Inside Haiti: Disaster Created By Human Hands

As we see, the troubles of Haiti left it immensely vulnerable to an earthquake of the sort that might leave a relatively small loss of property and very limited loss of life in a developed country. For example, after the earthquake in the much more vertical, dense and heavily populated Northridge a total of 171 quake-related injuries was identified in Los Angeles County, 33 were fatal and 138 required hospital admission, including those from car accidents, the previously ill who were medically stressed, and those injured in the immediate efforts at clean up. Conversely the Haiti quake which was of similar magnitude, centered 16 miles from Port au Prince there are an estimated 200,000 deaths. In Port au Prince 60-80% of the occupied buildings were previously deemed to be unfit for habitation and today virtually every building has suffered significant damage. What then led the country of Haiti to be so vulnerable to a natural disaster?


To Americans with short memories (if any at all) of Haitian events, the ouster of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide may be the most recent memory of the political and social turmoil affecting that island. Most are not even likely to understand those events even if they recall them.


The campaign to oust Aristide has its recent precedent longstanding support for pro-U.S. dictators in Haiti. In 1971, President Nixon restored U.S. military aid to the brutal regime of dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, whom he considered an anticommunist counterweight to Cuba. The Duvalier regime eventually crumbled beneath a wave of popular opposition in 1986; a procession of U.S.-backed puppets and military dictators followed, until the charismatic Aristide won Haiti's first democratic election in 1990. But Aristide was overthrown a year later by FRAPH, a CIA-backed junta led by Raoul Cedras, a Haitian army officer trained by the U.S. Army and openly supported by Washington.



A coalition of business leaders and Republicans used International Republican Institute or IRI as a Trojan horse. (Not to be left out of the money making fun, there is now a cooperating also an arm controlled by elite Democratic Party affiliates.) From the beginning of its Haiti program, in direct contradiction of many of its own guidelines, IRI embraced reactionary political elements far more "antidemocratic" than Aristide.



IRI was created by Congress in 1983. It has an approximately $20 million annual budget granted by its bureaucratic parent, the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and conservative corporate and "philanthropic" groups. But past IRI activity highlights an agenda for regime change far from democratic in its methods, from organizing groups that participated in a 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela, to hosting delegates from right-wing European parties at a September 2002 conference in Prague to rally support for war on Iraq.


Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams dreamt up the framework of the the IRI. These were the bright new (neocon, neoliberal) minds who brought us the notion of "the Salvador Option", i.e., that people will capitulate and even side with their tormentors after being subjected to a living terrorist nightmare of Death Squads, mass murder, disappearances, sadistic torture and all out terror. The IRI was much more refined. It would create the necessary cover, i.e., the political cover of "democracy" with coordinated subversion, astroturfed movements, newly groomed leaders, and less contentious ties between the military-police state and international and domestic business interests. Not surprisingly, illicit business such as narcotics trafficking would be given a full seat at the table.



Because of Haiti's poverty and a succession of U.S. friendly and anti-organized labor government, the island has become one of the most profitable and reliable areas for light manufacturing in hemisphere. Haiti offers an extremely profitable wage environment for business with an average wage of 30 cents an hour while offering much more stability and access compared to other low wage labor markets. Taxes are virtually non-existent. Incidentally, Haiti is also a manufacturing base conducive to "off-labeling", that is merchandise brought into the U.S. while evading taxes sometimes through mislabeling as made in the U.S.A. (or Europe). It is not surprising then that the business minded IRI leadership would be active in Haiti.



The IRI also cooperates with like-minded European agencies on initiatives around the globe. U.K. politician Malcolm Rifkind was a key agent from the inception of the IRI and was particularly key in lobbying for aid European Commission for the Haitian right wing Group of 184.



The IRI's Haiti program is the brainchild of its vice president, Georges Fauriol, who is a member of the Republican National Committee, the former U.S. Information Agency, the Americas Forum, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Inter-American Development Bank and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). At CSIS, an influential Washington think tank, Fauriol worked closely with Otto Reich, a hawkish, Iran-Contra figure who has been accused of war crimes who nevertheless served as the Bush administration's special envoy to the Western Hemisphere.



By 1992, while the U.S.-friendly Cedras' FRAPH death squads rampaged through Haiti's slums and slaughtered Aristide supporters by the thousands, IRI hired the highly intelligent, charismatic (if ruthless) operative, Haitian national Stanley Lucas to head its work there. Though elections had already been nullified by Cedras, IRI spokesman Scott says the group's work in Haiti at the time consisted of "election monitoring." Lucas himself has assumed a higher profile, but is probably encumbered by his well known association with U.S. policy and government organizations from assuming the presidency.



For IRI's Washington backers, Lucas meant unparalleled access to the key anti-Aristide figures on Haiti's political scene. By 1998, when IRI's "party-building" program officially began, Lucas spearheaded the training of an array of small parties at IRI meetings in Port-au-Prince. IRI's Scott cynically characterized the seminars as benign lessons in "Democracy 101."



Indeed, Lucas and IRI's involvement with some of Aristide's most unsavory enemies suggested an altogether different agenda. Among invitees to IRI's seminars were members of CREDDO, the personal political platform of Gen. Prosper Avril, the former Haitian dictator who ruled with an iron fist from 1988 to 1990, declaring a state of siege and arbitrarily torturing his opponents. Avril wrote about IRI's meetings in his 1999 memoir, "The Truth About a Singular Lawsuit," describing a truce he signed "under the auspices of IRI" with his former torture victim Evans Paul. Thanks in part to the rapprochement, Paul became the de facto spokesman for the coalition of parties trained in 1999 by Lucas and IRI: the Democratic Convergence.



Despite IRI's efforts to create a credible opposition to Aristide, the Convergence proved a lame horse; the party was blown out by Aristide's popular Lavalas party in the 2000 local and parliamentary elections. The Clinton administration decided to block over $400 million in multilateral loans to Haiti in an effort to starve Aristide and his left leaning supporters into submission. The stage was set for George W. Bush as the new U.S. president to finish off the opposition to neoliberalism, Aristide and Lavalas off.



In February 2004 the insurgents attacked, crossing into Haiti and laying siege to its second largest city, Cap-Haitien. Rather than send troops to stop them, the Bush administration sent (U.S. envoy, war criminal and the Zionist-neoconservative American Enterprise Institute stooge- not so strange a mix) Roger Noriega on Feb. 18 to attempt to stanch the violence with a power-sharing deal between Aristide and the opposition, which was represented by Group of 184's Andre Apaid. That afternoon, Noriega presented the proposal to Aristide, accompanied by his general counsel, Ira Kurzban. "Within two hours," Kurzban said, Aristide agreed to the proposal.



But when Noriega sat down with Apaid that evening, he handled him with kid gloves. "Once we explained to Noriega the situation in Haiti, he understood. I cannot say that he pushed us," said Charles Baker, Apaid's brother-in-law and a Group of 184 board member who was briefed on the meeting by Apaid.



"This guy's an American citizen," Kurzban said of Apaid, who was born in New York. "You don't think if the U.S. wanted to put pressure on him, they couldn't put pressure on him? So it's like, OK, Andy,' with a wink and a nod, 'Take another couple of days to decide.'" Needless to say, Apaid rejected the compromise.



The following day, Phillippe and a band of 200 insurgents armed with vintage rifles and M-16's (some of which, according to Le Monde's Caroit, were provided by the U.S.-armed Dominican military) captured Cap Haitien and began their advance on Port-au-Prince.



On Feb. 28, Bush's top foreign policy officials, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, held a teleconference meeting and, according to the Washington Post, decided to press for Aristide's ouster. The next day, with Haiti's police in full retreat and the insurgents bearing down on Aristide's residence, U.S. Embassy officials presented Aristide with a stark choice: stay in Haiti without protection or accept a U.S.-chartered plane into exile. He took the plane. The following day, Phillippe marched into the capital, greeted cheering supporters and boasted to foreign reporters that he was "the chief."



In the wake of Aristide's departure, widespread looting erupted across Haiti; well-armed thugs terrorized businesses and ravaged the country's public infrastructure. Virtually every prison in the country was emptied, freeing both common criminals and human rights violators -- including Stanley Lucas' notorious cousin, Remy.



Many Haiti experts, including Trinity College's Maguire, project the next elections there will be held sometime in the next two years. For now, Haiti's president is Gerard Latortue, a former World Bank official hailed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a March 23 Washington Post editorial for his "integrity and selfless service." Yet with no domestic constituency, Latortue has had to kowtow to Phillippe and the insurgents, whom he has publicly called "freedom fighters." Like another Bush-installed leader -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose shaky administration relies on U.N. peacekeeping forces concentrated in his country's capital -- Latortue's government wields little authority: According to a June 15 press release from the nonpartisan Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, in addition to many hundreds of Aristide supporters murdered inside Port-au-Prince itself, convicted criminals, former paramilitary leaders and other vigilantes retain effective control of most of the Haitian countryside.























A Timeline of the Haiti From Colonialism to 1990


1697
Spanish control over the colony ends with the Treaty of Ryswick, which divided the island into French-controlled St. Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo.
The colony of St. Domingue (known as the Pearl of the Antilles) was France's most important and lucrative overseas territory, which supplied it with sugar, rum, fruit, spices, meat, chocolate, coffee and cotton. Millions of slaves are continuously brought to the island as 2/3 of them perish from exhaustion and pestilence within the first five years. Haiti would continue for many years as the most brutally efficient of any slave colony in the world.



1791-1803
A slave rebellion is launched by the Jamaican-born Boukman leading to a protracted 13-year war of liberation against St. Domingue's colonists and later, Napoleon's army which was also assisted by Spanish and British forces. The slave armies were commanded by General Toussaint Louverture who was eventually betrayed by his officers Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe who opposed his policies, which included reconciliation with the French. He was subsequently exiled to France where he died from exposure after brutal captivity.



1804
The hemispere's second Republic is declared on January 1, 1804 by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines. It offers an end to domestic bondage and exile for slaves and Indians from the entire hemisphere. The republic is not recognized by Western powers.



1807-21
Civil war racks the country fueled by foreign powers France, Britain, Spain and the U.S. (which envisions it as part of its national expansion). The economy continues under a mulatto elite. Haiti is divided into northern kingdom of Henri Christophe and the southern republic governed by Alexandre Pétion. Faced with a rebellion by his own army, Christophe commits suicide, paving the way for Jean-Pierre Boyer to reunify the country and become President of the entire republic in 1820. President Boyer invades and reunites Santo Domingo following its declaration of independence from Spain. (The island would remain united until 1844.)



1838
France recognizes Haitian independence in exchange for a financial indemnity of 150 million francs, leading to the reinstating of the horrors of plantation economy. Most nations including the United States shunned Haiti for almost forty years, fearful that its example could stir unrest there and in other slaveholding countries. Over the next few decades Haiti is forced to give France special trade guarantees market access, agricultural pricing and to take on an enormous debt to France (of 70 million francs) to repay the indemnity for lost slave-holding to gain international recognition. U.S. interest in the acquiring Hispaniola, first mentioned in 1804 by the U.S. president, is now heightened and U.S. commercial fleets accompanied by U.S. marine forces regularly flout the French imposed trade laws.



1862
During the Civil War the United States finally grants Haiti diplomatic recognition sending Frederick Douglass as its Consular Minister.



1915
President Woodrow Wilson orders the U.S. Marines to occupy Haiti and establish control over all trade, customs-houses and port authorities. The Haitian National Guard is created by the occupying Americans. The Marines force peasants into corvée labor building infrastructure and American investment pours in. Peasant resistance to the occupiers grows under the leadership of national hero Charlemagne Peralt, who is betrayed and assassinated by U.S. Marines in 1919.



1934
The U.S. withdraws from Haiti leaving the Haitian Armed Forces in place throughout the country.



1937
Thousands of Haitians living near the border of the Dominican Republic are massacred by Dominican soldiers under the orders of U.S. supported Dominican dictator President General Trujillo. Among other reasons, Trujillo fears that the Haitians are a threat to his Blanquemiento or "Whitening" policy.



1957
After several attempts to move forward democratically ultimately fail, military-controlled elections lead to victory for U.S. supported dictator Dr. François Duvalier, who in 1964 declares himself President-for-Life and receives U.S. help to form the infamous paramilitary Tonton Macoute. The corrupt Duvalier dictatorship marks one of the saddest chapters in Haitian history with tens of thousands killed or exiled. Papa Doc, a one time leader of civic medicine projects under U.S. occupation does embrace the Negritude movement and African culture, at least ostensibly, and he calls for more black leadership and chastises the mulatto and non-black elite for its role in oppressing the black majority.



1971
"Papa-Doc" Duvalier dies in office after naming his 19 year-old son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier as his successor. Baby Doc who grows up somewhat shielded in his mother's world of the mulatto elite and exclusive Haitian and Parisian education, proves even more ruthless and blood thirsty than his father but has not even a small measure of respect of the people. He loses support of the blacks in government and the military that his father relied upon.



1972
The first Haitian "boat people" fleeing the country land in Florida.



1976
Widespread protests against repression of the nation's press take place.



1970s-1980s
"Baby-Doc" Duvalier personally exploits international assistance while using brutality against workers to attract investment leading to the establishment of textile-based assembly industries. His efforts are highly successful and continue to this day. Attempts by workers and political parties to organize are quickly and regularly crushed and wages are among the very lowest in the world.



1980

The government continues a policy of neoliberalism, destroying Haitian agriculture. International aid agencies and the U.S. government dubiously declare Haitian pigs to be carriers of African Swine Fever and insist upon a program for the slaughter of virtually all pigs (as well as most of the chickens) in the nation. Laws are passed against the use of domestic seed and fertilizer, and agricultural produce is impounded and destroyed. Attempts to replace indigenous crops and breeds with imported largely fail, causing wider spread hunger and despair. People are forced to turn over land to international agribusiness ventures.



1983
Pope John Paul II visits Haiti and declares publicly that, "Things must change here."


1984
Over 200 peasants are massacred at Jean-Rabeau after demonstrating for access to land. The Haitian Bishops' Conference launches a nation-wide (but short-lived) literacy program. Anti-government riots take place in all major towns.



1985
Massive anti-Government demonstrations continue to take place around the country. Four schoolchildren are shot dead by soldiers, an event which unifies popular protest against the régime.



1986
Widespread protests against "Baby Doc" lead the U.S. to arrange for Duvalier and his family to be exiled to France. Army leader General Henri Namphy heads a new National Governing Council.



1987
A new Constitution is overwhelmingly approved by the population in March. General elections in November are aborted hours after they begin with dozens of people shot by soldiers and the Tonton Macoute in the capital and scores more around the country.



1988
Military controlled elections - widely abstained from - result in the installation of Leslie Manigat as President in January. Manigat is ousted by General Namphy four months later and in November General Prosper Avril unseats Namphy.



1989
President Avril, on a trade mission to Taiwan, returns empty-handed after grassroots-based democratic sectors inform Taiwanese authorities that the Haitian nation will not be responsible for any contracts agreed to by Avril. Avril orders massive repression against political parties, unions, students and democratic organizations.