News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 28/11/05 |
Continue sending letters for release of Father Jean Juste | Support Ronald St. Jean’s CDPH | Sign Campaign 7 Petition | Support Claude Ribbe’s efforts in Paris | Thank the Irish Parliamentarians and LASC of Dublin for demanding free and fair elections in Haiti |
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HLLN Action Requested: Please, just another reminder, to Network participants to remember to send letters to the MEDIA this week to request release of political prisoners held without charges in Haiti, especialy Father Gerard Jean Juste and demand UN occupation of Haiti be terminated and Haiti’s sovereignty respected by the international community. Call Lavarice Gaurdin (786 290 1750 or e-mail Lavarice at lawandjustice21@yahoo.com ) to send DIRECT support for Father Jean-Juste’s release efforts. The HLLN sends an open heartfelt thanks to the solidarity members in Dublin, Ireland for the letter from the Irish Parliamentarians demanding free and fair elections in Haiti. Thank you. Those wishing to thanks these Irish Parliamentarians for their efforts on behalf of a voiceless people in Haiti, please write your letters c/o the Latin American Solidarity Centre in Dublin info@lasc.ie; website at www.lasc.ie/news/haiti-elections.html. We urged our partners and collaborators to keep up the pressure and good work, especially the Canada Haiti Action Network ( www.canadahaitiaction.ca/ ). See, Haiti solidarity hits the streets; Pan-Canadian Week of Action, Nov. 12-20, 2005 www.canadahaitiaction.ca/article.php?id=108&PHPSESSID=6ae266247dbbf144314f63712919bb99 For those who haven’t sent their letter out this week, please Contact your local and international media outlets: www.margueritelaurent.com/contactinformation/local-national-media.html 1. Demand a Stop to the killings in Site Soley, Bel Air, Martissant, Solino – stop killing of Haitian people by UN Troops www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/presswork/protect.html * 2.Demand Release of Father Jean Juste, for background info, go to: www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/presswork/freejeanjuste.html * Urgent Action Alert: Citizens of this planet, the people of Haiti remembering their roots, are calling out to you www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/presswork/mediacall.html ********************** – Wilma damage causes disabled woman to fear losing home – Invitation ‡ la conférence de presse du 28 novembre, contact: presse@claude-ribbe.com | In The Crime of Napoleon, Claude Ribbe accuses the emperor of genocide, gassing rebellious blacks (in Haiti) more than a century before the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/26/wfra26.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/26/ixworld.html – Campagne de Solidarité financiËre au CDPH Contact Ronald St. Jean to help CDPH meet its fundraising objectives in order for CDPH to continue its human rights work in Haiti – Haiti is Fixed By: Kevin Skerrett, Canada Haiti Action Network Nov-26-2005 www.canadahaitiaction.ca/article.php?id=107 ** LINKS to go to: Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou Campaign 7 www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignseven/campaignseven.html Campaign 7 denounces France’s role in the 2004 bi-centennial coup and demands a return of the over 21 billion France extorted from Haiti, please remember to sign our petition to France. See: FRANCE Must Return the Charles X Ransom to Haiti| Open Letter to the People of France www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignseven/openletterfrance.html Sign Action Petition at End of Letter for demanding Restitution to Haiti by France in French, Kreyol and English English at: www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/restitution4haiti/ Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou – Many Hands Make Light a Heavy Load: Read also, Claude Ribbe’s “The Crime of Napoleon” – Napoleon’s genocide ‘on a par with Hitler’ www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/26/wfra26.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/26/ixworld.html ************************************************************** (The kind of story which could never, ever happen in Cuba.) www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/special_packages/wishbook/132587 24.htm WISH BOOK 2005 Wilma damage causes disabled woman to fear losing home BY TRENTON DANIEL tdaniel@herald.com The deep lines on Lorette Labady’s face suggest a lifetime of hardship. Labady, 68, saw an older brother break up a budding romance, fled the Francois Duvalier regime in Haiti by boat, divorced a carouser and has endured the passing of all but one of 10 siblings. These days, she has fewer people to remember her. Her most painful blow of late: Wilma. When the October storm hit her Little Haiti home, avocado and oak trees punctured her roof, including that of a rental cottage in her backyard. She charged $350 a month for the one-bedroom space, her livelihood until the leaky roof prompted a tenant to move out. Previous attempts to repair the roof were thwarted. She said contractors ran off with her money. And so, Labady frets over how she will make her house and utility payments, fearful she will be forced from the two-bedroom, 80-year-old home she has lived in for more than two decades. The former housekeeper takes in about $600 a month with Social Security. ‘’If I can’t pay my mortgage, I’m going to lose my house after 25 years,’’ Labady said, erupting in one of several of the morning’s tears. “The rent is so high there are no places to live, and I don’t want to leave.’’ Labady, who was born in Cuba but moved to Haiti when she was 2, suffers from diabetes and is disabled. Her right arm bears long and wide scars from surgery, and arthritis prohibits her from using her hand. ‘’She lives alone, she’s kind of sick and she doesn’t have any family to help her,’’ said Gloria Gonzales, an outreach specialist at S.T.E.P.S. in the Right Direction, a Hialeah-based nonprofit organization that helps the elderly and disadvantaged. Labady has one brother still alive who lives southwest of Little Haiti; she’s not entirely sure where. They seldom speak: ‘’He’s older than Castro,’’ she says, which means he’s in his 80s. Back in Haiti, she has a generous niece. ‘’There’s only one to remember me,’’ she said about her. To pitch in, a housekeeper visits Labady three times a week to help clean, cook and prepare food, or just provide company. Still, there’s something resilient about Labady. She remains active despite her disability. She paces her living room in New Balance running shoes, navigating the once-sodden furniture padded with plastic and towels like so many other South Florida rooms post-Wilma. Labady pauses. Then she recounts a bittersweet memory of her first love. She was walking home from a funeral in Haiti when a fetching young man slipped a love letter in her palm. Her brother broke up the relationship for reasons she can’t recall. “He was very handsome, tall, nice skin and everything.’’ Minutes later, Labady returns to the present, wondering what she will do. ************ Mobilisation nationale contre le révisionnisme et le Crime de Napoléon : Assemblée nationale, lundi 28 novembre 2005, salle 6242, 11 heures. Les principales associations de l’Outre-mer, reprenant l’initiative du Collectif des Antillais (www.collectifdom.com), ont décidé de se fédérer contre le révisionnisme historique sur la question de l’esclavage et le Crime de Napoléon. En prélude ‡ un rassemblement national sans précédent aux Invalides (place Vauban, métro Varenne ou Saint-FranÁois-Xavier) le samedi 3 décembre 2005 ‡ 14 heures contre la glorification de Napoléon, elles vous invitent ‡ assister ‡ la conférence de presse qui se tiendra lundi 28 novembre ‡ 11 heures salle 6242 ‡ l’Assemblée nationale, 126 rue de l’Université ‡ Paris, en présence notamment : De Victorin Lurel, député et président de la Région Guadeloupe, secrétaire national du PS pour l’Outre-mer qui présentera le lendemain 29 novembre ‡ la Chambre sa proposition de loi visant ‡ rapporter l’article 4 de la loi du 23 février 2005 enjoignant aux enseignants d’exalter ´ le rÙle positif ª de la colonisation franÁaise. De Claude Ribbe, écrivain, porte parole des associations de l’Outre-mer, responsable de la Commission Culture du Collectif des Antillais, membre du Comité du deux décembre, membre de la Commission nationale consultative des Droits de l’Homme et auteur du livre Le Crime de Napoléon (‡ paraÓtre le jeudi 1er décembre 2005 aux éditions Privé www.claude-ribbe.com ). De Me Gilbert Collard, membre du Comité du Deux décembre, avocat du Collectif des Antillais, chargé des poursuites contre M. Pétré-Grenouilleau pour les propos révoltants tenus le 12 juin 2005 dans le Journal du Dimanche. De Guy Birenbaum, éditeur. Des responsables des principales associations et de nombreuses personnalités de l’Outre-mer. Contacts presse: Christine 06 79 38 74 76 Bob 01 53 58 15 03 *********** Issue 54 November 2005 – January 2006 Canada and Empire Haiti is ‘fixed’ by Kevin Skerrett Recent Canadian policy in Haiti has been remarkably successful, having achieved most of its objectives. This is the case in much the same way that US policies in places such as El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s were smashing successes – quite literally. At first glance, such an assertion would appear terribly wrong. Any serious reading of the existing situation in Haiti (available almost exclusively outside the mainstream media, within explicitly left-wing vehicles such as New Socialist) indicates that when Canada, the US and France initiated the February 29 2004 coup d’état that ousted the elected government of Haiti and installed an unelected puppet regime, they unleashed a terrifying wave of repression against the desperately poor majority of the country (see NS issues #46,49, & 52 and extensive coverage of the coup on Znet). Along with uncounted thousands killed, independent human rights groups report that over 700 political prisoners have been jailed without charge, mainly leaders and supporters of (deposed) President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party. The Canadian-trained Haitian National Police have been repeatedly seen shooting unarmed demonstrators, and – most recently – collaborating with machete-wielding gan! gs engaged in a terror campaign targeting all those calling for a return of the constitutional government that most Haitians elected. However, to conclude that such outcomes signify a policy failure assumes that Canada’s agenda was actually the establishment of a peaceful, human rights respecting democracy in Haiti. In fact, the recent episode in Haiti offers us rich evidence for the view that Canada’s actual foreign policy agenda is to work in tandem with the US and a few other key military allies in entrenching and stabilizing a world economic system where safe investment outlets, cheap labour production zones and unfettered access to natural resources and export markets are not only established but locked-in by trade agreements which trump national constitutions. In what follows, I advance this argument by examining three central objectives of Canada’s Haiti policy. In concluding that these objectives were met, I then offer a brief reflection on what lessons this ‘success’ might hold for those of us aiming to challenge and subvert this unconscionable agenda. Objective 1: Further debase the established concept of national sovereignty Having joined the coup brigade in Haiti, Canada needed a rationale to explain why such a patently undemocratic assault on a poor country was in fact quite legitimate. This rationale would need to be able to overcome the established attachment to the concept of national sovereignty and make it revocable, under certain circumstances (to be defined by the powerful). As eventually articulated in the May 2005 International Policy Statement, and in various speeches to the UN, Canada has used its Haiti intervention (along with the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan) as positive illustrations of the doctrine now known as ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). For some, this concept is merely an update of the racist ‘white man’s burden’ – the notion that wealthy, militarily powerful countries have an obligation to ‘protect’ the populations of poorer countries unable to protect (or govern) themselves. Canada’s Haiti policy also shows us how deeply-set racist perceptions of other (non-white) countries can be effectively mobilized to advance this concept. The established view of Haiti’s (formerly enslaved, extremely poor, African) population – as ‘incapable of self-government’ – was renewed and refreshed. When Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren lamented on the eve of the coup that Haiti had failed to create ‘a people who are susceptible to self-government,’ it elicited no particular notice. His racism was echoed more recently by Liberal MP Beth Phinney, who asked during a June 14 Foreign Affairs committee hearing: ‘How can you change the will of the people [of Haiti] to want to be able to govern themselves?’ Such repugnant views require total ignorance of Haitian history, during which the population liberated itself from slavery, occupation and dictatorship, and then managed to democratically elect a president (three times!) that the US government overtly opposed. If the people of Haiti have proven one thing in their tragic history, it is their burning desire – and their capacity – to ‘govern themselves.’ But of course, this is the threat that the coup in Haiti ended, and that the R2P doctrine is designed to counter. And, with the concept now ‘field-tested,’ it is ready to serve usefully in the future should the need to violate another country’s sovereignty (or support the violations carried out by an ‘ally’) arise again. Objective 2: Disguise Imperial Domination as ‘Development’ Unfortunately, fond recollections of some of the original redistributive ideals attached to international development programs have blinded some progressives to the true function of ‘development’ and development agencies within the current international system. As a result, we have the social democratic NDP and many well-intentioned progressives following the lead of Bono, Bob Geldof, and the recent ‘Live 8’ showbiz against world poverty concerts calling more or less blindly for ‘more aid.’ Progressive critics of the Liberals point to their failure to reach the hallowed development aid target of 0.7% of GDP – and often just stop there. Canada’s relationship with Haiti is a stark indicator of the simplicity of these calls. When the Canadian government hosted a secret meeting in early 2003 in order to (it was later revealed in L’Actualité magazine) plot the overthrow of Haiti’s elected government, they invited representatives of the US and France, and brought along senior staff from Canada’s international development agency – CIDA. A careful examination of CIDA’s recent programming in Haiti reveals that in politically sensitive areas (human rights, women’s rights, media, etc.), the Haitian NGOs and agencies that CIDA was funding were without exception active players within the elite minority political opposition to Haiti’s government. While CIDA continued to boast publicly that it was providing substantial assistance to Haiti, the reality was that in the several years leading up to the coup, it was quietly supporting the US-led embargo on aid to the highly dependent Haitian government, in an effort to destabilize it through financial strangulation. A look at recent international aid flows to Haiti – coming primarily from Canada, the US and France – clarifies the severity of this murderous embargo. External aid to Haiti in $US millions 1994-2002 1994-95: 611 Source: World Bank, International Cooperation Framework (ICF), July 2004 With the election of George W. Bush in the US in 2000, US aid to Haiti’s government actually stopped altogether, leaving the nearly bankrupt Haitian government defenceless and incapacitated. It is telling that the thousands of Haitians who surely died or suffered badly as a result of these ‘aid sanctions’ have never even been counted – ‘unworthy victims’ of an aid policy turned policy sledgehammer. What must be realized is that this result was intentional. It was the design and intended consequence of a program in which CIDA and its American equivalent USAID participated directly. The question of why this destabilization was carried out continues to be debated, but many have argued persuasively that while President Aristide accepted some of the dictates of Canadian and American neoliberal conditionality, he also resisted some, such as the demand for wholesale privatization of state enterprises. (On this, it is worth recalling that in a recent interview with journalist Naomi Klein, Aristide summarized the reason for his overthrow in three words: ‘Privatization, privatization, privatization.’) Of course, none of this has ever been reported in any detail in the Canadian media, and in fact, Prime Minister Martin was able to point to Haiti as his main foreign policy ‘success story’ during the June 2004 federal leadership debates (to no response from NDP leader Jack Layton or anyone else for that matter). In this sense, the con – disguising an utterly cynical and self-interested imperial game as a humanitarian intervention led by CIDA – has worked quite well. It has shown that ‘international aid’ can do more than just feed and dig wells: it can provoke (and legitimize) regime change. Objective 3: Establish Canada’s reputation as trusted election monitor Following the coup, it was recognized that the installed puppet government would not enjoy the full legitimacy that would be required to truly move Haiti onto the ‘correct’ neoliberal path. What was therefore required was what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman have referred to as a ‘demonstration’ election – a tightly constrained and controlled voting exercise that projects the imagery of liberal-democratic institutions, but whose actual function is to legitimize the ‘elected’ government. A key function within such elections is the ‘observation/monitoring’ process, which Chomsky and Herman describe in Manufacturing Consent as follows: ‘Official observers are dispatched to the election scene to assure its public-relations success. Nominally, their role is to see that the election is ëfair.’ Their real function, however, is to provide the appearance of fairness by focusing on the government’s agenda and by channeling press attention to a reliable source. They testify to fairness on the basis of long lines, smiling faces, no beatings in their presence, and the assurances and enthusiasm of U.S. and client-state officials.’ Such elections were recently organized in both occupied Afghanistan (October, 2004) and occupied Iraq (January, 2005). What is interesting to recall is that in Iraq, Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley (head of Elections Canada) played a leading role in precisely this process. Barely six weeks prior to the January 30, 2005 vote, Kingsley was called upon to form an expert ‘assessment mission’ to evaluate the quality of the planned election. To no one’s surprise, this mission dutifully issued the needed blessing on the day of the election itself (surely drafted in advance, and released prior to any possible detailed reporting as to the vote’s fairness). Remarkably, the definitive conclusion brought forward was widely cited in the pro-war corporate media, despite having been reached by an ‘assessment’ team physically located in Jordan! When a similar blessing was needed for a post-coup occupation election in Haiti in late 2005, the relevant powers turned once again (in June 2005) to Jean-Pierre Kingsley to head up an almost identical group of ‘election experts,’ this time not even offering to ‘assess’ (as in Iraq) but merely to ‘monitor.’ Kingsley was an especially good choice for advancing the Canadian and American agendas in Haiti. He is a Board member of a ‘pro-democracy’ NGO called the International Foundation of Election Systems (IFES), which has been very active in Haiti in recent years. In fact, as a detailed report from the University of Miami Law School has shown, IFES was centrally involved in the organization of Haiti’s small, elite-led political opposition, and was an active supporter of the forces that brought about the coup. (It is hardly surprising to find that IFES receives funding from such renowned democracy-lovers as Exxon-Mobil, Citibank and Motorola). In order to reach the foregone conclusion that a ‘free and fair’ election was held in Haiti that ‘meets recognized standards,’ it will be necessary that the assessment team minimize or ignore the significance of certain key aspects of Haiti’s political climate, such as: hundreds of political prisoners including prominent leaders of one party in particular (Lavalas); state terror exercised through police squads who target victims on a political, as well as class/race basis; the arrest or even police execution (Abdias Jean) of journalists willing to report on police atrocities; politically selective exclusions of vast sectors of the electorate through insufficient registration and polling station access; the judicial exoneration and release of convicted paramilitary killers such as Louis-Jodel Chamblain; reasonable and legitimate boycotts of both registration and voting by parties who are targets of state terror, etc. We should anticipate that yet another sham occupation election will be carried out, buttressed by the foregone conclusions of the Kingsley/Elections Canada led monitoring mission, and Haiti will be placed neatly in the Afghanistan/Iraq category – embarking on a ‘bold new era of democratic life.’ Paul Martin and the Government of Canada will take much credit for having ‘democratized’ the unruly masses of Haiti – and a new pro-US, pro-Canadian government will be installed, ready to embrace the economic policy agenda designed for it in Washington and Ottawa. The profits available to Canadian companies engaged in Haiti’s ‘reconstruction,’ or taking advantage of its re-disciplined labour market, are already flowing, with more to come. Lessons for the Left in Canada One of the obvious lessons from the foregoing is simple: ‘Don’t believe the hype.’ But the fact is that far too many ‘progressives,’ including some involved in the anti-war movement and within otherwise quite progressive NGOs, have swallowed the government and the corporate media messaging about Haiti. In part, this is because certain trusted groups – such as CIDA-funded NGOs like Development and Peace, Rights and Democracy and Alternatives – supported the coup. Trust in such groups needs to be reassessed. Further, much more work is needed to undermine and expose the carefully constructed and maintained mythology of Canada as peacekeeper and democracy-builder. If anything, our Haiti policy illustrates that neoliberal and neo-colonial rot has infected and transformed even some of the government programs and NGOs about which we may have thought better. In some cases, they now serve as key cogs in the machinery of Canadian imperialism, no less vital than Foreign Affairs and its corporate partners. Kevin Skerrett is an Ottawa-based trade union researcher active with the Canada Haiti Action Network. To join the CHAN email info-list, please email him at kskerrett@cupe.ca ************************** Contact: If you’d like to help a native Haitian human rights organization directly, please contact CDPH executive, Ronald Saint-Jean directly at: “CDPH CDPH” cdphcdph@yahoo.fr Campagne de levée de fonds (1.500.000 Gdes) Solidarité avec le CDPH, y compris sa section (GDP) Zanmi/ Kamarad, Le Bureau Exécutif du CDPH/GDP a l’obligation de vous informer de sa Campagne de levée de fonds en raison des problËmes financiers dont il fait face depuis belle lurette et en profite pour vous faire parvenir, sous ce couvert, le Budget estimatif de ladite Campagne. En ces temps o l’esprit de bourrage de cr‚ne souffle dans tous les domaines, en particulier dans le domaine des droits de l’Homme (pris au sen espéce humaine, douée de raison, hommes et femmes confondus), il s’avËre nécessaire de le maintenir en dépit des flots démontés (pensée unique), surtout en ce moment crucial de la vie nationale. Dans cette atmosphére de grande confusion, le CDPH/GDP a toute sa place et a pour objectif premier de rendre dynamique et pratique le libre débat ‡ tout citoyen, sans distinction aucune. La bataille pour la défense des droits du Peuple haítien est ‡ l’ordre du jour. Ainsi, nous sommes certain que vous ne tarderez pas ‡ donner suite favorable ‡ la Campagne de solidarité au digne et difficile combat du Peuple haÔtien contre l’arbitraire et la répression. Le Bureau Exécutif du CDPH/GDP vous prie de bien vouloir agréer, Zanmi/Kamarad, ses meilleures salutations en la Patrie commune. Fait ‡ Port-au-Prince (HAITI), novembre 2005 Le Bureau Exécutif du CDPH/GDP : Jacques MATHURIN Ronald SAINT-JEAN Franck SENAT Syndicaliste Directeur de Publication Ecrivain Administrateur Coordonnateur Président Emérite ********************************* * Condemn Sham Elections in Haiti www.margueritelaurent.com/law/shamelection.html * HLLN’s position on the sham elections www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/withoutfear.html * ‘We’re Not Participating In Selections!’ www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/testimonies/stdemo.html ***************************************** |
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