a1724: (a1720): Aristide's return (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

>> Bob Walton wrote:

<< During the 1994 military operation to restore Haiti's legal government,
the
>> US and the Cedras "government" reached an agreement that provided
guarantees
>> for the personal safety of many of its senior scum in exchange for
avoiding
>> a blood-bath.  Would the Haitian people preferred the alternative?


> Charles Arthur wrote:

> As to what the Haitian people preferred, I would guess that they
preferred
> that the US administration told the coup people not to do the coup in the
> first place.


Now, now, don't duck the question.  Of course they would've preferred
not having the coup.  The question was about the "embarrassing"
matter of Aristide being brought back by the US military thanks to a
liberal spasm by a liberal US president a few months after he had
said he would "never, never, never" agree to be restored to power
by a foreign invasion.

Face it:  Aristide, Haitians, democracy (whatever) got a rare second
chance and Aristide was right to do an 180-degree turn and accept the
help. Otherwise the generals might still be there, killing and raping and
looting, because Haitians gave no sign of rising up (and please, let's not
hear that the silent sulky "resistance" of the time was "in fact" being on
the
brink of toppling the dictatorship...).
.
Let's have the historical honesty to recognise what happened,
acutely embarrassing though it is to many Lavalassiens, without ducking
into the familiar diversions (the "neo-liberal plan" etc).  Aristide's
physical return didn't fit the revolutionary textbooks.  Neither did
Chavez' return (The evil oligarchy etc. and its nasty US ally should've won

and made Chavez a martyr forever after etc).  But ideologues are doubtless
hard at work cobbling together a perfectly-formed explanation as to why
the Apparent Aberration (his return) was really part of The Big Plot all
along,
just as they have done over Aristide's return.  No room for anything but
the
"correct line" of an eternal US omnipotence on which all local abuses
and "errors" can be conveniently blamed or behind which they can be handily
hidden.


        Greg Chamberlain