by Wadner Pierre
"The return is indispensable, too, for medical reasons: It is strongly
recommended that I not spend the coming winter in South Africa’s because in 6
years I have undergone 6 eye surgeries. The surgeons are excellent and very
well skilled, but the unbearable pain experienced in the winter must be avoided
in order to reduce any risk of further complications and blindness," from the letter of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide wrote to describe the state of his health

One year-and-eight days already passed since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the most important part of Haiti. This horrible earthquake took away over 300, 000 lives, left over 1.5 million homeless and several thousands injured. Ten months after this tragedy a Cholera outbreak discovered. UN is accused. This deadly cholera already sent over a thousand people to death and several thousands to hospital.

Seemingly, the Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier took advantage of the terrible and inhumane situation, and chose to return to the country. It was told that Mr. " Baby Dictator" received his diplomatic passport under the defacto regime Boniface Alexandre/Gerard Latortue, a regime fully backed by Washington at that time. Why Mr. Dictator did not make it back in 2005 or whatever the time he received it? Mr. 'Dictator' brutally ruled the country for 15 years after his father 's death.

Joint Israeli-Palestinian poll authors write rabbis' letter: "Our poll indicates that only minorities of Israelis and of Israeli Jews support these steps."

Recent months saw a ruthless barrage of disturbing articles on internal political developments in Israel. Articles that shine light on one ugly picture. Those painting the picture, pundits, journalists, peace activists and those of us who like to think of ourselves as anti-racist Israelis are painting it to be one of a rising tide in racism and state-repression. Some in Israel are saying these signs are but a warning, drawing parallels to 1935 Germany or the American south during the Jim Crow Laws. But as gloomy as the picture seems, new public opinion polls paint a different one. They paint a more hopeful picture, at least of Israel from within.

On Friday, thousands of Israelis took to the streets to oppose the rise of anti-democratic moves in Israel. They changed "Yehudim ve Aravim Mesarvim Lihyot Oyvim" a chant I heard often in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. It means "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies." Some signs read "Orthodox Jews for Democracy", an attempt to counteract some of the actions of Orthodox Jewish leaders in recent months.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Mario Joseph, Av., Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (Port-au-Prince, Haiti), mario@ijdh.org, 509-3701-9879
Brian Concannon Jr., Esq., Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (Boston, MA), brian@ijdh.org, 541-263-0029
Iran Kurzban, Esq. IJDH Board Chair and attorney in Jean-Juste v. Duvalier, (Miami, FL) ira@kkwtlaw.com, 305-444-0060

Human Rights Groups Call for Immediate Arrest of Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jan­u­ary 17, 2011-Port-au-Prince and Boston- Today, the ­Institute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux (BAI) call on the Government of the Republic of Haiti to comply with Haitian law and arrest ex-President Jean-Claude Duvalier, who returned to Haiti on a commercial flight yesterday.
IJDH and the BAI note that the extensive legal documentation of Mr. Duvalier’s crimes includes:
· A July 3, 2009 order from the First Court of Public Law, of the Federal Court of Switzerland, which notes that the Haitian government had informed it of current criminal proceedings against Mr. Duvalier as late as June 2008;
· The Decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Jean-Juste v. Duvalier, No. 86-0459, dated January 8, 1988, finding Mr. Duvalier liable for over $500,000,000 for his misappropriation of public monies for his personal use; and
· An extensive accounting of Mr. Duvalier’s misappropriation of public funds conducted for the Haitian government by a U.S. accounting firm between 1986 and 1990, establishing the theft of over $300,000,000 U.S.D. of public funds.

By Dante Strobino
Birmingham, Ala.
Published Dec 22, 2010 11:47 PM

Under the theme “From Exclusion to Power,” hundreds of workers and community members gathered in Birmingham, Ala., from Dec. 10 to 12 for the eighth Bi-Annual Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference.
WW photo: Dante Strobino

March on opening day of Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference, in Birmingham, Ala. Carrying lead banner are Daniel Castellanos; Pamela Brown, Community Voices Heard; and Araceli Herrera Castillo (left to right).

Jaribu Hill, conference founder and executive director of the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights, opened up with a call for human rights and social justice activists from across the country “to retool and rethink, plan and build. In these critical times of unjust wars and economic decline, it is urgent that we forge unity based on common struggles and experiences.”

The gathering opened with a press conference — on International Human Rights Day — that highlighted the work of the Excluded Workers Congress and announced a new report that examines the plight of workers barred from labor protections and the right to organize.

The report said that in 1983, 20.1 percent of the U.S. workforce was unionized, whereas in 2009 that proportion was only 12.3 percent. In so-called right-to-work states, union density now averages 6 percent. (www.excludedworkerscongress.org)

Included in the press conference were the congress’s nine sectors, including domestic workers, farmworkers, taxi drivers, restaurant workers, day laborers, guest workers, workers from right-to-work states, workfare workers and formerly incarcerated workers.

BY NICOLE PHILLIPS and NICOLAS ALBERTO PASCAL
www.HaitiJustice.org
Photo by Wadner Pierre

As a special team from the Organization of American States tries to resolve the country's election impasse, the one solution acceptable to most Haitians -- fair, inclusive elections -- is not on the table.

Thousands of Haitians protested, demanding new elections. Several Haitian senators and 12 of the 19 presidential candidates want the same. Yet the United States, Canada, France, the United Nations and OAS, which say they are committed to helping Haitians resolve this crisis, will not support new elections.

Instead there has been a feeble attempt by the international community to quell the protests. The OAS monitored the flawed elections and originally said that ``the irregularities, as serious as they were, [did not] necessarily invalidate the process.'' Amid accusations that the OAS terminated its Special Representative to Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus, after he was critical of the international community's operations in Haiti, the OAS is heading back to Haiti to negotiate a resolution and monitor a recount of votes from the presidential election.

A recount of votes for the entire House of Deputies and two-thirds of the Senate seats has not been planned, even though those results were undermined by the same irregularities.

The elections that the international community helped organize and pay for were so deeply flawed from beginning to end that the only resolution that would be fair to Haitians and the taxpayers of donor countries is to start all over again.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Your Honor, once found guilty, it is then customary for the accused to ask the court for leniency, and express remorse for having committed the offence. However, I find myself unable to do so. From its very beginning, this trial contained practically no disagreements over the facts. As the indictment states, I indeed rode my bicycle, alongside others, through the streets of Tel Aviv, to protest the siege on Gaza. And indeed, while riding our bicycles, which are legally vehicles belonging on the road, we may have slightly slowed down traffic. The sole and trivial disagreement in this entire case revolves around testimonies heard from police detectives, who claimed I played a leading role throughout the protest bicycle ride, something I, as well as the rest of the Defense witnesses, deny.

As said earlier, it is customary at this point of the proceedings to sound remorseful, and I would indeed like to voice my regrets regarding one particular aspect of that day's events: if there is remorse in my heart, it is that, just as I argued during the trial, I did not play a prominent role in the protest that day, and thus did not fulfill my duty to do everything within my power to change the unbearable situation of Gaza's inhabitants, and bring to an end Israel's control over the Palestinians.