25682: Arthur (publish) Rebuilding the popular movement (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Extract from the July issue of Haiti Briefing, newsletter of the Haiti
Support Group.


Rebuilding the popular movement

In May, the Haiti Support Groupâs CHARLES ARTHUR travelled to Port-au-Prince
to hear the opinions of those civil society organisations grounded in the poor
majority and whose voices are seldom heard by the international community.


Camille Chalmers, head of the Alternative Development Advocacy Platform
(PADPA), believes that there is no prospect of meaningful elections by the end of
2005. âThey can make elections â controlled by the foreign forces, but there
wonât be a strong participation by the popular sector.â

This is a view is shared by other progressive activists. Sony Esteus, who
works for SAKS, a NGO supporting community radio stations run by peasant groups
and grassroots organisations: âFor the majority of people, elections are not a
priority today. People are not interested. If candidates were to appear in
their areas, they would just laugh.â

Guy Numa, a student activist and a member of the Popular Democratic Movement
(MODEP), explained that the established political parties are regarded with
disdain by ordinary people. âThe masses donât believe elections will bring
improvements because the candidates are the same old people that they donât
trust. Those who will be elected will just ensure continuity, and enforce
neo-liberal plans and therefore poverty.â

Mobilising for change
Progressive organisers are instead increasing their cooperation in an effort
to rebuild the countryâs once vibrant popular movement for radical change.
They admit this is an extremely difficult task, but are adamant that Haitiâs
current descent into violence and economic collapse can only be stopped if the
countryâs poor majority mobilises.

Josuà Vaval, a leader of the Haitian Autonomous Studentsâ Movement (MEGA),
told
Haiti Briefing, âWe have to build a movement to unite people to demand
respect for human rights, and we mean the rights to eat, to send our children to
school, and to have electricity.â

MODEPâs Numa admits the situation is extremely difficult but says, âSome
people are still active, and we are encouraging them to organise themselves. But
the poverty here is extreme, and people have no time to even think about
tomorrow.â

Marc-Arthur Fils-Aimà is the director of the Karl LÃvÃque Cultural Institute
(ICKL), a research and education centre that seeks to improve cooperation
between democratic institutions and popular organisations. He says, âWe are
working on economic solidarity with a number of peasant organisations, because
people are living at a level of poverty that stops them from being able to even
thinkâThey must spend all their time trying to find something to eat.â

Fils-Aimà and PAPDAâs Chalmers agree that progressive organising is also
hampered by generalised disillusionment with the performance of the interim
government. Chalmers says, âThis is a government composed of total lackeys to the
Unites States. It has no social programme, and no interest in the peasantry or
in listening to the people in the poor neighbourhoods.â

Urban poor want to move on
In response to this situation, a number of organisations are working together
to try and solidify and strengthen the countryâs once strong peasant
movement. But SAKSâ Sony Esteus recognises that as well as helping the peasant
movement, he and his colleagues must also reach out to the urban poor. He says,
âThere are many organisations in those areas that we used to work with. They were
persecuted
under Aristide, and now they canât be active because of the gangs.â

An independent human rights monitor who regularly visits the most lawless and
poverty-stricken Port-au-Prince slum areas confirms that people living there
do want to organise themselves to address their common problems: âPeople in
Bel-Air and Cità Soleil want to move on, they want to organise, but they cannot
because of the gangs. These gangs â some of them criminal, some of them with
political motivations â unite to fight against incursions by the police and the
UN.â

ICKLâs Fils-Aimà concedes that as well as the gangsters in Port-au-Prince
slum areas who say they operate in Aristideâs name, there are many people who are
still genuinely attached to the ousted president and his populist discourse.
However, he contends that the majority of people are deeply disappointed with
the performance
of Aristideâs Lavalas Family government between 2000-2004.

Cost of living protests
Fils-Aimà says that a population that is not organised cannot change its
situation, but he hopes that initiatives such as the recent campaign against the
high cost of living will set things in motion. âThe population is following it
with interest. Now we have to get them involved. We have to separate them from
the gangs.â

Since the beginning of May, students from the State University have joined
other progressive activists in staging weekly sit-ins outside the Ministry of
Commerce. The protesters have been denouncing the recent increases in petrol and
diesel that, they say, are making life impossible for small merchants and
others who use public transport. The sit-ins also aim to force the interim
government to intervene to reverse recent price rises for maize, rice, beans,
cooking oil and charcoal.

Students to the fore
As well as taking part in the Ministry of Commerce sit-ins, students from the
State University have also taken their protests onto the streets. On 11 May,
several hundred students marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince to
protest outside the Prime Ministerâs office. âWeâve been watching this
government, and itâs not doing anything,â said Wisley Joseph, a communications student.
âSo, we are back on
the streets.â

One group â students from the Social Science faculty â also voiced their
frustration with the countryâs privileged elite, and denounced students from the
Universityâs Business Studies faculty (INAGHEI) for maintaining the links
forged with private sector leaders during the anti-Aristide mobilisation in late
2003.

âWe no longer want to be the turkeys that get stuffed (we no longer wish to
be played
for fools),â chanted the Social Science faculty students, in reference to the
private sector dominated Group of 184, which they say has been using the
students to protect its own class interests.

MEGAâs Josuà Vaval, who is a final year psychology student, said, âWe
realise that the majority of the population is being excluded at this time. But we
are not pro-bourgeois like some other students, and we believe the poorest
members of society should be included and become actors in their own history.â


_________________

Forwarded as a service of the Haiti Support Group - solidarity with the
Haitian people's struggle for human rights, participatory democracy and equitable
development - since 1992.

www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org