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<br />Jeb Spraguehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13046222615497097751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-48600848509962039432018-12-19T11:28:00.000-08:002018-12-19T11:28:07.884-08:00U.S. must pay reparations to survivors of 1000's of victims of George HW Bush's 1989 invasion of Panama<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Grahame Russell - <i><a href="https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/will-the-us-pay-reparations-to-survivors-of-1000s-of-victims-of-1989-operation-bejust-cause-invasion-of-panama" target="_blank">Rights Action</a></i><br /><br />"To allow any of them to pass into the comfort of forgetting would be utterly obscene."<br />-Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjh_77VxKerO63xc1WqULZwdI5r12gi6xY_2ga_UucGH4NXf1hLgTIPLUptQWfRLyjYd1TzSJ09zQbUHJe7EqSSicxM9pt5ZNVsVb6TM1df2MrQIJGblacPuWCaLzTHe_tYvHxCw_GtHY/s1600/320px-Panama_clashes_1989.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="217" data-original-width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjh_77VxKerO63xc1WqULZwdI5r12gi6xY_2ga_UucGH4NXf1hLgTIPLUptQWfRLyjYd1TzSJ09zQbUHJe7EqSSicxM9pt5ZNVsVb6TM1df2MrQIJGblacPuWCaLzTHe_tYvHxCw_GtHY/s1600/320px-Panama_clashes_1989.JPEG" /></a></div>
<br /><br />Around midnight, December 19, 1989, the U.S. unleashed a massive “shock and awe” invasion of Panama, attacking from the air, the water and on land. 1000s of Panamanians civilians were killed within days; many more wounded. Entire neighborhoods were razed to the ground.<br /><br />On October 5, 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that: “the United States of America … provide full reparation for the human rights violations established in [this] report, including both the material and moral dimensions; Adopt measures that provide both financial compensation and satisfaction.”<br /><br />· Jose Isabel Salas & others v. United States – Report No. 121/18, Case 10.573: <a href="http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/2018/USPU10573-EN.pdf">http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/2018/USPU10573-EN.pdf</a><br /><br />(In late December, 1989, at a place called the Garden of Peace, the U.S. military dumped 123 Panamanian bodies of Operation Just Cause invasion victims into a common grave; they did not bother to identify the cadavers, or advise the family members. CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br />U.S. Owes Reparations to Panama over Bush’s Invasion<br /><br />For close to 30 years, the Center for Constitutional Rights has been representing Panamanian survivors of the December 19, 1989, U.S. invasion of Panama, in an on-going struggle for a measure of justice and reparations for 1000s of people killed, many more wounded, plus untold amounts of destruction.<a name='more'></a><br /><br />Democracy Now interviewed human rights attorney Jose Luis Morin (<a href="mailto:jmorin@jjay.cuny.edu">jmorin@jjay.cuny.edu</a>, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice) about the loss of life and destruction caused by the United States, and legal efforts to secure a measure of justice and reparations. <br /><br />· Listen/Read: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/4/inter_american_commission_on_human_rights">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/4/inter_american_commission_on_human_rights</a><br /><br />George H.W. Bush’s 1989 Invasion of Panama Set the Stage for U.S. Wars to Come<br /><br />Democracy Now also interviewed Professor Greg Grandin about this “shock and awe” invasion of Panama, a brutal trial run leading up the massive “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq, beginning soon after, initiating a U.S. led war that has yet to end.<br /><br />· Listen/Read: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/4/greg_grandin_george_hw_bushs_1989?fbclid=IwAR3aKVAw-RoelmrFbPgGGKdXGvImmFJzsQlRFBpWXq5SCcW2wXj4E0sxbsI">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/4/greg_grandin_george_hw_bushs_1989?fbclid=IwAR3aKVAw-RoelmrFbPgGGKdXGvImmFJzsQlRFBpWXq5SCcW2wXj4E0sxbsI</a><br /><br />“Operation just (be)cause”<br /><br />In 1989, I was living in Costa Rica working with CODEHUCA, the Central American Human Rights Commission. Work took me travelling regularly to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and – after December 20, 1989 – Panama.<br /><br />The U.S. “Operation Just Cause” invasion (‘Just Because’, as many Panamanians said) was just one of many Canadian and European-backed, or accepted U.S. interventions across Latin America, dating back to the 1800s. During and after this invasion, the U.S. and Canadian media lied to or seriously mislead the public about what happened, and why.<br /><br />The Oscar award winning documentary “Panama Deception” remains today a textbook film providing the proper story to this invasion and a careful dissection of the complicit, deceitful role of the media. (<a href="https://www.empowermentproject.org/pages/panama.html">https://www.empowermentproject.org/pages/panama.html</a>)<br /><br />My work trips to Panama<br /><br />In early January 1990, I took my first of three work trips to Panama – a bus ride south from San Jose, Costa Rica, where I was living – to gather testimonies and document the enormity of this short and brutal invasion. Here are excerpts from my book “The Never Ending” (1992), interspersed with photos from a comprehensive report I prepared for CODEHUCA.<br /><br />(CODEHUCA report, 1990)<br /><br />To state the obvious: No justice has been done for this illegal, murderous invasion; no reparations have yet been paid to the thousands of victims, killed and wounded.<br /><br />****** / ******* / *******<br /><br />“The Never Ending”<br /><br />(excerpts)<br /><br />December 20, 1989<br /><br />Christmas in Panama<br /><br />From my apartment, I overhear an English news service on cable TV - this is unusual at 9 a.m. In my neighbor's apartment, friends are crowded around the television, watching the U.S. Air Force bomb Panama. A Costa Rican woman from apartment 3 exclaims: "Excellent, this is what they should have done in Nicaragua a long time ago." A young man from Panama, apartment 9, says: "General Noriega had this coming to him for a long time." Someone else: "Now they're going to kick them all out of there." A traveler from the U.K. agrees: "Bloody right."<br /><br /><br />Something inside of me dies, standing there, with my friends. I work with Panamanians. I know Panamanians. I leave, and walk hurriedly to the CODEHUCA office. This invasion will create a lot of work for human rights commissions.<br /><br /><br />The press reports on "Operation Just Cause"<br /><br />Listening to indignant newscasters, you might have thought Panama was invading the U.S., but it is the U.S. Air Force bombing civilian neighborhoods. This collateral detail is not reported.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The invasion is called "Operation Just Cause," in the name of democracy and freedom, of capturing Noriega, an accused drug dealer who, by the way, was on the CIA payroll in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, who worked closely with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in 80s, ... but all this is not reported.<br /> <br /><br />American F-117 Stealth Bombers drop 2000-pound bombs - Christmas presents from weapons producers, the U.S. government and people. The Pentagon states (and the press duly reports) that the Air Force is using computer-guided "smart bombs" and there is minimal "collateral damage."<br /><br /> <br /><br />Receiving information directly from civilian human rights groups in Panama, at CODEHUCA we report that perhaps as many as 1000 people, mostly civilians, have been murdered already from the air.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Collateral damage means killing of civilians, and destruction of civilian homes and buildings. The problem is not the reporting but getting reported.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Panama City - January 20, 1990<br /><br />Law and order<br /><br />9 p.m., we leave our hotel to buy some food. Bedlam and violence reign in the streets of Panama City. Thousands of people crowd the city center. Screams pierce the air. We swing around this way -- a woman is robbed. We swing around that way -- a man with a pistol runs off. As two white North Americans on the destroyed streets of the city that the Army from the north had recently bombed, we are conspicuous and careful.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Men with pistols everywhere. People are running and shouting, dodging piles of glass and garbage, ducking in doorways of looted stores, jumping over metal security gates hanging from their hinges. Another scream, another robbery, another pack of looting people. A lone guard confronts the pack waving a gun in each hand. Frenzy. A man sprints in front of us with a pistol. We duck behind some overturned carts.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Suddenly, in the midst of this mad, violent carnival, a silence pervades, as thick as the hot night. We look up the street, where Panamanians are edging slowly to the sides. Three U.S. marines, in full combat gear, fingers ready on the triggers of M-16 machine guns (that are bigger than their torsos), are walking in triangle-formation down the center of the street. They exchange hand signals and head nods with one another, warily watching in all directions.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Law and order, in the newly free and democratic Panama.<br /><br /> <br /><br />El Chorrillos<br /><br />The next morning, we arrived at El Chorrillos that used to be a poor, crowded, and lively neighborhood close to the U.S.-designed headquarters of the Panama Army. Half the neighborhood was a flattened, burnt waste land of empty shell buildings, and strewn rubble. Fifteen city blocks -- houses, churches, stores and warehouses -- had been disappeared by the U.S. ground-air-naval attack. It looked like the devil's land development project; everywhere, U.S. soldiers were driving army bulldozers, cleaning up the remains of buildings, burnt-out buses and cars, etc.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"[They] were engaged in a military operation which had an amazingly self-explanatory name, a human enterprise which is seldom described in detail, whose name alone, when reported as news or history, gives many war enthusiasts a sort of post-coital satisfaction. It is, in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called "mopping-up"".<br /><br />[Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, p. 45]<br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />A “democratic, civilized” nation applauds<br /><br />The Canadian government was one of the few governments to openly support Operation Just Cause. As a new member of the Organization of American States, Canada's first act was to support this massive make-work project for arms dealers, the morgue, human rights workers, and the U.S. army mop-up patrol.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Collateral damage<br /><br />I walked through the hollow shell of a blackened and bombed residential apartment, 24 de diciembre, a casualty of Apache attack helicopters. Lots of collateral damage here, never reported on in the press. The smell of death and human decay lingered in the elevator shafts and garbage drops of the "24th of December" apartment buildings, where pajama-clad Panamanians had tried to hide from the flying 50 millimeter bullets that cut through three walls.<br /><br /> <br /><br />A 13-year-old boy was poking around the rubble, scrounging for anything of value. He had lived on the fifth floor. His family had been in bed when the Apache helicopters attacked. He could see them out his window, firing on his building. He stuck his hand in the holes in the walls of what used to be his apartment, talking of his homeless family, of unemployment, of friends he hadn't seen again, ... .<br /><br /> <br /><br />The bombing continues<br /><br />In the home of a Panamanian friend, I lay in bed thinking of the testimonies we received that day, never to be reported in the news. I couldn't sleep well any night that I was in Panama. Three weeks after the invasion, the U.S. army was still dropping bombs, reminding the Panamanians of the new law and order.<br /><br /> <br /><br />People disappear like smoke<br /><br />Survivors, wide‑eyed, told us of seeing U.S. soldiers walking through the remains of El Chorrillos with what looked like scuba tanks on their backs. These tanks were flame‑throwers used to cremate bodies on the spot. No effort were made to identify the cadavers and let the family members know. A lawyer might say this practice was a violation of international humanitarian law.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />A Panamanian child told us of the "el laser", some type of weapon shot from the Apache helicopters. It came through the night, a direct red laser beam -- "You heard it wiiin, wiiin, wiiin, and then you saw it hit its target -- puun, puun, puun, and the whole thing explodes," and more people disappear like smoke.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The children of war<br /><br />In the city of Colon we walked through the blackened remains of a children's day‑care center. Drawings, toys and games -- torn, trashed and melted -- in a jumbled debree. Walls blown in, windows blown out, glass shattered, ghosts and children's laughter scattered.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Why, what, why?<br /><br />We interviewed a woman (her children crowd around) in a school gym converted into a refugee center.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"Hi, we are a visiting human rights delegation ... Please tell us your story".<br /><br />"Well they came ...".<br /><br />"Who?".<br /><br />"The U.S. troops, ... at 4 am, on the 20th, ... They ordered us out of the house, and fire bombed it to the ground."<br /><br />"Why?"<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"Why?"<br /><br />"I don't know why. So here we are. We have nothing from our home. We lost everything. ... They give us rations here every two weeks. The rations last two or three days. We are a family of eight. There is no work."<br /><br /> <br /><br />And all of this was said with smiles -- "Thank-you for listening to our story." But in their eyes, confusion and pain. We walk from the gym/refugee center, through the hot and ransacked streets of Colon, to our air‑conditioned van. Ten minutes to cool down before the next interview.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The Colon yacht club<br /><br />We lunch at the Colon Yacht Club, the only restaurant open. U.S. soldiers sit nearby with Panamanian wives or friends, or with sergeants and colonels. At other tables, some Caribbean travellers sit, their cabin cruisers docked outside. At the yacht club english is spoken. I feel white and english speaking. President Bush is now on cable TV: "There will be 1 billion dollars for the recovery of Panama."<br /><br /> <br /><br />Make-work project<br /><br />It struck me like a flash, in the cool of the dark bar, in the Colon Yacht Club, watching President Bush on TV -- this is the perfect make‑work project: blow them up, fill the morgue, dig deep the mass graves, and the result? A perfect investment opportunity for new money, and of course work for human rights commissions.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"Doin' the Caribbean"<br /><br />Leaving, I hear one yacht traveller say to another: "Hey buddy, are ya doing the Caribbean?"<br /><br /> <br /><br />What is a mass grave?<br /><br />A mass grave is a deep hole dug in the ground where the victors place the loser's unidentified bodies. The victors then fill in the hole and deny its existence. There are a number of recently filled mass graves in Panama, but no news reports to date.<br /><br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />Dead people lie<br /><br />When the lie -- 'There are no mass graves' -- is accepted by all, then the truth is that the families of the bodies in the holes become the liars. According to what is reported in the press -- headquarters New York and Washington -- their missing ones simply don't and didn't exist. The mass graves and the dead are disappeared. And besides, it was a just cause ...<br /><br /> <br /><br />Operation Just Because<br /><br />Samantha, a member of the delegation, concludes that the U.S. invaded, killed, dug mass graves, etc, "just because" Central America is in the back-yard of the U.S.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"They are killing my heart"<br /><br />Transcribing interviews from today, after a 2nd 'Cuba Libre', my thoughts tale off and loses their focus because the little Panamanian boy had said to us "they are killing my heart."<br /><br /> <br /><br />The dog who nipped my hand<br /><br />In a less bombed out neighborhood, Mercedes, a grandmother, tells of her daughter. Mercedes' now motherless grandson sits on her knee. While civilian deaths and mass graves don't exist, according to the Pentagon and the press, Mercedes and her husband continue to look for the body of their daughter which most likely they will never find. She probably lies in a black body bag at the bottom of a pit.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we leave Mercedes' house, her dog nipped my hand. Her husband quickly says: "I'm sorry my dog bit your hand." I say: "I'm sorry about the war." Shaking his head slowly, staring at the ground, he responds: "The massacre, the massacre."<br /><br /> <br /><br />"This book is so short and jumbled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. ... Absolutely everyone in the city was supposed to be dead, regardless of what they were and that anybody that moved in it represented a flaw in the design."<br /><br />[Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five]<br /><br /> <br /><br />In support of the invasion<br /><br />After five days of interviewing victims of the invasion, I find myself in the home of Patricia, the wealthy Panamanian girlfriend of a friend of mine. We sip coffee, munch toast, look at a fruit plate, and talk of the invasion and the civilians killed. We don't agree. We have the luxury to disagree. Patricia calls in her maid -- an indigenous Cuna woman -- and asks her to tell me what had happened to her cousin. The maid stands away from the table and looks at the ground: "One night, he had been drinking, which he did a lot, and then he went out to drink some more and some U.S. soldiers shot him dead in the street. It was after curfew."<br /><br /> <br /><br />Silence.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Patricia then asks "How did you and your family feel?" The maid, eyes on the ground, says: "He deserved it, and his family thinks that he deserved it as well." The maid is dismissed. Patricia has made her point to me -‑ that it was a Just Cause invasion. I say nothing, but I don't believe the maid. And even if the maid were sincere, then how hateful it is, the propaganda, used and manipulated, such that a family and cousins will blame their brother and son because he went out in the streets of his country, drunk or not, and got shot by invading and occupying forces.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"We killed all those people. Shouldn't we do or say something, anything?"<br /><br />[Chaim Potok, The Book of Lights]<br /><br /> <br /><br />January 31, 1990<br /><br />Crimes, great and small<br /><br />We are in a cemetery to photograph recent graves, whose headstones read: "In Memory, December 20, 1989." The cemetery borders a disappeared neighborhood of El Chorrillos. In broad daylight, at the entrance, three 13 or 14-year old boys swiftly and silently approach our group with sticks and a small knife. I thought it was a joke and didn't have time to get scared before they robbed us and ran off with Sam's camera.<br /><br /> <br /><br />It is illegal for these boys to rob, it is immoral, ... but is it not illegal to blockade a small dependent country for over two years, creating unemployment, shortage, poverty and crime, and then invade and destroy, and deny that the dead ever existed?<br /><br /> <br /><br />Equality of treatment<br /><br />A conversation with a North American friend comes to mind. We had spoken in Costa Rica, just before I came to Panama; he was travelling through Central America and was mad because some guy on the street had given him a low black market exchange rate for his U.S. dollars: "That guy treated me that way just because I was a foreigner. I expect to be treated equally."<br /><br /> <br /><br />Why do we expect equal treatment, and what do we mean by it? We don't treat other nations and their people equally. The systems of wealth between and inside nations are not equal. Is it so outrageous that someone will try to rip you off by giving you a lower exchange rate for your U.S. dollar? -- the very dollar that is helping render the local currency useless.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Is it so outrageous that, going into a cemetery in Panama after an invasion, three young boys might rob your camera?<br /><br /> <br /><br />May the children play<br /><br />Heading north-west from Panama City towards Costa Rica, I sit at the back of an empty bus, window open, wind blowing away 10 days of testimonies from survivors of a massacre. Crossing a river, I am happy, I am elated to see some kids in the river below. They are happy, hooting and hollering, and they are not from Chorrillos.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"Be witness"<br /><br />Driving north, I am tired of the testimonies and invasion tales. In a university talk, I remember hearing a holocaust survivor say: "Be witness." "Operation Just Cause": Do not let them turn deaths into fiction, blown‑out houses and day‑care centers into fantasy, mutilated people into imagination. At a minimum, tell this tale. The memory must live, for the sake of the dead.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"To allow any of them to pass into the comfort of forgetting would be utterly obscene." [Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina]<br /><br /> <br /><br />The bus drives on, into the north-western mountains of Panama. Snatches of some songs from a walkman: "My heart feels like a blister for doing what I do." (Leonard Cohen) "I am very scared for this world, I am very scared for me." (REM)<br /><br /> <br /><br />Panama - April 1990<br /><br />"The Garden of Peace"<br /><br />In late December, 1989, at a place called the Garden of Peace, the U.S. military dumped 123 Panamanian bodies of Operation Just Cause invasion victims into a common grave; they did not bother to identify the cadavers, or advise the family members.<br /><br /> <br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />'By mistake,' the U.S. Army buried one of their own soldiers there as well. When they realized this, they dug up the pit, searched through the body bags, found the U.S. soldier, removed him and filled in the hole. The cadaver was flown home, his family advised, and the soldier was given a hero's burial.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Meanwhile, Panamanian cadavers rot in anonymity. They are 'other', to be "treated worse than dogs" a Panamanian woman told me.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"The Association of the Dead"<br /><br />Family members of the murdered victims formed a civic association; not an association of little league baseball players, nor of bird watchers. It is the Association of the Dead whose object is 'to dig up mass graves, try to identify cadavers, and give them decent burials.'<br /><br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />On April 28, 1990, there was only sadness and mourning at the Garden of Peace. The big pit was exhumed and all but eight of 123 cadavers were identified by family members and loved ones. The Garden of Peace is one of approximately 14 mass graves in Panama.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Panama - July 1990<br /><br />Life is the stuff that dreams are made of<br /><br />I am in Panama to attend the exhumation of a mass grave where Panamanians were dumped by the U.S. military after last year's Operation Just Cause invasion. Staying again the Hotel del Centro, that has seen better days, I lay awake, in the Panamanian heat, thinking, thinking, thinking, of tomorrow. Finally, exhausted, I slept, and drempt of disappeared people. As their bodies drifted by, or as I paraded by them, I noticed that all the cadavers were faceless.<br /><br /> <br /><br />This is an intentional function of the system of disappearances, like dumping the slain victims of unjust causes in unmarked pits.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"Hope Cemetery" - July 25, 1990<br /><br />It is 6 a.m. and already I wish the day were over. I accompany Panamanians from Panama City going to Colon to attend the digging up of a mass grave. Body bags will be unzipped, decaying remains examined, to see if their loved ones are there -- killed and rotting. Hide and seek.<br /><br /> <br /><br />In the Hope Cemetery, we are gathered around the John Deere back-ho that digs into the ground. Hundreds of Panamanians peer into the ever widening pit. Expectant loved ones and family members stand back, huddled together. A man jumps in the hole and signals the back-ho driver to lower the shovel. He grabs two black handles sticking out of the dirt, hooks them onto the teeth of the shovel, and signals the driver.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As everyone watches in silence, the shovel raises the body bags up into the air, two bags at a time.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Red shorts<br /><br />Twenty-one body bags are hauled from the pit and laid side by side. The smell of death and decay overwhelms; Red Cross workers scurry around handing out hospital masks. After completing their preliminary work, the forensic doctors call the loved ones and family members forward, one by one, to try and identify the decomposed green and grey mass in the body bags that may or may not be their loved one.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />It is next to impossible to identify anything -- perhaps a gold tooth, or a pair of glasses are identifiable amongst the green and grey. Despite the unlikelihood, the families line up one by one -- a ghastly, mournful procession.<br /><br /> <br /><br />A forensic doctor holds up a pair of shorts found on the cadaver of a six-year-old boy, and asks if anyone can identify them. A woman collapses in tears, staring at the shorts of her nephew. She later tells us that he and his mother had been shot by U.S. soldiers while they were driving in Colon.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Peace and hope<br /><br />Four months ago, in the Garden of Peace Cemetery, the first mass grave was exhumed. Today, in the Hope Cemetery, the second grave is exhumed. There is neither hope nor peace for the family members and loved ones.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Life is the stuff that dreams are made of - July 27, 1990<br /><br />In the heat of the Panama night, in the seen-better-days Hotel del Centro, I awoke smelling the cadavers from the bombed out apartment buildings and yesterday's mass grave. In the dark, I felt around for my clothes and shoes, I smelled them, to try and detect the source of that deathly odour. I couldn't smell it anywhere, anymore. I took me a while to figure out that I could smell in my dreams.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Normalcy<br /><br />A friend advises me: 'It would be a good thing to infuse some normalcy into your life." But, I'm not so sure anymore what normal is. For many in Central America, and elsewhere, a lot of horrible things are normal.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Video tapes<br /><br />At the National University in Panama City, I find myself watching a video of the multi-faceted attack on the now disappeared neighbourhood of Chorrillos. The U.S. Defence Department footage was filmed from a U.S. Air Force fighter plane bombing over-head during the attack, from a naval ship attacking from the harbour, from ground troops firing rockets and mortar shells.<br /><br /><br /><br />(CODEHUCA “This is the just cause” report, 1990)<br /><br /> <br /><br />A bomber, flying above Chorrillos, looks into the computer controlled view-finder TV screen. There!, the target finder honed in on a building far below. The radar locks in. A flick of a switch and the radar-programmed missile streaked down. Boom -- lots of smoke and the building crumbled. The bomber drinks from a soft-drink can. And where are the Panamanians?<br /><br /> <br /><br />With ground troops on a hill overlooking burning Chorrillos, a U.S. soldier stands at the edge of the picture, looking over their handi-work: "Burn baby burn." Another soldier: "Obviously there are some die-hards down there! Why don't they give themselves up .... Goddamn, they just don't give up, do they?"<br /><br /> <br /><br />No dead Panamanians appeared in the video. And many Panamanians were killed.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"What horrified me the most was the bitter and futile struggle of the doomed to breathe for just one second more."<br /><br />[Simone de Beauvoir, Forces of Circumstance]<br /><br /> <br /><br />"It happened, therefore it can happen again. This is the core of what we have to say."<br /><br />[Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved]<br /><br /> <br /><br />Human's colors<br /><br />A much desired war is coming, in the sands of the Middle East, a war over pools of oil. Much red blood will be splattered over the black oil. The war will be fought in the name of international law, citing provisions and principles that were never respected in Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala, ... .<br /><br /> <br /><br />******* / ******* / *******<br /><br /> <br /><br />The Panamanian struggle for truth and a measure of justice and reparations will continue, for many more years. The U.S. government is not on the cusp of paying reparations, let alone admitting there was anything wrong with the invasion, let alone that there were any civilian victims.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The North American media is not on the cusp of admitting they misreported on the invasion – both why the U.S. invaded, and what happened. The media will not admit they were complicit with covering up war crimes and crimes against humanity.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Please read and share this. At a minimum, we remember. And we rededicate ourselves to work and struggle for serious transformation of how we humans live together on this beautiful planet.</div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-34200349983382330652018-12-18T14:25:00.001-08:002018-12-18T14:36:17.990-08:00The Dominican Republic's Political Scene and the road to 2020<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: yellow;">[Note from the editors: The HaitiAnalysis collective is happy to announce the relaunching of our site at our original domain <a href="http://www.haitianalysis.com/">http://www.haitianalysis.com</a>. We will continue to update this blogspot page for the time being, but in the future only the main domain will be updated. We are happy to announce that we will be relaunching the publication of original material, with a few new articles every month. We will also be expanding our coverage to include the Dominican Republic . Please stay tuned for big things! Below is a new analytical piece providing an overview of the Dominican Republic's political scene and the author's views on where political events are headed in that country.]</span><br /><br /><br />By: Ariel Fornari - <i>HaitiAnalysis</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>The ruling PLD's internal struggles and the 2020 elections</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Over recent weeks and months the possible re-election of President Danilo Medina has sparked a plethora of internal conflicts within the ruling PLD (Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana). President Medina’s appointed officials belonging to the “sector externo”, insist that he run for a second re-election, but the majority of these “sector externo” officials, are not even members or heirs of the party’s founding nucleus, which Professor Juan Bosch founded in 1973 as an ideologically progressive collective, after leaving the historical PRD (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano) earlier that year.[1] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> It’s noteworthy that in Santiago, D. R.’s second most important city with a population of over one million, officials holding high positions such as the municipal water company’s director are not even from Santiago, also belong to the “sector externo” of Medina. This in turn is generating the current tug-of-war, with Santiago’s mayor Abel Martinez, who happens to belong to (ex-President) Leonel Fernandez’s faction within the PLD. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Ex-President Leonel Fernandez aiming for a political comeback</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Santiago's mayor Abel Martinez is an avowed "nationalist" with anti-Haitian leanings, when as president of the D. R.’s lower house he stubbornly confronted in 2013 the visiting Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which was on a fact finding mission regarding D. R.’s Constitutional Tribunal’s Ruling 168-13. The ruling had denationalized over 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent, causing much international backlash over the racist policies. As proof of his unwavering loyalty towards Fernandez, Martinez held a large and extravagant rally for Fernandez’s presidential candidacy, at a Santiago sports stadium on December 9, 2018. Some Dominican media are speculating that Martinez aspires to be Vice-President on the 2020 electoral ticket with Fernandez.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Regarding the Medina re-election issue, if no agreement is reached between Medina and Fernandez, the re-election issue becomes moot, opening the door to other PLD leaders via a national winner-take-all convention. In this scenario, the winner is anointed at the convention and Fernandez would be a major contender, while Medina as sitting president couldn’t throw his hat in the ring, due to the obvious re-election constitutional issue, currently limiting a sitting president to a second consecutive term. Medina’s re-election ambitions could only materialize, under another constitutional amendment by the legislative branch, obviating the PLD’s convention scenario, and like President Balaguer remarked many times: “The Dominican Constitution is a mere piece of paper”. What has been done to the D. R.’s Constitution in recent times resembles more of a Saturday Night Live skit than the high level proceedings of a law abiding nation-state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> We must bear in mind, Medina presently holds in his pocket the majority of the PLD’s lower house deputies, key players in constitutional amendments. Furthermore, there are some PRSC (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano-a smaller right-wing party currently allied with the PLD) deputies, whose position would support a constitutional amendment, contingent on a mutual agreement with Medina. In this case, the Dominican folksy character of “the man with the briefcase”, would make his colorful entrance into this skit. To the unenlightened on Dominican rough and tumble politics, this translates to a designated courier, carrying a “maletin” or briefcase stuffed with sufficient wads of hard currency, to bribe enough deputies, adding to this Mafiosi-like script, mutual agreements between Medina and complicit deputies, so the latter could also be re-elected with attending perks as applicable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> In the aforementioned scenario, Fernandez would be between a rock and a hard place, since it preempts his presidential ambitions. Fernandez’s electoral slogan is “Leonel 2020”, and since Fernandez in his younger years was a journalism professor at the state university-the UASD (<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo)</span>, there is considerable social media activity in favor of his campaign. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The styles between Fernandez and Medina differ in that the former is more Machiavellian, intellectually prone, media savvy and cosmopolitan, while the latter is wiser in the folksy Dominican sense of “tigueraje”-(Idiomatically-a “tigre” or tiger in Dominican streetwise lore, is the “barrio” dude who easily tangles with like or lesser slimy characters, and still comes out on the winning side). On top of this, Medina is wiser in the sense, that he has more “tigueraje” strategies and is more astute. Proof of this, has been his seemingly successful and very visible tactics of “visitas sorpresas”, or surprise visits throughout the length and breadth of the country, particularly with the agricultural and rural sectors, promoting direct funding for economic development projects, which are later quantified and measured into palpable progress and goals achieved by his presidency. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> According to history however, it was actually Medina who first approached President Balaguer in 1995, confiding to him at the time, that the presidential candidate who was most like him was Fernandez, since Balaguer was also often portrayed as an enlightened elite statesman, a poet, writer, historian, etc. and Fernandez possessed similar qualities. In fact, an anecdote goes that President Colom of Guatemala years ago, when Central-American and Caribbean heads of state were meeting, mentioned once that ….”Here comes the teacher of the presidents”. This was in obvious reference to Fernandez’s masterful didactic abilities with other heads of state, when President of Dominican Republic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Going into 2019 then, we must sit on the edge of our seats, anticipating if the PLD will hold a convention to select their presidential candidate, or there will be a re-election scenario with another constitutional amendment (wherein we could then reinterpret President Balaguer’s famous quote, with the caveat that the D. R.’s constitution is written on recycled paper!). In which case, the script fusions into the ensuing folksy skit of the “man with the briefcase”, chock full of hard currency like Greenbacks, Euros, etc., since obviously at the current exchange rate of the Dominican Peso to the Dollar, it would take several such briefcases with their corresponding couriers, and perhaps even a Wells Fargo leased armored car, in order to carry out such lofty endeavor, so as to “persuade” enough deputies including a core group from the opposition, garnering enough votes for a constitutional amendment, making Medina eligible for a second re-election. All this remains to be seen however, since looming over the horizon, are the always active opposition parties led by the PRM (which also split from the PRD a few years back).[2]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>2020’s elections will be unlike 2016’s</b></span></div>
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The Dominican Republic for some years now has lacked a strong opposition that could challenge the PLD. The traditional main opposition party, the PRD, split into two factions prior to the 2016 elections, one led by Miguel Vargas Maldonado (now holding the Foreign Minister’s portfolio under President Medina), keeping the original PRD name but just a vestige of its original namesake, and the other by Luis Abinader, the main opposition presidential contender in the 2016 elections under the new PRM (Partido Revolucionario Moderno) banner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During those elections, the opposition led by the PRM attempted a coalition front, however conditions had not ripened then, for a strong opposition coalition front, to seriously challenge the PLD’s powerful machinery in electoral events.[3] As new political winds are blowing in the D. R., though it might be premature as to the 2020 elections, the PRM which is a centrist liberal party, has already begun talks with some more progressive and left parties, envisioning a stronger opposition front than they attempted in 2016. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Within this framework, the possibility exists as usual, of some progressive or leftist social movements to join this coalition, further broadening its social base, similar to experiences in other Latin American countries, though the Dominican Republic doesn’t have a history of strong coalition electoral fronts, say like Chile in the 1930s and late 1960s, or even like the powerful voting bloc front of the GPP-PSUV coalition of Venezuela, which can boast upwards of 1,000 social movements incorporated into its electoral events. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is however one particular nuance, in the recent attempts at electoral coalitions in the D.R., which began its genesis in 2016, there was the formation of a new centrist party known as “Dominicanos por el Cambio” or “DXC”. DXC is led by civil engineer Eduardo Estrella. Mr. Estrella has an extensive and impeccable political resume in the D. R., beginning his political career under President Balaguer’s second term of 1991-94, also serving as Senator of the province of Santiago, in the 1994-98 term. Mr. Estrella stands out politically among peers, coming directly from President Balaguer’s line of thinking, who used to say that ”Corruption stops at the entrance to my office”. Estrella is a severe critic, of the current PLD government’s trail of corruption and impunity, as he’s not afraid to openly point the finger at the various governmental corruption schemes, whenever he’s interviewed in TV. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Opposition leaders of an emerging anti-PLD coalition. In the middle grey suit is Luis Abinader, immediately to his right is Guillermo Moreno of the Alianza Pais leftist party, and all the way to the right is Minou Tavarez of Opcion Democratica progressive party (<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">daugher of Dominican patriot Manolo Tavarez Justo, killed in 1963 by the ruling junta that deposed democratically-elected president Juan Bosch)</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another characteristic of Estrella’s new and dynamic DXC party, is not merely its avowedly centrist ideology, but its implied ability to draw from the historical center-right spectrum of voters, being that Estrella is considered a political “pupil” of President Balaguer, whose PRSC voting appeal covered the center-right spectrum of voters in D. R., a naturally conservative country with a strong Catholic church and with the longtime promotion of xenophobia and socially constructed racism against Haitians, which always has an imprint in the nation’s social life. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Additionally, DXC’s innovative political program, entails grassroots activism within the poorer neighborhoods of the country, including free preventive health clinics for the disenfranchised masses. An added trait of DXC in its short political life, is its inter-generational appeal, as we witness in their base committees’ neighborhood meetings, many young people who identify with DXC’s cleaner approach to political life, in comparison to the PLD’s notorious corruption history, when for example PLD officials are colloquially referred by Dominicans as the “come solos”, or those that “eat by themselves”, not wanting to share from their overflowing plates of rice and beans, fried plantains, and plump chicken breasts, with their less fortunate compatriots. This rubs people the wrong way, in a country where solidarity with the have-nots, is still a noble trait throughout many social classes. Even so the resource wealth of the PLD and its backers cannot be underestimated, and its ability to essentially flood the airwaves during election time. Thus as we’re witnessing, the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dominican Republic’s political panorama of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2020 is shaping up in contradictory ways, and this is especially buttressed by our next and final element in this trilogy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>"Marcha Verde" - The elephant in the living room of the corrupt, ruling PLD party</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> “Marcha Verde” is the Dominican Republic’s flagship anti-corruption social movement, and since its inception in early 2017, it has proven to be unique, authentic, and very “Dominican” if you will, in its ability to especially discomfit its main target, the ruling and corrupt PLD party, which owns lock, stock and barrel, all three branches of the D. R.’s government. “Marcha Verde” has effectively rattled the cage of the institutionally corrupt PLD, through massive protests, effective public education workshops, social media use, and support from key public figures, such as prominent journalist </span><a href="https://twitter.com/mzapete/status/1073562610975600641" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank">Marino Zapete</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The PLD occasionally assigns one of its media pit bulls, such as former interior minister Amarante Baret, to tongue lash and lecture “Marcha Verde” in some newspapers, accusing it without foundation of being a politically ambitious movement, something that couldn’t be farther from the truth, since “Marcha Verde” consistently defines itself, as purely an anti-corruption social movement which is part of civil society, and bears no electoral or political aspirations whatsoever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"> As though confessing before a priest, this writer admits I was at first confused by the mere name of “Marcha Verde”, as it smacked of another “color revolution”, that dot the landscape with socially-engineered protest movements across the globe, by the obvious use of the color green (“verde”) in its name. “Marcha Verde” is much unlike the Orange Revolution of Ukrain</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">e, or the Rose Revolution in Georgia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is arguably, the most articulate, effective, long lasting, and cross-sectional anti-corruption social movement in D. R. in recent memory. It also bears some schematic resemblance, to the original Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 and the various movements that spawned worldwide, after that unique social phenomenon. Those of us that lived those days online and in real time, remember well that OWS was decentralized, horizontal and non-hierarchical. “Marcha Verde” is similar to OWS, except that it’s privileged to have key leaders, with proven expertise in their areas such as journalists, seasoned activists, community leaders, and even the occasional elected official, such as PRM deputy <a href="https://twitter.com/Farideraful?lang=en" target="_blank">Faride Raful</a>, a trained attorney who in 2018 gave an in-depth presentation in Santiago, unraveling the intricacies of the internationally notorious corruption scheme, of the Brazilian Odebrecht corporation. Ms. Raful could easily be described, as a one-woman anti-corruption oversight committee, in the detail-oriented whistleblowing method she employs denouncing Odebrecht’s shenanigans in the D. R., specifically in the case of the overvalued Punta Catalina coal-fired power plant, which is scheduled to go online in 2019. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Another visible activist of “Ma</span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">rcha Verde” is </span></span><a href="https://twitter.com/jhonatanliriano?lang=en" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank">Jhonathan Liriano</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, who is a new generation Dominican journalist of great appeal to the younger masses. Mr. Liriano hosts an early morning radio show, commenting on headlines with a couple of young colleagues. Liriano is a charismatic speaker, who easily persuades audiences with oratorical ease, as I personally witnessed during a late 2018 activity, alongside stalwart “Marcha Verde” supporter, journalist Marino Zapete. He easily articulates, the merits of the movement’s just causes and methods, widening its appeal to the greatest possible social and generational spectrum. </span></span></div>
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Not to be outdone within this movement, is seasoned journalist Marino Zapete. His enviable resume, boasts of persecution and incarceration during the nefarious 12-year rule of President Balaguer, when extra-judicial killings of progressive and leftist leaders in the Dominican Republic was commonplace, at the height of the Cold War. Zapete’s audacious and fearless style in his daily TV show, constantly blowing the whistle on the corrupt PLD government, has earned him in 2018, credible death threats from a rightwing ultra-nationalist paramilitary group, which is suspected of being financed by the PLD. </div>
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It’s this fearless whistleblowing by key activists, and its periodic massive protests, plus grassroots support from a broad social spectrum, that has made the institutionally corrupt PLD government of D. R. so nervous, triggering reactions such as former interior minister Amarante Baret’s baseless accusations, that “Marcha Verde” has political and electoral aspirations, which as it’s openly known is absolutely untrue. </div>
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This new and very effective “Marcha Verde” anti-corruption movement, is the icing on the cake for the Dominican Republic’s updated scenario facing 2019, a year that should determine not just the outcome of its 2020 elections, but also could decide the foreseeable future of this country, definitely a key player in the geopolitics of the sometimes volatile Central-American Caribbean Basin, at a crucial historical juncture with developing global multipolar politics, seemingly also affecting what’s happening in the “Colossus of the North”, in the Trump era.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>References</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> [1]</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Sector externo” literally means the external sector of the party, composed of professional, middle class and working class groups which although not party militants, still support the platform of a given candidate, and will actively participate in campaigning for and electing such candidate.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> [2] </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Partido Revolucionario Dominicano is a political party founded in 1939 in Havana, Cuba, by Professor Juan Bosch and other Dominican exiles. This party went through an organizational, development and militant phase, through decades of opposition to the bloody Trujillo dictatorship in D. R., later being known as part of the “democratic left” in Latin America, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> [3] For more on the historical context of the political scene during the 2016 elections see this article: Jeb Sprague. (2016). "Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite versus the Elite" <i>NACLA</i>. <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2016/05/06/polyarchy-dominican-republic-elite-versus-elit">https://nacla.org/news/2016/05/06/polyarchy-dominican-republic-elite-versus-elit</a>e. </span></span></div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-54887087026838640672018-11-23T16:37:00.001-08:002018-11-23T16:37:16.697-08:00Haitians Strike Against IMF Friendly President, & Face Paramilitary Violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-31562525496169544232018-11-21T13:14:00.001-08:002018-11-22T18:57:54.995-08:00Kevin Pina and Pierre LaBossiere on PHTK massacres in Cité Soleil and La Saline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCX1y1uxeHNy6ScJVFTfPLdSAOYiBjlV-kSWlFy2LlgvlDqQ20r4J60mI2xt2BNyeJRK2BKzPtTUo_n9TtfUTZnpqk_yV0nHkAPOu_gLDwfiJkQbvTmdU1HwR94mu5Nja-E4TkmOhA5p4/s1600/Qd-7VUph_400x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCX1y1uxeHNy6ScJVFTfPLdSAOYiBjlV-kSWlFy2LlgvlDqQ20r4J60mI2xt2BNyeJRK2BKzPtTUo_n9TtfUTZnpqk_yV0nHkAPOu_gLDwfiJkQbvTmdU1HwR94mu5Nja-E4TkmOhA5p4/s320/Qd-7VUph_400x400.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Listen <b><a href="https://twitter.com/AcrossMediums/status/1065750202915598336" target="_blank">here to an interview</a></b> (on KPFA's <i>Flashpoints Radio</i>) with documentarian Kevin Pina and Haiti Action Committee founder Pierre LaBossiere, as they discuss the recent anti-corruption protests in Haiti and the brutal repression launched by the country's rightwing authorities.</span></div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-69935116295982694982018-11-20T13:45:00.000-08:002018-11-22T18:58:30.298-08:00Hold the U.S./U.N. Occupation Accountable<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="post_title" style="color: #444444; font-family: dejavu; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.4000000059604645px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 30px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-spacing: 1px;">
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<a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/2018/11/hold-the-u-s-u-n-occupation-accountable/" target="_blank">Haiti Action Committee</a></div>
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The United Nations, along with the United States and Canada, trains and supervises the murderous Haitian police and oversees Haiti’s horrendous prisons where beatings, torture and killings are routine. Condemn the police killings of demonstrators in Haiti by the UN-supervised police and attaches and demand an end to the US/UN occupation. Contact U.N. representative in Haiti, Sophie Boutaud de la Combe: e-mail: boutauddelacombes@un.org; Twitter: @SBDLC @MINUJUSTH</div>
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<a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov18PAPprotest.jpg" style="outline: none 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-462" height="225" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov18PAPprotest-300x225.jpg" srcset="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov18PAPprotest-300x225.jpg 300w, https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov18PAPprotest-768x576.jpg 768w, https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov18PAPprotest.jpg 1024w" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 5px 26.59375px 20px 0px;" width="300" /></a>Sunday November 18, 2018, was the 215th anniversary of the victory at the battle of Vertieres when Haitians won a decisive battle against French forces in 1803, leading to the declaration of Haitian independence. People all over Haiti marked the occasion with massive protests against the theft of billions of dollars of Petrocaribe funds provided to the Haitian government by Venezuela. The demonstrators continued their call for the end to the murderous UN/US occupation and the imposed, illegitimate government of president Jovenel Moise and prime minister Jean-Henri Ceant.</div>
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According to radio and witness reports the police have been shooting at unarmed protestors, wounding and killing an undetermined number. The situation on the ground in Haiti has been worsening as the Moise regime, backed by the U.S. and the UN, has ramped up a savage campaign of repression against the population. In the Port-au-Prince area alone, the list of attacks includes the police killing of a student leader on 10/31/18, the shootings during the week of 11/5/18 of teachers and high school students in Site Soley (Cite Soleil) protesting months of non-payment of overdue salaries and the lack of educational supplies, the mass killings and land-grab expulsion in Kanaan (Canaan) and the massacres on November 13 <a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov182018-HNP.jpg" style="outline: none 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-463" height="166" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov182018-HNP-300x166.jpg" srcset="https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov182018-HNP-300x166.jpg 300w, https://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Nov182018-HNP.jpg 744w" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 20px 26.59375px;" width="300" /></a>and 17, 2018 in the community of Lasalin (La Saline).</div>
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Please read the <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yadvwke3" style="outline: none 0px; text-decoration: none;">Fanmi Lavalas statement</a> condemning the 11/13 horrible massacre in Lasalin which occurred during the commemoration of another government organized massacre in Granravin (Grand Ravine) on 11/13/17, one year ago to the day. The statement in Kreyol https://tinyurl.com/ydg87mh8 can also be heard over a graphic video from <a href="https://tinyurl.com/ydg87mh8" style="outline: none 0px; text-decoration: none;">Haitiinfoproj</a> showing some of the victims. The death toll varies as reports from witnesses are being assessed; many were disappeared, bodies were also reportedly burned and trucked away.</div>
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We support and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Haiti as they refuse to accept dictatorship and terror. Support and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers on the ground in Haiti! They are unarmed and bravely taking on the US/UN-supported killers, the UN-trained police and their paramilitary attaches or affiliates.</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-70909996686744326252018-11-15T13:32:00.000-08:002018-11-21T13:32:32.568-08:00Photos from UniFA's School of Dentistry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-46117905717291120462018-11-15T13:21:00.000-08:002018-11-21T13:21:17.303-08:00The PetroCaribe Scandal and its Historical Precedents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Catherine Charlemagne - Haiti Liberte<br /><a href="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/PetroCaribe-demo-Woman-appealing-hands-spread.jpg"><img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/PetroCaribe-demo-Woman-appealing-hands-spread-696x392.jpg" /></a>History will likely record the Oct. 17, 2018 demonstration as the real beginning of this PetroCaribe uprising. <br /><br />Clearly, the PetroCaribe affair is gaining momentum. With every passing day, Haitian society becomes more engrossed with this scandal which exposes the outrageous conduct of our leaders vis-à-vis public funds.<a name='more'></a>Haitian government corruption has long been a cancer slowly but surely weakening the state, for which we have found no cure. But it seems that the PetroCaribe issue might finally help bring us a better tomorrow. Indeed, as popular protests grow over the theft of PetroCaribe funds, no one can say how far things will go. PetroCaribe is like big book in which each page turned plunges us deeper into the plot, that is to say, every new development heightens our surprise and suspense.<br /><br /><br />The PetroCaribe dossier dates back to the presidency of the late René Préval and epitomizes the extent of public corruption in Haiti over the past 40 years.<br /><br /><br />THE CRUX OF THE NEW UNITY IS DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PUBLIC FUNDS.<br /><br />For a long time, civic leaders, grassroots movements, and, in general, political opposition groups were looking for a burning issue to galvanize, focus public attention on, and create unity around combating this scourge which is ruining the nation, but political instability made it impossible to find this common ground. None of the three actors mentioned above had enough credibility or financial resources to create so heterogeneous and so popular a movement as we have seen in recent months. It required this particular moment, which has swept up every Haitian citizen in the mobilization.<br /><br />The crux of the new unity is demanding accountability for public funds. Everyone is asking: when will Haiti demand accountability? Today, Haiti’s credibility is on the line. Our neighbors don’t understand how such a brave and intrepid people can accept without a word that what is rightfully theirs is lost to the profit of a few individuals, those now being called Petro-thieves. The theft and squandering of PetroCaribe funds once again undermines our leaders’ honor and reputation, because they did nothing concrete for the country with these funds.<br /><br /><br />Our Caribbean and Latin American neighbors have also received from our Venezuelan friends loans to modernize their respective countries by improving the social and economic conditions of their compatriots. The loans were intended for national development of all the countries that benefited from a PetroCaribe agreement. The interest rate was exceptionally low, practically nil.<br /><br />In the Dominican Republic, the past and present rulers of this country have made use of this money even beyond what was asked of them. They built major highways, modernized the public transport sector, invested in the education and health sectors, and generally modernized the country, as can be seen by visitors arriving at any of the country’s major international airports.<br /><br />But across the Haitian border, PetroCaribe funds were used for something else, and it shows. Thus, today’s protestors are uniting, pooling their strength, concentrating their energy and their financial means to allow their claims to be heard by the state authorities.<br /><br />After some scattered demonstrations, they realized small actions would win nothing from the government. So, they agreed on a date, that of Oct. 17, 2018, to launch their “long march” to what we can already call the PetroCaribe trial.<br /><br /><br />HISTORY WILL LIKELY RECORD THE OCT. 17, 2018 DEMONSTRATION AS THE REAL BEGINNING OF THIS PETROCARIBE UPRISING.<br /><br />Several actions had already taken place on the initiative of the PetroCaribe Challenge group and others, but history will likely record the Oct. 17, 2018 demonstration as the real beginning of this PetroCaribe uprising. The success of this great national and popular demonstration can be considered Act I of the play that will lead to an anticipated trial. The movement’s leaders are themselves surprised at the magnitude of what they launched a few months ago, first on social media networks and then by marching in Port-au-Prince’s streets asking: “Kote Kòb PetroCaribe a?”meaning literally “where did the PetroCaribe money go?”<br /><br />If using Haiti’s historic dates, like the Oct. 17 anniversary of the assassination of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s founding father, can serve to force state authorities to shed light on the use of PetroCaribe funds, why not? This only further proves that, even in death, Dessalines’ ideals remained intact.<br /><br />In any case, the government certainly did not expect such a huge mobilization on Oct. 17, 2018 of millions of people nationwide. It was shaken on its foundations and out of its complacency. Completely panicked, President Jovenel Moïse, who is now trying to save his presidency (if not his skin), has no doubt realized that the PetroCaribe issue is rooted in his government’s arrogance and contempt at facilitating the difficult work of justice.<br /><br />Suddenly, he abruptly separated without notice from 16 advisors and his two highest aides – chief of staff Wilson Laleau and Secretary General of the Presidency Yves Germain Joseph – both accused of embezzling PetroCaribe funds, by a simple decree dated Oct. 19, 2018.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Yvette-Mengual.jpg" />Former Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) member Yolette Mengual was removed as General Director of the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad (MHAVE). She was accused of corruption in the 2016 elections, and nobody could understand how Pres. Moïse could appoint her to run a ministry when she was already indicted for corruption.<br /><br />A few days later, it was the turn of a corruption icon, the former Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) member Yolette Mengual, to be removed as General Director of the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad (MHAVE). She was accused of corruption in the 2016 elections, and nobody could understand how the president could appoint Ms. Mengual to run a ministry when she was already indicted for corruption. (However, President Moïse himself came into office indicted for laundering millions of dollars.)<br /><br />By firing these high public officials, the President is trying to extinguish the flames which are racing towards his house, which is not safe. It was also the first positive results for the organizers of the Oct. 17 protest, who want even more significant gestures from Moïse.<br /><br /><br />Because, the goal is nothing less than the arrest of all those named in the two reports on the use of PetroCaribe funds, issued by two Senate Commissions led respectively by Senators Youri Latortue and Evallière Beauplan. The dismissal of Wilson Laleau and Yves Germain Joseph, the two highest officials implicated in the PetroCaribe affair and threatened with prosecution, is seen as opening an avenue for the trial so demanded by an outraged population. These implicated officials could only escape justice by finding refuge in the National Palace.<br /><br />In addition to these two officials, who were dismissed by the President and practically put in the hands of Haiti’s Attorney General (Procureur de la République), during the same week, two other former senior state officials were summoned by the Port-au-Prince prosecutor to answer questions about PetroCaribe funds: former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and the contractor Patrice Milfort, General Manager of General Construction SA. They were invited to come say what they know about the use of PetroCaribe funds.<br /><br /> <img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Laurent-Lamothe-explaining.jpg" /><div>
Former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe remains one of the main accused in this scandal.<br /><br />In the opposition’s crosshairs since the discovery of this large-scale corruption, Laurent Lamothe remains one of the main accused in this scandal. He was for a time both Prime Minister and the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation under President Michel Martelly. He has already been heard several times by a judge, but there has never been any follow up. This time, he did not respond to the invitation of the state prosecutor Clamé Ocnam Daméus on Oct. 23, 2018. Patrice Milfort of General Construction SA also did not go to the prosecutor’s office to explain why his company did not execute the contracts that it had earned.<br /><br />Meanwhile, new Prime Minister Jean Henry Céant has tried several initiatives to try to calm down tensions.<br /><br /><br />In addition to a weekly press conference to give the media and the general public information on the progress of the case before the judiciary, an independent commission is supposed be formed, including various pressure groups. But the prime minister had a hard time convincing those concerned to join this Commission. Moreover, even before the invitations were officially launched, almost all the members of the organized civil society and respected figures already indicated that the Commission does not interest them. According to them, they don’t want to be pressured, their place is not in any Commission, even if it is independent. Their role is to put pressure on public authorities to move institutions to action, not to integrate into them, which would be counterproductive.<br /><br />At the same time, the Prime Minister’s office has published a document in which is compiled a collection of texts related to the PetroCaribe funds from 2006 to 2018. Prime Minister Jean Henry Céant who presented this kind of “white paper” on the use and management of the PetroCaribe fund wants by this gesture to make transparent the ongoing process and prove that his government does not intend to hide the truth from the population on the squandering of these funds.<br /><br />The Prime Minister also increased the security of the investigating judge in charge of the PetroCaribe inquiry at the Port-au-Prince prosecutor’s office. An armored car was even given to this judge. Céant has taken the same steps with members of the Superior Council of the Judiciary Authority (CSPJ) in an effort to show the co-operation of the executive power to assist the judiciary in taking action against those who emptied the state fund. The Prime Minister also wrote to the Superior Court of Auditors promising them all the help and assistance they need for their work on this case.<br /><br />Before these events, the very day of the big Oct. 17 demonstration, the President began Tweeting a lot. Some want him to shed light on all the PetroCaribe corruption, but the most radical want his resignation, especially the political leaders who do not see in this PetroCaribe mobilization a mere campaign against corruption in the state apparatus but rather a step towards President Jovenel Moïse’s departure from the National Palace.<br /><br />However, with all the signals issued by the authorities after the big Oct. 17 demonstration, it seems that the authorities are opening an avenue to the Port-au-Prince courthouse and that nothing or nobody will be able to stop the machine ready to crack down on anyone who has participated in any way in this great scandal of the century. According to one accused who is worried about his fate since the Oct. 17 demonstration: there is no doubt, we are moving towards what we called at the beginning of last century the process of the “Consolidation” under the presidency of Nord Alexis between 1903 and 1904.<br /><br />(To be continued)</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-75742016057234537322018-11-08T13:26:00.000-08:002018-11-21T13:28:55.083-08:00UniFA: Reduce neonatal mortality in Haiti!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://www.aristidefoundationfordemocracy.org/about/the-university-of-the-aristide-foundation-unifa/" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"></a></div>
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/AristideFoundationforDemocracy/" target="_blank">The University of the Aristide Foundation</a> (UniFA)<br /><br />Our fundraising goal is $3,000, to include 20 NeoNatalie resuscitation simulator kits ($86), 20 resuscitation bags and suction devices ($25), and teaching flipcharts and workbooks ($304), plus shipping. CLICK HERE: <a href="https://ubackforgood.com/donor/?fbclid=IwAR3Xofqxt4iQpQ3aeBJzg8AaFYTNmpkK0Kgnj8KASDUX-msNib6otcA60ak#!/app/nonprofitcampaign/276/1000000258">https://ubackforgood.com/donor/…</a><br /><br />The Helping Babies Breathe curriculum is being brought to UNIFA in order to provide neonatal resuscitation training to medical and nursing students. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1oVtwgBoYTOMwnzdTZ_phOAMHBATjn880rZEUPvGn0KZiivpJpUgmY11bCHTwuVBYx7MPEb1fyugIeAMkFW8LEPHqSaz95_xAxLfFUAsg4DnxdtzTZGMCTkBeg92qBHMLOIjs8RW3pk/s1600/45576472_10155611522427455_6140688766576099328_n.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1oVtwgBoYTOMwnzdTZ_phOAMHBATjn880rZEUPvGn0KZiivpJpUgmY11bCHTwuVBYx7MPEb1fyugIeAMkFW8LEPHqSaz95_xAxLfFUAsg4DnxdtzTZGMCTkBeg92qBHMLOIjs8RW3pk/s320/45576472_10155611522427455_6140688766576099328_n.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />Volunteers (including Certified Trainers) are working with Friends of UNIFA to bring this American Academy of Pediatrics program to UNIFA. <br /><a name='more'></a>Helping Babies Breathe teaches the initial steps of neonatal resuscitation to be accomplished within The Golden Minute to save lives and give a much better start to many babies who struggle to breathe at birth. <br /><br />HBB neonatal resuscitation techniques have been shown to reduce neonatal mortality by up to 47% and fresh stillbirths by 24%. It is designed specifically for resource-poor environments.<br /><br />In 2019, we plan to teach 20 students and faculty members at UNIFA to perform HBB in the delivery room, and also to teach the HBB curriculum. With their help, we will provide HBB training to the 4th year medical and nursing students. <br /><br />Our fundraising goal is $3,000, to include 20 NeoNatalie resuscitation simulator kits ($86), 20 resuscitation bags and suction devices ($25), and teaching flipcharts and workbooks ($304), plus shipping.<br /><br />The eventual goal is for UNIFA to disseminate HBB resuscitation throughout Haiti. Within the next five years, we hope to add Helping Babies Survive (including Helping Babies Breathe, Essential Care for Every Baby, and Essential Care for Small Babies modules) and Helping Mothers Survive (including Bleeding After Birth, Pre-eclampsia/Eclampsia, and Threatened Preterm Birth modules).</div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-77278756088352725892018-11-08T13:22:00.000-08:002018-11-21T13:23:24.241-08:00Tear-Gassing of Belair Funeral Provokes Outrage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Kim Ives - <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/tear-gassing-of-belair-funeral-provokes-outrage/" target="_blank">Haiti Liberte</a><div>
<a href="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Demonstration-after-Belair-funeral.jpg"><img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Demonstration-after-Belair-funeral-696x468.jpg" /></a>When it was learned that at least two people were killed by police bullets outside the church, the mourners marched with the caskets down the hill to the center of town.<br /><br />On Oct. 31, hundreds of mourners gathered at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Port-au-Prince’s Belair neighborhood for the funeral of six of the seven protestors killed by police during the massive Oct. 17 march against the plundering of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Venezuela-provided PetroCaribe fund.<a name='more'></a><img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Men-wiping-teargas-from-eyes-at-Belair-funeral-e1541620181935.png" />On Oct. 31, mourners trying to rub tear-gas from their eyes before fleeing the funeral for six of seven demonstrators killed on Oct. 17.<br /><br />The seven demonstrators killed on Oct. 17 were Jean Kenson Rosier, 24, Dieubéni Casimir, 23, Francky Duval, 25, Junelson Pierre, 23, Jhonny Mervil, 32, Christelle Alexandre, 22, and Mercidieu Baptiste, 53. Father Didy Horace presided over the funeral.<br /><br />Heavy police patrols in the area outside the church enraged the local population. Around 10 a.m., skirmishes erupted, with protestors throwing rocks and the police firing bullets and tear-gas. The pungent gas filled the church, <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/le-31-octobre-2018-a-belair-le-bouleversement-des-funerailles-des-victimes-du-17-octobre-2018/">setting off screaming and panic,</a> as mourners and priests fled from around the coffins and from benches and chairs. Outside mourners angrily denounced the government and the police, many calling for President Jovenel Moïse’s resignation and arrest.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Women-rush-from-church-benches-to-escape-gas.png" />Women rush from church benches to escape the pungent tear-gas fumes.<br /><br />The funeral service resumed a little later, but when it was learned that at least two people were killed by police bullets outside the church, the mourners marched with the caskets down the hill to the center of town. There they demonstrated and built burning-tire barricades. The police’s specialized crowd-control units – BOID and CIMO – dispersed the large, impromptu demonstration after it marched to the central Champ de Mars.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Caskets-in-street-after-funeral-during-demo.jpg" />Demonstrators marched with the coffins of the Oct. 17 victims to downtown Port-au-Prince.<br /><br />“Nine people were wounded by bullets downtown during the funeral for the people assassinated on Oct. 17, 2018, and they are presently at the General Hospital,” declared activist lawyer André Michel of the Democratic and Popular Sector, an opposition coalition he leads. “Clearly, today again, the ‘forces of order’ have massacred the civilian population.”<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Burning-barricade-after-funeral.jpg" />Demonstrators set up burning tire barricades.<br /><br />A similar attack took place on Nov. 4 at the Cathedral in Gonaïves, during the Patron Saint’s Day of St. Charles Borromée. Thugs said to be allied with the powerful local Sen. Youri Latortue, a presidential hopeful and close ally of the ruling Haitian Bald-Headed Party (PHTK), savagely kicked and beat worshipers attending a mass during which government officials and Latortue were denounced for their alleged involvement in PetroCaribe embezzlement.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-11-04-Jacques-Roubens-Bordenave-victim-in-Gonaives-of-Latortue-Thugs.jpg" />Jacques Roubens Bordenave was wounded in the head by Youri Latortue’s thugs during a mass in Gonaïves on Nov. 4.<br /><br />“Two members of the Platform of Organizations to Save the Artibonite, engaged in the mobilization to demand accountability for the management of Petrocaribe funds in the city of independence [Gonaïves], were beaten,” according to the news website Loop. “Jacques Roubens Bordenave was violently physically assaulted by a group of individuals, then wounded in the head, and Donald Saint Jean in the shoulder while they participated in the traditional mass organized on the occasion of the town’s patronal feast. The victims point to the Department’s senator Youri Latortue, who, according to them, ordered his henchmen to attack them.”<br /><br />The increased government repression is acting like gasoline on a fire. Popular organizations around Haiti are vowing to redouble their efforts to intensify their PetroCaribe justice mobilizations and bring out even more demonstrators in the month ahead. Anticipation and tension is building around a nationwide mobilization on Nov. 18, the 215th anniversary of the Battle of Vertières, in which the former slaves of St. Domingue defeated Napoleon’s legions, winning Haiti’s independence.<br /><br /><br />Below is a Nov. 1 statement by the Assembly of Political, Union, and Popular Organizations (Konbit Oganizasyon Politik, Sendikal ak Popilè yo), which is representative of popular sentiment across Haiti.<div>
<br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">A Communiqué of the Assembly of Political, Union, and Popular Organizations on the repression of the Tèt Kale power* against the people</span></b><br /><br />The Assembly of Political, Union, and Popular Organizations denounces with all its strength that the Haitian government has sent police bandits to carry out repressive acts against the people. We recall that on Oct. 17, 2018, about three million people nationwide took to the streets to demand the departure of the group in power along with the arrest of the thieves of the PetroCaribe fund.<br /><br />Before Oct. 17, President Jovenel Moïse visited several police stations to encourage police officers to repress the population. And just as the indicted president wanted, during the Oct. 17 mobilization, police assassins fired on the people in several departments. More than seven demonstrators died and more than 50 compatriots ere wounded by the bullets of police bandits.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Priest-wipe-teargas-from-eyes.png" />Priest tries to wipe tear-gas from his eyes before leaving church with mourners.<br /><br />Once again, during the funeral of our compatriots in Belair, the police’s criminal mercenaries struck again. Several comrades were injured by gunshots and tear-gas. The criminals didn’t even spare people inside the church from tear-gas. Even the priest who was presiding over the funeral had to leave the church to escape from the gas.<br /><br />While saluting the courage of our compatriots who took the lead, the Assembly of Political, Union, and Popular Organizations condemns with all its might the repression carried out by Jovenel Moïse and the CSPN [High Council of the National Police] by sending police criminals against demonstrators. In this sense, we call on the victims to take to court the indicted Jovenel Moïse and the entire CSPN.<img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-10-31-Caskets-abandoned-as-people-flee-church.png" />Caskets were left unattended as people fled the church.<br /><br />This repressive and anti-democratic conduct shows clearly that the Tèt Kale snake if far from dead, which is why it is going around drinking blood everywhere. The remedy to the Tèt Kale snake is constant mobilization. These repressive acts don’t scare us. We’ll continue mobilizing everywhere in the country and overseas to crush the head of the snake and achieve the arrest and judgement of all the thieves who stole PetroCaribe funds.<br /><br />That’s why on Nov. 2, we’ll warm up with a PetroGede* mobilization. On Nov. 18, we’ll mobilize in the four corners of the country and in the diaspora. On Nov. 19 and 20, there will be a PetroBlockage, the country will be brought to a standstill, until this ends.<br /><br />Signed, </div>
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<br /><i>Patrick Joseph<br />Guy Numa<br />Jean Paul Bastien<br />Yvens Faustin<br />Olriche Jean Pierre</i><br /><br /> *Tèt Kale (literally, Bald Headed) refers to the ruling party, PHTK, of Jovenel Moïse, which was founded by his mentor and predecessor Michel Martelly<br /><br /> ** Gede is a traditional vodou ceremony, similar to the Day of the Dead, held on Nov. 2.</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-59807176714820141242018-10-20T13:42:00.000-07:002018-11-21T13:43:50.954-08:00Black Internationalism and the Colonial Challenges Facing Haiti and Venezuela<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Jeanette Charles - <a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/in-the-news/black-internationalism-and-the-colonial-challenges-facing-haiti-and-venezuela/" target="_blank">Haiti Action Committee</a></div>
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Solidarity as defined by President Aristide takes root in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: “a person is a person through other human beings. A person becomes a person through the community. A person is a person when she/he treats others well….Ubuntu is the source of all philosophy grounded in solidarity, cooperation, unity, respect, dignity, justice, liberty and love of the other.” – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haïti-Haitii?: Philosophical Reflections for Mental Decolonization.<br /><br />“Haiti has no debt with Venezuela, just the opposite: Venezuela has a historical debt with that nation, with that people for whom we feel not pity but rather admiration, and we share their faith, their hope.” – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez upon absolving Haiti of all financial debt in the wake of the 2010 earthquake.<br /><br />After 35 years of incarceration, political prisoner and freedom fighter Oscar López Rivera was released in 2017. One of his revolutionary lessons urges us to recognize that “colonialism is the problem” we continue to face today. While he specifically referred to Puerto Rico and its colonial status, his reflection is applicable to anywhere in the world devastated by exploitation, occupation, and invasion at the hands of European colonialism and US imperialism. As such, we can examine the current and historical challenges facing both Venezuela and Haiti, as well as their complicated relationship, as cases that expose the open wounds and lasting effects of colonialism and counter-revolutionary attacks against revolutionary processes committed to liberation and the reconfiguration of global power.<br /><a name='more'></a>Colonialism explains why United Nations forces implicated in mass rape, human trafficking rings, and the cholera epidemic continue to occupy Haiti. Colonialism is the driving force behind former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s spring 2018 tour throughout the Caribbean, intimidating, threatening, and bribing states to vote at the Organization of American States (OAS), in favor of foreign intervention in Venezuela. Colonialism has cultivated the root of complex political, economic, and sociocultural relationships between the states, peoples, and grassroots movements of Venezuela and Haiti.<br /><br />The most recent US efforts to isolate Venezuela from the region, demoralize its people through a concerted economic war, and intervene in its political process—by working with international collaborators to ultimately punish its black majority revolutionary process—have their historical precedents in Haiti. Haitians experienced these counter-revolutionary attacks as they fought to defend their own revolutionary process under the leadership of Fanmi Lavalas President Jean Bertrand Aristide and earlier, throughout the era of Haitian Independence.<br /><br />“Haiti represents a moral and political reference. Chávez once said, you cannot pay back a moral debt, and what Haiti gave us is unpayable,” explains Jesús “Chucho” García—Afro-Venezuelan historian and Consul General for the Bolívarian Republic of Venezuela in New Orleans—with respect to Haiti’s critical role in Venezuelan independence. The bridges that Africans, and later Haitians, built with pre-independence Venezuela throughout the 18th and 19th centuries took on multiple dimensions, including material aid, strategic development, spiritual force, and principled political vision. Haitians’ intentional support of abolition throughout the Americas ensured South American independence and sowed the roots of the Bolívarian Revolution, which began in 1998 and continues today.<br /><br />As such, Venezuela’s Bolívarian Revolution has attempted to return this “historical debt” with Haiti, rectify the harms of colonialism, and consolidate a Caribbean and Latin American united front against US imperialism, by extending its reparations model of oil wealth redistribution beyond its borders and by exercising a diplomatic model rooted in regional integration and cooperation. “Beyond Venezuela, I’m thinking about the integration of Latin America, this Afroamerica that is scattered throughout all these lands and all these waters,” Chávez voiced on May 8, 2005 on his television program Aló Presidente, speaking to the legacy of black liberation in the Americas and identifying Haiti. His call compelled hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Venezuelans to direct their moral and political compass toward the first black republic of the Western Hemisphere.<br /><br />Subsequently, Venezuela has provided funds and subsidized oil for Haiti as well as other Caribbean nations through its program PetroCaribe. In the case of Haiti, Venezuela has also ensured additional disaster relief humanitarian aid and dissolved all loans. However, these significant gestures have facilitated contradictory results. Instead of reaching the people and improving economic conditions for the majority Haitian poor, these initiatives have lined the pockets of Haitian Duvalierist elites. Recent mass mobilizations and legislative accounts have denounced corruption of PetroCaribe funds and the displacement of Haitians across the island of Ile-à-Vache, both cases tied to the Haitian government’s misuse of Venezuelan aid. In October 2017, news surfaced after years of concerns from Haitian grassroots about the PetroCaribe program, after five Haitian senators who commissioned an audit of the international program publicly released the report. The audit attested to the corrupt use of funds and cited payments to private corporations. High level officials in the Haitian Government under then President Michel Martelly—supporter of current President Jovenel Moïse—were implicated. Months prior, in February 2017, to the disappointment of Haiti’s grassroots movement, the Venezuelan Government immediately recognized the illegitimate (s)election of Moïse, closely associated with Martelly and the Duvalier dictatorship, at the very moment when mass demonstrations were continuing to protest the fraudulent election that installed him as president.<br /><br />These contradictions, while contemporary examples, speak to the unresolved consequences of the independence era and colonialism’s impact. Similarly, they correspond directly to Venezuela’s attempt to return this “historical debt,” via the shared resources of oil wealth without an intentional political orientation and management oversight, which has caused harm and exacerbated the economic and political crisis in Haiti.<br />In order to understand today, we must look into the more than two centuries of interwoven histories between Haiti and Venezuela. These histories offer a window into understanding the challenges found in building regional integration and promoting a black internationalist solidarity model that is under constant siege by imperialist powers. Today, it’s necessary for us to uncover, explore, and act on these histories in order to evade damaging historical cycles.<br /><br /><br />“Black internationalism” in this article refers to the solidarity expressed between oppressed nations focused on the liberation and interests of African/black peoples from the continent and throughout the Diaspora. Haiti’s founding is exemplary of a successful black internationalist and pan-Africanist revolutionary process whose solidarity with African peoples and independence forces in Venezuela made shockwaves throughout history.<br /><br />Chávez was the first president in Venezuelan history to identify with his African and indigenous descent, as a feminist, as well as an anti-imperialist. He was also the first president to declare Venezuela’s historical debt to the island nation. Yet in spite of these critical testaments, Chávez often referred to criollo Independence leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda’s relationships to Haiti, shadowing accounts of Venezuela’s African and African descendant leaders and their connections to the Haitian Revolution.<br /><br />Historian Gerald Horne attests to the uncontainable impact of the Haitian Revolution, initially marked in 1791 by the Bois Caïman ceremony led by resistance and spiritual leaders Cecile Fatiman and Dutty Boukman. The ceremony inspired a wave of successful pan-African-led rebellions on the island against mainly French colonialism. Horne attests, “Haiti, which was not opposed to extending aid to the neighboring enslaved, was invoked even when it was not directly involved in spurring unrest. Haiti, the island of freedom, mocked the pretensions of slaveholders—those on the mainland not least—and inspired the enslaved to believe realistically that their plight was not divinely ordained, nor perpetual, but could be overcome.”<br /><br />The rapidly spreading rebellions from Martinique to Barbados were inspired by and aligned with the Haitian revolution and its call for an end to colonialism. Venezuelan Consul General and historian García explains, “[Haiti was] an indisputable reference in the early nineteenth century to all oppressed peoples across Latin America and the Caribbean….Haiti was the Cuba of the 19th century [which] spread solidarity to our country [of Venezuela] as well as the nations of Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá, Bolivia, and Peru, while bearing in mind liberation projects of Cuba, Santo Domingo, and even Mexico.”<br /><br />One such instance involved African-Indigenous leader José Leonardo Chirino, who orchestrated a maroon rebellion in the Venezuelan Caribbean coastal township of Coro, Falcón in 1795. Venezuelan historians suggest that Chirino frequently travelled to Curacao and Saint Domingue as part of his enslaved work. This led to his exposure to African anti-colonial and abolitionist struggles. While records of who he met and who he may have trained with or received direct material support from are difficult to secure or may not exist, there are clear accounts that after these travels, Chirino launched a rebellion on May 10, 1795 alongside hundreds of enslaved and free blacks as well as the Jirahara, Ajagua, and Caracas Indigenous peoples. Records indicate they launched attacks on Macanillas Hacienda, which spread to El Socorro, Varón, Sabana Redonda, La Magdalena, and haciendas in other regions of Venezuela. It’s still undetermined whether or not Africans from Saint Domingue were directly involved in Chirino’s maroon forces as they were across the Americas from the US South to islands stretched across the Caribbean.<br /><br />Upon the arrival of Chirino’s forces to the central square of Coro, the criollo slave-owning elites arrested one hundred black maroons and executed 86 others by firearm. Subsequently, Spanish colonial forces captured Chirino several months later on August 1795. He was publicly executed and dismembered. His wife and children were separated and sold to different haciendas.<br /><br />For Venezuelans, this African-Indigenous insurrection represents one of the first political movements that voiced the demands of the independence era and chipped away at colonialism’s stronghold in South America. The launch of the rebellion is commemorated every year during Afro-Venezuelan history month. Chirino’s rebellion is one of potentially hundreds more examples where Haitian struggles inspired or accompanied revolutionary acts in Venezuela.<br /><br />Today, Afro-Venezuelans have addressed the omission of Haiti in their nation’s founding by exploring documented accounts and oral histories of often anonymous Haitian maroon leaders and warriors and their efforts to topple Spanish colonization across Latin America. Haitians’ historical actions solidified the foundations for Venezuela’s future international solidarity efforts, support for Caribbean-wide reparations campaigns, and the very establishment of cumbes (societies founded on the principles of self-determination by self-liberated Africans and indigenous people), which continue to exist as revolutionary organizing spaces.<br /><br /><br />The names most often mentioned in official Venezuelan accounts on anti-colonial struggle across the Americas are Europeans and their American-born descendants. In the case of Venezuela, this includes Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda. Both travelled to Haiti seeking refuge, to enrich their ideological vision, and to develop their military might against Spanish colonialism in South America. Perhaps the most pivotal to understanding Venezuela’s complicated relationship with Haiti today can be seen through the lens of Bolívar’s voyages to Haiti.<br /><br />Bolívar initially sought support from Haiti in 1815, eleven years after the triumph of the Haitian Revolution, after his troops lost to Spanish forces in Cartagenas, present-day Colombia. Southern Haiti’s President Alexandre Pétion provided food and shelter for Bolívar and his company as well as material aid, financial support, and military strength ahead of his upcoming independence battles. Pétion explicitly extended Bolívar solidarity during one of Venezuela’s most dire moments in its independence struggle, on the condition that Bolívar abolish slavery in any territory his forces liberated. According to some scholars, Bolívar departed from Haiti with approximately 4000 rifles, gunpowder, a small fleet, printing press, food, and at least 250 Haitian veterans who fought in the revolutionary wars.<br /><br />Despite this incredible show of support, after another bout of defeats, Bolívar returned to Haiti to recuperate, re-arm, and regroup. In one of his letters written December 4, 1816 before sailing back to South America, Bolívar etched into historical memory Venezuela’s debt to Haiti: “If men are bound by the favors they have received, be sure, General [Marion], that my countrymen and myself will forever love the Haitian people and the worthy rulers who make them happy.”<br /><br />On this voyage, after his exchanges in Haiti, Bolívar was victorious in South America. Bolívar along with African and indigenous forces succeeded in liberating Venezuela from Spanish control. The independence forces also freed today’s Brazil, Guayana, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Bolivia, northern Peru, and Panama.<br /><br />Upon this incredible feat, Bolívar declared slavery abolished in these territories and issued the first decree in Venezuela on June 2, 1816. Bolívar himself had already freed enslaved Africans associated with his family’s properties earlier in 1813. However, it wasn’t until thirty-eight years later on March 24, 1854 that slavery was officially abolished in Venezuela, under President Jośe Gregorio Monagas. Despite Bolívar’s greatest efforts, he faced fierce resistance by other slave-owning independence generals and high-level authorities in the new South American republic. Consul García reminds us that even General Miranda stood against abolition and advocated that enslaved Africans serve thirty years in the Venezuelan military before granting their freedom. This contradiction left lasting effects on the relationship between Haiti and Venezuela and speaks volumes to the engrained nature of white supremacist slave economies in the Americas.<br /><br />Moreover, in addition to the aforementioned delay on abolition, while Bolívar held Pétion and Haiti with the utmost respect, he did not formally recognize Haiti or establish official diplomatic relations once Venezuela became independent. Consul García as well as historical records remind us that this decision was significantly informed by external intimidation from imperialist forces, including the US which feared the implications of recognizing the Black Republic. Haiti represented to the US and its colonial allies—and what they have declared Venezuela since 2015—“an unusual and extraordinary threat to [US] national security.”<br /><br />Perhaps a strategic decision, yet undoubtedly one that undermined Haiti’s unwavering commitment to regional liberation, Bolívar also excluded Haiti from the first regional gathering of independent states in the Americas—the Congress of the American States in Panama in 1826. Today, we find Venezuela facing the similar exclusion at the hands of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and the Lima Group, namely rightwing states from Latin America and the Caribbean in alignment the US, calling for intervention in Venezuela’s domestic affairs. Overwhelmingly, however, progressive states have stood beside Venezuela in these trying times.<br /><br />Bolívar’s unfortunate decision to omit Haiti played a role in the French and US’s racist counter-revolutionary backlash against the nation that persist to this day. France devastated the Haitian economy, demanding financial restitution for sugar industry losses after the Revolution, further exposing the French state’s racist notions concerning their control over African life. Threatening military intervention and surrounding the island, Haiti paid France 150 million gold francs, the equivalent of $22 billion in gold, lumber, and other resources until 1947, under-developing its infrastructure—as we have witnessed occur with other majority African and indigenous nations.<br /><br /><br />These histories touch the surface of what we need to know to understand the layers involved in Venezuela and Haiti’s contemporary relationship and the dilemmas they face together and independently at this present conjuncture.<br /><br />How does Venezuela return the historical, moral, political, material, and spiritual “debt” of Haiti’s hand in its independence? And how do Venezuelans repair harms caused by the decisions their founding leaders made in the 19th century? What measures can be taken by Venezuelan grassroots movements to demand that the Bolivarian Revolution also responds to concerns raised in light of cases like the Haitian Government’s mismanagement and corruption of PetroCaribe funds? How can Venezuelans stand in solidarity with Haiti’s majority poor? And how can Venezuelans’ actions and strategic interventions to rectify these contradictions serve as examples for grassroots movements around the world?<br /><br />Haiti’s deeply abolitionist, black internationalist, and pan-Africanist solidarity model were critical and necessary to defeat occupying colonial forces in South America. Given this, it is critical that Venezuela, as a majority black nation, as well as other black nations and those around the world fighting for liberation, study Haiti’s historical internationalism and commit their struggles to active solidarity now with the Haitian people.<br /><br />Our solidarity must follow earlier models of anti-colonial struggles as manifested in Haiti’s example as well as the Cuban revolutionary model which has transformed over time, from direct military support in anti-colonial struggles in Africa and internationally, to present-day medical training for youth from majority poor nations. Our revolutionary work with Haiti should emerge in our collective efforts to accompany the people’s grassroots movement and inherited revolutionary process: Fanmi Lavalas.<br /><br />The Bolivarian Revolution should be directly tied to the Haitian grassroots movement. There are historical and, at present, intentional imperialist reasons intervening and preventing this relationship from taking shape. However, ensuring that this relationship flourish would encourage steps toward a reparatory approach to this historical debt. The Bolivarian Revolution is facing the same global confusion campaign, media smear tactics, economic strangulation, and racist attacks—not only experienced by Chile’s Salvador Allende—but also experienced by Fanmi Lavalas. There are countless lessons to learn and share between these two nations which will contribute to all our movements moving forward.<br /><br />Until such a black internationalist relationship is forged, we will continue to witness inefficient, unsatisfactory, and contradictory results in the solidarity model Venezuela and other international movements apply to Haiti.</div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-75351285134498409052018-10-15T13:25:00.000-07:002018-11-21T13:39:23.097-08:00Deforestation Triggered Mass Extinction of Endemic Animal Species in Haiti<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://cst.temple.edu/about/news/mass-extinction-endemic-animal-species-haiti" target="_blank">Temple University College of Science and Technology</a><br />
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The loss of more than 99% of primary, virgin forests in Haiti is triggering an ongoing mass extinction of reptiles, amphibians, and other species. This deforestation is the main threat to species globally, more than disease, climate change or invasive species.<br />
<a href="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Primary-forest-on-Macaya-on-the-Massif-de-la-Hotte-Haiti.jpg"><img src="https://haitiliberte.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Primary-forest-on-Macaya-on-the-Massif-de-la-Hotte-Haiti-696x464.jpg" /></a>Virgin primary forest on Haiti’s Massif de la Hotte near Macaya Peak. Credit: Claudio Contreras<br />
<a name='more'></a>That is the conclusion of a research collaboration that includes Temple University biologist S. Blair Hedges, director of the Center for Biodiversity, and Laura H. Carnell, Professor of Biodiversity. Among their findings: 42 of the country’s 50 largest mountains have already lost all of their primary forests.<br />
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“Haiti is one of the first countries in the world to have lost almost all of its original forests,” says Hedges. “A lot of the mountains each have their own endemic species, so when the primary forest is gone, the inference is that many species – including some that have never been identified – are most likely also gone.”<br />
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BETWEEN 1988 AND 2016 THE PORTION OF HAITI’S LAND COVERED BY PRIMARY FORESTS SHRUNK FROM 4.4% TO JUST 0.32%<br />
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The findings – published Mon., Oct. 29 in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – suggest that in less than two decades Haiti will lose all of its remaining primary forest cover and, as a result, most of its endemic species will disappear. Endemic species are those that occur in only one area and nowhere else in the world.<br />
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Hedges, the study’s lead author, as well as collaborators Warren Cohen of the Oregon State University College of Forestry and Joel Timyan of the Audubon Society of Haiti, have all studied forests and biodiversity in Haiti since the 1980s. Zhiqiang Yang, now with the U.S. Forest Service but an OSU College of Forestry research associate during this study, was the fourth co-author.<br />
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Haiti is a densely populated nation of nearly 11 million people where most of the domestic energy production comes from wood charcoal. Haitians are cutting their forests primarily for charcoal and agriculture.<br />
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The researchers’ analysis of aerial photography and Landsat images showed that between 1988 and 2016 the portion of Haiti’s land covered by primary forests shrunk from 4.4% to just 0.32%. Moreover, mountaintop surveys of vertebrates showed that species are disappearing along with the trees.<br />
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Most reports of forest cover and deforestation in tropical nations fail to make a distinction between primary forest and previously cut ones. Instead, they use the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s definition of “total forest” which can have as much as 90% of the trees missing. The researchers concluded that the reporting of primary forest, not total forest, should be the standard worldwide, for understanding the human impact on biodiversity.<br />
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“Expanded detection and monitoring of primary forest globally will also improve the efficiency of conservation measures inside and outside of protected areas,” says Cohen.<br />
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The National Science Foundation and the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund supported the research. The Center for Biodiversity is one of 12 interdisciplinary research centers within Temple University‘s College of Science and Technology.</div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-6853737356767419542018-10-14T01:06:00.005-07:002018-10-14T01:06:52.751-07:00Trump’s Economic Sanctions Have Cost Venezuela About $6bn Since August 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Joe Emersberger - <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14073" target="_blank">Venezuelanalysis</a><br />
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The following piece by Canadian political analyst Joe Emersberger was written in response to a recent <a href="https://venezuelablog.org/crude-realities-understanding-venezuelas-economic-collapse/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">article</a>by Torino Capital Chief Economist Francisco Rodriguez. </em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rodriguez is well-known as an outspoken critic of the Maduro government, but in his recent article he recognizes that Washington’s “misguided” sanctions are exacerbating falling oil production in Venezuela and as such, pejoratively affecting</em><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </em></span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">general living standards.</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The resulting loss of access to credit appears to have helped precipitate the collapse in oil output, driving the resulting economic contraction.</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Our point is that the spilling over of this political crisis into the arena of finance had consequences for the country’s economy and for the living standards of Venezuelans,</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Despite problematic comparisons between Venezuela and Iraq and Syria and charged anti-government rhetoric, Rodriguez presents a coherent economic argument against US sanctions which, amongst other things, block international payments.</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">I argue that Venezuela’s economy has imploded because it can’t import.</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Finally, Rodriguez deconstructs Washington’s argument that the sanctions only impact high-ranking figures in the Venezuelan government, claiming that:</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Advocates of sanctions on Venezuela claim that these target the Maduro regime but do not affect the Venezuelan people. If the sanctions regime can be linked to the deterioration of the country’s export capacity and to its consequent import and growth collapse, then this claim is clearly wrong.</em></div>
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Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez, a longtime critic of the Venezuelan government, wrote <a href="https://venezuelablog.org/crude-realities-understanding-venezuelas-economic-collapse/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">a piece showing</a> that after sanctions Trump introduced in August of 2017 Venezuela’s oil production dropped much faster than analysts had predicted it would. Rodriguez was the economic advisor to former presidential candidate Henri Falcon, who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-election-analysis/maduro-challenger-shakes-up-venezuelas-presidential-vote-idUSKCN1GU04N" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">defied US threats</a> to run in Venezuela’s presidential elections that were held in May <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/articles/2018-03-03/new-evidence-the-trump-administration-is-meddling-in-venezuelas-elections" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">despite the boycott</a> of other opposition leaders. </div>
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Below is the key graph Rodriguez provides.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTMKRieyxMo6vTHnctUmh09ZD5vIl1Z4xZLcl3UUv7TuR1fAK_RfOwabB8PX0LufMBuBRsHM_eu9SYCf_qj_YWM0qOIMtQ8mtsW8XLFBdQAFHNyFh8tLg1E5PH-9DJAqRmWYi29Ey2TOg/s1600/graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="612" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTMKRieyxMo6vTHnctUmh09ZD5vIl1Z4xZLcl3UUv7TuR1fAK_RfOwabB8PX0LufMBuBRsHM_eu9SYCf_qj_YWM0qOIMtQ8mtsW8XLFBdQAFHNyFh8tLg1E5PH-9DJAqRmWYi29Ey2TOg/s640/graph.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Venezuelan oil production followed essentially the same pattern as Colombia’s during 2016 and most of 2017 –until August when Trump’s sanctions came into force. A decline in production was driven by the price of oil hitting its lowest point in about a decade at the start of 2016. But in August of 2017 Trump’s sanctions made it illegal for the Venezuelan government to obtain financing from the US which was devastating for two reasons: all the Venezuelan governments’ outstanding foreign currency bonds are governed under New York state law; and one of the Venezuelan government’s major assets, the state-owned CITGO corporation, is based in Texas. The sanctions also blocked CITGO from sending profits and dividends back to Venezuela (which <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-citgo-pete-credit-exclusive/exclusive-venezuela-state-oil-firms-credit-woes-spread-to-u-s-unit-citgo-idUSKCN1BP2P2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">had been averaging</a> about $1 billion USD per year since 2015).</div>
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The table below shows my estimate of Venezuela’s oil revenues each month since Trump’s sanctions came into force. The price of WTI oil (which approximates the price of Venezuela’s) basically increased linearly since August of 2017 from $50 to about $70 per barrel. The oil production volumes are taken from the estimates Rodriguez has provided. In the “no sanctions” case show below, it is assumed that Venezuela‘s oil production would have continued to fall at the same rate as in the 12 months before Trump’s sanctions. Rodriguez cited a “worst case” prediction made by a prominent oil consultant that a 13% decline in production would take place in 2017 followed by a 6% decline in 2018. The “no sanctions” case shown below is close to that “worst case prediction”. It assumes an 11% decline would have taken place. In reality (i.e. the “sanctions” case) production has fallen by 37% since the sanctions were imposed. The difference in total revenue between the “sanction” and “no sanctions” case over the twelve month period is about $6 billion.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYd2PqLoFl3qT8rfOTUdqSuygDtCTT2g7oqjsbZCzazgjGF8LlH5PvnUu6HuG31qMYrcV_eE_LhSU8xKQKooAK-U5PMnwQ-c94frkTzKixXw7KNVmMa9mfUxkvrLRMf131Xwb5oXlvZFw/s1600/table.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="873" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYd2PqLoFl3qT8rfOTUdqSuygDtCTT2g7oqjsbZCzazgjGF8LlH5PvnUu6HuG31qMYrcV_eE_LhSU8xKQKooAK-U5PMnwQ-c94frkTzKixXw7KNVmMa9mfUxkvrLRMf131Xwb5oXlvZFw/s640/table.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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That sum, $6 billion, is 133 times larger than what the <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/63088" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">UNHCR has appealed</a> for in aid for Venezuelan migrants. It is also equal to about 6% of Venezuela’s GDP at present. <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?locations=ZJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">Health care spending</a> in Latin America and the Caribbean averages about 7% of GDP.</div>
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Perversely, Maduro’s government has been widely accused of “using” the economic crisis to “buy” loyalty of the most vulnerable through the direct delivery of food and other basic products. Trump’s goal is clearly to starve the government of funds it uses to allegedly “buy support” (i.e. respond to the crisis). Rodriguez pulls his punches and heavily qualifies his thesis, but the inescapable conclusion is that Trump’s policy is depraved. The US has deliberately made an economic catastrophe much worse in the hope that its Venezuelan allies can seize power through violence as they briefly did in April of 2002.</div>
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Rodriguez is correct to say that the “toxification” of dealing with Venezuela’s government, and the imposition of “reputational costs” on those who do so, is a huge factor in all this. The <a href="https://fair.org/home/why-venezuela-reporting-is-so-bad/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2f477c; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">Western media</a> has indeed demonized Venezuela‘s government for 17 years and has therefore reduced, almost to zero, the legal and moral constraints on the US and its allies. The priority for decent people whose governments have collaborated with Trump in attacking Venezuela should be to strengthen those constraints. The attacks could easily become even more barbaric.</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-8304786876336948352018-08-23T09:18:00.002-07:002018-11-21T13:18:44.898-08:00Debate: Who Is Behind Nicaragua's Turmoil?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://therealnews.com/" target="_blank">The Real News Network</a> - Debate between <span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dr. Mary Ellsberg of George Washington University and Max Blumenthal of the <a href="https://grayzoneproject.com/" target="_blank">Grayzone Project</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Watch <a href="https://therealnews.com/series/debate-who-is-behind-nicaraguas-turmoil" target="_blank">all three parts here.</a></span></div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-56134399657501497812018-08-22T09:27:00.000-07:002018-08-23T09:27:32.487-07:00Who is Jean-Henry Céant, Haiti’s New Prime Minister Nominee?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By Kim Ives - <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/10/who-is-jean-henry-ceant-haitis-new-prime-minister-nominee/" target="_blank">Counterpunch</a></div>
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On Sun., Aug. 5, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse nominated two-time presidential candidate Jean Henry Céant, 61, leader of the <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Renmen Ayiti </em>(Love Haiti) party, to be his next prime minister.</div>
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If approved by Parliament, Céant would replace Jack Guy Lafontant, <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/the-story-of-how-pm-lafontant-reluctantly-resigned/" style="color: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">who resigned on Sat., Jul. 14</a> as Moïse’s first prime minister following a three-day nationwide uprising from Jul. 6-8 (and then a two-day general strike), which resulted in a few deaths and dozens of businesses being burned or damaged. The rebellion against corruption, waste, and austerity, which is still smoldering, was sparked by steep fuel price hikes on gasoline (38%), diesel (47%), and kerosene (51%).</div>
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Moïse’s announced his choice over Twitter (as <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/who-is-haitis-new-prime-minister-nominee-dr-jack-guy-lafontant/" style="color: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">he had for Lafontant</a>) after two days of protracted negotiations with parliamentarians.</div>
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Trained as a lawyer, Céant has a genial personality but is widely viewed and reviled by the Haitian people as a “land thief” (<em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">volè tè</em>) for his conduct as a <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">notaire</em>or notary, who in Haiti is a cross between an accountant and lawyer supposedly safeguarding the titles to their clients’ land. Almost every <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">notaire </em>is accused, rightly or wrongly, of absconding with land titles, often after their clients die.</div>
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But Céant is also viewed as a traitor. In the 1990s and 2000s, Céant was the <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">notaire </em>for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, helping him purchase land in the Port-au-Prince suburb Tabarre for his residence and the Aristide Foundation for Democracy and its university (UNIFA).</div>
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But during Aristide’s 2004-2011 exile in South Africa, things soured between the two men, and Céant unsuccessfully ran for president under the banner of Renmen Ayiti in the 2010 election.</div>
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In a Nov. 10, 2009 U.S. Confidential cable provided by Wikileaks to <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Haïti Liberté, </em>then Ambassador Kenneth Merten (who now heads the U.S. State Department’s Haiti Desk) described the “Prospects for Fanmi Lavalas in the 2010 Elections.” He grouped Céant under the heading of “Lavalas Activists in Other Political Parties,” writing that he was “Aristide’s notary and personal friend.”</div>
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Merten also reported that Céant “was an early supporter of Aristide, and is thought to have helped Aristide in meeting property ownership requirements so he could run for President. Céant’s brother, Harry Céant, was at the head of CONATEL (Haiti’s equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission) under Aristide. Céant’s wealth (by Haitian standards), combined with his ties to Aristide, raises suspicions about his past dealings.”</div>
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But when right-wing former <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">konpa </em>singer Michel Martelly won <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/haitis-rigged-election/" style="color: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">an illegal, controversial election in 2011</a>, Céant was quick to flip to the neo-Duvalierist camp, proudly mugging for cameras at the post-inauguration party of the new president whom he had trenchantly denounced during the campaign.</div>
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“Céant is a consummate opportunist,” explained Henriot Dorcent, a Haitian political analyst who speaks on the weekly Sunday Radio Panou program <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Truth Serum/Haiti on the Airwaves</em>. “Under the dictatorship of Gen. Prosper Avril, he worked closely with lawyer Réné Julien, who was Céant’s mentor and Avril’s cousin. But when the political winds shifted, he joined Aristide and the Lavalas, acting as Aristide’s <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">notaire </em>and getting jobs for his wife as Aristide’s private secretary and his brother in CONATEL. Then he jumped into the Martelly camp, where he headed the project to remove people from their homes in downtown Port-au-Prince after the earthquake without compensating them. When Jovenel came to power, there was a scathing report by Haiti’s anti-corruption unit UCREF detailing Jovenel’s money-laundering through his business Agritrans. Who was the first to jump to Jovenel’s defense, saying the excellent report was a fabrication? Jean-Henry Céant!”</div>
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To top it all off, when former paramilitary leader Guy Philippe was arrested by Haitian police and handed over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on drug trafficking charges just before Jovenel Moïse’s inauguration in 2017, Céant shrilly called on Jovenel to do everything in his power to defend Philippe and win his release. Guy Philippe had <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/the-real-crimes-of-guy-philippe/" style="color: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">played a leading role in the second coup d’état</a> against Aristide in February 2004.</div>
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In 2012, after Martelly was in power and Aristide had returned to Haiti, Céant appeared to have played a role <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/faux-pas-or-scheme-the-curious-case-of-the-warrants-against-aristide/" style="color: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">in trying to reopen an indictment against Aristide</a> on corruption charges (see <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Haïti Liberté</em>, Vol. 5, No. 33, Feb. 29, 2012).</div>
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Jean-Henry Céant was born on Sep. 27, 1956 in Croix-des-Missions, which is part of Tabarre, and, during his 2015-2016 presidential run as <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Renmen Ayiti</em>’s candidate, had the third best-funded campaign – with the largest billboards and most flyers – after Jovenel Moïse and Jude Céléstin, the candidate of former President René Préval’s party. Nonetheless, he placed fifth with only .75% of the vote.</div>
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“I thank the President of the Republic President Jovenel Moïse for choosing me as his prime minister,” Céant wrote on his Facebook page on Aug. 5. “I’m aware of the dimensions of the task and the challenges which await me.”</div>
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Farah Juste, the reigning queen of Haitian protest song and long-time activist in the Lavalas Family party, summed up Céant’s prospects: “he dies in the film,” (<em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">li mouri nan fim nan</em>) a Kreyòl catch-phrase meaning someone is doomed.</div>
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“For three reasons,” she continued. “First, the people despise him for the way he made money off of uprooting them from their homes in downtown Port-au-Prince under Martelly and [his Prime Minister Laurent] Lamothe. Second, the opposition doesn’t like him and doesn’t trust him. Thirdly, Jovenel would never let him run things, the same way Jovenel completely controlled Lafontant.”</div>
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Céant has to be approved by Parliament, which nominally is controlled by Moïse’s Haitian Bald-Headed Party (PHTK) and its allies. However, Moïse has been grievously politically wounded by the July uprising, causing some of his allies to take a distance. And historically, the president’s first nominees often are shot down in the confirmation process.</div>
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In fact, Juste wonders whether Céant isn’t just “cannon fodder.”</div>
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“My sources tell me that Céant is not really the man that Jovenel wants,” she concluded. “The real person he wants will come after Céant.”</div>
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Asked who that person is, she replied: “I really don’t know.”</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-71877937378022403602018-08-21T09:23:00.000-07:002018-08-23T09:27:49.167-07:00Rightwing in Haiti facing criticism over corruption<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here are copies of some recent tweets criticizing the role of the Jovenel Moïse government in corruption, which had already heightened under the rightwing predecessor administration of Michel Martelly. Both of these administrations entered office under historically low-turn outs and mass voter suppression.
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Residents block <a href="https://twitter.com/moisejovenel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@moisejovenel</a>'s motorcade at Pelerin 5 in PAP, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Haiti?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Haiti</a>. He is accused of confiscating their land & homes to create "security buffer" for his private residence. <a href="https://t.co/UdgOStEFTz">pic.twitter.com/UdgOStEFTz</a></div>
— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/1032264381390704641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<a name='more'></a>Caravan of Change or Caravan of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Corruption?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Corruption</a>?<br />
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During the 2016 Election 2.4 Million <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Haitians?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Haitians</a> couldn't Register to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Vote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Vote</a> due to Missing ID Cards.<br />
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6 million cards were produced during the time span & 40% cannot be accounted for & never reached their owners. <a href="https://t.co/kOufQ5VZ7n">https://t.co/kOufQ5VZ7n</a></div>
— Reparations for Haiti (@ReparationsH) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReparationsH/status/1031617469297958912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CORRUPTION?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CORRUPTION</a>: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Haiti?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Haiti</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PHTK?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PHTK</a> Gov't owes <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Venezuela?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Venezuela</a> $2 Billion & much of it was Embezzled, Report says. 23 June 2018. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/petrocaribechallenge?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#petrocaribechallenge</a><br />
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Named in the report former finance & commerce minister Wilson Laleau, who serves as Chief of Staff for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jovenel?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Jovenel</a> Moïse. <a href="https://t.co/5fWGLpwNSF">https://t.co/5fWGLpwNSF</a> <a href="https://t.co/udSy3hDWAZ">pic.twitter.com/udSy3hDWAZ</a></div>
— Reparations for Haiti (@ReparationsH) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReparationsH/status/1031358154565722112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Wooy - tet chaje. Ayisyen mele ak vole sa yo. <a href="https://twitter.com/jeanhenryceant?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jeanhenryceant</a> vole te Grangwav. <a href="https://t.co/r3l9o0iTsE">https://t.co/r3l9o0iTsE</a></div>
— Madan Boukman (@madanbookman) <a href="https://twitter.com/madanbookman/status/1031241854036131840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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"[<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Haiti?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Haiti</a>'s] money isn't your [corrupt politician's] mother & father's money. Where is the Petrocaribe money?" <a href="https://t.co/3aRXMcNeLV">pic.twitter.com/3aRXMcNeLV</a></div>
— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/1031227445842567169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-5142883215347650592018-08-14T09:36:00.001-07:002018-08-14T09:36:20.943-07:00On Facebook's Removal of the HaitiAnalysis PageWe are currently preparing a response to the recent removal of our page from Facebook. It is important to note that many other independent media and information outlets have faced a similar crackdown over the internet, including <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13990" target="_blank">Venezuelanalysis</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7OOlI8XmJ7MJwNVQ8EWIMG9Aievq4kh1KugipnHDqbygFMxcUlBBXUUyWU73eyq-5z41VEzCuOSZE_1EVew-EAGplIIWdj5x4p95_KiUr7k_ci0KePw12sZY1ymCmRHXaKgNudFZvlM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-08-14+at+9.29.04+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1121" data-original-width="1600" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7OOlI8XmJ7MJwNVQ8EWIMG9Aievq4kh1KugipnHDqbygFMxcUlBBXUUyWU73eyq-5z41VEzCuOSZE_1EVew-EAGplIIWdj5x4p95_KiUr7k_ci0KePw12sZY1ymCmRHXaKgNudFZvlM/s640/Screen+Shot+2018-08-14+at+9.29.04+AM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-75243930818866529382018-05-02T19:28:00.001-07:002018-05-02T19:28:25.090-07:00Buy your ticket to join the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) at Gotham Comedy Club <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Only 2 hours left to buy your ticket to join the Institute for <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OKVqAlSswhje7jnj5%2F0PmJv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Justice & Democracy in Haiti</a> (IJDH) and the<a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=fe0oFbkXkGwgjStj6XHVYpv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"> <i style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;">Bureau des Avocats Internationaux</i></a> (BAI) at <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mbfhsPm%2BS7OT2lGqEjXMWZv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Gotham Comedy Club</a> in New York to laugh and learn about our crucial work to advance human rights in Haiti. Headlining the event are Haitian-American comedians <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IZmDfhoKD1NCCEMF%2BBYAmJv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">J-L Cauvin</a>, <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XsYkzVGoOOwzo3UtckjRKpv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Tanael Joachim</a> and <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3eLz93SjxtynTCgz7N6L%2FZv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Reg Thomas</a> and our host Vladimir Calixte, known as <i><a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=s6qcAqukb9bmVTcfNxjH6Zv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Haitian V</a></i>.</span></span></div>
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</span><a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2sl8b64uh6jKF6Sa50qgaJv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: blue; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/51336/images/Buy_Your_Tickets_today.png" style="visibility: visible;" /></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Buy your <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Hhb%2Bu13boTroFSe05M9yDJv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">ticket</a> today to help us: </span></span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">• Keep the <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=d352p4%2BNv2SZ9VWJhKg9aZv1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">pressure</a> on the UN until it delivers on its promise to raise $400 million to eliminate cholera in Haiti and compensate the victims; </span></span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">• Win justice for <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qh%2F4uz55Zm53SeSaPWIvs5v1ROuKVb37" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">victims of rape</a> while addressing the systemic issues that make women vulnerable to sexual assault; and </span></span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">• Stand up for Haitians in the U.S. targeted by President Trump’s <a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=M0KI2hYRH5Qr%2Bugn5pZV1cz9W0GxZGO%2B" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">racist immigration policies</a>. </span></span></div>
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<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">All proceeds</span></span></b><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"> will benefit BAI/IJDH’s advocacy and legal work in Haiti!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"> <b>Where</b>: Gotham Comedy Club, <a href="https://maps.google.com/?q=208+West+23rd+St&entry=gmail&source=g" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">208 West 23rd St</a>. Between 7th and 8th Avenues, New York, NY 10011 </span></span></div>
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<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">When</span></span></b><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">: Wednesday, May 2, 2018 8:00 PM (Doors open at 7:15 PM) Ticket Price: $30.00 (plus two beverages minimum)! </span></span></div>
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<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Restrictions:</span></span></b><span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"> 18 & over </span></span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.32px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; orphans: 2; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Buy your ticket(s) NOW at <b>Gotham Comedy Club </b><a href="http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FwFA3ORqtDX%2BWPB0h2Z0D8z9W0GxZGO%2B" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;">website</b></a> (<b>use our promo code “jistis” to get $10 off your ticket)! </b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.06px;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Thank you for joining us tonight in support of IJDH and BAI's work in Haiti. </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Joe Emersbergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824813711982765005noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-50993898566635699002018-03-15T13:38:00.000-07:002018-11-21T13:40:10.604-08:00A U.N.-backed police force carried out a massacre in Haiti. The killings have been almost entirely ignored.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Jake Johnston - <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/10/haiti-raid-united-nations-police-grand-ravine/"><i>The Intercept</i></a></b></div>
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AT 5 O’CLOCK on the morning of November 13, more than 200 Haitian police officers raided the Grand Ravine area of Port-au-Prince. There was a series of loud explosions, followed by gunfire. For the next six hours, the commotion didn’t stop. The neighborhood was under siege.</div>
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What had started as an anti-gang operation in a poor and largely forgotten neighborhood — in a poor and largely forgotten country — ended in the summary execution of innocent civilians on a school campus. <br />
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The police officers were working with the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti. It was launched in October, a reboot of a previous mission that had begun in 2004, when thousands of U.N. troops were sent to Haiti following a coup d’etat, tasked in part with restoring stability and reinforcing national police capacities. <br />
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And though the U.N. mission issued a <a href="https://minujusth.unmissions.org/la-minujusth-condamne-les-violences-commis-%C3%A0-grand-ravine-et-appelle-les-autorit%C3%A9s-nationales-%C3%A0">statement</a> days after the raid calling for a prompt investigation by Haitian authorities, it did not publicly acknowledge its own role in the operation. But in late December, a U.N. spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept for the first time that the mission had helped plan the raid, though it distanced itself from the civilian deaths.<br />
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“The reported civilian death[s] were not part of the planned operation but of a unilateral action conducted by some [Haitian police] officers after the conclusion of the operation,” the spokesperson, Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, wrote in an email. The raid of the school, according to the U.N. statement, was done without authorization, without alerting the police hierarchy, and outside of the operational plan.<br />
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Boutaud de la Combe said that, a day after the raid, the U.N. “conducted an internal enquiry with all the unit commanders who participated in the operation.” The U.N. inquiry, not previously reported, absolved the U.N., finding that U.N. police did not fire their weapons and only “secured the perimeter” of the school, she said.<br />
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“None of the [U.N. police] unit proceeded to the location at Maranatha College where the alleged killings took place,” the spokesperson wrote. “The planned portion of the operation went relatively well. The post-operation unilateral initiative of some HNP members to conduct a high risk search, proceeding outside of the operational cadre, without advising the hierarchy, without authorization and contravening the operation plan was not part of the planned operation.”<br />
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<a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/01/Haiti-school-raid-campus-1515426827.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90"><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/01/Haiti-school-raid-campus-1515426827.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=768" /></a><br />
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Main school logo inside the front gate and near entrance to courtyard on Maranatha campus in Port-au-Prince, on Nov. 17, 2017. <br />
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Photo: Jake Johnston<br />
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WHEN I ARRIVED at the Maranatha Evangelical College campus, traveling with a broadcast team from Al Jazeera four days after the raid, it was immediately obvious something heinous had transpired.<br />
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The blood that stained the concrete was still wet, unable to dry in the blanket of fog and mist that kept the capital unusually cool that particular week. Water pooled in the courtyard’s clogged drain had turned a dark red, partially obscuring an empty tear gas canister. The smell of the violence still hung in the heavy air.<br />
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Classrooms and offices had been ransacked, the contents of closets, drawers, and bookcases spilled across the floors and through the doorways. Light crept in through holes left by bullets that had pierced through the thick concrete. Sometime since the raid, someone had swept another five empty tear gas canisters and close to 100 heavy artillery shells into a pile. <br />
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The morning we arrived, faculty and students were meeting to mourn those who had been killed. The school was still closed. They gathered in one of the small classrooms, closed the door to us outsiders, and began to sing. The religious hymns — deep, soulful melodies — echoed throughout the courtyard where they mixed with cries of grieving victims and family members anxious to tell their stories.<br />
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“I must kill myself,” Monique Larosse, whose nephew was shot in this courtyard days earlier, told us. “Why did they kill him when they know he was not one of the bad men? He was someone who went to church, studied, and had principles.”<br />
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The stories Larosse, along with other survivors and family members, told me make clear something went horribly wrong on that mid-November day. While there’s a lot still unclear, one thing is for certain — the official narrative is at odds with what the people of Grand Ravine say they witnessed and experienced. And they are a far way off from finding justice. <br />
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Tear gas canisters and ammunition swept into a pile at Maranatha campus in Port-au-Prince, on Nov. 17, 2017. <br />
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Photo: Jake Johnston<br />
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LOCATED NEAR THE southern entrance to Haiti’s sprawling capital, Grand Ravine is built on a hillside with picturesque views of the Caribbean Sea. And yet, it’s a downtrodden neighborhood. <br />
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Haphazard construction with paltry regulation has left neighborhoods, including Grand Ravine, with little to no infrastructure or government services. Many areas are only accessible by foot. <br />
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Narrow, misshapen alleys ascend through the concrete homes secured with rusted sheet metal.<br />
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Amid all this is the Maranatha Evangelical College, which has operated here since the 1940s. Despite the name, it offers classes for neighborhood kids beginning in preschool. The campus is a mashup of school buildings, houses and a healthy number of full-size trees, a dissonant image in a city overwhelmed by concrete. A low wall marks it off from the surrounding area. <br />
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The only entrance to the elevated campus is a sloping, winding road that sits behind a large metal gate. The campus is a refuge, an oasis of calm in a section of Haiti rife with gang activity.<br />
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Grand Ravine is a “red zone,” the label international forces give to the country’s most violence-prone areas. In December 2016, Grand Ravine’s most powerful gang leader, Junior Decimus, was arrested at the airport when he attempted to travel abroad. Soon after, according to a report by local rights organization Justice and Peace, an armed conflict began as others sought to consolidate control of the neighborhood. “Bursts of automatic weapons sang during the day, while police officers from the nearby station watched helplessly,” according to a hard copy of the organization’s report.<br />
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In October, the month before the police raid, <a href="http://rnddh.org/content/uploads/2017/11/9-Grand-Rivine-29Nov2017.pdf">groups of armed youth set up roadblocks,</a> robbing cars in plain sight as they passed.<br />
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The same month, thousands of U.N. soldiers stationed in the country since the 2004 coup d’etat withdrew. Brought to Haiti to restore “stability,” the foreign troops have been involved in multiple deadly raids into neighborhoods similar to Grand Ravine. The international community has spent hundreds of millions training the Haitian police for the U.N.’s eventual departure.<br />
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The U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti ended its mandate in October, but the U.N. is by no means gone. In place of troops, the U.N. created a smaller successor mission composed of a few thousand police officers. In early November, together with the local police force responsible for the capital, that new U.N. mission helped plan the anti-gang raid into Grand Ravine.<br />
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The November 13 raid was one of the first major acts involving the new mission, and the response will define the future of the U.N.’s relationship with the people of Grand Ravine — and the success of the newly empowered local police force. <br />
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View of houses on a mountain in Juvenat, in the commune of Petion-Ville, in Port-au-Prince, on Dec. 12, 2017. <br />
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Photo: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images<br />
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AT 6:30 ON that mid-November morning, Armand Louis received a phone call from Maranatha College, the school he has directed for the last 30 years. Something was wrong. The police raid had spilled onto the school’s campus.<br />
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When he arrived nearly two hours later, tear gas was already being employed by police, according to an investigation by the National Network of Human Rights Defenders, a local human rights organization known by its French acronym, RNDDH, and confirmed in an interview with Louis. The following account is based on Intercept interviews with multiple witnesses, whose recollections mirror those included in RNDDH’s subsequent report on the massacre.<br />
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Police opened and searched classrooms, ransacking them in an apparent attempt to locate gang members hiding on campus. They didn’t find any.<br />
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There was a brief period of calm. People still on campus gave water to police. The burning in their eyes from the tear gas subsided.<br />
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An hour later, Louis said, the school’s guard, Julio Fongene, approached him and said that a number of gang members had threatened him and were hiding in a storage facility on campus. Louis informed the police.<br />
“A hundred or even 200 could die there and nobody would know.” — Rovelsond Apollon, Justice and Peace<br />
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When officers attempted to dislodge the hiding gang members, two police officers were shot. The gang members fled. It does not appear that any were apprehended, as the police have not made public any arrests of those responsible for shooting the officers. <br />
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U.N. units composed of police from Jordan and Senegal responded to reports of shots fired and arrived at the school. According to the U.N., they administered first aid to the injured police officers and secured the perimeter.<br />
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But on campus grounds, Haitian police proceeded to punish the bystanders caught up in the violence.<br />
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First, they shot and killed Fongene, the guard, witnesses said.<br />
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Police then accused Louis of setting them up. They dragged him into the central courtyard, where some faculty members and people who live on campus were present. The officers beat him with a chair, causing significant injuries to his head and torso. The Protestant Evangelical Baptist Mission of Haiti, affiliated with the school, included an account of the beating in its statement describing the events, and it was confirmed in an interview with Louis and in the RNDDH report.<br />
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Faculty tried to intervene. David Jean Baptiste, a professor, was beaten and then shot five times, including a bullet to the head. The courtyard grounds where he died remained bloodstained for days after. <br />
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Vanel Danger lives on the school’s campus and is responsible for the cafeteria. He told The Intercept that an officer put a gun to his head and threatened to pull out his teeth if he didn’t cooperate. Danger dropped to his knees and begged for his life. Danger told the officer he had given him water just an hour earlier, RNDDH reported. Danger was spared. But many more weren’t so lucky.<br />
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Louis told The Intercept he was handcuffed by an officer in a U.N. uniform and hauled off, bloody and beaten, to jail.<br />
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When the police finally left the campus, around 11 a.m., nine civilians lay dead in the courtyard — five of whom had been shot in the head. Not a single firearm was recovered, suggesting that the killings were “summary executions,” RNDDH reported.<br />
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The bodies were not removed until the next afternoon.<br />
<a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/01/Haiti-school-raid-1515426830.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90"><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/01/Haiti-school-raid-1515426830.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=768" /></a><br />
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Ransacked school room at Maranatha campus in Port-au-Prince, on Nov. 17, 2017. <br />
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Photo: Jake Johnston<br />
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FOUR DAYS AFTER the raid, the alleys that weave around the campus and through the neighborhood’s hilly landscape were largely deserted. Groups of young kids watched us from rooftops. Darting eyes peering from behind small openings in concrete homes followed us throughout the neighborhood.<br />
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Very few of them wanted to speak.<br />
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“There are many more” victims of this and other shootings, a local resident and student at the school explained. “They are afraid,” added the student, whose name The Intercept is withholding out of concern for their safety.<br />
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Though the anti-gang raid ended with a schoolyard massacre, questions linger about what happened outside the campus, where the raid began. At first, the police acknowledged seven civilian deaths — all of which occurred at the school. Overall, the police made 32 arrests, but haven’t acknowledged any deaths outside of the school.<br />
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But in its investigation, RNDDH concluded that one of the people found dead on campus had been pulled out of his house in the surrounding neighborhood that morning and brought to the school only after his death.<br />
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The total death toll remains unknown.<br />
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Doresne Jean, director of the Saint Claire morgue in downtown Port-au-Prince, said that eight bodies had arrived from Grand Ravine on Tuesday, the day after the raid — more than the police originally acknowledged. But Jean said there were surely more.<br />
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“Maybe the police moved some bodies,” Jean said, “because we had five or six people come here to ask if we had their relatives.” They were not on the list of bodies already received.<br />
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Justice and Peace, the local human rights organization that has been monitoring violence in neighborhoods such as Grand Ravine, was one of the first to investigate the massacre. Rovelsond Apollon, an observer there, said his organization had confirmed 12 dead, but that the real total would likely never be known.<br />
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Not that many people, even in Haiti, are paying attention to what happens in Grand Ravine. “A hundred or even 200 could die there and nobody would know,” Apollon said.<br />
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Four days after the raid, a single shoe sits in the middle of the soccer field behind Maranatha College in Port-au-Prince, on Nov. 17, 2017.<br />
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“I DON’T KNOW how I am going to live without my son,” Gina Napoleantold us from the school’s courtyard, the grief visible on her face just four days after the massacre. Her only son, 22-year-old Kens Napoleon, had been the family’s breadwinner. He was killed by a shot to the head. She put the blame squarely on the government, who she accused of “sending the police to kill our children.”<br />
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It’s not just that politicians exert control over the police, Apollon said — they are involved with the gangs themselves. His organization has interviewed young people with heavy weaponry that is not easy to acquire, he explained, and they said the weapons had been provided by politicians. “Politicians and authorities are not innocent in what happened, because they, too, play their part in the violence,” he said. The politicians, for their part, have not publicly addressed these accusations. <br />
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But since the raid, nearly every government official or institution has avoided taking responsibility.<br />
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Asked about the raid, the police chief simply <a href="http://lenouvelliste.com/article/179239/bavure-policiere-a-grand-ravine-la-division-au-sein-de-la-pnh-a-encore-frappe">said it was planned by the local captain</a> and the new U.N. mission. Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant told the press that the specifics of field operations were outside his purview. Both blamed poor planning for the bloodshed.<br />
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The operation was compromised from the beginning. Police officers told local human rights investigators that confidential information about the operation was circulating even before it took place.<br />
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A former Haitian military official later told me that he found out about the raid when he heard it being discussed on an open radio channel on November 12, the day before it was launched. A gang leader later called in to a local radio show, alleging that a rival gang from a different neighborhood had participated with police in the raid itself. Others have suggested the raid was an attempt to recover a cache of guns that authorities had distributed in the neighborhood weeks earlier. And so the rumor mill in Haiti churns. <br />
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The U.N.’s statement — that its officers were stationed only at the perimeter of the school — contradicts the statements made by Louis, who told me he was handcuffed by a U.N. agent on campus. The U.N. insists that it was uninvolved because its officers were not in the courtyard, but the entrance where they say they were stationed is set just below the scene of the massacre. <br />
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The new U.N. mission is ostensibly focused on justice, but Apollon noted that Haiti has seen many international missions throughout its history. “They all failed,” he said, because they do not understand the Haitian reality. <br />
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In Haiti, he said, impunity reigns.<br />
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Boys play in the ruins of a building on the site of the Fort Dimanche prison, where many were held in inhumane conditions under the regime of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier Jan. 27, 2011 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. <br />
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Photo: Allison Shelley/Getty Images<br />
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NEARLY TWO MONTHS after the massacre, no one has been publicly held responsible. The police inspector general has completed an investigation and passed it on to a judge, who could order the arrest or dismissal of officers involved. One police officer accused of involvement is already missing, according to the inspector general. Families of nine victims, including those of the two police officers, received a one-time payment of about $1,500 for funeral expenses. But none of the intellectual authors of the botched raid appear to have been identified or questioned.<br />
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Instead, it was Louis, the school’s director, who was arrested for complicity in the death of the two police officers. After being publicly beaten with a chair at the school he had overseen for 30 years, Louis was held in a Port-au-Prince jail for more than a week.<br />
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Under pressure from religious organizations and the school’s faculty, Louis was eventually released for health reasons. But he still has not returned to the school.<br />
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“In a country like mine,” Louis wrote to me weeks later, “it is hard to take our leaders at their word.” That, he continued, was “why we need to know what the real motive [of the raid] was.” The public authorities have not yet interviewed him. Do “they really want everything to be investigated properly?” he said, “or was this all planned?”<br />
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Apollon said continued raids would do little to address the fundamental problems afflicting neighborhoods such as Grand Ravine. Rather, violence stems from the total absence of the state in such areas, and it will continue so long as the population’s needs are not met. What residents need, he said, “is education.”<br />
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After the raid, the school was closed for two weeks.<br />
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“We need school,” a student at Maranatha told me that day in the courtyard. “Without education, what hope do we have?”<br />
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Top photo: Police watch as demonstrators march to protest against the government of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince on Oct. 24, 2017.</div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-35383257788588512702018-03-10T13:49:00.001-08:002018-03-10T13:49:49.293-08:00Lettre de Soutien à la Médiation au Venezuela, pas aux Sanctions<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Cette lettre va être envoyée aux membres du Congrès des États-Unis, au Parlement du Canada et aux médias. Elle sera publiée dans d’autres médias, et au moins 5 de ses signataires se rendront au Venezuela pour la commémoration d’Hugo Chavez en mars, où elle sera présentée.</span></div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Lettre de Soutien à la Médiation au Venezuela, pas aux Sanctions</b></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Nous exhortons les gouvernements des États-Unis et du Canada à retirer immédiatement leurs sanctions illégales* contre le Venezuela et à soutenir les efforts de médiation entre le gouvernement du Venezuela et les segments non violents de l’opposition politique.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Nous, les organisations et individus aux États-Unis et au Canada soussignés, soutenons des relations hémisphériques fondées sur le respect de la souveraineté de tous les peuples des Amériques. Nous sommes profondément préoccupés par l’utilisation de sanctions illégales, dont l’effet se fait le plus sentir dans les secteurs les plus pauvres et les plus marginaux de la société, pour contraindre le changement politique et économique dans une démocratie sœur. Nous constatons depuis les années 1990 que les sanctions ne servent qu’à appauvrir les familles ordinaires et à déstabiliser l’ordre public. Nous sommes incapables de citer un seul cas où les sanctions ont eu un impact positif.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Les sondages au Venezuela montrent que la grande majorité des Vénézuéliens s’oppose aux sanctions, indépendamment de leur opinion sur le gouvernement Maduro. Les sanctions ne font que compliquer les efforts déployés par le Vatican, la République dominicaine et d’autres acteurs internationaux pour négocier une résolution de la polarisation profonde au Venezuela. De plus, les sanctions sapent les efforts du gouvernement démocratiquement élu et de l’Assemblée constituante pour résoudre les problèmes économiques critiques et déterminer leur propre destin politique.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Malgré la rhétorique de haut niveau des fonctionnaires de Washington et d’Ottawa, ce n’est pas un véritable souci de démocratie, de droits de l’homme et de justice sociale qui pousse cette position interventionniste belliqueuse à l’égard de Caracas. Du décret du président Obama qui, de l’aveu général, est faux, sur le Venezuela représentant une menace pour la sécurité nationale aux États-Unis, à la déclaration de l’ambassadeur Nikki Haley disant que le Venezuela est un « narco-état de plus en plus violent » qui menace le monde, l’utilisation de l’hyperbole dans les situations diplomatiques contribue rarement à des solutions pacifiques sur la scène internationale.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Ce n’est un secret pour personne que le Venezuela, contrairement au Mexique, au Honduras, à la Colombie, à l’Egypte ou à l’Arabie Saoudite, est la cible d’une mission de changement de régime par les États-Unis précisément à cause des qualités de leader du Venezuela dans la résistance à l’hégémonie américaine et à l’imposition du modèle néolibéral en Amérique latine. Et bien sûr, le Venezuela détient les plus grandes réserves de pétrole au monde, ce qui attire encore plus l’attention non désirée de Washington.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Les États-Unis et le Canada ont essayé puis échoué à utiliser l’Organisation des États Américains (OEA) pour construire un bloc qui évoque la Charte démocratique contre le Venezuela de façon hypocrite. Récemment, Luis Almagro, le secrétaire général véreux de l’OEA, est allé jusqu’à soutenir publiquement l’assermentation d’une Cour suprême parallèle, nommée de façon inconstitutionnelle par les législateurs de l’opposition et leur a permis d’utiliser le siège de l’OEA à Washington, DC pour leur cérémonie (sans l’approbation de quelconque état membre de l’OEA). Almagro a ainsi délégitimé l’OEA, enhardi les éléments les plus extrêmes et les plus violents de l’opposition vénézuélienne, et mis de côté les efforts de médiation.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Les sanctions canado-américaines sont une utilisation cynique du pouvoir économique coercitif pour attaquer une nation qui fait déjà face à l’hyperinflation et à la pénurie de produits de base. Bien que prétendument faites au nom de la promotion de la démocratie et de la liberté, ces sanctions violent le droit humain fondamental du peuple vénézuélien à la souveraineté, tel que cela est énoncé dans les Chartes des Nations Unies et de l’OEA.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Nous appelons les dirigeants politiques des États-Unis et du Canada à rejeter la rhétorique déchaînée et à contribuer à la recherche de solutions réelles aux problèmes politiques et économiques du Venezuela. Nous exhortons les gouvernements américain et canadien à annuler leurs sanctions et à soutenir les efforts de médiation déployés par le chancelier de la République dominicaine Miguel Vargas, le président de la République dominicaine Danilo Medina, l’ancien premier ministre espagnol Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, le Vatican et soutenus par un nombre croissant de nations latino-américaines.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">* L’Article 19 du Chapitre 4 de la Charte de l’OEA stipule :</span></h4>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Aucun état ou groupe d’états n’a le droit d’intervenir, directement ou indirectement, pour quelque raison que ce soit, dans les affaires intérieures ou extérieures d’un autre état. Le principe précédent interdit non seulement la force armée, mais aussi toute autre forme d’ingérence ou de tentative de menace contre la personnalité de l’état ou contre ses éléments politiques, économiques et culturels.</span></h4>
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<span lang="FR" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">signataires,</span></div>
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<b>Les États-Unis d'Amérique</b></div>
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Noam Chomsky<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Danny Glover, Citizen-Artist<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Estela Vazquez, Executive Vice President, 1199 SEIU<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Archdiocese of Detroit<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Jill Stein, Green Party</div>
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Peter Knowlton, General President, United Electrical Workers<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Frederick B. Mills, Department of Philosophy, Bowie State University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Alfred de Zayas, former Chief, Petitions Dept, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dan Kovalik, Counsel, United Steelworkers Union</div>
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Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local10 (retired)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, President, National Lawyers Guild<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />James Early, Articulation of Afro Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Gloria La Riva, coordinator, Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee</div>
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Karen Bernal, Chair, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, co-directors, Popular Resistance<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Chris Bender, Administrator, SEIU 1000, retired<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Mary Hanson Harrison, President Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council</div>
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Tamie Dramer, Executive Boardmember, California Democratic Party<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Greg Wilpert, journalist</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />School of Americas Watch (SOAW) Coordinating Collective<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Gerry Condon, President, Board of Directors, Veterans for Peace<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Tiana Ocasio, President, Connecticut Labor Council for Latin American Advancement</div>
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Leah Bolger, Coordinator, World Beyond War<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alexander Main, Senior Assoc for Intl Policy, Center for Economic and Policy Research<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Kevin Martin, President, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Berthony Dupont, Director, Haiti Liberté Newspaper</div>
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Marsha Rummel, Adlerperson, City of Madison Common Council, District 6<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Kim Ives, Journalist, Haiti Liberté<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Cindy Sheehan, Cindy’s Soapbox<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Claudia Lucero, Executive Director, Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America</div>
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William Camacaro, Venezuela activist<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter Veterans For Peace<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />David W. Campbell, Secretary-Treasurer, USW Local 675 (Carson, CA)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alice Bush, retired Northwest Indiana Division Director SEIU Local 73<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Teresa Gutierrez, Co-Director International Action Center</div>
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Claire Deroche, NY Interfaith Campaign Against Torture<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Eva Golinger, journalist and writer</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />The Cross Border Network (Kansas City)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Antonia Domingo, Pittsburgh Labor Council for Latin American Advancement<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />David Swanson, Director of World Beyond War</div>
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Matt Meyer, National Co-chair, Fellowship of Reconciliation<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Rev. Daniel Dale, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), CLRN Board of Directors<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Daniel Chavez, Transnational Institute<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Kathleen Desautels, SP (8th Day Center for Justice*)</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Michael Eisenscher, National Coord. Emeritus, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)</div>
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Dr. Paul Dordal, Director, Christian Network for Liberation and Equality<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Douglas Friedman, Director International Studies, College of Charleston<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Fr. Charles Dahm, Archdiocesan Director of Domestic Violence Outreach<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Blase Bonpane, Director, Office of the Americas<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Larry Birns, Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs</div>
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Task Force on the Americas<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Sharat G. Lin, former president, San Jose Peace and Justice Center<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alicia Jrapko, U.S. coordinator, International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />National Network on Cuba</div>
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Diana Bohn, Co-coordinator, Nicaragua Center for Community Action<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Joe Jamison, Queens NY Peace Council</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Jerry Harris, National Secretary, Global Studies Association of North America<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Charlie Hardy, author, Cowboy in Caracas</div>
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Dan Shea, National Board, Veterans For Peace<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Houston Peace and Justice Center<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Christy Thornton, Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Code Pink Houston</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Workers Solidarity Action Network.org</div>
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Rochester Committee on Latin America<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Patricio Zamorano, Academic and International Affairs Analyst<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Cliff Smith, business manager, Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, Local 36<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Michael Bass, Convener, School of the Americas Watch-Oakland/East Bay<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Joe Lombardo, Marilyn Levin, Co-Coordinators of United National Antiwar Committee</div>
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Dr. Jeb Sprague-Silgado, University of California Santa Barbara<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Pamela Palmater, Mi’kmaq lawyer Chair in Indigenous Governance Ryerson University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Lee Gloster, Steward IBT 364, Trustee, N. Central IN Labor Chapter, N. IN Area Labor Federation<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Celeste Howard, Secretary, WILPF, Portland Branch (Oregon)</div>
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Mario Galván, Sacramento Action for Latin America<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Hector Gerardo, Executive Director, 1 Freedom for All<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Jorge Marin, Venezuela Solidarity Committee<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Ricardo Vaz, writer and editor of Investig’Action<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. T.M. Scruggs, University of Iowa, Professor Emeritus</div>
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Dr. Mike Davis, Dept. of Creative Writing, Univ. of CA, Riverside; editor of the New Left Review<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Lee Artz, Dept of Media Studies; Director, Center for Global Studies, Purdue University Northwest<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Arturo Escobar, Dept. of Anthropology University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Cheri Honkala, Director, Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Suren Moodliar, Coordinator, Encuentro5 (Boston)</div>
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Dr. Jack Rasmus, Economics Dept., St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Rich Whitney, Co-chair, Green Party Peace Action Committee<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />David Bacon, independent photojournalist<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Kim Scipes, Department of Sociology, Purdue University Northwest</div>
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Jeff Mackler, National Secretary, Socialist Action<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Henry Lowendorf, Co-chair, Greater New Haven Peace Council</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Judith Bello, Ed Kinane (founders), Upstate Drone Action<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Daniel Whitesell, Lecturer in the Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese, UCLA</div>
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Dr. William I. Robinson, Sociology and Global and International Studies, UC-Santa Barbara<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Emmanuel Rozental, Vilma Almendra, Pueblos en Camino, Abya Yala<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Ben Manski, President, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Frank Pratka, Baltimore-Matanzas Association/Maryland-Cuba Friendship Coalition<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Hilbourne Watson, Emeritus, Department of International Relations, Bucknell University</div>
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Dr. Minqi Li, Economics Department, University of Utah<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Christina Schiavoni, PhD researcher, Boston<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Robert E. Birt, Department of Philosophy, Bowie State University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Topanga Peace Alliance<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Judy Somberg, Susan Scott, Esq., Co-chairs, National Lawyers Guild Task Force on the Americas</div>
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Audrey Bomse, Esq., Co-chair, National Lawyers Guild Palestine Subcommittee<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Daniel Chavez, Transnational Institute</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Barby Ulmer, Board President, Our Developing World<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Barbara Larcom, Coordinator, Casa Baltimore/Limay; President, Nicaraguan Cultural Alliance<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Nick Egnatz, Veterans for Peace</div>
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Dr. Marc Becker, Latin American Studies, Truman State University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. John H. Sinnigen, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Dale Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, Rutgers University<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Sulutasen Amador, Co-coordinator, Chukson Water Protectors</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Mara Cohen, Communications Hub, Trade Justice Alliance</div>
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Dorotea Manuela, Co-Chair Rosa Parks Human Right Committee<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Efia Nwangaza, Malcom X Center – WMXP Community Radio<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Chris Chase-Dunn, Sociology, University of California-Riverside<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Nick Nesbitt, Comparative Literature, Princeton<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Timeka Drew, coordinator, Global Climate Convergence</div>
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Jack Gilroy, Friends of Franz & Ben <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.bensalmon.org/&source=gmail&ust=1520804147169000&usg=AFQjCNGwa4zg9efM9Efafg7G_LCK3YUxKg" href="http://www.bensalmon.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.bensalmon.org</a></div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Social Justice Committee<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Victor Wallis, Professor, Liberal Arts, Berkeley College of Music</div>
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<b>Canada</b><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Jerry Dias, President, UNIFOR</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Mike Palecek, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Harvey Bischof, President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Mark Hancock National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees</span></div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Stephanie Smith, President of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union</div>
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Linda McQuaig, journalist and author, Toronto<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Raul Burbano, Program Director, Common Frontiers<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Miguel Figueroa, President, Canadian Peace Congress<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Heide Trampus, Coordinator, Worker to Worker, Canada-Cuba Labour Solidarity Network</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Rights Action (U.S. and Canada)</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Joe Emersberger, writer, UNIFOR member<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Nino Pagliccia, Jorge Arancibia, Marta Palominos, Frente para la Defensa de los Pueblos Hugo Chavez<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice Venezuela Solidarity Campaign – Vancouver<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Maude Barlow, Chairperson, Council of Canadians<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Canadian Network on Cuba</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) – Vancouver<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. William Carroll, University of Victoria, Canada</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Andrew Dekany, LL.M, Lawyer</div>
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Dr. Leo Panitch, Professor Emeritus, York University, Toronto<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR)<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Alma Weinstein, Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel Toronto</div>
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<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Maria Elena Mesa, Coord, Sunday Poetry and Festival Internacional de Poesia Patria Grande, Toronto<br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" />Dr. Radhika Desai, University of Manitoba</div>
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<b>autre</b><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Sergio Romero Cuevas, former Mexican Ambassador to Haiti</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos, Oaxaca, Mexico</span></div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-38443905002091795442017-12-14T15:05:00.002-08:002017-12-14T15:09:41.265-08:00Manne Charlemagne, Haiti's Iconic Troubadour: 1948-2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">By: Kim Ives - <a href="https://haitiliberte.com/manno-charlemagne-haitis-iconic-troubadour-1948-2017/" target="_blank">Haiti Liberte</a> </span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Joseph Emmanuel “Manno” Charlemagne, Haiti’s most beloved and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">controversial folk singer, died in a Miami Beach hospital on Dec. 10</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">at the age of 69, after a struggle of several months with lung cancer</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">which had spread to his brain.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">His rich baritone voice, trenchant lyrics, and graceful melodies</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">inspired the generation of Haitians which rose up against the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">three-decade Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. Sometimes called the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Haitian Bob Marley or Bob Dylan, Manno’s huge popularity won him</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Port-au-Prince’s mayor’s office in 1995, but his lyrical idealism soon</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">dashed against the rocks of Haiti’s difficult political realities, and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">he was all but chased from that office. In recent years, he had</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">withdrawn from Haiti’s political scene, except for some ill-fated</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">sorties which he regretted.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Born on Apr. 14, 1948, Manno was raised mostly by his aunt in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Port-au-Prince’s Carrefour neighborhood and came of age under the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">brutal dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who rose to power</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">in 1957. Both his aunt and mother were singers. His father, whose</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">identity Manno only learned from his mother in 1985, was also a</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">musician. When Manno traveled to New York to finally meet him, he</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">learned his father had died two months earlier.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Manno, who said he was from Haiti’s “lumpen proletariat,” started</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">playing guitar and singing at the age of 16, and in 1968, at age 20,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">he launched a mini-djaz called Les Remarquables. But he soon moved in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the direction of the traditional twoubadou music, a form of Haitian</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">folk song, and launched the group Les Trouvères with singer Marco</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Jeanty.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">After Papa Doc died in 1971, succeeded as “President-for-Life” by his</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, a democracy movement began to</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">grow in Haiti. Manno wrote politically suggestive songs about the poor</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">and exploited, among whom he’d grown up, and the duo began to sing at</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">small underground events of students and intellectuals in the late</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">1970s. In May 1978, the duo played their angaje (politically engaged)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">songs on the airwaves of journalist Jean Dominique’s Radio Haiti</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Inter, championed by deejay and station manager Richard Brisson, who</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">in January 1982 would be captured and killed after a failed overthrow</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">attempt against Duvalier.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">The duo became a sensation, and later that year, musicologist Raoul</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Dénis recorded their songs which were released in an album entitled</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">simply “Manno et Marco” by Marc Records in New York. Over the next</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">eight years, until Baby Doc’s overthrow on Feb. 7, 1986, the album</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">became the soundtrack for the pro-democracy movement both in Haiti and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">its diaspora.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">In 1980, the Duvalier regime stepped up its repression of democracy</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">activists. Manno slipped out of a concert and sought exile in the U.S.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908356" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Jul. 4</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">. While in Boston and New York for most of the next six</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">years, he became a fixture at anti-Duvalierist rallies and marches.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Along with composer Nikol Levy, he composed much of the music for</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Haiti Films’ 1983 documentary Bitter Cane, which also helped propel</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the anti-Duvalierist movement and Manno’s renown.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">During this time, he released his first solo albums, Konviksyon (1984)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">and Fini les Colonies! (1985) to worldwide acclaim.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">After Duvalier’s 1986 fall, Manno returned to Haiti and became one of</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the most prominent artistic and political voices of the emerging</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">pro-democracy lavalas movement, which brought President Jean-Bertrand</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Aristide to power in February 1991. In 1990, Manno had released the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">album Òganizasyon Mondyal, which cemented his fame as Haiti’s</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">preeminent anti-imperialist singer.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">A Washington-backed coup d’état in September 1991 sent Aristide into</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">exile, and Haitian police arrested Manno at his home on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908357" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Oct. 11</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">. After</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Hollywood stars and Amnesty International protested, he was released a</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">week later. Manno eventually sought refuge in Argentina’s Embassy,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">where a human rights delegation, headed by former U.S. Attorney</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">General Ramsey Clark, met him in December 1991 (as depicted in the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">1992 documentary Killing the Dream by Crowing Rooster Arts, which</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">played nationally in the U.S. on PBS). After the delegation raised</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">$3,000 for his release from the country, Manno was accorded safe</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">passage to the airport and flew once again into exile in January 1992.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">During the next three years of his and Aristide’s exile, Manno</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">traveled the world playing at demonstrations, fundraisers, and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">political rallies. When he returned to Haiti in 1994, he successfully</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">ran in 1995 for mayor of Port-au-Prince against Evans Paul, a former</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">ally who had indirectly supported the 1991 coup.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Once in Haiti’s third most important executive office (after President</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">and Prime Minister), Manno, who had just months earlier publicly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">declared himself a Communist, faced many of the intractable problems</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">of corruption, violence, and chaos that confront any Haitian</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">politician. Although once allies, he ended up at odds with both</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Aristide and President René Préval. When Manno’s gun-toting deputies</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">brutally evicted illegal vendors (mostly market women) from</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Port-au-Prince’s central Champ-de-Mars square, it evoked particular</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">consternation among even his most loyal supporters. He finally stepped</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">down from the office in 1999, a few months before the end of his term.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Manno moved to Miami and dropped from view for about two years, but</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">then in 2002, he began playing twice a week at Tap Tap Restaurant in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">South Beach with Richard Laguerre (bass guitar), Damas Jean-François</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">(electric guitar), and Jocelyn Egourdet (tenor sax). The new band’s</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">music was released on CD as Manno at Tap Tap (Crowing Rooster Arts,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">2004), and the band often played to a packed house over the next 15</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">years.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Following the 2004 coup d’état against Aristide (then serving a second</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">term), Manno again spoke out against the coup but also made several</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">provocatively critical remarks about Aristide (then exiled in South</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Africa) on Haitian radio (as was his wont), which earned him the ire</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">of the anti-coup Lavalas masses.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Manno continued to visit Haiti, mostly to form youth chorales in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">remote corners of the Haitian countryside, like Camp Perrin and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Pignon. The sting and humiliation of his political failure and his</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">naturally provocative style caused him to occasionally make</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">intemperate declarations on Haitian radios, which added to his</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">political marginalization.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">But it was the rise of neo-Duvalierist politician Michel Martelly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">which did the most damage to Manno’s reputation. Although he had been</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">a member of the Duvalierist paramilitary force, the Tontons Macoute,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Martelly, who also grew up in Carrefour, had known and admired Manno</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">as a youth. When he became Haiti’s President in 2010, Martelly courted</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Manno, giving him an office and a salary as an “advisor” in the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">National Palace. Citing outrageous corruption, Manno eventually quit</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the job but remained on cordial terms with his “friend” and fellow</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">musician “Sweet Micky” Martelly, even as popular rage against the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">latter grew.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Following controversial October 2015 elections, Manno agreed to serve</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">on an investigative commission convened by Martelly, although it was</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">generally viewed as a rubber-stamp body.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Following that final foray into politics, which provoked great dismay</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">among many, he returned to Miami, where he resumed his biweekly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">performances at Tap Tap.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Last year, Manno was diagnosed with and began treatment for a fungal</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">lung infection, which affects many Haitians who’ve had tuberculosis.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">He visited Haiti in the summer, during which time President Jovenel</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Moïse’s officials tried to entice him, with money and favors, to</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">participate in the government’s “Caravan for Change,” a sort of</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">traveling political circus. Manno refused.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">In late July, Manno began to have dizzy spells and speech problems.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Fearing a stroke, he quickly returned to Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Beach, where doctors found a huge malignant tumor in his brain which</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">had mestastacized from cancer in his lungs. On </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908358" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Jul. 31</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">, he underwent a</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">successful 10-hour operation to remove most of the tumor, but it was</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">followed by grueling radiation and chemotherapy sessions, which left</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">him weak. In early November, Manno suffered several seizures and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">strokes, which sent him first back to Mt. Sinai Medical Center, and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">then, briefly, the Miami Jewish Health Systems nursing home in Miami’s</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Little Haiti. Just after Thanksgiving, he developed a high fever and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">was rushed from the nursing home to Mt. Sinai, where they discovered</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">he had a pulmonary embolism. Doctors were unable to dissolve it, and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the cancer in his lungs and brain continued its inexorable march.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">In his final days, surrounded by a half-sister, former wife, two sons,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">a daughter, and occasional visitors from Tap Tap, Manno slipped in and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">out of consciousness. When a journalist from Haïti Liberté visited his</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">bedside on the evening of Dec. 6, Manno suffered from tremors and had</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">difficulty speaking and controlling his movements, but was lucid and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">humorous reminiscing about old times. “You wouldn’t understand what</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">we’re talking about,” he said, turning to his son, Ti Manno, who was</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">also in the room. “That was before you were born.”</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">In the final three days of his life, he was mostly unconscious, with</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the hospital providing only palliative care: an oxygen mask and heavy</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">doses of morphine to ease his pain.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">He finally died shortly after </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908359" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">4:00 a.m.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"> on Sun., Dec. 10. Although</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">expected, the news of his death sent a shock-wave through Haitian</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">communities for which Manno had been a symbol of resistance to the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Duvalier dictatorship, and an authentic voice and representative of</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Haitian popular culture, critical of U.S. imperialism and its misdeeds</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">both in Haiti and around the world.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">There are several books about the musician, including Manno</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Charlemagne: 30 Years of Songs published by Fondation Connaissance &</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Liberté (FOKAL, 2006) , and Nicole Augereau’s graphic comic book Quand</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">viennent les bêtes sauvages published in 2016. Among the films about</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">him are Frantz Voltaire’s Konviksyon (2011) and Dans La Gueule du</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Crocodile (1998) by Canadians Catherine Larivain and Lucie Ouimet.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">The last album of his music, entitled Les Inédits de Manno Charlemagne</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">(The Unpublished Songs of Manno Charlemagne), was released in 2006.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">After a private viewing for his family, there will be a public viewing</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">of Manno’s body on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908360" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Thu., Dec. 14 at 5:30 p.m.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"> at Notre Dame d’Haïti</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Catholic Church on 62nd Street in Miami’s Little Haiti. Although Manno</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">was a devout atheist, there will then be a funeral mass at </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908361" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">7:30 p.m..</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">His body will be flown to Haiti on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908362" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sat., Dec. 16</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"> and exposed on Tue.,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Dec. 19 at the Museum of the Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH) on</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Port-au-Prince’s Champ-de-Mars. The funeral is scheduled to take place</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908364" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Fri., Dec. 22</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the community group KAKOLA and Haïti Liberté</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">are organizing a traditional veye patriyotik (patriotic wake) to pay</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">homage to Manno on </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_771908365" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204 , 204 , 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Fri., Dec. 15 from 7-11 p.m.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"> at Haïti Liberté, 1583</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Albany Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. At the same time in Miami, former</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">friends, comrades, and associates will be holding a similar tribute at</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">the Little Haiti Cultural Center on NE 2nd Avenue.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Although his final years were compromised by political missteps,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">unseemly associations, and outbursts, Manno Charlemagne earned a</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">permanent place in the hearts and memories of the Haitian people for</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">his revolutionary, anti-imperialist, and pro-democracy songs of the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">1970s, 80s, and 90s.</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">To give a taste of his genius and to what he dedicated his life and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">art, it is fitting to close his obituary with his own words, extracted</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">from two classics, Fini le colonies in French, and Konviksyon in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Kreyòl;</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Tu me prends tout, tu me prends tout, pour deux sous,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Toujours faudrait dire merci à genoux,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Tu m’as eu, tu m’as eu, tu m’auras plus,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">C’est fini les colonies, fini le temps de mépris.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Ça va changer un jour, ça va changer bientôt, ça va changer un jour!</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">You take everything me, you take everything me, for two cents,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">I must always say thank you on my knees,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">You got me, you got me, you’ll get me more,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">It’s over, the colonies, no longer the time of contempt.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">It will change one day, it will change soon, it will change one day!</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">----</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Se konviksyon w ki pou kenbe w</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Sa li ka fè w reyalize kòm malere</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Tout vye chimen velekete</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Se lite tout bon pou lite pou sa chanje</span><br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">It’s your conviction that has to sustain you</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">That can allow you achieve to something as a poor person</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">On all the old treacherous roads</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">One must really struggle for things to change.</span></div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-76082726413283998852017-11-27T21:45:00.002-08:002017-11-27T21:45:15.015-08:00nou pa vle lamè, edikasyon nou vle.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "SF Optimized", system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">nou pa vle lamè, edikasyon nou vle.</span></div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-58250286333572235752017-11-20T13:50:00.000-08:002018-11-21T13:52:12.715-08:00Police massacre in Gran Ravin, protesting students in Cap Haitien beaten by police<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://sfbayview.com/2017/11/us-un-backed-haitian-police-massacre-teachers-and-students-demanding-money-for-schools-not-the-army/" target="_blank">San Francisco Bay View-National Black Newspaper</a></div>
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<a class="td-modal-image" data-caption="" href="https://i1.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-police-massacre-14-students-teachers-demanding-for-schools-not-remilitarization-111317-2.jpg?fit=540%2C960&ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #4db2ec; text-decoration: none;"></a></div>
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– Reports of a mass killing by the US-UN occupation trained and supervised Haitian police in Port-au-Prince<br />– Police brutally beat teachers and students in Cap-Haitien demanding money for education, not to restore the murderous army<div>
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WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS</div>
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<a name='more'></a>Monday, Nov. 13, was a day of extra-judicial killings of men and women estimated by community residents to total 14, not counting a number of disappeared, according to Radio Timoun (Youth Radio).<br /><br />The reporting was live from the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Gran’ Ravine on the Maranatha school grounds and nearby, where eight of the bodies, including those of a teacher and the school caretaker, still lay as of two hours ago this morning, Tuesday, Nov. 14. Other bodies were stated by witnesses to be in nearby bushes.<br /><br />Many are reported wounded by police gunfire and beatings with hammers. In addition, news reports make mention of 31 arbitrary arrests.<br /><a href="https://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-police-massacre-14-students-teachers-demanding-for-schools-not-remilitarization-111317-1-1.jpg"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-police-massacre-14-students-teachers-demanding-for-schools-not-remilitarization-111317-1-1.jpg?resize=600%2C338" /></a><br />These killings were conducted by units of the Haitian police according to a number of survivors beaten by the police and other witnesses interviewed by Radio Timoun. It is also reported that at the early hour when the police attack against the community took place, many children and adults were injured by the very potent tear gas used by the police.<br />Many students, teachers and school staff are reported wounded by police gunfire, very potent tear gas, and beatings with hammers.<br /><br /><a href="https://i1.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-police-massacre-14-students-teachers-demanding-for-schools-not-remilitarization-111317-2.jpg"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-police-massacre-14-students-teachers-demanding-for-schools-not-remilitarization-111317-2.jpg?resize=338%2C600" /></a>Also on Monday, Nov. 13, in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, marching students shouting, “Down with the army, long live education, long live schools!” were brutally attacked by the police using tear gas and batons. Many teachers and students were beaten and severely injured.<br /><br />Schools have been closed there for the past week. The students were saying no to the government’s plan to restore the old disbanded Haitian military. They are demanding that the money instead should be used to pay long overdue salaries to the already much-underpaid teachers.<br /><br />The demonstrators are also denouncing a reported plan by the corrupt U.S.-U.N. occupation government of Jovenel Moise (PHTK Party) to fire teachers en masse, replace them with his supporters and not pay them the overdue wages.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the students were back in the streets today, setting up desks and chairs in the middle of the street to illustrate that learning continues, even in the face of brutal repression, unpaid teachers and police tear gassing classrooms.<br />Students were back in the streets today, setting up desks and chairs in the middle of the street to illustrate that learning continues, even in the face of brutal repression, unpaid teachers and police tear gassing classrooms.<br />Unreported news from Haiti<br /><br />The relentless attacks on democracy in Haiti continue as Haitians, who have lived under United Nations MINUSTAH military occupation since the 2004 coup d’etat against popularly elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, rise up to demand governmental accountability and economic justice. The most recent wave of protests began in early September, marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1988, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jean_Bosco_massacre">St. Jean Bosco</a> massacre.<br /><br />Oct. 24 – <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/923148541714866176">Demonstrations</a> continue to erupt throughout Haiti, braving the terror of the Haitian National Police (PNH) and affiliated paramilitary forces. The demonstrators assert that Jovenel Moise and his illegitimate government are no different than the old Duvalier dictatorships, and they refuse to accept it. They demand the resignation of Moise, along with the resignations of similarly imposed corrupt members of Parliament.<br />The demonstrators assert that Jovenel Moise and his illegitimate government are no different than the old Duvalier dictatorships, and they refuse to accept it. They demand the resignation of Moise, along with the resignations of similarly imposed corrupt members of Parliament.<br /><br />Oct. 17 – The Moise regime attacked demonstrations throughout the country marking the anniversary of Haiti’s first coup d’etat in 1806 and the assassination of its first head of state and founder, General, later Emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. He is revered as a personification of Haiti’s independence and for his relentless campaign to distribute land to the formerly enslaved African majority, the chief reason for the coup against him.<br /><br />Oct. 12 – Members of BOID, the militarized unit of the Haitian National Police (PNH), trained and supervised by the U.N.-U.S. occupation with U.S. taxpayer dollars, rampaged through the Port-au-Prince community of Lilavois, burning down houses and terrorizing the population in yet another case of repression and collective punishment.<br /><br />The short <a href="https://twitter.com/jeanbennet86/status/919743349279674373">video</a> posted on “HaitiInfoProj” on Oct. 25 was filmed in the dark during the police terror and is accompanied by a plea: “BOID terrorists set fire indiscriminately to cars, homes and businesses of people struggling to make ends meet …, shooting tear gas that is greatly harmful to children with asthma … How can we blame people for leaving Haiti …?” Radio and witnesses reported that one person is known to have been executed, others have disappeared, and many others severely beaten.<br /><br /><a href="https://i1.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-mass-protest-march-against-remilitarization.png"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Port-au-Prince-Haiti-mass-protest-march-against-remilitarization.png?resize=600%2C338" /></a><br /><br />Community organizations, women’s groups, unions and political parties, including the largest, Fanmi Lavalas, the political organization founded by former President Aristide, who was the priest at Jean Bosco in 1988, have been in full support of the popular mobilizations against the miserable living conditions and blatant government and generalized corruption associated with the disastrous 14-year U.N. occupation.<br /><br />In October, the U.N. rebranded its MINUSTAH army of occupation to become MINUJUSTH, a smaller force which will rely more on a rebuilding of the despised Haitian army, disbanded by President Aristide in 1995, to maintain control; see Edwidge Danticat in the New Yorker, “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-chapter-for-the-disastrous-united-nations-mission-in-haiti">A New Chapter for the Disastrous United Nations Mission in Haiti?</a>”<br /><br />Widely supported <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/914894475167653888">general strike</a>s took place on Sept. 11 and Oct. 2. Teachers have not been paid in months, and the regime is attempting to destroy the informal economy by squeezing out the market women, taxi drivers and other sectors to force people to rely on the ruling elite-owned supermarkets and corporate services that make profits for the wealthy and further marginalize poor people.<br />Widely supported <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/914894475167653888">general strike</a>s took place on Sept. 11 and Oct. 2. Teachers have not been paid in months, and the regime is attempting to destroy the informal economy by squeezing out the market women, taxi drivers and other sectors to force people to rely on the ruling elite-owned supermarkets and corporate services that make profits for the wealthy and further marginalize poor people.<br /><br />The Haiti Information Project reported that a Sept. 25 <a href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/912475729832456193">general strike was called off by union leaders</a> who were bought off by the government, but many people participated in the strike anyway.<br /><br />The occupation government has met these demonstrations with savage repression, attacking demonstrators with batons, bullets, tear gas and an irritant shot from water cannon that stings and burns the skin. The police and government-organized militia also follow people after protests, beat them with baseball bats, and frequently arrest them without cause and detain them without trial as is the case of the co-host of the Radio Timoun (Youth Radio) show “Political Education.”<br /><br />Death squads operate with impunity. L’Initiave des Avocats pour la Promotion et la Defense des Droits Democratiques (Initiative of Lawyers for the Promotion and Defense of Democratic Rights) reported in a Radio Timoun interview on Oct. 7 that 15 people were killed and over 40 arrested, with many others wounded.<br /><br />During the protests on Sept. 21, government forces killed a young protestor in Port-au-Prince; another was killed the day before in Hinche. Many were arrested and wounded also in Trou-du-Nord as the infamous militarized police unit BOID assaulted demonstrators in Arcahaie, destroying taxi-motorcycles and other businesses of community residents.<br /><br />Children in school in Les Cayes were <a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FWidlerTout%2Fstatus%2F914916235065876482&data=02%7C01%7Cpierrelabossiere%40hotmail.com%7C07d96715853841b9f13b08d51dba0b42%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636447607245739537&sdata=IE1b5yu30MKm0j06TceGmsZEd638aNMXfl%2Bj3YS0uPs%3D&reserved=0">attacked with tear gas </a>because they supported the general strike. The outraged community responded with rocks against the police in defense of their children.<br />Children in school in Les Cayes were <a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FWidlerTout%2Fstatus%2F914916235065876482&data=02%7C01%7Cpierrelabossiere%40hotmail.com%7C07d96715853841b9f13b08d51dba0b42%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636447607245739537&sdata=IE1b5yu30MKm0j06TceGmsZEd638aNMXfl%2Bj3YS0uPs%3D&reserved=0">attacked with tear gas </a>because they supported the general strike. The outraged community responded with rocks against the police in defense of their children.<br /><br />The State University of Haiti has closed the schools of Humanities, Law and Ethnic Studies due to ongoing strikes and protests. Many young people who want to pursue higher education are forced to leave the country. This highlights the importance of UNIFA, the University of the Aristide Foundation, as a center of learning dedicated to advancing the needs of the country and engaging Haitian youth to that end.<br /><br />After an “electoral coup” that brought to power the Moise administration without any pretense of a democratic process (see the new <a href="http://haitisolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Haiti-Solidarity-August-2017-issue.pdf">Haiti Solidarit</a>y page 6 “Haiti 2017: From Demonstration Election to Electoral Coup”), the illegitimate government imposed by the U.S.-U.N. occupation now targets the very right to vote, by implementing taxes that would make voting itself a commodity out of the reach of poor Haitians.<br /><br />It will now cost a minimum of about $254 to obtain a voting card; the cost is associated with the payment of new excessive fees and taxes that have outraged the Haitian public. When the minimum wage hovers at around $4 per day, these taxes are one more form of electoral corruption, as many will not be able to afford to vote.<br />The U.S.-U.N. occupation now targets the very right to vote, by implementing taxes that would make voting itself a commodity out of the reach of poor Haitians. It will now cost a minimum of about $254 to obtain a voting card, while the minimum wage hovers at around $4 per day.<br /><br />This is what the “democracy” being imposed on Haiti looks like.<br /><br />Besides robbing Haitians of the right to vote, the new taxes will also rob them of their very land, because new taxes on land would cost the average farmer from $3,900-$5,200 per year, way more than they can possibly afford. If the farmer cannot pay, their land may be confiscated. In addition, Haitians living outside the country will reportedly have to pay $186 in additional taxes to enter Haiti.<br /><br />As the Moise regime attempts to destroy democracy and extort money from the impoverished population, it continues the tax holiday and lucrative no-bid contracts provided to the rich. It can pay a $20,000 per diem for the president to travel and similarly obscene rates for his family and entourage, and it can lavishly pay off members of Parliament for their vote, pay for death squads and restore the brutal military dubbed the new “Tonton Macoutes.”<br /><br />But it has no money for education, healthcare, trash removal or the basic needs of the population. A mafia is in power in Haiti, imposed in full collaboration with U.S.-Canadian-U.N.-European designs on Haiti’s land and resources.<br />The Moise regime can pay a $20,000 per diem for the president to travel and similarly obscene rates for his family and entourage, and it can lavishly pay off members of Parliament for their vote, pay for death squads and restore the brutal military dubbed the new “Tonton Macoutes.” But it has no money for education, healthcare, trash removal or the basic needs of the population.<br /><br />Despite the repression, resistance grows, as more people demonstrate in more and more places. The situation is very grave and demands active solidarity.<br />SUGGESTED ACTION: Help us report the news!<br /><br />Since the media either blocks or distorts news from Haiti, we ask that you, our supporters, become a people’s media for Haiti and help us report the news. Please forward this information to your lists, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and buy and help distribute our newsletters – five copies for $20! Haiti needs solidarity, and now is the time. Donations can be made by check to Haiti Action Committee and mailed to P.O. Box 2044, Berkeley, CA 94702.<br />SUGGESTED ACTION: E-mail and phone-in campaign to:<br />Say No to the restoration of the brutal Haitian military.<br />Hold the U.S. and U.N. occupation accountable for the terror campaign by the Haitian police and security forces they train and supervise.<br />Say No to impunity for police terror in Haiti.<br /><br />Contact:<br />U.S. State Department: <a href="mailto:haitispecialcoordinator@state.gov">HaitiSpecialCoordinator@state.gov</a><br />Your member of Congress: 202-224 3121<br />N. Mission in Haiti: <a href="mailto:minujusth-info@un.org">minujusth-info@un.org</a><br /><br />Contact the Haiti Action Committee at <a href="http://www.haitisolidarity.net/">www.haitisolidarity.net</a>, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Haiti-Action-Committee/262983839885">Facebook</a> at Haiti Action Committee, on Twitter @HaitiAction1or by email at <a href="mailto:action.haiti@gmail.com">action.haiti@gmail.com</a>. <br /><br /> <br /></div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-32394740016740554032017-11-06T14:53:00.005-08:002017-11-06T14:53:50.496-08:00State Department could be paving way to deport 50,000 Haitians by Thanksgiving<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article182677056.html" target="_blank">Miami Herald</a> - Staff Reports<div>
<br />A letter from the U.S. State Department could pave the way for deporting 50,000 Haitian residents enjoying a reprieve from certain immigration rules that were waived after the 2010 earthquake, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/central-americans-and-haitians-no-longer-need-protected-status-state-dept-says/2017/11/03/647cbd5c-c0ba-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.40f16c1432a9&wpisrc=al_news__alert-world--alert-national&wpmk=1">the Washington Post reported Friday</a>.<br /><br />The ruling that conditions have improved enough in Haiti and in Central America to resume normal immigration rules in those regions comes days before the Department of Homeland Security is <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article173169711.html">expected to announce whether to renew the special status</a>. <a href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-asks-trump-to-extend-temporary-protected-status-9735854">Political leaders in Miami-Dade</a>, home to the largest concentration of Haitians protected by the special status, have urged President Donald Trump to continue the waiver. But the State Department decision could be a prelude to that status being lifted.<br /><a name='more'></a><br />More than 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians living in the United States under a form of temporary permission no longer need to be shielded from deportation, the State Department told Homeland Security officials this week, the Post reported.<br /><br />On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke to inform her that conditions in Central America and Haiti that had been used to justify the protection no longer necessitate a reprieve for the migrants, some of whom have been allowed to live and work in the United States for 20 years under a program known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).<br /><br />Tillerson’s assessment, required by law, has not been made public, but its recommendations were confirmed by several administration officials familiar with its contents. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.<br /><br />DHS has until Monday to announce its plans for roughly 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans whose TPS protections will expire in early January. Although most arrived here illegally, they were exempted from deportation after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in 1998. Their TPS protections have been renewed routinely since then, in some cases following additional natural disasters and resulting insecurity.<br /><br />DHS must also decide what to do with about 50,000 Haitian TPS recipients by Thanksgiving Day. The Haitians, who are concentrated in South Florida, received TPS after the 2010 earthquake that killed 200,000.<br /><br />Congress established TPS in 1990 to protect foreign nationals from being returned to their countries amid instability and precarious conditions caused by natural disasters or armed conflict.<br /><br />Trump administration officials have repeatedly noted that the program was meant to be temporary — not a way for people to become long-term residents of the United States. Officials said that long-ago disasters should not be used to extend provisional immigration status when the initial justification for it no longer exists.<br /><br />Tillerson’s assessment is consistent with broader administration efforts to reduce immigration to the United States and comply with legal restrictions that it maintains have been loosely enforced in the past.<br /><br />“It is fair to say that this administration is interpreting the law, exactly as it is, which the previous one did not,” an administration official said.<br /><br />The official acknowledged that the countries in question continue to suffer from problems of poverty, corruption and violence that, in many cases, have spurred illegal migration. But, the official said, those conditions should be addressed in other ways.<br /><br />“The solution is going to require working with Congress and these countries,” the official said. “We are equally committed to finding that. There is no lack of empathy here.”<br /><br />But “with this particular law,” the official said, “it is very clear to this administration what needs to be done.”<br /><br />Administration officials have also said that the return of tens of thousands of migrants could benefit the Central American nations and Haiti, because their citizens will return with job skills, democratic values and personal savings acquired from living long-term in the United States.<br /><br />Many of the immigrants have homes, businesses and U.S.-born children, but if the protections expire, they could be subject to arrest and deportation. “We understand this is a very difficult decision,” the administration official said.<br /><br />DHS officials declined to say Friday what the agency planned to do, or when an announcement would be made.<br /><br />“The acting secretary has made no decision on TPS,” said Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for the agency.<br /><br />Tillerson’s letter does not amount to a recommendation. But DHS is required to seek the agency’s input, and officials said the State Department’s position carries significant weight.<br /><br />The largest group of TPS recipients — about 200,000 — are from El Salvador, and DHS has until early January to announce its plans for them. At least 30,000 of them live in the Washington area, according to immigrant advocacy groups.<br /><br />When the Obama administration last extended TPS for the Salvadorans, in July 2016, it said that they were eligible because conditions justifying it continued to be met.<br /><br />“There continues to be a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions in El Salvador resulting from a series of earthquakes in 2001,” Homeland Security officials said at the time, “and El Salvador remains unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return of its nationals.”<br /><br />Advocates say removing TPS would be a cruel blow to long-standing, law-abiding immigrants, forcing them to decide between remaining in the country illegally or leaving their homes and families. According to a recent study by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, TPS recipients have nearly 275,000 U.S.-born children.<br /><br />If recipients lose their protections but defy orders to leave, it would not be difficult for immigration enforcement agents to find them. The provisional nature of their status requires them to maintain current records with DHS; the agency has their addresses, phone numbers and other personal information.<br /><br />“Terminating TPS at this time would be inhumane and untenable,” a group of Catholic charity leaders wrote to Duke in a recent letter, arguing it would “needlessly add large numbers of Hondurans and Salvadorans to the undocumented population in the U.S., lead to family separation, and unnecessarily cause the Department of Homeland Security to expend resources on individuals who are already registered with our government and whose safe return is forestalled by dire humanitarian circumstances.”<br /><br />If DHS ends the TPS protections, it is expected to grant recipients a grace period of at least six months or more to give them time to prepare for departure.<br /><br />In May, then-DHS Secretary John Kelly extended TPS for Haitians for six months, far less than the 18-month waivers granted by the Obama administration.<br /><br />Kelly, in a statement at the time, called the six-month window a “limited” extension whose purpose was to “allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States.”<br /><br />Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country and remains gripped by a cholera epidemic triggered by United Nations troops who were sent after the earthquake.<br /><br />Advocates of reduced immigration say the Haiti decision will be a key test of the administration’s willingness to follow through on its by-the-books rhetoric.<br /><br />Immigration experts believe many of the Haitians could attempt to seek refuge in Canada, particularly French-speaking Quebec, to avoid arrest and deportation.<br /><br />Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.</div>
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HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8696975432749905371.post-50913197926187976952017-11-06T14:44:00.003-08:002017-11-06T14:45:16.372-08:00Statement of the Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalism on the U.S. Blockage of Cuba<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The <a href="https://netglobalcapitalism.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalism (NCSGC)</a> held its Fourth Biannual Conference in Havana, Cuba on November 1-3 of 2017. The NCSGC wishes to thank our Cuban hosts and our co-sponsors from the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (Association of Historians from Latin America and the Caribbean).<br />
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In these times of renewed U.S. aggression towards the Cuban people and their government, the NCSGC wishes to express its friendship and solidarity with the people and the government of Cuba. We demand that the U.S. government immediately lift its illegal economic, financial, and commercial blockage of Cuba. We add our voices to those of the 191 nations that on November 1 voted in the United Nations to condemn the blockage as a violation of international law.<br />
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Havana, Cuba<br />
3 November 2017<br />
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<b>Declaración de la Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalism (Red para el Estudio Crítico del Capitalismo Global) Sobre el Bloqueo Norteamericano contra Cuba</b><br />
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La Network for the Critical Study of Global Capitalismo (NCSGC, Red para el Estudio Crítico del Capitalismo Global) realizó su 4ra Conferencia Bianual en La Habana, Cuba, entre el 1 y el 3 de noviembre de 2017. La NCSGC desea agradecer a nuestros anfitriones Cubanos y nuestros co-patronizadores de la Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe.<br />
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En estos momentos de renovada agresión norteamericana contra el pueblo y el gobierno de Cuba, la NCSGC desea expresar nuestra amistad y solidaridad con el pueblo y el gobierno de Cuba. Exigimos que el gobierno norteamericano levante de inmediato, el ilegal bloqueo económico, financiero y comercial contra Cuba. Sumamos nuestras voces a las de las 191 naciones que el pasado 1 de noviembre en la Organización de las Naciones Unidas condenaron dicho bloqueo como una violación de la ley internacional.<br />
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La Habana, Cuba<br />
3 de noviembre de </div>
HaitiAnalysishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940893932950433965noreply@blogger.com0