Haitians to Rally Sept. 7 at UN to Denounce US Threats
Against Their Country
Haitians and their supporters will rally on Sept. 7, 2000 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues) to call for an end to foreign meddling in their electoral process and internal affairs.
During the rally, Haitian President René Préval will be addressing the United Nations General Assembly as a part of the Millennium Summit.
On May 21 and July 9, Haiti held nationwide parliamentary and municipal elections, which were swept by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Family. Washington disagreed with how Haitian election authorities calculated some Senate races. It has sought to discredit the elections, threatening an aid cut-off and diplomatic isolation. It has also fed the mainstream media stories that Haiti is veering toward “dictatorship,” since Aristide is expected to easily win presidential elections scheduled for November.
At the same time, shadowy right-wing death squads are destabilizing the country through a wave of murders and robberies. Haitian government officials have said that the insecurity is due in part to Washington’s withholding of 160,000 of Haitian government documents, containing names and information about the death squads. U.S. troops spirited the documents from Haiti to Washington in 1994. Meanwhile, U.S. Special Forces soldiers are stationed with Dominican troops along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, poised for invasion.
“North American and European powers have been meddling in our elections and browbeating our government, acting as if they were our masters,” said Ray Laforest of the Coalition for Haitian Sovereignty, an ad hoc committee of different community groups and individuals, which is organizing the rally. “We are telling them to back off and leave our people alone. Our ancestors carried out the only successful slave revolution in history, and we will never surrender our sovereignty. We also call on the UN and other international bodies to take no part in Washington’s games.”
Coalition for Haitian Sovereignty
1398 Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Tel: (718) 434-8100
Fax: (718) 434-5551
Contacts:Ray Laforest, (212) 219-0022
x113
Maude Leblanc, (718) 434-8100
Fritznel Benoit, (718) 773-9528