Libel against forum members in Counterpunch?

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Empress Verite

What Is This?

Post by Empress Verite » Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:16 pm

Please oh pleasE!

Give it a break. Use your writing skills ELSEWHERE on the white supremist websites and the KKKanti Haitian ones too. We really don't need this. Guy, this is Windows on Haiti. Ann Pale Haiti. I REALLY TRULY BELIEVED in your efforts to develop this forum so that Haitians can stop the HATE already. Now, even the women's groups who were critical of Aristide during his most recent tenure as president of Ayiti have also shared their criticism of the study. The fact is that we are not disputing the numbers (which are probably WAY HIGHER) of folks who died or were raped during the Boniface/Latortue administration at all. Most of it was probably due to the state of things and how the downtrodden are routinely abused during regime changes. HOWEVER, there is a gross UNDER representation of the FL member's crimes . Aristide lost control of factions of his own party. He also made alliances with gangs bangers in Cite Soleil, an area which the researchers admitted was sorely underrepresented in the study. These gang bangers (Haitian ones with whom I am familiar with) do commit crimes such as murder and rape and they continually use threat to control.

This post however well written in polite English and good format etc... is akin to a KKKlan lecture about how the Haitians who want to make it oughta accept the white missionaries who come with good intentions to help them. Come on these are the same folks who in class refused to give the Haitians students a chance. Are we all on the same page here? Get out of our lives MDielbert, go find your kind, white Haitian haters. You try too hard to crush our self determination just because you wanna travel south to find benevolent hungry natives to feed your egos.

LEAVE US ALONE ONCE AND FOR ALL. STOP JUSTIFYING YOUR CONTINUED RACIST ATTACKS HOWEVER BENIGN THEY MAY SEEM The study is flawed simply because it was motivated purely by politics. A politics of neoliberalism that serves the Haitian petit bourgeois, Aristide's click who have pretty much sold the Haitian people out for naught.

On top of it, the continued defense of the female co-author who used different names and apparently hid her relationship with Aristide is a smoke screen for an endorsement of her quest to attain a doctorate degree. No less in a field where she can further pilage the Haitian people by publishing and researching in areas with the natives in Haiti. Meanwhile, Haitian natif natal females get no opportunity to attain the same dream/goal nor do their dyaspora counterparts ELSEWHERE who may have the same hopes. We are routinely shunned from the halls of academia at a rate higher than probably any other ethnic/racial group to make space for more CREDIBLE and more OBJECTIVE talents like your defenseless femme fatal.

Get the heck out of our lives already. Go practice your missionarism ELSEWHERE. And how do you know who is making these threats against her? Have you any proof. It seems to me (and I am strongly advising both Charles and Michel) to file a libel against you and her and her camp and to get a restraining order right away.

By the way Charles, I got some Haitian natif natal lawyers who have no qualms about representing a righteous brother. Let me know if you need my help. I have been there with these haters and their accusations. You better watch it that the FBI and the NSA and the CIA and Homeland Security and the INS don't pay you a visit soon. Expect serious consequences for this and watch yourself.

You see Ja that's what happens when you let strangers into your home. They @#$%%^ you any which way they can.


Charles Arthur
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:35 am

Yves André Wainwright linked with Ann Pale stalwart?

Post by Charles Arthur » Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:45 am

At the moment I am still considering my options in response to the 'article' posted on Counterpunch. Just time to remark on the authors' great research in unveiling the Haiti Support Group's link to the positions taken by Camille Chalmers and [quote]another PAPDA official, Yves Andres(sic) Wainwright who later become environment Minister under the Latortue government.[/quote]

Is that the same Yves André Wainwright who was Minister of the Environment during the first Préval presidency? Perhaps Ann Pale's own jafrikayiti can confirm this, because I am sure that the one and only time we met - was it in 1997? - he told me that he was working for him at the Ministry...

Charles Arthur
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:35 am

Charles Arthur responds to Sprague and Emesberger's lies

Post by Charles Arthur » Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:11 am

The piece entitled "Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator" by Jeb Sprague and Joe Emesberger published by the US-based Internet newsletter Counterpunch, on 11 September, 2006, contains a number of statements about things I am alleged to have said and done that are absolutely, and unequivocally, untrue.

I wish to state, for the record, that I have not been, and am not, involved in any way whatsoever with any threats of any kind made against Athena Kolbe. The statements about me in the Counterpunch piece are pure fiction.

Charles Arthur

Michel Nau_

Post by Michel Nau_ » Thu Sep 14, 2006 3:29 pm

Jeb Sprague and Joe Emesberger reported on the US-based Internet newsletter Counterpunch, on 11 September, 2006: [quote]On September 6, Kolbe received a dead rat in the mail. Postal investigators are investigating the source of the package, which was postmarked in Brooklyn, New York. Just six days after Kolbe received the dead rat in her mail a frequent poster on the Internet forum, Michel Nau, a senior analyst at Georgetown University, commenting on the Lancet survey claimed it smelled "like a dead rat."[/quote]
This paragraph in the Counterpunch article about dead rat in the mail and linked it to my comment in Ann Pale Forum is preposterous, unsubstantiated, immature, and malevolent with the objective to intimidate me and to ruin my reputation.

And To Whom It May Concern that I have no knowledge of Ms. Kolbe's resident, and I did not mail any letter or package containing “a dead rat” to her address, and I plan to work together with US, and Canadian law enforcement agencies to bring light to this matter.


Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

A few questions?

Post by Ezili Danto » Thu Sep 14, 2006 6:18 pm

What is KOFAVIV's position on the Lancet report?

I for one, would like to hear Haitian women speak for themselves. And from those I hear from, the Lancet report confirms their experiences in the post 2004 coup d'etat years.

More importantly, why are we discussing Charles Arthur and his reputation, or even Athena Kolbe's name - and ignoring, passing over, the 8,000 Haitian death that reportedly occurred in Port au Prince alone during Latortue years, more than reported under the Cedras coup and not focussing on the 35,000 rapes and sexual assaults of Haitian women, half of whom were children? Do folks and organizations, like Charles Arthur's, that supported the 2004-coup d'etat have any responsibily in these deaths?

Why are we ignoring Haitian victims of the most heinous crimes. Why are we passing over the responsibility of those, including of Charles Arthur and his coup d'etat organizations, who advocated for the forceful ouster of a democratically elected and popularly-supported President and making these white folks the center of attention?

Empress Verite, Charles Arthur is a white man, who has represented so-called "progressive" organizations in Haiti, all of whom were funded by NED or foreigner dollars and participated in the coup exagerations that led to the bi-centennial coup d'etat, where over 8,000 Haitians were murdered in Haiti's capital alone and 35,000 Haitian women and children were , IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, alone. It seems no one wishes to tell you, for whatever reason, that Mr. Charles Arthur is one of those white missionaries you keep alluding to.

The groups Arthur and his organization has promoted, including OPL, PAPDA and SOFA, all supposedly pro-worker groups, ended aligning themselves with the elite anti-worker propaganda to propel Haiti into the 2004 coup d'etat. This does not mean that HLLN defends all of Aristide's policies, but we are clear, there is only ONE WAY to remove a Haitian President, and it's not through force. Any organization, Haitian or non-Haitian, that crosses this line by advocating violence against the Haitian nation, is not progressive. That's a period, no comma.

The Lancet report found that the perpetrators of violence were criminals, anti-Lavalas gangs and the Haitian police, with UN bearing complicit responsibilities and making death threats. This, because the people of Haiti, who were questioned, identified their attackers either as criminals, members of the Haitian police or anti-Lavalas gangs. The people who were interviewed confirmed they were not systematically raped by groups of men, gangs of men from the political party, called Lavalas. They were systematically raped by gangs of anti-lavalas men, Haitian police and individual criminals. (These criminals one may extrapolate could be voters of Lavalas as well or not). The point is, Lavalas, according all known human rights report, does NOT, as FRAPH, Haitian military and paramilitary have a POLICY, a State apparatus, a state-run method of silencing its opponents through SYTEMATIC rape of Haitian women and children.

If that is what Arthur is implying with his criticism of the Lancet report, he should provide proof that more than criminals, who may have voted Lavalas, systematically raped Haitian women under a state sponsored apparatus.

If a voter who votes Republican also rapes a woman in America, do we than conclude the Republican party are fully made up of rapists?

Ezili Danto
li led li la

Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

Haitians must look outwards together -TRANSLATE that!

Post by Ezili Danto » Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:38 pm

The worst failings of the Lavalas governments was that both the OPL government that ruled Haiti from 1995 until 2000 and the Fanmi Lavalas-Aristide/Neptune government of 2000 to 2004 conclusively failed to provide any alternative strategy to the neo-liberal agenda. Moreover, the Haitian tragedy was complicated by the influence of individual actors with foreign-power-backers like Lucas and Apaid who did not have the country's natural interests at heart, with rise in misery and poverty adding to the traditional, "moun-pa" system and State corruption; with the demobilization of the population because of the first coup d'etat and its ravages; and, the irony that the so-called “Left” in Haiti almost uniformly had become imperial lackeys by Feb. 2004.

Between 1994 to 2004 the Haitian Left that had returned from exile after 1986 got themselves played by the Duvalierist/Macoutes-right wing and the Blan Kolon. This Haitian Left, mostly French speakers, educated abroad or in Pepe schools in Haiti are known internationally mostly through organizations like Charles Authur's and are mostly those that "returned," many of whom with the expectation (that since they were so "intellectually" advanced or so "accomplished") they were OWED reverence and gratitude from the people of Haiti and positions of power in Haiti politics. (This is happening again right now with the Haitian from abroad vying to replace the bloody Latortue technocrats!) However, what these folks always fail to see is that the "educated" haven't really done much for Haiti's development these last 200-plus years. Haiti's real progressives, Haiti's Neg/Neges lakay, lan lari a, in the tradition of Goman and un-brainwashed-by-the-Eurocentric-education that makes us the fools, still fight and continue to fight, to this day in Haiti for the Dessalines dream of a Black independent, humane, progressive, tolerant and prosperous Kreyol and Vodun nation ruled by Ayisyen, for Ayisyen and promoting a culture connected to Ayisyen yo. HLLN mostly stands and gives voice to moun san kravat sa yo and give voice to ourselves as such Haitians who will not tolerate being defined by anyone but ourselves. We are Haitians who claim our inalienable rights to liberty, dignity, self-reliance, self-defense, self-determination, freedom of religion, association, speech and for peaceful-coexistence and to live as human beings with equal access to the protections of the law, both domestic and international, with the right to work, live and travel as our natural right and endowed, as all human beings, with the God-given right to pursue our own individual visions of perfect self-expression.

Haitians want to see the rule of law institutionalized in Haiti, not the rule of force. Thus, we categorically deny the 2004 coup d'etat, and any and all transitions of power in Haiti gained through brute force and have worked unceasingly, since the coup d'etat, to reverse the effects of said bicentennial coup d'etat. We do it for our children, we do it for ourselves, we do it to show the world what "AYISYEN" really stands for, and most importantly, we are called to this by the African ancestors who became Ayisyen in Haiti and who left us the greatest, most powerful legacy of struggle and freedom ever recorded in the annals of human history.

There is a group of so-called Haitian "progressives," a Haitian Left, that's known internationally, that got itself soooo played, its leaders actually joined the phony, re-imaged (as “civil society”) Duvalierist-Macoutes of Group 184, and became their lackeys and complicit in the 2004 bi-centennial coup detat that summarily denied the majority of Haitians human rights; re-enslaving Haiti's majority poor in the sacred bi-centennial year marking our African Ancestors greatest achievement over Euro/US imperialism.

This is not to say this was not due to the blan kolon imperialist's (Category One's) ceaseless pressures, meddling and manipulation of the efforts of Haiti's well-meaning sons and daughters for progress. It was. In Haiti, Category One, converted many well meaning Haitians into Black opportunist who ended up serving only themselves not the Haitian nation and Haitian Diaspora community's patrimonial interests. We are clear, Haiti's most lethal enemy is not the Left that ended up as imperial lackeys. We are clear, that in Haiti, the Blan Kolon's many embargoes, denial of credit to the Lavalas governments, denial of approved loans, its ceaseless destabilizing efforts, ceaseless propaganda against Lavalas, and depraved manipulation of Haiti's affairs and Haiti's uses in their financial colonialism/globalization schemes, were not because they cared one wit about "Haitian rights" which they felt were abused by Aristide, or a parliamentary election they contested, it was all about Euro/US thievery, pillage and exploitation of Haiti's resources and peoples. Again, let's reiterate Category One is Haiti's most lethal enemy, not Category Zero. For Category Zero wouldn't have a job but for Category Zero.

However, a great many in Haiti's so-called progressive camp, (some more willingly than others), including even President Aristide, did end up, becoming, in many ways, pawns in the larger Kolon game of containing-Black-Haiti-in-poverty, chaos, coup d'etat, underdevelopment and instability to benefit the corporate capitalist's greed, to benefit white privilege and trap Haiti's poor further into more of their “structural adjustments.”

There must be a different vision.

Haitians must focus on alternative ideas for fund-raising and for Haitian self-sufficiency and self-reliance while at the same time, not allowing our critic of our own to be used against us, forcing Haiti to begin again and again from ground coup d'etat zero. Preval's government must not go this way. The Feb. 7th vote must be protected. Preval's government must not be allowed to block, because of imperial pressures, all progress the people wish to make for the interests of Haiti's disenfranchised masses.

Haitians know international aid stays in the North; that their “development”, their “help” only puts aid, grant and foundation monies in the pockets of their own. The compromises with the Internationals must stop, for they only end up wanting more, more, more, more.

Right now, we have a more mobilized Haitian population on the ground in Haiti and they've experienced Preval's past OPL government. What I hear grassroots organizations saying today in Haiti is that the Haitian vote MUST count for change in the INTEREST OF HAITI'S POOR MAJORITY. What I hear them saying is that “We must light a fire under Preval's current government so he jumps in the pool with us!” The pool that's an alternative to the neo-liberal - death, foreign occupation, and penal colony - agenda of the Internationals for Haiti.

How can Haitians in the Diaspora help with this?

Well, arguing about whether Lavalas used rape and sexual violence against Haitian women and children in the same way FRAPH and the coup d'etat government of Latortue did is a non-issue. Lavalas, both OPL and Fanmi Lavalas, did not use murder, rape and sexual assault to gain and maintain power in Haiti when they were in office or during the Latortue years when FL and its supporters where being hunted down like animals. This is a false argument that Charles Arthur would like to use to put his coup d'etat organizations back on the scene as legitimate and morally reputable “dissenters” to Aristide. Only Haitians may ultimately conduct a dialogue of reconciliation of various political sectors and it must be based on TRUTH, not lies.

Moreover, why should Haitians, who've suffered the effects of Charles Arthur's “benevolent” meddling in Haiti, now listen to his concerns for Haitian women victims of rape during a coup d'etat he and his organizations welcomed, even advocated for – or listen to his, not-so- muted desire to paint the Fanmi Lavalas political party as having used rape in the same systematic manner as FRAPH and the Latortue regime? How can Haitians re-orient a Haitianist agenda that provides the majority in Haiti with an alternative to the neo-liberal agenda? That is the pressing question HLLN would like to see Haitians ponder. And, arguing about whether Aristide returns or not, was corrupt in the manner of the dictators supported by the Internationals, including Latortue, doesn't animate a new vision. It keeps us in gridlock and ‘feeds” the false generosity of white missionaries of all stripes and norms. Aristide was not a dictator in the context of Haitian dictators before Aristide or like Latortue. That's a fact. The numbers of deaths during his administration, from 2000 to Feb. 2004, the numbers of reported rapes, the level of state sponsored oppression, as outlined by Amnesty International reports for these years, bears this out CLEARLY. For Arthur and his PAPDA, SOFA, KAYFANM and other OPL organizations (with vested political interests against Aristide' FL) to tell the Haitian people otherwise, is disingenuous. Meanwhile, while we are stuck in the lies, in this deliberate effort to make the coup d'etat stick and keep the poor from Haiti away from their vision for the return of Aristide, it's Haitians living in the popular neighborhoods who are the ones dying in droves, getting “pacified” by the UN in droves, being indefinitely imprisoned without legal cause in droves. It's our Dessalines Legacy that is being devoured, diminished, decimated.

Thus, Haitians must look outwards together. Speak for self and fund a new vision for Haiti that is an alternative to the neo-liberal (IMF/World Bank/USAID) agenda.

It begins with the promotion of Haitian self-reliance, self-respect, self-defense, self-definition, self-determination and, above all, RESPECT for all Haitian life,[b/] RESPECT for the Haitian nation's sovereignty.

It begins by Haitians consciously supporting other Haitians while dexterously navigating the many traps, pressures and strains to tear one another apart on behalf of white privilege. It begins by Haitians committing to not add to the Haitian fratricide that gives room for white missionaries (both from the right and left sides of the political isle) and their proxies to come in to “restore order” and "human rights" and "liberty" to Black Haiti!

Ezili Danto

Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

Typing Error in previous post

Post by Ezili Danto » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:56 pm

"...Again, let's reiterate Category One is Haiti's most lethal enemy, not Category Zero. For Category Zero wouldn't have a job but for Category One...

Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Latortue, Kofi Annan, Guy Phillip, Toto Constant, Apaid, Boulos, Lucas and even the Haitian progressive (from the 1960s/70s) turned imperial lakeys (Category Zero) could not have defeated almost nine millions Blacks in Haiti with the 2004 coup de'tat without the military, economic, political and diplomatic support of the old enemies to a free and independent Haiti/the white superpowers (Category One).

Empress Verite

Response by Batay Ouvrye

Post by Empress Verite » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:39 am

Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator
by J. Emersberger & J. Sprague Tuesday, Sep 12 2006, 6:19pm
central america / caribbean / repression / prisoners / non anarchist press


story continues at

Jeb Sprague lies with a vengeance!
by M. Pierre Monday, Sep 18 2006, 11:27am

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

In the article, “Death Threats against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator” by Jeb Sprague and Joe Emersberger (September 11, 2006), in CounterPunch, it was said, “Also affiliated with the Haiti Support Group, the Batay Ouvriye (BO) who called for Aristide to "leave the country" is the recent recipient of $450000 USD in NED and State Department programs through the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS).”

In only one sentence, the duo “journalists” misled the readers with three blatant lies:

1) Batay Ouvriye is “affiliated” with the Haiti Support Group

2) Batay Ouvriye called for Aristide to “leave the country”

3) Batay Ouvriye is the recent recipient of $450,000 USD in NED and State Department programs through the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS).

I) The relationship between Batay Ouvriye and the Haiti Support Group is a relation of Solidarity and not “affiliation”. It is clear that Sprague and Emesberger are unable to decipher the difference between those two concepts. Solidarity is a process of showing support through concrete practices and actions politically, socially, ideologically and/or materially. Affiliation is a totally different concept depicting an organic association between two or more entities. It suggests an internal structure for decision-making for practices and actions. This does not exist between Batay Ouvriye and the Haiti Support Group. By using this term so loosely in the article, Jeb and Emesberger knowingly and consciously misled your readers.

II) Batay Ouvriye explained in how many ways already that, yes, it criticized the Aristide government because this government was truly a reactionary, pro-imperialist, and anti-worker government ( As a working-class movement, Batay Ouvriye knew the ground very well and also knew the practices of lavalas against the working-class. In Haiti, the mass media did not make any noise about what lavalas was doing to organized independent and combative workers throughout the country from 1994 to 2004. CIMO, the police SWAT Team, under Aristide's control, was often called by the bosses to crack down on workers in factories. Bosses also often called on Aristide's chimeres to crack down on workers in factories. The media only gave news about the struggles within the ruling classes for power. The downfall of Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas Party government was part and parcel of these struggles within the reactionary and pro-imperialist Haitian Ruling Classes. This suggests clearly that Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas was reactionary and pro-imperialist. U.S. progressives only remember Aristide as this slum priest, a leader of the poor Haitians who used to blast imperialism. They don't know about Aristide's transformation over the years into a pro-imperialist bourgeois. Both camps in the ruling classes, the Aristide camp and the Apaid/Group 184 camp, in 2003 and 2004, called for the imperialist occupation of Haiti. Therefore, Batay Ouvriye in its analysis of the situation, at different moments, let it be known that it didn't make a difference for the workers whether Aristide left power or not. The workers would still have to deal with the same reactionaries. Further, Batay Ouvriye has affirmed that both reactionary camps are two sides of the same coin. Omitting all the facts in this context is also very misleading for your readers.

III) Although in many instances, Batay Ouvriye always affirmed that it will accept any financial support regardless of where it comes from, it did not receive the alleged $450,000 USD from the NED/US State Department/Solidarity Center. It is not true. It is clearly false. Sprague and Emesberger would have to prove that.

In their article, they insinuated that Batay Ouvriye is on the payroll of the NED/State Department/Solidarity Center. Such an accusation is gratuitous and absolutely unnecessary. There is a major difference/contrast between an organization or movement that accepts financial contributions from any sources and an organization or movement that is on the payroll of a given government or governments. To confuse the two is unconscionable, parasitic, opportunistic, and misleading. Batay Ouvriye had already said what amounts it accepted long ago. Batay Ouvriye is not, cannot be, and has absolutely no interest in being on the payroll of the NED/State Department/Solidarity Center or any other reactionary and imperialist institution or government. The facts on the ground are proving the assumptions of Jeb Sprague wrong. Jeb Sprague is exploiting people's limited knowledge of the workers' struggles to spread disinformation. Batay Ouvriye is the only independent and combative workers' movement in Haiti. Again, Jeb Sprague and Joe Emesberger use, in an opportunistic way, an occurrence to deface and smear the only genuine independent and combative Workers' Movement in Haiti. In this instance, Sprague and Emesberger's practices are also very misleading.

To continue to attack Batay Ouvriye in an article that has nothing to do with the Workers' Movement proves to me that Jeb Sprague is part of a reactionary propaganda machine whose goal is to target the workers' movement in the interest of the reactionary Haitian ruling classes and imperialism. These are the forces that will benefit wholly in the event that the Workers' Movement is tarnished in the eyes of the progressive international solidarity movement. And this is key. The perpetrators are cleverly playing on progressives' feelings in a carefully-crafted and very sophisticated seemingly international pro-Aristide campaign to absolve and uplift the reactionary Fanmi Lavalas Party and Aristide and silence the Workers' Movement at the same time. One of the objectives of this campaign which is an effort to try to isolate Batay Ouvriye is not to be taken lightly. We really need to ask ourselves the very critical question: ‘Why is Jeb Sprague and co doing this? What forces does this controversy Jeb Sprague is feeding benefit? It is not the Haitian Workers, absolutely! It would be really interesting to find out who's really behind these imposters.

Personally, I do not have a problem if Batay Ouvriye grabs a tool or money from the enemy to advance its struggles. It is controversial in the sense that other progressives would not be comfortable with that because, it seems, their only criterion to distinguish the good from the bad is “not to take anything from the enemy”. This logic is too simplistic. Jeb Sprague is exploiting this soft area as much as possible. However, the reality is more complex and hard core. Instead, in that complexity, the only criterion that truly serves the interests of the workers' movement is really the concrete independent and combative practices and actions in the struggles of the movement on the ground that can be documented and proven. The Haitian Workers Solidarity Movement does not have adequate means to put the word out quickly enough. We need international support to do this. With that in mind, I am sure and certain that genuine progressives would quickly realize that, yes, Batay Ouvriye remains the only genuine, independent and combative Workers' Movement in Haiti. And this one, and only one criterion, is the only cure that will protect them from Jeb Sprague's (and co) pro-Aristide, pro-imperialist, misleading and anti-worker venom.

Please publish this letter in close proximity with Jeb Sprague's and Joe Emesberger's article of September 11, 2006. Thank you in advance.

Mario Pierre

September 13, 2006

Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

Perhaps, address yourself to the powers in the Netherlands

Post by Ezili Danto » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:33 pm

Greetings Wim Nusselder;

Thank you for the comments on my post. You write as a man very much concerned to make this a better world for the less fortunate. Pleasure to correspond with you. I take this correspondence most seriously and will give you the respect of answering you queries as best I can.

You write:
[quote]I can't help that I was born who and where I am. [/quote]

Neither, Wim Nusselder, can I.

But from birth, I pay a greater tax then you in a particular way because of where I was born and who I am thought to be. It has not stopped my enjoyment of life's beauty, natural bounties or completely stunted my growth as a human being because of other privileges, natural talents and pre-dispositions I also was gifted. But it is an obstacle that defines much of what I do and how I am viewed and treated. The majority of Haitians are not as privileged as I have been.

We-Haitians continue to pay, both an "Independence debt" and that Black tax, unfairly and inhumanely metered out. And I live, fairly graphically, almost every nanosecond of the day, that to be a Haitian woman means I must carry the taint, WEIGHT of 300 hundred years of European enslavement, its traumas, shame, repercussions and of two hundred years of containment-in-poverty and a reputation of Blacks-like-me being incapable of giving birth to children who can remain Afro-centric but still be beautiful, productive, human. In general, there's one choice, deny self and sight, adore all that's white or I am deemed incapable of self-governance, but perfectly naturally merged in violence, vulgarity and brutality.

Whereas you, Wim Nusselder, walk forth in white privilege from birth Wim, no matter your other circumstances, challenges, or personal obstacles.

Those "wealth organizing" principles you write about have "organized" our world this way. Both you and I where born into it.

Yes, perhaps we both can decide to create a new paradigm. To not be bound by the negative legacy of those who came before us and who live among us today who have morphed the old East Indian Company into the modern transnational corporations and metastasized chattel slavery into neoliberalism, globalization or financial colonialism.

I choose to give voice to the sentient being I am that has no validation in that particular world and to express and defend my and Haiti's right to self-respect, self-defense, economic parity, self-determination- for humane and peaceful co-existence.

Wim, if you are willing to learn and understand my point of reference. Perhaps "Haitians looking outwards together" wouldn't feel so "unfair" or make you feel, uhmmm, so "excluded"? You, a self-proclaimed "white" man certainly SHOULD never be excluded from anywhere, any portal, right? Unfair, not democratic or just, right?

Wim Nusselder, think sincerely on this a bit for me..

That being said. Let me further add this to our thinking dialogue here. There is just one race, the human race. Back at its creation, Haiti was founded on the principle that there is just one human race. Today, we all now know that race is purely a social construct with no scientific grounds. Not that I don't mean Africans must get together. I do. But am a Black woman, who has had to live with biological fatalism of the white power structure. No matter how particularly I deal with that social construct everyday. I don't extend it. For, spiritually, philosophically I am also very aware, that overimposed on this is the greater reality of being Ayisyen : [quote]

"All Haitians, - Ayisyen yo - "shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of "Blacks." (See, Dessalines' 1805 Constitution)...
For, Dessalines defined those who fought for the abolishment of chattel slavery in Haiti and against colonialism, including the few whites that did fight on the side of the Africans, as "Blacks." ...a Black is a person (no matter his/her skin color, European or African) who stands for freedom, human dignity and against slavery, colonialism and imperialism. No ideal in this modern world so directly confronts and conquers the biological fatalism of white privilege..."

There is one human race. But the "wealth organizing" principles of the superpowers was funded by and based on the enslavement of Blacks and colonization and financial colonialism of most of the Southern Hemisphere. The manufactured white/black classifications organizes these societies, the world we live in. It oppresses Haiti with divisions, takes our resources, exploit our people's labor and is determine to make Haiti responsible for the poverty it imposes and dependent on its "benevolence" and "largess", and its people modern day serfs. It's not my job to make this "white" feel better about the "organizing wealth" principles that vie for the souls of Black folks. I reiterate, Haitians must look outwards together.

But although self-respect, sovereignty, self-determination requires Haitians to look outwards together, it does not also mean that Haitian problems are not "part of global problems of globalization."

If Haitians look outwards together, this will help stop the fratricide, stop the divide and conquer imperialistic blueprint and allow for greater consensus and forward movement for the poor majority in Haiti. This does not inherently exclude, deny or prevent "white," "rich-compared-to-the-global-average" men from the Netherlands in specializing " in thinking & writing about how global structures should change on behalf of the global poor and of earth's ecosystem".

Wim, why would I deny you the right to healthy self-expression and self-actualization when it's what I defend for me and mine? But I deny you, Wim, white privilege because it's an imposition. I deny you the right to impose on me, to step over me and "advocate" for me and mine while I am in the house to advocate for myself. I deny "white" folks (from the left and right political spectrums) the pleasure of assimilating me and mine to their culture and ideologies - no matter how good, or fair for me they think it might be.

Many take this speaking out as an attack on white privilege. It's a path to actualize Dessalines' dream of a Black independent nation in Haiti. Would you deny Haitians this? Are only White nations and "white" folks allowed to exercise independence in this "globalize" Bartholomew de la casas' world?

You write:

[quote]Giving up part of my wealth won't be much help to poor Haitians; just donating it to them would only raise your suspicions anyway.
So I want to use it to change the world to the better.
I would welcome your suggestions as to what I can do, in the Netherlands, in the rich part of the world as a whole and for Haiti.

There are many ways to answer this question Wim. I could just write, "support the work of HLLN. Send us a donation to continue our work." But let be more specific. Recently, in July of 2006, I was in St Martin, on the Dutch side. I was featured there, or rather my writings and Haiti works, were featured, at the St. Martin Book Fair. It was my first time on the Island. I had an opportunity to meet with the Haitians in St. Martin, on both the Dutch and French side of the Island.

How do the Dutch treat Haitians?

I didn't know that as well as I know the coup detat works of France, US and Canada in Haiti.

But Haitians in St. Martin tell me they are treated badly by the Dutch in St. Martin. They identified their most pressing problem was that their children could not go to school. Were not allowed to because they were not citizens, even though we know that the right to basic education is a human right (UNESCO "Education For All.") But this is denied Haitian children all over the Caribbean, including in the Dutch territories. Apparently, the Governor-general or some such official from the Netherlands with authority on the Island had just written a letter making it an enforceable offense if teachers allowed children, without legal standing, into the Dutch-run schools in St. Martin. There were other problems Haitians were facing, but this they said was their worst. Dutch citizenship is based on blood or wealth in St. Martin. if you have money, just like in the US, you can buy, get economic citizenship. If you are born of Dutch parents or in the Netherlands, you get citizenship automatically. But if you are a poor Haitian who immigrates, looking for a safe-haven, there's no way to get citizenship, thus no way to be afforded human rights, respect, economic stability and security. So Haitians remain excluded in this society. They are looked down upon because they are the ones doing all the menial work, gardening, cooking, and work others don't want to do, et al, and cannot ever wish to demand "rights" afforded all others. They are exploited, vilified, systematically discriminated and forced to live in the periphery even though they contribute greatly to the community. Whenever a national wants what they've managed to accumulate, they report them and they're DEPORTED, leaving behind all the properties and assets that had been accumulated.

What can you do? Address yourself Win, as a Dutch citizens, to your OWN government and find out if their policies against Haitians in their territories are what you stand for? If not, let them know this and follow up. Do this before you go to a political tourist jaunt to Haiti on a delegation to come help us.

Address yourself to the authorities in your own country and internationally who are oppressing Haitians because they are poor, Black and with a revolutionary legacy that must be contracted by the powers-that-be for the sake of white privilege and profit-over-people principles of neoliberalism. Haiti exists without any great military, political, economic or diplomatic allies in a hostile US Mediterranean. We could do better, individually and as a nation, if the governments in the Netherlands and its territories and protectorates would become our allies in the struggle against neo-liberalism, racial discrimination, in equally applying international laws and did not participating in the systematic discrimination of our Haitian Diaspora.

Ezili Danto

Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

How did the rich countries get rich & keep hoarding it all?

Post by Ezili Danto » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:29 pm


If possible, I may get back to you on the other issues you pose in your post above. If not, I will pass on the e-mails and contact information you've noted to the folks we have working on these concerns. But you asked how you could help, I answered. It seems all of the sudden, the world is not so "global" after all. For you say, "Meddling from the Netherlands is not appreciated by the Antillians." With all due respect, I think Win, that ball is in your court. :wink:

Why is it acceptable, Wim, to involve yourself with helping Haitians in Haiti in some form, but you cannot "meddle" in the affairs of the Dutch Antilles in terms of Haitian rights? What is that? Please explain further.

To move on, I would say, you sound like a thoughtful person Wim and, not to be patronizing, I wish, as I always do, that the world was different and our dance less defensive - more carefree.

You write: "a man already under suspicion of white supremacism..."
If that means I suspect you as racists - that's a BEHAVIOR. I don't know ENOUGH about your actions to say that you DISPLAY, DEPLOY, or AVAIL yourself to your white privilege in a racist, hurtful and harmful way vis-a-vis non-white people, cultures or countries. Being "white" automatically endows one with what "whiteness" is. Whether you like it, or I like it. It is. It's the world you and I were born into. What you wrote in reference to being born in the Netherlands is equally applicable to being born white: you "can't help that you were born" a "white" Dutch man. But though you can't help it, still - All white folks are born with white privilege vis a vis "Black" or non-white folks.

I didn't event it.

And you being sensitive that I bring it up, Wim, doesn't extinguish its existence in you or the burdens it places on folks like me. White privilege is an unearned advantage, immunity, honorable distinction, and a social prerogative enjoyed by "white" folks over non-white folks.

White privilege gives SHAPE to globalization (financial colonialism) and the white supremacy that textures it. I offer for your consideration that to not discuss it, dissect it, on a one-on-one and broadly on how it informs us, Haiti, Haitian human rights, the coup d'etat, white folks involvement in it and perhaps even your "Thinking & writing about how global structures" should change, is perhaps an evasion and therefore even in indirect reinforcement of the idea that there is no superpower exploitation based on whiteness, no unearned privileges that the neoliberalist are working to uphold, steal from the people in the "developing worlds?. I guess then, "Whiteness," as W.E.B. DuBois said, "is as ownership of the earth" just doesn't exist. And, the Euro/US powers are just great humanitarians bringing civilization, democracy and progress to Haiti, to Iraq, to Africa, to Latin America???

Wim, you came in under a thread where white activist with questionable understanding of how the exercise of patriarchy disempowers Haitians where focusing on the authorship of a human rights report and not at all on the Haitians who had been assassinated and been raped and sexually assaulted. There nothing more serious and more deadly telling of Patriachy and white privilege than this. In that vein, I was pointing out how Haitian lives seemed to mean zilch while these folks blightly discussed what political side is enriched by the report and skipped over the crux of the matter. I was pointing out, its our lives, our children dying, so Haitians must define the important issues. Thus, you entered under certain undercurrents, which you extended with "I'll gladly let you advocate for yourself," and by being defensive that Haitians should wish "to look outwards together" to define the issues for ourselves, when, as you say, our "problems are part of the larger global problems of globalization." ( I will next post some of these further pose questions on the Lancet controversy initiated by Charles Arthur's concerns.)

Again, I don't know what your work in Haiti is about Wim. But it's interesting to observe how easily you accept "Meddling from the Netherlands is not appreciated by the Antillians." Uhmmm

This is our first time interacting. I am observing and addressing myself to what you convey. But, there's a civility about you Wim that makes me think "it is too bad that it had to begin here." But if you do care about how "Haitian problems are part of the global problems of globalization", then I would offer, for your consideration, that you also must bring into your thinking that whiteness is patriarchy codified. That's what globalization is about and this globalization, in all its forms, disempowers Haitians.

But it's your learning curve here that allows you to feel you are "under suspicion of white supremacism." Your remarks display perhaps that you may not yet understand or accept that being a "white man" you are socially endowed with genetically-described attributes, white privileges, that imposes on non-Blacks PER SE without you doing anything. For instance just you walking into a room full of Black people triggers your "privileges" - or reactions to your privileges, gives them feelings, burdens and you authority, acceptance, the benefit of the doubt, etc, etc, that you, may not ever know consciously.

Which brings me to the crux of the matter that will move us forward, you write:[quote]By the way: Do you think people who move to another country without legal allowance have the right to basic education (for their children) etc. there or in their home country?

Some politicians in the Netherlands are complaining that it is too easy for Haitians and others to become a Dutch citizen in the Netherlands Antilles and to come to the Netherlands then...

The Dutch media do publish about poor Africans trying to get into the European Union via the Canary Islands.

It would be good to alert the Dutch public that we have the same problem in "our own" territories.

But should people with low education be allowed to immigrate freely into rich countries where there aren't enough jobs for them, so they become even less happy than they were in their home countries??

I don't really know what I should think.

Please advise me. [/quote]

Obviously I can't tell you what to think. But I can unequivocally share with you, since you've asked, what I think.

Haitian children, all children for that matter, have a human right to health care and basic education. It's not charity. It's a right we adults must make available to children - all children, be they yours or mine.

Any law, Constitution, custom or application thereof that would deny a child basic schooling or health care is inhumane and in need of reform. If globalization is about extending the best of what the world has, then it must be extended to one and all, not just to Europeans who have had 300 years of Haiti's free labor to develop their welfare and socialist societies and now want Haiti and the developing world to spend no state monies on educating its own, but all of it on IMF/WB debt and capitalization their trust funds and lifestyles. Then, when these non-white folks immigrate because these policies devastate the former colonized countries, said Euro/US folks want to close their borders and say..oh no, no, no. We've drawn the lines, the nation state lines - now that we have fed off YOUR blood, sweat and harvest and become rich, you (little Haitian girl) are not allowed to come and what? partake in the privileges and development your ancestors helped bring into manifestation???? (See, Open Letter to the Little Girl in the Yellow Sunday Dress )

Just a thought to ponder.

Moreover, Northern American and United Europe shall deploy trade policies that keep fleecing your countries to our benefit, exporting all your capital without restrictions. But you cannot get together and, for instance, form your own unified block, your own sort of Euro-currency, form a United Africa, or United Latin America - to face a Europe Union or United States, because that doesn't serve white privilege and would not be to our "globalization" benefit.

You write:[quote]The Dutch media do publish about poor Africans trying to get into the European Union via the Canary Islands.

It would be good to alert the Dutch public that we have the same problem in "our own" territories.[/quote]

Yes, it would be good. Why don't you. Why not find these folks, give a face to these folks and also discuss, at the highest of levels, why these poor folks are immigrating and how the Netherlands adds to the global containment-in-poverty that makes it so difficult for their developing countries to elect leaders who would promultage anti-IMF but socially-responsible-to-their-masses policy; to elect leaders who will not be forced to work in the interests of the neoliberal countries? Why not, in this concrete way, help STOP, as you write, the "securing access of the global rich to all resources everywhere..." at the exclusion of "those who ...are excluded from both that wealth and from the resources to organize their own wealth."

You write: [quote]But should people with low education be allowed to immigrate freely into rich countries where there aren't enough jobs for them, so they become even less happy than they were in their home countries?? [/quote]

There is also the legitimate issue of stretching resources, even in rich countries and illegal immigrants does put a financial burden that affects legal residents and citizens of these countries. It is a delicate matter of balance. Most immigrants pay their way and contribute positively. There are those parasitic ones looking for entitlements and to just hustle the system. That should not be countenanced. But, I believe the greater culprit is globalization. The greater challenge is that of changing foreign policy so it doesn't fuel more poverty in these countries and therefore more economic refugees. Haitians in general would like the right to travel freely, but they love Haiti and given opportunities for education, jobs, economic advancement, they would be happy to live in their own home country, not in some foreign and cold land.

A Pan-American Hemisphere in the future is the highest of solutions - where both North and South countries in the Western Hemisphere carry one "Americas" passport, in addition to the nation-state passports and there was indeed free trade, equal ability to travel and work in the Western Hemisphere for one and all, not just the rich and privileged.

In terms of MINUSTHA in Haiti, read the Harvard University Assessment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti - dated March 25, 2005, ... rvard.html , in general, the human rights reports on our website at:

With friendly greetings,

Ezili Dantò

Ezili Danto
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 11:57 pm

No clue

Post by Ezili Danto » Thu Sep 28, 2006 8:31 am

[quote]Yes, put a sensitive man and a belligerent woman together and you will get a defensive dance. That's the risk of seeking guidance from Ezili Dantò...But we can handle it, can't we? [/quote]

See Wim,

I tried to ignore your first reference to Ezili Dantò... in the e-mail before this one. But you've made it impossible.

In your current post, I'm afraid I never got beyond the paragraph quote above and couldn't get any further.

Last time, I barely got pass the "Ezili Danto" reference noted below and put at the top of your correspondence. But, being the compassionate woman I am, I ignored the belligerent and ignorant white man. For I am, every nanosecond of the day, practically always facing your points of references.

But no more. ENOUGH. You need get out of your kindergarten playground, sir. This conversation is requiring too much teaching here. There is, for one instance, the new and evolved thinking that understands the oppressive nature of foreign NGOs and how, most undermine other nations their sovereignty, cultures, other religions, other points of references and freedom of religion. Did you say you support NGOs in Haiti? Who funds these and do they look down of non-Quakers as you do?

You wrote:

[quote]I hope you don't mind that I don't address you as Ezili Danto anymore, now that I read at your website that this is the name of a warrior goddess.

You may understand that it wouldn't fit a Quaker and a man already under suspicion of white supremacism to seek that kind of divine guidance. Wink
By the way, I consider it quite understandable that you do seek Ezili's guidance and protection, because of the obstacles you meet as a black Haitian woman, even in a country that professes to be inspired by "We hold ... to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"... [/quote]

You don't know what you're talking about. No clue whatsoever.

Pwen voye (a tiny clue): it's my house and I live there. When you enter, take off your shoes. Don't bring in the dirt from the outside. You will sit in the living room. You can't wander around, trying to get into my bedroom. This pagan doesn't bow to white privilege's droit du seigneur even if you are ignorant of your simplicity and trespasses.

Good bye, sensitive Wim

Ezili Dantò

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