17095: (Chamberlain) re 17089: Saint-Vil Re: 17087: violence in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

Jafrikayiti writes:

> Folks when will we stop looking at the world through these
purposefully-deformed lenses?  Check out Kevin Pina's latest article on
http://www.blackcommentator.com and perhaps some us might finally accept
that things are not always as the gospel according to Michael Norton, CNN
and all the other pseudo-journalists claim them to be.

______________

The first paragraph of Pina's article in the Black Commentator of 30
October says that:

"politicization of the Haitian police force, Lavalas grassroots
organizations cast as armed gangs, and government corruption" are "the main
themes of media spin cycling through the press today."

Thus, according to the author, none of these things are really happening at
all, but are simply "spin," which can either mean outright lies or at best
intentional twisting of the facts.

The rest of the article (see below) is even more entertainingly
off-the-wall.


        Greg Chamberlain


_______________________________________

(The Black Commentator, 30 Oct 03)


Propaganda war intensifies against Haiti as opposition grabs for power

By Kevin Pina


An increasing barrage of negative propaganda in the US media is softening
the ground for an eventual power grab by the Washington-sponsored
opposition in Haiti, the Democratic Convergence.  In a series of press
releases and articles over the past three months, international
organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and journalists have
bombarded the press to justify one common theme: violent regime change is
acceptable, if not inevitable, in Haiti. The main themes of this media spin
cycling through the press today should be more than familiar to those who
follow Haiti in the news: politicization of the Haitian police force,
Lavalas grassroots organizations cast as armed gangs, and government
corruption.

NCHR and the Media Cannibals

The latest press barrage began on September 2 with the National Coalition
for Haitian Rights (NCHR) release of a story equating elements in Haiti’s
police force with Duvalier’s Ton Ton Macoutes and the former death squads,
known as attachés, under the Cedras dictatorship that overthrew President
Aristide in 1991.  Peppered with the purported actual names and ranks of
members of the Haitian police, the article sought to convince the public
that Aristide is just another dictator using time-honored tactics of
repression to stay in power. NCHR drove this point home with its charge
that, “The impunity that attachés enjoy and the collusion between members
of the special brigades and officers of the Haitian National Police provide
incontestable proof that the phenomenon is part of a governmental
strategy.”

NCHR asserted in the same piece, “Specialized units called Special Brigades
(BS), composed of armed civilians dressed in black t-shirts with the yellow
inscription 'BS' on the back, are being integrated into the police
stations, at first in the metropolitan zone and now increasingly on a
national level.” In an effort to add drama and weight to their assertions,
NCHR included several photos of gun-toting partygoers individually posing
with weapons and beer bottles. The photos were reportedly linked to Rene
Civil, the leader of Youth Political Power or JPP movement, allied with
President Aristide’s Lavalas party.  Civil, whose protestant student
movement is a vocal critic of US foreign policy and Haiti’s wealthy elite,
remains a favorite target of campaigns by the right to discredit his
reputation, and by extension, Lavalas. The easiest photos to prove their
claim of the existence of this “phenomenon” – namely “armed civilians
dressed in black t-shirts with the yellow inscription "BS" on the back” –
were conspicuously absent from the exposé. The remaining “proof” could not
be corroborated as authentic despite a calculated effort to give the
appearance it originated from someone with access to internal Haitian
police records.

Per usual in such media attacks, the US press took the allegations at face
value while largely ignoring the Haitian government’s denial of the charges
and demands that NCHR provide “verifiable evidence” to back up their
claims.  As one highly placed police official lamented in private, “This is
another example of a serious attempt to destroy the morale and undermine
the authority of the police who are already underpaid and understaffed. By
tarnishing all the hard working men and women in our force with this, it
makes our jobs even harder. The opposition has been emboldened because now
when we arrest them, for violence or having weapons, they claim we are
repressing them while we are just doing our duty. The truth is we are
trying to be fair in applying the law and they will not help us; we need
resources, instead they tie our hands by forcing us to prove our fairness
by allowing the opposition to act with impunity. This is very dangerous.”
Others close to the police were less kind and readily criticized NCHR for
taking up the cause of the opposition.  They counter that NCHR completely
ignores acts of violence against members and officials of Lavalas while
exaggerating claims of political persecution by the Democratic Convergence
and the so-called civil society organizations of the business community in
Haiti known as the “184.” They noted that NCHR has never called upon the
Dominican government to stop using its territories as a base for regular
armed killing sprees into Haiti committed by former members of the
disbanded military and the dreaded Front for Advancement and Progress in
Haiti (FRAPH), created by the CIA in the last days of the Cedras
dictatorship.

Old-timers in the Haitian police have also stated that NCHR, which was
deeply engaged in Haiti at the time, never complained when it was revealed
in February 1999 that the police-training program, offered by the US
Justice Department’s International Criminal Investigative Training
Assistance Program (ICITAP), was being used by the CIA to secretly recruit
from within the ranks of the Haitian police.  In an article published in
the respected Washington journal Legal Times and entitled “Separating Cops,
Spies”, author Sam Skolnik exposed the CIA’s hidden agenda in Haiti’s new
police training program. The article takes us a long way towards explaining
the less than enthusiastic response of the Haitian government towards
continuing the program. Since then, Haiti’s cops have had to go it on their
own to build a credible force capable of maintaining law and order while
under constant attack from organizations such as NCHR.

Another of NCHR’s favorite anvils, for hammering out the purported links
between the Haitian government and Lavalas attachés, was Amiot Metayer and
the so-called “Cannibal Army” in Gonaives.  Never mind that the name
“Cannibal Army” was originally that of a local gang Metayer had battled
with in the past.  Instead the constant beat of the local and international
press cast everyone in the Raboteau neighborhood of Gonaives, including
Metayer, as a “Cannibal.”  Friends tell of how he never stood a chance in
trying to convince the press of their error and finally gave up in
exasperation. Three weeks later, cannibal or no cannibal, NCHR’s
accusations of government reliance upon attachés would serve to
pre-contextualize Metayer’s assassination.

On the night of September 21 Amiot Metayer, one of the popular heroes of
the resistance against both the Duvalier and Cedras dictatorships, was
pumped full of bullets and thrown in a ditch. His murder apparently served
the interests of those who would benefit from edging Haiti closer to the
brink of outright civil war. The murder further destabilized Haiti as the
opposition began spreading the rumor that Aristide was behind the killing.
Infiltrated, confused and demoralized, the population of Gonaives was
initially manipulated into turning against the very movement they had
sacrificed so much blood and so many lives to build. As President Aristide
pointed out, to a near deaf international press predisposed to print and
repeat the rumor as a foregone conclusion, by any objective standard there
was nothing for the government to gain from this killing. One Lavalas
observer on the ground concluded, “This is part of what has always been the
strategy of the CIA and the opposition, to separate the base of Lavalas
from its leadership. This was the real reason behind the killing. The US
wants Aristide out and a subservient government in place before we
celebrate our bicentennial on January 1, 2004. They believe this plan is
the best way to achieve that objective. They cannot win elections so they
have decided to create conditions for a civil war.”

Foxes Guarding the Chicken Coop

Following Metayer’s assassination and on the heels of NCHR’s revelations,
came yet another attempt to destroy the Haitian government’s credibility.
This time the information would originate from an international corruption
watchdog organization known as Transparency International (TI) who would
label Haiti the third most corrupt nation in the world.

TI has been described by several British organizations on the left as “a
tool to destabilize Governments for corporate interests under the guise of
exposing corruption.” They point to the fact that TI’s Chairman and
Founder, Peter Eigen, is a trustee of Crown Agents Foundation which is
currently involved in “reconstruction and rehabilitation” in Iraq. The
London-based Independent reported on March 31: "Crown Agents, a privatized
development assistance firm, has become the first British company to win a
contract in the American programme to rebuild Iraq. It will be a
subcontractor to International Resources Group (IRG), a US professional
services firm providing technical assistance for planning and management of
the reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in Iraq." According to
British activists writing about a recent protest against Crown Agents' role
in Iraq, “Privatised in March 1997, Crown Agents lurks in that murky area
between state and business that has become so central in the new age of
corporate government. Its board boasts some notable links to the world of
big business and banking – and these are just the ones actually declared on
its own website! Its holding entity is The Crown Agents Foundation, whose
membership includes token 'worthy' organisations such as Christian Aid and
British Overseas NGOs for Development. But the vast majority of names of
both permanent and elected members hail, once again, from the world of
business.”

The pieces of the puzzle really begin to fall into place when Eigen also
lists in his resume, “Under Ford Foundation sponsorship, he provided legal
and technical assistance to the governments of Botswana and Namibia.” In an
December 15, 2001 article entitled, The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A
documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police,
James Petras of the respected online journal Rebelión wrote, “A U.S.
Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700
grants in the field of international activities by the principal
foundations were funded by the CIA (Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the
Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders, Granta Books, 1999, pp.
134-135). The CIA considers foundations such as Ford "The best and most
plausible kind of funding cover" (Ibid, p. 135). The collaboration of
respectable and prestigious foundations, according to one former CIA
operative, allowed the Agency to fund "a seemingly limitless range of
covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities,
publishing houses and other private institutions" (p. 135). The latter
included "human rights" groups beginning in the 1950s to the present. One
of the most important "private foundations" collaborating with the CIA over
a significant span of time in major projects in the cultural Cold War is
the Ford Foundation.”

So where is the Haiti connection in all this aside from Aristide being
labeled leader of the third most corrupt nation in the world by Peter
Eigen’s organization? If one goes to the website of another organization
named the Haitian Resource Development Foundation, you will find they work
with a Belgium firm named Altech to build a purified water system known as
Hydopur in Haiti’s Artibonite valley. Altech’s list of international
projects is impressive and includes countries such as Iraq, Nicaragua,
South Africa, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Vietnam. Among
Altech’s references is that they act as a non-exclusive representative of
Crown Agents sponsored projects. This is the same Crown Agents that is
involved in dividing up the spoils in Iraq and where Peter Eigen of
Transparency International acts as a trustee. And who is listed as a legal
consultant for Altech? None other than Gerard Gourgue, the appointed
provisional president of the Washington-backed opposition, the Democratic
Convergence in Haiti! To recap in shorthand, Peter Eigen, the founder and
chairman of Transparency International, is a trustee of Crown Agents, who
is represented by Altech, whose legal consultant, Gerard Gourgue, is the
provisional president of the Democratic Convergence in Haiti.

While not a direct link, for they rarely are in such matters, this
connection is more than enough to call into question the objectivity of
Transparency International’s so-called Corruption Index when it comes to
Haiti. As if that weren’t enough, Bolaji Abdullah of the Jamaican journal
This Day Online filed this report last July 24 from Kingston: “A founding
member of Transparency International, and Secretary-General Jamaica, Ms
Beth Aub, has resigned her membership of the global anti-corruption body
with effect from January 31, alleging corrupt practices, among others.”

In a letter dated January 11, and addressed to Chairman of the Board, Peter
Eigen, Ms Aub said she was resigning in protest against some "policies and
practices being pursued by the governing body of Transparency
International" and which she does not wish to be associated with. “


Next Week PART 2:

The Ambulance Chasers – Or, How Many Journalists and Associated Press
Photographers Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

Immediately after TI took its turn trying to beat the Haitian government’s
credibility senseless, the so-called independent voices of the press in the
US stepped in to deliver a few more uncritical yet fatal blows…


Kevin Pina is a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist who has been
working and living in Haiti for the past three years. He has been covering
events in Haiti for the past decade and produced a documentary film
entitled "Haiti: Harvest of Hope". Mr. Pina is also the Haiti Special
Correspondent for the Flashpoints radio program on the Pacifica Network's
flagship station KPFA in Berkeley CA.