[Peace-discuss] Two more articles on Haiti

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Two comments, one from the Brit press, the other from a Trotskyist 
group. Might make a tri-fold. --CGE]  

***

[1] Comment
    Why they had to crush Aristide 
    Haiti's elected leader was regarded as a threat by France and the US
    Peter Hallward
    Tuesday March 2, 2004
    The Guardian

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was re-elected president of Haiti in November 2000
with more than 90% of the vote. He was elected by people who approved his
courageous dissolution, in 1995, of the armed forces that had long
terrorised Haiti and had overthrown his first administration. He was
elected by people who supported his tentative efforts, made with virtually
no resources or revenue, to invest in education and health. He was elected
by people who shared his determination, in the face of crippling US
opposition, to improve the conditions of the most poorly paid workers in
the western hemisphere.

Aristide was forced from office on Sunday by people who have little in
common except their opposition to his progressive policies and their
refusal of the democratic process. With the enthusiastic backing of
Haiti's former colonial master, a leader elected with overwhelming popular
support has been driven from office by a loose association of convicted
human rights abusers, seditious former army officers and pro-American
business leaders.

It's obvious that Aristide's expulsion offered Jacques Chirac a
long-awaited chance to restore relations with an American administration
he dared to oppose over the attack on Iraq. It's even more obvious that
the characterisation of Aristide as yet another crazed idealist corrupted
by absolute power sits perfectly with the political vision championed by
George Bush, and that the Haitian leader's downfall should open the door
to a yet more ruthless exploitation of Latin American labour.

If you've been reading the mainstream press over the past few weeks,
you'll know that this peculiar version of events has been carefully
prepared by repeated accusations that Aristide rigged fraudulent elections
in 2000; unleashed violent militias against his political opponents; and
brought Haiti's economy to the point of collapse and its people to the
brink of humanitarian catastrophe.

But look a little harder at those elections. 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.

Why then were they characterised as "flawed" by the Organisation of
American States (OAS)? It was because, after Aristide's Lavalas party had
won 16 out of 17 senate seats, the OAS contested the methodology used to
calculate the voting percentages. Curiously, neither the US nor the OAS
judged this methodology problematic in the run-up to the elections.

However, in the wake of the Lavalas victories, it was suddenly important
enough to justify driving the country towards economic collapse. Bill
Clinton invoked the OAS accusation to justify the crippling economic
embargo against Haiti that persists to this day, and which effectively
blocks the payment of about $500m in international aid.

But what about the gangs of Aristide supporters running riot in
Port-au-Prince? No doubt Aristide bears some responsibility for the dozen
reported deaths over the last 48 hours. But given that his supporters have
no army to protect them, and given that the police force serving the
entire country is just a tenth of the force that patrols New York city,
it's worth remembering that this figure is a small fraction of the number
killed by the rebels in recent weeks.

One of the reasons why Aristide has been consistently vilified in the
press is that the Reuters and AP wire services, on which most coverage
depends, rely on local media, which are all owned by Aristide's opponents.
Another, more important, reason for the vilification is that Aristide
never learned to pander unreservedly to foreign commercial interests. He
reluctantly accepted a series of severe IMF structural adjustment plans,
to the dismay of the working poor, but he refused to acquiesce in the
indiscriminate privatisation of state resources, and stuck to his guns
over wages, education and health.

What happened in Haiti is not that a leader who was once reasonable went
mad with power; the truth is that a broadly consistent Aristide was never
quite prepared to abandon all his principles.

Worst of all, he remained indelibly associated with what's left of a
genuine popular movement for political and economic empowerment. For this
reason alone, it was essential that he not only be forced from office but
utterly discredited in the eyes of his people and the world. As Noam
Chomsky has said, the "threat of a good example" solicits measures of
retaliation that bear no relation to the strategic or economic importance
of the country in question. This is why the leaders of the world have
joined together to crush a democracy in the name of democracy.


Peter Hallward teaches French at King's College London and is the
author of Absolutely Postcolonial <peter.hallward at kcl.ac.uk>. 

  Guardian Unlimited 
  Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 

***

[2] U.S. Pulls Off a Coup D'etat in Haiti [March 2, 2004]

The Bush coup d'etat machine, in alliance with a wing of the Haitian
bourgeoisie, succeeded Sunday in doing in Haiti what it has failed to do
so far in Venezuela--overthrow a reform-minded president who initiated
changes benefiting some of the poorest people on the planet.

Yesterday President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, accompanied by his wife, was
forced to abandon the country saying he preferred to go into exile than to
cause a "bloodbath" by defending his government against well-armed
fighters led by former Haitian military figures. The chief justice of the
Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, was hurriedly sworn in as the head of a
U.S.-approved transitional government that will last until the regularly
scheduled elections in 2005.

                              Scenario for a coup

Behind the anti-government rebellion are a cabal of coup plotters, death
squad murderers and former soldiers whose grab for power was at the very
least assisted (and perhaps planned) by the CIA, the Bush administration
and the French government.

Aristide had already survived several recent coup attempts. But this time
the powers arrayed against him were too powerful and well-coordinated.

First, Butteur Metayer, a former supporter of Aristide's party, staged an
insurrection on February 5 in the northwestern city of Gonaives. Metayer
leads what is called the Cannibal Army.

The Cannibal Army uprising was used as a pretext for former soldiers
living in the Dominican Republic to cross over into Haiti. These men
served in the military dictatorship of Raoul Cedras who overthrew Aristide
in 1990.

Their leader is Louis Jodel Chamblain, co-founder of the misnamed death
squad, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH). FRAPH
killed thousands of Aristide supporters in the 1990s. Chamblain has also
been accused of taking part in a 1987 election massacre in which 34 voters
were killed. Working with Chamblain is Guy Philippe, a former Haitian
military man who served as a senior security official in the government of
the last president, Rene Preval. Philippe was trained in the U.S. and
Ecuador.

On February 16, Chamblain's forces attacked the central plateau city of
Hinche. Poorly armed Haitian police were no match for Chamblain and his
so-called New Army. Police abandoned their posts in a number of cities
following this assault.

Simultaneously with these events, in the southern part of the country, a
coalition led by businessmen staged a series of demonstrations against
Aristide. Calling themselves the Democratic Platform and the Group of 184,
they counted Maurice Lafortune, head of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce,
and Andy Apaid, a U.S. citizen and owner of 15 factories, as their
leaders. The coalition also allegedly included unions, students, other
political parties and community organizations.

Apaid and Lafortune accused Aristide of drug trafficking, corruption and
using paramilitaries against peaceful demonstrators. They claimed they had
no connection to the armed uprising in northwest Haiti, but that is simply
unbelievable.

On February 24, the Group of 184 delayed replying to a U.S.-brokered
settlement that would have reduced Aristide's powers but allowed him to
remain in office through his term. Many observers believe this move was
calculated to allow the military wing of the uprising to seize more
territory in the countryside.

The Bush administration tacitly approved this delay tactic by telling the
Group of 184 to take more time to consider their proposal if needed.

                          Why Aristide was overthrown

In January, Haiti marked the 200th anniversary of its founding after the
first successful slave rebellion in the hemisphere. Representatives of the
French and U.S. governments were noticeably missing from official
celebrations attended by other world leaders. In this way, these two
powerful imperialist countries publicly signaled their dissatisfaction
with Aristide's regime, paving the way for what occurred in February.

The big question is why the Haitian bourgeoisie and the U.S. were so eager
to overthrow the democratically elected president at this time. The answer
is to be found in Aristide's economic and social policies and his
alliances in the Caribbean and South America.

On February 7, Aristide doubled the minimum wage (something he had been
forbidden to do in the past by the IMF).  Despite pressure from an array
of international financial institutions, he has also refused to privatize
state enterprises and invested in agriculture, public transportation, the
infrastructure, healthcare and education. Between 1994-2000, he built more
schools than had been built in Haiti in the last 180 years. He also
provided 70% subsidies for school books and uniforms and passed
legislation protecting child labor.

Add to this his close relations with Cuba, which is training over 400
Haitian doctors, as well as with the Chavez government of Venezuela, and
it becomes clear why Aristide is at the top of the Bush hit list.

Undoubtedly, an additional factor is the Bush administration's fear of a
mass exodus of immigrants from Haiti to the U.S. if civil war should break
out.

                       Economic crisis: from bad to worse

Aristide's popularity with the poor and working people of Haiti, while
still high, appears to have slipped in recent years due to several
factors. The main one seems to be the economy, although the fact that he
has been ruling by decree since 2000 is undoubtedly a factor.

In 1994, Aristide agreed to IMF demands that he adopt a "structural
adjustment" program, a condition of the U.S.-led invasion that put
Aristide back in power after he had been overthrown in a coup three years
earlier. The price of U.S. assistance included opening the country to
foreign investment and prioritizing debt repayment, measures which
benefited the Haitian elite but not Haitian workers who are among the
worst paid in our hemisphere.

Then in 2000, the U.S. froze all foreign aid to Haiti, as did other
countries, citing election "irregularities" and economic corruption. This
exacerbated an already poor economic picture.

The situation has steadily declined to the point that Haiti is no longer
exporting coffee, rum and other agricultural products, while tourism and
assembly work in maquiladoras has fallen off sharply.

Today life expectancy in Haiti is 49 years due to extreme poverty, the
lack of medical services, and an AIDS epidemic. Severe conditions like
these would spark dissatisfaction anywhere.

                    The 2000 elections and charges of fraud

 The U.S. has cited the 2000 elections as proof of corruption in
Aristide's government.

However, the State Department simply seems to be echoing the
dissatisfaction of the Haitian elite with his regime.

The Lavalas Party of Aristide won 80% of the local and parliamentary seats
they ran for in 2000. The opposition boycotted these elections and, along
with international election observers, charged fraud had occurred in eight
senate races. The winners of these races refused to go into run-off
elections, as requested, and subsequently gave up their seats in
parliament instead. This, however, did not satisfy Aristide's critics. Two
coup attempts in 2001 followed and anti- government protests, which had
been frequent since 2000, escalated in 2003.

               Intra-capitalist rivalry and the French connection

It is Haiti's misfortune to have been a colony of France and later a
neo-colony of the U.S. Slavery, military invasions, deliberate
underdevelopment, millions of refugees, dictatorships and military juntas
have been the price of Haiti's "special relationship" with these two
imperialist powers.

Now French imperialism is interested in using developments in Haiti to get
a foothold in this hemisphere. Last week, the French government was the
first to demand that Aristide "respect the rule of law" and to pressure
him to step down. The French also talked about sending French troops to
support a government of national unity and to oversee new elections. The
U.S. viewed this as the French encroaching on their interests in Latin
America and the Caribbean. Now both countries have agreed to contribute
troops to a U.N. multilateral "peacekeeping" force authorized by the
Security Council.

                 Defend the Haitian people against mass murder

The U.S. has prepared the ground for a bloodbath in Haiti. Already
newspapers are reporting that "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the dictator that
Aristide replaced, is interested in returning from "exile" on the French
Riviera. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's supporters will surely now be
hunted down again and massacred as they were in 1991-94.

Whatever flaws Aristide's regime had, the U.S-backed alternative is much,
much worse.

The only way to prevent mass murder in Haiti now is to open U.S. borders
to any and all refugees. This is especially critical since the Dominican
Republic, which already has a Haitian population of 1 million, has sent
1,200 troops to prevent more refugees from entering the country.

In the current situation, the only humanitarian act that has any meaning
is to welcome those fleeing a crisis created by imperialists bent on
keeping Haitian workers under their heel...

           __________________________________________________________

Issued by:
Freedom Socialist Party, U.S. Section    www.socialism.com
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Seattle, WA 98105  USA
E-mail: fspnatl at igc.org
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