The demonstration took place on Friday (struggled to find a decent Internet connection to get the video online until today). A friend of mine got sick and we had to leave Hinche (in Haiti’s Central Plateau) for Port-au-Prince just before they were to burn the seeds in symbolic protest.

Mark Hare, an agronomist from Ohio who’s worked with Mouveman Peyizan Papay for years, explained how Haitian farmers will be roped into a dependence on hybrid Monsanto seeds. Monsanto released an indignant statement responding to the protest the day it took place, insisting the donated seeds won’t hurt Haitian farmers in any way. Further reading here and here.

I didn’t get into it much in the video, but most of the marchers I spoke with also slammed Haitian President Rene Preval for “doing nothing” in response to the earthquake and accepting the seed donation. Wearing straw hats stamped with “Down with Preval” and “Down with Monsanto,” the peasants (young kids, old women, wiry farmers alike) marched from the MPP’s headquarters in Papay for nearly three hours past mango trees and fields to the larger town of Hinche. As they began rallying in the town’s public plaza, I had to go.

I’ll continue following this issue closely, but in the meantime, check out Al Jazeera English’s report looking at the controversy over the seeds.

This is a short video looking at IDP camps in Cite Soleil, Grand Goave, and Chanmas where people still have almost nonexistent shelter. The UN shelter cluster claims they’ve provided shelter materials to 75% of Haiti’s 1.3 million displaced people. Most people I talk to believe that’s an overestimate.

The Cite Soleil camp featured in the video, in particular, I know has received nothing in months. I’ve gone back several times. Last time kids were digging mini-trenches with sticks and rocks to divert the rain. It’s down the street from the Doctors Without Borders clinic.

Red Cross spokesperson Alex Wynter has said the rains are expected to double from March to April and are likely to include continuous downpours for days on end. We haven’t had any of those yet. Last night it rained fairly heavily, but only for about twenty minutes.

Thanks to the New Media Advocacy Project for their video documentation of rained-out camps in March. And to Jerry. (more…)

Update: Also big thanks to Valparaiso for adding Japanese captions to the YouTube video! Check out his Caracas Cafe blog for continuing independent coverage of Venezuela, Honduras, and Haiti (in Japanese).

Finally sorted out some video editing problems last night. Here’s a dispatch I completed a few days ago, focusing on an aid distribution near Cite Soleil last week. (more…)

This dispatch begins at 10pm the night of the Tuesday’s earthquake, and resumes the following morning after I caught some sleep in an open bus abandoned in a downtown Port-Au-Prince street.  More to come.

Update: Here is a written piece published at Inter-Press News Service. Video of Moliere‘s burial coming later. (more…)

I really wish I could have edited and uploaded this footage sooner.  Here it is.  The scenes are graphic, shot as soon I left my house in Jacquet, in the 2-30 minutes after the tremors. Much more video to come.

My on-the-ground report for Inter-Press Service is up: read here.  Narco News too.  I also spoke with Pacifica’s Flashpoints Radio and again with the BBC and PBS Newshour.  Also Russia Today.  (Narration in video is unclear at one point – the man in the truck had not died yet.  Don’t know if he lived.)

Update: (from Galen Herz, in Austin, TX) Ansel was interviewed again by PBS’s NewsHour about possible violence in Port-au-Prince and other relevant topics.

Text of latest report is below.  It was difficult for me get my mind in a clear state to write it. (more…)