21107: radtimes: Haiti: a time for imagination; a time for action; (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti: a time for imagination; a time for action;
una oportunidad para américa latina

March 27, 2004
by George Salzman

http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Salz/2004-03-27.htm

       Haiti -- one more ongoing tragedy imposed on Latin America, as on
many other parts of the world, by the manipulations and might of the United
States, in this instance aided and abetted by France, a former colonial
ruler that, after Spain, had earlier pillaged that once-idyllic half of
Hispaniola.

       Yes, another imposed, brutal tragedy, but also a chance for the
peoples of the Americas to join with the eight and a half million Haitians
in rejecting and defeating the American Empire's attempt to crush Haitian
self-government.

The U.S.-based group MADRE, an on-the-ground humanitarian aid organization
focussed particularly on the suffering of women and children, helped found
and works with a women's clinic in Haiti. Its recent paper, "Abducting
Democracy - A MADRE statement on Haiti's 33rd coup d'état", begins:

       "On February 29, 2004, Haiti's first democratically elected
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time in 13
years. The opposition gangs that placed millions of Haitians under siege
are armed with sophisticated weapons, including US-made M-16s and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers. This was no popular insurgency from
Haiti's grassroots, but a military operation funded and orchestrated by the
US. The nucleus of the armed opposition is the FRAPH paramilitary that
overthrew Aristide in 1991. When the US restored Aristide to power in 1994,
the Marines were ordered not to disarm the FRAPH. Instead, the death squads
were treated as a legitimate opposition and left in the wings to serve as a
contingency plan to Aristide. With the implementation of that plan, the
Bush Administration offers yet another display of its contempt for
democracy, sending a clear signal from Haiti about how it will treat any
defenseless country that it cannot fully control." (Go to
http://www.madre.org/country_haiti_abductingdemocracy.html for the complete
MADRE statement)

       On March 15, just15 days after the U.S. virtually kidnapped the
president and flew him to the Central African Republic, he was "rescued"
and flown back to the Caribbean, to the nearby island of Jamaica.

The dramatic rescue, a first victory for democracy

       That rescue, carried out despite the strenuous objections of the
United States government, and after an uncertain standoff in the Central
African Republic, succeeded because the whole world knew of the kidnapping
and the U.S. could not hope to credibly deny its action if it continued to
have Aristide held against his will after it forcibly removed him from
Haiti to Africa. American pseudo-statesmen (and Condoleezza Rice) were
caught with their pants (and panties) down in their own lies and could only
complain loudly that by returning to the Caribbean Aristide would inflame
the situation.

       As "outsiders", and except for the eight and a half million Haitians
we are all "outsiders", it is not for us to say whether a particular person
should or should not be president. That must be decided by Haitians, and
Haitians alone, without the meddling of imperial power. Haiti must belong
to the Haitians. Now for a final victory: How to get from here to there

       Haiti offers an almost unique opportunity for the peoples of Latin
America to act together in rebuffing U.S. imposition of a puppet regime. It
is tiny and materially impoverished, but with a deservedly proud tradition
as the first slave colony in the Americas to free itself from European
colonialism, which it did 200 years ago when it defeated Napoleon's
imperial troops. How can we act to get the American boot off the Haitian neck?

       As I wrote in 2001, at that time with particular attention to
Mexico, "In order to stop, to put an end to the United States robbing
Mexico (and the other Latin American countries), it's necessary to have a
form of mutual aid among all the societies of Latin America (societies with
a total population of 517.3 millions). That way they would be able to gain
independence from the tyranny of global capitalism and from the avarice of
the United States and of the other rich countries. The combined natural
resources of the Latinamerican countries are immense: resources of energy,
agriculture and livestock, water, forests, resources of biodiversity,
minerals, industries, cultural resources and above all human resources:
there is the spirit, ability, energy and generosity of the people. The myth
that development of the so-called "Third World" depends on the "aid" of the
"First World" is false. It is totally false." (For my full statement go to
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2001-01-19Fox2.htm)

Why is Haiti a good place to begin?

       The "secret" is its tiny size. At just slightly over one third the
population of Venezuela, numerically Haitians are only about 1.6 % of all
Latin Americans. The amount of support, of mutual aid from the rest of
Latin America that would enable the Haitian people to free themselves from
the U.S.-allied paramilitary thugs is miniscule in comparison with the
combined wealth of américa latina. A popular grassroots initiative focussed
on Haiti could achieve a real victory. Of course material assistance from
those Latin American governments that are not totally cowed by the U.S. can
be enormously helpful. The presence of Cuban doctors is invaluable. The
announced support from the Venezuelan government -- allocation of 1 million
U.S. dollars -- is important, as will be whatever other mutual aid is
forthcoming from other nations.

       But above all in importance is support from the grassroots -- from
ordinary everyday people outside of governments, both within and outside of
Latin America. There is, I'm sure, a multiplicity of grassroots groups that
have working ties with popular Haitian grassroots groups. To mention only a
few (U.S.-based) groups, the following come to mind: Partners in Health,
MADRE, TecsChange, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Grassroots
International, and the Haiti Reborn Project of the Quixote Center. And
Latin America is awash with grassroots groups struggling for the defense of
human rights. Their interest in preventing violations of human rights is
immediate, and can easily embrace opposition to U.S.-encouraged and
supported violations in Haiti. There is a vast reservoir of Latin Americans
with a direct interest in stopping the U.S. drive for domination, and the
impoverishment and suffering it imposes on them.

       The building of grassroots infrastructure throughout the hemisphere
and its practice of mutual aid is key to our liberation and fulfillment as
human beings. Ultimately, to be successful it will have to embrace hundreds
of millions of people, but to end domination of Haiti by the U.S.
surrogates now staging another rampage of terror, a far smaller grassroots
infrastructure can be successful.

Killing hope by destroying infrastructure

       Hope does not die. It must be killed! Oppressive governments know
that. As long as ordinary people can continue to live our everyday lives,
caring for our children, doing the tasks needed for survival, we hope for
the future, for better lives for our children and our grandchildren. And as
long as that hope is not obliterated, we struggle against oppression, to
make our lives better. We maintain as best we can the infrastructure that
permits us to live and to hope. And oppressive governments everywhere seek
to destroy the parts of the infrastructure that they don't control, in
order to destroy our hope. Among the crimes that governments and their
armed forces and hired thugs (paramilitaries) commit are: demolition of
clinics, attacks on and forced closing of schools, assassination of human
rights workers, burning and stealing crops, cutting off water supplies,
massacring buffalos, bulldozing olive groves, blocking or destroying roads,
destroying homes, arresting, terrorizing, torturing, and humiliating
people. Examples abound: the Chiapas State and Mexican Federal governments
in Zapatista communities in Chiapas; the U.S. government on various Indian
reservations and in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Haiti and elsewhere; the
Oaxaca State and Mexican Federal governments in the northern and southern
Sierras of Oaxaca; the Israeli government in Palestine; the Chinese
government in Tibet; the Russian government in Chechnya, and so on.

The Zapatistas, the Palestinians, and the Haitians

       We ought to recognize the critically important role of international
grassroots support in sustaining the struggles of the Zapatista communities
in Chiapas and of the Palestinians' communities throughout the
Israeli-controlled and assaulted areas of Palestine. In both cases powerful
nation-states are trying to destroy people's infrastructure, right now more
openly and brazenly in Palestine, but also in Chiapas, where it's not
really hidden from those who would know, despite all the lies and denials.

       Of primary importance in both these struggles for human dignity has
been the worldwide grassroots communications infrastructure. During
episodes of "major" bloody violence the corporate media is right there
publicizing all the gore and horror it can record to boost its sales or
ratings (and advertising revenues), and that generates some public
awareness of the conflict, but always with distortions that serve to
whitewash the U.S. or U.S.-allied government. But as soon as the level of
violence is not "worthy" of corporate media headlines, the struggles would
largely drop from popular consciousness if not for the grassroots
communications infrastructure. This was true for the Zapatista uprising,
which lost any "front page" coverage as soon as the Mexican government
stopped its widespread aerial bombing and ground attacks on rebellious
indigenous villages in Chiapas and turned to so-called "low-intensity"
warfare. It has been true as well for the Palestinians' struggle, with
coverage intense when it benefitted the Israeli government and slight
during "quiet" periods when only Palestinian Arabs were the steady but
largely underreported victims of Israel.

       And the same distorted corporate reporting on the Haitian people's
struggle for human dignity is clearly in evidence. For example, the The
Charleston Post and Courier (South Carolina) editorial on March 21, titled
ARISTIDE, THE TROUBLEMAKER
began, "The new interim prime minister of Haiti has set an example that the
former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, should follow. Taking office in
Port-au-Prince Wednesday, Gerard Latortue apologized to the Haitian people
for the wrongdoing of past governments and said, "Please forgive me for
everything that was done to you."
      "Mr. Aristide, who resigned the presidency and chose to leave Haiti
as rebels approached his palace, but who recanted when he was flown to
exile in the Central African Republic, doesn't know how to say he's sorry.
He told The Washington Post before arriving in Jamaica on Monday aboard a
plane chartered by California Rep. Maxine Waters and other U.S. supporters:
"I do believe many Haitians who are poor or suffering, or in hiding, think
that if I am closer physically, it's better for them instead of being far
away."
       "If he changed his tune and offered to cooperate with the
provisional government, that might be true. But Mr. Aristide appears bent
on stirring up trouble." (At
http://www.charleston.net/stories/032104/edi_21edit3.shtml you can read the
complete item.)

       Misrepresenting reality and telling outright lies for the benefit of
the dominant groups of the society (which of course own practically all
commercial media) is precisely what the corporate media inevitably does, by
natural choice and by directives of their employers, who are hired by the
owners. This should not be a surprise. Only when they are forced by outside
circumstances to act otherwise and tell a fragment of the truth harmful to
the ruling class, or a part of it, will they do so. We need the global
grassroots communication infrastructure to help garner the same kind of
awareness and support for Haitians it has helped gain for the struggles of
the Zapatistas and the Palestinians.

We're not doing it to help them, we're doing it for ourselves!

       And we should be clear. Mutual aid is an act of solidarity, not of
charity. And it is political in the deepest sense. In joining actively in a
struggle for liberation, whether it be of the Eritrean peoples, of the
Haitians, the Zapatistas, the East Timorese, the American Indians, the
Palestinians, the Basques, the Kurds, the Iraqis, and on and on, wherever a
group of whatever ethnicity or cultural identity is seeking to gain its
right to determine its own life autonomously, whether it is a national
group struggling against an outside nation-state or a group within a
nation-state seeking autonomy within that nation, when we join such a
struggle we are struggling for our own liberation from the ruthless rule of
the powerful. The worst, most destructive fundamentalism of all is the
fundamentalism of capitalism, enforced as it now is primarily by the most
destructive nation-state that has ever existed, the United States of
America. Ultimately we must become a United Peoples to replace the impotent
United Nations, increasingly a supine servant of the most powerful
nation-states.

Dignity, Solidarity and The Penal Colony

       That is the title of a magnificent essay by Edward Said in his
defense of the dignity and basic humanity of all peoples, though written
explicitly with the Palestinian Arabs in mind. Referring to one of the many
pathetic cowards who strut around in the fine clothing of well-healed
politicians, he writes, "[Israeli] [t]anks in Jenin (where the demolition
of the refugee camp by Israeli armor, a major war crime, was never
investigated because cowardly international bureaucrats such as Kofi Annan
back down when Israel threatens) fire upon and kill children, ..." His
essay is both a cry of anguish at the horror being inflicted on his fellow
Palestinians and also, remarkably, a statement with hope -- in spite of
everything -- hope based on the Palestinians grassroots infrastructure and
the international mutual aid to sustain it from the Palestinian Diaspora.

       He writes, "Nonetheless ... It may seem quixotic for me to say, even
if the immediate prospects are grim from a Palestinian perspective, they
are not all dark. The Palestinians stubbornly survive, and Palestinian
society-devastated, nearly ruined, desolate in so many ways-is, like
Hardy's thrush in its blast-beruffled plume, still capable of flinging its
soul upon the growing gloom. No other Arab society is as rambunctious and
healthily unruly, and none is fuller of civic and social initiatives and
functioning institutions (including a miraculously vital musical
conservatory). Even though they are mostly unorganized and in some cases
lead miserable lives of exile and statelessness, Diaspora Palestinians are
still energetically engaged by the problems of their collective destiny,
and everyone that I know is always trying somehow to advance the cause."
Said's marvelous essay is in The Politics of Anti-Semitism", a small volume
well worth reading.

       The task of making this a decent world for our children and
grandchildren is one for all of us, and is coincident with our standing
together with all peoples struggling to achieve human dignity. Haiti offers
the peoples of Latin America, and indeed all of us, a fine opportunity to
get on with the task in an arena where we, together with the Haitian
people, have a fair chance of winning.
G.S., March 27, 2004

All comments and criticisms are welcome.    <george.salzman@umb.edu>

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