Haiti’s US-installed government cracks down on opponents

Since then, economic and security conditions in the impoverished Caribbean island have worsened. A promised $1 billion aid package has failed to materialize. And the UN “stabilization” force, with fewer than half of the 8,300 scheduled troops, has proved unable and unwilling to make any serious efforts at disarming the ex-soldiers and armed gangs who are behind the alarming rise in kidnappings and crimes of all sorts.

Further eroding the government’s legitimacy has been its open identification with the military and paramilitary thugs from Haiti’s former dictatorships who led the armed anti-Aristide rebellion earlier this year.

Not only were these elements hailed by Latortue as “freedom fighters”; they have been given free reign in taking over cities throughout the country and pressing their demands for the reestablishment of the army.

A case in point was the recent acquittal in a hasty, one-day trial of rebel and former death-squad leader Jodel Chamblain, charged among other crimes for the assassination of businessman Antoine Izméry, a prominent Aristide supporter.

On top of those deeply unpopular moves was the government’s response to the recent flooding of the country’s third-largest city in the wake of Tropical Storm Jeanne—a response characterized by inaction and indifference—even as the death toll in Gonaïves reached 3,000 and 250,000 city residents were rendered homeless. In addition, the same criminal elements that Latortue celebrated as “freedom fighters” in this very city just last March have hampered relief efforts by looting desperately needed aid.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/hait-o18.shtml