Triller Introduces the Metaverz: Your All-Access Pass to Global Entertainment

Link to a video preview of the Metaverz here.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Triller, the leading AI–powered creator platform, is taking its creator–first approach to the metaverse. Today, Triller announces their latest venture: the Metaverz, a first–of–its–kind virtual integrated digital, technology, media, and entertainment platform. Inside the Metaverz, fans can attend a virtual concert featuring their favorite artists or make their way past the velvet rope of a virtual nightclub and venture into a VIP room to interact with celebrities, influencers and creators.

"We are extremely excited to debut the Metaverz and open up direct access to creators from all corners of the world," said Mahi de Silva, CEO of Triller. "We are committed to expanding offerings for our users, creators, and businesses, and entering the metaverse strategically positions Triller at the forefront of several compelling trends including Web3 and decentralization. We are now on the frontline of the future of creator content – from NFT–backed collectibles and memorabilia to virtual concerts to gaming and shopping, the Metaverz ecosystem will be groundbreaking."

The Metaverz has north of $100 million in metaverse investment value today across various digital properties and assets, and is expected to grow rapidly. Triller's Metaverz will operate at the intersection of music, sports, gaming, and live events. Users can engage with Triller's record–breaking live sporting and music events that attract millions of viewers around the globe"" including Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, Triller Fight Club, Verzuz and many others "" but also are able to engage with artists and other fans in a unique setting that brings the world to them.

"When your favorite sporting event is a continent away, you can still be there with front row seats, sharing unforgettable moments with other fans," said Christopher Taurosa, Head of Metaverz. "If you want pursue a new digital shopping experience, you can shop at one of the stores in our virtual shopping malls, or, if gaming is something you enjoy, you can play along with your friends and interact with the community in so many new engaging ways only available in the Metaverz."

The Metaverz is the latest example of how Triller is a powerful toolbox for the creators, by the creators. Triller allows them to monetize their connections like never before, with engagements as high as 73% versus 1% on other platforms, such as Instagram.

"Triller's Metaverz underscores its commitment to empower creators everywhere to maximize their relationships with their fans, while developing powerful tools to connect brands and creators," said de Silva. "Triller is breaking the mold of the closed garden networks, and the Metaverz will continue to pave the way for Triller as the leading creator platform, facilitating commerce and maximizing audience reach."

Triller's open garden network eliminates the large tech companies as intermediaries and puts the power back in the hands of the creators and their users, allowing them to connect directly with the brands that want to work with them.

"Our core focus is to eliminate the barrier of entry to the metaverse. Our platform allows everyone to seamlessly connect and interact with their favorite creators, attend events they normally wouldn't be able to, and interact directly with people from around the world," said Taurosa. "The Metaverz allows the limits of time and distance to be instantaneously erased and gives both sides of the creator economy the necessary space to create and delight with content and experiences "" you can be whoever you want to be and go wherever you want to go."

Another unique feature of the Metaverz experience is Triller's partnership with Epik, a leading global platform for AR/VR and gaming experiences that produces premium digital experiences for more than one billion gamers worldwide. Triller and Epik will launch multiple games within the Metaverz and announce future partnerships with some of the world's leading gaming companies. Thanks to this creative collaboration, there will be Metaverz drops where gamers can purchase upgrades with artifacts and gear and additional packs like trading cards consisting of artifacts or avatars for their gaming characters.

To celebrate the launch of the Metaverz, Triller will host an event featuring DJ and electronic artist Sam Feldt performing live from the Netherlands during one of electronic music's largest gatherings in the world, the Amsterdam Dance Event, on October 22. The event is free to everyone who enters through the Metaverz.

"I am very excited to partner with Triller on the launch of the Metaverz," said Victor David, Co–Founder and CEO of Epik. "This is a perfect marriage combining Triller's social network, creator platform, celebrities, events and content with our technical expertise, video game network and membership programs. By working together, we are one step closer to mass adoption and the result will be a rapid expansion into all things metaverse.”

Triller, which works with hundreds of the world's largest brands and enables over 750 million social interactions a month, is seizing the opportunity to continue to monetize these transactions.

"We put a lot of thought, time, and capital towards building what we believe to be the most advanced live event metaverse platform available today," said de Silva. "We have been working closely with all of our partners, influencers, celebrities and companies to make sure this launch isn't just words but truly the launch of a new world."

During 2022 alone, Triller has expanded its presence in the world of combat sports with acquisitions of Bare Knuckle Fight Club and Pillow Fight Championship. In the content creator space, Triller also acquired Fangage, a platform to maximize creator monetization, furthering Triller's commitment to putting content creators first.

For more information and to be one of the first to learn about Metaverz updates, visit www.metaverz.com or follow @triller on social media @triller for Metaverz.com teasers, drop dates, celebrity endorsements, concerts, sports events, shopping moments, and enhanced gaming experiences.

About Triller

Triller is the AI–powered open garden technology platform for creators. Pairing music culture with sports, fashion, entertainment, and influencers through a 360–degree view of content and technology, Triller encourages its influencers to post the content created on the app across different social media platforms and uses proprietary AI technology to push and track their content virally to affiliated and non–affiliated sites and networks, enabling them to reach millions of additional users. Triller additionally owns VERZUZ, the live–stream music platform; combat sports brands Triller Fight Club, Triad Combat and BKFC; Amplify.ai, a leading customer engagement platform; FITE.tv, a premier global PPV, AVOD, and SVOD streaming service; Thuzio, a leader in B2B premium influencer events and experiences; Fangage, a platform for creators to engage fans and monetize content and Julius, a platform for brands and agencies to harness creators for social engagement and social commerce.

About Epik
With more than 300 video game clients, Epik is the leading global licensing agency putting brands into video games to produce premium digital items and experiences for over one billion gamers worldwide with the largest digital ecosystem with hundreds of the world's most popular entertainment brands. Epik is widely considered to be the blockchain industry leader producing collaborations for premium licensed digital collectables, NFTs and exclusive experiences powered by an interoperable proprietary cross–chain technology. Epik was the first and only NFT company to do any deals with AAA gaming companies for NFTs. Clients include ViacomCBS, Warner Music, Garena, Tencent and Universal.

For more information visit trillerinc.com

A video accompanying this announcement is available at

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Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

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Rural Women Work the Hardest, Produce the Most, Eat the Least

Rural women are less able to access land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets, and high-value agrifood chains and obtain lower prices for their crops. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS

Rural women are less able to access land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets, and high-value agrifood chains and obtain lower prices for their crops. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Oct 17 2022 – Make no mistake. Violence against women has been perpetuated, specially when it comes to those who have already been deprived of their basic human rights, as it is the case of rural women in over two-thirds of the world.

While gender-based abuses continue to be extended also in the industrialised societies, women in impoverished countries are still the hardest hit.

Did you know that smallholder agriculture produces nearly 80% of food in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and supports the livelihoods of some 2.5 billion people?

And that in many parts of Africa and Asia women produce more than 50% of all food?

Yet they face significant discrimination when it comes to land and livestock ownership, equal pay, participation in decision-making entities, and access to resources, credit and market.

 

Heavy workloads, no rights

Moreover, rural women in these regions have also to bear with the current alarming increases in gender-based violence, transactional sex for food and survival, child marriage (with girls forced to leave school), and unpaid care and domestic workloads.

Furthermore, rural women in poor regions are often left alone as males are recruited and killed in armed conflicts or obliged to migrate.

In such cases, women are forced to bear the entire responsibility of keeping alive their numerous families, from care to food, while often eating the last and the least.

 

International Day of Rural Women

The above mentioned facts, among others, have been highlighted on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Rural Women on 15 October. See more:

  • Rural women are less able to access land, credit, agricultural inputs, markets, and high-value agrifood chains and obtain lower prices for their crops,
  • Structural barriers and discriminatory social norms continue to constrain women’s decision-making power and participation in rural households and communities.
  • Women and girls in rural areas lack equal access to productive resources and assets, public services, such as education and health care, and infrastructure, including water and sanitation,
  • Much of their labour remains invisible and unpaid, even as their workloads become increasingly heavy due to the out-migration of men.
  • Globally, with few exceptions, every gender and development indicator for which data are available reveals that rural women fare worse than rural men and urban women,
  • Rural women disproportionately experience poverty, exclusion, and the effects of climate change.

In short, women account for a substantial proportion of the agricultural labour force, including informal work, and perform the bulk of unpaid care and domestic work within families and households in rural areas.

 

Two related world days

The focus on the harsh living conditions of rural women has been flashed out just one day before this year’s World Food Day (16 October), and two days earlier to the 2022 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October).

In either case, the Days remind that millions of people around the world cannot afford a healthy diet, putting them at high risk of food insecurity and malnutrition.

“But ending hunger isn’t only about supply. Enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet.”

Despite this fact, about 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted and lost… every single year, the equivalent of one ton per each of the one billion hungry people, many of them are those who produced the food.

In its recent reports: A World of One Billion Empty Plates, and Millions of Girls Abused in the Name of Toxic Masculinity, IPS has exposed how rising, cruel inequalities further push billions of humans into deeper impoverishment hitting girls and women the most.

Nevertheless, far from addressing such a grim reality, the world’s biggest war lords continue to spend on weapons in just one year, the equivalent to the budget of the largest humanitarian body–the United Nations for over a long half a century.

Poverty Haunts Resettled Farmers in Zimbabwe

Edious Murewa, resettled farmer, is on his farm where his barns are empty and have been for years. Experts blame climate change and a lack of farming know-how for the resettled farmers’ woes. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

Edious Murewa, resettled farmer, is on his farm where his barns are empty and have been for years. Experts blame climate change and a lack of farming know-how for the resettled farmers’ woes. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
MWENEZI, Zimbabwe, Oct 17 2022 – Edious Murewa has for years boasted of owning a 10-hectare piece of land, but now the 52-year-old is full of regrets. He faces poverty years after he invaded part of a farm once owned by a white commercial farmer.

He (Murewa) was 30 years old when he abandoned his ancestral home in the Mazetese area in the Mwenezi district, in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo province and headed west to get his own piece of land at the height of this country’s chaotic land seizures from white commercial farmers.

Even as Murewa and several other resettled farmers in Mwenezi are beneficiaries of this country’s agricultural inputs like fertilizer and maize seeds, for years, they have had no success in farming on the seized pieces of land as they get next to zero yields each harvest season.

For Murewa, together with his family – his wife and five children that never finished school because they were required to toil on their 10-hectare piece of land, poverty has turned into their daily foe.

“When I was still at my old home before abandoning it to come here, life was better. I used to send my children to school from the crop yields I was getting each harvest season, but that is no more now as our crops fail now and then,” Murewa told IPS.

Now, alongside several other resettled farmers in the drought-prone Zimbabwean district, Murewa has become a habitual charity case.

He and his family depend on donor food handouts and maize meal donations from the Zimbabwean government.

Murewa says the country’s governing party, the Zimbabwe Africa National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), has for many years stepped in to rescue him and his family as drought impacts their farm.

As a result, fearing losing his piece of land, Murewa has to pay back the ruling party with his vote at each election.

“I vote for Zanu-PF every election because it’s Zanu-PF that feeds me; it’s Zanu-PF that has given me land,” said Murewa.

So, decades after seizing land from white farmers, many of Zimbabwe’s resettled farmers like Murewa are having to contend with gruelling poverty, with some of them dwelling in slums on the farms they invaded.

Some, like 56-year-old Nyson Dewa, a resettled farmer at a farm outside Bindura in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province, have given up on farming.

As others benefitted from farm inputs from the government, Dewa claimed he had always been left out, which has led to him failing as a resettled farmer.

For him, just like Murewa in Masvingo, life was better before he decided to join the wave of land invasions here.

“I’m now poorer than before,” Dewa told IPS.

He (Dewa) pinned the blame for his agricultural failures on his support for the country’s number one opposition, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), which has resulted in him being denied access to farming inputs from government.

Poverty has not spared him, and his cry for help has often fallen on deaf ears.

In 2000, the late former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe turned the country’s agricultural sector upside down with his extremely contentious fast-track land reform program, parceling land to farmers like Dewa and Murewa.

Then, over seven million hectares (17.3 million acres) of land were redistributed to the country’s now poor resettled farmers like Dewa and Murewa.

For the late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, parceling out land to his black citizens was compensation for colonialism. About 4,500 white farmers were dispossessed, often violently, resulting in one million black Zimbabweans being resettled on the seized white-owned farms.

Yet, that for many has not made their lives any better.

Climate change experts like Happison Chikova blame growing climate change impacts for the continued failure of many of this country’s resettled farmers.

“Unpredictable weather patterns owing to climate change have worsened the poverty situation of the resettled farmers who have limited understanding of the changing climate,” Chikova told IPS.

Instead, resettled farmers like Murewa pounded left, desperately consult self-styled prophets for weather forecasts.

But these have not helped, misleading the poor farmers each farming season.

Even traditional healers like 88-year-old Kumbirai Chikwaka, who claim to conduct rain-making ceremonies around Masvingo, have not made the situation any better for resettled farmers.

“These traditional healers rob us of our little resources claiming to perform rituals to bring the rains, but we still rarely have any rain. It’s like the white farmers took the rains away with them,” said Murewa.

Agricultural experts blame a lack of technical skills for resettled farmers’ failure on the land they seized from white farmers.

“The resettled farmers suffer because they allocated themselves large farms without technical know-how in terms of serious farming, and that’s why most of them are now very poor,” Denzel Makarudze, an agricultural extension officer in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, told IPS.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Local Solutions Boost Sustainable Micro-Mobility in Cuba

Residents of the Fontanar neighborhood in the Cuban capital are pleased with the incorporation of electric three-wheel vehicles to shorten distances between sectors within Boyeros, one of the municipalities that make up Havana. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Residents of the Fontanar neighborhood in the Cuban capital are pleased with the incorporation of electric three-wheel vehicles to shorten distances between sectors within Boyeros, one of the municipalities that make up Havana. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Oct 17 2022 – The incorporation of small electric vehicles for public transport, together with initiatives that encourage the use of bicycles, represent opportunities and challenges for Cuba to sustainably and inclusively combat the chronic problems in urban mobility.

“Connecting nearby places with electric means of transportation has been very timely and a relief,” said Dania Martínez, referring to the well-known Ecotaxis, six-seater vehicles that since June have been providing transportation between neighborhoods within the municipality of Boyeros, one of the 15 that make up Havana.”Neomovilidad has aimed to strengthen the regulatory framework for an efficient transition to a low-carbon urban transport system in Havana, with a positive environmental impact.” — Reynier Campos

The teacher and her son were waiting for one of these vehicles at the Fontanar shopping center to take them to Wajay, their neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, when IPS asked them what they thought about the service.

“Public transportation is not good in this area, far from the city center, and private taxis charge you a high fee. Just getting somewhere else five kilometers away can be difficult. Hopefully the three-wheelers will spread to other places,” Martinez said.

She was referring to light motorized vehicles that resemble some kinds of Asian autorickshaws, which are also known locally as motocarro or mototaxi, with a capacity for six people in the back.

With a range of 120 kilometers, these three-wheeled electric vehicles cover three two- to four-kilometer routes for a price of four pesos, or 17 cents at the official exchange rate in a country with an average monthly salary equivalent to about 160 dollars.

The fleet of 25 vehicles is part of the Neomovilidad project, implemented by the General Directorate of Transportation of Havana (DGTH) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) office in Cuba.

For its implementation until 2023, it has a budget of 1.9 million dollars donated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

“From its start in 2019, Neomovilidad has aimed to strengthen the regulatory framework for an efficient transition to a low-carbon urban transport system in Havana, with a positive environmental impact,” Reynier Campos, director of the project, told IPS.

During the first three months of operation, more than 135,000 people were transported, with an estimated monthly emission reduction potential of 6.12 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

On the downside, Ecotaxis can only recharge at night by connecting to the national power grid, 95 percent of which depends on the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity. Recharging is carried out at the three-wheel vehicles’ parking area and is done at night because it takes about six hours.

However, there are plans to contract power from solar parks of the state-owned electric utility Unión Eléctrica de Cuba, in order to offset consumption, executives said.

Other fleets of Ecotaxis provide service in the municipalities of La Habana Vieja, Centro Habana and Guanabacoa, also with UNDP support, and contribute to the national commitment to climate change mitigation actions.

Campos explained that Neomovilidad is a pilot project in Boyeros that could be extended to other Havana municipalities and cities of this Caribbean island nation of 11.1 million people, where public transportation is one of the most pressing long-term issues.

Reynier Campos, head of the Neomovilidad project, stressed that the initiative proposes to strengthen the legislative framework and promote public policies based on four lines that contribute to Sustainable Urban Mobility and help reduce carbon emissions in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Reynier Campos, head of the Neomovilidad project, stressed that the initiative proposes to strengthen the legislative framework and promote public policies based on four lines that contribute to Sustainable Urban Mobility and help reduce carbon emissions in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Long-standing problem

With its 2.2 million residents and tens of thousands of people who live here on a short-term basis, Havana has 1.4 million people using transportation daily, one million of whom use the state-owned bus company Empresa de Ómnibus Urbanos, according to the Ministry of Transportation.

But the most recent official reports acknowledge that less than 50 percent of the fleet of public buses are currently operating in the capital.

The Cuban government blames the U.S. embargo as the main obstacle to the purchase of spare parts, as well as the lack of access to credit to repair and renovate buses, the main form of public transportation.

Problems with the availability of fuel and the number of drivers who find work in sectors with greater economic benefits also undermine an irregular service whose most visible face is the overcrowded stops at peak hours.

Figures indicate that 26 percent of the total estimated passengers in Havana use private taxis, which charge higher rates that not everyone can afford.

There are also non-agricultural transportation cooperatives with cabs and minibuses, as well as buses of the state-owned Transmetro Company, that provide services with set schedules.

About 80 percent of Latin America’s inhabitants live in towns and cities, and urban public transport remains essential in regional mobility plans.

Cuba is quietly taking steps to encourage the use of alternative vehicles and increase electricity production from renewable sources, which plans aim to raise from the current five to 37 percent by 2030.

As a result of flexible customs regulations for their importation, as well as assembly, it is estimated that half a million bicycles, motorcycles and electric three-wheelers are in circulation on the island, helping families get around.

However, high prices and sales only in foreign currency hinder their spread. Some of the most economical ones cost over 1,000 dollars, while others range from 2,000 to 5,000 dollars in government stores.

Mirelis Cordovés, driver of one of the electrocycles, makes 11 trips a day on the Fontanar-Wajay route, in the Boyeros municipality of the Cuban capital. She is pleased to have a job and a higher income to support her nine-year-old son, whom she is raising on her own. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Mirelis Cordovés, driver of one of the electrocycles, makes 11 trips a day on the Fontanar-Wajay route, in the Boyeros municipality of the Cuban capital. She is pleased to have a job and a higher income to support her nine-year-old son, whom she is raising on her own. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Gender focus to reduce gaps

Neomovilidad stands out for encouraging the incorporation of women as drivers and promoting female employment.

“In addition to giving me a job, my income is higher, helping me support my nine-year-old son,” Mirelis Cordovés, a single mother who is one of the 13 women who now form part of the project’s team of drivers, told IPS.

Latin American nations such as Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Panama have adopted national policies related to the development of electric mobility.

In the case of Cuba, the proposal is “a vision for the development of electromobility from the Ministries of Transport, Energy and Mines and Industry, with guidelines and priority lines in public transport, including the conversion of vehicles,” said Campos.

He said that Neomovilidad proposes to promote public policies that contribute to Sustainable Urban Mobility.

The project urges considering the specific mobility needs of each social group and mainstreaming variables such as gender, age and accessibility, in order to reduce gaps.

The National Gender Equality Survey, conducted in 2016 but whose results were released in February 2019, showed that women primarily bear the burden of care work.

They are the ones who spend the most time taking children, family members or other people under their care to schools, hospitals or to buy food, the survey showed.

Transportation was identified as one of the top three problems for Cuban women, second only to low incomes and housing shortages.

The study drew attention to the correlation between time use and income inequality, because cheaper transportation options (public buses) increase travel delays.

Experts consulted by IPS consider that in the case of Cuba, a developing nation shaken by a three-decade economic crisis and pressing financial problems, there is no need to wait for solutions that demand large resources, if small and accessible alternatives can be devised to organize and facilitate mobility.

The Neomovilidad stand during the 2022 International Transport Fair at the Pabexpo fairgrounds in Havana. The project includes a pilot system of public bicycles, with six bicycle stations and 300 bikes, which should start offering its services before the end of 2022. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The Neomovilidad stand during the 2022 International Transport Fair at the Pabexpo fairgrounds in Havana. The project includes a pilot system of public bicycles, with six bicycle stations and 300 bikes, which should start offering its services before the end of 2022. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Integrating bicycles

As part of Neomovilidad, a pilot system of public bicycles should be inaugurated before the end of 2022, with six stations and 300 bicycles, also in the municipality of Boyeros.

The autonomous venture Inteliforja will operate the bicycle mobility system as a local development project, in conjunction with the DGTH, after winning a bidding process.

“The main activity will be the rental of bicycles at affordable prices. It will include other services such as parking, mechanical workshops, as well as complementary activities such as bicycle touring, package delivery and community activities to encourage the use of this means of transport,” explained Luis Alberto Sarmiento, one of the managers of Inteliforja.

Sarmiento told IPS that the central workshop will be located at the José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana, where there are several engineering and architecture courses.

“We plan to install a solar panel-powered station there to charge students’ motorcycles and electric bicycles,” said the young entrepreneur.

“Farther in the future, when we have more resources, we plan to introduce bicycles or three-wheelers for the transportation of elderly and disabled people,” Sarmiento added.

Although electric mobility and the use of bicycles are seen as promoting more open, safer, cleaner and healthier cities, Cuba faces multiple challenges in this regard, starting with the need to lower the price of vehicles and ensure the stable availability of parts and components.

Other pending issues are the lack of recharging points for refueling outside the home, the lack of bicycle lanes or green lanes, in addition to the urgent need to repair a road network, 75 percent of which is classified as in fair or poor condition.

Say “No” to Foreign Intervention in Haiti to Kill our People: We Stand Ready for Peaceful Transition of Leadership

Mothers wait with their children to be vaccinated at a UNFPA-supported hospital in southern Haiti. Credit: UNFPA/Ralph Tedy Erol

 
An unrelenting series of crises has trapped vulnerable Haitians in a cycle of growing desperation, without access to food, fuel, markets, jobs and public services, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week.

By Harvey Dupiton
NEW YORK, Oct 17 2022 – Talks of an inevitable U.S. military intervention in Haiti are brewing within diplomatic circles. Without any constitutional or legal authority, our Haitian de facto government gave the green light for special forces to be sent to Haiti to combat our poor people-forgotten, jobless, left with no other choice for survival but the gang violence and insurrection ravaging the country.

The last time the Haitian community was misled into the proposition of a surgical strike, as it was called, under the guise of assistance, was in 1994, 28 years ago. Our Haitian president at that time was the culprit behind that betrayal of our constitution.

At his urging, the U.S. led 20,000 American troops into our sovereign land supposedly to uphold a fledgling democracy, but instead resulting in the dismantlement of our Haitian military and the breakdown of our society.

Our Haitian president said the U.S.-led invasion was to be a quick fix. However, let us not forget that this military operation violated our constitution and the United Nations Charter. The mission quickly became a prolonged United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding operation.

Twenty-eight years later, our country is in ruins like never before, right under the surveillance of the United Nations. Our Haiti of today has become a country of beggars, where the government is entirely at the mercy of foreign assistance.

There are no viable institutions left; the political establishment in Haiti exists only on paper as shell organizations, with a parliament out of commission and a powerless judiciary branch. Even more alarming is that the replacement police force to the military is overrun and in despair, having ceded control to violent street gangs.

Those of us in the diaspora want to help our country. Still, this reminds us of another failed nation-building experiment in Afghanistan. There is a lesson to be learned in all of this. Democracy can neither be interrupted nor forced upon a country.

These days, it is with shame that we admit to our African friends and our neighbors from Cuba how we have failed our country, each of us living in the diaspora, simply by our inaction. To them, Haiti, having gained its independence over 218 years ago, was a beacon of hope for the enslaved.

It would be foolish to think that Haiti’s problems are simply that of the gangs. Our Haitian leaders are responsible for the carnage and violence in the streets. They will do anything to get into office. Yet, these wannabe leaders cannot deliver as promised, often betraying the public’s trust, and pointing the finger of blame to absolve themselves of their failings.

We have been failed and disappointed so many times by our leaders of late. Haitians are fed up with their leadership and the broken political system that brought them to power. Today, people are taking to the streets to say enough is enough.

The majority are young people under the age of 25. They are ready to die at the hands of foreign troops, if need be, to take their country back. Haitians are resilient and are willing to pay the price with their lives. Behind the crime of opportunity, they commit in the absence of a law-and- order government, these are ordinary citizens who have been marginalized if not totally abandoned, and left disillusioned.

We call for solidarity to say no to the proposed intervention in Haiti.

We condemn the Haitian de Facto government for inviting foreign troops into our homeland against our people. We view this as an act of cowards, which is shameful, unpatriotic, and treasonous.

We, at United Nations Association Haiti, represented by the diaspora, are ready to provide the transition leadership our country desperately needs to get out of this crisis and beyond.

Our action plan is threefold:

• On the question of security stabilization, a more peaceful approach to a forceful intervention would instead involve honest discussions with those occupying the streets. If they are not the chief problem behind the senseless violence and the terrorizing kidnappings, then they must be part of the solution.

• Secondly, to address the concern of food security, we propose massive relief assistance as the centerpiece of our community engagement strategy. There are enough resources within our diaspora community to do without begging.

• Lastly, on the most critical issue of future elections, we are prepared to take a different and unique approach to make fundamental adjustments to our democratic system, which might alleviate the chronic political instability seen in Haiti and throughout the African continent. We seek to find answers from the science driving our elections in the last 36 years. 1987 was the year we adopted a new electoral law. It was a significant piece of legislation that officialized our departure from dictatorship and military-backed ruling to a new democratic order.

Somewhere along that reversal of order lies the fault lines that explains why our elections since, look more like the reality TV show, American Idol, than a construct grounded in institutional checks and balances.

Haiti can no longer afford divisiveness but must embrace a path to stability and institutional norms. To get our next election right, Haitians may be required to welcome amends wherever necessary to achieve a democratic process that reconciles popular will with stakeholder confidence.

We call on the Haitian community and all friends of Haiti to work with us. This is our opportunity to take our country back. This is your chance to be actively involved in the major decisions of your country.

We call on the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, to respect the sovereignty of Haiti. There is no justification for intervention. There is not a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) a de facto government from its own people.

We seek a peaceful solution for our country and the Haitian people. That is the Future We Want. That is the future we should all deserve.

We stand ready to provide the leadership Haitians will trust to emerge out of this stalemate and move our nation forward united.

It is time to right the wrongs.

Harvey Dupiton is President, United Nations Association Haiti (NY); Chair, NGO Committee on Private Sector Development (ECOSOC NGOs); and former UN Press Correspondent, NTS News (Haiti)

IPS UN Bureau

 


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