Trust me on this one if you can. I'm Haitian and have been following this closely for decades.
Aristide is the people's choice. He won fair democratic elections in 1990 after running on a true populist platform. Bush Sr & the CIA did their utmost to get Aristide out and they succeeded in 1991 because neither they nor the Haitian elite (which is also the business community) could tolerate watching the populist reforms he was making. SOA-trained officers (butchers like Constant, Cedras, and other Ton Ton Macoutes in the FRPAH) had a successful coup against him and he fled to the states.
Clinton didn't install him, he restored him to power but after so much wrangling because the Republicans were dead set against someone like Aristide. You should have seen how hateful Jesse Helm's face would get. Clinton wasn't even that interested in restoring him but he was enormously pressured by the Black Caucus to whom he had already broken the campaign promise of reversing the Bush Administration's policy of refusing the Boat people. By the time we restored Aristide, over 2 years later, our NAFTA friends had totally tied his hands, made him accept ruinous IMF & USAID demands, and put in place protections for all the US manufacturers down there that exploit the people's labor.
Eventually Aristide reluctantly accepted because it was pretty clear he would get no US help unless he did. Trouble is after when he went back, he slowly started disregarding some of these policies because they were killing the people.
Under NAFTA the movement of money won't be stopped
By David Bacon
Yet at the moment of his return, Aristide had already been forced to agree to conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Agency for International Development--conditions guaranteed to perpetuate the desire of Haitians to immigrate to the U.S. As the price for U.S. support, the IMF, and USAID require that Aristide maintain the lowest minimum wage in Latin America, fire 25,000 government employees, and continue favorable treatment for U.S. companies who have built factories to take advantage of cheap Haitian labor.
The Haitian experience is the most dramatic example of the schizophrenia which lies behind the failure of U.S. immigration policy, whether formulated by Republicans or Democrats. California's Proposition 187, and its legislative cousins which are beginning to surface in other states, cannot stop immigration or solve the problems it poses, because they refuse to recognize what causes immigration in the first place.
Almost all the political candidates who debate immigration hold that borders, while they must restrain people, must also allow free passage of capital, production, and material goods. In fact, free trade philosophy holds that favorable conditions for investment must be created wherever U.S. influence can be extended. Institutions like USAID, the IMF, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs, have created a new world economic order. For them, borders hardly exist.
Yet the same voices calling for relaxation of restrictions on money and goods, also call for increased border enforcement for people, or the denial of rights and services for immigrants once they reach the U.S. President Clinton and California Governor Pete Wilson see eye-to-eye on support for NAFTA. While the Clinton administration prefers to build a wall for people on the border, and Wilson believes that immigrants can be forced out of the country by onerous restrictions, they basically agree. The movement of money can't be stopped, but people must be.
<snip>
While USAID's new restrictions on Aristide come under a Democratic administration, they are the continuation of an old bipartisan policy. According to a study by the National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Worker and Human Rights in Central America, between 1983 and 1991, when Aristide was overthrown, "USAID poured over $100 million into Haiti's private sector." No organization of poor people, no union, no farmer's association ever received a penny. Instead, in 1991, when Aristide proposed raising the minimum wage to $5 Haitian (37 cents) per hour, USAID spent $26.7 million to oppose it. Raising the minimum wage "could be highly detrimental to economic growth," USAID said. "Wage systems should not be the forum for welfare and social programs."
<snip>
http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zmag/articles/dec94bacon.htmNovember/December 1994
Enemy Ally: The Demonization of Jean-Bertrand Aristide
http://www.fair.org/extra/9411/aristide-demonization.html==============
eablair3 (597 posts) Sun Feb-29-04 03:53 AM
Response to Original message
Media vs. Reality in Haiti - Feb 13, 2004
US Congresswoman Maxine Waters issued a press release Feb. 11th, on the heels of her recent visit to Haiti, that called on the Bush administration to join her in condemning the “so-called opposition” and, specifically, Andre Apaid Jr., who is a “Duvalier supporter” that, along with his Group of 184, is “attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the government for the resulting disaster in the belief that the U.S. will aid the so-called protestors against President Aristide.” <5>
She also took aim at the World Bank and IMF and their “continuing embargo” , which amounts to hundreds of millions of desperately needed funds. Rep. Waters outlined the following positive measures that Aristide has initiated:
“Under his leadership, the Haitian government has made major investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure…The government doubled the minimum wage from 36 to 70 gourdes per day, despite strong opposition from the business community…President Aristide has also made health care and education national priorities. More schools were built in Haiti between 1994 and 2000 than between 1804 and 1994. The government expanded school lunch and school bus programs and provides a 70% subsidy for schoolbooks and uniforms”
Rep. Waters made clear assertions on Aristide’s behalf that are otherwise absent from Bush administration commentary and corporate media deceptions regarding Haiti. Waters completed her statement with an important appeal, which called on the corporate media to “discontinue the practice of repeating rumours and innuendos,” whereby they function as “international megaphones for the opposition. They lie shamelessly on a daily basis.”
Another Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, directly challenged Colin Powell in a formal letter to him February 12th, after Powell had announced that the US administration is “not interested in regime change” in Haiti. Said Lee: “It appears that the US is aiding and abetting the attempt to violently topple the Aristide government. With all due respect, this looks like “regime change”…Our actions – or inaction – may be making things worse.”
http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=4977
Anyone ever question why the comments of Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee are not being reported at all in the corporate mass media?
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http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=4996
The US Double Game in Haiti - Feb 16, 2004
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