News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 15/2/06 |
The Smoking Gun – Photos of STOLEN ballots found in garbage dump in Haiti | Brazil backs Preval as victor in elections | Smashed ballot baxes found in Haiti, et al |
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Recommended Link: HLLN Report on Haitian Election Laws, Feb. 14, 2006 – the CEP is no authority to COUNT or EXAMINE ballots, this is left to the polling stations. Go to: https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/ezilidanto/2006-02/msg00012.html ********************************
************************************ Photos of STOLEN ballots found in garbage dump in Haiti CLICK on links: news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/ids_photos_wl/r2048715975.jpg A supporter of Haitian presidental candidate Rene Preval yells slogans while holding a ballot paper which he claim is his and was found at a dump site during a protest in Port-au-Prince, February 15, 2006. The counting of ballots in Haiti’s presidential election ground to a halt more than a week after the vote as electoral authorities on Wednesday bowed to a demand by the leading candidate for a fraud inquiry. Thousands protested after charred and still smouldering ballots were found on a garbage dump in Port-au-Prince, reinforcing the claims of fraud levelled by Preval, a former president opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile two years ago. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/ids_photos_wl/r1964071014.jpg Supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Rene Preval show a ballot boxes found at a dump site during a protest in Port-au-Prince, February 15, 2006. The counting of ballots in Haiti’s presidential election ground to a halt more than a week after the vote as electoral authorities on Wednesday bowed to a demand by the leading candidate for a fraud inquiry. Thousands protested after charred and still smouldering ballots were found on a garbage dump in Port-au-Prince, reinforcing the claims of fraud levelled by Preval, a former president opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile two years ago. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/ids_photos_wl/r1587318720.jpg Supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Rene Preval yell slogans as they show a ballot box found at a dump site during a protest in Port-au-Prince February 15, 2006. The counting of ballots in Haiti’s presidential election ground to a halt more than a week after the vote as electoral authorities on Wednesday bowed to a demand by the leading candidate for a fraud inquiry. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/1a3637053eb34e0ba0c08683c04846c6 Haitians collect ballots that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/1bb1e0467fbb489782a05241cdb9f259 Haitians show one of the ballots that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/02c0eed48a3e47718b4eb4268884f759 Haitians collect smashed ballot boxes that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/3aee1dc9a4404990969102733beb0cbd A woman looks at one of the ballots that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/0f89dccfa5204ab38957a8087648f670 A Haitian woman collects smashed ballot boxes that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/77ec145feae645dd9fcc3970a73328b9 A Haitian boy collects ballots that were found at a garbage dump five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/photos_wl_afp/060215184227_ijm6y8z3_photo1 Haitian men walk through partially destroyed ballots in a trash dump on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Several ballot boxes and ballots, both blank and marked, were found in a dump and showed to the press one day after Presidential front-runner Rene Preval claimed “massive fraud or gross errors” in the 07 February Presidential and Parliamentary elections.(AFP/Roberto Schmidt) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/photos_wl_afp/060215184227_ijm6y8z3_photo0 A Haitian man looks at a partially destroyed ballot in a trash dump on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Several ballot boxes and ballots, both blank and marked, were found in a dump and showed to the press after Presidential front-runner Rene Preval claimed “massive fraud or gross errors” in the 07 February 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.(AFP/Roberto Schmidt) news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060215/481/5093ce77e084470cb8cf308fd803fe1e With a police officer walking by, a Haitian boy looks at a ballot he picked it up from a garbage dump, five miles (eight kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006, more than a week after disputed presidential elections. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ‘massive fraud or gross errors’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) ***************************************************** Brazil backs Preval’s claim to victory in Haiti, Reuters, February 15, 2006 BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) – Brazil, whose military is leading the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti, said on Wednesday that the best way to ease election tensions in the Caribbean nation would be to declare former president Rene Preval the victor. “Considering the existing climate in the country, that would be the best solution,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s chief foreign relations advisor, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters in Brasilia. Garcia added that declaring Preval the winner would likely enjoy the unanimous support of the international community, since it would prevent a messy runoff vote from taking place. He said Brazil was worried about the situation in Haiti and that it “feared that the situation would deteriorate.” “We propose that the candidates recognize Preval’s victory,” Garcia said. Garcia’s remarks were made one day after Preval, a one-time ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and opposed by the wealthy elite, claimed that widespread fraud had prevented him from winning a first-round victory in last week’s election. Those allegations appeared to gain more legitimacy when hundreds of burned and still smoldering ballots, many cast for Preval, were later found at a garbage dump in Port-au-Prince. Though the Haitian government has agreed to delay publishing the final results of the election to give Preval time to gather proof of his claims, protests continued to rage across the poor Caribbean country of 8.5 million people. Haiti has been on tenterhooks since last week’s vote as concerns swirled that election officials were manipulating the ballot to force Preval into a March 19 runoff. Garcia, the Brazilian official, said Brazil would seek to work with the provisional electoral council to find a way to resolve the stalemate while respecting the law. One way the electoral council could do this, he said, would be to choose not to recognize blank and nullified ballots, which would give Preval an absolute majority. Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, has spoken by telephone in recent days with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to find a peaceful solution to the stalemate in Haiti. Copyright © Reuters 2006. ************ English translation (Unofficial) AHP News, Feb. 14, 2006 * Haiti’s elections: suddenly rolling in dumped ballots, AHP, Feb. 14, 2006 Port-au-Prince, February 14, 2006 (AHP)- Thousands of ballots were discovered this Tuesday in a huge garbage dump situated in the Thuittier district north of the capital (Port-au-Prince). The ballots bore check marks in box number one, which is the number representing the presidential candidate of the Espoir Platform (Platform of Hope), René Préval. All of these votes, many of which were found inside ballot boxes, appeared to have come from voting centers set up in the periphery of the shantytown of Cité Soleil, where more than 95% of the population voted for Espoir. After the discovery of these ballots by members of the public, the Espoir Platform asked a justice of the peace to inspect the premises in order and draft a report of his findings relating to this scandal which was reported by several television stations. This scandal over the ballots broke out at a time when the Provisional Electoral Council, and particularly five or six of its nine members and its director general, Jacques Bernard, stand accused of extremely serious fraud, manipulation and falsification of the results to the detriment of the candidate of the Platform of Hope. The interim authorities and election officials were obliged yesterday to suspend publication of the results in light of massive pressure by Mr. Préval, who said he has proof that massive fraud or gross errors were committed in the vote counting process and that Espoir has won the presidency on the first round. The office of Haiti’s interim president announced the formation of a tripartite commission to review the signed election reports (proces-verbaux). The commission is to consist of representatives of the Executive Branch, the CEP and the Espoir Platform. As they waited for information that indicates exactly who is responsibility for throwing the ballots into the trash, many members of the public, aroused this Tuesday by the scandal, called for explanations from the CEP. “It is the executive director, Jacques Bernard, who should tell us what happened”, said several members of the public. “ You see, there is no longer any reason at all to have confidence in such a CEP”, said another. Three members of the CEP accused Mr. Bernard last weekend of having manipulated and falsified the vote counts. Tens of thousands of supporters of Espoir demonstrated peacefully over the past three days in Port-au-Prince and other major cities of the country to denounce the hijacking of their votes for the benefit of another political orientation. Thuittier is where most of trash and other garbage collected around the capital is dumped. AHP February 14, 2006 9:00 PM *********************************** The barricades are dismantled in Port-au-Prince following an address by candidate Rene Préval: the population affirms however that it is determined to remain mobilized |AHP , Feb. 14, 2006 Port-au-Prince, February 14, 2006 (AHP)- Calm has returned to Port-au-Prince this Tuesday in the wake of three days of demonstrations calling on the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to respect the popular vote. Three members of the CEP and four presidential candidates have recognized the victory of Préval and have accused the CEP of wishing to steal the victory from the candidate of Espoir for the benefit of another political sector. Leslie Manigat, himself a momentary former president and currently presidential candidate of the RDNP party, said that today he is hoping to participate in a second round with Préval, who received 48.76% of the votes according to the CEP. His wife, Myrlande, previously recognized that Préval was heading toward victory. Early in the afternoon young people standing by in several districts of the capital in close proximity to barricades made of tires, vehicle chassis, and other debris cleared the streets of obstacles after candidate René Préval appealed to the population to demand its rights through demonstrations, but to do so peacefully, without barricades and with respect for private property. Traffic immediately returned to normal and shops that were closed in the morning reopened their doors. Activities were expected to return to normal as of this Wednesday at the international airport as well as the banks and schools. “ President Préval has spoken; we will comply, but we will remain mobilized”, said one of them, adding that the people will respect the word of their leader. Another young person said “people of bad faith are trying to drive the people to violence to provoke a situation where the country can be turned into a protectorate”. “Dogs and cats know what’s going on; the cask of corn will remain intact”, he said, citing a Haitian proverb. Another said “The whole world knows that the majority of the population voted on February 7th in favor of political, economic and social security with Préval. The extremists and the all-or-nothing camp should give the country a chance”, he added. “We do not want violence. If that had been our intention when we went to the Hotel Montana on Monday, we would have trashed the place” said one of the organizers of the day’s demonstration. Hundreds of demonstrators stormed the hotel Monday to assert their rights before members of the CEP. This non-violent visit of the premises ended for some of them with a swim in the hotel pool. The hotel’s management was furious and decided to ban the CEP from any activities on the premises. AHP February 14, 2006 3:00 PM ************** Smashed Ballot Boxes Found in Haiti By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Writer AP Photo PAP113 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – U.N. officials sent troops to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital to collect hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and vote count material on Wednesday, more than a week after Haiti’s disputed presidential elections. Associated Press journalists saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly-infested dump five miles north of the capital. ``That’s extraordinary,’’ said U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst. Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ``massive fraud or gross errors’’ designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory. A wave of chaotic protests by Preval supporters sent foreign diplomats scrambling for peaceful solutions. The United States and other countries ``directly involved in the crisis’’ were discussing a plan to have other candidates recognize Preval’s victory and prevent a mass uprising, according to Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign affairs adviser to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brazil heads U.N. peacekeeping forces in Haiti. Haiti’s interim government had already ordered a review of the election results, promising on Tuesday to form a new commission to quickly review voter tally sheets. Preval, the former protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has urged his supports to continue protesting nonviolently and says he will formally challenge the results if officials insist on holding a runoff in March. When the most recent results were posted on Haiti’s electoral council’s Web site midday Monday, Preval – a former president and agronomist – had 48.76 percent of the vote with 90 percent of ballots counted. He would need 50 percent plus one vote to win outright. ``The government wants to make sure that everything with the process is correct,’’ interim Interior Minister Paul Magloire told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. ``We’re going to review the results because we want to make sure what we have is right.’’ The commission would include representatives of the president’s office, the electoral council and Preval’s party, said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of interim President Boniface Alexandre. Late Tuesday, the local Telemax TV news broadcast images from the dump north of the capital showing smashed white ballot boxes with wads of ballots strewn about. Ballot after ballot was marked for Preval. Among the bags seen by AP was one vote tally sheet from the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour that recorded 129 votes for Preval out of 202 cast. A man picking through the dump, Jean-Ricot Guerrier, said a truck dumped the material a day after the election. Someone tried to burn the material, but rain put out the fire, he said. Wimhurst said the ballots could have come from any of nine polling stations across the country that were ransacked on election day, forcing officials to throw out up to 35,000 votes. At least one voting center was destroyed by people tired of waiting in line, others were destroyed by political factions, he said. Wimhurst also said it was possible someone dumped the ransacked ballots to create an appearance of fraud. The electoral council issued a statement saying it will investigate the incident because it ``could cause confusion in the electoral process.’’ The constitution indicates that a challenge would go to the Supreme Court, but the interim government recently decreed that any complaints should go to the electoral commission – the same body that is releasing the results. The U.N. provided security for the vote and helped ship election returns to the capital but is not directly involved in counting ballots. In New York, the U.N. Security Council urged Haitians to respect election results and refrain from violence, and it extended the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti for six months, until Aug. 15. A runoff election would pit Preval against second-place finisher Leslie Manigat, also a former president, who received 11.8 percent of the vote. Manigat’s wife, Myrlande Manigat, declined to say whether anyone had approached him about withdrawing. A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters is seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and factories have closed for lack of security. Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials were rigging the election. Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote needed --- Associated Press Writer Stevenson Jacobs contributed to this report. Copyright © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 **************************** Behind the Manipulation of Haiti’s Election By Amitabh Pal , February 14, 2006 The Progressive progressive.org/mag_apb021406 How long must Haiti continue to suffer? Judging by events over the past few days, the answer is: for at least some more time to come. After a number of delays, Haiti finally had its presidential and parliamentary elections on February 7. At first, things seemed hopeful, with the polling taking place peacefully. But then trouble started. The leading candidate, Rene Preval, looked like he was on his way to securing a comfortable majority when things started getting murky. By February 14, with 90 percent of the votes counted, Preval had suddenly dropped in the vote count. His proportion of the vote currently stands at 48.7 percent, a tad short of the majority needed to avoid a runoff. It is hard to say what exactly happened. But Preval’s abrupt drop off seems to be dubious, to say the least. And doubts about the vote are heightened by the fact that a member of the nine-person electoral council has come out and alleged fraud. ‘According to me, there’s a certain level of manipulation,’ Pierre Richard Duchemin told AP www.seacoastonline.com/news/02132006/world/87606.htm ‘There is an effort to stop people from asking questions.’ Another official, Jean-Henoc Faroul, has also alleged deceit csmonitor.com/2006/0214/p01s01-woam.html ‘The electoral council is trying to do what it can to diminish the percentage of Preval so it goes to a second round,’ Faroul, president of one electoral district, told AP. Who would be behind the manipulation? The suspicion falls on the interim government, headed by Gerard Latortue. Preval, a former head of state himself, is an ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Twice elected president, Aristide remains very popular among the Haitian poor. And while his own record was not without serious blemishes hrw.org/english/docs/2001/12/18/haiti3433.htm the Bush Administration had no right to encourage his overthrow. The interim government hates Aristide with a passion, and has jailed a number of people from his regime, including the prime minister under him. (Aristide is in exile in South Africa.) ‘The long-term imprisonment of former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune continues to raise serious concerns’ states Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/haiti12210.htm ‘Although formal charges were finally brought against Neptune in September 2005, the apparent political grounds for Neptune’s detention undermines confidence in the validity of the charges and in the fairness of any future trial.’ Latortue appears determined to keep Aristide from coming to power, even by proxy. ‘Preval was leading with 70-80 percent of the vote, and then there suddenly was this surge within a few minutes where his opponent, Leslie Manigat, got a huge number of votes,’ says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. ‘Where were the election monitors? Were they inside the room or out in the streets?’ Washington is deeply implicated in the actions of the Latortue government, since it helped install it in 2004. ‘An indictment can be brought against the United States for putting Latortue in power by extraconstitutional means,’ says Birns. ‘He’s been both cruel and inept, a complete disaster. If there’s a Christ, then Latortue is the anti-Christ.’ But Washington is not interested in calling its protégé to task. In spite of budgeting $400-plus million in aid for the interim government in 2004-2005 (in marked contrast to its stinginess toward Aristide’s administration), it hasn’t even begun to address the grave human rights abuses that the government has been committing. ‘After installing Latortue, Washington hasn’t had a word to say,’ says Birns. ‘It pretends to not have anything to do with the regime.’ Condoleezza Rice issued a boilerplate statement on February 10 commending the high turnout and the ‘free and fair election process,’ but has been quiet since then. Worried over possible turmoil, the Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, has called Rice to urge the U.N. Security Council news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4711354.stm ó presided over by the United States this monthóto take up the issue. By failing to act quickly to ensure that the Haitian people are not denied their choice, the Bush Administration would mock its platitudes about democracy. — If you liked this article, please donate www.progressive.org/donate to The Progressive, Inc. We’re a nonprofit, legally and literally! And we need your tax-deductible support. . Thanks! ************************************ ZNet Haiti Watch www.zmag.org/lam/haitiwatch.cfm Left, Right, Left, Right: Running off With Haiti’s Democracy by Anthony Fenton, February 14, 2006 www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=9729 If Haiti’s elites and their foreign backers are able to “sell” the Haiti election runoff to the international public, a significant milestone will have been achieved. Every Presidential election since the fall of ‘baby Doc’ has been won in a landslide victory for either Jean Bertrand Aristide or Rene Preval, with support from Haiti’s popular Lavalas movemment. By many accounts, Haiti’s most recent elections, held after four postponements on February 7th, produced another landslide winner in Rene Preval. However, the same forces inside and outside of Haiti that coaleced to bring down Aristide and the Lavalas Party in 2004, are now coordinating intense efforts to force Haiti’s first run-off where they believe they can produce Haiti’s first democratically elected elite President. It remains quite possible, however, that Preval will be ‘given’ the Presidency and avoid a runoff, after massive popular demonstrations calling for the overwhelming vote for Preval to be respected, public statements by two CEP officials claiming ballot ‘manipulation’ and other serious irregularities, and intense negotiations between Preval, foreign diplomats, the UN, Haitian elites, and popular organizers. Preval himself has said that he will contest the election results should they go through as they now stand, citing “massive fraud or gross errors” in the ballot counting. As it stands one week after the elections, Preval ‘officially’ has just under 49 per cent of the vote, still more than the rest of the candidates behind him combined. If the Presidential runoff elections do go ahead, the elite candidate, Leslie Manigat, will square off against Preval, who, even with the skewed results, got four times the votes that Manigat did in the initial round. However, we have to recall an agreement “for modernity and democracy” that was signed by Manigat and seven other Presidential candidates last November. Here is what AHP reported on the agreement, on November 28, 2005: “The signatories are the Fusion of Social Democrats, the Great Front of the Center Right, the Allyans party, MOCHRENA, the Alliance of National Progressive Democrats, the Organization of the People in Struggle (OPL), the Union of Chavannes Jeune, and Charles Henri Baker’s grouping called RESPE/KONBA. These political organizations, who said they consider themselves to be the most significant political organizations, announced that in the event that a second round is necessary to decide the presidential elections, and a candidate from one of the organizations that signed the agreement makes it to the second round, all the other signatories to the agreement will unite behind that candidate on the second round…Several of the parties that signed this agreement recently called for the parties to unite behind a single candidate to thwart the presidential prospects of the candidate from the Platform of Hope, former President René Préval.” We already know, thanks to the FOIA’s that [Sprague received freehaiti.net], that the International Republican Institute (IRI) helped to foster the development of a ‘socialist coalition,’culminating in the creation of the “Fusion of Social Democrats”: “From July 31 to August 1, 2004, leaders of left of center parties, Ayiti Kapab, KONAKOM, OPL, and PANPRA met to discuss ways to accelerate a merge and the various techniques needed to advance the goal at the municipal level. At the end of the session, they put in place a work plan for the departments and municipalities to implement the merger of the four parties, now called the Groupe Socialiste. . .” Indeed, a central component of the IRI’s pre and post-Aristide strategy in Haiti is “political party building” and “coaltion building.” This much can be gleaned from the [two quarterly reports pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PDACF866.pdf] from 2005 made available online by [USAID <dec.org>], and was made clearer through several interviews with individuals working for or with IRI in Haiti, as well as grantees and individuals participating in IRI training sessions. Further insight into the ‘socialist coalition’ is found in IRI reports from 2000 and 2001 for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), obtained through FOIA by journalist Jeremy Bigwood. These reports describe how prominent members of opposition parties OPL and KONAKOM, Irvelt Cherie and Victor Benoit respectively, attended meetings with the IRI and U.S. officials in Washington, along with other prominent Haitians including Rudy Boulos, a wealthy business elite who would later help found the Washington-based Haiti Democracy Project, an anti-Aristide lobby group and think tank, and the foreign public relations arm of the Group of 184 and Democratic Convergence opposition bloc. Interestingly, Boulos resigned from his seat on the Board of the HDP in order to run for Senate in the NorthEast department with the Fusion, the party which comprise part of the “socialist coalition” and “agreement for modernity and democracy” signed with Haiti’s right-wing parties in November. We should also recall that another Haiti Democracy Project Board member, Timothy Carney, also resigned in order to take over as interim Ambassador to Haiti. Carney has long been a fierce defender of the IRI’s activities in Haiti and an ally of Haiti’s elite. It was while he was U.S. Ambassador to Haiti in 1998-99 under Clinton that the IRI was forced to shut down its operations there, and set up shop in the Dominican Republic under the leadership of IRI Program Officer Stanley Lucas. In a recent NYT article, the IRI and Stanley Lucas were singled out as, in effect, ‘rogue elements’ straying from an otherwise benign U.S. ‘democracy promotion’ program for Haiti. Nowhere in the extensive NYT piece, nor in the IRI-led propaganda melee that has ensued, is there mention of an across-the-board strategy coordinated by the State Department, the NED, USAID, among other foreign actors, to collectively foster the conditions for elite rule in Haiti in strict accordance with the dictates of neoliberal globalization. One example of the coordinated effort to help build and consolidate an opposition to Aristide and Lavalas came from a current program officer for the National Endowment for Democracy. I spoke to Fabiola Cordova in December, 2005. She had just recently taken over at the NED’s Washington office after some staff turnover in the Latin American and Caribbean division. Her experience in Haiti came from a six month job as an in-country program officer for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), one of the four core grantees of the NED. With combined grants coming from NED, the State Department, and USAID, NDI’s budget for “democracy promotion” is over $100 million a year. Characterizing Aristide and the elite opposition from the perspective of her work with “democracy promotion” agencies, Cordova told me: “When I was in Haiti when Aristide was still there, he had obviously a prominent presence both in Congress and local government and everywhere else in public life. There were a lot of lines being drawn between Haiti and Venezuela, that, basically, Venezuela could become a Haiti where you have, well, a democratically elected leader but that’s slowly taking over all the branches of government and then arming their own people and the opposition is getting armed…” Cordova went further: “What happened in Venezuela had been happening in Haiti for a long time. The opposition party had been boycotting elections for a long time, because they kept saying ‘well we don’t have the minimal conditions for running a competitive process, or participating in a competitive process,’ but they kind of withdrew from this and by doing this they kind of consolidated Aristide’s power, and they also weakened their own organizations. I mean, I think one of the main problems in Haiti has been a very weak opposition, a very fragmented opposition with no platform, unwilling to come together and form some sort of coalition by ideology or program or anything, so you have, I think when I was there, 120 registered parties; it’s impossible to have a serious competitive process when you have that kind of diversity and then very few of them really carry any weight when it comes to an electoral competition. So, it’s a challenge.” On the question of the November 25th “agreement for modernity and democracy” Cordova said: “I think it’s a good, positive development in general and that’s where I think a lot of people see Haiti moving toward, fewer, fewer political parties, and just more serious competition so you don’t have the kind of situation where you have, you know, Aristide really had 70% of the popular support and then the 120 other parties had the thirty per cent split in one hundred and twenty different ways, which is basically impossible to compete [with].” (Note: Cordova later sent me the NED’s approved grants FY2005 for Latin America and the Caribbean. These ‘declassified’ documents are now online at www.inthenameofdemocracy.org Just a couple of weeks before the elections, a Senate candidate from Lespwa, Frantz Large warned of the manipulations of the elite “civil society” sector. AHP reported: “The former president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Southeast and candidate for Senate from the Platform of Hope in the Southeast department, Dr. Frantz Large, expressed concern Tuesday at what he called the presence of individuals at the heart of the electoral system who claim to be representatives of civil society…Dr. Large said that these individuals, presented as election observers or officials of polling stations, were recommended deliberately for the purpose of imposing their will on the electoral machinery to the detriment of the Platform of Hope…Either one is part of civil society or one openly declares that one is engaging in politics”, declared Frantz Large. he criticized what he called “the arrogance of a supposed civil society that is becoming increasingly monopolistic, greedy for political power to the point of contempt for any ethical standard.”…Frantz Large mentioned by name “the Group of 184 and the Chamber of Commerce of Port-au-Prince”, whose legitimacy as part of civil society he disputes. He warned them against any attempt during the upcoming elections to carry out fraud with contempt for the interests of the Haitian people…The members of that civil society would bear sole responsibility for the chaos that could result from rigged elections, insisted Dr. Large.” The head of the Haitian National Observation Council (CNO), Leopold Berlanger, explained to me how the Canadian government was paying for training and presence of 3,500 of the 8,000 observers that the CNO would be deploying on election day. Berlanger is also co-owner of RadioVision2000 with Reginald Boulos, and director of Fondation Nouvelle Haiti (FNH). Between Boulos and Berlanger, tens of millions of dollars in foreign “democracy promotion” funds have been funneled to their organizations in Haiti. Of the 3,500 election observers that Canada was to pay for, 1,500 of them would be provided by the Civil Society Initiative (ISC), an organization headed by former Duvalierist Rosny Desroches, and key to the creation of the Group of 184. Just a couple of days after the February 7th election, Berlanger confirmed that Andy Apaid, the Group of 184 leader, sweatshop owner and U.S. citizen was part of the “civil society” election observation team. On February 12th, amidst increasing signs of the “rigged elections” that Large warned about, he posted a document on his website [frantzlarge.com/]titled the “Plan.” This details how he thinks “civil society” intends to hijack Haiti’s democratic process. Large refers to “massive falsification of the first results from the polls results that have been posted in each polling station.” This is part of specific objectives of the force a runoff election and “to push the popular masses who have a legitimate beef, into the streets, inciting them to vent blind rage onto the “ bord de mer “ (dockside) in Port-au-Prince which houses stores and offices of all kinds, small businesses, fine victims making up the country’s working middle class. This would certainly lead to creating hate and resentment against President Préval, and a desire to find refuge in choking policies that border on fascism.” Biting and unrestrained, Large ended with another prediction: “And for all who would prefer calling for an occupation by foreign powers, thinking that the interests of these foreign powers will coincide with their own fascistic ideas, not so fast! Of course, they will need more courage than they are normally capable of to dare show themselves as the complete champions of the new INTERNATIONAL APARTHEID. This is the spectre that now haunts Haiti!” Today, the Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that “Communist Cuba accused Washington Tuesday of helping manipulate the results in Haiti’s presidential elections.” Granma newspaper wrote “What is happening in Haiti shouldn’t be surprising…It isn’t the first time that the United States has intervened on a whim over the destiny of this nation, nor is it the first time it has shameless manipulated another country’s electoral results to its benefit.” Indeed, at the front of the public relations pack calling for the media to temper the enthusiasm over a Preval victory, was the Haiti Democracy Project, who sent an [election observer mission haitipolicy.org/content/3459.htm] to Haiti which included the U.S. government’s official observer, John Merrill, the head of Western Hemisphere programs for the Defense Department. In the HDP’s first communique, apparently issued before the polls even closed, they boldly stated, “All signs suggest that for the Presidential and Legislative races, the majority of the candidates will have to prepare for a runoff.” The HDP’s ‘corrective action’ should be seen as among the clearest representations of U.S. and elite interests for Haiti; it is a sign of their influence over the media machine that the runoff elections should be accepted as a serious possibility. Both the Miami Herald’s Joe Mozingo and Jacqueline Chalres and the New York Times’ Ginger Thomspson joined the HDP and lent credibility to the runoff possibility in recent articles. The Herald in particular presented former Group of 184 leader turned Presidential candidate Charles Henri Baker (member of the “agreement for modernity and democracy”) as a reliable source to be quoted. The Baker campaign had sent a letter to the CEP stating that votes should be nullified, `where there were too many irregularities.’ Baker’s spokesperson, Hans Tippenhuer said, ‘People voted two, three and four times.” The Herald neglected to mention that Tippenhauer’s organization, Fondation Espoir (The Hope Foundation), has received at least $182,970 from the NED since Aristide’s overthrow “To increase the political awareness and participation of Haitian youth,” and approximately $40,000 from the IRI for work with young political candidates. Tippenhauer also helped set up a $33,271 grant for GRAFNEH to “conduct a civic education campaign to educate Haitians about the political parties, candidates, and issues being presented during the electoral season .” Members of GRAFNEH are often seen in the offices of Charles Baker. GRAFNEH even conducted a poll for the NED in mid-January which showed that Haitian students overwhelmingly favored both Baker and Manigat over Preval as Presidential candidates. Lastly, there is another striking omission from most mainstream coverage of Haiti’s “demonstration elections.” Whereas almost all of the focus has been centered on the Presidential elections, very little has looked at what lines Haiti’s legislature will be formed on. On February 7th, in addition to a new President, Haitians were supposed to vote for 30 Senators and 99 deputies; many of these seats would also be subject to potential run-off elections, not to mention vote-tampering. Importantly, it is those who control the legislature that will approve Haiti’s next Prime Minister. And, also not to be overlooked, much of the foreign intervention in Haiti’s election process has focused on the campaigns of the political parties that signed the “agreement for modernity and democracy.” The USAID-UNOPS program unveiled through Sprague’s FOIA’s made significant contributions, some $3 million, to the campaigns of non-Lespwa (Preval) parties, providing election materials, television and radio advertising credits, leaflets, posters, several campaign offices, vehicles, computers; in short, all the means to conduct a “fair and democratic” election campaign designed to allow Haiti’s elites to finally obtain power through “democratic” means. So we need to be mindful of both the important omitted context where the elections are concerned, but also the broader picture of “democracy promotion” strategy that is seeking to consolidate a system of polyarchy in Haiti. Social and political theorist William Robsinson describes what polyarchy is, in his “Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization,”: “Developing the social control systems and political institutions most propitious for achieving a stable world environment revolved around the promotion of “democracy,” or what is more accurately called polyarchy. This refers to a system in which a small group actually rules, and participation in decision-making by the majority is confined to choosing among competing elites in tightly controlled electoral processes. This type of “low intensity democracy” does not involve power (cratos) of the people (demos), much less an end to class domination or to the substantive inequality that has grown exponentially under the global economy.” Haiti’s impoverished majority knows full well the brutal reality of international efforts at “promoting democracy.” This program has resulted in the overthrow of the same President twice, and is in the midst of trying to once again undermine the popular will by tampering with their most recent vote. The massive support for Preval and the need for Haiti’s elite to resort to “massive fraud” to counter that support are indications of the failure of the “democracy promoters” to impose their polyarchy on Haiti. We should not kid ourselves though. In the two years since Aristide’s ouster, much of the neoliberal structural adjustments that were not adhered to by Aristide or Preval have since been set in motion. Whoever forms Haiti’s next government will be confronted by deep foreign penetration of Haiti on every level: economically, politically, and socially. — Fenton is an independent journalist/researcher, a member of In the Name of Democracy www.inthenameofdemocracy.org and co-author of “Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority. Feedback is welcome at fentona@shaw.ca. *************************************** Recommended Link: HLLN Report on Haitian Election Laws, Feb. 14, 2006 – the CEP is no authority to COUNT or EXAMINE ballots, this is left to the polling stations. Go to: https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/ezilidanto/2006-02/msg00012.html |
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