 Ohos, Hania Jojad Barnes, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink. We're gonna take a moment just for updates and announcements before we go to our speakers. We have a great lineup tonight. So, Hania, you have an update? I do. So as a delegate to the California Democratic Party, I've co-authored two resolutions with Marci Benagrat. One is to focus and urge the Biden administration on lifting the sanctions on Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Central Africa. And it has been tremendously supported by every region and every regional meeting that I attend. So I will share those links with you. If you are a delegate to the California Democratic Party, we would love your endorsement. We are submitting this piece by Friday, Marci. We wanna get it in as fast as we can. The other piece is to cut the military defense budget by 10% and urge the Congress to join the defense caucus led by Mark Pokan, Representative Pokan, as well as Barbara Lee. And every regional meeting that I attend to seek endorsement, we have been overwhelmingly supported by people. And I am just so blessed and happy to be able to use my platform for this, to raise awareness on the issue of our Pentagon budget as well as the sanctions. So we're very happy about that. I will pass it back to Marci to pass it back to Medea. All right, Medea. Thank you, Hania. Medea. Marci, why don't you do your updates? Okay, sure. Well, I just wanted to underscore what Hania said about the great reception we're getting to these resolutions on the sanctions and they reduce the military budget. Barbara Lee and Mark Pokan joined us on an earlier Zoom. They are the co-chairs of the House defense spending reduction caucus. And it's never too late to urge your Congressperson to join that caucus. And the next few days I anticipate there will be House committee votes on one of Barbara Lee's pieces of legislation to repeal the AUMF that authorized the Iraq invasion. The other one, I don't know. But stay tuned for that. And Mary, if you wouldn't mind, let's go to the website again, the Code Ping Congress website and we should remember reducing military budget. I wanted to show everybody the tab where we can track legislation that may be of interest and to also encourage you to send me an email if you think there's a bill has been introduced that we should be tracking. So this is the front of our Code Ping Congress web portal and if you Google it, you can get to it pretty easily. And then under the act now tab, we have our toolkit. Let's see if we can, okay. All right, and get everything you need to know. And then under track legislation, let's just click on that one and take a look at the bills. If you don't mind scrolling and we can look at all of the bills that we're tracking. So hold on, oops, let me go back up just a little bit, please, to the beginning of there. Yeah, it's right there, perfect. Okay, so a repeal of the authorization of use of military force, that's the broadest one. And that's the one that hasn't been getting as much traction, it has about 50 cosponsors. But this HR 256 repeal the authorization for 2002 that specifically addresses Iraq. Next, on our next Zoom call, next Tuesday we're gonna be talking about equity in terms of the vaccines or lack of equity and medical apartheid. And there's a very interesting bill that's been introduced by Chewie Garcia. It's down here, HR 986, robust international response to the pandemic act, which will basically instruct the secretary of the treasury to order anyone who represents the United States at a financial institution to suspend debt payments and any kind of sanctions, anything that would interfere with COVID relief. So that's a very important piece of legislation. But all of these are urgent and important to us. So do check this out when you have time. And certainly, I write letters almost every day to the White House or to my congressperson and we urge you to do that as well. Don't wait for us, you know what to do. And you can always check this site if you're interested in tracking the legislation. So that's my update, Medea? Yes, well, today there were some very interesting hearings. And you know, if you're interested in the hearing and you can't go to it at the time, you can always watch it afterwards by going to house.gov or senate.gov and then going to the committee and they have them archived there. So there was one today on Samantha Power, her confirmation hearing for being head of the AID. And I would say to me the interesting part was Senator Rand Paul who asked her about the interventions in Libya and Syria and if she thought those countries were better off today than they were before the intervention and she hemmed in Haud and he asked it another way and she hemmed in Haud and he asked it a third way and she hemmed in Haud. So then the other, there were two hearings on the War Powers Act and this relates to the bill that we've been pushing to get rid of the authorizations for the use of military force when we had Barbara Lee on with us. And so they were very interesting hearings about how to reduce the executive power when it comes to military interventions. And then there's lots of activities coming up this weekend and Mary, when you get a chance, maybe we could put some in the chat. There's protests all around the country around stop hate crimes against the Asian American community. There's events around the anniversary, the sixth anniversary of the war in Yemen. And by the way, the Saudis act like they're magnanimous and they wanna now have a ceasefire and the Houthis say lift the blockade and the ports that are keeping fuel and food medicines out and then we'll talk about a ceasefire. And then there's also caravans around the country on Cuba this weekend calling for a lifting of the embargo there. So it's a very active week and a very active weekend coming up. Thank you, Medea. And I wanna give a shout out to Alan Moosky and Progressive Democrats of America. Thank you so much for spreading the word about our Tuesday night zooms. We really appreciate your support. Now we're gonna take time to take a look at a video produced by CodePinks Michelle Elner called Haiti Can't Breathe. So Mary, if you can take us to that video, that'd be great. The young people are the path to liberation of Haiti. We will continue fighting until we regain sovereign status. Because we know it is the Americans, foreign powers, the Organization of American States and the UN who are supporting President Jovanel Mois. It is they who support these thieves. I send a message to Joe Biden and to them. I know that all resources interest them but we continue fighting to regain our sovereign. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. Coronavirus has finally come to an end. I'm gonna have to go to bed. I'm a journalist. I've been doing a lot of things to help children. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. Excellent work, Michelle Elner, thank you. Now it is my great honor to introduce our first guest to talk about solidarity with Haiti. Dr. Mamira Prosper is a visiting assistant professor of Africana Studies at Davidson University in North Carolina. Her areas of expertise include social movements, Caribbean Studies, Solidarity Economies, Black Feminism, and Post-Colonialism. Dr. Mamira is currently working on a detailed study entitled Development Contested in Occupied Haiti, Social Movements, NGOs, and the Evangelical State. So with that, I bring you Dr. Mamira Prosper. Hello, hi everyone. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for sharing this space with me, Margaret. This is a big, big panel to fill with you by my side. I appreciate being in this space. So I had wanted to show pictures at some point because I know that lots of folks are always interested in what's happening on the ground, and I know Coach Pink has an art contest, but also seeing how people protest and what kind of signage they're bringing, what kind of music are they using. So I have some of that that I want to share, but I wanted just to be here tonight with you to make the call for this International Day of Solidarity with Haiti on March 29, 2021. And I can share also the fire a little later. And essentially we've selected the date because March 29 is the 34th anniversary of the Constitution of 1987. And if most of you seem to be following what's happening in Haiti and know very well that the Constitution of 1987 is significant, not only because it's a constitution and constitutions, though they are bourgeois documents, certainly come to attempt to embody the aspirations of people. So in 1987, this document that was voted in by the people represented a break with a 29-year dictatorship of the Juvalier family. So for it to be now a document that is being essentially threatened by the current or the now de facto president, whose mandate ended on February 7, 2021, and some of us say he actually never had a mandate, so we should actually begin there. The fact that this president continues to retain power and enjoys the support of the members of the core group, which I think many of you are now even more familiar with what we're talking about, the UN, the OAS, Organization of American States, the US, France, Canada. You also have the European Union, Brazil, Spain, Germany, right? These are folks who have these are countries and super national institutions that have representatives in this core group that essentially pronounce themselves on Haitian affairs out of the US embassy and for their friends. And this core group essentially continues to give support. This core group came to exist in 2004. After the second ouster of the 2004 so Haiti event, right? Not only experience but also experience at a UN military occupation. And we really came to see some contradictions around some of our idealizations of South South relations, right? When we saw that Chile and Brazil were at the head of this UN mission in Haiti. And so it's not by mistake that Brazil comes to be a member on this core group that essentially is making pronouncement about what should happen in Haiti. So this call that we're making is for the international community to stand in solidarity with the demands of the Haitian people, which have been for a long time now that this president should resign. And so we see that some of the legal arguments are coming up, right, for this president to step down, but it had always been a contested election. And actually, there is a famous, the head of the Bar Association who was murdered last August, Moffia Yedoval, who had been saying this for years already, that Chauvinel Moïse's administration was unconstitutional. In fact, that his entire party and the way they came to power was unconstitutional, right? So the crisis, if we want to characterize this moment as a constitutional crisis, it already was the case since before this person took the oath, right? And what's, you know, what is being debated or rather what the state is using as a sort of a cover, right? Because this discourse ends up inundating how we are talking about the current situation in Haiti and what we lose, right, is the fact that people have very clear demands on the ground. And part of what they're demanding among several other things, right, is for their actual material conditions to be addressed, right? Having had eight years now of this particular party in power and not really seeing very much change in the lives of Haitian people, if anything, things have gotten worse. And we have seen continued migration out of Haiti into all kinds of parts of the world now, right? There's a huge migration to Brazil, to Chile, folks walking from Brazil and Chile or Brazil rather through, right, Central America, all the way to the US-Mexican border. There's a way we talked about the quote unquote so-called migrant caravans. And we didn't necessarily, you know, imagine that there were Haitians among them, but there were, right? And so I think that we can't keep sort of ignoring what the Haitian people have been saying for years now, that this is a president that they did not choose, and that the actual elections that brought him about were extremely fraudulent, including that 40% of the votes were cast by what they called zombies, right, that they were untraceable votes, right? That supposedly led to this first election where he was not the clear winner either then, right? And folks took to the street and they said they didn't want this party anymore. They had seen how they had spent two-thirds of, right, $4 billion that Venezuela had offered Haiti and Petrocaribe funds, right? They're still loans, but there are much more favorable rates than what we see coming from the World Bank, the IMF, and they were directed towards, right, social programs, infrastructure, and folks watched this party essentially squander that money, right, spend it on themselves and their friends and their families, and that had already been a scandal. So of course, right, the candidate of this party, the next, you know, for the next round of elections, folks were completely against the continual of the same, right? And really, this is all part of the context of understanding why this has swelled into, right, these daily protests to the point where we're seeing several sectors of the population that had been, you know, writing letters of, you know, and pressuring the government into dialogue, for example, the sector of, right, the evangelicals, the Protestants, even they have now, right, sort of taken, not sort of, they have, right, issued not just strong letters asking also the president to resign, but they have even taken to the streets, right? If I have enough time to show you the pictures, we can see that they came out. This was Sunday, February 28th, right, and great numbers. And again, the core group continued to say, oh, there are not that many people out there in the streets, right? It's just, you know, a couple thousand people, right? And, you know, people have been swelling the streets and actually some of the signs I wanted to show say, you know, to the UN representative who had made the statement that there was barely anybody protesting, they said, you know, can you count, repeat after me, right? Count after me, so we can show you the number of folks who are out there. And this has been years and years of protests. This president, right, has been named in the Pitukai Biscando. His business, which he used as a way to present himself as, you know, successful and able to run a country that money came from these very Pitukai Biscount funds that can't be accounted for, right? And so since February 2019, the people asked him to resign, right? Because they said, if you're the first citizen of the nation, you should lead by example. And if you've been named in a corruption case, you should resign and you should face trial, right? So that we can finally break away from a culture of impunity in the country, right? So this is a, this is not a new demand, right? This is again, the same demand being reiterated. And folks have been reaching out to the international have already reached out to you because clearly work on this call together because we're already informed, right? To say our peace as folks who live in the belly of the East, right? And who have the ability to sway international public opinion, that we should certainly sway towards, right? Reflecting what folks want on the ground, just the end of this regime, right? Which is the resignation of this president and for them to decide what they will do next, right? And for the United States, the United Nations, the OAS, right? Who have used Haiti for their own purposes, right? Purposes of fighting against Venezuela, right? To undermine the power of Venezuela in the region. But certainly also to promote and continue to use Haiti, right? Towards more extractivist development. We've seen that with this particular party and with this president, that they are continually giving out pieces of land, right? Inhabited by people, agricultural lands to several different multinational companies. So imagine that on February 7th, he should have stepped down and, right? Transitioned the power to some other president. And the next day, he passes a decree turning 25,000 hectares of land. So that's about 61,000 acres of land of protected agricultural land where people live with their families and they grow food, right? And they make life. Turn that into a free trade zone, which essentially means, right? That it's beyond, right? It doesn't have to pay taxes, right? That you can spend 15 years and not pay taxes when you have a free trade zone. And he handed it over to one of these industrialists, capitalist Haitians, right? Who was at the head of the 2004 moment that overthrew, right? And this particular person is going to put there, right? A plantation of stevia, so a non-edible crop on agricultural lands in a country that imports, right? More than 53% of its food, right? So then you shouldn't be giving up agricultural land, right? Gives it to this particular, right? Oligarch towards making this stevia plantation for Coca-Cola, right? For a sweetener that will go into Coca-Cola. So we see how the dictatorship is a cover, right? For continual extractivist development in Haiti. This particular party had already done this dance, right? Like when Mati came in 2010, so many of us know about the controversies of the Clintons around that moment, where reconstruction funds were taken and instead of building, I don't know, housing, right? And they went ahead and funded an industrial park to make garments for Wal-Mart and Zara and Gap, right? All the stuff that we consume over here, right? So we see how this party is their model of development is more extractivism, right? Of Haiti. And it is continual, right? Selling of the land to multinational corporations. And this essentially, right, is part of the work that they're doing, that this is part of why they receive support, right? And so we're saying we're asking folks to put pressure in all kinds of ways, but certainly also to show up in person in several of these cities that we've been able to secure other folks who are willing to do action, but certainly in D.C., certainly in New York, right? Where we have the representation of these supernatural institutions and also the U.S., right, in the U.N. And so this is what we're asking folks that we are at, like they already know. We can write as many letters as we want now, but they already know. Just a couple of weeks ago, there were several sessions where people were testifying about this, right? You even had Haitian immigration activists tying, right, the fact that Biden in a month deported as many Haitians as Trump did in a year. And saying, you're sending back these people and babies included to a country we are telling you, right, that is under dictatorship, right, is under the control of gangs, really. And this is the piece, really, that I think makes it clear if folks were willing to accept that a country can have just one person deciding for 12 million, right, citizens, because since January 2020, he's ruling by decree. He has no one to check his power, because he allowed for the parliamentary mandates to all expire. I'm talking about Congress, right? Imagine what we're talking about writing letters to U.S. Congress that we see as the body that's supposed to make laws for us not existing. And there's one person who's making all decisions. I don't know how much more we need to say to convince people that it's a dictatorship, right? But if we see how he's also used terror, right, by allowing 117 armed gangs, 95 of them just in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince to control the territory and to target popular neighborhoods that are known for their militancy in order to scare people from not protesting, right? That is how dictatorship is felt by the Haitian people. And this is why we must say something. 234 Haitians have died of COVID in 2020, yet 944 have been murdered. 150 have been kidnapped, and kidnappings usually come with rape, right? So you can't say that you are the sole power in the space, and he's literally been quoted to say, and I will end here, that after God, there is no one greater than him, right? He said this on television, and he's proved that that's how he's belated in this space, right? And 117 armed gangs, and you're the person after God, then I feel like we can see who's responsible. Haitians making less than $2,000, they can't afford machine guns. Someone is bringing them into the country, right? Even his own disarmament unit has said there are 500,000 illegal gun circulating in Haiti. That they even know that is suspect, right? But that many, right? For 12 million people, and most of people are underage, right? So I'll end here, and I can share my flyer. Yes, please post in the chat anything that you want, or to know, and thank you so much, Dr. Prosper. It's illuminating, and you put a lot of the pieces of the puzzle together for me, so I appreciate that. I've been trying to keep in the details, but the details also matter. It doesn't matter. Life isn't the details, right? All right. So now we're going to move on to our next speaker, and Hania will introduce her. Well, I just want to be very honest when Marcy asked me to introduce Mark, right? I think I responded with all caps saying yes. And so I'm really honored, Margaret, to have the opportunity to introduce you because I've worked with you in organizing the International Women's Day Strike on March 8. And that's been for three consecutive years, and this event usually takes place downtown Los Angeles, apparently with virtual this year. And I have to say, under your leadership, I saw 20 grassroots organizations, pro-peace, anti-military, pro-human rights came together to organize and march in solidarity with women's rights internationally, as well as our LGBTQ community and marginalized communities of color. And so Margaret Prescott is an activist, author, journal, and a radio host for Sojourner Truth on Pacifica KPFK. She was the founder of Black Woman for Wages for Housework and lit a lobby team of the International Women's Count Network, which won the UN decision that governments should measure and value unwavered work in the home. Margaret was born in Barbados and immigrated to the United States in 1962 as a teenager. Within her first two weeks of moving to the United States, she was on the picket line protesting against a medical center in Brooklyn that would not employ Black people. Margaret serves on the executive board of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice, and Health at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health. Margaret, it's an honor to welcome you and please take the floor. Well, thank you so much, Chania. And I'll have to say, I'm really just delighted to be here with Colp Pink. And, you know, Medea, how many times have we run into each other, like in Brazil or Venezuela or somewhere? And you could always count on Colp Pink and Medea in particular, but not only to be making trouble making history, as we say in the strikes. So really appreciate all of the work and solidarity efforts and Chania and just, you know, just all of you here for welcoming me. And, you know, you all know I'm from Barbados by now in the introduction, and I'm a village girl, a villager. I didn't grow up in the city and we were impoverished. You know, it was the stage of the island where we worked out running water, electricity, etc. So, you know, Dr. Prosper, when I am in Haiti, you know, I feel in a way very much at home. Haiti has also been so important to us. And I don't have a lot of time. I want to talk about solidarity in particular with Haiti, the history of it, but also what's happening today. But just for those of us in the Caribbean region, we have known the importance of Haiti. And I you know, after the 1804, I think it was 1816. It was in 1816 that in Barbados we had the Bussery Valley and it was the Haitian Revolution that really ended slavery in a lot of ways. And slave people throughout the Americas led the way. It was a huge international incident to save the Lisa, a huge blow to international capitalism, to the slave trade. And not only did they kick Napoleon's butt, but his brother-in-law Leclerc who he sent to clean up the mess. They beat him as well. They threw out the English. I mean, it was just amazing. There were interdicting slave ships that were freeing the slaves and they defended Boulevard. And that goes back to this issue of solidarity Boulevard in fighting for the liberation of Latin America twice. After the revolution, Haitians gave him refuge, not only gave him refuge, but sent him back, you know, returned to Latin America. Haitians went there to fight alongside. And today in Venezuela and Caracas, you could see places where Haitians died fighting for the liberation of Latin America. They sent ships. They sent weapons. They sent fighters. And they made one request of Boulevard that you stand against slavery. And Boulevard tried and did his best. But at the first conference of the Americas that was organized, Haiti was invited. The United States said, we don't sit down with the N word. And so Haiti was not invited, right? So Boulevard was doing what he could for solidarity. But Haiti set the example of solidarity and the relationship between the United States and the growth of tremendous wealth in the United States, the expansion of the United States, also thanks to the Haitian Revolution. Sorry, just had to spend a little time on that, Dr. Prosper, because the great expansion of the United States that happened with the Louisiana purchase that just wasn't Louisiana was a huge swath of what is now the United States happened because the Haitians happened to kick the French out. The French had had it. And so the United States got a great deal for that. But the United, you know, Haiti since then has really been penalized. You know, Napoleon actually explained why, let me just quote this from Napoleon. He said, quote, the freedom of the Negroes, if recognized in Saint Dominique, which was Haiti's name then, and legalized by France, would at all times be a rallying point for freedom seekers of the new world. That is still the importance of Haiti today. Okay, if people who are so impoverished, enslaved people could rise up and defeat the most powerful army of the day and still continue to struggle up until now, the Haitian grassroots will tell you those who can't read, you know, can't write, but they know the history. They'll tell you very well, we are completing the revolution that we began with 1804. And the other part to understand the historic importance of Haiti. CLR James, if you haven't read Black Jackabins, get that on your reading list. You must about the history of the Haitian revolution. CLR James, a Caribbean man born and bred in Trinidad, wrote that great classic of the great history of the Haitian Revolution. And he said, quote, the transformation of slaves, trembling in hundreds before a single white man into a people able to organize themselves and defeat the most powerful European nations of their day is one of the great ethics of revolutionary struggle and achievement, end of quote. And you know, every time I'm on the ground in Haiti, and I've spent quite a bit of time there, I was part of the team, the first international journalist team that was in Lasselin after the massacre, the organized massacre of legend gangs that are the two, the new Tonto Makut really from the Duvalier era, now being called gangs, government supported gangs. We were the first international journalist there. And I hope in the chat, there is a link to the video that we made called massacres in Lasselin because solidarity has to begin with a voice and the words of the Haitian people. All right, there is a tendency, those of us in the United States and in Europe to somehow because we're human rights activists because we are in solidarity because, you know, we're against what the United States is doing, not to pay the attention that we must to the street in Haiti, and what people are putting forward in the street in Haiti. And I'm going to be people who know me, you know, I don't cut any quarters, I'm going to be very frank here. There is a problem with the solidarity movement as it is rising up now in Haiti. First of all, they didn't pay any attention to Haiti for the longest time, the longest time. Alrighty. And now it's very good. People are beginning to pay some attention to Haiti, but do they know what Salih public is? I'm holding it up here. It's written on the walls all over Haiti. If you want to be in solidarity with Haiti, you better find out what Salih public is. And it, you know, level us, which means flash flood, and it's also the party of Jean-Bourton Adeski, who still heads it, still remains the most popular movement. There's a movement, and there's the political organization of blah, blah, blah. They wrote about the Salih public a few years back. And looking at what they wrote, and I'll be happy to share it with people. In fact, it was written at the time. Dr. Pasper, remember when Seol, Seol was a black man, survived? So that's been this statement. But, and they talk about overturn the cauldron, right? Another lovely phrase. And, and, and, you know, I'm so, I feel deprived not to understand and to speak Creole, because it's practically impossible to translate something that is a speech that's given in Creole into English because the, the, the, the, the poetry and the connection with the Haitian grassroots and Haitian people is there in a way that makes it practically, although not impossible to translate into, into English. So they talk about Salih public. And if you look at the demands of the Haitian people today, they are asking people to support the demands of the people's movement in Haiti for the creation of a people's government of Salih public, which is public safety. I think Dr. Pasper, you refer to, you didn't call it that, but I, I recognized it in some of what you said capable of meeting people's basic needs and organizing truly fair and free elections. I want to say something about these elections. It was a hearing last week, was it a congressional hearing on Haiti? And there was a, there's been a lot of talk, I've also been working with Carrie com, as, as much as I can to put some pressure and information on Harry com in relation to Haiti, Carrie com, by the way, is the organization of the Caribbean governments, right? Barbados and Trinidad, Jamaica, et cetera, Haiti, most of them are the English speaking Caribbean, but Haiti is a member of Carrie com. And that puts Carrie com in a really difficult position because Carrie com, the D and others, they were really after that. I can't even think of his name now, the guy who has the OAS, you all know who I'm talking about really wanting to get him the hell out of there because he is a disaster. And not, not only in relation to Haiti, but in relation to the, the region, et cetera. So Carrie com has gotten a little militant, you know, then Trump invited a few of the prime ministers down to Mar-a-Lago and buying them off. And of course, Jovenel Moise of Haiti was very glad to lead the way to put forward the US position and to try to split Carrie com. So Carrie cop has to move very, very carefully. Although my prime minister of Barbados, the first woman, by the way, prime minister on our island, she, believe me, knows exactly what's going on. So does the Vincent and the granny beads and Trinidad, a whole set of folks know exactly what the, what the story is with Haiti. But here's this matter of elections. People on the ground are saying elections are not possible now with this dictatorship and regime in place. Listen to the Haitians, listen to the grassroots. They're saying no. A lot of people in the international solidarity community are running around demanding elections now. That is not what the movement is demanding. People cut it out. We can't do it. We cannot have a solidarity industrial complex that then imposes demands on the Haitian streets. And let me tell you something. United States, they're playing all angles. They're supporting Moise of Biden. I saw, you know, Biden, a lot of people thought the position would change, right, with Biden. Well, guess what? He came out and, you know, offered more support for, for Moise. Not only that, but the United States happened to send down some money. I mean, Trump sent some, but now you have the whole international community. You know how they do that? They did that. But at a speed with the president, they made sure he couldn't get a penny to do anything, right? But the moment they've got their guy in place, he's going to be loaded up with money, including the billions of dollars of Petzlo Kalibe money from Venezuela that has just disappeared. And it's not just Moise, but it's Martin Lee, the one who came before him. He was installed as well. So what the United States does, and I reluctantly, one of the trips I was down there with Congresswoman Waters did go meet in the embassy. Oh God, it was horrible. By the way, it's massive. It's made out of marble. You know, Haiti is so unimportant. They have one of the largest embassies in the world in Haiti made out of marble for crying out loud. But so the thing about it is that they also have their people who come across as being really militant. But they've got backdoor deals with the United States. And let me tell you, the Haitian grassroots knows exactly who they are. They're not fooled one bit. But you know who gets fooled? Innocent people in the United States and Canada and the UK that really want to be in solidarity and having to clue who they're really talking to. I'm very careful about who I talked to with the grant in Haiti. I'm very careful about the relationships there. And the movement knows who you are. But I land at that airport in Port-au-Prince, let me tell you, somehow the movement is out and they're there keeping an eye out. Right? So I'm just saying be careful. Look at the demands from the Haitian street. Another demand they have is to stop the wave of massacres, repression and kidnappings across Haiti. The so-named gangs, I call them death squads, the Tonto-Makut. Look, some of them are pure criminal operations, you know, they're opportunists. But what is happening is that that whole thing began with the Moïse dictatorship, the Moïse government arming these people to go into places like gasoline, to go into city sole, and really repress people who have been standing up against him. You know, Moïse's wife, they told me this story when I was down there. Before that massacre happened in gasoline, if you haven't seen the video, we've done three videos by the way. And let me tell you, it was scary as hell because I was down there in the middle of these protests, running around with a little motorcycle, you know what I mean? A journalist was shot 12 feet from where I was. This is serious business that's going on down there. You're tear gas and everything else. They said that Moïse's wife was down there trying to buy off a point of reference and unmute. Somehow I muted myself, I don't know how much of that I missed. The people didn't accept her deal, came in there with bags of money, you know how it is. After that was the first massacre in gasoline. I can't watch the video, I don't have the heart. I'll just tell you the story that they took me into the home of a pregnant woman who had been burned alive and they kept her skeleton there because they wanted the world to see it. And they wanted me to film it and to go back and tell people like you all what is happening in Haiti because the suffering is just unbearable. You know, I've been in Venezuela, I've been in Dubai, I've been on those sloping hillsides. What you see in Haiti would blow you. I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever of people living and being treated as though they're less than human. Another demand that they have and the US UN occupation of Haiti and US deportations of Haitians, they'll quickly sum it up. But this business about, I was really glad to hear you talk about the constitution, about support, the drafting of a new constitution, and we must have elections right now. No, nothing to do with what the demands of the Haitian people are. So if you find yourself in a position of putting forward those demands, check yourself. Dr. Margaret, if you could put in the chat exactly what you would suggest we phrase our demands of the Biden White House, that would be really helpful. We really appreciate everything that you have said, your lived experience, opening our eyes to the criminal activities of the US puppet government there. Sorry, your voice faded out a little bit there. I'm sorry, we're going to do what we can at the end of this call to weigh in. So if you can post exactly what your demands would be of the Biden White House. Well, they're really not my demands. They're the demands of the Haitian people. I'm so sorry, we do have to move on because we have one more guest and we're going to turn to Guantanamo, but thank you so much. I just say one thing, which is that I really urge people to go to the Haiti emergency relief fund website. They're now doing marvelous work supporting the university there, building a hospital there, and also Haiti solidarity dot net where you could get a whole set of information. So sorry to take the time that I did, but please go there and I'll be happy to share the demands with you. Thank you very much. All right. Our next speaker will be introduced by Jeremy Barone. Jeremy, are you with us? Indeed, I am. Can everybody hear me? Yes, Jeremy. I met Jeremy not too long ago working on a letter saying that we didn't want Mike Morel torture defender to be heading up the CIA. And at least we got that one. And Jeremy has been a long time activist with a witness against torture, right? And yeah, so take it. Introduce the next speaker. It's Christopher Anders from the ACLU, a brief bio. He's the senior legislative council in the ACLU's Washington legislative office. He represents the ACLU and lobbying Congress and the executive branch on lesbian and gay rights, faith based initiatives, conflicts between religious claims and civil rights, fair housing, oversight of federal rights, civil rights enforcement, restoration of civil rights, protections eroded by the courts, hate crimes and HIV AIDS. He's also for a long time worked on national security issues and war on terror detention facilities. I believe I met him first in 2007 during this global program of 100 consecutive hours of streaming of education about Guantanamo. And one of the events was hosted at junior university where I was teaching at a time. So it feels like an eternity ago. It just underscores how long we've been working on this issue. And as far as tie-ins go, some of you may know that before there was a war on terror prison, many, many Haitian refugees so-called were detained at Guantanamo, including children, under very abusive conditions. There was important litigation in the 1990s, et cetera. So it all feels very connected. With that, let me introduce Christopher Anders. Yeah. Thank you very much for that introduction. And I think also for reminding everyone the connection between Haiti and Guantanamo. That is why Guantanamo occurred to people in the Bush administration was because it had been used to imprison Haitian refugees a decade earlier. And I also want to say before I kind of start that how much I appreciate being able to speak with all of you and how much admiration I have for co-painting and witness against torture and the other groups and individual activists who are on this call. And I think one of the things I admire most is just the sheer tenacity of all of you. When I started doing this work at the end of 2004 around the Alberto Gonzalez nomination, where we worked on it as a torture issue, and I can't tell you how many hearings I've gone to and how often I've been a witness to the advocacy that all of you have done and how important that has been to the work. One of the things I guess I would say is Guantanamo is one of these issues that I think we all can't believe we're still working on this. But I think it's so connected with so many other issues that have you been brought up on this call. So the reason these people are all being held at Guantanamo, were held at Guantanamo in the first place was because the Bush administration was looking for a place that was what they were hoping was going to be what they called the legal equivalent of outer space. Trying to find some place that was away from the law out of the reach of the law so they could do illegal things, basically criminal things in terms of torture to the detainees there. And the reason why Guantanamo continues to exist is because we torture people and we torture most of the people that are left there. And so it's been a way to try to avoid regular courts that would not tolerate cases being brought against people who have been tortured, the kind of evidence that they want to bring in. And then it's also been a way to keep people from talking about their experiences. And so very integrally connected with torture. The other piece that it's very connected, two other pieces very connected with the work that I know Code Pink certainly has been doing for an awful long time. One is this endless war, right? So a key part of the endless war has been this idea that we're going to keep people locked away forever. And the war lasts forever, we're going to keep people locked up to the end of the war. And so I think as we look towards all the work that's going in now to try and to end the endless war, part of ending the endless war is also shutting down Guantanamo, ending indefinite detention for the detainees that are there, and ending the military commissions, basically shutting down this whole enterprise 20 years later. And then one last piece that's another strain of this whole thing that I think is important to remember is that the other thing that kind of underlies the whole thing is the death penalty. That the death penalty is being sought in seven of the cases. And for the detainees who've been charged with their role, alleged role in the 9-11 attacks as well as the attacks on the USS Cole. And because of the, it's a big part of the reason why military commissions have actually not held any of these trials. They just kind of keep going on and on and on with pretrial hearings and fights over kind of basic rules. And part of it is that these are capital cases. These are death penalty cases. And I think there's a pretty clear awareness that in real courts, in regular federal criminal courts, the kind of behavior that's taken place on the part of the government would never be tolerated. And we would not be putting people to death based on, on evidence that was attained through torture. And so I think as long as, as long as the United States keeps holding and the United States military keep holding on to this idea that people have to be put to death. And at the end of this, whatever trial they end up having, we're probably never going to have Guantanamo closed. And these people will never be convicted of any crime in a way that will be sustained by a court. So I think, you know, it's what's left there, who's left at Guantanamo is basically 40 men. There are 10 of them that are in the military commission system, either waiting trial or having been charged, waiting trial, basically being charged with a crime. Or in the case of two of them, I haven't been convicted of crime. And then, and then there are six detainees who are cleared for transfers. These are people that a review board that has all the national security agencies would have unanimously agreed could be safely transferred overseas and released into another country. Those people were almost all of them that were were cleared during the Obama administration but not transferred. So these are people the United States has said for years, some of them for almost 10 years have said there's no reason for them to be held at Guantanamo. They should be transferred out. But they continue to be held in prison for all these years. And then and then there's a remaining, the remaining group of if I can't do my math, I'll tell you very quickly, but I think it's about 24 detainees who are in indefinite detention. They've never been charged with a crime, probably never will be charged with a crime. And but the United States has so far refused to transfer them out. And those are ones that that at some point, the government's got to say, this war is over, this fight is over. We were holding these people right or wrong, in our view, certainly wrong. And it's time, it's time to let them go. And all this is of course taking place in a context of like all of us, right, including all of us have been working on this for all these years, we're all getting older. And for the detainees are, they're held there. They're, you know, they've been held there for, you know, most of them 15, 18, 19, 20 years. And, and so they've been held, they've been held for very almost 20 years. So they've been held for a very long time. And they're get, you know, some have very serious medical problems. Some have very serious mental health problems, a large part from torture and not lack of treatment for that. And then the continuing psychological damage caused by not just imprisonment, but imprisonment without knowing what the, what the end is going to be. And so, you know, we're, we're working, you know, there's a, there's been a really, you know, kind of broad coalition, I think is kind of operated at the kind of DC lobbying but there's also, you know, kind of this coalition of organizations that have been doing grassroots work for all these years. And I think it's really, I think we have a real moment to try to, you know, do a new push on this. And I think for, you know, Code, Code PENC, I think it really is, you know, up to you and witness against torture about kind of what the ask is going to be. I mean, part of it is like, what we've been, you know, kind of saying to people in the administration is, you really have to be committed to this and you have to be committed to this because there are people in the, in the Defense Department in particular who are, who are, who view it as their job to keep everyone locked away forever. And so the only way to overcome that is to push really, really hard. And there, you know, there are a couple, you know, kind of, you know, there's, there's some very practical things. Like right now there's nobody at the State Department who has the job of, of transferring people out of Guantanamo. So one of the, one of the things, if you look at these 60 Tainees who have been transferred or are cleared for transfer, the government has said there's no reason that they should continue to be held. There's no one at the, at the State Department right now who has it as their job to negotiate with other countries to receive them. During the Obama administration, if there were one to, there were I think at least three different people who had the job of special, called Special Envoy, basically ambassador for closing Guantanamo. President, or President Trump got rid of that position. And there's no one there, there's no one in there, there in that job. That's something that we've all been asking for kind of at the lobbying level. And I think, you know, any kind of, you know, grassroots kind of push, you know, you can want to make on that, I think would be really welcome because they're not, if you can't find somebody, if you don't have a diplomat to set up these agreements, nobody's going to get out. I think, you know, one other, you know, really interesting thing would be to, to push on the death penalty piece of it. President Biden has said that he wants to end the death penalty, the federal death penalty. He of course, you know, had a handed legislation, not dealing with Guantanamo, but legislation dealing with domestic crimes where he then expanded the death penalty. And you know, he's, if he wants to be serious about that, then he should be looking at Guantanamo where these defendants are being charged with capital cases. And it's the reason Guantanamo, or a major reason why Guantanamo can't close. So that, you know, that could be another push that you want to make. And then, of course, just remembering it as part and bringing it up as part of the overall bigger, you know, the big focus on, on ending the forever war, because this is so integral to it, you know, as is torture and everything else and kind of restoring, you know, restoring, you know, human rights and in the, in the, you know, world affairs in the United States' national security position. I think you can't do that without, without closing Guantanamo and ending indefinite detention. So I've kind of gone on for a long time. I'm happy if there's any, you know, questions people have. I'm not really great at reading comments while I'm talking. So if anyone, you know, wants to, I don't know if we have any time, but if anyone has anything they want to, you know, ask. First of all, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your insights and suggestions. I think, Medea, what did you say? Jeremy has something he wanted to. Oh, Jeremy, yeah. Yeah. So Chris, thanks for that. You know, what would be a relevant ask with respect to Congress? Like a lot of this is in the hands of the executive branch. A group of us is going to meet with the armed services committee staff and they've done some sort of decent work on this issue. And is it to essentially tell Congress to tell Biden to get serious about this, or is there more, something more specific from a lobbying legislative standpoint you could point us towards? Yeah. So one thing that we've been telling people in Congress and we've been telling the administration is don't set it up. So I refer to those who remember the beginning of the Obama administration on this. You know, President Obama really early on started saying he wants to go on time, but he wants Congress to work with them on it. And Congress, of course, didn't want to work with them on it, right? They want to do their own, you know, score some political points on this. There is no, there is no almost nothing that Congress has to do, or nothing Congress would have to do for a really long time to start getting Guantanamo closed, right? So the, you know, not falling into that trap that we need to wait for Congress to act. President Biden has has the ability on his own, go in action to transfer out almost all the detainees and to end the use of the military commissions. So, you know, avoiding that trap. Now, if they want to do something positive, you know, given that the Democrats now control both sides, you know, of course, removing the transfer restrictions would be great. But if they, you know, if they fall short of that, one thing that which is, you know, seems really minor and it's unbelievable is that for I think it's eight years now, either the House or the Senate, but never both, right? Either the House or the Senate has passed legislation as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, the annual defense bill that has said that detainees can be transferred to the United States for medical care if the medical care can't be provided on the base. So if you have, you know, for someone that has, you know, needs serious cancer care, needs renal care, you know, has significant kidney problems, you know, has a significant cardiac issue that can't be dealt with on base, that they could be brought into the United States for the purpose of being treated. It's kind of ought to be a no-brainer. Senator McCain for years was, he was a huge supporter of doing this, but never could get the House to agree back when he was doing it. Senator Manchin, interestingly, has, you know, was the one who carried this amendment a couple years. But it's, you know, it's an important one. It doesn't, you know, it might not affect that many people, but among the, you know, kind of the continuing horrors is, you know, is this ability, inability for people to get medical care unless it can be brought to the base. So that, you know, that's kind of an easy one. And then, and then, you know, the other thing that I'll tell you, we've been really pushing with members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee is for them to just go and push on the defense department, just say who's in charge, right? Like, who's in charge of Guantanamo? Because one of the problems I think has always been, and was certainly for a good number, I would say for five or six of the Obama years, was that Guantanamo was basically run by people who were like held bent on keeping it open and keeping everyone there. And so, you know, pushing them on, like, you know, to go to the Biden White House and say, you know, who's running it? Who's in charge of Guantanamo? And then you have to be putting someone in charge who actually agrees with what President Biden say that this has to add. Because if they don't do that, it's not going to clean itself up. You know, it's going to run itself and just keep on going. Thank you so much, Chris. It's very interesting what you said about Manchin. I mean, he's the swing vote. He holds so much power in Congress right now. I would think that if he got on the phone and said Biden released these guys at Guantanamo and appointed an envoy, said Biden wouldn't do it. Yeah, well, yeah, Manchin has some odd things on this. So he's, there are a couple of things that seem to motivate him that we know from his staff. One is one is that he thinks it's insane how much money is spent on Guantanamo. That, you know, I think, I can't remember what the number is now, but it's like 15 or 20. I didn't have to look it up. It's like, it works out to like 15 or 20 million dollars per year per detainee. It costs in a supermax present, which is a pretty awful place to be in, you know, in the federal system. It's about $35,000 per year. And it's about a third that in a state in a state prison. So that, you know, it's just an insane amount of money. And that's, that's something that Manchin has, I think, brought up a lot. The other thing is that is that there have been Western, you know, the way Guantanamo works is the detention facility works is they're constantly rotating people in and most of the military really doesn't want to be there. So a lot of times this is an assignment that's dumped on National Guard units and reserves. And so Manchin has had, Senator Manchin has had from West Virginia, the West Virginia people have been rotated through several times and come back upset with what they say. So he's actually been really pretty great. And then for whatever reason, which I don't know why, he's very motivated on the medical issue. So I don't think he's like great on every aspect of Guantanamo and I would love it if he was, but, but definitely on the medical issue, he's, you know, he when Senator McCain died, he was the one who took up that issue and was one for the amendment committee. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much, Chris. You have explained a lot to us. I know people have questions. So I'm going to ask you to put your questions in the chat. And if our guests can stay with us for a few minutes and respond to those questions in the chat, that would be appreciated. We are at 608. We definitely want to get on the phone and start writing some emails about these issues. So, Mary, if you could please post, maybe we can share the screen and you can post the script that we have. We'll take a look at it, see how it aligns with what we have learned and talked about tonight. And also, if you can post it in the chat, that would be fantastic. Basically, the script, it's to call, to write to Biden and say I'm on the subject of Guantanamo to appoint a special envoy to oversee resettlement and release and eliminate these military tribunals, close the place down. And on Haiti, it is to end our recognition of Louise as the legitimate leader of Haiti and to stop deporting Haitians back to Haiti. It's not safe. And to re-designate those from Haiti. So let's take a look at this. Yeah, so I'm just kind of looking through it, questions. There are some really great observations, including the ACLU of North Carolina and the North Carolina. North Carolina is, of course, like a really great area for so much great work on torture issue and especially extraordinary rendition. And it's amazing how they've kept up their work so well. Will the prisoners release be safe in other countries? As a general matter, yes, the United States will not. And we felt pretty confident of this during the Obama administration, even during the Bush administration, that they do a longer work to come up with agreements with the receiving country to make sure that they will not be abused when they leave there. And which is why almost everyone who would be released from Guantanamo now, most of them would be resettled in other countries. They would not be sent back to their home country because of that reason, because of the danger that it would be in. And that's been very common, I would say, under the Obama administration that probably a third of the detainees were, roughly, were resettled in third countries. And then on China, China's actually been, there used to be a pretty significant group of Uighurs at Guantanamo in one of the most disturbing things. In one of the most disturbing things that happened during the Bush administration with Guantanamo, we're one of the many disturbing things, is that the Bush administration allowed Chinese security officials to come to Guantanamo to interview the Uighurs. So there they had, they were picked up, most of the Uighurs were picked up in Afghanistan. They were there because they had fled China, persecution in China. They had done nothing wrong. And then after fleeing China, being picked up in Afghanistan by the U.S. government wrongly, and then brought to Guantanamo and tortured there, then the United States allowed the Chinese government security officials to come in and interview the Uighurs. So, you know, it's kind of the horrors of that. And then on the cost per detainee, I actually can find that really quickly, but it is, I don't know the exact number, but it's somewhere in the $15 million per year range. Okay, great. Thank you so much, Chris Anders for joining us. We're going to have to move on now. I want to thank all of our guests, Dr. Prosper and Margaret Prescott and Chris Anders. It's been a very informative evening. I've learned a lot myself and a rich conversation here. We want to move now to our action for the evening. And let's take a look at this and see how it aligns with what we heard. Okay, please. So this is the script for calling House, the Senate, please join Congressman Meeks. Well, that would be in the House. In urging President Biden to reject any attempt by Haitian president Moise to retain power in Haiti. The time for Haitian-led democratic transition of power is now. Also, please tell President Biden it is time to name an envoy to oversee the closure of Guantanamo prison, the safe resettlement of prisoners, and the elimination of military tribunals. So that's it in short. And then there's a script for Biden that asks him specifically to do these things. The number to call is also displayed at the very top of the screen, 2-0-2-2-4-3-1-2-1. So please, let's see, how many are still with us, honey? 129 people. So thank you so much, 129 people. All right, so let's get on the phone, call our members of Congress, call the Senate, and write to Biden. Send him an email. Thank you. We'll stay on as we all do this together. And I'm even going to call Joe Manchin's office. What is the email address for the White House? There's not a direct email address that is public, but if you go to whitehouse.gov slash contact, you will find a form where you can just copy and paste this into it and it'll be sent. Okay, thank you. My screen is unreactive to try to copy and paste anything. Same here. So you can't copy and paste from this screen because I'm screen sharing, but if you go to this link, cpcongress, where codepink.org slash codepinkcongress, you'll be able to find the action and you can copy and paste it from there. And where is that, is that in the, oh, I see it's in the chat. Okay. Thanks all did my emails and the phone calls I'm going to do tomorrow with the emails I got done today. Thanks for another great show and I hope to see you again next week. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Yeah, same here. Thank you very much. I've got to leave. Thank you. Thank you. Anytime. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Dr. Prosper. Thank you, Chris. And something I added to the script, but I guess I didn't add it in time. If you can mention it, that would be great. And that is to stop deporting Haitians back to Haiti. It's not safe. Yeah, that's right. Thank you, Marcy. Very good program. Thanks, Marcy. Thank you. So somebody is asking again, Mary, how do I access the script for Biden? Sure. So I just posted the link in the chat and I'll post it again. Just click on that link and it will come up just like this and you can copy and paste it. I'm sorry, I can't highlight the text from the screen. So no, you can not copy it from here, but if you click on the link I sent, you can copy it from there. I'm going in. I've been using the cell phone. Okay, so if you go to codepink.org slash codepink congress and you scroll down a bit, you will find this action and you can get all the information right there. Can you hear me? Yes, did you hear me? Yeah, I did. Let me write this down. It takes a long time. My computer's slower. Just going into the zoom now and I can get to the chat, whether it's too late. You give me the website again. codepink.org, write it down. codepink.org slash codepink congress. One word. Yes. And then after codepink congress, what do I say? Well, you can just scroll down a bit and you'll find the action of something like Solidarity with Haiti is the name and just click on that. And also Guantanamo, yes? Yes. Thank you very much for your help and have a great day. Thank you, you too. Mary, let's stay on a little bit longer and give everybody a chance to call and write. Excuse me, I have a question. For contacting the senators, should I use the same script and just don't use joining Congressman Meeks? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Just say please urge President Biden. Nowadays it seems like it's the main way to get a hold of anybody's email. Yes, could you please connect me with... Okay, I think that we've all had an opportunity to contact at least one or two of our representatives in the White House. And if not, I urge you to continue this and to tell friends, spread the word on social media. We want to amplify our voices to demand that Guantanamo be closed once and for all. This is crazy, but I do find it's interesting that Manchin was out in front on this. And I think...