Mirta Roses, director of the Pan-American Health Organization, talking with members of the Cuban medical brigade working in La Paix Hospital in Haiti. (Photo: Juvenal Balan)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
(Issued by Caribbean worker and people's organizations in solidarity with Haiti)
We, the undersigned trade union and people's organizations in the Caribbean, have received reports from our friends in Haiti concerning the alarming situation they currently are facing in Haiti.
We have been informed that since May 1, 2010, Haiti has been shaken by a wave of demonstrations gathering several thousands of people in Port au Prince and other cities and towns across Haiti. The reasons for the widespread anger expressed in the streets across Haiti include the following:
1) The adoption of a law on the State of Emergency in Haiti that is unconstitutional on two counts:
a) It transfers all real power to an "Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti" (HRIC), which is a foreign body; this is explicitly forbidden in the Constitution.
b) It enshrines the banning/removal of fundamental freedoms, including freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, freedom of association -- and it promotes the further penetration of foreign multinational corporations in Haiti.
2) The adoption of a bill extending until May 14, 2011 the mandate of President Preval (due to expire on February 7, 2011 according to the Constitution) in the event that elections for the Presidency, the Parliament, etc. do not take place at the end of this year.
In these demonstrations -- which have received widespread support -- the Haitian people are accusing the nominal President (Preval) and his "government" of selling the country to foreign powers and providing no solutions to the urgent needs and demands of the population, which include:
- More than three months after the earthquake of January 12, 2010, nothing has been done to accommodate the victims into acceptable temporary shelters -- at the very moment when the weather forecasters are predicting up to 10 hurricanes this summer season;
- Prices of essential commodities are rising astronomically;
- The foreign powers and multinational corporations are using the earthquake and destruction as a pretext to accelerate the privatization of public enterprises such as Teleco (telecommunications in Haiti);
- Many schools have not even been cleared of rubble;
- The billions of dollars gathered around the world in campaigns for international solidarity after the earthquake have benefited the whole slew of NGOs far more than they have benefited the Haitian people themselves.
In this context, the response of the Haitian police and occupation forces has been repression -- and nothing else.
On Monday, May 24, around 3 p.m. (Haiti time) the Brazilian soldiers of the UN/MINUSTAH occupation forces illegally broke into the inviolable space of the Department of Ethnology at the State University of Haiti (UEH). These soldiers arrested, humiliated, trampled, and beat third-year anthropology-sociology student Frantz Mathieu Junior, a member of GREPS (Group of Reflection on the Social Problems).
This is just one more case where the UN/MINUSTAH troops have committed criminal and unconstitutional acts against the Haitian people. These acts are an affront not only against the student victim and the academic community, but against all the people of Haiti. This act of repression underscores once more the absolute need for the departure of the UN/MINUSTAH and all other occupation forces.
It also underscores the urgent need to build the broadest solidarity possible with the Haitian people on June 1, 2010 -- the International Day of Solidarity with Haiti, For Haiti to Reclaim its National Sovereignty.
* * *
We, the undersigned, express our solidarity with the struggle of workers and people of Haiti and we hereby decide as part of continuing and strengthening this solidarity to issue a call for a CARIBBEAN CONFERENCE:
The Caribbean Conference will be held in two phases: (a) an initial meeting will be held on May 17-18, 2011, in Venezuela, and (b) a second meeting will be held on November 17-18, 2011, in Cap Haitien (Haiti).
The conference will be prepared by sending delegations to different countries of the Caribbean basin with the aim of ensuring the effective participation of representatives from workers and popular organizations in ALL the countries in the Caribbean basin. these countries.
This conference will be built upon the ongoing work of the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti, which was established in December 2008 in Petionville (Haiti). It also will be supported and further promoted by the OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE Against War and Exploitation, organized at the initiative of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC) and the Workers Party of Algeria. The OWC will be held in Algeria on November 27-29, 2010.
Statement issued by:
- In Haiti: CATH, PSAP, MODEP
- Guadeloupe: CGTG, Mouvman nonme, travay e Peyizan, UGTG
- Guyana: UTG
- Martinique: PDO
- St. Lucia: NWU
* * * * * * * * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment