The Lowdown on Haiti from my Professor (DU Exclusive)

[Dob Bole]

I'm majoring in Third World History, and my professor Harold Isaacs is THE authority on this area. So I stayed after class to get some info to report to DU. Here is what I found:

1) Yes, Bush hates Aristide and the black caucus supported him during the 90s. Why? because he's a radical leftist priest. Bush cut off aid to him in 2001, sealing his current fate.

2) Why the French involvement in his overthrow? Aristide has a $21 billion claim against the French government, over land claims. The French government will be more than happy to be rid of Aristide.

3) The U.S. will be deporting all Haitian refugees who make it to our shores. Why? The U.S. allows political refugees into our country. However, the state department has classified Haitians as ECONOMIC refugees. So even if they make it to Florida or next door to Puerto Rico, they will not get the Cuban treatment. Florida political concerns are undoubtedly playing a role.

4)Chuck Rangel called this a coup. This is potential political trouble for Bush, if people percieve that he's getting us involved in yet another unneccessary conflict.

On edit: aid was cut off in 2001, obviously not 2000.

[caledesi]

1. Thank you for the clear explanation of what's goin' on in Haiti

bec I must say, I was pretty ignorant about the situation.

[Doctor_J]

2. Why?

"This is potential political trouble for Bush."

He got off scot-free in Venezuela. Why would this one be trouble?

[democracyindanger]

11. We didn't send troops to Venezuela

and we didn't have Venezuelan refugees fleeing for our shores.

[Isome]

21. Venezuela?

We fomented the coup in Venezuela as well.

[mrdmk]

42. Yes we did!

And FAILED!

Typical of the Bush Jr. administration is it not?

[Loonman]

3. 4.

If Chuck Rangel said carrots grew on trees, would that make it so?

[DenverDem]

6. No but the realities on the ground in Haiti are obvious.

If CNN said there was no coup, would that make it so?


More probable that it would make it not so.

[Toucano]

15. It doesn't have to be so to be important, does it?

I think Charlie is right, btw.

But regardless, the fact that people are calling it a coup has the potential to be politically damaging to Bush.

The Plame indictments are right around the corner.

The more voter's see Bush and his regime as people who will stop at nothing to get their way, the less appealing he is to voters.

[hang a left]

20. BTW and off topic.

Have an idea when they may be coming? Plame indictments that is.

[Dob Bole]

45. Holding my breath nt

[ArkDem]

49. If you are Harold Issacs it does.............

.

[DenverDem]

4. Thanks for the good and academic background.

This needs to be blown up into a huge issue in this campaign.

[veganwitch]

5. thank you for that information

sadly i dont know much about what is going on down there and usually am quick to side with "the people" rather than the people in power. while there may truly be "freedom fighters" in the coup crowd, i certainly have no trust for our administrations handling of the situation and corporate medias reporting.

if only i had speakers for my computer so i could listen to kpfa or other pacifica stations. wpfw in washington sucks and plays music when there are discussions to be had.

[Isome]

8. go to democracynow.org.

they have transcripts of every show. haiti is on the front page right now and everything about it from the last two weeks is right at your mouse tip.

[Kolesar]

7. A coup...what's new?

We invaded Nicaragua four times in the twentieth century. From memory, I can also recall invading Cuba, Grenada, Panama, Guatemala, murdering Chile's Allende, trying to overthrow Venezuela in April of 2002, and Black Jack Pershing going into Mexico with his cavalry to roust Pancho Villa.

By the way, when is the last time you remember the US backing a "left wing" coup?

[Dob Bole]

10. They never do...

That's just it. Aristide absolved the military in Haiti, and was generally making some reforms before US aid was cut off.

[Ilsa]

9. Thanks. This has been confusing to me for the most part.

I've been watching Colin Powel get yanked around on this (very entertaining), but haven't really understood much about it. I don't understand about the $21 bil in "land claims", though, but I get the general idea of the trouble it creates. As for #3: slimey. Very slimey.

[Dob Bole]

12. Land claims

I think Aristide actually sued the French government- something to do with when the French govt. colonized Haiti. Anyway, he was awarded 21 billion if I remember correctly.

[Isome]

13. Haiti SUED France for reparations.

Why? You won't believe it... but look it up and your jaw will drop!

Haiti paid reparations to FRANCE. Why? Because when they won their independence from France, some international crappy agreement required HAITI to repay the FRENCH for the SLAVES they would no longer have. And... HAITI PAID THEM EVERY LAST PENNY OWED.

[Dob Bole]

14. Ah...that would do it. Thanks. nt

[Tinoire]

16. You have a very smart & good professor! Kudos

What a fine education you're getting!

:toast:

[Dob Bole]

37. Thank You Very Much!

:) Good to know that my education is counting for something.

[el_gato]

17. 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.

[RaulGroom]

19. Let me save Loonman some work

Stan Goff is a dangerous lying leftist communist punk who probably never even met a Haitian. He says he was in Haiti as a Master Sergeant in the U.S. military in the 1994 countercoup, but he's probably lying. All leftists are liars, like Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Everything they say is a lie.

And I'm a Democrat, even though I think everything Bush does is great.

[Oilwellian]

22. Hahaha!

Touche! :D

[DenverDem]

28. Thanks.

Professional operatives at work here. Pretty transparent.

[ParanoidPat]

36. He really IS that obvious.....

......and here I thought it was just me. :evilgrin: :toast:

[ignatius]

50. I think his name is apropos. I am sure it is a dig at the lefties on

this site, but, if the shoe fits... and the name in this case.

[jonnyblitz]

40. LOL

:thumbsup:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

41. And to think I cut the guy some slack

because he was a fellow Red Sox fan.

[Isome]

18. I don't know if it's already been said but...

Haiti had to pay the INTEREST on the aid loans they were SUPPOSED to be getting, even when they were being withheld... AND THEY DID?

Did anyone who tried to say Aristide wasn't doing what he was supposed to do know that? He managed to pay the INTEREST on aid loans that the country WASN'T getting. They needed that money!!

[LoneStarLiberal]

23. Nice Explanations

These are the first good directional relationships I've seen in why our government would have a vested interest to kick Aristide out.

[webtrainer]

24. Thanks for the info, I'd add to the list . . .

Washington wants a compliant Haitian government which will protect the drug transhipment routs out of Columbia and into Florida.

Also, similar to the U.S. fear of petro-dollars converting to petro-euros, the drug trade has undergone a shift out of the dollar and into euros. It is very important for the U.S. to keep Haiti a dollar-denominated drug trade.

Couple of links worth checking out if you have the time:

I found a good (and short) history of Haiti . . . here on this page.

http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=1490&blz=1

This is a bad situation to be sure. We've messed with them so many times now, it's really sad.

This article is recent (Feb. 29, 2004)

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html

The above is a good source on the players in the "opposition" and who bankrolls the coup and supports their interests. Some of the players/factors involved include:
--Cheap labor ($.68 PER DAY!)
--National Endowment for Democracy runs the International Republican Institute (CIA-related NGOs)
--IRI's Chairman of the board is Sen. McCain
--DynCorp is the cut-out for the Pentagon and the CIA
--IMF wielding it's power of the "free market"

All of the above making the country safe for transhipment of 14% of coke coming to the U.S. Interesting note there, the Kerry Report published in 1989, while focusing on Nicaragua's Contras also had a section on Haiti's drug trafficking.

[DennisReveni]

25. Or

Or you can read this article
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17995
U.S.-Sponsored Regime Change in Haiti
By Nirit Ben-Ari and Bill Weinberg, World War 3 Report
March 1, 2004
"Cycles of Destabilization

This overthrow had been in the making since December 1990, when Haiti's first free election was held. The winning candidate, with two-thirds majority, was the populist priest Aristide, backed by a vigorous grassroots movement known as Lavalas. But seven months later, Aristide's government was overthrown in a military coup. No government on earth recognized the military junta, but as Noam Chomsky noted: "Washington maintained close intelligence and military ties with the new rulers while undermining the embargo called by the Organization of American States, even authorizing illegal shipments of oil to the regime and its wealthy supporters."

In July 1993, Aristide was made to sign the Governor's Island Accord, a US-backed "peace accord" with the illegal military junta that terrorized Haiti for three years. The Accord forbade Aristide from running for re-election once he was restored to power, and gave amnesty to the death-squad terrorists of the junta. The junta then refused to abide by the accord, prompting President Clinton to send in troops in September 1994.

Aristide finished his term, although conditions imposed on him as the cost of returning to power – such as an IMF-style "free market" reform of the economy – eroded his popularity. But Aristide continued to stand up to the IMF and international creditors, demanding a better deal that would not impose yet harsher austerity on Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

In 1995 Rene Preval, a close friend of Aristide, was elected as president. His government faced serious political deadlock, and in 1999 Preval declared that Parliament's term has expired and began ruling by decree."

Very informative, and if you read between the lines says a lot about the Clinton administartion and their corporate power brokering.

[maggrwaggr]

26. environmental destruction

Haiti is almost completely denuded of its trees now.

Read the Harper's piece in January 2004 by Madison Smartt Bell. Very interesting stuff.

The trees are almost completely gone because the people are unable to produce any kind of cash crop except for ... charcoal!

So they cut down the trees, turn them into charcoal, and sell them in the towns.

Pretty sad.

[KharmaTrain]

27. I'll Ask Again...Is There A Link To '91?

If I'm not mistaken BushI quietly backed Aristide's first overthrow and the country was linked to the Ollie North drug enterprises of the 80's.

Anyone willing to connect these dots? Thanks!

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

29. re drugs & 80's Haiti

I've just downloaded a copy of John Kerry's subcommittee report on drugs (& US support of drugs smugglers/terrorists) & tho I haven't read it (& the format makes it impossible to cut & paste) there is a section on Haiti (which I'm yet to read!).

Check it out at:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north06.pdf
(note - it's 9megs)

Dunno if that's any help

[ConsAreLiars]

33. To cut&paste from .pdf files

You need to first click on the "T" icon on the toolbar.

If you find helpful info you can then highlight the relevant text, use the right-mouse-button to select "copy" and then paste it into another text field, like the DU message posting field.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

34. thnks, but

the particular PDF file is comprised of direct scans from the report so it doesn't seem to be able to recognise it as text.

[bigtree]

44. Kerry Committee Blast from the Past:

"Aristide's electrifying accusations opened the floodgate of even more sinister revelations. Massachusetts senator John Kerry heads a subcommittee concerned with international terrorism and drug trafficking that turned up collusion between the CIA and drug traffickers during the late 1980s' Iran Contra hearings.

Kerry had developed detailed information on drug trafficking by Haiti's military rulers that led to the indictment in Miami in 1988, of Lt. Col. Jean Paul. The indictment was a major embarrassment to the Haitian military, especially since Paul defiantly refused to surrender to U.S. authorities. It was just a month before thousands of U.S. troops invaded Panama and arrested Manuel Noriega who, like Col. Paul, was also under indictment for drug trafficking in Florida.

The U.S. senate also heard testimony in 1988 that then interior minister, Gen. Williams Regala, and his DEA liaison officer, protected and supervised cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then Haitian military commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers in return for landing rights in the mid 1980's.

It was in 1989 that yet another military coup brought Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril to power. Under U.S. pressure Avril, the former finance chief under the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship, fired 140 officers suspected of drug trafficking. Avril, who is currently living in Miami, is being sued by six Haitians, including Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul, who claim they were abducted and tortured by the Haitian military under Avril's orders in November 1989. According to a witness before Senator John Kerry's subcommittee, Avril is in fact a major player in Haiti's role as a transit point in the cocaine trade."

http://pdr.autono.net/haiti.html

Kerry Committee Report DEA's OPERATIONS IN MIAMI AND IN HAITI: http://www.webcom.com/~pinknoiz/covert/haiticoke.html

[Tinoire]

46. I'm with you totally. It's the SAME people on both sides

Otto Reich is, I am sure, lurking about in this business. It's the same guys from the NED. Colin Powell involved again. And the same people on the Haitian side. Haiti Progres' head-line 2 days ago was

"The Return of the Fraph"

If you ever start a thread, people will help you connect the links. Several other DUers had outstanding posts about the connections this week-end.

[dudeness]

30. just a continuation of US foreign policy

history will tell us that a genocidial thug is always preferable to a democratically elected leader that carries out policies that may enhance the lives of the population..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. The word is getting out

This afternoon I was working on a translation in my local coffee shop, and I ended up sitting next to a creative writing teacher who was critiquing a student's work. As they sat down, they were talking about how the whole cover story was a bunch of lies.

[dudeness]

32. meanwhile back at the oval office..

"boys, that haiti taken care of.. NEXT!!!"

[MrPrax]

35. The 'other' French problem...

and maybe a bit of clarification, but France still harbors 'Baby' Doc and his fortune...

The French courts have dismissed some of the 'war criminal' suits,(not applicable before 1994, unless it was between ww2 years) but I think there might be some outstanding attempts by Aristide to recover the substantial fortune Baby still maintains...

I also assume there must be some embarassment for the French of even having this former dictator in their midst.

I would be curious if anyone had a link as to where some of these exiles are? I know Constant is in the US, but where is Cedras ...

`Baby Doc,' former Haiti `President for Life,' is broke and living in Paris. (Newsmakers).(Jean-Claude Duvalier)(Interview)

Jet, May 12, 2003

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, Haiti's former "President for Life" who fled Haiti 17 years ago with millions of dollars, is now broke and living in Paris, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

The exiled dictator nicknamed "Baby Doc" lives in a borrowed one bedroom apartment with a girlfriend. A friend pays the $1,000 a month rent, the newspaper reported.

Duvalier said he lives off donations from friends and supporters.

He longs to return to Haiti. "I didn't come to France to live indefinitely," Duvalier, 51, told the Wall Street Journal. "The whole time I've been here, my heart and my spirit have been in Haiti."

more....

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1355/20_103/101613586/p1/article.jhtml

[Dob Bole]

38. Interesting...forgot that BabyDoc was still alive...

It would suck if he returned to Haiti now, IMO.

[Isome]

39. Raoul...

Panama granted him asylum in 94. (10,000 people died during his brief despotic run). He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the infamous massacre in a Gonaives's slums (in absentia). He lives in a "wealthy section" of Panama City, using his arms and drug smuggling profits to pay the tab.

[MrPrax]

43. Oh so the charming fellow

was his warren close by to Haiti...I figured he was in Africa somewhere

It would not surprise me if most of these 'diablos' came back eventually, simply as a sign of contempuous to anyone contemplating change, justice and humantiy in the Americas.

[Tinoire]

48. Argh. And his people are all over the internet!

His letters asking for ex-ton-ton Macoutes to get him back to Haiti are posted on many boards. It is so appalling.


Will Jean-Claude Duvalier Return to Haiti?

Former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier will soon be returning to Haiti and will be posing his candidacy in upcoming presidential elections, according to several people at a meeting of Duvalierists held in Brooklyn on Sep. 10. If he doesn't take power through elections, he will take it by other means, some participants said. About 100 partisans of the former "President for Life" gathered at the Tropical Reflections night club at 4501 Glenwood Road, where they heard a panel of speakers extol the glories, both political and economic, of the Duvalier years and the evils of the Lavalas and former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier succeeded his father François (or "Papa Doc") as "President for Life" of Haiti in 1971. Both regimes jailed and killed opposition figures, muzzled the press, and terrorized the Haitian people through the infamous "Tonton Macoutes," a nationwide network of thugs and killers. Jean-Claude and his cronies also financed lavish lifestyles of sports cars, motorcycles, and villas by milking bribes from visiting and resident businessmen and skimming millions from incoming foreign aid packages, a practice which finally alienated Washington, the regime's long-term ally. With U.S. acquiescence and Vatican direction, a popular uprising in Feb. 1986 toppled Jean-Claude, who was trundled off to Paris in a U.S. C-130 military transport packed to the gills with all the loot that "Baby Doc" and his trophy wife Michelle Bennett could lay their hands on in the regime's final hectic days. The phlegmatic ex-dictator has lived in France ever since, making periodic telephone statements to meetings of his nostalgic supporters scattered in all corners of the Haitian diaspora.

<snip>

"Duvalier or death!" bellowed Mirabeau Petit-Homme, one of the many "heavy macoutes" who was in the room for the occasion. He was the right hand man of Roger Lafontant, the former head of the Tonton Macoutes, with whom he attempted a coup d'état in Jan. 1991 and was jailed. Petit-Homme escaped from prison during the Sep. 1991 coup and is now living, with impunity, in Brooklyn.

<snip>

In any event, as Washington's pressure on the Haitian government mounts in the weeks to come, it is likely that the Duvalierists and FRAPHists will clamor in the diaspora. Do they really want to participate in presidential elections? By their conduct and their declarations, the answer is clearly no. Their results would surely be as dismal as that of their brethren in the neo-Duvalierist front called the Patriotic Movement to Save the Nation (MPSN) in last May's election.

Their real goal seems rather to capitalize on the destabilization campaign now being deployed against Haiti so as to seize the opportunity to have Duvalier or a Duvalierist "sitting in the presidential chair," even if by other than democratic means.

http://www.haitisurf.com/babydocwill.shtml
===

Duvalier and the 500 million he stole were graciously, willingly. lovingly given asylum by the French government. Neither the millions nor Duvalier were ever returned to Haiti, despite numerous requests for monetary restitution and for Duvalier to face judgement for his crimes of terror against the Haitian people.

The millions are all gone now. France had better not think this is a good time to return him.

===

Ex-Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier goes on TV to `explain myself’

December 17th, 2002

PARIS - Jean-Claude ’’Baby Doc’’ Duvalier, the former President of Haiti who has lived in exile in France since 1986, has granted his first television interview to an American journalist in 15 years.

The interview, with WFOR-CBS4 investigative reporter Michele Gillen, will be aired tonight on CBS 4 at 6 and 11 p.m.


<snip>

During the 2 ½-hour interview in a Paris hotel, Duvalier said he now hears the cries of his people, who ``are suffering a lot. It is not bearable. It is revolting.’’

<snip>

Q: Do you want to return to Haiti?

A: It is my firm intention as soon as conditions allow.

Q: Why do you want to go back and what do you want to do?

A: In spite of all these years that have elapsed since I was in Haiti, I am still very touched by that country. I suffer from being away as well as from seeing the misery under which the Haitian population has to live. That is why it is my duty to go back to the country and participate in the rebuilding of my country.


<snip>

http://www.haiti-news.com/article.php3?id_article=26
http://www.haitisurf.com/jeanclaudeint.shtml

[Vernunft II]

47. One thing that doesn´t add up is:

Why did they ship Aristide alive to Central Africa ? I was pretty clear he would raise a stink over this and draw attention to things every administration would rather bury deep. Or were they afraid of making a martyr out of him ?

[Isome]

51. Lots of things don't add up.

Why did the State Department and The New York Times say that Aristide requested asylum in South Africa but was denied? South African ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, said Aristide did not request asylum or exile in South Africa, neither did the South African government deny him asylum or exile.

Why that lie?