[Peace-discuss] Haiti and Canada

[Morton K. Brussel]

The Canadian experience largely mirrors that of the U.S. in Haiti.  
Thus, this article is worth considering for a later discussion about  
who's who in Haiti.  --mkb

ZNet | Haiti

Haiti is 'fixed'

by Kevin Skerrett; New Socialist; December 01, 2005

Recent Canadian policy in Haiti has been remarkably successful,  
having achieved most of its objectives. This is the case in much the  
same way that US policies in places such as El Salvador and Nicaragua  
in the 1980s were smashing successes – quite literally.
At first glance, such an assertion would appear terribly wrong. Any  
serious reading of the existing situation in Haiti (available almost  
exclusively outside the mainstream media, within explicitly left-wing  
vehicles such as New Socialist) indicates that when Canada, the US  
and France initiated the February 29 2004 coup d’état that ousted the  
elected government of Haiti and installed an unelected puppet regime,  
they unleashed a terrifying wave of repression against the  
desperately poor majority of the country (see NS issues #46,49, & 52  
and extensive coverage of the coup on Znet). Along with uncounted  
thousands killed, independent human rights groups report that over  
700 political prisoners have been jailed without charge, mainly  
leaders and supporters of (deposed) President Jean-Bertrand  
Aristide’s Lavalas party. The Canadian-trained Haitian National  
Police have been repeatedly seen shooting unarmed demonstrators, and  
– most recently – collaborating with machete-wielding gangs engaged  
in a terror campaign targeting all those calling for a return of the  
constitutional government that most Haitians elected.
However, to conclude that such outcomes signify a policy failure  
assumes that Canada’s agenda was actually the establishment of a  
peaceful, human rights respecting democracy in Haiti. In fact, the  
recent episode in Haiti offers us rich evidence for the view that  
Canada’s actual foreign policy agenda is to work in tandem with the  
US and a few other key military allies in entrenching and stabilizing  
a world economic system where safe investment outlets, cheap labour  
production zones and unfettered access to natural resources and  
export markets are not only established but locked-in by trade  
agreements which trump national constitutions.
In what follows, I advance this argument by examining three central  
objectives of Canada’s Haiti policy. In concluding that these  
objectives were met, I then offer a brief reflection on what lessons  
this “success” might hold for those of us aiming to challenge and  
subvert this unconscionable agenda.
Objective 1: Further debase the established concept of national  
sovereignty

Having joined the coup brigade in Haiti, Canada needed a rationale to  
explain why such a patently undemocratic assault on a poor country  
was in fact quite legitimate. This rationale would need to be able to  
overcome the established attachment to the concept of national  
sovereignty and make it revocable, under certain circumstances (to be  
defined by the powerful). As eventually articulated in the May 2005  
International Policy Statement, and in various speeches to the UN,  
Canada has used its Haiti intervention (along with the bombing and  
occupation of Afghanistan) as positive illustrations of the doctrine  
now known as “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). For some, this  
concept is merely an update of the racist “white man’s burden” – the  
notion that wealthy, militarily powerful countries have an obligation  
to “protect” the populations of poorer countries unable to protect  
(or govern) themselves.

Canada’s Haiti policy also shows us how deeply-set racist perceptions  
of other (non-white) countries can be effectively mobilized to  
advance this concept. The established view of Haiti’s (formerly  
enslaved, extremely poor, African) population – as “incapable of self- 
government” – was renewed and refreshed. When Ottawa Citizen  
columnist David Warren lamented on the eve of the coup that Haiti had  
failed to create “a people who are susceptible to self-government,”  
it elicited no particular notice. His racism was echoed more recently  
by Liberal MP Beth Phinney, who asked during a June 14 Foreign  
Affairs committee hearing: “How can you change the will of the people  
[of Haiti] to want to be able to govern themselves?” Such repugnant  
views require total ignorance of Haitian history, during which the  
population liberated itself from slavery, occupation and  
dictatorship, and then managed to democratically elect a president  
(three times!) that the US government overtly opposed. If the people  
of Haiti have proven one thing in their tragic history, it is their  
burning desire – and their capacity – to “govern themselves.”

But of course, this is the threat that the coup in Haiti ended, and  
that the R2P doctrine is designed to counter. And, with the concept  
now “field-tested,” it is ready to serve usefully in the future  
should the need to violate another country’s sovereignty (or support  
the violations carried out by an “ally”) arise again.

Objective 2: Disguise Imperial Domination as “Development”

Unfortunately, fond recollections of some of the original  
redistributive ideals attached to international development programs  
have blinded some progressives to the true function of “development”  
and development agencies within the current international system. As  
a result, we have the social democratic NDP and many well-intentioned  
progressives following the lead of Bono, Bob Geldof, and the recent  
“Live 8” showbiz against world poverty concerts calling more or less  
blindly for “more aid.” Progressive critics of the Liberals point to  
their failure to reach the hallowed development aid target of 0.7% of  
GDP – and often just stop there.

Canada’s relationship with Haiti is a stark indicator of the  
simplicity of these calls. When the Canadian government hosted a  
secret meeting in early 2003 in order to (it was later revealed in  
L’Actualité magazine) plot the overthrow of Haiti’s elected  
government, they invited representatives of the US and France, and  
brought along senior staff from Canada’s international development  
agency – CIDA. A careful examination of CIDA’s recent programming in  
Haiti reveals that in politically sensitive areas (human rights,  
women’s rights, media, etc.), the Haitian NGOs and agencies that CIDA  
was funding were without exception active players within the elite  
minority political opposition to Haiti’s government.

While CIDA continued to boast publicly that it was providing  
substantial assistance to Haiti, the reality was that in the several  
years leading up to the coup, it was quietly supporting the US-led  
embargo on aid to the highly dependent Haitian government, in an  
effort to destabilize it through financial strangulation. A look at  
recent international aid flows to Haiti – coming primarily from  
Canada, the US and France – clarifies the severity of this murderous  
embargo.

External aid to Haiti
in $US millions 1994-2002
1994-95: 611
1995-96: 427
1996-97: 378
1997-98: 371
1998-99: 330
1999-2000: 266
2000-01: 170
2001-02: 136

Source: World Bank, International Cooperation Framework (ICF), July 2004

With the election of George W. Bush in the US in 2000, US aid to  
Haiti’s government actually stopped altogether, leaving the nearly  
bankrupt Haitian government defenceless and incapacitated. It is  
telling that the thousands of Haitians who surely died or suffered  
badly as a result of these “aid sanctions” have never even been  
counted – “unworthy victims” of an aid policy turned policy  
sledgehammer.

What must be realized is that this result was intentional. It was the  
design and intended consequence of a program in which CIDA and its  
American equivalent USAID participated directly. The question of why  
this destabilization was carried out continues to be debated, but  
many have argued persuasively that while President Aristide accepted  
some of the dictates of Canadian and American neoliberal  
conditionality, he also resisted some, such as the demand for  
wholesale privatization of state enterprises. (On this, it is worth  
recalling that in a recent interview with journalist Naomi Klein,  
Aristide summarized the reason for his overthrow in three words:  
“Privatization, privatization, privatization.”)

Of course, none of this has ever been reported in any detail in the  
Canadian media, and in fact, Prime Minister Martin was able to point  
to Haiti as his main foreign policy “success story” during the June  
2004 federal leadership debates (to no response from NDP leader Jack  
Layton or anyone else for that matter). In this sense, the con –  
disguising an utterly cynical and self-interested imperial game as a  
humanitarian intervention led by CIDA – has worked quite well. It has  
shown that “international aid” can do more than just feed and dig  
wells: it can provoke (and legitimize) regime change.

Objective 3: Establish Canada’s reputation as trusted election monitor

Following the coup, it was recognized that the installed puppet  
government would not enjoy the full legitimacy that would be required  
to truly move Haiti onto the “correct” neoliberal path. What was  
therefore required was what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman have  
referred to as a “demonstration” election – a tightly constrained and  
controlled voting exercise that projects the imagery of liberal- 
democratic institutions, but whose actual function is to legitimize  
the “elected” government. A key function within such elections is the  
“observation/monitoring” process, which Chomsky and Herman describe  
in Manufacturing Consent as follows:

“Official observers are dispatched to the election scene to assure  
its public-relations success. Nominally, their role is to see that  
the election is ‘fair.’ Their real function, however, is to provide  
the appearance of fairness by focusing on the government’s agenda and  
by channeling press attention to a reliable source. They testify to  
fairness on the basis of long lines, smiling faces, no beatings in  
their presence, and the assurances and enthusiasm of U.S. and client- 
state officials.”

Such elections were recently organized in both occupied Afghanistan  
(October, 2004) and occupied Iraq (January, 2005). What is  
interesting to recall is that in Iraq, Canada’s Chief Electoral  
Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley (head of Elections Canada) played a  
leading role in precisely this process. Barely six weeks prior to the  
January 30, 2005 vote, Kingsley was called upon to form an expert  
“assessment mission” to evaluate the quality of the planned election.  
To no one’s surprise, this mission dutifully issued the needed  
blessing on the day of the election itself (surely drafted in  
advance, and released prior to any possible detailed reporting as to  
the vote’s fairness). Remarkably, the definitive conclusion brought  
forward was widely cited in the pro-war corporate media, despite  
having been reached by an “assessment” team physically located in  
Jordan!

When a similar blessing was needed for a post-coup occupation  
election in Haiti in late 2005, the relevant powers turned once again  
(in June 2005) to Jean-Pierre Kingsley to head up an almost identical  
group of “election experts,” this time not even offering to  
“assess” (as in Iraq) but merely to “monitor.” Kingsley was an  
especially good choice for advancing the Canadian and American  
agendas in Haiti. He is a Board member of a “pro-democracy” NGO  
called the International Foundation of Election Systems (IFES), which  
has been very active in Haiti in recent years. In fact, as a detailed  
report from the University of Miami Law School has shown, IFES was  
centrally involved in the organization of Haiti’s small, elite-led  
political opposition, and was an active supporter of the forces that  
brought about the coup. (It is hardly surprising to find that IFES  
receives funding from such renowned democracy-lovers as Exxon-Mobil,  
Citibank and Motorola).

In order to reach the foregone conclusion that a “free and fair”  
election was held in Haiti that “meets recognized standards,” it will  
be necessary that the assessment team minimize or ignore the  
significance of certain key aspects of Haiti’s political climate,  
such as: hundreds of political prisoners including prominent leaders  
of one party in particular (Lavalas); state terror exercised through  
police squads who target victims on a political, as well as class/ 
race basis; the arrest or even police execution (Abdias Jean) of  
journalists willing to report on police atrocities; politically  
selective exclusions of vast sectors of the electorate through  
insufficient registration and polling station access; the judicial  
exoneration and release of convicted paramilitary killers such as  
Louis-Jodel Chamblain; reasonable and legitimate boycotts of both  
registration and voting by parties who are targets of state terror, etc.

We should anticipate that yet another sham occupation election will  
be carried out, buttressed by the foregone conclusions of the  
Kingsley/Elections Canada led monitoring mission, and Haiti will be  
placed neatly in the Afghanistan/Iraq category – embarking on a “bold  
new era of democratic life.” Paul Martin and the Government of Canada  
will take much credit for having “democratized” the unruly masses of  
Haiti – and a new pro-US, pro-Canadian government will be installed,  
ready to embrace the economic policy agenda designed for it in  
Washington and Ottawa. The profits available to Canadian companies  
engaged in Haiti’s “reconstruction,” or taking advantage of its re- 
disciplined labour market, are already flowing, with more to come.

Lessons for the Left in Canada

One of the obvious lessons from the foregoing is simple: “Don’t  
believe the hype.” But the fact is that far too many “progressives,”  
including some involved in the anti-war movement and within otherwise  
quite progressive NGOs, have swallowed the government and the  
corporate media messaging about Haiti. In part, this is because  
certain trusted groups – such as CIDA-funded NGOs like Development  
and Peace, Rights and Democracy and Alternatives – supported the  
coup. Trust in such groups needs to be reassessed.

Further, much more work is needed to undermine and expose the  
carefully constructed and maintained mythology of Canada as  
peacekeeper and democracy-builder. If anything, our Haiti policy  
illustrates that neoliberal and neo-colonial rot has infected and  
transformed even some of the government programs and NGOs about which  
we may have thought better. In some cases, they now serve as key cogs  
in the machinery of Canadian imperialism, no less vital than Foreign  
Affairs and its corporate partners.
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