28218: Sprague (Article) Noam Chomsky on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jeb Sprague



Noam Chomsky Interview, discusses 2004 coup in Haiti.
See www.democracynow.org



AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about Haiti. How does this fit he the
picture that you?re talking about?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I won?t run through the whole story, but Haiti
actually also had a democratic election, of a kind that should put us
to shame. They had a real democratic election in 1990, again, like
Bolivia. You know, massive grassroots organizations, poor people that
nobody was paying any attention to, succeeded in electing their own
candidate, to everyone's astonishment. Everyone assumed the U.S.-
backed candidate representing the elites and the power centers would
easily win. Well, he didn?t. He got 14% of the vote. Very quickly,
instantly, the U.S. moved to subvert the election -- instantly -- by
what are called democracy promotion measures, meaning supporting the
opposition. That?s what U.S. Aid did, and so on, try to support
anyone opposed to the government.
Other measures were taken. Pretty soon there?s a military coup, led
to years of vicious terror. Contrary to what people believe, the U.S.
supported the coup. It continued to trade with the junta and rich
elite increasingly under Clinton. Clinton actually authorized the
Texaco Oil Company to provide oil to the junta and the elite,
overriding formal presidential directives blocking it. Finally, the
Clinton administration decided that the public had been tortured
enough, sent in the Marines. That was called democracy promotion.
However, as Allan Nairn right away pointed out, and others, Aristide
was restored on the condition that he accept the policies of the
defeated U.S. candidate in the 1990 election, harsh neo-liberal
policies, which were bound to destroy the economy, as they did, led
to turmoil, disaster, continuing U.S. subversion. Finally, the Bush
administration blocked aid. More turmoil and confusion then came the
-- by now, the country is kind of falling apart. You can go into the
details.
But, finally, the U.S. and France simply intervened and removed the
President. France was particularly infuriated, because Aristide had
politely called upon France to do something about the crushing debt
that had been imposed on Haiti back in 1825 as punishment for their
having them -- for liberating themselves from France. They had been
bearing this ever since, and naturally that infuriated France. How
can the Haitians dare to say this? So, the U.S. and France basically
kicked him out. Horrible atrocity since. Now, they?re trying to
reconstruct somehow. Again, we owe them enormous reparations, as does
France, for the atrocities we have been carrying out there actually
for over a century, after we took over the project of torturing
Haitians from France. Is there any -- it?s hard to know what the
possibilities are. I mean, it?s just -- I mean, the society has been
really devastated. It?s one of the poorest in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: And the latest of Aristide being taken out of Haiti,
after he was re-elected -- this, of course, February 29, 2004, on a
U.S. plane with U.S. military and security and sent to the Central
African Republic?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, not only that, but the U.S. won?t even allow him
back into the region. I mean, it?s essentially imprison-- insisted
that he be imprisoned in South Africa. There was tremendous protest
by the Caribbean countries over this. The candidate who won the
election is the one who was closest to him; probably if he had been
running, he would have won, but the U.S. would never allow that, and,
as I say, won?t even allow him into the region. Well, that's just
another illustration of the near passionate hatred of democracy,
which is consistent and is indeed recognized.
It?s even recognized by the scholarship, of the most prestigious
scholarship, by advocates of democracy promotion. They advocated,
like Thomas Carothers, head of the Carnegie Endowment Project -- was
the most respected -- he advocates it and says it?s wonderful. But he
also points out that the U.S. consistently had been opposed to it.
There is what he calls a strong line of continuity in all
administrations, namely, democracy is promoted if and only if it
supports U.S. strategic and economic objectives. In Central America,
for example, where he was particularly -- he was involved in the
Reagan State Department. He says, yeah, the U.S. opposed democracy
and the reason he says is the U.S. would tolerate only top-down forms
of democratic structures, in which traditional elites allied to the
United States would remain in power in highly undemocratic societies.
Yeah, that's a kind of democracy promotion that we promote, that the
administration preaches and that the press and journalists hail as
magnificent...
....
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