[News] Stop The Attacks on President Aristide and the Lavalas Movement

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Urgent Action Alert From The Haiti Action Committee:**
Stop The Attacks on President Aristide and the Lavalas Movement*


It is nearly two years since the joyous return of former President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his wife and colleague Mildred Trouillot, and 
their two daughters, to their homeland of Haiti.  Tens of thousands of 
people followed President Aristide’s car as it drove through the streets 
to his home, and then climbed over the walls to continue an emotional 
and heart-felt greeting for Haiti’s first democratically elected 
president.  In his speech at the airport, President Aristide focused on 
education and the importance of inclusion for all Haitians in the 
process of restoring democracy.


Since his return, President Aristide has done exactly what he promised 
to do - reopen the University of the Aristide Foundation's Medical 
School. On September 26, 2011 the Medical School once again opened its 
doors – this time to a new group of 126 future Haitian doctors. Seven 
years after the school’s forced closure by the U.S.-orchestrated coup in 
2004, and four months after the return of former President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide to Haiti, medical education resumed at UNIFA.  Just this fall, 
UNIFA began accepting candidates for a new nursing school. And this is 
just the beginning of a determined initiative to improve health care for 
all Haitians, particularly with the ravages of the cholera epidemic 
sweeping the country.


Yet President Aristide is again under attack.   He has been summoned to 
appear in court this Wednesday, January 9^th , as part of an 
investigation into Lafanmi Selavi, a home for street children that 
Aristide organized in 1986.  Some former residents of the home now claim 
that Aristide owes them money, among other unfounded and fabricated 
charges. The prosecutor in this current investigation was a key member 
of the GNB, the right-wing network that helped direct the 2004 coup 
against Aristide’s democratically elected government.


This court summons is the latest twist in the continuing campaign to 
undermine both President Aristide and his political party, Fanmi 
Lavalas. Twenty-one pro-Lavalas activists and musicians have been jailed 
without charges since December 16th, after taking part in a 
demonstration commemorating the 22nd anniversary of Pres. Aristide's 
election in 1990. This was followed by a court summons to seven Lavalas 
grassroots leaders and activists for speaking out against the arrest of 
the 21. And now the court summons President Aristide.


This is no surprise.  The Haitian government of Michel Martelly came to 
power after a staged “election” in which Fanmi Lavalas, the most popular 
political party in Haiti, was banned from participation.  Martelly has 
embraced Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the brutal former dictator, 
who lives freely in Haiti and has just been granted a diplomatic 
passport.  Human rights organizations estimate that Duvalier and his 
father, Francois “Papa Doc”, ordered the deaths of 20,000 to 30,000 
Haitian citizens during their 29-year rule.  While Duvalier has been 
“cleared” by the Haitian government of human rights charges, Aristide 
and the Lavalas movement remain targeted.


Enough is enough. We call on the Haitian government to withdraw the 
summons against President Aristide and to free the 21 activists now 
jailed in Haiti.  We also call on the United Nations occupying forces in 
Haiti and the U.S. State Department to cease their attacks against 
President Aristide and the Lavalas movement.


*Demand an end to the attacks against President Aristide and the Lavalas 
movement!*


*Contact:*

*
*

Ministry of Justice and Public Security

*Ministre de la Justice et de la Securité Publique*

*Jean Renel Sanon *

18 avenue Charles Summer

Port-au-Prince, Haïti

Email: secretariat.mjsp at yahoo.com <mailto:secretariat.mjsp at yahoo.com>

Salutation: Monsieur le Ministre/Dear Minister


*Secretary General Ban Ki-moon*
United Nations <http://www.un.org%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank>
New York, NY 10017 USA
212-963-5012 fax: 212-963-7055
Email: ecu at un.org <mailto:ecu at un.org>


Sent by Haiti Action Committee

www.haitisolidarity.net <http://www.haitisolidarity.net> and on FACEBOOK


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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