I am excited to invite you to a program co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Greens:
Haiti After Aristide: A Grassroots Perspective Saturday, May 21 6 pm
at the Brooklyn Greens office: 388 Atlantic Avenue (between Bond St. & Hoyt St.)
2 floor walkup (sorry, no elevator)
---------------------- Speakers include:
A represenative of an international Human Rights delegation which recently visited Haiti
A representative of Batay Ouvriye, a workers’ movement organizing in a Dominican-owned maquiladora in the border “free trade zone” set up by Aristide and backed by international lending institutions.
-------------------- In US progressive circles, the situation in Haiti has largely been reduced to a struggle between US-led imperialist interests and forces aligned with ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas Family party.
While we Greens of course oppose the U.S. government's removal of Haitian President Aristide, we also need to note that for the majority of progressive and grassroots activists in Haiti, the Aristide government was unfortunately not an ally but an obstacle to organizing for radical change.
This is a view that typically goes unreported in the progressive media, including WBAI radio.
Meanwhile, the grassroots movement continues to organize against foreign military occupation and the neoliberal economic policies of the US, the IMF and the World Bank. Haitian activists are looking for solidarity from US progressives in this truly revolutionary struggle.
------------------------------------------------ Organized by the Grassroots Haiti Solidarity Committee co-sponsored by the Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network, SELA (the Haitian Information Center), the Nicaragua Solidarity Network, and the Brooklyn Greens