25893: Brianhaiti: (announce) Half-Hour for Haiti: Sign the Declaration in Support of the Haitian People (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Brianhaiti@aol.com



August  2, 2005
Half-Hour for  Haiti: Sign the International  Declaration of Support for the
Haitian People
Thanks to everyone who wrote on behalf of Fr. Jean-Juste  the last two weeks.
 He is still in  prison, but the letters and phone calls from activists,
bishops, professors,  lawyers, doctors, students and many others are a strong
foundation that we will  build on until Fr. Jean-Juste is freed.  Another case
that many people have responded to is former Prime Minister  Yvon Neptune.  He is
still in  prison, but upon the advice of his medical advisors he terminated
his hunger  strike, and is recovering.  We have  received conflicting
information about his legal status, and will send an update  when we know for sure.
This week’s action  is to sign the International Declaration of Support for
the Haitian People,  issued by the  Haiti Action Committee and other concerned
activists.  The Declaration is a good opportunity to  reflect on the larger
issues underlying the political prisoners and innocent  civilians killed by
peacekeepers- these individual violations are part of a  larger effort to
undermine Haitian sovereignty.  That effort also included the illegal  removal of Haiti
’s government, the silencing of  critics, and now, an effort hold elections
under sufficient repression to ensure  that the majority of the population will
not or cannot effectively  participate.
This week’s action is also easy: to sign the  petition, or to obtain a French
or Portuguese translation, simply send an email  to
haitideclaration@yahoo.com.



"International Declaration of Support for the  Haitian People"
We are Haitians living in exile, international  human rights groups, Haiti
advocacy groups, elected officials and individuals from the international
community, who wish to declare our solidarity with the people of  Haiti and to
demand that  Haiti's sovereignty be respected.  From February 29, 2004 to this
day, we have witnessed, documented and reported  on the forced removal of the
democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean  Bertrand Aristide, by the
United States, French and Canadian governments;  the  dismantling of the
constitutional government, which included the  illegal removal of approximately 7,000
government officials; the creation of a  subsequently lawless environment in
which there is clearly a total disregard for  the constitution and judicial
system; and systematic human rights violations and  crimes against thousands of
members of the Lavalas Party and citizens from the  poorest areas, which have
traditionally supported the popular democratic  movement of Haiti.

Between the state sponsored violence against the  poorest citizens, the
exclusion of the Lavalas Party which represents the  majority of the citizenry, and
the need to register 4.5 million people to vote,  we feel that moving forward
with imposed elections is absolutely not a just,  credible plan or in the
best interests of the Haitian people or the sovereignty  of the country.

Based on the conditions described below, we condemn any  attempt by the
international community, the de facto government of  Haiti, or the elite Haitian
business  community to coerce the Haitian people into holding elections, which
are  currently scheduled for October and November of this year.

In the past  fifteen months, we have gathered and received documentation of:

· Summary executions and disappearances of thousands of  people who are
either members of the Lavalas Party and/or citizens from the  poorest areas, which
have traditionally supported the popular movement

· The living in hiding of thousands of people who are either  members of the
Lavalas Party and/or citizens from the poorest areas, which have
traditionally supported the popular movement.

·   Mass  illegal arrests of hundreds of people, who are members of the
Lavalas Party,  citizens from the poorest areas which have traditionally supported
the popular  movement and street children who have been imprisoned for weeks
and months  without charge or due process

·   Persecution of Lavalas  party leadership, including several high ranking
members of the Lavalas  Party or well known activists such as  Prime Minister
Neptune, Interior  Minister Privert, Annette Auguste and Father Jean Juste.

·    Politically motivated rapes of over 100 women, girls, and boys who are
either family members of the Lavalas Party and/or children from the poorest
areas, which have traditionally supported the popular movement.

· State sponsored terror of hundreds of people in the  poorest neighborhoods,
most recently Cite Soleil and Bel Air in which citizens  including children
have been attacked and murdered by HNP and MINUSTAH.  Eye-witness testimonies
received claim that similar operations in the months  after the coup d'etat
were carried-out by US Marines and the HNP. In the current  attacks, unidentified
English-speaking, white men in black ski masks have been  identified by many
local citizens.

·   Violations of right  to free speech and assembly by state sponsored
terror, in which the HNP has  been given free reign to kill several unarmed,
peaceful demonstrators, including  young men, as they were exercising their
democratic rights of freedom of speech  and freedom of assembly.

·   The torture of thousands of  people, especially members of the Lavalas
Party, young men and boys from the  poorest neighborhoods of Cite Soleil, Bel
Air, La Saline, etc who have been and  continue to be systematically profiled,
terrorized and often tortured.

·    Persecution and violence against journalists  from several countries who
were trying to report on demonstrations for the  return of President
Aristide. Several have been murdered and threatened with  arrest and/or murder.

In the past fifteen months, human rights  organizations have recorded
countless allegations and credible  documentation of these crimes against members of
the Lavalas Party and citizens  from the poorest areas, being carried out to
varying degrees by the Haitian  National Police, the former military, many of
whom patrol the streets while  being given authority to act as law enforcement
officials, United States Marines  and MINUSTAH.

Some sources of the many credible reports  include:

Harvard University, Keeping the Peace in Haiti?: An  Assessment of the United
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti,
_www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/CAP/current/americas/haiti.html_
(http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/CAP/current/americas/haiti.html)

University of Miami School of Law, Haiti Human Rights Investigation
_www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html_ (http://www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html)

Haiti Information Project, Crushing President  Aristide’s Party Through
Violence,
http://www.teledyol.net/HIP/about.html

Loyola University New Orleans Law  School, Haiti Human Rights Report ,
_http://www.ijdh.org/pdf/QuigleyReport.pdf_
(http://www.ijdh.org/pdf/QuigleyReport.pdf)

Amnesty International, Haiti:  health concern/legal concern, Yvon Neptune ;-
Haiti: National Police must  be held accountable for killing of civilians ;
Haiti: Fear for safety/excessive use of  force ; Haiti: Fear for
safety/unlawful killing ; Amnesty  International calls on the transitional government to set
up an independent  commission of inquiry into summary executions attributed
to members of the  Haitian National Police.
_www.amnesty.org_ (http://www.amnesty.org/)


Our coalition feels strongly that under these oppressive, genocidal
conditions, resembling a dictatorship not a democracy, it is impossible to move
toward elections. We insist that rather than the United States Congress and the
United Nations initiate the sending of more arms and troops to Haiti  against
the peoples will and good judgment, that these inhumane,  unconstitutional
conditions are brought to a halt.

As an international  coalition we support and insist that:

·   The gross human  rights abuses stop immediately, including the daily
attacks orchestrated by the  HNP, MINUSTAH and the unidentified militia in the
neighborhoods of Cite Soleil  and Bel Air, the illegal arrests, rapes, tortures
and persecution of the poor.  Impartial, international human rights observers
must be sent to  Haiti immediately.

·   The governments of the United States, Canada and France, remove
themselves from the political  affairs of Haiti, respect  Haiti’s sovereignty and
resist any further attempts to try to colonize the country or to use  Haiti as
part of the globalization  movement.

·   All current and former political prisoners  including Prime Minister
Neptune, Interior Minister Privert, Annette Auguste and  Father Jean Juste,
receive protection and are released immediately.

·   The reinstatement of the constitutional government  including the return
of President Aristide.

As an international  coalition representing hundreds of thousands of people
from around the world, we  expect that our concerns for the sovereignty of
Haiti and the  well being of the Haitian people will be taken very seriously. This
is a  situation of extreme political and economic oppression, violating all
national  and international laws of decency and human rights doctrines, not
unlike a  genocidal state. We will continue to monitor and record the illegal
activities  and human rights abuses in Haiti, and report them to various heads of
state, as  well as the Haitian and international press. We will also continue
to confront  and expose the imperialist policies of the United States,
Canadian and French governments that have and continue to threaten the very  lives
of the vast majority of the Haitian people.

Signed,


For more information about the Haiti Action  Committee, see
_www.haitiaction.net_ (http://www.haitiaction.net/) .  For  more information about the
Half-Hour For  Haiti Program, the Institute  for Justice and Democracy in Haiti or
human rights in Haiti,  see www.ijdh.org.