Hello William Mandel,
You write, Mr. Mandel, that
"The "greatest battles every fought on this planet," by any measure you wish to
use, were those by the Russians in defense against Hitler in World War II. The
Russians lost 27,000,000 lives. That is beyond all comparison with those of
any other country in any war ever fought."
This is Ezili Danto of HLLN and I write you here to respectfully disagree.
Vertierres was the greatest battle ever fought because it created a different
paradigm to rival that of the Euro/US tribes on this planet. But if we are
simply looking at it from the viewpoint of lives lost, I'll go there with you
also. For, how many Kmtyws lost their lives to the eureurasiaan Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade- Estimates range up to 100million lives.
It's the greatest battle, William Mandel, because in the annals of HUMAN
HISTORY, no humans, no sentient beings, SO TERRORIZED, for so long - 300
unendurable years, had ever defeated their tormentors.
Even Spartacus didn't accomplish what the Kmtyws were able to do at
Vertierres. The Haitian Revolution is the only successful revolution of an
enslaved population in WORLD HISTORY.
The example you gave in terms of Russian lives lost is horrendous. And this
Kmtyw woman would never minimize any lost of human life or compete for a
prize in terms of suffering. Suffering is suffering and untenable. But if
you're going there, I'll take the ride, in memory of all the Kmtyw
Ancestors and say let's look at the reality, William Mandel...
How long had the Northern tribes been slaughtering each other in eureurasia before
they took it global - over 2000 year at a minimum!!!
How many of each other do you think they murdered before Hitler came along? How
many during their 100-year war, during the Middle Ages, during the eureurasiaan
witch hunts where they slaughtered their own wives, women, daughters and girl
children in the Church's many anti-superstition campaign based on getting rid
of women power at that time in eureurasia? How many of each other did the eureurasiaan
tribes slaughter during the Spanish Inquisition? What was learnt from these
wars for domination and economic power? Anything? How many of each other did
the French, British, Spaniards, Dutch, et al, terminate before they reached
Ayiti and annihilated the Tainos, brought in enslaved Kmtyws to do work they
wouldn't deign to do and 300 years later, those enslaved beat , IN COMBAT,
the French, the English, the Spanish and then the French at Vertierres to end
the unspeakable torture?
Yes, Vertierres was the greatest battle for human dignity ever fought. But of
course, as the descendants of those brave Kmtyw men and women who first put
liberty into application for all of humanity, you could say William Mandel, we
can't see this any other way. Would slavery of Kmtyws and direct colonization
have ended but for Vertierres? Uhmmm?
We won our independence IN COMBAT against the French, the English, the
Spaniards, a US embargo, and then crushed the French at Vertierres once and for
all. That crushing defeat led also to the rise of the United States as a world
power in contrast to those we defeated so directly and doubling its size with
the Louisiana Purchase. Haiti though, now would face centuries of the eureurasiaan
tribes with their US derivatives coming together as "white" to keep it
contained in poverty and for eureurasiaan cultural supremacy to dominate. And so,
the five Latin American countries that tiny Haiti help liberate in the Americas
from Euro enslavement and colonialization, pressured by the US/Euro "white"
alliance, would not invite Haiti to sit at the equivalent of the first OAS
region meeting. The US would prevent, for over 60 years, with an embargo
similar to the one they have on Cuba right now, any trade with Haiti. France
would not stop trying to re-enslave the Kmtyw who had crushed them, until
they had ushered in ecclesiastic colonialism and forced on Haiti an
Independence Debt that forced Haitians to close all rural schools – and go
back to something like sharecropping as was done to Black Americans after the
Civil War in the US - an Independence debt which the US took over with more
usury interests rates to non-allied Black Haiti and Haiti was compelled to keep
paying and did not finish paying off until 1947. Jefferson paid $15million
dollars for the Louisiana Purchase, an area that made up 13 new US States.
Haiti was forced at gun-point by the EuroUS tribes to pay $150 million ten
times the amount paid for the Louisiana Purchase, for an independence it had
won IN COMBAT after giving 300 years of free labor to the French/Spanish
combined and for an area smaller or equal to the State of Rhode Island...not to
mention that amount kept being re-negotiated at their Northern predator bankers
and Robber Barron's whims, whenever these folks needed to finance something in
the North or elsewhere...
We won't mention the gunboat diplomacy of the Germans, French, et al over the
centuries or the pillage and plunder of Haiti's gold reserves, which the US
Marines flew out of Haiti during the 19-year US occupation of Haiti from 1915
to 1934. Or, the virtual re-enslavement of Haitians, deforestation, stealing
peasant lands for big business, et al... that went on during this reign. Or,
Mr. Mandel how many Haitians were slaughtered by the Americans? I mean whose
counting, right? But understand, Mr. Mandel, the US/Euros still cannot stomach
the significance of the Battle of Vertieres...
But, to quote Michel Sanon great poem on the matter:
********
Who is to tell me when
To celebrate my history?
Who is to tell me
When to dress my wounds
And to reminisce
My trials, my sorrow
When to shed tears
Over my brave children
And to glorify their names?
They suffered and died
Every bloody month
Of the bloody year.
I was born
Of abject inhumanity
With the noble destiny
Of carrying the sword
Of precious humanity
In a New World
Cursed by the West Storm
And raped by the powers
Of greed, wickedness, and death.
I am the mother of martyrs
Of survivors and overcomers.
Alone, I faced the wrath
Of this world's powers...
So, Dessalines descendants continue to fight the US/Euro powers to make stick
the victory at Vertierres...that battle goes on today, William Mandel. How many
Haitians do you think have been slaughtered in the intervening years????
Is it more than 27million since the first Euro/US battle vying for the soul of
the people of the South began? You write, Mr. Mandel, that the "greatest
battles every fought on this planet," by any measure you wish to use, were
those by the Russians in defense against Hitler in World War II. The Russians
lost 27,000,000 lives. That is beyond all comparison with those of any other
country in any war ever fought."
I, sir as Dessalines descendant, respond that you can tell your story, but this
one is our history and we say what is "the greatest battles ever fought on
this planet". And the Haitians who stood on the hill of Vertierres, watching
French general, Rochambeau leave with his dogs come to re-enslave them with
their tails between their legs in DEFEAT, knew that after 300-years of eureurasiaan
enslavement, that that was the greatest battle ever fought. Sorry, we're
telling our story, now. This voice you don't know, because it's been
minimized, vilified and discounted. But not today. This moment has been fought
for for over 500 centuries...
And in today, at this moment, we, Dessalines descendants, respond, Nou La! and
that "the greatest battles ever fought on this planet" by any measure you
wish to use, are those by today and yesterday's Haitian men, children and women
who took up and take up arms against the US/Euro in the so-called New World to
live as independent, Kmtyw, Vodun and free Black peoples without
interference. It's a Goliath and David struggle and the greatest story never
told.
We Haitians have paid and paid and paid the price for our sovereignty and for
peaceful co-existence with the white tribes and their surrounding colonies,
client states and territories. Here's how Sanon, describes it:
"Alone, with my hurting hands
I broke the first link
Of the mighty chain
Of human curse
Called slavery.
Alone on the traitorous hill
Of the New World
I carried the cross of a race
Into this century
Of furious revolution
And industrialization
Refusing to get crucified.
I've been chained
I've been robbed
I've been raped and stabbed
And I have fought back
Fearlessly, continuously..
Alone I have paid and paid.
I have paid the senseless price
I have paid the endless price..."
But, the wrath of Euro/US empire lands in Haiti, again and again and again, the
latest in 2004 to undo Vertierres. But it is and will always be a vain task.
We have no standard war weapons or media machinery or any diplomatic or
military powers to unleash – the tools of combat crawls from OUR BODIES. And
the spirit that runs in our veins that is as old, if not more ancient, than the
sacred land Haiti defends. For, 50-million years ago, when the US land mass was
still under water, the Island of Ayiti existed and Kmtyws who recognize this
space, have always recognized it as home. The miracle is that despite the
Northern tribes' barbarity, intransigence, greed, inhumanity and
impoverishment of Haiti since they got there in 1503, the seemingly meek
peoples of Haiti abd the South, be they Kmtyw-Haitians or the Taino-Haitians
before them, remain known, to one and all as being pure of heart and loving
human beings. Still rising, as Maya Angelou, would say, even amidst the bitter
twisted lies, even within the endless slaughtering to wipe them off the planet.
Why is that? Because death means nothing to the Kmtyws who've lived in
harmony with nature on this planet for so long. And besides, we know, as HLLN
has written - Vertierres cannot be undone..... We'll take being pure at heart
and extending Vodun energies -sacred energies, before all else...
Although, as Michel Sanon, writes that means each Haitian still connected to
Kmt's womb must struggle "Every bloody month of every bloody year,
constantly:
With a burning spear
Stuck in my chest.
Sometimes it weakens me
But I always rise
High above the pain
And the wickedness
Of powerful forces
From near and far
To claim my dignity.
I have friends
Who suck up my blood...
From my wounded heart.
Though today I choose to stand
And stand in pride and love
With my dear family
To celebrate in harmony
Our common history
In the month of February
I was alone when in Vertières
I rose to face the Devil
When hell broke loose
Unleashing its fire storm
With waves of flame rushing
To engulf me whole...
Alone in the vast universe
I froze hell over
And walked on its ashes
To create my own history.
Nobody stood by my side.
I alone remember.
It was the eighteenth day
Of a month called
November.
But, this, this greatest story never told, this Haitian Goliath vs. David
struggle we are living with, its ultimate lesson - ruling metaphor of Haitian
history will be that we burnt the port cities and retreated inland, for when
the time arrives for the world to understand what was held in sacred trust for
all of humanity to reclaim, after the vampires and parasites are marginalized,
their energies balanced and redeemed. Kreyol pale, kreyol konprann. You have
your colonies, we have ours. One day at the Great Crossroads, this battle will
end, and we'll all meet then and included there will even be the irreducible
essences of those 27,000,000 lives the Russians thought lost.
Ezili Danto
Li led li la
November 22, 2008
*
Re: [ezilidanto] Selected comments on recent HLLN posts | Victims of food
crisis -Haitian mothers forced to choose which children will live or die
Saturday, November 22, 2008 12:05 AM
From: William Mandel
To: erzilidanto@yahoo.com (http://us.mc365.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=erzilidanto@yahoo.com)
Cc: ezilidanto@lists.riseup.net (http://us.mc365.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ezilidanto@lists.riseup.net)
The "greatest battles every fought on this planet," by any measure you
wish to use, were those by the Russians in defense against Hitler in
World War II. The Russians lost 27,000,000 lives. That is beyond all
comparison with those of any other country in any war ever fought.
William (Bill) Mandel
***********************************************
Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leaderhip Network
**********************************************
Subject: [ezilidanto] France, Vertieres and Ayisyen Ginen - HLLN Campaign Seven
- Sign the petition demanding France return Haiti's $22 billion for the
Independence Debt
HLLN's Note: Please sign our on-line Petition demanding France pay Haiti back
the $22 billion independence debt
On-line Petition - in English
Restitution to Haiti of French Ransom ($ Billions) Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ] (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restitution4haiti/)
On-line Petition - In French
Restituez Haiti la Ranon Franaise ($ milliards) Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ] (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restitutionpourhaiti/)
On-line Petition - In Kreyol
Fse Lafrans Remt Ayiti Ranson 1825 lan Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ] (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Restitisyonpouayiti/)
At the battle of Vertieres, the Kmtyw-Haitian warriors in Haiti beat
Napoleon armies and General Jean Jacques Dessalines would then set down the law
of the land - that no Frenchmen shall ever set foot again on Kmtyw-Haitian
soil as proprietor and owner. "I want the assets of the country to be equitably
divided" - Jean Jacques Dessalines and for that noble desire, two years later,
in 1806, the Mulatto sons of France left in Haiti assassinated Jean Jacques
Dessalines and his name was forbidden to be spoken for almost 42-years of
their reign in early Haitian history.
Financial, ecclesiastical neocolonialism, buttress by the French embezzlement
of an endless Independence Debt (1825 to 1947) had begun in Haiti with the
assassination of Haiti's founding father, the first foreign-influence coup
d'etat. The struggle for the masses to bring Dessalines equitable society into
application continued... and in 1990, the people of Haiti finally succeeded in
electing their own President and lessening the grip of the Protestant and
Catholic oppressors to make room for the Kreyol language and Vodun spiritual
and healing system, but these same old forces would unseat the Haitian
people's choice and reinstate themselves and their Christian missionaries,
perverted Catholic pedophile priests and so-called educators and NGOs back in
place in Haiti. All, with the intention of destroying Haiti's Vodun culture,
independence and peoples. There was a respite in 1994 with the Clinton return
of President Aristide to office for just one year, but the forces of evil and
intolerance did not go away and the return wasn't without untenable
non-Haitianist compromises. In 2004, 200-years after Haiti's independence, for
the first time, in the annals of Haitian history, French soldiers with the
military help of Canada and the US, landed again in Haiti to disenfranchise
Haiti's masses once again with another coup d'etat against President Aristide.
The first thing the French soldiers did, upon landing in Haiti in full
military gear, was go up to the mountain top at Vertieres where the
Kmtyw-Haitian ancestors had beaten them more than 200-years before, in combat
and stand there, proclaiming to the
starve-through-endless-IMF-free-trade-imposition-Haitians, that they were
RECLAIMING their colony and a new VICTORY. Reportedly, some of these French
soldiers that came with Bush Regime change, even went to a few old plantation
sites in the North of Haiti, pushed the Haitian peasants off the land, at gun
point, and re-claimed the area for their heretofore beaten slave-owning French
foreparents. This happened in 2004 behind the mask of Bush Regime change,
ousting President Aristide in order to bring human rights and good governance
to Haiti!!!! And also, in 2004, Haitians died alone, fighting the return of
Rochambeau's dogs through Bush Regime change, UN occupation and World Bank
neoliberal privatization and endless debt policies that are the causes of the
food crisis, and weak state of governance, right now in Haiti. AND, Between
2004 and 2006, these forces murdered some 14,000 to 20,000 Haitians.... None
of these perishing Haitians will die in vain, just as no matter France's
current illusions because of the support it gets from the Franco-phony Haitian
rich, Vertieres shall never be undone. Ayisyen Ginen, we've metastasized back
on August 14, 1791. There's no cure for France, or any other tyrant in Haiti
looking to undo Kmtyw-Haitian existence and Vodun culture. Nou led, nou la.
Our mobilization has always been stronger than military arms, NGO or
missionary
tyranny.
Honoring the Revolutionary war veterans of Haiti, honoring our Ginen Ancestors
and remembering those Haitians who lost their lives fighting against this
current Euro/US occupation of Haiti, in 2004 HLLN stepped up and committed
never to forget these injustices, to keep them alive and to NEVER stop
demanding that France pay back the $22 billion dollar Independence Debt it
forced an isolated Haiti, with no military allies, to pay before it would
formally stop trying to put its people back into slavery and recognize their
independence. President Jean Bertrand Aristide was the first and only Haitian
president to ever demand repayment of this money. This is one of the prime
reason for France's participation in the 2004 coup d'etat. The Franco-phony
Haitian, Gerald Latortue, whom Bush appointed as Prime Minister in Haiti after
their schock and awe coup-kidnapping, assured France that the debt was VOID.
We wrote then as now, NOT SO. Latortue was not legally competent to denounce
the $22Billion debt owed by France to Haiti.
The demand for Haiti's $22 Billion STANDS.
HLLN's Campaign Seven pursues this debt by using our reach to constantly
remind one in all of that the Haitian people's demand for payment of the
independent debt continues and was not voided by Bush regime change. Haiti has
been an international crime scene since February 2004. All our newly incurred
injustices metered out on the masses of Dessalines descendants by France are
symbolically addressed in Campaign Seven. So, please if you have not already
done so, consider signing HLLN's on-petition demanding France return Haiti's
$22 billion for the Independence Debt and posting a letter of this demand to
your nearest French embassy.
...France must pay back Haiti's ($22billion) independence debt obtained
through gunboat diplomacy and intimidation::skeleton::sniper: