Haiti: Taking Account with journalist/filmmaker Kevin Pina and former Haitian parliamentary deputy Jean Candio
Every social and economic indicator in Haiti has shown a decline since 2004. Food production is down and hunger is up. School enrollments, medical facilities, house construction, road repair and construction, and economic investment are all in sharp decline. The ministries of the Haitian government have been deliberately incapacitated and underfunded as a result of foreign governments in Haiti.
Please join the Toronto Haiti Action Committee and Students in Solidarity with Haitias we take account of the aftermath of the Canadian, American and French coup d’etat in Haiti with a film screening and public discussion. Screening of acclaimed documentary "Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits" and presentations by the filmmaker Kevin Pina and former parliamentarian in the ousted Aristide administration, Jean Candio.
Free event, but donations will be welcome
Date: Wednesday, March 4
Time: 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Room 162 in Lash Miller Chemical Labs building (80 St. George Street), University of Toronto
Jean Candio had served under the democratically elected governments of both Jean Bertrand Aristide and Rene Preval, and was a member of the popular Fanmi Lavalas party in Haiti. In May 2000 he was elected deputy in the Haitian Parliament. He fled Haiti in the violent aftermath of the 2004 Coup d’etat, during which his house was burned, and many of his colleagues and some of his family members were killed. He eventually arrived in Canada in December, 2006 to claim refugee status but instead was arrested and held for 3 weeks by Canadian Border Services for his political affiliations in Haiti. He currently lives in Windsor awaiting the outcome of this refugee claim.
Kevin Pina is a U.S journalist and filmmaker. He is a unique witness to Haitian history over the past 19 years, having covered two coups and surviving attempts on his life, jail and beatings. He is known for his principled and brave coverage of human rights abuses in Haiti following the ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004 and the installation of the interim government of Gerard Latortue and Boniface Alexander in March 2004. Pina reported on events in Haiti from 2003-2006 as a Special Correspondent for the radio program Flashpoints heard on KPFA - the flagship station of Pacifica Radio based in Berkeley, California. Pina is also the Founding Editor of the Haiti Information Project (HIP)[1], a non-profit news agency based in Port au Prince and Northern California, and an Associate Editor for the Black Commentator, an online magazine.
Pina's film credits and videography include El Salvador: In the Name of Democracy (1985), Berkeley in the Sixties (1990), Amazonia: Voices from the Rainforest (1990), Haiti: Harvest of Hope (1997), Haiti: The UNtold Story (2005) and HAITI: We Must Kill the Bandits "] (2007).
“Haiti We Must Kill the Bandits” a searing 70-minute condemnation focusing on the aftermath of the 2004 ousting of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The film asserts, in convincing and graphic detail, how Aristide's forced departure was actually an attempt by Canada and the so-called "Friends of Haiti" in the international community, "to destroy the Haitian people's movement for change through violence." According to Pina, "the history, scope, and trajectory of the popular movement of the poor in Haiti, known as Lavalas," represents no less than "the spirit of people's in the Caribbean and Latin America to determine their own destinies." The filmmaker continued, "The attempt to destroy Lavalas, led at first by the administration of Paul Martin and continued today through Stephen Harper, is anything but benevolent. It represents the crassest form of altering the political landscape of another people through intervention marked by murder, false imprisonment and forced exile."
For a preview of the opening and premise of Pina's provocative documentary go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUp5K66Zuk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngK_2MEjJpM
For complete tour dates and locations (seven cities) for events being held by the Canada Haiti Action Network (and local Haiti Solidarity committees) on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the overthrow of the elected government in Haiti, see: http://canadahaitiaction.ca/?page_id=492
CO-SPONSORED BY CARIBBEAN STUDIES AT NEW COLLEGE, UNIVERISITY OF TORONTO
For more information: 647-408-2654 or 416-731-2325
