Haiti
- Insurrection In The Making
By Yifat Susskind
27 February, 2004
A MADRE Backgrounder
A
political crisis that has been brewing in Haiti since 2000 exploded
during the second week of February 2004. Members of an armed movement
seeking to overthrow Haiti's President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, went
on a rampage in a dozen Haitian towns, killing more than 60 people.
The towns remain under siege by criminal gangs led by former paramilitary
members.
There is great concern
for the families in these areas, since the armed vigilantes have cut
road and telephone access to communities, emptied prisons and blocked
convoys of food aid from reaching impoverished areas.
The blockade of
food aid is particularly worrisome since, according to the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization, nearly half of all Haitians lack access to
even minimum food requirements. Hospitals, schools, police stations
and other government buildings have been burned and looted. Meanwhile,
the US Department of Homeland Security has begun preparations for the
internment of up to 50,000 Haitian refugees at the US naval base in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, signaling that the US expects a much greater
escalation of violence in Haiti.
What is the Political
Backdrop to the Conflict? The crisis dates back to a political stalemate
stemming from a contested election. In 2000-the same year that George
Bush stole the US presidency-Haiti held elections for 7,500 positions
nationwide. Election observers contested the winners of seven senate
seats.
President Aristide
balked at first, but eventually yielded and the seven senators resigned.
Members of Haiti's elite, long hostile to Aristide's progressive economic
agenda, saw the controversy as an opportunity to derail his government.
Since 2001, human
rights activists and humanitarian workers in Haiti have documented numerous
cases of opposition vigilantes killing government officials and bystanders
in attacks on the state power station, health clinics, police stations
and government vehicles. The US government did not condemn any of these
killings.
In January 2004,
the opposition escalated its protests. At some demonstrations, government
supporters, who represent Haiti's poorest sectors, attacked opposition
activists. Only then did US Secretary of State Powell issue a one-sided
condemnation of 'militant Aristide supporters.'
In a country as
poor as Haiti, control over the institutions of the state is one of
the only sources of wealth, making national politics an arena of violent
competition. Similarly, in an environment of 70 percent unemployment,
the prospect of long-term work as a paramilitary fighter leads many
young men to join these forces.
Who is the Opposition?
Like the so-called opposition to the Chavez government of Venezuela,
Haiti's opposition represents only a small minority (8 percent of the
population according to a 2000 poll). With no chance of winning through
democratic elections, they rely instead on armed violence to foment
a political crisis that will lead to the fall of the government. Using
their international business connections, especially ties to the corporate
media, the opposition has manufactured an image of itself as the true
champion of democracy in Haiti.
The gangs that have
placed thousands of Haitians under siege are reportedly armed with US-made
M-16s, recently sent by the US to the government of the Dominican Republic.
The gangs are directly
linked to two groups financed by the Bush Administration: the right-wing
Convergence for Democracy and the pro-business Group of 184.
The Convergence
is a coalition of about two dozen groups, ranging from neo-Duvalierists
(named for the Duvaliers' dictatorship that ruled Haiti from 1957-1986)
to former Aristide supporters. These groups have little in common except
their desire to see Aristide overthrown.
According to the
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, the opposition's 'only policy goal seems
to be reconstituting the army and the implementation of rigorous Structural
Adjustment Programs.'
The Convergence
is led by former FRAPH paramilitary leaders (including Louis Chamblain,
Guy Phillipe and Jean Pierre Baptiste) who carried out the bloody 1991
coup d'etat, in which the CIA-trained and -funded FRAPH overthrew Aristide,
killed 5,000 civilians and terrorized Haiti for four years.
The Convergence
is supported by the Haitian elite and the leadership of the US Republican
Party (through the National Endowment for Democracy and the International
Republican Institute).
The Group of 184
is represented by Andy Apaid, a Duvalier supporter and US citizen who
obtained a Haitian passport by fraudulently claiming to have been born
in Haiti. Apaid owns 15 factories in Haiti and was the main foe of Aristide's
2003 campaign to raise the minimum wage (which, at $1.60 a day, was
lower than what it had been 10 years earlier).
By demanding that
the opposition be included in any resolution of Haiti's political impasse,
the US has greatly empowered these forces. While the opposition perpetuates
Haiti's political deadlock, the US embargo (see below) guarantees the
island's economic strangulation. Aristide's opponents hope that these
combined tactics will achieve what they cannot win through democratic
elections: the ouster of Aristide.
Why is it so hard
to get a clear picture of what's happening in Haiti? Media Manipulation
-> One reason
is that the opposition has succeeded in mobilizing the mainstream media
to create an image of Aristide as a tyrant and the opposition as democratic
freedom fighters. For example, international media have run several
stories comparing the opposition to the movement to overthrow Haiti's
long-time Duvalier dictatorship. Although the Haitian government has
condemned attacks by its supporters on opposition forces, mainstream
media did not report the condemnations
-> Most international
coverage of the crisis in Haiti comes from the large wire services,
Reuters and the Associated Press. These wire services rely almost exclusively
on Haiti's elite-owned media (Radio Metropole, Tele-Haiti, Radio Caraibe,
Radio Vision 2000 and Radio Kiskeya) for their stories. The outlets
are owned and operated by the opposition. For example, Andy Apaid, spokesman
for the Group of 184, is the founder of Tele-Haiti.
-> Progressive
journalists have accused these stations of exaggerating reports of violence
by government supporters and ignoring violence by opposition forces.
These stations air commercials inciting Haitians to overthrow the government.
US Double-Speak
-> Another reason
for confusion is that the Bush Administration is upholding a long US
tradition of talking about respect for democracy in Haiti while supporting
the country's most anti-democratic, pro- business forces. o The US has
encouraged the opposition to refuse to participate in elections and,
at the same time, declared that elections in Haiti will only be considered
legitimate if the opposition participates.
-> Powell says
that the US is 'not interested in regime change.' But the Administration
is supporting a disinformation campaign in the US media, maintaining
an embargo that is intensifying hunger and disease amongst Haiti's poorest
and supporting the sponsors of armed, vigilante violence that has already
killed scores of people.
What is the role
of the US in Haiti? The US was the main supporter of the Duvalier dictatorship.
In 1986, when Haiti's pro-democracy movement finally succeeded in overthrowing
the hated dictator, he was ferried to safety by the Reagan Administration.
Only with the rise
of Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, did US
support shift from the Haitian leadership to those who orchestrated
the 1991 coup d'etat.
In 1994, public
pressure and fear of an influx of Haitian 'boat people' led the Clinton
Administration to reverse the coup d'etat and restore Aristide to power.
The Republican leadership
strongly opposed the intervention. In 1995, when Republicans took control
of Congress, they pushed to cancel US aid to Haiti and to finance the
opposition by reallocating federal funds to Haitian non-governmental
organizations opposed to Aristide.
In 2000, the Republicans
exploited Haiti's electoral controversy as an opportunity to discredit
Aristide. The Bush Administration pressured the Inter-American Development
Bank to cancel more than $650 million in development assistance and
approved loans to Haiti -- money that was slated to pay for safe drinking
water, literacy programs and health services.
The seven contested
senators are long gone, but the embargo remains in place, denying critical
services to the poorest people in the hemisphere.
What is Aristide's
record? The US allowed Aristide to be reinstated on the condition that
he implement a neoliberal economic agenda.
Aristide complied
with some US demands, including a reduction of tariffs on US-grown rice
that bankrupted thousands of Haitian farmers and maintenance of a below-
subsistence-level minimum wage.
But Aristide resisted
privatizing state-owned resources, because of protests from his political
base and because he was reluctant to relinquish control over these sources
of wealth.
Aristide eventually
doubled the minimum wage and -- despite the embargo -- prioritized education
and healthcare: he built schools and renovated public hospitals; established
new HIV-testing centers and doctor-training programs; and introduced
a program to subsidize schoolbooks and uniforms and expand school lunch
and bussing services.
Aristide has tried
to walk a line between US demands for neoliberal reforms and his own
commitment to a progressive economic agenda. As a result, he has lost
favor with parts of his own political base and Haitian and US elites.
Aristide has also
been criticized for turning a blind eye to human rights abuses committed
by his supporters and by advocates of good governance for rewarding
loyalists with government posts regardless of their qualifications.
(a patronage system even more extensive than the one that has filled
the Bush Administration with former CEOs and corporate lobbyists.)
So Should Progressives
Support Aristide? The current crisis is not about supporting or opposing
Aristide the man, but about defending constitutional democracy in Haiti.
In a democracy, elections-and not vigilante violence-should be the measure
of 'the will of the people.' Aristide has repeatedly invited the opposition
to participate in elections and they have refused, knowing that they
cannot win at the polls.
How Should the Crisis
be Resolved? MADRE supports the proposal of the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM, a consortium of Caribbean governments) which:
Rejects any violent
overthrow of the government and insists that any change in government
be in compliance with Haiti's constitution.
Calls on the opposition
to accept Aristide's offer to take part in elections in order to break
the impasse that has frozen Haiti's government for the past several
years.
Calls on the international
community to provide economic assistance to Haiti in order to alleviate
the country's grinding poverty and create some foundation for economic
and political stability.
MADRE also calls
on the Bush Administration to:
Unequivocally denounce
the opposition and cease any financial, political or military support
for its forces.
Lift the embargo
that is denying urgently needed development aid and health programs
to Haitian women and families.
Some Statistics
on Haiti
-> The richest
1% of the population controls nearly half of all of Haiti's wealth.
-> Haiti has
long ranked as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and is
the fourth poorest country in the world.
-> Haiti ranks
146 out of 173 on the Human Development Index.*
-> Life expectancy
is 52 years for women and 48 for men*.
-> Adult literacy
is about 50%.*
-> Unemployment
is about 70%.*
-> 85% of Haitians
live on less than $1 US per day.*
-> Haiti ranks
38 out of 195 for under-five mortality rate.*
*Source: 'Investigating
the Effects of Withheld Humanitarian Aid,' a report of the Haiti Reborn/Quixote
Center.
MADRE is working
to deliver emergency supplies of food and medicine to women and families
in Haiti. In recent weeks, armed gangs seeking to overthrow Haiti's
government have prevented food supplies from reaching impoverished communities
and attacked government clinics and hospitals. MADRE is working with
a local, progressive community-based organization that has a long record
of successfully delivering aid to those most in need, even in times
of crisis.
Please support this
emergency campaign for women and families in Haiti by making a tax-deductible
contribution to MADRE.
Haiti Support Group
press release - 23 February 2004
Return of the FRAPH/FAD'H
The reappearance
of the FRAPH/FAD'H is nothing less than a stinking stain on today's
Haiti. - In December 2003, the Workers' Struggle (Batay Ouvriye) organisation
succinctly summed up the main protagonists in the struggle for political
power in Haiti: "Lavalas and the bourgeois opposition are two rotten
buttocks in a torn pair of trousers."
Today, 23 February
2004, as Haitians wake up to the news that the northern city of Cap-Haitien
has fallen to a rebel force composed of former Haitian Army (FAD'H)
soldiers led by FRAPH leader, Louis Jodel Chamblain, we can perhaps
continue with this analogy, and say:
"The reappearance
of the FRAPH/FAD'H is nothing less than the excrement that's making
a stinking stain on the torn trousers that is Haiti today."
The Haiti Support
Group wholeheartedly endorses Amnesty International's 16 February press
release which stated, "The last thing that the country needs is
for those who committed abuses in the past to take up leadership positions
in the armed opposition."
As a solidarity
organisation that believes that internationally-recognised human rights
standards can lend valuable protection to individuals and organisations
struggling to overthrow tyranny and dictatorship, we are deeply concerned
that the Haitian opposition - grouped in the Democratic Platform - has
failed to unequivocally condemn the emergence of notorious human rights
abusers at the head of the armed movement to oust President Aristide.
We are also greatly
alarmed to see statements in the media which indicate that the rebel
force intends to reinstate the disbanded Haitian Army (FAD'H). Ever
since its creation during the US occupation (1915-34), the Haitian Army's
primary roles have been to defend the country's tiny and reactionary
economic elite and to repress movements for political change. We fully
expect a reborn Haitian Army to play exactly the same role.
For this reason,
the Haiti Support Group - a solidarity organisation that has supported
the Haitian people's struggle for justice, human rights, equitable development
and participatory democracy since 1992 - cannot accept that a reborn
Haitian Army will serve the best interests of the Haitian majority.
In this context,
we are obliged to point out that elements within the Democratic Convergence
opposition coalition have long intimated their support for the reinstatement
of the Haitian Army, and that, more recently, the continued silence
on this issue on the part of the Democratic Platform is a strong indication
that it is willing to accept a reborn Haitian Army in exchange for the
early departure of President Aristide.
As the desperately
grim scenario unfolds in Haiti, we are reminded once again of this extract
from an article published in The Washington Post newspaper on 2nd February
2001:
The (Democratic)
Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the International
Republican Institute, an organisation that promotes democracy that is
closely identified with the U.S. Republican Party.
It includes former
Aristide allies - people who helped him fight Haiti's dictators, then
soured as they watched him at work. But it also includes former backers
of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers
who overthrew Aristide in 1991 and terrorised the country for three
years. The most determined of these men, with a promise of anonymity,
freely express their desire to see the U.S. military intervene once
again, this time to get rid of Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian
army. "That would be the cleanest solution," said one opposition
party leader. Failing that, they say, the CIA should train and equip
Haitian officers exiled in the neighboring Dominican Republic so they
could stage a comeback themselves."
Background on rebel
leaders whose forces are now in control of over half of Haiti: Louis
Jodel Chamblain Chamblain was joint leader - along with CIA operative
Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant - of the Front révolutionnaire pour
l'avancement et le progrès haïtien, (Revolutionary Front
for Haitian Advancement and Progress) known by its acronym - FRAPH -
which phonetically resembles the French and Creole words for 'to beat'
or 'to thrash'.
FRAPH was formed
by the military authorities who were the de facto leaders of the country
during the 1991-94 military regime, and was responsible for numerous
human rights violations before the 1994 restoration of democratic governance.
Among the victims
of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy
Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body- guard
and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA
Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights:
"FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel
Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of
14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary." (Emmanuel "Toto"
Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living freely in Queens, NYC.)
In September 1995,
Chamblain was among seven senior military and FRAPH leaders convicted
in absentia and sentenced to forced labour for life for involvement
in the September 1993 extrajudicial execution of Antoine Izméry,
a well-known pro-democracy activist. In late 1994 or early 1995, it
is understood that Chamblain went into exile to the Dominican Republic
in order to avoid prosecution.
Guy Philippe Guy
Philippe is a former member of the FAD'H (Haitian Army). During the
1991-94 military regime, he and a number of other officers received
training from the US Special Forces in Equador, and when the FAD'H was
dissolved by Aristide in early 1995, Philippe was incorporated into
the new National Police Force. He served as police chief in the Port-au-Prince
suburb of Delmas and in the second city, Cap-Haitien, before he fled
Haiti in October 2000 when Haitian authorities discovered him plotting
what they described as a coup, together with a clique of other police
chiefs. Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe
of master-minding deadly attacks on the Haitian Police Academy and the
National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as hit-and-run raids
against police stations on Haiti's Central Plateau over last two years.
Ernst Ravix According
to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on Haiti, dated
7 September 1988, FAD'H Captain Ernst Ravix, was the military commander
of Saint Marc, and head of a paramilitary squad of "sub- proletariat
youths" who called themselves the Sans Manman (Motherless Ones).
In May 1988, the government of President Manigat tried to reduce contraband
and corruption in the port city of Saint Marc, but Ravix, the local
Army commander, responded by organising a demonstration against the
President in which some three thousand residents marched, chanted, and
burned barricades. Manigat removed Ravix from his post, but after Manigat's
ouster, he was reinstated by the military dictator, Lt. Gen. Namphy.
Ravix was not heard
of again until December 2001 when former FAD'H sergeant, Pierre Richardson,
the person captured following the 17 December attack on the National
Palace, reportedly confessed that the attack was a coup attempt planned
in the Dominican Republic by three former police chiefs- Guy Philippe,
Jean-Jacques Nau and Gilbert Dragon - and that it was led by former
Captain Ernst Ravix. According to Richardson, Ravix's group withdrew
from the National Palace and fled to the Dominican Republic when reinforcements
failed to arrive.
Jean Tatoune Jean
Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune", first came to prominence
as a leader of the anti- Duvalier mobilisations in his home town of
Gonaives in 1985. For some years he was known and respected for his
anti-Duvalierist activities but during the 1991-94 military regime he
emerged as a local leader of FRAPH. On 22 April 1994, he led a force
of dozens of soldiers and FRAPH members in an attack on Raboteau, a
desperately poor slum area in Gonaives and a stronghold of support for
Aristide. Between 15 and 25 people were killed in what became known
as the Raboteau massacre.
In 2000, Tatoune
was put on trial and sentenced to forced labour for life for his participation
in the Raboteau massacre. He was subsequently imprisoned in Gonaives,
from where he escaped in August 2002, and took up arms again in his
base in a poor area of the city. At various times he has spoken out
against the government, and at other times in favour of it, but since
September 2003 he has allied himself with the followers of murdered
community leader, Amiot Metayer, and vowed to overthrow the government
by force.
Jean-Baptiste Joseph
Joseph is a former Haitian Army sergeant who, following the disbanding
of the FAD'H in 1995, headed an association of former FAD'H members.
The formation of the Rassemblement des Militaires Révoqués
Sans Motifs (RAMIRESM), the Assembly of Soldiers Retired Without Cause
was announced at a 1 August 1995 press conference in Port-au-Prince.
During 1995 and 1996, RAMIRESM was closely associated with Hubert De
Ronceray's neo-Duvalierist party, Mobilisation pour le développement
national, (MDN) Mobilisation for National Development.
On 17 August 1996,
Joseph was one of 15 former soldiers arrested at the MDN party headquarters
and accused of plotting against the government. Two days later, approximately
twenty armed men, reportedly in uniforms and thought to be former soldiers,
fired on the main Port-au-Prince police station, killing one bystander.
Since then nothing
had been heard of Joseph, until he emerged in Hinche with the rebel
forces last week. The right-wing MDN party is a leading member of the
Democratic Convergence coalition.