21141: radtimes: Heartache in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

See URL for numerous embedded links.
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Heartache in Haiti

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/04/04_504.html

April 6, 2004
by Kate Cheney

Jean-Bertrand Aristide may no longer be president of Haiti, but it's an
open question whether his country is any better off. The immediate
prospects for putting one of the world's poorest countries back together
again are hardly assuring given a current situation that features a
U.S.-backed interim regime that is already showing signs of corruption; an
exiled former president who may be trying for his third comeback; an
infrastructure beyond the breaking point after decades of mismanagement and
violence; and a distracted Bush Administration that just wishes the Haitian
problem would go away.

U.S.-backed Interim Prime Minister Gérard Latortue came out of his Florida
exile only to embrace the rebel groups -- drug lords and convicted
murderers among them -- responsible for last month's political violence. He
praised their efforts, calling them "freedom fighters"-- much to the
amazement of human rights activists who have observed how they operate.
Neither Latortue nor the U.N.-mandated forces have prevented the rebels
from tormenting remaining Aristide supporters and former cabinet members.
In an ironic twist, Latortue has blacklisted dozens of Aristide's
supporters and forbidden them from leaving the country until they are
cleared from any 'ill-doing' under Aristide's rule.

A recent Reuter's report described how an attorney and member of Aristide's
Lavalas party was severely beaten and nearly lynched by an angry mob of
Aristide opponents while walking home from his office. Cowering inside the
local police station, the 33-year-old told a reporter, through tears and blood:

     "They hit me just because I support Lavalas! Lavalas is no longer in
power, but that's my party. That's democracy."

The Miami Herald reported that even the new chief of police has entered
into talks with rebel leaders on how to incorporate their forces into
police units despite protests from U.S. and human rights officials:

     "French peacekeeping troops observed the closed-door talks between
rebel leader Guy Philippe and Renan Etienne, the new police chief for
northern Haiti, who said afterward that he was willing to accept some
rebels into his force but not without a screening process."

Basic services, like electricity and garbage collection, while always
erratic, are virtually nonexistent in Haiti now, and so far the U.N. has
raised only a fraction of the estimated $35 million needed to rebuild the
country. Interim Prime Minister Latortue is scheduled to meet with foreign
donors on April 14 to ask for additional funding. Many interim officials
blame the country's decayed state on years of corruption during Aristide's
tenure.

The Guardian's Stevenson Jacobs spoke with frustrated new government
officials. Cabinet Minister Robert Ulysse said:

     "We have all this urgency and no funds to do anything. We're still
trying to get the engine started, but we're not moving anywhere.''

And Ann-Marie Issa, one of the seven-member Council of Sages that helped
form the new government said:

     "The corruption ruined the country. People are poorer, children can't
afford to go to school and institutions aren't functioning. We can't afford
to have another government like that.''

And Aristide? On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Aristide had
filed suit against unnamed French and American officials, accusing them of
"death threats, kidnapping and sequestration." (Both countries deny his
allegations.) Aristide's lawyers confirmed that a similar suit will soon be
filed in the U.S. Aristide claims he is still the democratically elected
president of Haiti, and that he was removed from power illegally.

He's not the only one crying foul. After a two-day summit last weekend,
leaders from Caribbean Community countries (CARICOM), a key player in
Haitian stabilization, "postponed" its recognition of the interim
government, calling for a U.N.-led investigation into Aristide's ouster.
Leading the charge are Jamaica and Venezuela who have both granted Aristide
asylum and support.

The BBC was quick to point out the obvious link between Chavez and Aristide:

     "Mr. Chavez, who is himself accusing the US of fomenting the
opposition to his rule in Venezuela, said he supported Mr. Aristide's claim
to be the rightful leader of Haiti and would refuse to recognise the
government of new Prime Minister Gerard Latortue."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered this statement:

     "My government does not recognize the one (government) placed by the
United Stated in Haiti and we call on the other countries of the continent,
as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) has already done, to
pronounce this."

While Aristide ponders a comeback, the U.N. has called for more support
from the international community. U.N. special envoy Reginald Dumas told
the U.N. Security Council after returning from a 10-day visit to Haiti that
it will take at least twenty years to put things right again. Dumas told
the council:

     "We cannot continue with the start-stop cycle that has characterized
relations between the international community and Haiti. You go in, you
spend a couple of years, you leave, the Haitians are not necessarily
involved and the whole thing collapses. This has to stop."

This is not good news for the Bush administration. Despite President Bush's
grudging offer to supply 1,900 Marines to the interim multi-national force
mandated by the U.N., Haiti can expect no additional funding or major
military support from the U.S.

The Washington Post characterizes the Bush administration's response to the
U.N.'s proposal as "another dodge":

     "Today the most senior U.S. official to visit Haiti since before Mr.
Aristide's departure is to arrive in Port-au-Prince -- a deputy assistant
secretary of state. His boss, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, recently
told a congressional committee that the administration will not ask for any
supplemental appropriations for Haiti this year. The current budget is $44
million -- about 2 percent of what the United States is spending on
reconstruction in Afghanistan."

In a seeming effort to quell criticism that the Bush administration is
"ignoring" the situation in Haiti, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a
brief, one-day visit to Haiti on Monday -- the first such visit from a top
American official since Aristide was "escorted" out of the country by U.S.
troops six weeks ago, and the first secretary of state to travel there
since Madeline Albright did in 1998. According to a statement made by the
U.S. State Department on Friday, the purpose of Powell's visit on Monday
was to:

     "... observe firsthand United States and international efforts to
bring stability to the country and address the humanitarian needs of the
Haitian people."

Powell got his answer. Just hours before Powell arrived, two employees of a
frozen food company were robbed and then shot in a Port-au-Prince suburb --
two hours passed before the police responded.

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