Ezili Dantò's analysis of the current colonial narrative of the Mandela legacy:

For warrior mother, Winnie Mandela and our children

by Ezili Dantò

Nelson Mandela and the South African peoples' long struggle is reduced to a celebration of one man who spent 27 years in prison, doesn't hate his white oppressors or wish them the violent deaths, deprivations and grief they metered out to millions of South Africans.

In fact, African lands, control of resources and properties taken through genocide were kept by the white minority. The racist oppressors gave up fairly nothing, are today richer, without guilt and no longer international pariahs. Mandela supposedly forgave them for their global racist system!

The ever-present colonial message is that Mandela is honorable and great for this appeasement. But most other Blacks are corrupt, criminal, inferior, violent. His former wife, Winnie Mandela, is generally put in this category. This is basically the totality of the message being uplifted as the meaning of the Mandela legacy. Over and over again the media tell us that if Mandela had not forgiven his jailers, South Africa would have fallen into upheaval and brutal war. What they mean is that the wealthy white pro-apartheid folks there would have been disturbed, for the Black majority were already at war.

Another missing part of the story is that apartheid/white minority rule and neocolonialism is a global system and did not end with the release of Nelson Mandela.

Hardly ever mentioned favorably is the role of the Black African and Cuban soldiers in defeating the minority government. Especially pivotal was the defeat of the South African apartheid army at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola - a defeat in combat (1988) that Nelson Mandela himself said hastened the end of legal apartheid and his release from prison.

Also brushed aside is that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife, kept the South African Black liberation movement going during the 27-years her husband was put in prison and after.

With her freedom-fighting husband locked up, heroic mother Winnie had to manage her own needs and the care of her children alone while being hounded by the apartheid police at every turn. Imposed griefs like this, as well as the millions massacred and removed under colonialism in Africa, are glossed over in the Western media's rush to reinforce the colonial narrative that leadership greatest lie only in the ability to take the system's punishment without anger and constantly express gratitude and awe for the few assimilated ones allowed to move into "white areas."

A pivotal question is, would there have been this iconic, revered Nelson Mandela, without the resistance work of Winnie Mandela and others who defended their natural and inalienable human rights and had nothing to atone for compared to the horrors suffered under direct white minority rule and apartheid?

Is putting a Black face in command of the same racist, profit-over-people economic system - as with President Barack Obama in the US - a great change?

In an exclusive interview with CCTV, the former Mrs. Mandela explains how she took on the mantle of leadership after Nelson Mandela went to prison and the worst of the apartheid regime. (See, also Exclusive interview: Winnie Mandela remembers Nelson Mandela , Banishment of Winnie Mandela, Winnie’s prison suicide plan and She Was Discarded, Demonised and Betrayed.)

This post honors the other Nelson Mandela - the warrior who took up arms to defend his people, not the 72 year old gracious but accommodating man who walked out of Robben Island and promptly became the corporate figurehead for "good liberation" sold to a world in need of sanity.

Mandela liberated the oppressor. But Janjak Desalin would ask, "what about Africa's children, their equitable share in wealth, health, security, wholeness, dignity - a decent standard of living? What about the oppressors atoning for the unspeakable atrocities Black South Africans endured?"

It's been duly noted that Mandela "agreed to a bad deal for the blacks." Through Mandela, white capital was able to keep its vice grip on South Africa's economic power while the masses were given a beguiling opium in the form of Madiba magic. See, John Pilger's documentary: Apartheid Did Not Die.

This post shares a few worthy links and excerpts of tributes to Mandela. Sends condolences to the still suffering peoples Mandela gave his life force and liberty to represent.

For Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who should not have had to suffer more humiliation after the release of her husband from 27 years of wrongful imprisonment, and for all the women, men and children, of all the Sowetos in South Africa, who endured the white minority's brutality, face the continuing legacy of apartheid in South Africa, we Haitians who are battling Dominican Republic apartheid, loss of citizenship and a 10-year US/Euro occupation behind UN guns and humanitarian imperialism in Ayiti, say "you're not alone." Nou la!- Desalin's descendants are still here, not reconciling with injustice. Nou pap bay legen.

The long walk to freedom continues.

Blatant South African apartheid may have become unacceptable worldwide. But its replacement, economic and civil apartheid continues to be the norm.

The world awaits.

Will the first (in their "new world') Black republic (Ayiti) and the latest Black republic (South Africa) finish the long walk to Black independence?  Help get rid of white minority rule (neocolonialism worldwide) and its profit over people system? Live with independence, transparent and participatory democracy without the global white minority's interference? Replace selections by the current global white powers with one person one vote elections?

The same white supremacist, profit-over-people system that pronounced Black Haiti was not ready for independence in 1804, also nearly 200-years later in 1994, opined that Black South Africans were not ready to rule themselves without the colonial white minority's economic, cultural and social controls and conditions.

The oppressors still point to Haiti and Zimbabwe as failed states for kicking them out. Still use all their Ndoki forces to angelize whites, demonize Blacks. The colonial narrative proclaims the colonists' benevolence, innocence and blamelessness while promoting Black guilt and responsibility for the poverty and instabilities in Haiti and Africa.

Will the corporatocracy ever give up its monopolies, its gated communities built on genocide and death of mostly non-whites and the poor worldwide? Atone for the crimes against humanity since their new world began? No.

White domination has no conscience. Haiti's current occupation by the US/Euros behind UN guns and the white saviors' charitable industrial complex, evidences the Western powers continuing 500-year-old international crimes.

Yes, Mandela's legacy says we should live free, take our freedom and expect to exercise our own perfect self-expression just as Janjak Desalin intended for all children who would slide down the Black woman's thighs. Self-defense is a human right, even in a world lost within white domination and its seductive delusions.

Heroic mother, Winnie Mandela, the Black South African leaders who stayed the course, the African majority, Haiti and the few of us in Haiti left still lifting up Desalin's ideals, have a right to self defense. Reconciling with injustice merely delays justice for centuries, if not millenniums more.

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
December 8, 2013
End apartheid in the Dominican Republic

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The long walk to freedom continues

Go here for more links and to poem: Now that Madiba is dead: Remember to remember that icons created by oppressors will never liberate the people

Ezili Dantò on hidden US occupation, DR apartheid and Haiti resistance

The Dominican Republic Constitutional Court ruling to strip the nationality of Haitian descendants going back eight decades is legally absurd, blatantly racist and violates basic laws of fundamental fairness and human rights.” — Ezili Dantò of HLLN, End legal apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic

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MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION
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The slow and silent genocide the US is conducting in Haiti

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Economic reasons for US occupation of Haiti: Haiti Riches

Video: The oil,gold and iridium in Haiti here is the proof. Caracol near Haiti oil reserve - The Maroon voice

2013 Haiti under US occupation:
The puppet Haiti government agreed to lowest royalty rate in Western Hemisphere to pay mining companies. US/Euro mining companies - through the World Bank/IFC - are writing Haiti mining laws to mine Haiti's $20billion in gold while the people are disenfranchised under the US occupation behind UN guns. See, US to Rewrite Constitution to Better Serve the One Percent and Conflict of Interest: World Bank to Rewrite Haiti Mining Law, while Invested in Mining in Haiti, through the IFC

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Haiti quake victims, four years later

Video of the painful reality of current forced eviction of the Haiti earthquake victims

This video showing the forced eviction at Vilaj Mozayik reveals how the terrible trauma of Haiti quake victims continues, 4 years later, after more than $9 billion was collected  and (mis) managed by Bill Clinton as UN envoy to Haiti and the World Bank, collector of Haiti quake funds at the UN. But, as the New York Times said, little footprint of these billions actually got to Haiti other than a Korean assembly plant factory up north, where there was no quake, and where recently the minimum wage was REDUCED for the benefit of the factory owners and consumers abroad. Foreigners got subsidized luxury housing built to live in and luxury hotels for relaxing, but the people at Vilaj Mozayik are evicted, even from their meager earthquake tents, back into the muddy, UN-cholera-ravaged streets.--Ezili Dantò of HLLN

"Our immediate needs are food, shelter, water and hygiene. We are refugees in our country. " -- Haiti quake victims at Vilaj Mozayik, 4 years later (See also, Amnesty International Slams Latest Evictions in Haiti, The Progressive, Dec. 27, 2013)

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200 families evicted, more at imminent risk
"Around 200 families have been forcibly evicted from their homes in an informal settlement in the area of Titanyen on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Hundreds of other families living in nearby areas are facing a similar threat. Many of them are victims of the January 2010 earthquake who had already been forcibly evicted. "  --Urgent Action Required, go to Amnesty International

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At least 18 migrants from Haiti die after boat capsizes during tow to Turks and Caicos

A marine unit of Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force intercepted the overloaded boat and was escorting it when it suddenly overturned.

Read more: here

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Haiti reduces minimum wage

In the December 2013,  nearing the 10th year of the US occupation of Haiti, the puppet Haiti government commission on wages again lowered the minimum from US$7.50 a day, which manufacturers refused to pay, to a miserable $5 a day.

The mostly women workers cannot live on these slave wages and support their families, not even in Haiti. Especially not in Haiti where big US agribusiness has destroyed local Haiti farmers by dumping their subsidize goods per US foreign "aid" policies.

 

On December 10 and 11, hundreds of assembly plant workers in Port au Prince, mostly young women, demonstrated demanding a minimum wage of 500 gourdes ($11.50) a day.

 
Those who protested were locked out and fired. These exploited Haiti women work for Multiwear, which produces t-shirts for HanesBrands, and One World Apparel, which produces work clothes for Walmart and other giant American retailers. (See also, WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap)

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
ezilidanto.com/zili

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Protesting students were gassed for hours by Martelly/Lamothe government police using unusually gas, even after pushed back to their campus --10 steps to dictatorship: Why the grassroots movement in Haiti is taking to the streets against President Michel Martelly

2013- Which right hand did this Haiti protesting university student use to vote for Martelly to give him 80% approval rate in the Hemisphere? --Haiti: Martelly 80% Approval, I doubt it

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A Kwanzaa Message for Haiti by Jafrikayiti

As the 10th anniversary of the racist bicentennial coup approaches, we, Haitians, need more than ever to focus on the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa, which are so well adapted to our most pressing needs.

1. Umoja: Unity - We need this, among other things, to fight off the Cholera-infested foreign occupation forces - to pressure the United Nations to finally pay long overdue reparations to thousands of victims of various criminal acts it committed in Haiti since 2004.

2. Kujichagulia: Self-determination - We need this to retake control over our national elections. To convince the Haitian politicians who accept to be mere puppets of the coup-making embassies that they do not need to be so subservient to the neo-cons. To remember that we've once organized national elections without foreign money, foreign experts and computers that arrive with pre-selected-in-Washington Presidents, Senators etc... (Happy Kwanzaa to Ricardo Seitenfus http://www.godisnotwhite.com/stop-playing-with-haiti/ )

3. Ujima: Collective Work & Responsibility - We need this to rebuild the destroyed National Palace using the national budget. To include within said National Budget a few shelters to house internal refugees when the next cyclone or earthquake will inevitably hit Haiti. To give life to the Kreyol Academy so that long overdue reforms can take place in the education system, in the public service so Haitians can finally receive essential services from the Haitian State in the only language that binds us all together: Haitian Kreyol.

4. Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics - We need this to reinforce the practices of national production and national consumption exemplified by the works of organizations and progressive movements such as Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal (KPL) - while at once boycotting all products made or imported from the white supremacist Dominican Republic, as well as those of their Haiti-based traditional coup-sponsoring allies and agents.

5. Nia: Purpose - This we surely need to maintain and reinforce crucial nation-building traditions such as the Freedom Soup of January 1st which our beloved First Lady Impératrice Claire Heureuse Felicité Bonheur had established as a powerful reminder of foundational values of our noble nation: Tout Moun Lib, Tout Moun se Moun, Moun Gen Plis Valè Pase Byen Materyèl...

6. Kuumba: Creativity - This we need to establish national institutions to help harness the creative and productive powers of Haitian geniuses who live and breathe on every spot of the globe. Let there be Enstiti Ayisyen pou Lasyans ak Jeni and many more life-giving institutions (no more FAdH, no more FRAPH, no more CIA-financed death-giving, foreign controlled criminal coup-making organizations! We need brains not guns!)

7. Imani: Faith - to follow the admonition of our noble prophets and ancestors such as Papa Boukman, the first Liberation Theologian, who spoke the eternal truths spoken at Bwa Kay Iman. To develop a higher faith in our own capabilities as a people who hails from the first and most advanced of human civilizations.

As we celebrate Kwanzaa which begins on December 26 with the first principle (Umoja) and ends on January 1 with the seventh (Imani), we must ensure the January 1 Freedom Soup with which we will conclude the celebration does not turn sour. Thus, we must, by any means necessary, keep at bay all the negative forces. We must keep a watchful eye on the fools who, at this very moment, are busy plotting more nightmarish situations to force upon Haitians. Indeed, rumor has it Baby Doc's elder boy (Nicolas) is being groomed to become the next Washington-blessed puppet to enter foreign-occupied Haiti's political arena (how i wish this was merely a bad joke! But, remember kandida Sweet Miki and kandida Wild Wyclef were also at first dismissed as bad jokes!).

http://www.forumhaiti.com/t13875-bill-clinton-is-comfortable-posing-for-pictures-with-jean-claude-duvalier-why?highlight=clinton

In any case, we cannot stop the wicked from doing its wickedness. We can and must, however, prepare ourselves mentally and physically to counter them and to continue to contribute to the emergence of Dessalines' dream of Ayiti, the Freedom and Justice Nation.

Happy Kwanzaa to one and all!

Jafrikayiti
"Depi nan Ginen, bon Neg ap ede Neg!"
December 26, 2013

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Tell the white saviors of Haiti the second principle of Kwanzaa

Habari Gani? Kugichagulia!

To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves

"Habari Gani? Kugichagulia! (“Self-Determination!”)

The Second Principal of Kwanzaa tells Us that goals for Ourselves, Our families and Our communities should come from Us, rather than the system of white supremacy (S.O.W.S.).

After intelligent conversations with those who have Our best interest at heart, We should proceed along an Afrikan-designed path for Ourselves and Ourcommunities. Too often in the S.O.W.S., We lie to Ourselves about who We are in order to accommodate a murderous system that for 572 years has shown that it can kill Us at any moment. We should encourage Afrikans who are confused in the S.O.W.S. but be aware that they may have no intent in replacing it with self-self-deterimnation.

We continue in failed efforts of sucking from the teat of the S.O.W.S. hoping that one day We will be fully accepted by it. We feel pressured to conform to the S.O.W.S. and ask questions that reflect that:“I wonder what white people will say if I do this?”; “Should I wear my Afrikan clothing on the job”?; “Should I speak up about this incident of racism, because it might offend my white ‘friends’?” “Am I being ‘too Black’ about this?”

Kujichagulia tells Us to define Ourselves and speak truth to power. We should be strategic, yes. But the most important question for Us to ask is, “Is this good for Afrikan people?” Kujichagulia encourages Us to resist being defined by the S.O.W.S.

As Jayne Cortez said:

“And if we don’t fight
If we don’t resist
If we don’t organize and unify and
Get the power to control our own lives
Then we will wear
The exaggerated look of captivity
The stylized look of submission
The bizarre look of suicide
The dehumanized look of fear
And the decomposed look of repression
Forever and ever and ever
And there it is.”

Light the far left red candle..."  - Dr. Ray Winbush, Source- Facebook

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Jan 1, 2014 - Another Independence Day Under Occupation for Haiti

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How this Ezili came to be here, 10 years later, making a way out of no way

How did this Ezili, already thrown out of Haiti once by a powerful US ambassador, take responsibility again and again, despite the hard pushbacks, to act on the call of the Ancestors and stand for life?

Ten years ago on December 31, 2003...

“this author was in Haiti to honor the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence. It was very late. I’d already gone up to my room for the night. But my good friend Jafrikayiti (Jean St-Vil) had come to the Montana Hotel in Petionville to meet up. He called from the front desk. I took the elevator down and found a heated conversation in progress with US career diplomat and current member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Luigi R. Einaudi, who was then the Assistant Secretary General at the Organization of American States. Journalist Kevin Pina was arguing with him. What Einaudi said as he exited towards the elevator up to his room was so astonishing, I took out pen and paper and wrote it down.

On the eve of Haiti’s 200-year independence, the OAS’s Luigi Einaudi said, “the international community is so screwed up they’re letting Haitians run Haiti.“ -- Ezili Dantò of HLLN, US to Rewrite Haiti Constitution to Better Serve the One Percent

On February 29, 2004, led by the United States - with its selected and foul black collaborators, Colin Powell and Condi Rice giving the racist US regime change in Haiti the illusion of human non-white legitimacy - the UN, the OAS and the rest of the embedded international community corrected that problem.

Haiti has been under US occupation behind (Napoleon-type) UN multinational guns ever since.

I had been called ten years before when that US ambassador attempted to exile and silence me from me (Haiti.) The Red, Black & Moonlight series tells that story.

I returned on the bicentennial to lift up the 1804 victory (me) and "accidentally" witnessed the OAS complicity, the media's complicity and could not undo the U-turn. That's why, ten years after the Bush bicentennial regime change, you're reading here the story of how this Ezili came to hear the OAS’s Luigi Einaudi - a red-faced, pasty-white, bloated, overweight minion of empire - make his unintended call for help to Dantò. 

I've always believed nothing is a coincidence. 

Obviously the Ancestors wished this Ezili to hear about the treachery directly, and put these fearful, vindictive and hate-filled unwhole humans out of their misery.

For, as Paulo Freire points out, most insightfully: "the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed (is): to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well."

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
December 31, 2013

See also:
US occupation of Haiti, 10-years later -an interview with Ezili Dantò on current Haiti situation, 10 years later
http://bit.ly/1fQaj09
 
Fulfilling Leclerc imperative through debt, privatization, delegitimized elections, UN proxy occupation, unfair trade, wage slavery
http://bit.ly/1cVmeMb, and

Bio of Ezili Dantò, 1791 - the spiritual mother of Haiti and the preeminent cosmic symbol for Black independence, the warrior mother, unity, love principle, self-determination, justice, equality and freedom.
http://bit.ly/11N7y8

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Haiti : In a State of Permanent War and Cholera

The Problem With Little White Girls (and Boys)

Why I Stopped Being A Voluntourist 

Pippa Biddle

White people aren’t told that the color of their skin is a problem very often. We sail through police check points, don’t garner sideways glances in affluent neighborhoods, and are generally understood to be predispositioned for success based on a physical characteristic (the color of our skin) we have little control over beyond sunscreen and tanning oil.

After six years of working in and traveling through a number of different countries where white people are in the numerical minority, I’ve come to realize that there is one place being white is not only a hindrance, but negative — most of the developing world.

In high school, I travelled to Tanzania as part of a school trip. There were 14 white girls, 1 black girl who, to her frustration, was called white by almost everyone we met in Tanzania, and a few teachers/chaperones. $3000 bought us a week at an orphanage, a half built library, and a few pickup soccer games, followed by a week long safari.

Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.

That same summer, I started working in the Dominican Republic at a summer camp I helped organize for HIV+ children. Within days, it was

You see, the work we were doing in both the DR and Tanzania was good. The orphanage needed a library so that they could be accredited to a higher level as a school, and the camp in the DR needed funding and supplies so that it could provide HIV+ children with programs integral to their mental and physical health. It wasn’t the work that was bad. It was me being there.

It turns out that I, a little white girl, am good at a lot of things. I am good at raising money, training volunteers, collecting items, coordinating programs, and telling stories. I am flexible, creative, and able to think on my feet. On paper I am, by most people’s standards, highly qualified to do international aid. But I shouldn’t be.

I am not a teacher, a doctor, a carpenter, a scientist, an engineer, or any other professional that could provide concrete support and long-term solutions to communities in developing countries. I am a 5' 4" white girl who can carry bags of moderately heavy stuff, horse around with kids, attempt to teach a class, tell the story of how I found myself (with accompanying powerpoint) to a few thousand people and not much else.

Some might say that that’s enough. That as long as I go to X country with an open mind and a good heart I’ll leave at least one child so uplifted and emboldened by my short stay that they will, for years, think of me every morning.

I don’t want a little girl in Ghana, or Sri Lanka, or Indonesia to think of me when she wakes up each morning. I don’t want her to thank me for her education or medical care or new clothes. Even if I am providing the funds to get the ball rolling, I want her to think about her teacher, community leader, or mother. I want her to have a hero who she can relate to — who looks like her, is part of her culture, speaks her language, and who she might bump into on the way to school one morning.

After my first trip to the Dominican Republic, I pledged to myself that we would, one day, have a camp run and executed by Dominicans. Now, about seven years later, the camp director, program leaders and all but a handful of counselors are Dominican. Each year we bring in a few Peace Corps Volunteers and highly-skilled volunteers from the USA who add value to our program, but they are not the ones in charge. I think we’re finally doing aid right, and I’m not there.

Before you sign up for a volunteer trip anywhere in the world this summer, consider whether you possess the skill set necessary for that trip to be successful. If yes, awesome. If not, it might be a good idea to reconsider your trip. Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental. It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches. Be smart about traveling and strive to be informed and culturally aware. It’s only through an understanding of the problems communities are facing, and the continued development of skills within that community, that long-term solutions will be created.

Originally published on pippabiddle.com

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Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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Confronting the occupation: Haiti, neoliberalism and the US

Kali Akuno

2010-04-15, Issue 477

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63698

Fiercely critical of the US's role and continued presence in Haiti in the wake of the country's earthquake, Kali Akuno highlights the dangers of the supposedly neutral term 'humanitarian intervention' and calls for solidarity with the Haitian people in the face of the 'militarisation of the relief and reconstruction effort'.

The three-month marker for the earthquake that devastated Haiti is now upon us. The significance of this marker is not one determined by the Haitian people, but rather by the enemies of the Haitian people and peoples’ movements throughout the world.

According to Milton Friedman and the intellectual gurus of neoliberalism, there are critical timelines and stages that must be strictly adhered by to successfully capitalise on a catastrophe and transform a society. The three-month marker is one of these critical timelines, and in the words of Friedman himself 'a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not seize the opportunity to act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity'. Based on experiences in Iraq, Sri Lanka and New Orleans over the past 10 years several things must be in place at the three-month marker in order for the catastrophe to be fully exploited. These include: sufficient military force to contain the population; the dispersal and fragmentation of the affected population to limit its ability to mobilise resistance; and the legislation and implementation of a new policy regime that seeks to privatise nearly everything and eliminate all financial controls.

One of the central enemies of the Haitian people are the gurus of the ideology of neoliberalism. These gurus are the neoliberal theoreticians and policy hacks who control Wall Street, the US Federal Reserve, the Bretton Woods institutions – the IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Bank and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) – and most of the central banks of the world since the 1990s. These gurus, most particularly the theoreticians, created a script in the 1970s to exploit catastrophes, natural and human-created, not only for material gain but radically regressive social transformation. After waging an incessant ideological war against socialism and communism, the theoreticians won critical support amongst the commanders of government and the captains of capital by the early 1980s and were able to start fully unleashing their fury on the world after the test-run of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile during the 1970s. This neoliberal script is a form of what Karl Marx termed 'primitive accumulation' and what David Harvey calls 'accumulation by dispossession', and is becoming popularly known via the works of Naomi Klein as 'disaster capitalism' and the 'shock doctrine'.

A key ideological and strategic tool of this neoliberal script is the concept of 'humanitarian interventionism'. Despite how well-intentioned this concept sounds, it is a tool developed through the auspices of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), under the guiding hand of the US government, to be executed through the UN to allow the imperialist powers to legally and morally interfere in the domestic affairs of weaker nations. Stated plainly, it is colonialism dressed in fine linen. As a practice it gained legitimacy after the imperialist-induced atrocities in Rwanda, Burundi and the former Yugoslav republic in the 1990s to allegedly put an end to crimes against humanity such as ethnic cleansing and genocide. In the wake of these atrocities the UN, under the direction of the US and its European allies, has executed the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in all of the aforementioned countries and the DR Congo, Iraq, Somalia and Haiti.

The latest imposition of humanitarian interventionism in Haiti was in 2004, after the US overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas government, allegedly to restore order and maintain peace. But, this cut was just a deeper penetration of the affliction of neoliberalism imposed upon Haiti by US imperialism with the willing aid of Haiti’s own decadent ruling class, beginning in the 1980s under the regime of 'Baby Doc' Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The current US occupation (the third since 1915) of Haiti removes the mask of the UN occupation in place since 2004, and is promoted and (sadly) widely unquestioned, in the US and throughout the world, as a 'humanitarian operation' allegedly to stabilise the situation in Haiti in order to provide quake relief – which is nothing more than a perpetuation of the longstanding racist view of the US government that the Haitian people are incapable of adequately presiding over their own affairs. The fact is, with the advancements and refinements in the application of the 'shock doctrine' stemming from the occupation of Iraq, the political transformation of Sri Lanka following the tsunami of 2004, and the social and demographic transformation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the US government and transnational capital are seeking to apply a 'coup de grace' on the people’s movement in Haiti in order to clear the way to remake it as a neoliberal paradise.

STAKES IS HIGH

The stakes at play in the US occupation couldn’t be much higher for the people’s movement and the working and peasant masses of Haiti. Under US military rule the overwhelming bulk of the international relief aid (materials and finances) is centrally controlled by a handful of relief agencies handpicked by the US and the UN, who along with elements of the Haitian elite control who gets anything and when, and thus have turned relief aid into a weapon of social and political control. The major ports of entry into the country and its main transportation arteries are under tight US control, restricting people’s ability to organise and mobilise under the ongoing dire circumstances. Potential routes of refuge to the US via the sea and the Dominican Republic via land have been effectively closed and legally barred. And the political repression unleashed after the liquidation of the Lavalas government in 2004 by the Haitian ruling class, former military and Tonton Macoute forces, and MINUSTAH (the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti) is intensifying, particularly with the ongoing banning of the Fanmi Lavalas party from running in upcoming elections. And there is the hunting-down by the US military and mercenary forces of political prisoners associated with the Lavalas movement and government, who were liberated by the collapse of several prison facilities during the 12 January earthquake. To top it all off, the hurricane season is approaching rapidly, and no one, not the US military, the UN and NGO relief agencies or the Haitian government is prepared to face it and the potential calamities it could bring, particularly as it relates to further displacement, the deepening of food insecurity and the spread of infectious diseases.

And these are just the short-term issues posed by the US occupation and the militarisation of the relief and reconstruction effort. The long-term issue is the suppression of the people’s movement for self-determination and the imposition of permanent structures of dependency and subservience that the US government and the transnational ruling class are seeking to impose via a prolonged occupation. US imperialism is seeking to do no less to Haiti than it did with the occupation of 1915–1934, and that is to remove the threat of social revolution in Haiti and rebuild the Haitian military to serve as a repressive instrument against it in the service of transnational capital.

The US occupation of Haiti is not just a singular containment initiative. It is also an initiative to further the rollback of progressive social transformation that has swept large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean since the late 1990s. The first major rollback initiative under Obama’s command was the Honduran coup that successfully ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The second, albeit with far less US intervention, was the election of a right-wing government in Chile, under the leadership of billionaire President Sebastian Pinera. The occupation of Haiti is the third and by far the most deeply penetrating of these rollback initiatives. With it US imperialism is seeking to contain initiatives like ALBA – which in English translates into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America – initiated and principally led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as an alternative of the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). ALBA, through the solidarity initiatives of the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, was making significant headway in Haiti prior to the earthquake with the creation of rural hospitals and schools and the provisioning of subsidised oil and low-interest development loans. Under the US occupation these initiatives are being stunted and contained in their growth. The greatest rollback threat however is the occupation itself. It is a stark reminder to the aspiring progressive governments and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean that as far as US imperialism is concerned, the Monroe Doctrine is still in full effect over its historically claimed 'backyard', and that there are limits to the progressive reforms it is willing to tolerate.

SOLIDARITY AND JOINT STRUGGLE: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The US occupation is not just a problem for Haitians, and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is and must be understood as a problem for the progressive social movement within the US itself. Sadly, the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) has been divided and largely demobilised in relation to Haiti since the 2004 coup, in large part due to differences over how to view, understand and relate to Fanmi Lavalas and President Aristide. Many have succumbed to accepting the grave distortions and outright lies perpetuated by the US government and right-wing and ultra-left Haitian forces against President Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas and the Lavalas movement. This position ignores the popular will of the Haitian masses and distorts the significant contributions of the Lavalas movement and government towards the realisation of a participatory democracy and a people-centred path of economic and social development as an alternative to neoliberalism. Similar dynamics have also occurred within Caribbean and Latino social movements within the US. And for the most part Haiti and the UN, and now, US occupations hardly register at all within the largely white-dominated anti-war movement (gaining even less attention than the ongoing occupation of Palestine). Undoubtedly racism, particularly the long-standing spectre of the black hoards of Haiti, is at play in this sad scenario.

This situation must change, and the varied forces of the Black Liberation Movement must lead the way. The Haitian masses and popular movement without question are and will continue to fight valiantly to end the US occupation, but they cannot be left to fight on their own. It is incumbent upon the forces of the Black Liberation Movement to organise a multinational and/or racial anti-imperialist initiative and coalition within the US that fights for the immediate end of the US occupation and the neoliberal impositions it seeks to impose. The initiative must also take a committed stand in support of the demands of the Haitian popular movement that calls for the return of Aristide, freedom for political prisoners, reparations and restitution (particularly from France for the brutal indemnity imposed in 1824) and the cancellation of foreign debt and the negation of their structural adjustment conditionalities. In short, we must seize the opportunity to create our own script to counter neoliberalism and humanitarian interventionism in support of the people’s struggle for self-determination and sovereignty in Haiti.

This initiative must be conceived as one of joint struggle, one that is clear on the mutual and reinforcing self-interests of the social movement in Haiti, with its peasant and working-class base, and the social movements in the US, and their multinational, working-class base, in the context of the ever-increasing interrelated and interdependent capitalist world system we live in. Our actions should not be contingent on charity or (worse) pity, but a firm grasp that as the social movement in Haiti goes, so goes the potential for the social movement in the US, for the allowance of one tyranny is the spawn of a hundred more. As we gather our forces to support the resistance of the Haitian people, and join with it in common struggle against imperialism, we will appear as a new defiant spirit and a force to be reckoned with.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Kali Akuno is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and works as the director of education, training and field operations at the US Human Rights Network (USHRN). He is in the process of writing a book about his experiences organising in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, tentatively called 'Witness to a Cleansing'.

Venezuela 2014 is like Haiti 2004 before US regime change: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic

 Venezuela must not fall

"'The opposition’ has been paid from abroad, as it has been paid, in the past and now, in China, in Eastern Europe, in Syria, Ukraine and in Thailand, as it has been paid everywhere else in the world, where the West could not manage to easily strip those ‘rebellious’ countries of all their riches, while keeping them humiliated, and on their knees...The West likes it when...despots hold the reins of power. They like people like Duvalier, Trujillo, Videla and Pinochet – and their equivalents – on all the continents and in every country...It does not matter how many millions will die in the process. As long as a rebellion, or a fight for independence, can be crushed, Western imperialism and neo-colonialism will sacrifice any amount of human lives, especially the lives of those ‘un people’.." ---Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela by ANDRE VLTCHEK

Share and circulate widely. Join the conversation

Ezili Dantò Note:
Venezuela 2014 is like Haiti 2004 before US regime change. It’s the opposition to the duly elected Venezuelan government that’s anti-democratic.

It's important to note the many parallels in the U.S. destabilization tactics used in Haiti prior to the 2004 coup d'état and how they're being replayed right now by the same US-led forces in Venezuela. Join the conversation to end the US-led world tyranny of the rabid elites, their unbridled greed. 

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."--Malcom X

"Battle for Venezuela" on Counterpunch by Andre Vltchek  and Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic  from venezuelanalysis thoroughly details the current US racist economic and political destabilization campaign against Venezuela. It's a campaign similar to that waged against the democratically elected Aristide/Neptune government in Haiti 2004 and against the Allende government Chile in 1973.  Non-violent disobedience and public protest, the traditional tools of the oppressed, have now been co-opted by the oligarchs.

The West has taken oppression and trickery to further oppress people to unprecedented heights in the 21st century.  Constructing "Venezuela" Protests: a Photo Gallery  shows a slew of images of government oppression taken from elsewhere, but attributed to the government of Venezuela the US-media wants to help Washington take down.

Many are social media postings, picked up by CNN and others and illustrates the media's sleight of hand, switching protest from other parts of the world, conflating it, even substituting photos of government abuse elsewhere to past as Venezuela government abuses.

Haitians suffered these same media lies during the US 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti. Photos taken from the Congo were past off by the media as "Haitian child soldiers, hired into service by the democratically elected government the US and its mining, oil and NGO invaders wished to displace.  See also, 'Venezuela's President Maduro accuses Obama of inciting violence' where CNN and other internationally owned media are accused of fraudulent reporting, hypocrisy and pushing "an international campaign to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela". 

It's too grim to even think about letting the US-led terrorists replicate what they've done to Haiti since 2004, the DR since 1965, Indonesia since 1965, Chile since 1973, Patrice Lumumba's Congo since 1961, et al.

Venezuela must not fall.

Circulate the truth to help stop the newest shock and awe US regime change efforts in Venezuela. The point of which is to pillage Venezuelan oil. Expose the embedded, warmongering mainstream media's filthy lies attempting to disenfranchise the Venezuelan people as they did Haiti in 2004.

 

Words are too inadequate to explain how TERRIBLE it would be for the people of Venezuela if the Western oligarchs took over from Maduro, a duly elected President.  Believe me NOTHING could be more terrorizing than the rule of the Western establishment. It's hard to re-live the parallels between Venezuela 2014 and Haiti 2004, but here are some...

I and the folks in the Ezili Network have lived 20 solid years of the 24/7 Haiti struggle and my parents before me ALL THEIR LIVES and grandparents before them... I recognize the media tactics. The fraudulent photos to escalating the mythical "abuse" of "students" and other such "anti-government forces."

When the US was manufacturing the lie that Aristide was a dictator, without popular support, in the manner of US-supported dictators Duvalier, Mobutu, Trujillo or Pinochet - a State Department lie reiterated by the mainstream media to help take down Haiti's constitutionally elected government in 2004,  I remember US citizen and sweatshop kingpin, Andre Apaid of the anti-government Group 184, running around looking for dead bodies of the "opposition" at the Port au Prince morgue and hospitals to present to the complicit US media to show how abusive Aristide police (with no bullets in their guns) were.  Just like the US-manufactured "Venezuela" protests against the duly elected Venezuelan government, Apaid took a dead pro-government (Lavalas) victim, killed by the Group 184/GNBist forces and tried to past him off as a victim of Haiti government police brutality. I remember the tyrants and despots in Haiti, dressed-up by the Internationals (Neocolonialists) as peacemakers and the police cleansing Haiti 's poor and populous neighborhoods of "bandits."

I remember the rabid elites destabilization efforts to crush the January 1, 2004 bicentennial celebrations of Haiti's independence. I recall how only a few brave heads of State crossed Washington to attend.

I remember the New York Times writing that the US-hated, popularly-elected Haiti government had little popular support in Haiti and that the January 1st bicentennial celebrations, officiated by the Aristide/Neptune government, had only a "small crowd" attending the celebrations. Like the Venezuela crisis today, the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti "was preceded by a

 media coup d'etat which portrayed the foreign-supported, McCain/IRI-created-Haitian-opposition, as a legitimate and broad-based "civil society" and not just the same-old-same authoritarian Duvalierist/macoute/bourgeois despotic forces (acting as agent for the neocolonialists) that the Haitian majority have been struggling to overcome since 1806 and by other skillfully edited half-truths the public were fed ad nauseam in mainstream newspapers.

For instance, the corporate media would "mistake" the 2000 trumped up charges of a "contested" parliamentary elections with the 2000 uncontested Presidential election of Aristide and switch them, so that magically Aristide's 2000 elections was reported by many, including the powerful New York Times as "flawed" and "contested." The retractions for the "errors" where never as prominently displayed as the lies." -- Haitian Nights, Again: Haiti's Children Suffer more under the Bushes' policies and Colonial Regime Changes

I remember CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewing "freedom fighter" Guy Philippe, the death squad leader and DEA-suspected drug king pin, trained in the Dominican Republic to do US bidding in Haiti in 2004; asking him if he planned on running for the Haiti presidency. This, as the US special forces were flying the kidnapped and duly elected President to exile in Africa on a US rendition vessel. (Guy Philippe, the US Special Forces-trained commander who led the armed movement against Aristide says the media helped him with the coup d'etat, a lot.)

I recall the massacres of the people in the populous areas, the US marines absconding with the bodies in ambulances, the indiscriminate killings of people suspected of voting for Aristide. I remember the media lies, the Bush bloodbath brought to Haiti. The total, absolute horror of our endless losses being invisible, ignored by the world.

 

I  know Father Gerald Jean Juste conducted too many funerals and was wracked with pain at having no resources to do more, letting the fallen rest without a proper burial, the families with no closure...(Pictures of Sanèl Joseph's Funeral. Photo Credits: Ezili Danto Witness Program)

I know the little old Haitian ladies in New York, like Genevieve “Kòkòt” Laguerre, herself gone now, without seeing a liberated Haiti, who would sent their meager savings for Father Jean Juste to bury the victims of the 2004 US regime change and occupation. I remember the US crucifixion of Emmanuel "Drèd" Wilmè, and its multinational/UN troop's assassination of Drèd Wilmè, his family and the thousands of arbitrary and capricious arrests of citizens suspected of voting for Aristide, some still indefinitely detained in US-funded Haiti jails to this very day.

I recall some US journalists even traveled with the treasonous Guy Phillipe and convicted FRAPH death squad leader/CIA employee, Louis Jodel Chamblain, as they rampaged through Northern Haiti for CNN cameras in their US- quest to "liberate" the people of Haiti from their duly elected government. All, on behalf of the corporatocracy that's reigning right now.

"Newspapers like the New York Times distorted reality, emboldened Haiti's undemocratic forces at defining moments, encouraging coup d'etat thugs and kidnappers, and decisively pushed the Bush-State-department-narrative-on-Haiti by labeling, for instance, the millions President Aristide addressed during the January 1, 2004 bi-centennial as a "small crowd."  And when, for instance, the New York Times finally wrote on an angle outside of the Neocon-narrative, it simply put all the blame for the 2004 coup d'etat on Haitian overseer, Stanley Lucas' providing "mixed signals" and completely ignored his US bosses including Ambassador Foley, Senator John Mc Cain, Timothy M. Carney, IFEs, USAID and the Haiti Democracy Projects' other powerful Republican benefactors. (See, Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos By WALT BOGDANICH and JENNY NORDBERG, New York Times, January 29, 2006)" ---- Haitian Nights, Again: Haiti's Children Suffer more under the Bushes' policies and Colonial Regime Changes

I can't express to the world enough what will be LOST to the Venezuelan people if they lose their sovereignty completely to the international pirates that have hijacked their due opposition and created the manufactured ones from the US corporatocracy. The US destabilizers, public resource-privatizing-profiteers and their ever present and waiting poverty-pimping charitable industrial complex (NGOs) will make Venezuela infinitely worse than you might believe it is now.. decidedly worse if the US coup d'etat/regime change happens. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING should be done to stop US regime change in Venezuela.

 

As a Haitian who went through this twice in her life, I can't tell the world how many Venezuelan will DIE without recourse to any justice if the rabid elites take over.

Journalist-filmmaker, Andre Vltchek, writes one of the most compelling pieces I've read to date on the Venezuelan crisis. If you've not read them yet, please do so. I feel his pain. It's my pain and despair also. I see he knows what will happen to Venezuela if it falls... All of us out here, marginalized by the establishment will feel the blow as we lay our lives down each and every day to free Haiti from the clutches of the US occupation behind UN mercenary guns and the NGO invaders. I cannot recommend more highly that you read -"Battle for Venezuela" on Counterpunch by Andre Vltchek.

 

This is one of the rarest things. A white man, a contemporary journalist who has seen so much, but has seemingly not joined the status quo in the pillaging for the sake of survival and career advancement. He appears not to have folded into the system as the white saviors of Haiti have. (Black Agenda Report interview: Suit Against UN Doomed from Start, says Haiti Lawyer, Ezili Dantò ; UN claims to be above the law, says its legal to kill Haitians with impunity  and, White Saviors  of Haiti vs Haiti Self-Determination.)

The Battle for Venezuela article shows a heart so tuned to the games of empire that Vltchek exhorts the Venezuelan to take up arms to stop their country from careening into the hands of the right wing death squads (and I add also to stop it from careening not only to the right wing but their Western corresponding Left wing neutralizing agents. The US has two faces but one evil.) I find his piece important enough to share.  I write here to ask folks read it and re-post it on their blogs and websites.

With all my heart and all that I know  (See Ezili on Haiti, four years after quake), I lend support to this statement he makes:

"The violent activities undertaken by those so-called ‘protesters’ in Caracas have to be stopped, immediately, and if necessary, by force.‘The opposition’ has been paid from abroad, as it has been paid, in the past and now, in China, in Eastern Europe, in Syria, Ukraine and in Thailand, as it has been paid everywhere else in the world, where the West could not manage to easily strip those ‘rebellious’ countries of all their riches, while keeping them humiliated, and on their knees." ---Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
"Grenadye alaso sa ki mouri n'ap vanje yo!" --Indigenous Army of Ayiti, 1791

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Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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What Can You Do:
To counter the barrage of US-led media propaganda intended to take down the duly elected government of Venezuela in order to privatize Venezuelan oil and resources to the one-percent, consider circulating the following Ezili Network recommended Hands-off-Venezuela! articles:

Share and circulate widely the two Andre Vltchek articles along with the Kevin Edmonds contribution on Haiti. (Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic By Jerome Roos - ROAR Magazine, February 22, 2014 ;  Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela by ANDRE VLTCHEK ; From Egypt, Ukraine, the Turkish-Syrian border, Cuba and Thailand How the West Manufactures “Opposition Movements”and, Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy .)

For a useful comparative analysis with Haiti and other countries struggling to remove the US-led global tyranny, read also, by Andre Vltchek:

"From Egypt, Ukraine, the Turkish-Syrian border, Cuba and Thailand How the West Manufactures “Opposition Movements” at http://bit.ly/1fibNUa

-Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy By Kevin Edmonds - NACLA, February 22nd 2014 at http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10385

 

and

Constructing "Venezuela" Protests: a Photo Galleryhttp://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10360

 

Share and circulate widely the two Andre Vltchek articles along with the Kevin Edmonds contribution on Haiti. Join the conversation. Help end the US-led world tyranny of the rabid elites.

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"The protests in Venezuela are orchestrated by the right-wing oligarchy. Let’s get the facts straight: plenty of Venezuelans are taking to the streets with legitimate grievances about violent crime, high inflation and food shortages — and there is no doubt that the Venezuelan riot police are indeed behaving violently towards many of these protesters. All police brutality should be roundly condemned. The people of Venezuela should be allowed to freely express their indignation in public without fear of repression. But it bears emphasizing in this respect that at least two of the protesters’ main grievances have been deliberately escalated by the oligarchic elite itself: through extensive hoarding and smuggling of consumer products (giving rise to shortages and fueling price inflation) and massive speculation on the foreign currency market (pushing down the Bolívar and feeding into further inflation). This is precisely the type of economic warfare that the US-backed Chilean opposition drew upon prior to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973." --Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic

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More Background Info

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Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy

By Kevin Edmonds - Source: NACLA, February 22nd 2014

The media coverage of the events unfolding in Venezuela provides a troubling example of how the imperial ambitions of the United States can magnify crises—especially when contrasted with the current political situation in Haiti....

Both Venezuela and Haiti have been facing anti-government protests, with the respective oppositions citing poor leadership, corruption, electoral fraud, and a deteriorating economy as their primary motivations in calling for change. However, the international media’s escalation of the Venezuelan crisis and their complete silence when it comes to Haiti, raises some important questions about the United States’ inconsistency in upholding the values of human rights and democracy.

Haiti has been enduring a political crisis since the highly controversial election of President Michel Martelly, who received his mandate from only 16.7 percent of registered voters, and has been running the country without a fully functioning government in order to avoid dealing with constitutionally mandated checks and balances. For the third year in a row, Martelly has promised to hold elections to fill legislative and local seats without yet following through.....

....while Martelly was praised by President Obama in early February for his leadership, Haiti has also seen a slew of anti-government protests due to the political crisis, human rights abuses, and economic decline. The lack of media attention regarding Martelly’s consistent attacks on popular organizations and human rights defenders in Haiti, in contrast to Venezuela is a stark reminder of how abuses of power can be marginalized if one has influential friends in the right places.

The media bias facing Venezuela—be it due to Venezuela’s fervent anti-U.S. policy and rhetoric, or the fact that it sits on the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere—allows the United States to shape public perception toward the country on its own strategic terms. In the absence of these factors, human rights abuses and the suspension of political liberties can continue indefinitely—as long as the government is set on accommodating the interests of the United States instead of challenging them.

Source:NACLA

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Venezuela's President Maduro accuses Obama of inciting violence

Published time: February 20, 2014 | Source: rt.com

Venenzuelan President Nicolas Maduro (AFP Photo / Presidencia)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused President Obama of promoting ongoing protests in the country, and of backing members of the opposition alleged to be behind violence.

In a communique, the Latin American leader demanded that the US explain its motives in “financing, promoting and defending members of the opposition that promote violence against our country.”

Maduro went on to denounce declarations made by President Obama regarding the situation in Venezuela, saying that they presented a “gross interference in internal affairs.”

The new accusations come amidst a spike in the unrest that has gripped Venezuela, with some six people killed since demonstrations mounted by the opposition turned violent last week.

Wednesday night saw sporadic clashes between demonstrators in the capital of Caracas, the majority of which are middle class students who are frustrated with the country’s sputtering economy and soaring crime rate, and are seeking a regime change.

Maduro, who was elected last year as the heir apparent following the death of long-time President Hugo Chavez, has accused the opposition of fomenting a coup and inciting violence.

 

Supporters of Leopoldo Lopez, an ardent opponent of Venezuela's socialist government facing an arrest warrant after President Nicolas Maduro ordered his arrest on charges of homicide and inciting violence, light fires outside La Carlota military base, where he was taken after turning himself in, on February 18, 2014, in Caracas. (AFP Photo / Juan Barreto)

"There is an international campaign to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela," Maduro said on Wednesday.

Members of the Venezuelan opposition have appealed to the international community over what they say was a tainted election, though little has been presented in the way of evidence of electoral impropriety in what was a closely contested runoff. Spearheading that effort has been Henrique Capriles, the opposition's two-time losing presidential candidate.

Venezuela’s ruling party, meanwhile, has long maintained that the US is playing a role in propping up the country’s opposition, and seeking to subvert the Maduro administration. That vitriol was sustained during Hugo Chavez’s tenure as the country’s leader; he often referred to an unsuccessful 2002 coup which heavily implicated US coordination.

The latest spout of violence came on the heels of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez’s surrender to government authorities during a large rally in Caracas. Lopez, who has recently become a rising star among Maduro opponents, is alleged to have played a role in the 2002 coup attempt.

Lopez, the Harvard educated 42-year-old leader of the Popular Will party and a former mayor, is being held responsible for the casualties that have resulted as demonstrators continue to clash with government forces.

"I said, 'Send him to jail,' and that's what happened and that's what will happen with all of the fascists. I won't allow him to challenge the people of Venezuela, the constitution,” said Maduro shortly after his arrest.

Lopez is being held in Caracas' Ramo Verde military jail on charges of fomenting the violence. According to his lawyers, prosecutors have dropped the most serious charges of murder against him.

Related to allegations of international meddling, Venezuela recently blocked broadcasts by Colombian based NTN24, and on Thursday Maduro warned US broadcaster CNN that it would be booted from the country if it did not "rectify" its programming, which was described as propaganda.

"I asked the minister of Communications, Delcy Rodríguez, that she notify CNN that the administrative process of removing them from Venezuela has begun if they do not rectify (comply). CNN will leave Venezuela. Enough of the war propaganda," said the Venezuelan leader.

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Ezili on Haiti, four years after quake

Ezili Dantò interviewed on Uhuru Radio by Africa Live host Dedan Sakara, Feb. 4, 2014

Haiti : In a State of Permanent War and Cholera

4 years after the earthquake
(Listen here)

*

Tourism is not development, liberate yourself from that idea, Haiti!

^{Haiti fisherman at Kay Kòk, Ile a Vache are asked to leave their coastal homes to make way for tourist resorts}

"(Ezili Dantò) r u out of ur mind with this senseless article? can't u c the progress n development that is happening in nearby Dominican republic n elsewhere in the Caribbean, the people r not complaining, they r benefiting. u r preaching the impossible that even ur lavalas party "party of doing nothing" did not even care for Haiti. it's time to stop the hatred n show some love for Haiti. let the government do its job, because they are doing the right thing, only the blind can't see. "

"...Migratory patterns are concise criteria when determining socioeconomic developments. Examine this demographic reality in, let us say, New york and it will liberate you from the erroneous notion of tourism as an effective method for development and, worse, the selling off the nation territories. How do you explain the underdeveloped nations making tourism their economic sustenance contribute the most to the number of immigrants swelling the ranks of the developed nations? Tourism has never catapulted underdeveloped nations to a more envious status ever and it is not about to change with an inept and corrupt crew selected to oversee the international gangsters interests in Haiti."--Alix Saintil

Ezili Dantò Beautifully said Alix Saintil Will publish and circulate. An nou tout di tchoul blan yo, restavek blan yo (Let's tell all the Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemimas): "Liberate (yourself) from the erroneous notion of tourism as an effective method for development and, worse, the selling off the nation territories."

A job as a maid, butler, busboy, cashier or sexual receptacles for Northern tourists will not create wealth for Haiti. The international hotel chains circulate little of their profits and capital in the Caribbean countries their in. The tourists mostly spend the bulk of their monies in their own countries. Paying travel fees to the international airlines, car rental chains, hotel chains, international vacation package chains. What's left to spend  in Haiti is for small arts and crafts, which is also now big business as the internationals discourage the locals from littering their pristine hotel gift stores.

Haiti wants the world to come and see its riches, but that would be another, more Haitian interaction with foreigners. An interaction that preserves and protects local Haitian interests, values and dignity. This means we must kick out the US occupational forces out of Haiti first and get our sovereignty back first. First things first.

The Western tourism template doesn't work for a free Haiti. Like US sweatshops, it does nothing to help with what Haiti really needs, which is more local production, local manufacturing, local agriculture, local distribution, local industries run by local Haitians. (Haiti: Foreign Investment means Death and Repression: A Historical Perspective.)

Responding directly to the guy that spewed the colonial line on Haiti, I said:

Ezili Dantò The Dominican Republic is the biggest tourist location in the Caribbean and every other week you’ve got Dominicans getting in dangerous boats to get to Puerto Rico so they can say they’re Americans and get out of the DR, find work, school and a better life in the United States and elsewhere.

The Dominican Republic is the biggest tourist location in the Caribbean but this tourism is unabashedly SEXUAL TOURISM. Dominican women have to sell themselves to feed their families. The DR is FOURTH in the world for prostitution trafficking. (The United Nations Population Fund ranks the Caribbean country fourth worldwide in the number of women who are trafficked to other nations)

Is that what you're calling development?

If tourism is DEVELOPMENT for the DR - how do you explain the women that are leaving the DR to go sell themselves all over the world; how do you explain Dominicans taking boats to go to Puerto Rico and past themselves off as Puerto Ricans in order to get to the US. So many of the DR people are going to work in Haiti as prostitutes. DR women and now more and more Eastern women people the upscale brothels in the Haiti. If tourism is so good in DR why are all the construction workers in Haiti Dominicans who can't find life and work in their own country.

Perhaps, life in Haiti is not as bad as the international gangsters with less IMF/WB grip on it then they have in the DR, Jamaica, Bahamas, et al.  Watch, "Life and Debt"regarding Jamaica's situation.

The "Life and Debt" documentary on the Jamaica situation illustrates why tourism is not development for local Haitians. Shows why tourism, an export economy, sweatshops and privatization of pubic assets are not development for Haiti, Africa, the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic would not be able to oppress its masses this way without the 70,000, mostly US trained military, running around daily silencing protest, protecting some filthy, perverted resorts and communes hiding pathology. Protecting the one percent there - the local overseers servicing the international bankers and warmongers ruling our planet.

Only this force, along with the IMF/WB economic hit men death policies, keeps the people in the DR, in the entire Caribbean, from taking back their coastlines and sovereignty back. 

Jamaica, like the Dominican Republic is a tourist haven. But there's more violence and crime in these countries than in Haiti. Their people own less land than Haitians. The land is what the enslavers have come to take in Haiti. That's why the UN is there and not in the Dominican Republic or Jamaica. They already own those nations. Haitians are still fighting. The people of Île à Vache are not going to give up their lands.

Alix Saintil Ezili, anyone with functioning brain cells ought to know of the social dangers, the economic irrelevance and political restraints as a consequence of an economy based on tourism.

US occupiers in Haiti privatizing Île à Vache – Chronicles of a massacre

Gaye toupatou: Koukouwouj Pou Nou Bloke Masak Mateli-Lamòt sou Popilasyon Ilavach La

Île à Vache is not for sale! Release Matulnes, Free Haiti

Haiti is not for sale. Release Matulnes!

Haiti is not for sale. Release Matulnes!

The Washington colonists are back in Haiti, re-enslaving. Bloodhounds have been set loose by the Washington puppet Haiti government on free Haitians at Île à Vache (Ile a Vache/Ilavach) who are fighting back.

It's 2014 not 1704 but a bloody manhunt with hound dogs and weapons of war is let loose on the unarmed Île à Vache Haitians. These Haitians are descendants of enslaved Africans and freed US blacks who immigrated in the 19th century after the America’s Civil War began.

When the people refused to leave their coastal properties to make way for foreign tourist resorts, empire sent in its US-trained local forces to eliminates the resisters.

The only real infrastructure on the island was a rural school. So they terrorized the children there first. As I write this, empire is restoring "peace" by jailing and killing as many islanders as possible. The US/UN trained Haiti local forces are carrying around photos of local community leaders who are against the land grab and searching the island house by house to find and silence them.

The people are outgunned. Without the media and money resources of empires forces. This is the Clintons and Obama, "building Haiti back better."

Not satisfied with absconding with $9 billion in earthquake relief  that left little footprint except giving Haiti the cholera disease, the US occupiers of Haiti are having their hand-picked president and prime minister going on a bloody man hunt to silence protestors. The people are peacefully demonstrating to stop the taking of their property to service the white gaze's notion of development. The white supremacist terror campaign forced the leaders to go into marronage again.

In two decrees,  one issued May 2012, the other May 10, 2013, the Washington puppet in Haiti declared all Haiti offshore islands property of the state, declaring them "tourist areas." They've begun deporting local Haitian from Île à Vache. The people refuse to recognize the decrees, are protesting. (See our coverage at HLLN Urgent Action Alert 2 - Haiti is not for sale! Release Matulnes! which is below; and HLLN Urgent Action 1 - US occupiers in Haiti privatizing Île à Vache, (a shorter, earlier version is here); Tourism is not development, liberate yourself from that idea, Haiti! ; Gaye toupatou: Koukouwouj Pou Nou Bloke Masak Mateli-Lamòt sou Popilasyon Ilavach La and Vision of Plantation Haiti - A White Pearl, Again!)

The people have no guns, no allies with nuclear power. They've been fighting this 10-year US occupation alone.

The mainstream media sells the lie that Haiti has democracy, supposedly restored by the US in 2004 after they got rid of  President Aristide. The opposite is true of course.

_{Ile a Vache, Haiti}

Haiti, as they say, is open for business. Setting trained dogs and unleashing their military forces against the unarmed resisters is part and parcel of the conquerors business in Haiti.

Haitian resisters are saying that tourism, an export economy, sweatshops and privatization of pubic assets to benefit the rich, are not development for Haiti. The major media chains serving imperial interests puts out misinformation. But, the Ile a Vache story has gone viral on the internet. Viral means there are more than a million people following and circulating our stories. Please, let's make it 10o million. You know the conquerors own the media. The people of Haiti, like in Venezuela, can only reach out people to people.

Help stop the silencing and neutralizing. Support the Haiti-led liberation struggle. The land is ours, because generation after generations spilled blood to stay on the land and out of the hands of the wage enslavers and bankers. Haitians won't back down.

People to people, we're asking you to join in stopping the land grab in Haiti by the capitalists,  to stop the jailing of leaders, the coming massacres at Ile a Vache and the other islands that will be next.

The current expulsion of Haitians from their lands is even more searing considering Haitians get deported from every nation in the world. Asylum, amnesty, justice denied our people.

Please circulate the urgent action alert below to corner the imperialist forces. Support the Desalin descendants working to free Jean Lamy Matulnes Junior. Let's get 100 million voices saying: Release Matulnes, rescind the land grab decrees.

This will take Haiti is one step closer to freedom.

Ezili Dantò
President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
March 4, 2014

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_{Jean Lamy Matulnes Junior}

_{Jean Lamy Matulnes Junior, jailed at the National Penitenciary, Port au Prince, Haiti}

HLLN Urgent Action Alert 2 - Haiti is not for sale! Release Matulnes!

Île à Vache's people need you to be their voice now! Demand the release of Jean Lamy Matulnes from prison. Demand that the Martelly-Lamothe government rescind the May 2012 and May 2013 decrees to take all the offshore Haiti islands from the people of Haiti. Haiti is not for sale! Release Matulnes.

Île à Vache community voice is silenced (Jean Lamy Matulnes imprisoned), replaced by a Martelly-Lamothe "community" radio station just inaugurated on the island, there with heavy military force only to promote Washington's interests. The local people need your support. Do not let the government control medias neutralize Haiti protest to Washington's privatization of our public assets. Haiti is not for sale! Release Matulnes! He is a political prisoner, illegally and arbitrarily arrested. Jailed without due process because of his activism as a reporter and for his community human rights work. He is also a policeman and was peacefully serving the people of his community.

Lage Matulnes- Se pa kado blan te fè nou. Se san zansèt nou yo ki te koule. Ayiti pa pou vann. Lage Matulnes !

On February 21, 2014, Jean Lamy Matulnes Junior, 32, president of community Radio VKI and Cooperative Foncodi and a community leader from Île à Vache was arrested after an Île à Vache demonstration and jailed in the National Penitentiary (the "death prison") without charge. Matulnes is the son of a peasant rural farmer from Île à Vache. This arrest is political intimidation to silence the Île à Vache population.

"..twenty families are already ejected from their homes with no arrangements made for other housing. Martelly-Lamothe leveled to the ground, the only forest on Ile a Vache to build an airport for foreign use." -US occupiers in Haiti privatizing Île à Vache .

(See also, AMARC international appelle à la libération du président de la radio VKI and Stefanie Schüler's report on Ile a Vache illustrate Martelly-Lamothe bad faith.)

Matulnes led the Île à Vache community radio (Radio VKI). He's in prison and the Martelly-Lamothe have set up their own "community" radio station to spew out misinformation, to criminalize to neutralize public protest against selling-off Haiti's offshore islands, beginning with Île à Vache.

Île à Vache must not fall! (See, Venezuela's Deep Political Education Means Venezuelans Will Withstand Right-Wing Protests.)

Ezili Dantò
President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
March 3, 2014
*
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In this interview, Haiti's Jean Maltunes Lamy describes the reign of terror at Ile a Vache against the voiceless, vulnerable people there who built and reforested the island.  The Ile a Vache population ask that the May 10, 2013 presidential decree making the offshore island in Haiti a zone of tourism development and public utility be rescinded. They want the unconditional release of their leader, Jean Maltunes Lamy and the withdrawal of the 115 militarized police away from the island. 

Stop the land grab at Ile a Vache
Photo: HLLN

This post continues our updates on the Ile A Vache situation. Urgent action is requested,  people-to-people, from world citizens. Help lift up awareness about this new earthquake in Haiti. Help stop the brutal repression and dehumanization of the people at Ile A Vache. Listen to Maltunes speak. Listen to this honorable, talented and well educated human being. Below is a picture of the National Penitentiary in Haiti where, Jean Lamy Maltunes, a policeman, husband, father, community radio station owner and well-known leader is being warehoused. Venezuela's $27 million to Haiti tourism industry is financing, in part, Maltunes and the Ile a Vache terror.

Haiti National Penitenciary- Warehousing Haiti men reminiscent of the slaveship conditions. Photo: HLLN archives

Please circulate the voice of these voiceless Haitians under brutal imperial repression in Haiti. Help free Maltunes, get the three demands of the people met and stop the brutal repression and dispossession of the people of Ile A Vache. (For specific strategies, go to End the Left-Right White Solidarity against Haiti and  Denounce Venezuela 27 million in Ile a Vache colonial project.

Jean Maltunes Lamy, the Vice President of the Gathering of Ile a Vache Farmers (Konbit Peyizan Ilavach, or KOPI) has been put in prison for the political reason of championing Ile a Vache peasant protest against the brutal right wing Haiti government's unilaterally taking of Haiti offshore island, Ile a Vache for foreign “tourist” interests. This tourism hoax is similar to the Caracol Hoax masking foreign appropriation of fertile Haiti lands. (See, End the Left-Right White Solidarity against Haiti by Ezili Dantò of HLLN; 4 Je Kontre - 10 Mas 2014 (Kreyòl) broadcast.)

The 4 Je Kontre, Jean Lamy Matulnes, Radio VKI interview is fully transcribed in Kreyòl by Franns Lwi for HLLN.  This post contains an English translation of the HLLN Kreyòl transcript done by Dady Chery (part 1 and part 2)and Video  translations (English/Kreyòl) from Hugues Girard.

Because of its enormous significance, HLLN's Franns Louis transcribed this particular interview and we requested help with an English translation.  The 4 Je Kontre interview of Matulnes speaking, before he was jailed by the new US-supported Haiti dictatorship, documents for the Haitian public, world nations and peoples what is truly happening in Haiti under this US occupation behind the UN colonial army.

The interview was done before Jean Lamy Maltunes was silenced with imprisonment. Before, the mainstream began their whitewash reporting on the matter and the imperial divide and conquer game began in order to destroy the Ile a Vache's population's objection to having their lands confiscated, island taken as a tourist zone.

Ile a Vache demonstrate against corporate land grab as tourism jobs for locals

On April 7, 2014, Reuters finally reported on the Ile a Vache people's story and, of course, like the Associated Press, it did a hatchet job. See from Dady Chery: Mainstream Media Discover Fight for Haiti’s Ile a Vache

Matulnes Speaks: Before jailed by Martelly-Lamothe Haiti dictatorship (An English transcription)

English and Video transcription of the HLLN, Franns Lwi post.
4 Je Kontre – 10 Mas 2014 broadcast English by Dady Chery/Hugues Girard | Original Kreyòl Transcription, Travay Franns Lwi, HLLN-16 Mas 2014 is here.

Stop the land grab at Ile a Vache

An English translation of an HLLN Kreyòl transcript - Source: Dady Chery, part 1 and part 2

Introduction

Sonny Esteus– Well, sirs, to start: what is happening on Ile a Vache today as we speak?

Jean Maltunes Lamy– Well, we can say that today the time finally came for the Ile a Vache population to see things clearly with regard to several pieces of information that have been circulating about the government’s tourism development. The population is beginning to realize that it was not included from the start, and today, work is starting. The execution of the project has started, with plenty of abuse.

SE – Louis Jean Gadi, did you see the documents for this project? What’s in this project?

Louis Jean Gadi– Based on what I’ve seen from the Tourism Minister, she’d have us believe that there’s a project to build 1,000 hotel rooms and 2,500 villas, plus an agricultural area with agricultural infrastructure. I understand that Ile a Vache has an area of [50] square kilometers. Is this project to be done on [50] square kilometers of Ile a Vache? Where will the population go? It’s all this worry that hangs over the population. Here’s why the people don’t agree to this project. The population has been living here more than a century. And now, for a project to come and throw away all the people like this, not take their needs into account. Well, then, this is what has pushed the residents to protest against this project.

SE – Jean Maltunes, what happened? Hotels, villas, agricultural infrastructure? Well, it’s development, isn’t it? I assume you’ve asked for development of the island?

JML– Yes, it’s a dream of ours. Not only a dream, but one that would be great if we could succeed in seeing Ile a Vache become part of a worldwide tourist destination, or the most beautiful tourist destination in the Caribbean. 

SE – Currently they say Abaka Bay is the 57th most beautiful beach in the world?

JML– Yes, I think that’s what they say. On one hand, this makes us proud, but on the other hand, what use is it? What’s the use of a cooking pot that is done cooking and then tossed out with the towel while the food is carried off. What do I mean by this? Today, all eyes are on Ile a Vache because of its green cover. Its vegetation is really beautiful. Mr. Sonny, you were on Ile a Vache, you saw that the vegetation cover was pretty good. Well, a group of people are coming from who knows where and saying they’re doing development. But they never ask themselves the question: these woods, who planted them on Ile a Vache? Was this always around on the island?

 Let’s go more deeply into the history of Ile a Vache’s green cover. Ile a Vache is an island that really began to be occupied by people starting around 1930. People came here from different places. They left Saint Louis, Saint Jean, Tobec and La Trille. Why? Some came to work the land, because the land was uncultivated back then; others came to fish. Indeed, in the past, when somebody died on Ile a Vache, he was not buried there. They took his body always to Saint Jean du Sud, or Saint Louis, wherever he came from.

Around 1930, Senator Louis Desjoies comes to Ile a Vache and gets 2500 acres [800 carreaux] of land. He goes to the state and rents it from the state. He starts to plant lemongrass, lemons, millet, corn, and other agricultural crops on the island. It’s then that people begin to move to the island in large numbers. Desjoies not only pays them to plant stuff, but also gives them other small benefits. Well, even up to this point people don’t feel secure. They say: “The land is Desjoies’ land, not ours.” We have to wait until 1940, when Father Robert Magron comes and builds the first city center on Ile a Vache, in La Hatte, today nicknamed Grand Cayes. It’s there that the first Catholic Church gets built. Now Father Robert Magron starts a migration, and people start to come, and Ile a Vache becomes a district of Aux Cayes.

SE - People effectively come to Ile a Vache to stay?

JML– People begin to come to live on Ile a Vache starting around this period. The first institution is a Catholic church. Well, you find, in 1957, with Francois Duvalier, one day, big trouble between him and Desjoies. Desjoies cannot hang on, and he gives up his place. Francois Duvalier leads a tough administration with dictatorial powers. He gives the Ile a Vache population the 2,500 acres from Desjoies. He takes 1,250 acres from this to give as grants to the population: as rural grants. For example, Jean Gadi Louis and me here, our fathers own lands from these rural grants. After this, 1,250 acres are still left. People are caring for these. And Ile a Vache doesn’t have only 2,500 acres of land. There’s much more land. Well, people continued to care for this.

The same government goes on to grant farming rights to people. Now Ile a Vache has three categories of land: one category is rural grants, another is farming rights, and another is people who have other land leases still in hand and who continue to cultivate. You find, starting from this point, that the Ile a Vache population plants the land with confidence. They come to feel that they own it. You see the many coconut trees and mango trees on Ile a Vache? Only two areas used to have coconut trees: Kay Kok and Trou Dlo.

I am talking now to people who know La Hatte: when you stood in Grand Cayes, the place where I said the first Catholic church was, back then you could see people fishing way down there. What I mean by this is: there were no trees. The island was not forested. Well, beginning in [the 1950s], in the places where the population got farming rights and rural grants, where they became owners, they started to plant. They came from everywhere with their plants, especially Saint Jean du Sud. This is one of the reasons why today, when you look at Ile a Vache’s vegetation cover, it’s the same as in Saint Jean du Sud. The majority of the Ile a Vache population were people who left Saint Jean du Sud with Father Robert Magron, who was a priest there. So, the vegetation cover that’s been achieved today, that has allowed Ile a Vache to catch the eyes of the world: it’s the peasants who made it. It’s the peasants who built Ile a Vache!

SE – But still they say all the islands are state lands?

LJG– [They say] all the islands are state lands, as Maltunes said. He said the government gave out grants, etc. My father has one, his father has one, all our parents have them. You see? Grants from the government to the population. And the people built this together with other folks who got farming rights from the government. These people who built this, who created all this beauty, they’re here today on Ile a Vache. How do you treat this population that has achieved this? As Maltunes said: like a pot that is done cooking. You take the food and you toss away the pot with the towel.

SE – I remember when I first met you on Ile a Vache, you used to complain that there are no roads, because even bicycles could not circulate there; people had to go on a donkey, horse, mule, or on foot. Well, but I see roads being built, and so on. What gives? Don’t you want this progress?

JML– We don’t want people to think that KOPI is protesting on Ile a Vache because we don’t want development. We want development, but we say that this development must be defined. We should be in it. For example, Mr. Sonny, after two protests on the island, KOPI gave a one-week deadline to the local authorities to give us a response. As part of this response, they asked the Tourism Minister to come to Ile a Vache.

Destruction of mangroves for ecotourism

SE – What answer did you expect [from the tourism ministry]?

JML– We expected them to explain the project that was already under way and that we knew nothing about. This is why we rose up: all the work being done. Because, consider the roads. It’s true that roads were being constructed. But the roads are being built without any plan for compensation. The airport is getting built without any plan for compensation. I feel that they took no account of the possible ecological impact. I remember in the first emission you did here, if you recall, while I was listening to that emission, how the man was saying that the mangroves function as a shield. But now they destroyed the mangroves, you see.

SE – Meaning, they deforested it.

JML– They deforested it. And many farmers have their farms on limestone. These folk went into those farms to quarry away the rocks. They wrecked the farms and they didn’t give a cent to the farmers. They gave the farmers nothing.

SE – I do remember the first broadcast I did with the young. Like you said: the mangroves on the east serve as a shield. They explained how, when there’s a hurricane, it’s the mangroves that protect the island against the strong winds from the east.

LJG– Let me say something more about this development business. It isn’t that we don’t really want development. The population must be integrated in the development being done. If you are doing a development, you should take into account all the impact on the population. If you come to an area and you say you’re doing development, and you expel the people from the area. You’re doing this development for whose profit? This is it! This is a big problem today. You see? You cannot do a development and say: “We’re developing Ile a Vache.” You say you will develop an area. You specify the area that you will develop! And then the people allow it so their lives can improve.

SE – So for you, development must consider people first?

LJG– People first.

JML– People first.

Disregard for lifestyles and traditions

SE – You were talking about the [Tourism Minister's] response.

JML– The interim governor arranged for Minister Stephanie Balmir Villedrouin to come last Friday January 10. When she came, she confirmed that there’s no place for us here. Because, imagine this: she told us that one third of the land will be for hotels, one third for restaurants and casinos, and one third for agriculture.

SE – And the homes for everyone? Maybe they’ll be in the agricultural area. No?

JML– No. Anyone who could do the math quickly understood that we would not be in it. Secondly, when we realized that Mrs. Villedrouin said that she is taking over 12 beaches. For those who know the island, she said those 12 beaches would start from Grand Sable. From there, you follow the west coast for the 12 beaches and go south, all the way to Skannot. What troubles us about this issue is that they don’t respect our traditions. For example, not everybody knows Ile a Vache’s major holiday, but for Ile a Vache people, the patronal holiday is “Recif Careme.” Since we were children, it’s the Recif that’s been celebrated. Our holiday is “Recif Careme.” They’ve taken over that beach. It’s as if none of our rights is to be respected.

SE – Recif Careme is a beach?

JML– It is a beach. It’s there that, at Careme time, the entire Ile a Vache population goes for three to four days to celebrate Careme. Therefore, we told this to Mrs. Villedrouin, because when we asked her to come, she did come. She did not come with a written document; she came with only a map.

SE – It was an oral presentation.

JML– An ordinary oral presentation. She came with a map and simply presented us with the places that are taken. We quickly understood that we: we are not in it.

SE– Did you ask the question: and the people, where will they be put? Those who already live on the island?

JML– Nowadays, they don’t talk about “displacement,” they say “relocation” and let it be understood that they will put the people in three places. And when you’re going to put people in three places, the population, we wonder about this. Even if you see us living on the island, one knowing the other, we do not have the same lifestyles. For example, you cannot take someone from the east and put him to live with someone from Betelmi, in Gros Morne. They won’t live well together.

LJG– Also, the population isn’t used to living likes this: I mean in cities, in crowds, in a series of things stacked on top of each other. People like their backyards, big yards where they keep their chickens, their goats and a whole bunch of stuff. But when you say you’ll crowd this population into a tiny city, in shelters, stuff like that, this is already exasperating. You see? Do you see how frustrating this is? It’s all this stuff that’s made the people so anxious. This population, everybody is tense. Imagine yourself at 70 or 74 years old. My father is 74. How can you tell someone who’s worked all his life to move to the city because these lands, they are needed for hotels. You see. This is not normal. This is why KOPI took up the torch to say no, to enlighten the population and have them say no, this cannot happen.

Community center, radio station and water wells, for whom?

SE – A tourism project where they will build hotels, casinos, agricultural infrastructure. But the population says it doesn’t see where it will fit in this project. Where will the people live? And this is the greatest worry of people who’ve been on the land for several decades. They worry about this project that’s already started, but with nothing said to the people who’ll be displaced about their compensation. Besides, there are already examples that worry people, with the road that has been torn through a place with many coconut trees, many mango trees that have lost their lives, and there are people’s lands they took from both sides of the road, and these people haven’t been compensated. They continue to demand compensation. And the people who’ll be displaced by the airport, etc., they worry that they won’t be compensated. Well, we know that the people took to the streets. Jean Maltunes and Louis Jean Gadi, are two leaders of KOPI (Konbit Peyizan Ilavach) who are here with us today. The Tourism Minister, who herself says that she is “the drive behind the Ile a Vache project,” she was in the area last Friday. And we learned that there was a chase. Is it then that there was this chase. The people chased after the authorities?

JML– Yes, it was right then, because this happened Thursday. The chase was not on Friday but on Thursday, when Minister Balmir tried to address the population in the public square. Thursday is market day on Ile a Vache. The people spoke, not only with Minister Balmir but also with interim governor Fritz Cesar. There were questions about 1,000 gourdes [$22] he took from people. The people were out in the sun, and they took the opportunity to bring up this problem with them.

SE – One thousand gourdes for what?

JML– He said the 1,000 gourdes [$22] are being taken from people as a deposit so they can put their goods in the market. People have still not seen where the deposit went. So they took the opportunity to bring up this issue with the interim governor. We must say that Thursday afternoon, the Secretary of State for Vegetable Production, Mr. Docent, also got a hard time from the Ile a Vache population, especially in La Hatte.

Well, along with the interim governor, these people got a hard time, along with Fernand Sajous who owns the Abaka Bay hotel. Well, these men got a hard time. Around 6:30 in the evening, they tried to meet with the people from KOPI. KOPI did not want to meet with them. But in the end, the KOPI people decided to meet them, but with the notary from the area. Well, this business ended badly because the Secretary of State stood up and said “All the land is state land. Ile a Vache is state land.” The population got mad as hell. And it’s lucky that the Secretary of State managed to leave Ile a Vache safe and sound.

We must also tell you about the meeting that took place with Minister Balmir. The population, especially KOPI, told the Minister that she did not convince us. And naturally, we asked her to return. And she promised the population that she would return to bring us the documents. Yesterday, which was Thursday January 16, Mrs. Balmir came to the other side this time with a bigger delegation. There was a representative of DGI from Aux Cayes; the Departmental Delegate was there. In short, the meeting took place. While the meeting was going on, the population was on its feet and chanting “Ile a Vache is not for sale, not in bulk, not in retail,” and KOPI was inside. We asked her to give us the document. Unfortunately again, Mrs. Balmir [and her group], instead of giving us the document about the project, well, they talked about what they had done. For example, they said they built a community center. That’s what I’m saying: a community center. If it was for Ile a Vache people, it would be in the center of the island.

Mr. Sonny, you’ve been to Ile a Vache. A community center in Kay Kok with a library. Is this for the population? When we think about the people on the west. The Madame Bernard people: the population is better off going to Aux Cayes to go the library, instead of going down to Kay Kok. They have a radio called Vwal FM. It’s well named, because beneath a veil, anything goes. Well, this radio that’s broadcasting, no one on the island knows where it is. In other words, is this radio serving the community? No! It’s all these things: the meetings that took place, the authorities who spoke. The governor spoke one language, the secretary of state spoke another, and Minister Balmir spoke yet another. We are not clear about what is going on. We don’t know whom to believe. Today, the fight took a turn. It took a turn! We say: this kind of project, we do not want it. If they really want to develop Ile a Vache, they must revise it. They must revise this project. They’ve published a decree; this decree must be repealed.

SE – What does the decree say?

JML– The decree declared that all of Ile a Vache is a zone reserved for tourism development. We do not see a place for the population in this. They went even further and declared a maritime limit too.

LJG– And there’s something more. The project must take into account the problems of Ile a Vache. We live in this place. As you say, you’ve been to Ile a Vache. You see that there’s no potable water. You see that it lacks a lot of basic infrastructure. How are you going to do a project here? You say you’re going to do a project. And there’s no drinking water. In other words, people are living in a very difficult situation. I don’t see the value of this project.

JML– Something you left out, Jean Gadi. For example, they’re promoting the fact that, as part of this project, they’ll dig eight water wells. But today, if you go to Kay Kok, you’ll see that they dug only one well in Kay Kok, and it’s not for the Kay Kok population: it’s for Fernand Sajous, who keeps it for his hotel [Abaka Bay Resort].

LJG– And the Kay Kok population isn’t all Ile a Vache’s population. Ile a Vache has 26 neighborhoods: all 26 should benefit from these things.

******

Part 2- Jobs, visas, and death threats

SE – [T]he projects, up to today, based on what you see, and even what they say was done, you don’t see how the population will benefit from them?

JML– We don’t see it. Today, a major step was taken, because friends and allies gave us the details of the project. KOPI has a job it’s been doing on Ile a Vache since the Minister left yesterday. KOPI is putting this project on a big screen so that the population can see it. We must also tell you, this morning we learned about a delegation that will come to Ile a Vache: Senators Carlos Lebon, Wenceslas Lambert, together with Edo Zenny, who is president of the Senate’s Tourism Committee.

SE – But these are three partisans of power.

JML– Well, they’re the ones who’ll come. But it’s today that those senators decided to come to Ile a Vache. Here’s the problem: we were never, not one day, informed about the project. And KOPI stood up when they started to execute it. We said no. Since the island is called Ile a Vache, maybe they think only cows live here, and there’re no bulls. We had to stand up and demand an explanation. Today, we’re on the right path because Minister Balmir is changing her language to say that what she said is not what she said. You see? Governor Fritz also started to change his language today too.

Now there are threats against KOPI members. They say: they have a job for me, they have a job for Jinal, and we pay no attention. They call us on the phone. We pay no attention. They issue 17 visas for us, and we make no decision.

SE – Seventeen visas for you to go abroad?

JML– Visas for us to go away. Other things are happening: they’ve started to make anonymous phone calls to us.

SE – So, the carrot on one hand, the stick on the other.

JML– Carrot on one hand, stick on the other. Meaning, they’re making anonymous phone calls to us.

LJG– There’s something more Maltunes. It is the people who took stock of the seriousness of this project. Because the population might not have understood. Even if KOPI was doing many things, if the people were not involved, if the population was not engaged… The population took stock of the problem. Now the population will not accept anything: not from the Minister, not from the government, because the population is aware of everything. And this: even before we show the projections in all the neighborhoods. This will expand the awareness of the population about the issue. The population won’t accept just anything again from them.

An 18-hole golf course for the people or the ecotourists?

SE – So you say there’s a decree that has declared Ile a Vache to be a conservation area. The work being done, for example for the airport, at what stage is it? Have they started to displace people? The people, have they already relocated them?

JML– Well, for this to be done, Mr. Sonny, they’d have to show some things, but instead they’re hiding them. If there’s a plan to displace the population, the first thing to do is to meet with the people, show them what kind of housing you’re going to give them and where. Today we must say that this wasn’t done. In Ile a Vache today, we say a big thank you to the government, because in the 21st century, instead of initiating us into a series of high-level things to allow us to develop, it is initiating us into slums. We say a big thank you for this. We, on Ile a Vache, we don’t live close to each other. We live like other people do in rural areas.

SE – This isn’t an advantage because it means people can’t get service. For example, there are problems with electricity, and so on.

JML– It’s not good. That’s correct. Now, for the population to get service, you say there’s a plan to move them. Nevertheless, you must show us the housing where you’re going to put us. Where are you taking us? You find beautiful Ile a Vache, what do you offer us in basic services? You see a big house on Ile a Vache today, Mr. Sonny, a house that has about four to five rooms. Well, it doesn’t have more than three people living in it. I don’t know if you understand. We’re not used to living on top of each other!

LJG– You’re going to cram these people who lived in five-to-six-room houses into a little house with two or three rooms. And then, another one next to it, two to three yards away. And these people are crowded. And they’re not used to crowding.

JML– There’s more. There’s an 18-hole golf course in this project. When we think about it, what’s a golf course? When we see this on television. I’ve not experienced this, but there are people who’ve traveled who’ve explained what a golf course is. What does it mean to put an 18-hole golf course on Ile a Vache? We quickly understood that we’re not in this. They won’t put us out all at once. But the places where they’re going to cram us, we won’t want to stay there. When the Minister says 12 beaches, we don’t see a little port for small boats for people who are coming from Aux Cayes. Anyway, they talk about maritime limits. Minister Balmir qualifies the nets as being criminal nets.

Goodbye locals, welcome cruise ships

SE – Nets? What do you mean by nets?

JML– Nets for fishing. She says they’re criminal nets.

SE– You’re killing small fish?

JML– We’re killing small fish [they say]. If we’re killing small fish, they should give us some limits.

LJG– If the netting is too small, we should regulate it, we could expand the netting, or they could give us other nets. The majority of Ile a Vache people live from fishing. Now, when you say you’re going to put them in this little town, and these people, these are people who did a lot of fishing.

SE– Fishermen like to live on the coast.

LJG– And they no longer have the means to fish. And they have families to care for.

SE – Maybe they could work in the hotels?

LJG– But the hotel work will be farmed out. Do these people have the experience to work in hotels?

JML– Besides, there’s a proverb that says: “You must bring the coat all the way to the door.” Today, Minister Balmir, with all this project, we got to the doorstep. And there we saw that everything you’ve said to us before was a lie.

SE – You can’t say people are liars. You can say that what they say isn’t true, but you can’t say they’re liars.

LJM– One mustn’t say someone’s a liar. What she said wasn’t true. Even today, Minister Balmir is still saying to us that we won’t be displaced. But we consider the scale of the project and can see that we’ll be displaced. Secondly, don’t forget that the decree also says that the maritime perimeter is a protected area. This means, for sure, that the small farmers, the poor, won’t be able to go out there with their small boats. Because there’s going to be a lot of room reserved for cruise ships. You see what I’m saying?

SE – For big boats?

JML– For big boats. We say: “Ile a Vache, tourist destination.” Fine! Fine. But the lives of Ile a Vache people must improve. For example, there’s another question. Thirdly, Mr. Soni, we ask: Will the population work in the hotels? But the hotels already there for decades, they haven’t hired Ile a Vache people.

SE – You mean the two hotels there?

JML– The two hotels, Port Morgan and Abaka Bay. Their workers aren’t from Ile a Vache. The project you hear that the government is doing over here, interim governor Fritz discussed on Lebo-FM. He said on Lebo-FM, in Aux Cayes: even if they’re bringing in one sac of cement, there won’t be Ile a Vache people in it. They come with their people from Petit Goave to work here. In other words, we can see it all from the way it’s starting.

SE – How do you mean Petit Goave?

JML– For example, the engineer over there, they have the right to require him to hire people from the island. But he has his own people from where he comes from that he brings in for the work. Ile a Vache people aren’t part of anything. And we must tell you, Mr. Sonny, we in Ile a Vache have a temperament that has allowed today, for the government to move in on us the way it’s moving in. We are very gentle. I believe that in all Haiti’s history, this is the first time anyone has heard of people on Ile a Vache being part of this kind of movement.

Cornered animals do bite

SE – The way you told it, what happened to the secretary of state had no docility in it. No?

JML– Well, that’s it. And that’s why things started badly. Cornered animals do bite. Today, we’re cornered. This means that we’re clear. And we want to get their attention. They’re asking for Ile a Vache land. They want to dispossess us of this land. These people must understand that, when they want to take all the peasants’ lands, it’s easy for the peasants to forget all moral restraint. And, we wouldn’t wish for things to go that far. And they know that peasants are very attached to their lands. And that’s why we’re taking advantage of this on-air time to appeal to all tourists who plan to visit Ile a Vache. All the tourists can come. We have no problems. We’re very open with the tourists. Local tourists, international tourists, they can visit Ile a Vache in safety.

But the people who are doing the projects, who are running heavy machinery on the island, please, things are not yet settled. If an ambassador is listening in, a consul is listening in, things are not yet agreed on. All those who are charged with running heavy machinery for work on this project should check with their bosses and ask to stay at home, because the Ile a Vache population is watching them. Today, all Ile a Vache is blocked. There’s no school on Ile a Vache this morning, because we’re forced to watch them. We have nowhere else. To conclude: a little while ago, Gadi said that his father is 74 years old. Well, there’s somebody on Ile a Vache now who is 102 years old. Izane de la Hatte is 102 years old. She was born on Ile a Vache; her mother was called Izani. It wasn’t a thunderbolt that put us on Ile a Vache.

Peasants who know the history of development on Ile a Vache

SE – Well, we’re running out of time. Now, for you in KOPI, what would make you feel that everything’s calm, the project can start, you won’t give any more objections. What would you wish to be done to put you at ease?

LJG– Well, here’s what I’d say. And I say it for Kopi, my entire family and all the residents of Ile a Vache. The population should be integrated into this project. This project cannot be done on a scale that includes all Ile a Vache. It should pick one area. It could make a tourist area out of four, five or six neighborhoods. That depends. But the project should take into account the wishes of the population. It should not exclude the population. The population might choose to give up an area for the project. There’s no problem. But to force people to leave where they are to go live elsewhere, this isn’t good. We cannot accept this. The people won’t take this either. It isn’t because they’re peasants, because in this context I say I don’t like this business about “peasants.” I remember when I was a kid in school in Aux Cayes, and they’d treat me as a little peasant, this would hurt. You’d open your mouth in the classroom and you’d hear: “Hey, over of there, peasant! Your birth certificate says peasant!” You see? It’s as if a peasant is retarded. This I believe to be wrong. It’s as if the person lives in a primitive state. Well, this is what the Minister thinks, this is what the government also thinks, and that caused them to come with this project to put out people. For them, peasants don’t know anything. They don’t know what they’re worth. They can send them away and do anything to them. But the peasant is not like that! The peasant is not what they think!

SE – And especially today.

LJG– Yes. My father is a peasant, my mother is a peasant, my grandmother, all my grandparents, they’re all peasants. But they have something. They have wisdom. You see?

SE – They believe in dignity.

LJG– They believe in dignity. They love to work. They respect people. Well, peasants respect people because they like to be respected too. Well, what they’re doing here, it shows they’ve no respect for the peasants. If you come to put out the peasant like that and tell him “you go”: where can he go? He doesn’t know where to go. And then you take the land to build hotels. You do not respect the peasants. And the peasants like to be respected. You must respect us. That’s what I say!

SE – Maltunes?

JML– Ile a Vache has already had the experience [of development]. The owners of the Abaka Bay and Port Morgan hotels, these are people who contracted with the government and came. The population gave up the sites, and they compensated people normally.

SE – You mean the two big hotels on the island?

JML – Yes. Port Morgan did not give all these problems. Abaka Bay did not either. So they must be thinking, why is the population making all this fuss? Everybody listening: Port Morgan did not give any trouble, Abaka Bay gave no problem. Meaning, if now the population is standing up, this means that something didn’t go well. And we, today, we say this project must be revised. This project must be revised! We’re not considering agricultural farms. We don’t want this. We, the people, we say: this project, to do it, they must say, this area is for hotels, and the population will keep their homes. This way, we’ll have the means to produce.

We ask the state to help us keep the means to farm and fish. To give us a boost, to brace us, because we will be a priority of the government. For us to produce the food for the tourists who will come. We can do this. This is what integration is. This is what they must do for us today. In bulk. We ask the government to take this up again. Revise the project for us. Simultaneously they must respect our traditions. They talk about all these things they’ll do, yet they haven’t built a football [soccer] field for us on Ile a Vache. And every time somebody visits, they see that there are two teams. If you see two teams, this means a football field should be built. And we say, in the South Department, Ile a Vache is an area that has great potential for football talent. We don’t have a single club, not even in the 5th division. But this hasn’t kept us from having our young men in the national championships. Today, the best left fielder in the national championships is Kismi Francois. He is from Ile a Vache. He plays in Club Victory.

Already, we can see we’re not in it. Well, the cat owner holds the cat by the head. We hold our cats by the head. We tell them: we don’t say we’re against the project. But they must revise it. The project we saw, we’re against it. This project that plans for 12 beaches, a golf course, 1,000 hotel rooms, an airport, 2,500 villas for Venezuela, agricultural infrastructure. Well, we say: this plan, the people of Ile a Vache are against it, and they must come up with another plan for us…. That’s KOPI’s final word. This plan, with all this stuff, that takes no account of the Ile a Vache peasants, we ask that it be revised. If they want to do a project for us, they must come to sit with us…. Thank you!

SE – Well, thank you Mr. Louis Jean Gadi, thank you Mr. Jean Maltunes Lami, we hope that those concerned have heard us and will reconsider the project, starting from the positions you’ve expressed in the name of the Ile a Vache population, as represented by KOPI.

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End the Left-Right, Imperialist/Anti-Imperialist Solidarity Against Haiti. Circulate and share this voice of the people, hidden behind the Haiti headlines, now jailed without charge. Write to the Venezuelan embassy in Haiti; write to President Nicolas Maduro, contact Venezuelan activists; ask that Venezuela use its diplomatic power to immediately work for the release of Jean Lamy Maltunes from the Haiti National Penitentiary. Demand that Venezuela immediately stop financing the neofascist Martelly/Lamothe government in the name of “helping Haitians”. To suggests other actions to the Ezili Network to help release Maltunes, end the US occupation and the complicity of the Left-Right White Solidarity against Haiti, write to: erzilidanto@yahoo.com

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Other HLLN recommended posts on this land grab subject include:

End the Left-Right White Solidarity against Haitiby Ezili Dantò of HLLN

Caracol Hoax masking foreign appropriation of fertile Haiti lands ;

Matulnes Speaks: Before jailed by Martelly-Lamothe Haiti dictatorship ;

Free Île à Vache: Pursued by government hound dogs; Haiti Not For Sale;

Tourism is not development: Haiti, Liberate Yourself!  ;

Gaye toupatou: Koukouwouj Pou Nou Bloke Masak Mateli-Lamòt sou Popilasyon Ilavach La   ; 

US occupiers in Haiti privatizing Île à Vache – Chronicles of a coming

Listen, also to: March 19, 2014  ; March 25, 2014 and March 27, 2014 updates from 4 Je Kontre (in Kreyòl ).

"Why is Cuba, Venezuela, the African Union, Latin America and the CARICOM nations turning a blind eye to the US occupation of Haiti, even participating in the pillage and plunder? Is this what Venezuelan president Maduro calls 'supporting revolution?'... Tourism, an export economy, sweatshops and privatization of pubic assets are not development for Haiti, Africa, or the Caribbean... The Haitian people identify as enemy, to varying levels and degrees, those who directly or indirectly treat them as less than human. Painting Cuba or Venezuela on the wall of Imperialism's forts so-to-speak, won't stop Haiti's masses from attacking the super-leftists, or super-progressives' racist part in today's white supremacist occupation in Haiti."

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End the Left-Right White Solidarity against Haiti

by Ezili Dantò of HLLN

A few years ago, in "Haiti: Time to remember Kandyo, the Malfini and Mongoose," I wrote about the United States- Left/Right, Democrat/Republican racist solidarity against Haiti. But the forces against Haiti are not only a US-Left-Right white solidarity. The former colonized nations and current anti-imperialist nations also collaborate with white supremacy in Haiti. Cuba, Venezuela, Latin America, the African Union and CARICOM turn a blind eye to the US occupation of Haiti, even participating in the pillage and plunder. The US occupiers are privatizing Haiti, including Haiti offshore islands like Île a Vache. Is this United States and united nations' white supremacist/racist solidarity against Haiti what Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro calls "supporting revolutionary change?"

Black Independence threatens White beliefs of Superiority. This explains current US occupation, plunder and pillage and why US/Euro constantly destroy and defame Haiti

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On August 14, 1791 at Bwa Kayiman, the Vodun gathering that began the continuing Haiti revolution, the Haiti revolutionaries, addressed all the forces of white supremacy with this simple call: stop the Black collaborators, stop the white colonist, stop all their evil forces .

To win its freedom, Haiti fought against England, Spain and Napoleon's colonial army. Napoleon's army was made up of soldiers from conquered nations and colonial representatives from within the imperial government called - in the white gaze of things - the equivalent of today's "progressive" forces.  Similarly, the US colonial army in Haiti is a multinational force of conquered nations, some of whom are anti-imperialistic and progressive, in the white gaze of things. These otherwise anti-imperialistic nations see nothing contrary or brutal about their racist participation in the united nations' colonial forces in Haiti. ALBA countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile willingly participate. For over 10-years now, although "progressive" Brazil has officially commanded the UN troops in Haiti, the foot soldiers for the UN-MINUSTAH troops in Haiti are made up mainly of poor soldiers from Latin America, Asia, Africa with the top commanding officers mostly from the ranks of Europe and North America. This is the 21st century colonial army, exploiting and repressing Haiti's black masses on behalf of the number one superpower in the world, the United States.

The three Ile a Vache demands: Rescind the May 10, 2013 decree taking the Island; Release Maltunes from jail and end the BIM military police occupation by recalling this force back to Haiti mainland.

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The UN-MINUSTAH colonial army in Haiti

Budget $576,619,000 for July 2014 to June 30, 2014

Military personnel

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, United States and Uruguay.

Police personnel

Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Egypt, France, Grenada, Guinea, India, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Senegal, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu and Yemen.

^{Ile a Vache demonstrate against corporate land grab as tourism jobs for locals}

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Matulnes Speaks

Haiti's Washington advisors are conveniently "making use of a little-known "investment code" that gives 15-year tax breaks to the owners of new hotels, many of whom are from the country's powerful and wealthy families. This law also allows hotel owners to ship supplies through customs without paying taxes."

White solidarity between the anti-imperialist nations against Haiti is evident in the current tourism push by Venezuela in Haiti and the blind eye of the rest of Latin America, CARICOM, African Union nations and the OAS to the brutal repression and dehumanization associated with the Ile a Vache land grab that is underway in Haiti.

The right wing Haiti puppet government employs over 115 Motorized Intervention Brigade (BIM) police officers to forcefully evacuate residents of the Ile a Vache rural community in order to facilitate the Lamothe/ Villedrouin cabinet’s acquisition of large parcels of coastal lands on the island.

Jean Lamy Matulnes, the Vice President of the Gathering of Ile a Vache Farmers (Konbit Peyizan Ilavach, or KOPI) has been put in prison for the political reason of championing Ile a Vache peasant protest against the brutal right wing Haiti government's unilaterally taking of Haiti offshore island for foreign “tourist” interests.  But part of the land being taken is for permanent housing for the wealthy that can purchase the 1500 seaside luxury condos and 2500 villas that are to be built on lands previously inhabited by relatively poor Haitians. A mere 2,000 “new jobs” for local Haitians is projected for this massive disenfranchisement of the 20,000 Haitians living on the island. This new Haiti earthquake is being financed, in part, by Venezuela.

20,000 Haitians living on the Island have had their entire lives turned upside down. Resident are faced daily with the heavily armed Motorized Intervention Brigade (BIM) that is helping Dominican Republic construction company, Ingenieria Estrella, bulldoze peasant properties. Done on behalf of the Haiti government for their tourism hoax, which, like the Caracol Hoax, masks foreign appropriation of fertile Haiti lands.

The reign of terror has forced many community leaders into hiding. Protestors are brutally beaten, intimidated with BIM constant show of force and KOPI members, in particular, are hunted.

The lie about "reconstructing Haiti back better" is no longer centered on raising funds for homeless quake victims, which is then mostly used to take lands away from peasants in the North, make them homeless in order to build a Caracol sweatshop factory for the South Korean friends of the Clintons. No longer about investing in for-profit hotels for tourists in Port au Prince. No. It's about grabbing all of Haiti's offshore islands, privatizing Île à Vache, evicting citizens to make room for tourists and calling the outrage, "helping the Haitians."

The Haiti media, which generally travels with the Haiti officials pushing tourist projects as Haiti development are too busy enjoying room service, other traveling perks and special visa favors for themselves and their families to write about anything but the puppet government and its white supremacist's spins.  There is mostly no international media reporting about the exploitation and brutalization of the population. And since most folks are trained to see tourism - which in Haiti is generally a reproduction of Dixieland plantations with Black and Brown as maids, sexual objects and servers - as Haiti development, Haitians who condemn and denounce the land grab and evictions are branded as short-sighted.

The fact that tourism at Ile a Vache, Haiti is about favoring mostly wealthy white folks to come live and play on Haiti lands taken unfairly from Blacks, escapes the Western-schooled and assimilated mindset. In fact, the colonial narrative is that white supremacy is development for Haiti. Even progressive Venezuela (which we've written "must not fall) is investing in Haiti tourism at Ile a Vache, instead of pushing to end the US occupation of Haiti, the disenfranchisement of the people, the use of Haiti resources and lands to make foreigners wealthy.

Venezuela has invested invested $27 million directly into the Haiti's tourism ministry that presides over projects such the Ile a Vache debacle.

Some say the Latin American/CARICOM/African Union nations with troops in the US colonial army in Haiti are just tramps. The UN jobs are just that - jobs for poor countries in the global South and Africa. It's just about: "take the other Negro master and leave us alone." Which cowardly position will not work because vulture capitalism/white supremacy has to eat up everything in its path. But what is Cuba and Venezuela's strategic, unprincipled reason for ignoring the imperialist occupation of Haiti, even participating? Is investing in a Haiti land grab like the Clintons' investing in sweatshops what Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro calls "supporting equality, justice and participatory democracy for the masses?"

The Ile a Vache tourist project is nothing less than a corporate land grab to increase inequality, apartheid, create slums on the Island for the people and further contain them in poverty. Is this what the "Bolivarian" revolution is about? Investing in Haiti’s brutal repression, dehumanization? Dispossessing the local residents to further plunder the billions in Haiti's underwater treasures at Ile a Vache? Does this racism only apply to the people of Haiti that these anti-imperialist "progressives" don't see as humans?

Haiti is at ground zero, the laboratory for the global Left-Right white solidarity going on everywhere: either objectively championing U.S./Euro imperialist aggression or providing, like Venezuela and Cuba, tacit support for that aggression through silence. (Left-Right White Solidarity?-The new face of 21st century neo-fascism.)

But has it ever really been different for Haiti?

There’s been some rare times of brief solidarity over the years. There was the time when JP Patterson of Jamaica refused to be intimidated by Condi Rice's ultimatum for Jamaica not to give asylum to Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004.  There was the time when then President Thabo Mbeki eschewed US warnings,  attended the Haiti bicentennial. Then later on sent weapons to the Aristide-Neptune government which would have reached Haiti the day (February 29, 2004) the US hastened through their bicentennial regime change/US occupation.  China also, once upon a time, helped veto UN colonial missions to Haiti.

But these rare moments are the exception to the rule, generally reversed quickly by Empire’s economic hitmen, its jackals or bureaucratic institutions and international financial establishments that are structurally racist. The lessons of history show that, in the long run, so-called progressive credentials are put on show to lull the agitated masses into accepting the lies and deliberate confusions strummed to a crescendo pitch by Empire. The intensity paralyzes you. You don't want to charge the prestigious super leftists, like Cuba and Venezuela, with colluding with the very empire they're fighting against that also denies Haiti self-reliance and right to self-determination.

But a humorous Native American's take on the matter is salient here:

"every time we tried to attack their forts, they had 'Soul Brother' painted on them, and so we never got the job done." -- Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr.

The Haitian people identify as enemy, to varying levels and degrees, those who directly or indirectly treat them as less than human. Painting Cuba or Venezuela on the wall of Imperialism's forts so-to-speak, won't stop Haiti's masses from attacking the super-leftists, or super-progressives' racist part in today's white supremacist occupation in Haiti.

It's no coincidence that Ajamu Baraka recently addressed this topic from a more global perspective, maintaining that the Left-Right White solidarity is the most recent face of 21st century neo-fascism. He explained that racism/white supremacy is the foundation of Euro fascism which is always ready to explode.

"Cross-class white solidarity in defense of “Western values,” civilization and the prerogative to determine who has the right to national sovereignty ...is at the base of the rationalization of the “responsibility to protect” asserted by the white West."

Haiti activists at Ezili’s HLLN have been pointing out the solidarity of the white saviors from the US/Euro Left and Right brotherly spectrum since the second US occupation of Haiti began in 2004. The Ile a Vache expropriation of lands, with the racist DR as investor and Venezuela’s involvement requires a critical look.

Venezuela cannot claim to be anti-imperialists while financing a right wing Haiti government selected by the US and its OAS flunkies when Haiti is under direct US occupation behind a UN colonial army for over ten years now. It is the millions of dollars from Venezuela that is partly sponsoring the illegal imprisonment of Jean Lamy Maltunes, the dispossession of peasant lands, the setting loose of police dogs on the people and such other Nazi-like brutal reprisals against Haiti peoples at Ile a Vache.

Is it not time the world stood in solidarity with the people of Haiti against this US occupation and its selected puppet government carrying out Western imperialistic, racist biddings in Haiti?

_{Kay Kok,_Ile,a Vache, Haiti}

For over 10-years, since before the end of the Gerald Latorture's reign in 2006, Haiti’s people have stood virtually alone, while most of Latin America and the CARICOM nations - still officially rule through their European "motherlands"- along with the OAS, ALBA and the African Union, turns a blind eye to the Western imperialist project, neoliberalism, UN troop massacres and the general colonial whitening in Haiti.

These nations, especially the Latin American nations who mostly hide their large African populations in Favela-type conditions, are unwilling to penetrate through the US propaganda alleging that the UN is a peacekeeping force, a humanitarian force. Mostly, Latin America, CARICOM, and the African Union find it appropriate to have troops involved in the US colonial army in Haiti.

Cuba and Venezuela do not have troops in UN-MINUSTAH, but they simply seem not to want to understand, for their own geopolitical purposes and perhaps for strategic unity with the Latin American and Caribbean participants in Haiti’s occupation.

The US propaganda is swallowed that Haiti needs to be ruled by foreigners. This is justified by focusing on Black fratricide and Black on black crime in Haiti, even though Haiti has less violence (6.9) than most nations in the Western Hemisphere, including the Dominican Republic (25.0), Jamaica (40.9), Bahamas (36.6), Brazil( 21.8), Venezuela (45.1), Mexico (23.7) and El Salvador (69.2).  But these former colonized nations are not willing to accept Haiti violence and corruption is as underdeveloped as its economic potential;  incapable of penetrating through the racist propaganda that is part and parcel of Western imperialism since the founding of Haiti.

Cuba’s medical brigade is reputed to be doing good work in Haiti. But some observant Haitians have serious concerns.

These detractors say that Cuba’s medical brigade, just like the typical Western NGOs, cannot be deemed totally positive when it replaces or substitutes for, as oppose to adding to, a locally grown and sovereign Haiti public infrastructure.

Others point out that when the US multinational forces invaded Haiti in 2004, took over the medical school in Port au Prince to put in their multinational force's headquarters, the public Cuban protest to the US occupation of Haiti behind UN proxy guns then as now was nil. Accepting the containment in poverty of the people of Haiti with the self-serving idea that humanitarian imperialism and fomenting dependency is a good thing, all while Haiti's vast riches and lands continue to be plundered and pillaged, is gross.

Haiti activists in battle against the US occupation find all the nations on planet earth have forsaken Haiti to fight European barbarity, as it did in 1791, alone. Haiti, with no European colonial motherland or white Russian force at its back, is deemed easy prey. Right-wing US-selected Haiti president, Michel Martelly, roams the world for photo opportunities with Raoul Castro, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Pope and makes photo-op appearances with Barack Obama and the other overseers for white supremacy at the African Union.

Any organization within Haiti that is not openly supporting the end of the colonial occupation of Haiti is complicit with and/or benefiting from its tenure there.

Haiti's quest to take down white supremacy, its dehumanization policies and raise up its independence - Black beauty and local independence - offends most folks with the other gaze. Even Eva Morales with his Bolivarian revolution has troops within the US colonial army in Haiti.

The radical, anti-imperialists writing today do not ink any of this Haiti reality. These folks mostly laud the great good that Venezuelan  PetroCaribe dollars is doing for the Haiti masses. The fact that the Haiti oligarchy charges over six dollars ($6) per gallon for this subsidize gasoline to the people of Haiti while selling it, in bulk, at cheaper prices to wealthy passing cruise ships does not garner their attention. Nor does the oligarchs' monopoly on petrol in Haiti, their petrol farms warehousing supply to keep prices high seem noticeable to them whatsoever.

...a June 13, 2008 Nouvelliste article alleges, in sum, that then President Preval confided that "more than 40 to 50% of the imported rice that is subsidized by the Haitian State is CONSUMED in the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC... And that even Haitian clandestinely subsidized petroleum products, cheaper Haiti oil products, are also being consumed by wealthy foreign ships passing through Haitian waters, instead of the impoverished and starving Haitians these food and gas subsidies were intended to benefit..."--- HLLN archives

For its part, the international media is too busy giving itself awards and winning corporate foundation grants to do any real reporting on Western imperialism, vulture capitalism, neoliberalism and racism, including Caribbean-Latin American institutionalized racism against Haiti. For instance, CARICOM requires only Haiti as a CARICOM member must have a visa to travel to other CARICOM countries.

The Dominican Republic is the only honest racist amongst the Latin American/Caribbean bunch. It straight out denationalized Dominicans of Haitian descent going back to 1929, to "purify” its country of Black blood, "saved itself from the Haitian hordes," casually committing civil genocide for Haitians-Dominicans with no great protest from the world's nations.

Haiti gov raise the only Ile a Vache forest to the ground to build tourists an airport

For true revolutionaries in Cuba and Venezuela, this Haiti abandonment should stop. A good beginning would be to lend a helping hand to the voiceless, vulnerable people of Ile a Vache who built and reforested the Island.  The people ask that the May 10, 2013 presidential decree unilaterally making the Ile a Vache offshore island in Haiti a zone of tourism development and public utility be rescinded. They want the unconditional release of Jean Maltunes Lamy and for the withdrawal of the 115 militarized police from the Island.

We suggest, people-to-people, that world citizens write the Venezuelan embassy in Haiti; write to President Nicolas Maduro; contact Venezuelan activists - ask that Venezuela use its diplomatic power to immediately work for the release of Jean Lamy Maltunes. The principled action is for Venezuela to immediately stop financing the neofascist
Martelly/Lamothe government in the name of “helping Haitians.”  Tourism, an export economy, sweatshops and privatization of pubic assets are not development for Haiti, Africa, Latin America or the Caribbean.

The racist delirium,  a solid firewall of convenient alliances, evidenced by the Left-Right White solidarity against Haiti, can be cracked if Venezuela and Cuba spoke up for the hunted people of Ile a Vache and used their progressive credentials, their dollars and presence in Haiti to get the release of Jean Lamy Maltunes.  This is a concrete opportunity to stop colluding with Empire; to begin to denounce and condemn the US occupation of Haiti.

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
April 2014

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I want to get this message out to everyone. This is unbelievable. The outright ENSLAVEMENT of Black teenagers. Priceless innocence- ages 16 to 18 - kidnapped from boarding school, put up for sale as sex-slaves for $12 each? No words are big enough to express this terrible outrage. If you're in New York and are able to, please join the rally to raise awareness, push for the rescue of these 234 schoolgirls from Nigeria. (Nigerians demand greater action to #BringBackOurGirls.) The world media put so much attention and time in finding that missing Malaysian (MH370) airplane. Shouldn't similar world attention be place on rescuing these girls?

This developing news is horrifying. On April 14, militants with the Islamic fundamentalist group “Boko Haram” attacked the all-girls secondary school in the Nigerian town of Chibok, in Borno state and kidnapped some 234 schoolgirls. It's been two weeks and news is filtering through that these girls are being sold by their captors. Yet, as of today, except for effort like this and on social media, the world outrage seems relatively mild. Some white billionaires' standard racism seems more pressing than the urgent need to rescue hundreds of defenseless Black children from the clutches of armed religious fanatics, raping them and passing them around to others, reportedly as "brides" for $12 dollars each.

"The group suspected of being responsible for their abduction is Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-linked jihadi group. The girls were taken at gunpoint and thrown into trucks and vans, and have since disappeared without a trace. Last week, school principal Asabe Kwambura told the Associated Press that 43 students had been accounted for, but 230 were still missing. In response to the abductions, women in Nigeria are planning to hold a million woman march in Abuja in hopes of securing the release of their girls. " - Nigerian Women to Stage Million Woman March for Abducted Schoolgirls

It's so pathetic these "manly Muslims(?)" gangs with heavy weapons kidnapping and enslaving defenseless girls? So terrifying.

It's been reported that the teenagers were disappeared into the remote forest areas along the border with Cameroon and Chad. (By-the-by, inquiring minds ought to ask, who is selling these men their weapons? What's going on here? Why isn't everybody talking about these abductions, the reign of terror of these "Islamist" terrorists against school boys, school girls, whole villages in the 12-year-old Boko Haram attacks in northern Nigeria?) Whatever these tyrannical fools are brainwashed about, chronic poverty is no excuse for terror, making children sex-slaves or for becoming what all humans should be against.



^{Photo source: CNN World - Nigerians demand government do more to bring home kidnapped girls}


These abductions reveal only unhinged psychos and cowards. Kidnapping schoolgirls at gunpoint? Raping them, passing them around and calling themselves "man?" It's beyond horrible.

Where are the world's male leaders? The African state armies? The UN armies sickened by this, agitated by this ENOUGH to send in some drones? Ready to go to WAR for this and rescue these innocent children? Where is Obomba?

Apparently the Nigerian military has been so useless. The children's parents came together themselves, rented motorcycles and tried to mount a rescue. But they faced the heavy weapons of the kidnappers and had to turn back... My heart hurts over this loss of these girls childhood and wonder. It's so traumatizing. Can't imagine how their parents are feeling.... I've written elsewhere that we all need to circulate, and share this story since it's so under-reported... in contrast to the Donald Sterling glimpse of US chronic racism.

"I'd like to do more than send courage, strength and love to the families of these abducted girls. Do more than circulate and ask the Ezili Network to share this story, enourage folks to support the mothers organizing marches and push for those with weapons, monies and power to take immediate action while supporting the Nigerian women who are planning to stage various actions and marches aimed at getting the release of the abducted schoolgirls.

No matter how much you know of evil, it always, always devastates you up close and personal like this: CHILDREN AT SCHOOL, 16 to 18 year old girls at boarding school in Nigeria, almost finish with their education and all that discipline, family sacrifice to send their girls to school, and for what? This evil and done by MEN fighting for what? Supposedly, their kidnappers are Boko Haram. "Boko Haram" apparently means Western education is sinful. Sooo, kidnapping, terrorizing, tearing innocent school children away from their homes, parents and communities and violating them is what? A sacred Muslim tradition?

I swear these losers, whoever they are that kidnapped these 200+ schoolgirls, frankly need to be shot dead, right now and the children brought safely back to their communities to get some healing. Someone with heavy arms, or drones at the ready, wanting to do something truly helpful for the world, ought to help these crazy men find their 40 virgins pronto in that mythical afterlife of theirs. End of story." -- Ezili Dantò of HLLN, April 30, 2014 

- Nigerian schoolgirls: jihadis 'willing to consider' release

Black girls lives matter, their dreams matter

Enough is Enough Nigeria: Rescue our Daughters

#CitizensSolutionToEndTerrorism

"This is unbelievable. The outright ENSLAVEMENT of Black teenagers. Priceless innocence- ages 16 to 18 - kidnapped from boarding school, put up for sale as sex-slaves for $12 each? No words are big enough to express this terrible outrage. "-- Ezili Danto of HLLN, Bring Back Our Girls: Save the 234 kidnapped by Boko Haram.

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Another rally sponsored by The Nigeria Democratic Liberty Forum to bring the Chibok girls home is scheduled in New York for May 6, 2014.  That rally will be held in front of Nigeria House at 828 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10017, at 12 noon

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Free Haiti Movement covers Manhattan, New York , May 3, 2014, rally to free the Nigerian schoolgirls
 
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Nigeria!- Black girls lives matter: Rescue our daughters, protect our children- both boys and girlchildren ought not have their childhood stained in such a manner.

"The Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN") and The Free Haiti Movement stands in solidarity with all peoples who are advocating to stop the violence against women and girls, especially Black women and girls worldwide. Black girls lives matter. Their dreams matter. Their bodily safety is a human right. We ask that Nigeria rescue our girls and stop the violence across the board which always, always disproportionately affects women and children, the earth's future."--Ezili Dantò

To join the Free Haiti Movement, click here

To become a paid subscriber to support Ezili Dantò/HLLN's works,
go here. Bring Back Our Girls: Save the kidnapped by Boko Haram
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All Photo Credits: HLLN
Free Haiti Movement covers May 3, 2014 New York, Union Square, Manhattan rally to free the Nigerian schoolgirls- (This photo album is also at Rescue Our Girls - Free Haiti Movement.)

^{Ezili Dantò of HLLN and The Free Haiti Movement}

If  time permits, I'll come back and maybe translate more of what's being said by the demonstrators in the videos. Explain the significance of May 1st to the Africans in Haiti. And what the men are saying with reference to the tear gas, pepper sprays, new guerilla warfare against peaceful protestors, mass incarcerations of students, the new-trained Macoutes. Their chemically-coated rubber bullets. These authorities lobbing their bombs and chemicals over the fence into the University walls at the students from Department of Ethnology. Check back for update and more articulation. If time permits. The post on more rallies for the schoolgirls and global war on Black women in general is also coming up when time premits. Thanks you for paying attention. If you know more about these toxins, and crowd control war machines, please share the info in the comment section. People-to-people, we must learn and know what to expect to protect ourselves from the increasingly facist establishment authorities. Men anpil chay pa lou - Many hands make light a heavy load

US Bioterrorism Against Haiti Civil Disobedience, US Crowds Next

A new war toy is harming Haitian civilians in Haiti. The newest crowd control vehicle carries water cannons to spray the protestors - a 21st century upgrade from the US hoses and dogs that were used against the Black civil rights protestors back in the 1960s.

During the South Africa legal apartheid era, racists police, most famously used water cannons with purple dye whose purpose was to stain protestors for later identification and arrest.^{May 1, 2014 demonstrators. The signs says "Down with the legalized gangsters"
Photo credit:Frantz Etienne.}

Not satisfied with importing the deadly cholera epidemic to Haiti, which whether done intentionally or accidently, still results in death, containment and a crisis of additional suffering and chaos that allows the imperialist/white supremacist minority and its agents to more easily rule their victims. Not satisfied with killing 10,000 Haitians and infecting over 750,000 with its poisoned water, the US colonial forces are spraying chemically-doctored water directly at Haitians protesting the occupation and their disenfranchisement with a US puppet government.

"The high-pressure water stream provides enough force to restrain an average size human at a distance of 131 feet. In extreme situations, chemicals can be injected in the water stream, [under officer control], to further restrain and demobilize the inmate. For example, when the operator determines that the situation requires more severe action, Oleoresin Capsicum (commonly known as OC or pepper spray) can be automatically injected into the water stream. Options include the injection of Tear Gas and colored or colorless dyes if marking the object is desired."-- B.A.T. WATER RESTRAINT SYSTEM (WRS)

Here's a photo, taken in Haiti, of the newly imported - chemically poisonous water cannon vehicle.

Photo credit: Facebook

 This new water cannon, crowd control machine will be useful to the occupiers prepared for the massive protests and street demonstrations they know are coming with the selections that the OAS, UN and US/Euros are about to pass off as Haiti parliamentary elections.

To that end, this May 1 demonstration against the neocolonial Haiti government forshadows what's to come.  The US occupiers have put their trained Black collaborators up front for the brutality to come: chemical showers with US-purchased and imported water cannons machines, primarily used to control prison inmate situations. The Haiti demonstrators say the dyed water burns their skin, brings on a headache, makes them nauseous, scratchy and describe other physical disturbances to the body yet to be diagnosed by medical professionals.

Turkish protestors sprayed with these chemicals report skin rashes, iching and insomnia, muscle spasms. The unit's operators are able to increase the water pressure, the chemical mix and control the die in the water for identification, arrest and other marking purporses as desired.

Stop the bio-terrorism in Haiti.
The United States colonial forces, legitimized by the UN, took out democratically elected president Aristide and brought back the Duvalier macoutes, trained and armed the new version you'll see in the videos below. It's deadlier and the extreme militarization and bioterrorism is well evidenced as these unarmed Haitans protesters and students  are explaining in these videos. Protest against the US recolonization of Haiti through its replacement Duvalierist, the Martelly-Lamothe government, is brutally silenced. The mainstream media continues to fail humanity.  Haiti is an international crime scene they refuse to see. The country has been turned into a penal colony and all its protesting citizens are inmates.


  _{Photo credit:Frantz Etienne. More protest photos at album: Manifestation 1 Mai 2014.}

Notice, in the Haiti videos, the operation of  the poisonous water canon machines imported to Haiti for "crowd control."

"Water Restraint System (WRS) is a non-lethal, high-pressure water stream restraining system designed specifically for control of dangerous inmate situations in correctional facilities. Many systems are advertised as being non-lethal, but in fact, are really lethal unless used precisely as specified. For example, rubber bullets, bean bags, etc, are considered non-lethal at long distances but can be lethal at close range."

The protestors in the videos below say the new US/Euro colonial forces in Haiti are fully equipped, by their Washington benefactors, with heavy weapons and warfare machines heretefore unknown to the old Duvalierist army the people generally knew how to circumvent.

Haiti today. US citizens tommorrow.

^{Photo credits: Frantz Etienne. More protest photos at album: Manifestation 1 Mai 2014.}

Inmate Control - Crowd Control - No Physical Contact

Non –Lethal Restraining System
B.A.T's Water Restraint System (WRS) is a non-lethal, high-pressure water stream restraining system designed specifically for control of dangerous inmate situations in correctional facilities. Many systems are advertised as being non-lethal, but in fact, are really lethal unless used precisely as specified. For example, rubber bullets, bean bags, etc, are considered non-lethal at long distances but can be lethal at close range.

Effective Control of Inmate Situations
B.A.T’s Water Restraint System (WRS) provides effective and non-lethal control of serious and potentially deadly inmate situations. High-pressure water is used to restrain inmates at a safe distance without direct physical contact with officers. Fighting and/or rioting can be controlled without using lethal live ammunition. The high-pressure water stream provides enough force to restrain an average size human at a distance of 131 feet. In extreme situations, chemicals can be injected in the water stream, under officer control, to further restrain and demobilize the inmate. For example, when the operator determines that the situation requires more severe action, Oleoresin Capsicum (commonly known as OC or pepper spray) can be automatically injected into the water stream. Options include the injection of Tear Gas and colored or colorless dyes if marking the object is desired.

Aim and Shoot Operations
B.A.T’s Water Restraint System (WRS) provides a comprehensive selection of operating modes that allows the operator control of potentially dangerous situations. The water stream can be used in either the pulse or continuous modes depending on the type of situation. There are two pulse modes (long and short) depending on the amount of force required

The operator has complete control, using a microprocessor-based control panel. The controls provide easy selection of all operating modes and current system status, including water and chemical supply. The operator can aim and shoot using one simple- to- operate joystick type control.

Quick Immobilization
Chemical injection provides an important and very useful feature. In certain situations, a high pressure water blast alone is not enough. In these cases, the operator can easily select chemical injection, which immediately adds the chemical to the water stream. The chemical strengths are selected at the time the B.A.T’s WRS is installed.

The injection of Oleoresin Capsicum (OC/pepper spray) is preferable. It is an organic compound made from the extract of processed chili peppers and has a dramatic effect on the person. A subject sprayed with OC water stream will experience closing of the eyes, burning sensation of skin and mucous membranes, uncontrollable coughing, breathing difficulty, and possible muscle spasms. The subject is quickly immobilized though not seriously injured, eliminating the threat.

B.A.T’s Water Restraint System (WRS) will stop inmate fighting in less than 15 seconds, compared to a minimum of 30 seconds using other means.

A Progressive Selection of Tools
B.A.T’s Water Restraint System (WRS) provides progressive selection of tools useful to manage a wide variety of threats. There are three water delivery selections (short pulse, long pulse, and continuous) that can each be combined with chemical injection. The operator can “warn” a subject by delivering one or more short pulses. If this warning is not adequate, the operator can select an ever-increasing amount of force, including chemicals, until the threat is handled adequately.

Mobile and Stationary Mounting
B.A.T’s Water Restraint System (WRS) is available for both mobile and stationary mounting. Stationary installations are custom designed to each application. Typical installations are building rooftops viewing small exercise yards and on self-supporting towers. The stationary system provides all water delivery modes (pulsed and continuous) and injection of from one to three chemicals. Electrical service and a water supply are required at each stationary installation.

A reserve tank is installed at each stationary location to meet the water demands of the nozzles while not overtaxing the building water supply."

How Kidnapped Nigerian Schoolgirls Became Propaganda for Imperial Policy 

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US Can't be of Positive Assistance in Haiti or Africa

#StopAfricom #BringBackOurGirls
End the US occupation in Haiti (See, Bill, Hillary and the Haiti Debacle)

For more of our related coverage, see:
Video of schoolgirls in Haiti tear-gassed by state forces ; The Global War Against Black Women ; Photos of NY Rally - Nigeria, Bring Back Our Daughters Black girls lives matter, their dreams matter ; and Bring Back Our Girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
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The Ezili Network's call to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’  includes the 64,000 missing Black women and girls, forgotten in America.

 
Photo essay at: The Global War Against Black Women and girls.

According to the National Crime Information Center, more than 270,000 minorities have been reported missing since 2010, with almost half of that number comprised of African-Americans and roughly 64,000 being African-American girls and women....Despite such a vast number of missing people in the U.S. being African-American females, there is a shocking lack of news coverage about them.

Also, as the world focuses on what terror is with the now trending #BringBackOurGirls, tell the U.S. gov that the face of terror is not: 66-year old Assata Shakur!

Obama, hands off Assata Shakur. Hands off Africa

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Haiti schoolgirls tear-gassed by newly US-trained neo-Duvalierist macoutes. Where's the international outrage?

US Bioterrorism in Haiti, US Crowds Next

Excerpt about how Haiti schoolgirls are terrorized under the US occupation of Haiti, with no Michelle or Barack Obama "trending" outrage:

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
"Di Djab bonjou l'ap manje w. Pa di Djab bonjou, l'ap manje w."

Pour into the darkness, Stop the Ruling Psychopaths

A Persian Woman Speaks: Breaking the silence. Will you too, also pour into the darkness? 

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BACKGROUND INFO
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Ezili Dantò at Mirebalais cholera ward, Haiti 2012

The US colonial army in Haiti brought the deadly cholera disease that's killing Haitians in droves. Over 8,500 dead, 750,000 infected since Oct 2010. Since 2004, under the US colonial re-occupation Haiti's iridium, gold, marble, oil, copper, whole mountains are being carted out by the US-Euro corporatocracy regardless of the environmental wasteland left behind. US-sponsored/financed heavy Haiti militarization, mad white-scientists germ and chemical warfare against un-armed Haitians; Tesla waves, foul vaccines, Monsanto drugs, fracking, ocean mining causing earthquakes and terror are used to quiet, pacify and have reason for more white settlers to come "save" Haiti. Please break your silence! (See, US terrorism in Haiti and scroll down link for info on - Electronic terrorism/Neurological weapons torture.)

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StopMINUSTAH, StopAFRICOM. Revolution Now!

Anti-US colonial occupation and anti-US puppet-Martelly/Lamothe gov. demonstation, June 19, 2014. Video: Manifestation 19 Juin 2014 Contre Martelly et Lamothe
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If Poor Haitians Can Pour Into the Darkness To Stop the Ruling Psychopaths , so can YOU!

Peaceful Haiti Protesters Shot at with Live Rounds

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Join Free Haiti Movement

Denounce and boycott Dominic Republic for making racism legal

Dahoud Andre: Both  Rangel and, his main challenger, Adriano Espaillat
guilty of endorsing Apartheid in Dominican Republic

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End the US colonial occupation of Haiti, free all political prisoners

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Ile a Vache resist death project

US Occupiers in Haiti Paved Paradise Put Up a Parking Lot!

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People: Wake up, wise up, rise up.
Pour into the darkness to stop the ruling psychopaths

 


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StopMINUSTAH, StopAFRICOM. Revolution Now! Stop the worldwide profit-over-people rampage #BringBackSanity

Ezili Dantò/HLLN: Hitler merely applied to Europe colonialist procedures
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The three Haiti questions all Haitians and world citizens should have an answer for:*************************

1. QUESTION: What’s so important in Haiti that the US would built its fourth largest embassy in the world there, while funding a UN proxy occupation force for over 10-years now?

Haiti homicide rate is 6.9 per 100,000. But the Dominican Republic has FOUR times more violence than Haiti at 25.0 per 100,000. Why is the UN not bringing stability to the more violent DR? Or, in Brazil, Detroit, Washington DC, Jamaica, Mexico, Bahamas – all with greater violence than Haiti?

2. QUESTION: Why is there a UN, Chapter 7, peace enforcement mission in Haiti for nearly 10 years? A country not at war, without a peace agreement to enforce and with less violence than most countries in the Western Hemisphere?

3. QUESTION: Haiti has trillions of dollars in natural resources –it has gold, oil, natural gas, iridium, copper, uranium, underwater treasures, et al– why does Haiti need Obama/Bush/Clinton’s meager 41cent an hour sweatshop jobs or US charity (false aid of the NGOs) with so much of its own resources to develop the local economy?

WARNING: Photos in this video are very hard, shocking and disturbing to watch:  Open letter to the president of France, François Hollande and, other racist who lead us by Christophe Oberlin

Christophe Oberlin, is professor of medicine at the Faculty Denis Diderot in Paris. He regularly conducts surgical missions in Palestine, particularly in Gaza. (Source in French at -http://bit.ly/1yPuMMD )

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Stop the butchering: Gaza issues desperate calls for help to us remaining humans on planet earth. Wake up humans! The Palestinians are being massacred wholesale by the ruling Euro-American forces of colonialism in the form of Zionism. --- Ezili Dantò, FreeHaitiMovement

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Watch Roadmap to Apartheid, narrated by Alice Walker

In Photos: Worldwide protest against Israeli attack on Gaza
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International solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinians demands no less than the complete isolation of apartheid Israel.- Haidar Eid

"The best way to honor those killed, injured and made homeless in Gaza is
to raise your voices even louder and demand that governments impose
sanctions against Israel. Now is the time to increase the number of
universities and businesses that boycott Israel. Now is the time to demand
divestment from more pension funds. Now is the time for more countries to cut all ties with Israel." says Haidar Eid
See more at: http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-needs-more-condemnation/13594

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End the Blockade/Siege on Gaza!
Tear down the Apartheid Walls in West Bank & Gaza!
End the Israeli collective punishment on the Palestinian people!
End the illegal Israeli Occupation of all of Palestine!
Right to Return to their homes and homeland for all Palestinians!
End all U.S. aid to Israel
Free Palestine!

Support Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) & Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) Campaigns!
http://www.bdsmovement.net
http://www.WhoProfits.org
http://www.pacbi.org
Support Gaza's Ark
http://www.GazaArk.org
Support the Free Gaza Movement
http://www.FreeGaza.org
http://www.WitnessGaza.com

Support ISM volunteers in West Bank and Gaza Strip!
http://www.palsolidarity.org

Haiti Oligarch Clifford Brandt Smuggled Out of Prison

Ezili Dantò Note: 

Kidnapping and murder ringleader, Haiti oligarch Clifford Brandt, from the billionaire Brandt family in Haiti, goes free

Haiti oligarch Clifford Brandt, escapes prison ...The facts are still coming in. People are perplexed about the delayed or absence of immediate police or UN response. The new prison is built within the perimeter of the Croix des Bourquets police station.

....Sources say the confessed kidnapping ringleader Clifford Brandt, from the billionaire Brandt family, was probably quietly smuggled out of the prison long before the prison break occurred and that the very public “escape” narrative is the charade to make his absence official – look like an escape instead of a typical clandestine Haiti oligarchy mafia action…During questioning after his arrest (in 2012), crime boss, Clifford Brandt implicated the eldest son of the President of Haiti, Olivier Martelly, as part of his kidnapping ring, along with the sons of the country’s other billionaires.

^{The white man gives the Afrikan one choice: serve Euro interests or die! Desalin Haiti responded, "we shall not integrate with injustice. Our rallying cry, in contrast to the white man's 'assimilate or die,' is: Libète ou lanmò--Liberty or death!"}

Libète ou Lanmò- Liberty or Death

Haiti Resistance Celebrates Bwa Kayiman 2014

On August 14, 1791, after 300-years of European slavery, terror and colonialism, the Haitians gathered at a clearing at Bwa Kayiman to strategize battle plans for war against their terrorist enslavers. They finalized plans for the war to began one week later on August 22, 1791.

Cecile Fatiman was the woman who presided at the war council as priestess, mounted by the irreducible essence of the feminine principle and warrior mother, Ezili Dantò. Manbo Fatiman chose Boukman amongst all the fierce warriors present to lead the war.

After 13 years of war, the Africans beat the French armies, the English armies, the Spanish armies and a US embargo and all their mercenaries to create Haiti.

Haiti/Ayiti is the first nation of the modern world to outlaw slavery. The first nation in world history where the enslaved had the courage and iron will to overthrow their masters...223 years later, on this August 14, 2014, Haiti still fights off the return of the enslavers. The epic struggle for Haitian liberty... (Read the complete essay here.)

An artist rendering of Manbo Cecile Fatima, the priestess that orchestrated Bwa Kayiman