 Hi everyone, welcome to What The F Is Going On in Latin America, Code Pink's weekly program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. Today's episode is inspired by a terrific webinar I watched on Sunday entitled, Haiti's Campaign for Dignity, featuring Mrs. Mildred Aristide. We are broadcasting today in partnership with one of the webinar's organizers, the Haiti Action Committee, which was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1991. I am joined today in conversation by three members of the Haiti Action Committee, Pierre LaVosier, Seth Donnelly, and Judith Murkinson. Welcome everybody, so happy to have you with me today. Good to be here, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I have to let the audience know that all three of our guests today are such an inspiration for me and people that I have worked with over the years in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's a real honor to have the three of you here. So Pierre, I'm going to ask all three of you to just give a brief introduction of yourselves to our audience and your role with Haiti Action Committee, and then we can start our broader conversation. So Pierre, let's start with you. Yes, Pierre LaVosier originally from Haiti, moved to the US when I was a teenager, and I moved to the Bay Area in 1981, and we've been in contact with the Grasswoods Movement in Haiti way before that, being from there, and what they asked us to do, they asked us to have a supporting organization that would be in solidarity with the Grasswoods struggle in Haiti, and that's what we've been doing since our founding in 1991. And can you tell us just a little bit what, when you say grassroots struggle, what should our audience know about that? What exactly does that mean for you and the Haitian people? What it means is that typically what you've had in Haiti is a domination of the discourse by a tiny elite, and they are the ones who usually they speak French, they project themselves outside of Haiti, and the needs of the men and women, the overwhelming majority are not mentioned, their concerns, the exploitation that they suffer is not mentioned. So we are talking about the peasants, the workers, the men who are so exploited, students who for the most part are overwhelmingly poor, they are the ones who have taken to the streets to demand their rights, to demand equality, to demand justice. And so that's what I mean when I say grassroots, I'm talking about the overwhelming majority of the population of Haiti that wants to see a change. What we say here, the 99%. That's correct. And that's what we say also in Haiti. So, so, welcome to today's program. Thank you. And tell us a little bit about your role with the Haiti Action Committee. So I, I joined the Haiti Action Committee in the summer of 2004. After the coup, the, the preceding February, February 29 2004, there was the violent coup against President Aristide and backed by the United States US government. And there was a need to have a fact-finding delegation in on the ground in Haiti that summer to try to get, start getting into the prisons and get documentation on what was happening with political prisoners. And so a dear friend of mine was already in Haiti Action. He recruited me and I went down with a small team with him and another comrade. And we spent weeks in the, in, in the prisons. We were able to gain access and discover the most horrendous conditions of political repression and abuse. That then led towards me becoming a full-fledged member of Haiti Action Committee and going back regularly ever since, working with various, continuing the human rights work, but also working with popular grassroots organizations on the ground and taking my high school students on 12 different delegations to work with some of these popular grassroots organizations as well and to try to generate support, solidarity with the popular movement, the grassroots movement that Pierre mentioned. That's fascinating. I love that you take students. And for our audience, I actually met Seth in Port-au-Prince when our two of our delegates, your delegation, I think it was the last day of yours and the birthday of mine or something to that effect. So, yeah, very cool. And so our, our other guest today is Judith Merck-Murkinson. Welcome, Merck. Hi. Well, I've been like an adjunct member of Haiti Action from the very beginning because my partner was one of the founders, Robert Roth. And I've been particularly interested in two areas of work in terms of Haiti. One is the condition of women. And I've written about that, especially in terms of the issues both of women organizing and overcoming sexual violence in Haiti and the impact of the United Nations and the impact of militarization on Haiti and then the organizing of grassroots women. And the other aspect has been around human rights and especially charting the impact of the combination of militarization and the impact of U.S. intervention and on Haiti. And last year, actually, Seth and I wrote a report, me from the National Lawyers Guild and Seth from Haiti Action on the human rights crisis in Haiti, specifically focusing on a massacre that happened in a neighborhood called La Saline. So we're continuing to do that. And the other aspect is also to understand the role of the Aristide Foundation and UNIFA and how important it is to support these efforts. Because I think one of the things is that a lot of times when people think about Haiti, if they think about it at all, it's like, oh, it's such a mess. It's so terrible. Nothing can be done. And I think what UNIFA shows as well as the grassroots movement is that there's a vibrant organizing going on in Haiti. And it goes from grassroots people in the markets and women in the markets all the way up to the university level. And I think the other thing I would say is that right now, when we're really focusing on white supremacy and racism in this country, we have to pay attention to what's going on in Haiti. And I think we haven't really done the best job of that. We haven't. And this is why it's such a pleasure for all three of you to be here today. Because Haiti was the first rebellion, the first people to throw off the yoke of slavery. And we so seldom talk about it. We don't talk about it enough. And that lies on all of us. So in this whole context of Black Lives Matter, yeah, we should be taking our lead from Haiti. You said something, Merck, just a moment ago regarding Haiti if they think about it at all. And it's that awareness, and I hope that's what we can get across to our audience today, is to think about it and to think about it a whole lot more. One of the things that, well, I mentioned when we introduced the program, that I was really inspired by Sunday's webinar that Haiti Action Committee organized in partnership with the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, I believe, is that correct? And it was a webinar on the University Foundation Autistic. And I wonder if we can talk about the significance of that university, its founding principles, and its early history. And then let's talk about the need for expansion today. But can we talk? Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. One of the things about the university, it's a great source of pride for Haitians. Because it represents what we, as a people, can accomplish in spite of the fact that they have shut it down. When I say they, I'm talking about the special forces from the US, France, and Canada, when they came in during the coup d'etat of 2004, February 29, 2004, that killed over 10,000 people. First thing that the invading troops did, they went to the university, shut it down. Now, the university had just opened and its mission, it had 240 students, half men, half women, half young, the student body. And we quoted from various communities in Haiti that traditionally wouldn't see their children having access to schools because they are excluded from participating, the majority population is excluded. It's a very leachy society. Society. And so the students, to us, to see when President Harris said return to Haiti in 2011, now the students, I'm sorry, let me go back to the coup, the university was shut down, the students were kicked out, and it was turned into a military barracks to house the troops of the US and later on the troops of the UN. Now imagine that, a university that's training doctors and nurses, which the country desperately needs, being shut down to house men with guns who are repressing the population. Fortunately, a number of these students did go to Cuba and finish their schooling and they have returned to Haiti quite a few of them. And they are the ones who are there right now working with the population. So to us, it's from this, when President Harris said return in 2011, President Harris said and his wife, Margaret, they vowed to reopen the university and they have reopened it. And since then, the university has, in the past three years, has graduated over 230 doctors, quite a number of nurses and attorneys who are providing service to the population. What this shows is that in spite of all the repression, in spite of everything else that they are doing to repress the population, here is this hope rising for the people of Haiti, providing our young people with a venue so that they can learn and be technical skills and be of service to the broader community. So it's something that has, and I've received since the webinar, I've received so many calls from Haitians who had heard about it, who are very proud of it, but didn't know the details, which Mrs. Mildred Harris did, has provided to the people and people are just exploding with joy and a sense of, yes, we can do it, see if we can do it. Well, I think this is so exciting because as we were all talking about beforehand that there is so much news, and justifiably so, coming out of Cuba with, you know, a focus on their health care system and the medical brigades that they are providing across the world to combat COVID-19. But this university and this story in Haiti is so important, and I'm so happy we have an opportunity to raise it up as another example of what's possible with a Caribbean island nation. And so I wonder for our audience, if one of you can give us just a very brief history of what actually happened in 2004, and the reason I ask is because we're seeing a lot of similar activities, particularly in the last year, across the hemisphere. But if our audience could just understand the coup in 2004, and the need and RSD returning in 2011, and then let's also talk about the uprising in Haiti in early 2019, which got very little coverage, although those uprisings following in Ecuador, Chile and later in the year in Bolivia got a lot of press coverage. But let's have a brief history of what happened in 2004, because it's so important that things were seen today. Well, the coup is very similar to other coups the U.S. has staged since. In fact, what the U.S. did in Haiti was in a sense, an example of what, a later iteration would be what they did in Honduras. With the coup against the President, at the time the Bush administration cut off loans and aid, they carried out an economic war similar to what the Nixon administration did against Allende in Chile. The U.S. pumped millions of dollars into a bogus elite right-wing opposition, called the Group of 184, that didn't really have any, it had no legitimate popular support on the ground in Haiti. But the U.S. pumped taxpayer dollars into that opposition, working with, for example, a Dutch shop owner, Boulos, who was part of that coup. And then there was a paramilitary component where the United States government was weaponizing and supporting paramilitary counter-type terror units, such as one led by Guy Philippe, that would come in from the Dominican Republic and terrorize the people of Haiti. So it was a three-pronged coup. And even though the vast majority of the population remained in support of present heuristic demonstrations towards the very end, she continued to show the U.S. was able to really create a huge amount of chaos. But what finally did it in was the U.S. government kidnapped President Heuristic and his wife, Mildred, and put them on a U.S. military plane and threw them out of the country against their will. That sounds exactly like Honduras. February 29, 2004, and took them to Central Africa, African Republic against, and that's well documented that that was a kidnapping. One of the best sources on that is a book by Randall Robinson, an unbroken agony. But there's many folks who documented this kidnapping that they literally had to remove President Aristide and First Lady Mildred Aristide by force out of the country. When I was with students a few years ago, we went to Unifa and we met with Mildred Aristide. She sat with us for about three hours and gave us a blow-by-blow account of that horrible night, as well as the events leading up to the coup. And we also were able to see, going back to your earlier question, Terry, just what despite the coup and despite all this repression since, the students, my students were blown away by Unifa. They've never seen an institution like that where there was so much motivation with some of the poorest kids in Haiti or young adults in Haiti participating in these programs to become the future doctors and engineers and lawyers. And we were able to see classes in session. Later, Merck and I were able to go see a graduation of Unifa in March 2018. And as a teacher, having seen too many graduations at this point, I've never seen a graduation as inspiring as what I've seen at Unifa, where the oath, for example, of the students, the future doctors is to serve the people. So the coup was extremely violent. The repression was massive. But despite that, Unifa remains this incredible flagship of hope. It's a really inspiring, really inspiring story. So in 2011, the RSTs returned to Haiti. They returned, I would say, the one thing I would add to the issue about 2004 is that when the revolution happened in Haiti in 1804, the Haitian people were forced to pay reparations to France. I mean, we're talking, this is completely obscene. The enslaved people had to pay their slave masters because they made so much money. It was their richest colony of France. And the money that they had to pay bankrupted the country and it took it until the 20th century for them to pay it off. And when Aristide in 2003 and 2004 began to say to France, you owe us that money. And in US, in current dollars, it was $21,700 million that were owed. And it was sort of like that was the icing on the cake. And subsequently, the coup happened. And the other thing about the coup is they did what they're doing in Venezuela and other countries where they're saying they're putting up all these human rights accusations. And unfortunately, as often happens, human rights organizations working in the United States, such as Amnesty or Human Rights Watch, actually went along with it. So that didn't help the situation. But mostly it was because Haiti represents something. It's not just the money, which is important, but it represents a spirit of black liberation. And the United States has never, from Thomas Jefferson on up, has never been able to tolerate that. It's a really powerful role to share with all of you and the audience, too, the two times I've been to Haiti. It's a profound experience. And I say this to you here and you and your heritage and your people and your ancestry. It's a very profound experience to be among the Haitian people, particularly in their country where there is such an absence of public infrastructure and institutions and just the constant intervention to prevent a lot of that from coming. And yet the Haitian people are so profoundly beautiful inside and out. The dignity that comes with that notable history from 1804 is so profound. And I would love for everyone here in the mainland United States to see what that dignity, it's just so beautiful. It radiates inside and out with the Haitian people. So Pierre, that's what you and your country represent to me, is that? And it's something I wish everyone could see and experience. Thank you very much. I just want to also highlight the fact that Haiti came together as a result of this massive uprising by the enslaved Africans. But within our foremothers and forefathers, because women were in the leadership of that struggle, there was a man, Bukman Dottie, who presided over the ceremony, the planning, the Congress, really, of the enslaved leaders, of the leaders of the enslaved population. But there was also a woman, Cecil Fatima. And she and Bukman, they co-presided over that massive rebellion. But one success was achieved 13 years later in 1804, the Declaration of Independence. Haiti's foreign policy was aimed at overthrowing slavery, the destruction of slavery, and supporting brothers and sisters or the people who were struggling for freedom in different parts of the world. And that's how Simon Bolivar came to Haiti and not just Simon Bolivar orders as well. And Haiti provided him not only sanctuary, but also gave him volunteers. Many young men who had fought in the struggle for independence went with him to Venezuela twice on two occasions and struggled with him. And the only thing Haiti demanded was that slavery would be abolished wherever it was successful. And Haiti led the struggle, too, in the present day Dominican Republic, which at the time was a Spanish colony. 1822, Haiti abolished slavery there as well. And so, and Haiti also extended its solidarity to the people of Greece when they were fighting for their independence. And Haiti provided them with support, such as shiploads of coffee so they could buy themselves the munition, the ammunition and the guns necessary for them to fight their way out of their oppression. And so we've had that spirit of solidarity and that's what you experience in Haiti when people welcomed you. So I'll say this, that we look forward to people being in solidarity with us as we are fighting these evils that are oppressing us and as we are building the country of which UNIFRA is a beautiful example of that rebuilding by the Haitian people themselves. So you mentioned Simon Bolivar and Simon Bolivar visited Haiti twice for support for his revolution. And just for our audience, in Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution is named after Simon Bolivar. And he is known as the liberator of the Spanish, the northern Spanish colonies in South, in South America. And at that time, it was, correct me if I'm wrong, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia. And Panama was six countries. And the Haitian-Venezuela relationship is profound. It has a really significant history and is profound. And you know, Pierre, you told me yesterday when I called you to participate today, you shared with me a really beautiful story about Simon Bolivar and growing up in Haiti and next to a statue of Simon Bolivar that you grew up with him. Yes, actually the first place he landed when he was first defeated by the Spanish, he landed in my hometown of Lecaille. And right around where he landed, they had built a statue. And as a kid, it was like living history. I was right, I knew who Simon Bolivar was and I used to play soccer by the statue, climbing food trees, right by the statue, sat there eating the fruits, a variety of almonds right there. So, but to us living in Haiti, we live the history, we discuss it. For example, what's going on present in Haiti today, whatever is going on throughout the world, people of Haiti know this information. They analyze it, they make connections with their own struggles in Haiti and people feel in solidarity with the world movement for justice, for equality against racism. And that's what that story I was sharing that with you in a way to say that how aware we are of the world, of the struggle taking place in different parts of the world. It's so inspiring. And my understanding is that there are more statues throughout the world of Simon Bolivar than any other historical figure. Is that correct? And you grew up with one of them. There's one in San Francisco too. And here in DC. So let's go back to 2011 with the return of the RSTs to Haiti and their vision for UNIFA and how that was renewed and where the university is today and what the hope is for its future. Well, when he came back, they said that their biggest project was gonna be education. And that during the RST administrations, more schools were built than in the entire period leading up to that point. And I think Mrs. Aristide said that during his administration, over 16% of the budget went to education. And now it's just a tiny little bit. And really they see that education just as we know is one of the foundations for the future. And it's one of the foundations for youth to have a future. And so they began very small. It was sort of a mess. Like even now, there are still some buildings that show the impact of the US military being there. But they began very small. And now today, almost 10 years later, they have over 2,000 students. I think she said 2,200 students. Now are in there. They, as Pierre said, they've graduated all these different doctors, lawyers, nurses, physical therapists, which are really important, especially considering what happened during the earthquake. And there's no school of physical therapy in Haiti. And they also have begun agriculture school, which as you can imagine, is also very essential. So they have this huge thing going on. And it's the most beautiful campus. I wish we had brought pictures. And what's interesting about it is that in everything is very well thought out so that when you go there and you take a tour and it's pointed out to you, oh, we're building this section so that students have a place to sit and just read in the shade. It's very hot in Haiti. And we're building this section so students have a place to have a meal. And just using this, it's 33 acres. And so part of that 33 acres now is going to be devoted to a teaching hospital. And there aren't very many teaching hospitals. And certainly it's very necessary for their students and for the Haitian people to have this incredible hospital you can imagine run by the Ariste Foundation. And as Seth said, when they're graduating one of the things they have to pledge to is which is very different from any graduation that I've ever been to. You have to pledge to be, serve the people and be for human rights and justice. And we know here in the United States there aren't many hospitals that are devoted to serving human rights and justice. In fact, I don't know any. But to have one in Haiti in particular where healthcare isn't certainly not a human right and very few people have access to it is really incredible. So while we're talking about healthcare as a human right which is far from the case here in the United States and we're all discovering this during this COVID-19 pandemic. Can you, one or all three of you touch a bit on the COVID-19 impact of the Haitian population and how it's impacting the population and what is being done to combat it? I mean, the development of this teaching hospital for sure is a vision to deal with future health crises. But what's the condition today at this moment? I can jump in there. I was waiting for Seth to jump in, but... I was waiting for you. Well, I think you're on it. Go ahead. Okay, so, okay. In late March, early April, I wrote an article called Resisting COVID-19 in Haiti. And one of the things that what we've seen and Merck mentioned that about the healthcare budget back when President Aristide was in office, it was over 16.6% of the national budget was devoted to healthcare. 20% of the budget was devoted towards education, meaning building schools, training centers, so people could have trained medical professionals to help them not only in the field of medicine but in the various other disciplines that the population needs in order to develop quality of life. And so since the coup of 2004 that has been severely reduced where the budget for healthcare has been reduced to less than 5% from what Mrs. Aristide from representation on the webinar. So what does that mean? It means that many of our medical professionals haven't been getting paid or paid such low amount that it's terrible. The lack of personal protective equipment is something horrendous. In the midst of this, some of the hospitals that were flourishing when President Aristide was in office, very well equipped, providing service to people, many of them have shut down. Either they have shut down or they are completely dysfunctional. You can see, we have seen videos of women in maternity was laying on the bare floor and putting their heads on the chair just to end their very, you know, pregnant woman ready to give birth. Some people have died in front of the hospitals waiting for somebody to let them in or for doctors. And this is really a horrendous situation. So the article is called Resistant COVID-19. So what did the population, what did they have to do? They had to rely on each other. They had to rely on traditional medicine to help them through this process because the government was more interested in getting money from the outside world. And nobody in Haiti, there's a lack of credibility. The government totally is unbelievable. And so many of the statistics are aimed towards the outside world rather than really to help the Haitian population. So people are managing with COVID-19 but they are managing basically by relying on each other, focusing, trying to get the traditional medicine to help them lack of water. For example, the government comes out with ridiculous stuff about washing, but at the washing hands, but at the same time, the people lack water. I believe over close to 30% of the population has access to clean running water, clean drinking water. So you can imagine what people, so it's a heroic struggle by the grassroots, the overwhelming impoverished grassroots in Haiti of fighting. But with that, I have to say the UNIFA was one of the very early institutions to do a massive campaign of education through Rajote Moon to educate the public regarding that particular situation with very few means. And also one of the things that impacted their activity in some way was the public clinic that they used to have. For example, they would have free public clinics for the population outside on the streets or inside the Aristide Foundation. So people would come in and they would help people out, give them medical care and having a chart for each one who they would see. So those are the activities that are going on. However, COVID-19 has forced them to go into a different kind of mode to provide services to the population. And this is why we feel that we really urge people to look at the webinar. People can go to HaitiEmergencyRelief.org. HaitiEmergencyRelief.org. And the webinar is posted there and people can take a look at it. It's a very powerful webinar with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Danny Glover, with Dr. Henry Ford, Haitian American Doctor, who was provided so much help and support to Haiti. Ira Cursben, attorney Ira Cursben, civil rights immigration attorney, a young woman leader, president of Foothill College, Black Student Union, Keona Harmon. And of course, Mrs. Mildred Aristide, who gave the keynote and just phenomenal. And so I urge people to go on the HaitiEmergencyRelief.org to check that out. And we also, we know times are hard, but if people can make a donation, there's a donate button, people can donate whatever they have. And this will be of great help to help build that hospital and to help UNIFA and provide help to our brothers and sisters in Haiti. It's a fantastic project. And the webinar is so inspiring. And that's why I invited all of you here today. I was so inspired as well. So for the three of you, I know I promised all of you 30, 45 minutes and now when we're running close to that now, is there anything in closing that we should add to our conversation? I know, Merck, you have written a report on women's issues, women's rights, can we talk about that briefly maybe? And Seth, let's talk about some of the students you've brought as well before I let y'all go. Seth, why don't you go ahead? Okay, well, I think when we look at the impact that going to Haiti, when we go to Haiti with the delegations of students from the public high school I work at in the South Bay area of California, we stay with comrades, Haitian comrades, we're very much integrated over many years of doing this work into the movement. So one of the biggest impacts that these trips have on students is when they see the capacity of people to grass roots, to organize, to resist and to build. UNIFA is a wonderful manifestation of what the organized people can build as part of their resistance to the coup and the regime, but also towards building a new Haiti. There's other examples too, we see with grassroots organizations where youth, fellow students, Haitian students serve as role models to our students. And when the U.S. students come back here, the bar has been raised for them about what it means to organize, what it means to study, what it means to resist and what it means to build. The other thing I would simply add is that we learn a lot when we're in Haiti and before, in Haiti and after about the role of the United States government in making the coup possible in the long history of sabotage and the Haitian Revolution, opposing the Haitian Revolution. And most recently, the U.S. government using our taxpayer dollars to fund the Haitian police which have been linked to these, have been involved in these horrific massacres like the La Saline massacre that Merck mentioned earlier. And that's very eye-opening for our students who come from a variety of backgrounds. Now in the United States, we're talking about defund the police, but then on the other hand, many of these young people are now aware that the U.S. government is funding the Haitian police that is on a weekly basis involves an extrajudicial killings of Haitian youth and activists and in horrific massacres. So that has radicalized our students for in a very good way to stand up further against the U.S. government and connect the dots that Black Lives Matter from Haiti to the Bay. Well, I think this is a really, really important thing. First of all, I just have to commend you for educating your students in this manner. It's a whole, another level of being a teacher and education outside of the classroom and actually understanding U.S. history and the hemisphere. And there's so much of what you've shown your students that really makes me think of U.S. foreign policy has now come back, has come home. And it's so apparent what we're seeing on the streets here in the States, how this practice overseas is now in our own streets. Also, and really, I love the fact that you say when these U.S.ians come back home, I had a conversation on my Facebook page and actually remained a conversation in my comment section that somebody, I don't know what I posted, something about a meme of this is the United States, this is America. And people wanted to know, well, what do you call people from the U.S. of all the hemispheres of America? We say, well, we're U.S.ians or we're from the States. So it's so great. And I'd love hearing you say when the U.S.ians come back home because it's so true, the whole hemisphere is America, not just one country. Terry, Terry, this is Pierre real quick before Merck comes along, comes in. I just want to say I forgot a very important friend of Haiti was on the webinar. And this is a great man that's actor, filmmaker, Danny Glover, who really gave a powerful presentation as well on the webinar. So we love Danny a lot for what he does. So I forgot to mention his name. And it just was on my mind. We all love Danny. I just think that, you know, to follow up from what Seth said, and some of what you said, I mean, I think that actually in terms of in understanding the history of the United States and understanding, you know, historical denialism, which is really important right now because we're having a history war about what really happened in the United States, that Haiti plays such an important role. And that in the period of 1804, you know, I think we think to ourselves there wasn't any relationships. You know, it's just very hard for people to get around and there wasn't, but actually people were coming throughout the Caribbean and to the Atlantic States and going to Latin America. And there was like really burgeoning relationships, intellectual relationships. And so the struggle against enslavement and slave states and plantation capitalism in Haiti actually also came to the US. And so I think we, you know, our histories are really intertwined in that sense. And also the history of white supremacy is so intertwined with the people of Haiti. So I think, you know, a lot of times people will say, well, why is the US so interested in Haiti? They're so, you know, and I always answer, well, obviously they are, you know. And secondly, you know, like when people say that, it's just, well, that's sort of stupid, but obviously they are very interested in Haiti and they're very interested in all of the Americas because they cannot let an independent black republic because it provides such an example to other enslaved peoples throughout the Americas. And so I think, you know, when we think about Haiti in that way and that legacy comes from, you know, the 19th century or the 17th century all the way up to the 21st century. So that's in historical memory. And I think that we really have to think about Haiti in that way. And so it has to, you know, for people who are doing Latin America work and for people who are doing work around the Caribbean, a lot of times Haiti is left out of that and people forget about it. And we have to, when we're thinking about fighting white supremacy, we have to put that in the picture. When we think about Black Lives Matter, we have to put Haiti in the picture and think about why hasn't Haiti, you know, been so much in the peace movement or around Honduras or Venezuela? Why is it a different example? It's not. It's not, it's an integral part of all. Yeah, I think that that's a very, you know, I think that's one of the things we have to think about. And share more about and have more conversations like this about with all of you. Yes. One of the things though that's fueling that's at the bedwalk, I would say, of the struggle of the grassroots struggle of the grassroots movement in Haiti for justice and equality and self-determination is the bedwalk is to moon say moon. It means every human being counts. Every human being is somebody. And this is not just a slogan, but it encapsulates what fueled the movement of our foremothers and forefathers in 1791, August 14th is actually the anniversary of that big Congress of the leadership of the enslaved population. And August 21st was the launch of the massive rebellion that culminated 13 years later in Haiti or 12 or so years later in Haiti becoming an independent nation. And so to moon say moon, when you say that in Haiti and it means not only that people have rights as human beings and are entitled to those rights but people are determined to take those rights. It's not as if they expect someone to give it to them. They know by their history from the kidnapping in Africa to the struggle for liberation, for independence and ongoing for economic justice, social justice equality that they have to fight to get it. And that's what's going on today. And so the university Unifa on that basis of to moon say moon which is present as it came up with that it's saying that everyone nobody should be excluded from having a good life. All the young people in Haiti should have access to education all the young people, our men and women must have access to quality of life must have access to healthcare. And that's what's fueling that's the philosophy of the of Unifa that's the philosophy of the movement in Haiti and that's what's fueling the resistance of the Haitian people against oppression and injustice. It's what makes it so beautiful. It's tough but it's beautiful. It's a beautiful story among beautiful people and you can really feel it among Haitians while you're there and here too I Y Adams in the States. So Seth, we are approaching the hour and I promised all of you I would not keep you. So I have to say thank you to all of you Pierre Lavossier, Seth Donnelly, Judith Murkinson all of them from the Haiti Action Committee in the San Francisco area. What an honor to have this conversation with the three of you. And I look forward to doing it again. Yeah and I thank you, Code Pink. Yes. Thank you, Code Pink. Thank you for doing all the great work over many years. Yeah. Well, all the years we do work together. Where we're all in it together and the solidarity is just wonderful and the friendships and the work that we all share it's a really valuable relationship and it's very valuable work and I'm so very thankful for this conversation today. I wanna remind our viewers that we broadcast every Wednesday, 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern on Code Pink YouTube and every Thursday, please join us. We're presented on Pacifica Radio WBAI of New York WPFW out of Washington DC, 8 a.m. Pacific 11 a.m. Eastern every Thursday. So thank you again, all of you, a real honor and pleasure to have this conversation today with you. Thank you. Thank you and watch the webinar. We urge you to watch it, it's fantastic. I will post that actually for the viewers. Bye. We'll post that in our description. Great, yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye.