15301: Saint-Vil - OAS Stop Harrassing Haitian Society (AGE) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>


URGENT CALL TO ACTION:

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/36/36_guest_commentator.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 Excha
nge, 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-2003/basic-soc-ec-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/pugwash-haiti-22feb02-16k.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/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=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-2003/hac-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/sm021225/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/newsletter/dg_comments040703.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
in validate 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.”

______________________________________________________________________________________

Jafrikayiti
«Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»
http://www.i-port.net/sd-in-j/

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