ARTICLE - CUBA-VENEZUELA-HAITI

TRIPARTITE MEETING CUBA-VENEZUELA-HAITI, VERY POSITIVE FOR THE COUNTRY
(Haiti Libre) -

Thursday, Laurent Lamothe had a very important and fruitful meeting as part of the tripartite cooperation between Cuba-Venezuela-Haiti. Chancellor Lamothe, accompanied by Haitian officials concerned with this cooperation, met with the Cuban ambassador, Ricardo Sotero Garcia Nápoles, and Venezuelan Ambassador Pedro Antonio Canino Gonzalez, on several tripartite cooperation projects in Haiti.

After this important meeting, Laurent Lamothe declared "...I wanted to talk to you about a very important meeting that we just had, as part of the tripartite cooperation between Cuba-Venezuela-Haiti, of what tripartite cooperation brings to Haiti [...] As a reminder, it is through them that is built the airport of Cap Haitien, that are installed three power plants; one at Cap, in Carrefour and Gonaïves, which provide more than 60MW of electricity currently [...]

...about deforestation, we agreed that we will plant about 20 million trees in the country to combat this scourge, and we will encourage people to not cut trees to make charcoal. For this, at the cooperation level, we will come with a small propane stove and a project of propane tanks [...]

The second point was energy. As I said, when we came back from Venezuela, they will double production capacity of electricity in Cap Haitien from 15MW to 30MW, and also that of Carrefour from 30MW to 60MW. With these increases, we will feel an improvement in electricity in the country. We can no longer live with blackouts [...] There was question of a power plant of 15 MW that will be built in Jacmel, and we also talked of 2-3 other additional plants [...]

...We discussed how we can strengthen the program 'Ti manman cheri', and addressed the housing needs, which are estimated at 5,000, 10 projects of 500. We looked at how to operationalize this project as quickly as possible. These are mainly social projects, and of infrastructure secondarily, because the social is very important for us [...]

We were really happy with this meeting. Concretely, I think we will find much help in this tripartite relationship, and we will continue to push in this direction and of course to finish. There was quaestion of mass literacy. We know there are about 5 million Haitians who need to be literate, and that education is priority number one, for President Martelly. Therefore, we'll start with a program of 600,000 people that will become literate as part of this tripartite cooperation..."

The Cuban ambassador, Ricardo Sotero Garcia Nápoles declared, "I think today's meeting had a very positive result because, as the Minister has just explained, we discussed all issues concerning tripartite cooperation between Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti. Indeed we believe we can contribute significantly to further develop the theme of literacy, and also cooperate in the fields of energy and reforestation with the Ministry of Agriculture of Haiti. We are very pleased with today's meeting"

Venezuelan Ambassador Pedro Antonio Canino Gonzalez warmly thanked the Chancellor for the invitation to this meeting "[...] We were there to boost the tripartite cooperation and Haiti has shown a deep interest, both President Martelly and Chancellor Lamothe [...] The tripartite cooperation will be relaunched in the specific areas that we have just quoted, and this will greatly improve the living conditions of the Haitian population, in terms of electricity, reforestation, literacy, social housing and hydrocarbons. In tourism, with the project in Jacmel, Venezuela will greatly assist in the renovation of the city [...] We are very enthusiastic, and we are very happy to deepen cooperation with the Haitian people. That is the reason we held this meeting with the Chancellor, and we will remain united until the final victory."