Our Human Rights Trip to Haiti

August 10, 2009

Dear Friends,

Thank you! So far we have received almost $2,000 in pledges and cash donations.

We're still packing. Our tickets to Haiti have been delayed a few days, so there is still time to reply back with a pledge of support. As you know, Children's Hope (in alliance with the Progressive Alliance), goes regularly to Haiti to do solidarity, human rights and humanitarian work, and all our donations are hand-carried; each school, clinic or prison is visited personally. This is our 10th trip since 2004. Every time is a new challenge, every time our hearts break in some new way, every time we are inspired by the strength and determination of this proud people.

Haiti has a horrifying tradition of being pillaged, and the result is that after thousands of years of abundance, this country is now the most impoverished place in this hemisphere. Children sadly are found wondering the streets, or sold into slavery; fathers can’t find work; women are targeted so systematic political rapes (19,000 of the 100,000 young women in the city of Port au Prince alone in the first year we went to Haiti following the recent coup).

Yet, I have never met so many heros. Please look for our journals from Haiti next week, for a personal look at conditions today.

You can save lives. $20 buys five bottles of anti-biotic eye med, pays a teacher’s salary for a week, or can buy powdered milk for 30 kids in an orphanage. Any amount helps, really.

We have purchased one new laptop (thanks to Dr. Ben) and found a bundle of children's vitamins at our door (I suspect - thanks go to Randy!) We are still finding the best prices on the medicine we want to purchase, but tomorrow Marshall Hospital in Placerville opens its surplus closet to us (thanks to Cathie!)...our bags are half full so far. Thank you, all!

On a sad note, this year, we will miss our dear friend and hero, Father Gerard Jean-Juste of Sainte Claire's Church in Port au Prince, near the infamous slum, Cite Soleil, and his feeding program struggles to continue.

Thank you for anything you can do...more updates later...peace, leisa

Leisa Faulkner
Founder, Children's Hope
leisafaulkner@hotmail.com
916-801-4184
3025 A Cambridge Road, Cameron Park, CA 95682


“If you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, your life will be safe, expedient and thin." Katharine Butler Hathaway

The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?

[Political scientist and progressive icon Michael Parenti asks raises some important questions re: the Honduras Coup and the Obama Administration. As a supporter of President Obama, I hope he has some good answers. -- Paul B]

Published on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?
by Michael Parenti

Is President Obama innocent of the events occurring in Honduras, specifically the coup launched by the Honduran military resulting in the abduction and forced deportation of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya? Obama has denounced the coup and demanded that the rules of democracy be honored. Still, several troubling questions remain.

First, almost all the senior Honduran military officers active in the coup are graduates of the Pentagon's School of the Americas (known to many of us as "School of the Assassins"). The Honduran military is trained, advised, equipped, indoctrinated, and financed by the United States national security state. The generals would never have dared to move without tacit consent from the White House or the Pentagon and CIA.

Second, if Obama was not directly involved, then he should be faulted for having no firm command over those US operatives who were. The US military must have known about the plot and US military intelligence must have known and must have reported it back to Washington. Why did Obama’s people who had communicated with the coup leaders fail to blow the whistle on them? Why did they not expose and denounce the plot, thereby possibly foiling the entire venture? Instead the US kept quiet about it, a silence that in effect, even if not in intent, served as an act of complicity.

Third, immediately after the coup, Obama stated that he was against using violence to effect change and that it was up to the various parties in Honduras to resolve their differences. His remarks were a rather tepid and muted response to a gangster putsch.

Fourth, Obama never expected there would be an enormous uproar over the Honduras coup. He hastily joined the outcry against the perpetrators only when it became evident that opposition to the putschists was nearly universal throughout Latin America and elsewhere in the world.

Fifth, Obama still has had nothing to say about the many other acts of repression attendant with the coup perpetrated by Honduran military and police: kidnappings, beatings, disappearances, attacks on demonstrators, shutting down the internet and suppressing the few small critical media outlets that exist in Honduras.

Sixth, as James Petras reminded me, Obama has refused to meet with President Zelaya. He dislikes Zelaya mostly for his close and unexpected affiliation with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. And because of his egalitarian reformist efforts Zelaya is hated by the Honduran oligarchs, the same oligarchs who for many years have been close to and splendidly served by the US empire builders.

Seventh, under a law passed by the US Congress, any democratic government that is the victim of a military takeover is to be denied US military and economic aid. Obama still has not cut off the economic and military aid to Honduras as he is required to do under this law. This is perhaps the most telling datum regarding whose side he is on. (His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is even worse. She refuses to call it a coup and states that there are two sides to this story.)

As president, Obama has considerable influence and immense resources that might well have thwarted the perpetrators and perhaps could still be applied against them with real effect. As of now he seems more inclined to take the insider track rather than an actively democratic stance. On Honduras he is doing too little too late--as is the case with many other things he does.

Michael Parenti's recent books include: Contrary Notions [1] (City Lights); and God and His Demons (Prometheus, forthcoming). For further information, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org [2].

No Press Freedom in Post-Coup Honduras

Published on Saturday, July 4, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
by Medea Benjamin

When José David Ellner Romero heard the soldiers breaking down the door of the Globo radio station on the evening of the June 28 coup, he had a flashback. His mind conjured up the terrible images from the 1980s, when he was arrested by the military, thrown into an underground prison and tortured. "I couldn't stand the thought of going through that hell again, so I got out on the ledge of the windowsill and jumped," Elner told our delegation. His fractured shoulder, ribs and bruises were minor given that he jumped from the third floor.

The owner of the station, Alejandro Villatoro, was thrown to the ground by soldiers who put their guns to his head and demanded to know where the transmitter was. Villatoro also happens to be a deputy in the National Assembly from the governing Liberal Party, but that didn't afford him special treatment. While Villatoro was not a fan of deposed President Mel Zelaya, he believes in free speech and always guaranteed his employees that freedom. After the military invaded and censored his station, he now supports Zelaya's return. "If this new government says it's for democracy, then why is it censoring the press? This is the 21st century," he told us. "We shouldn't have coups and censorship and thugs running the country."

Radio Globo is now back on the air, but one of its most critical programs, Hable como habla, is still banned and the host of the show, Eduardo Maldonado, is in hiding. And every now and then, like when they broadcast an interview with the deposed president, their signal is suddenly blocked.

Reporter Luis Galdamez, who hosts a show on Radio Globo, is back on the air but the military told him not to criticize the new government. He refuses to buckle, but he's scared. "I get death threats every day. I don't even read my text messages anymore, they're so grotesque" he said. On our insistence, he pulled out his iphone and randomly picked from the 64 new messages he had. "We're watching you," the message read. "We know where you live and how many children you have. If you keep talking shit, we're going to hang you and cut out your tongue for talking shit. Remember what happened in the 80s."

Galdamez, a single father, is under tremendous pressure. At night, he sees cars without license plates outside his house, rifles pointing out the window. He wants to leave the country, but doesn't know where he and his children could go.

Another radio station under attack is Radio Progreso in the city of Progreso. Four hours after the coup around 25 soldiers stormed into the studios of the community-based station and closed it down. Hundreds of local people quickly gathered to defend the station and demand that the military leave. Thanks to the tremendous outpouring of support, Radio Progreso opened the next day, Monday, but by Tuesday the soldiers were back again. The station is now transmitting clandestinely.

While the coup leaders say they are bringing back democracy by deposing an autocratic president, their first actions after kidnapping the president and flying him to Costa Rica was to keep the public in the dark. At the time of the coup on June 28, they cut the electricity and when it came back on four hours later, news programs had been replaced by music shows, soap operas, sports and cooking lessons.

By day two, most TV and radio stations were back on the air, but the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) notified cable TV operators of a ban on broadcasting certain international TV stations such as Telesur, Cubavisión Internacional and CNN Español. The pro-Zelaya Channels 36 and 50 were also banned, their studios surrounded by soldiers. Another TV station not allowed to broadcast was Canal 66 Maya TV. "They've taken off the air everyone who does not support the coup," said Santos Gonzalez, a Channel 50 reporter.

The owner of Channel 36, Esdras Amado Lopez, received threats that he would be arrested and went into hiding. A week after the coup, the station was still shut and surrounded by soldiers. The government-operated Channel 8, located inside the heavily guarded presidential palace, was taken off the air but was back in business on Wednesday-transmitting the new government's propaganda. All of the TV stations are now decidedly pro-coup, devoting significant coverage to demonstrations in favor of the new government while ignoring or minimizing mass rallies supporting Zelaya.

The only reason there is not more press censorship in Honduras today is because most of the media-TV, print and radio-is owned by businesspeople who support the coup. Edgardo Dumas, publisher of the large circulation daily La Tribuna and the country's former Defense Minister, claims that rumors about censorship are "totally and absolutely false." In a July 2 interview with W Radio in Bogotá, Colombia, Dumas claimed, "I don't see any limit on freedom of the press. The four newspapers are putting out impartial and true news. No TV or radio station has been interfered with." When asked why CNN was cut, he said it was "misinforming" the public and was "on the payroll of the dictator of Venezuela Hugo Chavez."

The more educated Hondurans are now seeking information from the internet and text messages, but most Hondurans are getting a daily dose of pro-coup propaganda and journalists who oppose the government are doing so at great risk to themselves and their families.

The Honduran people should have the right to know what their new leaders, in the name of democracy, are doing to destroy the very basic foundations of a democratic system-a free press.

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org [1]) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org [2]) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org [3]).


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Honduran Coup Turns Violent, Sanctions Imposed

by Laura Carlsen
Published on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by America's Program

Thousands of Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d'etat in their country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets, tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number wounded.

If the coup leaders were desperate when they decided to forcibly depose the elected president, they are even more desperate now. Stripped of its pretense of legality by universal repudiation and faced with a popular uprising, the coup has turned to more violent means.

The scoreboard in the battle for Honduras shows the coup losing badly. It has not gained a single point in the international diplomatic arena, it has no serious legal points, and the Honduran people are mobilizing against it. As the military and coup leaders resort to brute force, they rack up even more points against them in human rights and common decency.

Only one factor brought the coup to power and only one factor has enabled it to hold on for these few days-control of the armed forces. Now even that seems to be eroding.

Cracks in Army Loyalty to the Coup?

Reports are coming in that several battalions-specifically the Fourth and Tenth-have rebelled against coup leadership. Both Zelaya and his supporters have been very conscious that within the armed forces there are fractures. Instead of insulting the army, outside the heavily guarded presidential residence many protesters chant, "Soldiers, you are part of the people."

President Zelaya has been remarkably respectful in calling on the army to "correct its actions." It is likely the coup will continue to lose its grip on the army as intensifying mobilizations force it to confront its own people.

International Community Imposes Sanctions

In the diplomatic arena, it's not that the coup is losing its grip-it never even got a foothold. The meeting of the Central American Integration System in Managua Monday became a forum for pronouncements from one after another of the major diplomatic groups in the region. Latin America is a region where diplomatic recombinations have proliferated in recent years, so the alphabet soup of solidarity statements just keeps on growing.

The Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) issued a resolution, announcing the withdrawal of its ambassadors while continuing the member countries' international cooperation programs in Honduras. The group urged other nations to do the same-a growing list including Brazil and Mexico has already followed suit.

The ALBA group cited the Honduran Constitution, which states in Art. 3:

"No one owes obedience to a government that has usurped power or to those who assume functions or public posts by the force of arms or using means or procedures that rupture or deny what the Constitution and the laws establish. The verified acts by such authorities are null. The people have the right to recur to insurrection in defense of the constitutional order."

Putting teeth behind the words has already begun. The Central American countries agreed to close off their land borders to all commerce with Honduras for the next 48 hours. The Central American Bank for Economic Integration has cut off all lending until the president is restored to power.

It also called for sanctions in multilateral organizations: "We propose that exemplary sanctions be applied in all multilateral organizations and integration groups, to contribute to bringing about the immediate restitution of the constitutional order in Honduras, and to make good on the principle of action that Jose Marti taught us when he said: 'If each one does his duty, no one can overcome us.'"

The Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean nations also met in Managua and issued a statement condemning the coup and supporting Zelaya. Organization of American States Sec. General Jose Insulza was there too. President Zelaya received a standing ovation following his closing speech.

The U.S. government has been unambiguous in its condemnation of the coup and support of President Zelaya. President Obama stated today:

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there." He added, "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backward into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections."

After years of the Bush administration, when the commitment to democracy abroad was decided more on the basis of ideological affinities than democratic practice, some sectors have trouble accepting that the U.S. government is condemning the overthrow of a president who espouses left-wing causes. Note the obstinacy of reporters at today's State Department press conference:

QUESTION: "So Ian, I'm sorry, just to confirm-so you're not calling it a coup, is that correct? Legally, you're not considering it a coup?"

MR. KELLY: "Well, I think you all saw the OAS statement last night, which called it a coup d'état, and you heard what the Secretary just said ..." (Clinton explicitly called it a coup).

This discussion and another drawn-out discussion in which reporters attempted to open up a window of doubt over support for reinstatement of Zelaya went on quite a while. Ian Kelly, the Dept. spokesperson, held fast as reporters tried to equate supposed violations of law by Zelaya with a military coup in a fantasy "everyone's-at-fault" scenario. Kelly reiterated that the coup is indeed an illegal coup and the only solution is the return of the elected president.

The "coup question" is more than semantics and has implications beyond conservative media's political agenda to justify the coup leaders. When a legal definition of coup is established, most U.S. aid to Honduras must be cut off.

Here's the relevant part of the foreign operations bill:

Sec. 7008. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to titles III through VI of this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.

So far, the Obama administration has focused on diplomatic efforts and is waiting to see how long the Honduran stand-off will last before looking to specific sanctions. The probability that the coup's days are numbered makes that a reasonable strategy for the time being.

Attack on Freedom of Expression

The military coup has also launched an all-out attack on freedom of expression in the country. Venezuela's Telesur reports that its team was detained and military personnel threatened to confiscate its video equipment if it continued to broadcast.

The ALBA declaration notes the use of censorship as a tool of the coup, "This silence was meant to impose the dictatorship by closing the government channel and cutting off electricity, seeking to hide and justify the coup before the people and the international community, and demonstrating an attitude that recalls the worst era of dictatorships that we've suffered in the 20th century in our continent."

Grassroots organizations that support President Zelaya have faced an uphill battle against the media, which alternates between scaring people about the risk to keep them out of the streets and denying the existence of those who do go out. A message from Via Campesina Honduras warns people that information is controlled by the coup to hide opposition, cut off communications on many channels, and only allow information that favors them. They have now organized to open up contact with reporters throughout the world.

An increasingly organized opposition and independent media on the scene and on the net are breaking through the information blockade. A third source is Twitter. A major player in the Iranian uprising, Twitter has become the pulse of, if not the body politic, at least some bodies of that politic.

All this means that the information black-out designed by the coup is riddled with points of light. It's still hard to get statistical information like crowd numbers or figures of killed and wounded, but Honduras is certainly not the isolated and insignificant "banana republic" it once was.

The Return of the President

Zelaya now leaves for New York City where he will speak before the General Assembly of the United Nations to further outpourings of support. In Managua, he announced that from there he will return, accompanied by Insulza, to Honduras.

In an interview with CNN a coup leader said that Zelaya "can return to Honduras-as long as he leaves his presidency behind."

The Honduran ambassador to the UN, Jorge Reina, said that although the coup leaders have asked to address the UN, "the UN does not recognize them ... They have made a serious mistake, those who think that countries can be led through coups."

"That history has passed."

For More Information

ALBA and Via Campesina Issue New Declarations Against the Honduran Coup http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/alba-and-via-campesina-issue-new.html

Honduran Coup Moves from Failed Arguments to Repression, International Sanctions Imposed http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/honduran-coup-moves-from-failed.html

Resolution from the OAS Diplomatically Isolates Honduran Leaders http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/resolution-from-oas-diplomatically.html

© 2009 Center for International Policy (CIP)
Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(at)ciponline.org) is director of the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) in Mexico City, where she has been an analyst and writer for two decades. She is also a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist.

Honduras Crisis Forces Obama to Focus on Latin America

Supporters of Honduras's President Zelaya sing the national anthem outside the presidential house in Tegucigalpa.

By Tom Hayden
The Nation, June 30, 2009

The military coup against Honduran president Manuel Zelaya puts pressure on President Obama to break sharply with past American policies or risk massive defections in what remains of Latin America's goodwill.

Yesterday President Obama declared the coup was "not legal" and affirmed the Zelaya government's legitimacy, statements that were considered "very good" by Venezuelan diplomats interviewed by The Nation.

The Obama position is complicated by the history of US training of the Honduras armed forces, past involvement with shadowy death squads, and concern over Zelaya's alliance with the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. In the background are memories of US complicity in the attempted coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez in 2002.

The issue will become paramount today as foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) meet in Washington, DC, to consider their response. The Venezuelans will be accompanied by the exiled Honduran foreign minister. Meanwhile, Zelaya is expected to be at the United Nations for meetings at the General Assembly. "This will be a turning point in the history of the OAS," observed the Venezuelan official.

Some Democratic insiders were expressing mixed feelings over the coup. Michael Tomasky's blog found it "complicated," before concluding that "a military coup is a military coup, I guess." Faith Smith, writing on the blog of Steve Clemons of the New American Foundation, found it "difficult to say which side is democratic." She noted approvingly that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while criticizing the coup, offered "no specific support for Zelaya."

The choice for Obama is whether to side with a democratically elected government that happens to be a Venezuelan ally, or be ostracized by the governments of Latin America. Obama's policies have indicated a desire for modest and gradual rapprochement after the Bush years, without rapid or concrete changes. That gradualism will be tested today.

Honduran Coup Shines Spotlight on Controversial U.S. Military Training School

By Chris Kromm on June 29, 2009
Facing South

Before the torture debates about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, there was the School of Americas -- a U.S. military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia, which has trained some of the worst human rights abusers in Latin America.

As Facing South reported yesterday, two of the leaders of the Honduran coup -- General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, leader of the armed forces, and Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the Air Force which transported the president to Costa Rica -- were trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas.

The Honduran coup leaders are just two of over 60,000 Latin American graduates of the school, which since 1984 has been headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia. The SOA Watch database lists 3,566 graduates of the school from Honduras alone.

As watchdog groups like School of Americas Watch have documented, many of the school's trainees have been directly linked to death squads, killings of clergy and other aid workers, kidnappings and other gross violations of human rights.

The School of Americas/WHISC has also been linked to torture. In 1996, Dana Priest of The Washington Post broke the story about use of training manuals at the school that taught students many controversial techniques:

U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents released yesterday show.

Used in courses at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, the manual says that to recruit and control informants, counterintelligence agents could use "fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum," according to a secret Defense Department summary of the manuals compiled during a 1992 investigation of the instructional material and also released yesterday.

General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, widely credited with spearheading this week's military coup, appears to have been trained at SOA when torture was part of the curriculum.

Torture techniques were introduced at SOA after Vietnam, when the U.S. used lessons from the counterinsurgency experience in that war to create course materials for the school. The practice was halted under the Carter administration in 1976 due to human rights concerns -- the same year that General Vasquez first attended SOA.

The second time General Vasquez was trained at SOA in 1986, the torture techniques had been re-introduced into the school's lesson plans and training manuals under the Reagan administration. An in internal investigation, the DoD later concluded that the inclusion of torture techniques in violation of international law was a mistake. An internal memo dated March 10, 1992 stated [pdf]:

It is incredible that the use of the lesson plans since 1982, and the manuals since 1987, evade the system of doctrinal controls.

And who was Secretary of Defense when these warning signs about U.S. involvement in torture practices in Latin America came to a head? Dick Cheney, whose leadership in national security policy as Vice President would bring torture back into the media spotlight.

We're not aware of any evidence that General Vasquez was directly involved in torture, and the Obama administration has strongly condemned the military coup. But such history is an important backdrop to current events, which are vividly remembered in Honduras.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/06/honduran-coup-shines-spotlight-on-controversial-us-training-school-in-georgia.html

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, Father of the Just

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, 1947-2009

Dear Friends,

A moving tribute to a our dear friend Father Gerry... a beautiful human being and an inspiration to all those who seek peace with justice.

In Loving Memory,
Paul B

Father Jean Juste – Father of the Just
by Professor Bell Angelot
translated into English by Ezili Danto, May 27, 2009

(Father Jean Juste was always coupled to what’s just and morally right).

A powerful spirit has left this earth, and our mourning darkens the whole city.
A griot left for eternity and the whole tribe is in tears. But though the
prophet is gone, his light remains. The Haitian community of Miami has just
rung the toll to announce in pain, and in a flood of tears the departure from
this planet of Reverend Father Gérard Jean-Juste. Father Jean-Juste was one of
the pioneers of Liberation Theology alongside Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti,
Leonardo Boff of Nicaragua and Oscar Romero of Salvador.

Father Jean Juste was the spoke-person of the poor, the homeless, and for all
who thirst for justice. Father Jean Juste was a megaphone for the victims of
exclusion, those hungry for love, those suffering from the selfishness of
others and inequalities of all sorts. Father Jean Juste was the flag bearer for
Haitian immigrant rights, for those without papers, for those who braved the
shark-infested seas and for whom Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is still
denied. Father Jean Juste was a man of justice, his very name called forth
what’s just.

One can well compare the struggle of Father Jean Juste to that of the biblical
Moses who delivered his people from the persecution of slavery. ("Let my people
go!" Moses said to the Pharaoh of his time). This cry of Moses came often of
the lips of Father Jean Juste, the Prophet from Petite Place Cazeau, Haiti:
“I have certainly seen the affliction of my people, I have heard their cry by
reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.” (Exodus 3:7).

Father Jean Juste was a martyr. While distributing food to hungry children, he
was arrested and tortured by the political dictators in 2005. Some months
later, even in the deepest bowels of a church, The Sacred Heart Church of
Turgeau, the very same church where Izmery was assassinated, drape in his
priest cassock, Father Jean Juste was brutally beaten almost to
unconsciousness, manhandled and humiliated, afterwards waking up in prison.

Like Jeremiah the prophet, he knew the inside of a prison. Like Martin Luther
King, Jr. he preached love. Like Mahatma Gandhi he lived non-violence and
overcame violence. Just as Moses never reached the Promised Land, he too, did
not see the day of the complete liberation of the Haitian people. The passing
of Father Jean Juste bring us tears, this is a painful severance for us. Of
course, the lost of Father Jean Juste brings us grief, but we believe that
Father Jean Juste lives on.

Again in the years to come, we shall hear, all across Little Haiti in Miami,
the echo of his voice denouncing discriminatory immigration laws. Through time, his voice shall still wholly resound on Haiti, saying no to violence, no to exile, no to arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions, no to Coup D’etats. Jean Juste lives on and it is now that his butchers will tremble. For without confessing their wrongs and without altering their ways they allowed their victim to die, a man whose heart was filled only with compassion and tolerance.

Father Jean Juste left us on an assignment to meet up with Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. to whom he shall say that love amongst the races and race equality is
still a dream; to meet up with John Fitzgerald Kennedy to whom he will say that
Democracy and Peace are still the big challenges of our peoples; to meet up
with Father Jean Marie Vincent, to whom he shall say that the movement to bring literacy to our people has fallen by the waste side; to meet up with (Haiti’s founding father) Jean Jacques Dessalines to tell him that our country has been sold, it’s been torn apart, its been bloodied - peyi a vann, peyi a fann, peyi a tonbe nan sann - and we’ve been divided. He is not dead... He lives on!

His body succumbed to the vicissitudes: to pains that even defied science, to evil his heart and his brain could no longer bring order to, to political shocks that his conviction and his morale could no longer endure.

In the name of the larger Lavalas Movement, we bid farewell to Father Gerard
Jean Juste and wish him a good journey. In the name of all the cadres, the
grassroots/popular organizations, in the name of the Lavalas vision of
inclusion, we say thank you Father Jean Juste. Thank you very much
brother/compatriot, we shall continue to be the Sentinels – (to watch out -
veye yo - look out for the enemy).

The Haitian Center of Research and Social Science Investigations, bows in great
reverence, before the remains of the greatest tree (Mapou) to be cut down in
the forest of the just. May your demonstrations of faith, lessons in courage,
messages of patriotism, forever be the oil that lights our lamps to bring the
light in the darkness of realms, serve us all as the chorus of hope, songs of
resistances, hymn of love and friendship. For, as the (Haitian author, Jacques)
Roumain said in his book, Governors of the Dew - "The fruit that rots nourishes
the hope of the new tree."


Professeur Bell Angelot
Directeur du Centre Haïtien
De Recherches et d'Investigations
En Sciences Sociales

YON SÈL NOU FÈB, ANSANM NOU FÒ, ANSANM, ANSANM NOU SE LAVALAS.
www.fanmilavalas.net 954-670-9209
PO BOX 2252 FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA 34954

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Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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