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It's Neither Hope nor Progress when
the International Community is Running Haiti
(See Ban Ki-moon's "Hope At Last For Haiti")
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LA Times on a Haitian Army - An example of how LA Times spins the truth, manipulates information, promotes the views of the Haitian elites and sell's it to their unwary readers as "Haiti's view"
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Media Lies and Real Haiti News
***************

Examples of Neocolonial Journalism
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Ezili Dantò's Note: Bwa Kayiman 2007 and the case of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine Pierre by Ezili Dantò, For Haitian Perspective, and The FreeHaitiMovement, August 23, 2007
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The Issue With US-DEA War on Drugs in Haiti-Partisan Bias/enforcement
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UN Arrested 40 Ahead of Harper's Visit,
The Dominion, August 3, 2007

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The Real New From Haiti is: Haitian Resistance Continues, UN tries to Keep Lid On,
by hcvanalysis, August 3, 2007
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Arbitrary and Capricious
rules of "justice" and defamatory, simplistic and unfair mainstream
media reporting apply to the poor in Site Soley, Haiti - Site Soley Update
April 19, 2007

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The Real Reason For the Raid
Monterey Herald, July 27, 2007
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Video of Michelle Montas, Spokesperson of UN Secetary General, Ban Ki-moon, during Bann Ki-moon's August 2007 visit to Haiti


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Randall Robinson on " An Unbroken Agony: Haiti: From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President,
Democracy Now!, July 23rd, 2007

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Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!


 



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RandallRobinson.com
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"We Are Not Kidnappers"

Site Soley youth activist say: "We are Not The Ones who are the Kidnappers. We did not kidnap the UN soldier as reported. UN wants no peace in Haiti. They want us at war in order for them to stay in Haiti (English translation & Kreyol audio), Ezili Danto Witness Project, interview direct from Haiti, translated by Frantz Jerome, Ezili Danto Witness Project, May 22, 2006

Original Kreyol Audio of Interview

(See Update on Site Soley and Police
relationship
,
Haitian police make goodwill visit to slum, Oct 3, 2006)

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Former Haitian Leaders begin to stir
LA Times , Sept. 2, 2007
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To subscribe, write to erzilidanto@yahoo.com
campaigns_button
different_button
zilibuttonCarnegie Hall
Video Clip
No other national
group in the world
sends more money
than Haitians living
in the Diaspora
Red Sea- audio

The Red Sea


Ezili Dantò's master Haitian dance class (Video clip)

zilibuttonEzili's Dantò's
Haitian & West African Dance Troop
Clip one - Clip two


So Much Like Here- Jazzoetry CD audio clip

Ezili Danto's

Witnessing
to Self

zilibutton
Update on
Site Soley

RBM Video Reel

Haitian
immigrants
Angry with
Boat sinking
A group of Haitian migrants arrive in a bus after being repatriated from the nearby Turks and Caicos Islands, in Cap-Haitien, northern Haiti, Thursday, May 10, 2007. They were part of the survivors of a sailing vessel crowded with Haitian migrants that overturned Friday, May 4 in moonlit waters a half-mile from shore in shark-infested waters. Haitian migrants claim a Turks and Caicos naval vessel rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Dessalines' Law
and Ideals

Breaking Sea Chains


Little Girl
in the Yellow
Sunday Dress

Anba Dlo, Nan Ginen
Ezili Danto's Art-With-The-Ancestors Workshops - See, Red, Black & Moonlight series or Haitian-West African

Clip one -Clip two
ance performance
zilibutton In a series of articles written for the October 17, 2006 bicentennial commemoration of the life and works of Dessalines, I wrote for HLLN that: "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 Mullato 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, 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, all, by Marguerite 'Ezili Dantò' Laurent
     
No other national group in the world sends more money than Haitians living in the Diaspora
 
 
 
 
 







 


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The real news here is ......July 28, 2007 marks the 92nd anniversary of the first US invasion of Haiti by US Marines in 1915. The Marines occupied Haiti until 1934. One of the first things the Marines did was steal all the gold out of the Haitian treasury, packed it on a boat and sent it to New York for deposit in the City Bank.

In 1926, a Haitian described the pattern of invasions and occupations:

“I know they throw the history of Haiti in our face – its long tissue of revolutions and massacres. Yet the American war with the Cacos killed more people than 10 or 20 revolutions put together; it devastated whole regions and ruined the cattle of Haiti, as veterinary experts can testify if they are honest. Revolutions were fomented by foreigners – English, French, American, Dutch traders – who risked nothing, and always profited. Loans which dealt rather in human lives than in merchandise were made at rates of 1,000 per cent and those who thus enriched themselves overthrew any government that was not subservient to them.”

–excerpt from a letter written by Dr. Normil Sylvain, a Haitian, in 1926 to Emily Balch who led a delegation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to Haiti to observe the effects of the US occupation.
(Source:
Haiti-Cuba-Venezuela Analysis | August 3, 2007 |The Real News From Haiti: Haitian Resistance Continues, UN tries to Keep Lid On, August 5, 2007 by hcvanalysis
)
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See:
Media Lies and Real Haiti News
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Ezili Dantò's note:
It's Neither Hope Nor Progress When The International Community is Running Haiti
: Larouze fè banda toutan solèy pa leve, by Ezili Dantò, Haitian Perspectives, August 11, 2007


Recent mainstream articles have painted a rosy picture of "progress at last in Haiti." But it's neither hope nor progress for free Haitians when the international community is running Haiti.

The standard colonial narrative about Haiti, about Africa, about the Black woman's child, in general, is centered on the notion that black-on-black crime is our worst problem as a people and that we are solely responsible for the poverty, for the blight, for the crime and underdevelopment in Haiti, in Africa, in our various neighborhoods abroad. Even in the time of chattle enslavement this was the narrative because there was always some "free black," some Affranchi, some mulatto success, some "exception to the rule" or, in modern times, some Oprah or Bill Cosby whose example, could be upheld to shame us into accepting we could have been wealthy too if we’d tried. The mainstream media's usual violent-Haiti narrative, the in-fighting-Haitians narrative, and the corrupt-Haiti narrative go mostly unchallenged. And, the "schooled" and mentally colonize Haitians, at home and abroad, especially those who work for the Internationals and the NGOs, vested in their system, buy, wholeclothe, this narrative that is mostly untrue, brings impasse, divides and conquers and serves the "Internationals'" superiority complex and domination agenda. That's why the publicity video, recently released by the UN, showing Haiti's wonderful native daughter and activist, Michelle Montas, touring Haiti with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon as his spokesperson is so ironic and bittersweet. Michelle Montas is urging Haitians to basically ignore Category One, the powerful enemy from without, the imperialist and look at the black enemy within. Thus, according to Michelle Montas, Haiti will change when Haitians change, so her message to Haiti now that she speaks for Haiti's occupiers is: Chanjman, Sa Kòmanse andedan - "Change, It Starts From Within." (http://www.minustah.org/video/jpo/jpo3/jpo3_1.html )

Ahh, the plots and twists and uses of progressive credentials for the Empires' purposes requires that one be "more schooled in the patterns and privileges of domination" than is reasonably possible or even imaginable for most of us. (See, The Red Sea) For, how, pray tell, can sustainable organizational change "start from within" in Haiti when the non-progressive forces in Haiti are forever being uphelp by such powerful outsiders, as the UN and the greatest superpowers on earth?

For isn't it undeniable that whenever Haitians come together as a people and attempt to set up a popularly elected, democratic government and governance, based on laws, order, Haitian culture, Haitian interests, ways of life and priorities and on an equitable division of the countries assets, isn't it undeniable that it is the former slave holding US-Euro countries and their tiny Haitian agents and mercenaries who, invariably, step in to destabilize Haiti so that THEY may bring their own sort and brand of self-serving "democracy", anti-Haitian "justice" and "law and order?"

Amongst those recent mainstream articles, comes one from UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, that we herein post and review.

As you read Ban Ki Moon's commentary below, recall that on December 31, 2003 I was there, in Haiti for the bicentennial, having a late meeting with Jafrikayiti who had Kevin Pina with him, when in the lobby of the Montana Hotel, Luigi Einaudi, the then Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of American States said to us that, "the problem with Haiti is that the international community is so screwed up, they are letting Haitians run Haiti." Then came the February 29, 2004 ouster of President Aristide by the US, France, Canada with the complicity of the OAS, UN and the Catholic Church. Today, said international community is running Haiti, after the summary disenfranchisement of almost 9-million Haitians, the slaughter of Haiti's sovereignty, fledging democracy and tens of thousands of Haitian dissenters who have all been conveniently lumped together as "gangsters" in need of being eradicated by the "peacemakers."

As you read Bann Ki-moon's article about Site Solèy where he writes, "Gangs ruled, terrorizing ordinary people, extorting money and destroying lives" and defends the UN military raids in Site Solèy, blithely ignoring the U.N.'s military abuses and murders of Haitian citizens in Site Solèy since 2004, even completely wiping out these years of UN abuses and military assaults in Site Soley by inferring that the U.N. only went into Site Solèy in December 2006 when requested by President Preval. Remember that, yes, in Site Soley, indeed the grinding poverty breeds violence and "Gangs ruled, terrorizing ordinary people, extorting money and destroying lives."

But also know that not all those who took up arms to fend off the UN-protected death squads, masking themselves as "police" who terrorize the ordinary people from 2004 to 2006, were criminals. Many where ordinary Haitians compelled to self-defense. Also recall that many of the gang leaders where the only ones with the arms, resources and networks to protect the ordinary citizens when the Bush coup d'etat in Haiti removed legitimate State authority, took away all semblance of Haitian law and order and left a situation of anarchy and illegitimacy in Haiti. Many of the gangs stood up to assist those peacefully demonstrating and protesting the US/UN supported ouster of their democratically elected government. For, a truce and cease-fire was reached between the Boston section of Site Soley and the entire other 33 sectors of Site Soley after the death of Labanyè. But these fighters were not equally provided with DDR and a free past to roam Haiti, as the military officers (Guy Philippe) and paramilitaries (Louis Jodel Chamblain, Lame Timanchet) who helped conduct the coup detat for the West. It was after Labanye's death in Site Solèy that the UN replaced the Haitian police and death squads in conducting military raids into Site Solèy. Why? Because when pro-democratic forces killed Labanye, the Western powers no longer had their own gangster in Site Solèy to slaughter the people of Site Solèy for them.
( http://www.margueritelaurent.com /campaigns
/campaignone/testimonies/ wyclef4.htm
l )

It has been thoroughly documented by many human rights groups, that from 2004 to 2006, many Haitian demonstrators were slaughtered as U.N. and other Western "peacemaking" forces simply looked on and that countless unarmed Haitians were shot by UN soldiers simply because they lived in Site Solèy, Bel Air, Martissant, Pele, et al... areas that are known for objecting to the 2004-Bush regime change in Haiti.

In a July 6, 2005 deadly pre-dawn UN massacre, over 50 innocent Site Soley civilians were killed, many while in their own beds asleep, including a mother in bed with two of her children - 22 year-old Sonia Romelus was murdered by the same UN bullet that passed through the body of her 1 year-old infant son Nelson she was holding. Next to them was her four year-old son Stanley Romelus who was killed by a single shot to the head.

From 2004 to 2006, the U.N. forces were murdering Haitians and conducting military raids in Haiti without the sanction of a duly elected Haitian President. But when you read Ban Ki-moon's article on "hope at last for Haiti" what you are made to understand is that the UN military raids in Site Solèy did not began until after December 2006 when requested by President Preval and Haiti has "hope at last" because the international community now has control of Haiti. You are not told that kidnappings, crimes, misery, the cost of living and insecurity was much LESS in Haiti before the 2004 coup d'etat brought absolute anarchy and these 9,000 foreign soldiers and the international community took over, or about the Haitian lives that have been lost, terrorized or traumatized in the process, the misery that has been inflicted and heightened, the freedoms taken, the political prisoners still indefinitely detained. Obviously, as usual, with Haiti, it is the Establishment's tales, perspectives and re-writings of events that will make the news and their history books. But some of us are eyewitnesses and must continue to witness to ourselves, like the sun.

The attempt at total pacification and conquest of Haiti and free Haitians, has a long history. Freedom is not free. But even under occupation, even in jail for political reasons, or in the Diaspora facing the humiliation of Latortue's appointees still being in office everywhere or in immigration detention pens, nou se Zeb Ginen. Zanset yo e ti moun yo vini. Guns, bars, poverty, disease, grief, anguish, disinformation nor any other darkness can shut down the brilliant portals opened on August 14, 1791 at Bwa Kayiman.

Today, criminals who plunder and enslave, then tag that behavior as "civilized" and themselves as white knights in shinning armor still have authority. But that authority is not truth, not decent, not just, nor helpful in establishing progress or hope for a Black independent nation or peoples.

Ezili Dantò
President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
August 11, 2007

See also:
- Remembering July 6, 2005 and the UN massacre of innocent
civilians from Site Solèy; Demanding justice for Site Solèy

http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/justice_sitesoley.html

- "After Labanyè's Death" in Wyclef Visits Site Soley, March 2, 2006
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/
campaigns/campaignone/testimonies/wyclef4.html


- AUMOHD Press Conference on May 3, 2006- Partial List of Victims from Site Soley and Pele

- US Democracy Promotion and Haiti by Anthony Fenton and Amy Goodman; Democracy Now!; January 23, 2006, ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9578&sectionID=1

- The Real New From Haiti is: Haitian Resistance Continues, UN tries to Keep Lid On, by hcvanalysis, August 3, 2007; and UN Arrested 40 Ahead of Harper's Visit

- LA Times on a Haitian Army - An example of how LA Times spins the truth, manipulates information, promotes the views of the Haitian elites and sell's it to their unwary readers as "Haiti's view"

-
Video of Michelle Montas, Spokesperson of UN Secetary General, Ban Ki-moon, during Bann Ki-moon's August 2007 visit to Haiti

- Media Lies and Real Haiti News

Ezili Dantò's Note: Bwa Kayiman 2007 and the case of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine Pierre by Ezili Dantò, For Haitian Perspective, and The FreeHaitiMovement, August 23, 2007
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Hope at last for Haiti
by Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General
Aug 9, 2007 | www.washingtontimes.com

Ban Ki-moon - There may be worse slums in Haiti, but none so infamous for its violence and grinding poverty as Cite Soleil in the heart of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. Drinking water is scarce, public sanitation nonexistent. Most of its 300,000 residents have no electricity; fewer have jobs. The neighborhood's mayor was blunt when I met him during my visit to Haiti last week. "Here," he said, "we need everything."

And yet I also saw hope in Cite Soleil. At the mayor's offices, a new local government is putting down roots in a community it long ago abandoned. Across the street, I toured a newly refurbished school. Youngsters greeted me, excited by the prospect of resuming their education. Nearby, young men played soccer.

People struggle merely to survive in Cite Soleil. The irony of its name, Sun City, is cruel. Yet I was glad to see this lively bustle, these signs of normal life. Six months ago, there would have been none of this. Gangs ruled, terrorizing ordinary people, extorting money and destroying lives. Kidnappings were routine — nearly 100 a month. Even poor families feared to leave home, especially with children.

Last December, newly elected President Rene Preval asked the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti to do something. It did, with a decisiveness and efficiency that serves as a model of robust international peacekeeping. In an operation lasting six weeks, amid fierce firefights, U.N. forces took control of the slum. Roughly 800 gang members were arrested; their leaders have been jailed. The practical results are plain to see. In June, only six kidnappings were reported. Security has returned not only to the streets of Cite Soleil, but to the rest of the capital and other Haitian cities as well.

I saw other signs of progress. For the first time in a long while, Haiti has a stable, democratically elected government, widely accepted across all social strata and by all political parties. The economy is no longer in free-fall. Inflation has dropped to 8 percent, from 40 percent three years ago. The International Monetary Fund projects growth of 31⁄2 percent this year — as opposed to negative growth for much of the previous decade. Thanks to new laws, tax revenues rose by a third last year. Just as Mr. Preval took on Haiti's gangs, so has he declared war on corruption, endemic to every sphere of life. This shows real political courage.

I am convinced Haiti is at a turning point. Long the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, seemingly forever mired in political turmoil, it at long last has a golden chance to begin to rebuild itself. With the help of the international community — and the United Nations in particular — it can. Haiti has seen five multinational interventions over the last decade. In each case, we left too soon, before real change could take hold. Or we let our efforts be too circumscribed — restricted, say, to trying to maintain security or supervise an election.

This time will be different. That is why, in October, I will ask the Security Council to renew the U.N.'s mandate in Haiti for a term beyond the customary six months. In clear language, I assured the Haitian government — and the people — that we intend to stay until our mission is accomplished, consistent with their wishes, however long it takes.

Haiti is nearing the end of the first phase of its nascent recovery — that of ensuring peace and security. The second phase must focus on social and economic development. More than ever, Haiti needs our energetic help in building functioning civil institutions —beginning with creation of an effective and honest national police force, backed by a reformed justice system.

I was therefore immensely encouraged that, in response to my visit, the Haitian Senate last week approved ambitious new legislation aimed at reconstituting an effective and independent judiciary and creating a legal climate more conducive to economic development and foreign investment. Without such changes, the trends of global commerce, finance and tourism will continue to pass Haiti by. I called on all sectors of Haitian society — the government, business and ordinary people — to commit themselves to work together for social change. Without their mutual cooperation, Haiti cannot advance.

Above all, the ordinary people of Haiti must see tangible evidence they can look forward to a better future — starting now, not tomorrow. We must therefore assist the government in delivering what many call a "peace dividend." It's nothing grand, as our Brazilian force commander Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz explained to me. Yes, the people of Cite Soleil, like all Haitians, welcome the new peace on their streets. But more, he said, they need "the basics." Water. Food. Jobs.

Of course, this is ultimately Haiti's responsibility. But it is ours to help achieve it.

Ban Ki-moon is secretary-general of the United Nations.
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The Real News From Haiti: Haitian Resistance Continues, UN tries to Keep Lid On, August 5, 2007 by hcvanalysis

"...Because of the just announced change in the mission chief for MINUSTAH and recent visits by Harper and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the press is obessessing over whether the mission is succeeding. Further, the press is speculating about whether current MINUSTAH chief, Edmond Mulet’s departure and Hedi Annabi ’s arrival signal the end of one phase and the beginning of another. As the press tells it, Mulet is the guy who brought “security” to Haiti and Annabi is the guy who is going to bring the kinder, gentler phase — development/humanitarian assistance.

The real news here is that no matter how you wrap it, MINUSTAH is occupying Haiti and Haitians are resisting. Whether by mistake or intention, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s visit coincided with the 92nd anniversary of the first US invasion of Haiti by US Marines in 1915. The Marines occupied Haiti until 1934. One of the first things the Marines did was steal all the gold out of the Haitian treasury, packed it on a boat and sent it to New York for deposit in the City Bank.

In 1926, a Haitian described the pattern of invasions and occupations:

“I know they throw the history of Haiti in our face – its long tissue of revolutions and massacres. Yet the American war with the Cacos killed more people than 10 or 20 revolutions put together; it devastated whole regions and ruined the cattle of Haiti, as veterinary experts can testify if they are honest. Revolutions were fomented by foreigners – English, French, American, Dutch traders – who risked nothing, and always profited. Loans which dealt rather in human lives than in merchandise were made at rates of 1,000 per cent and those who thus enriched themselves overthrew any government that was not subservient to them.”

–excerpt from a letter written by Dr. Normil Sylvain, a Haitian, in 1926 to Emily Balch who led a delegation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to Haiti to observe the effects of the US occupation.

So whether it is 1926 or now, occupation always yields the same things: relentless provocations of the population, murder on a massive scale, oppression, persecution, incarceration, disenfranchisement, joblessness, homelessness, starvation and, fortunately, resistance. The occupier professes peace, provokes the occupied until they resist, labels the resistance a criminal kidnapping , gang mongering, murdering “threat to peace” and, then, the occupier proceeds unchallenged as he commences the slaughter.

In spite of the UN’s cheerful press releases, re-emphasizing its commitment to peace and democracy in Haiti, this occupation will not go on forever. When and how will it stop? The UN would do well to check out the Haitian history books for answers to these questions. There, they will read that they are occupying the land of the sons and daughters of Dessalines. If the UN is unable to grasp the significance of this, they should seek clarification from
the French.

Shirley Pate
Haiti-Cuba-Venezuela Analysis
August 3, 2007
| Source: http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/
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UN Arrested 40 Ahead of Harper's Haiti Visit
Many demonstrators remain in jail
by Stuart Neatby, August 3, 2007
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Forty Haitian demonstrators were arrested by UN soldiers hours before the arrival of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Haitians slum neighbourhood of Cite Soleil on July 20. Haiti was the last stop for the Prime Minister's Latin American tour, which also included stops in Colombia, Chile, and Barbados. The protest had been organized by residents of Cite Soleil in response to the visit of the Canadian Prime Minister, according to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a protest organizer and director of the Haiti-based September 30th Foundation. Thirty remain imprisoned in the National Penitentiary in downtown Port-au-Prince.

"On the morning of the 20, our comrades went out into the streets with placards, banners, and megaphones" said Pierre-Antoine in a phone interview with the Dominion.

"At that moment, it was around six in the morning, MINUSTAH soldiers began to make arrests for no reason. Many of our friends were arrested that morning."

According to Pierre-Antoine, 10 demonstrators were released on the afternoon of July 20, after the departure of Harper from the country. The 30 who remain imprisoned have no access to legal counsel, due to their inability to hire a lawyer, and will wait for an indefinite amount of time before even seeing a judge. Although Haiti's constitution requires prisoners to see a judge within 48 hours of their arrest, prisoners often remain in jail for months without seeing a judge.

When contacted by the Dominion, UN spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de Lacombe would not confirm that UN soldiers had made arrests in Cite Soleil on July 20.

According to numerous sources, the UN mission for stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has committed numerous documented human rights abuses within the seaside neighbourhood. According to reports by Democracy Now! and the Haiti Information Project, UN forces conducted a raid in Cite Soleil on December 22, ostensibly aimed at rooting out "armed gangs," which resulted in the deaths of at least 30 civilians, including several children. As survivors of this raid lay bleeding in the streets, UN soldiers prevented Red Cross ambulances from reaching the dead and wounded. Cite Soleil has been a centre of political support for the Fanmi Lavalas political party of deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The July 20 protest in Cite Soleil was organized to oppose Canada's involvement in the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat of elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as well as Canada's continued interference in Haitian politics.

After Aristide's removal, Haiti descended into a nightmare of political violence. Community activists were murdered, former Lavalas parliamentarians were jailed, and the Haitian National Police, which has received training by Canadian RCMP officers since 2004, waged a campaign of terror against some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Haiti's capital. Cite Soleil was the hardest hit of these poor neighbourhoods. The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal based in the UK, estimated that there were 8000 murders in Haiti's capital alone between 2004 and 2006, as well as 35,000 incidences of rape.

"Their plan was clear,"says Pierre-Antoine of the Canadian backed Latortue regime which ruled until 2006. "Their plan was to eliminate the party of President Aristide, the Fanmi Lavalas party, the majority party. But they did not succeed in their objective."

Although such political repression has diminished since the election of current President Rene Preval, the Canadian government continues to play an influential role within Haiti. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs has been a strong advocate for aggressive "anti-gang" attacks and raids by MINUSTAH against poor neighbourhoods like Cite Soleil. In a January 15 radio interview, Canadian Ambassador Claude Boucher applauded the deadly December 22 raid, calling upon the UN to "increase their operations as they did last December." A Parliamentary report penned by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay, also applauded the December 22 killings, stating that "more robust operations led by MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police from December 22, 2006, further improved the security situation."

In the months that followed December 2006, the UN staged a number of brutal raids in Cite Soleil. Seven year-old Stephanie Lubin and four year-old Alexandra Lubin, killed as they lay sleeping on the morning of February 2, were only two among many other civilians who were killed during these attacks. In its press statements, the UN has claimed that it has subsequently been successful in dislodging gang leaders from Cite Soleil.

"What MINUSTAH is doing is not a mission of stabilization, it is not engaging in peacekeeping," said Pierre-Antoine. "It is a mission that engages in operations of massacres, of assassinations, of destabilization more so than activities of reconstruction and peacekeeping."


During a visit to Haiti this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced plans to extend the UN's mission in Haiti by another year.
»
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Video of Michelle Montas, Spokesperson of UN Secetary General, Ban Ki-moon, during Bann Ki-moon's August 2007 visit to Haiti
 


Democracy Now! Interview with Randall Robinson on Haiti (Audio)

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Neocolonial Journalism

LA Times- 2 examples

LA Times' spin on a "Haitian" army, and on lumping (US-vilified and deposed) duly-elected President Aristide as a dictator in the same manner as the US-supported and financed Duvalier dictators and US-trained Haiti military strongmen (See, LA Times articles:)

1 . Former Haitian Leaders begin to stir,

LA Times, Sept. 2, 2007


2. Haiti Debates Homegrown Army, LA Times, July 27, 2007
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See also - The Two most common neocolonial storylines about Haiti, excerpted from the original article - Two common storylines on Haiti: Ezili Dantò's Note: Bwa Kayiman 2007 and the case of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine Pierre by Ezili Dantò, For Haitian Perspective, and The FreeHaitiMovement, August 23, 2007

Media Lies and Real Haiti News (Ezili Dantò /August 2007)
The Slavery the Media Won’t Expose (HLLN counter-narrative links)
Dessalines Three Ideals - What Ayiti Calls Forth?
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The Freedom of the Press Barons: The media and the 2004 Haiti Coup, (Guy Philippe says the media helped him with the coup d'etat, a lot.) Dominionpaper.ca , February 1, 2007
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Arbitrary and Capricious rules of "justice" and defamatory,

simplistic and unfair mainstream media reporting apply to the poor in Site Soley, Haiti - Site Soley Update April 19, 2007

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It's Neither Hope nor Progress when the International Community is Running Haiti
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-Media Lies and Real Haiti News (Ezili Dantò /August 2007) ,

- The Veil of Blood - Ignorance is no Defense
by Ezili Dantò, May 9, 2008

- Adam Hochschild's neocolonialism (Ezili Dantò/2004)

- What white mindsets feed on is not so eye-opening, just typically parasitic, fearful, self-serving, narcissistic and delusional (Ezili Dantò/2007)

-The Slavery the Media Won’t Expose (HLLN counter-narrative links)

- The three false Haiti stereotypes: That Haiti has no resources, is overcrowded & violent - (Haiti is only overcrowded in parts of Port au Prince)

-Pointing Guns at - -Violent Haiti is a myth (2011 update -UN makes in 2011 over $860,000 per year in Haiti)

- The manufactured fear, racist myths and false stereotypes about Haitian brutality and violence

- HLLN Links to US free trade fraud that promotes famine in Haiti

- US False Benevolence – 93% of all foreign aid to Haiti returns to US hands, less than 1cent of every dollar goes to Haiti gov.


- The real Haiti foreign aid - comes from the over 2billion per year in remittances sent by the Haiti Diaspora - No other national group anywhere in the world sends more money home than Haitians living abroad.

- Does the Western economic model and calculation of economic wealth fit Haiti, fit Dessalines' idea of wealth distribution? No. Fact is Haiti masses own more land than all other populations in the Caribbean, but their property and informal entrepreneurialship (labor) are not computed in WB and IMF indexes...their labor is valued only if they are wage-earners (in mostly US sweatshops). Yet, 70% to 80% percent of Haitians are peasant farmers. That is what US aims to destroy.

- Economic proposals that make sense for the reality of Haiti

- The Western vs Real narrative on Haiti (Ezili Dantò/2007)

- HLLN's Media Campaign (Ezili Dantò/2004)

- Creating New Paradigms for Haiti: Why it's critical to re-create and adapt Ancestors' Vodun Psychology (Ezili Dantò/2008)

- Haiti Epistemology

- Proposed solutions to create a new paradigm

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Former Haitian leaders begin to stir

A deposed dictator and an exiled president are finding wistful backers. And others now down can't be counted out.
By Carol J. Williams |Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | September 2, 2007

PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Out of sight, out of mind and now out of money, former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has been quietly sounding out the possibility of returning home after 21 years in exile in France.

Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, still visible and sufficiently flush to fuel his promotional machinery from South Africa, nurtures the hopes of his supporters that he will one day come back to lead this country.

Closer to home, three coup leaders and an ex-president live in the shadows, aging and ostracized but not to be counted out in the seemingly boundless potential for political disruptions in Haiti.

Even as Haitians enjoy a respite from violence for the first time in decades, political forces given up for dead are showing faint stirrings of life. Some analysts dismiss the phenomenon as irrelevant musings of yesterday's men, but others point out that history here tends to repeat itself.

Nostalgia for the Duvalier era has made itself apparent in recent months with the establishment of the Francois Duvalier Foundation preserving the memory of the exiled Duvalier's late father, a celebration of what would have been the elder tyrant's 100th birthday in April and a sellout memoir of the president-for-life titled "The Misunderstood."

"More and more people are talking about the Duvalier period with positive memories," said Daniel Supplice, a teacher and historian who was a childhood friend of and political aide to the younger Duvalier, who fled to France in 1986 as pro-democracy forces fanned international condemnation of his human rights abuses.

"When Jean-Claude left, the population expected changes for the better," Supplice said. "On the contrary, things have only gotten worse."

Rural Haitians were removed from much of the repression trained on dissidents in the cities, so they felt little benefit from Baby Doc's departure and "couldn't care less about so-called democracy," he said.

"I've heard that Jean-Claude wants to return, maybe not as president but as a citizen," said Rony Gilot, who was Baby Doc's information minister and wrote the recent biography of the father.

"The Misunderstood" sold out its initial 1,000 copies within days of its February release, and a larger second printing is due out soon. Gilot, who still talks to the 56-year-old Duvalier in Paris by phone every few months, attributes the unanticipated interest in the late dictator's story to a nostalgia for a lost sense of order and national pride, but not for the stifling of personal and political freedoms.

Gilot likens the newfound reflection on the Duvalier era to postwar Germans and Italians longing for the punctual transportation and crime-free streets they had under fascism.

Jean-Claude Duvalier inherited the presidency in 1971 after the death of his father, a country doctor who won a rigged election in 1957 and had himself proclaimed president-for-life seven years later. After Baby Doc fled to the French Riviera with untold millions from Haiti's coffers, Gen. Henri Namphy oversaw corrupt elections that brought the French-educated academic Leslie Manigat to the presidency in January 1988.

Four months later, Namphy ousted Manigat, only to be toppled himself before the year was out by Gen. Prosper Avril.

Avril embarked on a renewed campaign of repression, ordering the arrest and beating of political opponents and parading the bloodied men on national TV. As violence rose and a state of siege ensued, Avril was forced to resign and give way to the nation's first democratic elections since it became independent in 1804.

Aristide, then a priest renowned for rousing oratorical powers, won the presidency in a landslide but served only seven months in 1991 before Duvalier loyalists in the military and the disgruntled business elite conspired to back another coup, led by Gen. Raoul Cedras, who took over the helm as the coup-plotters' puppet.

After three years in exile, Aristide returned on the heels of a U.S.-led military invasion that chased Cedras into exile. But turmoil persisted, and Aristide armed slum gangs that attacked his opponents. The violence led to the return of exiled former military figures and betrayed gang leaders in a rebellion. Aristide was sent into a second exile, this time to Africa, in February 2004.

Cedras, 58, lives in obscurity on a Panamanian island, unlikely to return because of a prison sentence imposed in absentia for his alleged involvement in a massacre.

Namphy, 74, was last known to be taking refuge in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

The whereabouts of Avril, 69, are unknown since his escape from prison in the chaotic aftermath of Aristide's flight three years ago. Manigat, 77, came in a distant second in his bid for the presidency last year.

What, if any, political ambitions these men might nurture remain a mystery, but Aristide openly aspires to returning and reigniting his following.

"He is in good spirits because he knows he will come back and that we are fighting for that," said Maryse Narcisse, one of five directors of the Aristide Foundation, which bankrolls student stipends, aid for activists with his Lavalas Movement and political agitation for his repatriation.

Nearly 1,000 supporters marched on Aristide's 54th birthday in July to demand his return -- a shadow of the throngs that once backed the charismatic populist, but still a force for the fragile government of President Rene Preval to reckon with.

When pressed by Aristide supporters to invite him back, Preval has pointed out that there are no impediments to his predecessor and onetime mentor's return -- except the former president's own concern about pending charges of criminal drug trafficking and misuse of government funds while in office.

Apart from the Aristide activists and Duvalier's revitalized contingent, few Haitians pay much heed to the aging former leaders. Four teenage boys washing cars at a parking lot in this upscale suburb of Port-au-Prince said they knew nothing about the former dictator in France and shrugged when asked about Aristide's future.

But independent analysts said that any blast from Haiti's troubled past could endanger the country's fragile peace.

"I don't think there's any question that return of either of them would be disruptive at this point," Mark Schneider, Latin America analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said of Aristide and Duvalier. "We've only had one year of permanent elected government after the transition period, and it seems to me it would be quite unfortunate for them to arrive and create rumors that would inevitably disrupt the security situation."

carol.williams@latimes.com
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LA Times on a Haitian Army - An example of how LA Times spin the truth, manipulates information, promotes the views of the Haitian elites and Bush Neocons and sell it to their unwary readers as the "Haiti's view"
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Media Lies and Real Haiti News
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Vodun: The Light and Beauty of Haiti
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/ezilidanto_bio.html

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Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!


"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

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