For the first time in a decade, WBAI 99.5 FM, the New York affiliate of the Pacifica network, will begin airing radio shows dedicated to Haiti and its diaspora.

At the end of June, three pilot programs spanning four hours will examine issues ranging from union-busting and free trade zones in Haiti to police brutality in New York, with healthy doses of Haitian music, such as konpa, rasin, and mizik angaje .

Bernard White, WBAI’s programming director, gave the pilot programs to a collective of Haitian grass-roots groups and media activists, with an eye to establishing a regular weekly program on Haiti.

"Haiti hasn’t been in the news lately, and most people have lost track of what is happening there," explained Christian Lemoine of Rezo Solidarite, one of the groups in the radio collective. "We hope to update people and bring a new perspective on developments in Haiti, and to draw parallels with what is happening in other countries, so that progressives and the activist community can draw lessons from that history."

WBAI already hosts several regional programs such as "Our Americas," "Afrikaleidoscope," "Asia Pacific Forum," and the "Middle East Report." Presently, there are only two programs dedicated to news and analysis of specific countries: "Cuba in Focus" and "Radio Free Eireann," which examines Ireland.

But "thousands of Haitians in the New York metropolitan area listen to WBAI because they are politically sophisticated and don’t care for the cookie-cutter news and disinformation dispersed by the mainstream corporate media outlets," explained Ray Laforest of the Haiti Support Network, another collective member. "Haitian listeners also played a role in fighting the coup that took over WBAI most of last year, just as we fought the coup in our own country."

In Dec. 2000 and following months, much of the progressive staff of WBAI was fired after the Pacifica National Board moved to depoliticize the five-station network’s programming and explored selling off stations (see Haïti Progrès , Vol. 18, No. 43, 1/10/2001). Listeners revolted, forcing the resignation of many Board members, and the establishment of a new Interim board in Dec. 2001 entrusted with drafting new by-laws and returning the network to its original mission of "radio with a vision of peace, justice, and equity for all," according to WBAI’s website.

The pilot Haitian programs are, in some way, the fruit of WBAI’s restoration. They will air from 10 - 11 a.m. on Mon., Jun. 24 and Tue., Jun. 25, and from 3 - 5 p.m. on Sat., Jun. 29.

Other organizations involved in the Haitian radio collective include the Charlot Jacquelin Committee, MOKAM, and Haïti Progrès.

The collective is bursting with creative ideas about future programming that would complement the mainstays of news, analysis, debate, and announcements. While there are several Haitian radio programs and stations broadcasting in Creole, this will be the only one in English, which the collective sees as an asset. "As an English speaking station, WBAI can be our link to talk to other communities," Laforest said.

Haitians Stand Behind Cuba

On May 20, President George W. Bush launched a bitter attack on Cuba, announcing that his administration would step up the 42-year U.S. offensive against the island nation.

Bush announced that his administration would tighten the U.S. economic blockade and travel ban against Cuba and step up the funneling of direct aid to "legitimate U.S. religious and other non-governmental organizations" working in Cuba, just as it does in Haiti. Bush charged that "all elections in Castro's Cuba have been a fraud" and that full diplomatic and trade relations would only come "when Cuba has a new government." He pledged to "modernize" Radio and Television Marti, whose powerful transmitters bathe Cuba in megawatts of counter-revolutionary propaganda.

In response, millions of Cubans, led by President Fidel Castro, have taken to the streets in the largest demonstrations in decades to voice their scorn at Bush’s "Initiative for a New Cuba" and their support for Cuba’s revolutionary government and socialist path.

Progressive parties around the world have proclaimed their support for Cuba in the face of Bush’s new aggressive stance, including the National Popular Party (PPN) of Haiti. The following is their letter:

June 16, 2002

To the heroic Cuban people, their tireless leader Fidel Castro, and all the comrades of the Cuban Communist Party:

On behalf of the Haitian people, the National Popular Party (PPN) salutes the courage of Cuba as it once again inspires and enlightens us through its eloquent and fearless defiance of the latest aggression of U.S. imperialism against Cuba, and indeed against the entire world.

The PPN stands four-square with the Cuban people in this new "unprecedented confrontation... between the force of just ideas and the murderous ideas of brutal force" as Fidel summed it up on June 8.

Never before has U.S. imperialism had such a reckless, stupid, and clumsy, but dangerous, clique in power as that of George W. Bush.

Haitians have experienced his treachery from the start. In Bush’s November 2000 electoral coup d’état, hundreds of Haitian-born U.S. citizens were prohibited from voting in Florida at polling places by and large controlled by the same gusano mafia which wages a terrorist war against revolutionary Cuba.

Even the slavish Miami Herald of June 14 had to admit that some 57,700 mostly African American voters in Florida were prohibited from voting through the use of a racist "felon purge list," which was filled with errors. The same column notes that Bush’s own Justice Department, in a largely diversionary move, is citing three Florida counties for failure to provide adequate language assistance to Creole-speaking citizens, among others.

Thousands of other poor, mostly black, voters were prevented from getting to the polls, sent to the wrong polling place, tricked into voting for the wrong candidate, denied help in casting their vote, or intimidated from voting.

All this was orchestrated by George W. Bush’s brother, Jeb, the Florida governor, in conjunction with the gusano mafia, which also helped subvert the recount of the Florida vote, which would have resulted in a victory for Al Gore, post-election vote reviews revealed.

And after all this, which is known to all the world, W. has the gall and idiocy to accuse Cuba of being undemocratic !

Haitians are also suffering under the myopia of his policies. Bush and his cronies have frozen half a billion dollars in aid which international lenders have pledged to Haiti, revealing the hypocrisy of Washington’s claim that it cares for the welfare of Haitians, who are hungry as never before, and that international financial institutions are independent.

Washington continues to openly subvert democracy in Haiti, shamelessly meddling in our internal democratic process and funneling millions of dollars each year to an "opposition" which takes its marching orders from the International Republican Institute and the State Department’s resident gusano official, Otto Reich.

We condemn George W. Bush’s blasphemous May 20 attack from Miami on Cuba, his stupefying lies and ignorance, and his aggressive policies against nations around the world.

Thank you Fidel, thank you Cuba, for the example you set for us in Haiti and for peoples around the world with your remarkable resistance and for speaking truth to power.

Benjamin Dupuy

Secretary General, National Popular Party