21417: Tortora: Article from Sojourners Magazine (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Vivian Tortora <vtortora@capecod.net>


> Commentary: "Regime Change In Haiti" April 2004 Sojourners Magazine
>
> The violent overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrad Aristide in late
> February should be a cause of great concern--not because Aristide was any
> longer a great friend of the poor or a bright shining hope for the people
> of Haiti.  His own arrogant, corrupt, and autocratic ways had pushed him
> to the brink.  But that's not why the Bush administration was happy to
> push him the rest of the way over the edge.
>
> US forces may have not literally "kidnapped" Aristide and forced him to
> leave the country at gunpoint, as he claimed.  But "call it what you will.
>  The fact is the admnistration did nothing to save democracy in Haiti,"
> Rep. William D. Delehunt told the Washington Post.  And in that, US
> authorities sent a "dangerous and irresponsible" message to the region
> that "this administration will not stand up for a democratically elected
> head of state they do not like," argued Rep. Robert Menedez.
>
> The coup in Haiti, the world's first black independent state, may have
> been more artfully engineered than the regime change in Iraq, but Bush
> team's figerprints are all over it.  You don't even have to follow the
> money.  Many of those responsible for Aristide's overthrow have blood
> splashed all across their resumes, back to the death squads of the 1980s
> and '90s and the brutal, U.S. backed dictatorships of Papa and Baby Doc
> Dubvalier.
>
> Their history goes a long way toward explaining Aristide's failure to
> solidify democracy or bring about economic developement.  Even if Aristide
> had had the stature and moral rectitude of a Nelson Mandela, success would
> have been unlikely, given what he faced--U.S financial and political
> support for an armed, unprincipled opposition; economic sanctions; a
> curtailment of much-needed humanitarian aid.  It's not hard for an
> enconomic behemoth like the United States to ruin the economy of the
> hemisphere's poorest country.
>
> HAITI'S 2004 COUP, the country's 32nd since it was founded 200 years ago,
> gave yet more evidence of the real meaning of the "Bush doctrine" of
> regime change.  At the heart, it's not about WMDs or human rights or
> legitmiate governance.  For the duly elected (albeit flawed) president of
> Haiti, it came down to:  You're on my side, or you're gone.  Human rights
> may be rountinly ignored and elite corruption rampant from Saudi Arabia to
> Sinagpore, but as long as the countries' leaders are compliant to U.S.
> interests, nothing else matters.  (Hugo Chavez, be forwarned.)
>
> Haiti's deterioration this winter illustrates again the fact that "nation
> building" is essential part of the movement from autocracy to democarcy.
> The United States sent 23,000 troops to Haiti in 1994 to restore Aristide
> to power, following the first time he had been democratically elected and
> then tossed out in a coup.  But the troops were withdrawn in two years,
> after building about eight miles of paved roads in Port-au-Prince and not
> a whole lot else.  Little progress was made in building the infrastructure
> of democratic institutions--grassroots elections for town councils,
> non-corrupt local police forces, and the like.  In the absence of such
> groundwork, "free and fair" elections are virtually meaningless and the
> democratic results almost certain to be ephemeral.  The lessons for
> occupied Iraq are abvious.
>
> Finally, Aristide's rise and fall raises many challenges for people of
> faith, even apart from the justice issues surrounding his ouster.  Many
> peace-and-justice minded Christians supported Aristide, the then-Catholic
> priest who stood up against dictatorship and vowed justice for the poor
> and oppressed.  What's our responsibility when such a person devolves into
> an autocratic ruler himself?
>
> There's a tempation to offer blind support when one of "our own" gets into
> power. (We saw the phenomena in the too-often uncritical support some
> peace and justice advocates gave to the leftist Nicaraguan government
> after the downfall of the much-worse, U.S. backed right-wing Somoza
> regime.)
>
> Our loyalty, ultimately, doesn't belong to any particular person, party,
or
> institution.  Our bibilically rooted principales, can and must guide us
> into active involvement in the political struggles of our day, and that
> will mean at specific times supporting (and opposing) specific candidates
> and policies.  But that cannot mean that we give uncritical allegiance
> where it is not due--and it is never due to the Caesars of the day, no
> matter how good we might feel about them or how much we might despise
> their opponents.  Our deepest allegiance must remain, now and always,with
> God and God alone.
>
> Jim Rice is managing editor of Sojourners
>
>