MAY 18TH: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY DAY WITH HAITIANS : IMC Maritimes

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2005

Haligonians to Join International Day of Solidarity with the Haitian People.

HALIFAX – On Wednesday, May 18th, Haitian Flag Day, a worldwide coalition of grassroots organizations will hold a global day of action in solidarity with the people of Haiti, who are calling for the return of their democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In Halifax, the Halifax Peace Coalition and the Canada Haiti Action Network are organizing a Haitian solidarity rally and march commencing at 5:30 PM at Victoria Park on South Park St. Other events are planned in cities across North America, including in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, New York, and San Francisco.

Since the coup of democratically-elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February of 2004, the majority of Haiti’s poor citizens have faced an escalation of violence directed against them by the Canadian-sponsored interim government of Gerard Latortue. “On May 18th we will demand that Canada and the international community restore the Haitian Constitution and re-instate the democratically-elected government of Aristide,” said Stuart Neatby, a member of the Halifax Peace Coalition. “We hope to draw attention to the fact that Canadian RCMP officers are supporting and training the Haitian National Police while they are conducting extrajudicial killings and warrant-less arrests of poor Haitians associated with Aristide’s Lavalas Party. We are calling on the Canadian government to stop participating in such abuses.”

The call for this day of solidarity has been taken up by hundreds of grassroots organizations worldwide, including the Global Afrikan Congress, the University of Guyana African Culture and Development Association (UGACDA), and the Haitian Lawyer’s Leadership Network (US).

Jean Saint-Vil, a Haitian-Canadian community radio host in Ottawa and founder of the Canada Haiti Action Network emphasized the role that Canada, the United States, and the international community played in the departure of Aristide on February 29th, 2004. “The day of the coup, we have Canadian soldiers, paid with taxpayer’s money, standing at the Haitian airport. And President Aristide has claimed that US Marines picked him up, and put him on that plane bound for the Central African Republic. There are other people who were there in Haiti, interviewed the day after the coup, without having any connections with Aristide, who corroborated this story,” he said.

Although the US and Canadian governments have claimed that Aristide stepped down voluntarily, the Caribbean Community, the African Union, and Canada’s New Democratic Party have asked for an international investigation into the circumstances of the President’s departure. In addition, the Haitian National Police are being provided support, logistics, and training by the RCMP. Numerous human rights groups, ranging from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti have reported that the HNP is currently engaged in a calculated campaign of summary executions, massacres, and imprisonment of poor Haitians associated with the Lavalas party.

Organizations such as the Halifax Local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Halifax/Dartmouth District Labour Council, and the Halifax Central Area Education Committee have endorsed the Halifax solidarity march. Chris Arsenault of Students Taking Action in Chiapas, another endorser of the event, noted that Canadian and US actions in Haiti are not without precedent in Latin America. “As a wave of social democratic if not outright radical change sweeps Latin America, the US and Canada are up to their old tricks in Haiti with a brutality reminiscent of Nicaragua’s contras and an arrogance akin to the ouster of Salvador Allende,” he said.

“We are acting in solidarity with all political prisoners in Haiti as well. Most have been held for months on end with no charge, including Yvon Neptune, the elected Prime Minister of the country,” added Neatby. “As of today, he was reported to be close to death due to his three week hunger strike in protest of his detention.”
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FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO BOOK INTERVIEWS, CONTACT:

Stuart Neatby: (902) 446-8875, stu.neatby@gmail.com

Organizers’ Websites: hfxpeace.chebucto.org - http://www.acdagy.com/haiti_solidarity_day.htm - http://www.haitiaction.net

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