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From: haiti action <action.haiti@gmail.com><br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3><b>The Emperor Has No Votes: The
Imposition of Martelly, the Reconstitution of the Army, and the
Restoration of Duvalier in Haiti <br>
by Charlie Hinton<br><br>
</b>On April 4, the Haitian government announced that Michel Martelly won
the recent fraudulent “elections” imposed on Haiti by the United States,
France, and Canada, the so-called “international community,” and
sanctioned by the United Nations. He did receive 67 percent of the vote,
but fewer than 25 percent of the electorate went to the polls in a record
low turnout.<br><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>Early in the process, Haiti’s electoral
council had refused to allow Haiti’s largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, led by
widely popular former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to run
candidates, somewhat akin to not allowing Democrats or Republicans to run
in this country, only more so, since Fanmi Lavalas wins every honest
election with overwhelming majorities. Most Fanmi Lavalas members
boycotted these “elections.”<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>First round voting took place on 11/28/10.
Voter rolls contained the names of many of the 310,000 people who had
died in the earthquake, and people had no idea where to vote. The number
of polling places was reduced from around 12,000 in the last genuinely
democratic election in 2000, to fewer than a thousand this time, helping
to create the appearance of a large turnout while keeping turnout low.
Official results claim that 23% of the electorate voted, but
on-the-ground observers claim turnout was much lower.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>By noon, 12 of the candidates, including
Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat, had joined together to denounce the
massive fraud and demand the “elections” be cancelled. That evening,
however, Edmond Mulet, head of the U.N. occupation force in Haiti, called
them both to say they were in the “run-off,” and they withdrew their
opposition. Then the results were announced: Manigat first, Jude
Celestin, the favorite of current President Preval, second, with
Martelly, a close third. Protests broke out all over Haiti. The media
credited the outrage to Martelly supporters, but people from many
political tendencies protested the phony elections, the exclusion of
Fanmi Lavalas, the U.N. occupation, and the introduction of cholera into
Haiti by U.N. troops.<br><br>
The “international community” sent an electoral commission from the
Organization of American States to “recount the votes.” A
<a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/haitis-fatally-flawed-election">
report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research</a> states, “The
amount of votes not counted or counted wrong in this election is
huge…Based on the numbers of irregularities, it is impossible to
determine who should advance to a second round.” Nevertheless, the OAS
decided the “run-off” should be between Manigat and Martelly, in spite of
several violations of Haitian law, and Hilary Clinton personally went to
Haiti to enforce the message.<br><br>
Significantly, on January 16, former dictator Jean-Claude (Baby Doc)
Duvalier returned to Haiti from France, made only more relevant by links
of both candidates to Haiti’s Duvalierist past connections, which have
been unreported in the international press.<br><br>
Martelly’s ties to the former dictator can be traced to his youth -- he
joined the Duvalierist death squad, the <i>tonton macoutes</i>, at the
age of 15. He later attended Haiti’s military academy. Under Baby Doc,
Martelly, a popular musician, ran the
<a href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-22/MichelMartelly_Stealth_Duvalierist.asp">
Garage</a>, a nightclub patronized by army officers and members of
Haiti’s tiny ruling class. After Baby Doc’s fall in February 1986, a mass
democratic movement, long repressed by the Duvaliers, burst forth and
became known as Lavalas, from which emerged Aristide, who was elected
president in 1990 by 67% of the vote, in the first free and fair election
in Haiti’s history. <br><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>Martelly quickly became a bitter Lavalas
opponent, attacking the popular movement in his songs played widely on
Haitian radio. Martelly “was closely identified with sympathizers of the
1991 military coup that ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,”
the Miami Herald observed in 1996, and ran with members of the vicious
FRAPH death squad from that period, infamous for gang rapes and killing
with impunity. On the day of Aristide’s return to Haiti, two days before
the “run-off,” he was caught in a video on YouTube insulting Aristide and
Lavalas: "The Lavalas are so ugly. They smell like s**t. F**k you,
Lavalas. F**k you, Jean-Bertrand Aristide." <br><br>
<br><br>
Martelly’s candidacy had significant backing from an anonymous Florida
supporter who hired the Spanish public relations firm Ostos & Sola to
manage his campaign. This same company secured Felipe Calderón the
presidency in Mexico, and worked on John McCain’s campaign,
</font>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115413435816393.html">
<font face="Verdana" size=3 color="#800080">so there are powerful forces
behind Michel Martelly</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=3>. <br><br>
<br>
</font>In his first visit to the United States, he met with Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, officials from the IMF, the World Bank, and the
InterAmerican Development Bank, indications of where his allegiances lie.
Clinton stated the U.S. is behind him “all the way.” Since his return
Haitian police have violently obliterated three camps of internally
displaced persons living on public land in the Delmas neighborhood of
Port-au-Prince, destroying belongings and violently beating people with
batons. <br><br>
<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>In his visit to Washington, Martelly
announced his intention to reconstitute the Haitian army, disbanded by
President Aristide when he left office in 1995, one of Aristide’s most
popular decisions. The Haitian army grew out of the <i>Garde d'Haiti</i>,
created by the United States Marines, after an almost two decade-long
U.S. occupation that ended in 1934. It was developed from the model of
the Nicaraguan National Guard, which was established the year before to
secure the dictatorship of Somoza after the Marine occupation of that
country.<br><br>
<br><br>
The <i>Garde d'Haiti</i> operated with impunity, was widely hated by most
Haitians, and became an important mechanism through which the U.S.
controlled events in Haiti. Since Haiti has no external enemies, the
purpose of this new army, like the old one, will be to repress the
popular grassroots movement led by President Aristide, who was finally
able to return to his homeland on March 18 to a massive outpouring of
love from his supporters after 7 years of exile in South Africa. (See
<a href="http://haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=125">School of the
Americas: The Haitian Case by Adrianne Aron.)</a> <br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>Haiti now finds itself at a crossroads. On
one side is the Lavalas movement, which has won every honest election in
which it has participated. Aristide put the needs of poor Haitians ahead
of the demands of international and national elites, though by doing so
he created powerful enemies. (See Haiti Action Committee’s
<a href="http://haitisolidarity.net/downloads/We_Will_Not_Forget_2010.pdf">
<i>We Will Not Forget</a></i>.)The Haitian majority has tasted real
freedom and democracy and will not willingly return to the bad old days
of Duvalier, which makes the army restoration all the more ominous.
<br><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>On the other side is Haiti’s tiny elite,
supported by the “international community” and a 12,318 member U.N.
occupation force. They rigged these “elections” in a desperate effort to
present an illusion of democracy to the world and to insure that
transnational corporations will not find their power and privileges in
any way limited in Haiti. They have selected Martelly as the new face of
this repression, paid for by an anonymous millionaire in Florida. Baby
Doc lurks in the background while he dines in fine homes, unable to leave
the country, as a court decides whether or not to charge him with
corruption and embezzlement, while ignoring his far more significant
crimes against humanity. <br><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>The choice could not the more clear:<br><br>
The twice elected Aristide v. the never elected dictator
Duvalier<br><br>
The impoverished majority v. an entrenched elite backed by international
bankers<br><br>
A nation born of rebellion against African enslavement v. the countries
of the former slave masters<br><br>
An economy for all v. an economy for a few<br><br>
One person, one vote v. might makes right<br><br>
Unarmed demonstrators v. tanks and death squads<br><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Verdana" size=3>Haiti needs to be part of the larger global
conversation about democracy and repression, so present in world
consciousness with the Arab Spring. Like in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya,
Syria, Honduras, Uganda, and other countries, Haitians have been shot
dead in the streets protesting, ever since a military occupation
overthrew the overwhelmingly popular, twice democratically elected
President Aristide in 2004. The obstacles remain challenging, with the
imposition of Martelly and the restoration of the army and Duvalier only
the latest ones, but to quote Dr. King, “The arc of history is long, but
it bends towards justice.”<br><br>
<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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