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<h1><b>Features<br>
</b></h1><h2><b>Signs of the times in Haiti<br>
</b></h2><h3><b>The military, money and the meaning of an
occupation<br><br>
</b></h3><h4><b>Nia Imara<br>
2012-06-28, Issue
<a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/591">591<br>
</a><a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83222">
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83222</a></b></h4><font size=3>
There are periods in a country’s history when the signs and warnings that
history will soon enter into a dramatically different phase are clear as
day. Such is the period today in Haiti, where daily events portend an
inauspicious development for the future: the Haitian Army may soon be
returning.<br><br>
For the past several months, paramilitary groups consisting of former
military men, former death squad members, and new recruits have been
planting themselves throughout Haiti. They are armed, they have new
uniforms, and they are loudly demanding that Michel Martelly make good on
his presidential campaign promise to formally bring back the army, which
former President Aristide disbanded back in 1995 to near universal
support. This past April, one of these groups of hopeful soldiers stormed
Haiti’s parliament to voice their demands and their support for Prime
Minister designate Laurent Lamothe. It is estimated that as many as 3,500
men and women are currently training in impromptu military bases across
the country.<br><br>
President Martelly, who was elected by only a small minority of the
populace in March 2011, has publically denounced the armed men and asked
them to disband. [1] But it strains the imagination to think that he is
truly ingenuous, and anyone who honestly assesses his record would be
hard pressed to assert that he is genuinely displeased with the activity
of the renegade paramilitary. To the contrary, the reformation of the
Haitian Army is in perfect alignment with his plans for Haiti’s future.
Last year, Martelly announced a $95 million plan to form a new army. [2]
To begin, the plan calls for the employment of 3,500 soldiers, as well as
a National Intelligence Service (SIN is the French acronym) that would be
authorized to handle people accused of “terrorism”.<br><br>
Yet the return of the army is far from what the majority of Haitians have
expressed that they want for their country, which is still suffering from
the January 2010 earthquake, from cholera introduced by the United
Nations (UN), and from more than eight years of a debilitating military
occupation by the UN, the United States, France, and Canada, with Brazil
having nominal command of the UN troops.<br><br>
Martelly’s entry into office gave the green light to the unofficial
military, known as the Pink Militia in Haiti, which has since been
actively organizing itself and even claiming authority over the law in
some neighborhoods. This past year especially, a climate of fear and
repression has descended, especially upon those who are active in Haiti’s
most popular political organization, called Lavalas. Reports from Haiti
indicate that pro-democracy grassroots activists are under attack by
elements that are both officially and unofficially affiliated with
Martelly and who would also like to see the return of the army. Due to
the repression, intimidation, and threats to their lives, some activists
have gone into hiding. Many in Haiti who are old enough to remember
compare the period today with the Duvalier dictatorship, which used the
army as an instrument of repression against the poor majority. <br><br>
Martelly’s administration and the UN have permitted these paramilitary
groups to act with near-impunity. [3] This should come as no surprise,
however, since Martelly a loyal supporter of the Duvalier regime who
gained the eager support of the US State Departmenthas been unwavering
in his promise to bring back the army, and because for the past eight
years the UN has consistently sided with the forces that made the coup
against the democratically elected Lavalas government in 2004. Each of
these partiesthe army, the Martelly administration, the US government,
and the UN have a common vision for the future of Haiti. In order for
this future to be realized, it is necessary for the army to be
reborn.<br><br>
* * *<br><br>
Since Haiti is often portrayed as a hopelessly impoverished nation with a
history of political corruption and instability, why the United States is
so interested in Haiti might seem inconceivable. “Why Haiti?” one is led
to ask. Though the answer may be difficult to accept, the facts are
incontrovertible: the United States provided the Duvalier dictatorship
and it death squads with tens of millions of dollars; the US helped to
fund and train the Haitian-born paramilitary that provided the cover to
bring down Aristide’s democratic Lavalas government in 2004; US
organizations including USAID and the International Republican Institute
have generously supplied anti-Lavalas groups with resources and sponsored
anti-Aristide campaigns in the media; the US government aided and abetted
the kidnapping and forced exile of Aristide from Haiti….But what
conclusions should we draw from all this? Why Haiti? What’s in it for the
US?<br><br>
Underlying the question “Why Haiti?” is the notion that Haiti, a small,
desperately impoverished country of ten million souls, has little to
offer such a powerful nation as the United States. It is not commonly
known, however, that there is a vast amount of money to be made in Haiti.
Anyone who has lived in poverty knows how incredibly costly it is to be
poor. The reverse side of this coin: How enormously lucrative poverty can
be.<br><br>
The answer to the question “Why Haiti?” has been accurately summarized by
Haitians who have witnessed the powerful, wealthy elite of this world
tear apart their country since the 2004 coup. Five or six years ago, in
the early days of the occupation, many Haitians explained that the US
sponsored the coup so that it could pave the way for its neoliberal
agenda in Haiti, so that it could privatize Haiti. In order to do this,
it was imperative that the Lavalas movementthe chief obstacle to this
goalbe destabilized and repressed. This is precisely what has taken
place in Haiti for the past eight years, and in recent years, it is clear
that these efforts have borne much fruit. Here are a few
examples:<br><br>
•Promptly after Aristide was forced into exile in 2004, the United States
Congress began to deliberate on the HOPE Act, which provided for the
duty-free export to the US of products manufactured in Haiti. It was
passed in 2006.<br><br>
•In 2007, President René Préval announced that the state-owned telephone
company Teleco would be privatized. In a deal brokered by the World Bank,
the plans were consummated in April 2010, and the company now belongs
primarily to Viettel, a subsidiary of the Vietnamese Army.<br><br>
•In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brokered a deal for the
South Korean clothing company Sae-A Co. Ltd. to open up shop in Haiti. US
diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show that the US government
worked with US clothing manufacturers to oppose a minimum wage increase
for Haitian assembly line workers. [4]<br><br>
•The Inter-American Development Bank, Sae-A Co., and the US government
are presently constructing the Caracol Industrial Park in northern Haiti.
Ground was broken last November, and the US has thus far committed $124
million to the project.<br><br>
•In December 2011, the Dutch company Heineken announced its plans to
increase its shareholding in the leading Haitian brewer from 22.5% to
95%. [5]<br><br>
•After the 2010 earthquake, the Canadian firm Majescor Resources acquired
all of the shares of a Haitian firm in order to begin searching for gold,
copper, and other minerals. Within the past couple of years, US and other
multinational investorsincluding Newmont Mining Corp., Eurasian Minerals
Inc., and VCS Mininghave also acquired permits and spent millions of
dollars for exploratory drilling campaigns for minerals in northern
Haiti. [6]<br><br>
Thus, the gold rush on occupied Haiti is both literal and figurative. But
Haitians have long been aware of their human and material wealth. For
instance, the platform of Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide’s political party, for
his second term in office, included detailed accounts and plans for the
gold and other mineral resources that have recently been “discovered” in
Haiti. [7] The foreign companies and corporations that want to exploit
Haiti invariably claim that their investments will create more
opportunities for the people and that they will facilitate Haiti’s
sovereignty. History, however, tells a different story. <br><br>
For nearly a century, going back at least as far as the US military
occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934US and international business
interests have made duplicitous investments in Haiti that proved to be to
the overwhelming disadvantage of the majority. Then, as during the
Duvalier dictatorship of 1957 to 1986, these interests exploited
repressive conditions to execute profitable business deals with
undemocratic regimes in the service of the Haitian and foreign elite. The
case of rice is an infamous example. In the 1980s, in compliance with
international lending agencies and while the country was still reeling
from Duvalierism Haiti lifted tariffs from rice imports, after which
the US where the rice industry was subsidized promptly flooded the
market with cheaper rice. Haitian farmers could not compete, and the
price of rice steadily rose once Haiti’s dependence on the US for this
staple was consolidated. This policy destroyed Haitian rice farming and
severely crippled the country’s ability to be self-sufficient
agriculturally. In 2010, former President Clinton, whose home state of
Arkansas was one of the largest beneficiaries of this policy, publicly
apologized for his role in this situation, which led to increased
urbanization and an increasing dependence on sweatshop labor to fuel
Haiti’s economy.<br><br>
In his book, Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of
Globalization, Aristide describes this and other salient examples of how
foreign investors’ conditional investment in and privatization of Haiti
have adversely impacted the society. He also provides solutions and a
vision of the future for Haiti, which are simply reflections of the hopes
and strivings of most Haitians, who elected him president by an
overwhelming majority in 2000. During his first term in office in 1995,
with overwhelming popular support, he disbanded the military, which had
consumed 40 percent of the national budget. Today, the people have
consistently expressed their desire for free and widespread access to
education, employment, housing, an inclusive and democratic government,
and an end to the UN/US occupationnot for an army.<br><br>
The right thing for the United States government to do is to break with
its odious foreign policy of supporting dictatorships in Haiti as well as
its abhorrent treatment of the Haitian people. At the very least, it
should withdraw its support of Michel Martelly and the occupation and to
stop trying to control Haiti’s future, by economic or any other
means.<br><br>
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* Dr. Nia Imara is a longtime member of Haiti Action Committee:
<a href="http://haitisolidarity.net/">http://haitisolidarity.net/</a><br>
* Please send comments to
<a href="mailto:editor@pambazuka.org">editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org</a> or
comment online at <a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/">Pambazuka
News</a>.<br><br>
END NOTES<br><br>
[1] Martelly was selected by les than 17% of the electorate. Funded in
part by the US government, the fraudulent elections that brought him to
power violated a number of Haitian lawsfor instance, the most popular
political party, Lavalas, was banned from participatingand were widely
boycotted. See “The Emperor Has No Votes” by Charlie Hinton.
<a href="http://goo.gl/vlPgp">http://goo.gl/vlPgp</a> . By comparison, in
the 2000 elections, the voter turnout was at least 65%, and Aristide was
reelected to a second presidency with 92% of the vote.<br>
[2] “Haitians Train for a Future With a Military.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/BKCp6">http://goo.gl/BKCp6</a> <br>
[3] Time will tell how effectively the UN follow through with its very
recent “crack downs” on the illicit army. “UN crack down armed men
pushing to restoration of army.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/s7ofj">http://goo.gl/s7ofj</a> <br>
[4] “WikiLeaks Haiti: Let Them Live on $3 a Day.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/Sg5xx">http://goo.gl/Sg5xx</a> <br>
[5] “HEINEKEN to increase shareholding in leading Haitian brewer.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/57Tpa">http://goo.gl/57Tpa</a> <br>
[6] “Shock waves Majescor flourishes in post-quake Haiti.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/46gkH">http://goo.gl/46gkH</a> <br>
[7] “Eurasian Minerals Provides an Update on Haiti Exploration Programs.”
<a href="http://goo.gl/g9iiq">http://goo.gl/g9iiq</a> <br>
[8] "Investir dans l'Humain, Livre Blanc de Fanmi Lavalas, Sous la
Direction de Jean-Bertrand Aristide." Published by Imprimerie Henri
Deschamps, Haiti. 1999.<br><br>
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