windowsonhaiti.com

One et Respe

It is generally acknowledged that Haiti has historically had to pay a debt of independence , in various forms, which no other nation in the world has ever had to pay. For, we-Haitians own a nation founded by kidnapped Africans surrounded by nations founded by slave owners.

One form of the "debt" for our independence is to suffer consistently from negative images being put forth by the International mass media with seeming impunity. Today, in general, if you pick up a mainstream newspaper, the negative images of Haiti have gone nuclear.

What I've noticed most is that it's not just mere misinformation and misstatements of facts or just outright lies, but the reporting about Haiti is blatantly and palpably RACIST.

Why? Because these journalist, from major US-Euro papers, give more value to the posi
tion of the unelected, wealthy and Eurocentric Haitian few than they do to the desires and social-economic needs of the overwhelming Black Haitian majority; because these journalists lie about Haiti and its people and our behavior as if Haitian lives and our historical struggle for civil rights and democracy amidst US-Euro obstruction, embargo, dollar diplomacy and divide-and-conquer shenanigans is negligible; as if they may break EVERY recognized journalistic principle and ethic since they are only talking about lives that are not valuable, souls animated by just poor defenseless Black Haitians." Shall this go unchallenged by decent peoples everywhere? I think not.

Not long ago I read an article where a journalist wrote, "Haiti celebrated its bicentennial amidst tear gas...."!!!???

I was there at said January 1, 2004 celebration. I can personally witness that I did not need a gas mask and that this is one of the many outright lies of the corporate press.

I urge every Haitian who went do
wn to Haiti for the Bicentennial to stand up and respond to these lies. Without question the forces against the advancement of the Haitian people had manufactured a bloody catastrophe to happen. They financed a Coup D'etat to occur on or before January 1, 2004. Their divide and concur blueprint and manufacture conflicts obstructed the celebration of Haiti's greatest feat but Haitian blood did not pour into the Atlantic ocean, bombs did not drop on Gonaive, in fact, their RACIST maneuverings did not come to fruition. It did not come fruition because Haitians, from all walks of life, said NO MORE.

But most importantly because hundreds of thousands of young Haitian men, stood around the Haitian palace for days and nights, during the bicentennial week, literally as body-armor to prevent the internationally-financed-imperial-agents from pushing us back into FRAPH-like dictatorship.

It was an awesome site to see and no Haitian, from the Diaspora, blessed enough to have p
ersonally witness this desperate but glorious act of courage and conviction by our people can return to their homes abroad and not SPEAK UP.

Our people are hungry, malnourished, skinny as hell, without jobs or passports to suburbia, but they so WANTED to celebrate and be celebrated. So much so, they dared the foreign-sponsored-special interest-groups-representing-big-business-and-Profit-Over-People- ideas, also known as, the "Opposition" to commit mass Haitian genocide or back-off!

It will take some time to digest this. For I can't, right now, in words of prose, capture, the energy, the vibration, the spiritual FORCE, the teeming thousands upon thousands of Haitians, in front of the Haitian Palace, on January 1, 2004, and, in Gonaive transmitted to the world. But, basically, our young and old came together on January 1, 2004, faced the international media and the Western nuclear powers, placed their very bodies and naked souls, -the only real assets they own - on
the line and said to the International Community and anyone else willing to listen: you will push us back into maronage ONLY if you are willing to murder ALL of us HERE and NOW!

The good news is that NO Haitian, even the foreign-sponsored Haitian opportunist, could or would cross that line. We now have proof that Haitian fratricide has its limits! For, basically, my beloved Haitians, our people in Haiti said to the world "over our dead bodies." No newspaper will tell you this. So, souple, allow me.

Thus, we-Haitians have, for the time being, prevented a foreign-sponsored Coup D'etat catastrophe. But those committed to Haiti continuing to be a service area for US multinational corporation and their assembly plants and subsidized farm goods - those committed to the eternal rape of Haiti - are wining the media war. In fact, they are trying to re-write what happened during the Bi-centennial celebration. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and other "majors" leads these pap
ers trying their hands at a media Coup D'etat.

Who will stand up for the voiceless Haitian majority with its back against the wall, facing this International media, facing the Iron Will of the former slave owners and their current dollar diplomacy policies with an embargo on the Haitian people but financing the Opposition to Haitian development, institutionalization of our rule of law and democracy? Who shall counter the current media and international political attempts to force the Haitian people to submit to eternal rape by the wealthiest nations on this earth? Who must stand up for the Haitian poor and for their pioneering efforts refusing to allow themselves to be exploited in the name of "democracy" as said democracy is defined by those who insist Haiti must continue to pay for its independence? Who, must counter the current, not only NEGATIVE but false and RACIST images being disseminated about the current H
aitian struggle if not the Haitian Diaspora. Who will stand and say "the majority of Haitians cannot be reduced to hooligans and chimeres if not us.

Who must stand for the principles of the rule of law, the Haitian Constitution, no Coup D'etat or obstruction of the Haitian struggle for participatory and transparent democracy and for a domestic Haitian economy. Who, if not we-Haitians in the Diaspora?

To that end, I would strongly recommend that every concerned Haitian read this important press release issued by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs laying out the complex current issues facing our people. It may be found at:
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/ ... istide.htm

Kenbe fem, pa lage.

Ezili Danto

<h
r>Staff note: The article referred to above can also be found at this internal address: http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1152 . We removed it from the body of this note, because it unnecessarily added to the length of the message. However, the author invites you to read the referenced article for a fuller appreciation of the issues at hand.

[quote]Est-ce d'être des insulaires? Est-ce autre chose? Mais l'haitien a toujours souffert d'un problème de positionnement [/quote]

Non, madame, c'est vous qui en souffrez. Chacun de vos messages ici en a fait la preuve et continuera inévitablement à le faire. L 'haitien souffre de maux bien plus concrets. Le problème du positionnement, c'est le souci des négresses qui se sentent mal, vraiment mal, dans leur peau.

[quote]Il n'a aucune gêne, aucune à se comparer aux autres pays, alors même que la décence appellerait à la prudence.

Ainsi Haiti "deserve the same respect than San Marino or Monte-Carlo".... Why not? [/quote]

La décence appellerait à ne pas en douter. Why not, INDEED?

[quote]Qu'exportons-nous à part des femmes de ménage même pas préparées (comme aux Philippines), et des boat people.[/quote]

[quote]Il fu
t un temps où il y avait davantage d'exemplaires d'un même modèle...[/quote]

[quote]...soyons autre chose, si nous voulons que l'on montre autre chose de nous.[/quote]

[quote]Il fut un temps ou être haitien signifiait être Jean Brière et diriger le théatre national du Sénégal à Dakar....[/quote]

[quote]Le nivellement par le bas instauré en politique chez nous, nous ne pourrons pas l'iimposer aux autres.[/quote]

[quote]Mais je ne vais pas m'asseoir sur ma médiocrité, pour japper après les autres qu'ils devraient me respecter.[/quote]

[quote]C'est histoire de tout moun se moun c'est du bullshit bien de chez nous. [/quote]

Madame, le principe "tout moun se moun" est inscrit dans la charte des droits de l'homme. Le bullshit, c'est vous qui l'écrivez... en abondance.

[quote]Tout moun pa mod moun aysyen ta vle rete a.[/quo
te]

Ki mod moun aysyen vle rete a, madame? E ki mod moun ou ta vle pou yo? E ki mod moun ou ye oumenm?

[quote]Quand on vit chez les autres, quand on est de la minorité visible -j'entends nègre- et pauvre de surcroit, il y a des efforts à consentir.[/quote]

[quote]INDIVIDUELLEMENT. C'est la somme des "individuellment" qui donne une nation plus ou moins développer. [/quote]

Là vous me perdez. Mais à force de répéter: [quote]INDIVIDUELLEMENT. C'est la somme des "individuellment" qui donne une nation plus ou moins développer. [/quote]

Non, oublions...

[quote]Mais tout ce que je barjaque là vous le savez, sauf que la bonne foi n'est pas toujours au rendez-vous. [/quote]

Madame, sauriez-vous reconnaître "bonne foi"...

[quote]Après seulement on peut parler de respect. [/quote]

Après quoi? Ah... [la somme des "individuellment" qu
i donne une nation plus ou moins développer].

[quote]Cela dit j'ai déjà lu -sur ce site du reste- que Haiti valait bien Brésil... [/quote]

Non... ils sont fous ces gaulois!

[quote]Comme quoi... C'est déjà pas mal d'être logique...[/quote][/quote]

Brillant exposé, madame!

One e respe Mag MagPeriod,

Not much resonates here for me in your above post Mag.... I am just not in the mood for good French full of disjointed sentences and existentialist angst. Haiti is in serious trouble, se-mwen! Haitians have bought the anti-Aristide media blitz, which in essence, EQUALS an anti-Haitian-nation, or, an anti-Haitian-Black-majority media blitz. My Haitian people, of all classes and hues, are fearful again in a way not seen since before 1986... Riveted to the rock-n'-roll of the foreign press' propaganda against the Haitian nation, today, the prospect of civil war is harvesting in minds that, a few months ago, would have thought it unthinkable.

Many of us-Haitians in the Diaspora and at home are trying to counter and STOP the anti-Haitian-nation-media-blitz in hopes of spreading the TRUTH and t
o actually prevent the Civil-War-Coup-D'etat-bloodshed of 1991-1994 from occurring again.

No life is unimportant. All Haitian life is valuable, no matter the party affiliation, or point of view. That's a given. But, many of our Haitian brothers and sisters have senselessly shed their life, in recent months, because of the political impasse strummed by foreigners, kept burning by a few Haitian politicians and some misdirected provocateurs, some paid well, others not. The death toll, we are told, is mounting. And, we are being told, with ad nauseam regularity by the foreign press, that the "crisis" in Haiti is not only "critical" but almost past the point of no return!!??

What is incontrovertible is that ANY Haitian life cut short, from either side of the manufactured-political-spectrum, need be remembered and their families' supported and legal steps towards justice taken against those in fact, ACTUALLY responsible, for the manufactured crisis that is leading to t
hese death!. Yet, it is also true that the current unrest and political turmoil in Haiti is definitely NOT as bad as some, especially the foreign press and those with political ambitions in Haiti, want to make it out to be.

But Mag..., if you and I remain silent, the unthinkable being manufactured could come into manifestation so that big business can step in with a U.S. "restore-order-military" like in 1915-34, or like in 1991. But this time, it won't be to preserve the financial and neocolonial interests of the National City Bank of New York but to preserve the assembly plant interests of Andre Apaid, Jr. and his Wal Mart, Tommy Hilfiger, ecetera's Profit-Over-People neoliberal interest/structural adjustment-plans and the anti-labor interests these world-elites, as represented by the radical rightist U.S. neocons, currently in power in the U.S., want to force (or, is it to globalize) down our throats.

For, make no mistake, what's happening right now, this very
moment in Haiti, is NOT simply about Lavalas vs. the Convergence/Group 184 opposition. This is a deadly and serious big-business game. And this radical right wing special interest group doesn't give a damn about how many Haitians die or any dead Haitian's party affiliation in Haiti. Fact is, the "Get-Aristide-Out" strategy of the likes such as the IRI, Otto Reich, Roger Noriega, the Bush State Department, USAID and the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, their current political strategy in Haiti, is to catch Haitians killing each other ON CAMERA for their constituents broadcasting entertainment! That's it. They want to show the Haitian police shooting at students, shooting at the opposition, shooting, shooting shooting at, and killing ANY Haitian. And, they want it ON CAMERA for broadcast to FEED their political purposes against the Aristide government. Our discredited and morally repugnant "Opposit
ion" is blithely helping them, as EACH of these Opposition-political-party-leaders are the recipients of MILLIONS of dollars from these foreigners, in their role as Executive Director of their own non-government organizations.

The foreign press has purposely NOT widely reported this dirty alliance - the intestine foreign meddling in Haiti's domestic affairs by financing of groups fomenting violence and social conflict in Haiti.

Said international media squarely place ALL blame, for every Haitian person dying in our Haitian streets today, on the shoulders of the Aristide government and their young and newly trained policemen and women.

The intransigent opposition, created in their (USAID/IRI) laboratories, who have boycotted elections for four years, and refused to come to a truce but even tried to obstruct the January 1, 2004 bi-centennial celebration of our ancestor's unparalleled achievements with rumors, murders, burnings a
nd all sorts of other violent obstructions and unpatriotic actions, they, of course, are simply innocent victims of the so-called Aristide dictatorship. This Washington press and consensus doesn't care about our Haitian children out of school; doesn't care about our Haitian people dying under their US-treasury department's sponsored embargo; doesn't give a damn about the innocent dying in our streets. NO.

They see us-Haitians through a racists-lens – our very suffering seems to feed their souls, it seems to me.

And, this sort of callousness by the wealthy US/Euros and their Black opportunists in Haiti is what I've lived through almost my entire life as a Haitian person. So, I don't get your above "fe respe-w" if you want respect line, AT ALL.

Our sovereignty as a Haitian people, as a Black nation, has always been meaningless to these foreign provocateurs and meddlers and their imperial agents - the Black opportunists in Haiti.

Haitian humanity - our suffering, our desire to l
ive in peace, to share in the riches and beauty of this world, to develop a participatory and transparent democracy - all that, is beside the point to these, our traditional enemies. For they only care about manipulating ALL HAITIANS, both the traditional discredited Black opportunist mostly on their payrolls (today known to us, as the "Opposition")and the millions upon millions of pro-rule-of-law ordinary Haitians, of all hues and classes, struggling to find balance and a basis for unity, diversity and co-existence in Haiti.

Washington, based on its current manufactured-news-and-conflict-media-blitz and its four years of cutting off and squeezing the duly elected Haitian government against a financial wall, ONLY cares about regaining imperial CONTROL in Haiti.

For, as one OAS delegate, said, in front of me, no less, while I was in Haiti for
the bicentennial, and I quote him verbatim: "The international community is so screwed-up and divided that Haitians are running Haiti!"

Mag....honeychild that's what all the fuss in Haiti is about.

For, Aristide, through some miracle, has managed to survive! That means, in gross sum, the majority of the Haitian people, through some miracle, have managed to survive EVERY stone thrown at it by USAID, IRI, IDB, OAS, U.S. Embassy and the European Union!!!

It's not that the Aristide government can't bring stability or security to Haiti. NO. That's just the ruse, the subterfuge, the red herring. It's the fact that he with the Haitian people, as a whole, has, to a large extent, come together and done just that - IMPROVED LIFE IN HAITI!!!! That's the problem in Haiti today, se-mwen. Our successes, as a
nation, in the short span of ten years of the Haitian people finally having their duly elected VOICE at the Palace, after almost 200 years of containment-in-poverty, our successes is what scares the hell out of our peoples' traditional enemies.

Know that. Spread that truth. For, like I've said before, what do Haitians have to celebrate in this year of the bi-centennial:

• We can celebrate the reduction of the illiteracy rate from 85-90% to 48%;
  
  We can claim victory because, Kreyol, our grandmamas tongue is now officially recognized;
  
  That Vodun is an official religion;
  
  That the hated Haitian military (traditionally trampling on Haitian civil and human rights since left there in 1934 by the United States to contain us in fear after their 19-year occupation of Haiti) has been eliminated.
  
  Today we-Haitian may also celebrate that our historic isolation is OVER;
  
  That there are about 3 million Haitians living outside
  of Haiti who CARE deeply about Haitian rights at home and abroad;
  
  Who today send MORE than $800 MILLION dollars to hold up their families and give them more choices;
  
  We may celebrate that more schools have been BUILT in Haiti in the last 10 years than in our ENTIRE 200-year- history.
  
  We may celebrate that the Restavek child-labor law has been repealed and awaits ratification by the next duly elected parliament.
  
  We may celebrate that the dual citizenship law has also been passed and awaits ratification by the NEXT duly elected Haitian parliament.
  
  We may celebrate the legal demand and proceedings now getting started, on behalf of ALL Haitians, for France to repay the 21billion debt of independence it extorted from our people;
  
  We may even celebrate that the "opposition" has freedom of association and speech!!!

These are the SUCCESSES THAT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO COME TO THE FOREFRONT my beloved people. That's
why there must be a violent Coup D'etat, right now!

It's not that Aristide has been a dictator, but that, despite it all, he and the Haitian majority have managed to do WHAT NO OTHER HAITIAN ADMINISTRATION, in our history, had done before. That's why there is a "crisis" in Haiti to THEM - the Kolons and their created "opposition" to the Haitian people's domestic development and legitimately chosen leadership.

Truth is, thought it's made some unwise choices and failed in many, many areas, the Aristide government is the only ONE to have ever demanded, on behalf of ALL Haitians, that France repay the 21billion debt of independence and that the United States make good the money it plundered from the Haitian national reserves during its 19 years of (1915-1934) of occupation in Haiti.

No wonder the US/Euros have an embargo against us and are manufacturing a media blitz to violently take DOWN, through FORCE, such a Haitian people
and their legitimately elected leader!!

Today, even the most isolated (in rural areas) ti-machan yo have heard of these demands, being made on their behalf, for restitution and are walking to the well to get water with more gumption and stepping to the marketplace with more strength in their stride, more focus in their eyes, more hope for a better tomorrow. They feel valued even if their material circumstances haven't change that much. Yet, at least today, there are demonstrations, if one gets the proper license, and the Haitian people can generally freely speak their minds.

Thus, Haitians, after almost 200-years of repression, finally have a real VOICE in the corridors of Haitian power, and are learning they are entitled to RIGHTS - civil rights, legal rights, economic rights - HUMAN RIGHTS that must be respected EVEN BY THE MOST POWERFUL. It's an unprecedented and dizzying miracle!

On the other hand, we may also say, that a tiny minority of Haitians,
some calling themselves, "intellectuals," "teachers," "elites," "opposition" etc., are so PUMPED-UP by the fact that they have RIGHTS that must be protected in a democracy, that they have simply gone bonkers with their freedom of speech and are just talking nonsense.

But those are the consequences of the development of Civil Society and freedom of speech.

We must live with it, peacefully and with tolerance.

However, it is also incumbent upon concerned Haitians to give that speech and freedom to demonstrate some acceptable focus, some logical and legal mission - a publicly acceptable Haitianist purpose. Coup d'etat, return of the Haitian army, neoliberalism and foreign occupation just don't meet our Haitian people's dire social, economic or political needs. No way!

So, I repeat, my people it is OUR SUCCESS, our self-determination and empowerment of ourselves these last ten years or so, which have gotten the Kolon and his cohorts in a tizzy so that
they MUST lie about us. The current "Haitian crisis" is not about our failures, but our successes!!!.

For, imagine, 3 million of us, sons and daughters of Haiti, with a new parliament ratified dual citizenship passport, landing regularly at Haiti's airports with our dollars and democratic rights. Yeah, well...... the IRI, USAID and the US Embassy are way ahead of you.

They know what that means for to their meddling and interests in Haiti. Yep. They do.

Yes, that's a large part of the reason WHY the tiny Haitian elite, whose very survival depends on the Black Haitian majority remaining uneducated, illiterate, in repression and in economic bondage and us-abroad remaining fearful of travelling to Haiti and staying away, that's why this minority in Haiti must strum chaos and impasse to the fevered pitch they are trying to package and sell it off to a world already predisposed to believe in our Black inferiority and savagery. Fear
of losing their social and economics entitlements, that also may be why SCHOOLS are close to our ti-machan's children in Haiti, but their privilege children get to go unimpeded to the private and "International" schools all over Port-au-Prince, just as they have done for almost 200-years.

That's why "news" of Haitians killing each other and bombs dropping in Gonaive, and mourners unable to mourn their dead and demonstrators unable to demonstrate freely MUST be manufactured!!!!

It is our success at democracy that scares the tiny Haitian majority in Haiti (sooo into social exclusion, racism and Eurocentrism) and their imperial backers to these desperate means.

It is not about, as the overwhelming many in the foreign press, the Opposition and the U.S. State Department would have you believe, it is not about the young Haitian teenager who Aristide can't control; it's not about the garden variety street crime blown out of proportion; it's not that the Haitian m
ass electorate is stupid, ore all backward bandits and uneducated chimers. NO. It's about domination - white domination of a Black Republic, just as it has always been these last 200 years.

The crises in Haiti today, as yesterday, is about economics and Eurocentric-greed and still wanting our Haitian people's labor virtually for free through dictatorship rule and the Haitian army's return.

But for me, for we-Haitians, the lives of our compatriots, on either side of the spectrum, being wasted to this traditional cause, is URGENT business. It is our "live-free-or-die" business.

So, I can't, right now, get with existential (in-Francais) angst. For, it's important that all of us with talents, such as yours, Ms. Mag.., lend them towards averting the death and killing of more Haitians.

It's serious as a heart attack that we-Haitians each do our part so that the next generation may point to us and say that we told the truth
; we forgot our relations and pocketbooks and did the morally correct thing and united for the common good of our Haitian nation.

Mag, you write:
[quote]Est-ce d'être des insulaires? Est-ce autre chose? Mais l'haitien a toujours souffert d'un problème de positionnement.[/quote]
Yes, Haiti has no peer, no point of comparison. We could write that about any country, any individual, anything. But the situation in Haiti is indeed flesh and blood REAL. Right now real.

In my lifetime, there's ALWAYS been turmoil, conflict, chaos, impasse, bloodshed in Haiti, which I saw ONLY diminished during the Aristide/Preval years. For me, and the majority of Haitians, our life and access to liberty was WORST under the Duvalier dictatorships. Ask those whose family members died at Fort Dimanche, etc? Ask those 300,000 internal refugees in maronnage in Haiti, the over 5,000 victims of FRAPH, the 50,000 passing through Guantanamo Bay, countless feeding Atlantic sharks and INS detention
pens in the years between 1991 to 1994?

Frankly and bluntly, I wasn't around, wasn't alive, during the "good old days." And, I simply don't know what was THAT good, in the Black Haitian majority's life, who were around, in Haiti, in the age when.... -
[quote]Il fut un temps ou être haitien signifiait être Jean Brière et diriger le théatre national du Sénégal à Dakar....By gones are by gones."[/quote]

I don't have the luxury of your nostalgia. And wishing for it won't feed, protect or nurture not one Haitian child today, not even one.

For yours truly and most Haitians of working class and payisan parentage, the neo-colonialist blueprint being played out, at this very moment, is almost 200 years old. Further, you write:

[quote]"....soyons autre chose, si nous voulons que l'on montre autre chose de nous."[/quote]
I beg your pardon. But as a person, as a Black woman, an African-American woman, a Haitian woman, struggling to show
the world the light and beauty of my Haitian people and our culture, I don't see that the Powers-that-be are acknowledging MY EXISTENCE my desires for a fratricide-free Haiti, just as they did not acknowledge that thousands-upon-thousands of Haitians who celebrated the beginning of the bicentennial year with joy and in peace. NO. They won't acknowledge any good thing about us. They wanted a catastrophe. They wanted bloodshed and Coup D'etat. They exaggerated whatever negatives they could find and went to the extremes of reporting lies (For, instance, note the New York times recent retractions) because the catastrophe they came to report did not happen.

Why didn't they report that there were countless Haitians, from the Diaspora, who had braved the State Department's warnings to go and pay respect to their ancestors and to stand for the rule of law and the cause of participatory and transparent democracy.


No, I don't see myself and my friends and family in the images currently being disseminated all over the news media at all. Yet, we all know the majority of Haitians want the rule of law in Haiti to be respected, that there are thousands upon thousands of this sort of Haitian around. Haitians women and men who are people of peace, conscience and compassion trying their best to be of assistance to Haiti's development and prosperity. But, ALL we see out here are reports covering the tiny, tiny, tiny minority in Haiti out for blood because of their political frustrations and unbridled ambitions. These people are NOT representatives of all Haitians, just as no one would seriously contemplate saying the rightist and radical Neocons in the U.S. represent the ENTIRE U.S. mass electorate. That would be a stinking lie. Why is it not a lie when we are dealing with Haiti. What? Because this tiny, tiny, tiny Haitian minority, these Black opportunist and Categor
y Zeros strumming violence and advocating the violent overthrow of a Constitutionally elected government have money and friends in high places who are used to buying elections and buying demonstrators with incentives like U.S./Canadian and French passports and CIA-like promises of impunity if they kill their own brothers – especially if it can be caught ON CAMERA? Is that why they are not being called to take responsibility and be accountable for their wretched actions?

Today, this small cadre of influential Haitian opportunist and their U.S. propaganda machine are busy trying to show the international cameras and the world that we-Haitians, as a people, are so contrary, so brutal, savage and inhuman, we can only be kept in line through FORCE, through torture and the chains of a newly reconstructed Haitian army!

Mag, you write

[quote]"....soyons autre chose, si nous voulons que l'on montre autre chose de nous."[/quote]

Well, what they are showing IS NOT AL
L OF US! Not the sums of what we-Haitians are. Not the majority of Haitian desires, visions and actions. It's not me. It's NOT the Haitians I KNOW.

You write,

[quote]Mais l'expression "faire son respect" veut dire le "construire soi-même."[/quote]

True that. But, mwen fe respe-m. Nou se granmoun. Nou pa timoun. That tiny infantile few in Haiti, who I've named Category Zero are the ones hiding behind school children, a dead cadavers stolen from a family funeral, IRI dollars, USAID dollars, European Union dollars, and the CIA manual coming up with the political impasse strategies they currently are using to keep Haiti from developing a domestic economy and educating future leaders in schools who will STEP-up to their illogic and inhumanity with the patience, compassion and tolerance one must show the deranged and mentally insane.

Avek respe,

Ezili Danto

Corrections: No ratification needed for Haiti's new child protection law, and, Haitian civil rights and other civil rights groups, not the Haitian government (to the best of my knowledge) are the ones demanding that the United States pay reparations for plundering Haiti's national reserves - 1915-1934


One e respe to all;

Please bare with me here. I have a moment now and I'd like to revisit the above-post (entitled "It's our SUCCESS as a people, not our failures that scares") so that there's absolutely NO factual misstatements. I wrote: [quote]That there are about 3 million Haitians living outside of Haiti who CARE deeply about Haitian rights at home and abroad;

Who today send MORE than $800 MILLION dollars to hold up their families and give them more choices;[/quote].

That's true, but it should have been
stated as: $800 million per year.

I wrote:[quote]We may celebrate that the Restavek child-labor law has been repealed and awaits ratification by the next duly elected Parliament. [/quote]
That's wrong. It's law and doesn't need to be ratified.

In addition, I did not mean to indirectly imply there was such a thing as a "Restavek child-labor law" in Haiti - that is - a law that sanctioned the traditional mistreatment of tiny Haitian girls (mostly) and some boys. No, never.

But there is/was (don't have the wording of the new child protection law/admentments in front of me), but there is/was Chapter 9 of the Haitian Labor Code which sanctioned child domestic labor - that is a law allowing for child labor in Haiti. The point is, the amendment/repeal or clarification of Chapter 9 of the Haitian Labor Code is what I was talking about when I
noted achievements Haiti may be proud about.

I have to make this correction though: This new law, passed by Haiti's Legislature, for the protection of Haitian children does not need to be ratified by the next Parliament as I stated in my post. NO. That is only relevant when the Haitian Constitution is being amended. Laws can be amended by the Legislature without need for future ratification to make them legal. Ratification by the NEXT duly elected parliament only applies to the dual citizenship issue, which requires an amendment to the Haitian Constitution.

I don't have the law handy to quote from but, know that, there is a new child domestic labor law, now on the books in Haiti, to protect Haitian children. And, it is one of the accomplishment the Haitian people may celebrate this bicentennial year.

(Anyone interested in more on th
e Restavek issue may see my postings under the Subject topic: "Pou nou koute istwa Ti Sentaniz la" under Ezili Danto post dated Wed Aug 20, 2003, post subject entitled "Ti Sentaniz -the QUINTESSENTIAL Haitian Restavek Story" found at http://www.haitiforever.com/forum/viewt ... ?p=741#741 with references for more posting #720, #721, #722 on the Restavek issue noted therein.)

Thus, the new law clarifying and reforming Haiti's Child domestic labor rules is now LAW in Haiti. Said law is intended to help the Restavek children, and Haitian children, in general, by strengthening some laws of protection already on the books, adding new measures and overall to clarify the nations intentions to protect its children. For instance some practices, such as corporeal punishment in schools have been made illegal. The justice system shall be more involved in t
he protection of children, etc..... I don't have the time right now to look-up the specifics but would be happy to if anyone wishes further clarification.

Finally, I wrote, in the above-post entitled "It's our SUCCESS as a people, not our failures that scares" that:[quote]Truth is, thought its made some unwise choices and failed in many, many areas, the Aristide government is the only ONE to have ever demanded, on behalf of ALL Haitians, that France repay the 21billion debt of independence and that the United States make on behalf of ALL Haitians, that France repay the 21billion debt of independence and that the United States make good the money it plundered from the Haitian national reserves during its 19 years of (1915-1934) of occupation in Haiti. [/quote]

No doubt, the first part of that sentence is factual.

But NO, the current Haitian government has NOT demanded that the United States[/b:0bd524b
2dd] return funds, make reparations for the plunder of the Haitian national reserve. That is an incorrect statement. I should have separated those two sentences and written it as follows, "...The Aristide government is the only ONE to have ever demanded, on behalf of ALL Haitians, that France repay the 21 billion debt of independence. But, there are, today, countless pro-people-empowerment civil rights groups in Haiti and abroad who are pushing for MORE - that is, demanding, as well , that the United States make good the money it plundered from the Haitian national reserves during its 19-years of (1915-1934) of occupation in Haiti.

For a list of some of these civil rights groups and their stated commitments please see press release dated January 3, 2003 attached below in its entirety.

Thank you for your patience.

Ezili Danto

***
Press release from the organizers
of the Solidarity For Haiti 2004 Conference January 3, 2004, Port-au-Prince

On Saturday January 3, 2004 Fondasyon 30 Septanm (Haiti) with the Haiti Action Committee (USA) convened the Solidarity For Haiti 2004 Conference. A group of more than 100 people, from Haiti, Africa, Europe and North America coming from over thirty organizations met to discuss how to support democracy in Haiti, and to fight disinformation about current events in Haiti.

We sons and daughters of Haiti and true friends of Haiti, who came and saw with our own eyes how the vast majority of the Haitian people celebrated the bicentennial with pride, and in peace, declare:

1) Our engagement to work with the people of Haiti to end social exclusion in Haiti;

2) Our commitment to work with the Haitian people to protect their sovereignty, including: a) the right of the Haitian people to elect their own leaders; b) the obligation of foreign diplomats to respect national and international laws (including the 1963 Vienna
Convention) concerning their activities in Haiti; c) the right of the Haitian people to be free from foreign meddling, including financing of groups fomenting violence and social conflict in Haiti;

3) Our commitment to help the Haitian people force the former colonial powers to return funds taken from Haiti (reparations). Especially France, which crippled the Haitian economy with the so-called debt of independence, which Haiti was forced to pay over 100 years (restitution of $21 billion); as well as the United States, which plundered Haiti's national reserves during the nineteen years of occupation (1915-1934).

4) Our commitment to help the Haitian people achieve political stability, and our unequivocal support for the Constitution's 5 year presidential mandate- not one day less, not one day more.

5) Our commitment to help the Haitian people invest in peace and overcome fear, making 2004 a YEAR OF PILGRIMAGE FOR ALL PEOPLE WHO LOVE FREEDOM to come and support Haiti, the Mother of Lib
erty.

---------------------------------
Members of the following groups participated in the Conference

10th Department Organization for Haitian Empowerment (USA/Haiti)
AKASAN: Ayisyen K Ap Soutni Ayisyen Nètalkole (Canada)
Association Jeunes, Ouvriers, Universitaires, et Paysans Haitiens (AJOUPA) (Haiti/USA)
CIJ (Haiti)
Coalition Against Police Abuse (USA)
Collectif Etudiant Haitien (Haiti)
Crowing Rooster Arts (USA)
CSTP/SSH (Haiti)
Confederation des Travailleurs Haitiens (Haiti)
Fanm Viktim Leve Kanpe (Haiti)
Fondasyon 30 Septanm (Haiti)
Federation des Transporteurs Publiques Haitiens (Haiti)
Global Exchange (USA)
Global Justice (USA)
Haiti Solidarity Network (USA)
Haiti Action Committee (USA)
Haiti Progres (USA)
Jaku Konbit (Canada)
KONSA (Haiti)
Let Haiti Live Campaign (Haiti/Canada/USA)
National Lawyer's Guild (USA)
NOTA (Haiti)
Oganizasyon Fanmi Lavalas (Haiti/USA)
Partners in Health (Haiti/USA/Peru)
Pax Christi (
Haiti/USA)
Radio Ginen Dizyèm (Haiti/USA)
Radio Nouveaute de Boston (USA)
Rezo Kominikasyon Pou Avansman Demokrasi (Haiti)
Rezo Intenet Kreyoles (Canada/USA)
SODIMIN (Haiti)
SOPUDEP (Haiti)
Tele-Haiti Diaspo (USA)
Urban Institute for Pro-Active Social Change (USA)
Veye-Yo (USA)

For Authentication:
_______________________
Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
Fondasyon 30 Septanm

*****