HAITI
U.S. backs Aristide's opponents
By Pat Chin
As we go to press on Feb. 25, the crisis
unleashed in Haiti remains unresolved. President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide continues to insist that he will serve out the term to
which he was elected by the Haitian people, but he has accepted
a U.S.-backed plan that would bring business-led opposition
political groups into the government. However, these groups
have rejected the plan, demanding that Aristide step down so
that they, self-styled "demo crats" who have not been elected
to anything, can take over and run the country.
Meanwhile, heavily armed gangs led by former soldiers and
known death-squad leaders have shot their way into towns and
cities in the north, including Cap Haitien, Haiti's
second-largest city. Popular organizations in Port-au-Prince
have erected barricades on the roads leading into the city
expecting that the coup forces may attempt to take the capital.
And the U.S. has sent in 50 Marines, supposedly to guard the
U.S. Embassy there.
Washington is embroiled in Haiti on many levels.
Semi-official groups like the National Endowment for Democracy
and the International Republican Institute have for some time
been giving open financial and political support to the
opposition political groups led by Haitian business owners. The
U.S. media gave credibility to these groups' charges that
elections in 2000 were "fraudulent," even though Aristide and
his Lavalas party are acknowledged by all observers to have
clearly won the popular vote. These forces have been preventing
new parliamentary elections by boycotting the process. Haiti
now has no legislature because of this.
At the same time, secret U.S. agencies like the CIA have a
history of collaborating with the armed assassins and coup
makers from former dictatorships who have attacked and taken
over the northern cities. While claiming to respect the
Aristide government, Washington has not denounced the coup
leaders as the terrorists they are, instead giving them time to
take more territory and put pressure on the popular forces
around Aristide. The coup leaders, in turn, have been urging
the U.S. to intervene, and some of the gunmen even wear shirts
made of U.S. flags.
However, Washington has to be careful not to be seen as
aiding a coup against a popularly elected president. That would
set off a firestorm of protest in many parts of the world,
something neither the Bush administration nor the U.S. ruling
class need at this time.
The Haitian opposition is clearly hoping that the upsurge in
violence will force Aristide to resign. Washington had even
announced beforehand that any international assistance to stop
the armed onslaught was contingent on an agreement between the
two sides.
Bush and 'regime change'
The U.S. capitalist establishment started years ago laying
the groundwork for the bloody chaos now engulfing Haiti. It has
long wanted to replace the Aristide government with one more
compliant to corporate globalization interests. Even though its
pressure forced Aristide to implement IMF restructuring plans,
Washington still wasn't satisfied. But it did cause him to lose
some popular support, which the U.S. is also exploiting.
Bush might not have declared Haiti a part of his "axis of
evil," but in April of last year Attorney General John Ashcroft
made a ruling that Haitian refugees presented a "national
security" threat to the United States. This was part of the
White House "regime change" strategy, backed by the European
Union, that has long put pressure on Aristide to force his
total capitulation to capitalist financial interests, or be
ousted.
For example, $500 million in loans promised in 1994 were
indefinitely frozen. The money, on which Haiti is still forced
to pay interest, was designed to stimulate the economy. An aid
embargo, imposed in 2001, froze humanitarian projects,
undermining basic humanitarian services relat ed to water,
housing and medical care. This destabilization campaign has
been unleashed on the Western Hemisphere's poorest country,
where many people must walk for miles to get water, family
members sleep in shifts because of the dire shortage of
adequate housing, and the infant mortality rate is over 100 per
1,000 live births, the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
Washington also funded and backed the anti-Aristide
"opposition" made up of the big landowners, many media bosses,
the business elite, their armed gangs and others. U.S. media
coverage greatly exaggerated the size of opposition protests
while ignoring larger demonstrations in support of the
government.
'U.S. is playing games'
"The United States is playing games with Haiti," said
Haitian-born Robert Fatton, Jr., chair of the Government and
Foreign Affairs department at the University of Virginia.
Referring to the National Endowment for Democracy, he said,
"Politically connected groups within the country are openly
funding Aristide's overthrow while the Bush administration is
saying publicly that Aristide should finish his elected term."
(www.bet.com, Feb. 20)
The Feb. 19 web edition of Black Com mentator said,
"Washington had expect ed to remove the former priest through
massive demonstrations--a counter-revolution by
acclamation--hopefully before this year's celebrations of
Haiti's 200th anniversary. U.S. and European media tried
mightily to paint a picture of overwhelming popular
disaffection with Aristide. However, the Haitian people are
intimately familiar with the faces and history of the
'opposition,' gathered opportunistically under the banner of
Group 184. ..."
Sweatshop magnate Andrew Apaid is an opposition leader.
After a trip to Haiti, U.S. Congressperson Maxine Waters, who
represents a largely African American district in Los Angeles,
roundly denounc ed Apaid at a Feb. 11 press conference in
Washington, D.C., in which she detailed a long list of his
shady dealings.
She said she was "deeply concerned about the growing
violence organized by the so-called opposition and what now
appears to be gangs in the northern part of the country being
supported in their violent activities by this so-called
opposition."
She challenged the U.S. government to denounce Apaid and his
Group of 184: "How can the State Department remain silent while
Andre Apaid, who allegedly holds an American passport, creates
so much dissension, disruption and violence in this small,
impoverished country?"
Waters has also criticized Assistant Secretary of State
Roger Noriega--whom she labels "a Jesse Helms political
appointee"--as the author of "right-wing garbage" attacking
Haiti. (www.bet.com, Feb. 20)
At first the White House feigned a hands-off policy towards
the turmoil it helped to create, giving the armed opposition a
chance to advance. It was only after France, Haiti's former
colonial power, took a more active role that the Bush White
House "shifted" its policy by co-sponsoring the power-sharing
plan.
Aristide has lost some support among the masses because of
Haiti's disastrous economic decline, exacerbated by the aid and
loan embargo and his implementation of the IMF's structural
adjustment program. But a Feb. 20 poll of 600 Haitian Americans
by the Pacific News Service found that, although disillusioned
over the worsening economic situation, 52 percent believed
Aristide should remain in office. Only 6 percent supported the
armed wing of the opposition. "Over half of Haitian Americans,
55 percent, believe that the opposition movements are just
interested in power; only 22 percent said those groups are
fighting for democracy," reported the news service.
Hundreds of Haitians and U.S. progressives demonstrated
against a coup on Feb. 13 in front of the UN. Another
demonstration is planned for 11 a.m. on Feb. 28, gathering at
Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and marching to
Grand Army Plaza.
Reprinted from the March 4, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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