[News] Haiti, Aristide and Ideology
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
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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