Inside the Caribbean

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

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

Free Trade Is Harmful in Colombia

By Dr. Keith Jennings

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

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

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

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

West Indian Narrative An Introductory Anthology Edited by Kenneth Ramchand / Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five