[R-G] Failing Haiti: An interview with Peter Hallward

[Anthony Fenton]

Failing Haiti: An interview with Peter Hallward

"Canada played a significant role in creating an ideological and  
propaganda type of climate in which Aristide came to be seen as a kind  
of international pariah."

 >by Paul Boin
June 6, 2008

http://www.rabble.ca/rabble_interview.shtml?x=72297

Peter Hallward is the author of a new book, Damming the Flood: Haiti,  
Aristide and the Politics of Containment, which details recent Haitian  
history including the 2004 coup backed by the United States, France  
and Canada. Hallward completes a four-city Canadian book tour this  
Saturday, June 7 in Vancouver. He was interviewed by Paul Boin, a  
professor of media and communication studies at the University of  
Windsor.

Paul Boin: Whether it's the Associated Press, the Globe and Mail, the  
UN, or the CIA World Fact book, mainstream media and other  
organizations continue to characterize what happened in Haiti on  
February 29, 2004 in the following manner: that Haiti's twice elected  
President Jean Bertrand Aristide "departed" from Haiti? After all the  
extensive research and interviews you've done for your book, how would  
you most accurately characterize what happened on that day?

Peter Hallward: There's no question. It was a coup. The denials aren't  
exactly impressive. People also denied that it was a coup back in  
1991. In 2004 it was presented as a kind of version of the "orange  
revolution" that was happening in other places like Ukraine. So it was  
presented that Aristide was under pressure by a popular uprising, he  
had lost credibility, and he had no other alternative except to turn  
to the U.S. for help to leave the country in order to avoid a  
bloodbath. That's basically the official line.

But if you look at that official line it's already very peculiar. If  
you're trying to "avoid a bloodbath" why would you have the president  
leave rather than try and stop the few insurgents who were causing  
havoc in parts of the country given that these insurgents did not have  
any popular support (this lack of support was subsequently confirmed  
as the leader of this insurgent group stood for president in the most  
recent election and only received 2 per cent of the vote). So why you  
would ask a president who'd been elected with a massive majority to go  
rather than the insurgents is kind of curious.

So if the official line isn't the correct one, than what is?

If you look at what actually happened, the story is much more  
complicated and it has nothing to do with a type of "orange  
revolution." The problem with Aristide's second government is that he  
was elected [in 2000] with a big mandate, bigger then the first time  
he was elected in 1990.

So he comes in with this mandate and a more coherent political  
organization, his Fanmi Lavalas party, with a solid infrastructure and  
support all across the country. So they're poised to implement genuine  
political change. And for the first time in Haitian history that  
political victory and support was combined without the presence of an  
army, that had previously been used to get in the way or overturn  
previous Haitian governments. So it is this situation that unleashes  
this huge international campaign to destabilize his government and to  
spread a very elaborate web of propaganda, presenting Aristide as a  
tyrant and human rights violator so that he could eventually be  
presented as a kind of new version of François Duvalier. Figure after  
figure state this line, including Roger Noriega who says in front of  
the U.S. Congress that Aristide is just like another Duvalier and his  
supporters are just like the Tonton Macqoutes, that they slaughtered  
the political opposition, and that he had to be pushed out of office  
as a result. So that's the first thing.

In response to this popular government of Aristide, the Americans, the  
French and the elite of Haiti do a few things. First, they deprive his  
government and Haiti of all international funding and aid, which cuts  
their national budget in half. So virtually all the social programs  
that the Aristide government had lined up had to be put on ice.  
Secondly, they support and fund Aristide's opponents by pouring  
millions of dollars to them, plus supplying about another $70 million  
per year into NGO groups that our complicit with Aristide's opponents.  
Without this outside money there would have been very little political  
opposition to Aristide.

They also made particular investments in the media that was hostile to  
the Aristide government. So for example, if you look at the 25 radio  
stations in Haiti, and radio is the main source of news for the  
Haitian population, about 20 of them belong to an anti-Aristide  
coalition that was funded by US AID, the National Endowment for  
Democracy, and the European Union. And these radio stations spread lie  
after lie after lie, and create a kind of massive accumulation of  
accusations and rumours and innuendo against Aristide that present him  
as a kind of tyrant and human rights abuser. And after a while it kind  
of starts to sink in and its hard to disprove these unsubstantiated  
charges on a case-by-case basis.

The third step that was done was to strengthen resistance to the  
Aristide government in the business, civil society and in some student  
groups, which carry out the odd demonstration. These occasional  
demonstrations then cause counter-demonstrations by pro-Aristide  
supporters, which sometimes can get out of hand. Leading up to the  
coup some of these demonstrations lead to a couple of deaths on each  
side. Which then allows those against Aristide to blame Aristide for  
presiding over a wave of violence and a climate of insecurity, and to  
accuse Aristide of intimidating the opposition.

The fourth thing that was done was to promote a contra-style military  
insurgency that's based in different parts of Haiti and in the  
Dominican Republic, which were able to conduct hit-and-run operations  
against police stations and other government facilities starting in  
July 2001 and running all the way through to the final month when  
there's a full-blown military insurgency. The numbers are never huge,  
just about fifty or so soldiers, most of them ex military members of  
the Haitian National Army that Aristide disbanded back in 1995. These  
people eventually succeed in putting the Aristide government in a very  
difficult position, as now having no army (and less than 3000 police  
officers scattered throughout Haiti) it was difficult for the  
government to confront these insurgents. The U.S. had also imposed an  
ammunition embargo on Haiti so their police forces did not have needed  
supplies.

So all these factors combined put Aristide into a pretty impossible  
position. Then the Americans threaten him with a "bloodbath" looming  
in the streets. So under these circumstances and under severe  
pressure, and very much at the last minute, he ends up having to leave  
Haiti. The final details as to how he left still remain very unclear.  
I would urge your readers to carefully read through the numerous  
articles and postings at HaitiAnalysis.com.

What role have you found Canada to have played, both prior to February  
29, 2004 and since, in Haiti?

Canada played a significant role in creating an ideological and  
propaganda type of climate in which Aristide came to be seen as a kind  
of international pariah. So they funded some anti-Aristide NGOs and  
Canada provided a kind of legitimacy and credibility to the campaign  
to discredit Aristide. The basic idea was to say that the Aristide  
government was presiding over a worsening human rights situation and  
was continuing the continuum of human rights disasters and the cycle  
of violence in Haiti since François Duvalier to Jean Claude Duvalier  
through the coups and now by the Aristide Government.

Now that's something we can look at and analyze. Under François  
Duvalier the number of killings in Haiti attributed in some way to his  
government is about 50,000. The number of people killed in the first  
coup against Aristide (1991) is about 4,000 or 5,000. The number of  
people killed during the second coup (2004) is estimated to be 3,000,  
it's hard to know exactly. And how many people killed are attributed  
to the Aristide government or their supporters? The number is just in  
between 10 and 40 people, and 40 being a largely exaggerated number.

In the spring of 2005 I interviewed Canadian Member of Parliament and  
Special Government Envoy to Haiti, Denis Coderre. When I asked him why  
the Canadian and U.S. government would not allow Aristide to be a  
candidate in the upcoming Haitian presidential elections, Coderre  
stated the following: "The issue is this. Aristide belongs to the  
past. And we want to build on the future. We don't want to build on  
the nostalgia of the past. It is clear in our mind that you can't go  
back." What is your response to a Canadian government official with  
this type of opinion?

First of all the form of it is incredible. I mean who is it that can  
tell Canada what does or does not belong to your future. This is a  
question for the Haitian people to decide. If you believe in democracy  
there is a well established process for doing that. It's called an  
election. And Aristide was elected by a huge mandate. Far more  
powerful a mandate then that enjoyed by any Canadian government in  
recent history. Far more powerful a mandate then any of the  
governments that overthrew him, the U.S., France and Canada.

Secondly, it's a ludicrous thing to say to the Haitian people. For the  
vast majority of the Haitian people fundamentally Aristide represented  
hope. The reason why he was elected with such enthusiasm was that he  
gave voice to a very widely felt sense of injustice and hope for  
change. And he did it in terms that made sense for Haitian people.  
He's not a firebrand revolutionary talking about radical change on a  
model that has nothing to do with Haiti and which has no practical  
chance of success. He's not talking about turning the world upside  
down or a cultural revolution. He's talking about democratic change  
within the existing constraints broadly speaking, and working for a  
slow but significant reform of the existing Haitian institutions to  
slowly but surely empower ordinary people, and begin to get rid of the  
type of class-apartheid that structures Haitian society. And that is  
the thing that is very inspiring to most people and was threatening to  
the elite.

In this regard, Aristide still has a part to play. Aristide himself  
has said that he doesn't want to stand again as president for Haiti.  
That remains his position at the moment. He does want to go back to  
Haiti to help strengthen Fanmi Lavalas, which remains the most  
powerful political organization in the country. And that's the thing I  
think his enemies in Canada, and in other parts of the world, are most  
afraid of. That's the last thing they want to happen. You know this  
line, "Aristide belongs to the past, and we need to move onto the  
future," that basically means that popular politics in Haiti should  
come to an end, and that they should accept a version of a kind of  
democracy that's been imposed on them by very undemocratic  
organizations and other governments and NGOs funded by USAID and CIDA  
and transnational technocrats in the IMF and World Bank who will  
manage the country in the interests of the ruling class. That's what  
it boils down to. That the people who would want to mobilize for  
something different, those people, should accept their lowly place in  
society.

The mainstream conventional "wisdom" reported in the press and stated  
in privileged countries like Canada, the U.S. and France is that Haiti  
is a "failed state." While other, more historically versed, Haiti  
watchers counter that it is the world that has failed Haiti. It also  
seems that this type of coverage is analogous to the way the  
mainstream media often covers Africa. What are your thoughts on who's  
failing whom, and to what degree do race and racism play a role in how  
western media and governments continue to misrepresent Haiti?

It is fundamentally racist. The only way that this level of propaganda  
can begin to be understood is if the story begins with the racist  
attitude that "these people are black." And that's why we (in the  
west) can characterize them (Haiti and Haitians) as "undemocratic,"  
and "intransigent," "unreasonable," "irrational" and a few other  
things. Even though the most basic look at the facts at the  
international role in Haiti will show that that is complete crap. From  
the beginning of Haiti's history, after winning their freedom from  
slavery, and setting an example that was profoundly threatening to the  
world's imperial powers, they've had to fight to keep the world from  
closing its ranks on them.

Yes, 1804, in terms of an example of true freedom and democracy, Haiti  
provided the world with a wondrous example of the success of a double- 
revolution – a revolution for independence from France and a  
revolution against slavery. And it was both incredibly sad and  
remarkable that on January 1, 2004, when the world should have been  
celebrating the bicentennial of the truest accomplishment of freedom  
and democracy that our planet has ever seen, the western world ignored  
it. I believe only a handful of countries sent official delegates.  
Canada, the U.S. and France sent no one. When you think back to the  
blanket coverage that the world's mainstream press gave to the  
American and French bicentennial celebrations, the difference is  
stark, shocking and shameful.

It is outrageous. Truly outrageous. South Africa's President Mbeki  
should be credited. He was one of the only high-profile people to go  
to Haiti's historic bicentennial. Mbeki also made the connection  
between Haiti's struggle and victory over slavery and South Africa's  
over apartheid. It really is a scandal that so few world leaders  
attended.

It's also a cruel irony of history that Haiti was also robbed of a  
proper anniversary to mark the day that Haiti's first-ever  
democratically elected leader was removed from office for a second  
time, as this latest coup happened on the leap year date of February  
29, 2004. So when earlier this year we had our first leap year since  
the coup (February 29, 2008), I was expecting, yes perhaps naively,  
that the mainstream media might have some form of coverage of this  
historic international event, given that it was the first time in four  
years that the actual date was before us. Yet, incredibly, there was  
none, and I mean no North American media coverage whatsoever, except  
for a very brief mention in the Miami Herald. What are your other  
thoughts on why the mainstream media coverage is so terrible when it  
comes to Haiti?

I also saw really no coverage from my vantage point in the U.K. I was  
trying get on or get some kind of acknowledgement on radio, and I  
couldn't get anywhere with that. Well, mainstream media does the job  
that it seems it's designed to do. Which is to preserve or promote a  
type of corporate agenda that doesn't ask fundamental questions about  
why the world is the way it is. If you look at a place like Haiti,  
it's very difficult to look at it without calling into question some  
of the things that structure the world the way the world is.

  - Paul Boin is a professor of media and communication studies at the  
University of Windsor. He the director of the Media Justice Project,  
an investigative journalist and a media democracy activist. Paul's  
forthcoming book is entitled Media For the Public Mind: Creating a  
Democratic and Informative News Media, and is to be published in the  
spring of 2009 by Fernwood Publishing.