Citizen Organizing & Politics

July 6-14, 2013

 MINING INJUSTICE & IMPUNITY

~versus~

COMMUNITY WELL-BEING, HUMAN RIGHTS & THE ENVIRONMENT

 On this trip, we will investigate environmental destruction, health harms (to animal and human life), and other human rights violations (including forced evictions, killings, gang-rapes, etc) caused by “mega-development” projects - particularly mining operations - in the context of Guatemala’s historic and on-going impunity, corruption and lack of justice, exploitation and poverty, and lack of democracy.

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.”

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.

29 March 2013, Tunisia

As the Social Movements Assembly of the World Social Forum of Tunisia, 2013, we are gathered here to affirm the fundamental contribution of peoples of Maghreb-Mashrek (from North Africa to the Middle East), in the construction of human civilization. We affirm that decolonization for oppressed peoples remains for us, the social movements of the world, a challenge of the greatest importance.

An Interview with Camille Chalmers
By Beverly Bell
March 29, 2013

Economist Camille Chalmers is a leader in Latin American social movements and executive secretary of the Platform for Alternative Development in Haiti (PAPDA).

Hugo Chávez’ battle, with all the strength of determination the man had, is a huge legacy for every person everywhere who wants liberation for all.

By Beverly Bell
March 15, 2013

Twenty-seven years later, the unimaginable has become real. Former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has been brought to trial for crimes against humanity.

Will justice finally arrive for the hundreds of thousands who were murdered, tortured, imprisoned, beaten, savaged, and degraded by him and his father, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier?

By Beverly Bell
March 5, 2013

Three years after the deadly earthquake in Haiti, what has become of the commitments made on Red Cross billboards, the promises from telethon hosts, the moving declarations of Presidents Obama and Clinton? What has happened to the nearly $10 billion that was pledged to assist survivors and to rebuild, most of which was entrusted to the large non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that Professor Mark Schuller terms “non-profiteers”?
 

Cross-posted from Inter Press Service

By Jane Regan

Map showing location of Morne Bossa property (VCS / Société Miniere Delta). Credit: VCS website 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 24 2013 (IPS) - Outraged that they have not been consulted, this week Haitian senators called for a moratorium on all activities connected with recently granted gold and copper mining permits.

In a resolution approved by 15 of 16 senators present, the lawmakers also demanded the establishment of a commission to review all of the current mining contracts and “a national debate on the country’s mineral resources”.

Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti from Ted Oswald on Vimeo.

The following is a guest post from Ted Oswald, the author of the recently-published novel Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti. He is giving part of the proceeds from the book to Other Worlds:

In 2010, my wife and I lived in Haiti for several months and interned--she as an international development student, and I as a law student. I spent my days working for a human rights organization in Cité Soleil, the slum where my new novel is set. It was an unforgettable time.

Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen (Heads Together Small Producers of Haiti), Pati KAN Pep la (the People’s Camp Party), MODEP, FRAKKA, SEK GRAMSCI, FDDPA, RPS, FGPB, GREPS *

Port-au-Prince, February 18^th, 2013