2/4 Haiti Update

Haiti: Foreign Press Liaison Update - February 4, 2004

1. An open letter to Caricom by Randall Robinson (The Jamaica Gleaner)
2. The end of nationhood, by John Maxwell (The Jamaica Observer)
3. Travel Safety Report by Pax Christi USA Haiti Task Force, February 3, 2004

4. The campaign by mainstream press to initiate a bloody civil war in Haiti,
Letter to Editors by Marguerite Laurent, Esq., Chair, The Haitian Lawyers
Leadership
5. Slideshow of photos taken during and around the Bicentennial celebration
6. Websites from the Government of Haiti
7. Recent articles of interest on the web


1. Caricom and Haiti - A Time for Vision and Principle, An Open Letter to
Caricom Heads of Government, by Randall Robinson, The Jamaica Gleaner, January
30, 2004. The media in Jamaica recently quoted Prime Minister P.J. Patterson as
stating that Caricom may be considering imposing sanctions on the Aristide
government.

I hope that the Prime Minister was misquoted. If not, history will judge
Caribbean governments rather harshly for failing in their responsibility to
uphold and preserve democracy - in its most basic and sacred elements - in Haiti.

A review of the facts will show that it is the absolute refusal of Haiti's
opposition to participate in elections over the past three years that has
prolonged, complicated, and intensified the crisis in Haiti. And a crisis that
began - during the Preval administration - over whether 7 senate seats should go
to a run-off has spiraled, at the instigation of the United States, into a
litany of never-ending conditions being placed on the Aristide Government. This
constant moving of the goal post was designed to (i) render the Government of
Haiti ineffective, (ii) induce Haiti fatigue throughout the region, and (iii)
lead to Aristide's eventual and complete isolation.

Will Caricom allow itself to be party to this, or will they stand firm, as
they meet in Jamaica, in defense of democracy in Haiti? Caricom member-states
are not "banana republics" - they are legitimate democracies. In defense of
their own interests, they must not introduce to the region the destabilizing
precedent of validating and empowering those who reject the sanctity of ballot
box. The horrendous political impasse in Haiti would not exist today if (i) the
opposition had agreed to participate in elections, or, more importantly, (ii)
the international community had allowed elections in Haiti to go forward -
with or without the opposition. It is these facts that must be borne in mind as
Caricom heads attempt to chart the way forward for Haiti.

For those tempted to think that "even the United States" has changed with
regard to Haiti: The "United States" that led the 1994 multinational effort to
restore Aristide's government no longer exists. The players have all changed.
Significantly, however, precisely those U.S. politicians who vehemently
opposed Aristide and the restoration of democracy to Haiti in October 1994 won
control of the House and Senate one month later. And they have had ten years to
methodically undermine anything and anyone associated with Lavalas in Haiti.

Haiti's opposition has made it clear that it wants Aristide to step down.
Indeed, some have been openly calling for his violent overthrow. In a move that
should outrage democratically elected Caribbean governments, Haiti's
opposition has for years refused to name their representatives to Haiti's electoral
council, thereby blocking elections, since the international community has taken
the position that if the opposition does not participate in elections in
Haiti, then there can be no elections. Imagine that lovely idea catching on in
St. Lucia, The Bahamas, or Jamaica. Haiti's opposition has demonstrated that it
can put together large demonstrations in Port-au-Prince. But so has the
government's supporters - skewed coverage by the international media
notwithstanding. What Caricom must now make clear is that Haiti's opposition will
participate in elections - or elections will go forward without them.

If Caricom imposes sanctions on the Aristide government, it will have -
tragically - validated the opposition's rejection of elections as the path to
political power. Politicians from Jamaica to Trinidad and from Guyana to The
Bahamas have a healthy tradition of competing with all of the resources at their
disposal - mental, material, spiritual, psychological, cultural - to win the
votes of the people. Why would any elected Caricom politician exempt Haiti's
opposition politicians from having to earn their power at the polls?

In Dominica for the funeral of Prime Minister Pierre Charles, Prime Minister
Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent & the Grenadines explained to the press that
Caricom had to assume the role of "impartial mediator" and "honest broker" in
Haiti. The media's characterization of Prime Minister Patterson's "sanctions"
comment would suggest that, far from being an impartial mediator, there may be
some within Caricom willing to embrace the Bush administration's policy of
placing all blame and all demands on Aristide, while allowing the opposition's
role in the intensification of the crisis to go unremarked.

If this is the case, this would indeed be a sad day for the Caribbean. Prime
Minister Patterson and Caricom got a first hand look at the intransigence of
Haiti's unelected opposition during recent talks in The Bahamas when the
opposition categorically rejected Caricom's proposals for the way forward - yet
there has been no condemnation of this by Prime Minister Patterson. Indeed,
although the media has reported on the clear demands made of Aristide by
Caricom, I am not aware of any demands made by Caricom of Haiti's opposition. A
lifetime of sustained and effective foreign policy analysis and advocacy on behalf
of Africa and the Caribbean tells me that Caricom leaders must stand together
in support of sacred, time-honored democratic principles and elections as
they attempt to mediate the Haitian crisis. They must be balanced and visionary,
and this would require them to admit and condemn the opposition's role in the
creation and prolongation of the crisis. Without this, in an increasingly
hostile global environment where the powers and prerogatives of ACP governments
are being steadily eroded and compromised, the political grave Caricom leaders
dig may not be only for Haiti. It may indeed be their very own.

Randall Robinson, foreign policy advocate, is the author of The Debt - What
America Owes to Blacks; Quitting America - The Departure of a Black Man From
His Native Land, and other works.

2. Pax Christi USA Haiti Task Force, February 3, 2004, Final On-site Report
on Travel Safety in Haiti. Excerpt:

"...Indeed, almost all the twinning groups [this group represents 59 parishes
in Virginia who are partnered with churches in Haiti]...and members of the
PCUSA [Pax Christi USA] Haiti Task Force feel that it is as safe traveling in
Haiti as it is in the US where reports of murder and violent crime appear every
day and include often random sniper shots. In addition, in the US there is
also the intense fear of terrorism. It is now the contention of many who travel
to Haiti that most of what is written about Haiti is toxic waste unfit for h
uman consumption. The US State Department warnings against travel to Haiti are a
prime example.

On January 30 the State Dept. warned that the Government of Haiti (GOH) has
not been able to maintain order in Port-au-Prince. Just not true! Both our
groups traveled all over
Port-au-Prince on numerous days over a two-week period and saw no signs of
unrest, no roadblocks, and no tire burnings. The people are about their normal
activities. Demonstrations do occur but require a GOH permit and the locations
are well defined. The reports about student unrest are grossly exaggerated and
the report of a student
killed by a tear gas canister fired by police was false. The person killed
was Ronel Victor, a Fanmi Lavalas activist who was demonstrating for the
government and accidentally killed while police were dispersing an unauthorized
demonstration of the Opposition. The
Opposition even tried to steal the body from the hospital in Canapé Vert so
as to cover up their lies that “student demonstrators were being killed by
government police.” The
Reuters and AP carried the lie in one of their reports.

The real violence in Haiti can be found in the US State Dept. and the US
press who are behind the organized campaign to bring down democracy in Haiti. As
Christians
and followers of the nonviolent Jesus we cannot allow that to happen. Be a
presence to the people of Haiti. Stand up for Truth and Justice. Bon Fet Ayiti
2004!!!"

3. The end of nationhood, by John Maxwell, The Jamaica Observer, February 1,
2004.

All the signs, all the portents and omens point to one thing: the Caricom
intervention in Haiti is almost certain to make things worse, much worse.

The world's savants, including Dr Rickey Singh; the editor of the London
Guardian; and Caricom's leaders appear to be agreed that what's wrong with Haiti
is Aristide and if they can get rid of him, all will be well in the worst
possible of all republics.

A racist, right-wing American publication, the National Vanguard, put it well
in 1994: "What they cannot do, however, is change the nature of the Haitian
people.

According to the National Guardian, Haitians are corrupt, brutal and
uncivilised and are unable to absorb the multifarious benefits of western capitalist
democracy.

The basic proposition is that Aristide is the symbol of all this, and as the
National Vanguard said, a decade ago, Aristide has all the qualifications for
a Haitian bogeyman - "He is a Marxist priest of the Roman Catholic persuasion
instead of a rightist priest of the
Voodoo persuasion like "Papa Doc" but he agrees with the latter that the
proper way to control one's political opponents is to terrorise and murder them."

Scarcely to be wondered at then, is the London Guardian's headline "Haiti's
despot Aristide stirs up people's revolution" conflating two unsupported
assertions - that Aristide is a despot and that there is a people's' revolution in
progress.

The Wall Street Journal (July 6, 2001) in a story by Mary Anastasia O'Grady,
editor of the Americas section, says "Mr Aristide bears direct responsibility
for his country's hardship. His extortion practices aimed at the few
productive sectors of the economy have
suffocated growth and investment. He has overseen the complete collapse of
justice and personal security, and implemented a tyrannical crackdown on
political dissent."

I would advise readers, whenever they read anything about Haiti, including my
column, to make sure their B-S detectors are turned to full power. It has
been my contention that most of what is written about Haiti is toxic waste and
totally unfit for human consumption.

Obviously, I believe that I am writing the truth, and presumably so do many
others who are willing to weigh in on Haiti, many of them from an abundance of
ignorance and ideological and racist hostility.

American influence

I believe that it is an incontestable fact that the Haitian majority has been
in total control of their own affairs for only an infinitesimal portion of
their 200 years as free people - people who freed themselves from slavery and
imperialist control against all the rules of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Any intervention in Haiti which does not take account of that fact is doomed
to failure. Haitians have already proved that they will fight with machetes
and hoes, with clubs and improvised spears, against trained soldiers armed with
machine guns and dive-bombers.

The one constant in Haitian history is the burning desire to be free.

According to the National Vanguard "When the United States sent a military
mission to Haiti in 1958 in order to help "Papa Doc" reorganise his army, the US
personnel who arrived were as appalled by the conditions they found as the
Marines had been 43 years earlier.

Historian Robert Heinl, who was a Marine colonel with the US mission in 1958,
found the "telephones gone. roads approaching non-existence. ports obstructed
by silt. docks crumbling. sanitation and electrification in precarious
decline." (Bringing Democracy to Haiti; National Vanguard No 114 Nov-Dec 1994)

The situation has only got worse since then.

Despite this, when the US deposed the usurper, General Cedras in 1994, it
made absolutely no attempt to help Haiti out of its largely foreign-sponsored
difficulties. Since Aristide was distrusted by all right-thinking Americans,
there was no question of his being allowed to complete his term of office - it was
decided that the Cedras interregnum would count as part of Aristide's term
and he was allowed to complete the few months left. He was succeeded by a
sympathiser, Rene Preval, elected by the overwhelming majority movement, the 'Family
Lavalas' which supported Aristide. It was therefore a foregone conclusion
that Aristide would be back. In view of this, it was decided by the North
Atlantic rulers of the world that the Haitian government should get no assistance
unless it sold off its pathetic economic patrimony and accepted the dictates of
the IMF and hold new elections.

Since the Haitians refused to do this, no aid was forthcoming. They would
have needed money for elections anyway.

On strictly humanitarian grounds alone, Haiti, whatever its government,
represented what Newsweek magazine once called "a basket case" - an economic
paraplegic, unable to fend for itself. Unlike the people of former Soviet countries,
however, Haiti is largely black,
and blacks batten on 'welfare'. No dole then for Haiti.

It is clear from this crude (but factual) summary that Aristide, Preval and
the Family Lavalas are the authors of their own misfortune - if the whole
tragic history of Haiti, including the dive-bombers, is assumed to be their
responsibility. They suffer from an original sin which makes them and their suffering
invisible to the outside world.

Flies in the Ointment

The present situation is dire. In the Jamaican vernacular, "Nutt'n aw gwaan"
which, when translated, means that economic activity is at a standstill,
electricity doesn't work, the roads are roads in name only, the hillsides are bare
and the streets of the capital are
distinguished by heaps of rubbish and heaps of firewood. The other important
reality is that most Haitians remain loyal to Aristide and the Family Lavalas.

Haiti is beyond dirt poor. It is, as Newsweek described it, a "basketcase".
Which is why, 10 years ago, after the floating barracoons were removed from
Kingston Harbour, I suggested that Caricom should immediately set up a technical
assistance group to help Haiti. In the parish of the poor, it is the poor who
rescue the poor. We, however,
preferred to re-institute Emancipation Day rather than work for the final
emancipation of the black people whose revolution helped to end slavery and free
the rest of the Americas. It was the example of Haiti which fired the likes of
Bolivar and Marti, of San Martin and
O'Higgins, who went on to free their countries from European domination.

The Haitians have never been forgiven for that.

In a story headlined "8 years after Invasion, Haiti Squalor Worsens" New York
Times reporter, David Gonzalez, reported people living in "Apocalyptic
poverty", some of them in a former prison which they have captured, Jamaican style.
Gonzalez quoted one young man who tried to leave Haiti during the Cedras
dictatorship but had been caught by the Americans and returned.

"The same America that . restored Mr Aristide to power in 1994," Mr Arince
said, now makes life impossible."

"We are human beings and we do not like to live like this. Only
animals should live here."

Gonzalez also quoted an American doctor, Paul Farmer, who founded a clinic in
Port-au-Prince in 1980 and has been working there since. Dr Farmer, in
referring to the United States' decision to withhold aid, said: "One of the world's
most powerful countries is taking on one of the most impoverished.

"Anybody who presides over this blockade needs to know the impact here
already."

The alleged cause of the present Haitian problem is the elections of May 2000
which the Haitian opposition factions claimed were "flawed". The problem for
them is that even if the elections complained of were flawed, the opposition
stands no chance of having a majority in the Haitian parliament. In any case,
these elections predated Aristide's presidential re-election.

The election flaw is a red herring

According to the Wall Street Journal of Friday, July 5, 2001: "Haiti doesn't
need international aid to get back on its feet. It needs modern democratic
institutions that will attract private capital and brains. This conflicts sharply
with Mr Aristide's most basic instincts, which run more along the lines of
his chum Fidel. It is folly to believe that in exchange for multilateral aid the
leopard will change his spots."

Deliverance - neo-liberal style. Jamaicans and other structurally adjusted
peoples will understand.

When the Supreme Court delivered the White House to George W Bush, there was
celebration in Florida and in elite Haitian neighbourhoods. A few weeks before
the US presidential election, Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been swept back into
power with an overwhelming majority of his own, a majority that no one, not
even the opposition seriously
questions. In the parliamentary elections in May, the Family Lavalas had won
all but one of the 29 seats in the Senate and 80 per cent of the seats in the
lower house. Aristide captured 92 per cent of the vote in an election
boycotted by the opposition. This boycott has assumed mythic proportions, since most
eligible Haitian voters voted for Aristide anyway.

But the Haitian elite (like the Venezuelan elite) sees the Republican
takeover in Washington as the lever to return them to power. They have the active
collaboration of Bush's envoy, the disreputable Otto Reich and of USAID, which
apparently sponsors the so-called Haiti Democracy Group. But even before Bush,
the Clinton administration had
blackballed Haiti. A US Embassy spokesman in Port-au-Prince said "the
president (Clinton) together with the international community has made it known to
the Haitian authorities that their failure to address well-documented election
irregularities puts into question their commitment to democracy".

It is all quite simple, really. A country whose infrastructure has been
destroyed, whose best and brightest have fled after a century of sponsored abuse,
is expected to pull itself up, as Americans say, by its own bootstraps. As you
will discover if you try, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps simply
breaks your back. Another way is, of course, possible.

As Haiti endures the ravages of disease of all kinds, but especially of
HIV/AIDS, there is one country which is helping. There are now nearly 1,000 Cuban
medical personnel in Haiti, 700 of them doctors. Like the Good Samaritan, Cuba
did not pass by on the other side.
Perhaps Caricom could examine this example, and they certainly should get the
facts of Haiti before charting a course that might mean racial civil war next
door to Jamaica and the United States.

Copyright ©2004 John Maxwell
maxinf [at] cwjamaica.com

4. The campaign by mainstream press to initiate a bloody civil war in Haiti,
Letter to Editors by Marguerite Laurent, Esq., Chair, The Haitian Lawyers
Leadership

Dear Editors:

It's déjà vu.

What we are witnessing in Haiti today is the anatomy of a Coup D’etat. The
game it seem is, if one can't get the Haitians to kill one another, in
significant enough numbers, for the international cameras, then have a virtual or
media
Coup D’etat, telling all and sundry that the majority in Haiti no longer
supports the freely elected Haitian president. Perhaps, if this lie is repeated
often enough, it might come true.

That seems to be the strategy, as evidenced by the wave of not simply
negative press but distorted press about Haiti in recent months. Witness, for
instance, the recent AP story about a "student demonstrator" who died because a
police tear gas canister hit him. AP reported the story, NPR repeated it, the
mainstream press repeated it. Turned out, it was not a student demonstrating
against Aristide but a pro-Aristide person coming home, who accidentally got hit by
the tear gas canister in the melee caused by the increasingly violent-prone
anti-Aristide demonstrators. But the retractions are never as vociferous as the
pronouncements, which in effect, seem to want to advocate and make Readers
believe: that, that unpopular monster Aristide is killing idealistic,
pro-democratic, non-violent students!!!!

This is so far from the actual truth as to put in question the intent of the
people spreading these images and "news" footages. For, the verifiable truth
is that the so-called opposition in Haiti has lost most of its credibility with
the majority of Haitians - the Haitian poor - in Haiti. That's the verifiable
truth.

And, if the anti-Aristide minority had ever had any credibility whatsoever,
they lost it, completely and irrevocably on January 1, 2004, when they tried to
sabotage the greatest sacred day set forth, to commemorate Haiti's 200-year
anniversary. January 1, 2004, was an important event for the Haitian majority.
Yet the so-called "opposition" has time and time again embrace all the things
the Haitian people will not embrace, like return of the Haitian army, strikes
that force the schools to close and children to not be educated,
neoliberalism policies, sabotage, vile propaganda and now, increasingly, violence.

Haiti represents the first nation of enslaved workers to win their
independence in combat and form their own nation. That was something the Haitian
people
did celebrate peacefully and in large gatherings on January 1, 2004. But, the
U.S./Euro supported "opposition," lost their credibility not only because they
tried to obstruct the Haitian people's celebrations but because while the
Haitian people are starving under a U.S./Euro embargo, this anti-Aristide
opposition is being financed to the tunes of millions of dollars.

But, in trying to obstruct the Haitian people's bi-centennial celebrations
with monies from foreigners, this anti-Aristide opposition simply revealed
themselves to be anti-Haitian and pro-foreign interests in Haiti. But it now
appears, from the current daily demonstration they are staging, that because they
were unsuccessful in their attempt at Coup D'etat before Jan. 1, 2004, that has
made them increasingly more and more violent since January 1, 2004. This story
of the Haitian people and its 200-year-old-struggle with right wing
reactionary and undemocratic forces is hardly ever reported.

Besides, these very few students demonstrating with the opposition
politicians in no way represent the overwhelming majority of students in Haiti. Yet,
the
mainstream press seems to report the opposite.

The deal is: highlight ALL the negative press to be found out there, and, if
that's what your searching for, there's a TON of it, on Haiti and Haiti's
people. Show how backward and undemocratic we-Haitians are. And, don't even bother
to verify your facts.

Witness, for instance, the New York Times' recent retraction. But it goes
deeper. The mainstream media is taking their information ONLY from the
anti-Aristide camp, so that's all the public ever hears.

Another example of a media spin is Mr. Orlando Marville, a former OAS chief,
recent article entitled "Haiti: When Will It End" dated January 25, 2004, and
published in something called the Nation, Barbados.

Said Mr. Marville, a former OAS official no less, and, still presumably well
connected, straight-up twisted the facts and straight-up publicly expressed
his impotence and political frustrations that CARICOM has NOT yet fallen in
behind the party line and media spin campaign and censored and isolated Aristide
and his people's government!

Orlando Marville, writes and I quote:

"As North Americans are wont to say, it is deja vu all over again. Like
President Preval, when the Senate refused to appoint his nominee as Prime Minister …
.. Aristide has decided to rule by decree. The mandate of the Parliament has
expired and he intends to rule by presidential decree, evidently beyond the
date of the end of his mandate. He has also made another of his empty promises
to have elections in six months." (Emphasis added)

Yep, indeed, it's déjà vu, Mr. Orlando Marville. 200-years of déjà vu.

Mr. Marville's piece is filled with propaganda and misstatements. Not the
verifiable truth. For instance, the majority of Haitians believe it is the
stonewalling and impasse created by the tiny US-supported group of Haitians, making
up no more than 4% of the total Haitian population called "the opposition"
that has caused Parliamentary elections not to be held. Aristide did not "decide
to rule by decree.....evidently beyond the date of the end of his mandate" as
Mr. Marville writes.

But Haitians trying to stem the tide of half-truths and lies are traveling
uphill and the terrain is getting steeper and steeper. For, the ordinary U.S.
citizen just cannot believe that credible institutions like the New York Times,
Reuters, AP, CNN, NPR and even former OAS delegates, would participate,
directly or indirectly, in a campaign to destabilize and destroy a freely elected
government.

But it's true.

We have in a Haiti today a tiny group, supported by the wealthiest
organizations in the world, such as IRI, NED, US-State Department, USAID, IMF, IDB,
World Bank and the European Union, trying to topple a populist government without
going through elections.

As in the Marville piece, the aforementioned mainstream papers also ignore
the Aristide government's mandate, ignore the US-led economic embargo on Haiti
for four years, ignore the $3 million paid last year by USAID and nearly $1
millions paid by the European Union to Aristide biggest detractors in Haiti and
ignore the Haitian majority's support for the Aristide government and the rule
of law.

Instead these papers seem to relish in reporting daily anti-Aristide
demonstrations with such little regard for facts and details that if I hadn't been in
Haiti myself, watching some of those demonstration, with my own two eyes, I
would today believe there is no support for the Aristide government and that the
"students demonstrators" and "opposition" to Aristide make up the
overwhelming majority of Haiti's population.

But the verifiable truth is the exact opposite. So the question is, why are
the AP, Reuters, New York Times, Wall Street journal, Washington Post, etc.
filing reports on Haiti more interested in the "oppostion-to-Aristide's" and
their media spin and half-truths, than with the facts and whole truth? Is it that
the truth doesn't serve their institutionalized racism and big-business
interests? This seems incredulous, in this age and time.

What's clear is that the campaign to initiate a bloody Haitian civil war is
being conducted at the highest levels.

Hopefully the afore-mentioned U.S. press and media outlets will reconsider
and remember the basic tenets of journalistic reporting. Hopefully they are not
willing to continue to have the blood of innocent Haitians on their hands.

If that's the case, I would urge they, at least make a better effort to
VERIFY their facts before printing it. It's past time for AP, Reuters, New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, CBS, NBC, etc. to stop
taking the "news" solely from Haitian journalist and radio outlets intent on civil
war and destabilization in Haiti because of personal ambitions, financial
interests, or their impotence and political frustration with Aristide. What's
being reported should be verified first. That would be good journalism.

Marguerite Laurent, Esq.
Chair, The Haitian Lawyers Leadership


5. Slideshow of photos taken during and around the Bicentennial celebration
in Haiti by Jean Saint-Vil, Haitian journalist/activist based in Canada
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b3445fca658e

6. Websites from the Government of Haiti:
National Palace http://www.palaisnational.info
L'Union Newspaper http://journallunion.com/
Ministry of Foreign Affairs http://www.maehaitiinfo.org/
Haiti's Embassy to US http://www.haiti.org
Haiti's National Television (watch the daily news!) http://www.tnhaiti.org/

7. Recent articles of interest on the web:

La CIA déstabilise Haïti, Reseau Voltaire, Jan. 27, 2004
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/article11918.html

Analysis by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)
Unfair and Indecent Diplomacy: Washington's Vendetta against President
Aristide

http://coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.03_Haiti_Aristide.htm

Haiti and the US Game by Tom Reeves, Z Magazine, March 27, 2003
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