20917: Esser: Duvalierism without Duvalier (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

April 1, 2004

Workers World
http://www.workers.org

U.S. goal for Haiti comes into focus:
Duvalierism without Duvalier
By G. Dunkel

The U.S. government has set its goal for Haiti: restore the
paramilitary Macoutes and the Haitian Army to power. But the popular
movement has its own agenda, and is building resistance to the U.S./
French occupation.

With the assistance and aid of Washington, the army and
paramilitaries controlled Haiti through terror and intimidation from
1957 until 1990. They kept Haiti stable for the bourgeoisie there and
for U.S. imperialism while reducing the Haitian people to the deepest
poverty in the Western Hemisphere.

The Macoutes were the personal police force of François Duvalier, who
came to power in 1957. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who disbanded them,
was elected in 1990 in a mass movement that overwhelmed the millions
of dollars the United States spent on his opponent, Marc Bazin. A few
months after Aristide took office, the army made a coup and ran the
country from 1991 to 1994, using an organization called the FRAPH to
do its dirty work.

Of course, the Bush administration has not announced its goal openly.
It still talks about "restoring democracy in Haiti," denying that it
kidnapped the popularly elected Aristide when it sent him to the
Central African Republic.

But the newly appointed prime minister, Gérard Latortue, made the
designs of the United States absolutely clear when he visited
Gonaïves, Haiti's fourth-largest city and his home town, on March 20.
Latortue was appointed by Boniface Alexandre, the judge who is acting
as Haiti's president, after a "Council of Seven Wise Men," themselves
appointed by some unknown and totally unconstitutional process,
selected him.

Latortue and his cabinet traveled to Gonaïves in two U.S. Army "Black
Hawk" helicopters and a "Chinook" transport helicopter flown by U.S.
military pilots.

While the "Black Hawks" hovered overhead and French Legionnaires
patrolled the outskirts of the city of 200,000, Latortue thanked
Gonaïves for defeating "the dictator Aristide." He promised drinking
water for Gonaïve's poor neighborhoods and other improvements.

Latortue shared the podium in the central plaza there with Justice
Minister Bernard Gousse, who has proclaimed he is opening up an
investigation of Aristide and his government on civil rights and
corruption charges. But also on the platform was convicted mass
murderer Jean-Pierre Baptiste--also known as Jean Tatoune--who had
been convicted and sentenced to life for the 1994 massacre of
Aristide supporters in Raboteau, a poor neighborhood of Gonaïves.

Besides amenities like helicopters, the Bush administration is giving
Latortue political support as well. Referring to the new cabinet, in
which he himself undoubtedly had a heavy hand, U.S. Ambassador James
Foley told the Associated Press that "Latortue chose wisely" and that
Haiti could expect significant U.S. and international aid to help
rebuild the country. While Aristide was in charge, the U.S. embargoed
aid and loans to Haiti.

Herard Abraham, the general running the country in 1991 when Aristide
became president for the first time, will be the minister of interior
and national security, a key post. Abraham has reportedly called for
the re-establishment of Haiti's armed forces.

When the armed contras took over Cap Haïtien in February, he and a
number of convicted murderers active in FRAPH were freed.

On March 20, the same day that Latortue made his visit to Gonaïves
to embrace the Macoutes and FRAPH, the People's Democratic Movement
held a People's Forum on human rights, repression and national
construction in Port-au-Prince. The movement, a coalition of 30
groups concerned with alternative economic development, deliberately
chose the Global Day of Action that was protesting occupations
everywhere.

That same day, the New York-based Committee to Resist the Feb. 29th
Coup d'Etat in Haiti organized a large contingent in the New York
march and rally against occupation. The contingent of Haitians,
Dominicans and North Americans was cheered by shoppers and onlookers.

The marchers passed out fliers announcing an April 7 meeting at Brook
lyn College's Whitman Hall that will feature Mildred Aristide and
notables from the African American and Haitian communities in New
York.

Together with the International Action Center, the committee is
connecting the struggle to end the U.S.-French occupation of Haiti to
the struggle to end the occupation of Iraq and Palestine.

Reprinted from the April 1, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper

Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed.
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