16970: erasmus: Just for you Bob: Dollars & Sense (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: erasmus <erasumustom@sympatico.ca>
-----
DOLLARS AND SENSE   - Sept./Oct. 2003   page 38
Still Up Against the
Death Plan in Haiti
The Aristide government is straitjacketed by U.S.low-intensity
warfare and neoliberal economic demands.
BY TOM REEVES

This March I visited Haiti for the first time since 1997.
I expected the worst.In publications across the po-
litical spectrum, North American analysts condemn
the government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide.
Haiti, they say, faces worse poverty and repression than ever.
A corrupt and devious Aristide is portrayed as a far cry from
the lowly priest the people overwhelmingly chose in 1991.
Recently I asked a prominent Canadian journalist why in a
recent article he called Aristide a tyrant.  He replied,"Every-
body knows that."

But on the street in Haiti, the picture was much more
complicated.  In terms of violence and public order, for ex-
ample, the situation has improved dramatically.  "Baby Doc"
Duvalier (1971-1986) governed through an obvious and
paralyzing fear, engendered by the army and Macoute pres-
ence in every neighborhood.  (The Tontons Macoute were a
paramilitary secret police force that supported the Duvalier
regimes.)  During the coup period, from 1991 to 1994, the
military junta under Cedras did not even pretend to govern
Haiti.  It simply exploited and terrorized the country.  Huge
mounds of trash piled on every corner, even downtown and
in elite business areas;  dead bodies lay rotting in the streets;
gunfire peppered the night air.  Everywhere, the hopeless poor
pressed on visitors under the watchful eyes of military and
Macoute, who stopped them if they actually threatened a
"blanc," the revealing term for foreigners of any color.

Today, although the joyful street scenes that accompanied
Aristide 's post-coup return in 1994 are gone, so too are the
omnipresent military and police.  There is more calm and less
panic  .Most of the garbage is cleared from the streets -and
the streets are even washed at night in many neighborhoods.
People are sprucing up homes and businesses.  The country 's
improved sense of security was evident at this spring's Car-
nival, which attracted nearly a million people with not a
single death and only a few minor incidents.

On the other hand, the standard of living in the country
has not improved.  Most Haitians continue to live in abject
misery, facing spiraling inflation for basic items like rice and
gas, an ever-devalued gourde (the national currency), an un-
employment rate of about 70%, and an average wage of
around $1 a day for those few who can find work.  On this
visit I saw countless men and women with missing or stunted
limbs, almost naked,filthy, pulling themselves up steep hills
by scooting over rough ground, or if they were lucky on
splintered boards.  I saw hoards of children as young as five
or six running dangerously after cars to get a gourde (about
2 cents).

None of this was much different from what I'd seen in
1986,1993 or 1997.  The numbing reality of the majority in
this oppressed society has not changed, nor has the smirking,
self-righteous superiority and obvious affluence of the tiny
group at the top.

Aristide admitted he could not erase the effects of centu-
ries of oppression in a few years. This was especially so after
he was entrapped in the neoliberal box the United States im-
posed when it restored him after the brutal 1991 coup that
it had covertly sponsored in the first place.Aristide promised
that even the poor in Haiti would live in dignity under his
administration.If his program for the people failed, he
pledged,he would never again seek political office.North
American media, the tiny Haitian opposition, and quite a
few Haitian intellectuals say he has failed and must keep his
promise:  he must go, now.  Many ordinary Haitians dis-
agree.

THE AMERICAN DEATH PLAN:NEW AND "IMPROVED "

Aristide, however poor a president, is not to blame for Hai-
ti's ongoing plight.  The lion's share of the fault, instead, lies
with what internationally-acclaimed public health expert
Paul Farmer has called "the structure of poverty and oppres-
sion," imposed on Haiti by the United States and other im-
perialist powers since its independence two hundred years
ago.The current version is "structural adjustment," the
typical package of policies the U.S.government and interna-
tional financial institutions (IFIs) demand of Third World
nations:free trade,privatization, strict adherence to debt
repayment schedules,and so on.

Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly described the effects of
structural adjustment on Haiti in these pages in 1996:

"The economy has gone from bad to worse.The resulting
struggle for survival undermines the possibilities for de-
mocracy.And the economic program [the United States
and international institutions ] are imposing threatens to
further devastate the country.Haitians have a variety of
names for the program:"the neoliberal plan," "the Amer-
ican plan." But the most vivid name was offered by a
peasant who said simply,"We call it the 'death plan '."

Aristide was unfortunate to be elected (for the second
time)in 2000,the same year as George W.Bush.  Elitane At-
elis,a member of Fanm des Martyrs Ayibobo Brav (Women
Victims of Military Violence), put it bluntly :today, her coun-
try faces "what every Haitian baby knows is Bush's game."
The game is low-intensity warfare, a policy mix long familiar
to observers of U.S.policy toward "undesirable" regimes in
Latin America and elsewhere.The mix includes disinforma-
tion campaigns in the media;pressure on international insti-
tutions and other governments to weaken their support of
the "target" government;and overt and covert support for
rightist opposition groups,including those prepared to at-
tempt a violent overthrow.Haitians are well aware of the
U.S.government 's gambit.  Haiti Progres, an independent
leftist weekly often critical of Aristide, last spring outlined
what the writer called "a multifront strategy" the United
States is carrying out for regime change in Haiti.

Progressives, at least, should have been suspicious about
the team Bush put in place to manage his Haiti policy.Otto
Reich at the National Security Council and Roger Noriega
in the State Department are among those directing Bush's
Haiti policy; joining them in orchestrating U.S.foreign pol-
icy as a whole are Elliot Abrams, John Poindexter (until his
departure under fire in July) and John Negroponte. All of
these men were deeply involved in the Reagan administra-
tion's dirty war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the
Iran-Contra scandal. "The resurfacing of the Iran-Contra
culprits has been nothing short of Orwellian in this admin-
istration," opined Peter Kornbluh,senior analyst at the Na-
tional Security Archive, in Newsweek .

AID EMBARGO

Shortly after Bush's own tainted election, his administration
questioned the outcome of some of the 2000 Haitian parliamentary
elections,then used these allegations to block the release of
Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) loans already approved for
Haiti.  The administration pressed the World Bank,the IMF and the
European Union to reduce other planned assistance.  The IDB loans
alone total $512 million.

The U.S.rationale for withholding the aid has been repeated
uncritically in virtually all international media,including the
liberal press.  For example, a March 2003 piece in the New York
Review of Books deplores "gross electoral fraud by the ruling party."
Yet at the time of the elections, not even the U.S.government
asserted fraud, and the elections for president and most legislative
seats were declared free and fair by the Organization of American
States (OAS).  All sides concede that Aristide won the presidential
ballot with 92%of the vote (with varying reports of voter turnout).
The sole disagreement is over run-off elections for seven
senators from Aristide's party (Fanmi Lavalas, or FL) who obtained
pluralities but not majorities in the first round.The seven senators
eventually resigned,making way for new elec-
tions.  Compared to the U.S.presidential election that year, the
Haitian elections can scarcely be called fraudulent.

PHOTO CAPTION: A crowded Port-au-Prince marketplace on January 24,
2003, the day of a general strike called by the Coalition of 184
Civic Institutions,which small merchants widely ignored.    KEVIN PINA

In any case, the aid embargo has had severe consequences
for Aristide's ability to govern.  Needless to say, without these
resources, Aristide was unlikely to be able to keep many of
his promises to Haiti 's poor.  Another result is that the Hai-
tian government has been under tremendous pressure to
comply with U.S.and IFI requirements in order to get the aid
restarted.These requirements included paying the country's
debt service arrears.The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative
Development (PAPDA) and other organizations on the left have pro-
posed a moratorium on debt repayment.  But Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune laments,"Until we have a clear alternative for invest-
ment,we simply cannot go italone.The embargoed aid is desperately needed
by the Haitian people." Paul Farmer agrees:

"[Without the aid ] the misery will just increase,and thousands will
die of AIDS, malaria and other diseases without any hope of
treatment.  Those who say the aid is not worth what Haiti has to do
to get it do not live daily with the reality of poverty and suffering."

In mid-July, Haiti paid $32 million of its debt service arrears,
using virtually all its capital reserves.  The United States then an-
nounced that $34 million would go at once to Haiti for health care,
water, and roads
(although virtually all of this amount will go directly to mostly
U.S.-based "contractors").  In late July,the IDB finally announced the release
of $143 million of the nearly $500 million pledged.

POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

Although aid may now begin to arrive, Aristide's government
is still operating under severe constraints on what it can con-
ceivably accomplish.On the political front, the United States
has been working hard since the elder Bush's presidency to
forge an opposition that could depose Aristide or at least
prevent his administration from governing effectively. The
Convergence, as it's called, consists mostly of what Haitians
call particules, tiny political parties, from Maoists to free-
market liberals and ultra-right wing Duvalierists.  Perhaps
the only opposition faction with a genuine base is that of
Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, founder and leader of the progres-
sive and successful Mouvman Paysan Papay (MPP) in the
Central Plateau, who has actually shifted his allegience away
from the Convergence.

With all these factions,support for the Convergence, even according
to U.S.government-sponsored polls, has never registered more than 12%.

The Convergence was a product of "Democracy Enhance-
ment," a project of the U.S.Agency for International Devel-
opment (USAID), which has been an arm of both low-inten-
sity warfare and neoliberal restructuring in many countries
(including Iraq today).  Noam Chomsky cites Haiti expert
Amy Wilentz, who characterized the State Department's "de-
mocracy enhancement" project as "specifically designed to
fund those sectors of the Haitian political spectrum where
opposition to the Aristide government could be encouraged."

Today,the International Republican Institute (IRI),affiliated
with the U.S.government-funded National Endowment for
Democracy, provides the Convergence with significant sup-
port. The IRI has received an average of $3 million annually
from Congress since it established a permanent base in Haiti,
as well as millions more from private Haitian and U.S.
sources. The organization insists it is independent of the Re-
publican Party, but a look at its board members suggests
otherwise:nearly all are current or former Republican Party
officials,Republican officeholders, or members of Republi-
can administrations.

PHOTO CAPTION: A Domino 's restaurant in Port-au-Prince is closed in
observance of a general strike called by the Coalition of 184 Civic
Institutions,January 24,2003.Businesses that cater largely to Haiti
's small upper and middle classes were the only ones that observed
the strike.
KEVIN PINA

This July, even the departing U.S.Ambassador to Haiti,
Brian Curran, lashed out against some U.S.political opera-
tives, calling them the "Chimeres of Washington " (a Haitian
term for political criminals). The most recent of these Chi-
meres have been associated with the Haiti Democracy Proj-
ect (HDP),headed by former State Department official James
Morrell and funded by the right-wing Haitian Boulos family.
In December 2002,the HDP literally created from whole
cloth a new public relations face for the official opposition,
the "Coalition of 184 Civic Institutions," a laundry list of
Haitian NGOs funded by USAID and/or the IRI,as well as
by the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce and other
groups.

During the coup and since,USAID-sponsored "democracy enhancement
" has done its job:  whole segments of the popular movement were chilled
or co-opted.  Popular leaders were at first killed off or encouraged
to emigrate;
later, many of the rest were bought off.  What was once among the most
mobilized populations in the hemisphere has become severely demobilized.

VIOLENT OVERTHROW

Aristide's ability to govern has not only been limited by the
political activities of an opposition forged and financed from
abroad. Convergence parties -and so, too, their U.S.back-
ers - have been implicated in a series of violent attacks on
the Haitian government and its supporters. The Council on
Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), an independent research
group, has sounded the alarm. In early 2002,COHA wrote:
"Aristide has lived with the continued threat of a military
coup since his initial election Š .The [Aristide ] government
weathered two violent coup attempts in July and December
2001." The December 2001 armed attack on the National
Palace has been downplayed by Aristide's critics. Yet there
is evidence that this was a genuine attempt to destabilize
Haiti in order to prove Aristide inept.Ernest Edouard, a
Haitian radio commentator in Miami,predicted the attack
in advance.  He said he had attended a Miami meeting that
included Haitians from the Dominican Republic, as well as
two Americans, who were well-funded and planning to carry
out such an attack.

More generally, COHA's reports itemize violent demon-
strations and attacks on both sides,but they emphasize the
violence of some Convergence leaders and blame the United
States for supporting them.Throughout 2003,FL leaders
and government officials have been murdered by men in Du-
valier-era army uniforms or wearing the emblems of the "San
Manman " (Motherless)army.  In late July, a car with five
government officials was ambushed near the Dominican
border in the Central Plateau, killing four.  Observers said the
attackers were clearly identified as part of the San Manman army.

On May 6, Dominican police arrested five Haitians, in-
cluding the official Convergence representative in the Do-
minican Republic, Arcelin Paul, at a meeting near the Do-
minican border, which they say was a recruitment session for
a planned attempt to overthrow the Haitian government.
Soon afterward, armed men attacked and disabled the larg-
est electrical plant in the country.  Ben Dupuy, general secre-
tary of the left-wing party PPN, which is generally critical of
Aristide, was quoted in Haiti Progres, "There is no doubt
these guys are true terrorists working with the CIA under
Dominican protection." All sides have noted the U.S.build-
up along the Dominican border, where 900 U.S.soldiers pa-
trol jointly with the Dominican army, whom they have armed
with 20,000 M16s.

All of this seems to add up to what documentary film-
maker Kevin Pina, who has been covering Haiti for over a
decade, calls the "U.S.funding of the Haitian 'Contras'."
Whatever we call them, there is an organized and well-
funded armed group with ties to the Convergence, based in
the Dominican Republic, which aims to overthrow the Aris-
tide government.  The Bush administration's support for the
Convergence and its refusal to denounce this violence, as well
as the U.S.military presence along the border, through which
the "Manman" army easily travels, clearly implicates the
United States in this aim.

MEDIA DISINFORMATION
    HEADING:  North American media,the tiny Haitian opposition,and quite a few
	Haitian intellectuals say Aristide has failed and must keep
his promise:
	he must go, now.  Many ordinary	Haitians disagree.

The Bush administration s effort to oust Aristide is comple-
mented by misinformed and biased media coverage in both
the United States and Haiti.  The CIA's flagrant campaign in
the mid-1990s to discredit Aristide as mentally ill was proven
totally false.  A more recent example involves numbers of
anti-and pro-Aristide demonstrators.  Everyone agrees that
the largest Convergence rally to date was the one last No-
vember 17 in Cap-Haitien.  According to Kevin Pina,  some
Haitian radio stations reported 60,000 demonstrators, and
this figure made it into several North American newspapers.
Local officials put the number at 4,000, and independent
observers claimed no more than 15,000.  Pina also notes that
the pro-Lavalas rally of November 25 had as many as 30,000
participants, according to independent observers, yet the
highest number quoted in mainstream media is 2,000.

Brian Concannon, an attorney with the Bureau des Avo-
cats Internationaux (BAI), a group of international and Haitian lawyers
sponsored by the Haitian government to assist the judiciary with
human rights cases,
gives an even starker example of the double standard the media (and
human rights
groups)employ."  In December, 2001, an FL supporter, Joseph Duverger,
was attacked by a machete-wielding,  pro-Convergence mob near Petit Goave
and left for dead.  His enraged friends found Brignol Lindor in the
street.  Lindor
was a Convergence supporter with a weekly radio show.The FL group killed him.
Lindor is in every human rights report (as one of the murdered journalists).
Duverger is almost never mentioned."

When the Haitian government has limited but clear suc-
cesses in some areas, the international media are virtually
silent.  Kevin Pina has said that every time he has drawn the
attention of foreign journalists at Reuters or the Associated
Press to successes in the Haitian government's literacy cam-
paign, the reporters have ignored him.  One reporter finally
told him to stop giving him such stories. "We are not going
to report on positive programs in Haiti,"  Pina says he was told.

Although claims are made that journalists are unable to
function freely in Haiti, there are far more daily and weekly
newspapers and strident, popular radio stations there than
one could imagine in the United States or Canada.  Many of
them are shrill critics of Aristide.  In media financed by elite
business interests, there are constant cries for the overthrow
of the government.  None of this fits the image of a country where
opposition journalists face severe repression.

But the 2000 murder of Jean Dominique has been very damning to Aris-
tide 's cause.Dominique was a crusading journalist of impeccable integrity
who angered most powerful groups in Haiti. Although four alleged
trigger-men were
arrested in 2001, Dominique's widow,  Michelle Montas, has expressed outrage
that the real culprits behind the murder have not been named.But despite what
she calls pressure from international groups, she refuses to blame Aristide di-
rectly,though she does point to suspects within his party.The Dominique case
remains the most troubling human rights stain on Aristide 's reputation and has
disillusioned countless former supporters both in Haiti and abroad.

This case and a handful of others show that justice is very slow in Haiti.
Human rights activists, especially those who say they have received threatening
calls, deserve support and protection,as do journalists who criticize
the govern-
ment.  Yet all of this must be put in perspective.The number of killings pinned
on Aristide 's supporters pales in comparison with the more than
5,000 murders of
Lavalas supporters that took place during the three years of military rule
in the 1990s.

ARISTIDE 'S RECORD

This is the environment in which the Aristide government must
function:attempts to
overthrow him;  calls from Washington lobby groups for outright regime change;
an embargo on virtually all international aid.Yet one hears the same
cry from leftists, moderates and the right wing:it is Aristide who
has failed and must go.Leftists damn
Aristide in particular for neoliberal economic policies that they
claim go beyond
just complying with the already draconian requirements of the United
States and the IFIs.
They say he has abandoned his original populist and socialist ideas
about justice in order
to hang on to power at any cost -and to please his greedy cronies.

The record does suggest a weak government with a President who is
often absent and
invisible at crucial moments, yet who can be seen to interfere
directly in minute
details when it shores up his image or protects his close allies.
But the record does
not support the view that Aristide 's government has entirely
abandoned its goals or compromised its values. Rather, it shows
modest but clear gains in a few areas,
defensive moves with regard to key public works and
agriculture,and,in certain crucial
areas, a refusal to budge that explains the extreme antipathy of the
U.S.government.

During his first term,which began in January 1991,Aristide began to
make good on his
populist platform.  He revised the tax code, which had taxed the
middle class heavily,
put a severe burden on the peasants, and required virtually no taxes
of the elite.
Within months, income taxes collected from the rich had already begun
to generate significant income, and import fees were being enforced
for the first time.  At the same
time, Aristide pressed for an increase in the minimum wage and new
price controls on oil
and basic foodstuffs.

By the summer,he was under pressure from the IFIs, USAID,and other
potential donors to reverse these proposals.Aristide compromised on
some points,such as subsidies
for oil, but continued to press for tax reform and raising the
minimum wage.A few months later, he was overthrown by forces some of
whom were trained and funded by U.S.mili-
tary and intelligence operatives.

In 1994,in return for the Clinton administration restoring him to
office, Aristide made
huge compromises.  His representative met with IFI and other donor
representatives in
Paris and accepted virtually the whole neoliberal program for Haiti,
including holding down wages, lowering tariffs, and privatizing
government-owned enterprises.  Members of
the Haitian diaspora and the solidarity movement were highly
critical;  many argued that Aristide should have held firm against
the neoliberal economic program, even if it
meant that the military government in Haiti would continue in power.
When Aristide
spoke to an audience of Haitians and solidarity activists in Boston
in May 1994,
he met fierce resistance to his return under the conditions he eventually
accepted.  Aristide responded clearly:  "We may take some steps
backward in order
to go forward, but we cannot do anything positive until we are in
Haiti.  It is not only
the mighty U.S.who can play a double game."

Members of Aristide's administration defend his decision to accept
the Paris agreement,
in part on the basis that once back in office,they would not
necessarily implement all of
the concessions they d made on paper.Lesley Voltaire, Aristide's
former Chief of Staff and currently Minister of Haitians Living
Abroad, explains: "But you see that his real policies
have not been to follow their bidding even on economic issues, and
that is why they are opposing him.  Despite all the pressure,Haiti
has not abolished tariffs -only lowered them.
On privatization, both Preval and Aristide dragged their feet so that
only the two least profitable public enterprises have been privatized
all these years later -concrete and flour."

The BAI 's Concannon confirms the Haitian government's dilemma,and
its strategy:
"Small,poor countries do not say 'get lost ' to the IFIs and the U.S.
They do occasionally,
very politely, and pay for it:  Arbenz,Allende,Aristide in 1991.
Small countries do say 'sure, we 'll do that,'  then do the opposite
or at least drag their feet.  The best example is the
privatizations.  The announced government policy has been, since
1994,to privatize.But the enacted government policy is very
different."

The Aristide government 's free trade zone agreements with the
Dominican Republic have
come under particularly harsh criticism from progressives. This year,
Haiti has gone
ahead with the first free trade zone project in Maribaroux, and in
June announced a second project in Ouanaminthe, despite bitter
protests by local peasants, among others.  (See
"Haitian Free Trade Zone,"  D&S , November/December 2002.)  It 's
hard to defend the free trade zones, but Prime Minister Neptune does:
"Those who criticize us, where would they
find jobs that could put even a few poor Haitians to work?  Surely,
even low-paying jobs and
a small increase in the minimum wage are better than nothing.  It is
also part of our policy to spread the jobs outside Port-au-Prince, to
keep people living in the countryside."

PAPDA head Camille Chalmers disagrees,calling the job creation
rhetoric "propaganda."
PAPDA and others urge alternative,regional economic initiatives for
Haiti.They propose a
much closer alliance with Cuba, using money under a debt moratorium
to fund joint projects
for agrarian reform and the support of Haitian agriculture.In
fact,the Haitian government
does have cooperative projects with Cuba and with the Chavez
government in Venezuela as well -both regimes on the U.S.government's
hit list.  The Venezuelan government has offered to provide regular
shipments of oil at very reduced prices, which should help to stem
Haiti 's rampant inflation.  Under treaties between Haiti and Cuba,
more than 800 Cuban medical work-
ers are currently in Haiti.Haiti also works with the CARICOM
(Caribbean Community) nations on crafting a regional economy which
can partially curb U.S.dominance.

"CARICOM is an alternative economic and political initiative,
according to the BAI 's Concannon. "The organization does not talk a
lot about opposing imperialism,but it is working
towards a trade bloc that may be a bulwark against the FTAA and other
initiatives." Haiti's ambassador to Cuba, Andrine Constant, told me
she regularly meets informally
with her Cuban and other Latin American counterparts to discuss
regional strategy to offset U.S.hegemony.  That alone must drive the
Bush adminstration wild.

HEADING: "We are not going to report on
positive programs in Haiti," journalist
Kevin Pina says he was told.

WHAT THE HAITIAN PEOPLE WANT

Most people I talked to -workers, peasants, intellectuals, activists -
criticized the government severely for inaction at best and rampant corruption
at worst.  Most were disappointed in "Titid " (as the peasants call Aristide)
and complained bitterly of a lack of direction for the country."
Aristide is absent -
we just don't know where he is,"  Wesner, a young former FL supporter
in Cap-Haitien,
told me.  One of the country 's foremost poets -for years a staunch champion
of Aristide -went further."Aristide is the smallest man I'vemet," he
said, "the most
ignorant president we have had.  Nobody is running the country."

But at the same time,most Haitians appear to want Aristide to
continue in office.
In spite of his criticism,the poet continued, "Aristide must stay and
finish his term.
We got rid of a real tyrant, Duvalier,  but it took us four years to
get even minimal stability.  Now the opposition says,  'Let 's do it
again!'   By bringing back the military whom the U.S.created for the
express purpose of oppressing the Haitian people?  No!"

Twenty-eight of thirty people who responded when I polled them in a
crowded Port-au-Prince market agreed.  People are dissatisfied with
the disastrous economy, and they hold the government partly
responsible.  Yet virtually everyone I met, including strident
critics of Aristide,wants to see the democratic process respected.

The Convergence and the "184 Institutions "appear to  have little or
no support.  PAPDA 's Chalmers is very critical  of Aristide.  But he
is even more critical of the official oppo-
sition."  Aristide 's first administration made a good beginning, and
they had the right program,"  he said in an interview." I would say
the international pressures and the
pressure of trying to govern without the ability to really reform
have robbed the government completely of its credibility.  But the
official opposition is worse - it would be a joke
if it were not so serious with its U.S.backers."

Wesner, the Cap-Haitien youth, says,"It 's the army I really despise.
At least now I can sit here with my friends and complain.  Under the
military, I would be shot.  When I saw
Himmler leading the demonstration by the Convergence last November, I
was really scared." The aptly named Himmler is Himmler Rebu, a former
army officer who has been in-
volved in several coup attempts.

THE LEFT AND HAITI

Roger Noriega,speaking at the April 28 conference of the Council of
the Americas in Washington,linked U.S.policies in Haiti to those in
Venezuela and Cuba.  He congratulated
the OAS for overcoming its "irrelevance in past years " by adopting
the Inter-American Democratic Charter.   Article 20, he said, "lays
out a series of actions to be taken Š in the
event that a member state should fail to uphold the essential
elements of democratic life." Noriega sees Article 20 as a formula
for intervention.  He added,"President Chavez and
President Aristide have ...contributed willfully to a polarized and
confrontational environment.  It is my fervent hope that the good
people of Cuba are studying the Democratic Charter."

How could U.S.leftists fail to see the link between U.S. policies in
Cuba, Venezuela, and elsewhere, and those in Haiti?  Why are so many
progressive voices raised much more
loudly against Aristide than against U.S.policy in the region?
As one drawn into the energizing battle to support Aristide, I think
I understand.
Twelve years ago,  Haiti under Aristide -a genuinely home-grown
radical with a clear program
for social change -seemed so promising.  How disappointing is his
record since being elected overwhelmingly in 1991.  He is not the
intellectual giant and moral hero most progres-
sives -and Haitians - hoped for.  Progressives also underestimated
how difficult it would be to make real headway against
U.S.imperatives in the region.  Nor had we bargained for such a sharp
turn to the right in U.S.policies.

It is easy from the outside to bemoan Aristide 's failures and to
focus solidarity work on that failure.  But progressives should
balance our critique of Aristide with a determination
to shine a light on how U.S. policy maintains the "structure of
poverty and violence." Paul Farmer sums up this view:  "Conditions in
Haiti today are akin to a battlefield in an un-
declared war on the poor....How can you rebuild Haiti without massive
resources...?  Until that happens, there will be misery and hunger
and inequality.... Such 'structural violence,' which has been
perpetrated from above and without, will be reflected in local
violence....You'd think that progressive observers, at least, would
make this connection.  But many don't." *


SIDEBAR:
FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE?
The U.S.low-intensity warfare strategy has been complemented by the arrival
of large numbers of evangelical missionaries from the United States, who
counter the Ti Legliz (little church)movement that espoused the social justice
teachings of liberation theology - and that brought Aristide to power.  Today
one sees these white U.S.Protestants,from fundamentalist, Pentecostal and
conservative mainstream denominations, everywhere.  They flood the country
with "aid "- mostly building churches, but also schools and health care cen-
ters.  In May 2003, one of these missionaries, James White of the Lutheran
group "Share the Vision," was arrested for trying to conceal weapons and
military uniforms he was bringing into the country.

Last March, I stumbled into another Lutheran group, MOST Ministries, in
Cap-Haitien.  "We 're here to help the unfortunate victims of the tragedy of
Haiti,"  Peg from Frankenmuth, Michigan,t old me.  Bruce, a private contrac-
tor, added, "Aristide sold his soul to the devil at a ceremony in
1990.  Why did
he do that if he's not the devil himself?"  I asked how he knew this.  "Pastor
Noel told us. He is leading the people who want to cleanse Haiti of this dicta-
tor.  Of course we know what Clinton was, and he's the one who put Aristide
back after the people got rid of him last time."   When I took the local pastor
aside and asked him if Pastor Noel was in fact Jackson Noel of the MOCHRENA
party, part of the Convergence, he answered softly, "It was he.  He came not
as a politician, but as a pastor.  Now he has been arrested and beaten for his
beliefs,and that is not right." Actually, Noel, his wife, and other MOCHRENA
members, accused of instigating violence against local Fanmi Lavalas sup-
porters, were released almost immediately.

Tom Reeves is a retired professor of history and politics from Roxbury Com-
munity College in Boston, where he was director of the Caribbean Focus
Program from 1986 to 2001.  He was a founder of the New England Ob-
server Delegations to Haiti (NEOD), which sent eight delegations to Haiti
in the 1990s.  His first visit to Haiti was in 1986 and his most recent visit
was in March,2003, when he gathered some of the information on which
this article is based.
RESOURCES:  Peter Dailey, "Haiti:The Fall of the House of Aristide," New
York Review of Books , 3/13/03;  Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti , Common
Courage Press, 2002;  Lisa McGowan, "Undermining Democracy," Develop-
ment Gap, 1997;  Kevin Pina, "Is the US Funding the Haitian 'Contras '?" The
Black Commentator, 4/28/03;  various issues of Latinamerica Press;  NACLA
Report;  Haiti Progres;  Agence Haitienne de Presse <www.ahph.org>;
Council on Hemispheric Affairs <www.coha.org>;  Haiti Report <www.
haitireborn.org>;  Haiti Democracy Project <www.haitipolicy.org>.