19698: Fenton: US Double Game in Haiti... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Anthony Fenton <apfenton@ualberta.ca>

From:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=4997

ZNet | Africa

US Double Game in Haiti
by Tom Reeves; February 16, 2004


Not quite a year ago, after returning from Haiti, I wrote for Z-net, "the
United
States government is playing the same game as in Iraq - pushing for
"regime change" in Haiti. Their strategy includes a massive
disinformation campaign in U.S. media, an embargo on desperately
needed foreign aid to Haiti, and direct support for violent elements,
including former military officers and Duvalierists, who openly seek the
overthrow of President Aristide." Events in Haiti today show how bloody
the U.S. game has become.

Even as Colin Powell insists the U.S. does NOT seek "regime change,"
the attempt to oust the legitimate elected government of Jean Bertrand
Aristide grows more violent by the day. During the past week, at least 50
people have been slaughtered, and probably far more, in Gonaives,
Haiti's fourth-largest city - most by those whom Powell and pro-U.S.
media call "rebels." The dead include three patients waiting for treatment
in a hospital. Many of the 14 police killed had their bodies dragged naked
through the street, ears cut off and other body parts mutilated. Gonaives
and several small towns remain in the hands of a brutal gang of thugs,
with direct ties to the U.S.-recognized and Republican-financed
"opposition" - the Convergence and the Group of 184, whose spokesmen
are sweat shop owners and former military officers. This "opposition"
seeks to distance itself from the violence, yet continue to insist that the
"uprising" is justified. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security
admitted it's concern by announcing preparations for up to 50,000 fleeing
Haitians in Guantanamo - indicating the U.S. is expecting to see carnage
in Haiti on a grand scale.

Most recently, as the "rebels" blocked the road from the Dominican
Republic and re-took two villages in the north, reinforcements arrived from
across the border. According to Ian James of the AP, Feb. 14, twenty
armed Haitian commandos, shot their way through the Dominican border,
killing two Dominican soldiers. With them were former Cap Haitien police
chief and army officer, Guy Philippe, and the head of the Duvalier death
squad in the 1980s, Louis Jodel Chamblain. Chamblain was also a
leader of the FRAPH, a group of para-military "attaches" during the coup
years. A close associate of Chamblain, Emmanueal "Toto" Constant, has
admitted its CIA funding and direction. Chamblain was revealed in
documents reviewed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York
as one of those present during the planning, with a U.S. agent, of the
assassination of the pro-Aristide minister of justice, Guy Malary, in 1993.
The U.S. refuses to release documents it seized from FRAPH during the
1994 U.S. invasion - presumably to cover up the CIA ties to FRAPH.
Philippe and Chamblain were among those from the Haitian opposition,
recognized by the U.S. - the Convergence - who organized conferences in
the D.R. funded and attended by U.S. operatives from the International
Republican Institute (IRI).

All this is new only in its intensity and scope. The brazen coup attempt
which resulted in a violent attack on the National Palace, only hours after
Aristide had left it, in December 2001, brought only OAS and US demands
that the Haitian government pay reparations for damage to opposition
property, and that it prosecute those responsible. Aristide complied. Since
then, Paul Farmer, Kevin Pina and others have documented many
para-military attacks on police stations, clinics and government vehicles,
and the largest power station in the country (Peligre), resulting in the
deaths of many government officials and others. Some of these attacks
clearly involved former military in alliance with paramilitary gangs like the
Armee Sans Maman, openly linked to this month's Gonaive violence by
the self-styled "Gonaives Resistance Front" and the "National Liberation
and Resistance Front." Some also involved jeeps fleeing toward the
Dominican border. In none of these documented instances of violence did
the U.S. government or any of the U.S.-based human rights organizations
cry out - reserving their criticism for the justly deplored murders of three
and possibly five Haitian journalists over a period of four years,
suggesting Haitian government ineffectiveness at best in the
prosecutions, and complicty with the murders at worst.

It is not surprising, then, that Powell has now only demanded that
Aristide's government respect human rights! He denounced the blocking
by "pro-Aristide militants" of a "peaceful opposition demonstration."
Residents threw up barricades because they said they feared violence in
Goniave could spread to the capital - though rocks were thrown, no
deaths or injuries were reported. Powell said nothing of the extreme
atrocities committed daily by what he variously calls "rebels" and
"criminals" against police and Lavalas leaders in Gonaives. One wonders
what would be the position of the Bush government if a band of criminals
in Kansas City had murdered fifty government supporters and police in
the name of opposing the war in Iraq, and if national anti-war leaders
refused to denounce this, insisting they hold a demonstration in
Washington the same week. As Harold Geffrand, a small business owner
who was among those manning the barricade against the opposition's
demonstration, told the AP, "If those guys get power can you imagine what
would happen? They would destroy and destroy and destroy." The Haitian
government immediately condemned the blocking of the demonstration
and said these acts were not sanctioned by Lavalas or its allies. The
demonstration did in fact take place two days later - with about a thousand
participants, as did a much larger pro-Aristide demonstration. Both
groups were kept separate and guarded by Haitian police. Opposition
leaders in the demonstration repeated their "nonviolence," but also their
support for the goals of the Gonaives rebellion." (AP, Feb. 15)

The U.S. game in Haiti has always been a double game - public lip
service for "democracy" - at the same time giving concrete covert aid to the
most violent anti-democratic forces. Powell pressed Aristide to "reach out
to the opposition," and insisted chillingly, "It would be inconsistent with
our plan to attempt to force him from office against his will." Powell made
plain, "We will insist that Aristide stops the violence, restores order and
respects human rights." Yet the U.S.-led embargo continues to block tear
gas supplies for the Haitian police, leaving police only the alternatives to
kill looters and violent demonstrators, hence "violating human rights," in
the U.S. eyes; or ignore them - thus failiing to restore order.

Meanwhile, the same U.S. government players who supported the
Contras in Nicaragua - Otto Reich and Robert Noriega (See Kevin Pina's
excellent series in the Black Commentator) - gave aid and comfort to
those who back the Haiti contras, insisting that the right-wing dominated
Convergence and it's elite, pro-business partner, the Group of 184, have a
veto over any progress toward holding elections in Haiti. Over a year ago,
Noriega and Reich were linked to the planning of a secret conference
near Ottawa, at which the Francophone nations were urged by U.S.
agents present to be prepared to call for direct intervention and a possible
U.N. trusteeship in the wake of Aristide's departure after violence
escalated in Haiti. The Canadian diplomat, Denis Paradis, who chaired
the meeting was sacked when Canada's role came to light.

No wonder, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was caught in the
middle. He waffled when asked about U.S. intentions: "I guess the way to
respond to that is that, needless to say, everyone's hopeful that the
situation, which tends to ebb and flow down there, will stay below a
certain threshold and that there's - we have no plans to do anything. By
that I don't mean we have no plans. Obviously, we have plans to do
everything in the world that we can think of. But we - there's no intention at
the present time, or no reason to believe that any of the thinking that goes
into these things day - year in and year out - would have to be utilized."

I saw both sides of this double game when I went to Haiti at the time of
Aristide's return in 1994. I saw the U.S. helicopter that landed Aristide at
the palace and the U.S. soldiers who guarded the bullet-proof box from
which he was allowed to speak. I interviewed U.S. officers in the Central
Plateau who said they were specifically told to treat FRAPH as a loyal
opposition, and not to confiscate large weapons' caches they stumbled
upon. Most of the M-1s and M-14s seen in the hands of the Gonaives
thugs today have been identified as coming from those Haitian army
stockpiles left untouched during the U.S. occupation. A few M-16s, though,
have begun to appear in Goniaves as well - identical to those given the
Dominican army en masse just a few months ago by the U.S.
government, in return for Dominican acquiescence in placing 900 U.S.
troops alongside Dominican guards at the Dominican frontier - and for the
Dominican agreement never to use the International Court to accuse and
try U.S. citizens for war crimes. (Miami Herald, Dec. 6, 2002)

While virtually all U.S. media insist on parroting Powell and the Haitian
opposition in referring to the Gonaives situation as a "uprising by the
people," they also repeat the mantra that the "rebel leaders" were
originally armed by Aristide as his local goons, and that he is therefore
responsible for the attacks on his own police. Such half-truths are
sprinkled through media accounts. In fact, those responsible for the
Gonaives violence are tied to two local gangs - or clans - entrenched in
Gonaives for many years. One gang, based in the slum of Raboto, was
headed by Amiot Metayer, and called itself recently "The Cannibal Army."
The other, based in Jubilee, included Jean "Tatoune" Pierre, convicted of
the notorious Raboto massacre of Aristide supporters in 1994. Metayer's
group claimed to support Aristide, but when human rights groups
pressed the Haitian government to prosecute him for various crimes, he
was arrested. Both Metyayer and Tatoune escaped from the Port au
Prince penitentiary in August, 2002, in a daring bulldozer prison break.
Late last year, Metayer was murdered, with the opposition and Metayer's
followers blaming Aristide, but the government pointing at Tatoune's
followers and the opposition. Metayer's brother returned to Haiti from the
U.S. and joined Tatoune to begin a campaign against Aristide's party,
Lavalas, and the government. They are among those who control
Gonaives today - along with what the Washington Post (Feb. 10) calls
"higher echelons of leadership from former Haitian army officers." Now
they have been joined outright by FRAPH/CIA operatives like Chamblain,
who was also convicted in absentia for the Raboto massacre.

Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are
many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are
today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti. Andy
Apaid is the notorious sweat-shop owner who speaks for the Group of
184, and who, with Evans Paul, leads the anti-Aristide demonstrations in
Port au Prince. Apaid spearheaded a successful campaign last year to
block Aristide's attempt to raise the minimum wage. It is about $1.60 per
day - lower even than in 1995. Apaid insists the opposition does not
condone violence, yet says that "armed resistance is a legitimate political
expression" and that the "rebels" should remain armed until Aristide has
stepped down. Apaid continues to hold U.S. citizenship, despite having
received a Haitian passport, based on a fradulent claim to have been born
in Haiti.

The two prongs of the Haitian attempt to overthrow the democratically
elected government of Haiti parallel the two sides of the U.S. double
game. One way or the other, the end game is to put in power those more
amenable to U.S. policies and to the Haitian elite. It is not surprising that
Marc Bazin, long the preferred U.S. candidate for the Haitian presidency,
has again been floated in U.S. liberal circles as the "compromise"
solution to Haiti's problems! Whether by outright violence or by the
strategies of a "coup lite" (like the U.N. trusteeship proposed by the
Paradis conference last year or the Caracom initiative brokered by
Jamaca and the Bahamas with Powell's blessing) that would ease
Aristide out to "avoid a bloodbath," what the U.S. wants for Haiti is what it
wants for every country with a leadership not under its control - for Cuba,
for Venezuela, for Iran or Iraq: a rose by any other name - "regime
change."

The biggest question is why the American liberal establishment goes
along with the right-wing Republicans in this - and why even most of the
vanishing "left" in the U.S. is either silent or wrings its hands at
Aristide's
failures. An incredibly effective disinformation campaign in almost all U.S.
media is probably the answer: Aristide has been constructed as a tyrant,
and hence all opposition to him is justified. Amy Willenz' piece this week
in the New York Times is the latest illustration of this. Willenz, who
documented the U.S. game since Duvalier in The Rainy Season, reasons
that Aristide has betrayed the Haitian people who brought him to power in
the first place. To a great extent she is right because Aristide was playing
his own "double game" - seeking to keep some shreds of his original
platform to bring dignity and equity to Haiti's poor, while having to
capitulate to U.S. demands for privatization and structural adjustment in
order to hold on to power. Like Powell, Willenz, too, rejects violent regime
change. But like Powell, reading between her lines one gets the clear
warning. He must go voluntarily, or he will be pushed - no matter what the
cost in Haitian lives, and no matter what the Haitian people want.

The time is now to stop the politically correct nonsense on Aristide. The
time is now to heed the lone voice crying in the Washington think tank
wilderness, that of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), which has
consistently exposed the link between U.S. government and right-wing
circles and the Haitian opposition, and warned that a contra-style
take-over could be eminent. COHA quoted Haitian human rights activist,
Pierre Esperance, already in 2002: "I don't know how this situation can
last. The country could explode at any time." The time is now to support
Rep.Maxine Waters and other brave Black Caucus members in their
attempt to counter U.S. government and media half-truths which blame
Aristide for everything and cover over U.S. connections to the revival of
those who shored up Duvalier and perpetrated the coup a decade ago.

If progressives, at least, do not expose the U.S. double game, and
demand support for the democratic government of Haiti, Haiti could
succumb to that game. Haitians will have been set back yet again in their
two-century struggle for sovereignty and dignity. The U.S. could win its
double game in Haiti not in a matter of years, but within weeks.

Anthony Fenton
apfenton@ualberta.ca
h. 604-460-2857