HAITI: EMERGENCY RELIEF FUNDS NEEDED

For the 2nd time in 2004, Haiti has been devastated by hurricanes, killing
thousands of poor Haitians, leaving homeless and destitute thousands more.
These 'disasters' come on top of the February 2004 coup that toppled the
elected government of Haiti, replacing it with a regime that is not
defending even the most basic survival needs of the Haitian population.

Rights Action asks for tax-charitable donations (in the USA and Canada). We
are channeling your funds to locally based development and human rights
groups that are:

-A- giving immediate humanitarian relief (food, medical attention, shelter)
to the homeless and destitute, and
-B- working, with a community-controlled "development" vision, to re-build
communities and towns from the grassroots level up.

BELOW
- Miami Herald information
- Summary of two community-based organizations we are supporting
- An article about Haiti and the hurricanes

TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Make check payable to "Rights Action" (writing "Haiti Fund" on the memo
line) and mail to:

United States: 1830 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington DC, 20009.
Canada: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0.

Donate by Internet in the USA: www.rightsaction.org. CFC # 9914.

To wire donations to Rights Action bank accounts in the USA and Canada,
contact: info@rightsaction.org, 416-654-2074.

Thank-you. Grahame Russell, co-director Rights Action

===

AFTER THE FLOODS HAITIANS SCRAMBLE FOR HELP
[Susannah Nesmith and Michael Ottey, Miami Herald, September 24, 2004]

... At least 1,113 people have been confirmed dead and 1,251 remained
missing, mostly in the port city of Gonaives, at the foot of the ring of
mountains that hold those villages. U.N. peacekeepers won't be able to fly
helicopters into those towns to deliver aid until Saturday, said one
official with the 3,000-strong force.

... In Gonaives, the trail of orphaned, homeless and hungry Haitians left by
Hurricane Jeanne huddled under tarps and scrambled for food Thursday as
relief workers warned of epidemics from floodwaters made fetid by the bodies
of human and animal victims. ''We have critical concerns over epidemics,
because there are bodies still in the flooded streets and people are
drinking the dirty water,'' said Francoise Gruloos, the Haiti office's
director for the U.N. Children's Fund. About 30,000 children under the age
of 5 also have been affected, some of them orphaned when Jeanne killed their
parents and many of their siblings, Gruloos added.

... New mass graves were dug at a Gonaives to dispose of the stacks of
bloated bodies that have accumulated in the city's three morgues. But
relief officials said their prime concern was delivering food and potable
water to about 300,000 Haitians who have had little of either in the past
five days.

... Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in a February revolt,
issued a statement from exile in South Africa mourning the deaths in the
Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. [In May 2004], flash floods left
nearly 1,600 dead and 1,800 missing along the Haitian-Dominican Republic
border. And more than 80 were killed in the revolt against Aristide.
''Condolences and courage to an entire nation that has seen much pain and
suffering in this tumultuous bicentennial year,'' Aristide said. ``We
continue to stand in solidarity with all Haitians who suffer.''

===

ORGANIZATION RIGHTS ACTION IS SUPPORTING

SOMA -- Sosyete Makaya

SOMA was founded in 1992. SOMA is a community-based group that focuses on
the most marginalized groups in Haiti - women, youth, and the poor in rural
and urban areas. SOMA is based in Haiti's fourth largest city, Jacmel, on
the Southern coast. The majority of poor Haitians live as subsistence
farmers. SOMA supports participatory local and national governance, a
stable and redistributive economy, and respect for the human rights of all
Haitians.

In the wake of the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat, SOMA has observed
increased repression and growing exclusion in Haiti's social and political
spectrums. As elections loom at the end of 2005, the already marginalized
rural poor are the most vulnerable to exclusion. In response, SOMA has
launched a national, popular education campaign to promote a participatory
and repression-free democratic processes and locally controlled development
models and projects.

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FUND
SOMA provided reconstruction supplies and equipment after Hurricane Gordon
in the mid-1990s, and after the May 2004 floods. SOMA is now providing
emergency relief in response to the September 2004 hurricane Jeanne. SOMA's
extensive network of community leaders and activists enable it to provide
short-term economic relief for families in need of the basics: food, water
and shelter.

Rights Action will transfer funds raised directly to SOMA.

===

ORGANIZATION RIGHTS ACTION IS SUPPORTING

GONAIVES HURRICANE RELIEF

Hurricane Jeanne hit Haiti hard this week, especially the city of Gonaives,
population 250,000, situated on low-lying land on the coast. Torrential
rains caused the water to rise ten feet high at street level in many areas,
enough to cover the majority of the city's houses (mostly weakly structured
huts). The number of confirmed dead is 1,200, as of Thursday September 23,
and is climbing. Thousands more are missing, six days later, and 200,000
are reported homeless. The one hospital is knee-deep in mud.

The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) is a group of lawyers in Haiti
that provides legal assistance to victims of human rights violations. The
BAI is part of the US-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
(IJDH, www.ijdh.org). One of their well-known cases -- the Raboteau
Massacre trial -- took place in Gonaives, and the BAI works closely with the
Raboteau Massacre Victims' Association (RMVA).

Raboteau is perhaps the most vulnerable neighborhood of Gonaives: low enough
to flood even in a light rain, and right on the Caribbean shore. Most
houses in Raboteau are poorly constructed, even by Haitian standards. The
flooding killed many in Raboteau; almost everyone else lost all possessions.
The hurricane is the latest incident in a very bad year for the poor Haitian
majority and for the people of Raboteau.

Rights Action will transfer funds raised directly to the BAI for RMVA
members who survived this catastrophe, and for the families of those who did
not survive.

===

UNNATURAL DISASTER RAVAGES HAITI
(HAITI PROGRES, September 22-28, 2004, edited slightly by Rights Action)

Floods and mudslides killed over 1000 people this past weekend in North and
Northwest Haiti as Tropical Storm Jeanne brushed by the nation on September
18. Tens of thousands are left homeless and destitute, their shops,
livestock and crops swept away.

The cities of Gonaïves and Port-de-Paix, as well as smaller towns like Gros
Morne and Chansolme, were particularly hard hit when rivers overflowed their
banks. The death toll is sure to rise by hundreds in coming days as
authorities begin to count those killed in the teeming countryside's
hamlets, where medical and rescue crews have yet to arrive.

And the worst is yet to come. As the muddy, stagnant floodwaters recede,
they will leave behind sewage, corpses and a host of diseases such as
cholera, malaria and dengue fever. These after-effects will be less noticed
but more lethal.

Floods washed away entire towns and killed some 3000 in southeastern Haiti
last May, capturing world attention and sympathy. Today, many can only wring
their hands and shake their heads at what they think is Nature's wrath and
Haiti's bad luck.

But, in reality, the devastation wrought on Haiti is anything but natural
and chance. It is the inevitable result of the political and "development"
policies set down by Haiti's local and international ruling groups over the
past 200 years.

Mistaking a symptom for the cause, mainstream analysts have pointed to
deforestation of Haiti's mountains as the culprit, saying implicitly or
explicitly that ignorant campesinos are to blame for cutting down trees to
make charbon, the cooking charcoal used in the cities. This simplification
distorts historical and current realities.

First, the original forests that once carpeted the island and prompted
Columbus to name it Hispaniola "Little Spain" were razed in the 17th and
18th centuries by French imperialists to fuel the slave-labor sugar mills.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of acres of precious wood,
principally mahogany, were cut down to satisfy foreign appetites for
furniture and tourist carvings.

In the past 30 years, Haiti's deforestation has accelerated even faster, as
hundreds of thousands of Haitian peasants have been forced into the cities.
Most were forced to flee their small plots because Haitian governments have
implemented "free" trade development policies demanded by global
institutions (IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank) and the
three rich countries (USA, France and Canada) that most intervene in Haitian
affairs: -1- to lower tariff barriers to allow cheaper foreign products,
like agribusiness-produced U.S. rice or Dominican plantains, to muscle out
Haitian farmers growing those foods; and -2- to grow cash crops like coffee,
sugar and cocoa. The same advice was given to every other exploited country
in the global south, resulting in a worldwide glut and price collapse for
such crops.

In some countries, peasants remaining on the land have turned to growing
more profitable crops like drug-producing coca or poppies. In Haiti, they
have turned to charbon.

Peasants use wood to cook. The internally displaced refugees in Haiti's
sprawling slums, devoid of any Government services or infrastructure, rely
on lighter-weight charbon. But charcoal provides about half the energy of
wood. So what a rural family cooks with one tree requires two in the
mushrooming cities.

Haiti's political and economic elites, in concert with the rich foreign
governments and global "development" institutions, has capitalized on the
giant urban labor pool to set up industrial parks of sweatshops paying
pennies a day to assemble everything from baseballs and brassieres to
high-heels and calculators for export.

They have appropriated Haiti's principal dam at Peligre, to produce
hydroelectric power for their factories rather than to provide irrigation
and flood control (its original purpose) to the now flooded Artibonite
Valley.

The February 29th kidnapping and exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
by U.S. Marines (with the support of France and Canada) has made matters
worse. The government of de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue has proven
unable to provide any concrete response to this week's flooding, just as it
provided none to the floods in May. All it has done is decree three days of
mourning and that flags be flown at half mast ... and begged for foreign
aid. At the 57th U.N. General Assembly in New York, de facto President
Boniface Alexandre appealed for the "solidarity of the international
community" saying the country faced the "grave situation of a humanitarian
catastrophe." The European Union is sending $1.8 million in aid, while
Venezuela is sending $1 million along with food, water, tents and rescue
workers. Washington has anted up a mere $60,000.

One has only to look at the preventive measures taken by neighboring Cuba to
see what difference a political system and development model makes. In late
2002 in the space of 11 days, Cuba was directly hit by two hurricanes -
Isidore and Lili. Although there was great property damage, only one person
died as the result of a landslide. Over a million people were evacuated
during the storms, with 77,000 housed in shelters.

Although Haiti was not directly hit by any of the monstrous storms
crisscrossing the Caribbean during this greenhouse-gas fueled hurricane
season, it has had the region's highest death toll. While it might not have
matched Cuba's pro-active preparations, Haiti's deposed government surely
would have been better able to respond to this year's disasters, if only
because it enjoyed popular support, participation and enthusiasm.

Haiti's rain-induced floods are devastating because the country has been
already ravaged by a flood of cheap imports, weakened by coups and despair,
and neglected by a greedy bourgeoisie intent only on its own enrichment, not
its compatriots' welfare.

[All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED. Please
credit Haiti Progres.]

===
Please re-distribute this information far and wide. If you want on-off this
elist: info@rightsaction.org
===

June, 2004 Haiti Report from Quixote Center -

HAITI REPORT for June 29, 2004

[Prepared by Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center: e: Haitireport@haitireborn.org
<mailto:Haitireport@haitireborn.org>, w: <http://www.haitireborn.org>, and
and re-distributed by Rights Action. If you want on/ off this elist:
info@rightsaction.org]

The Haiti Report is a compilation and summary of events as described in
Haitian and international media. It does not reflect the opinions of Haiti
Reborn. This service is intended to give a better understanding of the
situation in Haiti by presenting the reader with reports that provide a
variety of perspectives on the situation.

JUNE 18TH DEMONSTRATION
15,000 opponents of the Feb. 29th coup d'etat marched through the street on
Friday, June 18th to denounce the foreign occupation. Partisans of former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide poured from Haiti's slums and demonstrated
peacefully in Port-au-Prince on Friday in support of the man they still
consider their elected leader. Under the watchful eye of several dozen U.S.
Marines and Haitian riot police, more than 5,000 Aristide supporters accused
the Bush administration of kidnapping Aristide and called on Washington to
return him to Haiti. Aristide has said repeatedly that he was abducted at
gunpoint by U.S. security agents and forced to board a plane to the Central
African Republic against his will on Feb. 29, charges that the United States
has denied. The Bush administration has said Aristide resigned voluntarily
as rebels approached Haiti's capital. (Haiti Progres)

THE ABU GHRAIB AND HAITI PRISON CONNECTION
Terry Stewart, the former director of Arizona's prison system, has been sent
to Haiti to reform Haiti's prison system. Mr. Stewart was a U.S. prison
consultant sent last year to "reform" Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, now known
for the disgraceful torture of Iraqi detainees.

Terry Stewart is the former director of Arizona's prison system. During
Terry's tenure (1995-2002), the U.S. Justice Department repeatedly
scrutinized and sued the state's Department of Corrections, alleging abuse,
particularly of women. A 1997 DOJ suit charged that male prison guards
raped, sodomized and assaulted 14 women. Female inmates were made to shower
while male guards watched. Although Terry Stewart was not convicted,
Arizona agreed to change its prison policies.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called Terry's "shocking record of tolerated
prison abuse" into question last week. In a Jun. 2 letter to the DOJ's
Inspector General, Schumer asked how Stewart "with a troubling history in
the United States' corrections system" was selected to oversee the
reconstitution of Iraq's prison system, along with three other controversial
appointees. (Haiti Progres)

EPIDEMICS THREATEN FLOOD VICTIMS IN MAPOU
Doctors are fighting to prevent multiple epidemics that threaten survivors
from the drowned Haitian town of Mapou, one of the worst-hit flood areas
that killed about 2,600 people three weeks ago. A small team of doctors
from Cuba and from the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders are fighting
outbreaks of mosquito-borne fevers like malaria and dengue in Mapou, which
is still under water following the May 24 floods. (Reuters)

LEVIS CLOTHING SUPPLIER COMPANY GRUPO M CONTINUES UNION-BUSTING IN
OUANAMINTHE
Grupo M has ducked Sokowa's, the local Haitian union, efforts to address a
series of grievances. Grupo M, a Dominican Republic-based company, has
precipitated a strike, organized a lock-out of the workforce, and has fired
more than half of its employees at the Ouanaminthe plant, which manufactures
jeans for Levis. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions is
protesting against another attempt at union-busting on the part of one of
the biggest textile companies in the Caribbean, by calling on the World Bank
to intercede in favor of the laid off Haitian workers.

The plant in question was built using a $20-million loan form the
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private-sector
lending agency.

A one-day strike on Monday June 7th ended in an agreement between Grupo M
and Sokowa for a return to work and the start of negotiations to address
workers grievances. The following day Grupo M locked out the workforce and
announced by letter the closure of their jeans factory in Ouanaminthe. On
the Wednesday, the letter was partially rescinded, and the company restarted
production, but on Friday, in another apparent U-turn, it was announced that
the firm was laying off 254 workers. However, according to the Sokowa
union, 370 workers (about 60% of the workforce) have been sacked.

According to information received by the ITGLWF, Grupo M CEO Fernando
Capellan started threatening to fire factory workers as early as June 3,
saying that the factory was suffering several million dollars in losses
because of lack of productivity. The same day managers summoned four women
workers into what is called the 'dark room,' locked the door and posted
Dominican guards outside. Under the threat of weapons, the women endured a
police-style interrogation. Their factory badges and work shirts were
ripped off of them, leaving the women topless. After they had been in the
room for nearly two hours, their co-workers grew worried and started to
approach the room, shouting for the workers to be let out. The guards
posted outside the room summoned back up. A truck full of guards arrived.
The guards aimed their weapons at the workers, ordering them to back off
behind a line traced on the ground with a rifle. A four-month pregnant
woman was thrown to the floor, in a pool of mud, her dress torn. (ICFTU
Online)

FRENCH AND UN TROOPS INVADE THE MAYOR OF MILOT'S HOME
On Monday June 14, a contingent of French soldiers along with some U.N.
"blue helmets" invaded the home of Mayor Jean Charles Moise of Milot.
Eyewitnesses report that a heavily armed convoy of two big trucks, 10 cars,
two ambulances and about 80 soldiers descended on the Mayor's residence.
The mayor's four children, ages 3 to 9, were at home asleep at the time of
the traumatizing dead-of-night French/U.N. home invasion. According to
sources close to Mayor Moise, on finding that he was not home, the soldiers
arrested his wife and took her into custody, possibly along with other
adults in his house, leaving his small children without their mother. (San
Francisco Bay View)

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT BLAMES U.S. AND HAITIAN GOVERNMENT FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES
Amnesty International said that Haiti is rife with human rights abuses and
the Interim Haitian and U.S. governments are to blame. Despite the presence
of the Multi-International Force, a large number of armed groups have
continued to be active throughout the country and to abuse human rights said
the report, written after a 15-day fact-finding mission to Haiti. The
interim government has swiftly moved to arrest members of former President
Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party suspected of acts of political violence or
corruption. However, they have not acted with the same commitment against
accused or convicted perpetrators of grave human rights violations, some of
whom played a prominent role in the recent insurgency. The report specially
criticized U.S. Marines in Haiti for what it called questionable shootings
of Haitians. At least six Haitians were shot dead by U.S. troops March 7-12
in the capitol city of Port-au-Prince. (Michael A.W. Ottey, Miami Herald)

US CITIZEN CASSEY AUGUSTE, 22, MURDERED IN HAITI
Casssey Auguste was a 22-year-old American citizen who was killed at 2 p.m.
on March 3 in Pont Sonde, about two hours north of Port-au-Prince.
Auguste's mother had lived in Brooklyn, NY but returned to Haiti to open a
small bar and market in Pont Sonde. Cassey decided to move to Pont Sonde
permanently.

The day before the murders, several cars drove through the town, drivers
warning, "The next day, we will come and kill." On the day of the murders,
the cars returned. At the open market, people were told to stay in their
seats, because "We know who we want." The store, which served as a bar and
disco, was frequented by Lavalas supporters in the area.

The next several men armed with weapons went into the store and dragged
Cassey and Extanus out onto the street. Luc Fabian, who was well known to
the family, shot Cassey on the street. Luc Fabian recently joined the
Gonaives Resistance Front, a group headed by Guy Phillipe, headquartered in
Gonaives. The local leaders of the GRF are known as Butter Metayer and
Wynter Tienne. The group is violently opposed to Aristide and Lavalas.

The family did not know why Cassey and Extanus were targeted but had several
thoughts. Although neither Cassey, Extanus nor the Michaud family were
active politically, the bar was frequented by supporters of Lavalas. Both
young men wore their hair in dreadlocks, which is, to some, a sign of
political affiliation with Lavalas. The family also suspects Luc Fabian
murdered the two young men to prove his allegiance and value to the Gonaives
Resistance Front or as an initiation rite. There is some feeling that
Fabian acted without the sanction of those higher up in the organization,
and, in fact, some of the men at the scene told Luc not to shoot Cassey and
his friend and apologized to the family. (San Francisco Bay View)

LOUIS JODEL CHAMBLAIN
While Ann Auguste, a 65 year-old grandmother and Aristide supporter, remains
under lock and key at a prison in Port-au-Prince, Louis Jodel Chamblain, a
convicted human rights abuser, was seen moving about the prison freely by
Kevin Pina. Pina even noted that Chamblain assumed administrative duties in
the prison. (Haiti Progres)

Yvonne Neptune, Haiti's Former Prime Minister, Arrested
Yvon Neptune, Haiti's former prime minister who refused to leave his
homeland in the wake of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's departure,
came out of hiding Sunday to turn himself in to Haitian authorities. He is
accused of organizing and ordering the killing of Aristide opponents in the
port city of St. Marc, 60 miles north of the capital of Port-au-Prince, in
February.

The U.S. Embassy, while condemning the St. Marc massacre, which took place
at the height of Haiti's violent rebellions, recognized that Neptune helped
facilitate the transition. It has asked the government to come to a quick
resolution to its inquiry. Aristide supporters were livid at the news
Sunday. ''It is a pity that in the 21st century we still have such pain like
we have in Haiti right now,'' said Jonas Petit, a spokesman for Aristide's
Lavalas Family who was among several party officials and supporters who fled
to the United States following Aristide's Feb. 29 ouster.

`It's a pity the international community doesn't react to this thing. We are
in America. Haiti is in the Americas.'' The New York-based Haitian Lawyers
Leadership also denounced Neptune's arrest and what it calls ``the
repression of Lavalas supporters by the business elites, their death squads,
reconstituted army officers.''

In several interviews with The Herald following Aristide's departure,
Neptune insisted that he would not leave Haiti despite fears for his safety.
In his final days in office, he was under 24-hour protection. He was later
barred from leaving the country by the interim government.

Neptune is now the highest-ranking official from Aristide's government to be
arrested. In April, Haitian authorities arrested Aristide's interior
minister, Jocelerme Privert, and charged him with conspiring to kill
Aristide opponents in St. Marc. Aristide opponents say that during the
height of the armed rebellion that helped toppled Aristide, his supporters
killed about 50 opponents in a massacre on Feb. 11 in La Syrie, a village
near St. Marc. However, there have been conflicting reports about just how
many people were killed, and independent observers were able to find only
five bodies. (Miami Herald)

MAXINE WATERS DENOUNCES THE ARREST OF YVONNE NEPTUNE
On Capitol Hill today, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) denounced the arrest of
Yvon Neptune, the wrongfully-replaced Prime Minister of Haiti, and demanded
the arrest and prosecution of the thugs and killers who have taken over
Haitian cities. Yvon Neptune was detained yesterday by Haitian police in
Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. "Yvon Neptune is still the legitimate
Prime Minister of Haiti, and his arrest is part of a politically-motivated
campaign to arrest and intimidate members of Lavalas, President Aristide's
political party," said Congresswoman Waters. "The people who were
responsible for President Aristide's ouster are now determined to destroy
the political movement he led." (House Press Release)

===

TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS

To support the Haiti Emergency Fund, make check payable to "Rights Action"
(writing "Haiti Fund" on the memo line), and mail to:

UNITED STATES: 1830 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington DC, 20009
CANADA: 509 St. Clair Ave W, box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0

- donate on-line in the USA: www.rightsaction.org
- CFC # 9914
- for direct donations into Rights Action bank accounts in the USA and
Canada, contact: info@rightsaction.org <mailto:info@rightsaction.org>,
416-654-2074.