Haitian youth are on the frontlines against the United Nations occupation of their country. The former government of Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by the United States and France in 2004.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217.
contact ILC at
website: ILC section in http://www.owcinfo.org
--------------------
HAITI: A Long Dry White Season
By COLIA L. CLARK
As my plane lands in Port Au Prince, the power of the mountains lying gray along the run way grab and hold my eyes. The solemn spirit of this huge gray mass stretched out on its back face to the heavens. I could not make out much else. Just settled in staring out as the plane made its way into the airport. Professor Ahati Toure, my long term friend from Delaware State University, and I had a wonderful chat about our expectations as we traveled fro Miami.
I don't know what was moving in his head but mine was swelled over with Dutty Boukman and Henri Christophe. They made their mark in my intellectual development when I was a young child. These were never real developed characters just a few images of men who stood up against white world wide racism.
Haiti was more special than others because it cut across nation building, heroes and legends and culture in a way in which no other major struggle against colonial imperialism and slavery managed to. Haiti gave me L in my very early years of Colored School in Mississippi.
When I entered Colored high school came my favorite man from this enchanted Island, s. He reminded me of my mother's father who was always willing to throw down if the issue was morally and ethically correct, no matter the cost. For Lonnie Robinson, there was no price too high to pay in defense of righteousness just needed to make sure to be strategic in handling your business.
It was my early years in college that Bookman appeared. A man with special powerful message that demanded to be heard and actualized. Religious given life, taking on flesh with breath and walking a people in to a new freedom. These three giants w alked from the plane side by side with Ahati and I into a rather uncertain atmosphere for a moment of challenge in now re-occupied. Haiti neo-colonized. Some where here MIN, the United Nations occupying force awaited our arrival.
We are picked up at the airport by members of the Caribbean Workers and Peoples Alliance (ATPC) and the Democratic Association of Women Workers of Haiti (ADFEMTRAH) and taken a long ride into the downtown Port Au Prince. As we move along the narrow road en route what caught my eyes landing at the airport becomes clearer.
The mountain is ringed with what from a distance appears to be small houses in white circling around the broad terrain like small drops of candy on a layer cake. Here and there a house or part of a house or small building appears to be hanging over the side above the next layer of houses.
I am aware of the oldness in the frame of the picture. So, the hurricanes have wrecked a part of a spectacular picture, a mountain ringed in small framed houses, a giant wonderland cake surrounded by scare supply of trees- dashes of green here and there. One can imagine the effects of this picturesque tower with an abundance of forestry. Human imagination and engineering is what makes life worth living.
Haiti has a phenomenal mind at work in the arts of designing layer cakes. The car passes strings of folk walking along the road side in colorful garments, plain garments some with a child in hand, others carrying items for sell, traveling in ones twos or more. I try to keep from looking as the cars move around each other swiftly dashing along.
"Please don't hit any body or smash into another vehicle", the prayer is singing in my head as each car comes closer. Riding from one place to the next would be a nightmare for the full time in Haiti. I can only imagine the accident rate. Walking along these small narrow roads many of which were built by the USA during the 19 year illegal occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934. It does not appear to have been much road construction since that period.
Ahati is able to speak fairly well with his fragments of French. I am lost and angry with myself for being unable to speak the language. So much is lost without a knowing tongue to wag. My ears are stretched searching for meaning in the verbal text.
Western imperial colonizers have a powerful war tool in place, in multiple colonizer languages forming a frontier between Africans from the continent many from the same family or tribal groupings. This language barrier also blocks partnership and alliance building between Africans and Indigenous groups and other oppressed folk.
We must assault this great barrier by learning the languages of the West: Creole, Gullar, Indigenous and all others. We must take the time to make sure that each child and grand child is armed with language skills. Schools, churches and community programs dedicated to language development are critical and urgent business for community development. "Pull down the language barrier and speed across to take control of Our destiny", must become the battle cry of all freedom loving Peoples.
We arrive in downtown Port Au Prince where the state house sits in Louverture square surrounded by a park cluttered with beautiful lively Haitians chatting, strolling all over. Its the middle of the day. "Why aren't most of these adults at work?", I dare ask myself knowing the answer. We drive around these small winding streets coming at last to an auto shop where our main representative is waiting. a rather short man with smart eyes greets us in English. He will take us to our hotel in an adjacent province where the conference is housed.
We take off again headed to our hotel moving swiftly down these narrow winding streets each seeming to run into or across the other my heart fastens itself to my chest head in prayer. After about thirty minutes we arrive at our hotel sitting in a barricaded enclave.
This resort setting with casino seemed odd a direct contrast to the impoverished area we have traveled through with old buildings many needing renovation, school houses needing renovation, some buildings have been severely damaged by the hurricanes which ripped across the Island. The damage of the hurricane spared this and one and another hotel on the Island we are informed.
The Third Caribbean Workers Conference: To Defend Haiti Is to Defend Ourselves (December 12-13, 2008) takes place in a large well furnished and lit room. All of the participants are cheerful and filled with excitement for the occasion. I notice that there are about 120 or more local folk crowding into this room which probably, my estimate, holds 200 persons at the most.
The participants are young men and women. All chatting in Creole which continues to bounce off my ear as I try to make meaning of individual discussions. Its really no good to be a fly on the wall when you have no idea what is being transferred form individual to individual and group.
The Brazilian delegates, as well as the delegates from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mexico, San Salvador, Ecuador come with warm hugs and kisses for Ahati and me. We are the only two Americans present. We are made to feel comfortable. We are provided a tall handsome young Haitian translator who begins immediately helping us to understand as fully as possible what is being transferred in language. It was the moment that Ahati and I had hoped for and a big load was lifted from my head. A blast of light in a very dark place.
The Brazilian delegates lead us outside where we are updated on the work they have already completed here in Haiti prior to our arrival. They arrived two days earlier meeting with the UN and local officials in an effort to gather as much useful information as possible on conditions in Haiti, the state of the occupancy and the plight of local trade union movement.
Brazilians reported that in their discussion with the head of the UN MINUSTAH forces, a Brazilian general, they were informed that Haiti did not have a security issue. According to the Brazilian, the general stated that Haiti's real problem is "finance".
If Haiti does not have a security issue, why does the United nations have a security force in Brazil since 2004? There is no reason for MINUSTAH to be in Haiti. The incidences of murder, rape and violence said to be perpetuated by MINUSTAH could be prevented and the People of Haiti given their human right to control and police themselves. Why not provide the more than $500 millions spent to keep this force of occupiers in Haiti should be given to the starving people of Haiti for food, medicine, roads and bridges, job development, construction and schools.
The UN must have transparency. The world needs to know the doings of all UN agencies in Haiti; especially a standing army composed of 7000 troops and 2000 administrators and others. Eyebrows are being raised as to who owns the UN. Has the UN become a tool for policing and controlling the exploits of western imperialism?
The conference is intense. Speakers address the issues of the hour. A demand comes from the audience that the conference be addressed in Creole, the national language of Haiti. In a loud demanding voice, a young man screams, "I will not be addressed in French." From some where within comes a scream of "yes" as the translator explains what had just happened. I was participating in English.
Embarrassment was not necessary as the audience appreciated my utterance. Haiti is the only one of the independent Black African countries that has Indigeneous language and religion as the national language and religion of the country. This imbues a fierce sense of pride in the the people. Probably the reason for so much pain inflicted by France and the USA in part is due to the pride of Haiti as an African nation not a former French colony.
[Please see the report in The Organizer for January 16, 2009 "To Defend Haiti is To Defend Ourselves" on Conference proceedings. Space does not permit room for full conference report. Also see Conference Final Declaration below.--C.L.C.]
The African in the USA has shared a mutual experience with the People of Haiti across our forced sojourn through European forced slavery upon our prisoner of war ancestors. We are victims of a long dry white season of oppression. We have both fought long and hard struggles against the deadly acts of violence heaped upon body, mind and spirit.
Haiti showed us a new way of fighting beginning in early 1790-1804, when she waged a war not for manumission but freedom to form a new nation under the control of the descendants of prisoners of war-the very first Independent African State in the western world.
Haiti became an independent African Republic with mind set to provide a free and independent place for all freedom loving peoples. In her constitution of 1801 she guaranteed citizenship to all freedom loving people. The new Black Republic of Haiti sent shock waves through the entire western hemisphere where Africans were enslaved by the millions. America was jealous of the wealthy French colony and did all it could to destabilize it, but now a free Haiti threatened America's imperial designs and the stability of the USA Republic.
There was immediate reactions to the new Republic in African enslavement in US, especially among free Africans in urban centers. The Goa revolt against slavery in USA ensued, talk of emigration to Africa increased. By 1915 Paul Cuffee has moved ahead with plans to emigrate a colony of former African slaves to West Africa - Liberia.
In Europe, the Africans who escaped America with the British following the USA war for independence took a course of emigration that would lead to establishment of nation of Sierra Leone. There were constant slave revolts in USA and the movement to free Africans spawned a more radical abolitionist force. Haiti lit the light of freedom to rule.
When in 1915, the USA invaded Haiti dissolving the Haiti government with the barrel of USA guns and bayonets at the head of Haiti's public officials. The Americans took full control. The US Navy took control of the nation's financial affairs and customs houses while the Marines occupied all coastal towns.
Haiti resisted and was readily repulsed. America appointed a Haitian to its liking as president forcing him to sign a peace accord/ later a constitution written by USA troops. The National City Bank of New York took over Banque Nationale of Haiti. Haiti's gold was shipped to USA with the cheap rationale being for safe keeping. The actual value of the gold is unclear.
The USA claims to have returned it with interest five years later. But returned it to whom? American forces ran Haiti. All decisions made were under the full control and administration of the American government. America returned the gold! There have to be bigger lies but I have serious doubt whether or not there are bigger liars.
The USA military had full control of Haitian government with the president forced to take direct orders from the USA military until her very untimely departure in 1934. During the American occupancy like that of the UN today murder and rape were rampant. More than three thousand men, women and chi ldren shot down in so-called pacification campaigns referred to by the American Marines as "Caco hunting". In the USA South, white Americans called this "rabbit season".
The local population of Haiti was immediately forced into a form of forced labor (unlike the Haitian corvee where workers gave to the government free labor a few days a year) resembling in fact and deed slavery. They were forced to work for free building highway between Port au Prince and Cap Haitien and whatever other project decided upon by the southern whites from the USA who were the larger portion of the Marine force.
Haiti resisted, guerilla warriors took to fighting back against the USA. America launched a usual cover up of the terror and atrocities in an effort to calm the tidal wave of opposition to Haiti occupation that swept through the population of Africans in north USA cities. The NAACP sent reporters to gather information on the Haiti story and spread their accounts of the plunder of Haiti far and wide.
Today's occupation of Haiti must end. MINUSTAH must leave. The dry white season of racism and genocide must be drowned in a tidal wave of protest. The African in the West and our allies must expose the lie that the UN occupation of Haiti is due to security issues. In fact, the UN MINUSTAH forces are here to protect and defend the interest of international capital to set up a beach head of free labor for investment firms. The present president and his government have privatized a sector of Haitian economy creating a Free Trade Zone.
What is described as the HOPE Law (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement ACT) permits the labor of Haiti to be exploited for meager wages in the Free trade Zone. The Free Trade Zone does not allow workers to organize for wages and benefits or to protect themselves in any way.
Workers, mostly women, making up about 30 percent of the Haitian workforce labor long hard hours five days a week for $2 a day not a single benefit. This is a clear wage slavery policy that starves a population into submission to the will of businesses locating on the Island. In the meantime, hunger riots due to starvation will probably continue to erupt despite the UN presence.
Recommendations:
It is not enough to demand the annulment of this foreign debt. We must demand guarantees for the development of Haiti. This development is necessary and should be financed by reparations that France, the United States of America and the United Nations should pay in exchange for compensation from the debt from independence, the pillaging of its resources from USA occupation 1915-1934 and from the numerous occupations and interventions that the country has experienced during the entire century.
These are all violations of Haiti's national sovereignty- and this includes the present situation of the United Nations occupation. This policy of violation of national sovereignty of nations and violation of human rights of citizens of nations must be stopped. "The tallest tree in paradise is the tree man calls the tree of life. Everybody's got a right to the tree of life". (African Slave Spiritual USA enslavement) Don't Haitians have a right to the tree of life?.
1. Removal of UN MINUSTAH troops and a demand of full report on the UN activity in Haiti by an independent body.
2. End to Haitian debt. There must be a full report from the World Bank as to why it decided to force a nation hit by 4 hurricanes between August and September 2008 to pay outstanding debt when the devastation was so severe as to cause hunger riots. The World Bank knew Haiti's financial crisis.
3. An immediate closing of the so called Free Trade Zone and an end to the HOPE ACT. There is nothing free in this situation and hope is dashed upon stones of despair literally destroying the future of the first Black Republic in the western world by removing it once again into a form of slavery.
4. USA must return Haiti Gold to a government of the people of Haiti with reparations from the time it was removed in 1915. Haiti has to establish an independent body to research and assess exactly how much was taken and its present value.
5. The French must fully repay the illegal reparations extracted by force under USA leadership in 1840. The 150 million dollars should be returned with full interest.
6. The USA must pay Haiti reparations for the mass murders, rapes and other crimes perpetuated against its citizens from 1915-1934 when America forcibly entered the nation under false pretense.
7. All UN agencies and independent bodies working in Haiti must show full transparency. These agencies should provide a statement on how the People of Haiti are presently employed as a part of their workforce to assist in carrying out the reconstruction of Haiti. Further, such agencies should demonstrate ways in which they are helping to train and develop an independent Haitian workforce. Independent Haitian development is essential to reconstruction and recovery.
8. USA colleges and universities should set up exchange programs with Haiti to assist in the education of her citizens; including Creole language programs. Haiti has much to teach and such exchange programs should include this in their development guidelines.
9. Elementary- High schools in the USA; including youth groups, women's groups, Masonic orders, churches and other religious institutions should set-up Haitian projects to send much needed pencils, pens, writing paper, uniforms/ shoes and other items that are needed for school children. These projects can be beneficial to American young who need to learn Creole language, Haitian arts and craft technique and generally share with youth of Haiti what it is like to grow up in USA and Haiti.
10. Tree of Life Project- youth in the USA must mount a campaign to get every citizen of USA to contribute a tree to help reforest Haiti. American cities and state governments, the National Forest Union, businesses and corporation, religious and other institutions and American families would raise $50 a tree to be administered through the Democratic Association of the Women Workers of Haiti, University of Haiti and Secondary School System Administration. Funds would be used for the Tree of Life Project purchase of trees, shovels, hoes etc. for planting and transportation needed to haul trees and youth of Haiti to sites where the trees are to be planted. When the Tree of Life Project deems it necessary, youth from the USA would pair up with Haitian youth for planting sessions.
----------
(Colia L. Clark is the Producer of Manhattan Neighborhood Network. She can be reached at coliaclark@aol.com.)
********************
HAITI
Final Declaration of the Continental Conference in Port au Prince for the Sovereignty of Haiti
(3rd Caribbean Conference on December 12-13, 2008 in Port au Prince)
"To Defend Haiti is To Defend ourselves!"
We are gathered together on December 12-13 in Port au Prince at the initiative of ATPC and the representatives of the union and political organizations that have alerted us to the tragic consequences of the occupation by the troops of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH). The call for this conference falls within the continuity of the first two Caribbean and Continental Conferences in Santo Domingo and in Mexico City.
It also is a continuation of the Katrina Tribunals and International Day on October 10 organized by the International Liaison Committee "for the immediate withdrawal of MINUSTAH!" and the organization of numerous actions of solidarity by the international worker's movement with Haiti.
For two days, with the presence of 18 international workers delegates that came from Brazil, the U.S., Mexico, Ecuador, Martinique and Guadeloupe, we were able to assemble the facts and the testimonies which allow us come to the following conclusions and proposals:
1. MINUSTAH is not a "peacekeeping" mission.
MINUSTAH is a U.N. mission (the mission originally had a term of 6 months renewable) that has the mandate. (see U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1529 and 1542)
a. To facilitate the establishment of conditions of security and stability inside the Haitian capital and around the country as need and circumstances permit, to support the calls for international assistance from the Haitian President, Mr. Boniface Alexandre, with the goal of promoting the constitutional political process underway in Haiti.
b. To facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and the access of the international humanitarian workers to the Haitian people in need
c. To facilitate the delivery of international assistance to the Haitian Coast Guard so as to establish and maintain the security.
Today, four and a half years after the adoption of these resolutions, after four and a half years of occupation, the record is clear: this mission with a so called "humanitarian" character has proven to be a disaster.
During this conference, we have been able to bring together the facts and testimonies supplied by our delegate comrades in order to support each one of the resolutions.
Several months ago, hundreds of thousands of men and women who had nothing to eat, the only reason being the unbridled speculation on the part of the financial operators on basic goods (a sack of rice went from 35 to 70 dollars), went out into the streets in what is called a hunger riot. The occupation forces of MINUSTAH did not hesitate to shoot, causing 6 deaths and hundreds of wounded.
Dogged by bad luck, after these events Haiti was hit by four hurricanes within a space of two months. According to a Reuters dispatch on October 25, 2008: Hit by four hurricanes or storms in a period of two months, Haiti was subjected to one of the biggest catastrophes of its history, according to a U.N. official.
Between August and September, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike descended on the Caribbean islands, provoking the deaths of 800 persons and leaving one million more without shelter. Thousands of persons, many of whom were children, were forced to leave in makeshift shelters and lack basic staple foods in a country where a large part of the population lives on an average of two dollars a day. "The food rations that they give us are gone in a week and we must go beg in the street just to be able to eat something" tells s 50 year old homeless person.
We think that this is not just bad luck: the MINUSTAH troops have shown themselves to be incapable of evacuating the population while on the neighboring island of Cuba, where the basic measure of safeguarding the population was carried out, not a single death occurred.
Still according to the same dispatch, according to the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, the damage in Haiti this week from the hurricanes is estimated to be a billion dollars (Reuters, October 25, 2008).
Robert Zoellick speaks of billions of dollars of damages? But the maintenance of the MINUSTAH troops costs him only 540 millions dollars a year (one third of the budget of the Haitian nation)! This money could be spent building schools, hospitals and education for children. Only a billion dollars would be needed to repair the damage caused by hurricanes while, according to the analysts, the banking scandal around Lehman Brothers announced by Wall Street is "near 2.774 billion dollars and is going to need 6 billion dollars more" How is this possible?
The President of the World Bank knows the value of these things and he demands the payment of this debt. This is the debt from the Duvaliers and the other dictators. It was contracted by them. Just to keep the debt current would cost the Haitian people 58.2 million dollars in 2008 and 50.9 million dollars in 2009. A million dollars goes up in smoke each week while the people die of hunger.
As our comrade Colia Clark, delegate for Grandmothers for the Release of Mumia Abu Jamal, reported at the opening of the conference, "it is not enough to demand the annulment of this debt! We must demand guarantees for the development of Haiti. This development is necessary and should be financed by the reparations that France, the United States and the U.N. should pay in exchange for compensation from the debt from independence, the pillaging of its resources from the American occupation of 1915, and from the numerous military occupations and interventions that the country has experienced during the entire century. These are all violations of its national sovereignty and this includes the present situation of the U.N. occupation. This policy must be stopped!"
Last November in Petion-ville, near Port au Prince, the roofs of schools collapsed on top of the heads of children. This collapse caused the death of 90 children. One more time MINUSTAH did not notice the disaster. The school that collapsed had been built by a minister with his bare hands and without any regulation by the government. How can this catastrophe not be connected with the anarchic exploitation, under the control of the mafias, the sandpits around Port au Prince where the exploitation is from 10% to 11% of the GNP?
Far from improving the situation of the Haitians, the presence of MINUSTAH makes it worse. Many international observers have noted the massacres and the violations perpetrated by the soldiers of the so-called "peacekeeping" force. During this conference we have become aware of conclusions reached by the 2nd Congress of the Democratic Association of the Women Workers of Haiti. One of the delegates reported:
"Yesterday we had a lot of discussions in our congress, especially about the problems linked to the presence of the troops of MINUSTAH. We put together resolutions that say in effect 'MINUSTAH robs us and rapes us'. We tried to recover this money (the money that it costs to keep MINUSTAH) for education and healthcare.", explained a delegate from ADFEMTRAH. The 2nd Congress of ADFEMTRAH also adopted an open letter to Rene Preval (current President of Haiti). This letter explains "far from contributing to the stability of the country and to peace, you can not ignore, Mr. President, that the troops murder innocent civilians who have no means of defending themselves, like in April 2008 during the hunger riots or December 22, 2006 during the massacre in Cite Soleil. They loot and rape and encourage prostitution. We ask why these 575 million dollars can not be utilized for the reconstruction of the country."
The 2nd Congress of ADFEMTRAH proposed that on March 8, 2009, International Women's Day, a demonstration be organized for the defense of the rights of the real women of Haiti. To defend their rights, it is necessary that the immediate withdrawal of the MINUSTAH troops occur without any conditions. They call on the organizations of the workers movement and the democratic organizations of the Caribbean and of the continent to support them.
After the Nobel Prize went to Adolpho Perez Esquivel, 1200 persons died in acts of violence during the first year of the deployment of MINUSTAH. According to the observers, between 2005 and 2007, in less than two years, the troops of MINUSTAH provoked at least three massacres in Cite Soleil. In a document of the "September 30th" foundation it states, "On December 22, 2006, about 400 soldiers of the U.N. committed an act of aggression that lasted an entire day in Bois-Neuf, a neighborhood in Cite Soleil. It was an operation that occurred to the same extent as that of the massacre of July 6, 2005 in the same neighborhood. There were many deaths and wounded on the civilian side. After the "Christmas massacre", the U.N. forces have attacked Cite Soleil many times with their guns.
The main representative of the "September 30th" foundation, Mr. Pierre-Antoine Lovinsky, is reported missing today. In a letter dated in the month of August, 2008, to the Haitian authorities on the first anniversary of his disappearance, his wife, Michele Pierre-Antoine Lovinsky, explains: There is no doubt that that an active citizen of the caliber of Pierre-Antoine Lovinsky does not disappear nor can he evaporate without leaving a trace. Indeed, the clues and leads left during and after the abduction have not been sufficiently investigated to bring about concrete results. I want as proof the fingerprints found inside the vehicle used by Lovinsky.
Upon returning from the national demonstration on October 10 that was called by twenty two worker and popular organizations for the Non-renewal of the Mandate of MINUSTAH and backed with 8,000 signatures, our comrade, Jefaisant Laguerre, member of CATH, was assassinated in a cowardly way.
One more time, neither the appropriate authorities nor MINUSTAH supply explanations for their passivity and their inaction in these two serious attacks on human rights. We demand that a credible inquiry begin that brings all light to the disappearance of Dr. Lovinsky as well as the murder of our comrade Jefaisant.
II. What economic and political objectives cover up the occupation of Haiti by the troops of MINUSTAH?
In the U.N. resolutions that give MINUSTAH its mandate, it states: The U.N. asks that MINUSTAH also confer with the OAS (Organization of American States) and CARICOM (Communities of the Caribbean) while carrying out its mandate.
The testimonies gathered here prove it: CARICOM requires the Preval government to privatize public enterprises, and the HOPE law (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragment Act), which allows the overexploitation of labor in the free zones all under the control of the MINUSTAH.
In his expose entitled The Banking System and Agricultural Development in Haiti, agricultural engineer Joel Ducasse paints a clear picture of the economic situation in Haiti: "The banking system was allocating not even 1% of its capacity to the financing of agricultural activity in Haiti. Today that contribution has fallen to nothing, to 0%! As far as housing, only 500 houses have been financed by the banking system over the past fifteen years - for a population of 8.7 million inhabitants."
In the introduction of the conference, Fignole St. Cyr, national secretary of the CATH, returned to the subject of the policies pursued by the IMF and World Bank. The application of these policies, directly dictated by US imperialism, has tragic consequences for workers. For example, explained Fignole, in respect to the recent privatization of TELECO, 1,500 workers were fired, with the support of the MINUSTAH.
"The situation is terrifying Š We are at a pivotal moment for local and national unions. It is our duty to look for ways to reflect and collaborate on a worldwide scale," he affirmed.
The HOPE law allows for the unilateral trade preference of the US in favor of Haiti in the areas of textiles and clothing, as well as motor vehicle parts. Within the framework set by the HOPE law, Haiti must commit itself to the practice of liberalism on both political and economic levels. Haiti must not, moreover, adopt any measure that goes against the economic and political interests of the US. Such are the conditions demanded by multinationals in order to produce their products at costs below those of China and Vietnam.
In Haiti, unemployment and misery reign, but these problems of insecurity are only one consequence of the situation of economic and political disaster in a country where sovereignty has been ridiculed for now more than 200 years - since the crushing of the first Free Black Republic of the world, proclaimed on January 1, 1804.
Already investors are rubbing their hands together and multinationals are sending out the call to battle in order to profit from the opportunites offered by the HOPE law. In an article that appeared in the August 15, 2008 issue of the Brazilian Valor Economico, it is explained: In the midst of chaos (the chaos of the Haitian economic situation), Brazilian companies are searching for opportunities and are beginning to profit from the strategic position of Brazil as leader of the MINUSTAH.
Coteminas (Brazilian giant of the textile sector, whose chairman is none other than the son of the vice president of Brazil) wants to use Haiti as a platform for export and clothing manufacture aimed at the USŠ. Brazil is a known collaborator in the rescue process of Haiti. Our country has the right to demand preferential treatment, said Valor Josue Gomes da Silva, president of Coteminas.
In spite of institutional confusion, Haiti presents important advantages for a company in the textile sector: proximity and access to the biggest market in the world, the US, and very inexpensive labor. A dressmaker for the capital Port-au-Prince is paid $0.50 an hour. That is a wage lower than the $3.27 paid in Brazil, and comparable to the $0.46 of Vietnam and $0.28 of Bangladesh.
The Coteminas plan is to export fabric from Brazil, have it made into clothes in Haiti at very low cost, and enter the US market without customs duties ñ the whole process protected by free trade agreements.
The MINUSTAH can itself then be used as a cover for passing agreements beneficial to multinationals on the backs of Haitian workers, with total contempt for ILO conventions!
Comrade Dukens Raphael, Secretary General of the Confederation of Public and Private Sector Workers (CTSP), in his statements pointed out the insoluble links that exist between the defense of the national sovereignty of Haiti and the defense of labor and union rights with respect to ILO conventions, notably No. 87 (trade-union freedom) and No. 98 (the right to union organization).
Of course, ILO conventions need to be respected and Haiti must finally exit from the gangsterish circle that pseudo humanitarian aid constitutes, and this will happen only by reclaiming the full and entire sovereignty of Haiti, both politically and economically. Cancel the debt! Food sovereignty for Haiti!
As one of the delegates from Guadeloupe expressed at the conference : Enough! That's enough! Enough for these people!
It was shown at this conference that this barbarism is not the product of any kind of inevitable fate. For all of these crimes, guilt must be clearly established. To do this we must rely on only ourselves; this is the reason why we are addressing on the international labor movement, in order to organize an International Commission of Investigation which, on the basis of facts, will have the goal of assembling, before the next anniversary of the troops in May, a bill of indictment to establish who is guilty for the Haitian situation, the guilty whose armed wing is the presence of the MINUSTAH on the sacred soil of J.J. Dessaline and Toussaint Louverture.
III. Defend the sovereignty of the nations of the American continent in the face of the aggression of imperialism in crisis!
We notice that, in light of all that has been discussed here, behind the catastrophic situation facing the Haitian people we find policies at work on a continental scale; policies characterized by imperialist attacks on the sovereignty of nations, by contempt for national laws and labor codes, and by the quest to integrate trade-union organizations into the plans of privatization demanded by free trade agreements.
Brazil is currently the country that leads and provides the largest contingent of men for the MINUSTAH. In a very moving speech, one of the delegates from Brazil to the conference put forth in its full scope the problem posed by Lula's policy in favor of the MINUSTAH:
The black people of Haiti are for us, black Brazilians, a reference. Haiti was the first black republic to win its sovereignty and we, black Brazilians, are brothers with Haitians in their struggle for the withdrawal of MINUSTAH troops. Because only the Haitian people themselves know what they need. Our government, elected to defend workers is composed of fourteen different parties, some of which are openly reactionary. For example, there is Jobim, minister of defense. This minister told us, in the press, that the experience of the troops in Haiti was a means to acquire the know-how necessary to able to apply these criminal methods next in the favelas of Brazil.
Our discussion at this conference shows us the significance of such a statement.
NO, we will not allow our government to massacre the blacks in Haiti as they are in the process of now doing. We were already brothers; now we are blood brothers. We shout for the withdrawal of all troops from Haiti immediately! Our government cannot be an accomplice to these crimes one second more! In Haiti they need doctors, engineers, and firemen, not the MINUSTAH! Withdraw the MINUSTAH! Haiti has the right to live! Defending Haiti is us defending ourselves!
In the same way, a militant delegated by the Workers Party of Brazil told us: "It is a shame for us to see Lula support the MINUSTAH Š At this moment were are having a letter signed to go to President Lula, demanding that he receive a Haitian delegation. We have already gathered 14,000 signatures for the withdrawal of occupation troops. I hope to see you in Brazil participating in the delegation, for the immediate withdrawal of the MINUSTAH, until the last soldier leaves Haiti!"
The conference also received the cordial support of the ISP (Public Services International), an international organization representing more than 30 million members, whose delegate, also mandated by his union the SINDSEP-SP, gave a speech concluded with the words, "Sovereignty for the Haitian people! Long live Haiti!"
The delegate from the CUT (Single Central of Workers), the most representative of labor organizations in Brazil, informed us of a unanimous resolution adopted by the CUT. It states:
"In relation to the presence of UN troops and on Brazilian command in Haiti, the CUT will organize a dialogue between the Haitian labor movement and the national leadership of the CUT for the purpose of discussing the deadlines and forms of withdrawal of troops, considering that their presence is not creating the conditions for the reconstruction of a country destroyed by imperialism and neoliberialism."
The comrade delegates of Gaudeloupean origin recalled that the slogan for the 2nd Conference, held on December 16th and 17th of 2005, was: "It is time to form a free and fraternal union of the people of the Caribbean!"
They recall and strongly affirm that the solution in Haiti will be found through a new Caribbean solidarity, including Haiti. The national secretary of the POSH, Onel Maignan, answered spontaneously, "Yes, we must build a free Caribbean solidarity. We need not fear the words; we must build a federal pole to create a space for ourselves, to counteract the obstacles to the freedom of the peoples of our region."
Under this plan, the first act of common solidarity with Haitian organization was the adoption of a motion demanding the lifting of the embargo of the United States against the neighboring island of Cuba. Defend the revolution and sovereignty of the Cuban nation!
The organizations present constitute an International Commission of Investigation, open to the participation of labor and grassroots organizations from anywhere in the world, and mandating the ATPC to organize the tasks decided upon at this conference.
More than ever, we reaffirm: To defend Haiti is to defend ourselves!
IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF MINUSTAH TROOPS: Each day more of the presence of these troops on Haitian soil is an affront to the sovereignty of the people of Haitian and the entire world!
CANCELLATION OF HAITI'S DEBT! PAYMENT OF REPARATIONS!
A CALL TO THE LABOR AND GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT OF THE WORLD FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION ON THE SITUATION IN HAITI
Signatories
RONA, Rassemblement des organisations pour une nouvelle alternative
CTSP, Confederation des Travailleurs du Secteur Public
CATH, Centrale Autonome des Travailleurs Haitiens
ADFEMTRAH, Association des Femmes de la CATH
GIEL, Groupe de initiative des enseignants des Lycees
CMD.
GRREAAL
POS,Parti ouvrier socialiste haitien
KOTA, Konfedorasyon travaye aisyen
GRAHLIB, Grand rasemblement pour une Haiti libre et democratique
SCCF , Syndicat des chauffeurs de carrefour
UTSH, Union des Travailleurs syndiques haitiens
CISN, Confederation independante,syndicat national
FOS, Federation des Ouvriers Syndiques
CRICHEP
SERE
COAMEDH, Coalition des medecins haitiens
Julio Turra, Central Workers Confederation CUT ( Brazil)
Raymond GAMA, Mouvman NONM ( Guadeloupe)
Charly LENDO, Union Generale des Travailleurs de Guadeloupe, UGTG
Claudio SYLVA, Workers Party of Brazil , PT
Guido LARA, Potable Water Workers Union, Quito (Equateur)
Jean Baptiste GOMES, International Services Publics,ISP, and Municipal Workers Union (Brazil)
Miguel MARTINEZ, ILC ( France)
Barbara CORRALES, Workers Party, PT (Brazil)
Jacqueline PETITOT, Alliance Ouvriere et Paysanne, AOP, Martinique
Robert FABERT Coordinateur de l'Association des Travailleurs et des Peuples de la Caraibe, ATPC, (Guadeloupe)
Luis VASQUUEZ Continuation Committee of the Mexico Continental Conferece (Mexico)
Colia CLARK, Grandmothers for the Freedom of Mumia Abu Jamal( USA)
Dr Ahati N.N TOURE, ( USA)
Markins SOKOL , Workers Party of Brazil
Lucien GRATE , Alliance Ouvriere et Paysanne, AOP, (Martinique)
Jocelyn LAPITRE , Travaye È Peyizan ( Guadeloupe)
Alex DESIR , President de l'Association des Haitiens en Martinique
Pedro NEJOURKA , President of Latinos Unidos (Martinique)
***********************
Brazil - Haiti
Document published on the national website of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil:
"PT activists and trade unionists involved at a conference in Haiti "
A Brazilian delegation -- comprised of Julio Turra, National Executive of the CUT, Joao B. Gomez, Secretary of the Union of Sao Paulo Municipal workers representing the PSI (Public Services International), Claudinho Silva, secretary of the struggle against racism of the board of State of the PT-Sao Paulo, Barbara Corrales, a member of the Executive Board of the City PT-Sao Paulo, and Markus Sokol, member of municipal PT -- visited Haiti in the week from December 9 to 16, 2008.
The delegation participated in the conference to defend the sovereignty of Haiti, "Defend Haiti is us defend ourselves," called by the ATPC (Association of workers and peoples of the Caribbean) and various union and popular organizations in Haiti, including the Autonomous Workers Confederation of Haiti (CATH) and the Confederation of public sector and private sectors workers (CTSP). Then there was a series of intense meetings and interviews with popular organizations and the authorities.
International Commission of Inquiry
The Conference, held on December 12 and 13 in Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, was considered a success by its organizers.
It was attended by 90 Haitian delegates and 20 international delegates, with delegations from Brazil, Guadeloupe, Martinique, the United States, Mexico and Ecuador, who unanimously adopted a final declaration, which calls for the "Immediate withdrawal of Minustah troops. Each additional day of presence of troops on the soil of Haiti is an affront to the sovereignty of the people of Haiti" and looked "to the democratic movement and workers for the formation of a Commission of Inquiry on the situation in Haiti ", scheduled for May 2009, when it will be 5 years of presence for the U.N. troops, commanded by Brazilian general, under the Minustah ( UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti).
Interview with General Santos Cruz: "The solution is jobs"
Markus Sokol, Claudinho Silva and Julio Turra, with Louis Fignolé Saint Cyr (Secretary of the CATH) and Robert Fabert (leader of the ATPC of Guadeloupe), on behalf of the Conference, were received by the Chief General Alberto Santos Cruz, commander of Minustah.
In the discussion that took place during the hearing, General Santos Cruz recognized the chaotic social situation and living conditions well below what is bearable, but he tried to defend the troops -- "they have reduced crime and they fulfill a role of stabilization" - arguing that the rate of violence measured internationally shows a record in South Africa from 75 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants per year, compared to 25 in the neighboring Dominican Republic, 22 in Brazil and just 5.6 in Haiti.
Asked about the continuation of the mission, he replied: "The length is what the U.N. decides each year, but the solution here is to give jobs to create security."
Interview with the Ambassador of Brazil in Haiti: "Withdrawal in 2011"
At the hearing with the Brazilian Ambassador to Haiti, Igor Kipman, it was reported that the mission was not only military, it is also civilian (7,000 soldiers and 1,700 police officers and around 1 200 civilians from UN agencies).
He said the solution is development, that's for sure, but there will not be this without an atmosphere of security ". He admitted that "all want withdrawal, but not now," and concluded with the announcement of troop withdrawal in 2011.
The date of 2011 is advanced under the pretext of having to supplement the training of 14,000 men of the Haitian National Police. But two weeks earlier, the current president of Haiti, René Préval, had announced its desire that the Minustah troops leave "by the end of my term," which ends in 2011.
Other developments
Part of the delegation, Turra, Joao and Claudinho, attended the seminar of the Confederation of workers of public and private sectors.
The delegation also participated, with Barbara Corrales, in the 2nd Congress of ADFEMTRAH, women's organization affiliated with the union CATH, where 117 delegates from 10 states in the country discussed the situation of women.
53% of women suffer from widespread discrimination, with even lower wages (than for men, NDT) and working without formal contracts.
The participants denounced the deteriorating situation in the country after the arrival of the troops of MINUSTAH, the increase in violence, especially against young people and women.
The Congress wrote a letter of women's organizations to the secretariat of the women workers of the CUT, and another to the secretariat of the PT women on the situation of women seeking help for the withdrawal of troops.
No comments:
Post a Comment