Haiti

On February 11, my friend and mentor Manuel Rozental did a talk on Haiti at York University, where he gave some of the regional perspective that I got from him and presented in some of my talks. It is below.

We now have Dan's video from the event up on Vimeo too. Thanks to everyone who did it...

With some help from friends (you know who you are) I have the video of last night's talk here - uploaded to vimeo this time.

I'll be speaking with Dan Freeman-Maloy on Haiti in Toronto on Tuesday Feb 2.

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Relief, Occupations and the Haiti Crisis:
Canada/US policy and the regional response

with Justin Podur and Dan Freeman-Maloy

Tuesday, February 2
Centre for Social Justice
489 College St (W of Bathurst), Suite 303
7 - 9pm

Everyone agrees that the Haiti earthquake is a serious situation. Serious enough for the US to send thousands of Marines, to take over the airport, to suspend Haiti's sovereignty and take over the operation. Serious enough to unify the bitter partisan divide and put Bush, Clinton, and Obama together to raise funds. Serious enough for benefit concerts and the invention of new forms of philanthropy, where people can donate through their cell phones. But the Haiti earthquake is apparently not all that serious:

I recorded this video last night (using my new flip HD and PiTiVi editing suite).

Part 1

Part 2

If you are thinking of donating to Haiti relief efforts I would recommend either of these two organizations:

The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

or

Partners in Health

As hard as I tried, I never managed to meet Fr. Jean Juste. I was in Haiti when he was a political prisoner of the coup government/UN regime. At that time, he was also a presidential candidate - the movement put him up while he was in jail. It was a good move, a tactic movements use with imprisoned leaders, to raise visibility and provide some protection.

A review of Peter Hallward's “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment”. Verso 2007.

Justin Podur
June 13/08

Haiti has never had a period without interference in its sovereignty. Indeed Haiti's history could be seen as one long, heroic struggle against such interference: first to overthrow the slavers and colonizers of France (and the rest of Europe), and then to fight for sovereignty against the US, which viewed Haiti as part of its domain, to dispose of according to its own whims.

Patrick Elie (who has taught me much of what I know about Haiti)was in Toronto last night giving the Toronto Haiti Action Coalition an update on what is happening in Haiti.

Patrick came in So Ann's stead (I interviewed her in prison in 2005). So Ann needed to rest, according to her doctors, after a tremendous burst of activity following her two years in prison (trips to New York, Florida, Montreal).

Some highlights from his talk.