Five
Questions About Haiti and the Coup Attempt Echoes of
Venezuela 2002 Are Heard Across the Caribbean http://www.narconews.com/Issue32/article895.html By Al Giordano,
February 19, 2004 Not being a
Creole or French speaker, nor having any experience in the island nation of
Haiti (this French-Creole speaking country shares the isle of Hispaniola with
the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic), I'm going to abide by the advice I so
often give to others: That when
we don't speak or read the language in any given land, we have to be very
cautious and careful not to pretend that we know what is happening in those
places. That's
especially true during times of crisis when the Commercial Media, governments,
and the financial interests behind them both, start spinning their paintbrushes
onto the public canvass. As we saw during the coup attempts in Venezuela of
2002, these are the moments when confusion reigns, when urban legends are
reported as "fact," when lies travel halfway around the world before
the truth can put its pants on, and even the spin doctors get caught up in the
whirlpool of the cesspool of the press pool. In recent
hours, the Pentagon has announced it is sending a team of military advisors
into Haiti. On the same day, the State Department issued an advisory for Peace
Corps members and other Americans to leave Haiti. The rumor mill is at a fever
pitch. Take this
statement from U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, yesterday, when
asked by an alert reporter about Jeremy Bigwood's findings of U.S. government
money spent on behalf of coup proponents in Venezuela: "As
far as the facts of the matter, we have spoken many times before about our
assistance to democracy in Haiti-excuse me-our assistance to democracy in
Venezuela." - Richard
Boucher U.S. State
Department spokesman Oops! That
Freudian slip - confusing the documents that show coup-provoking activity in
Venezuela by Washington with U.S. policy toward Haiti - tells us a lot more
about how Washington views current events in Haiti than most of what
press-spinner Boucher said intentionally. Congresswoman
Maxine Waters (D-California) returned this week from her second trip to Haiti
in fifty days, and implored that "the international press must discontinue
the practice of repeating rumors and innuendos and begin to spend quality time
learning the truth and writing the truth about what is really going on in
Haiti." Haiti - a
nation that celebrates its bicentennial this year - has suffered 30 coups in
200 years. In that context, when President Jean Bertrand Aristide tells
reporters that he will die before being pressured to resign, given his history
as a social fighter, it's probably a safe bet to believe him: "We cannot
continue to move," he says, "from one coup d'état to another." So let's
begin, before the 31st coup d'etat gains traction, asking the questions to help
us learn and write that truth. It's no
secret that the Bush administration - with its extremist Latin America policy
chiefs and their obsessive fear of a red planet - doesn't like Aristide, the
Canadian-educated former Catholic priest, and historic leader of the poor. But
in its final year, the Clinton administration turned on Haiti, too, imposing an
economic embargo against an already impoverished country that has been
continued by Bush. Proponents of the embargo raise different reasons for it:
alleged fraud in May 2000 congressional races, unwillingness to abide by
conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund and other global banking
entities, and one of the questions that must be asked is "what is the
agenda, really?" Is it simply to make an example of a small nation to warn
other Latin American countries that they had better fall in line with
impositions from above? After all we've seen this same trend in U.S. policy for
three years now regarding Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil, all relatively
large and resource-rich countries, and also regarding a smaller, poorer,
country, Ecuador where the policy has already succeeded in turning the
president against his indigenous electoral base and toward obedient compliance
with the dictates of the North. Of course,
the law of unintended consequences kicks in, especially with Haiti, as even AP
reporter George Gedda acknowledged yesterday when writing about Haiti: Among the
congressional dissenters a decade ago was Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
"Aristide may have won an election, but he's not likely to win a medal for
promoting true democracy," Helms thundered on the eve of the invasion. Nowadays,
many in the administration - and in Haiti - would agree with Helms. Aristide's
government has accomplished little but, then again, he has received minimal
support from Washington, which contends that he has violated democratic norms.
Assistance from the United States and other donor countries has been limited in
recent years to food and other forms of humanitarian aid. "They've
cut off aid to the government and starved them of resources," says James
Dobbins, a former State Department Haiti expert. "They've gone to the
opposite extreme of the Clinton administration." Jimmy
Carter is an authority on that subject. Between April and September of 1980,
the Carter White House allowed 125,000 Cuban refugees to land in Florida.
Carter was blamed for arrival of so many unwelcome visitors, and Ronald Reagan
won the state handily that November. And many
analysts believe Clinton lost the only election of his life in 1980 because a
number of Cuban refugees were sent to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, where some
rioted. He won back the Arkansas governorship in 1982. The Bush
White House, not surprisingly, wants disgruntled Haitians to stay put and not
flee to Florida, especially in this election year. As the presidential
balloting in 2000 showed, how Floridians vote is no small matter. While it's
obvious that Washington's policy was to sabotage the Aristide government, now
it's not very clear exactly what the Bush administration wants. But as for what
is happening with this coup attempt in Haiti this week, I have some questions
that I hope readers and others who do speak the language and have experience in
the country can help answer. Five
Questions 1. What Is
at Stake? Follow the
money: What resources would the coup-plotters gain control over by taking the
government? The CIA World Fact Book says of Haiti's economy: About 80%
of the population lives in abject poverty. Nearly 70% of all Haitians depend on
the agriculture sector, which consists mainly of small-scale subsistence
farming and employs about two-thirds of the economically active work force.
Following legislative elections in May 2000, fraught with irregularities,
international donors - including the US and EU - suspended almost all aid to
Haiti. The economy shrank an estimated 1.2% in 2001 and an estimated 0.9% in
2002. The contraction will likely intensify in 2003 unless a political
agreement with donors is reached on economic policy. Suspended aid and loan disbursements
totaled more than $500 million at the start of 2003. The
industrial sector of the Haitian economy is only 20 percent of its $10 billion
annual Gross Domestic Product, and is made up of "sugar refining, flour
milling, textiles, cement, light assembly industries based on imported
parts," and its agricultural products, to which 30 percent of the economy
is based, are "coffee, mangoes, sugarcane, rice, corn, sorghum;
wood," in other words, no big ticket item like petroleum or rare minerals. Which
brings me to the next question... 2. Is This
a Battle for Control of Narco-Trafficking? Haiti has
no luxurious resources to covet, and, as the CIA Fact Book also acknowledges,
it has a very poor infrastructure, low education levels, an inadequately
trained workforce, and less than eight million people... so that leads to the
next obvious question: Where does the drug trade - where the big money exists -
fit into this conflict? Haiti is
not a drug producer nation either, but, as Michael Ruppert wrote back in May
2000, Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, is in
"a key strategic position in between the drug producing countries of South
America - especially Colombia - and the largest single importation center for
illegal drugs in the United States, New York City." Ruppert
noted in 2000 that the Dominican Republic was favored over Haiti by
narco-traffickers and Washington alike. But do current attempts to topple the
government of Haiti foretell a new importance for the western side of the
island to cocaine transport routes, the narco-traffickers, and the bankers who
launder their money? 3. Do
Aristide Defenders Want Foreign Intervention or Not? This is a
tense little question with big consequences for other debates in other regions.
Haiti's ambassador to Cuba says yes, calling for an international police force
set up by the Organization of American States. But Stan
Goff, a veteran of past US military intervention in Haiti, writing last weekend
in Counterpunch, said that "there is an attempt to start a civil war in
Haiti, engineered in the United States of America and supported by its lapdogs
in Caricom and the Organization of American States." So, do we
trust OAS to send cops or troops or not? Can any foreign force be trusted? If
so, which? Or are
there alternative paths to preserving the democratically elected government?
What about, for example, helping the elected Haitian government to defend
itself? As Maxine Waters notes: President
Aristide disbanded the military when he returned to office and has a police
force of only 5,000 for a country of 8 million people. The United States
aborted its efforts to support and train the new police force and currently has
a ban on selling guns and equipment to Haiti. This policy effectively denies
Haitian law enforcement officers the essential equipment that they so
desperately need to maintain order and enforce the rule of law. And,
regarding narco-trafficking, the Congresswoman adds: President
Aristide has given the United States special authority to assist with drug
interdiction efforts by allowing the United States to interdict drugs in
Haitian waters. The government of Haiti does not have the resources needed to
wage a tough and consistent war against drugs, and the president of Haiti is
begging the United States for assistance to eliminate drug trafficking. Which
brings us to the next question... 4. How Can
Washington Justify its Economic Embargo Policy Any Longer? There are a
lot of mixed messages from the State Department, from the IMF, from the
International Development Bank, and others, as to why this economic embargo
still stands. Is the Bush administration really going to make its stand in
Haiti over alleged election fraud in Congressional races? That might be a tough
sell for him this year in 49 states not named Florida. If not that, what is the
justification? And how do Authentic Journalists force clearer answers out of
Washington and these other international entities? 5. Who Is
Financing the Paramilitary Coup Operations? The elected
government may not count with well equipped and trained police, but the
paramilitary coup backers, photographed in recent days armed with fancy assault
weapons, financed their effort somehow. Where are they getting their money? Where there
are paramilitary troops, there is always contraband. To what extent are the
coup plotters in Haiti financed by narco-trafficking money? Is this a repeat
from Bush Senior's funding Nicaraguan contra fighters with cocaine trafficking
proceeds? Is a certain U.S. Senator who led that investigation going to touch
this one now that he's running for president? And what
about governments that have outside interests in Haiti: Not just Washington,
but also France, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and others. Are they
financing, covertly, the paramilitaries? And how do we find out what forces are
financing the coup attempt? Let's begin
with those five questions, and the various questions that they raise. Copublishers
are invited to comment in The Narcosphere. Others can send email answers and
tips to publisher@narconews.com. I'll be inviting some journalists and
investigators who know a lot more about these questions, and about Haiti, than
I do, to accept copublisher accounts in exchange for their labor answering
these urgent questions. Beloved Haiti:
As I write this there is an attempt to start a civil war in Haiti, engineered
in the United States of America and supported by its lapdogs in Caricom and the
Organization of American States.
http://www.counterpunch.com/goff02142004.html