by Kim Ives

On Oct. 17, thousands of Haitians gathered under a blazing sun in the square outside the Church of St. Clare of Assisi in the Artibonite town of Marchand Dessalines, about 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince, to mark the 203rd anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti's first leader and general of the indigenous army which defeated Napoleon's legions in 1803.

The day is usually one of fierce patriotic pride when Haitians recall Dessalines' declaration of Haiti's independence on Jan. 1, 1804, making it Latin America's first nation to throw off colonialism's chains. But this year's celebration, like last year's, was belied by the renewal on Oct. 15 of the United Nations' military occupation of Haiti for another year, the sixth since some 9,000 mostly Latin American soldiers took over from U.S., French and Canadian occupation troops in June 2004.

President René Préval came for the occasion with a large government delegation, including Prime Minister Michele Pierre Louis, as if to have back-up for the off-putting remarks he was going to make.

"The MINUSTAH is not an occupation force," Préval asserted, using the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti's acronym. "Those who demand MINUSTAH's departure are irresponsible."

As the crowd grumbled, he continued: "As a responsible leader, I have agreed that MINUSTAH stay to help us until the National Police can insure the population's security."

Ironically, just days earlier, Préval was telling a gathering of business investors in Port-au-Prince that Haiti's security problems were solved (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 3, No. 12, 10/7/2009).

Préval tried to sell his collusion with Haiti's military occupation, which the 1987 Constitution explicitly forbids, through an imaginary conversation with Dessalines. "Emperor, soldiers of various armies of foreign countries are now in the country that you left with a single army," Préval said. He then told Dessalines that the recent "presence" of foreign troops in Haiti (1994-1999 and 2004-today) resulted from the Haitian Army's 1991 coup d'état against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"How dishonest!" exclaimed Jacques Pierre, a retired electrician now living in Miami's Little Haiti. "Every Haitian knows that the Armed Forces of Haiti [FADH] was a direct descendant of the Haitian Guard, set up by the U.S. Marines in 1934 at the end of the first U.S. occupation. The FADH only defended Washington's interests and had nothing in common with Dessalines' indigenous army."

Pierre's friend Denis, a supermarket worker, chimed in. "Préval tried to suggest that the occupations are preserving Haitian democracy, when in fact they are strangling it!"

Father Marc Eddy Dessalines, in his homily, articulated the consternation of most Haitians, both in Haiti and its diaspora, towards Préval's policies. "If you commemorate the 203rd anniversary of the death of the Emperor without achieving all his objectives [of independence], then you are doing nothing serious," Father Dessalines said in a not-so-veiled rebuke of Préval. "We have political and economic problems, but morality is one of our biggest problems. What belongs to the community is being monopolized by a small group," he said, referring the Haiti's tiny bourgeoisie.

Citing Dessalines' legacy of building unity among different factions fighting the French, different factions of Aristide's Lavalas Family party also rallied on Oct. 17 in an effort to promote "dialogue around the table" of an increasingly divided organization. Called together by former political prisoner Annette "Sò An" Auguste, several Lavalas popular organizations gathered at the Festi Night Club in the capital's Christ-Roi neighborhood, where, in workshops and plenaries, they reaffirmed their allegiance to Aristide and pledged to hold their future events at the Aristide Foundation for Democracy in Tabarre.

That evening, conference participants and hundreds of others held a "cultural political" gathering in the square outside Sò An's home in Delmas 16. Aristide's former Information Minister Mario Dupuy, one of the architect's of a new Haitian organization called, in Kreyòl, "Remanbre Ayiti" (Reassemble Haiti), took the microphone to say that the FL should not turn into "a bunch of little streams" but should unite to remain Haiti's most powerful political force. Also at the rally were many prominent (and some controversial) Lavalas leaders including Toussaint Hilaire, Nahoum Marcellus, Derras Simon Dieuseul, Dismay César, Antoine Augustin, Yvon Neptune, Yves Cristallin, Madame Jean Henri Céant, and Jonas Petit.

Finally, there was an appearance by Préval's former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, deposed by the Parliament in April 2008 following nationwide food uprisings. As a candidate for Préval's Lespwa (Hope) party in the 2010 presidential race, Alexis has been courting the Lavalas Family's mass base, making Aristide's return from exile in South Africa one of his principal campaign promises. He called for an "expanded" Lespwa Platform, making a Lespwa and Lavalas Family fusion. The proposal repels many Lavalassians, who see Préval and Lespwa as treacherous and beholden to Haiti's bourgeoisie and Washington.

ON WORLD FOOD DAY, FOOD INSECURITY IN HAITI by Yves Pierre-Louis

World Food Day, Oct. 16, was marked in Haiti by activities at the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development. Ironically, Haiti began celebrating the day this year when it is afflicted with dramatic food insecurity. Millions of people around the country are starving, which prompted the World Food Program's representative in Haiti, Myrta Kaulard, to declare on World Food Day: "There are many hungry people in Haiti."

According to a September report by the National Council on Food Security (CNSA), approximately 2 million Haitians, almost a quarter of the population, currently live in food insecurity. The report's data indicates that between 4.3% and 6.2% of Haitian children between 6 and 59 months suffer from acute malnutrition.

The Platform of Haitian Organizations for Human Rights (POHDH) has criticized the Haitian government for not taking measures to ensure Haitians' right to food, as provided by Article 22 of the 1987 Constitution, which stipulates: "The State recognizes the right of every citizen to decent housing, education, food and social security."

"Eating is presently a luxury for most of the population," the POHDH said in a statement. "Indeed, in terms of food, a large portion of the population is vulnerable... The state has not fulfilled its Constitutional obligations nor honored its international commitments."

The POHDH said that it was "imperative and urgent" that the Haitian government ratify the United Nation's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The POHDH also called on government leaders to work to eliminate the famine raging in different parts of the country by improving the quantity and quality of food available to the population.

In early October, the World Food Fund in Haiti announced that 1.9 million Haitians suffered from food insecurity in 2009. According to the same figures, Haitians currently represent 1.8% of the 105 million people worldwide facing food insecurity.

Haiti was also in last place for Latin America and the Caribbean on the United Nations Development Program's 2009 Human Development Index (HDI), which measures well-being using criteria like life expectancy, literacy, schooling, and gross domestic product per capita. Haiti ranked 149th (down from 146th last year) of 182 countries around the world in this year's HDI, which was published on Oct. 5 as part of the UN's Human Development Report.