"With the Coup D'etat now, though the people know where these resources are because this book exists, they don't know who these foreign companies are. What they're profit margins are. What the environmental protection rules and regulations to protect them are. Many folks, for instance, in the North talk about losing their property, having people come in with guns and taking over their property."

"The point is, the UN soldier come in, they cordon off the area, put big containers in. And folks tell us that they can't see what is being dug [up], they can't see what's going on. They might stay in that area for a month, they might stay for a few days. Whatever they are doing, the folks that are the authorities cannot explain to their constituents what's going on. And so that's one of the things that's been happening all over Haiti.

All over Haiti.

I have an example of somewhere in the North, a mayor there that I spoke to a while ago, basically said to me; UN troops came into his town, started digging, cordoning off areas, and when he went to them with a delegation of the townspeople, and said, I don't know what you are doing here, I am the mayor I'm the authority here. They said, well listen, we have authority from Port-au-Prince."

Marguerite Laurent/Ezili Dantò: Well, number one, one of our biggest challenges is to tell the world that the powers that are in Haiti at the moment are not there to so-call "protect Haitian security." They are there securing an economic track.

They are there trying to secure their privatization, their neo-liberal agenda, their sweatshops and their use of Haitian resources for their major conglomerates, and Haiti's oil resources.

And as I said five [oil] sites, and that's not even including stuff that's in water [offshore.] So that Haitians are aware of with respect to own country.

[Editor's Note: For instance, Cuban territorial waters flow into Haiti waters.

See, Cuba oil/gas prospects and contract with Brazil for offshore drilling].

We, as an organization spend most of our time actually trying to uncover the information.

We have asked the Bureau of Mines for, let's say, the contracts.

We are ignored, obviously.

We'd like to see the conventions that has to be signed, between the companies, like St. Genevieve and the Bureau des Mines and Energy in Haiti.

We don't get those things.

We are pushing, obviously the various political figures, that are interested in the people's rights, to ask for these contracts.

To find out what's going on. So that's one of the things that we do. But the primary stuff is just to establish that Haiti has resources.

I mean, the colonial narrative is that Haiti is so poor, its a beggar country, and it doesn't have any resources that possibly Canada and these Canadian companies could want to go into Haiti and excavate for. So that's why programs like yours are so important.

Because we get to tell the world that Haiti has gold. As a matter of fact, you know, there was an article that talked about Haiti is littered with gold. That Haiti has copper.

That Haiti has silver.

That Haiti has all these various oil sites.

That behind the UN gun, something is happening.