Farmers pushed off the Caracol land file a complaint with the bank

Hundreds of families lost their fields when the Caracol industrial park was built on the north coast of Haiti, and the compensation they were promised did not arrive. They formed a collective in 2014. In January 2017 they lodged a formal complaint with the Inter-American Development Bank, which was still a major funder of the park, asking for replacement land and legal title so that they could farm again. Two international organisations, ActionAid and the Accountability Counsel, backed the case, as did a Haitian peasant group called AREDE led by Milostene Castin. A year later the collective, the bank and the Haitian government signed an agreement covering land for the most vulnerable families, agricultural training, access to credit, schooling for children and one job at the park per household. Castin said it was the first time Haitian farmers had stood up and been heard. Philomise Pierre noted that Charlemagne Peralte lies buried under the park.