Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

The last remaining Tongva/Gabrielino cemetary in LA County is being excavated and moved to make room for a creek, that, in turn, is being diverted to allow the development of Playa Vista, the infamous housing development on the Ballona Wetlands near Playa del Rey.

The archeologists and a crew of 70 people are removing human remains and putting them into boxes, and shipping them to UCSB for later "study." The grave goods and funerary objects are put in other boxes to be "studied" in other places. Separating these remains from funerary objects is illegal. Over 120 graves have been found, and the number keeps increasing.

The State Historic Preservation Officer has the power to stop the excavation and development, but has thus far remained silent. Weekly vigils at the site are held from 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. at the Loyola Marymount University entrance, at Lincoln and 83rd St. Another vigil is held from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the corner of Bienvenida and Mountain Shadow.

• Respect for the Tongva, a great article about the situation, and some activist history, by Tom Politeo
• Tongva Tribe Homepage
• Native American Sacred Sites Task Force

Numerous reports are coming out that the US was involved in the coup of Aristide. According to these reports, and the ZNet backgrounder referenced before, this could possibly a business-motivated coup supported by the US, and not a bourgeois uprising against failed social policies.

• Coup in Haiti! by witness
• He was forced out at gunpoint by US soldiers by Cheryl
• Houskeeper reports a repost
• US Troops "made Aristide leave" by mcbi (reposting Agence Presse)

The biggest question is why the American liberal establishment goes along with the right-wing Republicans in this - and why even most of the vanishing "left" in the U.S. is either silent or wrings its hands at Aristide's failures. An incredibly effective disinformation campaign in almost all U.S. media is probably the answer: Aristide has been constructed as a tyrant, and hence all opposition to him is justified. Amy Willenz' piece this week in the New York Times is the latest illustration of this. Willenz, who documented the U.S. game since Duvalier in The Rainy Season, reasons that Aristide has betrayed the Haitian people who brought him to power in the first place. To a great extent she is right because Aristide was playing his own "double game" - seeking to keep some shreds of his original platform to bring dignity and equity to Haiti's poor, while having to capitulate to U.S. demands for privatization and structural adjustment in order to hold on to power. Like Powell, Willenz, too, rejects violent regime change. But like Powell, reading between her lines one gets the clear warning. He must go voluntarily, or he will be pushed - no matter what the cost in Haitian lives, and no matter what the Haitian people want. -- From Tom Reeves' article (linked).

Search the Newswire for "Haiti".

2004 is the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. 2004 marks, on the one hand, the bicentenary of the proclamation of the first black state, Haiti, symbol of the struggle and resistance of slaves, and triumph of the principles of liberty, equality, dignity and the rights of the individual, and, on the other, the fraternal reunion of the peoples of African, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe.

Read more about 2004 at Human Rights Education Associates

The Haitian Revolution

Paternalistic attitudes about the Global South pervade the rhetoric or moderate liberals and conservatives when discussing development. This is evidenced most clearly in discussions about the future of Iraq, the latest site of western conflict over natural and human resources.

What would an uprising of the oppressed look like? We have examples not only in Vietnam, right in our own back yard. In Haiti, 200 years ago last November (around Thanksgiving, in fact) after years of war, Haiti found independence. Haitian slaves liberated themselves.

Read more about The Haitian Revolution

December 14, 2003 Los Angeles CA
Pouring rain wasn’t all that greeted Tony Saca the Arena Party’s candidate for President of El Salvador. L A area members of the Salvadorian community stood outside FRIENDSHIP AUDITORIUM denouncing the “privatization guru” and Arena’s terrorist past. Inside the auditorium party faithful were weaving in conga line formation to Latin rhythms as a loud speaker belted out the mantra -- Tony! Tony! all this in preparation for candidate Saca’s arrival. Go to Saca speech, music and photos.

El Salvador like its neighbors in the Global South is experiencing tremendous change brought about by New World Order economic structures. The Arena Party has allied itself to the principals of Corporate Dominance; a position many Salvadorians say has already been tried in the region and failed. It is still unclear how the March 2004 presidential elections will turn out in this country known for popular resistance. Go to protest voices and photos.