Montreal Haitians ask Canadians and Québecois(es) for

[XXPANTHAXX]

by Dru Oja Jay

MONTREAL, Dec 11 -- "Latortue assassin, Paul Martin
complice". This easy-to-translate chant was the charge of
choice of a lively group of 100 members of the Montréal
Haitian diaspora--some coming from the Ottawa, Toronto, and
the United States--who staged a lively, loud four hour
protest outside of Montreal's Centre Mont Royal on Saturday.

The occasion was a visit from Haiti's de facto interim Prime
Minister, Gerard Latortue, who was in town to meet with Prime
Minister Paul Martin and ranking Liberal MPs Pierre
Pettigrew, Denis Paradis, and Denis Coderre. According to
Team Martin, Canada has "a very special role to play" in
Haiti's future. Organizers of the event, which was billed as
a meeting with "the Haitian Diaspora" held to the now-common
Liberal line that Canada is in Haiti for the long term,
gathering aid, training judges, and organizing elections.

For the demonstrators outside, however, the focus was on
Canada's complicity in what many observers call the US
sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected government
of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and
former head of Senate Yvon Feuillé are in jail. Most other
party members are in hiding, and many have been murdered. By
contrast, de facto Prime Minister Latortue has claimed
that "there are no poltical prisoners in Haiti", though he
has also publically stated that he will seek to arrest former
President Aristide.

"The government of Canada has invited the illegal
authorities... that they have installed, to talk about the
future of Haiti without involving the Haitian people," said
Jean Saint Vil, of the Haitian Lawyers' Leadership
Network. "The people that are posing as leaders of Haiti are
all unelected, and lack any legitimacy."

Protesters also point out that this view is shared by dozens
of African and Carribean nations which have refused to
recognize Latortue's government. In the United States,
Congresspersons Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee
and others signed a statement condemning Latortue a US
puppet.

One Canadian conference organizer expressed the apparent mood
of those inside: "Aristide left. That's a fact, and we just
have to deal with it."

(Dominion reporters have yet to be allowed to attend a press
conference held by the Federal Government.)

Colonial History, Colonial Present

The protest organizers expressed strong disagreement with the
approach of sending aid to Haiti as a way to fix the
country's problems, calling it "insulting" to the very real
human misery that Haiti faces. Instead of aid, they say, the
only just solution is to cancel the debt run up by
illegitimate US-supported dictators and return the money
stolen outright by the governments of France and the United
States.

"Haiti is poor because we have never had the opportunity to
invest in our infrastructure," said Saint Vil, citing the use
of Haitian labour and resources to enrich foreign powers, but
not Haitians.

In 1825, France forced Haiti to "compensate" former slave and
plantation owners that had been driven out of the country by
the independence movement in return for access to
international markets. To make the first payment, every
school in Haiti was closed. Jean Bertrand Aristide had
mounted a high-profile campaign to force France to pay back
this money, which is now equivalent to $22 billion. "One of
the first acts of that puppet government was to declare that
France doesn't owe Haiti anything anymore," said Saint Vil.

François-Michelet Demas pointed out that the wealth and
democracy of countries like France and the United States was
built with wealth stolen from colonies like Haiti.

"What is needed," said Saint Vil, "is not the hypocrisy that
Paul Martin is promoting," but "tangible reparation and
restitution to Haiti of what our ancestors have fought for,
and our money--the 150 million francs that France collected
is part of that restitution."

Instead of restitution, Saint Vil explained, Latortue and
Martin are putting Haiti further into debt.

"The 'international community' has promised to give $2
billion to the illegal Latortue government. It is not
explained that at least a good billion of that is actually
going to be loans, that Haiti will have to repay. They're
making decisions to further put Haiti into debt, for
generations to come."

The view of the Canadian government stands in stark contrast,
with frequent reference to the "failed state" in Haiti,
the "responsibility" of Canada to intervene, and
the "incompetence and corruption" of Haitian
leadership "since independence".

Need for Solidarity; Lack of Press

"We need the solidarity of Canadians and Québecois(es)," said
Jean-Laurent Nelson. "It's the same planet, we all have the
same problem, and there's one solution: solidarity."

Many organizers identified a similar need for Canadians and
Québecois(es) to understand the situation of the Haitian
people and put pressure on their government accordingly. In
this context, the theme of disinformation was frequently
mentioned.

"People don't know what's going on, because the press is
hiding it from them," said Nelson. "Thousands of cadavres are
showing up every day in Haiti, and nothing is reported."

Demas added: "To have the the solidarity of people in Canada,
they have to be informed; people are kept in total
ignorance." He accused the press of demonizing Aristide in
order to enable his ouster, but now engaging in
the "complicity of silence."

He also pointed out the racial divide in support for
Aristide. "The countries with black people, in Africa and the
Caribbean, are supporting Aristide. France and the United
States, with the colonialist and racist pasts, are going the
other way. Canada, which has not been considered a
colonialist power, has unfortunately decided to follow the
latter two."

Both the racial split, and the lack of media attention were
apparent throughout the day. Of a few hundred protesters,
only a handful had white skin. Though 190 journalists were
invited to the press conference, none came from the
mainstream press, save for a cameraman who stayed only long
enough to get "visuals".

Magalee, who organized the press conference, accused
journalists of not paying attention while atrocities are
happening. "If they had to come here and know how many people
are dying in Haiti right now, they would say 'how come we
didn't know that before'?" She cited the case of Rwanda,
where "there were massacres going on all the time, and we
only heard it at the end."

"There could be a genocide coming on in Haiti, people are
getting killed. A former soldier shot a six year old girl in
Haiti, and everyone knows who he is, but he has not been
arrested."

******

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Dec. 12, 2004. 01:00 AM

Haiti must set aside bitterness, PM says
Canada to contribute $15M for 2005 vote

`Democracy the right' of every Haitian citizen

MIRO CERNETIG
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
Toronto Star

MONTREAL—Canada will contribute $15 million in aid to help
hold elections in Haiti next year, Prime Minister Paul Martin
promised yesterday, affirming his commitment to rebuild the
country.

But he warned Haitians at a conference yesterday in Montreal
they must put aside bitter political divisions and end the
violence that has plagued the impoverished Caribbean nation
for generations.

"Democracy is the right of every Haitian citizen," said
Martin, who was appearing with Haiti's interim Prime Minister
Gérard Latortue. "The election of 2005 must symbolize this
renewed democracy. There is room for everyone in this
undertaking, but in order to succeed, the political parties
and the civil society must set aside the bitter feelings from
the past."

Since becoming Prime Minister, Martin has committed $180
million in Canadian aid to Haiti, which has been devastated
by both political instability and nature. Last February, it
was thrown into chaos by the overthrow of president Jean-
Bertrand Aristide and later the wrath of tropical storm
Jeanne, which in September caused massive flooding on the
near treeless country, killing approximately 2,000 people and
leaving 250,000 people homeless.

Relief aid flowed in from around the world, but Haitians
remain deeply divided about their future. That political
schism is now being played out in Montreal's 100,000-strong
Haitian diaspora, where bickering is still raging over how to
spend aid money and even the merits of Canada's role in
rebuilding Haiti's political and judicial systems.

"The Prime Minister of Canada is going to be wining and
dining and plotting with the illegal prime minister of
Haiti," Jean Saint-Ville, a spokesperson of the Haitian
Lawyers Leadership Network, was quoted yesterday in a local
newspaper. "The idea is to render Haiti so dependent that
whoever comes out of the next fake elections will say, `Yes,
sir' to Ottawa, Paris and Washington."

There is also a dispute amongst Montreal's Haitian community
over how to spend more than $500,000 raised after the
tropical storm's damage.

Asma Heurtelou, a spokesperson for the Organisme d'entraide
Canada Haïtian, was quoted yesterday as saying the money was
still in a bank account and would be used for reforestation —
not for people suffering from the storm.