Bill Clinton making first Haiti visit as UN envoy

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Bill Clinton aims to refocus international attention on this Caribbean country’s deep economic problems and environmental decay during his first visit as the United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti.

The former U.S. president, who is expected to meet with Haitian President Rene Preval and visit hurricane-battered areas, is lending his prestige to the plight of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere as world attention has shifted to the global financial crisis and other trouble spots.

He was scheduled to arrive late Monday, but no public events were planned until Tuesday, the United Nations said.

The three-day visit will be Clinton’s second to Haiti this year. He toured Port-au-Prince with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, recording artist Wyclef Jean and others in March, before Ban named him to the newly created post in May.

Clinton spoke at a Haiti donors conference at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington in April that generated $324 million in aid pledges.

As U.N. envoy, his aims include investment and job creation, particularly by expanding garment factories that export to the United States, and repairing Haiti’s severe deforestation.

Those priorities were laid out in a 19-page report to Ban by Oxford University professor Paul Collier in January that was praised by Preval and other leaders.

But the report has been criticized by lawmakers and other Haitians who see the garment factories as havens for exploitative labor. Workers in the factories make a minimum salary of $1.72 a day, though some are paid more.

A bill passed by Haiti’s parliament to raise the daily minimum wage to $5.14 was rejected by Preval, contributing to frustrations that have fueled street protests and kept most voters away from the polls during last month’s Senate elections.

“If someone can’t pay a worker $5, I think we don’t need that person here in Haiti,” said lawmaker Steven Benoit, who sponsored the wage increase.

Many Haitians have taken to referring to Clinton with varying degrees of respect, concern and sarcasm as a colonial “governor,” a term rooted in Haiti’s long history of slavery under France and U.S. military occupation in the 20th century.

Still, Clinton remains widely popular — especially among the mostly poor supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who are old enough to remember Clinton’s help in restoring Aristide to power in 1994 after a coup.

Aristide was forced into exile by a rebellion in 2004.