International Action Center
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www.iacenter.orgPRESS ADVISORY
Media Contact: Kim Ives 718-434-8100, Dustin Langley 212-633-6646
For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2004
For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2004Sold-Out Brooklyn College Rally Slams U.S. Role in Aristide's Ouster
An overflow crowd of over 2,000 people packed the Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College on the evening of Wednesday, April 7 to hear a broad range of speakers accuse and condemn the Bush administration for undermining and eventually kidnapping Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004.
The event, entitled "The Truth Behind the Haiti Coup," highlighted the work done by the Haiti Commission of Inquiry, which presented the results of its findings from delegations sent during March to the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic. The independent Commission, a project jointly initiated by the International Action Center (IAC) and the Haiti Support Network (HSN), is investigating the origins, methods and actors of the coup.
Speakers at the rally included Congressional representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Major Owens (D-NY), actor Ossie Davis, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and Haitian political leader Ben Dupuy. WBAI Radio's Don Rojas and Amy Goodman also spoke.
"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls investigations into the latest Haitian coup, even that called for by CARICOM, a waste of time," said Dupuy, the secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), at the event. "This shows how much they fear the truth getting out. To add insult to injury, the U.S. is promoting diversionary investigations into Aristide's alleged drug trafficking, human rights abuses and corruption. Meanwhile, to carry out their coup, Washington is collaborating with death-squad leaders and soldiers universally recognized as corrupt drug-dealing human rights abusers. Even U.S. government officials from former President Clinton to Powell have called them criminals and thugs." The PPN offered critical support to Aristide's Lavalas Family party in recent months and continues to lead resistance to the coup.
Exiled Secretary of State of Communications Mario Dupuy called Aristide's Feb. 29th removal a "coup-napping," combination coup and kidnapping.
Sara Flounders of the International Action Center, denounced the U.S. occupation of Haiti and Iraq. "We have to march on Washington as soon as we can to get U.S. troops out of Iraq and Haiti," said Flounders, who was a member of a delegation that visited President Aristide in the Central African Republic
Musicians like La Troupe Makandal, Phantoms and Marguerite Laurent performed to the packed supercharged auditorium. The audience, a 3 to1 mix of Haitians and Americans, drowned performers and speakers alike in applause. The evening closed with a videotaped message from Aristide, recorded while in Africa, as well as a taped message from well-known U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal about the coup.
"The success of tonight's event shows how deep and broad the opposition to the February 29th coup is," said one of the event's organizers, Kim Ives of the Haiti Support Network and a journalist for the newsweekly Haïti Progrès. " We are planning another rally for April 17th at the Medgar Evers College auditorium and more demonstrations and rallies after that. The huge response to the April 7th rally should give both Washington and the Haitian putschists pause."
The event, organized by the IAC and HSN, was endorsed by the Coalition to Resist the Feb. 29th Coup d'état in Haiti, a broad coalition of Haitian and U.S. groups which have held several large marches through Brooklyn to protest the coup.
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