CAFTA is also a step backward for labor rights. Under CAFTA, Central American countries are only obligated to uphold their own labor laws, which have been judged inadequate by the International Labor Organization in more than 20 ways. What's more, the enforcement of these deficient laws cannot be encouraged through the use of dispute settlement, fines or trade sanctions. Even putting labor conditions aside, CAFTA is bad the health of people of co south of the U.S. border. The countries of Central America have high rates of infection of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, rates that go up even more if you look at just the Afro-Latino communities. Provisions in CAFTA would actually delay or limit the introduction of cheaper, generic drugs to combat or cure many diseases and other health conditions. The result? Many of the 275,000 Central America living with HIV/AIDS will not be able to afford antiretroviral drugs. This impact will hit especially hard on Afro-Latinos, who make up a third of Latin America's population but represent 40 percent of Latin America's poor Maybe that's why Doctors Without Borders, the American Public Health Association and many others have come out strongly against CAFTA.
"I think it's a joke," Miami-based Haitian business woman and [Jean-Bertrand Aristide] supporter Lucie Tondreau told The Times. "These same people talking about they are representing the industrial class are the ones that are paying people 68 U.S. cents a day for 17 hours of work. These are the same people who have just fired over 300 poor people without indemnity. These are the same people who over the years in Haiti have refused to pay taxes, electricity, who have not invested in the infrastructure, in the schools of Haiti, and today they are coming here talking about democracy?," Tondreau wondered. "He" (Aristide) "was at the basis of reinforcement of polarization," said [Apaid]. "He was prone to keep our country divided. He knew our mentality and rather than try to correct it he was accentuating it while making deals behind the palace door with the very people he was attacking. So there was a hypocrisy in it and it's just traditional political behavior. We want to go beyond that." While Apaid described the current situation in Haiti as slow with a lot of problems but moving in the right direction, Tondreau described Haiti as a place where people have no right to demonstrate without being killed. "We need the duly elected president back in Haiti," said Tondreau.
[Teresa Heinz Kerry] shared the stage with two Haitian women, Aderadle Jules, 56, who had one family member to die in the floods and is missing seven, and Desita Fevrier, 52, who lost all eight of her family members in the Gonaives flood. Heinz Kerry first addressed the audience in French, which the predominately Creole speaking audience responded to favorably. Heinz Kerry said she did not know how the Haitian community was set up to handle disasters of the magnitude of Tropical Storm Jeanne. After acknowledging that she was not familiar with every Haitian issue, Heinz Kerry expressed concern about the United States' repatriation policy regarding Haitians. "I don't honestly know what the policy is for Haitians and Cubans when they come by boat to this country. What I don't understand is why do Haitians once they land have a different kind of treatment where they are held up for so long," Heinz Kerry pondered, as she drew applause from the audience.
3) Spanish and other European immigrants that were encouraged to settle in Cuba as per attempts to "bleach" the island. This was the first time anything like this was seriously proposed since Haiti earned its independence. This is important to note because the "spectre" of Haiti loomed ominously over Spanish and Cuban whites for a century and most of their policies towards Cuba's Blacks were reflective of it. The following year, the Cuban Ward Connerly of his day, Martin Morúa Delgado was elected Speaker in Cuba's Senate. The year after that, Morúa introduced legislation that became known as the Morúa Amendment and it outlaws the PIC because is was based on race and racism was supposedly eradicated in Cuba. Just before the vote was taken to enact this bill into law, Estonez and other PIC leaders were imprisoned and were kept in jail until after the law was passed.
Arbitrary detention of Haitian refugees should not be part of U.S. foreign policy. Minors should not be held captive, nor should any of the refugees be denied due process or the right to legal representation. In the past, all Haitian refugees were considered economic refugees. Today, even the president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is claiming that he is being persecuted. While the U.S. Special Forces and the State Department are busy chasing Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, on the island nation of Haiti, a powerful and deadly drama is unfolding. Mob killings of reporters and shootouts in broad daylight between mayors and congressmen have become common occurrence.
"Currently the districts only dilute the voting strength of Haitian-Americans," he said. "If the county does not increase the number of seats, the chances are that within the next 10 years you will see a Haitian American and an African American fighting for the same seat," he said. "This would cause deep ethnic division. And we already have enough ethnic division." "In the past Commissioner Gwen Margolis has supported the idea in principal. And Commissioner Dorrin Rolle has questioned the timing of it," he said.
Needless to say, it would take more than this short column to list all her accomplishments and all the legislative activities she had been involved in. Suffice it to say, however, she fought very hard, not only for her constituencies, but also for what was right. And this is the point that requires a reflective pause for the Haitian community. The Haitian community, along with some non-Haitian observers, has always felt that it has been discriminated against by U.S. immigration policies. Back in the 1980's and the early 1990's, there were many Haitian activists who took to the streets and to the airwaves to decry these discriminatory policies. However, none of the Haitian activists were elected officials. Certainly, the efforts of these activists were very important and sometimes fruitful in the context of exposing the inequality of these policies to the larger American public.
Its Chairman, [Henry Crespo], suggested that the recall "is about the Camillus House," and its recommended relocation initially adjacent to Overtown and most recently in the area of newly elected Commissioner Angel Gonzalez's district. [Arthur E. Teele, Jr.], who supports this latter move as well as quality housing for the homeless, explained that the new Camillus House will be a state-of-the-art, well-designed secluded homeless facility, nothing like the current loiter-type housing. Gonzalez is on record as being against the new site on Cuban radio and from the dais. Reportedly, Gonzalez has been very vocal with Camillus House proponents against Teele. As its platform, the recall committee has circulated flyers listing contracts awarded by the City of Miami Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), which Teele chairs, as justification for Commissioner Teele's alleged "neglect of duty." Teele responded in the PULSE meeting that he cannot accept responsibility for the actions of all five City of Miami commissioners who sit on the CRA Board. He individually named each business, explained their service to the CRA and their contribution to the overall redevelopment of the Southeast-Overtown Park West/Omni area.
We must continue to support one another for the future of our community. We need to see more African American leaders coming into the Haitian community, not just during election time but throughout the year. We need to see more solid commitment on the part of the Haitian community also to join different causes in the African American community. These are the only ways we can overcome in this struggle for equality. If we continue to treat our political interests as separate entities, we will never get to partake of the ftuits of democracy. Concerned citizens and political officials in both communities need to let people know that we don't have a Haitian/African American problem. I would hope that the Haitian community can realize that just because Mr. Duke, an African American, was defeated by Mr. [Joe Celestin], a Haitian, that Haitians are not "better" or "tougher" or "stronger" than the African American community. Likewise, the African American community needs the growing Haitian vote in the future. Haitian and African American people are one race, living through different cultural lifestyles. It's okay to have different lifestyles, as long as we respect each others' differences, without animosity or violence. For instance, the Latin community is comprised of Spanish-speaking people from different countries: Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc. Does anyone think that these groups are in complete harmony with one another? The answer is no. The different Spanish-speaking groups do not like one another that much but, in reality, when it comes to standing up for a common cause you see them marching side by side, taking pictures with each other and voting for each other.
