Hell to Haiti 2

[einniv]

Edited to fix bad link oops.

This article is a nice summary of the last several years.
There is too much good stuff to clip so I will summarize in my own words.

When reading some of this I am reminded of the video "The Myth of the Liberal Media" (which features Noam Chomsky). They document the following.

When the Sandinistas won in their election , election monitors reported that the elections were largely legit. Not perfect but compared with other countries in the region a very honest affair.

Raygun didn't like that much so he declared it a Soviet style sham.
It was so successful and the media played along so well that when the next elections rolled around the media reported it as if the first election had never happened at all!

Quote/Jennings: "This Sunday when Nicaragua votes in its first free election in a decade"
Quote/another TV reporter: "They don't know much about Democracy but then neither do most Nicaraguans. Because no one here can remember the last time there were free elections"

Pretty amazing. Well at least we have progressed some since then and the truth is more available for those that seek it.


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5070

---

• "Haiti, again, is ablaze", Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, writes: "Almost nobody, however, understands that today's chaos was made in Washington - deliberately, cynically, and steadfastly. History will bear this out."
  

---

• Sachs visited Aristide in early 2001.
  
• "Haiti was clearly desperate: the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere,..."
  
• Sachs spoke to IMF etc to see about aid and discovered that due to pressures from the US they would not be releasing funds due to irregularities in the 2000 legislative elections.
  

• Aristide elected in an indisputable landslide in 1990
  
• Results of 2000 legislative elections not in doubt. His party won in a landslide.
  
  • A range of political parties, including Aristide's Lavalas party, contested elections in May.
    
  • 200 international observers assessed the elections as satisfactory
    
  • Peter Hallward of King's College London comments in the Guardian:
    "An exhaustive and convincing report by the International Coalition of Independent Observers concluded that 'fair and peaceful elections were held' in 2000, and by the standard of the presidential elections held in the US that same year they were positively exemplary."
    
  • After Aristide's party had won 16 out of 17 seats, Organization of American States (OAS) contested the methodology used to calculate voting percentages , which neither they or the US had questioned leading up to the elections.
    
  • Methodology was contested in 8 of the 7,500 positions filled (the senate seats). Aristide convinced 7 of the 8 to resign, even though one has to wonder why they didn't question the methods before the election instead of after they lost.
    
  • "Members of Haiti's elite, long hostile to Aristide's progressive economic agenda, saw the controversy as an opportunity to derail his government." (Susskind, 'Haiti - Insurrection in the Making, A MADRE Backgrounder', www.zmag.org, February 25, 2004)
    
  • "On November 26, 2000, Aristide was nevertheless re-elected president with his Lavalas Party winning 90% of the vote.
    
    Haiti's elections may have been imperfect but, given Haiti's history of appalling dictatorships and violence, they marked a major step forwards in democracy."
    
    
  • Barbara Lee: "It appears that the US is aiding and abetting the attempt to violently topple the Aristide government. With all due respect, this looks like 'regime change'... Our actions - or inaction - may be making things worse." (Quoted Anthony Fenton, 'Media vs. reality in Haiti' February 13, 2004)

• Since 2001 Human rights organizations have documented murder, by the opposition, of Government Officials and destruction of state property (doctor and police stations)
  
• 2000 poll conducted by the US showed only 8% support among the "opposition"
  
• Rebels linked to GW Bush through the groups Convergency for Democracy and Group of 184
  
• 184 represented by Andy Apaid supporter of the former Duvalier dictatorship
  
• According to Council on Hemispheric Affairs: "only policy goal seems to be reconstituting the army and the implementation of rigorous Structural Adjustment Programs".
  
• "Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti." (Tom Reeves, 'The US double game in Haiti', Znet, www.zmag.org, February 16, 2004)
  
• Two weeks before the coup Washington starting making arrangements for new refugees to arrive at Guantanamo
  

---

Aristide has presided over human rights abuses, including corruption and attempts to suppress dissent and intimidate opponents. However, journalist Tom Reeves puts the title of Gumbel's article into perspective:

"Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti." (Tom Reeves, 'The US double game in Haiti', Znet, www.zmag.org, February 16, 2004)

---

"Under his leadership, the Haitian government has made major investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure... The government [recently] doubled the minimum wage from 36 to 70 gourdes per day, despite strong opposition from the business community... President Aristide has also made health care and education national priorities. More schools were built in Haiti between 1994 and 2000 than between 1804 and 1994. The government expanded school lunch and school bus programs and provides a 70% subsidy for schoolbooks and uniforms."

[KG]

1. but, gee, the coup supporters on DU said aristide was a bad guy

and deserved to be overthrown by a bloody US sponsored coup lead by murderous thugs like guy phillipe.

used to think DUers objected to coup. they seemed plenty upset by the bushco coup of 2k.

[Isome]

2. No kidding...

And I just read where someone thinks we played no role in the conditions that led to the coup. Gee, we're just all around innocent on this one. Roger Noriega and Otto Reich's past activities have no bearing on what our government did semi-covertly... not a bit.

Hell, I'm sure all these coup celebrants already know the deal about NOriega and Reich. I'm sure they know all about NED and how Bush publicly spoke of increasing it's funding... though it is officially an NGO, it received tax dollars.

[ithacan]

3. hey, stop it! Uncle Dick just said that Aristide is a bad guy, and

that the US did not oust him!

Uncle Dick would never lie. So stop saying that!!!

[einniv]

7. Seems like the dictator supporters are short a few facts

And not really interested in discussing the patterns I mentioned in my "opening remark".

[KharmaTrain]

4. Questions To Haiti Watchers & Tin Foil Hatters...

I've paid on & off attention to Haiti...as I'm sure many in this country (if you care to be informed) have since the Duvallier days. This desitute country is a living hell that has been exploited over and over again, and looks like a new chapter in repression is about to begin.

Two questions that I'd like to ask that links the * regime to the actions taking place.

The "rebel" movement seemed to have sprung up overnight and was well organized in taking over the government. Thanks to other great DU posts, fingers have been pointed right into Chenneyville and the many Neo-Cons and PNACers who have meddled in Haiti and the Carribbean in the 80's. Is there a way to find a connection and even a paper trail (oh wouldn't that be sweet???) between members of the Washington Regime and the new one in Port-Au-Prince. I'm sure there's gotta be a money trail going through Southern Florida on this one.

In the overall scheme of things, Haiti is small change to the many other crimes this regime has committed...and in many cases, the American people think it's our right to manipulate regimes in our hemipshere...but, just like the Nixon links to the Chile revolution, finding the connections here can expose the treachery this regime will stoop to and then give us the opportunity to show how this is used against Americans just as much as Haitians.

[einniv]

6. Hey , its Bush-Toast. My Fav!!

Love the avatar.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Thanks...PM if you'd like one for future use.

Right now I think the one you have is of big importance as well!

[Tinoire]

9. The money trail is to USAID, NED & IRI

Council on Hemispheric Affairs Press Release
June 13, 2002

Council on Hemispheric Affairs
1444 I St. NW Suite 211
Washington DC 20005
[phone]
www.coha.org

For Immediate Release
Thursday, 6/13/02

As the world looks elsewhere, Haiti is fast running out of time. As every aspect of its nationhood unravels due to its empty larder, Washington continues its policy of economic denial, disguised to induce reform to the Aristide administration, but really aimed at discrediting its political stature, as well as that of the ruling Lavalas Family Party. The key players in this conspiracy have been Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, the International Republican Institute, Senator Jessie Helms, U.S. operatives in the OAS, as well as the White House's backdoor foreign policy fund-laundering operation, the controversial National Endowment for Democracy. Like its Cuba policy, the White House has been using a script first drafted by the Clinton administration, which unfortunately views President Aristide not as Haiti's most precious political asset, but as a dangerous leftist rogue who must be contained and made to face viable putative political opposition where none, in reality, exists. While sedulously playing dirty politics itself, opposition members accuse Aristide's followers of not abiding by the country's constitution.

<snip>

The IRI and the Convergence

At the root of this unforgiving policy, as well as the hard-hearted freezing of nearly $100 million in additional IDB funds, is the International Republican Institute (IRI) and its Hill allies. Under the philosophical guidance of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), this rightwing operation, financed by the paper funds laundered through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has orchestrated a sweeping embargo of Western aid for the island.

In January of 2001, Mr. Ira Kurzban, general counsel in the United States for the Aristide administration, claimed that the IRI facilitated the allocation of $3 million of NED funds to the Convergence.On February 2 of last year, The Washington Post reported, "The (Democratic) Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the International Republican Institute . . . it includes former backers of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 and terrorized the country for three years." Also, Haiti's Ex-Foreign Minister Fritz Longchamp, in a 1999 interview with the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, charged that the Convergence was "being coached by the Washington-based IRI, headed in Port-Au-Prince by a Haitian-born operative, whose family was closely involved with military strongman, General Cedras."

By directing the Convergence to maintain the political stalemate on the island, the IRI has successfully manipulated the international financial and political institutions designed to protect and preserve impoverished nations such as Haiti. This goal has been attained by backing the Convergence, which many island specialists believe is responsible for sanctioning repeated acts of violence on the island, including the probable authorship of December 17's attack on the National Palace. This offensive resulted in the death of several loyalist guards, but was repelled in an even more convincing fashion than was seen in the recent coup in Venezuela. The people's fierce patriotism and devotion to Aristide, however, is facing the merciless test of hunger. Unless Haitians are thrown a lifeline, the democratic process could be sacrificed to Washington's longstanding policy of propitiating the Convergence and their foreign overseer, the IRI.

In effect, the IRI is granting the Convergence—a shrinking faction on the country's political scene—de facto veto power over Aristide's legitimate and constitutional authority, as well as the country's political future. This strategy is designed to facilitate Aristide's downfall through depriving the Haitian leader of sufficient resources to rule. Due to its members' close working relationship with Washington, the Convergence's directors are, in effect, co-rulers of the country, in spite of their lack of a popular base of supporters.

The Convergence delivered a virtual ultimatum—designed to prolong the already mired negotiations—calling for the annulment of what they term a flawed election in May of 2000. An American delegation led by Congressman John Conyers of the CBC, however, witnessed the contested balloting, which it described as "a high turnout very little election related violence . . . The democratic process worked exceptionally well." Aristide did force the resignation of those senators over a year ago, but the Convergence still refuses to negotiate, content to work on advancing its policy of economic asphyxiation against the Haitian president.


<snip>

This analysis was prepared by Andrew Blandford, COHA research group.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policymakers."

http://www.haitireborn.org/campaigns/lhl/coha-press-release-6-13-2002.php

====

The National Endowment for Democracy, in conjunction with the Agency for International Development, gave $189,000 to several civil groups including

• the Haitian Center for the Defense of Rights and Freedom, headed by Jean-Jacques Honorat -- who became the prime minister in the coup government.
  
  
• In the years prior to the coup, the NED also gave more than $500,000 to the Haitian Institute for Research and Development, allied with the U.S. favorite Marc GBazin, former World Bank executive.
  
  
• Another recipient of NED largesse was Radio Soleil, run by the Catholic Church in a manner calculated not to displease the dictatorship of the day. "During the 1991 coup--according to the Rev. Hugo Triest, a former station director-- the station refused to air a message from Aristide....
  
  Source: William Blum, Haiti 1986-1994: Who Will Rid Me of this Turbulent Priest?"excerpted from the book, Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

The International Republican Institute (IRI), a NED subsidiary, has been active in so-called `democracy enhancement' since 1995.

• This April, after months of organising meetings and conferences, its efforts bore fruit when 26 small right wing, Duvalierist, and what have been described as "ex-Lavalas opportunist" political parties formed the Haitian Conference of Political Parties (CHPP).
  
  
• Dupuy characterised the activities of the IRI as an attempt to "peddle a `democracy' that is not a real popular consultation but an exercise in propaganda and advertising in which they transform the electoral process into one between those who have money and those who don't." The IRI is just one of a number of organisations that will receive money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) which is engaged in a ten-year programme entitled `More Genuinely Inclusive Democratic Government.' In its submission to the US Congress for funding for Haiti for the financial year 1999, USAID requested some $170 million, of which $38 million will be allocated to `Democracy'.
  
  
• Other recipients of the `Democracy' funding include the International Criminal Investigations Training and Assistance Programme, an institution founded by the FBI in 1986, and run by the US Justice and State departments, which is training the new Haitian police force; the US law firm, Checci and Company, which is running the judicial reform programme; and the America's Development Foundation (ADF), which since the late 1980s in Haiti has channelled funds from USAID and NED to right wing trade unions, conservative media outfits, and apologists for the 1991-4 coup regime, and now concentrates on "strengthening democratic values and processes" among civil society organisations, and `helping' newly elected councillors and mayors.
  
  
• Working alongside the IRI and ADF in the task of `grooming' Haiti's nascent democracy, and also receiving USAID funding, is another organisation, Associates in Rural Development, known in Haiti as Asosye. The particular focus for Asosye is the system for decentralised local democracy based on municipal and rural councils and assemblies. This system was created by the 1987 Constitution in an attempt to provide a counter-weight to the excessive control exerted by the central government in the capital, but elections for these positions have yet to be run in full.
  
• Asosye is well-placed to bring its influence to bear over these potentially important local offices as it is no less than a reincarnation under a different name of the widely-discredited, `democracy enhancement' project, known as PIRED. During the early 1990s, and particularly during the three year coup period, PIRED pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into popular organisations, labour unions, peasant groups, foundations, and human rights groups. PIRED also promoted the US refugee asylum processing programme, through which at least 60,000 grassroots militants were interviewed extensively about their activities, enabling the US government to create a detailed database of the democratic movement which many speculate has been used for more than immigration matters. A spokesperson for a platform of Haitian NGOs and popular organisations said he believed Asosye will use this information to buy off local grassroots leaders across the country.
  
  
• The importance of the local councils and assemblies is linked not only to their potential to control political and economic developments independently of the central government, but also because, according to the Constitution, they are empowered to choose the members of the Electoral Council that is tasked with organising electoral contests at all levels. For Dupuy, the Electoral Council is the key to the looming struggle for political power at the national level between, on one side, the new anti-neoliberal party of former President Aristide, and on the other, the OPL, the party currently in a majority in the Parliament, and the new right wing coalition, the CHPP. "The OPL and the coalition realise that if they do not control the electoral machinery then they are out of business."
  
  
• Former Prime Minister under President Aristide, Claudette Werleigh, told Haiti Briefing that she saw the presence of the US-funded agencies in the countryside as part of a medium to long term strategy. "I would not be surprised if there are people who are asking them for their help. They say they offer a service and when people don't have the basic infrastructure or money I can understand that people don't even see the dangers that you or I do." Some Haitians do however see the danger. The leader of the Anti- neoliberal bloc of MPs, Jasmin Joseph, said "IRI encourages impunity. It is an agent of US imperialism." Independent MP, Alix Fils-Aime called for the IRI to be ejected from the country, and referring to its role in creating the CHPP, said, "You cannot have democracy with anti-democrats."
  
  
• In July supporters of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas broke up a conference organised by the IRI in the town of St. Marc. (See IRI's write-up of the event.) In September popular organisations invited to an IRI meeting in the city of Aux Cayes walked out when they were asked to fill out questionnaires detailing their political activities and affiliations. They denounced the "dubious methods of the IRI" and demanded its expulsion from the country.

Source: Haiti Support Group, "Old Tricks, New Dog: US "Democracy Enhancement", in "This Week in Haiti", Wed, December 22-29, 1998 * Vol. 16, No. 40 (the English section of HAITI PROGRES newsweekly.) For information on other news in French and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100, (fax) 718-434-5551 or email at [e-mail].

Reference anything from these pages that you wish; the more sites that contain this material, the more it will enter into public consciousness and make a positive difference for change.

http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/ned.htm

=============

Here's the google search for more}[br /

[Tinoire]

10. Here's the entire Press Release

Council on Hemispheric Affairs Press Release

June 13, 2002
Council on Hemispheric Affairs
1444 I St. NW Suite 211
Washington DC 20005
[phone]
www.coha.org
For Immediate Release
Thursday, 6/13/02
02.15
By Ignoring Island's Suffering, U.S.'s Frivolous Haiti Policy Invites Approaching Catastrophe

• Haiti continues to sink further into poverty, as illustrated by the nation's accelerated potable water and healthcare crises. Recent activity in Washington indicates a renewed urgency amongst congressional Democrats and international agencies to cope with its plight.
  
• H.C.R. 382, "New Partnership for Haiti," sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, calls for an end to the aid moratorium and the termination of present U.S. policies steeped in negativity.
  
• $500 million in loans and grants to Haiti have been withheld by international banks due to the political polarization brought about by Washington's Haiti policy, with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid remaining in jeopardy. The international wing of the Republican Party (IRI) and Bush's White House appear to be conspiring against the hemisphere's poorest nation.
  
• The OAS begins yet another round of negotiations between the Haitian government and the loose Convergence coalition of IRI-backed opposition members, whose only power lies in its policy of non-negotiation and the proxy influence over Washington's Aristide-bashers.
  
• The U.S. insists on elevated electoral and democratic standards for Haiti—a nation obviously unable to reach them—compared to what it asks of other, far less democratic, yet more favored nations, like Saudi Arabia.
  
• While Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and U2's Bono traveled to the other side of the world to investigate the possible funding of poverty stricken nations worthy of U.S. help, the Bush administration continues to neglect abject poverty in Haiti, which lies in its own backyard.
  
• Haiti's severe health problems will inevitably lead to another mass exodus from the island, like in the early 1990s, when thousands of Haitians headed for Florida, where they were greeted by a policy of instant interdiction and repatriation. Unlike the immigration arrangements that reflect the power of Miami's influential Cuban-American community, there is no 20,000 annual immigrant quota established for Haiti.

As the world looks elsewhere, Haiti is fast running out of time. As every aspect of its nationhood unravels due to its empty larder, Washington continues its policy of economic denial, disguised to induce reform to the Aristide administration, but really aimed at discrediting its political stature, as well as that of the ruling Lavalas Family Party. The key players in this conspiracy have been Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, the International Republican Institute, Senator Jessie Helms, U.S. operatives in the OAS, as well as the White House's backdoor foreign policy fund-laundering operation, the controversial National Endowment for Democracy. Like its Cuba policy, the White House has been using a script first drafted by the Clinton administration, which unfortunately views President Aristide not as Haiti's most precious political asset, but as a dangerous leftist rogue who must be contained and made to face viable putative political opposition where none, in reality, exists. While sedulously playing dirty politics itself, opposition members accuse Aristide's followers of not abiding by the country's constitution.

Water Crisis Marks a New Low Point in Haiti's Breakdown

During May, Haitians experienced a new nadir in their free fall into famine and misery. In addition to the country's routine political and economic woes, its people now struggle for survival on an island whose arability can be compared to that of the moon, as a lethal water shortage triggers a run on alarmingly short supplies. Meanwhile, another Jobian affliction has struck the island, as recent severe floods killed at least 20. Haiti's natural habitat is fast turning into an expanse of desolate and eroded terrain that will soon become completely unfertile, leaving its people even more susceptible to unyielding destitution. As the Pan-American Health Organization reports, "No city has a public sewerage system, and there only are isolated wastewater treatment units throughout the country. Solid waste management is a serious problem; bad excreta disposal practices are polluting almost all 18 water sources supplying Port-au-Prince." The leading cause of death in Haiti is disease spread through contaminated water.
The water panic has worsened an already startling situation, forcing residents to spend, on average, nearly a tenth of their already appallingly meager income of $1 a day on such a fundamental staple as water. Because of its scarcity and inflated price, less than half of Haiti's population consumes potable water. Meanwhile, due to the U.S. Treasury Department's virtual veto power on its board of directors, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) refuses to allocate a low-interest loan of $54 million meant to improve Haiti's access to clean water, despite the fact that its charter specifically forbids political meddling.

H.C.R. 382: "New Partnership for Haiti"

During May 22-24, activists protested Washington's anti-Haiti sanctions in demonstrations on Capitol Hill. On this occasion, critics of the administration's current policy called for the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 382, entitled "New Partnership for Haiti," which Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced to the House on April 18 on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)—whose members traditionally advocate a fair deal for Haiti. This resolution proposes a halt to the U.S.-orchestrated block on existing aid commitments to the island nation. The Caribbean regional body Caricom, as well as multiple human rights and healthcare organizations, already have passed similar resolutions calling for the immediate dispatch of assistance to the beleaguered nation. Only the U.S. Congress and the White House now stand in the way of lifting the virtual embargo against humanitarian aid to the languishing populace. Unfortunately, considering the fact that the resolution remains stalled in committee, and with Congress sharply divided along party lines, it is dubious that it will ever reach the floor of Congress, unless urgent action by the public is taken.
Statistics cited in this pending resolution help illustrate the hopeless straits of today's Haitian society. Last April, only an estimated 40% of Haitians had access to potable water. Due to a lack of facilities and extreme erosion, even heavy rains have failed to increase water supplies, causing only damaging floods. Meanwhile, when Haitians inevitably become ill due to the steady intake of contaminated water, only 1 in 10,000 has access to a physician. Finally, as if the nation was not already in the most dire of conditions, HIV and AIDS infections are rapidly increasing to epidemic proportions, infecting over 300,000. According to one source, deaths as a result of such infections have led to an orphan population of more than 163,000.

A Web of Death: Poverty, Healthcare and HIV in Haiti

Dr. Paul Farmer, Harvard medical professor and celebrated director of Haiti's Zanmi Lasante clinic, notes the close connection between poverty and the island's cataclysmic HIV epidemic. As the flow of international funds has been cut to a drip, Dr. Farmer has seen the number of untreated patients in Haiti multiply at an unprecedented pace: "I had worried about 60-70,000 patients for the year. Now it'll likely be well over 120,000. The blocked loans are for health, water, and education. It's insane for the richest country in the world to hold up financing of these projects in one of the poorest."
A recent $66 million Global Fund contribution to NGOs in Haiti battling HIV does nothing for preventative healthcare, and a highly touted IDB aid package to fight AIDS was never even delivered. The island's malnourished citizenry, Dr. Farmer argues, is too vulnerable to diseases of all kinds for HIV treatment funds to bring about profound effects. Only through investments in the countryside's water, clinical and educational systems, such as those that the Lavalas Family Party government has initiated, will long-term healthcare goals be reached for the predominantly rural Haitian families.

The Ironic U.S. Role as Facilitator of Haitian Poverty

Huge sums of bilateral aid are now being denied Haiti due to the recalcitrance of the White House and other opponents of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as well as by other U.S.-influenced donor nations. This is owing to Washington's unremitting hostility to Aristide and his Lavalas Family Party rule. The Republicans leading the charge against him, in this rabidly partisan battle, argue that USAID already delivers sufficient, if minimum, funds to Haiti. Last year's $73 million released to provide emergency rations for throngs of starving Haitians, however, is scheduled to be slashed this year to a trifling $20 million, based on remarks made by Secretary of State Colin Powell at June's OAS General Assembly in Barbados. Moreover, the Quixote Center, a Haitian advocacy organization, maintains that U.S. assistance often ends up as consultancies to foreign nationals, in foreign financial accounts of U.S. venders or in accounts held by the tiny minority of wealthy Haitian nationals. A USAID official in Haiti recently told visitors that "79 cents of every USAID dollar worldwide is actually spent in the U.S.," when such funds are eventually disbursed.
A total of over $500 million in approved international loans and grants have been blocked under the guise of demands made by Aristide's enemies that they be frozen until a political consensus can be reached in Haiti between the legitimate, democratically-based administration and a loose, largely discredited coalition of oppositional factions, the Democratic Convergence.
The real issue at stake, however, is the status of privatization of public facilities on the island. International financial institutions—true to their unbudging formulae—have conditioned all development assistance on the implementation of structural adjustment policies in order to open up Haiti's economy and increase the exportation of raw materials such as sugar. While sugarcane grows in the island's fields, starving families are forced to buy "Domino sugar," processed duty free in the U.S. to support over-consumption and retard Haiti's economy. The IDB claims that no loans can be sent to Haiti simply because the country is in arrears, but the State Department has made it clear that the noose will be loosened only if its agenda is met.

The IRI and the Convergence

At the root of this unforgiving policy, as well as the hard-hearted freezing of nearly $100 million in additional IDB funds, is the International Republican Institute (IRI) and its Hill allies. Under the philosophical guidance of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), this rightwing operation, financed by the paper funds laundered through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has orchestrated a sweeping embargo of Western aid for the island.
In January of 2001, Mr. Ira Kurzban, general counsel in the United States for the Aristide administration, claimed that the IRI facilitated the allocation of $3 million of NED funds to the Convergence. On February 2 of last year, The Washington Post reported, "The (Democratic) Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the International Republican Institute . . . it includes former backers of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 and terrorized the country for three years." Also, Haiti's Ex-Foreign Minister Fritz Longchamp, in a 1999 interview with the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, charged that the Convergence was "being coached by the Washington-based IRI, headed in Port-Au-Prince by a Haitian-born operative, whose family was closely involved with military strongman, General Cedras."
By directing the Convergence to maintain the political stalemate on the island, the IRI has successfully manipulated the international financial and political institutions designed to protect and preserve impoverished nations such as Haiti. This goal has been attained by backing the Convergence, which many island specialists believe is responsible for sanctioning repeated acts of violence on the island, including the probable authorship of December 17's attack on the National Palace. This offensive resulted in the death of several loyalist guards, but was repelled in an even more convincing fashion than was seen in the recent coup in Venezuela. The people's fierce patriotism and devotion to Aristide, however, is facing the merciless test of hunger. Unless Haitians are thrown a lifeline, the democratic process could be sacrificed to Washington's longstanding policy of propitiating the Convergence and their foreign overseer, the IRI.
In effect, the IRI is granting the Convergence—a shrinking faction on the country's political scene—de facto veto power over Aristide's legitimate and constitutional authority, as well as the country's political future. This strategy is designed to facilitate Aristide's downfall through depriving the Haitian leader of sufficient resources to rule. Due to its members' close working relationship with Washington, the Convergence's directors are, in effect, co-rulers of the country, in spite of their lack of a popular base of supporters.
The Convergence delivered a virtual ultimatum—designed to prolong the already mired negotiations—calling for the annulment of what they term a flawed election in May of 2000. An American delegation led by Congressman John Conyers of the CBC, however, witnessed the contested balloting, which it described as "a high turnout very little election related violence . . . The democratic process worked exceptionally well." Aristide did force the resignation of those senators over a year ago, but the Convergence still refuses to negotiate, content to work on advancing its policy of economic asphyxiation against the Haitian president.

The Interminable OAS-sponsored Negotiations

As the Organization of American States (OAS) makes its twentieth visit to Haiti, few analysts see any grounds for predicting success. While the Convergence represents the IRI's political objectives by deepening the country's schism, the OAS and its weak Secretary General Cesar Gavaria falter as allegedly non-biased mediators, ending up simply pandering to U.S. mandates. In fact, one key OAS figure, U.S. ambassador Roger Noriega, was a former Helms staffer and a venerable and lethal opponent of Aristide's.
Like Aristide, the OAS also has been unable to accomplish the goal assigned to it due to a lack of international assistance. Section nineteen of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Report cites a lack of resources as the cause behind the non-functioning of Haiti's inefficient judicial institutions. The paltry $20,000 in humanitarian aid that the OAS spared the island in response to its recent floods—scarcely enough to pay for the annual maintenance cost of Secretary General Gaviria's chauffeured limo—will hardly launch the recovery process.

The White House's Hypocrisy When it Comes to Haiti

As the Haitian populace becomes increasingly desperate, it is almost inevitable that a mass exodus to the U.S.—similar to that of the early 1990s—will reoccur. Although President Bush specifically vowed not to punish Haiti for its inability to effectively curb drug trafficking, he stands by while the State Department's veteran Aristide-bashers dictate Caribbean policy. Bush's lack of experience in regional affairs in the absence of a feel for Latin American policymaking—which is also the case with Secretary of State Powell—leaves him with neither an interest nor a comprehension of hemispheric complexities, except for simple-minded terrorism scenarios.
In a June 3 interview during the OAS conference in Barbados, Powell acknowledged that Haiti "needs the assistance of the international financial community, the international financial institutions; but it is difficult to provide that kind of aid until there is political stability," thus finding his reasoning trapped in a Cartesian circle, because it is his agency that prevents such stability to be achieved. Ironically, at the very same conference, the OAS issued a statement commending the Haitian government's efforts in negotiations, and anticipated that Aristide could look ahead to the "resumption of normal economic cooperation."
While the U.S. pours funds into achieving conflict resolutions in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, it holds unrealistically high, if dogmatic standards for Haiti, as if this star-crossed land were just another Sweden or Switzerland, rather than the epicenter of poverty in the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile, as the U.S. shuns any form of cooperation with the Aristide government over what, at most, must be seen as modest electoral blemishes rather than master scandals, the U.S. warmly embraces nations like Saudi Arabia, which do not even hold elections, but nonetheless command Washington's petro-induced sympathies. Evidently, economic opportunism, rather than irrational ideology (as is the case when it comes to Haiti) is the main propellant of U.S. foreign policy, and not necessarily objective democratic standards.

Haitian Political Asylum Seekers Automatically Detained

Double standards characterize every aspect of U.S. policy towards Haiti. In contrast to other asylum-seeking Caribbean refugees, black Haitians are immediately interdicted on the high seas or detained once they set foot upon U.S. soil and then repatriated. Conversely, an earlier generation of Cuban expatriates now controlling Florida politics—as well as a radical rightwing cabal in the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs lead by ultra-right Cuba exile ideologue Otto Reich—was able to secure a 20,000 annual U.S. quota for its refugees several years ago.
On May 10, a boat carrying Haitians on a voyage across the Caribbean to Florida capsized, resulting in 30 refugees either dead or missing. Despite the clear danger of such a futile and lengthy journey, more islanders are sure to follow their deceased countrymen in a vain quest for refuge from the horrendous economic conditions on the island. In another development last month, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard rejected the case made by attorneys who had filed suit to challenge Bush immigration policy regarding Haitians, when she declared that the judiciary has no place in determining immigration matters. Already spurned by the judiciary and the executive branch of the U.S. government, Haitian advocacy groups are fast running out of time to bring an end to the U.S. moratorium on aid that is suffocating a nation already closing in on morbidity. If H.C.R. 382 fails to gain notice in Congress, the U.S. government will have waived perhaps its last chance to right the wrongs being perpetrated against the hemisphere's poorest and most viciously manipulated nation.

This analysis was prepared by Andrew Blandford, COHA research group.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policymakers."

For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone [phone], Fax [phone], or email: [e-mail]


http://www.haitireborn.org/campaigns/lhl/coha-press-release-6-13-2002.php

[einniv]

5. Kick

:kick: