Southern California - February - 2005

HAITI SPEAKING TOUR

Come see Journalist Kevin Pina speak and show clips from his new documentary "Haiti: The Betrayal of Democracy". Kevin broke the story of the U.S. kidnapping and coup of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February of 2004 and has been on Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" numerous times.

Feb 16th Long Beach, CA @ California State University of Long Beach. California State University of Long Beach. Carl Anatol Center in the East Libary (North Campus).w/ Kevin Pina & Dr. Reiland Rabaka (giving an introduction and short history of Haiti). Suggested donation is $5. 6pm.

Feb 17th Venice, CA @ Venice United Methodist Church's Hall. 1020 Victoria Ave. w/ Kevin Pina + Speaker to give introduction soon to be announced. Suggested donation is $5-10. 6:30pm

Feb 18th Beverly Hills, CA @ Protest at Brazilian Consulate. 8484 Willshire Blvd. Suite 730/711. U.S. & Brazil out of Haiti! Protest the involvement of the Brazilian government in aiding the U.S. backed military Junta in Haiti. 10am-5pm. (currently looking for film/speaking location near consulate)

Feb 19th Los Angeles, CA @ Martin Luther King/Malcolm X Anti-war Conference. More info on the conference (to be held at the SEIU Local 660 office in LA) and filmshowing will be sent out next week and appear on www.iacenterla.org w/ Pierre LaBossiere, Clarence Thomas(ILW), Kevin Pina & more soon to be added. For More info see www.iacenterla.org. 10am-4pm.

About Kevin Pina / Haiti Speaking Tour:

Kevin Pina is a journalist who has risked his life while living in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti for the last five years. He produced a film entitled "Haiti: Harvest of Hope" and is currently working on "Haiti: The Betrayal of Democracy". He broke the story of the kidnapping of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Feb 2004 by U.S. Marines. Kevin is an editor for the Haiti Information Project (HIP), an alternative news agency in Port-Au-Prince, which is featured at haitiaction.net. He is also an Associate Editor for the Black Commentator online magazine and a Haiti Special Correspondent for Flashpoints radio. Kevin has been on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman numerous times and he is used as a source for the recent book by Amy Goodman, Paul Farmer, and Noam Chomsky "Doing Haiti Right This Time". He will discuss his experience in Haiti, the ongoing situation in Haiti, and show footage.



For more information or to add your group as a sponsor contact Jeb at jebbathehut@hotmail.com

Also visit the CSULB Campus Progressive Website at: http://www.csulb.edu/org/csulbcp/

For more information on the current situation in Haiti see www.haitiaction.net

For more reading on Haiti check out: Amy Goodman/Noam Chomsky's "Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup", Paul Farmer's "The Uses of Haiti", and C.L.R. James' 1938 classic, "The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution".

Sponsored by: CSULB Campus Progressives, CSULB Black Studies Department, CSULB Muslim Student Association, Los Angeles International Action Center, Los Angeles Answer Coalition, La Raza, Topanga Peace Alliance, CSULB History Student Association, Haiti Action, Haiti Information Project + more soon to come.

Here is more on the first film he'll show--->

Haiti: Harvest of Hope

Harvest of Hope is the quintessential primer for understanding the roots of the current crisis in Haiti. The film dramatically captures seminal moments in the history of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas movement that swept him into the presidency in December 1990. Haiti: Harvest of Hope was originally planned as a documentary about democracy coming to Haiti with the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in December 1990. During the final editing of the original (late September 1991) Haiti was struck by yet another military coup. Editing of the first version came to a halt as Kevin Pina (the filmmaker) returned to Haiti and spent the next three weeks chronicling the brutality and machinations of Haiti's new military leaders and their supporters. Kevin Pina returned to Haiti in late July 1993 just after the negotiation of the Governor's Island Accord between the Haitian Government in exile and General Raoul Cedras. Pina returned again in 1994 to film Aristide's return to Haiti. The world television premiere of Harvest of Hope was in Haiti on Mother's Day, March 28, 1994. The broadcast was dedicated to the mothers of Haiti who sacrificed so much during the years of the coup to restore democracy to Haiti. The Creole version was produced in association with Jean-Claude Martineau who also introduced the film on Haitian National Television. The first English version of Harvest of Hope was shown to a sold-out house at the Mill Valley, California Film Festival in the summer of 1994. Never having received wide distribution since, Harvest of Hope is a rare film that few have had the opportunity to experience. The final director's cut was completed in 1998 and has only been seen by a select few. It is offered to you exclusively through a special distribution arrangement with the Quixote Center/Haiti Reborn Project. (VHS, 57 minutes, 1998) About the Filmmaker: Kevin Pina is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Caribbean Harvest, a California based company that sells and markets products from farmer's cooperatives in Haiti. His filmography includes El Salvador: In the Name of Democracy (1985), Berkeley in the Sixties (1990), and Amazonia: Voices from the Rainforest (1991). For more information, visit Global Exchange's Haiti Profile