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8987: A Study in Democracy Enhancement's stated Objectives vrs. Realtiy (fwd)
From: kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com>
Although written nearly a year apart, these two documents together are a
study in the stated objectives of USAID's "Democracy Enhancement" versus the
reality. A fascinating comparison certainly worth reading.
Excerpt from In the Aftermath of Invasion
By Jane Regan, in Covert Action Quarterly, 21 December, 1994
FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/002.html
THE INVISIBLE INVASION
While the Aristide government is struggling to maintain some control over
personnel and training for the new security forces, it has practically given
up fighting U.S. development schemes and democracy enhancement projects. We
realized we can't fight this huge machine, said a transition team
member.(30) Behind closed doors, the U.S. Agency for International
Development (AID), the World Bank, the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), and scores of U.S.-funded groups are institutionalizing a more
permanent, less reversible invasion. The troops of this intervention called
democracy enhancement by AID and low intensity democracy by others are
technicians and experts. Their weapons are development projects and lots of
money. Their goal is to impose a neoliberal economic agenda, to undermine
grassroots participatory democracy, to create political stability conducive
to a good business climate, and to bring Haiti into the new world order
appendaged to the U.S. as a source for markets and cheap labor.
As in other countries, this democracy promotion industry will support those
projects and people willing to go along with its agenda and will mold them
into a center. In the crude old days, grassroots organizers unwilling to be
co-opted would have been tortured or killed. Now, they will simply be
marginalized by poverty and lack of political clout.
Sophisticated propaganda campaigns will set the stage for the demonstration
elections that will bestow legitimacy on the project.(31) A month before the
invasion, on August 26, in Paris, representatives of the Aristide government
met with some of the major cogs in this U.S.-dominated machine: the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund, Inter-American Development Bank and
bilateral funders. The Aristide team verbally agreed to impose a neoliberal
structural adjustment plan (SAP) that included the sale of public utilities
and publicly owned businesses (euphemistically called the democratization of
asset ownership ), liberalization of trade, and payment of debts. The
agreement implied a reduction in already pitifully inadequate social
services and an increasing reliance on non-governmental institutions and the
private sector.(32) Asked if the plan would support a raise in minimum wage
static since 1983 at about $1 a day AID chief Brian Atwood said: I don't
think that this economy is ready to consider such measures.(33)
A transition team member said that demands by the World Bank and other
funders go beyond a neoliberal economic structure and include a political
agenda. The international funders hoped to see a government of
reconciliation which would guarantee stability and a sound economic
environment, *34 he said. In the context of Haiti, reconciliation is a
codeword for sharing power with the people who engineered and supported the
coup d'etat, and maintaining their ability to control much of the political
and economic life of the country.
AID BYPASSES ARISTIDE
Like ICITAP police and military training, most of the financial aid will
bypass the Aristide government. Not only those funds slated for SAPs, but
also the almost $600 million earmarked for economic, governance and
humanitarian projects will remain largely under U.S. control. A transition
team member reported that when members of the constitutional government ask
about or criticize AID projects, U.S. officials say: `It doesn't really
concern the Haitian government.'(35)
Any hopes that the U.N. might intercede on Haiti's behalf dissipated when
U.N. Development Program director in Haiti, Juan Luis Laraburre, resigned in
May 1994, blaming pressure and restrictions placed on him by the most
powerful states.(36) A more recent UNDP technician was more amenable to the
U.S. agenda. The government has no absorption capacity, he explained. The
best situation would be for the government to oversee the projects without
having government employees do the actual work.(37) Under this arrangement,
the monies will go straight to the private sector, non-governmental
organizations (NGO), or local leaders and politicians chosen by AID and
NGOs. The most important U.S.-based groups NED, the Washington-based Center
for Democracy (CFD), the International Republican Institute and the National
Democratic Institute are almost wholly funded by U.S. taxpayers. The key
Haitian player the U.S.-founded and funded Programme Integre pour le
Renforcement de la Democracie (PIRED) is headed by U.S. anthropologist and
longtime Haiti resident Ira Lowenthal.
PIRED
The bulk of PIRED's funds and the font of Lowenthal's influence is a $15
million, five-year democracy enhancement project funded wholly by AID
through the Alexandria, Virginia-based America's Development Foundation, a
spinoff of NED. It has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into popular
organizations, labor unions, peasant groups, foundations, and human rights
groups linked to political leaders and parties.
PIRED has also promoted the U.S. asylum processing program, through which at
least 60,000 grassroots militants were interviewed extensively about their
activities, enabling the U.S. government to create a detailed database of
the democratic movement which many speculate has been used for more than
immigration matters. With PIRED's tutelage and cash, scores of labor unions
and neighborhood groups have gone from demanding higher wages and denouncing
U.S. imperialism to thanking Bill Clinton and promoting reconciliation.(38)
A $200,000 PIRED grant went to a foundation associated with Port-au-Prince
Mayor Evans Paul, a strong proponent of reconciliation apparently being
groomed by the U.S. to succeed Aristide. When Paul was reinstalled in his
office by U.S. troops in October, Lowenthal was there, beaming. A mainstream
newspaper noted with relief that Paul is very different from Aristide and
that he has matured from leftist street agitator to statesman. In the same
story, wealthy businessman and former coup-backer Gregory Mevs gave his nod
to Paul and a U.S. diplomat said, There's no one on the horizon who can come
near the guy.(39) Many are concerned that Lowenthal, who was also a frequent
visitor to army general headquarters in recent months, has too much power
over the millions being pumped into Haiti. In a confidential memo to U.S.
lawmakers, an Aristide aide complained that PIRED should be taken out of the
loop because it has been repeatedly involved in attempting to create
political solutions through power sharing arrangements with the military
regime.(40) Lowenthal is basically running the show, explained the
transition team member. He is like the new governor of Haiti. All local
programs go through him.
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Excerpts from The United States Agency for International Development
Technical Notes from USAID's Global Center for Democracy and Governance
Fall 1995
FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT:
http://www.usaid.gov/democracy/techpubs/dialogue/95f2.html
Another plan. Another deadline. Another last chance. These concepts
virtually define USAID/Haiti's $11 million Democracy Enhancement Project
(DEP) since it was approved in May 1991. Democracy, which relies on argument
and opposition, is by nature a disorderly business. But since 1991,
democracy in Haiti has had to rebound from a difficult three-year period
during which the country's military rulers thumbed their noses at the world;
two major evacuations of USAID Mission personnel; and, the September 1994
20,000-soldier-strong deployment of the Multinational Force (MNF) through
"Operation Uphold Democracy," mounted in the declared interest of protecting
democracy in the American hemisphere. Up until the MNF arrival, random
killings continued at the rate of dozens a month, and Port-au-Prince became
so dangerous that the streets were deserted. The thuggish junta expelled
international human rights observers and announced a state of siege that
resulted in greater military repression. Yet, it was a drama being played
out in America's backyard, and one that radically altered project
conditions, rendering most of the planned DEP activities impossible or
untimely.
Four years later, USAID/Haiti can be proud of a democracy success story in
progress to which their program lent high visibility and key credibility to
U.S. Government (USG) foreign policy. That is the compelling story that
needs to be told.
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