Region must save Haiti – Andaiye

The plight of Haiti has continued for too long and the region will regret not intervening, Red Thread International Coordinator, Andaiye, has said.

Tracy Wilson, left, Director of Education in the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC), chats with Khafra Kambon, centre, chairman, and guest speaker Andaiye before the final session of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture series on Sunday at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s. (Trinidad Express photo)
Tracy Wilson, left, Director of Education in the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC), chats with Khafra Kambon, centre, chairman, and guest speaker Andaiye before the final session of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture series on Sunday at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s. (Trinidad Express photo)

She made the remarks during the final session of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on Sunday where she spoke before a number of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) on her experiences with the troubled Caribbean neighbour.

The session also featured Melvin Foote, President and CEO of the Constituency for Africa in Washington DC and Khafra Kambon, chairman of the series’ host, the Emancipation Support Committee.

In her contribution, “The continuing war on Haiti-We need to act”, Andaiye recounted that whilst in Haiti, the presence of the UN peacekeeping troops created a feeling of being in an occupied country.

“We could see the violence being committed by the troops against the civilians,” Andaiye said. “The feeling you get is one that you would expect in a country that is occupied.”

The Guyana native said that most people right here in the Caribbean were unaware of the history of Haiti and the events that have contributed to its breakdown-among them the fact that after at least one third of its population was decimated in the fight for freedom from slavery by France, Haiti was then forced to pay reparations to its former masters for their loss of “property”, that is, the loss of slaves.

Today, Haiti remains isolated and apparently without friends, she said, a situation that will later bode ill for the entire region.

“It is wrong for us not to pay our debt to Haiti,” Andaiye said, adding, “if we don’t, we will regret it.”

In his delivery, “The Obama Presidency and the challenges facing Africans”, Melvin Foote said that groups like his stand to benefit from closer contact with local and regional bodies of the African diaspora.

“You are more “conscious” than we are,” Foote said. “I would like to advocate closer contact between us.”

Foote said that while African-Americans were waiting to see whether Obama will raise the bar in his policies regarding Africa, his election to the Presidency is still having a positive effect on the diaspora.

“The mood of African-Americans is still euphoric,” Foote said, “We’re definitely taller than we used to be.”

Foote’s call for closer ties was hailed by Kambon, who said he intends to pursue a relationship with the Washington group.

He also encouraged Foote to lobby not only for increased funding to deal with the bigger issues facing Africa-a priority among them the rampage of HIV-but to also seek greater control of the funds.

“This would ensure that the funds are used for the purpose they were intended, for the benefit of the people,” Kambon said.

Kambon, who gave an “Update on the African Union and the Diaspora, said that the Economic Social and Cultural Council of the African Union, of which he is a member, was under pressure to “come up to scratch” on its mandates.

The council was mandated to work on specific issues, among them women’s rights, representation of young people, representation of civil society and reaching out to the diaspora.

A commission created to ensure progress on these issues has been putting pressure on the council to deliver, Kambon said.