19612: Saint-Vil : Thank You Note To Those Who Have Shown They Care (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


"What I seek to accomplish is simply to serve with my feeble capacity truth and
justice at the risk of pleasing no one." Albert Einstein (his last written
statement found April 18, 1955)

Dear colleagues,

I know that you are saddened to see the nightmarish violence that is currently
engulfing my native Haiti (so far members of my immediate family seem to have
been spared). Some of you have already expressed your sympathies to me. I
sincerely thank you for this and would feel ungrateful if I did not take this
opportunity to share with you what I know about it all. I think such info may
help us all better understand the situation and cope with it.

Below is an article published this morning in the french paper "Liberation"
which explains how the Haitian President was effectively kidnapped by U.S.
Marines and taken to the air at gunpoint in the early hours of Feb 29th.

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=182471

«Il ne voulait pas partir, les Américains l'ont forcé»<?xml:namespace prefix =
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lundi 01 mars 2004


One of the sad elements of this current situation is the fact that our tax
dollars are, as we speak, being misused to feed us lies and half-truths on a
daily basis about what our elected leaders and their representatives abroad are
doing IN OUR NAMES !.  Radio-Canada, although well aware of the conditions
surrounding this scandalous coup d'état and kidnapping very early on, still
continues to push the official "resignation" lie. Just like it took 40 years
for us "common folks" to learn how the Congo's Patrice Lumumba was assassinated
by order of the Belgians and the Americans (by then all the criminals were in
their 90s).

Before you read the next text, which I published in November 2002, please
realise that people like myself who are resolved to call into account the
States of France, the United States of North-America, The United Kingdom etc...
for the crimes they have committed and continue to commit against Africans
everywhere, we do make the important distinction between what "states" have
done in the name of their citizens from what individuals themselves do and are
responsible for. There are many non-Africans, whites or otherwise who have done
and continue to do courageous and tremendous good towards Africans and vice
versa. General Romero D'allaire who with exemplary courage recently wrote
"shaking hands with the devil" about his gut-wrenching experience in Rwanda,
Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti (http://www.pih.org/haiti-feb24.html) are only two of
many such individuals.  A colleague told me the other day how ashamed she felt
to learn the following from me: France, after exploiting the Africans of Haiti
over 300 years of racial slavery, having lost the battle of Vertières (November
18, 1803) which liberated the Africans who then proceeded to create the free
Republic of Haiti on January 1, 1804....Twenty-one years later, in 1825 France,
by official edict of its monarch of the time, Charles X, imposed a ransom of
150 Million Francs to the Haitians
(http://haiti.uhhp.com/historical_docs/ordonannce_charlesX.html) . Haiti, by
then, besieged by hostile slave-owning superpowers on all sides (Britain in
Jamaica, The United-States, Spain in Puerto-Rico and Cuba) was forced to accept
paying that rasonm collected at gun point.....This payment which was made over
more than 100 years effectively crippled Haiti while France built the Chateau
of Versailles and other goodies. So, my colleague said to me she was disgusted
to be only now learning such a thing and she felt ashamed.  But, why should one
feel responsibility for what one was not even aware of? Outraged yes ! but not
ashame. We are not responsible from crimes committed in our name, without our
consent. The States which committed these crimes are the ones that deserve to
be held accountable.

N.B.: On April 7, 2003 (200th Anniversary of Toussaint L'Ouverture's murder by
starvation in a French jail), Haitian President, His Excellency Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, openly issued a demand that France returns the 90 million Francs
(cdonservatively estimated at $21 Billion U.S.) it collected from Haiti at gun
point.

My point in writing this note to you dear colleagues is to let you in something
very special and important to me. The struggle for truth, justice and
reparations in which I and many others are engaged on behalf our our
empoverished African peoples is not one to shame, embarrass or harm our
non-African friends. I realise that most of you will be shocked reading the
historical facts exposed in the attached text titled: "Time to Stop Resisting
Haiti's Resistance".  So, why am I sending it to you? Because I believe you are
truly sincere people who deserve to know these facts as you form your own
opinions about the tragic events happening in our world today. Truth is a
liberator. Let's garner the courage to speak truth to power for a better world
today and tomorrow.

"Time to Stop Resisting Haiti's Resistance" by Jean Saint-Vil (November 2002)
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/396.html

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and
actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
Dr. Martin Luther King

Sincerely,

Jean E. Saint-Vil




Jafrikayiti
«Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»
http://www.jafrikayiti.com

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