Representatives of the 33 countries that will comprise the Latin American and Caribbean Summit (CALC) met in Caracas today to finalize the group’s agenda, settling on twelve main issues that the new political coalition will tackle when it launches in July 2011. In addition to addressing political, social, and environmental problems in the region, CALC aims to form a new economic bloc in the Americas that would exclude the U.S. and Canada.

This new confederation of states will be called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and one of the main objectives of CALC is to form regional policies on regional trade and interior commerce. CELAC will also focus on integrating energy policies across the Americas, and in crafting policy aimed at developing the member country’s economies in the long term.

CALC itself will have a much broader mandate. It will serve as a forum for regional leaders to develop political and social policy, including addressing government social programs, protections for migrants, and climate change. Two of the day’s biggest topics were the state of Honduras since 2009’s coup d’état and regional efforts to support the continuing reconstruction of Haiti, a member country, after January’s devastating earthquake.

“Alone we are week, and united we are strong,” Marie Michele Reye, Haitian chancellor of CALC, said. “Together we will be able to do many things, and we will surprise ourselves with what we can do.”

The meeting was the group’s first since February, when CALC met in Mexico and outlined “the path that we are going to follow in the construction of a community of Latin American and Caribbean states”, according to Venezuelan chancellor Nicolás Maduro. One of the main objective’s of today’s summit was to analyze and revise the recommendations of the earlier conference.

The 33 member states will include: Antigua y Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belice, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haití, Honduras, Jamaica, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, República Dominicana, San Kitts y Nevis, San Vicente y las Granadinas, Santa Lucía, Surinam, Trinidad y Tobago, Uruguay y Venezuela.

The English priest and former professor in Port au Prince, Jean-Yves Urfié, reported that the US company Monsanto has donated massive amounts of genetically modified seeds to Haiti.

Urfié said, “the company is offering the country’s farmers a lethal gift of 475 tons of genetically modified corn seeds treated with fertilizers and pesticides.”

After the earthquake on 12th January, Monsanto decided to donate to Haiti the equivalent of US$4m in seeds of hybrid corn, cabbage, carrots, eggplant, melon, onion, tomato, spinach and watermelon.

Haiti´s Minister of Agriculture, Joana Ford, said that the hybrid seeds offered by Monsanto are modified to adapt to the tropical conditions in Haiti.

However, Jean-Yves Urfié claims that in order for the seeds to be productive they will have to be treated with herbicides, fertilizers and other special chemicals, that are also produced by Monsanto. In addition, the seeds that sprout from the hybrid corn can not be reused by farmers because one of the characteristics of hybrid seeds is that only the first generation is suitable for planting.

In response to the donation by Monsanto, the executive director of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, said that the government is using the earthquake to sell the country to imperialist forces and multinational corporations. The MPP has called on farmers to bury and burn all the corn seed from the Ministry of Agriculture, and they are also organising protest marches for 4th and 5th June.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has arrived in Haiti, the first French president to visit the country. He was greeted at Port-au-Prince by the Haitian president, Rene Préval. Sarkozy said that France is cancelling the US$77 million debt owed by Haiti and pledged US$400 million to aid recovery from the earthquake that devastated the country over a month ago.

Sarkozy said: “I have come to tell the Haitian people and their leaders that France, which was the first on the ground after the catastrophe, will remain firmly at their side to help them pick themselves up again and open a new happy page in their history.” Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive told the Associated Press that the budgetary support was crucial, ”It means we are going to use it the way we want”.

Haiti is a former French colony and won its independence in 1804 after a bloody uprising by slaves. France demanded 90 gold pieces from Haiti in repatriation costs, a debt which Haiti did not finish paying off until 1947 and has crippled the country ever since. The legacy of French colonial rule is still a controversial issue for many Haitians.

A teleSUR special envoy reported today that protest groups began to gather this morning in preparation for the arrival of the French President. They are demanding the return of the former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted from power and forced into exile by an armed rebellion in 2004. They are calling for Aristide and Préval to form a political alliance in order to support Haiti’s recovery. The Press Association reported that people were handing out flyers protesting Sarkozy’s visit and blaming France for enslaving Haiti.

France will be taking part in a major summit in New York next month to discuss and develop international aid efforts to Haiti.

The official death toll number in Haiti is now on par with the 2004 Asian tsunami. The Haitian government has increased the number of dead to 230,000 and said that this is still not the final number. The total number of dead is still unknown as bodies are still under rubble and many families buried their loved ones before they could be counted. This is a stark reminder of the scale of the disaster that struck Haiti almost a month ago.

The current priority for the relief effort is to supply tents to more than a million people left homeless by the earthquake. The rainy season is approaching and authorities are keen to get the sick and vulnerable into tents before the rain arrives.

The Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, said this week that it will take at least 10 years to rebuild the country and that at the moment the Haitian government did not have a clear plan of where to re-locate the homeless. Reed Lindsey from TeleSUR told Democracy today that the number of homeless may be greater than the one million located in camps in Port-au-Prince.  Many Haitians fled to the countryside and took shelter with family members. Lindsey believes that the number that fled to the countryside could be more than 500,000.

On Tuesday a Special Summit of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was held to create a humanitarian fund of US$100 million to fund the reconstruction of roads and to support agriculture and health services so that Haiti can start to rebuild itself.  

The Haitian president, Rene Préval, spoke at the summit and said: “We must rebuild Haiti, the country should be decentralized, we need agriculture that is profitable and that avoids the destruction and pollution of water…to create conditions of employment in industry and services, we need to create a new Haiti, not everything can be located in Port au Prince.” He also requested the donation of tents to help shelter the homeless.

The UNASUR called on cooperation from all countries to help Haiti recover, to respect its sovereignty and  to not intervene with the country’s internal affairs. The summit also supported the United Nations call to cancel Haiti’s debt, which amounts to approximately US$438 million.

Ten people from the US Southern Baptist Church group, detained for attempting to take 33 Haitian children out the country, may be extradited to the US to stand trial. The group was apprehended last week when trying to take the children into the Dominican Republic.

The group has stated that they believed the children to be orphans and according to their spokesperson Laura Silsby, were “just trying to do the right thing”. However, she admits that they had not acquired the correct adoption papers, passports and birth certificates for the children.

The children have been taken to the SOS children’s village in Santo on the outskirts of Haitan capital Port-au-Prince. According to staff the children were distressed and thirsty. It has since emerged that many of the children have living parents and the SOS village is working to reunite the families.

Haitian prime minister, Max Bellerive ,said: “It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents. What they were doing was wrong.”

He added that he was open to the group being tried in the US because most government buildings, including the courts, have been destroyed in the earthquake. Haitian officials have said that some prosecution is necessary to deter child traffickers.

PJ Crowley, a state department spokesman, said in Washington: “Once we know all the facts, we will determine what the appropriate course is, but the judgment is really up to the Haitian government.”

As a result of the increased risk of child trafficking, all adoptions out of Haiti now have to be personally approved by the prime minister.

Haiti has a history of child trafficking and the earthquake on 12 January has dramatically increased the risk. A UNICEF spokesperson has told the BBC: “Before the earthquake the Haitian government estimated that about 2,000 children a year were trafficked out of Haiti. These children generally find themselves in situations of domestic labour, sexual abuse or illegal adoption. We understand from the Haitian Government that most of them end up in the US and Canada.”

Parents in Argentina say that the government is doing nothing to help them get their adopted Haitian children out of the earthquake-devastated country. Fourteen Argentine families are waiting to be reunited with children they adopted before 12th January, when Haiti was hit by the quake.

Claiming that their repeated requests for assistance have been ignored, many are taking matters into their own hands, and travelling to Haiti or the neighbouring Dominican Republic, in an attempt to be with their children, who are living in rapidly deteriorating conditions. They hope to be able to secure the necessary paperwork – which was lost in the rubble – to take their children out of the country.

One couple, Astrid and Francisco Ramos, returned to Argentina on the morning of 12th January, before the earthquake hit. They are now battling to get back into Haiti, to be reunited with and rescue their nine month-old son, Stephen. They described their situation to CNN: “Stephen is our child…We need to get him out immediately.”

The destruction of Stephen’s adoption papers created a logistical nightmare for the Ramos family and parents around the world, who had started the adoption process before the catastrophe occurred. Stephen is currently healthy and being cared for, but his adoptive parents are worried that worsening conditions in Port-au-Prince could lessen the infant’s chance of survival.

Several countries, like the US and France, fast-tracked the adoption process for their citizens, but according to Francisco, “the lack of response from the Argentine government shows that they are not interested in resolving the problem like other countries have done. So we need to go and see for ourselves how our son is.”

Thousands of Haitian children were orphaned after the quake. Many international agencies have stopped accepting new adoption applications until some semblance of order is restored in the country. However, Argentine families for whom the adoption process was already underway cannot understand why their government has not taken the initiative to get the children into a proper home before it is too late.

Mariela Cavanna explained how her two-year-old adopted son, MacKender, was due to arrive in Argentina from Haiti on 19th January: “In MacKender’s orphanage there were 118 children before the earthquake. Since then, 116 of them have left the country. The only two remaining are the ones adopted by Argentine families.”

The Argentine Foreign Ministry declined interview requests from international press. In a statement released on Tuesday, it said Argentina is complying with a 1989 United Nations agreement regarding procedures for international child adoption, but did not offer any further response to the parent’s request for assistance.

Instead, the 14 Argentine families must for now fight, single-handedly, to be reunited with their children.

A group of local expat companies have joined forces to form ‘Pioneros para Haiti’. The solidarity initiative aims to raise funds of at least $20,000 pesos over two weeks for survivors of the earthquake which struck Haiti on 12th January, causing widespread devastation throughout Port-au-Prince, and other parts of the country.

According to the UN, it is the worst disaster the organisation has ever confronted. So far, more than 150.000 deaths have been counted. Another 3 million victims are in urgent need of drinking water, clothing, housing and medication.

Martin Frankel, of ‘Expat Connection’ and ‘areatres’, is an expat entrepreneur from the US, who now lives in Argentina. Inspired by initiatives abroad, he suggested to his business network to set up a fundraising project in Buenos Aires. He says: “Nobody can be indifferent when faced with the horrible images we see on the news from Haiti. Our consortium called ‘Pioneros para Haiti’ wants to take positive action and contribute to the efforts from NGOs to relief pain and distress of the survivors of the earthquake.”

For products and services sold during the last week of January and the first week of February, participating organisations will donate profits to the disaster relief fund of international NGO, The Red Cross. In turn, The Red Cross will use the expected $20,000 raised by ‘Pioneros para Haiti’ to buy aid and relief materials for the disaster-stricken country.

All of the participating companies are run by expat entrepreneurs, who have launched pioneering businesses successfully in Buenos Aires. They are: ‘Pioneros para Haiti’ are ‘Sugar’ bar, ‘areatres’, ‘Expat Connection’, ‘Pura Vida’, ‘Natural Deli’, ‘0800 Vino’, ‘Tandoor’, ‘YoQueVos’ and ‘Bueno, entonces’. Contact details and addresses of each of these businesses can be found on www.areatresworkplace.com/haiti, as can information on what each are doing to contribute to the cause and raise funds.

On Saturday 6 February at 4pm, the fundraising initiative will be closed with a commemorating closing event at the popular expat bar, Sugar (Costa Rica 4619). From all drinks sold between 4pm and 8pm, 40% will go to the Haiti disaster relief fund of an international NGO.

Photos Courtesy of American Red Cross and the United Nations

Rescuers and citizens deal with the post-earthquake devastation in Haiti.

The Caribbean nation of Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake measuring 7.3 on 12th January. The quake left up to 200,000 dead, flattened much of the capital and affected an estimated three million people.

Although aid is finally trickling in, it is going to take years to rebuild the country, which was already the poorest in the Americas. Many organisations have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars, but as the true extent of the destruction becomes clear, much more will be needed. And it is fundamental that the aid is given in the form of donations and grants, not crippling loans which will further impoverish the nation down the line.

The Argentina Independent has the following suggestions as to where money can be donated, organisations where every cent will make a difference, going to funds specifically for Haiti, such as:

• American Red Cross
• Medecins Sans Frontiers
• Friends of the World Food Program
• International Rescue Committee
• Oxfam

Thank you for donating to those who need it most.

It is the fifth day since the disastrous earthquake which rocked Haiti, and the island’s inhabitants are still waiting for their most basic needs to be fulfilled: water, food, medicine and the burial of thousands of bodies. Nevertheless, the authorities insist that help is starting to arrive in Port-au-Prince.

UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, who has described the situation as the worst humanitarian crisis in decades, will arrive this afternoon in order to evaluate what Haiti requires in terms of aid relief. The international organisation has already confirmed the death of the head of mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, and his second in command the Brazilian Luiz Carlos Da Costa in addition to 40 other employees.

Clean water is the most pressing need for the citizens of the small Caribbean island. Stephanie Bunker, of the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York, said: “Some bottled water is en route but it is a very small amount. There has also been some distribution of purification tablets. Water is water. You can’t last long without it.”

Concerns for security have also proven pressing after police shot a man for attempting to steal market produce. The issue has been exacerbated by anger at the apparently slow pace of the relief effort. “There have been incidents of people looting or fighting for food. They are desperate, they have been three days without food or any assistance,” the UN peacekeeping chief, Alain Le Roy, said.

The latest estimates for the death toll would make it one of the ten deadliest earthquakes in history. US President Obama has pledged one of the largest relief efforts in US history to help the devastated island.

A gendarme has been identified as the first reported Argentine victim of Wednesday morning’s deadly earthquake in Haiti.

First Corporal Gustavo Gómez’s body was found under the debris of the collapsed UN peace envoys operating on the island. The corporal was part of the humanitarian mission, ‘Minustah’, in Port-Au-Prince, where the quake caused thousands of deaths and serious structural damage.

33 year old Gómez had been on the island since 29th April 2009 and was supposed to remain there until next August, when he would come back to Buenos Aires to his wife and two children.

The Argentine Gendarmerie is composed of 20 men, 14 of whom are members of the ‘Minustah’ mission. The other six men provide security to the Argentine embassy in Haiti.

Due to the total collapse of communication systems in the area, the local authorities have reported that they have been thus far “unable to establish communication with another member of the contingent located on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince”.