ckaihatsu
24th June 2011, 01:58
HAITI URGENT: Please Sign on to these Greetings to the 6th Congress of the CATH
Dear Supporters of the Haiti-Guadeloupe Tour 2009,
Dear Supporters of the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
This coming weekend (June 24-26, 2011), the Sixth Congress of the CATH (Autonomous Central of Haitian Workers) will be held in Port au Prince, Haiti. This will be a very important moment in the life of the trade union and national resistance movement in Haiti.
As many of you will recall, Brother Fignolé St. Cyr, president of the CATH, toured the East Coast and Midwest of the United States in the summer of 2009 to explain the true struggle waged by working people in Haiti against the US/UN occupation of their nation.
A member of our U.S. Commission was scheduled to attend the CATH Congress this weekend but was not able to make it because of a last-minute emergency. You will find below a message that to Brother Fignolé and the CATH delegates that has been written by the coordinators and supporters of the USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti.
We would like to urge you to sign your name to this letter, so that the Sisters and Brothers at the CATH Congress can see that they are not alone, that they have support from unionists and activists all across the United States.
Please add your name to this letter (please list your organization and title, if possible, and the city and state where you live) and email it directly to Fignolé St. Cyr at <[email protected]>. Please also send a copy to Julio Turra at <[email protected] >. (See endorsement coupon below.)
We would like to thank you in advance for your support to this sign-on greeting to the Sixth Congress of the CATH in Haiti.
In struggle,
Alan Benjamin and Colia Clark, Coordinators
USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
Guadeloupe Haiti Tour USA
* * * * * * * * * * * *
GREETINGS TO SIXTH CONGRESS OF THE CATH
(Please sign your name to this letter)
June 22, 2011
Centrale Autonome des Travailleurs Haitiens (CATH)
Santo IV (Croix des Bouquets)
Impasse Racine, N° 7
Port au Prince, HAITI
Dear Brother Fignolé St. Cyr,
Dear Delegates to the Sixth Congress of the CATH
It is with deep regret that the members of the USA Guadeloupe Haiti Tour and the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti will not be able to join with you this coming weekend at the Sixth Congress of the CATH (Autonomous Central of Haitian Workers). We had expected that a trade union member of our Commission would be able to travel to Haiti for your Congress, but unfortunately this was not possible because of a last-minute emergency.
We have circulated widely across the United States your invitation to the Sixth Congress of the CATH. Your denunciations of the "elections of shame" and the sweatshop conditions for the Haitian labor movement imposed by the new "free trade zone" legislation were studied with great interest by working people in the United States, as the attacks that you face are part and parcel of the same attacks that working people and the poor in the United States are facing at the hands of the very same politicians.
We are besieged by jackals, hyenas and buzzards tearing away workers' right to collective bargaining and pensions while reducing benefits and wages. Workers are fighting back beginning with an all-out effort in the State of Wisconsin that has become the hallmark for what fightback should look like in the USA.
The struggle to build a successful fightback continues with unions and the antiwar movement joining efforts to confront these deadly beasts who prey upon the flesh of workers and nations. This weekend we are convening at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, at the place where four young student peace activists were murdered by USA forces in 1967, to work on strategies to mount a full labor-community fightback. The struggle of the workers and people of Haiti will be on our tongues in our minds as we strategize. We will be asking the delegates there, and the conference as a whole, to join us in sending greetings and best wishes to your Congress in Haiti.
Imperialist forces are on the move worldwide, re-implementing old policies of intervention and colonization through wars, bank robbery, devastation of peoples and land resources, and other forms of thievery in Haiti, all of Africa and the world over.
The U.S. and European imperialist policies take many forms: invasion, toppling of governments, racism, ethnic cleansing, and more. The US-NATO daily bombing of Libya, with the mounting toll of civilian casualties, is aimed at rolling back the revolutionary developments in that region and promoting the imperialist "status quo." This is but the latest expression of this deadly onslaught of war and exploitation by the great powers.
The United Nations has become a primary tool of imperialist aggression by the US and European imperialist powers. Haiti -- as you have noted very clearly in the call to your Sixth Congress -- is the best example of this vicious policy of the warmakers' daily prey on Haiti's people, murdering, raping, and forcing them to work for miniscule wages with zero benefits. The numerous violations of the rape of land and its people has been well documented in the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti, September 2009.
Capitalists have no shame. When the massive earthquake struck the Republic of Haiti in January 2009, instead of seeking to relieve the stress on the Haitian people, the United States and its European allies used it as a moment to promote their heinous aims of occupation and plunder. Even more frightening in the wake of this unprecedented disaster in the history of the world's first democracy, the western powers blocked medical supplies and relief efforts.
The appointment of Bill Clinton, a former U.S. President to oversee the so-called "reconstruction" of Haiti -- in reality the continued devastation of Haiti -- is a slap in the face of the Haitian people, one which undermines the right of Haitians to self-determination. Why does Haiti need anyone from outside of the Republic to oversee its operations? Is Haiti not capable of governing itself? Of course it is. U.S. imperialist deceit knows knows no bounds.
We stand opposed to the continued illegal occupation of Haiti by the United Nations, acting as a proxy for imperialist interests. Our Commission and its supporters across the United States are ready to host an International Delegation to the United Nations this coming month of August 2011, as you have proposed to us. Together, we must demand the immediate withdrawal of UN troops from Haiti and the restoration of full democratic rights in Haiti, so that the Haitian people can determine their own destiny, without any further intervention from the UN, the U.S. government or any of the European governments and institutions.
We also pledge to circulate the conclusions of your Congress widely throughout the U.S. trade union movement. We cannot accept that only the unions that agree to accept the "free trade zone" dictates and occupation policies of the U.S. government should be given international labor recognition. We will call on the U.S. and international labor movements to give full recognition to the Autonomous Workers Unions of Haiti (CATH), the authentic voice of the independent trade union movement in Haiti.
We stand with you as you gather to continue the work of studying, analyzing and creating solutions for the present Haitian crisis. Haiti's crisis is our crisis, together we will ward off our enemies as we build a new world free of the ills and transgression of the past. Jackals, hyenas and buzzards: Beware that the workers and peoples of the world will not stand for the continued violation of the right to self-determination of the oppressed people and nation of Haiti.
In Lasting Solidarity and Struggle,
Alan Benjamin and Colia Clark, Coordinators
USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
Guadeloupe Haiti Tour USA
* * * * * * * * * *
[ ] I add my support to this Greeting to the Sixth Congress of the CATH. I will forward this greeting with the filled-out information below to the following email address: [email protected]
NAME
ORG & TITLE (list if for id. only)
CITY
STATE
EMAIL
(please fill out and send to [email protected])
Dear Supporters of the Haiti-Guadeloupe Tour 2009,
Dear Supporters of the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
This coming weekend (June 24-26, 2011), the Sixth Congress of the CATH (Autonomous Central of Haitian Workers) will be held in Port au Prince, Haiti. This will be a very important moment in the life of the trade union and national resistance movement in Haiti.
As many of you will recall, Brother Fignolé St. Cyr, president of the CATH, toured the East Coast and Midwest of the United States in the summer of 2009 to explain the true struggle waged by working people in Haiti against the US/UN occupation of their nation.
A member of our U.S. Commission was scheduled to attend the CATH Congress this weekend but was not able to make it because of a last-minute emergency. You will find below a message that to Brother Fignolé and the CATH delegates that has been written by the coordinators and supporters of the USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti.
We would like to urge you to sign your name to this letter, so that the Sisters and Brothers at the CATH Congress can see that they are not alone, that they have support from unionists and activists all across the United States.
Please add your name to this letter (please list your organization and title, if possible, and the city and state where you live) and email it directly to Fignolé St. Cyr at <[email protected]>. Please also send a copy to Julio Turra at <[email protected] >. (See endorsement coupon below.)
We would like to thank you in advance for your support to this sign-on greeting to the Sixth Congress of the CATH in Haiti.
In struggle,
Alan Benjamin and Colia Clark, Coordinators
USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
Guadeloupe Haiti Tour USA
* * * * * * * * * * * *
GREETINGS TO SIXTH CONGRESS OF THE CATH
(Please sign your name to this letter)
June 22, 2011
Centrale Autonome des Travailleurs Haitiens (CATH)
Santo IV (Croix des Bouquets)
Impasse Racine, N° 7
Port au Prince, HAITI
Dear Brother Fignolé St. Cyr,
Dear Delegates to the Sixth Congress of the CATH
It is with deep regret that the members of the USA Guadeloupe Haiti Tour and the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti will not be able to join with you this coming weekend at the Sixth Congress of the CATH (Autonomous Central of Haitian Workers). We had expected that a trade union member of our Commission would be able to travel to Haiti for your Congress, but unfortunately this was not possible because of a last-minute emergency.
We have circulated widely across the United States your invitation to the Sixth Congress of the CATH. Your denunciations of the "elections of shame" and the sweatshop conditions for the Haitian labor movement imposed by the new "free trade zone" legislation were studied with great interest by working people in the United States, as the attacks that you face are part and parcel of the same attacks that working people and the poor in the United States are facing at the hands of the very same politicians.
We are besieged by jackals, hyenas and buzzards tearing away workers' right to collective bargaining and pensions while reducing benefits and wages. Workers are fighting back beginning with an all-out effort in the State of Wisconsin that has become the hallmark for what fightback should look like in the USA.
The struggle to build a successful fightback continues with unions and the antiwar movement joining efforts to confront these deadly beasts who prey upon the flesh of workers and nations. This weekend we are convening at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, at the place where four young student peace activists were murdered by USA forces in 1967, to work on strategies to mount a full labor-community fightback. The struggle of the workers and people of Haiti will be on our tongues in our minds as we strategize. We will be asking the delegates there, and the conference as a whole, to join us in sending greetings and best wishes to your Congress in Haiti.
Imperialist forces are on the move worldwide, re-implementing old policies of intervention and colonization through wars, bank robbery, devastation of peoples and land resources, and other forms of thievery in Haiti, all of Africa and the world over.
The U.S. and European imperialist policies take many forms: invasion, toppling of governments, racism, ethnic cleansing, and more. The US-NATO daily bombing of Libya, with the mounting toll of civilian casualties, is aimed at rolling back the revolutionary developments in that region and promoting the imperialist "status quo." This is but the latest expression of this deadly onslaught of war and exploitation by the great powers.
The United Nations has become a primary tool of imperialist aggression by the US and European imperialist powers. Haiti -- as you have noted very clearly in the call to your Sixth Congress -- is the best example of this vicious policy of the warmakers' daily prey on Haiti's people, murdering, raping, and forcing them to work for miniscule wages with zero benefits. The numerous violations of the rape of land and its people has been well documented in the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Haiti, September 2009.
Capitalists have no shame. When the massive earthquake struck the Republic of Haiti in January 2009, instead of seeking to relieve the stress on the Haitian people, the United States and its European allies used it as a moment to promote their heinous aims of occupation and plunder. Even more frightening in the wake of this unprecedented disaster in the history of the world's first democracy, the western powers blocked medical supplies and relief efforts.
The appointment of Bill Clinton, a former U.S. President to oversee the so-called "reconstruction" of Haiti -- in reality the continued devastation of Haiti -- is a slap in the face of the Haitian people, one which undermines the right of Haitians to self-determination. Why does Haiti need anyone from outside of the Republic to oversee its operations? Is Haiti not capable of governing itself? Of course it is. U.S. imperialist deceit knows knows no bounds.
We stand opposed to the continued illegal occupation of Haiti by the United Nations, acting as a proxy for imperialist interests. Our Commission and its supporters across the United States are ready to host an International Delegation to the United Nations this coming month of August 2011, as you have proposed to us. Together, we must demand the immediate withdrawal of UN troops from Haiti and the restoration of full democratic rights in Haiti, so that the Haitian people can determine their own destiny, without any further intervention from the UN, the U.S. government or any of the European governments and institutions.
We also pledge to circulate the conclusions of your Congress widely throughout the U.S. trade union movement. We cannot accept that only the unions that agree to accept the "free trade zone" dictates and occupation policies of the U.S. government should be given international labor recognition. We will call on the U.S. and international labor movements to give full recognition to the Autonomous Workers Unions of Haiti (CATH), the authentic voice of the independent trade union movement in Haiti.
We stand with you as you gather to continue the work of studying, analyzing and creating solutions for the present Haitian crisis. Haiti's crisis is our crisis, together we will ward off our enemies as we build a new world free of the ills and transgression of the past. Jackals, hyenas and buzzards: Beware that the workers and peoples of the world will not stand for the continued violation of the right to self-determination of the oppressed people and nation of Haiti.
In Lasting Solidarity and Struggle,
Alan Benjamin and Colia Clark, Coordinators
USA Commission of Inquiry on Haiti
Guadeloupe Haiti Tour USA
* * * * * * * * * *
[ ] I add my support to this Greeting to the Sixth Congress of the CATH. I will forward this greeting with the filled-out information below to the following email address: [email protected]
NAME
ORG & TITLE (list if for id. only)
CITY
STATE
(please fill out and send to [email protected])