Interview with Makani Themba, Ramona Ortega and Paola Mosquera Arce about the history of WCAR Pre and Post 2001.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made a brief official visit to Haiti on May 28. During the few hours before he headed off for a tour of Central America, Lula had a private conversation with Haitian president Rene Garcia Preval, took part in a signing ceremony for six agreements (including accords on agriculture, education and women’s rights), and visited the headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military force headed by Brazil.”We have told President Lula to send more police instead of military,” Preval said as the two leaders made statements at the National Palace after their meeting. Lula too played down the military occupation, expressing his “certainty that social, institutional and economic recovery is the only way to avoid new crises in Haiti.” Lula was accompanied by representatives of various Brazilian corporations, including the Odebrecht construction company, the Andrade Gutierrez S.A. industrial group and the Camargo Correa holding company. An unnamed Brazilian company has already received $80 million from the European Development Bank for the first phase of the rebuilding of Haiti’s highways. (more…)

June 20th marks World Refugee Day. The day is intended to focus on the fundamental need for protection. As cited on the United Nations web page, for some, this means economic security; for others, protection is freedom from violence and persecution It is then a day in which, we turn our attention to the millions of refugees who live without material, social and legal protection.

“Around the world women, children and men find themselves disconnected from their homes, their communities and their loved ones because they were forced to flee persecution and injustice in their original homeland, the failure to protect the rights of states to protect the rights of refugees is one of the most egregious, ongoing human rights crisis on the planet” said Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network.

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