Pote Mak Sonje (Whoever Bears the Scar Remembers) : The Raboteau Trial explores how a community mobilized against formidable obstacles-a long history of impunity, corruption, lack of infrastructure, extreme poverty, and illiteracy-to bring about the best criminal prosecution ever in Haiti, and one of the most significant human rights trials in the Western hemisphere in the last 20 years. Weaving emotional interviews and extraordinary trial footage with more abstract lyrical images, the documentary shows the significance of the trial for Haiti and for the victims of a massacre who finally confront their attackers.

The victims of the Raboteau Massacre invested $43,000 in a just future for Haiti and now they are challenging you to match their investment. The 97 victims donated 10% of the $430,000 in court-awarded damages that they won last month to their lawyers at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI).

Alfred Georges, a lMDeader of the Association des Victimes de Raboteau noted, “we give this money so BAI and IJDH can keep fighting for others like they have fought for us.” His colleague Robin Joseph adds “because many poor people in Haiti are victims of injustice, we want Mario and Brian to fight for them too. We challenge people in the United States to invest in justice like we have.”

The Raboteau victims’ generosity is astounding. They live in one of the poorest neighborhoods of a country at the forefront of the global food crisis. They have other important uses for their damage award, but they know that Haiti will never escape its cycle of crises until the country develops an effective justice system that protects the rights of all Haitians. And they know that the BAI and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) have a proven system for making the Haitian justice system work for poor people like them. So they invested an average of $443 each- what is for many of them a year’s living expenses- to help the BAI fight for justice for other victims of political persecution, for the right of Haiti’s children to attend school and for freedom for political prisoners.

Tags:
Haiti
Roboteau Massacre

Danny Glover speaking at LA vigil calling for the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine

Please sign the petition
Weekly Vigil in London every Wednesday 5-6pm outside the Brazilian Embassy
Links: Lovinsky Pierre Antoine (blog under construction)
Global Women’s Strike - Lovinsky

Tags:
Haiti
Lovinsky Pierre Antoine
Brazil
UN + MINUSTAH

15 year old Eritrean Arsema Dawit was murdered in London on June 2nd 2008.

Via Africa Rise

Rethabile remembers Malcolm X on Poefrika. It’s an easy day for me to remember as it’s also my son’s birthday. He spent the day looking at some of his maternal ancestors over at the British Museum in London meanwhile here is Rethabile’s post

For Malcolm X

All you violated ones with gentle hearts;
You violent dreamers whose cries shout heartbreak;
Whose voices echo clamors of our cool capers,
And whose black faces have hollowed pits for eyes.
All you gambling sons and hooked children and bowery bums
Hating white devils and black bourgeoisie,
Thumbing your noses at your burning red suns,
Gather round this coffin and mourn your dying swan.

Snow-white moslem head-dress around a dead black face!
Beautiful were your sand-papering words against our skins!
Our blood and water pour from your flowing wounds.
You have cut open our breasts and dug scalpels in our brain
When and Where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?
© Margaret Abigail Walker

Malcolm X was born on 19 May 1925. Happy birthday to him.

Links: Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

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Malcolm X

In Prison The Whole Of My Life is a documentary covering the arrest, trial, imprisonment and fight for a retrial for Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia’s is presently undergoing a complex appeal process which focuses on three major trial violations - the racism of the judge who was heard by the stenographer at trial to make a racist comment about Mumia; the racial bias of the jury members; the prosecutor’s direction to the jury which “attempted to reduce jurors’ sense of responsibility by telling them that a guilty verdict would be subsequently vetted and subject to appeal”. Mumia remains on death row and the new trial will is to decide on whether Mumia should continue to face the death penalty or face life imprisonment with no parole. The campaign for a complete new trial on guilt or innocence remains.

Trailer Film in prison my whole life

The film links Mumia Abu Jamal with the many incidents of human rights violations and militarism in the United States such as the Iraqi war, Guantanamo Camp X-Ray, Abu Ghraib , Katrina. It also brings together the racialisation of the US justice system and the “prison industrial complex, the racialised death penalty and overall assault on dissent by the state and the federal government. One begins to see that US foreign policy of aggression actually starts at home.

One particularly obscene example is the bombing of the MOVE community on May 13th 1985. The film includes the actual footage showing the plane flying over the houses and dropping a bomb. Five children and six adults were killed, many injured and their homes destroyed…….more here and here.

More images here including the actual bombing.

How to choose a jury US style:

I also believe the incarceration of Mumia Abu Jamal, the severe irregularities surrounding his trial, the racism and what I see as the US government’s systematic and continuous attack on the progressive and radical Black community are not disconnected from US foreign policy in Africa. For example the support of the continued occupation of the Niger Delta by the Nigerian military to protect US oil interests, the establishment of AFRICOM whether based in Africa or in Europe (deployment is instant either way). I also believe this is a Pan African issue in the sense that Africans and African descendants in the Americas and Caribbean (including and especailly Haiti) are in the words of Angela Davis

“…..have a special responsibility [to each other] not by virtue of their biological connection or racial link, but by virtue of a political identification that is forged in struggle. We should be attentive to Africa not simply because this continent is populated by black people, not only because we trace our origins to Africa, but primarily because Africa has been a major target of colonialism and imperialism. ….” “Abolition of Democracy”

The phrase “No Visible Movement” is taken from the film in a discussion between Angela Davis and the film’s narrator, William Francome, on the differences between the campaign to free Angela Davis and the Mumia campaign. In the case of Angela Davis there was a far more cohesive and much stronger radical and visible movement in the 1970s than we see today.

Links: In Prison video trailer.

Tags:
Mumia Abu Jamal
In Prison The Whole Of My Life
USA