[News] Martelly: Haiti's second great disaster

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Martelly: Haiti's second great disaster
Haiti's new president is a friend of 
coup-plotters, fascists, and armed right-wing groups in his country and abroad.

<http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/profile/greg-grandin.html>Greg 
Grandin Last Modified: 04 May 2011 19:14
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115413435816393.html

No sooner had Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly been 
confirmed the winner in Haiti's deeply flawed 
presidential election than he jumped on a plane 
and headed to Washington, where he met with his 
country's real power brokers: officials from the 
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the 
US Chamber of Commerce and the State Department.

There, he committed his desperately poor country 
- where some 700,000 people are still homeless as 
a result of last year's earthquake - to fiscal 
discipline, promising to "give new life to the 
business sector". In exchange, Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton gave him a strong endorsement. 
"We are behind him; we have a great deal of 
enthusiasm," she said. "The people of Haiti may 
have a long road ahead of them, but as they walk 
it, the United States will be with you all the way," she added.

Martelly, a well-known kompa singer, is an 
unusual choice to lead Haiti. With no political 
experience, he represents a clear break with the 
country's other democratically elected presidents 
since the island nation ousted the dictator 
Jean-Claude Duvalier and ushered in an unprecedented era of democracy.

The US press billed his victory as 
"overwhelming". But with Haiti's most popular 
political party, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi 
Lavalas, banned from participating in the 
election, a vast majority of Haitians didn't 
vote. Martelly took the presidency with just 16.7 per cent of the electorate.

Compare this dismal turnout with the election of 
Haiti's last two presidents. Aristide, a popular 
liberation theologian priest, won the presidency 
twice in landslides where a majority of the 
electorate voted, first in 1990 and again in 
2000. Aristide's first prime minister, Rene 
Preval likewise was elected twice by large 
margins with high turnouts, in 1995 and 2006. In 
this election, Martelly got two-thirds of the 
vote - but three-quarters of registered voters didn't turn up.

It bodes ominously for Haiti, but Martelly may 
have more in common with Gerard Latortue, the 
head of state imposed on Haiti following the 2004 
US-backed coup d'etat against Aristide. A South 
Florida talk-show host, Latortue, like Martelly, 
had no background in politics. But, like 
Martelly, he did have friends in 
Washington.  During Latortue's brief stint in 
office, 2004 - 2006, Haiti experienced some 4,000 
political murders, according to The Lancet - 
while hundreds of Fanmi Lavalas members, Aristide 
supporters, and social movement leaders were 
locked up - usually on bogus charges. Latortue's 
friends in Washington looked the other way.

Martelly's Washington friends include Damian 
Merlo, his presidential campaign manager. Merlo's 
CV should alarm anyone concerned with democracy 
in Haiti. Merlo has worked for Otto Reich, the 
Iran-Contra veteran and supporter of coups in 
Honduras and Venezuela. Merlo has also worked 
with the International Republican Institute, 
which - under the banner of "democracy promotion" 
- funds "civil society" organisations to 
destabilise governments it deems to be a problem.

During his stint at IRI, Merlo took steps to 
weaken Brazil's governing Workers' Party. Prior 
to taking on Sweet Micky's campaign, Merlo beefed 
up his experience with John McCain's failed 2008 
presidential bid. McCain, interestingly, chairs 
IRI's board, and brought Reich on as a foreign 
policy adviser during the 2008 campaign.

Many Haiti observers may be familiar with the IRI 
for the key role it played in overthrowing 
Aristide's government during his second term. IRI 
trained and funded various anti-Aristide groups, 
promoted anti-Aristide propaganda, and, as 
described in a New York Times feature article in 
2006, even worked to undermine political 
solutions being negotiated with Aristide by the 
US embassy and the Organisation of American 
States. Two years earlier, the IRI was also 
deeply involved in the failed coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Support and campaign

While in Washington, Martelly promised his 
supporters that he would promote transparency 
when it came to foreign aid. That openness, 
however, apparently doesn't apply to his campaign 
donations, raising the possibility that he is 
funded by the same groups which drove Aristide 
from power in 2004. Martelly admits that he 
received financial support from foreign sources 
but, in response to questioning by the Miami 
Herald, he refused to identify them other than 
saying they are "people who believe in us". When 
pressed, he deflected, telling the interviewer, "you talk to them".

All told, Martelly reportedly spent some six 
million dollars on his campaign - the equivalent 
of $15billion in the US. To put this in 
perspective, Obama is hoping to spend US$1billion 
on his upcoming reelection campaign.  These deep 
pockets were probably the deciding factor in his victory.

It was Merlo, along with right wing Spanish PR 
group Ostos & Sola with close ties to Spain's 
neo-fascist Popular Party, that successfully 
made-over Martelly's public persona, putting him 
in a suit and encouraging him to tone down his 
rhetoric. These spin doctors counselled him to go 
from "Sweet Micky" - popular and bawdy 
entertainer, to the more respectable Michel Martelly - presidential candidate.

Still, some disturbing "Sweet Micky" outbursts 
bubbled up towards the end of the campaign - 
troublesome YouTube moments that might have 
doomed a presidential contender in the United 
States.  In one, apparently recent, video, 
Martelly was filmed surrounded by a small group 
of friends at a club. "All those shits were 
Aristide's faggots," he shouts in kreyol in the 
candid video, while pulling his T-shirt up and 
rubbing his belly. "I would kill Aristide and 
stick a dick up his ass."  This was followed by 
an audio recording - also posted on YouTube, 
accompanied by a photo of Martelly in a suit - in 
which the candidate denounced Fanmi Lavalas: "The 
Lavalas are so ugly. They smell like s**t. F**k 
you, Lavalas. F**k you, Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Martelly's ties with coup-supporting Republicans 
in the US and neo-fascists in Spain are perhaps 
the least worrisome of the president-elect's 
relationships. His relationship to Haiti's 
violent far-right goes way back. It is well 
known, for instance, that he ran a nightclub 
frequented by Duvalierists in the late 1980's and 
early 1990's. He has also admitted to having 
joined the Tonton Macoutes - the world-infamous, 
murderous militia of the Duvalier dictatorships - 
in his younger days.  Martelly has also spoken 
freely about his friendships with convicted 
murderer Michel François and others involved in 
the coups against Aristide - which Martelly also 
admits he supported. His famous song, "I Don't 
Care" is a rebuff to controversy about such associations.

Obama's push

Despite all these documented troublesome 
statements and associations, the Obama 
administration went to great lengths to ensure 
that Martelly wound up running in the election's second round.

Official results in the disputed first round 
initially had the government-supported candidate, 
Jude Celestin, placed second, with Martelly close 
behind in third. Martelly's campaign alleged 
widespread fraud and other irregularities. True 
enough, but it was not clear that the net fraud 
went against him. When an Organisation of 
American States "expert" mission was sent in to 
determine the actual runner-up, they selected 
Martelly by recounting only a sample of the 
ballots, without using any statistical inference. 
The 234 tally sheets that they disqualified 
turned out to be from areas where Celestin had 
strong support. Six of the seven members of the 
OAS mission were from the US, Canada, and France 
- that is, the countries that supported the 2004 
coup against Aristide. When questioned by 
independent experts from the Centre for Economic 
and Policy Research (who actually counted all the 
voter tally sheets in their independent election 
report), the mission could not explain its methodology.

In fact, the mission's chief statistical expert - 
US statistician Fritz Scheuren - admitted that 
the OAS mission had no statistical basis for its 
recommendation: to replace Celestin with 
Martelly. Observers noted that it was also highly 
unusual - perhaps unprecedented - for an election 
to be overturned without a full recount.

But that is exactly what happened. The Obama 
administration insisted that Haiti's electoral 
authorities accept the OAS mission's conclusions 
and put Martelly on the ballot. Hillary Clinton 
made a surprise trip to Haiti - in the midst of 
the Egypt uprising - just for this purpose. 
Preval was threatened with a cut off of US aid 
and even with being flown out of the country 
before his term was up - ala Aristide in 2004 - 
to pressure him to weigh in with the electoral 
council - even though the council, by law, is supposed to be independent.

Ultimately, the council never achieved a majority 
of members to support putting Martelly on the 
ballot.  But the council's spokesperson publicly 
stated that it had, and the election proceeded - 
with Martelly running instead of Celestin - with 
legal experts unsure whether the election would have any legal validity.

In short, the US government got its way. 
Following the deeply flawed first round of 
elections, Martelly supporters launched violent 
protests, sometimes attacking other candidates' 
partisans. By the time they were over, five 
people had been killed in the riots. Other 
disturbing incidents persisted even after 
Martelly was selected for the runoff ballot. On 
March 8, for example, three campaign workers for 
Martelly's opponent, Mirlande Manigat, were found 
murdered, their bodies mutilated in apparent 
signs of torture. The killers remain unknown, as does the motive.

Martelly and the army

To many observers, the violence seemed 
well-orchestrated, and Martelly conspicuously did 
or said little to attempt to reign in his raging 
supporters. Journalist Kim Ives has noted that, 
during the campaign, Martelly began organising 
something that looked familiar to the old system 
of Tonton Macoute "volunteers".

"For $30, before the election, potential voters 
could join the Base Michel Joseph Martelly," 
writes Ives, "and invest in a pink plastic 
membership card, with photo, which promises many 
advantages (such as a job, say) when the Martelly 
administration comes to power."

As Ives notes, during the Duvalier period, "every 
Macoute received a card that afforded him many 
privileges, like free merchandise from any store 
he entered, entitlement to coerced sex, and fear 
and respect from people in general". The Macoutes 
became one of the most notorious death squads to 
wage terror in the region during the Cold War - no small accomplishment.

Considering this history, one proposal Martelly 
made on the campaign trail is especially 
alarming. He has promised to reconstitute the 
Haitian army, which Aristide disbanded over fifteen years ago.

The modern Haitian army was notoriously 
bloodthirsty. Established by the US military 
during its 1915-1934 occupation of Haiti, the 
army has long been denounced as a prolific human 
rights abuser. Since its 1995 disbanding - 
following overwhelming support for the measure in 
a popular poll - its "veterans" (including 
suspected narco-trafficker, Guy Philippe, and 
Louis Jodel Chamblain - head of security for 
Duvalier since his surprise return in January) 
have played a prominent role in the country's 
violent right wing. They were involved in 
overthrowing Aristide in 2004 and, in the past, 
have also engaged in occasional attacks on police 
stations, pro-Fanmi Lavalas communities, and even 
the presidential palace - sometimes wearing their 
old uniforms. When the death squad named the 
Front for the Advancement of the Haitian People 
terrorised the Lavalas support base following 
Aristide's 1991 ousting, it too was headed up by 
former soldiers - who were also funded by the CIA.

The Associated Press visited one would-be "army" 
camp just weeks before the second round of 
elections, encountering men there who proudly 
acknowledged their role in the 2004 coup. Some 
had served in the military during Aristide's 
first exile, when the army ruled Haiti, killing 
and raping thousands. The AP called it "a 
tableaux of the pro-military fringe right, a looming presence in Haiti".

Some of these "soldiers" and 
"officers"-in-waiting told freelance journalists 
just a few weeks later that Martelly had visited 
their camp during his campaign - certainly an ominous sign of things to come.

In the past, Martelly has made other worrying 
statements. He has said that, "Haiti needs a 
Fujimori-style solution" - a reference to 
Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori's power grab, 
when he dissolved Congress - and called for the 
outlawing of "all strikes and demonstrations" - 
something his backers in Washington would undoubtedly welcome.

Greg Grandin is a professor of history at New 
York University and a member of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of 
a number of prize-winning books, including most 
recently, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry 
Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan 2009), 
which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 
History, as well as for the National Book Award 
and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The views expressed in this article are the 
author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.




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