MCC Haiti workers safe, but feeling political unrest

As political turmoil mounts in Haiti, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) workers are safe but feel the effects of the unrest. Tension has been on the rise in the Caribbean nation since 2000, when the ruling Lavalas party swept disputed parliamentary elections. Protests have turned deadly in the past few months, as opposition party members demanding that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resign clash with government supporters.

“Roadblocks curtail our activities and demonstrations change our routes, but overall MCC’s work continues,” reported MCC Haiti co-representative Edwin Dening on Feb. 2.

There are 35 adult MCC workers in Haiti, plus seven children. These numbers include 10 full-time and 11 part-time national staff members. They serve in reforestation, health, education and water projects as well as human rights work. In addition to the Dening family, five MCC workers live in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Through her assignment with a Haitian human rights organization, MCC worker Kristi Vandewetering is supporting efforts to keep protests peaceful. The organization has monitored nearly all the recent demonstrations in Port-au-Prince, and provides emergency evacuation services for victims of violence. Last week, Vandewetering helped transport student protesters being threatened with violence to another area of the city for safety.

The demonstrations have become a near-daily occurrence.

“Rumours abound at a time like this,” Dening noted, and have included talk of troops from neighbouring countries intervening or even a civil war.

Aristide recently returned from Kingston, Jamaica, where he sought solutions to the crisis with several Caribbean nation leaders as well as representatives from the Organization of American States, the European Union, Canada and the United States. According to a Feb. 1 CNN news story, the group “established a framework for continued negotiations with a March deadline for concrete actions.”

Opposition leaders met with officials from CARICOM, a pan-Caribbean organization, last week but refuse to meet with Aristide himself, saying that they will be satisfied with nothing less than his resignation.

“It is difficult to know what the final result will be,” Dening said. “Please pray for peace.”

—Rachel B. Miller Moreland