My grandmother sent me a short but sweet e-mail this morning, asking if I’m doing okay here in Haiti, where I work as a freelance journalist. She said the country has popped up in the news again because Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-born musician, is running for president.

“He has no political affiliations, only celebrities, so people are wondering about him,” she wrote to me.

She’s been duped by shallow media coverage portraying Jean as a fresh face on Haiti’s political scene. Jean likened himself to Barack Obama, a new hope for the earthquake-hit country, in front of a throng of enthusiastic supporters here on Thursday.

Look closely at his record. Jean more closely resembles Sarah Palin -incoherent, incompetent and in it for himself.

The pre-disaster financial improprieties of Jean’s charitable organization, Yele Haiti, have been well documented. To take one example, Jean claims he founded it in 2005 with a personal donation from his multi-million dollar fortune. Records show he didn’t contribute a cent.

But Jean nearly redeemed himself when he lent his star power to spectacularly successful charitable fundraising efforts in the January earthquake’s immediate aftermath.

If only he hadn’t dropped the ball. Like many other charities, Yele Haiti hasn’t spent much of the donations it received for urgent humanitarian relief – just 16% of some $9 million.

Now, when asked about his political platform, Jean repeats vague platitudes about the need to create jobs, support Haitian agriculture and attract foreign investment – nearly identical rhetoric to that of the currently ruling Preval administration.

One difference is that Jean isn’t capable of explaining his plans in French, the language of Haiti’s government, because he doesn’t speak it. His brother describes Jean’s Creole as “rusty.” It’s spoken with a thick American accent.

Jean doesn’t speak the languages fluently because he hasn’t lived in Haiti recently. He’s hoping authorities will waive the Haitian constitution’s requirement that candidates live in-country for the five years preceding the ballot.

That’s not an indication of a deep respect for constitutional law. Nor was his praise in interviews of armed rebels who rampaged through the Haitian countryside in 2004. The rebels were part of a campaign by the elite and foreign governments to oust then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide tried to raise the minimum wage and win reparations from France, the island’s former colonial power.

At the time, this is what Jean said of the men: “I don’t consider those people rebels. It’s people standing up for their rights. It’s not like these people just appeared out of nowhere and said, ‘Let’s cause some trouble.’ I think it’s just built up frustration, anger, hunger, depression.”

Was that naivete or something much worse?

Raymond Joseph, a close member of Jean’s family, became an ambassador in the de facto government that murdered and jailed scores of Aristide supporters after the ’04 coup d’etat. Needless to say, Jean didn’t speak out against that violence.

But he does sing about uplifting the poor on the track, “If I Were President.” So what about breaking the stranglehold that a few of Haiti’s most obscenely wealthy families have on the government and economy?

“We have to build an open system that doesn’t stop them from making money, that will work for them, if only because what they’re making could double, triple,” Jean told Esquire Magazine in a recent interview.

Those families have been making a killing on the backs of the Haitian poor for decades, paying them dirt-cheap wages to work in sweatshops while stifling the country’s emergent middle class.

Make no mistake, Jean’s politics are those of the Haiti’s miserable status quo.

It’s also hard to interpret the way Jean speaks about himself in third-person as anything other than the sign of a dangerously outsized ego. When questioned on CNN about $2.1 million in overdue American taxes – which the star insists have been paid up – Jean responded, “There is no situation of Wyclef Jean that we will ignore.”

But he has managed to largely ignore the deadly post-earthquake humanitarian crisis that continues to this day. “For those of us in Haiti, he has been a non-presence,” actor Sean Penn told CNN following Jean’s announcement.

Penn has personally managed a huge camp of displaced families for the past eight months. In his suspicions about Jean, he speaks for a lot of us who have been here consistently since the quake. The singer has been conspicuously absent from the actual work of helping victims, despite a leadership vacuum at the center of failed relief efforts.

Many of the Haiti’s 1.5 million displaced people, with nowhere else to go, are being threatened with violence by landowners. According to researchers, sexual assaults against women and girls in the camps are widespread. Forecasters are predicting a “hyperactive” hurricane season. Most who lost their homes live beneath withered tarps and tents, battered by the rain and wind.

Jean didn’t mention any of these pressing issues in his CNN interview confirming his bid for Haiti’s presidency. The questions – and the answers – were all about his eagerness to help his homeland by ascending to its highest office. But what’s needed is competence, vision and unbreakable loyalty to the Haitian poor. Wyclef Jean, who flew back home to New Jersey in a private jet this week, falls far short from embodying those qualities.

I speak only for myself in the op-ed, obviously. Don’t miss @emilytroutman‘s compilation of Haitians on the streets of Port-au-Prince sharing their views about Jean and the upcoming election.

Notice how many people express support for Aristide, who remains exiled in South Africa. I didn’t get a chance to mention in the piece that Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide’s party, seems set to be banned once more the ballot. Today was the final deadline for presidential candidates to register. So far, besides Jean, it’s a lot of mostly familiar faces.

Veye Yo, a grassroots organization led by the late Father Gerard Jean-Juste, was outside the gate today protesting Lavalas’ exclusion from the ballot. I collaborated with Haiti’s own Wadner Pierre on this IPS article about Lavalas’ exclusion, the international community’s hypocrisy in supporting the elections, and sit-ins outside the US Embassy.

Hi Al and friends,

Excellent reply. I thought the open letter and response would be linked from the Narco News homepage. Also, why isn’t it open to comments? Is anyone actually going to see it, just sitting there in the lab section of the site?

My reaction to the letter was the same as yours: would have considered signing had it not been for the last paragraph. Even then, the questions seem premised on a guilt-by-association mode of thought, so I don’t think I’d have signed. Maybe if they were worded differently.

But I respect the desire to ask questions of a think tank that is not very transparent, that emanated condescension and indifference at the school, that made a grave mistake in 2005 for which its President did not apologize. One of the positive things I can imagine coming out of this is for the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) to respond with some new, useful level of detail and coherence about who they are and what they do.

I’ve had friendly conversations with some of the TeleSur reporters you mentioned. I disagree with them strongly. They are convinced the ICNC is a malevolent organization, likely a front for the US government, and I haven’t seen the evidence for that yet. They can’t stomach having anything to do with the group. To me the ICNC appears more disorganized and clueless, when it comes to Latin America, than anything else.

People should judge us journalists principally on our body of work. The notion that merely going to a school in Mexico for ten days where the ICNC gave some presentations irreparably taints me, or casts lasting doubt on my journalistic independence is repulsive. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the school’s participants and grassroots organizations in various countries that have listened to the group’s spiel.

What you said about journalists’ willingness to be fired from their jobs is right-on. As I explained at the school, I’ve been approached by various corporate media since the earthquake in Haiti. I will use them to fund my work and reach wider audiences, with the expectation that I might choose to end the relationship or be fired at any moment because of their penchant for sensationalism, misinformation, and incompetence.

My integrity will never depend on a salary. I know that if I’m doing valuable work in today’s wired, increasingly diverse media economy, an audience will be there to support it. That’s why I came to Haiti, back when no one paid much attention to the place, full of hope and confidence.

One thing I agree with some critics on: it would have helped to invite and address all questions specifically about the ICNC’s role in the school in a prominent public form at the start – whether by blog post or in person. This was a brewing controversy already familiar to many involved with the school. I’m reminded of the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry’s 2004 run for US President, which his campaign ignored and thought other people would ignore. It was a mistake – even though the accusations had no basis in fact, they spread by various means and became a huge issue.

I wouldn’t have been distracted at times, wondering if a few long plenaries with Jim Lawson, Jack DuVall, et al. were a condition of the money, had it been crystal-clear that the ICNC’s participation in the school was strictly at your invitation from the beginning. And I have no doubts about that now.

I was hoping for more a little more hands-on journalism and civil resistance training from the school. The content of the ICNC’s lectures on non-violence didn’t strike me as groundbreaking (or manipulative) material. The dynamics of non-violent civil resistance are best understood in the midst of a movement, but an overview of its history and tactics can learned from books, films, and independent research.

The vital practice of authentic journalism cannot be learned this way. This is why the School for Authentic Journalism is so important, why it deserves the support of citizens and institutions the world over. I hope to return.

Those are my thoughts for today. I recorded audio of the multi-hour debate about the ICNC that took place on February 11 within the school. If anyone is interested in reviewing it, contact me by e-mail.

And now back to work. Hopefully no more aftershocks for a while!

Best,
Ansel

Apparently Clinton invited a bunch of liberal bloggers to his New York office yesterday to talk about politics, Haiti, and his foundation’s work. Wish I could have been there. One blogger asked about Dr. Paul Farmer, who incidentally I refer to below. AP photo above.

MP3. Full transcript below.

This is a Mediahacker.org podcast published on June 17, 2009. I’m Ansel Herz.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton spoke at length yesterday Monday about Haiti for the first time since his appointment as U.N. special envoy to Haiti last month. At a press conference in New York with Haitian foreign minister Alrich Nicolas and UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, Clinton said he was committed to Haiti’s future.

“We will continue to elevate awareness of both the pain but the promise of Haiti and that there are real, genuine economic opportunities there – particularly as we deal with the government’s priorities in rebuilding the infrastructure and re-constructing the agricultural capacity of the country. I’ll say again: in all the years I’ve been going there, this is the best chance the Haitians have ever had to escape the darker parts of their past and to claim the promise of the future.”

Clinton repeated that statement several times throughout the press conference. But it is difficult to reconcile his optimism with recent events in Haiti. As a new storm season begins, much of the Haitian countryside has not recovered from the devastation wrought by last year’s hurricanes. The first round of elections for the Haitian Senate were boycotted by the vast majority of Haitians, with greater turnout in the upcoming second round unlikely as long as the popular Lavalas party remains excluded from the ballot.

For the past two weeks the Haitian capitol Port-Au-Prince has been rocked by angry protests of university students. They are demanding that Haitian President Rene Preval ratify an increase in the minimum wage to 200 gourdes. The measure was approved by the Haitian parliament, but Preval has delayed signing it into law while negotiating with business leaders.

The students say an increase in the minimum wage is 5 years overdue. The Haitian national police and so-called U.N. “peacekeeping” force MINUSTAH have responded fiercely to demonstrations outside the university. This is Yves Pierre-Louis being translated by Roger Leduc on the June 11 broadcast of WBAI’s Haiti: The Struggle Continues.

“Yesterday on June 10 the occupiers used MINUSTAH soldiers who attacked the faculties of technology, faculty of medicine, the school and they used tear gas at a very accelerated pace. Things really turned for the worse when one student died, Emmanuel Francois, on top of one other who was hurt by rubber bullet earlier in the week. So students and other manifestants burned vehicles and windshields were broken. Even the sick, people ailing inside the state general hospital, had to evacuate because they could not resist the tear gas that MINUSTAH was throwing at not only the faculties, but also inside the general hospital.”

Former President Clinton praised the MINUSTAH force at the press conference. He also said he wants to attract foreign investment to Haiti, particularly in the manufacturing sector. During his visit to Haiti in March, Clinton toured a textile factory accused of forcing sweatshop conditions on its workers. In the early 1990s the Clinton government helped pressure then-Haitian President Aristide into shrinking a proposed minimum wage hike.

No reporter at Monday’s press conference asked Clinton about the minimum wage or the political turmoil in Haiti. Associated Press reporter Elizabeth Lederer had the first question.

Mr. President, you’ve outlined a very long and ambitious plan and the first thing I thought was, ‘This sounds more like a full time job than a part-time dollar a year job.’ When are you planning to go to Haiti and how concerned are you that the current financial crisis and the fallout from it are going to have a really detrimental impact on getting the donors to pay up and really in trying to bring up the economy?”

Lederer’s AP article is a virtual transcription of Clinton’s remarks. Journalists asked about impact of the economy on international donors to Haiti multiple times over. At one point Clinton chuckled at Haitian concerns about the country’s sovereignty in his opening remarks.

“I saw some reports in the Haitian press speculating that this dollar a year job I took was somehow an imperialist plot to take over Haiti [laughter]. All I want to do is help the Haitians take over their own destiny.”

Clinton said one of his deputies as envoy to Haiti would be Eric Schwartz, who during the Clinton administration defended the prolonged detention of 300 HIV-positive Haitian political refugees at Guantanamo Bay. The refugees were eventually freed by court order after a long legal battle waged by Yale law students.

This has been a Mediahacker.org podcast. I’m Ansel Herz.

For more on the Clinton’s administration Haiti policies, see Dr. Paul Farmer’s book “The Uses of Haiti.” For instance, the introduction to that book cites a 1993 report by the Council on Hemisphere Affairs that said the administration’s pressure on President Aristide to negotiate with the military leaders who violently overthrew him in 1990 amounted to a “soft coup.”

Stay tuned for an announcement concerning myself and Haiti soon.

My first second-ever feature story for Free Speech Radio News looks back at the 81st Texas legislative session, which ends today. What’s “chubbing?” You can Google it if you want, or you can listen here.

On the night of November 2, 2004, I was standing outside a polling station with Mark Strama, handing flyers to citizens rushing in to vote before the election ended. I was a 16-year-old intern for Strama’s campaign for State Representative in the 50th District – my district. I won’t forget the moment when Strama got a text message on his Blackberry saying John Kerry was projected to win the presidency. We each let out a few whoops and cheers of joy. Bush’s apparent victory, of course, was all the more disappointing when I got home and saw the news. Strama, at least, beat the Republican incumbent by just 550 votes.

I saw Strama yesterday for the first time since 2004. He spoke with me for nearly a half hour in a Capitol corridor just outside the House chamber, but I couldn’t use more than a few seconds of the interview in my story. So I’m posting the nearly-complete interview below (MP3 here).

I imagine it’s of interest to Texas politics junkies and Strama’s constituents in the 50th District in Austin. For me, now an intense skeptic of government’s contribution to social justice no matter who’s in power, the interview was a useful window into the ongoing work of someone who has put all his energy, talent and passion into electoral politics. I think under other circumstances I would have been more rigorous in my questioning. Here’s his Wikipedia page and a breakdown of campaign contributions.

Also, I highly recommend Marc Becker’s story on an indigenous continental summit from today’s FSRN newscast.