opnewseditor@gmail.com Presidential Election Coincides with the Second Anniversary of Haiti's Invasion Nicole Burton, News Editor With waves of people running through the streets, Haiti has again been in the news leading up to and following the national elections for the country’s new president. Haiti has seen massive protests for democracy and ‘self- determination since 2004, when the United States, Canada, and France orchestrated a coup in the small Caribbean nation, overthrowing the country’s first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Haiti is now con- trolled by the UN occupation force “The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti MINUSTAH),” which includes nearly 7000 military personnel. The declared winner for Haiti’s presidency is now René Préval, who received a recorded 51 percent of the vote. The runner up, Leslie Manigat, received around 11 percent. Of the 2.2 million votes cast, few came from Haiti’s poor- est neighborhoods, where no voting stations were set up, “for security reasons.” February marks the month that Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, was overthrown and flown off the island and into exile. The US/Canada/France coup and the UN occupation, both done in cooperation with leaders of the former Duvalier dictatorship in an effort to “return stability to the country,” led immediately to the closing of the Ministry of Literacy, an elimination of the minimum wage for Haiti’s workers, and a campaign of political persecution against the Aristide’s Lavalas party. For the last two years, Haitians and their supporters around the world have been asking, “stability for whom?” Just before the elections began in early February, an investigation was launched by Haitian human rights organi- zations into the UN forces’ occupation and treatment of Haitian civilians, particularly in the slums of Cite Soleil, where troops have a brutal history of shooting unarmed civilians. The treatment of Cite Soleil residents “is a crime against human dignity in Haiti,” said Even Fanfal, a Haitian investigator working with Association of University Graduates Motivated for a Haiti with Rights (AUMOHD). “{This is] a form of modern barbarity.” Cite Soleil was one neighborhood without a ballot box, Apply now! Application for admission to UBC Summer Session 2006 (May — August) and Winter Session 2006 (September — April) closes February 28, 2006. www. welcome.ubc.ca/apply.ctm www.ubc.ca/okanagan/prospective/apply.cfm UBC THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLIMRIA Wwe VANCOUVER | OKANAGAN == As for the election results, the strong sup- port for Préval has been credited on many accounts to his former affiliation to Fanmi Lavalas. Préval has now distanced himself from his former affiliations in the Lavalas party, and has taken a position in support of the occupation forces in the country. A former Haitian official under Aristide, Patrick Elie, said, ““There’s no chance that these elections will do anything but deepen the crisis [in Haiti].” Elie is now a Haitian political activist touring col- leges and universities across Canada to speak about the occupation of Haiti, and Canada’s intervention in the country. The small Caribbean nation of 8 million has a long his- tory of struggle. At the turn of the 18th century, the peo- ple of Haiti rose up against French sugar plantation own- ers and wete the first people to ever to launch a successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti became the first black republic of the world. “T can tell the Canadian public that the Haitian people have a Ph.D. in resistance,” said Elie. “They’re going to resist. They have a strong culture. And they’te not going to become a toy or modeling clay in the hands of some Canadian politicians.” Black History Month Timeline Nicole Burton, News Editor February 23, 1868 | | W.E.B. Du Bois Born February 1, 1960 Woolworth Sit-in Black History Month Dateline February, 2002: The Belgian government “apologizes” to the Congolese people, admitting to “an irrefutable responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba.” Patrice Lumumba, an impor- tant African revolutionary leader and the first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, was assassi- nated in 1961 after helping to lead the country to independence only a year before. February 23, 1868: W.E.B. DuBois, important civil rights leader and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was born. February 1, 1960: A group of black civil-rights movement activists sat down in a diner in Gteensboro, North Carolina. The college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter, marking a major milestone and turning point for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. February, 2002 Belgian Gov't “apologizes”