Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti
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The Convergence refused to cooperate with Aristide, no matter how much he conceded. In fact, Aristide became undemocratic only insofar as he seriously negotiated with the Democratic Convergence over the will of the electorate that had given Fanmi Lavalas a huge majority at all levels of government. He asked them to join his government. They refused. He agreed in November 2002 to name them to a new Electoral Council. They refused. He offered them a majority of positions in the government. They refused. He proposed dates for new elections. They refused. For all of this, Aristide was consistently called intransigent in the Western media. He was said to be refusing to work with the opposition. This “opposition” was unelected and unpopular with the electorate. Aristide lost a number of key supporters when he bothered to talk to the Democratic Convergence at all. In the face of intense criticism at the OAS Assembly in Québec City, Aristide proposed organizing legislative elections in November 2002, two years before the mandate. Not only did he not have the constitutional authority to dissolve the legislature, but the proposal gave credence to the idle claim that the May 2000 elections had been fraudulent.37 The only way that Aristide could prove his commitment to “democracy” was to become anti-constitutional. Journalists in both English and French Canada uncritically accepted the mantra that Aristide was corrupt and dictatorial and had stolen the elections.
The assault on Lavalas intensified when Aristide signed a number of bilateral agreements with Castro, all to Haiti’s benefit. Aristide’s visit to Cuba in July 2001 prompted American Congressman Peter Goss to call for the restoration of “democracy” in Haiti.38 American Ambassador Curran became a spokesman for the Democratic Convergence.
In late 2001, Haitians protested the Lavalas government to do something about the deteriorating living conditions. The Democratic Convergence took advantage of the protests to foment as much discontent as possible. But when CIA asset Guy Philippe led an armed attack on the Presidential Palace on 17 December 2001, people from the poor neighbourhoods, including armed gangs, came to aid the National Police in retaking the Palace. The poor supporters of Aristide attacked the headquarters of the Organisation des peuples en lutte in retaliation, remembering that it was there that the farcical parallel government of Gérard Gourgues had been installed by the Democratic Convergence at the investiture of Aristide as president in February 2001.39 Throughout the country, people rose up in support of the elected government. The Democratic Convergence consistently signalled its intentions by giving pride of place to the collaborators of Haiti’s past dictators. The people understood.40
Through the Democracy and Governance Program, USAID funded any Haitian journalist who criticized Aristide. The professed interest of the American State Department in a critical, independent media in Haiti would come to an abrupt end when Aristide was forced out of the country and Fanmi Lavalas violently repressed.41 USAID also funded the International Foundation for Electoral Systems that organized lawyers, magistrates, and human rights groups to protest Aristide’s supposed abuses and corruption. In reality, Washington frustrated every attempt by Préval and Aristide to reform the corrupt judicial system.42 Nevertheless, in Haiti, where few opportunities exist to earn money, such programs were received with enthusiasm. The money was contingent on protesting the government. Washington funded protest groups of all kinds and blocked money that would have helped Fanmi Lavalas to implement the programs the protesters were calling for.43 The International Republican Institute and the Haitian oligarchy funded the Haiti Democracy Project through which money was made available to women’s and students’ groups who would protest Lavalas. One of the avowed concerns of the Haiti Democracy Project was an enquiry into the assassination of the investigative journalist Jean Dominique, a champion of the Haitian poor who relentlessly exposed the corruption of Haiti’s richest families. Now, those families promoted the project called “Justice for Jean,” committed to finding his killers. When Aristide was removed from power, the “Justice for Jean” project died a quiet death. The oligarchy lost interest in exposing Dominique’s killers the moment that it took control of the justice ministry.44
The Haitian oligarchy was speaking primarily to the populations of France, Canada, and the United States, not the Haitian poor who already knew them. Their goal was to convince those peoples of the core capitalist countries that opposition to Aristide was broad and progressive. In December 2002, the Group of 184 was created to coordinate that opposition. The Group of 184 was supported by almost all of the groups getting CIDA, USAID, or IRI money. All were outspoken in their opposition to Aristide. Middle-class Haitians, funded by Washington and the Haitian oligarchy whose fortunes derived from the exploitation of the poor, would be the public face of Haiti abroad. The main spokesman for the Group of 184 in North America was Andy Apaid, whose father had established sweatshops under the name of Alpha Industries during the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier. The overthrow of Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas would have to appear to come from within Haiti. The conspirators were also finding and motivating young men to carry out the military arm of the coup. Paul Arcelin, a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal), together with Guy Philippe and Louis-Jodel Chamblain, two death squad leaders during the Cédras dictatorship, would lead the paramilitary forces.
When Fanmi Lavalas supporters fought back, their opponents condemned what they characterized as unprovoked attacks on the helpless victims of the Aristide dictatorship. One of the leaders of the Democratic Convergence, Gerard Pierre-Charles, said in March 2003 that the Aristide government was behind the so-called rebel incursions “to justify its permanent and institutionalized violence against the Haitian people.” In Washington, Roger Noriega blamed Aristide for not “healing the wounds” caused by the attack of Guy Philippe on the Presidential Palace of 17 December 2001. There was nothing that could not be blamed on Aristide. Every shot they fired at him was evidence that he had been unable to stop the violence. It was a bold strategy whose success rested on the conviction, if not the certainty, that the media would report the story exactly as it was framed by Washington.
Throughout his presidency, Aristide had to deal with the fact that all of his enemies had power while his supporters were poor. That was true inside Haiti and globally. Lavalas opponents had the arms and connections to mount constant paramilitary attacks from the Dominican Republic, while starving his government of operating funds. They disseminated venomous propaganda. They made life as difficult as possible for Lavalas activists. Both in Haiti and abroad, Lavalas supporters were forced to react to attacks, to deny accusations, to plead for funds, and to defend a counter-hegemonic perspective. Nevertheless, the Fanmi Lavalas government managed to advance its program as much as possible, build public schools and hospitals, institute a school lunch program, double the minimum wage in 2003, implement extensive adult literacy programs, create public spaces and low-cost housing projects, and raise taxes on the rich. All would be lost after the coup d’état.
In July 2003, Andy Apaid, the head of the Group of 184, met with a number of gang leaders in Cité Soleil, offering them financial support if they would agree to take up arms inside the poor neighbourhoods against the defenders of the democratically elected government. Only Labanye, a gang leader in the Boston neighbourhood, accepted the offer. In response, gangs in the other neighbourhoods of Cité Soleil joined together to fight Labanye. Between Boston and the rest of Cité Soleil was Simon, where Joegodson’s family lived. It would become a battleground. Since the poorest neighbourhoods were also the most passionate supporters of representative government, the oligarchy needed to neutralize them. Apaid and Reginald Boulos (who owned many sweatshops located at the edge of Simon) chose to bribe the criminal element to support their political and economic interests. They blamed the ensuing violence on Aristide.45
As a result of the infiltration by the Democratic Convergence, the CIA, DEA, and State Department, Aristide could not depend on the Haitian National Police to protect the elected government. In fact, Andy Apaid, an unelected
businessman, acknowledged that he gave direct orders to the Haitian National Police to not arrest Labanye, but to “work with him.” At the same time, the police were targeting other gang leaders and killing civilians at will in Cité Soleil, Bel Air, and the other slums.46 The poor would never be able to compete with the firepower of the rich. Nevertheless, controlling the airwaves, the Democratic Convergence made much of the fact that Aristide’s “regime” rested on the violence of criminal gangs. This propaganda did much to discredit Aristide and Lavalas in the foreign media.
President Aristide accepted the continuation of imported American rice and the extension of the assembly plant system into a new “free trade zone” in Ouanaminthe, next to the Dominican border in the north of Haiti. These compromises earned Aristide the enmity of some Lavalas supporters who charged him with compromising with the imperialist, neoliberal enemy. But Aristide’s compromises were irrelevant to the transnational capitalist class. Their goal was to establish as fact that Aristide was a dictator and a tyrant. Once that proposition was accepted among the “informed” public in the core capitalist countries — those who took the time to keep up with world events through the corporate mainstream media — the groundwork would be laid for the “liberation” of the Haitian people. Anyone challenging that truth would be dismissed as having entered the dark, dodgy world of conspiracy theory.
Throughout the fall of 2003 and into 2004, the Democratic Convergence merged with the protest groups that it was funding. Now called the Democratic Platform, they maintained that they were living in a dictatorship. This was a dictatorship in which the political opponents of the government controlled the airwaves, were given full access to the streets to protest, and were never jailed as political prisoners even as they openly called for the overthrow of the government voted into office with a huge majority. The Democratic Convergence used the crisis it had manufactured to break off, once again, negotiations over elections. The United States scaled back its diplomatic presence. CARICOM also withdrew from negotiations, but it cited the lack of will of the Democratic Convergence, not Aristide. The Inter Development Bank withheld $200 million promised to the Aristide government. Throughout all this, huge rallies continued in support of the government throughout January and February 2004.47
On 21 February 2004, American Deputy Secretary of State Roger Noriega arrived in Haiti to give the appearance of an attempt to negotiate with Aristide. He laid down a number of outrageous propositions, designed to be rejected by any responsible politician. In fact, the conditions he presented to Aristide to assure American support for his government were beyond the constitutional authority of a Haitian president. Noriega insisted that Aristide accept a cabinet filled with unelected representatives chosen by the Democratic Convergence. But, according to the constitution, Aristide’s nomination for prime minister would require the confirmation of the two other chambers, overwhelmingly Lavalas. Remarkably, Aristide accepted all of Washington’s demands. In response, the Democratic Convergence refused anything short of Aristide’s resignation. They argued, in effect, that Aristide’s complete capitulation to the unconstitutional demands of a foreign power was further evidence of his dictatorial methods. Noriega would later argue that it was Aristide’s refusal to compromise in any way that caused his downfall.48 Canadian and French politicians followed the same line, as though it had been decided at a board meeting.49
As the paramilitaries ravaged the north of Haiti, killing Lavalas supporters and over two hundred police officers loyal to the government, the Security Council of the United Nations issued a statement on 26 February 2004. In view of the increasing tensions, and in the interests of creating “a secure environment in Haiti and the region that enables respect for human rights, including the well-being of civilians, and supports the mission of humanitarian workers,” the Security Council called “upon the Government and all other parties to respect human rights and to cease the use of violence to advance political goals. Those responsible for human rights violations will be held accountable.” In other words, the Security Council seemed to take the time to call upon Aristide to refrain from doing something he was not doing: using violence to advance political goals. In fact, he had used the electoral process to advance political goals and the defenders of “democracy” were refusing to cooperate. (The convoluted grammatical formulation suggests the authors understood the need for ambiguity.) The Secretary General warned that Haiti could destabilize the region, which laid the groundwork for intervention.50
When Aristide was finally abducted on 29 February 2004 and flown out of the country, the people who identified with Lavalas were left completely undefended. The Democratic Convergence claimed that “freedom fighters” were liberating the people and ridding the country of criminals. Spokespeople in Washington, Paris, and Ottawa claimed that Aristide freely resigned and that the United States kindly flew him to the safety of a repressive French client state, the Central African Republic.51
The Proprietors of the World Take Haiti, Once Again
Within hours of the abduction of President Aristide, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1529. The phrasing of the resolution was ambiguous, “Taking note of the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti and the swearing-in of President Boniface Alexandre as the acting President of Haiti in accordance with the Constitution of Haiti.” In fact, only if Aristide had resigned voluntarily would the swearing-in of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Haiti have been constitutional. If, however, the American government had threatened Aristide that, if he did not sign a letter of resignation, they would kill him and his family and then launch a bloodbath against his supporters — as Aristide and his American security guards avow was the case — then all subsequent actions of the Security Council would be in violation of the Charter of the United Nations. Remarkably, the Security Council did not consult President Aristide in any way before validating the change in government. (This is great news for aspiring putschists the world over.) In order to justify intervention in Haitian affairs, the Security Council needed to show that Haiti represented “a threat to international peace and security,” a phrase that was included in precisely those words, with no explanation as to how international peace and security were at risk from a tiny impoverished country that did not possess an army. Under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Security Council authorized the deployment of a Multinational Interim Force for a period of three months, after which it would be ready to establish a stabilization force “to support continuation of a peaceful and constitutional political process and the maintenance of a secure and stable environment.” In violation of the constitutions of both the United Nations and Haiti, the Security Council called for the respect of the constitutional process. Canadian and American forces were already on the ground in Haiti. Canada would contribute 450 troops to the Multinational Interim Force.52
At the moment that Aristide was being flown to central Africa, a number of countries sympathetic to Lavalas were considering their support, exposing the division of the world into core and peripheral nations. The heads of the Caribbean countries held an emergency session, claiming their “dismay and alarm over the events leading to the departure from office by President Aristide and the ongoing political upheaval and violence in Haiti. They called for the immediate return to democratic rule and respect for the Constitution of Haiti.”53 The African Union Commission, representing fifty-three states, issued a similar statement: “The African Union expresses the view that the unconstitutional way by which President Aristide was removed set a dangerous precedent for a duly elected person and wishes that no action be taken to legitimize the rebel forces.”54 Venezuela refused to recognize the replacement government, which President Hugo Chavez qualified as “illegitimate” and the result of a “coup d’état.” Chavez said, “The President of Haiti is called Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and he was elected by the people.”55 Military aid had been shipped from South Africa that would have arrived within days to arm the government
supporters. Cuba, Jamaica, and Venezuela could have been drawn into an armed conflict. Washington’s recent covert interventions in those countries, using “democracy” as a code for class rule, might have prompted some people to reconsider its intentions in Haiti.56 At best, it would have been a diplomatic disaster for Washington and NATO, already overextended in wars of expansion in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on equally fraudulent claims. So it was urgent to get Aristide out of the country before a real military confrontation clarified who was behind the paramilitaries. Instead of receiving weapons to fight their enemies, those who wanted to defend their elected government confronted paramilitaries, backed by American and Canadian troops. In case the popular classes responded by fleeing the coming terror, three American Coast Guard cutters were stationed off Port-au-Prince. As if anticipating the need, the Security Council added a clause validating their presence: “To facilitate the provision of international assistance to the Haitian police and the Haitian Coast Guard in order to establish and maintain public safety and law and order and to promote and protect human rights.” Up to 1,000 Lavalas supporters were killed in the first few days after Aristide’s abduction.
Once president, Boniface Alexandre named economist Gérard Latortue, managing director at the United Nations Development Organization, as prime minister. A cousin of Youri Latortue, he had lived in Miami for the previous twenty years. No member of Fanmi Lavalas or any organization connected with Aristide was included in Latortue’s government that, instead, succeeded in buying off several FL politicians who, in the process, destroyed their credibility with the electorate.