12278: Attack on Batay Ouvriye unions at St Raphael: AlterPresse (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Charles Arthur <charlesarthur2@hotmail.com>

Source:  AlterPresse
http://www.medialternatif.org/alterpresse/

Translated from French by Charles Arthur for the Haiti Support Group

Call for the release of 11 people, two of them journalists, jailed in
connection with a union conflict in the north of Haiti
By Ronald Colbert
7 June 2002

At a press conference in Port-au-Prince on 4 June, numerous Haitian civil
society organisations called for the immediate and unconditional release of
the 11 people, two of them journalists, arrested on 27 May in the locality
of Guacimal near Saint-Raphael in connection with a union movement’s
struggle for the rights of hundreds of people who have worked 366 careaux of
land there since 1958.

The civil society organisations denounced the attitude of the Lavalas
authorities for trying to criminalise the people’s demands by characterising
them as the actions of “terrorists”, “anti-investment”, “anti-free zone” and
“attempts to destablise the government”. These organisations also denounced
what they call a disinformation campaign carried out by certain medias, in
particular State Television, which refered to “terrorists-uprooters
attempting to use force to take land”.

Georges Augustin of Batay Ouvriye, who spoke at the press conference, said
“If we intended to use force to take over the orange plantation, we would
not have come unarmed. If we had a project to destablise the Lavalas
government, we would have been able to respond to the aggression of the
armed group which violently disrupted our peaceful rally. However, the St
Raphael police found absolutely no guns in the possession of the people they
detained.”

Francilien Exumé and Ifares Guerrier, members of Batay Ouvriye from
Saint-Michel de
l'Attalaye who participated in the rally, were chopped to death with
machetes and buried where they died by the aggressors. According to Batay
Ouvriye, this group was composed of landowners, members of the local
councils (CASEC and ASEC) and their allies who are conducting a repressive
campaign against its members.

Faced with the aggression from this gang of men armed with machetes, rocks
and 38 calibre pistols, those participating in the rally tried to defend
themselves by throwing rocks. The majority of the participants were able to
flee along the tracks to Bahon, Grande Riviere du Nord and Ranquitte, but 11
of them, having been intercepted by the gang and imprisoned in the St
Raphael jail on 27 May, were taken by helicopter to Port-au-Prince. Batay
Ouvriye listed them as two women and nine men, including two drivers and one
fare-collector from the public transport chartered to take people to and
from the rally, as well as the journalists, Darwin Saint-Julien of Haiti
Progres and Alan Deshommes of Radio Atlantic, arrested as they attempted to
cover the peaceful rally of around 150 people near the Catholic church at
the Guacimal locality.

Elifaite Saint-Pierre, secretary-general of the Platform of Haitian Human
Rights Organisations (POHDH) said, “ The 11 people who are subject to
prolonged preventative detention in the National Penitenciary were
arbitrarily and illegally arrested in violation of articles 26, 26.1 and 31
of the Constitution that guarantee the rights of unarmed meeting and
assembly. They were also physically mistreated at the time of their
detention.”

Saint-Pierre also cited the violation of the rights to information and
freedom of the Press, not to mention the procedural and judicial
irregularities arising from the 11 being transferred by helicopter to
Port-au-Prince instead of being kept Grand-Riviere du Nord as they should
have been following the incidents in Saint-Raphael.

It was announced that one of the POHDH members had visited the Guacimal area
in order to collect independent testimonies about the events of 27 May.
However, a delegation from the National Coalition for Haitian Rights that
had tried investigate the health of the detainees had been denied access to
the National Penitenciary. Information obtained by AlterPress indicates that
the 11 detainees suffered serious physical injuries, and that a justice of
the peace from St. Raphael who had wanted to interview the detainees had
been dismissed on the orders of local Lavalas Family officials.

Camille Chalmers of the Platform to Advocate for Alternative Develoment
(PAPDA) said, “The events of 27 May at Guacimal are part of the
neo-liberalism war and the anti-peasant politics violently orchestrated by
the current regime, which wants to suppress the Guacimal workers’ demands.”

The PAPDA, which took part in the press conference, invited the population
to mobilise itself and make solidarity with the Guacimal workers and
peasants, as well as with the Maribaroux peasants’ struggle to stop
productive farming land being used as the site of free zone.

Dr. Eric Edoaurd, son of Mme Dambreville Edouard, who has been imprisoned in
the Fort National jail since 28 May, said, “The current situation in
Guacimal is much more than just a land dispute but, as we see now, it
displays many of the features belonging to the colonial era of revolt
against feudal regimes."

The Guacimal workers are asking not only for gloves to protect their hands
while harvesting the oranges, masks to protect themselves from wasp and
other insect stings, ladders so that they can pick the oranges properly, and
toilets so that they don’t have to behind the bushes, but also schools and
health centres to serve all the peasants.

Batay Ouvriye charges that not only do the Guacimal workers lack the proper
work equipment, but they have never received their pensions and holiday pay
as stipulated in the Labour Code. These demands had been taken up with the
Ministry of Social Affairs and Justice, and with the Government regional
delegate, but these authorities had shown no concern about the warnings of
the risk of confrontation with the management of the plantation.

The union conflict involving the Guacimal orange plantation managers who
supplied orange extract used to produce the French liqueur, Cointreau, began
first with the formation in October 2000 of a workers’ union, then with the
creation of a peasant association in 2001.
Since 2001, the workers and peasants have tried using strikes and work
stoppages to win respect for their rights according to the Labour Code, to
end the practice of plantation guards taking half of the peasants’ annual
harvests, and to make the Guacimal company enact the promises made when it
acquired the land in 1958.

In response to the workers’ renewed demands, the Guacimal company bosses
decided to entrust the plantation to the Catholic Church.  At a meeting, a
priest declared that he himself envisaged growing sugar cane on 12 carreaux
of land, and that the peasants, who would only be left with 80 carreaux of
land to farm during the period between the orange harvests, “would be better
off looking for other land to farm in Pignon, Ranquitte and Hinche.”

[07/06/02 06:40]




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