Testimony by Loune Viaud in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: March 3rd, 2006

by Loune Viaud

I want to express gratitude from all of us at Zanmi Lasante to the distinguished members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for accepting our request to come before the Commission today to expound on the fatal consequences of the pervasive lack of social and economic rights in Haiti.

I am here today to speak to you about what is actually happening on the ground in Haiti, specifically in the Central Plateau where I work. Behind me you will see the faces of our patients and the dire conditions within which they live.

Allow me to compel you to take a look at the deteriorating data in our report herewith, which sadly gives you a sense of the plight of the majority of Haitians.

Everyday in Zanmi Lasante’s seven clinics, I see people who are starving from having gone for days without food, who have no access to clean water, children who have no access to education. Every day I see fellow Haitians who walk barefoot across the deforested hills of our country to come to one of our clinics for treatment. For 2005, our medical team saw well over one million patients.

Health is a human right! The right to food, the right to housing and the right to education are also fundamental and essential for a healthy and dignified life. It is not a privilege to be enjoyed only by individuals in the developed world.

When a person is sick and comes to one of our clinics in Haiti, we use all medical pharmaceutical, technological, fiscal and human resources at our disposal to make them well. We negotiate with drug manufacturers, we collaborate with the local ministry of health, we talk to friends and families. We even consult with policy makers in Washington, DC. We come here to seek help from to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. We act just as we would if a member of our own families—or we ourselves—were ill. We do whatever it takes.

Our patients were mobilized in 2001 and drafted a declaration regarding the right of poor people with AIDS to modern, effective therapy. Bernadin Gracia, a person living with HIV and a noted community educator, became the voice of collective which drafted the “Cange Declaration”. He lent his voice to proclaiming their rights, their needs, their hopes. The text of the ‘Cange Declaration” is one of the enclosed submissions.

Bernadin could not get a visa on time for this hearing. Bernadin was one of our first HIV patients. He has worked with us for more than a decade. He wanted to come here today to share his story. He also wanted to tell you about his experiences in developing the Cange Declaration. The Cange Declaration was developed when patients and residents of the Central Plateau came together to understand and assert their human rights.

This has been a common occurrence with our patients. They come to us and tell us what their needs and rights are and we develop projects with them.

This is not the case with MINUSTAH. Bernadin would have also told you that not once has MINUSTAH asked him or anyone he knows what they need. In fact when I personally went to MINUSTAH and tried to tell them what we needed, they told me they didn’t have money.

We work in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health so that the government can do its job to fulfill the right to health of its people. But we are an NGO working with a government with no real budget and it is sad for us to see so many people coming to us and we can not help everybody.

So when The UN Stabilization Mission to Haiti (MINUSTAH) came to the Central Plateau with OAS Member States who we believed in, we had hope. We thought they could help the government do its job so that people would have access to clean water, to housing, food, and sanitation. Since there was no war in the Central Plateau, only poverty, we thought the Member States would attack the poverty which kills people every single day. If you ask anyone in the Central Plateau how they feel about MINUSTAH after over two years, sadly people will answer, “Se moun ki vinn an vakans”. They are here on vacation. I know that’s not what the Member States would like us to think.

We listened over the radio and heard about all the money the international community has given to Haiti. We heard that they given $1 million dollars, but none of us in the Central Plateau have seen any results from this money. I know that’s not what the international community intended.

I have been to the MINUSTAH compound. I was amazed by the difference inside and outside the compound. Inside, they had potable water and electricity. Outside, it was the hospital without potable water for the patients. Each night students gather around the MINUSTAH compound to study by the light of the gates because none of them have electricity at home.

This is why I am here today to see if we can change this reality. There is so much that OAS Members could have done in the last two years, but it is not too late. The need is still great. I am here because I still have a little bit of hope.

Let me tell you why. In December last year, I was faced with a challenge.I traveled from Port au Prince to the Central Plateau with 5,000 lbs of x-ray equipment. It took me eight hours to travel forty miles because the roads are so bad. But our truck could not make the last leg of the road to Cerca La Source because the road was nearly washed out. The machine was critical to diagnosing our tuberculosis patients there.

I went to the MINUSTAH base in Hinche where I had been given a personal contact who I asked to assist me. He was able to assist me. By 5pm, the dying patient was able to have an x-ray. By 6pm, the patient felt better on the TB meds.

By assisting us, the MINUSTAH officials, helped to improve the health and well-being of the Haitian population and also helped to strengthen the government’s capacity to meet the needs and rights of its citizens.

I was able to get assistance because of my personal contact and because I can speak English and Spanish. But most Haitians can’t walk up to the MINUSTAH compound and get assistance. This doesn’t seem right given the fact that they are there to help us. Wouldn’t the OAS Members want to work with Haitians to measurably improve the human rights situation?

It wouldn’t take much to make a difference. For example, our hospital Sainte Thérèse in Hinche needs to have access to clean water. MINUSTAH has the equipment to do this. It also needs a fence very badly to keep animals out of the hospital ward. We need better roads to help us deliver medicines and supplies to the hospital. Helping to construct basic social needs builds the capacity of the Haitian government to realize each individual’s right to health in Haiti.

On February 7, millions of Haitians went to the polls to elect a President for the fourth time since 1990. We Haitians need the OAS Member States to work with the new government to do the right thing – to make sure that social and economic rights become a reality.

When people hear about human rights they only think about physical violence, but they don’t talk about health, water, food, education, or housing as human rights. We know the Commission understands that these rights are just as important as civil and political rights.

THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW.

I would like to personally invite you to come to Haiti to talk to the patients and the people in the Central Plateau, to see the conditions they live in. We have a Haitian proverb, “Tande ak we se de.” Hearing and seeing are two different things.
So please come and see. Thank You.

Loune Viaud is Director of Operations for Zanmi Lasante.