22756: This Week in Haiti 22:19 07/21/2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                        July 21 - 27, 2004
                         Vol. 22, No. 19

 WASHINGTON ORGANIZES BOGUS "AID CONFERENCE" TO PROMOTE HAITI'S
 COUP REGIME

The U.S. and European powers, along with the international
lending institutions they employ, organized an "International
Donors Conference" this week ostensibly to raise financial
capital for Haiti's development. But by its close, it was clear
that the conference was really just a giant and expensive theater
production to raise political capital for the skeptically-
regarded regime of de facto prime minister Gérard Latortue, which
Washington installed following the Feb. 29th coup against
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The conference, which took place from July 19-20 at the World
Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, raised $1.085 billion in
pledges for Haitian development, an apparent success.

But closer examination reveals that almost all of the money came
from the very governments and institutions which organized the
conference.

Although the event was attended by hundreds of delegates from
over 20 countries and 30 intergovernmental and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), it was three of the four conference hosts
which provided the lion's share of the aid: the World Bank with
$150 million, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with $260
million and the European Commission with $325 million, for a
total of $735 million. (The United Nations was the fourth host.)

The two nations most responsible for installing and backing the
Latortue de facto regime then kicked in another $264 million: the
U.S. with $230 million and France with $34 million.

So 92% of the money "raised"   some $999 million   was from the
very sectors which broadsided, boycotted, and undercut the
democratically elected government of Haiti to install a coup
government.

On the eve of the conference, its organizers set their pledge
goal at $924 million, saying that Haiti needed $1.365 billion
until September 2006 for its "interim cooperation framework"
(ICF) and had financing for about $440 million. But setting the
bar below what they already knew would be coming in from
themselves, the conference organizers, makes the remarks of
Caroline Anstey, the World Bank's director for the Caribbean,
appear rather disingenuous. "I am delighted to say we raised more
than expected," she said, "which reflects a great vote of
confidence in the interim government and signals a bright future
for Haiti."

Canada, Washington's faithful second in Haiti, pledged $135
million, which brings the pledge total to $1.134 billion, $49
million more than the announced $1.085 billion.

"The pledged amount is the high water mark, and in reality, it's
only going to go down from here," said John Ruthrauff, a policy
analysis with Oxfam America, who attended the conference. "In
most situations, the full pledges are not fulfilled. Furthermore,
Haiti has to apply for this money to the donors," which often
duplicate, delay, modify, or cancel projects. "It's not like
tomorrow the donors sit down and write checks out. So even though
there is $1 billion pledged, if they get $500 million in the next
two years, they'll be doing very well," he said.

Furthermore, over one-third of the money pledged   some $410
million from the World Bank and IDB   is not grants but loans,
which will plunge the country deeper into a debt. "Haiti already
owes $1.2 billion, and their trade income is only about $250
million a year," Ruthrauff said. "So the loans are simply going
to dig a deeper hole, and I don't believe they will be able to
pay it off."

A demonstration of about 25 protestors outside the conference
delivered this message to delegates as they arrived between 8 and
9 a.m. on July 20."We said we don't want to see donors invest in
the 'interim cooperative framework' that has been put forward by
the Latortue regime," explained Melinda Miles, a co-coordinator
of the Haiti Reborn project at the Quixote Center, which called
the action with the 50 Years is Enough Network, the Jubilee USA
Network, EPICA, and the Haiti Action Committee. "We consider this
government to be a de facto coup regime and not a legitimate
government that has the capacity to sign any kind of lasting
agreement for the Haitian people. We're deeply concerned that the
U.S., the UN and this entire group of donors seem to ignore the
grave human rights violations and violence being perpetrated in
Haiti, the majority of the victims of this violence being the
supporters of the former Lavalas government."

The protestors also called for debt cancellation as an
alternative plan for Haiti's development and denounced Latortue's
plans to push forward privatization of Haiti's remaining state
industries, including the phone company, electricity authority,
water utility, and airport. "We think it's very hypocritical for
the donor community, which withheld and blocked money to the
democratically elected government, to be jumping at the first
opportunity to give money to a de facto regime just because it is
willing to move forward with privatization," Miles said.
"Privatization should never happen under any regime that is not
democratic."

Most fundamentally, the conference aimed at projecting an image
that there is broad international support for Latortue's
government, which remains unrecognized by its Caribbean
neighbors, the Organization of African Unity, Venezuela, and
other countries. "The conference tried to put a political stamp
of approval on the interim government," said the attending
representative of one prominent NGO in Washington, who requested
anonymity. "There was no opportunity for discussion of the
political situation. There was this facade projected that the
interim government is the best thing that has happened to Haiti
and that the people of Haiti are rejoicing and welcoming the
interim government and that the plan that they have is what will
turn Haiti around. There was absolutely no discussion about the
regime change and how it was carried out. It was not spoken of
from the lectern."

Most of the donors present were willing to "play the game,"
according to this source. But at one point, Bernard Gousse,
Haiti's de facto Justice Minister, took issue with a conference
document which identified women as a "vulnerable group" subject
to domestic violence and rape, saying they were not.

"That comment got a silent collective gasp from the crowd and a
woman from the United Nations stood up and challenged that," the
NGO representative said.

Participating in the conference were not only Latortue's
lieutenants, but putschists like Rosny Desroches, head of the
Civil Society Initiative and lackey of André Apaid, the assembly
industrialist leader of the Group of 184.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also addressed the
conference, saying that "I have had much to do with events in
Haiti" by negotiating Aristide's return in 1994. "Unfortunately,
in the years subsequent to 1994, we didn't see the kind of
progress that we had hoped for," he said. "We saw a great deal of
investment from the international community not used for proper
purposes." Through this conference's planning, the U.S., using
its minions as overseers, wants to now make sure that the Haitian
government it set in place carries out "development" in the
"proper" way.

In short, the plans and strategies proposed by the ICF conference
"did not in any way involve representatives of the poorest people
of the country" but were "written by some 200 external
consultants," Oxfam's Ruthrauff concluded.

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Please credit Haiti Progres.

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