HURAH!

Left to right- Tom Luce, Evel Fanfan, Patrick and Lolo celebrating freedom and dedication to helping the poor.

Evel Fanfan, Haitian attorney and human rights champion when we met at the National Penitentiary, site of hundreds of political prisoners.  Among these was Lolo, a street kid rescued at age 11 by the staff at President Aristide’s home for street children, Lafanmi Selavi (Creole for Family Is Life).

In spite of no case and a judge’s order to free him, Lolo languished in prison for 4 months, food bug infested, water contaminated and many people to one cell. After a week of intense shuffling from court to jail to police station, Atty. Fanfan obtained Lolo’s freedom on June 25, 2004.

Both Fanfan and Lolo have continued to pour their lives out in service to the most poor of Haiti’s capital.  He has been a community organizer as well as effective and absolutely pure attorney in liberating illegal prisoners. (A practice of some lawyers in collusion with corrupt police and judges especially during the illegal, US supported government 2004-2006 was to blackmail prisoners into paying for their release. Atty Fanfan and his group, AUMOHD, work for free.

Santa Claus–Père Noël! Just as my camera shutter froze when I wanted to make a little video a crowd of school children at Don Bosco School, Cité Soleil, amassed around our car as we were leaving to do public awareness announcements about preventing water born diseases as a result of Hurricane Noël. Earlier in the week a couple of these kids had been present at preliminary meetings and began calling me as often Haitian kids have done, “Père Noël” This time they raised the cry and kept us from leaving for several minutes! Fun!

Yesterday we met at Don Bosco’s to hold a press conference covering the community awareness project before we left in two cars with bull horns and factual exhortations to the people to avoid contact with the muddy water and to participate in water purification projects in the coming days.

This is an extraordinary community organizing project for many reasons: an undertaking by a private group–AUMOHD–a vast territory of lowlands and 300,000 inhabitants divided into over 13 local communities. Each local community has at least 5 separate water sources and some have huge water towers.

Atty Fanfan has a great gift at bringing people together and helping them to collaborate instead of being beaten down by their circumstances. He has brought the Mayor together with the people with his gift of persuasion. On Monday when we went to the outlying, most hard hit locales the people began putting up roadblocks to protest the lack of city and state government help and reported criminal activity in the shelters. When Atty Fanfan finished his meeting, everyone was convinced that working together was the best way to get the job done.

The local Community Human Rights Council (CHRC) established by AUMOHD has solid roots in this vast poor zone, pastors, school directors, community leaders. The coalition (Haitian Non-violent, Non-Partisan Coalition-HNVNPC) formed at the height of battles between armed groups and the UN troops last New Year. Shortly thereafter a ceasefire was achieved. The HNVNPC continues to collaborate on all aspects of community development and is leading this disease prevention effort.

Esterne Bruner, 38, non-violent champion of Justice, Grand Ravine, shot 9/21/06, R.I.P. On Oct. 18 2007, the “Jacques Roumain” High School (high on the hill) was opened with 1300 enrolled. Only a dream and a mission when Esterne Bruner was killed for his championing of justice in the double massacres and houseburnings in 05 and 06. Caption for second picture: These happy high school students now have a public school thanks to the constant lobbying of AUMOHD and it’s Community Human Rights Council (CHRC) in Grand Ravine.

It was impossible for me to be morbid and teary-eyed today as I went back to the scene of such bloody, burned out homes, and terrifying out of control police and the interim government back on Aug. 25, 2005. That was when Atty. Evel Fanfan gathered victims and families of the first “soccer” massacre at the high school without a name ransacked shortly after Pres. Aristide was kidnapped.

What a beautiful white three story building shining in the sun, but stripped of every piece of furniture and closed to the community which had planned on sending their children to a public school, planned and built by the Aristide government in 2003. On that August day in 2005 I was touring the school with one of the American UN policemen when a shout rang out that the police were on their way. The dreaded Haitian National Police! They who had orchestrated the massacre of some 50 people in broad daylight at the St. Bernadette soccer stadium down the hill in the sprawling poor community of Martissant were marching toward where we were.

Our American UN policeman gathered everyone–some 30 people only 4 days previously subjected to machete-wielding hackers and police guns–in the basement. He pledged along with his sole mates (1 other policemand and two investigators) to put their bodies on the line at the gate of the school and do whatever was necessary to stop the police from advancing on these people. It was a moment of true valor never to be forgotten.

But today I wasn’t feeling badly. I couldn’t. The shiny white school was teaming with some 800 students (another 500 cannot be accomodated for lack of electricity in the late afternoon session) all smiling and full of life, clearly ecstatic and fully occupied with their schooling.

The picture of me and Franzko, the young man who has replaced Esterne Bruner as the coordinator of the Grand Ravine CHRC, shows us standing in the exact spot where I stood with “Bruner” on Sept. 2, 2006, just a couple of weeks before he was brutally murdered. The chief of the murderous gang, The Little Machete Army, Roody Kernizan, has committed suicide and his wife is in jail. Several others have been killed in confrontations with the police. This kind of justice is not what we have wanted and not what we are looking for in the future as we press for reparations and convictions of the remaining killers.

After meeting with the school administrators and visiting classes we went to visit the mother of Esterne Bruner, a gentle and beautiful and dignified octogenarian. And then we went to a meeting of the Grand Ravine Community Human Rights Council (CHRC), some 50 people in attendance. This is the second CHRC established by AUMOHD to be an ennabling force among communities so deprived of human rights as these inner city communities are. There a lively discussion of what was still undone by the authorities, the court case to put those officials responsible for the first massacre on trial, to put the murderers and house burners of the second massacre in July 06 on trial. Even though the chief of the most flagrant band of killers, Roody Kernizan, has committed suicide and his wife is in jail, there are many others including 15 police free on the streets. Some deal has been made behind the scenes according to AUMOHD President Fanfan to forget about these cases, but the CHRC is adamant that they go ahead with the cases nonetheless. They also set up a delegation to visit the city water commission this afternoon to pressure them to take measures to clean up the water after the Noël flooding. These folks are a model of community organizing at its best. They are passionate in their discussions and yet respectful to the utmost of each other’s opinions. Decisions are made by consensus.

By the way the Aristide high school has been named, the “Jacques Romain” High School. Romain was a great intellectual and a Marxist! We think though–the Grand Ravine CHRC and AUMOHD– the school should be named the “Esterne Bruner Memorial High School”. At least we’re going to present a plaque saying as much to the authorities. Also we want to do something about the total lack of electricity–help us with gathering money and expertise for a solar system–to accommodate an afternoon session and to pump water to the bathrooms and kitchen. A small detail left out by the USAID, UNICEF, and OIM grants.

It has been a glorious day.

In spite of my plans for my first days in Haïti, Noël has taken front stage. Barely out of the airport after a two-hour delay on Friday by Spirit Air, I was whisked to the AUMOHD office to help with stuffing emergency packets for victims of Noël in Cité Soleil.

We filled about 30 bags with canned goods, crackers, rice, and candles. AUMOHD workers were very candid about this being a drop in the bucket, but nonetheless a heartfelt outreach effort on these volunteer human rights workers part. I thought maybe that someone had donated the rice since the bags had American flags, and of course, the proud label, “American White Rice”. But no, this was purchased by AUMOHD, no donations.

I hadn’t seen much detail about Noël’s impact on Haïti. It seemed to me that it had barely grazed the territory as it headed on to Canada-Nova Scotia. But AUMOHD was aware of tough times in a tough place like Cité Soleil. This vast flatland by the ocean is probably at sea level or even below in some spots. Flooding was the result, houses ruined, crops spoiled. Later in my third trip to the sprawling poverty ridden communities we learned that 2,800 persons have been housed in temporary shelter. Some 43 deaths in all have been registered in Haiti. I don’t have specifics for Cité Soleil.

So thanks to AUMOHD’s work over the last 4 years there has developed an on site network to handle human rights issues, the Community Human Rights Council (CHRC). Pastor Doceus is the President. This CHRC formed a larger coalition of church, school, community groups that have worked together before during the horrible battles between the UN troops and the armed groups this past winter. A ceasefire resulted just as this Haitian Non-violent, Non-partisan Coalition (HNVNPC), banded together and demanded a peaceful approach to the struggles. Now with Noël’s devastation this network is positioned to lend basic organizational help. Pictured below with the crutches is the current President of the Community Human Rights Council, Pastor Doceus entering his church/school

Since the ceasefire the whole place has opened up. I was astounded this weekend at the freedom to circulate in a place where I originally had to be escorted in by trusted people scrutinized by machine gun guards at strategic checkposts. I’ve been three times now and all the roads are open and the people circulate freely. I have to say that the people react cheerfully and friendly to our passing by their humble surroundings.

Even if the promised money we read about in the papers from all quarters for relief for hurricane Noël victims were to actually arrive, there would still be problems. The problems of Haiti go back 200 years and no help, will be timely and adequate. So thanks again to AUMOHD and it’s HNVNPC partners we not only brought our token relief packages which were distributed with the utmost caring and fair way, but we held a meeting with reps from a half dozen communities.

The problems were already diagnosed: no effective public awareness program, no organized distribution of relief, no preparation for preventive action regarding post-flooding disease control. AUMOHD President Fanfan hammered out plans for a general mobilization on Thursday when large groups would be gathered and public information would be shared especially information on how to purify water to protect young children first of all. AUMOHD is also collecting for economical water purification chemicals.

Today, Monday we again went to Cité Soleil and covered several of the hardest hit areas. As we ended up our whirlwind tour we found on trying to return that people had set up a roadblock partly in trying to keep the roads from being further eroded, but also in part to bring attention to everyone, especially people like ourselves, and the government vehicles (I noticed later that police and UN cars were headed in our direction). But because we had leaders from these same communities, we were greeted with applause and the roadblock was removed enough for us to get through. We told them we were headed to the city hall to meet with the officials.

At city hall we were escorted ahead of long lines of citizens, briefly were seated in the mayor’s office (Mayor Gustave), and then whisked out of the building quickly to our cars and we were taken to another city hall building down the road and met for two hours with city officials.

I saw Evel Fanfan, President of AUMOHD at his very best in this meeting. I have seen him working this way since we first met in April 2004. He has an unrelenting perseverance in his eyes and speech, and yet he always connects with his counterpart in strategic points with punctuations of laughter and mutual recognition of shared viewpoints. It is magical. Pastor Doceus, the president of the Cité Soleil Community Human Rights Council, has the most wilting eyes and facial expressions as he grasps his crutches bringing his points across.

Mayor Gustave was consummately professional, speaking in almost a whisper the details his administration had collected and what he was doing to go into action. He asked for the group’s help. During the meeting he received several calls, one of which was from the Assistant to the UN representative, Madame Elizabeth. This woman had heard stories of mobs and gunshots where the assistant mayor was present. He assured her that this was not violent and was always under control. He gave the phone to Attorney Fanfan, known personally and respected by Madame Elizabeth and the two of them exchanged views productively.

In the end it was clear that although the government was in charge, having the figures about the displaced and the needs of the victims, it was not capable of doing the job alone and depended on the services of the HNVNPC and AUMOHD to help with the mobilization and organizing of a community effort. AUMOHD and the community folks have been asking for a structure of community networks with communications infrastructure in place to deal with emergencies just like this as well as getting the communities organized for regular development. The 20million USD promised last winter as a result of the end of the hostilities has yet to be seen. We will be following up on this as well as the flood aid.