Haiti: International outcry over detention of Batay Ouvriye union members
Haiti Support Group press release: 3 July 2002 — International outcry over continued detention of Batay Ouvriye union members in Haiti.
Anti-globalisation activists and trade union rights defenders across the world are appealing to the Haitian authorities to order the immediate and unconditional release of nine people who have been held in prison without charge for over five weeks.
A petition calling for the prisoners' release was signed by over 500 people at the Glastonbury Festival in west England over the weekend of June 29-30.
The petition was distributed by Haiti Support Group members participating in the British trade union-sponsored Left Field event at Europe's biggest music and culture festival. Haiti Support Group activists explained that the nine Haitians - seven men and two women - were arrested at a Batay Ouvriye union rally at the Guacimal company's St. Raphael orange plantation in northern Haiti on 27 May.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) has also written to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In a letter dated 27 June, Victor Mhlongo, the SAMWU International Relations Officer, wrote that the St. Raphael workers "were simply exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and association", and, on behalf of the 120,000 members of SAMWU, demanded their "immediate release".
Also joining in the international protest campaign is the Miami Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union, (AFL-CIO). On 1 July, Legislative Director, Arnie Welber, wrote to President Aristide and Haiti's Justice Minister, Jean-Baptiste Brown, calling for respect for Haitian workers' rights on behalf of the 3,000 union members in the Miami Area Local.
Since the violent attack on the Batay Ouvriye rally at St. Raphael, demonstrators have gathered each Thusday outside the Haitian consulate in Manhattan, New York. The picket organised by the Global Sweatshop Coalition demands the immediate release of the six Batay Ouvriye prisoners and the three drivers held along with them.
News of the repression of the Batay Ouvriye unions has also been posted in the Campaign for Labor Rights monthly index for June sent out to 12,000 subscribers in the USA.
Meanwhile, earlier in June, when news of the attack on the union rally and the subsequent detentions of union members was first reported, the French network, Réseau-Solidarité, issued an appeal to its supporters to write to President Aristide and to Haiti's ambassador to France.
Over the last two years, Réseau-Solidarité and the Haiti Support Group have led an international campaign to put pressure on the main foreign buyer of the orange extract produced by the St. Raphael workers. The French drinks giant, Rémy Cointreau, enjoyed the benefits of the Haitian workers' labour for many decades but, when the local Guacimal company began to use violence to try and break the union, Cointreau turned its back on them.
A Haiti Support Group spokesperson said, "Rémy Cointreau bears a great deal of responsibility for the attack on the legitimate union at St. Raphael because it was a significant shareholder in the Guacimal company which has tried to smash the workers' organisation."
Sign the online petition:
http://gopetition.com/info.php?petid=1218
For more details see:
The Haiti Support Group web site:
http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org
