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)
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.
SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK ON HOW EUROPE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD UNDER DEVELOPED HAITI…. SOMEONE NEEDS TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HAITI. Visit the Dominican Republic and you’d think you were in a different world, and HAITI is just next door.
Haiti was known as the Pearl Of the Antilles.Who destroyed Haiti after that title?The haitians are destroying their own country and need to fix it themselves.
just like guyanese are destroying their own country, right, if you don’t know the history of haiti i suggest you say nothing.
ask papa and baby doc, who else can you blame no one else.
first independent nation in the western region to gain independence and still the ??????????????????????????????????????????????????? country.
their leaders tells the ?????????????????????
freespeech,the sufferings of the haitian people goes back long before papa doc and all those dictators who ruled haiti, the real reason for haiti’s sufferings goes back to when the black peoples of haiti struck a blow against their white oppressers.
get over with the white oppressors, how many hundred years you will blame them.
burnham 28 years and you dont want to hear that, it hurt when the table is turn.
i agree with the statement of andaiye, that the caribbean region should’ve assist haiti in time of crisis.
GUYANA WAS IN THE SAME BOAT FOR 28 YEARS, SO GOD SEND THE PPP TO SAVE GUYANA FROM STARVATION AND LINES FOR FOOD, SO VOTE FOR THE PPP TO GOVERN GUYANA FOR LIFE.
Anaidaye, Guyana wants saving as much as Haiti. You can’t ask to save Haiti and you silent on the horrors in Guyana. My memory serves me right you are WPA and protested on the streets prior to 1992. Go out on the streets now with placards asking to save Haiti and Guyana. Stop being an armchair general. Walk the walk!!!
Haiti ! That is a cheap shot directed towards Ms. Anaidaye. She can’t withstand the rigors of daily street protests. Such protests should be the forte of young brigands, like you, who can show ‘a clean pair of heels ‘.
THEY CAN START BY BRINGING BACK ALL THE MILLIONS THAT BABY DOC GET IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE!!
Guyana needs saving too, Adaiya wants to even begin to address this issue?
They are all silent now. Why?
SILENT BECAUSE THE PPP IS THE BEST COME 2011 THE RESULTS WILL SHOW YOU
Lamada, do you know what party-hacks are usually called in their most prestigious moments?
The court jester. That’s how funny they really are. BTW, I mean funny, peculiar AND funny ha ha! Rejoice, it’s a rarity for anyone to “achieve” both.
Save Guyana first then and then Haiti, because if not we will become just like them.
ehehehehee! what nonsence is this! some here were claming guyana was worst off than haiti. now we hearing different. stop blaming the white people for haiti’s predicament. blame papa doc and baby doc for that. just like guyana during burnham and hoyte’s reign, that’s what happens when a dictator takes over a country and people don’t have democracy.
If you think it wasn’t or isn’t the policies of the US that helped create this predicament in Haiti then read this:
Haiti: “The people do not buy liberty and democracy at the market”
by Kevin Pina/Haiti Information Project
That the Lavalas political movement opposed the neo-liberal economic model of development that is currently unfolding in Haiti today is without question. The insistence of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank on structural adjustment that included eliminating import and export tariffs, selling off State-owned industries and businesses, a low minimum wage and an obsessive reliance on the private sector as the motor for economic development was called the “death plan.”
The major obstacle to the plan of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) for Haiti was democracy itself in the form of the Lavalas movement representing the interests of the majority of the poor and the president they elected twice, Jean Bertrand Aristide. The government refused to privatize key industries like the Telephone Company (Teleco) and the Electrical company (EDH) and while the IFIs also insisted that social programs be cut, the Fanmi Lavalas party would take profits from these State-owned businesses to invest in a universal literacy program and to provide millions of subsidized meals for the poor. For the first time in history Haiti had a safety net in place to insure against widespread hunger and malnutrition. Over the objections of the IFIs and Haiti’s predatory economic elite, the minimum wage was doubled twice during Aristide’s first and second terms for the lowest paid work force in the hemisphere. Not so coincidentally, both of Aristide’s terms were cut short by a coup.
FULL ARTICLE: http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/8_7_9/8_7_9.html