29228: Potemaksonje (Article) Shoot the Messenger (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

FROM POTEMAKSONJE@YAHOO.COM


Shoot the Messenger

by David Peterson on Tue, 2006-09-12

The important study "Human rights abuse and other
criminal violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random
survey of households," by Athena Kolbe and Royce
Hutson of Wayne State University in Detroit, was
initially posted to The Lancet?s website on Thursday,
August 31, two days prior to its release in print as a
feature article in the September 2 issue of the
journal (Vol. 368, No. 9538).

Today happens to be Tuesday, September 12.  This means
that the Kolbe - Hutson study has been in circulation
online for 13 days, and in print for 11.  During this
period, I've been able to find three reports about the
substance of the study bylined by Jeff Heinrich and
circulated via the CanWest News Service in Canada
(which has meant that multiple Canadian print dailies
have published these reports beginning with the first
of them on September 1); one report by Andrew Buncombe
for the September 4 Independent (also republished that
same day in the Belfast Telegraph); one commentary by
Ira Kurzban in the September 7 Miami Herald; a single
175-word news blurb placed into circulation by
Associated Press over September 7 and 8; one report by
Marina Jiménez for the September 7 Toronto Globe and
Mail; one report by Duncan Campbell for the September
8 Guardian; and, finally, one editorial in the
September 11 Montreal Gazette. (Note that during these
13 days, the Montreal Gazette published three reports
by Jeff Heinrich.)

Now.  It is always possible that something else
appeared some place else, and I simply didn?t find it.
 But from what I have in fact found, a perfectly
reasonable inference follows.  Namely, that within the
English-language news media, there has been very
little interest overall in the Kolbe ? Hutson study.
As our friends over at the U.K.-based Media Lens group
put it in their September 11 Media Alert (?Haiti ? The
Traditional Predators?):

In 2004, with the US, UK and French governments eager
to see Aristide demonised and removed from power, the
British and US media published hundreds of articles
about the human rights situation in Haiti. Dozens of
journalists lined up to vilify a democratically
elected Haitian government that, in reality, had
temporarily thrown off the "traditional predators"
promoting Western interests.

Just two years on, a peer-reviewed report published in
a prestigious scientific journal showing that Western
policy has again unleashed mass killing on Haiti has
simply been ignored. The US and UK governments have of
course responded with silence. As though functioning
as a fully-fledged state-run propaganda system, the
watchdogs of our 'free press' have followed suit.

You see, it all depends on whom is doing the killing.
And, more precisely, on whether or not the killing and
the suffering can be blamed on an
officially-designated demon.  As a rule, when killing
and suffering can be blamed on an
officially-designated demon--and my absolute favorite
example over the past 15 years has been Slobodan
Milosevic or the Bosnian Serbs or simply ethnic Serbs
per se during the contests over the fate of the former
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ca. 1991
through the present--though I should add that the case
of the light-skinned Arabs of Khartoum ranks pretty
high, too, as does "Islamic Fascism" more
generally--then the professionals who work for the
news media will zero-right-in on the blameworthy,
leaving no stone unturned, no corpse uncounted, no
missing person uncommemorated.  And this practice
occurs regardless of whether the blame is fair and
balanced or an out-and-out fabrication.

But what is most striking about the last four items
that I catalogued at the outset (i.e., by AP, the
Toronto Globe and Mail, The Guardian, and the Montreal
Gazette) is that each one of them takes an interest in
the Kolbe ? Hutson study only because, and only
insofar as, other parties have sought to discredit it.


Thus during its very short public life (i.e., the
study is not quite two-weeks-old yet), the Kolbe-
Hutson study has gone from being almost completely
ignored (except in Canada) to being trashed, all
without ever passing through a period when its
findings were so much as reported.?Can you imagine a
report published in a highly respected, peer-reviewed,
scientific journal making comparably startling claims
about the levels of violence--including sexual
violence--in theaters of conflict such as Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Kosovo, or The Sudan receiving the same
kind of ignore-it or bash-it treatment?

Still more precisely yet, it isn?t so much the Kolbe ?
Hutson findings of large-scale violence in
post-Aristide Haiti that have come under criticism and
attack.  Quite the contrary.  It is the integrity of
the researchers themselves that is under fire.  And
one researcher in particular?Athena Kolbe.

Thus each of the three reports by AP, the Globe and
Mail, and The Guardian, as well as the editorial in
the Montreal Gazette, have focused on what they or the
people they are quoting descry as a alleged ?conflict
of interest? in Athena Kolbe?s background.  According
to AP (?Haiti: UK medical journal investigating author
of study,? Sept. 7 - 8):

British medical journal The Lancet said Thursday it is
investigating an alleged conflict of interest by an
author of a report in the current issue that claims
8,000 people were slain under Haiti's interim
government.

A critic of the study accused one of the report's
authors of being a supporter of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose ouster following a
violent uprising led to the installation of the
U.S.-backed interim government that ran the country
from 2004 to 2006.

Astrid James, a deputy editor of The Lancet, said the
journal is investigating the allegations, but stands
by the report, which also said up to 35,000 women were
sexually abused while the interim government ruled the
troubled Caribbean nation.

The journal took the action after learning that Athena
Kolbe, one of two U.S. authors of the report, had
volunteered in 1995 at an orphanage founded by
Aristide and has written articles in various
newspapers in support of Aristide while he was
president and after.

Kolbe, a researcher at Wayne State University in
Detroit, Michigan, denied any conflict.

As the Globe and Mail described it (?Author of Lancet
article on Haiti investigated,? Sept. 7), ?Ms. Kolbe
herself is now the subject of controversy after
revelations that the 30-year-old master's degree
student at Wayne State University's school of social
work in Detroit used to be an advocacy journalist who
wrote under the name Lyn Duff and worked at a Haitian
orphanage founded by Mr. Aristide.?

Then in the very next two paragraphs, excerpts from a
?letter of complaint to The Lancet? drafted by one
Charles Arthur of the U.K.-based Haiti Support Group
were reproduced.  These two paragraphs read as
follows:

"How can Kolbe/Duff's research into the issues of
human-rights violations be regarded as objective when
she herself states that for 3.5 years she worked with
the Lafanmi Selavi centre for street children, where
she befriended Aristide himself and presumably some of
the boys who later left the centre . . . [who] then
acted as armed enforcers?" Charles Arthur,
co-ordinator of the British-based Haiti Support Group,
wrote this week in a letter of complaint to The
Lancet.

"There is a concerted international campaign to
distort news and manipulate information about Haiti
with the apparent aim of repairing the reputation of
Aristide. I am concerned The Lancet has unwittingly
been used as part of the pro-Aristide propaganda
campaign."

What is important to notice here, I believe, is that
the Charles Arthur letter has not been published by
The Lancet?and if it ever is published, one day, it
won?t be published by The Lancet for several weeks.

(Quick aside: See if you can find a copy of Charles
Arthur's letter, either at The Lancet's website or the
website of this Haiti Support Group.  I know I for one
haven't found it yet.)

My hunch is that this Charles Arthur letter entered
circulation as a P.R. - type news release on behalf of
the Haiti Support Group (and whomever supports it),
and that the newspapers that have chosen to cite it
have decided that it possesses a great deal of
credibility, as opposed to the Kolbe ? Hutson study
itself.  I honestly don?t know much of anything about
Charles Arthur or the Haiti Support Group. But for AP,
the Toronto Globe and Mail, The Guardian, and the
Montreal Gazette to have given greater weight to an
as-yet unpublished letter to the editor of The Lancet
than they did to The Lancet?s decision to publish a
peer-reviewed study of violence in post-Aristide Haiti
is a pretty remarkable fact, I think.  And a pretty
revealing fact, too.  It certainly makes me wonder
whether there might be a concerted international
campaign to distort news and manipulate information
about Haiti, with the apparent aim of preserving the
reputation of the powers that overthrew the
democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand
Aristide over the course of February, 2004, and that
subsequently undertook the management of the country?s
political and economic institutions, both via the
United Nations and more direct methods.  Needless to
say, it also makes me concerned about the possibility
that that AP, the Toronto Globe and Mail, The
Guardian, and the Montreal Gazette have quite
wittingly permitted themselves to become accomplices
in an anti-Aristide, pro-military-interventionary
propaganda campaign.?What do you think?

To date, the Montreal Gazette has turned out to be
most harsh of all toward the Kolbe ? Hutson study.
According to its September 11 editorial (?Haiti study
deserved to be trashed?), ?Kolbe's authorship, coupled
with her involvement with an orphanage founded and run
by Aristide, constitutes an obvious conflict of
interest.?  Involvement with an orphanage founded and
run by the Lavalas-founding, table-overturning,
preferential-option-for-the-poor-spewing demon
himself?now there is an obvious reason to discredit
the study?s findings, based on the obvious biases of
one of its co-authors.

To reproduce this monstrous Montreal Gazette editorial
in full (though the italics are entirely mine):

A recent study by the respected British medical
journal, the Lancet, contains explosive allegations
about violence in Haiti. Its most shocking finding is
that in a 22-month period following the ouster of
former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, 8,000 people
were murdered and 35,000 women raped or sexually
assaulted. Half of the victims were children.

The study was innovative, using satellite-based
global-positioning technology to select a
representative sample of addresses that the principal
author of the study, Athena Kolbe, could then visit to
ask questions. And great efforts were apparently made
to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the
information from respondents.

The survey's conclusions heavily imply that violence
and chaos in Haiti increased after Aristide's forced
flight into exile to Africa in February 2004.

Small problem, though: Kolbe neglected to mention she
is an advocacy journalist who wrote under a pseudonym,
knew Aristide personally, and had worked more or less
directly for him for 31/2 years.

In her defence, she told the Globe and Mail that the
Lancet knew of her pseudonym and that she was not a
political supporter of Aristide's Lavalas party,
although she conceded to having "warm feelings toward"
the man. Her study was dumped into trash cans around
the world.

Skewed, alarmist reporting can sometimes achieve
precisely the opposite of its intended effect - it can
desensitize and alienate people who would otherwise be
receptive and valued allies in combating the ills the
research purports to chronicle.

Why did the Lancet not see fit to disclose to its
readers the information it apparently had about Kolbe?
In fact, the last page of the study includes this
unequivocal statement: "We declare that we have no
conflict of interest." But Kolbe's authorship, coupled
with her involvement with an orphanage founded and run
by Aristide, constitutes an obvious conflict of
interest.

The study makes no mention of Canadian police or
Canadian peacekeepers who were then deployed in Haiti.
Yet in an interview with The Gazette, Kolbe alleged
drunken off-duty Canadian and U.S. troops were among
the worst in making unwanted sexual advances to
Haitian women and girls. Why make such a claim only
verbally?

Since no similar survey was done under Aristide or
pre-Aristide, no conclusion can be drawn about
violent-crime trends in Haiti.

Plainly, deposing Aristide has done nothing to
alleviate Haiti's extreme poverty, crime and wanton
brutality. But in this tale of misdirected enthusiasm
and lack of academic rigour there is an important
lesson for academics, for respected journals, for the
media, and for media consumers.

In other words: To hell with methodology?coordinate
sampling, GPS, demographics, and the like.  Just shoot
the messenger.  And wash your hands of the matter.
The same way it's been handled for centuries.

Can anybody tell me the last time you read objections
such as these raised about a study published in a
venue such as The Lancet?  We all recall how the study
by Les Roberts et al. of mortality rates inside Iraq
both before and after the American war there was
treated, for one stellar example.  But I don?t recall
Roberts or his colleagues ever being accused of
anything as gross as Athena Kolbe has been.  Nor as
quickly: For almost as quickly as the Kolbe ? Hutson
study was published, Kolbe?s person was being trashed.


"Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households,"
Athena R. Kolbe and Royce A. Hutson, The Lancet, Vol.
368, No. 9538, September 2, 2006
"UN peacekeepers in Haiti," Editorial, The Lancet,
Vol. 368, No. 9538, September 2, 2006

?Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq:
cluster sample survey,? Les Roberts et al., The
Lancet, Vol. 364, No. 9448, November 20, 2004

"Open season on Haiti's poor, study finds: UN soldiers
often identified as perpetrators," Jeff Heinrich,
Montreal Gazette, September 1, 2006
"Canadian troops in Haiti accused of making death,
rape threats," Jeff Heinrich, Montreal Gazette,
September 2, 2006
"Police and political groups linked to Haiti sex
attacks," Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, September
4, 2006.  (Republished in the Sept. 4 Belfast
Telegraph.)
"Latortue's disturbing legacy," Ira Kurzban, Miami
Herald, September 7, 2006
?Haiti: UK medical journal investigating author of
study,? Associated Press, September 7 ? 8, 2006
"Military police probe claims troops threatened
Haitians," Jeff Heinrich, Montreal Gazette, September
7, 2006
?Author of Lancet article on Haiti investigated,?
Marina Jimenez, Toronto Globe and Mail, September 7,
2006
?Lancet caught up in row over Haiti murders," Duncan
Campbell, The Guardian, September 8, 2006
"Haiti study deserved to be trashed," Editorial,
Montreal Gazette, September 11, 2006

?U.S. ? Haiti,? Noam Chomsky, ZNet, March 9, 2004
?The Illegal Coup in Haiti,? Marjorie Cohn,
CounterPunch, March 31, 2004
?Who Removed Aristide?? Paul Farmer, London Review of
Books, April 15, 2004 (as posted to ZNet)
?Option Zero in Haiti,? Peter Hallward, New Left
Review, July 1, 2004 (as posted to ZNet)
"Invisible Violence: Ignoring murder in post-coup
Haiti," Jeb Sprague, Extra!, July/August, 2006

For more on Haiti, also see the material archived by
the U.S.-based Council On Hemispheric Affairs

?Haiti ? The Traditional Predators,? Media Lens,
September 11, 2006
"'You Are a Dog. You Should Die!' -- Death Threats
Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator," Jeb
Sprague and Joe Emesberger, CounterPunch, September
11, 2006
"The Lancet on Haiti -- Whom Are Its Critics?" Media
Lens Forum, September 13, 2006

"Terror in Haiti," ZNet, September 2, 2006
"Shoot the Messenger," ZNet, September 12, 2006



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