[News] SF - Haiti Report Back, Saturday at 3 PM – 5 PM - 518 Valencia: The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Haiti Report Back

*Saturday at 3 PM – 5 PM
**518 Valencia: The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics 
<https://www.facebook.com/518valencia/?eid=ARBrimzWtSd_XO1CGfe8kFR3BNsLjzylmh7FYfFSwR1MpHgwmVFayGk5xNbsQG6HTJ88qW8hF6zLv6Hh>*

Hosted by Haiti Action Committee 
<https://www.facebook.com/HaitiActionCommittee/?eid=ARBj8R0CdMGnECKLGVCaZLxXt1MmRopvf7My-q3Oqcik6lWaOLXihVOW3RkI9sXu_GSA7pJHscBiZvyc>

With Seth Donnelly - Haiti Action Committee; Pierre Labossiere - Haiti 
Action Committee; Judith Mirkinson - National Lawyers Guild; Margaret 
Prescod - Sojourner Truth Radio; Walter Riley - Haiti Emergency Relief 
Fund.

A delegation of Haiti solidarity and human rights activists recently 
returned from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, will report on the 
grassroots uprising and the brutal repression trying to stop it. Their 
focus was on graduation ceremonies at the University of the Aristide 
Foundation and meetings with residents in the impoverished community of 
Lasalin. This insurgent community is a stronghold of grassroots Lavalas 
resistance and the scene of a state-sponsored massacre of hundreds of 
people last November. You will hear a first-hand report about this 
ongoing human rights crisis which has been completely ignored by the 
United States, UN, international community, diplomats and the mainstream 
media. Here is a brief interview with Judith Mirkinson and Seth Donnelly 
on Sojourner Truth Radio: http://bit.ly/2U3Vcd7 <https://bit.ly/2U3Vcd7>
$10-20 no one turned away

_________________________________________________________________

**

*Human Rights Delegation Condemns Political Massacres Tied to
Haiti’s Government *

*Investigation reveals attacks in Lasalin, Tokyo and Site Vinsant 
neighborhoods,
rather than simply gang warfare, were retaliation for anti-government 
protests*

**

*(Oakland, Los Angeles and Boston, May 8, 2019)*

**

A delegation including lawyers, activists and a journalist investigating 
reports of a months-long series of deadly attacks in poor neighborhoods 
of Port-au-Prince, were in Port au Price from April 24^th to April 27^th 
. After reviewing human rights reports, collecting testimony from 
victims, reviewing video filmed by journalists, they concluded that the 
attacks were perpetrated by police and gangs associated with Haiti’s 
government, and were done to punish neighborhood residents-- many of 
whom identify as supporters of the /Fanmi Lavalas /party—for playing a 
leading role in a series of demonstrations opposing government 
corruption, mismanagement and brutality.

The delegation investigated attacks that took place from October 2018 to 
April 2019, that included the murder of dozens of residents, rape, 
beatings and other torture, burning of houses, threats, and destruction 
of property. The delegation interviewed eyewitnesses to the attacks, 
victims, human rights lawyers and former political leaders in Haiti.

Actor, director and producer Danny Glover recalled meeting the head of 
/Fanmi Lavalas, /President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in exile during the 
early 1990s. He explained President Aristide had and still has a dream 
for a better future for Haiti, where education, healthcare and justice 
were a right for all, not a privilege for the few. Glover was devastated 
by the stories he heard about the massacres, about the burning of homes, 
about the suffering of women and children, the chopping up and burning 
the bodies of men who are then left to be eaten by animals.  “Clearly 
these are not random gang attacks, but people who are being targeted 
because they dare to stand up to the present government and demand 
education, healthcare and justice for all.”  Glover proclaimed that he 
is Haitian at heart, that the country played a central historic role in 
the ending of slavery in all of the Americas, and that we all owe a 
great debt to Haiti.  He promised to stand with the Haitian people in 
their struggle for justice and insisted that everything possible must be 
done to end the massacres and bring hope to the Haitian people.

Margaret Prescod, host of US-based Pacifica Radio’s national broadcast 
“Sojourner Truth,” whose focus areas are women’s rights and anti-racism, 
added, “I have been to Haiti twice in the past five weeks and have been 
reporting on the massacres. I have seen the devastation and suffering of 
women and children, the displacement from homes, the widespread impact 
of the massacres, and the starvation of entire communities.  It is 
unconscionable and likely one of the largest human rights crises in the 
Americas. In my first visit to Lasalin, I went into a home where the 
skeleton of a pregnant woman who was burned alive was still there, as 
was the smell of death. Children spoke to me of their fathers being 
killed and their mothers now left with nothing.  In this second visit, 
victims told us they are targeted not only because their communities are 
opposed to the present government, but because they are active 
supporters of /Fanmi Lavalas/, the political organization headed by 
former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.  They are asking for justice 
and compensation, for the US to withdraw its support for Haitian 
President Jovenel Moïse whose election was widely reported as 
fraudulent. They want Jovenel Moïse to step down, and accountability for 
the disappeared PetroCaribe money which was stolen from the people by 
the government. They want free and fair elections.

Activist Pierre Labossière of the Bay Area Haiti Action Committee 
explained “in the midst of the despair imposed on the population by 
Haiti’s ruling establishment, a dynamic, vibrant Haiti is struggling to 
emerge.  The corruption and brutality of the US/UN-imposed PHTK 
governments now headed by Jovenel Moïse leave no doubt as to the 
Duvalierist roots and "Tonton Macoutes" methods now being used in the 
Port-au-Prince neighborhoods of Lasalin, Tokyo, Site Vincent and 
Kafoufey by the government's UN-supervised police and their affiliated 
death squads, their identity disguised by referring to them as "gangs". 
The survivors we met--mostly women-- spoke of being beaten, burned, and 
raped, witnessing their loved ones being killed and their homes and 
belongings stolen and burned. They spoke of their loved ones being 
massacred because their communities are Lavalas supporters, and because 
Lasalin gave birth to the Lavalas movement. The victims and witnesses 
described being active participants in bringing about the vision of a 
Haiti of inclusion, justice, peace and prosperity. Since the bloody coup 
d’état in February 2004 led by the US, France and Canada, it has been a 
15-year process by the ensuing UN occupation to drag the Haitian people 
back to the brutal dictatorship, murder and corruption of the Duvalier 
years. The world needs to know the present-day reality in Haiti and to 
stand in solidarity with the Haitian people.”

Civil rights lawyer Walter Riley explained “I am outraged by what I 
heard from victims in my recent visit to Haiti. And I am outraged that 
the taxpayers in the United States are being used to prop up the corrupt 
government of Jovenel Moïse.  The attacks on people in Lasalin began as 
retaliation to demonstrations calling for President Jovenel Moïse to 
resign over stolen billions of PetroCaribe money from Venezuela and 
systemic corruption in failed governance.  We have testimony of 
witnesses in the area and from human rights organizations about the 
brutality, the crimes against humanity. We have eyewitness reports that 
these attacks are not simply gangs as they are being referred to by the 
press and the US Embassy, but part of militias backed by some in the 
Moïse administration.  The murder and brutality is a policy of the 
Haitian government which is backed by the United States.”

Brian Concannon Human rights lawyer added: “I have worked on political 
violence cases in Haiti for 24 years and the witness reports from 
Lasalin, Tokyo and Site Vincent are all too similar to other notorious 
acts of state-sponsored oppression, including the 1987 attack on the St. 
Jean Bosco church in Lasalin, attacks by the Duvalier dictatorship and 
the 1994 Raboteau massacre. With the Duvaliers’ Ton-Ton Macoutes, the 
FRAPH death squads and now the violent groups under the Moïse 
administration, the motive for each has been silencing calls for justice 
and democracy and terrorizing government opponents, while disguising 
government participation. The government is trying to shoot its way out 
of a political crisis generated by its corruption and mismanagement. If 
we do not ensure justice for Lasalin now, there will be more victims.”

* Global Women's Strike/Bay Area <sf at allwomencount.net>*


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
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