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Original Content at https://www.opednews.com/articles/Tell-the-Truth-About-Haiti-by-Ezili-Danto-100319-511.html (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). |
March 19, 2010
Tell the Truth About Haiti Forum with Ezili Dantò of HLLN
By Èzili Dantò
A HAITI FORUM - On Haiti Riches, Sovereignty and Mobilizing Earthquake Relief/Rebuilding with human rights, Healing and Dignity. No one breaks down the mystery and outline Haiti's central facts to defend Haiti's voiceless against the most powerful nations, World Relief Organization/NGOs and mainstream media on earth in the thorough and well documented manner of the Haitian-led, Ezili Network.
::::::::
Ezili Dantò of HLLN
It
is the big world charity industry and security consultancies that
make out like fat rats in every Haiti crisis, not the little Haiti town
mayor who wants a cut of the trickle down.
Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN") is the most noted group of Haitian scholars, lawyers, doctors, grassroots organizations, artists, students, human rights activists and non-Haitian solidarity activists to give Haitians and friends-of-Haiti the Rada to Petwo - or, generally the Warrior and Pacifist tools, narratives - the very lexicon - to defend Haiti's defenseless people from the ravages of neo-liberalism, NGO false charity and US/Euro/UN false benevolence. One Haitian radio personality recently noted, in sum, that "no one has written more about Haiti in recent years or documented Haiti's riches, and rich and paradoxical way of being in a more thorough and comprehensive manner than Ezili Dantò of HLLN."
It's more than two months after the earthquake
and the media coverage seemingly has forgotten that the fleecing of aid
dollars earmarked for Haiti's earthquake victims happens BEFORE the
trickle down aid gets to Haiti. So, instead of focusing on the fact
that less than one cent from every aid dollar collected, in the name of
Haiti's pain, gets to the Haitian government, the media assist the
charity and NGO industry in Haiti by focusing their reporting on the
smallest of corruptions, that of the Haitian official who wants a
portion of the food, water or tents actually reaching Haiti. The big
crooks, the corrupt World Relief organizations, USAID, UN and their
NGOs and the 10,000 charities in Haiti masturbating on Black pain in
the name of "helping Haitians" get free passes.
Right now, the
UN, USAID, US State Department, European Union, everyone, is anxiously
weighing in on the game to rebuild Port au Prince, just as they did
when Gonaives - the Northern coastal town that got flooded by
hurricanes in 2004 and then again in the four back-to-back hurricanes
of 2008. For us Haitians it's an old song, just different Haitians
suffering and dying, different Haiti town that has crumbled, foreign
reconstruction monies never rebuilds where the poorest live. That's a
period, not a comma. Remember Katrina. Remember Rawanda, Remember
Clinton with Rawanda, Bush with Katrina and don't forget the role of
the Red Cross in both.
If one just looks back at the flooding of Gonaives, Haiti in 2004 and 2008, just at that one Haiti example, and calculate how much money was raised by the World Relief Organizations, the NGOs, the UN, US State Department consultancies, the European Union, Canada, et al, in the name of "rebuilding and bringing relief to the people of Gonaives, in those two instances combined, you'll see that conservatively more than $3 billion dollars were collectively raised by these Internationals, their NGOs and private US charities to reconstruct and provide hurricane relief, flood rebuilding, food, water, medicine and shelter to the people of Gonaives, Haiti. Today, the people of Gonaives are still walking on muddy roads. Little was rebuilt and the people will tell you they mostly got no help other than food and water in the first couple of weeks when the media cameras where on.
That's why at Ezili HLLN we forgo the UN, USAID, OAS donor conferences on rebuilding and reconstructing Port au Prince.
We know the story. We are the Haitians who've endured and know well the international corruption. Like most of Haiti and Haitians, one-third of our friends and colleagues perished in the January 12, 2010 earthquake.When all is said and done it's an old story and only the Haiti neophyte, idiot or the ridiculously optimistic go to these meetings where the agenda is not set by Haitians but by foreigners looking out for themselves. At the end of the day, after shipping fees, NGO salaries and apportioning current disaster funds for the NGO's "future disaster fund" coffers, what aid actually ends up in Haiti is mostly rotted food that doesn't reach the most needy of the poor.
The only relief that is sustainable, dignified, humane and that
actually works in Haiti is Haitians helping Haitians. And that is why
as a Haiti-led, Haiti capacity building organization, Ezili's HLLN is
currently mobilizing help to continue our educational work, our public
advocacy work, to assist the earthquake victims and long-term
sustainable development.
We are on a fundraising tour
with the Haiti Forum and doing teach-ins about Haiti that will provide
real information about the NGO charity and World Relief/humanitarian
industry in Haiti, and all over the developing world, that has, since
the end of the Cold War taken on the role of pushing US foreign
interests and neoliberalism abroad.
Neoliberalism and US regime change in Haiti destroys and weakens
popular governments the US does not think are corporate-friendly enough
and then, instead of justice being done, their charity industry rush
in, as a political tool, to empower only certain voices amenable to US
interests. President Aristide was twice removed, not because the US/Euros
wanted to improve Haiti's human rights and corruption record, but
because the US corporatocracy was angry he had raised the minimum wage
and simply terrified, that like Cuba and Venezuela,
he might nationalize Haiti's - oil, gas, gold, copper, iridium, uranium
et al... - resources to improve
the people's living standards. There's no question now, as HLLN has
documented in these last 6-years of UN/US occupation, that Haiti has
significant reserves of oil, gas, gold, copper, iridium, uranium, limestone, coal and other strategic mineral deposits.
In Haiti, it's the voice of the
Haitian oligarchy and the anti-Lavalas cartel that is empowered by the
NGO industry and USAID programs. That is what the Red Cross, World
Vision, Clinton Global Initiative, Catholic Relief Services, CARE
International, Save the Children, UNICEF, the UN presence, et al.. -
the over 10,000 charities in Haiti - are there to institute in Haiti,
not impartial relief, human rights, inclusion and dignity for the Black
majority. Humanitarian aid is the tool they hide behind in order to
carry out their funding-country's political, cultural and social
purposes. And, of course, as well to garner huge economic profit off
Haiti's poverty, misery, imposed fratricide and mostly man-made and
foreign-manufactured crisis.
Crisis that originates mostly from US/Euro neo-liberalism policies or natural disasters that are made much worst by US/Euro financial colonialism, racism, false benevolence and false charity. This Haiti reality is fully explained at our HLLN Haiti Forums, the consciousness-raising arm of HLLN's FreeHaitiMovement.
If you sponsor and attend an Ezili HLLN Haiti Forum , you'll be helping to raise relief/rebuilding funds for Haiti's grassroots and for well-known Haiti-led organization, not the NGO "contain-them-in-poverty" industry. And, you will learn the Haiti history and narrative not found anywhere else or in any book!
Below,
we choose the example of one recent Haiti Forum that featured surprise
guests, renowned novelist and winner of the McArthur Genius award, Ms.
Edwidge Dandicat and internationally known Haitian judge Jean Sénat
Fleury and some other treasured members of our Ezili Network.
In this summary of a 2010 Ezili Forum, you'll find links from our website to outline, in detail, the topics covered in To-Tell-The-Truth-About-Haiti-Forums with Forum creator, Ezili Dantò of HLLN.
No lawyer, journalist, activist or Haiti human right advocates breaks down the mystery and outline Haiti's central facts so the ordinary person, the lover of liberty, may easily defend Haiti's voiceless against the most powerful nations, World Relief Organization/NGOs and mainstream media on earth as Ezili's Network does. There are usually some special surprise guests in attendance at these HLLN Forums. The Ezili Network is made up of the most amazing individuals - lovers of liberty - who are dedicated to stopping Haiti's containment in poverty by the powerful, their false aid, false NGO charity, false benevolence and false media coverage.
On March 13, 2010, Latin Americans United, Inc. presented,
A HAITI FORUM
- On Haiti Riches, Sovereignty and Mobilizing Earthquake Relief/Rebuilding with human rights, Healing and Dignity
*
Featuring "To-Tell-The-Truth-About-Haiti" Forum Creator
Ezili Dantò/Marguerite Laurentprominent human rights attorney, author and performance poet
Founder and President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
1. Intro to HLLN's work
Attend an Ezili HLLN Haiti Forum and learn the Haiti history you've never read in any book!!! (Haiti, The Rebel and The Haitian struggle - the greatest David vs. Goliath battle being played out on this plane.)
The Bwa Kayiman Battle Cry and Directive*
Rada to Petwo - 21 Black Nations formed Ayiti
The Union that's Never Wavered
Liberation Theology - Boukman's Prayer on August 14, 1791 began the continuing Haiti Revolution.
Bio of Ezili Dantò, 1791
The Story of Janjak- The Greatest Warrior and his first lady, the Pacifist
What Ayiti Calls Forth
Haitian women who led in the battles to freedom:
The poto mitan - central pillars - of Haitian society.
Kouwòn pou Defile
Three Ideals of Dessalines and Dessalines' Law
Haiti Rejects Bourgeois Democracy,
Vodun cosmology, Anba Dlo Lan Ginen, Rada/Petwo, archetypal psychology: Vodun means sacred energies in the Fon language. Vodun is the spiritual imperative and way of life of Haitians. It's psychology, cosmology, philosophy, astrology, science, art, and a healing way of life.*The Bwa Kayiman Battle Cry and Directive is:
E, e, Mbomba, e, e! Kanga Bafyòti. Kanga Mundele. Kanga Ndòki. Kanga yo!
At Bwa Kayiman, on August 14, 1791, the enslaved Haitian rejected bourgeois freedom and fought for universal justice and freedom. The Haitian Revolution continues, today - The call remains the same: E, e, Mbomba, e, e! Kanga Bafyòti. Kanga Mundele. Kanga Ndòki. Kanga yo! "Supreme Creator, tie up (stop/kill or foil) the black collaborators, the white imperialist, all their evil forces, tie them up/stop them now!"
Today the evil forces used in trying to help fulfill Leclerc's old imperative are US/UN occupation, endless debt, NGO dependency, free not fair trade, wage slavery, exiling Haiti's Constitutional government and President and replacing it with weaker governments and Guy Philippe/Louis Jodel Chamblain/Lame Ti manchet death squads, Bush's Gerald Latortue 2004 imposed dictatorship that disenfranchised the masses and has excluded them from elections since. Their NGOs/World Relief Organizations privatize Haiti's pain after the cruelties of Western neo-liberalism has been forcefully applied. The "evil forces" of today also include the embedded mainstream media, the Haitian oligarchy/subcontractors and US/Euro corporatocracy and oil cartels. (Haiti and the Aid Racket : How NGOs are Profiting Off a Grave Situation, Rebuilding Haiti -- the Sweatshop Hoax -Betrayal of Haiti's majority by Liberal Democrats; The Slavery in Haiti the Media Won't Expose and Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking.)
1. Haiti's most valuable asset: Its people -Their land, the Good God/Eye - Bon Dye, the Ancestors and Dessalines' legacy. The Haitian's Remembrances - the Go(o)ds of immemorial Africa and the Black authotones cannot be embodied without Haitian corporeal existence. Nou se Ginen, nou fè yon sèl kò. The living Haitian Gods (sacred energies/vibrations/archetypes/ natural principles, like the warrior mother, Ezili Dantò) are part of the land/universe/biosphere and depend on human devotees for their embodiment on earth. Haitians are sacred vessels who bring to life the living energies in the universe, not just mere mindless labor to be liquidated in the Triangular Trade holocaust or today, in neoliberalism's "Free Trade" for Western assembly plant owner's profit. (See, Going Back to Source - Lasous O M Pwale; Ezili's counter-colonial narrative on Vodun ; Bwa Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's Vodun Narrative at Bwa Kayiman and, The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti, its creeds, values and struggle)
2. Haiti's other formidable and invaluable assets are its revolutionary history, strategic location (Windward Passage/Gulf of La Gonave) in the Caribbean for shipping lanes. The Windward Passage connects North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean Sea. The Gulf of La Gonave and Bay of Port au Prince are the prime locations for accessing Haiti's large oil and gas reserves and the areas most desired by the US/Euros oil cartels for plundering Haiti's assests. Both China and Brazil have negotiated contracts to explore Cuban oil in nearby waters flowing into Haitian territory. Thus, Haiti invaluable assets include its proximity to dynamic markets, its deep water ports, accommodating location (as a US military base) between two non-client countries with oil resources (Cuba and Venezuela) the US wishes to control, its poverty the US/Euro corporatocracy wishes to maintain to use to keep wages in the world low for their Robber Barons' greedy profit and to check China's 1.3-billion people low-wage competitiveness as well as to check China (and even Brazil now from poaching in its imperial "backyard") and, the minerals and resources in the Bay of Port au Prince, Gulf of La Gonave, Haiti's coastlines, lands, rivers, ocean and mountains such as iridium, microbe discovered in Haiti's soil for super-antibiotic drugs, uranium, limestone, coal, gold, copper, gas and oil. ( Oil in Haiti - Economic Reasons for the UN/US occupation and Part 2: Oil in Haiti, reasons for the US occupation; Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake; and Oil, gas, gold, copper, etc., in Haiti equals US occupation By Jerry Mazza | Online Journal Associate Editor, Feb. 9, 2010; and Big Oil Behind Haiti Earthquake? and Interview (in English - 34:03) with Ezili Dantò on Mining of Haiti Resources and Riches by Chris Scott for CKUT (Listen to interview on mining in Haiti. In April and May of 2009 China overtook the U.S. as Brazil's biggest trade partner...China Eyes Venezuelan and Brazilian Oil by COHA; 20bn barrel oil discovery puts Cuba in the big league, 2008; and, Brazil, Cuba sign oil pact.)
Unique Haiti factors in calculating wealth to understand about Haiti that no other entity but Ezili's HLLN will tell you:
Does the Western economic model and calculation of economic wealth fit Haiti, fit Dessalines' idea of wealth distribution? NO!Haiti is a country filled with "non-workers." With an informal sector that is the economic backbone of Ti Pèp La - the masses in Haiti. Most people in Haiti WORK but that income is not COUNTED because they are NOT working for wages in the Western manner in a Western way. Haiti is a place where even the poorest of the poor OWN their own piece of land in the outback or have family compounds in the Haitian outback where their families have lived for centuries, but this ownership is not given any value because it's not owned by the white settlers and their sycophants. Haiti is a place with iridium, gold, copper, uranium, gas reserves and oil, soil/super antibiotic, limestone, coal, precious minerals, underwater sea treasures and where the poorest own the property where these assets are located. Yet none of these are calculated in Haiti's wealth index by the World Bank, IMF or IFIs, UN, State Department, et al... It seems Haiti is poor because poor people own it. When the white settlers' and their corporatocracy finally encroach, steal and plunder Haiti with the help of the Haitian Oligarchy, then it shall acquire value! (See, The Western vs Real Narrative on Haiti) and Economic proposals that make sense for the reality of Haiti; and the Three False Stereotypes About Haiti - Haiti is not small but is the third largest nation in the Caribbean with pure natural resources, no tourist dependency, is only overcrowded in Port au Prince not in the rest of the country, has 38% more coastline than Dominican Republic.)
No other national group anywhere in the world sends more money home than Haitians living abroad ( $2-billion per year)
The Slavery in Haiti the Media Won't Expose; Haiti and the Aid Racket : How NGOs are Profiting Off a Grave Situation, and Rebuilding Haiti -- the Sweatshop Hoax -Betrayal of Haiti's majority by Liberal Democrats.
5. Legacy of Impunity
(Example with Raboto trial with this HLLN Haiti Forum special guest, Haitian judge, The Honorable Judge Jean Sénat Fleury)
The Neocolonialist inciting political instability is the problem. Haiti is underdeveloped in crime, corruption and violence compared to other nations. (See Legacy of Impunity)
Haitian Oligarchy: Acra, Merv, Brandt, Nadal, Coles, Baussan, Vital, Vorbes, Madsen, Boulos, Bigio...pulling the instability strings in the shadows. (See, The Slavery in Haiti the Media Won't Expose; and Haiti and the Aid Racket : How NGOs are Profiting Off a Grave Situation, and Rebuilding Haiti -- the Sweatshop Hoax -Betrayal of Haiti's majority by Liberal Democrats.)
Who is bringing Haiti security and democracy but an undemocratic UN with 192 member countries and 5 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China) with veto power, similar to the undemocratic WB and IMF Western tools and a US that, unlike Haiti, who first put universal liberty into application, doesn't elect its president directly as well as countries with more violence rate than "parentless" Haiti. To wit: Expose the lies: Violent Haiti is a myth - There's MORE violence in Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, even in the United States than there is in Haiti.
Also there's more HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC/USA (3.0) and in the Bahamas (3.0) than there is in Haiti (2.2), but Haiti is the one whose HIV rate is constantly recalled... the Western country's paternalistic narrative uses Haiti to boost their egos. Their cruel projections mostly don't survive objective inspection...Haiti's people are still paying the Independence Debt. (What's in a name? Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere...)
6. Changing Haiti's Paradigm: Toward a new US/Euro Partnership
Haiti Sovereignty: Relief/rebuilding cannot take place on top of the illegal Bush Regime Change/UN occupation fault line.
7. What Can YOU DO
Join the Ezili HLL Network. Become a paid subscriber to the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network listserve Donate to support our work and the HLLN earthquake relief fund; Circulate our postings, participate in our people-to-people programs, our letter-writing campaigns and the FreeHaitiMovement. Sponsor a To-Tell-the-Truth-about-Haiti-Forum.
8:15 to 8:50 Haiti and the Aid Racket : How NGOs are Profiting Off a Grave Situation ************************ **********************************************
III. Questions and Answer session
8:55
IV. Closing Remarks
Margaret Mitchell Armand
Board Member of Latin Americans United, Inc. and HLLN
*****************
Haiti Forum Handouts for March 13 presentation
Haiti and the Aid Racket By Ashley Smith, Counterpunch, Feb. 24, 2010
Rebuilding Haiti -- the Sweatshop Hoax
(Betrayal of Haiti's majority by Liberal Democrats)
Oil, gas, gold, copper, etc., in Haiti equals US occupation
By Jerry Mazza | Online Journal Associate Editor
The
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network gives special thanks, respect and
appreciation to Dr. Frantz Delva, President of Latin Americans United
Inc. (LAU) for sponsoring this HLLN Haiti Forum and to Dr. Yves
Jodesty, Dr. Francelot Moise and Margaret Mitchell Armand for
organizing this presentation. Our heartfelt thanks to you all for your
generous support of HLLN's work. We dedicate this presentation to the
Haiti earthquake victims in prayer and love and shall continue working
towards relief and rebuilding with human rights, healing and dignity.
Ezili HLLN's basic mission and vision is encapsulated, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as follows:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Forwarded by Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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Human Rights Lawyer, Èzili Dantò is dedicated to correcting the media lies and colonial narratives about Haiti. An award winning playwright, a performance poet, author and lawyer, Èzili Dantò is founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, runs the Èzili Dantò website, listserve, eyewitness project, FreeHaitiMovement, the on-line journal, Haitian Perspectives and Zili Dlo, an Èzili Network project for clean water, renewable power, cultural education and skills transfer for Haiti. In 2018, Èzili was an honoree, Connecticut Women Hall of Fame.