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<font size=4><b><i>Two Years After the Coup<br>
featuring</i></font><font size=6> </font><font size=7>Duclos
Benissoit<br>
</font><font size=3>President of the Federation of Public Transport
Workers of Haiti</b> <br><br>
</font><font size=6><b>Saturday February 25, 2006 - 7:00 p.m. <br><br>
</font><font size=5>St. Joseph the Worker Church<br>
</font><font size=3>MAP:
<a href="http://maps.yahoo.com/pmaps?addr=1640+Addison+St&csz=Berkeley+CA+94703&state=&uzip=&ds=n&name=St+Joseph+The+Worker+Church&desc=%28510%29+843-2244&lat=37.8697&lon=-122.2781&mlt=37.8697&mln=-122.2781&zoomin=yes&BFKey=&resize=l&mag=2&trf=0">
1640 Addison Street, Berkeley</a><br><br>
</b></font><font size=4><i>Donation requested $5-10<br><br>
</font><font size=4 color="#BD0000"><b>also</font><font size=4>:</i></b>
</font><font size=3> <b>message from Miami of
</font><font size=4 color="#BD0000">Father Gerard
Jean-Juste</font><font size=3> celebrating his release<br><br>
Haiti Action Committee</b> presents a celebration of Black History Month
<b>Haiti Resistance: Two years after the Coup</b> featuring Duclos
Benissoit President of the Federation of Public Transport Workers of
Haiti<br><br>
Two years after US Marines kidnapped President Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004,
a death-squad regime, backed by the guns of 8,000 United Nations troops,
continues to terrorize Haiti's poor majority. Since the coup, the
situation for Haiti's workers and peasants has grown desperate. Yet the
Resistance continues strong.<br><br>
<b>Duclos Benissoit</b> is president of one of the most influential and
militant labor organizations in Haiti, the Federation of Public Transport
Workers. This is a union that not only fought successfully for the
betterment of the workers. It is also a union that stood strongly for
Haitian democracy; insisting that the votes and rights of the poor
majority in Haiti must be respected, that their needs be given priority,
and that Haiti's right of self-determination must not be trampled
on.<br><br>
That is why Brother Benissoit and his union were targeted by the Coup
d'État of February 29, 2004. The Federation had established a bus
cooperative Service Plus providing quality bus service to the people
in Port-au-Prince and and other parts of the country, while alleviating
traffic congestion in the capital. They had a fleet of 150 buses, many of
them brand-new.<br><br>
On the night of the coup when the US Marines kidnapped President
Aristide's from his home in Tabarre thugs associated with the coup
entered the Service Plus bus yard and torched and destroyed many of the
buses and the union office. Coup elements issued death threats to Brother
Benissoit and demolished his home, forcing him into exile.<br><br>
Brother Benissoit was also targeted because before the coup he had
publicly denounced those who were trying to destabilize the
democratically elected government of President Aristide. Other
progressive unions were also attacked as part of the campaign to destroy
popular democracy in Haiti.<br><br>
For example, as the coup was being prepared, when Haiti's business elite
called for a general work stoppage as a tactic to undermine the Aristide
government, Brother Benissoit went on the radio to denounce "the
bosses' strike" and urged bus drivers, truckers and the general
public to go to work and go about their business as usual. The business
elite's "general strike" was largely ignored by the Haitian
public at the time.<br><br>
Duclos Benissoit, as one of the grassroots leaders of the pro-democracy
movement in Haiti and president of a key union federation, has a wealth
of knowledge of the recent history and present situation of the workers
and people of Haiti.<br><br>
Come to hear and honor him, as we celebrate the Haitian people's victory
in ensuring that their overwhelming vote for President-elect Rene Preval
on February 7 is respected.<br><br>
Also, we will play a message from Miami of Father Gerard Jean-Juste
celebrating his release, one year after his stirring words from the
pulpit at St. Joseph the Worker Church<br><br>
Music by Francisco Herrera * Freedom Song Network<br><br>
</font><font size=4><b><i>featuring</i></font><font size=6>
</font><font size=7>Duclos Benissoit<br>
</font><font size=3>President of the Federation of Public Transport
Workers of Haiti<br><br>
</font><font size=6>Saturday February 25, 2006 - 7:00 p.m. <br><br>
</font><font size=5>St. Joseph the Worker Church<br>
</font><font size=3>MAP:
<a href="http://maps.yahoo.com/pmaps?addr=1640+Addison+St&csz=Berkeley+CA+94703&state=&uzip=&ds=n&name=St+Joseph+The+Worker+Church&desc=%28510%29+843-2244&lat=37.8697&lon=-122.2781&mlt=37.8697&mln=-122.2781&zoomin=yes&BFKey=&resize=l&mag=2&trf=0">
1640 Addison Street, Berkeley</a></b> [one block south of University Ave.
near McGee]<br><br>
</font><font size=4 color="#BD0000"><b><i>also</font><font size=4>:</i>
</b></font><font size=3> <b>message from Miami of
</font><font size=4 color="#BD0000">Father Gerard
Jean-Juste</font><font size=3> celebrating his release<br><br>
</b></font><font size=4><i>Donation requested $5-10<br>
</i></font><font size=3>[no one turned away]<br><br>
</font><font size=4><b><i>In honor of our beloved
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1209-04.htm">Father Bill
O'Donnell</a>, always a fighter for democracy in Haiti, who arrived in
Haiti two days after the 1991 coup, and came back to declare St. Joseph
the Worker Church a sanctuary for Haitian refugees.<br><br>
</i></b></font><font size=3>For more information
</font><font size=4>(510) 483 7481<br><br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
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