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by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (verified)
Phone: 217-328-3037 |
16 Nov 2005
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Ever since a US-backed coup in 2004 overthrew the elected government in Haiti for the second time, violence and repression have been rampant there. Grassoots Haitian activists are calling for international solidarity, and a new local group is forming to help. |
In the first week of this November a group of Jordanian soldiers reportedly rammed down the gate at the Larco soft drink factory and poured into the plant, where they “forced people to lay flat on the ground, beat them and humiliated them.” They apparently did the same at nearby factory called ECEM. Armed bands of criminals, recently returned from exile or escaped from prison, roam the countryside attacking and killing at will -- largely unimpeded by international occupation forces, some of whom are implicated in vicious incidents of beatings or killings. No, this is not Iraq or Afghanistan. It is Haiti, once the richest colony in the world, now the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
At the end of February 2004, US-backed rebels overthrew the elected government of Haiti, sending the former priest and first democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile. At that time Dominican troops crossed the border into Haiti along with a number of ex-soldiers wanted in connection with massacres during the 1991-94 coup, which had overthrown Aristide the first time. US Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that the leaders of the 2004 coup were murderous “thugs” -- and they proceeded to make good on their reputation.
Wherever desperate peasants or struggling factory workers tried to organize themselves, either rightwing “rebel” soldiers or Dominican regulars would show up to harass them. In the Codevi Free Trade Zone soldiers handcuffed protesting workers to the machinery at a Levi Strauss subcontractor called Grupo M, beat others and strip searched women employees, after a single phone call from management. This pattern was repeated all over Haiti, and now despite UN occupying forces widespread violence in the capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas has led to two delays in scheduled nationwide elections.
Half the polling places have been closed, supposedly permanently, and efforts to register voters have in many cases been half-hearted -- where the poor are concerned, that is. One member of the Election Counsel recently remarked publicly that it would be no great tragedy if the residents of the shantytowns around the capital didn‘t vote.
In fact, many of Haiti’s poor -- which includes almost everyone -- seem to agree, according to Charles Arthur of the London-based Haiti Support Group, perhaps with good reason: “none of the parties or candidates for president have said anything to make me think that any of them have anything to offer by way of a programme that might meet the basis needs and expectations of the poor majority.” And there appear to be reasons for this omission, too -- historical reasons.
Takes one to know one
One reason top US officials could be certain of the thuggery of Haitian “rebels” from the start of last year’s coup was that most of the coup leaders had been trained by the US or participated in CIA-organized repression. They were, in fact, heirs to a long US association with thugs in Haiti.
When African slaves in Haiti revolted against Napoleonic France in 1801, the US sided with the slavers. After Haiti won its independence from France, rather than welcoming the second republic in the hemisphere, as principle might have dictated, the US intervened militarily in the country in 1849, 1851, 1857, 1858, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1876, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1914, before occupying the country continuously from 1915-1934.
The US also made an explicit exception to the Monroe Doctrine, which opposed European colonial incursions in the Americas, encouraging and even aiding numerous attacks by several European powers against Haiti in-between US attacks. And when the Marines finally pulled out in 1934, they left behind a constitution written in Washington DC, voted on by the US Congress, and “approved” by a Haitian electorate lined up and marched into the polls by US troops who handed them ballots marked “Oui.”
The Marines also left behind a puppet government willing to manage the Haitian economy to ensure that US business needs were met. This remained a basic fact of Haitian life right through the father and son dictatorships of the Duvaliers, 1957-86. The Duvaliers killed tens of thousands to keep the Haitian people from tampering in decisions about their economic and political systems, infamously employing terror squads called Tontons Macoutes (named for a boogie man figure in Haitian Vodou mythology who captured little children and carried them away in big bags). When “Baby Doc” Duvalier could no longer keep a lid on popular uprisings and fled in 1986, a succession of military juntas carried his work -- dubbed “Duvalierism without the Duvaliers” -- to new lows of murder and repression.
Then in 1991, under intense international pressure, US and Haitian elites allowed the first free and fair election since Haitian independence. The popular movement Lavalas (“flood“) swept the polls and put Aristide in office. Within months, US-trained paramilitary forces overthrew the government and instituted renewed repression, led by the CIA-organized Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress (FRAPH).
FRAPH (a pun on the French frapper, “to hit”) functioned as an umbrella group for rightwing death squads and thugs of various kinds, dominated by veterans of the Duvalier dictatorship and the Tontons Macoutes. These thugs harassed and killed union organizers, human rights activists and others opposed to a neoliberal agenda -- all as US and UN “peacekeepers” looked on -- until international pressure forced a reluctant Clinton Administration to return Aristide to office in 1994.
Savior politics
US liberal mythology has it that Clinton, acting on good liberal principle, saved the people of Haiti by heroically returning the hero of Haitian democracy that was Aristide. The conservative version is the same with different adjectives. Then there’s what actually happened.
Clinton had won the election in part with a promise to end the illegal Bush Administration policy of returning refugees fleeing repression in Haiti. Once elected, he quickly reversed his position, and as FRAPH bathed the hills and slums of Haiti in blood, the Clinton Administration trolled the waters off Florida. Any refugees they caught were neatly divided: Cubans welcomed, Haitians interred in Guantanamo Bay. At “Gitmo“, the refugees were housed in outdoor cages, sometimes without shelter from the elements, given food that was often spoiled or containing roaches, and sometimes beaten for speaking up.
International concern, led by grassroots solidarity groups like the Haiti Support Group and Amnesty International, grew. As a candidate Clinton had used this concern cynically. As a president he was called on it, and finally with UN help the Administration returned Aristide to Haiti as quickly as they could have in 1991 -- or in 2004.
But before his return in 1994, Aristide had to make significant concessions: primarily, he agreed only to serve until the end of his term (a few more months) and not to run again, and he agreed to abandon the program of economic and political reforms that had won the election. Aristide ran again in 2000, and won, but by then his reforms were severely truncated. By then Lavalas was split, disappointment spreading over Aristide’s repeated backtracking on promises. The grassroots labor federation Batay Ouvriye and others in Haiti reported violent repression by Haitian police under Aristide against union organizers and sharecropper activists. It was nowhere near as bad as Duvalierism or FRAPH, and there were reforms -- moderate hikes in the minimum wage, the disbanding of the Haitian Army -- but neither was it the era of progressive leadership many had hoped for.
At the same time international observers found problems with Aristide’s 2000 election. The US and the European Union quickly applied economic sanctions. Violence spread on the eve of the country’s bicentennial celebration in January 2004. By the end of February the government had fallen. US troops in the capital whisked Aristide off to equatorial Africa, apparently refusing to tell him where he was going. He says he was kidnapped, and the alternative broadcast news “Democracy Now” among others have provided significant evidence that his claim is true. He is currently teaching in South Africa.
Current crisis
“FRAPH is back,” was one comment in Haiti. Indeed from his exile “Baby Doc” Duvalier had told the US media, in a story on the eve of the coup, that he was considering returning to Haiti. Two of the “rebel” leaders Guy Philippe and Gilbert Dragon had been trained by the CIA in Ecuador, and two more Louis-Jodel Chamblain and Jean-Pierre Baptiste had been leaders in FRAPH.
Repression since the 2004 coup has been severe, but Haitian activists say not as severe as following the 1991 coup. Up to 1000 people have been killed in the streets, and about six people are kidnapped in the capital every day. The media in the US have been describing the violence as “fighting” between Aristide supporters and anti-Aristide forces, while US progressives generally describe repression against Aristide supporters. Both may have an element of truth.
Shortly after the coup rightwing “rebels” reportedly locked a group of Aristide supporters in shipping containers and dumped them in the sea -- perhaps reminiscent of US techniques in Afghanistan. On the other hand, union members associated with neither political group reported being shot at by street gangs affiliated with Lavalas and by paramilitary forces linked to the current “interim” government.
More recently in August a group of armed men, apparently including Haitian police as well as others out of uniform, opened fire in a crowded soccer stadium, killing several people and wounding others. The people were there for a “tournament of peace” soccer match, organized by US Agency for International Development and the Washington-backed interim government. UN troops were reportedly just across the street. UN officials “expressed concern” and apparently did little else.
International officials seem to be looking forward to elections to resolve this crisis, but many Haitians harbor no such illusions. For starters, it’s a mess. In the lead over 34 other presidential candidates by some estimates is a Haitian-born millionaire US businessman Dumarsais Simeus, whose eligibility is in question because he hasn‘t lived in Haiti for over 40 years. The candidate of the fractured Fanmi Lavalas party is Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official who headed the last “interim” government following the 1991 coup. Many blame Bazin for not doing much to prevent the repression of that period and for the coup itself, which placed him in power. Then there is Rene Preval, a close ally of Aristide, who is supported by grassroots activists in Lavalas. Others are calling for a boycott of the elections.
Yannick Etienne of Batay Ouvriye claims the elections are not the solution to Haiti’s problems, and certainly that has been the pattern so far. She claims there are only two things that will help the majority of Haitians: the struggles of ordinary people themselves in Haiti (workers, peasants, sharecroppers), and international solidarity in support of these efforts. This is the way Batay Ouvriye, the peasant organization Tet Kole, and others have won one local battle after another, under Aristide or other rulers, with the help of groups like the Haiti Support Group, the student anti-sweatshop movement and other international allies.
This suggests a way forward, certainly, if not a quick-fix. Particularly for concerned citizens in the US and Europe, who after all bear some responsibility for their governments’ attacks on the Haitian people.
To help start a Haitian solidarity group locally, call 328-3037. |
See also:
http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org/
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This work is in the public domain. |
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