18707: (Ives) Re: 18699: Wilentz: Haiti's Collapse (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: K. M. Ives <kives@toast.net>

After being posted on the very popular Portside list,
there were many strong reactions to Amy Wilentz' article, "Haiti's
Collapse," from the Nation. Here are four of them.

For the original article - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portside/
message/5491

1.
From: Jack Zylman
Date: Mon Feb 16, 2004
RE: Haiti's Collapse

This article seems to tell me that the CIA has moved into the offices of
the Nation. The CIA has been behind the various assaults on the
Haitian
people and on Aristide ever since he came into prominence.

Maxine Waters has visited Haiti a number of times and can be
considered
an expert on Haiti, as can John Conyers. Her view is very different, as
can be seen by her earlier article broadcast on Portside.

One thing we need to know: Where is Emanuel Constant, former head
of the
official terrorist organization FRAPH? The last I heard, he was living
nicely in Queens. Google has nothing written since 1995 on its page 1
of a search on his name.



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2.
From: John Lacny
Date: Mon Feb 16, 2004
Re: [portside] Haiti's Collapse

Amy Wilentz's studied neutrality in the face of the brutal reactionary
assault on the popularly elected government of Haiti -- so typical of
journalists for The Nation when push comes to shove -- is nothing short
of offensive. From the self-important opening sentence ("The Aristide
administration . . . has been egalitarian in the lives destroyed during
its time") that essentially blames Aristide for the violence, through a
closing paragraph that more or less says "Those colorful darkies just
aren't ready for democracy," you won't learn a damn thing from Amy
Wilentz.

I suppose it's too much for us to expect our alternative, "progressive"
media to debunk the pile of nonsense about Haiti that the commercial
media have dumped on our heads for several weeks now. For example,
the
notion that the gangsters who have taken over Gonaives are "former
supporters of Aristide" angered by the assassination of Amiot Metayer.
In reality, the "cannibal army" in Gonaives is headed by Jean Tatoune,
whose opposition to Aristide dates to the LAST coup -- in fact, Tatoune
informed on Metayer for the coup regime, and was rewarded for it after
the paramilitaries perpetrated the Raboteau massacre. Tatoune was a
member of FRAPH. That's who's leading the counterrevolutionary
rebellion
in Gonaives, and he's doing it in conjunction with former FRAPH
gangsters and other macoutes, some of whom are now pouring over
the
border from the Dominican Republic in the hopes of once again taking
down the "red priest." But you wouldn't know that from reading Amy
Wilentz, would you? Hardly, since she was responsible for an article in
the LA Times back in October that both called Metayer a "thug" AND lent
credence to the right-wing charge that he was murdered by Aristide.

(For the gory details on this see
http://www.blackcommentator.com/63/63_haiti_2.html )

A wise man once said that facts are stubborn things, but apparently the
facts are too boring for novelists who like to wax lyrical about "the
cock-fighters and garbage-pickers, numbers-runners, whores and
money-changers," and set up sad morality plays in which "rarely has a
leader failed so grossly to rise to a historic occasion," in which we
progressives in the US supposedly do not have to take a side. We
should
ask that our alternative media provide us with better information and
analysis than this facile liberal bullshit.

 John Lacny

People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running
dogs!


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3.

From: dora brown
Date: Mon Feb 16, 2004
Re: Haiti's Collapse

Amy Wilentz article really makes my blood boil. Let's give another
perspective on the current events unfolding in Haiti. For this one
will have to have a holistic view of current events. We will start
with Sierra Leone, I remember when the trouble started, we, who had
lived and gone to school there and have a parent buried there where
a little confused. As a friend who had gone back to live and had to
return asked, "Why, if these individuals destroying the
infrastructure of the society? Why are they burning fields,
destroying farming equipment, terrorizing ordinary civilians and
spreading terror and mayhem? Why are the police stations,
courthouses, record offices being burned to the ground? Why are the
hospitals being looted and the staff terrorized? We then asked the
same question when it happened in Liberia not so long ago? Why did
it require international assistance for it to succeed in Liberia?
The strength of Charles Taylor's government and the control that was
still being exerted over the governing system was still in place. It
was then necessary to demonize Taylor, do what Ms. Wilentz and her
kind are so good at doing, muddy the waters and use all those
euphemisms that speak to the so called "civilized world" when
discussing peoples of color. Eventually, the UN assisted these New
World Order ... to take over the countries of Sierra Leone and
Liberia. Foday Sankoh their boy in Sierra Leone was turned into a
vegetable on a boat of the coast of Sierra Leone, a kangaroo court
convened and this wreck of a man dragged before it slobbering and
mindless to be tried for war crimes. This was the same man whom the
UN/UK/US had forced those his forces had mutilated and maimed to
accept as the Minister of Mines. After all, this was about the
diamonds in Kono and Sefadu. These became a gift to one of gang, I
guess it went to the UK after all their soldiers prepared the
ground. We then turn to Liberia, the arms used by the LURD and other
group came, for the LURD from Sierra Leone and Guinea, after all
that had already been taken over, Guinea has a leader who depends
on
the LURD leader's wife, who now says she is the power behind the
throne, for spiritual and moral guidance. The other group were
financed from Ivory Coast when the destabilization was occurrring by
US special forces who landed in a field supposedly to evacuate the
American expatriate community. We all saw the TV reports, the US
citizens said the French evacuated them. We never again saw the US
special forces, instead, the agreement that had been ironed out
between the rebels in the north and the government in the south,
suddenly fell apart. The French, whose special relationship with its
former colonies is now being challenged by the New World Order, then
set up the buffer between the government forces and the rebels. It
was then we started seeing government loyalists waving the flag of
the US with Bush on all their placards. There is still a stalemate
on that front. Back to Liberia, after failing to dislodge Taylor,
and failing to get the government of Ghana to do their work for them
and arrest Taylor when he attended the peace talks, the NWO gang
then anchored off the coast of Liberia ferrying in weapons to the
insurgents. In spite of all the efforts of the drugged and heavily
armed children soldiers (same as in Sierra Leone, DRCongo drugs
and
guns in the hands of children) the insurgents were unable to
dislodge Taylor. Who got called in, Africa's surrogate for the US,
Abasanjo came supposedly to smooth over matters, offering asylum to
Taylor. The people of Liberia had by now being so brutalized and
traumatized that they would have welcomed the devil if he promised
Peace and no more war, and the devil they did get, Jacques Klein
under the banner of the UN riding shotgun on a UN peacekeeping
vehicle waving a knobkerrie. There is a similar thread that runs
through all the misery, mayhem and crimes against humanity being
committed on the soil of Africa. Since the circus master is the US,
and we all know how the US deals with race; we can expect more of
the same. We, Africans, Haitiens etc., are not blameless, after all,
what we see on tv is a bunch of black men running around
slaughtering their own kind, and we already know from our experience
on the Mothership that this, in the long and short run, serves the
purpose of those in power. The national guard only comes out when
the lives of whites and their property is threatened. So, what used
to be a uniquely American pathology is now global. Ms. Wilentz, you
can run that crap to your own kind and those wannabes who would
support any opinion that avoids their having to take and stand and
speak out against the genocide, neo colonialism and imperialistic
land and natural resources grab that is now going on, but please!!!
don't add insult to injury. The only reason the US first got
involved, was because they would have lost it all. Running
interference and promising aid, that by the way, was never
delivered. The opposition, yah! the opposition, isn't one of the 60
Minutes correspondents heavily involved in Haiti? Where were you
during the time of Duvalier? Aren't his and the rest of those sent
into exile now returning? Was it the celebration of the 200
Anniversary the catalyst for this? We watch Cuba and hear Castro
talk about what is being attempted against him again. We watch
Chavez and watch the attempts to destabilize and overthrow a
democratically elected government. All I know is that any government
that talks about raising the standard of living for the great
unwashed masses seems to come into conflict with the New World
Order.
At least let us hear from others who speak for the voiceless
billions against whom crimes against humanity are being committed
daily. The millions who live as refugees in their own countries
depending on the handouts from the faith based, and conservative run
ngos and other organizations running around all over the non
"civilized world." These are providing jobs for all those who are
the children of the New World Order. All I grieve for is the
millions of my brothers and sisters who have no understanding of the
forces that are not tearing their worlds apart and have the young
prostituting themselves for pittance. The rest suffering from
psychological conditions that only be known from having lived as a
refugee, and having lived in a camp can produce. I do not blame the
Amy Wilentz, I blame all those so called progressives and liberals
who have abnegated their responsibilities and choose to believe this
crap because it somehow absolves them from getting involved. What
happened to those wonderful individuals that I found in this country
when I arrived in 1972? I guess they are like the flowers, long time
passed and now ...


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4.
From: edmoser
Date: Mon Feb 16, 2004
Re: Haiti's Collapse

Amy Wilentz writes that the gods must help the politician the street has
turned against, that no one can rule without its support. Does she
mean
to suggest that the "street" supported Papa Doc and Baby Doc?

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