Report Back: LA Forum on and Fundraiser for Haiti (tags)
Over 200 people, overwhelmingly Black people, came out for the Public Forum on and Fundraiser for Haiti. Actor and activist Danny Glover, Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of Haiti Action Committee, and Robert Roth, board member of Haiti Emergency Relief Fund were featured speakers at the event which both helped get the word out about what's happening on the ground in Haiti and raised funds to support the Haitian grassroots. Margaret Prescod, host of KPFK's Sojourner Truth and Women of Color in the Global Women's Strike, chaired.
Haiti Earthquake: Capitalism, Occupation and Revolution (tags)
The earthquake that wrecked the capital of Haiti and surrounding areas on January 12 produced human tragedy of almost unfathomable proportions. It has been termed “the most destructive natural disaster in modern times.” Five months later, Haiti is no longer in the headlines or on the nightly TV news, but for the hard-hit Haitian population the scene has hardly changed. Now a new disaster is in the making as the hurricane season begins. This was a calamity made by capitalism: the earthquake was predictable and was predicted; the inferior construction methods are the result of Haiti’s poverty, and the swollen slums were the result of U.S. policies that have destroyed Haitian agriculture, forcing peasants off the land. On top of everything, Haiti is under imperialist occupation: Washington makes sure it has ultimate control of the strategically placed island, as it has throughout the Cold War and since. Haiti's devastation is not the result of “natural” causes or even “neo-liberal” policies – it is the product of the oppression of this semi-colonial country by the imperial masters ever since black slaves rose up to abolish slavery and throw out the colonialists two centuries ago. No new “economic model” can resolve this: what’s required is a new Haitian Revolution, a workers revolution overthrowing capitalism throughout the Caribbean and extending into the heart of imperialism.
A brilliant review of a new book on Haiti.
Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! (tags)
We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party.
PART 2: The New Haitian Revolution: Resistance to U.S. & U.N. Occupation (tags)
". . . Why Haiti has been persecuted for the last 200 years? Because it is an affront to the colonial powers to have slaves rise up and defeat them. It is a bad example. [Applause.] There are a lot of lessons to be learned, and they don't want it ever to happen again. [Applause continues.]" -- Margaret Prescod, Pacifica Radio
The New Haitian Revolution: Resistance to U.S. & U.N. Occupation (tags)
". . . Why Haiti has been persecuted for the last 200 years? Because it is an affront to the colonial powers to have slaves rise up and defeat them. It is a bad example. [Applause.] There are a lot of lessons to be learned, and they don't want it ever to happen again. [Applause continues.]" -- Margaret Prescod, Pacifica Radio
The New Haitian Revolution: Resisting U.S. and U.N. Occupation (tags)
Reaching out for accurate news of Haiti, several hundred people, a majority representing the Black community and other communities of color in Los Angeles, took part in a public meeting June 16th at Holman United Methodist Church on the crisis in Haiti.
PUBLIC MEETING ABOUT THE CRISIS IN HAITI (tags)
THE NEW HAITIAN REVOLUTION: Resistance to US & UN Occupation
STOP THE COUP IN HAITI! (tags)
The counter-revolutionary thugs who have named themselves, the "Haitian National Revolutionary Liberation Front" are directed by commanders like Guy Philippe - a U.S.-trained former Haitian soldier who has attempted at least three coups in the last four years. Commander Louis Jodel Chamblain, the #2 ranked leader of the notorious CIA-backed FRAPH death squads that terrorized Haiti in the 1990s. Chamblain was convicted in both the assassination of Antoine Izmery, a pro-democracy businessman in 1993, and the 1994 Raboteau massacre of innocent civilians. These are the so-called "rebels" the press lauds as leading the "rebellion" in Haiti. What we are witnessing is a U.S. backed coup against the twice democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.