Duvalierist Make Some Noise

A Guide to Connecting all the Caribbean Dots

A hollow demonstration was held by a group of men in Port-au-Prince's Delma community. They were demonstrating for the return of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. In effect, the "manifestation" was for the return of dictatorship to Haiti. Many who commented on the spectacle observed, "How much money does it cost to buy such a demonstration?" Others were saddened by what they saw as, "A sign that democracy in Haiti is in trouble after the ouster of Aristide."

What about democracy for Haiti? Haiti's 2010 presidential election is scheduled for November 28. And Reuters reported that President Réne Preval rejected the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar's election proposals.

Lugar reportedly wants "to ensure the participation of factions within an opposition party loyal to exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide." Question: is the Senator entirely sincere in his efforts to make sure that Haiti has a free and fair election? One can't help but noticed the equivocal term "factions" from the above statement. What does that mean exactly? It does make it clear that some "factions" are acceptable to Uncle Sam, while others are just out of luck.

In an article on MetropoleHaiti.com (French), Dr. Maryse Narcisse (who is the former president's Fanmi Lavalas party's appointed representative) is quoted as saying that there are traitors [maybe "factions"?] within Lavalas who worked to exclude Lavalas from the next election. Quoting an observer:

"If it is true, it is high treason against the people. Why doesn't she just name the people involved? The people need to know who betrayed them. She went on to say that Lavalas no longer wants to participate in the next election, but rather the resignation of the CEP and Preval only. Why would she not want the party to participate in the next election?

By doing so, she is doing exactly what she blames the traitors of doing. So the people will not have the choice to vote for Lavalas candidates. Her position makes her look like she is the head traitor, the plant, the infiltrator, the agent working to keep Lavalas from elections twice in a row.

I was in Haiti during the last election. People were on radio Guinen begging for Lavalas to get its act together so they can vote their conscience. Instead she was quite busy suing her comrade in a court infested with agents and at the end there were no Lavalas candidates. Her job is to fight and keep on fighting to keep the Party on the ballot every time there is an election, make sure the votes are counted and counting."

What is going on? Well, you see, as long as a conflict can be manufactured, then Fanmi Lavalas "factions" can be excluded from elections. It's apparently the role that the good Dr. Narcisse is playing in this "electoral coup."

It must be said that many have questioned the company that the former president has chosen to keep. This was a problem when he was president of Haiti. One issue was the U.S. based Steele Foundation, which played (or didn't play) a critical role on the night of Feb. 29, 2004, when he was forced out of the presidency. Aristide was hustled onto a plane bound for the Central African Republic in the dead of night by the U.S. At the time Aristide accused the Steele Foundation of withdrawing protection under orders from the U.S. His assertion was confirmed and you can find a detailed account of that fateful night here.

Many have also noted the make-up of Aristide's Foundation, whose board is liberal elite white -- as are by the way, his Miami lawyer and most of the people who are Aristide's closest confidants. Not that he doesn't have the right to choose exactly who he wants to represent his interests, but well, maybe it's just his interests.

Back to the Haiti election farce: It's hardly a secret that President Aristide was Washington's and the Republican party's least favorite "socialist" and liberation theology advocate. So it comes as a surprise that Richard Lugar is in support of Lavala's participation in the elections. After all, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party is hardly seen by Washington as a separate entity from the man they removed from office.

Given that the U.S. is leading the reconstruction effort in Haiti and that former president, Bill Clinton (a man who imposed rigorous and damaging structural adjustment programs and privatization demands on the Aristide government as a condition of his return to the Haitian presidency) is leading the Haiti Interim Reconstruction Commission (Co-Chair Jean Max Bellerive is a figurehead and Preval's "veto" power is an appeasement) and the fact that the U.S. along with the "international community" have the power to pull funding and a bevy of other supports from the Haitian government and people at will, clearly, it would be foolish to believe that Preval can choose to ignore directives from Washington.

By the way, how far removed from Haitian life on the ground is Bill Clinton? One has only to check out Bill and Hilary Clinton's new $11 million compound in Bedford Hills, New York to see that they move in a different stratosphere from the Haitian population. Maybe, this is what the Democrats actually mean when they say their party "is a big tent." This 7,000 square foot one is just for two. Clearly, their "big tent" is a far cry from a leaky tent in Haiti.

So with Haiti's most popular party out of the picture, the stage is set for a return of the "electoral coup ."

At this point, the most pressing question being asked is, who will be the U.S. pick for Haiti's presidency this time? Or, to put it another way, "who will the U.S. choose to humiliate Haiti with this time?

To hazard a guess at this stage is demonstrably early given the habit of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) of postponing the election at the last minute, usually by a couple of weeks or more. This device usually serves to weed out the candidates who announce early. The field is then clear for the late candidate whose coffers are full and available for that last victorious push.

Dr. Guy Theodore may just defy the odds. He fits the bill quite nicely as a U.S. candidate. He is a former U.S. military colonel, and is well positioned to impose a dictatorship in Haiti. A colonel expects a "yes sir" or "no sir" from his subordinates. Any insubordination is met with harsh punishment: court martial and jail.

Dr. Theodore bears an uncanny physical likeness to Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Also, like the former brutal dictator, Dr. Theodore is a country doctor.

It must be said that Dr. Guy is known for his charity work and humanitarianism. His narrative is spotless. This is what makes him the ideal candidate to highjack or seduce a popular movement. In an interview with Little Rock, Arkansas natives and Directors, Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud for the New York Times, Dr. Theodore said he favored the postponement of presidential elections. He thinks that democracy can wait.

Little Rock, Arkansas is a haven for filmmakers who end up covering Haiti stories for the New York Times is it?

According to the website ConsortiumNews.com, back when Francois Duvalier was elected in 1957 to the Haitian presidency, the NY times originally depicted Duvalier as a "mild mannered doctor." The connection is: the NY times seems to be treating Dr Theodore with the same kid gloves. Here is the actual quote:

"Despite the New York Times’ initial portrait of him as “mild-mannered doctor,” Duvalier, upon winning the presidency in 1957, became a ruthless, corrupt dictator.

Dr. Guy, like Haiti's former "president for life," is also not too keen on elections.

"No election now, there is not the time to talk about an election." Dr. Theodore asserts forcefully, "to me, is the time to talk about taking care of the people and building the country. Going and campaigning now I don't think is the time."

He will serve the United States with great ease as a former Colonel. If he wants to, he can become a modern day Dr. Francois Duvalier.

Hopefully, the younger generation who were around during the Fanmi Lavalas grassroots movement have learned something about democracy and will not tolerate the idea of life under a dictatorship. The majority of the people who lived and suffered under the Duvalier dictatorship are either dead, in exile or disappeared all together - but many have told their stories to the next generation. It won't be so easy to fool the younger generation into thinking that a dictatorship is what is needed.

On January 16, following the earthquake, CNN's Fredericka Whitfield interviewed Arielle Jean-Baptiste . Jean-Baptiste is of Haitian descent and worked for the USAID cartel in Haiti. Some who lived through the Duvalier era may remember hearing her name in Haiti. Her family was deeply in bed with the Duvalier dictatorship. Her family was part of the Duvalier motorcade. One wonders, how could CNN parade someone so closely associated with a brutal dictatorship like her on TV without so much as a disclaimer?

Jean-Baptiste has also been tapped for interviews by NPR on matters regarding Haiti.

She was part of the Haiti Democracy Project back in 2004. HDP is funded by the right-wing Haitian Boulos family headed by the infamous Reginald Boulos. Boulos has close business ties with USAID.

Question: What NGOs or opposition organizations in Haiti didn't USAID fund? Not many. The NGOs are defacto ruling authorities in Haiti and do not have to account to the Haitian government for any of their actions.

As for Arielle Jean-Baptiste, formerly of USAID, to many Haitians who read or listen to her, she is just like the rest of her Duvalierist family -- entitled, arrogant and unconcerned about the vast majority of the Haitian people. The Duvalierist did whatever they wanted in Haiti knowing that they had the full backing of a superpower.

In her final comment to NPR, Jean-Baptiste says that government's role is limited in Haiti: "The governance is - once people start getting money, putting their kids to school, having a better life, you can have a new generation that will be - they will ask for accountability. Okay? Money in people's pocket is what's important."

The thought is muddled by the accountability issue, but one thing comes through: she does seem to be saying that government and its role is of no importance.

But can you have accountability without having a real democracy? That of course is a pipe dream or carrot stick that she's apparently learned from her time at USAID, that can never be attained. The U.S. which claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, is a viper's nest of war criminals, torturers, banksters and corporate raiders and marauders. Accountability -- pshshshssss!

Speaking of corporate marauders: An undeclared war on Haiti has raged undetected by the "lamestream" media and we didn't understand why such a poor country would be a target. Recently, a war was declared on Jamaica's poverty striken Tivoli gardens and as we watched the bodies pile up we asked ourselves: why are these poor people being attacked by their own government?

To see the connection, you have to understand that these two countries are seen as the weakest links. Once they fall the rest could fall like dominoes.

The Caribbean is the new target of the big guns in DC and the West because they are sitting on the kind of abundant natural resources and riches that could change the geopolitical status quo for all time. It could turn the world upside down (economically), if the governments of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Grenada, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Guyana, Suriname, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela can hold on to the wealth for their people's benefit and prevent their torturers from the global north from extorting it from them.

The Hydrothermal Energy and the Destabilization of The Caribbean Basin

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Georgia White Dirt Cookies: Care for a Merlot with that dirt?

Guest post by DirtCheapShot

I went to a supermarket in Georgia to buy a bottle of water and walking past the fruits and vegetable section I saw something that caught my attention.

Next to the bananas and peaches were several bags of mud pies, not the dessert, DIRT COOKIES. I picked up a couple of bags.

I vividly recall that many years ago, I saw people snacking on bits of that same stuff in Haiti and enjoyed quite a few bites. So who is eating that stuff in the United States?

I asked a few people who were born and reared in Georgia and other southern states if they knew about that good ole Georgia Dirt. They've all told me that they've eaten their fair share and even sent shipments to their relatives living up north who cannot find it in local stores.

It appears that African-Americans, Euro-Americans and Indigenous Americans all partake in this good ole Southern tradition. So, with the power of narratives and a powerful media, that same dirt eating tradition in Haiti made the news only to be portrayed in a different light.

It is obvious that the women of the informal sector in Haiti could not package and sell their dirt cookies in stores and supermarkets for $1.99 plus tax. What is readily available in stores, gas stations shelves, supermarkets all over the Southern states was unknown to American reporters covering Haiti.

I am sure that mud pie story was well used for fundraisers around the world. While harvests around Haiti are not making it to Port-au-Prince and going to waste for lack of roads and transportation, mud pies was the headline given to the world.

The rice barons in Arkansas and Texas were probably reading that story after 18 holes of golf. I praise the entrepreneurial spirit of the women who are trying to make ends meet out of dirt.

I hope that one day their goods can be among the list of exports. Obviously there is a market for that stuff and the Haitian dirt tastes much better.

Un pays qui perd son artisanat perd son âme.
A country that loses its craft loses his soul.

Background: A microbe found in Haitian dirt can be developed into a powerful antibiotic.

The Problem with Mainstream Media Coverage of Haiti

Mainstream media pieces about Haiti are like Swiss cheese, full of holes. This week NPR/Frontline featured a report from Haiti, "The Problem with Giving Free Food to Hungry People," about a rice vendor and the supply chain in reverse from her to the Port-au-Prince port where the rice is delivered from the U.S. The reporter points out that rice is very important in Haiti, as it is a part of every meal. That's an interesting way to put it, but why is it that Haiti is no longer self-sufficient in producing rice? Haiti is the fourth largest importer of American rice. This question is easily answered and was addressed this year in a session of Congress by former President Bill Clinton. Clinton apologized for the "free" trade policies that allowed the dumping of Arkansas and "Miami rice" subsidized by the U.S. government on the market, resulting in the loss of livelihood for over 300,000 small farmers.

"The Haitian peasantry, which not so long ago kept the country self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs, became inconvenient after Washington forced Haiti to accept U.S. government-subsidized rice. Port-au-Prince, a town of about a quarter million in 1960, swelled to at least 2.5 million as small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis, where they built what they could with the resources at hand. U.S.-imposed “structural adjustment” made Port-au-Prince a high-density death trap.

Somehow, this U.S.-mandated migration – which also contributed to the exodus abroad of many hundreds of thousands – is now numbered among the many “failures” of the Haitian people."

Bill Clinton said that he thinks about this everyday, but Haiti cannot regain food security by cashing in on his remorse.

Speaking of the loss of livelihood for the small farmers in Haiti, the U.S. Census Bureau released estimates about Haiti's population on Monday. The Bureau expects "Haiti's population will continue to grow quickly despite the tremendous loss of life in the January earthquake. According to the report:

"Haiti's current population at 9.6 million, based on an estimated quake death toll of 230,000. It projects the country will recove...r and surpass its pre-quake population level by 2012. By 2050, the bureau says, Haiti will have 13.4 million people. The Dominican Republic, with a nearly identical population, is expected to keep up the same pace."

This might be seen as good news, but the Washington Post story goes on to say that: "By contrast the populations of now-similarly sized European countries like Sweden and Belarus are expected to decline over the same period."

Then the story gets interjected with an element of the aforementioned holes, when it states that: "Overcrowding is already blamed by aid workers and experts for many of Haiti's woes, from environmental degradation and hunger to the deaths of thousands crushed by stacked concrete homes during the earthquake."

Haiti is not over-populated... the city of Port-au-Prince is crowded, no doubt, but these census takers fail to mention that there are huge tracks of land which are uninhabited in Haiti. The reason the "ti paysans" moved from the countryside to the city are two-fold, and both have to do with policies implemented by the U.S. and forced on Haiti.

1) "Free trade" policies forced on Haiti that allowed the dumping of cheap, subsidized food from the U.S. into the Haiti market, destroying Haiti's self-sufficiency at food production.

2) The eradication of the Haitian black pig. Many believe this was done to force the independent, proud farmers (who had resisted being forced off their lands up to that point) to abandon their land and come into the city to work (for slave wages) in sweatshops--something the U.S. had been unable to do prior to the killing of the pigs and loss of the livelihood of the farmers.

USAID/U.S. Embassy and their directors in the democrat and republican parties and their co-conspirators in the rich Haitian oligarchy who run the sweatshops and other slave wage enterprises only have themselves to blame for the conditions that led to so many people crowding into the cities. For most, the jobs they were promised never materialized and they ended up in the slums of Sité Soley, Bel Air, Martissant... etc.

The cheap subsidized rice replaced Haitian rice and now Haiti is the fourth largest importer of American rice, whereas in the past farmers in Haiti grew sufficient rice to feed the entire country. This loss of food security is traced by the experts directly to U.S. trade policies.

The good news is that an effort is being made to repopulate Haiti with "a new variety of pig with the same beneficial qualities as Haiti’s Creole pig.

As for the Haitian farmers, they are in a new battle for their survival with Monsanto "generous" donation of its pesticide covered hybrid seeds, which Monsanto says are not the Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds banned in Europe and other parts of the world, but are just as insidious in that they require sterile land that require specific expensive pesticides and fertilizer. And by the way, they are not good for replanting, so the farmers will have to go back to Monsanto to repurchase seeds.

Haiti's Calamity Is a Windfall for Everyone, Except Haitians-Part II

Guest post by Terroroftyrants

President Barack Obama meets with President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil in the Oval Office,
March 14, 2009. (Official White House
Photo by Pete Souza)

Most mainstream media coverage won't explain the massively lucrative nature of the Haiti venture to the US, the United Nation and Brazil. The financial interests in "their plan" for Haiti. The general spin is that the fundamental motivation of this trade initiative was humanitarian – to aid Haiti's economic development through sustainable production activity.

The authorities in the US, UN and Brazilian governments won't explain that the Brazilian-headed UN troops are, by-the-way, in Haiti not only to secure the use of cheap Haitian labor for their transnational corporations, exploit Haiti's natural resources, but also to defend Brazil’s dream of becoming more of a status quo power itself and gain a seat in the UN Security Council. Brazilian corporations have successfully lobbied Washington and made Brazil a beneficiary under the Washington HOPE Act that allows for duty free textile goods from Haiti for 10 years.

That means, for instance, the Brazilian company, Coteminas - Latin America's largest textile company, owned by the brother-in-law of Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil will be able to make clothing in Haiti or the Dominican Republic and ship them to the US with preferential treatment. Currently, Brazil is the top maker of textile in the region. The textile empire is owned and controlled by President Lula's brother in law. Brazil retained a high-powered law firm in DC to broker the trade deal in Washington.

In an article that appeared in the August 15, 2008 issue of the Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico, explained why Brazil should get preferential trade terms:

"In the midst of chaos [the chaos of the Haitian economic situation and earthquake disaster], Brazilian companies are searching for opportunities and are beginning to profit from their strategic position as leader of MINUSTAH.

Coteminas [Brazilian giant of the textile sector, whose chairman is none other than the son of the vice president of Brazil] wants to use Haiti as a platform for export and clothing manufacture aimed at the US. Brazil is a known collaborator in the rescue process of Haiti. Our country has the right to demand preferential treatment, said Valor Josue Gomes da Silva, president of Coteminas.

In spite of institutional confusion, Haiti presents important advantages for a company in the textile sector: proximity and access to the biggest market in the world, the US, and very inexpensive labor. A dressmaker for the capital Port-au-Prince is paid $0.50 an hour. That is a wage lower than the $3.27 paid in Brazil, and comparable to the $0.46 of Vietnam and $0.28 of Bangladesh."

Coteminas' plan is to export fabric from Brazil, have it made into clothes in Haiti at very low cost, and enter the US market without customs duties. The whole process protected by free trade agreements.