New Orleans: New Streetcar Lines Are not Enough People Said

Tourism industry happy with service, others say more buses need to be added

By Wadner Pierre The Maroon

 
Many New Orleanians who rely on public transportation for their daily activities said they feel that the public transportation system has lost its momentum since Hurricane Katrina. In particular, many said they have to wait too long to catch a bus.



Seven years since Katrina, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority faces challenges offering adequate service to the bus riders, as it did before the storm.

Kelly Brotzman, the director of Service Learning at Loyola University, said the university has spent between nearly $5,000 in public transportation for this academic year to get the students to service learning sites in the city.

She said the students have a hard time catching buses to go to “underserved areas,” such as the 9th Ward, Bywater and New Orleans East.


“I would like to see frequency of the service increase dramatically,” Brotzman said, referring to the time students wait for buses.

Brotzman said the quality of buses has improved, but she would like to see an express line from Uptown to the 9th Ward and Bywater areas.

Donald Celestine, a New Orleans resident who relies on public transportation, said the public transportation has derailed since Katrina.

“Before Katrina things were running pretty, pretty good, but right now, it’s very slow,” Celestine said. Dominic Moncada, RTA marketing and communication specialist, said the RTA recognizes that there are needs for more buses, but as any public institution, the RTA is also affected by the city’s budget cuts.

“There are needs. There are individuals and needs in different neighborhoods that do request of us to increase our services,” Moncada said.

The RTA was recently awarded a $45 million grant by the U.S. Department of Transportation to build an additional 1.5 miles of streetcar tracks on Loyola Avenue to expand the streetcar service in the downtown area.

Photo by Wadner Pierre

According to the RTA website, the company lost the majority of its buses and streetcars during the 2005 storm and a lot of its employees dispersed or died.

The RTA may have a hard time providing satisfactory service to some neighborhoods, but people who work in the tourism industry have praised the RTA.

Kelly Schulz, the vice president of communication and public relations for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, complimented RTA for its service in the tourist areas, such as the French Quarter, Uptown and Bywater areas.

“You know, we feel like transportation is adequate in those areas. I know the RTA always wants to expand their reach,” Schulz said

The RTA continues to expand the streetcar service in the downtown area. Another 2.5 miles of track will be added to circle the French Quarter and Bywater neighborhoods. The new segment will run from Canal Street along Rampart Street to St. Claude Avenue. The line will extend the Riverfront streetcar line to Press Street in the Bywater. Another segment will join St Claude Avenue to the existing Riverfront line.

The RTA has been working on improving its service in many other ways, such as putting up more maps at stops to help people navigate, and using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The RTA also has a new mobile application called Mobile RTA that helps bus riders with smart phones to plan their trips by accessing all buses schedules on the company website.

Wadner Pierre is The Maroon and Wolf  Magazine at Loyola University New Orleans, he can be reached at wpierre@loyno.edu

Who Is Laurent Lamothe, and What Are his Chance to Be Haiti's Next PM?

Who is Laurent Lamothe, and What Are His Chances to be Prime Minister?

by Kim Ives

Laurent Lamothe is Haitian President Michel Martelly’s brain, just as political strategist Karl Rove was to former U.S. President George W. Bush. Lamothe was the guy who figured out how to finance Martelly’s presidential campaign, and who brought in the professional Spanish public relations firm Ostos & Sola to run it. Now he is President Martelly’s nominee to be Haiti’s next prime minister. “The man is a financial genius,” exclaimed musician Richard Morse, who manages Haiti’s famed Oloffson Hotel and is Martelly’s cousin and part of the president’s inner circle. “He knows how to take a little from over here, a little from over there, put it together with this over here, and make it all work out.” Lamothe’s prowess for financial wheeling and dealing stands out when one reviews his business history with Martelly over the past decade. Lamothe, 39,  has been close to Martelly since 2002 when he recruited the former lewd konpa singer known as “Sweet Micky” to be a partner and the advertising front-man for NoPin Long Distance, a calling-card alternative service which became wildly popular in Haiti and spawned several imitators. In fact, according to Florida State corporate records, the original name of One World Telecom, Inc., the parent company of NoPin, was “Sweet Micky Long Distance Services, Inc.” Lamothe, along with fellow NoPin founders Patrice Baker and Gilbert Pasquet, were all directors with Martelly in another Florida corporation, Coco Grove Holdings, Inc., of which Martelly was made president in 2008. Coco Grove Holdings, in turn, was owned by a British Virgin Islands shell corporation, Lightfoot Ventures Limited, again directed solely by Lamothe and Martelly. Lamothe learned his financial skills studying business management at Miami’s Barry University and later earning a Masters in the field at another Miami Catholic school, St. Thomas University. In Haiti, he went to high school at the College Bird.

Clean up Corruption at Home

By Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis

   When will the U.S. Department go after U.S. officials for the $6.6 billion they “lost” during the "reconstruction" of Iraq? The U.S. Justice Department has failed to investigate. This money is still missing and no one can account for it. American taxpayers deserve to be told about where the $6.6 billion went.
 
     The U.S. government needs to focus more on what is happening in its backyard. It should not only give up “investigating” former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for corruption, but all foreign political leaders they don't like. Former President Aristide as forced [kidnapped] to get on an air plane on Feb. 29, 2004 by U.S. troops. Why didn't they go forward with the charges yeas ago? Why didn't they put him in U.S. prison for all he is being accused of?  Now, what are they doing - building a case or making one up against Aristide? And it’s worth noting that the US government has blocked any investigation – international or domestic - into how exactly Aristide came to “depart” Haiti  in 2004. 

The renewed investigation against Aristide also occurs at a time when one of Haiti's most brutal dictators, Jean-Claude Duvalier, is being let off the hook.

The U.S. has one problem with Aristide. He enjoys too much support from the Haitian people, most importantly the poor majority who want change. After all that has been said to vilify and destroy Aristide's image around the world, the goal of this smear campaign remains unachieved.

In Feb. 29, 2012 several thousand Lavalas supporters demonstrated in the street of Haiti’s capital to renew their passionate support for their leader. This recent demonstration certainly shook the U.S. imposed status quo. That is why they reactivate their slanderous campaign against Aristide.

Why doesn’t the U.S. Justice Department reactivate the case of Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier? Why doesn’t U.S. Justice Department ask the State Department to return the FRAPH documents to Haitian government in order to prosecute those who massacred, tortured and killed thousands of Haitians during the 1991 coup d’état? This is the type of support Haiti needs from the U.S., not making a case up against someone because his politics clash with the Haitian and US elite.

Powerful countries seem to want what they describe as undeveloped countries like Haiti to remain unstable politically. Obviously, the U.S. Justice Department has a great deal to “investigate” at home, so it needs to focus on that. Let Haitians deal with their own mess and if they need help they will call U.S.

The U.S. Justice Department should start delivering justice to American taxpayers and then it can pass the example to foreign governments, if they ask for it.

Haiti’s Elected Mayors Dismissed, Illegally Replaced by Presidential Apointees

By Dady Chery
Haiti Chery
Back in May 2011, undistracted by Haiti’s 4.5-million dollar presidential inauguration, I sounded the alarm about a brewing legislative coup d’etat (1).

“Within five days of being seated and, in two meetings totaling less than 20 hours, Haiti’s newly assembled 49th legislature modified over 100 articles of the 1987 Constitution.
“This document was drafted and voted on so quickly that, when the parliamentary session closed, the president of the assembly had no time to reread to the lawmakers the amendments on which they had voted the two previous days.”

By contrast to these hastily crafted amendments, the 1987 Constitution had been approved by 90% of the voters in a popular referendum that followed the document’s publication in Creole and French. A hallmark of this Constitution was the decentralization of the government and reduction of executive power. Details the Constitution and proposed amendments are discussed in my article (1).

Haiti Wikileaks writer speaks in Canada on post-earthquake political situation

Kim Ives. Photo by Wadner Pierre

By Roger Annis
The following article was published on the Haiti blog of the widely-read web magazine in Canada, Rabble.ca.

February 7, 2012 -- Kim Ives, an editor of Haiti's largest circulation weekly newspaper, Haiti Libert?, recently completed a speaking tour to Winnipeg, Victoria and Vancouver, Canada, and Seattle, Washington in which he described the current political situation and outlook in post-earthquake Haiti.

The theme of his speaking engagements was Haiti: The Wikileaks Files. Ives is one of the lead writers, along with Dan Coughlin and Ansel Herz, of the series of articles published last year in Haiti Libert? and The Nation magazine based on revelations contained in nearly 2,000 U.S. government diplomatic cables that were provided to the two publications by the Wikileaks organization.

Haitian Judicial denies Duvalier's Crime Against Humanity

By Wadner Pierre

The former  Haitian President for life Jean-Claude Duvalier named as "BABY's DOC" to be tried not for the crime against humanity but for alleged financial crime. Human rights groups criticized the decision and qualified it as unfair and politically motivated.

There are several  members of Martelly's administration have  closely tied to Duvalier regime. The former dictator's son Nicolas Duvalier is working in the president's Cabinet.

Duvalier at age of  19 took over the power following the death of his father Francois Duvalier named as "Papa Doc." As his dad he proclaimed himself as the "president for life."

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was disappointed after learning about  the decision. Pillay asked the Haitian  officials to guarantee that  the former dictator  is prosecuted for international crimes.

In a news briefing at  UNHCHR office  in Geneva Rupert Colville Geneva a spokesman for the office said ,"Very serious human rights violations including torture, rape and extrajudicial killings have been extensively documented by Haitian and international human rights organizations to have occurred in Haiti during the regime of Duvalier."

Haiti After the Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go

by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER RAMANAUSKAS

  Counterpunch

An occupying UN tank  standing in front of the  broken president office
five moths after a 7.0 earthquake devastated the capital.Photo by Wadner  Pierre

Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with over nine million people, was devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010.  Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded.

The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per Haitian) and over $2 billion in recovery aid (about $173 per Haitian) over the last two years.
Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two years. Over half a million people remain homeless in hundreds of informal camps, most of the tons of debris from destroyed buildings still lays where it fell, and cholera, a preventable disease, was introduced into the country and is now an epidemic killing thousands and sickening hundreds of thousands more.

Monthly Market on Freret Street

Photo and video by Wadner Pierre

Four years ago Freret Business Owners Associations started a monthly market to get people back to the neighborhood.



The market gives an opportunity to between 80 to 100 local vendors to sell their products, and attract hundreds of people every first Saturday of each month from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. to buy local products.

People buying, interacting and eating, Dec 1, 2011.

Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid Should Go to Haitian Popular Organizations, Not to Contractors or NGOs

By Keane Bhatt
Photos by Wadner Pierre 

For decades, Noam Chomsky has been an analyst and activist working in support of the Haitian people. In addition to his revolutionary linguistics career at MIT, he has written, lectured and protested against injustice for 40 years. He is co-author, along with Paul Farmer and Amy Goodman of Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup. His analysis “The Tragedy of Haiti” from his 1993 book Year 501: The Conquest Continues is available for free online. This interview was conducted in late February 2010 by phone and email. It was first published in ¡Reclama! magazine. The interviewer thanks Peter Hallward for his kind assistance. 

Keane Bhatt: Recently you signed a letter to the Guardian protesting the militarization of emergency relief. It criticized a prioritization of security and military control to the detriment of rescue and relief.

Noam Chomsky: I think there was an overemphasis in the early stage on militarization rather than directly providing relief. I don’t think it has any long-term significance...the United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that’s what it’s good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary; some of the doctors that were in Haiti, including those from Partners in Health who have been there for a long time, felt that there was an element of racism in believing that Haitians were going to riot and they had to be controlled and so on, but there was very little indication of that; it was very calm and quiet. The emphasis on militarization did probably delay somewhat the provision of relief. I went along with the general thrust of the petition that there was too much militarization.

The Army in Haiti:A History of US-Sponsored Violence

5

by NIA IMARA

 COUNTERPUNCH

The United States has a long history of sowing violence in Haiti.  Nearly one hundred years ago, the Marines invaded Haiti and occupied the country for nineteen years, over the course of which they killed thousands of Haitians who attempted to resist the repression.  The pretext for the invasion was instability.  But for the tens of thousands of Haitians who were dispossessed of their land by American businesses or who were put into forced labor, the true source of instability originated with their neighbor to the north.  In order to protect its investments in Haiti and to ensure the country’s future “stability,” the United States created and trained a new Haitian army that would become infamous for its brutal repression of the population.
Three decades after the US left Haiti, it still continued in its support of a violent regime there.  The dictator François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, commanded a personal death squad, called the Tonton Macoutes, that murdered several thousand people and terrorized the population.  Duvalier and their supporters were intent on protecting the interests of Haiti’s wealthy elite at all costs, and during their rule, the gap between rich and poor widened.   They were enabled by the United States, which sent the dictators tens of millions of dollars before their nearly thirty-year rule ended.

Impunity for Venezuela's big landowners - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Hundreds of Chavez supporters have been assassinated by wealthy landowners for implementing new land policies. Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague   Aljazeera  inShare13

Venezuela's Land Law was enacted to reduce dependence on food imports, however, wealthy landowners believe they will lose profits if it is implemented - so they are threatening and killing those who attempt to implement the law [EPA] For close to a decade, Venezuela has been the focus and the target of mainstream news coverage, as the scene of a heated political struggle over control of the country's destiny. But the parade of pundits eager to criticise the country's elected president and simplify the country's political conflict as a rule ignore the deep socio-economic inequality that propelled President Chavez to power.

Gambit's 40 Under 40 Our annual look at some accomplished New Orleanians under 40

©gambit New Orleans

 By Missy Wilkinson
        Gambit 
Wadner Pierre, 28
Photojournalist/Author/Advocate for Haiti
Like many other journalism students at Loyola University, Wadner Pierre writes for the student newspaper The Maroon, does volunteer work, maintains a blog (www.wadnerpierre.blogspot.com) and hangs out with neighbors in his adopted hometown of New Orleans, where he's lived since 2009. But driving these activities is a singular mission to which Pierre, a native of Gonaives, Haiti, has dedicated his life.
"I became a photojournalist because you can use your communication skills to be the voice of your community," Pierre says. "I want to be the voice of my people in Haiti."

71 Deputies Resolve to Remove the Authority of 4 Government Heads

Photo from defendHaiti.ht

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - With an affirmative vote from 71 members of the Lower House, a resolution on Friday calls for the immediate resignation of Ministers of Justice and Interior, Joshua Pierre-Louis and Thierry Mayard Paul, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Michel Brunache and the Attorney General in Port-au-Prince, Félix Léger, who are considered directly responsible for the illegal arrest of Deputy Arnel Bélizaire (Delmas & Tabarre/Veye-Yo).

Haitian Lawmaker Released from Prison

 by Wadner Pierre

 41-year-old Haitian Lawmaker, Arnel Belizaire arrested at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport Port-Au-Prince on Nov. 27, 2011 upon his return from participating  at an even in France where he presented other members of the Haitian Chamber of Deputies. Belizaire accused of escaping prison. 

Belizaire's colleagues accused President Michel J. Martelly of being behind of this arrest. They said that the Chief of State is trying to use his executive power to silence his opponents or those who have severely criticized him.

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: Students Praise Education and Voice It for All

By Wadner Pierre

Part I

Left Dorgilles Wichmie, Melissa Jeonnat, and right Nathalie Jonnat and Jean Michelda.

Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste. Rev. Jean-Juste died two years ago from Leukemia because he was jailed for his political views and was not allowed by the 2004-2006 U.S deposed Gerard Latortue to travel to US to receive early treatment. Jean-Juste's legacy endures amongst the young and old in Haiti. He was [is] like an adoptive father for some people and a mentor to others.

Over eleven years ago, Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste and Margaret Trost, founder of the What If? Foundation, partnered in an effort to bring food and education to children in the Petite Place Cazeau neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.  Through funds provided by the What If? Foundation, thousands of young people have been supported over the years through the community-based food and education programs that Fr. Jean-Juste created.  Today, over two hundred children receive school scholarships, with some going to vocational school, and one thousand meals are served every Monday through Friday. Children are the priority. In the past three years the What If? Foundation has also funded an After-School Program to help students with their homework and provide an opportunity to learn income-producing skills. It has also sponsored a Summer Camp for the past nine years in the area. Five hundred students have attended. Trost said, “All this is only possible because of our wonderful Haitian partners who run the programs with such dedication, courage, and faith.”

Editorial:Nobel Prize Winners from Latin America Demand Withdrawl of all UN Troops in Haiti

UN Brazilian troops patrol the streets of Port-Au-Prince.Photo by 

Wadner Pierre

 By Wadner Pierre

As calls mount in Haiti to demand that UN troops to leave the country, other prominent Latin Americans have raised their voices in sign of solidarity with Haitian people. Nobel Peace Prize laureates Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Irish Betty Williams, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, and Brazilian theologians Leonardo Boff and Frei Betto are among hundreds of organizations and personalities around the world who signed this letter below. The letter is addressed to government of all countries who have troops in the UN mission in Haiti/MINUSTAH, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council, and the General Secretary of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza.

Haiti, a Nation in Fragments, Faces the Future

joy to the world: Children in the Cite Soleil slum, a bastion of support for former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. PHOTO: Isabeau Doucet

By Isabeau Doucet- The Indypendent

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — This tormented nation is about to anoint a new president, but the political leadership is as fragmented as the buildings that collapsed last January and still lie strewn over the capital. Haiti’s social movements are as neglected as the country’s decaying infrastructure. Everything from political alliances to street protests is for sale. People and organizations on the ground compete for — or are undermined by — NGO money that never provides for any cohesive structural change. Fuel prices, for example, have jumped an unprecedented 33 percent in recent weeks. But since unions can’t organize an effective strike of “tap taps” — the outlandishly colorful buses most Haitians use — it means locals are now paying double the previous price for transport.

The Truth About Haiti’s Cholera Epidemic: Interview of Dr. Renaud Piarroux by Dady Chery

 By Dady Chery Axisoflogic

In mid-October 2010, a cholera epidemic flared up in Haiti.  The epidemic continues, and over 6,000 Haitians have died of the cholera.  Until Fall 2010 there had been no record of cholera on the island of Hispaniola.  A United Nations (U.N., MINUSTAH) base was discovered to be dumping raw sewage, and it was immediately suspected of being the source of the cholera.

Photo form Axisoflogic.com

Dr. Renaud Piarroux is a major scientific authority on cholera epidemics, an expert in infectious diseases and parasitology. He holds an M.D. in Pediatrics and a Ph.D. in Microbiology, and he is currently a Professor of Parasitology at Aix Marseille University, Marseille, France.  He was the lead researcher of a scientific article that tracked Haiti’s cholera contamination to the U.N. MINUSTAH Nepalese military camp upstream of the Artibonite River and its Meille tributary.  More details about Dr. Piarroux and his work follow the interview.

Dady Chery:  Dr. Piarroux, first of all I want to thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Your work is highly respected by scientists the world over. Would you please tell our readers what you do?

Renaud Piarroux: I am a specialist in parasitic and infectious diseases, and I’ve specifically studied epidemics that occurred in developing countries. I try to understand how an epidemic can emerge somewhere and how it spreads to neighboring areas. This kind of work is a prerequisite for organizing better to fight against epidemics and to prevent the onset of new outbreaks. In particular, I’ve spent many years studying the dynamics of cholera epidemics in African countries, to provide local sanitary authorities key information to help them set up efficient strategies to fight cholera.

Former Haiti's Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Speak Next Month About Education, But No Setting Date

 by Wadner Pierre

Haiti's first-twice democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide will be speaking about Education next month according to former Sen. Dr. Louis Gerald Gilles. The Senator told Associated Press that the former Head of State's speech  will be focusing on Education. The event seems most likely to be taking place at the University Aristide Foundation for Democracy in commune Tabarre.

In one of his letters written and published by the Guardian UK before his return from his 7-years exile, the former head of State stressed his love for education and will be devoted his time in the field he likes as a professor. He said,"As I have not ceased to say since 29 February 2004, from exile in Central Africa, Jamaica and now South Africa, I will return to Haiti to the field I know best and love: education. We can only agree with the words of the great Nelson Mandela, that indeed education is a powerful weapon for changing the world." 

MINUSTAH’s New Chief: Herve Ladsous Haiti’s 21st Century Gen. Rochambeau

By Wadner Pierre

The monument of Vertieres in the entrance of the City of Cap-Haitien.Photo Wadner Pierre

This year Haiti will celebrate its two-hundred-seventh anniversary of Battaille de Vertieres Battle of Vertieres) in which the former slaves and colored people proudly defeated the French army and broke the slavery chain. Battaille of Vertieres was the last battle after which Haiti proclaimed its Independence and –became the world’s first Black republic in January 1, 1804. This war to liberate the country and ban slavery cost the lives of about 160,000 slaves, 60,000 French.