Oil Find Hints at a Less Dependent Cuba
Haiti Debt by Yves Engler
Sent by Anthony Fenton, this report is from Yves Engler:
Many Canadians know that on February 29, 2004, Haiti's democratically
elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sent into exile.
Few of us realize, however , that most Haitians believe Aristide was, in
fact, overthrown by a U.S., French and Canadian orchestrated coup d'etat.
Or, that, along with Aristide, most of the country's elected officials
were forced from office. Or that in subsequent political repression of
Aristide's party, Lavalas, thousands have lost their jobs, been jailed or
killed. Few Canadian understand that our country's good name has been
besmirched throughout the Caribbean by our government's involvement with
the U.S. and France in this project to once again tell poor Haitians what
is good for them.
I believe most Canadians would be appalled to learn that our country has
sided with Haiti's small elite against the majority of its population. In
order to really understand what is happening in Haiti I recently traveled
there, and to the neighboring Dominican Republic where hundred of
thousands of refuges have fled.
The situation is chaotic. Haiti is a country that assaults the senses and
the intellect.
***
Semereste Boliere is the elected mayor of Petit Goave, a town of fifteen
thousand in the south west of the country. Arrested in March by the new
authorities he escaped his captors and is hiding out in Port-au-Prince.
While we sip cola from '50s-style pop bottles sitting in a run-down labour
hall near the city centre he tells me that since his departure from
office, Petit Goave has mostly been in the hands of former military
officers who led the rebellion against the constitutional government. (The
army, notorious for murderous repression, was disbanded by Aristide in
1995.)
Boliere and Ronald St Jean, a human rights activist also with us, say that
throughout the country hundreds of elected mayors, council members and
senators were forced into hiding or exile. Those officials who have kept
their positions have made accommodations with the U.S.-armed paramilitary
thugs, many of whom are convicted murders and drug runners.
St Jean and Boliere are very disappointed with Canadian involvement in
undermining Haitian democracy.
***
Rea Dol is a 38-year-old mother of three who, before February's upheaval,
worked for the District of Petionville, which is an upscale (in Haitian
terms) suburb of Port au Prince. When the "interim" government installed,
Marie Renee, a new un-elected mayor she found herself out of work. Fired
without cause, with no compensation and owed back wages, she says she is
just one of thousands - more than 2000 at the state telecom company alone
- fired for their perceived political affiliation.
As we lunch on chicken and rice she tells me about unemployment lines in a
country with no social assistance and where most of the urban population
is looking for work. It appears that some of the recently unemployed,
especially the hundreds of police officers purged over the past ten
months, have taken to crime. Some have probably become "Chimeres" - a
"gang" no one seems able to define - which the mainstream media claims is
pro-Aristide and behind Haiti's violence.
She says that the rising cost of food staples, rice and beans, is also
driving people to lawlessness. Imported by a handful of wealthy families,
who supported Aristide's removal, costs have increased by 40 percent since
the coup. Undoubtedly there has been a marked rise in malnutrition, but in
the chaos who is keeping track?
***
Incredibly, for some people food for survival isn't their top priority.
Not getting shot outranks eating.
I meet Jeremy, a twenty-year- old who formerly worked for the government
TV station. A couple weeks after the overthrow of the elected government
armed men came to his house. He wasn't home, Jeremy tells me with fear
still in his eyes, so they killed his aunt.
He fled to the Dominican Republic for six months and still does not dare
return home.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Institute for Justice
Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), with respected Harvard professor Paul Farmer as
a board member, have documented hundreds of killings of poor Lavalas
supporters by paramilitary death squads and the police.
On October 26, Haitian police rounded up 12 young men in the Fort National
slum. They were forced to lie down and then were shot in the back of the
head.
Two days later under similar circumstances four more slum dwellers were
murdered in the Lavalas stronghold of Bel Air. Both of these incidents
were reported in the mainstream media, but most killings are not.
It is almost impossible to ascertain how many have died from political
violence and repression since February. An IJDH report covering the period
until the end of July documents - with pictures of over 50 bodies -
hundreds of murders, mostly of Lavalas supporters. Based on anecdotal
evidence it is reasonable to assume that hundreds more have been killed
since August.
During a pro-Lavalas demonstration on September 30th, the anniversary of
Aristide's first U.S.-backed removal from office, the national police
fired into the crowd. At least four unarmed demonstrators were killed
under the watchful eye of United Nations "peacekeepers". The next day
installed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was quoted saying: "We shot them,
some of the them fell, others were injured, others ran away."
On December 1st, two weeks after the government fired more than a dozen
experienced prison guards, a deadly riot broke out at the heavily
fortified national penitentiary. At first the government claimed seven
prisoners were killed. This was later increased to 10 but subsequent
investigations by Reuters, the Toronto Star and IJDH suggest that this
number is likely a gross underestimate. The actual figure could be as high
as 110, according to the IJDH.
I tried to interview prisoners to find out what happened, but since
December 1st the downtown Port-au-Prince national prison has been off
limits to family members and most outsiders. The government admits,
however, that of the 1100 held in the prison when the riot occurred, only
17 were convicted of any crimes. Hundreds of the detainees still
languishing in the
overcrowded cells are Lavalas activists, including the elected Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune and numerous senators.
***
Inside the women's Petionville prison I meet two prominent political
prisoners: internationally acclaimed folk music singer, So anne and the
former head of the Haitian Senate, Yvon Feulle. So anne is a feisty
70-year-old who brings the music of Haiti to the world and is also a
political organizer committed to improving the lives of ordinary people in
the poorest country of the Americas.
She says, incredibly cheerfully, that she has been behind bars without
charge since May 10th when U.S. marines barged into her house at 1 in the
morning. The marines killed two dogs and arrested everyone, including a
couple of children. Seven months after her arrest So ane is defiant. She
flexes her arm muscles and shouts out "they won't intimidate me."
***
Port-au-Prince stretches up a mountain from a Caribbean bay. The higher up
one climbs the wealthier the neighborhood. At the top is Petionville where
the latest SUVs are on display and Western banks are never far away.
Luxurious mansions line the peak looking out over the city of two million.
But even in Petionville poverty is rampant. At a sprawling market hundreds
of women "entrepreneurs" spend their days selling inventories of a few
dozen small candies and other products that would take up a few inches of
shelf space in a Canadian dollar store.
I visit SOPUDEP school, which educates hundreds of children whose parents
are unable to pay even a tiny fee. Demand for the school rises by the day.
But, I am told, in September Petionville's new (unelected) mayor attempted
to shut the school down. The new mayor associates the school with Lavalas
so she sent in machine-gun wielding police during school hours.
Ultimately the school remained open with the help of outside pressure, but
how long it can continue to operate under these trying circumstances is
open to question.
***
Fifty feet below the house where I am staying a shantytown begins. One
evening on my way back I lose my direction and find myself in a
neighborhood where it is unclear what is dwelling and what is burned out
car or pile of garbage.
It's scary but I am even more fearful of what growing up here must be
like, because children are jumping from rock to rock in the desolate
landscape. How to help?
Canada is not helping by siding with the rich against the poor, said So
anne, the folksinger.
If outside forces would just respect our democracy and give us aid we can
improve our country, said Boliere the former mayor.
The Aristide government cut the illiteracy rate from 80 per cent to 50 per
cent said my host. Poor people understood the government was on their side
- that's why Aristide is so popular to this day.
I just want to believe a better life is possible, said Jeremy. Can you
offer us that?
# posted by ArnieHoffman : 6:22 p.m.
