There were two additional and crucial steps that the 2004 Haiti coup perpetrators (US, France, Canada and Haiti's tiny class of elites) took in order to keep the Fanmi Lavalas (President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Party/movement) movement from remobilizing and electing another FL or FL like president. The first step was the re-militarization of the Haitian National Police, thereby returning political power to a military force. The second step was the systematic imprisonment of FL members, supporters and especially any potential leaders.
Today is Haiti diary book day : Current book is Damming The Flood: Haiti, Aristide, And The Politics Of Containment, by Peter Hallward: Chapter 10 Pt. 2 : You can see our book list is here.
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Chapter 10 Pt 2: 2004 Revenge of the Haitian Elite
konstitisyon se papye, bayonè se fe
(A constitution is made of paper, bayonets of steel.)
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For background see Part 1 here.
All of our book diaries can be found under tag Haiti Book Diary.
September 2006 Brian Concannon: Raboteau Massacre first case of its kind in Haiti's history convicted death squad leaders-coup government overturned conviction. Speakers Brian Concannon, Paul Farmer, Father Jean-Juste
Haiti's tiny class of domestic elite had always been terrified that the vast majority of Haitians whom they had exploited would rise up against them. Therefore it isn't surprising that they would go to great lengths to stop this movement. The US and Haiti's tiny, parasitic ruling class had a shared interest in maintaining the grossly unfair distribution of wealth and power in Haiti.
THE RE-MILITARZATION OF THE HAITIAN NATIONAL POLICE
The Haitian Army was used to maintain Haiti's unjust and unequal social and economic system, where a tiny class of elites exploited the vast majority of Haitians--who live on pennies a day. Haiti's Army in its entire existence only had one enemy, and that was the Haitian people. In 1995, during his first term, Aristide demobilized Haiti's oppressive, murderous Army. It was the most important and most popular thing that Aristide ever did. The elites and their International cohorts, were concerned remobilizing the old army would cause further social unrest. The Army's techniques to keep Haitians docile were to blatant; public displays of torture would not work in this new age of humanitarian colonization; besides many of the donors had complained that the old Haitian Army was big, bloated, expensive, inefficient and incompetent. The US would have Latortue's administration create a new security force with a neoliberal twist.
This decision not to remobilize the old army did not please everyone. After all, the putschists (rebels/paramilitary) expected to be rewarded for their dedication; they had been promised their jobs back, and the putschists expected back pay for the ten years of "undignified" unemployment they suffered. In mid-February 2004 while lounging around the pool at the Mont Joli Hotel, Guy Philippe (leader of putschists) told anyone willing to listen that the Haitian army was ready and would be remobilized once Aristide was ousted.
The promise of getting their old jobs back seems to have been the main incentive offered to FLRN recruits. It was also a perfectly explicit ambition. WhenChamblain's men overran Hinche in mid-February 2004, they announced that the army had been "remobilized;" as Philippe lounged around the pool with his men in the Mont Joli hotel he told anyone willing to listen that "they would form the nucleus of a reformed Haitian Army, which was disbanded by Mr. Aristide in 1995." The US kept quiet when on 1 March Philippe announced that "We are going to remobilize the army, constitutionally." Powell and Noriega quickly spoke out, however, when the following day and over-excited Philippe strayed off his script and declared himself chief and master of Haiti tout court. "He is not in control of anything but a ragtag band," Noriega retorted, adding that as foreign troops begin to assume direct control of the country Philippe's own role would become "less and less central in Haitian life, and I think he will probably wan to make himself scarce." By Wednesday 3 March Philippe's main mission was already accomplished, and Colonel Charles Gurganis (the preliminary commander of US forces in Haiti) reminded him of who was really in charge. (Damming The Flood, P266)
The White House spokesperson Scott McClellan rebuked Guy further and an uncharacteristically humble Guy announced that "We can't fight here. The US asked us to lay down our weapons [. . .]. We are dismantling the front." (This proves what we already knew that it would only require one phone call to have stopped the "rebellion")
This promise of the putschists laying down arms didn't last long. The US couldn't afford to disarm its putschists as long as there was a possibility of the remobilization of Fanmi Lavalas Party and despite it all FL still remained popular. Not all putschists were as accommodating as Guy and Chamblain. Ex-corporal Ravix Rémissain, expected the US to keep its word and give him his job back. This wasn't going to happen. The putschist did receive the back pay they demanded--about $30 million was paid out in installments. This did not satisfy Ravix who began publically exposing the putschists connection to the CD ( Démocraique Convergence) and the US in radio interviews. He admitted that his paramilitary squad was armed, funded and supported by members of the Group184, the US and Haiti's new puppet government. By the end of 2004 Ravix's resentment heated, and he tried to remobolize the army in an open rebellion. He was only able to form a small, pathetic death squad. He was killed in a shoot out with UN and SWAT troops in April 2005.
In an effort to appease the disgruntled putschists, Latortue incorporated as much of the old army structure in the new Haitian National Police force as he could without angering the US. The US wanted a smaller less expensive mechanism of oppression-a neoliberal sort of Police Force. Hundreds of "political" police were fired and within the first post-coup months replaced with 1000 or so former soldiers.
By the autumn of 2004 this "depoliticized" PNH had evolved into the domestic extension of the foreign occupation force. "What we've been seeing," Patrick Elie explained in October, is the "remilitarization of the repressive apparatus in Haiti, most especially the Ministry of the Interior [. . .]. Ex-officers of the Haitian army are quietly coming back and organizing this ministry along the lines of how it was always organized during the dictatorship." (Damming The Flood, P268)
Over the summer of 2004 Latortue's new Interior Minister ex-general Abraham hired some of the most violent and sadistic former soldiers and death squad militants, "including ex-colonel Williams Regala (
implicated in the 1987 election massacres) and ex-colonel Henri-Robert Marc-Charles (implicated in the 1990 Piattre massacre)." Meanwhile Youri Latortue was given an office and $20,000 monthly to develop and provide less formal methods of security. Guy Philippe was a frequent visitor to Youri's office most likely some of the money went to paying off some of the putschists that helped destabilize Aristide's government.
Every credible human rights investigation that visited Haiti in 2004-05 confirmed the same essential point: after quickly absorbing reliable members of the former military or paramilitary, the PNH redeployed them, in conjunction with US and then with UN troops, to wage an open "campaign of terror in the Port-au-Prince slums." When member of Griffin's legal team spoke with and observed police officers working in the poorer neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, for instance, they were struck by the absence of any "preliminary intelligence of detective work; thera are usually no plans laid out for the arrest of a particular subject or fo entry into a suspect's house," and no attempt to keep casualities to a minimum "by luring suspects away from populated areas." Instead dozens of officers, often masked (for fear of popular reprisals) and out of uniform, would descend upon densely populated areas and launch what could only be described as "indiscriminate guerrilla attacks."
(Damming The Flood, P268-69)
The US chose to ignore its arms embargo on Haiti and heavily armed Haiti's new police force. The PNH's only job was to terrorize FL supporters.
POLITICAL PRISONS
In mid-March 2004 the Haitian National Police began the next phase of its campaign of terror; it began systematically arresting Lavalas leaders on trumped up or even unidentified charges. At the same time the PNH decided not to pursue any of the anti-Lavalas death squad rebels and began overturning convictions of mass murders.
Latortue not only turned a blind eye to violence agains FL supporters (in those cases where he or his nephew didn't help organizae it themselves), he also took the remarkable step of undoing the most significant criminal convictions in modern Haitian history. Back in 2000 FRAPH/FLRN leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain was convicted in absentia both for the 1993 assassination of Antoine Izméry and for his part in the Raboteau Massacre and several other FRAPH atrocities. (Damming The Flood, P274)
The police arrested all of the Lavalas militants whom they were able to find: Aristide's interior minister Jocelerme Privert on April 5th;
Annette Auguste (So Anne) May 10th; Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune turned self in on June 28th; ex-Deputy mayor of Port-au-Prince Harold Sévère, ex-Director of Sanitation Paul Keller, and so on...
After Yvon Neptune (running for president this election) was used by the coup perpetrators to give the new coup government the facade of legitimacy by continuing to serve as Haiti's prime minister during the first weeks of the coup (probably involuntary prime minister), a warrant was put out for his arrest. He turned himself in to avoid being assassinated and was imprisoned for years.
Once again the comparison between the 2004-06 and 2001-04 administrations is revealing. Nothing remotely similar to Latortue's systematic political persecution ever took place under Aristide. Aristide's government never arrested political opponents like Evans Paul or Himmler Rébu, even as they worked openly and energetically to overthrow it. There was never any campaign of mass arrests against anti-FL protestors, nor any sort of state crackdown on the expression and organization of dissent. Nor, despite the persistence of impunity and failings of a fledgling judiciary, was there anything comparable to Latortue's grotesquely biased application of the law. While keeping hundreds of young men in prison for simply participating in peaceful pro-Lavalas demonstration, Latortue's government has done nothing to prosecute those responsible for horrific crimes that took place in full public view, like the execution in August 2005, under police supervision of around a dozen people during a USAID-sponsored soccer match in the Port-au-Prince district of Martissant. In early April 2004 even Human Rights Watch had to acknowledge that "the contrast between the Haitian government's eagerness to prosecute former Aristide officials and its indifference to the abusive record of certain rebel leaders could not be more stark." (Damming The Flood, P274)
Systematic imprisonment worked well as a tool, but it had its drawbacks. By 2006 the jails were overflowing with Lavalas members and suspected supporters. The Port-au-Prince jail was designed to hold 500 inmates, and by late 2006 it held 2,115; only 81 had been convicted of a crime. The guards were stretched beyond their limit; they could not control the increased number of inmates.
Men In Cell 5
Join us next Sunday: RunawayRose will cover chapter 11.
Haiti 2010: Exploiting Disaster1 By Peter Hallward (PDF) The following essay is adapted from the Afterword of the 2010 printing of Hallward's 2008 book, ‘Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment’. (Verso). This is a MUST READ but it isn't good. According to Hallward the FL movement is more of a idea or memory than an organization at this point.
This is the Justice, Not Charity! Haiti book diary. RunawayRose and I are writing these book diaries because we became shocked by the truth of Haiti’s history and what really is needed to help the Haitians after the earthquake.
There are only a couple of chapters left in Damming The Flood. Our next book is Travesty in Haiti. If anyone would like to join us reading and writing about Haiti books Please leave a comment. The more people the better.
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- Reflection: As Tomas’ Rains Fall
But each time the rain falls, I still struggle to turn my mind away from Port-au-Prince’s internally displaced people, especially the hundreds of families living on the street outside my apartment in makeshift tents pulled together from tarp, scrap metal and sheets. For so many of Haiti’s IDPs, rain means no sleep. It means standing up through out the night. It means that the water will transform the floors of their homes into a muddy mess that seeps through their belongings and soaks their beds.
1.3 million people, or over a third of the city’s population, have been living in these conditions for 10 months. On a normal day, it’s criminal. But as Haiti awaits the landfall of Hurricane Tomas, the inevitable and plain vulnerability of the country’s IDP communities makes me want to scream.
(snip-please read the whole article
What ever damage Hurricane Tomas leaves will be a result of the combination of the international community’s failure to deliver the billions of dollars in aid that was supposed to rebuild Haiti and provide secure shelter for the victims of the January earthquake, and the failure of the Haitian government to take a leadership role in the rebuilding process, and to mobi lize reasonable measures to protect Haiti’s IDP communities. To date, only 20 percent of the aid pledged to Haiti has actu ally materialized. And while the U.S. State Department deliberates the release of the 1.15 billion dollars it promised, calamities like cholera and tropical storms that are both predictable and preventable in nature will continue to ravage Haiti’s vulnerable communities.
I posted a few diaries about the current cholera and flooding crisis in Haiti. We can make a difference if we speak loudly enough. Cholera, Floods, hurricanes, and nowhere to go. It is the system that is killing Haitians and if enough of us speak out it can change.
The earthquake didn't kill them, the hurricane didn't kill them either, neither did cholera the system killed them and until we speak out loudly enough and change US policy the system will continue to kill them.
We can and must do better. There is an undeniable message here: if you are black and poor you are not human. This is shameful. Thank you Daily Kos for not abandoning Haiti.
Let the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (CIRH) know how they are doing. but please read this first.
Contact Us
We want to hear from you.
If you have general questions or comments, please email us at: info@cirh.ht
For press inquiries please contact: press@cirh.ht
Phone number: (509) 25 19 31 31
Call the President, Secretary of State, Congress, Senate and anywhere else that will listen. Demand they release the aid money NOW and urge them to allow Haitian grassroots groups a say in the recovery.
White House: 202-456-1111
Email at www.whitehouse.gov
US State Department: 202-647-4000
Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121
Sources We Like
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Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
Mission
We strive to work with the people of Haiti in their non-violent struggle for the consolidation of constitutional democracy, jus tice and human rights, by distributing objective and accurate information on human rights conditions in Haiti, pursuing legal cases, and cooperating with human rights and solidarity groups in Haiti and abroad.
IJDH draws on its founders’ internationally-acclaimed success accompanying Haiti’s poor majority in the fields of law, medicine and social justice activism. We seek the restoration of the rule of law and democracy in the short term, and work for the long-term sustainable change necessary to avert Haiti’s next crisis.
"IJDH is simply the most reliable source for information and analysis on human rights in
Haiti." — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
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