Independent journalist and occasional Dominion contributor Darren Ell's The Damage Done: Canada and the Coup in Haiti is up on the CitizenShift web site. The documentary (and accompanying interviews, podcasts and weblog entries) looks at Canada's role in the coup against democracy in Haiti and the ensuing human rights catastrophe.
Canadian photographer Darren Ell and the National FilmBoard website CitizenShift have published a new online resource about Canada and the 2004 coup d'état in Canada. The site includes new short films and captioned photographs by Ell as well as photos by young Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre; it also includes podcasted interviews, links to important websites, as well as texts and links to interviews Ell has published about the ongoing impact of the coup. The focus of all the material is Canada's involvement in the coup, it's violent legacy, and digital tools for getting involved. It's called The Damage Done: Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Darren Ell may be reached at darren.e@sympatico.ca
It has been over a month since the kidnapping of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Roger Annis, a member of the Canada Haiti Action Network and one of the last people to have seen Antoine in Port-au-Prince, recently wrote this statement on the international media's silence related to his kidnapping.
[Photo by Darren Ell]
» continue reading "End the Media Silence on Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's Kidnapping"
[lifted from Upside Down World]
Port au Prince, Haiti
Contacts: Eugenia Charles and Jacob François
Phone 011-509-698-8134, 011-509-448-3672
Our international human rights delegation seeks the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine. A long-time defender of human rights and advocate of the poor, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine has not been seen since 10:00 pm Sunday, August 12, 2007. Our delegation has made numerous attempts to contact him but thus far has been unsuccessful.
» continue reading "We are urging for the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine."
Roger Annis is in Haiti, posting regular reports on human rights issues on the Toronto Haiti Action Committee web site.
Citizens protest the meeting of Canadian Prime Minister and Barrick
Two hours late and in the presence of a huge security entourage that included guards, police and special forces, Stephen Harper arrived at the offices of Barrick Gold and entered through the parking area, in order to avoid the peoples’ protest that started at 8:00 am at the entrance to the building.
» continue reading "Canadian Prime Minister enters Barrick’s Offices through the Back Door"
An anonymous source recently pointed out the markedly partisan bias of the U.S. government's crackdown on drug trafficking in Haiti. According to the source, the six biggest Haitian drug traffickers at the time of the coup d’etat of February 29, 2004 were Jean Nesly Lucien, Fourel Celestin, Oriel Jean, Guy Philippe, Dany Toussaint and Youri Latortue.
For the good summary of the general case of the critics of the pig eradication program in Haiti, see the excerpt below from Free speech, neo-colonialism and micro-powered broadcasting in Haiti.
Anse d’Hainault’s isolation, however, did not save it from an earlier agricultural catastrophe: the eradication of the kreyol pig. In the early 80s, while the dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was still in power, there was a rumored outbreak of African swine fever among Haiti’s pigs. At the behest of the US government, ever mindful of the interests of its pork industry, the Haitian government wiped out nearly the entire pig population.
In Haiti, the divide between the capital and the rest of the country, between center and periphery is so great that one author has spoken of the “two worlds” of Haiti. Yet life in the periphery is not totally unconnected to the tumultuous events of the center. Anse d’Hainault, a seaside fishing village that has the distinction of the town furthest from Port-au-Prince, gave us a first-hand view of this dynamic.
Brazilian president Lula da Silva has written a piece called 'Challenges for the G8 summit' for La Jornada de Mexico.
He states:
"The promotion of the use of ethanol and biodiesel helps to democratize access to energy, and diminishes world dependance on finite hydrocarbon reserves...
[Biofuels] constitute economic, social and technological alternatives that are within the reach of countries that are economically poor, but rich in soils and arable lands...
» continue reading "Lula da Silva on Biofuels... Sure is easier than land reform!"
On our way from the airport to the center of Jeremie, a town on the tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula, we pass a contingent of UN soldiers decked out in shorts and Oakley shades going for a jog along the road. Our driver informs us that this is part of their usual routine: down to the beach for some swimming or volleyball in the day, jogging in the afternoon, a little game of soccer in the evening. In other words, a military man’s Club Med. It’s deployments like these that have earned MINUSTAH the popular nickname of “TOURISTAH” among Haitians.
BoingBoing calls the RCTV decision "a political decision through which Chavez seeks to gain total control of the basic freedoms of the country's citizens."
Is that sort of like a military coup that overthrows a democratically elected government?
* Note : The names of the guilty have been changed to protect the innocent *
On our first full day in Port-au-Prince, Aude and I hit the ground running. A Haitian friend in Montreal had arranged for us to meet with Madame Beauchamp, a Senator, to further a legislative project he'd been working for years. Our mission was simple enough: hand over a few documents and briefly discuss the project with the Senator.
I've just published a new article about the UN's propaganda machine in Haiti and the way it has been misrepresenting its humanitarian work in the country. The article deals with the mass arrests in February in Cite Soleil and the photo ops and lies that followed each phase of these arrests. These lies continue to this day via the UN News Service and were unexamined by Canadian journalist Jean-Michel Leprince (Radio-Canada) when he was embedded with MINUSTAH in February during these missions. To read the article, go to Montreal Serai Magazine.
When in Haiti recently, I conducted an extensive interview with Mario Joseph, the head lawyer of the Bureau des avocats internationaux, the only legal firm working on the tens of thousands of human rights violations that preceeded and followed the Feb 29th, 2007 coup d'etat. In the interview, Mario discusses the impact of the coup on the justice system, the struggle to rebuild the rule of law, the thorny problem of MINUSTAH, the continued problem of foreign (including Canadian) hypocrisy and more.
» continue reading "Haiti: Interview with Haiti's leading human rights lawyer"
One of the few Haitian journalists reporting from the point of view of the poor majority needs your assistance. Wadner Pierre has been regularly contributing to important solidarity sites such as HaitiAction and HaitiAnalysis and the Institute for Democracy and Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), but his camera is barely functioning. Darren Ell and the IJDH are selling 8x10 photographs taken by Wadner and Darren in the last year in Haiti to raise money for a new camera.
» continue reading "Journalism from the point of view of the poor majority in Haiti"
Upside Down World has published Mandeep Dhillon's excellent summary of Canadian mining companies operating in Mexico.
There are over 100 Canadian mining companies operating in that country alone.
Also at UDW, Grahame Russell looks at the Canadian Mining round tables as essentially a way to divert resistance to destructive mining projects.
The need for strong independent voices in Haiti is greater than ever. Here is your chance to support the work of a young Haitian photojournalist whose work is appearing on HaitiAction.net, Haitianalysis and other media important to the struggle for democracy. Wadner Pierre has been living and working with Father Gerard Jean-Juste for the last ten years. For the last two years, he has been reporting and photographing important human rights issues in Haiti. He brings to the world information and analysis directly from Haiti’s poor, something absent in the mainstream media.
» continue reading "Support Independent Journalism in Haiti!"
The Dominion is a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Taking its name from Canada's official status as both a colony and a colonial force, the Dominion examines politics, culture and daily life with a view to understanding the exercise of power.