30262: Potemaksonje (Reply) 30258: Morse (comment) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Potemaksonje@yahoo.com

Hugo Chavez would want a relationship with the current President Preval.  But 
Venezuela, like CARICOM and the African Union, did oppose the 2004 coup.  That 
is one reason why people love him.

In Brazil in 2005 Chavez said "the president of Haiti is Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide." Chavez called President Aristide's ouster a "kidnapping" and  "In 
the case of Aristide," Chavez said, "he had suppressed the army, responding to 
a condition imposed by the [U.S.] empire."  Chavez also said that "there is no 
solution in Haiti without Aristide." "The solution is not in the hands of the 
United Nations or a group of presidents," Chavez concluded. "It must be taken 
by the people of Haiti."

After Chavez spoke the Porto Alegre Declaration on Haiti was 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 slaveowners' 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.





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