Can someone educate me about Haiti?

[Stephanie]

I'm really not clear about what's going on there.

Amy Goodman last night said that we have refused to send troops to quell the violence. That Aristide's life is in danger. And that he was democratically elected.

But in the news they make him sound like Saddam.

What is the real story of Aristide?

I apologize for my ignorance on this, but I will bet that I am not the only one.

Can anyone clue me in about the situation? Thanks!

*edit=spelling

[Bozita]

1. Haiti is the topic on "This is Hell" -- see GD thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1174093

[seventhson]

2. Clinton helped get Aristedes back in democratic power after a BFEE

dictatorship.

He was democratically elected and the BFEE is destabilizing him so that they can get control of the cheap labor there and prevent democratization which would cost US fascist corporations money.

[Bozita]

3. Current polls in Haiti show only 6% support for the rebels

from the radio program now.


on edit: adding link to streaming:

http://www.wnur.org

[rainy]

4. just sent this to myself, it was still on copy/paste

Bush accused of supporting Haitian rebels
By Isabelle D. Lindenmayer
Published 2/27/2004 6:47 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Haitian activists Friday accused the Bush administration of covertly supporting opposition forces to oust President Aristide from power.

"The Bush administration is again engaged in regime change by armed aggression," former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark said. "This time, the armed aggression is against the administration of the democratically elected president of Haiti."

Activists at a Friday press briefing outlined what they believe to be a well-crafted plan by the Bush administration to overthrow Aristide. Former Haitian military members, drug dealers and militants were armed and trained in the Dominican Republic thanks to military support from the United States. They have now crossed the border into Haiti, activists said.

The rebel insurrection that erupted three weeks ago has left roughly 80 people dead, nearly half of whom were police officers.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Moderator]

10. rainy

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
news source and please
provide a link to the
article.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[Bombtrack]

16. Ramsey Clark is the lowest form of leftist crackpot known to man

He supports authoritarianism and anti-Americanism whereever he goes, and idiotic internationalanswer types and other fringe activists think he's just swell

[lostnfound]

17. Interesting that embargo dates to 94, when Clinton was Pres..

Dang I hate the Republicans and their coups..but it's really frustrating that "our guys" have a foreign policy that isn't much better..

"The U.S. brought this about by keeping an embargo on the country since 1994. How could Aristide have succeeded?" former attorney general Clark asked.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. This guy probably can.

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff02142004.html

[buckeye1]

6. Haiti is full of negros

Its time to enslave them again.

[trumad]

7. Negros and Oil poor...

and not as powerful as the Radical Cubans in Miami... NUFF SAID!

[Octafish]

8. Aristide is a good man... thus, he's an enemy of the BFEE.

Aristide is a good man, an ex-Roman Catholic priest. He preached "Liberation Theology" and that makes him an enemy of the BFEE.

Liberation Theology is putting into political practice the teachings of the New Testament. Aristide believes the people deserve more than the scraps. In Haiti, 99 percent of the property is owned by 1 percent of the population. Sounds like the US is heading in the same direction under Baby Doc Bush.

True story: I met Jean Bertrand-Aristide after he was deposed by the generals in the early 90s when he came to speak at the Cranbrook Peace Foundation in metro Detroit.

Aristide said all Bush had to do was pick up the phone and the generals would quit their coup and the first democratically elected leader of Haiti in 75 years would be returned to power. Bush didn't and Aristide wasn't until Clinton, many years and many, many lives later.

The turd Jesse Helms called Aristide, during this period, a murderer who necklaced his victims. That's odd, because Aristide is a former Catholic priest who survived an assassination attempt during Mass.

JUST LIKE HIS SON TODAY, the reason for Poppy Doc Bush's inaction? Uncle Sam likes to deal with "our dictators." It just so happens the elite in Haiti will benefit, like the elite in Nigeria, Guatemala and Saudi Arabia, at the expense of their people.

Aristide also said that the generals were deep into the wholesale cocaine importation business. Now who would be their partner in all that?


Aristide in his own words...


Eyes of the Heart

by Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Common Courage Press, 2000

p5

Our planet is entering the new century with fully 1.3 billion people living on less than one dollar a day. Three billion people, or half the population of the world, live on less than two dollars a day. Yet this same planet is experiencing unprecedented economic growth. The statistics that describe the accumulation of wealth in the world are mind-boggling. From where we sit, the most staggering statistics of all are those that reflect the polarization of this wealth. In 1960 the richest 20% of the world's population had 70% of the world's wealth, today they have 86% of the wealth. In 1960 the poorest 20% of the world's population had just 2.3% of the wealth of the world. Today this has shrunk to just barely 1%.

p11

What happens to poor countries when they embrace free trade? In Haiti in 1986 we imported just 7000 tons of rice, the main staple food of the country. The vast majority was grown in Haiti. In the late 1980s Haiti complied with free trade policies advocated by the international lending agencies and lifted tariffs on rice imports. Cheaper rice immediately flooded in from the United States where the rice industry is subsidized. In fact the liberalization of

Haiti's market coincided with the 1985 Farm Bill in the United States which increased subsidies to the rice industry so that 40% of U.S. rice growers' profits came from the government by 1987. Haiti's peasant farmers could not possibly compete. By 1996 Haiti was importing 196,000 tons of foreign rice at the cost of $100 million a year. Haitian rice production became negligible. Once the dependence on foreign rice was complete, import prices began to rise, leaving Haiti's population, particularly the urban poor, completely at the whim of rising world grain prices. And the prices continue to rise.

p13

... in 1995, severely indebted low-income countries paid one billion dollars more in debt and interest to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) than they received from it. For the 46 countries of Subsaharan Africa, foreign debt service was four times their combined governmental health and education budgets in 1996. So, we find that aid does not aid.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Aristide/Eyes_Heart_Aristide.html

[Stephanie]

9. Thanks everyone!

I get the picture now. Very enlightening. Great links. Thank you!

[Charlls]

11. Haitians are humans too; they want the same things we want

and hate the same shit we hate; the only difference is that they have to take much more of it than we have since we are better educated servants

that is why its pissing me off to an incredible extreme to see how people so-self-called democrats discredit any opposition to 'democratically elected Aristide', elections which btw were considered by international standards as 'compromised', without even considering the possibility that these haitians are really, pissed off with their government

Lets assume Bush is giving M-16 to the rebels. Lets assume so. What does mean that? Have you actually considered that these people are willing to stop a bullet, only because they want this Aristide guy out of there? have you, so-self-called democrats, considered that?


just a couple of thoughts

[bpilgrim]

12. they want REGIME CHANGE, eh... why not wait for the elections?

why weren't there huge protest in the streets?

why such a SMALL number of ARMED men?

why are we stating the same demands as the armed gangs?

seems like we have given in to a bunch of thugs demands... not the u.s. i know from history.

peace

[Charlls]

13. uhm.. maybe because they suspect election will be rigged

once more?


Huge protests? you really think that haitians are free to get on the street and protests?

Have you heard about Tonton Macoutes? google about that

If there are others innocent souls around here that thinks that Tonton Macoutes belongs to the past history of Haiti, God may bless you all

[bpilgrim]

18. oh, it's a PREVENTIVE action

were they allowed to protest/strike in POLAND!?



peace

[Cheswick2.0]

26. The people on are free to protest on the streets. I have seen them do it

and yes I have heard of the Tonton Macoutes, they are loyal to the Duvaliers and part of the "resistance" you seem to be defending. They do NOT work for Aristide.

[Oilwellian]

14. Charlls, Charlls, Charlls

methinks you've been smoking too much of your avatar.

Millions of americans are angry with Bush and would like nothing more than to see him toppled. So using your "logic" it would be ok if say China armed liberals with M-16's and we took to the streets killing anyone who gets in our way, as a means to topple him? Man, I want some of what you're smoking.

[Charlls]

15. well, the day you stop believing that elections are representing reality

and the day you are convinced that, even more, elections are totally rigged

what will you do?

edit: typo

[Cheswick2.0]

25. I was in Haiti in 2001

The people of Haiti are overwhelmingly in support of Aristide.

[Tinoire]

19. Background on Haiti: Some Questions and Answers

Background on Haiti: Some Questions and Answers
by Mary Turck

<snip>

What happened in the 2000 elections?

Two elections took place in 2000. The first elections, in May, saw full participation by a range of political parties, including the Lavalas party of now-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In the May elections of legislators and municipal government authorities, Lavalas won by a landslide. Observers from the Organization of American States did not fault the conduct of the elections. However, in eight cases, the electoral council seated Senators who had won by a plurality of the votes, not by an absolute majority. Because these eight Senators were Lavalas party candidates, the opposition immediately cried fraud.

Knowing they would lose the presidential election in November 2000, the opposition Democratic Convergence refused to participate. They cited the eight contested senatorial elections as "proof" that the presidential vote would be rigged. In November, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected.

The OAS tried, in more than 20 missions, to arrange new elections or compromise between the Democratic Convergence and the government. President Aristide persuaded seven of the eight senators to resign, clearing the way for new elections. Aristide agreed to OAS proposals for new elections. The Democratic Convergence did not.

In January, the terms of all legislators elected in 2000 expired. The opposition refused to allow new legislative elections, so now there is no legislature.

The opposition has consistently demanded-and continues to demand-that Aristide immediately leave the presidency, without completing his elected term of office, and they be put in charge of a non-elected "transition" government. They will accept nothing less. They want power, but not elections. They know they could not win elections, as they never have had anywhere near majority support.

Most recently - on February 21 - Aristide unconditionally accepted yet another international peace proposal, this one calling for power-sharing with the opposition.

Who is in the opposition?

<snip / please read the rest>

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0224-09.htm

[Charlls]

21. I'll try to enlighten the situation with an example

Imagine you accept that Bush won the 2000 election (which hardly can be said), even accepting that, would you accept that repukes stole _also_ congress seats?

However this is all hypothetical, because it assumes that elections were have been fair (which hardly can be said, in both cases)

So, excuse me; opposition is good while is against Bush, but is bad against Aristide?

what a nice so-self-called democracy you got there

[Tinoire]

22. The major difference - Aristide is BELOVED BY THE PEOPLE

Aristide is to Haiti what Hugo Chavez is to Venezuela.

End of damned story & hopefully victory to the people and end to the God-damned US corporations down there subsidizing our cushy way of life with the blood and tears of the Haitian people.



Darkies are people too...

Trust me on this one. Please. What you are witnessing in Haiti is:

The People vs NAFTA

[Cheswick2.0]

24. are we hitting the streets against bush witht he help of people coming

from Candada? Are we the remains of supporters from some brutal dictator like Duvalier? Because that is the "resistance" in Haiti.

[greatauntoftriplets]

20. You have been given lots of good information.

I will add an old Haitian proverb: "Beyond the mountains, more mountains."

That is Haiti's history, and I have been there.

[Tinoire]

23. Thanks. Brought a smile to my face for the 1st time in days. Thanks n/t

[Isome]

27. Haiti Q & A

Aristide agreed to every condition made by "the opposition", as laid out in the OAS. Every time he agreed, they made another demand.

"As violent gangs invade Haitian towns, murdering police and opening jails, news reports repeat several catch phrases as if everyone knew their meaning. In fact, those catch phrases—from "the opposition" to "flawed (or fraudulent) elections of 2000"—are laden with political and historical freight."


http://www.americas.org/index.php?cp=item&item_id=13759