24205: Haiti Progres: (news) This Week in Haiti 22 # 47 2/2/2005 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                        HAITI PROGRES
           "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                     * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                     February 2 - 8, 2005
                       Vol. 22, No. 47

COUP REGIME SLAMMED AT WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN BRAZIL

Every winter, the world's most powerful bourgeoisies and their
underlings gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to
debate and pontificate on the state of the world. Since 2000,
progressive movements and individuals have gathered at the same time in
Porto Alegre, Brazil to hold a counter-meeting called the World Social
Forum (WSF).

High on the agenda at this year's WSF was Haiti's on-going coup and
foreign military occupation currently being administered for Washington
by WSF host Brazil, whose president, erstwhile leftist Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva, was widely heckled when he addressed the meeting.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was ecstatically and
triumphantly received by WSF participants and declared in a Jan. 30
press conference that "the president of Haiti is Jean-Bertrand
Aristide." Chavez called President Aristide's ouster a "kidnapping"
similar to the one the Venezuelan president was temporarily victim of in
April 2002.

But the Venezuelan people took to the streets and the army mobilized to
reverse the Venezuelan coup. "In the case of Aristide," Chavez said, "he
had suppressed the army, responding to a condition imposed by the [U.S.]
empire," thus resulting in his current exile in South Africa.

Chavez said that "there is no solution in Haiti without Aristide" and
asserted that most Latin American nations agreed on this.

"The solution is not in the hands of the United Nations or a group of pr
esidents," Chavez concluded. "It must be taken by the people of Haiti."

Meanwhile, Porto Alegre participants set forth the following declaration
and petition:

PORTO ALEGRE DECLARATION ON HAITI, LAUNCHED AT THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
January 26-31, 2005

WHEREAS, Haiti became the first Black Republic in 1804 when its enslaved
people defeated Napoleon's army, the most powerful of its day, and
abolished slavery. Ever since, Haiti has stood for Black liberation and
the liberation of oppressed people everywhere. Haiti offered Simon
Bolivar refuge, guns and other supplies, and led the way for the
abolition of slavery throughout the Americas. The colonial powers have
punished Haiti ever since: among other things the U.S. led a 60-year
political boycott, and France forced Haiti to pay the modern equivalent
of $21 billion U.S. for its slave owners' losses, which led to a
crippling debt and the world's first structural adjustment policy. From
1915-1934, the U.S. occupied Haiti, and an act of the U.S. Congress
established the Haitian army;

WHEREAS, in 1990 a massive grassroots effort broke Haiti's history of
coups and corrupt U.S.- backed dictatorships. Lavalas means "flash
flood" in Haitian Creole, and was the name given to the movement that
swept Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency, with the support of the
80% of Haitians who are poor. President Aristide, a former Catholic
priest and liberation theologian, was elected to tackle Haiti's grinding
poverty and discrimination and to redistribute resources to Haiti's most
neglected;

WHEREAS, on September 30, 1991, eight months after his inauguration,
President Aristide was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup. After pressure
from the Haitian resistance and Black elected officials and others in
the U.S., along with the arrival of huge numbers of Haitian refugees in
the U.S., the U.S. "allowed" President Aristide to return to Haiti. But
President Aristide's continued firm stand with Haiti's poor made him yet
again an enemy of the U.S. and other colonial powers. North America and
Europe imposed an embargo on financial assistance from international
financial institutions to Haiti's elected governments while pouring
money into NGOs that played a crucial role in the opposition to the
movement led by President Aristide;

WHEREAS, on February 29, 2004, U.S. soldiers forced President Aristide
onto a plane and into exile. The elected Lavalas government was replaced
with an unelected puppet regime. This unconstitutional regime, backed by
the U.S., France and Canada, using members of Haiti's former army, has
waged a war against the Lavalas movement: thousands have been killed in
violence against protestors, organized workers and grassroots groups; at
least 700 political prisoners sit in Haitian jails, and rape is
routinely used against grassroots women and girls as a weapon of
repression;

WHEREAS, the Lavalas party had many successes in the fight against
poverty and isolation during its ten years of democratic governance.
Among other things, Haiti tripled the number of elementary and secondary
schools, many built for the first time in rural areas, made great
advances in literacy, developed a new university and teaching hospital
for students from poor families and a social housing program, welcomed
Cuban doctors and teachers, successfully prosecuted many serious human
rights cases, abolished the hated army, opened the doors of the
presidential palace to children and the poor, and consistently ensured
the grassroots movement a place at the decision-making table;

WHEREAS, as the puppet regime gives tax breaks to the wealthy and pays
former soldiers wages for attacking the resistance, while cutting
education, healthcare and food programs for the poor, life for the
Haitian people, already the poorest in the hemisphere, has reached a
breaking point; and

WHEREAS, the so-called UN stabilization mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), led
by Brazil with large contingents from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, was
requested and used by the U.S. What is not widely known is that rather
than being the "peace-keepers" described by a biased corporate media,
this UN force has been part of the repression of the Lavalas movement,
with deadly raids on poor neighborhoods, illegal arrests of political
dissidents and support for illegal operations by the puppet government's
police and the former soldiers.

WE THE UNDERSIGNED THEREFORE MAKE THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS:

1. Return President Aristide and the democratic process to Haiti.
President Aristide must be allowed to complete his term after which free
and fair elections would be held according to Haiti's Constitution.

2. End the occupation of Haiti. Use the money and other resources now
used in the war against Haiti's poor for the fight against poverty in
Haiti.

3. UN "stabilization forces" must cease all illegal arrests,
indiscriminate raids on poor neighborhoods and support for illegal
activities by the puppet regime's police force and members of the former
army.

4. Political prisoners must be freed, politically-motivated persecution
must end.

5. Governments and intergovernmental organizations must refuse to
recognize Haiti's illegitimate puppet regime, and must demand an
investigation into the circumstances of President Aristide's removal
from office.

6. Refugees fleeing political persecution in Haiti must be given asylum,
internally displaced refugees in Haiti must be given protection and
financial assistance.

7. US hands off Latin America and the Caribbean. We stand in solidarity
with the government and people of Venezuela and Cuba, countries
struggling against a process of destabilization not unlike the one that
resulted in the overthrow of President Aristide.

We invite people and organizations throughout the world to join us in
this Declaration.

To sign this Declaration either as an organization or individual, send
your name or organization's name (with person signing/title), email
address, city/state/country to petition@haitiaction.org. When the online
petition is completed, you will be notified by email.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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