19646: Esser: Bush undermined Haiti democracy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com

Bush undermined Haiti democracy
March 2, 2004

BY JESSE JACKSON

So much for all that talk about democracy. President Bush dispatched
Marines to Haiti to secure order -- after his administration forced
the elected leader of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- into exile.
Now the administration will determine who gets to run Haiti.

For the Bush administration it was clear: The Haitian voters had put
their faith in and cast their votes for the wrong man, so he had to
go. Bush then ridiculously announced that the ''Haitian constitution
is working'' -- as if words could turn night into day.

Aristide was a huge disappointment to his followers. He made, as the
leaders of the State Department say, ''many mistakes.'' Mostly he
failed to find a way to reconcile the greed of the Haitian elite with
the needs of the vast majority of impoverished Haitian people. He
could never curb the violence of either his followers or his enemies.
And he presided over an administration that grew more intolerant and
corrupt. But he was the choice of the Haitian people.

The U.S. government never liked Aristide. The neocons loathed him as
a messianic dreamer who believed in redistribution of wealth. The
CIA's covert operators viewed him as an ideological adversary. The
Haitian elites enlisted lobbyists from both parties to undermine him.
The Haitian military, which he disbanded, despised him.

So when the Haitian ''opposition,'' led by that same elite, fed the
thugs, former death squad killers, gun-runners and drug dealers who
formed the armed rebellion against Aristide, the United States did
nothing.

As the rebellion started taking over cities, freeing prisoners and
condoning widespread looting, the Bush administration -- alarmed at
the political fallout that might result from Haitian refugees
flooding into Florida -- decided to act. It pressured Aristide to
accept a coalition government that would be led by the opposition.

But the opposition leaders, smelling blood, refused, demanding
Aristide's departure. They suffered no negative consequences. The
Bush administration did nothing to suggest it would stand by the
elected leader of Haiti. Instead, it ramped up the pressure on
Aristide and forced him into exile. A democratically elected leader
was toppled with the aid of the U.S. administration.

Now the United States is once more responsible for Haiti's fate. Once
more, the elites are clamoring for a return to their former
privilege. Once more the United States will have to decide how or
whether to build a police force that can provide security. Once more
the United States will have to decide if it has the will and the
patience and the generosity to build basic infrastructure in Haiti
essential to creating any kind of a functioning economy that operates
beyond the level of legalized theft.

The toppling of a democratically elected president -- however flawed
his administration -- should not be treated as business as usual. We
need congressional hearings to probe the administration's role in
this debacle. Was the CIA connected to its former agents that were
leading the rebellion? Did Bush hold off any assistance to Aristide
in order to force his exit?

With Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, and
Republican leaders still marching in lockstep with the White House,
rigorous hearings will be hard to achieve. Independent commissions
and investigative journalists must take up the task.

This coup sends a chilling message to leaders across the world. Turns
out all that rhetoric about supporting democracy as a centerpiece of
U.S. policy is just words, not policy.

This administration values governments that protect private
investment and stability for U.S. multinationals. Stable
dictatorships are preferred to unstable democracies. So it runs up
massive trade deficits and maintains cordial relations with the
repressive, communist dictatorship of China, while it topples the
elected president of Haiti.

As we learned in Florida four years ago, Bush is all for elections,
but only if they come out the right way.

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