Mouvman Revandikatif Peyizan Latibonit, MOREPLA
(The Peasant's movement for justice in the Artibonite) Beginning the mobilization to defend national production To begin: on the occasion of the 15th of October, the world peasant women's day, and the 16th of October, the world day for everyone on the earth to be able to eat, which is to say, the World Food Day, and the 17th of October, which is the world day against poverty and also the day that Jean- Jacques Dessalines the Great, the founder of the country, was assassinated. Dessalines had a vision in which all smallholding Haitian peasants would be able to have land for them to work, for them not to be in misery. Certainly it is one of the main reasons that the classes who possessed land wanted to conspire against and assassinate Dessalines. MOREPLA, the Peasant's movement for justice in the Artibonite, which brings together peasants, planters, agricultural cooperatives, who produce all kinds of crops in 15 communes (towns) in the Department of l'Artibonite have begun to rise up, to mobilize to defend national production that the country's government has made more fragile in their neoliberal policies – the "death plan" – which open the country's stomach to all kinds of foreign produce without tax, genetically modified (GMO) foods, which can kill Haitians one by one. We have begun to rise up to defend national production, especially Artibonite rice which has a grave misfortune hanging on its head, this misfortune hanging on the heads of planters, each Haitian, and all peasants in general. The agricultural situation in the Artibonite today is a veritable catastrophe for longer than three years because neither the principal nor the secondary canals are being cleaned up, nor are they draining properly. We do not need to speak about the rural road infrastructure, in this area that does not have irrigation put in place against a process of desertification of the country, a result of making charcoal or using the wood for construction needs. In the irrigated areas, the government has diminished local markets for grains and given the bourgeoisie the upper hand. This has made the price for a sack of grains vary between 600 and 1000 gourdes (16 to 27 US dollars) which depends on when, during the time when the Haitian government removed the barriers for American rice which was a subvention that the American government brought without tax to put an end to nationally-produced rice while the products of first necessity are sold by foreigners. What is more serious today, land conflicts are becoming more difficult each day where armed bandits threaten planters, or demand money from them for "authorization" to work on their own plots of rice. In general, the armed groups walking around, proud as peacocks, are the only masters and "chiefs" in the Artibonite valley. The Justice department and the public forces have never said anything because they are corrupt, which is to say that they have their fingers in what is going on. Since 1999, the Haitian government has put in place INARA – the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, which had difficult beginnings, given its impossibility to function, and given the parameters that the reformers are obliged to stay within, because of the arrogance and pressure of the big plantation owners, often with arms in their hand. In the country there are more than 100,000 titles (kawo) of land that can produce rice while the rest of the country can produce other kinds of foods. Some of this land is titled (private), some in the hands of the government and some in the hands of reformers. Haitian governments one after another, the CNG as well as Lavalas, and also the interim government of technocrats, have put in place a policy of free trade to let in all kinds of foreign agricultural products to break the wings of national production, especially the production of Artibonite rice. At the same time that they evict residents from their fertile land, from their land which can produce food, in order to lay down concrete for a free trade zone, with their left hand the government signs under-the-table accords with the transnational bourgeoisie such as T & S Rice S.A. whereby the Haitian government gives this foreign company the right to install a dock with a final-processing mill to import unprocessed rice from the U.S. to mill and put in sacks for sale in the Haitian market. In these senses, the Haitian government is complicit with eliminating all the rice planters in the Artibonite who number 60,000 people, as well as 28,000 agricultural workers, 8,000 rice merchants, 400 rice mill owners in favor of a single multinational corporation: T&S Rice S.A. who will employ only 300 workers. In the document called CCI (In English, ICF – the Interim Cooperation Framework – found at www.haiticci.undg.org) the interim government has carried on, saying that ODVA is not working well, it is caught up in the political conflict, and BCA is not working well. INARA for them is nonexistent. At the same time they say that it is necessary that the Minister of Agriculture disengage itself from agricultural interventions. It is none other than the government itself which has weakened these institutions with all shades of corruption. We in MOREPLA ask the following to happen right away: 1) For all peasants to stand up, to mobilize against the policies of the Haitian government, signing contracts with the transnational bourgeoisie, the global bourgeoisie, to eliminate our national production, especially Artibonite rice. 2) We will not recognize any illegal accords signed with T&S Rice S.A. (American company) to destroy the country's production and to continue to encourage American rice to invade our country, become milled, put in sacks, and finally sold in the Haitian market to put 60,000 planters, 28,000 agricultural workers, 8,000 merchants, and 400 mill owners in the Aribonite in more misery. 3) The CCI / ICF report on agriculture says that ODVA is soaked in politics. On this basis we ask that ODVA is depoliticized, we ask that it be removed from the political conflict, to restructure it so that the government can give ODVA means at its disposition to succeed. Peasants organizations need to have a say in the new structure of ODVA because they are the once most affected by it. 4) We ask that the governnment create a budget of 100,500,000,000 gourdes to support and train planters and smallholding peasants to give them agricultural credit and to have a well-structured agricultural reform to permit agricultural development of the country to work. 5) We ask the government to act quickly to address the enviornmental problems and disarm all the armed bandits who are seen on the peasants' lands. 6) It is time for the country's government to begin to support the vision of the country's development before all interests of large countries across the sea. To end we ask that all smallholding peasants, planters, and organizations to defend their intersts in national production, because the country can give us all the food we need. List of organizations who comprise MOREPLA: RACPABA : NETWORK OF ASSOCIATIONS AND PLANTER COOPERATIVES FOR COMMERCE OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE LOWER ARTIBONITE ADB5 : ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 5TH SECTION OF BOKA APPK : PEWODEN PLANTERS ASSOCIATION OPLA : LAVÈDI PLANTERS ORGANIZATION MITPA : MOVEMENT FOR HAITIAN PEASANTS' UNITY SOKOSOSA : SAVYEN COOPERATIVE SOLIDARITY SOCIETY APDA : LAMOU PLANTERS' DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION ODEPSTA : ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION OF THE 1ST SECTION OF TIRIVYÈ ATIBONIT AFAD : ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN FOR DEVELOPMENT AGAPA : GROUP OF ARTIBONITE PEASANTS' AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS OPEDAK : PEASANTS' ASSOCIATION FOR ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF KAWO KOSPAVAL : COOPERATIVE OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION SERVICES FOR SALE AND PURCHASE IN THE ARTIBONITE \ APD3SD : PLANTER'S ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 3RD SECTION OF DESALIN SAM : SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF MOJE PAPDA : HAITIAN PLATFORM TO ADVOCATE FOR AN ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT SOFA : HAITIAN WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY