the morningside post

You Say You Want a Revolution?

By Jonathan Host, MIA 2009

The elimination of travel-study programs in Cuba is counter-productive to the efforts of democracy promotion.

On October 10, 2003, President Bush announced the establishment of a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, an interagency commission tasked with "identifying ways to hasten Cuba's transition to a free and open society."  The Commission issued its report in May 2004, and the President directed implementation of the recommendations shortly thereafter with few amendments.

The restrictions delineated by the Commission, which were adopted into federal law by amendment of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, were consistent with the escalating draconian policies advocated over the past 45 years by the monolithic Cuban-American electorate based in South Florida: restrictions on hosted travel, travel-related transactions, importation of merchandise, exportation of accompanied baggage, and frequency of visitations to familial relatives.  The basis for the restrictions was the presupposition that foreign travel to Cuba from the United States benefits the tourist economy of the socialist island, thereby undermining the political efficacy of the economic embargo in place.

Hit by Hurricane Dean's Tail

By Aaron Ernst, MIA 2008

I attempted to call American Airlines for a good hour before getting through. When I did, they told me the inevitable; all flights out of Hait had been cancelled due to Hurricane Dean. Earlier, I had spoken with the UN camera and video units, and they had all headed to Jacmel on the South side of Haiti to document the incoming storm and potential relief operations. Waiting in Port au Prince would have been the safer option, but Carmen (the other World Politics Review reporter) and I decided that since we weren’t flying anywhere soon, we might as well see another part of the country and be where the action was. A three-hour drive later we were at the Cevadier, a solid hotel directly on the beach with a clear view of the incoming hurricane. We figured that if the UN was there, we were likely to be relatively safe or at least in a good position to be evacuated if things got really hairy.

Saturday evening was completely calm. The hurricane was supposed to brush Haiti at 8:00 pm, but the time came and went with not even a hint of wind. We all retired to our rooms, happy for those Haitians living on the coast that the storm hadn’t yet materialized, if somewhat disappointed that the hurricane might pass in the night. We needn’t have worried.

I awoke at 2 in the morning to the sounds of waves crashing against the coast. The outer bands of Dean had arrived. The sight of the roiling ocean surging onto the coast made me briefly question just how intelligent this particular trip had been. The rest of the night was spent waking every hour to check the storm’s progress. With the exception of small blasts of wind, there was little rain. Only the swells to indicate what churned a few hundred miles offshore.

In Haiti, waiting for a hurricane

By Aaron Ernst, MIA 2008

Rumors about hurricane Dean have been traveling through Walls Guest House since last night. When we went to bed, it was a category 3 and no-one seemed particularly concerned. When I got up, the atmosphere had changed and word at the breakfast table was that it had increased in strength to a category 4 storm and that it could turn into a monster, a catastrophic category 5, with winds up to 150 miles per hour and capable of leveling everything in its path. Guests wander into the manager's office to check Weather Underground and the latest updates on the storms path.

Outside, however, the weather is sunny and quite nice, with no indication of the swirling storm that is expected to pass by, but generally miss, Hait tomorrow at 2 pm. My flight back to New York is at 3:30. So far it hasn't been cancelled by American Airlines, just zeroed out, which apparently means no reservations or changes can be made. Hundreds of people are at the airport trying to leave early, and no other flights are available out of Haiti on American Airlines until next Sunday.

Port au Prince isn't likely to be majorly affected, but Jacmel in the South, and low-lying Les Cayles could be devasted. Many of the poorest people in Haiti live right on the coast, and since storm surges of up to 20 feet are often associated with a Category 5 hurricane, the loss of life could be significant. All the UN reporters have left Port au Prince to head towards the storm, to report on UN efforts to help those most vulnerable for what looks like to be a particularly nasty storm.

Haiti: The Altitude of Wealth and the HNP

By Aaron Ernst, MIA 2008

Wealth appears to be directly related to the altitude of your housing in Port au Prince: The higher you live, the richer you are. The headquarters of the U.N. stabilization force, MINUSTAH, is midway up the mountain. Most of the U.N. workers appear to live in Petionville, as high up as you can get. Traveling higher, the roads improve, the cars get nicer, and traffic-choked streets give way to tree-lined avenues and gated estates. MINUSTAH headquarters is located in the old Hotel Christopher, and buzzes with activity as white "UN"-emblazoned Toyotas filled with administrators and blue-helmeted and heavily armed soldiers careen in and out of the compound. Haiti feels like a different country from this elevation.

I've spoken to dozens of people from various layers of Haitian society about MINUSTAH, and in spite of some grumbling about displays of wealth and occasional ignorance of Haitian customs and language, there seems to be wide agreement that the improvement of the security situation is due almost entirely to the U.N. presence. Haitians speak of last year's wave of kidnappings and daily shootings as a dark period of their country's history that is now in the past. They credit MINUSTAH for the security they are now experiencing.

The professionalizing of the Haitian National Police (HNP) is the U.N.'s hedge that security will remain once they leave.

Fred Blaise is a police officer from Florida and is the spokesman for UNPOL, the 1,200-strong force of police officers from 36 countries deployed here to police the nation and help train HNP cadets. He drives me to the police academy to see the training in action.

 

Haiti: Stable at last?

By Aaron Ernst, MIA 2008

The island of Haiti is surprisingly easy to get to from the United States. Pay $300 for a round trip ticket from Miami, and an hour and a half later an Airbus 300 descends from the Caribbean skies to deposit you at the gates of the Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport in Port au Prince, and into the middle of a nation both hurting from decades of instability and full of a renewed sense of optimism after restoration of basic security following a successful humanitarian intervention by UN troops.

I've traveled to Haiti as part of my summer internship (made possible by the folks at SIPA's travel  grant department) and to help the online publication World Politics Review produce a series of video reports from Haiti over the next few weeks. These reports will focus attention on this Caribbean nation that normally only captures headlines when its people are fleeing in boats to America or when another coup brings violence to its streets. During the week we are here, another WPR reporter, Carmen Gentile, and I will be trying to answer the question: What is different about Haiti this time around? Could Haiti finally be on track to stability and peace after decades of violence, poverty and despair?

In order to gain a sense of where Haiti is at the moment and where it might be headed, we will be embedding with members of the MINUSTAH UN peacekeeping force, interviewing experts on human rights, meeting with members of the nascent HNP (Haitian National Police), and traveling to see UN work being done outside the capital in the city of Gonaive. In addition to writing the occasional article and posting the occasional picture, Carmen and I both have video cameras and upon our return will be preparing a series of video reports from the interviews we do and the places we visit. We will post a few of those videos to The Morningside Post once they are done.