<html>
<body>
<font size=3>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/blum02102010.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/blum02102010.html<br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">February 10,
2010<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Keeping the Lid
On <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Haiti, Aristide and Ideology
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By WILLIAM
BLUM <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>t'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.<br><br>
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.
(<a href="http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.html">
http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.html</a>) <br><br>
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.) <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>William Blum</b> is the author of
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512526/counterpunchmaga">
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II</a>,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga">
Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power</a>. and
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887128727/counterpunchmaga">
West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political
Memoir</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga">
.</a><br><br>
He can be reached at:
<a href="mailto:BBlum6@aol.com">BBlum6@aol.com</a><br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>