Who are these Haitian rebels?

[bluestateguy]

Who are they? Who do the represent? What Haitians are supporting them?

[Darranar]

1. These "rebels" are US-supported paramilitaries/terrorists...

they represent the very small segment of the population that wants to bend knee to American imperialism and business interests.

[ikojo]

2. I heard it said on one of the news programs (Newshour?)

that one of the leaders of the Haitian rebels was American trained. I just wonder WHERE he was trained...SOA perhaps (or whatever it is called now).

[Darranar]

3. Yes, Guy Phillipe...

I believe it was the SOA.

It's all too much of a coincidence for the US not to be involved.

[The Magistrate]

4. They Are, Sir

The old military and police elite ousted from governmental power by President Aristede. They have retained economic power, of course, and lately began to posture as persecuted libertarians, but the fact is they were not purged with anything like sufficient thoroughness. It is a mistake they may be relied on not to make themselves. There will be killings until the poorer quarters of the cities are cowed, and anyone involved with the Aristede organization is marked for death. Their man-power comes from people who make the elementary calculation it is better to be a poor man wielding a gun for the rich than otherwise, as these tend to emerge on top of the struggle.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. They are pro-American friends of US business interests and investors!

Paulaine Saint-Fleur..received 55 gourdes a day when she started..Now she makes 110 gourdes..but the wage increase has had little impact. "Now the cost of living is so much higher," she said, "that 110 gourdes is basically the same as 55 gourdes was."..she has no children, she makes more than most people at the factory, she lives in her mother's house, she lives close to the factory, and she has an uncle who helps out with expenses...she spends 95 gourdes per day on transportation and food for herself.

Last April, the Haitian government raised the national minimum wage from 36 gourdes a day ($2.40 when it was passed in 1994) to 70 gourdes per day (about $1.70 today). But even this paltry sum, lower than the cost of living for the frugal, is often overlooked even by the government itself.

"At the same time that President Aristide was campaigning for increased wages, he was ousted..."he was committed to raising the minimum wage to 72 gourdes" in 1994, "but after lengthy dialogue with the labor unions, domestic and foreign employers," etc., "the bill that finally went before Parliament raised the wage to 36 gourdes a day," from 15. The explanation continued...The president wanted to raise it to 72 gourdes this year, but was pressured to settle at 70 gourdes.

Even Marie-Claude Baillard, the president of the Association of Haitian Industries, acknowledges that the current minimum wage is too low, "in a sense, in terms of the cost of living." But "at the level of the enterprises, there is ferocious competition and the salaries must be competitive," she added. "It's not the most desirable situation," she said, but insisted that the salaries must be kept low in order to create more jobs in Haiti.

http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/Bracken.htm

[buycitgo]

6. http://madre.org/country_haiti_crisis.html

Yifat Susskind was on thisishell.com yesterday talking about this

her site is above

The richest 1% of the population controls nearly half of all of Haiti’s wealth.
· Haiti has long ranked as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and is the fourth poorest country in the world.
· Haiti ranks 146 out of 173 on the Human Development Index.*
· Life expectancy is 52 years for women and 48 for men*.
· Adult literacy is about 50%.*
· Unemployment is about 70%.*
· 85% of Haitians live on less than $1 US per day.*
· Haiti ranks 38 out of 195 for under-five mortality rate.*

*Source: “Investigating the Effects of Withheld Humanitarian Aid,” a report of the Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center.

the opposition?

Like the so-called opposition to the Chavez government of Venezuela, Haiti’s opposition represents only a small minority (8 percent of the population according to a 2000 poll). With no chance of winning through democratic elections, they rely instead on armed violence to foment a political crisis that will lead to the fall of the government. Using their international business connections, especially ties to the corporate media, the opposition has manufactured an image of itself as the true champion of democracy in Haiti.

The gangs that have placed thousands of Haitians under siege are reportedly armed with US-made M-16s, recently sent by the US to the government of the Dominican Republic.

The gangs are directly linked to two groups financed by the Bush Administration: the right-wing Convergence for Democracy and the pro-business Group of 184.

*The Convergence is a coalition of about two dozen groups, ranging from neo-Duvalierists (named for the Duvaliers’ dictatorship that ruled Haiti from 1957-1986) to former Aristide supporters. These groups have little in common except their desire to see Aristide overthrown.

*According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, the opposition’s “only policy goal seems to be reconstituting the army and the implementation of rigorous Structural Adjustment Programs.”

*The Convergence is led by former FRAPH paramilitary leaders (including Louis Chamblain, Guy Phillipe and Jean Pierre Baptiste) who carried out the bloody 1991 coup d’etat, in which the CIA-trained and -funded FRAPH overthrew Aristide, killed 5,000 civilians and terrorized Haiti for four years.

*The Convergence is supported by the Haitian elite and the leadership of the US Republican Party (through the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute).

*The Group of 184 is represented by Andy Apaid, a Duvalier supporter and US citizen who obtained a Haitian passport by fraudulently claiming to have been born in Haiti. Apaid owns 15 factories in Haiti and was the main foe of Aristide’s 2003 campaign to raise the minimum wage (which, at $1.60 a day, was lower than what it had been 10 years earlier).

By demanding that the opposition be included in any resolution of Haiti’s political impasse, the US has greatly empowered these forces. While the opposition perpetuates Haiti’s political deadlock, the US embargo (see below) guarantees the island’s economic strangulation. Aristide’s opponents hope that these combined tactics will achieve what they cannot win through democratic elections: the ouster of Aristide.