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Haiti and Africa Projects Shed Light on Clinton’s Public-Private Web
By MIKE McINTIREOCT. 16, 2016
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Cheryl Mills, left, with Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, attended the grand opening of a new industrial park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Getty Images
As chief of staff and counselor to Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Cheryl Mills worked ceaselessly to help a South Korean garment maker open a factory in Haiti, the centerpiece of United States government efforts to jump-start the island nation’s economy after the 2010 earthquake.
Ms. Mills took the lead on smoothing the way for the company, Sae-A Trading, which secured millions of dollars in incentives to make its Haiti investment more attractive, despite criticism of its labor record elsewhere. When she presided over the project’s unveiling in September 2010, she introduced Sae-A’s chairman, Woong-ki Kim, as the most important person at the ceremony, which included Mrs. Clinton and the Haitian prime minister.
Mr. Kim would later become important to Ms. Mills in a far more personal way — as a financial backer of a company she started after leaving the State Department in 2013. The company, BlackIvy Group, is pursuing infrastructure projects in Tanzania and Ghana, the only African nations in the “Partnership for Growth,” an Obama administration initiative that Mrs. Clinton helped initiate that promotes investment in developing countries.
The partnership with Mr. Kim sheds light on the business activities of Ms. Mills — a longtime Clinton loyalist who is likely to play a significant role in any future Clinton White House — as well as the interlocking public and private relationships that have long characterized the Clintons’ inner circle. A lawyer, Ms. Mills has been a target of Republican critics for her central role in determining which emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server would be publicly disclosed, and for sharing information about Africa — later designated as classified — with the Clinton Foundation while working at the State Department.
During Ms. Mills’s tenure at the department, Mr. Kim’s company, Sae-A, became a donor to the Clinton Foundation, through its Clinton Global Initiative, and Ms. Mills remained involved in foundation matters. According to emails hacked from the accounts of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and released by WikiLeaks, Ms. Mills helped draft memos and consulted on internal organizational issues at the foundation, though she used her personal Gmail account and not her government email.
Another close Clinton aide at the State Department, Huma Abedin, was for a time permitted to work for the foundation and an outside consulting firm while serving as a “special government employee.” Ms. Mills was also granted the same special designation after leaving the department, during the period when she was getting BlackIvy off the ground. The unpaid, part-time government role was “solely focused on Haiti” and did not involve her activities at BlackIvy, according to her spokesman, Eric London.
Since teaming up through BlackIvy, Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim have maintained close business ties, appearing together last year for the opening of a new Sae-A factory in Costa Rica where they cut the ribbon alongside Costa Rica’s president, Luis Guillermo Solís. In Africa, representatives of the United States Agency for International Development have consulted with BlackIvy and Sae-A about efforts to expand the textile trade in Ghana, where BlackIvy says the country’s 23-cents-an-hour minimum wage “compares favorably” to higher wages in China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Federal officials are barred from using their positions to negotiate future employment or exchange services for something of value, and no evidence has emerged to suggest that occurred with BlackIvy. Both Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim deny that his investment was influenced by the substantial assistance she provided his company while serving as Mrs. Clinton’s right hand at the State Department.
Ms. Mills, 51, declined to be interviewed for this article, but Mr. London, a BlackIvy spokesman, said she had consulted with the State Department ethics office before accepting Mr. Kim’s investment “to ensure it was consistent with any rules that applied to her because of her service.”
“Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim met during her work for the State Department in Haiti during earthquake reconstruction,” Mr. London said. “She had no personal business ventures and no discussions about any prospective business with Mr. Kim while she was at State.”
Karen Seo, a spokeswoman for Sae-A, said the State Department’s assistance in Haiti played no role in Mr. Kim’s decision to invest in BlackIvy. His discussions about making the investment began in “late 2014,” she said, more than a year after Ms. Mills had left the government.
Ms. Seo said Sae-A “currently has no plans to invest in garment and textile manufacturing facilities in Africa,” and that Ms. Mills had no business relationship with Sae-A outside of BlackIvy, adding that her appearance with Mr. Kim at the Sae-A factory opening in Costa Rica was of a social nature.
“Ms. Mills was invited and came to the Costa Rica event as a friend, as did many others,” she said.
Photo
Cheryl Mills, deputy White House counsel to Bill Clinton, in her office in 1999.CreditPaul Hosefros/The New York Times
Ms. Mills first gained public notice in the 1990s as a member of the legal team that defended then-President Clinton during his impeachment trial. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she worked for Mrs. Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. While she has said she has no formal role with Mrs. Clinton’s current campaign for president, she remains a close confidante — she was one of the few people aware of Mrs. Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis days before it was made public.
While at the State Department, Ms. Mills took the lead on a number of projects important to Mrs. Clinton, perhaps none more so than Haiti.
Even before the January 2010 earthquake, the impoverished Caribbean nation was the focus of attention from the Clintons. Mr. Clinton, whose foundation is active there, had been named a United Nations special envoy to Haiti, and as early as April 2009, just a few months after becoming secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was being forwarded emails from Ms. Mills containing economic development ideas.
Some of those ideas were from Jean-Louis Warnholz, an economist whose consulting business provided “intelligence on African markets.” In emails and meetings with the Clintons and Ms. Mills, he advocated investment in textiles and agriculture as a way to create jobs, a theory that was fast-tracked in Haiti after the earthquake with a proposal for an industrial park anchored by a major garment factory.
Ms. Mills soon hired Mr. Warnholz as her own adviser at the State Department — he would later join her at BlackIvy — and the two worked closely to push the industrial park concept. After overtures to another South Korean garment company fell through, Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Mills met with Sae-A Trading executives during a trip to Seoul to pitch the idea. Sae-A supplies clothing to some of the largest American retailers, including Walmart and Kohl’s, and has been accused of illegal tactics against union organizers at a plant in Guatemala, charges the company disputes.
Photo
Sae-A Chairman Woong-Ki Kim (left of Hillary and Bill Clinton) with workers at the opening of the the new Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Associated Press
Ultimately, the United States provided about $124 million to develop a power plant, housing and other improvements for the Haiti industrial park, while an international development bank contributed $100 million and the Haitians provided the land. Sae-A agreed to invest $78 million. Sae-A was blunt about the need to make the deal worth the money.
“This is business,” a company spokesman said at the time. “At the end of the day, it’s about making a profit.”
In addition to being good for Sae-A, the Haiti project recast the low-profile Mr. Kim as the sort of enlightened global capitalist the Clintons favor, earning him appearances at the Clinton Global Initiative and other international forums. When the industrial park opened for business in October, the Clintons were on hand for the celebration. Mrs. Clinton thanked Mr. Kim “for everything that you and the leadership of Sae-A is doing,” and she praised Ms. Mills for being the “real driver of our government’s support for everything that we see here today.”
Six months after she resigned from the State Department in February 2013, Ms. Mills incorporated BlackIvy Group. She has described it as a “private operating company that builds commercial enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Mr. Kim was among a handful of prominent investors in BlackIvy, according to a description that was once on BlackIvy’s website but has since been removed. The deleted page carried the heading “Our Team” and listed, in addition to Mr. Kim: Continental Grain, a multinational agribusiness with operations in Haiti; Steve Case, the founder of AOL; the Wall Street financier John Mack; the hedge fund founder Raymond Dalio; and Beck, Mack & Oliver, an investment firm.
The executive chairman of BlackIvy is Anthony Welters, a retired health insurance executive and longtime friend and mentor to Ms. Mills who has raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. His son, Bryant, works for BlackIvy, and his wife, Beatrice Wilkinson Welters, was the American ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago from 2010 to 2012.
In July, two BlackIvy representatives, including Bryant Welters, met with government leaders in Trinidad, part of what the prime minister’s office there said was a visit to explore “avenues for doing business with Trinidad and Tobago.” Asked why BlackIvy was in the Caribbean, far outside its stated market areas in Africa, the company’s spokesman, Mr. London, said it had nothing to do with Ms. Welters’s connections as a former ambassador.
BlackIvy, he said, was not actually seeking business in Trinidad, but met with companies there “to learn about their successes in the region and to explore opportunities for them to establish operations in Ghana and replicate those successes.”
What BlackIvy has accomplished so far is not clear. It signed an agreement with officials in Tanzania to develop a transportation hub, but Tanzanian media reports suggest it is progressing slowly. A Tanzanian government audit in March questioned how BlackIvy was chosen, saying “there was no evidence” it was through a competitive bidding process. Mr. London said competitive bidding was not needed because BlackIvy’s project is privately funded and there is no financial risk to the government.
In Ghana, where BlackIvy has been pursuing an industrial park project, a PowerPoint presentation prepared by BlackIvy cited the country’s low minimum wage as one of several competitive advantages that made Ghana “an ideal entry point to the West African market.”
Defending the model of attracting investment with promises of cheap labor, Mr. London offered an argument very similar to the one American officials made when explaining why Sae-A’s factory would be good for Haiti.
“The industrial park will increase manufacturing in Ghana — creating jobs and catalyzing growth — which benefits the country and investors,” he said. “Wages usually rise when manufacturing sectors expand and produce higher-value goods, which is what we want to see in Ghana.”
BlackIvy’s rationale did not sway labor advocates like Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, who had criticized the Haiti project as a misguided American relief effort that glossed over Sae-A’s labor-relations history.
“When you urge garment manufacturers producing in countries like Bangladesh, where wages are far too low for workers to adequately support their families, to move production to countries with even lower wages, it undercuts the efforts of apparel workers across the Global South to persuade governments, employers and major apparel brands to lift wages to a decent level,” Mr. Nova said.
Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/hillary-clinton-cheryl-mills.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
By MIKE McINTIREOCT. 16, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
Photo
Cheryl Mills, left, with Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, attended the grand opening of a new industrial park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Getty Images
As chief of staff and counselor to Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Cheryl Mills worked ceaselessly to help a South Korean garment maker open a factory in Haiti, the centerpiece of United States government efforts to jump-start the island nation’s economy after the 2010 earthquake.
Ms. Mills took the lead on smoothing the way for the company, Sae-A Trading, which secured millions of dollars in incentives to make its Haiti investment more attractive, despite criticism of its labor record elsewhere. When she presided over the project’s unveiling in September 2010, she introduced Sae-A’s chairman, Woong-ki Kim, as the most important person at the ceremony, which included Mrs. Clinton and the Haitian prime minister.
Mr. Kim would later become important to Ms. Mills in a far more personal way — as a financial backer of a company she started after leaving the State Department in 2013. The company, BlackIvy Group, is pursuing infrastructure projects in Tanzania and Ghana, the only African nations in the “Partnership for Growth,” an Obama administration initiative that Mrs. Clinton helped initiate that promotes investment in developing countries.
The partnership with Mr. Kim sheds light on the business activities of Ms. Mills — a longtime Clinton loyalist who is likely to play a significant role in any future Clinton White House — as well as the interlocking public and private relationships that have long characterized the Clintons’ inner circle. A lawyer, Ms. Mills has been a target of Republican critics for her central role in determining which emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server would be publicly disclosed, and for sharing information about Africa — later designated as classified — with the Clinton Foundation while working at the State Department.
During Ms. Mills’s tenure at the department, Mr. Kim’s company, Sae-A, became a donor to the Clinton Foundation, through its Clinton Global Initiative, and Ms. Mills remained involved in foundation matters. According to emails hacked from the accounts of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and released by WikiLeaks, Ms. Mills helped draft memos and consulted on internal organizational issues at the foundation, though she used her personal Gmail account and not her government email.
Another close Clinton aide at the State Department, Huma Abedin, was for a time permitted to work for the foundation and an outside consulting firm while serving as a “special government employee.” Ms. Mills was also granted the same special designation after leaving the department, during the period when she was getting BlackIvy off the ground. The unpaid, part-time government role was “solely focused on Haiti” and did not involve her activities at BlackIvy, according to her spokesman, Eric London.
Since teaming up through BlackIvy, Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim have maintained close business ties, appearing together last year for the opening of a new Sae-A factory in Costa Rica where they cut the ribbon alongside Costa Rica’s president, Luis Guillermo Solís. In Africa, representatives of the United States Agency for International Development have consulted with BlackIvy and Sae-A about efforts to expand the textile trade in Ghana, where BlackIvy says the country’s 23-cents-an-hour minimum wage “compares favorably” to higher wages in China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Federal officials are barred from using their positions to negotiate future employment or exchange services for something of value, and no evidence has emerged to suggest that occurred with BlackIvy. Both Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim deny that his investment was influenced by the substantial assistance she provided his company while serving as Mrs. Clinton’s right hand at the State Department.
Ms. Mills, 51, declined to be interviewed for this article, but Mr. London, a BlackIvy spokesman, said she had consulted with the State Department ethics office before accepting Mr. Kim’s investment “to ensure it was consistent with any rules that applied to her because of her service.”
“Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim met during her work for the State Department in Haiti during earthquake reconstruction,” Mr. London said. “She had no personal business ventures and no discussions about any prospective business with Mr. Kim while she was at State.”
Karen Seo, a spokeswoman for Sae-A, said the State Department’s assistance in Haiti played no role in Mr. Kim’s decision to invest in BlackIvy. His discussions about making the investment began in “late 2014,” she said, more than a year after Ms. Mills had left the government.
Ms. Seo said Sae-A “currently has no plans to invest in garment and textile manufacturing facilities in Africa,” and that Ms. Mills had no business relationship with Sae-A outside of BlackIvy, adding that her appearance with Mr. Kim at the Sae-A factory opening in Costa Rica was of a social nature.
“Ms. Mills was invited and came to the Costa Rica event as a friend, as did many others,” she said.
Photo
Cheryl Mills, deputy White House counsel to Bill Clinton, in her office in 1999.CreditPaul Hosefros/The New York Times
Ms. Mills first gained public notice in the 1990s as a member of the legal team that defended then-President Clinton during his impeachment trial. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she worked for Mrs. Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. While she has said she has no formal role with Mrs. Clinton’s current campaign for president, she remains a close confidante — she was one of the few people aware of Mrs. Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis days before it was made public.
While at the State Department, Ms. Mills took the lead on a number of projects important to Mrs. Clinton, perhaps none more so than Haiti.
Even before the January 2010 earthquake, the impoverished Caribbean nation was the focus of attention from the Clintons. Mr. Clinton, whose foundation is active there, had been named a United Nations special envoy to Haiti, and as early as April 2009, just a few months after becoming secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was being forwarded emails from Ms. Mills containing economic development ideas.
Some of those ideas were from Jean-Louis Warnholz, an economist whose consulting business provided “intelligence on African markets.” In emails and meetings with the Clintons and Ms. Mills, he advocated investment in textiles and agriculture as a way to create jobs, a theory that was fast-tracked in Haiti after the earthquake with a proposal for an industrial park anchored by a major garment factory.
Ms. Mills soon hired Mr. Warnholz as her own adviser at the State Department — he would later join her at BlackIvy — and the two worked closely to push the industrial park concept. After overtures to another South Korean garment company fell through, Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Mills met with Sae-A Trading executives during a trip to Seoul to pitch the idea. Sae-A supplies clothing to some of the largest American retailers, including Walmart and Kohl’s, and has been accused of illegal tactics against union organizers at a plant in Guatemala, charges the company disputes.
Photo
Sae-A Chairman Woong-Ki Kim (left of Hillary and Bill Clinton) with workers at the opening of the the new Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Associated Press
Ultimately, the United States provided about $124 million to develop a power plant, housing and other improvements for the Haiti industrial park, while an international development bank contributed $100 million and the Haitians provided the land. Sae-A agreed to invest $78 million. Sae-A was blunt about the need to make the deal worth the money.
“This is business,” a company spokesman said at the time. “At the end of the day, it’s about making a profit.”
In addition to being good for Sae-A, the Haiti project recast the low-profile Mr. Kim as the sort of enlightened global capitalist the Clintons favor, earning him appearances at the Clinton Global Initiative and other international forums. When the industrial park opened for business in October, the Clintons were on hand for the celebration. Mrs. Clinton thanked Mr. Kim “for everything that you and the leadership of Sae-A is doing,” and she praised Ms. Mills for being the “real driver of our government’s support for everything that we see here today.”
Six months after she resigned from the State Department in February 2013, Ms. Mills incorporated BlackIvy Group. She has described it as a “private operating company that builds commercial enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Mr. Kim was among a handful of prominent investors in BlackIvy, according to a description that was once on BlackIvy’s website but has since been removed. The deleted page carried the heading “Our Team” and listed, in addition to Mr. Kim: Continental Grain, a multinational agribusiness with operations in Haiti; Steve Case, the founder of AOL; the Wall Street financier John Mack; the hedge fund founder Raymond Dalio; and Beck, Mack & Oliver, an investment firm.
The executive chairman of BlackIvy is Anthony Welters, a retired health insurance executive and longtime friend and mentor to Ms. Mills who has raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. His son, Bryant, works for BlackIvy, and his wife, Beatrice Wilkinson Welters, was the American ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago from 2010 to 2012.
In July, two BlackIvy representatives, including Bryant Welters, met with government leaders in Trinidad, part of what the prime minister’s office there said was a visit to explore “avenues for doing business with Trinidad and Tobago.” Asked why BlackIvy was in the Caribbean, far outside its stated market areas in Africa, the company’s spokesman, Mr. London, said it had nothing to do with Ms. Welters’s connections as a former ambassador.
BlackIvy, he said, was not actually seeking business in Trinidad, but met with companies there “to learn about their successes in the region and to explore opportunities for them to establish operations in Ghana and replicate those successes.”
What BlackIvy has accomplished so far is not clear. It signed an agreement with officials in Tanzania to develop a transportation hub, but Tanzanian media reports suggest it is progressing slowly. A Tanzanian government audit in March questioned how BlackIvy was chosen, saying “there was no evidence” it was through a competitive bidding process. Mr. London said competitive bidding was not needed because BlackIvy’s project is privately funded and there is no financial risk to the government.
In Ghana, where BlackIvy has been pursuing an industrial park project, a PowerPoint presentation prepared by BlackIvy cited the country’s low minimum wage as one of several competitive advantages that made Ghana “an ideal entry point to the West African market.”
Defending the model of attracting investment with promises of cheap labor, Mr. London offered an argument very similar to the one American officials made when explaining why Sae-A’s factory would be good for Haiti.
“The industrial park will increase manufacturing in Ghana — creating jobs and catalyzing growth — which benefits the country and investors,” he said. “Wages usually rise when manufacturing sectors expand and produce higher-value goods, which is what we want to see in Ghana.”
BlackIvy’s rationale did not sway labor advocates like Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, who had criticized the Haiti project as a misguided American relief effort that glossed over Sae-A’s labor-relations history.
“When you urge garment manufacturers producing in countries like Bangladesh, where wages are far too low for workers to adequately support their families, to move production to countries with even lower wages, it undercuts the efforts of apparel workers across the Global South to persuade governments, employers and major apparel brands to lift wages to a decent level,” Mr. Nova said.
Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/hillary-clinton-cheryl-mills.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Haiti and Africa Projects Shed Light on Clinton’s Public-Private Web
By MIKE McINTIREOCT. 16, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
Photo
Cheryl Mills, left, with Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, attended the grand opening of a new industrial park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Getty Images
As chief of staff and counselor to Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Cheryl Mills worked ceaselessly to help a South Korean garment maker open a factory in Haiti, the centerpiece of United States government efforts to jump-start the island nation’s economy after the 2010 earthquake.
Ms. Mills took the lead on smoothing the way for the company, Sae-A Trading, which secured millions of dollars in incentives to make its Haiti investment more attractive, despite criticism of its labor record elsewhere. When she presided over the project’s unveiling in September 2010, she introduced Sae-A’s chairman, Woong-ki Kim, as the most important person at the ceremony, which included Mrs. Clinton and the Haitian prime minister.
Mr. Kim would later become important to Ms. Mills in a far more personal way — as a financial backer of a company she started after leaving the State Department in 2013. The company, BlackIvy Group, is pursuing infrastructure projects in Tanzania and Ghana, the only African nations in the “Partnership for Growth,” an Obama administration initiative that Mrs. Clinton helped initiate that promotes investment in developing countries.
The partnership with Mr. Kim sheds light on the business activities of Ms. Mills — a longtime Clinton loyalist who is likely to play a significant role in any future Clinton White House — as well as the interlocking public and private relationships that have long characterized the Clintons’ inner circle. A lawyer, Ms. Mills has been a target of Republican critics for her central role in determining which emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server would be publicly disclosed, and for sharing information about Africa — later designated as classified — with the Clinton Foundation while working at the State Department.
During Ms. Mills’s tenure at the department, Mr. Kim’s company, Sae-A, became a donor to the Clinton Foundation, through its Clinton Global Initiative, and Ms. Mills remained involved in foundation matters. According to emails hacked from the accounts of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and released by WikiLeaks, Ms. Mills helped draft memos and consulted on internal organizational issues at the foundation, though she used her personal Gmail account and not her government email.
Another close Clinton aide at the State Department, Huma Abedin, was for a time permitted to work for the foundation and an outside consulting firm while serving as a “special government employee.” Ms. Mills was also granted the same special designation after leaving the department, during the period when she was getting BlackIvy off the ground. The unpaid, part-time government role was “solely focused on Haiti” and did not involve her activities at BlackIvy, according to her spokesman, Eric London.
Since teaming up through BlackIvy, Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim have maintained close business ties, appearing together last year for the opening of a new Sae-A factory in Costa Rica where they cut the ribbon alongside Costa Rica’s president, Luis Guillermo Solís. In Africa, representatives of the United States Agency for International Development have consulted with BlackIvy and Sae-A about efforts to expand the textile trade in Ghana, where BlackIvy says the country’s 23-cents-an-hour minimum wage “compares favorably” to higher wages in China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Federal officials are barred from using their positions to negotiate future employment or exchange services for something of value, and no evidence has emerged to suggest that occurred with BlackIvy. Both Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim deny that his investment was influenced by the substantial assistance she provided his company while serving as Mrs. Clinton’s right hand at the State Department.
Ms. Mills, 51, declined to be interviewed for this article, but Mr. London, a BlackIvy spokesman, said she had consulted with the State Department ethics office before accepting Mr. Kim’s investment “to ensure it was consistent with any rules that applied to her because of her service.”
“Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim met during her work for the State Department in Haiti during earthquake reconstruction,” Mr. London said. “She had no personal business ventures and no discussions about any prospective business with Mr. Kim while she was at State.”
Karen Seo, a spokeswoman for Sae-A, said the State Department’s assistance in Haiti played no role in Mr. Kim’s decision to invest in BlackIvy. His discussions about making the investment began in “late 2014,” she said, more than a year after Ms. Mills had left the government.
Ms. Seo said Sae-A “currently has no plans to invest in garment and textile manufacturing facilities in Africa,” and that Ms. Mills had no business relationship with Sae-A outside of BlackIvy, adding that her appearance with Mr. Kim at the Sae-A factory opening in Costa Rica was of a social nature.
“Ms. Mills was invited and came to the Costa Rica event as a friend, as did many others,” she said.
Photo
Cheryl Mills, deputy White House counsel to Bill Clinton, in her office in 1999.CreditPaul Hosefros/The New York Times
Ms. Mills first gained public notice in the 1990s as a member of the legal team that defended then-President Clinton during his impeachment trial. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she worked for Mrs. Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. While she has said she has no formal role with Mrs. Clinton’s current campaign for president, she remains a close confidante — she was one of the few people aware of Mrs. Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis days before it was made public.
While at the State Department, Ms. Mills took the lead on a number of projects important to Mrs. Clinton, perhaps none more so than Haiti.
Even before the January 2010 earthquake, the impoverished Caribbean nation was the focus of attention from the Clintons. Mr. Clinton, whose foundation is active there, had been named a United Nations special envoy to Haiti, and as early as April 2009, just a few months after becoming secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was being forwarded emails from Ms. Mills containing economic development ideas.
Some of those ideas were from Jean-Louis Warnholz, an economist whose consulting business provided “intelligence on African markets.” In emails and meetings with the Clintons and Ms. Mills, he advocated investment in textiles and agriculture as a way to create jobs, a theory that was fast-tracked in Haiti after the earthquake with a proposal for an industrial park anchored by a major garment factory.
Ms. Mills soon hired Mr. Warnholz as her own adviser at the State Department — he would later join her at BlackIvy — and the two worked closely to push the industrial park concept. After overtures to another South Korean garment company fell through, Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Mills met with Sae-A Trading executives during a trip to Seoul to pitch the idea. Sae-A supplies clothing to some of the largest American retailers, including Walmart and Kohl’s, and has been accused of illegal tactics against union organizers at a plant in Guatemala, charges the company disputes.
Photo
Sae-A Chairman Woong-Ki Kim (left of Hillary and Bill Clinton) with workers at the opening of the the new Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti in October 2012. CreditLarry Downing/Associated Press
Ultimately, the United States provided about $124 million to develop a power plant, housing and other improvements for the Haiti industrial park, while an international development bank contributed $100 million and the Haitians provided the land. Sae-A agreed to invest $78 million. Sae-A was blunt about the need to make the deal worth the money.
“This is business,” a company spokesman said at the time. “At the end of the day, it’s about making a profit.”
In addition to being good for Sae-A, the Haiti project recast the low-profile Mr. Kim as the sort of enlightened global capitalist the Clintons favor, earning him appearances at the Clinton Global Initiative and other international forums. When the industrial park opened for business in October, the Clintons were on hand for the celebration. Mrs. Clinton thanked Mr. Kim “for everything that you and the leadership of Sae-A is doing,” and she praised Ms. Mills for being the “real driver of our government’s support for everything that we see here today.”
Six months after she resigned from the State Department in February 2013, Ms. Mills incorporated BlackIvy Group. She has described it as a “private operating company that builds commercial enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Mr. Kim was among a handful of prominent investors in BlackIvy, according to a description that was once on BlackIvy’s website but has since been removed. The deleted page carried the heading “Our Team” and listed, in addition to Mr. Kim: Continental Grain, a multinational agribusiness with operations in Haiti; Steve Case, the founder of AOL; the Wall Street financier John Mack; the hedge fund founder Raymond Dalio; and Beck, Mack & Oliver, an investment firm.
The executive chairman of BlackIvy is Anthony Welters, a retired health insurance executive and longtime friend and mentor to Ms. Mills who has raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. His son, Bryant, works for BlackIvy, and his wife, Beatrice Wilkinson Welters, was the American ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago from 2010 to 2012.
In July, two BlackIvy representatives, including Bryant Welters, met with government leaders in Trinidad, part of what the prime minister’s office there said was a visit to explore “avenues for doing business with Trinidad and Tobago.” Asked why BlackIvy was in the Caribbean, far outside its stated market areas in Africa, the company’s spokesman, Mr. London, said it had nothing to do with Ms. Welters’s connections as a former ambassador.
BlackIvy, he said, was not actually seeking business in Trinidad, but met with companies there “to learn about their successes in the region and to explore opportunities for them to establish operations in Ghana and replicate those successes.”
What BlackIvy has accomplished so far is not clear. It signed an agreement with officials in Tanzania to develop a transportation hub, but Tanzanian media reports suggest it is progressing slowly. A Tanzanian government audit in March questioned how BlackIvy was chosen, saying “there was no evidence” it was through a competitive bidding process. Mr. London said competitive bidding was not needed because BlackIvy’s project is privately funded and there is no financial risk to the government.
In Ghana, where BlackIvy has been pursuing an industrial park project, a PowerPoint presentation prepared by BlackIvy cited the country’s low minimum wage as one of several competitive advantages that made Ghana “an ideal entry point to the West African market.”
Defending the model of attracting investment with promises of cheap labor, Mr. London offered an argument very similar to the one American officials made when explaining why Sae-A’s factory would be good for Haiti.
“The industrial park will increase manufacturing in Ghana — creating jobs and catalyzing growth — which benefits the country and investors,” he said. “Wages usually rise when manufacturing sectors expand and produce higher-value goods, which is what we want to see in Ghana.”
BlackIvy’s rationale did not sway labor advocates like Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, who had criticized the Haiti project as a misguided American relief effort that glossed over Sae-A’s labor-relations history.
“When you urge garment manufacturers producing in countries like Bangladesh, where wages are far too low for workers to adequately support their families, to move production to countries with even lower wages, it undercuts the efforts of apparel workers across the Global South to persuade governments, employers and major apparel brands to lift wages to a decent level,” Mr. Nova said.
Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/hillary-clinton-cheryl-mills.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
I'll just say for right now that I am very conspicuous about this...
One of Cuba’s fastest growing economies is inspired by the life of saints
HAVANA—Cuba’s most widely practiced religion is experiencing a popularity boom that it hasn’t seen in decades.
Santeria, a syncretic religion that blends West African Yoruba beliefs and traditions with Roman Catholicism, has existed in Cuba since the days of the West African slave trade, but proliferated during the economic crisis of the 1990s and is now practiced by nearly 80% of the population.
The religion is currently experiencing another popularity boom, but one that seems to be tied to the country’s opening to the U.S. and the gradual expansion of capitalism.
Santeria could be considered one of Cuba’s fastest-growing informal economies, luring tourists who are willing to pay thousands of dollars to become Santeria priests.
Religious experts I spoke to on the island say the average price to become initiated in the religion ranges from $1,000 to $3,000, which includes a ceremony to sacrifice a live animals including and other rituals including dance and the mixing of an assortment of holy plants for seven days.
In the U.S. and Europe, a similar Santeria ceremony might cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. So more foreigners are traveling to Cuba to become santeros. And as the internet grows across the island, so, too, is Cuba’s Santeria economy.
“Santeria is going virtual; there are more online stores,” says Adrian Lopez-Denis, a Latin American Studies professor at Princeton. He says the internet is making it easier for Cubans to study Santeria online, and market it to foreigners. “Today, most santeros have a laptop because they study the e-books and software to become santeros. It’s through educational software that people are learning now: Santeria 2.0. And, of course, they are commodifying it.”
But the Santeria boom has some of its faithful concerned that the newfound popularity will lead to exploitation and appropriation of a religion that is deeply connected to Cuba’s Afro-descendant legacy.
Juan Alvarez, a middle aged Afro-Cuban man who lives with his his family in Havana, is a long-time Santeria follower who worries that the religion is evolving from an organic spiritual practice to a lucrative business that leaves Afro-Cubans in a precarious condition.
“Santeria has become really trendy,” he told me in his living room, as his son’s stereo thumped U.S. rap songs in the next room. “Whites have been coming to Cuba and practicing this black religion and stealing our secrets. They began to realize that there was money to be made and they started taking advantage.”
Alvarez says the exploitation and hypocrisy is as old as Cuba itself.
“Since the beginning, whites have always been interested in black religions. Now they are saying that our religion is good, but we as black people are bad,” he says. “They want to criticize black people but also be like black people; it’s a form of racism and envy.”
Lucas Napoles-Cárdenas, a celebrated Santeria storyteller and Afro-Cuban activist from Havana believes that the rise of Santeria’s popularity has created a form of racial exploitation that’s “similar to what happened with rock and roll in the U.S., when whites took over black music in the 1950s and claimed it as their own.”
A similar appropriation is happening in Cuba with Santeria, he says. “They [foreigners] have now tried to take the religion over here. They study the religion and are taking ownership of it.”
Still for others who practice Santeria, like Christian Betancourt, a 36-year-old European descendent who lives in Santo Domingo, a small rural town located in the Villa Clara province, Santeria is not entirely defined by its racial dynamics.
Betancourt became a Santero in 2001, and has become a babalao, the religion’s highest rank. He thinks the growth of the religion is about people from all walks of life looking for spirituality.
“The religion is growing and can be practiced by whomever believes in a supreme higher being,” he explained as he prepared an assortment of ceremonial herbs for a practitioners upcoming ceremony. “It doesn’t matter what color you are. There are a lot of people today who have fallen in bad situations and all of those things are missing from their lives. People are coming from all over the world to practice Santeria because we have the purest form here.”
Some Santeria practitioners don’t see any problem with making money from the religion. After all, Santeria certainly wouldn’t be the first religion to profit from faith.
“We are living in a place where there is a lot of struggle and necessity,” says Neviz Ayón Samé, a woman who claims she was cured of disease by a Santeria priest when she was young. “People who become santerosare often waiting for a foreigner to come from the outside so that they can make money. You can’t survive with what the government pays you, so Santeros do whatever it takes to survive like charge tourists a lot of money for their services and, in a way, are obligated to do these illegal things.”
“It’s all about survival,” she said.
One of Cuba's Fastest Growing Economies Is Inspired by the Life of Saints
@CashmereEsquire @305DeadCounty its happening...
HAVANA—Cuba’s most widely practiced religion is experiencing a popularity boom that it hasn’t seen in decades.
Santeria, a syncretic religion that blends West African Yoruba beliefs and traditions with Roman Catholicism, has existed in Cuba since the days of the West African slave trade, but proliferated during the economic crisis of the 1990s and is now practiced by nearly 80% of the population.
The religion is currently experiencing another popularity boom, but one that seems to be tied to the country’s opening to the U.S. and the gradual expansion of capitalism.
Santeria could be considered one of Cuba’s fastest-growing informal economies, luring tourists who are willing to pay thousands of dollars to become Santeria priests.
Religious experts I spoke to on the island say the average price to become initiated in the religion ranges from $1,000 to $3,000, which includes a ceremony to sacrifice a live animals including and other rituals including dance and the mixing of an assortment of holy plants for seven days.
In the U.S. and Europe, a similar Santeria ceremony might cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000. So more foreigners are traveling to Cuba to become santeros. And as the internet grows across the island, so, too, is Cuba’s Santeria economy.
“Santeria is going virtual; there are more online stores,” says Adrian Lopez-Denis, a Latin American Studies professor at Princeton. He says the internet is making it easier for Cubans to study Santeria online, and market it to foreigners. “Today, most santeros have a laptop because they study the e-books and software to become santeros. It’s through educational software that people are learning now: Santeria 2.0. And, of course, they are commodifying it.”
But the Santeria boom has some of its faithful concerned that the newfound popularity will lead to exploitation and appropriation of a religion that is deeply connected to Cuba’s Afro-descendant legacy.
Juan Alvarez, a middle aged Afro-Cuban man who lives with his his family in Havana, is a long-time Santeria follower who worries that the religion is evolving from an organic spiritual practice to a lucrative business that leaves Afro-Cubans in a precarious condition.
“Santeria has become really trendy,” he told me in his living room, as his son’s stereo thumped U.S. rap songs in the next room. “Whites have been coming to Cuba and practicing this black religion and stealing our secrets. They began to realize that there was money to be made and they started taking advantage.”
Alvarez says the exploitation and hypocrisy is as old as Cuba itself.
“Since the beginning, whites have always been interested in black religions. Now they are saying that our religion is good, but we as black people are bad,” he says. “They want to criticize black people but also be like black people; it’s a form of racism and envy.”
Lucas Napoles-Cárdenas, a celebrated Santeria storyteller and Afro-Cuban activist from Havana believes that the rise of Santeria’s popularity has created a form of racial exploitation that’s “similar to what happened with rock and roll in the U.S., when whites took over black music in the 1950s and claimed it as their own.”
A similar appropriation is happening in Cuba with Santeria, he says. “They [foreigners] have now tried to take the religion over here. They study the religion and are taking ownership of it.”
Still for others who practice Santeria, like Christian Betancourt, a 36-year-old European descendent who lives in Santo Domingo, a small rural town located in the Villa Clara province, Santeria is not entirely defined by its racial dynamics.
Betancourt became a Santero in 2001, and has become a babalao, the religion’s highest rank. He thinks the growth of the religion is about people from all walks of life looking for spirituality.
“The religion is growing and can be practiced by whomever believes in a supreme higher being,” he explained as he prepared an assortment of ceremonial herbs for a practitioners upcoming ceremony. “It doesn’t matter what color you are. There are a lot of people today who have fallen in bad situations and all of those things are missing from their lives. People are coming from all over the world to practice Santeria because we have the purest form here.”
Some Santeria practitioners don’t see any problem with making money from the religion. After all, Santeria certainly wouldn’t be the first religion to profit from faith.
“We are living in a place where there is a lot of struggle and necessity,” says Neviz Ayón Samé, a woman who claims she was cured of disease by a Santeria priest when she was young. “People who become santerosare often waiting for a foreigner to come from the outside so that they can make money. You can’t survive with what the government pays you, so Santeros do whatever it takes to survive like charge tourists a lot of money for their services and, in a way, are obligated to do these illegal things.”
“It’s all about survival,” she said.
One of Cuba's Fastest Growing Economies Is Inspired by the Life of Saints
@CashmereEsquire @305DeadCounty its happening...
When We Vote Against Peace
What's Behind Colombia's 'No' Vote
Graffiti in Bogotá, Colombia. via svenwerk / Flickr.com
Daniel José Camacho 10-14-2016
The “No” vote on a proposed peace deal in Colombia between the government and rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has shocked virtually everyone.
People of conscience and faith here in the U.S. should pay close attention to Colombia for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the struggle for peace there presents a mirror to our own fears and dispositions and to the global logics of the war on terror and drugs. One thing that the results of the plebiscite revealed is that it is hard to change public imagination overnight after spending decades of fueling war, demonizing enemies, and seeing issues one-dimensionally.
As a Colombian-American who wants peace for my motherland, the last month has been an emotional roller coaster, but I’ve been inspired by witnessing the resilience, love, and commitment to justice and peace of so many ordinary people. Just a few weeks before the vote, I participated in a peace delegation to Colombia. I listened to victims of the armed conflict, observed the impact of U.S. policies regarding free trade and drugs, and learned about the ongoing peace process.
I connected with displaced Afro-Colombians preserving their way of life through the Amdae community center in Bogotá; anti-militarist feminists organizing through Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres in Popayán; victims and loved ones of victims telling their stories in Galería De La Memoria in Cali; and Christians working for social justice throughout Colombia via Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz. Most of the survivors, activists, and civil society organizations I talked to were in agreement that the peace deal was a necessary, even if insufficient, first step in the pursuit of holistic peace.
So What Happened?
As Enrique Chimonja, a Colombian who has accompanied indigenous, campesino, and Afro-Colombian communities in their quests to link peace to justice, has explained: "We can begin to participate in peacebuilding efforts. But this is clearly going to mean that rights as fundamental as the right to land, the right to health, education, employment, dignified housing are truly guaranteed because we can’t fall into the trap of those only interested in ending the armed conflict, thinking that this is what we call peace.
“Peace especially requires new conditions and guarantees to resolve the social inequality which has reined in Colombia for over 50 years."
The social and political issues plaguing Colombia run much deeper than the armed conflict between the state and FARC. In fact, more than 12 activists have been killed since the recent ceasefire with FARC and 99 unionists have been assassinated since the passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in 2012 — most of these committed by other armed actors that include right-wing paramilitaries. Further, land distribution in Colombia is among the most unequal in the world, with some estimates that 52 percent of rural property is owned by 1.15 percent of the population. During my delegation, I talked to displaced Afro-Colombians in Bogotá who told me about being violently harassed by police (specifically ESMAD). I also saw first-hand how the communities of Pilón Mercaderes y Galindez Patía in Cauca have been waiting for an adequate response from the government while the river that has sustained their entire life and economy is currently being drained by a corporation.
Graffiti in Colombia. Image courtesy Daniel José Camacho.
Although the systemic problems are many, the peace deal between the government and FARC still could have been a step in the right direction; it will now be more difficult to tackle deeper inequalities without the baseline of this peace agreement.
While in Cauca, I spoke to a woman who recounted one of her experiences with FARC. Many years before, a unit of FARC had been passing through her rural village forcibly recruiting young boys and girls. The woman had to smuggle her son out of the village on a bus, hiding him in a package full of vegetables. That is what it took for her to prevent her son from being taken to the jungle to fight. After recounting this story, the woman told me that she was voting “Yes” in the upcoming plebiscite. I was shocked and asked her why, as it seemed she had every reason to be resentful towards FARC. She said: “If they would have taken my son, I would want him to have another chance at life. I would want to give him and others a chance to get out of war. Yes, they have done bad things. But so have many groups. We need to try to practice forgiveness.”
Forgiveness is a tricky thing. It many ways, I believe it is a free gift. Forgiveness is not something that can be demanded from victims by those with privilege. A miracle of the Colombian struggle for peace is how victims have pushed for reconciliatory efforts. The woman I spoke to in Cauca was not an exception.
Consider what happened in the town of Bojayá, one of the places hardest hit by a FARC attack: The peace deal was supported at 96 percent, one of the highest rates in the country. Even the high-profile, ex-senator Ingrid Betancourt, who had previously been kidnapped by FARC, wrote publicly in support of the peace deal. The tragic nature of the plebiscite results were that, by and large, the places most affected by the armed conflict supported the peace deal but were outnumbered by people in areas less directly affected who rejected it.
So why did the “No” votes win? The votes can be broken down in various ways. Partly, it was a low voter turnout of 37 percent that could be blamed on indifference, over-confidence, and Hurricane Matthew battering the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Partly, it was the low approval rating of current President Juan Manuel Santos — notwithstanding the Nobel Peace Prize he received for his efforts — and the manner in which he rolled out the peace agreement. Partly, it was the fragmented geographies within Colombia that have driven the divisions and civil wars throughout the nation’s history. My favorite: the Colombian who attributed it to the success of Voldemort.
What's Behind Colombia's 'No' Vote
Graffiti in Bogotá, Colombia. via svenwerk / Flickr.com
Daniel José Camacho 10-14-2016
The “No” vote on a proposed peace deal in Colombia between the government and rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has shocked virtually everyone.
People of conscience and faith here in the U.S. should pay close attention to Colombia for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the struggle for peace there presents a mirror to our own fears and dispositions and to the global logics of the war on terror and drugs. One thing that the results of the plebiscite revealed is that it is hard to change public imagination overnight after spending decades of fueling war, demonizing enemies, and seeing issues one-dimensionally.
As a Colombian-American who wants peace for my motherland, the last month has been an emotional roller coaster, but I’ve been inspired by witnessing the resilience, love, and commitment to justice and peace of so many ordinary people. Just a few weeks before the vote, I participated in a peace delegation to Colombia. I listened to victims of the armed conflict, observed the impact of U.S. policies regarding free trade and drugs, and learned about the ongoing peace process.
I connected with displaced Afro-Colombians preserving their way of life through the Amdae community center in Bogotá; anti-militarist feminists organizing through Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres in Popayán; victims and loved ones of victims telling their stories in Galería De La Memoria in Cali; and Christians working for social justice throughout Colombia via Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz. Most of the survivors, activists, and civil society organizations I talked to were in agreement that the peace deal was a necessary, even if insufficient, first step in the pursuit of holistic peace.
So What Happened?
As Enrique Chimonja, a Colombian who has accompanied indigenous, campesino, and Afro-Colombian communities in their quests to link peace to justice, has explained: "We can begin to participate in peacebuilding efforts. But this is clearly going to mean that rights as fundamental as the right to land, the right to health, education, employment, dignified housing are truly guaranteed because we can’t fall into the trap of those only interested in ending the armed conflict, thinking that this is what we call peace.
“Peace especially requires new conditions and guarantees to resolve the social inequality which has reined in Colombia for over 50 years."
The social and political issues plaguing Colombia run much deeper than the armed conflict between the state and FARC. In fact, more than 12 activists have been killed since the recent ceasefire with FARC and 99 unionists have been assassinated since the passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in 2012 — most of these committed by other armed actors that include right-wing paramilitaries. Further, land distribution in Colombia is among the most unequal in the world, with some estimates that 52 percent of rural property is owned by 1.15 percent of the population. During my delegation, I talked to displaced Afro-Colombians in Bogotá who told me about being violently harassed by police (specifically ESMAD). I also saw first-hand how the communities of Pilón Mercaderes y Galindez Patía in Cauca have been waiting for an adequate response from the government while the river that has sustained their entire life and economy is currently being drained by a corporation.
Graffiti in Colombia. Image courtesy Daniel José Camacho.
Although the systemic problems are many, the peace deal between the government and FARC still could have been a step in the right direction; it will now be more difficult to tackle deeper inequalities without the baseline of this peace agreement.
While in Cauca, I spoke to a woman who recounted one of her experiences with FARC. Many years before, a unit of FARC had been passing through her rural village forcibly recruiting young boys and girls. The woman had to smuggle her son out of the village on a bus, hiding him in a package full of vegetables. That is what it took for her to prevent her son from being taken to the jungle to fight. After recounting this story, the woman told me that she was voting “Yes” in the upcoming plebiscite. I was shocked and asked her why, as it seemed she had every reason to be resentful towards FARC. She said: “If they would have taken my son, I would want him to have another chance at life. I would want to give him and others a chance to get out of war. Yes, they have done bad things. But so have many groups. We need to try to practice forgiveness.”
Forgiveness is a tricky thing. It many ways, I believe it is a free gift. Forgiveness is not something that can be demanded from victims by those with privilege. A miracle of the Colombian struggle for peace is how victims have pushed for reconciliatory efforts. The woman I spoke to in Cauca was not an exception.
Consider what happened in the town of Bojayá, one of the places hardest hit by a FARC attack: The peace deal was supported at 96 percent, one of the highest rates in the country. Even the high-profile, ex-senator Ingrid Betancourt, who had previously been kidnapped by FARC, wrote publicly in support of the peace deal. The tragic nature of the plebiscite results were that, by and large, the places most affected by the armed conflict supported the peace deal but were outnumbered by people in areas less directly affected who rejected it.
So why did the “No” votes win? The votes can be broken down in various ways. Partly, it was a low voter turnout of 37 percent that could be blamed on indifference, over-confidence, and Hurricane Matthew battering the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Partly, it was the low approval rating of current President Juan Manuel Santos — notwithstanding the Nobel Peace Prize he received for his efforts — and the manner in which he rolled out the peace agreement. Partly, it was the fragmented geographies within Colombia that have driven the divisions and civil wars throughout the nation’s history. My favorite: the Colombian who attributed it to the success of Voldemort.
Campaigning Against Peace
Ex-president and current senator, Álvaro Uribe, spearheaded a rigorous “No” campaign flanked by corporate media and right-wing religious groups. The more tame criticism of the peace deal was that it would provide amnesty and political participation to criminals who deserved prison time. Uribe was backed by Human Rights Watch whose president publicly celebrated the rejection of the peace deal.
According to local human rights defenders that I spoke to in Colombia, the points listed within the peace accord were greatly misunderstood and twisted by different agendas. A less carceral approach that emphasized restorative justice was interpreted as impunity. Opponents of the peace deal portrayed FARC as receiving special treatment but often failed to disclose the deeper context. For example, Uribe and leaders of the “No” campaign blasted the Colombian government for promising five seats to demobilized FARC members both in the house and senate. The government had included these seats in the agreement to acknowledge the political genocide of more than 3,500 members of Unión Patriótica, a political party formed in the 1980s, which included a large number of demobilized FARC members and which the government failed to protect even after making guarantees.
In his less tame criticisms, Uribe wrote open letters to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump asking for either’s support in helping to prevent Colombia become “a second Venezuela” due to the peace deal. Other right-wing politicians — and religious groups — bashed the peace deal for supposedly covertly pushing a feminist and gay agenda. Many people believe that President Santos’ appointment of now ex-Minster of Education, Gina Parody, to work for the “Yes” campaign galvanized “No” voters because she is an open lesbian.
An Uncertain Future: Where the U.S. Fits In
After the plebiscite results, it is unclear what will now happen. There are a number of possibilities. Nevertheless, I believe it is important for those of us in the U.S. to continue to support peace and to pressure our own government to support peace. When we look at the long struggle in Colombia and the current volatility, there needs to be an acknowledgement that we are implicated in this.
Children in Buenaventura. Photo via EC/ECHO/ I. Coello on Flickr
Although President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have recently supported the peace deal, it is important to remember that the U.S. has spent decades fueling the war on drugs and counter-insurgency in Colombia through Plan Colombia. While hailed as a success by some (primarily for helping to weaken FARC), this mostly militaristic approach has been a human rights catastrophe. More Colombians were displaced during Plan Colombia, which started in 2000, than at any other time in the half-century conflict. Colombia is once again the world’s No. 1 producer of cocaine even though Plan Colombia was originally conceived to fight drugs. In spite of this track record, Hillary Clinton has continuously praised Plan Colombia and recently said, “We need to do more of a Colombian Plan for Central America.”
President Obama has proposed a new $450 million aid package to Colombia called “Peace Colombia.” Although it has some provisions for removing landmines and for projects directly related to peace, this aid package still heavily emphasizes militarized “security” and fighting drugs. Much more work will be required in order to ensure that U.S. aid to Colombia does not repeat the failures of a failed war on drugs.
The United States was the only country with a majority of Colombians overseas voting “No” to the peace deal. I think this is significant because Colombia very much represents another underside to the United States’ war on drugs and terror.
After the tragic plebiscite results, I wonder if part of the work for peace and justice will require doing more to transform our imaginations. We can’t expect people to change overnight when they’ve been fed a steady diet of justifications for militarism, the demonization of enemies, and an over-simplification of the issues. If we are to truly step forward towards holistic peace, we will have to unlearn the logics of the war on drugs and terror, logics that we have deeply internalized across borders.
Daniel José Camacho
Daniel José Camacho is a Masters of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School. He graduated from Calvin College in May 2013 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Daniel's writing has been published in Perspectives Journal of Reformed Thought, Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, TIME, and his commentary has appeared in The New York Times.
When We Vote Against Peace
Ex-president and current senator, Álvaro Uribe, spearheaded a rigorous “No” campaign flanked by corporate media and right-wing religious groups. The more tame criticism of the peace deal was that it would provide amnesty and political participation to criminals who deserved prison time. Uribe was backed by Human Rights Watch whose president publicly celebrated the rejection of the peace deal.
According to local human rights defenders that I spoke to in Colombia, the points listed within the peace accord were greatly misunderstood and twisted by different agendas. A less carceral approach that emphasized restorative justice was interpreted as impunity. Opponents of the peace deal portrayed FARC as receiving special treatment but often failed to disclose the deeper context. For example, Uribe and leaders of the “No” campaign blasted the Colombian government for promising five seats to demobilized FARC members both in the house and senate. The government had included these seats in the agreement to acknowledge the political genocide of more than 3,500 members of Unión Patriótica, a political party formed in the 1980s, which included a large number of demobilized FARC members and which the government failed to protect even after making guarantees.
In his less tame criticisms, Uribe wrote open letters to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump asking for either’s support in helping to prevent Colombia become “a second Venezuela” due to the peace deal. Other right-wing politicians — and religious groups — bashed the peace deal for supposedly covertly pushing a feminist and gay agenda. Many people believe that President Santos’ appointment of now ex-Minster of Education, Gina Parody, to work for the “Yes” campaign galvanized “No” voters because she is an open lesbian.
An Uncertain Future: Where the U.S. Fits In
After the plebiscite results, it is unclear what will now happen. There are a number of possibilities. Nevertheless, I believe it is important for those of us in the U.S. to continue to support peace and to pressure our own government to support peace. When we look at the long struggle in Colombia and the current volatility, there needs to be an acknowledgement that we are implicated in this.
Children in Buenaventura. Photo via EC/ECHO/ I. Coello on Flickr
Although President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have recently supported the peace deal, it is important to remember that the U.S. has spent decades fueling the war on drugs and counter-insurgency in Colombia through Plan Colombia. While hailed as a success by some (primarily for helping to weaken FARC), this mostly militaristic approach has been a human rights catastrophe. More Colombians were displaced during Plan Colombia, which started in 2000, than at any other time in the half-century conflict. Colombia is once again the world’s No. 1 producer of cocaine even though Plan Colombia was originally conceived to fight drugs. In spite of this track record, Hillary Clinton has continuously praised Plan Colombia and recently said, “We need to do more of a Colombian Plan for Central America.”
President Obama has proposed a new $450 million aid package to Colombia called “Peace Colombia.” Although it has some provisions for removing landmines and for projects directly related to peace, this aid package still heavily emphasizes militarized “security” and fighting drugs. Much more work will be required in order to ensure that U.S. aid to Colombia does not repeat the failures of a failed war on drugs.
The United States was the only country with a majority of Colombians overseas voting “No” to the peace deal. I think this is significant because Colombia very much represents another underside to the United States’ war on drugs and terror.
After the tragic plebiscite results, I wonder if part of the work for peace and justice will require doing more to transform our imaginations. We can’t expect people to change overnight when they’ve been fed a steady diet of justifications for militarism, the demonization of enemies, and an over-simplification of the issues. If we are to truly step forward towards holistic peace, we will have to unlearn the logics of the war on drugs and terror, logics that we have deeply internalized across borders.
Daniel José Camacho
Daniel José Camacho is a Masters of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School. He graduated from Calvin College in May 2013 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Daniel's writing has been published in Perspectives Journal of Reformed Thought, Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, TIME, and his commentary has appeared in The New York Times.
When We Vote Against Peace
Suriname government's tourism plan lacks vision, say critics
Published on October 14, 2016
By Ray Chickrie
Caribbean News Now contributor
PARAMARIBO, Suriname -- With the Suriname government’s embrace of tourism as part of its plan to diversify its commodity-dependent economy, which is vulnerable to price fluctuations – one of the main causes of the country’s current economic recession of Suriname – the government has come under criticism for not laying out a timeline for specific goals in the tourism industry
In an address to the nation few weeks ago, among other projects, many funded by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and also by China and other partners, Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse identified various sectors that his government will focus attention on in the year 2017.
One such is tourism and, to get that off the ground, the government plans to expand and modernize the Johan Pengel International Airport (JPIA) to make it a regional hub in order to develop the tourism sector, and is holding talks with various investors.
Bouterse said that, with the financial support of China, JPIA will be expanded and modernize in 2017 to handle more planes at the same time. Air bridges will be an added feature to make the airport like others in the region. It is not known if any agreements in this respect have been finalized with China or Chinese-owned companies.
Visit to China
A delegation from Suriname headed by the minister of transportation, Andy Rusland and CEO of Surinam (SLM) Airways, Robbi Lachmisingh, visited China and signed a cooperation agreement with the Chinese company, Beijing Transportation Equipment Ltd (BTE), two weeks ago during a visit to China.
SLM and BTE signed a letter of intent to cooperate in the overall aviation sector in Suriname. The company will provide “areas of need that isn’t within the competence and scope of SLM”, Lachmisingh said on his return from China. “These may include upgrading and investing in the airport.”
The government may be looking for a “build and lease” agreement with an overseas partner.
JPIA has recently regained its category 1 status. This basically means that SLM and other Suriname registered airlines can fly non-stop to the United States. The two countries have signed an open skies agreement.
A delegation from BTE will visit Suriname in late October or November to further discuss the needs and opportunities for investment. On top of the agenda of the upcoming mission to Suriname is aircraft leasing. SLM has no choice but to replace its existing fleet of three Boeing 737-300s, which are very becoming archaic.
Surinam Airways (SLM)
Robbi Lachmisingh, speaking about SLM, said, “We need to work more efficiently.” He also made public that the airline will study if two aircraft will be sufficient for regional routes instead of three. However, a fleet reduction contradicts the vision of the government to make Paramaribo a hub. SLM needs a fleet to become a hub, an aviation expert in Suriname asserted: “The market is too small. International airlines are not rushing anytime soon to Suriname.”
"The talks are still at an early stage, and include cooperation on the mid-Atlantic route,” Lachmisingh said.
The TUI Group has a fleet of four long-range aircraft to ply the mid-Atlantic route, which is financially hemorrhaging SLM. SLM’s sole Airbus-340 plies the Paramaribo/Amsterdam route. However, it has been recommended numerous times that SLM begins the process to ETOPS certification so that it can incorporate cost efficient twin-engine aircraft such as the 330/777/787 on the long haul route to Holland and maybe future expansion into Brazil, Guyana and New York.
At the end of the day, if SLM does not find a partnership on the mid-Atlantic route, and without two twin-engine aircraft to ply the route, it cannot stay competitive, said an aviation official in Suriname. In its history SLM has never operated twin-engine long haul aircraft on the Paramaribo/Amsterdam routes.
The CEO of SLM said that his company is in talks with the Dutch tour operator TUI. However, if an agreement isn’t reached, SLM will inevitably have to address its long haul fleet debacle. Also, Surinam Airways is negotiating a cooperation agreement with Turkish Airlines.
SLM had already done a feasibility study on fleet renewal and expansion and was looking at the Boeing 737-800 and 787. But with “constant changes” at SLM and “everyone has his/her own plans”, that plan has been shelved, a source said.
The IsDB was approached to fund the fleet renewal and expansion project but the mission to China by Rusland and Lachmisingh in September may a signal that the plans have changed at SLM.
Long delayed air agreements between the government of Suriname with Turkey, Ghana, United Arab Emirates and Panama are expected to be finalized soon.
Criticism of Government
The government will have to take bold steps to undertake major tourism projects such as inclusive resorts, and “Suriname” will have to become a brand-name, said one local expert in the aviation and tourism business.
Also, the destination has to be affordable, accessible and safe, tourism officials asserted.
Some of the impediments to develop the tourism industry in Suriname are the lack of legislation to govern and guide the industry, increased taxation on tourism products, lack of incentives offered to foreign investors, constant changes and interference by the government at SLM.
The lack of an official ministry of tourism has been identified by critics as an indication that the government isn’t serious about tourism. However, most of these issues are being addressed by the government. Capacity and skills are major problems that Suriname faces.
“The government must spend money to make money. The government needs to take bold and concrete steps to develop the tourism industry,” Suriname tourism industry sources said.
People in the tourism business in Suriname are urging the government, SLM and the private sector to work as one, as in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Turkey and the UAE, to develop and market tourism. The UAE was largely unknown to the world in 1994, and if one flew Emirates, the airline organised visas for tourists and offered discounted hotels and affordable excursions in an effort to develop the industry.
Suriname government's tourism plan lacks vision, say critics
Published on October 14, 2016
By Ray Chickrie
Caribbean News Now contributor
PARAMARIBO, Suriname -- With the Suriname government’s embrace of tourism as part of its plan to diversify its commodity-dependent economy, which is vulnerable to price fluctuations – one of the main causes of the country’s current economic recession of Suriname – the government has come under criticism for not laying out a timeline for specific goals in the tourism industry
In an address to the nation few weeks ago, among other projects, many funded by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and also by China and other partners, Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse identified various sectors that his government will focus attention on in the year 2017.
One such is tourism and, to get that off the ground, the government plans to expand and modernize the Johan Pengel International Airport (JPIA) to make it a regional hub in order to develop the tourism sector, and is holding talks with various investors.
Bouterse said that, with the financial support of China, JPIA will be expanded and modernize in 2017 to handle more planes at the same time. Air bridges will be an added feature to make the airport like others in the region. It is not known if any agreements in this respect have been finalized with China or Chinese-owned companies.
Visit to China
A delegation from Suriname headed by the minister of transportation, Andy Rusland and CEO of Surinam (SLM) Airways, Robbi Lachmisingh, visited China and signed a cooperation agreement with the Chinese company, Beijing Transportation Equipment Ltd (BTE), two weeks ago during a visit to China.
SLM and BTE signed a letter of intent to cooperate in the overall aviation sector in Suriname. The company will provide “areas of need that isn’t within the competence and scope of SLM”, Lachmisingh said on his return from China. “These may include upgrading and investing in the airport.”
The government may be looking for a “build and lease” agreement with an overseas partner.
JPIA has recently regained its category 1 status. This basically means that SLM and other Suriname registered airlines can fly non-stop to the United States. The two countries have signed an open skies agreement.
A delegation from BTE will visit Suriname in late October or November to further discuss the needs and opportunities for investment. On top of the agenda of the upcoming mission to Suriname is aircraft leasing. SLM has no choice but to replace its existing fleet of three Boeing 737-300s, which are very becoming archaic.
Surinam Airways (SLM)
Robbi Lachmisingh, speaking about SLM, said, “We need to work more efficiently.” He also made public that the airline will study if two aircraft will be sufficient for regional routes instead of three. However, a fleet reduction contradicts the vision of the government to make Paramaribo a hub. SLM needs a fleet to become a hub, an aviation expert in Suriname asserted: “The market is too small. International airlines are not rushing anytime soon to Suriname.”
"The talks are still at an early stage, and include cooperation on the mid-Atlantic route,” Lachmisingh said.
The TUI Group has a fleet of four long-range aircraft to ply the mid-Atlantic route, which is financially hemorrhaging SLM. SLM’s sole Airbus-340 plies the Paramaribo/Amsterdam route. However, it has been recommended numerous times that SLM begins the process to ETOPS certification so that it can incorporate cost efficient twin-engine aircraft such as the 330/777/787 on the long haul route to Holland and maybe future expansion into Brazil, Guyana and New York.
At the end of the day, if SLM does not find a partnership on the mid-Atlantic route, and without two twin-engine aircraft to ply the route, it cannot stay competitive, said an aviation official in Suriname. In its history SLM has never operated twin-engine long haul aircraft on the Paramaribo/Amsterdam routes.
The CEO of SLM said that his company is in talks with the Dutch tour operator TUI. However, if an agreement isn’t reached, SLM will inevitably have to address its long haul fleet debacle. Also, Surinam Airways is negotiating a cooperation agreement with Turkish Airlines.
SLM had already done a feasibility study on fleet renewal and expansion and was looking at the Boeing 737-800 and 787. But with “constant changes” at SLM and “everyone has his/her own plans”, that plan has been shelved, a source said.
The IsDB was approached to fund the fleet renewal and expansion project but the mission to China by Rusland and Lachmisingh in September may a signal that the plans have changed at SLM.
Long delayed air agreements between the government of Suriname with Turkey, Ghana, United Arab Emirates and Panama are expected to be finalized soon.
Criticism of Government
The government will have to take bold steps to undertake major tourism projects such as inclusive resorts, and “Suriname” will have to become a brand-name, said one local expert in the aviation and tourism business.
Also, the destination has to be affordable, accessible and safe, tourism officials asserted.
Some of the impediments to develop the tourism industry in Suriname are the lack of legislation to govern and guide the industry, increased taxation on tourism products, lack of incentives offered to foreign investors, constant changes and interference by the government at SLM.
The lack of an official ministry of tourism has been identified by critics as an indication that the government isn’t serious about tourism. However, most of these issues are being addressed by the government. Capacity and skills are major problems that Suriname faces.
“The government must spend money to make money. The government needs to take bold and concrete steps to develop the tourism industry,” Suriname tourism industry sources said.
People in the tourism business in Suriname are urging the government, SLM and the private sector to work as one, as in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Turkey and the UAE, to develop and market tourism. The UAE was largely unknown to the world in 1994, and if one flew Emirates, the airline organised visas for tourists and offered discounted hotels and affordable excursions in an effort to develop the industry.
Suriname government's tourism plan lacks vision, say critics
When they can’t beat you, they can always resort to the sell-out negro: São Paulo elects black city councilor who is as against black cause as any white conservative
“When white folks can’t defeat you they’ll always find some Negro—some boot-licking, butt-licking, buck-dancing, bamboozled, half-baked, half-fried, sissified, punkified, pasteurized, homogenized ******—that they can trot out in front of you” – Khalid Muhammad, 1993
Note from BW of Brazil: Could the legendary African-American Muslim activist Khalid Muhammad have known about elections in the city that is considered Brazil’s economic engine in 2016? Well of course he couldn’t have known about this specific case, but as the situation and this particular type of character has been seen in the history of black politics, the above comment can be applied to any and all that fit the bill.
With all of the racial turmoil going on the United States, many African-Americans would probably point to the controversial Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke as a figure in current times who Muhammad’s words could be applied to. The Republican National Convention speaker’s comments on guns and the Black Lives Matter movement have infuriated hundreds of thousands, if not millions of African-Americans who have labeled him everything from an Uncle Tom, to a sell out, c00n and sambo, all derogatory terms directed at at blacks who are seen as representing the interests of a power structure that is repressive to black rights and black lives.
Over the course of the past few centuries, Brazil has also had its fair share of black men or women who seem to vehemently oppose the struggle for black ascension or simply don’t position themselves on matters that deal with the race issue. In Brazil, these types are often labeled a Pai João, a negro de alma branca (black with a white soul) or, in recent years, a “capitão de mato” (captain of the forest). In Brazil’s slavery era, the main task of the black capitão do mato was to hunt down, capture and return fugitive slaves to captivity. In the modern context, it’s equal to calling someone a “sell-out” or “house negroe”. The Ficha Corrida blog defined these sorts of characters as “the black that does not protest against the measures, the institutions and processes that cause inequality and marginalization of black.” And over the years, the black Brazilian struggle has seen a long line of futebol players, actors, singers, politicians, etc. who could fit this description. But recently, one controversial figure’s name keeps popping up when the discussion is the modern day “capitão de mato”. His name is Fernando Holiday.
German artist Rugendas, traveling in Brazil from 1822-1825, portrayed a black ‘capitão-de-mato’, on horseback and pulling a captive (also black) with a rope.
Holiday’s first came up on this blog in a post from April of last year when Anna Beatriz Anjos spoke to a couple of scholars on black issues in Brazil about Holiday’s rhetoricthat was gaining popularity due to his frequent tirades on a number of videos posted on YouTube. This rhetoric recently paid off as Holiday was recently elected to the city council of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and the center of the country’s economic activity. This is big news because, as we’ve shown in past posts, Afro-Brazilians who attempt to enter the political arena always have difficulty garnering important party and financial support and this is infinitely more difficult for blacks who stand specifically for black issues.
Rejection of the social and economic ascension of the black and poor classes over the past decade has been an issue that has been lurking in the shadows of the recent political turmoil that recently led to the ouster of Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff’s party, the Workers’ Party (or PT), implemented numerous policies over the past 14 years that offered more opportunities to these classes than any other administration in the nation’s history. And with the Rousseff’s ouster, her replacement and former vice-president, Michel Temer, has seemingly been on a path to undo all of those advancements and take Brazil back to the stone age with massive cuts in health and education spending. The controversial Proposal 241 that is making its way through Congress, is a constitutional amendment that would cap public spending for the next 20 years.
So, in this political environment, in which white male politicians are still favored, what does it tell us when a 20-year old black man who is vehemently opposed to social policies in favor of the black population can rise to city council in the country’s most economically important city? The fact that many in social networks are comparing Holiday to the Stephen character portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson in the 2012 film Django Unchained should give you an idea of how many people are feeling about him. Below are just a few pieces for our readers to get an idea of how Holiday is seen in black social and political circles.
Pro-impeachment movement adopts a black man who hates blacks
Connected to the organizers of pro-impeachment actions, Fernando Holiday may be a puppet in the hands of the movement or acting on his own convictions. Whether one or the other, it’s sad to see a black teenager calling the fight for affirmative action a “discourse of vagrancy” and playing the role of capitão do mato (captain of the forest/sell out). All that remains is hoping that one day he frees himself of this psychological misery.
By Marcos Sacramento
What leads a black guy to scream on camera against the introduction of racial quotas in universities and in public competitions? I was in doubt after seeing the video of one Fernando Holiday, in which he criticizes the actions of black militants during a class at USP (University of São Paulo).
“Holiday, the black man that calls black quota students ‘worms'”
“We blacks and poor can succeed in life through merit, we don’t need to be like worms, like true parasites through the state, wanting to erode more and more with this discourse of shyt, with this discourse of trash. You make of blacks true pigs in the sty that are digging through the mud after the rest that the state has to offer. The poor from the suburbs, blacks from the periphery, don’t submit yourselves to this discourse,” he thunders.
I felt some discomfort during the just over five minute speech, in which he acted as the worst of racists when comparing blacks with worms. If calling someone a monkey is execrable, and dehumanizes the victim, what about worms, beings of an even lower scale of the evolutionary chain?
I do not know where from such bitterness comes from, but it can only be this bitterness that makes him ignore the historical context and research that demonstrate the need for racial quotas in universities. According to a study from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), “in higher education, the disproportion between the presence of thepreto e parda (black and brown) population and the branca (white) population tripled between 1976 and 2006. If in 1976 5% of whites over 30 years of age had a college degree, compared to 0.7% of blacks, in 2006, whites had a higher education degree amounted to 18% of the population, compared to only 5% of blacks. Despite a substantial expansion of the offer of places in higher education in this period, the racial gap was not reduced. This reality began to change only after the adoption of affirmative action policies in the early 2000s.”
Another study, of the IBGE, found that from 2001 to 2011 the percentage of blacks in higher education increased from 10.2% to 35.8%, a result in part of affirmative action that began to be implemented starting in 2003. Despite the increase the percentage is still below the 50.7% of blacks in the population, showing the urgent need to consolidate the quota policies.
Really perplexing, on principle I considered the video adolescent foolishness of which Holiday would be ashamed after learning more about the statistics on the black population, but I changed my mind when searching his page on Facebook.
The fan page obeys the reactionary playbook and has hate posts against leftists, feminists, Dilma, and calls for the next demonstration against the government.
“When white folks can’t defeat you they’ll always find some Negro—some boot-licking, butt-licking, buck-dancing, bamboozled, half-baked, half-fried, sissified, punkified, pasteurized, homogenized ******—that they can trot out in front of you” – Khalid Muhammad, 1993
Note from BW of Brazil: Could the legendary African-American Muslim activist Khalid Muhammad have known about elections in the city that is considered Brazil’s economic engine in 2016? Well of course he couldn’t have known about this specific case, but as the situation and this particular type of character has been seen in the history of black politics, the above comment can be applied to any and all that fit the bill.
With all of the racial turmoil going on the United States, many African-Americans would probably point to the controversial Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke as a figure in current times who Muhammad’s words could be applied to. The Republican National Convention speaker’s comments on guns and the Black Lives Matter movement have infuriated hundreds of thousands, if not millions of African-Americans who have labeled him everything from an Uncle Tom, to a sell out, c00n and sambo, all derogatory terms directed at at blacks who are seen as representing the interests of a power structure that is repressive to black rights and black lives.
Over the course of the past few centuries, Brazil has also had its fair share of black men or women who seem to vehemently oppose the struggle for black ascension or simply don’t position themselves on matters that deal with the race issue. In Brazil, these types are often labeled a Pai João, a negro de alma branca (black with a white soul) or, in recent years, a “capitão de mato” (captain of the forest). In Brazil’s slavery era, the main task of the black capitão do mato was to hunt down, capture and return fugitive slaves to captivity. In the modern context, it’s equal to calling someone a “sell-out” or “house negroe”. The Ficha Corrida blog defined these sorts of characters as “the black that does not protest against the measures, the institutions and processes that cause inequality and marginalization of black.” And over the years, the black Brazilian struggle has seen a long line of futebol players, actors, singers, politicians, etc. who could fit this description. But recently, one controversial figure’s name keeps popping up when the discussion is the modern day “capitão de mato”. His name is Fernando Holiday.
German artist Rugendas, traveling in Brazil from 1822-1825, portrayed a black ‘capitão-de-mato’, on horseback and pulling a captive (also black) with a rope.
Holiday’s first came up on this blog in a post from April of last year when Anna Beatriz Anjos spoke to a couple of scholars on black issues in Brazil about Holiday’s rhetoricthat was gaining popularity due to his frequent tirades on a number of videos posted on YouTube. This rhetoric recently paid off as Holiday was recently elected to the city council of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and the center of the country’s economic activity. This is big news because, as we’ve shown in past posts, Afro-Brazilians who attempt to enter the political arena always have difficulty garnering important party and financial support and this is infinitely more difficult for blacks who stand specifically for black issues.
Rejection of the social and economic ascension of the black and poor classes over the past decade has been an issue that has been lurking in the shadows of the recent political turmoil that recently led to the ouster of Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff’s party, the Workers’ Party (or PT), implemented numerous policies over the past 14 years that offered more opportunities to these classes than any other administration in the nation’s history. And with the Rousseff’s ouster, her replacement and former vice-president, Michel Temer, has seemingly been on a path to undo all of those advancements and take Brazil back to the stone age with massive cuts in health and education spending. The controversial Proposal 241 that is making its way through Congress, is a constitutional amendment that would cap public spending for the next 20 years.
So, in this political environment, in which white male politicians are still favored, what does it tell us when a 20-year old black man who is vehemently opposed to social policies in favor of the black population can rise to city council in the country’s most economically important city? The fact that many in social networks are comparing Holiday to the Stephen character portrayed by actor Samuel L. Jackson in the 2012 film Django Unchained should give you an idea of how many people are feeling about him. Below are just a few pieces for our readers to get an idea of how Holiday is seen in black social and political circles.
Pro-impeachment movement adopts a black man who hates blacks
Connected to the organizers of pro-impeachment actions, Fernando Holiday may be a puppet in the hands of the movement or acting on his own convictions. Whether one or the other, it’s sad to see a black teenager calling the fight for affirmative action a “discourse of vagrancy” and playing the role of capitão do mato (captain of the forest/sell out). All that remains is hoping that one day he frees himself of this psychological misery.
By Marcos Sacramento
What leads a black guy to scream on camera against the introduction of racial quotas in universities and in public competitions? I was in doubt after seeing the video of one Fernando Holiday, in which he criticizes the actions of black militants during a class at USP (University of São Paulo).
“Holiday, the black man that calls black quota students ‘worms'”
“We blacks and poor can succeed in life through merit, we don’t need to be like worms, like true parasites through the state, wanting to erode more and more with this discourse of shyt, with this discourse of trash. You make of blacks true pigs in the sty that are digging through the mud after the rest that the state has to offer. The poor from the suburbs, blacks from the periphery, don’t submit yourselves to this discourse,” he thunders.
I felt some discomfort during the just over five minute speech, in which he acted as the worst of racists when comparing blacks with worms. If calling someone a monkey is execrable, and dehumanizes the victim, what about worms, beings of an even lower scale of the evolutionary chain?
I do not know where from such bitterness comes from, but it can only be this bitterness that makes him ignore the historical context and research that demonstrate the need for racial quotas in universities. According to a study from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), “in higher education, the disproportion between the presence of thepreto e parda (black and brown) population and the branca (white) population tripled between 1976 and 2006. If in 1976 5% of whites over 30 years of age had a college degree, compared to 0.7% of blacks, in 2006, whites had a higher education degree amounted to 18% of the population, compared to only 5% of blacks. Despite a substantial expansion of the offer of places in higher education in this period, the racial gap was not reduced. This reality began to change only after the adoption of affirmative action policies in the early 2000s.”
Another study, of the IBGE, found that from 2001 to 2011 the percentage of blacks in higher education increased from 10.2% to 35.8%, a result in part of affirmative action that began to be implemented starting in 2003. Despite the increase the percentage is still below the 50.7% of blacks in the population, showing the urgent need to consolidate the quota policies.
Really perplexing, on principle I considered the video adolescent foolishness of which Holiday would be ashamed after learning more about the statistics on the black population, but I changed my mind when searching his page on Facebook.
The fan page obeys the reactionary playbook and has hate posts against leftists, feminists, Dilma, and calls for the next demonstration against the government.
The tantrum against quotas is a constant and already appears in the first video, in which the denial of racism meets misogyny: “If it’s like this, let’s make quotas for the gostosa(hot girls) (…) because there are places that are missing. Fefeleche says so, but it would that zoo, that fleabag.” Fefeleche (FFLCH) is the nickname of the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences) of USP, one of the favorite targets of the neoconservative patrol.
Holiday, 18, is connected to the Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brazil Movement), one of the “liberal” entities organizing protests on March 15th. Mixed in his speeches is the middle class nonconformity of (journalist) Rachel Sheherazade with Luiz Carlos Alborghetti’s histrionics of bad taste (1).
It came to be approved for the Philosophy course at Unifest (Federal University of São Paulo), but told Folha de São Paulo (newspaper) in an interview during the protest, that he’s still deciding where he will study. At the time, he said he was invited to enter MBL after the impact of one of his videos.
Maybe he’s a puppet in the hands of the movement or acting on his own convictions. Most likely a combination of the two situations in which the MBL found the perfect figure to nullify criticism that it is a stronghold of the white elite and Holiday is celebrated with thousands of curtidas (likes) on Facebook. Ultimately, they deserve each other.
Whether one thing or the other, it’s sad to see a black teenager calling the fight for affirmative action a “discourse of vagrancy” and playing the role of capitão do mato.
All that remains is to wait for Holiday, in some moment, to free himself of that psychological misery. The reality (and he obviously knows it) is that he will always be black.
“Holiday, the Brazilian Stephen”
Holiday, the Capitão do Mato
By Vanessa Oliveira
A vídeo is circulating on the Internet of a young black man, Fernando Holiday, criticizing quotas, he’s one of the participants of the pro-impeachment (of former President Dilma Rousseff) working assiduously in favor of the capitalist system. It is amazing his lack of historical and legislative knowledge. With very shallow comments and with many offenses, and even chauvinist incitements, he claims that blacks don’t need quotas because they have to attain vacancies in college through merit.
So let’s go there. Does he know that affirmative action is established not only in Brazil but in many countries for historical reparations?
One of the first countries that made this public policy official was the United States in the 1960s of the twentieth century, to combat the differences between whites and blacks. They were established after an analysis and reading of the historical and social context experienced in the country, and thus it proved that because of such inequalities and their consequences in society, actions should be generated for its repair, these policies have validity and can be re-evaluated, ie, as soon as this inequality no longer exists, the actions also lose their validity.
We know that within this capitalist system, such reparations are still minimal and must in fact be followed so that they really happen, but this isn’t in any way what was presented by Holiday, moreover the vestibular (college entrance exam) as we know is based on the meritocratic criteria where the vacancy at the university is for whoever achieves the highest score on the tests.
But how do you compete in unequal situations? Poverty in Brazil has color, and lives mostly in remote areas where access to school exists, however the conditions of studies are poor, lacking teachers, teaching materials, teaching support, and students often need to go to school at night, because they work during the day. While the bourgeoisie, majority white, has a private school of quality, they study full-time, and don’t go through tough economic and social times. Is it true that only individual effort is enough? Could it be that the score that affirmative action quotas assign to blacks can match all the unpreparedness that blacks carry from the beginning of their school life?
Obviously not, the number of blacks in the universities is still very small compared to the number of whites. After the abolition of slaves, so-called “free” blacks were crushed by the immigration process, and cornered to take on the worst jobs. Studying in these conditions was often not prioritized because it was necessary to work to survive. And this yoke weighs heavily on many families today.
Saying to blacks that quotas aren’t necessary to get into college, because this makes him inferior, expressed the lack of understanding of the historical context of the colonial period in Brazil, where whites had privileged opportunities to achieve social mobility, and blacks didn’t have the same privileges.
Holiday is the ideal type of guy to reinforce the ideologies of the right, where merit is above all things, where your competencies only depend on your individual effort, quite neoliberal practices, where the one who wins is the best.
It is clear that he reproduces a ready text, and we’re tired of hearing it, and unfortunately many blacks still agree to be included in this system, which puts the problem on an individual level, not as a social problem created by the inequalities that capitalism produces.
I, as a black woman, repudiate Holiday and this pro-impeachment position because his discourse favors only the Casa Grande (Big House/slave master’s house), and he as a good Capitão do Mato is defending the interests of his boss. The impeachment in no way will favor women, students and black workers, unlike the bourgeoisie with its nostalgic discourse, really wants to go back to slavery times and we see the enormous amount of proposed laws in the Câmara (House) and Senate that are being voted on and that disfavor workers’ rights.
We as black leftists should position ourselves forward in this fight, but following examples of resistance such as Zumbi because racist practices will end only when capitalism falls. This fallacy of racial democracy exists only for those who have not perceived their color, and the inequalities that surround it. We must build an increasingly critical and liberating thought to get rid of these shackles that still disturb us daily, and Holiday is one of those shackles.
Fernando Holiday (of the MBL): Capitão do Mato is a black man against blacks
A black man that doesn’t know his own history is appalling
By Nicholas Neto
Meme created on September 18, 2016: “A peon of the Casa Grande (big house/slave master’s house) in the city council of São Paulo. Vote for Fernando Holiday 25 024”
Of whom am I speaking? Again Fernando Holiday, elected city councilor in São Paulo for the DEM party and one of the organizers of the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL or Free Brazil Movement).
Marilia Lydia interviewed him on Jornal da Gazeta TV journal. In addition to the preposterous ideas that I already know he defends and walking in the direction of those preached by conservative sectors, backwards, as well as defended by the white elites of the country such as the extinction of the secretariats for blacks and LGBT – very important departments for promoting racial and social equality, the young man with black skin, but with ideas of a capitão do mato (captain of the woods/sell out), taskmaster and plantation owner, he went further and dismissed the struggles of black movements and the activists themselves.
Fernando Holiday campaign flyer
In his comments, Holiday elaborates that he is against racial quotas, black consciousness and disregards the movimentos negros (black movements). According to him, the movement was taken by people who believe themselves to be owners of the truth. There aren’t, according to Holiday, people within these movements do fact that in fact question the need or the efficiency of having a day for consciência negra (black consciousness) or the necessity or efficiency of having racial quotas. The representative of the MBL presents deplorable arguments from the historical point of view to state that Zumbi doesn’t represent the symbolism of Consciência Negra because he sees him as a killer, a slave owner. “This guy that is little known, that we know little about,” he added when talking about the leader of Palmares.
To complete his blunders, he presented a discourse of elites brancas (white elites), racist sectors and believes that racism is fought with silence, but never with struggle. Themovimentos negros for the elected councilor don’t help fight racism because they present speeches that feed vitimismo (victimhood) and demean blacks. Holiday is therefore an advocate of meritocracy and legalized racism.
Holiday in a still from an interview with Maria Lydia
Holiday urgently needs to go back to history lessons or study day and night and take thevestibular (college entrance exam) for this discipline; because he definitely doesn’t know the story of black men and women. Nor does he know the historical struggles of various black movements that have spread throughout Brazil and its achievements that, because of Brazil being a racist country, are still very few. He needs to know not only the biography of Zumbi, but Dandara, Aqualtune, Luisa Mahin, Mestre Bimba, Abdias do Nascimento, Antoinette de Bairro, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Grande Otelo….
He also needs and with the same urgency to visit the movimentos negros that are in constant struggles for an end to racism and for the promotion of racial equality, I cite here the Grupo de Valorização Negra do Cariri (GRUNEC or Black Valuation Group of Cariri ) and the Grupo de Mulhres Negra do Cariri – Pretas Simoa (Group of Black Women of Cariri – Black Simoa).
Source: Pragmatismo Político, Negro Nicolau, Esquerda Diário
Note
https://blackwomenofbrazil.co/2016/...gainst-black-cause-as-any-white-conservative/
Holiday, 18, is connected to the Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brazil Movement), one of the “liberal” entities organizing protests on March 15th. Mixed in his speeches is the middle class nonconformity of (journalist) Rachel Sheherazade with Luiz Carlos Alborghetti’s histrionics of bad taste (1).
It came to be approved for the Philosophy course at Unifest (Federal University of São Paulo), but told Folha de São Paulo (newspaper) in an interview during the protest, that he’s still deciding where he will study. At the time, he said he was invited to enter MBL after the impact of one of his videos.
Maybe he’s a puppet in the hands of the movement or acting on his own convictions. Most likely a combination of the two situations in which the MBL found the perfect figure to nullify criticism that it is a stronghold of the white elite and Holiday is celebrated with thousands of curtidas (likes) on Facebook. Ultimately, they deserve each other.
Whether one thing or the other, it’s sad to see a black teenager calling the fight for affirmative action a “discourse of vagrancy” and playing the role of capitão do mato.
All that remains is to wait for Holiday, in some moment, to free himself of that psychological misery. The reality (and he obviously knows it) is that he will always be black.
“Holiday, the Brazilian Stephen”
Holiday, the Capitão do Mato
By Vanessa Oliveira
A vídeo is circulating on the Internet of a young black man, Fernando Holiday, criticizing quotas, he’s one of the participants of the pro-impeachment (of former President Dilma Rousseff) working assiduously in favor of the capitalist system. It is amazing his lack of historical and legislative knowledge. With very shallow comments and with many offenses, and even chauvinist incitements, he claims that blacks don’t need quotas because they have to attain vacancies in college through merit.
So let’s go there. Does he know that affirmative action is established not only in Brazil but in many countries for historical reparations?
One of the first countries that made this public policy official was the United States in the 1960s of the twentieth century, to combat the differences between whites and blacks. They were established after an analysis and reading of the historical and social context experienced in the country, and thus it proved that because of such inequalities and their consequences in society, actions should be generated for its repair, these policies have validity and can be re-evaluated, ie, as soon as this inequality no longer exists, the actions also lose their validity.
We know that within this capitalist system, such reparations are still minimal and must in fact be followed so that they really happen, but this isn’t in any way what was presented by Holiday, moreover the vestibular (college entrance exam) as we know is based on the meritocratic criteria where the vacancy at the university is for whoever achieves the highest score on the tests.
But how do you compete in unequal situations? Poverty in Brazil has color, and lives mostly in remote areas where access to school exists, however the conditions of studies are poor, lacking teachers, teaching materials, teaching support, and students often need to go to school at night, because they work during the day. While the bourgeoisie, majority white, has a private school of quality, they study full-time, and don’t go through tough economic and social times. Is it true that only individual effort is enough? Could it be that the score that affirmative action quotas assign to blacks can match all the unpreparedness that blacks carry from the beginning of their school life?
Obviously not, the number of blacks in the universities is still very small compared to the number of whites. After the abolition of slaves, so-called “free” blacks were crushed by the immigration process, and cornered to take on the worst jobs. Studying in these conditions was often not prioritized because it was necessary to work to survive. And this yoke weighs heavily on many families today.
Saying to blacks that quotas aren’t necessary to get into college, because this makes him inferior, expressed the lack of understanding of the historical context of the colonial period in Brazil, where whites had privileged opportunities to achieve social mobility, and blacks didn’t have the same privileges.
Holiday is the ideal type of guy to reinforce the ideologies of the right, where merit is above all things, where your competencies only depend on your individual effort, quite neoliberal practices, where the one who wins is the best.
It is clear that he reproduces a ready text, and we’re tired of hearing it, and unfortunately many blacks still agree to be included in this system, which puts the problem on an individual level, not as a social problem created by the inequalities that capitalism produces.
I, as a black woman, repudiate Holiday and this pro-impeachment position because his discourse favors only the Casa Grande (Big House/slave master’s house), and he as a good Capitão do Mato is defending the interests of his boss. The impeachment in no way will favor women, students and black workers, unlike the bourgeoisie with its nostalgic discourse, really wants to go back to slavery times and we see the enormous amount of proposed laws in the Câmara (House) and Senate that are being voted on and that disfavor workers’ rights.
We as black leftists should position ourselves forward in this fight, but following examples of resistance such as Zumbi because racist practices will end only when capitalism falls. This fallacy of racial democracy exists only for those who have not perceived their color, and the inequalities that surround it. We must build an increasingly critical and liberating thought to get rid of these shackles that still disturb us daily, and Holiday is one of those shackles.
Fernando Holiday (of the MBL): Capitão do Mato is a black man against blacks
A black man that doesn’t know his own history is appalling
By Nicholas Neto
Meme created on September 18, 2016: “A peon of the Casa Grande (big house/slave master’s house) in the city council of São Paulo. Vote for Fernando Holiday 25 024”
Of whom am I speaking? Again Fernando Holiday, elected city councilor in São Paulo for the DEM party and one of the organizers of the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL or Free Brazil Movement).
Marilia Lydia interviewed him on Jornal da Gazeta TV journal. In addition to the preposterous ideas that I already know he defends and walking in the direction of those preached by conservative sectors, backwards, as well as defended by the white elites of the country such as the extinction of the secretariats for blacks and LGBT – very important departments for promoting racial and social equality, the young man with black skin, but with ideas of a capitão do mato (captain of the woods/sell out), taskmaster and plantation owner, he went further and dismissed the struggles of black movements and the activists themselves.
Fernando Holiday campaign flyer
In his comments, Holiday elaborates that he is against racial quotas, black consciousness and disregards the movimentos negros (black movements). According to him, the movement was taken by people who believe themselves to be owners of the truth. There aren’t, according to Holiday, people within these movements do fact that in fact question the need or the efficiency of having a day for consciência negra (black consciousness) or the necessity or efficiency of having racial quotas. The representative of the MBL presents deplorable arguments from the historical point of view to state that Zumbi doesn’t represent the symbolism of Consciência Negra because he sees him as a killer, a slave owner. “This guy that is little known, that we know little about,” he added when talking about the leader of Palmares.
To complete his blunders, he presented a discourse of elites brancas (white elites), racist sectors and believes that racism is fought with silence, but never with struggle. Themovimentos negros for the elected councilor don’t help fight racism because they present speeches that feed vitimismo (victimhood) and demean blacks. Holiday is therefore an advocate of meritocracy and legalized racism.
Holiday in a still from an interview with Maria Lydia
Holiday urgently needs to go back to history lessons or study day and night and take thevestibular (college entrance exam) for this discipline; because he definitely doesn’t know the story of black men and women. Nor does he know the historical struggles of various black movements that have spread throughout Brazil and its achievements that, because of Brazil being a racist country, are still very few. He needs to know not only the biography of Zumbi, but Dandara, Aqualtune, Luisa Mahin, Mestre Bimba, Abdias do Nascimento, Antoinette de Bairro, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Grande Otelo….
He also needs and with the same urgency to visit the movimentos negros that are in constant struggles for an end to racism and for the promotion of racial equality, I cite here the Grupo de Valorização Negra do Cariri (GRUNEC or Black Valuation Group of Cariri ) and the Grupo de Mulhres Negra do Cariri – Pretas Simoa (Group of Black Women of Cariri – Black Simoa).
Source: Pragmatismo Político, Negro Nicolau, Esquerda Diário
Note
- Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (Andradina, São Paulo, February 12, 1945 — Curitiba, Paraná, December 9, 2009) was an Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure. He was a Conservative voice on the radio. Among his program casting characteristics, he was notable for some peculiar details: reading glasses, a pen in-between the fingers of his right hand, a facial towel hanging on his shoulders and (mainly) his acid, challenging speeches (regularly full of obscene words and gestures) and a solid wood club which he ostensively used to smack on anything near him (mostly his table) when angered. After several months off-work for health treatment, Alborghetti died of lung cancer. Alborghetti was a Paraná state deputy from 1986 to 2002. Source
https://blackwomenofbrazil.co/2016/...gainst-black-cause-as-any-white-conservative/
Haiti’s Clinton Problem
During his term, Bill Clinton used violent and underhanded tactics to promote US interests in Haiti.
10.22.16
by Nathan J. Robinson
Bill Clinton in Port au Prince, Haiti in 2010. US Air Force / Flickr
The following is adapted from the new book Superpredator: Bill Clinton’s Use and Abuse of Black America. Each week, Jacobin will be publishing new excerpts. Read the last installment here.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s election in 1990 had been seen as an encouraging harbinger of a new relatively more peaceful and democratic era in Haitian politics. Aristide was a liberation theologian and orphanage proprietor who had spent years preaching about the wellbeing of the poor, sick, and hungry.
After the country had survived multiple decades ruled by the Duvaliers père and fils (a pair of murderous grifters who financed their upscale dictator-chic lifestyles by trafficking in the body parts of dead Haitians), the frugal curate Aristide was a welcome relief.
The peace did not last. Aristide was overthrown in a military coup d’etat the next year, and the country collapsed into disarray. The new military government swiftly introduced the usual program of arrests, tortures, and mysterious disappearances, with all opposition subject to terror and suppression. Faced with violence and economic collapse, hundreds of refugees began to flee the country in tiny boats, bound for US shores.
United States law allows political refugees to apply for asylum if they have a “well-founded fear” of political persecution, which plainly the Haitians did. But the George H. W. Bush administration refused to let the Haitians go through the asylum process. Instead, it followed a formal policy of simply dispatching the Coast Guard to scoop the fleeing Haitians from the water, then immediately sending them back to Haiti.
The Bush policy was condemned by human rights groups; after all, the entire purpose of political asylum is to ensure that people are not being returned to countries where their lives are in danger, yet the US government was openly sending thousands of Haitians back to a country where their lives were in danger. It was also seen as discriminatory, even racist; refugees from Cuba were routinely granted asylum, but Haitians were not. (Of nearly twenty-five thousand Haitians interdicted by the United States from 1981–1991, only eleven were allowed into the country to be given asylum hearings.) The brazen inhumanity of the administration’s actions shocked many, and throughout his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton had pledged unequivocally that he would end the policy immediately upon taking office, criticizing the practice as “cruel” and “immoral.” Clinton said that by contrast to Bush:
The promise was an unusually forceful one for Clinton; it was markedly free of his usual qualifications and hedges. There was no real argument that the refugees were political. They were fleeing a military dictatorship. The granting of political asylum would also be within the president’s powers; there was no obvious legal impediment to his carrying out the promise.
But shortly after being elected, before he had even taken office, Clinton reversed himself. In what the New York Times called a “bluntly worded” radio address, Clinton announced that:
Asked about the switch, Clinton said his “campaign rhetoric had been sorely misunderstood.” Clinton maintained that “people who didn’t qualify as refugees still shouldn’t be here,” and the Haitians were fleeing for “economic” rather than “political” reasons, and thus didn’t qualify as refugees.
This was news to the Haitians, who had thought they were fleeing political violence. It also angered human rights advocates, who had believed Clinton’s word that he would end the Bush policy. The head of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees emphasized that “[t]he policy violates the most basic tenet of refugee protection. People at least deserve to be heard to demonstrate a fear of persecution before they are returned.”
The reversal also alienated black Democrats, who had relied on Clinton to show more respect for the rights of poor black refugees than Bush had. Kweisi Mfume, then head of the Congressional Black Caucus, later recounted his anger at Clinton over the blatant abandonment of his promise:
Mfume said that in his opinion, “Clinton could not have done such a thing without taking the black vote and the Caucus for granted.”
The reasons for Clinton’s change of mind were never made public, but the New York Times suggested one explanation, reporting that “[m]embers of Mr. Clinton’s foreign-policy team have expressed concern that celebrations surrounding Mr. Clinton’s inauguration, which will be widely televised, will be marred by news footage of Haitian boat people drowning . . .” Naturally, who would wish to see such celebrations marred?
The forced repatriation policy was not the only way in which the United States violated the Haitians’ rights, however. As disagreements over the refugees’ status had gone through the courts, the Bush administration had begun a policy of storing refugees awaiting transfer at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. Because Guantanamo was not US soil, detaining people was thought to avoid the triggering of legal procedural protections that may have been granted to those who were actually being held in the country.
Bill Clinton continued the Bush policy of keeping refugees at Guantanamo indefinitely. But Clinton introduced a new policy as well: testing the Haitians for HIV, and segregating those who tested positive. In doing so, he created “the world’s first HIV detention camp.”
Conditions in the HIV camp were horrific. The facility was a “leaky barracks with poor sanitation, surrounded by razor wire and guard towers,” and numerous detainees were housed in tents. Many of the refugees were gravely ill with AIDS, and the crowded facility was characterized by fear, squalor, and uncertainty.
After being held for more than a year, some of the refugees began a hunger strike. (The military retaliated by putting the leader of the hunger strike in solitary confinement.) Communications home had to be smuggled out. As one refugee wrote in a letter to her family, “I have lost in the struggle for life . . . There is nothing left for me. Take care of my children, so they have strength to continue my struggle . . . I have lost hope. I am alone in my distress.” Another recalled:
During his term, Bill Clinton used violent and underhanded tactics to promote US interests in Haiti.
10.22.16
by Nathan J. Robinson
Bill Clinton in Port au Prince, Haiti in 2010. US Air Force / Flickr
The following is adapted from the new book Superpredator: Bill Clinton’s Use and Abuse of Black America. Each week, Jacobin will be publishing new excerpts. Read the last installment here.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s election in 1990 had been seen as an encouraging harbinger of a new relatively more peaceful and democratic era in Haitian politics. Aristide was a liberation theologian and orphanage proprietor who had spent years preaching about the wellbeing of the poor, sick, and hungry.
After the country had survived multiple decades ruled by the Duvaliers père and fils (a pair of murderous grifters who financed their upscale dictator-chic lifestyles by trafficking in the body parts of dead Haitians), the frugal curate Aristide was a welcome relief.
The peace did not last. Aristide was overthrown in a military coup d’etat the next year, and the country collapsed into disarray. The new military government swiftly introduced the usual program of arrests, tortures, and mysterious disappearances, with all opposition subject to terror and suppression. Faced with violence and economic collapse, hundreds of refugees began to flee the country in tiny boats, bound for US shores.
United States law allows political refugees to apply for asylum if they have a “well-founded fear” of political persecution, which plainly the Haitians did. But the George H. W. Bush administration refused to let the Haitians go through the asylum process. Instead, it followed a formal policy of simply dispatching the Coast Guard to scoop the fleeing Haitians from the water, then immediately sending them back to Haiti.
The Bush policy was condemned by human rights groups; after all, the entire purpose of political asylum is to ensure that people are not being returned to countries where their lives are in danger, yet the US government was openly sending thousands of Haitians back to a country where their lives were in danger. It was also seen as discriminatory, even racist; refugees from Cuba were routinely granted asylum, but Haitians were not. (Of nearly twenty-five thousand Haitians interdicted by the United States from 1981–1991, only eleven were allowed into the country to be given asylum hearings.) The brazen inhumanity of the administration’s actions shocked many, and throughout his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton had pledged unequivocally that he would end the policy immediately upon taking office, criticizing the practice as “cruel” and “immoral.” Clinton said that by contrast to Bush:
The promise was an unusually forceful one for Clinton; it was markedly free of his usual qualifications and hedges. There was no real argument that the refugees were political. They were fleeing a military dictatorship. The granting of political asylum would also be within the president’s powers; there was no obvious legal impediment to his carrying out the promise.
But shortly after being elected, before he had even taken office, Clinton reversed himself. In what the New York Times called a “bluntly worded” radio address, Clinton announced that:
Asked about the switch, Clinton said his “campaign rhetoric had been sorely misunderstood.” Clinton maintained that “people who didn’t qualify as refugees still shouldn’t be here,” and the Haitians were fleeing for “economic” rather than “political” reasons, and thus didn’t qualify as refugees.
This was news to the Haitians, who had thought they were fleeing political violence. It also angered human rights advocates, who had believed Clinton’s word that he would end the Bush policy. The head of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees emphasized that “[t]he policy violates the most basic tenet of refugee protection. People at least deserve to be heard to demonstrate a fear of persecution before they are returned.”
The reversal also alienated black Democrats, who had relied on Clinton to show more respect for the rights of poor black refugees than Bush had. Kweisi Mfume, then head of the Congressional Black Caucus, later recounted his anger at Clinton over the blatant abandonment of his promise:
Mfume said that in his opinion, “Clinton could not have done such a thing without taking the black vote and the Caucus for granted.”
The reasons for Clinton’s change of mind were never made public, but the New York Times suggested one explanation, reporting that “[m]embers of Mr. Clinton’s foreign-policy team have expressed concern that celebrations surrounding Mr. Clinton’s inauguration, which will be widely televised, will be marred by news footage of Haitian boat people drowning . . .” Naturally, who would wish to see such celebrations marred?
The forced repatriation policy was not the only way in which the United States violated the Haitians’ rights, however. As disagreements over the refugees’ status had gone through the courts, the Bush administration had begun a policy of storing refugees awaiting transfer at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. Because Guantanamo was not US soil, detaining people was thought to avoid the triggering of legal procedural protections that may have been granted to those who were actually being held in the country.
Bill Clinton continued the Bush policy of keeping refugees at Guantanamo indefinitely. But Clinton introduced a new policy as well: testing the Haitians for HIV, and segregating those who tested positive. In doing so, he created “the world’s first HIV detention camp.”
Conditions in the HIV camp were horrific. The facility was a “leaky barracks with poor sanitation, surrounded by razor wire and guard towers,” and numerous detainees were housed in tents. Many of the refugees were gravely ill with AIDS, and the crowded facility was characterized by fear, squalor, and uncertainty.
After being held for more than a year, some of the refugees began a hunger strike. (The military retaliated by putting the leader of the hunger strike in solitary confinement.) Communications home had to be smuggled out. As one refugee wrote in a letter to her family, “I have lost in the struggle for life . . . There is nothing left for me. Take care of my children, so they have strength to continue my struggle . . . I have lost hope. I am alone in my distress.” Another recalled:
In the tiny, cramped cells, “there was no privacy. Snakes would come in; we were lying on the ground and lizards were climbing over us. One of us was bitten by a scorpion . . . there were spiders. Bees were stinging the children, and there were flies everywhere: whenever you tried to eat something, flies would fly in your mouth.”
The military doctors began giving women birth control without the women’s knowledge or consent. Yet at the same time the Clinton administration refused to provide the AIDS-infected refugees with lifesaving medical care, which almost certainly hastened their deaths. The US military had recommended that the sickest refugees be airlifted to hospitals within the United States for treatment. But the administration, not wishing to let any of the Haitians onto US soil, refused. As a result, there were “a huge number of unnecessary early deaths.” When asked why they were refusing to provide medical treatment, a spokesman for Clinton’s Immigration and Naturalization Service said bluntly: “They’re going to die anyway, aren’t they?”
Eventually, after human rights lawyers filed suit, the federal courts stepped in to put a stop to Clinton’s actions. A federal judge called the treatment “outrageous, callous, and reprehensible” and criticized Clinton for imposing on refugees “the kind of indefinite detention usually reserved for spies and murderers . . . The Haitians’ plight is a tragedy of immense proportion, and their continued detainment is totally unacceptable to this court.”
Thanks to judicial intervention, then, the HIV camp was finally closed. But for some, the court order did not come soon enough. A detainee named Joel
Even for the survivors, the nearly two years spent in Clinton’s detention camp had lasting psychological effects:
Even after action by the courts stopped the Clinton policy, the administration was still reluctant to process refugee claims from Haitians. When President Aristide was finally returned to power, and Clinton’s government announced that the refugees would finally be freed from detention, the administration was sure to declare that “under no circumstances will any Haitian currently at Guantanamo be admitted to the United States.”
Freeing the detainees had not come easily, because Clinton fiercely defended his government’s right to indefinitely imprison Haitians. In doing so, he “helped pave the way for” the future justifications for indefinite detention at Guantanamo made by his successor, George W. Bush.
But the court decisions surrounding the Haitian refugee crisis would not come up during the debate over Bush’s detention practices. Clinton administration lawyers had fought to have the decisions questioning the legality of detention removed from the books, and the case would disappear.
Leverage
Clinton’s record on Haiti did not get better. While the administration publicly opposed the removal of President Aristide, it covertly supported the right-wing death squads that had supported the coup. The leader of the brutal Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Emmanuel Constant, had been on the CIA’s payroll for years. American officials admitted to both working with him and encouraging him to form FRAPH in the first place.
US intelligence called him “a young pro-Western intellectual . . . no farther right than a Young Republican” even though his organization was, as sociologist William Robinson explains, a “well-organized instrument of repression, operating in a death-squad manner to continue the process of decimating popular sector organization” and “bent on preserving an authoritarian political system.” The organization “carried out much of the reign of terror that led to the killing of more than three thousand Haitian civilians in three years” and “shot into pro-democracy crowds celebrating Aristide’s planned return, killing eight people and wounding many others.”
Despite this string of atrocities, the United States continued to provide support to Constant and the FRAPH, some of which was more overt than covert. The Los Angeles Times reported on one of Constant’s speaking events:
When the United States restored President Aristide to power, Constant was sheltered on US soil, despite Haiti’s pleas that Constant be deported and tried for war crimes in his home country. At first, Constant was held in detention, and was ordered deported by a judge. But after Constant threatened to publicly expose the CIA’s links to his organization, “the Clinton administration released him into the United States rather than return him to Haiti, provided him with a work permit, and required that he abide by a gag order.”
The Clinton administration attempted to cover up its involvement with FRAPH after Aristide’s restoration. When FRAPH massacred pro-Aristide protesters, the United States raided and destroyed FRAPH headquarters. In the process, it seized FRAPH’s internal documents and brought them back to the United States. The administration refused to accede to Aristide’s request for the return of the documents, which Human Rights Watch said contained “intact evidence of death-squad crimes.”
The withholding of the documents was reportedly an effort to keep the CIA’s links with the FRAPH a secret; the New York Times cited the Clinton administration’s “implicit fear that some documents might mention American intelligence links to members of the discredited former Government that ousted Mr. Aristide in a military coup in 1991.” The US’s refusal was condemned by the United Nations’s independent human rights envoy to Haiti, who said he believed that “the US administration is trying to cover up some of its wrongdoing in that period.”
The US’s support of FRAPH made for an apparent irony. Allan Nairn, a journalist for the Nation who won a Polk Award for his reporting on Haiti and the CIA, said that “many of the officials whom Clinton was claiming to be fighting were actually his employees.” Nairn observed that if “Clinton had simply cut them off, completely ended their support, the Haitian public itself most likely could have brought down the coup regime without a US occupation.” Even as the United States professed itself flummoxed as to how to restore Haiti’s democratically elected government, it continued to encourage the very forces that were preventing the restoration of that government.
Some were puzzled by “a contradictory US policy that publicly supports Aristide as ‘the people’s choice’ while privately grooming those who ardently oppose him.” After all, Clinton went so far as to invade Haiti in order to restore Aristide to power, so wasn’t covert support for the right-wing opposition somewhere between pointless and disastrous?
It was not. As Emmanuel Constant himself explained, the United States asked him to “balance” Aristide’s leftist movement, a task he took to with violent enthusiasm. By supporting the FRAPH, the United States increased its bargaining power in negotiations with Aristide. Returning Aristide to power was conditional on his agreeing to an austerity and privatization program, and through ensuring that Haiti remained divided between competing factions, the Clinton administration was able to ensure that Aristide would be compliant while in office, and not attempt to implement the radical redistributionist economic policies that the IMF and United States feared.
So Aristide was returned to office, but agreed to an austerity program that prevented him from taking Haiti in a social-democratic direction. The plan worked, and the Clinton administration got what it wanted from Haiti.
Explore all installments of Superpredator: Bill Clinton’s Use and Abuse of Black America here.
The military doctors began giving women birth control without the women’s knowledge or consent. Yet at the same time the Clinton administration refused to provide the AIDS-infected refugees with lifesaving medical care, which almost certainly hastened their deaths. The US military had recommended that the sickest refugees be airlifted to hospitals within the United States for treatment. But the administration, not wishing to let any of the Haitians onto US soil, refused. As a result, there were “a huge number of unnecessary early deaths.” When asked why they were refusing to provide medical treatment, a spokesman for Clinton’s Immigration and Naturalization Service said bluntly: “They’re going to die anyway, aren’t they?”
Eventually, after human rights lawyers filed suit, the federal courts stepped in to put a stop to Clinton’s actions. A federal judge called the treatment “outrageous, callous, and reprehensible” and criticized Clinton for imposing on refugees “the kind of indefinite detention usually reserved for spies and murderers . . . The Haitians’ plight is a tragedy of immense proportion, and their continued detainment is totally unacceptable to this court.”
Thanks to judicial intervention, then, the HIV camp was finally closed. But for some, the court order did not come soon enough. A detainee named Joel
Even for the survivors, the nearly two years spent in Clinton’s detention camp had lasting psychological effects:
Even after action by the courts stopped the Clinton policy, the administration was still reluctant to process refugee claims from Haitians. When President Aristide was finally returned to power, and Clinton’s government announced that the refugees would finally be freed from detention, the administration was sure to declare that “under no circumstances will any Haitian currently at Guantanamo be admitted to the United States.”
Freeing the detainees had not come easily, because Clinton fiercely defended his government’s right to indefinitely imprison Haitians. In doing so, he “helped pave the way for” the future justifications for indefinite detention at Guantanamo made by his successor, George W. Bush.
But the court decisions surrounding the Haitian refugee crisis would not come up during the debate over Bush’s detention practices. Clinton administration lawyers had fought to have the decisions questioning the legality of detention removed from the books, and the case would disappear.
Leverage
Clinton’s record on Haiti did not get better. While the administration publicly opposed the removal of President Aristide, it covertly supported the right-wing death squads that had supported the coup. The leader of the brutal Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Emmanuel Constant, had been on the CIA’s payroll for years. American officials admitted to both working with him and encouraging him to form FRAPH in the first place.
US intelligence called him “a young pro-Western intellectual . . . no farther right than a Young Republican” even though his organization was, as sociologist William Robinson explains, a “well-organized instrument of repression, operating in a death-squad manner to continue the process of decimating popular sector organization” and “bent on preserving an authoritarian political system.” The organization “carried out much of the reign of terror that led to the killing of more than three thousand Haitian civilians in three years” and “shot into pro-democracy crowds celebrating Aristide’s planned return, killing eight people and wounding many others.”
Despite this string of atrocities, the United States continued to provide support to Constant and the FRAPH, some of which was more overt than covert. The Los Angeles Times reported on one of Constant’s speaking events:
When the United States restored President Aristide to power, Constant was sheltered on US soil, despite Haiti’s pleas that Constant be deported and tried for war crimes in his home country. At first, Constant was held in detention, and was ordered deported by a judge. But after Constant threatened to publicly expose the CIA’s links to his organization, “the Clinton administration released him into the United States rather than return him to Haiti, provided him with a work permit, and required that he abide by a gag order.”
The Clinton administration attempted to cover up its involvement with FRAPH after Aristide’s restoration. When FRAPH massacred pro-Aristide protesters, the United States raided and destroyed FRAPH headquarters. In the process, it seized FRAPH’s internal documents and brought them back to the United States. The administration refused to accede to Aristide’s request for the return of the documents, which Human Rights Watch said contained “intact evidence of death-squad crimes.”
The withholding of the documents was reportedly an effort to keep the CIA’s links with the FRAPH a secret; the New York Times cited the Clinton administration’s “implicit fear that some documents might mention American intelligence links to members of the discredited former Government that ousted Mr. Aristide in a military coup in 1991.” The US’s refusal was condemned by the United Nations’s independent human rights envoy to Haiti, who said he believed that “the US administration is trying to cover up some of its wrongdoing in that period.”
The US’s support of FRAPH made for an apparent irony. Allan Nairn, a journalist for the Nation who won a Polk Award for his reporting on Haiti and the CIA, said that “many of the officials whom Clinton was claiming to be fighting were actually his employees.” Nairn observed that if “Clinton had simply cut them off, completely ended their support, the Haitian public itself most likely could have brought down the coup regime without a US occupation.” Even as the United States professed itself flummoxed as to how to restore Haiti’s democratically elected government, it continued to encourage the very forces that were preventing the restoration of that government.
Some were puzzled by “a contradictory US policy that publicly supports Aristide as ‘the people’s choice’ while privately grooming those who ardently oppose him.” After all, Clinton went so far as to invade Haiti in order to restore Aristide to power, so wasn’t covert support for the right-wing opposition somewhere between pointless and disastrous?
It was not. As Emmanuel Constant himself explained, the United States asked him to “balance” Aristide’s leftist movement, a task he took to with violent enthusiasm. By supporting the FRAPH, the United States increased its bargaining power in negotiations with Aristide. Returning Aristide to power was conditional on his agreeing to an austerity and privatization program, and through ensuring that Haiti remained divided between competing factions, the Clinton administration was able to ensure that Aristide would be compliant while in office, and not attempt to implement the radical redistributionist economic policies that the IMF and United States feared.
So Aristide was returned to office, but agreed to an austerity program that prevented him from taking Haiti in a social-democratic direction. The plan worked, and the Clinton administration got what it wanted from Haiti.
Explore all installments of Superpredator: Bill Clinton’s Use and Abuse of Black America here.
10 Historical Must See Sites In Jamaica
Published on Oct 20 2016, at 9:27 pm
Compiled By Felicia J. Persaud
News Americas, KINGSTON, Jamaica, Fri. Oct. 21, 2016: Say Jamaica, and for many, images of great beaches, sun, sand and of course Bob Marley and reggae music, Red Stripe, Usain Bolt and good food may come to mind. But like many Caribbean islands, there is no denying the astounding history of this birthplace of so many greats and Jamaica’s National Heritage Week, held every October, is meant to remind residents and visitors alike of the many historical facets of Jamaica – beyond just sun, sea and reggae! So fly into Kingston, the country’s capital, and rent a car or take a taxi via the new Highway 2000 connecting the north coast to experience a different side of Jamaica. Here are 10 historical sites that you should plan to see on your next trip there:
1: National Heroes Park
National Heroes Park is a 50 acre botanical garden located right in the capital of Kingston, Jamaica. The Park is a permanent place for honoring Jamaica’s heroes whose monuments are erected in an area known as the Shrine. Another section, reserved for late prime ministers and outstanding patriots, adjoins the Shrine area, to the north. The original area was founded in 1783 as a race track called “Kingston Race Course.” It was officially renamed the National Heroes Park in 1973.
2: King’s House
On your next trip, ensure you drive by King’s House on Hope Road in Kingston. It is currently the official residence of the Governor General of Jamaica who represents the British Monarch, and head of state. King’s House has always been called King’s House even during the reign of the Queen. Today, the House with a magnificent lawn and gardens is also the venue for state and ceremonial functions, including the swearing in of Ministers of Government and Judges of the High Court and for the annual National Honours And Awards ceremony, held during National Heritage Week each October.
3: Devon House
One of Jamaica’s most celebrated historical landmarks is The Devon House Mansion, also located on Hope Road in Kingston. It is the architectural dream of Jamaica’s first black millionaire George Stiebe, who was among three wealthy Jamaicans who constructed elaborate homes during the late 19th century. Stiebel, the son of a black housekeeper and a German-Jewish merchant, made his fortune from investments in gold mines in Venezuela. He purchased 99 properties in Jamaica, including Devon Pen. Stiebel’s legacy lives on with the beautifully maintained Devon House, which was declared a national monument in 1990 by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. Visitors to the historical site can go back in time with a tour of the Georgian-style great house. Furnished with a collection of 19th-century antiques from Jamaica and the Caribbean region, the house tells the tale of privileged West Indian society in the Victorian era. The ballroom still has the original English chandelier purchased by Stiebel for the room. Additionally, the old stables, kitchen and other buildings on the property host some of Jamaica’s finest restaurants, confectioneries and souvenir shops. Devon House I Scream, makers of Jamaica’s premier brand of ice cream has its flagship store at the location along with its uniquely delicious patties that include the option of beef, chicken, vegetarian and even curried goat. Opening Times – Every Day: 10:00 am – 10:00 pm
4: Fort Charles, Port Royal
In Port Royal, a village located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of the Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica, you will find Fort Charles, tucked away in the Old Military Complex at the base of Church Street. It is the oldest and greatest of the ancient city’s six fortresses in Jamaica. Fort Charles was built in the 17th century. Lord Horatio Nelson, Admiral Rodney, Sir Henry Morgan and many other famous men strode proudly across the ramparts of this fearsome fort, which boasted as many as 104 cannons and 500 men. Browse through the small, but informative museum and later retrace Nelson’s footsteps on the wooden quarterdeck overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Many cannons still point out from their embrasures along the restored battlements. In the center of the courtyard stands the small, well-presented Maritime Museum, containing a miscellany of objects – from glassware and pottery to weaponry – retrieved from the sunken city. Opening hours are 9a.m. – 4:45 p.m.
5: 32 Market Street
Take the highway from Kingston and make your way to St. Ann’s Bay and to 32 Market Street to see firsthand the humble birthplace of Jamaica’s first National Hero, the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey was born in a small house that still sits on the property on August 17, 1887. The house is constructed from timber and placed upon blocks and is currently occupied. Plans are reportedly underway for the government of Jamaica to secure the house to make it a public museum. In 1989 a bust of Marcus Garvey was erected at the front of the house through the efforts of Anthony Scott and the African People Association.
6: Marcus Garvey Reading Room At The St. Ann’s Library
After viewing the birthplace of Garvey, check out the life sized statue of this black hero on the grounds of the 1834 built St. Ann’s Bay Parish Library and then ask to tour the library’s Marcus Garvey Reading Room, located on the upper floor of the library. Here you can see a copy of Garvey’s birth certificate, read about his life and even follow a timeline of his work including deportation from the US back to Jamaica. The center is open Mondays to Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. by appointment only.
7: Seville Heritage Park
Located on the historic Seville Estate, is the Seville Great House (Sevilla la Nueva) and Heritage Park. Dubbed the birthplace of modern Jamaica, the Seville property was where Christopher Columbus first encountered the Taino Indians on May 5thth 1494. The major attraction of the Park is the collection of the artifacts on display in the Great House or ‘New Seville,’ which depicts various aspects of the history of the people of Jamaica –from the Tainos to the Spaniards, the Africans, British and Indians and Chinese. On the Park’s ground, which overlooks the beautiful Caribbean Sea, are the replicas of a three Taino huts as well as a slave hut. Also buried here are the bodies of three slaves who were found on the property. Guided tours are offered at the Seville Heritage Park between 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Fridays.
8: St. Ann’s Baptist Church
The St Ann’s Bay Baptist Church in St. Ann’s Bay Jamaica was founded in 1827. In this church cemetery in Ochio Rios, you will find a tomb where the shackles, chain and branding irons used on black slaves were buried after slavery was abolished in 1838. The church is open on Sundays from 8 a.m.
9: Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Our Lady of Perpetual Help is another must visit places on the historical trail in St. Ann’s Bay in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It dates back to 1534, when the Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva was moved from the coast to higher ground and construction of a cut stone Church was started by Abbot Peter Martyr of Angleria, Italy. Only the Church walls were built in 1534. In 1770, Edward Long condemned the British for their apparent indifference to Spanish architecture in Jamaica and for allowing the Church to fall into ruin. In 1925, the owner of the Seville Estate, William Hoskins, gave title to five acres of land containing the Peter Martyr Church site to the Catholic Bishop. The pastor for the area, Father Raymond Sullivan, began a vibrant fund raising campaign to build a church. Between 1939 and 1943; a beautiful “Spanish style” church was constructed from cut-stone and local timber. This Church which was named Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, was built adjacent to the site of the Peter Martyr Church ruins and is located on the same property. In fact, some of the stones used in the construction of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church originated from the structure of the Peter Martyr Church. This current Church is an incredibly beautiful building that is therefore forever linked and intimately associated with early Sixteenth Century Church.
10: Blue and John Crow Mountains
No visit is complete without a tour of the latest UNESCO World Heritage Site – the Blue and John Crow Mountains. The Blue Mountains are the longest mountain range in Jamaica and include the island’s highest point, Blue Mountain Peak, at 2256 m. It spreads in 4 parishes: Portland, St. Thomas, St Mary, St. Andrew – and encompasses a rugged and extensively forested mountainous region in the south-east of Jamaica, which provided refuge first for the indigenous Tainos fleeing slavery and then for Maroons (former enslaved peoples). They resisted by establishing a network of trails, hiding places and settlements, which form the Nanny Town Heritage Route. From the summit, it is accessible via a walking track. The site is also a biodiversity hotspot for the Caribbean Islands with a high proportion of endemic plant species, especially lichens, mosses and certain flowering plants. Today, the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, which commands premium prices on world markets, is cultivated between 2,000 and 5,000 feet above sea level. You also get to view waterfalls and tiny restaurants throughout. Many people hike or bike through the mountains to witness first hand nature at its finest. Take good walking shoes, water long sleeved shirt and snacks for the hike. Private tours are also available and can be arranged through your local hotel concierge.
For more on Jamaica’s heritage sites see here and for more on Jamaica and things to do log on here.
10 Historical Must See Sites In Jamaica
Published on Oct 20 2016, at 9:27 pm
Compiled By Felicia J. Persaud
1: National Heroes Park
National Heroes Park is a 50 acre botanical garden located right in the capital of Kingston, Jamaica. The Park is a permanent place for honoring Jamaica’s heroes whose monuments are erected in an area known as the Shrine. Another section, reserved for late prime ministers and outstanding patriots, adjoins the Shrine area, to the north. The original area was founded in 1783 as a race track called “Kingston Race Course.” It was officially renamed the National Heroes Park in 1973.
2: King’s House
On your next trip, ensure you drive by King’s House on Hope Road in Kingston. It is currently the official residence of the Governor General of Jamaica who represents the British Monarch, and head of state. King’s House has always been called King’s House even during the reign of the Queen. Today, the House with a magnificent lawn and gardens is also the venue for state and ceremonial functions, including the swearing in of Ministers of Government and Judges of the High Court and for the annual National Honours And Awards ceremony, held during National Heritage Week each October.
3: Devon House
4: Fort Charles, Port Royal
5: 32 Market Street
6: Marcus Garvey Reading Room At The St. Ann’s Library
After viewing the birthplace of Garvey, check out the life sized statue of this black hero on the grounds of the 1834 built St. Ann’s Bay Parish Library and then ask to tour the library’s Marcus Garvey Reading Room, located on the upper floor of the library. Here you can see a copy of Garvey’s birth certificate, read about his life and even follow a timeline of his work including deportation from the US back to Jamaica. The center is open Mondays to Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. by appointment only.
7: Seville Heritage Park
8: St. Ann’s Baptist Church
The St Ann’s Bay Baptist Church in St. Ann’s Bay Jamaica was founded in 1827. In this church cemetery in Ochio Rios, you will find a tomb where the shackles, chain and branding irons used on black slaves were buried after slavery was abolished in 1838. The church is open on Sundays from 8 a.m.
9: Our Lady of Perpetual Help
10: Blue and John Crow Mountains
For more on Jamaica’s heritage sites see here and for more on Jamaica and things to do log on here.
10 Historical Must See Sites In Jamaica
A Trinidad & Tobago Carnival Band Is Accused of Trivialising the Trauma of Slavery
Written by Janine Mendes-Franco
Posted 25 October 2016 15:44 GMT
“La Belle Dame”, one of the costumes in the 2017 Carnival band “Cazabon — The Art of Living”. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it's the time of year that masquerade designers unveil their creations for Carnival — the annual two-day street festival that attracts revellers from all over the world.
The roll-out has gone smoothly thus far, with leaders and designers of carnival bands (as the often thousands-strong troupes of masqueraders who parade in the streets are called) posting images of their 2017 offerings online, and Carnival enthusiasts debating their choices of bands and costumes.
Except in the case of one band: after its October 21 launch, Brian MacFarlane's 2017 presentation, “Cazabon — The Art of Living”, provoked a social media firestorm over what some felt was the glamourisation and belittling of both the country and the region's collective history.
The online discussion was initially about the first impression of the costumes — all-white, seemingly a blend of masquerade and couture — with some Facebook users admiring the designs, and others suggesting that MacFarlane was imitating veteran mas’ (short for masquerade) designer Peter Minshall, and edgy newcomers K2K Alliance and Partners, who have seamlessly integrated high fashion into their Carnival portrayals.
The band's concept refers to Michel-Jean Cazabon, a mixed-race, 19th-century Trinidadian painter who is widely held up as the country's first internationally recognised artist. His work depicts life in Trinidad during the mid-1800s — mostly the family life and social pursuits of the planter class, as well as stunning watercolour landscapes that are important historical markers for what the island looked like during that era.
“Culturally appropriating our own culture”
But upon closer examination, people began to realise why they were having such a strong reaction to MacFarlane's costumes. In a public post, Facebook user Carla Steffanie explained:
Two images in particular sparked outrage — the poses of the models were exacerbated by the fact that the costumes were named “La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” (French for “The Beautiful Lady and the House Boy”). University lecturer and political commentator Rhoda Bharath quoted her Facebook friend Dave Cave, who called MacFarlane's portrayal “the trivialisation of trauma”.
Bharath was incensed. She questioned the Cazabon reference, noting that “the era that Cazabon came into his own is post 1834″, which was the year of emancipation — albeit with conditions — for all slaves in British colonies, including Trinidad and Tobago:
Hashtags don't help
The three official hashtags attached to the band — #KnowYourPlace, #KnowYourPeople, #KnowYourPath — didn't help matters. Although the narrative surrounding some of the hashtags — at least from the perspective of the designers — had to do with “celebration [of] our potential”, “reverence in our spaces” and re-establishing our connections, most social media users did not take well to being told that they should know their place.
As Facebook user Jacqueline Morris explained, it was all about context. She added:
Facebook user Angel Stewart countered:
“A people who have never come to grips with our history”
Taking a similar stance, historian Angelo Bissessarsingh mused:
He chided:
“Throwing money” behind the band?
Adding another dimension to the controversy was a status update by spoken word artist and activist Muhammad Muwakil, in which he tagged several high-profile organisations, some of which use public funds, and suggested that they “were throwing money” behind the concept for the band.
However, Global Voices spoke with Rudylynn Roberts, president of Citizens for Conservation, who confirmed that neither CFC nor The National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago contributed any money to the band. Roberts said:
A costume entitled “Citizens For Conservation” in the “Cazabon” Carnival band. The costume's collar references the handmade fretwork of the time. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
Here come the memes
Naturally, it wasn't long before the memes started. Rhoda Bharath posted an image of shackles, captioning it #Makakfarlane 2017 Monday wear, and a new slant on the house boy image began to make the social media rounds:
Satirical website The Late O'Clock News posted this photo:
The designer's perspective
MacFarlane, meanwhile, explained the concept of his band as choosing to “strip away frivolity and embrace our valiant, poetic history”. Calling it “a creative call to act” he said that “as a nation we must fight back against neglect, by celebrating our beautifully diverse culture and awakening the spirit of promise across the islands”.
Perhaps in response to the outcry, MacFarlane has announced that he will be hosting a Facebook Live chat entitled “Heritage Talks: A Panel Discussion”, today at noon — not quite the public discussion that activists had hoped to have with the designer, but it might be a start. The session is expected to attract a large online audience.
And while there were some who wondered whether there would be such hue and cry had the band been presented by a person of colour (MacFarlane is a white Trinidadian), Muhammad Muwakil made the point that “this cannot be another thing we simply concede to.”
Or, in the words of Mark Lyndersay, who played on the popular phrase “you can't play mas’ and ‘fraid powder”:
Written by Janine Mendes-Franco
Posted 25 October 2016 15:44 GMT
“La Belle Dame”, one of the costumes in the 2017 Carnival band “Cazabon — The Art of Living”. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it's the time of year that masquerade designers unveil their creations for Carnival — the annual two-day street festival that attracts revellers from all over the world.
The roll-out has gone smoothly thus far, with leaders and designers of carnival bands (as the often thousands-strong troupes of masqueraders who parade in the streets are called) posting images of their 2017 offerings online, and Carnival enthusiasts debating their choices of bands and costumes.
Except in the case of one band: after its October 21 launch, Brian MacFarlane's 2017 presentation, “Cazabon — The Art of Living”, provoked a social media firestorm over what some felt was the glamourisation and belittling of both the country and the region's collective history.
The online discussion was initially about the first impression of the costumes — all-white, seemingly a blend of masquerade and couture — with some Facebook users admiring the designs, and others suggesting that MacFarlane was imitating veteran mas’ (short for masquerade) designer Peter Minshall, and edgy newcomers K2K Alliance and Partners, who have seamlessly integrated high fashion into their Carnival portrayals.
The band's concept refers to Michel-Jean Cazabon, a mixed-race, 19th-century Trinidadian painter who is widely held up as the country's first internationally recognised artist. His work depicts life in Trinidad during the mid-1800s — mostly the family life and social pursuits of the planter class, as well as stunning watercolour landscapes that are important historical markers for what the island looked like during that era.
“Culturally appropriating our own culture”
But upon closer examination, people began to realise why they were having such a strong reaction to MacFarlane's costumes. In a public post, Facebook user Carla Steffanie explained:
Two images in particular sparked outrage — the poses of the models were exacerbated by the fact that the costumes were named “La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” (French for “The Beautiful Lady and the House Boy”). University lecturer and political commentator Rhoda Bharath quoted her Facebook friend Dave Cave, who called MacFarlane's portrayal “the trivialisation of trauma”.
Bharath was incensed. She questioned the Cazabon reference, noting that “the era that Cazabon came into his own is post 1834″, which was the year of emancipation — albeit with conditions — for all slaves in British colonies, including Trinidad and Tobago:
Hashtags don't help
The three official hashtags attached to the band — #KnowYourPlace, #KnowYourPeople, #KnowYourPath — didn't help matters. Although the narrative surrounding some of the hashtags — at least from the perspective of the designers — had to do with “celebration [of] our potential”, “reverence in our spaces” and re-establishing our connections, most social media users did not take well to being told that they should know their place.
As Facebook user Jacqueline Morris explained, it was all about context. She added:
Facebook user Angel Stewart countered:
“A people who have never come to grips with our history”
Taking a similar stance, historian Angelo Bissessarsingh mused:
He chided:
“Throwing money” behind the band?
Adding another dimension to the controversy was a status update by spoken word artist and activist Muhammad Muwakil, in which he tagged several high-profile organisations, some of which use public funds, and suggested that they “were throwing money” behind the concept for the band.
However, Global Voices spoke with Rudylynn Roberts, president of Citizens for Conservation, who confirmed that neither CFC nor The National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago contributed any money to the band. Roberts said:
A costume entitled “Citizens For Conservation” in the “Cazabon” Carnival band. The costume's collar references the handmade fretwork of the time. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
Here come the memes
Naturally, it wasn't long before the memes started. Rhoda Bharath posted an image of shackles, captioning it #Makakfarlane 2017 Monday wear, and a new slant on the house boy image began to make the social media rounds:
Satirical website The Late O'Clock News posted this photo:
The designer's perspective
MacFarlane, meanwhile, explained the concept of his band as choosing to “strip away frivolity and embrace our valiant, poetic history”. Calling it “a creative call to act” he said that “as a nation we must fight back against neglect, by celebrating our beautifully diverse culture and awakening the spirit of promise across the islands”.
Perhaps in response to the outcry, MacFarlane has announced that he will be hosting a Facebook Live chat entitled “Heritage Talks: A Panel Discussion”, today at noon — not quite the public discussion that activists had hoped to have with the designer, but it might be a start. The session is expected to attract a large online audience.
And while there were some who wondered whether there would be such hue and cry had the band been presented by a person of colour (MacFarlane is a white Trinidadian), Muhammad Muwakil made the point that “this cannot be another thing we simply concede to.”
Or, in the words of Mark Lyndersay, who played on the popular phrase “you can't play mas’ and ‘fraid powder”: