27430: Anonymous (Internet) Haiti: Propaganda and the Fake Left (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Please post anonymousl...

This spoof is doing the rounds on the Internet.


Friday, January 27, 2006 1:58 PM
'Steaming Dung' - Haiti: Propaganda and the Fake Left

by Spreb Jague - independent researcher

The first public forums on Haiti have taken place at the World Social Forum in 
Caracas, Venezuela.

One was organized by the Plateforme Haitienne de Plaidoyer pour un 
Developpement Alternatif (PAPDA), a group of peasant organizations, unions and 
non-governmental organizations, that has spearheaded Haitian opposition to the 
neo-liberal plans of the international finance institutions for over ten years. 
That meeting featured PAPDA leader, Camille Chambers, a principled and 
determined activist who resigned his post as chef de cabinet for President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994 in protest at Aristide's compliance with the 
IFI's structural adjustment policies in Haiti.

Chambers was a guest speaker at the rally of tens of thousands that opened the 
World Social Forum on January 24. He told that rally, "The countries present in 
Haiti are merely performing a service for the United States." Agencia Brasil 
reported that Chalmers called the mission "shameful" and called on the 
"solidarity of the Latin American nations to denounce it."

The PAPDA forum, which was presented as a dicsussion about the "imperialist 
intervention in Haiti" was attended by approximately 20 people including two 
Cananda Haiti Action Network (CHAN) activists. Chalmers made a lengthy 
presentation during which he criticized Aristide as well as providing a general 
criticism of neo-liberalism. The CHAN activists criticized Chalmers for making 
no mention of the human rights situation, the political prisoners, or the 
actual nature of the military occupation, but could not bring themselves to 
denounce the extortion, robbery, kidappings and rapes carried out by Lavalas 
Family-affiliated gangs in Port-au-Prince slums over the last two
years.

Chalmers was further pressed about the existing funding relationship between 
his and partner organizations with Canadian government-funded NGOs. He claimed 
that PAPDA doed not receive any funding from any foreign governments. CHAN 
activists persisted with this point, apparently oblivious to the fact that the 
Lavalas Family government 2000-2004 had imposed harsh austerity measures in 
Haiti in order to comply with IMF, World Bank and Interamerican Development 
Bank demands. The Aristide government's austerity programme included the 
removal of the fuel subsidy - a move that sent living costs spiralling in the 
first months of 2003, and moves to reduce the public sector deficit by cutting 
expenditure on education and the public administration. The IFIs were so 
pleased with the Lavalas Family government's performance that suspended aid was 
on the point of being released in early 2004 when the government collapsed in 
the face of an armed rebellion led by 200 right-wing paramilitaries.

During his presentation, Chalmers mentioned the role played by such 
organizations as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in playing a 
subversive anti-democratic role in Haiti. On this point, CHAN activists pointed 
out that a NED program officer had said there were similar problems with 
Aristide and Chavez, and that the problem was they had a lot of popular 
support. The CHAN activists apparently prefer to leave the interpretation of 
the fall of Aristide to the NED, and
ignore the question of how, if Aristide was so popular, a force of just 200 
paramilitaries could overthrow his regime. The CHAN activists seem unaware of 
the fact that, back in January 1991, a coup attempt by the Tonton Macoute 
leader, Roger Lafontant, was folied by tens of thousands
of people taking to the streets of Port-au-Prince to defend their elected 
leader. This was a time when Aristide truly was popular with the Haitian 
masses. In February 2004, this popularity had bled away, and Aristide was left 
dependent on the protection of US security guards. Once the US State Department 
withdraw these guards, Aristide left the country - a far cry from the events of 
January 1991! The events at the end of February, 2004, in Haiti, bear no 
similarity whatsoever with the attempted coup against Chavez in April 2002 when 
Chavez supporters turned out in their hundreds and thousands, marching down 
from the hills into the streets of Caracas to face down the
anti-Chavez troops at their barracks, and confront the enemy marchers in the 
street.

Chalmers claimed that the U.S. led intervention in 2004 came at a time when 
there was a "popular movement" to remove Aristide, but the CHAN activists 
appeared to believe that all the opposition to Aristide was a NED-funded 
conspiracy. The CHAN activists were very pleased with their
intervention in the PAPDA panel, and felt they had some success in convincing 
other praticipants that the popular movement in Haiti is a top-down movement 
totally dependent on its leader, Aristide, and united around the single concept 
of loyalty to this one leader. The CHAN analysis suggests that the only way to 
explain any other political initiatives that do not subscribe to this concept 
is that they are funded and created by the United States.

Interestingly, my research has revealed that Chalmers career path has taken a 
radically different direction to that of his former ally, Aristide. In 1995, 
Chalmers returned to Haiti to teach at the State University and devote his 
energies to remobilizing the popular movement for change. Aristide, meanwhile, 
who had spent three years in exile in Washington, DC, where he had developed 
close links with the US political elite, and especially with Democractic Party 
leaders, continued these contacts on his return to Haiti. My research has 
revealed that Anthony Lake, President Clinton's failed nominee for the post of 
head of the CIA, became a close friend of Aristide, to the
extent that he stood as Aristide's 'best man' when the latter married in 1996, 
and is the godfather of one of the Aristides' two daughters

At the other forum on Haiti, organized by CHAN itself, presentations were made 
by a number of Aristide loyalists including: Euvonie Georges-Auguste of the 
Bureau de Ralliement et d'Appui aux Vaudouisants (BRAV), Paul Loulou Chery, 
Secretary-General of the Confédération des Travailleurs Haitiens, (CTH); Mario 
Joseph, lawyer from the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI); and Lovinsky 
Pierrre Antoine, leader of the political rights organization September 30 
Foundation. Chairperson of the forum was Jean St-Vil of the Ottawa Haiti 
Solidarity Committee.

Chery's CTH is affiliated to the Christian Democrat regional union body, the 
CLAT (Centrale Latino Américaine des Travailleurs), and received funding from 
Belgium-based international, the Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens. In 
2003, the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center engaged in a NED-funded study of labor 
conditions in Haiti; analyzing the history of the domestic labor movement, 
women in the work force, rural labor codes, and the debate over reforming the 
aging labor codes.
The study utilized Solidarity Center interviews with the CTH. Interestingly, my 
research reveals that the CTH was listed as a member of the Group of 184, the 
private sector platform put together in 2003 to co-opt non-governmental 
organizations and to steal the leadership of the anti-Aristide movement away 
from radical elements.

Joseph's BAI was set up by President Aristide in 1995 to make it look like he 
was doing something in response to the recently published Reconciliation and 
Truth Commission Report (Si'M Pa Rele) on human rights violations and impunity 
during the 1991-94 coup regime. The BAI employed American lawyes to investigate 
some high profile cases, and its major claim to fame was the 2002 trial of the 
Raboteau massacre, which led to the convictions of fifty-three men, including 
the top military and paramilitary leaders of the 1991-94 dictatorship. Sadly 
its role in cases that really challenged the conspiracy between the judiciary 
and the economic elite was pretty much non-existent. No
progress was made at all with cases such as the Jean Rabel peasant massacre, 
the Piatre peasant massacre, or the death of 62 children poisoned by medicines 
marketed by the Boulous family's Pharval laboratories. As for the murder of 
investigative journalist and democracy activist, Jean Dominique, who had dared 
to challenge the political direction taken by Aristide, the BAI shamefully 
restricted itself to defending main suspect Senator Dany Touusaint 's right to 
parliamentary immunity.

The BAI has recently morphed into the Institute for Justice & Democracy in 
Haiti (IJDH). It is unclear where this Oregon-based outfit gets its funding but 
a look at its board of directors reveals the presence of Paul Farmer, M.D. PhD, 
Founder, Partners in Health (PIH) and Professor, Harvard Medical School. 
Farmer, a close friend of the Aristides, receives much of his funding for 
Partners in Health from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jean St-Vil is a former employee of the Haitian Ministry of the Environment. 
When St-Vil worked there in the late 1990s. the Environment Ministry, like the 
government as a whole, was
bankrolled by the IMF and World Bank. in return, the government sold 
state-owned entreprises and slashed import tariffs. The economy will never 
recover....

Presentations by the panelists at the CHAN forum covered the range of political 
and social issues facing the Haitian people--the foreign occupation, prospects 
for a truly free election, the ongoing repression and situation of the hundreds 
of political prisoners, social conditions among the population, and the 
situation of Haitian workers.

During the discussion period, one representative of the dissident sector that 
refuses to submit to the authority of Jean-Bertrand Aristide spoke out, to 
state that the 2004 coup against Aristide and
his government is of no consequence to the Haitian people, because, she said, 
"We are in solidarity with the Haitian people, not with one man. He does not 
represent the people."

Further research into this fascinating subject had to be cut short after 
Aristide called collect from South Africa and when my ma answered, he told her 
to spank my butt if I continued with such
silliness.