18033: Esser: Haiti's Cracked Screen: Lavalas under Siege (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dominique Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The Black Commentator
January 15, 2004 Issue 73


Haiti's Cracked Screen: Lavalas Under Siege While The Poor Get Poorer
By Kevin Pina


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ­ Money is power and power is money. The Bush
administration buys and sells political constituencies every day in pursuit
of world domination. Haiti, which recently celebrated its bicentennial as
the world's first black republic, is not otherworldly or immune from
purchase. Softening the ground for the transaction is the corporate media
that blatantly acquiesce to the U.S. State Department's campaign to
denigrate the rights and humanity of Haitiıs poor black majority. There is
no other way to describe their current campaign to portray the opposition in
Haiti as the new "freedom fighters" of the hemisphere, out to topple the
repressive ³dictatorship² of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

George Bush's earlier attempt to destroy the popular government of the poor
in Venezuela only expanded his learning curve in Haiti. The conclusions to
both these stories are not yet written.

The Washington-forged opposition grows lighter in color and more brazen with
each passing day, while former Haitian military leaders prance hand in hand
with Haiti's traditional economic elite, intellectuals and artists. The poor
black majority, who cannot read or write and continue to support the
constitutional government of President Aristide, has been deliberately made
indescribably poorer in an effort to force them to turn against their own
interests.

Going to bed hungry is not uncommon in Haiti. The greatest violence here is
the violence of hunger and poverty. It permeates and consumes everything in
its path. Haiti's phantom "middle class" ­ the relative few who have
something such as an education to cling to ­ can be easily manipulated
against a government that has declared itself to be working on behalf of
those who have nothing save for the conviction that tomorrow may yield a
better future for their children. This is especially true when the media
inside and outside of Haiti do everything possible to make it so.

Disinformation media

The Haitian press, most notably Radio Metropole, Radio Vision 2000, Radio
Kiskeya, Radio Caraibe and Tele-Haiti, have shown themselves to be wanton
whores in the campaign to sow confusion and panic among the people. They are
active players in the U.S. campaign to destabilize Haiti's constitutional
government. With total disregard for principles of "objective
journalism," they circulate exaggerated reports of violence by Lavalas, turn
a blind eye to violence on the part of the opposition, and underreport the
size and frequency of Lavalas demonstrations demanding President Aristide
fulfill his five-year term in office. They regularly produce and air
commercials calling upon the population to "claim their democratic rights"
by joining anti-Aristide street actions.  Just as in Venezuela, where local
elites use their media to spearhead the opposition to President Hugo Chavez,
the clear objective in Haiti is to throw the constitution in the trash and
force President Aristide to resign.

Never mind that Radio Vision 2000 is owned by the same right-wing Boulos
family that funds the Haiti Democracy Project in Washington D.C.  Never mind
that Tele-Haiti was founded by Andre Apaid, the self-proclaimed leader of
Group 184 that was "created from whole cloth" by the Haiti Democracy
Project. (See ³The Bush Administrationıs End Game for Haiti,² December 4.)
Never mind that two prominent journalists of Radio Metropole were funded by
the U.S. State Department to tour the United States in mid-January of this
year to meet with editorial boards around the country to spread their
message of the evils of Aristide's "dictatorship." Ignore the fact that they
are a major source of information for the Associated Press, Reuters and
France's venerable RFI whose reporters can be seen openly sharing
"information" with them buddy-buddy style on any given day. Hereıs the way
it works: Metropole reports a fabrication; AP and RFI pick it up for their
wire services, then Kiskeya and the others report it again in Haiti backed
by the credibility of the international press. The positive feedback loop of
disinformation for the opposition is now complete.

Partners in crime

On December 3rd the rumor hit the streets of Port-au-Prince that President
Aristide would be forced to resign on December 5th. Not so coincidentally,
the justification for the latest round of protests against the Haitian
government can be traced to December 5th and what Apaid and his minions
refer to as "Black Friday."  This date was previously etched in the Haitian
popular memory as a day of memorial for the victims of a bomb that exploded
during Aristide's first campaign for the presidency in 1990 in Petion-Ville.
Instead, it has now been displaced with an alleged attack against university
students by Lavalas.

²Alleged² is indeed the case. A videotape has been discovered of events at
the university that day which appears to refute the description given by
Radio Metropole and Tele-Haiti. Both outlets reported that popular
organizations aligned with Lavalas broke through a back wall of the
university, destroyed computers at the site and then proceeded to break the
legs of the university's Rector after he entered the facility. However, the
videotape clearly shows that Lavalas militants were outside of the building
when these transgressions occurred and that the so-called "students" were in
complete control of the facility when the Rector entered. Although they
claim that Lavalas militants had burned a hole through a back wall, the
opposition "students" can be seen pummeling the police and the press with
large rocks and small boulders as they attempt to approach the building.  As
the Rector proceeds to enter with a police escort, the "students" can be
heard chanting "no police" several times from behind the large metal gate,
at which time the Rector is heard asking the police to let him enter
unescorted. This does not sound like a compound under siege from within, but
rather a site under the complete control of those inside. As you hear the
crashing sounds of computers in the facility being broken, Lavalas popular
organizations members comment on the tape, "Oh my god. They are going to
blame us or the police after this is over." Photos have been taken of the
"students" who controlled the facility from their rock throwing perch on the
balcony, and some sources have said that arrests for questioning are
imminent. 

The tape irrefutably shows that the only camera crew allowed to enter the
facility was Tele-Haiti, while the rock-throwing students kept the other
media outside. In that case, how could it be that Lavalas militants were
inside and in control of the university facility? One university student who
left the campus bloodied may hold the key. "We were attacked by student
members of the opposition for being pro-Aristide,² he stated. ³After they
broke the computers they realized they had gone too far and held a quick
meeting. They had cell phones and talked with someone on the outside. Then
they brought into the room the faculty member responsible for the computers
and he talked for several minutes with someone on the cell phone. I could
not tell who it was but he agreed with them."

The Haitian police appear to have been equally confused. The tape allows us
to easily identify the faces of the rock throwing "students" casually
standing on a balcony above while the police arrest a mere two persons
alleged to be Lavalas militants below. Were two persons responsible for the
entire damage done to facility? As I watched the tape I could sense that the
³facts² had been rehearsed. The ³students² shamelessly forced tears as they
left the facility blaming the evil Lavalas grassroots organizations for
attacking them. To this day the Rector of the university has refused to
comment on the incident.

Out of the shadows

Following the claims of "Black Friday" came a torrent of protests against
the government from ³students² supposedly violated by Lavalas. But Andre
Apaid's Group 184 clearly emerged as the true leadership of the
demonstrations. December 22 saw a large protest by Apaidıs group calling for
the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.  These surrogates of
Washington's war against the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America, filled
the streets with nearly 10,000 people while a smaller contingent of
Aristide's Lavalas movement guarded the national palace. Michael Norton of
the Associated Press, as well as a heavy contingent of France's press,
witnessed this to conclude that it was merely a matter of time before
Aristide and his ugly little experiment in democracy for the poor would
fail. What they did not know, or could not know, was the depth of the
creative resistance of the poor black majority in Haiti. Itıs difficult to
fault the foreign mediaıs judgment, however, for money is power and power is
money and they can afford their next meal while the impoverished majority in
Haiti cannot. In a country as poor as Haiti, this is the difference between
knowing what is real and what is false. What non-Haitians must try to
understand is that if only half of the negative propaganda about Lavalas
were true, particularly that President Aristide no longer enjoys wide
support in the country, this government would have fallen long ago.

In the wake of the fabricated events of December 5 the Haitian government
and Lavalas endured weeks of clandestine attacks, while the opposition
demonstrated under heavy police protection. Then, on December 26, the great
silent beast of Haitiıs poor, portrayed as violent and anti-democratic by
the Haitian press and their friends in the international corporate media,
awakened. Tens of thousands of Lavalas supporters hit the streets with a
singular purpose and objective: that Haiti's constitution be respected and
President Aristide be allowed to fulfill his five-year term in office.

The real battle had just begun, as Haitiıs long-oppressed millions prepared
to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the worldıs only successful slave
revolution and the first black republic.

In Pina's next report: The Haitian media and U.S.-backed opposition risk
political suicide in their attempt to spoil the Bicentennial.

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.


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