13147: Haiti Progres: This Week in Haiti 20:26 9/11/2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. To obtain the full paper with other news in French
and Creole, please contact us (tel) 718-434-8100,
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                     September 11 - 17, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 26

OAS RESOLUTION AUGURS RETURN OF FOREIGN TROOPS, NOT AID

One little word buried in a clause at the end of the 16-point
Organization of American States (OAS) Resolution 822 on Haiti
betrays the essence of the document: "security."

Article 13, B instructs the OAS Special Mission to Haiti to
"coordinate efforts of the international community to provide
technical and financial electoral assistance, including electoral
planning, technical assistance, _security_, and observation of the
elections in 2003 (our emphasis)."

As banal as it may appear, this word opens the door for the OAS -
- also known as "Washington's Ministry for Colonial Affairs" --
to deploy whatever "security force" it sees fit to oversee
Haiti's next elections, which it will also plan, finance,
observe, and "technically" assist.

The last OAS Electoral Mission in 2000 touched off a two-year
political crisis when it illegally challenged the verdict of
Haiti's sovereign Electoral Council (CEP) on how to compute
election results. The OAS felt that seven senators should go to
run-offs, a relatively minor complaint which was expanded,
through synergy with the Washington-financed Democratic
Convergence opposition front, to become a censure of all that
year's elections for some 7,200 municipal and parliamentary posts
and the presidency. Two years ago, the OAS didn't have a
"security force" in place.

Res. 822, passed on Sep. 4, represents just one more loop in the
noose being tightened around Haiti's neck. It is the latest in a
series of OAS resolutions maneuvering the Inter-American
Democratic Charter into place to be invoked against Haiti, if
necessary. The Democratic Charter is a hemispheric accord,
approved one year ago, which empowers the OAS to take action
against any member state which deviates from Washington's
definition of democracy (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 44,
1/16/2002).

Some Haitian government officials gleefully welcomed the
resolution, thinking that it will liberate $500 million in
multilateral loans which have been blocked by Washington since
1999. Indeed the document calls for the "normalization of
economic cooperation between the Government of Haiti and the
international financial institutions and urge[s] those parties to
resolve the technical and financial obstacles that preclude such
normalization."

"You would all like to ask me questions about the situation, but
let me give you a foretaste," Prime Minister Yvon Neptune,
laughing heartily, told journalists on Sep. 5. "I am happy."

But Neptune's optimism is not shared widely, even by some of his
subordinates. "It doesn't mean anything in terms of actual
disbursement of funds," one unnamed government official told
Reuters. "There are still many conditions to be met, and huge
financial and technical obstacles in the way."

More ominous still was the warning delivered by Peter de Shazo,
deputy U.S. Representative to the OAS, in a Sep. 4 statement to
the body about Resolution 822. "The United States, of course,
reserves the right to make decisions on international financial
institution projects in Haiti on the merits of each individual
proposal," he said. Of course.

Furthermore, the political obstacles to an aid release may be
greater than the "technical and financial" ones. For example, the
government is obliged to form in conjunction with the Convergence
"an autonomous, independent, credible and neutral CEP" within two
months, and, 30 days after that, the CEP is to form an "Electoral
Guarantees Commission" drawn from "representatives of a national
coordination body formed on the basis of experience of
coordinating electoral observation in Haiti and of civil society
organizations," all of which is to be overseen by the OAS Special
Mission. In the past decade, forming a CEP has always ushered in
months of tortuous political wrangling. That will be even
heightened because the new CEP would "monitor" Haiti's police
force "in connection with the electoral process."

Also, echoing last January's Res. 806, Res. 822 demands that the
Haitian government disarm its partisans with "the active
cooperation of the International Community" and undertake the
"effective prosecution of any person, and dismissal, when
appropriate, of any person found to be author of or accomplice in
the violence of Dec. 17, 2001, and subsequent days." On that
date, government partisans burned and looted opposition leaders'
homes and headquarters following an unsuccessful attempted
assassination of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by a 30-man
armed commando unit (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 40,
1/19/2001).

The penniless Haitian government is also commanded to undertake
"prompt reparation for organizations and individuals who suffered
damages as a direct result of the violence."

In July in Gonaïves, the government arrested Amiot "Cubain"
Métayer, the leader of a popular organization which rampaged on
Dec. 17. The arrest sparked a prison break and mass uprising, in
the face of which the government backed down (see Haïti Progrès,
Vol. 20, No. 21, 8/7/2002).

On Sep. 9, the Justice Ministry, under previous commitments to
the OAS recalled in Res. 822, was supposed to issue a report
about what it had done to round up those involved in the Dec. 17
reprisals. At press time on Sep. 10, no report was forthcoming.
When a Haïti Progrès reporter called the ministry to inquire
about the report, he was told that "no one was available" to
answer that question.

The Convergence, observing the corner into which the Haitian
government has painted itself, is now sitting back with its arms
crossed. "We remain skeptical," said Gérard Pierre-Charles of the
Convergence-linked Struggling People's Organization (OPL). "We
are not yet ready to name any names for any electoral council...
What about the Justice Minister's report on Dec. 17? Nothing has
been done yet... The government had other engagements under Res.
806 which it hasn't yet accomplished... We are not ready to step
into a situation which is not yet clear."

Res. 822 also "instruct[s] the Secretary General to strengthen
further the Special OAS Mission to Haiti in order for it to
support, monitor, and report on implementation of this and all
other pertinent OAS resolutions and on commitments of the
Government of Haiti."

"This is a commission of guardianship," observed Ben Dupuy,
secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), which has
called on Haiti's progressive forces to join with it in forming
an alternative to the Convergence and the Aristide's Lavalas
Family party (FL). "Students of history will remember that before
Napoleon sent 40,000 troops [to try to reimpose slavery in the
French colony of St. Domingue in 1801], he sent a series of
commissions, whose role was to create division, and ready things
for what was to come... That's the same role the Special OAS
Mission to Haiti plays today: preparing the ground for another
intervention, another occupation of the country."

He noted that both the Convergence and FL were falling over each
other to do the bidding of Washington, which "one day favors one,
one day favors the other, pitting them against each other to
further its own agenda."

Dupuy pointed out that the U.S. was so pleased with the passage
of Res. 822 that it immediately gave $500,000 to reinforce the
Special OAS Mission, whose mandate is completely open-ended (see
Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 51, 3/6/2002). He chastised the
Convergence and FL for slavishly currying Washington's favor and
trading away sovereignty for ephemeral loans, which only cover
interest payments and deepen the country's debt. "Both the
Convergence and FL have but one policy," he said. "To beg for
money from Washington."


NEW HAITI PROGRAM ON WBAI

The Haitian Collective at WBAI will air its next program on
Monday, September 16, 2002 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.. Among the
subjects discussed will be the crisis at the State University,
the situation of the Guacimal prisoners, and the latest OAS
Resolution on Haiti. In the New York City area, tune in on 99.5
FM. On the Internet, listen at www.wbai.org. For more
information, call 718-434-8100.

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Please credit Haiti Progres.

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