HLLN's thanks the Hip Hop Kulture Community for their Petition for Peace in Haiti and M1 of Dead Prez August 14, 2005

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Demand a Stop to the killings in Cite Soleil, Solino, Bel Air and throughout Haiti
Please send appeals immediately
See Urgent Action Alert
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On August 14, 2005, on the occasion of the 214th anniversary of BWA KAYIMAN, the gathering that began the greatest black revolution on this planet:

On 14 August 1791 all the African Ancestors and children came together, born and unborn, to make the call that ended 300 years of European chattel slavery. We celebrate our coming together with the Hip Hop Kulture community in the name of those who took a stand at BWA KAYIMAN in 1791 and by 1804 had defeated the greatest European/US armies of the day to create the nation known as Haiti.

We thank the Hip Hop Kulture community for their Petition for Peace in Haiti.
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Brother Nature,

We are so very excited with the involvement of the Hip Hop community that you have initiated. On behalf of the people of Haiti, the majority whose voices are being brutally silenced by the Western powers and their mercenary UN army, we-Haitians and the solidarity network we lead thank the Hip Hop Kulture community for its petition for peace in Haiti.

So many others, with access to African-American distribution networks, have simply ignored our calls for help or, worse, like that fake "progressive" Ron Daniels, supported the Coup D'etat folks under the guise of promoting "dialogue" between the "fighting Haitians."
(http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/danielsnovote.html, and
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/danielsatitagain.html )

Don't believe that hype. It is being used to re-colonize Haiti and make it a Westernized "protectorate." The most crucial point for the Hip Hop Kulture community to take to the streets when each-one-teaches-one about the Free Haiti Movement is that the forceful ouster of Haiti's democratic government was conducted by the US, France and Canada. That the minority and very neutered Haitian bourgeoisie class in Haiti could NEVER have, on its own, topple the people's elected government and brought about the hell Haitians are facing today. Also if Aristide had truly been THAT corrupt the coup d'etat folks would have established this without a doubt already and not have to be fighting off the people's resistance to their rule and the daily calls for return of the Constitutional governemnt some 18 months after US Special forces along with French and Canadia troops replaced Haiti's government with thugs, ex-soldiers and the Florida Baco Raton death squad regime. Thus, this is NOT about black-on-black infighting, incompetence or violence. Beware of this chorus from the mainstream embedded-to-the-Bush-State-Dept. media.

The majority of Haitian thugs and opportunists are killing unarmed civilians - pregnant women, wheel-chaired bound people, teenage boys and girls, street children, marketwomen and unarmed demonstrators - in Haiti right now, those Haitians unconstitutionally in power in Haiti right now, those Haitians with access to the embedded media to continue to spread lies and half-truths are PAID, supported, upheld by Bush regime change and the powers, monies, guns and expertise of Canada, France, the European Union and their UN mercenary army. (Read, "Haiti: A scar in the face of America"


Despite enormous diplomatic and trade pressures from the Euro/US folks
and their proxies (Kofi-n Annan, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Chilean and
Brazilian troops) to day, neither the African Union (representing all
53 African nations on the continent, nor CARICOM (representing all 15
Caribbean nations) nor Cuba or Venezuela, nor even the Congressional
Black Caucus in the US as a unit, recognizes the illegitimate Boca
Raton (Latortue) government currently being imposed on the people of
Haiti by the Bush Administration.

The Haitian Lawyers Leadership and the Free Haiti Movement welcomes the
Hip HopKulture community as they stand along side all the Caribbean
nations, the African Union, the CBC and the thousands of organizations
committed to see to it that the Haitian people are not re-colonized in the name of Bush's "democracy" and "free trade, Washington Consensus." Your petition is a testament to the Hip Hop Kulture community's understanding, cohesiveness, commitment and compassion. For, 75% percent of the Haitian population are under the age of 25-years-old. Thus, the black Haitians being summarily executed in
Haiti right now are young and committed men and women who, like most
within the Hip HopKulture community, are committed to live free with equal civil, human and culture rights or die.

The Hip Hop Kulture community members should know that M1 of Dead Prez,
Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr. of POCC (Prisoners of Conscience Committee)
and JR (Block Report Radio) were amongst the first within the African
American activists and Hip Hop culturally and politically conscious
community to support the Haitian Lawyers Leadership's work with the
Free Haiti Movement and our 6-points resolution to stand firm with the
brutalized people of Haiti until victory.

We hope members of the Hip HopKulture community will join in our letter writing campaigns demanding a stop to the UN slaughter of Haitian civilians, release of political prisoners and restoration of Constitutional rule. (See links below) That members would support the Ezili Danto Witness Project which empowers Haitians
on the ground resisting this tyranny by translating their eyewitness testimonies, distributing their photos and videotape footages of the injustices; and, that Hip Hop Kulture members would also consider joining our mailing list by sending a "subscribe" e-mail to Erzilidanto@yahoo.com and commit to spreading our Ezili Danto Witness Project posts, the truth about Haiti posts and the Haitian Perspectives articles to their own lists, friends and family. (See The Haitian Perspective at -
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/law_haiti.html.)

Perhaps together we may figure out how to reach out to the greater
African-American community and then, in ONE VOICE, to the global
community, piercing through this mass media silence vying for the body,
blood and soul of the Haitian poor.

All honor and respect. We shall follow closely all suggestions Brother
Nature (afrosaxon) should forward to us from this community on how to
collectively mobilize this effort further. Certainly, we shall promote
and distribute the peace petition far and wide to our people in Haiti,
our international network and to the hundreds of Haiti solidarity
organizations committed to the Free Haiti Movement, when we are assured
it's finalized and ready for public distribution as such.

One love my brothers and sisters. As the Haitian peasants would say,
"Chapo ba" - hats off! to you all. For, right now, for the suffering
people in Haiti, ACTION is more divine than reflection and debate.
Thank you for taking action.

Marguerite "Ezili Danto" Laurent, Esq.
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
" Men Anpil, chay pa lou", is Kreyol for "Many Hands make light a heavy load."
August 14, 2005
“Dje blan-yo mande krim. Bon Dje ki nan nou-an vle byen fè.” (Boukmann at Bwa
Kayiman, August 14, 1791)
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PS.:
This article below (Haiti: A scar in the face of America) is one of the more
complete in terms of telling the truth about the oustered Aristide
administration in Haiti with historical perspectives. It's a bit long.
But perhaps you would consider posting it or the link to it to the Hip
HopKulture communities.
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Haiti: A scar in the face of America
by Josè Antonio Gutièrrez D. -
OCL-Chile Sunday, Aug 14 2005

anarkismo.net

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Stop the military occupation of Haiti!

This article is a brief summary of two articles previously
published in Spanish, "Haiti: la cara sucia de las razones
humanitarias" (OSL editions, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2004) and "Ayiti,
una cicatriz en el rostro de Am?rica Latina" (both documents are
available in www.anarkismo.net).

The full references are published in
the mentioned articles. None was published with this one, and the
interested reader can consult them online.
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Deye Mon, gen Mon
(After the mountains, come more mountains -Haitian Proverb)

Haiti is a small country (28,000 sq. Kms), that shares the western part of the same island with Dominican Republic. 8 million human beings live there in desperately poor conditions, dwelling in overcrowded shanty towns, that don’t meet the basic standards to fulfill the most essential human needs: just 46% of the population have access to safe water, leatrines are a luxurious item in most houses in the poor areas of the biggest cities (Port Au Prince, Gonaive, Cap Haitien), AIDS rates are rampant (6%, actually, the highest in America) and are a sad legacy of the US sex tourism of the 70s and 80s, only half of the population know how to read or write, and if you are lucky, you will be able to live longer than 50 years…. Most people don’t make it (just 3,7% reaches 65 years old). And now times are getting even tougher, as the population is again brutalised by a government de facto, in office since March 2004, that has already claimed the lives of several Haitians (some figures claim around 10,000 people has died as a result of political violence and repression in just one year). And nature hasn’t been anymore compassionate with Haitian people than its government. Last year, hurricane Jeanne and the consecutive floods, claimed the lives of some 2,000 people.

But, despite everything, hope springs out in Haiti just where the blood merges with the mud and the tears of its people. And that hope takes its inspiration on its own history, for the history of Haiti is intimately linked to the history of the struggle against oppression and slavery, in its oldest forms, as well as on its newest forms. Few countries, probably, have had the importance of that small half an island. Haiti, more than an actual country, has represented for centuries, a symbol: it is the first nation in Latin America to become independent and it helped its brethen in the south to get rid of the Spanish yoke early in the XIXth century; it is the first black republic of the world; and it is the first country to effectively abolish slavery. For all its current sorrows, the greatness of its people is the sole guarantee of better days to come.

The history of Haiti, well reflected by the wise proverb at the start, is a tragedy that spans for 500 years, and is by far, the country that has been worst punished by Colonialism and by the legacy of its aftermath: “discovered” in 1492 by Columbus, the island, that was called Hispaniola, had, in a census carried in 1493, around 3 millions of native inhabitants, the Tainos. By the year 1519, all of them had disappeared from the face of Earth, victims of the exploitation of gold for the Spanish. Most of them died of over-work, others were murdered, others killed themselves in desperation and comitted infanticide to avoid their children to suffer from their same fate. Ten years after the Spanish settling, however, the local labour (that was increasingly getting scarse), starts being suplemented by the masive importation of slaves from Africa. The poor slaves didn’t have a better life: the mortality rate was over the roof, and the casualties were quickly replaced by “fresh flesh” from Congo or Guinea. By 1520 the gold exploitation ceases, and plantations become Haiti’s big business: the first export of sugar had already happened in 1516. But Spain soon lost interest in the island, attracted by the wealth of Mexico and Peru, leaving it as a land for cattle to roam and pasture by the late XVIth century. In the mid-XVIIth century, the French start to settle in the western side of la Hispaniola, and the Spanish cede that portion of the island to them in 1697. From then on, the French intensified the slave traffick and the plantations, turning it into a great producer of tobacco, coffee, sugar and cotton. It soon acquired the nickname “the pearl of the Antilles”, as the production of its slaves made it the most profitable colony at the time in the world. In the 1790s, however, slaves’ riots erupts in whole the country, like a boiling vulcano that has, for long, standed an unbearable pain. No partial reform can quell the rebellion lead by Touissant L’Overture and Jean Jacques Dessalines: not even the formal abolition of slavery in 1794. The slaves want their masters out of the island for good, and fight hard the US, French, Spanish and British armies that came to support the French settlers. And on 1804 they drove them out, giving birth painfully to the first black republic of the world.

All of the world was shocked and horrified: It was a “dreadful” example for slaves everywhere. No country gave Haiti formal recognition until much later. USA won’t recognise it until 1862, under the excuse that black ambassadors would be a bad example for the local slaves, and France will recognise it in 1825, after Haiti, strangled by an economic blockade, had to accept to pay for the estimation France had made of their "losses” with Haiti’s independence: the estimation was made in a calculation of how much they had stopped profiting, and for the “price” of all the slaves that had been freed… civilised manners demand to pay for the loss of “property”. The debt they had to pay was originally 150 millions of francs, 44 times the national budget of Haiti at the time. They got into a debt that will last for 100 years with French bankers, and no matter the debt was further adjusted to 90 million, by the end of the XIX century, this debt absorved 80% of the national income. It is in this, that we find the main reason of Haiti’s apalling poverty. The debt was only cancelled by 1947.

At the shade of this debt and the restrictions of trade, a tiny elite strove to monopolise the power with an iron hand. Internal disputes of that elite pave the way for the 1915 military intervention of the USA on Haiti, that will cost the lives of 15.000 Haitians, and will leave a painful legacy of economic and political interventionism. The intervention, had, as a main goal, to reform the land laws of Haiti, allowing the appropiation of it by foreign investors, taking away (most of the times with the help of the marines) the land from the poor peasants, and giving it to the plantations of private US companies. For this purpose, they drafted a Constitution that was approved by less than 5% of the population (the marines dissolved the National Assembly –Parliament- in 1917, after they didn’t ratified it), that protected above the rights of the locals, the right of private and foreign investors in regard to the resources and wealth of the country –it allowed, for instance, the full repatriation of profits. They introduced forced labour in the platations, what sparked the Cacos rebellion. They formed the Haitian military forces, one of the most backwarded armies in the world, notorious for their brutality, whose sole victory has been against Haitian people themselves.

The army has been one of the pillars of political domination by the Haitian elites, and for their allies in Washington. They stayed in the country until 1934, but when they left, they made sure that their friends remained holding really thightly the strings of power.

One of the most notorious dictator that came later into scene, was Francoise Duvalier, “Papa Doc”, who became president for life, ruling the country from 1957 to 1971. His regime claimed the lives of 60.000 Haitians, but was considered by the USA as a “democratic” friend, for his opposition to Castro’s regime in Cuba. He used his knowledge of voodoo to terrorise the population, dressing as the spirit of death, Baron Samedi, and forming a paramilitary group, the Tontons Macoutes, wizards that made people “disappear” (both in the myth and in reality). Macoutes has become all over the world a byword of torture and brutality. His son, Jean Claude Duvalier, “Baby Doc”, come to power after his death, and his ascension to power, matches the change of emphasis of US investment in Haiti from plantations, to garnment factories. Plantations loss their attractive as centuries of intensive plantation were taking its toll over the face of Haiti, that is suffering from a serious erosion problem. The garnment factories flourished since the 70s until the mid-90s, increasing the levels of impoverishment of an already impoverished population; as the factories were set to satisfy an external demand, they didn’t improved salaries in order to “create” a local market to absorb production. Recently, however, as many factories are closing, unemployment is making prey of Haiti’s urban centres. In the political field, under Baby Doc, brutality kept going on, as usual….

Until the people decided, once again, that they had enough. That happened in 1986, when Duvalier, was forced into exile by an angry country, being well received in France, where he enjoys the protection of his international friends that profited during their reign of terror. A number of generals alternated into power, until a charismatic Salesian priest made its appearance into scene: his name was Jean Bertrand Aristide. But the people called him, with love, Titid –the little one in Kreyole, the language of Haiti. His sermons talked about love, organisation, about the right to rebel against injustice, about unity and about hope. The memebers of the Catholic communities that followed him, were persecuted and killed. But nothing could stop him to win the elections in December 1990, with 67% of the votes. But his anti-duvalierism was at odds with the allegiance of most of the tiny but powerful Haitian oligarchy towards the deposed dictator. He increased the minimum wage and start a number of reforms to privilege the social investment in education and health. But the USA distrusted him, and the local elites disliked him too much to let him finish his period, and a coup d’etat, sent him into exile on September 1991, just after being seven months in office. The new dictator Raoul Cedras, applies the traditional repression well known to Haitian people: until 1994, when an agreement between the USA, the Haitian elite and Aristide finished his rule, it had claimed the lives of 5,000 Haitians. The agreement contemplated amnesty to the regime for its violations of Human Rights, implementation of neoliberal policies and that Aristide will accept its original end of presidential period as not affected by all the years he spent in exile. That meant that by early 1995, he couldn’t be no longer president, and couldn’t be re-elected.

A close associate of Aristide, Rene Preval, wins the elections and becomes president from 1995 to 2000. And that year, Aristide wins again the elections. During that time, they made some reforms on the educational ground, that improved notably the literacy rates in that country, but faced very harsh times as the garment factories were leaving the country, and as the IMF was pressuring the small country to apply its structural adjustment policies, that meant, basically, privatizing and auctioning the National area of the economy, and liberalising the introductions of imports; in a couple of years, US subsidied rice wiped out from the local markets the Haitian rice, and now the country, that once was self-sufficient in rice, get it all from the USA. But they weren’t willing to go at the step the IMF was asking, what gained further animosity from the “international community” to the populist movement leaded by Aristide, Lavalas. And the traditional elites started again their campaign to oust Aristide from office and to gain the power for them alone. They started denouncing, under the umbrella group, the G-184, government corruption: there was indeed, but nothing compared to the “official piracy” of any other Haitian government. They denounced that legislative elections in June 2000 were rigged: the only thing that was criticised by international observers was the method of counting, that included only the four favorite candidates in 8 disputed seats, affecting the percentages, but not the number of votes. They criticised that the government promoted violence: there was indeed gang violence, from both sides, and some of that was taken by supporters of Aristide, but there was no proven State inforcement of violence through government institutions like under Cedras or Duvalier dictatorship. They denounced a number of political prisoners: that was never proved, and only some ex-army officers unprotected from the amnesty laws remained in jail for their violaitons of Human Rights. They denounced “massacres” during his government: from 2000 to 2003, some 30 people died for political reasons, a far cry from the 5,000 victims of Cedras, and half of them were supporters of the government. All that violence was linked to ex-army members and to gang fighting (one of the organisations that denounced most of the “violations of Human Rights” in Haiti, CARLI, today regret doing so, and said they had to exaggerate the facts under pressure from the Republican based US organisation National Endowment for Democracy).

The international press, as well, echoed those fake concerns on the Human Rights records of Aristide, being the French press, probably, the one that went further, Liberation coming to denounce the “carnival of death and torture” of Aristide. All that with the explicit purpose of helping the internal opposition of the elites. It is worth mentioning that the same press has remained silent about the current carnival of death and torture in Haiti… it seems that as long as death strikes the poor, no one really seems to care. The most shocking hard figure of how the fake “humanitarian concerns” were exploited with a political agenda, is the situation of asylum seekers: of more than 24,000 Haitians intercepted on boats trying to reach USA shores from 1980 to 1990, only 11 received asylum status as victims of political persecution, compared to 75,000 out of 75,000 Cubans (the laste ones, obviously, are used as a propaganda factor). But in the 7 months on Aristide in office in 1991, as the numbers of people fleeing were dramatically reduced, the USA granted asylum to 20 people, double as they gave in 10 years of Duvalier and post-Duvalier terror.

Aristide government was far from being perfect, but couldn’t be compared to any other regime that had been tolerated by the international community in that country. As well he is still the most popular political figure in that country. Haiti was strangled by an oppresive economic situation, and claiming electoral scandals, the USA managed to block all sort of economic support to Haiti since 2002. France hardens its hand over Haiti as well, after Aristide was bold enough to claim that France should pay back the money Haiti paid them as a price for their independence (they calculate it in 22 billions euros). Pressured internally by the G-184, he had to face armed attacks from the dominican border by the ex-army, leaded by the thug Guy Phillipe, who launched a large scale offensive in February 2004, that finishes with the toppling, once again, of Aristide, just after the 200th anniversary of their independence. He is now a refugee in South Africa, and the people in that country are back to the old routine of brutalisation: today, there are around 1.000 political prisoners, 10.000 people are estimated to have died by political violence and repression. The UN nominated in June 2004 a peace keeping mission (MINUSTAH), supposed to reinforce democratic institutions in Haiti. That force is, though, composed of countries with dirty records when it comes to Human Rights: Angola, Pakistan, Nepal, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Not much understanding of human rights and democracy can be expected from that bunch. Sadly, the reports of Human Rights observers all prove that the UN mission in Haiti is, at best, indifferent to Human Rights violations, and, at worse, accomplice of it –this is good to bear in mind for those who advocate a more active role of UN peacekeeping forces globally in opposition to US militarism.

This MINUSTAH is lead by Brazil and it seems that the sacrifice of Haitian people is the price president Lula is paying for a permanent seat in the Security Council of United Nations. This leading role in the arbitrary and bloody occupation of Haiti is directed to show this country as a regional leader and as a reliable force for the international community. The Chilean presence in the occupation has been as bad as the Brazilian one; the subservience of the ruling class of this country to the USA anyway, leaves very little margin for surprises, but worringly this is the first time that Chilean forces have been openly used as a mercenary army for the USA in another Latin American country. We have to oppose with all of our strength that this is repeated again.

Many Human Rights reports are denouncing the brutality of the Haitian police, and how they are assisted by MINUSTAH in their represive raids to the popular shanty towns. There are elections planned for October and November, and with those elections, they are trying to legitimate the coup in the face of the world, and to exclude Lavalas from power. Haitian oligarchy is not willing to allow the minimum share of power with the riff raff.

And the world seems to keep turning indifferent to the big sorrow of Haitian people. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: the resistance to the occupation grows stronger each passing day. The Haitian working class are taking to the streets in every slum across the island to demand the end of this nightmare and to declare their will to start building a new Haiti. They have a long tradition of direct action, what they call the practices of Kraze Brise, Dechoukaj and Raché Manyok all terms that indicate the need to pull out the problems from the roots, and to clear the field before implementing new practices and solutions. Those practices should become the germs of a new society and should be taken to a strategical perspective, beyond the limits imposed by the participation in the formal burgeois institutions, that has historically been the trap were revolutionaries get tangled up.

We all now that the fate of Haiti is up to the Haitians themselves. But they need our help, and we need as many people as possible to demonstrate against the occupation to let them know that they are not alone and that no struggle in the world occurs without solidarity. As another Haitian proverb says “Men Ampil, Chay Pa Lou” (Many hand make the burden not so heavy). They need friendly hands, hands that will help them to complete the heroic struggle they started 200 years ago for an independent life.
José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton
Josè Antonio Gutièrrez Danton