Inter Press Service in the Caribbean

IPS, civil society's leading news agency, is an independent voice from the South and for development, delving into globalisation for the stories underneath. Another communication is possible.

IPS publishes some good articles, including ones by Dahr Jamail. Unfortunately, for the past five years, it's Haiti correspondent has been Jane Regan, an open admirer of Guy Phillipe and the Cannibal Army. I recently questioned IPS's Caribbean editor, Katherine Stapp (based in New York) about the contradiction of a supposedly anti-imperialist news agency having a camp follower of a notorious killer and coup leader as its on-the-ground reporter (you would think that the name 'Cannibal Army' would raise a red flag). Ms. Stapp objected to my insinuation that perhaps race had something to do with IPS's willful blindness in publishing Regan's anti-Aristide reports.

I had also questioned whether Regan, who is no longer reporting for IPS, and Michael Deibert, another reactionary coup supporter now being used by the agency, might be CIA agents. 'Ludicrous,' responded Ms. Stapp.

I am willing to give Ms. Stapp the benefit of the doubt since she agreed to publish an excellent article co-written by Jeb Sprague about how Haitian prisoners, many of them political, are dying from beri-beri caused by the substitution of U.S. polished rice for Haitian brown rice as the prisoners' only food.

But this controversy is far from over. IPS's Cuba correspondent, Dalia Acosta, spent the greater part of an end-of-the-year report quoting dissidents. We will have to see whether Ms. Stapp continues to use Michael Deibert, and try to figure out how to address the agency's lack of a competent reporter in Cuba.