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<b><span style="font-size:16pt"><font color="#000000" face="Cambria">Haiti
Rises</font></span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt"><font
color="#000000" face="Cambria"> - A Time for Solidarity</font></span></b>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><span></span><font
size="3" color="#000000">by
Nia Imara and Robert Roth*</font></font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">“<b><i>Reflecting on
struggles everywhere, we came to the
conclusion that a people can’t be sovereign if they
don’t have the right to
vote. No people can retain their dignity if their
vote does not count</i></b></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000">.”
</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.haitisolidarity.net/downloads/Statement%20from%20Haitian%20popular%20movement.pdf"
target="_blank"><i><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">From
a Statement</font></i></a><i><font size="3"
color="#000000" face="Cambria"> Issued by 68 Haitian
Grassroots Organizations on January
22, 2016</font></i></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The voice of Haiti’s popular movement at this
critical
period in the country’s history has never been clearer. For
the past
several months, since the discredited legislative and
presidential elections of
last August and October, mass, vibrant protests for the
right to a free and
fair vote and against foreign intervention have been a
relentless force, in the
face of heavily-armed and well-financed adversaries and
mounting repression.
The influx of articles and editorials in recent weeks by
leading U.S.
media outlets depicts the situation in Haiti as a confused,
incomprehensible,
morass of violence and dysfunction, with all sides being
equally unreasonable
in their demands. This misleading portrayal of Haitian
politics and
culture—indeed, of Haitian people—by American mainstream
media is not new. Rather,
it is a continuation of a historical pattern of obfuscating
the underlying
reasons for the grievances of Haiti’s mass movement, which
has consistently
denounced foreign intervention and the suppression of
Haiti’s sovereignty.
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The popular revolt in Haiti has forced the
postponement of
the January 24 presidential run-off election, to the dismay
of the U.S. State
Department and the current Haitian government of Michel
Martelly, whose handpicked
candidate had been declared the frontrunner. And now, on
February 7, it
has forced the end of the rule of Martelly himself, who has
had to step down
rather than oversee the next stage of the electoral process.</font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">These are major victories for the people’s
movement in
Haiti. But already there are signs that the next round will
be just as
difficult as the fight has been already. The popular
movement has made it
clear that they have no interest in a top-down solution that
excludes the
participation and voices of the tens of thousands of
Haitians who have risked
their lives nearly every day in the fight for democracy.
They have raised
the fundamental question: How can elections proceed to a
second round if </font><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nlg.org/news/releases/nlg-and-iadl-election-observers-establish-flaws-haitis-october-25-vote-call"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">the
first round was hopelessly illegitimate</font></a><font
size="3" color="#000000" face="Cambria">? How can elections
move forward
without a thorough investigation and repair of the fraud
that already took
place? These are the critical issues being fought over
today as Haitians
celebrate the end of the Martelly dictatorship.</font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Background to the Revolt: </font></b></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Twelve Years Since the Coup, Twelve Years
of Occupation</font></b></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">The revolt in Haiti has not
emerged overnight. It is now
almost twelve years since the U.S.-orchestrated coup
that overthrew the
democratically elected government of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and
removed over 8,000 elected officials, and exiled,
jailed, raped and murdered
thousands of supporters of the <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000"> Party. The coup was
enforced by a United Nations military occupation that
still exists today.
It has been five years since Michel Martelly, a supporter
of the brutal
Duvalier dictatorships and their death squads, was
selected as president; only
17% of eligible Haitian voters turned out in an election
that excluded the most
popular political party, </font><i><font size="3"
color="#000000">Fanmi Lavalas</font></i><font size="3"
color="#000000">. Hillary Clinton, then the U.S.
Secretary of State, </font></font><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-haiti-story.html"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">flew
to Haiti to dictate to Haitian officials</font></a><font
size="3" color="#000000" face="Cambria"> that Martelly be
placed in the election
runoff after initial results had left him only in third
place. His U.S.-backed
reign has featured one corruption scandal after another,
intimidation of the
judicial system, the return of death squads, torture of
political prisoners,
selling off of oil and mineral rights to foreign
corporations, and rule by
decree. </font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Haitians have had enough of this. As they
watched this
latest election being stolen and a Martelly minion emerge as
the leading vote
getter, they took to the streets by the tens of thousands.
As they saw ballot
boxes burned and “observers” with 900,000 government-issued
credentials vote
over and over again, they declared the election an
“electoral coup.” As they
were turned away from one polling place after another, and
told that they were
not eligible to vote, they declared fraud. </font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">While they joined the
demonstrators in the streets, <i>Fanmi
Lavalas</i></font></font><font size="3"
color="#000000"> and its presidential candidate, Dr.
Maryse Narcisse also filed a
petition with the National Office of Electoral Litigation
to challenge the
results. All major opposition condemned the fraudulent
elections and announced
a boycott of the scheduled presidential run-off on January
24. As the
demonstrations grew in size and scope, the Haitian
government responded with
increasing violence. Police fired into peaceful protests,
and beat and
tear-gassed those in the streets. Much of this has been
met with silence
by the international media.</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">When it comes to Haiti, the United States’
homegrown
illness—racism—is cast outward. Just as the voting rights
of Black people
have been abused throughout American history, the US
Government, through
financial and diplomatic coercion, </font><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/for-us-in-haiti-black-votes-dont-matter.html"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">abuses
the voting rights of Haitians</font></a><font size="3"
color="#000000" face="Cambria">. Just as the basic human
rights of
Black people—decent education, housing, healthcare, physical
safety—are
regularly undermined here, the US Government has directly
and indirectly made
efforts to extinguish fundamental civil and human rights in
Haiti. Just
as the State of Michigan forced the majority Black
population of Flint to drink
contaminated water while the EPA did nothing, so did United
Nations troops dump
their excrement into Haiti’s water supply with impunity,
bringing cholera to
the country with no reparations. The U.S. Government—from
the Bush
Administrations, to the Clinton and Obama
Administrations—have routinely
demonstrated, as a matter of policy, that Black lives matter
in Haiti as little
as they do in America. </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The State Department: Talking Democracy,
Promoting Fraud</font></b></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The U.S. role throughout the electoral crisis
is as
predictable as it was after the 2010 earthquake, when the
State Department sent
then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to handpick a
well-known misogynist and
supporter of the Duvalier dictatorship, Michel Martelly, for
president. With
one hand, </font><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-election-usa-idUSKCN0V20XP"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">the
U.S. State Department denounces</font></a><font size="3"
color="#000000" face="Cambria"> the “violence” surrounding
the elections,
while the other hand has never ceased stoking the fires of
electoral fraud and
corruption. With one face, the US State Department
encourages fair, free
elections and discourages voter intimidation; with the
other, it upholds
electoral fraud and threatens the leadership of Haiti’s most
popular movement.</font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The U.S. State Department has been the chief
promoter of
both the Martelly government and the fraudulent elections
that Haitians have
called an “electoral coup.” It has maintained its
pro-Martelly stance
despite the reports of independent human rights
investigators that Martelly’s
PHTK Party intimidated voters, stole ballots, burned ballot
boxes and attempted
to terrorize voters and suppress voter turnout in both the
August 9 and October
25 legislative and presidential elections.</font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Now that the popular movement has finally
brought these
fraudulent elections to a temporary halt, the State
Department has made its
displeasure even more clear. On January 24, it issued a
warning to
demonstrators in Haiti against “electoral intimidation,
destruction of
property, and violence,” saying this runs “counter to
Haiti’s democratic principles.”
This is the same racist and paternalistic tone it has
always used in
Haiti—from the time of Haiti’s Revolution, to the U.S.
invasion and occupation
of Haiti from 1915-1934, to the two coups that overthrew the
democratically
elected Aristide administrations in 1991 and 2004. This from
the same State
Department that was silent when peaceful protesters were
killed, tear-gassed,
beaten or arrested, or when Martelly’s agents terrorized
voters and burned down
polling places. </font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">Hidden From The
Headlines: <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000"> and Dr.
Maryse Narcisse</font></font></b></p>
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</font>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">In addition, there has been
near-silence about the
remarkable campaign run by <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000"> and its presidential candidate,
Dr. Maryse Narcisse. A medical doctor and long-time </font><i><font
size="3" color="#000000">Lavalas</font></i><font
size="3" color="#000000"> militant,
Dr. Narcisse helped establish health clinics in rural
communities. At the time
of the 1991 coup, like many Aristide supporters, she went
into the streets to
protest the military and was briefly forced into hiding.
When President
Aristide was reelected in 2000, she joined his
administration. Exiled
after the 2004 coup, she returned in 2006 to help rebuild
</font><i><font size="3" color="#000000">Lavalas</font></i><font
size="3" color="#000000"> and
continues to serve as Aristide’s spokesperson. Day after
day throughout
this campaign, she has been in the streets with the
people. Her campaign has
emphasized “dignity”—that the Haitian people cannot be
bought or sold, that, as
President Aristide has said, “If we don’t protect our
dignity, our dignity will
escape us.”</font></font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">The progressive
achievements and agenda of <i>Lavalas</i></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000">—setting
up health clinics in poor urban and rural communities,
advancing the fight
against HIV/AIDS, promoting equality for women, literacy
education for all
Haitians, living wage employment, taxing the rich, and
abolishing the Haitian
Army—have made it the party of the poor majority in
Haiti. The organized
collective of dozens of grassroots organizations that
compose </font><i><font size="3" color="#000000">Fanmi
Lavalas</font></i><font size="3" color="#000000">
make it much different from the elite political parties we
are familiar with in
the U.S. </font><i><font size="3" color="#000000">Fanmi
Lavalas</font></i><font size="3" color="#000000"> grew
out of a nationwide mass movement to
force out the American-backed dictator, Jean Claude “Baby
Doc” Duvalier, and to
instill truly participatory democracy after years of rule
by the elite and
foreign intervention. In 1986, after decades of sacrifice
and struggle
against repressive regimes, Haitians succeeded in forcing
out Duvalier and
bringing about the nation’s first democratic elections.
It was a
hard-fought, hard-won victory when the great majority
voted into presidential
office Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990.</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">Since then, the US
organized two coup d’états against the
Aristide administration, which again received an
overwhelming mandate in 2000.
Following each coup—in 1991 and 2004—the US Government
helped to install
a military occupation to suppress resistance, namely, <i>Lavalas</i></font></font><font
size="3" color="#000000">. In
1991, the US lent its support to paramilitary groups, many
of whom were part of
the Duvalier military—since disbanded by </font><i><font
size="3" color="#000000">Lavalas</font></i><font
size="3" color="#000000">—and the Haitian police.
In 2004, the US, with the support of France and Canada,
threw its full weight
behind the United Nations, which, in Haiti, is an
occupying force, not a
peacekeeping mission. Over the last 12 years, that
occupation, known as
MINUSTAH, has overseen the attempt to destroy Haiti’s
popular movement. </font></font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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</font>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Lavalas still has a target on its back. In </font><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-election-aristide-idUSKCN0V42TV"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">an
article published by Reuters</font></a><font size="3"
color="#000000" face="Cambria"> on January 26, 2016 an
unnamed Congressional
source told the news agency that, “The Obama Administration
would be worried if
he [Aristide] were playing an important role. They’re not
thrilled with
Aristide’s forces coming back.” This should be no surprise,
given the
leading role Lavalas has played in the democratic movement.
After all, in
2011, it was President Obama who made a </font><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/17/jean-bertrand-aristide-haiti-return"
target="_blank"><font size="3" color="#0000ff"
face="Cambria">phone
call</font></a><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria"> to South African President Jacob Zuma,
warning him not to allow
President Aristide and his family to board a South African
plane and come back
to Haiti. When Aristide returned, he was greeted by
thousands of people at the
airport and then at his home. Once again, Haitians—and in
this case the
people of South Africa—did not obey.</font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">What Next? A Time For Solidarity</font></b></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Cambria"><font
size="3"><font color="#000000">During this campaign, Dr.
Narcisse emerged as a formidable
candidate. If there is a full investigation of the last
bogus election,
as <i>Lavalas</i></font></font><font size="3"
color="#000000"> and grassroots organizations are
demanding, the abundance of
popular support for Dr. Narcisse is certain to manifest in
the ballot box.
If she ends up winning, she would be the first elected
woman president in
Haiti’s history.</font></font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">That will only be possible if a transparent
and credible
process takes place over these next months. The “electoral
coup,” after
all, stole votes from candidates who represented popular
organizations and
parties. Any new election that repeats this process will be
a new form of
theft. With U.S. officials already decrying the “violence”
of demonstrators and
warning against new protests, and reports circulating of
“solutions” that leave
out the representatives of the very grassroots organizations
and parties that
have been at the forefront of the fight for free and fair
elections, this is a
moment for vigilance in Haiti. In their recent statement,
68 grassroots
organizations in Haiti state their position very clearly:</font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font
color="#000000"><font face="Cambria"><b>“</b><i>We say NO,
WE WILL NOT OBEY ILLEGITIMATE
OFFICIALS. Self-defense is a legitimate universal law.
Civil-Disobedience is an
accepted universal right when a people confronts an
illegal regime. The right
to elect a government is universally accepted as a way
for people to protect
its existence. Today, confronted by the danger
presented by local and
international colonialists, the Haitian people have
started a RESISTANCE FOR
EXISTENCE movement. They ask for people to people
solidarity from everywhere on
the planet.”</i></font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><br>
<font face="Cambria"><font size="3" color="#000000">
</font><b><font size="3" color="#000000">We should heed
their call</font></b><font size="3" color="#000000">. </font></font></p>
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face="Cambria"> </font></p>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">*Nia Imara is a member of Haiti Action
Committee, a San
Francisco Bay Area based organization. Robert Roth is a
co-founder of the
Haiti Action Committee, and teaches high school in San
Francisco. </font></div>
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face="Cambria"><br>
</font></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">Haiti Action Committee on FACEBOOK and
@HaitiAction1</font></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3" color="#000000"
face="Cambria">The
website of HAC is </font><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.haitisolidarity.net/" target="_blank"><font
size="3" color="#0000ff" face="Cambria">www.haitisolidarity.net</font></a></div>
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Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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