23611: Esser: Media Disinformation on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

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

Media Disinformation on Haiti
by Anthony Fenton

October 25, 2004

The analysis that follows is an attempt to demonstrate the utter
unreliability of the mainstream media in Canada which moreover
functions primarily to buttress the propaganda campaign against
Aristide and the severe campaign of repression of his supporters,
while simultaneously functioning to cloud and obscure the overall
picture of reality in Haiti. This is necessarily lengthy but, beyond
the particular article in question, this can be applied more
generally to monopoly media coverage and ‘analysis’ of events as they
unfold in Haiti generally.

It’s not often that you see an establishment/right-wing news column
quoting stories from the Revolutionary Worker.[1] But there it was in
this past weekend’s edition, a half-page commentary by Foreign
Affairs editor and arch-reactionary Kelly McParland, “Haiti: anarchy
reasserts itself: UN contingent well over its head.” Within the first
two paragraphs, however, McParland shows his disdain toward Haitians
who he clearly perceives as inferior, while proudly displaying his
ignorance and confusion about the current political situation there.
He opens the article by offering a skewed look at the Worker article:

“Wandering the rooftops of Haiti’s capital one day recently, a
correspondent for the Revolutionary Worker happened across a boy
named Gerald, who proved to be one of the most erudite 13-year-old
Third World slum-dwellers you could ever hope to meet.”

Where McParland states that Gerald is “gathering rocks to chuck at
tin rooftops the minute he spotted a cop or UN worker approaching his
neighbourhood,” he obscures what the Worker actually states, “Gerald
stood guard with two plastic buckets full of rocks.” Gerald, who is
actually 14 according to the Worker article, was aiding the
resistance fighters by alerting them when the “police, heavily armed
with U.S.-supplied equipment, entered his street” [RW]. After warning
the neighbourhood, many people “surrounded the police cars and, in a
hail of rocks and trash, forced the Haitian National Police--now a
major instrument in the government's campaign of terror against the
people--out of the area.”

Amongst a litany of important and glaring omissions McParland does
not mention that the UN and PNH have been conducting regular and
arbitrary ‘sweeps’ of poor neighbourhoods,[2] making mass arrests in
a vain search for weapons. These repressive tactics have seen a
marked increase since September 30th after Haitian police fired on
unarmed demonstrators killing or wounding several civilians.[3] These
demonstrators, at least 10,000 of which had reportedly poured out of
the slums by mid-morning, were calling for the return of
democratically elected Jean Bertrand Aristide.[4]

Gerald, the youth interviewed by the Revolutionary Worker, represents
a part of the growing resistance to the illegal occupation and the
imposition of an illegitimate puppet regime on them. The
Revolutionary Worker article is one of many alternative or
independent resources that have given voice to the Haitian masses in
this state-terror imposed period. Usually, the corporate media is
content to merely ignore and silence through omission or censorship
those who represent realistic viewpoints. McParland chose instead to
appear to give voice to both Gerald and the Revolutionary Worker.
Rather than do so ingenuously, as a responsible reporter might,
McParland attempts to slyly discredit the Worker, by implying that
they put thoughts in the head of the young resistance fighter,
Gerald. For example:

"Notwithstanding his remarkable vocabulary, the Worker noted Gerald
is just one of "tens of thousands of ordinary Haitians” who have
joined forces "to resist the continued occupation of their country by
imperialist UN troops and the repressive policies of the Latortue
regime.""

Earlier, McParland had quoted Gerald as, among other things, saying,
“We see now that there is no way the bourgeoisie will let us have a
fair chance to make a decent life for ourselves,” When he refers to
Gerald’s “erudite” or “remarkable vocabulary,” especially for a
“Third World slum-dweller,” McParland is of course implying that such
an inferior and uneducated savage could not possibly articulate such
thoughts without the aid of an ultra-left wing ideologue or
'anarchist.'[5] Later on, McParland rearticulates his conception of
Haitian slum-dwellers as savages as he puts the resistance into
Eurocentric context, “That resistance has made itself clear in
disturbingly graphic displays of butchery…” Later, he adds to this,
as he further puts “Haiti’s anarchy” into perspective, “More than 50
people have been killed in the past four weeks, hacked or beaten or
shot or even beheaded.” In both instances, McParland is clear that
this violence is to be attributed to the resistance. He claims that
this “anarchy” represents “ a bizarre attribute to the barbarism of
the hate-filled “insurgents” of Iraq.”

For clarification purposes, we should look at the actual statistics
made public, rather than focusing exclusively on those bandied about
by the revisionist AP/Reuters news monopoly. On October 15, it was
reported that the State Morgue in Port au Prince had issued an
emergency call to the Ministry of Health to remove the more than 600
bodies that had been piling up in the previous two weeks.[6] Two days
later, another 35 bodies were reported found in a “familiar dumping
ground” near the neighbourhood of Cite Soleil. Human rights observers
have noted a marked increase in repression to a level above that of
the immediate post-February 29th period.[7]

This raises the issue of perhaps the most glaring omission in
McParland’s piece, and that of the corporate media generally. Within
three weeks of February 29th, the director of the State Morgue in
Port au Prince stated to a National Lawyers Guild delegation in
April, that approximately 800 bodies were dumped in mass graves.[8]
This context has not found its way into today’s reporting, especially
in regards to the resistance, whose existence is all the more
important given the actual context of a continual ebb and flow of
repression and political persecution since February 29th. This ebb
and flow has been vociferously denied by all of the implicated
parties in Haiti despite extensive documentation.[9]

The beheadings to which McParland refers were the source of the since
proven fictitious “Operation Baghdad,” a phrase which emerged from
the original misinformation concerning the September 30th events.
According to this story, it was ‘barbarous’ pro-Aristide militants
who had for no reason savagely killed and beheaded three Haitian
police officers. The AP, followed by Canada’s CBC, have not since
retracted this misinformation, which undoubtedly led many readers and
viewers to believe that any ensuing repression of such ‘barbarism’
was to be justified.[10]

The trouble was, the interim government did not permit human rights
observers to see the police officers who were allegedly beheaded.
They were promptly buried thereby securing the political usage of
these supposed beheadings in order to vilify the growing Haitian
resistance in a similar manner to that of Iraq’s. Whether these
policemen were beheaded or not is impertinent to the fact that this
was a classic case of what Chomsky and Herman referred to as “Worthy
and Unworthy Victims,” one part of their Propaganda Model in their
seminal “Manufacturing Consent”:

“A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused in enemy
states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater
severity by its own government or clients [see: Latortue, puppet]
will be unworthy. The evidence of worth may be read from the extent
and character of attention and indignation.” [p. 37]

Three supposedly beheaded police officers, presumably a part of the
contingent that fired on unarmed demonstrators and killed several
civilians on September 30th, are most definitely worthy victims for
mainstream propaganda purposes. The 600 Haitians that died violently
in the subsequent two weeks, and the several thousand in the months
prior, are, accordingly, unworthy victims.

nterestingly, McParland does not deny that Aristide may have been
overthrown, when he writes, “After bundling Aristide out of the
country in February, with the help of France, it has left policing to
a UN contingent headed by Brazil.” This comment is consistent with
the rest of MacParland’s article; nowhere does he mention his own
government, Canada. This is especially interesting given that the
paper for which he writes is one of Canada’s only two nationally
circulated newspapers. Mounting evidence shows that Canada was
instrumental in the events leading to Aristide’s overthrow; Paul
Martin himself has taken credit for this several times in his own
underhanded way. Accordingly, Canada and the Canadian press [who rely
heavily on AP reporting] have also been instrumental in the cover-up
of realities. McParland also disinforms when he fails to mention that
Canada’s RCMP is heading the policing aspect of the UN mission.[11]

Further disinformation occurs when McParland states “The
International Monetary Fund has offered the country US$1-billion to
get it back on its feet.” The amount in question was pledged by
several separate “donor countries,” not the IMF specifically. The IMF
did host the donor’s conference and do link through to the Haiti
Interim Cooperation Framework [ICF], where extensive documentation
details what these monies are earmarked for, at least 10% of which
has been pledged by Canada’s Liberal government. The interim
government has also pledged to adhere to certain structural reforms
including the ‘potential’ privatization of five major industries that
Aristide had refused to privatize. It also appears that through the
ICF plan, attempts are being made to circumvent the reformation of
the Haitian army by broadening the scope of the PNH to include up to
20,000 officers.[12]

McParland joins Latortue in blaming the victim, in this case
Aristide, noting, “Latortue insists the mess is all Aristide’s
fault.” Surprisingly, McParland chooses not to repeat the ridiculous
charge offered by the Brazilian UN commander, General Heleno, who
accused John Kerry of being responsible for the latest violence.
Heleno based this on comments made by Kerry on March 7th, implying
that this has “given hope” to Aristide supporters that if Kerry is
elected he might return Aristide.[13]

McParland does provide Aristide’s retort to Latortue that Aristide,
speaking from South Africa, “accused interim Prime Minister Gérard
Latortue of having unleashed a new torrent of repression in Haiti,
and of searching for a scapegoat at the same time on whom to pin the
violence that is rocking the country.”[14] Judging by the one-sided
context provided by McParland in the rest of the article, Aristide’s
comments are blurred by this distortion, which allows the reader no
real understanding of either Aristide’s circumstances or those of the
interim client regime of Latortue.

Nowhere in McParland’s article is it mentioned that Aristide
continues to have the support of Haiti’s poor majority. Canada’s
former ambassador Kenneth Cook went on record in March stating that
‘if elections were held today, Lavalas would win [paraphrase].’ These
sentiments have been echoed by representatives at the US embassy as
well, and this has been clear in the many large demonstrations that
have taken place despite severe repression since February 29th. The
standard misinformation upon which mainstream coverage such as
McParland’s relies contends that Aristide no longer enjoyed popular
support and that it was a ‘popular insurgency’ that led to his
departure. Heavily suppressed have been the reports of independent
election observers going back to November 2000 when Aristide was
elected in a landslide with at least 60% voter turnout according to
credible independent estimates. These figures were reiterated
repeatedly by official USAID commissioned Gallup polls in 2001, and
again in 2002, showing Aristide to enjoy the overwhelming support of
a majority of Haitian voters. Significantly, the “political
opposition” never enjoyed more than 10% of popular support during
this period, and certainly still doesn’t.[15]

Measured against actually occurring realities in Haiti as according
to credible and verifiable sources, all told, Kelly McParland serves
to contribute to the propagandistic obfuscation of reality in Haiti,
which effectively disempowers readers from utilizing the incredibly
narrow and distorted context he provides to hold the actual
responsible parties for the catastrophe in Haiti to account. Rather
than honestly assess the situation, McParland shamefully deflects
responsibility through his characterization that is much in line with
typically racist media folk models of Haiti.[16] Far from providing a
reasonable analysis of the Revolutionary Worker’s article, McParland
demonstrates that he is no sound position to refute a socialist
analysis of events in Haiti short of relying on misinformation and
disinformation to do so. Kelly McParland therefore lacks any
credibility as a reporter or commentator on matters pertaining to
Haiti.

Notes:

[1] See the original Revolutionary Worker piece
http://rwor.org/a/1255/haiti_current_situation.htm “Rebellion in
Belair”. McParland’s article is in the October 23, 2004 edition of
the National Post, page A10. All of MacParland's comments come from
this article.

[2] Canada’s RCMP are presently in command of the overall UN policing
contingent, which includes “training” and “supporting” the Haitian
police. Several reports have been circulated as toward the unlawful
and arbitrary arrest sweeps conducted by the PNH with full UN
support. See
http://ijdh.org/articles/article_ijdh-human-rights_alert_october-2.html
the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

[3] See Agence Hatienne de Press, wherein Latortue admits [on October
1st] that police fired on demonstrators. This is confirmed in later
AP coverage. Crucially, this fact was reported the day of the
September 30th demonstrations by independent journalist/filmmaker
Kevin Pina via telephone to a room-full of people in Vancouver,
Canada. The Haiti Information Project also reported this initially
suppressed fact. See in particular,
http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/10_1_4.html   “UN/Brazilian troops
standby as Haitian police provoke violence, October 1st, 2004. For
details on the September 30th Vancouver StopWar.ca event, see Tim
Pelzer’s People’s Weekly World article:
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/5902/1/235 “Haitian Regime
escalates repression.”

[4]Even the AP, after interim PM Gerard Latortue admitted it on
Haitian Radio, October 1st, have since been forced to report that
unarmed demonstrators were fired upon. They have not retracted the
many subsequent misinformation that sprang from the initial
misinformation, which claimed that pro-Aristide supporters attacked
Haitian police unprovoked. Also, Aristide was elected with over 90%
of the vote, with credible estimates showing a 60+% voter turnout.
The U.S. funded “political opposition,” which according to their own
spokespeople, were affiliated with at least a two-year effort to
overthrow Aristide, “boycotted” the November 2000 Presidential
elections, and falsely claimed that only 5% of the population turned
out to vote. Later USAID commissioned Gallup Polls [2001, 2002]
showed that a similar percentage of poll respondents, 64.5%, favoured
Aristide. Importantly, barely 10% supported all of the “political
opposition” combined.

[5] Clearly, McParland is implying through his title ‘anarchy
reasserts itself’ that Revolutionary Worker is somehow to be
construed as an ‘anarchist’ publication, a charge that RW would by no
means agree with. For example see RW’s
http://rwor.org/a/v19/910-19/919/anar1.htm Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
vs. Anarchism. Just another example of McParland’s obfuscation.

[6] See “Death Squads Rampage in Haiti: 600 killed in two
weeks,http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/10_15_4a.html. transcription of
interview with Flashpoints Radio’s Haiti correspondent Kevin Pina.
“The General Hospital had to call the Ministry of Health today in
order to demand emergency vehicles to remove the more than 600
corpses that have been stockpiled there, that have been coming in
from the killing over the last two weeks alone.” Also, there are
several references in the RW article to killings by police and death
squads, wherein victims are named. E.g. "We are sick of seeing people
die. The other day, police murdered Wendy and they will kill more of
us, because to the bourgeoisie our lives are worthless," and “Those
killed last week include Marguerite Saint-Fils, 35, who was shot in
her home by police; high schooler Wendy Manigat; Roland Braneluce,
28, who was shot by police during a demonstration at Rue Tiremasse;
Maxo Casséus, a leader of a grassroots organization in Cité Soleil
who was killed by death squads on September 30, and Piersine Adéma,
an elderly woman who was reportedly assassinated by the same group
that killed Casséus, while she was sitting on her front porch.”

[7] There have been several emergency calls issued concerning the
escalation of human rights abuses after September 30th. See
http://ijdh.org/ www.ijdh.org ,http://www.haitiaction.net

HaitiAction.net, http://www.iacenter.org International Action Center.
Even amnesty international, whose silence has been quite noticeable,
have issued a condemnation of the arbitrary arrest of a well-known
priest who was arrested while serving the poor on spurious and
unfounded charges,
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr360562004 .

[8] See the NLG’s “summary Report of Phase I and II of NLG delegation
to Haiti, March 29 – April 5th, and April 12th-19th, respectively, at
http://www.nlg.org . Also see my “Human Rights Horrors in Haiti,
which mentions this context in light of more recent human rights
updates: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FEN407A.html
GlobalResearch.ca. Also see the IJDH's graphic human rights report
issued July 19th:
http://ijdh.org/articles/article_ijdh-human-rights-violations.html
www.ijdh.org .

[9] For the most part, legitimate human rights groups have been
silenced or marginalized, while lending credence to the views of
local but fraudulent human rights groups such as the National
Coalition for Haitian Rights [NCHR]. On their nefarious story, see
http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/9_12_4.html   “The Double Standard of
NCHR.” Also see the revealing NLG exchanges with NCHR and the other
organization lacking in credibility, CARLI. [10] See the “Haiti News
Watch” analysis of the manipulation of falsified events to suit the
purposes of propaganda, UN occupation, and severe repression,
http://haitiaction.net/News/HNW/10_3_4.html “Operation Baghdad
brought to you by AP.” [11] See the “Canada” section of Autonomy and
Solidarity’s Haiti Resource page at: aoto_sol.tao.ca.
.