By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s sweatshop factory owners enjoy unprecedented duty free and quota-free access to the U.S. market, and only prison wages come close to the scandalously low 30 to 50 cents/hour earned by Haiti’s workers.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. For every embargo against the Dominican Republic (DR), there come a rash of repatriations and other abuses of Haitians. Rights groups call on the Haitian government to speak up for its nationals and denounce the abuses against them in the DR.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s most populous cities erupted in protest in early September, and some areas remain more or less in a state of continuous protest against human rights abuses, soaring food prices, 80 per cent unemployment, crashing agriculture, government corruption and racism, and many other severe political and economic ills.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Of all the campaigns to undermine Haitian culture, the one to discredit restavek adoption — in which a biological parent collaborates with a respected adult to care for a child — enjoys the most zealous support from the west’s NGO and alternative press.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Western journalists increasingly assume the voices of subjugated countries’ natives while muzzling them by denying them access to the press. In the United states, the more visible venues of the alternative press, such as online news sites Truthout, Common Dreams, and Huffington Post are essentially closed to native writers. More than this, the punditry promotes the neoliberal agenda and encapsulates it in reasonable-seeming and progressive-sounding language.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Dr. Serge L. Bernard, Professor and Vice-Chair of the board of directors of the University of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was shot dead by five gunmen on motorcycles around midday on Friday August 31, 2012, within sight of police. Dr. Bernard is the latest victim of the traditional Spring-to-October insecurity that has preceded the renewal of MINUSTAH’s mandate every year since 2005.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Like a hulking giant, Isaac has stomped across the Caribbean at practically human speed, for days. Ten miles per hour, 14 mph, and Isaac continues its march northwest and west-northwest, for nearly one week, as if for a rendez-vous. Isaac appears set to revisit Katrina’s old haunts. The timing is identical: midweek, near the end of August.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haitian government officials finally did something about Tropical Storm Isaac. They gathered 32 boats and 1250 temporary shelters as peace offerings to the storm gods. Then they gave a press conference at which they demanded that all those in charge of safety — whoever they might be — do their jobs, whatever these might be.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Isaac should hit the island of Hispaniola the night of Thursday August 23-24 with rainfall of 8 to 12 inches, dangerous waves, and storm surges that might raise the coastal waters 3 to 5 feet above normal. With less than 24 hours left for preparations to save lives and property, the Haitian government had done nothing except issue general safety warnings. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In Haiti, a freshly baked roll with a cup of hot cocoa is a typical dinner. We have the Aztecs and Mayans to thank for the elaborate process for manufacturing chocolate from the seeds of Theobroma cacao: “food of the gods.”
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The fastest runner / is a boy / who leans against a cardboard tent…
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Thirty six commandos from Haiti’s Departmental Unit for Maintenance of Order (UDMO), together with presidentially-appointed regional and local government representatives, arrived in La Visite Park, near the southern city of Jacmel, to evict 142 families by force on July 23, 2012. In the battle that ensued, 4-12 people were killed.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. At a visit to Haiti’s landmark Citadelle Laferriere, Martelly, to emphasize his disgust about the decrepit state of the 300-year old fort, took off in a huff, straight downhill on his motorcycle, leaving his motorcade to scramble after him down a steep and narrow mountain road. The result: an accident that gravely injured seven people and put in critical condition a journalist and a six-year old girl who had been inside her house.
Continue reading →Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | Dominique Thomas recipe in A Taste of Haiti, Hippocrene Books Inc., 2002. In Haiti, Mayi Moulin Ak Pwa is peasant fare. The ingredients are cheap, and the value is in the preparation.
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