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<h1 class="title"><span id="socialHighlighted"><span
id="tweetButton" class="socialButtonHighlight clickheresocial"><span
class="clickheresocial"></span></span><span id="emailButton"
class="socialButtonHighlight clickheresocial"><span
class="clickheresocial"></span></span></span>Why Haitians
Are Chanting ‘Down with Obama’</h1>
<h2 class="subtitle">They’re enraged at American complicity in the
Haitian government’s blatant effort to rig the presidential
election. </h2>
<div class="byline">
<h2 class="author_name"><small><small>By <a class="author"
href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/james-north/">James
North</a></small></small><a class="author-twitter"
href="https://twitter.com/@jamesnorth7" target="blank"><span></span></a></h2>
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<section class="article-body abody-200664">January 27, 2016<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.thenation.com/article/why-haitians-are-chanting-down-with-obama/">http://www.thenation.com/article/why-haitians-are-chanting-down-with-obama/</a></small></small></small></b><br>
<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n 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.</p>
<aside class="ad full-width-mobile right grey_back"> </aside>
<p>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. </p>
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. </section>
<p>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
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/can-haitis-corrupt-president-hold-on-to-power/">a
well-organized conspiracy to steal the election</a>. 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. </p>
<p>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
<a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/haitians-are-rising-up-against-the-stolen-elections/">was
verified by the respected National Human Rights Defense Network
and other local groups</a>. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>houngan</em>,
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 <em>vodun</em>, the mixture of Christianity and
traditional African religions that is sometimes wrongly rendered
as “voodoo.”) </p>
<p>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). </p>
<p>Several key words came up frequently during the animated
conversations among the rapidly moving protesters. <em>Magouy</em>
means “scheming,” the government’s vote-stealing maneuvers. <em>Ingerans
</em>is “interference,” the efforts by the United States and other
foreign powers to promote President Martelly’s plot. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <em><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html?_r=1">New
York Times </a></em><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html?_r=1">exposé</a>
last March has already confirmed that President Martelly’s close
associates include drug smugglers, kidnappers, and killers. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>As the street protests increased, President Martelly only got
more intransigent. He said the government would push toward the
January 24 vote “<em>tèt dwat</em>,” 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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>If democracy continues to be thwarted here, another word in
common use these past months could become reality. <em>Dechoukaj</em>
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. </p>
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