19333: Erzilidanto: Jailers are not Haiti's rescuers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com


Haiti's jailers, keeping it contained in poverty, are not "rescuers"

Since Aristide returned in 1994, the former Duvalierists, the tiny
Eurocentric/Haitian economic elites, their FADH and FRAPH death squad leaders and
sycophants, have all been coddled and protected by the U.S. Embassy and State
Department.

In 1994, President Jean Bertrand Aristide was returned by the Clinton
Administration to stem the flow of Haitian refugees littering Florida shores. By now,
most fair and balanced observers will acknowledge that the real Roger
Noreiga/Jesse Helms plan wasn't to restore democracy in Haiti, but stem the flow of
Black Haitian refugees sullying U.S. shores and get the 20,000 U.S. soldiers
sent down there to complete the grassroots Lavalas movement's destruction as
initiated and carried out during the U.S.-sponsored Coup D'etat.

The web of repression in Haiti has always been palpably obvious, as the
U.S/Euro powers, who publicly mouth ideals of democracy, have always turned out to
be Haiti's captors not saviors. It's been going on since 1503 when the first
African captives to Haiti where dehumanized, tortured, maimed and compelled, by
Euro chains, guns, whips, Bibles and dogmas, to work for these
"masters-of-the-universe" for free.

Thus, no surprise, that in 1994, Haiti's old Haitian army officers and the
former U.S.-supported Duvalierists and tragic Black economic elites and their
FADH/FRAPH enforcers (the modern Black Overseers) were to basically bide their
time until the Lavalas grassroots movement cave in or imploded under
U.S./OAS/Euro financial squeezing and obstructionist policies. Then, a U.S. military
intervention would again come in as "peacekeepers" to get rid of the dreaded
Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian army and all would be well in
status-quo land.

But, the Haitian Black masses unexpectedly would not let go of their desire
for democracy, let go of their 200-year old struggle against Hemispheric
isolation and against social exclusion within Haiti itself. Thus, the diabolical
U.S./Euro-with-their-Black-overseers' plan failed. In 2000, Aristide was
legitimately re-elected to a second term and the status quo wasn't re-aligned into its
old neo-colonialist framework as planned.

Today, it appears the alternate plan was, if the U.S./USAID/IRI-funded
opposition to Aristide did not deliver, if the Haitian populist still had some fight
left, as it showed during the January 1, 2004 BI-centennial celebrations,
after some 14 years of battling and pouring Haitian blood for establishing the
rule and law in Haiti, if said valiant peoples continued their march from formal
electoral democracy towards a just, participatory and transparent democracy,
despite all US/Euro obstruction, then the fight would be beaten, whipped,
gunned-out of the Haitian people, demoralizing them completely with CIA trained
and equipped former Haitian military and paramilitary exiled in the neighboring
Dominican Republic.

Veteran observers of U.S. policy in Haiti and every Haitian child understand
that once this staged comeback has pulverized the remaining pro-democracy
grassroots Haitians in Port-au-Prince (if they can), then the U.S./Euros shall
come in as "peacekeepers" to maintain their new and acceptable "political
solution" - code for their new "regime change."

But this is Haiti's 2004th anniversary. The grassroots movement towards
democracy shall fight on no matter how many "peacekeepers" or CIA-trained Haitian
officers that are unleashed. Besides, the Ancestors have been called. Haiti has
broken its Hemispheric isolation. The struggle is global. Another Bwa Kayiman
mobilization is at hand, not only in Haiti but also in U.S./Euro lands.
Haitians, at home and abroad, have only just begun to fight to fulfill the
Dessaline dream of Haiti as a Black rule independent nation. Kenbe la, pa lage.

Marguerite Laurent, Esq
Hip hop attorney and Chair, Haitian Lawyers Leadership