[News] Haiti, Aristide and Ideology

Thu Feb 11 11:49:19 EST 2010

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum02102010.html
February 10, 2010

Keeping the Lid On

Haiti, Aristide and Ideology

By WILLIAM BLUM

It's a good thing the Haitian government did 
virtually nothing to help its people following 
the earthquake; otherwise it would have been 
condemned as "socialist" by Fox News, Sarah 
Palin, the teabaggers, and other right-thinking 
Americans. The last/only Haitian leader strongly 
committed to putting the welfare of the Haitian 
people before that of the domestic and 
international financial mafia was President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Being of a socialist 
persuasion, Aristide was, naturally, kept from 
power by the United States  twice; first by Bill 
Clinton, then by George W. Bush, the two men 
appointed by President Obama to head the earthquake relief effort. Naturally.

Aristide, a reformist priest, was elected to the 
presidency, then ousted in a military coup eight 
months later in 1991 by men on the CIA payroll. 
Ironically, the ousted president wound up in 
exile in the United States. In 1994 the Clinton 
White House found itself in the awkward position 
of having to pretend  because of all their 
rhetoric about "democracy"  that they supported 
the democratically-elected Aristide's return to 
power. After delaying his return for more than 
two years, Washington finally had its military 
restore Aristide to office, but only after 
obliging the priest to guarantee that after his 
term ended he would not remain in office to make 
up the time lost because of the coup; that he 
would not seek to help the poor at the expense of 
the rich, literally; and that he would stick 
closely to free-market economics. This meant that 
Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of 
the Western Hemisphere, with its workers 
receiving starvation wages, literally. If 
Aristide had thoughts about breaking the 
agreement forced upon him, he had only to look 
out his window  US troops were stationed in 
Haiti for the remainder of his term. 
(<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.html>http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.html) 

On February 28, 2004, during the Bush 
administration, American military and diplomatic 
personnel arrived at the home of Aristide, who 
had been elected to the presidency once again in 
2002, to inform him that his private American 
security agents must either leave immediately to 
return to the United States or fight and die; 
that the remaining 25 of the American security 
agents hired by the Haitian government, who were 
to arrive the next day, had been blocked by the 
United States from coming; that foreign and 
Haitian rebels were nearby, heavily armed, 
determined and ready to kill thousands of people 
in a bloodbath. Aristide was then pressured into 
signing a "letter of resignation" before being 
kidnaped and flown to exile in Africa by the 
United States. (Statement of Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide, March 5, 2004, from exile in the 
Central African Republic, Pacific News Service 
(San Francisco); David Swanson, "What Bush Did to 
Haiti", January 18, 2010; William Blum, "Rogue 
State", pp.219-20) The leaders and politicians of 
the world who pontificate endlessly about 
"democracy" and "self-determination" had 
virtually nothing to say about this breathtaking 
act of international thuggery. Indeed, France and 
Canada were active allies of the United States in 
pressing Aristide to leave. (Miami Herald, March 1, 2004.)

And then US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 
the sincerest voice he could muster, told the 
world that Aristide "was not kidnaped. We did not 
force him onto the airplane. He went onto the 
airplane willingly. And that's the truth." (CNN, 
March 1, 2004.) Powell sounded as sincere as he 
had sounded a year earlier when he gave the UN 
his now-famous detailed inventory of the 
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that 
Saddam Hussein was preparing to use.

Howard Zinn is quoted above saying "The chief 
problem in historical honesty is not outright 
lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important 
data." However, that doesn't mean the American 
mainstream media don't create or perpetuate 
myths. Here's the New York Times two months ago: 
"Mr. Aristide, who was overthrown during a 2004 
rebellion ..." (New York Times, November 27, 
2009) Now what image does the word "rebellion" 
conjure up in your mind? The Haitian people 
rising up to throw off the shackles put on them 
by a dictatorship? Or something staged by the United States?

Aristide has stated that he was able to determine 
at that crucial moment that the "rebels" were 
white and foreign. 8 But even if they had been 
natives, why did Colin Powell not explain why the 
United States disbanded Aristide's personal 
security forces? Why did he not explain why the 
United States was not protecting Aristide from 
the rebels, which the US could have done with the 
greatest of ease, without so much as firing a 
single shot? Nor did he explain why Aristide 
would "willingly" give up his presidency.

The massive US military deployment to Haiti in 
the wake of the earthquake has been criticized in 
various quarters as more of an occupation than a 
relief mission, with the airport in the capital 
city now an American military base, and with 
American forces blocking various aid missions 
from entering the country in order, apparently, 
to serve Washington's own logistical agenda. But 
the large military presence can also serve to 
facilitate two items on Washington's political 
agenda  preventing Haitians from trying to 
emigrate by sea to the United States and keeping 
a lid on the numerous supporters of Aristide lest 
they threaten to take power once again.

William Blum is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512526/counterpunchmaga>Killing 
Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since 
World War II, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>Rogue 
State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. 
and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887128727/counterpunchmaga>West-Bloc 
Dissident: a Cold War Political 
Memoir<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>.

He can be reached at: <mailto:BBlum6 at aol.com>BBlum6 at aol.com

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