This time, the people of Haiti may win

[Judi Lynn]

This time, the people of Haiti may win
The US has overthrown Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice. But now it will encounter a new reality in the Americas
Mark Weisbrot guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 10 February 2011 21.30 GMT

In 1915, the US Marines invaded Haiti, occupying the country until 1934. US officials rewrote the Haitian constitution, and when the Haitian national assembly refused to ratify it, they dissolved the assembly. They then held a "referendum" in which about 5% of the electorate voted and approved the new constitution – which conveniently changed Haitian law to allow foreigners to own land – with 99.9% voting for approval.

The situation today is remarkably similar. The country is occupied, and although the occupying troops wear blue helmets, everyone knows that Washington calls the shots. On 28 November an election was held in which the country's most popular political party was excluded; but still the results of the first round of the election were not quite right. The OAS – under direction from Washington – then changed the results to eliminate the government's candidate from the second round. To force the government to accept the OAS rewrite of the results, Haiti was threatened with a cutoff of aid flows – and, according to multiple sources, President Préval was threatened with being forcibly flown out of the country – as happened to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

Now, Aristide has been issued a diplomatic passport by the government, and is preparing to return. But Washington does not agree, as US state department spokesman PJ Crowley made clear this week. He was also asked if the US government had pressured either the Haitian or South African governments to prevent Aristide's return. He refused to answer; I take that as a "yes".

The United States has been the prime cause of instability in Haiti, not only over the last two centuries, but the last two decades. Although Haiti is a small and poor country, Washington still cares very much about who is running it – and as leaked WikiLeaks cables recently demonstrated, they want a government that is in line with their overall foreign policy for the region. In 1991, Aristide Haiti's first democratically elected president was overthrown after just seven months in office. The officers who carried out the coup and established the military government, killing thousands of innocent Haitians, were subsequently found by the New York Times to be in the pay of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/10/washington-denial-us-haiti

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x587730

[joshcryer]

1. The claim that the US doesn't want Aristide is tenuous at best.

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

2. Who removed Aristide?

Who removed Aristide?
Paul Farmer reports from Haiti

~snip~
Aristide’s elevation from slum priest to presidential candidate took place against a background of right-wing death squads and threatened military coups. He rose quickly in the eyes of Haitians, but his stock plummeted in the United States. The New York Times, which relies heavily on informants who can speak English or French, had few kind words for him. ‘He’s a cross between the Ayatollah and Fidel,’ one Haitian businessman was quoted as saying. ‘If it comes to a choice between the ultra-left and the ultra-right, I’m ready to form an alliance with the ultra-right.’ Haitians knew, however, that Aristide would win any democratic election, and on 16 December 1990, he got 67 per cent of the vote in a field of 12 candidates. No run-off was required.

The United States might not have been able to prevent Aristide’s landslide victory, but there was plenty they could do to undermine him. The most effective method, adopted by the first Bush administration, was to fund both the opposition – their poor showing at the polls was no reason, it appears, to cut off aid to them – and the military. Declassified records now make it clear that the CIA and other US groups helped to create and fund a paramilitary group called FRAPH, which rose to prominence after a military coup that ousted Aristide in September 1991. Thousands of civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands fled overseas or across the border into the Dominican Republic. For the next three years Haiti was run by military-civilian juntas as ruthless as the Duvaliers.

In October 1994, under Clinton, the US military intervened and restored Aristide to power, with a little over a year of his term left to run. Although authorised by the UN, the restoration was basically a US operation. Then, seven weeks after Aristide’s return, Republicans took control of the Congress, and influential Republicans have worked ever since to block aid to Haiti or burden it with preconditions.

The aid coming through official channels was never very substantial: the US gave Haiti, per capita, one tenth of what it distributed in Kosovo. It is true that, as former US ambassadors and the Bush administration have recently claimed, hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into Haiti – but not to the elected government. A great deal of it went to the anti-Aristide opposition. A lot also went to pay for the UN occupation, and Halliburton support services. There was little effort to rebuild schools, the healthcare infrastructure, roads, ports, telecommunications or airports.

~snip~
It would be convenient for the traditional Haitian elites and their allies abroad if Aristide, who has been forced to preside over unimaginable penury, had been abandoned by his own people. But Gallup polls in 2002, the results of which were never disseminated, showed that, despite his faults, he is far and away Haiti’s most popular and trusted politician. So what is to be done about the people who, to the horror of the Republican right, keep voting for him?

~snip~
Last month, the Bush administration sent Roger Noriega to Haiti to ‘work out’ the crisis. Not everyone knew who he was: Noriega’s career has been spent in the shadows of Congressional committees. For the better part of a decade, he worked for Helms and his allies, and it’s no secret he has had Aristide in his sights for years. US Haiti policy is determined by a small number of people who were prominent in either Reagan’s or George H.W. Bush’s cabinets.

More:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n08/paul-farmer/who-removed-aristide

[joshcryer]

3. I'm more inclined to believe that Brazil played a part in this, given that the US rescued him.

¶2. (C) Garcia and Biato returned from their mid-November fact-finding mission to Haiti with a strong view that Aristide must not be allowed back into Haitian politics under any circumstances, that he is "a shadow over the country" and should be "exorcised," if possible by some form of trial in Haiti, Biatio told PolCoun. Biato allowed that Garcia had traveled to Haiti believing that Aristide was a political reality that might have to be considered as a factor in political dialogues. However, after 27 meetings with government officials, diplomats, UN officials, church leaders, military sources, and moderate Lavalas figures (who would only meet with Garcia after he publicly denounced Aristide in Port au Prince), Garcia came away from Haiti viewing Aristide as a completely unacceptable actor, "a mobster" involved in a range of illegal activity who "orders assassinations by cell phone," Biato said.

¶3. (C) Biato (strictly protect on this) said Garcia's highly negative assessment of Aristide is being heard by Lula and the senior GOB leadership, and will be factored into any consideration of sending an unofficial Brazilian emissary to meet with Aristide (a possibility reported previously in ref a). Instead, Biato opined that the GOB may communicate to South African President Mbeki its concerns about the apparent freedom Aristide enjoys in inciting violence and provocations from his South African enclave.

¶4. (C) The "exorcism" of Aristide is essential because he inspires both terror and "what passes for hope" among so many in Haiti's masses, Biato said. The "grand strategic question is how to create hope for the future among Haitians that is not linked to Aristide." Biato said. From that question flow several of the specific policy and practical assessments that Garcia brought back from his trip, which also tend to reinforce the GOB view that progress must move simultaneously in establishing stability and order, starting real political engagement, amd most importantly, bringing to bear assistance projects that have an immediate and positive effect on the population. Progress on all fronts needs to move ahead quickly, "because time is on Aristide's side," Biato said.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2004/11/04BRASILIA2863.html

The US put Aristide in by force, kept him in, acknowledges his ease of bribery, and rescued him when things went to crap. I have no reason to believe half-truths and innuendo saying that the US doesn't like Aristide.

[joshcryer]

4. The US hates "Baby Doc" too, so who else is there to serve as puppet?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/wikileaks-cables-baby-doc-duvalier

I cna't think of anyone that the Haitians would want and that the US would be able to deal with easily.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Haiti After the Coup

Haiti After the Coup
Eighteen months of horror, backed by the U.S.
by Yves Engler
Z magazine, October 2005

~snip~
Recent killings are the continuation of 18 months of horror for Haiti's poor that was unleashed with the overthrow of President Jean Bertrand Aristide and thousands of other elected officials by the U.S., France, and Canada. The National Lawyers Guild delegation visiting Haiti shortly after the February 29, 2004 coup reported that on March 7 morgue officials dumped 800 bodies and another 200 three weeks later. This is an extraordinary number in light of a morgue worker's report that the average is under 100 bodies per month. On October 15, 2004, Haiti-based U.S. journalist Kevin Pina reported, "The general hospital had to call the Ministry of Health today in order to demand emergency vehicles to remove the more than 600 corpses that have been stockpiled there."

Since the coup, structural violence has also increased. Skyhigh unemployment is up even further. A recent article in Alterpresse documented a huge rise in the cost of a dozen food staples, many of which have tripled in price, further impoverishing the poor. The human rights situation is so bad that the "head of UN peacekeeping operations says conditions in parts of Haiti are worse than in Sudan's devastated Darfur region" (June 28, 2005 Voice of America report).

Roots
The roots of the current situation begin in 1994, with Aristide's return to power by U.S. marines. This was hailed as a great democratic deed, yet the scent of previous destabilization campaigns lingered. The U.S. refused to disband and bring to justice the death squads they helped create when Aristide was first overthrown in 1991. As a pre-condition for his return, Aristide was compelled to reduce agricultural tariffs that increased the dumping of U.S. rice and chicken parts, thereby devastating the peasantry. Throughout the mid-1990s, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and other U.S.-backed groups funded anti-government organizations in the name of democracy enhancement."

At the turn of the millennium, the campaign to undermine Haiti's government shifted into higher gear because the constitution permitted Aristide to run for president again in 2000. Aristide, hated by Haiti's elite, was not trusted by the U.S. after he recognized Cuba and refused to support the privatization of all state owned companies; nor was his Lavalas movement, after it forced IRI out of the country in 1998 and ended U.S. police training.

More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Haiti_After_Coup.html

[Judi Lynn]

6. The vilification of President Aristide, "Damming The Flood"

The vilification of President Aristide, "Damming The Flood"


~snip~
Quick Backgroud

Toward the end of President Clinton's second term, he was not happy with President Aristide. After all, Clinton gave himself full credit for restoring democracy to Haiti; he had the US army return Aristide to office. Clinton, apparently, believed that establishing democracy in Haiti meant that President Aristide would do what the US and a small group of unelectable Haitian elites told him to do. Aristide had "agreed" to enact Clinton's policies; i.e., the neoliberal Paris Plan, which Haitians call the Death Plan (the plan to destroy Haiti's farm economy, thereby expanding the market for US agricultural products, making more Haitians compete for sweatshop jobs and keeping wages low).

~snip~
Aristide, however, was not implementing Clinton's agenda quickly enough and refused to privatize Haiti's publically owned enterprises. Before Clinton left office, he intensified and expanded his disinformation campaign; when the Repbulicans took over, they further expanded the smear campaign, and they united anti-Aristide groups.

Establishing a story and repeating it

Of course disinformation was used to justify the first coup. The US could not openly admit to funding death squads to oust Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, it wasn’t until the lead up to the second coup that we really see the use of disinformation reach its full potential. The US used the USAID to funnel money to organizations that were receptive to their viewpoint, while simultaneously starving the Lavalas' administration of needed funds. Aid promised to Aristide was instead being diverted to organizations that criticized and undermined his government

Clinton's special envoy to Haiti, Lawrence Pezzula's, hostility toward Aristide would grow over time. In 1994 Pezzula had warned Clinton not to use the US army to restore Aristide to power. Pezzula pointed to Aristide's refusal to abandon his supporters and cater to the busniness elite and political class as evidence of Aristide’s incapacity to lead Haiti. Aristide was going against the grain, and Pezzula wanted him as far from power as possible. Pezzula claimed that Aristide's estrangement from Parliament and his inability to get along with the elite led to both his "failed" presidency and the 1991 coup.

By 2002 Pezzula had become aggressively anti-Aristide and a staunch believer that Aristide had to be removed from office. He joined members of the ultra-rightwing and became a founding member of the conservative think-tank, The Haiti Democracy Project (HDP). HDP would be one of many organizations that were formed to discredit and destabilize Aristide's administration and destroy the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) movement. Perhaps to justify his growing hatred for Aristide, Pezzula lied. He said that Aristide had become a corrupt dictator and ruled like Papa Doc had. Pezzula went on to claim that Aristide manipulated Clinton into helping abolish Haiti's army, because Aristide knew that the army was the one vehicle that could have protected Haiti from Aristide's lust for absolute power. For Pezula "Aristide's 'sordid regime' had become little more than a parody of the repugnant Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. Now that 'political repression is rampant' and 'Aristide has lost his legitimacy to rule,' the only 'critical question is what or who would replace Aristide if he could be induced to resign?'" (pg.90).

More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/15/892601/-The-vilification-of-President-Aristide,-Damming-The-Flood-

[Judi Lynn]

7. Haitian Unrest: Aristide's Fall was Really a U.S.-led Coup

Published on Thursday, March 18, 2004 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)
Haitian Unrest: Aristide's Fall was Really a U.S.-led Coup
by Mary Turck

~snip~
A few weeks ago, armed rebels invaded Haiti. Their leaders had led earlier coups and coup attempts. Louis-Jodel Chamblain is a military officer from the 1991-94 regime, and a death squad leader convicted of murdering political opponents. He was living in exile in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Guy Philippe was a former police chief, trained in Ecuador by U.S. Special Forces. He fled the country after using his police position to launch an unsuccessful coup attempt in 2000. They led a well-armed force of a few hundred men garbed in military fatigues and carrying U.S.-made M-16s and grenade launchers.

As the armed rebels approached Port-au-Prince, the political opposition continued to refuse all offers of electoral solutions. The U.S. diplomats who arrived in the night delivered a dreadful message. In Aristide's words, "They told me the foreigners and Haitian terrorists alike, loaded with heavy weapons, were already in position to open fire on Port-au-Prince. And right then, the Americans precisely stated that they will kill thousands of people and it will be a bloodbath. That the attack is ready to start, and when the first bullet is fired nothing will stop them and nothing will make them wait."

His only option, the Americans told him, was to immediately accept their offer of an escort to an airplane that would take him into exile. And they would only take him to the airplane if he first gave them a letter of resignation.

As U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel said recently, "the United States government used the threat of violence against the constitutionally elected president of Haiti and his family to obtain his resignation and departure from Haiti before the end of his constitutionally determined term of office."

"That action," added Rangel, "meets the definition of a coup d'etat."

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-03.htm

[EFerrari]

8. I hope Mark is right. Enough already. nt