13880: Nadal: Keeping Faith in the US (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Olivier Nadal:o_nadal@bellsouth.net

Keeping Faith in the United States of America

Parnell Duverger

"The Price of Greatness is Responsibility".
Winston Churchill


 The International Community, led by the Organization of American States
(OAS), is facing anew the challenge of convincing the violent, corrupt and
despotic rulers of Haiti to stop frustrating their people's quest for
democratic freedom.   This time around, though, the culprit is -- hold your
breath! - A political "protégé" of the Clinton administration, Mr. Jean
Bertrand Aristide, who, supported by a brutal private army organized in
local bands of thugs, aptly named "chimeras", proclaimed himself the winner
of token elections in December 2000.


Haiti's Aristide:  A Record of Lies and Deceit

Since then, Mr. Aristide has been at the helm of a de-facto government that
is widely recognized as the most violent, murderous and corrupt dictatorship
of Haiti's troubled history.   As a result, the United States has led the
international community in withholding vital economic and financial
assistance to the Caribbean nation, pending reforms demanded by Haiti's
organized civil society and opposition political parties, as well as the
international community, through the Organization of American States (OAS).
The required reforms are spelled out in OAS Resolutions 806 and 822, which
Mr. Aristide has pledged to, but failed to implement, as he has done
faithfully since 1991 with all domestic and international political
agreements, while the Clinton administration conveniently looked the other
way.


Clinton's Legacy

In Bill Clinton's Washington, Mr. Aristide was placed comfortably in the
driver's seat of U.S. foreign policy in Haiti, a unique privilege that
emboldened him into believing that neither his country's political
opposition to his dictatorial and increasingly brutal methods, nor the
uneasiness felt in the international community, mattered much. Indeed, with
the spectacular assassination of his most noted political opponent, Mrs.
Mireille Durocher Bertin, on a busy street of Port-au-Prince, by a death
squad and in broad daylight, on March 28, 1995, less than 48 hours before an
official state visit by the President of the United States, Mr. Aristide had
just served notice to Haitians and to the world, that his powers would have
no bounds.  Incredible powers indeed, for there is no public record of a
single word of protest registered by Mr. Bill Clinton during that visit,
even though a senior officer of the U.S. Expeditionary Forces, General
Georges Fisher, had warned Mr. Aristide in a letter dated March 19, 1995,
that U.S. intelligence data pointed to the existence of an assassination
plot against Mrs. Bertin.

A few months later, on October 3, 1995, Haitian Army General Henry Max
Mayard was murdered in similar fashion.   These two murders marked the
beginning of a long series of high profile political assassinations, the
extraordinary brutality of which was meant to traumatize ordinary Haitians
into complete political submission.





While Haiti's troubled history must account for its long list of dictatorial
regimes, the roots of its current political quagmire are found in the absurd
and now openly failed policies of the Clinton administration, which simply
lacked the intellectual depth and nuance required to confront Mr. Aristide's
version of the Theology of Liberation, the new face of Marxism in our
hemisphere.  Clinton's Haiti policy appeared to rest on the notions that:
(1) the end of the cold war weakened the political relevance of ideologies,
(2) only elections matter in a democracy, so that, once elected, even those
leaders who use violence to subvert their nation's democratic process,
terrorize their population, muzzle the press and murder their political
opponents, are immune to sanctions, let alone dismissal, and (3) by treating
Mr. Aristide like a democrat, the latter would eventually begin to behave
like a democrat.

  On the first count, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and its role in
worldwide terrorism has been more than a wake up call, as is the current
spread of new populist leftist governments sweeping Latin America.

The second notion appears to be a novel concept of democracy so shallow and
inconsistent with the core values of modern western political thought, such
as human rights or the need to insure political stability through
constitutionally mandated separation of state powers or a system of check
and balances, as is found in the United States, that it is at once shocking
and frightening to find such idea entertained, even vaguely, at the center
of political power in the free world.  Yet, it is this conceptually flawed
new model of democracy that has been allowed to infest the international
institutions of our continent to such an extent, that Mr. Aristide of Haiti,
followed by Mr. Chavez of Venezuela, can shamelessly and arrogantly play the
victims, and denounce as a "coup d'état" the slightest challenge to their
political excesses and abuses, including the massive public demonstrations
by their nation's citizenry calling for their ouster.

On the third count, the string of political murders and the sustained
violence directed at Aristide's political opposition in Haiti, for example,
leave no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation.


Railroad to Failure

 The Clinton's administration policy toward Haiti was doomed for failure,
the moment it became centered on returning Mr. Aristide to power, as the
only way to bring the democratic process back on track in the troubled
Caribbean nation.  For, all available evidence demonstrates, even today,
that Mr. Aristide has been and remains the most important obstacle to the
establishment of a democratic system of representative government, peace and
stability in his nation.  Since he entered politics in the early 1990's, Mr.
Aristide has been at the center of a long series of serious political crises
of his own making, with his calls for a bloody Marxist revolution, his
unwillingness to compromise and negotiate with those who oppose him, his
violent threats against his country's business and intellectual elites, his
penchant for mob violence against perceived enemies, and his complete
disregard for Haiti's constitution or legal system.


Tough Questions for a Nation in Pain

In 1991, Mr. Aristide's anti-democratic and violent behavior led his country
's power structure, fully supported by the Haitian military, to seek and
obtain his ouster, as Haitians painfully searched for answers to the
difficult questions they faced:  how to protect their country against an
emerging dictator resolutely engaged in turning his electoral legitimacy
into a violent tool of subversion against his country's constitution, its
democratic institutions, the state, civil liberties and individual human
rights?
What should society do when this emerging dictator sends a violent mob to
ransack the nation's Parliament, beat up elected representatives, and
prevent the country's institutions from initiating impeachment procedures
against him, as mandated by the constitution?

During the period 1992 - 1994, Mr. Aristide confronted Haitians with even
more pressing questions:  How could the nation rebuke safely the exiled and
unrepentant Head of State, who had not renounced his violent and
anti-democratic ways, had requested and obtained a crippling economic
embargo against his own country, the poorest of the western hemisphere, and
was too happy to return to power with the support of a foreign military
force of occupation that he requested, in a country which not only owed its
political independence to a glorious war against foreign military forces of
colonial occupation, but also never stopped to lament in shame over the U.S.
military occupation of its territory from 1915 to 1934?  What should Haiti
do to escape the return of its infamous president in exile, a fiercely
anti-American and outrageously violent theologian of liberation, who had
succeeded in forging a mysterious and unholy alliance with the leader of the
free world, without compromising a valued friendship with the United States
of America, a necessary partner for economic progress and positive
democratic reforms?   How could Haitians, committed to democratic changes,
persuade the Clinton administration not to force Mr. Aristide on a
defenseless nation that felt humiliated, vilified and betrayed publicly by
its own Head of State, an unqualified dictator and traitor to his Church,
his faith, as well as his political party, who had compromised his country's
economic well being and national sovereignty, without doing damages to the
hopeful leadership role that the United States would still be expected to
play in salvaging and furthering the nation's democratic process?


Ten Years of Brutal and Defiant Dictatorship


Fast forward to November 2002.  In a rare show of agreement and unity,
Haitians of all walks of life are denouncing the brutal dictatorial regime
of Mr. Jean Bertrand Aristide, and want to force him out to bring an end to
their nation's current political nightmare. Well, this is precisely what the
Haitian military, pressured by the nation's political power structure,
attempted to achieve ten years ago, in 1991, when the dictatorial beast had
raised its ugly head and started to devour the country's fragile democratic
institutions, its constitution, and the roasted flesh of those who dared to
challenge it.  To all those, perhaps more mature today, and politically
wiser now, who have rejoined us in our steadfast beliefs that it takes more
than an election for any society to achieve democracy, and that a moral
obligation exists, for all democrats, to seek and obtain the speedy removal
from office, by any means necessary, of an elected leader who converts his
electoral legitimacy into a violent tool of subversion against the state and
the citizenry, I say thank you for waking up and standing up now to defeat
tyranny, moral turpitude, malfeasance and state terrorism.

   Now that the whole country is in tumult, demanding that Mr. Aristide
resign, as school children are shot and killed in Petit-Goave,
anti-government protesters are shot and killed in Gonaives, a radio station
is burned down in Cap-Haitien, journalists flee into hiding, the whole
population of Port-au-Prince is placed under house arrest as the capital
city is shut down by the government's well paid armed gang leaders, in this
new war being waged on the defenseless people of Haiti by one General Amiot
Metayer, leader of the Haitian president's private "cannibal army", while
students, teachers, university professors, business men and women,
clergymen, journalists, women, workers, farmers.etc., take to the streets
daily, screaming that they can no longer tolerate the intolerable or
continue to accept this infamy,  how many more must die before the
international community can honestly recognize that something has gone and
remains terribly wrong in Haiti?   How many more days of violence, murder,
and impunity against a defenseless population should Mr. Aristide continue
to enjoy, now that he has emptied his bag of shameless lies and tricks, as
the whole world has finally realized that, since 1991, Haitians have been
made to endure the greatest political fraud of the 20th Century?  It's a
fraud against democracy, against the free world, against human dignity and
decency, against the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere.


Keeping Faith in the United States

As he campaigned for the presidency, Mr. George W. Bush made it clear that
American troops would not, under his stewardship, go into foreign lands to
engage in nation building or in support of ill defined or bizarre missions
like the one that brought Mr. Aristide back to Haiti.   But, Mr. Bush did
also tell us that he would never hesitate to confront, as he does now with
great skills and statesmanship, the international bandits who pose a threat
to the national security of the United States.  We agreed with him, then. We
support him now.

Well, Mr. President, the time has come to take a serious look at Haiti's
Aristide.  Let us listen again to his speeches, the old and the new.  Let us
investigate why, even today, the well paid gang leaders who are the high
ranking officers of his "Cannibal Army", would dare bring their troops to
the gates of the U.S. embassy in Haiti, to proclaim their love and support
for Osama Bin Laden, in much the same way that his "Red Army" did in 1991
for Fidel Castro and Mouhamar Khadafi.  Let us find out why the Haitian
secret service would engineer the landing of a boat, carrying over 200 would
be refugees, on the shores of the State of Florida, a week before the recent
November 5th elections in the United States?   Let us ask ourselves: what
this former catholic priest, a fiercely anti-American and violent proponent
of the Theology of Liberation, the de-facto Head of State of a small
Caribbean nation, intend to do with the more than $ 800 million dollars he
is reported to have stolen from his country's treasury?  Finally, let us try
to understand why, every time Mr. Aristide finds himself threatened by
domestic political crises of his own making, he finds it "clever" to blame
and accuse the United States, falsely and publicly, of plotting a "coup d'
état" against him?


 With Mr. Aristide, we have seen it all and heard it all.  So, if as I
believe, it is time to act and bring an end to this masquerade in Haiti, let
us allow the many in the Haitian American community, who have been blessed
with partaking in the unique American culture of freedom, to serve, once
again, the cause of democracy, freedom, justice and human dignity, much as
they did proudly in the past, in the various uniforms of the different
branches of the U.S. military, by networking and partnering with Haitian
freedom fighters, to help the people of Haiti conquer the political
liberties they have been longing for, at last.

 Since 1994, the U.S. has spent over $ 3 billions dollars in Haiti,
unwittingly helping Mr. Aristide develop his private "Cannibal Army", to
terrorize the suffering people of his nation.  With a tiny fraction of that
amount, the United States could help struggling Haitians achieve a positive
regime change that would jumpstart the democratic process interrupted in
Haiti by Mr. Aristide since 1991.



Let us reject, once and for all, the conceptually flawed and logically
incorrect notion that an elected leader, even in rigged elections, must be
allowed to murder thousands of his nation's citizens and/or destroy his
country's democratic institutions, at will and with impunity.

Let us hear the cries of the tens of thousands of protesters who crowd the
streets of Haiti, everyday now, with courage and determination, as they
continue to face death at the hand of Mr. Aristide's murderous bunch of
armed gang leaders, to demand the resignation of their corrupt, incompetent,
dictatorial and violent de-facto government.  Let their hope for freedom and
justice reach the hearts and consciences of Secretary of State Colin Powell
and former president Jimmy Carter, our 2002 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who,
as members of the delegation that included former Senator Sam Nunn,
succeeded in negotiating an honorable exit for the Haitian military in 1994,
thwarting Mr. Aristide's will to spill the blood of his own countrymen in an
ill-advised hostile military occupation of Haiti, the only purpose of which
was to return a dictator to political power.  Few Americans today possess,
as do Secretary Powell and Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter, the combined
knowledge and understanding of the true nature of the current political mess
in Haiti, the political discernment necessary to unravel the political fraud
perpetrated against the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere since
1991, and the political power or prestige needed to influence key decision
makers into a just, fair, quick and lasting end to this gratuitous suffering
of the general population of Haiti.

Let up keep faith in the United States of America as a beacon of hope for
freedom, democracy and justice in our hemisphere, as well as in the
generosity and proverbial compassion of Americans everywhere, including in
the U.S. government, to establish immediately an Haiti Freedom Fund that can
be tapped to level the playing field for the courageous people of Haiti, so
that their freedom fighters can be assisted with the financial support they
deserve to hasten the end of the unspeakable political fraud being
perpetrated on their suffering nation, and renew their efforts to achieve
political stability and peace, democracy, the rule of law and economic
development.

Parnell Duverger
Senior Economist, Planeconomics Consultants Corp.
Chairman, Louverture Center for Freedom and Development
November 28, 2002