22037: erzilidanto: Haiti and the insanity of "official" denial by Anthony Fenton (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 18:41:02 EDT
From: Erzilidanto@aol.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:  ;
Subject: Haiti and the insanity of "official" denial  by Anthony Fenton

Haiti and the insanity of "official" denial
May 24 , 2004
Anthony Fenton


As many as nine peaceful demonstrators were killed in Haiti on May 18, as
tens of thousands of people took to the streets despite the risk (and reality) of
violent repression by international forces and a militarized Haitian police
force. These demonstrators were calling for an end to the illegal occupation by
US, Canadian and French forces, and for the return of overthrown President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (http://www.haitiaction.net).

The mainstream media has already done its best to cover this up, which isn’t
difficult considering that most corporations no longer have journalists
covering Haiti, save for Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and the Miami Herald. The
readership of these sources has scarcely been privy to any of the realities in
Haiti for quite some time.

The AP’s Amy Bracken has a virtual monopoly on the information that is
allowed out of Haiti in the mainstream these days. As such, her summary of the Flag
Day demonstrations is the one that will stick in peoples’ minds. Her
description is sterile, seemingly objective reporting:

"Thousands of demonstrators called for the return of ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide during a Flag Day rally Tuesday that turned violent, leaving
at least one man dead."

While Bracken cannot lie about the fact that the May 18 demonstrators were in
fact Aristide supporters, she is denying the actual numbers of people in
attendance; she is denying the level of repression by US Marines and Haitian
police; and she is denying that the demonstrators were also calling for an end to
the illegal occupation and all that it stands for -- namely the presence of a
US puppet regime and a US trained and financed military that is executing much
of the terror on Lavalas/Aristide supporters.

On Flashpoints Radio (http://www.flashpoints.net), responsible journalist
Kevin Pina recounted his eyewitness experience of the demonstrations, explaining
how he was threatened with arrest by a US Marine (despite showing his
credentials) and was subsequently shot at by the new Haitian Special Forces as he
denounced the Marines for promoting the violence. Prior to this, one demonstrator
standing next to him was slain (photos at http://www.haitiaction.net) as a
result of the Haitian police firing upon demonstrators. Anywhere between 30 000
to 60 000 people demonstrated at various times and places throughout the day.

That this many people were courageous enough to demonstrate -- after two and
a half months of severe repression that has seen thousands killed, beaten, or
disappeared -- is telling, and might serve to inspire the "progressives" who
have mostly suffered from a strange and silent paralysis toward Haiti in terms
of movement building. The main thing that these demonstrations do is put the
lie to all of those who claim that Haiti is "on the right track" or "moving
forward", or that the "interim" government is "doing a good job" with the full
support of the US and its vassal states.

Speaking of vassal states, the consensus in Canada is that "people were
unanimously calling for Aristide’s departure" (see the recent goings on in the
Foreign Affairs Committee, http://www.parl.gc.ca). Where, in the United States,
there is existing political opposition to the role of the government in
manufacturing the “Haitian crisis” (however marginal this is), no such opposition can
be said to exist in Canada. Across the board of governmental and
non-governmental agencies, a firm position of official denial has set in. This owes
largely to the seamless transition the Canadian government has made since the
installation of Paul Martin as Prime Minister to a climate of militarism, jingoism,
fear-mongering, empty rhetoric, and an ever-more obedient media machine.

Paul Martin and his fellow Liberal coup-backers seized the Haiti opportunity
to show their imperial masters that they could be relied upon to mercilessly
help carry out a systematic program of destabilization. Canada also showed that
it can help navigate the waters of a post-coup environment, as the government
lies over and over until the lie becomes the truth. Haiti is just a warm up,
as Canada is frantically beefing up its armed forces ($8 billion spent since
December 2003) in order to get up to speed with the United States and to face
the greatest threat of the 21st century, which, according to Martin, "is
centred on terror cells"(Speech at Gagetown, NB, April 14, 2004).

At this point, the layperson who happens to read page 35 of the corporate
media daily that prints Haiti’s latest news is in no position to be moved to
support the call for Aristide’s return. The impact of the corporate media’s own
official denial deepens the pervasiveness of the more general denial, as it
dovetails with that of the government and NGOs. The burden of responsibility
therefore lies on the alternative media and the activists who support or rely on
it, to respond to the appeal for solidarity with the Haitian masses.

As new facts emerge about the systematic nature of the destabilization
campaign in Haiti, -- dating back, as can be determined concretely, to 2000 -- the
task for solidarity activists becomes much clearer. Consider the findings of
International Action Committee-led investigative team to the Dominican Republic:

“200 Special Forces trained the Haitian ‘rebels’ in the DR, preparing them
for their invasion of Haiti. These ‘rebels’ were funded and trained by the
International Republican Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy --
the CIA front group that was established by Reagan in 1983.” (Democracy Now!
Interviews with Fr. Luis Barrios and Brian Concannon,
http://www.democracynow.org).

Chris Searle’s seminal 1983 book in the ‘field’ of US destabilization
campaigns, Grenada: The Struggle Against Destabilization, explored these still
relevant issues:

"The first reaction to any revolutionary process by the enemies of the
revolution has always been destabilization and intervention. ‘Destabilization’ is
not just a word and a new addition to the Caribbean vocabulary. It means
definite things. It means murder, arson, bombs, lies, slander, threats,
intimidation, mercenary menace and attempts to snatch away all the concrete and popular
benefits won through the revolution."

Grenada’s Maurice Bishop, Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan, and Jamaica’s Michael
Manley all got to know destabilization intimately, along with dozens of other Latin
American revolutionaries. In a 1980 speech, Maurice Bishop described this
familiarity:

"We think of the history of US Imperialism – Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954,
Dominican Republic in 1965 and dozens of other examples. We think of the
assassinations of Sandino the patriot of Nicaragua, of Allende the hero of Chile, of
so many other martyrs of this region who had to die at the hands of
imperialism. We think of the scientific way in which they have evolved a new concept
which they have called ‘destabilization’: a concept aimed at creating political
violence, economic sabotage; a concept which when it fails, eventually leads to
terrorism."

One of Haiti’s current leading terrorists, Guy Philippe, who was part of the
group of Haitian paramilitaries incorporated into the Dominican Army, has
recently transformed his rebel army into a political party that plans to campaign
in next year’s general election. This should come as no surprise to those
familiar with the history of FRAPH and Duvalierist Macoutes, or with the history
of US-led destabilization campaigns (The Jamaica Observer, May 20, 2004).

Given that a return of military rule to Haiti is what the Haitian masses fear
the most, this is probably what is being planned for by the United States,
who need the billions of dollars in cocaine flowing through a ‘secure’ Haiti
that is run by whomever is most friendly to US interests. "The second overthrow
of Haiti’s democratically elected government was the direct result of a
carefully staged military-intelligence operation." (Chossudovsky, ‘Destabilization
of Haiti’, February 29, 2004, http://www.globalresearch.ca)

This was also the case in the CIA-sponsored 1991 overthrow of Aristide by the
again-terrorizing-with-impunity FRAPH. The circumstances were different then,
as the United States joined the OAS and the United Nations in condemning the
coup (an example of the insanity of Empire, both condemning and causing a
coup). This time around, the OAS and the UN appear to have been brought on board
with the foreknowledge of the coup, so as to guarantee (through their
complicity) their steadfast denial in the aftermath.

As CARICOM has been forced to take their demand for an investigation into
Aristide’s departure to the OAS, the outlook for this is grim. Already, the US
Ambassador to the OAS has declared that CARICOM’s request should be rejected.
Additionally, arch-racist Luigi Einaudi, who helped plan regime change in Haiti
with Otto Reich and Canada’s Denis Paradis, is the Assistant Secretary General
of the OAS. Another well-known racist, Roger Noriega, worked at the OAS
before his role at the State Department, and will undoubtedly seek to influence
them. As Ricky Singh recently opined:

"The USA, France and their allies who had influenced an emergency session of
the UN Security Council to rush troops to Haiti on the very day Aristide lost
power remain in an official denial mode that he was ousted from power."
(Caricom's challenge to OAS on Haiti, Wednesday, May19, 2004
http://www.trinidadexpress.com)

Across the globe, denial is all that the US Empire and its vassal states have
to rely on. This posture of denial is fuelled by the criminal propaganda that
passes as news and journalism as churned out by gigantic and increasingly
concentrated media corporations. How long can this denial hold up? As long as we
allow it to, I suppose, and as long as there is virtually no social cost to be
attributed to the perpetuation of this insanity. Haitians can only endure the
deadly realities of a US, Canadian, French and Chilean military occupation,
while death squads hunt them down with impunity in the North. At any given
time, mass mobilizations in solidarity by the citizens of these occupying
countries will be welcomed by Haitians.


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Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership
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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/campaigns/campaigns.html

and Haitiaction.net

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