25832: Lemieux: COHA Press Release: Haiti's Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

July 25 2005

Press Release - Council On Hemispheric Affairs

This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry
Birns and COHA Research Fellow Sarah E. Schaffer.


Additional research provided by COHA Research
Associate Stephanie Luckam.



Just when it seemed like things couldn?t get any
worse for Haiti, events further deteriorated on
the beleaguered island last week. On July 16,
Haiti?s Council of Sages formally recommended
barring former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide?s
Lavalas Party from participating in upcoming
elections, accusing the group of ?continu[ing] to
promote and tolerate violence.? Then, on July 22,
Lavalas leader and likely presidential candidate,
Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, was arrested on charges
in connection with the death of prominent Haitian
journalist Jacques Roche. It is important to note
that a State Department official carefully
articulated that his agency had seen no credible
evidence establishing that pro-Aristide forces
were responsible for Roche?s death. The priest?s
arrest and the recommendation made by the
seven-member advisory council, which was formed
under the plenary direction of the U.S. following
Aristide?s February 2004 ouster and was
responsible for selecting interim Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue, dealt fatal blows to any
lingering hopes for delivering an open democracy
in the near future to the long-struggling island.
These events, along with stepped-up violence by
Haitian police in complicity with the UN
peacekeeping forces, have projected Latortue?s
interim government as proving to be increasingly
incapable of establishing the necessary
stability, security and protection from political
persecution on the island in order for free and
fair elections to take place within a three month
framework.

Although the Council of Sages formally moved to
exclude Lavalas from participating in the ballot,
the party has yet to announce its intentions to
partake in the elections. Now, with the arrest of
Jean-Juste, Lavalas cooperation seems even
farther from reality. The priest became Lavalas?
top presidential hopeful when Aristide announced
in April 2005 that, in accordance with the
Haitian constitution, he would not seek a third
presidential mandate. According to the Associated
Press, Jean-Juste, who has denied any involvement
in Roche?s murder, is detained in a cell with
more than twenty people and he has good reason to
fear for his life. As before, the unscrupulous
Latortue has failed to present a sliver of
evidence implicating one of Haiti?s most popular
figures in an unlawful act. The State Department
says that it has been apprised of Jean-Juste?s
arrest and its awaiting the presentation of
credible evidence backing up the charges.

Violence Continues under Latortue?s Inept
Governance

Under Latortue?s interim government, Haiti has
been marred by persisting violence, brutality and
kidnappings. Human rights groups estimate that
more than 700 people, including 40 police, seven
peacekeepers, a French diplomat and a prominent
Haitian journalist, have been killed on the
island since June 2004. While the Council of
Sages castigates Lavalas for perpetrating the
continuing bloodshed, they fail to address the
charge that the party is often the target of
oppression by the Haitian police and the UN
peacekeepers, which together contribute to
Haiti?s rising death toll.

Lavalas members have long been subjected to
police brutality. Shortly after Aristide?s abrupt
departure from office, Lavalas supporters marched
in Port-au-Prince demanding the return of their
democratically-elected president. Police opened
fire on the mainly unarmed crowd, killing eleven
and wounding many more. Unfortunately, this type
of tragedy has become commonplace in the
politically torn country and UN peacekeepers have
done little to improve the situation.
Nevertheless, it would be playing into Latortue?s
and Washington?s hands if Lavalas refuses, on
grounds of personal security, to sit out the
election even though it is by far, the most
popular political grouping on the island.

The month of July has been especially deadly for
Haitian dissidents. On July 6, 350 heavily armed
UN troops stormed the slum of Cite Soleil, a
pro-Aristide neighborhood in Port-au-Prince,
resulting in the deaths of approximately fifty
Cite Soleil residents. Brazilian Lt. General
Augusto Heleno Ribeiro, head of the UN
Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH),
claimed that the attack was an attempt to curb
violence in the neighborhood. Then, on July 13,
MINUSTAH forces killed as many as eighty people,
again in Cite Soleil, and on July 15, Hatian
police left ten dead in the slum of Bel Air.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), an active
Haiti observer who has made numerous diplomatic
visits to the island, has expressed her concern
that ?violence in Haiti has been escalating over
the past year? and that ?Members of the Lavalas
political party are murdered routinely,
kidnappings are commonplace and security is
non-existent.?

Brutally bloody missions, such as the July 6 and
July 13 incidents, demonstrate how the UN, along
with Latortue and the Haitian police have hugely
failed the Haitian people in establishing
anything resembling the necessary security and
stability to hold elections. According to Waters,
?The interim government of Haiti has been unable
to disarm the gangs that roam the country,
enforce the rule of law, or provide security to
citizens and foreigners. The Haitian National
Police contribute to the violence through summary
executions and other forms of brutality.? The
Congresswoman correctly concludes that ?This is
not an atmosphere that is conducive to the
organization of free and fair elections.?

Political Persecution Becomes Institutionalized

At first glance, the Council of Sages?
recommendation appears to be just one more
U.S.-backed ploy to prevent Aristide, or any of
his Lavalas supporters, from regaining power in
Haiti. But the U.S. Department of State?s
position now seems interesting, if we are to
believe it. State Department officials
immediately denounced the Council?s advice,
insisting that only the Provisional Electoral
Council (CEP) has the authority to determine who
is qualified to participate in the forthcoming
elections, and that the CEP almost immediately
opposed the unfortunately named ?Sages.? In fact,
Washington called the proposal completely
inappropriate and asked that body to encourage
the participation of all parties in the
elections. However, U.S. officials have also
stated that parties engaging in violent
activities not be allowed to vote. If such a
mandate is to be strictly followed in Haiti,
where it is nearly impossible to differentiate
among violence perpetrated by political parties,
common gangs, the police or UN peacekeepers, then
the process of registering voters would appear
almost futile.

In any event, prospects for free and fair
elections appear very bleak for the struggling
island. Haiti?s CEP has reported that only
600,000 of the 4.5 million eligible voters have
registered, or roughly 13 percent of the
electorate. But State Department officials have
remained confident that elections will take place
within three months, as scheduled. Likewise,
Latortue maintains optimism that voting will be
carried out on time; although on July 23 he
announced that the August 9 voter registration
deadline will likely have to be postponed to meet
his goal of at least 2.5 million people
registered. The interim prime minister was not
close to the mark when he noted that, ?the only
topic on which this government will be judged is
its capacity to organize fair and representative
elections.? Not only has he yet to exhibit a
sincere commitment to staging authentic
elections, but his antipathetic government is
also sure to be judged on other grave grounds,
including its total disregard for the country?s
constitution, its ongoing contempt for high human
rights standards and a lawful judiciary, its
incompetent rule, a woeful failure in its
administrative capacities, as witnessed in its
inability to even elementally deal with Tropical
Storm Jeanne in which several thousand Haitians
died, as well as its indifference to due process.


The question remains as to how consonant the Bush
administration is regarding its Haiti policy.
Clearly it would represent a massive diplomatic
defeat if Lavalas would win the presidential
election scheduled for November. The bedrock of
U.S. policy has been to eliminate Aristide?s
influence, not to pave the way for one of his
disciples to be the next president. In fact, the
hard truth for the administration is that Lavalas
by far, is the country?s most popular party.
Given that Lavalas maintains an overwhelming
political plurality, there is no evidence that
anything else but its victory could happen if
free and fair elections take place as promised.
The State Department has pledged to recognize any
government that is legitimately elected, but it
has also habitually added the disclaimer that the
U.S. cannot acknowledge as official any group
believed to be promoting violence. Just as the
administration efficiently fine tunes its
pronouncements on the standards against which
U.S. presidential advisor Karl Rove will be
judged as a means to exonerate him, there is good
reason to believe that Washington is fully
prepared to resort to any slight of hand required
to prevent the return, in any form, of Aristide?s
influence on the island.




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