21196: erzilidanto: The clock of Haitians' self-government has been set back at least 50 years (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

From: Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
(A network of people dedicated to protecting the civil and cultural rights of
Haitians living at home and abroad)
Date: April 8, 2004
Action: Circulate the article below. Urge your friends and colleagues to join
the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network and help circulate the stories behind
the headlines that transformed a struggle for democracy in Haiti into a lost
of independence.
Action: Volunteer to help with the Network's 7 "Men anpil chaj pa lou"
campaigns
*******
  "...The clock of Haitians' self-government has been set back at least 50
years. On the surface, life can appear rather normal, but awful fears and
hatreds lie just underneath, ready to ensnare or explode."  (Tom Driver "On the way
home from Haiti"
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=5274 )
**********
On the way home from Haiti
by Tom Driver
April 05, 2004

Tom Driver has visited Haiti many times, and just returned from a delegation
that was in the country between March 23 - April 2, 2004.  This is a letter he
wrote on his flight home.

Haiti exists, but not happily. Before getting home to all my catching- up, I
want to send you some news about the Haiti. I have been visiting since March
23, when I came down with the first non-governmental delegation that's gone
there since the United States forcibly removed Pres. Aristide on Feb. 29. The
delegation was put together by "Haiti Reborn," an arm of The Quixote Center in
Maryland.

Haiti has suffered a terrible humiliation at the hands of the U.S. Although
her poverty is bad enough, it does not wound the psyche as do recent events
that amount to a kind of political/military rape of the country. The clock of
Haitians' self-government has been set back at least 50 years. On the surface,
life can appear rather normal, but awful fears and hatreds lie just underneath,
ready to ensnare or explode. For example:

One day when we returned in our van to the house where we lodged, a visitor
cautioned that someone was watching the house and street -- something we had
not noticed and weren't sure whether to believe. Our visitor had brought with
him, for an interview with us, two men who were prominent in Pres. Aristide's
Lavalas political party. Since Aristide's ouster over a month ago, one of the
men has not dared sleep in the same house two nights running. He quit our
meeting early so as to stay on the move. Later that day we found out that his name
was read out on the radio, which is like being marked for death. Every
afternoon around 4 p.m. names are broadcast. Perhaps they are on a list of those whom
the new government wants to arrest, or perhaps listeners call in with the name
of so-and-so. All are linked with Aristide in some way. Some of those named
soon disappear. Today most of Haiti's radio stations have fallen silent, while
the remaining ones are owned by members of "the opposition," which of course
is no longer in opposition to the government, because during the night of
February 28-29 the United States brought about a regime change in Haiti.

Althoujgh there is a "transitional" President in the National Palace (we met
with him), the building is mostly occupied by U.S. Marines, who also patrol
the streets and the airport, and fly helicopters almost constantly over the
poorer parts of Port-au-Prince night and day. U.S. forces have made many
night-time raids into some of the poorest quarters, particularly the one called Belair.
In these raids they have killed an uncertain number of people, estimates
going as high as 70. Occasionally the foreign soldiers venture into middle class
neighborhoods, but never threaten the houses on the hills where the wealthy
live.

We met with groups very loyal to Aristide and groups who hate him, but only
one group, which is dominated by wealthy businesssmen, failed to condemn in the
strongest terms the occupation of Haiti by the U.S.-led multinational force.
It is an insult to Haiti's spirit of freedom and self-worth; and it has come,
perhaps not by accident, during the 200th anniversary of Haiti's declaration
of independence in 1804.

In the States, it seems that only the Congressional Black Caucus has been
willing to speak of Aristide's removal as a coup. John Kerry did come close on
CBS on the morning of Feb. 29, when Dan Rather asked all the Democratic
candidates what they thought about Aristide's removal, which had happened during the
previous night. Kerry rightly said that the Haiti crisis had been created by
Pres. Bush, because his administration had put lots of pressure on Aristide and
none on his opponents, both armed and unarmed. Bush thus empowered the
opposition to refuse all compromise, making a negotiated solution impossible. I hope
Kerry will stand by this analysis and continue to hold Bush accountable.
Although it is true that the game plan began at least as far back as the year 2000,
before Bush came in, it was his team, including Colin Powell, that pursued it
to its bitter and very cynical end.

I have followed this matter from its inception, and I will somewhere write in
more detail about the Washington-based plot that has been so disastrous for
the dreams of democracy that arose in Haiti during the 1980s and 90s. Suffice
it to say that the "rebels" who came over the border from the Dominican
Republic in February could not have been trained, supplied, and strategically
prepared without the foreknowledge, and probably the assistance, of the United
States. That said, I want here to relate just a few of the things I discovered in
Haiti the past ten days.

*    The country is shockingly divided in political opinion. It is weird to
leave one interview and go into another in which you are told the exact
opposite of what was said in the first. Our interlocutors might begin a session
saying reasonable things, but before long their claims would become so extreme as
to defy all belief. This includes people with high levels of education who are
widely traveled in the world. We heard torrents of hatred and villification,
especially from Aristide's detractors, and from others we heard and saw
expressions of fear.
*   Most of the Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that rail against
Aristide have been getting money from USAID via the International Republican
Institute, or the National Democratic Institute, all of which disperse U.S.
Government money.
*   Aristide made serious mistakes as President. It seems likely that his
administration included unknown amounts of corruption, drug traffic Involvement,
and (as his hold on power grew weaker) reliance upon armed gangs from slum
neighborhoods that looked upon him as a deliverer. He was, no doubt, a
charismatic leader with poor administrative skills.
*   Even so, he was far from being the tyrant, dictator, and despot that his
opponents and much of the U.S. press paint him to be. What kind of a tyrant is
it whose most popular move was to disband the army?
*   One of Aristide's accomplishments was to establish a new school of
medicine. The U.S. military has closed it and uses it as a barracks. This in a
country in desperate need of doctors.
*   When Aristide was taken away, he received assurance that his house would
be protected. It was immediately trashed and looted. By contrast, in 1994 the
houses of Gen. Cedras and other military officers whom the U.S. ousted from
power were guarded by U.S. soldiers.
*   There is no effort by the U.S.-led multinational force or the Haitian
police to arrest the known criminals among the armed rebels who played the key
role in bringing down the government. Not only are all the rebels
insurrectionists who took up arms against a legitimate government, some of their leaders had
previously been tried and convicted of politically motivated crimes. Upon
entering Haiti from the Dominican Republic, they released about 2000 more
criminals from jail. Staff at the U.S. Embassy told us that to capture and disarm
them is not part of the mission of the U.S. forces. Meanwhile, the mission does
include the use of lethal force against militants in the slums who were loyal
to Aristide.
*   Aristide's opponents come from the left as well as the right. He tried to
bring the disparate factions together, but the elite, whether leftist or
rightist, turned against him for not serving their interests. He found his base of
support in the urban masses, whom he had once served as priest in the "parish
of the poor" at the Church of St. Jean Bosco in Port-au-Prince. He seems to
have had less solid support among the rural peasantry.
*   The issue that concerns me is not whether Aristide was everything that
Haiti needs. He clearly was not. The issue is whether the United States has the
right to undermine and then destroy a duly elected government. I am ashamed of
my country for having done so, and I'm very angry about it.
*   Although the transitional government talks of inclusiveness and power
sharing, the cabinet it has appointed includes no members of Aristide's faction.
*   The new cabinet's Minister of Security is Herard Abraham, a General in
the army that Aristide disbanded in 1995. This is the clearest of several
indications that the U.S. intends for Haiti's army to be reinstated. It was, and
surely would be again, a proxy army trained and equipped by the U.S. for the
purpose of quelling social unrest in the population.
*   Finally, a Catholic priest who has remained close to Aristide throughout
his political career told us that Haiti "must" create and train a movement of
nonviolent resistance. Although Aristide did not think along that line, the
time for doing so seems to be at hand.

Whenever I go to Haiti I come home with some reason for hope in the midst of
desperation. This time, it's the discovery that some Haitians are dreaming of
a nonviolent way to renew their struggle for democracy and true independence.
We can help them by working to get the U.S. out of the business of regime
change. It is shameful for a superpower to bully other nations, especially one as
small, as impoverished, and as eager for self-rule as Haiti.
*****


"Men anpil chaj pa lou"  is Kreyol for - "Many hands make light a heavy load."
To volunteer with the Haitian Leadership Networks'  7 "men anpil chaj pa
lou"campaigns to restore Haiti's independence, please contact: The Haitian Lawyers
Leadership Network, at: Erzilidanto@aol.com. See,
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/haitianlawyers.html
or the Haitiaction.net
********

To unsubscribe, contact Erzilidanto@aol.com