21206: Esser: Sold-Out Brooklyn College Rally Slams U.S. Role in Aristide's Ouster (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

International Action Center
www.iacenter.org

PRESS ADVISORY

Media Contact: Kim Ives  718-434-8100, Dustin Langley 212-633-6646

For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2004

Sold-Out Brooklyn College Rally Slams U.S. Role in Aristide's Ouster

An overflow crowd of over 2,000 people packed the Center for the
Performing Arts at Brooklyn College on the evening of Wednesday,
April 7 to hear a broad range of speakers accuse and condemn the Bush
administration for undermining and eventually kidnapping Haitian
President Jean Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004.

The event, entitled "The Truth Behind the Haiti Coup," highlighted
the work done by the Haiti Commission of Inquiry, which presented the
results of its findings from delegations sent during March to the
Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic. The independent
Commission, a project jointly initiated by the International Action
Center (IAC) and the Haiti Support Network (HSN),  is investigating
the origins, methods and actors of the coup.

Speakers at the rally included Congressional representatives Maxine
Waters (D-CA) and Major Owens (D-NY), actor Ossie Davis, former U.S.
attorney general Ramsey Clark, and Haitian political leader Ben
Dupuy. WBAI Radio's Don Rojas and Amy Goodman also spoke.

"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls investigations into the
latest Haitian coup, even that called for by CARICOM, a waste of
time," said Dupuy, the secretary general of the National Popular
Party (PPN), at the event. "This shows how much they fear the truth
getting out. To add insult to injury, the U.S. is promoting
diversionary investigations into Aristide's alleged drug trafficking,
human rights abuses and corruption. Meanwhile, to carry out their
coup, Washington is collaborating with death-squad leaders and
soldiers universally recognized as corrupt drug-dealing human rights
abusers. Even U.S. government officials from former President Clinton
to Powell have called them criminals and thugs." The PPN offered
critical support to Aristide's Lavalas Family party in recent months
and continues to lead resistance to the coup.

Exiled Secretary of State of Communications Mario Dupuy called
Aristide's Feb. 29th removal a "coup-napping," combination coup and
kidnapping.

Sara Flounders of the International Action Center, denounced the U.S.
occupation of Haiti and Iraq. "We have to march on Washington as soon
as we can to get U.S. troops out of Iraq and Haiti," said Flounders,
who was a member of a delegation that visited President Aristide in
the Central African Republic 

Musicians like La Troupe Makandal, Phantoms and Marguerite Laurent
performed to the packed supercharged auditorium. The audience, a 3
to1 mix of Haitians and Americans, drowned performers and speakers
alike in applause. The evening closed with a videotaped message from
Aristide, recorded while in Africa, as well as a taped message from
well-known U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal about the coup.

"The success of tonight's event shows how deep and broad the
opposition to the February 29th  coup is," said one of the event's
organizers, Kim Ives of the Haiti Support Network and a journalist
for the newsweekly Haïti Progrès. " We are planning another rally for
April 17th at the Medgar Evers College auditorium and more
demonstrations and rallies after that. The huge response to the April
7th rally should give both Washington and the Haitian putschists
pause."

The event, organized by the IAC and HSN, was endorsed by the
Coalition to Resist the Feb. 29th Coup d'état in Haiti, a broad
coalition of Haitian and U.S. groups which have held several large
marches through Brooklyn to protest the coup.
.