Campaign One Mission - Stop U.S. military and brutal political repression of unarmed Lavalas civilians and systematic de-mobilization of the mass electorate by big U.S. and Haitian business and their Western military forces in Haiti. (See, http://www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaigns.html)

URGENT ACTION ALERT
(Contact Information follows below)

For immediate release
May 12, 2004
From: Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

Action: Please call the numbers listed below and lodge your complaints. Circulate this Urgent Action Release and press your Congressional representatives to investigate and your local and national media and newspapers to report the wholesale slaughter in Haiti today of thousands of unarmed Haitians while U.S. soldiers are on the ground and, even participating in these crimes against humanity. This river of blood of mainly anyone accused of "voting for Aristide" or being affiliated with someone who "voted or supported the Constitutionally elected President of Haiti" cannot match the one or two killings per week the New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media were so ready to report and exaggerate when the purpose was to destabilize and destroy the democratically elected Aristide/Neptune government.

***

Defenseless Haitian Children hooded and manacled (ala Iraqi Prisoner/terrorists treatment) by US military in the dead of night in Haiti by Marguerite Laurent

According to our sources from Haiti today, four small children where arrested along with Annette Auguste ("So Ann" )- Ages 5, 10, 12 and 14 by the U.S. military during the grenade throwing, ceiling-shooting , dog-killing, U.S. military show of imperial force the night of May 10, 2004 in Haiti.

All four children, along with the 7 adults, suddenlly and without showing of any arrest warrants arrested, interrogated, arbitrarily detained and put in U.S. custody had black hoods, ala Iraq Prisoner suspected terrorists, put over their heads and were manacled in plastic handcuffs. Sources from the Haiti Information Report told us today that the Chief Administration Officer has said that Annette Auguste, as a U.S. citizen may be extradited under the Patriot Act to the U.S. and charged as a terrorist. Others report Annette August is not a U.S. but Haitian citizen and thus won't be extradited. The uncontradited and important news to note is that Ms. Auguste, a renowed folkloric artist in Haiti, is being held in a separate section of the Haitian jail in Port-au-Prince controlled by the United States military. The amazing news here is that no major media has deemed this story important enough to report it. None.

Few to none in the mainstream media are doing their jobs. Thus, the families of countless Haitians being killed right now have no way of validating their pains, no one to tell their stories to, no access to media and even the major human rights organizations.

Meanwhile the U.S.- installed dictator, Gerald Latorture, is making the rounds in foreign capitals. After denouncing Haitian national interests to collect the 22 billion owed Haiti by France, he is now reportedly in France making the jolly bonhomie rounds there also. Perhaps he will land back in Haiti with the new French Minister of Foreign Affairs, a colonial visit that hasn't happen in 200-years since Haiti took its independence in combat with the French enslavers. Said French Foreign Minister is expected in Haiti on May 15, 2004.

On Monday last, said Gerald Latorture was in the U.S. visiting, among others, Kofi Annan at the U.N. The visit was not announced through official channels , perhaps because of the embarrassment to the U.S. that the Bush Administration has visited upon us with this naked conquest and overturn of a democratically elected government in Haiti. But, even- if they didn't want anyone to know Gerald Latorture was visiting the U.N. and Kofi Annan, that doesn't lessen the Security Counsel's complicity in the current human rights debacle and unreported killings in Haiti today.

Note that UN Security Council Resolution 1529 leaves the key decisions on the type and scope of military action in Haiti entirely in the hands of the force commander (and of course, the unconstitutional Latorture et al) - so it looks as though the Multinational Interim Force commander in Haiti has carte blanche. The UN thus, to our view, is equally complicit, with the recent violent arrest of Annette Auguste and the beheading of democracy and the rule of law in Haiti. Complicit because of Annan's and the Security Council's refusal to help shore up democracy when President Aristide requested help, but willingness now to shore up the illegitimate Latorture with clandestine meetings and the intimidation of Jamaica and CARICOM.

CARICOM deserves a nobel peace prize for their principled stand so far and, for not recognizing the new regime imposed on the Haitian people, a regime shored up by U.S. guns that on, May 10, 2004, put black plastic bags and manacles on 4 children, ages 5, 10,, 12 and 14 who were asleep at their grandmothers house. A U.N. sanction force that refused to help the people of Haiti when they called out for help to repulse cop killers but who silently allow these same imperialist proxies to now oppress the people at will.

Security Resolution 1259 makes Kofi Annan just as complicit as Colin Powell in the brutal repression of the Haitian people we see reported by the National Lawyer's Guild reports, EPICA April 104 Delegation, Let Haiti live reports, and Haiti Reborn, to name a few.

The UN has to be held accountable as do all the IGOS and governments (U.S., France, Canada, Chile) involved in Haiti and with sanctioning and abetting this replacement of an elected-President with this rule by force and dictatorship.

This un- publicized Latorture visit with the U.N. further evidences Kofi Annan and the UN Security Council's complicity with the clandestine human rights violations happening in Haiti right now under their occupation and sanctions, including the treatment of Haitian children who where put in U.S. custody in Haiti in the dead of night, May 10, 2004.

For further details about So Anne's arrest and the manacling and hooding, as if they were dangerous and lethal terrorists, by the greatest superpower in existence, of 5-year old Haitian children during a dead-of-night home invasion in Haiti, be sure to check the Haiti Information Project Report and pictures to be posted at Blackcommentator.com tomorrow, May 13, 2004.

Marguerite Laurent
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
May 12, 2004

Lodge your protest and outrage agaisnt the mass slaugher of Haitians and the hooding in black plastic bags and manacling of Haitian children in Haiti by contacting:

Ambassador James Foley directly at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Call on Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.S. State Department in Washington, and contact your Senators and Representatives.

Call early and call often. Make sure ensure that everything you send out is also copied to to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, the Caribbean media, BBC, Wolf Blitzer, Paula Zhan, Dan Rather of CBS, Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes, Bob Herbert of the NYTimes, Brian Lamb of C-Span, and so on. (Contact information for these media people shall soon be listed on this website.)

CONTACT INFORMATION

Ambassador James B. Foley
U.S. Embassy, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
phone: 509.223.7011 or 509.222.0200
fax: 509.223.9665
email: acspap@state.gov

http://usembassy.state.gov (for address and additional phones)

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State
fax: 202.647.2283 or 202.647.5169
phone: 202.647.5291 or 202.647.7098
email via: http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html

Haiti Desk Officers, U.S. State Department:

Joseph Tilghman
fax: 202.647.2901
phone: 202.647.5088
email: tilghmanjf@state.gov

Lawrence Connell
fax: 202.647.2901
phone: 202.647.6765
email: ConnellLF@state.gov



Marguerite Laurent, JD,

Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
(dedicated to protecting the civil, human and cultural rights of Haitians at home and abroad)
May 12, 2004
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaigns.html