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[A-List] URGENT: Haitian activist kidnapped, please sign petition

From: Global Women's Strike/Phila <philly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:43:47 +0200

Urgent help needed to ensure the safe return
  of Haitian human rights activist
  Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

Dear  Friends,

Lovinsky  Pierre-Antoine, the internationally respected Haitian human
rights activist,  has been missing in Haiti since 12 August.

The  following is a call for his safe return to his family and to his
human rights  work, to be sent to President Rene Preval of Haiti, as
well as to the  Brazilian, Canadian & US High Commissions
/Embassies/Consulates in  whatever countries we find ourselves.
These governments play a key role  in relation to the UN forces
(headed by Brazil) which have taken  responsibility for law and order
in Haiti.   Background is  given below.  The link is
http://www.petitiononline.com/august/petition.html.

Please  add your name to let those to whom the call is addressed know
how urgent you  believe is Lovinsky's safe return.  Thus far there are
over 90  organizations, public figures and other individuals who have
signed from 16  Caribbean countries as well as from other countries,
including:  actor/activist Danny Glover, writer George Lamming,
journalist Rickey Singh;  the Walter Rodney Commemorative Committee
(Caribbean, USA, UK, Canada, Africa);  Crossroads Women's Centers
(Guyana, Spain, UK, US); the Local Station Board,  KPFK, Pacifica
Radio (So. California).  Names of all signatories are being sent to
those to whom the letter  is addressed, and will be published at a
later date. Thank  you.

Women of Color in the Global Women's Strike
Red Thread (Guyana)

womenstrike8m@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.globalwomenstrike.net

-------------------------
DATE:            September  15, 2007
TO:                    President Preval
  The Brazilian Embassy
  The US Embassy
  The Canadian Embassy

RE:  Urgent help  in ensuring the safe return of Haitian human rights
activist Lovinsky  Pierre-Antoine

As  women and men in the Caribbean Region, in the wider diaspora, and
in many  parts of the world, we are writing to urge you to make
resources available  without delay for the search for Lovinsky
Pierre-Antoine, and to do  everything in your power to secure his
safe return to his family and  community.

As  you may know, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, the internationally
respected Haitian  human rights activist who is well loved by his
family and community, has been  missing in Haiti since the evening of
August 12.  We are acutely aware  of the suffering, hardship and
heartbreak Lovinsky's disappearance has meant  for his family and
other loved ones, as well as of the anger and suffering of  the
community from whose arms this gentle man and leading advocate for
the  poor has been snatched.

Lovinsky  Pierre-Antoine is a father, a husband, an uncle, a member
of an extended  family; a soft-spoken man of great compassion with a
big heart and a sense of  humor.  He is also an extraordinary
grassroots leader.    Lovinsky, as he is generally known, is a
co-founder of Fondayson Trant  Septanm, an organization founded by
family members and others concerned about  the victims of the 1991
coup, the first against President Aristide; the  organization's name
is the date of that coup.   Similar to the work  of internationally
renowned Mothers of the Disappeared in Central and South  America,
the September 30th Foundation for over a decade held weekly vigils
demanding justice for victims of human rights violations and the
release of  political prisoners.

Additionally,  Lovinsky was the co-founder of Fondsayon Kore Timoun
Yo (Foundation for the  Support of Children) for young street
children in Port au Prince, FAM (Foyer  pour Adolescentes Mères), a
center for teenage mothers, and Map Viv ("I  Live"), a program
designed to give medical and psychological aid to the  victims of the
1991coup. His present community-based human rights organization
Fondayson Trant Septnm grew out of the work of those earlier efforts.
  He is part of the Lavalas movement and a member of the Lavalas
Party, and was  a potential candidate for the Haitian Senate.

Lovinsky  lived in Washington DC during the turmoil and violence that
followed the  removal of President Aristide in 2004.  During that time
he continued  his work as an advocate for Haiti's poverty-stricken
majority, including  gathering support of a wide network of
organizations and individuals in the  US, meeting with members of
Congress, speaking at human rights forums in  Boston, Los Angeles and
elsewhere in the US as well as in Brazil, Canada and  Venezuela.  A
month after he returned to Haiti, Lovinsky was  instrumental in
bringing together a delegation that included journalists and  others
who hail from Guyana, Barbados and the United States to attend the
May  2006 Inauguration of President Rene Preval.

Those  of us who were part of that delegation were struck by the
welcome Lovinsky  received from grassroots Haitians as they greeted
him publicly for the first  time since his return. At a
community-based event to mark the inauguration of  President Preval,
he was mobbed as a returning hero, a man who was clearly  respected,
loved and had been missed by the thousands who had gathered  hopeful
for a new day in Haiti.  The mutual respect and love between him  and
other grassroots women and men was also evident in a later meeting
with  women from Cite Soleil most of whom were either former
political prisoners or  the mothers, wives and other relatives of
political prisoners, many carrying  photographs of their tortured
children and husbands.

As the first Black  republic, Haiti has always held a special place
in the heart of those of us in  the Caribbean region and to oppressed
peoples throughout the world.   Haiti led the way for the emancipation
of those of us enslaved; provided  refuge for Simon Bolivar, the
liberator of Latin America, and sent troops to  fight alongside
Bolivar.  The Haitian Revolution also opened the way for  the
Louisiana Purchase in the United States through its defeat of
Napoleon's  forces.

But instead of being  celebrated for these important achievements,
the Haitian people have paid a  heavy price for winning emancipation,
a price which helps explain their  present suffering and their having
still to struggle for human and economic  rights while doing the
wrenching work of day-to-day survival in what has been  named the
poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

We all owe a great  debt to the Haitian people.  Their spirited and
principled  determination, their refusal to bend to the powerful
forces which have tried  to keep them down, has been and continues to
be an inspiration throughout the  world but especially to those of us
who defend human rights and dignity in  the Caribbean region.
Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine personifies the Haitian  determination which
has refused to submit despite all the odds.  He has  refused
careerism and opportunism and continues to stand with the popular
movement.  He has earned the solidarity of the whole of the wider
Caribbean Community and around the world who struggle for justice and
freedom  in our region. A man of Haiti, he is a part of us wherever we
are and  wherever there is injustice around the world.

We urge the Embassies  of the United States and Brazil, as well as
President of Haiti Rene Preval,  to do all in your power, including
making resources available to secure the  safe return of a true
freedom fighter: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.  We ask that  he be
returned unharmed to his family, and to the community that loves and
needs him.

Andaiye, Guyana: Red Thread, Guyana and Women  of Color in the Global
Women's Strike

Margaret Prescod, Barbados/ Los Angeles, California: journalist and
Women of  Color in the Global Women's Strike

cc: CARICOM

  For further info and/or to support the call below, email us or sign
on line:

  Caribbean region:
red_thread@xxxxxxxxxx
tel:  011 592 227 7010

  US:
la@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
tel: 323-276-9833

  Europe:
womenstrike8m@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
tel: + 44 (0) 207 482 2496

  On line:
http://www.petitiononline.com/august/petition.html

We the undersigned are  asking for the safe return of Lovinsky
Pierre-Antoine.

NAME

COUNTRY

ORGANIZATION OR ID


http://www.petitiononline.com/august/petition.html.

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