20065: Esser: The Rape of Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Dissident Voice
http://www.dissidentvoice.org

The Rape of Haiti
by Justin Felux

March 8, 2004

A History of Oppression

The recent events in Haiti are yet another sad chapter in the history
of Western imperialism.  The roots of the current crisis trace all
the way back to January 1, 1804, when Toussaint L'Ouverture and his
army of African slaves humiliated France and the rest of the
"civilized" world by liberating the island of St. Domingue, the place
now called Haiti.  The Haitian revolution created the first major
crack in the foundation of white supremacy.  Ten years earlier the
island nation had become a colonial asset of France.  The indigenous
population had been wiped out previously by Christopher Columbus on
behalf of Spain.  France obtained great riches through the
exploitation of the island's natural resources using a brutal system
of slave labor.  Much like India would later become the "Crown Jewel"
of the British Empire, Haiti was referred to as the "Pearl of the
Antilles."

L'Ouverture was captured by France and eventually froze to death in
the mountain prison they kept him in.  After the revolution both
France and the United States, aghast at the notion of a "black
republic," refused to acknowledge the new government of Haiti.  Haiti
was forced to pay 90 million gold francs in "compensation" to French
plantation owners for properties and investments they lost as a
result of the liberation.  It took Haiti almost 100 years to pay off
the debt.  On the 200th anniversary of L'Ouverture's death President
Aristide asked France to repay the money, which would amount to over
$20 billion today.  This didn't win him many friends in Paris.

The United States has an equally shameful history of exploiting
Haiti.  The U.S. government aided France's attempt to crush the slave
revolt.  American investors and multinational corporations have a
long history of cooperation with Haitian dictators.  In 1915 Woodrow
Wilson began a U.S. military occupation of Haiti that would last 19
years.  The U.S. helped create the Haitian army during this time. 
The Army became the main instrument by which the poor masses of Haiti
were kept in line by whichever autocratic regime happened to be in
power.  The Army brutally suppressed and intimidated labor unions and
dissidents.  This continued until President Aristide bravely
disbanded the Army in 1995.

The First Coup

Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere.  About 80% of the
country's population lives in poverty.  What little wealth Haiti has
is highly concentrated among the country's ruling elite.  The richest
1% of the population owns nearly half the nation's wealth.  Most of
the ruling class consists of light-skinned "mulattos" who share
partial ancestry with the French colonizers.  These ruling elites,
many of whom are multimillionaires, have always been friendly to the
major world powers and the various Haitian despots, including the
regimes of "Papa" and "Baby" Doc Duvalier.  It is easy to understand
why these people harbor a pathological hatred for Aristide, a former
priest who preached liberation theology and whose strongest
supporters inhabit the slums of Port-au-Prince.

In the first free elections in Haitian history, Aristide won in a
landslide, garnering 67.5% of the vote.  The U.S. supported a former
World Bank official, Marc Bazin, who received 14.2% of the vote. 
Several months into his term, President Aristide was overthrown by
opposition forces and former members of the military.  The U.S.
government had funneled money to the opposition through organizations
such as the National Endowment for Democracies (NED) and the Agency
for International Development (AID).  A CIA-backed organization known
as FRAPH (Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress) executed a
campaign of terror against supporters of Aristide's Lavalas
movement.  Anywhere between 3 and 5 thousand Haitians were
slaughtered during Aristide's 3 year exile, during which Haiti was
ruled by a military dictator. 

The leader of FRAPH, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, is currently living in
New York.  Despite the "War on Terror," no effort has been made to
hold him accountable for his crimes.  In response to the coup, the
Organization of American States (OAS) announced an embargo and
sanctions against the new military regime.  The U.S. declared 800
American businesses "exempt" from the restrictions.  Despite the
embargo, trade actually increased during Aristide's exile.  In 1994
Aristide was restored to power with the help of 20,000 U.S. Marines. 
By that time, the right-wing forces had wiped out a significant
portion of the popular movement.  As a condition of his return
Aristide was forced to agree to unpopular economic reforms that would
largely benefit the country's ruling elite and foreign investors.

The Second Coup

To describe the current coup against Aristide is to essentially
re-tell the story of the 1991 coup.  The same players are involved,
including former members of the FRAPH death squad.  Louis-Jodel
Chamblain, the former second-in-command of FRAPH, was a prominent
figure of the "rebel" forces.  Chamblain has been described as a
"cold-blooded killer."  He was sentenced to life at hard labor in
connection with the 1993 assassination of Antoine Izméry. 
Jean-Pierre Baptiste, also sentenced to life for his role in the 1994
Raboteau massacre, has been involved in rebel activities.  Guy
Philippe, the leader of the rebels, reportedly received training from
U.S. forces in Ecuador.  Philippe is a notoriously brutal former
police chief.  The men under his command were known to commit summary
executions. He has also been involved in previous failed coup
attempts against Aristide and is suspected of cocaine trafficking.

Philippe and his band of killers rampaged across the Haitian
countryside, eventually taking control of several major cities.  The
dead would eventually number in the hundreds, most of them Haitian
police officers.  The "rebels" would also set fire to police stations
and other government buildings.  The so-called "political opposition"
attempted to distance themselves from these armed thugs, but in the
lead-up to the coup they could hardly contain their glee over the
prospect of Guy Philippe's army taking the capital.  At this point
the ties between the paramilitaries and the political opposition of
Group 184 and the Democratic Platform are not controversial.  The
fact that they are working in concert should be no surprise; the
"political opposition" is dominated by Haiti's wealthy elites and the
"rebels" are dominated by the same thugs who worked on behalf of the
wealthy elites under previous regimes.

The NED and the International Republican Institute were also back on
the scene sending considerable sums of money to Aristide's
opposition.  Reports have also indicated that the M-16s and other
military equipment used by the rebels may have come from U.S.
shipments that had previously been sent to the military of the
Dominican Republic (the rebels invaded Haiti from the Dominican
Republic).  As members of the Congressional Black Caucus have pointed
out, the shipment of guns to the Dominican Republic seemed a bit odd,
considering that they had no pressing need for them.  The rebel units
were said to be very well-trained.  The Haitians that resisted them
had little to defend themselves with other than rocks, bottles, and
machetes.  The fact that the rebels were able to advance so quickly
had more to do with their armaments than with their popularity among
the Haitian people (despite the media's characterization of the coup
as a "popular rebellion").

At first, the Bush administration repeatedly claimed to support a
"political settlement."  The Caribbean inter-state organization of
CARICOM devised a political settlement that would have allowed
Aristide to serve the rest of his term while making several large
concessions to the opposition.  Aristide hastily agreed to the
proposal, but the opposition rejected it.  If the Bush administration
had been genuinely in favor of a political settlement they would have
immediately condemned the opposition for refusing to come to the
table.  That didn't happen.  The Bush administration changed its tone
and began condemning Aristide for allegedly starting all the trouble
in the first place.  By giving the opposition the power to veto any
political settlement, the Bush administration had effectively sided
(publicly) with the rebels.

At that point, Guy Philippe's forces had surrounded Port-au-Prince. 
This is where the details get sketchy.  The Bush administration
claimed on Sunday that Aristide had resigned and been taken out of
the country overnight (recall they said the same about Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela).  Sunday evening Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! held a
special broadcast about the Haiti crisis.  Randall Robinson, head of
TransAfrica, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters expressed extreme
skepticism over the Bush administration's version of events.  They
had been in contact with President Aristide in previous days, and he
had made no indication to them that he was planning on leaving.  The
next day President Aristide was able to contact both of them as well
as other members of the Black Caucus, telling them that he had been
taken against his will and that he was the victim of a coup.

After Aristide had left, Guy Philippe rode triumphantly through the
streets of Port-au-Prince.  The events that followed gives one a
clear idea regarding the kind of people Bush has chosen to tacitly
ally himself with.  Philippe declared himself the new "chief" of the
Haitian military, which he planned on reconstituting.  He also
claimed in an interview with the Miami Herald that his hero was
General Augusto Pinochet, the brutal dictator of Chile.  Second on
his list of heroes was former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.  His
thugs rampaged through the slums of Port-au-Prince killing alleged
Aristide militants.  Meanwhile in France the former dictator of
Haiti, "Baby Doc" Duvalier, said that he was eager to return to Haiti
now that the political climate was more favorable.  The U.S.
government pressed Philippe to lay down his arms, which he agreed to
do.  According to the New York Times, however, the revenge killings
and chaos continued anyway. 

The Cover-up

The media reluctantly began to pick up the story.  I heard several TV
news anchors say things to the effect of, "Now some black members of
Congress are claiming that Aristide was actually kidnapped."  The
word "kidnapped" was said using a high-pitched tone, as if to say,
"Who came up with this crazy idea?"  Also note how they took the time
to inform us that these were black members of Congress.  In other
words, "Let's be cautious everyone.. we all know how Negroes tend to
exaggerate things."  When was the last time you heard a reporter say
something like, "The increased funding for public housing was met
with considerable opposition by white members of Congress"?  They
wouldn't say something like that even if every single member who
opposed it were white.  In any event, the Bush administration
denounced the claim as a "conspiracy theory."

A few hours later, President Aristide confirmed what he had said on
CNN.  As more information comes out the circumstances of the ouster
seem more and more suspicious.  First of all, there can be no denying
that this was a coup.  When armed thugs overrun a country and the
President flees for fear of his life and the lives of his family,
that is clearly a coup.  On the question of U.S. support for the
coup, more questions come up every day.  Aristide supposedly signed a
resignation letter.  The translation given to Aristide said, "The
Constitution cannot be drowned in the blood of the Haitian people. .
. For that reason, tonight I am resigning in order to avoid a
bloodbath."  However, a translation for the Associated Press reads,
"The Constitution cannot be drowned in the blood of the Haitian
people.  For that reason, if tonight it is my resignation that will
avoid a bloodbath, I accept to leave with the hope that there will be
life and not death."  The latter is clearly more ambiguous.  Either
way, the document was clearly signed under duress.

According to journalist Kevin Pina, two sources who were present on
the night of the coup corroborated the claim that Aristide had been
taken against his will at gunpoint.  One was a housekeeper that had
worked for Aristide for years.  The other was a reporter for a
mainstream U.S. media outlet who was said to be too "terrified" to
identify himself.  Reports had also indicated that South Africa had
rejected appeals for asylum by President Aristide.  The next day
Democracy Now reported that South African officials at the UN claimed
that no request for asylum was made.  The U.S. also reportedly
blocked a last minute attempt by Aristide to reinforce his private
security in addition to refusing to protect the capital themselves. 
Sketchy reports have also indicated that other countries wanted to
intervene but were blocked by the United States.  On the Friday
before the coup, Kevin Pina told Democracy Now that Embassy officials
from Venezuela had told him Venezuela was going to intervene
unilaterally under the Rio Pact, which had forced the U.S. into
action.  Members of Congress have indicated that some countries
wanted to save the President, but declined to name any names for fear
that those countries would also incur the wrath of the Bush
administration.

Reasons for Optimism

Right now President Aristide is being held in the Central African
Republic under what Maxine Waters has described as "prison-like
conditions."  He is under armed guard and cannot move freely. 
Although his contact with the outside world has been limited, he has
made every attempt to insist that he was the victim of a coup. 
Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus have vowed to keep
the pressure on the Bush administration.  Congresswoman Barbara Lee
has called for an investigation into the circumstances of the coup. 
When Aristide landed in the Central African Republic, he reportedly
gave a radio address in which he said, "I declare in overthrowing me
they have uprooted the trunk of the tree of peace, but it will grow
back because the roots are L'Ouverturian," referring to the historic
liberator of the Haitian people.  At the time I wondered how he could
even pretend to be optimistic in a time like this, when we have heard
nothing but horrible news for 3 weeks straight.  I was answered today
by a report from Reuters: 

"Thousands of outraged supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide poured out of Haiti's slums and into the streets on Friday,
marching on the U.S. Embassy to denounce the "occupation" of their
homeland and demand Aristide's return . . . a crowd estimated at more
than 10,000 materialized in the capital, seething with anger at
Aristide's flight to Africa five days ago after a bloody rebellion
and U.S. pressure . . . Hundreds held up their hands with five
fingers extended, shouting "Aristide five years," the rallying cry of
his supporters who wanted him to finish his five-year term in office.
U.S. troops watched impassively from the rooftop . . . They blamed
Haiti's wealthy elite, Bush and French President Jacques Chirac for
what they called the "foreign occupation" of Haiti. "'The bourgeoisie
joined with the international community to occupy Haiti and get rid
of President Aristide," one demonstrator screamed. "The bourgeoisie
never did anything for us, the masses. Now they took away our
president.'"

At first, opposition by Aristide supporters had been muted.  They
didn't want to anger the opposition for fear of being cut out of the
future political establishment, but now it seems that the Haitian
people will not take this lying down, and neither should we.  Support
members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are taking action on
this issue.  Write to your Congressman urging him or her to join
them.  Keep pressuring John Kerry to make the Haiti coup an issue in
the Presidential campaign.  We should also insist that President
Aristide be given a chance to address the UN General Assembly.  UN
officials have indicated that they aren't sure who represents the
legitimate government of Haiti anymore.  The world community deserves
to hear Aristide's side of the story and to find out the truth.

Justin Felux can be contacted at justins@alacrityisp.net.
.