[News] WikiLeaks' lesson on Haiti

[Anti-Imperialist News]

WikiLeaks' lesson on Haiti

Dec 17, 2010
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/markweisbrot>Mark Weisbrot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/17/haiti-wikileaks

What the US embassy cables reveal about 
Washington's malign influence should make Latin 
American nations quit the UN force

The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks 
is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments 
in the world, the United States government is the 
greatest threat to world peace and security 
today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the 
facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war 
has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, 
most likely, more than a million lives. It was 
completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and 
based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a 
military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to 
Colin Powell, 
<http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=5988>pointed 
out in an interview recently, in the preparation 
for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 
1998 in the buildup to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm 
that Washington causes to developing countries in 
such areas as economic development (through such 
institutions as the International Monetary Fund 
and World Trade Organisation), or climate change, 
it is clear that any information which sheds 
light on US "diplomacy" is more than useful. It 
has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

You either get this or you don't. Brazil's 
president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington's 
displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse 
the confrontation with Iran, gets it. That's why 
he 
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/lula-defends-wikileaks-offers-brazil-s-solidarity-with-jailed-founder.html>defended 
and declared his "solidarity" with embattled 
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even though the 
leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government.

One area of US foreign policy that the 
<http://www.mediahacker.org/2010/11/wikileaks-cablegate-and-haiti/>WikiLeaks 
cables help illuminate, which the major media has 
predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. 
In 2004, the country's democratically elected 
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown 
for the second time, through an 
<http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/04/opinion/oe-sachs4>effort 
led by the United States government. Officials of 
the constitutional government were jailed and 
thousands of its supporters were killed.

The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of 
Aristide's overthrow in 1991, was also very 
similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 
2002 – which also had Washington's fingerprints 
all over it. Some of the same people in 
Washington were even involved in both efforts. 
But the Venezuelan coup failed – partly because 
Latin American governments immediately and 
forcefully declared that they would not recognise the coup government.

In the case of Haiti, Washington had learned from 
its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and had 
gathered support for an illegitimate government 
in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days 
after the coup, and UN forces, headed by Brazil, 
were sent to the country. The mission is still 
headed by Brazil, and has troops from a number of 
other Latin American governments that are left of 
centre, including Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. 
They are also joined by Chile, Peru and Guatemala from Latin America.

Would these governments have sent troops to 
occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? 
Clearly, they would not have considered such a 
move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more 
justifiable. South America's progressive 
governments have strongly challenged US foreign 
policy in the region and the world, with some of 
them regularly using words like imperialism and 
empire as synonyms for Washington. They have 
built new institutions 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/unasur-emerging-geopolitical-force/>such 
as UNASUR to prevent these kinds of abuses from 
the north. Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in 
September of 2008 for interfering in the country's internal affairs.

Is it because Haitians are poor and black that 
their most fundamental human and democratic rights can be trampled upon?

The participation of these governments in the 
occupation of Haiti is a serious political 
contradiction for them, and it is getting worse. 
The 
<http://www.mediahacker.org/2010/11/wikileaks-cablegate-and-haiti/>WikiLeaks 
cables illustrate how important the control of 
Haiti is to the United States. 
<http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/03/07PORTAUPRINCE408.html>A 
long memo from the US embassy in Port-au-Prince 
to the US secretary of state answers detailed 
questions about Haitian president Rene Preval's 
political, personal and family life, including 
such vital national security questions as "How 
many drinks can Preval consume before he shows 
signs of inebriation?" It also expresses one of Washington's main concerns:

"His reflexive nationalism, and his disinterest 
in managing bilateral relations in a broad 
diplomatic sense, will lead to periodic frictions 
as we move forward our bilateral agenda. Case in 
point, we believe that in terms of foreign 
policy, Preval is most interested in gaining 
increased assistance from any available resource. 
He is likely to be tempted to frame his 
relationship with Venezuela and Chávez-allies in 
the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create 
a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti."

This logic is why they got rid of Aristide – who 
was much to the left of Preval – and won't let 
him back in the country. This is why Washington 
funded 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/elections/>the 
recent "elections" that excluded Haiti's largest 
political party, the equivalent of shutting out 
the Democrats and Republicans in the United 
States. And this is why 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/minustah/>Minustah 
is still occupying the country, more than six 
years after the coup, without any apparent 
mission other than replacing the hated Haitian 
army – which Aristide had abolished – as a repressive force.

People who do not understand US foreign policy 
think that control over Haiti does not matter to 
Washington, because it is so poor and has no 
strategic minerals or resources. But that is not 
how Washington operates, as the WikiLeaks cables 
repeatedly illustrate. For the state department 
and its allies, it is all a ruthless chess game, 
and every pawn matters. Left governments will be 
removed or prevented from taking power where it 
is possible to do so; and the poorest countries – 
like 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/top-ten-ways>Honduras 
last year – present the most opportune targets. A 
democratically elected government in Haiti, due 
to its history and the consciousness of the 
population, will inevitably be a left government 
– and one that will not line up with Washington's 
foreign policy priorities for the region. Thus, democracy is not allowed.

<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/minustah-responds-to-day-of-protests-by-tear-gassing-idp-camp>Thousands 
of Haitians have been protesting the sham 
elections, as well as Minustah's role in causing 
the cholera epidemic, which has already taken 
more than 2,300 lives and can be expected to kill 
thousands more in the coming months and years. 
Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, 
there may have been gross criminal negligence on 
the part of Minustah – that is, 
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXnA1Hxq9FM3EuY_FSOZ7GTA0y-Q?docId=e02d10ba8abe485bb2702a97b%20%20b1c6845>large-scale 
dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite river. 
This is another huge reason for the force to leave Haiti.

This is a mission that costs over $500m a year, 
when the UN can't even raise a third of that to 
fight the epidemic that the mission caused, or to 
provide clean water for Haitians. And now the 
<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/wikileaks-reveals-minustah-fatigue-among-minustah-members>UN 
is asking for an increase to over $850m.

It is high time that the progressive governments 
of Latin America quit this occupation, which goes 
against their own principles and deeply-held 
beliefs, and is against the will of the Haitian people.




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/20101217/d74521d5/attachment.htm>