23462: Esser: A coup made long in advance (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

ZNet Haiti News
http://www.zmag.org/lam/haitiwatch.cfm

A coup made long in advance 	 
 	 	 
October 17, 2004	 

Patrick Elie interviewed by Anthony Fenton

This interview took place on October 9th, 2004. Patrick Elie is
Haiti's former Minister of Defense, was at one point responsible for
anti-narcotics, and is former head of security. Presently, he heads
the Jean Dominique Echo Foundation.

Fenton: In your recent article "The Coup D'etat of April 3, 2000" you
write:

"[Independent radio journalist] Jean Dominique was our "army of one,"
the political immune system of the popular democratic movement. For
the abomination of February 29, 2004 to succeed, he had to be
permanently removed from the scene. "

"We must fight relentlessly for his killers to be brought to justice
and for the truth to come out about this brutal assassination. We
stand convinced today, that if the triggermen and local planners were
Haitians, the masterminds of the crime are the same who engineered
the February coup and who have always considered targeted
assassination as a normal tool of foreign policy." 

 Given the events of today, how clear is it who's behind both of
these events" And go into that background putting into context what's
happened this past week or so by way of violence and repression.
Clarify what you mean by who is behind this destabilization and who
is behind this political assassination

Elie:  I think not only Haiti, but people who have been involved in
politics in Latin America especially, and studied the history there,
can see that there is a long history of involvement of U.S. offices
like the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and the DIA[Defense
Intelligence Agency] in the removal or destabilization of governments
that don't fit the interests of the U.S. We have examples in
Guatemala, we have examples in Argentina, and most recently, we've
seen how President Chavez in Venezuela has been treated. Fortunately
he was able to resist this destabilization campaign, but in our case
we didn't resist. Maybe one should try to understand how and why it
was different in Haiti then in Venezuela, but in Haiti, I'd say from
1987 to now it's been the third coup d'etat.

One tends to forget that there was a first one in November 29, 1987,
which I could describe as a preventive coup d'etat. This time, the
Haitians were ready to vote en masse for a candidate who was totally
different from Jean Bertrand Aristide, but the problem for the U.S.
was that by voting en masse and electing a President, the Haitian
people, and I'm talking about the poor majority, would have gained
conscience of their own power and their own importance as political
actors. And, as you know, the army, which is nothing but the tool,
the puppet of the U.S. DIA and CIA, massacred the voters and
cancelled the election before organizing their own sham election. So,
in the case of the last coup [February 29th, 2004] it was so obvious
that the U.S. intervened directly, actually snatched the President
away in the middle of the night, so when I say that the same people
are behind the coup d'etat are behind the assassination of Jean
Dominique, just as they were behind the assassination of Antoine
Izmery, I'm talking about the strategists of the organizations like
the CIA and the DIA, which people do not speak enough of, which is
probably the most powerful intelligence agency in the U.S., and has a
larger budget than the CIA.

Fenton: To what extent is the DIA involved right now? Who have been
their 'point men' these past four years?

Elie: Who their point men are in Haiti is not something that is easy
to identify in the sense that these people specialize in covert
operations, but traditionally the U.S. CIA and DIA acted through the
Haitian military. Often the military was even trained and
indoctrinated in the U.S. proper, in what is called the School of the
Americas, and that's how and where they were recruited. But of course
the CIA didn't act only through the military, they acted through some
local politicians. These days, with the army being disbanded by
President Aristide, it is logical that the U.S. services have gone
through the Haitian police to penetrate the security apparatus of
Haiti, but also, as I think it should be clear for every observer,
they have not renounced using the ex-military and ex-paramilitary
death squads who were obviously trained in the Dominican Republic
[DR], and then infiltrated into Haiti.

I don't know if your familiar with the DR, but it is a country which
has a very strong repression apparatus; it's a very policed society
and the idea that 80-200 men could be armed, trained in the DR
without the assent of the government or the army there is totally
preposterous. This was done with the complicity of the Dominican
services, and they are but the proxies for the U.S. CIA and DIA. So,
there again you see that the tools of the politics of the U.S. down
in Haiti always goes back to either the army or the death squads or,
generally, the repression forces. At the beginning of this chat you
were referring to the latest in Haiti, the violence and the ensuing
repression. I think that this is also classical textbook technique to
justify the destruction of a popular movement. What you do is that in
the name of that movement you organize some violence against, for
example, the political opposition or against the police, and then
this justifies an all out repression.

Lately, as you've heard, it's been said that three policemen, or even
more, the numbers vary all the time, even though actual corpses have
not been presented; but three policemen have been killed by Lavalas
grassroots organizations. One has to wonder why Lavalas, who have
been trying to strike a kind of alliance with the National Police in
front of the ex-soldiers, would now attack the police and find itself
under repression by both the police and the ex-military; it would be
totally stupid, and on top of that, for at least a month now the
bourgeoisie through the Group of 184 as well as some other political
parties have been pressuring for the neutralization of Lavalas, and
asking for more repression, and what we are seeing now is just the
execution of that plan by the Haitian forces of repression, but also,
it seems [because, at the moment I am out of the country], with the
help of the UN forces who are in total breach of their purported
mission, if the UN is now acting as a dictatorship-supporting force,
this should be denounced very strongly.

Fenton: The events of September 30th seemed to be and has
http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/10_1_4.html been reported to be a
clear provocation, where this special unit of police fired
indiscriminately into crowds of demonstrators, whereupon these masked
individuals appeared and fired back, killing these police in the
crossfire.

Elie: Yes, for me it was clear, and I've heard reports also that it
was ex-army members coming out of the Ministry of Interior going out
and shooting at the crowd. You know, since February 29th, Family
Lavalas, especially the grassroots organizations of Bel Air and Cite
Soleil, have organized at least four or five demonstrations. They're
the only political group or sensibility that can actually put people
out in the street. At any rate, none of these demonstrations were
marred by violence, so it's difficult to ascribe this violence to
Family Lavalas. What is happening is that every demonstration was
stronger than the preceding one. Obviously, especially in view of the
total ineptitude of the de facto government, the resistance was
gaining momentum and it had to be stopped, and that, I think, is the
reason for the events of September 30th. It had to be stopped, it was
too obvious that the Haitian people are for the return of legitimacy
in their country, the respect of the vote of the Haitian people, and
respect of Haiti's sovereignty. So, it had to be stopped, and the
only way to stop it is through violence and repression.

Fenton: Repression, which they've been employing with vigor since
February 29th. Meanwhile, the United Nations has only been able to
fulfil 50% of its originally projected troop mandate.  American,
Canadian and French troops all more or less left by the end of July,
leaving a situation that seems like an interesting pretext for the
discussions concerning the reestablishment of the former military…

Elie: It's interesting to see how the France and the U.S. mostly, but
Canada almost as a puppet of U.S. policy, went into Haiti and created
this mess, because a mess it is, although not on the scale of Iraq,
of the same nature, and then left the 'hurt baby' in the hands of the
UN. I think that the UN is running a high risk of losing even more of
its credibility if they don't play this quite right. What they've
[the de facto regime] been trying to do from the very beginning is to
try to get the UN to do the dirty work, go out in the popular
neighbourhoods and start shooting, the way the U.S. troops do it, and
have done it in Bel Air, especially in the beginning of March of this
year. The UN has to be very, very careful about that.

We have talked to the UN representative in Haiti, specifically
warning him about this role that they were trying to force the UN in
to, and unfortunately they seem to be falling into this trap. I say
'they seem' because as I said I'm not in Haiti at the moment so I
don't have http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/10_9_4.html detailed
reports of the latest events, especially with all of the arrests
which were made in Bel Air where they made really by and with the
help of the UN or by Haitian forces; that remains to be seen. But
clearly there is a huge danger of escalation of the violence if the
current trend becomes clearer, and this is something that
international public opinion should be warned about because with the
general complicity of the mainstream media they're going to be
killing Haitians by the hundreds and it won't even make the last page
in the newspaper or even be mentioned on TV or on radio. And this
would be a catastrophe because as you well know and as history has
proven, the escalation of violence, the introduction of violence into
politics only breeds more violence, and we've had enough of that
already.

Fenton: It's well http://www/ijdh.org documented by now the number of
deaths that have taken place since February 29th, and the corporate
media has reported none of these. You look at how they flocked down
there to cover the floods, and there has subsequently been a complete
absence of the political context as well…

Elie: You know what strikes me also is that all of these
disinformation campaigns about the 'militias' of Lavalas and the
political assassinations that were going on are all being proven a
lie, but nobody goes back and analyses the facts. Had President
Aristide created an armed militia, in reality, in Haiti the
ex-military and the death squads would not have stood a chance. All
we're seeing is the violence being visited upon the partisans of
President Aristide and it is obvious that this 'army' of 'chimeres'
that they were talking about doesn't exist, even when people do
exercise when possible the legitimate right to self-defense, which is
a sacred right. But the so-called army, especially in Port au Prince
is being proven a total, total lie. Every day you read in the
newspaper be they French, Canadian or U.S., the Aristide militia, you
know, the bandits armed by Aristide, the chimeres; that is a total
urban legend.

Fenton: I've been going back a number of years, reviewing UN
documents to 1999, specifically when the U.S. unilaterally ended
operations. Kofi Annan seems to have been either hooked into this
change of policy [which appears to have been spearheded by Jesse
Helms as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee], or
possibly willfully complicit in the ensuing economic embargo on Haiti
on extremely dubious grounds.

Elie: The UN is becoming increasingly, proving to be what General de
Gaulle called it 'that thing' called the UN. They are not exerting
their essential mission, which is to bring or facilitate peace and
justice in countries. More and more they look like a puppet or in the
hands of the powers that be, especially the U.S., or they are being
treated as completely inconsequential when that serves the interests
of the U.S. Now I don't think that in 1999 a military UN presence was
necessary in Haiti. We were well on our way to the establishment of
real democracy; there was peace in the country; what were needed of
course were the economic conditions to be improved. What happened, as
you reminded us, was that since under President Preval, a de facto
embargo was imposed on the country, which made for economic and daily
life situation becoming increasingly difficult.

As you pointed out, the destabilization started then; it was to be
followed by a mock election that would have ensured the removal of
Lavalas by not allowing the Lavalas constituency to vote, and this
plot was denounced and exposed by Jean Dominique which resulted in
Lavalas winning the election. Even though one can recognize that they
were not perfect elections, they did reflect the will of the majority
of Haitians. So having failed to organize "selections" in Haiti
rather than elections, then the next step was to actually destabilize
and finally hit the government established by the Haitian people. So,
it was an escalation and one could see it coming by reading the
press, by reading the internet, by seeing what were doing with the
so-called Haitians, by witnessing the creation of 'think tanks' like
the Haiti Democracy Project, one could see something in the making,
and personally I followed quite closely what was happening in
Venezuela and I could see the same blueprint being applied to Haiti.

A key factor also, as I said in my paper on Jean Dominique's
assassination, was the total monopoly of the press, especially radio
that is so important in Haiti, the monopoly by the bourgeoisie and
sectors which are under the control of the U.S. So, these radios did
an incredible campaign of lies and distortion, and amplification of
the so-called opposition to President Aristide until this so-called
insurrection came about and finally, the U.S. and France coming
directly with Canada tagging along, to actually kidnap the President
and establish their own puppet government. We've seen the plan well
executed, except that they didn't count on the Haitian people's
resistance, and I think that this resistance is going to be stronger
and stronger.

Fenton: In Venezuela in 2002, I'm not sure if you've seen the film
This Revolution will not be Televised…

Elie: Yes, I've seen it

Fenton: The way it played out there was strikingly similar in terms
of the media, and even the resistance, how they [the elite media]
tried to construe and portray the people demonstrating as firing
arbitrarily into crowds, complete fabrications and distortions.

Elie: Exactly, it's the same blueprint; they've refined it since the
day of Arbenz in Guatemala. Back then [1950's], they had to organize
their own radio to kind of poison the mind of the people. Now they
can count on  - with all those radio stations that belong to the
Haitian bourgeoisie - to do the job for them inside, and that's one
thing that Jean Dominique had denounced, this use of the radio, and I
think its one of the reasons that he was dealt with by assassination

Fenton: Jean Dominique, then, was sort of the equivalent of
Venezuela's Channel 8?

Elie: Could be, yes, but even more then that he was a reference for
the Haitian people. A hundred radios could be saying the same thing
but the Haitian people would go to Jean Dominique to have the final
say, what is really going on and how we should respond to what is
going on. Maybe people outside of Haiti cannot understand, that the
elimination one person could have such dire consequences, but I can
assure you that that is what happened.

Fenton: So it was no surprise that the opposition would try to 'muddy
the waters' and make it appear as though Aristide himself had
something to do with Jean Dominique's death?

Elie: Exactly, and, mind you, I'm not saying that the trigger pullers
or even that they was no local involvement in planning this
assassination, but the puppet master, the grand designer of this
operation has to be found in some dark corner of Virginia,
Williamsburg or Langley.

Fenton: A few minutes ago you mentioned the Haiti Democracy Project
[HDP]. They and a 'post-coup' organization called PROMOBANK [made up
of several former coup-financiers] as well as many powerful U.S.
Senators and corporations are plugging certain legislation called the
HERO Act, maybe you could discuss this a little bit as well as the
HDP in general, with the website recently put up by HDP founder
Boulos that is enticing people [corporations] to invest in the
textile and assembly sectors in Haiti because of the low wages,
$1.60/day and Haiti's "comparitve advantage."

Elie: It's obvious that they have big economic interests behind that,
but obviously this type of so-called development is only going to
benefit a small fraction of the Haitian elite who will keep selling
the Haitian workforce cheaply. Any fool can see that the only way you
are going to keep people at such a salary of misery, $1.60 per day,
is by keeping the unemployment rate incredibly high and also by using
repression to keep the people from organizing in unions and things
like that.  We know that that is not the way for Haiti; we know also
that nothing but a true democracy is going to allow the mobilization
of the Haitian population to solve Haiti's problems. We know that
this is not going to work, and I think the investors are going to be
thinking twice before putting their money in a country that is sure
to be unstable as long as the government does not have popular
legitimacy. It's not going to work.

The U.S. has started Haiti into a new cycle of instability. It took
us 190 years almost to get to the point where election by the
majority, rather than by coup d'etat or a palace coup, was the way to
change government. By doing what has been done recently, culminating
on February 29th, we are being thrown back approximately a hundred
and some years into political instability, into violence as the main
way of achieving regime change. And, it's going to be a long descent
into instability unless Haiti is able to turn the tide, which can
only be done of course with the help of international public opinion.

Fenton: Among these potential investors is a Montreal-based company
by the name of Gildan Activewear. In their annual report they boast
about their new manufacturing hub being set up in the Dominican and
Haiti, where "labour-intensive sewing operations will be based
primarily in Haiti." This is a $60 million investment where they are
going to have a textile industry, with assembly and they're planning
another similar "hub" in this area as well. This company is connected
to Canada's new Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, who is
also, evidently, connected to rebel leader Paul Arcelin, such that
they met on February 5th, the same day that Gonaives was attacked.
Also, Andy Apaid, of the Group of 184, is the main Gildan
subcontractor in Haiti; he was in Montreal on September 17th.

Elie: Yes, I heard about it and he's been one of the key figures of
the so-called opposition, so you see it all ties up and gets back to
some vested interest into the continuation of the exploitation of the
Haitian workforce. It's the same way as in Central America, in the
Maquiladoras, and we know that the people don't want this kind of
development. Of course, if the people of the third world are waging
this fight without the help of the public opinion of the countries
where these investors are, where these politicians, who are their
accomplices are, it's going to be a very hard fight for us. I think
that, more and more, we need to develop ways to cut open the lies,
not only in Haiti, but also in places like France, Canada, and the
U.S.

 

Fenton: In the mainstream media they of course denied or refused to
explore any link between the Democratic Convergence and the
"rebels,"  meanwhile, less then two weeks after the coup, Arcelin,
the Democratic Convergence representative in the DR, admits that he
and Guy Philippe had been planning to overthrow Aristide for two
years in the DR.

Elie: Every time the legitimate government was denouncing this
complicity between the so-called "democratic opposition" and the
armed group who were killing people and destroying property in Haiti,
the press said that it was all a plot by the legitimate government.
But now these people are claiming responsibility, and what is
striking is that they are claiming responsibility for murders and
assassinations that not one of the human rights organizations is
asking for justice for the victims of these killers; it's very
striking and revolting. We are talking about death squads, we are
talking about people who have ordered terror and assassinations in
Haiti and suddenly they are becoming legitimate political players. I
think that this should be pointed out to Canadian public opinion. Mr.
Arcelin should be the subject of a judicial inquiry for what has been
done in Haiti over the last two years, especially in the Plateau
Centralle, where, as you know, tens of Haitians have been killed by
the Guy Philippe and Jodel Chamblain people. This area is very close
to the DR, so it's rather easy for an armed group that has safe haven
in the DR to keep crossing in, do their thing, which is to kill
people and destabilize, then go back in the DR.
 
Fenton: The interim puppet Prime Minister has praised the government
of the DR; I think he's gone there a couple of times since being
installed. Do you know anything about this relationship?

Elie: I don't know about the particulars of the relationship, but the
DR has, if you will - being part of the same island as Haiti - been a
key player in Haitian affairs, often acting as proxy for the U.S. So,
of course, the puppet government must have the support of the
Dominican government in order to carry out their plans. They're going
to be very close to this Dominican government.

Fenton: Obviously people like Raoul Cedras, Emmanuel Constant, and
Michel Francois were heavily involved in drug trafficking during the
last coup period. Is there any indication that they are involved
today, or others, such as Prosper Avril, who was "liberated" on March
1st when the prisons were emptied by the "rebels"? What do you know
about their activities today?

Elie: Well, what we've been seeing is the remilitarisation of the
repressive apparatus in Haiti, most especially the Ministry of the
Interior. As you probably know, an ex-general was put in charge of
this ministry, and quietly ex-officers of the Haitian army are coming
back and organizing this ministry along the lines of how it has
always been organized during the dictatorship; this is a development
that one should be watching carefully because its going to have long
term implications. I would not be at all surprised that the likes of
Michel Francois and Cedras would eventually be coming back to help
organize even better this network and system of repression.

As for involvement in drug trafficking, you know, it should be
obvious by now that the so-called U.S. war on drug trafficking is
nothing but a hoodwink that they put over the American and
international public opinion. The war against drugs is just a new
tool of American foreign policy and they'll use drug traffickers,
they will themselves get involved in drug trafficking so long as it
advances their policies and they will also use drug trafficking or
terrorism as a pretext to intervene and remove whoever is not serving
their interests. I don't think the fact that Michel Francois, for
example, has been duly condemned in Florida, although in absentia,
for his involvement in drug trafficking, I don't think that at all
would keep the CIA or the DIA from using him once more in Haiti to do
what he does best, which is terrorize the population and eliminate
the grassroots political leaders. If need be, he will again be
exfiltrated from Honduras, where as you well know, he has been given
safe haven. So, nothing would surprise me coming from the U.S. DIA or
CIA. We are anticipating some of these killers and drug traffickers
coming back and playing a significant role in trying to shore up the
present de facto government.

Fenton: What about some of these former Lavalas officials who have
been detained in Florida; Oriel Jean for example who was detained in
Toronto and extradited on unrelated charges through the DEA

Elie: One thing one should not try to hide is that, yes, there was
corruption in or around the government in Haiti. Drug trafficking
will do that to you; it's a very powerful enticement, a very powerful
tool to infiltrate the government, to infiltrate the security
apparatus. Somebody like Oriel Jean obviously was involved in some
shady deals, but I don't think, first of all, I wouldn't describe Mr.
Jean as a 'high level' Lavalas official. He was playing a key role in
the close security of President Aristide; that doesn't make him a
'political cadre.' We've seen in other countries generals having to
answer to accusations of drug trafficking; it doesn't necessarily
reflect on the government, but it is a fact that drug trafficking is
a key element of corruption and also of destabilization in Haiti, but
one has to wonder: where is the engine that pulls the train of drug
trafficking? This engine is right smack in the middle of the U.S. So,
it is another case of drug trafficking being used as a political
tool, first, to corrupt some officials, and after that it's necessary
to use this very corruption to attack, politically, a regime that you
don't like.

Fenton: On that note, they've been having a hard time pinning
anything directly on President Aristide. The Miami Herald would like
us to believe that he was corrupt.

Elie: I can say the same thing as I think President Aristide has
said, 'let them come with the proof,' you know, there is nothing
easier than to say that somebody was involved in drug trafficking.
Now, there should be proof, so let them come with it. As I said
before, drug money is everywhere, legitimate businessmen are handling
drug money, politicians have been corrupted by it sometimes at high
levels, but that doesn't make the regime or government a
'narco-regime.' This is actually distorting the reality; we knew that
these accusations would start flying. You see, nowadays the key words
of American foreign policy are no longer "communist" or "Marxist" ;
the new keywords are "drugs" and "terrorism" so you're going to see
these words used and overused every time they want to destabilize a
government or effect a so-called regime change. We've heard the
'd-word' being used first, and now, last week, referring to Family
Lavalas, the 't-word' being used, 'these are terrorists that must be
eliminated,' they are doing an "Operation Baghdad," which is implying
a kind of new axis of evil between Baghdad and Port au Prince, so
this is a gross distortion of reality, and as I was saying it is
announcing a very brutal repression of the Haitian resistance. That's
one thing we should keep our eyes wide open about and start
denouncing if we want to save lives in Haiti and if we want to save
enough space for the Haitian people to freely express their political
will and what they want for their country, and what kind of regime
they want in their country.

Fenton: I've been looking back at some of the Latin American press.
In Canada, for example, there was no debate over whether or not
troops would be sent to occupy Haiti, whereas in Brazil, Argentina
and Chile there was considerable opposition. In Argentina, for
example, protestors were burning U.S. and UN flags over this. How
does the gap between the relative lack of consciousness in the U.S.
and Canada and the presence of consciousness and solidarity in Latin
America get bridged?

Elie: There is a saying in Haiti where 'even in hell you can find
somebody to help you.' I think that the presence of UN troops rather
than the French legionnaires or the US Marines in Haiti and UN troops
formed in majority of soldiers from Latin America, offers an
opportunity for the Haitian people to state their case and keep that
UN force from becoming just another repressive force. You know how in
Latin America Brazil, Argentina, Chile have suffered from the kind of
regime change that we are suffering from now, so I think that both
their public opinion but even the troops deployed in Haiti are going
to at the very least have mixed feelings about doing to another
people what they [themselves] have suffered so much from.

There has been quite a lot of hesitation and reluctance from these
troops to participate in the kind of repression that they want to
draw them into. I do think this offers an opportunity for the Haitian
people and the friends of the Haitian people to further inform the
Latin American people in these different countries of the real
situation in Haiti of what is really being done and have them
pressure both their government and the UN proper into not being an
accomplice of the repression of the Haitian people and the
establishment of a dictatorship. Contrariwise, pressure them to help
bring back a political climate, a climate of security in the country
where the will of the people, their political will, can express
itself freely and I am sure that if these conditions are realized the
Haitian people will overwhelmingly elect a government and a President
that will concern the choice it has made since 1991.

Fenton: There was an article
http://www.counterpunch.com/kramer10022004.html written recently,
speaking of these elections, that the puppet regime is going to great
lengths to sort of engineer sham elections, what with this biometrics
registration, fingerprinting and the like.

Elie: Yes, and it's funny because this is the second time they are
trying that one. In 2000 they were going that route also, which is a
way to disenfranchise about 80% of the Haitian population, and the
person who single-handedly blocked that was Jean Dominique. Now he's
no longer around, and they might succeed in organizing these sham
elections. You mentioned biometrics, they were into electronic
voting, and when you know that in Haiti, even in Port au Prince,
there is a strong rationing of electricity, so how in the world in
the rural areas of Haiti people will be able to vote electronically,
that is, without mentioning the cultural aspect of an electronic vote
which is totally alien to the Haitian population, so that also should
be denounced very strongly.  What they are trying to do is impose on
the Haitian people a so-called democratically elected regime that
would have been elected by a fraction of the Haitian population. Of
course this is not going to work. What will happen if they do succeed
in such an operation is they will open up the way for more
destabilization as this illegitimate government is going to impose, I
am sure, an economic policy and a social policy that the Haitian
people are not going to accept.

Fenton: What are you involved in, working on when you return to Haiti?

Elie: What we are trying to do is create a large front to be able to
save this plot against the Haitian people. What the enemy is trying
to do is isolate Lavalas, and it has, in a way, been able to do that
relatively; a lot of the people from the petit bourgeoisie who had
their frustrations with the government of President Aristide, were,
if you will, lured into the opposition but now they are realizing
that it was all being done for a very small sector of the Haitian
bourgeoisie and for foreign interests, and that they have been the
unwilling accomplices of this destabilization. They are now slowly
opening their eyes and we have to bring these people into a very
large movement against this government and against this kind of
regime that foreign powers, especially the U.S., wants to impose on
Haiti.

Of course, for that to be possible we have urgently to break this new
wave of repression where more and more people are afraid to speak up,
more people are afraid to assemble under the guise under a
'technocratic' government; we are really under a dictatorship, so the
most urgent thing to do, and that's what we are going to try to do,
is stop this establishment of dictatorship before it takes root so
profoundly that we are thrown back to the years of the Duvalier, and
I think what we are asking of the real friends of Haiti is to help us
maintain that space where we can express ourselves and organize, and
we are sure, we are confident that with such a space, even such
minimal conditions, we will be able to do the rest and bring back
constitutional legitimacy in Haiti.

Fenton: It's been very slow going in Canada to get political
opposition to speak out against this, even as our parliament has
resumed recently, I'm not sure what's gone on in Montreal or the
Quebec legislature, but it seems necessary to develop something; we
would need some sort of generalized means of raising public awareness.

Elie: It's difficulty for me to assess precisely what the situation
is here [in Montreal] but we have a very serious effort to counter
all this work of disinformation that has been done over the last
three years to get the Canadian people with us in Haiti, back with
the Haitian people, which we have enjoyed over the years, quite a bit
of support from public opinion, with the Canadian people. I think
that we have lost over the years quite a bit there concurrent with
the campaign of disinformation. The most important thing now is to
bring the reality to the Canadian people and to force the politicians
into a change in their foreign policy toward Haiti.

Fenton: Is there anything you'd like to add for Canadian
readers/listeners?

Elie: Only that I've read recently that Mr. Pettigrew is trying to
recruit the Haitian Diaspora in Canada into coming on board with that
operation of theirs, and I think that this should be opposed; the
opportunity must be taken by the Haitian Diaspora to restate that
only a government that has the support of the Haitian majority can
bring about true economic and social progress in Haiti and that they
will support only such a policy, otherwise they are going to be
accomplices of a dictatorship imposed from abroad. So one should be
quite watchful about this new initiative that Mr. Pettigrew,
seemingly, is preparing.

Fenton: He was just christening Canada's $20 million new embassy in
Port au Prince, and you know his riding is in Papineau where an
estimated one in seven voters are of Haitian descent; notably, he was
very quiet around February other than this meeting with Arcelin
[though even this meeting wasn't reported on until after the coup].
Interestingly, Arcelin's sister-in-law, Nicole Roy-Arcelin ran
against Liberal leader [and now PrimeMinister] Paul Martin in the
recent federal election, of all people, as if that was a PR move to
deflect attention away from the issue if it were to arise at all;
this all seemed very suspect.

Elie: If Mr. Pettigrew has one in seven citizens in his riding who
are of Haitian descent then that offers a good opportunity also to
put pressure on him, and I think that this will only happen if people
get the right information;  I've seen during this current period how
powerful information was, can wreak havoc or can, contrariwise, can
bring people to make the right decision.

Fenton: In the context of the war on terror, something that Canada is
"committed" to and something that John Kerry [and of course Bush] is
committed to, he's really flip-flopped on his positions…do you think
there are any opportunities for Haiti in the possibility of his being
elected on November 2nd?

Elie: You know, I don't think basic American foreign policy will
change if Kerry is elected, but I do think that the re-election of
George Bush would be a catastrophe; it's not so much that one would
vote for Kerry if one could, but one would vote to get rid of Bush.
You have to choose between two evils, to choose the lesser one if you
can have an influence on that. For us in Haiti, I think if Bush is
re-elected what will happen is immediately the repression and
violence will rise at least five notches so that's why we can only
wish for Mr. Bush to be sent back to Texas, but we can only wish
that, in the meantime we must prepare for the eventuality of his
re-election in which case maybe we will have to adapt to the new
conditions there, which will be a more violent dictatorship.

Fenton: Thank you very much Patrick. Take care.
.