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Throughout the world, solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the day are either nascent or fully thriving. Organized people's movements - sometimes with help from supportive government - are changing the structures which cause violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction.

Rebuilding a Just Haiti

Haiti is known around the world as a troubling, godforsaken place where troubling, godforsaken things happen.  Its poverty and state-sponsored violence are well-known, while the international policies which have contributed to them are not.  The January 12 earthquake is just the latest disaster to befall this country.

Another Haiti is Possible

Announcing "Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti's New Divide" - Advance order here!

Announcing Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti's Divide
By Beverly Bell
Forward by Edwidge DanticatCornell University Press

Beverly Bell, an activist and award-winning writer, has dedicated her life to working for democracy, women's rights, and economic justice in Haiti and elsewhere. Since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12, 2010, that struck the island nation, killing more than a quarter-million people and leaving another two million Haitians homeless, Bell has spent much of her time in Haiti. Her new book, Fault Lines, is a searing account of the first year after the earthquake.

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“MRS. CLINTON CAN HAVE HER FACTORIES”: A HAITIAN SWEATSHOP WORKER SPEAKS

Submitted by admin on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 08:05

By Beverly Bell

Marjorie Valcelat ran an embroidery machine in a factory from 2005 to 2008. She says the experience made her so sick and weak that she’s not felt able to work since then.

I had three children I had to take care of; their father had left. And since I hadn’t had enough schooling, I didn’t have the skills to do much. So I said to myself, “I’m going to work at a factory.” When I got there, they showed me how to run the machines to embroider slips and nightshirts. I spent a month training, but during that time they didn’t pay me; I had to pay them for the training.

A HARD DAY’S LABOR FOR $4.76: THE OFFSHORE ASSEMBLY INDUSTRY IN HAITI

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 07:27

By Beverly Bell and Alexis Erkert
April 25, 2013

“Haiti offers a marvelous opportunity for American investment. The run-of-the-mill Haitian is handy, easily directed, and gives a hard day’s labor for 20 cents, while in Panama the same day’s work costs $3,” wrote Financial America in 1926.[i] That may be the most honest portrayal of the offshore industry in Haiti to date. Today, the US, the UN, multilateral lending institutions, corporate investors, and others are more creative in their characterizations. They spin Haiti’s high-profit labor as being in the interest of the laborer, and as a major vehicle for what they call “development.”

Haitian farmers call for 'food sovereignty'

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 20:51

Re-posted from Global Post

Hundreds of small farmers have converged on the central Haitian city of Hinche to demand more space to grow their own crops in a country that imports more than half of its food.

"Yes to land reform. Yes to environmentally-friendly agriculture," chanted the 300-some farmers gathered for the 40th anniversary of the Papaye Peasant Movement, a group aiming to promote "food sovereignty for the people."

"Forty years of struggle for social change. We want true land reform."

Response to Cholera in Haiti Impossible Without Cuba, Says the UN

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 20:42

Re-posted from acn Cuban News Agency

HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 1 (acn) UN Under-Secretary General Rebeca Grynspan highlighted on Monday in Ecuador that, without Cuban physicians, it would have been impossible to respond to the cholera epidemics in Haiti. She pointed out that the medical aid from neighboring nation was already present in Haiti before the January 2010 earthquake.

“LOSING HAITI, THAT IS SOMETHING ELSE”: HAITIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ORGANIZE

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 12:58


By Beverly Bell

“Why is Haiti so poor?” That’s what deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez asked, over and over, in a video shown at a recent memorial at the State University of Haiti. In the courtyard of the School of Social Sciences, a repository of radical intelligentsia and organizers, professors and students took the stage to sing, drum, and recite poetry, and to make impassioned speeches about Chávez’s opposition to privatization and the US empire.

Haitian Sweatshops: Made in the U.S.A.

Submitted by admin on Wed, 04/10/2013 - 14:55

Re-posted from In These Times

By Fran Quigley

When the shift changes in the late afternoon, thousands of Haitians stream out from under an arched entrance labeled “Parc Industriel Metropolitain” toward the traffic-choked streets of Port-au-Prince. Among them is David, a thin 32-year-old man in a short-sleeve dress shirt and slacks, who works at one of the many garment assembly factories here, sewing pants for export to the United States. Through a Creole interpreter, David says the way he and his co-workers are treated is pa bon—not right. 

The People’s Camp Party, with the Collective Mobilization to Compensate Victims of Cholera

Submitted by admin on Wed, 04/10/2013 - 14:32

A Note of Protest Against the Immoral Decision of the United Nations to Not Compensate Victims of MINUSTAH’s Cholera

The news came like a bomb that the imperialist powers are used to dropping on little countries. Thursday, February 21st, 2013, a spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the U.N. told the press that he had called President Michel Martelly to announce the U.N.’s decision to not compensate victims of MINUSTAH’s cholera, under Section 29 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Afterwards, President Martelly never said if the United Nations had in fact called to inform him of their decision. The question we must now ask ourselves is this: what moral right does the international community have to speak to use about human rights and democracy?

New Report on U.S. Aid to Haiti Finds “Troubling” Lack of Transparency, Effectiveness

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/04/2013 - 18:08

“Haitians, U.S. taxpayers unable to verify how U.S. aid funds are being used on the ground”

For Immediate Release: April 3, 2013
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460

ANOTHER POOR BLACK BOY DEAD IN HAITI

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/04/2013 - 08:29

By Beverly Bell
April 4, 2013

Inside the USAID-headquarters-turned-courthouse in Port-au-Prince, the case against former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was being heard, in a trial unlikely to bring justice to the hundreds of thousands killed and tortured by him and his father François.

Vexed by the circus show of judges and defense lawyers, I fled the building and hailed a collective taxicab. The driver asked my nationality. When I told him, he said, “If you don’t mind, I want to ask you something. Are there all these children sleeping in the streets and under bridges in your country?”