16530: Bellegarde-Smith: HAITI: ACP III/ The beginning of "a new struggle for abolition." (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>

The beginning of "a new struggle for abolition."
by Gotson Pierre

Cap-Haïtien, 24 August 2003 [AlterPresse] The Third Assembly of Caribbean
People (ACP) ended on the night of the 23 August in Cap-Haitien after the
adoption, at the end of three working days, of a final declaration proclaiming that
"another Caribbean is possible".

Several hundred delegates and observers stayed on until the end, despite
fatigue and heavy rain, to hear this document read out to the assembly by Marcel
Mondésir, organiser of the last panel of the Third ACP. At his side were
Haiti's Camille Chalmers, Yvan Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic, Jean-Pierre
Étylé from Martinique, and the Trinidadian, David Abdulah, all of them members
of the Regional Executive Committee (CER).

"We are indignant about the current situation of Haiti's state of dependence,
impoverished and plundered for over more than 500 years, and today still
groaning under the weight of the adjustment policies imposed by the International
Financial Institutions and applied in a servile way by the Haitian
authorities", declared the speaker with a voice reinvigorated at the end of a lengthy
meeting.

"We demand an immediate halt to the plundering of Haitian resources, in
particular by the payment of debt servicing and interminable arrears", he added in
the name of the 900 representatives of the Caribbean people, who assembled in
the presence of 300 observers, including the Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize
winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

The Third ACP was held to coincide with the 212th anniversary of the first
general rising of the slaves in Haiti, on August 21, 1791. This historical fact
was "hailed" as "a stage in the quest to construct truly human societies which
place the individual and collective needs of the People at the centre of all
concerns". The ACP called for Bois Caiman to be recognised as a "sacred part
of the historical inheritance of humanity".

On the remains of Boukman (the leader of the Bois Caiman revolt), the Third
ACP invoked "a new struggle for abolition": the abolition of exploitation,
exclusion, marginalisation, all forms of discrimination against women, Third World
debt, the International Financial Institutions "which spread death",
ecological destruction in the countries of the South, all forms of cultural
domination, military bases, and "any nuclear or biological warfare tests that endanger
the Caribbean region".

A whole series of other resolutions were also adopted, notably a document
calling for "active and concrete solidarity with the Haitian people". This
resolution "condemns the continual violence exerted against the population by the
Government and paramilitary groups, and denounces the sterile polarisation
between the political forces which monopolise the political scene".

The resolution also condemns a recent agreement between the Haitian
government and the IMF, which reinforces the policies of structural adjustment "It is
unacceptable that in order to receive derisory sums of the order of $US50
million, we are obliged to reduce the Ministry for Education's budget by 50%",
declares the ACP.

In the same resolution, the Assembly "expresses its concern about the
inevitably disastrous consequences of the policy of free zone creation in the absence
of any regional planning, particularly along the border with the Dominican
Republic."

Other resolutions were adopted against the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA)
which was described as a "recolonisation scheme" and against increasing
militarisation which constitutes "a serious danger to peace and safety in the
region". The ACP came out against "colonialism" in the Caribbean and in the world,
considering it "an anachronism at the 21st century", and against the violence
inflicted on women. The Third ACP expressed its solidarity with the Venezuelan
and Cuban struggles, and condemned the embargo imposed on Cuba by the United
States for more than 40 years.

Delegations from all parts of Haiti and from 20 Caribbean, European, North
and South American countries took part.

(translated from French by Charles Arthur for the Haiti Support Group)


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