Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Yehuda]

Decades Later, America’s Meddling in Colombia is Still Costing Lives

From the drug war to Plan Colombia to support for right-wing paramilitary groups, decades of US interference in Colombia has caused so much instability that to this day, the country is still reeling from it.

August 28th, 2020 by Alan Macleod

Jorge Ivan Ospina, the Mayor of Cali, visits the crime scene where the bodies of five young men were found earlier this month. Photo | Twitter via Jorge Ivan Ospina

On a warm Tuesday morning earlier this month in Llano Verde, an eastern suburb of the city of Cali, five Afro-Colombian children decided to leave their homes to take advantage of the fine weather to spend some time outside. They would never return. Only a few hours later, they were found dead; their bodies burned, cut to pieces with machetes and riddled with bullets, dumped in public for all to see.

The residents of Llano Verde are no strangers to violence; the majority of them are refugees, displaced from the fighting in Colombia’s civil war. The local press reported that the boys, Luis Fernando Montaño, Josmar Jean Paul Cruz Perlaza, Álvaro Jose Caicedo Silva, Jair Andrés Cortes Castro, and Leider Cárdenas Hurtado, were members of the vibrant local art scene and had gone to fly kites — such an innocent activity in a land of the guilty.

A violent history

The incident has shocked the people of Cali, but not surprised them. Last week alone there were five massacres across the country. Cali is not even the most recent one; on Tuesday, the bodies of three young men were found on a roadside in Ocaña, a city near the Venezuelan border. That was the country’s 46th massacre in 2020 to date, according to local human rights group Indepez, who notes that 185 people have been killed this year — more than one person per day.

“Every massacre is a message,” said Manuel Rozental, a physician and longtime activist living in Cauca, in the country’s southwest. “Young, indigenous, Afro-Colombians are being murdered en masse in different regions of the country…The massacres are methodic, systematic. It is a job being done as planned,” he told MintPress.

James Jordan, the National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice, appeared to agree, stating that “we have been watching with alarm as enemies of peace in Colombia have continued to escalate threats and assaults against human rights defenders, social movement leaders, and ex-insurgents participating in the peace process. Also targeted have been their family members, including, in some cases, children and even infants. As always, the most affected by political violence are rural farming, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities.”

The government, led by President Ivan Duque, blamed leftist rebel groups for the killings, particularly the FARC. The majority of the latest massacres have indeed occurred in rural areas controlled by the rebels until the historic 2016 peace accords, where the FARC agreed to demobilize and enter the political arena instead. Yet the experts MintPress spoke to were skeptical of Duque’s claims. “Who in Colombia, after the FARC dismantled has the capacity to locate, threaten and murder social leaders and now proceed with massacres with such precision? The answer is obvious, there has to be military intelligence involved,” said Rozental. Certainly, throughout Colombia’s recent history, the majority of atrocities have been carried out by government-linked paramilitaries, who have enjoyed virtually free rein to impose their will on the country.

Jorge Ivan Ospina, the Mayor of Cali, visits the crime scene where the bodies of five young men were found. Photo | Twitter via Jorge Ivan Ospina

Duque visited Cali on Saturday, and ordered national police chief General Oscar Atehortua to take charge of the investigation, and instructed his forces to be “relentless” in their pursuit of justice, aggressive language which worried many he was trying to calm. At the same time, he has attempted to downplay the recent upsurge in violence, describing the massacres as merely “collective homicides.” Today, the government announced it had arrested two suspects, although their affiliations, let alone their guilt, are still unclear at this point.

Professor Mario A. Murillo of Hofstra University, author of “Colombia and the United States: War, Terrorism and Destabilization,” was profoundly agnostic about the perpetrators of the violence, but believes the broader situation stems from failures in government. “The recent wave of massacres hitting predominantly rural communities in Colombia, at first glance, appears to be part of a random lawlessness which authorities are deliberately finding difficulty in attributing responsibility to, but is actually the direct result of the failures of the current government to fully implement the 2016 peace agreement signed with FARC rebels by the previous administration,” he said.

“The bottom line is if President Duque had not taken the lead from the right-wing base of his Democratic Center Party in dismantling every important provision of the peace accord — from land reform to justice for the victims of the decades-long war, from sustainable rural development, to guarantees for social movements and demobilized guerillas in a post-conflict Colombia — the country would not be reliving this kind of terror, reminiscent of the horrors of the late 1990s and early 2000s.”

Don’t vote for Petro

Ivan Duque came to power in 2018 in a hotly contested and highly questionable election that pitted him against former leftist guerilla Gustavo Petro. This was the first time that the left appeared to have a shot at power since the assassination of presidential candidate Jorge Gaitan in 1948, an event that sparked decades of civil war. Right-wing paramilitary death squads sprung into action, announcing generalized death threats against those who attempted to vote for Petro. Petro himself narrowly survived an assassination attempt in the run-up to the election. Some of his supporters were less lucky. American human rights lawyer Daniel Kovalik, an election observer, said he was mistaken for a voter and offered money to vote for Duque. There were over 1,000 official electoral fraud complaints. Jordan explained to MintPress his experiences with the questionable vote

“During the Summer of 2018, we took an election observation team to Colombia. That election season was, historically, the first in which former insurgents from the FARC participated as a legal political party after laying down arms. It was also marked by organized threats and assaults by paramilitary actors against left and center-left campaigns, and against various popular movements. And it was marked by massive electoral fraud and irregularities, some of which our teams witnessed directly.”



Plan Colombia

Duque is the protege of the strongly conservative president Alvaro Uribe, who ruled the country between 2002 and 2010. Uribe worked closely with the United States government to implement the Bush administration’s “Plan Colombia,” a massive push to militarize the drug war, leading to huge death and destruction in the nation’s countryside and resulting in widespread social dislocation and upheaval. However, many observers saw Washington’s move as a veiled attempt to ply a favored government with weapons so they could defeat Colombia’s leftist rebels once and for all. Of note is that Uribe himself was named as an important player in the narco-trafficking trade in a 1991 U.S. government document.

Largely unknown outside the country, Colombia’s civil war, which began in 1964 and has never fully stopped, has caused massive social upheaval, including some 7.4 million currently displaced people, according to the United Nations. By comparison, the conflict in Syria generated 6.2 million displacements. Afro-Colombians were particularly hard hit.

Uribe also oversaw a years-long series of extrajudicial murders and massacres that resulted in over 10,000 deaths. Dubbed the “False Positives Scandal,” government forces would murder anyone they wished, later claiming their victims were members of the FARC. This allowed Uribe to impose his rule on the country, intimidating opponents into silence. Colombia became, according to Amnesty International, the “most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist,” with more unionist murders occurring inside the country than in all others combined.

Even today, right-wing paramilitaries linked to the government have been using the COVID-19 lockdown to go after activists, with more than 100 murdered in the first half of 2020 alone. “Our enemies are still killing us and it’s not difficult for them during the pandemic because we are all at home, complying with the mandatory quarantine which means nobody can move,” one Afro-Colombian activist wrote for Amnesty. “Being at home 24 hours a day is a death sentence because the gunmen know where to find us.”

Rozental was of the opinion that drugs, violence and the state were all fundamentally intertwined in Colombia, telling MintPress,

“The relationship with drug trafficking and cartels…no-one can ignore or deny the evidence and the knowledge of the fact that the Colombian state, at the highest level, the Armed Forces, the judicial system and the congress are all involved in drug trafficking mafias and the business of drug trafficking. The personification of this is Alvaro Uribe.”

Yet this is largely ignored in the West, with corporate media often presenting the country as an emerging democracy, and Uribe as a beloved statesman, with some even describing him as the “savior” of a nation and a “beacon of hope” for the world.

Uribe’s past may have finally caught up to him, however, as the former president was charged and placed under house arrest earlier this month for allegedly attempting to bribe a witness in a case involving members of a paramilitary group. He also stands accused of being a founding member of a right-wing death squad. He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted. Could it be the man who was once considered untouchable is about to feel the wrath of the state he helped build?

Murillo believed that there could be a connection between his arrest and the explosion of violence in the past few weeks, saying:

“It is most likely not a coincidence that this current wave of massacres, which were part of daily life in Colombia when Duque’s benefactor, former President Alvaro Uribe, took the reigns of power in 2002, are occurring just as Uribe sits through house arrest, facing justice for his involvement in witness tampering and paramilitary activity. Are they designed as a distraction? Or worse yet, retribution for Uribe’s detention? Unfortunately, in Colombia, we will most likely never get to the bottom of it.”

 

[Yehuda]

Who benefits?

So who is responsible for the upsurge of massacres? Is it the FARC, as the government alleges? Or were right-wing paramilitaries to blame? Or perhaps one of the myriads of narco-trafficking groups operating in the region? Or a combination of many factors? If history is any judge, we will probably never get a definitive answer. Colombia is a country of so much beauty and so little justice.

A man walks his dog next to a mural depicting former President Alvaro Uribe, in Bogota, Colombia. Fernando Vergara | AP

For Rozental, even asking that question can be unhelpful. Instead, he says, we must simply “recognize who the beneficiaries are.” Then it becomes easier to understand. “The intention is to consolidate an articulation between transnational corporate financial and extractive interests with drug trafficking mafias,” he said, noting that marijuana grown in his home department of Cauca and bought for $3-$5 is sold in the U.S. for $5,000. Cocaine production is a similar story, with the area under coca cultivation more than tripling between 2013 and 2018, according to the U.N.

“There is a massive transfer of wealth flowing north with drug trafficking, and the entire violent mafia-type organizations that produce and transform, open spaces for extractive transnational interests, for geo-political initiatives and for the displacement and destruction of social movements and organizations that generate alternatives from below. One needs a different mindset to look at what is happening here. The massacres are means to ends. Victims call upon the government for help, which provides the pretext for militarization, which has in every case led to more drug trafficking and more violence,” Rozental told MintPress.

The American connection

For Jordan, the actions of the United States government have also played a part in the surge in violence, telling us that the Trump administration has leaned on Duque to abandon his government’s commitment to rural communities and its crop substitution policy, which allowed poor farmers the opportunity to make an honest living, rather than growing illicit crops. Instead, as they did during Plan Colombia, the U.S. government has favored empowering the military to intervene and to eradicate crops around the country, efforts that have strengthened their hand and emboldened paramilitaries to act like all rural farmers are mortal enemies engaged in criminal activity. Jordan also alleges that Trump has “eagerly pushed” Colombia to abandon its truth and reconciliation program and the rehabilitation of former guerilla fighters back into polite society. To understand the situation fully, he said, “we have to look beyond Colombia, toward the US and NATO Empire.”

Colombia, of course, has for nearly 200 years been considered by those in Washington to be America’s “backyard,” with the nation proving to be among the U.S.’s most loyal allies in the hemisphere. Even during the wave of left-wing governments that came to power in Latin America during the 2000s and 2010s, Colombia held firm, being a vital American foothold on the continent, from which it continued to destabilize neighboring states like Venezuela.

The U.S. has always been deeply involved in the drug trade. Investigative journalist Gary Webb detailed how, during the 1980s, the CIA helped flood America’s black communities with crack cocaine, allowing the far-right Nicaraguan Contra death squads to profit from the practice, aiding them in their fight to overthrow the leftist Sandinistas. Webb was found with two bullets in his head in 2004. Officials ruled it a suicide, although some remain skeptical. To this day, Webb is still despised in elite journalist circles; corporate media outlets having worked overtime to contain the story and stop his reporting going mainstream. Today, some of the Iran-Contra squad is back in the White House, with Elliott Abrams appointed special advisor to Trump on Venezuela and Iran. In 1991 Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to congress about how, behind the scenes, his associates were selling arms to Iran to fund their regime change project in Nicaragua.

Ultimately, as long as Americans continue to pay top dollar for illicit drugs, Colombians will continue to pay in blood. The identities of most of the country’s killers remains a mystery, but the violent context in which the massacres are happening is not.

Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.

Decades Later, America’s Meddling in Colombia is Still Costing Lives

 

[Yehuda]

Ten years of the Racial Equality Statute

“This law is our most complete legal norm for the promotion of racial equality”

By Senator Paulo Paim | August 3, 2020 | 10:23

Photo: Alessandro Dantas

Federal Law 12.288/2010, which instituted the Racial Equality Statute, emerged from a trip we made to South Africa in 1989. The group was composed of me, Benedita da Silva, Edimilson Valentin, Domingos Leonelli, Carlos Alberto Caó and João Herman. We were young deputies, still in our first term. We went there to demand the release of Nelson Mandela.

Mandela's wife, Winnie, presented us with the South African People's Freedom Charter against Apartheid, approved in Soweto, in 1955. The document we had in hand brought hope and new times to Africa and the world: equality of rights for whites and blacks, decent life, fair work and income distribution.

We had to face the debate on racism and discrimination in Brazil. We talked to the Black Movement and society. It was up to me to present the bill for the Racial Equality Statute. It was two decades of many negotiations and maturing. Lo and behold, on July 20, 2010, the Statute was sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

This law is our most complete legal norm for the promotion of racial equality. It is a set of affirmative, reparatory and compensatory actions, which guarantees the right to health, education, culture, sport and leisure; the right to freedom of conscience and belief and the free exercise of religious services. The text provides for access to land and adequate housing; the right to work and the media, among others.

The Racial Equality Statute is a guiding compass for various policies to promote Racial Equality, such as:

• The legal provision of the “National System for the Promotion of Racial Equality”, with the strengthening of the policies of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Secretaria de Promoção da Igualdade Racial, SEPPIR);
• The strengthening of the Palmares Cultural Foundation is provided in the section dealing with “Culture”;
  
• Support for the educational area is guaranteed in the section dealing with “Education”, with provision for the quota law in universities (Law No. 12.711/2012);
  
• The additional reinforcement to the implementation of Law 10.639/03, which provides for the teaching of African history and culture at all levels of education, a measure that, even today, is still very timid;
  
• The provision, in the “Work” chapter, for the quota law in the federal public service (Law No. 12.990/2014); and for the approval of the complementary law for domestic workers (Law No. 150 of 2015), which benefited many black women workers;
  
• The perspective in the “Financing Initiatives to Promote Racial Equality” chapter for Constitutional amendment No. 33 of 2016, which creates the National Fund to Combat Racism;
• The creation of permanent ombudsmen and access to justice and security, whose work has warmed up one of the most important temporary commissions in Congress, the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry (Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito, CPI) for the Murder of Black Youth, with Senator Lídice da Mata (president), me (vice president) and Senator Lindbergh Farias (rapporteur); the CPI presented Sustainable Logistics Plan (Plano de Logística Sustentável, PLS) No. 239 of 2016, which addresses the abolition of the acts of resistance (“resistance followed by death” police reports which create a presumption in favor of the police officers).

Subsequently, in line with the “Right to Education, Culture, Sports and Leisure” chapter, we presented Bill No. 3.462/2020, which creates the “Internet Connection Aid” to ensure internet access for students from low-income families to distance education. Also based on this chapter, we prepared Bill No. 3.434/2020, which requires the reservation of vacant posts for blacks, indigenous people and people with disabilities in graduate programs.

Likewise, it was the first chapter of the Statute, “Of the Right to Health”, that prompted us to recently present Bill No. 2.179/2020, which combats underreporting. The project determines the agencies that make up the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS) to record data related to ethnic-racial markers, as well as age, gender, condition of disability and location of the patients they care for due to infection by COVID-19.

And also through the Racial Equality Statute, we presented PLS No. 214/2010, which institutes the University Permanence Scholarship Program, in the amount of a minimum wage, aimed at impoverished college students.

Putting into practice the Racial Equality Statute means fighting the good fight to change the perverse reality that affects the black Brazilian population. As long as there is racism, there will be no democracy. Long live the Brazilian Black Movement.

Ten years of the Racial Equality Statute

 

[Yehuda]

Political parties prepare reaction to allocation of funds for black candidates

André Shalders - @andreshalders | From BBC News Brasil in Brasília | September 25, 2020

Superior Electoral Court

Political parties are preparing the reaction to the rule that provides for equal distribution of money and TV time between white and black candidates already in this year's municipal elections.

The matter was discussed at meetings of party leaders and electoral lawyers throughout the penultimate week of September. It is not yet known whether the decision will be taken through an action at the Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF) or through the National Congress.

According to sources heard by BBC News Brasil on condition of anonymity, more than a dozen parties are willing to participate in the initiative — from right to left.

The rule of equal distribution of funds was created by the ministers of the Superior Electoral Court (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, TSE) at the end of August, in response to a consultation formulated by federal deputy Benedita da Silva (Workers' Party–RJ) and by the Educafro Institute.

In the TSE's original decision, the parties should guarantee the proportional division of the resources of the Electoral Fund and the Party Fund, as well as the TV time, between black, brown and white candidates — but the rule would only apply for the 2022 elections.

It is not a question of candidates' quotas, as it already happens with the minimum percentage of 30% of women candidates, but only to guarantee the proportional division of funds.

However, on September 10, Minister Ricardo Lewandowski decided in a monocratic (individual) way that the rule should apply in the municipal elections this year, which generated discontent among the parties.

One of the proposals under discussion between the parties is to pass a Legislative Decree Bill (Projeto de Decreto Legislativo, PDL) in Congress to overturn Lewandowski's decision.

The ministers of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) will begin to decide this Friday (September 25) whether or not the minister's decision remains. Voting will take place in a virtual plenary session. In this case, there is no verbal discussion of the matter and ministers have up to seven days to vote, without having to do so on the same day.

Presidents of various political parties complained about the anticipation of the rule for 2020 during a meeting with the president of the TSE, minister Luís Roberto Barroso, on September 22. Some of the leaders demanded more information about how the division of resources should be done.

Presidents of several parties complained about the anticipation of the rule for 2020 during a meeting with the President of the TSE, Minister Luís Roberto Barroso (photo)

In response to the parties, Ricardo Lewandowski presented clarifications on how the division of resources should be made. Black and white candidates should benefit equally within each gender (men and women), and not globally. The measure aims to protect female candidates, avoiding the concentration of resources on male candidates.

Issue divides party leaders

The decision to apply the funds reserve to black candidates as early as 2020 divides the presidents of political parties consulted by BBC News Brasil.

Republican President, Congressman Marcos Pereira (SP) says the party was taken by surprise by Lewandowski's decision. "There is no time to organize for this (election)", he told BBC News Brasil, by text message. "It will be a mess if it is to (apply) this year", said the politician, who is also vice president of the Chamber of Deputies.

Pereira says there is also a concern about fraud — candidates who declare themselves to be black, even if they're not. "How to control the election in more than 5.5 thousand municipalities?", he asked.

Carlos Siqueira is the national president of the Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro, PSB). He says that the party will already distribute the funds proportionally among black and white candidates — but says that, ideally, the decision would have been made earlier.

"Theoretically, the decision is perfect. And, in our case, we already treat black candidates as candidacies that deserve to be prioritized. So, there is no problem. My only issue is that the TSE should have made this decision in advance to allow for a better organization of the parties", he said.

Chamber of Deputies

"The Parliament can only change the electoral law by obeying the principle of annuality and changing a year earlier. And the Supreme Court itself has rulings in which it orders that judicial decisions (on electoral matters) also obey the principle of annuality", Siqueira told BBC News Brasil.

Other party leaders defend Lewandowski's decision.

"We at the Democratic Labor Party (Partido Democrático Trabalhista, PDT) will not be against the funds reserve in 2020. We think the measure is fair. This is the payment of a historical debt to society. Second, there is no value reserve, there is equality in the distribution of value, by self-definition. It's like with higher education, you declare yourself black or brown, and then you have the right to a vacant spot", said Carlos Lupi, national president of the Democratic Labor Party.

According to him, a preliminary survey made by the party indicates that 45% of its candidates are black or brown.

The Brazilian Democratic Movement (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, MDB) is the party that elected the most mayors in the country. According to its president, federal deputy Baleia Rossi (SP), the party should have no difficulty in complying with the TSE's decision in these elections already.

"We are already prepared, through MDB Afro, to value the candidacies of black people in the MDB", he tells BBC News Brasil. The branch, linked to the black movement, was reactivated in the party recently.

"You have, of course, the difficulty of coming to a decision at the last minute, but we are here preparing ourselves, including waiting for MDB Afro to make the nominations of the candidates representing the movement", said Baleia Rossi.

Benedita: bills to regulate the issue are ready

Benedita da Silva, the author of the consultation with the TSE, responds to the criticisms of the party presidents saying that there are bills stopped in Congress regulating the equal distribution of resources — it would be enough to give urgency and approve one of the bills.

"I have a solution for those who think it must be regulated. We have bills there at the Chamber of Deputies, which did not enter into the political reform that was carried out. Just ask for urgency for the bill, and we may have it approved and regulated. And then it might work, given the decision of the Supreme Court", she told BBC News Brasil.

Benedita da Silva asserts that proportional distribution of funds is a political decision of the parties.

"This (proportional division) will give a second wind to the black candidacies that don't really go anywhere. You don't have enough funds, you end up not having enough support. You don't get enough TV time. (...) We have been seeing this for years, right? The difficulty that the black community faces in order to be a candidate, due to the fact that most of them are poor, do not have their own resources and do not defend causes that could spark the interest of big capital", she says.

"We cannot agree with what is wrong, right? What was established in the TSE was precisely that this distribution of resources and radio and TV time (which favors white candidates) is unconstitutional. And it's done in large part due to institutional racism of the parties themselves. This must be remedied right away", says Irapuã Santana, a Rio de Janeiro State University Doctor of Law and one of the authors of the consultation with the TSE.

"So, this type of argument is an insistence on error. And it says a lot about which side these parties are on in the fight against racism", he adds.

"If the black population does not actively participate in the electoral process, there is a democratic deficit there, which needs to be corrected. We are not asking for anything too much, just that there is a funding proportional to the number of candidates, and that this race is fairer. May all candidates begin from the same starting point, not with some being more privileged than others", says Irapuã Santana.

Benedita da Silva on difficulties faced by black candidates: most of them are poor, do not have their own resources and do not defend causes that could spark the interest of big capital.

In the 2018 elections, blacks remained underrepresented in relation to whites in number of candidates.

About 53% of the people who ran for office were white, although this group represents only 44% of the Brazilian population. Meanwhile, blacks, who are 55% of Brazilians, accounted for 46% of candidates.

A study by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) also showed that political parties favored white candidates when distributing resources.

The measure may end up being innocuous, warns political scientist

Despite the seriousness of the issue, experts consulted by BBC News Brasil see problems in Ricardo Lewandowski's decision to apply the resource reserve as early as 2020 — the measure may prove to be ineffective.

Flávio Britto is a lawyer specialized in electoral law. According to him, there is a possibility that the application of the reserve of funds already in 2020 will result in electoral fraud — like the fake women candidacies in 2018, created by the parties only to reach the 30% quota.

Additionally, says Britto, it is necessary that the parties have some time to decide how they will do to comply with the decision of the Electoral Justice. He makes an analogy with Article 16 of the 1988 Constitution, according to which laws that change the rules of the electoral game must be passed at least a year before it comes into force.

"It is difficult to estimate what the impact of this measure will be", says political scientist Bruno Carazza, author of a book on the influence of money in elections.

"Theoretically, this measure (allocating resources to women and blacks) levels the playing field, because it takes away power from the parties, from the leaders, in favor of these minority majorities", he says.

"The problem with that? In the last elections, the parties followed the rule (about female candidates) by concentrating resources on women who were close to the party leaders. There was a very large concentration. The MDB, for example, allocated funds to the ex-wife of (senator for Pará) Jader Barbalho; for the daughter of (former deputy for Rio) Eduardo Cunha; for the wife of (former senator for Rondônia) Valdir Raupp", he exemplifies.

"So, in fact, it didn't democratize anything. The risk of this being perpetuated with the reserve of resources for blacks also exists", points out Carazza. "I keep imagining that Bolsonaro's party in 2022 could spend a good part of the black quota in the campaign of (federal deputy for Rio) Hélio Bolsonaro", says Carazza, who is a professor at Ibmec and Fundação Dom Cabral.

"Creating the rule, by itself, does not guarantee that you will increase the chances of women, black and brown people. Because there is no governance rule on the distribution of money", he says.

Political parties prepare reaction to allocation of funds for black candidates

 

[Yehuda]

On its 60th Anniversary: Reviewing ‘Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a meeting’

September 29, 2020 by Gloria Verdieu

Fidel Castro and Malcolm X at the Hotel Theresa In Harlem, 1960.

On Sept. 19, 1960, thousands of New Yorkers embraced 125th Street and Seventh Avenue to greet Premier Fidel Castro’s arrival. For 24 hours that day, Harlem’s streets were carpeted by the energy and warmth of its people.

These were rare events indeed, rivaled only by another event some 30 years later when Nelson Mandela stood on almost the same street corner, looking over the sea of Black faces cheering his homecoming to the Black capital of the world.

— “Fidel and Malcolm: Memories of a Meeting” by Rosemari Mealy (pg.14)

• Also: 60th anniversary of President Fidel Castro’s historic New York visit

Sept. 18, 2020, marked 60 years since the Cuban delegation arrived in New York City for Prime Minister Fidel Castro to address the fifteenth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Sept. 19 is when 35-year-old Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X and 34-year-old Cuban head of state Fidel Castro had a historic meeting of the minds on the ninth floor of the Black-owned Hotel Theresa in one of the poorest, predominately Black neighborhoods in New York: Harlem.

How did this happen? There are many stories written about the circumstances which led to the Cuban delegation checking into Hotel Theresa and the meeting of Malcolm X and Fidel Castro. But what really happened between Sept. 18, when the Cuban delegation arrived in New York and Sept. 28, when the delegation flew back to Havana, Cuba?

Let the truth be told

“Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting” was compiled by Rosemari Mealy with voices from Cuba and the U.S. who added their perspectives as historians, poets, journalists and political activists.

First published in 1993, Mealy explains In the introduction to the 2013 second edition that the book was ‘“inspired by a 1990 ‘Malcolm X Speaks’ symposium commemorating Malcolm X’s 65th birthday held In Cuba. The symposium was organized by Mealy and Assata Shakur and hosted by the Casa De Las Americas Cultural Center in Havana.

The timing of the symposium also commemorated the 30th anniversary of the meeting of Malcolm X and Fidel Castro. “It was an unforgettable moment when Cuba’s former U.N. Ambassador Raúl Roa Kouri and renowned Afro-Cuban journalist Reinaldo Penalver addressed the symposium, mesmerizing the participants with their vivid and colorful stories, reflections and memories of the famed encounter between two of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.”

It was at this symposium that we learned that Roa should be credited for arranging the logistics of that meeting and Penalver personally interviewed Malcolm or, as he told it, Malcolm interviewed him.

“For Havana to host the symposium was clearly a recognition of Malcolm’s contribution to the worldwide struggle for justice and equality. In the view of many, it was an important contribution to the internationalization of Malcolm X's thought.”

Cubans have access to the writings of Malcolm X. Their publishing houses were some of the first to translate his ideas into a foreign language. In Cuban language schools, Malcolm’s speeches are required texts for future translators and interpreters.

The Cuban delegation arrives in New York and moves from the Shelburne Hotel to Hotel Theresa

Prior to the arrival of the delegation, Raúl Roa Kouri spoke to Robert Tabor, one of the founding members of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), who said that Malcolm X had suggested that the Cuban delegation stay at the Hotel Theresa. Rao mentioned this idea to the delegation, but when he returned to the Cuban Mission, he was informed that the Shelburne Hotel, located near the Cuban Consulate, had been chosen to house the delegation.

On Sunday, Sept. 18, 1960, when the Cuban delegation arrived in New York City, the Cuban revolution was one year old. The administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower and counterrevolutionary Cubans had already begun a policy of hostility towards Cuba and Prime Minister Fidel Castro.

The delegation was greeted by cheering crowds of patriotic Cubans who lined the airport route. A reactionary group of Cuban exiles called “Rosa Blanca” (White Rose) formed a picket line in front of the hotel, provoking terrorism by threatened to blow up the Shelburne Hotel. There was a line of police separating the U.S. Cuban exiles from the hotel entrance.

On Monday, Sept. 19, the hotel manager told Roa to inform his prime minister that the hotel was in grave danger of being severely damaged by protesters, and he must deposit a $20,000 security fee in order to stay in this hotel. Fidel was outraged. Security and maintaining order were problems for the New York City police. His response to the manager was for Roa to tell him to his face, “You are a gangster and we are not paying a single cent,” at which time the manager told Roa that the delegation would be evicted from the hotel. Fidel’s response was to leave the hotel immediately.

Fidel began pacing the hotel room preparing to leave and looking at the options for the delegation, which included purchasing tents and camping outside of the U.N. That is when Roa told him about Malcolm X’s suggestion to stay at the Hotel Theresa. Fidel asked, where is the Hotel Theresa? Roa replied, “In Harlem.” Fidel repeated, “In Harlem? In the Black ghetto?” Fidel told Raul to contact Tabor and go see Malcolm X and book rooms.

Conrad Lynn, an African-American civil rights lawyer, political activist and member of FPCC, contacted Love Woods, manager of the Hotel Theresa, who hesitated at first because there might be difficulties in cashing a check from Fidel. He would need cash. Lynn got the cash from a sympathetic gambler in Harlem after explaining the situation. The gambler, whom Lynn did not name, was Black and paid one thousand dollars to Woods. The Cuban delegation checked into the Hotel Theresa the night of Sept. 19.

The government tried to put pressure on Mr. Woods, but he responded that this was a public hotel and they could not dictate who he rented the rooms to. Mr. Woods made it clear to Lynn that he did not want to get politically involved and that he was renting the room as a proprietor and did not endorse any of Fidel’s ideas.

Woods, in his late 80s at the time, was a vocal and respected leader in the Harlem community. “Almost everyone that I interviewed spoke of the respect Love [Woods] garnered when he refused to back down in his commitment to host the Cuban delegation”, observed Reinaldo Penalver.

So that is how the Cuban delegation came to stay in Harlem at the Theresa Hotel, making Fidel the first international leader to set foot on Harlem soil in a public way.

The news that the Cuban delegation was moving to Harlem was not well received by the U.N. What an embarrassment! Word was out that the Cubans were moving to Harlem or pitching tents on the U.N. grounds. The U.S. Secret Service was getting anxious, and the Cubans began receiving calls from the best hotels in town, offering suites and entire floors, free of charge.

Fidel announced that the delegation was going to stay at Hotel Theresa in Harlem: “That is where the Black people live; that is where the working-class people live; that is where Latin Americans live. That is where we are going to go because our revolution is the revolution of the humble, the revolution of the poor, the revolution of racial integration and anti-racism.”

Meeting with Malcom X at midnight on Sept. 19

To see Fidel at the Hotel Theresa meant getting past a small army of New York City police guarding the building, and U.S. and Cuban security. Malcolm X gained entry because he had recently been named to a welcoming committee for dignitaries set up by Harlem’s 288th police precinct. Fidel did not want to be bothered with reporters, but he consented to see two representatives of the Black press.

The meeting lasted about 15 minutes according to journalist Jimmy Booker of Amsterdam News, who spoke with Malcolm before the meeting at which time Malcolm said: “I just want to welcome Fidel”. A translator introduced the various people who came to greet and welcome the Cuban delegation. But the language barrier made it difficult for the two to converse even with the interpreter. In summary, Booker saw this as a meeting of two people exchanging ideas and experiences.

Ralph D. Matthews from New York Citizens-Call said that Cuba’s Castro and Harlem’s Malcolm covered much political and philosophical ground. Castro spoke of his troubles at the Shelburne Hotel, racism and racial discrimination, the media, Africa, and told Malcolm that he would speak in “the Hall” (the U.N. General Assembly). Fidel said, “There is a tremendous lesson to be learned at this session. Many things will happen in this session, and the people will have a clearer idea of their rights.”

Cuban journalist Reinaldo Penalver recalled that the presence of Fidel and the Cuban delegation became something of an event for the entire Harlem community. There were mobilizations 24 hours a day. Every time Fidel left for the U.N. or came back, there was always a demonstration, chanting “Long live Castro!” Hundreds of men and women were always cheering, “Viva Fidel!”

Highlights of the Cuban delegation’s visit to Harlem at the famed Theresa Hotel.

After the trips to the U.N. General Assembly, Castro spent the next few days in Harlem meeting several heads of states. When President Eisenhower excluded him from a Sept. 22 luncheon for Latin American leaders, Castro held his own banquet in the Theresa’s ballroom and invited “the poor and humble people of Harlem” to join him. At a news briefing, Castro told reporters, “I will be honored to lunch with the poor and humble people of Harlem. I belong to the poor, humble people.”

On Sept. 21, the FPCC held a reception for the delegation in the Hotel Theresa banquet hall hosted by Richard Gibson, president of the committee. Among the attendees were poet Langston Hughes, Columbia University professor C. Wright Mills, poet Allen Ginsberg and French photographer Henri Cartier-Besson.

The Harlem branch of the Communist Party of the U.S., under the leadership of political prisoner Ben Davis, held a rally in Harlem in solidarity with Cuba on Sept. 24.

The Cuban delegates were guests of Ghanaian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah. They received visits from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, President Gamal Abdel Nassar of United Arab Republic, India’s Prime Minister Jwaharlal Nehru and Foreign Minister V.K. Khrisha Menon and Bulgarian Leader Tedor Zhivkov at the Hotel Theresa.

On Sept. 26, Fidel addressed the U.N. General Assembly for four-and-a-half hours. He assured the gathering that he would “endeavor to be brief” before launching into a searing monologue that holds the U.N. record to this day. The transcript of Fidel’s speech can be found on the internet by googling “Fidel Castro addresses the U.N. General Assembly in 1960.”

On the evening of Sept. 28, the Cuban delegation checked out of the Hotel Theresa and left for the airport only to find that their planes had been seized by American creditors. Soviet leader Khrushchev stepped forward and was happy to lend the Cubans a luxury Soviet airliner for their return to Havana.

Fidel ended his powerful, articulate speech to the fifteenth U.N. General Assembly by summarizing the policy of the revolutionary government of Cuba:

“Therefore, the National General Assembly of the Cuban People proclaims before America, and proclaims here before the world, the right of the peasants to the land; the right of the workers to the fruits of their labor; the right of the children to education: the right of the sick to medical care and hospitalization; the right of young people to work; the right of students to free vocational training and scientific education; the right of Negroes, and Indians to full human dignity; the right of women to civil, social and political equality; the right of the elderly to security in their old age; the right of intellectuals, artists and scientists to fight through their works for a better world; the right of States to nationalize imperialist monopolies, thus rescuing their national wealth and resources; the right of nations to their full sovereignty; the right of peoples to convert their military fortresses into schools, and to arm their workers — because in this we too have to be arms-conscious, to arm our people in defense against imperialist attacks — their peasants, their students, their intellectuals, Negroes, Indians, women, young people, old people, all the oppressed and exploited, so that they themselves can defend their rights and their destinies.”

Long Live Fidel and the Cuban Revolution!

For more on Fidel’s Visit to Harlem in 1960, read all of Fidel’s speech at http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en/discursos/speech-un-headquarters-us-september-26-1960

“Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting” by Rosemari Mealy is available at http://www.blackclassicbooks.com/e-book-fidel-malcolm-x-memories-of-a-meeting-rosemari-mealy/ or other online booksellers.

On its 60th Anniversary: Reviewing ‘Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a meeting'

 

[Yehuda]

Part one of three-part docuseries executive produced by Danny Glover and Oliver Stone about the impact of U.S. sanctions on Cuba.

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

We Call for the Immediate Release of the Political Prisoner and Afro-Bolivian Leader Irene Elena Flores Torrez

By: Social Organizations, Inviduals

Elena Flores is the elected union president of Adepcoca (the Departmental Association of Coca Producers). | Photo: CDR

We call for all the de facto government's charges against Elena Flores to be dropped immediately and for Flores, Choque, Hermosa, and all political prisoners to be released.

Elena Flores, the elected union president of Adepcoca (the Departmental Association of Coca Producers) and the beloved eldest sibling in her family, has been harassed and jailed without cause by the racist, misogynist and anti-labor coup regime of Jeanine Añez.

RELATED: Plurinational State of Bolivia: Revolution and Indigenous Resistance

She has been imprisoned for more than a month under deplorable conditions. The regime has subjected her to a smear campaign with continued threats of violence.

The de facto government is responsible for stealing a presidential election and ordering 36 deaths and at least 890 illegal detentions. They have carried out forced disappearances, rape by military and police, and three massacres in Sacaba, Senkata, and Ovejuyo. The Añez government censures media, attacks, and tortures journalists, and celebrates the violence of white supremacists who are granted immunity from prosecution.

In the Yungas where the majority of Afro-Bolivians live, US interventionism disguised as anti-narcotics, together with illegal gold mining operations, has sown paramilitary violence.

Who is Elena Flores?

Elena Flores is a highly respected Afro-Bolivian and union leader. She began union work in her youth, carrying out many leadership roles in the Association of 35,000 coca leaf farmers of the Yungas, 5,000 feet below the city of La Paz. Flores says she always dreamed of leading the Association, which since 1983 had been led only by men. When she was elected in August last year, she won on a platform of ousting paramilitaries and uniting the three regions of the Inquisivi and the North and South Yungas. She is a strong labor leader and profoundly dedicated to the wellbeing of women.

Flores is the eldest of four siblings. They care for her elderly mother who is unwell and a brother has a severe disability. She would, of course, want to be protecting her family during the dangerous times of the coup regime and the coronavirus pandemic.

She denounced the criminality of the former union leadership, who are trained in paramilitary tactics and bankrolled by the Bolivian right and the U.S. The former union leaders refused to leave office or hold elections. They created cocaine networks, and ran vast corruption schemes using the considerable income of the union.

More recently, Flores’ enemies have served as paramilitaries under the direction of the army and police of the Añez regime. They enter the city of La Paz as one contingent of the right-wing "shock groups" and "pititas", made up of mobs of conservative neighbors. Añez calls them heroes and has taken smiling photos with them.

Since the coup, Flores has been at the forefront of denouncing the Añez regime's militarisation, harsh repression and disregard for democracy. She vows to protect and unify her unionised, campesino, Indigenous and Afro-Bolivian region.

The current situation of women political prisoners

Since March 4th Elena Flores has been imprisoned at the Centro de Orientación Femenino de Obrajes or Centre for Women's Guidance.

María Eugenia Choque Quispe is also detained there, the 60-year-old president of the Supreme Electoral Board who was falsely accused by the coup regime of committing fraud (she is also a social worker and professor of Indigenous women's histories).

Another Indigenous woman in that prison is Patricia Hermosa, a lawyer, and notary for Evo Morales. Hermosa has been imprisoned ever since she tried to file the formal papers for Evo's candidacy for the Senate. His candidacy is entirely legal but has been blocked by the de facto government.

Numerous other political prisoners have been jailed since the November 10th coup that brought to power Jeanine Añez.

The so-called crimes of Elena Flores

Flores led a takeover of a Health Centre, el Centro de Especialidades de Atención Integral, which rightfully belongs to the union of which Elena Flores is the elected president.

The clinic had fallen under right-wing paramilitary control thanks to the previous union leader, Franklin Gutierrez. He installed corrupt networks and refused to hold elections, in complete contempt of Adepcoca's governing statutes.

Elena Flores has been targeted by the regime because she is a leader of the Afro-descendant population, a key union organizer, and an elected leader in the coca-growing region. She appeared at the side of Evo Morales repeatedly during the months leading up to October elections. The Yungas has always been a strong base of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS).

The coup government’s false charges

The regime’s court imprisoned Elena Flores for aggravated robbery, harming public property, forced entry, and preventing the State from exercising its services.

They charge her for an offense they allege took place in July, 2019. More than six months later, the coup regime filed against her. Strangely, the legal team presented photographs taken in November as evidence, and the coup judge accepted them. Flores' lawyer argues that she was not given adequate notice of these charges and has been denied due process.

The coup regime

The coup regime was launched by the United States, working with racist oligarchs and Luis Almagro's Organization of American States (OAS). They aim to protect multinational business interests and return the country to neoliberalism, racism and general misery.

The civilian shock groups who built a climate of chaos for years before the coup, in 2019 attacked Indigenous women and cut off their braids, likewise tearing at Afro-Bolivian women's afros.

In the months following the coup, the de facto government has institutionalized their hatred of women by dismantling social programs that were destined for young mothers. They have destroyed public health care that in the last 14 years had tremendously decreased infant and maternal mortality.

Within days of the coup, Añez made evident her misogynist goals through systematic rape of women and girls by the security forces, including after they had murdered them.

The Añez regime must release Elena Flores. She must return to her family, community, region and union work. Her people have been robbed of her leadership.

We call for all the de facto government's charges against Elena Flores to be dropped immediately and for Flores, Choque, Hermosa, and all political prisoners to be released.

Organizations

HAITI and THE CARIBBEAN:

• Haiti Action Committee
• Jamaica Peace Council
• Oilfields Workers' Trade Union, San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago
• Movement for Social Justice, San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago
• Assembly of Caribbean People, Trinidad and Tobago Chapter

BRAZIL

• Rede de Mulheres Negras de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
• Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas, Via Campesina Brazil
• Instituto da Mulher Negra do Piauí, Ayabás, Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

ARGENTINA

• Feminismo Comunitario Antipatriarcal Bolivia
• Colectividad Boliviana Autocomboda, Córdoba, Argentina
• Feministas de Abya Yala
• Grupo Matamba
• Movimiento Afrocultural, Argentina
• Ni Una Menos, Argentina
• Asociación de Ex Detenidos Desaparecidos (AEDD), Argentina
• Colectivo Editorial, Marcha Noticias, Argentina
• Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de la Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (SUTEBA), Lomas, Argentina
• Equipo de Educación Popular Pañuelos en Rebeldía, Argentina
• Movimiento de los Pueblos- Por un Socialismo Feminista Desde Abajo
• Frente Popular Darío Santillán- Corriente Nacional, Argentina
• Movimiento por la Unidad Latinoamericana y el Cambio Social (MULCS), Argentina
• Izquierda Latinoamericana Socialista (Movimiento 8 de abril), Argentina
• Columna Antirracista, Argentina
• Frente de Organizaciones en Lucha (FOL), Argentina
• La Ciega, Colectivo de Abogadxs Populares, Argentina
• Frente Popular Darío Santillán, Argentina
• Espacio Feminista de Mujeres y Disidencias del FPDS, Argentina
• Madres Víctimas de Trata y Blanca Rizzo
• La Comisión de Vecinos por Campomar, Argentina
• Venceremos - Partido de Trabajadorxs, Argentina
• Todos de Argentina
• Federación de Organizaciones de Base Autónoma, Argentina

USA

• Chiapas Support Committee, based in Los Angeles, California, USA
• Anticonquista, based in Los Angeles, California, USA
• CODEPINK Women for Peace, USA

We Call for the Immediate Release of the Political Prisoner and Afro-Bolivian Leader Irene Elena Flores Torrez

 

[Yehuda]

Afro-descendants support the recovery of democracy in Bolivia

Publised October 18, 2020

The 14 years of the government of Evo Morales for the history of Bolivia represented the recovery of identity, inclusion and dignification of its people. Its very anticolonial name — Plurinational State of Bolivia — marked the path towards achievements in economics, social programs and reintegration of excluded sectors of society. The progress of our sister nation created resentment among the oligarchic sectors that, in the recent past, ruled with authoritarianism, repression and championed corruption as a way to exert blackmail and reproduce a management that pleased the economic elites subordinate to large financial corporations. Exploitation, racial discrimination and gender violence are expressions against a people that were set out to be eradicated through the leadership of Evo Morales. The transformation of this nation was put to a halt with the coup of November 2019.

The conspiring pack made up of military, religious fanatics and stateless politicians overthrew their legitimately elected President with the complicity of the OAS and its unnameable Secretary General. The illegitimate, shameless and racist dictator Jeanine Añez set out to intimidate the political and popular leaderships with the prosecution of President Evo Morales, persecution and imprisonment, repression and violence against the people. Her orders were carried out: the northern empire needs to expropriate the great natural resources of Bolivia and the political control of the government to guarantee the definitive destabilization of the region. No multilateral body or human rights organizations have spoken out against the worst time of human rights violations in Bolivia.

This October 18, 2020, presents the opportunity for the Bolivian people to recover democracy. The elections to elect the president and vice president present many real possibilities that the popular proposal led by his candidate Luis Arce will triumph in the first round. And the far-right announces protests and violence for alleged fraud, in addition to military sectors that try to ignore the legitimate triumph of the people's candidate. A mockery for the country and the world.

The Regional Council of Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean — RCAA — denounces before the world and our peoples that the United States government, the Lima Group and the usurious oligarchy of Bolivia intend to ignore the triumph of the people, create a climate of civil war, imprison their leaders and repress popular organizations and movements.

We support the recovery of democracy in Bolivia!

Bolivia, we are with you!!

Executive Secretary of RCAA.

Afro-descendants support the recovery of democracy in Bolivia

 

[Yehuda]

African oil palm threatens to erase Garifuna town in Honduras

By KAREN PAREDES, LEONARDO GUEVARA in October 20, 2020
Series de Mongabay: ESPECIAL | Cercados por la palma

The Garifuna have to walk several kilometers through the palm trees to reach the sea. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

• In Honduras there are 47 Garifuna communities surrounded by the African oil palm monoculture.
• The community of Nueva Armenia in the Atlántida Department was forcibly displaced in the past by the banana boom and today it is witnessing how 70% of its lands have been invaded by palm. All they ask is that the State restore their ancestral territory to them.

The sound of the sea is one of the most missed by the Nueva Armenia community in Jutiapa, in the Atlántida Department. Where they live today does not smell like the coast and there are no plantains or cassava grown to make machuca and casebe. The geography surrounding them is that of a rural community settled far from the sea. The air is heavy due to water stagnation.

The houses attached to each other shelter grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. There is no land to inherit and one has to settle in a single house. There are hundreds of hectares of African oil palm around, trucks entering and leaving loaded with the fruit. In the background, a town that refuses to disappear.

Ana Mabel Ávila is originally from this place, and after working 13 years for the National Police of Honduras, she returned to her community. She says that, as a child, she dreamed of wearing a police uniform to enforce the law, especially when communities are victims of violence. However, that dream could not be. In 2018 she left the institution due to the multiple complaints she filed against officials linked to organized crime, says Ávila.

The houses are attached to one another. The youth do not have the opportunity to build their homes. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

She is now in Nueva Armenia, her home so far, and is a member of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, known as OFRANEH in its Spanish acronym (Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras), an organization that brings together the 47 Garifuna communities settled throughout the country's Atlantic coast. In this space, she joined other leaders who defend the collective, economic, social, territorial and cultural rights of their people.

Mabel Ávila received Mongabay Latam in her community to narrate the second territorial dispossession they face. She explains that her ancestors suffered the first dispossession in 1924, when the State of Honduras, under the administration of General Manuel Bonilla, gave 160 hectares of Garífuna land to the North American company “Vaccaro Brothers & Co”, for the banana plantation in the delta of the Papaloteca river that flows into the Caribbean Sea.

She says that, for the company, the land facing the sea was ideal because they could ship the fruits directly on boats. “That year — says Ávila — the Garifuna were forced to leave their territory and settle some four kilometers inland, far from the sea, taking up the name Nueva Armenia, because the old one was in the hands of the banana company”.

In the new community they were equally affected by another problem: oil palm. This crop has taken over 70% of the lands of Nueva Armenia and has forced the Garifuna to move. In their testimonies they do not hide that they feel like a people condemned to move around. What is it like to live displaced in your own territory?

From one enclave to the other

“When the banana company left the territory, little by little, at the beginning of the 90s, the land was passed into the hands of the municipality. They ignored the fact that we had an ancestral community title”, says the Garifuna leader, stating that, in 2010, when Noé Guardado Rivera was the mayor, around 258 acres were cut from the land title and granted to third parties (palm growers), according to claims made by OFRANEH.

Mabel Ávila says that in recent years the advance of African oil palm plantations has implied the destruction of forests, wetlands and the contamination of water sources due to the use of agrochemicals, as well as the loss of food sovereignty of surrounding towns. She assures that “a little more than 38 communities were invaded by African palm. Communities such as Miami, Barra Vieja and Cuero y Salado in Atlántida have disappeared and my community (Nueva Armenia) is following the same route”.

To get to the sea, Ana Mabel walks along the banks of the Papaloteca river, surrounded by African palm. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

When the banana company returned the lands to the State in 1994, the National Agrarian Institute (Instituto Nacional Agrario, known as INA) recognized some 169 hectares in favor of the Garifuna, who claimed that they were insufficient, and that this extension did not include all of the ancestral lands of old Armenia. “That unleashed huge conflicts and criminalization for my people”, said Ávila, noting that there are eight community leaders accused of land usurpation.

Nueva Armenia has suffered enormous territorial pressure, Ávila points out. She adds that so far the competent authorities have not taken the necessary measures to solve the anomalies committed by the Municipality of Jutiapa and the National Agrarian Institute, despite the multiple complaints filed by OFRANEH.

The community points out the INA and the former mayor of Jutiapa, Noé Guardado, as responsible for this territorial conflict. Guardado left the region after claiming he was the victim of reprisals from criminal groups due to his work as a public official. Before leaving, OFRANEH was in charge of filing several complaints against him for violating the collective rights of the Armenia community in favor of palm companies.

Mongabay Latam requested an interview with Remberto Zelaya, regional director of the INA based in La Ceiba, Atlántida, to collect his version of the land problem denounced by the Garífuna of Nueva Armenia, but he claimed to be unable to testify due to Covid-19. The prosecutor for Ethnic Groups and Cultural Heritage, Yani del Cid, argued that she did not have time to attend us because she indicated that there are only two people available at the national level due to the pandemic crisis.

The current mayor of Jutiapa, Oscar Ayala, agreed to speak with Mongabay Latam and acknowledged that there is a serious conflict in the area. “Due to the fact that, within the lands claimed by the Garífuna, there are property titles that were issued by the National Agrarian Institute (INA). In other words, the State itself has handed over those titles to other people and has legalized the dispossession of the Garífuna”, the official said, adding that he is attentive to the investigations that are being carried out and to the decision that the Honduran justice will take.

“We as a municipality are going to be in favor of those who have the right. If they have the right, and an investigation confirms that the INA did a bad procedure when granting a title, we will support that decision”, said the mayor.

When asked about the responsibility of the previous municipal corporation, his response was that “a mayor has to be in favor of the people, and if there is any bad procedure in the sale or purchase, the mayor must side with the people who are right”. Finally, he stressed that the African palm is the strong arm of the economy in the municipality and that hundreds of families survive from the work that is generated as a result of the cutting and processing of the ripe fruit.

This African oil palm is the only thing that can be seen on the sides of the dirt road that leads to Nueva Armenia, nine kilometers from the center of the municipality of Jutiapa. After 20 minutes by car, you can see the houses and the noise of young people and children walking so calmly through the small streets of the town. Mothers and grandmothers speaking Garifuna and sitting in the courtyard of the house, while greeting those who pass by. It smells like family. “Most of us here are family and although very few of us are not related, we treat and take care of each other as if we were”, says Mabel Ávila, as she accompanies the walk through the alleys of Nueva Armenia, and prepares to attend a Garifuna ritual.

The company and the State of Honduras' side

In Honduras there are about 193 thousand hectares of land cultivated with palm, the departments of Atlántida and Colón being the largest producers since 1940. In Jutiapa alone, there are about one thousand hectares cultivated with palm. 70 percent of those crops are within the Garifuna territory of Nueva Armenia in the hands of the oil company “Palmas Atlántida”, the president of the Industrial Association of Oil Producers of Honduras (Asociación Industrial de Produtores de Aceite de Honduras, AIPAH), Héctor Castro, confirms for Mongabay Latam.

Castro explains that in the Nueva Armenia community the first plantations date from the early 90s, for the benefit of "Palmas Atlántida", which belongs to the Litoral group, a producer society headed by the heirs of the late Reynaldo Canales, who has been denounced by the Garifuna and campesinos of the Aguán Valley for owning land of questionable origin.

Mongabay Latam sought the version of the facts according to the heirs of Mr. Reynaldo Canales, current partners of the “Palmas Atlántida” company, who reside in La Ceiba, Atlántida; however, the telephone numbers provided never answered the calls.

Regarding the conflict between the Gariuna and palm growers of Nueva Armenia, the president of the oil producers argues that speaking out on the matter causes interference. “We know this is nothing new, the Garifuna have always denounced the expropriation, but nothing is legally clear. If they have rights, they must demonstrate the legitimate and permanent possession of their lands”, he explains, without providing further information about the conflict.

Some palm trees have blocked the way for the Garifuna, even though they have inhabited these lands since 1797. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

Hector Castro adds that in the municipalities of Trujillo and Balfate in Colón, “there is a lot of Garifuna land that has been impacted by palm planting. Some are planted by the Garifuna seeking their own benefit — and I think that is fair — and others are the result of land conflicts with ladinos who have wanted to take advantage of this ancestral heritage illegally”, he says.

Mongabay Latam also spoke with the head of the regional office of the Forest Conservation Institute (Instituto de Conservación Florestal, ICF) in the Atlántida department, Iris Aquino, who assured that the impact of the African palm in the communities of Jutiapa, as in the rest of the North coast, occurs in a significant way, since there is an uncontrolled increase in the establishment of oil palm.

In Jutiapa, the sites where African palm is planted are within the Nombre de Dios National Park, which is the largest lung and natural sanctuary owned by the population of the department of Atlántida. Nueva Armenia is not within the Park, but it borders this protected area. According to the official, in the Nueva Armenia community the plantations are several decades old, however in communities such as Granadita, Roma and Cacao, the plantations are more recent.

Carlos Morazán, representing the Prosecutor's Office for Ethnic Groups in Honduras, told Mongabay Latam that “the conflict arose due to the sales made between the Garifuna themselves to third parties with the participation of the Board of Trustees of the Garifuna Community of Nueva Armenia, where they have issued 24 entries in the La Ceiba Property Registry up for trial for assuming them responsible for the crime of violation of the duties of officials (the Property Law prohibits the registration of land titles in favor of third parties within community titles)”.

In the judicial field, Morazán argues that there is “a complaint against former mayor Noé Guardado, but upon inspection in the Municipal Land Registry unit and other departments of the Mayor's Office, no evidence has been found that the Mayor had granted full dominion within the community title of Nueva Armenia. The investigation still continues”, he emphasized.

Despite the fact that the Garífuna community affirms that the State must guarantee the protection of the ancestral territory above economic interest, Carlos Morazán evaded the question of what the Government is doing to avoid these conflicts, ensuring that this question should be made to other government entities “responsible for guaranteeing this right to the communities, through the reorganization, expansion, delimitation and titling of their territories and demonstrating it to the National Agrarian Institute and Property Institute”, he concluded.

 

[Yehuda]

The fight for the territory continues

In 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) found the State of Honduras internationally guilty of violation of the rights of the Garifuna communities of El Triunfo de la Cruz in Tela, Atlántida and Punta Piedra, Iriona, Colón, especially the right to collective property. The State has failed to comply with the judgment that was given as a result of a complaint filed by OFRANEH before the Inter-American Human Rights System.

According to the complaint, in 1993 and 1995 the National Agrarian Institute and the municipality sold some 44 hectares of land in favor of third parties. In 1997, the Municipality of Tela transferred some 22 hectares to the local union and the government created the Punta Izopo National Park; in both actions it did not consult the inhabitants of Triunfo de la Cruz, according to the complaint that OFRANEH filed with the IACHR.

Taking data from the Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock (Secretaría de Agricultura y Ganadería, SAG), in Honduras there are 190,000 hectares of oil palm plantations. 80% of the Garifuna territory is occupied by these crops. “According to data we have compiled, about four years ago, this amount was around 70%. This means that the expansion of this monoculture is one of the main threats of displacement of the communities and that today, together with the tourism industry and extractivism, it is the primary responsible for the pressure and violence against our communities”, Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH's general coordinator, told Mongabay Latam.

In Nueva Armenia there is no drinking water service. The women go to the river but they say that everyday it is dirtier and more contaminated due to the palm plantations. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

The Garifuna leader affirms that all Garifuna communities have ancestral titles. However, she adds that these titles have been violated by the State, granting the lands to third parties (palm companies) and thus violating the ancestral rights of the communities. “The State recognized our territorial right and handed over community titles to the Garifuna, but under pressure from the banana companies, the Garifuna began to suffer the loss of our territories”, said Miranda, for whom history, after 100 years, is repeating itself, this time with the oil palm.

Miranda says that it is very difficult to determine exactly who is in the Garifuna territories, because figureheads, false peasants and even groups linked to drug trafficking and money laundering are used. “However, those of us who live in the territories know that the palms are managed by the dynamic trident of the State, businessmen and drug traffickers. You cannot determine who is who, and who acts for whom, because what they do is rotate the hat, but they are the same”, she stressed.

Through OFRANEH, a little more than 2,200 hectares have been recovered in the community of Vallecito, in the department of Colón, but for the Garifuna this does not compensate for the lost territory. In addition, Vallecito, according to Miranda, is surrounded by the oil palm plantations of the late Miguel Facussé. “We have gone to court and we have also reached the international bodies that finance these projects such as the World Bank, the IDB, among others”, explains the president of OFRANEH, who insists that they will not stop fighting for the recovery of their lands.

The Garífuna leader affirms that one of the main impacts of this monoculture is the destruction of water sources. “Experts”, she explains, “maintain that each African palm, from the age of 12, consumes an average of 40 to 50 liters of water per day. And that amount of water that the palm extracts cannot be replaced. An example is what we see reflected in the departments of Atlántida and Colón, where the wetlands have dried up”.

Miriam Miranda has been the target of several attacks for her work in defense of the rights of the Garifuna people. These violent events intensified after the 2009 Coup d'état which overthrew Manuel Zelaya and with the issuance of the two convictions of the IACHR against the State in favor of the Garifuna communities of Punta Piedra and Triunfo de la Cruz. That sentence has not been complied with by the State of Honduras, and the communities point out that this non-compliance has generated greater conflict in their territories.

Life under threat

With a lost look at the roof of her house, sitting on the corner of her furniture and with a worried expression on her face, Mabel Ávila says she was assigned to the Preventive Police in Tela, Atlántida, when her superiors ordered her to execute the eviction of the Barra Vieja Garifuna community, because the National Port Company claimed those lands. “They told me to carry out the eviction — Ávila says — (…) I felt so much indignation that when I arrived at the place I told my Garifuna brothers that we would not bring the document with the eviction, that they should resist as long as they could”. This led to warnings from her superiors.

Fishing is the main economic activity of the Garifuna of Nueva Armenia. However, palm plantations make this difficult in the river waters. Photo: Lesly Banegas.

During the interview with Mongabay Latam, Ana Mabel Ávila explains that she is part of a young generation of Garifuna that does not find space in her community to live. In Nueva Armenia, she points out, there is no more space to build houses, the youth find no place to settle and, therefore, the recovery of the lands granted to palm entrepreneurs has become a necessary struggle. “We are being forced to risk our physical integrity in order to recover those lands, and when we speak of risking ourselves, it is either that they are going to kill us or deprive us of our freedom, simply for raising our voice and claiming a right that has been taken from us”, she states.

At 33 years old, the young Garifuna indicates that their fight is not only against the palm plantation owners, but also against the corruption that exists in the Honduran State that has contributed to the dismemberment of communal lands.

The palm production model they oppose, according to the Garifuna leader, is one that threatens the food sovereignty of families — who are prevented from growing the products they consume — and that pollutes the rivers that are used by the communities.

In July of this year, the community of Santa Rosa de Aguán in Colón woke up with thousands of dead fish on the river bank; residents and environmental rights defenders in that area explain that it is a consequence of contamination by chemicals used by the plantations of palm.

“The communities that live around these plantations are condemned to disappear”, says Ávila. “These communities are being emptied, many strange diseases and a large number of young people have chosen to migrate to other countries. The impact has been such that, not only the water, but the lagoon and marine species have decreased”.

The Garifuna communities recognize that the presence of the African palm causes irreversible damage in their territories. That is why Mabel Ávila is convinced that her place is in Nueva Armenia. And she works together with other young people to stop the dispossession of her ancestral land.

African oil palm threatens to erase Garifuna town in Honduras

 

[Yehuda]

In Panama, a Youth Soccer Group Leads the Charge Against Racism & Economic Impacts of COVID-19

In Curundú, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Panama City, a group of young people are using soccer as a way to come together to fight discrimination and social exclusion—issues which have been exacerbated in recent months by COVID-19.

By JAVIER WALLACE
Jul. 15, 2020 02:29PM EST

Andres Madrid posing with members of U-17 boys team after a match at the University of Panama. Photo: Javier Wallace.

"We are Black! In the USA and here in Panama, the same racial issues exist and we are not oblivious to them," says Andres Madrid, the 23-year-old co-founder and coach of Asociacion Deportiva Curundú (Curundú Sport Association or ADC).

ADC is a community-based organization that seeks to "achieve social integration and the strengthening of values, in boys, girls and youth through sports and workshops."

The group is also rallying in support of its community, in light of the economic impacts of COVID-19 and ongoing police violence and racism in the country.

Since the onset of the pandemic earlier this year, Madrid and ADC co-founder Cesar Santos, 24, have used mobile technology, such as WhatsApp, and virtual platforms to remain in communication with the group and to conduct practices with the more than 30 boys and girls, aged 10 to 17, who participate in the soccer program. The group has also leveraged its community connections to provide a much-needed supply of food to players and their families over the past several months.

It has been a strained time for residents of Curundú, especially since a mandatory stay-at-home order was issued throughout the country on March 25. Panamanians have been restricted from leaving their residences beyond the two hours permitted each week, assigned using identification card numbers and gender.

Since the end of March, Curundú has been home to some of Panama's largest demonstrations denouncing the government's response to the pandemic. Citizens voices concern over widespread hunger, blocked access to earning income and the insufficient distribution of government aid.

Cesar Santos (left) and Andres Madrid (right) standing with donated bags of food. Photo courtesy of Andres Madrid.

According to the most recent census data, from 2010, over 50 percent of Curundú residents earn less than $100 monthly, which is little in a country where the cost of living continues to increase. "Dia a dia" is a common phrase in Panama that refers to non-salaried workers who earn income on a day-to-day basis, which is the reality for the majority of Curundú residents. COVID-19 restrictions have only compounded economic challenges there.

"Our families were impacted in economic terms, education, and everything," Madrid said. "Many of the businesses that ADC players' parents are engaged in are informal businesses and street vendors sales and the pandemic has complicated things because they can't leave their homes."

Panama's Afro-descendant communities

In Panama, one of Latin America's most economically unequal countries, the disparities between those with access to well-paid jobs and those without has a racialized component. Similar to the US, Panama's most social and economically marginalized communities, which are also the ones with the highest percentage Black population, have been some of the most deeply impacted by COVID-19. Curundú has the third highest COVID-19 infection rate in the city.

Curundú, the community where ADC was founded and operates, is home to Panama City's second-largest district of Afro-descendants. According to the 2010 census, 2,535 Afro-descendants per square kilometer reside in Curundú, which is home to more than 19,000 people in total. These figures make Curundú one of the largest concentrations of Black Panamanians in a country of about four million. According to the latest estimates, there are 586,221 Afro-descendants currently residing in Panama overall. These statistics consistently rank Panama as one of Central America's countries with the highest percentage of Afro-descendants.

The impact of social issues on Curundú is something Madrid and Santos had in mind when founding ADC and interacting with the youth. After all, Curundú is the place where both Madrid and Santos grew up and a place they still call home. They have experienced first hand what it means to grow-up Black and impoverished in one of Latin America's wealthiest countries.

Cesar Santos (left) and Andres Madrid (right) standing with youth members of ADC on the neighborhood pitch. Photo courtesy of Andres Madrid

Run-ins with police

According to a 2018 study conducted by UNICEF, Black Panamanians, and Black males in particular, are stereotyped as criminals. They are regularly abused by local law enforcement. The study also revealed that predominantly Black neighborhoods like Curundú suffer from a lack of basic infrastructure, limited educational opportunities and other social barriers.

Given the circumstances, Madrid and Santos' soccer organization set out to teach more than just the rules of the game—it instructs its members on the rules of life. It is imperative, the co-founders say, that ADC's youth, who are majority Black boys, understand their rights and navigate tense situations with local law enforcement.

Madrid reflected on his own experiences being abused by Panamanian law enforcement. There was one instance on Cinta Costera, a boardwalk that runs against one of Panama City's most exclusive neighborhoods, where he and a group of ADC players were stopped for a "routine" check by patrolling police officers. When the police officers instructed them to take off their shoes, Madrid protested. He claimed the removal of their shoes was unnecessary and an act of discrimination.

"They said, 'since you want to be loudest and the lawyer you are coming with us,' " Madrid recounted. "They marched me 900 meters. I know the people who were watching were like, 'I wonder who he robbed?' and not [thinking] that I was being discriminated against for my race and defending my rights."

Madrid said he was jailed at a nearby police station where, while remaining handcuffed, he was made to sit on the cell's floor for hours as police officers taunted him. This was a painful and humiliating day for the father of four that has no criminal record.

Andres Madrid posing with the U-12 girls team after a youth empowerment workshop with African-American author Veronica Chapman. Photo courtesy of Javier Wallace.

"First, we educate them about their duties and our rights as citizens," said Madrid. "You have to give the authority respect, but they have to give the same amount of respect back!"

Poor Black boys in Panama have also been murdered at the hands of police officials. In 2011, five teenage boys, mostly Black, were burned to death in a juvenile detention center's jail cell after staging a protest against inhumane living conditions. Also in 2017, Jair Rodriguez of Curundú, a Black teenager with Down syndrome, died from complications from tear gas police officers threw in his home.

A pathway forward

With the impact of both COVID-19 and police violence in mind, Madrid underscored the many social barriers facing Black youth in Panama, but said he believes that employment and earning income are some of the most pressing challenges at the moment for all residents for Curundú, including his players.

He would like to see clear pathways for getting out of poverty—a task he understands cannot be done by the residents of Curundú alone. He wants to see institutional change.

As for soccer, Madrid doesn't necessarily want more athletic facilities in Curundú. He desires to see "more real spaces" that are safe, where youth don't have to worry about becoming a victim of violence.

"We want to be guarantors of good education, health and especially people," Madrid said. "COVID-19 is a problem for countries, governments, but being human is the commitment of all us in the world. In Panama, but specifically in Curundú, we are contributing to that change."

Javier Wallace is a Black man of the African Diaspora who studies the intersections of race, class, gender, nation, and immigration within sports in the Americas. Javier is currently finishing a PhD at The University of Texas at Austin. He co-founded the Panama-based AfroLatino Travel, BlackPackas and operates Black Austin Tours.

In Panama, a Youth Soccer Group Leads the Charge Against Racism & Economic Impacts of COVID-19

 

[Yehuda]

People's Court to judge crimes committed by MINUSTAH/UN in Haiti

The Dessalines Brigade talks to professor and political leader Camille Chalmers

October 21, 2020

MST militants have been in Haiti since 2009. Photo: Dessalines Internationalist Brigade

“Can you imagine, a Human Rights army kills 25, 30 thousand people and then just leaves as if nothing has happened”
Camille Chalmers – PAPDA.

With the vague pretext of establishing peace in a country that was not in war, MINUSTAH/UN, through direct participation of the United States, and military troops under the command of the Brazilian army, left a trail of violence, disorder and disease in Haiti. For 15 years (2004–2017/BINUH 2017–2019), the Haitian people suffered attacks on their country's sovereignty, with deaths caused by cholera — a disease never seen before in Haiti.

The loss of the country's sovereignty is one of the results of MINUSTAH in Haiti, generating a situation of political instability, increased military repression over popular demonstrations and growth of criminal groups organized as militias. In the judicial sphere, it established a culture of impunity. Along with all these issues, they kept Haiti in a condition of political and ideological dependence on the United States.

Another significant factor established by the occupation in these 15 years was the erosion of the electoral process. Today there is total disbelief and the population has been removed from the electing process, and fewer and fewer people participate in the choice of representatives in the Haitian parliament and even in the choice of the president.

At this point, according to Camille Chalmers, executive director of the Haitian Platform for an Alternative Development (Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif, PAPDA), “from 1990 to 2016, the number of people who did not participate in the elections has been increasing, and no one realizes that imperialism and MINUSTAH are taking decisions that should be made by the people”.

There was a series of human rights violations in Haiti, giving marks to the country that are impossible to remove, establishing a timeline of before and after, of what the Caribbean country was and what it is after MINUSTAH. Proven denunciations show disrespect for human rights in relation to the issues of women and children: military personnel raped women and children and human trafficking for sexual purposes are real facts. “Now, there are thousands of women with children without a father, thousands of orphans in a difficult situation”, says Camille.

Food sovereignty is one of Haiti's most urgent needs. Photo: Dessalines Internationalist Brigade

Another example of human rights violation is education. Haiti, due to historical factors, has policies contrary to teaching and education, which does not allow access to schools and universities for the majority of the population. UN military troops, under Brazilian command for a certain period, established an action base at a university, taking away the right to education of thousands of young people, this being yet another example of human rights violations.

Cholera

In October 2010, Haiti began to suffer one of its worst tragedies: cholera, a bacterium brought in by Nepal's military. Nepali troops were installed in the municipality of Artibonite, the city with the largest river that supplies the country. “When the troops arrived in Haiti, there was an epidemic (cholera) in Nepal, and the MINUSTAH command could not ignore that there was a danger of transmission... this is criminal negligence”, says Camille.

Nepali troops evacuated fecal waste in the Artibonite River. The Artibonite region was the first to suffer from the numerous deaths, causing enormous fear in the entire population. And, according to evidence from four laboratories — two from the United States, one from France and one from Japan — the cholera bacteria found in Haiti is the same as the one found in Nepal.

Haiti, which until before October 2010 had not presented any cases of cholera in its entire history, in 2011 and 2012 became the country with the highest number of deaths and cases of cholera in the world. According to experts who were in Haiti, the number of deaths caused by cholera was 25,000 to 30,000, with an outrageous number of 800,000 infected. For years the United Nations has refused to admit the guilt, among the crimes already mentioned, for the crime of the cholera epidemic: “can you imagine, a Human Rights army kills 25, 30 thousand people and then just leaves as if nothing has happened?”, says Camille.

In the 15 years of military occupation of the United Nations in Haiti, through MINUSTAH, very serious forms of disrespect for Human Rights have been established throughout the period of occupation. The peacekeeping mission in Haiti certainly established a military regime against the population, denying any right and usurping the population's dignity and right to life.

The People's Court

In December 2019, the “International Colloquium on MINUSTAH's crimes in Haiti” took place, with the participation of dozens of representatives from Latin America, social movements and human rights defenders. They met with the aim of demanding “justice and reparations for the victims of MINUSTAH”. The Colloquium, as an example of the struggle against imperialism, had great repercussions in the region, strengthening solidarity actions and popular protests.

As an action strategy, after the Colloquium, the creation of “People's Courts” was suggested to be carried out in countries that direct participation in the military occupation in Haiti, blaming not only the United Nations for the crimes of MINUSTAH, but also the nations that sent military troops to Haiti, such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States, for example.

The creation of People's Courts, in addition to demanding justice and reparations, aims to raise awareness among the international community in order to achieve solidarity actions and make permanent denunciations of the crimes committed in Haiti. But due to the pandemic, the agenda of People's Courts that would take place in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and the United States was not possible to be carried out.

In Haiti, mobilizations by social movements have intensified since August with the end of quarantine. In this sense, entities and social movements active in the struggle to demand justice and reparations for the victims of MINUSTAH held on October 20, 2020, in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, the “People's Court Against MINUSTAH's Crimes in Haiti”.

The People's Court in Haiti seeks to list solid elements so that other countries can also hold popular courts. It will deal with actions based on popular demands, which will continue until December with face-to-face and virtual debates and conferences.

Schedule

On October 20, 2020, the People's Court Against MINUSTAH's Crimes in Haiti will send UN75 messages to the UN secretary requesting Justice and Reparation to the victims of MINUSTAH;

During the months of November and December:

— Conference for the Right to Health of the Haitian People;

— Conference on the issue of water, to discuss the spread of mining companies;

— Conference to present a summary, studies and documents related to the crimes committed by MINUSTAH;

— Conference on women's rights and violence suffered by women during the MINUSTAH period.

The People's Court is the continuation of the Haitian people's struggle, a journey with strong ties in the internationalist struggle against American imperialism in Latin America. In this sense, the world must follow the development of social struggles in Haiti.

* Edited by Fernanda Alcântara

People's Court to judge crimes committed by MINUSTAH/UN in Haiti

 

[Yehuda]

 

[loyola llothta]

If Haiti Isn’t Free, Latin America Isn’t Free



If Haiti Isn’t Free, Latin America Isn’t Free
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