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[Translation of a column from the Brazilian web site Carta Maior for January 14. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Gilberto Maringoni

The administration of the daughter of Bulgarian immigrant Pedro Rousseff, who arrived here in the late 1930s in search of a better life, has just placed restrictions on the entry of immigrants into Brazil.

Last Friday, the National Council on Immigration, an agency tied to the Ministry of Labor, decided that it would halt the annual entry of more than 1,200 Haitians who come to the country in search of better luck. This is a matter of a perverse version of the policy of racial quotas, promoted by several sectors of Brazilian society as a means of providing those of African descent with access to universities and public offices. Now they are quotas to prohibit and not to facilitate. (more…)

Brazil has issued humanitarian visas to hundreds of Haitians

[Translation of an article by the Spanish news agency Efe as published on January 2 in Listín Diario of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. See original here and related article here.]

Some 500 undocumented Haitian immigrants entered the Brazilian city of Brasileia, on the Bolivian border, in the last three days of 2011, joining the approximately 700 who live in an improvised shelter in this Amazonian city of 20,000 inhabitants, official sources reported yesterday.

The immigrants arrived in mass over a few days in the midst of rumors that Brazil is studying the possibility of restricting the entry of Haitians across the Amazonian borders beginning this year, a source in the government of the Brazilian state of Acre told Efe. (more…)

Some argue for open borders

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian website Carta Maior for December 27. See original here.]

by Najla Passos

Brasilia – The Agência Brasileira de Informação and the Polícia Federal are seeking the cooperation of the secret services of other Latin American countries in an attempt to break up the gangs responsible for facilitating the illegal entry of Haitians into the country across the borders with Bolivia and Peru.

“We have to put an end to the trafficking of persons and keep the criminal activity of the  ‘coiotes’ from becoming established in the region,” says Míriam Medeiros da Silva, coodinator general of the Secretaria de Acompanhamento e Estudos Institucionais of the Gabinete de Segurança Institucional of the presidency. (more…)

In memory of Haitian-Dominican activist Sonia Pierre

[Translation of an article from AlterPresse Haiti for December 9.  See original here.]

Hundreds of people affected by the policy of denaturalization enforced by the Dominican Central Electoral Board held a demonstration in Santo Domingo on Thursday, December 8, in front of the parliament of the neighboring republic to denounce the condition of legal uncertainty created  by the administration of President Leonel Fernández, according to reports supplied to AlterPresse.

Coming from Puerto Plata, La Romana, El Seibo, Monte Plata, San Pedro de Macorís and the capital, Santo Domingo, the participants condemned a ruling by the Dominican Supreme Court recognizing the Electoral Board’s authority to issue administative writs when Dominican law specifically grants that authority to courts of the first instance.   (more…)

((Michel Martelly, Jean Bertrand Aristide - Haiti-Liberté photo))

[Translation of an article from Haïti-Liberté for October 20. See original here.]

By Thomas Péralte

With a view toward the reconciliation of all the sons of the nation of Haiti, President Michel Martelly has arranged meetings with the former heads of states, de facto and de jure, during a week called the “Week of National Reconciliation” or “Week of National Understanding.” During that week President Martelly met with five former presidents: Prosper Avril, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Jean Claude Duvalier, Boniface Alexandre and Henry Namphy, in their respective homes in the vicinity of the capital and in the Dominican Republic.

According to the presidential communications office, led by journalist Joseph Lucien Jura, the president’s move is aimed at encouraging dialogue and unity among all the actors and former leaders of the country. This week of reconciliation also has as an aim a national understanding, a space for discussing some major matters of state, among them: education, the army, MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation en Haïti – United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti), the CIRH (Commission Intérimaire pour la Reconstruction d’Haïti – Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti). (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Observador of Montevideo for October 17. See original here and related articles here.]

The Criminal Justice Department has taken new testimony in the case of alleged abuse by Uruguayan military personnel, members of the United Nations blue helmets, against a minor in Haiti. On Monday, new questioning was carried out of associates of the five military personnel being investigated.

Prosecutor Eduardo Fernández Dovat told El Observador that he and Judge Alejandro Guido took a statement via Skype from a marine in Haiti who is close to the military men under investigation. Three other associates on leave in Uruguay were also questioned.

The content of their statements cannot be divulged because it is part of the reserva presumario, stated the prosecutor, who indicated that the questioning of the four marines on Monday has ended.

The lawyer for the five marines, Gustavo Bordes, told Últimas Noticias that what is being sought with these statements is to show that after what occurred the Haitian youth maintained friendly relations with the uniformed personnel and that he would go to the compound gate for conversations. The lawyer holds that sufficient evidence thus exists to show that it was a matter of a prank.

Fernández Dovat stressed that “there have been no new developments concerning the location of the Haitian youth, whose statement is necessary in order to continue moving forward. We cannot move forward without locating him and this remains pending until the day he appears.”

The youth has not filed any charge in Uruguay, Fernández Dovat stated. “There is no indication in this country of the youth’s desire to move forward. We are waiting for his appearance, if he does appear,” he added.

If the youth does not appear, the case could be archived. “In order to indict in the crime of rape, it is six months from the time of the act; if during that time there is no indictment it would be archived,” the prosecutor explained.

A speech by Eduardo Galeano

[Translation of a speech by Uruguayan historian and writer Eduardo Galeano during a forum held on September 28 at the National Library in Montevideo entitled “Haiti and the Latin American response.” See original here and related articles here. Galeano’s remarks were dedicated to Guillermo Chifflet, who resigned from the Chamber of Deputies in 2005 to protest the Uruguayan military’s participation in MINUSTAH, the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti.]

Look it up in any encyclopedia. Ask which was the first free county in America. You will always get the same answer: the United States. But the United States declared its independence while it was a nation with 650,000 slaves, who continued being slaves for a century, and in its first constitution established that a black was the equivalent of three fifths of a person.

And if you ask any encyclopedia what was the first country to abolish slavery you will always get the same answer: England. But the first country to abolish slavery was not England but Haiti, which is still atoning for the sin of its dignity. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El País of Montevideo, Uruguay, for September 19. See original here and related articles here.]

The military court late yesterday convicted and sentenced to prison the five Uruguayan marines involved in the case of abuse of a youth in Haiti, made known through a video recording.

Military Judge Washington Vigliola, who investigated the charges, interrogated the five accused marines over the weekend after they had been transferred from Haiti and were held incommunicado at the Carrasco naval school. The military judge ruled at 11:00pm yesterday that the marines, who were part of MINUSTAH, a peace force sent to Haiti by the United Nations, committed the crimes of disobedience and dereliction of duty, as established by the military penal code. The sentence includes prison terms and the five will be transferred to a military unit to serve their terms, information obtained by El País indicates. As of press time, it was not known where they will be held.

The military court ruled quickly, 48 hours after the marines returned. An examining magistrate had been sent to Haiti for the purpose of furthering the investigation.

Meanwhile, the case of these members of the National Navy will be taken into consideration by the Supreme Military Tribunal, which will make a ruling on the discharge of the five involved in the case.

The ruling does not prevent an investigation by the civilian justice system, since the Ministry of Defense filed a criminal denunciation to have the controversial incident investigated.

The civilian case will go to criminal judge Alejandro Guido, who could begin the proceedings next week…

((Clinton and Conille -- Haiti-Liberté photo))

[Translation of an article from AlterPresse Haïti for September 16. See original here and related articles here and here.]

Port-au-Prince, September 16 – The Chamber of Deputies voted unanimously on September 16 in favor of Dr. Garry Conille, adviser to former US President William Clinton, as prime minister.

After a session with practically no debate in which 90 representatives took part, 89 voted in favor of Conille. According to regulations, the president of the Chamber of Deputies does not vote.

After the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate will also have to decide on the choice of Conille. In the event of a favorable vote there, he will be enabled to present a statement of his general policies in each of the two chambers.

The 45-year-old Dr. Conille is a regular in the United Nations system, where he has held several positions in the past few years. Since June, 2011, he has been the humanitarian coordinator for Niger.

He has also played the role of head of office for the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, William Clinton.

Two other candidates for the position of head of government nominated by [President Michel] Martelly, Daniel Gérard Rouzier and Bernard Honorat Gousse, failed to obtain the approval of parliament, in June and August, 2011, respectively.

[Translations of three articles from Uruguay for September 9, from El País, El Espectador and Montevideo Portal respectively. See original articles here, here and here and related articles here and here. Uruguay’s participation in United Nations missions, which has been controversial from the outset, became particularly so when Uruguayan navy personnel were filmed allegedly raping a Haitian youth in Port Salut and another Uruguayan was accused of impregnating a 16-year-old Haitian girl. With a population of about 3.5 million, Uruguay has a military force of about 23,500, of whom about 2,500 are assigned to 12 different United Nations missions. The Uruguayan government is dominated by the Frente Amplio (FA), the Broad Front, a coalition of leftist and center-left parties. The president and the majorities of both chambers of the legislature are members of the FA. The president, 76-year-old José Mujica, is a former member of the Tupamaro guerrillas, as is Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro. Mujica spent 14 years in prison as a result of his Tupamaro activities. As president, his political outlook is closer to that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva than to Hugo Chávez or Evo Morales.]  

Mujica wants to keep troops in Haiti despite scandal over abuse

President José Mujica referred today to the rape of a youth by Uruguayan navy personnel in Haiti and described response to the event as “a hard road to travel” (“un viaje de arena gruesa”) for Uruguay.

The president said in a press conference that “this kind of thing has been happenings as long as the world has existed” and added that “among soldiers there is always a fringe of rowdy gangs, it is inevitable.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from El País of Montevideo, Uruguay, for September 8. See original here.]

The defense ministers who met today in Montevideo have agreed to a gradual withdrawal of blue helmets deployed in Haiti. The intention is to reduce the personnel to the level that existed before the earthquake of 2010, when there were 9,000 military and police personnel in the country.

In a press conference, Foreign Minister Luis Almagro read a joint statement by Unasur (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas) that “recommends supporting the United Nations in the reduction of troops to the levels authorized before the earthquake without damaging the stability and security of the country.” (more…)

Celso Amorim -- Agence France Presse photo

[Translation of an article from BBC Brasil for September 5. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Marcia Carmo

Brazil needs to begin thinking about the gradual departure of its troops from Haiti, Defense Minister Celso Amorim said Monday in the Brazilian embassy in Buenos Aires.

In an interview, Amorim said that before the complete withdrawal there should first be a gradual reduction of troops in accordance with a schedule agreed to jointly by the countries of Unasur (Unión de Naciones Sudamericanos – Union of South American Nations) and the United Nations. (more…)