March 25, 2011, Wake up call, WBAI

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Download audio: Felipe Luciano interview with Ezili Danto and Pierre Labossiere on historic return of Aristide

Beating back the elite’s rabid rage: Against all odds Aristide returns to Haiti

Aristide Returns to Haiti, March 18, 2011 | Photo credit:Alexandre Meneghini / AP

Aristide returned to Haiti today. I’ve not seen such genuine happiness on the faces of Haiti’s poor in over seven years.

Welcome President Jean Bertrand Aristide and family. Today is a good day for the poorest of the poor in the Western Hemisphere. Their struggle and unimaginable sacrifices and sufferings bore fruit and it makes them smile. We thank the universal good for this moment. Blessed be the endless Haiti revolution against the organized tyranny of the “civilized” and “schooled” peoples.

Today, HLLN re-members the blessed Haiti revolution, Janjak Desalin and the indigenous Haiti army of today and yesterday.

On this day of the return, HLLN re-members the sacrifice of the warriors of Site Soley, Bel Air, Solino, Martissant who took up arms in self-defense against the occupation and coup d’etat. We re-MEMBER the most hunted Black man in the Western Hemisphere, who, alone, fought the most powerful armies on earth for two long years before he was assassinated by UN bullets, we remember the lynching and crucifixion of Dred Wilmè.

“On July 6, 2005, Dred Wilmè in his family where assassinated in cold blood by 1,440 heavily armed UN/US troops. With their tanks, helicopters and advanced weapons, 440 UN/US soldiers entered Site Soley in the dead of night (3am) while the community was asleep. One thousand (1000) other UN/US soldiers surrounded Site Soley to make sure no one could leave. Bombs where reported unleashed and dropped on the unarmed civilian community.

According to The Site Soley Massacre Declassification Project the UN fired over 22,000 rounds of ammunition into this thin-shacked, cardboard-house, poverty-stricken Black community of about 450,000 Haitians, most having been forced off their safer rural lands by US/USAID/WB/IMF policies in the 80s and 90s.”

All human beings have the right to life and to self-defense, including the poor in Haiti.

Today, we remember and say honor and respect to our fallen and faceless warriors- the beleaguered poor in Site Soley, Solino, Martissant, Bel-Air, Gran Ravine, et al… – ravaged by exclusion and color-coded NGO charitable distribution and allotments that slews human dignity, brings perpetual dependency. We recall the 20,000 slaughtered by the imposed Bush Boca Raton regime from 2004 to 2006, slaughtered with the complicity of UN/US firepower.

We pay tribute to Father Gerard Jean Juste, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine and all those who gave their life for this day of return of the people’s voice. We pay tribute to the ten thousands unknown Haitians, in Haiti and in the Diaspora, who never wavered.

We lift up Hazel and Randall Robinson for staying true throughout this long road and always, always supporting justice for the people of Haiti against all the odds. We lift up Minister Louis Farrakhan and Danny Glover who stood with the poor majority in Haiti and advocated for the return of Aristide in Haiti when most of the U.S. Black intelligentsia turned away.

Joyfully, people surround Aristide’s car as he leaves the airport. They ran beside him all the way to his house. — Photo: Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste

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We thank all those folks, from all the races and religions, who signed letters and advocated for this return. We pay tribute to all the small Haiti radio programs abroad and in Haiti who stood for justice, Mary at SF Bayview for standing firm and resolute. We remember the unknown fanm vanyans, Haitian women like Alina Sixto who sacrificed so much, for so long without accolades and recognition and who never wavered.

We share this day by lifting up the work and life of our beloved John Maxwell. We pay tribute to the Africans, in Jamaica, in South Africa who stood in solidarity with the people of Haiti despite threats of repercussions from powerful international forces, those who even this week ignored the frantic calls from Barack Obama and the UN’s Ban-Ki Moon to again delay and destroy the will of the people of Haiti. Thank you.

This historic returns belongs to the poor suffering warriors of Haiti and to bless the spirits of those who perished too soon. Indeed it belongs to Haitian men like father Gerard Jean Juste, to all the women community leaders who where singled out and massacred at the USAID/IOM “Summer for Peace” soccer gathering on August 20 and Aug. 21st where Haitian youths were lured to their slaughter while attending a soccer game sponsored by USAID. Haiti’s young were brutally chopped up by UN/US-sanctioned coup detat police squads, working with their Lame Ti Manchet thugs and mercenaries.

This return belongs to Esterne Bruner, assassinated, Sept. 21, 2006 by members of the coup d’etat enforcers, Lame Timanchèt.

Before his death, the courageous Esterne Bruner provide Ezili’s HLLN with the names of the members who committed the Gran Ravine/USAID-soccer -for-peace massacres, the names of the death squad of Lame Ti Manchet. None of these pro-coup detat enforcers have been brought to justice in UN occupied Haiti because they helped demobilize the pro-democracy Lavalas movement.

This return that eases the insult of the bicentennial coup d’etat belongs to the hundreds of Haitians, sealed in containers and dumped off the Coast of Cap Haitian to drown, as US-supported thugs, still roaming Haiti free behind UN protection today, took over the North. It belongs to those forced onto mysterious U.S. ships, off the shores of Haiti, held and tortured in secrecy, some for two years, because they voted Lavalas or held positions in the popular government of President Aristide.

It belongs to Haitian men like Emmanuel Dred Wilmè who never left his people, never even left his neighborhood, he never attacked anyone, he simply defended his community from attack from the coup detat overseers, from UN and US guns and sycophants who hired thugs, like Labanye, to kill innocent civilians simply because they voted for Jean Bertrand Aristide and advocated for their country’s own domestic interests as opposed to the interests of the internationals, their Haiti billionaire oligarchy and poverty pimping USAID-NGO subcontractors.

There will always be more Dred Wilmés, more Father Jean Juste, more Lovinsky Pierre Antoines, more Esterne Bruners in Haiti as long as there is misery and exclusion imposed on Haiti by the powerful nations.

Most of all today, we say honor and respect to the Ezili HLLNetwork members, of all the races and nationalities, a 10 thousand strong network against the profit-over-people folks, reaching three million per post, and on our blogs, who stood with the voiceless and disenfranchised in Haiti for these last seven years against all the odds, against all the naysayers.

This historic moment belongs to all of you who stood with the indigenous Haitians at HLLN who work to make a space for Haiti’s authentic voices without Officialdom’s approval. It’s a harsh journey.

It could have been a six-hour trip to Brazil and then just a few hours to Haiti. But it took 18 hours because the “benevolent internationals” interested in our “democracy and stability” wouldn’t allow former president Aristide, the symbol of the poor’s empowerment in Black Haiti, to travel through their territories.

It took 18 hours for Aristide to reach Haiti. Going from South Africa to Northern Africa in Senegal took 10 hours, while from Senegal to Haiti took another eight hours. I hear England wouldn’t allow a landing either.

That long, long road is symbolic of the Haitian struggle. That long road Ezili’s HLLN has shared with you and with your support and forbearance. Unlike colonial celebritism with Sean Penn, no one will give us accolades for a mere six months journey in Haiti. Ours is a centuries-long journey. We overstand. The struggle continues.

A new era begins for us here at HLLN. We ask you help us define it. For we know the empire will strike back. We expect it and thus avoid the surprise blow. As usual, we shall take the road less traveled towards healing Haiti’s poor majority with dignity, human rights, self-sufficiency, justice and inclusion. We won’t sell out. Haiti and indigenous Haitians want justice not charity, not Clinton/Farmer UN/US paternalism. It’s a desperately humiliating, bumpy, wholly disemboweling, wholly healing and fulfilling ride. Against all odds, Ginen poze. Kenbe la – hold on. (See, Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti by Ezili Dantò and Avatar Haiti.)

Pierre Labossierre, Alina Sixto, Lavarice Gaudin, Jafrikayiti, Guy Antoine, Harry Fouche, Fritz Pean, Yves Point Du Jour, Jean Ristil Jean Baptise and too many others to name, congratulations on this day. Only we know what we’ve withstood in helping to overcome not one but two Bush coup d’etats on the poor majority in Haiti.

Sometimes the fierce guilt of surviving, the endless stretch ahead, the soul and psychic wounds wrought on by the shame and humiliation of powerlessness and lack of material resources to do more, are too heavy a load. It’s too ugly and desperate to articulate the bullying and blows metered out by the most educated, most wealthy and most powerful on the most defenseless and non-violent people on earth.

Their collective suffering and deaths shall not be in vain. Justice will prevail, beauty will win, eventually. If not in our lifetime, then in the next. We are the Haitians, the indigenous Haitians. From generation to generation, from the womb to the tomb, our lives are about struggle. Today, for a moment, we’ll smile through the sorrow because in this shining and eternal moment that must see us through what will come at us next, we anti-Duvalierist-Haitians managed to survive whole with dignity and to witness that against all odds, we beat back the elite’s rabid rage.

Ayibobo!

The Haitian resistance against the Western bicentennial re-colonization of Haiti lives on.

Ezili Dantò
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
March 18, 2011

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Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
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Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti: Demand Justice not Gestures

http://bit.ly/gbIETL

Video: Aristide Returning Speech In Haiti

3/18/2011

Aljazeera Video: Aristide returns to Haiti

Demand Justice not Gestures

by Ezili Dantò of HLLN, March 17, 2011

Reportedly, President Aristide is on a plane right now, as of this Thursday, March 17th noon, supposedly “going to Haiti”. He is expected to arrive at night or should I say, “into darkness”… into the valley of death where the shadows of Youri Latortue, Louis Jodel Chamblain, Guy Philippe, Lame Timanchet are all set, on behalf of Manigat, to make war with Martelly’s Ninjas (Haiti Billionaires’) camp on Sunday at the Hillary/Bill/OAS/Obama run-off.

Keep vigilant for the carnival of violence will be blamed on Lavalas and Aristide. No doubt about this, the chest board is set. The perpetrators will be seen as the peacemakers along with those in white trucks (horse?) justifying over $860million per year for their presence in Haiti.

A larger game, in which we anti-Duvalierists Haitians are pawns, is playing out. Supposedly, Obama and Ban Ki Moon called Zuma to ask the South African president to delay the flight. Zuma said he would not. What’s the outcome, an assassination where Obama points to his efforts at stopping the return before the fraudulent US selections in Haiti take place? Who knows, but this effort is the work of unseen hands? Perhaps the universal good will turn their plans around??? As of now at Ezili’s HLLN we see the liberators, Haiti’s peoples, as mere CONSUMERS of this orchestrated “return.” Not a good empowering position at all. Stay tune.

We continue to demand the return of a live President Aristide, the annulment of these US/Hillary Clinton fraudulently imposed selections, oversight on the pillage of Haiti by USAID subcontractors, the Haiti Billionaires (Oligarchy) and their global corporatocracy and an end to the UN occupation. The assets of Haiti – its oil, natural gas, iridium, copper, gold, uranium, underwater treasures and lands MUST be used to elevate the standards of living of Haitians, not foreigners and their Haiti Billionaires (Oligarchy) and NGOs. Haiti must invest its assets and labor in domestic manufacturing, production, distribution and jobs, in justice, not charity. In the rule of law, not apartheid, or Obama’s fraudulent Nov 28 elections where only 23% voted and of that many thousands upon thousands were dead earthquake victims. (Martelly and Manigat, the two candidates for Hillary/OAS’s Sunday run-offs received just 10% of the first-round fraudulent votes between them.)

This election without an electorate is not DEMOCRACY but a return to disenfranchisement of the people of Haiti. Neither FRAPH death squad ally and coup d’etat supporter/Duvalierist/porn king Michel Martelly, nor Duvalierist Mirlande Manigat are progress but repugnant buffoonery imposed by an opportunistic foreign crew with their Patrick Gaspard/Wyclef Jean/NOAH clueless Diaspora opportunists looking for approval, position and jobs in an inhumane, uncivil, apartheid and non-inclusive Bill Clinton/UN status quo in Haiti. None have taken positions on the fleecing of Haiti by USAID subcontracting poverty-pimping NGOs, their betrayal of US donor trust or on the massive degradation mining for iridium, gold, copper, uranium, limestone and drilling in Haiti waters and mountains by foreign companies since Bush regime change 2004 have caused to Haiti’s fragile environment or taken any position on the UN-imported cholera that’s infected over 200,000 already wounded Haitians.

If Aristide had been in Haiti, he would have taken a position on these issues. This is why he was exiled. This return, at a time when the Duvalierists have the “success” they’ve been wanting and are about to put an “election” façade on it, is the work of the puppet-masters. At HLLN we remain vigilant and anticipate the continued denial of the people’s voice, if not symbol. But nou pap bay legen. For every fallen warrior like Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, a thousand will rise until Haiti has given life to the legacy.

For Immediate Release: February 24, 2011
Contact: Walter Riley , ( 510 ) 451-1422

Prominent Anti-Apartheid Movement Veterans Call on South African Government to Assist Aristide in Returning to Haiti Now

Oakland , CA – Several prominent figures from the International Anti-Apartheid movement have sent South African President Jacob Zuma an open letter “in the hopes that [President Zuma] can assist” former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family in returning to Haiti “as soon as possible.” Signers include Randall Robinson, the founder of Trans Africa Forum; the Reverend Jesse Jackson; actor and activist Danny Glover ; British MP John McDonnell; activist and comedian Dick Gregory (who was outspoken against the apartheid regime), Jack Healey, founder and director of the Human Rights Action Center, Jack Heyman of the San Francisco International Longshore and Warehouse Union (which famously refused to unload ships carrying goods from apartheid South Africa in the 1980′s), and Selma James, the widow of famed writer C. L. R. James, author of one of the most influential books on Haiti’s revolution, The Black Jacobins.

The letter expresses gratitude to the South African government, and people of South Africa, for hosting the Aristides. “We also heartily support the efforts of the South African government to assist President Aristide and his family in quickly returning home,” the signers state, noting that “Any delays to the Aristides’ prompt travel to Haiti would be yet another disappointment to a people that have already experienced a long list of tragedies, disasters, and heartbreak.”

The full letter follows:

February 24, 2011

Dear President Zuma,

We write to offer our warm thanks and appreciation for the gracious generosity and historic hospitality that the South African government and the South African people have offered to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family over the past seven years.

South Africa’s action in offering a home to the Aristides following the coup d’état in 2004 was an act of brotherhood in keeping with the many acts of international solidarity shown towards the people of South Africa during their long walk to freedom. This deed will be remembered by the people of Haiti and the world.

Now, at last, the Aristides can return to Haiti , and their exile can end. Finally, all signs now point in that direction. President Aristide has again indicated his desire to return home and assist the people of Haiti . He has said he is ready to go at any time, and his passport has been renewed. All the last remaining obstacles to the Aristides’ return have been removed. Expectations in Haiti have been raised, and many eagerly look forward to his return. The Aristides’ arrival in Haiti will raise the spirits of the Haitian people at the time when they most need it.

We write in the hopes that you can assist the Aristides in making their transition as soon as possible. The situation in Haiti remains dire, and the Aristides have expressed their willingness to help Haiti rebuild, through education initiatives and in other desperately-needed areas. Many people in Haiti have been greatly inspired by the news of the issuance of President Aristide’s passport – some even traveling miles to the airport to greet his return, spurred on by false rumors of his imminent arrival. Any delays to the Aristides’ prompt travel to Haiti would be yet another disappointment to a people that have already experienced a long list of tragedies, disasters, and heartbreak.

As long-time supporters of freedom and justice in both South Africa and Haiti , we again extend our gratitude for the important role that South Africa has played in hosting the Aristides. We also heartily support the efforts of the South African government to assist President Aristide and his family in quickly returning home. And we hope to see President Aristide in Haiti very soon.

Sincerely,

Danny Glover , Actor/Activist
Reverend Jesse Jackson
Randall Robinson, Author
Andaiye , International Coordinator, Red Thread, Guyana
Reverend Dr. Lorenzo Carlisle, Pastor, Oakland, CA
Nesbit Crutchfield, Bay Area Free South Africa Movement
James Early, Board Member, TransAfrica Forum
Byron Rushing, Massachusetts State Representative
Dick Gregory, Social Activist/Comedian
Jack Healey, Founder and Director of Human Rights Action Center
Jack Heyman, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Local 10, San Francisco , CA
Selma James, Global Women’s Strike, UK
John McDonnell, Member of Parliament, UK
Margaret Prescod , Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike
Walter Riley , Co-Chair John George Democratic Club , Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

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Haiti: Lawyer Letter asking for action to help return of Aristide

Letter from Kurzban to Marie-Michele Rey, Haiti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking for action to help return President Aristide