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The following information was published in a brochure related to the May 2004 Neighbors for Peace event about Haiti.

Not your regular news about Haiti

WHAT IS TRUE among conflicting reports?
    Aristide fled Haiti.
    Aristide was kidnapped.

    U.S. supports democracy.
    U.S. trained Haitian rebels who wanted democratically-elected Aristide overthrown.

    The 2000 presidential election, won by Aristide, was unfair.
    The majority of the population voted for Aristide.
ALTERNATE SOURCES OF NEWS don't guarentee you the truth, but you need them on your journey toward the truth.
PERSONAL STORIES
    "I first traveled to Haiti in 1996. I was overwhelmed with the conditions of poverty I saw in Haiti. Like today's first reading, I couldn't accept these conditions as an inescapable fact of destiny. I have returned to Haiti every year since 1996. Each year I have sought to move beyond just providing charity to working for justice for the people of Haiti."
    --Paul Miller, repeated traveler to Haiti, quoted from his Feb. 1, 2004 talk "Haiti: Journey to Justice" at St. Joan of Arc Church. From website www.stjoan.com - Past Speakers.

    "Regarding Haiti, I write from a distinct personal bias for the poor and disenfranchised victims: they are who I came to learn about and from. They are the people who seem essentially irrelevant to power people, except as parts of the collective wealth-generating machine of the most powerful tiny minority who are accustomed to exercising the power and control."
    --Dick Bernard, traveler to Haiti, quoted from his article "A Visit to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, December 6-13, 2003," from his website www.chez-nous.net.

    "One afternoon we went to the Sisters of Charity. It is an orphanage, hospital, hospice… a little oasis where there's a small spring of love, provided by the sisters and volunteers who frequently visit and help… like we did. We went from room to room with row after row of cribs and beds, filled with children… crying, starving for food… needing to be loved. We were there to help with afternoon feeding. We went from crib to crib, picking up these fragile children… holding them… feeding them. The children I fed had arms no bigger than my thumb. I would guess almost 2 years old. Some were very sick… with AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition. It didn't matter to me. These kids needed to be held. As I fed them, I looked into their eyes… their stare almost pierced my heart and reached into my soul. They seemed to have wisdom beyond my years. Their eyes were saying they didn't want us to stop holding them, but we needed to feed and hold the next child… then the next… and the next."
    --Jeff and Rita Nohner, travellers to Haiti, Dec. 6-13, 2003. Quoted from their May 2, 2004 homily "Seeds of Change" at St. Joan of Arc Church. From website www.stjoan.com - Past Speakers.

    "Dear compatriots, it is with these first words that I am saluting our brothers and sisters from Africa, while I am standing on the soil of the Republic of Central Africa. Allow me to salute you by repeating that same declaration that is, 'In overthrowing me, they have uprooted the trunk of the tree of peace, but it will grow back because the roots are L'Ouverturian."'In fact, during the night of the 28th of February 2004, there was a coup d'etat. One could equally say that it was a geo-political kidnapping. I can clearly say that it was terrorism disguised as diplomacy. To conclude, this coup d'etat and this kidnapping are like two quarters and 50 cents side by side."
    --Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti, March 5,2004. Quoted from "Exclusive: Perspective from the President of the Republic of Haiti" at www.flashpoints.net, Analyses.

    "Haiti, in their view, is a textbook, case study in the conscienceless, often capricious brutality of US foreign policy. This brutality is carried out in two, basic, and very simple-to-understand ways:"
    • "Strangle the economy through economic embargoes and the refusal of aid, which are lifted only when the leadership of that country implements 'free trade' policies that enable foreign corporations to set up sweatshop factories.
    • "Finance 'opposition' or 'democracy' groups, which range from the wealthy, business elite to violent criminals, to carry out character assassination efforts and anti-government mass media broadcasts, and to commit crimes against the population and government in the name of 'democracy".
      • When these crimes are committed, issue official statements that indicate mild disapproval of the violence, but sympathy for why they might commit it."
    --Phil Steger, Executive Director of Friends for a Non-Violent World. Quoted from copyrighted letter on www.FNVW.org on March 15, 2004.

    "Yes [the Haitian rebels were trained at the so-called International Republican Institute in San Cristobar, Domican Republic]. They are behind this training. Not only the technical but also the money, and they were also some of the people who facilitate the so-called 20,000 M-16 rifles that were supposed to go into the Dominican armed forces and in some way most of them went into the houses of the rebels in the Dominican Republic. In addition to that, also, we identified through information for lawyers, journalists and also ex-militaries and militaries from the Dominican Republic that 200 members of the special forces of the United States were there in the area training these so-called rebels, Haitian rebels before going into Haiti.
    --"Witnesses: U.S. Special Forces Trained and Armed Haitian Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries in D.R.," Democracy Now! interview with Dr.Luis Barrios, professor of criminal justice, John Jay College, NY, Wednesday, April 7, 2004.

    "In a world where many countries have sad tales to tell, Haiti is quite possibly at the top of the list. In the eighteenth century, Haiti (then known at St. Domingue) was the jewel in the crown of the French empire. It was the leading sugar exporter in the world at the time and yielded immense profits to a small class of French plantation owners. The overwhelming majority of the population were Black slaves. There was a small intermediate group made up largely of mulattoes, poor Whites, and a few free Blacks.
    "Then came the French Revolution... "At this point, there began a slave revolt, and Haiti entered into a three-way civil war. The slave revolt frightened not only the White settlers and the propertied mulattoes but France, Great Britain, Spain, and not least the newly-constituted United States. Under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Black revolutionaries created a disciplined army and took over control of an independent state, which was then ostracized by everyone....
         "The story gets complicated after that. But basically the republic, officially launched in 1804 (hence this is the bicentennial year), would be under the control primarily of the mulattoes."
    --Emmanuel Wallerstein, Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Binghamton, quoted from "Haiti: The Bicentenntial Coup d'Etat," Commentary No. 133, Mar. 15, 2004. http://fbc.binghamtom.edu - Look for Commentaries by Emmanuel Wallerstein.

    Prepared by St. Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace, for its program on Haiti, May 16, 2004