19367: radtimes:Washington's Hand Against Democracy and for Extra-Constitutional Regime Change in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Washington's Hand Against Democracy and for Extra-Constitutional Regime
Change in Haiti

http://www.blackcommentator.com/79/79_haiti_laurent.html

by Marguerite Laurent, Esq.
Guest Columnist
2/26/04

Who will come to the support of the Haitian people under siege, in this,
Haiti's 200th 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, not far from
U.S. shores.

Only the Hip Hop generation, African Americans, Haitian Americans,
progressive U.S. Congress members and a global solidarity movement among
decent, law abiding peoples 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 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, has armed
"thugs" and allows 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. Few, if any, investigative reports have shown the Opposition's role
in this or the combined role of the tiny Eurocentric/Haitian economic elite
and the U.S. State Department, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency 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's testimony 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, a provocateur within the Aristide government. No, it seems
that if certain facts don't serve the purpose of undermining Aristide, they
are not "news" worth reporting.

Why? Because many journalists, including 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, whom they
call the "opposition" than they do to the desires and social-economic needs
of the overwhelming Black majority in Haiti. Also because these journalists
lie about Haiti and its people and about 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
government 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 people who call 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 plagues Haiti is unrealistic to the point of
being felony-stupid. These observations are not a justification of the
corruptions 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 paramilitary 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 due to Haiti's successes with democracy – the fact that
Haitians were slowly moving forward with the democracy experiment – that
there are these US-sponsored Coup D'etat attacks today.

Lies of the corporate press

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
consistently erroneous characterization of the opposition protesters
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 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 deaths 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 have manufactured a bloody catastrophe. It is clear that
what's happening in Haiti was well planned. The U.S. started warning its
U.S. citizens and Embassy folks to leave Haiti and started preparing
Guantanamo Bay for the expected influx of fleeing Haitians 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. The so-called opposition lost much credibility with
patriotic Haitians when even the sacred day to commemorate the African
Ancestors' 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, 2001…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 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., and to
Rosny Desroches. Rosny Desroches heads the Fondation Haitienne de
l'Enseignement Prive (FONHEP). Both Apaid and Desroches 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 legally call and negotiate with this U.S.
citizen as "leader" of an Opposition in Haiti when the Haitian Constitution
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, in addition to 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
that constantly report 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 sight 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 witnessed 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 either 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
everything 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-ruled 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, that the teeming thousands upon thousands of Haitians
in front of the Haitian Palace, and in Gonaive transmitted to the world on
January 1, 2004. 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 nuclear 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 in combat back in 1804.

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 corporations and their assembly plants and subsidized farm
goods – those committed to the eternal rape of Haiti – won the media war
against Haitians and emboldened 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 to create the first Black nation in the Western Hemisphere, the
Haitians from the 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 the US Special
Forces-trained Guy Phillip and former death squad leader Louis Jodel
Chamblain – previously given safety, asylum and perhaps even guns by a U.S.
proxy, the Dominican Republic – magically managed to cross said
well-protected Dominican border that has, since at least a year ago, been
manned by 900 U.S. soldiers. 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 guards?

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 to support 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 needed mobilization come together in
time to save Port-au-Prince from a massacre?

In fact, but for the courageous reporting of papers like the San Francisco
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 in 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 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 Colin Powell, Roger Noreiga and the U.S. 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
are burning down these immigrant Black, U.S. citizen's vested interests and
investments in their relatives' and parents' 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
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 Malcolm 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 "Unfair and Indecent Diplomacy: Washington's Vendetta,"
issued by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. The press release can also be
accessed at Windows on Haiti, the most updated FORUM on the Internet
covering Haitian affairs.

Kenbe fem, pa lage. Linyon fe la fos.
---------------
Marguerite Laurent, Esq. is an award winning playwright and performance
poet, a Hip Hop attorney who has represented many top Hip Hop artists 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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