19352: radtimes: Haiti: Rhetoric Versus Reality (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti: Rhetoric Versus Reality

http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0199.html

by William Bowles
2/24/04

       "[In 1825] Haiti was obliged to repay more than it received….
France's King Charles X ordered former French slaves to pay 150m francs
[over $2 billion at today's prices] before France would grant diplomatic
recognition to Haiti, Latin America's oldest republic. A French diplomat
recently told me, without irony, that during François Mitterrand's
presidency, "Haiti still owed us part of that debt"." [1]

So what else has changed in the following 179 years? Not very much and
predictably, the media is doing a hatchet job on Haiti's Aristide. A piece
by Andrew Gumbel in Saturday's Independent (21/02/04 p. 21) is pretty
typical. Headed "The little priest who became a bloody dictator like the
one he once despised" is an outrageous rewriting of the history of Haiti
with nary a mention of the role that the US has played in the island's
sorry history for the past 179 years including refusing to recognise the
world's first independent Black republic until 1864, fearful of the example
it set for its own enslaved African population.

Instead, between the time Aristide was first elected president in 1990 and
now, Gumbel conveniently omits the last thirteen years by literally,

       "fast-forward[ing] to the present and Aristide the petit prêtre is
barely recognisable. He has become the very thing he used to despise: an
autocratic political leader, semingly intent on enriching himself and his
inner circle, resorting to gangsterism and violence to enforce his will and
counter all dissent."

Comparing Aristide to the long decades of the Duvalier dictatorships and
their ton-ton-macoutes is nothing short of slanderous. Gumbel presents the
passing of the Duvaliers as merely,

       "[giving] way to a period of military coups and tentative stabs at
electoral democracy, he was the target of countless assassination attempts".

Giving way, tentative stabs? A strange way to describe the events leading
up to the deposing of 'Baby' Doc Duvalier (to a very luxurious estate in
the South of France). The US role in the 1991 military coup d'etat or of
the subsequent meddling in the internal affairs of the country (including
four attempted coups) gets not a mention aside from the loaded,

       "Then in 1994, undaunted, he returned, messianic again, backed by
20,000 US troops and the disbanded Haitian military."

And yet again Gumbel rewrites history (and dissing Aristide with the
moniker of "messianic again" no less), crediting the hated former Haitian
Army (FAD'H), disbanded by Aristide in 1995 with returning him to power
(along with US troops). Where Gumbel describes the 'passing' of the
Duvalier kleptocracy, the reality was that things were so bad, that the US
dumped the Duvaliers because maintaining him in power became untenable. An
object lessson for all who would feed at the table of the imperium, that
they could end up being tossed out with the rest of leftovers after passing
their sell-by dates.

In contrast to the imperial propaganda regurgitated by the likes of Gumbel,

       "Haiti has made dramatic progress in the area of human rights over
the past eight years. After 200 years of Haitian history, state-sponsored
terrorism is no longer part of the daily lives of Haiti's citizens. In
1995, with near universal support from the Haitian people, Aristide
disbanded the Haitian military, perhaps the single greatest advance in
Haiti since independence. Clearing away the prime historic instrument of
state repression has allowed the Haitian people to enjoy a level of freedom
of speech and assembly unprecedented in Haitian history. Today over 200
radio stations operate freely in Haiti. Far from being silenced, opposition
politicians dominate the media in Haiti; wealthy Haitians who do not
support Aristide own most stations and newspapers and Convergence members
are often interviewed on government-run Haitian National Television. The
Convergence, briefly and illegally, even set up a "parallel government"
until, in the words of Haiti Progres, "it collapsed under the weight of its
own ridiculousness."[2]

Gumbel makes no mention of the conditions imposed by the US for returning
Aristide to power as president in the first democratic election Haiti had
ever had during its two hundred years of nominal independence. Conditions
that led directly to the current situation. No mention of the denial of
economic aid to the island that the US has been doing for the past few
years that has led to the complete collapse of the state and the economy.
Instead, we have the usual one-dimensional interpretation of events as the
actions of one man and his side-kicks or as Gumbel puts it,

       "So the country has fallen to former death squad commanders
returning from exile, armed gangs, and every conceivable stripe of
criminal, racketeer and drug smuggler."

Neglecting to tell us of course that the "death squad commanders" are the
ones leading the rebellion. Instead, Gumbel leaves us with the impression
that the "death squad commanders" work for Aristide. And of course, along
with the BBC and other news outlets, the former Duvalierist military and
ton-ton-macoutes are presented to us as "rebels" rather than the mass
murderers and torturers of the former dictatorships.

Lacking an army or even much of a police force and with M-16s flooding in
to the armed gangs of the former FAD'H/FRAPH from the Dominican Republic,
Aristide has only the masses to defend the government.

Gumbel presents Haiti as the West would like us to see it, as yet another
'failed state' and Aristide as the idealist gone bad. In other words, what
else can we expect from yet another 'black run' state except the 'usual'
bloodbath and self-aggrandizement on the part of the ruling elite. This
concept is an intrinsic component of the 'failed state' thesis. But the
reality is that the 'failed state' is a deliberate construct of the imperium:

       "After the disputed elections of 21 May 2000, the US, the European
Union and international financing organisations froze aid to Haiti. This
embargo has targeted the northern hemisphere's most vulnerable population,
the poorest people with the most fragile economy, ecology and society. The
impact has been profound, as an IDB [International Development Bank] report
noted: its officials concluded that "the major factor behind economic
stagnation is the withholding of both foreign grants and loans, associated
with the international community's response to the critical political
impasse. These funds are estimated at over $500m" [3]

US Policy = Always beat a man (even harder) when he's already down
In the scheme of things you wouldn't think a place as poor and as small as
Haiti would be worth bothering with – the poorest country in the Western
hemisphere and now pretty well 'officially' a 'failed state'.

The reality of the current 'hands-off' approach of the US is a cold-blooded
invitation to the 'rebels' to carry on tearing the country apart, for as
far as the US is concerned Haiti is not only a geographically handy
reservoir of cheap labour (as it has been for generations) but most
important of all – Haiti's struggle is a beacon for the poor and the
oppressed of the world, just as it was exactly 200 years ago, when it
became the world's first independent Black republic. Making an example of
Haiti (just at it did with Iraq) is the real objective of the 'hands-off'
approach. Defy the US and you reap the consequences.

The history of US involvement in Central America and the Caribbean also
gives the lie to the idea that the 'neo-con' agenda of Bush Junior is
somehow a 'break with the past', when the reality – aside from the brazen
nature of Perle, Wolfowitz and co – is business as usual.

Whether by demonising the country as it did with 'Marxist' Nicaragua,
followed by a 'softening up' process brought about by placing a total trade
embargo that drove it into the Soviet camp and finally the use of a 'rebel'
or 'freedom-loving' army of cutthroats and killers to bring the the country
to heel. Or, through 'subtler' means, the central objective is to crush the
emancipatory urge and to use the country as an object lesson to any other
country that dares defy the imperium.

Ever since Jean Bertrand Aristide became the focus of the struggle for the
poor and the oppressed in 1987, he has been a target of US subversion
either through its support of the old Duvalier dynasty, the force behind
the scene of the military coup d'etat of 1991. Or the 'support' they gave
Aristide in 1994 – in return for an agreement to bow to the demands of the
IMF and World Bank's 'structural adjustment programme'. The continued
undermining of the Aristide government ever since, either through the
blocking of $500 million in aid or through its support firstly of the
'democratic opposition' and through its covert ams supplies to the old,
despised (and feared) Haitian army via Haiti's neighbour, the Dominican
Republic.

The tiny local elite composed largely of businessmen tied to US economic
interests and linked to a corrupt political/military elite through which
the 'aid' gets funnelled, have a direct interest in getting rid of Aristide.

Haiti – Starved into submission
Aristide, whose rule was undermined from the very beginning by the US until
it became possible to force him to accept the IMF/World Bank conditions in
return for a grudging support. Until that is, the 2000 elections came and
it was possible for the US to turn the screw even tighter, this time
accusing Aristide of fixing the elections and cutting off all 'aid'. It's
accurate to say that the US and the EU literally starved the Haitian people
into submission.

And whilst Aristide has his faults and is no doubt surrounded by all manner
of opportunists and hangers-on, the plain fact is that without US
interference in the affairs of the country, the events of today would not
have come to pass as they have. The gangs that Gumbel talks of may well
consist of all manner of individuals, some of dubious provenance, but it is
the only 'army' Aristide has to defend a legitimate government.

'Aid', a subject much discussed in relation to the poor countries of the
world and of which Haiti is a 'textbook' case of how the rich countries rip
off the poor. 'Aid' invariably ends with the 'recipient' owing more and
actually getting less and less…in a process that makes the receiver of the
'aid' totally dependent on the donor country. The objective is to have
enough leverage over the government's policies in favour of course, of
business interests, because at the end of the day, that's what it's about –
money.

       "As of 31 March 2001, Haiti owed the [International Development
Bank, a US institution] $185,239.75 in "commission fees" for loans it never
received. Fees relating to five IDB loans taken out in previous decades
totalled $2,311,422. [Then [i]n mid-May, amid rumours that it was about to
close its offices in Haiti, the IDB announced that its representatives and
top staff had been recalled to Washington for consultations.

       "According to the Associated Press, these consultations were not
heartening. The chief IDB officer in Haiti called for the repayment of
"$20m in loan arrears and reform [of governmental] economic practices"
before Haiti could be granted access to the pre-approved loan. Many of the
outstanding loans had been made to dictatorships and military juntas. Even
if the education loan went through, the IDB officer acknowledged that "if
other loans are not added, Haiti will probably be paying back more than it
is getting". [4]

For what is at stake here is the fundamental right for a nation to
determine its own route, its own destiny, or whether it will be an
unwilling party subject to US economic desires and hence bear the full
brunt of its politico-military strategies when the country in question
refuses to tow the line.

Notes

1. Paul Farmer, http://mondediplo.com/2003/07/11farmer

2. 'The U.S. War Against Haiti'
http://www.haitiaction.net/HFTH/hfth1.html

3. 'Haiti's Lawyer: Is U.S. Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries?'
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/25/1613200

4. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/UpAgainstDeathPlan_Haiti.html

.