Satuday November 19, 1pm Peaceful demonstration
against Canada's betrayal of democracy in Haiti at Victoria Park. Part
of the Pan-Canadian week of action in solidarity with the Haitian
people. Join Canadians from across the country to speak out against
Canada's training of a despotic police force, its
destabilization campaign against an elected, popular government, and
its continuing attempts to legitimize the coup process in Haiti.
Organized by Haiti Action Halifax and the Halifax Peace Coalition.
Pan-Canadian Week of Action in Solidarity with the Haitian People
November 12-20, 2005
STOP RIGGING ELECTIONS AGAINST HAITI'S POOR MAJORITY
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
RESTORE HAITI'S SOVEREIGNTY NOW
October 15, 2005 - The Canada Haiti Action Network invites all
supporters to join us in a Pan-Canadian Week of Action to demonstrate
the growing opposition to Canada's disastrous policies in Haiti. With
a launch on Parliament Hill in Ottawa at 1pm on November 12, Haiti
solidarity organizers in at least six different cities (Halifax,
Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver) will be holding
demonstrations and other activities called to condemn the
Canada-backed sham elections in Haiti. In Halifax, a number of actions
are planned during this week, culminating in a mass demonstration
starting at Victoria Park (corner of South Park and Spring Garden) at
1 PM on Saturday, November 19th.
We are demanding that the Government of Canada:
* Withdraw the support of Elections Canada and all other bodies from
any elections held under current conditions of repression, which
include hundreds of political prisoners, police killings and terror,
and the exclusion of the poor from participation;
* Demand the immediate release of Amnesty International prisoner of
conscience Father Gérard Jean-Juste, former Prime Minister Yvon
Neptune, the folksinger Annette "Sò Ann" Auguste, and all other
political prisoners;
* Discontinue all RCMP training and logistical support for the human
rights-abusing Haitian National Police, and withdraw all Canadian
logistical support for the UN "peacekeeping" mission-turned repression
operation;
* Announce Canada's support for the position of the governments of the
Caribbean community countries (CARICOM) and the African Union, both of
which are demanding an investigation into the circumstances of
President Aristide's removal;
* Withdraw and withhold recognition of Haiti's coup government until
President Aristide is returned to oversee the holding of fair
elections without repression.
Canada's Role in Haiti's Human Rights Crisis
The deeply-impoverished country of Haiti is in the midst of a major
human rights crisis, following the coup d'état sponsored by Canada,
the US, and France on February 29, 2004.
At the time of the coup, Canadians were told that Haiti's former
President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had resigned from the elected
government he led. This was not true. Aristide was coerced by US
marines to leave the country, was forced onto a plane, not told where
he was going, and dumped into the French-controlled dictatorship of
the Central African Republic. At the request of the US and France,
the UN Security Council quickly sanctioned the illegal coup and
launched a "peacekeeping" mission that quickly evolved into a military
occupation force.
Canadians were also told that Canada would be working with the
"international community" - a euphemism for the US and France, Haiti's
former colonizers - to deliver aid to Haiti and help rebuild it. This
was also not true. Instead, Canada and the other two coup-backers
have overseen the establishment of an unelected government that is
facilitating a brutal military occupation that features untold
thousands killed, more than a thousand political prisoners including
"prisoner of conscience" and potential presidential candidate Father
Gérard Jean-Juste, police executions and shootings of unarmed
demonstrators, UN military assaults on poor neighbourhoods,
journalists murdered and arrested for investigating police abuses, and
the poor majority being disenfranchised in a sham, Canadian-backed
election process. Meanwhile, the cost of living has skyrocketed, and
the turmoil has left the population far worse off than they were
before the coup.
For corporate elites in Canada, the US, and Haiti itself, this
disaster is already paying dividends. Having failed to overcome
President Aristide's resistance to the privatization of Haiti's major
state enterprises (telephone, electricity, water, etc.), the economic
plans being laid for Haiti by the coup government and the World Bank
are set to turn the country into an even more easily exploited
sweatshop zone, where Canadian and American corporations can extract
even greater profits without fear of interference from a Haitian
government interested in protecting its population. A few Canadian
companies, such as Gildan Activewear and SNC-Lavalin, have already
begun to cash-in on the new, more business-friendly environment
established following the coup. Share prices for these companies are
flying while Haitians are dying.
Enough is enough. The solidarity movement now building across Canada
through the Canada Haiti Action Network is calling for an immediate
end to these abuses, and the return of Haiti's constitutionally
elected government. We reject the deployment of Canada's own Chief
Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley to lead the "monitoring
mission" appointed to bless this sham election in the same way that
sham occupation elections were blessed by Kingsley in Iraq earlier
this year. Jean-Pierre Kingsley is in a clear conflict of interest,
given his position on the Board of Directors of IFES, a US-funded NGO
with direct links to the International Republican Institute and other
groups that worked to undermine Haiti's democracy and foment the coup.
People and groups from all social justice movements are invited to
join us for these events, and we welcome the organization of other
actions under this banner. All organizations interested in endorsing
this pan-Canadian Week of Action, please contact Canada Haiti Action
Network at (613) 864-1590, or email
For more information on Canada's role in Haiti, and updates on this
Week of Action, please see www.canadahaitiaction.ca or
www.outofhaiti.ca
Sponsored by: Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN), linking: Haiti
Action
Halifax
Hamilton Haiti
Action Committee
Haiti Solidarity
BC
Haiti Action
Montréal
Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee Toronto Haiti Action Committee
Current HPC Campaigns
HPC acts on Canadian policy that fosters
inequity or injustice, root causes of violence. Living in the shadow of
empire, we want a foreign policy that promotes justice, equity, and
peace. We are currently working on Canada's involvement
in:
Students Coalition Against War
(SCAW)
