19179: Erzilidanto: Washington's hand against democracy and for extra-Constitutional Regime Change in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

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Washington's Hand Against democracy and for Extra-Constitutional and Brutal
Regime Change in Haiti by Marguerite Laurent, Esq., an award winning playwright
and performance poet, a hip hop attorney who has represented many top Hip Hop
artist over the last 15 years including members of Public Enemy and the Last
Poets, and, a pro-democracy Haitian-American activist. She once, from
1994-1995, was a legal advisor to President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti and is
Chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network.
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Washington's hand against democracy and for extra-Constitutional Regime
Change in Haiti
********
Who will come to the support of the Haitian people under siege, in this,
Haiti's 200th year anniversary from European enslavement? Where are the voices for
human rights and Haitian democracy in the U.S? Every Hip-Hop artist must make
this his or her cause. Haiti's very dignity as a Black ruled democratic and
independent nation is under attack right now, right here not far from U.S.
shores.

Only the Hip Hop generation, African-Americans, Haitian Americans,
progressive U.S. Congress members and a solidarity movement with decent law abiding
peoples globally can flex its dollars, its voice, its networks, its reach in
U.S./Euro societies to persuade the U.S. radical right wing and the other Western
nuclear powers following suit to let Haiti live by withdrawing all their
financial, military and political support from these murderers, narco- traffickers
and suspected rapists terrorizing Gonaive, Cap Haitien, Hinche and the other
outer, once peaceful, Haitian cities, villages and hamlets.

It is generally acknowledged that Haiti has historically had to pay a debt of
independence, in various forms, which no other nation in the world has ever
had to pay. For, Haitians own a nation founded by kidnapped Africans surrounded
by nations founded by slave owners.

One form of the "debt" for Haitian independence is that Haiti has suffered
consistently from negative images being put forth by the International mass
media with seeming impunity. Today, in general, if you pick up a mainstream
newspaper, the unfair, unbalanced and negative images of Haiti have gone nuclear.

What I've noticed most is that it's not just mere misinformation and
misstatements of facts or just outright lies, but the reporting about Haiti is
blatantly and palpably RACIST.

There has been a deluge of mainstream press reports the last few months to
the effect that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has lost popular
support, won't allow dissent demonstrations and protests and has armed "thugs" and
allowed corruption to flourish in Haiti.

There has been no calibration or modulation or historic context given for any
of these charges. These little more than opinions are handed out as TRUTH.
Little, if any, investigative reports have shown the Opposition's role in this
or the combine role of the tiny Eurocentric/Haitian economic elite and the U.S.
State Department, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency's in, for instance,
financing, training, arming and providing war machinery to Guy Phillip, Louis
Jodel Chamblain and their other, as Collin Powell has said,  FRAPH/FAHD
"criminals and thugs." Nor, has the Amiot/Butler Metayer cover used to undermine
democracy with the Gonaive connection between Jean Tatoune, a former FRAPH death
squad leader and convicted murderer, who was in the Gonaive prison with Metayer,
ever been exposed. No press has investigated the fact that Amiot Metayer
testifying against the Raboteau victims may show he played both sides. We only hear
the late Amiot Metayer and his brother, Butler Metayer (who just announced he
is the President of a liberated Haiti!) were pro-Lavalas "thugs" who turned
against Aristide. No mainstream press ever mentions Danny Toussaint any more,
or, his position these days with the so-called Opposition, or, that he may have
been a paid infiltrator, provocateur within the Aristide government. No. It
seem that if certain facts don't serve the purpose of undermining Aristide,
they are not "news" worth reporting.

Why? Because many journalist, from major and otherwise credible US-Euro media
outlets and newspapers, seem to give more value to the position of the
unelected, wealthy and Eurocentric Haitian few, they call "opposition" than they do
to the desires and social-economic needs of the overwhelming Black Haitian
majority in Haiti. Also because these journalists lie about Haiti and its people
and Black behavior as if Haitian lives and Haiti's historical struggle for
civil rights and democracy amidst US-Euro obstruction, embargo, dollar diplomacy
and divide-and-conquer shenanigans is negligible. As if they may break EVERY
recognized journalistic principle and ethic since they are only talking about
lives that are not valuable, souls animated by just poor defenseless Black
Haitians. Shall this go unchallenged by decent peoples everywhere? I think not.

Aristide still has popular support and the majority of his supporters cannot
be criminalized as "thugs." That would mean something in the neighborhood of a
little less than 8 million Blacks in Haiti are "thugs." That is racist and
baseless. Period. No Comma.

Moreover, criticizing Aristide on the question of demilitarization and governm
ent corruption should always be put in perspective. There is an element of
self-defense in not demilitarizing pro-Lavalas supporters, as his opponents have
charged. If we are to speculate, perhaps Aristide didn't want to suffer
another Coup D'etat because the Haitian army and FRAPH members in Haiti where not
demilitarized and his poor supporters where already very defenseless. Perhaps
we should consider his defense that the new civilian police force was ill
trained and that, even as President, he did not have the means to further
professionalize and properly face armed criminals, so he negotiated. Perhaps, Haiti was
not properly demilitarized, as the weight of the evidence shows, because
people in Haiti who have money, guns and means, no matter their party
affiliations, including certain calling themselves Lavalas militants, have always,
historically, felt they were above Haitian law and could not be subject to it, no
matter who was in charge.

Whatever the reason, it's a combination of all the above. But this seemingly
Haitian and now U.S. State Department idea that only one man, one "messiah", (
pwoblem Ayiti se pwoblem yon sel grenn kretyen vivan), or one government, or
that only one Haitian generation would bring and have all the solutions for all
that plague Haiti is unrealistic to the point of being felony-stupid. These
observation are not a justification of the corruption's within the Aristide
government, only facts of Haitian life to be considered in the mix of
considerations.

Haitians had only just begun, in 1994, after almost 200 years of
institutionalized cronyism, corruption and dictatorships, to have an authentic democratic
say in the way their public institutions where run.  Just started to
de-centralize power and allow for local town meetings, local governments. But those who
have always ruled Haiti through, the tiny undemocratic agents of imperial
power, along with the former Haitian military and para-military forces saw their
privileges diminishing. The sole purpose of this current "Get Aristide Out"
campaign is to help bring back the old brutal Haitian army so that these
un-democratic privileges will, once again, be maintained against the people's will.

The Haitian people's ten-year effort in de-centralizing power was a threat. I
contend it is Haiti successes with democracy; it is because Haitians were
slowly moving forward with the democracy experiment that there are these
US-sponsored Coup D'etat attacks today.

******

Not long ago I read an article where a journalist wrote, "Haiti celebrated
its bicentennial amidst tear gas...."!!!???

I was there at said January 1, 2004, celebration. I can personally witness
that I did not need a gas mask and that this is one of the many outright lies of
the corporate press. Other recent fabrications have been the consistent
erroneous characterization of the opposition protester against the duly elected
President Aristide as "student" protesters. Both Renel Victor and Maxime
Désalmour where identified as opposition "students" who died as a result of the recent
wave of protest demonstrations in Haiti. Neither Renel Victor nor Maxime
Désalmour where students. In fact Renel Victor was a Lavalas supporter according
to his wife. Louvoi Petit was a pro-Lavalas demonstrator who was stoned by the
Apaid-led opposition. Yet this was not widely reported as the death of
opposition demonstrators were reported.

Why does it seem that Reuters/AP and the major press, based on their reports
on the Renel Victor, Maxime Désalmour and Louvoi Petit cases alone, seem
primarily concerned about the rights and freedom of speech of the anti-Aristide
opposition people in Haiti?

In order to counter these media slants and sometimes outright fabrications, I
urge the spoken word warriors and Hip hop generations and every Haitian who
went down to Haiti for the Bicentennial to stand up and respond to these lies.
Without question the forces against the advancement of the Haitian people had
manufactured a bloody catastrophe to happen. It is clear that what's happening
in Haiti was well planned. The U.S. started warning its U.S. citizens and
Embassy folks in Haiti to leave Haiti and started preparing Guantanamo Bay for
the influx of fleeing Haitians it expected weeks before Louis Jodel Chamblain
and Guy Phillip and their 21 armed commandos got to Gonaive.

Also, it appears, from all indications, including the boasting by the
opposition that said violent Coup D'etat/overthrow was to occur on or before January
1, 2004. This so-called opposition lost much credibility with patriotic
Haitians when even the sacred day to commemorate the African Ancestor's
200-year-old, 1804 great achievement, was boycotted by the opposition and its radical
right wing white cohorts in the U.S. Their divide and conquer blueprint and
manufactured conflicts unforgivably obstructed the celebration of Haiti's greatest
feat.

Yet, Haitian blood did not pour into the Atlantic Ocean. Bombs did not drop
on Gonaive on January 1, 2004. In fact, their RACIST maneuverings did not come
to fruition as the powerful opposition radio station, Radio Metropole,
reported on January 1, 2004,........yet.

It is well documented (See the COHA report referenced below) that the
so-called Haitian opposition has no real program, platform or constituency, other
than less than 4% of the Haitian population in Haiti and the stated desire to
overthrow Aristide and bring back the old Haitian army.

This opposition we are hearing so much about today is made up of the remnants
of the Convergence and something called Group 184, led by sweatshop owner,
Andre Apaid, Jr., and made up of 14-Haitian organizations and NGOS funded by
USAID, the European Union, France and the International Republican Institute.

This so-called opposition, has, for four years in Haiti, simply refused to go
to elections, primarily because, they could not win. But, while the Haitian
government is under an economic embargo led by the U.S., in 2003 alone, civil
society groups, such as the Haitian opposition received 3 million dollars from
U.S.A.I. D. and the European Union gave a $890,374 GRANT directly to Fondation
Nouvelle Haiti, led by Andre Apaid Jr., to Rosny Desroches. Rosny Desroches
heads of the Fondation Haitienne de l'Enseignement Prive (FONHEP). Both are
members of Group 184.

Andre Apaid, Jr. like Amio Metayer, also thrives on ignoring Haitian law. For
instance he has faced charges for illegal treatment of his sweatshop workers
in Haiti and, as a Miami-born U.S. citizens, many Haitians wonder, how Collin
Powell and Noreiga, can actually, legally call and negotiate with this U.S.
citizen as "leader" of an Opposition in Haiti when the Haitian Constitutions
specifically prevents non-Haitian citizens from holding elected office in Haiti!
Thus, we seem to have more than Aristide's "thugs" thumbing their noses at
Haitian law with seeming impunity, don't we? It goes to the highest of levels in
Haitian society and even within the U.S./Euro governments.

For, besides the financial, military, media and political support - some
observers have commented that the OAS has always been a broker for the opposition!
Thus, we have the priceless marketing/promotional aid this tiny platformless
constituency in Haiti gets from the U.S. corporate media's that constantly
reporting as "news" and as "factual" opinions culled from opposition-owned news
outlets in Haiti, such as the powerful Radio Metropole and others. To the
U.S./Euro citizenry, I say, don't believe the hype. Don't believe most of what you
hear or see about Haiti. It's not the whole picture.

Many knowledgeable Haitian observers note that the US/Euro financed Coup
D'etat, scheduled to occur on or before January 1, 2004, did not happen because
hundreds of thousands of young Haitian men and women, of all ages, stood around
the Haitian palace for days and nights, during the bicentennial week,
literally as body-armor to prevent the internationally financed-imperial-agents from
pushing Haiti back into FRAPH-like dictatorship.

It was an awesome site to see and no Haitian, from the Diaspora or
African-American, or anyone, for that matter, regardless of race and creed, blessed
enough to have personally witness this desperate, but glorious act of courage and
conviction by this valiant people can return to their homes abroad and not
SPEAK UP.

Haiti's people are hungry, malnourished, skinny as hell, without jobs or
passports to suburbia, but they so WANTED to celebrate and be celebrated. So much
so, they dared the foreign-sponsored-special
interest-groups-representing-big-business-and-Profit-Over-People- ideas, also known as, the "Opposition" to
commit mass Haitian genocide or back off!

But these anti-democratic forces in Haiti did, in fact, come back. Since
Port-au-Prince could not be taken by January 1, 2004, the Dominican border was
magically opened to former Haitian military and FRAPH to enter and start this
bloody campaign we are now witnessing in Haiti.

But Haitians, are fighting these foreign supported Black gangsters with every
thing they've got. Port-au-Prince will not be taken unless the U.S. and the
Euros intend on returning Haiti back to the Black rule U.S. colony of the days
before Aristide. And, are willing to commit Haitian genocide. The U.S. has
backed death squads like the ones Haitian civilians are facing today in
Guatemala, Chile, Venezuela and all over Africa.

I can't, right now, in words of prose, capture, the energy, the vibration,
the spiritual FORCE, the teeming thousands upon thousands of Haitians, in front
of the Haitian Palace, on January 1, 2004, and, in Gonaive transmitted to the
world. Nor capture the vibration of those millions upon millions of Haitians
who took to the streets on February 7, 2004, to call on the world for help
against the nucleic powers of the U.S. and France and the internationals and
morally repugnant tiny Haitian economic elite who want that Haiti never has a
reason to celebrate beating all these European nations and their Black overseers
back in 1804 in combat.

But, basically, our young and old came together on January 1, 2004 and, on
February 7, 2004, faced the international media and the Western nuclear powers,
placed their very bodies and naked souls, -the only real assets they own - on
the line and said to the International Community and anyone else willing to
listen: you will push us back into maronage (hiding like we were some runaway
slaves) ONLY if you are willing to murder ALL of us HERE and NOW! Black people
in Haiti said to these fascists and warmongers and regime changers: "over our
dead bodies."

Unfortunately, current events in Haiti illustrates clearly that the
U.S./Euros have no problem whatsoever murdering or standing idly by as innocent Blacks
are murdered in droves, by the hands of perhaps their imperial agents down
there in Haiti, their right-wing, paid-off Black overseers - the so-called
"opposition" and its armed FRAPH/FAHD military wing.

It seems those committed to Haiti continuing to be a service area for U.S.
multinational corporation and their assembly plants and subsidized farm goods -
those committed to the eternal rape of Haiti - won the media war against
Haitians and embolden the so-called opposition to continue their violent protests
in Port-au-Prince.

200 years from the date the Black Ancestors in Haiti broke their own chains
in the Americas to create the first Black nation in the Western Hemisphere, the
Haitians from Haiti's worst ghettos and slums, the urban dwellers and slum
dwellers and peasants got together and prevented a foreign-sponsored Coup D’etat
catastrophe. The payback is now in full view as pro-Lavalas, Aristide
supporters, and the Haitian civilian police force are out-gunned, overpowered and
being summarily executed in Gonaive and Cap Haitien.

Check your local TV station as death squad leaders, led by US trained by the
Special Forces, Guy Phillip and former death squad leader Louis Jodel
Chamblain,  previously given safety, asylum and perhaps even guns by U.S. proxy - the
Dominican Republic - magically managed to cross said well-protected Dominican
border that has at least, since over a year ago, 900-U.S. soldiers helping to
man it. These terrorists and fugitives from Haitian law and justice, just
happened to cross the Dominican border into Haiti without being detected either by
the US soldiers or the Dominican guard?

This, and the fact that the Haitian opposition to Aristide has always been
financed by foreign powers (IRI, USAID, NED, European Union, etc.) is why many
Haitians believed the turmoil in Haiti was planned at the highest of levels and
that it's no coincidence, or some rag tag bunch of untrained anti-Aristide
"liberators" with authentic civilian support. Many respected and veteran human
rights observers also are beginning to see through the mass media fabrications
and supporting the allegation that these death squad leaders, terrorists,
fugitives, and suspected rapists, have, in fact been, unleashed on the unarmed
Haitian villages, peasants and urban dwellers in order to force Aristide to step
down from office, in order to achieve regime change in Haiti. But will the
mobilization needed come together in time to save Port-au-Prince from a massacre?

In fact, but for the courageous reporting of papers like the San Franscico
Bayview, the mainstream corporate media, would have re-written what happened
during the bi-centennial celebration for their own political purposes. Fact is,
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, AP/Reuters and
other "majors" led these papers trying their hands at a media Coup D’etat.
Eventually, the New York Times made a reluctant retraction on their January 2, 2004,
coverage.

But today, who will stand up for the voiceless Haitian majority with its back
against the wall, facing a well-trained and well-armed, US/Euro sponsored
military opponent? Who will stand up for the voiceless Black Haitian majority
with its back against Port-au-Prince walls braving this wealthy International
media, facing the Iron Will of the former slave owners and their current dollar
diplomacy policies with an embargo on the Haitian people but bottomless
financing of the Opposition against Haitian liberation, against Haitian development
and obstructing Haiti's institutionalization of the rule of law and democracy?
Who shall counter the current media and international political attempts to
force the Haitian people to submit to eternal rape by the wealthiest nations on
this earth? Who must stand up for the Haitian poor and for their pioneering
efforts refusing to allow themselves to be exploited in the name of "democracy"
as said democracy is defined by those who insist Haiti must continue to pay
for its independence? Who, must counter the current, not only NEGATIVE but false
and RACIST images being disseminated about the current Haitian struggle which
suggest that those fighting for Aristide to finish up his 5-year mandate are
"thugs." Who will speak against the criminalization of an entire Black nation,
if not the Haitian Diaspora, African Americans, progressive U.S.
Congressional members and the peace and justice activists? Who will stand and say the
majority of Haitians cannot be reduced to hooligans and chimeres if not us?

What? Does the State Department and the Bush administration really want to
give out the message that only the rights of the opposition to Aristide - of
less than 4% of the 8 million in Haiti - are worth protecting and funding? That
the rest of the Blacks in Haiti are "thugs" to be left to these terrorist
executions simply because they elected a leader Washington doesn't like? That Black
life and livelihood in Haiti is unworthy of US/Euro protection. Yet, on the
other hand, Haitian-American and African-American soldiers in the US military
may proudly lose their lives to end terrorism and help bring democracy to
Afghanistan and Iraq? Is that it?

Doesn't the fact that Haitians and Haitian-Americans of the Diaspora, living
in the U.S., send more than $850 million dollars, per year, to Haiti, deserve
the same U.S-State Department protection as the interests of big-businesses in
Haiti, like Disney (made a profit of $1.1 billion in 1994 in Haiti), or,
Wal-Mart (made a profit of $2.681 billion in Haiti in 1994 at the height of the
‘91-94 bloody Coup D’etat)? Why aren't African-American, Haitian-American
investments in Haiti part of USAID's,  IRI, NED, or the European Union's development
and democracy enhancement programs to be protected in Haiti? Is Black
American livelihood and property interests in Haiti less worthy than those of white
people and businesses in Haiti - i.e., U.S. Embassy folks, Disney, Wal Mart,
etc.? Is it because Haitian-Americans are not as wealthy as these big-businesses
that their more than $850 million investment, per year, in Haiti, are
unworthy of note to Collin Powell, Roger Noreiga and the U.S. Bush State Department
policymakers negotiating Haiti's future with an
unelected-by-the-Haitian-people, non-Haitian citizen,  Andre Apaid, Jr., and, sponsoring violent groups who a
re burning down these immigrant Black, U.S. citizen's, vested interests and
investments in their relatives' and parent's lives, livelihoods, houses and
businesses in Haiti?

Such devaluation of Black humanity; such disregard and devaluing of Haiti's
efforts at building democracy; such disregard for the lives of the overwhelming
Black majority of Haitians, who have actually been the most to be victimized
by this murderous, undemocratic opposition's head-long foreign-sponsored grab
for power in Haiti, at all cost, is nothing if not reprehensible and
un-American.

A stand must be taken, for the principles of the rule of law, for the Haitian
Constitution, against Coup D’etat or obstruction of the Haitian struggle for
participatory and transparent democracy and for a domestic Haitian economy.
Who, if not the hip hop generation in the U.S.; who, if not African-Americans in
general; who, if not the peace and justice activists worldwide; who, if not
the progressive US/Euro U.N. and the African republic's leaders and government
members charged with upholding civil, democratic and international human
rights; who, if not Haitians in the Diaspora must tell any legitimate opposition in
Haiti that if it wants to rule  it must go to elections, that it cannot
legally force a duly elected President to appoint any of its members to power
simply because it has, radical, right wing imperialist backing. Who, but the Hip
Hop generation, globally, must stand up, remembering Malcom X and say to the
anti-democratic Black bourgeoisie in Haiti, and the right wing "regime changers"
worldwide, that grabbing for power by rule of force and violence is over. That
the Hip-Hop generations stand for rule by the ballot not by a bullet to gain
power in Haiti, as elsewhere.

To that end, I would strongly recommend that anyone concerned about getting
more informed read the press release issued by the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs laying out the complex current issues facing our Black people in Haiti. It
may be found at:

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.03_Haiti_Aristide.htm and at the most updated FORUM  on the Internet covering Haitian
issues :  http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1152 .

Kenbe fem, pa lage. Linyon fe la fos.

Marguerite Laurent, Esq.
Entertainment attorney and Chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership, a network
dedicated to protecting the civil and cultural rights of Haitians living at
home and abroad

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