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In the wake of the successful pushback against the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the Obama administration should listen to the majority of Americans: The United States, including Catholics, is strongly pro-choice.
DN! in the News
Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman joined a panel of journalists, analysts and academics on MSNBC’s "Up w/ Chris Hayes" to discuss topics of the day, ranging from the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Planned Parenthood reversal to the Republican Primaries.
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Part 2: "Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder": New Book Ties Johnson Admin to Che Death
In an extended interview, co-authors Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith discuss the life of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the chilling story behind his murder by the Bolivian military. In their book, "Who Killed Che?" Ratner and Smith draw on previously unpublished U.S. government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in the killing. [includes rush transcript]
Watch a 2011 interview with Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, who is on trial in Spain after right-wing groups objected to his investigation of atrocities committed by supporters of the dictator Francisco Franco. Garzón is known for seeking to indict members of the Bush administration for their role in torturing prisoners.
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Start 2012 off right with a contribution to Democracy Now!
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Democracy Now! reports on the latest developments in Haiti, and former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s historic journey home after seven years in exile in South Africa.
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Is Former Haitian Dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier Off the Hook for Human Rights Crimes?
February 01, 2012 | StoryA Haitian judge announced Monday former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier will face trial for corruption, but will not face any charges for the murders, disappearances, torture and other human rights abuses committed during his 15-year rule because the statute of limitations has expired. "Unless this ruling is overturned on appeal, it’s just going to be another confirmation to people in Haiti that the justice system is always on the side of the rich and the powerful and doesn’t serve even to punish the worst atrocities," says Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch. "For Jean-Claude Duvalier to come back to Haiti and not be prosecuted is a slap in the face to the thousands of people who were killed and tortured under his rule." [includes rush transcript]
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2 Years After Devastating Earthquake, Haiti’s Rebuilding Weighed Down by Legacy of Foreign Meddling
January 13, 2012 | StoryOn the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed roughly 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless, we speak with Randall Robinson, author of "An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President." The United Nations estimates international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake and more than $2 billion in recovery aid over the last two years. But critics say little of the funding made it directly to the Haitian people, instead going to international non-governmental organizations and private companies involved in the relief effort. "I’m not surprised that the reconstruction efforts are not going well," Robinson says, "because I don’t think the United States, officially, ever wanted anything to go well in Haiti." [includes rush transcript]
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Year of Global Uprisings, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street: A Special Look Back at 2011
January 02, 2012 | StoryToday we look back at 2011, a year that saw the U.S. killing of Osama Bin Laden, the ouster of a dictator in Egypt and the death of one in Libya, the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, and the expansion of the secret U.S. drone war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula. As U.S. troops leave Iraq, thousands of private security contractors remain to guard the U.S. embassy—the largest in the world. The Horn of Africa was hit by the region’s worst drought in decades as the devastating impact of extreme weather was felt across the globe, while the world’s most powerful countries continue to refuse to join in a pact to address climate change. However, 2011 may be most remembered as a year of global uprisings. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, millions of people took to the streets to oppose repressive regimes and an unjust economic system. We spend the hour today looking back at the protest movements that shaped 2011. [includes rush transcript]
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Exclusive: 5,000 Haitian Cholera Victims Sue U.N. After Deadly Epidemic Kills 6,000, Sickens 450,000
November 08, 2011 | StoryA lawsuit has been filed on behalf of more than 5,000 Haitians against the United Nations over the cholera outbreak that has further devastated Haiti in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. Some 450,000 Haitians have been sickened, and more than 6,000 have died, since the cholera outbreak erupted in October 2010, just over a year ago. It is widely believed the cholera was brought to Haiti by a battalion of Nepalese troops with the U.N. peacekeeping force. In a complaint to the United Nations, the attorneys for the Haitian victims also accuse the organization of reckless failure in containing the outbreak, arguing it is "directly attributable to the negligence, gross negligence, recklessness and deliberate indifference" for the health and lives of Haitians. "Time after time, the response has been to deny the allegations. We’re hoping that this is the case that’s too big to fail, that the evidence against the United Nations is so overwhelming here that the U.N. will have no choice but to finally take responsibility for its malfeasance," says attorney Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. "What we are asking for, what our clients are asking for, is the U.N. and the international community to step up and to give Haiti the sanitation infrastructure it needs to stop the epidemic." [includes rush transcript]
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A Fateful Day: 9/11 Also Marks Important Anniversaries in India, Guatemala, Haiti and Attica, NY
September 08, 2011 | StoryOn the anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we look back at several national and international events linked to that day. This year on September 11, India will mark the 105th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi launching the modern nonviolent resistance movement. We play part of a 2003 interview with Gandhi’s grandson, Arun. On September 11, 1990, renowned Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack was assassinated in Guatemala City. She had been stalked for two weeks prior to her death by a U.S.-backed military death squad in retaliation for her work to expose and document the destruction of rural indigenous communities by U.S.-backed state forces and allied paramilitary groups. We play part of a 2003 interview with Myrna’s sister Helen Mack, who has fought tirelessly to bring justice to people killed by high-ranking Guatemalan officials in the armed forces. On September 11, 1993, in the midst of the U.S.-backed coup in Haiti, Antoine Izméry was dragged out of a church by coup forces and murdered in broad daylight. He had been commemorating a massacre of parishioners at the Saint-Jean Bosco Church that had occurred five years earlier on September 11, 1988. Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide narrowly escaped death in that attack, and later became president of Haiti. We play an excerpt from a 2004 Democracy Now! interview with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide about the attack. We also play a portion of the film "Ghosts of Attica," about Frank "Big Black" Smith, a prisoner who played a prominent role in the September 9, 1971, Attica prison rebellion and who was tortured by the troops who crushed the uprising days later. [includes rush transcript]
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Video of U.N. Peacekeepers’ Sexual Assault of Haitian Prompts Calls to Focus on Post-Quake Rebuilding
September 06, 2011 | StoryThe commander of the Uruguayan Navy’s United Nations mission in Haiti has been dismissed after the circulation of a video that allegedly shows Uruguayan peacekeepers sexually assaulting an 18-year-old Haitian man. Haitian President Michel Martelly condemned the alleged abuse yesterday and said the victim had been subjected to "collective rape." The attack occurred in July, but graphic cell phone video of the alleged attack only surfaced in recent days. This latest episode follows others by U.N. forces. In December 2007, 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were deported from Haiti following charges of sexual abuse of under-age girls. In 2005, U.N. troops went on the rampage in Cité Soleil, one of the poorest areas in Port-au-Prince, killing as many as 23 people, including children. Yesterday, there were demonstrations in Port Salut, the seaside town in Haiti where the incident is alleged to have occurred. We go to Port Salut to speak with journalist Ansel Herz, who broke the story. "Some people want MINUSTAH, the entire force in the country—it’s now about 12,000 soldiers—to simply leave," says Herz. "Others are asking that they transform their mission from one of military so-called 'peacekeeping' into development—building roads, building schools, helping create the infrastructure that Haiti needs to get back up on its feet after the earthquake." [includes rush transcript]
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Haiti: WikiLeaks Cables Expose How U.S. Blocked Aristide’s Return After 2004 Coup
August 11, 2011 | StoryA new exposé on Haiti reveals how the United States led a vast international campaign to prevent former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from returning to his country while he was exiled in South Africa. It’s part of a series of reports by The Nation magazine and the Haitian weekly Haïti Liberté that draw from almost 2,000 U.S. diplomatic cables on Haiti released by WikiLeaks. The cables show that high-level U.S. and U.N. officials coordinated a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from "gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti." The United States and its allies allegedly poured tens of millions of dollars into unsuccessful efforts to slander Aristide as a drug trafficker, human rights violator, and heretical practitioner of voodoo. Another recent exposé based on the cables details how Haiti’s unelected de facto authorities worked alongside foreign officials to integrate at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country’s police force throughout 2004 and 2005. The WikiLeaks cables reveal just how closely Washington and the United Nations oversaw the formation of Haiti’s new police force and signed off on the integration of paramilitaries who had previously targeted Haiti’s poor majority and democratically elected governments. We speak to Haïti Liberté editor Kim Ives, whose latest article for TheNation.com is "WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files." [includes rush transcript]
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Dr. Paul Farmer on Haiti After the Earthquake: “How Can We Do a Better Job of Cleaning Up This Mess?”
July 14, 2011 | StoryEighteen months ago this week, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people, injured hundreds of thousands, and left more than one million homeless. At the time of the earthquake, Haiti was already the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, and now it is still struggling to recover. We spend the hour with Dr. Paul Farmer, who has been working in Haiti for nearly three decades, and since 2009 has served as the U.N. deputy special envoy for Haiti working under former President Bill Clinton. More than 20 years ago, Dr. Farmer helped found the charity Partners in Health to provide free medical care in central Haiti, and now provides aid to nine additional countries around the world. He is the author of several books on Haiti and just published a new book titled "Haiti After the Earthquake." [includes rush transcript]
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Dr. Paul Farmer on How U.S.-Backed Destabilization Undermines Haitian Democracy — and Public Health
July 14, 2011 | StoryDr. Paul Farmer, who was worked in Haiti for nearly three decades and now serves as the the U.N. deputy special envoy for Haiti, discusses how U.S.-backed coups and neoliberal programs have not only subverted Haiti’s democracy, but also seriously weakened its public health. Dr. Farmer addresses the U.S. influence in Haiti in the context of recent WikiLeaks disclosures of classified U.S. diplomatic cables that documented the United States supported recent elections, despite the exclusion of Haiti’s most popular political group, the Famni Lavalas. The cables also documented that the United States advocated behind the scenes to block an effort to raise the minimum wage in Haiti. [includes rush transcript]
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Dr. Paul Farmer on Bill Clinton’s Apology for Devastating Haitian Rice Farming: "A Great Relief"
July 14, 2011 | StoryShortly after becoming the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on imported subsidized U.S. rice during his time in office. The policy wiped out Haitian rice farming, seriously damaged Haiti’s ability to be self-sufficient, and contributed to Haiti’s forced urbanization that likely increased the earthquake toll. Dr. Paul Farmer, who serves as Clinton’s deputy in Haiti, says, "I felt a sense of great relief just at hearing him say that. I feel grateful for it as an American." [includes rush transcript]
