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Haitians are being
killed for their political believes |
Aristide
in Exile
by Naomi Klein
When United Nations troops kill residents of the Haitian
slum Cité Soleil, friends and family often place
photographs of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on
their bodies. The photographs silently insist that there
is a method to the madness raging in Port-au-Prince. Poor
Haitians are being slaughtered not for being
"violent," as we so often hear, but for being
militant; for daring to demand the return of their elected
president.
It was only ten years ago that President Clinton
celebrated Aristide's return to power as "the triumph
of freedom over fear." So what changed? Corruption?
Violence? Fraud? Aristide is certainly no saint. But even
if the worst of the allegations are true, they pale next
to the rap sheets of the convicted killers, drug smugglers
and arms traders who ousted Aristide and continue to enjoy
free rein, with full support from the Bush Administration
and the UN. Turning Haiti over to this underworld gang out
of concern for Aristide's lack of "good
governance" is like escaping an annoying date by
accepting a lift home from Charles Manson.
A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, South
Africa, where he lives in forced exile. I asked him what
was really behind his dramatic falling-out with
Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in
discussions of Haitian politics--actually, he offered
three: "privatization, privatization and
privatization."
The dispute dates back to a series of meetings in early
1994, a pivotal moment in Haiti's history that Aristide
has rarely discussed. Haitians were living under the
barbaric rule of Raoul Cédras, who overthrew Aristide in
a 1991 US-backed coup. Aristide was in Washington and
despite popular calls for his return, there was no way he
could face down the junta without military back-up.
Increasingly embarrassed by Cédras's abuses, the Clinton
Administration offered Aristide a deal: US troops would
take him back to Haiti--but only after he agreed to a
sweeping economic program with the stated goal to
"substantially transform the nature of the Haitian
state."
Aristide agreed to pay the debts accumulated under the
kleptocratic Duvalier dictatorships, slash the civil
service, open up Haiti to "free trade" and cut
import tariffs on rice and corn in half. It was a lousy
deal but, Aristide says, he had little choice. "I was
out of my country and my country was the poorest in the
Western hemisphere, so what kind of power did I have at
that time?"
But Washington's negotiators made one demand that Aristide
could not accept: the immediate sell-off of Haiti's
state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity.
Aristide argued that unregulated privatization would
transform state monopolies into private oligarchies,
increasing the riches of Haiti's elite and stripping the
poor of their national wealth. He says the proposal simply
didn't add up: "Being honest means saying two plus
two equals four. They wanted us to sing two plus two
equals five."
Aristide proposed a compromise: Rather than sell off the
firms outright, he would "democratize" them. He
defined this as writing antitrust legislation, insuring
that proceeds from the sales were redistributed to the
poor and allowing workers to become shareholders.
Washington backed down, and the final text of the
agreement--accepted by the United States and by a meeting
of donor nations in Paris--called for the
"democratization" of state companies.
But when Aristide began to implement the plan, it turned
out that the financiers in Washington thought his
democratization talk was just public relations. When
Aristide announced that no sales could take place until
Parliament had approved the new laws, Washington cried
foul. Aristide says he realized then that what was being
attempted was an "economic coup." "The
hidden agenda was to tie my hands once I was back and make
me give for nothing all the state public
enterprises." He threatened to arrest anyone who went
ahead with privatizations. "Washington was very angry
at me. They said I didn't respect my word, when they were
the ones who didn't respect our common economic
policy."
Aristide's relationship with Washington has been
deteriorating ever since: While more than $500 million in
promised loans and aid were cut off, starving his
government, USAID poured millions into the coffers of
opposition groups, culminating ultimately in the February
2004 armed coup.
And the war continues. On June 23 Roger Noriega, assistant
secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, called
on UN troops to take a more "proactive role" in
going after armed pro-Aristide gangs. In practice, this
has meant a wave of Falluja-like collective punishment
inflicted on neighborhoods known for supporting Aristide.
On July 6, for instance, 300 UN troops stormed Cité
Soleil, blocking off exits and firing from armored
vehicles. The UN admits that five were killed, but
residents put the number of dead at no fewer than twenty.
Reuters correspondent Joseph Guyler Delva says he
"saw seven bodies in one house alone, including two
babies and one older woman in her 60s." Ali Besnaci,
head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Haiti, confirmed
that on the day of the siege twenty-seven people came to
the MSF clinic with gunshot wounds, three-quarters of them
women and children.
Yet despite these attacks, Haitians are still on the
streets--rejecting the planned sham elections, opposing
privatization and holding up photographs of their
president. And just as Washington's experts could not
fathom the possibility that Aristide would reject their
advice a decade ago, today they cannot accept that his
poor supporters could be acting of their own
accord--surely Aristide must be controlling them through
some mysterious voodoo arts. "We believe that his
people are receiving instructions directly from his voice
and indirectly through his acolytes that communicate with
him personally in South Africa," Noriega said.
Aristide claims no such powers. "The people are
bright, the people are intelligent, the people are
courageous," he says. They know that two plus two
does not equal five.
Research assistance was provided by Aaron Maté. |
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