21134: (Arthur) Western media plays down the US role in Haiti's crisis - NI April (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

HAITI - The New Internationalist monthly magazine - April 2004

Behind the news

Western media plays down the US role in Haiti's crisis.

As this magazine goes to the printers, reports are breaking about how the
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been kidnapped by US marines and
taken against his will to the Central African Republic.

As this is happening, many Western media sources are blaming the President
himself for his downfall. For instance on the day that the story broke about
Aristide's kidnapping, the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail editorialized: 'He
brought it on himself. Jean Bertrand Aristide's fall from power yesterday was
mainly a result of his own misrule'.

The policies of Aristide's government may in part be to blame for Haiti's
present crisis. But if there is any umpire in the blame-game, the US should be
found to be a more substantial player.

Haiti is the poorest country with the lowest paid workers in the Western
Hemisphere. As the 50 Years is Enough campaign observes: 'Whereas corporations
receive vast incentives to set up plants in Haiti working and living standards of
Haitian people - whose wages are generally below the minimum of thirty cents
an hour - steadily decline.' In addition: 'Decades of public investments and
policy manipulation by the World Bank, the IMF, and the US government have
deliberately created an environment where the exploitation of workers is hailed as
an incentive to invest in Haiti.'

The Director of the British-based Haiti Support Group, Charles Arthur,
explains that the Aristide government has been drawn into promoting this economic
environment.  'Relations with the main international players, the United States
and France, worsened during Aristide's second presidential term. These two led
the rest of the international community in suspending - from the beginning of
2001 - all development aid to the Haitian government. Meanwhile, the US
Agency for International Development channelled millions of dollars into the
opposition parties, and French diplomats developed close relations with key
opposition leaders.

Even faced with such obstacles, Aristide's Lavalas Family government could
have based itself on the two sectors that brought it to power - the country's
small middle class, and organised elements from among the peasantry and
shanty-town dwellers. Instead, it chose to try and ingratiate itself with the
international financial institutions in an effort to win the release of suspended
foreign aid, and responded to the opposition with some heavy-handed repression.
Apparently unable to countenance any threat to its control, Aristide's
government used police, and thugs recruited from urban slums, first to repress the
opposition parties, and later to attack unions, women's groups, and university
students.'

The combined effect of this heavy-handed repression in addition to
neo-liberal austerity have rapidly alienated Aristide's support base.

History has also played its role. In a recent Znet forum, veteran commentator
and author Noam Chomsky highlighted how the US has been angling for
Aristide's demise since his first election in 1990. 'Seven months later came a military
coup that led to a shocking reign of terror. In 1994, Clinton apparently
decided that the population had been tortured enough, and decided to allow
Aristide to return - but on condition that he accept the policies of the US candidate
in the 1990 election who had received 14% of the vote.'

That paved the way to 'harsh neoliberal policies, which were a guarantee that
the remaining shreds of the economy would be devastated. We now read that
Haiti cannot feed itself. Actually Haitian peasants were quite efficient, but
could not compete with dumped US agribusiness exports from corporations that
receive a large part of their income from government subsidies.

Chomsky concludes 'It is sheer cowardice to suppress the crucial role of
Washington and its allies during recent years - not to speak of their shocking and
disgraceful record ever since Haiti scandalized the civilized world 200 years
ago by becoming "the first free country of free men" [after the most
successful slave revolt in world history]. It has been brutally punished for this
crime every since.'


Further reading: Charles Arthur - Haiti in Focus: a guide to the people,
politics and culture, (Latin America Bureau).

The New Internationalist exists to report on issues of world poverty and
inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and
the powerless in both rich and poor nations; to debate and campaign for the
radical changes necessary if the basic material and spiritual needs of all are
to be met.

http://www.newint.org/