22295: Fenton: Why did Canada support a U.S. coup in Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Anthony Fenton <apfenton@ualberta.ca>

Even progressive Canadians know little about the Canadian complicity
with a U.S. occupation.
http://www.rabble.ca
by Tom Reeves
June 7, 2004


I traveled to Haiti in March to see for myself the results of a
U.S.-orchestrated regime change. I had been to Haiti many times since
1977. During the 1990s, I organized delegations to investigate human
rights violations by the Haitian military junta that ousted Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in 1991, after his overwhelming victory in the first democratic
election in Haitian history. This year, I found a U.S. occupation not unlike
that in Iraq, but one of which very few Canadians or Americans are aware.

The U.S. dominated occupation of Haiti after a violent and U.S.-supported
rebellion by vicious thugs and right-wing former military is scheduled to
give way June 20 (three weeks late) to a United Nations peace-keeping
force, headed by Brazil. The Haitian puppet regime of Gerard Latortue has
asked the Americans to remain, but the U.S. seems eager to get most of
its troops back to Iraq.

The question that remains unanswered — and mostly unasked — by
Canadian politicians and media is: Why did Canada support a U.S. coup
in Haiti? That question was implied by a senior diplomat with CARICOM
(Caribbean Community), the alliance of 15 of Haiti's Caribbean
neighbours: “We're a little disappointed in Canada's response because
we're not sure where Canada stood on the whole issue....” The issue is
the manner in which Aristide was removed from Haiti on February 29 of
this year. The question will continue to dog Canada as some Canadian
troops will be involved in the peace-keeping force as well.

It's the same question I asked the Canadian Ambassador to Haiti,
Kenneth Cook, during a two-hour interview in Port au Prince on March 29.
Cook said, “As far as I'm concerned, there is no evidence of a kidnapping.
I don't have a position on the request to the United Nations by the
CARICOM countries for an investigation into the circumstances of the
removal of Aristide. If there were (one), it should be brief in order not to
interfere with the task of rebuilding the country.”

“Rebuilding the country,” as organized by the U.S., involves similar
strategies to the U.S. plan for Iraq — where Canada refused to go along.
U.S. marines regularly march into the poor neighbourhoods that remain
staunch Aristide strongholds, alongside the reconstituted and militarized
Haitian National police, with both the marines and the police firing into
houses and groups of people on the street. Bodies appear in the Port au
Prince morgues daily from these incursions. Marines also regularly
invade private homes, allegedly to search for weapons — which they very
rarely find — and they do so with an over-kill that amazes even supporters
of the U.S. occupation.

After more than three months in Haiti, some 3,700 troops — the bulk of
whom are U.S., but including more than 500 Canadians — have little to
show for their intervention. Inflation has spiraled even beyond that for
which Aristide was criticized. A New York Times article June 1 reports that
a 50-kilogram sack of rice — the most precious commodity in Haiti —
sold for $22.50 in January (under Aristide) and has fluctuated between
$45 and $37 since then. The Times article, by Tim Wiener, commented:
“One lesson of life in Haiti is never say things cannot get worse. They can
and they have. People say they have less money, less food and less hope
since the February revolt.” Although the U.S. Marines spokesperson, Sgt.
Dave Lapan, told the Associated Press on May 30 that more than 20,000
weapons remain in the hands of possible combatants, he admitted the
marines have seized fewer than 200.

On May 10, U.S. Marines violently attacked the family compound in Port au
Prince of a well-known folk singer, Annette Auguste (also known as Sò
Anne). One of the best known Haitian musicians, she lived and performed
for 20 years in New York City. “It seemed like they were going after Osama
bin Laden or something,” said her son Reginald Auguste, who lives in
the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, according to New York Newsday (May
23, 2004). An anti-Aristide commentator asked, “Why did they have to go in
with explosives, guns firing? Why did they have to kill her two dogs and
shackle even her six-year-old grandson.”

On May 18, the marines went further, accompanying police and firing
indiscriminately at the tens of thousands of Haitians demonstrating on
Haiti's Flag Day, demanding the return of their elected president. The
Associated Press reported nine deaths from police fire, but a U.S. reporter
on the scene, Kevin Pina, said there were at least 12 deaths, including
one person he saw shot by a Marine. (Flashpoints Radio, KPFA,
Berkeley,CA, May 18, 2004.)

None of this reaches mainstream media in Canada or the U.S. Even
progressive Canadians know little about the Canadian complicity with a
U.S. occupation that is almost like that in Iraq. Long after she reviewed
data concerning the elections of 2000 — which rebels and the U.S. both
used to de-legitimize the Aristide government — Montreal Gazette reporter
Sue Montgomery, writing on June 1, continued to parrot the U.S. view —
that Aristide's election in 2000 is suspected by some to have been stolen.
No election observers ever doubted that Aristide was overwhelmingly
elected (92 per cent of the vote with a more than 60 per cent turnout) —
only that elections for eight of his Lavalas Senators were problematic.
Seven of these resigned to make way for new elections, only to have
these boycotted by the opposition.

Montgomery continues to talk about “years of terror” from “pro-Aristide
chimère” (a derogatory term used by those who hate Aristide's Lavalas
movement of Haiti's poorest people). This is despite lack of evidence that
such armed gangs in Haiti's slums were controlled or encouraged by
Aristide. She fails to mention the widely documented bloody war against
Lavalas members. Those who read or listen to most Canadian media
assume that Aristide was a dictator who lost his popularity due to
corruption and human rights abuses. Nothing could be further from the
truth. As Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned physician whose clinic
in Haiti treats thousands of AIDS patients, told me, “Everybody knows that
Aristide was bad. Everybody, that is, except the Haitian poor — 85 per cent
of the population.”

CARICOM, joined by most African states, some Pacific nations, Venezuela
and Cuba, continues to demand an investigation into what happened.
Jamaica welcomed Aristide despite U.S. pressure not to allow him to
return to the Caribbean. South Africa, on May 30, welcomed him as
continuing head of state and a hero. Canada remains silent about the
CARICOM request for an investigation. Meanwhile, in late April in
Washington, Prime Minister Paul Martin and President George W. Bush
celebrated their joint action in Haiti as an effort to restore democracy and
rebuild a shattered country.

CARICOM and the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus insist Aristide did
not resign, and was forced to fly to an unknown destination. The U.S. took
him to what the State Department calls the “most violent capital in the
world,” Bangui, Central African Republic. Many have indeed called this a
kidnapping. The Creole specialist hired by the State Department to
translate what the U.S. called a “resignation letter,” says it began, “If I
were
to resign....” This was clearly not a letter of voluntary resignation. That
view
was dismissed as “ridiculous” by U.S. officials and most news
commentators.

Kenneth Cook told me he had not seen the Creole version and asked me
to provide a copy. I sent him the web address of the State Department
expert who did the translation. Canadian officials I spoke with seemed
clueless about the details of the removal of Aristide and the current
U.S.-supported repression. One Canadian diplomat told me, “Really, we
have little of our own intelligence on Haiti. We rely on the U.S. for that.”

Canada's troops will remain part of the U.N. operation. Had Canada not
been part of the U.S.-led occupation, it would be poised to play a clearer
role in peace-keeping. A diplomat with an international agency in Haiti told
me, “Almost everyone in Haiti believes the U.S. hand was behind the
so-called rebellion and the removal of their elected president. Canada,
and even France accepted at face value everything the U.S. told them. It is
sad that Canada did not carve out an independent position on Haiti.”

The reason Canada went along with the U.S. so completely may have little
to do with Haiti, and everything to do with Canadian politics. Martin seeks
to demonstrate that Canada is not “anti-US” in its foreign policy, despite
Canada's independent posture on Iraq. Haiti was the easiest place for
this demonstration.

Anthony Fenton, a free-lance Canadian journalist, summarized the
Canadian Connection, in a ZNet article about the emergency House of
Commons debate in early March on Canada's Haiti role. Stockwell Day for
the Conservatives, “referred to Aristide's removal as 'regime
change'...quite matter of factly.” Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham
rejected this terminology: “...This was not regime change according to the
Security Council.”

The NDP's Svend Robinson asked about the conference on Haiti last
January near Ottawa, with French, Canadian and U.S. diplomats present
but none from Haiti. L'Actualite's Michel Vastel reported (March 15, 2003)
that the topic discussed was the removal of Aristide and a UN trusteeship
afterward. As Fenton says, “....Robinson received no response, though it
is said the hum of paper shredders could be heard echoing throughout
the House...”

In a later article, Fenton is more scathing in his critique of Canadian
politicians of all stripes, but especially the Martin-camp Liberals. Calling
Canada a vassal state of the U.S. empire, Fenton writes: “the consensus
in Canada is that people were unanimously calling for Aristide's
'departure'. 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.”

After a whirl-wind visit by Graham (it lasted less than 24 hours), he
proclaimed the occupation a success, and indicated a long-range
Canadian presence. This just may please all quarters of Canadian
politics. The NDP and more progressive Liberals can point to Canada's
humanitarian approach, while Liberal and Conservative hawks will be
pleased to see military intervention.

But it's not likely to please the poor people of Haiti or the CARICOM
diplomats. In the long run, Canada may regret not taking the high road of
support for Caribbean sovereignty instead of the expedient path of least
resistance to U.S. policy goals. If the real story of Haiti is ever told in
major
Canadian media, the Haitian debacle could be one more nail in Martin's
political coffin.

**Tom Reeves has organized nine delegations to Haiti before during and
after the first coup against President Aristide in the 1990s. He was
Professor and Director of the Caribbean Focus Program at Roxbury
Community College in Boston from 1977 until his retirement in 2001.