18710: Esser: US Double Game in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

ZNet | Africa
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm

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.

.