[News] Why Haitians Are Chanting Down with Obama - enraged at American complicity to rig the presidential election

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Why Haitians Are Chanting ‘Down with Obama’


    They’re enraged at American complicity in the Haitian government’s
    blatant effort to rig the presidential election.


    By James North
    <http://www.thenation.com/authors/james-north/><https://twitter.com/@jamesnorth7>

January 27, 2016
*http://www.thenation.com/article/why-haitians-are-chanting-down-with-obama/*

In 2008, Haitians were ecstatic over Barack Obama’s victory. I remember 
a group of mature, normally realistic men happily insisting to each 
other that Obama’s win a few weeks earlier explained why the price of 
cooking gas had just dropped.

No longer. Over the past week, tens of thousands of angry demonstrators 
regularly chanted “Down with Obama” and carried “Obama Terrorist” 
banners as they marched through the streets, protesting American 
complicity in the Haitian government’s blatant effort to rig the 
presidential election.

The pro-democracy movement just won a major victory, forcing the 
election commission to postpone the second round of presidential voting, 
which had been scheduled for January 24. (The demonstrators then 
increased their demand, and are now calling on President Michel Martelly 
to resign even before his term is up on February 7.) The government 
backed down after days of intense street protests, a promised boycott, 
and repudiation by broad sectors of Haitian society, including the 
opposition candidate who was supposed to participate in the runoff. The 
cancellation is a huge setback for the United States, which spent $33 
million on the election and had been pressing Haitians to go out and vote.

Some mainstream press accounts have described the situation here as 
“chaos,” an interpretation that is completely wrong. In fact, the 
Martelly government had put together a well-organized conspiracy to 
steal the election 
<http://www.thenation.com/article/can-haitis-corrupt-president-hold-on-to-power/>. 
Martelly, who is prevented by term limits from running again, was trying 
to impose his successor, and the US State Department abetted him by 
ignoring the overwhelming evidence of massive vote fraud.

One international newspaper described the tens of thousands of 
pro-democracy protesters as a “mob,” which is also mistaken, and 
insulting. The demonstrators planned carefully, ratcheting up the 
pressure in the streets step by step. After the first round of voting, 
on October 25, the election commission announced with a straight face 
that the government’s candidate, Jovenel Moïse, had come in first with 
32.81 percent of the vote. Moïse almost certainly got less than 10 
percent, and widespread ballot stuffing was verified by the respected 
National Human Rights Defense Network and other local groups 
<http://www.thenation.com/article/haitians-are-rising-up-against-the-stolen-elections/>. 


The first protests were peaceful, but no one paid attention. Martelly 
pushed ahead toward the runoff round. American ambassador Peter Mulrean 
said he had seen “no evidence of massive electoral fraud,” and he 
implicitly urged Haitians to swallow the results. The international 
media totally ignored the rising pro-democracy movement, even though it 
included supporters from nearly all the opposition parties and from 
Haiti’s leading human-rights organizations.

So the pro-democracy protesters increased the pressure. During the 
marches last week, some of them burned tires in central intersections 
and started torching vehicles, bringing downtown Port-au-Prince to a 
standstill. A creative band of protesters at the northern resort enclave 
of Labadee prevented a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from landing its 
thousands of tourists. And as images of smoke billowing over this 
capital started to circulate widely, the rest of the world finally 
started to notice.

Nearly every day for a week, the demonstrators first rallied at several 
points, including a poor neighborhood near the waterfront called La 
Saline; a major source of income there is recycling used oil drums into 
charcoal cooking stoves. On one day, a /houngan/, or traditional 
religious priest, conducted a solemn ceremony to ask for support from 
the ancestors, from the people who had carried out the first successful 
slave rebellion in history, which won Haiti’s independence in 1804. 
(Many—probably most—Haitians believe in /vodun/, the mixture of 
Christianity and traditional African religions that is sometimes wrongly 
rendered as “voodoo.”)

Groups of marchers then started converging, attracting more support, and 
moving rapidly through the Bel Aire and Delmas neighborhoods before 
winding back down toward the Parliament building. People waving Haitian 
flags chanted: “We are rebels. We will not obey.” A sound truck playing 
anti-government songs blasted away. The atmosphere was somehow both 
festive and enraged at the same time. The demonstrators saluted the 
mostly sympathetic bystanders warmly—and then chanted “Shoot Martelly” 
and “Down with Obama,” sometimes adding “Burn Opont” (the discredited 
head of the election commission).

Several key words came up frequently during the animated conversations 
among the rapidly moving protesters. /Magouy/ means “scheming,” the 
government’s vote-stealing maneuvers. /Ingerans /is “interference,” the 
efforts by the United States and other foreign powers to promote 
President Martelly’s plot.

A major source of anger is huge government corruption. Haitians know 
that billions of dollars in aid was pledged after the killer earthquake 
six years ago, but they see little evidence of it. The main downtown 
street, Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, looks like a tropical version 
of Berlin in 1945—empty shells of gutted buildings, and sidewalks choked 
with street vendors struggling to scratch out a living.

People speculate who among President Martelly and his entourage have 
used which ministries to steal and buy houses they could never otherwise 
afford. I reported that a mysterious new $10 “tourist fee” had appeared 
at the airport since my last visit, and the amateur forensic accountants 
immediately discussed who was dividing it up. Millions of Haitians 
survive from money wired home by relatives who work in the United States 
and Canada, and my longtime friend Milfort Bruno says that the 
government takes a cut. “Every wire transfer has a $1.50 tax,” explained 
Bruno, who is the proprietor of the Mahogany Craft Shop, across the 
street from the legendary Oloffson Hotel. “People say Martelly has big 
sacks of cash lying around in his house.” A valuable /New York Times 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html?_r=1>/exposé 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html?_r=1> 
last March has already confirmed that President Martelly’s close 
associates include drug smugglers, kidnappers, and killers.

Why does the Obama administration continue to support such a regime? 
There are several theories here, and they are debated vigorously. The 
most charitable is that Martelly, a cunning musician-turned-politician, 
successfully manipulated US officials into believing that he had 
maintained his once-genuine popularity even after his stealing had 
prompted widespread revulsion. Another view is that Bill Clinton, who 
was known as “Le Gouverneur” during his failed effort to lead the relief 
effort after the 2010 earthquake, has personally benefited by diverting 
funds, and is a partner in crime with Martelly. Jean-Max Vincent, a 
small shopowner up in the coastal Arcahaie region, says he has seen food 
and other items clearly marked as “donations” on sale in local markets. 
“Some of us think Clinton got the money himself,” Vincent said. Still 
another view is that Washington will do anything to prevent the return 
to power of the Lavalas movement, once led by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, 
the former priest who was twice elected president.

But the popular opposition here is larger than the two political parties 
that have inherited some of the Lavalas support. The man of the hour may 
turn out to be Jude Célestin, a moderate figure with questionable ties 
to business who supposedly finished second in the first round, with 
25.27 percent of the vote. Both Martelly and the State Department 
pressed Célestin hard to participate in the second round, but in the end 
he refused to take part in what he called “a masquerade,” thus 
increasing his standing among ordinary Haitians.

As the street protests increased, President Martelly only got more 
intransigent. He said the government would push toward the January 24 
vote “/tèt dwat/,” an expression that translates as “head first,” but he 
had the condescending tone you might use with a child. Only after the 
protests got even more militant did the government concede, with just 
two days to spare.

What’s next? The Haitian Constitution requires Martelly to leave office 
by February 7, although many thousands want him out before then. The 
opposition calls for a transitional government, which would reorganize 
the corrupt elections commission and start over with a new voting cycle, 
which could take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. The State Department 
is still absorbing the shockwaves from its gigantic mistake, and must be 
worrying that Congress may start investigating the wasted $33 million.

If democracy continues to be thwarted here, another word in common use 
these past months could become reality. /Dechoukaj/ literally means 
“uprooting,” but in Haiti’s history actually stands for the vengeance 
that Haitian masses exacted after they chased dictator Jean-Claude (Baby 
Doc) Duvalier into exile in 1986. Enraged groups destroyed Duvalier’s 
properties and attacked and killed some of his functionaries. Today, 
once again, many Haitians are very angry. Unless a fair path toward a 
more genuine democracy is in place soon, Michel Martelly’s $9 million 
beachfront home could become one of many targets.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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