Why is it never the sound of car windows shattering, nor mobs shouting, nor gunshots firing that first alerts me to the occurrence of another student protest. Instead, it’s a faint tingle, then slight burning in my throat and nose. The product of tear gas launched into orbit by riot police.
Is this a preventive strategy? Or over-anxious and under-trained riot police? Or is it just that tear gas travels farther than sound? I would like to know.
Filed under: Student Protests
Yesterday, an afternoon downpour achieved what all the Haitian National Police probably never could – at least not peacefully – that is, disrupt the university students’ increasingly aggressive protests.
Our peaceful drenching also allowed me a smooth commute home after work because people weren’t jamming into a few “safe” streets in order to avoid being hit by rocks. Tuesday my commute time was 40 minutes. Yesterday, just ten minutes.
As a side-note, hopefully to be explored in greater depth sooner rather than later, a minimum wage of under $2 a day is absurd. Cost of living in Haiti is quite high by developing world standards because so little is produced inside the country and has to be imported from abroad (i.e. customs, shipping costs, etc.). Asking a family to live off such a small salary is beyond unsympathetic and bordering on cruel and the students have the weight of morality squarely behind them in their efforts to right this injustice.
Filed under: Haiti, Student Protests | Tags: NGO, Student Prisoners, Student Protests, United Nations
Haiti’s university students continue to protest the current minimum wage of less than $2 a day. For about the past week, downtown Port-au-Prince has played host to afternoon confrontations between university students and national police forces. The students have blocked traffic with burning barricades and some within the larger mass have been throwing rocks at cars that mistakenly find themselves too close to the action.
The response from the police has been to try and disrupt the protests with tear gas, so each afternoon you can hear canisters of tear gas launching off into crowds. So far there hasn’t been a violent crackdown on the protesters, the type that leaves multiple dead. However, last I heard, 24 students were being held in prison and Haiti’s foremost human rights organization was demanding their unconditional release.
The students certainly have people on edge and the general unpredictability of the protests has disrupted life a bit for afternoon commuters. I for one was a bit startled this morning to see the remains of a charred mini-van sitting timidly in front of Fonkoze’s central office; though it would have been quite a sight to see it fully engulfed in flames. FYI, the mini-van’s presence in front of Fonkoze is just a product of our proximity to the protests and not anything malicious (at least that’s what I think…).
While I haven’t strolled close enough to the action to feel threatened, the fact that Fonkoze’s office sits at the epicenter of the activity means I’ve had two meetings canceled because the visitors were affraid to come downtown. I’ve also had a UN officer tell me it’s not safe to walk the streets because of anti-foreigner sentiments within the crowd. The irony, however, is that such “anti-foreigner sentiment” insofar as it exists is a product of the UN’s presence as an occupying force – though I bit my tongue on this occasion.
Filed under: Student Protests | Tags: AP, FONKOZE, Haiti, Minimum Wage, Student Protests
For the past few days, university students have been protesting against Haiti’s official minimum wage. The heart of the protests seems to be a university located not far from Fonkoze’s central office. As I’ve already written, Fonkoze is close enough to the protests to feel the tear gas shot off by the Haitian National Police.
The current minimum wage is about 70 Haitian Gourdes a day, or less than $2. The university students are protesting the fact that a bill to raise the minimum wage to $5 a day wasn’t approved by parliament. While it seems the confrontations haven’t yet turned violent on a large scale, one student was shot yesterday by police, though according to the AP it wasn’t fatal. However, that certainly does not mean students haven’t been arrested and “mistreated” by police while in jail.
As for staff at Fonkoze, working while tear gas seeps into the building, they seem to be pretty used to it all. They even have a method to battle the tear gas – cut a lime in half, hold it under your nose and squeeze.
CORRECTION: I previously wrote that the minimum wage was $5 a day, that was not accurate. As it now reads above, the current minimum wage is less than $2 a day.
Today marked my first experience with tear gas. I wasn’t burning tires. I wasn’t protesting. I wasn’t even shouting. But this afternoon as I sat outside eating lunch my nostrils began to tickle, then burn. My throat did the same as my eyes quickly watered up.
It turns out that university students were protesting nearby and the fumes wafted over to where I was eating . It was startling that such a faint whiff could be so powerful because at no point could I see the gas. It got me wondering what it must feel like inside a crowd being “controlled” with billowing clouds of tear gas.
