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On Monday, February 28th in San Francisco, the Haiti Action Committee held a rally and march, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the the U.S.-led coup in Haiti. The coup occurred when a contingent of U.S. Marines kidnapped President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from his residence, put him on a plane and expelled him from the country. Hundreds of thousands have been driven into internal exile, thousands have been killed in political violence and hundreds of political prisoners have been incarcerated during the ensuing occupation..

The march targeted UN Plaza because the UN did not stabilize Haiti; the San Francisco Chronicle because of its scant coverage of the story of the situation in Haiti after the ouster of Aristide; the Chilean and Brazilian consulates because Brazil, whose troops are mostly in Port-au-Prince, leads the U.N. "peacekeeping" mission, while Chile has a large contingent of troops in the north; the French Consulate because France was Haiti's original colonizer and slave master, and Aristide's government demanded restitution from France, which may have pushed France to join with the U.S. and Canada to oust Aristide; and Dianne Feinstein because she has ignored Barbara Lee's demand that the U.S. investigate the truth of the manner in which Aristide was removed.
There were many other demonstrations in cities across the US on February 28th.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | Haiti Action Committee | East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

Journalist Abdias Jean of Miami radio station WKAT 1360 was killed by "security" forces in Village de Dieu during a police sweep of that populist district on Friday, January 14. An eyewitness testified that before he was executed, the journalist begged, "Don't kill me, I am a journalist. Why should I be killed like that?"
The same day, Haitian police officers seized a video camera from two journalists with the station Télé Ginen. The police only returned the camera several hours later, after removing video footage of the violent sweep of Village de Dieu. Human rights activists also decried the summary execution of Lavalas activist Jimmy Charles, whose bullet-riddled body was found at the morgue of the General Hospital while he was supposed to be in the hands of the police after having been initially taken into custody by members of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Activists also denounced the extra-judicial killing of student Ederson Joseph.
CPDH (Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Haitian People) director Ronald St-Jean accused MINUSTAH of not doing enough to pursue the killers of Abdias Jean, Jimmy Charles, and Ederson Joseph.
But a MINUSTAH spokesperson denied that the UN had any responsibility for the killing of civilians taken into custody by UN soldiers and handed over to the national police.
The spokesperson argued that the only legal force authorized to follow-up on arrests is the national police, and that MINUSTAH has no responsibility in cases of individuals turned over to the police who are later found dead.
A new report (view pdf) from the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) at the University of Miami reports credible evidence that raids began on Port au Prince's poorest neighborhoods immediately after the landing of U.S. troops, and increased after major pro-Aristide demonstrations in September illustrated continuing wide support for the forcibly-ousted President¹s return. CSHR investigators witnessed events immediately before and after a Nov. 18 raid on the desperately poor neighborhood of Bel Air. The report includes photographs and interviews with Haitian National Police and MINUSTAH shortly before the raid began. Investigators photographed bodies of those killed--including women and teenagers--during the operation, and interviewed some of the severely wounded--including at least one who identified the MINUSTAH (UN) soldiers who shot him. Police and residents testified that such violent raids had taken place almost daily since September. One police officer said that they were pushed to target specific individuals for assassination, but that for every ten killed, six were merely witnesses or bystanders. Residents were afraid to take the wounded to the General Hospital, where doctors often refused to treat patients without money (the former staff of Cuban volunteer doctors was expelled after the coup), and where the HNP often came to seize such victims who subsequently disappeared.
Institute For Justice & Democracy In Haiti | Summary Executions by Haitian Police and MINUSTAH complicity | UNESCO Denounces Journalist’s Murder, in Haiti | president of Haitian Journalists' Association receives death threats | Reuters Haiti correspondent receives death threats | Coup government threatens Reuters Haiti correspondent

On Dec. 16, 2004, over 10,000 people flooded the streets of Cap Haitien chanting and dancing for four hours as they risked their lives to peacefully commemorate Jean Bertrand Aristide’s 1990 electoral victory in Haiti’s first democratic elections. Organizers stated that the two primary demands of the demonstrators were the return of the constitutional government of Haiti and the release of all political prisoners.

Current reports estimate that there are approximately 700 political prisoners in Haiti’s overcrowded prisons, none of whom have been convicted of a crime and many who have never come before a judge. Many powerful Lavalas organizers and leaders, including Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and popular singer Annette Auguste “So Anne”, have been imprisoned making it difficult for the country’s most popular political party to continue to organize or to carry out many of the community education and development projects that were an integral part of the Lavalas platform.

While heavily armed Chilean UN forces and the Haitian National Police were highly visible throughout the march, there was no violence reported. Although tension and mistrust exists, the interactions between marchers, police and UN forces were largely respectful. The demonstration was unmarred by the illegal arrests, systematic harassment and rock throwings that have become increasingly common in Port au Prince. Demonstrations also took place in the popular Port-Au-Prince neighborhoods of Cite Soleil and Bel Air on the 16th, but protest in the capital has been stifled by a wave of illegal detentions, politically motivated rape, and widespread killing since police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators September 30.

Read More | Beloved Haitian Mayor Continues to Serve his Community from Hiding | HaitiAction.net | Gerard Jean-Juste Speaks To Democracy Now

10/28/2004: Dozens of people gathered in downtown San Francisco at Powell and Market streets on 10/28/2004 to protest U.S. support for the current murderous coup regime in Haiti. Given the key role Bush Administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, played in orchestrating the February 29, 2004 ouster of democratically-elected President Aristide, the explicit call of the action was for people to “take your anger to Bush and Powell.” Now that the U.S.-backed death squads which forced President Aristide into exile have control over much of the country, many of the activists previously in close contact with friends in the Bay Area have either been killed or gone into hiding; local activist Pierre Labossiere gave powerful descriptions of the heightened terror campaign against supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas Party, and pointed out that in Haiti, “Unless you vote for the elite or military thugs, it’s a crime, in effect to vote. Those who voted for Lavalas now have a death sentence over their heads.” Read more | Haitiaction.net

10/16/2004: Backed by United Nations "peacekeepers," the U.S.-installed Haitian regime continues its siege of poor neighborhoods in the capital, Port au Prince, in an attempt to crush ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party. Last Sunday in the slum of Bel Air, under difficult and dangerous conditions, an Indymedia correspondent conducted a clandestine interview with a woman called "Nancy," a member of the Cell of Reflection of Family Lavalas. Nancy’s remarks were then edited to safeguard her and the journalist’s anonymity. "First you should realize that they have been trying to starve the poor in Haiti since President Aristide was kidnapped on February 29th. Do you know how much rice and beans cost now in the market? Families are starving while a few families that import goods are getting rich off the pennies we have to spend on food. They have killed us since then and driven us into hiding. Have you ever tried to feed your family while you are running from the police and you have no job? They have arrested our leaders or driven them into exile. They have cornered us and taken our dignity away so that now we realize we have no where left to go." Read more | Background: Haiti slum repels police amid angry protests | Street resistance to occupation regime surges

On October 02, 2004, Haitian police raided Haiti's Radio Caraibe and arrested three former parliamentarians from the Aristide's Lavalas party. These latest arrests come as unrest increases in the aftermath of the humanitarian disaster caused by tropical storm Jeanne.

8/17/2004: On Wednesday August 17th, a court in Haiti acquitted Louis Jodel Chamblain of the murder of businessman Antoine Izmery. "Izmery, a prominent supporter of President Aristide, was murdered on September 11, 1993, during Haiti's de facto military dictatorship (1991-1994). Mr. Izmery had organized a mass at Port-au-Prince's Sacre Coeur church, to commemorate the anniversary of the 1988 St. Jean Bosco Massacre. Soldiers and paramilitaries dragged Izmery out of the packed church, in full view of the Haitian and international media, the diplomatic community in Haiti, and UN/OAS Human Rights Observers, and shot him on the sidewalk outside. Both Joanis and Chamblain were convicted, in absentia for murder at the 1995 trial of the Izmery killing." Read More

The US appointed government of Gerard Latortue scheduled the retrial just days before it began. The prosecution had no time to prepare and with obvious dangers to anyone speaking out against the former death squad leader no witnesses to Chamblain's past acts testified before the court. "It was a no-show trial.... There was plenty of evidence, they did not produce it. There were plenty of witnesses. They did not call those witnesses in. Some of the witnesses they did call were dead. Several others were out of the country or didn't really know anything. The investigating judge didn't do what he was supposed to do under the law. The prosecutors did not prosecute. It was clear that the intent from the beginning was that this be-- that there be no risk of conviction. In fact, the justice minister hedged his bets by saying even if there was a conviction he might pardon Chamblain, but he also said that when Chamblain turned himself in back in April, the justice minister said he had nothing to hide, which was a clear sign to the prosecutor which the prosecutor obviously got"

Most governments in the region are skeptical of Latortue and see the US backed coup against Haiti's first elected leader in 200 years as threat to any country in the region that dares stand up to the US. Under Latortue's rule, much of the education system for the country's poor has been dismantled and many elected local leaders from the main opposition Lavalas party have been forced from offices around the country. Despite being forced into hiding, Aristide supporters have not given up. On August 14th, "[t]heir president exiled, homes vandalized, school buses incinerated, local elected officials booted from office, more than 2,500 people took to the narrow streets of " Cap Haïtien "Demonstrators said the march was significant because, given the violence of the events of this year, people in the north have been very afraid to support their deposed leader in public."

Democracy Now | Haiti Action Committee | Amnesty International | Institute For Justice & Democracy In Haiti