U.S. must take responsibility in Haiti

[Tinoire]

U.S. must take responsibility in Haiti

<reluctant snip>

Regardless of what you think about Aristide, he was democratically elected and supported by the people, and thus, should have been allowed to stay his term. Could you imagine people here saying they're fed up with our current U.S. president and just deciding to overthrow him? If the opposition in Haiti wanted to be in charge of the government, then they should have mounted a campaign to run in the next elections in 2005; but they knew they would lose. Haiti has had 32 coups in its history. This 33rd coup is continuing a precedent that will destroy the democracy we have been trying to build. The United States could have said "we will not recognize the rebels as a legitimate government if they succeed in toppling Aristide" as argued by Micheal Ranter, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. But it didn't because it is not democracy that the United States wants. It is hypocritical that this is the same United States that financially supported Haitian dictators, like Duvalier, who committed gross atrocities.

In the past weeks, the United States has been publicly calling for the Aristide government to compromise and negotiate with the opposition. But tell me how can one negotiate with terrorists? The leaders of the opposition are the very people responsible for the bloody military coup that ousted Aristide in 1991 -- Andre Apaid, Chamblain, and Emanuel Constant, who happens to have been in exile right here in Queens, N.Y. These men have been convicted, in absentia, of mass murder in Haiti. In this age of terrorism, are these the people the United States wanted Aristide to compromise with? Are these the people who will lead a "liberated" Haiti?

The reality of the matter is that the United States was behind this coup because it has never liked Aristide since he advocated for workers' rights and higher wages. In exchange for U.S. "aid" money, former dictators gave United States and French multinationals free reign to abuse workers and exploit the country's resources for economic gains worth billions. Aristide, a former priest, threatened all this. And so, as documented in Lester Brune's "The United States and Post-Cold War: Bush and Clinton in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia," the CIA and the Defense Intelligence gave $400 million dollars to help organizations oppose Aristide's first government, resulting in the coup of 1991. Aristide was only reinstated in 1994 under Clinton because of intense international pressure and the surge of unwanted Haitian refugees to the United States.

And now the United States strikes again. Since 2001, Bush has blocked all foreign aid from reaching Haiti's government on the premise of "flawed elections." Simultaneously there have been claims by Marguerite Laurent, a Haitian-American lawyer who worked to have Aristide reinstated in 1994, that certain ring-wing conservatives have been giving financial support to the anti-government opposition. No one else questions the source of the rebels' supplies and uniforms? It is also interesting that France supports this coup, at a time when Haiti has been demanding reparations from France for having forced Haiti in 1825 to pay an indemnity of what today would be $21.7 billion for its independence.

<snip>

Regardless of party affiliation, we should be concerned as citizens of the world. The situation in Haiti is just one example of how the U.S. intervenes negatively in the affairs of other nations. The time to wake up from our propaganda-induced slumber is now. It is high time that all the other nations break out of their weakness and fear and demand justice from the United States for such atrocities. We must hold the United States, France, and others accountable for their actions against international law and humanity.


http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=25297

[ClintonTyree]

1. Haven't you heard?

Vice president crashcart said on Wolf Blitzer today, "The United States had nothing to do with the situaiton in Haiti". I belive him, don't you? Our government would NEVER resort to underhanded trickery to change a government they didn't support, correct?
If Crashcart says it's so, it MUST be so!

[einniv]

3. They better hope there is lots of plausible deniability around

or they might just find the world wants to hang them from a tree.

[tkmorris]

2. Keep sounding the gong Tinoire

Of course, the Bush apologists who seem to hate Democracy will show up posting links to AI in 5...4...3...2...1...

[Oilwellian]

5. Hehehehe

(wink, wink, nudge, nudge) :D

[Tinoire]

10. This time it's the New Republic.

That's been so forcefully pushing a the New World Order this last decade.

A magazine that so strongly pushed for the war in Iraq to make things "better" for the Iraqi people is now declaring that Bush's coup this week is making things "better" for the Haitian people.

And the same magazine editor too with his ideas of "better". Kurchner, pfffft. You'd think people would at least do a little homework before posting these neo ass-holes defending everything Bush does.

[Oilwellian]

4. Excellent

I often wonder how long it will take for the rest of the world to finally stand against us and say enough is enough. Great post.

[windansea]

6. TNR article

Ten years ago, U.S. forces invaded Haiti and restored President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. Yesterday, rebels undid our handiwork, forcing Aristide into exile and throwing Haiti's future into uncertainty. In 1994, Aristide duped the White House into believing he was a Caribbean Mandela; he was, in fact, a megalomaniacal demagogue. After his return to power, he presided over the disintegration of democracy in Haiti; by any standard, the remaining years of his presidency were a disaster. All of which might appear to call into question Bill Clinton's decision to invade Haiti and install Aristide in 1994. In fact, far from casting doubt on his decision, history has vindicated Clinton's intervention. Aristide may have been a thug, and Haiti may now be better off without him, but restoring him to power was the right thing to do.

Overthrown in a military coup just seven months after winning his country's presidency with two-thirds of the vote, Aristide spent his exile stumping across the United States and attracting admirers on Capitol Hill. He said all the right things to his American hosts--about cultivating the rule of law, about building a middle class, and about adhering to a constitution. He was modest, too. Though his Washington backers argued that he should get three extra years in office to compensate for his exile, he vowed not to stay on past 1995, because doing so might appear to prolong Haiti's tradition of dictatorship. "I think there is more grandeur in stepping down," he told The New Yorker. "It's the constitutional thing to do and it's the statesmanlike thing to do."

But his supporters--Clinton among them--ignored evidence that Aristide was not the voice of reason he proclaimed to be. As a populist clergyman, he had already shown a tendency to rely on mobs. In 1993, the director of Human Rights Watch pointed out that during his brief stint as president, Aristide had refused to condemn 25 lynchings perpetrated by his followers, and that "he condoned threats of popular violence against the judiciary and the legislature." In a memoir released that same year, Aristide said that representative democracy was not an "indispensable corollary" to human rights.

Turns out Aristide was merely saying what his American hosts wanted to hear. He never nurtured the civil institutions that form the cornerstones of democracy--such as a market economy, an independent judiciary, and a functional bureaucracy. Meanwhile, he started arming militias loyal to his party, Lavalas. He had to be persuaded by several heads of state to leave office at the end of his term in 1995, which he did reluctantly and only after anointing a successor (and surrogate) in René Préval. When the constitutional liberals of Lavalas grew frustrated with his puppetry of Préval, Aristide formed his own political faction whose singular ideology was fealty to him. In 2000, he rigged 14 of 19 legislative elections; he soon rigged his own return to power. He has completely undone what modest democratic traditions Haitians struggled to build in the early 1990s.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=kushner030104

[einniv]

7. "Haiti is better for the fact that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is now in exile"

Interesting. They already know that it will be better.
Well maybe 2 days is enough to know.
I would be interested in how the same thing that was bad (overthrow of democracy in Haiti) is good now?
How are the same people that were bad before good now. Is this like one of those deals where the Northern Alliance switched over from bad guy to good guy depending on the needs of power? How come the start of his bad behavior so closely coincided with his resistence to western demands? Is that just one of those oh so frequent foreign policy coincidences?
How was he supposed to have elections when the no one would run? Why does this claim 14 seats were contested when others sources say 7?
When will this "getting better" be complete? Once the globalist's demands are met and wages returned to their former levels? One can only assume since that is the only thing the terrorists support as an agenda.
Oh yeah and more guns too.

[Tinoire]

9. They're slaughtering poor Blacks. Some Americans consider that 'better'

<snip>

The “democratic opposition” consists largely of political parties and business groups representing the tiny privileged elite that formed the real base of support for the Duvalier dictatorship and subsequent military regimes. With financial and political backing from the US National Endowment for Democracy as well as from the Chirac government in France, it has worked for the last four years to mobilize international support for the removal of Aristide.

<snip>

The Boston Globe on Tuesday carried a revealing report by Steven Dudley on the activities of paramilitary killing squads in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil. “They are upper-class, urban paramilitaries who say they are protecting their property, families and country,” Dudley wrote, referring to a squad of over 20 men who were scouring the shantytown, “M-4s, M-14s, Tech-9s and 9mms at the ready.”

“These paramilitary volunteers are businessmen,” according to the Globe article. “Nearly all of them speak English from time spent in Miami or New England. Most are from Haiti’s light-skinned elite, the tiny fraction of the population that actually owns something. Some of them have military training; a few were army reservists in college. All of them have weapons.” Most, the article states, had come down to the slums from the upper-class hillside neighborhood of Petionville.

The report quoted one of the gunmen: “We went down every alley, every street. We’re cleaning up the neighborhoods.” Scores of suspected Aristide supporters have been reported killed in the area. The paramilitaries, it added, were working in close collaboration with the police.

Col. David Berger, the commander of the US Marine force that has secured strategic points in the Haitian capital, told reporters Tuesday, “I have no instruction to disarm the rebels.”


<snip>

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m03.shtml

[Tinoire]

8. Another gem

in the finest neo-liberal tradition. You're in luck, the boys from the National Endowment for Democracy that you so vigorously defended in the past are already arranging Baby Doc's return.

How encouraging for Bush to know that there are Democrats defending the murderous actions of his regime. But this is America right? Everyone deserves a lawyer?

Hopefully, you jest with that neo-liberal publication that sided with the neo-cons on Iraq. Well then again, maybe not. What will you quote next? The American Enterprise Institute?


The New Republic, 1220 19th Street NW, Washington DC, Tel: [phone] (editorial), 800-827-1289 (subs). $70/year (48 issues); $35 for new subs.
For decades, The New Republic (founded in 1914 by Walter Lippmann and friends) and The Nation were sister weeklies, peas in a left-liberal pod. But in the aftermath of the 60s, TNR owner and quondam radical Martin Peretz became an ultra-hardliner on the issues of Israel and the Soviet Union -- for him, as for so many others, really one issue. And Peretz's TNR writers helped invent the cynical knowingness that defines "neoliberal" discourse -- wittily brushing off most suggestions for social melioration here at home, while often backing Reagan on "defense" and (particularly) the economy. During the 80s, TNR contributors thronged the ill-mannered bull sessions that passed for public-affairs TV. Their antics helped fix the contemporary persona of the "liberal" -- a querulous know-it-all who went to an Ivy League school, skipped military service, and today agrees with about 60-80 percent of the Reagan revolution.
Peretz's current politics are signaled by TNR's new editor: Andrew Sullivan, a young Englishman and unrepentant Thatcherite. But Clinton-Gore neoliberals (e.g., Sidney Blumenthal, Michael Kinsley) remain a TNR presence, and TNR's superior arts and letters section retains its separate editor, Leon Wieseltier. -- Steve Badrich

http://www.namebase.org/sources/FG.html


Your propaganda will be taken more seriously when the butchers you defend don't rely on funds from the NED's IRI and can rally a democratic crowd like this:

[uhhuh]

18. Financial Times article

snip

"President George Bush's foreign policy team came into office intent on toppling Mr Aristide, long reviled by powerful US conservatives such as former senator Jesse Helms who obsessively saw him as another Fidel Castro in the Caribbean. Such critics fulminated when President Bill Clinton restored Mr Aristide to power in 1994, and they succeeded in getting US troops withdrawn soon afterwards, well before the country could be stabilized. In terms of help to rebuild Haiti, the US Marines left behind about eight miles of paved roads and essentially nothing else. In the meantime, the so-called "opposition", a coterie of rich Haitians linked to the preceding Duvalier regime and former (and perhaps current) CIA operatives, worked Washington to lobby against Mr Aristide.

In 2000, Haiti held parliamentary and then presidential elections, unprecedented in their scope. Mr Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas, clearly won the election, although candidates who won a plurality rather than a majority, and who should have faced a second-round election, also gained seats. Objective observers declared the elections broadly successful, albeit flawed.

Mr Aristide won the presidential election later that year, in a contest the US media now reports was "boycotted by the opposition" and hence, not legitimate. This is a cruel joke to those who know Haiti, where Mr Aristide was swept in with an overwhelming mandate and the opposition, such as it was, ducked the elections. Duvalier thugs hardly constituted a winning ticket and as such, did not even try. Nor did they have to. Mr Aristide's foes in Haiti benefited from tight links with the incoming Bush team, which told Mr Aristide it would freeze all aid unless he agreed with the opposition over new elections for the contested Senate seats, among other demands. The wrangling led to the freezing of $500m in emergency humanitarian aid from the US, the World Bank, the Inter- American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund."
snip

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5067


Your turn...

[Tinoire]

11. Why they had to crush Aristide / was seen as a threat by France and the US

((With thanks to MidwestMama for finding this!))

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.


<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1159809,00.html

[uhhuh]

12. A report from the 2000 election

http://www.quixote.org/haiti/elections/Election_Press_Release_22may2000.html

oops! that was from May, here's one from nov:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/235.html

one more from an election observer. This one is the most relevant:

http://haitiforever.com/windowsonhaiti/w00511.shtml

[Tinoire]

14. Amazing! You mean they didn't see the ruckus elections USAID reported?

The Coalition was especially pleased to witness a large voter turn out, not seen since the 1990 elections. We also saw large numbers of voters registered at each of the bureaus we visited. We wish to express our continuing concern about voters in remote rural areas, and to point out that our delegation was unable to access these areas for proper observation. It is our impression that all of the international observation missions were spread out among more accessible areas, and we will look forward to the reports of national observers about the remote rural bureaus.

It is our observation that voters were able to participate without fear in almost all locations we visited. The Coalition witnessed isolated incidents of non-violent intimidation at a few voter bureaus. Large numbers of voters were lined up beginning at 5am in anticipation of BVs opening at 6am. It was encouraging to see voters overcoming the rumors of intended violence and coming out to express their political will.

At each of the sites we visited we met with observers from other organizations. Political party representatives, or mandataires, from the Espace de Concertation, OPL (Organization de Peuple en Lutte) and Fanmi Lavalas were present at as many as 95% of the bureaus we visited. The presence of these mandataires was documented in each location we visited, as well as representatives from other parties (including: MOCHRENHA, RDNP, APPA, RCP, Tet Ansamn, PLB, and independent). In nearly 100% of the bureaus we also documented national observers from the National Council of Observers (CNO/KNO).

The preliminary conclusion of the International Coalition of Independent Observers is that the Haitian people have mobilized in large numbers to express their political will through participation in the local and legislative elections of May 21, 2000. We were pleased to observe employees at voter bureaus working with each other to promote a secure environment and privacy for voting. Although late distribution of voting materials in several locations may have discouraged people from voting, we did witness lines of patient voters. It is not yet possible to gauge the number of voters who were unable to find their appropriate bureau, and we will await reports from the countryside. We were greatly encouraged by encountering a diverse group of national observers representing all segments of Haitian society, and we eagerly await reports from their observations.

((Excerpt / International Coalition of Independent Observers))


Thanks. We KNOW the elections were peaceful and fair. Carter said so at the time despite his shock that Marc Bazin, the US' candidate didn't win. Thank you

[althecat]

13. Thanks Tinoire... you are doing a good job of getting me up to speed

Keep it up...

Big Ups from downunder

Al

[Tinoire]

15. Thanks althecat

Never in my wildest dreams did I think of this day when I made up my DU moniker 4 years ago which means "little Black" in Creole :)

A Creole hug to
Al the cat.

from
Tinoire

[uhhuh]

16. If anyone is interested

You can see how Haitians and other concerned parties view this situation, here:

http://haitiforever.com/windowsonhaiti/voices.html

[radfringe]

17. pshshaw....take responsibility???

heaven forbid that bush* takes responsibility for anything...

give'em a day or two more and they'll figure out how to spin it and blame it on Clinton

[Aidoneus]

19. my phrase would rather be "must be held responsible"

but eh..

a question about Apaid. I've read that he's Lebanese--how did they get there? Did the Duvaliers give foreign businessmen a red carpet?

[Tinoire]

24. There's been a long-standing Syrian & Lebanese community

in Haiti. Since the late 1800's. Accepted now by the Haitian elite but still seen as second rungby the older families. Light skin, money (from commerce) and education over the years got them up there. The early ones were in the shipping & import/export business and settled there. It used to be such a beautiful, welcoming country.
Because the elite considered them 2nd rung (on a ladder of 5 rungs) most of them allied themselves with the Duvaliers who were the first to allow forced labor and sweat-shops in Haiti.


==
The only group described as an ethnic minority in Haiti was the "Arabs," people descended from Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian traders who began to arrive in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean in the late nineteenth century. From their beginnings, as itinerant peddlers of fabrics and other dry goods, the Arabs moved into the export-import sector, engendering the hostility of Haitians and foreign rivals. Nevertheless, the Arabs remained. Many adopted French and Creole as their preferred languages, took Haitian citizenship, and integrated themselves into the upper and the middle classes. Formerly spurned by elite mulatto families and excluded from the best clubs, the Arabs had begun to intermarry with elite Haitians and to take part in all aspects of upper-class life, including entry into the professions and industry.


http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/haiti/haiti33.html

http://www.leb.org/v3/search?words=Haiti (a few Lebanenese Haitians looking for their roots)

[uhhuh]

20. Kick

[KG]

21. read some truly incredible shit this week on DU.

seem that some DUers are okay with a bloody US sponsored coup to overthrow an elected leader. i guess their taste in leadership runs toward the likes of guy phillipe, chamblain and other muderous thugs. they must not mind politcal revenge killings, coz lots of that is gonna happen.

but they sure were indignant over the bushco coup of 2k.

[Aidoneus]

22. US coups are a very liberal thing, KG

Get with it!

[KG]

23. it would seem so. invasions and occupations too!

yep, if the US deems somebody a tyrant, the liberal thing to do is to violently overthrow them!

so, don't be parsing my words! :)