News
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25 /5/06 |
RCMP backs murderous Haitian Police force| Group Denounces Political Prisoners Still Behind Bars| Latortue in Florida | Reaction to killing of Haiti’s former first lady, Lucienne Heutelou Estimè | Katherine Dunham, Trailblazing dancer and an activist for Haiti |
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Date: 25 May 2006 Recomended Links: Legal Matters Katherine Dunham (Timeless Legacy): ED’s Note: To help keep the Katherine Dunham legacy alive and to support the programs and the museum, and to make donations go to www.kdunhamfund.com. ********************************************************* – Group denounces attempts to keep political prisoners behind bars, AHP, May 22, 2006 – Gérard Latortue leaves the country this Tuesday for Florida: An official from the PM’s office affirms that he will return at the end of the week, AHP, May 22, 2006 – New reactions in Port-au-Prince following the killing of Lucienne – KATHERINE DUNHAM (1909-2006) – Dance Pioneer Katherine Dunham Remembered By Rosanne Skirble, Washington, D.C. – Dunham legacy to endure RCMP backs murderous Haitian Police force Since the US/Canadian/French-backed overthrow of elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been training and supervising police in Haiti who are killing residents in poor neighbourhoods. Two different RCMP officers have been in charge of the Today, Muir commands a 1,600-strong UNPOL contingent that includes 100 RCMP and Quebec Provincial Police officers, under the mandate of the Brazilian ledâ??UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which is responsible for training and overseeing the Haitian National Police (HNP). As UNPOL Commissioner, Muir takes part in all high level planning and strategy meetings, be they military Canada is also involved in other ways with the HNP. The According to a University of Miami Law school report, Haiti: Human rights Investigation, released in 2005, the HNP has degenerated into a murderous force under the RCMP led UNPOL. Arbitrary arrests and extra-judicial murder of suspects and witnesses are routine Haitian police practices, states the report’s author, human rights attorney Thomas Griffin. Griffin and other University of Miami Law school investigators spoke with HNP officers who agreed to be interviewed only on conditions of anonymity because they feared reprisals from fellow police. These unidentified officers were frustrated and angry because since the overthrow of Aristide, honest, well trained officers are passed over for promotion. Only former soldiers without police training have been promoted to high command positions. In turn, these officers only promote other former soldiers. Now, former soldiers occupy most municipal police chief positions, reports Griffin. Officers expressed frustration working with ex-soldiers because of their lack of police knowledge and skills. The Haitian police officers also complained that their commanders are often corrupt. Aristide’s government disbanded the Haitian military in 1995 because of its brutal history of killing, torture, extortion and coups. Many of Haiti’s military officers graduated from the Georgia-based School of the Americas (renamed in 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US military trained many of Latin America’s most notorious human rights abusers. During HNP operations in poor neighbourhoods, unidentified officers told investigators, their superiors order the killing of suspects as well as witnesses. Former Police Chief Leon Charles ordered officers to suppress opposition demonstrations, states Griffin. “One officer stated that many good officers (defined by the officers interviewed as those who refuse bribes, are well trained, love their work and country, and refuse orders to commit summary executions) would like to speak out but cannot out of fear for their jobs and their lives,” writes Griffin. Reports from the International Catholic Institute (ICI) and Amnesty International support the Miami Law school’s report. According to the ICI, “many of the 5,000 strong [HNP] force have links to the previous military or have been involved in drug rackets, kidnappings, extra-judicial killings or other illegal activities.” An Amnesty press release says “there are serious problems with the …functioning of the police,” and accuses HNP officers not only of summary executions, but also illegal and arbitrary arrests, torture and rape. Even MINUSTAH head Juan Gabriel Valdes stated at a UN Security Council Meeting in March that newly elected President Rene Preval will not be able to make any changes in Haiti until, among other things, the HNP is reformed. He said many police officers have committed grave human rights violations. However, critics charge that MINUSTAH, whose military forces accompany the HNP during raids into poor neighbourhoods, shares responsibility for the HNP’s abuses. Doctors Without Borders, the Haiti Information Project News Agency, and numerous independent journalists have also reported that independent MINUSTAH operations in poor neighbourhoods have resulted in dozens of civilian deaths. Last November 15, human rights groups in Washington, DC, filed two petitions with the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking legal redress from the US and Brazilian governments for human rights violations. While the HNP is responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians, argue the groups, they would not have been able to undertake these killings without arms supplied by the US and the assistance of Brazilian led MINUSTAH. UNPOL head Muir stated in an interview on September 27, 2005 that “rogue elements within the HNP” are responsible for murder and other human rights violations. He said that UNPOL is trying to weed out these “rogue elements.” Brian Concannon Jr. of the Oregon-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said that Muir is only partially right, and contends that MINUSTAH and the RCMP led UNPOL share responsibility for the murderous direction that the HNP has taken. “Some of the killings are done by rogue elements of the Haitian police,” stated Concannon. “But many of these rogue elements were intentionally integrated into the force, without public objection from MINUSTAH or UNPOL. Starting in 2004, General Herard Abraham (former minister of the interior and retired head of the Haitian armed forces) started integrating former soldiers into the force, bypassing the regulations for police recruitment and promotion. These new officers were not loyal to the police hierarchy and system, because that is not how they got their posts. They were disproportionately involved in the killings. MINUSTAH and UNPOL did not object to this practice. “Also, MINUSTAH and UNPOL share some of the blame because they failed to live up to their own Security Council mandate to protect civilians from imminent harm. Several times MINUSTAH, including UNPOL officers, watched as the HNP shot into peaceful demonstrations. MINUSTAH provided backup to deadly HNP operations.” Concannon said that MINUSTAH has also carried out several massacres. The most recent occurred on July 6, 2005, when UN troops entered the poor Cite Soleil neighbourhood and indiscriminately sprayed houses with gunfire, killing and wounding many men, women Anthony Fenton, co-author of Waging War on the Poor Majority: Canada in Haiti, said that, “by shifting blame onto `rogue elements’ within the HNP, Muir attempts to deflect the mounting documentation of direct involvement or complicity of the UN military and police in countless atrocities. It is far easier to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Haitians as inherently violence prone than to be held accountable for helping to oversee a continuous campaign of repression which began with the arrival of foreign occupiers after the February 29, 2004 coup d’etat.” Fenton noted that “Muir neglects to mention that the HNP recruits, who are being trained and supplied with arms by the US, are not being vetted as per the supposed UN mandate for human rights abuses. Given Muir and the Canadian government’s obvious desire to deny accountability for their actions, we have to ask ourselves who the real `rogue elements’ are in Haiti.” ******** AHP News – May 22, 2006 – English translation (Unofficial) Group denounces attempts to keep political prisoners behind bars St-Marc May 22, 2006? (AHP)- One of the people responsible for an organization closely linked to Famni Lavalas ‘Bale Wouze’, based in St-Marc, denounced Monday the work orchestrated at the Court of Appeals in Gonaïves to hinder the release of Lavalas political prisoners. Hervé Méristy cited the names of, among others, former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, former Minister of the Interior Jocelerme Privert and former Deputy of St-Marc, Amanus Maette, accused of taking part in an alleged massacre in La Scierie, an area of St-Marc (96 km north of Port-au-Prince). According to Hervé Méristyl, the trial is supposedly over, but no decision can be taken because, he said, a substantial sum of money has been offered to the Court of Appeals to hold up the process and keep the political prisoners in jail longer. It was two organizations reputed to have close ties to the former opposition to the government of Yvon Neptune, NCHR-Haiti and a violent group called Ramicosm, who pointed the finger at Mr. Nepture because he had been in Saint-Marc on February 9, 2004, two days before the alleged incident. Stating that the so-called massacre was a fictitious event invented for political reasons, Hervé Méristyl called on President René Préval to intervene in the case in order that the judicial authorities may perform their work properly by releasing all political prisoners who have no real charges laid against them. The head of Bale Wouze also denounced threats by individuals close to hostile sectors against the lawyer for the political prisoners, Mario Joseph. They are seeking to hinder the handling of complaints laid against individuals in St-Marc who participated in serious acts of extortion and torture against Fanmi Lavalas supporters following the departure of Aristide on February 29, 2004. Numerous members of Bale Wouze were in fact dragged throughout the streets of the city before being mutilated and burned, he said. Hervé Méristyl called on authorities to adopt measures that would enable justice to take its course. ***************** Gérard Latortue leaves the country this Tuesday for Florida: An official from the PM’s office affirms that he will return at the end of the week Port-au-Prince, 23 May 2006 (AHP)- The interim prime minister Gérard Latortue is leaving Port-au-Prince this Tuesday heading to Florida. Mr. Latortue, who was accompanied by a foreign diplomat, was seen at the International Airport around 9 am local time. According to rumors circulating early in the morning, the outgoing PM considered leaving his position before the inauguration of the new head of government. An official with the PM’s office nevertheless stated that Gérard Latortue was going to Florida to attend the baptism of a grandson. He is the child’s godfather. ?The interim prime minister has the responsibility to run the ongoing business of the government until the incoming administration takes over and he would not shy away from his responsibilities,? stated again the official, adding that Latortue will return at the end of the week. On May 14, during the inauguration ceremonies for President Préval, several groups of demonstrators had called for Latortue’s arrest for ?serious human rights violations and for mismanagement of state resources.? At least one minister of his interim regime and members of his family, who had probably come to see him off, were seen at the airport Tuesday. *************************** Agence Haïtienne de Presse – AHP AHP News – May 22, 2006 – English translation (Unofficial) New reactions in Port-au-Prince following the killing of Lucienne Port-au-Prince, May 22, 2006? (AHP)- The Association Nationale des Femmes Victimes des Coopératives (National Association of Women Victims of the Bankrupt Cooperatives, ANFVC) denounced Monday the murder of Lucienne Heutelou Estimé, wife of the late former Haitian President Dumarsais Estimé, in Port-au-Prince on May 19. The victim, in her 80s, was buying jewelry when five individuals, according to witnesses, barged into the store looking for money and jewels. The perpetrators shot in all directions in an effort to take over the store, hitting Mrs. Estimé, who was then rushed to the hospital, to only later succumb to her wounds. The President of ANFVC, Margareth Fortuné, declared her disgust with the way in which the former first lady faced her death. In commemorating the woman who served Haiti as first female ambassador for Haiti, she called on the new authorities to diligently commence a serious investigation in order to find those responsible. “We hope that this time, light will be shed fully on this case, and that drastic and concrete measures will be taken to combat insecurity in the country,? she said, consoling the victim’s family members in these hard times. It is the ministers of the interim government who are still in power, given that Prime Minister designate Alexis? position had not yet been ratified. On their side, the interim government said that the killing of Mrs. Estimé was a terrible blow to Haitian society at a time when all levels of society are calling for peace and unity. In a press release, the director of the office for coordination of the Prime Minister?s office, Jean Junior Joseph, said that Mrs. Estimé was a symbol of dignity and an example for all Haitian women. A writer, Lucienne Heurtelou Estimé was ambassador for Haiti from 1959 to 1971 under the Duvalier regime. She is the mother of former Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean Robert Estimé. AHP May 22, 2006 12:00 PM Posted on Tue, May. 23, 2006 KATHERINE DUNHAM | 1909-2006 Pioneering dancer Katherine Dunham, who established the nation’s first self-supporting all-black modern dance group in the late 1930s, died at age 96. The last time famed dancer Katherine Dunham saw her beloved Haiti, she was sitting in a wheelchair on the deck of a 3,200-passenger cruise ship docked on Haiti’s northern coast of Labadee. It was 2004, the 200th anniversary of Haiti’s independence from France, and Haiti was yet again in the throes of political crisis. Dunham, who had joined several prominent African Americans and Haitians on the ‘’Cruising into History’’ voyage to celebrate the birth of the first black republic, was in deteriorating health but wanted one thing: ‘’She really wanted to touch the soil,’’ recalled Ron Daniels of the Haiti Support Project, which invited Dunham to be a part of the pilgrimage because of her love affair with Haiti. ``She was very moved. Her heart was very, very much part of Haiti.’’ Dunham died Sunday at an assisted living facility in New York. No immediate cause of death was disclosed. She was 96. Dunham was the first African American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera, and her dance company toured in more than 50 countries. A recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, she was a Kennedy Center honoree in 1983 and had received honors from the governments of Brazil, Haiti and France. Among choreographers influenced by Dunham were Alvin Ailey, Ron Brown and Bill T. Jones. ‘’Before Katherine Dunham, the only kind of black dance was tap,’’ Ailey said in a 1988 interview with The Boston Globe. Her breakthrough came with her appearance in the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky. Her legs were once insured for $250,000 and she had 13 knee surgeries. Still, she danced professionally for more than 30 years. Dunham formed America’s first black modern dance company and choreographed more than 90 works. Dunham’s life wasn’t just about dancing, and she translated this to her dancers. Southland, one of her most famous dances, was about a lynching in the South. She also refused to let her dance company perform before segregated audiences. As word spread in South Florida about the death of the woman affectionately known as the ‘’matriarch of black dance,’’ those who knew her — and of her trailblazing contributions in Haiti, the Caribbean and elsewhere — recalled not only how she influenced dance, but also how she inspired people. ‘’Not only was she an international dancer, she contributed her talent to Haiti,’’ said Farah Juste, a Haitian singer who helped organize a packed 1992 concert at Miami’s Bobby Maduro Stadium for Dunham. At the time 82, Dunham had just ended a 47-day hunger strike to protest U.S. policy of repatriating Haitians who were fleeing the military regime that had ousted Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Carl Fombrun, a fixture on Miami’s Haitian socialite scene, said Dunham didn’t just visit Haiti, she invested in it. She maintained a home there for years, Habitacion LeClerc, a one-time luxury resort. ‘’She was baptized a mambo, a priestess of the Vodou religion,’’ Fombrun said. ``Her fascination with Haiti was a fascination with Africa. She felt that Haiti was the Africa in the Caribbean.’’ Dunham first arrived in Haiti in the 1930s as a graduate student in anthropology. She also visited Trinidad, Jamaica and Martinique where she filmed indigenous dances. But it was in Haiti, while listening to its Africaninspired rhythms, that she immersed herself in its dance, culture and history. Later, she would use the drum-inspired movements to fashion her own choreography techniques — the Dunham Technique — putting Caribbean dance on the world stage. ‘’When I got to Haiti,’’ she said in the Globe interview, ``I saw that some of the body movements in their dances resembled the body movements I had seen in the black storefront churches of Chicago.’’ She was born Katherine Mary Dunham on June 22, 1909, in Chicago. Dunham’s introduction to dance came in high school and she studied ballet in 1928. She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago and did graduate work in anthropology there before making her New York debut in 1937. In 1967, she founded the Performing Arts Training Center in a depressed neighborhood of East St. Louis, Ill., moving there from New York. She wrote several books, including her autobiography, A Touch of Innocence. Dunham’s husband, John Pratt, died in 1986. ******************************* Dance Pioneer Katherine Dunham Remembered Katherine Dunham always liked to say she was “born dancing.” She grew up in Joliet, Illinois, the child of a black-American father and French-Canadian mother. At the age of eight, she organized her first dance concert in a local church. By the time she entered the University of Chicago, she knew she wanted to be a choreographer. She taught dance classes to pay her college expenses and formed a small dance group with several other black dancers. But dancing wasn’t her only love; she was equally attracted to anthropology, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in the subject. In the early 1930s, she spent a year traveling and documenting the dances and ritual ceremonies of the peoples of the Caribbean. From this material, she developed a repertoire of dances. With the exception of tap dancers and cabaret entertainers, there were few black dancers on the professional stage in the 1930s and early 1940s. Katherine Dunham broke that barrier. However, as the late renowned choreographer and writer Agnes De Mille once observed, the going was not always easy due to racial discrimination. “Wherever she went in the United States, she found the going very rough because in her own country, she discovered that even on the one-night stands (performances in a different city every night), there was no decent, clean place for her dancers to stay,” De Mille said. “She was constrained to rent whole empty houses. She put mattresses down on the floors (for her dancers to sleep). They cooked communally. In the corner stood the sewing machine where John Pratt, her husband and the designer of the costumes, fashioned the dresses that made theater history. She broke the trail.” In 1940, Katherine Dunham took her dance company and the dances she had choreographed from her Caribbean experience to New York city. At the debut concert, one dance critic wrote, “She has imagination and taste and a fine sense of the theater.” Overnight, she was a success and found more work than she could manage both on stage and screen. In Hollywood, she choreographed the dance numbers for Carnival of Rhythm, Stormy Weather, and Green Mansions and made movies in France, Mexico, Argentina, and Italy. Ms. Dunham’s dances of primitive and folk origin included Shango, which dealt with voodoo, and Bahiana, a Brazilian seduction dance. L’Ag’ya culminated in a memorable fighting dance, and Rites du Passage dealt with the evocation of magical forces. Between 1946 and 1967, Katherine Dunham spent most of her time outside of the United States performing with her company in 57 countries. When she returned to the United States, she formed several dance schools, which taught the Dunham dance techniques. One of the schools was the performing arts training center in East St. Louis, Illinois. East St. Louis was an inner-city ghetto, best known for crime and street violence. But Katherine Dunham was undaunted, and she soon won the trust of the community. “My main reason for forming another Dunham school was to get people off the streets and see if it could be possible that the arts would interest them enough so that they would take their minds off what was then really genocide,” she said. “And it worked. It worked quite well. And now the school, whatever there is here in terms of that sort of education, is not done through anger as it was then, it is a real curiosity and interest in the arts.” Dunham described her technique as “a way of life.” “It is holistic,” she said. “It is based on primitive rhythms, primitive rhythms in a sense of people without a written language, being primitive. But dance in that case becomes a major factor in communication and a major factor in history.” During the 1970s and 1980s, Katherine Dunham divided her time between the East St. Louis performing arts center and her work as an anthropologist on the faculty of Southern Illinois University. She won numerous honors including, in 1979, the Albert Schweitzer music award for “a life dedicated to music and devoted to humanity.” In 1983 she won the Haitian government’s highest award. She received the Kennedy Center tribute for “life achievement in the arts” in 1983. Arthur Mitchell, a former Dunham student and famous in his own right as the director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, expressed his appreciation for Dunham’s work at the Kennedy Center awards ceremony. “We who not only love dance but the arts and humanities, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for spreading the roots of American dance throughout the entire world. Thank you very much.” Katherine Dunham elevated black dance to an art form. She gave black artists and performers pride and confidence in their work. Reflecting on her career, Dunham said, “I wanted to give black dance students the courage to study and a reason to do so.” And that was Katherine Dunham’s gift to future generations. ****************************** Posted on Tue, May. 23, 2006 Dunham legacy to endure www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/14645740.htm EAST ST. LOUIS — Those left to carry on Katherine Dunham’s legacy want those who loved her ideals to make financial donations to keep alive the museum and programs she started. “After we go ahhh, what’s the next step?” said Charlotte Ottley, executive liaison to Dunham. “Are we going to start preserving our history or are we just going to bemoan the lost? We’ve done this throughout our history.” Katherine Dunham, legendary dancer, choreographer and social activist, died Sunday in her sleep at age 96 at an assisted living facility in New York City. Dunham was born in Joliet in 1909. She met and married John Pratt, a renowned theater and costume designer, in the 1930's and the couple were married until the 1960's, when he died. “She gave us nearly a century,” Ottely asked “What will we do for the next century to preserve her legacy? She was a visionary. She thought big. She thought about bringing countries together. She did it. It was one woman taking a stand. How will we stand in the future that her living not be in vain?” She wants the stories written in the past about Dunham to make it into the public school curriculum. Ottley also wants teachers and parents to bring children to the Katherine Dunham Museum on 10th Street and Katherine Dunham Place. “I want the energy to say ‘Job well done, Miss Dunham. We’ll take it from here,” Ottley said. “We should only look back to propel us into the future. That’s what she would want.” In 1992, Dunham risked her life and garnered attention with a 47-day hunger strike protesting the plight of the Haitian boat people. Dick Gregory, an internationally known comedian, nutritionist and civil rights activist said, flew in and stayed by her bedside as an advisor. “Not only nice to be on the same planet with her, but it was very nice to work very close with her on the Haitian boat project,” Gregory said Monday. Gregory described Dunham as “a great international lady at a time when it was difficult for women to be international unless you pawned your body off as a sex symbol or entertainer. Dunham’s talent and caring love for human beings all over the world made her an international figure. She gave up her career to work for human beings at a time when few black folk and very few women could command that type of respect world wide.” Gregory said he wants the Nobel committee to consider Dunham for its Peace Prize. State Rep. Wyvetter Younge, D-East St. Louis, mourned the loss of her friend Monday. “I’ve lost a dear friend who loved all humanity and who did an extraordinary job in helping people of various cultures,” Younge said. “She taught people how to live together and enjoy each others cultures… I always looked forward to seeing Miss Dunham. She came to the East St. Louis area every year for her birthday on June 22.” Younge plans to continue her fight on the state level to get funding for the museum and the programs hosted there. “Her humanitarism warrants the perpetual funding,” she said. “Her contributions to the arts is colossal. The people of this area have lost a wonderful friend.” To help keep the Katherine Dunham legacy alive and to support the programs and the museum, and to make donations go to www.kdunhamfund.com. Contact reporter Carolyn P. Smith at csmith@bnd.com or 239-2503. ****************************** We Are Not the Ones who are the Kidnappers, Site Soley wants Peace: The Kreyol Audio: We Are Not the Ones who are the Kidnappers, Site Soley wants Author and performance poet, M. Laurent to present panels and workshops at HLLN on USAID/OTI – More Than 10 million U.S. Dollars spent since May 2004 to Decimate Lavalas Party in Haiti |
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