THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL GOES TO HAITI TO STOP THE CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF THE LATORTUE REGIME by Marguerite Laurent

All 15 members of the United Nations Security Council are in Haiti from April 12 to April 16, 2005 to, according to their press release on the matter, “review progress achieved in areas such as security, development, the political transition, human rights, institution-building and the humanitarian situation.”

Well, if in fact it is human rights and security ìprogressî the U.N. Security Council wants to review, they wonít find any. And please give Haitians some credit. The great show of slaughtering soldiers at Petit Goaves and Ravix and Jean Anthony (Grenn Sonen) in Port-au-Prince less than a week before the arrival of the U.N. Security Councilís unprecedented visit, does not suddenly make the U.N. troops in Haiti ìprogressive,î ìun-biasedî or ìpeacekeepersî instead of the negative and ineffective force they have been in Haiti since they got to Haiti.

If the U.N. Security Council would deign to hear the sons and daughters of the majority of HAITIANS on the issue of democracy in Haiti, then they would know that Haitians are suffering more under the auspices of U.N. troops, there to support the U.N./U.S.-backed Latortue government, than they have ever suffered under the Constitutional government it replaced.

If the U.N. Security Council would deign to hear the sons and daughters of the majority of HAITIANS on the issue of democracy in Haiti, then the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network would urge the U.N. Security Council to pay very close attention to the new report on the socio-political, human rights and next electoral contest situation in Haiti, released by our lawyers in Haiti, The Association of University Graduates Motivated For A Haiti With Rights ìAUMOHD.î (Aumohdís report may be found on our website at: )

Haitians are the most politicized people on earth and they well understand the subterfuges of diplomacy and the function of politics and propaganda. It is a mistake to believe that illiterate means unintelligent. Or, for that matter, that schooling means one is intelligent.

Kampe bourik la, that’s kreyol for – understand this – : To many Haitians the U.N. Security Council’s visit is nothing more than an effort to reconcile the bourgeoisie forces who were just last week all clamoring for the resignation of Latortue. The visitís purpose it to us basically an effort to solidify and reunite the unraveling immoral coalition of restaveks-elites who helped overthrow Haiti’s elected government. Thatís it. A public relations STUNT to turn the tide towards the original agenda: Never let the Lavalas party ever be able to win an election in Haiti again and mount its socially progressive programs. Thatís the agenda. Itís the one that is being put back on track by the U.N. Security Councilís visit. Already we are hearing: more policemen will be sent to Haiti. Of course no one mentions their function is to kill, kill, kill peaceful demonstrators and any one supporting Lavalas, democracy or resisting foreign debt, dependence and occupation. No that is whatís left unsaid. But there are plenty of announcements and hand shaking with Gwo Gerard Latortue and his other fat cats as he grins from ear to ear greedily thinking about more money for arms, for bullets, for paying down foreign debt. But none for literacy programs, affordable housing, portable waters, to subsidize the high price of rice, gas

– More monies will be thrown to the Coup díetat bunchÖ..more and more, that is, for the people of Haiti to owe which foreign ìexpertsî and the tiny rich elites will cash in foreign banks, all in an effort to legitimize the coup díetat with a selection of Haitiís next leader by the U.S., France and Canada.

The presence of the U.N. Security council in Haiti is to have these colonized Haitian puppies, who have no popular support in Haiti, whose hold on power over the masses right now are threaded together only by foreign monies, foreign troops, a foreign-backed coup, and media disinformation. The U.N. Security council is in Haiti to pamper the bourgeoisiesí ruffled feathers ñ hey they neither got the monies promised ( a billions $) as reward for giving a Haitian face to the coup díetat, nor the government positions they thought were owed. The U.S. pulled out Gwo Gerard and not one of their own from the former opposition. But no worries. Papa U.S. will make it better ñ through Brazil, through the U.N. Security Council, to show the support it cannot show publicly. See, President Bush canít get too publicly INVOLVED with bringing back dictatorship to Haiti when heís supposed to be spreading democracy around the globe.

Itís all doable though. Because now that the Coup díetat contingent are rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful surrogates of the Western powers, the U.N. Security Council, no less. Well, they feel better. Theyíll hold up on clamoring for Gwo Gerardís resignation.
Thatís what all the theatrics (slaughtering of former soldiers) leading up to the meet with the powers-that-be-and-rub-shoulders-and-get-validated was about. The desires and democratic and justice needs of the ordinary Haitians in Cite Soleil, Bel Air, Milot, Petit Goave, Au Cayes, well, itís not and has never been a real part of the equation. Ambassador Foleyís agenda for Haiti is simply back on track.

HAITIAN STREET DEMONSTRATOR: “The Whites are shouting ELECTIONS, ELECTIONS, ELECTIONS for Haiti! Elections have become the new chain the former slave-owners and their black overseers want to encircle around black feet in Haiti. Where was the U.N. Security Council when Caricom called for assistance, when President Aristide called for assistance that would have shored up the elected Haitian government? Now that the people’s voting rights have been trashed, their voices silenced, their freedom taken away, their country occupied, now the Whites and the bourgeoisie can’t stop calling for elections in Haiti…”

The demonstrators on the streets of Haiti are saying that Haiti’s slide into complete lawlessness started with the bi-centennial coup and continues today with most of the former Haitian military, known human rights abusers, drug dealers, gangsters and rapists, paid 5,000 each and restructured into the new ìlaw and orderî state apparatus.

The demonstrators cannot forget the U.N. entered Haiti to stop human rights abuses, protect civilians and now suddenly all they are there to do is ìprepare the country for elections.î

How can they when they are the victims of the U.N. troopsí unwillingness to disarm the coup díetat instigators, the victims of the U.N.ís willingness to arm the former military, paramilitary and re-imaged them as ìpoliceî or so-called ìlegitimateî political party candidates. The peaceful demonstrators cannot conveniently forget that the U.S./Canada and French soldiers invaded Haiti with the U.N. Security council’s permission to purportedly “stop a bloodbath from occurring” after the ouster of President Aristide. But a bloodbath wasn’t averted at all. More than 10,000 Haitians have been reported dead as a result of the U.S.-backed regime change in Haiti. And the human right situation that the U.N. allegedly entered Haiti to stabilize has worsen, making Haiti a hell on earth for the majority of poor Haitians.

In fact, let us not forget, the first thing the U.S. Marines, who preceded the UN troops, did in Haiti was allow the paid mercenary, Special forces-trained assassin, Guy Phillipe, into Port au Prince while the U.S. soldiers closed down the medical school doors to over 200 Haitian medical students turning the school into its army barracks.

Let us not forget that with the February 2004 bicentennial coup, more than three thousand (3,000) hard core prisoners from the National Penitentiary were simply let out of prison and are today roaming the streets of Haiti killing, pillaging, raping and generally presenting a significant danger and contributing to the question of insecurity that has increased rather than decreased as over 7,000 UN troops strut through the streets of Haiti, weapon at the ready.

Weapons, a few Haitians are saying, used to force Haitian women into corners for UN soldiers to rape them. Weapons that have summarily executed suspected ìchimeresî (ìbanditsî) including brutally murdered pregnant Haitian women, as in Cite Soleil last week, school children, market women, unarmed civilian demonstrators and an unknown number of young black Haitian men, who the interim government has criminalized to dehumanized as “bandits” to justify the summary execution.

The U.N. soldiers along with Haitian police have been accused by human rights activist of summary executions. The current slaughter in Cite Soleil by MINUSTHA is an example. Yet, Haiti doesn’t have a death penalty.

Even criminals, like for instance the ex-soldiers who took up arms against the Constitutional government, such as Ravix and Grenn Sonen, do not deserve to be summarily executed by U.N. troops. No human being, who is unarmed, wounded and defenseless, even a Hitler deserves a trial if he could have been duly arrested without risking any more innocent lives. That is what civilization is about: the rule of LAWS!

According to reports both Ravix and Grenn Sonen (Jean Anthony) were caught alive, were wounded, disarmed or not even armed in the case of Ravix, and couldn’t defend themselves. Yes these guys are killers and needed to be stopped but where is the example of justice-at-work that the UN is supposed to be teaching Haitians? How is pumping so many bullets into Ravix and Grenn Sonen, to the point where their faces are unrecognizable, a sign of democracy-at-work, an example of “stopping the Haitian bloodletting?”

Because people who went to see these two bodies found them so completely unrecognizably filled with bullets, some Haitians are even speculating that both these men, former military who took up arms against the Constitutional government, were not actually killed by their former benefactor’s proxies, but were just taken off the scene for SHOW. To prepare for the U.N. Security Council’s meeting in Haiti and show that the U.N. troops were not only, for a year, presiding over the killing of Lavalís supporters but are “fair and even-handed” and are neutralizing all armed factions.

The truth of the matter is, it is not hard to see why Haitians don’t trust the U.N., the U.S. or any of the International Community bodies traditionally supporting the armed factions for the bourgeoisie against the people’s liberation. The Haitian people have been clear, they prefer to die than abdicate their power as a nation, as a people to foreign-made sweatshop kingpins and the variously elite architects of the demise of justice and democracy in Haiti.

 
The U.N. Security Council members in Haiti could learn a lot about what democracy means if they would come down from the Montana mountain to observe the daily demonstrations against the Coup díetat are bound to continue. Even as they fall down under U.N. bullets, even (it is was reported that at yesterdayís demonstration for the return of President Aristide, at least 10 peaceful demonstrators were slaughtered) as innocent Haitian civilians attempt to make their voices heard, even as young Haitian men, who unlike the criminals freed from prison as a result of the U.N. security council’s intervention, men who had no criminal record, are continually are arrested, brutally murdered by both Haitian police and UN soldiers, they refuse to stop calling for the physical return of President Aristide and the Constitutional government.

ìDemocracyî the people of Haiti are saying means the process by which they get better access to literacy, health care, a living wage, Elections is not a means in and of itself. It must represent a believable-by-the people, for-the-people push towards portable water, peace, justice, freedom of expression, end of social repressions, summary executions!. There can be no elections if the peoplesí call for justice, civil and human rights, for return of President Aristide, for validation of their last election, for respect for their will, there can be no legitimate elections in Haiti if these demands of the people of Haiti, are not part of the equation for the U.N. security councils-backed elections in Haiti. Will the U.N. Security Council hear the people of Haiti or turn a deaf ear, blind eye and unwisely and undemocratically continue pushing for an election the Haitian majority has said it will not stand for unless President Aristide is physically returned to Haiti, all political prisoners are released, and all illegal, arbitrary arrests, extended and improper detentions and summary executions in Haiti stops.

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Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network
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“Men anpil chay pa lou” is Kreyol for – “Many hands make light a heavy load.”

See, The Haitian Leadership Networks’ 7 “Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou” campaigns to help restore Haiti’s independence, the will of the mass electorate and the rule of law.
www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html
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Action Requested from Haiti solidarity groups and activists for justice and democracy
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Read, adopt and circulate the Haiti Resolution (see below) from the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network and/or the Porto Alegre Declarations on Haiti adopted at the World Social Forum in 2005: www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/declaration.html

Circulate the human rights reports, especially the latest Miami Law Center report:
www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/human_rights_reports/c1humanrightsreports.html

Do Press Work: Join our letter writing campaigns to help free the political prisoners in Haiti, stop the persecution of Haiti’s most popular political party and restore Constitutional rule. Write a letter, call the media, fax, – See our Press Work page for sample letters and contact information:
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Support our lawyers in Haiti and HLLN projects, such as, our partnership with AUMOHD, the young human rights lawyers in Haiti who are defending the defenseless poor whose only crime is that they voted for Lavalas, supported Constitutional rule or are resisting a return of the bloody U.S.-trained Haitian army and US-sponsored dictatorship. For information on AUMOHD, go to: www.april6vt.org/
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Support the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Haiti Resolution:

1. Demand the return of constitutional rule to Haiti by restoring all elected officials of all parties to their offices throughout the country until the end of their mandates and another election is held, as mandated by Haiti’s Constitution;

2. Condemn the killings, illegal imprisonment and confiscation of the property of supporters of Haiti’s constitutional government and insist that Haiti’s illegitimate “interim government” immediately cease its persecution and put a stop to persecution by the thugs and murderers from sectors in their police force, from the paramilitaries, gangs and former soldiers;

3. Insist on the immediate release of all political prisoners in Haitian jails, including Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, Interior Minister Privert and other constitutional government officials and folksinger-activist SÚ Ann;

4. Insist on the disarmament of the thugs, death squad leaders and convicted human rights violators and their prosecution for all crimes committed during the attack on Haiti’s elected government and support the rebuilding of Haiti’s police force, ensuring that it excludes anyone who helped to overthrow the democratically elected government or who participated in other human rights violations;

5. Stop the indefinite detention and automatic repatriation of Haitian refugees and immediately grant Temporary Protected Status to all Haitian refugees presently in the United States until democracy is restored to Haiti; and

6. Support the calls by the OAS, CARICOM and the African Union for an investigation into the circumstances of President Aristide’s removal. Support the enactment of Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s T.R.U.T.H Act which calls for U.S. Congressional investigation of the forcible removal of the democratically elected President and government of Haiti.
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