[News] Haiti After the Press Went Home

[News at freedomarchives.org]

NEW AFRIKAN MILLENNIUM
24 JULY 2004

FROM: ANC Today
Volume 4, No. 29 .
23-29 July 2004

---------------------------------------------------------------------

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
“Haiti after the Press went home”

There was another important July birthday that passed in our country 
without public notice. But no so in Haiti, where thousands of people took 
to the streets bearing
placards carrying the words - "Bonne Féte President Titid" - Happy Birthday 
President Titid.

The birthday demonstrators also demanded the return of Titid - President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an honoured guest in our country. Titid, "little 
Aristide", is the
affectionate Creole nickname given to President Aristide by the poor of his 
country. He quietly celebrated his 51st birthday in our country on July 15.

Where our people did not join him in these celebrations because they did 
not know it was his birthday, the people of Haiti did not forget. But they 
could not join him
because circumstances had taken him and his family far away from his 
beloved motherland.

On July 15, CNN reported that, "Aristide supporters, singing  'happy 
birthday', marched with empty plates and spoons to show they were hungry.

"If Aristide was here, we would be celebrating with him and eat with him at 
the national palace on his birthday today," said Michele Sanon, a resident 
of the Cité Soleil
slum."

Reuters reported that on the very day that President Aristide quietly 
celebrated his 51st birthday and the slum dwellers marched in protest at 
his absence, gunmen killed
two policemen in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince,having fired on a group of 
police officers standing in the street. The authorities said the attack was 
politically motivated.

Port-au-Prince Police Commissioner Harry Beauport said, "We firmly believe 
the police are being targeted, because we have noted a series of attacks 
against our policemen,
several of them deadly."

The news agency said, "With rebel forces still in control of many areas of 
the country, tensions between police and rebels have been rising in recent 
weeks. Rebel leaders
have criticized government plans to disarm their soldiers, a move that 
would leave Haitian police and United Nations peacekeepers in charge of 
security in the country.
The rebels, many of whom are former members of the Haitian army disbanded 
by Aristide in the mid-1990s, have demanded the creation of a new army."

As much as they did not know of President Aristide's birthday, our people 
will be ignorant of all this and much else that is happening in Haiti. They 
will not have had
access to the June 21st article written by a Haitian, Lucson 
Pierre-Charles, entitled "Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos Upon Chaos".

Evidently the US and other journalists, who had come to Haiti in the period 
preceding the removal of President Aristide on February 29th, went home 
soon after the
President was taken out of his country. Pierre-Charles writes that, "The 
country is descending into chaos and to have a better understanding of what 
lies ahead, one needs
to look no further than to the latest travel warning for Haiti issued by 
the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department.

"According to that statement, the situation in Haiti remains un predictable 
and potentially dangerous despite the presence of foreign security forces. 
This warning followed
a report issued in early May by the United Nations reaching a similar 
conclusion."

He continues, "The security apparatus is on the verge of collapsing due to 
the proliferation of small arms, the mere presence of the heavily armed 
rebels and Aristide
loyalists, the increasing gang activities, the rampant rise in kidnappings 
and the release of 3,000 prisoners by Guy Philippe and his squads following 
the ouster of
Mr. Aristide. Some of the rebels will be integrated into the police force 
despite the fact that they killed a great number of policemen and burned 
down police headquarters
in the lead up to the coup.

"In most parts of the country, they appointed themselves as mayors, police 
chiefs and judges. (One report says 6,000 elected officials have been 
removed and replaced
by self-appointed individuals.) Under Mr. Aristide's leadership, the police 
force was often criticized for being too heavily politicized. Under (the) 
technocratic administration
(installed after the removal of President Aristide), the police force will 
consist of convicted human rights abusers, murderers, rapists, thugs and 
death squads who have
committed some of the worst atrocities during the first coup in 1991."

On May 4th, a 9-person Labor/ Religious/Community Fact-Finding Delegation 
visited Haiti. Sent by the San Francisco Labor Council, it included US and 
Canadian trade
unionists, religious leaders and human rights activists. It reported that:

"The coup which deposed President Aristide has led to a serious wave of 
attacks and persecutions of supporters of President Aristide and his Fanmi 
Lavalas Party.
The delegation heard testimony from an elected Member of Parliament for the 
Fanmi Lavalas who is living in hiding, having been driven out of his town 
under gunfire.
Other political leaders and known activists have also been forced into 
hiding, living underground, fearing the death threats and violence directed 
at supporters of the ousted
government. Despite its obvious popularity, the Fanmi Lavalas movement is 
not currently able to have political demonstrations or otherwise take open 
political action
due to the threat of attack.

"The (new administration).has not provided security for those currently mos 
tat risk. The names of Lavalas supporters - and even those suspected of 
being Lavalas
supporters - are being read off on right-wing radio stations as an implicit 
threat. Neither the coup regime nor its international backers have taken 
action to contain what
many Haitians refer to as an anti-Lavalas "witch hunt" that continues to 
this day."

A US human rights activist and College Professor who has been visiting 
Haiti since 1977, Tom Reeves, wrote on May 5, "The very same para - 
military and former
Army officers who terrorized Haiti during the previous (1991) coup are 
doing so today. Their victims are mostly the poor and their popular 
organizations who
supported (and still support) President Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas. We 
interviewed many of these victims who said they recognized their tormentors 
(and in one case
rapists) as the same men who had victimized them a decade ago. Among those 
terrorizing Haiti today are many common criminals who were let out of the 
National
penitentiary by the "rebels," as well as major convicted human rights 
abusers and mass murderers like Jodel Chamblain and Jean "Tatoune." "

The "previous coup" to which Reeves refers took place in 1991, when the 
Haiti military seized power and forced the elected President Aristide into 
exile. The then
US government, opposed to unconstitutional changes of government, assisted 
him to return to power in 1994. On resuming his term as President, he 
dissolved the
Army, leaving the civilian police to be responsible for national security.

Oscar Arias, the former President of Costa Rica, was awarded the Nobel 
Peace Prize in 1987. Disturbed by the reappearance of the soldiers who had 
carried out the
1991 coup d'etat, and the demands that the Haitian army, dissolved in 1995, 
should be reconstituted, he spoke out on March 15.

He observed that one Guy Philippe had been quoted by "The Washington Post" 
saying, "I am the chief, the military chief. The country is in my hands." 
He wrote:

"Nothing could more clearly prove why Haiti does not need an army than the 
boasting of rebel leader Guy Philippe the other day in Port-au-Prince. The 
Haitian army
was abolished nine years ago during a period of democratic transition, 
precisely to prevent the country from falling back into the hands of 
military men.

"Like so many countries in the Third World, Haiti has suffered not only 
from a lack of national security in the sense of borders and territorial 
integrity but also from an
ongoing crisis of human security, the right of each person to live in peace 
and with the guarantee of basic rights such as food, health care, education 
and citizenship.

"The army, long an instrument of suppressive authoritarian regimes, has 
historically deprived Haitians of these fundamental rights.

"The abolition of the army makes as much sense today as it did in 1995. The 
Haitian people still need their government to spend its precious few 
resources on fighting
poverty, not buying arms. They need a professional, de-politicized police 
force to maintain order, not an army that attacks its own people with 
impunity. They need a
say in their country's destiny, not subjugation to the rule of men with guns.

"Were the international community now to stand by as the rebels reinstated 
the army, it would surely destroy the seeds of peace and self-rule that 
have been planted
with great sacrifice by the Haitian people."

Guy Philippe was a death squad leader under the Duvaliers and a member of 
the FRAPH we mention below. He was taken into the police when the army was 
dissolved
in 1995. Human Rights Watch says that police under his command summarily 
executed people they arrested. Discovered to be planning a coup d'etat in 
2000, he fled to
the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Here he linked up with other killers of the Duvalier period, including 
Louis Jodel Chamblain, Jean Pierre Baptiste, who calls himself General 
Tatoune,and the leader of
the 1991 coup d'etat, Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant.

Of Chamblain and Baptiste, the February 29 edition of the "San Francisco 
Chronicle" (SFC) said Chamblain is "a former army officer who later headed 
the Front for
the Advancement of the Haitian People or FRAPH, a paramilitary organization 
responsible for thousands of murders of Aristide followers in the early 1990s.

"Baptiste and Chamblain were convicted in absentia for massacring 
25Aristide supporters in a seaside slum known as Raboteau in the northern 
city of  Gonaives in
1994."

As he and his fellow "rebels" marched on Port-au-Prince in 
February,Chamblain, as quoted by the SFC, said: "The army was demobilized. 
Now the army has been
remobilized and is a constitutional army. Aristide has two choices: prison 
or execution by firing squad."

Concerned at what might happen when they succeeded to overthrow the 
democratic government of Haiti, Deputy Director of the Americas Division of 
Human Rights
Watch, Joanne Mariner, said: "These men, notorious for killings and other 
abuses during the military government, must not be allowed to take violent 
reprisals against
government loyalists."

The SFC also reported that while Guy Philippe served in the leadership of 
the Haiti police, he and his colleagues from the former Duvalier army 
"began collecting
bribes for the drugs that easily pass through this nation of 8 million 
people. Internal reports from foreign observers found that the 'Latinos' 
routinely gave gifts to
politicians and once squeezed the government into exiling its former 
inspector general after the seizure  of more than three-quarters of a ton 
of cocaine implicated the
men."

It is no wonder that Tom Reeves even in 2003, after Philippe and others 
hadstarted their violent campaign against the Aristide government, could 
quote a young man
of Cap-Haitien as saying, "It's the army I really despise. At least now I 
can sit here with my friends and complain. Under the military, I would be 
shot. When I saw
Himmler leading the demonstration by the Convergence last November, I was 
really scared."

Reeves wrote that, "The aptly named Himmler is Himmler Rebu, a former army 
officer who has been involved in several coup attempts."

Those, like Rebu, who prepared the putch that led to the removal of the 
government of Haiti in 2004, carried out a violent provocation at a 
university on December
5, 2003, which they proceeded to blame on Lavalas.

The US journalist and documentary filmmaker, Kevin Pina, Associate Editor 
of "The Black Commentator" wrote: "In the wake of the fabricated events of 
December 5,
the Haitian government and Lavalas endured weeks of clandestine attacks, 
while the opposition demonstrated under heavy police protection.

"Then, on December 26, the great silent beast of Haiti's poor, portrayed as 
violent and anti-democratic by the Haitian press and their friends in the 
international
corporate media, awakened. Tens of thousands of Lavalas supporters hit the 
streets with a singular purpose and objective: that Haiti's constitution be 
respected and
President Aristide be allowed to fulfill his five-year term in office.

"The real battle had just begun, as Haiti's long-oppressed millions 
prepared to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the world's only successful 
slave revolution and the
first black republic."

Michele Sanon who demonstrated in Port-au-Prince on July 15 to celebrate 
her President's birthday and demand his return, carrying an empty plate and 
a spoon, is
part of "the great silent beast of Haiti's poor" of which Pina wrote. She, 
like many among Haiti's urban and rural poor, see President Aristide as 
their very own Titid.

One other of her Lavalas leaders is Annette Auguste, who was arrested  on 
May10, on the pretext that she was involved in the December 5 events. She 
sent out a
message on May 23 from Pétionville Penitentiary, where she was detained.

For us, her words recall a time, which is not so long ago, when we too had 
to fight for our liberation. She wrote:

"While I have been forced to sit in this jail cell I have also seen the 
cynicism of some within our party, brought about by this campaign of 
repression, intimidation
and assassination. I understand their fear, as I am myself a victim of this 
campaign whose purpose is to destroy our hope and aspirations for building 
a Haiti where
the poor are not simple tools upon which to build dreams of personal empire 
and wealth.

"I send you all my love and gratitude for remaining strong in separating 
the lies from the truth in Haiti's current situation. I send you all my 
blessings as a free
Haitian woman fighting for the rights of the impoverished majority in my 
homeland.

"They may imprison my body but they will never imprison the truth I know in 
my soul. I will continue to fight for justice and truth in Haiti until I 
draw my last
breath."

Annette Auguste's moving message draws attention to the real nature of the 
struggle in Haiti, which the working people of that country, the slum 
dwellers who
demand the return of President Aristide, understand very well.

 >From his election in 1990, President Aristide and other patriots have 
been engaged in a complex and difficult struggle to establish the stable 
democratic system that
has eluded the First Black Republic since its birth 200 years ago. They 
have also sought to ensure that this new democracy should address the 
interests of the majority
of the people, the black urban and rural poor.

An adherent of Liberation Theology, together with such outstanding 
progressive thinkers within the Roman Catholic Church as Helder Camara, 
Gustavo Gutiérrez,
Oscar Romero, Ernesto Cardenal and Erwin Kräutler, President Aristide would 
have been inspired by such Biblical teachings as:

    * "He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in 
the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their 
seats, and                                  exalted them of low degree. He 
hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty 
away." (Luke 1: 51-53.)

Opposed to the related political and social outcomes President Aristide 
sought are sections of the population of Haiti, which have historically 
been the beneficiaries
of successive systems of dictatorship that have guaranteed the privileges 
of the few and the impoverishment of the many, keeping the mighty in their 
seats and
subjugating those of low degree. The privileged few have consistently 
depended on state repression to protect this social order, as Oscar Arias said.

The Duvalier regimes of "Papa Doc and Baby Doc" developed this repression 
into open state terrorism against the masses of the people, relying on the 
police, the
Army that was disbanded in 1995 and the "tonton macoutes". Agents and 
practitioners of the Duvalier state terrorism led the counter-revolution of 
2004, which
resulted in the overthrow the Aristide government.

The central purpose of the counter-revolution is to halt and reverse the 
long-delayed democratic revolution in Haiti, guarantee the positions of the 
privileged few,
and ensure the continued oppression, disempowerment and impoverishment of 
the millions of poor Haitians. In many respects, the 2004 
counter-revolution in Haiti
was not dissimilar to the counter-revolution in Chile in 1973, which 
resulted in the overthrow of the Allende government, the death of the 
President, and the installation
of the Pinochet military dictatorship.

In his July article, "Haiti's Cracked Screen: Lavalas Under Siege While the 
Poor get Poorer", Kevin Pina described Haiti today in the following terms:

"Former Haitian military leaders prance hand in hand with Haiti's 
traditional economic elite, intellectuals and artists. The poor black 
majority, who
cannot read or write and continue to support the constitutional government 
of President Aristide, has been deliberately made indescribably poorer in an
effort to force them to turn against their own interests.

"Going to bed hungry is not uncommon in Haiti. The greatest violence here 
is the violence of hunger and poverty. It permeates and consumes everything
in its path. Haiti's phantom "middle class" - the relative few who have 
something such as an education to cling to - can be easily manipulated 
against a
government that has declared itself to be working on behalf of those who 
have nothing save for the conviction that tomorrow may yield a better 
future for
their children. This is especially true when the media inside and outside 
of Haiti do everything possible to make it so."

On February 29th, the day President Aristide was flown out of his country, 
the UN Security Council adopted a Resolution on Haiti. Among other things,
it decided to establish an intervention force and directed this UN 
contingent to:

* contribute to a secure and stable environment in the country, "as 
appropriate and as circumstances permit";
* assist the police and Coast Guard to establish and maintain public safety 
and law and order and to promote and protect human rights;
* support "the constitutional political process under way in Haiti."

What was and is strange and disturbing about this Resolution is that it is 
totally silent on the central issue of the unconstitutional and 
anti-democratic removal
of the elected Government of Haiti. It says nothing about the notorious 
figures who achieved this objective, arms in hand, killing many people.

Seemingly to avoid the obligation to disarm and punish those who took up 
arms against a democratic government, it even directed that the UN forces 
should
discharge these obligations "as circumstances permit".

However, it is perfectly obvious that a safe and secure environment in 
Haiti, respect for human rights, and a return to constitutional legality 
cannot be achieved
without defeating the criminal forces of counter-revolution that 
necessitated the deployment of UN troops and other international 
interventions. The declared
purposes of the UN cannot be realized while those schooled in the brutal 
practices of the Duvalier's occupy the centre-stage in Haiti.

The UN will not achieve its goals if it does not guarantee the safety and 
security and the democratic rights of the leaders and members of Fanmi 
Lavalas, other
democrats and the poor of Haiti who demand democracy and development.

Time will tell whether the UN is ready and willing to live up to its 
obligations to the poor of Haiti, as well as respect the 
binding  principles contained in its Charter
and the Declaration of Human Rights. Time will tell whether what Oscar 
Arias warned against will be avoided - the destruction of "the seeds of 
peace and self-rule
that have been planted with great sacrifice by the Haitian people." What 
has been allowed to happen in Haiti After the Press Went Home raises 
serious concerns in
this regard.

As the African slaves of Haiti fought for their liberation more than two 
centuries ago, among other things the counter-revolution opposed to the 
French Revolution tried
hard to restore the slavery in Haiti that Jacobin France had abolished, 
propelled by the heroic struggle of the risen slaves.

At that time, the outstanding leader of the revolutionary African slaves, 
Toussaint L' Ouverture, wrote to the French Directory and, speaking of the 
counter-revolution,
said:

"Do they think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty 
will calmly see it snatched away? They supported their chains only so long 
as they did not
know any condition of life more happy than that of slavery. But today when 
they have left it, if they had a thousand lives they would sacrifice them 
all rather than be
forced into slavery again. We have  known how to face dangers to obtain our 
liberty, but we shall know how to brave death to maintain it."

Annette Auguste has sent the same message to the counter-revolution of 
2004.In her heart burns the same unquenchable desire to build "a Haiti 
where the poor are not
simple tools upon which to build dreams of personal empire and wealth", 
which inspired her forebears to defeat the mighty European powers and 
establish the First
Black Republic.

The risen slaves achieved their liberation even though their brilliant and 
renowned leader, Toussaint L' Ouverture, was imprisoned far away in a 
French jail. The poor
of the slums of Bel Air, Cité Soleil and elsewhere in Haiti will achieve 
their liberation even though their brave and beloved leader, Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide, is an honored
guest far away in South Africa.

Knowledge of that past, and this future, was the best birthday present that 
Titid received, to celebrate his 51st birthday.

Bonne Fête President Titid.

Thabo Mbeki

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20040726/728742fd/attachment.htm>