Tèt Kole wants united national peasantry without rhetoric or deception

Tèt Kole ti Peyizan Ayisyen announces withdrawal from the National Platform of Haitian Peasant Organisations - 16 January 2006, Tèt Kole press release

Peasant organisation obliged to withdraw from the National Platform of Haitian Peasant Organisations (PLANOPA) because of MPP's electoral alliance with Charles Henri Baker.
extracts:

Tèt Kole ti Peyizan Ayisyen believes the decision of the MPP, MPNKP, and KONBA party to support the presidential candidacy of Charles Henri Baker, a representative of the most reactionary bourgeois sector in the country, is an alliance that endangers the interests of the popular sector....

Within the PLANOPA coordination, Tèt Kole defended its position of opposition to any alliance with groups, parties or platforms that go against the interests of the popular/working class. After much debate and discussion, it asked the MPP and MPNKP, as peasant movements, to take a public position and denounce the alliance between the KONBA party and Charles Henri Baker, because this alliance is clearly against the interests of the MPP/MPNKP members, as well as the interests of the other members of the National Platform of Haitian Peasant Organisations and against the interests of all the rest of the peasant farmers in the country....

Eventually, at an extraordinary meeting of the national coordination of Tèt Kole on 14-15 January, all the delegates took the decision to withdraw our organisation from PLANOPA....

Tèt Kole ti peyizan Ayisyen still believes in the urgent need for the peasant sector to organise itself in a proper way, without rhetoric or deceit, so that committed and engaged peasants from all four corners of the country can join forces in the same struggle...

Tèt Kole believes in the construction of strong unity within the peasant sector through existing peasant organisations that are not under the leadership of or obedient to big shots with other agendas.

Our strength is a strong organisation with peasants and other exploited people at the centre;
Our strength is a united national peasantry without rhetoric or deception;
Our strength is a collective struggle without treachery;
Our strength is to construct a platform to project the struggle of the peasantry and the poor majority in general.
(originally: Deklarasyon piblik- Tèt Kole ti Peyizan Ayisyen pou fè tout moun konnen li sètoblije retire kò l nan Platfòm Nasyonal Òganizasyon Peyizan Ayisyen - PLANOPA. Extract translated from Creole by Charles Arthur for the Haiti Support Group).

Notes:

Charles Henri Baker is a businessman, operating textile assembly operations in Port-au-Prince,and is one of the main leaders of the private sector platform, the Group of 184.

The KONBA party (Konbit pou bati Ayiti) was formed in Janaury 2005 by Evans Lescouflair, a former secretary of state for sport and youth in the Preval government, and Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, leader of the MPP/MPNKP peasant organisations.

PLANOPA, formed in July 2005, brought together the following seven organisations:
Tèt Kole ti Peyizan Ayisyen (national),
Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongrè Papay (MPNKP) (national),
Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) (Central Plateau),
Mouvman Revandikasyon Peyizan Latibonit (MOREPLA) (Artibonite),
Rezo Koperativ Peyizan Ba Latibonit (RACPABA) (lower Artibonite),
Kòdinasyon Rejyonal Oganizasyon Sidès (KROS) (south-east),
Konbit Peyizan Nip (KPN) (south-west).

_______________