June 2005
About NCHR: its mission, history, its achievements and program objectives today

What is NCHR’s Mission?

NCHR’s Mission is to champion the rights of Haitians in the United States and Haiti.

The standards used to pursue this mission are international human rights standards and laws. In other words, in accordance with these standards, we measure the response and performance of governments and international institutions (in particular the US government) that are charged with upholding the rule of law and protecting these rights. And we respond accordingly, informing public opinion and mobilizing its force for or against government policies and initiatives.

When was NCHR established?

NCHR was born in New York City in February 1982 as the National Emergency Coalition for Haitian Refugees. Its founders were religious, labor, civil rights, human rights and Haitian leaders who took up the cause of Haitian refugees after the US government set aside international norms and domestic legal protections in order to deny Haitian asylum-seekers the protection they sought from the US after fleeing the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship. Leaders of the NCHR at the time included:

• Father Antoine Adrien, leader of the Haitian Fathers, a group of priests exiled by the Duvaliers in 1969 who were ministering to the Haitian community in NY.
• Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, at the time Bishop of the Brooklyn Archdiocese and Chairman of the US Catholic Conference Bishops’ Committee on Migration
• Bayard Rustin, a key aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King and widely acknowledged as a master strategist of the civil rights movement.
• Ira Gollobin, a renowned civil rights and immigration lawyer
• Michael Posner, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now known as Human Rights First)
• Vernon Jordan, then Executive Director of the National Urban League
• Rev. Benjamin Hooks, then President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored  People (NAACP),
• Rep. Shirley Chisholm
• Bishop Paul Moore of the Episcopal Church in NY
• Lane Kirkland, President of the AFL-CIO

Within six months, they rechristened NCHR the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, and hired Michael S. Hooper as Executive Director. Under Hooper’s leadership, NCHR earned the esteem of Haitians and non-Haitians alike with efforts to prevent the arbitrary deportation of Haitian asylum-seekers, providing expert information on country conditions, based on substantive investigations into human rights abuses in Haiti, and to insure permanent immigrant status for Haitian refugees through legislative remedies.

The Executive Director’s baton was passed to Jocelyn McCalla in 1988 when Mr. Hooper was felled by malignant melanoma. Mr. McCalla had joined the staff of the NCHR in 1985 as Deputy Director, working closely with Mr. Hooper on developing and implementing winning strategies on behalf of Haitians. Through 1990, NCHR relied on investigative visits to Haiti and the meticulous reports of a Haiti-based human rights monitor named Jean Rosalvo Blaise to inform lawmakers and policymakers in the US. Mr. Blaise died in 1991 of medical complications related to HIV/AIDS. NCHR hired Mr. Pierre Esperance in late 1991 to monitor and report on human rights violations in Haiti. Prior to working for the NCHR, Mr. Esperance worked as an “animateur,” (a grassroots organizer) for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) project in the Southwest of Haiti. To enhance Mr. Esperance’s skills, NCHR secured for him a three-month apprenticeship in human rights monitoring in The Philippines and English-language skills training in Arkansas.

In 1993, NCHR formally established a field office in Haiti, which was managed and led by Anne Fuller, its Deputy Director.

In 1995, NCHR carried out a strategic development review which led to its recasting itself as the National Coalition for Haitian Rights. A central element of the new mission was NCHR’s determination to strengthen the capacity of its field office to the point that it could be spinned off as an independent entity. Plans were made to develop a Haiti-based human rights network, to provide human rights education and training to community activists throughout Haiti and to focus on judicial/police reform. When Ms. Fuller left the NCHR for a high-level post with the UN/OAS Mission Civile Internationale en Haiti (MICIVH), Mr. Esperance was elevated to Director of NCHR’s field office.

What have you achieved over the years in fulfillment of that mission?

We don’t rush to the barricades to slay the dragon. Because there are no dragons to be slain… just the hard, cold reality of people fashioning policies and determining priorities with a modicum of knowledge and in accordance with their beliefs and the policies they are charged with upholding. Usually, they care little about the welfare of the Haitian people. By championing the rights of Haitians in the US and Haiti, we make it nearly impossible for them to ignore the Haiti-related issues and wish them away. And sometimes we have been successful. For example:

1. In 1986, we wrested from Congress and the Reagan administration about 40,000 permanent immigrant visas (green cards) for Haitian refugees whom the US government tried hard to return to the hands of the Duvalier regime.
2. In 1994, we forced the hand of the Clinton Administration by insisting on Haitian refugee protection as the starting point for a pro-active Haiti democracy initiative. The blueprint was a simple 3-page, 10-point plan crafted by NCHR’s Executive Director in 1992 after at least 40 of the best legal minds and advocates around the US could not come to a consensus on how to deal with the first Democratic administration at the White House following 12 years of Republican rule. Randall Robinson of TransAfrica took credit by stage-managing a hunger strike that fueled media and political attention, but the groundwork was laid in the countless off-the-record and on-the-record meetings and advocacy initiatives with Robinson, advocates, lawyers, congressional and administration officials, US Special Envoy Bill Gray and Immigration Commissioner Doris Meissner that flowed from the blueprint.
3. In 1998, we forced again the hand of the Clinton Administration when we joined with groups in South Florida to champion an estimated 50,000 green cards for Haitian refugees held in limbo in the US since the 1991 coup d’etat.
4. We took on the cause of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, and so threatened preferential trade agreements between the DR and the US that the former had to make certain concessions, after first resorting to massive expulsions of Haitian immigrants. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ordered the DR to grant citizenship status to several Dominicans of Haitian descent whose cause we championed through legal action.
5. We championed the cause of the restavek child, the Haitian child who labors in solitary servitude behind closed doors, and who gets thrown to the wolves on the streets of Port-au-Prince once his or her services are no longer needed. USAID used the report that NCHR published on this matter as the blueprint for its anti-trafficking initiative in Haiti.
6. And although NCHR-Haiti’s trajectory of late leaves us with a sour taste, it nonetheless represents an achievement that deserves recognition in its own right.

In the process, we:

1. Built support for Haitians throughout the US by building a large coalition that bridged civil rights and international human rights advocacy,
2. Testified countless times before Congress, at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, either for NCHR or on behalf of a sister organization such as Human Rights Watch.
3. Became a credible reference for the print and broadcast media, with the regular publication of Haiti Insight and numerous background and on-the-record interviews as well as televised debates with top policymakers and US officials.
4. Raised the profile of Haiti’s democracy movement when its leaders were hardly distinguishable from the crowded field of presidential hopefuls.
5. Deeply engaged in shaping the framework for the deployment of the UN/OAS Civilian Observer Mission in Haiti (MICIVIH), which once deployed, benefited in its initial deployment phase in 1993 from training in human rights advocacy that we organized on the ground in Haiti under military rule.
6. Provided limited but substantive financial, housing, medical and refugee-related assistance to scores of victims of human rights abuses through the 1990s.
7. Braved danger to meet with dissidents in the darkness of night or to interview Haitian refugees as they walked down the planks of US Coast Guard cutters and were met by Haitian army officials waiting to identify the politically active among them.

As a result, NCHR gained broad respect as a champion of democracy in Haiti and Haitians in the US, a progressive organization with a unique cast of characters on its board.

What are NCHR’s program objectives today?

In line with the NCHR mission and the changed environment in which we are now operating, we have identified the following objectives:

• Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians in America. And we have settled on a Justice for Dantica Campaign that includes:
  • Supporting the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center’s legal efforts on behalf of the Danticat family and Haitians similarly situated.
  • Advocacy with the Administration and Congress.
  • Rallying support from within Haitian-American communities and from African-American Church leaders, for Rev. Joseph Dantica’s death in custody in the US brings forth succinctly what is wrong with US policy in Haiti and the US, gives us a platform to discuss US policy and provides an excellent opportunity to rebuild the broad-based movement in America that served Haiti well in the 1990s.
• A hybrid (international/national) Court for politically-sensitive criminal trials in Haiti. And we have settled on a Justice for Dominique Campaign, because:
  1. Despite our collective best efforts so far through pressure, cinema and other efforts, the Haitian judicial system remains unresponsive and it will be so for the foreseeable future, for it is dysfunctional, highly politicized, corrupt and ill-equipped to deal with modern laws and human rights standards
  2. Bringing judicial reform and a modicum of the rule of law requires something other than making pious recommendations and admonishing the Government of Haiti and its international overseers for their failure to abide by standard norms of behavior.
  3. Dominique -- and his wife (our esteemed colleague) Michele -- was a democracy activist who did an extraordinary job of bringing down the walls of oppression, freed speech from its cultural shackles, and through his maverick, quirky and stubborn ways, unleashed pent-up energies amongst the people of Haiti that reverberate to this day.
  4. It gives us a platform upon which no other human rights organization -- whether Haitian or international -- stands, a platform from which we can strongly challenge US and international policies.
• Instigating and developing greater Haitian-American involvement in US political processes at the City, State and Federal levels, because:
  1. Haitian communities are no longer largely made up of newly-arrived refugees and immigrants seeking permanent admission to the US. They are on the whole permanent residents, naturalized citizens and second-generation or third generation Haitian-American citizens with the right and capacity to vote or to get deeply engaged in domestic political processes.
  2. Their power and capacity remains untapped despite the strides made in Massachusetts and Florida by those who won political office, yet they hold great potential in shaping US policies towards their communities and Haiti
  3. They remain on the lower rungs of the ladder as evidenced by neighborhood blights and poor educational, health, housing, sanitary and police services in their communities
  4. They are held back by Haiti’s constant needs for remittances to keep whole families afloat through the political and periodic hurricanes that beset the homeland.
• Eliminating the restavek system in Haiti -- a system which affects one out of every 10 children living in Haiti --, and developing a transnational campaign calling for the establishment of restavek-free zones in Haiti and the Diaspora.

Sustained financial support is essential to promoting and defending Haitians' rights

Influencing US policy towards Haitian refugees and immigrants, building social, economic and political capacity among Haitians, and promoting meaningful human rights policies and praxis is not easy. But it's eminently possible if you step forward together with us, support our campaigns and we keep marching in lockstep.

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Thank you in advance for your generosity,