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26638: Simidor (forward): Haitian Labor Group Confronts US Lavalas Backers (fwd)





From: daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

 http://www.grassrootshaiti.org/News/HaitianLaborGroup.html  Haitian Labor
Group
Confronts US Lavalas Backers


  NEW YORK, Nov. 11
    Long-standing      differences in the Haitian left began to emerge as an
issue among US progressives      this fall as the well-known Haitian labor
organizing group Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle") responded to      what it
called a "slander" from US supporters of the Lavalas movement    of deposed
Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

    During an "International Tribunal on Haiti" in Washington, DC on
the weekend of Sept. 23, a panelist charged that Batay Ouvriye had been funded
        by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a
program          for "creating a leftist opposition" in Haiti in the months
leading          up to Aristide's overthrow in February 2004. The money came
through the AFL-CIO's          Solidarity Center and was part of a $3 million
package for subverting the Haitian          government, according to Jeb
Sprague, an independent journalist and a graduate          student at
California State University at Long Beach. Batay Ouvriye was "working
with co-conspirators overthrowing a democratically elected government," Sprague
     said.

    The tribunal was organized by several large left and solidarity
groups,
      including International ANSWER, the International Action Center and
     the Latin America            Solidarity Coalition. Sprague's presentation
was aired in New York            on Sept. 28 on WBAI-FM's popular morning
program, "Wakeup Call."

    Batay Ouvriye responded on Oct 1 [see below]. The group ridiculed
the
      idea that it had been paid to be part of "an unholy alliance fabricated
by              the State Department." In fact, the statement said, Batay
Ouvriye has              a long, very public record of opposition to "the
Lavalas leaders, who              we certainly exposed to be reactionaries,
swindlers, complete frauds, anti-popular              and fundamentally anti-
worker." Sprague--who claimed to have conducted              30 interviews in
his research--"never once contacted our organization              for
information," Batay Ouvriye charged.

    Batay Ouvriye has worked with a number of international
solidarity
     groups over the years, including the National Labor Committee and
      the Campaign                for Labor                Rights. Among its
best-known campaigns were unionization drives            at Grand Marnier and
Cointreau plantations in northern Haitian and            the
recent unionization                of                a Dominican-owned factory
in a "free trade zone" by the Dominican                border in Ouanaminthe.
During the Ouanaminthe struggle Batay Ouvriye received                $3,500
from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, in response to public appeals
 for funds to help fired workers. This was apparently the funding Sprague
         was referring                to.

    Stressing that it focuses on grassroots struggles "against the
bourgeoisie
               concretely in the factories, sweatshops, plantations," Batay
             Ouvriye asked why the International Tribunal had chosen to target
                it rather than a number                  of much less militant
Haitian unions that "closely resemble...the                  pro-imperialist
and pro-bourgeois Confederation of Venezuelan                  Labor (CTV)," a
major                  force in the 2002 US-backed effort to overthrow
Venezuelan president                  Hugo Chavez.

    Batay Ouvriye noted that two of its supporters were killed
in
    northern Haiti in May 2002 by goons led by a local Lavalas
mayor. Aristide's                    government responded                    to
the anti-union violence by arresting several Batay Ouvriye
organizers and two journalists; some were held in the National
  Penitentiary                    until December                    2002, when
they were released following an international campaign                    to
press the Lavalas government for their release.

    The controversy between Batay Ouvriye and US supporters
of
   Lavalas comes at a time when many US progressives are beginning
        to question                      the picture                      of
the                      Haitian situation presented here by both mainstream
and alternative                      media, including the well-known national
radio and television                      program "Democracy
  Now!"

    The image of Lavalas as a unified militant force on the
left
       has been shaken recently by disarray within the movement
       over elections                        scheduled
to be                        held in December by a US-backed interim
government. A number                        of "grassroots
  leaders" in Port-au-Prince neighborhoods are supporting the presidential
                  candidacy of former president Rene Preval, a personal friend
of Aristide's.                        Many former Lavalas office-holders,
meanwhile, are backing former World Bank                        official Marc
Bazin, a cabinet minister in the government of deposed dictator
       Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") and a longtime proponent of
            US-backed neoliberal economic programs for Haiti. Meanwhile groups
around                        the New York-based
            weekly Haiti Progres are calling for a boycott of the elections.
All
factions                        are claiming the support of the Lavalas base.

    ------
    A Batay Ouvriye organizer, Yanick Etienne, will be in
New
      York the week of Nov. 21. She will be speaking at a public
          forum,                          sponsored by the Grassroots
               Haiti Solidarity Committee, on Friday, Nov. 25, at 6        pm,
at the Church                          of the                          Evangel
at 1950 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. Etienne will                          be
available for interviews during the week. Grassroots
Haiti, a New York-based                          group of
   long-time Haitian                          and North American activists, is
also organizing a delegation                          of activists and
independent journalists to visit Haiti                          in February to
solidify                          contacts with Batay Ouvriye and other
grassroots organizations.
    David Wilson
    Nicaragua Solidarity Network and the Grassroots  Haiti Solidarity Committee



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