Pre-election terror and repression in Haiti

The country, Haiti, was invaded in February 2004 by US Marines, who completed the bloody work of US-backed ex-soldiers and death squad leaders of the former dictatorship in toppling Haiti’s popularly elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide of the Fanmi Lavalas Party. To this day the country remains occupied by United Nations troops, sent largely by Latin American governments of countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile, currying favor with Washington by relieving Marine units badly needed to suppress the resistance in Iraq.

The elections, set for January 8—though it is widely expected they will be postponed yet again—are shaping up to be nothing but a cynical and tragic farce, carried out under the barrel of a gun.

The government installed as a result of the coup and occupation, headed by unelected Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, has reset the election date four times in the last five months, violating Haiti’s constitution, which requires the interim government to hold elections within 90 days (this period expired on June 1, 2004). In the meantime, Latortue has found time to prioritize the awarding of back pay to soldiers of the former military dictatorship that Aristide had disbanded in 1994.

This latest election schedule calls for a first round of presidential and legislative elections on January 8, runoff elections on February 15, and local elections on March 5, 2006.

The number of polling stations has been reduced from 12,000 to 600, leaving people in poor rural areas that had supported Aristide at a disadvantage in getting to the polls. The complicated electoral card process requires voters to listen carefully for announcements for card distribution on the radio and television, when many Haitians are so poor that they have no access to either. Registration alone took over five months, and cards must be distributed in about five weeks, a period that includes the Christmas holiday, Haiti’s independence day on January 1, and the beginning of Carnival season on January 8.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/hait-d30.shtml