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Word Count: 4400 Another Failed Washington Regime Change: [links in this report added by HaitiAction.net and don't necessarily reflect the opinion of COHA] ¥ On Sunday, June 20, a U.N. peacekeeping mission led by Brazil will take over command authority in Haiti from U.S. forces, which have witnessed an alarming deterioration of the political and economic situation on the island in recent weeks. ¥ The ongoing chaos highlights the hapless leadership of Prime Minister Gerald Latortue and his Rasputin-like Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, as well as the persistence of a host of unanswered questions about the ambience of violence surrounding February's forced transfer of power and Aristide's flight into exile. ¥ Under Gousse, the human rights situation in Haiti remains deplorable, even though the more overt violence has now subsided. Significant numbers of Aristide supporters, in the many hundreds if not more, have been murdered in Port-au-Prince, while convicted criminals, former paramilitary leaders and other vigilantes retain effective control of most of the Haitian countryside. ¥ The new government has eagerly aligned itself with the coalition of thugs that ousted Aristide, making few efforts to prosecute them for their manifest human rights abuses or return to prison those who already have been convicted. Meanwhile, Gousse parades around barking out orders regarding issues far beyond his control, pretending to be a bona fide figure with authentic legitimacy while he devotes his days to fabricating charges against Aristide. ¥ Washington's venerable tradition of benign neglect when it comes to Haiti kicks in, with much-hoped for international aid not materializing. It remains far from clear whether the international community will make the investments needed in Haiti to avoid another devastating cycle of instability and violence, though the Canadian card has yet to be played. ¥ The resources and manpower brought to bear on this crisis by the U.N. peacekeeping mission are disappointingly meager thus far, and given the highly biased nature of Secretary-General Annan's recent report on Haiti-which reads as if it was drafted by Haiti's ultra-conservative business leader and Group 184 coordinator Andy Apaid-the U.N.'s commitment to the reestablishment of genuine democracy in Haiti appears highly questionable. Kidnapping by Any Other Name. . . Yet the situation changed on June 8, when the Organization of American States-a normally rather moribund organization that under outgoing Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria has become little better than a regional policy-making appendage of the State Department-approved a resolution calling for an investigation into the circumstances of former President Aristide's departure. This initiative was passed despite the Bush administration's incessant admonitions that political recriminations should be avoided in order to prioritize rebuilding Haiti's democratic institutions, a declaration that blatantly ignores the fact that it is exactly those institutions that the recent coup had helped to destroy. Thus it seems that the last word about this year's events in Haiti have yet to be written. On the contrary, Washington's overweening role in the uprising that ousted Aristide, as well as its obvious bias in favor of the Haitian political opposition movements Democratic Convergence and Group 184 (which had long heatedly called for such an ouster) may yet emerge as one of the more shocking examples of U.S. interference in the internal politics of a hemispheric nation over the last half-century.
Yet the situation changed on June 8, when the Organization of American States-a normally rather moribund organization that under outgoing Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria has become little better than a regional policy-making appendage of the State Department-approved a resolution calling for an investigation into the circumstances of former President Aristide's departure. This initiative was passed despite the Bush administration's incessant admonitions that political recriminations should be avoided in order to prioritize rebuilding Haiti's democratic institutions, a declaration that blatantly ignores the fact that it is exactly those institutions that the recent coup had helped to destroy. Thus it seems that the last word about this year's events in Haiti have yet to be written. On the contrary, Washington's overweening role in the uprising that ousted Aristide, as well as its obvious bias in favor of the Haitian political opposition movements Democratic Convergence and Group 184 (which had long heatedly called for such an ouster) may yet emerge as one of the more shocking examples of U.S. interference in the internal politics of a hemispheric nation over the last half-century.
Upon arriving at the airport, Aristide found himself surrounded by U.S. soldiers and without his private security force, contracted from an American company, which had been instructed to withdraw by U.S. officials in no uncertain terms. Though the former president admits that he did not physically resist boarding the plane, the destination of which remained unknown to him until he landed in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, he maintains that an overwhelming presence of armed U.S. personnel amounted to a clear effort on the part of the Bush administration to intimidate him into resignation and flight. Aristide continues to assert that he would not have yielded his office without a struggle had it not been for Washington's plenary role in scripting what was to happen in Haiti on an almost hourly basis. Most recently, he has filed lawsuits against unnamed French and U.S. officials for "threats, death threats, abduction and illegal detention." U.S. Denies Aristide's Charges It is clear that the administration has attempted to avoid any damaging revelations on its own role in Aristide's demise by engaging in the same campaign of "character assassination" that it has waged against the domestic critics of its foreign policies. But these diversionary tactics should not be allowed to obscure the explosive nature of Aristide's accusations: namely, that the U.S. government joined with Haiti's richest businessmen in the Group 184 in an alliance to oust the elected government, as well as silently watched several hundred unsavory thugs and former paramilitaries rampage through the Haitian countryside as they headed for Port-au-Prince without attempting in any way to prevent the ouster of the third democratically elected president in Haiti's history. A few courageous journalists and members of Congress-most notably the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, especially Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY), along with Senators Bob Graham and Bill Nelson from Florida-have spoken out in criticism of the administration's Haiti policy and called for a more thorough investigation of the controversial events of February. But like Haile Selassie's scoffed-at plea before the League of Nations in 1936, Aristide's accusations have otherwise received surprisingly little attention. While the hearings held by the Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations Committees to investigate the administration's role in Aristide's departure provided a valuable opportunity for members of Congress to directly challenge Assistant Secretary of State for Interamerican Affairs, Roger Noriega, for his repeated and venomous endorsements of the violent overthrow of elected leftist governments, first in Venezuela and then in Haiti, these inquiries represent only a first step in hunting down the truth. There remains a pressing need for a comprehensive and aggressive investigation into U.S. involvement in Haiti over the past four years, modeled after the Iran-contra hearings in the late 1980s, which could call for punitive action against State Department officials, either in Washington or in Port-au-Prince, found to have played an improper role in the forced removal of Aristide from office. Congressional advocates of a less aggressive and more nuanced U.S. policy towards Latin America and especially Haiti-which has suffered under a lengthy stream of U.S.-backed dictators and periodic occupations over the past two hundred years- should step up the volume of their calls for a full accounting of Aristide's alleged kidnapping. In addition, presumed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would do well to return to his earlier sharp criticisms of the Bush administration's Haiti policy (which was followed with a later dismissive attack on Aristide) with a similar call for an investigation, both in his capacity as the presumptive presidential candidate and as a long-standing member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Such a stance could only enhance his efforts to portray himself as an advocate of a more constructive foreign policy than the bumbling and heavy-handed initiatives being implemented by the incumbent administration.
It is obvious, however, that the prevention of human rights abuses and the prosecution of their perpetrators is far from being a priority of the current government, a fact made abundantly clear on March 20, when newly installed Prime Minister Latortue made a visit to Gonaives, his home town and the city where the recent anti-Aristide rebellion began. There, he hailed the rebels (who had earlier been described by Secretary of State Powell as a gang of thugs) as "freedom fighters" and called for a moment of silence for all those who "fell fighting against the dictatorship"-while standing on the stage with two convicted criminals. The first was Jean-Pierre Baptiste, also known as Jean Tatoune, who was freed from prison in a jailbreak last year after being sentenced to a life term for his participation in the 1994 Raboteau massacre, in which a number of Aristide supporters in a Gonaives slum were killed by FRAPH and military thugs. The second was Louis-Jodel Chamblain, who was convicted in absentia of the 1993 murder of a beloved pro-Aristide businessman and philanthropist, Antoine Izmery. Izmery was attending a memorial service in a Port-au-Prince church for his late brother, murdered by the Haitian military for his opposition to the government, when he was dragged out of the church by soldiers and shot execution-style by Chamblain in the street outside the church. Chamblain subsequently went into exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic, from which he returned early this year to help lead the rebellion against the Aristide government. On April 22, Chamblain turned himself in to the police in Port-au-Prince in an elaborate charade of heroism and sacrifice; before walking to the prison, he stated at a press conference that he was sacrificing himself "so that Haiti can have a chance for the real democracy I have been fighting for," and he was escorted by the omnipresent Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, who bizarrely called the decision "a good and noble one"-perhaps not the phrase that would immediately spring to mind to describe a convicted murderer who agreed to return to jail. It is virtually impossible to imagine any U.S. parallel to such a script. However, Baptiste, rebel leader Guy Philippe, who fled to the Dominican Republic in 2000 after leading an attack on the National Palace in an attempted coup, and scores of other known human rights violators or convicted criminals remain at large, having been earlier freed by their rebel confederates, who resorted to massive jailbreaks to spring them. Gousse: Haiti's John Ashcroft Given increasing evidence of serious misconduct and corruption at some levels of the former government, it is essential that investigations of possible criminal actions should be pursued and those responsible prosecuted (though it is important to note that as of yet, the Latortue government has not presented any evidence directly implicating Aristide in any wrongdoing.) At the same time, the blatant partisanship obvious in the skewed version of justice being propounded by Latortue and Gousse, in which already convicted criminals and other figures notorious for past human rights abusers freely walk the streets while the Justice Ministry pours its scarce funds and manpower into investigating supposed crimes of officials of the Aristide administration, adds up to a serious blow to the credibility and ostensible neutrality of the interim government. The officials responsible appear to be more interested in conducing a witch hunt, rather than acting in a deliberate manner.
Citing these biases and abuses, Lavalas, the party of Aristide now being led by Leslie Voltaire, who served as minister of the diaspora in Aristide's cabinet, has refused to nominate a representative to the panel organizing the new round of elections, raising the possibility that a party retaining the support of at least a significant plurality, if not a majority, of the population, will not soon reenter the political process. Thus far, the blessings of the Bush administration have thus far been sufficient to endow the current government with a certain degree of legitimacy, at least in Washington if not in Port-au-Prince. But the alarming and chaotic human rights situation and the clear partisan bias of Latortue and his key operatives-who appear to have entered into what Jocelyn McCalla, executive director of the New York National Coalition of Haitian Rights [NCHR],* called an "unholy alliance" with the rabidly anti-Aristide gangs that still control most of the country-can be expected to slowly but steadily erode the credibility of this government over time, both at home and abroad. * [ you should check this link to a Tom Reeves essay if you think that NCHR is an unbiased "human-rights" organization. This note not in original COHA report and was placed by the Haiti Action Committee webmaster who is surprised that COHA seems to be overlooking NCHR's recent record]
Most recently, floods killed more than 1,400 people in Mapou and surrounding towns and left tens of thousands more destitute in a region now accessible only by helicopter. In the aftermath of the disaster, humanitarian organizations publicly considered buying bulldozers and building roads themselves, given the government's inability to perform even this most basic of functions. In the face of these developments, Prime Minister Latortue and his cabinet have appeared utterly helpless and pathetically ineffective; many observers fear that worsening economic conditions will engender new rounds of popular unrest if no appropriate action is taken in the near future, further destabilizing the country and jeopardizing the current administration. Meanwhile, the degree of commitment from the international community to the massive task of rebuilding Haiti remains highly tenuous, and much-needed and long-promised aid has once again proved slow to arrive. On June 1, U.S. commanders officially turned over control of Haiti to the U.N. mission led by Brazil in the person of General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, with actual command authority to be vested in the U.N. on June 20. However, at least for now, the U.N. presence is more symbolic than anything else, encompassing only a handful of soldiers who lack even a headquarters. Nonetheless, U.S. troops have begun to withdraw-taking with them crucial equipment, such as the helicopters that had been the only route by which food and other supplies could be rushed to flood victims in Mapou-though some of the Chilean, French and Canadian troops now present will remain under the U.N. force, along with a handful of U.S. soldiers. A larger contingent of American troops may also rotate through Haiti during this year in military exercises, according to General James Hill, chief of the United States Southern Command.
At the same time, the interim administration's toleration of rampant human rights abuses and the U.N.'s abject failure to identify fully investigate accusations made regarding the fall of the Aristide government can be expected to heighten political instability and increase the chances of renewed violence-though the recent decision by the Organization of American States to launch an investigation into the circumstances of Aristide's removal may help in shedding some light on this enduring and ugly controversy. The result of such neglect is predictable: namely, a new round of political instability and violence, continued deprivation for the Haitian people and prolonged anxiety in the Caribbean about the consequences of state collapse in Haiti. It is time for the U.N., Washington, and Ottawa alike to refocus on Port-au-Prince-or risk confronting a renewed Haitian crisis in the years and decades to come.
This analysis was prepared Jessica Leight, COHA Research Fellow June 15 , 2004 The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 216-9261, fax (202) 223-6035, or email coha@coha.org.
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