NYT OpEd - Shattered Democracy in Haiti

[Dover]

March 1, 2004

Shattered Democracy in Haiti

The forced resignation of Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, yesterday morning followed three weeks of armed rebellion and increasingly open pressure from a Bush administration too willing to ignore democratic legitimacy in order to allow the removal of a leader it disliked and distrusted. President Bush moved quickly yesterday to dispatch a contingent of marines to serve as the core of an international peacekeeping force. The United Nations Security Council authorized such a force last night. Sending the Marines was the right thing to do, but Mr. Bush should have done it days ago, when there was still a chance for an American-proposed compromise that would have reinforced the framework of constitutional democracy. Mr. Bush's hesitation leaves Washington looking as if it withheld the Marines until Mr. Aristide yielded power, leaving Haitians at the mercy of some of the country's most vicious criminal gangs.

Mr. Aristide, whose 1994 return to power after an earlier coup was backed by 20,000 American troops, contributed significantly to his own downfall. His increasingly autocratic and lawless rule turned many of his supporters into unyielding enemies and fueled the uprising in which some 100 Haitians were killed. Washington made matters worse by prematurely winding down its post-1994 efforts to create a professional and politically independent police force and by blocking international loans for the hemisphere's poorest nation for three years to punish Mr. Aristide's manipulation of the 2000 legislative elections.

Mr. Aristide did not deliver the democracy he promised. But the former death squad leaders and army thugs whose undisciplined forces seized power in a succession of cities and then surrounded the capital, Port-au-Prince, are men who have never accepted democracy and now menace Haiti's democratic future. Taking those cities back from the rebels is one of the most urgent challenges facing international peacekeepers, along with disarming the pro-Aristide gangs that have been rampaging through Port-au-Prince. The rebel leaders include two convicted murderers who helped run an organization that killed thousands of Haitians during the last military government and a former police chief whom American officials suspect of cocaine trafficking. It is deplorable that Mr. Bush stood by while these men took over much of Haiti and undermined Secretary of State Colin Powell's pleas for a political compromise....cont'd

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/opinion/01MON1.html

[thingfish]

1. Just what the hell is going on?

I'm shamed by my own lack of background on this topic.

[el_gato]

2. some background by Stan Goff

For the few of you who don't know Stan Goff was a part of U.S. Special Forces in Haiti and walked away with deep knowledge of how things really work.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/184.html
Haiti was the world's first independent Black republic. It won that independence in a bloody revolt of slaves, who prevailed against the three dominant European militaries. This shattered the myth of white supremacy at a time when slave labor was still the economic foundation of every surrounding country, to include the new United States. As punishment, Haiti has been attacked, exploited, and vilified every since.

That vilification is continuing apace. Unfortunately, the US press has been led to uncritically collaborate in the distortion and stereotyping of Haiti. The US foreign policy establishment's agenda for Haiti is largely determined by the orthodoxy of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The IMF and World Bank just became the target of massive protests in Washington DC on the 15th and 16th of April. So it may be timely to begin demystifying Haiti's current situation with that in mind.

The International Monetary Find and the World Bank are dominated by the United States, and the dominant stakeholders in those institutions are American finance capitalists. In simple terms, the IMF and the World Bank have much in common with loan sharks. They do not come to countries' rescue. They hold out loans to desperate countries to restructure their debts, and take on more debt-which they can ill afford-in exchange for acceptance of draconian adjustments to economic structures that are beneficial only to a small local elite who are working with transnational corporations (TNCs). These are called structural adjustment programs (SAPs). What's the US objection to Aristide? He might not support this sterling program. The vast majority of Haitians already object to it, but that doesn't fit with Uncle Sam's notion of manageable democracy. Their fear is not that Haiti will fail in the absence of structural adjustment. The fear is that they will progress. That's a very bad example. It's Haiti being independent again, and it won't be tolerated.

[el_gato]

3. I don't trust NYT at all

they will paint it in certain shades giving a hint of
truth and then wrapping it all in a big lie.

[Dover]

4. Political crisis that has been brewing in Haiti since 2000

CENTRAL AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN WATCH


A political crisis that has been brewing in Haiti since 2000 exploded during the second week of February 2004. Members of an armed movement seeking to overthrow Haiti's President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, went on a rampage in a dozen Haitian towns, killing more than 60 people. The towns remain under siege by criminal gangs led by former paramilitary members.

There is great concern for the families in these areas, since the armed vigilantes have cut road and telephone access to communities, emptied prisons and blocked convoys of food aid from reaching impoverished areas.

The blockade of food aid is particularly worrisome since, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly half of all Haitians lack access to even minimum food requirements. Hospitals, schools, police stations and other government buildings have been burned and looted. Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security has begun preparations for the internment of up to 50,000 Haitian refugees at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, signaling that the US expects a much greater escalation of violence in Haiti.

What is the Political Backdrop to the Conflict? The crisis dates back to a political stalemate stemming from a contested election. In 2000-the same year that George Bush stole the US presidency-Haiti held elections for 7,500 positions nationwide. Election observers contested the winners of seven senate seats.

President Aristide balked at first, but eventually yielded and the seven senators resigned. Members of Haiti's elite, long hostile to Aristide's progressive economic agenda, saw the controversy as an opportunity to derail his government....cont'd

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5043

And then there is the lucrative drug trade, and Haiti's potential as an offshore slave labor workforce, and Haiti geostrategic location for shipping....