24980: Esser: (news) The Haiti Democracy Project is not so Democratic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


The Narcosphere
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/5/4/62411/31371

May 4, 2005

The Haiti Democracy Project is not so Democratic
By Jeb Sprague, The Narcosphere

On May 4, 2004 a U.S. government backed NGO, the Haiti Democracy
Project published on its website (haitipolicy.org) a “fact-finding
report” carried out during mid February of 2005 in Haiti. The fact
finding mission, while visiting Haiti, met with nine members of Group
184 (a coalition of the wealthy elite) and 26 others, ranging from
Coup Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, to U.N. and Haitian Police
officials, U.S. Ambassador James Foley, and the Brazilian,
Argentinean, Canadian, and Dominican Republic Ambassadors to Haiti.

In the report the Haiti Democracy Project’s executive director James
R. Morrel along with other members of the "fact-finding" delegation,
including three former U.S. Ambassadors, conclude that, “Monitoring
the election will likely be easier with polling stations reduced to
six hundred or so from the twelve thousand of previous elections”.
The report also mentions the “utility of a voter registration card”.
Both of these measures will work to exclude large swaths of the
Haitian population from the upcoming vote and allow the interim
government of Gerard Latortue and the former military to better
censor the role of Lavalas and the poor. 95% of all the polling
stations used in previous elections will be excluded in the upcoming
election.

The HDP’s report provides clear statements of advice to the U.S.
overseers of Haiti on how best to guarantee the stability of its
client state. The HDP advises that the United States government work
to create a “psychological sense of momentum and excitement” towards
the upcoming election. The HDP also advises that the United States
“implement a fast track..for the purchase of appropriate armaments,
helmets and protective gear for the Haitian National Police”. This
statement coming just weeks after Haiti Information Project
journalist Kevin Pina exposed a massive illegal shipment of $7
million worth of armaments to the Haitian government from the United
States, a violation of the 13 year arms embargo on Haiti. These are
also the same Haitian National Police forces that on April, 29th 2005
were accused by Amnesty International of using “lethal and
indiscriminate violence..to disperse and repress demonstrators..” The
Amnesty report states that after police officers opened fire against
Lavalas demonstrators “at least 5 people died..and 4 others are
reported to have died later on as a consequence of their wounds.”

The HDP “fact-finding” report, while claiming that President
Aristide’s Administration was “predatory” and “murderous”, completely
neglects to mention the hundreds or possibly thousands of deaths that
have occurred over the course of the last year at the hands of the
Haitian National Police under the Latortue government, which has been
well documented in such reports as the University of Miami’s Haiti
Human Rights Investigation during November of 2004
(http://www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html).

Under a subsection of the HDP “fact-finding” report entitled,
“Haitian views on the police” the only view provided is that of the
Haitian National Police themselves. In this “viewpoint” section the
Haitian police stated to the HDP that “the U.N. mission needed to be
more aggressive.” Meanwhile, on April 29, 2004 citizens of the
Port-Au-Prince slum Cité Soliel accused the U.N. forces led by the
feared Jordanian contingent of surrounding their community and
lobbing at them fragmentation and incendiary type bombs. While
heavily armed and violent U.N. incursions into and around Cité Soliel
have been well documented (http://www.haitiaction.net), the HDP and
the Haitian police want more.

The HDP argues that a “triple threat” of drug traffickers and
Aristide supporters (“chimères” & ex-FADH) provide a potential threat
to which “U.S. policy must respond”. In meeting only with the highest
echelons of the Haitian government and international presence in
Haiti the HDP's "fact-finding" mission provides an extremely skewed
report. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences (facts) is
difficult to ascertain in reading the report because of its extreme
bias.

The Haiti Democracy Project on its website, states that it is “an
independent research group promoting the cause of settled, responsive
government in Haiti and U.S. policies conducive to this end.” Founded
in 2002 as an “independent organization” approximately 2 years before
the downfall of the Aristide government (the first democratically
elected government in Haiti’s history), the HDP has a board made up
of former U.S. ambassadors, members of the Haitian-American
community, and policy analysts. The HDP has clear links and
friendships with the Latortue government and the opposition to
Aristide. What direct funding the HDP has from the U.S. government or
such notable institutions as the International Republican Institute
remains to be seen.

Describing the involvement of the International Republican Institute
in Haiti, Congresswoman Maxine Waters wrote in her statement before
the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on
International relations House of Representatives on March 3, 2004,
“The International Republican Institute (IRI) has been providing the
opposition training for political party development, communications
strategies, public opinion polling, web site development and public
outreach. IRI has a blatantly partisan approach. It trains opposition
groups but flatly refuses to work with Lavalas party members or other
supporters of President Aristide. IRI’s Haiti Program is funded by
American taxpayers through the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID).”

James R. Morrell, Co-founder and former research director of the
Center for International Policy, continues to serve as the executive
director of the Haiti Democracy Project run out of Washington D.C.
His family relative, Chris Morrell, serves as the primary website
programmer or an “independent contractor” for the Haiti Democracy
Project. He receives an hourly wage of $75 for his programming
services. In early April of 2005 Chris Morrell deleted the Haiti
Democracy Project’s online message board due to the postings of
“Lavalas supporters”.

Contact the author: jebbathehut@hotmail.com or jsprague@csulb.edu