10 February 2011 — Morning Star
Washington warned former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Wednesday not to return from exile ahead of next month’s presidential election.
A day after Mr Aristide’s lawyer picked up a diplomatic passport for him from the Haitian government, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley claimed that his return would disrupt the controversial March 20 vote.
8 February, 2011 — Common Dreams
PORT-AU-PRINCE – The Haitian government said it has issued a new passport to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, enabling him to end his exile in South Africa and return to Haiti, a government official said.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been living in South Africa since 2004, and in recent months has repeatedly requested to be allowed to return home to the Caribbean nation, but said he had no travel documents as his passport had expired. The Haitian government now says it has issued a new passport to former president Aristide, enabling him to end his exile in South Africa and return to Haiti
8 February, 2011 — Black Agenda Report
Ever since being driven into exile by the United States in 2004, the democratically elected former president of Haiti has sought to return to his devastated country, now occupied and dominated by foreigners. ‘An exogenous plan of reconstruction – one that is profit-driven, exclusionary, conceived of and implemented by non-Haitians,’ says Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ‘cannot reconstruct Haiti.’
My Return to Haiti by Jean-Bertrand Aristide
‘I will return to Haiti to the field I know best and love: education.’
31 January, 2011 — Radio Canada In English – http://bit.ly/ibjVGk In French – http://bit.ly/dOs3jA
The Haitian government said Monday it would not oppose the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In a statement from the Interior Ministry, the Haitian authorities say they are ready to issue a passport to Aristide who has lived in exile in South Africa since 2004.
“The Government of the Republic gives assurances that as soon as a demand is produced, such a request will be honored promptly,” said Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, in this release.
The Minister further stated that an expired passport is not an obstacle to the return of a citizen in his native Haiti. However, if stops are necessary for the traveler of Haiti, it must take appropriate action.
In mid-January, shortly after former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Port-au-Prince, Aristide had expressed his desire to also return home. He said however that authorities had not acted on his passport application.
Counsel for Jean-Bertrand Aristide told the Associated Press that his client was still in South Africa, and had not yet received a passport. The former president of Haiti was ousted by a coup in 2004.
Press the Haitian Ministry of Interior
Ezili Dantò’s Note: No passport required unless he makes a stopover
Folks in Haiti say South Africa probably would fly President Aristide out to Cuba and Venezuela who are friendly to this, but apparently, and we don’t know if this is true, the Euro/US and their client states won’t allow a plane carrying the greatest symbol of the voice of the majority of Haiti’s peoples to re-fuel in their territory or client states’ territory. The rumor is that they’ve asked Brazil, supposedly the closest to Haiti a plane from SA could fly without refueling and Brazil, as head of the UN lucrative poverty-pimping operation in Haiti, is not too welcoming about the idea. That’s the Haiti rumor going around for two weeks now.
30 January, 2011 — El Brollo.com
El ex presidente haitiano, Jean Bertrand Aristide, quien permanece en exilio forzoso desde 2004 se encuentra en Cuba por razones médicas, según confirmó Inmácula Nervil, directora de la Casa de Hermandad Haitiana Bolivariana y miembro del Movimiento Unido Socialista Haitiano que presiona por el regreso del ex presidente a la nación caribeña en febrero.
“Se encuentra en Cuba por razones de la visión. Los médicos sudafricanos ( donde se encontraba hasta su viaje a Cuba) aconsejaron que debía recibir tratamiento en un clima tropical”, aseveró Nervil, quien dijo haberse comunicado con los asesores del ex presidente.
La activista haitiano-venezolana aseveró además que los movimientos sociales aprovecharán su estancia en un país miembro de la Alianza Bolivariana de los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA) para instar a los gobiernos pertenecientes al bloque a que exijan al presidente haitiano, René Préval, que renueve el pasaporte de Aristide, permitiendo así su regreso a Haití.
“La Constitución proclamada en 1987 dice que ningún haitiano puede permanecer en el exilio”, aseveró Nervil, quien considera que Préval “tiene la obligación de permitir la renovación del pasaporte de Aristide, que es la única razón que impide su regreso”.
Semanas atrás el mandatario expresó que se encontraba listo para regresar, cuando se lo permitieran.
My partial translation:
Jean Bertrand Aristide is in Cuba for medical treatment according to Immaculate Nervil, director of the Haitian Brotherhood House Bolivarian Socialist Movement as well as getting his passport renewed so that he can return to Haiti.
“The Constitution proclaimed in 1987 says that no Haitian can remain in exile,” said Nervil, who believes that Préval “has the obligation to allow the renewal of the passport of Aristide, who is the only reason that prevents his return.”
Weeks ago the president said he was ready to return, when permitted.
24 January, 2011 — Huffington Post
Laura Flynn is a writer, activist, and board member of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy
In the 1980s, when the armed forces of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s regime set about exterminating “Haiti’s Creole pigs”, they would come to Haiti’s rural villages, seize all of the “pigs”, pile them up, one on top of the other, in large pits and set fire to them, burning them alive.
A Haitian friend recounted this story to me this week. It was an image that she could not get out of her head since Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti. Because that’s what it was like for her, to watch Duvalier be greeted like a dignitary at the Port-au-Prince airport, and then escorted to his hotel by UN military forces — like being burned alive.
20 January, 2011 — The Center for Economic and Policy Research
Haiti’s infamous dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, returned to his country this week, while the country’s first elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is kept out. These two facts really say everything about Washington’s policy toward Haiti and our government’s respect for democracy in that country and in the region.
Asked about the return of Duvalier, who had thousands tortured and murdered under his dictatorship, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “this is a matter for the Government of Haiti and the people of Haiti.”
But when asked about Aristide returning, he said, “Haiti does not need, at this point, any more burdens.”
1 January, 2011 — Countercurrents
Haiti’s November 28 elections were irremediably fraudulent, farcical and outrageous. The entire process was rigged. New elections, including all excluded parties, are essential, but not planned. Instead, so-called independent OAS experts began recounting verification to legitimize fraud. According to Albert Ramdin, Assistant OAS Secretary General:
17 December, 2010 — guardian.co.uk
What the US embassy cables reveal about Washington’s malign influence should make Latin American nations quit the UN force
Supporter of ousted Haitian President Aristide, 2010 A boy holds a picture of the ousted former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as he sits on a chair outside the presidential palace during a visit by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy to Port-au-Prince, in February 2010, in the wake of the earthquake. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters
The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, most likely, more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.
As Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the buildup to the Iraq war.
On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US ‘diplomacy’ is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.
26 November, 2010 — Institute for Public Accuracy
Alex Main, [in Haiti], main@cepr.net and via Dan Beeton, beeton@cepr.net, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/relief-and-reconstruction-watch
Policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “These elections were already highly problematic before the cholera epidemic began to spread. Haiti’s electoral authority — the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council] — suffers from a lack of credibility; legitimate parties have been excluded from participating in the legislative elections, and very few effective measures have been taken to ensure that Haiti’s over 1.3 million displaced people would have access to the polls. As a result of these problems, there was already a high probability that voter turnout would be very low and that the elections would be widely seen as illegitimate. Now, with an uncontrollable and fatal epidemic further complicating the lives of Haitians, it is patently obvious that the elections should be postponed and measures should be taken to correct the current flaws in the electoral process.”
NICOLAS ROSSIER, nicrossier@gmail.com
Rossier is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes “Aristide and the Endless Revolution.” He recently interviewed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian president who was ousted in 2004. Video excerpts at Grit TV: http://is.gd/hIzVa
See also transcript of interview at “An Exclusive Interview With Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide” http://is.gd/hIzXL
EZILI DANTO, erzilidanto@yahoo.com, http://open.salon.com/blog/ezili_danto, http://ezilidanto.com
Danto is president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She said today: “Obama denounced the recent ‘elections’ in Burma as ‘neither free nor fair.’ The Haitian ‘elections’ are also neither free nor fair. The largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, is excluded, as it has been in every election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004. Who will be able to vote is not clear — over 1.3 million earthquake victims are displaced, many don’t know which polling place to go to, don’t have their IDs and the country is in the middle of a cholera outbreak that the CDC says is non-Haitian and originated from South Asia. This environment will minimize the voice of most of the people while amplifying that of the Haitian oligarchy, mostly sustained by NGO and U.S. aid funds, living in the luxurious Petionville hills, who have their IDs and are not displaced.
“Another issue is that whoever is elected will have so little power. The UN, Bill Clinton and other foreigners through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission largely run the country but are not accountable to the Haitian people.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
22 November, 2010 — http://blog4haiti.hpp4haiti.com/
80% of the population is ready to go to the polls and attorney Jean Henry Céant will be president of Haiti with 53% of votes, indicates the survey conducted by the Haitian Priorities Project of the elections of November 28, 2010.
According to a recent survey conducted by Haitian Priorities Project spearheaded by 50 of its members dispatched around the country to all ten departments, reporting on the progress of the upcoming elections of 28 November 2010.
The people as a whole are prepared to sanction the government Préval/Bellerive in the next few days. This has been revealed by individuals interviewed for more than two weeks across the country.
2 August, 2010 — New American Media – Uhuru News
To cut to the chase, no election in Haiti, and no candidate in those elections, will be considered legitimate by the majority of Haiti’s population, unless it includes the full and fair participation of the Fanmi Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Fanmi Lavalas is unquestionably the most popular party in the country, yet the “international community,” led by the United States, France and Canada, has done everything possible to undermine Aristide and Lavalas, overthrowing him twice by military coups in 1991 and 2004 and banishing Aristide, who now lives in South Africa with his family, from the Americas.
30 July, 2010 — IPS News
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 30, 2010 (IPS) – After weeks of delays, Haitian President René Préval confirmed this month that presidential and legislative elections will take place on Nov. 28. The U.N. and Western donor nations are pledging millions of dollars in support of the polls, but with at least 1.5 million people still homeless from the January earthquake, questions loom over how to ensure voter participation.
In the last round of senatorial elections before the earthquake, less than three percent of the electorate participated. Fanmi Lavalas, widely seen as the most popular political party in the country, was excluded from the election on technical grounds, along with some other parties. Now, the party has again been banned from participating in the November polls.
International donors have expressed disappointment at Haiti’s failure to hold inclusive elections, but have continued to fund them.
6 August, 2010 — AOL News
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Aug. 6) — Around the crumbled National Palace at Champ de Mars Plaza, politics is always a hot topic of conversation.
This week conversations could be overheard about current Haitian President Rene Preval, the Americans, Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, ousted former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and now international rap star Wyclef Jean, the latest candidate for president.
Residents in this massive camp of more than 50,000 are generally discouraged by what is seen as a lack of action from President Preval. But for many, that’s nothing new.
As Jean, 40, announced his candidacy, he entered a fractious, and an often dangerous, political milieu. The past 40 years in Haiti have included dictatorship, military coups and, in recent times, the death of more than 20 percent of civil servants after the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake.
25 March, 2010 — Council on Hemispheric Affairs by COHA Research Associate Ritika Singh
24 February, 2010 — Counterpunch
It’s now more than a month since the earthquake that laid waste to Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and thrusting millions of people into the most desperate conditions.
But according to the U.S. government, Haitians have a lot to be thankful for.
On February 12, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten boasted, “In terms of humanitarian aid delivery…frankly, it’s working really well, and I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we’ve been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake.”
Bill Quigley, the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, had a simple response to Merten’s claim: “What? Haiti is a model of how the international government and donor community should respond to an earthquake? The ambassador must be overworked and need some R&R. Look at the facts.”
5 March, 2010 – Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
Betrayal of Haiti’s majority by Liberal Democrats: Rebuilding Haiti — the Sweatshop Hoax | Going against this reprehensible tide, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan calls for the return of President Aristide, inclusion of Haiti’s majority and a National Mobilization for authentic Haitian Relief/Rebuilding
Recommended HLLN Link: Obama’s offered HOPE is sweatshop slavery http://bit.ly/94PaiI
Changing Haiti’s Paradigm : Haitians must rebuild Haiti not the failed Internationals (UN/USAID/Clinton/IFIs/NGO poverty pimp industry in Haiti: HLLN 14-points to Return Haiti’s Sovereignty and Mobilize For Conscious Relief and Rebuilding with Human Rights, Healing and Dignity A compilation of links, with descriptions to news and analysis on the crisis in Haiti. http://bit.ly/9lXlRF
“Rebuilding Haiti” — the Sweatshop Hoax: …the leading proponents of development through sweatshops have been liberal Democrats in the United States. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus pushed hard for HOPE and HOPE II, the 2006 Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act and its 2008 extension; these acts make the plan possible by giving preferential treatment to U.S. imports of apparel assembled in Haiti. UN Special Envoy for Haiti Bill Clinton, the former U.S. president, has provided much of the PR for the plan; in the fall of 2009 he organized a special meeting to encourage foreign business investment in Haiti. Liberal U.S. financier and philanthropist George Soros is helping build a new $45 million industrial park near Port-au-Prince’s impoverished Cité Soleil neighborhood as part of the plan’s implementation. Adding to the project’s liberal credentials, in August 2009 Bill Clinton made Dr. Paul Farmer his deputy UN special envoy.” (http://bit.ly/a7TtCs)
19 February 2010 — WSWS
French President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled for a one-day visit to Haiti on February 17, amid rising popular opposition to the Western-backed Préval government and international tensions over how to rebuild the country. The US military occupied Haiti after the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people, wounded over 250,000, and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.
Sarkozy, the first French head of state ever to visit Haiti, was greeted with street protests by thousands of Haitians demanding the return of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ousted by a US- and French-backed coup in 2004, Aristide was flownto the Central African Republic, a former French colony. Aristide now lives in exile in South Africa. President René Préval, a former prime minister under Aristide in the 1990s, came to power in 2006 in elections supervised by the provisional government of Boniface Alexandre that was installed by the coup.
Préval tried to address the crowd outside the presidential palace. However, crowds shouted him down, and Préval left in a luxury Jeep, surrounded by bodyguards.
10 February, 2010 — Black Agenda Report
The world’s sole superpower behaves as if Haitian sovereignty no longer exists. Notions of legality are wholly absent in America’s occupation of Haiti, where the U.S. poses as the internationally recognized authority. Washington arrogantly improvises the terms of the Haitian ‘protectorate.’
‘The Haitian people ‘need democracy and self determination, said the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition.’
Proud Haiti has been reduced to a de facto ‘protectorate’ of the United States – a grotesque form of non-sovereignty in which the subjugated nation is ‘protected’ by its worst enemy. Namibia under white-ruled South African administration comes to mind, although in Haiti’s case the United Nations does not even pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, acting instead as agent and enforcer for the superpower.
As Haiti writhes under the agony of hundreds of thousands dead, Bill Clinton picks through the bones in search of prime tourist spots and mango plantation sites. America’s most successful snake oil salesman is pleased to do the Haitian people’s thinking, planning and dreaming for them – and quite willing to speak for the afflicted country, as well. ‘This is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be,” Clinton told the global oligarchs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In one sweeping sentence, Clinton claimed a kind of sovereignty over the Haitian people’s very imaginations, assigning himself the right to filter what was good or bad about Haiti’s past, and what is permissible in the future. Haitians are no longer allowed to possess their own dreams and remembrances, which have apparently been placed in United Nations trusteeship, under control of UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton.
27 January, 2010 — The Bay View
The Bay View is introducing this interview with an urgent action alert from the Haiti Action Committee, co-founded by Pierre Labossiere, urging readers to “stand in solidarity with Haiti” and call the White House, the State Department and their Congress members today.
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Haiti Action Committee Action Alert: Rebuilding Haiti with the Democratic Movement
Jan. 27 – In the aftermath of the devastating 7.0 earthquake, Haitian children, women and men are now suffering through a man-made disaster. Over one week ago, Obama promised, “The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble and to deliver the humanitarian relief.” But instead of delivering on this commitment, he has allowed the military response to take priority, resulting in thousands of preventable deaths.
As Haitians organize to rebuild their lives in the midst of an escalated military occupation, we demand that the Obama administration stop its destructive interference in Haiti. Haitians must be at the head of relief efforts and the long term rebuilding of their country. Fanmi Lavalas, the democratic grassroots movement of Haiti, must be at the center of any legitimate rebuilding process.
On behalf of our sisters and brothers in Haiti who have yet to see any relief and are beginning the process of reconstructing their country, we make the following demands on the Obama administration:
The New Dark Age 