Ministry of Health Disaster in Haiti

By: John A. Carroll, MD - HaitiAnalysis
Early yesterday morning at the pediatric clinic in Cite Soleil I had a young mother bring in her 10 month old baby boy. She told me that he started having diarrhea yesterday. He had ten white watery stools yesterday and five similar stools this morning. He is drinking some and nursing some but clinically appeared lethargic and moderately dehydrated.
It was an easy diagnosis. I thought this baby boy had cholera.
Most of my pediatric patients in the clinic actually do have diarrhea. But this baby's diarrhea was different and his clinical presentation was consistent with cholera.
So what should I do?
The population of Soleil is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. But no one knows for sure. And before cholera struck Haiti in 2010, Soleil had the usual horrible diseases of poverty. Now it has had cholera added to its "differential diagnosis" . And the experts from around the world say that cholera will return here in a few weeks when the rainy season starts.
Is this baby the harbinger of the next wave of cholera?
Working in Cite Soleil as a physician is challenging. We all know that the people from the slum are suffering and dying from stupid deaths everyday. This is no secret. And intervening to help them is not always straight forward.
Soleil should not have a monopoly on medical helplessness and hopelessness, but it sure seems to.

A Response to Amy Wilentz, 'Duvalier and Haiti's Triple Threat', The Nation, 29 February 2012,

By: Peter Hallward - HaitiAnalysis

Amy Wilentz's book *The Rainy Season* (1989) is widely applauded as the most compelling account of Aristide's political youth, and so her judgement of his political legacy carries exceptional weight. The way history remembers his controversial second presidency (2001-2004) will cast a shadow over Haiti's political future for a long time to come, and the ongoing demonisation of Aristide – in particular by those who like Wilentz once supported him – contributes directly to the ongoing disempowerment of the millions of ordinary people who rallied around the Lavalas mobilisation he led.

            In this new article, Wilentz writes: "As everyone in Haiti knows, Aristide’s enemies have, sometimes plausibly, attributed a series of assassinations and human rights violations to Aristide supporters or to his party or to his administration or even to the former president himself. It’s assumed that during the seven years of his South African exile, one thing that kept Aristide from returning to Haiti was fear of prosecution on such charges. He understands that his foes would love to see him arrested, jailed and brought before an unfriendly judiciary."

            Aristide's understanding of his many foes, it's now assumed, thus serves to get the most prominent among them off the legal hook. According to prosecutor Wilentz, the return of both Aristide and Duvalier confirms one and the same legal-democratic deficit. Impunity for one implies impunity for all, and in this sense the legacy of Haiti's first democratic leader would amount, perversely, to the exoneration of dictatorship.

            It's a neat argument, and a familiar one -- but it's starkly at odds with the facts of the case, and it contributes to a widespread and disastrous misrepresentation of history.

The Rainy Season: Rich in Detail, Poor in Analysis

For readers of news and literature concerning Haiti, the writings of author Amy Wilentz are well known. Most famous of her work is the 1989 book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (Simon & Schuster, 1989), a book that would also foreshadow her future writings on Haiti. HaitiAnalysis publishes below a critical review of The Rainy Season. The review, originally appearing in French in the newspaper  Haiti Progrès in August of 1989, is published here for the first time in English.

By Kim Ives -  Haiti Progrès

       The Rainy Season is, in the author's own words, the product of her "love affair with Haiti," and thus the book reads something like a love story.  It offers a constant stream of emotions, descriptions, and even gossip that relentlessly tease the reader to turn the page. But like many love stories, while this lushly detailed account of post-Duvalier Haiti appeals to the heart, it ends up disappointing the mind.

            Creating a patchwork quilt of first-person ruminations, historical synopses, and witty portraits of the famous and unknown, Wilentz takes the reader on a journey, not only through Haiti's fitful past three years, but also through her own personal struggles and revelations. 

Thousands of pro-Lavalas demonstrators in the streets of Port-au-Prince to mark the 8th anniversary of the forced departure of President Aristide

By: Agence Haitienne de Presse - Translation by Haiti Analysis
News February 29, 2012
     Port-au-Prince, February 29, 2012 - (AHP) - A large pro-Aristide demonstration was held Wednesday in Port-au-Prince called by several organizations close to the Lavalas political organization whose former president and national representative returned from exile nearly a year ago (18 March 2011). 
     The event began at the ruins of the Church of Saint John Bosco, the former parish of Father Aristide, and in a warm atmosphere skirted through several streets and neighborhoods of the metropolitan area of ​​the capital before arriving at the Haitian parliament.

Haitian Judiciary denies Duvalier's Crime Against Humanity

By: Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis
     The former Haitian President for life Jean-Claude Duvalier named "Baby's DOC" is to be tried not for the crime against humanity but for alleged financial crime. Human rights groups have criticized the decision and described it as unfair and politically motivated.

 

The Macoutification of Martelly's Power

By: Kim Ives - Haiti Liberté
Feb 15, 2012
     In the past few months, while headlines have focused elsewhere, Haitian President Michel Martelly has been quietly resurrecting the intelligence and security apparatus that existed during Haiti's neo-Duvalierist military rule (1986-90) and the coups d'état of 1991-94 and 2004-06. Martelly has placed in key security posts former Haitian Army officers, policemen, and death-squad paramilitaries, many of whom were part of the small "rebel" force which spearheaded the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état against then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
    Meanwhile, former and would-be soldiers, who have been training in up to ten military camps around Haiti, began to rise up this past week to demand that the Haitian army - demobilized since 1995 - be formally reestablished, which was a Martelly campaign promise.

2011: Exchange Between Michael Deibert and Joe Emersberger Regarding Haiti

Below is an exchange I had with Michael Deibert in the comments section under an article Deibert wrote for Truthdig in 2011. To see what others commented as well, go to the Truthdig article. My remarks are in red.

EMERSBERGER: Michael Deibert has been one of the most persistent apologists for the 2004 coup that deposed Haiti’s democratically elected government under Jean Bertrand Aristide. Under a US/UN backed dictatorship at least 4000 Arsitide supporters were murdered between 2004-2006. I’ve cited three of the most damning reports below - one them published by the Lancet Medical Journal. The murders were mostly carried out by the police and armed attaches with cover usually provided by UN troops. A person’s mind must be thoroughly warped by imperial assumptions to suggest - as Deibert does - that Haitians should be grateful to MINUSTAH for anything.

1) Athena R. Kolbe and Royce A. Hutson, “Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households,” The Lancet, Vol. 368, No. 9538, September 2, 2006
2) Thomas M. Griffin, University of Miami School of Law: Haiti Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21, 2004

3) Harvard Law School; “Keeping the Peace in Haiti?”;March 2005
Also

on the UK Guardian’s website, Deibert and I had an exchange in the comments section to a Mark Weisbrot article that may be of interest:

Wesibrot also did a fine piece recently on why MINUSTAH should go

DEIBERT: Though no one would dispute that Haiti was plagued by violence during the 2004-2006 era, the reports cited are highly problematic.

The Lancet report was extraordinarily controversial after it was exposed by the UK’s progressive Haiti Support Group (active at a grassroots level in Haiti since 1992) that researcher Athena Kolbe was in fact a pro-Aristide journalist and former Aristide employee who had previously used the name Lyn Duff, a fact that she had hidden when publishing the report. This can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/3zeljv9. The subsequent review done was highly cursory and the fact that the Lancet did not order the whole study to be re-done by genuinely impartial investigators after such revelations is quite a blot on the publication’s reputation.

In a 2006 article which can be read along with secondary links here http://tinyurl.com/3zuplf3, I wrote the following:

“Though the Lancet report chronicles no rapes or murders committed by Fanmi Lavalas partisans, something that flies in the face of the on-the-ground reporting of journalists who have worked in Haiti for the last two years, it may be instructive to recall that, over the last two years, defectors from Mr. Aristide’s party have charged publicly that former president was orchestrating a large part of Haiti’s violence from exile with the connivance of former officials of his government. Citing the July 2005 murder of Haitian journalist Jacques Roche, a May 2005 attack on a Port-au-Prince marketplace that killed seven people and saw a large part of the market, which served the capital’s poor, burned to ashes and what they charged was a campaign of rape by gangs supportive of the exiled president in the capital’s slums, last year four of Haiti’s most politically progressive organizations - the Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatries et Refugies (GARR), the Plateforme haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA), Solidarité des Femmes Haïtiennes (SOFA) and Centre National et International de Documentation et d’Information de la Femme en Haïti (EnfoFanm) - all signed a petition calling for Aristide to be judged for his crimes against the Haitian people.”

The U.S.-based Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH) that Emersberger links to is and always has been a creation of Mr. Aristide’s Miami lawyer, Ira Kurzban, who is listed as one of the IJDH’s founders and chairman of its board of directors, a man whose law firm, according to U.S. Department of Justice filings, earned nearly $5 million for its lobbying work alone representing the Aristide government. With the IJDH’s 2005 annual report listing Mr. Kurzban’s law firm in the category reserved for those having contributed more than $5000 to the organization, the group’s 2006 report (the last one made public) lists the firm under “Donations of Time and Talent,” and the American Immigration Lawyers Association South Florida Chapter (for which Mr. Kurzban served as past national president and former general council) in a section reserved for those having donated $10,000 or more. The IJDH is the creature of a man who has a financial stake in rehabilitating the former president. Their work in Haiti should be seen in this context. Some links regarding this can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/4xw2nsq

Haiti’s Commission Episcopale Nationale Justice et Paix - a genuinely non-partisan body - released a report in 2006 where it stated the following:

“Many political and even economic sectors are involved with violence and weapons. It is important to remember that fact. This is not about making accusations, but we must be conscious that arms do not resolve anything. Those who commit acts of violence, who are responsible for such acts must face that truth and accept their responsibility. The State must also face its responsibility and fight violence and impunity.”

The Commission counted 2506 dead victims of violence during the 47 months it has been operating.

The 2000 Haiti elections that Joe Emersberger calls “democratic” included but were not limited to the following (http://tinyurl.com/4s5elxk):

1. The March 2000 murder by a mob of Legitime Athis, the Petite Goave campaign coordinator for the Mouvement Partiotique pour le Sauvetage National party of Hubert Deronceray, along with his wife.

2. The disruption of the 8 April 2000 funeral of murdered Radio Haiti Inter director Jean Dominique (the investigation into whose killing the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide undermined at every turn), by a crowd of young men began shouting “Viv Aristide,” charging out of the stadium and burning down the headquarters of Evans Paul’s Komite inite Demokratik political party. That same day Radio Vision 2000 was pelted with rocks and bottles by a crowd shouting pro-Aristide slogans and calling for the murder of journalists there, and a stone-throwing mob surrounded the house of mayoral candidate Micha Gaillard, forcing his wife and sons to flee over a back wall to a neighbor’s house

3. The 12 April 2000 murder of Merilus Deus, a Mouvement Chrétien pour une Nouvelle Haiti (MOCHRENA) candidate for the rural assembly in Savanette, who was shot and then hacked to death by a mob of attackers who also slashed his daughter for good measure.

4. The 18 April 2000 murder, also by machete, of 70 year-old Ducertain Armand, an advisor to the Parti Democratique Chretien Haitien of Marie-Denise Claude (whose on father, Pastor Sylvio Claude, an Aristide rival, was also killed by a mob in September 1991) in his Thomazeau home.

5. The 24 May 2000 murder by a mob of Lavalas partisans of mayoral candidate Jean-Michel Olophene, his skull cracked open by a hurled rock. This ghastly murder was actually captured on videotape, which I have seen, the assailants chanting pro-Aristide slogans. Incidentally, it was Cite Soleil gang leader Robinson “Labanye” Thomas’ support of this candidate against the official Lavalas slate that resulted in his being jailed for a few months before being released after he agreed to work for the Aristide government. He did so until the October 2003 murder of hsi friend Rodson “Kolobri” Lemaire. Labanye himself, of course, was also then slain in March 2005.

6. The quite notorious November 2000 attack on a meeting of the Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) in Hinche, led by Lavalas mayors Wilo Joseph (Maissade) and Dongo Joseph (Hinche), during which the Recif Night Club, where several hundred MPP activists were gathered, was first pelted with stones and then raked with automatic weapons fire. Dieugrand Jean-Baptiste, brother of MPP leader Chavennes Jean-Baptiste, was shot in the chest and nearly died, another MPP member was shot in the neck, a mechanic working nearby the scene was shot in the ankle and a merchant pushing a cart was shot in the back. A detailed account of the attack, gathered from those who were present, can be found in my 2005 book, Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti.

These incidents were all in addition to such moves as the arrests of such Organisation du peuple en lutte politicians Paul Denis, Vasco Thernelan and Mellius Hyppolite, and the claims on Haitian radio by Yvon Neptune and Rene Civil before the vote tally was even announced (in violation of electoral law) that Fanmi Lavalas had won a landslide, give on a flavour of what voting in Haiti was like at the time. In addition to all of this, or course, there was the corruption of the vote tabulating process itself, which is well outlined in a letter by Orlando Marville, the chief of mission OAS Electoral Mission in Haiti at the time.

That’s some democracy, indeed.

At any rate, as another poster here notes, both Mr. Aristide and Mr. Duvalier are now relics of the past, and it is time to move on with the discussion of what kind of Haiti we foreigners can help Haitians construct in the future, with or without a UN presence.

EMERSBERGER: Michael Deibert’s comments below follow the same general recipe as his book - throw out bunch of allegations and rumours against the Aristide government (no matter how thoroughly debunked), mix in some half truths and stir well. Hope that readers mistake garrulousness for logic and accuracy.

The Lancet study provoked a fierce response from coup apologists because it was scientific survey that passed peer review in a highly respected journal. The Lancet stood behind it after investigating the ad hominem attacks against one of the authors. More importantly, the US and allies never commissioned a scientific survey of their own - something they had ample resources to do - to refute the findings.

As Peter Hallward documented in his book “Damming the Flood” the US government spent $70 million over several years before the 2004 coup in a deliberate effort to bolster Aristide’s very unpopular opponents. For much of that period, the US and its allies also blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in aid Aristide’s government. As Deibert well knows, the flow of aid money resumed after the slaughter of Aristide’s’ supporters ramped into high gear with the installation of the Latortue dictatorship.

Deibert mentions violence (and alleged violence) by Aristide partisans after 2000. What Deibert predictably leaves out is a relentless paramilitary (“rebel”) campaign against the Aristide government that went on for years and killed scores of Haitians. Aristide partisans (very justifiably) accused the private media and Aristide’s elite opponents of facilitating that violence and, in a few cases, sought to respond in kind. Its worth noting that, after the coup, the paramilitary leaders thanked the private media for its help. I wrote about that paramilitary campaign in this article.

The paramilitary campaign was greatly assisted by henchmen of the Cedras military dictatorship who were inserted into Aristide’s security forces after 1994 at the insistence of the Clinton administration. Thanks to Wikileaks, we know how the US closely supervised the insertion of paramilitary criminals into the police force after the 2004 coup. The US has ensured that Haiti’s security forces will be an important hedge against the rise of meaningful democracy.

Thanks to Wikileaks, we also know that US Ambassador Foley commented (privately of course) that as of September of 2004 “Aristide was still the only figure in Haiti with a favorability rating above 50%.” In other words, the US knowingly deposed a government in 2004 that was not only democratically elected, but that (despite years of vilification and harsh economic sanctions against it) could still defeat US backed opponents in elections. Hence the need for a coup - and for determined apologists for it like Michael Deibert.

DEIBERT: This conversation sheds little light on the current role of the UN mission in Haiti, what should replace it, and other pressing issues facing Haiti and its people (reinvigorating the country’s peasant agriculture, decentralizing the economic and political structure from Port-au-Prince) yet, in the interest of clarity, I will explain a few points.

I can understand why it would be simpler to believe that Haitian history began with the overthrow of the Aristide government on 29 February 2004, but if there was no popular movement in the wake of its rather grotesque excesses, how does one explain pictures such as this one, taken at a 26 December 2003 demonstration (by no means the largest). For links associated with this and other points raised below, please see http://tinyurl.com/4s5elxk

The serious armed challenge to the Aristide government began with a group - the Cannibal Army in Gonaives - that was heavily armed WHILE they were working for Mr. Aristide, and that they only turned against the president following the murder of their leader, Amiot “Cubain” Metayer, on what they believed were Aristide’s orders.

The absolute breaking point for the Aristide government was the savage 5 December 2003 attack on protesting university students in Port-au-Prince, an attack during which rector Pierre Marie Paquiot was beaten with iron bars (leaving him permanently incapacitated), at least six people were shot, and a dozen more stabbed and beaten. The siege which was witnessed by those at the Fondation Connaissance et Liberté (FOKAL) nearby, who wrote the following of it (http://tinyurl.com/3wknowd):

“On December 5, 2003,...we were witness to, and at certain times lived, the terror and horror of that day…We saw groups of pro-governmental militia, called chimere or OP (Popular organization), regroup in front of our building, visibly preparing to attack the student demonstration scheduled for that day. We saw their arms displayed, ranging from fire arms, wooden and iron sticks, rocks and other objects capable of hurting and killing. We saw their chiefs, men and women, also armed, equipped with walkie-talkies and cellular phones, organize and give orders to the commandos that were to attack the students. We saw the police, not neutral as has been reported, but acting as accomplices to the militia. On several occasions, during that day of horror and shame, the police opened the way for the chimere’s attack and also covered their backs. We saw children aged between twelve and fifteen, some in school uniforms, used by the lavalas militia to throw rocks and attack the students with fire arms.”

Actual footage of the attack, as well as of the 2003/2004 demonstrations, can be seen in Haitian director Arnold Antonin’s very interesting film GNB Kont Atilla, which someone (not me) has uploaded to You Tube in several sections.

After the attack, Minister of Education Marie-Carmel Paul Austin, Minister of the Environment Webster Pierre, Minister of Tourism Martine Deverson, Secretary of State for Public Health Pierre-Emile Charles and Haiti’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic Guy Alexandre all resigned from the government in protest.

Given all of this, when former soldiers made their lunge across the Dominican border in early 2004, it’s not surprising Mr. Aristide’s pleas for help fell on deaf ears.

For a more realistic and authoritative picture of late 2004/early 2005 era of Haiti, I point readers to Jane Regan’s excellent article “Haiti: In Bondage to History?” published by NACLA in Jan/Feb2005 and available here: http://www.janevregan.org/pages/NACLA.htm

Haitians need all the real help, ideas and solidarity that they can get. They will soon be bidding adieu to MINUSTAH, and it is up to us in the international community to decided which side - peasants, women’s groups, urban poor,  impoverished scholars vs. the rancid classe politique and their well-paid foreign advocates - that we are going to be on.

EMERSBERGER: Allegations abound against Aristide and his government. The US didn’t waste the $70 million it gave to his opponents. It provided, among other things, a megaphone to make allegations. However, after the coup, when the allegations were tested in courts stacked against the accused (well known Aristide partisans such a Yvon Neptune, So Ann, Rene Civil and many others) they were shown to be baseless.

One of the many lies in Jane Regan’s report that Michael Deibert points to is that

“And when armed ‘rebels’ - disgruntled former Haitian police and former Haitian soldiers—regularly attacked Haitian targets from the neighboring Dominnican Republic over the course of a year”

No - it was over the course of four years. As early as 2001 the rebels were bold enough to attack the National Palace and almost succeeded in carrying off a coup. Their deadly attacks generated a tremendous amount of fear (very understandable considering the horrific consequences of the first coup that ousted Aristide in 1991), spread Aristide’s (already compromised) security forces thin, and provoked some reprisals against Aristide’s opponents who had facilitated the violence in numerous ways. For example, after the 2001 coup attempt, Arstide’s most prominent opponents insisted it had merely been staged to excuse a “crackdown ” on dissent.

Another major deception in Regan’s article was that the paramilitaries who launched these attacks for years were “mostly cheered, not resisted” when they marched into Port-au-Prince. The clear insinuation was that the rebels had popular support.

Guy Philippe, the face of the Rebels, received less than 2% of the vote in the 2006 presidential election. Another prominent supporter of the coup that Regan depicted as a popular uprising -Charles Baker - also failed to get more than single digit support in 2006. Somehow those pictures of opposition organized demonstrations that so impress MIchael Deibert did not represent popular support. Thanks to Wikileaks, we know US officials were well aware of this crucial fact.

What’s also revealing is that the 2006 elections were basically rigged in favor of people like Charles Baker. The winner of the presidential election in 2006, Rene Preval, played no part in the coup, and was closely associated by the Haitian public with Aristide. If what Deibert and Regan reported had been accurate, then Preval should have been the one to receive single digit support in 2006 - not Guy Philippe or Charles Baker.
Deibert’s claim that the truth about the 2004 coup is not relevant to Haiti’s future is - of course - laughable. The same coalition of sweatshop owners - with ample help from their allies in Washington - will certainly attempt to violently defeat any serious attempt to redistribute wealth and power in Haiti.

DEIBERT: Unfortunately I believe Joe Emersberger and his like simply have no new ideas to offer Haiti, and will be metaphorically chasing their own tails for years to come, fetishizing an era they did not witness in a country that is not their own. Haiti is and always has been a peasant majority country, and the greatest battles are fought in the countryside and not in the capital. Emersberger’s reference to “sweatshops” makes him seem unaware that in fact a coherent agrarian and rural development policy is the country’s most pressing issue.

Joe Emersberger’s ugly attempt at defaming the fine journalist Jane Regan aside, it’s interesting that he brings up the 17 December 2001 attack on Haiti’s National Palace. I was actually in front of the National Palace that morning just after it was attacked, and watched thousands of armed young men - Aristide government partisans - run riot through the capital, as did many other journalists and observers who were in town at the time.

By the end of the day the mobs would by the end of the day reduce the offices of the OPL and KONAKOM opposition parties to ashes, also burning down the neighboring home of the man who had rented them to the politicians. Then they moved on to the headquarters of Evans Paul’s KID party, destroying it with fire for the third time in ten years. Four carloads of armed, masked men arrived at KONAKOM leader Victor Benoit’s house and set it on fire, room by room. The Petionville home of OPL leader Gérard Pierre-Charles and his wife Suzy Castor was also attacked, with some fifteen men, arriving in trucks owned by the government-owned National Center for Equipment and, in one case, a police vehicle, first throwing stones and then shooting at the house. Pierre-Charles was at a conference in Miami, and Castor and her servants fled in terror. In her absence,  the mob burned the couple’s home and Pierre-Charles would later write, they incinerated “a whole collection of classics about Marxism, my books about Cuba, about 500, that had helped me write ‘Genèse de la Révolution Cubain,’ whose manuscript in French disappeared into the flames as well as some of my books, leaving me without a single copy.” The irreplaceable library of Latin American and Carribean political thought, including many original manuscripts dealing with Haiti’s early history at Castor’s CRESFED center, a frequent source of study for grassroots groups and impoverished students, was looted and burned. The headquarters for Reynold Georges’s ALAH party on Avenue Jean Paul II was also burned.

This was also the day that, in Gonaives, members of the pro-Aristide Cannibal Army street gang (who would later turn against the president) attacked the home of Pastor Luc Mesadieu, head of the MOCHRENA party. When Mesadieu’s assistant, Ramy Daran, tried to intervene, he was seized and, refusing to reveal the location where Mesadieu was hiding, he was doused with gasoline (distributed from the gas station owned by the city’s Lavalas mayor) and burned alive. The gang also torched twenty other houses in the city before they were through.

Many of the gang leaders who organized the pillage later recounted in great detail to myself and other journalists government collusion in the violence that day.

By Feb 2004, Guy Philippe and the rebels were indeed cheered as they took over town after town across north and central Haiti, something it may be hard for Joe Emersberger - who as always sat behind his computer at the time time rather than actually being in Haiti - to believe, but that was the unfortunate and to some still-unbelievable outcome to Mr. Aristide’s second mandate.

I am glad though, from his comments, that Emersberger now accepts the validity of René Préval’s magnificent 2006 presidential victory, which did indeed show Haitians turning their back on militarism and extremism as they almost always do given a free and fair election.

EMERSBERGR: Michael Deibert wrote

“I am glad though, from his comments, that Emersberger now accepts the validity of René Préval’s magnificent 2006 presidential victory”

Now accepts? All my articles about Haiti are available online. Please provide a quote where I ever disputed that Preval won the election in 2006. You won’t be able to, because no such quote exists. That’s representative of the accuracy of your work.

NYT Promotes Destructive Myths About Aristide

By: Joe Emersberger - HaitiAnalysis
     Ginger Thompson wrote in the New York Times on January 19 that former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide “rose to power as a champion of Haiti’s poor but became notorious for his violent crackdowns of political dissent.” [1] 
     The "political dissent" that Thompson refers to is a campaign that included murderous raids into Haiti by rebels comprised of former soldiers and death squad leaders. The rebels were given a safe haven and a base for operations in the Dominican Republic. They were audacious enough to mount an assault on Haiti's National Palace in December of 2001. After a gun battle, they were chased back into the Dominican Republic.  The rebels were led by Guy Philippe and Jodel Chamblain, a man responsible for the deaths and torture of thousands of people during Haiti's military rule of 1991-1994 (after the first US backed coup ousted Aristide in 1991). [2]

The Labor Movement in Haiti: A Personal Reflection

By: James Jordan - HaitiAnalysis

The most impressive strength of the Haitian labor force is its resiliency and resourcefulness. Even before the earthquake, virtually all sources agreed that unemployment in Haiti was somewhere around 70 to 80 per cent, with 80 percent of the people living below the poverty line and some 54 per cent living in abject poverty. But statistics like these do not tell the whole story and in fact may give a false impression about the daily lives of the Haitian people.

Recently I traveled to Haiti as part of a delegation lead by the Latin America Solidarity Coalition, returning to the US just five days before the earthquake on January 12, 2010. We spent most of our time in Port Au Prince, with a three day visit to Jacmel—the two cities most affected by the quake. The impact of poverty, itself the result of massive foreign interference, coups and occupations, was already astounding. The earthquake only served to magnify problems exponentially. It did not erase them and for all its damage, the destruction was an intensifier of an already simmering disaster. Evidence of this can be easily assessed by comparing the damage and loss of life from the Haitian earthquake to the even larger Chilean earthquake of February, 2010. In Chile, the death toll has reached 800 and is still climbing, with heavy blows to the country’s infrastructure. But as bad as its damage has been, the case in Haiti is much more severe, with well over 200,000 confirmed dead and two cities left in shambles. It does not take a great deal of analysis to understand that what killed hundreds of thousands in Haiti was not natural disaster, but the unnatural disaster of extreme poverty and utter neglect to infrastructure development. And that situation is firmly rooted in hundreds of years of exploitation of and interference in Haitian affairs by foreign interests.

Yet, despite all the poverty, one of the first things I noticed was that I actually saw less begging in the streets than I have encountered in travels to other countries with higher per capita incomes. What I did see was a nation of people hustling to get by. I witnessed a nation of people best defined by that Kreyol word “konbit”, which basically means a community work project. Yes, some 70 to 80 per cent of the people are unemployed. Undoubtedly, there are even more jobless in the earthquake’s aftermath. But lest anyone think that means that eight out of ten Haitians are idle, this is not the case at all. A walk down any Haitian street will reveal hundreds and thousands of people lined up on the street selling their wares and services. I bought a drawing by one man who was obviously in need. Certainly he had every reason to beg for a handout to get something to eat. But when he approached me, it was to sell a drawing he made with a ball point pen on a large piece of cardboard. Others offered their services as guides, others ready to shine my shoes. Everywhere, a service or some object was being offered in exchange for some remuneration.

Likewise, throughout Haiti, one sees collective effort. Again, the konbit—people coming together as a community to raise a house or a barn, to cultivate a field, to build a school, to care for the children. This was evident immediately following the earthquake, when around the cities of Port Au Prince and Jacmel, people gathered together to attend to each other’s needs. In fact, this itself is an indictment of the US response to the earthquake, with its prioritization of “security” over the delivery of aid. Taking advantage of the situation, the US military came in with even more troops than were present under the UN occupation. We have all heard the absurd stories of the US military turning away Doctors without Borders airplanes with fully equipped hospitals; flying helicopters overhead telling Haitians not to try and flee to the United States where they would not be welcomed and would be either jailed or turned back; arresting even children in the streets whose crime was looking for desperately needed food. All this was in the name of “security”. However, report after report during the early hours and days after the earthquake showed a picture not of a nation gone crazy with violence, but a nation that, under the worst of circumstances, had immediately and spontaneously organized itself into a great “konbit” of Haitians helping Haitians. The proper response for foreign nations was not using this disaster to justify a new occupation, but rather to step in and augment and support the natural community spirit of the Haitian people.

Thus, when we talk about Haitian labor and the Haitian economy, above all, the first thing to know is that, despite this high unemployment rate, despite the abject poverty, the fact is that Haitians are constantly working. They hustle and they bustle and they come together for the sake of the community. The natural disposition of the Haitian people is one of diligent effort for the common good. The overwhelming poverty and violence one saw before and after the earthquake are conditions imposed by forces that would undermine Haiti’s development not for the common good, but for the interests of mostly foreign power and wealth.

With that in mind, let’s look a little closer at the situation for Haitian workers, the labor movement and the Haitian economy. Most of the research I have done for this piece, including my own visit to Haiti, is based on information from before the earthquake. Nevertheless, as already stated, the earthquake only changed the situation by intensifying it. Below you will find a list of statistics regarding Haitian labor and the Haitian economy.

• The unemployment rate is 70 to 80%.
• 80% of the people live under the poverty line, with 54% living in abject poverty.
• The Haitian minimum wage is equal to about $5 a day.
• Haiti’s per capita income is $450 per year, a tenth of the $4,045 number in Latin America and the Caribbean and less than the sub-Saharan Africa figure of $736.
• Sixty-six percent of the labor force is in the agricultural sector, twenty-five percent in services, and nine percent in industry.
• Employment in the early 80s in the industrial sector included between 80,000 and 100,000 people. It had dropped to 14,000 by 2006 and in 2008 was at 22,000
• The lowest ten percent of the population consumes 0.7% of the Haitian economy, while the highest ten percent consumes 47.7%
• Between 200,000 and 350,000 of the nine million people in Haiti have permanent paid work. Most people earn their money through street peddling, temporary jobs and remittances.
• There are 300,000 children living in the streets in Haiti and some 225,000 working in a situation of slavery. No more than 40% of Haitian children are attending school, and there is a 50 to 60% illiteracy rate among adults. Thus, there is a pool of unskilled labor, but little skilled labor, and little to prepare future workers—conditions that are prime for the development of sweatshop, low wage industries.

A few facts regarding the Haitian economy:

• The national GDP is $4.5 billion, with $1.5 billion a year coming into Haiti as remittances, plus $400 million in gifts such as clothes and food.
• Two thirds of Haitian exports are from the apparel sector and constitute nearly a tenth of the GDP, while remittances equal more than one quarter of the GDP.
• Main agricultural products: coffee, mangoes, sugarcane, rice, corn, sorghum wood
• Main industries: sugar refining, flour milling, textiles, cement, light assembly based on imported parts
• Industrial growth rate: -2%
• Exports: apparel, manufactures, oils, cocoa, mangoes, coffee
• Natural resources: Bauxite, Gold, Diamonds, probable oil deposits
• Haiti’s main export partners are the US (72.9%), the Dominican Republic (8.8%) and Canada (3.3%)
• Haiti’s main import partners are the US (41.2%), Netherlands Antilles (14.9%), China (4.7%) and Brazil (4.4%)
• Haitian exports equal $491 million; Haitian imports equal $2.09 billion.
• Until the 80s, Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production. In 1987, Haiti produced 75% of its own rice. Today, this has been reversed, with 75% of the rice coming from foreign, mostly US, sources. This is due to IMF imposed restructuring that made deep cuts in Haiti’s agricultural spending and neoliberal trade arrangements that favor US rice imports by cutting tariffs. Added to this is the fact that US rice growers also receive government subsidies, making rice from the US artificially cheaper than Haitian grown rice.

Even before the earthquake, the Haitian economy had become completely dependent on foreign interests, especially the United States, much to the detriment of its labor force and the development of a Haitian infrastructure and Haitian jobs. This dependency has included strategies authored and developed by the US and other governments to split and weaken Haitian popular democracy and labor movements. The reasons for this include the following: to insure a cheap, unskilled labor pool for sweatshop industries; to pursue privatization designed to assure access to labor and natural resource development by foreign corporations; and to take advantage of Haiti’s strategic geo-political location. (Just glance at a map and see where Haiti is located in relation to Cuba and Venezuela.)

Most the Haitian workforce is in the agricultural sector, and most of that is in the form of small, subsistence farming. The LASC delegation to Haiti heard repeated testimonies regarding the abandonment of Haiti’s rural population and agricultural workers. We heard how peasants in the countryside receive no support from the government and, in fact, only see government representatives at the time of elections when candidates are seeking votes. Under the government of Aristide, some modest reforms had begun to help farmers and to provide access to markets. However these were ended with the US/French/Canadian sponsored coup of 2004. In 2006, the Preval administration set up a committee for agricultural reform. But, according to the many farmers and farm workers we listened to, this committee accomplished nothing other than to provide some jobs to friends of the government. There are not decent roads or other means for peasants to get crops to market. Often, the primary means farmers have of bringing their crops to urban centers is to transport them on their own backs or balanced on their heads. By the time they arrive in town, many of the crops are spoiled and those that are not soon will be, forcing the farmers to sell far below the normal market value.

The delegation also heard several accounts about how NGOs have exacerbated agricultural problems. The economy is already flooded with so-called “Miami” rice, mostly brought into the country by one corporation—the American Rice Corporation—and sold for 30 to 50% cheaper than Haitian rice. This situation forces millions of peasants out of work, compelled to seek charity and food aid from NGOs who, in turn, bring in even more foreign produced rice and other foods. Poverty becomes entrenched with the aid of those who claim to alleviate it.

This lack of support for rural communities has caused a mass migration to the cities. Port Au Prince alone has received as many as two million people displaced from rural areas. Many of these, subsequently, join the ranks of the numerous street vendors constituting Haiti’s informal sector. A regular problem for these workers is the many fires set to destroy their kiosks and roadside stands. According to witnesses we heard, these fires are usually started by thugs working either for the government or local, established merchants who want to “clean up the streets” and remove sales competition.

Rural displacement is also caused by rich families claiming ownership of large tracts of land where peasants have been living and working for generations. Those who resist are subject to violence and other forms of repression. (There are ten main families in Haiti who control both national agriculture and industry.) In order to understand the level of rural displacement, it helps to look at Colombia, which has the second largest number of displaced persons in the world—four to five million of a population of 45 million. We have already discussed the 2 million peasants who have moved to Port Au Prince, that in a country with just over 9 million inhabitants.

The second largest source of employment is in the service area. By definition, this area of employment is not a direct beneficiary of infrastructure development and thus does little to advance Haiti’s economic independence. It also is the area of work most likely to employ children, with as many as 225,000 who work in conditions that are best described as slavery.

The situation for industrial workers is particularly grave, especially due to the rampant privatization of formerly public industries. Haitian industry went from employing some 80,000 to 100,000 persons in the 80s to a low of 14,000 in 2006 to 22,000 in 2008.

Let’s examine the reason for the increase in workers between 2006 and the present. This was largely due to the passage of the HOPE act in 2006 along with its continuation, HOPE II, passed in 2008. The HOPE acts are designed to provide duty-free access for textile products to be manufactured via low-wage factories in Haiti from imported materials. While this does provide some job creation, what must be emphasized is that it in no way provides for infrastructure development for Haiti to become more economically autonomous and self-sufficient. The only development is for low-wage factories completely dependent on foreign materials and foreign resources (other than the resource of low wage workers). Laborers work for wages equivalent to $1 to $5 a day. Furthermore, under the HOPE act, while there are provisions made for certain core labor standards, as monitored by the International Labor Organization (ILO), what we heard time and again from Haitian workers is that, “If you talk about unions, you get fired. Unions are still not established in sweatshops.” According to Paul Loulou Chery, General Secretary of the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH, by its French initials), Haiti’s largest union center, “We have to tell you that the Hope Act is not the best option, but we have to use the Hope Act to create jobs so some people can get jobs and create unions and social organizations inside the companies. Unfortunately, still with Hope I and Hope II, the owners say that if you get a union, you will lose your jobs.”

But even with an increase in industrial employment, 22,000 workers in 2008 is far less than the 80,000 to 100,000 workers who were employed in the 1980s. What has driven this depletion of industry in Haiti? In a word, privatization. The privatization of the wharf in Site Soley, the poorest section of Port Au Prince, lead to a decrease in the number of workers from 1,800 to 700 workers, and a decrease in the daily wage from 535 gourdes a day to 150, equivalent to a decrease from a little over $13 to a little under $4. Leaders of the organization of those laid off have been repeatedly threatened with violence.

Privatization of the telephone company, Teleco, lead to a series of lay-offs, starting with 2,000 workers laid off in March of 2004 (immediately following the Feb. 29, 2004 coup), followed by 1,500 lay-offs under the Preval government in 2006, followed by the firing of 1,500 workers in January, 2008, followed by the loss of 500 more jobs in January, 2009.

These are just two examples of many. The Hope Acts, I and II, are seen as being a way to bring jobs to Haiti and to help the economy, with a promise of creating some 75,000 new jobs. Again, Chery, of the CTH, told our delegation that, “I am opposed to the aspect of neoliberalism that lays off, but don’t mind when it is bringing jobs to many who need jobs. I don’t mind…if it gives people the opportunity to work and to live. We cannot talk about the rights of labor when they’re not working. Now the minimum wage is 125 gourdes. But if someone is coming who is willing to pay with 100 gourdes a day, then, welcome….The thing that should be the priority for the country is creating wealth. There is no way for Haiti to make it without more jobs. We want more investment that can create more jobs for everyone.”

But even if the Hope Act creates 75,000 new, lower paying jobs, it still does not bring Haiti back up to the level of employment that it had in the 1980s—which was still not adequate. Furthermore, these new jobs and any new wealth being created in Haiti are based on undermining Haiti’s infrastructure and its hopes for real economic wealth and political independence. Most of the pool of the unemployed is based on the failure of Haiti’s own agricultural capabilities and the displacement of rural populations. As such, even under the best circumstances, the jobs created through neoliberal economics and resultant schemes such as the Hope Acts I and II only further serve to entrench poverty and dependency.

The LASC delegation to Haiti met with numerous representatives of rank and file workers, labor advocates and peasant organizations. Repeatedly we heard statements such as this one: “Today there is something new with the unions. Unions are co-opted and it is difficult for workers to trust unions in Haiti now.” Indeed, this has been a slow, painful and deliberate process. Nevertheless, rather than an abandonment of the labor movement, we saw several examples of new organizations of rank and file workers, street vendors, peasants, including the displaced, and service workers. Certainly these groups are already creating the foundation for a potentially revitalized Haitian labor movement.

At the time of the 2004 coup, the CTH and other unions resisted this attack on Haitian democracy and marched in the streets demanding respect for the nation’s sovereignty.  CTHworkers were heavily persecuted, suffering fatalities and arbitrary arrests, many forced into hiding.

The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center is a core institute of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). It was through another of the four core institutes, the International Republican Institute (IRI), that the coup was funded and coordinated, including the creation of the Democratic Convergence, the umbrella organization behind the coup. The Solidarity Center rewarded a small labor advocacy group called Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) with more than $200,000 in grants, partly before but mostly following the coup. Batay Ouvriye had not resisted the attack on Haiti’s elected government and, indeed, had been calling for Aristide’s resignation in the lead up to the coup. The CTH, the largest Haitian union, was ignored, even though its members were being actively repressed in order to quash resistance and consolidate the overthrow and subsequent occupation.

However, the situation has changed drastically in Haiti, with the CTH now receiving major funding from the Solidarity Center and Batay Ouvriye publicly severing its ties with the Solidarity Center and adopting a strong call for the closure of the NED. In turn, the nature of the CTH has changed greatly. Both its General Secretary Chery and its President, Jacque Belza, are working with Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council—the same council that banned the participation of Haiti’s largest political party, Lavalas, in elections that had been scheduled for February, 2010 (and which have been indefinitely postponed because of the earthquake). Furthermore, Chery is acting as a consultant for the Preval administration.

It is difficult to condemn Chery or the CTH. A case in point is my own experience regarding the CTH and disaster relief. In 2008, the organization I worked for, the Alliance for Global Justice, undertook an effort to raise funds for relief funneled through the CTH for victims of a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that had ransacked the nation. We are proud of the few thousand dollars we raised. However, following the earthquake, the Solidarity Center began an effort to raise relief funds for the CTH and offered to match every individual donation. I don’t know how much they have raised so far. However, in 2008, the Solidarity Center acted as a conduit for one single grant of $250,000 to support the CTH and another Haitian union center.

One can talk about resisting US manipulation of electoral and social processes in other countries all day and all night, and the righteous struggle for autonomy and independence. And one can point out how the Solidarity Center is funded and run not by rank and file union members and locals, but the by the US State Department, via the NED, in partnership with the Centers for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). And we can rail against the lack of transparency of the NED and its component institutes. However, the practical reality is that funding such as this can be a lifeline to a struggling organization such as the CTH. Accepting NED monies and joining in partnerships with the post-coup government can be a tempting alternative to having no resources and being the object of repression. Without doubt, Chery and the CTH have decided that these are things they must do for the organization to survive and to do any work of lasting value.

Chery told us that, “By electing Preval, people hoped Aristide would be brought back. But Preval had another vision—get in power, get rid of the kidnappers, get a minimum of stability, to even work with enemies, coup people….So even if people didn’t agree, at least he guaranteed some stability and some peace, even though it was not what people wanted….This year, 2010, will be very difficult. The exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas is already something very dangerous. Lavalas is divided into so many factions that it doesn’t represent the same force it used to. President Preval…got so many Lavalas leaders to join his party coalition, it weakened even more….The first path is to create jobs, the second is to create political strength.”

For those of us in the delegation who already knew Chery and were familiar with the CTH, we believe that he remains motivated by a desire to make situations better for Haiti’s workers. Many former supporters of Lavalas and labor independence feel like the way of real, meaningful, substantive change is no longer open to the people of Haiti. However, it seems that the way that they see open, and the way they are now traveling, is a neoliberal path designed to entrench dependency and poverty in service to foreign corporations and interests. But rank and file workers feel largely abandoned.

For those of us in the US and Canada, it is difficult to fully appreciate the quandaries and conundrums faced by those on the ground in Haiti. Even before the earthquake, the poverty was already extreme, the economy devastated and the government weak and not in touch with the will of the majority…and now it is so much worse.

Through organizations such as the NED and its core institutes which receive public funding via the State Department and USAID, we see a new kind of tactic emerging. Often in the past, the NED has focused on funding groups and individuals who clearly supported an economic and political agenda authored in Washington, DC and on Wall Street. However, in Haiti we are seeing funding given to many in labor and political movements who have been strong opponents of Empire and neoliberalism. This funding is aimed quite precisely at obstructing and destroying the unity of the mass movement by supporting the creation of splinter movements naturally interested in their own advancement and survival. This is why the Solidarity Center funded Batay Ouvriye at a time they were dampening, rather than building resistance to the coup. And this is why the Solidarity Center is working now with the CTH, with its history of opposing the coup, but now carrying a weight of hopelessness that turns them toward cooperation with the institutions of electoral repression and neoliberal development.

But, today, the situation has been largely reversed, with the CTH rewarded for its cooperation and Batay Ouvriye taking up the role of opposition to neoliberalism, occupation and foreign interference. Batay Ouvriye is clearly a leader in the struggle against the type of development being offered by the Hope Act and has undertaken campaigns on behalf of workers in the Free Trade Zone along the border with the Dominican Republic. It has sought to organize internationalist support among rank and file unionists and solidarity activists in other countries around the world rather than taking NED monies.

The Haitian labor movement is very complicated and oppressed. Especially now, it is difficult to imagine how the movement can be rebuilt and resist being co-opted. It is important to understand how different circumstances can thrusts aspects of Haitian labor into different roles. Today the CTH is tending toward cooperation with the Preval government and the foreign corporations ready to set up shop on the basis of the HOPE Acts. But it is easy to imagine that if a revitalized and united Lavalas were to emerge or, even more, if Pres. Aristide was to return, that the CTH would quickly align with such a popular movement and be, again, on the frontline of resistance to Empire. At this point, though, the CTH has made other decisions.

I have a public record of strong disagreement with Batay Ouvriye’s dismissal of the popular government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas Party. From what I have seen, Aristide and Lavalas, even today, would easily win any fair and open election in Haiti. And despite problems and valid criticisms, real, measurable impacts were being made by the Aristide administration in the fight against poverty and to develop a viable infrastructure. Nevertheless, despite disagreements, I have come to trust that Batay Ouvriye is sincere in its sentiments against neoliberalism and foreign intervention. And, of course, they are Haitian and I am not. They’re position takes place within a national conversation I am not a part of. My position is one of solidarity with the expressed people’s will (the election of Aristide) against the intervention (coup and occupation) carried out by my own country.

This new tactic of funding competing progressive elements is paralleled in the political sphere where groups formerly allied with Lavalas have formed their own split off parties and organizations with the hope that, if Lavalas is banned from the political arena, they can pick up the slack and create a new popular movement. However, through funding from NED core groups and USAID, and with invitations to enter into the realm of government by joining Pres. Preval’s Lespwa political coalition, the unity and power of Lavalas has been fragmented. With the initial candidacy of Preval and the establishment of Lespwa, already elements of Lavalas were siphoned off. Now, some five political parties have emerged from Lavalas, competing with each other, while the bulk of Lavalas continues to support an election boycott until it is allowed to participate. Lawyer and pro-democracy activist Mario Joseph told us how the IRIfunded umbrella group for the 2004 coup, Democratic Convergence, is now part of the same Provisional Electoral Council that the CTH is serving on. He goes on to say that, “Preval and the government, the United States and the United Nations are working to divide Lavalas and the labor movements, using tactics of funding via USAID, the IRI, the NDI to split groups, to disperse them and to weaken unity.” He told us how the IRI funds radio stations such as Radio Galaxy, which carry commentary almost every night from Stanley Lucas, who was IRI’s main contact in Haiti in laying the groundwork for the coup. But we also visited a progressive radio station receiving funding from USAID.

My employer, the Alliance for Global Justice, includes an effort called the Respect for Democracy Campaign, which aims to expose and oppose US interference in foreign elections and calls for the closure of the NED. We were also founding members of a labor and solidarity coalition that supported the Build Unity and Trust among Workers Worldwide resolution which was brought to the AFL-CIO convention in 2005, and defeated via a series of underhanded tactics by AFL-CIO executive leadership. That resolution called for the Solidarity Center to open its books, past, present and future, and it called for a process to begin toward weaning the Solidarity Center from State Department funding in favor of building rank and file support. It is self-evident that this effort was not against the Solidarity Center, but, rather, in favor of its transformation and independence from being a purveyor of US government foreign policies.

As this Respect for Democracy Campaign has developed, we have come to learn how difficult are the choices and how extreme the needs are of many labor movements in other lands. We know that the Solidarity Center often provides crucial funding and support for particular struggles, despite its subservience to the US State Department. Yes, despite its good work, the Solidarity Center is still, ultimately, an agent of the US/Corporate Empire and will remain so until it adopts true transparency and until its foreign affairs are developed and funded by labor itself, directly answerable to its rank and file.

Nevertheless, it is necessary that we, as solidarity activists, not condemn labor organizations that make choices we may not agree with. In the past, I was very condemning of Batay Ouvriye. In hindsight, I realize that this was tinged by a lack of understanding of the situation on the ground and the hard choices confronting organizations. On the other hand, at the time Batay Ouvriye was receiving such aid, they were not at all open about the extent of the funding. Furthermore, they were silent while the Solidarity Center attempted to undermine the academic career of Jeb Sprague, the graduate student who was largely responsible for uncovering the Solidarity Center’s activities before and after the coup. In fact, the Solidarity Center made the unusual move of calling Sprague’s academic advisors in an attempt to discredit him.

Likewise, when we met with the CTH’s Chery, he outright denied taking money from the Solidarity Center, even though there are a number of sources available confirming such grants. It is true we cannot easily understand the pressures and conditions being faced by many movements around the world. But the US Left and popular movements are waging our own struggles for real democracy here at home, and that includes opposition to the NED and US interference in foreign elections. US/Corporate imperialism hurts our own infrastructure development and it hurts our chances for genuine democracy. Therefore, in the name of solidarity, we can and do ask of Batay Ouvriye, the CTH and organizations around the world to at least be open with us when and if such public US funds are being received and to not hide from us how such funds are being used. We do advise against accepting such funds, but we must also be sympathetic with the hard choices being made. In return, we ask for openness, because our own government obscures its interference, and that hurts us as well as the nations being interfered with. Our country is muddled with its own economic crisis and a form of democracy that represents corporate power over and above the needs of its population. US spending to fight wars and to derail popular democracies around the world is a waste of our own resources and keeps US citizens down along with poor and working people across the planet.

For the people of the United States, Canada, France and other countries that have been working so hard to keep Haiti down, what is incumbent on us is to change our own governments and their policies toward Haiti. We must expose and oppose the pernicious roles played by military occupation, electoral interference and the cynical use of our taxes to divide popular movements and labor unions. The best thing we can do for Haitian labor, economy and political independence is to resist our own governments as they seek to turn Haiti into a neoliberal quagmire of cheap labor for foreign corporations and resources stolen and developed for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.