The Next Few Years Look Bleak

by Marc-Arthur Fils-Aimé (Haiti Liberte)

Haiti’s Nov. 20, 2016 elections did not live up to expectations. There was great hope that they would enable the country would emerge from its ever-deepening crisis. Instead, the elections were fraught with fraud and irregularities, sometimes similar but often different from that seen in 2015.

            Electoral participation was only about 20%, enabling neo-liberal political parties without a proven program to seize power. Many of those elected are rumored to be drug traffickers, smugglers, and perpetrators of other heinous acts, thus depriving them of legitimacy and respect. The nation will suffer for at least the next four or five years.

Haiti 2017: From Demonstration Election to Electoral Coup

By: Charlie Hinton - Haiti Action Committee

On January 3, Haiti’s Electoral Council (CEP) sealed the steal by confirming Jovenel Moïse as president of Haiti. A massive police presence resembling martial law has suppressed street protests, attacking demonstrators who have been in the streets daily since the 11/20 election with a stinging blue foam added to water cannons. A potent new tear gas burns and stings the skin. A tear gas attack on a poor neighborhood at 1 AM on 11/29 suffocated three infants to death.

Dr. Maryse Narcisse, Fanmi Lavalas presidential candidate.

Haiti moves into 2017 with a “president” who would never have won an honest election. A tiny number of ruling families backed by the United States, Canada, and France, operating through a United Nations military occupation, has imposed an imperial ruler on an unwilling population through a process they call an “election.” Everyone in Haiti knows this, but in this country, we don’t. International media reported the Moïse “victory” as a matter of legitimate fact, based on phony numbers released by the CEP. They either neglected or minimized the almost daily massive protests, and provided zero background or context, thus becoming willing participants in the fraud, and giving “fake news” a whole new dimension.

The only reason the November 20 election even took place is because massive daily street demonstrations protesting two fraudulent elections in 2015 forced a new election in 2016. They also forced the hated Hillary Clinton-imposed president, Michel Martelly, to leave office on schedule on 2/7/16, despite various maneuvers to attempt to extend his term.

Haiti’s Eroding Democracy: Haiti has a new president. But Jovenel Moïse’s right-wing coalition is far from stable.

by Jake Johnston (source: Jacobin)

After more than a year of delays, Haiti finally elected a new president this past November. Jovenel Moïse — nicknamed the Banana Man — scored a first-round victory in a sprawling field of 27 candidates, taking over 55% of the vote. The banana exporter, who has never held public office, was inaugurated on Feb. 7.

            The previous president, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, seemingly plucked Moïse out of nowhere last year, making him the new face of the Haitian Bald-Headed Party (PHTK). Moïse’s win is an extraordinary achievement for a political neophyte, but it has one glaring problem: only 20% of Haiti’s voters showed up on election day. Moïse became president with less than 10% of registered voters – only about 600,000 votes — supporting him.

As President Jovenel Moïse is Sworn In: Election Observers Slam “Haiti’s Unrepresentative Democracy”

by Kim Ives (Haiti Liberte)

Former auto parts salesman and banana exporter Jovenel Moïse, 48, became Haiti’s 58^th president on Feb. 7, 2017, in ceremonies at the Parliament and a miniature model of the former National Palace, which was destroyed in the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.

            The President of Haiti’s Senate and Parliament’s National Assembly, Sen. Youri Latortue, whom the U.S. Embassy has described as a “Mafia boss,” “drug dealer,” and “poster-boy for political corruption,” draped the ceremonial Presidential sash on his close political confederate, who takes over from interim president Jocelerme Privert.

We Say No! To Stolen Elections!!

National Lawyers Guild of San Francisco 

Stands in Solidarity With Haitian Grassroots Movement

For well over a month, tens of thousands of Haitians have been demonstrating daily to protest yet another stolen election and another denial of their right to determine their own destinies. Despite this popular outcry and numerous reports of large-scale fraud and voter suppression the Electoral Council in Haiti, backed by the U.S. State Department, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations occupying forces (MINUSTAH), has just officially anointed Jovenel Moise as the next president of Haiti. Moise is a protégé of right-wing former President Michel Martelly, whose regime was marked by corruption, wholesale repression of political opposition, and the selling of Haiti’s land and resources to foreign corporations.

As Haitians demonstrate courageously to resist the imposition of an undemocratically selected regime, they have been met with repression from Haitian police and UN soldiers. In one incident, police attacked the community of La Saline, a stronghold of Fanmi Lavalas, for decades the party of the poor majority in Haiti. The police fired round upon round of tear gas and killed three infants. In another instance, police attacked a non-violent march using water hoses, tear gas, and a skin irritant that caused severe burns.

Michael Deibert , Haiti , and Right Wing Journalism

We here at the HaitiAnalysis kolektif feel it is important to remind our brothers and sisters of the manipulative media reports that have targeted Haiti over the years. One of the most dishonest corporate media journalists to write on Haiti has been former Reuters correspondent Michael Deibert. [1]

Whitewashing the Bush regime orchestrated 2004 coup d'état in Haiti and the preceding U.S. backed-destabilization campaign, Michael Deibert's writings often have functioned to demonize grassroots movements in the country while passing over the crimes of U.S. (and local rightwing) backed groups. In the wake of the coup, Deibert, in his reporting, ignored the mass state violence unleashed on poor communities in Port-au-Prince. The coup d'état and its aftermath resulted in many thousands of deaths and a long period of repression under the unelected Latortue dictatorship. The years that followed resulted in large-scale voter suppression, a major decline in voter participation, and the re-emergence of the nation's rightwing as a political force in the country.

Below are links to a number of articles criticizing his work over the years. Also included below is a criticism of Michael Deibert's 2005 book by the late Haitian pro-democracy activist Patrick Elie.

Reflections on the Past and Possible Future of Haiti's Foreign Policy

by Jacques Nési (Haiti Liberte)

The influence of what is called, with deceptive ease, the "international community" determines Haitians’ present and future, largely due to the deficit of national sovereignty and legitimacy that taints the Haitian authorities which act as intermediaries. This “international community” supposedly accompanies Haiti on its quest for democracy, sharing her concerns and uncertainties. But its overbearing influence is troubling. Is it not a little contradictory for Haiti, supposedly under the control of United Nations troops, to think about defining its own foreign policy? Is it not a phony posture, in this context of moral decay, to talk about formulating a foreign policy that takes into account Haiti’s interests and aspirations?

            Could this be nationalism? For a country which is completely financially dependent on the “international community,” wouldn’t it be utopian obstinacy for Haiti to think of forging new relations with it? Would Haitian authorities be ungrateful to think of solving their people’s  problems by insisting on a sovereign and autonomous approach?