Home »

[jafrikayiti]

Dear friends,

I am forwarding this message to you on behalf of ACHASAUSHA

(Association canado haitienne pour la sauvegarde de la souveraineté d'Haiti) and Ayiti Granmoun Entènasyonal (AGE) who launched this urgent campaign on April 7, 2003.

After reading this message, in whole or in part, I am certain that

many of you will feel compelled to do something about what you've learned. Should it be so, please consider starting by supporting this petition that calls for an immediate end to the current U.S.-led multinational sabotage of Haiti's democratic movement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/7avril/petition.html

Background : (Link to web-based audio & text of Interviews with NOAM CHOMSKY and with DANNY GLOVER below)

A set of mind-boggling articles published first in Haiti and the U.S.

then, as recently as March and April 2003, by "L'Actualité" (Canada) and "Le Monde" (France), claim persistently that Canada, France and the U.S. are all involved in a multinational effort to overthrow the Government of Haiti.

We invite those wishing to understand what is really going on in this impoverished nation of 8 million people to do a little reading. It just might help put all this craziness in proper perspective and

contribute to prevent a nasty turn of events in the weeks ahead.

Here are the basic FACTS OF THE DAY, as we honestly understand them to be:

1) President Aristide was elected by the people of Haiti on November 26, 2000 ? His 5 year term was obtained in elections that were acknowledged to be free and fair. Normally, his constitutional term expires on February 7, 2006.

2) According to several news reports, very powerful elements of the U.S. and Canadian governments tried to prevent the election of Aristide (see: U.S. TRIES TO MANIPULATE HAITIAN ELECTION, By G. Dunkel http://www.iacenter.org/haiti_elect.htm and Washington Post article Haiti Torn by Hope and Hatred As Aristide Returns to Power, published February 2, 2001, 5 days before Aristide's official swearing-in ceremony) ? and are currently, with the help of some European governments and of the Organization of American States (OAS), using covert actions to destabilize and topple him (l'Actualité, March 15, 2003).

3) Since his election, Aristide has lost considerable support among

Haiti's middle and upper classes because of his government's

mismanagement of public affairs in many sensitive areas.

4) A majority of Haitians feel betrayed and cheated by the current

U.S./OAS-led initiatives that are destabilizing, not only Aristide's

government, but the whole of Haitian society. Haitians everywhere keep demanding that foreign powers respect their constitutional right to either punish or reward Aristide and his party, with electoral ballots, in December 2005. However, powerful foreign and national entities seem, at least for now, to have successfully hijacked the country from its people.

5) Disturbingly, a pattern of racial and class solidarity has been

consistently displayed by members of the traditional coup-plotting

forces in Haiti, and by the American & European sectors who appear to be hell bent on deposing Aristide' government ? through covert and/or overt actions (coup d'état, financial boycott via IMF & World Bank, diplomatic harassment via OAS, foreign embassies etc?). Is the U.S. Funding Haitian Contras by Kevin Pina, April 2003 http://www.blackcommentator.com/36/3...mmentator.html

6) Borne of the frustration-generating negotiations (open-ended

political bargaining), nation-wide fratricidal violence is feared to

be a likely path out of the quagmire that local politicians and

businessmen as well as foreign diplomats have nurtured in the

impoverished nation over the past decade (see: http://www.oas.org

"Haiti situation").

7) In order to avoid the worst, people of various socio-political

horizons, racial backgrounds and religious persuasions, from many

nations across the world, are raising their voices in solidarity with

the Haitian People. Some calling for an end to the U.S. ? led

diplomatic and financial strangulation of the Haitian State (U.S.

Congressional Black Caucus

http://www.house.gov/lee/releases/03March05.htm, Robert F. Kennedy

Memorial's Center for Human Rights, Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center

http://haitireborn.org/campaigns/lhl/, Pax Christi USA Haiti Task

Force, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Rainbow/ Push Coalition, Global Exchange, Haiti Action Committee, TransAfrica Forum, Danny Glover, Noanm Chomsky, Paul Farmer); some demanding an immediate stop to the OAS-managed political destabilization campaign and calls for "regime change in Haiti" attributed to foreign diplomats (Ayiti Granmoun Entènasyonal, ACHASAUSHA), some calling for cancellation of Haiti's external debt, accumulated mainly during the U-S.-backed

Duvalier dictatorships (Haiti Support Group

http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/fea_campaign_index.html ).

To further understand the situation, one should take a look at Haiti's 200th year history. http://WWW.HAITIREBORN.ORG and

http://WWW.WINDOWSONHAITI.COM are excellent independent sources where one could begin their search.

(Brief Historical Summary:

http://haitireborn.org/campaigns/hsw...indicators.php )

Please Listen in and/or Read on !!!!!

The Uses of Haiti: A Discussion with Paul Farmer & Noam Chomsky

http://web.mit.edu/webcast/tac/pugwa...2feb02-16k.ram (Listen in)

What's happening in Haiti? Why does the US government have sanctions in place against the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere?

Dr. Paul Farmer (Harvard Medical School) is a member of Partners in Health, the international relief organization. He has spent more than a decade working in rural Haiti to bring medical attention and care to those who would otherwise receive nothing.

Noam Chomsky (MIT) is a scholar whose analyses of politics and mass media have illuminated the works of countless others. He has for many years spoken out against the uses and abuses to which Haitians are subjected by the United States government and by their own.

(Farmer & Chomsky give a presentation of the situation in Haiti as

they see it. Then, joined by Nancy Dorsinville of the Harvard School of Public Health, they take part in a discussion with the audience).

Here are further background info and some highly informative links:

1) Torturing Democracy: An interview with Noam Chomsky on Haiti by Faiz Ahmad and Noam Chomsky, January 25, 2003

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...36&ItemID=2911

2) WHAT'S NEXT FOR HAITI? Continuing on the Path of Democracy

Published by HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE, Bay Area, California, Dec 16, 2002

http://haitireborn.org/campaigns/hsw...c-analysis.php

3) The Role Of The United States In The Fate Of Haiti by Nirit Ben-Ari & 4) OPERATION RESTORE DEMOCRACY: Humanitarian Intervention Or U.S. Imperialism? An essay by Brendan Sexton

http://www.saxakali.com/caribbean/benari.htm (A SET OF VERY STRONG ANALYSES!!!)

5) The racist underbelly of the U.S. occupation of Haiti By Stan Goff, Haiti Progres, This Week in Haiti, Vol. 17, no. 30, 13-19 October 1999

http://www.haiti-progres.com/1999/sm991013/Eng1013.htm (english) - SHOCKING !!! http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/article7611.html (french)

6) OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT ARISTIDE FROM A SON OF HAITI (Jafrikayiti, Dec 16, 2002) http://www.haiti-progres.com/2002/sm.../eng12-25.html

WHAT SOME WORLD-RESPECTED AUTHORS AND PERSONALITIES SAY:

About Haiti's Beginnings:

"the American Republic, which had just gained its independence, joined European powers in aiding France's violent repression of Haiti's slave rebellion. When the rebellion nevertheless succeeded, the US exceeded all others in the harshness of its reaction, refusing to recognize Haiti until 1862, in the context of the American Civil War" Noam Chomsky, MIT

"Haiti was the first country in the hemisphere to ban slavery. It was also the first in the world, as far as I know, to declare itself a

haven for all runaway slaves and former slaves?supported so many independence movements throughout Latin America in the 19th century. Dr. Paul Farmer, Harvard University

About The Current Situation:

"We have to break through this wall, this veil, this presumptuous

attitude that people have about people of color, and specifically of

people of Haitian descent".

"I discussed the embargo with the President and we both felt that what was important for us to do is to use this moment also to highlight the injustice of the embargo. We also felt that what was necessary, that we need to build a critical consensus within the United States, among all people, but particularly people of African descent to lift the embargo, that we were in a critical position, an important position, in the United States to do whatever work we could do to elevate that issue, to take that issue and make it a part of the political discourse within the United States to end it.

When Randall Robinson, the former President of TransAfrica, went on a hunger strike in order to highlight the plight of Haitians and to bring democracy back to Haiti, it had a very dramatic effect on the American people and it had a very dramatic effect on the political dialogue. We need to elevate and raise the issue to that level in order for the present administration to respond and we need to, as we've done in other events, at other critical moments, to bring the attention right to the American people and personalize the struggle. We're in the process of now, as the Chairman of TransAfrica Forum, and other groups have been mobilizing to wage the battle necessary. "

Danny Glover, Actor/Activist and TransAfrica Forum Board Chair, in

Port-au-Prince, April 9, 2003 During Press Conference with Haiti's

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the Occasion of the 200th

Anniversary of the Death of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

http://www.transafricaforum.org/news...ts040703.shtml

"The U.S. government is blocking aid to Haiti in order to expand the influence of a single political party that is supported by less than four percent of the Haitian electorate."

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, U.S. Congressional Black Caucus

« Haiti needs help, not unmerited manipulation. » Larry Birns and

Michael Marx McCarthy, Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs

http://www.coha.org/Press_Releases/02-15-Haiti.htm

"Since early in the year 2000,when it became apparent that

Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas Family Party would win

elections by large majorities, those opposed to popular government in Haiti have been determined to use every means necessary to thwart it.

When they could not prevent Aristide's return to the Presidency, they set about to make it impossible for him to govern effectively. When they could not achieve their ends at the polls, they tried to

invalidate the elections. When compromise was offered, they rejected it out of hand.

Because persuasion will not avail them, they have threatened violence. Their efforts are encouraged, if not engineered, by elements in the United States Government, which has cut off all loans in aid to the Government of Haiti. The administration in Haiti is by no means perfect, but that is not the issue. The issue is legitimacy, all of which lies on the side of the Government and none on the side of the concerted opposition that has been nothing but obstructionist since the year 2000." Dr. Tom Driver , Union Theological Seminary

"Actually I was there at the time and I don't think I've ever seen

such terror; the people were really terrified. The Bush and Clinton

administrations supported [the coup], they even secretly authorized illegal dispatches of oil (in violation of presidential directives) to the military junta and its wealthy supporters.

When the United States government thought that the Haitian population had been tortured enough, they moved in and carried out what is called a "liberation." In fact they did allow the elected government to come back, but on very strict conditions; namely that it accept the policies of the candidate the US had supported in the 1990 Haitian election, who only won 14% of the vote, and who the population had voted against. So the Aristide government was allowed back in under the condition that it accept US demands for an extremely harsh neo-liberal regime which has pretty well devastated what's left of the country. And now they have the gall to impose an embargo." Noam

Chomsky, MIT

"ironically, it was really only after these brutal and undemocratic

governments were replaced by real democracy that the United States, the OAS, et al decided to ban aid to the Haitian government!"

"A lot of the people with whom I live- - they're from central Haiti- -

point out the similarity between this embargo and that imposed on the Haitian people by the United States after their revolution made them, in 1804, the first independent black republic in the world"

" The parliamentary elections in May 2000 are in dispute now, but they were not initially? Shortly after these elections, international

observers declared them a victory for democracy and announced that they had been free and fair. Even the OAS' initial election report said as much. It was only after the true extent of the Fanmi Lavalas (Aristide's party) win became apparent that doubt was expressed regarding whether or not run-offs should occur for 8 Senatorial seats. Aristide cannot be beaten in democratic elections."

"The United States government should be ashamed for pushing these sanctions, and the OAS has been absolutely shameful in its failure to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people."

Dr. Paul Farmer

"Mara Delt: People often ask what is the U.S. interest in Haiti. Why do they care about Haiti, what does Haiti have?

Nelson-Pallmeyer: That's a really good question. The same question was asked about Nicaragua and El Salvador. What's the big issue? El Salvador didn't have that many resources, Nicaragua didn't have a whole lot, and Haiti doesn't have a lot. But I think the U.S. really fears independent democracy because independent democracies are what the world desperately needs. By that I mean democracies that can really function, in which governments have the power to shape the economic decisions of their countries, to try to reorient their economic priorities to meet the basic needs of their people. In Haiti that doesn't cost the U.S. a lot. Whatever happens in Haiti isn't going to impact the U.S. a great deal. The same thing could be said about El Salvador, Cuba, or Nicaragua. But when you take those examples together and then you spread that model elsewhere and if, for

example, Mexico had an authentic democratic government that would reorient resources -- that would be a challenge."