22651: This Week in Haiti 22:17 07/07/2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                        July 7 - 13, 2004
                         Vol. 22, No. 17

EXILED POPULAR ORGANIZATION LEADER DISMISSES MASSACRE CHARGE
by Kim Ives

A terrible massacre took place in St. Marc last February.

But it did not happen on Feb. 11 as alleged by the de facto
Haitian government. It happened on Feb. 29, the day that U.S.
Marines overthrew Haiti's constitutional government by kidnapping
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and flying him into exile.

On that day, members of RAMICOS, an anti-government group linked
to the death-squad-led Haitian "rebels" then occupying Gonaïves
and Cap Haïtien, publicly tortured and killed seven members of
Balewouze, a pro-Lavalas popular organization.

The victims were hacked to death with machetes. Their bodies were
paraded around town or dragged through the streets behind
vehicles. They were then burned. Numerous journalists and even
human rights groups were present for the carnage.

The victims' homes were also looted and burned.

This is the account delivered by a leading member of Balewouze,
who is presently in a tenuous exile abroad. He asked that his
name not be revealed until he is in a more secure status. We'll
call him Robert.

He scoffed at the charge that there was a massacre in St. Marc on
Feb. 11, for which Haiti's de facto authorities arrested Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune on Jun. 27 (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 22, No.
16, 6/30/2004).

On the contrary, RAMICOS took over St. Marc on Feb. 7, the day
one million people filled the streets of Port-au-Prince to show
support for President Aristide. "First RAMICOS overran the police
station, taking all the weapons and ammunition," Robert said.
"Then they burned the police station, the customs house, the
court house and the house of the CASEC [a local official], Ernest
Pascale."

Two days later, specialized units of the Haitian police along
with the population took back control of the town. Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune flew in by helicopter for a televised visit.

"But in the early morning hours of Wednesday, [Feb. 11], a group
of individuals fired on the headquarters of Balewouze, and two
Balewouze members were wounded," Robert explained. "The deputy
[of St. Marc, Amanus Mayette] has a cousin called Dr. Mayette,
and he sent the wounded to Dr. Mayette. Then some members of
RAMICOS arrived. They told the doctor that he had to hand over
the wounded Balewouze members. The doctor refused. They burned
his clinic."

At this point, the police "knowing that they were the only legal
force in St. Marc" intervened, Robert continued. "The RAMICOS
members fired on the police, and the police fired back," he said.
"Several RAMICOS members were wounded. One policeman was wounded.
After the attack, it seems that two or three people were killed.
The police made several arrests and some people ran away."

The police said that five people were killed in the violent
clashes that day in St. Marc.

"In no way can the events of Feb. 11 be called a massacre,"
Robert concluded. "There was a gun battle between the police and
an armed gang which had burned down a radio station [Radio
Pyramide on Jan. 15], a clinic, public buildings and private
homes. Then they were going after a doctor's patients."

The U.S. government-backed National Coalition for Haitian Rights
(NCHR) claims that 50 people were "massacred" by government
forces on Feb. 11. When asked for physical evidence, NCHR
Executive Director Pierre Espérance responded that the bodies and
bones were eaten by dogs.

In contrast, survivors of the Feb. 29 massacre, interviewed by
the Haiti Commission of Inquiry in the Dominican Republic in
March, gave the names (some partial) of the seven people killed:
Jeanty Renonce, Somoza, brothers Dieulifet and Patrick Fleury,
brothers Judener and Judenel, and Gédéon Hamson.

"You never hear the press say anything about the Feb. 29
massacre," Robert said. "And yet they were there. Reporters
Without Borders was there. Not a word. And now they are trying to
make the victims look like the executioners."

ABC OF OPPORTUNISM:
"PROGRESSIVE" LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS SUPPORT THE COUP IN HAITI
by Stan Goff

After a coup d'état planned, coordinated, and executed by the
most reactionary elements in Haiti, with the substantial material
support of the governments of the United States and its
ever-obedient Dominican Republic, the proud nation of Haiti is
again under foreign military occupation. The shameful fact,
however, is that this time the occupation is being carried out by
not only by the French, whose savage imperial history there is
well known, and by the Canadians (perennial handmaidens of the
US), but by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile   three nations who have
themselves been victimized by the covert operations establishment
of the United States, and governments who are making the
now-specious claim that they are "progressive."

The Haitian people and their popular organizations are utterly
astonished by this grotesque betrayal and unabashed political
opportunism. More than one Haitian with whom I spoke while there
for three weeks in June posed the question: How will these
allegedly leftist governments respond when and if we attack them?

This was not a rhetorical question.

Almost everyone with whom I spoke said explicitly that they would
welcome such an attack as a needed catalyst to initiate another
general uprising. The spectrum of opinion on this question ranged
from those who merely asserted that attacking occupiers was a
right, to those who said it will become a patriotic duty. In the
interest of full disclosure, I did not speak with the
macouto-bourgeois faction in Port-au-Prince who had been on the
payroll of the US Embassy, via the International Republican
Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy.

In fact, I spoke with few urban dwellers at all. On this trip, it
seemed appropriate   given the demagogy about democracy with
which we are constantly assailed   to go where the Haitian
majority lives: the countryside. I encountered not a single
peasant (at least in the Central Plateau) who accepted Latortue
or anyone else in the de facto government appointed by the United
States. They regard them not even with fear, but with derision as
fools. What might surprise those unfamiliar with Haiti was how
well many peasants understand the paradox of these Latin American
occupiers. Almost all had heard of the landless peasants'
movement in Brazil, and wondered if these kinds of formations in
Latin America might not rise up against their own governments for
participating in the consolidation of the coup d'état in Haiti.

The timing of this coup d'état   Haitians believe, and I agree
on the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution constitutes an
intentional humiliation of Haiti, shepherded as it was by Roger
Noriega, former aid to arch-racist Jesse Helms. That intent
festers with every passing day in the sullen and smoldering
determination that this will not stand.

The people of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (A, B, & C) should
perhaps grasp the ABC of American covert operations better than
their ostensible leaders. Lending the US a hand in one imperial
enterprise will not protect them from the predations of the US.
In fact, it only strengthens the hand of the US foreign policy
establishment to commit the same crimes against them when it's
expedient. That applies to the liberal US establishment   now out
of power   that wants to increment its domination through
financial structures, but it applies even more immediately to the
black-shirted reactionaries of this administration who, if we
look closely, are an aging replication of the self-same clique
that brought us the Iran-Contra-Cocaine scandal   men who left
thousands of Latin American bodies in their wakes.

Has Argentina's Kirchner forgotten the US's supportive role
during the Dirty War? Has Chile's Lagos forgotten 1973 and the
CIA attack on Chilean popular sovereignty? And has Brazil's de
Silva developed amnesia with regard to Goulart's ouster at the
hands of the same CIA in 1964?

How is it, then, that these nations, of all nations, can send
their militaries to prop up the transparent coup d'etat against
yet another democratically elected government? How have they
become obliged, in the face of their own histories of struggle
against US plotters and assassins, to support this racist
subjugation of a fellow Latin American nation?

Driving through Gonaïves, I saw pimply-faced youth in Canadian
uniforms waving from atop their armored personnel carriers in the
apparent expectation that they will be received with accolades
à la the Chalabi hallucination of cheering crowds in Iraq   only
to be met with hostility and contempt from the street. The flags
of A, B, & C snapped in the wind from behind barricades at
Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport in Port-au-Prince, but the
post-pubescent lads from those countries will soon be pushed out
into Haiti's genpop, and it is inevitable that some will be
attacked.

How will these governments   all claiming to be progressive
explain themselves to their own general populations then? The
United Nations imprimatur will be cold comfort indeed for the
families of the fallen and a puny poultice for the political
wounds resulting not from the actions of an external Right, like
the manufactured crisis that culminated in the kidnapping of
Aristide in Haiti, but from the home grown Left in A, B, & C
themselves.

This acquiescence   no, collaboration   with the diktat of the US
will not loosen the parasitic grip of the Imperial Center on a
single Latin American, nor will it ameliorate that Center's
intent to continue exploiting the entire region until it is used
up and dead. This pious fantasy that cooperation will be rewarded
has been the downfall of many a leader, including Aristide who
was taken from his home after calling for "peaceful mobilization"
even in the faced of murderous paramilitaries.

It looks more and more, at least to this writer, like there are
only three Latin American leaders left with a spine   Fidel
Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Manuel Marulanda. With the commitment of
troops to the coup against Haitian popular sovereignty, Kirchner,
de Silva, and Lagos have displayed a craven disregard for their
own people and for their own histories. They now stand
objectively as allies of Jesse Helms   a man who praised
D'Aubuisson's death squads, and who never relented in his
commitment to American Apartheid.

May they all admit this terrible error and quit Haiti now, or may
history mark them with shame.

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of
the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of "Full
Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He is a member of
the BRING THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee, a retired
Special Forces master sergeant, and the father of an active duty
soldier. Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org. Goff
can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org.

MAPOU FLOOD AFTERMATH:
GRASSROOT EFFORTS REDRESS NEGLECT OF REMOTE TOWNS

Little or no aid has reached hundreds of people in remote
villages of the flood-ravaged rural section of Mapou in southeast
Haiti, according to Ninaj Raoul, director of the Brooklyn-based
Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR). Twice in the past
month, she has traveled by jeep to the towns   or rather the
ruins of towns   of Katidye and Galet in concert with several
other grassroots groups to deliver bags of food and clothing.

HWHR raised some $6,000 in aid from individuals and Haitian
community groups in Brooklyn like KAKOLA, an anti-coup coalition.
The Janin & Marie Raoul Foundation, established by Ninaj's late
father, contributed $2,000 to the pot, and also gave a $2,000
grant to HWHR to cover administration, transport and travel
costs.

Haïti Progrès interviewed Ninaj on June 26 at her Brooklyn office
just after her first trip.

HP: Please tell us who was on your June delegation and how was it
organized.

Ninaj Raoul: We were working with Movimiento de Mujeres
Dominicano-Haitiana (MUDHA), an organization of Haitian-Dominican
women which started in 1983. They are part of an emergency
response coalition which also includes the parish of Father Pedro
Ruquoy in Barahona, one of the bateys for Haitian sugar cane
cutters. There was also the Haitian Pastoral Association.

Two of us from HWHR went down from New York.. We brought some
medical supplies and some dried foods.

When we got down to the DR, we had meetings. There was a list of
about 300 families in these two towns - Katidye and Galet   which
are part of Mapou and which apparently no aid had reached. So we
decided to drive over in three pick-up trucks.

We passed through Pedernales, which is at the southwestern tip of
the Dominican Republic and drove to the neighboring Haitian town
of Anse-à-Pitres. Just the day before we were going to leave, we
heard that some people in Anse-à-Pitres were saying that no food
was going to get by because they are hungry too. So that way
MUDHA was bringing one extra truckload to allow the other two
truckloads to get through. So there were three pick-up trucks but
two larger trucks of food too. It was 500 bags of food and
clothing for 300 families. It took awhile to load it. We in fact
were not there when the trucks arrived. We passed them at the
border on our way back.

In the towns, the situation was bleak. People told us that they
had lost most of their family members, and almost all the homes
were gone. Where the towns had been there was just a flat plain
of white rocks. Absolutely no international aid had reached
there, except on one occasion when some people said that they got
two little cans of rice.

In order for them to reach the area where the helicopters had
been coming down, which is on the other side of the mountains in
another part of Mapou, they would have to walk two hours each way
to get there. Some had attempted to do that. But when they got
there, they were bullied. The people from that area got the food
and not them because they were considered outsiders. One lady had
her head gashed   it was still bandaged up   so they said it
wasn't worth it. Some people made the trip, but got nothing. They
said at one time they heard a load of food was coming to them by
sea, but by the time they got to the coast, other people from the
other side of Mapou had gotten there first and nothing was left.

HP: Have there been any visits from the de facto Haitian
government?

NR: I read this week that the Haitian government was saying it
couldn't reach there because the roads are covered with debris
and so forth. I know the road that we took was one that had not
been used in years. The previous used road to Mapou had been
washed away in the floods. But we were able to get there. And on
the way, we met two NGOs: a representative of the Red Cross from
Santo Domingo, and some Haitians working with Save the Children.
They asked us if the road from Pedernales to Katidye was safe. We
told them absolutely, because we had just used it.

Neither of those delegations were bringing any aid. They were
just going to visit the area to check out the situation and they
were in SUVs.

HP: So some towns in Mapou got aid at the expense of others?

NR: Some aid has reached some parts of Mapou. In some areas, the
Red Cross is moving people up to higher ground as a precaution,
in case water comes through again.

There were previously more loads of aid going in by helicopter.
But since the U.S. Marines have pulled out, so have the
helicopters, and such deliveries are now rare. Some NGOs went
there by horse or by mules, I heard. The women of MUDHA
originally went by horse, and then by boat. This was the first
time they traveled there by car.

But basically nothing had reached these two towns: Katidye and
Galet. The people had been surviving off of mangos, many of them
unripe green mangos. There was also a little corn which survived
as well.

HP: Can you describe the scene and the people there?

NR: As I said, the town [of Katidye] is now just a field of white
rocks. It's shocking when people say "The church used to be here,
the school used to be here, my house used to be here," etc. You
don't even see remnants of the houses. You don't even see an old
wall. I saw only two or three houses remaining. These people had
been sleeping under trees...

I really admire these people. For some reason, the people in
Galet looked a little weaker than the folks we saw in Katidye.
They were very thankful and receptive of our visit. They wondered
if anyone knew of their plight. "What are they saying about us?"
they asked.  Because no aid has reached them, they're wondering
if people even know that they are there. We had a two hour
meeting with them. We let them know that there was aid on the
way. We talked to them about the necessity to organize to receive
aid and to redevelop, which is hard to think about when you are
hungry.

HP: Is more aid needed, and how can people help?

NR: Absolutely there is aid needed. I feel that what we are doing
is a drop in the bucket because we're a bunch of small
organizations. Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees is a tiny
organization. MUDHA is a small organization and more established
than us. They've been around longer, yet they're small. As of
Monday (6/22), they sent down two more people to look for another
road since the one we took was so rough. They went through
Jimani, to the north, instead of Pedernales. They came through
Fond Verettes to reach Mapou, and that road was a little better
than the one we took. So that will be the new road to use. As of
June 25, they went back. MUDHA contacted the Red Cross, which
gave them tents. So their setting up tents to keep staff down
there. MUDHA will have two people down there. We'll have one
person there. And the Red Cross will have one person in Katidye
to help with distribution and health aid.

So there is aid needed, and people can contact us at Haitian
Women for Haitian Refugees at 718-735-4660 or call MUDHA at 809-
686-3300.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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