Haiti's Big Lie
Haiti's Big Lie
Operation Baghdad and Imperial Propaganda
| By Nik Barry-Shaw |
May 01, 2008 |
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17512
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"If you tell
a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it."
- Joseph
Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich (1933-1945)
With six
people killed in the food protests that erupted throughout Haiti in early April,
observers immediately began trying to explain why violence had once again
shattered the country's two years of apparent stability. Yet rather than blame
the massive structural violence of hunger and social exclusion, or even the UN
troops who were responsible for the deaths of several protestors[1], the source
of the violence was said to lie elsewhere.
"Behind the
riots, the spectre of Aristide," as a headline in the newspaper Le Devoir
put it. "If the demonstrators had only socioeconomic demands," explained
sociologist Laennec Hurbon, "they would have understood that you shouldn't loot
businesses." Accordign to Hurbon, the looting and violence had been
systematically planned by partisans of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in an effort to force his return to the country.[2]
These kinds
of baseless accusations are familiar to anyone who has followed Haiti's recent
history. If there is one "big lie" consistently told with respect to Haiti over
the past two decades, it is the allegation that Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his
Lavalas movement used - and continue to use - street gangs to violently achieve
political ends. From the attempted coup of July 2001 that President Aristide
staged against himself, to his instigation of "mob violence" in 1991, to even
the attacks he faked against his church in 1988, the litany of charges against
Aristide made by his foes stretches back to the very beginning of his
involvement in politics.[3] As Peter Hallward notes, it often seems immaterial
to critics of Aristide to make any distinction between fact and accusation.[4]
Yet the success of a propaganda effort, as Goebbels understood, has less to do
with the veracity of its claims than with their ceaseless repetition.
A "big lie",
however, is often difficult to grapple with - due to its very "bigness", all its
various retellings and embellishments. When analyzing a propaganda campaign,
therefore, it is useful to isolate one element of the "big lie" common to most
accounts. The centerpiece in the most recent campaign of vilification is
undoubtedly "Operation Baghdad" and the events of September 30, 2004.
***
Jean-Bertrand
Aristide's second term as President of Haiti would end the same way as had his
first had, cut short in a U.S.-backed coup d'état. Aristide's opposition to
neoliberalism, his defiant stance towards the U.S. and France, and his enduring
popularity with Haiti's poor had made him a marked man from the very beginning
of his term in February 2001. After U.S. Marines forced Aristide out of the
country by plane on February 29, 2004, Haiti quickly came apart at the seams.
Haiti's police force crumbled, the prison system was emptied, and in the absence
of any effective public order, crime, looting and gang warfare spiraled out of
control.
At the same
time, forces of repression hostile to the poor masses were quickly gathering
strength. Three days after being appointed, the new Prime Minister Gerard
Latortue openly embraced the rebels in a public appearance in Gonaives and
hailed them as "freedom fighters".[5] The Minister of Interior, himself a former
member of the military, announced that the rebels that had fought Aristide's
government - composed mostly of members of Haiti's disbanded army and of
paramilitary death squads that operated during the first coup - would be
integrated into the police force.[6] Other factions of the rebels declared the
Haitian army to be re-established and with the support of residents set up a
base in the upper-class neighborhood of Pétionville.[7]
Visiting the
country one month after the coup, an Amnesty International delegation reported a
widespread "pattern of persecution" against supporters of the deposed government.[8]
This persecution was an attempt to pacify the residents of Port-au-Prince's
teeming slum neighborhoods - overwhelmingly supporters of Aristide - who
continued to voice their opposition to the coup d'état and the Latortue regime
that had been imposed on them. As the Haiti Accompaniment Project reported in
July 2004, "despite stepped up repression, many groups in Port-au-Prince and in
other parts of the country were preparing for ongoing long-term mobilizations to
call for the return of democracy to Haiti."[9]
One such
mobilization was the demonstration of September 30, 2004, marking the 13th
anniversary of first coup that ousted President Aristide in 1991. Starting at 10
a.m., a crowd of more than 10,000 protestors wound their way through the capitol
to demand an end to foreign military occupation, the departure of the Latortue
government, the release of all political prisoners, and the return of the
constitutional government, including President Aristide. Soon after the crowd
passed the National Palace, police opened fire on the procession, killing two
demonstrators.[10] Some press reports would claim protestors then retaliated,
attacking police officers and looting businesses.
In a radio
interview the next day, Gerard Latortue was unrepentant about police actions: "We
fired on them. Some died, others were wounded, and others fled." The government
banned all further demonstrations and Latortue indicated that they would take
action against unauthorized protests.[11]
The day after
the demonstration, government officials would announce the discovery of the
headless bodies of three police officers, blaming Lavalas supporters for the
crime.[12] The beheadings were described as the beginning of "Operation Baghdad",
a campaign of terror and mayhem led by pro-Lavalas gangs intended to destabilize
the country and force the return of President Aristide. "The decapitations are
imitative of those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of U.S.
policy in Haiti," explained Jean-Claude Bajeux, head of the Centre
Eucuménique des Droits de l'Homme (CEDH) and an anti-Aristide politician.[13]
In the weeks that followed, Port-au-Prince would crackle with gunfire. The
hospital morgue began to overflow with bodies, and press reports indicated the
death toll to be at least 46 in the first two weeks of October alone.[14]
***
The very
origins of the name "Operation Baghdad" are deeply contested. The interim
government alleged the "fanatical hordes" of Aristide partisans "constantly
claim responsibility for the terror they have instilled, operating under names
echoing doom and gloom such as 'Operation Baghdad'."[15] However, according to
Joseph Guyler Delva, head of the Haitian Journalists Association and widely
regarded as one of the most even-handed observers in Haiti, the term "Operation
Baghdad" was coined by Latortue himself. Lavalas partisans, on the other hand,
had never spoken of any such operation.[16]
The interim
government's version of the events of September 30 was equally suspect.
Government officials presented no evidence that the decapitations were the work
of Aristide supporters, and did not release any photos or names of the alleged
victims.[17] The Comité des Avocats Pour le Respect des Libertés
Individuelles (CARLI), a human rights group, reported that two officers had
been decapitated, but by former soldiers on September 29, the day before the
demonstration. It was not until after the demonstration that the government
began to blame the crimes on Lavalas supporters, according to CARLI.[18]
The interim
government also failed to substantiate its more general claim that a violent
campaign against it was underway. As the Observer (UK) noted one month
after "Operation Baghdad" had allegedly begun:
Evidence of
such "destabilization" is scant. Shootings and robberies have become common in
central Port-au-Prince, but it is not always clear whether they are politically
motivated or the result of crime sparked by desperate economic conditions and an
ineffectual police force. [Minister of Justice Bernard] Gousse said he knew
of only two lootings, and that police officers had only been killed while
carrying out raids in slums.[19](emphasis added)
CARLI's
investigation of "Operation Baghdad" yielded the same result, leading the
organization to conclude that there was no such operation launched by Lavalas
supporters.[20]
Whatever its
origins, the trajectory of the name (or epithet more accurately) and
accompanying story is instructive. The sectors that had participated in the
opposition to Aristide's government - such as Bajeux's CEDH and other
foreign-funded "civil society" groups, political parties, and intellectuals -
enthusiastically took up the "Operation Baghdad" label. They joined in blaming
Aristide and his supporters for the violence wracking Port-au-Prince, and called
on the interim government for more vigorous action against them. [21]
U.S. and UN
officials were also quick to jump on the "destabilization" bandwagon. State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher was unequivocal about the source of the
post-September 30 violence: "Over the past two weeks, pro-Aristide thugs have
murdered policemen, looted businesses and public installations, and terrorized
civilians."[22] U.S. Embassy officials would also repeat the claim that police
officers had been beheaded in "a slum gang operation called 'Operation Baghdad'"
when speaking with human rights investigators.[23]
Lavalas
activists and political leaders, on the other hand, immediately denounced the
violence, and condemned the police for firing on unarmed demonstrators. One
Lavalas spokesperson identified "Operation Baghdad" as "a calculated attempt to
manipulate the media and U.S. public opinion."[24] Trade unionist Paul "Loulou"
Chery charged that the name had been concocted to "demonize the movement, the
people and Lavalas supporters in particular."[25] Likewise, tens of thousands of
demonstrators in Cap-Haitien marched behind a banner on December 16, 2004
decrying "Operation Baghdad" as a plot by the bourgeoisie "to put an end to
Lavalas."[26] These statements, however, rarely if ever found their way into
Western press reports about the violence in Haiti after September 30.
Faced with a
regime intolerant of dissent and outraged at the attacks on the demonstrators of
September 30, the poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince erupted. "Skirmishes,
barricades and spontaneous demonstrations have sprung up daily in poor
neighborhoods around the capital since the police and paramilitary gunmen tried
to stop a massive demonstration on September 30," Haiti Progres reported on
October 6.[27] When the barricades failed to prevent the police and UN troops
from entering the neighborhood, the invaders would be met with a hail of stones
and bottles and other debris thrown by residents.[28]
Destabilization or no destabilization, the Latortue government unleashed a new
wave of repression against the Lavalas movement. Scores of prominent Lavalas
figures and popular organization activists were arrested on charges of being "intellectual
authors of the violence", of hiding "organizers of violence", or simply being "close
to the Lavalas authorities." These arrests were conducted with neither warrants
nor evidence - hardly surprising given the vagueness of the charges.[29] Haiti's
prisons - emptied following the coup d'état - overflowed with detainees, the
vast majority Lavalas members or poor people from the pro-Aristide
bidonvilles.[30]
The frequency
and violence of the police operations also increased dramatically in the
following weeks, with some community members describing their neighborhoods as
being "under siege". The November 2004 delegation of the Centre for the Study of
Human Rights described these chilling conditions:
On an almost
daily basis, the Haitian National Police in various units and dressed in a wide
variety of uniforms, often masked, select and attack a neighborhood in
operations reported as efforts to arrest armed gang members, with UN soldiers
backing them up.
. . . [T]here
are dead bodies in the street almost daily, including innocent bystanders, women
and children. The violent repression . . . has generated desperate fear in a
community that is quickly losing its young men to violent death or arbitrary
arrest.[31]
These
incursions were characterized by "execution-style killings" and in some cases
massacres, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG). On 26 October,
twelve young men were killed in the Fort National area, while on 27 October, the
bodies of four young men were found in the Carrefour-Péan area, near Bel-Air.
"All had been shot in the head and at least one had bound wrists," according to
the ICG, and witnesses identified black-clad police officers wearing balaclavas
as the perpetrators.[32]
Calls for an
independent enquiry into these killings were stonewalled by the Latortue
government. The interim authorities categorically denied any responsibility for
human rights abuses by its security forces, while blocking access to either the
penitentiary or the morgue by journalists and human rights observers.[33]
***
The
announcement of "Operation Baghdad" by the interim government did not happen in
a vacuum. By late September 2004, Haiti's interim government headed by Florida
businessman Gerard Latortue was in dire straits. The 5-month-old administration
was faced with a growing resistance movement in the quartiers populaires
and accusations of corruption and ineptitude were coming from all quarters.
Diplomatic problems began cropping up as well; in a radio interview on September
16, 2004, "Latortue complained that human rights criticism was making his
relations with donor countries difficult."[34]
The
allegations, moreover, seemed perfectly calibrated to the prevailing North
American media environment. The decapitation of Nick Berg by his captors in May
2004 had caused a media shock wave, and on September 20-21, 2004, two more
American contractors were beheaded in Iraq, with the fate of a British colleague
still hanging in the balance as of September 30.[35] What better way for the
Latortue regime to discredit its opponents than to accuse them of the same
tactics as Al-Qaida in Iraq?
The
government's claims should therefore have invited a substantial amount of
skepticism. Latortue was desperate to recover some domestic legitimacy and his
international backers needed a pretext to continue supporting the government's
pacification of the slums.
Port-au-Prince's poorer residents understood quite clearly the utility of the
"Operation Baghdad" fiction. "By saying we are 'gang members' or 'chimères,' the
press are trying to discredit our demands for justice," a Bel-Air resident
explained to the San Francisco Bay View. "Who cares about giving justice to
those criminal gang members who just sell drugs and misbehave?"[36]
"The police
officers will say that this was an operation against gangs. But we are all
innocent," said Eliphete Joseph, a young man from the Fort National district
speaking to journalists following a police massacre. "The worst thing is that
Aristide is now in exile far from here in South Africa, but we are in Haiti, and
they are persecuting us only because we live in a poor neighborhood."[37]
Such
common-sense interpretations were nowhere to be found in the Canadian media, who
generally accepted the government's claims at face value. Although disappointing,
the media's performance was typical of journalistic coverage of Canada's
interventions abroad; what proved to be much more puzzling was the unflinching
credulity of Canadian organizations that claimed to be giving a voice to Haiti's
grassroots.
On October
22, 2004, as government attacks on the slums were reaching a fever pitch, the
Concertation pour Haiti (CPH) issued a press release "denouncing the climate of
terror ravaging Haiti, particularly since September 30, when the chimères, the
armed partisans of former President Aristide, launched Operation Baghdad."[38]
Just a few days earlier, the Quebec-based non-governmental organization (NGO)
Alternatives had produced a near identical analysis of the situation in Haiti.
"A vast operation of terror has been set in motion in Port-au-Prince principally
in the popular neighborhoods of Bel-Air and Cite Soleil. It is militants of [Aristide's]
Famni Lavalas who are behind this campaign," wrote Tania Vachon in the Journal
d'Alternatives, a monthly insert in Le Devoir, "dubbed 'Operation
Baghdad' because of the extreme acts of violence that are perpetrated: public
beheadings, sexual assaults, attacks on street vendors etc."[39]
Neither
article considered the possibility that the interim government and its foreign
backers were trying to manipulate public opinion. Latortue's accusation that
Lavalas had launched "Operation Baghdad" was uncritically repeated, while no
mention was made of Lavalas statements to the contrary.
Alternatives
and the CPH both lamented the lack of action by UN forces and Haiti's police in
the face of a wave of Lavalassian violence, with the CPH going so far as to
complain that police operations in the poor neighborhoods "regularly fail[ed] to
produce results." Neither group mentioned the well-documented "results"- in the
form of brutal killings and arbitrary arrests - produced by the ongoing UN/police
incursions into the pro-Lavalas slums. The CPH communique ended with a call for
reinforcement and increased funding of the police and UN troops.
With blame
for the violence being heaped on Lavalas, Latortue's international patrons were
able to give their full backing to the campaign of repression. Despite a
long-standing arms embargo on Haiti, the US government authorized the shipment
of thousands of new firearms to the Latortue government in November 2004,
including military rifles and machine guns.[40] Then-Prime Minister Paul Martin,
visiting Haiti on November 14, promised Canada would stand "shoulder to shoulder"
in with the interim government in their efforts to re-establish "security". "You're
not going to have a democracy when people are afraid for their lives," said
Martin.[41]
***
Sadly, the
views of the CPH and Alternatives were not idiosyncratic. The CPH issued its
statement on behalf of a coalition of development NGOs, unions and civil society
groups, and Alternatives generally occupies the left wing of the NGO world.[42]
Despite having opposed the 1991 coup d'état against Aristide, by the time of the
second coup in 2004 the CPH, Alternatives and the vast majority of Canadian NGOs
working in Haiti were openly hostile to the popular movement and regarded much
of violence that followed as the result of a shadowy conspiracy of Aristide
supporters - with the puppet master pulling the strings from his exile in South
Africa. The "Operation Baghdad" smear is today common currency amongst NGOs and
continues to be used against Lavalas activists. In a recently published report,
Alternatives referred to it simply as "one of the most serious massacres since
2004."[43]
The
tumultuous class dynamics of Haiti over the past two decades were deeply linked
to the ideological volte-face of the NGOs. Born of a cross-class alliance
against the Duvalier dictatorship, the Lavalas movement began to fracture along
class lines with the advent of democracy - a process accelerated by foreign
funding. In the struggle that emerged between the Haitian elite and the popular
classes, the shift in aid financing following the May 2000 elections that
brought Aristide's Famni Lavalas party into power proved decisive. The Canadian
government, along with the U.S. and the EU, redirected funds for the elected
government to "civil society", thus tipping the scales in the elite's favour.[44]
Sections of
the middle classes were "slowly co-opted by the steady trickle of project
dollars flowing through the almost interminable list of NGOs infesting every
corner of Haiti."[45] Development funding offered a rare opportunity for upward
mobility, and led to greater control of Haitian NGOs by their
internationally-connected leaderships. Increasingly, positions were "not derived
from a vote of a dwindling membership, but rather reflect[ed] the sentiments of
a small handful of paid leaders."[46]
These
educated, French-speaking leaders now regarded their former ally Aristide as "worse
than Cedras or Duvalier" and "aligned with the elite political movement" pushing
for his overthrow.[47] They dismissed the government's supporters -
overwhelmingly poor, uneducated and Creole-speaking - as nothing but a small
group of "thugs" and "chimères". Aristide was pronounced a traitor and the
popular movement dead.
Interestingly,
the international architects of policy towards Haiti weren't beholden to such
illusions about Aristide's popularity. Speaking with journalist Anthony Fenton,
Fabiola Cordova, National Endowment for Democracy program officer responsible
for Haiti, remarked that "one of the main problems in Haiti has been a very weak
opposition . . . Aristide really had 70% of the popular support and then the 120
other parties had the thirty per cent split in one hundred and twenty different
ways."[48]
Following the
coup d'état of February 29, 2004, Haitian NGOs hailed the new "democratic
opening" as many of their leaders obtained posts in the interim government.
Rallying behind the interim authorities' repression of Lavalas supporters, these
groups took up the "Operation Baghdad" label as another ideological stick to
beat their opponents with.[49] Canadian NGOs absorbed the prejudices of their
middle-class "partners" in Haiti, including unquestioning acceptance of the
interim government's "Operation Baghdad" fiction.
***
In a review
of Canada's "difficult partnership" with Haiti, CIDA concluded that their shift
to "supporting civil society initiatives and Canadian NGO partners produced
relatively good qualitative results." "Substantial support to non-governmental
actors strengthened their ability to mobilize constituents" while "eroding
legitimacy, capacity and will of the state to deliver key services" through the
creation of "parallel systems of service delivery."[50] Canadian NGOs, in other
words, played an integral part in bolstering the elite-led opposition while
undermining Haiti's elected government.
CIDA's candid
description Canadian NGOs' role in the imperial destabilization of Haiti clashes
dramatically with their self-image. These organizations firmly believe that
their CIDA project partners in Haiti "represent" civil society, are the "true"
bearers of the popular movement, etc. The implicit assumption is that CIDA is in
the business of funding progressive, empowering social change. Yet with the
ascendancy of "all-of-government engagement" and counterinsurgency warfare
concepts in Canadian foreign policy thinking, faith in a benevolent, empowering
CIDA becomes increasingly untenable.[51] Indeed, the subordination of aid to
larger foreign policy goals - goals absolutely hostile to popular empowerment -
is an area where "Canada has made significant headway" in Haiti, as the CIDA
report noted.[52]
To point out
that, whatever delusions to the contrary, the empowerment of the poor may not be
the ultimate aim of foreign aid is not particularly original. As James Ferguson
observed in his 1990 book The Anti-Politics Machine: "In spite of the
very common involvement of 'development' with counter-insurgency throughout the
post-war period, a surprising number of Western progressives have been drawn to
'development' work by way of political commitments to and solidarity with Third
World causes." While Ferguson allowed that "under certain circumstances"
development work may fulfill such commitments, "it is all too easy to enter into
complicity with a state bureaucracy [representing] the very social forces . . .
that must be challenged if the impoverished and oppressed majority are to
improve their lot."[53] The case of "Operation Baghdad" illustrates just how
real this danger is.
Notes:
[1] "One
protester killed as demonstrations grow in Haiti," Haiti Information Project,
April 4, 2008.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/4_4_8/4_4_8.html
[2] Étienne
Côté-Paluck, "Haïti - Derrière les émeutes, le spectre d'Aristide," Le Devoir,
April 12-13, 2008.
http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/04/12/184765.html
[3] See Jim
Naureckas, "Enemy Ally: The Demonization of Jean-Bertrand Aristide," Extra!,
November/December 1994, and Ben Dupuy, "The Attempted Character Assassination of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide", Peter Philips & Project Censored ed. Censored 1999:
The news that didn't make the news, Seven Stories Press, 1999.
[4] "What
Dupuy means by the word 'immaterial', presumably, is that when he repeatedly
accuses Aristide of creating and directing these [gangs], it is immaterial
whether or not such accusations are in fact correct." Hallward is here reviewing
Alex Dupuy's The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
International Community and Haiti. Peter Hallward, "Aristide and The
Violence of Democracy", Haiti Liberté, July 2007.
[5] "South
Africa to Become Permanent Home for Aristide," Washington Post, March 25, 2004.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23769-2004Mar25_2.html
[6] Reuters,
March 23, 2004.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/670.html
[7] Tom
Griffin, "Haiti Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21", Center for the
Study of Human Rights, p. 18-24.
[8] Amnesty
International, "Haiti: Breaking the cycle of violence: A last chance for
Haiti?".
http://www.amnesty.org/en/report/info/AMR36/038/2004
[9] Laura
Flynn, Robert Roth and Leslie Fleming, "Report of the Haiti Accompaniment
Project," June 29-July 9, 2004.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/hap6_29_4.html
[10] James
Painter, "Haiti's Escalating Violence," BBC News, October 14, 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3743000/3743376.stm
[11]
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, "Haiti Human Rights Alert: Illegal
Arrest of Political Leaders," October 8, 2004.
http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_human_rights_alerts_oct8.html
[12] Ibid.
[13]
"Aristide supporters step-up protest", Associated Press, October 2, 2004.
http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/879
[14] "Haiti
violence death toll rises to 46," China Daily, October 13, 2004.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/13/content_382028.htm
Other sources
would claim this significantly undercounted the number of deaths: "On October
15, it was reported that the State Morgue in Port au Prince had issued an
emergency call to the Ministry of Health to remove the more than 600 bodies that
had been piling up in the previous two weeks," Anthony Fenton, "Media
Disinformation on Haiti," Znet, October 25, 2004.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6492
[15] Press
Release from the Communication Office of the Prime Minister, October 22, 2004.
http://www.haiti.org/general_information/communiqu%E9%20de%20presse102204_en.htm
[16] Reed
Lindsay, "Police Terror Sweeps Across Haiti," The Observer, October 31, 2004,
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1340274,00.html
and Lovinsky
Pierre-Antoine, "Caught in Their Own Trap", Haiti Action Committee, November 9,
2004.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/LPA/11_9_4.html
[17] IJDH,
"Haiti Human Rights Alert".
[18] Griffin,
p. 39.
[19] Lindsay.
[20] Griffin,
p. 39
[21] e.g.
Marc-Arthur Fils-Aimé, "Haïti dans la violence des chimères," AlterPresse,
November 12, 2004.
http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article1919
[22] "Violence
in Haiti," U.S. Department of State Press Statement, October 12, 2004.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/37018.htm
[23] Griffin
Report, p.31.
[24]
"'Operation Baghdad' brought to you by AP," Haiti News Watch, October 3, 2004.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HNW/10_3_4.html
[25] Paul
Chery interviewed by Kevin Skerrett, "A Situation of Terror", Znet, November 4,
2005.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9060
[26] "Massive
Protest demanding Aristide's return in Haiti's second largest city," Haiti
Information Project, December 16, 2004.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_16_4.html
[27] "Street
Resistance to Occupation Regime Surges," Haiti Progrès, October 6 - 12, 2004.
http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_ijdh_in_the_news-11-12-04.htm
[28] "Haiti:
Rebellion in Bel Air," Revolutionary Worker, October 17, 2004.
http://rwor.org/a/1255/haiti_current_situation.htm
Rosean
Baptiste interviewed by Lyn Duff, "We Won't Be Peaceful and Let Them Kill Us Any
Longer," November 4, 2004.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9059
"Resistance
in the Slums of Port-au-Prince," Black Commentator, October 14, 2004.
http://blackcommentator.com/109/109_haiti.html
[29] IJDH,
"Haiti Human Rights Alert".
[30] Lindsay:
"'We fought to bring democracy to Haiti, but since this government took over,
it's been a dictatorship,' said Mario Joseph, a lawyer who worked to bring past
human rights abusers to justice under Aristide and is now representing 54 people
he says are political prisoners. The prison was emptied by armed groups led by
former military officers after Aristide's departure, and Joseph believes the
majority of the new prisoners are Lavalas members."
[31] Griffin,
p.12-13.
[32] "A New
Chance for Haiti?" International Crisis Group, November 18, 2004, p.15.
[33] Lindsay,
and Griffin, p. 53.
[34] IJDH,
"Haiti Human Rights Alert".
[35] Steve
Fainaru and Karl Vick, "British Hostage Beheaded in Iraq," Washington Post, A23,
October 9, 2004.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17349-2004Oct8.html
[36] Baptiste
interview.
[37] Lindsay.
[38]
Concertation pour Haïti, "Haïti : de l'insécurité à la terreur," Alterpresse,
October 22, 2004.
www.medialternatif.org/alterpresse/spip.php?article1834
[39] Tania
Vachon, "Les victimes politiques de Jeanne," Journal d'Alternatives, 19 October,
2004.
www.alternatives.ca/article1499.html?lang=en
[40] Robert
Muggah, "Securing Haiti's Transition: Reviewing Human Insecurity and the
Prospects for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration," Small Arms Survey,
2005, p. 10-12.
[41] "Martin
says violence preventing democracy from taking hold in Haiti," CBC News,
November 14, 2004.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/11/14/haiti041114.html
[42] The
CPH's members include Development and Peace, Entraide Missionaire, Centre
international de Solidarite ouvriere (CISO), Centre Canadien de Coopération
Internationale (CECI), the FTQ and CSQ union federations, and the Quebec chapter
of Amnesty International. Co-signers of subsequent CPH statements concerning
Haiti have also included Solidarité Union Coopération (SUCO), AQOCI, the
umbrella group of Quebec's development NGOs and the Canadian
government-controlled group Rights & Democracy.
[43] Pierre
Bonin and Amelie Gauthier, "Haiti: Voices of the actors," Alternatives and FRIDE,
p. 13, fn 63.
www.fride.org/download/WP52_Haiti_Voices_ENG_feb08.pdf
[44] Canadian
International Development Agency, "Canadian Cooperation With Haiti: Reflecting
on a Decade of 'Difficult Partnership'," December 2004, p. 8.
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/45/34095943.pdf
[45] Stan
Goff, "A Brief Account of Haiti," Black Radical Congress News, October 22, 1999.
www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/399.html
[46] Anne
Sosin quoted in Tom Reeves, "Haiti's Disappeared," Znet, May 5, 2004.
[47] Reeves,
"Haiti's Disappeared".
[48] Anthony
Fenton, "Declassified Documents: National Endowment for Democracy FY2005,"
Narcosphere, February 15, 2006.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/2/15/205828/741
Little has
changed since the election of Rene Preval in 2006, according to David Malone,
then-Assistant Deputy Minister (Global Issues) at Foreign Affairs Canada: "To
the distress of the Group of Friends [i.e. Canada, the US and France], Aristide
remains the most potent political force within Haiti." Sebastian von Einsiedel
and David M. Malone, "Peace and Democracy for Haiti: A UN Mission Impossible?"
International Relations, Vol 20(2): p. 153-174.
[49] E.g. "Depuis
le 30 septembre 2004, le peuple haïtien en général, les populations de
Port-au-Prince en particulier, vit sous la coupe réglée des bandes armées
exécutant les ordres de Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ces bandits ont enclenché une
opération baptisée « Opération Bagdad » dont la finalité ouvertement déclarée
est le retour physique de Jean-Bertrand Aristide au pouvoir." "Pétition
citoyenne pour réclamer la mise en accusation de Jean-Bertrand Aristide et de
ses partisans en Haïti," Alterpresse, July 22, 2005. Signed by PAPDA, GARR,
EnfoFanm, and SOFA, Haitian NGOs with numerous ties to Canadian NGOs.
Haïti 2004 : Radiographie d’un coup d’Etat1
«
Haïti 2004 : Radiographie d’un coup d’Etat »
Ou quand la rigueur scientifique se met au service d’une (en)quête de vérité
Une radiographie, une radio : quoi de plus courant dans le domaine médical ?
Dans le domaine littéraire, c’est sans doute plus rare, mais pas moins
passionnant pour autant. Celle que je me propose de vous présenter s’attaque ni
plus ni moins qu’à un coup d’Etat. « Coup d’Etat » : une réalité qui peut nous
paraître exotique dans notre cocon démocratique occidental.
Lire la suite...ICI
http://www.hayti.net/tribune/index.php?mod=articles&ac=commentaires&id=624
Kolbe GAUTHIER,
étudiant en médecine en 2ème année
à l'Université de Bordeaux
|
Mardi 13 mai 2008 - 10:06
Ils sont innocents!