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27430: Anonymous (Internet) Haiti: Propaganda and the Fake Left (fwd)
Please post anonymousl...
This spoof is doing the rounds on the Internet.
Friday, January 27, 2006 1:58 PM
'Steaming Dung' - Haiti: Propaganda and the Fake Left
by Spreb Jague - independent researcher
The first public forums on Haiti have taken place at the World Social Forum in
Caracas, Venezuela.
One was organized by the Plateforme Haitienne de Plaidoyer pour un
Developpement Alternatif (PAPDA), a group of peasant organizations, unions and
non-governmental organizations, that has spearheaded Haitian opposition to the
neo-liberal plans of the international finance institutions for over ten years.
That meeting featured PAPDA leader, Camille Chambers, a principled and
determined activist who resigned his post as chef de cabinet for President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994 in protest at Aristide's compliance with the
IFI's structural adjustment policies in Haiti.
Chambers was a guest speaker at the rally of tens of thousands that opened the
World Social Forum on January 24. He told that rally, "The countries present in
Haiti are merely performing a service for the United States." Agencia Brasil
reported that Chalmers called the mission "shameful" and called on the
"solidarity of the Latin American nations to denounce it."
The PAPDA forum, which was presented as a dicsussion about the "imperialist
intervention in Haiti" was attended by approximately 20 people including two
Cananda Haiti Action Network (CHAN) activists. Chalmers made a lengthy
presentation during which he criticized Aristide as well as providing a general
criticism of neo-liberalism. The CHAN activists criticized Chalmers for making
no mention of the human rights situation, the political prisoners, or the
actual nature of the military occupation, but could not bring themselves to
denounce the extortion, robbery, kidappings and rapes carried out by Lavalas
Family-affiliated gangs in Port-au-Prince slums over the last two
years.
Chalmers was further pressed about the existing funding relationship between
his and partner organizations with Canadian government-funded NGOs. He claimed
that PAPDA doed not receive any funding from any foreign governments. CHAN
activists persisted with this point, apparently oblivious to the fact that the
Lavalas Family government 2000-2004 had imposed harsh austerity measures in
Haiti in order to comply with IMF, World Bank and Interamerican Development
Bank demands. The Aristide government's austerity programme included the
removal of the fuel subsidy - a move that sent living costs spiralling in the
first months of 2003, and moves to reduce the public sector deficit by cutting
expenditure on education and the public administration. The IFIs were so
pleased with the Lavalas Family government's performance that suspended aid was
on the point of being released in early 2004 when the government collapsed in
the face of an armed rebellion led by 200 right-wing paramilitaries.
During his presentation, Chalmers mentioned the role played by such
organizations as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in playing a
subversive anti-democratic role in Haiti. On this point, CHAN activists pointed
out that a NED program officer had said there were similar problems with
Aristide and Chavez, and that the problem was they had a lot of popular
support. The CHAN activists apparently prefer to leave the interpretation of
the fall of Aristide to the NED, and
ignore the question of how, if Aristide was so popular, a force of just 200
paramilitaries could overthrow his regime. The CHAN activists seem unaware of
the fact that, back in January 1991, a coup attempt by the Tonton Macoute
leader, Roger Lafontant, was folied by tens of thousands
of people taking to the streets of Port-au-Prince to defend their elected
leader. This was a time when Aristide truly was popular with the Haitian
masses. In February 2004, this popularity had bled away, and Aristide was left
dependent on the protection of US security guards. Once the US State Department
withdraw these guards, Aristide left the country - a far cry from the events of
January 1991! The events at the end of February, 2004, in Haiti, bear no
similarity whatsoever with the attempted coup against Chavez in April 2002 when
Chavez supporters turned out in their hundreds and thousands, marching down
from the hills into the streets of Caracas to face down the
anti-Chavez troops at their barracks, and confront the enemy marchers in the
street.
Chalmers claimed that the U.S. led intervention in 2004 came at a time when
there was a "popular movement" to remove Aristide, but the CHAN activists
appeared to believe that all the opposition to Aristide was a NED-funded
conspiracy. The CHAN activists were very pleased with their
intervention in the PAPDA panel, and felt they had some success in convincing
other praticipants that the popular movement in Haiti is a top-down movement
totally dependent on its leader, Aristide, and united around the single concept
of loyalty to this one leader. The CHAN analysis suggests that the only way to
explain any other political initiatives that do not subscribe to this concept
is that they are funded and created by the United States.
Interestingly, my research has revealed that Chalmers career path has taken a
radically different direction to that of his former ally, Aristide. In 1995,
Chalmers returned to Haiti to teach at the State University and devote his
energies to remobilizing the popular movement for change. Aristide, meanwhile,
who had spent three years in exile in Washington, DC, where he had developed
close links with the US political elite, and especially with Democractic Party
leaders, continued these contacts on his return to Haiti. My research has
revealed that Anthony Lake, President Clinton's failed nominee for the post of
head of the CIA, became a close friend of Aristide, to the
extent that he stood as Aristide's 'best man' when the latter married in 1996,
and is the godfather of one of the Aristides' two daughters
At the other forum on Haiti, organized by CHAN itself, presentations were made
by a number of Aristide loyalists including: Euvonie Georges-Auguste of the
Bureau de Ralliement et d'Appui aux Vaudouisants (BRAV), Paul Loulou Chery,
Secretary-General of the Confédération des Travailleurs Haitiens, (CTH); Mario
Joseph, lawyer from the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI); and Lovinsky
Pierrre Antoine, leader of the political rights organization September 30
Foundation. Chairperson of the forum was Jean St-Vil of the Ottawa Haiti
Solidarity Committee.
Chery's CTH is affiliated to the Christian Democrat regional union body, the
CLAT (Centrale Latino Américaine des Travailleurs), and received funding from
Belgium-based international, the Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens. In
2003, the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center engaged in a NED-funded study of labor
conditions in Haiti; analyzing the history of the domestic labor movement,
women in the work force, rural labor codes, and the debate over reforming the
aging labor codes.
The study utilized Solidarity Center interviews with the CTH. Interestingly, my
research reveals that the CTH was listed as a member of the Group of 184, the
private sector platform put together in 2003 to co-opt non-governmental
organizations and to steal the leadership of the anti-Aristide movement away
from radical elements.
Joseph's BAI was set up by President Aristide in 1995 to make it look like he
was doing something in response to the recently published Reconciliation and
Truth Commission Report (Si'M Pa Rele) on human rights violations and impunity
during the 1991-94 coup regime. The BAI employed American lawyes to investigate
some high profile cases, and its major claim to fame was the 2002 trial of the
Raboteau massacre, which led to the convictions of fifty-three men, including
the top military and paramilitary leaders of the 1991-94 dictatorship. Sadly
its role in cases that really challenged the conspiracy between the judiciary
and the economic elite was pretty much non-existent. No
progress was made at all with cases such as the Jean Rabel peasant massacre,
the Piatre peasant massacre, or the death of 62 children poisoned by medicines
marketed by the Boulous family's Pharval laboratories. As for the murder of
investigative journalist and democracy activist, Jean Dominique, who had dared
to challenge the political direction taken by Aristide, the BAI shamefully
restricted itself to defending main suspect Senator Dany Touusaint 's right to
parliamentary immunity.
The BAI has recently morphed into the Institute for Justice & Democracy in
Haiti (IJDH). It is unclear where this Oregon-based outfit gets its funding but
a look at its board of directors reveals the presence of Paul Farmer, M.D. PhD,
Founder, Partners in Health (PIH) and Professor, Harvard Medical School.
Farmer, a close friend of the Aristides, receives much of his funding for
Partners in Health from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Jean St-Vil is a former employee of the Haitian Ministry of the Environment.
When St-Vil worked there in the late 1990s. the Environment Ministry, like the
government as a whole, was
bankrolled by the IMF and World Bank. in return, the government sold
state-owned entreprises and slashed import tariffs. The economy will never
recover....
Presentations by the panelists at the CHAN forum covered the range of political
and social issues facing the Haitian people--the foreign occupation, prospects
for a truly free election, the ongoing repression and situation of the hundreds
of political prisoners, social conditions among the population, and the
situation of Haitian workers.
During the discussion period, one representative of the dissident sector that
refuses to submit to the authority of Jean-Bertrand Aristide spoke out, to
state that the 2004 coup against Aristide and
his government is of no consequence to the Haitian people, because, she said,
"We are in solidarity with the Haitian people, not with one man. He does not
represent the people."
Further research into this fascinating subject had to be cut short after
Aristide called collect from South Africa and when my ma answered, he told her
to spank my butt if I continued with such
silliness.