12645: This Week in Haiti 20:20 7/31/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. To obtain the full paper with other news in French
and Creole, please contact us (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <editor@haitiprogres.com>
Also check our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                     July 31 - August 6, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 20

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.

After a judge ruled Paquiot's administration expired earlier this
month, elections for a new administration were scheduled for Jul.
26.

But the CIF opposed Paquiot taking any part in those elections,
which were postponed due to the hunger strike. "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 created 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.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED
Please credit Haiti Progres.

                               -30-