| 'Ideas and Action - Projecting the voices of Haiti's progressive civil society organisations'
The Collective to Mobilise against the High Cost of Living understands that your team has begun negotiations with Venezuela about Haiti's inclusion in the PetroCaribe programme. By taking this step, your team is taking an important step in the process of making itself useful for the disadvantaged masses, to the majority of the 7 February 2006 electorate. In March, the Collective sent you a document in which it clearly fixed its position on the way to manage the PetroCaribe programme. The Collective continues to believe that your future government will have to take a whole raft of measures aimed at improving the population's living conditions. The PetroCaribe programme is one of the factors that can lead to a reduction in the cost of living if it is negotiated and managed in the interests of the most vulnerable sectors of society. However the declaration made on your return from Venezuela that the Haitian State will sell oil products to the private sector at market prices makes us doubt the willingness of your team to significantly reduce the cost of living. The Collective proposes that your team sets up a national commission to ensure that the management of the PetroCaribe programme is carried out in the interests of the underprivileged sectors of the population. It should be composed of two representatives of the Collective, two representatives of the trade union sector, two representatives of the private sector, and one representative of the incoming government. We hope that your team will respond positively to our proposal. We also hope, Mr President, that you will not betray the confidence that the masses placed in you with their votes on 7 February.
Yves Barthelemy
_________________ The Haiti Support Group is a British organisation working in solidarity with the Haitian people's struggle for human rights, participatory democracy and equitable development, since 1992. _______________ |