30441: Laborsoul (announcement) Labour Tour first leg -- Ottawa, Canada

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Laboursoul@aol.com


The CANADA HAITI ACTION NETWORK presents:
Canada-Haiti labour and women's rights solidarity tour

English event:
May 23 - 7:00 p.m.
233 Gilmour Street (PSAC Building), Ottawa
Local contact: madey@riseup.net or 613-736-5504

French event / Evènement (call-out to follow / communiquez à suivre):
May 24 - 7:00 p.m.
Dépanneur Sylvèstre, 9 Fortier, Gatineau

Come hear from and speak with three of Haiti's leading women's rights and
labour organizers:
Loulou Chéry, leader of the Confédération des travailleurs Haïtiens
Ginette Apollon, elected leader of women's commission of the Confédération
des travailleurs haïtiens
Euvonie Georges-Auguste, pioneering leader of women's rights organizing in 
Haiti

Wage workers in Haiti earn as little as $2 (US) per day. The unemployment rate
is 60% to 70%. Women struggle on the edge of survival to find work, feed
families, and send children to school or scramble for health care when
emergencies arise. The 2004 foreign invasion and coup against the elected
government of President Aristide was a huge setback to workers rights and
womens rights. Minimum wage rates were slashed, schools and health care
facilities were closed, and legal and extra-legal violence has risen sharply,
including that which targets women. Canada took part in the invasion and coup,
and since then it continues to fund institutions and agencies that do nothing
to improve the lives of ordinary Haitians.

Activists throughout Haiti have been risking their freedom and lives
throughout Haiti's history. Today, union leaders and activists face repression
and even imprisonment for their work. The Canadian government has played a
key role in supporting the enforcement of this repression.

Canada Haiti Action Network is pleased to present this rare opportunity to
hear from these three key activists on their experiences and knowledge of
organizing in Haiti.

The Tour is endorsed by, among other organizations:
Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Canadian Union of Postal Workers
(CUPW), the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the
Ottawa and District Labour Council, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), and
many other labour, women's, student, and anti-war groups across Canada.

Extra information:

1. Who is the Canada Haiti Action Network?

2. Current conditions in Haiti

3. Tour dates and endorsers

4. Biographies of featured speakers


1. Canada Haiti Action Network
Over the past three years, a solidarity movement with the Haitian people has
emerged in over a dozen Canadian cities. The genesis of this movement was
widespread opposition to the Government of Canada's direct role in the coup
d'état of February 2004 that overthrew Haiti's elected government, including
its President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In early 2005, the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) was formed and it has
received significant support from many trade unions and anti-war groups. A
November 2005 Week of Action organized by CHAN to draw attention to the human
rights crisis in Haiti drew endorsements from over twenty organizations,
including the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Peace Alliance, and the
Ottawa and District Labour Council.

CHAN-linked groups and activists have worked very hard over this time to
highlight the human rights crisis that so many of Haiti's activists and social
movement leaders have been facing. Though often blocked from the mainstream
media, the details of this crisis have been extensively reported by
independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, the
U.S.-based National Lawyers Guild, the Harvard University Human Rights
Program, the University of Miami Human Rights Centre, and others.

2. Current Conditions in Haiti
Following the inauguration in May 2006 of the government elected in February
2006, the human rights situation in Haiti improved modestly. Some of Haiti's
popular leaders were able to return from exile. Some of Haiti's political
prisoners were released from jail, and newly elected president Réné Préval
received offers of stepped up economic and social aid from Venezuela, Cuba and
other countries.

However, Haiti remains militarily occupied by some 8,000 United
Nations-sponsored foreign military forces. Money and political advisors from
the "big three" countries that invaded in February/March 2004-Canada, the U.S.
and France-continue to play a central role in the political life of the
country. And in recent weeks, UN forces have once again launched armed
assaults on poor neighbourhoods in the capital city Port au Prince where
opposition to the coup and the foreign occupation remains strong.

The foreign forces have not provided the protection for the population that
they promised. A report in a September 2006 issue of the prestigious British
medical journal The Lancet concluded that in the two-year period following the
coup, there were some 4,000 political killings and several tens of thousands
of sexual assaults against women, the vast majority of which were attributed
to paramilitary death squads and the foreign-funded and trained Haitian
National Police.


3. The Tour

Tour dates: May 21 to June 5
Thematic Focus:  Haiti's Labour and Women's Movements
Featured Speakers: Paul "Loulou" Chéry, Ginette Apollon, Euvonie 
Georges-Auguste

4. Biography of Featured Speakers:
Paul "Loulou" Chéry - The leader of Haiti's largest trade union, the
Confédération des Travailleurs Haitiens (CTH), Loulou faced repeated threats
and persecution following the February 2004 coup d'état.  He has also faced
persecution by the Haitian National Police.  Nonetheless, he and his
colleagues continue to rebuild the CTH, which recently became the Canadian
Labour Congress' only "Haitian cousin" when the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) was formed in November 2006.  Loulou was also part of a
social movement delegation to the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in
January 2006.  To read an interview with Loulou, check out:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9060

Ginette Apollon - Ginette is the elected leader of the Women's Commission of
the Confédération des Travailleurs Haitiens (CTH) trade union.  Following 
the
February 2004 coup d'état in Haiti, Ginette became an important international
spokesperson within the women's section of Haiti's labour movement, traveling
to the Philippines, Venezuela, and Canada.  For this, she was also subjected
to persecution and arbitrary detention at the hands of the Haitian National
Police. (For a description of one particular episode, see:
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HAC/4_22_5.html) Ginette was also a speaker
for the CTH at the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in January 2006.

Euvonie Georges-Auguste - A pioneering leader of Haiti's women's movement,
Euvonie Georges-Auguste was forced into exile following the February 2004 coup
d'état. Prior to that time, Euvonie worked to build women's social
networks at the same time that she established an important program
providing literacy education to Haiti's poor, who are largely excluded from the 
formal education
system. Euvonie also spoke at the 2006 World Social Forum in Caracas.
Following the return to constitutional government in 2006, Euvonie was able to
return to Haiti and attempt to rebuild.

Tour contact:
Kevin Skerrett
Ottawa Haiti Solidarity/Kozayiti; CHAN
(613) 
864-1590                                            
kskerrett@cupe.ca
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