[R-G] Uncovering Haiti’s Hidden History

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/print/4308/

IN THESE TIMES

Uncovering Haiti’s Hidden History
More than four years after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into
exile, questions linger about Washington's involvement.
By Judith Scherr	March 25, 2009

A congressional bill that would create a truth commission to explore
the U.S. role in the 2004 regime change in Haiti is languishing in the
House Foreign Affairs Committee with only 12 co-sponsors. But Rep.
Barbara Lee's (D-Calif.) H.R. 331 has sparked hope among some Haitians
who think the bill might pass under a friendly Obama administration
and bring needed change to the indebted island nation.

Lee introduced the bill Jan. 8 without fanfare. She has brought the
same bill to the U.S. House almost every year since 2004. It has never
advanced out of committee.

The commission's task would be to determine what happened on Feb. 29,
2004, and the months leading up to the removal of Haiti's President
Jean Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa.

The official U.S. position goes something like this: In February 2004,
an armed militia was poised to take over the capital, Port-au-Prince.
To avoid a bloodbath, Aristide called on the Americans to airlift him
and his wife to safety.

Aristide "left the country with our assistance, which he requested,"
Mari Tolliver, spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, told In
These Times in August. (Karl Duckworth, spokesperson for the State
Department, said that he could not comment on the U.S. role in
Aristide's departure, as the Obama State Department is doing a
"complete evaluation of all the areas to see where we will be on
issues.")

Aristide tells a different story. He says that a rag-tag band of some
200 rebels strong-armed poorly equipped police stations in several
Haitian towns, but posed no threat to the capital, the president or
the central government. Aristide says American officials forced him to
board a plane whose destination was unknown.

Congress has only once formally addressed the question of the U.S.
role in the coup. On March 3, 2004, the Western Hemisphere
Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee held a
hearing, providing the opportunity for Congress to question State
Department officials. Those testifying were not under oath; there were
no follow-up hearings.

The week following the hearing, Lee introduced her bill on the House
floor, explaining that the purpose of the truth commission was to
"find out more about the events leading up to President Aristide's
departure, the twilight activities of his alleged resignation, the
current unconstitutional government, and the ongoing turmoil, fear,
and misinformation that is still flowing out of Haiti."

In 2004, 49 representatives co-sponsored the bill.

Nicole Lee, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based TransAfrica
Forum, an advocacy group, is an attorney who, before the coup, lived
in Haiti. Lee (no relation to the congresswoman) says one of the key
functions of the commission would be to document the role of the
International Republican Institute (IRI) in destabilizing the Haitian
government. The nonprofit IRI is affiliated with the Republican Party
and funded, in part, by the nonprofit National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), which Congress partially funds "to strengthen democratic
institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts,"
according to the NED website.

"The International Republican Institute all along really fomented a
lot of tension between the Democratic Convergence [the anti-Aristide
party] and the government," says Lee. "There were reports--and
continue to be reports--that the IRI provided information and also
provided funding and training to former Haitian military officials
that ended up coming across the border with the Dominican Republic"
leading to the February 2004 coup, she says.

Unless the truth about the coup is uncovered, Congress will write off
the Bush policy of regime change as an anomaly, says Lee.

Meanwhile, the proposed bill has elicited response in Haiti. From
exile, Aristide referenced the bill in a statement read recently on
the radio by a representative: Lee's bill leads us to believe that the
new American administration will not support the coup d'état as was
the case for the previous administration, the statement said.

Yvonne Zapzap heads the Families of Political Prisoners Collective and
spoke by phone from Haiti through a translator. She says Haitians are
aware of the bill and believe a truth commission would help end the
lingering effects of the coup.

People voted for [current President René] Préval so that the political
prisoners would be out of jail, but people are still in jail, she
says, referring to supporters imprisoned without trial during the 2004
to 2006 U.S.-appointed interim government. The impacts of the coup are
still present since Aristide was snatched from Haiti, she says.

TransAfrica Forum's Lee puts it this way: "When Aristide was removed,
water projects stopped, education projects stopped, healthcare clinics
shut down. It wasn't just about removing a leader, it was about
destroying a real democracy. And that really needs to be accounted
for."

Judith Scherr is an independent journalist who has made four trips to
Haiti. Her stories about that country have appeared in the San
Francisco Chronicle, Counterpunch, Z Magazine, the Berkeley Daily
Planet, The Progressive magazine and the San Francisco Bay View, among
others.