Category Archives: International Solidarity

The Malcolm X Grass roots Movement (MXGM) is an organization of people of Afrikan descent in the United States who believe in fighting for and supporting self-determination and human rights for Afrikans in the United States and around the world.  Our organization annually takes an international trip to build solidarity with other people struggling for liberation and social justice. This year, we come in solidarity to Haiti (with the people of Haiti).

Our objective was to meet with Haitian people and popular organizations and assess the cur rent situation in the camps and through out the country seven months after the earthquake.

What we have found is appalling.  There is a lack of security, deteriorating health conditions, and inadequate access to food, water, med i cine and education in the camps. We are particularly concerned about the lack of safety and the large number of reported rapes and violent attacks on Haitian women and children in the camps.

Numerous Haitian people living in the camps have reported that aid groups and Non-Governmental Organization’s (NGO) have provided inadequate aid after millions were collected by the U.S. government (through the Clinton/ Bush initiative), the Red Cross, the United Nations and a multitude of NGOs.

We demand that the US and Haitian governments, and so-called aid organizations, be held account able and immediately collaborate with the popular organizations of Haiti for the distribution of much needed relief to Internally Displaced Haitians.

All the people we encountered in the camps and the popular movement continuously raised concerns not only about the deplorable health conditions and lack of long term planning but also the need for free and fair elections in Haiti that include lifing the ban of Fanmi Lavalas from the upcoming elections, creating a legiti­mate electoral council and allowing the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide who the people still view as their legitimate leader.

MXGM supports the demands of the Haitian people and popular movement.  The current situation is unten­able and is a violation of the principles of democracy and human rights.

MXGM opposes the banishment of Dr. Jean Bertrand Aristide from his home land and sup ports the con sis tent popular demand of the Haitian people for his speedy return. We oppose the occupation of Haiti by the United Nations and call for the freedom of Haitian political prisoners. And we sup port the demand for France and the U.S. to pay restitution and reparations to Haiti for slavery and centuries of coercion, and economic exploitation.

We will organize our communities in United States to help end the conditions we witnessed and to build the new Haiti envisioned by the people’s popular movement.

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Thurs day, August 26, 2010
Con tact: Kamau Franklin
+001 917 53 53 041
www.mxgm.org
kamauf@mxgm.org

Dec la ra tion du Mou ve mente Pop u laire de Mal com X sur les Con di tions en Haiti

Sept Mois Après le Trem ble ment de Terre.

Le Mou ve ment Pop u laire de Mal colm X (MXGM) est une orga ni za tion des peu ples descen dus de l’Afrique aux Etats Unis qui sou tient l’auto-détermination et des droits humains pour des “Afrikans” aux Etats-Unis et mon di ale. Chaque année, notre orga ni za tion voy age à l’etranger pour aug menter la sol i dar ité avec autres com mu nautes qui lut tent pour la lib er a tion et la jus tice sociale. Cette année, nous sommes venues en sol i­dar ité avec les Haitiens.

Le but de notre séjour ici était a faire la con nais sance des peu ples hai tiens et des orga ni za tions com mu nau­taires, et à éval uer la sit u a tion actuelle aux camps et partout sept mois après le trem ble ment de terre.

Ce qu’on a trouvé nous étonne. Aux camps, il y a un manque de secu rité, des con di tions de santé publique dégen eré, et l’acces insuff isant à la nour ri t ure, de l’eau, des medica ments, et d’education. Nous nous occupons en par ti c ulière du manque de secu rité et les nom breux actes de viol et autres formes de vio lence souf fert par des femmes et enfants hai tiens dans les camps.

Plusieurs habi tants des camps nous expliquent que, mal gré des mil lions des dol laires qu’on a ramassé du gou vern ment des Etats-Unis (grace aux fonds de Clin ton et Bush), le Croix Rouge, les Nations-Unies, et nom breux ONGs, l’aide reçu aux camps ne suf fit pas.

Nous insis tons que les gov ern ments des Etats-Unis et d’Haiti, et les organ i sa tions qui s’appellent des “organ i sa tions de l’aide,” soient rédev able et coopérer immé di ate ment avec des organ i sa tions pop u laires en Haiti à coordiner la dis tri b u tion de l’aide essen tielle aux hai tiens déplacés.

Tous les gens qu’on a ren con tré aux camps et dans les organ i sa tions pop u laires nous ont dit qu’il faut améliorer les con di tions affreuses con cer nant la santé publique et aussi le manque de plan i fi ca tion à long terme – mais aussi, on a besoin des elec tions juste en Haiti: l’enlevement de l’interdiction con tre Fanmi Lavalas, la créa tion d’une con seil elec torale légitime, et l’acceuil de Jean Bertrand Aris tide, qui les peu ples tien nent tou jours comme leur chef légitime.

MXGM sou tient les deman des du peu ple hai tien et les mou ve ments pop u laires. La sit u a tion actuelle ne peut pas con tin uer; c’est une vio la tion des principes de la democ ra cie et aussi des droits humains.

MXGM s’oppose du ban nisse ment de Dr. Jean Bertrand Aris tide de son proper pays; nous soutenons le demand con stant des peu ples hai tiens de son retour imme di ate. Nous nous opposons l’occupation d’Haiti par les Nations-Unies; nous deman dons la libéra tion de tous les pris on niers poli tiques d’Haiti. En plus, nous soutenons le demande que France et des Etats-Unis paient la resti tu tion à Haiti pour des siè cles d’escalavage, con trainte, et l’exploitation économique.

Nous déclencherons nos com mu nautés aux États-Unis à aider un nou velle Haiti, comme imag iné par des mou ve ments populaires.

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By Kim Ives (from haitilibete.com)

On May 25, thousands again marched through the capital to demand Préval’s resignation, Aristide’s return and an end to the military occupation

The President of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced on May 24 that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on Nov. 28, 2010, the Constitutionally prescribed date. “The CEP is up to the task of organizing general elections in the country,” said Gaillot Dorsinvil, who is also the Handicapped Sector’s representative on the nine member council, handpicked by President René Préval. But tens of thousands of Haitians don’t agree and have been demonstrating in streets around the country in recent weeks to demand, not just a new CEP, but Préval’s resignation.

“Nobody has confi dence in Préval or his CEP to organize credible elections,” said Evans Paul, a leader of the Convention for Democratic Unity (KID) party and the political platform Alternative. Both groups, along with a number of other right-wing politicians and parties which supported the 2004 coup d’état against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have joined in an unlikely alliance with popular organizations at the base of Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Family. The alliance, called Heads Together of Popular Organizations (Tèt Kole Òganizasyon Popilè yo), has held three massive demonstrations of many thousands in the capital on May 10 May 17, and May 25, all calling for Préval’s resignation, Aristide’s return from exile in South Africa, and repeal of the “state of emergency law” that puts a foreigndominated council in charge of Haiti’s reconstruction, among other demands.

Nobody is more distrustful of Préval’s electoral supervision than Lavalas militants, who saw their party, Haiti’s largest, disqualifi ed last November by Dorsinvil’s CEP from parliamentary elections that were to have been held on Feb. 28, 2010. Radio Solidarité broadcast a long telephone interview with Aristide, in South Africa, on Nov. 25, 2010, the day after the CEP’s decision, asking for the Lavalas Family’s electoral inclusion and a passport for him to return home (see Haïti Liberté, Vol.3, No.20, 12/2/2009). Neither request was ever honored.

Fourteen other parties were also disqualifi ed. The Feb. 28 polling was cancelled after the Jan. 12 earthquake. A previous Préval-appointed CEP, containing fi ve members of the current one, also disqualifi ed the Lavalas Family from parliamentary elections held in April and June 2009. Those elections were massively boycotted, with less than 5% of voters turning out. On May 25, thousands of demonstrators, starting from three different locations, converged on the crumbled National Palace for the third time in two weeks. Lavalas marchers left from La Saline’s St. Jean Bosco, where Father Aristide used to preach, and St. Pierre Place in Pétionville, while organizations of “reformed” coup supporters, traditional political parties, and former “student” activists like Hervé Saintilus, stepped off from Jérémie Place, near Carrefour-Feuilles

Under grey and rainy skies, the demonstration was spirited but peaceful, although barricades to prevent marchers from demonstrating in front of the Palace were swept away by the crowd, which fi lled the broad street between the Palace fence and the earthquake victims’ tents on Toussaint Louverture Place.

With the announcement of elections, some politicians have stepped back from the anti-Préval mobilization. Sweatshop owner Charles Henri Baker, a former presidential candidate and the number two of the Group of 184, a procoup front in 2004, turned out for the May 17 march but dropped out from May 25. Other pro-coup politicians, hungry for elections, are expected to follow suit. A number of popular organizations support the mobilization but are extremely suspicious of the formerly pro-coup politicians’ involvement.

“We must not repeat the experiences of 1986 and 2004, where the big embassies replaced the fallen chief of state with the complicity of unscrupulous politicians,” warned the Democratic Popular Movement (MODEP) in a declaration. “In 1986, after Duvalier fell, the U.S. imperialists replaced Jean-Claude Duvalier with General [Henri] Namphy. In 2004, the U.S. and France were running the show. In both cases, the sneaky politicians and the bourgeoisie agreed to play in the imperialist’s dirty game. Today, we must learn our lesson and not be duped again. We should be alert for the doublecross, and we should join forces with those whose politics resemble our own.”

Meanwhile, on May 24, Brazilian soldiers of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), the military occupation force, drove three military vehicles into the State University’s Ethnology College to arrest an outspoken anti-occupation student, Frantz Mathieu Junior. The soldiers’ illegal entry onto inviolable school grounds unleashed a fi restorm. Enraged students poured into the streets around the school, burning one vehicle and smashing the windshields of several others.

“Today, Préval has sent MINUSTAH troops to provoke us this afternoon,” one student demonstrator told Haïti Liberté. “Now we students are standing up to call for Préval’s removal, and the occupation forces must leave!”

In response, MINUSTAH troops fi red rubber bullets, pepper spray, and large amounts of teargas, affl icting not only student demonstrators but patients in the nearby General Hospital and the whole Champ de Mars area. CNN reported that it was “one of the most serious confrontations since the quake.” The UN apologized for breaching the University’s grounds on May 25.

A similar MINUSTAH crackdown occurred on May 18 in Cité Soleil, in the area of Simon-Pele. Brazilian troops began fi ring their automatic weapons in all directions. Rosemond Aristide, the division inspector in charge of the Cité Soleil police station, was in a police vehicle but had to take cover. When he called offi cers under his command to come assist him, the Brazilian troops aimed their weapons at the Haitian policemen, forcing them to retreat, Rosemond Aristide said. The Brazilian soldiers arrested Aristide’s family members who were riding in his vehicle. The MINUSTAH troops said they had received orders to search all vehicles, including Haitian police cars.

The elections are also seen as occupation tarnished. Tellingly, Edmond Mulet, MINUSTAH’s civilian chief, while visiting the Central Plateau over the weekend, announced the Nov. 28 elections before CEP President Dorsinville. The Haitian people took note of the diplomatic gaff.

At both Monday’s student demonstration and Tuesday’s mass march, the most ubiquitous slogan after “Down with Préval!” was “Down with occupation!” Now the rains have begun in earnest and most earthquake homeless still remain under tarps and tents. Desperation and anger are at all time highs. Resentment over last year’s electoral fi ascos still runs deep. Major anti-Préval and anti-occupation demonstrations are planned for May 27 and June 1. If the mass mobilization does intensify and rock Préval’s power, May 18 and May 24 could prove to be just foretastes of the confrontations to come between UN occupation troops and the Haitian people.

Haïti Liberté Vol. 3 No. 34 • Du 10 au 16 mars 2010

For Immediate Release
June 1, 2010
Contact: Ajamu Baraka, 404.588.9761
http://www.ushrnetwork.org/

The US Human Rights Network today condemned Israel’s illegal assault on the Gaza flotilla in international waters and called on the Obama administration to demand that Israel release those arrested, provide medical care to the wounded, ensure that all humanitarian aid and supplies reach Gaza, and prosecute all those responsible. “Israel’s decision to attack a humanitarian mission showed a complete disregard for human rights and the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza,” said USHRN Executive Director Ajamu Baraka. “The Obama administration should not stand by and treat Israel’s crimes as business as usual”

The flotilla raid, which resulted in at least nine civilian deaths and the detention of almost 700 activists from more than 50 nations, including 13 Americans, has sparked global outrage. Heads of state from around the world have decried the commando-style raid. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed “shock at reports that humanitarian aid was met with violence.” Criticism has also been voiced within Israel: Former Israeli Ambassador to Turkey Alon Liel called the raid a “disaster” and a “terrible mistake” with significant potential consequences.

The United States response to the raid, however, has been grossly inadequate. President Obama issued a one-paragraph statement yesterday regretting the loss of life and urging that “all the facts and circumstances” around the events come to light “as quickly as possible.” Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a trip to Washington scheduled for today.

The U.N. has called for an impartial inquiry into the events, but the implication in the President’s statement is that the U.S. will sit on the sidelines while others pursue the matter. This appears consistent with the administration’s inability or unwillingness to apply diplomatic pressure on Israel in recent months to advance the Middle East peace process. But given the administration’s stated commitments to human rights principles, the President’s best if not only viable option in this case is to stop tiptoeing around political landmines and insist without further ambiguity that such blatant contempt for human rights be addressed without delay.

Contact: cubaworkinggroup@gmail.com
View our documents at: www.blackeducator.org/cubasolidarity.htm
Press Release Contact: Ashaki Binta, Co-Convener 203-379-7711

National: The Black Left Unity Network (BLUN) announces the formation of it’s Cuba Working Group (CWG) today. The CWG is a national network of activists and organ-izers who are concerned about the ongoing attacks against the nation of Cuba despite President Obama’s proclamations of improving relations with the Cuban state in the Spring of 2009.

Most CWG members have traveled to Cuba and/or have been active in Cuban Solidarity work for many years and are familiar with the difficult challenges faced by the island over the last 50 years.

One of the latest attacks against Cuba was generated in the Black community late last year when a prominent group of African Americans signed on to a declaration originated by anti-Cuban activists in Latin America who accused the Cuban state of racism. Signers of the accusatory declaration include preeminent figures such as Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Dr. Ron Walters, actress Ruby Dee, film maker Melvin Van Peebles, Dr. Kathleen Neal Cleaver, and Dr. Cornel West among many others. A list of 60 notable African Americans signed on to the document.

“Our consideration is that the accusation of racism against Cuba is disingenu-ous and is in fact intended to weaken solidarity between the African American commu-nity and Cuba which has historically been very strong.,” said Alberto Jones, a member of the CWG and a native Cuban residing in Miami.

“A further consequence of this attack would then be to increase the unjustified pressure on the Cuban state to abandon its socialist character and eliminate the cru-cial gains of the 1959 Cuban Revolution in providing education, healthcare, affordable housing, and a healthy cultural life for the Cuban people,” the group said.

According to the CWG, the US government’s historic blockade and ongoing programs to foment internal dissent within Cuba contribute significantly to weakening the island nation’s ability to improve and advance the political, social, economic, and cultural gains of the revolution including the elimination of all forms of inequality and lingering remnants of slavery.

Despite this, says the CWG, Cuba has abolished institutional racism and has considerably improved the lives of all it’s citizens since the revolution including nearly eliminating illiteracy and vastly improving infant mortality rates to levels lower than those in the US, especially among African Americans. The Cuban nation has officially acknowledged that more than 60 percent of its citizens are of African descent. “We believe that those who are concerned about racism in Cuba should be in-creasing pressure on the US government to end the blockade and other illegitimate attacks against that country, rather than signing on to specious accusations that do nothing to help the people of Cuba,” the group said.

The Black Left Unity Network (BLUN) was formed in May of 2008 to strengthen and revitalize the Black Freedom Movement in the United States. The BLUN Cuba Working Group was instituted in January this year to help educate the African Ameri-can community about the importance of Revolutionary Cuba in the international fight against all forms of discrimination, exploitation, and oppression and about Cuba’s historic solidarity with the struggle for freedom of the African American people.

Press Release Announcing Formation of the CWG

Seven U.S.Physicians trained in Cuba return from service in Haiti (photo from www.ifconews.org)

Despite President Obama‟s declaration of his administration‟s desire to “seek a new beginning with Cuba”, and to “learn from history, not be trapped by it” in April of last year, Cuba has remained under attack by the U.S. In January, new US air security policies included Cuba on a list of countries whose air passengers would get extra security screening as they enter US territory. And Cuba remains on the State Department‟s list of state sponsors of terrorism‟, notwithstanding the lack of any evidence of Cuban involvement in acts of terrorism. Cuba has vigorously protested all of these unconscionable attacks. In fact, Cuba‟s policies of internationalism have arguably been the most politically advanced in the world. From the direct military intervention to help in the defeat of Apartheid in southern Africa in 1988 (Cuito Cuanavale, Angola) to direct medical aide and solidarity with Haiti (before the earthquake).

Since the earthquake, western media has been suspiciously silent on the exceptional role Cuba has played in support of Haiti with more than 900 health care providers on the ground, the largest and most organized contingent on the island. Yet, one of the most disturbing new attacks against Cuba occurred late last year when a host of prominent African Americans signed on to a so-called “…Declaration of African American Support for the Civil Rights Struggle in Cuba”. This misguided “declaration” accuses the Cuban State of racism. It cites the imprisonment of a Dr. Darsi Ferrer, an active critic of the Cuban government, as an example of racism in Cuba. Dr. Ferrer was reportedly accused of attempting to establish a private medical clinic outside of Cuba‟s world-renowned medical system, by receiving illegally obtained construction materials.

Whatever the case, Dr. Ferrer‟s situation should immediately bring to mind the 50 year history of attempts by the US to subvert the Cuban Revolution through internal dissent and direct attack harkening back to the Bay of Pigs invasion and so on. Certainly the struggle against racism anywhere in the world is of paramount importance to all of humanity.

But can this attack against Cuba under the guise of fighting racism really be justified? We think not. Many African Americans may not know about some of the unique features of Cuban history even though African Americans and Cubans have a deeply rooted history of solidarity with each other.

For example, during Cuba‟s first War for Independence from Spain in 1868, plantation and slave owner Carlos Manual de Cespedes freed and armed the slaves on his plantation and called on them to join the struggle for Cuba‟s independence. The Afro-Cuban General Antoneo Maceo emerged as one of Cuba‟s most renowned revolutionary leaders of all time.

As a result of this struggle, slavery was abolished in Cuba by 1886. What a contrast to US history where the maintenance of slavery was a pre-condition of unity between the colonies in the American fight for independence from Britain. Although more than 5,000 Blacks fought in the American Revolution, legalized slavery continued for nearly another 100 years. And the US has historically played a role in maintaining racism in Cuba.

The US intervention and occupation of Cuba starting in 1898 during Cuba‟s second War for Independence (1895) and where more than half the fighters were Black, re-established institutional racism in Cuba. Under the intermittent US occupations there, Afro-Cubans and women, as well as the poor, were barred from voting, holding elective office, owning businesses, land, and etc. Sound familiar?

Most Cuban historians and scholars agree that the Cuban Socialist Revolution in 1959 abolished legalized institutional racism in Cuba. Cuba‟s revolutionary constitution outlawed racial discrimination while open and public debate and education since the revolution have tackled Cuba‟s history as an Afro-Cuban nation. However, the legacy of 500 years of slavery, racism, and all forms of discrimination is difficult to completely eradicate in just 50 years, especially while also under the US led attacks and blockade against Cuba.

Even so, the conditions of all Cubans have improved under the covenant of the socialist revolution in Cuba which has provided free education, free health care, land for poor farmers, reduced cost rent and utilities, the elimination of unemployment, and so on.

Racism, institutionalized or otherwise has not been abolished any place in the world. Yet Cuba, in our view, remains a hopeful beacon in the western hemisphere that humane societies can be constructed that provide the basis for the elimination of all forms of discrimination, exploitation, and oppression.

Ashaki Binta For the “Cuban Working Group” Black Left Unity Network. www.blackeducator.org/cubasolidarity.htm

You may contact the working group at: cubaworkinggroup@gmail.com

Documents from the Cuba Working Group may be viewed below.

The Big Lies Against Cuba