The Forcible removal of President Aristide
from Haiti violates the Convention on the Prevention
And Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected
Persons, a treaty ratified by the U.S.
The Coup D'etat violates Article 20
of OAS Charter and the OAS Mission
The 2004 Coup D'etat violates the U.N
Charter and U.N. Mission
U.N. SC Resolutions 1529, 1608 and
the Feb. 22, 2006 Accord violates international law,
U.N. Charter and Mission while undermining Haitian sovereignty,
Haitian Constitution, justice system, governance, democracy
and rule of law as well as contradicting the OAS's American
Convention on Human Rights
Dessalines
Is Rising!! Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!
Seven Campaigns to Re-establish Haitian Democracy
and Sovereignty
APRIL 1, 2004
"Men anpil chaj pa lou"
is the Kreyol phrase for "Many hands make light a heavy load".
WHAT: Campaigns to assist with establishment of rule of
law, justice, sovereignty and democracy to Haiti WANTED: Organizational partners and Haitian Lawyers Leadership
Network Volunteers CONTACT: Marguerite Laurent, Esq. at
Erzilidanto@yahoo.com
The Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network has, in collaboration with
grassroots pro-democracy groups in Haiti and in the U.S., identified
the following priorities and working agenda and is soliciting
organizational support and volunteers to help their ongoing work
on these campaigns. The Network is operating as liaison along
with many activists to direct information and press for action.
Our priorities and working agenda are as follows:
CAMPAIGN ONE:
Stop the political oppression and criminalization of the mass
Haitian electorate. Mobilize so that there is security for
those persecuted to be able to safely return to their homes
with their families, be allowed to return to school, jobs,
daily lives - stop being intimidated, tortured and abused
by convicted felons, fugitives, ex-soldiers, former FRAPH,
opposition strongmen and street gangs capitalizing on the
Constitutional crisis for their own macabre benefit. Mobilize
human rights monitors, organizations, campaigns and media
exposure to pressure the perpetrators and their civilian and
governmental allies, including pressuring the UN/MINUSTHA
forces currently acting as an occupation force in Haiti, to
stop the killings in Haiti and to protect the internal refugees
in Haiti. Keep the stories of the post-Coup D'etat's brutal
political repression in the headlines as much as possible.
CAMPAIGN TWO:
Identify and mobilize worldwide legal and humanitarian support
and aid for the fleeing Haitian refugees. The U.S. Coast Guard
automatically repatriates Haitians. Haitians who reach U.S.
shores are the only asylum seekers automatically repatriated
or indefinitely deprived of their liberty - indefinitely detained
without trial, charges or due process of law in the United
States of America.
CAMPAIGN
THREE:
Demand respect of the Feb. 7, 2006 vote and sovereignty and
Haiti's right to self-determination and self-ownership. Pursue
the claim for an investigation of the Internationals' role
(including UN, OAS and Group 184) in diluting and undermining
the Haitian peoples votes, both in the 2006 Presidential and
Legislative elections; pursue the unconditional return and
release of all those sent into exile, or placed in prison,
due to the Feb. 29th coup d'etat, including President Aristide
and the Constitutional Government officials of Haiti and their
allies. Support the calls for an investigation of the February
29, 2004 Coup D'etat and investigation of U.S./Canada/European
Union funding of known Haitian human rights abusers and mercenaries
and the kidnapping of President Jean Bertrand Aristide and
his wife. Under President Jean Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas
governments, the
life, liberty and property of the Haitian masses were
elevated and more valued than at any other time since the
first coup detat in 1806 where Haiti's founding father was
assassinated by the sons of France. For, the minium wage was
raised, more
Haitian schools were built in Haiti than in the entire
previous 200 years of Haitian history, the people were educated
by the Liv Blan as to the resources of Haiti and their right
to this property and mineral riches, the Kreyòl language
was made an official language of the Haitian state, Vodun
was made an official religion, France was asked to pay back
the Independence
Debt and literacy rates went up by more than 30%. To take
and control Haiti's life, liberty and property are the reasons
for the Bush 2004 coup d'etat. The Bush 2004 coup d'etat/Regime
change and subsequent UN occupation is based on enslavement
(taking of Haitian life and labor),
murder (rule by force, incarceration,
endless debt and degrading the environment) and theft (stealing
the people of Haiti's
mineral/gold/copper/coal/oil and other riches). Listen
to CKUT
Interview (in English - 34:03) with Ezili Dantò on
Mining of Haiti Resources and Riches.
CAMPAIGN FOUR:
Celebrate Haitian culture and Haiti's revolutionary legacy
as a pioneer in the human rights struggle.
Protect Haiti's cultural and revolutionary legacy, the Kreyòl
language, and Kreyòl literacy efforts. Defend Haiti's
territorial sovereignty (i.e. Fort
Liberte and Môle St. Nicolas are not for sale or
to be taken as U.S. companion bases to Guantanamo bay, Haiti
riches/mineral wealth belong to the people of Haiti),
and expose and counter the French/U.S. and other occupational
troops, their Haitian mercenaries and their "civilian and
ecclesiastic fronts" from looting Haiti's cultural and archeological
artifacts and defiling Haiti's Vodun heritage and way of life.
Part of the psychological warfare in the timing of the 2004
Coup D'etat, orchestrated by the U.S. and France in collaboration
with Haitian mercenaries, anti-Haitian and unpatriotic and
anti-black Black opportunists, is to stop the world from celebrating
the achievement of the African warriors who first put liberty
into application in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, this 2nd
U.S. orchestrated Coup D'etat against the Constitutionally
elected Haitian president makes it even more critical for
the African Diaspora, Haitians and authentic human rights
advocates the worldwide to highlight Haiti's 200-year old
struggle against debt, dependency and foreign domination and
to keep, at the forefront, what the Haitian ancestors fought
against, especially in light of Haiti's bi-centennial.
Campaign Four urges all to celebrate Haitian culture, support
Haitian artists and Haiti's revolutionary legacy as pioneers
in the human rights struggle. Haitian were the first freedom
fighters to abolish slavery, the first to win their independence
from European enslavement and colonialism in the Western Hemisphere.
Haitians living today are still paying for their ancestorsí
great human rights achievements. The majority of the Affranchis
or "free Blacks," distinctly known today as the Neocons or
Republican Blacks, are, as in olden slavery days, still used
as buffers for the exploitation of the Haitian masses, continuing
their historic, if nefarious and morally repugnant role and
work, by supporting U.S./Euro repressive economic and geopolitical
interests in Haiti. White as opposed to Ayisyen cultural standards,
mostly imitating right wing white society, and working, for
example, as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Reginald Dumas,
Kofi Annan, Gerald Latorture and Andre Apaid, Jr. and the
like, as vociferous international adherents of neo-liberalism,
lawlessness in Haiti and against the one-person-one-vote-principle
and other such anti democratic views for the masses in Haiti,
the Caribbean and Africa. These mentally colonized, anti-democratic
Black opportunists and their civilian and military mercenaries
in Haiti and abroad still serve the Black masses up to the
neo-colonialists as evidenced by their role in the crippling
2004 Coup Díetat. Many, clothed themselves as "progressives"
solely because of their black skin color or alliances with
these sort of Blacks, but their actions in Haiti today, with
regard to reconciling with the former bloody Haitian military
and FRAPH reappearance and towards the one-person-one-vote
principle, show they are part of the old status quo reborn,
are neither humane, progressive nor do they have the interests
of the mass Haitian electorate at heart. This confusion must
be de-tangled, our whole history told and put into historical
perspective; the veil of these traditional "Black Buffers"
brought down so authentic progressives the worldwide may focus
on the real issues of imperialism's gluttonous greed, inhumanity,
venomous resentments and relentless injustices to be confronted
and countered, clearing the way for our Black ancestors' achievements
in Haiti to be promoted and celebrated despite the 2004 Coup
D'etat, Constitutional crisis and human rights abuses.
CAMPAIGN FIVE:
The primary reason for the 2004 Coup D'etat was because Haiti,
is one of these rare Black countries that OWNED something,
still OWNS SOMETHING the powerful imperialists, their multi-national
corporations and Western governments want, haven't yet privatized
(colonized), but surely feel racistly entitled to take from
the poor majority in Haiti as a divine right! Remember, IMF/WB
GDP calculations of average wealth, Western economic calculation
of wealth, has NOTHING to do with the reality of Haitian
lives in Haiti, nor with Jean Jacques Dessalines idea of wealth
distribution. Western 'Development' is based on Bourgeoisie
Freedom, exclusion of the masses and means the Euros would
own more in Haiti and have successfully used humanitarian
imperialism to mask how they harvest cheap Haitian labor to
make huge profits while enslaving the country in DEBT, but
call it CREDIT. Western 'Development' would mean the Haitian
people are rendered exotic backdrops in their own country,
and butlers and maids to service Euro/US tourists and the
Euro/US elites that own the land. In Haiti, we may not have
the materialism, but we OWN ourselves, our land, our culture,
our own language, our own Gods, our own image of self.Thus,
under the US-backed government in Haiti between 2004 and 2006,
the internationals took the opportunity to commit Haiti's
people to a defacto UN protectorate (UN SC Res. 1608, Feb.
22, 2006 Accord) and sign endless illegal corporate agreements
and illegal World Bank accords - to fleece Haiti of what it
owned, load it with endless IMF/World Bank debt, and undermine
Haitian civil liberties by militarizing Haiti with their UN
occupying soldiers and politicized Haitian "police,"
trained to repress the people of Haiti on behalf of foreign
interests. (See, Turning
Haiti into a Penal Colony). The bi-centennial coup's mission
was to install a Haiti Death Project regime, misnamed a Haiti
Democracy Project ("HDP") regime more interested
in the impoverishment disasters of neo-liberalism and globalization
rather than social spending for Haitian schools, literacy
programs, health care, roads, portable water, job development,
institutionalization of the rule of law, a justice system
and a Haitianist domestic economy. We shall continue the struggle
against financial colonialism by speaking up against privatization;
educating the populist as to the beneficiaries of the privatization
of water, utilities, state owned enterprises, the dumping
of corporate farm subsidized goods, and the radical right
wing agenda to maintain the old status quo of having the Black
masses produce, the Black buffering lighter Black minorities
serve, while the white privilege internationals direct, consume,
load Haiti with endless debt and run things from behind the
scenes in Haiti. In this 21st century these paradigms are
to be resisted, shattered - just as Haitians resist the abuses
of the sweatshops
and Haiti simply being a service area for the super rich to
exploit and abuse Haitian labor and resources. With Campaign
Five our working agenda is to also continue to identify labor
law violators and set long term corporate strategies to boycott
or find other suitable economic strategies against U.S. and
other companies in Haiti violating Haitian minimum wage, jeopardizing
Haitian health, life and the Black masses' civil and human
rights.
CAMPAIGN SIX:
Mobilize the Haitian-American and Caribbean-American vote
to push a platform for more conscionable and equitable U.S.
policy in Haiti and for Haitian refugees.
CAMPAIGN SEVEN:
Keep alive and pursue the
21.8 billion (and counting) owed by France to the Haitian
people. Demand that the US also repay the people of Haiti
for the portion of this slave-trade debt paid by Haiti to
US banks from 1914 to 1947 under US military force and a 19-year
US occupation.
For the time being, these are our priorities, our working
agenda. The situation is fluid in Haiti and we shall adjust
as necessary to best meet the needs to expose the human consequences
of the February 29, 2004 Coup D'etat. We are asking for volunteers
with the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network to participate
in the campaigns outlined above and to develop their own and
collaborative action plans, Teach Ins, Petitions, and Days
of Action (May 18, August 14 and October 17th for the FreeHaitiMovement).
We are particularly interested to integrate these seven campaigns
with other action proposals and to collaborate with other
organizations. The task is to figure a way to keep this as
informal as possible, designing each campaign to be virtually
on automatic pilot while still having an over arching mechanism(s)
that will help coordinate action, evaluate results, produce
data and liaison with collaborating organizations and individuals
effectively. The Haitian Lawyers Leadership welcomes all constructive
feedback. We have put together a Haitian Leadership Working
Committee made up of ten Haitian Leadership Lawyers, artists
or activists with oversight responsibilities and are working
on putting in place coordinators for each of the seven missions,
five are already in place and may be contacted directly. But
we welcome and encourage more input, more volunteers, more
independent initiatives promoting the objectives of the campaigns
above noted, and as also reflected and summarized from, time
to time, in our Haiti
Resolutions.
The "Men Anpil Chaj Pa Lou" Haitian Lawyers
Leadership Working Committee members are:
Henri Alexandre, Esq., CT, 1983
Picard Losier, LLM, Taxation; JD, Licensed NY 1984 &
PA, 1981
Maguy Duteau, Esq., NY, 1988 - HLLN's immigration specialist
Bob Celestin, Esq., Licensed NY 1985
Lionel Jean Baptise, Esq., Licensed IL, 1991
Ulrick Gaillard, Esq.
Darwin Beauvais, Esq., 1993
Professor Frantz Jerome, Executive Director of the Ezili
Danto Witness Project
Chantal Laurent, Graphic Artist, HLLN's Website Designer
and webmaster
David Laurent, Documentary Filmmaker, HLLN's Film and Video
Producer/Editor for The
Ezili Dantò Witness Project and The FreeHaitiMovement
