28276: Esser: Re: 28274: (comment) Chamberlain: 28264: Esser: (news) Open letter to Wyclef Jean (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser


Reply to Greg Chamberlain

Last things first: it is evident that you do not know the Haitian
Lawyers Leadership Network - HLLN; otherwise you wouldn't make such
remarks as to it being an "one-woman" network. The same goes
for misinformed (to keep things on the nice side) comments of you,
such as "[the HLLN] has never seen fit to disclose it's structure"; if
you are able to access the world wide web and a search engine, you
could easily find out such information as it is posted accessible to
all. If you have any substantial problems with HLLN why don't you
provide us with a critique instead of spreading such untruths. While
I am certain of what Marguerite Laurent thinks of your journalism, it
could nonetheless benefit from her analysis.

As to the "Haiti Death Project", otherwise known by the misnomer
"Haiti Democracy Project" - why this nonsense about who relabeled
that despicable outfit? First of all the writer of the open letter to
Wyclef Jean, is Haitian himself and not part of the ""democratic
centralist" Stalinist left" as you describe it. (FYI: red-baiting is
so lame and passé and really isn't en vogue any more among
journalists of repute, it is much more contemporary to use the
qualifier 'terrorist'.) Second, all the tired talk about "does this
or that label really come from Haitians or from elsewhere" is a
discussion pertinent to the extreme right wing fringes of discourse.

Why for do we use the word right-wing in English to describe certain
political elements, as it is originally a German expression dating
back to the early 20th century? Origin's of political labels are not
what counts, they are utterly irrelevant. What's important is to
dissect the Haitian reality including sinister forces, also perceived
by Haitians as such and including  the "Haiti Democracy Project". If
it walks like a duck (or a extreme right wing outfight with ties to
certified enemies of the Haitian masses)... It is either a duck or
only democratic by name!

You mention the film by a collaborator (relative?) of Jørgen Leth,
the disgraced Danish film maker who, in his autobiography 'The
Imperfect Human', describes having sex with the underage daughter of
his Haitian housekeeper "as his right as her master" [Leth's
words]? (According to a October 7, 2005 news release by the Danish
foreign ministry, which consequently revoked Mr. Leth's status as a
Danish Consul in Haiti and severed ties with him.) Well well... don't
we have here foreigners (wall to wall in this documentary) holding
forth on Cité Soleil, isn't that "ungut" by your standards? What is
remarkable about this piece of er "journalism" is the fact that
somehow the murders of residents in Port-au-Prince's poorer
neighborhoods, not inflicted by themselves, fall somehow by the
wayside, even though the Haitian elite's backing of massacres in
Aristide strongholds, the Haitian police's execution of said terror
and the MINUSTAH's giving cover have been documented ad nauseam.The
film, somehow apparently two years in the making, seems to leave out
two years of human rights reports, that admittedly if mentioned would
make it seem rather farcical.

Wyclef Jean, while certainly also in support of decent causes, has a
long history of affiliating with right wing causes championed by the
thuggish Haitian elite and Wyclef's uncle is also the co-publisher of
'Haiti Observateur'. Haiti Observateur is an extreme Duvalierist
right wing rag, that several sources suspect of having been funded by
the C.I.A., it has had such timeless headlines as  "Clinton to Assist
in a Voodoo Ceremony" (March 29, 1995). That's "journalism even
beyond critique, it's that bad.
Wyclef Jean has participated in the Carnival  Labor Day Parade on big
floats emblazoned with big 'Haiti Observateur' banners. (2004)

For a brief introduction, for those not very familiar with the cast
of characters running the "Haiti Democracy Project" and it's Haitian
bourgeois supporters, you might want to look at the following, albeit
very incomplete list, of quotes regarding the outfit you defend:

(I am sure in the outdated mode of red-baiting all writers and
interviewees are card carrying members of the "democratic centralist"
Stalinist left"?)



"Shame and Scandal" by the Jamaican Journalist John Maxwell (The
Jamaica Observer March 12, 2006) <http://tinyurl.com/qnfq2>)

Quote: "Official and unofficial organs of the US government,
including USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Haiti
Democracy Project, financed and organized anti-Aristide groups and
political action committees made up of some who were legitimate
opponents of Aristide and his movement, but also of left-over
Duvalierists and easily bribed rabble rousers in all sectors of the
society."



"The Struggle for Haiti An Interview with Hyppolite Pierre" by Cali
Ruchala (SOBAKA February 21, 2004
<http://www.diacritica.com/sobaka/2004/haiti.html>)

Quote: "[Question]Sobaka: One of the strange things I've noticed is
that Haiti, for being such a poor country, appears to have a lot of
"friends," in the US, and they all seem to be extremely partisan one
way or another. What do you think of the Haiti Democracy Project?
[Answer] Hyppolite Pierre: That's about as bad as it gets as far as
I'm concerned."



The Haiti Democracy Project's ties to discredited "players" in
Haitian politics are mentioned in "Ron Daniels and the Haiti Support
Project at it Again" by Haitian activist Marguerite Laurent ('Haïti
Progrés' Vol. 22 No. 52 March 9,
2005 <http://www.haitiprogres.com/2005/sm050309/eng03-09.html>)

Quote: "NCHR - a human rights organization with strong ties to USAID,
the U.S. Embassy, the right wing Haiti Democracy Project and the
opposition to President Aristide and the Lavalas party- has accused
Sò Anne of "some connection" to the December 5th violent incidents at
the University. However, these innuendoes are not supported by NCHR
by any facts as of yet, nor does it have the authority to press its
witch-hunt campaign against Lavalas supporters."



Cooperative Research "Profile: Haiti Democracy Project"
(<http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=haiti_democracy_project>
[Accessed on April 15, 2006]>

Quote: "November 19, 2002 - The Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) is
formally established. At its official launching, which takes place at
the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., speakers warn that the
current “crisis” in democracy in Haiti is worsening at an ever
increasing pace. “.
...US ambassador to the OAS, Roger Noriega also speaks at the
ceremony. At one point, Noriega says, referring to the contested 2000
Haitian elections (see May 21, 2000), “We have to get them [The
Haitian people] that opportunity as they will not participate in a
farce.” [Haiti Democracy Project, 12/20/2004]

Attending the event are some questionable figures including Stanley
Lucas and Olivier Nadal. Lucas is said to be the point man in Haiti
for the USAID-financed International Republican Institute, which is
providing training and funds to anti-Aristide Haitian rebels in the
Dominican Republic (see (2001-2004)). Nadal is a Miami-based Haitian
businessman and the former president of the Haitian Chamber of
Commerce. [Haiti Democracy Project, 12/20/2004] Nadal is implicated
in a peasant massacre that occurred in the Haitian town of Piatre. In
1990, a group of peasants were killed by Nadal’s security after they
squatted on unused land that he owned. [National Coalition for
Haitian Rights, 5/24/2004; Haiti Progres, 8/21/1999] The prominent
businessman Antoine Izmery said shortly before he was murdered that
Nadal had been one of the financiers of the 1991 coup d’etat (see
October 31, 1991-October 15, 1994) that ousted Aristide from office.
And in 1994, the United States government froze Nadal’s assets
because of his suspected involvement in the coup. [Haiti Progres,
8/21/1999]

The Haiti Democracy Project is funded by the wealthy, right-wing
Haitian Boulos family, which owns several companies including Pharval
Pharmaceuticals, the USAID-funded Radio Vision 2000, the Delimart
supermarket, and Le Matin. In February 2002, Rudolph Boulos was under
investigation for his possible involvement in the assassination of
Haitian journalist Jean Dominique who had been very critical of
Pharval after contamination of the company’s “Afrebril and Valodon”
syrups with diethyl alcohol had resulted in the deaths of 60
children. [Haiti Democracy Project, 12/20/2004; Knight Ridder,
4/11/2004; Haiti Weekly News, 3/28/2002; Haiti Progres, 8/21/1999] "



Anthony Fenton in an interview "U.S. Gvt. Channels Millions Through
National Endowment for Democracy to Fund Anti-Lavalas Groups in
Haiti". ('Democracy Now!'  January 23, 2006
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/23/144120>)

Quote:"Ambassador Carney is the current interim ambassador to Haiti,
and he was also a member of the lobby – the think tank in Washington
called the Haiti Democracy Project that played an integral role in
fomenting this demonization campaign against Aristide."



Antjhony Fenton in a letter to 'USA Today': "Haiti: "Democracy
Project" working for the Elite in Washington DC." (San Francisco Bay
Area Independent Media Center February  24,
2006 <http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804522.php>)

Quote: "Another former Haiti Democracy Project board member, Ira
Lowenthal, has been in Haiti since 2004, working for USAID and UNOPS,
an obscure UN agency that has been helping the IRI, NED, and others,
to meddle in Haiti's political affairs."



"Haiti Democracy Project, Not So Democratic" by Jeb Sprague (The
NarcoSphere May 4, 2005
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/5/4/62411/3137>)

Quote: "The HDP [Haiti Democracy Project] has clear links and
friendships with the Latortue government, the Groups of 184, and the
opposition to Aristide."



Tom Reeves replying to a letter to the editor of 'Dollars and Sense'
(Issue #252, March/April 2004
<http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0304letter.html>)

Quote: "I stand by my statement that HDP [Haiti Democracy Project]
is responsible for shaping the public image of the so-called
"Coalition of 184 Institutions" in the United States, and that this
group is little more than a list of well-known pro-elite and
pro-business apologists in Haiti, most of whom have virtually no
public following. Every public event or press release about the 184
in the United States, and many in Haiti, have been sponsored or
orchestrated by HDP. A search of the HDP website shows 143 supportive
and often fawning references to the 184.
Dr. Rudolph Boulos and his family have funded HDP, and are known for
their ties to Duvalierists and other right-wing elements in Haiti and
in the United States—a fact publicized in Haitian media across the
political spectrum. Boulos has received substantial USAID funding—as
have many of the 184 groups, prominently CLED (the Center for Free
Enterprise and Democracy), a right-wing pro-free market group.
...Very much like his HDP patron, the Brookings Institution, HDP and
Morell like to portray themselves as "liberal," attempting to co-opt
any genuinely progressive approach to U.S. policy on Haiti. Nothing
could be further from the truth."



Marc Mohan in "The case foe Aristide", a critique of Nicolas
Rossier's documentary "Aristide and the Endless Revolution" in the
'The Oregonian' ( January 13, 2006 <http://tinyurl.com/k9fd3>)

Quote: "Re-elected in 2000, Aristide ran afoul of such groups as the
Haiti Democracy Project, backed by American business interests, and,
allegedly, the CIA."



Kevin Pina interviewed by Denis Bernstein on 'Flashpoints Radio'
"Right-wing thugs revel in Bush's Victory" (Transcript on
ZNet November 09, 2004
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6613>)

Quote: "[The group 184's] public relations arm is in Washington,
D.C., something called the Haiti Democracy Project, which is funded
by a right-wing man named Reginald Boulos [of] the Boulos family,
which is very intimately involved in Cite Soleil. Both Andy Apaid and
Reginald Boulos have pumped tremendous amounts of money into Cite
Soleil to actually buy gangs to turn against Lavalas to then battle
the pro-Lavalas gangs so that the press can sit back and say 'well,
our fair and balanced reporting is to say that inter-gang violence
between those who used to support Aristide and those who no longer
support him,' without reporting [about] the money that's being dumped
into Cite Soleil by Boulos and by Apaid who, obviously, are two of
the main backers of the coup against Aristide that overthrew [him]
February 29th, before he was taken out by force by U.S. Marines."



"Left, Right, Left, Right: Running off With Haiti's Democracy" by
Canadian journalist Anthony Fenton (ZNet February 15, 2006
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9729>)

Quote: "Haiti Democracy Project [is] an anti-Aristide lobby group and
think tank, and the foreign public relations arm of the Group of 184
and Democratic Convergence opposition bloc"
"We should also recall that another Haiti Democracy Project Board
member, Timothy Carney, also resigned in order to take over as
interim Ambassador to Haiti. Carney has long been a fierce defender
of the IRI's activities in Haiti and an ally of Haiti's elite."



"The Bush Administrations Endgame for Haiti" by Kevin Pina. ('The
Black Commentator' December 4, 2003 Issue 67
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/67/67_pina.html>)

Quote: "Let’s start from the beginning with a Washington D.C. based
organization called the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) that has
fashioned itself into the arbiter of Bush administration policy
towards Haiti."



"Still Up Against the Death Plan in Haiti" by Tom Reeves in 'Dollars
and Sense' magazine in the September/October 2003 issue. (Archived at
Third World Traveler
<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/UpAgainstDeathPlan_Haiti.html>)

Quote: "his July, even the departing U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Brian
Curran, lashed out against some U.S. political operatives, calling
them the "Chimeres of Washington" (a Haitian term for political
criminals). The most recent of these Chimeres have been associated
with the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP), headed by former State
Department official James Morrell and funded by the right-wing
Haitian Boulos family. In December 2002, the HDP literally created
from whole cloth a new public relations face for the official
opposition, the "Coalition of 184 Civic Institutions," a laundry list
of Haitian NGOs funded by USAID and/or the IRI, as well as by the
Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce and other groups."


"Who is Timothy Carney?" by Marguerite Laurent Esq. (A post on
various online lists, March 18, 2006)

Quote: "As ambassador to Haiti from 1998 to 1999 Timothy M. Carney,
presided over the stepped-up NED/USAID/IRI "democracy enhancement"
programs in Haiti and, later as a retired career Foreign Service
Officer, he became a board member of the powerful anti-Aristide
Washington lobbying group, the Haiti Democracy Project, known most
widely to the majority of Haitians and HLLN, as the group in
Washington that worked with James Morrell, Reginald Boulos, Andy
Apaid, Lionel Delatour, Stanley Lucas and Guy Phillip, et al, to
plot, use Federal resources and programs and their diplomatic, State
Department, Pentagon and UN/OAS connections, to help carry out the
2004 bi-centennial coup d'etat in Haiti and illegal inflict the Baco
Raton regime and their death squads on Haiti."

"Both before and after the second coup d'etat, Timothy Carney, James
Morrell, Haiti Democracy Project, and their radical right wing
republican allies financed and promoted traditional elite reps, such
as Boulos, Apaid, Baker, as "democratic forces" and legitimate
opposition to the elected governments of Haiti who held significantly
MORE than an 8 to 12% constituency in Haiti, while constantly
emphasizing how the  elected Presidents of Haiti, (Aristide and
Preval), failed to deliver a better life to the Haitian people, never
mentioning the destabilization, humanitarian embargo, the Washington
financial, diplomatic and political support to an anti-democratic
minority that was the true cause of these elected Presidents
impotence.


"The American Learning Zone" by Tom Reeves (counterpunch April 14,
2004 <http://www.counterpunch.org/reeves04142004.html>)

Quote: "The evidence is clear: U.S. weapons (intended for the
Dominican army) were smuggled into Haiti by former Haitian military
and para--military, many of whom were trained and long funded by the
CIA and other U.S. agents. U.S. money, both government and private,
flowed into the coffers of NGOs attached to the "opposition" -- the
right--wing Convergence and the neo--liberal "Group of 184," led by
the Haitian business elite (including the sweat--shop owners) and
widely publicized by the ultra--conservative "Haiti Democracy
Project"(HDP) in Washington, D.C. Among the funders and organizers of
the opposition were the IRI and NDI, the international NGOs closely
tied to the U.S. Republican and Democrat Parties respectively. IRI
and HDP operatives were present at meetings organized by FRAPH (a
CIA--funded para--military group) and former Haitian military in the
Dominican Republic -- at which Dominican authorities claimed plans
were laid a year ago for a Haitian coup."



"The Theater of Coup. - Dramatis Personae: Roger Noriega and "The
Opposition"." by Gilbert Wesley Purdy. (Catalyzer Journal.com 2004
<http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/art/indexj.php?page=EpZlFVlyAyhGkPasxC>)

Quote: "The IRI has distanced itself from any activities that might
appear unseemly, by doing just what it has likely advised the Group
of 184 to do. It has created a front group, the Haitian Democracy
Project, with no ostensible ties to the IRI, to advise the Group of
184 on how to network its way to success. Media manipulation is
clearly a major part of the 184 tool-kit. Coöpting token members of
their political opposition and advertising them as proof of
non-partisan action is also a new addition to their tactical array.
In short, the means utilized by the neo-conservative far right in the
U. S. political arena have been slightly modified to fit the
exigencies of Haitian politics and the leadership of the Group of 184
has been thoroughly trained in their use. Right-wing radio talk shows
have sprung up, wherever there are Haitian communities, excoriating
Aristide and accusing him of every kind of crime. They have become
the sources of stories that are often dutifully reported as fact in
the U. S. press."



Brian Concannon, human rights lawyer quoted on Source Watch "Haiti
Democracy Project" (Accessed on April 16, 2006
<http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haiti_Democracy_Project>)

Quote: "The Haiti Democracy Project is "a right-wing think tank
founded by Republican State Department and other officials and by
Haitian elites. I believe that the primary financing came from a guy
named Rudolph Boulos (a doctor in Haiti, a very strong supporter of
right-wing causes and a virulent anti-Lavalas activist), and is a
large recipient of USAID funds." (Brian Concannon, Director of the
Institute for Democracy and Justice in Haiti, Feb. 16, 2006)."


"Closing Haiti's Open Veins: Preval's Impossible Mission" by Stephen
Lendman (Available at upsidedownworld.org
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/220/1/> [Accessed on
April 15, 2006])

Quote: "The Los Angeles Times [quoted] Lionel Delatour, a board
member of the US connected Haiti Democracy Project and the notorious
Group of 184 complicit in the 2004 coup, threatening Preval with his
comment that "If he does try to bring Aristide back, Preval will NOT
FINISH his presidency.""