19900: DeGraff: Chomsky on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michel DeGraff <degraff@MIT.EDU>


Here's an e-mail note from Noam Chomsky about recent and not
so recent events in Haiti.  It touches on some economic dimensions of
Aristide's "failure", issues that are too often ignored in the
mainstream media.  I am forwarding this with Noam's permission. -michel.
___________________________________________________________________________
MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307
degraff@MIT.EDU        http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff.home.html
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------- Forwarded Message

Subject: Re: Haiti
From: Noam Chomsky
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 10:57:04 -0500
To: Michel DeGraff

[...]

The real story is pretty clear, but mostly obscured in the coverage, which
has much too narrow a time focus, by design I presume.

Just beginning with the 1990 election of Aristide (also too narrow a time
focus), the US was appalled by the election of a populist candidate with a
grass-roots constituency, and began at once with efforts to undermine him,
leading to the military coup in 1991.  After three years of vicious terror
under the military junta, Clinton allowed Aristide to return in 1994, but
on condition that he accept the harsh neoliberal program of the US
candidate in 1990, Marc Bazin, who got 14% of the vote (and is now being
proposed as the great hope for democracy).  Clinton's crime is described
with much pride here as a noble effort to bring democracy to suffering
people, which failed because we didn't stay long enough, or perhaps because
they have a bad culture (maybe bad genes).  It was evident at once that the
economic program forced on Haiti by Clinton would destroy what was left of
the economy, as it did.  Haitian rice farmers are very efficient, but can't
possibly compete with dumping by US agribusiness that relies heavily on
government subsidies.  There were a few small industries that were
function, for example, making chicken parts.  But Americans don't like dark
meat, so the conglomerates that produce chicken parts here demanded (and of
course received) the right to dump their excess products in Haiti.  They
tried to do it in Canada and Mexico too, but there they could be
barred.  Not in Haiti, compelled to submit to the demands of the US
government and the corporations it serves.  One might note that the
proconsul of Iraq, Paul Bremer, has ordered a very similar program to be
instituted there, with the same beneficiaries in mind.  That's also called
"enhancing democracy".  In fact, the record, interesting and important,
goes back to the 18th century, and similar programs had a large role in
creating today's third world (since the powerful don't follow those rules,
they can become rich developed societies).

Got worse under Bush II -- there are differences within the narrow spectrum
of savagery.  Those now conquering the country are the inheritors of FRAPH
(the main gang of paramilitary gangsters) and the army, which Aristide had
dismantled, infuriating the US, which had put it in place after the Marines
ended the 19-year US occupation that caused immense damage to the
country.  The founder of FRAPH, Emmanuel Constant, is living happily in
Queens -- under the Bush doctrine that a country that harbors a terrorist
is a terrorist state and should be destroyed.  Since he only has prime
responsibility for the murder of several thousand poor blacks, he is as
clean as a whistle.  The US hasn't even bothered to respond to Haitian
requests for extradition of the mass murderer.  The reason, it is generally
assumed, is that if he is tried in Haiti he'll reveal Bush I/Clinton
connections with the murderous junta. That the junta was supported by
Washington in those years is hardly in doubt, in fact was conceded (though
scarcely reported, in accord with the usual norms of journalism and
intellectual commentary).

What's happening now is awful, maybe beyond repair.  And there is plenty of
short-term responsibility on all sides.  But the right way for the US and
France to proceed is very obvious.  They should begin with payment of
enormous reparations to Haiti (France is perhaps even more hypocritical and
disgraceful than the US), but that requires construction of really
functioning democratic societies in the US and France, societies in which
people have a prayer of knowing what's going on.  A long way off.

All of this information has been readily available in print all along, but
outside the mainstream, apart from tidbits here and there.

------- End of Forwarded Message