ANOTHER DEMONSTRATION ELECTION FIZZLES

One day after the Dec. 17 presidential ballot, at a Holiday Inn press briefing, the smiles, laughter, and back-slapping of the White House’s observer delegation told the story — Washington had successfully pulled off what Noam Chomsky would call a textbook “demonstration” election.

Brian Atwood, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) who headed up the 14-member delegation of State Department officials and the odd priest, congratulated “the people of Haiti” for a job well done. But he should have been congratulating the hordes of U.N. and U.S. officials, soldiers, “human rights” workers, observers, and managers. They were the ones who carried out the election and benefitted from it, not the Haitian people.

In addition to providing “know-how,” the U.S. also had a hand in paying for just about everything to do with the election: the press center at the Holiday Inn; the drafting of the electoral law; voter and candidate registration; the vote count system; the printing, storage, and transportation of the ballots; radio systems and computers; most of the political parties and candidates; the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP); the election workers; the election propaganda; “get out the vote” drives by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD); the 300-odd Organization of American States (OAS) and U.N. observers, and, of course, the 6,000 U.N. and U.S. troops. Indeed, out of a total cost of $7.5 million for the presidential elections, the “international community” picked up $7.1 million, according the U.S. Embassy’s own figures.

No doubt about it, the electoral machinery performed flawlessly. Only one ingredient was missing: the Haitian people. They stayed away from the polls in droves. Reports from independent observers suggest that only 15% of the registered voters cast their ballot in what was an unequivocal and conscious rejection of the election by the Haitian people. (As usual, the U.S. and other “official” observers are inflating the flat figures. The CEP, for instance, is claiming that 40% turned out.)

The minority which did vote overwhelmingly chose the table, the symbol of the 3-party Lavalas Political Platform (PPL). Rene Preval, the Lavalas candidate, may have won with up to 80% of the paltry vote, polling place samplings forecast. The official results will be released Dec. 27.

Nonetheless, Preval’s ephemeral victory will bring cheer to few Haitians, as evidenced by the fact that only several hundred turned out in the streets the day after the vote to celebrate his apparent victory as opposed to the tens of thousands who greeted the Dec. 1990 vote which brought Aristide to power. Preval’s comments in the days since the vote indicate that he will continue charging down the World Bank-designed occupation-guarded Lavalas-decorated cattle chute toward the slaughter-house of neo- liberal structural adjustment. “We expect a great deal of continuity,” Brian Atwood said confidently of Preval’s nearly certain succession. Atwood also suggested that quick action by Preval would bring a quick resumption of U.S. funding.

Despite the optimism, Preval’s administration promises to be a rocky one. While he proposes to be the negotiator between the Haitian people and Washington, Preval will likely please nobody. He will not satisfy the Haitian people, no matter how he tries to doll up and soften the stomach-emptying austerity measures that the U.S. is now commanding him to implement. Also, the politically conscious Haitian people are still not buying the selling of their publicly-owned industries to private capitalists, as the U.S. demands. Furthermore, Preval possesses none of the charisma or mythology that served Aristide, who may even end up sniping at his successor from his pasture in Tabarre in an effort to maintain his own popularity.

Meanwhile, Washington trusts Preval even less than they did Aristide and can be expected to sabotage him and stick him with blame at every possible turn. Already the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Republican tentacle of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which, of course, had its own election “observers” on hand, called the low voter turn-out “worrisome.” George Fauriol, the leader of the IRI delegation, said that “the burden that is going to fall on the incoming government is enormous, because it clearly is going to be working from a very narrow electoral base and there is going to be uncertainty about how the people are going to react.” But it is certain that the Republicans and the CIA will work diligently to undermine the Preval government, to increase its “burden,” and to prod the people to “react.” In short, Washington – both Republican and Democrat, both the official and the “invisible” U.S. governments – will work to have Preval implement as much of the “American plan” as possible, while weakening and discrediting him politically in an attempt to destroy Lavalas dominance and the Aristide myth, thereby facilitating the rise of a more perfect lackey.

In short, Dec. 17 marked the last in a series of “elections” staged by the U.S. government to justify the intervention and occupation of Haiti, whose final purpose is to execute the World Bank and IMF neo-liberal strategy for Haiti. Grassroots International, a U.S.-based development agency, and the New England Observer Delegation, a group of mostly Massachusetts- based activists, recently criticized the neo-liberal “death plan” of the World Bank and IMF and tied it to this week’s election. “While they claim to support democracy in Haiti, their attempt to push the immediate implementation of a structural adjustment program undermines real democracy,” the groups wrote in a Dec. 13 press release. After meeting with 38 popular organizations across the country, and the World Bank, the groups noted that the embargo has never ended for the Haitian people. “Sugar, priced at 3.6 Haitian dollars per three pounds before the coup, now goes for 15 Haitian dollars. Because of this, none of the popular organizations we spoke to was excited about the presidential elections,” the groups reported. “Most expressed the fear that the elections would make no difference in their lives. They saw the economic crunch widening Haiti’s already brutal inequalities, making democracy seem like a remote ideal.”

CONCERNING PRIVATIZATION…

(Haiti Info) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec. 11 – Despite the presidential campaign, the U.S.-pushed plans for privatization and structural adjustment in general are still hotly debated questions.

On Saturday, hundreds of university students, professors and others gathered at the Institut National de Gestion et des Hautes Etudes Internationales (INAGHEI) to hear a contradictory debate: George Exeus of the Unite pour la Democratisation des Entreprises Publiques (UDEP), a government office dedicated to pushing privatization, and two professors from the Kolektif Mobilizasyon Kont FMI ak Neyoliberalis, dedicated to educating and mobilizing people against neoliberalism.

Exeus, who arrived an hour late, read a long expose which he prefaced by calling for “tolerance” from the restless crowd. He plodded through an ode to privatization, noting its inevitability and the benefits it supposedly brings (”investment,” “employment”) and outlined the preconditions like “transparence” and laws defining operating procedures for ex-public utilities. The 45-minute speech was laced with slogans about “the new necessities of the market,” promised money would go into a “trust fund” and pointed to the “success” of Chile and Mexico.

Prof. Yves Barthelmy followed, beginning with the dawn of capitalism in order to explain its periodic crises and the current demand for new markets, which, he said, has led to neoliberalism and thus privatization. He introduced the history of neoliberalism in Haiti and was to be followed by Prof. Lesly Rene, but about 30 minutes into Barthelmy’s expose, Exeus got up and left, shocking the audience and the panelists.

“The country’s salesman ran away!” students shouted.

“It’s a disrespect for the public,” Rene said angrily.

Nevertheless, Barthelmy continued briefly and the professors took questions.

Rene attacked some of Exeus’ obviously misleading statements about the “successes” and briefly explained the Mexico financial crisis with facts and figures, and ended saying he and his colleague came to debate, but “we found an ideologue who came to pump out a lot of hot air and then ran away.”

Telephone and Electricity Cos.

On Nov. 28, surrounded by workers from other public enterprises, TELECO employees held a press conference on the recent firings of three directors and to distribute a text: “Privatization is not the Solution.”

The workers said the fired men were working to privatize TELECO and revealed a number of recent examples of poor management or even sabotage, like the failure to order parts or to install an important switcher, and said they believed TELECO should remain a state enterprise. They also denounced Leslie Delatour, Governor of the Central Bank, as being “more American than Haitian” due to his concern for the price of the dollar and relentless pursuit of privatization. They also said Lesly Voltaire, head of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s private cabinet, supported the fired men.

“For the moment, only the state is capable of assuring the survival of the social system in its capacity as the largest employer,” they said, and made a number of suggestions for the management of TELECO.

(Voltaire later tried to justify the support, saying he was following directives from President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and also that the men were improperly fired.)

On Saturday, armed men attacked the Electricite d’Haiti (EDH) plant at Varreux, scheduled to be upgraded shortly. A dozen were arrested before they caused damage. An EDH employee told the Agence Haitienne de Presse the attackers were “mercenaries in the pay of big-wigs whose interests are contrary to the renovation measures being undertaken at EDH.” Many have speculated that, as the TELECO employees accused, there are people working to sabotage public enterprises to promote privatization.

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