On January 12th, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. The earthquake was centered ten miles southwest of Haiti's capital Port-Au-Prince and was the largest earthquake to strike the Caribbean nation in more than two centuries. Buildings have collapsed and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN he believed more than 100,000 people have died. Among the buildings that collapsed were the Presidential Palace, the UN headquarters and at least one hospital in the capital.

The earthquake struck around 5:00pm and was followed by at least 27 aftershocks, the largest two of which were 5.9 and 5.5 in magnitude. René Préval, the president of Haiti, has described how he had been forced to step over dead bodies and heard the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national parliament. "Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," he told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."

The last time an earthquake of this magnitude hit the south of Hispaniola, the island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, was in 1751. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano has called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, while "only one masonry building had not collapsed" in Port-au-Prince during the 1751 earthquake, "the whole city collapsed" during the earthquake of 1770 earthquake. The city of Cap-Haïtien and other cities in the northern part of Haiti and the Dominican Republic were destroyed in an earthquake in 1842. In 1946, a magnitude-8.0 earthquake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.

Democracy Now Coverage: 1/13 | 1/14 | 1/15 | Flashpoints Coverage

Remember When We Talked About Imperialism? | WSWS: Major earthquake devastates Haitian capital | Haiti earthquake feared to have killed many | Haiti's National Palace Collapsed In Earthquake

Haiti Action: An Urgent Appeal from the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund | Allow Aristide to return to Haiti now

Wikipedia: 2010 Haiti Earthquake | USGS: Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake Strikes Haiti | Haiti911 Photos

Friday, February 29th was the 3rd International Day in Solidarity with the Haitian People: there were "coordinated protests on 4 continents on the 4th anniversary of the ongoing US/UN invasion, coup, and occupation against democracy in Haiti." Haiti Action Committee was at the Marine Recruiting Station in Berkeley (64 Shattuck Square, 1/2 block south of University Ave. in Berkeley), starting at 7:30am, for a day of civil resistance and protest four years after the latest invasion of Haiti, which was led by the US Marines.

Haiti is still under a foreign military occupation which has been marked by rapes and wanton killings of the poor. Since the coup, Haiti has faced growing hunger, unemployment, and an increased cost of living. Haiti’s jails are still filled with political prisoners and the poor, while coup plotters and paramilitary death squads remain free. Although President Rene Preval was elected in 2006, most functionaries from the US-installed coup regime of 2004-06 remain in office today.

A protest in solidarity with the Haitian people was held in downtown San Jose at the corner of Market Street and San Carlos Street, at the south end of Cesar Chavez Plaza from 5:00pm to 6:00pm. Events were reportedly also planned for Santa Cruz, Sonoma, San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, San Rafael, and many other locations around the world.

Indybay's past coverage of the MRS in Berkeley | Haiti Action Committee | HAC's Fact Sheet About the US Marines

On Tuesday, September 18, the Bay Area-based Haiti Action Committee (HAC) held a rally in downtown San Francisco to call attention to the unresolved kidnapping of veteran Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

East Bay drummers Ustadi, Tacuma, Rondo and Lanier kicked things off by playing West African percussion near the intersection of Market and Montgomery. MC Dave Welsh of the SF Labor Council, thanked the drummers and called Robert Roth to the microphone.

Robert Roth, a San Francisco high school teacher and long-time HAC activist, explained, "It's been over a month since Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine has disappeared. He is a human rights worker, he's a psychologist, he's worked with victims of torture from the coup of 1991-1994. He's continued his human rights advocacy in Haiti during this recent coup in 2004, a coup organized and created by the United States government.... I want to just say that he is a deep thinker, and he is a very, very important leader of the people's movement in Haiti. And he has disappeared for over a month, and that's a crime against the people of Haiti... We will not give up hope for his safe return, we will not give up our demand that the authorities in Haiti account for his disappearance, and bring him safely back to his family, his people."

Haiti Action Committee co-founder Pierre Labossiere also spoke: "this beautiful brother, psychologist, human rights worker, someone who's at the forefront of the movement for justice, for economic and social justice for the people of Haiti, and for people throughout the world." Labossiere concluded that there was one message to deliver "to the US embassy in Haiti, to the Brazilian authorities, who are in charge of the UN mission in Haiti, to the Haitian authorities." That message: "we need them to exert all their influence...they are very powerful, very influential with all sectors of Haitian society, from the very top politicians to the underworld, to demand one thing: that brother Lovinsky be returned to his family safely. We can do that, it's important, it's necessary that we do that."

Video: 1 | 2 | Haiti Action

A hero of the Haitian Resistance, singer and grassroots organizer, Annette Auguste ("So An") was seized from her home by US Marines as part of the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti, and was held as a political prisoner for over 2 years. Jail did not stop her from organizing or from singing, and she is still doing both today. Oakland will welcome So An on Saturday, March 10th, at 7PM at The Uptown, 401 26th St (between Broadway & Telegraph, near 19th St BART). Vukani Mawethu Freedom Song Choir, So An herself, and her husband Wilfrid, a master drummer, will perform.

"Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits," the new 90-minute film by Kevin Pina, introduced by So An, will be screened on Wednesday, March 14th, at 7PM at the Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. This documentary shows how foreign occupiers -- from the US Marines 1915-34 to the US, France, Canada and the UN in the present day -- have tried to destroy Haiti's popular movement for freedom, sovereignty and democracy. It also tells the story of the Haitian Resistance that will not die.

Haiti Action Committee | 8/06: So An Released | 2006 WBAI Interview with So An | 5/2005: Grandmother in Prison for Loyalty to Aristide

February 7th was an International Day in Solidarity with the People of Haiti. The day was part of a campaign against the US/UN Occupation by the popular movement in Haiti, leading up to February 15th, when the UN Security Council is due to renew its Haiti mandate. The 8000 UN troops are seen as a proxy force for the US, French and Canadian soldiers who overthrew Haiti's government in a 2004 coup. UN troops and police-controlled death squads routinely assault communities that support the Lavalas grassroots democracy movement. Organizers say, "We need to act now in solidarity with our Haitian sisters and brothers, whose unbreakable spirit, in the face of severe repression, just won’t stop." International demonstrations have been held in the past, with actions in over 15 cities on July 21st, 2005, and in 47 cities in 17 countries on September 30th, 2005.

Today, violent repression continues against grassroots activists and communities – by UN forces and paramilitary death squads created by the Haitian National Police. In addition to killings, this repression has taken the form of sexual abuse, beatings, house burnings, arbitrary arrests, and the prolonged, illegal detention of people without any charges. UN forces have been repeatedly implicated in these activities. In San Francisco, people gathered at 4:30pm for a rally at Powell and Market Street, followed by a march to the Brazilian Consulate. Brazil commands the UN military force in Haiti. Photos | Audio
In San Jose, people gathered from 5pm to 6pm at the South end of Cesar Chavez Plaza.

List of Bay Area events | Haiti Action Committee | Haitisolidarity.net

In the early morning of Friday, December 22nd, starting at approximately 3 a.m., 400 Brazilian-led UN occupation troops in armored vehicles carried out a massive assault on the people of Cite Soleil, laying siege yet again to the impoverished community. Eyewitness reports said a wave of indiscriminate gunfire from heavy weapons began about 5 a.m. and continued for much of the day Friday — an operation on the scale of the July 6, 2005 UN massacre in Cite Soleil. Detonations could be heard for miles, AHP reported.

Initial press accounts reported at least 40 casualties, all civilians. According to community testimony, UN forces flew overhead in helicopters and fired down into houses while other troops attacked from the ground with Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs). People were killed in their homes. UN troops from Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia took part in the all-day siege, backed by Haitian police. UN soldiers once again targeted the Bois Neuf and Drouillard districts of Cite Soleil — scene of the July 6th massacre.

Read More | Democracy Now: UN Accused of Killing Dozens In Attack on Port Au Prince Neighborhood | Poor Residents of Capital Describe a State of Siege | Haiti Action

After more than two years in prison and a fifteen month intermittent hunger strike, former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune was freed in order to seek medical treatment on Thursday, July 27th. Neptune is one of the most high-profile political prisoners who have been detained by the U.S.-backed interim government in Haiti. He was jailed shortly after the 2004 coup that ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Attorney Mario Joseph has been quoted as saying that when Neptune is released from the hospital, he will be allowed to go home. There are varying reports as to the status of charges against Neptune, but they likely still stand. "Half-Hour for Haiti" organizers credit activists in Haiti, as well as people all over the world who have written letters in support of Neptune's release.

When he was released from prison, Neptune walked out of the National Penitentiary. Two UN peacekeepers then helped him into an ambulance that took him to a hospital. He was frail and barely able to speak, after having spent much of the last 15 months on a hunger strike. The release came less than two weeks after more than 3,000 people marched in Port-Au-Prince, calling for the return of Aristide and the release of all political prisoners, and celebrating Aristide's birthday.

Democracy Now report | Half Hour a Week for Haiti

Few Haitians went to the polls April 21st for the second round of parliamentary voting. Voters cast ballots at 804 voting centres to elect 27 senators and 83 deputies. The second round of elections had been set for March but was delayed because of the volume of complaints from the first round in February.

On May 14th, René Garcia Préval, was sworn in as Haiti's president. Preval's inauguration had been scheduled for March 2, but was postponed due to delays in holding the legislative run-off election.

On May 22nd, Préval nominated Jacques Edouard Alexis to be prime minister. Alexis also served as Préval's prime minister from March 26th 1999 to February 7th 2001. Like Préval, Alexis is an agronomist and was formerly a senior member of the faculty at the agronomy and veterinary medicine unit within the University of Quisqueya. On May 24th, Haiti's Senate ratified Alexis and on May 30th he was approved by Haiti's Deputies Chamber. On June 9th, Alexis and his Cabinet were sworn in.

Green Light to Haiti New Administration | As Préval becomes president | Haiti restores democracy as Preval inaugurated | Haiti? Follow the money! | Haitian president-elect turns to Cuba, Venezuela | Crowds Hail Preval and Demand Aristide's Return | Give Preval a Clean Slate: Cancel Haiti's Debt

On February 16th, Haiti’s interim government and election officials reached an agreement to declare Rene Preval the winner of the country’s presidential election. With 90% of ballots counted, it was claimed that Preval had been just shy of the 50% margin needed for a first-round election win, but under the agreement, some of the blank votes - representing 4% of the estimated 2.2 million ballots cast - were subtracted from the total number of votes counted, giving Preval the majority. 129 seats in parliament are also up for grab and it is those who control legislature that will approve Haiti's prime minister. So far the media have neglected to inform the public on the outcome of the parliamentary election. Some fear the parliamentary election was also tainted by fraud since the same burnt ballots with Preval's name on them would have contained votes for pro-Aristide parliamentary members whose votes are now lost.

Brian Concannon writes:
On February 7, Haitian voters went to the polls to elect a President for the fourth time since 1990. Through great patience and determination they overcame official disorganization, incompetence and discrimination, and for the fourth time since 1990 handed their chosen candidate a landslide victory. And for the fourth time Haitian elites, with support from the International Community, started immediately to undercut the victory, seeking at the negotiation table what they could not win at the voting booth.

...[Rene Preval] won the 50% of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff election against his nearest competitor. Although early official results and the unofficial tallies by the Preval campaign, international observers and journalists all showed Mr. Preval comfortably above the 50% bar, after 5 days of counting his official results crept 1.3% below it. Negotiations resulted in a deal that changes the way that the Electoral Council treats blank ballots, which, according to the Council's calculation, puts Mr. Preval back above 50%. ...The election deal gives a little something to everyone, and that's the problem. Elections are not supposed to make everyone happy; they are supposed to apportion political power according to majority vote, on the basis of set rules. In all likelihood, a correct tabulation of the votes would have given Mr. Preval a first round victory, as exit polls and unofficial tabulations had predicted. Although the negotiated agreement reaches the same result as a correct tabulation would have reached, it does so by changing the rules instead of correcting the violations of the rules. The deal provides leverage for those seeking to delegitimize Preval's presidency and block the progressive social and economic policies that he was elected to implement.
Read More

Préval is President but what about the vote-rigging charges? | US Propaganda in Haiti: NPR reporter Amelia Shaw is wearing two hats | Bring Aristide back to Haiti, enough is enough! | Max Mathurin and Jose Miguel Insulza contradict each other on charges of elections fraud

2/15/2006: Former President Rene Preval said on Tuesday he won last week's election outright and urged Haitian elections officials to hold off publishing final election results because of possible fraud. "We are sure of having won in the first round," Preval said in his first significant comments on the election results in the week since the vote more On Wednesday, vote monitors discovered piles and piles of burned and trashed ballots marked for Preval.

Executive Director of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) Jacques Bernard, an appointee of ‘interim’ Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, indicated Saturday evening that the percentage of votes for Presidential candidate Rene Préval in the February 7 presidential elections was actually lower than originally estimated. This was due to the addition of 72,000 blank ballots. A spokesman for the electoral council said blank votes had not been counted in past elections, but these ballots were added to vote totals used to calculate each candidate's tally, effectively lowering each candidate's percentage of the overall vote and dropping the vote for Préval to less than 50 percent. If this stands, there will be a runoff vote, presumably pitting Préval against elite-backed Leslie Manigat, who only received around 12 percent of the vote.

Electoral council member Pierre Richard Duchemin said he was being denied his rightful access to information about the tabulation process and called for an investigation. Pointing to "a certain level of manipulation," Duchemin told The Associated Press, "there is an effort to stop people from asking questions." Dr. Frantz Large, a Senate candidate for Lespwa, Préval’s party, observed: "The first objective of the provisional authority is to force René Préval to a 2nd round, and run a coalition of candidates against him. "The second objective is to push the popular masses who have a legitimate beef, into the streets, inciting them to vent blind rage onto the « bord de mer » (dockside) in Port-au-Prince which houses stores and offices of all kinds, small businesses, fine victims making up the country’s working middle class. This would certainly lead to creating hate and resentment against President Préval, and a desire to find refuge in stifling policies that border on fascism."

Further fanning the flames of discontent amongst hundreds of thousands who have been subjected to unrelenting repression involving rape, extrajudicial execution and illegal imprisonment of dissidents since the February 2004 U.S.-backed ouster of the democratically-elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the UN today again opened fire on demonstrators in Port-au-Prince. An anonymous UN official told a reporter that "several dozen" were injured.

Read More | Counting Some of the Votes in Haiti | Mass protests erupt over vote count | Haiti Democracy Project has U.S. Defense Dept Chief as an "election observer" | U.N. Troops Kill Haitian Democracy Demonstrators | Haiti's Poor Erupt in Protest | Préval supporters paralyze Haiti's capital, validity of elections in doubt | US troop deployment sparks protests in Dominican Republic

2/8/2006: Counting of ballots has started in Haiti after elections marked by stampedes that left four dead ended. Voters were frustrated by voting stations opening late and other major problems, leading to crowds storming polling stations and voting continuing late into the night. Mr Préval is the absolute favourite to win the battle for the presidency. He's already served in that office and was once the protégé of another - now exiled - former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although he's since distanced himself from Aristide, Mr Préval enjoys great popularity among exactly the same poor sections of Haiti's population. Election results are not expected to be announced for at least several days.

CARICOM leaders are slated to discuss the Haitian return to their bloc, which has refused to recognize the interim government of Gerard Latortue following the ouster of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

Freed Haitian Priest Gerard Jean Juste on His Imprisonment and the Haitian Elections | Haitians Await Results of Election After Chaotic Voting Conditions | Haiti's elections - the poor want Préval | Poll delays leave Haitians sweating in landmark vote | Keeping Preval-supporters away from the polls | Voting under the gun | HIP predicts Preval winner in Haiti with 63% of the vote | Human Rights Report On Haitian Elections

2/7/2006: Elections are taking place in Haiti. Polls opened at 0600 (1100 GMT) and are scheduled to close at 1600 (2100 GMT). Official results are expected on Friday.

Since a CID-Gallup poll taken in Haiti last December showed Rene Preval leading in the upcoming elections with 37%, the political forces that banded together to oust Aristide in Feb. 2004 have been organizing to contest the expected results. Preval's closest rival, Charles Henry Baker, is a wealthy sweatshop owner and a co-founder of the Group 184, a so-called civil society organization that helped to overthrow Aristide and was heavily funded by the United States, France and Canada through an intriguing web of foreign non-governmental organizations (NGO's). More
Brian Concannon writes:
February 7 will close the book on other questions that will never be answered. We will never know how much a third consecutive peaceful and punctual transfer of power from an elected President to an elected successor would have consolidated Haiti’s fragile democracy. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made the first such transfer in Haiti’s history in 1996, President Rene Preval the second one in 2001. The Constitution sets the third transfer for this February 7, but on that day the current elected President, President Aristide, will be in exile in South Africa, thousands of miles away, and his successor will not have been picked. We will never know how all the prominent politicians confined unjustly to jail, like former Senate President and Prime Minister Yvon Neptune- one of the top vote getters in the May 2000 legislative elections- would have done had they run in the elections. We will never know how many votes the Lavalas party- which has won every election since the end of the Duvalier regime in 1986, by a landslide- would have won this time. Lavalas announced eighteen months ago that it would participate in elections when the repression against it stopped, but the interim government has not been willing to make that concession.
But the biggest question of all will not be answered on February 7 or in Haiti at all: whether the international community will accept the Haitian voters’ choice this time. Haiti’s last elections, in November 2000, were held in relative security, with broad public participation and a clear popular choice. But the U.S., France, Canada and other countries disagreed with that choice, so they undermined the elected government with three years of political and economic coercion, and eventually bundled the President onto a U.S. plane headed for the Central African Republic. More

Haiti: Dark storm brewing over elections | Violent start to Haiti elections | Haitians begin voting in key poll | Haiti Support Group press release | Petition Filed Against US as Haiti Approaches Elections | Haiti poll may pave way for Aristide's return