[News] Glover has pulled out of Haitian bicentennial cruise

[News at freedomarchives.org]

HAITI'S BICENTENNIAL

GLOVER BACKS OUT OF HAITIAN CRUISE

Actor Danny Glover has pulled out of a Haitian bicentennial cruise because 
he doesn't want to appear to support the country's
U.S.-backed interim government.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
Sun, Aug. 15, 2004
jcharles at herald.com
Miami Herald
<http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/9404636.htm?1c>http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/9404636.htm?1c

A controversial cruise commemorating Haiti's bicentennial set sail from 
Miami on Saturday, but without its biggest headliner:
film star Danny Glover.

The actor, who has been the driving force behind the increasingly troubled 
cruise for the past two years, said he was pulling
his support to make a political statement about Haiti's 5-month-old 
U.S.-backed regime.

'Due to the increasingly critical political situation in Haiti, which 
resulted in a loss of life, oppression and incarceration of thousands
of Haitians, I have canceled my participation in `Cruising into History,' 
'' Glover said at a news conference hours before the Royal
Caribbean Cruise Line was scheduled to depart from the Port of Miami-Dade 
for its seven-day Caribbean excursion.

Glover said he did not want to appear to support the new government, 
installed after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

''It's impossible for us to be neutral in view of the coup that took place 
Feb. 29, 2004, against the duly elected government of Haiti,
irrespective of our feelings about the strengths and weaknesses of 
President Aristide,'' he said about his last-minute decision.

The voyage involves 500 Haitian and African-Americans who spent between 
$1,500 and $2,500, many of them at Glover's urging.
It was an opportunity to celebrate Haiti's birth as a nation, while rubbing 
shoulders with black luminaries such as Glover, famed
dancer Katherine Dunham, National Urban League President Marc Morial, 
Essence magazine Editorial Director Susan Taylor and poet
Sonia Sanchez.

Billed as a nonpolitical, historical pilgrimage to Haiti, with an 
International Black Arts and Cultural Festival on board, organizers
promised a daylong excursion through several northern Haitian towns 
including Milot, where travelers were to mount horses to
visit King Henri Christophe's historical San Souci Palace and a 19th 
century fortress, the Citadel.

But instead of historical ruins, voyagers will only see Labadee, the 
private landing for Royal Caribbean that cruise organizer Ron
Daniels calls a ``neocolonial enclave.''

And in addition to Glover, they will have to do without poet Sanchez, who 
also said Saturday she was canceling her appearance.

Daniels announced last week that he was changing the trip's itinerary to 
prevent the voyage from becoming a showcase for the
new Haitian government.

The cruise and its celebrity endorsers had become the focus of a pressure 
campaign by pro-Aristide supporters in the United States
who demanded that ''Cruising into Haiti'' change course and not be used to 
''endorse and legitimize the de facto government'' in Haiti.

Jonas Petit, a spokesman for Aristide's Lavalas Family Party who attended 
the press conference Saturday, said while the group
welcomes the position taken by organizers, it's imperative that they 
understand that the Haitian people still are not free.

Haiti's political landscape has changed, he said, and now is not the time 
to be celebrating.

Daniels said while he feels badly about raising the expectations of the 
thousands of people in Milot who had waited for two years on
this visit, ''we have a responsibility to respond where we see injustice 
taking place,'' he said.

******
Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership
******

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