Following a media blip after the 2004 coup in Haiti, Montreal's Gildan Activewear has again scored media attention in Canada, this time for its operations in post-coup Honduras.

The National Post reported today that:

While the day-to-day operations of Gildan’s manufacturing facilities are unlikely to be affected, an estimated 60% of its activewear and more than 50% of its socks are made in Honduras.

So after 30 years of peaceful democracy, [Desjardins Securities analyst Martin Landry] now believes investors will apply a geopolitical risk discount to Gildan. The analyst sees little risk that the country’s assets will be nationalized and suggested the coup may turn out to be a positive for Gildan if it brings back a more business-friendly government.

(Emphasis mine). I think it's time to set the Canada Haiti Action Network's team of intrepid researchers on Honduras, following the scent of a sweatshop-made t-shirt.

[Photo of street fighting in Tegucigalpa immediately following the coup by Oswaldo Rivas.]

By: Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis.com

June 20th, 2009. Haitians appeared skeptical of the recent senatorial elections.

In Gonaives, sitting in a tap tap days prior to the election, Kener Docteur told Haitianalysis "I don’t feel or see this so-called election, I am not going to vote on Sunday.” Similar attitudes were echoed in conversation after conversation. This was ever more clear listening to people on the bus traveling back and forth from Port-Au-Prince to Gonaives.

On Sunday, the day of the elections,supporters of Fanmi Lavalas’ launched a campaign, they titled “Operation Closed Doors and Empty Streets”. With such a tiny turn-out, even according to foreign observers and journalists, the Lavalas organizers are now claiming their campaign was effective. Their call for the election stems from the earlier banning of the participation in the election by the countries CEP.

Early Sunday morning ,the boulevard Jean Jacques Dessalines was completely empty. Similarly empty, Lalue, Delams 33, boulevard Toussaint Louverture and so forth. During the election day, Haitianalysis visited the biggest electoral centers such as Carrefour Airport and Nazon.

The voter boxes were practically empty. One electoral guard said ”from the time we opened until now, around 50 people came to vote,” This was similar in other places: Lycee Marie Jeanne in Turgeot, the building 2004 on Delmas 2, the Lycee Antoine and Georges Yzmery in Ti Plas Kazo, the Lycee Petion-Ville. People even nearby the voting booths told us that the election was a total shame. “There is no election today because of disqualifying of Fanmi Lavalas,” cried out a man near an electoral center.

Here's an interesting admission from the first edition of the Canada West Foundation's Oil Sands Media Monitoring Report:

Positive stories on the oil sands and the environment are rarely
defensive of the oil sands’ impact. Refusal to bow to pressure from environmental groups is a common topic, but more so is advances in technology that could reduce the impact of the oil sands: research into microorganisms that could aid in the reclamation of tailings pond water or carbon sequestration techniques. Negative stories attack the oil sands as they are, while positive stories tend towards describing what they could be.

(Emphasis mine). Considering CWF is a darling of Stephen Harper, there's something rather sweet about that admission.

A few of us from the VMC (including a couple of recent volunteers), took a day trip up to Sutikalh, one of the most successful, and seemingly least talked about acts of Indigenous resistance to the Olympics. It's about three hours from Vancouver if you don't stop along the way.

Picture 1: In May of 2000, members of the St'at'imc nation and their supporters set up a permanent camp near Melvin Creek, located between Mt. Currie and Lillooet, in order to stop plans to build an all-season ski and recreation resort in time for the Olympics. They are still there today.

Picture 2: Words really can't describe how beautiful the mountains are, or how amazing and unfamiliar it feels to breathe the air there.

Picture 3: The water too, was the best I'd ever had.

Picture 4: The "camp" headquarters.

Picture 5: One of many photos from an album dating back to the St'at'imc 2000 blockade to save their land.

Picture 6: Hubert Jim, or Hubie, one of the people currently living at the "camp." This photo was taken during an interview. Hubie has lived at Sutikalh since the 2000 blockade, and will continue to stand guard. "It's my fate. I'm a hereditary chief," he said with a wry smile.

Picture 7: Doug, also living at Sutikalh, comes and goes between there and Vancouver. He showed me his cabin, which a "crew from Denman island" helped him build with discarded shingles from someone else's house. It's small and surprisingly beautiful, with a wood stove inside.

People from 110 different countries have stepped through the doors of the camp since 2000, all by word of mouth.

I'm probably not the only Dominion reader who has spent the past couple of days wondering how Canada is involved in US-led "Black Ops" in Iran.

Today I found a clue when I happened across Psiphon Inc., which was recently spun off from Citizen Lab, itself a branch of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the U of T.

"Canada's Psiphon Inc. on the Frontlines of Iranian Netwar," reads a June 19 press release by Ontario based Psiphon Inc.

"The company is employing dedicated 'psi-operators' - staff whose job it is to propagate Psiphon nodes and engage with the Iranian community both inside and outside Iran - working 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

"The psi-operators are using social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook, as well as emails [sic] lists and forums, to propagate connection information to Psiphon's 'Right2know' nodes, which contain customized content sourced from BBC BBC Persian, Radio Farda, YouTube and other websites and services banned by Iranian authorities," continues the release (which I transcribed here).

According to the Globe and Mail, which picked up on Psiphon's news release:

Picture 1: We attend a meeting of Vancouver's Anti-Poverty Committee, and give a brief presentation about the Media Co-op. People express a desire to contribute financially to the project but it is fairly clear that what we'd like more than anything from a group like the APC (who struggles with funding, like many other activist groups), is based on what they are directly working on: ideas for coverage of the 2010 Olympics, information on poverty in Vancouver, articles for the site.

Picture 2: Next, the VMC posse rolled into an Olympics Resistance Network (ORN) meeting in the DTES. After giving a run-down of Media Co-op goings-on, people broke out their laptops for a tech session of sorts; those who needed computer help got it.

Picture 3: Dave Dickson. An ex-police officer with the Vancouver Police Force. He was the Police's one and only "Downtown Eastside Liaison" for many years, and also acted as their "Native Liaison." He was one of a special team which investigated the Pickton case. Of many of the city's sex-workers, he says he has known them since they were in pre-school. According to him, although this is questionable, he has built up a trust with many in the neighborhood over the years, and now spends his time doing outreach with women on the streets. On the topic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, Dickson maintains that the police have never treated anybody differently based on their race; they have been abusive, sure, but not based on race. As kind and fatherly as he is, I find something integral left to be desired.

From the Haiti Information Project
Photos: UN arrests unidentified protestor minutes before opening fire on crowd during funeral for Father Gerard Jean-Juste

HIP - Port au Prince, Haiti -One protestor was killed as UN forces opened fire during a funeral for Catholic priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste. A human rights advocate and well-known supporter of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas movement, Jean-Juste died on May 27 in a Miami hospital from complications following a stroke and long respiratory illness.

Eyewitnesses report today's shooting incident involving the UN began after mourners began chanting slogans for the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide outside of Haiti's national cathedral.

One of the protestors was seen inadvertently passing through a security barrier erected by UN forces and was detained. As the UN arrested him hundreds more rushed past the barrier and resumed chants for Lavalas and Aristide.

According to witnesses, UN troops on the scene began shooting indiscriminately at the crowd killing a young man identified only as "Junior" from the neighborhood of Solino.

Hundreds more protestors then took the body of the victim to the front of Haiti's National Palace where they began chanting, "Down with Preval" and "Long live Aristide."

Kahwenoke, Akwesasne, Sovereign Mohawk Territory
June 15, 2009.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AKWESASNE COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS DENOUNCING CBSA AND POLICE HARASSMENT AND RACIAL PROFILING ARRESTED IN CORNWALL ON NATIONAL RECONCILIATION DAY

Bail hearing for Dwayne David set for 9:30am Monday, June 15th at 29 Second Street West, Cornwall, Ontario

On June 11th, dubbed "National Reconciliation Day" to conmemorate the one-year anniversary of the Government of Canada's official apology to First Nations for the residential school system, Akwesasne community residents Khristy Sawatis and Dwayne David were arrested by Cornwall police.

Dwayne David remains in police custody until his bail hearing, which has been set for 9:30am on Monday, June 15th, at the Ontario Court of Justice, located at 29 Second Street West in Cornwall, Ontario. Akwesasne residents, outside supporters, and media will all be present.

Only a few nights prior to his arrest, around the sacred fire at the main crossroads on Kahwenoke ("Cornwall Island") across the International Road from the now-abandoned Canadian Customs and Immigration building, David commented on the reaction to the apology of many traditional Akwesasne community members, many of whom are residential school survivors themselves: "The real people cried, because it wasn't real. It was a show."

The Vancouver Media Co-op held a meeting several days ago for folks who are interested in helping with organizing, promoting events, and covering stories. About 7 or so amazingly solid folks showed up to our meeting on the back balcony of Spartacus Books. People threw around some great story ideas, agreed to taking on specific tasks (ie postering and flyering), planned a group trip to Sutikalh, talked about the structure and purpose of the co-op, as well as its goals, and shared contact information. It was an impressive tone-setter to say the least.

The bulk of Media Co-op work so far has consisted of talking to or emailing people, getting contact info for other people, talking to them, setting up meetings, and then talking some more. Several meetings with a diverse cross-section of folks linked to media production, cooperatives, and unions have been arranged and are slowly filling up the VMC calendar.

Picture 1: A demonstrator at a women's housing march put on by local group Power of Women (POW). The march was a dignified expression of anger at the government for authorizing mass evictions in poorer areas of the city (most notably the downtown eastside), as well as destroying potential social housing sites in favour of making way for the Olympic Games in 2010. Aboriginal people comprise about 3 per cent of BC's population yet make up over 32 per cent of the homeless population. Aboriginal women are particularly vulnerable to losing their homes.

Reading Michael Pollan's 2006 book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The author is, it would seem, a prophet. Or maybe just a real journalist.

Stop me when this sounds familiar:

The unnaturally rich diet of corn that undermines a steer's health fattens his flesh in a way that undermines the health of the humans who will eat it. The antibiotics these animals consume with their corn at this very moment are selecting, in their guy and wherever else in the environment they end up, for new strains of bacteria that will someday infect us and withstand the drugs we depend upon to treat that infection. We inhabit the same microbial ecosystem as the animals we eat, and whatever happens in it also happens to us.

Not a very satisfying thing to predict, but it's not like informed people didn't see it coming.