[R-G] Haiti's Big Lie: Operation Baghdad and Imperial Propaganda

[Anthony Fenton]

Haiti's Big Lie
Operation Baghdad and Imperial Propaganda
May 01, 2008 By Nik Barry-Shaw
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/17512

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will  
eventually come to believe it."

- Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich (1933-1945)

With six people killed in the food protests that erupted throughout  
Haiti in early April, observers immediately began trying to explain  
why violence had once again shattered the country's two years of  
apparent stability. Yet rather than blame the massive structural  
violence of hunger and social exclusion, or even the UN troops who  
were responsible for the deaths of several protestors[1], the source  
of the violence was said to lie elsewhere.

"Behind the riots, the spectre of Aristide," as a headline in the  
newspaper Le Devoir put it. "If the demonstrators had only  
socioeconomic demands," explained sociologist Laennec Hurbon, "they  
would have understood that you shouldn't loot businesses." Accordign  
to Hurbon, the looting and violence had been systematically planned by  
partisans of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in an  
effort to force his return to the country.[2]

These kinds of baseless accusations are familiar to anyone who has  
followed Haiti's recent history. If there is one "big lie"  
consistently told with respect to Haiti over the past two decades, it  
is the allegation that Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas movement  
used - and continue to use - street gangs to violently achieve  
political ends. From the attempted coup of July 2001 that President  
Aristide staged against himself, to his instigation of "mob violence"  
in 1991, to even the attacks he faked against his church in 1988, the  
litany of charges against Aristide made by his foes stretches back to  
the very beginning of his involvement in politics.[3] As Peter  
Hallward notes, it often seems immaterial to critics of Aristide to  
make any distinction between fact and accusation.[4] Yet the success  
of a propaganda effort, as Goebbels understood, has less to do with  
the veracity of its claims than with their ceaseless repetition.

A "big lie", however, is often difficult to grapple with - due to its  
very "bigness", all its various retellings and embellishments. When  
analyzing a propaganda campaign, therefore, it is useful to isolate  
one element of the "big lie" common to most accounts. The centerpiece  
in the most recent campaign of vilification is undoubtedly "Operation  
Baghdad" and the events of September 30, 2004.

***

Jean-Bertrand Aristide's second term as President of Haiti would end  
the same way as had his first had, cut short in a U.S.-backed coup  
d'état. Aristide's opposition to neoliberalism, his defiant stance  
towards the U.S. and France, and his enduring popularity with Haiti's  
poor had made him a marked man from the very beginning of his term in  
February 2001. After U.S. Marines forced Aristide out of the country  
by plane on February 29, 2004, Haiti quickly came apart at the seams.  
Haiti's police force crumbled, the prison system was emptied, and in  
the absence of any effective public order, crime, looting and gang  
warfare spiraled out of control.

At the same time, forces of repression hostile to the poor masses were  
quickly gathering strength. Three days after being appointed, the new  
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue openly embraced the rebels in a public  
appearance in Gonaives and hailed them as "freedom fighters".[5] The  
Minister of Interior, himself a former member of the military,  
announced that the rebels that had fought Aristide's government -  
composed mostly of members of Haiti's disbanded army and of  
paramilitary death squads that operated during the first coup - would  
be integrated into the police force.[6] Other factions of the rebels  
declared the Haitian army to be re-established and with the support of  
residents set up a base in the upper-class neighborhood of Pétionville. 
[7]

Visiting the country one month after the coup, an Amnesty  
International delegation reported a widespread "pattern of  
persecution" against supporters of the deposed government.[8] This  
persecution was an attempt to pacify the residents of Port-au-Prince's  
teeming slum neighborhoods - overwhelmingly supporters of Aristide -  
who continued to voice their opposition to the coup d'état and the  
Latortue regime that had been imposed on them. As the Haiti  
Accompaniment Project reported in July 2004, "despite stepped up  
repression, many groups in Port-au-Prince and in other parts of the  
country were preparing for ongoing long-term mobilizations to call for  
the return of democracy to Haiti."[9]

One such mobilization was the demonstration of September 30, 2004,  
marking the 13th anniversary of first coup that ousted President  
Aristide in 1991. Starting at 10 a.m., a crowd of more than 10,000  
protestors wound their way through the capitol to demand an end to  
foreign military occupation, the departure of the Latortue government,  
the release of all political prisoners, and the return of the  
constitutional government, including President Aristide. Soon after  
the crowd passed the National Palace, police opened fire on the  
procession, killing two demonstrators.[10] Some press reports would  
claim protestors then retaliated, attacking police officers and  
looting businesses.

In a radio interview the next day, Gerard Latortue was unrepentant  
about police actions: "We fired on them. Some died, others were  
wounded, and others fled." The government banned all further  
demonstrations and Latortue indicated that they would take action  
against unauthorized protests.[11]

The day after the demonstration, government officials would announce  
the discovery of the headless bodies of three police officers, blaming  
Lavalas supporters for the crime.[12] The beheadings were described as  
the beginning of "Operation Baghdad", a campaign of terror and mayhem  
led by pro-Lavalas gangs intended to destabilize the country and force  
the return of President Aristide. "The decapitations are imitative of  
those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of U.S. policy  
in Haiti," explained Jean-Claude Bajeux, head of the Centre  
Eucuménique des Droits de l'Homme (CEDH) and an anti-Aristide  
politician.[13] In the weeks that followed, Port-au-Prince would  
crackle with gunfire. The hospital morgue began to overflow with  
bodies, and press reports indicated the death toll to be at least 46  
in the first two weeks of October alone.[14]

***

The very origins of the name "Operation Baghdad" are deeply contested.  
The interim government alleged the "fanatical hordes" of Aristide  
partisans "constantly claim responsibility for the terror they have  
instilled, operating under names echoing doom and gloom such as  
'Operation Baghdad'."[15] However, according to Joseph Guyler Delva,  
head of the Haitian Journalists Association and widely regarded as one  
of the most even-handed observers in Haiti, the term "Operation  
Baghdad" was coined by Latortue himself. Lavalas partisans, on the  
other hand, had never spoken of any such operation.[16]

The interim government's version of the events of September 30 was  
equally suspect. Government officials presented no evidence that the  
decapitations were the work of Aristide supporters, and did not  
release any photos or names of the alleged victims.[17] The Comité des  
Avocats Pour le Respect des Libertés Individuelles (CARLI), a human  
rights group, reported that two officers had been decapitated, but by  
former soldiers on September 29, the day before the demonstration. It  
was not until after the demonstration that the government began to  
blame the crimes on Lavalas supporters, according to CARLI.[18]

The interim government also failed to substantiate its more general  
claim that a violent campaign against it was underway. As the Observer  
(UK) noted one month after "Operation Baghdad" had allegedly begun:

Evidence of such "destabilization" is scant. Shootings and robberies  
have become common in central Port-au-Prince, but it is not always  
clear whether they are politically motivated or the result of crime  
sparked by desperate economic conditions and an ineffectual police  
force. [Minister of Justice Bernard] Gousse said he knew of only two  
lootings, and that police officers had only been killed while carrying  
out raids in slums.[19](emphasis added)

CARLI's investigation of "Operation Baghdad" yielded the same result,  
leading the organization to conclude that there was no such operation  
launched by Lavalas supporters.[20]

Whatever its origins, the trajectory of the name (or epithet more  
accurately) and accompanying story is instructive. The sectors that  
had participated in the opposition to Aristide's government - such as  
Bajeux's CEDH and other foreign-funded "civil society" groups,  
political parties, and intellectuals - enthusiastically took up the  
"Operation Baghdad" label. They joined in blaming Aristide and his  
supporters for the violence wracking Port-au-Prince, and called on the  
interim government for more vigorous action against them. [21]

U.S. and UN officials were also quick to jump on the "destabilization"  
bandwagon. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was unequivocal  
about the source of the post-September 30 violence: "Over the past two  
weeks, pro-Aristide thugs have murdered policemen, looted businesses  
and public installations, and terrorized civilians."[22] U.S. Embassy  
officials would also repeat the claim that police officers had been  
beheaded in "a slum gang operation called 'Operation Baghdad'" when  
speaking with human rights investigators.[23]

Lavalas activists and political leaders, on the other hand,  
immediately denounced the violence, and condemned the police for  
firing on unarmed demonstrators. One Lavalas spokesperson identified  
"Operation Baghdad" as "a calculated attempt to manipulate the media  
and U.S. public opinion."[24] Trade unionist Paul "Loulou" Chery  
charged that the name had been concocted to "demonize the movement,  
the people and Lavalas supporters in particular."[25] Likewise, tens  
of thousands of demonstrators in Cap-Haitien marched behind a banner  
on December 16, 2004 decrying "Operation Baghdad" as a plot by the  
bourgeoisie "to put an end to Lavalas."[26] These statements, however,  
rarely if ever found their way into Western press reports about the  
violence in Haiti after September 30.

Faced with a regime intolerant of dissent and outraged at the attacks  
on the demonstrators of September 30, the poor neighborhoods of Port- 
au-Prince erupted. "Skirmishes, barricades and spontaneous  
demonstrations have sprung up daily in poor neighborhoods around the  
capital since the police and paramilitary gunmen tried to stop a  
massive demonstration on September 30," Haiti Progres reported on  
October 6.[27] When the barricades failed to prevent the police and UN  
troops from entering the neighborhood, the invaders would be met with  
a hail of stones and bottles and other debris thrown by residents.[28]

Destabilization or no destabilization, the Latortue government  
unleashed a new wave of repression against the Lavalas movement.  
Scores of prominent Lavalas figures and popular organization activists  
were arrested on charges of being "intellectual authors of the  
violence", of hiding "organizers of violence", or simply being "close  
to the Lavalas authorities." These arrests were conducted with neither  
warrants nor evidence - hardly surprising given the vagueness of the  
charges.[29] Haiti's prisons - emptied following the coup d'état -  
overflowed with detainees, the vast majority Lavalas members or poor  
people from the pro-Aristide bidonvilles.[30]

The frequency and violence of the police operations also increased  
dramatically in the following weeks, with some community members  
describing their neighborhoods as being "under siege". The November  
2004 delegation of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights described  
these chilling conditions:

On an almost daily basis, the Haitian National Police in various units  
and dressed in a wide variety of uniforms, often masked, select and  
attack a neighborhood in operations reported as efforts to arrest  
armed gang members, with UN soldiers backing them up.

. . . [T]here are dead bodies in the street almost daily, including  
innocent bystanders, women and children. The violent repression . . .  
has generated desperate fear in a community that is quickly losing its  
young men to violent death or arbitrary arrest.[31]

These incursions were characterized by "execution-style killings" and  
in some cases massacres, according to the International Crisis Group  
(ICG). On 26 October, twelve young men were killed in the Fort  
National area, while on 27 October, the bodies of four young men were  
found in the Carrefour-Péan area, near Bel-Air. "All had been shot in  
the head and at least one had bound wrists," according to the ICG, and  
witnesses identified black-clad police officers wearing balaclavas as  
the perpetrators.[32]

Calls for an independent enquiry into these killings were stonewalled  
by the Latortue government. The interim authorities categorically  
denied any responsibility for human rights abuses by its security  
forces, while blocking access to either the penitentiary or the morgue  
by journalists and human rights observers.[33]

***
The announcement of "Operation Baghdad" by the interim government did  
not happen in a vacuum. By late September 2004, Haiti's interim  
government headed by Florida businessman Gerard Latortue was in dire  
straits. The 5-month-old administration was faced with a growing  
resistance movement in the quartiers populaires and accusations of  
corruption and ineptitude were coming from all quarters. Diplomatic  
problems began cropping up as well; in a radio interview on September  
16, 2004, "Latortue complained that human rights criticism was making  
his relations with donor countries difficult."[34]

The allegations, moreover, seemed perfectly calibrated to the  
prevailing North American media environment. The decapitation of Nick  
Berg by his captors in May 2004 had caused a media shock wave, and on  
September 20-21, 2004, two more American contractors were beheaded in  
Iraq, with the fate of a British colleague still hanging in the  
balance as of September 30.[35] What better way for the Latortue  
regime to discredit its opponents than to accuse them of the same  
tactics as Al-Qaida in Iraq?

The government's claims should therefore have invited a substantial  
amount of skepticism. Latortue was desperate to recover some domestic  
legitimacy and his international backers needed a pretext to continue  
supporting the government's pacification of the slums.

Port-au-Prince's poorer residents understood quite clearly the utility  
of the "Operation Baghdad" fiction. "By saying we are 'gang members'  
or 'chimères,' the press are trying to discredit our demands for  
justice," a Bel-Air resident explained to the San Francisco Bay View.  
"Who cares about giving justice to those criminal gang members who  
just sell drugs and misbehave?"[36]

"The police officers will say that this was an operation against  
gangs. But we are all innocent," said Eliphete Joseph, a young man  
from the Fort National district speaking to journalists following a  
police massacre. "The worst thing is that Aristide is now in exile far  
from here in South Africa, but we are in Haiti, and they are  
persecuting us only because we live in a poor neighborhood."[37]

Such common-sense interpretations were nowhere to be found in the  
Canadian media, who generally accepted the government's claims at face  
value. Although disappointing, the media's performance was typical of  
journalistic coverage of Canada's interventions abroad; what proved to  
be much more puzzling was the unflinching credulity of Canadian  
organizations that claimed to be giving a voice to Haiti's grassroots.

On October 22, 2004, as government attacks on the slums were reaching  
a fever pitch, the Concertation pour Haiti (CPH) issued a press  
release "denouncing the climate of terror ravaging Haiti, particularly  
since September 30, when the chimères, the armed partisans of former  
President Aristide, launched Operation Baghdad."[38] Just a few days  
earlier, the Quebec-based non-governmental organization (NGO)  
Alternatives had produced a near identical analysis of the situation  
in Haiti. "A vast operation of terror has been set in motion in Port- 
au-Prince principally in the popular neighborhoods of Bel-Air and Cite  
Soleil. It is militants of [Aristide's] Famni Lavalas who are behind  
this campaign," wrote Tania Vachon in the Journal d'Alternatives, a  
monthly insert in Le Devoir, "dubbed 'Operation Baghdad' because of  
the extreme acts of violence that are perpetrated: public beheadings,  
sexual assaults, attacks on street vendors etc."[39]

Neither article considered the possibility that the interim government  
and its foreign backers were trying to manipulate public opinion.  
Latortue's accusation that Lavalas had launched "Operation Baghdad"  
was uncritically repeated, while no mention was made of Lavalas  
statements to the contrary.

Alternatives and the CPH both lamented the lack of action by UN forces  
and Haiti's police in the face of a wave of Lavalassian violence, with  
the CPH going so far as to complain that police operations in the poor  
neighborhoods "regularly fail[ed] to produce results." Neither group  
mentioned the well-documented "results"- in the form of brutal  
killings and arbitrary arrests - produced by the ongoing UN/police  
incursions into the pro-Lavalas slums. The CPH communique ended with a  
call for reinforcement and increased funding of the police and UN  
troops.

With blame for the violence being heaped on Lavalas, Latortue's  
international patrons were able to give their full backing to the  
campaign of repression. Despite a long-standing arms embargo on Haiti,  
the US government authorized the shipment of thousands of new firearms  
to the Latortue government in November 2004, including military rifles  
and machine guns.[40] Then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, visiting Haiti  
on November 14, promised Canada would stand "shoulder to shoulder" in  
with the interim government in their efforts to re-establish  
"security". "You're not going to have a democracy when people are  
afraid for their lives," said Martin.[41]

***
Sadly, the views of the CPH and Alternatives were not idiosyncratic.  
The CPH issued its statement on behalf of a coalition of development  
NGOs, unions and civil society groups, and Alternatives generally  
occupies the left wing of the NGO world.[42] Despite having opposed  
the 1991 coup d'état against Aristide, by the time of the second coup  
in 2004 the CPH, Alternatives and the vast majority of Canadian NGOs  
working in Haiti were openly hostile to the popular movement and  
regarded much of violence that followed as the result of a shadowy  
conspiracy of Aristide supporters - with the puppet master pulling the  
strings from his exile in South Africa. The "Operation Baghdad" smear  
is today common currency amongst NGOs and continues to be used against  
Lavalas activists. In a recently published report, Alternatives  
referred to it simply as "one of the most serious massacres since  
2004."[43]

The tumultuous class dynamics of Haiti over the past two decades were  
deeply linked to the ideological volte-face of the NGOs. Born of a  
cross-class alliance against the Duvalier dictatorship, the Lavalas  
movement began to fracture along class lines with the advent of  
democracy - a process accelerated by foreign funding. In the struggle  
that emerged between the Haitian elite and the popular classes, the  
shift in aid financing following the May 2000 elections that brought  
Aristide's Famni Lavalas party into power proved decisive. The  
Canadian government, along with the U.S. and the EU, redirected funds  
for the elected government to "civil society", thus tipping the scales  
in the elite's favour.[44]

Sections of the middle classes were "slowly co-opted by the steady  
trickle of project dollars flowing through the almost interminable  
list of NGOs infesting every corner of Haiti."[45] Development funding  
offered a rare opportunity for upward mobility, and led to greater  
control of Haitian NGOs by their internationally-connected  
leaderships. Increasingly, positions were "not derived from a vote of  
a dwindling membership, but rather reflect[ed] the sentiments of a  
small handful of paid leaders."[46]

These educated, French-speaking leaders now regarded their former ally  
Aristide as "worse than Cedras or Duvalier" and "aligned with the  
elite political movement" pushing for his overthrow.[47] They  
dismissed the government's supporters - overwhelmingly poor,  
uneducated and Creole-speaking - as nothing but a small group of  
"thugs" and "chimères". Aristide was pronounced a traitor and the  
popular movement dead.

Interestingly, the international architects of policy towards Haiti  
weren't beholden to such illusions about Aristide's popularity.  
Speaking with journalist Anthony Fenton, Fabiola Cordova, National  
Endowment for Democracy program officer responsible for Haiti,  
remarked that "one of the main problems in Haiti has been a very weak  
opposition . . . Aristide really had 70% of the popular support and  
then the 120 other parties had the thirty per cent split in one  
hundred and twenty different ways."[48]

Following the coup d'état of February 29, 2004, Haitian NGOs hailed  
the new "democratic opening" as many of their leaders obtained posts  
in the interim government. Rallying behind the interim authorities'  
repression of Lavalas supporters, these groups took up the "Operation  
Baghdad" label as another ideological stick to beat their opponents  
with.[49] Canadian NGOs absorbed the prejudices of their middle-class  
"partners" in Haiti, including unquestioning acceptance of the interim  
government's "Operation Baghdad" fiction.

***
In a review of Canada's "difficult partnership" with Haiti, CIDA  
concluded that their shift to "supporting civil society initiatives  
and Canadian NGO partners produced relatively good qualitative  
results." "Substantial support to non-governmental actors strengthened  
their ability to mobilize constituents" while "eroding legitimacy,  
capacity and will of the state to deliver key services" through the  
creation of "parallel systems of service delivery."[50] Canadian NGOs,  
in other words, played an integral part in bolstering the elite-led  
opposition while undermining Haiti's elected government.

CIDA's candid description Canadian NGOs' role in the imperial  
destabilization of Haiti clashes dramatically with their self-image.  
These organizations firmly believe that their CIDA project partners in  
Haiti "represent" civil society, are the "true" bearers of the popular  
movement, etc. The implicit assumption is that CIDA is in the business  
of funding progressive, empowering social change. Yet with the  
ascendancy of "all-of-government engagement" and counterinsurgency  
warfare concepts in Canadian foreign policy thinking, faith in a  
benevolent, empowering CIDA becomes increasingly untenable.[51]  
Indeed, the subordination of aid to larger foreign policy goals -  
goals absolutely hostile to popular empowerment - is an area where  
"Canada has made significant headway" in Haiti, as the CIDA report  
noted.[52]

To point out that, whatever delusions to the contrary, the empowerment  
of the poor may not be the ultimate aim of foreign aid is not  
particularly original. As James Ferguson observed in his 1990 book The  
Anti-Politics Machine: "In spite of the very common involvement of  
'development' with counter-insurgency throughout the post-war period,  
a surprising number of Western progressives have been drawn to  
'development' work by way of political commitments to and solidarity  
with Third World causes." While Ferguson allowed that "under certain  
circumstances" development work may fulfill such commitments, "it is  
all too easy to enter into complicity with a state bureaucracy  
[representing] the very social forces . . . that must be challenged if  
the impoverished and oppressed majority are to improve their lot."[53]  
The case of "Operation Baghdad" illustrates just how real this danger  
is.


Notes:

[1] "One protester killed as demonstrations grow in Haiti," Haiti  
Information Project, April 4, 2008.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/4_4_8/4_4_8.html

[2] Étienne Côté-Paluck, "Haïti - Derrière les émeutes, le spectre  
d'Aristide," Le Devoir, April 12-13, 2008.
http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/04/12/184765.html

[3] See Jim Naureckas, "Enemy Ally: The Demonization of Jean-Bertrand  
Aristide," Extra!, November/December 1994, and Ben Dupuy, "The  
Attempted Character Assassination of Jean-Bertrand Aristide", Peter  
Philips & Project Censored ed. Censored 1999: The news that didn't  
make the news, Seven Stories Press, 1999.

[4] "What Dupuy means by the word 'immaterial', presumably, is that  
when he repeatedly accuses Aristide of creating and directing these  
[gangs], it is immaterial whether or not such accusations are in fact  
correct." Hallward is here reviewing Alex Dupuy's The Prophet and  
Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the International Community and Haiti.  
Peter Hallward, "Aristide and The Violence of Democracy", Haiti  
Liberté, July 2007.

[5] "South Africa to Become Permanent Home for Aristide," Washington  
Post, March 25, 2004.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23769-2004Mar25_2.html

[6] Reuters, March 23, 2004.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/670.html

[7] Tom Griffin, "Haiti Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21",  
Center for the Study of Human Rights, p. 18-24.

[8] Amnesty International, "Haiti: Breaking the cycle of violence: A  
last chance for Haiti?".

http://www.amnesty.org/en/report/info/AMR36/038/2004

[9] Laura Flynn, Robert Roth and Leslie Fleming, "Report of the Haiti  
Accompaniment Project," June 29-July 9, 2004.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/hap6_29_4.html

[10] James Painter, "Haiti's Escalating Violence," BBC News, October  
14, 2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_3743000/3743376.stm

[11] Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, "Haiti Human Rights  
Alert: Illegal Arrest of Political Leaders," October 8, 2004.

http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_human_rights_alerts_oct8.html

[12] Ibid.

[13] "Aristide supporters step-up protest", Associated Press, October  
2, 2004.

http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/879

[14] "Haiti violence death toll rises to 46," China Daily, October 13,  
2004.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/13/content_382028.htm

Other sources would claim this significantly undercounted the number  
of deaths: "On October 15, it was reported that the State Morgue in  
Port au Prince had issued an emergency call to the Ministry of Health  
to remove the more than 600 bodies that had been piling up in the  
previous two weeks," Anthony Fenton, "Media Disinformation on Haiti,"  
Znet, October 25, 2004.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6492

[15] Press Release from the Communication Office of the Prime  
Minister, October 22, 2004.

http://www.haiti.org/general_information/communiqu%E9%20de%20presse102204_en.htm

[16] Reed Lindsay, "Police Terror Sweeps Across Haiti," The Observer,  
October 31, 2004,

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1340274,00.html

and Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, "Caught in Their Own Trap", Haiti Action  
Committee, November 9, 2004.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/LPA/11_9_4.html

[17] IJDH, "Haiti Human Rights Alert".

[18] Griffin, p. 39.

[19] Lindsay.

[20] Griffin, p. 39

[21] e.g. Marc-Arthur Fils-Aimé, "Haïti dans la violence des  
chimères," AlterPresse, November 12, 2004.

http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article1919

[22] "Violence in Haiti," U.S. Department of State Press Statement,  
October 12, 2004.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/37018.htm

[23] Griffin Report, p.31.

[24] "'Operation Baghdad' brought to you by AP," Haiti News Watch,  
October 3, 2004.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HNW/10_3_4.html

[25] Paul Chery interviewed by Kevin Skerrett, "A Situation of  
Terror", Znet, November 4, 2005.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9060

[26] "Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return in Haiti's second  
largest city," Haiti Information Project, December 16, 2004.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_16_4.html

[27] "Street Resistance to Occupation Regime Surges," Haiti Progrès,  
October 6 - 12, 2004.

http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_ijdh_in_the_news-11-12-04.htm

[28] "Haiti: Rebellion in Bel Air," Revolutionary Worker, October 17,  
2004.

http://rwor.org/a/1255/haiti_current_situation.htm

Rosean Baptiste interviewed by Lyn Duff, "We Won't Be Peaceful and Let  
Them Kill Us Any Longer," November 4, 2004.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9059

"Resistance in the Slums of Port-au-Prince," Black Commentator,  
October 14, 2004.

http://blackcommentator.com/109/109_haiti.html

[29] IJDH, "Haiti Human Rights Alert".

[30] Lindsay: "'We fought to bring democracy to Haiti, but since this  
government took over, it's been a dictatorship,' said Mario Joseph, a  
lawyer who worked to bring past human rights abusers to justice under  
Aristide and is now representing 54 people he says are political  
prisoners. The prison was emptied by armed groups led by former  
military officers after Aristide's departure, and Joseph believes the  
majority of the new prisoners are Lavalas members."

[31] Griffin, p.12-13.

[32] "A New Chance for Haiti?" International Crisis Group, November  
18, 2004, p.15.

[33] Lindsay, and Griffin, p. 53.

[34] IJDH, "Haiti Human Rights Alert".

[35] Steve Fainaru and Karl Vick, "British Hostage Beheaded in Iraq,"  
Washington Post, A23, October 9, 2004.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17349-2004Oct8.html

[36] Baptiste interview.

[37] Lindsay.

[38] Concertation pour Haïti, "Haïti : de l'insécurité à la terreur,"  
Alterpresse, October 22, 2004.

www.medialternatif.org/alterpresse/spip.php?article1834

[39] Tania Vachon, "Les victimes politiques de Jeanne," Journal  
d'Alternatives, 19 October, 2004.

www.alternatives.ca/article1499.html?lang=en

[40] Robert Muggah, "Securing Haiti's Transition: Reviewing Human  
Insecurity and the Prospects for Disarmament, Demobilization, and  
Reintegration," Small Arms Survey, 2005, p. 10-12.

[41] "Martin says violence preventing democracy from taking hold in  
Haiti," CBC News, November 14, 2004.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/11/14/haiti041114.html

[42] The CPH's members include Development and Peace, Entraide  
Missionaire, Centre international de Solidarite ouvriere (CISO),  
Centre Canadien de Coopération Internationale (CECI), the FTQ and CSQ  
union federations, and the Quebec chapter of Amnesty International. Co- 
signers of subsequent CPH statements concerning Haiti have also  
included Solidarité Union Coopération (SUCO), AQOCI, the umbrella  
group of Quebec's development NGOs and the Canadian government- 
controlled group Rights & Democracy.

[43] Pierre Bonin and Amelie Gauthier, "Haiti: Voices of the actors,"  
Alternatives and FRIDE, p. 13, fn 63.

www.fride.org/download/WP52_Haiti_Voices_ENG_feb08.pdf

[44] Canadian International Development Agency, "Canadian Cooperation  
With Haiti: Reflecting on a Decade of 'Difficult Partnership',"  
December 2004, p. 8.

www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/45/34095943.pdf

[45] Stan Goff, "A Brief Account of Haiti," Black Radical Congress  
News, October 22, 1999.

www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/399.html

[46] Anne Sosin quoted in Tom Reeves, "Haiti's Disappeared," Znet, May  
5, 2004.

[47] Reeves, "Haiti's Disappeared".

[48] Anthony Fenton, "Declassified Documents: National Endowment for  
Democracy FY2005," Narcosphere, February 15, 2006.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/2/15/205828/741

Little has changed since the election of Rene Preval in 2006,  
according to David Malone, then-Assistant Deputy Minister (Global  
Issues) at Foreign Affairs Canada: "To the distress of the Group of  
Friends [i.e. Canada, the US and France], Aristide remains the most  
potent political force within Haiti." Sebastian von Einsiedel and  
David M. Malone, "Peace and Democracy for Haiti: A UN Mission  
Impossible?" International Relations, Vol 20(2): p. 153-174.

[49] E.g. "Depuis le 30 septembre 2004, le peuple haïtien en général,  
les populations de Port-au-Prince en particulier, vit sous la coupe  
réglée des bandes armées exécutant les ordres de Jean-Bertrand  
Aristide. Ces bandits ont enclenché une opération baptisée « Opération  
Bagdad » dont la finalité ouvertement déclarée est le retour physique  
de Jean-Bertrand Aristide au pouvoir." "Pétition citoyenne pour  
réclamer la mise en accusation de Jean-Bertrand Aristide et de ses  
partisans en Haïti," Alterpresse, July 22, 2005. Signed by PAPDA,  
GARR, EnfoFanm, and SOFA, Haitian NGOs with numerous ties to Canadian  
NGOs.

[50] CIDA, "Canadian Cooperation With Haiti," p. 12.

[51] Ibid, p. 18. "As the head of the army, Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie,  
recently told journalists in Vancouver, the Canadian Forces work 'hand  
in glove with the folks from the Canadian International Development  
Agency [as well as] reinforce the diplomatic activities and efforts of  
Foreign Affairs.'" Jon Elmer and Anthony Fenton, "Development Aid as  
Counterinsurgency Tool," Inter-Press Service, March 23, 2007.

www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37063

[52] CIDA, "Canadian Cooperation With Haiti," p. 18.

[53] James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, Cambridge University  
Press, 1990, p. 283-284.