12311: NYC picket to demand release of jailed workers in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network
Press Release
June 12, 2002
On Monday May 27, 2002, a large group of unionized workers who work on the Guacimal Plantation and who are affiliated with the May First Federation-Batay Ouvriye were resuming their work on the bitter orange plantations for the start of the off-season. Since 1958, there was an agreement between the workers and the owners after the land was bought from them that they would be working the land in the off-seasons. It had become customary law for the workers to do so every year for close to 50 years now.
The workers invited two union delegations, one from Cap-Haitian, and the other from St. Michel de L'Atalaille to come to Guacimal for support in case there were discussions with the watchmen on the field. Two journalists came with the delegations, one from Haiti Progres Newspaper and the other from Radio Atlantic to cover the beginning of the Off-Season work.
An overwhelming mob of henchmen headed by the local lavalas authorities in the   municipal councils, Casec and Asec, armed with machetes, clubs, rocks and revolvers massacred the workers and the delegations of workers and journalists that came on the field in Guacimal. The Lavalas gangs beheaded two senior citizens, Francilien Exine and Ipharès Guerrier, members of Batay Ouvriye, after chopping off their limbs then threw the body parts into a ditch on the plantation.
The local population came to the help of the injured workers accommodating them in their homes to get first-aid; the police came, searching the homes with the help of whistleblowers among the henchmen, and arrested 11 victims, among them 9 workers and the 2 journalists. They were taken to a jail in St. Raphael.
The next day, May 28, 2002, a government helicopter at President Aristide's Palace came to fetch the prisoners. They were taken to the National Penitentiary and Fort National in Port Au Prince where they still are denied medical care.
The two journalists have been released. However, the workers are kept in prison without any charges to this day. Following the arrests, the Lavalas Government through its local authorities in St. Raphael and its Secretary of State of Communications, Mario Dupuy, fed the press with misinformation and lies. They painted the workers as "terrorists" who tried to take up the private land of others. They came up with this sadistic image to cover up the massacre perpetrated against the workers by the bourgeoisie in Cap Haitian, the landowners, and the local lavalas authorities in St. Raphael. They orchestrated a blood bath on workers who were claiming their full legal rights and pursuing a usage in existence for fifty years.
We are calling on progressives and other justice minded folks to come to a picket line in front of the Haitian Consulate Offices located at 271 Madison Ave between East 39th St and East 40th St in Manhattan on Thursday June 13, 2002 from 4:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.
We are going to demand:
1) The release of the jailed workers in Haiti
2) Immediate medical care for the incarcerated workers
3) Workers' access to Union Lawyers
4) Reparations for the injured workers, journalists and their families
5) Respect for the legal, constitutional and democratic rights of the workers to organize themselves
6) Recognition and Respect for the Workers' Unions
7) An end to the on-going repression, harassment and persecution of workers, their families, and supporters

For more information, please call the Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network/Global Sweatshop Coalition at 212-947-7744.