21562: erzilidanto: "Haiti is the American (imperial) learning zone" - Tom Reeves (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

Date: April  27, 2004
From: Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
(See, http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/concerns.html

or the Haitiaction.net )
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Action: Please circulate
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Return to Haiti by Tom Reeves
http://www.blackcommentator.com/87/87_reprint_haiti.html
This article previously appeared in Counterpunch.

I returned this month from Haiti as part of the first independent U.S.
observer delegation since the removal on February 29 of President Jean Bertrand
Aristide. More than a decade ago, I helped organize the New England Observer
Delegations to Haiti -- nine diverse groups of prominent Boston area people who
went to Haiti after the first coup d'etat against President Aristide. We
witnessed a reign of terror by the Haitian military, in which at least 3,000 democracy
activists were slaughtered. We also witnessed the almost universal jubilation
of the Haitian urban and rural poor (85% of the population) on Aristide's
return.

This time I went to see the results of another coup against Aristide, one
clearly planned, funded and orchestrated by the U.S. I felt a terrible déjà vu:
massive violence against the poor, especially against Aristide's Lavalas
movement; the very same paramilitary and former Haitian army officers committing the
atrocities. Convicted mass murderers acting as judges, administrators and
police. Despite intimidation and brutal attacks on the poorest neighborhoods, we
saw overwhelming support for Aristide among the poor, and violent hatred of
Aristide by the tiny elite. A crucial difference was the attitude of the
professionals and many intellectuals. They expressed a sense of betrayal by Aristide,
and joy at his fall. Yet one of them told me, "The Haitian people elected
Aristide, and only they should have been able to take him down."

We heard from people who witnessed nighttime raids against Lavalas. In one
case in the poor neighborhood of Bel Air, we were told U.S. helicopters came
with blinding lights, heavily armed U.S. troops fired into crowds, killing
between five and twenty persons (March 17). Members of our group interviewed
relatives of victims and eyewitnesses to this attack. In case after case, we were
told that known criminals and former army men were incorporated into the police.
They harassed or beat Lavalas supporters and hounded for "arrest" former
government officials.



A stream of people came to see us from their hiding places at great risk to
tell us this. Jeremy was one. Now 21, he met Aristide at age 11. He worked for
Children's Radio (Radio Ti Moun) funded by Aristide's foundation. Jeremy
tearfully recalled the past month: He fled the radio station as it was trashed. He
was chased and saw his young companions beaten. He ran from his aunt's house
as three former military came looking for him. They shot his aunt and she died
on the way to the hospital. This happened a week before we arrived. Jeremy had
been afraid to go to her funeral.

A woman came to us from the community group, Ai Bobo Brav, victims of the
last coup. I'd met her last March when she told me, "Every Haitian baby knows
Bush's game." Back then she'd forecast the coup. Now she was living it. "While
your president was sleeping in his bed, they kidnapped our president. They
dragged him off. It was so disrespectful. It hurt me so.” She wept.

Driving back to Port-au-Prince from Jacmel on Friday, I saw a cow munching on
garbage by a sign in English advertising a school. The sign said, "Welcome to
the American Learning Zone." The U.S. State Department point man on Haiti,
Roger Noriega (also involved in the Iran-Contra plot in Nicaragua) told an
audience in Washington last year that Cuba and Venezuela should pay close attention
to events in Haiti. One of the first acts by U.S. marines after landing in
Haiti this year may have been to establish a perimeter around Mole St. Nicolas,
the peninsula opposite Guantanamo, jutting into the narrow strait between
Haiti and Cuba. Local residents reported to Haitian news media that U.S. military
structures were being built on the site long sought by the U.S. as a companion
base to Guantanamo.

What interests provoke such an expensive, brutal lesson in Haiti? Haiti has
no oil. Of course there are thousands of sweat shop workers who toil for less
than a dollar a day. Of course there are big US companies that supply rice,
wheat and other staples supplanting Haitian rice and cassava, so that nearly 70%
of the food consumed by Haitians must be imported, mostly from the U.S. This
for a country that once provided more wealth to France than all its other New
World colonies! And then there is Aristide, the little Liberation Theology
priest who preached a message of conflict between the tiny elite and the
desperately poor majority. Haiti is so close to Cuba – that other obsession of U.S.
foreign policy. One of Aristide's first acts was to establish ties with Cuba.
More than 500 Cuban doctors remain in Haiti, helping the poorest communities.
They must be remembering Grenada, where a U.S. occupation twenty years ago ousted
Cuban doctors. Most of all, Haiti sits in what the U.S. sees as it's back
yard, it's playground, it's lap. Upstart, uncontrolled forces there are just too
close to home. So – Venezuela and Cuba and others beware: Haiti is the
American (imperial) learning zone.

A learning zone for solidarity activists, too

Haiti should be a learning zone for all Americans who would understand and
counter the imperial U.S. policy of intervention worldwide. If the U.S. can get
away with covert and overt support for a "rebellion" in Haiti led by former
military and paramilitary, many of whom have been convicted of murders and other
human rights violations dating to the last coup, it will be psyched for
similar operations in Venezuela and perhaps even in Cuba. The evidence is clear:
U.S. weapons (intended for the Dominican army) were smuggled into Haiti by
former Haitian military and paramilitary, many of whom were trained and long funded
by the CIA and other U.S. agents. U.S. money, both government and private,
flowed into the coffers of NGOs attached to the "opposition" – the right-wing
Convergence and the neo-liberal "Group of 184," led by the Haitian business
elite (including the sweat shop owners) and widely publicized by the
ultra-conservative "Haiti Democracy Project" (HDP) in Washington, D.C. Among the funders
and organizers of the opposition were the IRI and NDI, the international NGOs
closely tied to the U.S. Republican and Democrat Parties respectively. IRI and
HDP operatives were present at meetings organized by FRAPH (a CIA-funded
paramilitary group) and former Haitian military in the Dominican Republic – at which
Dominican authorities claimed plans were laid a year ago for a Haitian coup.

In Jacmel, we met students, women and union organizers who had formed
specifically anti-Aristide groups to counter the existing organizations in Jacmel –
for the purpose of joining the demonstrations led by the Convergence and 184 to
demand the ouster of Aristide earlier this year. Pierre J.G.C. Gestion, a
leader of the MHDR (Haitian Movement for Rural Development) proudly asserted his
connection to USAID, the State Department Democracy Enhancement program and
the NDI. "They trained us and taught us how to organize, and we organized the
groups you see here to demand the corrupt government of Aristide be brought
down."

We also met representatives in Port-au-Prince of SOFA, CONAM, ENFOFANM and
other progressive women's groups, as well as Batay Ouvriye, the rightly heralded
support group for the Free Trade Zone and other mostly women workers in the
assembly industries (sweat shops). These women's and labor groups were strongly
critical of Aristide's government and the Lavalas movement. During the past
few months, they openly called for Aristide's removal, and they chose not to
denounce the opposition's "zero option" strategy of non-cooperation and
non-compromise. Yet I heard no answer to our question: "What did you think would
happen if Aristide was forced to leave by the right-wing rebels or by a U.S.
occupation?" I believe these groups did not ask themselves that question.

I think they were blinded by their feeling that Aristide had betrayed his
progressive mandate. A good bit of their analysis of Aristide's record was right
– though not all. Aristide did accept a compromise when he returned. He did
include, at U.S. insistence, elements of the former army and even Duvalierists
in his regime. Yet the government put in place by this recent coup is far
worse: it is full of such Macoutes, and worse – convicted mass murderers. It has
already militarized the police and is preparing the return of an unreconstructed
Haitian army – the instrument of U.S. and elite oppression in Haiti since
it's creation by the U.S. at it's first invasion in 1915.

Aristide also compromised terribly on the issues of structural adjustment –
he did put in place the first Free Trade Zone, and lay plans for a second one,
a bitter insult to Haitian labor. He did begin privatization. He did not
protect Haitian products adequately. Yet he did not compromise on everything. He
continued to agitate for a better minimum wage, against the sweat shop owners.
He resisted most of the demanded privatization. He held out for collective
bargaining rights for the Free Trade Zone workers. He continued to make small
steps toward agrarian reform. As Paul Farmer and others have shown, he made
greater strides in fighting AIDS and promoting literacy than any previous
government. The Latortue government from the start has been wholly dominated by free
trade enthusiasts, neoliberal theoreticians and the worst of the sweat shop
owners and other business elite.

The women's groups told us bluntly that the situation under Aristide was the
worst in Haiti's history – worse than Duvalier and worse that Haiti during the
1991-1994 coup period. Yet I met these groups during that time. They were in
hiding then, terrified by the very same elements now roaming Haiti freely,
committing atrocities now as then. When U.S. and other international delegations
visited them a year ago, under Aristide's rule, they functioned openly. They
did not appear terrorized. Their most concrete criticisms were that when they
demonstrated against the government – during the same period as the sometimes
violent demonstrations orchestrated by the 184 and the Convergence, and coming
during a time when it was clear that former military and paramilitary (the
CIA-funded FRAPH) were entering the country and preparing a coup – police stood
by as people they called Lavalas threw bottles of urine and stones at them. All
of that is terrible – and should not have gone without a severe criticism of
Aristide and Lavalas. But it cannot be compared to the brutal onslaught by the
Fraph and former army officers in Gonaives, Cap Haitien and elsewhere after
Feb. 5. Aristide's alleged abuses pale beside the documented reports of the
"rebels" slaughtering police and Lavalas and mutilating their bodies; of summary
executions; of groups of Lavalas herded into containers and dumped into the
sea.

Perhaps worst of all, I listened again (as I had a year ago) to the litany of
abuses the NCHR (National Coalition for Haitian Rights) says it documented
against officials of the Aristide government and the Lavalas movement. They
rightly protested cases like that of the journalist Jean Dominique and a dozen
other high profile attacks on opposition activists and as many as three
opposition journalists. Yet during the two years leading up to this latest coup, they
adamantly refused to investigate now-verified allegations of murders, arson and
bombings against the government and Lavalas by former military and FRAPH.
They scoffed at the alleged coup attempt at the National Palace in December of
2001, though Jodel Chamblain now boasts that was an initial coup attempt.

Although they were the only human rights group in the country adequately
funded and having trained monitors throughout Haiti, the NCHR became completely
partisan: anti-Lavalas, anti-Aristide. This is simply not proper for a group
calling itself a "Haitian Rights" organization. During the final month before the
coup, they abandoned any pretext of impartiality, joining calls for the
ouster of Aristide, without reference to the means. After Feb. 29, they continue to
site abuses by "chimere," whom they call simply "Aristide gangs," without
documenting the connections. Though they told our group they had "heard about"
violence against unarmed Lavalas, including the possible complicity of U.S.
marines in the Bel Air incident, the NCHR said they "lacked access" to the
pro-Lavalas shanty towns. Of course they lacked access: they lacked any shred of
credibility as a human rights monitor.

We also heard from PAPDA (Platform to Advocate for Alternative Development)
which had called for Aristide's ouster on the grounds of his compromises with
"U.S. imperialism," as well as corruption and human rights violations. PAPDA
had functioned openly in its offices under Aristide, right up to and through
this year's coup, though at least one PAPDA member was killed, allegedly by
"chimere." Camille Chalmers, PAPDA's director, said, "This is a sad day for Haiti.
But it was the people who overturned Aristide. The U.S. only came in to shape
the results, as they always do.… Right now, the population has regained some
hope. This hope will go against the marines. Confrontations are already
happening."

Though the current government is extremely pro-neo-liberal, a PAPDA coalition
leader on environmental issues, Yves Wainwright, has accepted the post of
Minister of the Environment. "The current political situation has not been
defined," Chalmers told us. "If the Provisional Government were to develop a logical
program it would conflict with U.S. interests. Under Aristide, we had less
and less space to organize and demonstrate – we were repressed. As long as we
can demonstrate against the military occupation now, we will retain a tiny
space." Together, some 40 similar anti-Aristide "left" groups have formed the RDP
(Popular Democratic Regroupment) to put forward an alternative opposition
program to the government, even while some work within that government.

One man I hoped to see, but did not, was Chavannes Jean-Baptiste. Chavannes
was at times very close to Aristide – serving as his spokesperson when he
returned after the coup. Chavannes is founder and leader of the MPP (a large
peasant group in the Central Plateau). Shortly after Aristide chose Preval for his
successor, Chavannes announced his break with Aristide (there was indeed an
ugly confrontation between Chavannes and Lavalas activists in Mirebalais). By the
2000 election, Chavannes openly embraced his former worst enemies, and joined
the Convergence. Later Chavannes joined the more palatable, but clearly
neo-liberal, Group of 184. MPP has now endorsed its "Social Contract," put forward
by elite business groups.

A peasant from Mirabalais in the Central Plateau told me he had evidence that
most of the weapons and men moved from the Dominican Republic to start the
rebellions in Gonaives and Cap Haitien in early February, came through
Chavannes' turf. "No way could that have been done without his active support."
Chavannes is said to be considering a position in the de facto government – as
minister for peasant affairs. I was with Chavannes and his mother when they wept on
seeing the ruins and vandalism at their offices in Papay on their return after
the first coup in 1994. That damage was done by the very same paramilitary
and military who now occupy much of the country. Another dissident peasant whom
I met told of Chavannes' embracing and throwing a feast for Chamblain, the
convicted murderer and FRAPH member who "liberated" Hinche, the MPP base.
Chamblain now sits in Cap Haitien, acting as "judge" condemning and punishing
"criminals" and "traitors." Such alliances may be – as the civil society leader told
us – just strange bedfellows in wartime, but on a personal level, they are
hard to understand.

International human rights organizations, especially Human Rights Watch and
Journalists Without Borders, and to a lesser extent Amnesty International, have
taken the NCHR reports uncritically and failed to develop other impartial
human rights contacts in Haiti. Progressive funders like Grassroots International
and NGOs in Canada, the US and Europe also listened uncritically to their
"partners" and funded groups in Haiti like PAPDA, SOFA, Batay Ouvriye and MPP.

The primary lesson to be learned for funders and NGOS, and for all solidarity
activists, is that solidarity must first of all be with the people of Haiti –
by the assertion of their will by voting, as Haitians did for Aristide in
2000 (the OAS and international NGOs certified that at the time). Beyond that,
international funding and solidarity groups (and here the criticism is equally
valid for those who were wholly supportive of Lavalas without critique) must
not put on blinders when they visit Haiti. They must listen critically to all
sides. They must watch for concrete evidence of the mass base of the
organizations they fund – and evidence that the rank and file feel as the "leaders" do.

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. empire will gain more from its
exercise in the learning zone of Haiti, or the international solidarity movement. Let
us hope for the latter – since the next learning zones may come sooner than
we expect, especially if the Bush regime lives through its debacle in Iraq and
survives the November election.

Material for this article was compiled partly from observations and
interviews in conjunction with the Emergency Haiti Observation Mission, a group of 24
diverse people from throughout the U.S. and Canada, coordinated by the Quixote
Center in Maryland. The ideas expressed in this article are solely those of
the author, Tom Reeves.

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"Men anpil chaj pa lou"  is Kreyol for - "Many hands make light a heavy load."

See, The Haitian Leadership Networks'  7 "men anpil chaj pa

lou" campaigns to help restore Haiti's independence, the will of the mass
electorate and the rule of law. See,
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/haitianlawyers.html ; http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/concerns.html

or the Haitiaction.net

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