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INVESTIGATING THE NEW IMPERIALISM<br>
Feature Story<br>
15 January 2005<br>
<a href="http://www.williambowles.info/" eudora="autourl">http://www.williambowles.info/<br>
</a>by William Bowles<br><br>
"I only saw three murdered (homeless) children between 1995 and
the<br>
beginning of 2004," says one missionary who works with homeless
children<br>
and asked that her name not be used. "Since Feb. 29, I have seen or
heard<br>
of over 150 murders of street children and have personally witnessed
the<br>
attacks on more than a dozen occasions." -- "Too Tired to
Cry" by Lyn Duff,<br>
January 12, 2005<br><br>
Whilst the world rushed to the aid of the victims of the Tsunami and
the<br>
leaders of the "free world" pontificated on how humanitarian
they are,<br>
children, in all likelihood, hundreds of children are being exterminated
by<br>
death squads, aided and abetted by US/UN occupation forces in Haiti. But
if<br>
you wanted to find out about this outrage in the corporate or
state-run<br>
media, you'll look in vain as it's yet another example of how the
media<br>
fails to report events that will disturb the carefully constructed
illusion<br>
that surrounds the armed overthrow of the first and only
democratically<br>
elected leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has ever had.<br><br>
As I have reported here in the past, the history of Haiti is an
object<br>
lesson in the history of imperialism but as far as the present is
concerned<br>
it is more clearly an object lesson in how the media misrepresents
and<br>
distorts reportage of events as even the most cursory analysis of
press<br>
coverage of the overthrow and subsequent destruction of everything
the<br>
Aristide government achieved shows (in spite of every obstacle thrown
in<br>
its path by the US and the international
"community").<br><br>
Starting with the murder of Haiti's street kids, the latest obscenity
which<br>
is but one of the legacies of US-imposed "democracy", a search
of the BBC,<br>
the Independent and the Guardian, all allegedly objective and
comprehensive<br>
reporters of the "news" revealed not one single story or even a
reference<br>
to the one published here yesterday and quoted from above, which
contains<br>
eye-witness accounts of the cold-blooded murder and torture of children
as<br>
young as eight years old and numbering in the hundreds, by members of
the<br>
former military/paramilitaries now back in power with US/UN
backing.<br><br>
Can you imagine the headlines and hang-wringing by our media whores
were<br>
the children murdered by Aristide, Saddam Hussein or some other
demonised<br>
individual? But the distortions go much deeper and are far more
insidious<br>
than merely ignoring such events, the distortions by the news media are
to<br>
be found by implication in the way events are selectively covered. Take
for<br>
example these two examples, both from BBC news stories<br><br>
Armed gangs, known as chimeres, loyal to the ousted President Jean
Bertrand<br>
Aristide are thought to be responsible for many of the
killings.<br><br>
Or<br><br>
"Titide" is the affectionate nickname given to Jean-Bertrand
Aristide by<br>
his largely poor supporters.<br><br>
A charismatic former priest, Mr Aristide is now in exile in South
Africa,<br>
pushed from power in February after an armed uprising by former
soldiers<br>
and members of the political opposition. -- "Riot-hit Haitians fear
for<br>
future"<br><br>
In the first extract, supposedly objective reporting we read that
the<br>
"chimeres" are thought to be largely responsible for many of
the killings,<br>
but we are not told who thinks so or whether there is any substance to
the<br>
allegation. In the second example, the fact that Aristide's supporters
are<br>
largely poor ignores the fact that fully ninety per cent of Haiti's<br>
population are poor. The subtext therefore is that it's only the poor as
if<br>
they are some kind of small section of the population. The extract
also<br>
talks of Aristide being "pushed from power" but doesn't mention
the well<br>
documented fact that the former military were armed and supported by the
US<br>
and that this was the second coup supported by the US, the first one
being<br>
in 1990. Nor is there any reference to the decades-long support by the
US<br>
of the Duvalier dictatorship. The real history is erased and we are
left<br>
only with "chimeres", allegedly Aristide's armed
"gangs" and a motley crew<br>
of "rebels" whose only objective is "power" as if
power exists in a vacuum.<br><br>
To compound the gross distortions in the same article (written by
BBC<br>
journalist Daniel Lak) we read<br><br>
The interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, a former UN official
and<br>
Florida resident, has no doubt who [is] to blame for the
trouble.<br><br>
But Lak fails to mention who Latortue really is and who is his
associates<br>
are in the "interim government". Casual reading of Lak's
article would lead<br>
one to believe that he is a responsible person when the complete
opposite<br>
is true<br><br>
These opposition groups, funded, trained and supplied by U.S. forces,
are<br>
waging a contra style war against Haiti. The new government, led by
Interim<br>
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, is made up of human rights criminals,
drug<br>
dealers, and thugs involved in the 1990 and 2004 insurrections. A<br>
consistent and systematic campaign of terror and violence is being
carried<br>
out by the likes of Guy Philippe, Louis Jodel Chamblain, and Jean
Tatoune.<br>
Philippe, a drug dealer and former police chief, plucked from the
Haitian<br>
army to be specially trained by U.S. forces in Ecuador, organized
the<br>
Haitian opposition from the Dominican Republic where he was required
to<br>
check in with the CIA two to three times a month. Chamblain, former
number<br>
two man in FRAPH, sentenced twice for murder, convicted in the 1994<br>
Raboteau massacre and in the 1993 assasination of
democracy-activist<br>
Antoine Izmery, joins Philippe to lead seminars on "democratic"
opposition<br>
with machine guns slung over their shoulders. Tatoune, another FRAPH
leader<br>
also convicted of massacre in Raboteau and identified by victims as
having<br>
shot several civilians, arrived in an U.S. helicopter to stand next to
the<br>
de facto prime minister as a "freedom fighter." -- "The
Destabilisation of<br>
Haiti" 28/11/04<br><br>
Lak's article fails to mention any of this past at all and in fact,<br>
checking through dozens of articles on the BBC's website on Haiti, we
find<br>
only three references to convicted murderer and CIA hitman, Louis
Jodel<br>
Chamblain, who was acquitted in November 2004 in Haiti of murder in a
trial<br>
that Amnesty International called a "mockery of justice". The
BBC story<br>
mentions this but fails to mention Chamblain's association with the CIA
or<br>
US involvement in the 1990 coup that Chamblain was a part of.<br><br>
In one of the other three BBC stories Chamblain is described as
being<br><br>
Trained in the United States and Ecuador, he was a senior security
official<br>
under President Rene Preval, a civilian elected in 1995.<br><br>
But not that he was in the employ of the CIA. Later, in the same piece
we<br>
read (with astonishment) the following<br><br>
BBC Americas regional analyst, James Painter, says it is hard to see
any<br>
political ideology behind the rebels, only a desire to seize power.
--<br>
"Analysis: Haiti's Diverse Rebels"<br><br>
Hard to see because Painter isn't looking and doesn't want us to
look<br>
either. By misrepresenting these hired assassins of the US merely
as<br>
"rebels" (but note, not "insurgents") who just want
power, the US<br>
involvement is removed completely as well as perpetuating the myth of
the<br>
"failed state". Painter fails to refer to the history of these
assassins<br>
and their long association with the US, without which they would be<br>
nothing. Painter's (hidden) ideology obscures the history of the
real<br>
motives behind the coup, a history that's not difficult to discover
(as<br>
long as you don't rely on the BBC or other mass media outlets).<br><br>
Under the Preval government, the US-imposed Structural Adjustment
Programme<br>
(SAP) led directly to the situation inherited by Aristide. The real
cause<br>
of the problems of Haiti are as they are with all the
post/neo-colonial<br>
states, their grossly unequal relationship with capitalism.
Aristide's<br>
first 1990 government, overthrown in 1991 sought to bring economic as
well<br>
political justice to the nation's poor. When the US talks of
bringing<br>
"democracy" to Haiti what it really means is bringing
unrestrained<br>
capitalist exploitation. In 1995, after the US overthrew the military
coup,<br>
it ensured that Aristide would not be returned to power. Instead it
backed<br>
the Lavalas government of Preval, a government committed to SAP<br><br>
... one of the most radical programs being implemented anywhere in
the<br>
world. The SAP has already led to the complete elimination, in some
cases,<br>
of export duties and the sharp reduction of most import tariffs. That
means<br>
trouble for most of Haiti's population, which lives in the
countryside.<br>
Foreign goods are already flooding into the country, threatening
the<br>
ability of farmers to sell their produce. To be sure, peasants
growing<br>
corn, Haiti's largest crop, with only a hoe and a machete cannot hope
to<br>
compete with the massive combine harvesters of Bob Dole's
Kansas.<br><br>
... At the same time, the SAP aims to steal Haiti's nine most
valuable<br>
state-owned industries, including the flour mill and cement
factories,<br>
which have both received bids. The real prizes, though, are the
telephone<br>
and electric companies. The telephone company generates huge profits
and<br>
largely sustained President Aristide's government in exile for three
years.<br>
With a planned expansion from the existing 66,000 lines to a
reported<br>
750,000 lines, the profits will be enormous, given all the
international<br>
phone calls to and from the Haitian diaspora.<br><br>
The electric company, EDH, also can generate substantial profits. But
its<br>
main importance, from Washington's perspective, lies in powering
Haiti's<br>
assembly industries. Presently, most factories have their own costly
power<br>
generation systems. But if Haiti is to "take advantage" of its
exceedingly<br>
low wages, other production costs also must be "competitive" so
that<br>
investors can profit even more enormously. That necessitates a
relatively<br>
low cost and reliable supply of electricity. Ironically, most of
the<br>
Haitian and foreign capitalists who today would like to buy EDH each
owe<br>
the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in electric bills dating
back<br>
for years. "This Week in Haiti", December 27, 1995 -- January
2, 1996 Vol.<br>
13, No. 40. (See also "The Dictatorship of Debt; The World Bank and
Haiti"<br>
By Yves Engler for a current analysis and Wealthy Nations Give Haiti
Under<br>
Dictatorship Aid Denied Democracy)<br><br>
This is the real context that underpins the overthrow of the
Aristide<br>
government, Haiti as an offshore assembly and manufacturing location
for<br>
the likes of Levis and as a market for US-subsidised agricultural
products.<br>
In all of the stories carried by the BBC, the Independent and the
Guardian,<br>
there is not a single mention of this reality in the context of the
current<br>
situation in Haiti. By decoupling the economic and political reality
from<br>
the appearance of events, the public gets an entirely fictitious picture
of<br>
the causes of the current situation. Thus a distorted picture is fed to
the<br>
public who are denied access to the real reasons that lie behind
events.<br><br>
There is moreover, an overriding ideological component to the
media's<br>
distorted coverage that is an intrinsic component of the corporate<br>
disinformation campaign; at no point must a country, but especially a
poor<br>
country demonstrate that there is a viable alternative to capitalism.
All<br>
such attempts must be shown to be intrinsically failures, even if<br>
"well-meaning" failures. Hence at every step of the way, every
conceivable<br>
obstacle will be placed in the path of any country that foolishly
chooses<br>
to defy the imperium. The media in turn, participates in the
process<br>
through the way it covers events, either through omission, distortion
or<br>
the more subtle process of decoupling our current reality from history,
of<br>
how things came to be the way they are.<br><br>
Events, according to the BBC and other mouthpieces of the state and<br>
corporate interests, are decided by individuals, not institutions.
There<br>
are, according to the BBC, no vested interests other than personal greed
or<br>
the desire for power. The West is presented (as ever) as the
disinterested<br>
onlooker, with only the best interests of the Haitian people in mind,
to<br>
suggest otherwise is to view events as a) a conspiracy or b) the
deluded<br>
ravings of an outmoded leftist ideology. The journalists and
"experts" who<br>
write the drivel I've quoted above are fully 'embedded' in this
corporatist<br>
worldview, whether they subscribe to it or not. That they are
"witnesses"<br>
means nothing other than to give a gloss to the fiction of reality.<br>
Interviews with witnesess without history or context also mean
nothing,<br>
they are at best, opinions that are dependent on the overall
"logic" of the<br>
reportage, something the unfortunate interviewees have no control
over.<br><br>
In order to unpack events, it is firstly necessary to be fully informed
and<br>
secondly, to be able to apply some critical ability which implies
an<br>
understanding of why things happen, who stands to gain (or lose).
The<br>
never-ending onslaught on our senses and sensibilities by the
media,<br>
whether fully or semi-literate attempts to make sure that we accept
things<br>
as they are; that we take things at face value and question the status
quo<br>
as little as possible. The poor of the planet are always victims of
one<br>
force or another, something they unfortunately share with us, the<br>
"consumers" of the media's take on things, at least that's how
the<br>
corporate and state-run press would like us to see things.<br><br>
In the case of Haiti, the media focused exclusively on the
"failings" of<br>
Aristide's government and his "armed thugs" and there is no
doubt that in<br>
line with the US strategy of making sure that Aristide failed,
mistakes<br>
were made; but in order to project the US-inspired agenda, it was
necessary<br>
to play down the fact that it was a democratic government, indeed drown
the<br>
fact that it was a democratic government in a deluge of stories
that<br>
focused almost exclusively on the "chaos" and corruption, thus
relegating<br>
the "holy grail" of Western democracy to those "fit"
to enjoy it, thus<br>
demonstrating that "democracy", far from being an absolute, is
merely yet<br>
another weapon of the West's war on the poor of the planet.<br><br>
Copyright © 2005 William Bowles<br><br>
*****<br>
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