[R-G] Alternatives International and the “Massacre” that Wasn’t

[Anthony Fenton]

Alternatives International and the “Massacre” that Wasn’t
North American and European Nonprofits Promote Elitist, Revisionist  
Vision of 2004 Haiti Coup Aftermath

By Joe Emersberger
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

February 29, 2008

A report published in January, 2008 by Alternatives International and  
FRIDE (NGOs based in Canada and Spain respectively) discusses the use  
of UN troops in Haiti since the coup that ousted Haiti’s democratic  
government under Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

The report was authored by Amélie Gauthier and Pierre Bonin and is  
entitled “Haiti: Voices of the Actors.”

NGOs contributed greatly to the destabilization campaign prior to the  
coup, [1] leading to a human rights catastrophe in which thousands  
who supported Aristide’s deposed government and lived in Haiti’s  
poorest slums were murdered. It isn’t surprising that a report  
produced by Alternatives and FRIDE would depict the work of UN troops  
in Haiti as benevolent, but it is surprising that the report  
descended into flagrant bigotry and slander. It should prompt  
immediate calls for a retraction and an apology.

The report stated:

     In a country like Haiti, in which democratic culture has never  
taken hold, the concept of the common good and the meaning of  
elections and representation are limited to the educated elites, and  
in particular to those who have received citizen education within the  
social movements. As a result, the people who have been elected to  
the CPVD are very often people who have a lot of influence in their  
neighborhoods, which they impose with their weapons. (Page 14)

In short, Gauthier and Bonin conclude that Haitians can’t understand  
such incredibly difficult concepts like the common good and  
democracy. The proof is that people the authors view as thugs win  
elections. The report singles out Lavalas organizer Samba Boukman as  
an example of one “notorious” person involved with the UN’s  
disarmament efforts. Lavalas is the political movement led by Aristide.

The authors wrote:

     The President’s representative on the Commission was a man  
called Samba Boukman who was the spokesperson for Operation Baghdad,  
one of the most serious massacres since 2004. (Page 13)

Putting aside how anyone can be a “spokesperson” for a massacre, it  
has been known for years that “Operation Baghdad” never existed. On  
September 30 of 2004 a large demonstration in Bel Air against the  
Latortue dictatorship (which replaced Aristide’s elected government)  
ended with the police killing unarmed protesters. Latortue and his  
truly notorious minister of justice, Bernard Gousse, immediately  
moved to mitigate the damage by claiming that three policemen had  
also been murdered (and even decapitated) as part of an “Operation  
Bagdad” launched by Lavalas militants to return to power through  
violence. The name “Operation Bagdad” was most likely invented by  
Gousse and his allies in a clumsy attempt to link the brutal  
repression of Lavalas with the Bush administrations’s “war on  
terror.” [2]

Pro-coup human rights activists like Jean Claude Bajeaux parroted the  
claims about “Operation Bagdad” and the police officers decapitated  
by Lavalas supporters to the international press. However, CARLI, a  
Haitian human rights group that had also covered for the coup,  
investigated the government’s claims and found them to be baseless.  
CARLI noted that the interim government refused to provide photos or  
even publish the names of the policemen it claimed were murdered by  
Lavalas militants.

These “Operation Bagdad” fabrications are exposed in Thomas Griffen’s  
Report “Haiti Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21, 2004,”  
published by University of Miami School for Human Rights. Griffin’s  
report also reveals that while CARLI was funded by IFES, a  
subcontractor of the U.S. Agency for International Development  
(USAID), it gave reports to the U.S. Embassy, the OAS, Canadian  
authorities, and various anti-Aristide radio stations for the names  
of people it accused to be read on air. Soon after the coup, as its  
funding from IFES ended, CARLI became very critical of the U.S.- 
backed dictatorship.

Guathier and Bonin slandered Samba Boukman, and the Lavalas movement,  
by uncritically accepting the views of the National Network for the  
Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH in its French initials), a bogus human  
rights group that the Canadian and US governments have generously  
funded. Another passage from the report stated:

     The RNDDH recalls having pointed out to the government that the  
composition of the National Commission for Demobilising, Disarmament  
and Reintegration (CNDDR) that included the spokesperson for  
Operation Baghdad 1, Jean Baptiste Jean Philippe alias Samba Boukman,  
was a message of encouragement to armed Groups. (Page 19)

RNDDH was formerly known as the National Coalition for Haitian Rights  
(NCHR-Haiti), but changed its name at the request of its parent  
organization in New York, who wished to distance itself from its  
Haitian associates – for good reason. On March 6, 2004 the Latortue  
dictatorship made an agreement with RNDDH to file criminal charges  
against anyone it denounced. Prominent Lavalas leaders like So Ann  
and Yvon Neptune, among many others, became political prisoners  
because of allegations made by RNDDH. Amnesty International, while  
failing to explicitly condemn the work of RNDDH, belatedly recognized  
So Ann and Yvon Neptune as political prisoners. [3]

RNDDH accusations against Yvon Neptune became so thoroughly  
discredited that even UN officials in Haiti rejected them.  
Allegations against So Ann and others whom RNDDH have targeted have  
also been dismissed when tested in court – even though the courts  
remain stacked against the accused thanks to the Latortue regime.

Griffin’s University of Miami report also shed considerable light on  
the close working relationship between RNDDH, the Latortue  
dictatorship, and officials paid by the Canadian International  
Development Agency (CIDA) and USAID.

Alternatives International, based in Montreal, identifies itself as a  
grouping of “social and political movements struggling against  
neoliberalism, imperialism, social injustice and war”. However its  
founding member, Pierre Beaudet, has written anti-Lavalas diatribes  
that effectively compliment Bush administration propaganda. In  
Canada, according to its own website, Alternatives receives 50% of  
its funding from the Canadian government through CIDA, the same  
agency that funded RNDDH. Undermining democracy in poor countries is  
easier when self described progressives join the destabilization  
campaign.’

FRIDE, a think tank based in Madrid, claims that it provides  
“rigorous analysis, rooted in the values of justice, equality and  
democracy.” It is more conspicuously linked to the powerful than  
Alternatives. FRIDE’s founder and current president is Diego Hidalgo,  
a former World Bank official, who in 2002 was granted the Gran Cruz  
de la Orden del Merito Civil by the government of José Maria Aznar.


     Joe Emersberger contributes to HaitiAnalysis.com and to The  
Narco News Bulletin.

     Emersberger adds: Please contact Alternatives International and  
FRIDE and object to their slander of Samba Boukman, the Lavalas  
movement, and the Haitian people. And please copy all correspondence  
to haitianalysis at gmail.com.

     Alternatives International:
     alternatives at alternatives.ca
     Telephone in Canada : 1.514.982.6606
     Fax in Canada: 1.514.982.6122

     FRIDE:
     fride at fride.org
     Telephone in Spain: +34 91 244 47 40
     Telephone in Spain: +34 91 244 47 41

Notes

[1] See the book Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority  
(Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd., 2006) by Yves Engler and Anthony  
Fenton for discussion of foreign government funded NGOs backing the  
destabilization campaign and coup in Haiti.

[2] See also Peter Hallward’s book Damming the Flood: Haiti,  
Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (Verso, 2008) pages 278-79 for
discussion of “Operation Bagdad.”*

[3] See “Haiti and the Jean Dominique Investigation” by Jeb Sprague  
in The Journal of Haitian Studies (2008) for more on how NCHR cut its  
ties with NCHR-Haiti, which then became RNDDH.