22244: erzilidanto: Stan Goff - HAITI & VENEZUELA--COUP & EMPIRE (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/032304_haiti_pt1.html#_edn28

HAITI & VENEZUELA--COUP & EMPIRE

(Part I)

by
Stan Goff

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.)

[In this two-part analysis, Stan Goff exposes the underlying forces driving
the current crisis in Haiti. The recent coup d'etat is only the latest in two
centuries of violent transfers of power in that country – but today the
regional balance of forces is refreshingly new. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has
foiled a series of desperate CIA attempts to gain control of that
oil-producing nation. While the Bush administration arrogantly plays the same the old game
in the same old way, using the same old felons and convicted murderers, new
rules are being written by an awakening transnational solidarity in the
hemisphere. Markets, privatization of natural resources, drug routes, cheap labor –
all are at stake in the US elite's scramble for Haiti. But Goff shows how an
even more important motivation is stinging the Bush junta into frenzied action:
when white supremacy is symbolically wounded, others have to bleed.

Haiti was founded in 1804 after a roundly successful slave revolution.
Aristide is Haiti's first democratically elected President. Just before his
kidnapping at gunpoint, he had moved to double the Haitian minimum wage. And the
prospect of a dignified, self-governing Haiti free from the depredations of U.S.
economic warfare and CIA intervention is intolerable to the heroes of American
exceptionalism. Neoconservative ideologues, Jesse Helms-style Southern racists,
Miami exilios and organized crime players, intelligence men embarrassed by
even a whisper of successful populism – these are the planners of the coup and
the cover-up. Many learned their trade in the Iran-Contra period, or have
mentors who did; the pattern hasn't changed. Just as Nicaraguan self-determination
seemed to threatened the whole universe during the Reagan administration, from
the perspective of Washington and Langley a strong Haiti – under an
electorally legitimate Black president with a mandate and regional allies – would
surely bring the Earth crashing into the Sun. – FTW]

Stan Goff, Master Sergeant, U.S. Army Special Forces (Retired) is author of
Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the U.S. Invasion of Haiti (Soft Skull
Press, 2000), and Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American
Century Soft Skull Press, (February 9, 2004).

Full article at:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/032304_haiti_pt1.html#_edn28
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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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