International Tribunal on Haiti

Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 10:29:11 EDT
Subject: International Tribunal on Haiti

Dear Supporter of Justice and Peace,

Haiti today is a killing field. Thousands of Haitians have
been murdered and over 1,000 jailed without trial since
the US-sponsored coup on February 29, 2004. The slaughter
is taking place hidden from view by a complacent
international press and complicit governments.

Each morning residents of Cite Soleil and other poor
neighborhoods, the neighborhoods which twice elected
President Jean Bertrand Aristide by huge margins, awake
to find bodies in the streets; victims of the previous
night's terror by US-trained-and-armed police and
increasingly by UN occupation troops. Haiti's last
constitutional Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, remains in
prison over a year since he was arrested. Fr. Gerard
Jean-Juste, who spent seven weeks as a political prisoner
last year, was arrested illegally on July 21, at a
funeral. The killings and jailing of political prisoners,
abetted by the Brazilian-led UN occupation force, will
continue unless you and I respond to the cries of the
Haitian majority and come to their aid.

I am writing you today on behalf of a coalition of Haiti
solidarity groups, supported by the Latin America
Solidarity Coalition, that have banded together to bring
international attention to the Haitian killing fields. We
need your generous financial support for an International
Tribunal on Haiti that will hold its first session on the
evening of September 23, 2005 at George Washington
University in Washington, DC, the evening before the huge
anti-war march organized by the September 24 March on
Washington Coalition. I urge you to come to Washington to
participate in both events.

What Will the International Tribunal on Haiti Do?

At the Tribunal's opening session, prosecutors will
present a detailed background of the coup and preliminary
indictments, similar to a grand jury proceeding. The
background to the indictment will cover the pre-coup
period when the National Endowment for Democracy and the
International Republican Institute were training the
Tonton Macoute and paramilitary thugs whose violence gave
a pretext for the removal of popularly elected President
Aristide and created the conditions for Haiti's present
misery. The actions of the governments of the United
States, France, and Canada to destabilize the Aristide
government will be exposed. The Tribunal will urge, at
such time as the legitimate government is returned to
Haiti, that Haiti take those countries before the
International Court of Justice (World Court) at the
Hague. But, most importantly, the International Tribunal
on Haiti will expose, through eye-witness and expert
testimony, the truth about the daily slaughter being
carried out by masked policemen with the criminal
complicity, and increasingly participation, of the UN
occupation force. And, in the end, the Tribunal will
forward individual indictments for those on the ground
directly responsible for the massacres and crimes against
humanity to the new International Criminal Court in the
Hague, Netherlands. The first session of the International
Tribunal on Haiti will begin a seven month campaign to
expose to the world the human rights violations by the
Brazilian-led "peacekeeping force" and the de facto
government put in place by the Bush administration.
Other sessions of the Tribunal will be held in other
cities. Public education forums drawing on the work of
the International Tribunal on Haiti will be organized in
yet more cities and university campuses. A blue-ribbon
Commission of Inquiry, led by former Attorney General
Ramsey Clark, will be announced at the Sept. 23 session
of the Tribunal. A delegation of the Commission of Inquiry
will travel to Haiti to take eye-witness testimony and to
determine what commanders and officials were responsible
for which massacres and other crimes. The Commission of
Inquiry will make it impossible for the international
press to continue ignoring the crimes against humanity
being committed with the knowledge of US and UN officials.

We Need Your Help Immediately

But, you can imagine how costly an ambitious campaign in
the face of the media conspiracy of silence will be. We
do not have the resources to do it alone and that is why
I am writing to you today to ask for your help. Travel
expenses for the Commission of Inquiry alone will run
over $5,000. Renting auditoriums for the public sessions
of the Tribunal and travel costs for Haitian witnesses
will cost at least that much. We must also subsidize
buses to bring the Haitian community from New York to
attend the opening session. We simply cannot do it without
you.

All of the organizers and lawyers are contributing countless
hours of their time to save the lives of innocent Haitians,
but still, the unavoidable costs of this campaign to stop
the slaughter and expose the crimes will not be cheap.
Unless we act now, the killings will intensify in the next
three months leading up to the phony elections that are meant
to legitimize the coup government. The elections will be even
less legitimate than those held in Iraq under US occupation.
Unless we expose the truth about what is happening in Haiti,
the US and French governments, and the United Nations, will
declare the elections "free and fair" and the new government
of the Haitian elites will continue killing those who seek
freedom and democracy. The vast majority of Haitians want their
democracy back - a democracy that was stolen from them by the
U.S. government. The vast majority of Haitians want justice, a
secure future for their families, and an end to the killing.
But, the vast majority of Haitians live in poverty and need
our solidarity and advocacy. They accomplished what many
thought impossible when they came together in 1990 to first
elect Aristide president by a landslide and then beat back
a three-year coup. They will continue to choose democracy
over the dictatorship of the Haitian elite and domination
by US and European transnational corporations if given the
opportunity. They are risking their lives, and in all too
many cases, giving their lives for the dream of
self-determination. That dream must begin with the return
of the constitutional government and continue with periodic
free and fair elections. That's not what the US and the UN
have in mind for them. They plan a rigged election after
having overthrown the democratically elected government.
The Haitian people have, on principle, refused to
participate. We have no one to turn to but you to help build
our solidarity with the Haitian poor majority. Please give
generously. Make your tax-deductible check out as soon as
you read this letter because time is running out and the
situation is dire. This Tribunal is a way that we outside
of Haiti can help stay the hand of those carrying out
massacres in Haiti. Your contribution can concretely help
to save the lives of mothers, fathers and children who are
daily being killed.

Make your tax-deductible check out to:
International Tribunal on Haiti/CISPES Education Fund
and send it to
P.O. Box 8560, NY, NY 10116.

Contribute Online NOW

The best and fastest way for us to receive funds is when
you give a tax-deductible contribution over the Internet
with any major credit card by going to the secure server
of the Nicaragua Network at http://www.nicanet.org.
(http://www.nicanet.org./)
Just click on the "Make a Donation" button in the lower
left-hand side of the screen, and proceed to the Alliance
for Global Justice donations page.
Put a dot in the Box marked Other and type in:
International Tribunal on Haiti then the amount you'd like
to give. Follow the prompts to finalize your tax-deductible
donation.

In solidarity,
Brian Concannon Jr., Esq.
Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
(541) 432-0597
PO Box 745
Joseph, OR 97846
brianhaiti [at] aol.com
http://www.ijdh.org
Brian Concannon Jr., Esq.
Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
(541) 432-0597
PO Box 745
Joseph, OR 97846
brianhaiti [at] aol.com
http://www.ijdh.org