12615: 2 articles--Students Strike and Danny Glover (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>


The Politics of Student Struggles at the State University
of Haiti
On Jul. 24, six students at the State University of Haiti
(UEH) undertook a hunger strike in the school’s
administration building. As members of the Inter School
Commission (CIF), a student group aligned with the Lavalas
Family party (FL) of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
strikers were demanding that the school’s president,
Pierre-Mary Paquiot, step down and not pose his candidacy
for the post again.

"We will continue our strike until Mr. Paquiot resigns, and
then they form a council which will pass a law guaranteeing
the autonomy of the University," declared one of the CIF
hunger strikers.

The hunger strikers charged Paquiot with corruption and
favoritism, saying that the deans of the university’s
different schools were all his friends. "We are not against
elections; we are against the way elections have been
held," said Marjorie Michel, a student supporting the CIF
strikers. "We have a problem with Pierre-Mary Paquiot in
particular, and the problem we have is his management." She
called for an audit by the Haitian general accounting
office of the school’s administration.

But another student group, the Federation of University
Students of Haiti (FEUH), denounced the CIF’s hunger strike
saying that it was fomenting a "false crisis." In a Jul. 26
press release, the FEUH charged that the FL was working
through the CIF to "completely fabricate all the tension at
the university." The FEUH asserted that some students came
with armed guards to disrupt exams at the School of Science
on Jul. 26. "It was like the commando raids that [former
dictator François] Duvalier used to organize in the 1960s,"
the FEUH note said.

Education Minister Myrtho Célestin Saurel visited the
striking students last week. "I came to hear their demands
and to see how I could do something to prevent the hunger
strike from degenerating into something worse," she said.
"I cannot cross my arms and do nothing. Thus, I will study
the students’ demands, which are clear. I should consider
these demands and meet with those responsible for the State
University of Haiti." Later she announced that she would
appoint a new commission to replace Paquiot and his team in
the UEH administration.

The FEUH strongly denounced the CIF’s "request for the
intervention of the executive to resolve a false crisis."
It said the Education Minister was taking advantage of the
situation "in order to meddle in university affairs"
illegally. The 1987 Haitian Constitution prohibits Haitian
government authorities from encroaching on the autonomy of
the school. The FEUH called on all "students, professors,
and intellectuals of all stripes" to mobilize "together to
stop the totalitarian and fascist wave threatening the
UEH."

On Jul. 29, FEUH students mobilized to protest that CIF
students were taking money and getting support from the
Lavalas government to carry out their hunger strike.
Indeed, the strike did appear to be officially sanctioned.
Government vehicles swarmed around the administration
building and gave the strikers security. Before the strike
ended on Jun. 30, at least one of the hunger weakened
strikers had to be taken to the hospital.

Nonetheless, not all hunger strikes garner such official
support. In June, employees of the state electric
authority, EDH, held a hunger strike in the National
Cathedral to denounce the corruption of then EDH director,
Syldor Jean-François, and to call for his resignation. But
their demands were not favorably received by the National
Palace, and heavily armed CIMO riot police were ordered to
penetrate the Cathedral’s sanctuary and forcibly removed
the strikers. Clearly, all hunger strikes are not equal.

It also appears that the FL and its rival for political
power, the U.S. Republican-backed Democratic Convergence
opposition front (CD), were waging their on-going war
through the student groups.

On the one hand, it was clear that Paquiot was feathering
his own nest and that a new election had to be held. But
the CIF went beyond this call by giving government
authorities an opening to undermine the sovereign rights of
the university, a move which could end up abetting FL
sectors which would like to privatize the state school.

On the other hand, the FEUH was justified in denouncing the
meddling of state authorities in the university’s sovereign
affairs. But it was unacceptable for certain FEUH students
to use certain CD leaders in the university to block the
movement to renew the administration at the school.

Students should defend honest administration and real
autonomy for the university, but not allow themselves to
become pawns in the rivalry between the CD and FL, both of
which long ago abandoned any progressive agenda.



Danny Glover Stands with Haitian Workers

by Noelle Théard

On July 27 in Miami Beach, FL, actor Danny Glover joined
about 100 workers and activists demonstrating outside the
parent company of the Mt. Sinai/St. Francis Nursing &
Rehabilitation Center, where the largely Haitian workforce
is trying to form a union.

The demonstrators were denouncing Mt. Sinai management’s
union-busting tactics. Among other things, it wants to
throw out the 49 to 37 vote last February in favor of the
union, saying that union proponents used voudou to
intimidate other workers into voting with them. The union
branded the charge pure racism. The National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in May that the Mt. Sinai
complaint had no merit and that the Service Employees
International Union 1199 Florida (SEIU) be certified as the
collective bargaining representative of the employees.

The demonstration in which Glover took part was organized
by the Miami SEIU chapter Unite for Dignity, Fanm Ayisyen
nan Miyami, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and the
Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition. They denounced how
Mt. Sinai’s management has continued to block the union
despite the NLRB ruling.

Glover also visited TGK (Turner Gilford Knight), a maximum
security detention center, where a score of women refugees
from Haiti are being held. They were part of a larger group
of refugees which landed in Florida December 3. The women
were transferred from the infamous Krome Detention Center
following charges that guards there were sexually harassing
them. Glover lent his support to their struggle for fair
and equal treatment, which Haitian refugees have
historically been denied



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