19503: erzilidanto: February 29, 2004, A day of mourning, lost and commitment (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

February 29, 2004: A day of mourning, lost and commitment by Ezili Danto


I write this for myself, for Haiti, for those who died today, for those who
have been led out in handcuffs by the U.S., for the voiceless and those voices
that have been cut off. I write to remember. I write to keep from wailing
Amwe! until my lungs burst. I write to keep from getting an aneurysm. I write to
breathe.

*****

This morning very early I got a phone call that Aristide had resigned. I
wasn't shocked, just skeptical. I did not believe, for one moment, Aristide had
resigned on his own free will. Not for one minute. I began to ferret out the
real deal.

I had spoken to an insider the night before. Aristide was committed to
standing his ground, fighting and dying for the People's right to democracy if he
had to.

Tonight (2/29/04) I did an interview on 1190 am, below are some of the points
I made. I am also writing here to remember the commitments I've made this
day, on behalf of the Ancestors, and the dying in Haiti.
*****

Haitian fratricide allowed for the Empire to eat up our divisions and make
this February 29, 2004 Coup D'etat comeback:

For ten years now, I've been asking, pleading with all Haitians, of all hues,
classes and political affiliations, to stop their constant criticism and
bitterness and take up a development project and carry it out for themselves. To
be self-reliant and creators. I've pointed out that Aristide is just one man
and not a messiah with all the answers.

For ten years now, I've warned that Haitian divisions would be used to bring
back rule by force and the dreaded, racist, Empire and their Tonton Macoutes.

For ten years now, most of what I've read and heard from "educated Haitians"
is that the problem is Haitian themselves, especially Lavalas and the poor
Black masses, and not the U.S. and their Black opportunists.

Today, I want those people to go to Port-au-Prince and try and speak against
Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain to their faces as they did with
Aristide and see how long they live! Go step over the dead bodies now littering all
corners of Haiti, the houses burning and face these U.S.-supported Macoutes
behind dark glasses and then tell me it was worst under Aristide!

Today, the home of the mayor of Port-au-Prince was attacked. No one knows now
where he is.

Today, the home of the major of Petionville was also attacked. Two people in
his household where killed. No one knows where he is.

Today, former Congressmen, Ron Dellums alleges that Secretary of State,
Collin Powell, told him, point blank yesterday, that President Aristide had no
choice but to 1) either get on an airplane and leave Haiti, or, 2) leave Haiti in
a box! Ohh, what a great Statesman that Powell. (Guy Antoine, I apologize
again and again for ever thinking this man had some redeeming attributes - like
you said his character was revealed way back as an accomplice in the My Lai
massacres in Vietnam!) The man is total right-wing puppet and a proven menace to
the Black race and poor brown and non-Anglo-Saxon peoples worldwide. If there
was any justice in this world, he and his bosses would be behind bars for
crimes against humanity.

In Handcuffs

According to the well known journalist, Kevin Pina, early this morning
2/29/04, at 5:30 am, under the guise of a meeting with U.S. Ambassador, James Foley,
President Aristide was lured to the Haitian National Palace where he was
manacled in handcuffs[/b] and escorted at, gun point, by 10 U.S. Marines onto an
unmarked airplane. Amwe Amwe Amwe.

A presidential guard corroborated the report and an ABC news reporter, who
Kevin Pina, says absolutely refuses, for fear of reprisals, to give his name.

Mrs. Aristide was also escorted out of the Palace by the U.S. Marines/Special
forces. What did this Haitian mother of two little girls do, to deserve to be
so ill treated? What crime is she charged with by the US/Euros? Who will be
mother to her small babies? Where is she, how frightened? And doesn't she
deserve more than this from her own U.S. government! What makes Apaid worthier?
Murderers and death squad leaders Guy Phillip and Louis Jodel Chamblain, worthier
of a place in Port-au-Prince and the Haitian National Palace. Amwe, the shame
of it all. How it burns. How it hurts to see fourteen hard years go down the
drain! And, I am lucky because there are Haitians who can go further back to
the Duvalier years. How does one ask them to contain their anguish today as
they see the Macoutes riding around Port-au-Prince in U.S. vans and the people
back in hiding?. I don't know.

The Haitian National Palace is now overrun by U.S. soldiers - what a
desecration in 2004.
****

Guy Phillip is in Port-au-Prince

I have an unconfirmed report, from a KPFA listener, that Guy Phillip and
Louis Jodel Chamblain were seen, in a CNN picture, showing them in a van with U.S.
soldiers escorting them through Port-au-Prince!

There are no words I can muster for this outrageous, immoral, illegal,
depraved and contemptuous actions and carrying-ons of United States Ambassador
Foley, Colin Powell, Roger Noreiga, Otto Reich, etc..

None.

But I assure you, today I am recommitted to defend the human rights of
Haitians at home and abroad that have been so egregiously trampled upon. Today, I
have no patience with people sitting on the fence. I've always known the enemy.
Today, I hold and charge Secretary of State Colin Powell, Chenny, Rice, Bush
the lesser, Roger Noreiga as accomplices in the killings of all the Haitian
police and civilians who have died since February 5, if not before, and all the
Haitian people this very minute being killed by their armed and trained death
squad leaders, their convicted murderers and accused by the DEA (Guy Philippe)
drug traffickers now parading around Port-au-Prince under U.S/Euro. protection
while my Haitian people die in droves!

The complicity of certain human rights organizations:

Also charged with this abomination is the complicity of certain human rights
organizations, financed by the right wing that have been used by the right
wing to demonize Aristide, Lavalas and Haitian youths, in general, as "thugs" and
"chimeres." In particular, these organizations have not been balanced in
reporting the far more killings of pro-Aristide militants as they have in
reporting the fewer deaths in the opposition camps. This appeared to have helped to
embolden the opposition and set gasoline to an otherwise small blaze, leading to
today's violent overthrow rule by force and this 2004 U.S/Euro
invasion/occupation of Haiti.

Chief amongst these groups is NCHR , Amnesty international and Reporters
Without Borders, who first may have led the disinformation and misinformation
campaigns fed, fueled and funded by the Roger Noreiga State Department, then
picked up and published practically verbatim by the corporate press and media. They
too are accomplices in today's debacle. At the very least, they have
undermined their own organizations stated goals and human rights mission statements.

Nothing, and I mean nothing President Aristide has ever done or not done in
Haiti justifies that he and his wife be led out in handcuffs by the United
States special forces. It's equivalent to handcuffing the dignity of the Haitian
people, the symbol of the masses, with no sense of the impropriety! It is
arrogant, contemptuous, criminal and way past insulting. No U.S. Ambassador to
Haiti will ever be trusted again by a non-etranje pro-Ayisyen official! It would
be the height of folly!!!

No one knows where Aristide might be right now. There is a report that the
Antigua Prime Minister granted permission for an aircraft carrying President
Aristide and his wife to stop there for fueling.

No one, not even his lawyer, Ira Kurzman, knows where he is. For reportedly
he replied, "Aristide was at the National Palace" when he first heard the news
of Aristide's resignation!. This morning, that statement was the first hard
evidenced I had that my gut reaction was not wrong, that something was
dreadfully awry. And, Aristide did not go off his own free will!

It is speculated that Aristide would not go on Haitian National Television
and read the prepared resignation speech. Who knows what sort of pressures he
faced from these U.S. thugs simply because he was the Haitian president.
Aristide was, as top OAS official, OAS Assistant-Secretary General Luigi Einaudi, has
during Haiti bi-centennial "running Haiti." So much so that he brought down
the wrath of the international community whose racist arrogance, egos and
fragile psyches simply could not countenance a Black man ruling a country despite
their embargoes, paid opposition, lies, fabrications and media slants.

Since their paid assassins, Philippe and Chamblain, could not enter
Port-au-Prince without a U.S. escort, the U.S. Ambassador betrayed Aristide and U.S.
soldiers did the work that Philippe and Chamblain could not do alone. Without
this U.S. coup D'etat, the people of Port-au-Prince would have repulsed
U.S.-puppets, Philippe and Chamblain and their other cohorts. That could not be
allowed.

I hope I am wrong. But it is unlikely that Aristide, and possibly his wife,
will ever be seen alive again. For they have a story to tell that must not be
told. Amwe, what is humanity coming to. Damnation, set fwa!

The mainstream media's role in Haiti's 33rd Coup D'etat:

The U.S. supported destabilization campaign and then the U.S. kidnapping, at
gunpoint, of a Constitutionally elected President cannot be condemned enough.
CNN's coverage today was simply contemptuous. ABC, NBC, FOX ect. were not much
different. D. Bernstein of KPFA was the only journalistic light throughout
the day.

CNN, I am told, actually had Guy Phillip, a murderer, an accused DEA drug
trafficker, with Wolf Blitzer, reclining in his satisfaction, asking if Phillip
intended to be President! How many more insults must the Haitian people suffer!
How much more are we to take without going insane?

I've heard Haitian women today wail in a way I've never heard before. I've
not cried all day and promise my self I will not. I've gotten over being shocked
by the barbarity, the inhumanity, the depravity, of the rich and powerful a
long time ago. But, "Moun yo pa kapab ankor. Se kè Neg e Negres Arada Ayisyen
kap bat tabou ou tande la." (See, Marguerite Laurent the Bwa Kayiman Play.)

But the scars are deep and I commit the rest of my breathing days to avenge
these wrongs Haiti's children are suffering and surviving with. This is an
attack on African people and I am simply tired of it all.

If Aristide and/or his wife turn up dead, the U.S., especially Foley, Bush,
Powell and Noreiga, must be charged for his murder in a court of law, along
with the leaders of this so-called opposition in Haiti.

I shall try my best to continue to speak for and defend the right of Haitians
to choose their own leader; to have their vote respected, to defend the right
of Haitians seeking asylum not to be repatriated without a hearing or
indefinitely detained; to defend the right of Haitians not to be killed with impunity
and to defend Black people from having to be so psychologically ravaged as
Haitians have been since forever, (my entire lifetime), especially today
(2/29/04) by the US/Euro powers with nuclear resources and no moral conscience - ki
swaf dlo lan zye!

I sign off for this February 29th day with the only prayer that will do for
this occasion. It's Boukman prayer at Bwa Kayiman, the Vodun ceremony which led
to the great Haitian revolution. I call on Boukman for all Black people, for
Aristide and his wife, for those down in Haiti facing the imperialist and
their Black overseers in this, 2004, invasion of Haiti. For all Haitians coming
together, especially for the women and children of Haiti. For their true
friends, always putting themselves in the line of fire, like Brian Conconan, Paul
Farmer and Kevin Pina and other such John Brown white people. For all of us in
the U.S., of all classes, hues and political affiliations,  just now starting to
see what Bushes' "pre-emptive" policy actually means. For this newest and
most deadly challenge my worn out and pulverized, nameless and faceless Haitian
peoples are facing, I recite this prayer aloud before I lay me down to sleep
this night:

Bon Dje ki fè la tè. Ki fè soley ki klere nou enro. Bon Dje ki soulve lanmè.
Ki fè gronde loray. Bon Dje nou ki gen zorey pou tande. Ou ki kache nan niaj.
Kap gade nou kote ou ye la. Ou we tout sa blan fè nou sibi. Dje blan yo mande
krim. Bon Dje ki nan nou an vle byen fè. Bon Dje nou an ki si bon, ki si jis,
li ordone vanjans. Se li kap kondui branou pou nou ranpote la viktwa. Se li
kap ba nou asistans. Nou tout fet pou nou jete potre dje Blan yo ki swaf dlo lan
zye. (See excepts from Marguerite Laurent's "Bwa Kayiman Play" at
Margueritelaurent.com)

Ezili Danto
Li led li la