The Haitian Blogger

GOD, SATAN, JOB, AND THE TRIALS OF HAITI

2012-01-29T21:23:00.013-05:00

by J.R. Gelin, Ph.D. | original article posted at: Caribbean Reality Studies Center (pdf)

Beloved Haiti is one of the most abused and one of the most hated little countries on the face of the earth, at least as far as recent history can tell us. Very few countries in the world have a history as tumultuous, as disturbed and as painful as Haiti does. Over the last three decades or so this little nation has made international headlines on several occasions and most of the times in a very negative light.

Place Saint Pierre Tent Camp
Photo credit: By KeelyKernan

In a previous article published some years ago, I established the theological fallacy of Haiti’s supposed and much publicized satanic pact used by many to explain the country’s seemingly never ending troubles ⁽¹⁾. Now, I want to do something else. I invite you to follow an analogy with me and consider some unusual similarities I have found between Haiti’s history and the Old Testament believer and giant in the faith called Job; I have found a pattern of satanic destruction with common elements between them.

Most people feel comfortable talking about the patience of Job, but I wonder how many would be willing to take just a sip from the cup that he drank. Likewise, almost everybody wants to discuss Haiti and even go there for some reason, from movie stars and celebrities of various sorts to singers and politicians; but I wonder how many of them would be willing to experience the sufferings of Haiti for just one week – in their own soul and in their own flesh. How many would volunteer?

Both Job and Haiti have enjoyed blessings from God prior to enduring great sufferings generated by the jealousy and wrath of the Devil. Between the life of Job and the history of Haiti, I have found three distinct but common chronological and theological periods. Let’s have a quick tour.

I. The Glory Days

The first period is a period of protected glory. In the case of Job, the Scriptures say there was no one like him in the whole region due to his wealth, his fame, his justice and his spirituality; he was the greatest man among all the people of the East:

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. (Job 1:1-3)

Similarly, if we consider the horrors of institutionalized slavery and the type of social and economic justice (or lack thereof) that existed in the new world up until the early part of the 19th century, Haiti is the only place where real freedom flourished for all men, women and children, regardless of ethnicity, skin color, education, wealth, or country of origin. Haiti rose up against slavery and colonialism and put a dramatic end to both systems when it declared its independence from France on January 1st, 1804. On account of the success of the Haitian Revolution, the Haitian people stood among the greatest and the most humane societies of the world during that time, and the ripple effects of this success were felt beyond the Caribbean Sea. As an example, here is an excerpt from a speech given by the great American Frederick Douglas on the immense significance of the Haitian Revolution ⁽²⁾. This one is relatively long but it’s worth the read as it points to how a famous and well respected non-Haitian expressed his appreciation for what Haiti had accomplished with regards to the universal rights of people to be free:

Until Haiti struck for freedom, the conscience of the Christian world slept profoundly over slavery. It was scarcely troubled even by a dream of this crime against justice and liberty. The Negro was in its estimation a sheep like creature, having no rights which white men were bound to respect, a docile animal, a kind of ass, capable of bearing burdens, and receiving strips from a white master without resentment, and without resistance. The mission of Haiti was to dispel this degradation and dangerous delusion, and to give to the world a new and true revelation of the black man's character. This mission she has performed and performed it well. Until she spoke no Christian nation had abolished Negro slavery. Until she spoke no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish slavery. Until she spoke the slave ship, followed by hungry sharks, greedy to devour the dead and dying slaves flung overboard to feed them, ploughed in peace the South Atlantic painting the sea with the Negro's blood. Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included. Men made fortunes by this infernal traffic, and were esteemed as good Christians, and the standing types and representations of the Savior of the World. Until Haiti spoke, the church was silent, and the pulpit was dumb. Slave-traders lived and slave-traders died. Funeral sermons were preached over them, and of them it was said that they died in the triumphs of the Christian faith and went to heaven among the just.

He continued to describe what he saw in the Haitian people during his time in the country as a United States Minister representing his own country in the early part of the 19th century:

They are in many respects a fine looking people. There is about them a sort of majesty. They carry themselves proudly erect as if conscious of their freedom and independence.

As is the case for anything precious, both Job and Haiti took serious precautionary measures to guard and protect the blessings received. Job always prayed to God Almighty, asking protection and security for his children even when he was not aware of any specific wrongdoing on their part (see Job 1:4-5). Similarly, Haiti’s forefathers protected the rights of the citizen to worship God freely according to their own conscience. Also, the nation took protective measures against prospective foreign enemies by building fortresses and strengthening the army. Many of these structures still decorate Haiti’s landscape today, the most prominent of them all being the famous ‘Citadelle’ built by Henri Christophe in the North under orders from Dessalines ⁽³⁾.

While Job was enjoying God’s blessings with his family and his estate, and as Haiti was attempting to make the most of its freedom, evil was also lurking in the shadow, ready to strike at the earliest opportunity. We read in the Scriptures that Satan specifically asked God to remove his divine protection so he could attack Job and terrorize him. By bringing his glory to the ground, Satan was hoping that Job will turn against God and curse him (see Job 1:9-11). Were that to happen, the Devil could have easily said to God that none of his creatures really love him or care about him, except when they are blessed; and in this satanic theological discourse, the Devil was looking for a justification for his own existence and his right to blaspheme against the Almighty. Unknown to him, Job was in the middle of a celestial contest whose outcome would have far reaching consequences beyond anything he could ever imagine. Can a man say yes to God no matter what? Can a man stay true to his faith after losing all he has?

For Haiti, I am not aware of any indication, information or revelation that a similar debate ever took place in heaven; but I am inclined to believe that all the wicked spiritual forces behind the slave trade took a serious blow with the success of the Haitian Revolution. As a result they would be willing to break Haiti down in order to make it renounce its own ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. The kingdom of darkness was disturbed by Haiti’s freedom and anticipated prosperity at the start of the 19th century, essentially the same way Job’s spirituality and wealth bothered Satan in times past.

And all it took to put an end to the glory days was for God to allow the wicked to follow their evil desires as the inspiration of the Devil was taking shape in their dark minds and turning into actionable items. They were gnashing their teeth, perhaps drooling profusely, while looking at what could become theirs if only they could put their hands on it. Their plotting against their innocent neighbors was the beginning of the end for the first period.

North coast of Haiti.

II. The Testing Period

As soon as the Lord God removed the hedge of protection around Job, Satan left heaven and unleashed a relentless series of attacks against Job and his family, in order to terrorize him and force him to curse God and renounce his faith. Over ninety percent of the book of Job is dedicated to this period of intense trials. The story of Job and the last 200 years of Haiti’s history point to four distinct types of assault, and together they form a satanic pattern of devastation and death.

1. It all started with foreign invasion. After Satan left heaven and went back to the earth, it became suddenly a matter of foreign policy for the Sabeans and the Chaldeans to invade Job’s estate and plunder his wealth. This was done in direct violation of the 10th commandment which prohibits coveting anything that belongs to our neighbors:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17)

Satan doesn’t care one bit about God’s commandments since he sought to dethrone him at one point in his past. The Scriptures reveal a similar pattern of disdain for God on the part of humans who work under the Devil’s control to help him carry out his diverse projects of destruction and mayhem. First, the Sabeans attacked and killed the servants of Job who were in the field before taking away his flocks of several hundred oxen and donkeys:

One day when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" (Job 1:13-15)

Then, the Chaldeans came and formed three battalions, killed the workers, and took all the camels which were numbered in the thousands:

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"(Job 1:17)

Such a detailed account of foreign aggression and damage to Haiti would be hard to compile. Why? Simply because there are too many instances where this little country was occupied by foreign military forces while posing no material threat whatsoever against the invading powers ⁽⁴⁾. In 2012 Haiti is still under foreign military control and has been for many years now. And have the invaders plundered the resources of the country or weakened its foundation during each episode? Absolutely! I encourage you to research yourself what Haiti has endured, and I guarantee that you will be amazed by what you find. For example, former American President Bill Clinton offered a public apology in 2010 for his contribution to the destruction of Haiti’s agriculture while in office ⁽⁵⁾. But although profoundly devastating to the country, negative foreign intervention is only one component of the plan. The story continues.

Cap-Haïtien, Haiti

2. Natural disasters constitute the next elements of this pattern. They came to Job in the form of lightings and building collapse, with widespread death following as the common outcome:

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" (Job 1:16)

Up to that point the children of Job were safe, and I wonder what may have been going through his mind on this tragic day as he was receiving these devastating news one after the other. But that, too, changed when he received the news of their simultaneous demise while they were feasting together in a family gathering as they have done many times before:

While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, "Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" (Job 1:18)

Although death by lighting is rare in tropical Haiti, there is a strong historical record of devastations caused by flooding and earthquakes. In the evening of January 12, 2010, Haiti was devastated by a 7.5 quake that destroyed buildings and made around 200 thousand victims by some estimates, adding to the already deep level of misery that existed before for the vast majority of the people. Despite this terrible tragedy of biblical proportions ⁽⁶⁾, Haiti has never renounced its God-given right to exist as a free nation, and the Haitian people have never rejected the God of heaven in their collective theology. On the contrary, the Haitian government cancelled the annual carnival celebration and organized three days of national prayer that took place near the ruins of the devastated and collapsed national palace⁽⁷⁾. Furthermore, church attendance increased as people turned to prayer and to God for spiritual and emotional comfort. The same way that Job did not sin by charging God of wrongdoing (see Job 1:22), Haiti as a whole has not uttered any blaspheme either, at least as far as I can tell. Let’s continue.

3. Poverty and sickness came as parts of the infernal arsenal, following foreign invasion and natural catastrophes. What abject poverty could not do to Job, Satan was hoping to accomplish with sickness:

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. (Job 2:7-10)

Here again Job did not blame God for his adversity, and his faith remained as strong as ever. From that point on we no longer see Satan in the story or the human accomplices he found in the Sabeans and the Chaldeans. The attack on Job took a different form.

In what is yet one more point of similarity to the biblical account, Haiti is known today as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the people who enjoy using this description of the country do not make an effort to associate this poverty with its known historical causes, namely repeated invasions by foreign military troops coupled with regular natural disasters. It is not hard to understand that natural catastrophes alone can bring any society to its knees. But if you add regular episodes of military aggression to the equation the outcome can be easily predicted and mapped out, with also measurable negative effects on the physical health of the population. Accordingly, various diseases have afflicted part of the Haitian population, the most damaging being HIV/AIDS and the newly introduced Cholera that has already made several [7018 as of January 8] thousand victims ⁽⁸⁾. In all of this, Haiti continues to celebrate its national holidays as an independent and free nation (although under occupation, again), and prayers of all sorts continue to be addressed regularly to the God of heaven by a vast portion of the population.

The resilience of the Haitian people can be easily likened to the perseverance and patience of Job. But what Satan could not do to Job’s spirit by using family death, poverty and sickness, his friends attempted to do with their theological speeches. Unknowingly perhaps, the friends of Job tried to break him down with their assumption that some hidden sin on his part was the real cause for his sufferings.

4. Theological injustice is the last and final type of assault. In the life of Job, the target was no longer his family members, his material possessions or even his physical health since they were all gone. Now it was a string of verbal strikes going directly against the very fabric of this giant in the faith. The three friends of Job who came to visit him for his sufferings thought he or his children had committed some secret sin, and therefore their sudden and tragic death was justified (see Job 8:1-4; 15:4-6, 17-26; 34:31-37). They attacked his faith, his fear of God and his integrity, the three things that had made Job who he was and for which he was being tested by the Devil (in whom there is no faith, no fear of God and no integrity!). At some point during the heated theological and philosophical debate, the voice of God was heard from heaven; the Lord intervened and talked to Job, which brought him the great comfort he had been waiting for. Then God turned his attention to Job’s three friends and rebuked them for their errors:

After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has…” (Job 42:7)

I am sure that by now you have already made the connection with Haiti in this analogy. The friends of Job were not able to say the right things about God because they had no idea why Job was suffering so greatly. It had not been revealed to them that the cosmic enemy of both God and man was in a campaign not only to prove to God that man (created in his image) cannot have a pure and strong love for him, but also to simply destroy Job just for the fun of it; we know that Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy (see John 10:10). In a similar way, countless friends of Haiti have attempted to justify the country’s current conditions of widespread misery by invoking some secret ancestral sin ⁽¹⁾. I wonder what God will tell them on judgment day. In the case of Job’s friends, God talked to them directly because he knew them and they could hear his voice although they apparently did not seek his wisdom and counsel while visiting Job. The accusation of Job by his three friends concludes the series of attacks that characterize the testing period, and the response of the Lord introduces the third and final major segment of the story.

III. The Restoration Period

After the Lord rebuked the friends of Job, he instructed him to offer an intercessory prayer on their behalf because of their verbal sins; and after Job had prayed for his friends, God reestablished him in his health and prosperity, essentially giving him double blessings for his troubles:

After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. (Job 42:10)

The Scriptures add that God blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first (see Job 42:12-17). Job passed the ultimate test of faith with flying colors and stands out in the Scriptures as one of the greatest examples of patience and perseverance (see James 5:10-12). I would not be wrong to say that on judgment day Job will stand on God’s side and his testimony will rise against the Sabeans, against the Chaldeans, and against Satan. His restoration was possible because the Lord God is just, and full of compassion and mercy. As a result, he would never let the Devil terrorize his people indefinitely.

North coast, Haiti

But can we expect the same for Haiti, and will the God of heaven stop the devastation to make the country prosperous again? I have no answer to this question although I am among those who pray and hope that he does. You see, this tiny nation covers approximately ten thousand square miles only, so its prosperity should be relatively easy to establish from a human and technical standpoint. In the meantime, my question to you is what role will you choose to play in the Haitian version of Job’s story?

I know for sure that some people will be like Job’s friends and try to elaborate on things they don’t really understand, and in the process abuse and slander Haiti verbally and theologically; they seem to forget that the Scriptures teach that only the revealed things belong to us humans while anything concealed belongs to the Lord (see Deuteronomy 29:29). Others will take pleasure to participate in the satanic plan of destabilization and destruction like the Sabeans and the Chaldeans, and help to continue the devastation of the country with their actions? While no one can know for sure what is in store for Haiti, I believe you can choose what part to play in this ongoing reenactment of the age-old battle between good and evil, between faith and despair, between blessings and curses, between what’s right and what’s wrong. At this point in time, it is entirely up to you. What will it be?

_____________________________

Notes and References:

(1) J.R. Gelin (2005). God, Satan, and the birth of Haiti ( Part I | Part II | Part III )

(2) A lecture given by Frederick Douglas at the Haitian Pavilion dedication ceremony at the World Fair held in Chicago, IL: http://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Frederick_Douglass_lecture_on_Haiti_(1893)

(3) For a view of the Majestic Citadelle click on this link: http://www.wmf.org/project/citadelle-henry

(4) Brief outline of foreign military interference in Haiti: http://soc.hfac.uh.edu/artman/publish/article_94.shtml

(5) An article on Bill Clinton’s apology: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35967561/ns/world_news-americas/#.Tvd7NTUV0_c

(6) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the devastation as ‘biblical’: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-18/opinion/mcalister.haiti.faith_1_earthquake-haitian-people-haitian-war?_s=PM:OPINION

(7) Haitian President René Préval declared three days of national prayer and repentance in which he participated along with other government officials: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585650,00.html

(8) HIV/AIDS is under control now but it has already killed thousands of people after its introduction into the country during the 1980’s. Cholera was not present in Haiti prior to the arrival of MINUSTAH. Field and genetic studies have revealed that the strain causing massive infections and death comes from a group of UN soldiers from Nepal stationed in the lower Central Plateau region: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/7/11-0059_article.htm

Article posted with the writer's permission.

J.R. Gelin, Ph.D.

Bio Note: Dr. Gelin can be contacted at gelinjr@yahoo.fr for this article. He is a founding member of Doxa Foundation International (www.dfi-inc.org), a non-profit Christian organization working in Haiti.

J.R. Gelin, Ph.D. © 2012
gelinjr@yahoo.fr

The Siege of Casernes Dessalines: the Story of Alix Pasquet, Haitian Tuskegee Airman

2012-01-23T22:34:00.011-05:00

This week the movie "Red Tails" makes its debut at the box office. By comparison, the story of The Haitian Tuskegee Airmen is virtually unknown. Not many people know that Haitian men were recruited to be pilots and to fight in WWII. One intriguing event involving a Haitian Tuskegee pilot is the story of Alix Pasquet, who laid siege on the Casernes Dessalines in an attempt to dislodge Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.

Lieutenant Pasquet's attempted coup was the first of many against the hated dictator. It occurred less than one year into Duvalier's regime, when "the romance between the newly elected President and the people ended, causing the political opposition to gain much ground."

The whole dramatic story unfolds on the Fort Dimanche website. "[A] summary was sent to Fordi 9 in remembrance of the 48th anniversary of the events that took place on that day [July 28, 1958]. Submitted by Frantz Haspil"

A group of former Haitian military officers headed by Lieutenant Alix Pasquet gathered in Miami . On or about July 25, 1957, the group set sails on board a yacht called “Molly C” heading toward Haiti. On board were former Lieutenants Alix “Sonson” Pasquet, Henri “Riquet” Perpignan and Phillipe “Fito” Dominique (the brother in law of Pasquet). Accompanying them were five American soldiers of fortune whose names were: Arthur Payne (the leader), Dany Jones, Levant Kersten, Robert F. Hickey and Joe D. Walker (the boat captain). The Haitian officers had all been assigned while in the Army to either the Casernes Dessalines, or the National Palace and thus were very familiar with those two areas.

The Casernes Dessalines is a military barracks built in 1912, located behind the National Palace, which housed the 18th Battalion of the Haitian Armed Forces. The National Palace housed its own garrison called the Presidential Guard, mainly considered a ceremonial unit.

And since these officers had left the country some months earlier, they were confident that with the help of the soldiers they once had in their command, and the help of other officers still in the military, they could seize the moment, create an uprising and overthrow the Duvalier regime.

Read a full and dramatic account of the siege of Casernes Dessalines by Luitenant Alix Pasquet and the heart wrenching stories the victims of the Duvalier dictatorship at Fordi9.com.

Fordi 9 chronicles the thousands of individuals who, under the regime of both Duvaliers, were unjustifiably stripped of their undeniable rights and/or deprived unreasonably of their civil liberties. Many of these victims were incarcerated and subjected to physical and mental torture without cause or due process.

The Puppet, the Dictator, and the President: Haiti Today and Tomorrow

2012-01-22T14:51:00.004-05:00

by BAR editor and columnist Jemima Pierre, PhD
Originially published at Black Agenda Report | 01/17/2012 - 20:13 — Jemima Pierre

There they were, at the official ceremony: the living, breathing banes of Haiti’s existence. “Rubbing shoulders on stage, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries were Haitian President Michel Martelly, former US President and UN Special Envoy, Bill Clinton, and, Jean Claude Duvalier,” the mass murderer and former dictator. The dictator is hoping for some kind of comeback, and the puppet president “will open up Haiti to permanent US occupation and economic exploitation while terrorizing Haitians who fight back.” Clinton oversees the whole process on behalf of imperialism.

The Puppet, the Dictator, and the President: Haiti Today and Tomorrow

by BAR editor and columnist Jemima Pierre, PhD

“Duvalier has been allowed to roam Haiti’s streets, even dining at the finest restaurants with the likes of Sean Penn.”

Lost amidst the heart-wrenching stories and photographs of the “poor Haitians” living in squalor and misery circulating on the second anniversary of the 12 January 2010 earthquake, another set of images appeared. Few people noticed these other images – they received little attention in the mainstream media – but they offer an insight into the prospects for Haiti’s reconstruction and, indeed, into the prospects for Haiti’s political and economic future.

The images were taken during the official commemoration ceremonies at the hillside of Titanyen [pdf], north of Port-au-Prince, where former dictators Jean Claude Duvalier and his father, Francois Duvalier, discarded the bodies of their political opponents. After the earthquake, it became the gravesite of thousands of unidentified earthquake victims. During the ceremonies, local delegates and international diplomats paid their respects to the Haitians that lost their lives and pledged to help those who lived. But the most striking image that emerged during the ceremonies was that of an immoral triumvirate. Rubbing shoulders on stage, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries were Haitian President Michel Martelly, former US President and UN Special Envoy, Bill Clinton, and, Jean Claude Duvalier. To understand the future of Haiti, we have to shift our focus from the “poor Haitians” who dominate Haiti coverage and understand the significance of these three figures to the shaping of US imperial designs on Haiti.

“President Martelly is the face – and backbone – of a resurgent Duvalierism.”

“Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti after twenty-five years in exile on 16 January 2010. His arrival was supposedly a surprise, though it is becoming clear that he was given the go-ahead by France and the United States. The Obama administration’s relative silence around the return of Duvalier needs to be contrasted with the noise it made while it forcefully tried to prevent the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected President. The contrast smacks of duplicity. Let’s remember that under Duvalier (and his father, Francois) nearly 50,000 Haitians were killed, disappeared, and tortured by the reviled tonton macoutes, his private army. At the same time, Duvalier embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars, most of which sponsored an exiled life of grandeur. Despite the calls for his arrest and prosecution by Haitian survivors, lawyers, and international human rights organizations, Duvalier has been allowed to roam Haiti’s streets, even dining at the finest restaurants with the likes of Sean Penn.

What does Duvalier symbolize? For Haiti’s elite, he represents a form of totalitarian nostalgia. There is a cultish aura that surrounds Duvalier, a reminder of the era of “macoutized bourgeoisie,” as journalist Kim Ives has referred to it, when there was an alliance between the elite and the paramilitary forces of terror. But Duvalierism was also good for US politics and economics. In the 1960s, they needed Francois (“Papa Doc”) Duvalier to offset the rise of revolutionary communist Cuba. Under Jean Claude (“Baby Doc”), they were able to open up the Haitian markets and resources to US businesses, expand sweatshops, and lay the basis for the coming neoliberal economic policies.

“Duvalierism was good for US politics and economics.”

This is where the US-selected President Martelly and “Papa” Bill Clinton come in. As we’ve pointed out here on Black Agenda Report, right-wing candidate Martelly was handpicked by the Obama administration to become Haiti’s president in a forced election marred by irregularities and low voter turn out. More importantly, he is the face – and backbone – of a resurgent Duvalierism. His Duvalier affinities are well known as is his animus towards former President Aristide. He has historic ties with Duvalier loyalists, has called for “amnesty” for Duvalier, and is now in the process of reestablishing the Haitian army. Moreover, his erratic and belligerent interactions with his constituency and political colleagues – and, in particularly, his threats against Haitian journalists – are early indications of his repressive tendencies.

But he is a good puppet. As Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network reminds us: “Martelly is merely a tool to be used by those ‘more schooled in the patterns of privilege and domination’ than any self-serving Haiti politician could ever dream to be. Martelly is the valve that releases accumulated surface pressure while reinforcing the ‘violent Haitian’ narrative. Brilliant US/Euro move. A no brainer.” In the meantime, he will open up Haiti to permanent US occupation and economic exploitation while terrorizing Haitians who fight back. As the U.S. attempts to consolidate its military presence in the Western hemisphere, control of Haiti is important. For many, this is one of the reasons explaining Haiti’s currently military occupation by the UN-led criminal force, MINUSTAH, the largest UN military force in a country that is not at war. It is also the reason for the massive new US embassy in Haiti, the fourth largest US embassy in the world.

“Clinton practically dictates Haitian policy.”

And then there’s Bill Clinton. Clinton provides the “kind” face of US control of Haiti. With his push to turn Haiti into a Western tourist paradise while Haitians become cheap sweatshop labor for making Western goods, Clinton is the arbiter of a new phase of neoliberalism. Clinton practically dictates Haitian policy. In fact, in one of the more absurd and nepotistic twists of Haiti’s political history, Haiti’s Prime Minister, Gary Conille, is Clinton’s former chief of staff. Conille also has a long family history with the Duvaliers: his father was a minister to Baby Doc. As @dominique_e recently said on twitter, everything is set to “kill Haiti with neoliberalism.”

Last week, Glen Ford remarked that in the US media, “Haiti is most often spoken of as a tragedy – when it is actually the scene of horrific crimes, mainly perpetrated by the United States over the span of two centuries.” With the puppet, the dictator, and the president on the scene, it is hard to imaging a more sinister cohort guiding Haiti down the path of US exploitation.

Jemima Pierre can be reached at BAR1804@gmail.com.

Haiti, Raped by the U.S. Since 2004, and Still Bleeding

2012-01-13T19:17:00.008-05:00

by Glen Ford | originally published at Black Agenda Report

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The horrific squandering of Haitian lives and earthquake relief and aid dollars by the occupying powers over the past two years are direct consequences of previous imperial crimes. “Since 2004, Haiti has been methodically stripped of its sovereignty, made into a protectorate of the United Nations,” which is merely a front for the United States. “The earthquake of January 2010 was a natural phenomenon that happened to take place while a rape was in progress.”

“The United States has flexed every superpower muscle to prolong Haiti’s agony.”

In the American media, Haiti is most often spoken of as a tragedy – when it is actually the scene of horrific crimes, mainly perpetrated by the United States over the span of two centuries. For the past two years, since the earthquake that shook the life out of hundreds of thousands of already deeply wounded people, the United States has flexed every superpower muscle to prolong Haiti’s agony.

Half a million people are still homeless, two years after the quake, despite the billions in relief and recovery aid pledged by international donors. Sixty percent of the rubble has yet to be removed from the capital and its suburbs, and 6,000 people have died from a cholera epidemic brought into the country by United Nations troops. The UN has still not seen fit to apologize for being the vector of disease, because the UN is not accountable to the people of Haiti – only to the United States. The Americans used a huge chunk of their so-called aid money to reimburse themselves for the cost of their military occupation of the country. Dead, dying, sick, starving, homeless Haitians are made to pay for their own imprisonment in their native land, while Washington gloats that it is Haiti’s last, best hope, and that the catastrophic earthquake might have been a good thing, a chance for a “new beginning” under Washington's firm guidance.

Millions were spent to choreograph crooked elections that brought to office a government with no power, even less money, and not a shred of dignity – a puppet regime held in absolute disrespect by its American puppeteers.

“Washington gloats that it is Haiti’s last, best hope, and that the catastrophic earthquake might have been a good thing.”

Meanwhile, Haiti’s most popular political party remains, for all official purposes, an outlaw, effectively banned from civic participation. The Haitian people are not allowed to speak. And this is the heart of the crime, from which all the grand and petty assaults on the Haitian nation, flow. This week’s anniversary of the killer earthquake is full of morbid statistics on physical destruction, death and disease, but the appalling numbers cannot separate these two years of horror from the crimes that came before: the isolation and armed extortion of Haiti by United States and Europe following her 1804 victory against French slavery, leaving the Black republic with a debt that was not paid off until the 1940s; the 26 separate invasions of Haiti by the United States from 1849 to 1915, followed by a nearly 20-year occupation that lasted until 1934; and the U.S. overthrow of Haiti's popularly elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, in 2004, the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence. Since 2004, Haiti has been methodically stripped of its sovereignty, made into a protectorate of the United Nations, which is merely a front for the real rulers, the United States and its junior partners, France and Canada.

The earthquake of January 2010 was a natural phenomenon that happened to take place while a rape was in progress. The rapists in Washington take their greatest pleasure in Haiti's degradation. Haiti needs nothing from the United States, except to be left alone, as a free nation in the world, to make friends as it chooses. It is not natural disaster that holds her back, but naked U.S. aggression – because all people have the capacity to rise, unless they are held down by overwhelming force.

On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Haiti: Island of the Blamed

2011-11-20T21:38:00.014-05:00

The Economist's online blog has addressed the cholera lawsuit filed against the UN by The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) in a blog.

Should Haitians be grateful for this belated attention to the disastrous outbreak? -- that a major U.S. publication, The Economist has seen fit to address this most inconsequential of issues -- the untimely death of thousands of Haitians?

Well, it's not such an afterthought as they would make it. The reason the issue merits The Economist's intention at all is because they calculate the death of thousands in terms of the millions of dollars such a lawsuit represents. The Economist clearly regrets the UN's impending economic loss. So it is no wonder that the writer (P.B.?) titles the blog - "The UN in Haiti - Damned if you do." The meaning is clear: the "damned" are not the over 500,000 Haitians infected by cholera, the over 800,000 The Lancet predicts will be infected, nor the (conservatively) almost 7,000 recorded dead.

The Economist admits there may be culpability on the part of the UN. It's unclear whether such clarity would be forthcoming if the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) did not exist. They have the UN's back -- though they make it clear they don't want to be downstream from that rear end.

The experts “found that it was not possible to determine conclusively how cholera was introduced,” said Kieran Dwyer, a spokesperson for the UN’s peacekeeping operations. “On the scientific evidence, we don’t know if it was the UN troops or not.”

A close read of the panel’s report, however, suggests otherwise. The experts pinpointed the origin of the outbreak to the Meille River, a tributary of the region’s main water source, near a peacekeeping base where sanitation conditions “were not sufficient to prevent faecal contamination” of the river. They noted that the battalion was deployed from Nepal shortly after endemic cholera had flared up in the Kathmandu Valley, and that asymptomatic soldiers, who can still carry cholera, were not tested. They cited epidemiological studies showing genetic similarities between Haiti’s strain of cholera and the South Asian strain endemic in Nepal. And they dismissed every other alternate theory on the origins of cholera in Haiti.

-- The UN in Haiti - Damned if you do by P.B | The Economist (blog)

More deaths in Haiti from the "peacekeeping" mission of MINUSTAH than casualties of "war" suffered by the U.S. and its allies in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The UN damned and Haitians -- blamed. How sad that some would marginalize the poor and disenfranchised. They consider them to be just so much garbage that must be swept out of parks and public squares.

What are the elements that make a disaster worst and favor the spread of a pandemic, the UN experts know -- they've conducted the studies and they've done the surveys (pdf):

"The sheer scope of the socio-economic impacts of natural disasters is at last slowly bringing about a shift in approach away from disaster relief and toward disaster prevention, with risk reduction increasingly considered as a priority development tool in its own right. There is a growing realization
in the international community that risk reduction, disaster relief and sustainable development are closely related. Vulnerability to disasters is linked to poverty, and vice versa."

-- Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation UNESCO’s role

by United Nations' Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

The UN should have tested those Nepalese soldiers, who came back from an outbreak in Katmandu, Nepal last year and evidently contaminated the Meille river with fecal matter from a leaky latrine. Since they did not, and since they continue to deny their responsibility for the cholera outbreak, one could conclude that - the UN is not in Haiti to mitigate the impact of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. It's evident from their deeds and words that the UN is in Haiti for political reasons. The protection of the people of Haiti is not of "interest" to them. The people's deaths, while inconvenient, does not pose a significant concern for the "international community" when measured against the goals of the occupation.

The place was ripe for a pandemic and the very international entity tasked with preventing such a thing shipped in a bunch of people from disparate lands and backgrounds with diseases that are not endemic to the area, and (predictably) caused the spread of a disastrous pandemic.

The UN is in Haiti to carry out the agenda of the U.S. The U.S. wishes to suppress and destroy the most popular political party, Lavalas. The Lavalas party was founded on the theory of Liberation theology. It's very dangerous to advocate a Christian belief in social, economic and political justice -- you'll be crucified.

Haitians are blamed and called "ungrateful" for seeking redress for all the injustices they've suffered at the hands of the American empire and its nation state partners who form the proxy occupying force, deployed to keep real democracy from developing a foothold in Haiti.

One is forced to conclude that there's no way to do an injustice to Haitians -- no matter that the UN military occupation has committed massacres, murders, rapes (women, children, young men... what fate has befallen the stolen goats?), and other crimes against humanity since the beginning of the occupation in 2004. Haitians are blasted for their temerity in demanding accountability and justice... even when scientific studies/medical evidence, video/audio testimonials exist, which provide abundant proof of the numerous indignities and injustices Haitians have been subjected to.

The UN has a budget of over $800,000,000 in Haiti -- this is a profitable occupation for their member states... a chance to make a substantial profit and at the same time pander to empire's wishes. In Brazil's instance (they've lead the occupation from the start), it's a bid to be invited to join as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Has a single dollar of this UN occupation been spent to find a sustainable solution to the cholera outbreak? The solution seems too obvious; send the troops home and provide sustainable clean water infrastructure. However, this would mean that the Clinton Foundation would not make a profit from "cholera insurance," the pharmaceuticals could not make millions from selling a "cholera vaccine" and countless NGOs would not make a living from providing social services (socialized medicine? How ironic!) for a preventable and curable water-bourne disease.

The UN has spent resources to assure that they have clean water in their self-contained tribal compounds. There would be no lawsuit if the UN had made an effort to mitigate the effects of the cholera infection -- if they had, the outbreak would not be the worst in the world. Instead, Edmond Mulet said the Mirebalais Nepalese base had disposed their waste in a manner that was not only up to international standards, but to EPA standards, a baseless lie.

It's ironic that this occupation is being lead by Brazil. This time the descendants of the indigenous natives of South America and Black Africans who make up the military force are playing the role of the settlers, cowboys... of the European immigrants. Do they know that Francisco de Miranda and Simon Bolivar came to Haiti for help in mounting the South American revolutions that liberated four countries from colonial occupation? Haiti made just one stipulation for providing help - Bolivar must also free the slaves. There's a statue of Simon Bolivar in the Haitian capital -- it survived the earthquake, as did all the statues in the capital. But did Bolivar deserve that honor? It's doubtful. Bolivar turned his back on Haiti. Bolivar, very crudely, did not invite Haiti to the Congress of Panama. The good news is that Brazil has announced they are leaving and ending their leadership of the UN occupation of Haiti. It can't happen too soon for Haiti's sake.

MLK said: "the arc of history bends toward justice... and injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Those are not platitudes. They ring true today. There is hope for a better future. There is hope in the Occupy movement - which is why the police have acted like stormtroopers to protect the interests of empire.

On a lighter note, it's heart warming that worldwide people are rallying to protest social-economic inequities, injustice and political corruption. Hopefully, it signals the beginning of a new way of sharing ideas and building concensus -- horizontal leadership, general assemblies and people over profit.

There is also hope in the announcement that the US occupation of Iraq may be ending soon -- haven't heard how many "advisors" will stay. The U.S. decided to leave because the Iraqis would not give them immunity from prosecution. The circumstances are similar to those in Haiti -- the other regime change.

Haitian should not be bound by the SOFA agreement, which purports to give the UN immunity -- or is it impunity? It's so hard to distinguish the difference. Wasn't this document first signed by the Bush installed puppet government of Gerard LaTortue? As a so-called "interim" president, Latortue did not have the constitutional right to commit Haiti to such a contract. The other sticky matter is that Haiti's first democratically elected government was removed in U.S. backed coups in 1991 and 2004. Can a country like Haiti where the "international community" wields so much socio-economic and political power be said to be sovereign and independent, especially in light of the outside interference by those who plotted the coups? It's a question of legitimacy. Haiti should not be held to agreements made under an illegal occupation.

Haitians have a saying: "washing your hands and wiping it with dirt."

2011-10-23T17:53:00.007-04:00

Anti-UN Protests in Haiti:

"They've Brought Us Disease and Humiliation"

This is what the U.S. and it's proxies have been doing in Haiti. In fomenting crisis after crisis in Haiti, they must stupidly think that this will "protect their interests." How droll! With instability comes thousands of Haitians aiming for their shores! Same goes for the Dominican Republic, which harbored, armed and nurtured the "rebels" who were the "muscle" for the U.S. sponsored coup of Haiti's first democratically elected government.

For the U.S., it must be tiring to keep Haiti's mass of "useless eaters"** at bay by keeping their Coast Guard on the alert 24/7. This must be why they need this MINUSTAH proxy occupation to do their dirty work. Keep Haiti unstable and control the country?

**Useless eaters: a term applied to the infamous Kissinger Report in which he proposed methods to reduce the populations of underdeveloped countries... or genocide by any other name.

Haiti has endured over 200 years of abuse at the hands of the United States.

There has never been any intention by the U.S. to uphold democracy or engender stability in Haiti.

A particularly poignant reminder of U.S. intentions in Haiti was the 20 years of a direct, brutal and racists occupation. During the Invasion of Haiti in 1915: The U.S. Marines went straight to the Haitian National Bank and removed its gold reserves to New York City. The U.S. military ruthlessly crushed resistance, murdering leaders, burning villages to the ground and killing 15-30,000 Haitians. Did you know that the resistance was so strong that the U.S. military had to use aerial bombardment to rout the Cacos and their leader Charlemagne Peralte?

Documents of Charlemagne Peralte - read here.

The U.S. Congressional record documents the theft of the gold and the real reason for the 1915 occupation -- read here: The seizure of Haiti by the United States; a report on the military occupation of the Republic of Haiti and the history of the treaty forced upon her ..

The occupation was the means toward changing the Haitian Constitution, primarily to allow multinationals to own property in Haiti and exploit Haiti's resources for foreign benefit and not the interests of the Haitian people.

The $500,000 in gold would be worth 42,000,000+ in today's gold market. The theft fulfilled two purposes, first it made Haiti a U.S. ward; second, Haiti was no longer able to have a gold standard to back its paper currency.

The U.S. must return Haiti's gold! It must pay restitution for all the injustice, inhumanity -- crimes against humanity it has committed in Haiti!

Also, the occupation trained and from that point on held control over the renegade Haitian military (responsible for many coups, massacres, rapes and other atrocities in Haiti).

When Aristide dismantled of the dreaded Haitian military, it must have rankled the US State Department and Bill Clinton, since it's current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the puppet they've "selected" as Haitian president, the right-wing Duvalerist, Martelly, is determined to re-institute the military over the objections of most of the Haitian people.

Michel Martelly is sure to get support in his quest for a "pink militia" from the guy newly minted to serve at Washington's leisure. The new Prime Minister of Haiti Garry Conille is Bill Clinton's former Chief-of-Staff in Haiti. No matter that Conille, as well as Martelly do not meet the Constitutional residency requirements to hold elective office in Haiti.

"It is a common misconception, both in Haiti and abroad, that the country’s president holds executive power. In fact, his main power is to nominate the man or woman who does: the Prime Minister.... Garry Conille, 45, is the son of a Serge Conille, who was a government minister under the Duvalier dictatorship." Find out more about: Garry Conille's neo-liberal pedigree here.

All Haitian's will start respecting the U.S. and it's proxy the UN MINUSTAH military force when they begin to put a value on Haitian life.

Background:

How the U.S. impoverished Haiti

http://www.nathanielturner.com/howusimpoverishedhaiti.htm

Haiti - a history of intervention, occupation and resistance

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/95531

Leta Restavek: The Suppression of Democracy in Haiti

2011-10-23T16:42:00.001-04:00

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October 17, 2011

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Courtney Frantz

The U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has suppressed both electoral democracy and free speech in Haiti by organizing fraudulent elections and shutting down peaceful protests, which has helped to exclude Haiti’s poor majority from participation in the electoral process.
Recently released WikiLeaks cables reveal the official U.S. view that MINUSTAH has turned out to be an “indispensible… financial and regional security bargain for the USG [U.S. government]” and that the “Aristide [m]ovement [m]ust [b]e [s]topped.”[1]
This systematic suppression of democracy has contributed to Haiti’s status as a “‘leta restavek’, or child servant state,” serving foreign interests.[2]

In a unanimous resolution, the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council decided on Friday, October 14, 2011 to renew the mandate of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) for one year, reducing its numbers to “pre-earthquake levels.”[3] U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has declared that he “envisions a gradual withdrawal” over the upcoming years.[4] According to journalist Ansel Herz, many Haitians have been protesting MINUSTAH’s presence for at least a year. “There’s a [wide] range of demands,” he asserts, “Some people want MINUSTAH… to simply leave… Others are asking that they transform their mission from one of military so-called peacekeeping into development.”[5]

From an outsider’s perspective, it may seem unclear why many Haitians are indignant about the presence of U.N. peacekeeping troops in their country during such a tumultuous period. A vast number of news articles have reported that the protests are a response to recent accusations of severe misconduct and neglect by a relatively small number of U.N. troops. These include the collective rape of an eighteen-year-old man and the appearance of cholera, likely an inadvertent import from Nepalese peacekeepers.[6] These long-running reports tell the story of a supposed humanitarian group troubled by a series of isolated incidents of abuse and neglect. An in-depth overview of MINUSTAH’s history on the island, however, depicts a security force systematically serving foreign interests over those of the Haitians. Local residents are indignant because they see MINUSTAH as a tool of the United States’ self-interest in the region, and because the U.N. forces repeatedly have suppressed democracy, failed to address authentic humanitarian concerns, and have at times even perpetrated mass violence against Haitian citizens. By suppressing the Fanmi Lavalas party and other social and political movements, MINUSTAH has actively excluded Haiti’s poor majority from political participation, working against the interests of Haitians fighting for progressive economic and social reform. As President Martelly has observed, the recent alleged rape merely “‘put gas on the fire’ of relations between Haitians and the peacekeepers.”[7]

Recent Haitian History: the Aristide Affairs

To appreciate the context in which MINUSTAH’s troubled role is being played out, it is necessary to recount some recent aspects of Haitian history. In 1990, over two-thirds of voters elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide president of Haiti as the candidate of the Lavalas popular movement. Notably, he had the “overwhelming support of the poor.”[8] He worked to improve health care and education, raised the minimum wage, and changed trade policies to favor domestic agricultural production.[9]

After being overthrown by a military junta, Aristide was reelected in 2000 as part of the transformed Fanmi Lavalas party, which took a more leftist stance than its predecessor had. [10] On February 29, 2004, a contingent of U.S. Navy Seals transported the President to exile in Africa, carrying out the calculated diplomacy of the U.N., Canada, and France. The U.S. and U.N. claim that rather than performing a coup d’état, they had rescued Aristide from growing armed conflict between supporters and detractors of the President, which supposedly posed a threat to international safety.[11] Aristide, however, insists that his “rescue” was involuntary.

Leaked diplomatic cables demonstrate that high-level U.S. and U.N. officials worked aggressively to prevent Aristide’s return to Haiti. President Barack Obama (2009-present) and U.N. Secretaries General Kofi Annan (1997-2006) and Ban Ki-moon (2007-present) have all urged the government of South Africa to keep Aristide sequestered on that continent in an apparent attempt to quash the Fanmi Lavalas movement. [12] It was in the context of this political vacuum after the alleged coup was staged that MINUSTAH’s predecessor was created.

About MINUSTAH

MINUSTAH was originally formed to “succeed a Multinational Interim Force (MIF) authorized by the U.N. Security Council in February 2004, after President Bertrand Aristide departed Haiti for exile.”[13] It continues to operate under a mandate “to restore a secure and stable environment, to promote the political process, to strengthen Haiti’s Government institutions and rule-of-law structures, as well as to promote and to protect human rights.”[14] MINUSTAH is in Haiti under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, under which the “[Security] Council may impose measures on states that have obligatory legal force and therefore need not depend on the consent of the states involved. To do this, the Council must determine that the situation constitutes a threat or breach of the peace.”[15] The mission’s presence in the country is thus based on the proposition that since 2004, violence in Haiti has threatened the international community.

MINUSTAH includes both traditional “blue helmet” peacekeeping troops and police officers.[16] These troops are from many different countries, with very few of these forces speaking Haitian Creole, the language of the island’s poor.[17] The U.N. spent USD 5 billion on the institution even before the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, and USD 793,517,100 in the current year alone.[18] MINUSTAH, therefore, is a heavily funded multinational U.N. peacekeeping force directed to perform security functions, monitor elections, and assist human rights groups in order to prevent Haiti from breaching international peace.

The WikiLeaks Cables

Recent diplomatic cables supplied by WikiLeaks, however, provide some evidence that MINUSTAH has been acting to protect the security interests of the U.S. government and the political ambitions of Brazil. According to a March 2008 U.S. State Department cable, the Brazilian state, which supplies the largest contingent of U.N. forces, “has stayed the course as leader of MINUSTAH in Haiti despite a lack of domestic support for the PKO [peacekeeping operation]. The MRE [Ministry of External Relations] has remained committed to the initiative because it believes that the operation serves FM [Foreign Minister] Amorim’s obsessive international goal of qualifying Brazil for a seat on the UN Security Council.”[19] Even though the Brazilian population supports a withdrawal of its forces from MINUSTAH, then, the country’s government has not withdrawn its troops due to its ambitions of pleasing the U.N. and obtaining elusive Security Council membership.

In a 2008 cable, former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson emphasizes that MINUSTAH “is an indispensable tool in realizing core USG [U.S. government] policy interests in Haiti… A premature departure of MINUSTAH would leave the Preval [sic] government or his successor vulnerable to… resurgent populist and anti-market economy forces – reversing gains of the last two years… It is a financial and regional security bargain for the USG.”[20] Thus, Sanderson sees MINUSTAH as protecting U.S. interests by preventing social and political movements from thwarting neoliberal policies and the post-earthquake influx of corporations in the country, which are working on a variety of development schemes on the island.

A 2006 cable also relates that policymakers from both the U.N. and the U.S. held a meeting concerning how the “Aristide [m]ovement [m]ust [b]e [s]topped.”[21] Edmond Mulet, Head of Mission of MINUSTAH at the time, “urged US [sic] legal action against [forcibly exiled president] Aristide to prevent [him] from gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”[22] These cables demonstrate that the U.S. government sees the poor pro-Fanmi Lavalas majority as “resurgent populist and anti-market economy forces” that “must be stopped,” and is prepared to use MINUSTAH to suppress their democratic participation.[23] Haiti’s poor majority has been actively involved in politics since the advent of the Fanmi Lavalas party, which has strenuously worked against the neoliberal policies of the time to achieve economic and social reforms.[24] Many poor Haitians are now engaging in so-called “resurgent populist and anti-market economy” politics via peaceful protest against the presence of MINUSTAH and in support of reforms such as an increase in the minimum wage.[25]

In the course of acting in the interests of the U.S. by thwarting these popular “forces,” MINUSTAH has actively suppressed democracy. As Mark Schuller, an anthropologist specializing in the impact of international development aid, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and MINUSTAH on Haitian social and political life put it, MINUSTAH comprises the

enforcers… Many say that they are responsible for keeping Haiti a ‘leta restavek’ – a child servant state, owned by the international community. To many Haitian commentators, the Préval government willingly gave up control [to MINUSTAH and other international bodies] in exchange for its continued survival. The protesters MINUSTAH suppressed could have destabilized Préval [26]

and his small base of support. The mission has blocked both electoral democracy and popular protest in order to prevent these so-called “populist and anti-market economy forces” from gaining political power.

Party-Banning, Eleksyon Zombi,[27] and Other Examples of Electoral Fraud

One of MINUSTAH’s most important mandates was to carry out the 2010 presidential and general elections “through the provision of technical, logistical, and administrative assistance as well as providing continued security.”[28] There were, however, several major problems with the elections, which were funded by both the U.S. and the U.N.[29] Most notably, over twelve parties were banned, including Fanmi Lavalas, Haiti’s most popular party and one supported largely by the poor.[30]

The notoriously venal Haitian Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) originally banned Fanmi Lavalas in February 2009, claiming it could not “verify Aristide’s signature, sent while he was still in forced exile in South Africa, as head of the party.”[31] A leaked U.S. Embassy cable dating back to 2009 revealed the U.S. government’s opinion that the CEP had thus “emasculated the opposition,” “almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval [sic].”[32] Completely revoking the majority party’s right to compete in an election on such a technicality was indeed “emasculating,” removing all power held by the largely poor opposition to René Préval’s government (1996-2001 and 2006-2011). Despite U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth H. Merten’s fear that the party would later appear to be “a martyr and Haitians [would]… believe (correctly) that Preval [sic] is manipulating the election,” U.S. government officials strongly encouraged the continuation of the fraudulent election.[33] The Fanmi Lavalas party was once again banned in the 2010 elections. MINUSTAH was largely instrumental in the execution of the elections through logistical and security support, as specified in its mandate. The U.N. Mission thus worked against the political participation of the poor majority by trying to support these elections.

Other serious electoral problems abounded: long lines, incomplete voter registries, fraud, and violence, along with the general lack of an “infrastructure for holding a fair and representative vote.”[34] A practice called eleksyon zombi in Haitian Creole also persisted, in which surviving citizens’ names were absent from the registries, while those of neighbors who died in the 2010 earthquake were used to file fraudulent ballots.[35] Perhaps partially due to the ban on the Lavalas party, the voter turnout for the election, which was twenty-three percent, was the lowest in the Western hemisphere for over sixty years.[36] Because of this fraud and lack of infrastructure, the majority of candidates called for the annulment of the election. Soon after, Edmond Mulet, Head of Mission at MINUSTAH during the election, personally called two candidates telling them to withdraw these requests because they were in the lead.[37] They followed his advice, knowing that Mulet, as head of the body running the elections, would know the results. Mulet would see to it that the election results were exactly as the authorities wanted them; several months later, President Michel Martelly won the run-off election. Both Mulet’s dispensing of insider tips and the logistical support of the rank-and-file peacekeepers helped to push the fraudulent elections through as anticipated. As the body charged with logistical and security-related support for the election, the Mission helped to systematically deny electoral democracy to the people of Haiti, forcing the country to elect a pro-U.S/U.N. candidate and playing a major role in keeping the country as a leta restavek.

Suppressing Protest

In addition to the suppression of electoral democracy, well-known journalists and academics have denounced MINUSTAH for a number of incidents of violent repression of peaceful demonstrations. According to anthropologist Mark Schuller,

they clamp down on citizen mobilization, most egregiously in 2009 during the campaign to increase Haiti’s minimum wage. They shot tear gas numerous times, preventing people from protesting and crippling the state university (especially the human sciences school). They also shot at the funeral for Aristide supporter Father [Gérard] Jean-Juste.[38]

This behavior is part of a clear pattern of suppressing protest among Haitians and preventing political organization, especially among pro-Aristide activists. During another peaceful demonstration against MINUSTAH’s renewed mandate, MINUSTAH peacekeepers “threatened [protesters] at gunpoint… Shots were fired, and a UN vehicle drove into the crowd and pushed several protesters and an international journalist into a ditch.”[39] At another protest, “MINUSTAH troops with riot shields arrived to reinforce the police, firing warning shots and dispersing the protesters.”[40] This suppression of social movements complements MINUSTAH’s suppression of electoral democracy. The same cross-section of poor Haitians who form the majority of the Fanmi Lavalas party, and of the country as a whole, had organized in support of the removal of MINUSTAH, supported Father Jean-Juste, and fought for an increase the minimum wage. These are the “populist and anti-market forces” about which the U.S. State Department had occasion to speak.

Haitian Social Movements Continue Their Fight

Contrary to its mandate to protect the human rights of the Haitian people and promote democracy, MINUSTAH has suppressed democracy both by supporting fraudulent elections and by repressing peaceful protests. In each of these instances, the mission has taken on the role of “enforcers,” holding the Haitian people in check and helping to keep Haiti as a leta restavek. As analyst Beverly Bell asserts, however, “the country’s highly organized grassroots movement has never given up the battle its enslaved ancestors began…The mobilizations, protests, and advocacy have brought down dictators…and kept the population from ever fitting quietly into anyone else’s plans for them.”[41] Haitians, especially the poor majority, have been fighting for economic and social democracy and for the autonomy to rebuild their nation. To achieve these goals would require unseating both MINUSTAH and the interests of the U.S., as the WikiLeaks cables demonstrate. Haitians are protesting in large part because of this systematic suppression of their nation’s right to self-determination. The “fire” to which President Martelly refers had been raging years before the recent allegations of rape and other abuses, and it will not be doused until Haitians find justice in their own country and not just in their distant memory.

: Source: AP

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Courtney Frantz.

References for this article can be found here.

To read more about Haiti, click here.

Please accept this article as a free contribution from COHA, but if re-posting, please afford authorial and institutional attribution.

Exclusive rights can be negotiated.

Don't Occupy Haiti - Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-02T03:32:00.010-04:00

NYTimes @6:50pm:
"After allowing them onto the bridge, the police cut off and arrested dozens of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators."

NYTimes @7:19pm:
"In a tense showdown over the East River, police arrested hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators after they marched onto the bridge's Brooklyn-bound roadway."

People are hopeful again. How great it is to see and hear the determination in young people's voices and hearts again. Many have been feeling such bitter disillusionment with the Obama White House and its continuing perpetuation of "the mindset that got us into Iraq."

Its inspiring to witness the unity, determination and courage of the people occupying Wall Street for over two weeks now. Yesterday was a banner day even though the atmosphere got chilly when, unfortunately, when more than 700 protesters were entrapped and arrested by the NYPD for marching peacefully across the Brooklyn bridge.

Wow! It must be an eye-opener for some to witness the United State's "newspaper of record" resorting to editing its content to represent the views of the Oligarchs who pull their puppet strings. Those who are experienced in fighting for social justice are acquainted with the distortions, misinformation, and lies of the U.S. mainstream media; particularly of the NY Times.

This is what democracy looks like.

What wonderful show of solidarity that so many folks organized protests and occupations all over America in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Haitians plan to march across the Brooklyn bridge (again!)," and will join in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Don't Occupy Haiti! Occupy Wall Street! New York's Haitian community will march across the Brooklyn Bridge to "kole zepòl" (join shoulders) with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators on Friday, Oct. 7. We will rally in Cadman Plaza at 4 p.m. and then cross the Bridge at 5 p.m. Initiated by Fanmi Lavalas (NY), International Support Haiti Network (ISHN) and KAKOLA among others. For more information, call 718.421.0162.

The great Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano, who wrote the classic, "The Open Veins of Latin America" is a strong supporter of the continuing Haitian struggle for freedom. He presented a speech on Tuesday September 27, 2011 at the National Library in Montevideo on a panel debate on “Haiti and Latin America.” His speech is entitled: "Haiti, Occupied Country."

It is worth repeating it once again, so that the deaf can hear:

Haiti was the founding country of the independence of [the] America[s] and the first one that defeated slavery in the world.

It deserves much more than the fame sprung from its misfortunes.

At present, the armies from several countries, including mine, are occupying Haiti.

How is this military invasion justified? By alleging that Haiti endangers the international security.

Nothing more.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Haiti’s example was a threat to the security of countries that still continued practicing slavery.

Galeano could have been referring to economic slavery, in light of the global economic crisis that has resulted from the actions of Wall Street and the banksters. Haiti, says Galeano, is not "known for its historical feats in the war against slavery and colonial oppression." The speech is a strong affirmation of Haiti's influential and positive historical role on the world stage before the imperialist interventions and occupations. He laments that so much of the coverage of Haiti is dominated by reports on disasters. Galeano notes the talent of Haiti's artists and their propensity for "transforming garbage into beauty."

Haitians know well the daily struggle to transcend a punishing poverty, physical misery, mental pain, anger and despair over not having a real democracy. Everyone in the world is waking up to this fact. We don't have a representative government. We feel abandoned and voiceless. This was the situation even before the earthquake calamity.

Haiti after the Earthquake Disaster

Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat expressed the fighting spirit of Haitians who fought the regime of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier during the Duvalier regime in her new book, "Create Dangerously." She tells the story of "Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin were patriots who died so that other Haitians could live. They were also immigrants, like me. Yet, they had abandoned comfortable lives in the United States and sacrificed themselves for the homeland."

What will break the fear that grips the over 600,000 Haitians still living on the ground in leaky and foul tents and tarps in Port-au-Prince? Haitians must not succumb to the spiritual death of indifference, fatality and depression as some did during the sick Duvalier dictatorship.

Reportedly, during the dictatorship of Francois Duvalier, U.S. sent marines to stop an attempt to topple Duvalier by Cubans and Haitians of the diaspora. At the present time, the dictator's son, who is accused of "crimes against humanity" and corruption is back in Haiti. It is a blow to justice that this criminal has not been tried and convicted for his crimes. Martelly has advocated absolution for this man. He has welcomed the same Duvalierist elements who terrified the Haitian population to join his government and be his advisors.

The bloody dictatorship of the Duvaliers was a 30 year ordeal supported by the U.S. - "the most powerful nation in the world." The usual suspects, those who conspired for regime change in Haiti are continuing to torture the Haitian population -- U.S., France and Canada, along with their coalition of the UN-willing. For background on their intervention in 2004, read the Ottawa Initiative and Max Blumenthal's "The Other Regime Change.

Lead by the U.S. supported the fraudulent and exclusionary "selection" earlier this year of Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly. Martelly is a Compas performer and Duvalier supporter. The Fanmi Lavalas political party, Haiti's most popular party, has been barred from the last two elections. Martelly has connections to the brutal military coup/junta leader Raoul Cedras, a U.S. protege sent into dictator retirement with a golden U.S. taxpayer parachute. Martelly reportedly is nicknamed for a former military junta leader, Colonel Michel "Sweet Mickey" Francois. See Mother Jones story: More from the Exile Files - Despots of the Caribbean and Club Panama.

Too bad the U.S. is so intent on "calling the shots in Haiti," and is consistently opposed to what the people are in desperate need of: a decent roof over their heads, development, infrastructure (education, social justice, security, food security...), jobs, health, well-being, rebuilding and most importantly, a real democracy.

Why is Haiti, -- the so-called "poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere" used as a pawn in U.S. foreign policy? Why are opportunists like Bill Clinton and George Bush given "carte blanche" to polish up their "legacies" to the detriment of Haiti's majority population? Should we laugh or cry when we read that a company that Clinton is involved with is now selling cholera insurance? Are you kidding me?

It's really incredulous. This item comes from Ezili Dantò's listserve:

"Just when you think Clinton can't get any more grotesque in Haiti. This comes along. Clinton Foundation makes no investment in clean portable water and sanitation plants but in cholera insurance?

The epidemic is a business opportunity to increase insurance market share in Haiti? Our death means dollars to the fake humanitarians renting homes from the Oligarchy that have moved to Florida, Montreal and Paris while collecting high Haiti rents from the NGOs who've fundraised on our people's death and misery.

[Now] "Swiss Re and its Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) partners have introduced a new programme to provide Haiti’s female entrepreneurs with rapid insurance payments for income lost by their micro-businesses as a result of cholera."

Evidently, the uses of Haiti by the U.S. are first and foremost for the greed and profit of the multinational profiteers who practice "disaster capitalism" all over the world. Secondly, from what can be gleaned from the historical record and readily observed from the poisoning of Haiti's water system with cholera by the proxy UN occupying force, the uses of Haiti include support for those who seek to marginalize and "depopulate" Haiti (genocide). Thirdly, they wish to enforce imperialist neocolonial ideologies articulated by their right-wing "think tanks" such as The Heritage Foundation - an organization whose plan for the militarization of aid to Haiti was implemented by the Obama administration after the Haiti quake disaster.

Why such a consuming interest in controlling Haiti by the Heritage Foundation? What could these "U.S. policy makers" possibly want of a country that they've seen as impoverished and leaderless like Haiti? Given that the fifth largest, most self-contained and one of the most expensive U.S. embassies in the world was built in Haiti, one could ask the same question of the U.S. government.

By the way, no need to wonder who's "heritage" The Heritage Foundation and their facilitators in the Obama regime support. During Obama's big speech on jobs last month, he didn't see fit to mention that Detroit has an over 50% unemployment rate. Rep. John Conyers finds the omission reprehensible. Is it any wonder that Conyers got so ticked-off that he spoke out against Obama's economic policies and revealed that it was Obama who put Social Security cuts on the table in the fake partisan posturing during the debt ceiling debate. Prof. Eric Dyson has noted that Obama is "willing to sacrifice the interest of the African-Americans in deference to a conception of universalism because it won't offend white people." During the same interview, Dyson urges Obama to: "Go to Detroit... show you're down with the blackest city in America!" Prof. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley - on Obama: "Many of us are exploring other possibilities in the coming elections."

Obama had many supporters in the African diaspora during his campaign in 2008. He fooled a lot of people and maybe some in the African diaspora still support him. Why?

In reality, Obama has not done anything positive for Haiti, except for "overseeing" the further enslavement and occupation of Haiti. And clearly, appointing Bill Clinton and his Boo as head of Haiti relief must have been some kind of inside joke - see the investigative report on the shoddy shelters that Clinton built. And what are we to make of the other Clinton, Hillary and her arm-twisting to get her pick Martelly placed as a figurehead of the nation of Haiti?

Haiti is the scene of an international crime. Historically, Haiti has been the testing ground for neoliberal, imperialist, capitalist ideologies before they are perpetrated on the rest of the world by the agents of imperialism -- the IMF, the world bank/IDB, WTO, USAID, and the nation of NGOs.

Of course, the massacres, killings, rapes, child molestations and impunity perpetuated by the UN military forces are what is reserved for so-called developing countries by these proxy occupiers. They clearly understand that they will not be held fully responsible for any heinous crime they commit while in Haiti.

Haiti may as well be at war. Even though Haiti was not allegedly attacked by "box cutter wielding Muslims," Haiti lost more people than the U.S. lost in what's been called the worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil. There have been more Haitian "casualties of war" than there have been U.S. soldiers killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is something very wrong when in 2010 more U.S. soldiers died from suicide than were killed in combat.

The conservative scientific journal The Lancet projects that 800,000 Haitians will eventually be infected with cholera and 11,000 will die. The UN cannot show just cause for why the Nepalese military who they carelessly stationed in Haiti are still there -- holed up in their barracks eating up the over 800 million budgeted for the UN occupation. The UN has their own water filtration systems inside their fortresses, which are more often than not ringed buttressed by walls and barbed wire. The UN has not thought to share these systems with the Haitian population they've infected with cholera.

It should be clear by now, from the revelations contained in the Haiti Wikileaks cables and other reports on the situation in Haiti by investigative journalist, researchers, scientists and educators, that the U.S. proxy occupation of Haiti by the UN agents of empire, MINUSTAH has absolutely nothing to do with upholding real democracy, the security of the people. The UN is in Haiti for the security of the foreigners, so it will not alter its mission and become some kind of "peacemaker" and "builder" of coalitions in solidarity with the Haitian people and in support of the national interests of Haiti, or its constitution.

Is it a wonder that Haitians want these criminals , occupiers, killers, rapists and child molesters to leave Haiti and go "stabilize" in their own countries, the sooner, the better?

We all know the majority of the world's oligarchs have no concern about the poor, especially the black and poor of this world. And for some racists, Haiti is as black, dirty and poor as a human being can get, outside of "sub-Saharan" Africa.

Look at the way the world's population showed such love and support for Haiti during the earthquake crisis! Or even how the world responds so generously and kindly during any human disaster, in the world. Dehumanization and exploitation of Haitians must stop.

What can we do, who value human life and who want the mean spirited, small minded culture, which seems to dominate the world to stop? After all, we are the majority. We are world. We are the 99%. We occupy the earth, so must our mindset! We must defeat the mean spirited imperialist who are of a colonialist greed-mongering mindset. They cannot be allowed to impose their sick predatory thinking on the rest of us.

Haiti deserves solidarity, not the demonization of its culture, its people, and disregard for its great role in world history. There must come a day when Haiti's greatness will be self-evident and they will just have to shut up and applaud "this great little nation!" That day will come when we all unite to put people above profit, and commit to uphold peace and freedom for all.

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the first U.S. backed coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990. Haiti: Harvest of Hope.

May Haiti forever remain a "pest" to those who try to enslave her and may "Haitianism" spread to the four corners of the Earth. Thank Good Haiti stands for the triumph of good over evil.

Mesi Papa Desalin! - English

Background:

Why it took 11 Months, instead of 3 Weeks to Show that Haiti's Cholera is Nepalese

With Nothing To Stabilize, Minustah Soldiers Engage In Inappropriate Relationships And Pollute The Environment - A tale of noble and ignoble scientists, Harvard and the U.N

History of U.S. Military, CIA Involvement in Haiti - Corporate Interests/ Covert Actions / Death Squads / Drug Connections / U.S. Involvement in Haiti Elections / Intel-Policy / Labor-CIA Connections / Source Documents

WikiLeaked U.S. Cables Paint Portrait of Brutal, Ineffectual and Polluting UN Force

The White Curse [Haiti] by Eduardo Galeano

The MSM Continues to Perpetuate Fallacies About Haiti

2011-08-27T12:20:00.008-04:00

Haiti experts have repeatedly criticized the US for excluding the Haitian government and Haitian companies from the reconstruction. The FOIA data proves them right: USAID and the State Department gave money to 6 US government entities and 7 UN agencies, but none to the Haitian government. Moreover, no NGOs or contractors listed in the FOIA were Haitian. How the Government Used Our Money in Haiti: Part II

In a Reuters blog article, Where Haiti’s money has gone, Felix Salmon rightly points out that:

"Development is a tricky game, easy to get wrong; as a rule, it only works when the people providing the aid are working at the margin, helping to strengthen existing projects, industries, and institutions, rather than trying to build them all from scratch. Let’s target it where it can be most effective, rather than where there happens to have been a newsworthy natural disaster."

However, the majority of his blog article is full of misconceptions, hearsay and disinformation:

“I’ve had two ministers come up to me this week, personally, and ask what’s in it for them,” says a frustrated IHRC official. “Since money grows on trees in this disaster, the attitude among Haitian officials is: Just call up your buddies in Washington, and they’ll send another check.”

The unanswered question is: what “Haitian officials” approached and wanted to know what was in it for them? Name names. Who? When? What are you, a reporter or a rumor monger? Look at the facts as reported by The Haiti Justice Alliance; they have documented proof gathered through a FOIA request that the U.S. excludes the Haitian government and Haitian companies from the reconstruction. The problem with reporting about Haiti is that even when a truth is conveyed, it is invariably wrapped in a lie or misconception.

"Meanwhile, Haiti’s suffering if anything is getting worse. Not only are new shantytowns springing up in places like Corail, but disease is now spreading disastrously: cholera hadn’t been seen in Haiti for more than 60 years, before the earthquake; it has now infected more than 250,000 Haitians, with no sign that it’s remotely under control."

Haiti has never had an outbreak of cholera.
The misconception is left that cholera was started by the conditions in the camps, but this is a lie. The cholera started in the countryside, in Haiti’s breadbasket. It has been conclusively proven in many scientific investigations that the UN/MINUSTAH brought cholera to Haiti. The latest was a "whole genome study", which "nails Nepal-Haiti cholera link." The cholera was spread because the Nepalese soldiers in Mirebalais dumped their feces into the Meye river, a tributary of the Artibonite river.

"The first thing to note is that most of the money given to Haiti hasn’t even started to be spent yet: a whopping $11 billion was pledged by donor countries and financial institutions in the wake of the earthquake, but if you take the US as a good example, it’s so far managed to spend just $184 million of the $1.14 billion allocated to the country. Even the Red Cross is barely halfway into its $479 million fund — all of which has been earmarked for Haiti, and none of which can be spent elsewhere, no matter how much better it might be put to use in some other context."

Haiti is the scene of an ongoing international crime. It’s to be expected that the worst sort of buzzards would be picking its bones clean. The NGOs supported by USAID are expected to return over 90% of the money spent in Haiti back to Washington.

"It’s worth remembering, too, that there was reason for optimism regarding the rebuilding of Haiti. There was lots of money, and the country’s right on America’s doorstep, which also helps. On top of that, it had the best conceivable international ambassador in Bill Clinton, backed up with the full support of the US government in the form of his wife’s oft-stated commitment to getting Haiti back on its feet.

Haiti is under occupation. Period. There is no freedom, human rights, sovereignty, autonomy or decision making by Haiti’s government. The U.S. and its “partners” are determined to keep real democracy out of the hands of the Haitian people as evidenced by their awareness and endorsement (according to Wikileaks) of the fraudulent nature of he last two major elections in Haiti.

It is a stupid decision on many levels, because every upcoming or anticipated disaster, calamity and mismanagement of resources…etc, is the direct responsibility of those who have imposed detrimental trade policies that have robbed Haiti of the ability to feed its people, that have sponsored coups, fraudulent elections, brought disease, the entire globe’s occupying armies to play their war games, the multinational exploiters of Haiti’s wealth, and others who use Haiti as their piggy bank and dumping ground for all of their toxic hate, greed and depravity… Speaking of depravity: they also share the responsibility for making Haiti the ground zero for sexual predators of every base/perverted sexual nature imaginable.

"What happens when you drop billions of dollars onto a country like Haiti? Immediately after the earthquake happened, in January 2010, I said that “one of the lessons we’ve learned from trying to rebuild failed states elsewhere in the world is that throwing money at the issue is very likely to backfire”. But that’s exactly what we did — with predictable results."

As a commenter said: "...no one has actually thrown money at Haiti! The vast majority of the $11 billion you cite has not been disbursed. It was only pledged– and it was pledged over the medium term."

The reoccurring theme of stories like this seem to assume that Haiti is a "basket case" or "failed state" because of the incompetence and corruption of Haitians themselves. See the quoted remark of "a frustrated IHRC official." Here is what should be part of that calculation, but somehow never is:

"On 12 August a group of Cuban guerrillas and Haitian exiles lands on the southern most tip of the country in another attempt to remove Duvalier. They are defeated by the Haitian Army, with the aid of US marines."

Are Haitians entirely to blame for the existing calamitous conditions that the majority is suffering under? How can that be, when the scoundrels, killers, thugs, dictators, drug dealers... etc. can invariably always count on the backing of the U.S. and its acknowledgedly most globally powerful military apparatus, intelligence agencies, institutional aid agencies, and its embedded allies in the mainstream media?

BACKGROUND:
How The Government Used Our Money In Haiti: Part II

"The only aid mechanism devoted specifically to rebuilding rather than relief is the “Office of Transition Initiatives.” They put Haiti’s future entirely in the hands of two contractors: Chemonics and Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI)[3].
‎"Chemonics raises eyebrows for multiple reasons. First, it’s a subsidiary of ERLY Industries, which also owns American Rice. Since the 1980s, American Rice captured half of the Haitian rice market, a shift that Bill Clinton recently admitted was the reason Haiti can no longer feed itself. Moreover, the agricultural program it runs, which revolves around distributing hybrid Monsanto seed, is likely to jeopardize the future of Haiti’s agricultural system.
DAI, World Vision, and CHF International have also all been the subject of media scrutiny for their activities both in and out of Haiti.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research described DAI as having a “questionable past” of putting political objectives above humanitarian goals. Last year, World Vision came under fire for using “discredited” aid practices by aid critic Bill Easterly. Finally, CHF International’s spending habits were labeled “ostentatious” in a feature that also contained a confession from CHF’s field director that the organization has no experience in the role it’s filling in Haiti."

WIKILEAKS RELEASE: 722 Haiti-US embassy cables

Cable reference ID# 04SANTODOMINGO1361 | SUBJECT: CANARD II: DOMINICAN RIFLES FOR HAITI

"It is true that in early 2003 Foreign Minister Tolentino Dipp asked the Embassy for details about planned military training, and the Embassy furnished this information. This occurred in the context of unfounded press reports alleging that U.S. forces would number in the thousands and that they would be engaged in tasks other than training [emphasis added]."

NOTE: In the above quote from a cable by SouthCom , they are not denying that they provided Special Forces "training" of Haitian "rebels" in the DR in 2003 -- to overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They just deny that the trainers numbered in "thousands."

In another cable (04SANTODOMINGO1515, CANARD II: DOMINICAN RIFLES FOR HAITI), the writer links the "rebels" to the supply of weapons the Dominicans had purchased through "annual licensed imports": "These are not military weapons; they are pistols, revolvers, hunting rifles and shotguns (never rifles) for use by private security services." they state. But, they conclude the cable by making a direct collation: "We understand that the arms used on this movement and in the capture of Gonaives were largely shotguns, hunting rifles, and pistols."

WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files

2011-08-11T22:06:00.004-04:00

via DemocracyNow.org | Kim Ives | Haiti Liberté

Aug 11, 2011

A new exposé on Haiti reveals how the United States led a vast international campaign to prevent former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from returning to his country while he was exiled in South Africa. It's part of a series of reports that draw from almost 2,000 US diplomatic cables on Haiti released by WikiLeaks. The series is a partnership between The Nation magazine and the Haitian weekly newspaper, Haïti Liberté. Democracy Now! interviews one of the authors of these reports, Haiti Liberté editor Kim Ives. His latest article for the Nation.com is called, "WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files."

The cables cover an almost seven-year period, from April 2003 to February 2010, just after the earthquake that devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities. The cables show that high-level U.S. and U.N. officials coordinated a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from "gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti." They reveal how U.S. officials and their diplomatic counterparts from France, Canada, the United Nations and the Vatican tried to vilify and ostracize the popular Haitian political leader. These officials allegedly poured tens of millions of dollars into unsuccessful efforts to paint Aristide as a drug trafficker, human rights violator, and heretical practitioner of Voodoo. Another recent exposé based on the cables details how Haiti's unelected de facto authorities worked alongside foreign officials to integrate at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country's police force throughout 2004 and 2005. According to the report, hundreds of police considered loyal to Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few were killed. The Wikileak cables reveal just how closely Washington and the United Nations oversaw the formation of Haiti's new police force and signed off on the integration of paramilitaries who had previously targeted Haiti's working classes and democratically elected governments.

For the complete transcript, to download the podcast, or for Democracy Now!'s special report on the return of Aristide to Haiti, visit DemocracyNow.org

________________________

Background:

‎"For a year and a half following the ouster of Haiti’s elected government on Feb. 29, 2004, UN, OAS, and U.S. officials, in conjunction with post-coup Haitian authorities, vetted the country’s police force – officer by officer – integrating paramilitaries with the goal of both strengthening the force and providing an alternative “career path” for paramilitaries.

Hundreds of police considered loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few killed, according to numerous sources interviewed."
notes and analyses: "WikiLeaks Reveal: U.S. and UN Officials Oversaw Integration of Ex-Army Paramilitary" | by Jeb Sprague

"The cables show that high-level US and UN officials even discussed a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from “gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”

The secret cables, made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by WikiLeaks, show how the political defeat of Aristide and his Lavalas movement has been the central pillar of US policy toward the Caribbean nation over the last two US administrations, even though—or perhaps because—US officials understood that he was the most popular political figure in Haiti."
The Nation - "WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files" | by Kim Ives and Ansel Herz

Until the Day I Die: Haitian Women Winning Their Rights

2011-08-04T11:12:00.007-04:00

by Gerta Louisama and Beverly Bell (Other Worlds)

Original article at: towardfreedom.com

Gerta Louisama (Photo by Beverly Bell)
Gerta Louisama is a member of the Executive Committee and the National Women’s Committee of Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, Heads Together Small Producers of Haiti, Haiti’s largest and oldest peasant group. She is also head of the local Tèt Kole Women’s Committee in her village of Savanette. Here she speaks about the Tèt Kole’s efforts to win recognition, social equality, and economic rights for rural Haitians, especially women.

I am a peasant women and the daughter of two peasants. I’ve been a victim of this society which ostracizes women.

My father was a member of Tèt Kole and I chose to follow him and join the organization. I’ve gotten all my knowledge through Tèt Kole. I’m illiterate, but thanks to the organization, after women helped me for three months, I could even spell my name and write a little. Even though I’m getting older, I’ll keep going to school.

Tèt Kole started on September 6th, 1986 and the Jean-Rabel massacre was on July 23, 1987. We lost 139 peasants [when the two largest landowner families in the region hired hit men to stop Tèt Kole’s work for land reform]. Then we had a second massacre in Piatte in 1990. The big land owners, the army, and the local police are responsible for those blood baths. It was asking for these necessities that got the peasants slaughtered. They were well-planned massacres to subdue us.

It’s like the peasants have no rights because they don’t have access to clean water, no access to roads, no access to health care, no access to free schooling. And if we protest for those rights we’re entitled to, they will send in the police or MINUSTAH [UN peacekeeping troops] and they’ll spray tear gas, arrest people and beat them up. You don’t even have the right to protest for your rights.

Legally speaking, both men and women have the same rights. In this country, we have plenty of laws. They’re on paper, they’ve just been set aside. Part of our movement is to get these laws respected.

Us Haitian women, we have a lot of challenges, but as peasant women we have even more.

We truly carry the burden of society. We’re the ones who hustle to feed the household and send the sick to the hospital if need be. We women, we work the land, we raise cattle, we transport merchandise like plantains, yams, and black beans to the capital. If we don’t work, there won’t be any flow of goods.

One of the priorities of the women in Tèt Kole is to get things working in our favor. We have to address economic problems and social problems. We need ways to process the foods we produce, we need access to seeds. We need to help women who’ve been victims of domestic violence get support in the courts.

What the women do in Tèt Kole is to group ourselves together in teams of 10 to 15 women. We work in the fields together, we do laundry together. We do personal development training. The chances for peasant women to go to school are small because they don’t have the financial means, so the trainings are designed to remind them that they’re also human and part of the society, even though society has marginalized them. They help peasant women understand their strength in society and understand that as for those services they’re entitled to. The government’s not doing them favors, they’re their rights.

We’re asking the government to do a thorough agrarian reform. Most times, the peasants don’t own the land they are working on. The peasants should have ownership of the land they’re working. Land needs to be taken away from people who aren’t using it, and the state needs to let go of land it holds on to that could be used for farming, and be given to the peasants who are working it, with the other [agricultural] resources they need to farm.

Actually, the women have been tirelessly working the small plots of land they’ve been able to get their hands on, so we should be the ones to own them. We peasant women think the government has to have in its agricultural plan a way to help us hold onto our land in the mountains so we can produce food, and help us get seeds and tools. We don’t have tools to work with, we don’t have seeds, we don’t have technical support.

The problem is even worse for women because both the family and the society keep us from owning land or other big assets. We’re not entitled. If the land isn’t in the hands of the government or the church, it’s mostly for the sons.

Say my father dies. If he owned three hectares of land and he had two sons and me as a daughter, he’ll never say that I can have one hectare and each son receives one hectare. Me, I’ll only be entitled to 1/4 hectare or at most 1/2 hectare, and the extra will be divided among my brothers.

And if I was living in common-law with a man, if he died, I’d need to race to get myself off the land, even if I didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. I wouldn’t have any right to stay on the premises.

Another priority for the Women’s Committee is all the people who don’t have birth certificates. The state has no respect for the peasants. People may have a piece of paper but it might not be valid, because the number on it might be the same as on 15 or 20 other certificates; only one person has the actual birth certificate and all the others are just photocopies. This comes out when the children of the peasant women have to go study or take care of something [legal]. Also, they used one birth certificate for people from urban areas and one for those from the countryside [this has since been changed]. I’m 42, and up til this day, I don’t even know if my birth certificate is valid. Maybe if I go to get a passport one day, I’ll find out.

The lack of respect for peasants is also why today cholera is spreading throughout the country. There was no plan from early on, and that’s why it’s killed so many in all the departments [states], especially the poorest who can’t get medical care for themselves. In remote areas, people might need to carry the person with cholera four to five hours on a stretcher to make it to the hospital. [Cholera can kill within 4 to 6 hours after infection.] Where I’m from there’s a joke: since [the village of] Savanette has no roads, cholera can’t travel there. Actually, if it were to hit Savanette, no one would survive.

They talked about sending Clorox, but we haven’t gotten any. They’ve told peasants to use soaps to wash their hands but some of them don’t have the money to buy soap, which costs 12 gourdes [33 cents]. Cholera is an even bigger burden on peasant women because they’re the ones that have borne their children and that are responsible for the household.

If there were to be cases of cholera in Savanette, we as an organization would have to get involved. We’d have to go to the local radio stations and tell people to do preventive medicine.

Where we are, we only see outsiders when there are elections and the public officials need votes. Once the officials have been elected, you won’t see the senators again. Let’s not even talk about the president.

The fight to change the conditions of women living in the country is coming from men as well as women of Tèt Kole. This isn’t a movement of women against men, but really against the society which has isolated women. Women and men have to join together to fight. Generally as peasants, whether men or women, young or old, we’re all fighting for our rights, and men have to have that same mindset of aligning themselves with the women in this struggle.

You find there are men who really misunderstand women. They assume that the women are increasing their strength against men. But in Tèt Kole, we’ve made lots of efforts to show that our work is to change the conditions of all peasants. We’re showing that this isn’t a movement of women against men but rather a movement against the society which has isolated women.

Based on how things are going, we can almost say we’re losing the battle fast. We are slowly but surely going backwards. But as long as we are breathing, we can’t get discouraged. We are responsible for changing the conditions of our country so we’ll continue to fight.

But so far, we haven’t seen any real positive outcome. That’s why we say we’ll continue to fight, even though we won’t see the changes; our kids will see them.

I have one daughter and I have given all my energy to the organization. I have given back what the organization has done for me as a peasant woman who struggles against a society that excludes us. If it wasn’t for Tèt Kole, I wouldn’t have any value in this society. I never have thoughts of life after I leave Tèt Kole, because I see myself being involved until the day I die.

Many thanks to Patricia Bingué And Bill Davis for translation, and Deepa Panchang for help editing.

_________

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance and is working on the forthcoming book, Fault Lines: Views across Haiti’s New Divide. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. You can access all of her past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti at www.otherworldsarepossible.org/haiti.

Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.

In Haiti, UN Cholera Means Widespread Death

2011-08-01T00:06:00.011-04:00

The Nepalis are continuing to help the UN cover up their culpability in contaminating Haiti's agricultural breadbasket with cholera by trying to cast doubt on the fact that the UN Nepali soldiers in Mirebalais are the origin of the scourge. An article appearing on a Nepali online news website (ekantipur.com - July 22), reads: "Haiti cholera: Charge on Nepalis ‘circumstantial’ -- Expert says evidence not based on hard science," but the Lougarou is out of the bag. The latest report to affirm the UN imported cholera to Haiti is from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The evidence that the UN is culpable for contaminating Haiti with cholera, also has solid support from the scientific report of Professor Renaud Piarroux of the Université de la Méditerranée of Marseille. The report was compiled from a three week mission to Haiti (November 7 to 27, 2010).

There is also video and photographic evidence that the contamination originated from the UN Nepali base. The video features eyewitness testimony.

THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

Professor Piarroux' scientific report is the first linking the Nepali base to the cholera outbreak, but many other epidemiologists and public health experts have said that the soldiers are the most likely source of the contamination. His report, titled, "Mission report on the cholera epidemic in Haiti," concludes that:

"... the fact-finding mission conducted [the] last three weeks has revealed the severe and unusual nature of this epidemic, with the origin no doubt being imported. It started around the camp of MINUSTAH and was spread explosively due to massive contamination of the water in the Artibonite River and one of its tributaries with feces of patients with cholera.

--Professor Renaud Piarroux | Université de la Méditerranée

The Nepalis article sites "different tests" conducted by the UN on Nepali soldiers which were "negative" as a basis for a lack of evidence that the UN Nepali are guilty of contaminating Haiti.

TESTING, TESTING, 1, 2, 3...

We should trust the UN to conduct their own tests? What's the basis for this trust? It's certainly not been earned. Especially in light of the UN's continued denials and lies. The UN even claimed that the Nepali base's waste disposal system was up to EPA standards!
If the UN had nothing to do with the cholera outbreak, why didn't they allow an independent entity to test all the Nepali soldiers?
Just because a person doesn't show symptoms doesn't mean they are not carriers of a disease, does it? Again, we only have the UN's word that they conducted test on the soldiers.
Let's say there were "negative" test results. Is that evidence that there was no cholera outbreak at the Mirebalais base? Obviously, the answer is no, since the strain of cholera brought to Haiti is of South Asian origin.

We just don't have the details and cannot trust that there was a full UN investigation. We're left with many unanswered questions, with no credible answers and outright lies coming from the UN camp. Bottom line, independent epidemiologists and public health authorities in Haiti, the U.S. and France have all concluded that the UN Nepali military likely imported cholera to Haiti.

The timing of the outbreak in October in Nepal fits in exactly with the arrival of the soldiers at their base in Mirebalais.
The Nepali base (origin) is upriver from where the disease was first reported (site of contamination) downstream.
There is no historical record of cholera in Haiti prior to this epidemic.
The disease first infected Haiti's rural breadbasket - the Artibonite, away from the site of the devastating earthquake of January 2010 and the people living in the tent camps in the city of Port-au-Prince; a fact that the mainstream media conveniently failed to point out in the aftermath of the cholera outbreak - making it seem that the cause of the outbreak originated in the IDP camps.

The cholera contamination is expected to sicken over 779,000 people and to kill some 11,100, according to the British scientific journal, The Lancet. Though minimal prevention measures and the availability of clean water could save many lives, Haitians are being offered vaccines and sometimes rations of clean water (keeps the NGOs in business), but no sustainable preventive measures to stop widespread death, like sustainable sources of clean water.

LET'S GO TO THE VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

Thanks to Sebastian Coe of alJazeera, there's video evidence that the Nepali base's handling of their waste was negligent and criminal. Soldiers at the Nepali base were videotaped cleaning up the fecal matter that was seeping from the waste system after the outbreak. UN [al Jazeera] investigates cholera spread in Haiti

Even more unsettling, there is an iconic photograph from the AP of waste from the base being dumped just 400 meters away from the UN base in Mirebalais.

THE EXCUSES

The UN answered accusations that they imported cholera to Haiti by claiming that the Nepali camp's waste disposal method was not only up to international standards, but it was up to EPA standards. We know that was a lie. The UN said tracing where the disease originated was "not important." But, the scientists and public health experts say that tracing the source of a disease is a critical factor in diagnosis and managing a disease outbreak.

It's time for the UN to come clean about the origin of the cholera in Haiti. Haitians must demand more than an apology. The UN must pay reparations to the victims and their families. The UN must also provide clean sustainable water infrastructure to Haiti as a part of any reparations. For too long, Haiti's "friends" in the "international community" have intervened in Haiti's sovereign affairs, always to the detriment of Haiti's national interests and always leading to the deterioration of Haiti's infrastructure and continuing underdevelopment.

Water is life. Is it a coincidence that the UN (aka, "the international community"), a proxy force for the U.S. government is continuing to commit human rights violations in Haiti by spreading death?

More reading on the UN occupation of Haiti here.

The UN, NATO and Cannibals in Washington want the people of Somalia, Haiti and Libya to die quietly

2011-07-29T20:22:00.016-04:00

UPDATED 07.30.2011

Each family is permitted up to three buckets of water a day. They must use

that small amount of water for cooking, bathing, washing and drinking

Photo credit: Alessandro Rampietti | Al Jazeera

There is a war on poor people of the "developing" world and a war on those who try to uphold their country's national interests and people's human rights above those of the imperialists at the UN, NATO and Washington. It is in their best "interests" that the people of developing countries die quietly.

They are determined to control the world's resource using whatever means necessary. Usually, the means they favor is military, but they have other means as you will read below.

They are committing genocide in Haiti, in Libya, in Somalia. Globally they are grabbing so-called "water rights" and destroying poor people's access to clean water.

"Water Privatization Conflicts." Read more at academic.evergreen.edu.

At the same time, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United Nations, and World Trade Organization have set financial assistance guidelines for third world and developing nations that requires privatization of municipal water delivery. Read more at "Water Wars... " - Thread Post blog.

“Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights.”

-- Vandana Shiva, Indian environmental scientist

Breaking News:

Ezili Dantò Riseup lists (click on the I'm not a spammer button to read posts):

Tragic cholera outbreak in Port de Paix killing scores of Haitians.

Flooding Scours the Whitewash From Haiti Aid Efforts

According to investigative and political writer Georgianne Niebner, aid agencies funded by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have tricked donors into paying for the whitewashing of Haiti's cholera pandemic. Now with the rains, no amount of public relations, false reporting and outright lying can hide the rot and neglect they've tried to hide. Mother Nature and the dispassionate entity known as cholera are slowly exposing them and cholera is ravaging Haiti. Read Niebner's article at the LA Progressive.

Cholera is returning with the rains, after initially spreading throughout the water supply in Haiti after MINUSTAH imported the scourge to Haiti. The UN (MINUSTAH) Nepalese Camp in Mirebalais infected the Artibonite river system at the Meye river with cholera by dumping contaminated feces.

The sanitation at the Mirebalais MINUSTAH camp was not sufficient to prevent the fecal contamination of the Artibonite River. But the cynically named, United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) claimed that the UN Nepalese camp's sanitation system was not only up to international standards; it was up to EPA standards.

The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medial journal, which is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals, expects that a mere 1% weekly reduction in consumption of contaminated water would avert 105,000 cases of cholera and 1500 deaths in Haiti. However, the measures being employed by the aid agencies are insufficient and The Lancet projected in April this year that there will be 779,000 cases of cholera in Haiti and 11,100 deaths between March 1 and November 30, 2011. Those are the conservative figures, the human tragedy could be much worst.

Water is life. Destroying a country's water supply is a crime against humanity
In 1998, the U.S. prevented the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) from going through with disbursing approved loans (targeted for building water infrastructure) to the Haitian government in order to destabilize the Aristide government. The IDB was following orders from Washington.

Washington's "humanitarians" and their "partners" (in crime) have no problem with abusing, starving, killing, maiming, (sending formaldehyde trailer s to Haitian school children) or preventing aid boats from entering Gaza. Washington doesn't bat an eye over spending hundreds of millions to bomb the people of Libya. But will negotiate to screw over the sick and the old by threatening to cut their social security and healthcare. The poor, ill and vulnerable are used as political pawns. They are multinationals, they have no allegiance or loyalty to the U.S. except in so far as they can form a power bloc to screw over the rest of humanity. People's lives are a part of their political, cynical, inhumane war games, power struggles and greed.

Background on IDB/U.S. human rights violations in Haiti

"Letter to IDB President: On behalf of Haitian Supporters." Read the story at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

"Report Indicts U.S. Government and Inter-American Development Bank." Read the story at Partners in Health.

Now the US and NATO are using the same inhumane, criminal tactics in Libya: violating the people's right to have access to clean, plentiful water, in a desert.

Nato Destroys Libya's $30 Billion Water Pipeline. Read the story at English Pravda.ru.

People will die as a result of this... this is terrorism and will lead to mass genocide. More people over a longer period of time will die than from their sick joke of a "humanitarian war" in Libya. Just as people are dying in Haiti due to the criminal actions of the UN, U.S. and IDB.

Famine and drought in the horn of Africa. Was it preventable?

Hell yeah! Somalia is in the cross-hairs of the war criminals in Washington. It is targeted for defying the imperialists' in their quest for a "New World Order." Remember how Clinton had to ignominiously pull out troops from Somalia? Just Google: "Clinton's defeat in Somalia." They are out for the blood of the Somali people.

Not surprising then that we learned last week that in Somalia, the CIA has secret prisons and is training killers as they have all over the world. See the Democracy Now story: "Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation."

The famine and drought that is killing the weak and poor of Somalia was preventable. The drought was predicted last year. Why weren't preparations made by the "peacemakers", "humanitarians" and "the world's policeman" to save some lives?

The Somali Prime Minister accuses the UN of holding back aid food. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali says relief aid is not reaching those in need in famine-stricken Horn of Africa nation. Read the story at Aljazeera.

A similar situation occurred in Haiti, where the UN/US prevented the disbursement of food and aid in Haiti by militarizing the "rescue" effort after the earthquake.

In fact, the democratic president of the United States might as well have invited the extremis right-wingers at the Heritage Foundation for advice on how to respond to the quake crisis in Haiti. This week, the American people seem to have finally caught on the fake populist in the White House as his poll numbers have plummeted during the debt ceiling circus. Hey Republicans and Democrats, those of us who read know the cat and mouse game you are playing with our lives is pure theater. The Republicans have already assured Wall Street that they will be raising the debt ceiling. Whatever they say, the Republicans are going to raise the debt ceiling.

We see you for the political cannibals you are Washington.

_________________________________

UPDATE 07.30.2011

US-backed forces launch military offensive in Somalia as aid is used as a weapon of war
by Susan Garth, 30 July 2011 | wsws.org

"[...] A drought which has put 12 million people at risk across East Africa has become the pretext for the US to step up military aggression through its proxy forces. The same humanitarian justification was given for the US military intervention in Somalia begun by President George Bush in 1992 under the codename Operation Restore Hope and continued by President Bill Clinton. US forces claimed to be protecting aid convoys, but terrorised the civilian population as they hunted down supposed terrorists. Since then, Somalia has become a focus for Obama's war on terror.
It seems that the US-backed forces have taken the opportunity offered by the drought and famine to extend the control of the TFG. Heavy shelling was reported in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, July 28.
Analysts believe that the drought has weakened al-Shabab. Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdi Samed, a Somali political analyst with Southlink Consultants in Nairobi maintains that a rift has opened up between clan elders in the famine-struck areas and al-Shabab militants. It seems that the the US and its allies in the region are determined to use the drought to strike a blow against al-Shabab.
“The day's of al-Shabab are numbered,” Samed said, speaking on the US propaganda station Voice of America.
The military offensive is only one part of their strategy. Aid is itself being used as a weapon of war. Samed went on, “My biggest worry is only one thing. If the international community is allowed to provide food and water and basic necessities to the al-Shabab controlled areas, they will receive a logistical support so that they are now prolonging the fighting.”
[...]"

Must Read: Haiti Wikileaks Spark Political Furor and Elitist Drama

2011-07-20T15:07:00.006-04:00

by Dan Coughlin | The Nation

The release of secret U.S. Embassy cables has provoked a maelstrom in Haitian politics, threatening the approval of a prime minister-designate, damaging the career of a leading right-wing politician, and throwing Haiti’s tiny and ultra-rich elite into a paroxysm of public mea culpas.

“So it is with humility and simplicity devoid of artifice that I want to offer you my sincerest apologies,” wrote Fritz Mevs, the leader of one Haiti’s richest families, in an open letter to Senator Youri Latortue, one of Haiti’s most powerful right-wing politicians and a key ally of new Haitian President Michel Martelly.

“I recognize in you the qualities of a fervent patriot, a tireless servant of your country's interests. I stand ready to make honorable amends by publicly correcting any damage to your reputation,” he added.

Mevs was walking back charges he made in a May 2005 meeting with former U.S. Ambassador James Foley that Senator Latortue was part of a “cabal” of business and political elites that controlled a network of dirty cops and gangs engaged in narco-trafficking and kidnapping, generating political violence and instability.

Mevs’ apology came the same week that a further batch of State Department cables released by the weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté described Youri Latortue as a “mafia boss,” “drug dealer” and the “the most brazenly corrupt of leading Haitian politicians.”

Latortue denies the allegations and has threatened a lawsuit against Haïti Liberté.

Meanwhile, parliamentary approval for President Michel Martelly’s pick for prime minister, Bernard Gousse, took a major blow with the publication of secret U.S. Embassy reports that he was a “complete failure both on the security and justice fronts” when he served as Justice Minister under the de facto coup government that followed the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.

During his tenure, Gousse presided over repeated police and paramilitary assaults on suspected pro-Aristide neighborhoods and supporters, killing and jailing thousands of people.

Read full article at Haiti Liberté

Wikileaks Haiti at The Nation

No Disaster Tourism for Haiti

2011-06-21T16:02:00.014-04:00

A compilation of Haiti and world news.
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Photo by KeelyKernan at Flickr.com

The kid goes to Haiti the week of the US Open", and wins it all...
Defend Haiti | Sports | Monday, 20 June 2011

Rory McIlroy's visit to Haiti as UNICEF's "Irish Goodwill Ambassador" may have just been a humanitarian visit, and not the design of an agent or public relations firm. However, some have cried foul, saying this is more of the type of "disaster tourism" Haiti has seen since the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake.

It's very heart-warming that so many generous and beautiful souls have taken an interest in Haiti. Many ordinary people around the world have given to Haiti relief. Most common folks and some celebrities do not support Haiti for the attention or accolades – Haitians are grateful to them for their humanity and goodwill.

However, what Haiti needs is sustainable development and political pressure on Washington from U.S. citizens asking that the U.S. support sustainable development, not sweatshops and disaster capitalism. Washington's neoliberal policies and counterproductive actions are keeping Haiti poor and underdeveloped.

It's unfortunate that some actors, musicians, entertainers, athletes, political players and any number of folks are able to raise their public profile with a "goodwill" trip to pose with the children and people of "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere." Want to raise money for your personal or favorite NGO? Are you planning to run for political office or to make a bucket load of money by NOT running? Have you just been involved in an embarrassing, high profile scandal? If that describes you, then Haiti is the place to go for a disaster tourism tour of the rubble, illness and misery! And don't worry, the same conditions will exist for years to come, so just keep on sustaining the republic of NGOs to remain in Haiti indefinitely.

Haiti does not need more TOURISTAHs! Haiti has the hated MINUSTAH occupying force to fill that role.

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Making Sense of Martelly's National Fund for Education

Defend Haiti | Economy | Monday, 20 June 2011

It's despicable that the poor are now being taxed via their cell phones and wire transfers. Of course, Martelly has no intention of taxing the leeching multinational corporations, repugnant rich elite, and others who do not invest or support Haiti's human and infrastructure development.

If this new education program, which is mired in controversy and mistrust from Haitian in and out of the country ever gets off the ground, since the Haitian diaspora are the guarantors of this latest stalled IDB loan, we should at least have a say in the curriculum.

For instance, in what language will schools be taught -- some prefer French, many support Kreyol--both? What about culture and history? Will Haitian and African culture be given priority -- they should? Also, math, science and technology should prepare the students for highly-skilled careers. Will they get music, health and physical education? Show us the curriculum!

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Arcade Fire in Haiti: "So much joy..."

The Observer | World News, Haiti | Sunday 19 June 201

Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne tells a moving story about a concert her group held in the remote mountain village of Cange. The charming story hit a sour note for me when Régine talked of being the opening act for RAM. Folks outside of the Haiti and the Haitian diaspora may not be aware that RAM leader Richard Morse supported the 2004 coup which ousted Haiti's first democratically elected government.

The rock band has attached their name to Partners & Health (PiH), a worthwhile, sustainable and effective NGO with medical projects in Cange and other remote areas of Haiti. Unfortunately, Mr. Paul Farmer, PiH's founder, once a promoter of democracy in Haiti, has become part of Haiti's myriad problems since he joined the UN occupying force as their "special envoy" to Haiti. Since then, Farmer's not (to my knowledge) shared his opinions on fraudulent elections, the barring of Aristide's party Fanmi Lavalas from elections, and the stagnant progress rebuilding Haiti by his pal William Jefferson Clinton, who heads the IHRC. To his credit, Farmer did speak out about the imported UN cholera. Farmer voiced the necessity of finding the origins of the disease when his UN colleagues were against naming the source. As we know, that trail lead back to the UN.

Wikileaks Cables Reveal: After Quake, a “Gold Rush” for Haiti Contracts

HaitiAnalysis.com | Politics | June 16th, 2011

War and disasters are seen as opportunities for some. Naomi Klein calls it "disaster capitalism."

THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!” [U.S. Ambassador] Merten headlined a section of his 6 p.m. situation report – or Sitrep – back to Washington."

Lucke, for one, justifies making money off of disasters. “It’s kind of the American way,” he told Haïti Liberté. “Just because you’re trying to do business doesn’t mean you’re trying to be rapacious. There’s nothing insidious about that... It wasn’t worse than Iraq."

More on Disaster Capitalism from Truthout...

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Attacking Libya - and the Dictionary

Truth-out.org | Politics | Tuesday 21 June 2011

The Obama administration's rush for oil in Libya has them redefining war.

American and NATO planes are violating Libyan air space, they are finding targets, dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and maiming innocent people and destroying civilian buildings and other "soft" and "hard" targets. It is a war, but according to an Obama administration 32 page report titled "United States Activities in Libya," it is NOT war.

"War is only war, it seems, when Americans are dying, when we die. When only they, the Libyans, die, it is something else for which there is as yet apparently no name."

According to Reporter Kevin Hall of MacClatchy, the Libyan war ties to development of oil in the Caspian region and other oil rich regions. It marks a scramble for oil and controlling Europe's energy supply. Read his article: Wikileaks cables show it was all about the oil.

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Haiti Housing Plans: BBBC vs Kay Pam

Defend Haiti | Thursday, 16 June 2011

A lot of distrust for Michel Martelly and his plans for Haiti is manifested in his adoption of a René Preval mortgage plan called Kay Pam. President Martelly has been disingenuous in presenting the plan has his own.

Without question, more suspicions about Haiti's first ever mortgage program are raise by the untimely death of Guiteau Toussaint, the President of National Credit Bank (BNC), who had partnered with Preval on the mortgage plan and who was to launch the project just before his untimely death. Toussaint was murdered at home In Petion-Ville, Haiti during an armed robbery on June 12, 2011. The death is being called an assassination and some suspect a political motive. The police are questioning suspects.

Perhaps not coincidentally, given Martelly's hatred of Aristide and Lavalas, some suspects are said to be Fanmi Lavalas political activists, including former Bush 2004 coup era political prisoner, Yvon Antoine aka Yvon ZapZap -- though it was later reported that his detention was unrelated to the death of Toussaint. No word yet on why Yvon Antoine is being detained. Also detained for questioning and conditionally released was a prominent businessman named Franck Ciné.

As for the mortgage program, many details need to be revealed and are missing from the discussion. The new president still has not been able to get his government appointments approved by Parliament, including his Vice President designate, Daniel-Gerard Rouzier. Rouzier committed a misstep by announcing his intention to disband the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), but hours later Martelly subsequently promised to work with the IHRC to make it more "efficient."

Martelly's mortgage program is troubling. Martelly says in a video on YouTube that the interest rate on these mortgages will be fixed at 8%. This sounds exorbitantly high for what amounts to public housing projects.

The mortgage plan is very optimistic, but unrealistic, given the high unemployment rate in Haiti. How will people be able to pay this mortgage? The sewing factories and other sweatshops that are planned or operating in Haiti do not and evidently will not provide Haitians, who work without unions or benefits, with a living wage. The new Haitian presidential administration's first priority should be sustainable Haitian jobs, not enslavement to a high-interest mortgage.

It doesn't recommend Martelly's new mortgage plan that he himself ended up in foreclosure on three of his properties in South Florida.

Open letter to Mr Kenneth Merten, Ambassador of the United States of America in Haiti

2011-06-08T17:22:00.008-04:00

from Deputé Jean Baptiste Anthony Dumont of Léogâne.

Jean Baptiste Anthony Dumont,
Député de Léogane

Since your arrival in Haiti, your behavior has not ceased revolting my compatriots who want to be the worthy heirs of that portion of land bequeathed by their ancestors.

You seem to forget or ignore, Mr. Ambassador, the history of this country's glorious past. In the affirmative, I invite you to inquire about the exploits of our heroes, culminating towards our independence.

You seem to also be unaware of the rights and duties of reserve that a diplomat must have in a sovereign country (Haiti).

If this is the case, I invite you to solicit the offices of your hierarchical superiors who, certainly, will exhort you to tone down your comments.

In any case, know, Mr. Ambassador, that there exists in this country, men and women who are not scared and able to publicly protest against your arrogant, presumptuous and devastating actions, for their country.

You consider yourself a little god. The way inelegantly in which you intervene in the internal affairs of the country proves it, eloquently.

Your recent affront, was inflicted on us at the time of the presidential and legislative elections. To satisfy your own interests, you've ordered members of the Provisional Electoral Council and government officials including the President of the Republic, to violate, against their will, the law of the land (Article 173-2 of the Constitution; Article 191 Electoral Law), by threat of revocation of their visas, now your weapon of choice.

Allow me to teach you that the U.S. Visa does not lead to paradise. You think you can do whatever you want in this country.

You dared to treat the impurities of certain compatriots regularly elected on April 20th, confirmed by the so-called special BCEN.

In addition, I do not believe it superfluous of me to point out the Bush-Al Gore saga to you. Where were you? Se sou chen mèg yo wè pis (it's on the skinny dog you see ticks, meaning it is on the unfortunate that you see wrong).

Finally, you used Machiavellian politics by encouraging Haitians unhappy with final results to revolt. How horrible!

Vis-a-vis these drifts, my dignity, my honor, my desire to hang on the strict observance of our laws command me to return the U.S. Visa which I hold. You can, at the present, take action thereon.

NB. : This decision engages only my person.

Sincerely

Port-au-Prince, on May 23rd, 2011

Jean Baptist Anthony Dumont,
Deputy of the people

Lettre ouverte à Monsieur Kenneth Merten, ambassadeur des Etats-Unis d'Amérique en Haïti

Depuis votre arrivée en Haïti, votre comportement ne cesse de révolter mes compatriotes qui se veulent être dignes héritiers de cette portion de terre léguée par leurs ancêtres.

Vous semblez oublier ou méconnaître, Monsieur l'ambassadeur, l'histoire de ce pays au passé glorieux. Dans l'affirmative, je vous convie à vous enquérir des exploits de nos héros, qui ont culminé vers notre indépendance.

Vous semblez ignorer également les droits et devoirs de réserve d'un diplomate dans un pays souverain. Si c'est le cas, je vous invite à solliciter les bons offices de votre supérieur hiérarchique qui, certainement, vous exhortera à mettre de l'eau dans votre vin.

En tout cas, sachez, Monsieur l'ambassadeur, qu'il existe dans ce coin de terre des hommes et des femmes à même de protester publiquement contre vos interventions cavalières, hautaines, présomptueuses, dévastatrices pour le pays.

Vous vous considérez comme un petit dieu. La façon peu élégante dont vous intervenez dans les affaires internes du pays le prouve éloquemment.

Votre dernier affront, vous nous l'avez infligé à l'occasion des élections présidentielles et législatives. Pour satisfaire vos impulsions, vous avez intimé l'ordre aux membres du Conseil électoral provisoire et aux officiels du gouvernement dont le président de la République de violer, contre leur gré, les lois de leur pays, ayant brandi la menace de révocation de leurs visas, désormais votre arme de prédilection (art 173-2 de la Constitution ; art 191 de la loi électorale). Souffrez que je vous apprenne que le visa americain ne conduit pas au paradis. Vous vous croyez tout permis. Vous avez osé traiter d'impuretés certains compatriotes élus régulièrement le 20 avril, confirmés par le soit disant BCEN spécial.

Par ailleurs je ne crois pas superflu de vous rappeler la saga Bush-Algore. Où étiez-vous ? (se sou chen mèg yo wè pis).

Enfin, vous vous êtes permis d'employer la politique machiavélique en incitant les Haïtiens mécontents des résultats définitifs à la révolte. Quelle horreur!

Face à ces dérives, ma dignité, mon honneur, mon souci d'accrocher au strict respect de nos lois me commandent de restituer le visa americain dont je suis détenteur. Vous pouvez, dès la présente, prendre des mesures y relatives.-

N.B. : Cette décision n'engage que ma personne.

Salutations distinguées.

Port-au-Prince, le 23 mai 2011

Jean Baptiste Anthony Dumont,
Député du peuple

Background:
Visas Cancelled (Provisional Electoral Council)

IMF Chief Strauss-Kahn Would not Spare the Dollar

2011-05-19T17:42:00.030-04:00

IMF Managing Director at UN International Donors Conference
SIMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (r), and President of the Republic of Haiti H.E. René Garcia Préval (l) prior to a bi-lateral meeting between Strauss-Kahn and Préval during the “International Donors’ Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti” at the United Nations in New York on March 31, 2010
IMF Staff Photographer/Michael Spilotro

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned from the International Monetary Fund. Today he was granted bail and faces sexual assault charges involving housekeeper at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.

The whole situation must be very surreal to him, given that, as recently as a month ago, on April 28, a French daily newspaper, Liberation, published an off-the-record comment by Mr. Strauss-Kahn described as voicing the fear that "political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape"

DSK has said through his lawyer that there was no rape. He has pled not guilty and asserts that the sexual encounter was consensual.

Innocent until proven guilty. Critical thinking says we must question the evidence against Strauss-Kahn. After all, it is the job of the prosecution to prove its case. "Neither we nor anyone else—outside the accused and the accuser (and, perhaps, other interested and unnamed parties)—know exactly what went on in Strauss-Kahn’s suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan on Sunday. Whatever information the public possesses has emerged courtesy of the New York City Police Department, the alleged victim’s lawyer, and the mass media. None of these can be considered reliable sources."

Rape is a crime of control and violence. Strauss-Kahn was known as a seducer of women. Up to this point, he had never been accused of violently assaulting a woman who became the focus of his attentions, although since the attempted rape allegations, a woman has come forward to say that five years ago Strauss-Kahn acted like a "rutting chimpanzee."

Retired criminal defense attorney John Reed lays out a case for the defense of Strauss-Kahn:

"...first of all apply the Constitutional standard that Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proved guilty, and therefore, we must look with suspicion upon the facts asserted by the state at this point, including the alleged statement of the victim.

There are some very large red flags in this case, and if I had to choose right now whether I would rather prosecute this case or defend it, I would choose to defend it. I think it will be hard to prosecute.

First, my guess is that standard operating procedure in this hotel, like others, is for the maids to prop the door open with their cleaning cart as they work the room. So the defendant's prints better be on the handles of that cart since he had to remove it from propping open the door before he could commence the attack, and he had to do this without the maid seeing him.

Second, I would hire an expert to test the sound proofing of the room, and use an investigator to determine where the other maids and guests were are at the time of the assault. For if she did not scream when she could have been heard, then a reasonable doubt about a set up might arise.

Third, maids usually work in groups of two, and I would determine whether this was the normal procedure at the hotel in question, and why, if so, the procedure was not followed this particular morning. Fourth, hotel maids always determine whether a guest is in the room, including the bathroom, before they begin cleaning the room. They also make sure the guest has checked out. Neither was done in this case. Why? This kind of mistake does not happen in a $200 a day Hilton, let alone a room costing in thousands.

Fifth, why, considering that the rape shield law is preventing the release of victim's name, is the state keeping the alleged victim incommunicado, not even allowed to visit with her daughter, according to her attorney?

Sixth, why was the defendant not provided bail? He is one of the most famous men in the world. Certainly bail could be set high enough to insure his return. Moreover, the state would know his location despite the fact he travels internationally with frequency. If he failed to appear, he would not only look guilty, but he would simply be extradited eventually, and lose his bail money. [Bail was granted as of 5.91.11.]

While there's plenty of reasons to question the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, we must also look at the motive that "interested and unnamed parties" might have in railroading him.

According to an economics expert interviewed on Russia Today, Strauss-Kahn was a vocal advocate of widening the world money system and drawing the world away from the dollar as a reserve currency.

Adrian Salbuchi, is an economics and geopolitics author in Buenos Aires. Mr. Salbuchi interprets the dramatic circumstances surrounding the former IMF boss' resignation as a sign "that the powers that be were not very happy with him."

Russia Today is not the only alternate news source to smell something fishy about Strauss-Kahn's spectacular arrest. To many it's not making a lot of sense and the timing is really suspicious.

The UK Telegraph broke the scoop. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was mounting an attack against the dollar:

So, Strauss-Kahn finds himself in the same crowd as Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, right? You may recall that Saddam switched from dollars to euros about a year before the war. Twelve months later Iraq was invaded, Saddam was hanged, and the dollar was restored to power. Gaddafi made a similar mistake when "he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar." ("Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking?" Ellen Brown, Op-Ed News) Libya has since come under attack by US and NATO forces which have armed a motley group of dissidents, malcontents and terrorists to depose Gaddafi and reimpose dollar hegemony.

To sum up the motives for the arrest:

Mr. Strauss-Kahn angered a lot of the big-money guys because he was a vocal advocate for drawing the world away from the dollar as a reserve currency.

DSK was planning to institute reforms at the IMF:
Strauss-Kahn had set out on a "kinder and gentler" path, one that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries or crush their labor unions. Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists who look to the IMF to provide legitimacy to their ongoing plunder of the rest of the world. These are the people who think that the current policies are "just fine" because they produce the results they're looking for, which is bigger profits for themselves and deeper poverty for everyone else."
The IMF issued a surprising report in 2009 – two years into Strauss-Kahn's tenure, which placed the blame for the global economic crisis on U.S. mortgage companies and financial industry associations. Read an evaluation of the report here.

In an interview with the French daily newspaper Liberation, Strauss-Kahn voiced the off-the-record fear, published as recently as a month ago, in April 28th, that this very situation might be engineered: "IMF chief 'feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape"
Michelle Sabban, a senior councillor for the greater Paris region and a Strauss-Kahn loyalist said: ‘I am convinced it is an international conspiracy.’
She added: ‘It's the IMF they wanted to decapitate, not so much the Socialist primary candidate.
The IMF chief was ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy in the race. Sarkozy had a number of personal scandals and plummeting approval ratings. Strauss-Kahn was favored to be the next President of France.

The fact that Strauss-Kahn is a member of the French Socialist party cannot be ruled out of the equation, given the stigma attached to anyone labeled with having a "Socialist agenda" – as is erroneously the case with detractors of U.S. President Barack Obama.

The Daily Mail reports that, "the first person to break the news of Strauss-Kahn's arrest was an activist in Mr Sarkozy's UMP party -- who apparently knew about the scandal before it happened. Jonathan Pinet, a politics student, tweeted the news just before the New York Police Department made it public, although he said that he simply had a 'friend' working at the Sofitel where the attack was said to have happened." Also, "The first person to re-tweet Mr Pinet was Arnaud Dassier, a spin doctor who had previously publicized details of multi-millionaire Strauss-Kahn's luxurious lifestyle in a bid to dent his left wing credentials."

The purported facts of the case as released by the police are suspicious. In the hands of a competent criminal defense lawyer who can punch wholes into the incredible story, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will likely be acquitted. Strauss-Kahn's attorney Benjamin Brafman, who has defended other high-profile clients, including Michael Jackson, is no slouch.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was probably taken down because he advocated real change to a monetary system which is rotten to a the core. In this "new world order," failure is rewarded, up is down, down is up and we the people are always the ones who get screwed.

Therefore, his political career is affectively over before it began. He has lost his power, influence, reputation and sadly his freedom. To further prejudice the public, a rumor has been circulated that he is on suicide watch. No fear of him being offed while in jail, though. The ends have been achieved. Like they were with the jailing of Haiti's Father Gerard Jean-Juste, Yvon Neptune and other political prisoners globally who are deemed to pose a threat to those in power.

The IMF's first deputy managing director John Lipsky has stepped in as acting managing director of the global institution in the interim. When a new IMF chief is selected, that next individual will have great motivation for toeing the line and keeping the dollar king.

UPDATE 05.27.2011
Replacing Strauss-Kahn; "Pro-bank bailout" Lagarde is a shoo in by Mike Whitney

"Lagarde supports weaker regulations so that banks and other financial institutions can continue to rake in windfall profits while increasing the risks to the broader economy. She just announced her candidacy this morning (May 25), but already she's won the approval of Washington, Wall Street, the big banks, and the EU heads of state. She's a shoo."

"But Lagarde has not moved to the head of the pack due to her anti-worker bias alone, but because she's a trusted insider who will implement the IMF's privatization and structural adjustment programs without challenging their merit.

Strauss-Kahn's promises of "reform" at the fund were a constant source of anxiety for big finance. Lagarde won't make that same mistake. She won't go off the reservation, consort with progressives like Joseph Stiglitz, or veer from her script. Here's how The Guardian summed up Lagarde's impressive resume:
"Christine Lagarde stands for protecting big banks.....she's the most pro-bank bailout of the lot.

"The Americans are going to try and put in [White House adviser] David Lipton as number two. Lipton is Mr Bank Bailout. He worked for Citigroup. If they put in Lagarde and Lipton, what does that say? We are going with the total bank protection plan. That would be a disaster."

[...] So the belt-tightening will intensify under Lagarde, which is a signal to bankers that she can be trusted to protect their interests, and all the talk about "soft restructuring" or reforms a la Strauss-Kahn will end.

There will be no more talk about replacing the dollar with SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) either. Lagarde is not going to rock the boat. The only reforms she'll be working on are "labor reforms", a familiar buzzword among the financial elite for union busting.

[...] So, it looks like Wall Street may have found their replacement for the mercurial Strauss Kahn. There won't be any debt-restructuring, bondholders will be paid in full, and the dollar's dominant role as the world's reserve currency will go unchallenged."

Background:

International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn calls for new world currency | By Andrew Trotman

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was trying to torpedo the dollar | By Mike Whitney

The Amerikan Police State Strides Forward by Paul Craig Roberts

The serious questions raised by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair by David North and David Walsh

IMF chief Strauss-Kahn caught in "Honey Trap" by Mike Whitney

Why We Need a "Marshall Plan" for Haiti by Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The Libyan onslaught by NATO is about oil

2011-05-17T12:38:00.004-04:00

More at The Real News

Reporter Kevin Hall of MacClatchy says that the Libyan situation ties to development of oil in the Caspian region and other oil rich regions. It marks a scramble for oil and controlling Europe's energy supply.

Hall found a cable through Wikileaks which leads him to conclude that the U.S. is trying to keep Russia out of Libyan oil. According to Hall, "Cold War is alive and well." The plan is to contain Russia's energy power. -- making sure the Europeans are not dependent on one source.

Yesterday Democracy Now! reported that the International Criminal Court (ICC) Issued an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi, his son and Intelligence Chief for "crimes against humanity" – only the second time a warrant has been issued for a sitting head of state – the first being a warrant issued for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Tragically and ironically... after the announcement by the chief prosecutor of the ICC, there followed other Libya news, including that: "On Saturday, Libya buried 11 Muslim clerics who were reportedly killed on Friday in a NATO air strike in the city of Brega." At least 50 other people were wounded in the NATO aerial attack. NATO has now completed more than nine thousand air strikes and sorties against Libya.

NATO issued a statement which read in part: “We are aware of allegations of civilian casualties in connection to this strike and although we cannot independently confirm the validity of the claim we regret any loss of life by innocent civilians when they occur.”

In April the BBC reported that Libyan rebels were "mistakenly hit" by a NATO air strike. "Rebels said five died, while doctors in Ajdabiya told the BBC at least 13 rebel fighters had been killed in the strike." In another report on the incident, Al Jazeera reported, "Pro-democracy forces in Libya say at least 10 of their fighters have been killed in a NATO air strike on the outskirts of the eastern town of Brega, as the battle rages on for control of the oil port."

Sources:

McClatchy | WikiLeaks cables show that it was all about the oil

The Real News | WikiLeaks Reveals US Wanted to Keep Russia out of Libyan Oil
Kevin Hall: US wanted to block Italian Eni from acting as "stalking horse" for Gazprom

Background:

Libya - The DC/NATO Agenda And The Next Great War By Paul Craig Roberts

Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking? by: Ellen Brown

Democracy, Haitian Style

2011-05-13T20:50:00.006-04:00

by Stephen Lendman | StevelendmanBlog

Except for Aristide's tenure, what passes for Haitian democracy would make a despot blush, thanks to America's imperial grip on the hemisphere's poorest, long-suffering people.

As a result, last November's presidential and legislative elections might best be called a cruel joke. The entire process was rigged to exclude 15 parties, including by far the most popular, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas.

Moreover, the election was so tainted by brazen disenfranchisement and fraud, including ballot box stuffing and other irregularities, that legitimate independent observers would have demanded throwing out the results and starting over.

Most Haitians, however, weren't fooled. A scant 22%, in fact, voted, a hemispheric low since record keeping began over 60 years ago.

Since no presidential candidate won a majority, a March 20 runoff followed, pitting stealth Duvalierist Michel ("Sweet Micky") Martelly, an anti-populist former Kompa singer, against Mirlande Manigat, wife of former right-wing president, Leslie Manigat. Between them, they got about 11% support in round one, making them both illegitimate presidential choices.

Even more so for winner Martelly with fewer than 22% of Haitians voting, a new record low so embarrassing it was almost like holding a national election and no one showed up. Why bother with only US approved candidates participating, making both rounds fraudulent, illegitimate, and predictable, assuring sham democracy, continued repression, deep poverty, and exploitation for another five years.

Nonetheless, on May 14, Martelly will be inaugurated as president, by imperial selection, not popular mandate. In a nation of about 9.7 million people, he got about 700,000 votes, about 16.7% of registered voters (about 7% of all Haitians), making him perhaps Haiti's least popular president ever. The people's choice, he's not, with good reason.

Martelly, a President with Notorious Extremist Connections

He's long had ties to Haitian elites, militarists, reactionary Duvalierists, and his thuggish Tonton Macoute assassins, backing coups, death squads, deep repression, and denial of basic freedoms. Moreover, Damian Merlo managed his campaign, a man connected to former Reagan and Bush II official Otto Reich, notorious for some of the worst right-wing policies of both administrations, including attempting to destabilize and overthrow democratic governments.

As a result, Martelly will quash efforts for progressive change, in lockstep with Washington, Western corporations, and Haitian oligarchs, wanting no interference with their plans for even greater exploitation. Moreover, he's expected to do it by reinstating Haiti's notoriously repressive army, established to serve elitist interests by murdering regime opponents and crushing popular resistance, what UN Blue Helmet occupiers and Haitian police have done since spring 2004.

On April 23, Washington Post writer Lee Hockstader shamelessly called Martelly "a new kind of political figure (promising) rule of law (governance), free public education, jobs, new homes (for Haiti's homeless), and help for poor farmers." In 2002, however, a WP profile said he was a popular "favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship before its 1986 collapse," a history now airbrushed from his resume.

During the Duvalier years, he ran the Garage, a Port-au-Prince nightclub, popular among the worst of Haitian extremists. At the time, he openly befriended Lt. Col. Michel Francois, dictator Raoul Cedras' ((1991 - 1994) secret police chief, and was associated with his death squad repression of Lavalas party members, even participating with them on hunt and kill operations.

In 1994, when Aristide was restored as president, he moved to Miami to continue singing in America. Once the Bush administration launched efforts to oust him after his 2000 reelection, he returned to Haiti as an outspoken critic of his policies. In fact, after his February 2004 ouster, he organized a Port-au-Prince concert under the slogan, "Keep him out!"

According to Haiti Liberte writer Roger Annis, Washington financed his multi-million dollar campaign, backers Martelly called his "friends in the US" to assure his cooperation as president.

City University of New York Professor Francois Pierre-Louis deplored the prospect of him in charge, saying:

Haiti's "dream has not come true. Sweet Mickey is vastly
unprepared and inexperienced. He did not run under an established party and thus is yet to present a realistic program for dealing with reconstruction and unemployment, and much of his team represents some of the most notorious anti-democratic forces in the country."

Moreover, "Haiti hasn't invested in the agricultural sector since the 1990s and continuing the old trade policies will likely create a food crisis very shortly. If promised agricultural reforms are not met, there'll be demonstrations and protests and Martelly's mandate will shift from developing the country to keeping people in check."

In other words, murdering them for his bosses in Washington and Haiti's oligarchs.

Of course, he was selected to serve Western, mainly US, corporate interests at the expense of popular needs. Based on his history, he won't disappoint.

On April 20, Miami Herald writers Lesley Clark and Jacqueline Charles headlined, "Haiti's Martelly meets with Clinton during his first visit to Washington since election," saying:

He "won enthusiastic backing Wednesday from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." She praised him, saying:

"We are behind him; we have a great deal of enthusiasm. The people of Haiti may have a long road ahead of them, but as they walk it, the United States will be with you all the way."

In fact, Martelly is Washington's man charged with extracting every possible pound of flesh from ordinary Haitians, those resisting facing the most extreme repressive power of the state.

According to Wesleyan University Professor Alex Dupuy:

"The dual strategy of urban sweatshops and laissez-faire agriculture, which subordinated Haiti in the 1980s, is now its reconstruction plan."

In Washington, Clinton and Martelly discussed it, including financing by the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other international lending agencies to exploit Haiti more than ever for profit, its people no better than wage slaves for those lucky enough to have any work.

The Miami Herald's Clark and Charles said:

Martelly "visited with officials at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank, signaling he wants their support for aid to the Haitian government and investments in the private sector. He also promoted Haiti at a US Chamber of Commerce cocktail party."

In other words, Haiti is open for business. Ahead expect greater neoliberal exploitation, Washington, the IMF and World Bank obligating Martelly's government to take more loans to service old ones and enforce structural adjustment harshness, including:

-- greater privatization of state enterprises;

-- mass layoffs;

-- full deregulation;

-- no social benefits or development;

-- wage freezes;

-- unrestricted free market access for Western corporations;

-- unchecked plundering of state resources;

-- corporate-friendly tax cuts;

-- crackdowns on or elimination of trade unionism; and

-- harsh repression against those opposing a system incompatible with social democracy.

In other words, Martelly's mandate is to facilitate profiteering from misery. As a result, unscrupulous Western interests expect a bonanza from greater pillaging of the region's most vulnerable state, including its rich resources and exploitable labor to be sold out for profit.

_____________
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Playing God with Haiti’s freshwater ecosystems

2011-04-23T12:47:00.007-04:00

Originally Posted @ Strange Attractions: April 20, 2011 @ 10:52:26 PM UTC | Reposted with the permission of the Author: un.chemyst

In September of 2010, thousands of live fish of the species Gambusia holbrooki^* were transported by air from a rural fish farm in the Mississippi Delta region of the southern United States to one on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where they are to be raised in tanks and released into freshwater ecosystems all over the country. These fish, one of two Gambusia species commonly known as “mosquitofish” in English, are native to the southeastern United States, and no sightings of the fish have previously been reported in freshwater ecosystems in Haiti or elsewhere on the island of Hispaniola. The reason given for this mass introduction is to aide in malaria eradication efforts in Haiti: malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, mosquitoes lay their eggs on the surface of standing bodies of freshwater, and the omnivorous mosquitofish, in addition to any other food source available, will certainly eat mosquito eggs and larvae as their name suggests. Intentional introductions of these fish as a biological method of mosquito control have been carried out all over the world since 1905, with many introductions resulting in long-term establishment of mosquitofish populations outside of their native range [1].

Successful invasions of alien species in island ecosystems often have severe ecological and socioeconomic impacts [2], and mosquitofish meet two important criteria which suggest that a successful invasion would likely result from their introduction into an area [3]: they can survive under a large range of environmental conditions, especially temperature [4] and salinity [5], allowing them to successfully establish populations wherever they are introduced, and they are highly mobile [6], allowing established populations to spread rapidly. Also, mosquitofish have a history of successful, and ecologically disruptive, invasions outside their native range. They often populate the ecosystems they invade at high densities, and since zooplankton constitute the overwhelming majority of their diet, their presence often results in elevated phytoplankton levels, and even algal blooms [7]. They attack native fish in the ecosystems they invade, compete with them for food, and eat their minnows [8] [9]. Amphibian species, some of which are also important mosquito predators [10], have been shown to be particularly threatened by mosquitofish introductions [11] [12] [13], as moquitofish eat their eggs and tadpoles. There are at least three related Gambusia species endemic to Hispaniola, and it appears that the proponents of this project have completely overlooked these fish both as a potential native species for use in biological mosquito control and also as species that would be potentially impacted by a mosquitofish invasion. Competition and hybridization with invading mosquitofish have threatened multiple rare species of Gambusia endemic to the southwestern United States, and the invasion of mosquitofish almost certainly contributed to the recent extinction of G. amistadensis in Texas [14] [15].

This, of course, is not to downplay the reality of the long history of human suffering caused by malaria in Hispaniola, a history that goes back to the first arrival of Europeans on the island in 1492. Malaria likely played a role in the decline and eventual extermination of the Taíno people who were living on the island when the first Europeans arrived, although probably not as significant of a role as smallpox or the cruel policy of genocide and forced assimilation practiced by the European conquerers. Malaria subsequently spread to much of the rest of the Americas, although contemporary Hispaniola is the only island left in the Caribbean where malaria has yet to be eradicated, with much of the effective disease reservoir being localized to the rural lowlands of Haiti [16]. In 2009, evidence for malaria resistance to chloroquine, an important drug for the treatment and prevention of malaria, was first reported on the island [17], and in 2010, a massive earthquake displaced over a million people, increasing their susceptibility to the disease [18]. Both events make the need for a campaign towards comprehensive malaria eradication even more timely [16].

The most essential tool for malaria eradication, however, would be the ability to effectively diagnose and treat malaria across the entire island, with the large scale distribution of mosquito netting to prevent transmission of the disease also being of prime importance [16]. Control of mosquito populations would certainly help these efforts, but the effectiveness of fish introductions is more or less limited to eliminating mosquitoes from fishless ponds. Tree holes, coconut shells, discarded tires, and peridomestic containers are also important breeding grounds for mosquitoes in rural tropical areas [19] [20] [21], making fish introductions only effective when integrated with environmental management, other biological methods, and possibly even chemical methods [22]. And fortunately, there are countless species of omnivorous freshwater fish around the world which will also consume mosquito larvae when they are available as a food source and which have just as much potential as do mosquitofish for biological mosquito control within their native range [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29], making mosquitofish introductions completely unnecessary. There is, of course, one thing that all of these tools for successful malaria eradication all have in common: they all require a significant and prolonged engagement with and investment in rural communities across Haiti.

The potentially severe consequences of this attempt at using mosquitofish to control malaria in Haiti and the rather naive assumptions immanent in its rationale make it a rather curious project. The organization behind it is Operation Blessing International (OBI), a non-profit organization with an explicitly Christian mission and an annual revenue in excess of $400,000,000 founded by wealthy televangelist Pat Robertson in 1978. But there is an additional level of irony in that, even assuming that the intentions at all levels of the organization are genuine, OBI is, by engaging in such deliberate ecosystem engineering, effectively disregarding two important convictions that are nearly universal in Christian theology: that the Earth is God’s creation, and that God’s judgment should not be questioned. In the biblical creation narrative, the reason that Adam, the first man, is placed in God’s creation at all is merely “to tend and watch over it” (Gn 2:15), and Adam is never called upon to improve upon it as he sees fit, or to move things around. Adam’s descendants, at various points in the Old Testament, question God’s judgment and will. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Jb 38:4) is what God says to Job after one such incident. The Book of Ecclesiastes, echoing its persistent theme of human vanity, asks in reference to the work of God “who can make straight what He has made crooked?” (Ec 7:13).

Pat Robertson has been well known for his large investments in mineral extraction interests in the countries where OBI operates, his use of OBI resources for his personal business ventures, and his close ties to right-wing dictators who violently expropriate land from and enforce crippling economic policies on the people they rule [30]. But whatever the organization’s larger plans for Haiti may be, the project to introduce mosquitofish to the country appears to be nothing more than a gimmick: a mythical “silver bullet” born in the heart of the rural U.S. South and about to be used against an exotic foe for once and for all, which when stripped of the reality of its certain ineffectiveness and its potentially severe consequences, is sure to win over the hearts of North American donors. The long-term consequences of this project for Haiti’s freshwater ecosystems are completely irrelevant to the project’s viability anyways, as it is not the people who live in Haiti and depend on its freshwater ecosystems for their livelihoods who control the means in which their collective suffering is exploited as the Christian tradition of charity is commodified. Equally irrelevant are the theological contradictions inherent in the project, as the project is not in any way an act of Christian charity, but a gimmick which is being sold to charitable Christians. Like the introduction of malaria itself to Hispaniola, the brutal extermination of the people who inhabited the island at the time, the clearing of the island’s forests for plantation agriculture, the damming of its rivers, and the reckless extraction of its mineral resources, the introduction of mosquitofish to Haiti amounts to simply another permanent alteration of Hispaniola’s landscape and ecology for short-term private profit, this time in the name of the empire of Pat Robertson.

Photo Credit: Paparazzo Presents

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D.K. Lee, "Predation efficacy of the fish muddy loach, Misgurnus mizolepis, against Aedes and Culex mosquitoes in laboratory and small rice plots.", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 16.
T.P. Hurst, M.D. Brown, and B.H. Kay, "Laboratory evaluation of the predation efficacy of native Australian fish on Culex annulirostris (Diptera: Culicidae).", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 20.
A.R. Van Dam, and W.E. Walton, "Comparison of mosquito control provided by the arroyo chub (Gila orcutti) and the mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis).", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 23.
P. Irwin, and S. Paskewitz, "Investigation of fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) as a biological control agent of Culex mosquitoes under laboratory and field conditions.", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 25.
V. Louca, M.C. Lucas, C. Green, S. Majambere, U. Fillinger, and S.W. Lindsay, "Role of fish as predators of mosquito larvae on the floodplain of the Gambia River.", Journal of medical entomology, vol. 46.
G. Chandra, I. Bhattacharjee, S.N. Chatterjee, and A. Ghosh, "Mosquito control by larvivorous fish.", The Indian journal of medical research, vol. 127.

^* UPDATE April 27,2011:
Operation Blessing International has said they did not import Gambusia Holbrooki Fish Into Haiti, they introduced Gambusia Affinis. In response, the author of this piece states:

The difference between G. holbrooki and G. affinis is minor. They are both known as "mosquitofish" in American English and though they are two separate species, they are often treated as one in the scientific literature because their biology is very similar. Some of literature that I cited, especially those by Australian scientists, actually deal with G. affinis, since that was the species introduced there (G. holbrooki was introduced in Europe, Asia, and Africa).

I'm not sure if I believe their claim that G. affinis already exists in Haiti, though. When I wrote the article, I searched pretty hard for any evidence that either species had been introduced to the island, but found none. If it was already there, why did they have to fly fish in from Mississippi? And why aren't they using native fish? Perhaps I could contact Dr. Abe personally to clarify this.

They claim that they are not going to release G. affinis into open water, which is good. This doesn't mean that G. affinis won't successfully invade freshwater ecosystems though, especially in the event of a flood.

So, although I will certainly edit my article to reflect their claim that it was G. affinis that they introduced, I certainly will not change my analysis. I'm working on drafting an open letter Bill Horan, which I will post on my website. I plan to address the fact that the press release seems to imply that they didn't just introduce a species of fish into Haiti, which they did. It also does not accept that what they are doing will have ecological consequences, which it will.

un.chemyst

An open letter to Bill Horan

Posted: April 27, 2011 @ 3:45:54 AM UTC | Author: un.chemyst

A Review of Professor Henry Louis Gates' Film "Black in Latin America"

2011-04-19T13:39:00.010-04:00

A Bookmanlit Review by Jerry and Yvrose Gilles/April 18,2011
Permission to repost granted by Yvrose Gilles, Bookmanlit

Professor Gates' documentary will be broadcasted this evening [04/19/11] at 8pm on PBS. I think it's important to view the island as a whole unit which has been besieged by political forces both outside and within that are bent on destroying its African heritage.

–Yvrose Gilles

Professor Henry Louis Gates film “Black in Latin America” could not have come at a more appropriate time. This year, 2011, has been declared by the United Nations to be the International year for people of African descent. It is welcome news in Haiti where generations have celebrated their African ancestry. In part 1 of the documentary, Professor Gates looks at the lives of African descendants in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic. He recounts the history of the island mainly from a Dominican perspective. He refers to the island as “Hispaniola” as named by Christopher Columbus and not as the island of Haiti as it was named by its first inhabitants. The Dominicans prefer the term “Hispaniola”, little Spain, so that they can point to themselves as being of Spanish origin. Professor Gates’ film is important because it opens the gate to an important discussion that is at the root of the island’s division into two countries with differing racial identities. The film itself is groundbreaking in its perspective on the history of the two countries, but it misses important historical details that would have buttressed it further. The objective of this review is to add those details.

The people of Haiti are the descendants of Africans taken to the Americas between 1502 to 1866 when the world’s superpowers derived their workforce from the buying and selling and kidnapping of people. Haiti was the first modern nation to abolish slavery and to assert the sanctity of human life. So successful was Haiti’s Bwa Kayiman Revolt of 1791, that it ignited a 13 year war which eventually led to the withdrawal of all European slave trading powers from the island. Spain was the first European nation forced to abandon the island. It ceded its part of the island (present day Dominican Republic) to France in 1795 in the Treaty of Basel. The Spaniards were in such haste to leave the warn-torn island that they may have erroneously left the remains of Christopher Columbus in an old Cathedral in Santo Domingo. The British left in 1798 after an unsuccessful attempt to gain control of the island. The French were the last to leave in November 1803, after they were defeated at the Battle of Vertierres. Leaders of the Revolution proclaimed the island’s independence from European domination on January 1st, 1804.

Haiti’s history is an incredible David and Goliath tale of an island nation led by people of African descent struggling to survive in a world dominated by European powers bent on subjugating them. Isolated, demonized, and crushed by extortion and embargoes, the new Haitian state was never really given a chance to thrive by the nations that it defeated.

Internal feuds and nature also took their toll on the developing nation. In 1844, less than 2 years after a devastating earthquake paralyzed the central government, leaders of the eastern part of Haiti declared its independence as the Dominican Republic. Remaining colonists on the eastern part of the island seized the opportunity to secede from a country that had neither protected their social privileges nor given them access to international markets. The extent of the territory controlled by this new Dominican government remained unclear and the economies and cultures of the two countries remained integrated until the US invaded the island in 1915.

In 1936, under U.S. influence, Haiti and the Dominican Republic reached an agreement over the borders of the two countries. This treaty, signed in the 20th century and called the Trujillo-Vincent agreement, partitioned the island to largely reflect its borders nearly 150 years earlier when the territory was ruled by France and Spain. It was as if the Haitian Revolution had not occurred. Haiti was forced to abandon the notion of the entire island as one country as defined in its original Constitution.

The creation of the two countries from one island has a clear history but historians have distorted that history to support their political agendas. Dominican historians have presented Haiti as an aggressor nation that invaded the D.R. when in fact Haiti simply exercised its sovereignty over territory that it had won from France ever since the 1804 declaration of the island’s independence. Some Haitian historians support the invasion myth even though there was no Dominican state at the time. These Haitian historians find it easier to imagine Haiti as a conquering power rather than realize that it was a besieged country fighting to hold onto its territory.

Fewer in number and lighter in complexion than the Haitians, the Dominicans became largely a phenotypically mulatto state. Dominican leaders used this skin tone difference to argue that blacks are outsiders and that the people of the Dominican Republic are Indios, the descendants of the native population who were wiped out by the Spaniards by the early 1500s.

In the 1930’s, the Dominican dictator, Trujillo¹ took measures to further lighten the skin tone of the Dominican population. Such measures included facilitating the entry into the Dominican Republic of Europeans fleeing Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. At the same time he accused dark skinned people living in the Dominican Republic of being Haitians and slaughtered them. Professor Gates reports that at least 15,000 people were killed. Influenced by Hitler’s arguments about the supremacy of the Arian race, Trujillo commissioned historians to write a history showing that the Dominican Republic was as white a state as possible.

Through schooling and political repression, many Dominicans have learned to reject their African ancestry. Instead they embrace “Hispanicity’’. It is only by speaking Spanish, practicing the Catholic faith, and valuing light skin, do they consider themselves to be truly Dominican.

This year 2011, as the world celebrates African ancestry, we know that many Dominicans and Haitians will want to assert their African ancestry. Although Dominican denial of African heritage is widespread, it is not universal. Professor Gates was able to find an organization in the Dominican Republic calling itself the Kongo Brotherhood. Likewise the assertion of African heritage in Haiti, although widespread, is not universal. Like many Dominicans, there are Haitians who deny their African heritage. Hopefully, by opening up the discussion about African heritage, professor Gates will help people everywhere to recognize that we are all members of the human family and we owe it to the memory of those whose genes we carry to be true to ourselves.

Happy International Year for People of African Descent!

_____________________

REFERENCES:

¹ Trujillo's grandmother Luisa Ercina Chevalier was Haitian, she was the daughter of Diyetta Chevalier, a Haitian who settled in San Cristobal, Domminican Republic.

BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA | Interview with Henry Louis, Gates, Jr. | PBS Video

BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA | Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided, Black in Latin America, PBS Video

Election charade masks U.S. war against Haiti

2011-03-31T19:30:00.002-04:00

In the South American nation of Chile, last week President Obama delivered a fantasyland narrative on America’s benign intentions towards its southern neighbors, including an obscene claim that the recent elections in Haiti are proof of a U.S. commitment to democracy in the region.

The truth, of course, is that the United States snuffed out democracy in Haiti in 2004, when it deposed, kidnapped and exiled democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Over U.S. objections

Aristide returned to Haiti only days ago over the most strenuous objections of the United States. These sham elections, in which only 22 percent of eligible voters participated in the first round in November, were stage-managed by the United States to provide the form, but absolutely none of the substance, of democracy.

The elections excluded Haiti’s most popular political party: Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas. The result was the exact opposite of democracy: the two U.S.-approved presidential candidates are both closely connected to former dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who returned to Haiti in January with the obvious blessing of the United States.

Obama’s version of democracy has produced the most grotesque spectacle imaginable: The most popular person in Haiti, Aristide, and his supporters are treated as political outlaws, while the presidency is guaranteed to go to an associate of the most hated man in Haiti, "Baby Doc" Duvalier. No democratic system could possibly result in such a travesty.

Barack Obama has no right to put the words Haiti and "democracy" in the same sentence. His fairytale of U.S. beneficence in the America’s or anywhere else in the world is an insult to humanity’s intelligence and fools no one outside an ignorant and self-possessed audience in the United States.

It is as if he were taunting the Haitian people, whose rightfully elected president was stolen from them by force of arms by George W. Bush. Barack Obama has made himself a full accomplice in the crime.

Beating back the elite’s rabid rage: Against all odds Aristide returns to Haiti

2011-03-20T18:14:00.008-04:00

Posted on 18. Mar, 2011 by Ezili Dantò in Blog, News, Essays and Reflections

Aristide returned to Haiti today. I’ve not seen such genuine happiness on the faces of Haiti’s poor in over seven years.

Welcome President Jean Bertrand Aristide and family. Today is a good day for the poorest of the poor in the Western Hemisphere. Their struggle and unimaginable sacrifices and sufferings bore fruit and it makes them smile. We thank the universal good for this moment. Blessed be the endless Haiti revolution against the organized tyranny of the “civilized” and “schooled” peoples.

Aristide Returns to Haiti, March 18, 2011
Photo credit: Alexandre Meneghini / AP

Today, HLLN re-members the blessed Haiti revolution, Janjak Desalin and the indigenous Haiti army of today and yesterday.

On this day of the return, HLLN re-members the sacrifice of the warriors of Site Soley, Bel Air, Solino, Martissant who took up arms in self-defense against the occupation and coup d’etat. We re-MEMBER the most hunted Black man in the Western Hemisphere, who, alone, fought the most powerful armies on earth for two long years before he was assassinated by UN bullets, we remember the lynching and crucifixion of Dred Wilmè.

“On July 6, 2005, Dred Wilmè in his family where assassinated in cold blood by 1,440 heavily armed UN/US troops. With their tanks, helicopters and advanced weapons, 440 UN/US soldiers entered Site Soley in the dead of night (3am) while the community was asleep. One thousand (1000) other UN/US soldiers surrounded Site Soley to make sure no one could leave. Bombs where reported unleashed and dropped on the unarmed civilian community.
According to The Site Soley Massacre Declassification Project the UN fired over 22,000 rounds of ammunition into this thin-shacked, cardboard-house, poverty-stricken Black community of about 450,000 Haitians, most having been forced off their safer rural lands by US/USAID/WB/IMF policies in the 80s and 90s.”

All human beings have the right to life and to self-defense, including the poor in Haiti.

At the Aristides’ home, thousands of Haitians, who had waited seven long tortured years for the return of their beloved president and his family, waited a little longer to welcome them. – Photo: Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste

Today, we remember and say honor and respect to our fallen and faceless warriors- the beleaguered poor in Site Soley, Solino, Martissant, Bel-Air, Gran Ravine, et al… – ravaged by exclusion and color-coded NGO charitable distribution and allotments that slews human dignity, brings perpetual dependency. We recall the 20,000 slaughtered by the imposed Bush Boca Raton regime from 2004 to 2006, slaughtered with the complicity of UN/US firepower.

We pay tribute to Father Gerard Jean Juste, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine and all those who gave their life for this day of return of the people’s voice. We pay tribute to the ten thousands unknown Haitians, in Haiti and in the Diaspora, who never wavered.

We lift up Hazel and Randall Robinson for staying true throughout this long road and always, always supporting justice for the people of Haiti against all the odds. We lift up Minister Louis Farrakhan and Danny Glover who stood with the poor majority in Haiti and advocated for the return of Aristide in Haiti when most of the U.S. Black intelligentsia turned away.

Joyfully, people surround Aristide’s car as he leaves the airport. They ran beside him all the way to his house. — Photo: Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste

We thank all those folks, from all the races and religions, who signed letters and advocated for this return. We pay tribute to all the small Haiti radio programs abroad and in Haiti who stood for justice, Mary at SF Bayview for standing firm and resolute. We remember the unknown fanm vanyans, Haitian women like Alina Sixto who sacrificed so much, for so long without accolades and recognition and who never wavered.

We share this day by lifting up the work and life of our beloved John Maxwell. We pay tribute to the Africans, in Jamaica, in South Africa who stood in solidarity with the people of Haiti despite threats of repercussions from powerful international forces, those who even this week ignored the frantic calls from Barack Obama and the UN’s Ban-Ki Moon to again delay and destroy the will of the people of Haiti. Thank you.

This historic returns belongs to the poor suffering warriors of Haiti and to bless the spirits of those who perished too soon. Indeed it belongs to Haitian men like father Gerard Jean Juste, to all the women community leaders who where singled out and massacred at the USAID/IOM “Summer for Peace” soccer gathering on August 20 and Aug. 21st where Haitian youths were lured to their slaughter while attending a soccer game sponsored by USAID. Haiti’s young were brutally chopped up by UN/US-sanctioned coup detat police squads, working with their Lame Ti Manchet thugs and mercenaries.

This return belongs to Esterne Bruner, assassinated, Sept. 21, 2006 by members of the coup d’etat enforcers, Lame Timanchèt.

Before his death, the courageous Esterne Bruner provide Ezili’s HLLN with the names of the members who committed the Gran Ravine/USAID-soccer -for-peace massacres, the names of the death squad of Lame Ti Manchet. None of these pro-coup detat enforcers have been brought to justice in UN occupied Haiti because they helped demobilize the pro-democracy Lavalas movement.

This return that eases the insult of the bicentennial coup d’etat belongs to the hundreds of Haitians, sealed in containers and dumped off the Coast of Cap Haitian to drown, as US-supported thugs, still roaming Haiti free behind UN protection today, took over the North. It belongs to those forced onto mysterious U.S. ships, off the shores of Haiti, held and tortured in secrecy, some for two years, because they voted Lavalas or held positions in the popular government of President Aristide.

It belongs to Haitian men like Emmanuel Dred Wilmè who never left his people, never even left his neighborhood, he never attacked anyone, he simply defended his community from attack from the coup detat overseers, from UN and US guns and sycophants who hired thugs, like Labanye, to kill innocent civilians simply because they voted for Jean Bertrand Aristide and advocated for their country’s own domestic interests as opposed to the interests of the internationals, their Haiti billionaire oligarchy and poverty pimping USAID-NGO subcontractors.

There will always be more Dred Wilmés, more Father Jean Juste, more Lovinsky Pierre Antoines, more Esterne Bruners in Haiti as long as there is misery and exclusion imposed on Haiti by the powerful nations.

Most of all today, we say honor and respect to the Ezili HLLNetwork members, of all the races and nationalities, a 10 thousand strong network against the profit-over-people folks, reaching three million per post, and on our blogs, who stood with the voiceless and disenfranchised in Haiti for these last seven years against all the odds, against all the naysayers.

This historic moment belongs to all of you who stood with the indigenous Haitians at HLLN who work to make a space for Haiti’s authentic voices without Officialdom’s approval. It’s a harsh journey.

It could have been a six-hour trip to Brazil and then just a few hours to Haiti. But it took 18 hours because the “benevolent internationals” interested in our “democracy and stability” wouldn’t allow former president Aristide, the symbol of the poor’s empowerment in Black Haiti, to travel through their territories.

Etched on the older people’s faces is the truth of this woman’s sign, “We suffered greatly, but we had faith you would return home.” Thousands of Haitians died during the past seven years at the hands of the U.S. and U.N. forces occupying Haiti, compounded by the over 300,000 who were killed in the earthquake and over 4,600 killed so far in the cholera epidemic. – Photo: Etant Dupain, brikourinouvelgaye.com

It took 18 hours for Aristide to reach Haiti. Going from South Africa to Northern Africa in Senegal took 10 hours, while from Senegal to Haiti took another eight hours. I hear England wouldn’t allow a landing either.

That long, long road is symbolic of the Haitian struggle. That long road Ezili’s HLLN has shared with you and with your support and forbearance. Unlike colonial celebritism with Sean Penn, no one will give us accolades for a mere six months journey in Haiti. Ours is a centuries-long journey. We overstand. The struggle continues.

A new era begins for us here at HLLN. We ask you help us define it. For we know the empire will strike back. We expect it and thus avoid the surprise blow. As usual, we shall take the road less traveled towards healing Haiti’s poor majority with dignity, human rights, self-sufficiency, justice and inclusion. We won’t sell out. Haiti and indigenous Haitians want justice not charity, not Clinton/Farmer UN/US paternalism. It’s a desperately humiliating, bumpy, wholly disemboweling, wholly healing and fulfilling ride. Against all odds, Ginen poze.Kenbe la – hold on. (See, Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti by Ezili Dantòand Avatar Haiti.)

Pierre Labossierre, Alina Sixto, Lavarice Gaudin, Jafrikayiti, Guy Antoine, Harry Fouche, Fritz Pean, Yves Point Du Jour, Jean Ristil Jean Baptise and too many others to name, congratulations on this day. Only we know what we’ve withstood in helping to overcome not one but two Bush coup d’etats on the poor majority in Haiti.

Sometimes the fierce guilt of surviving, the endless stretch ahead, the soul and psychic wounds wrought on by the shame and humiliation of powerlessness and lack of material resources to do more, are too heavy a load. It’s too ugly and desperate to articulate the bullying and blows metered out by the most educated, most wealthy and most powerful on the most defenseless and non-violent people on earth.

Their collective suffering and deaths shall not be in vain. Justice will prevail, beauty will win, eventually. If not in our lifetime, then in the next. We are the Haitians, the indigenous Haitians. From generation to generation, from the womb to the tomb, our lives are about struggle. Today, for a moment, we’ll smilethrough the sorrow because in this shining and eternal moment that must see us through what will come at us next, we anti-Duvalierist-Haitians managed to survive whole with dignity and to witness that against all odds, we beat back the elite’s rabid rage.

Ayibobo

The Haitian resistance against the Western bicentennial re-colonization of Haiti lives on.

Ezili Dantò
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
March 18, 2011

_______________________

Don’t be distracted by Aristide in Haiti:

Demand Justice not Gestures

Video: Aristide returning Speech in Haiti 3/18/2011

Aljazeera Video: Aristide returns to Haiti

Martelly explicitly threatens possible reprisals of “the street” against Haitian journalist

2011-03-13T20:00:00.006-04:00

Haitian Journalists Condemn Martelly for Threats (AlterPresse article)

English translation of the statement posted on AlterPresse by Ronald Colbert, General Manager of the Board of Trustees:

Declaration of the Médialternatif Group, dated March 11, 2011
The Group Médialternatif (GM) takes very seriously the threats uttered to the editor and journalist of this agency affiliated with AlterPresse, Gotson Pierre, and consequently with the whole of the journalistic world, by the candidate for the [Haitian] presidency Joseph Michel Martelly, at the time of the televised debate of Wednesday March 9, 2011.

Questioned about his management abilities in light of a document made pubic concerning his debts to US banks and how that reflects on his ability to assume leadership responsibilities, Martelly launched into a fit of anger: “Kite L vini/voye yo voye L/M ap tan Li” ("Let's go! Bring them. Bring it. I'm ready.") Martelly explicitly evoked possible reprisals of “the street”.

Should it be believed that Martelly has a list of journalists who he does not favor who he believes are acting to discredit him?

The serious declarations of the candidate should be considered, rightly, as threats to the freedom of the press and of expression, which are assets going back to February 7, 1986, the fall of the sanguinary dictatorship of Duvalier.

The GM welcomes the vigilance of the national press and international community, which upholds these principles, and invites the community as a whole, as well as the entire enterprise to determine it's own conclusions from the aggressive position towards the media and journalists, taken by Martelly, who aspires to be the presidential chairman of the republic.

The Médialternatif Group reserves the right to take appropriate measures vis-a-vis the resurgence of institutional threats to the free exercise of the journalistic profession, guaranteed by the Constitution of March 29, 1987.

For the Board of trustees of the GM,
Ronald Colbert

Towards the end of the video above, Martelly shakes his fist at journalists declaring: "It's war. Let's go to war!"

Also relevant in this discussion of freedom of the press is the recent (suspicious) death of Jean Richard Loiuis Charles who was a journalist at Radio Kiskeya, in haiti.

Journalist Jean Richard Louis-Charles was killed on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011, an apparent the victim of an attempted robbery.

Louis-Charles is the first journalist to be killed in the Western Hemisphere this year according to Reporters Without Borders. RWB said they are "troubled" by the circumstances of Louis-Charles death and await the conclusions of the investigation. The other man killed at the scene was Jean Wilner Duperval, one of the three suspected robbers. According to Haitian police at the time, two accomplices were still being sought and they were to deploy undercover police to try to curb crime in the area.

Father of two children, Jean-Louis Richard Charles was shot twice in the head and neck Wednesday at noon at Capois Street (downtown Port-au-Prince) shortly after completing a transaction at a commercial bank.

His alleged killer, was identified as Jean Wilner Duperval, a prison escapee, who was immediately shot down by a plainclothes policeman.

According to the spokesman of the National Police, Frantz Lerebours, the man, who was actively sought, had escaped from the National Penitentiary, the civil prison in the capital, along with nearly 5,000 other prisoners in the minutes that followed the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Radio Kiskeya (Feb. 11, 2011)

Sources:

Michel "Sweet Mickey"Martelly Declares War On Journalist (YouTube)

La Presse en Haïti doit prendre garde aux menaces de Michel Martelly ("The Press in Haiti must take care against threats made by Michel Martelly" (AlterPresse)

Haitian media should be wary of Michel Martelly’s threats (English)

La Presse en Haïti doit prendre garde aux menaces de Michel Martelly (Le Nouvelliste)

U.S. Must Stop Supporting Fraudulent Haitian Elections

2011-02-27T13:56:00.011-05:00

Special representative to the secretary general of the United Nations and chief of the United Nations mission in Haiti Edmond Mulet visits a voting station in Leogane, a town an hour out of Port au Prince, Haiti. Voting stations opened this morning, November 28, 2010, for Haiti's elections.
Photo Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH

The November 28 Haiti elections were a "massive fraud." They were not inclusive of all of Haiti's political parties -- particularly its largest party, Fanmi Lavalas.

The planned March 20 run-off is illegitimate. Both of the current "selected" candidates Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly protested the elections prior to being told separately by the UN that they were leading in the count!

According to Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the OAS (Organization of American States) itself, which manipulated the results of the elections in order to allow Michel Martelly into the fraudulent run-off has not spoken out in support of their own flawed recommendations about the elections. That's because the left of center governments of Latin America, he says, do not support the OAS/UN/U.S./France/Canada attempts to control who gets elected in Haiti.

Surprisingly in January of this year, India took the unprecedented step of admonishing the UN for its involvement in elections in Haiti.

In early February of this year, a group of 12 presidential candidates have demanded the annulment of the Haiti elections.

[In mid-February, two candidates Jean Henry Céant and Yves Crystalline lodged an official complaint a gainst the UN's Edmond Mulet for his interference in Haiti's elections. The two candidates want an investigation of Edmond Mulet for violating UN statutes. The candidates charge that the conduct, actions and statements of UN official Edmond Mulet, constitute a violation of Article 41-1 and paragraph 4-5 of the Vienna Convention.

Going against U.S. foreign policy is unusual for the Congressional Black Caucus and members of Congress, but these officials have also lodged complaints, firing-off letters to the State Department to call for the inclusion of Fanmi Lavalas and other excluded political parties from the ballot before the elections and for the annulment of the resulting fraudulent election.

Susan Rice, the U.S. permanent representative to the UN has threatened Haiti, saying the U.S. will stop aid if Haiti does not adopt the OAS' "recommendations" for the elections, i.e. putting their preferred candidate Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly on the ballot for a run-off.

The CEPR has reported that the OAS methods for calculating who should be in the run-off are arbitrary and flawed.

On January 21st, the U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed that some visas had been revoked and that Haitian officials were among those affected. This is in line with the usual threats that countries are subjected to who do not fall in line with U.S. demands.

Unfortunately, Preval and the rest of the Haitian government have acquiesced thus far to the bullying. Crucially, four out of the nine members of the CEP (Haiti's provisional electoral council) did not sign-off their approval of the November 28 elections, further de-legitimizing the scheduled March 20 run-off elections. A fifth member was absent and did not vote.

As we have pointed out previously, the English language media has all but ignored the news that – as reported by Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste – four CEP members may never have signed the document affirming the Council’s decision regarding the second round of elections. Given the major media's neglect in covering this story, one could be forgiven for thinking that the second round is a foregone conclusion, however in Haiti the controversy is very much still alive.

Last week, according to L'Agence Haitien de Presse (AHP), two presidential candidates, Jean Henry Ceant and Yves Cristalin filed a legal challenge that would require Richardson Dumel (the CEP spokesperson) to prove the authenticity of the document he read with the final results on February 3. After failing to come to court, on Friday the police were sent to bring him in. According to AHP, however, he has yet to present the evidence that was asked of him."

"In Haiti, Controversy over Election Continues; In U.S., Media Goes Silent"
Center for Economic and Policy Research | Tuesday, 15 February 2011

The remarkable exception to all the caving in by the Preval administration has been when he issued a new Haitian passport to Dr. Aristide! This is a very encouraging sign of independence. This resonates with many as a sign that Preval is coming to the realization that Haiti does not really need the U.S. in order to undertake reconstruction.

Not unrelated: It is rumored that his erstwhile Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive's new office digs are in the luxurious U.S. Embassy -- the 4th largest U.S. embassy in the world! Why is that?

Prime Minister Bellerive is playing second banana these days to Bill Clinton on the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) and selling off Haiti's natural assets.

The Visa and other threatened sanctions by the U.S. State Department, Hillary Clinton's "friendly" visit, and Susan Rice's threat to withhold U.S. aid to Haiti aside, Preval must be sweating bullets knowing that last year, an OAS official, Brazilian Ricardo Seitenfus (who was later fired) revealed that the OAS had discussed forcing Preval to resign and planned to fly him out on a plane just as the U.S. had Aristide in 2004.

In reality, Venezuela alone has pledged and given more reconstruction money than the U.S. As Mark Weisbrot points out, the U.S. is no longer the only source of aid money. In less than twenty years, the geo-political dynamics will have changed. Some analysts have concluded that by 2020, China, India and the U.S., in that order, could be the biggest economies in the world.

The Haitian government should consider the big picture and reject the control the West is trying to have in Haitian internal affairs and say: Hell with the IHRC! Get out of Haiti MINUSTAH! Eh, get lost Canada! Au voir France!

In Haiti, A 7 Year Nightmare Continues as Duvalierist Clamour for "Reconciliation" & for Aristide's Condemnation

2011-02-09T23:06:00.017-05:00

A Swat team escorts Jean-Claude Duvalier after his arrest. Duvalier is released before the day is over.
Photo by Susan Phillips

These coup d'etat people have cognitive dissonance. They want Aristide "condemned" for crimes, but they don't seem to have an understanding of what constitutes "crimes against humanity."

Crimes against humanity are particularly heinous offenses that are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. They include, murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts and only reach the threshold of crimes against humanity if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but would most likely fall short of being in the category of crimes against humanity.

"... after scouring Amnesty International reports, Peter Hallward, a UK based researcher, wrote “Amnesty International’s reports covering the years 2000-03 attribute a total of around 20 to 30 killings to the police and supporters of the FL [Aristide’s party] — a far cry from the 5,000 committed by the junta and its supporters in 1991-94, let alone the 50,000 usually attributed to the Duvalier dictatorships.”

-- "The Council on Hemispheric Affairs Deserves an F for Article on Haiti" by Joe Emersberger

The coup d'etat folks never fail to point out the death of Journalist Jean Dominique as one ordered by Aristide. A fact they choose to ignore or omit from the accusation is that Aristide was not president during the time of Jean Dominique's murder. Jean Dominique was assassinated under René Preval's first term.

Aristide was in office 7 months and then 1 year after his 1994 return, during which he put together elections. Also, since Aristide demobilized the military during his first term, he can hardly be said to have been in charge of the military apparatus of Haiti.

Aristide was duly re-elected in 2001, but the Duvalierist set up a parallel un-elected government. He was allowed 3 years in office before a second coup on February 29, 2004.

Who committed crimes against humanity in Haiti?

Crimes Against Humanity occurred under the Duvaliers from 1957 to 1986, when between 60,000 to 100,000 Haitians were assassinated, disappeared, jailed, tortured, raped...

Crimes Against Humanity occurred under the Raoul Cedras/Michel "Sweet Mickey" Francois/FRAPH death squads of the George H. W. Bush Sr sponsored 1991 coup, when 5,000 to 8,000 Haitians were slaughtered.

Crimes Against Humanity occurred under George W. Bush Jr. Haiti regime change. The crimes were perpetrated by the U.S. supported Group 184, the GNBist (gren nan bounda), Lame Timanchet, under the U.S. installed puppet government of Boca Raton native Gerard Latortue. All these atrocities occurring with firepower cover of US Marines first, then under the UN/MINUSTAH occupation, which began in June 2004. The 2004 coup d'etat resulted in the worst human rights violations in the Western Hemisphere, with between 14,000 to 20,000 innocent Haitians slaughtered.

For 7 years now, the Duvalierists and neo-Duvalierists have brought Haiti an unbroken nightmare, starting with kidnappings, which began after the kidnapping of President Aristide by U.S. forces out of Haiti.

7 years of apartheid, famine, exclusion; a slaughtering rampage; with no development, as the UN/MINUSTAH make a staggering $800 million plus a year in Haiti for 2010. The UN requested an additional 164 million for the cholera outbreak they imported into Haiti!

A 7 year nightmare as over 200,000 Haitians got infected and as 4,000 plus have died from MINUSTAH/UN imported cholera.

By the way, is the "international community" really interested in protecting "democracy" in Haiti? They cynically brought in a majority COMMUNIST country's military (Nepal), with similar infrastructure, educational and political issues to occupy Haiti where the democratic government was removed illegally.

Haiti has been made over into a training ground for the world's military forces and for the burgeoning mercenary military industry.

A 7 year nightmare continues for Haitians equal only to the time of Duvalier as USAID's NGOs reign; laundering public donation funds into private profit.

7 year nightmare while Eurasian Mines and Majesco, et al.. pillage and plunder Haiti's gold and copper resources in the North.

7 year nightmare as the people die of famine from Bill Clinton's food aid and subsidies for Arkansas farmers, which had all but destroyed Haiti's breadbasket even before the cholera was unleashed in the rural area by UN Nepalese military waste matter dumped into the Artibonite.

A 7 year nightmare as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) do nothing to advance real development, but propose HOPE sweatshops, THEIR idea of "development" for Haiti.

A 7 year nightmare as rigged elections or elections-without-an-electorate ("selections") have been the norm.

A 7 year nightmare as almost 4,000 Haitians are indefinitely detained in prisons under MINUSTAH/UN occupied Haiti without EVER being charged for a crime, seeing a lawyer or any kind of due process at all.

Seven years of destabilizing Haiti to exclude the people, to pursue foreign profits and geopolitical interests and culminating in this attempt to bring back the pre-1986 dictatorship era of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

Radyo Kiskeya Journalist: Jean Richard Louis-Charles: Executed 02.09.2011

Dr Aristide returning home is a start on the road to a sovereign Haiti, but be prepared for the Western countries who armed Guy Philippe and Jodel Chamblain to block his return.

Already the brutality has escalated and a young, promising journalist was executed today by someone on a motorcycle in broad daylight in front of school children.

Jean Richard Louis-Charles of Radyo Kiskeya was only 29 years old. He and a companion died today in a hail of bullets. RIP. He leaves behind a girlfriend and two daughters, Cynthia and Shelsy. His traumatized colleagues at Radyo Kiskeya put out a statement, which read in part:

"This sudden and tragic disappearance of a young man as promising as Jean Louis Charles Richard is a real disaster for the station, the press and the country. He has worked at the station since 2005. Next May would have been sevent anniversary of the collaboration.

Radio Kiskeya thanks all those in the press and all other sectors who expressed their sympathy during this extremely difficult time."

Aristide's passport was issued on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 and is in the hands of his lawyer Ira Kurzban.

Preval government in Haiti and it's Foreign Ministry abroad have failed since 2006 to answer the constant requests of Aristide and his supporters to allow his return by issuing a diplomatic passport. Now that the passport has finally been issued, Mr. P.J. Crowley of the U.S. State Department has declared that Aristide's return would be an "unfortunate distraction" and potentially divisive.

Is it up to the U.S. to decide which Haitian citizen can return home and which cannot? Foreigners must stop violating Haiti's constitution by butting into Haiti's sovereign affairs!

Not surprisingly, the U.S. had no such objection to the return of the brutal dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who is accused of crimes against humanity, charged with corruption for stealing millions from the state before he was ousted by the people in 1986.

What a laughing stock the U.S. is making of itself this month because of their evident hypocrisy! In Haiti, in Egypt, and other locales where autocrats are part of their "client state" empire.

As David Sirota said in a recent article: "Just as you cannot be sorta pregnant, you cannot kinda support democracy, and only when it does what you want. That's not "supporting democracy"; that's imperialism. Indeed, the ideal of self-governance is as uncompromising as America's views on terrorism: You're either with democracy, or you're against it -- and as Martin Luther King noted, we are too often against it."

It's been 7 years since the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti. Seven years of struggle for a real democracy is ENOUGH!

Preval's government has done the right thing in finally issuing the diplomatic passport to Dr. Aristide. Preval's government must show true courage now and annul the fraudulent elections in order to save Haiti's sovereignty.

HatTip to Ezili Danto of HLLN

_____________________

BACKGROUND:

Political Fallacies: Aristide is as bad as or worse than the Duvaliers
by Harry Comeau

For what became of the charge that Aristide was part of drug trafficking in Haiti read this: Haiti: The Politics of Drugs | The Dominion

UPDATE -- Friday, Feb. 11 2011
According to Radyo Kiskeya: The radio's journalist, Jean Richard Louis-Charles, who was killed on Wednesday, was apparently the victim of an attempted robbery. Louis-Charles is the first journalist to be killed in the Western Hemisphere this year according to Reporters Without Borders. RWB said they are "troubled" by the circumstances of Louis-Charles death and await the conclusions of the investigation. The other man killed at the scene was Jean Wilner Duperval, one of the three suspected robbers. The two accomplices are still being sought. Police are deploying undercover police to try to curb crime in the area.

Father of two children, Jean-Louis Richard Charles was shot twice in the head and neck Wednesday at noon at the Capois Street (downtown Port-au-Prince) shortly after completing a transaction in a commercial bank.

His alleged killer, was identified as Jean Wilner Duperval, a prison escapee, who was immediately shot down by a plainclothes policeman.

According to the spokesman of the National Police, Frantz Lerebours, the man, who was actively sought, had escaped from the National Penitentiary, the civil prison in the capital, along with nearly 5,000 other prisoners in the minutes that followed the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010."

Haiti: A Humorous Presentation of the Truth

2011-02-07T16:49:00.004-05:00

Why We Must Rape, er, help, Haiti by GlendaBeckk

Transcript of audio:

With everything going on in Egypt it's very easy for us Americans to overlook our poor neighbor to the south Haiti. Hahaha! Let's be honest it's very easy for us to overlook them no matter what. They're just so poor!

But alas we must pay them the slightest bit of intention, because their presidency is up for grabs. And whoever becomes their president could deeply impact our ability here in the U.S. to rape and pillage their people. Buhlluhh! I'm sorry, did I say rape and pillage! Uhh Erhhh, what I meant was profit their people!

The big news is that their former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, finally was granted a passport to Haiti, and he is on his way back to Haiti, to presumably try to become president of Haiti.

A little background of Haiti, he's a former Catholic priest from the slums of Haiti who is absolutely loved by the Haitian poor, which is basically, the Haitian, everyone! He is also beloved by a lot of Americans -- but not the smart ones.

Because we know that with someone like him in power, it will be very difficult to rape Haiti. Whoa! I'm sorry, did I say, rape. I meant, take advantage of Haiti.

Because you see, Aristide is very anti foreign governments coming in and meddling about in Haiti's business. Which sucks for us!

And that's why smart Americans like George H. Bush and George W. Bush both arranged for Aristide to be covertly overthrown two of the times that he was previously president.

People of Haiti, I know you are looking for someone who understands your needs. Aristide is not the answer.

I now introduce you to Jean-Bertand Aristock! What's that you say. That looks like a sock puppet? No. It' not! This is a human being. And a Haitian human being. And furthermore a human being that a lot of Americans, here in the U.S., think would make a great president for you! Tell them Aristock. Tell them why you'd would make a great president.

Because I want it so that foreign countries, uh can rape Haiti.

Duhhh! What's that you said?

I want foreign countries to be able to rape Haiti.

No ahh! I'm sure that's not exactly what he means. I'm think what he is trying to say is that foreign countries can come in and set up businesses and to take advantage of cheap labor and so forth. Ok. That's not since I was.... Shhhhh! Ok.

Now. tell the people why they should vote for you?

Because I'm black.

Oh my god! I didn't even notice that! Because I don't see color!

People of Haiti, Aristock, not Aristide!

And if you do vote for Aristide, just a little warning, our military will probably have to make a pit stop in Haiti, just to make sure that nothing fraudulent transpired.

HatTip: GlendaBeckk

If Duvalier Can Return to Haiti, Why Can't Dr. Aristide?

2011-01-23T18:25:00.013-05:00

There is much speculation and attempts to understand why Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has returned to Haiti. A lot of it centers on the political aspects.

There is a web of connections between all three of the presidential candidates and Duvalier. A brief look at the people aligned with the candidates reveals their Duvalierist links:

The camp with Jude Celestin backed his uncle Rony Gilot and historical Duvalierists
The camp behind Mirlande Manigat include the old Leopards Himler Rebu, the military, the police, including Youri Latortue's "Coreh ettoute" band that got Mr. Manigat elected in 1988
Michel Martelly's camp are former elements behind Michel Francois, the entire band of Ninjas¹ from beautiful areas and the protagonists of the coup of 1991.

Unbelievably, Henry Robert Sterlin, one of Duvalier's lawyers and a former Haitian ambassador to France has claimed in the media that Duvalier has hopes for running for the Haitian presidency. Should anyone suspect France of manipulating this situation because of this connection? France's Sarkozy is busy incurring the wrath of a lot of folks these days, namely the French citizenry, the Tunisians, the Ivory Coast, a reported threat from Bin Laden and now this Duvalier catastrophe in Haiti. What did the French know and when did they know it? Reportedly, Duvalier is destitute. Where did he get the money to pay for his return? How is it that Duvalier travelled to Haiti on an expired diplomatic passport? In the age of tight airport and "homeland" security, the lapse is incredulous.

Besides the political motives ascribed to him, many believe that Duvalier is in Haiti first and foremost to lay claim to the 7 million which have been held frozen in a Swiss bank for 25 years.

Before the earthquake, the Swiss had been ordered by a court to return the money to the Duvaliers, but after the earthquake disaster of January 12, it would have been "a public relations nightmare" for the Swiss to return the ill-gotten funds. It gives one little hope in the survival of humanity, given the way that some entities behave.

A brief digression to nominate the head of UNESCO for lacking in humanity for this cold-blooded statement: "Bokova added that Haiti has no oil or geo-strategic position, and for those reasons, it is a test to the international community to show its humanism."

Albeit, it is about time that Cuba is recognized (as they are in the abbreviated article cited above) for their stalwart support of the Haitian people. Viva!

Another loyal supporter of Haiti is President Hugo Chavez, who honored Haiti for helping Miranda and Bolivar by supplying safe harbor, funds and men to liberate South America from colonial oppression and slavery in his state of the union address on January 16.

The Haitian government has been fighting to get the stolen money back for 25 years. Haiti's Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini is positive that the money will be returned to Haiti.

"I don't know how a criminal like him goes free," said Enrico Monfrini, a Switzerland-based lawyer who has been representing the Haitian government in a long and drawn out legal battle over Duvalier's cash.

The Swiss have passed a special "Duvalier" law in record time that allows them to return the funds to Haiti. The "Duvalier law" goes into effect on February first.

Duvalier is evidently hoping to prove that he is entitled to the money because of a clause in the new law which allows those who go back to their countries and escape criminal conviction to get back the money believed to be of "criminal origin."

There is seeming confirmation of all the speculation about Duvalier's avaricious motives in a slew of articles written in the past few days: i.e. Duvalier Advised by Ex-Congressman Barr as He Seeks Swiss Funds, Duvalier return tied to Swiss bank funds, Some See a Cash Motive in Duvalier’s Return and Bob Barr Says Haiti Ex-Dictator Seeks to Unlock Swiss Funds.

Prominent in those headlines is Lawyer Bob Barr of Georgia, U.S.A., who bills himself as a long-time "family friend" and supporter of the Duvaliers. Well, if Mr. Barr, a former Republican official succeeds, he stands to gain a hefty and "friendly" payday of $2.1 million at a lawyer's fee of 30% on the dollar -- more for hazardous dictator duty, maybe?

There are other cheerier rumors which say that Jean-Claude Duvalier has suffered a stroke, has pancreatic cancer, and lupus and is dying.

Interestingly, the news that the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has made the decision to allow Jude Celestin to oppose Mirlande Manigat in a runoff, has taken a back-seat to all the rumors and speculation about "Baby Doc."

"The Provisional Electoral Council, however, said it would not be obliged to follow the OAS's recommendation that Celestin yield to Martelly, but insisted Celestin go to the second round."

The November 28 Haiti elections, have been almost universally recognized as flawed (read Congresswoman Waters' report for an abbreviated synopsis of the CEPR report), fraudulent (there was blatant ballot stuffing) and illegitimate.

"The Only Way To Solve The Imbroglio Created By The Preval Administration On November 28, 2010 Is To Annul The Elections."
OAS analysis is statistically insignificant to make a recommendation...
– Projet Prioritaire Haitiens

Haiti's most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas was barred from the November 28 "selections." Once again and in light of the Duvalier return, the leadership of Fanmi Lavalas released a statement demanding the return of Aristide.

"Leaders of the Fanmi Lavalas political organization require of the Haitian authorities the renewal of the diplomatic passport of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who lives in exile in South Africa."

Ever since his forced departure in 2004, Dr. Aristide has periodically asserted his right of return and expressed the hope that he will be allowed to return. In an exclusive interview in November with Nicolas Rossier (filmmaker of Aristide and the Endless Revolution), Aristide intimated that he lived as a virtual prisoner in South Africa.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide has a medical emergency. He has undergone six operations in six years while living in South Africa for an eye disorder. He could lose his eyesight if he is not given a diplomatic passport to travel where he can get delicate eye surgery for his condition.

Brazil, which heads the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is implicated in a scheme to keep Dr. Aristide in South Africa by a Wikileaks cable. In an article in indianexpress.com today, India urged the UN to stay out of Haitian politics and do the job they are mandated to in Haiti, i.e. a humanitarian mission. By all measures, the UN has failed in that mission due to numerous failures in protecting the haitian people and providing "humanitarian" security, including incidents of the rapes, killings of unarmed Haitian citizens at protests, funerals and in their homes, the July 6, 2005 massacres in Cité Soley (warning: intensely violent video) and more recently the cholera outbreak resulting from waste matter dumped into a tributary of the Artibonite river by the Nepalese UN troops.

The OAS report says Martelly defeated Celestin by only 0.3% of votes reported on 919 tally sheets they chose to count. Since the Haitian authorities have announced their intention to keep Jude Celestin on the ballot, the U.S. has been putting pressure on the Haitian government to drop Celestin by revoking the visas of dozens of Haitian officials. In reality, is the U.S. defending democracy in Haiti? This has not been the historical legacy of U.S. involvement in Haiti's internal political affairs.

Despite Préval’s role in these failed and fraudulent elections, the OAS, the U.S. and international agencies have no right to dictate election outcome and have no right to plot exile of the President of Haiti. Shockingly, former Brazilian OAS official Ricardo Seitanfus revealed (before his coincidental dismissal), that OAS officials wanted to force Préval to leave Haiti via plane similar to the Aristide 2004 coup.

The only way to solve the mess created by the Preval administration on Nov 28, 2010 is to ANNUL THE ELECTIONS.

What a shame that the Obama administration has either covertly, or with impunity allowed the return to a mortally wounded Haiti, of a corrupt, murderous and brutal dictator, while barring Dr. Aristide from returning. He has stated on numerous occasions that he has no political aspirations, but wishes to serve his country in the capacity of a teacher.

A former Catholic priest, before Dr. Aristide became Haiti's president, he ministered to homeless street children and defended the rights of the poor from his pulpit. Dr. Aristide was Haiti's first democratically elected president, in what international observers said was Haiti's first free and fair election.

If Duvalier can, without issue, travel on an EXPIRED Haitian passport, Why can't Dr. Aristide do the same?

1- Ninjas: This is a pretty revolting scenario. Think of the historical "dark ages" when English nobleman joined secret societies that took their pleasure from plotting mayhem, except substitute mulattos from Haiti's rich class accompanying the murderous Haitian police to popular neighborhoods.

UPDATE 01.26.2011:

Celestin to "quit" Haiti Election

In Haiti, Reliving Duvalier, Waiting for Aristide

A look back and forward to what the neos want for Haiti.

The slavery in Haiti the mainstream media won't cover:
An inside look at Haiti's business elite

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Statement, January 19, 2011

2011-01-19T17:47:00.002-05:00

Dr Jean-Bertrand Aristide Former President of Haiti

I would like to thank the government and the people of South Africa for the historic hospitality, deeply rooted in Ubuntu, extended to my family and I.

Since my forced arrival in the Mother Continent six and a half years ago, the people of Haiti have never stopped calling for my return to Haiti . Despite the enormous challenges that they face in the aftermath of the deadly January 12, 2010 earthquake, their determination to make the return happen has increased.

As far as I am concerned, I am ready. Once again I express my readiness to leave today, tomorrow, at any time. The purpose is very clear: To contribute to serving my Haitian sisters and brothers as a simple citizen in the field of education.

The return is indispensable, too, for medical reasons: It is strongly recommended that I not spend the coming winter in South Africa ’s because in 6 years I have undergone 6 eye surgeries. The surgeons are excellent and very well skilled, but the unbearable pain experienced in the winter must be avoided in order to reduce any risk of further complications and blindness.

So, to all those asking me to return home, I reiterate my willingness to leave today, tomorrow, at any time. Let us hope that the Haitian and South African governments will enter into communication in order to make that happen in the next coming days.

United to the Haitian people, once again my family and I express our sincere gratitude to the government and the people of South Africa .

Poor Haiti! After the earthquake, cholera, now Babydoc

2011-01-17T20:25:00.004-05:00

by Elsie. Original French version posted at http://elsie-news.over-blog

Just released... An unpublished document from Haiti's past. The texts of Roland Paret and Frantz Voltaire accompanied with photographs of the epoch. Visit Elsie's blog for purchase info.

The French government offers a gift to the Haitians: the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier. It is symbolic of the contempt that the International community has for Haiti that at the same moment when Tunisia is delighted by the departure of Ben Ali, France sends to Haiti the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier. What a shame!

When are the Macoutes returning?

It appears that the assassins always return to the scene of their crimes.

Since 2004, with the boycott of the commemoration of the bicentenary of Haiti's Independence, one knew that the extreme right had orchestrated this great chaos, the purpose of which was to gain back its power.

It was known that the far right, lead by the voice of the writer Lyonel Trouillot, leader of the Collective Against the Commemoration of the Bicentenary of Independence hoped, and worked for the return of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Latortue, the interim Prime Minister in 2004, was charged with giving power to the far right - the man who criss-crossed Haiti with two Lexus brand cars, had granted a diplomatic passport to Jean-Claude Duvalier. Yuk!

Elsewhere all these zentellectuels were preceded, supplemented, compromised, rewarded by France and are obligated in one manner or another (family, clans, businesses) to the 2 Duvaliers.

It isn't for naught that all the bands of "foreign travelers " talk on Mediapart, Le Point, L'Humanité and other publications. They repeat on the airwaves of all the programs of France Inter, RFI, etc that Aristide was worse than Duvalier.

These irresponsible zentellectuels have committed a tremendous number of evils in Haiti. All this in exchange for some glass jewelry. Yuk!

The far right is delighted, after the visit of Palin with the visit of Duvalier.

It is Préval, who took Jean-Robert Estimé, ancient minister of Foreign Affairs of Duvalier to recommend economic policies and nowadays as the head of plan WINNER for USAID which works with Monsanto, who receives Jean Claude Duvalier now.

At a time when Tunisia is trying to set-up a "clean" government, Haiti swims in its smut.

It is a bunch of riffraffs who, since 2004, gather in Haiti, which has become "the resort of the neo-bloody idiots."

Préval, who will complete his mandate which runs from 2006 to 2011, has betrayed the aspirations of the Haitian people. Now he organizes the return of a dictator who should be judged for his crimes. Yuk!

But what can one expect from a country the intellectuals of which boycotted the commemoration of the bicentennial of its independence?

That they are obligated by France, history will remember. As a friend said to me, who called me brewing with the news of this "return": who could have dreamed that we would live to see this day, when the moron son of the Martiniquais Papa Doc, charged with making zombis out of Haitians would come back to the scene of their crimes.

This year, in April, 2011, it will make 50 years since our dear Jacques Stephen Alexis will have been tortured and slaughtered by the Macoutes of 2 Duvalier.

Eh yes, as I said, papa Préval, what a good boy. Yuk!

Note: Translated from French. Apologies for any omissions or errors.

More on Duvalier's return at AlterPresse:

Haïti : Révolte et interrogations après le retour de Duvalier

What Haiti needs is justice

2011-01-14T12:15:00.003-05:00

RussiaToday:
On this edition of Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk, he asks his guests why aid efforts in Haiti have largely failed. Who is to blame? Is it the U.N., the U.S. and its NGOs or is it the fault of the Haitian people?

The Attempted Character Assassination of Laurent Gbagbo

2010-12-22T18:54:00.020-05:00

"Time is running out. The United States is prepared to impose targeted sanctions, individually, and in concert with our partners on president Gbagbo, his immediate family, and his inner circle, should he continue to illegitimately cling to power."
PJ Crowley, U.S. State Department Spokesman

Alassane Ouattara has been recognized as the winner of last month's presidential elections. But Gbagbo won't budge. It leaves this nation of 21 million people winging between war and peace."
-- Al Jazeera correspondent

"The departure of president Gbagbo is not the order of the day. President Gbagbo was elected for five years. And our institutions have to be respected. France, the United States and the European Union are pressuring President Gbagbo. That does not bode well for the solution to the situation in our country."
-- Allain Toussaint, President Gbagbo Spokesman

"Ouattara remains holed up in a hotel in Abidjan.
The UN provides for his protection."
-- Al Jazeera correspondent

President Gbagbo has asked the UN to leave the Ivory Coast immediately. It is not unexpected that a concerted disinformation campaign has started to paint President Gbagbo as a criminal in the international media and in the mainstream U.S. media.

An article at Salon (i.e. the liberal media) takes a Washington lobbyinst for Laurent Gabgbo to task for associating with the "despot" Here is the unbiased (sic) take of Salon's Justin Elliott on the situation: "The lobbyist and the despot – Salon talks to Democratic lobbyist Lanny Davis about his controversial client, Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo."

Laurent Gbagbo wants to dislodge the entrenched interests of the international community in the form of the destabilizing influence of the UN, so he must be stopped at all costs!

Africa must not win this fight to remove the neocolonialist from their countries. If one domino piece falls over, than the rest may follow.

As Kwame Toure said (paraphrase), "we have the most corrupt leaders in the world (in Africa). We should roll them [neocolonialist collaborators] all up in a big black ball and shoot them."

President Gbagbo is showing that he is not a collaborator by carrying out the will of the people of the Ivory Coast in demanding that the UN leave immediately.

The media, which is often a tool of the U.S. government, used similar tactics to attack and demonize President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti. The campaign worked and the U.S., France and Canada was able to carry out the agenda of regime change in Haiti that they laid out at the Ottawa Iniative. The U.S. coup-knapped Aristide and took him to French neocolonial stronghold of Central African Republic, where their goons had control (see description of corrupt ball of collaborators).

The "liberal" media. In particular, The New York times took part in the demonizing of President Aristide with relish. That is; until the deed was done, than they printed a discreet mea culpa of sorts in the form of a mealy mouthed "investigation" that revealed the backroom maneuvers of Washington to bring about regime change in Haiti. The "investigation" was cleverly camouflaged under the unassuming title, "Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos."

While the UN is mulling over their chances of staying in the Ivory Coast as the leadership of the country rallies to push them out; the instigation of a "civil war" by playing the old "divide and conquer" game; they should also reconsider that their disastrous (sic) occupation of Haiti.

The Haitian people have demanded that the UN take their tanks, guns and cholera and leave immediately.

As for the Ivory Coast, they've had enough from the destabilization efforts of the "international community." Why don't international "peacekeepers" or more aptly "evildoers" leave already? Haven't Europeans killed enough Africans -- starting with the holocaust of the Middle Passage where countless millions and perhaps 100's of millions perished?

Ex-CIA operative John Stockwell in this "Like it Is" interview relates the harm he did in seeking to protect the "interests" of the U.S. government in Abidjan, Ivory Coast:

[ This video has been removed. When and if it ever becomes available, a link will be reposted. ]

More on CIA destabilization in the global south:

Secret Wars of the CIA: John Stockwell Lecture (Part 2)

It is always wise to question the reporting of the "liberal" media, particularly the New York Times.

President Gbagbo will succeed in removing the UN because he is upholding the will of the people of Africa.
___________________________
UPDATE 12.23.2010
Alassane D. Ouattara
Former Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF), (July 1994-July 1999)

___________________________
UPDATE 12.24.2010

Slap in Sarko´s face: French Community in Ivory Coast says no to the recommendation of leaving the country. "Sarkozy represents the real problem and should stop interfering in IC internal affairs. The media distort the reality."

Invités à quitter le pays : Les Français de Côte d’Ivoire disent non à Sarkozy : Le Nouveau Courrier

lenouveaucourrier.ivoire-blog.com

In Le Nouveau Courrier N°161 du 23 Décembre 2010 par Emmanuel Akani Camouflet. Paris est de plus en plus en désaccord avec l’évaluation de la...

HatTip: Serge Njine

UPDATE: 12/29/2010

The Bubble Has Finally Burst in Ivory Coast Following Election Overturn

Cote D'Ivoire's constitutional court¹ has named Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president, as the winner of the country's presidential run-off vote, despite electoral official having earlier declared opposition leader Alassane Outtara as the victor.

The opposition has warned that the conflict over the results of Sunday's election threatens to push the West African nation back towards war.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege reported from Abidjan that the violence has indeed materialised on the streets of the costal city late on Friday night.

"It's bad news from Abidjan tonight. Those outbreaks of violence that people had feared, particularly amongst supporters of the opposition leader, Alassane Ouattara, have started to break out across Abidjan," Ndege said.

Ivorian court reverses poll result

Last Modified: 04 Dec 2010 03:39 GMT

Violence as court overturns provisional results favouring opposition candidate and declares incumbent president winner.

US says talk of anti-Gbagbo plot 'absurd'

Dec. 29, 2010

Gbagbo's forces remain firmly in control of Abidjan, where they have been accused of killings in pro-Ouattara areas. UN rights officials say at least 173 people have died in post-election violence.

Gbagbo's interior minister had earlier accused the United States of sending in a team of "mercenaries" under the guise of investigating a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) that struck the embassy on December 16.

Emilie Guirieoulou said the team had in fact landed in a stronghold of the "New Forces," northern rebel fighters loyal to Ouattara's prime minister Guillaume Soro.

The pro-Gbagbo press said the men were Germans hired by Washington to eliminate the embattled leader.

Pentagon spokesman Major Chris Perrine said an assessment team had been dispatched from Stuttgart, Germany, where the US Africa Command is based, in order to assist the ambassador should he need to evacuate the embassy.

"The team serves as a US military planning liaison element to the US embassy, should the ambassador request an evacuation of US citizens that would require US military support," he said.

Negotiations to resume next week in Ivory Coast
Dec 29, 2010

For now at least, West Africa's military option to solve the political crisis in Ivory Coast is on hold.

Neighbors put Ivory Coast military option on hold
Wed, Dec 29, 2010

West African leaders blinked in their showdown with Laurent Gbagbo on Wednesday, taking a military intervention off the table for now so that negotiations can continue with the incumbent leader who refuses to hand over power in Ivory Coast.

¹ The Ivory Coast's highest legal body.

Update 01.08.2011
2010 Elections in Cote D' Ivoire: What most media do not tell you

WHAT THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA IS REFUSING TO ALSO STRESS OR MENTION:
The report sheet of the majority of members of the Electoral Commission in the north of the country admitted that the elections were highly flawed in that area.

They also refused to mention that results were cancelled in virtually all of France where Gbagbo's party had a resounding majority. Yet, the president of the EC paid a blind eye on what happened in the north since he knew certain international media and countries will back his action.

The international media is mentioning that the President of the Constitutional Council is pro Gbagbo but fails to admit that the President of the Electoral Commission as well as its Permanent Secretary and Spokesman are all pro Ouatara. What an unnecessary hype.

The international media focuses on the tearing of results sheet by a pro'-Gbagbo member of the EC. without investigating what provoked such actions. The action of the EC member was uncivil though.

The international media fails to emphasize that the election results had not been harmonised before the spokesman rushing to make inflammatory declarations.

The international media fails to equally reiterate that the results were released in a hotel hide out rather than from the Electoral Commission’s office and without other members of the Electoral Commission. They also fail to mention that this hotel was candidate Alasane Ouatara's base.

The international media fails to mention that in several areas in the North, Ouatara is said to have had more votes than all of the registered voters in the polling centres concerned. That can only happen in Cameroon under Paul Biya.

The international media fails to mention that it is this same Alasane Ouatara who has been acused of being behind the rebellion in Cote D Ivoire that killed several people. The rebellion then divided the country into two there by creating a country (North of Ivory Coast) within a country , that is Ivory Coast itselt. Ouatara has always refused this acusation though. However this video of one of the rebel commanders who Ouatara is said to have trained and sponsored is clear testimony [link to video not provided].

The international media has carefully avoided what other election observers like the AU and other independent monitors said about the elections. They prefer to hinge on what EU, French and UN team are claiming.

The international media with the exception of BBC failed to relay or analyse an ultimatum given by French President and Foreign Minister to the EC of Cote Ivoire. It read “the election results MUST be published today” that was Wednesday December 01, 2010. Who are they to give ultimatums to a sovereign nation and what was the reason behind such an irritating statement?

The international community represented by some powerful capitalists and imperialist bodies, think they can use the so called International Tribunal at The Hague to threaten nationalist African leaders. The headline of Le Nouveau Reveil of December 03, 201, a pro Ouatara newspaper even confirms this.
And finally, the whistleblower Wikileaks in one of its cables revealed that Nicholas Sarkhozy is France’s closest American ally of all past French presidents since WWII. And you may not know the reason behind this. This is simply because Sarkhozy needs the support of USA and allies in consolidating his grip on Africa and he wants to retake or re-colonised Africa and the rights Africans were beginning to take after some of us gained consciousness. It is because of such backing that his country will mete out the most inhuman treatment on Africans in France, yet no nation/ international media would bother to talk about, less of making it a hype. Where is the RUPTURE he promised?

Please do not fall prey to the media psychological warfare. I know many of you are defeated already.

Let all colonial and neo-colonial troops leave Cote D ‘Ivoire and the same apply to all of Africa. That country can solve its problem without confusion being orchestrated by international troops and bodies there. Without people coming in the name of peace mission, maintaining their interest yet eventually ending up arming militias and rebels and intoxicating villagers.

Finally, if elections were rigged in the north of Cote D’ Ivoire an area controlled by rebels and said to be loyal to Ouatara, then such elections must be cancelled. If not, Gbagbo should accept defeat, leave honourably and begin preparing for next elections.

France succeeded in Gabon with 'Omar Bongo Ondimba Ali Ben' after France-Afrique emperor Omar Bongo Ondimba I died. I pray and hope they do not succeed in Cote D' Ivoire again. Renaissance is needed. Cameroon may likely take the stage in 2011. We want to do our things in peace. Whatever will happen in Cameroon we do not need French or UN troops.

Read more at: AfricaSpeak.com

Update 01.08.2011
Afrocentricity International Calls For Cessation Of Interventionist Actions In Ivory Coast

" The situation in Ivory Coast demands our immediate attention as representatives of the African world. The time has long come for us to speak out against the machinations of the French and American governments in the affairs of the African continent. Clearly the interests of the French and the Americans are not the interests of the people of Ivory Coast and all claims of moral uprightness made by Western interests must be questioned. We realize that their interests, if history is our guide, are for material advantage, minerals, political puppets, and strategic positions for global control.

This means that there are so many Europeans and Americans vying for the right to take the spoils of this African country into their own bosom that the African people are without protection. We are their protection as they will always be our protection. Our position has always been critical location of all actions, proposals, and attitudes against the masses of African people, whether they come from the United Nations, ECOWAS, or the French government. The lessons of Haiti are quite clear and we have not yet digested the numerous ways the West subverted the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.

Afrocentricity International calls for Africans everywhere to write letters, protest in demonstrations, seek political intervention, and appeal to the United Nations to cease and desist in supporting the undermining of the country. In addition, we believe that the governments of the United States and France should keep their hands off the Ivory Coast. The strategy of divide-and-conquer must not be allowed to succeed in this case.

The United Nations observer, on the day after the election, announced that Alassane Ouattara had won without having read the reports about violence and abuse in the northern part of the country. The Supreme Court of Ivory Coast investigated the situation and said there was fraud in the north and therefore the voting in the north was challenged. Given all the evidence of abuse and manipulation in the north, the Supreme Court of Ivory Coast made the decision that Laurent Gbagbo was the winner.

President Gbagbo has renounced violence and asked Mr. Ouattara to come to the table for dialogue about the future of the nation given the fact that whatever the facts that will be revealed each one of these leaders carried a significant part of the electorate. Afrocentricity International believes that the talk of “genocide” is premature and probably racist. No one claimed that there would be “genocide” during the American presidency crisis that brought Mr. Bush to the office during his first term. Why would any credible person raise the ethnic genocide argument so quickly if it is not to create a pretext invade Ivory Coast?

The reason that Mr. Gbagbo remains in power and should remain in power is because the Supreme Court of the land has declared that there were abuses, fraud, and intimidations in the northern part of the country. The United Nations’ observers did not take these reports into consideration before declaring a Alassane Ouattara the winner. In any nation this would be considered arrogant and manipulative. Rather than allowing the legitimate processes of justice to work out in Ivory Coast the international interventionists jumped to a conclusion that Mr. Gbagbo did not win."

Read more at: abidjantalk.com

Update 01.18.2011

Statement of the African Union Observer Mission On the Presidential Election in Cote D'Ivoire on November 28, 2010.

At the end of the mission, the African Union Observers noted the following:

The mission noted with regret, serious acts of violence, namely losses of human lives, infringement of physical integrity, intimidations, and abduction attempts and damage to the electoral material. So many facts that should be object to a careful assessment from the competent institutions, so as to determine their impact on the ballots.

In addition, the Mission denounces the late openings of some voting stations, the lack of stickers in some voting polls, the relatively charged atmosphere around some voting stations.

Read the report here.

Hilary Clinton, how does it feel to get leaked on?

2010-12-18T19:21:00.003-05:00

This Wikileaks satire video was posted on Twitter by @Wikileaks. The truth is out there and it's very funny. Here's an excerpt.

Hilary Clinton, how does it feel to get leaked on?

It's scandalous! This is a case of high treason. It's against the land of the brave and divine freedom. Were the good guys for democracy. We fight evil. And we wage peace around the world, proud of the flag. These leaks could devalue this powerful brand. Bring military operations straight to a halt. Our shareholders, clients, and partners will clearly revolt.

But aren't you beholden to the American public? And isn't the U.S. one of the primary culprits in overthrowing governments?

Such as?

Chili, Iran, Nicaragua…

Please, stop with the drama. The American people are our employees. Who's taxes fund the wars that support our schemes. Their kids become our troops we send overseas. In return for mega-malls and the American dream. And if our client states don't like the things that we do, we install a dictator with a CIA coup. And foreign relations subversion is the method we use. Wikileaks threatens the system, so its a terrorist group.

But people of the world seem to genuinely approve of Wikileaks actions in spreading the truth.

They do? Well then they're terrorist too. Dissenters are traitors are terrorist as history proves and they always loose.

That's curious, weren't our greatest heroes persecuted for this reason?

Who?

Mandela, Ghandi, Jesus…

Mwa ha,ha,ha. You idealists!

See an article on the Guardian UK's website by Mark Weisbrot about "cablegate," titled "WikiLeaks' lesson on Haiti." On their website, The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a more succinct title for the piece: "Wikileaks Cables Show Why Washington Won’t Allow Democracy in Haiti."

Acts of God and Retribution in Haiti

2010-11-16T18:38:00.018-05:00

U.S. funds finally headed to Haiti, 10 months after earthquake
Photo: The Associated Press

The American media is playing fast and loose with the facts. They are painting a misleading picture of the situation in Haiti. CBS New's 60 Minutes did a piece this past Sunday which is representative of the propaganda; as was a recent piece by a pool reporter named Steve Tuttle at Newsweek (more about that at Mediahacker).

The 60 Minutes piece was peppered with outright lies and was titled, "Haiti: Frustration and Anger."

The "anger and frustration" of the Haitian people, 1.5 million of whom are still living in filthy, unsanitary, unsafe camps, battered by the elements and forced to face more earthquake, hurricane and tropical storm hazards? The piece features contact with a Haitian family living on a highway medium in Carrefour. It highlights an American doctor, David Walton who has worked with Partners in Health for 13 years. 60 Minutes also interviews former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton says he "loves the place" and he "doesn't want anybody to die because of the floods," describing the earthquake a "natural disaster that hit the country in a highly impacted dense urban area, now it's covered with rubble which has to be cleared as you do the rebuilding, housing always takes the longest."

The piece does not bother to tackle any tough questions. Here are a couple of questions for 60 Minutes:

Why hasn't Haiti had cholera in almost 60 years?
This is a surprising fact, in light of the fact that the Bush administration, for political reasons had the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) withhold loans targeted for water infrastructure improvements in the very area where the cholera outbreak started and is spreading from rapidly.
*The political reason the U.S. withheld loans: To oust the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Why does the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) think the cholera is a strain imported from South Asia?

Why does a Harvard cholera expert, John Mekalanos, think that is is important to know the origin of the cholera strain. Mekalanos says the virulent strain is imported from South Asia.

"John Mekalanos, a cholera expert and chairman of Harvard University's microbiology department, said it is important to know exactly where and how the disease emerged because it is a novel, virulent strain previously unknown in the Western Hemisphere - and public health officials need to know how it spreads."

Experts: Did UN troops infect Haiti?

60 Minutes, how did the trash you filmed in the city cause the cholera in the countryside?

Why didn't 60 Minutes use Google to learn that Bill and Hillary Clinton actually spent their honeymoon in Mexico -- Acapulco, not Haiti. The Clintons had returned from their honeymoon, and visited Haiti a week later. Bill Clinton says so on page 235 of his memoir "My Life."

Why didn't 60 Minutes ask Mr. Clinton why his wife is blocking aid money to Haiti? She said back in March that Haiti was no more corrupt than any other developing country. Secretary Clinton also stated that she "sent a lot of experts from government agencies here in the U.S." to "work closely" with the Preval government prior to the January quake.

What's changed since to make the U.S. government put a hold on the aid it pledged in March? Don't they care that most of the victims of the January earthquake are living in intolerable misery?

"As if Haitians living in tents and under scraps of plastic don't have enough to grapple with as a tropical storm bears down and cholera spreads, the U.S. Congress has put up another obstacle to delivering the $1.15 billion in reconstruction money it promised back in March.

The State Department still has to prove the money won't be stolen or misused — not an easy task in a country notorious for corruption.

"Given the weak governmental institutions that existed in Haiti even before the earthquake, Congress wants to be sure we have that accountability in place before these funds are obligated," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Associated Press."
New Obstacles Stalls Aid Funds for Haiti

The cholera epidemic, UN military occupation and U.S. controlled Haitian government are crippling Haiti's ability to recover from consecutive disasters.
There's a reason why the Haitian government must tread lightly in declaring the cholera epidemic an imported disease (Dr. Alex Larsen, Head of the Haitian Ministry of Health announced that the disease is imported, but did not name the UN's Nepalese base specifically as the source of the contamination).

The Haitian government is submissive to the UN occupiers. MINUSTAH has their boots on the figurative neck of the Haitian population, much the same as the Haitian military did. The internationals believe and authorities in Haiti have vocalized that the tanks and guns of the UN make them the owners of Haiti.

Ward at St. Nicholas Hospital
Photo: Georgianne Nienaber

Sources close to the political situation in Haiti say that Preval was hand picked by the Bush administration – probably because they were assured of his compliance to their neoliberal measures. This has been proven true in Preval's actions since taking office as he presided over the privatization of most government owned services. Preval used his veto power to rebuff a modest raise of the minimum wage – which is USD $3.049 a day or about 38 cents an hour for an 8 hour day as of February 24, 2010.

The majority of the Haitian Parliament is made up of officials who were part of the U.S. installed puppet government of (U.S. citizen from Boca Raton, Florida) Gerard LaTortue. Wyclef Jean's uncle Raymond Joseph was one such Haitian official fronting for Bush in Haiti. Preval did not make any changes to the parliament's makeup when he assumed the Haitian presidency.

The Haitian diaspora and Haitians suffering in the camps are fed up with the Preval government and they want change. They blame the Haitian government's "incompetence" and "lack of compassion" for the desperate situation on the ground. However, Haitians should be aware, as outlined above, that the weak Haitian government in place now wasn't chosen to represent Haitians. It was chosen to represent the interests of the international community. A weak Haitian government suits the corporatist agenda just fine.

The Haitian government is just a pawn used to break the will of the Haitian people. The Haitian population has demonstrated for and died in great numbers since the first U.S. sponsored coup in 1991 to support of a real democracy in Haiti. Democracies in developing countries is anathema to the neoliberal agenda of the corporatist elite that run the G-20 major economies of the world.

The Obama administration's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is of two minds about the "corruption" in Haiti. Sometimes she thinks that it doesn't represent a substantial obstacle ("We see that all over the world. It is not, by any means, unique to Haiti. I have seen it in every setting and on every continent that I have visited."), other times her State Department is so concerned about the aid money being "stolen" and "misused" that they must put a hold on it.

Truth be told, the State Department is not very concerned about Haitians and their plight. What really matters is whether the U.S. will get the bang for the bucks that they and their allies, particularly France and Canada, have invested in the November 28 "selections" in Haiti. The U.S. alone has 10 million in the pot.

Finally, after over ten months of waiting for aid money, the government of Haiti, to its credit has sought aid from Europe. It's a long shot since Secretary Clinton has in no uncertain terms asked U.S. allies to withhold funds from Haiti.

"The Secretary of State told the U.N. conference in March that if the effort to rebuild was "slow or insufficient, if it is marked by conflict, lack of coordination or lack of transparency, then the challenges that have plagued Haiti for years could erupt with regional and global consequences."

Nearly all the countries present at that conference have been slow in delivering on their promises since."
Some US rebuilding money finally headed to Haiti

In a recent development, AP's Jonathan Katz reports that more than ten months after the quake, the U.S. State Department has finally released $120 million in aid for rubble removal, housing, education and Haitian government budget support.

Haitians are too quick to hand the U.S., France, Canada and their allies more ammunition to continue to keep Haiti subservient by joining in on the chorus that blames the Haitian government alone for the worsening catastrophe in Haiti.

It was the international community and their proxy, the UN which brought this cholera plague to Haiti. It was the U.S. which left Haiti vulnerable by pressuring the IDB to withhold loans that were targeted for improving the water infrastructure in Haiti. They worked with the morally bankrupt private sector run by Haiti's mafia families and renegade military to oust the democratically elected government of Aristide, twice! It was they, who forced neoliberal policies down Haiti's throat which has continuously kept Haiti in debt and dependency and lead to Haiti's inability to feed its people and the loss of over 300,000 jobs for subsistence farmers... forcing many of them to immigrate to the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince where they perished in the devastating earthquake.

Haiti is unofficially a "protectorate," of the U.S. and the "NGO nation" the U.S. has created since the orchestration of two coups that ousted Haiti's democratically elected government. The Haitian government has very little authority. Most social services are provided by the Non-governmental agencies (NGO), who grow more and more arrogant and dismissive of the Haitian government every day.

If Haiti's government was stronger (and had more support from Haitians), maybe they would be empowered to hold free and fair elections where every party is allowed to participate, including the majority party, Lavalas. This could be a way to keep Haiti from being made an official "protectorate" of the U.S. Of course, that is not the only way.

Haiti's government cannot continue to be weakened... supporting the government could be a way to force the UN to get out of Haiti at the end of their current "mandate." It was a certainty on October 15 this year that the U.S. run Security Council would renew the occupation.

We cannot continue to give the U.S. the excuse it seeks to make Haiti a protectorate.

If and when that (officially) happens, the U.S. (and their allies) will probably release all the aid funds they've been withholding. The bad guys would have won because they will have broken the will of a population which seeks to be free. Haitians want a real democracy. They do not want the current system where a tiny minority of greedy families own 80% of the country's wealth and resources, refusing to allow the population to have a chance to have a dream for equality, justice and a chance for advancement in a free society, where one man, one vote makes for a real democracy. It is corrupt, inhumane and evil U.S. foreign policy which is keeping that dream deferred for all Haitians.

The plan for Haiti (as often vocalized by ex-president Bill Clinton, head of the IHRC and his wife Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) is to continue on the path of making Haiti into a heaven for corporations who will supply low-wage sweatshop menial jobs that offer no chance for workers to build a future, and to make Haiti an island "vacation paradise."

What about Haitians? Where is their paradise? This is their country. Haitians want more for their children. They want more for their country.

The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) is unconstitutional. The Haitian parliament should not have subverted the will of the Haitian people by approving its formation. The makeup of the Commission is illegal, because foreigners cannot govern in Haiti.

In the final analysis, the real sin of Haiti was that they were the first ever successful slave rebellion. They established the first free country in this hemisphere. Haitians conquered the white supremacists and are this hemisphere's first black republic.

Will Haitians ever stop paying for being the victors over the white supremacists?

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