[R-G] Globalization and terror - Murder Inc. and Haiti

[Anthony Fenton]

Globalization and terror - Murder Inc. and Haiti
Tuesday, 25 March 2008, 1:57 pm
Column: Toni Solo
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00378.htm

Globalization and terror - Murder Inc. and Haiti

by Toni Solo

"Evidence is mounting that United Nations peacekeepers shot and killed  
unarmed civilians, including children, during a recent raid in  
Haiti...Independent witnesses say up to 23 people were killed during  
the raid and that many were shot in the head. "(1)

"Two women and two children were killed in an air strike called in by  
British forces in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said."(2)

"Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are  
killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by  
insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health  
Ministry." (3)

"Yesterday in Quito's Military Hospital, Mexican student Lucía Morett  
gave her first formal statement to Ecuador's public prosecutor William  
Pesantez, testifying that Colombian soldiers... murdered people who  
were wounded or who had surrendered." (4)

Corporate globalization depends on governmental readiness to murder.  
Peoples and organizations in countries that defend their right to self  
determination can expect no mercy. The Bush regime and its allies may  
squabble occasionally over ways and means, but their behaviour towards  
peoples like those of Haiti and Palestine leaves no room for doubt -  
the US and allied governments operate a system of murderous global  
gangsterism to get what they want. The UN Security Council now  
functions pretty much as a diplomatic version of Murder Inc.

Haiti's prolonged destruction by foreign powers is just one more  
example of rich country elites' determination to seize what they want  
by denying fundamental rights to peoples around the world. Four years  
on, the coup against President Aristide organized by the United  
States, Canada and France fits imperialism's familiar historical  
pattern. All the fake, elegant-suited blather about bringing democracy  
and prosperity to Haiti has boiled down to murderous military  
occupation by the United Nations defending a corrupt North American  
and European backed elite, while starving people survive by eating  
cakes made of dirt.

Immediately after the coup, George W. Bush said, "This government  
believes it essential that Haiti have a hopeful future. This is the  
beginning of a new chapter in the country's history." Then US  
ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte said, "Haiti has  
turned a new page in its history." (5) What, now, does this brave new  
world for Haiti, as prepared by George Bush, John Negroponte and their  
corporate gangster cronies look like?

The statistics of misery

Associated Press writer Jonathan Katz reported on January 29th this  
year "...in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene  
shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two  
unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable  
shortening have become a regular meal..."When my mother does not cook  
anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her  
baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner  
than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth."

The World Bank reckons Haiti's population is just under 9 million.  
Gross national income per capita in 2006 was about US$480. After two  
and a half years of foreign intervention, in September 2006, the IMF  
reckoned (6) that over 70% of people still lived on less than US$2 a  
day with 55% of people living on a per capita income of just US$0.44  
per day. Four years after the coup, Katz's report shows nothing has  
improved. So if we say Haiti's population is now around 8.8 million-  
that means that just an hour's flying time from Miami, nearly 5  
million people are effectively starving.

That 2006 IMF report - an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper -  
noted real per capita gross domestic product then equalled just 70% of  
Haiti's GDP in 1980. Also, "Access to basic public services (health,  
education, running water, sanitation) is very unreliable and social  
indicators are alarming. Infant mortality is estimated at 76/1,000 or  
two times the regional average, and life expectancy is about 18 years  
short of the regional average. Moreover, less than half of the  
population has access to drinking water in both rural and urban areas,  
compared to regional averages of 71 percent and 93 percent,  
respectively. Access to improved sanitary facilities is available to a  
very small portion of Haiti’s population: 16 percent in rural areas  
and 50 percent in urban areas, whereas in Central America and the  
Caribbean, these percentages average 49 percent and 86 percent,  
respectively."

Another report, this one by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, also  
appeared in September 2006. "Haiti’s Dirty Little Secret: the Problem  
of Child Slavery", reported on the "restavec" system of forced child  
labour, "According to the Haitian government, there are about 90,000  
to 120,000 children in bondage, but UNICEF estimates significantly  
larger numbers, ranging from 250,000 to 300,000." This, remember, from  
a population of just under 9 million.

Right now, the sustainability of Haiti's economy is doubtful. Haiti  
has suffered the same imperialist policy pressures as all the other  
countries in Central America and the Caribbean that have led to a  
decline of their rural economies along with concomitant environmental  
destruction. Those neoliberal policies were deliberately designed by  
rich country "development" planners to create a large pool of  
vulnerable easily exploited migrant labour all too ready to seek work  
either as illegal immigrants to the US or in local super-exploitative  
maquila industries serving luxury brands in North America and Europe.

The resulting agricultural collapse has been disastrous for Haiti's  
rural economy and for the poor majority's ability to get enough to  
eat. "Student activists in Haiti are calling for an overhaul of the  
nation's agriculture policies, which they say have resulted in Haiti  
importing more than half of its food while local farmers are mired in  
poverty." (7)The misery and suffering endured by Haiti's people four  
years after the coup against President Aristide prevails despite what  
passes for support from the "international community".

Return to colonialism

Looking at Iraq or Palestine or Afghanistan, one can see quite clearly  
that anywhere the US government and its allies have intervened people  
are at least as badly off and usually worse off than they were before  
that intervention. Haiti's case follows the pattern. The US government  
and its Murder Inc. allies on the UN Security Council decide it is  
time for "regime-change". They impose economic sanctions. They  
deliberately attempt to provoke internal crisis and conflict. Their  
propaganda media mount a relentless campaign to prepare public opinion  
among the Murder Inc. countries' domestic audience. Finally they  
resort to military force to install the regime they want. Invariably,  
it is a puppet government facing fierce, resentful opposition from the  
people on whom it has been imposed, able to survive only via  
enforcement by foreign troops.

This is readily apparent if one reviews quotes from the time of the  
coup. Colin Powell , then US Secretary of State, said in the coup  
aftermath "...we felt by the end of last week that the only real  
answer was if President Aristide would take a hard look at the  
situation and decide to step down, which is what he did. And we said  
that under those circumstances we would come in, and we came in  
immediately." Or, "...it became very clear to all of us and to the  
Canadians and the French that he [Aristide] had pretty much used up  
whatever political authority and credibility he had." (see note 5)

"We felt". "It became pretty clear to all of us." But who are these  
"we", these "all of us" except the most reactionary elements among the  
elites of the former colonial powers? Effectively nothing has changed  
since the days of the US military occupation of Haiti from 1915 to  
1934. The only superficial difference is that the occupying forces are  
now UN mercenaries, most shamefully from Latin American countries like  
Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. The supreme, revolting irony is that United  
Nations member countries are themselves effectively trashing the UN  
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter. One wonders  
if Evo Morales does not see that something similar to President  
Aristide's fate could just as plausibly befall him once John  
Negroponte and hit-men like US ambassador Philip Goldberg have created  
the right conditions in Bolivia.

Human rights in post-coup Haiti

Corporate media coverage of hunger and poverty in Haiti fits snugly  
into the long standing racist stereotype Haiti shares with  
impoverished African countries. They are viewed as "basket cases" whom  
their former colonial owners, unfortunately and regrettably, can do  
hardly anything to help. To indifferent rich country public opinion,  
such cliches are sufficient to explain away the "international  
community's" abject failure to help promote sustainable economic  
progress in Haiti.

But it is much harder for the UN occupation forces and the  
"international community" to justify the persistence of gross human  
rights abuses which is what the 2004 coup was supposedly intended to  
stop. To cover up the shocking reality, Murder Inc. governments enlist  
media obfuscation and oblivion to tread softly around gross abuses.  
These include the thousands of people killed during and after the  
coup, the political prisoners held without due process for years, the  
hundreds of people unjustly convicted, mass victimization of members  
of Fanmi Lavalas, impunity for US-trained murderers, UN massacres and  
blatant attempts to rig electoral processes.

Constant advocacy for human rights in Haiti by respected,  
authoritative organizations like the Institute for Justice and  
Democracy in Haiti (http://www.ijdh.org) have been backed up by  
various studies since the 2004 coup describing and documenting abuse  
and violation of human rights in the country. The Center for the Study  
of Human Rights of Miami University's Law School published a report of  
an investigation by Thomas Griffin in November 2004. Griffin and his  
team documented the truly sickening security breakdown in Port-au- 
Prince with the police dominated by former Haitian army soldiers and  
gang warfare fomented by sinister US-supported figures like coup- 
instigator Andy Apaid.

Griffin gives important context in his report by explaining the role  
of US government not-so-non-governmental organizations like the  
International Foundation for Electoral Systems - funded directly by  
USAID on a no-competing-bid basis - in the coup against Aristide. The  
report's account of an interview with Pierre Vixamar, a stooge of the  
US and Canadian governments, is a classic portrait of the mentality of  
a colonialist catspaw. After documenting the nightmarish conditions in  
the Haitian capital's hospitals and morgue, Griffin concluded "Life  
for the impoverished majority is becoming more violent and more  
inhuman as the months pass since the elected government’s removal on  
February 29, 2004."

A July 19th 2004 report by IJDH, also covering the post coup period,  
documented hundreds of violent deaths. Anthony Fenton (8) makes two  
important observations about that report. Firstly, he notes that like  
all the other reports on the post-coup human rights situation it was  
only able to cover the Port au Prince/Central Plateau area - implying  
rightly that the full extent of abuses and violent death throughout  
Haiti following the coup is certainly many times higher. Secondly, he  
focuses on the report's assertion that “With the exception of four  
victims and for those whom it has not been possible to obtain their  
identity, interviewees have reported that the victims were supporters  
of Aristide or Haiti’s former constitutional government.”

Corporate media silence on the post coup massacres in Haiti is in  
stark contrast to mainstream media coverage of government repression  
of the 2007 uprising in Burma or of the post-election inter-communal  
violence in Kenya. One is entitled to assume that since most of the  
victims of Haiti's violence seem to have been impoverished supporters  
of President Aristide, their suffering was and is unimportant as far  
as the Western Bloc propaganda media are concerned. At the time of the  
coup only a handful of journalists like Kevin Pina and Jean Ristil  
were faithfully reporting matters at grass roots - their reports were  
ignored by the major corporate media.

One can draw a similar conclusion with regard to the The Lancet  
article "Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in Port-au- 
Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households". (9) One of the report's  
authors, Athena Kolbe, wrote more graphically in at least one other  
article (as Lyn Duff) about the horrific use of rape and sexual abuse  
to destroy pro-Aristide families. (10) The Lancet article reported,  
"Our findings suggested that 8000 individuals were murdered in the  
greater Port-au-Prince area during the 22-month period assessed.  
Almost half of the identified perpetrators were government forces or  
outside political actors. Sexual assault of women and girls was  
common, with findings suggesting that 35,000 women were victimised in  
the area; more than half of all female victims were younger than 18  
years."

The article's authors interpreted these findings as follows, "crime  
and systematic abuse of human rights were common in Port-au-Prince.  
Although criminals were the most identified perpetrators of  
violations, political actors and UN soldiers were also frequently  
identified. These findings suggest the need for a systematic response  
from the newly elected Haitian government, the UN, and social service  
organisations to address the legal, medical, psychological, and  
economic consequences of widespread human rights abuses and crime."

Given the Haitian government's meagre resources and the intimidating  
political context in which they are working, the promotion and defence  
of human rights in Haiti are likely to remain in the balance. The case  
of human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, still missing after  
seven months is emblematic of the the government's failure to impose  
whatever limited authority it may have. Amnesty International has  
issued repeated alerts lately documenting death threats to human  
rights activists, among them Wilson Mesilien, Franztco Joseph and  
Yveson Piton. (11)

Historical continuities : regional projections

Most of these these reports of systematic human rights abuses have  
been either ignored or when they are impossible to ignore, like the  
Lancet article, they have been rubbished, the integrity of their  
authors challenged, their methodology questioned. That pattern follows  
the same pattern of perception management deployed by the US  
government and its allies against any steadfast opposition in Latin  
America, from Sandino's pequeño ejercito loco in 1930s Nicaragua to  
the FARC in Colombia for over forty years, from Guatemala's Arbenz to  
Allende's Chile, from the Cuban revolution to the Sandinista  
revolution to the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and the  
indigenous resurgence under Evo Morales in Bolivia.

During the Nicaraguan war the historic 1986 judgement by the  
International Court of Human Rights against the United States  
government for instigating the Contra terrorist campaign against  
Nicaragua's elected government was buried by the media. Numerous  
reports detailing systematic and widespread contra atrocities were  
discounted while Nicaraguan government measures to combat US  
government directed terrorism were demonized. Against current  
adversaries, the US government - run by many of the same people who  
connived in trafficking arms and drugs to fund the Nicaraguan Contra -  
continues implementing with its allies what in the 1980s, against  
Nicaragua, Mozambique and Angola, they called "total war at grass  
roots level".

Just as in those former conflicts, they openly fund non-governmental  
organizations opposed to target governments under the guise of  
"strengthening democracy and human rights". At the same time they  
covertly organize paramilitary organizations and murder campaigns.  
Having deliberately provoked conflict and instability, they then  
accuse the target government of being incapable of meeting its  
people's needs. Then it is time for "regime change" via whatever  
puppet quisling opportunists they can muster, imposed by some  
cynically engineered "coalition of the willing" with or without a UN  
Murder Inc. permit.

The United States and allies like Canada or member countries of the  
European Union maintain the same colonialist mentality they have  
always had. Their priority is the maintenance of their own power and  
influence via local proxies and enfeebled governments. To achieve that  
outcome they will relentlessly and deliberately arrange wholesale  
murder so as to repress democratic popular movements. They represent  
an ancien regime whose overwhelming advantage - derived from slavery  
and genocide in countries they colonised - is slipping away. The  
horrific deliberate destruction of Haiti and the wholesale murder and  
imprisonment of supporters of former President Aristide has a double  
aspect.

On the one hand it is a reprise of imperialist policy as applied  
throughout the 20th century against peoples that insist on their right  
to self-determination. On the other it is the latest precursor in  
Latin America of renewed US and allied readiness to destroy  
progressive movements in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The recent  
Colombian government massacre of FARC members and visiting Mexican  
research students in Ecuador was a trial run for what is likely to be  
a series of such provocations through 2008. After their success in  
Haiti, the US government and its Murder Inc. allies are moving on to  
bigger, oil-and-gas-rich prey.

     Notes
     1. "Women and children killed in Afghanistan by British air  
strike", John Bingham, Independent, March 13th 2008
     2. "Peacekeepers accused after killings in Haiti ", Andrew  
Buncombe, Independent, July 29th 2005
     3. "More Iraqi Civilians Killed by US Forces Than By Insurgents,  
Data Shows", Nancy A. Youssef, Knight-Ridder, September 25th 2004
     4. "La estudiante superviviente mexicana revela que los soldados  
colombianos remataron a gente herida o que se había rendido." Blanche  
Petrich, La Jornada, Rebelion, March 17th 2008
     5. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/03/mil-040301-usia01.htm
     6. "A Window of Opportunity for Haiti" - www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2006/cr06411.pdf
     7. "HAITI: Once-Vibrant Farming Sector in Dire Straits", Nazaire  
St. Fort, IPS March 4th 2008
     8. "Human Rights Horrors in Haiti" Anthony Fenton, www.dissidentvoice.org 
, July 27, 2004
     9. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606692118/fulltext
     10. "Haiti rapes" Lyn Duff, Haiti Action, March 10th 2005.
     11. "Human rights activists under fire in Haiti" Haiti  
Information Project, Haiti Action, January 13th 2008