Black Looks

Memorial for Father Jean-Juste Saturday, June 27, 7 p.m., at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison, Berkeley

Pierre Labossiere with his daughter Malaika glow in the presence of Father Gerry Jean-Juste when he spoke on Sept. 9, 2006, at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley.

This historic interview by Minister of Information JR for Block Report Radio with the co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, Pierre Labossiere, reveals the heart of the saintly liberation theologian and freedom fighter, Father Gerard Jean-Juste, and recalls the life of this extraordinarily popular religious, political and humanitarian leader from the perspective of a close friend who talked with him daily.

“I want us to remember him as this beautiful fighter, motivated by great feelings of love, as Che Guevarra so aptly described it, and a man who was a very loyal friend, someone who believes in the power of the poor, the power of the people, the power of each individual being, who sacrificed himself for his good, great brother, Father Aristide, President Jean Bertrand Aristide, and for the people of Haiti.

“He always had that smile on his face and he encouraged you. When you met Father Gerry, you would never know all the hardship, the torture, the beatings he went through because he was always so positive. And that inspired you.

“So it was the spirit of our ancestors that I saw in this beautiful brother. And I want to share that with everyone, that beautiful spirit that makes you conquer mountains, that makes you do the impossible. And Father Gerry, he had a saying – there is a beautiful song in Kreyol, the song of the movement (which means, in English) ‘Little by little we’ll get there. If we keep on walking steadily, we’ll get there.’ And I tell you, a long way we’ve come with him. He has led us a long way. Little by little, with decisiveness, with love and determination, we have conquered. A lot remains to be done but, in the spirit of Father Gerry, we will do it!” concludes Labossiere.

Flashpoints Radio : Haitian community leader and fighter for justice Father Gerard Jean-Juste passes away, we’ll hear from friends and colleagues who remember his life and legacy; also, how influential are the pro-Israel lobby groups in Obama’s White House? We’ll speak to an expert on the lobbies; plus, JR and the Block Report talk about the fight against Shell Oil in Nigeria; and the Knight Report.Remembering Father Gerard Jean Juste

Father Gerard Jean-Juste a gentle man, a liberation theologist who dedicated his life to fight for justice for Haitians in Haiti and the U.S died on Wednesday 27th May. Fr Jean-Juste was constantly harassed by the security forces and imprisoned by Gérard Latortue who along with the US and France were responsible for the overthrow of President Bertrand Aristide. In December 2005, he was diagosed in the US with lymphocytic leukemia but inbetween his treatments he continued to move between Miami and Port-au-Prince where he was always met with a huge welcome. I had the honour of meeting Fr. Jean-Juste twice in Miami (once before my visit to Haiti and also on my return) at the Veye Yo – the center he opened for Haiti refugees in Little Haiti. He and everyone at the Veye Yo were so welcoming and respectful it was a truly humbling experience. I was unfortunate to miss him in Port-au-Prince due to the August 2007 hurricane and mess ups with him trying to get to PAP and me trying to get back to Miami. Fr Gerry as he was known held people together. Every week people would gather and whoever had something to say would stand and speak about their joys, their problems in Miami and in Haiti. Everyone would listen. I cannot imagine the sadness of the people of Little Haiti who where part of his life and theirs his – he will be terribly missed – I do not know how his people will manage.

In this video he explains his decision to start a soup kitchen in Haiti – “It was like a cry in my heart. I had to perform a miracle.” He Did!

It’s five years since the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Arisitide was desposed in coup in which the US, Canada and France have been found to be complicit. In the article “The Destabilization of Haiti, February 29th 2004, Michel Chossudovsky focuses on the preparations for the Coup as well as the destabilization process under the IMF and World Bank.

Following three years of military rule, the US intervened in 1994, sending in 20,000 occupation troops and “peace-keepers” to Haiti. The US military intervention was not intended to restore democracy. Quite the contrary: it was carried out to prevent a popular insurrection against the military Junta and its neoliberal cohorts.

In other words, the US military occupation was implemented to ensure political continuity.

While the members of the military Junta were sent into exile, the return to constitutional government required compliance to IMF diktats, thereby foreclosing the possibility of a progressive “alternative” to the neoliberal agenda. Moreover, US troops remained in the country until 1999. The Haitian armed forces were disbanded and the US State Department hired a mercenary company DynCorp to provide “technical advice” in restructuring the Haitian National Police (HNP).

“DynCorp has always functioned as a cut-out for Pentagon and CIA covert operations.” (See Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch, February 27, 2002, http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=1988 ) Under DynCorp advice in Haiti, former Tonton Macoute and Haitian military officers involved in the 1991 Coup d’Etat were brought into the HNP. (See Ken Silverstein, Privatizing War, The Nation, July 28, 1997………..Continue reading,

***Haiti Action reports on a Bill presented by Congresswoman Barbara Lee to investigate the role of the Bush Administration’s role in the 2004 Coup d’État of Haiti.

“We do not teach people to overthrow our US government, and the Bush Administration must not participate in the overthrow of other democratically-elected governments. The United States must stand firm in its support of democracy and not allow a nascent democracy like Haiti to fall victim to the Bush Administration’s apparent policy of regime change.”

***White African lists the top African web and mobile tech blogs

I’ve been finding a really wild array of web folks on the continent. They’re not your typical 20 somethings with glasses and hoodies that you find in San Francisco. Definitely a more DIY, nuts and bolts crowd who are making practical sites instead of just something for Google to buy up

***It’s Black History Month in the US – Rachel’s Tavern reports, “the shortest month of the year”. We fared much better here in the UK – we had a 3 month excellent Black History Month (Season)


Cornel West on Obama’s ascendancy ” via Kameelah Writes

“I told Obama that when he wins – which I think he will – I will celebrate for one day. I’ll break-dance in the morning and party in the afternoon. But the next day, I’ll become one of his major critics…”

- Cornel West
In Rolling Stone Magazine, March 2008

Blogs to watch Universal Plume and
Seminalson

Jacques Depelchin, peace activist and Executive Director of the Ota Benga Alliance For Peace, Healing and Dignity based in the DRC, has written a poem “From Africa to Haiti to Gaza: Fidelity to humanity”. The poem makes the connection between historical and contemporary struggles for liberation and justice from Africa to the Americas, to the Caribbean and to Palestine.

the consequences of
of Relentlessly violating humanity
Now Palestinians, then Africans centuries ago
Today displaced, refugees, best fodder
For humanitarian missions
The modernized version of abolitionists
On a mission which has not changed:
Violate humanity,
Eradicate it if too vocal
But Sabra, Shatila can still be heard

He concludes with a challenge to give name to the truth of what has and what is now taking place.

Palestinians, Africans, in the same boat
When the unending story of negating humanity started
Like Africans they are being processed and branded
Fit to be fodder for humanitarian crisis because what is being done
Must not be called
A Crime Against Humanity

For fear of trespassing which taboo?

No one dares to call the slaughter of civilians
In Gaza by its proper name
A Crime Against Humanity

For fear of trespassing which taboo?

From the times of the Arawaks
Violating, torturing, liquidating
Humanity with impunity
Has led to greater and greater
Crimes against humanity
Franchised differently
Preparing the biggest holocaust
Humanity has ever known and,
When that unfolds, as before,
We shall hear the usual
Shameful lame lie
‘We did not know’.

Read this exceptional poem in full here.

Today marks the 205th anniversary of the Haitian revolution.

“Live free or die!” Jean Jacques Dessalines to the Haitian people in Gonaives, on January 1st 1804, year first of Haiti’s independence

Citizens,

It is not enough to have expelled from your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries; it is not enough to have put a brake to these ever reviving factions which take turns to play-act this liberty, like ghost that France had exposed before your eyes; it is necessary, by a last act of national authority, assure forever an empire of liberty in this country our birth place; we must take away from this inhumane government, which held for so long our spirits in the most humiliating torpor, all hope to resubjugate us; we must at last live independent or die.

Independence or death… May these sacred words bring us together, and may they be the signal of our struggles and of our gathering.
Read more…

2008 has been a year of great tragedy, but also great hope, for all of us at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). The bad news from Haiti kept coming, from April’s food crisis to August’s hurricanes and November’s school collapse. As usual, it was the poor who suffered the most, including our clients. But the good news kept coming too, as IJDH and BAI won several historic victories for Haiti’s poor, with your help. The highlights for us were delivering court-awarded damages to 94 victims of the Raboteau massacre, and receiclip_image001ving a binding order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights requiring improvements in Haiti’s miserable prisons.

Update: The good news first: the Haitian government has appointed an Investigating Judge (Juge d’Instruction) to investigate the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. The judge started holding hearings last week. Attorney Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), representing Lovinsky’s family, participated in the hearings. He reports that the judge is off to a good start. Two people have been arrested in the case, both in connection with possessing Lovinsky’s cell phone.

Some progress on Debt Relief for Haiti: the Inter-American Development Bank will be paying 2/3 of the debt service owed to the Bank by Haiti in 2009, a total of about $14 million. This can make a great difference for Haiti, and is good reason to push the World Bank to make a similar arrangement.

The bad news: the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit has resumed deportations to Haiti. Representatives Alcee Hastings and Robert Wexler called resuming deportations to a country that has had as bad a year as Haiti “short-sighted and inhumane” in a letter to immigration officials. We hope to have an action alert on this issue soon……….Continue reading

Links: Targetting Aristide

Tags:
Haiti, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, Aristide

*** Two blogs by Nigerian women I have recently begun to read regularlyWaffarian on confused Christian morality and child pornography. Waffy’s post was a response to a post on a another great blog, “It was so much easier when I only had one” (a sentiment I can very much relate to – raising 3 boys was a rollacost journey!]. SolomonSysdelle has been talking with a woman who found child pornography on her husband’s computer.

***Winston Zulu reflects on his experiences of physical disability, discrimination, and the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.

I will not attempt to answer the difficult question of why some people react with such revulsion at the sight of a person with a certain disability. I still do not understand why whole societies stigmatise and discriminate against persons with disabilities when compassion and understanding is what is most needed. I have often wondered whether my presence brings to the fore the reality that everyone is vulnerable to disability, either through illness or accident. Or that, in fact, even a very long and healthy life can eventually lead to disability.

***In July this year, Jon Qwelane published a hateful homophobic piece in the South African tabloid, Sunday Sun. He is now to face the Equality Court over his hate speech article

***The Arab world’s dirty little secret – Racism

We are a racist people in Egypt and we are in deep denial about it. On my Facebook page, I blamed racism for my Cairo Metro argument and an Egyptian man wrote to deny that we are racists and used as his proof a programme on Egyptian Radio featuring Sudanese songs and poetry!

That’s like a racist white American denying he’s a racist because he listens to rap and some of his best friends are black.

***Richard Pithouse from Abahlali reviews “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment”

Aid agencies, NGO’s are being outed for their role as agents of Western financial captial at any cost who feed of the misery caused by their masters. Christian Aid is one such example. Following the 2004 coup against President Aristide of Haiti, Christian Aid issued a position statement in which it colluded with the lies of the US and France that Aristide resigned when in fact he was kidnapped and dumped in the Central African Republic. The paper went on to present Aristide’s government as a corrupt bunch of thugs whilst completing ignoring the fact that he won two elections with over 75% of the vote. They continued to ignore the violence committed by the UN forces following the removal of Aristide plus the systematic terrorising of Lavalas supporters. All this done under the disguise of “humanitarian concerns”. After assisting in the destruction of an elected government by bleeding it dry it then calls for aid to rebuild the very structures it has prevented from developing by the elected government. The people, in this case Haitians then become the objects of NGO industry which is based on the premise that there is a disaster or a conflict which enables them to step in and “save” the situation. This in turn is driven by adverts of helpless hapless people with no agency as victims of something that is disconnected from the financiers of the NGO’s themselves and Western financial interests.

Governments view humanitarian aid as a strategic battleground where their military forces can operate alongside doctors, to the great displeasure of the doctors. Multilateral organisations, such as the European Union, finance largescale programmes; the UN funds peacekeeping operations. All these players flood the poorest countries, overlap and fail to coordinate with each other, creating chaos rather than order.

Governments and multilateral organisations cannot allow voluntary organisations to have a monopoly on solidarity and generosity. So humanitarian work has become a world of populist politicians; tired, concerned professionals; international funders caught in a bureaucratic, financial rationale; and suspicious or blasé donors who prefer local causes. The circus follows the show – the misfortune of others – a media product in ever greater demand.

The media is busy reporting endless tragedies in Haiti – floods, hurricanes, collapsing schools. What they do not report is what iis behind these disasters. Why is it when the hurricane hits Haiti, thousands die yet in neighbouring Dominican Republic the numbers are in their tens and twenties? The $1 million Haiti pays back in debt payments every week which the West refuses to write off but is happy to spend millions on UN peacekeepers and the huge overhead costs of NGO’s and humanitarian aid thereby maintaining it’s control and occupation of the country.

In Haiti: Racism & Poverty, John Maxwell makes some comparisons between the amount of money paid out in bonus payments to Wall St bankers $18 billion – double Haiti’s GDP (8 million people).

The chairman of Goldman took home more than $70 million and his lieutenants – as Zoellick once was – $40 million or more, each.
It should be clear that someone like Robert Zoellick is likely to be totally bemused by Haiti when his entertainment allowance could probably feed the entire population for a day or two. It is not hard to understand that Mr Zoellick cannot understand why Haiti needs debt relief.

One million dollars a week would feed everybody in Haiti even if only at a very basic level – at least they would not have to eat earth patties. Instead the Haitians export this money to pay the salaries of such as Zoellick

But debt relief is too simple and at the same time to complicated to process. There are NGOs to rebuild what Western governments and multinationals destroy and NGOs to prop up the regimes that the US and multinationals wish to keep in place to maintain their financial interests and NGOs to spread the deceit that is charitable capitalism….

The aid industry is central to the current globalisation of ideology. Global capitalism must launder the profits from its exploitation. The harsh demands of this unregulated world – child labour, increased production, unpaid overtime – must be disguised. The huge number of people who suffer from these forms of social violence are rarely identified as victims. Governments, businesses and donors are paying a moral tax, trying to claim they are part of a moral humanity, through their pledges of morality, pseudo-transparency and charity.

Tags:
Haiti
Christian Aid
USA
NGO