Haiti couldn’t be further from the orgy of violence people around the world associate with it. Photograph: Isabeau Doucet

By Isabeau Doucet, The Guardian, Jan. 12, 2012

In Haiti, you’ll see a young man sitting on a crumbled wall blasting a song out of a bashed-up radio and singing along – apparently without irony – lyrics that just repeat “I love my life”. You’ll see a woman trying to peddle half-rotten papayas from a basket on her head, dancing to kompa on a pile of sewage-soaked rubble and trash. You’ll see a barefoot six-year-old boy flying a homemade kite wearing a T-shirt that says “Save Darfur”. You can be sure that if your motorcycle, car or SUV breaks down in the potholes of Port-au-Prince, any one of these folks will bend over backwards to help, rather than pose any threat to your safety.

What’s remarkable about Haiti is that despite the devastating earthquake, tent camps, cholera, political instability and chronically corrupt and neglected judicial institutions, it couldn’t be further from the orgy of violence people around the world associate with it. The United Nation’s latest homicide statistics show that Haiti is one of the least dangerous places in the Caribbean region with a murder rate on a par with the US.

This is encouraging news, but it begs the question: what is the world’s third-largest UN peacekeeping mission – the only one in the Americas – doing there? They have been there for over seven years with no apparent exit strategy: the UN’s blue helmets peep out of white armoured personnel carriers; Brazilian riot police patrol tent camps with weapons drawn; French gendarmes fire tear gas at peaceful demonstrators whenever they’re deemed a threat. No, the real violence of Haiti is its continuing lack of civic infrastructure, to the extent that people are dying every day of diseases to which most countries waved goodbye in the 19th century; of failed economic policies imposed from abroad like a laboratory experiment.

Two years on from the earthquake, the official death toll from cholera is now 7,000 and rising with no end in sight. In just over a year, Haiti has gone from having zero cases to having the deadliest cholera epidemic in the world. Though the outbreak was partly due to globalisation and incredibly bad luck, indications that UN troops were the source of the disease have motivated 5,000 Haitians to launch a legal action demanding an apology and compensation for “gross negligence”, and “indifference” in the UN mission’s initial response. The UN remains unapologetic, despite studies confirming the strain of cholera originated in Nepalese troops’ toilets.

Article continues . . .

PRESS TV, Nov. 23, 2011

The five-panel Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against humanity by leading the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.

In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction allegedly stockpiled by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Malaysian tribunal judges ruled that the decision to wage war against Iraq by the two former heads of government was a flagrant abuse of law and an act of aggression that led to large-scale massacres of the Iraqi people.

Bombings and other forms of violence became commonplace in Iraq shortly after the US-led invasion of the country.

In their ruling, the tribunal judges also stated that the US, under the leadership of Bush, fabricated documents to make it appear that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

However, the world later learned that the former Iraqi regime did not possess WMDs and that the US and British leaders knew this all along.

Over one million Iraqis were killed during the invasion, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

The judges also said the court findings should be provided to signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, and added that the names of Bush and Blair should be listed on a war crimes register.

More: PRESS TV Video Report

Location: West End Library at Sargent Park, 999 Sargent Avenue,Winnipeg, MB

Nov. 8, 2011: Some of the 300 people who demonstrated in front of the Winnipeg Remand Centre in opposition to the Conservative Government's Omnibus Crime Bill, C-10. Photo: Paul Graham

The Governments of Stephen Harper and Greg Selinger are both supporting a regressive agenda on crime in an era of economic uncertainty.

Global criminal justice experts from Texas to Europe have decried the mandatory minimum sentence packages of Bill C-10.

The federal government and the province of Manitoba need to reverse their support for an agenda that does not support the growth of a healthy community.

Instead they need to fund social services and community renewal programs such as:
- More libraries
- More sports programs
- More Indigenous cultural reclamation programs
- Guaranteed Material Income for all people to bottom-line Welfare and Disability
- Free Day Care Centres for all!
- Free Dental Care
- Primary use of restorative and transformative justice in Manitobas criminal justice system
- The Police, BIZ, and Cadets be overseen by a democratically elected and accountable police commission

Our coalition against Bill C-10 is calling on everyone to show resistance to the law and order agenda, and instead show our full support for programs and policy that promotes healthy and safe families and vibrant communities that support each other.

Jails promote cultures of violence and are strongholds of gang activity. They isolate people from those they love, both inside and outside. We need alternative solutions that promote justice and peace in our community.

Join us for a rally and speakers along with some music.
Including:
Occupy Winnipeg

Music by Anarchist Rapper “Young Jibwe”
http://www.reverbnation.com/youngjibwe

More Info on Facebook.