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Syndicate
I'll stand by Mick.
Nowhere in any of the reporting does it say that the FULL amount alloted to AILS was actually given to BO. It was apparently more than the $3500 that was reported given to the SOKWA union organizing garment workers in the free trade zones (sic).
We can argue whether unions anywhere in the globe struggling against US-coroporations, in the case of the SOWA organized garment workers, should have anything to do with US unions or the ALF-CIO's AILS. A fair point. We can also argue should Haitian unions takes AILS money during the time of this crisis. Fair point or not? Or is guilt by association and some funding an error only when it suits a political moment or a partuicular ally?
As I've supported BO since the 1990's I was absolutely disappointed upon reading about work with AILS. I tried to imagine why. But as an experianced trade unionist I began to look at the events surrounding the possible reasons why. It's like when you handle a grievance, what are the facts surrounding it. While I make no excuses for BO in this instance, I saw how there were a bunch of links to this fence from a trade union point of view why and were a relationship with US labour organisation's were desired. Again, not an excuse, just that at the time of this use of poor judgement, BO and SOKOWA were heavily engaged in strugges against US firms. I gather the BO and SOKOW in appealing for help and solidarity (something the Lavalas friendly unions would not give) attracted attention by US unions, in particuar the National Labor Committee and the old-UNITE! textile workers union. From there one can only imagine where those lead, probably to AILS.
The point in pasting the statement above by the Grassroots Haiti Solidarity Committee was not to say "gotcha" on whatever amount BO or SOKOWA actually got. But to point out that one can be critical of this transgression by BO and still support its overall aims.
I would agree with this and think most folks with a critical but open mind would as well:
"But after years of experience working with Batay Ouvriye, our members are united in rejecting the simplistic line of argument that the organization has somehow been bought off by the US government. In fact, we feel this episode reflects less on Batay Ouvriye than on inherent weaknesses in the international left and especially in the US progressive movement, where solidarity too often focuses on charismatic leaders with access to state power while overlooking the struggles of actual workers and others on the ground. The international left would be in a better position to criticize if it had been providing a meaningful level of concrete support to Batay Ouvriye and other grassroots organizations over the years."
I would further concur with their closing statement and end this email with that quote:
"Despite reservations about Batay Ouvriye's decisions on funding, we support its struggle to develop class-based, independent and democratic organizing among the masses based on the people's own demands. That support is especially important at a time when despite occupation and increased repression, grassroots and trade-union organizing is experiencing a resurgence in Haiti.
Some forces want to use the current debate to bring an end to Batay Ouvriye's organizing. ...[T]that the attention this discussion has brought to the issues will instead help build more meaningful international solidarity for Batay Ouvriye's important work."
Haiti, Failed Solidarity: International Trade Union Organizations "Pay Lip Service" to 2004 Overthrow of President Aristide Failed Solidarity: The ICFTU, AFL-CIO, ILO, and ORIT in Haiti
Jeb Sprague 2006
Unionist,
If Obama flys down with Aristide, things would be better.
E
At this rate he's more likely to fly down with and re-install baby doc. I hear baby doc is so broke that even he couldn't afford to buy food in Haiti. Bowls o' pumpkin soup to both of them.
Haiti: Why I Won't Give to Red Cross:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/haiti-katrina-and-why-i-wont...
"At Katrina, the Red Cross used funds generously donated by millions of Americans to implement what many knew at the time was, and what has turned out to be the dispersal of much of black New Orleans to the four corners of the continental US. If the Red Cross didn't respect the persons, the families, the communities of black US citizens, do we really imagine it will respect Haitians?
Instead of sending money to a Yankee organization lets fund people who have been providing health necessities for decades.
edited out by Syndicalist
Batay Ourviye is an organization of Haitian workers and peasents in Haiti!! It is in no way a "yankee" organization. I have no problem if people want to donate to other groups but please do not attack the appeal for BO and lie about them being a US (or US puppet) organization. That is simply not true.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Help Batay Ourviye, a workers and peasants organization in Haiti, co-ordinate a grassroots relief effort and oppose renewed exploitation by the capitalist class. Donation Online: http://tinyurl.com/BatayOurviye
Umm, I believe kropotkin was referring to Miami Workers Center, which is the suggested payee on your solicitation.
I don't send money to the heart of the empire to distribute to people the empire has fucked over.
You live in the heart of the evil empire and Haiti is proof of it. Americans are not the solution they are the problem. Why would I send money to a group that openly states it opposes the political party that the majority of Haitians voted for and would vote for tomorrow if given the chance. Instead we should believe this American backed group that Aristide is the problem. Yankee Go Home and Stay Home.
The drivel below is from this group. If those Haitians would only stick with American backed groups they would be okay.
Aristide gets boxed into a corner by the IMF and other American controlled agencies and then a Haitian group backed by Americans blames him for the imposition of a dictatorship by the West.
It smells like a rat to me.
Not sure why an authoritarian socialist would choose the moniker of a libertarian socialist (P. Kropotkkin). Seems a bit wierd.
In regards to Batay, I will again pose the following:
I would think we need to ask a question:
"Should BO have remained silent as Airsides screwed the Haitian working class? Was the anti-imperialist rhetoric matching up to the implementation of a pro-IMF.WB austerity programs? At what point does a workers movement, with a progressive agenda, stop being critical of even a rhetorically anti-imperialist government when it's screwing the working class?"
You know, Syndicalist, with Haiti filled to the rafters with imperialist troops, it seems rather odd to be condemning Aristide - in 2010 - and saying not one friggin' word against U.S. imperialism (and refusing to self-criticize for having been massively financed by it) not to mention Canada and France and the rest. I draw my own conclusions.
I didn't originally raise the issue, I believe you did.
i thought I was clear enough in not supporting BO's work with the Solidarity Center.Bit no one has still answered my questions about those pro-Lavalas unions which are currently the receipant of AFL-CIO and ITCU aid.
And, yes, I'm against imperialist intervention. That said, I will not foresake working class independence and labour unions that are not affiliated to political parties.
Your first week on this board and you deem it appropriate to label me. In the same vein fuck off you agent provacateur.
Kropotkin was an anarchist. The term libertarian was not part of his lexicon. Do you even know what syndicalism is? What business do you own?
I don't trust any group based in Miami not to be a CIA front and that is where you say to send the money to this political organization. Do they even have aid workers in the field or is this just to advance their political agenda.
In the midst of a disaster someone cones on this site to fundraise for a political party with the money flowing through America to them and you think we should be impressed. No one on this site called for sending funds to Aristides party. I suggested sending money through a Canadian group (Mackenzie Papineau Brigade) or MSF. Why would I as a Canadian want to send my money via Miami when I have no way of knowing who the players are and their stated goal is to advance a specific political party with ties to America.
You are welcome to disagree with my point of view. You are not welcome to call me an agent provacateur.
But you have the right to call me an authoritarian socialist after belonging to this board a week. American arrogance knows no bounds, eh?
Do you always insult the locals when you go to a new place just to prove your superiority, I think the term for that is Ugly American.
I've been an anarchist for many years. Anarchists and libertarian socialists are not apt to favorablly promote Cuba or the International brigade, authoritarian socialists do. Hence my reference.
As I said, you are welcome to disagree with my point of view. You are not welcome to call me an agent provacateur.
A Canadian comrade invite othrs who shared their viewws to join in the conversation. If I would have known that only Canadian's with identical opinions were welcome here, I obviously would not have spent my time trying to compose emails which spoke directly to the criticism's Unionist was raising.
Why would you come on this board and start a flame war with me. Did you think I would shrink away at your fire power. So stop already you started it and you haven't apologized you merely told me how right your view of me is. I find that extremely American.
To me it is the same as in the middle of a disaster doing fundraising for a political party that the majority of Haitians have never voted for. You think that is what the Haitian people need is foreign money flooding in to their political parties. If it is such a good idea why will Americans not allow foreigners to fund their politicians?
Just so you know the Mac Paps were more than just CP members and many of them supported the anarchists when they got to Spain.
As for not promoting Cuba again this from someone who thinks filtering money through Miami to help Haiti is a great progressive idea. Bad Cuba, they defy America must be punished and punished for generations. Now if they would just let Americans flood the place with money to buy their politicians everything would improve.
You very well be one of the small minority of progressive americans and if so likely an ally. I don't understand why you can't see that american money is a problem not a solution to any other countries political problems.
Comrade, if you say you're not an authoritarian socialist, ok. But anyone who calls me a cop surely will not get an apology for any real or perceived mischaraterizations of your point of view.
I will stand by the internationalism that the appeal set out to provide.
Not really sure what else to say.
Oh, by the way, I agree, I'm a pretty ugly fellow and the mirror reminds me of it daily.
It is now officially an occupation:
Well then, US military out of Haiti! Cancel the IMF/World bank debts!
I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about this BO organization. Mick opened a thread to solicit money for them via some U.S. group(s), and my investigation turned up some pretty sketchy things. That's all.
Yves Engler on Canada's Role in the Haitian Disaster: http://www.rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/alert-canadian-dimension/2010/01/yve...
Author Yves Engler on why Haiti was so ill prepared to deal with this earthquake and earlier ones in 2004 and 2008 and Canada's role in Haiti since the coup that replaced the elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide.
Alert: Radio #140
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Help Batay Ourviye, a workers and peasants organization in Haiti, co-ordinate a grassroots relief effort and resist renewed exploitation by the capitalist class. Donation Online: http://tinyurl.com/BatayOurviye
That's a strange collage of partial sentences ranging from 2005 to 2008 - especially the one where BO put the U.S. and Aristide on an equal footing (but which you unaccountably truncated):
You turned that into:
As a resident of Canada, my first duty to the Haitian people is to ensure that I and my country do not profit from their misery, exploitation, and dependence. That means fighting against any form of imperialist interference in the sovereign affairs of the Haitian people.
So are you saying that Canada isn't an imperialist state? There's people in places around the world (Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Haiti) that would disagree as they are or have experienced the military might of Canadian imperialism first hand.
To extend your logic you shouldn't donate to Canadian organizations fund-raising for relief efforts in Haiti either as we too live in the "heart of the imperialist beast"
The major problem with your simple anti-Americanism is that you seem to see everyone in the US and all US-based organizations as homogenous and in line with the US state's imperialist interests.
That's not the way society works, there's contradictions and opposing forces in US society, especially in large expatriate communities such as the large Haitian community in Miami (again some of the activists in the Miami Workers Center are Haitian migrant workers, some who are former members of Batay Ouvriye).
MAS and the Miami Workers Center are simply helping co-ordinate the fund-raising and support for Batay Ouvriye as they have direct organic connections with the workers movement in Haiti. You can't reasonably expect workers in Haiti to be able to co-ordinate an international solidarity appeal when they're no doubt prioritizing emergency efforts to co-ordinate a Haitian grassroots response to the disaster and the imperialist and capitalist occupation that's happening in Haiti right now AND most of the countries communications have been knocked out or are under capitalist, military, or foreign control.
Also, to be clear, Batay Ouvriye is not a "political party", they are a "union" organization of workers and peasants that are organizing in the sweatshops and plantations of Haiti, against major trans-national corporations, including US-based ones! If you want to raise critiques of the Haitian workers movement that's fine, we're happy to try and address them as best we can. However, please do not simply make up fantasies (such as BO being a "political party) and assert that they are truth without providing any evidence.
This isn't some proxy for US imperialism, this is activist workers in the US and internationally providing direct aid to fellow workers in Haiti. That's international working class solidarity brother.
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Help Batay Ourviye, a workers and peasants organization in Haiti, co-ordinate a grassroots relief effort and resist renewed exploitation by the capitalist class. Donation Online: http://tinyurl.com/BatayOurviye
Well, you seemed incapable of reading B.O's stated opposition to the occupation if there was any other text around it.
As evidenced by your need to add the critique of Ariestide and his Lavalas Party. Your goal seems to be to say that because workers in Haiti are opposed to bourgeois governments and politicians, that sometimes were deposed of (1991, 2004) and sometimes cut deals with (1994-2004) US imperialism (or does history start in 2004 for you?). They also opened up "free trade area" sweatshops for multi-national corporations and turned a blind eye to the police and armed gangs hired by the bosses attacking and killing workers then they must support an imperialist coup and occupation. That doesn't make any sense. It is entirely consistent to oppose both anti-worker Haitian capitalists and bourgeois politicians as well as oppose the foreign occupation of Haiti.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Batay Ourviye, a workers and peasants organization in Haiti, co-ordinate a grassroots relief effort and resist renewed exploitation by the capitalist class. Donation Online: http://tinyurl.com/BatayOurviye
I don't see how they can win here. Imagine the screaming there'd be, probably from the same people if the US weren't using its military to provide aid.