Toronto Haiti Action Committee (THAC)

(Ottawa) Peter Hallward, a Canadian-born professor of philosophy at Middlesex University in London, UK, will speak in four cities across Canada beginning May 31 to mark the release of his latest book, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (Verso Books).

Damming the Flood is being welcomed as the first comprehensive and effective analysis of recent Haitian history as well as an insightful look into the future of the battered Caribbean country. It has won strong praise from such writers as Noam Chomsky and Tracy Kidder.

Darren Ell: What message would you like to pass on to Canadian and American readers? In your view, what should they be thinking about if they want to help Haiti?

Patrick Elie: Become citizens in your own countries. You're nothing but consumers. You've lost control of your governments. Open up your eyes and ears to the lies you're being fed about other countries.

— Interview between Darren Ell and Patrick Elie

Toronto - Members of the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) as well as groups in the Haitian community in Montreal are planning a seven-city day of information, action and protest this Friday to mark the four-year anniversary of the imposition of a United Nations regime in Haiti.

On my last trip to Haiti, the guest house where I stayed had some copies of Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. I took some notes of some of my favourite passages when I read it:

I'm staying in a guest house in Haiti, and yesterday morning, the person who runs the house was telling me that one of the initiatives that Cuba has here is an initiative to save electricity. Cuba hired people to go door to door and take people's incandescent bulbs and replace them with fluorescent "green" bulbs. They figure that the reduction in energy consumption might be enough to enable big cities to have 24-hour electricity.

Cuba's projects, here, are always simple, down-to-earth programmes.

Haiti: A Modern Tragedy

An Unbroken Agony
Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President
By Randall Robinson
Basic Civitas Books 280 pages, $26.00 US

By Roger Annis
Randall Robinson has written the story of a great tragedy of recent times--the violent overthrow of Haiti’s elected president and government on February 29, 2004. An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President gives a blow by blow account of the events surrounding that tragedy.

Press release:
Growing concern over the disappearance
of political rights activist in Haiti

Thursday, September 20, 2007
Vancouver, Canada-- There is growing concern in Haiti and internationally about the disappearance on August 12 of one of Haiti’s best-known and respected advocates of human and social rights, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine.

Respected think tanks says Canada’s claims to help the Afghan people a lie
What does this mean for Haiti?

By Roger Annis

A respected international think tank has delivered another in a string of devastating critiques of Canada’s claim to be helping improve the lot of the people of Afghanistan. The Senlis Council says that Canada’s claim to be delivering life-saving medical and other aid there is a lie.

(This post was originally written on August 16th, 2007.)

This report was originally posted on August 26.

Human rights for Haitians? “Not our concern,” says Canadian embassy
By Roger Annis

On August 15, the two Canadian members of the Fondasyon Mapou/Haiti Priorities Project-organized human rights delegation to Haiti took our concerns about the disappearance and apparent kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine to the Canadian embassy in Port au Prince. This writer was one of the two. Lovinsky had been accompanying and advising our delegation.