Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

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Iraq, Haiti, Palestine

occupation is the crime!

 
While public opposition to the occupations of Iraq and Palestine is well known, the five-year occupation of Haiti has been largely ignored by the media. 

On 29 February 2004, a US-backed coup, supported by Canada and France, forced out democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a hugely popular liberation theology priest. Two months later UN forces occupied and have been there ever since. They have been responsible for rapes and

Jean-Bertrand Aristide   murders, while refusing to help Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

a population devastated by consecutive hurricanes. Local agricultural has been destroyed by US rice imports, and a tiny elite now profits from sweatshops which exploit an impoverished population. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, kidnapped 12 August 2007, worked ceaselessly with women and children victims of this and previous coups.

Following international public pressure there have been calls for justice in the UK and US Parliaments: 
 
UK: John McDonnell MP has issued two Early Day Motions demanding the return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine stating that “the world owes a debt to Haiti, the first country to abolish slavery in 1804, decades before the US and Europe. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine represents this long revolutionary tradition.”

 
USA: Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced a Bill to establish an Independent Commission to examine the Bush Administration’s role in the 2004 Coup d’Etat in Haiti (H.R. 351)

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has issued a resolution to cancel Haiti's debts (CA-35).

End the occupation of Haiti!

Return Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine!

Return Jean-Bertrand Aristide!

What you can do. 

Join the weekly vigil for the return of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. Wednesdays, 5-6pm Brazilian Embassy, 32 Green St, London WC1 

Sign the petition: www.petitiononline.com/lovinsky/petition.html

Thousands of groups and individuals worldwide have signed, including:  Danny Glover, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Sheen, George Lamming, Madaraka Nyerere, Tony Benn, John McDonnell MP, Moazzam Begg, Benjamin Zephaniah and more.  Download it as a word.doc and collect signatures 

Write/Fax/Email (see models letter on blog site) 

• Brazilian Embassy (head of UN forces in Haiti):  
  His Excellency Ambassador Carlos Augusto R Santos-Neves. info@brazil.org.uk. 
• United States Embassy: Port-au-Prince, Haiti 
  Tel: 011-509-223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354.  FAX: 011-509-223-1641
• UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) 
  Tel: 011-509-244-0650/0660.  FAX: 011-509-244-9366/67.  Or Fax: Office of Secretary General (New York): 212-963-4879
• President Préval: Palais National, Port-au-Prince, Haïti 
  Tel: 011-509-245-0474  Fax: (206) 350-7986 (a U.S. number).  
  Email: avokahaiti@aol.com.  Fax and email for Institute for Justice  & Democracy in Haiti; they will ensure a copy is delivered to President Préval)
• Write/Fax President Obama:   
  Phone 202-456-1111.  FAX  202-456-2461.   
  The US aims to deport 30,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants to storm-ravaged Haiti. Urge President Obama to stop all deportations to Haiti, intensify the search for Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, end the occupation, and meet the demand of the Haitian people who demonstrated in their thousands for the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide during Bill Clinton’s recent visit to Haiti.

 

Let us know what actions you take so they can be counted in the growing international movement for justice for the people of Haiti and the return of this much loved grassroots organizer.  

Visit the blog: www.lovinsky.org 
websites: www.Haitisolidarity.net www.globalwomenstrike.net

Or contact Global Women’s Strike 020 7482 2496   womenstrike8m@server101.com

End The Occupation of Haiti

END THE OCCUPATION OF HAITI

OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY EVO MORALES AYMA

President of the Republic of Bolivia 

10 February 2009

Dear Compañero Morales,

Cc Presidents Hugo Chavez, Fidel and Raul Castro 

We write with deep respect for you, Compañero Morales, and the massive Indigenous movement that brought you to power. All over the world we have celebrated your 2005 and 2008 electoral victories, and the recent adoption of the new constitution. We have publicly condemned the racism of the elite and their massacre of Indigenous and rural people, in Santa Cruz, Pando and elsewhere. Those of us who live in Bolivia have fought and marched over many years, and continue to organize to ensure the implementation of the constitution, and the prosecution of all those who, like ex-prefect of Pando Leopoldo Fernandez, have murdered, raped and maimed in attempts to bring down the government and deny us the power to found society anew.   

As organisers and concerned individuals from different countries, many of us immigrants, we deeply appreciated your excellent statement against the European Return Directive which calls for immigrant people to be detained for up to six months before they are deported.   

The year 2008 marked the 35^th anniversary of the US-orchestrated coup in Chile which killed President Allende and thousands of other people who were fighting for a better world. At a meeting in London called “No More Pinochets”, the Bolivian and Venezuelan ambassadors Beatriz Souviron and Samuel Moncada explained their governments’ admirable decisions to expel the US ambassadors from both countries. They called on grassroots people everywhere to unite so we can defeat Washington’s free market policies and survive.   

ACABEMOS CON LA OCUPACION DE HAITI

CARTA ABIERTA A SU EXCELENCIA EVO MORALES AYMA

Presidente de la Republica de Bolivia 

10 de febrero del 2009

Estimado Compañero Morales, 

Escribimos con profundo respeto hacia usted, Compañero Morales, y el gran movimiento indígena que le llevó al poder. Celebramos, como en todo el mundo, sus victorias electorales en 2005 y 2008, y más recientemente la aprobación de la nueva constitución.  Hemos denunciado públicamente el racismo de las élites y las masacres que han cometido contra indígenas y campesinas/os en Santa Cruz, Pando y otros lugares. Quienes vivimos en Bolivia llevamos muchos años luchando y manifestándonos, y continuamos organizándonos para asegurar la aprobación y realización de la nueva constitución, y el juicio a todos aquellos que, como el ex-prefecto de Pando Leopoldo Fernández, han asesinado, violado y mutilado para derrocar al gobierno y negarnos el poder para fundar una sociedad nueva.   

Como integrantes de organizaciones y como personas individuales de diferentes países, inmigrantes muchas-os de nosotras-os, apreciamos profundamente su excelente respuesta a la Directiva de Retorno de la Unión Europea, que permite la detención de inmigrantes durante un periodo de hasta seis meses antes de ser deportados.   

Weekly vigil for disappeared Haitian activist, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, joins Gaza protest

Last Wednesday, human rights activists who attend the weekly Lovinksy vigil choose instead to join the nightly  protests out side the Israeli Embassy.   The vigilers wanted to make visible their opposition to the slaughter in Gaza, and its similarities with the occupation in Haiti.  Since their successful revolution in 1804, the Haitian people have been invaded, occupied, have had dictators imposed them, and been denied the government of their choice: their first democratically elected and hugely loved President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile by a US coup.  Thousands of his supporters have been murdered.  Haitians are also being starved in an island with no way out, and denied international aid.  But despite this onslaught they have continued to resist, and our beloved brother Lovinsky is a prime example of that resistance.

Some of the placards carried by Lovinsky vigilers read:

Haiti, Iraq, Palestine -
Occupation is the crime.

Gaza, Haiti, Iraq
Mothers say
Stop murdering our children
Invest in Caring not Killing

NO starvation NO occupation
Gaza Haiti Iraq

A report in UK  Indymedia described Wednesday's protest as follows

By the time I had to leave around 6.30pm around 500 people had turned up to protest opposite the Israeli embassy about the continuing ground and air attacks on Gaza and its people with its ever increasing death toll - over 680 people killed in 11 days -and to call for an immediate end to Israeli aggression.

Among the many Palestinians and others showing their solidarity with the Palestinian people were several ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta as well as other Jewish groups including the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. There were several people holding posters "ASHAMED TO BE AN ISRAELI !!!" and a group of supporters of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine (kidnapped in Haiti in 2007) who had come to the Gaza demonstration rather than their normal weekly vigil at the Brazilian Embassy.

While I was there, police were keeping the demonstrators behind a double row of barriers and keeping a single lane of traffic moving on the road in front in both directions. For a very short time I was able to photograph from the area in the front of the demonstration, but one familiar police officer told me that I was getting in his way and I was forced to leave.

The demonstration was due to end at 7pm and a pro-Israel demonstration was scheduled to start at 7.45pm in the same place. According to news reports, around 500 pro-Israel demonstrators turned up and some of the pro-Palestine demonstrators had stayed to oppose them. There were a number of struggles with police and 5 pro-Palestine demonstrators were arrested as police attempted to drive them further west away from the Embassy and the other demonstrators. Another arrest was also reported earlier when police stopped a group of almost a hundred cars with Palestinian flags coming to join the demonstration from East London.

The march was also attended by a number of Jewish anti-Zionist groups such as IJAN and the Neturei Karta .