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Last Updated: Monday, December 24, 2007 9:37 |
This Week in Haiti” is the English section of HAITI LIBERTE newsweekly. For HAITI LIBERTE * THIS WEEK IN HAITI * December 19-24, 2007 AN INTERVIEW ON WBAI Peter Hallward is the author of “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment,” just published by Verso. On Dec. 1, Hallward was interviewed by Kim Ives and Roger Leduc of “Haiti: The Struggle Continues,” a weekly Haitian radio show on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York. The following transcript of that interview was produced by www.Haitianalysis.com. The interview can also be heard by visiting WBAI’s archive at www.wbai.org. KIM IVES: In this book, what is your principal thesis? PETER HALLWARD: Thank you very much Kim. Well, the presumption is that it was a popular political mobilization that took shape in the late eighties and then crystallized around the election of Aristide as president in late 1990 that has been the driving force of Haitian politics over the last twenty years or so, but that mobilization then provoked a kind of massive political response from the Haitian elite and from its backers abroad. That response led to two coups, as everybody knows I think, against Aristide: first in 1991 and then again in 2004. Although in 1991 the situation was pretty clear, among people at least who supported the popular movement, by 2004 the situation was much less clear. The thesis tries to make sense of that. Understand what led up to that – to the coup in 2004, how it worked, what the fallout was, and to try to clarify some of the things that seemed very obscure. I should say obscure I think to people in Haiti but certainly also to people like me who are not specialists, not experts, who try to keep up with what is going on but certainly don’t claim to have an inside knowledge of the situation…. simply a work of research and of listening to people – trying to piece together the puzzle as best I could. KIM IVES: How did you go about that? Did you visit Haiti? PETER HALLWARD: I went just a couple of times. I spent a total of about two months and talked to a range of people. It was difficult for me to access people among more elite circles shall we say, but I spoke to quite a lot of people who were involved in different parts of the popular movement – Fanmi Lavalas or different parts of the Lavalas base in Port-au-Prince and in places like Cap Haitian, and members of the PPN [National Popular Party] and other kinds organizations like that. KIM IVES: You also managed to interview President Aristide himself in South Africa. Tell us a little bit about that interview. PETER HALLWARD: That’s true, That interview was done in July of 2006. It was published I think by Haiti Progres last year. What I wanted to do there was ask him all the hard questions that people used to throw at me when I would try to mount a critical defense of Lavalas, not an uncritical one, one that recognized that they had made certain mistakes, and that the counter…..if you like the destabilization campaign had born some fruit., and that the government, under that kind of pressure, had made mistakes certainly. There were problems. There was some opportunism. There was some corruption and so on within his government. What I wanted to do was ask him how substantial these things were. To what extent had his government made too many compromises with the United States for example? To what extent had it abandoned its original principles? To what extent had it become a kind of variation on a dictatorial pattern – that kind of thing… to hear his response to that. I think he answered those questions in a fairly convincing way. KIM IVES: You also interviewed the leader of the so-called rebels, Guy Philippe. Can you tell us a little bit about that? PETER HALLWARD: Guy Philippe…actually over the last year or so we’ve spoken on several occasions about what made his insurgency possible, the kinds of links he had with members of the political opposition, the kinds of support he got from the business community, to draw some more of that stuff out and make it as systematic as possible. It is worth reading that interview for people who are looking for more information on his line on things. A pretty long transcript is available on Haitinalysis.com. The main point is that he makes it very clear that he was working hand in hand with the political opposition: Evans Paul and others. KIM IVES: The so-called unarmed opposition. PETER HALLWARD: The so-called unarmed opposition, exactly, who were the recipients of very large amounts of money and support from the United States, Europe and so on. Guy Philippe and his little group of Contra-style insurgents were working with them certainly from late 2000, and I would say almost definitely before then. The pattern of cooperation I think is very marked and you can see it right from the first attack they launched in July 2001 right through to the denouement in February 2004. KIM IVES: You talked about the politics of containment. Can you define that? PETER HALLWARD: I can try. Again, the point of departure is that the mobilization of this remarkable movement of people with I think tremendous political capacity and inventiveness and so on took shape in the late eighties and nineties. The term Lavalas says the combination everyone together – a flood of people, an avalanche of people that could sweep away some of the obstacles to progressive political change in Haiti. The response was, as you’d kind of expect, an attempt to dam that up, to block it, deflect it, channel it in certain ways so that it became less threatening. The main point that I was trying to make in the book was that in 1991, in order to do that, in order to deflect that movement, it was still pretty straightforward. You had an army in place that was capable of doing the job once they figured out how best to go about it. By September of 1991 they knew, they pretty much knew, what had to be done. They killed hundreds of people the first night of the coup, and then killed thousands more over the next couple of years. That dealt a massive blow to that movement. There was no question. By 2000 to 2004 the situation is a little different. Aristide had disbanded the army. A direct military response to the mobilization is less politically acceptable in a new world that’s supposedly taking things like human rights and that kind of thing more seriously. So you need a more subtle strategy. You need to contain it without simply annihilating it too directly. That involves then the manipulation of the media, so you have the growth of a large private media sector in Haiti where I’d say about twenty or so of the twenty five biggest radio stations and media outlets are all anti-government and tend to be funded by groups who are either sympathetic to or directly responsible to the United States and its allies. You have a political project to contain the Lavalas mobilization by fragmenting it or disrupting through a profusion of little tiny political parties that can form bogus alliance groups like the Democratic Convergence or the Group of 184, variations of this strategy of divide and rule, of fragmentation that you see across the board. Very striking for example, in the case of the religious groups. A lot of the Lavalas mobilization had been based as you know in the small Ti Legliz [Little Church] groups that remained overall very coherent. They had a solid grounding in local communities but they retained a kind of unity through the Catholic Church which was both national and transnational, and had a very clear, basic social message and so on. Now what you see in Haiti is very striking – the profusion of very small evangelical groups . There are 500 at least of these kinds groups. They all have different agendas. They all fight amongst themselves with the rise of this kind of factionalism. They tend to be very depoliticizing, and that happened on every level I think. It happened on the level of politics, the level of non-governmental organizations which also exploded in Haiti within the last fifteen or so years. Within Lavalas itself the multiplication of different tendencies and so on. That was a big part of the strategy – to complicate the scenario, muddy the waters, play people off against each other. You can contain and divide a movement quite effectively that way. There was also, though, the use of old-fashioned military force – the kind of Nicaragua Contra-style. The group around Guy Philippe, [former FRAPH leader Jodel] Chamblain and various others managed to kind of keep the government on edge, divert resources, to try to protect itself against a kind of low-level guerilla war. for the best part of three years. The cumulative combination – the effect of all these policies combined with a massive economic embargo that crippling effect on the government’s capacity to deliver its own resources – pushed the government on the defensive from the get-go. From the day the Aristide comes to office he is already compromising. He is already back-peddling on certain things which in turn demoralizes some of his own supporters and confuses people. The strategy of containment was overall quite successful if you look at it in terms of its impact. It results in a coup which was in many ways as violent as its first one. Thousands of people die again. That was extremely divisive and confusing that left a kind of legacy of demoralization in its wake that is going to remain I think a major problem for Haitian political activists for the foreseeable future. It also has consequences for people who are looking at what is going on right now in Venezuela or Bolivia or several other places. ROGER LEDUC: It is clear that there was a conspiracy between imperialists ( France, Canada and especially the United States) with the dominant classes in Haiti and a good part of the petite bourgeoisie, but at the same time one has to admit that to be in power above such a large political base and to suffer two coup de etats: that is a major failure, also the factionalism that you mentioned. Do you see any future for the Lavalas party? PETER HALLWARD: Well, that’s certainly a good question. It certainly is not for me or any outside observer to answer a question that the Haitian people will themselves decide. If they are given a free chance, I think, to organize themselves, to pursue their own political future as best they see it, I’m absolutely sure that what remains of the Lavalas political organization in different ways will be central to that process. I think it remains a very significant political force. I would agree, and it is an important part of moving forward, that there were significant mistakes that were made. You need to have a kind of critical affirmation of whatever political organization you ally yourself with. It is important not to be complacent, and not to assume an uncritical relationship to a party that certainly deserves criticism. It’s also important, and I think right now maybe more important, to avoid demonizing the past, or demonizing an organization that was flawed, but nevertheless, without any precedent in Haitian political history, the most effective vehicle for the political mobilization that was capable of winning the election, particularly in 2000, across the board. It crossed a new threshold in terms of Haitian politics. I think it remains an important force to this day. In my opinion, it needs to be more disciplined. It needs to have a clearer set of principles, and clarify its own priorities and its own agenda in relation to, for example, the current government, in relation to the United States, in relation to other so called “Friends of Haiti.” But if it does that, and if it relies on the people’s capacity, and will to push forward a progressive agenda, I’m sure that what we are seeing now is still the beginning of a process that will go on for the foreseeable future. * * * * * * Copies of “Damming the Flood” can be purchased for as low as $20 by visiting www.haitiliberte.com. One can also obtain a copy when you write, telephone or visit Haiti Liberte at 1583 Albany Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210, Tel: 718-421-0162. HAITIAN POLITICAL PRISONER RENE CIVIL RELEASED Haitian political prisoner Rene Civil had a court appearance December 13th where he was released from prison after being held on phony charges for 16 months. His attorney, Mario Joseph, had expressed optimism about the outcome of the hearing. Mr. Civil has been detained in notoriously bad conditions in an isolated jail far from his family after a transfer from the main penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. His release is a tremendous victory for Haiti’s grassroots movement which has maintained a powerful, unrelenting and visible mobilization for the release of all Haiti’s political prisoners. Rene Civil is a member of Fanmi Lavalas, and a leader of Jeunesse Pouvoir Populaire or JPP (Youth/People’s Power), a youth movement founded after the 1991-94 coup when President Aristide returned to Haiti. The JPP organized young people in the struggle for democracy, mainly in the poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. The JPP provided financial support to encourage the youth to pursue their studies in school or learn a trade, and set up centers where young people could get a hot meal and political education. Two days before his arrest in August 2006, Rene Civil addressed the 3rd Solidarity Encounter with the Haitian People, at the Aristide Foundation in Port-au-Prince. He denounced the system “which causes economic, political, military and social war on the people of the world,” and which is preventing poor nations like Haiti from exercising their independence. “The people of Haiti,” he said, “who believe in freedom, who have tasted freedom, will never accept this criminal, slaving system.” A Haiti Action Committee-initiated delegation was able to visit Mr. Civil in late July 2007 in the jail where he was housed over an hour’s drive from Port-au-Prince. We saw terrible jail conditions which included lack of clean water, adequate food, sanitation, and health care. Mr. Civil was in poor health, but strong spirits. A member of the delegation, Professor Akinyele Umoja of Malcolm X Grassroots Organization, shared news of political prisoners in the United States with him, and brought greetings from the San Francisco Black Panther 8. Mr. Civil returned the greeting and sent a message of solidarity to people of African descent in the U.S. He expressed his concern for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. All articles copyrighted Haiti Liberte. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED. |
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