Haiti's Debt

[struggle4progress]

04/01/08
by Joe Emersberger

... The CEPR study also noted that multilateral institutions were key participants in a US led aid embargo on the government of Jean Bertrand Aristide from 2000 to 2004: "There is considerable evidence that this cut off of aid was part of a deliberate effort by the U.S. government to destabilize and ultimately topple the elected government of Haiti. . . . Because of their participation in this effort, the multilateral institutions should at the very least cancel Haiti's debt as rapidly as possible."

From 2000-2004 the aid embargo blocked loans totalling at least $500 million from a government that had a total budget of only $290 million in calendar year 2000. In 2004 the economist Jeffrey Sachs recalled, "U.S. officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a balance-of-payments crisis, a rise in inflation and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion."

The main justification for sanctions against the Aristide government was "flawed" legislative elections in 2000. The results of those elections were in line with what USAID commissioned polls had predicted -- Aristide's Famni Lavalas Party romped to victory -- and were certified as fair by the OAS. However, with some allies in the OAS, Washington disputed how run-offs were calculated for seven senate seats (out of thousands of legislative and municipal posts filled), casting aspersions on an election overwhelmingly characterized by observers as free and fair.

Even with an ever shrinking budget, Aristide's government invested heavily in education and health care, but a coup ousted the administration on February 29, 2004. The embargo on aid to Haiti's government was lifted after an unelected interim government backed heavily by the US, France, and Canada took over ...

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/emersberger040108.html

[Hydra]

1. Bringing freedom and democracy around the globe

:sarcasm:

What is our "elected" leaders' problem with truly elected ones?

[TomInTib]

2. Remember when GHWB used to call him "Father" Aristide?

I never understood any of it.

[struggle4progress]

3. I remember Reagan administration officials demonizing Aristide for his pastoral work

in slums when he was a priest

[TomInTib]

4. Yeah, I remember that. Was Duvalier the Younger deposed during GHWB's term?

Those were some of my Lost Years and the mental time-line is quite blurry, to put it mildly.

[struggle4progress]

5. No, Baby Doc fled Haiti in '86. Aristide was first elected president in '90 through GHWB's

first term, but was promptly deposed in a military coup supported by King Bush I.

Clinton helped negotiate an agreement restoring Aristide in 1994 but imposing conditions on his presidency: IIRC, his interrupted presidency would terminate at the original time and he could not seek immediate reelection.

When King Bush II assumed the throne, international aid was suspended, until the economy collapsed: after carefully tracking the progress of a new and well-armed group of armed anti-government plotters, the US suddenly kidnapped Aristide in the wee hours of the night and spirited him off to the Central African Republic, where (oddly enough) another coup had just installed a Bush-friendly government