[R-G] Haiti: The forgotten occupation

[Anthony Fenton]

http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/12/the-forgotten-occupation
Analysis: Emmanuel Santos

The forgotten occupation
Emmanuel Santos explains why an extended UN presence has only meant  
more suffering for the people of Haiti.

December 12, 2008

MORE THAN 9,000 military and civilian personnel from the United  
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, by its French  
initials) will remain in the country until October 2009, following the  
UN Security Council's unanimous vote on October 15 to extend its  
mandate.

MINUSTAH troops have occupied Haiti since 2004 when a U.S.-backed coup  
overthrew democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The  
brutal Brazilian-led UN military occupation has resulted in the death,  
imprisonment or disappearance of thousands of Aristide supporters.  
Human rights organizations and the independent media have reported  
sexual assaults committed against women and children.

Brazilian leaders hope that their country's role in the occupation  
will lead to a future seat in the UN Security Council, where it can  
play a bigger political role as the region's emerging power. Other  
South American countries that help maintain the occupation in Haiti  
include Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia.

On October 31, Bolivia sent a contingent of 200 troops. Israel, the  
main U.S. ally in the Middle East, has played a role in maintaining  
the occupation by flying in Jordanian troops. The U.S. also has  
military and civilian personnel on the ground.

The vote to extend the UN mandate came after warnings from the top UN  
envoy in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, who, according to Reuters, said that  
ignoring the plight of the Caribbean country and leaving its  
population hungry and angry could lead to a new wave of social unrest-- 
an allusion to popular protests over rising food prices in April that  
ousted former Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis.

But UN concerns about political stability in Haiti are only a  
justification for the ongoing presence of a 9,000-strong  
"peacekeeping" military force that keeps the popular movement in check  
by targeting left-wing activists and criminalizing the poor. In fact,  
Brazilian military forces are carrying out counterinsurgency  
operations in Haiti similar to those used in Brazil to repress the  
poor in the favelas and activists from the Landless Peasants Movement.

MINUSTAH troops conduct raids in the poorest neighborhoods under the  
pretext of disarming criminal gangs. But those so-called "gangs" are  
ordinary Haitians who are being punished by the U.S. and its allies  
for daring to oppose the occupation. Thus, disarming criminal gangs  
serves to justify UN military presence there. Already, several  
massacres have been committed since its arrival.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and its allies continue to spread  
anti-Aristide propaganda to deflect criticism by human rights  
organizations that accuse MINUSTAH of systematic human rights  
violations. Even Haitian-American singer Wyclef Jean justifies the UN  
occupation by propagating the idea that it is fighting against  
dangerous gangs.

In 2004, Jean supported the coup against Aristide. Jean was also  
executive producer of Ghost of Cité Soleil, a propaganda film that  
portrays Aristide supporters as ruthless gangsters. Jean's role in  
demonizing Aristide and his supporters legitimized the UN occupation  
in the eyes of some Hollywood progressives and others.

But local and international NGOs also played a role in legitimizing  
the occupation on the grounds that it would bring order by disarming  
streets gangs--in particular, Canadian NGOs, which led the charge  
against Aristide in the days leading to the February 2004 coup that  
ousted him.

Canada's involvement in Haiti is part of a commitment to serve U.S.  
interests, just as it has in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A COMBATIVE grassroots movement exploded in April changing the  
political landscape in Haiti and weakening both President René Préval  
and his Lespwa (Hope) Party. Préval's coalition was suffering, as some  
of the 22 National Assembly members from Lespwa joined Concertation  
des Parlementaires Progressistes (CPP, Coalition of Progressive  
Parliamentarians), a new legislative bloc that rejects neoliberal  
policies.

After the senate rejected two of Préval's candidates for prime  
minister, the government was paralyzed for four months. The impasse  
ended in July, when the senate confirmed Michèle Pierre-Louis as prime  
minister. Pierre-Louis is the founder of FOKAL, an NGO funded by  
financial speculator George Soros.

But the confirmation of Pierre-Louis didn't represent a departure from  
politics as usual in Haiti.

In November, Pierre-Louis was criticized by Haitian labor activists  
after she made a visit to the Dominican Republic to attend a small  
economic summit, but didn't extend her visit to meet with Haitian  
immigrants after several immigrants were killed in a wave of racist  
attacks the month before.

Furthermore, discontent is mounting against the UN occupation and the  
Préval/Pierre-Louis government for failing to deliver on any of its  
2006 election campaign promises.

To mark the four-year anniversary of the UN occupation, protests were  
held in several countries on the eve of Brazilian President Luis  
Inácio Lula da Silva's visit to Haiti on May 28. Solidarity activists  
in Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. marched to demand the immediate  
withdrawal of MINUSTAH from Haiti. The biggest demonstrations took  
place in Brazil, where labor and left-wing activists marched in  
several cities.

The occupation of Haiti is unpopular among Brazilians. Over the past  
four years, Brazil has spent more than 464 million Reals ($290  
million) on the occupation, a major sum for a country where more than  
40 million people live below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, the movement against the high cost of living continues in  
Haiti. On August 25, several hundred people gathered in La Savane, a  
poor area in the town of Les Cayes, to demand lower food and gas  
prices. A rapid response by MINUSTAH forces and Haitian police  
dispersed the crowd with tear gas.

On October 14, several hundred people gathered in front of the  
Commerce and Industry Ministry to protest the high cost of living and  
call for an end to the MINUSTAH occupation. The protest was organized  
by Soleil in Action Coalition, known as Aba Satan (Down with Satan)--a  
key player in the events leading to the April rebellion. It plans  
similar actions in the future.

Meanwhile, Lavalas activists and supporters are holding weekly vigils  
for activists who have been jailed and disappeared since the February  
coup.

During Lula's visit, Haitian police from the elite CIMO unit brutally  
dispersed a vigil of protesters demanding a prompt investigation into  
the disappearance of human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.  
Pierre-Antoine disappeared in 2007 after attending a meeting with  
human rights activists from Canada and the U.S.

Haitian activists, along with international supporters, have in the  
past organized successful campaigns to free human rights activists,  
Lavalas leaders and former Aristide collaborators. In July 2006,  
former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune was released after spending two  
years in jail. In August 2006, Annette Auguste, a folk singer and  
activist popularly known as So Anne, was also released.

Presently, a local and international campaign is underway to free  
Ronald Dauphin, an Aristide supporter arrested by right-wing  
paramilitaries during the 2004 coup. Five years later, he has yet to  
be convicted for any crime.

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DESPITE THE repression carried out by MINUSTAH, Haitian National  
Police and right-wing death squads since 2004, ordinary people  
continue the fight to return the democratically elected president from  
his forced exile in South Africa.

While it's true that Aristide implemented neoliberal policies, he  
remains popular among the majority of Haitians. Four years after the  
coup, Fanmi Lavalas (FL or Lavalas), the center-left populist party  
founded by Aristide 12 years ago, is still a mass political  
organization. Although it is split into two different wings  
internally, its grassroots supporters are united in confronting the UN  
occupation by organizing nationwide demonstrations.

This is a testament to the determination of ordinary Haitians, who  
also face one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes on the planet  
after four hurricanes struck the country in less than two months. Soon  
after, the agricultural sector collapsed, depriving workers and  
peasants of one of their main sources of income in a country where the  
unemployment rate is 80 percent.

But the destructive effects of nature could have been avoided had  
there been more investment on infrastructure, health care and food  
subsidies. Haiti is more vulnerable today because the occupation has  
rolled back many of its democratic freedoms. During the coup, schools  
and hospitals were destroyed by right-wing paramilitaries, as they  
entered the country from neighboring Dominican Republic, where they  
received training and arms from the Dominican government and the U.S.

The government's response to the crisis hasn't been enough--largely  
due to Haiti's dependence on outside powers. In the agriculture  
department, for instance, some 800 NGOs control part of the budget,  
undermining the state's ability to deal with the crisis.

And even though Haiti is facing a crisis of indescribable proportions,  
it hasn't stopped paying back its foreign debt. As of this writing,  
Haiti's payments amount to $1 million a week. Activists worldwide are  
pressing the World Bank to forgive Haiti's $1.7 billion foreign debt,  
but so far, it has refused.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PRIOR TO the recent devastation, independent journalists revealed a  
plan to demolish Cité Soleil, a poor neighborhood in Port-au-Prince,  
to extend the UN military base. The U.S. is funding the base  
extension. Haiti Liberté reporter Kim Ives explains the importance of  
this military base for the U.S.:

First, as Port-au-Prince's largest, poorest and most pro-Aristide  
slum, it has been a hotbed of anti-occupation resistance for the past  
four years. Although most of the popular organizations carrying out  
armed struggle were dismantled in early 2007, unrest still continues  
there, particularly with Haiti's (and the capitalist world's)  
worsening economic crisis. Hence, military domination of this  
important northern flank of Haiti's capital is critical.

As in the past, the military occupation of Haiti is part of a larger  
plan to keep the region under U.S. dominion. Haiti shares the Windward  
Passage with Cuba, a strait that has great importance for the U.S.,  
and the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

In the early 1990s, Haiti's election of Aristide under a populist  
platform gave hope to millions of people at a time when most  
governments in the region were implementing neoliberal policies. A  
series of U.S.-backed regimes and interventions to derail the movement  
for change followed.

The 2004 coup against Aristide and the subsequent military occupation  
legitimized the Bush administration's "regime change" doctrine in the  
region, making Venezuela and Bolivia future targets of U.S.  
intervention.

Solidarity with the Haitian people should be part of a broader anti- 
imperialism that calls for an end to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and  
Palestine as well as an immediate withdrawal of the UN from Haiti and  
elsewhere.

At the same time, activists must point out Aristide's role in  
accepting neoliberal policies that impoverished the poor, while  
supporting ordinary people's struggles to return him to complete his  
term. Demanding immediate cancellation of Haiti's foreign debt is also  
important, because it could free up needed resources to feed people.

In the long term, however, it will take the unity of workers and  
peasants in the entire region to free Haiti from the yoke of foreign  
intervention and exploitation.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

What else to read
Watch an interview [1] with Yves Engler, co-author of the book Canada  
in Haiti: The War on the Poor Majority on Canada's role in February  
2004 coup.

Listen to an interview [2] with American physician Dr. John Carrol on  
the health crisis in Cité Soleil.

Read news and analysis on Haiti at the Haiti Information Project [3]  
Web site.

The International Socialist Review [4] has carried extensive coverage  
of the food crisis in Haiti and globally, including Sharon Smith's  
"The revolt over rising food prices." [5]

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	• [1] http://citizen.nfb.ca/damage-done-canada-and-coup-haiti
	• [2] http://citizen.nfb.ca/node/2027&dossier_nid=1142
	• [3] http://www.teledyol.net/HIP/about.html
	• [4] http://www.isreview.org
	• [5] http://www.isreview.org/issues/59/feat-food.shtml
	• [6] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0