21374: Simidor: Farewell Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com>


Two Reasons why Aristide is no longer the nexus of my preoccupations with Haiti

I want to preface these few remarks with the observation from the progressive Creole newsletter “Konba,” that Aristide had to go because his Lavalas regime “had frustrated the development of every real grassroots organization working in the interest of the people.”

The Konba editorial continues: “Lavalas used a number of militias and gangs that they purposely called “popular organizations” in order to spread confusion and to eradicate once and for all the notion of popular organizations.  The regime also used drugs, corruption, theft, and the practice of extortion against street merchants, in order to confuse and demoralize the masses as a whole.  While doing everything to crush the grassroots movement and the people’s humble initiatives in the informal economy, in order to deny the masses any control over the politics of the country, Lavalas and its leader were on a permanent honeymoon with organizations and members of the bourgeoisie.  Aristide never really threatened the wheeling and dealings of the bourgeoisie in a serious way.  Relations between Lavalas and the bourgeois sector were more of a kissing game, even if their teeth would clash sometimes.  The most important thing to understand is that Aristide held the allegiance of the most retrograde wing of the bourgeoisie, due to his association with key players like the Coles, Edouard Baussan, Jean Marie Vorbes, Frantz Charlot and many others….”  (Konba, No. 7, April 1-15, 2004)

Other sources mention the Mews family and Haiti’s leading bank, Unibank, launched just a decade ago.  The point here is that Aristide had become one of the wealthiest bourgeois elements ripping off the country!

I. I will not have that man’s blood on my conscience

Aristide’s friends on the US left are busy setting him up as a mirror image to Patrice Lumumba and Salvador Allende.  Corrupt to the bone, as I believe him to be, Aristide no longer has what it takes to play that role to the end.  But if I’m wrong, he will die as surely as Lumumba and Allende died at the hands of US imperialism.

The US government has the means at its disposal to expose the chasm between the love Aristide preached and the greed he lived by. The day of his flight into exile, I made the point that one sure way to curtail his destabilizing power over future Haitian politics would be for the US government to expose his corrupt practices.  As surely as Aristide is corrupt, the US has the full evidence of his corruption, given the close proximity to him of the Steele Foundation mercenaries and the extent of CIA penetration in all facets of Haitian activities.

I also predicted at the same time that the US were unlikely to perform such a service, and that they were less interested in exposing Aristide’s crimes than in preserving their own ability to blackmail and to use him for their purpose.  The recent noise about an investigation into possible drug charges against Aristide has been a veiled reminder that his end in the bargain was to keep his mouth shut – which he has done since arriving in Jamaica.   Anyway, the US is probably too involved in Aristide’s corruption to ever make that story public. But for Uncle Sam, it may also be that Aristide has outlived his usefulness, and that his tenure on life is much less secure than he envisions.

Perhaps at a psychological level it is too difficult to let go.  Aristide was surgically removed before the people had a chance to settle with him.  Justice has not been served.  And yet one must leave it to the next elected government and to the people as a whole to decide on the charges against him. What is quite certain, however, is that exiled or dead, Aristide will continue to exert an enormous influence on the people’s consciousness, in as much as the state does not have the means to solve any of the problems he paid lip service to.  Hurling imprecations and words will not dissolve the myth around him.  It will take a political organization of a new kind, rooted in the aspirations and the struggles of the masses to combat the Aristide myth.

II. The need for a paradigm shift

A lot has been said about the US so-called reluctance to invade or to occupy Haiti.  Still, the powers that pushed Aristide out, ahead of the people, have a plan and a space for Haiti in their international division of labor that is not much different from the previous regime.

On the one hand, the neoconservatives who set the agenda for the Bush administration have declared Haiti “strategically useless” and not worth any expenditures out of the US treasury.  Rude awakening for those dreaming of a “Marshall Plan” for Haiti!  According to the neocon ideologues, Haiti is a “failed state” that must be contained and remodeled.  Washington, CARICOM, the OAS, the European Union, the UN Secretary-General are part of a broad consensus to place Haiti under UN trusteeship for a period of 10 to 20 years.  The current Haitian Prime Minister has already envisioned himself as a UN appointee….

The prospect of UN occupation may be less damaging in terms of Haitian pride, but in reality UN trusteeship at this juncture is US occupation under a different guise – a low budget occupation to teach Haitians the basics of “democratic” etiquette, while preventing Haiti from destabilizing the region.

In a recent article, “Food, Trade and US Power in Latin America,” Toni Solo makes the observation that what Bush officials say to Congress and the stuff they feed to foreign audiences are very different.   To illustrate his point, he contrasts Ambassador James Maisto speaking to the OAS (“US policies in the Western Hemisphere are grounded in basic American ideals and values. President Bush's emphasis is on promoting democracy and human rights and strengthening democratic institutions to make them more credible and relevant for individual citizens…”) and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick’s report to Congress (“Day-in and day-out, all around the world, the U.S. government is working aggressively to make sure barriers to U.S. goods and services are removed... Our new and pending Free Trade Agreements … are stripping away trade barriers across-the-board, market-by-market, and expanding American opportunities….”)

On the other hand, while Assistant-Secretary of State Roger Noriega boasts of a “three-year job creation program, which will provide tens of thousands of jobs, including rebuilding the municipal infrastructure," the editors of Konba remind us we’ve been that way before.  “The Haitian people is used to these false promises.  Back in 1994, the US promised they were going to build schools, roads, and hospitals.  They promised major investments to open factories across the country.  Nothing was done, and now ten years later they have come back with more promises.”

What is the reality behind those promises?  Noriega in the same speech also pledged that should Haiti clean up its act, the US “would consider a trade agreement” similar to the one linking the Dominican Republic with the US.  Meanwhile, Noriega urges Haiti’s new government TO PRIVATIZE SEGMENTS OF THE ECONOMY, STARTING WITH ITS PORTS.  There you have it.  To qualify for humanitarian aid and the promised US investments, Haiti must become a dumping-ground for US products, and must sell its few remaining assets to the private sector.

Solo compares the free trade agreements imposed on the region’s weaker economies to a pistol held against their heads.  No one mentions how US “free trade” already dealt a killing blow to Haiti’s agriculture.  No one mentions that privatization has already bankrupted the Haitian state, or that given Haiti’s weak tax base the priority should be on strengthening the public sector’s remaining assets as part of the larger objective of rebuilding the country’s ability to feed itself.

On an optimistic note Solo concludes that “time and credit are running out for the United States,” in terms of maintaining its economic supremacy over the world.  Form the perspective of the Haitian economy, however, we have already ran out of time.  The country is fast sinking.  The message from Konba is quite clear: Aristide is gone; let’s now move on.  First, all patriotic, democratic and progressive forces must unite to defeat any short-term or long-term occupation of Haiti that would, under whatever guise, preclude the chances of rebuilding a sovereign and sustainable country.  Second, we must agitate and organize against the privatization scheme, which is anyway well beyond the narrow mandate of any provisional government.  And third, we must work to rebuild a powerful and independent grassroots movement, as the first step toward Haiti’s second independence.

Daniel Simidor,
April 2004