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Annual
Summary
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SUMMARY OF
THE HAITI SUPPORT GROUP
WORK IN 2000
2000 - some highlights
Catching the Spirit exhibition at London's October Gallery - reveiew from THE TIMES newspaper, 18 October 2000
The voodoo that pins you
Despite official bans, voodoo survives in full colour in Haiti, says Rhoda Koenig
The term "voodoo" conjures up images of devil dolls and the walking dead,
but the true story of this Haitian art, on show at London's October
Gallery,
is, while less lurid, in a way more thrilling. The animistic religion was
banned for 150 years by slave owners, and by the republic's black rulers
for
another 150 - the former were terrified by it, the latter embarrassed. But
the religion thrived in secret, subverting enemies it could not defy, in a
country with so little hope of happiness in this world - Haiti has long
been
the poorest and most illiterate country in the western hemisphere.
The Catholic Church tried for centuries to drive out 'vodou' (its
supporters, says Leah Gordon, author of The Book of Vodou, are trying to
replace the American spelling suggestive of Hollywood zombies, with the
Creole one). In response, vodou priests incorporated the Virgin into their
religion, making her a love goddess with a trinity of boyfriends. Her
followers seek to please her with offerings of perfume, pink champagne, and
her favourite cigarettes (Virginia Slims, of course).
Vodou art entered the secular world only in the 1940s, when ethnographers
publicised it and dealers encouraged it. The latter, says Gordon, provided
canvas for painters who before then had been decorating only temple walls.
The directness and vigour of vodou art delighted, among others, André
Malraux, who called it the only magical painting of the 20th century. Vodou
artists, Gordon agrees, "represent the spirits the same way that
14th-century
Italians did the saints". Coloured fuchsia and violet and turquoise, their
gods of field and sea and forest float through the picture plane as
expressively as they do through their painters' lives.
Vodou dolls in Haiti are not named after one's enemies and jabbed with
pins:
they sit on the altar to help worshippers communicate with the spirits. But
they have begun to acquire a more sinister aspect. A load of unwanted Barbie
dolls were dumped in Port-au-Prince market a while ago, and today - well,
let's just say that, when it comes to memories of blood-baths or a straight
line to the unconscious, the artists of the Royal Academy have nothing on
those of Haiti.
Catching the Spirit is on at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street,
London, until Nov 11
More details coming soon.
SUMMARY OF
THE HAITI SUPPORT GROUP
WORK IN 1999
1999 - some highlights
The Haiti Support Group's guest this year was the medical doctor and author, Paul Farmer, from the
Partners in Health organisation. The HSG invited Dr. Farmer to London in November. He addressed three well-attended meetings, one at the University of London, one at the developemtn NGO, Christian Aid, and lastly, a HSG reception. He was also interviewed by the BBC World Service, and met the editor of the New Internationalist magazine with a view to a feature article (forthcoming). One tangible upshot of this visit was that the HSG was able to put Farmer's NGO, Partners in Health, in contact with the European Union Haiti desk officer, and funding for their hospital in the Central Plateau is now under consideration.
More signatures for the petition for the campaign for the return of the FRAPH/FADH Documents were collected by Haiti Support Group members at the Carnival against Capitalism in London in June. A HSG suppporter was able to get Liverpool City Council to pass a resolution in favour of the return of the documents - this news was reported in the Haitian-American press. In November, the HSG coordinated the signing of a letter by a number of the major British NGOs working on Haiti which was sent to the UN ambassadors of the 'Friends of Haiti' in advance of the General Assembly resolution on Haiti. The letter asked the 'Friends' to include reference to the return of the documents in the resolution. Once again, the US threat of a veto of the whole resolution meant the issue was not mentioned, but, according to the UN Secretary General's Independent Expert on Haiti, if no progress is made in the subsequent year, the next resolution will mention it.In June, the HSG coordinated a joint letter, co-signed by Save the Children Fund, ActionAid, and Christian Aid, that was sent to President Preval, Prime Minister Alexis, Justice Minister Leblanc, and the heads of the Police force, demanding an investigation into the Carrefour Feuilles massacre of May 1999. (In August 2000, the trial and conviction of those senior police officers responsible took place - something of a watershed in the history of the Haitian judicial system.)
More details coming soon.
SUMMARY OF
THE HAITI SUPPORT GROUP
WORK IN 1998
1998 - some highlights
The Haiti Support Group (HSG) continued to build on the link made with the Haitian workers' organisation, Batay Ouvriye, in 1997. We responded to and forwarded on urgent action calls put out by Batay Ouvriye when garment workers attempting to unionise were threatened with violence and dismissal; we evaluated a 1997 grant made by the British NGO, War on Want, and assisted with a successful application for a second grant; and we linked Batay Ouvriye with Danish trade unions.
The HSG supported the campaign for the return of the FRAPH/FADH Documents. This campaign was launched by Haitian human rights organisations to petition the US to return to Haiti documents crucial to ending the cycle of impunity. The HSG co-ordinated the dissemination of the petition in Europe, and has (so far) collected the signatures of over 3000 individuals and 30 organisations.
In July, the UK Inter-Agency Group on Haiti, of which the HSG is a member, published a report on the European Union development aid programme in Haiti. The report is a significant contribution to a continuing process of increased contact between NGOs that lobby the European Union in support of equitable development in Haiti. The report was researched and edited by members of the Haiti Support Group. Late in the year, the co-ordinator of the HSG also wrote a paper on EU aid to Haiti, and participated in a debate with the EU development unit in Brussels, on behalf of the German-based Conflict Prevention Network.
THE NATIONAL POPULAR ASSEMBLY - A spokesperson for this important popular organisation visited the UK as the HSG's guest, and gave radio interviews to the BBC World Service, Radio Five Live, and Left Labour Briefing. He also met with the international section of Amnesty International, and addressed students at Leicester's De Montfort University.
Article by Ben Dupuy.
ENQUIRIES - The HSG has provided information and contacts to countless journalists, students, and tourists enquiring about a wide variety of aspects to do with Haiti and Haitians. Enquiries have come from callers as diverse as The Face magazine, Norwegian Church Aid, the Haitian Government, and treasure-seeking divers.
VODOU NATION - The HSG played a key role in the successful events in London and Liverpool featuring performances by a Vodou priest and assistants, and the roots music band, Boukman Eksperyans. The events attracted extensive national media coverage. HSG members in London also staged an exhibition of Vodou-inspired metal works and sequin flags produced in Haiti.
All this, and more, including the publication and distribution of five issues of Haiti Briefing, has been achieved by two part-time staff and a handful of dedicated volunteers working with an annual budget of just £20,000.
To the Haiti Support Group: "I must thank you again for all the support you have given us during 1998. We know that we will continue to stand together in struggle so that a society that is just and without exploitation will become a reality. Kembe fèm!" - Yannick Etienne, Batay Ouvriye.
SUMMARY OF THE HAITI SUPPORT GROUP
WORK IN 1997
Throughout the year the Haiti Support Group (HSG) continued to provide news and
analysis of developments in Haiti to the British media, development aid agency
staff, and students. As ever, a most important part of our work has been to
make links between sympathetic British groups and progressive popular
organisations in Haiti.
1997 - some highlights
Continuing a project began in 1996, a third printing technician was recruited
to work as a volunteer for six weeks helping to train printing press operators
at the new press run by the Bwa Kayiman Foundation in Port-au-Prince. His
flight costs and expenses were paid by the Paris-based non-governmental
organisation, Droit de Parole, using European Commission funds.
In February, the HSG, together with the GMB trade union, organised protests
against low wages and union-busting at Port-au-Prince factories producing
garments for Walt Disney. Letters of protest were delivered and leaflets handed
out at Disney shops in central London, Liverpool and Chester. Media coverage of
the protests included: The Guardian, The Voice, French Press Agency, Reuters,
Baptist Times, Christian World News, and Haiti en Marche.
In June, the HSG organised a two week speaking tour by a representative of
Batay Ouvriye, a popular organisation working with recently formed unions in
Port-au-Prince garment factories. In the UK, Yannick Etienne met
representatives of the GMB and TGWU unions, Liverpool dock workers, and British
development NGOs. The HSG put Batay Ouvriye in touch with the British NGO, War
on Want, which allocated a grant for the rental of a Port-au-Prince meeting
centre and for the payment of legal fees for sacked workers. In Belgium and the
Netherlands, Yannick met organisations campaigning for consumer pressure in
support of textile workers in the developing world.
As a result of contacts forged by the HSG, in September, the British Trust for
Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) sent a small team of volunteers to help with
environmental protection schemes carried out by two small peasant organisations
in the south of Haiti. The BTCV is considering further projects in Haiti in
1998/9.
In October, the World Development Movement followed up work done by the HSG,
and marked the opening of the new Disney film, Hercules, with a campaign to
highlight low pay and union-busting in Haitian factories.
In November, the HSG organised a debate in London on the development of tourism
in Haiti. Participants included representatives of the Haitian government's
Tourism Ministry, experts on tourism in the Caribbean, and Rénald Clérismé, a
former leader of the Tet Kole peasant movement.
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