The Peasant's movement for justice in the Artibonite

Beginning the mobilization to defend national production

To begin: on the occasion of the 15th of October, the world peasant  women's day, and the 16th of October, the world day for everyone on the  earth to be able to eat, which is to say, the World Food Day, and the 17th  of October, which is the world day against poverty and also the day that  Jean- Jacques Dessalines the Great, the founder of the country, was  assassinated. Dessalines had a vision in which all smallholding Haitian  peasants would be able to have land for them to work, for them not to be  in misery. Certainly it is one of the main reasons that the classes who  possessed land wanted to conspire against and assassinate Dessalines.

MOREPLA, the Peasant's movement for justice in the Artibonite, which  brings together peasants, planters, agricultural cooperatives, who produce  all kinds of crops in 15 communes (towns) in the Department of  l'Artibonite have begun to rise up, to mobilize to defend national  production that the country's government has made more fragile in their  neoliberal policies – the "death plan" – which open the country's stomach  to all kinds of foreign produce without tax, genetically modified (GMO)  foods, which can kill Haitians one by one.

We have begun to rise up to defend national production, especially  Artibonite rice which has a grave misfortune hanging on its head, this  misfortune hanging on the heads of planters, each Haitian, and all  peasants in general.

The agricultural situation in the Artibonite today is a veritable  catastrophe for longer than three years because neither the principal nor  the secondary canals are being cleaned up, nor are they draining properly.  We do not need to speak about the rural road infrastructure, in this area  that does not have irrigation put in place against a process of  desertification of the country, a result of making charcoal or using the  wood for construction needs. In the irrigated areas, the government has  diminished local markets for grains and given the bourgeoisie the upper  hand. This has made the price for a sack of grains vary between 600 and  1000 gourdes (16 to 27 US dollars) which depends on when, during the time  when the Haitian government removed the barriers for American rice which  was a subvention that the American government brought without tax to put  an end to nationally-produced rice while the products of first necessity  are sold by foreigners.

What is more serious today, land conflicts are becoming more difficult  each day where armed bandits threaten planters, or demand money from them  for "authorization" to work on their own plots of rice. In general, the  armed groups walking around, proud as peacocks, are the only masters and  "chiefs" in the Artibonite valley. The Justice department and the public  forces have never said anything because they are corrupt, which is to say  that they have their fingers in what is going on.

Since 1999, the Haitian government has put in place INARA – the National  Institute for Agrarian Reform, which had difficult beginnings, given its  impossibility to function, and given the parameters that the reformers are  obliged to stay within, because of the arrogance and pressure of the big  plantation owners, often with arms in their hand. 

In the country there are more than 100,000 titles (kawo) of land that can  produce rice while the rest of the country can produce other kinds of  foods. Some of this land is titled (private), some in the hands of the  government and some in the hands of reformers. 

Haitian governments one after another, the CNG as well as Lavalas, and  also the interim government of technocrats, have put in place a policy of  free trade to let in all kinds of foreign agricultural products to break  the wings of national production, especially the production of Artibonite  rice. At the same time that they evict residents from their fertile land,  from their land which can produce food, in order to lay down concrete for  a free trade zone, with their left hand the government signs  under-the-table accords with the transnational bourgeoisie such as T & S  Rice S.A. whereby the Haitian government gives this foreign company the  right to install a dock with a final-processing mill to import unprocessed  rice from the U.S. to mill and put in sacks for sale in the Haitian  market. In these senses, the Haitian government is complicit with  eliminating all the rice planters in the Artibonite who number 60,000  people, as well as 28,000 agricultural workers, 8,000 rice merchants, 400  rice mill owners in favor of a single multinational corporation: T&S Rice  S.A. who will employ only 300 workers.

In the document called CCI (In English, ICF – the Interim Cooperation  Framework – found at www.haiticci.undg.org) the interim government has  carried on, saying that ODVA is not working well, it is caught up in the  political conflict, and BCA is not working well. INARA for them is  nonexistent. At the same time they say that it is necessary that the  Minister of Agriculture disengage itself from agricultural interventions.  It is none other than the government itself which has weakened these  institutions with all shades of corruption.

We in MOREPLA ask the following to happen right away:

1) For all peasants to stand up, to mobilize against the policies of the  Haitian government, signing contracts with the transnational bourgeoisie,  the global bourgeoisie, to eliminate our national production, especially  Artibonite rice.

2) We will not recognize any illegal accords signed with T&S Rice S.A.  (American company) to destroy the country's production and to continue to  encourage American rice to invade our country, become milled, put in  sacks, and finally sold in the Haitian market to put 60,000 planters,  28,000 agricultural workers, 8,000 merchants, and 400 mill owners in the  Aribonite in more misery. 

3) The CCI / ICF report on agriculture says that ODVA is soaked in  politics. On this basis we ask that ODVA is depoliticized, we ask that it  be removed from the political conflict, to restructure it so that the  government can give ODVA means at its disposition to succeed. Peasants  organizations need to have a say in the new structure of ODVA because they  are the once most affected by it.

4) We ask that the governnment create a budget of 100,500,000,000 gourdes  to support and train planters and smallholding peasants to give them  agricultural credit and to have a well-structured agricultural reform to  permit agricultural development of the country to work.

5) We ask the government to act quickly to address the enviornmental  problems and disarm all the armed bandits who are seen on the peasants'  lands.

6) It is time for the country's government to begin to support the vision  of the country's development before all interests of large countries  across the sea.

To end we ask that all smallholding peasants, planters, and organizations  to defend their intersts in national production, because the country can  give us all the food we need.

List of organizations who comprise MOREPLA:

RACPABA  Network of Associations and Planter Cooperatives for commerce of agricultural products of the Lower Artibonite 

ADB5  Association for the Development of the 5th section of Boka  

APPK Pewoden Planters Association  

OPLA Lavédi Planters Organization    

MITPA Movement for Haitian Peasants' Unity  

SOKOSOSA  Savyen Cooperative Solidarity Society  

APDA Lamou Planters' Development Association  

ODEPSTA  Economic and Social Development Organization of the 1st section of Tirivyé Atibonit  

AFAD  Association of Women for Develpment  

AGAPA  Group of Artibonite Peasants' Agricultural Associations  

OPEDAK Peasants' Association for Alternative Development of Kawo   

KOSPAVAL  Cooperative of Agricultural Production Services for sale and purchase in thr Artibonite   

APD3SD  Planters' Association for the Development of the 3rd section of Desalin  

SAM  Society for the Advancement of Moje  

PAPDA Haitian Platform to advocate for an alternative Development 

SOFA  Haitian Women's Solidarity   

http://alainet.org 

2004-12-03