US taxpayers are underwriting sweatshop expansion in Haiti. Here, textile workers protest for better rights and working conditions. Photo: Ansel Herz.

As Americans were gearing up for last week’s Super Bowl championship, Haiti’s president Michel Martelly was on a plane to the World Economic Forum to recruit players interested in what one businessman dubbed “the Super Bowl of Disasters” – Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.[1] The Irish-owned cell phone company Digicel footed his trip there, and hosted a regional business tour complete with a gala ball before his return to a country still reeling from crisis conditions in housing, jobs, and basic rights.[2]

Haiti’s status as prime-time jostling space for prospective investors is not new. Many a corporation, lobbyist, and consultant has seen Haiti’s losses as their gain, leveraging humanitarianism for profit. Plenty of the $1.1 billion in disaster aid has gone not to desperate Haitians but to inside-the-Beltway contractors. Often the very same corporations havewrested financial and political gain from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countries hit by the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans after the ensuing flood of 2005, and lots of other places. The same deals have been cut over Haiti in the past, too, particularly during periods of political instability.

The earthquake has provided a fresh wave of opportunity. In the first year after the earthquake, the US government awarded more than 1,500 contracts worth $267 million. All went to US firms except 20, worth $4.3 million, which went to Haitian businesses.[3] Among the American corporations that received contracts, we’ve seen everything: many millions going to companies that had had previous contracts cancelled for bad practices, that had paid out as much as eight-figure settlements for violence happening under their watch, that had been investigated by Congress for gaming the system, or that had been the subject of federal reports accusing wastage of funds.[4] We’ve seen corporate executives and members of Congress going through a revolving door and leveraging both sides for contracts. We’ve seen public funds given without any competition or transparency, quite a few to friends of the Clintons and other well-placed insiders.

Local labor and production, which are critical elements in economic recovery, have been trumped for American business profits. According to federal procurement data, among contracts which provide products (as opposed to services), 77% were for products manufactured in the US. They don’t list which, if any, of the remaining 23% involve any Haitian materials or labor.[5]

Two months after the earthquake, companies gathered in a luxury hotel in Miami for a “Haiti Summit” to discuss post-earthquake contracting possibilities. The meeting was sponsored by the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), but these were no peaceniks. Their members are predominantly private mercenary companies that enforce ‘security’ in war and disaster zones for the US government because, unlike elected entities, they can completely avoid public scrutiny and accountability. They included such companies as Triple Canopy, which took over Blackwater’s contract in Iraq.[6] One of the corporate representatives at the Summit described the outlook: “Their infrastructure is pretty much destroyed, communications are destroyed, there’s a lot of opportunities there for companies, particularly US countries [sic] because of the close proximity.”[7] The Summit was apparently worthwhile, as US government paid out more than $10 million to the industry for “guard services,” and almost $20,000 for riot shields and suits.[8]

Below are a few examples of post-earthquake contracts and grants, selected to show just some of the problems at play. They offer a small glimpse into a much larger, secretive world of disaster deals. We’re grateful to our investigative journalist colleagues who,

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“American corporations and their stakeholders must understand how helping Haiti over the long term also helps them,” said the non-profit CHF International in its March 2010 board report. “By contributing to Haiti’s reconstruction in a lasting, meaningful way, companies will be helping to build a new, more vibrant Caribbean market for their own goods and services.”[9]

CHF’s involvement demonstrates how even non-profits can drive development that props up American business interests on the backs of poor Haitians. What CHF refers to as “helping Haiti” has meant using US tax dollars to underwrite textile sweatshops, making it easier and more profitable to score the cheapest source of labor in the hemisphere. In 2006, USAID gave CHF a $104 million, 4-year contract to help “existing industries to increase their capacity, efficiency and reach new markets,” primarily through the export textile industry. The money subsidized CHF’s creation of infrastructure such as roads around industrial areas and training of factory workers on skills such as “how to work in a formal work environment.”[10] Bolstered by additional USAID funding, this project continued after the earthquake.

CHF’s post-earthquake USAID contract, for $20.9 million, went to clean-up projects, including cash-for-work.[11] Cash-for-work meant camp residents engaging in hired-hand projects such as digging drainage ditches and clearing debris, for a period of a few weeks. The scheme has come under fire by camp residents and human rights groups, with even a USAID evaluation raising some serious critiques.[12] The jobs are unpredictable, workers have said, and while the short duration can palliate personal crisis for the moment, the program quickly returns the worker’s family to its desperate state. Those hired are paid officially at the unlivable minimum daily wage of 200 gourdes, or US$5, though unofficially they often earn less. A Haiti Grassroots Watch exposé found, furthermore, that cash-for-work hiring is often based on corruption, with many workers having to pay a ‘kickback,’ negotiate sex (in the case of women) for a job, or affiliate with political parties or candidates.[13] USAID also noted that cash-for-work programs it funded increased risks of “serious and avoidable” accidents on the job “by failing to develop and enforce consistent workplace safety rules and accident procedures.”[14]

CHF’s projects, based on factory jobs and cash-for-work, have given neither livable incomes to employees nor offered development opportunities to the nation. Meanwhile, CHF has gained humanitarian clout and an influx of funding, and its garment industry partners sit happily with the perks.

Using tried-and-true strategies of political manipulation, some corporations have been able to edge their way into post-earthquake contracts despite histories of fraud and corruption.

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AshBritt Environmental, for instance, has a record of disaster response elsewhere that spells trouble for Haiti. The company had received $900 million in contracts for Hurricane Katrina clean-up, after hiring lobbyists formerly involved in state government.[15] An MSNBC investigation later brought to light complaints by local contractors, a mayor, and local legislators that the company’s work was too slow, that it overcharged, and that it was not hiring local contractors.[16] The extent of “layer cake” contracting was so extreme that in one case, AshBritt was paid $23 per cubic yard of debris removed but subcontracted through three middleman companies so that the company that actually removed the rubble received $3 per cubic yard.[17]) Even a 2006 federal report accused the company of wasting money in this subcontractor layering after Katrina.[18]

Given its experience, AshBritt wasted no time unleashing its skills in lobbying and political pressure to get in on the Haiti game. Early in 2010, the company paid $90,000 to a lobbying firm to pressure the government for Haiti contracts, according to disclosure records described in the press.[19] In a prime instance of revolving door between public and private sectors, one of the lobbyists working on the case was the former chief of staff for Senator John Kerry.[20] Kerry, in turn, was the senator who co-sponsored the legislation for Haiti relief funding.

With influential people circulating between the givers and receivers of funds, AshBritt was confident enough about future contracts that it spent an initial $25 million setting up for anticipated operations in Haiti with a soccer field-sized base camp and services to house future project managers.[21] In July 2010, AshBritt won a $500,000 US government contract for debris removal, the first of what the company anticipated would be many contracts to come their way.[22] Continuing the revolving door trend, another lobbyist for the firm was the former USAID Mission Director in Iraq, Lewis Lucke, who was paid $30,000 per month to help win contracts via a partnership venture AshBritt set up.[23] Lucke claimed he “played an integral role” in obtaining three contracts for the company, including $10 million from the World Bank and about $10 million more from the Haitian government (one of the first major government contracts for debris removal).[24] As of this writing, not even the company’s website contains an update on what work it has or has not completed in Haiti.

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Like AshBritt, CH2M Hill, a large engineering and construction firm, should have raised warning signals as a company to be hired on the taxpayer dollar. A government database that monitors federal contracts reveals a track record of corruption, listing nine instances of misconduct for the company since 1995.[25] In one case, the company was paid $4.1 million for a contract in Iraq though no work was actually completed. [26] On the Gulf Coast, a US government investigation of $45 million paid to CH2M and the three other companies in no-bid contracts for Katrina response was declared wasteful spending. [27] CH2M was also accused in a congressional investigation in 1992 of misusing money during its cleanup of toxic waste sites in the U.S. More than two million dollars of this contract were allegedly used for “unallowable and questionable costs,” such as $11,379 for a Christmas party and $2750 for specialty chocolates.[28] The company is listed in the top 50 of U.S.-based contractors and has been a major player in wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.[29]

The track record was nothing that some strategic lobbying efforts couldn’t mitigate, however. The lobbyist who headed up CH2M Hill’s efforts to win contracts in Haiti was Larry LaRocco, a former congressman from Idaho who now runs his own lobbying firm.[30] And unsurprisingly, the company spent half a million dollars in political contributions in 2010. [31] Thus equipped with politicians in its pocket, CH2M was well-positioned to compete in the latest contract game. It received its first post-earthquake contract just days after the disaster, and was given a joint contract with KBR Global Service (itself notorious due to its Iraq and Afghanistan activities) for facilities operations support at the end of 2010.[32]

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In the case of a few other contracts that we know to be operating in Haiti, we’ve spent hour after hour on the scent. We’ve scoured internet resources, news articles, and company websites to track companies we know received post-earthquake contracts in Haiti. Nothing. Not even a mention, sometimes, in the 100-plus-page 2010 annual reports.

What we have been unable to uncover is at least as alarming as what we have learned about some of the firms receiving millions from the US government, and what they have done with those millions. We wonder whether the US government has had any more knowledge or oversight of the corporate actions than have the corporation’s investors. As for the American people, they have no way to know how their money has been spent or what has been done in their names. The lack of transparency has also given a green light to profiteers to neglect standards, quality, and honesty.

There is one group for whom the secrecy, foul play, taking of power that should never be taken, giving away of what should never be given away, matters most of all: Haitians, the ones whose country is being treated like a Monopoly game. They alone will have to live with the long-term outcome of what foreign companies build, demolish, restructure, or steal in their country.

 Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part.  Please credit any text or original research you use to Deepa Panchang, Beverly Bell, and Tory Field, Other Worlds.

[1] Mike Clary, “Broward Rivals Battle for Work in Post-Quake Haiti,” Sun-Sentinel.com, July 14, 2010.
[2] Paul Cullen, “Attracting trade now focus for Haiti’s president,” The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0130/1224310943929.html
[3] Alex Dupuy, “One Year after the Earthquake, Foreign Help is Actually Hurting Haiti,” Washington Post, January 7, 2011.
[4] Emma Perez-Trevino, “Beating Death Lawsuit Ends in Settlement,” The Brownsville Herald online, January 7, 2010, http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/rosa-107144-settlement-beating…. Martha Brannigan and Jacqueline Charles, “U.S. Firms Want Part in Haiti Cleanup,” Miami Herald, February 9, 2010.
[5] “Haiti Earthquake Report,” Federal Procurement Data System, data updated as of 9/15/2011,https://www.fpds.gov/downloads/top_requests/Haiti_Earthquake_Report.xls.
[6] See, for example, Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2007); Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Picador, 2007); Jeremy Scahill, “US Mercenaries Set Sights on Haiti,”TheNation.com, February 1, 2010; and Anthony Fenton, “Private Contractors ‘Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot,” IPSNews.net, February 19, 2010.
[7] “Al Jazeera Reports on the Haiti ‘Summit’ for Private Contractors,” YouTube video, 3:32, Al Jazeerareporting, posted by “WebofDem,” May 6, 2010, http://youtu.be/kkNCdy0GXyc.
[8] “Haiti Earthquake Report,” Federal Procurement Data System, data updated as of 9/15/2011,https://www.fpds.gov/downloads/top_requests/Haiti_Earthquake_Report.xls.
[9] Jane Madden, “Corporations Must Consider Haiti’s Long Term Needs,” Philanthropy News Digestonline, March 10, 2010, http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/commentary/co_item.jhtml?id=287300002.
[10] “New USAID-Funded Haiti Apparel Center to Provide Training to Thousands of Haitians in the Garment Industry,” press release by USAID, August 11, 2010, http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/pr100811_1.html.
[11] USAID, Haiti Earthquake: Fact Sheet #48, April 2, 2010,
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/countries/haiti/template/fs_sr/fy2010/haiti_eq_fs48_04-02–2010.pdf.
[12]Center for Economic and Policy Research, “USAID/OTI’s Politicized, Problematic, Cash-for-Work Programs,” December 21, 2010, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/usaidotis-politicized-problematic-cash-for-work-programs; Antèn Ouvriye, Submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review: Labor Rights (Transnational Legal Clinic, University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2011), http://ijdh.org/archives/17948; and Office of Inspector General, Audit of USAID’s Cash-for-Work Activities in Haiti (San Salvador: September 24, 2010), www.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy10rpts/1–521-10–009-p.pdf.
[13] Haiti Grassroots Watch, “Is Cash-for-work Working?”, http://www.ayitikaleje.org/Dossier2Story2. Haiti Grassroots Watch, “Cash for Work – At What Cost,” http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/7/18/cash-for-work-at-what-cost.html.
[14] Office of Inspector General, Audit of USAID’s Cash-for-Work Activities in Haiti, September 24, 2010, www.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy10rpts/1–521-10–009-p.pdf.
[15] Jordon Flaherty, “One year after Haiti earthquake, corporations profit while people suffer,” Monthly Review Magazine, January 12, 2010. “It’s who you know,” CorpWatch, August 16th, 2006, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14008
[16] Mike Brunker, “Dust flies over Katrina’s debris,” MSNBC, January 29, 20006, http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2006/01/fighting_over_t.html
[17] Rita King, “Layers and Layers,” CorpWatch, August 16, 2006,http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14011.
[18] Martha Brannigan and Jacqueline Charles, “U.S. Firms Want Part in Haiti Cleanup,” Miami Herald, February 9, 2010.
[19] Kevin Bogardus, “Haiti’s recovery aided by U.S. lobbyists,” The Hill, October 11, 2010.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ben Fox, “Masters of disaster: Foreign firms set up shop in Haiti and wait for construction boom,”Associated Press, June 7, 2010.
[22] Mike Clary, “Broward rivals battle for work in post-quake Haiti,” Sun Sentinel, July 14, 2010, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010–07-14/news/fl-haiti-recovery-rivals-20100714_1_ashbritt-post-earthquake-haiti-debris.
[23] Ben Fox, “Ex-US official sues contractor in Haiti for fees,” Associated Press, December 31, 2010.
[24] Mark Weisbrot, “Haiti and the international aid scam,” The Guardian, April 22, 2011,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/22/haiti-aid.
[25] Project on Government Oversight, http://www.contractormisconduct.org/
[26] Matt Kelley, “Canceled Iraq contracts cost U.S. $600 million,” USA Today, November, 17, 2008.
[27] Center for Economic and Policy Research, “Impatient to Profit from Disaster,” October 14, 2010, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/impatient-to-profit-from-disaster
[28] Keith Schneider, “Company Accused of Bilking U.S. on Waste Sites,” New York Times, March 20,1992.
[29] Top 400 Contractors Sourcebook cited on http://newsroom.ch2mhill.com/pr/ch2m/industry-rankings.aspx. Statement of Mr. Fred M. Brune, President, Government Facilities and Infrastructure Business Group, CH2M Hill Constructors, Inc. before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, July 26, 2010, www.wartimecontracting.gov/…/hearing2010-07-26_testimony_Brune_(CH2M%20Hill).pdf.
[30] Kevin Bogardus, “Haiti’s recovery aided by U.S. lobbyists,” The Hill, October 11, 2010. http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/123565-haitis-recovery-aided-by-lobbyists
[31] CH2M Hill Expenditures, Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00143305
[32] “Haiti Earthquake Report,” Federal Procurement Data System, data updated as of 9/15/2011,https://www.fpds.gov/downloads/top_requests/Haiti_Earthquake_Report.xls.

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http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/another-haiti-possible/%E2%80%9C-super-bowl-disasters%E2%80%9D-profiting-crisis-post-earthquake-haiti

INTRODUCTION. Nearly two million people were left homeless in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. Most of them sought refuge under makeshift tents on open land where they struggled to survive without adequate food, water or sanitation facilities. The number of camps eventually topped 1,300, populated for the most part by families with small children, single mothers, orphans, the elderly, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations in dire need of aid and assistance. Less than 30 percent of these camps were registered with the United Nations (UN), however, and therefore the majority did not qualify to receive official international aid. Only one was recognized as an official camp by the Government of Haiti.

Adding to the humanitarian crisis, government agents and purported landowners began unlawfully evicting displaced people from these camps within weeks of the earthquake, often using life-threatening violence and coercion to terrorize communities to leave. Tons of concrete and debris still buried Portau-Prince, so displaced people who had nowhere else to go were forced to choose between living homeless on the streets or under the constant threat of eviction in a displacement camp.

On November 15, 2010—ten months later—the Inter– American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR or Commission) granted precautionary measures in favor of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who faced the threat of forced eviction. At the request of a team of human rights advocates,the Commission directed the Government of Haiti to adopt a moratorium on evictions from the camps and specific measures to protect the basic human rights of displaced people who remained in the camps.

Though precautionary measures constitute a binding directive to governments that have failed to address a grave risk of irreparable harm to individuals within their jurisdiction, obtaining compliance and full implementation from the government is often an uphill battle. Almost two years after the earthquake in Haiti, an estimated 595,000 earthquake victims continue to live in approximately 900 camps in and around Port-au-Prince. Still lacking appropriate food, water, toilets, shelter and safety precautions, these camps remain vulnerable to exploitation and are increasingly targeted for eviction by private individuals who claim to own the land, or local officials who want to rid their cities of the camps. As the government led by former President René Préval reeled from the aftermath of the earthquake, fraudulent elections, and a cholera epidemic, it lacked the political cohesion and will to address the Commission’s recommendations and the greater humanitarian crisis that plagued the camps. The new Haitian President, Michel Martelly, who took office in May 2010, also refused to end impunity around forced evictions. President Martelly turned a blind eye to a new campaign of violent, extrajudicial evictions that began within weeks of his inauguration, which were carried out by local mayors and national police who claimed to have received their authority from the President.

In some cases, private Haitian lawyers have succeeded in fending off camp evictions for several months at a time by relying on the precautionary measures in court or in negotiations with landowners and police. However, in part because the elitist legal system in Haiti favors the interests of the rich, there are very few public interest lawyers to take on pro bono eviction cases, and most Haitians have little to no access to the formal
justice system. Moreover, there are simply too many evictions being carried out for individual attorneys to remedy the problem on a case-by-case basis.

Adding to the humanitarian crisis, government agents
and purported landowners began unlawfully evicting
displaced people from these camps within weeks of the
earthquake, often using life-threatening violence and
coercion to terrorize communities to leave.

Despite these setbacks, the Commission’s remedy nonetheless remains a significant victory. From the broader perspective of international human rights law, the precautionary measures mark the first time that an inter-governmental human rights body recognized the harm posed by unlawful forced evictions within the context of displacement caused by a natural disaster. They also endorse a “rights-based” approach to disaster response and recovery that obligates government actors to protect the safety and security of displaced people. In the context of Haiti, and the aftermath of the earthquake specifically, this was the first time that the government received binding instructions to prevent unlawful evictions and protect people in displacement camps. In this regard, the measures broaden the protections afforded displaced communities throughout the world, and provide a critical tool for national and international organizations advocating on behalf of displaced earthquake victims in Haiti.

THE ESCALATING PRACTICE OF FORCED EVICTIONS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS IN HAITI. The Petitioners seeking precautionary measures were five IDP camp communities who had been forcibly evicted or threatened with unlawful eviction. In each case, national police harassed, threatened, or physically abused camp residents, and nearly all of them were forced out of the camp without being provided an alternate place to live. Only one camp was directed to an alternative site, but the land lacked access to basic services and was uninhabitable. Evictions were also carried out by denying access to humanitarian aid. In three of the camps, private individuals who claimed control of the land blocked aid agencies from providing food, drinking water, medical care, and sanitation facilities to the camps. One camp was evicted after dark without any prior notice when two trucks filled with armed national police shot their weapons into the air as state-owned bulldozers destroyed all the tents. In no case did the police or purported property owners properly notify residents of impending evictions, nor did they pursue a court order authorizing the eviction, as required by international and domestic law. As a result of the ongoing abuse and unstable living conditions, many people who had nowhere else to go left the camps, while thousands of others chose to stay behind rather than live on the streets.

Balancing the rights of land owners with displaced communities gives rise to a contentious legal issue. Many evictions are being carried out by private individuals who do not have rights to the land where the camps are located. Since only five percent of Haiti’s land was officially recorded before the earthquake, and land records themselves are often contested, it is difficult in most cases to establish a clear and legitimate chain of title. Nonetheless, the police have evicted camp residents on behalf of private individuals without requiring proof that they own the land. Until the government is able to resolve land ownership disputes, and the police are required to verify legal ownership, camp evictions will continue without lawful justification. Forced evictions in Haitian displacement camps have increased since the precautionary measures were issued in November 2010. These evictions are violent, threatening, and coercive. As of September 2011, an estimated 67,162 people had been forcibly expelled from camps since the earthquake, and the number of camps threatened with expulsion reached 348 in July 2011 (an increase of 101 cases since March 2011). A recent survey found that one-third of displaced persons reported leaving their camps because they were forced out by evictions. Of the five petitioner camps, four camps have been unlawfully evicted—including one since the grant of precautionary measures—and another faces a daily threat of eviction. Though it is sometimes difficult to track evicted camp residents, the evidence suggests that at least one-half end up living on the streets or settling in other camps that likewise face imminent eviction.

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES AGAINST FORCED EVICTIONS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS. The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights defines a forced eviction as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families, and/or
communities from their homes and/or lands, which they occupy without the provision of, or access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”Given their inherent vulnerability, displaced persons are entitled to special protections under the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (Guiding Principles), including inter alia protection from forced eviction. The Guiding Principles themselves are not binding, but they provide guidance on how to interpret the human rights guaranteed under relevant international treaties.10 Under the Guiding Principles, forced evictions constitute a form of “arbitrary displacement” and are prohibited in all but a very limited set of circumstances. In situations involving natural disaster, forced evictions are prohibited except when it is necessary to protect the safety and health of those affected.Even then the government must provide the people with due process protections such as consultation and adequate notice of eviction, as well as an alternate place to live that meets international standards. Victims of forced evictions suffer an extensive list of harms, including destruction of their tent homes; theft of their belongings; violent attacks by law enforcement and private thugs; arbitrary arrest; and the withholding of food, water, medical care, and sanitation services. In the situation in Haiti, each evicted community experienced at least some of these harms, and the remaining petitioning communities reasonably feared for their safety and well-being. Petitioners brought their claims against the Government
of Haiti pursuant to Article 25(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the IACHR, which authorizes the Commission to request a state member of the Organization of American States (OAS) to implement precautionary measures to prevent irreparable harm in a serious and urgent situation under that state’s jurisdiction. A precautionary measures proceeding is different than a proceeding to address the merits of a claim in two important respects. First, precautionary measures are issued when the risk of harm to an individual or community is sufficiently severe. However, under Article 25(9), this does not equate to a finding that the member has breached its human rights obligations under the American Convention on Human Rights (American Convention). Thus, although the Petitioners maintained that government officials were in fact carrying out forced evictions, or that they aided or refused to control private evictions, the precautionary measures request merely asked the Commission to acknowledge the irreparable harm posed by forced eviction, and to direct the Government of Haiti to take specific steps to prevent additional evictions. Petitioners argued that they would continue to suffer grave and irreparable harm if their request was denied.

Second, unlike a petition on the merits, a party can petition for precautionary measures without first exhausting domestic remedies, though proof of exhaustion weighs heavily in the party’s favor. In this case, Petitioners argued that the justice system in Haiti remained significantly impaired as a result of the earthquake and that government officials were the very individuals placing IDP camp residents at serious risk of irreparable harm. As Petitioners argued before the Commission, the list of harms resulting from forced evictions implicate basic human rights that are protected under international conventions that Haiti has ratified. For example, forced evictions violate several articles of the American Convention: (1) the right to life under Article 4 by preventing communities from obtaining resourcessuch as food, water, medical care, and sanitation; (2) the right to physical integrity and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment under Article 5 by sending national police to attack displaced communities, arbitrarily arresting them, and failing to provide protection; (3) the right to privacy and dignity under Article 11 by failing to provide adequate security and allowing attacks on homes and dignity; (4) the right to personal property without compensation or due process of law in violation of Article 21; and (5) the rights of the child under Article 19 by failing to develop special protective mechanisms to displaced children. Under the American Convention, displaced persons are entitled to due process of law before they are relocated and the opportunity to contest their relocation in court. Moreover, they cannot be evicted under circumstances that render them homeless, but must be relocated to areas that offer access to basic life necessities and essential services. The scope of destruction caused by the earthquake, coupled with the lack of progress towards meaningful reconstruction, makes it difficult to identify alternate housing in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince. However, Haitian officials cannot use forced eviction as a substitute for the legal settlement of land disputes or the government’s failure to establish a durable solution to continued displacement. Forced evictions also implicate rights protected under Articles 3, 7, and 9 of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence againstWomen (Convention of Belem do Para), which obliges states to prevent the sort of violence, sexual assault and prolonged displacement that results from forced evictions. The government forcibly evicted women, threatened them with eviction, and allowed private parties to do the same rather than abide by its obligations to attend to the needs of impoverished displaced women.

Though precautionary measures constitute a
binding directive to governments that have failed
to address a grave risk of irreparable harm to
individuals within their jurisdiction, obtaining
compliance and full implementation from the
government is often an uphill battle.

In a post-disaster context, the obligations imposed by these Conventions are interpreted in light of the UN Guiding Principles and the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (Pinheiro Principles). Under the Guiding Principles, states must protect displaced people and respect the international legal obligation to prevent and avoid displacement, including the prolonged displacement that results from eviction. The Guiding Principles also prohibit states from displacing people in a manner that violates their rights to life, dignity, liberty, and security.Pinheiro Principle 8 emphasizes the need for states to assist displaced communities, while Principle 5.4 calls on states to ensure that private parties within their jurisdictions do not contribute to displacement.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMMISSION’S PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES. The Commission granted the Petitioners’ request for precautionary measures, directing the Government of Haiti to: (1) adopt a moratorium on forced evictions until the election of a new government; (2) ensure that it relocates victims of forced eviction to places that meet minimum health and security standards; (3) guarantee IDPs effective access to judicial tribunals or other competent authorities; (4) implement security measures to protect IDPs physical safety while giving special protection
to women and children; (5) train staff to protect IDPs’ rights, particularly the right not to be forcibly evicted; and (6) ensure international organizations access to IDP camps. This is a significant legal victory in several respects. First, it marks the first time that an inter-governmental human rights body has recognized the harms that forced evictions pose to persons displaced by natural disaster. Whereas precautionary measures in the past have been granted to protect individuals from direct threats to their life or their physical safety, in the case of forced evictions, the risk of harm includes not only the violent way evictions are carried out, but also harms secondary to forced eviction, including an increased risk of sexual violenceagainst women and girls, the lack of habitable living conditions in camps targeted for evictions, and the risk of being transferred to a similarly uninhabitable settlement. By issuing precautionary measures in this context, the Commission implicitly recognized that natural disasters cannot be used as an excuse to violate human rights, but that domestic frameworks for disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction must include protections for human rights. Secondly, the precautionary measures reflect a rights-based approach to disaster response, consistent with the well-established principle that the right to adequate housing and shelter gives rise to a corresponding obligation on the part of the State not only to refrain from forced evictions, but also to prevent unlawful evictions by individual actors. This approach rejects the notion that governments can ignore existing threats to the safety and security of displaced people by claiming that resources are limited or the threat of harm is not sufficiently severe. A rights-based approach also implicitly rejects the “positive” versus “negative” rights distinction on which governments have historically relied to limit their responsibilities towards vulnerable populations, including displaced people, instead promoting the growing consensus that all human rights, however they are characterized, are indivisible. Lastly, the precautionary measures provide an advocacy tool for displaced communities. Haitian advocates reference the Commission’s recommendations in “know your rights” training sessions with camp communities and grassroots groups. Haitian lawyers also use the precautionary measures to pressure property owners, judges, and local government officials to stop forced evictions until the rights of displaced persons are  respected. This tactic worked well until one of the petitioner camps was evicted in September 2011. New camps also face the threat of forced eviction.

TWO YEARS LATER. Despite the Commission’s precautionary measures to the Government of Haiti, elected officials in Haiti have not taken steps to implement the recommendations. Interviews with local government and ministry officials in March and April 2010 revealed that the Haitian government did not have a coordinated strategy to prevent forced evictions or to respond to the precautionary measures. An official from the judicial division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—the body charged with collecting and disseminating communications from the Commission to the Haitian government—said the precautionary measures were “probably” delivered to the Ministry of Justice, but acknowledged
that he was not personally familiar with the measures and that they had probably been “filed” or archived. In other interviews, ministry officers, mayors and local officials said they were not familiar with the precautionary measures. The few who were had learned of them from residents of a displacement camp facing eviction. The Government of Haiti has yet to adequately explain why it has failed to implement the precautionary measures. To be sure, it has grappled with structural instability in the midst of an immense disaster recovery process. Once its members termed
out in May 2010, the country persisted without a parliament for almost a year. Subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections were marred by fraud and meddling from the international community, and an already over-burdened health system was overwhelmed by a cholera epidemic that has thus far infected 473,649 Haitians and taken 6,631 lives.

Despite difficulties with enforcement, precautionary
measures remain a valuable tool for local, national, and
international advocates. By publicly recognizing the
government’s affirmative obligation to prevent unlawful
evictions, the Commission’s directive provided displaced
communities with a basis for organizing local human
rights advocacy campaigns.

Yet these conditions do not explain why government officials continue to perpetrate forced evictions. Within weeks of President Michel Martelly’s election in May 2011, local mayors and police claiming to have executive authorization destroyed displacement camps on public land while threatening residents with machetes and batons. There is no indication that this pattern will change.

CONCLUSION. Despite difficulties with enforcement, precautionary measures remain a valuable tool for local, national, and international advocates. By publicly recognizing the government’s affirmative obligation to prevent unlawful evictions, the Commission’s directive provided displaced communities with a basis for organizing local human rights advocacy campaigns. It restated a baseline for human rights protection of Haiti’s displaced families and provides leverage to Haitian public interest lawyers to defend against forced evictions. Precautionary measures also provide international actors operating in Haiti, such as United Nations agencies, with a basis for holding the government accountable for the harms caused by forced eviction. Since the donors conference in March 2010 that pledged over $5 billion to Haiti for earthquake relief and reconstruction, the international community has played an active role in coordinating reconstruction efforts and funding, often bypassing the Haitian government. As a result, international actors assumed typical government functions, such as providing water, housing, law enforcement, medical care, and rubble removal. The precautionary measures remind international actors to: (1) confirm that international aid is not directly or indirectly being used to support evictions, (2) encourage the Government of Haiti to prioritize human rights within the reconstruction process, and (3) build the capacity of the government to implement the precautionary measures and protect internally displaced persons against evictions.

In the meantime, advocates can continue to work with the Commission to push the government of Haiti to abide by its human rights obligations. In light of the government’s failure to implement the precautionary measures, Petitioners communicate regularly with the Commission to update them on the continuing forced evictions crisis. In October 2011, the Commission granted Petitioners a working meeting with the Haitian government to discuss ways in which the government could comply with the precautionary measures. Unfortunately, the government did not appear at the meeting. The Commission’s repeated requests to visit Haiti to conduct a human rights investigation around forced evictions and other issues have not been granted.

Despite the government’s unwillingness to be held accountable, Petitioners rely on venues such as the Commission to air ongoing human rights violations to people living in Haiti and to the international community. For example, Petitioner representatives spoke at a press conference and Congressional briefing the same day as the working meeting to apprise journalists and U.S. policymakers of the seriousness of the housing crisis in Haiti. Petitioners’ advocacy in the short-term will focus on pressuring the government to grant the Commission’s request to visit, and in the long-term on continuing to mount pressure on the Haitian government from all domestic and international angles available. As the government considers closing more IDP camps, advocates want to assure that the government and international actors give residents adequate notice and do not close camps until all residents are provided with alternative housing.

It is clear in the case of Haiti that precautionary measures themselves are not enough to protect displaced people from the grave and irreparable harm posed by forced evictions. They are nonetheless a necessary first-step towards holding the government accountable and ultimately providing the type of remedy that displaced people not only deserve, but are entitled to under international law.

Nicole Phillips, Esq., is a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti and Assistant Director for Haiti Programs at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Kathleen Bergin, Esq., is the founder of You.Me.We, a disaster response law and policy center (DRLPC) that defends human rights in disaster struck communities.
Jennifer Goldsmith is a student attorney at the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Laura Karr is a student attorney at the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of
Law.

Download The Text Of The Article: http://ijdh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1phillips.pdf

According to the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, camps—for example, concentration camps, refugee camps, and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps—risk replacing nation-states as the most representative political spaces of our time. Agamben’s definition of “the camp” includes extra-judicial detention centers such as Guantánamo Bay; airport hotels that hold would-be immigrants awaiting deportation; the marginalized, segregated outskirts of Europe’s large cities; and even gated communities in the United States, with their private security firms and individualized “laws” that govern entry and exit. What all these spaces share is the suspension of national, territorial law and its replacement by police power. Those who reside in these legal dead zones are no longer “citizens”; they live in a state of exception to the law of the land—“exceptions” that are becoming more and more the rule.

Haiti’s IDP camps are indeed “states of exception” that risk becoming permanent fixtures in the post-earthquake urban landscape in and around Port-au-Prince. While Haitian law applies as a matter of course to IDP residents who remain Haitian citizens, in practice, the “rights” of these individuals do not have the full backing of the law but depend on the goodwill of the organization or person in charge—often with the support of the Haitian National Police, privately hired gunmen, and the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

As Haiti attempts to resolve the controversy surrounding the corrupt and disputed presidential elections of November 28, 2010, the governance of the country—including the over 1,300 camps containing 1.5 million Haitians—remains a thorny and confused issue. The Haitian government voted in mid-April 2010 to give all of its decision-making power over to the Interim Reconstruction Committee (co-directed by Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive). In the camps and neighborhoods and areas hard-hit by the earthquake, large NGOs are responsible for basic services, including schools, security, and health care, normally provided by the state. Indeed, the system for delivering aid to IDP camps, coordinated by the UN-affiliated Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM), is disturbingly termed “camp management.”

The CCCM, organized around a “cluster” system (there are “clusters” on education, shelter, security, etc.), disseminates information and coordinates NGO aid delivery. But the system is entirely voluntary—NGOs are not required to participate, nor are they required to follow standards, practices, or rules established by the various clusters. In short, the CCCM coordinates but does not oversee, evaluate, or seek to guarantee aid delivery. As anthropologist Mark Schuller discovered in a recent report on IDP camps, the result of this neoliberal, privatized approach to aid is that only 35 percent of camps in fact have “managers,” while the rest receive occasional aid or none at all (thus, 40 percent of the tent camps, reports Schuller, do not regularly receive water). Schuller also found that NGOs tend to concentrate on the camps that are easily accessed and that are not located in areas with high crime rates. (The camps found in beleaguered neighborhoods such as Cité Soleil are thus woefully neglected.)

But who guarantees the basic rights—to security, education, shelter, not to mention fair labor practices—of Haitian citizens living in IDP camps? Currently, the NGOs are the responsible parties, and they act with virtually no oversight by local or international governing bodies. Indeed, in the NGO community, there is much talk about “human rights,” but these are not legally guaranteed by any document or governing body. At the same time, Haitian constitutional rights, which are legally binding, are rarely if ever cited in the effort to improve IDP living conditions. For example, Article 22 of the 1987 Haitian Constitution guarantees adequate housing to all Haitian citizens. When I asked a senior shelter cluster employee if she was aware of Article 22, she responded with incredulity: “Are you sure about that?” She then suggested that such laws were irrelevant if the population was not educated enough to know that they exist.

If the camps were truly “temporary,” the situation would not be so dire, but by many accounts, IDP camps will be a feature of daily life in Port-au-Prince for many years to come. The language of human rights without recourse to constitutional rights unfortunately reinforces a decentralized, neoliberal system in which basic rights become a privilege granted to a few lucky “beneficiaries” of this privatized largesse and other forms of humanitarian aid. In the long term, this approach will ensure that Haitian camp residents remain passive victims, rather than participants in the reconstruction of their country.

The case of the camp at Corail-Cesselesse is the starkest example of how humanitarian aid and neoliberal development projects together shape a reconstruction based on exceptional states. On September 20, 2010, U.S. and Haitian officials signed an agreement with the South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading (which sells to companies such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Gap) to open garment factories at Corail-Cesselesse, site of a sprawling tent camp that lies on a barren stretch of desert, ten miles north of the capital. In April, the Associated Press reported that the decision to relocate camp residents to Corail-Cesselesse was simultaneous with the decision to create a “business park” in the area.

The camp, built by the U.S. Army, is home to displaced people relocated mostly from the Pétionville golf course, which borders the U.S. embassy grounds. It was supposed to be a “model camp,” a site to house earthquake survivors while they rebuilt their lives. In fact, the services are few, the promised timber-framed temporary housing has failed to materialize, and the mostly jobless residents are a day’s wage and several hours away from their communities. There are no schools in Corail-Cesselesse, and no trees. Several tents were destroyed in torrential rains in July, and most people, even UN personnel, agree that Corail is a spectacular failure. Despite the increasingly poor condition of the camp, there are no plans to relocate these people—yet again. On the contrary, Corail-Cesselesse will do what it was always intended to do: provide one permanent source of cheap labor for a revitalized garment factory sector.

With a heavy MINUSTAH presence, security does not appear to be a problem at Corail. But the lack of security in many other camps illustrates clearly the problems inherent in the haphazard system of camp “management,” and the need to strengthen public institutions that guarantee basic rights. In too many cases, camp residents are treated as security risks, and the camps in which they live are cordoned-off spaces, states of exception, where police dare not tread.

For example, Eramithe Delva and Malya Villard, directors of the rape victims’ support group KOFAVIV, became keenly aware that, as Champ-de-Mars camp residents, they had no right to basic police security. When a man tried to rape Delva’s daughter, first ripping through their tent, the women fled to an adjacent police station, where, Delva reports, they were told that this was “President Préval’s problem.” The policeman was referring to Préval’s announced personal mission to find a solution to the plight of the fifty thousand residents of the Champ-de-Mars camp, living in the shadow of his crumbled National Palace.

What Préval’s “adoption” of the Champ-de-Mars camp means in practice is not clear to anyone. Eventually, residents themselves forced the would-be rapist out of the camp. But a few weeks later, police officers, who had refused to enter the camp’s grounds to address a citizen’s complaint, fired shots and tear gas into the camp as they chased down demonstrators at a nearby student protest. Delva stated dryly, “I had heard that the police were supposed to ‘protect and serve.’”

Following a report on gender-based violence in the camps published by the international women’s human rights organization MADRE, and an appearance by Villard before the UN Human Rights Council in June, the United Nations and its sub-cluster on Gender-based Violence have begun to address the problem of rape by launching a public information campaign and giving special training to UN peacekeepers. It remains to be seen whether or not these measures will improve security in the camps.

Forced expulsions, sometimes backed by the Haitian National Police and MINUSTAH, represent yet another example of how tent camps operate as exceptional states whose residents cannot claim their basic citizen rights. Although Haitian law requires a lengthy judicial process for eviction that can last up to two years, local, state, and international authorities have done little to protect earthquake survivors living in camps, often located on private property. A report by the human rights watch group International Action Ties describes the plight of residents of Camp Immaculée in Cité Soleil who were regularly threatened and intimidated by hired gunmen trying to force them off land identified by an entrepreneur as an ideal concert space. During these attacks, repeated phone calls to both the Haitian National Police and MINUSTAH went ignored. As had the Haitian National Police at the Champs-de-Mars, MINUSTAH patrolled the area but refused to enter the camp. Even after International Action Ties representatives set up meetings between camp representatives, NGOs, the Haitian National Police, and MINUSTAH, the latter failed to increase patrols, and in the face of continued threats, Immaculée residents finally moved, only to face further harassment at their new site.

The Immaculée camp was located on public land, but when camps are built on private property, landowners—their titles often disputed—have the power to decide everything from whether NGOs are allowed to deliver water or build latrines to whether residents can exit the properties after nightfall. In one camp in the Pétionville neighborhood of Boben, landowners would not allow the construction of “infrastructure”—in this case, a well and latrines adequate for the nearly three thousand inhabitants. In September, residents had no access to potable water and were still using six “pit latrines”—holes dug in the ground—that were not being regularly cleaned. (Fortunately, the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Cluster—the only cluster in the “camp management” system that includes as one of its members a Haitian state organization—later made the Boben camp one of its top priorities, and conditions have considerably improved.)

Last February, in addition to locking vehicle entrance gates, the director of St. Louis de Gonzague, an elite Catholic school in the Delmas suburb, site of a camp of more than twelve thousand displaced earthquake survivors, halted distribution of food, tents, and other aid in an effort to force the camp residents to relocate—although no adequate relocation site was provided. When these efforts failed to clear the area, the school director, backed by the Delmas Police Commissioner Carl Henry and Mayor Wilson Jeudy, threatened to call in both the Haitian National Police and MINUSTAH to throw displaced people off the land physically. Forced eviction is, of course, a blatant abuse of the UN Guiding Principles on Internally Displaced People. But eviction is also a violation of Haitian law and of the requirement of due process.

The CCCM and Security Cluster have shown some willingness to address the problem of forced evictions, but they tread lightly when it comes to contractual issues such as property rights in Haiti. Yet it seems obvious that NGOs and cluster personnel can do little when they assume as “natural,” along with the landowners and Haitian and U.S. politicians, the primacy of private property rights over citizens’ constitutional rights—even following one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. At the same time, the Haitian government has just officially announced that it will appropriate a large swath of privately owned land in downtown Port-au-Prince for the purpose of building government offices, citing laws permitting the expropriation of private lands for public purposes. They are much more circumspect, however, when it comes to expropriating land for public housing.

Increasingly, though, Haitians and Haitian activists are refusing to abide by the emerging structure of governance based on exceptions to rather than the rule of law. They are demanding, instead, that the Haitian government make good on the constitutional rights guaranteed to Haitian citizens, especially the right to adequate housing for all. The movement to insist on this most basic of human rights began in earnest on August 12, the seven-month anniversary of the earthquake.

A coalition of groups, including Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA), Bri Kouri, Bureau d’avocats internationaux, Batay Ouvriye, and the organizing committees of several tent camps from in and around Port-au-Prince, organized a sit-in in front of the National Palace to denounce forced evictions. They also demanded that the Haitian government respect citizens’ rights to adequate housing by appropriating private lands that remain empty, verifying ownership titles, and creating public housing. At one of the press conferences that took place in late July to launch the series of actions, organizer Sanon Reynold stated that “the problem of housing has always existed for the poor of Haiti. But since January 12, the housing problem has become [their] main issue…all groups, all institutions that work with the popular sector should make the housing cause their fundamental priority.”

Sit-ins, protests, and “bat tanbour” (in which camp residents who cannot attend a protest beat pots and pans at a designated time) have continued regularly since then. On September 13, at least two hundred people turned out in front of the National Palace to declare their right to education for their children and adequate housing. At a sit-in on October 12 in front of the office of Prime Minister Bellerive, organizers stated in a press release, “We swear we will not participate in elections from under tents….Everyone living in the camps, let us stand up to force the state to respect our rights.”

On November 12 and January 1, Haitian Independence Day, this coalition of groups again took to the streets to protest the continuing presence of MINUSTAH, in all likelihood, the source of the recent cholera outbreak. At this writing, Haitians are approaching the one-year anniversary of the January 12 disaster with no solution in sight for the one million citizens still living under tents. In response, the above groups, more organized than ever, are planning a series of conferences, documentary film screenings, and victim testimonies on housing rights and forced evictions to take place in tent camps and on the streets of Port-au-Prince over the course of several days preceding the anniversary of the devastating quake.

In demanding their right to shelter, this growing popular movement is also resisting a system of governance that uses a state of emergency to give a range of private interests de facto decision-making power over security and safety, sanitation and health, and displacement and relocation. Haitians are refusing to permit these exceptional zones of the post-earthquake moment to become the permanent state of Haiti’s future.

http://monthlyreview.org/2011/02/01/states-of-exception-haitis-idp-camps

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