Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return

[seemslikeadream]

Haiti Information Project

Cap Haitien, Haiti (HIP) - On the anniversary of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's first electoral landslide in 1990, more than 10,000 Haitians took to the streets of Haiti's second largest city to demand his return and an end to repression against his Lavalas political party. Aristide was ousted last February 29th amid charges he was kidnapped by U.S. Marines and remains a guest of the Republic of South Africa where he resides.


click photo for larger image -
Following earlier negotiations with Chilean troops of the United Nations and the Haitian National Police (PNH), an agreement was reached with organizers to provide security for the peaceful demonstration. One organizer stated, "Although we see the UN and the police allowing us to demonstrate peacefully today for the return of our president in Cap Haitien, we have no illusions that their role could turn repressive once again. Even though we are happy for their cooperation today, we cannot forget it was the same UN that stood by and allowed the police to kill unarmed demonstrators in the capital on September 30th. It is the same UN that has allowed the illegal government of Gerard Latortue to fill the prisons with Lavalas and has allowed the former military to return and kill us."
A huge banner accusing the Group 184 of having orchestrated accusations against Lavalas of mounting a violent campaign called "Operation Baghdad", led the demonstration. Another organizer of today's demonstration who asked not be identified explained, "It was the Group 184 and Apaid who twisted the violence following September 30th into further justifying our extermination. Everyone knows September 30th began as a peaceful protest that degenerated into violence after the UN stood by as police opened fire on the crowd. We, in Lavalas, categorically reject the assertions of Apaid's puppet Jean-Claude Bajeux, a so-called human rights activist, and the international press that there was ever any such campaign by our movement. It was a fabrication that fed the violence to justify our slaughter and we denounce those who use it to portray our movement as gangsters and bandits. Today we reclaim our right to peacefully demonstrate to demand the return of our constitutional President Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

more
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_16_4.html

[Tinoire]

1. Operation Baghdad! How to-the-point!

A huge banner accusing the Group 184 of having orchestrated accusations against Lavalas of mounting a violent campaign called "Operation Baghdad", led the demonstration. Banner translates to: "Operation Baghdad is a plot by Group 184 to put an end to Lavalas. They will Fail!"


UN forces were pre-occupied with protecting private property like this gas station in Cap Haitien. This stands in stark contrast to their support of the US-installed government's theft of property belonging to President Aristide and members of his Lavalas political party. Latortue and his cronies have stolen private residences, radio stations, television stations and other private property throughout Haiti since February 29th. The UN occupies the Popular University facility built by Aristide with private funds to educate and train new doctors and nurses in Haiti in violation of laws protecting private property.

[seemslikeadream]

5. BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html


Let America be America Again


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

...by Langston Hughes

[Chicago Democrat]

2. Bring back Aristide!

[Minstrel Boy]

3. Haiti: Large Peaceful Demonstration for Aristide's Return

More than 10,000 people poured into the streets in Cap Haitian, Haiti's second-largest city, to demand Aristide's return and an end to repression reported the Haiti Information Project (HIP). The December 16 event marked the anniversary of Aristide and Lavalas' first electoral victory in 1990. It was one of the first large demonstrations allowed to be held peacefully since a U.S.-chosen government took power after the February 29th coup de etat.
UN troops publicly guarded businesses' private property from the protesters. Two days before the demonstration, UN and government troops had done nothing while paramilitaries seized Aristide's home.

Moise Jean-Charles, founder of a local peasant movement called Movement of Milot Peasants (MPM) and popular mayor of the town of Milot, quietly joined the crowd to very loud joy as people realized his presence. He has been in hiding since Haitian police and UN troops invaded his home on June 14th. At least 700 political prisoners remain in jail in Haiti, even after the high-profile arrest and release of Father Gerard Jean-Juste.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/12/18/131326/27

[Tinoire]

6. Photo of Moise Jean Charles

Moise Jean-Charles melts into the huge crowd unannounced. Residents react with joy and surprise when they realize he has joined them. Jean-Charles has been in hiding since Haitian police and UN troops invaded his home on June 14th. Jean-Charles is the founder of a local peasant movement called Movement of Milot Peasants (MPM) and the former popular mayor of the town of Milot located below Haiti's most famous tourist attraction, the Citadel.

[w4rma]

4. I hope they're successful. (nt)

[LynnTheDem]

7. bushCartel overthrew a democratically elected government. To spread what?

Not the first time the USA has overthrown another country's democratically elected government, and not likely to be the last.

And Americans wonder why the world hates us...