Sophia Martelly and Olivier Martelly issued with court summons; cabinet reshuffled; road accident leaves 22 dead; schoolgirl killed by UN vehicle; new head of MINUSTAH named
Haiti: Presidential family issued with court order
In a controversial case, Haiti’s first lady, Sophia Saint Remy Martelly and son, Olivier Martelly, were issued with a court order on January 22 for the ‘usurpation of title and function’.
The court order was served by members of the Port-au-Prince bar, Newton Louis Saint-Juste, André Michel, Mario Joseph and Jacceus Joseph, after they initially opened the case in August 2012. In the summons, the president’s wife and son are accused of “managing tens of millions of dollars for the realization of social and sports programs at the national level, without specifying in what capacity they handle these allocated public funds”.
According to the court summons, both of the accused should appear in court before January 30th. As of yet, no reports of their attendance at the Port-au-Prince courthouse have been confirmed in the Haitian press.
‘The process will be a long one. However, our only victory will be when citizens are truly conscious of their rights and when the State is not just a milk-cow,’ commented Saint-Juste.
The presidential family will be represented by attorneys, Jean Vandal, Jean Ludovic Vandal and Patrick Vandal. The crime carries a possible prison sentence of between 1-3 years, according to the Haitian penal code.
Cabinet reshuffle
Charges of increasing authoritarianism were also levelled at the Martelly government earlier this week, after he and Prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, reshuffled their cabinet for the third time in nine months and proposed to shorten the terms of ten democratically elected senators by a year.
The backlash comes as a response to a document which emerged from a cabinet reshuffle at the end of January. According to Haitian news agencies, the document suggests ending the ten senators’ terms in January 2014 as opposed to January 2015.
Several journalists and politicians have pointed out that the proposal to shorten the senators’ 6 year terms would be illegal and a violation of the Haitian constitution.
Pro-government Deputy, Emmanuel Fritz-Gerald Bourjolly, described the proposal as ‘against the principles of democracy’.
22 die in road accident
A road accident just outside of the northern town of Villard left at least 22 dead and around 30 more injured on January 25. The accident is the latest in a string of accidents to have taken place recently on Haiti’s roads.
Haitian human rights organisation, POHDH, has called on the government to take the necessary measures to improve safety on the country’s highways in response to the accident.
MINUSTAH
Demands for the United Nations MINUSTAH stabilisation mission in Haiti to leave the country have intensified after a 13 year old girl was killed by one of the mission’s registered vehicles on January 25.
Dieudaline Jérôme was killed in St Marc in the western part of the country after an SUV bearing a UN number plate ploughed into the motorbike which was taking her to school.
The school girl’s death has caused a number of protests in Saint Marc, where citizens took to the streets to demand the immediate departure of the mission, which has been charged with bringing the cholera epidemic to Haiti, as well with a series of sexual abuse cases against Haitian citizens.
‘MINUSTAH has come and sown grief in Haitian families. It brought cholera to Haiti, which continues to kill Haitians. Today, it is their vehicle that kills us. The Haitian people must rise up to demand the unconditional departure of UN soldiers,’ one demonstrator told Haitian weekly newspaper, Haiti Liberte.
In an official statement, MINUSTAH spokespeople said they regretted the death of the schoolgirl.
Meanwhile on Sunday, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, appointed Canadian diplomat, Nigel Fisher, as his acting Special Representative and head of the MINUSTAH mission to Haiti. Fisher will replace Mariano Fernandez of Chile who has acted as the head of the UN mission since May 2011.
