22975: Esser: Glover and Sanchez back out of Haitian cruise (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com


Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/9404636.htm?1c

Posted on Sun, Aug. 15, 2004

HAITI'S BICENTENNIAL
Glover backs out of Haitian cruise

Actor Danny Glover has pulled out of a Haitian bicentennial cruise
because he doesn't want to appear to support the country's
U.S.-backed interim government.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com


A controversial cruise commemorating Haiti's bicentennial set sail
from Miami on Saturday, but without its biggest headliner: film star
Danny Glover.

The actor, who has been the driving force behind the increasingly
troubled cruise for the past two years, said he was pulling his
support to make a political statement about Haiti's 5-month-old
U.S.-backed regime.

'Due to the increasingly critical political situation in Haiti, which
resulted in a loss of life, oppression and incarceration of thousands
of Haitians, I have canceled my participation in `Cruising into
History,' '' Glover said at a news conference hours before the Royal
Caribbean Cruise Line was scheduled to depart from the Port of
Miami-Dade for its seven-day Caribbean excursion.

Glover said he did not want to appear to support the new government,
installed after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

''It's impossible for us to be neutral in view of the coup that took
place Feb. 29, 2004, against the duly elected government of Haiti,
irrespective of our feelings about the strengths and weaknesses of
President Aristide,'' he said about his last-minute decision.

The voyage involves 500 Haitian and African-Americans who spent
between $1,500 and $2,500, many of them at Glover's urging. It was an
opportunity to celebrate Haiti's birth as a nation, while rubbing
shoulders with black luminaries such as Glover, famed dancer
Katherine Dunham, National Urban League President Marc Morial,
Essence magazine Editorial Director Susan Taylor and poet Sonia
Sanchez.

Billed as a nonpolitical, historical pilgrimage to Haiti, with an
International Black Arts and Cultural Festival on board, organizers
promised a daylong excursion through several northern Haitian towns
including Milot, where travelers were to mount horses to visit King
Henri Christophe's historical San Souci Palace and a 19th century
fortress, the Citadel.

But instead of historical ruins, voyagers will only see Labadee, the
private landing for Royal Caribbean that cruise organizer Ron Daniels
calls a ``neocolonial enclave.''

And in addition to Glover, they will have to do without poet Sanchez,
who also said Saturday she was canceling her appearance.

Daniels announced last week that he was changing the trip's itinerary
to prevent the voyage from becoming a showcase for the new Haitian
government.

The cruise and its celebrity endorsers had become the focus of a
pressure campaign by pro-Aristide supporters in the United States who
demanded that ''Cruising into Haiti'' change course and not be used
to ''endorse and legitimize the de facto government'' in Haiti.

Jonas Petit, a spokesman for Aristide's Lavalas Family Party who
attended the press conference Saturday, said while the group welcomes
the position taken by organizers, it's imperative that they
understand that the Haitian people still are not free.

Haiti's political landscape has changed, he said, and now is not the
time to be celebrating.

Daniels said while he feels badly about raising the expectations of
the thousands of people in Milot who had waited for two years on this
visit, ''we have a responsibility to respond where we see injustice
taking place,'' he said.
.