The streets of Port au Prince are always full: with 80% unemployment, people get busy selling things in the streets. Cars hoot their way along the streets making dreadful noise. The people, black and astoundingly beautiful, get mixed with evident signs of poverty. Rubbish is heaped all over the place.
We travelled to Cap-Haitien (Le Cap, as the Haitians call it). It is the economically most important city in the country and it was one of the centre of the slaves evolution. The road is winding and full of pothole. After seven hours we reach our destination and are welcomed to a BO office.
Joining the rally brings tears to the eyes of many of us: wearing their blue BO shirts. Four hundred people were singing in Creole in an African type rhythm . the music echoes in the ample hall: “Greetings, greetings, there are no bourgeois here, there are no bosses here, greetings.”
Sitting on the stage, they keep on singing: “we learned that the bourgeoisie has set up an ambush to kill some of us. Let them come, we are bulls, we are strong”. (.) The reference to the ambush set up by the bourgeoisie is due to the presence of landless workers, two of whom had been killed by the repression unleashed by the Aristide administration to suppress land occupation in 2002.
Toninho introduces the members of the Brazilian representation. They also introduce themselves: trade unions of the industry of soft drinks, o beer, rural workers, landless workers, neighbourhood associations and students. Batay Ouvriye is quite strong in this region. One of the leaders tells us that every First of May they demonstrate marching into all the working class neighbourhoods and often gather as many as ten thousand people. (.)
Toninho reads the letter and speaks of the identity of the struggles theirs and ours; Janira speaks of the struggle of the Landless movement, Land and
