20314: Esser: US aid subverted Haiti's sovereignty for a long time (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Vive le Canada
http://www.vivelecanada.ca

US aid subverted Haiti's sovereignty for a long time

Friday, March 12 2004
Contributed by: sthompson

As we watch Canadian troops head into Haiti, it's important to
continue to analyse that conflict very carefully.

Here's some very interesting info from "Populism, Conservatism and
Civil Society in Haiti".
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0403ned-haiti.php

(Editor's Note: In the name of supporting democracy and freedom, U.S.
political aid programs have routinely subverted democratic
transitions and national sovereignty. In his January 2004 State of
the Union Address, President George W. Bush called for the doubling
of the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, to name just a few of the countries
where NED and its associated organizations have been active,
NED--together with the democratization program of the U.S. Agency for
International Development--has subverted, not promoted, democracy.
The IRC reproduces this report, which was written in 1992 about
programs initiated during the Bush senior administration, as part of
the IRC's effort to provide greater understanding about the way
internal political processes in Haiti have long been tied to
political, economic, and military aid programs of the U.S.
government.)

Under the auspices of building democracy, the U.S. government is
trying to organize, finance, and equip sectors of Haitian society
that oppose the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in a
coup last September. The democratically elected Aristide is a radical
populist propelled into power by Haiti 's highly mobilized and
politicized popular sector. Aristide's agenda was both pragmatic and
idealistic: pull Haiti out of its economic slump, satisfy the
desperate needs of the country's poor majority, build effective
governing institutions, and dismantle the social and economic
structures that have permitted the Haitian military and their elite
allies to abuse power with impunity for the last three decades. To
carry out this project, Aristide relied on the mass, sometimes
violent pressure of his popular allies. By virtue of their numbers
and passion, these forces in civil society were seen as a partial
counterweight to the military and to legislative and judicial
branches weighted with Aristide opponents.

But even before Aristide's election, the United States was funneling
money to Haitian organizations that constituted a different, much
smaller sector of civil society, one with a conservative political
perspective. Trade unions, political parties, broadcast and print
media, civic associations, and educational organizations were funded
to promote a conservative form of electoral democracy. The
“pro-democracy” funding has been channeled primarily through NED and
the Agency for International Development (AID) and started following
the collapse of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier in February
1986. Although maintained at modest levels after Duvalier's flight,
funding for these programs increased dramatically when elections were
scheduled for December 1990, climbing again after Aristide's victory.
Cut off briefly after the coup, they are being reactivated as this
Backgrounder goes to press.
.