Latinoamerica

Miami - Workers: Voodoo Used in Union Vote

by Ken Thomas

Union lawyers denounced a nursing home's claim that a series of voodoo signs may have scared the facility's large Haitian-American work force into voting to organize.
"It's a standard delay tactic," said Monica Russo, Local 1199 of the Service Employees union.
Workers at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Nursing and Rehabilitation Center voted 49-37 to unionize on Feb. 28, complaining of low wages, unaffordable health insurance, and mistreatment by management.
The National Labor Relations Board is holding a hearing this week as the center tries to get the vote thrown out. Testimony was expected to continue Tuesday.

Employees testifying Monday described an atmosphere of fear of voodoo at the 150-bed nonprofit facility in suburban Miami Shores. They said they saw lines of pennies, half-empty water cups and a union supporter twisting black beads in her hands before the vote.
"If there was a group of people afraid of voodoo, your mind could be swayed," dietary aide Barbra White Bynum testified.
Bynum said a co-worker warned her about the consequences if workers failed to approve the union.
"She said we have tried two times to get the union here, and if the Haitians don't vote the union in, something bad is going to happen to them," said Bynum, who voted against the union.

Lula Torina McClain-Barrett, another dietary aide, said she became worried after finding half-filled cups of water placed on cabinets and rows of three pennies in drawers that held sheets. She said someone who knew about voodoo warned her not to touch the pennies.

"After she told me they could be evil, I left them alone," McClain-Barrett said.
Voodoo evolved in the 17th century among African slaves brought to the Caribbean. Followers believe in a supreme god and a world of mighty spirits who link humans with the divine.

Washington Post, 26 marzo 2002

Political Notes Fill Carnival In Haiti
Music Underscores Nation's Discontent

By Scott Wilson

Whatever conflict may surround the government, Haiti throws a huge national block party at this time every year. Carnival is something people can count on in a place where not much
falls into that category.
Less lavish than Rio de Janeiro's run-up to the austerity of Lent, the festival that began here Sunday and ended tonight has a personality reflecting an unruly, rarely happy nation. While the government views the party as a diversion for the masses, carnival also serves as perhaps the
most important bellwether of Haiti's mood and a vast showcase for discontent.
What has emerged from the streets this year is an unpleasant twist for a president who once benefited from carnival's fulminations: Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his party are suffering most from the darts of the most popular songs. Haiti admires its many artists, far more than its
politicians, and the throbbing "roots rock," slow Haitian merengue and bouncy carnival tunes that blare from every street-corner shop have long been the lingua franca of a country in which a large percentage of the population is illiterate.

The carnival music is politically important enough to be analyzed by foreign diplomats here, and last week U.S. officials were seeking out the lyrics to a song called "Rice" by Sweet Mickey. Once a favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship
before its 1986 collapse, Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly is now so popular that his fans refer to him as "president." The title of his smash-hit carnival song refers to recent riots at a dockside warehouse here that were sparked by word that officials from Aristide's party were stealing
from a food program for the poor.
"They don't see what is happening in this country. The official car is in front, the rice truck in the middle, the security behind. Protect the rice," the lyrics go. "They see, but they never understand. Give me the country. You're gone, you're gone, you're gone."

The criticism comes at a difficult time for Aristide, who is reeling from a Dec. 17 coup attempt that came as political violence and economic deprivation have mounted in the hemisphere's poorest nation.
It was not always like this. Aristide was chosen as the country's first freely elected leader in 1990, only to be toppled by a military coup the next year. The next two carnivals, which Aristide spent in exile, were dominated by his absence. Musicians shouted for the return of the
diminutive former priest and champion of Haiti's downtrodden, defying coup leaders who at times cut off electricity in hopes of silencing the carnival songs. Aristide returned in 1994 with the help of 20,000 U.S. soldiers.

But this year Aristide tried to limit criticism that could be aimed at his government. At a meeting with musicians last month, he requested that their carnival songs focus on his national literacy campaign or promote Haiti's bicentennial in 2004. His request has been mostly ignored.
"I prefer to be inspired, not instructed," said Richard Morse, whose band RAM has been at the center of some of carnival's most dramatic moments in recent years. Morse, manager of the fabled Hotel Oloffson, wrote some of the most important protest music against the coup that ousted Aristide.
The band's roots rock draws from rhythms boiling up from the masses -- the vivid, soulful music of a country that was born of a slave revolt and became the world's first black republic.

His song "Fey" was perhaps the definitive anti-coup anthem, and its lyrics -- "Where are the people? We don't see them," referring to the government in exile -- rang out over the broad central plaza known as the Champs de Mars as the coup leaders looked on

.
Since then, Morse has had problems with Aristide's Lavalas Family party, including an incident before carnival five years ago when the Lavalas mayor sent armed men to the Oloffson and ordered RAM's float dismantled.
The mayor, a singer himself, interpreted one of RAM's songs to be a veiled accusation of corruption. Things between Morse and the government have deteriorated since then.
The government said it spent $800,000 this year on what was once a celebration subsidized almost entirely by the private sector. The money went to erect bleachers, buy building materials and create about 3,000 temporary jobs in a country where the majority of the population lives on
less than $2 a day.
"We're trying to get back to a cultural carnival that could be seen as a tourist event," said Guy Paul, minister of culture and communications.

On the streets, the "battle of decibels," as Paul described the rival floats and bleacher parties, has been deafening, a party more to be felt through chest-pounding bass than heard.

For the last three nights, men have sold beer from wheelbarrows. Women wearing bandannas and garish face paint have danced in conga lines. And with a million revelers to reach,
carnival was an advertising bonanza. Signs posted on bleacher marquees promoted enterprises from tire shops to nonprofit organizations.
Flatbed trucks, carrying bands and stacked with walls of speakers, moved slowly along a parade route that led from City Hall past the National Palace to the Champs de Mars. Cane liquor flowed, and for the only time of the year, the rich, light-skinned elite traveled down from the comfortable hills of Petionville to dance in the streets with the poor of Cite Soleil and La Saline.
"Then it's over," said Johnny Duval, a 31-year-old resident of the dirt-street neighborhood of Delmas, frolicking with a 16-ounce beer in his hand. "And everybody returns to their homes."

W. P. Foreign Service - Port-au-Prince, 13 febbraio 2002

Aristide chiama l'opposizione alle trattative

Il presidente Aristide ha rivolto un inascoltato appello ai "fratelli" dell'opposizione affinché vengano riprese le trattative per discutere sull'indizione di nuove elezioni. Neppure una delegazione dell'Oea (l'Organizzazione degli Stati Americani), espressamente giunta nella capitale haitiana, è riuscita a trovare un accordo tra le due parti.

Nel frattempo centinaia di milioni di dollari, messi a disposizione sotto forma di aiuti dai paesi "donatori", rimangono congelati in attesa che la situazione politica interna del paese si stabilizzi. "Siamo ad un bivio", ha detto Aristide durante una conferenza stampa convocata al Palazzo Nazionale. "Io ho scelto la via della collaborazione, non dello scontro".

Dopo il fallito tentativo di colpo di Stato del 17 dicembre scorso, che provocò la morte di 10 persone, la tensione politica è notevolmente aumentata. Secondo il presidente, "è chiaro che volevano assassinare me e la democrazia".

La reazione dei sostenitori di Aristide fu immediata: gli uffici dei partiti di opposizione furono attaccati violentemente, così come le case di alcuni dei loro esponenti, e dati alle fiamme. Molti giornalisti vennero minacciati ed alcuni di loro furono costretti a lasciare il paese. Dal canto suo l'opposizione ha accusato il governo di avere inscenato il tentativo di colpo di Stato per avere il pretesto di eliminare l'opposizione.

Nello scorso ottobre si erano avuti degli spiragli nel contenzioso tra il governo e l'opposizione, che aveva accettato di riconoscere la legittimità del risultato dell'elezione presidenziale in cambio di un ritorno alle urne per verificare il numero di seggi spettanti in parlamento ai due schieramenti.
Dopo i fatti del 17 dicembre, il senatore Paul Denis, portavoce della coalizione di opposizione, ha dichiarato che gli accordi precedenti dovevano venire rinegoziati, dopo quella che ha definito "una dichiarazione di guerra contro di noi".

Un inatteso aiuto è giunto al presidente Aristide dal ministro degli Esteri della Guyana, Rudy Insanally, che nella recente riunione dei paesi dei Caraibi, tenutasi ai primi di febbraio in Belize, ha dichiarato che a suo parere il presidente haitiano sta agendo per il meglio per trovare una soluzione politica al conflitto che paralizza il suo paese.

Riferendosi alla richiesta degli Stati caraibici affinché vengano scongelati gli aiuti ad Haiti, ha aggiunto che a suo parere la concessione dei finanziamenti aiuterebbe Haiti a porre "i pilastri" per quella democrazia che i paesi "donatori" desiderano vedere garantita.

[Mariella Moresco Fornasier]

8 febbraio 2002

Miami - Workers: Voodoo Used in Union Vote

Political Notes Fill Carnival In Haiti

Aristide chiama l'opposizione alle trattative

Sconfiggere l'Aids con il Vudù

La "Charte Démocratique"

Haiti continue à jouer son rôle de laboratoire