Dessalines' Law
Jean Jacques Dessalines

Three ideals of Dessalines
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I Want the Assets of the
Country to be Equitably Divide
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Blan Mannan
(English translation)
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F.M.I., travay Feliks Moriso Lewa
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Lewa's Audio recording of FMI
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Three Historical Documents on Dessalines' Assassination

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Who killed Dessalines?
Petion/Gerin- the Insurgent/Reactionary Mulatto Generals more allied to French/colonial economic and cultural interests than the Haitian majority.
Following Dessalines' assassination, under the long Mulatto and Eurocentric presidencies of Petion (12years) and Boyer (25years), the name Dessalines was execrated, declared loathsome, cursed, not allowed to be spoken. Neocolonialism had begun in Haiti, would be formalized with Boyer's "Independence Debtand the legacy of the impunity and undemocratic offenses of one class and sector of Haitian society, continues to this day…This elite with their foreign allies cannot accept the principal of one citizen-one vote because it would mean that they would lose their
privileges and influence.
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October 17, 2006, the bicentennial of Dessalines' assassination

Jean Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets of the
Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he was assassinated. That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust - organized exclusion of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite - continues (with Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue to resist the return of despots, tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority in Haiti from sharing in the country's wealth and assets. (See also,"Et revient la question. Et ceux dont les pères sont en Afrique, ils n'auront donc rien").
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The Haitian National Anthem | La Dessalinienne
| Dessaline's Song |La Desalinyen (audio)
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Dessaline's Song
Lyrics: in Kreyol, French, and an English
translation of the French
(adopted in 1919 during first US occupation)
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Ezili Danto's Note - On the Translation of Haiti's 1804 Act of Independence: The famous Boisrond Tonerre drafted the Haitian act of Independence. It was presented by Haiti's founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, and then signed at Haiti's Janurary 1, 1804 Independence ceremony by a select group of generals from the elite Haitian army of Independence at Place des Armes, in Gonaives, Haiti. There could be a more precise and flowing English translation then the one below. And, maybe HLLN we'll take it on for next years. For now, Noe Dorestant's English translation is available. For a fuller and perhaps more precise approximation of Jean Jacques Dessalines' words, please also refer and compare the French but especially the Kreyol, which is a direct translation of Boisrond Tonerre own words as published in his biography; and the second Kreyol version translated by Met Bell Angelo. Both the French and Kreyol (Lakou NY); and 2nd Kreyol/Met Angelo version are also posted herein for your enlightenment and educational convenience. Ezili Dantò, Jan. 1, 2009 (updated)
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October 17, 2006 HLLN commemorations: What's in a name? Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere... Blan Mannan by Feliks Moriso Lewa (English translation)
President Preval and Jacques E. Alexi

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Three ideals of Dessalines

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Dessalines' Law
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F.M.I., travay Feliks Moriso Lewa
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Lewa's Audio recording of FMI

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October 17th marks the anniversary of the assassination of Haiti's revolutionary hero and founding father - Join HLLN, throughout the month of October, in celebrating the life, triumphs, achievements and three greatest ideals and philosophical contributions of Jean Jacques Dessalines for a more humane and unted world , an October 17th Event| The Free Haiti Movement, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, (First written September 19, 2006 to mark the bicentennial of Dessalines' assassination, last updated October 2009)

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Onè e respè la sosyete,
Hello folks,

President Preval is now in office in Haiti. Some of the most recognized political prisoners have been released and through the Leadership Network's international agitations and the ceaseless sacrifices of the people of Haiti, the truth about the neo-liberal agenda that led to the 2004 coup d’etat is more readily visible and in the news than it was at the beginning of the 2004 occupation and the Boca Raton dictatorship years.

But we still have many basic human rights, as outlined in HLLN FreeHaitiMovement's 2009 Haiti Resolution that have yet to be fully realized, including release of all the political prisoners, the de-militarization of Haiti, the equal application of DDR, full investigation of the bi-centennial coup d’etat, justice for its victims, respect for Haiti’s independence, sovereignty, self-determination and its February 7th vote; a stop to the UN killings of Haitian civilians, and a stop to the coup d’etat killings, rapes, arbitrary arrests and political persecutions in Haiti. (See, the original 2006 Haiti Resolution that went with this essay, and as updated at HLLN's 2009 FreeHaitiMovement Demands.)

HLLN appreciates all of you, worldwide, who have supported and joined the Free Haiti Movement over the years and helped Haitians press forward these most basic of freedom goals. We believe there is no nobler a cause than to defend the most powerless against the atrocities, tyranny and ravages of the most powerful nations and military powers on earth.

October 17, 2005 (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, et al..) will mark the last of HLLN's four yearly events for the FreeHaitiMovement for the year.

Consider sponsoring, as a show of solidarity with the struggling peoples of Haiti, or, if you're Haitian, to honor Haiti's founding father, an October 17th FreeHaitiMovement event, activity or essay/article on Jean Jacques Dessalines' achievements. All creative ideas are encouraged.

HLLN will gather all the "Dessalines is Rising" events, essays and contributions to promote and circulate them through our international network. The best essays and creative contributions on Dessalines’ achievements shall be published on our website.

To endorse and/or sponsor, write to Erzilidanto@yahoo.com with your contributions, and any flyers and announcements dealing with Dessalines events in the month of October. (See the 2005 commemoration: Oct 17 – “Day of Heroes In Haiti” and the others noted below.)

You may support the work of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network by making financial contributions for us to continue this critical work. (Donate to this work.)

FreeHaitiMovement
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Oct 17 – Day of Heroes In Haiti- See also
Dialogue between Two Haitians and Moving On

What's in a name?
Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere...

Dessalines' Law
StoryofJanJak
Jean Jacques Dessalines

Desalin 2009 -500 lane depi w (blan kolon) vle efase n, Jodi a ou vle m kwè se sèl ou ki ka sove n --- Edike from Dadi Beaubrun's Lataye

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October 17, 2009 - Haiti's Holocaust and Middle Passage Continues
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October 17, 2009 Jean Jacques Dessalines - The women who influenced him, his ideals and legacy remembered (born, September 20, 1758, assassinated October 17, 2009)
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October 17, 2009 The Story of Janjak: The Greatest Hero who ever Lived
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Haiti Forum 2009
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October 17, 2007
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October 17, 2006
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October 17, 2005
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From Slave to Emperor, His Majesty, Jean Jacques Dessalines, The greatest story marginalized and never told...
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Diskou Desalin Premye Janvye 1804, Gonaive, Haiti
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Kouwòn pou Defile by Michel Sanon
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Three Historical Documents on Dessalines' Assassination

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION: HAITI FORUM

The FreeHaitiMovement - Dessalines is Rising Worldwide

Haitians were the first Blacks to be brought, in chains, to the Western Hemisphere.

After more than 300 years of European enslavement, Haitians were also the first and only captives, in world history to gain their independence in combat with their enslavers.

General Jean Jacques Dessalines is Haiti's founding father.

When, in 1802, the French kidnapped and spirited away to torture and death Haiti's first revolutionary hero, General Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines would rise up to lead the struggle which would defeat the white settlers and create the nation called "Ayiti," both an Amerindian and African term, meaning "home or mother of the earth" in the Taino-Arawak Amerindian language and "sacred earth or homeland" in the Fon African language. It was General Jean Jacques Dessalines' victory over French General, Rochambeau, at Vertieres that forced Napoleon Bonaparte to abandon his bid for the control of Louisiana and eventually, the rest of the 'New World'.

Dessalines was assassinated on October 17, 1806 by political rivals allied to Haiti's foreign enemies, notably France. This was Haiti's very first coup d'etat. One month from now, on October 17, Haitians will mark the bi-centennial of Dessalines' assassination by the mulatto sons of France.

For its part, HLLN will honor the achievements of one of the modern world's greatest heroes - Haiti's brilliant founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, by underlining the greatest of Dessalines philosophies and ideals.

We shall do this by bringing, on-line, to our Ezili Dantò Listserve, on each October (beginning in October 2005, updated - for Oct 17, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, et al..), an HLLN "To-Tell-The-Truth-About-Haiti" E-Forum and teach-ins centering on the achievements of Jean Jacques Dessalines.

Born September 20th, assassinated October 17 on Pòn Rouj, we use this month time-span each year at Ezili's HLLN so that by Oct. 17th, those interested will know a bit more about:

1. The three most important philosophies and ideals of Jean Jacques Dessalines;

2. Ezili Dantò, Bwa Kayiman and the Haitian Union - Linyon fè la fòs - that's never wavered.

3. Haitian Culture: The Symbolic and Archetypal nature of Vodun;

4 . How the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN) empowers Haitians, encourages Haitians to network with one another, be self-reliant and address their grievances people-to-people to expose the Haiti stereotypes and then to governments officials, international policymakers, human rights organizations, journalists, the corporate and alternative media, schools and universities, solidarity networks;

5 . The biggest problems facing Haitians in the Diaspora -
(In North America/Europe - mostly singled out. See Grant TPS. And, in the Caribbean and Latin America also singled out but, in St. Martin, for instance the Haitian community's biggest concerns, based on our HLLN workshops there, is that - children can't go to school if parents illegal and institutionalized discrimination. In the Turks and Cacos Islands - A Haitian immigrant exclaimed - "I don't know why it is, but since the beginning of time Haitians have been suffering."(Four Haitian decapitated, shot and burned by Domicans in the Domican Republic.);

6. Why Haiti is so poor - Haiti's endless Independence Debt
(The new slavery model is to fulfil Leclerc's genocidal imperative through free trade, wage/(sweatshop)slavery, privatization, slaughter or indefinite detention/incarceration of neocolonial dissenters, systematic exclusion of the masses from the body politic through US regime change, sham elections/Western-style democracy, UN proxy soldiers' occupation for US/Canada/France, humanitarian imperialism (more than 10,000 NGOs in Haiti post 2004 forming a shadow government enchaining Haiti that undermines Haiti’s sovereignty, emboldens and empowers NGOs with no public responsibility or accountability to Haitians or Haiti’s long term well-being), financial colonialism; imposed famine from fraudulent free trade policies that destroys Haitian food sovereignty; and the imposed UN/US military protectorate that destroys Haitian security, sovereignty and stability, increases violence and organized kidnappings, drug-dealings, arms and human trafficking;

7. Haiti's Riches

8 . Why the 2004 Coup D’etat/current foreign occupation
(See, Oil in Haiti and Oil Refinery and Answers to media questions about Haiti), and

9 . Why Haitians are the most hated and discriminated against peoples in the Western Hemisphere. Because at its inception, at Bwa Kayiman, on August 14, 1791, the enslaved African tribes who became Haitian in the land of the Tainos, rejected bourgeois freedom and fought for universal justice and freedom. Haiti cannot be forgiven because it flipped the racist white narrative of superiority - beat European armies and Americans mercenaries in combat, rejected forced assimilation/ethnocide and the profit motive as the highest human value.The Haitian Revolution continues today - the call remains the same: E, e, Mbomba, e, e! Kanga Bafyòti. Kanga Mundele. Kanga Ndòki. Kanga yo! (Stop the black collaborators, the white imperialist, all their evil forces, kill/stop them!), and

10. Proposed solutions to create a new paradigm.

The post on these issues will be taken directly from interviews, workshops, presentations, teach-ins, cultural forums, writings, the "To-Tell-The-Truth"-About-Haiti forums or forums entitled "Art with the Ancestors" held by HLLN since the February 2004 coup d’etat/Bush regime change to the present.

We begin by outlining what Ezili Dantò/HLLN teaches are the three most important philosophies and humanitarian contributions of General Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haiti's founding father:

Dessalines Three ideals

1. Dessalines ideal #1 -Black is the color of liberty, self-defense is a human right - Live free or die.

All Haitians, - Ayisyen yo - "shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks." (See, Dessalines' 1805 Constitution).

Thus, in Dessalines' Haiti, "Black," is essentially denied as a biological imperative and acknowledged as an African indigenous culture. Its boundaries are focalized and expanded, old lines limiting ancient Alkebulan (ancient Africa) are redefined. We all now know that race is purely a social construct with no scientific grounds. The truth is there is just one race, the human race and it began with African people who, in fact have a distinct culture(s) from the Europeans. But back at its creation, the country of Haiti was based on this truth. (See also, Blacks were the original peoples on the planet, including the Americas).

In Haiti, Black is de-racialized in terms of skin color giving the person superior substance but racialized as a people bound together because of their shared experience, distinct moral conscience vis-a-vis those they defeated, unique Kreyòl language and African-based culture. This paradox is the amazing genius of Dessalines' Haiti. He simultaneously empowered the Black "race" to both be proud of self and their lineage under the socia-politically constructed race paradigm and to transcend it. First, Haiti is racialized because in creating Haiti in combat against the US/Euro enslavement tribes, Jean Jacques Dessalines empowered the Black "race" to carry the mantle of the African struggle for justice against racism, colonialism, economic tyranny and imperialism. Second, Haiti is de-racialized because by naming and defining, in Haiti's first Constitution, the white settlers who fought on the side of the liberty, awarding them the appellation "Black," Dessalines showed his profound understanding that human nature goes deeper than skin color. Thus, he urged unity of humanity, co-existence, self-determination, working for consensus towards a common universal purpose, empowering both "Black" people and "white" people to not wear their identities on their skins, but to transcend it.

For, Dessalines defined those who fought for the abolishment of chattel slavery in Haiti and against colonialism, including the few whites that did fight on the side of the Africans, as "Blacks." To study Dessalines' life, achievements and first Constitution is to come to know that a "Black" is a person (no matter his/her skin color, European or African) who stands for freedom, human dignity and against slavery, colonialism and imperialism. No ideal in this modern world so directly confronts and conquers the biological fatalism of white privilege. Dessalines' 1805 Constitution stated that all Haitians "shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks." And Blacks included even the Polish and Germans who fought with the African warriors on the side of liberty and equality, not slavery, plunder and profit. Black people in Dessalines' Haiti are lovers-of-liberty who are willing to live free or die. To reiterate, there is no modern philosophy or ideal that has so directly provided the world with an ALTERNATIVE to the manufactured race game based on skin color as this Dessalines ideal.

Even after three hundred years of unremitting brutality from the white settlers, the great Dessalines could see beyond the scars and pain grooves of the masters' lash engraved on his own back and recognized certain white settlers had become Ayisyen in Haiti, awarding them the appellation "Black" because they fought on the side of liberty, proving skin color does not evidence content of character.

Haiti is a nation of Blacks, of lovers-of-liberty. That is the ideal Dessalines established at the creation of the nation of Haiti.

The primary difference between the Haitian (Ayisyen) culture that came to be in Haiti and the European culture it displaced is that Haitian culture does not accept bourgeois freedom as a moral way of life, of peaceful co-existence, or of extending the Haitian self into the world. The Europeans the Haitians defeated to become a nation extend Bourgeoisie Freedom as the highest form of human interaction and can screen out of conscience and consciousness all the genocide, slavery and tyranny they have imposed or acted out and dance, at the ball, so-to-speak while sneaking off to rape an enslaved African woman in the shack off the plantation and then rejoin the party in the salon, like Thomas Jefferson or the English and French "enlightenment" thinkers, to declare their civility above all the "races" and the equality of all white men who own property. Bourgeoisie Freedom is when liberty, fraternity and democracy exist in the same space alongside slavery, genocide, exploitation, intolerance and tyranny - notably Black enslavement, exploitation and disenfranchisement in the Americas. This is what Ezili's HLLN calls Bourgeoisie Freedom. And, from Bwa Kayiman to now, Haitians have rejected this structure of human interaction, governance and communication.

Haiti is the only country that denies this "culture" at its founding, the first modern Western nation that claimed universal, not bourgeois freedom, as its starting point and did not define freedom as the task of evicting the European masters in order to live in his old house, his old life! Haitians burned down the European edifices and on the ashes created their own reflection, for Henri Christophe and Jean Jacques Dessalines understood the old enslavers' house contained his spirit, his splintered bourgeoisie soul, and a culture and structure of human interaction that was not their own or the paradigm they wanted to go forward into the future with. In the enslaver's house, their spirit live - take that at all levels, the physical, metaphysical, psychological, political, social, economic, et al.. New paradigms, for the Haitian, mean reclaiming their own narrative, building from that ground zero, and self-reliance. Dessalines' definition of "Black" as lovers-of-liberty began that new paradigm.

For over 200-years now, the US/Euros (Mundele), not seeing themselves in Haiti, demean, vilify and constantly destroy Haiti (sponsoring 33-coup d'etats) for what Haiti stands for and struggles to bring to application, never seeing Haiti's indigenous value and Black culture as valid, always attempting, through their mulatto sons/Black freedmen collaborators (Bafyòti), religious education, endless debt and all forms of neocolonialism (Ndòki) , to re-enslave, re-colonize Haiti, render the people only as commodities for the use of liquidating capital through work so to erect their own US/Euro edifices of consumerism, materialism and "progress" (loot, plunder and pillage through the masks of liberalization, free markets, democracy, endless debt, humanitarian imperialism, war on drugs or terrorism)- which Haitian consistently see straight through and reject. Not much has change from the time the US/Euros' plundered and enslaved to save OUR soul from eternal damnation! But, to be rendered maids, butlers, sex vessels and commodities in their own country for the touristic pleasures of the Euro/US, its middlemen and global elites, is not the reason Blacks in Haiti created the nation of Ayiti. For instance, when Napoleon sent 50,000 soldiers to re-enslave Haiti, General Henry Christophe taught that freedom meant the willingness to burn down his own palatial house down first, so that Haiti's adversaries wouldn't use this material asset against Haitians. He said to the troops" on these ashes we will rebuilt Haiti." Christophe exhibited critical knowledge of the US/Euro's cultural taste for pillage, plunder, colonizing, owning everything and hoarding-it-all as well as also recognizing that a love of anything above universal liberty and freedom, can and will be used to re-enslave you. All the plantations were burned to the ground, for the Haitian warriors' recognized that in the US/Euros' house, in the edifices of his power lies his splintered, wicked and garish soul - that venal bourgeois soul that allows for compartmentalization, for a mental dissociation, dissonance or displacement in a profit-based society that allows for the existence of tyranny in the same space as unlimited individual freedom for the privileged few. That was not the equitable society, Haiti's founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, wanted established in Haiti. Dessalines advanced what is almost a utopia compared to the rank greed, violence and consumerism of Western Euro/US barbarity- Haiti's African, konbit culture is inherently opposed to Bourgeoisie Freedom - that is where tyranny, exclusion, slavery co-exist in the same space as unlimited freedom, wealth, ease, luxury, immense individual rights and order. Only the mentally colonized Haitian or religiously (Pèpè) educated Haitian may easily screen out of consciousness the exclusion of the masses and find this logical and possible in a Western "New World" purportedly based on logic and science. Indeed, the current world powers/aggressor nations accept the products of science but reject scientific logic, methods, the laws of physics and chemistry, et al... Instead, they choose racial (biological fatalism), sexual and religious chauvinism, fear, territoriality, aggression, a profit-over-people monetary system, a consciousness based on scarcity and ideology that separates rather than uniting the human species.

This Dessalines philosophy - Black means loving liberty and freedom above all other pursuits (of "happinesses") - directly and humanely defeats the socially manufactured white/black “race” dialogue of the US/Euro powers that Dessalines and his peoples in Haiti confronted and is one of the primary reason why the spread of Haiti's revolution, was, and still is, so feared by the US/Euro slave owners, colonizers and their descendants who depend on "white" as code to designate, in contrast to "Black," what's "good," "civilized" or "superior" in order to unify the European tribes and divide and conquer peoples of color worldwide. Dessalines did not only defeat European slavery and colonialism in one fell swoop in physical combat with the greatest European armies of the time, but he also ideologically decimated the basis for white privilege, by designating "Ayisyen" as "Blacks" not based on skin color, but as all persons who took arms or positive action against tyranny, oppression, slavery.

Also, in defining Blacks as "Ayisyen" this way, Dessalines systematically codified a customary practice or belief held and commonly extended in daily life by the amalgamated Africans who then formed Haiti's enslaved masses and had gathered together as a family against colonialism and slavery. These Haitians always saw "whites" and "blacks" who were despots or tyrants as strangers, the foreigners, the colonists, the imperialists, or, collectively, as white(s) - "blan" or "blan-yo." And definitely not good and acceptable "family" members of the community, no matter the person's actual skin color. Dessalines simply codified this African concept of universal fraternity and brotherhood that is based on moral action in Haiti's founding Constitution. To Haitians, "Black" is family. Black is Ayisyen. But "blacks" who are tyrannical or act as agents for the white settlers' oppression are not Ayisyen, or family, but "white" - blan. When Dessalines designated Blacks as the appellation for Haiti's liberators, no matter the persons skin color, the masses who freed themselves from all the blan, or blan-yo, understood this well, and still do.

Combining Dessalines' Law with Dessalines Three ideals, the Haitian poet, Feliks Moriso Lewa, once wrote, in his famous poem Blan Mannan that "Dessalines who is my history teacher tells me the only good white is the white that shoots the bad white."

Dessalines' Zero Tolerance for despots was expressed thus: "We will detonate and burn Haiti down and all rather die before we are returned to slavery and colonialism." In Kreyol - Desalin di: "Depi teritwa nou an menase, koupe tèt, boule kay" paske Ayisyen pap retounen lan esklavaj." (See also, The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti, its creeds, values and struggle).

Haiti founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines' foremost legacy to Haitians is the dictum "name yourself," "witness to yourself, to your own humanity" - that is, self-determination, self-love.

And, along with self-determination, his life and triumphs taught Haitians to treasure self-defense, to live free or die. That is, if revolutionary violence is the only solution left (as was the case when Toussaint Louverture's diplomatic strategies had failed to dissuade the cruel existing order) than a scorch earth, live free or die - koupe tèt, boule kay - REVOLUTION, is always preferable than to reconcile with injustice.

The Haitian Union - Linyon fè la fòs - and call to action that began the Haitian revolution wasn't so that the assets of the country would be given back to the sons of France or to the white settlers' ruling feudal lords/oligarchs, leaving the sons and daughters of Africa with nothing. That union, that call and Haiti's revolutionary peoples' initial commitment to universal freedom and economic democracy, made at Bwa Kayiman and the Lovers-of-Liberty it named and elevated, has never wavered. (See, Haiti's Ruling Oligarchy).
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2. Dessalines ideal #2 - What's in a name?

The name “Ayiti” or "Haiti" honors the spirit, calls forth the force, of the original inhabitants of Haiti and the Taino Ayisyen who suffered complete genocide at the hands of the white settlers. Besides "Ayiti", the Taino Ayisyen also referred to the island as Kiskeya ("mother of the earth") and Bohio ("home"). But it seems Ayiti was the more widely used name, meaning an ancient and sacred soil/land/earth, a sacred highland or hallowed ground.

When it came to naming the island the African warriors had freed from the white settlers' tyranny, it took a great humanist to remember the original inhabitants, the Taino Haitian (or Taino Ayisyen), descendants of the Arawaks, and an Arawakan-speaking people who had been brutally decimated by the white settlers. Haiti's founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines is that great genius who would name the country that defeated white privilege and imperialism "Haiti" or, in the Kreyòl and Arawak language- "Ayiti". For Ayiti is both an Amerindian and African term. The amalgamated African tribes became "Ayisyen" in Ayiti, thereby honoring Africa's strengths and the spirit of the fallen Taino Ayisyen.

So, though the original Taino Ayisyen inhabitants are no more, the country they called "Ayiti" still lives. Still exists through the African Ayisyen, who defeated the slaughterers of the original Haitian Taino. Haitian Taino bloodlines and culture live in African Ayisyen bloodlines in Haiti and in Haiti’s Vodun culture of ancestral reverence, reverence for nature, balance, harmony with environment and of the interconnectedness of all life, which belief system the Taino Haitians shared in common with the forcibly imported Africans. Through the living triumphs of these Africans, who re-named themselves in the Taino language, the Taino did not die out.

The amalgamated African tribes who, at Bwa Kayiman, became ONE PEOPLE, one "nation" with one Kreyòl tongue and mission, recognized, on several levels, the land called Ayiti by the Taino. First, the word Ayi in the Fon African language means "earth." Ayiti, Ayizan, Ayida Wedo, Ayibobo, Ayibohio! Thus, Ayiti meant something that resonated with Black origin and meaning to the amalgamated African tribes who became Ayisyen in Ayiti. And two, as Blacks are the original peoples on this EARTH or planet, they are also the world's aboriginal or autochthon peoples. So, it is a question of which African or succession of African descendants and cultures populating the Americas, having left African 80 to 100thousand years ago, gave the name Ayiti to the island first. The ancient Africans who lived on the old island of Haiti - the oldest land mass in the Americas, over 76 to 90million years old - or, the Haitian Taino who came to be living on "mother of the earth/Kiskeya", on "home/Bohio", on "Ayi(ti)/old sacred earth/sacred homeland" in the time of Columbus? (See, Blacks were the original peoples in the Americas; -Video: WAY Before Columbus or the Egypt Pyramids Washitaw 1 of 4 ; Video - Ivan Van Sertima: They Came Before Columbus, A History of the African-Olmecs: Black Civilizations of America from Prehistoric Times to the Present Era by Paul Alfred Barton, http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~7283.aspx, and Bwa Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's Vodun Narrative at Bwa Kayiman ).

It is most significant that, post-independence, generations upon generations of African Haitians in Haiti have possessively and fondly referred to Haiti as Haiti Toma!, meaning this old land is our land! This homeland - Bohio/home - is ours! These rooted African Haitians say Ayiti means "this sacred highland, this ancient sacred trust is our/my home or land."

AYITI - AYIDA DAN WEDO - AYIBOBO! AYIBOHIO

Ezili Dantò/ Marguerite Laurent - Zaka/Djouba, May, 2008 *Ezili Dantò's Bwa Kayiman Ceremony*

This, is the untold counter-colonial narrative of Ayiti/AyiBohio and how Ancestral Black/Africa/Alkebulan is viscerally entwined, on many levels, in today's African Ayiti. Nonetheless, to name the country "Ayiti" simultaneously honors the spirit, the memory of the indigenous Haitian Taino/Arawak who lived on the land immediately before the white settlers' arrived. The profound non-Eurocentric roots, history, humaneness, beauty, truth and values and cultural patrimony extended by the name "Ayiti" unnerves the Euro/US imperialists. Hence, in 1930, during the US occupation of Haiti, the United States Geographic Board (U.S.G.B.) unilaterally renamed the Island of Haiti back to the Spanish colonizer’s appellation of “Hispaniola” - Little Spain! Supposedly this was "to avoid confusion between the name of the Republic of Haiti and that of the entire island." (See, En Memoires Des Arawaks et Tainos D'Haiti and, "Rename the Island: Quisqueya, not Hispaniola 'Quisqueya' honors Taino culture whereas 'Hispaniola' recalls the Amerindian genocide" By Odette Roy Fombrun and The Haitian Arawak Movement). The US had no right whatsoever to abridge Haiti's revolution in this manner. Of course, Haitians in Haiti and Haiti's textbooks still refer to the island by its proper name -"the Island of Haiti." That, of course, doesn't stop the offense most knowledgeable Haitians feel every instance the mass media refers to the Island of Haiti as "Hispaniola" in their reportings and particularly on TV during the hurricane season. For us at HLLN, the Island will always be the Island of Haiti or Ayiti. But, to push back Dessalines' revolution is the reason for all the imperialist interventions in Haiti since Haiti's independence.

Once Ezili's HLLN learned how the Island was renamed "Hispaniola" by the US, once given the facts of the matter, there is no choice but to remember how Dessalines wisely taught us to say NO to all despots and tyrants. The name of the island cannot arbitrarily just be renounced by the US! Se pa kado blan yo te fè nou. Se san zansèt nou yo ki te koule. We call the Island by its name - Ayiti!

AYITI - AYIZAN - AYIBOBO

AYITI - AYIDA DAN WEDO - AYIBOHIO

Ezili Dantò/ Marguerite Laurent - Zaka/Djouba, May, 2008 *Ezili Dantò's Bwa Kayiman Ceremony*

For, this serious error and assassination of the Island of Haiti's Amerindian and African past cannot be carried forward by Haitians and must be consistently and relentlessly renounced.

HLLN's To-Tell-The-Truth-About-Haiti Forums teach that, to say “Haitian” – Ayisyen – is a profoundly important utterance. For to say “Haitian” - Ayisyen – is to immortalize, raise up the Ayi souls of Africa and the Ayiti souls of the Amerindians destroyed through the Spanish colonizers genocide in Haiti. To rename the Island back to "little Spain" or to vilify a Haitian African or Haitian Taino because of his/her revolutionary legacy and desire for independence, is to stand against all that Haiti is. It is to stand against the courageous Amerindian spirit Haitian Africans animate with each breath of existence today. It is to undermine, not only the former owners of the land called Ayiti, but also the amalgamated African tribes and the few European freedom lovers who were the first to formally put liberty into application since the coming of Columbus to the Americas.

(See also, En Memoires Des Arawaks et Tainos D'Haiti, Defamed! - In memory of the Arawaks and Tainos of Haiti, the Island's name is Haiti, not 'Hispaniola' as the newscasters' insist every time they report on tropical storms and in the hurricane seasons. Also, in term of diseases on the Island of Ayiti, Columbus' sailors brought syphilis to the Island and decimated the Amerindians population, not the converse...The same for the HIV/AIDS of these modern times, devastating Haiti and Africa originating from the U.S./Euro travelers and their scientists' laboratories and injected into chimps in Zaire, now renamed the Congo.

See also: "....Another common practice among European explorers was to give "smallpox blankets" to the Indians. Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans did not have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox would effectively wipe out entire villages with very little effort required by the Europeans...The Wampanoag lost 70 percent of their population to the epidemic and the Massachusetts lost 90 percent. Most of the Wampanoag had died from the smallpox epidemic so when the Pilgrims arrived they found well-cleared fields which they claimed for their own. A Puritan colonist, quoted by Harvard University's Perry Miller, praised the plague that had wiped out the Indians for it was "the wonderful preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his providence for his people's abode in the Western world." Historians have since speculated endlessly on why the woods in the region resembled a park to the disembarking Pilgrims in 1620. The reason should have been obvious: hundreds, if not thousands, of people had lived there just five years before. In less than three generations the settlers would turn all of New England into a charnel house for Native Americans, and fire the economic engines of slavery throughout English-speaking America. Plymouth Rock is the place where the nightmare truly began..." (The Black Commentator, The History of Thanksgiving) - (See also: Vaccinate Haiti! and Defamed! -Page 1, - Page 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4, Pg. 5 and, Pg. 6 ; La Conspiration Du Silence:Genocide in Haiti by mass vaccination while Haiti is occupied by Dessalines' enemies and other such white savior missionaries/ mercenaries...).

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Black are the original peoples on planet earth, including the Americas and shared core cultural, social and religious values with the enslaved Blacks the Euro/US brought, in chains, to the Americas.

Within the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is a focal point of an African-Indian cultural, Vodun blood fusion.

The world is just starting to learn that the Africans were the original peoples of the Americas. A "large percentage of the Aboriginal First People of the Americas were Ethnic Black Indians affected by foreign invasion...Indian removal, as well as impacted by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Black Holocaust." (See, Black Indians United Legal Defense Fund - Thanksgiving Day Message). More particularly, according to Paul Barton, "the indigenous Blacks to the Americas who arrived in the Americas earlier than 100,000 years before Christ" have been obliterated from Euro/US history books. This explains why it is that all "Free Blacks" who were found in remote locations in the Americas not habited by white settlers, are said to have been run-away enslaved Africans, brought to the Americas in chains by the white settlers, who inter-married with the "Native Indians". Does this also explain why Jean Jacques Dessalines chose to re-establish the "Indian" - perhaps the Black autochthons’ name - “Ayiti,” to the new African nation he had freed and founded? Was Dessalines' denying the white settler's re-writting of world history and honoring the history of humanity, honoring the presence of Black people as the world's indigenous peoples, including to the Americas before the arrival of the Mongoloid Indian population to the Americas? Is that also another reason, knowing that Blacks were the original trustees of this old and sacred land; were original to the Americas before all the invaders, including the Siberian/Asian Native Americans, that reaching back for Black, Jean Jacques Dessalines decreed in Haiti's first Constitution that “all citizens in Haiti shall be known by the appellation "Black?" ( See, Some of the oldest remains found so far in the Americas; Black Indians - An HLLN appeal for equity and justice, Black Indians United Legal Defense Fund - Thanksgiving Day Message; A message from the Choctaw- Black Indians, original indigenous peoples of the Americas on July 4, 2008 (Who Are We?); Video: WAY Before Columbus or the Egypt Pyramids Washitaw 1 of 4 and The 2008 Historic Mission to Enid, Oklahoma to Gather with the Black Indians (Flyer) and, A History of the African-Olmecs: Black Civilizations of America from Prehistoric Times to the Present Era by Paul Alfred Barton, http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~7283.aspx, and Bwa Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's Vodun Narrative at Bwa Kayiman ).

Did the indigenous Haitian army of Jean Jacques Dessalines' era understand the term "Black" in the "autochthones" manner – that is, that the Blacks, those descendants of ancient Alkebulan who are today socially and politically labeled and identified as “Africans” where living in the Americas since time immemorial; where there in the Americas eons ago, as the original peoples on earth, before the one landmass on the earth was broken during the ice age and separated into continents?

From what schools teaches and from the images we see on TV, it appears the Native Americans are clearly of Asian/mongoloid descent and seem to have colonized the entire American continent from one end to the other as well as the Caribbean islands.

But the hard proof reveals the oldest remains found in the Americas is African and dates back at least 3,000 years earlier than the Asian-like Native American remains found. Still, it may be impossible to know more for quite sometime because the Native Americans understandably don't want to lose the legal and social standings they enjoy over the Black Indians within their nations and the Black autochthones elsewhere in the Americas. Officialdom is vested in this divide and conquer and upholding on to its arcane ideas. Non-white cultures (African-Americans, Autochthons, Caribbeaners, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans) in the Americas still haven't matured into the cogent idea that they don't need to assimilate into each other to have a successful political movement that serves all their interests. So, this information that Africans were "first" threatens not only the "great discover" American narrative but the non-white ethnic groups in the Americas who take succor from not being at the "very bottom" of the American "race"-strata. Not to mention that the hegemony of white supremacy shall end the day all Blacks, African-Americans, Autochthons, Caribbeaners, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in the Americas, unify to systematize their same struggles against RACISM. For each have a historic, if not ownership, stake to the Americas, the planet. Each have a history that is older than European colonization.

Thus, white officialdom does not want to re-write its - "American" narrative, its black vs white (evil vs good) - history. So, it censors mass exposure of the scientific evidence reported and currently available in the public domain that goes against what the school textbooks teach, while actively re-burying - hindering, discouraging research, further DNA and other more accurate re-testing of - newly unearthed remains or previously found remains in the Americas. (i.e. The Penon Woman III; Luzia Woman; Spirit Cave Man and the 9,200-year-old Kennewick Man). But does it matter? Some say it does, if Africans are to take their rightful place in history. And, that it is quite within the realm of possibilities that the traveling Black warriors and maroons who came to fight the white settlers with Dessalines in Jean Jacques Dessalines' era understood that Blacks to the Americas where not all imported slaves from Africa. To support this we note that, besides taking on the Native American name "Ayiti," there is a long tradition of Haitian partnership of rebellion and intermarriage between Africans and the various nations of Native American Indians who where in Haiti, or, made their way from all over the Americas to fight against the white settlers in Haiti.

To support the idea that Black were the indigenous peoples of the WORLD, including the Americas, we look at the claims of the Black Washitaw Moors in the US who contend that Black people did not travel to the Americas, they were in the Americas WAY Before Columbus or the Egypt Pyramids when the world was ONE landmass. Consider also another contention, as expressed by Paul Alfred Barton's book, A History of the African-Olmecs and Black Civilizations of America From Prehistoric Times to the Present Era, where we learn that:

"... humans originated in Africa and migrated to other regions. Those who went to the cold northern lands adapted to the cold climate... the very first humans to inhabit the Americas and the entire world came out of Africa between 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. According to The Gladwin Thesis (1947), Blacks were in the Americas as early as 70,000 B.C. These first Blacks may have been the Australoid type as well as diminutive Blacks such as the Pygmies, Agta, Bushmen and others.

It is unlikely that the prehistoric Blacks whose remains have been discovered in the Americas, evolved from Mongoloids and developed in situ in the Americas, into Negritic racial types. This idea can be refuted due to the fact that if humans entered the Americas between 30,000 years B.C. to 150,000 years B.C., they would have had to have been Negroid. Prehistoric Blacks were moving worldwide. Consequently, the prehistoric migrants to the Americas during that period would have had to have been Negroid and Black. It seems more possible that people who were Negritic changed into the Mongoloid type in the Americas in order to adapt to the cold climate in the north. In fact, the Kong and San peoples of Southern Africa, who live in climatic regions similar to that of East Asia (the cold, windy, high veldt of Southern Africa) possess the so-called "Mongoloid" characteristics such as yellowish-brown skin, short stature and the epicantus eye fold. Yet, genetically and in most other aspects, they are typical Negroids with features that can be found from the tip of Southern Africa to North Africa among the various Negritic peoples. These Negritic peoples are the among the earliest examples of the prehistoric Homo sapien types who once settled the entire world before the development of distinct "races" in various parts of the planet..." http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~7283.aspx

The Amalgamated African tribes who were imported to Haiti through slave ships and the Tainos/Arawaks (most likely the history lost is that "a large percentage" of these “natives” were Black autochthonic Indians or descendants of the Black autochthonic Indians) shared core cultural, social and religious values and a history of oppression by the white settlers. (See also, Video: WAY Before Columbus or the Egypt Pyramids Washitaw 1 of 4, which contents Blacks were in the Americas when the world was ONE landmass).

(Listen to Susan Sarandon talk about the partnership between the Africans and Native Americans in Haiti and the Americas. To hear Susan Sarandon piece, go to Haitiantreasures at http://www.haitiantreasures.com/index.htm ; the whole "Happy Birthday Haiti" is at
http://www.sunshineawards.com/shop/index.php?action=item&id=8 )

"…upon their arrival in slave ships, the peoples of the Central African forests found they had much in common with the Tainos that had survived. Africans and Caribbean Indians shared core religious beliefs and a history of oppression by their European conquerors….Escaped slaves fled to the mountains where they joined the indigenous Indian tribes in a resistance movement. The African/Indian cultural fusion lives on in Haiti in the bloodlines of many families."
(http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/BlackIndians.html#oldest )

Knowing that Africans where the original peoples of the Americas, not the "Native" Americans as we've all been taught, gives the existence of Ayiti - a Black Nation in the Americas, new significance. For, someday when the scientific evidence becomes too well-known to be hidden, obfuscated or contested, Haiti may then more correctly be said to be one of the first re-captured Black Nation in not, the New World, but on planet earth.

Until that knowledge rises - until artificial boundaries, nation-state lines are abandoned and our human families are united, and the circle becomes unbroken (as the link between Lè Marasa, Lè Mò e Lè Mistè and all the particles of the universe that intersect and fill up space) - until then, only the most courageous of un-assimilated Haitians and Blacks shall live to extend the consciousness that Haiti is hallowed ground, set by our common Black ancestors - both the autochtones to the Americas and the Blacks imported as slaves, who met again their ancient Black ancestors and then there in Haiti gathered together at Bwa Kayiman as one to re-create Ayiti - as a place where Black peoples could be free within a sea full of Asian and Euro/U.S. enslaver mindsets. Until the knowledge of the Vodouist rises that we are not bounded by the visible world but by the unity and dynamism of a great cosmic whole of which only certain parts are visible, until then only the extraordinarily brave shall deny the ruling oligarchs, their mores, stereotypes, domestication of Go(o)d, pollution of nature and neocolonialism, to recall and extend that upon that sacred mountain called Ayiti, soaked in the blood of visionary Black warriors, a sacred trust for Alkebulan and the planet is carved out where "Black" (defined as "inferior" by invaders, colonizers and white settlers) was returned to its indigenous meaning by Black - the lovers of liberty, the moral descendants of the gentle parents of humankind - the first trustees of planet earth, of the invisible and irreducible essences (the "Lwas"). This concept of Black, meaning folks with moral restraints, lovers of liberty, the first trustees of planet earth, will also someday rise from the bitter twisted lies it has been set in since Dessalines' assassination in 1806.

Ayiti was created by Dessalines and his mainly Vodouist peoples whose way where that of masters and protectors of the spirit world, healing nature, and about extending sacred energies and the Ancient Ancestors' moral compasses for humanity.

History though, seems to be on a horrific and vicious treadmill, repeating itself, coming back fully as broken a circle as when waves of humankind traveled from Asia and Europe, encountering self in an older America, Africa and even Australia, but not seeing family.

Today, history has come full circle with all the old settlers' pathologies intact, as we note the unfortunate and even genocidal role of Asia and China in Haiti and Africa, be it the role of China in supporting the current Arab whitening of Darfu in the Sudan, their support within the UN Security council in upholding the current (MINUSTHA) occupation of Haiti; or the role of the UN soldiers from Asia (Jordani, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Arab-Lebanese) in the current genocide, forced miscegenation and dividing of Haitian society - through rape, slaughter, forced removal/depopulation, abuse, indefinite incarceration of Haiti's young men, economic exploitation by Haiti's Arab-Lebanese elites, defamation, massive vaccination and medical experimentation of the enchained, marginalized and isolated poor Haitian masses, sham elections run by the international community and their black overseers, all through the use of white power, privilege or access to white power/privilege networks as their tools. (See also, Remembering July 6, 2005 and the UN massacre of innocent civilians from Site Soley; Dred Wilme speaks; July 6 - International Day Against the Extermination of Black Youths; Haitian Children put in Chains by the whites; Haiti's Ruling Oligarchy; Going Back to Source - Lasous O M Pwale; Jan. 1, 2009 - Another Independence Day Under Occupation).

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3. Dessalines ideal #3 - Black ruled Independent Nation

And finally, the greatest of Dessalines' vision and ideals is that Haiti would be a Black independent nation. Dessalines v. Toussaint (Black ruled Independent Nation vs. Black ruled French Colony, with Black overseers/feudal lords governing for the colonist/imperialist. (Compare, Dessalines' 1805 Independence Constitution and Toussaint's 1801 Colonial, Catholic and Eurocentric Constitution.)

Toussaint Louverture fought for a Black ruled French colony. This was absolutely unthinkable to the slave-owners, who kidnapped Toussaint Louverture, deported him, tortured him and let him die of starvation at a prison fortress in Fort du Joux, France. Until, that is, Dessalines came along with a greater demand, the bigger achievement - to make Haiti a Black ruled independent nation. Then, to the Euro/US tribes, Toussaint Louverture's aspirations for a "Black ruled French colony" didn't seem so extreme! You'll notice even today Louverture is lauded; Dessalines still vilified, criminalized and demonized. His achievement is still unthinkable to the powers-that-be. (See, Haiti's Act of Independence - Diskou Desalin Premye Janvye 1804, Gonaive, Haiti).

For centuries now these powers, with their black overseers in Haiti, have press forward Toussaint Louverture's vision of Haiti as a Black-ruled colony first for the French and now for the US and demonized Dessalines' dream. In fact, Dessalines’ very name was cursed in Haiti (under Petion's 12 year rule and Boyer's 25 years) and to just speak his name was to face alienation, prison, criminalization and assassination.

But, as all African-Ayisyen's know, criminalization, imprisonment and assassination cannot destroy the indestructible.

Dessalines' dream of a "Black ruled independent Haiti" where the assets of the country are equitably divided amongst all Haitians, is what Haitians have been struggling to achieve, within a hostile American Mediterranean, for over 200 years. Dessalines is so revered by Haitians, he is the ONLY one of the revolutionary heroes of Haiti, to become a Lwa. He is Haiti's liberator, founding father, first ruler, teacher, guide and spiritual father. (See, Felix Morrisseau-Leroy poem, "Thank you Father Dessalines"; see Haiti's National Anthem called Dessaline's Song or La Desalinyen. Listen to the audio.)

"Haiti's liberator and founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets of the Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he was assassinated by the mulatto sons of France. That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust - organized exclusion of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite - continues (with Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue to resist the return of despots, tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority in Haiti from sharing in the country's wealth and assets." (See also, Et revient la question. Et ceux dont les pères sont en Afrique, ils n'auront donc rien ; Ezili's counter-colonial narrative on Vodun; Blacks were the original peoples in the Americas; Kanga Mundele: Our mission to live free or die trying, Another Haitian Independence Day under occupation; The Legacy of Impunity of One Sector-Who killed Dessalines?; The Legacy of Impunity: The Neoconlonialist inciting political instability is the problem. Haiti is underdeveloped in crime, corruption, violence, compared to other nations; Haiti's Ruling Oligarchy).

Dessalines’ faith, insistence on the natural right of a Black person to take up arms in self-defense, his dream of a Black independent nation and ideas for equal and equitable economic redistribution is what all the coup d'etats since 1806, including the latest one in February of 2004 are trying to bury. Yet, no matter the atrocities suffered by the most vilified peoples in this Western Hemisphere, Dessalines' dream cannot be cut from them, still lives in Haitian veins. Jean Jacques Dessalines is still being born, rising everyday. No matter what you’ve read, Jean Jacques Dessalines, not Toussaint Louverture, is Haiti’s founding father and the masses’ most revered revolutionary hero, a Vodun Lwa - Vodun God, an irreducible essence, indestructible spirit - and one of the world’s greatest humanitarian, political strategist, and wisest of world philosophers.

The spirit of Jean Jacques Dessalines is the force the Haitian masses recalled and called upon after the kidnapping of president Jean Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. His vision of a Black-ruled-independent-nation is the vision that still animates Haiti’s Black majority and their current struggle against UN/US orchestrated assassinations, foreign occupation, endless debt, dependency, domination, imprisonment and criminalization.

Dessalines wakes up everyday in Haiti and in the Haitian Diaspora. He left his descendants only one option to slavery, racism, colonialism and imperialism and his three ideals are brought into focus with this one dictum: live free or die.

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On October 17, 2006 (2007, 2008, 2009...), HLLN and the People of Haiti will mark the 200th (201, 202, 203...) anniversary of the assassination of Haiti's founding father - General Jean Jacques Dessalines. Please join us in the last of our four yearly event for the FreeHaitiMovement.

Join HLLN and the grassroots pro-democracy movement in Haiti in honoring Haiti's centuries of struggle and triumphs over tyranny.

Please support this endeavor. Write to Erzilidanto@yahoo.com with your contributions.

You may also support the work of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network by making a donation. Go to:
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/donate/donate.html

Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
September 19, 2006
(Last updated, Jan. 2008 and Jan, 2009)

What's in a name? Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere..... Triumphant and proud, free and sovereign. Not humbled by the enslavers lash nor beaten by the greatest armies of his time. He left this legacy to us. He said: “Recall everything I have sacrificed to fly to your defense - relatives, children, wealth, so that now the only riches I possess is your freedom. Recall that my name horrifies all those who are enslavers, and that tyrants and despots everywhere only bring themselves to utter it when they curse the day I was born. Remember, if you should ever discard or forget the law that the God who watches over your well being has dictated to me for your happiness, you will deserve the fate that inures to ungrateful peoples. " Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haitian Act of Independence, January 1, 1804 (Translation by Ezili Dantò for HLLN's FreeHaitiMovement - Dessalines is Rising, Oct. 17th commemorations http://www.margueritelaurent.com/law/events.html ) * French version: "..rappelle-toi que j’ai tout sacrifié pour voler à ta défense, parents, enfants, fortune, et que maintenant je ne suis riche que de ta liberté; que mon nom est devenu en horreur à tous les peuples qui veulent l’esclavage, et que les despotes et les tyrans ne le prononcent qu’en maudissant le jour qui m’a vu naître ; et si jamais tu refusais ou recevais en murmurant les lois que le génie qui veille à tes destinées me dictera pour ton bonheur, tu mériteras le sort des peuples ingrats." *****************************

FreeHaitiMovement Ideyoloji Desalinyen, le Nouvelliste, Oct. 22, 2007

'

Turning Haiti Into a Penal Colony
by Marguerite Laurent | November 3, 2006
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English Translation by Frantz Jerome in collaboration with other members of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, for the FreeHaitiMovement - Dessalines Is Rising, October 17th events

Blan mannan – Lowly Pariah white
(Blan Mannan by Feliks Moriso Lewa
Translated to English by HLLN, Oct. 2006)

Don’t put words in my mouth
i say there are good whites and there are bad whites
the worst of the whites are the lowly pariah whites

Don’t make me say what I’ve never said
i say there are good blacks and there are bad blacks
the worst of the blacks are the rich blacks

I’m told French whites now do whatever they want
in Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ country
tell them I’m damn well coming to kick them out

I’m told the French are kicking
Dessalines’ children in the ass
tell them to prepare for my wrath
I’m planning another November 1803 especially for them

Tell them that when they hear me coming
they better pack up and leave
no matter how bleak the night
a new dawn inevitably will come

There are good blacks and there are bad blacks
there are good whites and there are bad whites
Dessalines did not kill the Polish whites
the worst of the whites are the lowly pariah whites

Dessalines who is my history teacher
tells me the only good white
is the white that shoots the bad whites
Please, don’t make me say what I won’t say

Ezili Dantò's Note on the translation
of "Blan Mannan: Different English equivalents for the pejorative term “Blan mannan” were put forward by the Haitians at HLLN including: “red neck,” “white trash,” “poor white,” “average farmer,” “pariah white.” And "indentured servants" and even “creole white” was put forward because, at one epoch in Haiti, the term "Creole" was also used to refer to all Europeans who were born or grew up in a colony. indentured servants is also another Another explanation offered was that when it's used in common language in Haiti "blan mannan" usually means "yon blan ki pa kenbe kòl; ki sankoutcha; k ap mache sal oswa chifonnen nan lari" - a white who's unkempt, arrogant, shameless.

Indentured Servants - Blan angaje: From a historical perspective, there is the perception the word mannan to related to “small, non-slave-owner whites” who would have reached the colony via indentured servitude. That is exactly why the African captive may have expected these whites to naturally empathize with their cause: the struggle against slave-owner colonists. However, the subtle and repressive colonial system prompted the "Blan mannan" to ignore similarities and focus on the privileges offered by skin color. Thus, since their social reality put them so close to the African captives, they had to profess to be staunch defenders of the colonial system, despising “sub-human” slaves. "Blan mannan" was not a word coined for gratuitous insults. It allowed for differentiation between white subgroups.

Any defects or limitation in the final translation and chosen English equivalents of this Moriso Lewa unofficial translation is the sole responsibility of the editor, Ezili Dantò.

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Youn mesaj pou tout Ayisyen k' ap viv ak konsyans yo nan limyè

Lè nou sonje Desalin, nou paka pa wè Defile.

Se Defile ki te ranmase diyite Ayisyen nan pousyè ak san kote l tap drive nan Pon-Wouj.

Valè nou bay Defile, se valè nou bay diyite nou.

Nan okazyon saa, mwen envite tout Ayisyen bòn volonte mete kè yo ansanm avè m nan youn basen pwezi pou prezante oun kokennchenn kouwòn pou Defile.

Kouwòn pou Defile by Michel Sanon, 2006 Defile, fanm vanyan Fanm santiman Fanm diyite… Se pou bèl zanj nan paradi Vide lwil pafen sou tèt ou. Move lang sou latè Kouri bri tèt ou te loke Istoryen malpouwont Pase non w nan rizib Pou pitit-pitit Ayiti Pa gen respè pou ou. Yo pa janm chache konnen Ki zèklè k te kale w Konmkwa w te kèk sanmanman Kochon te bay tete. Defile, fanm santibon Bèlte simbi ak kè bonbon Lè nou mande Kikote w te rete Yo di nou: kay kraze Nimewo-efase. Achiv pa make dat Pou Nèg Ginen sonje w Pou tilezanj fete w Nan tout jenerasyon Fanm kalite tankou w... Ala lapenn, manman! Epoutan, ou te fèt Ou viv, epi w mouri Anplis, ou fè bon zèv Depase moundebyen Ki ekri liv istwa Fè konnen w se moun fou Paske konsyans yo nan fènwa. Pou lonè w, Defile Pawòl twòp pou pale. Mwen trense you kouwòn You bèl kouwòn pwezi Ki pou fè moun sonje Kisa, kilès ou ye Chak fwa yo panse "diyite". Defile, rèn tout rèn Ou se solèy konsyans Ou se manman tout Ayisyen Ki viv ak nanm yo nan limyè. *******

"When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped...........If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want and all that is left is a compromise." Robert Fritz

THE HAITIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM:
La Dessalinienne / Dessaline’s Song / La Desalinyen
http://www.geocities.com/ernsly/haitiladessalinienne.mid
(Audio file)

http://www.thelouvertureproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=La_Dessalinienne
(Lyrics: in Kreyol, French, and an English translation of the French)

DESSALINE’S SONG

For our country,
For our forefathers,
United let us march.
Let there be no traitors in our ranks!
Let us be masters of our soil.
United let us march
For our country,
For our forefathers.

For our forebears,
For our country
Let us toil joyfully.
May the fields be fertile
And our souls take courage.
Let us toil joyfully
For our forebears,
For our country.

For our country
And for our forefathers,
Let us train our sons.
Free, strong, and prosperous,
We shall always be as brothers.
Let us train our sons
For our country
And for our forefathers.

For our forebears,
For our country,
Oh God of the valiant!
Take our rights and our life
Under your infinite protection,
Oh God of the valiant!
For our forebears,
For our country.

For the flag,
For our country
To die is a fine thing!
Our past cries out to us:
Have a disciplined soul!
To die is a fine thing,
For the flag,
For our country.

Ezili Danto's Note - On the Translation of Haiti's 1804 Act of Independence: The famous Boisrond Tonerre drafted the Haitian act of Independence. It was presented by Haiti's founding father, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, and then signed at Haiti's Janurary 1, 1804 Independence ceremony by a select group of generals from the elite Haitian army of Independence at Place des Armes, in Gonaives, Haiti. There could be a more precise and flowing English translation then the one below. And, maybe HLLN we'll take it on for next years. For now, Noe Dorestant's English translation is available. For a fuller and perhaps more precise approximation of Jean Jacques Dessalines' words, please also refer and compare the French but especially the Kreyol version by Lakou NY, which is a direct translation of Boisrond Tonerre own words as published in his biography; and the second Kreyol version translated by Met Bell Angelo. Both the French and Kreyol and 2nd Kreyol/Met Angelo version are also posted herein for your enlightenment and educational convenience. Ezili Danto, Jan. 1, 2008 (Updated Jan 1, 2009 with the second Kreyol version added).
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PROCLAMATION OF HAITI'S INDEPENDENCE BY THE GENERAL IN CHIEF, Jean Jacques Dessalines to the Haitian people in Gonaives, on January 1st 1804, year first of Haiti's independence

Source: Translated from French into English by Noe Dorestant, E.E., Geocities.com)

"Live free or die!"

Citizens,

It is not enough to have expelled from your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries; it is not enough to have put a brake to these ever reviving factions which take turns to play-act this liberty, like ghost that France had exposed before your eyes; it is necessary, by a last act of national authority, assure forever an empire of liberty in this country our birth place; we must take away from this inhumane government, which held for so long our spirits in the most humiliating torpor, all hope to resubjugate us; we must at last live independent or die.

Independence or death... May these sacred words bring us together, and may they be the signal of our struggles and of our gathering.

Citizens, my compatriots, I have gathered in this solemn day these courageous servicemen, who on the eve of harvesting the last crotchets rest of liberty, have given their blood to save it; these generals who led your efforts against tyranny, have not yet done enough for your well being...The french name still glooms our countryside.

All is there to remind us of the atrocities of this barbarian people: our laws, our customs, our cities, all bear the french imprint; what do I say? There are French in our island, and you believe yourself to be free and independent of that republic which fought all nations, it is true, but who has never been victorious over those who wished to be free.

Well what! victims for over fourteen years of our own credulity and our own indulgence; defeated, not by the french armies, but by the shamefaced eloquence of the proclamation of their agents; when will we get tired of breathing the same air than them? Its cruelty compared to our moderated patience; its color to our; the vast seas that keep us apart, our avenging climate, tell us enough that they are not our brothers, and that they will never become and that, if they find asylum amongst us, they will be once more the schemers of our troubles and our divisions.

Indigenous citizens, men, women, girls and children, bear your regards on all the parts of this island; look for, yourself, your spouses, your husbands, yourself, your brothers, you, your sisters; what do I say? Look for your children, your children, those that are being breast fed! What have they become?...I tremble to say it... the prey of these vultures.

Instead of these interesting victims, your eye dismayed can only perceive their assassins; may the tigers that are still dripping their blood, and whose horrible presence reproach your insensibility and your slowness to avenge them. What are you waiting for to appease their souls? Remember that you have wished that your remains be buried near the remains of your fathers, when you had chased away tyranny; would you go down to your tomb without avenging them? No, their skeleton would push away yours.

And you, precious men, intrepid generals, whose lack of insensibility to your own misfortunes, have resurrected liberty by giving it all your blood; you should know that you have done nothing if you do not give to the nations a terrible example, but just, of the avenge that must exercise a proud people who have recovered their liberty, and jealous to maintain it; let us instill fear in all those whom would dare try to take it away from us again; let us begin with the French... May they tremble when they approach our coasts, if not by the memory of the cruelty that they have inflicted, at least by the terrible resolution that we are about to take to devote to death, anyone born french, who would dirty of his sacrilegious foot the territory of liberty.

We dared to be free, let us dare to be so by ourselves and for ourselves, let us emulate the growing child: his own weight breaks the edge that has become useless and hamper its walk. What nation has fought for us? What nation would like to harvest the fruits of our labors? And what dishonorable absurdity than to vanquish and be slaves. Slaves! Leave it to the French this qualifying epithet: they have vanquished to cease to be free.

Let us walk on other footprints; let us imitate these nations whom, carrying their solicitude until they arrive on a prospect, and dreading to leave to posterity the example of cowardliness, have preferred to be exterminated rather than to be crossed out from the number of free peoples.

Let us be on guard however so that the spirit of proselytism does not destroy our work; let our neighbors breath in peace, may they live in peace under the empire of the laws that they have legislated themselves, and let us not go, like spark fire revolutionaries, erecting ourselves as legislators of the Caribbean, to make good of our glory by troubling the peace of neighboring islands: they have never, like the one that we live in, been soaked of the innocent blood of their inhabitants; they have no vengeance to exercise against the authority that protects them.

Fortunate to have never known the plagues which have destroyed us, they can only make good wishes for our prosperity. Peace to our neighbors! but anathema to the french name! Eternal hate to France! That is our cry.

Indigenous of Haiti, my fortunate destiny reserved me to be one day the sentinel who had to watch guard the idol to which you are making your sacrifice, I have watched, fought, sometimes alone, and, If I have been fortunate to deliver in your hands the sacred trust that you had under my care, remember that it is up to you now to conserve it. Before you consolidate it by laws which assure your individual liberty, your leaders, which I assemble here, and myself, we owe you the last proof of our devotion.

Generals, and you, leaders, reunited here near me for the well being of our country, the day has come, this day which must make eternal our glory, our independence.

If there could exist amongst you a half-hearted, may he distance himself and tremble to pronounce the oath that must unite us.

Let us swear to the entire universe, to posterity, to ourselves, to renounce forever to France, and to die rather than to live under its domination.

To fight until the last crotchet rest for the independence of our country!

And you, people for too long misfortuned, witness to the oath that we are pronouncing, remind yourself that it is on your perseverance and your courage that I depended on when I threw myself in this career for liberty in order to fight against despotism and tyranny against which you struggled since fourteen years. Remind yourself that I sacrificed myself to jump to your defense, parents, children, fortune, and that now I am only rich of your liberty; that my name has become in horror to all nations who wish for slavery, and that the despots and tyrants do not pronounce it only while cursing the day that saw me born; and if for whatever reason you refused or received while murmuring the laws that the genius which watch over your destiny will dictate me for your good fortune, you would deserve the fate of ungrateful peoples.

But away from me this horrible idea. You will be the support of the liberty that you cherish, the support to the chief which command you.

Take then in your hands this oath to live free and independent, and to prefer death to all those who would love to put you back under the yoke.

Swear at last to pursue forever the traitors and the enemies of your independence.

Done at the general headquarter of Gonaives, this January 1st 1804, the first year of Independence.


Words of General in Chief:
Jean Jacques Dessalines, hero of the Haitian war of Independence.


(Translated from French into English: by Noe Dorestant, October 17, 1999, year 195 of Haiti's Independence as part of his contribution and civic duty to bring people awareness of Haitian history and its not so distant glorious past.)
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Deklarasyon Endepandans Ayiti Premye Janvye 1804 Gonayiv, Ayiti (Translated by Lakou New York, Jan, 2008) | (Epitou, ale wè yon lòt tradisksyon: Diskou Desalin Premye Janvye 1804, Gonaive, Haiti, posted Jan, 2009)

Sitwayen,

Li pa ase ke n te flanke kriminèl yo ki te benyen peyi a nan san depi 200 lannen deyò nan peyi a; li pa ase ke n te fini ak zafè ti klik ti klik k ap pase n nan betiz ak jimay libète Lafrans ap plede frote nan je nou; fòk nou poze yon dènye zak ak tout fòs nasyon an pou n asire libète ap djayi pou tout tan nan peyi sila a kote nou te fèt la; fòk nou retire nan men gouvènman sanfwa ni lwa a ki te kenbe lespri nou nan boutèy depi tout tan sa yo, tout lespwa ke l ap janm kapab remete n nan lesklavaj ankò; fòk nou klè seswa nou viv lib oswa nou mouri.

Endepandans oswa lanmò ... Pawòl sakre sa yo dwe rasanble nou epi se yo ki pou modòd batay nou ak reyinyon nou.

Sitwayen, konpatriyòt mwen yo, nan kokennchenn jounen sila a, mwen rasanble militè vanyan sa yo ki pa t ezite bay san yo pou n te genyen batay pou libète a lè rezilta batay la pa t klè ditou; jeneral sa yo ki te alatèt batay nou pou n te konbat malfèktè yo panko fè ase pou nou rive viv nan kè kontan ... non franse a la toujou toupatou kote n pase l ap menase nou.

Tras bèt sovaj sa yo la tout kote n pase: lwa nou yo, jan n ap viv, vil nou yo, yo tout gen mak dwèt franse; ki jan m ta ka di sa? Gen blan Franse la toujou pami nou nan zile a epi nou konprann nou lib endepandan! Yo konbat tout nasyon se vre men yo pa janm gen laviktwa sou pèp ki te gen volonte pou yo viv lib.

Pandan 14 lannen yo fè dekabès sou nou paske nou penyen lage epi n pran nan tout kalite blòf; se pa menm lame peyi Lafrans ki t ap kale nou, se pawòl anlè, pawòl van nan pwoklamasyon ajan peyi Lafrans yo; ki lè n ap sispann respire men lè ak bèt sovaj yo? Gade jan yo atoufè ak jan noumenm nou gen bon kè; gade koulè yo ak koulè pa nou; gade gwo distans lanmè ki separe nou ak yo. Tout bagay sa yo di nou klè yo pa frè nou, yo pa p janm frè nou epi nenpòt ti fenèt nou ta ba yo pou fofile nan mitan nou y ap simen chagren, malè ak divizyon.

Fanmi m yo, gason, fanm, jèn ti fi kou ti lezanj, pwonmennen je nou nan tout rakwen zile a; chèche mari nou, chèche madanm nou, chèche frè nou, sè nou; pwonmennen je nou chèche pitit nou, ti bebe ki nan tete! Kote yo? Koze sa a fè tout san m tresayi ... Yo tout disparèt anba grif bèt sovaj yo bay pou kolon blan an. Lè nou founi je n gade toupatou nan zile a olye nou jwenn fanmi nou yo se asasen sanginè yo nou jwenn; se atò san fanmi nou yo ap degoute nan arebò djòl yo, epi je nou nan je yo. Ki sa ou ap tann pou tire revanj? Ki sa ou ap tann pou pèmèt lespri fanmi nou yo repoze nan lapè? Sonje lè nou t ap konbat blan yo nou te vle pou lè n mouri pou n te ka repoze akote papa nou; Pou di n ap desann anba tè a san nou pa vanje yo? NON, seswa jamè! Zòsman yo t ap pouse pa ou sot deyò.

E oumenm, gason kanson, jeneral vanyan, gen lè ou pa wè malè k pandye sou pwòp tèt pa ou, oumenm san koule pou rebay libète souf pou l respire; ou panko fè anyen toutotan ou pa trase yon ekzanp vanjans terib men ki se sa lajistis mande pou tout peyi sou latè wè klè sa sa vle di lè yon pèp pran libète l epi l sèmante li pa p pèdi l; an nou mete yon terè nan kè tout sa ki konprann yo ka vin pran libète nou nan men n: n ap koumanse ak blan Franse ... se pou san yo tresayi lè yo pèdi wout yo ap pase arebò peyi nou, si malfezans yo te konn fè sou tè sa a pa fè yo pantan fòk rezolisyon n ap pran la a pou n fann fwa nenpòt blan Franse ki ta vin sal peyi libète a ak pye madichon li.

Nou pran responsabilite pou n vin lib, n ap fè l pou kont nou, n ap fè l pou nou; an nou fè tankou ti bebe k ap grandi a: afòs l ap vin gran pou kont li l kraze lizyè ki te la pou anpeche l travèse. Ki pèp ki te batay pou nou? Ki pèp ki ta vle jwi fwi travay nou? Ala lawont pou n ta fin genyen laviktwa pou ta rete esklav. Esklav! Se blan Franse k pou pote tit: moun ki te genyen laviktwa pou yo ka sispann lib.

Ann fè lòt chimen; ann fè tankou pèp k ap mache dwat devan yo, sa yo ki kite lachte dèyè, sa yo ki pito sispann ekziste olye pou yo ta kite yo sispann konte yo pami pèp ki lib.

An menm tan nou pa p kite lespri pou n ap mache preche levanjil pa nou an kraze travay nou fin reyalize a; nou pa anmède vwazen nou yo, se dwa yo pou yo viv nan lapè selon lwa yo menm yo deside pou tèt yo. Nou pa p drese n tankou gwo revolisyonè pou n al mache fè lalwa bay tout zile vwazen n yo, pou sa nou fin reyalize a anpeche vwazen nou yo dòmi byen lannuit; Yo pa t sibi menm mati ak nou, tè lakay yo pa wouze ak san inosan menm jan ak nou; yo pa gen menm vanjans la pou yo tire sou fòs k ap gouvène yo a.

Kòm etan yo pa t janm sibi menm ravaj ak nou, se bèl ak bon bagay pou yo ta swete nou pou jou ki devan nou yo. Nou swete lapè pou tout vwazen nou! Men madichon pou Lafrans! Modòd nou se rayisman pou tout tan pou Lafrans!

Pèp peyi d Ayiti, se te chans pa m pou se mwen k te gen pou kanpe tankou yon santinèl, zam alamen ap voye je sou kokenn trezò sila a nou tout nou sakrifye n pou li a, m te fè travay la ak lafwa, m veye, m lite, gen de lè pou kont mwen epi si jodi a se chans mwen pou m renmèt nou li nan men, pa janm bliye konyè a se responsabilite pa nou pou nou pwote je l, konsève l. Pandan tout tan m t ap batay pou libète nou se pou bonè pa m m t ap travay. Anvan nou rive soude libète sa a ak yon seri lwa pou asire libète chak grenn nan nou, mwenmenm ak chèf nou yo ke m rasanble la jodi a dwe nou tout yon dènye prèv ki pou demontre klèman devouman nou.

Jeneral yo ak chèf yo ki la isit la, ki ansanm la pou byenèt peyi nou, jou a rive jodi a, jou sa a ki pral enskri laglwa nou ak endepandans nou pou tout tan.

Si ta gen yonn nan nou la ki pa ta fin klè sou kesyon an oswa ki ta manke kran, ke l bay talon l imedyatman olye l ta bat djòl li mamote sèman sila a ki pral simante nou tout ansanm nan.

Nou sèmante bay lemonn antye, bay tout sa k ap vini apre yo, bay tèt nou, pou nou renonse pou tout tan a Lafrans, pou nou mouri olye n aksepte viv anba lobedyans li. Nou sèmante pou n lite jouk dènye souf nou pou endepandans peyi nou!

Ou menm pèp sila ki si tèlman sibi, ki la jodi a ap sèvi temwen sèman sila a, pinga ou janm bliye ke se sou fòs ak kouraj ou m te toujou mize lè m te anbake nan batay pou libète a pou n te fini ak abi ak mechanste. Pa bliye m te sakrifye tout sa m te posede pou m te pran defans ou: manman m ak papa m, pitit mwen, tout byen m, jodi a sèl richès mwen se libète ou; non m sèlman teworize tout pèp ki patizan lesklavaj, esklavajis ak tiran pa pran chans repete non sa a san yo pa madichonnen jou manman m te fè m nan; si jamè ou ta refize oswa manke respekte lwa sa yo k ap voye je sou lavni ou yo ta dikte m pou byenèt ou, ou ta merite sò ki rezève pou pèp ki engra.

M konnen sa pa p janm pase konsa. M konnen ou ap toujou lite pou kenbe libète sa a k nan men ou jodi a epi ou ap kore chèf k ap dirije ou la.

Sèmante pou viv lib endepandan, pou toujou pare pou koupe souf nenpòt sa ki ta konprann pou yo retounen nou nan restavèk.

Finalman sèmante pou boule san pitye ak trèt senkyèm kolòn ak tout lennmi endepandans ou.

Siyati:

Dessalines, Jeneral alatèt

Christophe, Pétion, Clerveaux, Geffrard, Vernet, Gabart - Jeneral Divizyon

P . Romain, G. Gérin, L. Capois, Daut, JeanLouis François, Férou, Cangé, G. Bazelais, Magloire Ambroise, J. J. Herne, Toussaint Brave, Yayou - Jeneral Brigad

Bonnet, F. Papalier, Morelly, Chevalier, Marion - Adjidan-Jeneral

Magny, Roux - Chèf Brigad

Chareron, B. Goret, Macajoux, Dupuy, Carbonne, Diaquoi aîné, Raphaël, Malet, Derenoncourt Ofisye nan Lame

Boisrond Tonnerre - Sekretè

Deklarasyon sila a fèt Premye Janvye 1804 nan katye jeneral Gonayiv, Premye ane endepandans peyi nou.


*Tradiksyon sila a se travay Lakou New York fè Premye Janvye 2008 pou ede Ayisyen ranmase nan lang pa nou eritaj sakre zansèt yo kite pou nou. (Epitou, ale wè yon lòt tradisksyon: Diskou Desalin Premye Janvye 1804, Gonaive, Haiti, posted Jan, 2009)

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CREATE A NEW PARADIGM:

Join the HLLN's FreeHaitiMovement - Donate to support Ezili's HLLN work and
Help free Haiti from containment-in-poverty, UN slaughter and arbitrary/indefinite detention, free trade, wage/(sweatshop)slavery, privatization, UN proxy soldiers' occupation, humanitarian imperialism (10,000 NGOs in Haiti post 2004), financial colonialism, forced assimilation, ethnocide, exclusion and all manners of obscene indignities attained through the promotion of white privilege, sex tourism, sex and abuse in exchange for food and money by humanitarian aid workers from all spectrum of the political spectrum. How? When we are well rooted in our own indestructible Vodun psychology and cosmology, in our own Haitian history and legacy to the world, then that power shall shine and issue forth from restored and re-educated psyches and form new paradigms. Here are some suggested HLLN solutions:

Solution - HLLN's 2009 FreeHaitiMovement Demands

Solution - Haiti Policy Statement for the Obama Team

Solution - What UN Special Envoy Bill Clinton May Do to Help Haiti - Outline and Full Text

Solution - Haitian-Americans ask the US president and Congress to....end UN occupation, grant TPS, stop trading for Haiti with USAID and the NGOs, support sustainable development...

Solution - HLLN on more Congressional oversight needed on USAID

Solution - France (and the US) Must Pay back the $22Billion+ Independence Debt
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Solution - Haitian Culture, self-reliance and dignity /(Haitian Culture - Pale zanfan nou de tout grandèt nou yo. Pale zanfan nou de tout bel istwa nou...Se lan rasin nou pou nou foure. Pou nou tout kòn kiyes nou ye. Lan kilti nou pou nou vanse. Se ladan nap jwen yon fyète. Di timoun yo laverite. Se lan rasin nou pou nou foure. Pou nou tout kòn kiyes nou ye...--- Edike from Dadi Beaubrun's Lataye)

FreeHaitiMovement - On October 17, May 18, July 6 and August 14 of each year, Ezili's HLLN sponsors events and E-forums celebrating Haitian culture and art as one of the richest culture in the Western Hemisphere and by promoting Haiti's revolutionary legacy. We ask those organization or individuals who have joined the FreeHaitiMovement to participate: on Oct. 17, May 18, July 6 and August 14. In addition to those dates, Ezili's HLLN pays special attention to November 18 (Vertieres) and January 1st (Independence Day) and ask our FreeHaitiMovement sponsors and endorsers to send letters to France at least on these two days of the year demanding France pay Haiti back the Independence Debt. (See sample letter and France, Vertieres and Ayisyen Ginen).

October 17, 2009: Haiti's Holocaust and Middle Passage Continues

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"I don't know why it is...but since the beginning of time Haitians have
been suffering" --- Haitian migrant, 2009
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500 lane depi w (blan kolon) vle efase n. Jodi a ou vle m kwè se
sèl ou ki ka sove n --- Edike from Daniel 'Dadi' Beaubrun's Lataye (buy album)

[English - "For 500 years the whites (settlers/colonists) have tried to erase us. Today they want us to believe they're the only ones who can save us" --- Edike from Daniel 'Dadi' Beaubrun's Lataye (buy album)]
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