19162: Esser: Media Coverage of Haiti Flawed: Analysts (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: torx@joimail.com

The Dominion
http://dominionpaper.ca

February 25, 2004

Media Coverage of Haiti Flawed: Analysts

by Dru Oja Jay


Recent weeks have seen an increase in violence in Haiti, with armed
"rebels" burning down police stations and encouraging looting. Over
50 people have died since fighting began a few weeks ago.

In those same weeks, a number of Haitian activists, journalists and
media analysts have cried foul, claiming that the media has presented
half-truths and outright lies in their coverage of the situation in
Haiti.

US Support of "Opposition" Ignored

Almost universally missing from media coverage of Haiti, some critics
say, is information about US Government support for the "opposition",
a collection of political parties extremely hostile to the government
of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. "This opposition was
founded and continues to operate with the full, if not always open,
support of the United States,” writes Jessica Leight of the Council
on Hemispheric Affairs. Millions of US taxpayers' dollars have gone
to fund the "Convergence Democratique,” a coalition of opposition
groups that have denied the legitimacy of Aristide's presidency since
his election.

"Groups of former Haitian military have received arms, training and
shelter within the Dominican Republic with the clear knowledge of US
authorities," according to the Haiti Information Project (HIP), a
California-based non-profit. Documentary filmmaker Kevin Pina has
noted that paramilitary soldiers have been seen carrying brand new
M-16s, while the Dominican Republic (where many of the paramilitaries
are coming from) recently received a military aid shipment containing
20,000 US-made M-16s.

History of "Opposition" Obscured

As early as Aristide's 2001 inauguration as President, the
Convergence Democratique was already implementing a "parallel
government,” says Stan Goff, an American writer who was in Haiti
observing the 2001 elections. Aristide won with 92 per cent of the
vote, but the opposition presented him with an "offer" to share the
Presidency with two members of the Convergence.

"The corporate media has neglected to mention that the 'opposition'
to which they refer and repeatedly give legitimacy to, only
represents a meager 8 per cent of registered voters in Haiti,
according to a US poll," writes Anthony Fention, a Vancouver-based
writer and media analyst. Other sources have placed the opposition's
share of popular support at 12 per cent.

Paradoxically, some say, the opposition has more support from the
media than Aristide. "Far from being silenced," says HIP, "opposition
politicians dominate the media in Haiti; wealthy Haitians who do not
support Aristide own most stations and newspapers and Convergence
members are often interviewed on government-run Haitian National
Television."

Aristide's Accomplishments, Popularity Not Covered

Opposition and paramilitary leaders are often quoted as calling
Aristides' government "totalitarian" and willing to use violence to
crush the opposition. The Haiti Information Project argues that the
mainstream media systematically ignores the accomplishments of the
Aristide-led government in favour of this image of a once-popular
president-turned-dictator.

Among Aristide's accomplishments, says HIP, are the disbanding of the
military, the building of more schools between 1994 and 2000 than
were built in the preceding century, the doubling of the minimum
wage, and the creation of new health care programs.

Many analyses have noted that most media accounts perpetuate the
image of a "defiant" Aristide who has lost his mandate. The HIP web
site features photographs of tens of thousands of people attending a
pro-Aristide rally on Jan. 1. Also featured is an excerpt from a New
York Times articles that describes the same rally as a "small but
enthusiastic crowd". Other articles note an inflation of small
opposition rallies into "thousands" of apparent demonstrators by the
Economist and the Wall Street Journal.

Background

200 years ago, thousands of Haitian slaves staged a successful armed
revolt against a much larger French occupying force, becoming the
first and only successful revolution of enslaved people. The United
States, which made use of slavery at the time, led a 50 year boycott
against the nascent republic.

Having endured a number of US-supported military dictatorships, mass
murder of dissidents by the military, and a crushing foreign debt,
Haiti is today the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Re-elected for a second five-year term in 2001, President Aristide
has struggled to balance violent opposition groups, poverty, and
demands from the International Monetary Fund to cut spending. Faced
with a 70 per cent unemployment rate and a dependence on foreign aid,
Haiti suffered from a US-imposed embargo on foreign aid money in 2000.

A 1996 report by the US National Labour Committee revealed that
Haitian workers were producing "Mickey Mouse" and "Pocahontas"
pajamas for less than 12 cents an hour (USD). Despite "active
pressure" from the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), to not increase wages, Aristide's government has since
doubled the minimum wage to about 4 US dollars per day.


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