consider Rwanda strong man Paul Kagame’s words: “TRADE not AID”.

The thumbnail image used in this post, Carribbean Market Jan 16, 2010, is by AIDG, used under a Creative Commons license. Visit AIDG's fickr photostream.

Despite the devastation taking place in other parts of the region, in Trinidad and Tobago it appears to be politics as usual. On the heels of news that party voting for leadership of the opposition United National Congress had gone in resounding favour of Kamla Persad-Bissessar, former party leader (and founder) Basdeo Panday reacted by refusing to admit defeat. Bloggers discuss the impasse…

Trinidad and Tobago girls, politics, sports, technology, carnival, and lifestyle comments:

In effect, he is challenging Mrs Persad-Bissessar to prove she has the support of at least 7 MP's in Parliament, excluding herself.
It appears she has the immediate support of 4 members, Harry Partap, Winston Peters, Jack Warner, and possibly, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.

Whatever happens, politics in Trinidad and Tobago will never be the same.

Barbadian blogger Cheese-on-bread! can't believe Panday is refusing to go graciously:

Basdeo Panday just doesn't know when to call it quits. Show some humility for once, Bas…

Of Panday's claim that “boxes allegedly containing thousands of party membership cards were discovered hidden at the Rienzi Complex, Couva, headquarters”, Trinidadian diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch has this to say:

An argument can be made that they belonged to people who are supporters of Kamla and it was Bas’ team who suppressed them.

All I can think of is the ‘Bas lil boy syndrome’, you know the one where ‘if I cyah bat, I taking meh bat and ball and going home’.

This man behaves (at the age of 77) the way a little child would!

Islandista, meanwhile, refers to an old Sparrow calypso, “Ten to One is Murder”:

10-1 is murder!

Or so Sparrow said.

Yet, despite a 10-1 drubbing by Kamla in the UNC leadership elections, Bas, like Denyse Plummer, ‘nah leaving.’

Not that I think we expected any different. Kamla have to hold strong now.

kid5rivers puts it a little more bluntly:

Accordingly, gentlemen, please stop the shyte! Your antics are pathetic…and that's a most diplomatic description, okay? You were soundly beaten, fair and square!

Trinidadian journalist B.C. Pires, who now resides in Barbados, marks the occasion of Panday's “political passing” by republishing an interview he did “with then Leader of the Opposition, Basdeo Panday, in March 2002″, adding:

No one I've met is nearly as quick on their mental feet as Basdeo Panday; and that certainly includes everyone on the TT political scene today.

Back in Trinidad, Taran Rampersad considers what the result could mean politically:

According to the twittersphere, Kamla Persad-Bissessar has won the United National Congress Alliance internal election. For the nosebleed section, that means that Basdeo Panday is no longer running the show.

That being said, there has been some mention of a coalition between COP and the UNC-A. What it should be, if they want to wedge their way back into the misdirected Westminster system, is a reconciliation between the two groups of supporters. The UNC-A supporters strongly echoed the sentiments of a split vote yet the voices from which they echoed did not openly recognize the fact that the vote was split because people didn't believe they weren't very good at Opposition. If the last two elections have demonstrated anything, it is the lack of popular support of the party parading (barely) as Opposition.

KnowTnT.com's Edmund Gall has the last word:

UNC MP Vasant Bharath and ex-Chairman of the Membership Committee Kelvin Ramnath hosted a news conference yesterday to give further details on the alleged discovery of boxes containing “thousands” of undistributed UNC membership cards at Rienzi Complex, home of the UNC's administrative offices. It was carried live by media houses on the Internet and reported in today's papers…

I looked at the news conference via C News' live Internet broadcast Internet yesterday and was left a bit confused. At the end of it, I quite frankly was left with the feeling that here was a bunch of poor-me-ones trying to deflect public attention from the winds of change by claiming some fraud occurred. Their hinting of the possibility of some member of the public seeking court-room clarification on this discovery was puzzling: clarification of what?

In management, there is collective responsibility for governance. If anything, this discovery just shows how pathetic the whole of the ex-management committee of the UNC were in terms of organising their affairs, especially when added to their inability to maintain as fundamental and basic a thing as a proper members list, lack of public clarity regarding the rules about voting eligibility, and their forcing Tobago's members to travel to T&T to vote.

Never a dull moment. It appears that in T&T, politics not only has a morality of its own, but also a unique stance on logic. In fact, to me, it appears too frequently that logic is unwelcome in our political landscape.

Real Hope For Haiti reports that rescuers have pulled a 16-year-old Haitian girl alive from the rubble 15 days after the devastating earthquake.

“In three years, the public debt has grown by $480,481,000! And that’s before the economic recession really dug it’s teeth into Bermuda”: Vexed Bermoothes says that “the costs of the constant circus are mounting fast, and only we Bermudians will be left holding the bucket.”

how can they hear takes a trip to Leogane and posts photos of the damage, saying: “The truth is that people need to see that Leogane and the surrounding areas need help. We still have families buried underneath the rubble here”, while Ellen in Haiti crunches some numbers: “It says 3 million have been affected, but that is only directly by the devastation. 100% of the population has been affected. 100% of the population will be struggling for years to come.”

“Over and over mind-numbing injuries that are now two weeks old — yet the people are stoic, strong, long-suffering, graceful … resilient beyond comprehension”: The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog is convinced that “against the odds, the people of Haiti will endure.”

“You try to get around as much as you can, but in the end you’ll see only a tiny fraction of the whole, and perhaps understand or read accurately only a fraction of that”: Caribbean Free Radio blogs from Port-au-Prince.

“It’s 2010 here in Bermuda. We’re facing an ongoing recession likely to last into the foreseeable future, a run away budget, job losses, glut in real estate, a downturn in construction and rising youth violence”: 21 Square asks, “How did we get here and should we have seen it coming?”

Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp posts a poem for Haiti.

“Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. Anyone can play”: My Chutney Garden is gearing up for the national festival.

Tara Livesay gives an update two weeks after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti.

Jumbie's Watch laments the worsening crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago.

“My opinion is that the PLP takeover of the City is not about reform; I believe it is about power and real estate development. Watch the money”: Bermuda's Vexed Bermoothes weighs in on what he calls the government's “power grab”.

Signifyin' Guyana responds to a compatriot's comments about aid to Haiti: “I'm inclined to believe the incentive to give to Haiti is more in search of some kind of redemption, rather than a calculated move to keep Haitians out of America…”