24380: Esser: The Achievements of Lavalas in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>


Haiti Action Committee
http://www.haitiaction.net

February 2005


We Will Not Forget
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LAVALAS IN HAITI
Written by Laura Flynn and Robert Roth


[Excerpts]


For a PDF version with images— 1M .pdf file — click this link:
http://www.teledyol.net/WWNF/wwnf.pdf



In February 29, 2004, the constitutional government of Haiti was
overthrown, bringing Haiti’s ten-year experience with democracy to a
brutal end. Orchestrated by the United States, France and Canada, the
coup forced President Jean-Ber-trand Aristide into exile and removed
thousands of elected officials from office.

A year after the coup, the Haitian people continue to demand the
restoration of democracy. On September 30, 2004, tens of thousands of
Haitians took to the streets of Port-au-Prince. Braving police
gunfire, threats of arrests and beatings, they marched while holding
up their five fingers, signifying their determination that Aristide
complete his five-year term.

On December 1, 2004, while then-Secretary of State Colin Powell
visited Haiti to express support for the coup regime, Haitian police
massacred dozens of prisoners in the National Penitentiary who had
staged a protest over prison conditions. Despite this repression,
more than 10,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of
Cap-Haitien on December 16, 2004, calling for the release of all
political prisoners and the return of their elected president. On
February 7, 2005, thousands more once again demonstrated in
Port-au-Prince and other cities, raising the same demands.

Why are Haitians so insistent on Aristide’s return? Why have they
been so resolute in their opposition to the coup and the subsequent
U.S./U.N. occupation? Answering these questions requires a close look
at what actually occurred during the years of democratic rule in
Haiti.

One of the first casualties of the coup Demonstrators hold up five
fingers, signifying their determination has been the truth about
President Aris-that Aristide complete his five-year term of office.
tide and the Fanmi Lavalas party. (Lavalas means “flash flood” in
Creole. It is the name of the massive popular movement that swept
Aristide into the presidency in 1991.) Media sources worldwide have
spread disinformation promoted by the U.S. State Department, claiming
that the Aristide administration violated human rights, was rife with
corruption and participated in drug trafficking. None of these
assertions are based on fact. In addition, the media claim that the
international community poured large amounts of aid into Haiti over
the past ten years. Even with this aid, it is alleged, Haiti remained
poor due to bad government, corruption, or just an innate inability
of Haitians to govern themselves.

Yet the truth is quite different. Pledges of massive international
aid notwithstanding, Haiti received very little support over the past
ten years. In 1994, the international community appeared poised to
assist Haiti’s democratically elected government. Less than a year
later, when Aristide refused to move forward with a plan to privatize
state-owned enterprises, the United States blocked its aid package.
Then in May 2000, after Lavalas won a sweeping majority in
Parliament, US and European aid and loans to Haiti were again cut
off. And at the end of 2000, when Aristide was overwhelmingly
reelected, the US government engineered an unprecedented
international aid embargo against the poorest country in the
hemisphere.

Massive pro-Aristide demonstration in January 2004. In 2001, the
Inter-American Development Bank acknowledged that the major factor
behind the economic stagnation in Haiti was not inflation, nor
government spending; rather it was the withholding of foreign grants
and assistance.

Despite this embargo and a U.S.-led campaign of harassment,
paramilitary terror and orchestrated political opposition, President
Aristide and the Lavalas movement established a foundation for
progressive change in Haiti. Substantial gains made in health care,
education, economic justice and human rights during Aristide’s
administration were, however, rarely reported outside of Haiti.

Although the accomplishments of the Lavalas governments were not
acknowledged in the foreign press, they were visible in the most
populous neighborhoods of Haiti and in the most far-flung rural
areas. People saw a high school constructed in their neighborhood,
and a bus that took their children to school for the first time. They
felt the presence of a Cuban doctor in a community where there had
been no medical care, and they witnessed a literacy center filled
with new readers each afternoon. They felt their own strength and
their own power.

A few days before the February 2004 coup, a foreign journalist asked
a market woman in Cité Soleil (the largest and poorest neighborhood
in Port-au-Prince) what she thought of the political situation in
Haiti. She responded: “If it wasn’t for Aristide you wouldn’t be
asking me for my opinion.”

What follows is a brief summary highlighting some of the most
important Lavalas achievements. Each was a step towards breaking down
the rigid caste structure that has marginalized Haiti’s poor, keeping
them unseen and unheard. Each accomplishment moved Haiti towards the
full participation of its poor majority in the life of the nation.

The February 29 coup was aimed at reversing this process. Aristide
was overthrown not because he failed to change Haiti, but precisely
because profound transformation was at hand.


- Lavalas Achievements -


EDUCATION/LITERACY:

• Under the Aristide government, Haiti—for the first time in its
history—began implementing a Universal Schooling Program aimed at
giving every child an education. In 2001, Aristide mandated that 20%
of the national budget be dedicated to education. om 2001–2004,
school enrollment rates rose from 67.8% to 72%.

• Under Lavalas administrations, more schools were built in Haiti
between 1994–2000 than between 1804–1994. Lavalas built 195 new
primary schools and 104 new public high schools, including a
brand-new high school in Cité Soleil. Many of these schools were
built in rural areas where no schools existed previously.

Despite this construction effort, there are still not nearly enough
public schools for all of Haiti’s children. The Lavalas government
Literacy Campaign provided hundreds of thousands of scholarships for
children to attend private schools.

• The Lavalas government granted a 70% government subsidy for
schoolbooks and uniforms. School lunch programs expanded to serve
700,000 hot meals a day and Haiti’s first school bus program began.

• In the summer of 2001, the Haitian government launched a national
literacy campaign. The Secretary of State for Literacy printed two
million literacy manuals, and trained thousands of college and high
school students as literacy workers. Working with church and Voudou
groups, popular organizations and thousands of women’s groups across
the country, the government opened 20,000 adult literacy centers.

Many of these centers were resto-alphas, combining a literacy center
and a community kitchen to provide low-cost meals to communities in
need. Between 2001–2003, this program taught 100,000 people to read.
The majority of these were women who had no previous access to
education. Over the last seven years, these literacy campaigns
reduced the illiteracy rate from 85% to 55%.



HEALTH CARE:

• The Aristide government devoted a greater percentage of the
national budget (13.7% for 2001–2006) to health care than had any
previous government in Haitian history.

• The Aristide administration inaugurated a cutting-edge AIDS
treatment and prevention program, which was lauded by international
experts. The program was spearheaded by First Lady Mildred Aristide
and included twenty new testing centers, an AIDS vaccine trial, and
anti-retroviral treatment for some patients. Haiti’s government
worked in collaboration with non-governmental organizations,
including Partners in Health in Haiti’s central plateau. A caravan of
artists and speakers traveled throughout the country promoting AIDS
prevention. Between 2000–2003, the prevalence of HIV dropped from
6.1% to 5% and the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate decreased
from 30% to 9%.

• In a bilateral Haitian-Cuban project, 800 Cuban health care workers
came to Haiti to work in rural areas. With government support, an
additional 325 Haitian medical students went to Cuba for medical
training. In return, they committed to work in public health on their
return to Haiti.

• President Aristide created a new medical school in Tabarre, which
provided free medical education to 247 students from all parts of the
country, each of whom committed to serve in their own community upon
completion of their education. A school for nursing had been slated
to open in fall of 2004. After the coup the U.S. and Brazilian
militaries appropriated the land and building. The school remains
closed.

• Lavalas governments renovated and constructed 40 health clinics,
hospitals and dispensaries. In 2002, the School of Midwifery was
renovated, as were the maternity wards of eight public hospitals. A
second state hospital in Port-au-Prince was inaugurated on February
6, 2004. On February 7, the first babies were already being delivered
there.

• In a country with fewer than 2000 doctors for a population of 8.5
million, the striking increase in health workers and improvements in
facilities led to significant improvement in health care. Under the
Lavalas administrations, infant mortality declined from 125 deaths
per 1000 to 110. The percentage of underweight newborns dropped from
28% to 19%.



ECONOMIC JUSTICE:

• Upon Aristide’s return to Haiti in 1994, the U.S. called for him to
privatize the telephone company, electrical company, airport, port,
three banks, a cement factory and a flourmill. Despite this pressure,
Lavalas governments sold only the flourmill and the cement plant.

• President Aristide was preparing to raise the minimum wage in
September of 1991 at the time of the first coup. Upon his return to
Haiti he raised the minimum wage in 1995. On February 7, 2003, he
doubled the minimum wage from 36 to 70 gourdes a day. This wage hike
affected more than 20,000 people who work in Port-au-Prince assembly
factories, most of which are owned and operated by the Haitian elite.

• An extensive land reform program distributed 2.47 acres of land to
each of 1,500 peasant families in the fertile Artibonite River
Valley-Peligre Lake was restocked with fish. After the 2004 coup,
absentee landlords, backed by the coup government, returned to
reclaim their control over this land.

• The government provided tools, credit, technical assistance,
fertilizers and heavy equip•ment to farmers. Repairs to irrigation
systems brought water to the lands of 7,000 farmers in the Artibonite
Valley. Rice yields rose from 2.7 tons per hectare to between 3–5.5
tons.

• The government reintroduced the Creole pig to Haiti, distributing
tens of thousands of pigs to Haitian farmers. (In the 1980s, USAID
exterminated Haiti’s Creole pig population on the pretext that the
pigs were sick and would spread African Swine fever to North America.
The monetary loss to Haitian farmers, the vast majority of whom were
never compensated, was placed at $600 million.)

• The Aristide administration launched an aggressive campaign to
collect unpaid tax and utility bills owed to the government by the
wealthy elite. It publicized the names of rich business owners who
had failed to pay their taxes. This generated new revenues, which
were applied towards health care and education. The campaign earned
Aristide the enmity of the elite, who had gone for years without
paying taxes.



CHILDREN’S RIGHTS:

• The Aristide government launched a major campaign in defense of
“restaveks" (an estimated 400,000 children, mostly girls, in unpaid
domestic service). First Lady Mildred Aristide authored a book on the
subject pointing out that the restavek system was rooted in the
historical underdevelopment, poverty and lack of schools in rural
areas—which in turn pressured rural parents to send their children to
the cities.

• The government offered scholarships to children in domestic service
and President Aristide appealed to families to send all children
living in their homes to school.

• For the first time in Haitian history,juvenile courts were set up.
A special child protection unit was created within the National
Police force.

• In October 2001, Haiti passed legislation banning all forms of
corporal punishment against children.

• In May 2003, Haiti repealed a provision of the labor code that
sanctioned child domestic service and passed legislation prohibiting
all trafficking in persons.

• Despite these significant advances, in its “2003 Trafficking in
Persons Report,” the U.S. State Department threatened Haiti with
further economic sanctions for not making significant efforts in this
area. This report ignored the educational and legislative initiatives
enacted by Haiti against child domestic service while it credited
other countries for identical initiatives. When Haiti protested, its
status was up-graded and the threat of further sanctions withdrawn.



STATUS OF WOMEN:

• A record number of women won elected office, including one third of
the seats in the Haitian Senate. For the first time in history, women
held the posts of Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Minister of Finance and Chief of Police.

• In 1995, President Aristide created a Ministry of Women’s Affairs—a
cabinet level position dedicated to women’s welfare.

• When Aristide was reelected president in 2000, his government gave
material assistance to women’s groups such as Coordination des Femmes
Victimes d’Haiti (COFEVIH) for organizing and commercial projects.
Victims of rape during the 1991–1994 coup were able, for the first
time, to speak out without shame about their experiences.

• Lavalas programs gave primacy to women’s concerns. Women were the
central organizers and beneficiaries of the literacy campaign.
Programs for restaveks (outlined above) served young girls. Women
heads of household largely patronized the new community stores and
restaurants. Health care programs focused on maternal and pre-natal
health care. The government’s HIV/AIDS testing and prevention program
envisioned women as the primary agents of change and education. The
vast majority of workers in the assembly sector are women; the
minimum wage hike directly impacted them.



INFRASTRUCTURE:

• During the Preval and Aristide administrations, Lavalas made major
investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure.
The government undertook smaller road projects linking the
countryside to the city with 400 kilometers of new roads, enabling
farmers to get their food to market.

• Haiti’s open-air markets are a vibrant part of every town. Lavalas
renovated and constructed dozens of markets including in Les Cayes,
Gonaives and Tabarre. Croix Bossals, Port-au-Prince’s main downtown
market, was renovated with a $5 million sanitation program.

• Thousands of miles of drainage canals were constructed, repaired or
dredged.

• The international airport in Port-au-Prince and the provincial
airport of Les Cayes were renovated.

• In Jacmel a new power plant provided twenty-four hour a day
electricity. The port and wharf were reno•vated, and the road to the
beach was paved.

• The government inaugurated the nation’s first public beach with
full amenities. Until this time, only the rich had access to such a
beach.

•The National Stadium was renovated.


JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS :

• In 1995, President Aristide—with strong support from the Haitian
people—disman-tled the Haitian military. The military had been
responsible for 32 coups d’etat, and more than 5,000 deaths during
the 1991– 1994 coup period. Eliminating the prime historic instrument
of state repression allowed the Haitian people to enjoy a level of
freedom of speech and assembly unprecedented in Haitian history.
These freedoms have now been all but eliminated.

• In 1995, Aristide created the National Commission for Truth and
Justice, which investigated the crimes of the1991–1994 coup period.
Testimony was taken from 10,000 Haitians. The commission released its
report and recommendations in 1996.

• In 2000, the Haitian justice system convicted 16 former soldiers
and paramilitaries for the 1994 massacre of residents in the Raboteau
neighborhood of Gonaives. This trial was the most significant
prosecution of human rights violators from the 1991–1994 coup period,
and a blow against the traditional impunity for violators of human
rights throughout the hemisphere.

• At the time of the 2004 coup, government lawyers were working on a
case against the former military for the use of rape as a political
weapon during 1991–1994.

• In 1995, the Haitian government opened a school for magistrates,
which graduated 100 new judges and prosecutors between 1996–2003.
Courthouses and police stations were constructed and refurbished
throughout the country.

• In December 2003, a few short months before the coup, a magistrate
issued an Ordinance (which in Haitian law constitutes the final
pretrial document, stating the charges against the accused) in
relation to the 1990 Piatre massacre. On March 12, 1990, agents of
local landlords and Haitian soldiers had attacked the village of
Piatre, killing eleven people, razing 375 houses, destroying
cultivated fields and killing farm animals. The attack aimed to
thwart the Piatre farmers’ attempts to reclaim, through the courts,
land that had been expropriated by wealthy landlords. The Piatre
ordinance’s publication was a historic achievement for the
Haitianjustice system, which had struggled with the case for over
thirteen years. Suspects in custody included General Prosper Avril,
the former dictator accused of masterminding the massacre. He was
released from prison as a result of the February 2004 coup
d’etat—along with 3,000 other criminals who were in prison at the
time of the coup.

• For the first time in Haiti’s history, the rights of the accused
were respected. Warrants were issued in French and Creole, and those
arrested were generally brought before a judge for a formal hearing
within 48 hours. Court proceedings were conducted in Creole, the
language understood by all Haitians. Contrast this with the situation
since the coup: hundreds of Haitians have been locked up in prison
for months without being charged with any crime or being brought to
trial.

• By almost any measure, the period 1994–2004 was a marked advance
for human rights and peaceful resolution of conflict in Haiti.
Pre-coup international media reports referred vaguely to human rights
violations by the Aristide government. These reports were based on an
extremely small number of human rights cases. There was no evidence
of systematic state-sponsored support for political violence.
Contrast this with the estimated 50,000 people killed by Duvalier,
5,000 deaths at the hands of the military during the 1991–1994 coup
period, and the thousands of Lavalas supporters who have been killed
or disap•peared since February 2004. The same media which so eagerly
condemned the Aristide government last year remains largely silent in
the face of spiraling violence and human rights violations committed
by the coup regime.



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY :

• In 1996, President Aristide, the first democratically elected head
of state, peacefully transferred power to the next democratically
elected head of state. René Preval then became the first
democratically elected president to serve his full term in office.

• In November of 2000, Aristide was overwhelmingly re-elected. Local
and international observers put voter turnout at 65%. Gallup polls
conducted in Haiti before and after the elections confirmed both the
voter turnout and the numbers who voted for Aristide. Power was once
again peacefully transferred.

• The country’s independent electoral commission oversaw these two
presidential elections as well as three sets of parliamentary and
local elections. In May 2000, a total of 29,500 candidates ran for
7,500 posts. Four million Haitians registered for this election and
more than 60% of them voted. Traditionally excluded groups gained
political office and occupied important posts. In addition to the
record number of women who won elected office, several peasant
leaders were elected to the House of Deputies and formed a caucus,
which pushed from within Parliament for improvements in the lives of
rural farmers.


• Aristide’s administration did away with the discriminatory practice
of identifying people born in rural areas as “peasants” on their
birth certificate.

• The Haitian people enjoyed unprecedented freedom to organize,
debate, associate, and express themselves. The number of radio and TV
stations expanded to 44 radio stations in Port-au-Prince, and another
100 outside the capital. Sixteen TV stations were registered in the
capital, with 35 more nationwide.

• The Haitian Constitution of 1987 was printed in Creole, and was
widely distributed, making Haitians aware of their rights.


FREEDOM OF RELIGION:

• In May of 2003, President Aristide issued a decree fully
recognizing Voudou as a religion. Voudou, a religious tradition with
roots in Africa, is widely practiced in Haiti but has been attacked
as the religion of the poor and uneducated. With Aristide’s decree,
Haiti recognized baptisms, marriages and funerals performed by Voudou
officials. This was a significant step in guaranteeing religious
freedom and a step towards breaking down Haiti’s social caste system.


COMBATING DRUG TRAFFICKING AND CORRUPTION:

• Despite U.S. claims to the contrary, Lavalas authorities took
strong action against drug trafficking. Under both Preval and
Aristide, Haiti cooperated with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency,
participated in regional operations to interdict drugs, and deported
drug dealers wanted by U.S. authorities for prosecution.

• The National Committee Against Money Laundering was created, as was
the National Commission to Combat Drug Trafficking and Substance
Abuse. In addition, a Financial Intelligence Unit was created within
the Ministry of Justice to combat money laundering.

• On February 15, 2001, the Comprehensive Anti-Money Laundering Law
was passed. It specifically provided that Haiti cooperate with other
nations in fighting money laundering and facilitate extraditions and
asset seizures of drug traffickers.

• During the year 2001, Haiti’s Anti-Narcotics Unit (BLTS) seized
420.97 kilos of cocaine, 1,852 kilos of marijuana, and destroyed two
marijuana fields.

• Haiti’s Inspector General arrested police accused of involvement in
drug trafficking, including the police chief of the Southeastern
Department, for failure to properly cooperate with an investigation
into the disappearance of a large quantity of cocaine.

• On June 19, 2001, Parliament passed legislation that established a
comprehensive framework for the prosecution and punishment of drug
related crimes.

• The legislature also ratified the 1997 Maritime Counter Narcotics
Agreement with the U.S., thereby allowing U.S. access to Haitian
waters for anti-drug operations.

• In May 2002, President Aristide appealed to the citizens of Haiti
to report wrongdoing, and called on government administrators to take
action against corrupt practices. He attributed the corruption in the
public administration to a system left over from years of
dictatorships that created, “a mentality of charging money for
services.”

• The government intensified its campaign against corruption in
public administration. President Aristide made spot visits to various
government offices. The government produced anti-corruption public
service announcements. Public offices instituted new procedures to
prevent and address corruption. Tax and customs officials initiated
proceedings against those who failed to comply with required
licensing and fees. The former director of Haiti’s electricity
company was arrested and an investigation ordered for possible
wrongdoing. Several government employees were fired and elected
officials unseated as a result of investigations into improprieties.



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS :

• Haiti became the first non-English speaking country admitted to the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

• President Aristide re-established relations with Cuba—relations
severed by Duvalier in the1960s.

• Haiti doubled the number of countries with which it had diplomatic
relations.

• Haiti signed on to the treaty creating the International Criminal
Court—something the United States still refuses to do.



COMMEMORATING THE BICENTENNIAL:

The year 2004 marked 200 years of Haitian independence. In 1791,
400,000 Africans enslaved in Haiti rose up against French colonial
rule and won independence for the first black republic of modern
times. General Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti a free nation
in 1804, culminating the world’s only successful revolution of
enslaved people. The Aristide administration commemorated this
historic achievement while building a campaign to redress inequities
suffered by Haiti over the past two hundred years.

• Lavalas built 54 public parks and playgrounds, many in the poorest
areas of Port-au-Prince, where people live in one-room shacks and
have no public recreational spaces. These parks were packed every day
and evening with children and families. Students who had no
electricity at home gathered to study under the streetlights. Three
weeks before the coup, Aristide inaugurated the first public space in
Cité Soleil. One million people gathered to celebrate and stand in
defense of their embattled government.

• The historic town of Archaie was renovated. Its streets were paved,
and electricity provided to the town’s entire population.

• The Jean-Jacques Dessalines High School was opened in Croix des
Bouquets.

• Churches in Leogane and Marchand Dessalines were renovated and
repaired in recognition of the important community services they
offer.

• In Marchand Dessalines, the birthplace of Jean-Jacques Dessalines,
the downtown area was paved for the first time and electricity and
telephone lines expanded.

• Historians and professors organized seminars and conferences (some
in the new open air public spaces) to educate youth on Haiti’s
history. These events were televised.

• In 2003, on behalf of the Haitian people, President Aristide
requested that France restitute to Haiti $21.7 billion—the amount, in
today’s currency, which France extorted from Haiti as “compensation”
to French plantation owners after Haiti’s independence. It took Haiti
more than 100 years to pay off this debt. Haiti was unable to fund
schools, health care, or infrastructure and the logging of its
tropical forests was accelerated, setting the stage for the current
deforestation crisis. As Haiti prepared for its bicentennial
celebration in 2004, this demand symbolized the willingness of the
Aristide government to challenge the global elite. Many commentators
cite the call for restitution as a major factor in French support for
the coup. In the summer of 2003, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac
threatened, “I cannot stress enough to the authorities of Haiti the
need to be vigilant about—how shall I put it—the nature of their
actions and their regime.” On February 25, 2004—four days before the
coup— the French foreign minister issued a formal call for Aristide’s
resignation.


Conclusion

The people of Haiti have not forgotten these achievements. While the
U.S. and U.N. occupation forces intensify their campaign to demonize
and dismiss Lavalas, Haitians continue to hold on to the Lavalas
vision of democracy and social justice, and to demand the return of
President Aristide. February 2005 marks the first anniversary of the
U.S.-orchestrated coup. The purpose of the coup was to destroy
Lavalas, entrench the rule of the rich in Haiti, and dismantle the
progressive programs of Lavalas governments. Consider just some of
what has happened since the coup:

• Independent human rights observers now estimate that thousands of
people—the great majority of whom were supporters of Lavalas—have
been killed or disappeared in politically motivated attacks since the
coup. The morgue in Port-au-Prince disposed of 1,000 bodies in March
2004 alone, many of them victims of political violence.

• Prisons throughout Haiti are filled with Lavalas leaders, Lavalas
supporters, suspected Lavalas members and community/labor activists.
The vast majority of these prisoners have never been charged with any
crime.

• There has been a systematic crackdown on labor unions and peasant
associations. Peasant organizers report cooperatives being ransacked,
with tools and equipment stolen. Labor union organizers report a
steadily mounting anti-union campaign directed at the assembly
sector. Labor activists have been arrested, disappeared, killed or
forced into exile. Many factory owners do not respect the minimum
wage, which was raised last year by the Aristide government.

• Haiti’s despised former military is regrouping. Bands of former
soldiers now control whole areas of the country. The Latortue regime
has integrated hundreds of ex-soldiers into the police force. This
new police force has led a renewed wave of terror in poor
neighborhoods. And in December 2004, Latortue agreed to pay former
soldiers ten years of “back wages.”

• UN troops have led brutal sweeps through poor communities in
Port-au-Prince, beating and arresting Lavalas supporters and turning
them over to the Haitian police. In some cases, these arrestees have
disappeared or been found murdered.

• Peasant farmers in the Artibonite Valley reported that large
absentee landlords accompanied by armed paramilitaries have seized
land that was given to peasants

• The coup regime dropped subsidies on fertilizer, critical to the
rice industry in the Artibonite. Peasant farmers report price gouging
by wealthy importers. Since the coup, the price of a bag of
fertilizer has gone from 290 gourdes to 650 gourdes. The price of
rice has also risen dramatically.

• Educators in Port-au-Prince report that the coup regime cancelled
subsidies for school children and schoolbooks and ended funding for
literacy programs. Many families were unable to send their students
to school in September 2004.

• On July 13, 2004, the Latortue regime announced that it would offer
a tax holiday of three years to large businesses which suffered
losses between December 2003 and March 2004. No state support has
been offered to the thousands of poor people and small business
owners who have lost their livelihoods or had their homes and
businesses burned since the coup.


On January 18, 2005, the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the
University of Miami Law School issued a comprehensive human rights
report. This report is based on interviews with businessmen,
grassroots leaders, victims of human rights violations, lawyers,
human rights groups, police, officials from the UN, from the Latortue
administration, and from the U.S. government, as well as observations
in poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons, hospitals and the
state morgue. The report states:

After ten months under an interim government backed by the United
States, Canada, and France and buttressed by a United Nations
peacekeeping force, Haiti’s people churn inside a hurricane of
violence. Gunfire crackles, once bustling streets are abandoned to
cadavers, and whole neighborhoods are cut off from the outside world.
Nightmarish fear now accompanies Haiti’s poorest in their struggle to
survive in destitution … Haiti’s security andjustice institutions
fuel the cycle of violence. Summary executions are a police tactic,
and even well meaning officers treat poor neighborhoods seeking a
democratic voice as enemy territory where they must kill or be
killed. Haiti’s brutal and disbanded army has returned to join the
fray. Suspected dissidents fill the prisons, their Constitutional
rights ignored.

This is the reality of Haiti today. Yet the lies continue. With
hardly a whimper from The Lavalas government created school buses and
public the mainstream media, the State Department transportation
lines, bearing the “Dignity” logo. Many vilifies Lavalas and claims
the coup govern-were attacked and burned by paramilitary forces
during ment is “moving towards democracy.” But the coup. resistance
in Haiti is growing, and even the media can no longer keep this
hidden. As the people of Haiti continue to write their own history,
they deserve and require our solidarity and support. It is time—once
again—to tell the truth, and to stand with the people of Haiti.


CREDITS
Written by Laura Flynn and Robert Roth for the Haiti Action
Committee; February, 2005. Design and production donated by Lisa
Roth. The Haiti Action Committee is a Bay Area based network of
activists who have supported the Haitian struggle for democracy since
1991. For further information, resources and links visit our web site
at www.haitiaction.net.

SOURCES
* Agence Haitienne de Presse (Independent Haitian News Service)
Hidden From the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti, by Laura
Flynn, Robert Roth and Pierre Labossiere, published by the Haiti
Action Committee, September 2003, available at www.haitiaction.net. *
Interviews and site visits conducted by the authors in Port-au-Prince
in January and July 2004. * L’enfant en Domesticité en Haiti, Produit
D’Un Fossé Historique, Mildred Aristide, March 2003. * Address of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the occasion of the Haitian Bicentennial,
January 1, 2004. * Haiti Information Project—reports and eyewitness
accounts available at www.haitiaction.net. “Option Zero in Haiti,” by
* Peter Hallward in the New Left Review, May–June 2004. * “Haiti’s
Wretched of the Earth,” Paul Farmer, Tikkun Magazine, May–June 2004.
* “Concretizing Democracy” (series of reports) by Michelle Karshan,
Office of the Foreign Press Liaison. * Haitian Government Briefing
Papers issued February 7, 2003. (February 7, 2003 * “The Aids Crisis
and Healthcare,” “Haiti’s Police Force,” “Promoting Investment and
Raising the Minimum Wage,” “Battling Corruption and Drug
Trafficking,” “Justice”). L’Union (Haitian government daily paper of
record).


HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS:

* Report of the Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of
Miami Law School, January 18, 2005. The whole report, including
photographs, is available at http://www.ijdh.org/CSHRhaitireport.pdf .

* The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti has issued four
reports documenting systematic, widespread attacks against Lavalas
officials, grassroots activists and the press, and abuse of the
judicial system for political reprisals. These reports are available
http://www.ijdh.org .

* Haiti Accompaniment Project Reports, July 29, 2004, November, 2004,
document human rights abuses and the reversal of Lavalas social and
economic programs. (available at http://www.haitiaction.net)


Porto Alegre
Declaration on Haiti

LAUNCHED AT THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM JANUARY 26–31, 2005

The fifth World Social Forum took place in the Brazilian city of
Porto Alegre. Over 150,000 participants attended five days of
workshops and conferences on issues ranging from environmental
conservation to reparations for victims of Latin America’s right-wing
dictatorships to the war in Iraq. The Haiti workshop—attended by
hundreds of representatives from progressive organizations in Brazil
and around the world—adopted 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. U.N. “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. U.S. 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.


Please sign on to this resolution.
For the full text, go to http://www.haitiaction.net