28836: Potemaksonje (news) Haiti's Resurgent Majority Takes Power (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

FROM POTEMAKSONJE@YAHOO.COM




Haiti's Resurgent Majority Takes Power




By Roger Annis
Briarpatch Magazine
August 2006

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/news/?p=299
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/03/18294466.php


Haiti?s occupiers and elites badly needed the
legitimacy of a ?democratic? election. Unfortunately
for them, the poor majority took them at their word.

Sometimes even the best-laid plans of the powerful go
astray. Such was the case in Haiti in February of this
year when Haitians turned out in overwhelming numbers
to elect René Préval as president. Préval, who first
served as president from 1996 to 2001, is an ally of
the deposed President Jean Bertrand Aristide, and thus
his election was a powerful rebuke to the foreign
powers, including Canada, that conspired to overthrow
Aristide?s government in February 2004.

The US, France, and Canada drove Aristide from office
because his government sought to protect Haiti?s poor
majority from the worst ravages of the world economic
order. Aristide?s foreign policy measures, including
the forging of diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba,
were deemed equally unacceptable. This placed Aristide
and his popular, mass-based movement, Lavalas, at odds
with the economic powers in the Caribbean region, for
whom he and his government served as a dangerous
example.

With Aristide shipped out of the country and Haiti?s
foreign-appointed ?interim government? brutally
suppressing dissent, and in the face of a growing
international outcry over systematic human rights
violations by the coup regime and occupying force, the
local and foreign elites needed the legitimacy of an
election to justify the coup. But the Haitian masses
refused to be intimidated on election day, and soundly
rejected the elite?s chosen candidates.

The plan, and its unraveling

In spite of significant barriers to participation,
Haiti?s poor majority mobilized in massive numbers on
election day. Leading up to the election, a complex
electronic voter registration system had been put in
place that effectively disenfranchised many. Less than
one-tenth the number of polling booths were made
available compared to the last election six years ago.
Many poorer, heavily populated districts in the
capital, Port au Prince, had few or no polling booths,
while many rural voters had to travel long distances
in order to cast a ballot. Lineups were long on voting
day and required lengthy waits. And on the day of the
vote, many polling stations opened late or required
protest action by voters in lineups before doors were
opened at all.

The election was organized and administered by a
?Provisional Electoral Council,? an
extra-constitutional (and therefore illegal) authority
that was established by the post-coup regime. Funding
and many staff were provided by the foreign occupation
powers. Canada was a key contributor. Officials of
Elections Canada, including its director, Jean-Pierre
Kingsley, were central figures in the planning and
administration of the election.

?Préval called on his supporters to stay in the
streets and block the apparent attempt by the election
authorities to steal the vote.?



Initially it seemed as if Haiti?s election was to be
stolen and handed to the elite?s favoured candidate.
Haiti?s constitution requires that a presidential
candidate receive fifty-percent-plus-one of the vote,
or a run-off vote is required. As the ?official? count
for Préval dropped further and further below fifty
percent in the days following February 7, widespread
protests broke out in Port au Prince. Préval called on
his supporters to stay in the streets and block the
apparent attempt by the election authorities to steal
the vote.

Then, on February 14, news images hit television
screens in Haiti and around the world of piles of
ballots marked for Préval burning or otherwise left
scattered in a Port au Prince garbage dump. This clear
evidence of vote tampering did much to undermine the
legitimacy of the Provisional Electoral Council and
United Nations agencies, who were responsible for the
security of the ballots and their proper counting.
Anger in the streets exploded, and rallies of tens of
thousands of people paralyzed the capital. The elites
were finally forced to bow to the reality that Préval
had won an overwhelming first-round victory. His
closest rival received a scant twelve percent of the
vote.


A reassertion of Haitian sovereignty

The new Préval government has set a priority on ending
the foreign occupation. Newly appointed Prime Minister
Jacques Edouard Alexis declared in early June that his
government will work to create the conditions for
Haiti to recover its sovereignty. ?No true Haitian can
accept the presence of foreign troops on the national
territory,? he told the newly elected Haitian Senate.

Alexis acknowledged, however, that a foreign presence
was necessary in the short run because the country
does not have the necessary police and military power
to defend the new government and to assure safety in
daily life for ordinary citizens.

Préval has repeatedly spoken of the need for
fundamental social reform for Haiti?s poor majority.
In a statement issued in late March entitled ?Less
poverty, more hope,? he declared, ?Though ravaged,
Haiti is not the wretched land as so often described
in the media. It is a land of hope for more than eight
million people. I cannot achieve miracles, nor have I
been promising any. But I feel I have the
responsibility to the Haitian people to open doorways
on a brighter future: less poverty, less inequality,
more wealth, more hope.

?This is why I ran again for president.?

The new government has put forward an economic program
that will focus on promoting tourism and agriculture.
The government will also encourage foreign investment
in light manufacturing, and seek foreign funding to
repair Haiti?s devastated natural environment and its
social infrastructure. So far, Préval has received
important commitments of aid from Venezuela and Cuba,
and Haiti has been welcomed into the Petrocaribe
program initiated by Venezuela, which offers cheap oil
to the poor countries of the Caribbean. Cuba has
promised to extend and expand its medical mission in
Haiti and its free medical training of young Haitians.


Many problems persist, however. Six months after the
presidential elections, there are still several
hundred political prisoners languishing in Haiti?s
jails. They include Yvon Neptune, who was Prime
Minister in Aristide?s government, and Haiti?s most
beloved folk singer, So-Anne Auguste. The total prison
population numbers some 4,000, most of whom have never
been charged with a crime. Haiti?s Ministry of Justice
is still largely staffed by officials appointed after
the coup or who are otherwise beholden to anti-popular
forces.

While some prisoners have begun to be released, it?s
not fast enough for most Haitians. Many believe the
new government could and should be moving more
decisively to gain their release. An open letter to
Haitian authorities calling for the rapid release of
prisoners has been signed by more than one thousand
people, and the number of signatures is growing. The
letter and signatures were printed in the June 30
edition of the weekly newspaper Le Nouvelliste.
Activists are planning protest actions to highlight
their concerns.


Canada?s role in the occupation of Haiti

Along with France and the United States, Canada is one
of the three main pillars of the illegal coup and
foreign occupation in Haiti. Troops from these three
countries and Chile invaded in February 2004 and
?secured? the country in the months that followed,
before passing Haiti to the current 9,000 member
UN-sponsored occupation force. The UN force is drawn
mainly from Brazil and Chile, but also includes troops
and police from such disparate countries as Jordan,
China, and Sri Lanka.

Canadians continue to hold key advisory positions in
government ministries. They head up the UN police
force, and the RCMP has spent the past two years
training the notoriously repressive Haitian National
Police. Several Canadian military officials hold
high-ranking positions in the UN occupation authority,
known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH.

To this day, not a single member of the Canadian
Parliament has denounced the coup, nor the human
rights disaster that followed. After much prompting by
solidarity activists, some New Democratic Party MPs
began to voice concern about human rights violations
in Haiti, and foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough
began to refer to the coup as the ?removal? of
Aristide from office (the occupiers describe the coup
as a ?voluntary departure? by Aristide).

The NDP?s only call to action has been to ask the
Canadian government to investigate conditions in
Haiti. But a government investigation is meaningless
without a recognition of Canada?s own role in creating
those conditions. This was amply demonstrated in late
May and early June, when the Standing Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Development held
extensive hearings on Haiti. Questioning by MPs and
testimony by government and ?democracy-promotion?
witnesses were entirely self-congratulatory and
uncritical of Canada?s policy.

Following a trip she made in May of this year,
McDonough spoke very favorably of Canada?s ongoing
role.

The occupying powers have yet to declare that they
will respect the new government?s request for an end
to the foreign occupation, and the precise division of
powers and chain of command between the newly elected
government and the UN mission has yet to be clarified.
This sets the stage for more political confrontation
between the Haitian masses and the occupying powers if
the occupation is perceived to be dictating or unduly
interfering in government policy.


NGOs and the ?strategic use of aid?

The coup in Haiti revealed a new and nasty side of
Canadian foreign policy: a concerted effort to draw
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into the
operations of the imperial ambitions that now drive
Canadian foreign policy.

Writing in reference to Afghanistan in the March 2006
issue of Walrus magazine, Sean Maloney and Tom Fennell
explained:

?One unique aspect of the new [Canadian military]
strategy is the way that development and humanitarian
aid are being used specifically for the purpose of
building loyalty toward coalition forces and
democratic reforms. The American, British, and
Canadian governments all have representatives from
their international development and relief agencies
stationed in Afghanistan; the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) alone plans to spend $616
million there by 2009. [?]

?The strategic use of aid may offend some, but this
approach is gaining credibility and has been adopted
by CIDA and Foreign Affairs.?

In Haiti, some of Canada?s best-known NGOs were either
supportive of the 2004 coup or silent on the massive
human rights violations that followed. Development and
Peace, the international aid organization of the
Catholic Church, for instance, responded to critics of
its Haiti policy in a Background Paper in March 2006
in which it wrote, ?The international media has
shrouded the departure of Aristide on 29 February 2004
with conspiracy theories, going so far in some cases
as to claim that the CIA deposed the president in a
coup d?état?In fact, Aristide himself was largely
responsible for the circumstances that led to his
forced departure.?

?Common to all the Canadian and Haitian NGOs who
supported Aristide?s ?departure? was a scandalous
failure to protest the human rights violations that
followed the coup.?

The Haitian Platform to Advocate for an Alternative
Development (PAPDA) is a Haitian NGO closely partnered
with the Quebec-based Alternatives NGO. In January
2004, PAPDA issued a statement in which it, ?praises
the courage and foresight of the Haitian people who
are mobilizing in greater numbers every day to demand
the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
PAPDA is happy to associate itself with this demand
and reiterates its conviction that President
Aristide?s departure constitutes an essential element
of any real way out of the crisis facing the country
today.?

The director of PAPDA, Camille Chalmers, who signed
onto a 2004 letter calling Haiti's elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide a "dictator", is a member of
the board of directors of Alternatives. Most of the
latter?s funding is provided by the Canadian
International Development Agency.

Development and Peace and its partners in Haiti were
among those who applauded Aristide?s ?departure? from
office. On March 25, 2004, its Quebec director, Marthe
Lapierre, told the Canadian Parliament Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, ?I?d like to begin by
saying that what characterized President Aristide?s
government was its inability to govern, which is not
necessarily the case now. It seems to me the
transitional government that has been appointed does
have some ability to do that?it is creating hope among
the Haitian population, based on what we?ve observed.?


Common to all the Canadian and Haitian NGOs who
supported Aristide?s ?departure? was a scandalous
failure to protest the human rights violations that
followed the coup. Extensive human rights
investigations were sponsored or issued in 2004 and
2005 by such reputable organizations as the National
Lawyers Guild in the United States, the Harvard
University Faculty of Law, the School of Law at the
University of Miami, and Amnesty International. They
all painted a grim picture of killings and jailings of
Aristide supporters by UN forces and the
Canadian-trained Haitian National Police, as well as
destruction of the Haitian economy and social
infrastructure.

Yet the following commentary is typical of the
organizations that either called for or applauded
Aristide?s removal. In February 2006, Francois
L?Ecuyer of Alternatives wrote, ?Put in place in the
days following the departure of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the interim government set to
work on the heavy job of rebuilding the country.
Initially, an important part of the population was
prepared to support this government?.? The article
then goes on to report the utter failure of this same
government to govern effectively, without any
explanation as to why, nor of the massive rights
violations over which it presided.

An article by the same author in May 2006 reviews the
challenges facing the new, elected government in Haiti
without any reference whatsoever to the severe damage
done during the coup years.

OXFAM Quebec maintained a similar silence on the
suppression of democracy in Haiti in its annual report
for 2004-2005.

The democracy-promotion agency of the Canadian
government, Rights and Democracy, has also been a
strong supporter of Aristide?s ?departure.?


Challenging ?Responsibility to Protect?

The foreign intervention in Haiti is the first fruit
of the new ?Responsibility to Protect? doctrine,
authored by prominent liberals in Canada and
increasingly accepted as policy by the United Nations.
Under its terms, the great powers of the world grant
themselves the authority to declare a people or
country ?failed? and then intervene militarily to
install compliant governments. This doctrine was
analyzed by Anthony Fenton in the December 2005 issue
of Briarpatch.

Haiti represents a considerable challenge to
progressive forces in Canada. The Canadian government
has emerged unscathed from its complicity in the
overthrow of Haiti?s elected government and its direct
hand in training that country?s notoriously brutal
police force. If such practices, and the doctrine
underlying them, are not challenged, then we will see
more foreign policy adventures similar to Haiti and
Afghanistan. This bodes very badly for the future of
political and social rights, not only abroad, but
increasingly at home as well.

Solidarity committees sprang up across Canada in 2004
in response to the terrible news coming out of Haiti.
That year, these committees formed the Canada Haiti
Action Network to coordinate solidarity across the
country. Members of the network held a meeting in
Montreal in May of this year and pledged to continue
their work. Priorities in the coming months will be:

* To continue exposing Canada?s complicity in the
detention of political prisoners in Haiti and the
flagrant violation of Haiti?s constitution pertaining
to the rights of arrested and detained persons.

* That Canada withdraw its police and military forces
from Haiti, under terms set by the new Haitian
government.

* To end the use of aid money and NGO projects as
weapons that undermine the institutions of the
sovereign government of Haiti. Instead, Haiti needs
massive amounts of aid with no strings attached for
rebuilding the shattered economy and social
infrastructure.


In the recent election in Haiti, the Haitian people
mobilized massively to impose their desire for a
democracy and social progress and for an end to
foreign occupation. Canadians should respond by
stepping up solidarity with their struggle.

Roger Annis is a coordinator of the Vancouver-based
Haiti Solidarity BC and the Canada Haiti Action
Network.


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