Tag: Jean Bertrand Aristide

Portraying community and political activists as violent gang leaders and violent criminals was employed in the run-up to Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster in 2004 and gained momentum in the years afterwards. The continued demonization of militants and activists is exemplified in the defamation campaign against grassroots activist Samba Boukman.

As one of his first measures in office, Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim plans to conclude Brazil’s participation in the notorious United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Various sectors of the Brazilian government, including Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, agree with Mr. Amorim, who says that the important thing now is to formulate an exit strategy. This story has now been translated into French and Spanish; the translations follow the English version.

Several prominent figures from the international anti-apartheid movement have sent South African President Jacob Zuma an open letter “in the hopes that he can assist” former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family in returning to Haiti “as soon as possible.”

This “run-off” presidential election, scheduled for March 20, helps to explain the re-emergence of Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier, since both candidates, Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly, have links to the Duvalier past. Manigat's husband is said to have advised Duvalier to create the dreaded tonton macoutes. And Martelly, who was himself a tonton macoute in his youth, has pledged to make Duvalier one of his advisers. Join the Haiti Action Committee for “Seven Years after the Coup in Haiti: Democracy at the Crossroads” at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland, on Tuesday, March 1, 7 p.m.

Join your voice with the roar of the crowds in Egypt and Haiti to demand that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton end support for Mubarak and support the Egyptian people’s will and allow Aristide to return and allow real democracy in Haiti.

Confidential U.S. diplomatic cables from 2005 and 2006 released this week by WikiLeaks reveal Washington’s well-known obsession to keep exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti and Haitian affairs. “All efforts must be made to keep Aristide from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process,” the U.S. embassy told Brazil, which heads the U.N. occupation of Haiti. Did those efforts include covering up the assassination of the Brazilian general in charge who had no taste for slaughtering Haitians who simply want their president back?

Today, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, whose return to Haiti is demanded daily by his people – he was kidnapped Feb. 29, 2004, in a U.S.-engineered coup and has since lived in South Africa – wrote the following letter to the South African and Haitian governments seeking to return home. But, asks Ezili Danto, who forwarded his letter, “If Duvalier can, without trouble, travel on an EXPIRED Haitian passport, why can’t President Aristide do the same?”

Haitians say protests are the inevitable outcome when troops who have occupied Haiti for five years with seeming impunity have introduced a deadly, misery-multiplying disease.

“We are living in the mud. We are wet and we are hungry. Those in charge have left us without hope. If they have a plan, we do not know it. We are asking about the future. And we want our voices to be heard.” Each Saturday a thousand or more Haitian earthquake survivors meet in the auditorium of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy to talk about the future of their country.

When the Aristide Foundation for Democracy launched our mobile school project in late February we wanted to do two things quickly: support children living in refugee camps across Port au Prince and offer immediate employment to young Haitians at a time when the whole economy has collapsed.

Dr. Chris Zamani, who led the medical contingent of the medical-media team that Minister of Information JR took to Haiti, writes of the oppression in Haiti as "the imperialists ... warning of what will happen to those that dare to grasp their own destiny and establish freedom for their descendants by any means necessary." Watch the unforgettable film of their trip and meet them in person: "Back from Haiti" Thursday, March 11, 7 p.m., Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland, and Thursday, March 18, 7 p.m., SF State, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco.

The People’s National Party of Belize organized a Kayak for Haiti Kayakathon to raise funds for the victims of the quake. Despite the inclement weather, Kayak for Haiti was a success because the target was met and surpassed. The total amount raised was $1,404. The money will go to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.

Pierre Labossierre, cofounder of the Haiti Action Committee, alerts us to oppose "relief" funds and protest U.S. military occupation that threaten Haitian independence and sovereignty and to demand the return of President Aristide and the inclusion of Lavalas in Haitian democracy. Following the interview, listen and watch audio and video files featuring Pierre, Cynthia McKinney, Kiilu Nyasha, Nia Imara, Minister of Information JR, Joy Moore and more - all calling on everyone to “stand in solidarity with Haiti.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates wouldn’t send in food and water because, he said, there was no “structure ... to provide security.” For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it’s security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

In the spirit of solidarity President Aristide invokes and guided by Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee, the SF Bay View and Block Report Radio are preparing to send a media-medical team to Haiti to serve the people most in need. Come to the fundraiser Sunday, Jan. 24, 6:30 p.m., at the Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St. in West Oakland. Bring medical supplies. Spread the word!

The horrific disaster that befell Haiti Jan. 12 may have killed hundreds of thousands. According to the media, Haiti’s weak infrastructure and poor quality of construction account for the large number of deaths. Left to their own efforts, however, Haitians would have been more than able to build a reliable democracy with adequate infrastructure. But they have never been allowed to do so.

Once the French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his rebel force, Napoleon intended to advance to the North American mainland, basing a new French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the Mississippi River. By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson.

Haiti is now forced by the World Bank and its bloodsucking siblings like the IMF to pay more than $1 million a week to satisfy debts incurred by the Duvaliers and the post-Duvalier tyrannies. Haiti must repay this debt to prove its fitness for "help" from the Multilateral Financial Institutions (MFI).

Four tropical storms in a month killed between 500 and 1,000 Haitians and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Because preparedness under Aristide had been abandoned and the U.N. won't help, damage and suffering are much worse than necessary.

In Haiti, they have a name for hunger. It's called Clorox hunger - meaning something that eats you from the inside. But it's an imposed hunger, an imposed starvation on the people of Haiti. It has a history. Until the 1980s, Haiti was self sufficient in rice production. But with the lowering of tariffs, Haitians got what we call "Miami" rice. Haiti was flooded with cheap rice imports and Haitian peasants couldn't compete.