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Maître Mario Joseph delivers commencement address to Indiana University School of Law

Submitted by CHAN on May 13, 2013 - 15:30
Attorney Mario Joseph speaking to prison inmates about their rights.jpg

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dear Friends,

This past Saturday, our colleague Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) delivered the commencement address to the graduates of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law class of 2013. The McKinney School of Law also conferred on Mario a degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa. I thought I would share Mario’s remarks with you, because we are proud of him, but also because the speech explains in a powerful way how the inability to enforce basic human rights keeps people in Haiti and places like it poor and vulnerable to disasters.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide speaks out

Submitted by CHAN on May 13, 2013 - 13:08
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, May 8, 2013 3.jpg

Haiti's ex-President Aristide breaks silence

By Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, May 10, 2013

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said if Haiti's upcoming local and senatorial elections are free, fair and transparent, there "is a good chance" that his Fanmi Lavalas Political Party would win a good portion of the seats.

"Fanmi Lavalas is evolving, is becoming stronger and more powerful," Aristide said. "I am not doing propaganda for Fanmi Lavalas. We are speaking the truth and for me, this is the truth."

Art exhibition in London: The Sculptors of Grand Rue (Haiti)

Submitted by CHAN on May 13, 2013 - 11:03
Sculptures of Grande rue.jpg

The Sculptors of Grand Rue (Haiti)
Art exhibition at Riflemaker Gallery, London UK
May 13 to July 29, 2013
Curated by Leah Gordon

Celeur Jean Hérard, Andre Eugéne and their colleagues are based in Haiti's Grand Rue neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince. They evoke history and collective cultural memory through a vision that is at once hallucinatory and prophetic. Their assemblages transform the detritus of the world's failing economies into distinctly apocalyptic images, whose particular take on Vodou evoke a cyberpunk sci-fi vision.

Former Guatemalan dictator convicted of genocide and jailed for 80 years

Submitted by CHAN on May 13, 2013 - 08:00

Efraín Ríos Montt held to account for abuses in campaign that killed an estimated 200,000 and led to 45,000 disappearances

By Sibylla Brodzinsky and Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, May 11, 2013

The former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide on Friday after a court found him guilty of crimes against humanity for his role in the slaughter of 1,771 Mayan Ixils in the 1980s. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison. It is the first time a former head of state has been found guilty of genocide in their own country.

Haitian sweatshop workers speak: Sub-poverty wages and sexual coercion

Submitted by CHAN on May 10, 2013 - 10:32
Ruth Jean-Pierre, left, and Aluta Marcelin, right, photo Ansel Herz..JPG

By Beverly Bell, published on Truthout, May 9, 2013

Below, Haitian women workers tell of their experiences in sweatshops. These interviews, gathered over the past two years, are among many dozens that this writer has collected from Haitian sweatshop workers since the early 1980s. Not one has ever diverged from the narrative of miserable working conditions and the inability to feed, shelter, and educate their children on insufficient wages. Below, women tell of their experiences as sweatshop workers and offer their analysis on better types of jobs for Haiti.

Physicians For Haiti report: UN fails to follow its own recommendations on cholera

Submitted by CHAN on May 6, 2013 - 16:07

Protecting Peacekeepers & Their Public: A report card on UN implementation of their recommendations for cholera in Haiti

By Physicians for Haiti, May 3, 2013

BOSTON, MA – The United Nations failed to fulfill several of their own recommendations to address the cholera outbreak in Haiti and prevent future outbreaks, Physicians for Haiti (P4H) announced today.  The findings appeared in Protecting Peacekeepers & Their Public: A report card on UN implementation of their recommendations for cholera in Haiti.

"Mrs. Clinton can have her factories" A Haitian sweatshop worker speaks

Submitted by CHAN on May 2, 2013 - 11:25
Marjorie Valcelat, photo by Ansel Herz..JPG

By Beverly Bell,  published on Other Worlds, April 30, 2013

Marjorie Valcelat ran an embroidery machine in a factory from 2005 to 2008. She says the experience made her so sick and weak that she’s not felt able to work since then.

I had three children I had to take care of; their father had left. And since I hadn’t had enough schooling, I didn’t have the skills to do much. So I said to myself, “I’m going to work at a factory.” When I got there, they showed me how to run the machines to embroider slips and nightshirts. I spent a month training, but during that time they didn’t pay me; I had to pay them for the training.

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