Haiti and the U.S. signed an agreement in Port-au-Prince on drug trafficking on May 15. The accord grants Haiti $680,000 to beef up its anti-drug trafficking efforts.

"We agreed to cooperate on several projects in the training of specialized units of the National Police dedicated to fighting drug trafficking," U.S. ambassador to Haiti Brian Dean Curran said. "If all goes well, we could see more financial resources in this area in the years to come."

At the signature ceremony, Foreign Affairs Minister Joseph Philippe Antonio said that "the signing of this text is one more step" taken by Haitian authorities against drug trafficking. Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said that "we do not produce drugs in Haiti but our territory is used as a transit point by drug traffickers."

But Deputies Wilner Content and Milien Rommage complained that the amount given Haiti by the U.S. to fight drug trafficking falls far short of what is needed and is pitiful compared to what is given to other countries. "$600,000 is a puny sum which a drug dealer might spend in the course of an evening out dancing," Content remarked.

The accord comes after a group of U.S. anti-drug trafficking "experts" visited Haiti last month. They met with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the National Palace on Apr. 30.

In a May 14 press conference in Port-au-Prince, Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), laid the blame for the world’s drug problem on the policies and machinations of developing countries, particularly the U.S..

"The developed countries have managed to devalue all the crops produced by the underdeveloped countries, which could allow them to export and generate revenues to import manufactured products," Dupuy said. "Coffee, cotton, and cocoa are examples. Thus the peasant loses interest in growing these crops. So, in certain countries in Latin America, the peasants have no alternative but to cultivate products having much more value on the market, such as marijuana and cocaine. If Washington and the developed countries really want to combat drugs, they must first stop their manipulation of world food prices and allow them to rise so that these countries have income."

Furthermore, Dupuy added, "the U.S. should patrol its own borders rather than asking other countries to be its border police."

Ouanaminthe: Mobilization against free trade zone

On May 18, Haitian Flag Day, peasants near this northeastern town had a large rally in the rural section called Pitobè, on the Marie Bahoux plain, to protest the Haitian government’s decision to set up a free trade zone there (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 4, 4/10/02) . The demonstrators protested that the proposed factories would pave over one of the rare tracts of fertile land in the Northeast and condemn displaced peasants to work in assembly factories in terrible conditions for pitiful wages.

One of the speakers was a Colombian missionary who described the miserable conditions in free trade zones in Colombia and the Dominican Republic. Abuse, injustice, and exploitation were the rule, he said.

The Haitian Platform for an Alternative Development (PAPDA) sent delegations to Marie Bahoux on Apr. 9 and May 3 to gather information and bring solidarity to the peasants there. According to a PAPDA report, the free trade zone will only "impoverish the Haitian peasantry and reduce it to a new slavery." According to the National Association of Haitian Agro-Professionals (ANDAH), before proceeding with the zone, the government must carry out a study "on the potential of the [Marie Bahoux] area and its importance in local and national food production."

Meanwhile, the Haitian Parliament has announced, rather tardily, that it will soon deliberate on free trade zone legislation.

Petit Goâve: Police Arrest Man Accused in Journalist Slaying

Haitian police have arrested a leader of the group accused of killing radio journalist Brignol Lindor last Dec. 3 in this southern town (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 39, 12/12/01).

Fritz Doudoute, one of the leaders of the pro-Lavalas "Dòmi nan bwa" (Sleep in the Woods) popular organization, was picked up on May 6 and went before a judge on May 8.

"We heard Doudoute and his case is now before the examining magistrate," said Dumerzier Bellande, the local government representative. "He has now been returned to jail."

Doudoute admitted that he was a member of "Dòmi nan bwa" and practically acknowledged that Lindor’s killing was a political payback for the near-fatal beating of a pro-Lavalas militant the day before by partisans of the Democratic Convergence, an opposition front.

"They didn’t know that Brignol was a journalist," Doudoute declared, referring to the mob that fatally attacked Lindor because "he was with the Convergence, he was one of them."