On Jan. 19 a group of Haitian immigrant workers reached an agreement with international organizations and Dominican authorities to leave an encampment they and family members had maintained in front of the Dominican Labor Ministry in Santo Domingo since Dec. 14. The 112 mostly undocumented workers said they were owed a total of 15 million pesos (about US$368,550) in severance pay and benefits after two coconut processing plants, Coquera Kilómetro 5 and Coquera Real, in nearby San Cristóbal province went out of business.

More than 100 Haitian immigrant workers and their family members remained encamped in front of the Dominican Labor Ministry in Santo Domingo as of Jan. 10 to demand severance pay and other benefits they say they were owed when two coconut processing plants in nearby San Cristóbal province went out of business. According to the workers' lawyers, the owner of Coquera Kilómetro 5 and Coquera Real, Rafael Alonzo Luna, declared bankruptcy in an irregular form and denied benefits to employees who had worked at the plants for up to 14 years. Conditions at the encampment, which the workers have maintained since Dec. 14, were said to be deteriorating, but the group's spokesperson, Elmo Ojilus, said the workers planned to continue their protest.

Port-au-Prince Government Commissioner Lucmane Délile, the chief prosecutor for Haiti's capital, met with former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) for about 30 minutes on Jan. 9 to discuss criminal complaints accusing Aristide of theft, swindling and abuse of confidence. The meeting took place in Aristide's residence in Tabarre, a well-to-do neighborhood northeast of the capital. It was originally scheduled for the prosecutor's office downtown, but Délile apparently decided to change the location when 1,000 or more Aristide supporters began protesting outside his office.

The Clinton Bush Fund, which former presidents Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and George W. Bush (2001-2009) established shortly after Haiti's January 2010 earthquake, is closing down on Dec. 31, the group's vice president for marketing and communications said on Dec. 7. The fund will have disbursed all of the $54.4 million it raised, she indicated. The organization says on its website that its goal was "to assist the Haitian people in building their own country back better." The group says it has "[d]irectly created or sustained 7,350 jobs and counting" and "[d]irectly trained 20,050 people and counting." (New York Times, Dec. 7, from AP)

A series of demonstrations that started in the city of Jérémie in the southwestern Haitian department of Grand'Anse on Nov. 27 turned violent on Nov. 30 when more than 50 agents of the Haitian National Police (PNH) arrived to reinforce the local police. Agents of the Company of Intervention for the Maintenance of Order (CIMO), the Haitian riot police, reportedly used tear gas and gunfire to disperse several hundred protesters, who responded by hurling rocks at the agents. A vendor whose name was given as Wilber Bien-Aimé by one source and Hilder Victor by another was shot dead in the Sainte-Hélène neighborhood, and three other people were wounded. Three police agents were injured by rocks.

Damaël D'Haïti, an economics student at the State University of Haiti (UEH), was shot dead the evening of Nov. 10 during an event at the university's Faculty of Law and Economics (FDSE) facility in Port-au-Prince. According to witnesses, the killer was an agent of the Haitian National Police (PNH), Macéus Pierre-Paul (or Pierre-Paul Macéus); the motive was unclear. Pierre-Paul was detained, and Port-au-Prince Government Commissioner Lucmane Délile, chief prosecutor for the capital, insisted that justice would be carried out in this case.

Although the worst damage from Sandy took place in Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba, the storm also affected other parts of the Caribbean. One man died in Juana Díaz in southern Puerto Rico on Oct. 26 when he was swept away by a river swollen because of rain from the edges of the storm, and 3,500 homes were damaged in the Dominican Republic. Sandy hit the Bahamas after leaving Cuba, and one man was killed there. The total number of deaths from Sandy in the Caribbean islands was at least 68. (AP, Oct. 28, via Miami Herald) [The reported death toll in the US, which Sandy struck starting on Oct. 29, was 110 as of Nov. 4. (CNN, Nov. 4)]

Tropical storm Sandy began hitting southern Haiti with heavy rain on Oct. 23, just as it was intensifying into a Category 1 hurricane; the rain continued through Oct. 26. Haiti suffered the worst damage of the Caribbean nations that Sandy affected, even though the storm's center never passed over the country. At least 54 people died, roads and bridges were damaged, and homes were destroyed. About 200,000 people suffered from the effects of the hurricane, according to official figures, with the damage concentrated in five departments: South, Southeast, Grand Anse, Nippes and West.