22977: Esser: Haiti has not been forgotten (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The Final Call
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1533.shtml

Haiti has not been forgotten
By Bill Fletcher Jr.
-Guest Columnist-

Aug 16, 2004

(FinalCall.com) - When most of us do not hear about, read or see a
story for more than a few days, we either forget about it or figure
that everything has been “worked out.” We have not been hearing much
about Haiti recently, but I can assure you that things have not
“worked out.”

The coup of February 29, 2004 against the duly elected government of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resulted in a large-scale purge of
those connected with the president and his party, the Famni Lavalas.
Supporters and members have been chased underground or murdered. The
Bush administration has, essentially, blockaded Haiti and refused to
permit refugees access to our shores.

Workers attempting to unionize have been crushed. Various
institutions built during the Aristide administration have been
destroyed. U.S. troops, deployed to Haiti supposedly to restore
order, have done nothing to restore genuine constitutional democracy
or the real rule of law. Indeed, the military rebels—known, in the
words of Secretary of State Colin Powell, as “thugs”—remain armed and
effectively out of control, insisting that they constitute the core
of a reconstituted Haitian army.

Most of the nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) smelled a
rat as soon as the coup took place. In a display of courage that
should be forever rewarded, these small nations stood up against the
arrogant demands of the Bush administration, which insisted that
President Aristide stay out of the Caribbean and under de facto house
arrest in the Central African Republic. Nevertheless, the Bush
administration’s pressure has continued and it appears that some
cracks have emerged within CARICOM, with some countries moving toward
recognizing the coup-installed regime.

Current conditions make it less than likely that Haiti will be in a
position to have anything approaching legitimate elections. With a
continued atmosphere of squelching political dissent, multi-party
elections might take place, but it is improbable that they would
represent the will of the Haitian people.

In this setting, the message that emerges from the Bush
administration is that we should all “move on” from the circumstances
surrounding the coup. This is a coded term meaning, in effect, that
those of us with questions about the role of the Bush administration
in the coup or the circumstances under which President Aristide was
ousted should, to borrow from FOX commentator Bill O’Reilly, shut up.
We are asked to approve a situation that should be repudiated, and
assume that the clock cannot be turned back.

Such a course of action is unacceptable. While President Aristide,
presently living in exile in South Africa, does not seem to have
taken steps to establish a government-in-exile, the issues at stake
are far beyond “Aristide the person.” Democracy did not have to be
restored in February 2004 via an armed insurrection. Democracy needed
to have been shored up with international assistance through both the
elimination of the armed thugs who invaded Haiti, as well as the
provision of promised assistance to President Aristide’s government.
That did not happen. Instead, the Bush administration was permitted
to undermine the sovereignty of yet another country.

In essence, then, we cannot get over, or get beyond, what has taken
place in Haiti. In large part, this is because the effects of the
events of February 2004 in Haiti continue to unfold. It is also
because the motivations behind the Bush administration’s duplicity
and destabilization in Haiti remain central to their approach to
handling other international flash points. Unless the underlying
approach is challenged and ultimately rejected, we will never be able
to get over February 29th, because that will be only one day in a
terrible line of infamies.

(Bill Fletcher Jr. is president of TransAfrica Forum and co-chair of
the anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice
(www.unitedforpeace.org). He can be reached via email at
bfletcher@transafricaforum.org.)

© Copyright 2004 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com