Inside the Caribbean

ChickenBones: A Journal

for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes

Inside the Caribbean

Haiti's Billion Dollar Debt Cancelled
WASHINGTON, Jul 9 The recent cancellation of Haiti's $1.2 billion debt is a huge victory for the impoverished country, which will now have greater resources to invest in "desperately needed relief" for its people, says a coalition of groups fighting poverty worldwide. Debt cancellation will allow Haiti -- the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere -- to redirect significant resources to poverty alleviation efforts and desperately needed public services such as education and health care, notes Jubilee USA. Oneworld

Petition to President-elect Obama‏ Advocates for Justice in Haiti

The Third Hurricane Reflections by Fidel Castro / Jamaica . . . Some Reflections

George Lamming. Sovereignty of the Imagination: Language and the Politics of Ethnicity - Conversations III

Political philosophy, Literature, Caribbean history, Language studies. According to Prof. Anthony Bogues, The Sovereignty of the Imagination gives us that capacity for language and therefore the ability to name and establish categories. But this is not just a literary capacity; it allows us to define freedom. George Lamming recognizes the centrality of the quest for freedom for the social group that he calls 'this world of men and women from down below.'

George Lamming is an illustrious Caribbean novelist and cultural critic from Barbados. His novels and volumes of essays and literary criticism offer insightful analyses on history, western philosophy, racism, colonization, education, literature and Caribbean independence.

UWI honours sixteen of the Regions beacons

Dunstan St. Omer, Peggy Antrobus, Arnold Rampersad, Angela Cropper, Christopher Laird,
Robert B. Riley, Mr. Yesu Persaud, Zelma Edgell, Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, Paul Bernard Altman, Frederick Ballantyne, Colin A Palmer, Anne Walmsley, Oliver F. Clarke,
John Maxwell, John Issa .

An Interview with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuban Five—Infiltrating Alpha 66—This conversation took place on April 1, 2009. Our film crew received Justice Department approval to talk with “the prisoner,” with a prison official in the room. Before his 1998 arrest, Gerardo Hernandez directed the operations of the other Cuban State Security agents who infiltrated violent groups in the Miami area for the purposes of stopping them from carrying our terrorist attacks on tourist sites in Cuba. We took complete and careful notes. Counterpunch

Filmmaker Molefi K. Asante, Jr. opens St. Martin Book Fair

in Marigot, June 4, 2009, 8pm

Christophe, Pétion & Dessalines Counter Bonaparte 's Invasion of St. Domingo

Hurricane Devastation in Cuba and Haiti

Bush administration's heartless lack of compassion for poor countries.

By Miriam DeCosta-Willis

Haiti's Human Wreckage "I have never seen anything as painful" no identifying the dead

After Hurricane Ike, Haiti needs `flood of helicopters'—With Haiti's major bridges crumbled, roadways flooded and an estimated one million people homeless, humanitarian and government groups struggled Monday to push relief supplies into the country and throughout the storm-ravaged Caribbean. Four storms in rapid succession have demolished patches of the Caribbean from Cuba to Hispaniola to Jamaica to the Turks and Caicos Islands to the Bahamas, killing more than 350 people, sinking entire towns and hampering aid efforts. ''We need a flood of helicopters because there is a lot of food coming into Port-au-Prince and it cannot reach the provinces,'' Haitian President René Préval said in an interview with The Miami Herald. In Haiti, rescue groups have no access to many interior villages across the southern region and to hard-hit Gonaives, north of the capital, which was cut off when a bridge collapsed. A Red Cross truck trying to reach Les Cayes on the southern coast had to turn back because of impassable roads. ''The flooding is more extensive than people realize, and it's awful how little relief has been able to get into Gonaives and other areas,'' said Dr. Arthur Fournier, a University of Miami physician who co-founded Project Medishare, a charity that transports medical aid to Haiti. Thousands of Haitians have been living in hospitals as temporary shelters, Fournier said. ''They are going to be stuck there for a long time,'' he said. ``They don't have homes to go back to.'' Local, national and international groups worry that a secondary disaster could arise from water-borne diseases. Fournier's group is trying to send LifeStraws to Haiti -- hand-held devices that purify water. Humanitarian workers said the most crucial supplies they need is water, sanitation items and food. . . . In South Florida, meanwhile, politicians, charities and Caribbean-American coalitions called on people to send cash and supplies to the region. MiamiHerald

Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image (2009)

By Michael Casey

Mr. Casey has written a book that is not only a cultural history of an image, but also a sociopolitical study of the mechanisms of fame. It is a book about how ideas travel and mutate in this age of globalization, how concepts of political ideology have increasingly come to be trumped by notions of commerce and cool and chic, and how the historical Che Guevara gave way, post-mortem, to a host of other Ches . . . After Che was killed in Bolivia in October 1967 at 39, at the end of a disastrous guerrilla campaign, his fame and popularity — as a martyr now — spread even more rapidly around the world. NYTimes Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War

EU's lifted sanctions could be turning point for Cuba—On June 19, at a summit in Brussels, the European Union announced that it would lift its diplomatic sanctions against Cuba. The gesture was predominantly symbolic, as the restraints, which had been put in place in 2003, had been temporarily suspended since 2005. The decision came about largely due to Spain's 2005 initiative to normalize its relations with Cuba, despite opposition from several other EU members. While the EU's sanctions only froze development aid and visits to Cuba by high-level European officials, the move to lift them signals a commitment to increased dialogue and openness between the EU and Havana. It will surely have positive effects not just for Cuba but for the EU's currently frosty relationship with Latin America over immigration issues. Perhaps most importantly, it serves as a contrast to the hard-line policy of the United States, which has maintained an unbending trade embargo against Cuba since 1964. Spectrezine

Haitians Forced to Eat Dirt

An Editorial by Rudolph Lewis

Genocide a la bonne femme

By John Maxwell

The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti Nobody ever chose to be a slave Haiti on the UN Occupation

Why is Cuba Exporting Its Health Care Miracle To The World’s Poor—The offer of medical training is just one way Cuba has reached out to the United States. . . . .When an earthquake struck Pakistan . . . that country’s government warmly welcomed the Cuban medical professionals. And 2,300 came, bringing 32 field hospitals to remote, frigid regions of the Himalayas. There, they set broken bones, treated ailments, and performed operations for a total of 1.7 million patients. The disaster assistance is part of Cuba’s medical aid mission that has extended from Peru to Indonesia, and even included caring for 17,000 children sickened by the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine. It isn’t only in times of disaster that Cuban health care workers get involved. Some 29,000 Cuban health professionals are now practicing in 69 countries—mostly in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. In Venezuela, about 20,000 of them have enabled President Hugo Chávez to make good on his promise to provide health care to the poor. In the shantytowns around Caracas and the banks of the Amazon, those who organize themselves and find a place for a doctor to practice and live can request a Cuban doctor. Common Dreams

Holguin Siempre Adelante
An Artistic Journey by Claire Carew
Homage to Frida Kahlo 1907 to 2007

Why is Cuba Exporting Its Health Care Miracle To The World’s Poor—The offer of medical training is just one way Cuba has reached out to the United States. . . . .When an earthquake struck Pakistan . . . that country’s government warmly welcomed the Cuban medical professionals. And 2,300 came, bringing 32 field hospitals to remote, frigid regions of the Himalayas. There, they set broken bones, treated ailments, and performed operations for a total of 1.7 million patients. The disaster assistance is part of Cuba’s medical aid mission that has extended from Peru to Indonesia, and even included caring for 17,000 children sickened by the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine. It isn’t only in times of disaster that Cuban health care workers get involved. Some 29,000 Cuban health professionals are now practicing in 69 countries—mostly in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. In Venezuela, about 20,000 of them have enabled President Hugo Chávez to make good on his promise to provide health care to the poor. In the shantytowns around Caracas and the banks of the Amazon, those who organize themselves and find a place for a doctor to practice and live can request a Cuban doctor. Common Dreams

Thousands visit scene of Che's death 40 years ago—Tens of thousands of disciples of the revolutionary leader Che Guevara made the pilgrimage to Ville Grande in the Bolivian jungle yesterday – the spot where he was executed exactly 40 years ago. . . . And in a further mark of the extent to which the revolutionary outlaw has been transformed into an establishment hero in Bolivia, Che's portrait now hangs in the office of President Evo Morales – the country's first indigenous leader. Mr Morales's election, subsequent promises to re-distribute land and oil and gas profits, and his closeness to Venezuela's Hugo Chaves and Cuba's Fidel Castro, have been labelled part of a new brand of Latin American socialism. Che's revolutionary zeal was inspired during his travels around South America as a young man, witnessing first hand the impoverished conditions in which people lived. He joined Castro's revolution in Cuba in 1959 and left six years later with the intention of fomenting further revolution but was shot dead in a operation supported by the CIA. Independent

The Wrong Experience—Obama has advocated easing the Bush-imposed ban on Cuban-Americans visiting the island and sending money to their relatives. He makes a broader case for a new Cuba policy, arguing that capitalism, trade and travel will help break the regime's stranglehold on the country and help open things up. Clinton immediately disagreed, firmly supporting the current policy. This places her in the strange position of arguing, in effect, that her husband's Cuba policy was not hard-line enough. But this is really not the best way to understand Clinton's position. In all probability, she actually agrees with Obama's stand. She is just calculating that it would anger Cuban-Americans in Florida and New Jersey. This is the problem with Hillary Clinton. . . . The Clintons' careers have been shaped by the belief that for a Democrat to succeed, he or she had to work within this conservative ideological framework. Otherwise one would be pilloried for being weak on national security, partial to taxes and big government and out of touch with Middle America's social values. CubaWatch

Vilma's Struggles

(1930-2007)

By Fidel Castro Ruz

Race Struggle is Class Struggle A Review of In-Dependence from Bondage (Lewis) / Manley’s Legacy / Southern Needs

JAN CAREW MISSION WITHIN THE MISSION by Eusi Kwayana.

Green Winter (1965) / The Third Gift (1981) / Children of the Sun (1980)

Fulcrums of Change (1988) / Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England and the Caribbean (1994) /

Rape of Paradise (2006) The Guyanese Wanderer: Stories (2007)

This useful collection of essays originated as conference papers presented at the College of Charleston in October 1998 [reaches] the interesting, and surprising, conclusion that the Haitian Revolution often mattered more as a disputed symbol than as an actual vehicle of historical change. Abolitionists, planters, slaves, and even German reformers endlessly discussed its meaning and potential ramifications even when they were not directly impacted. Politicians in Colombia and the United States analyzed the revolution not because of its actual significance to their everyday life but as a yardstick by which to measure local political sensibilities. The revolution, in a way, was a postmodernist event that mattered not for its substance but because the way it was portrayed in individual discourses revealed the fears and aspirations of each author. David P. Geggus, ed. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. (2001) Philippe R. Girard, McNeese State University

From Birmingham Alabama to Qana Lebanon It Ain't About Race Healing Wisdom of Mexico Sitting ducks at the superdome Giving Voice Through Art

Toussaint Table / Chronology / Boukman and His Comrades / "More Than Just A Man" (Early Years) / The Betrayal, Arrest, & Death

Free Trade Is Harmful in Colombia

By Dr. Keith Jennings

A Rising Voice: Afro-Latin Americans

Haiti on the UN Occupation

on the 92nd anniversary

of the first US occupation of Haiti (1915- 1934)

Haiti Cherie   The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti  Nobody ever chose to be a slave

Alberto O. Cappas -- Doña Julia Review Cappas Bio Nubian Voices Doña Julia Her Borinquen Haiti in Puerto Rico My Home

Haiti Cherie—The director stressed that while the film's plot was fictional, the experiences suffered by the characters were completely realistic."I wanted to show what life is like in the 'bateyes'," Del Punta said, referring to the encampments set up on the outskirts of the sugar plantations where the cane cutters are forced to live. The workers live crowded together in the communal bateyes which usually lack running water, toilets, electricity and cooking facilities, as well as health care services and schools. There are some 400 bateyes scattered across the Dominican Republic. The cane cutters toil for up to 14 hours a day for what human rights organisation Amnesty International has termed "derisory wages" (typically the equivalent of $2.5 a day), while some are paid in vouchers which can only be used at plantation stores. The freedom of workers to leave the bateyes is also often restricted, turning them into virtual prisons that are patrolled by armed guards. A March 2007 report by Amnesty International detailed its long-standing concerns regarding discrimination, racism and xenophobia against Haitian migrants living in the neighbouring Dominican Republic and particularly its bateyes. Italian Film Helps Haitian Plantation Workers Life in Italy

Christophe, Pétion & Dessalines Counter Bonaparte 's Invasion of St. Domingo

Pediatrician Eliseo Rosario Dreams Like Roberto Clemente

Danny Torres Interviews Dr. Eliseo Rosario

Clines Reflects on Clemente, Stargell, and the Team of Color

Books By George Lamming

In the Castle of My Skin (1953), The Emigrants (1954), Of Age and Innocence (1958), Season of Adventure (1960), and - The Pleasure of Exile (essays, 1960)

Conversations II: Western Education and the Caribbean Intellectual (2000) / Black World (March 1973) / Canon Shot and Glass Beads (1974)

The History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905 (1981) / Natives of My Person (1972) / Water with Berries (1972)

Elizabeth Nunez emigrated from Trinidad, where she was born, to the United States of America after she completed secondary school. She is presently a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Medgar Evers College, the City University of New York, where she designed, developed and implemented many of the college's first major academic programs.

She received her Ph.D. and Masters degrees in English from New York University, and her B.A. degree in English from Marian College in Wisconsin.

With John Oliver Killens, she founded the National Black Writers Conference sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was director of the conference from 1986 to 2000.

Books by Elizabeth Nunez

Prospero's Daughter: A Novel / Grace: A Novel / Stories from Blue-Latitudes:Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad

Bruised Hibiscus / When Rocks Dance / Discretion / Beyond the Limbo Silence

Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in the 90s

Hubert Cole. Christophe: King of Haiti. New York: The Viking Press, 1967

Send contributions to: ChickenBones: A Journal / 13219 Kientz Road / Jarratt, VA 23867 -- I became aware of Rudy Lewis’ labor of love a few short months ago during a visit to Kalamu ya Salaam’s e-drum listserv. As soon as I saw the title of the journal I knew it was about Black folks, and the power of the written word. A quick click took me into a journal that’s long on creativity, highlighting well-known, little known, and a little known writers, and commitment to the empowerment of Black folks. I contacted Rudy to ask if he’d consider publishing some of my work. His response was immediate, and a couple of days after I’d forwarded some poems to him—they were part of ChickenBones. What I didn’t know was that this journal has been surviving for the last five years with very little outside financial support. . . If we want journals like this to “thrive” we need to support them with more than our website hits, praise, and submissions for publication consideration.

—Peace, Mary E. Weems (January 2007)

Eric Roach and the Flowering Rock