By Kevin Pina of Haiti Information Project (HIP)

The United Nations has been sitting on evidence that implicates a powerful
Haitian senator in the assassination of a popular priest in 1994. The only
known video testimony of an eyewitness to the brutal killing of Father
Jean-Marie Vincent was recorded by a UN official in 2005 and has not seen
the light of day since. HIP recently received a copy of the video in an
anonymous package that included a note stating: “The UN has no interest in
pursuing this case or revealing this evidence despite the statements of this
eyewitness that Youri Latortue was the triggerman that shot and killed
Father Jean-Marie Vincent on August 28, 1994.” The note concluded, “It is a
travesty of justice that the UN has been withholding this testimony from the
public. They are supposed to be impartial but Latortue has powerful friends
in the US Embassy who view him as an asset since his role following the
ouster of Aristide in 2004.”

In the video testimony, the eyewitness is interrogated by a UN official and
explains why she was falsely arrested in 2004 and shuttled from prison to
prison until discovered by the same official. The witness also explains that
she lived in the United States on and off for several years, which is why
she preferred to provide the testimony in English.

The witness tells how the Haitian police were holding her for Latortue until
he could figure how to “get rid of me.” When asked why she feared Latortue
she responds “because the 28th of August 1994, I witnessed Youri Latortue
murder the priest by the name of Jean-Marie Vincent.” She follows with a
recounting of the incident and details of the murder. The Haiti Information
Project (HIP) has released an excerpt from the video testimony where the
image and voice have been digitally altered to protect the identity of the
witness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JXHzfn28UA).

Youri Latortue is a blood relative and former security chief of the
US-installed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue who took control of Haiti in
2004 following the coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Elected in 2006, Senator Latortue has most recently been serving as the
powerful head of the Haitian parliament’s Justice and Security Commission.

According to Haitian law, senators enjoy immunity from prosecution for
crimes and are not required to testify unless a senator himself or herself
waives their immunity, or the Senate votes to lift it. Latortue’s
parliamentary immunity is due to expire with the swearing in of the next
parliament following elections scheduled for Nov. 28 in Haiti.

Many Haitians suspected that Latortue ran for office in 2006 for the
expressed purpose of claiming immunity from prosecution given previous
allegations made against him of human right abuses following Aristide’s
ouster. A Freedom House report on Haiti released May 3, 2010 stated “a
number of lawmakers elected in 2006 have reportedly been involved in
criminal activities, and they sought parliament seats primarily to obtain
immunity from prosecution.”

Father Jean-Marie Vincent was fatally shot at point-blank range in front of
his rectory at Montfortain in the Port au Prince neighborhood of Christ-Roi
on Aug. 28, 1994. At the time of Vincent’s assassination, then Lt. Youri
Latortue was a leading member of the Anti-Gang Unit of the Haitian army.
Witnesses at the time described two vehicles carrying members of the unit as
those responsible for opening fire on Vincent’s vehicle.

A report released by a delegation of the Center for the Study of Human
Rights in 2004 stated “a former high-ranking police official from the USGPN
(palace security), Edouard Guerriere… claims that Youri Latortue
participated in the 1994 murder of catholic priest Jean-Marie Vincent (as
did eyewitnesses in 1995), and that he assisted in the 1993 murder of
democracy activist Antoine Izméry. From 1991 to 1993, Latortue was an
officer in FADH’s [Haitian army] Anti-Gang Unit, the army’s most notorious
unit for human rights violations.”

The video testimony reportedly suppressed by the UN would represent the
first time an actual eyewitness to Vincent’s assassination has stepped
forward to identify Senator Youri Latortue as the man that pulled the
trigger.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF WITNESS TO YOURI LATORTUE’S KILLING OF FATHER JEAN-MARIE
VINCENT
[Names have been removed to protect the witness's identity- HL]

WITNESS: Then, Richard (name removed) said, you know something, I’m gonna
call a friend and they’re gonna come and see you because from the
information I’ve got, they want to kill you.

But I saw Youri Latortue going back and forth on the staircase [at the
police station] in Pétionville so that’s when I said…it clicked. I said oh
my God. I’m being set up.

UN OFFICIAL: So while you were in Pétionville you saw Youri walking around?

WITNESS: Not walking around, going up and down the staircase from the
Commissioner’s down to where I was. But he didn’t come towards me. When I
saw him, that’s when things clicked. I said, okay, that’s it… I know why I
am here.

UN OFFICIAL: Now let me ask you about that. Why would Youri have something
against you? Why would you want to be….

WITNESS: Because the 28th of August 1994, I witnessed Youri Latortue murder
the priest by the name of Jean-Marie Vincent.

UN OFFICIAL: Where did you see this?

WITNESS: In Christ Roi by Turgeau.

UN OFFICIAL: And was this on the side of the road? A restaurant?

WITNESS: No. He was getting into the place where he lives. The priest was
getting into the gate.

UN OFFICIAL: What? He got out of vehicle to open to the gate?

WITNESS: No, they were opening the gate for him

UN Official: Uh huh.

WITNESS: That’s when I saw a pickup… a double white pickup with a bunch of
men in black. And uh…I saw Youri. The reason why I remember Youri…. I
don’t remember the other ones. But the reason why I remember Youri because
he used to come to (name removed) house. And I saw him getting out of the
car and shooting at the car. But at that time, I didn’t know he was a
priest, the man they were shooting at. I didn’t know he was a priest. And I
didn’t know the person who was in that car.

UN OFFICIAL: Right

WITNESS: It’s when I went back to my uncle’s house and I was explaining what
I witnessed. Then I found out when he said “you know (unintelligible) who
they shot?” I said: “Who they shot?” He said, “Jean-Marie Vincent.” I said:
“Who is Jean-Marie Vincent?” He said: “It’s a priest.”

Sourced from: Google User’s shared items in Google Reader

by Gina Magloire and Kim Ives

On Thursday, Sep. 16, about 200 people crowded into Room 209A at the
Washington Convention Center for a panel on Haiti during the 40th Annual
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Legislative Conference, which was held in
Washington, DC from Sep. 15-18.

Two Haitian presidential candidates were there: Leslie Voltaire of the
Together We Are Strong party (Ansanm Nou Fò) and Eric Smarcki Charles of the
Party of Haitian National Evolution (Parti de l’Évolution Nationale
Haitienne or PENH). Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly of the Peasant’s Response
party (Repons peyizan) also showed up, but late, so he stood at the door
outside the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Ron Daniels, the founder of the Haiti Support
Project and organizer the ill-fated 2004 “Cruising into History” fiasco.

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), the House Judiciary Committee Chairman,
urged more U.S. black leaders to get involved in helping Haiti’s
reconstruction.

Former New York Republican Congressman Benjamin Gilman, once chairman of the
House International Relations Committee, who retired in 2003, also spoke of
his 30 years of experience working in the U.S. Congress for Haiti. He
sharply criticized the reconstruction efforts in Haiti, saying they were
riddled with corruption and ineffective in getting people shelter and other
aid. Gilman had been a fierce critic of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
while in Congress but did not say anything negative about Aristide at the
CBC panel.

Other speakers included entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte;
TransAfrica President Nicole Lee, a human rights attorney; Paul Weisenfeld,
Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); and Rick Wade, Senior
Adviser and Deputy Chief of Staff at the U.S. Commerce Department.

Two NGOs were also represented. Angela Bruce Raeburn, Senior Policy Advisor
for Humanitarian Response in Haiti at Oxfam America talked about agriculture
in Haiti, from which she had just returned. Also Charisse Espi Glassman, a
legislative assistant with Catholic Relief Services, said that CRS had been
working in Haiti for 30 years and was now selling houses for $1,400.

There were several speakers who represented the Lavalas position,
particularly on the subject of the exclusionary presidential and legislative
elections being organized for Nov. 28. Toussaint Hilaire, the director of
the Aristide Foundation for Democracy, spoke in Kreyòl with translation
provided by Prof. Frantz Jerome. Brian Concannon of the Institute for
Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) talked about the legal work of his
office and colleagues in Haiti. Walter Riley, executive director of the
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF), spoke about his foundation’s work for
peace and justice in Haiti. He is a California-based lawyer and a leader of
the Oakland-based Haiti Action Committee.

Finally, filmmaker Avi Lewis, who anchors Al Jazeera’s show “Fault Lines”
spoke, as did Ed Schultz, host of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC.

Although the audience was mostly foreigners, a number of Haitians, some who
had traveled from New York and Miami, also attended. They were largely of a
Lavalas persuasion and cheered speakers who spoke about the return of
Aristide from exile in South Africa.

Sourced from: Google User’s shared items in Google Reader

by Kim Ives

Slowed by political wrangling and mysterious bureaucratic deliberations, Haiti’s elections have historically taken months and even years to organize. Suddenly, the electoral schedule, announced on Nov. 11, just two days after the new prime minister’s record-fast ratification, is moving at warp speed.

The new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), reconstituted in October, has set nationwide elections for 99 deputies and 11 senators for Feb. 28, 2010. (The Center Department, where voting was cancelled in April due to violence, will hold its elections three days after everywhere else, on Mar. 3, 2010).

Parties have to register for the election this week, in a short five-day period from Nov. 16 to 20. One of those days, Nov. 18, is a national holiday commemorating the 1803 Battle of Vertieres. Politicians across the political spectrum are denouncing the curtailed and rushed schedule as impossible to meet and “suspicious,” including Chavannes Jeune of the Union party and Clark Parent of the Konbit to Remake Haiti.

“It takes time for the parties to collect the 100,000 gourdes [$249] to register a Senate candidate,” Parent said.

In addition to the relatively hefty fees, registering parties have to submit a pile of paperwork, including a notarized founding charter, state approval papers, the party’s emblem on an 8 ½ by 11 inch sheet, and a national identification card. It takes time to get some of the necessary documents from Haiti’s incredibly-slow state agencies, and “this might cause the deadline to be missed,” Jeune complained.

Even Steven Benoit, a deputy from President René Préval’s Lespwa (Hope) coalition, has called the proposed schedule a “hold up,” saying he might not run, or if he does, it will be as an independent.

But Gaillot Dorsainvil, the CEP’s new president, is adamant. “The dates will definitely be maintained,” he said on Nov. 16.

The same day, new Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive signed an accord with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to finance the elections with $25 million, only $7 million of which the Haitian government will provide.

After this week’s registrations, the CEP will publish its list of approved parties on Nov. 24. Candidates can then register from Nov. 25 to 30. There is then a 10 day period from Nov. 30 to Dec. 9 for parties and candidates to challenge their exclusion. Finally on Dec. 11, the CEP will publish its final list of approved candidates.

A civic education campaign about elections will be launched on Dec. 12, and the actual election campaign will last for one month from Jan. 27 to Feb. 26, 2010.

After the elections, preliminary results are to be released Mar. 8 with challenges sorted out from Mar. 11 to Mar. 22, when final first round results will be published. The CEP said it will not schedule run-offs until after the first round results are in, so as to preserve its “serenity.”

Many parties were invited to a meeting at the CEP’s headquarters on Nov. 13 for a sort of orientation. After the meeting, the CEP apologized for not inviting the Political Parties Convention (CPP), a new party born from Lespwa party dissidents and the Progressive Parliamentarians Concertation. The CEP claimed it was an oversight.

The question on everyone’s mind is whether former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Family party (FL), Haiti’s largest, will try to participate, and if it does, whether the new CEP will try to exclude it on technicalities as the old CEP did last February (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 2, No. 31, 2/18/2009). That exclusion provoked a massive nationwide boycott of partial Senate elections in April and June.

Aristide remains in exile in South Africa, almost six years after the Feb. 29, 2004 coup that ousted him.

Annette Auguste (So An), Dr. Maryse Narcisse, Lionel Etienne, and Jacques Mathelier, who make up the FL’s Executive Committee that runs the party in Aristide’s absence, attended the Nov. 13 meeting at the CEP, although the CEP’s Nov. 9 invitation asked for only “two duly mandated representatives.”

The FL leadership was split for many months between two factions, one led by Narcisse and the other by Auguste. But on Nov. 3, the party held its 13th anniversary congress at the Aristide Foundation for Democracy in Tabarre, where a new unity was forged. Narcisse and Auguste publicly embraced and held up each other’s hands in a victory clasp.

“We are going to register,” Maryse Narcisse told Haiti Liberté. “In fact, we are already registered. All our papers are already with the CEP. We just have to renew the registration.”

In the last election, however, the CEP raised questions about the validity of Aristide’s mandate to the party’s representative. Narcisse insists that the mandate question has been resolved.

“The last letter we received from the [last] CEP told us that there is no longer any problem of mandate,” Narcisse said. “Furthermore, we have built unity in the party. Of course, they might look for some other way to try to exclude us. Thus we are working in concert with President Aristide to anticipate problems.”

Wilfrid Lavaud, alias “Ti Do,” So An’s close companion and collaborator, also expressed apprehension about the “games” the CEP might play.

“Today, So An, Maryse Narcisse and Lionel Etienne met to weigh how we should go about registering before the Friday deadline,” Lavaud said on Nov. 17. “We have to be ready for tricks.”

The election’s fast-track certainly suggests that Préval’s Lespwa coalition, which dominates the parliament and the CEP, has an agenda it is trying to achieve.

“I think Préval’s main goal before he leaves office in Feb. 2011 is to change the 1987 Constitution,” said Haiti Liberté director Berthony Dupont. “According to the Constitution, changes are drawn up by one parliamentary session, and then ratified by the next. So the extended session of the 48th Legislature from January to May 2010 will make Constitutional changes, and the new congress that emanates from these elections that Lespwa is hoping to sweep, will ratify them. They have to ram things through fast to eliminate challengers and to keep a semblance of legality on an election which is basically undemocratic, just like the boycotted elections of April and June .”

ERRATA

In last week’s article, “Jean Max Bellerive Ratified as Haiti’s New Prime Minister,” we incorrectly stated that Promobank, an investment bank, was founded by Texas-based Haitian businessman and unsuccessful presidential candidate, Dumarsais Siméus. In fact, Promobank was founded in 1974 and functioned until June 1994 as the Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) Haiti, a branch of the French bank. In 2004, PromoBank contributed to the development and launch of PromoCapital, an investment bank in which Siméus was a major partner.

Source: http://www.haitianalysis.com

by Kim Ives

Haiti’s Senate dismissed Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 at half past midnight. The vote came after a raucous debate that began at about 1:00 p.m. the day before. Senators opposed to Pierre-Louis’ dismissal – Rudy Hériveaux, Youri Latortue, Evaliere Beauplan, Edmonde Supplice Beauzile and Andris Riché, among others – stormed out of the Senate chamber. The remaining senators voted to remove the Pierre-Louis’ government by a vote of 18 in favor with one abstention. Most of the remaining 10 senators claim that the vote was “illegal” and plagued by procedural irregularities.

The campaign to remove Pierre-Louis’ government was mounted quickly. Sen. Jean Hector Anacacis, a leader in President René Préval’s Lespwa coalition, told the Miami Herald that a group of senators held “three days of meetings at a hotel near the palace” and then decided to summon the Prime Minister for a no-confidence vote.

“We are the ones on the ground who hear the people’s cry, who hear them criticizing us, the government, saying nothing has been done,” Anacasis said. “We have to replace the woman.”

Most of the Senator’s leading the charge were from Lespwa, prompting suspicion that the move to oust Pierre-Louis originated with Préval himself.

After the Senate issued its summons and word of the impending ouster spread through alarmed diplomatic circles, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Préval on Oct. 23. A State Department spokeswoman would not give details of the call but told the Associated Press: “We have made it known to the Haitian government that the perception of instability could be very damaging to Haiti at this time.”

Clearly, the U.S. and Europe liked working with Pierre-Louis, formerly the head of a large NGO heavily funded by billionaire financier George Soros. “Clinton spoke of her concerns and reiterated U.S. support for Pierre-Louis, according to several sources privy to the conversation,” the Herald reported. “Préval, in turn, told Clinton that he was not behind the move to oust Pierre-Louis and has no control over the lawmakers.”

But many observers think that Préval feared Pierre-Louis was beginning to supplant him as the Haitian leader to whom the “international community” was turning to have their agenda carried out.

“Préval was threatened by the growing power and connections of Pierre-Louis, particularly after the visits of [U.N. Special Envoy] Bill Clinton,” said Mario Joseph, Haiti’s foremost human rights lawyer with the International Lawyers Office (BAI). “She was becoming the darling of the donors, who called her capable, and I think he felt she was getting too big for her britches.”

Furthermore, Pierre-Louis may have been an obstacle for the political agenda Préval is trying to push through Parliament and with elections before he leaves office in February 2011, Joseph speculated.

The ousting senators, including Anacacis, Yvon Buissereth, Wencesclass Lambert, and Joseph John Joel, played on popular anger over the lack of transparency in the spending of $197 million taken from Venezuela’s PetroCaribe fund for Haiti last autumn after four storms devastated the country.

“Prime Minister Pierre-Louis proved she did not have the capacity nor the leadership to meet the population’s expectations and satisfy its basic needs,” said Lespwa Sen. Joseph Lambert. “She doesn’t have social and economic policies. It’s the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank that are making economic decisions.”

The Lespwa senators made it known before the Oct. 29 session that they would vote Pierre-Louis out. “She is like an animal being led to the slaughterhouse,” said Lambert, who also declared he would resign if she were not removed.

Pierre-Louis, however, did not attend the session, responding to the summons with an Oct. 28 letter to Senate president Kely Bastien. Saying the senators “lacked elegance,” she touted her government’s accomplishment in finding international funding during her 14 months in office and concluded that “my government decides not to participate in this hearing,” saying she would leave her post with her “head high.” She proposed two national and one international audit of her government’s books.

On Oct. 30, Préval nominated Pierre-Louis’ Planning Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, to be Prime Minister. He is a veteran of previous Préval governments and of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s second coup-shortened administration. Senate president Kely Bastien predicted that Bellerive, whom both houses of the Parliament must approve, would be installed in office before Nov. 18, the 206th anniversary of the Battle of Vertieres, where Haitians won their independence from France.

“The ouster of the Pierre-Louis government does not signify any change in political or economic policy,” writes Haiti Liberté political analyst Hervé Jean Michel. “The new government will be formed by the Lespwa majority and will pursue, without a doubt, a neoliberal line.”

Haiti’s masses greeted Pierre-Louis’ ouster with indifference. She was viewed as an Aristide opponent for signing a petition of the Collective Non! in 2003 which called for a boycott of Haiti’s bicentennial celebration, presided over by Aristide, on Jan. 1, 2004.

By: Kim Ives

About a week ago, an IPS story reported that Amnesty International called for the release of Ronald Dauphin and described his continued detention as “politically motivated”.

In response, Elizabeth Roebling accused IPS of becoming an “outlet for spin” and directed members of the corbett list to a bitter response on Michael Deibert’s blog. Deibert is the author of “Notes from the Last Testament,” an account of President Aristide’s second term, which was cut short by the February 29, 2004 coup.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother responding to a mere political difference. But Deibert makes several personal attacks on the IPS piece’s authors Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague that warrant correction.

Deibert’s allegations are irrelevant to the accuracy of the IPS article. Readers can check the facts reported (most importantly, Amnesty’s appeal on Dauphin’s behalf ). Good journalism, like good scholarship, relies to the greatest extent possible on sources that readers can check.

Deibert wrote that Sprague “…works as a teaching assistant at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sociology Department, focusing on crime and delinquency, subjects with which his past behavior [sic] no doubt gives him a close familiarity.”

This is a baseless ad hominem attack. Sprague’s PhD studies are not focused on crime and delinquency, and, if they were, would not justify Deibert’s nasty insinuation.[1] Furthermore, teaching assistant duties are not the same thing as a graduate student’s area of study, and, much less, evidence of a criminal background.

Deibert also claims that Sprague sent him an email containing “intimations of violence against my person”. I asked Sprague to forward me the email from 2005. In it, Sprague merely questions the accuracy of Deibert’s writings. Observing that thousands of people were being killed in post-coup Haiti, Sprague attached what he called a “photo of the suffering,” which showed victims of one UN-PNH raid [2]. To say that the e-mail “intimated” a threat against Deibert is absurd.

Deibert then accuses Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre of having a “stark conflict of interest” and that “when writing about the IJDH [The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti], Wadner Pierre is quoting his former employer without acknowledging it.”

Pierre has never worked for IJDH. Pierre has provided IJDH and many other organizations in Haiti and around the world with photos taken during his time living in and visiting some of the poorest and most victimized Haitian communities. He has often done so for free or for sums barely adequate to live on in Haiti. Providing freelance photographic evidence of human rights abuses to organizations does not make him an employee or former employee.

Moreover, the ideal of an “objective” reporter or source for news does not and cannot exist. Journalism is not science. It is permeated with value judgments.

Pierre and Sprague have both been open about their sympathy for the poor’s mobilization for democracy in Haiti. The IPS article cites a number of sources, such as AUMOHD, IJDH and also well-known Lavalas opponents such as RNDDH and Haiti’s Ambassador to the US, Raymond Joseph. Moreover, the article was not “about” IJDH. It highlighted Amnesty International’s appeal on behalf of Dauphin and reported facts that are mentioned in that appeal. In contrast, Deibert’s recent IPS article on the case does not cite a single source critical of his viewpoint. [3]

Revealingly, Deibert makes no mention of Amnesty’s appeal for Ronald Dauphin, one of the most balanced accounts of the alleged “massacre” in St. Marc. Does Deibert wish to bury the Amnesty report under his spurious allegations against Pierre and Sprague? Does he wish that IPS had buried it as well?

To close, I direct readers to a few critiques of Deibert’s bias in recent years.

a) Justin Podur. 2006. “Kofi Annan’s Haiti”. New Left Review.

b) ___________. 2006. “A Dishonest Case for a Coup”. Znet.

c) Patrick Elie. 2006. “A Few Notes about ‘Notes from the Last Testament’”.

d) Mark Weisbrot. 2006. “Response to Michael Deibert”. The Nation.

e) Diana Barahona. 2007. “U.S. Reporting on the Coup in Haiti: How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal”. Counterpunch.

f) Tom Luce. 2007. “The Proxy War in Martisant and Gran Ravine”. HaitiAnalysis.

g) Peter Hallward. 2008. “Response to Michael Deibert’s Review of Damming the Flood”. Monthly Review.

Readers can weigh the bias of all sources and draw their conclusions about the facts.

Notes:

[1] Jeb Sprague University Website.

[2] The photo that Sprague attached to the e-mail had been taken by grassroots photojournalist Jean Ristil who lives in Cite Soleil and has himself been harassed and jailed illegally in the past (for taking photographs) by Haiti’s UN-trained police. See Eric Feise, Jeb Sprague. 2006. “Persecuted Haitian Photojournalist Speaks Out: Jean Ristil & Cite Solely”.

[3] Michael Deibert. 2009. “Haiti: ‘We have Never had Justice’”. IPS.

For further reading:

Hallward, Peter. 2008. Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. Verso.

Macdonld, Isabel. 2007. “The Freedom of the Press Barons”. The Dominion. http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/976

Sprague, Jeb. 2006. “Invisible Violence: Ignoring murder in post-coup Haiti”. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

Griffin, Thomas M. 2004. “Haiti: Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21, 2004″ University of Miami School of Law.

By: Kevin Pina – Haiti Liberte

Without question, the Lavalas political movement opposed the neo-liberal economic model of development that is unfolding in Haiti today. Lavalas militants and spokespersons called International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank dictated structural adjustment the “death plan.” It included eliminating tariffs, selling off State-owned enterprises, keeping the minimum wage low, and relying on the private sector as the motor for economic development.

The major obstacle to the plan of the international financial institutions (IFIs) for Haiti was democracy itself. It took the form of the Lavalas movement, representing the poor majority’s interests, and the president they twice elected, Jean Bertrand Aristide. His government refused to privatize key industries like TELECO, the state telephone company, and EDH, the electricity company. While the IFIs insisted that social programs be cut, Aristide’s government took profits from these State-owned companies to invest in a universal literacy program and to provide millions of subsidized meals for the poor. For the first time in history, Haiti had the beginnings of a safety net in place to insure against widespread hunger and malnutrition. Over the objections of the IFIs and Haiti’s predatory economic elite, the minimum wage for the lowest paid work force in the hemisphere was doubled twice during Aristide’s first and second terms. Not so coincidentally, both of Aristide’s terms were cut short by coups.

This challenge to the IFI program was a major factor in the Feb. 2004 coup that not only ousted the democratically elected president but also drove out more than 7,400 elected officials from municipal and parliamentary posts throughout Haiti. It was an attempt to destroy the movement of Haiti’s poor majority and their right through elections to establish their own priorities for economic development based on the pillars of national sovereignty and social justice. The Bush administration and the Republican Party backed Haiti’s elite in overthrowing the constitutional government and orchestrating the “transition.”

Far from the “popular rebellion” concocted by the corporate media’s well-paid reporters, Haitian democracy’s overthrow in 2004 was a violent affair perpetrated by former military and death-squad commanders on a killing spree. The wealthy elite’s paid minions took to the streets to give the illusion of a “popular rebellion” but they could not take down the government, so the vile dogs of war were unleashed after being nurtured in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Not unlike recent events in Honduras, this coordinated campaign resulted in a president being taken from his home against his will under the cloak of darkness and forced onto a plane as the killing began in earnest to insure the success of the plotters.

The two years following the 2004 coup in Haiti would make the intentions of the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the so-called “international community” clear as glass. They all gave their blessings to the US-installed regime that took power even as it unleashed an unprecedented campaign of summary executions, the gunning down unarmed protesters, and arbitrary arrests. All of this was done in the name of “restoring democracy.” It was a period of gross human rights violations committed under UN aegis that remains successfully cloaked and obscured to this day.

Faced with thousands killed, jailed and forced into exile, the Lavalas movement elected René Préval their new president in 2006. People hoped he would stop the repression, free the political prisoners, and allow Aristide to return to Haiti. What they could not know was that he had already signed onto the cynical project to destroy the poor’s popular movement as preparation for bringing Haiti back into the camp of neo-liberal economic development and the “death plan” they had fought so hard against.

Despite more than $4 billion of international assistance since the 2004 coup, life has only become worse for most Haitians as the predatory elite squeezes as much profit as they can out of a desperate population. With little business investment to speak of, this elite has used their monopoly on the importation of food staples to steal away the more than $1.5 billion in remittances sent annually by thousands of families and friends to their loved ones in Haiti in an effort to keep them alive. These monopolists kept filling their pockets even as protests broke out against the growing misery and hunger in April 2008.

Throughout, the Lavalas movement and the poor kept demonstrating against the coup, demanding justice and that Aristide be allowed to return to Haiti. Their leaders were disappeared as in the case of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine on August 12, 2007, forced to rot away in prison like the still-imprisoned Ronald Dauphin, or eventually succumbed to the ravages of harsh treatment as happened to Father Gérard Jean-Juste on May 27, 2009. Still others were courted by Préval and offered well-paid positions of authority within his government if they would turn their backs on their own history and the Lavalas movement.

Then came the much-delayed senatorial elections in April and June 2009, where the final blow was to be delivered to Lavalas. The Fanmi Lavalas party was excluded from participating on a cooked-up technicality. But the Lavalas waged a massively successful boycott of both rounds of the elections, a clear and collective rebuff of Préval and the international community.

Kill, imprison, exile, divide, exclude, and buy-off as many as you can: this became the strategy to destroy Lavalas and pave the way for Haiti’s re-emergence as a neo-liberal success story in the Caribbean. Still, Haiti’s poor majority are a resilient and hopeful force. They hoped that the election of Barack Obama, the first US president with African blood coursing through his veins, would change the trajectory of US-foreign policy in Haiti since 2004. It did not. They hoped that Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State would make a difference until she visited the sweatshop of coup-backer Andy Apaid to tout the neo-liberal model in June. They hoped that Bill Clinton’s appointment as UN Special Envoy to Haiti would signal a change, but he ignored their pleas at every turn during his two brief visits over the last two months. Instead he spoke of coordinating NGO aid in preparation for instituting the new “death plan” as postulated by UN economic advisor Paul Collier, which is really the same old neo-liberal “death plan” first rolled out under Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative in the 1980s.

The IFIs announced in late June that they had forgiven $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, most of which was racked up by former US-sponsored dictatorships.

Finally, last week, the Haitian parliament voted in closed session to double the minimum wage to a whopping $3.75 a day or about $0.46 per hour for an 8-hour day. Haiti still has the cheapest labor in the hemisphere off which US manufacturers and their Haitian elite partners can still turn a handsome profit.

This past weekend in Miami Beach we saw Haiti’s former mistress of the NGO sector and current Prime Minister, Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, take the stage with Bill Clinton to formally announce that the new-old “death plan” has given birth to renewed hope in Haiti. The corpses have been buried and the blood has been washed away so now Haiti can turn the page on the Lavalas movement and those upstarts in the poor majority who had the audacity to think that elections meant they could choose an alternative. Still, this struggle for Haiti’s future is not over, not by a long shot.

It’s only fitting to give Aristide, who remains in exile in South Africa, a few words here. “Pep pa achte libete ak demokrasi nan mache,” he once said. “The people do not buy liberty and democracy at the market.” Some feel that anything is possible with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress. They succeeded on a platform of “Change we can believe in.” The lesson for the world’s poor remains the same: when it comes to the Democratic Party, don’t confuse hope with change, especially if $3.75 is all you’re going to be paid for an 8-hour day.

By: Wadner Pierre – HaitiAnalysis

It was 7:00 am on the 18th of June. Mourners filled the cathedral of Port-Au-Prince to honor the late priest, Gerard Jean-Juste. Most likely, none foresaw that the UN would bring its violent campaign against the Lavalas movement to the cathedral just after the service ended.

A contingent of UN troops arrived outside the church to arrest one of the mourners. As they sped away with their suspect, one of troops shot into the crowd. A man known as Kenel Pascal, of Delmas, was killed. The incident was captured on film.

Jean-Juste was an outspoken critic of the UN presence in Haiti and a prominent supporter of Jean Bertrand Aristide, whose democratic government was ousted in a coup of February 2004. Under the UN backed dictatorship of Gerard Latortue, Jean-Juste became Haiti’s most famous political prisoner.

More than 20 priests along with Bishop Andre Pierre and the Archbishop of Port-Au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot were in attendance. Bishop Andre Pierre spoke glowing of Gerard Jean-Juste at the funeral. However, many of the mourners recalled Jean-Juste’s stormy relationship with the church hierarchy in Haiti. While an international campaign, assisted by Amnesty International, was underway to release Jean-Juste from prison, the Catholic Church opted to deal Jean-Juste another blow by suspending him from church as punishment for his political activism.

People were at the service from all over the world – France, Canada, United States, and various Caribbean countries. Key leaders of the Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party were there – Marise Narcisse, Rene Civil, Annette Auguste (Son An). Mario Joseph, a human rights lawyer who has worked tirelessly on behalf of Haiti’s political prisoners was also there. Also present were members of Veye Yo, a Miami-based group founded by Jean-Juste during the 1970s to defend the rights of Haitian immigrants.

After the shooting, some of the mourners held President Rene Preval directly responsible. He was carried to the presidency in 2006 by Aristide supporters. With Jean-Juste in prison at the time (therefore legally barred from running) Rene Preval, a former Aristide protégé, was by far the most attractive candidate to the Lavalas movement, especially after Gerard Jean-Juste endorsed him. Preval was untainted by any role in the 2004 coup and had always been publicly loyal to Aristide. However, Preval’s elite friendly economic policies and failure to secure Aristide’s return to Haiti have alienated him from the Lavalas movement.

In Cavaillon, Jean-Juste’s hometown, banners paying tribute to “Father Gerry” were everywhere. “You’re struggle will continue” read many of them. One the streets, and at the church where Jean-Juste was ordained, people spoke of the “great man” who devoted his life to the poor.

The troops who stormed the funeral have given Haitians yet another reason to remember Father Gerard Jean-Juste, and another way to contrast his kindness with the UN’s brutality.

By: Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague – Inter Press Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 20 (IPS) – Government authorities in Haiti face recent criticism over allegations that they continue to jail political dissidents.

On Aug. 7, Amnesty International called for the release of Ronald Dauphin, a Haitian political prisoner. Dauphin is an activist with the Fanmi Lavalas movement of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was seized by armed paramilitaries on Mar. 1, 2004 – the day after Aristide’s government was ousted in a coup d’état.

According to Amnesty, “the delay in bringing Ronald Dauphin to trial is unjustifiable and is politically motivated”. The organisation “opposes Ronald Dauphin’s continued detention without trial, which is in violation of his rights, and urges the Haitian authorities to release him pending trial.”

Amnesty noted that Dauphin’s health has deteriorated severely in Haiti’s National Penitentiary, which is notorious for the appalling conditions to which it subjects inmates. One of Dauphin’s co-defendants, Wantales Lormejuste, died in prison from untreated tuberculosis in April 2007.

In May 2009, doctors examined Dauphin and called on the authorities to immediately transfer him to a hospital. But today, nearly five and half years since his original arrest, he has not seen his day in court and remains locked up.

Demonstrations in downtown Port-au-Prince, with hundreds of supporters, occur here on a weekly basis, calling for the release of political prisoners. They are organised by local grassroots groups such as the Kolektif Fanmiy Prizonye Politk Yo, Fondasyon 30 Septanm, Organizasyon AbaSatan, and the Group Defans Prizonye Politik Yo.

At one protest, Rospide Pétion a former political prisoner and Lavalas supporter, told IPS, “It is unjust to keep Dauphin in prison while criminals are on the street working without prosecution. We ask for justice for Ronald and all the unknown political prisoners from the slums.”

Last year, the Inter American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Haitian government to immediately improve prison conditions. That ruling also ordered the Haitian government to pay 95,000 dollars in damages to Yvon Neptune, one of Ronald Dauphins co-defendants, for numerous violations of his legal rights.

The Haitian government has disregarded the ruling to date. Neptune received a “provisional release” in 2006 after spending two years in prison but the case against him has yet to be dismissed, despite an appeals court order in his favour.

Ronald Dauphin is the last of 16 Fanmi Lavalas members and supporters imprisoned based on allegations made by the organisation Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), as well as some relatives of the victims, that a massacre was perpetrated between Feb. 9 and 11, 2004 in St. Marc, 100 kms north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

RNDDH received funding from the Canadian government for the prosecution of the supposed perpetrators of the massacre. However, U.N. investigators – despite U.N. hostility to Fanmi Lavalas and support for the coup-installed government that ruled Haiti until 2006 – have not backed the accusations made by RNDDH.

In 2005, the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, concluded that what happened at St. Marc was that armed groups -supporters and opponents of the Aristide government – clashed and that there were casualties on both sides.

In 2006, Thierry Fagart, head of the Human Rights department of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, rebuked RNDDH for never substantiating its allegations by even providing a list of the names of the victims.

Amnesty International’s appeal on behalf of Ronald Dauphin also called for an impartial and thorough investigation into the events that took place in St. Marc, and it observed that “The investigating magistrate has only focused on the alleged crimes committed by the group supporting former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and failed to identify the victims among the former president supporters and their alleged perpetrators.”

In July, the director of RNDDH, Pierre Esperance, told IPS, “In our system, the criminal becomes a victim because the system doesn’t work.”

Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) agreed that the shortcomings of Haiti’s legal and prison system punish the innocent and guilty alike.

However, Concannon noted that the coup-installed government of 2004-2006 “arrested hundreds of political opponents, some at the insistence of RNDDH. Over five years after the arrests began, not a single political prisoner has been convicted of any crime.”

“Some were acquitted at trial, like folk singer Annette Auguste ‘So Ann’, or cleared by an appeals court, like activist priest Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, when the prosecution was not able to submit a shred of evidence. Many more remain in prison, or in legal limbo like Yvon Neptune.”

On Aug. 9, former President Bill Clinton, now a U.N. envoy to Haiti, addressed influential Haitian émigrés gathered at a luxury resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.

Working class Haitian activist groups like Veye-yo, which is based in Miami, have been calling on Clinton to work on behalf of Ronald Dauphin as he recently did on behalf of U.S. journalists imprisoned in North Korea. A group of Veye-yo activists assembled just outside the resort calling for such action.

Momentum has been growing for Dauphin’s release. Evel Fanfan, a Haitian attorney for the Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits (AUMOHD), also speaking at the recent gathering in Florida, expressed firm solidarity with the campaign to end illegal detentions such as that of Dauphin.

The Haitian government denies that it holds political prisoners. Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, denying that he has even heard of Dauphin, says, “There are no political prisoners in Haiti. The fact that Neptune and the others are out of jail and they were the most prominent and that this person… is still in jail, to me underscores… some people are in jail but not for political reasons, but since they belong to a certain party they are shopping this around and saying ‘its because I belong to this party that I’m in jail’”.

Others argue this is part of a pattern, part of a concerted campaign to silence Haiti’s poor that continues today with the blocking by the government’s Conseil électoral provisoire (CEP) of Fanmi Lavalas from taking party in recent elections.

Speaking last Wednesday on Free Speech Radio News, Pierre LaBossiere, a founding member of a North American-Haiti solidarity organisation, the Haiti Action Committee, said, “We have petitions to President René Préval to free the political prisoners. People shouldn’t be in jail because of their political beliefs.”

“Because of their strong feelings that President Aristide is the true spokesman for their aspirations they were put in jail on trumped up charges, never a day in court and they are sitting there for years,” he said.

In May, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters wrote to Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, warning that the failure to provide adequate medical treatment to Dauphin could “cause the injustice [of illegal imprisonment] to become a death sentence.”

Dauphin learned about Amnesty’s statement on his behalf while listening to a radio interview that his attorney, Mario Joseph (of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux), was giving about his case.

Dauphin’s wife told IPS, “Ronald was pleased when he heard the news on the radio”. However, she remains distraught over her husband’s situation. His ailing mother, Janne, who is 78, is also suffering immensely wondering what will become of her son.

By: Wadner Pierre – Haiti Liberte

From August 6 – 9, 2009, about 300 Haitians from different corners of Haiti’s diaspora – often called the 11th Department – gathered in Miami Beach, Florida for the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress. The event was organized by the Haitian League, whose Chairman of the Board is Dr. Bernier Lauredan. He is a Haitian pediatrician living in New Jersey, where the first conference was held last year without, apparently, too much success.

The chair of this year’s Congress was Dr. Rudolph Moise, a physician and actor well known in Miami for his more or less conventional activism.

Several former Lavalas government officials took part including former Minister for Haitians Living Abroad Leslie Voltaire, former minister without portfolio Marc Bazin, former Justice Minister Camille Leblanc, former Planning Minister Anthony Dessources, and former inspector of the Haitian National Police Luc Eucher Joseph, now Secretary of State of Justice and Public Safety. These officials are considered by Haiti’s masses as politically bourgeois and, excepting Voltaire, were never Lavalas Family party members.

Meanwhile, there were also members or associates of President Boniface Alexandre’s and Prime Minister Gérard Latortue’s de facto government (2004 – 2006). The most prominent of them was Bernard Gousse, the former de facto Justice Minister, whom the Miami-based popular organization Veye Yo brands as a criminal for his role in ordering several deadly crackdowns on rebellious shanty towns and the first arrest of the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste, Veye Yo’s founder.

Several current Haitian government officials were present including Kelly Bastien, the Senate’s president, two parliamentarians from the pro-coup social-democratic parties Struggling People Organization (OPL) and Fusion, Youth, Sports and Civic Action Minister Evans Lescouflair, and two mayors from the Center Department.

On the Congress’s last day, there were also addresses by Haitian Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis and Special United Nations Envoy to Haiti, former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Like other Haitian conferences of this sort, most of the workshops were focused on development and investment with short shrift given to the political struggles, coups, and military occupations that have made both hard to achieve. There were also sessions on dual nationality, the role of the press, the participation of Haitian youth abroad and in Haiti, and on justice and human rights in Haiti.

In one workshop, Pierre Leger from the southern city of Les Cayes addressed Haiti’s lack of infrastructure. He claimed to be Haiti’s largest vetiver exporter, with operations based in the southern department. He castigated Haitian President René Préval’s “lack of entrepreneurial vision” and the Haitian government’s perennial begging. The current government and those of the past have contented themselves with pursuing international aid without really trying to promote national production, he said. Leger recounted the troubles he had in getting fuel to his operations over Haiti’s sole artery to the south which was damaged after the 2008 storms. Building shipping ports and airports could resolve such problems, he argued. “You need to have infrastructure before inviting people to invest in your country, even if it is entrepreneurs from the Haitian diaspora,” Leger said.

In a workshop on the press, only conservative bourgeois media were represented. Agence France Presse reporter Clarens Renois spoke on the press’ role in development, saying the media sometimes misused its power to defend political causes. Of course, he did not point to Radio Métropole, his former employer, which played a key role in the 2001-2004 destabilization campaign against Aristide.

“We should not give only negative news about Haiti,” Renois said. “We should also give positive news that can help develop the country.”

One of the most interesting workshops was that on human rights, held on August 7. In this meeting, Secretary of State Eucher defended harsh, often-criticized government measures to establish a climate of security in the country. He was also proud of his government’s close cooperation with the United Nations Mission for Stability in Haiti (MINUSTAH), as the UN’s military occupation force is called. He made no mention of the massacres or abuses committed by UN troops or the police. “Now we have no red zones or areas where people cannot go in Haiti,” Eucher said. “The people have regained confidence in the Police. The working conditions of our officers has changed, and we will continue to work on the professionalization of the Police and to purchase equipment.”

Daniel Jean, Deputy Justice Minister for Judicial Reforms, said that the government was working to build and improve courts, to better train judges, and to improve prison conditions around the country. But, he complained, there is a lack of funds to carry out such projects.

Prison conditions in Haiti are inhuman and have been condemned by several international human rights groups.

Among the panelists was Evel Fanfan, an activist lawyer, human rights defender and President of AUMOHD (Association University Students Working for Law in Haiti). He denounced the government officials’ account, brandishing reports on several police and UN massacres against the poor, in particular the 2005 Grand Ravine massacre in Martissant, the 2003 Beladeres massacre by the “rebels,” and 2005 and 2006 massacres in Cité Soleil. The victims of these massacres are still denied justice while killers like former death-squad leader Louis Jodel Chamblain and former coup-plotter Guy Philippe still circulate freely. The police who carried out the Grand Ravine massacre are still in their posts or living freely. “Here are the letters sent to and received from the President of the Republic, René Préval and members of his former and current government,” Fanfan explained. “How can we speak of Haitian law when the majority of people behind bars in our prisons are unconstitutionally imprisoned and their prison conditions are inhumane? For example, the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince was built for hundreds of prisoners, but now it has thousands” He also underlined the case of Ronald Dauphin, a political prisoner and supporter of former President Aristide, the injustice of whose case Amnesty International recently publicized.

Bernard Gousse was also supposed to address the human rights workshop and a number of people from the Miami community came to ask him hard questions. But he never showed up that day, although he did appear the next day in a session on dual citizenship.

The Haitian Constitution’s prohibition of dual nationality remains a burning issue for most expatriates living in Haiti’s diaspora. Many have become citizens of the U.S., Canada, or France and want the Constitution amended to allow them participation in Haiti’s political life. Haitian Senate president Kelly Bastien said dual citizenship reform is possible. “It’s an easy battle, since your participation in the nation’s social, political and economic life will change many things,” Bastien told the Diaspora Congress. “You need to talk to other political leaders in both Parliamentary houses, because they come here to ask for money during the electoral period. Now it’s your turn to ask something in return.”

There were also moments of entertainment. On Saturday night, there was a long awards dinner ceremony followed by a dance party with Sweet Mickey.

The last day of the Congress – Sunday, August 9 – was a day of protest. Across the street from the Trump International Beach Resort where the conference took place, Veye Yo rallied about 50 people starting at 7 a.m. to denounce the participation of “injustice minister” Bernard Gousse at the event. “Bernard Gousse is a criminal! Bernard Gousse is a murderer! He must be arrested if the USA is against terrorism. Why is a terrorist like Bernard Gousse here?” These were some of the demonstrators’ slogans and cries.

“We are here today to demand the release of political prisoners arrested by Bernard Gousse, and justice for all those who have been victims of the injustice machine of the government of Gérard Latortue,” said Lavarice Gaudin, a Veye Yo leader. “We hope that President Bill Clinton, who claims to be a friend of the Haitian people, as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, will work with the government in place to secure the release of these people.”

In the background, demonstrators chanted: “Occupation, No! Democracy, Yes! Titid shall return!”

Meanwhile, inside the hotel, amid extremely tight security, conference members and a restricted handful of about 20 mostly non-Haitian journalists gathered to hear presentations by Prime Minister Pierre-Louis and Clinton.

Pierre-Louis’ plea, as was to be expected, was for unity. “There is not enough debate between the different sectors for them to exchange, to discuss, for them to arrive at what they call compromise,” Pierre-Louis said, speaking in Kreyol. ” We must discover the interests of each person and, in the end, accept to lose a little so that everyone wins… That’s what compromise means. It is an essential process and it is that alone which can create the true unity we are seeking.” How ironic, after these words, that President Préval’s still refuses to compromise and grant Haitian factory workers a meager increase in their daily minimum wage to 200 gourdes ($5.05), insisting instead that it be raised to only 125 gourdes ($3.11).

She also decried the “colonial legacy which we drag behind us” but did not denounce the UN’s military occupation of Haiti, the most perfect expression of this “colonial legacy.”

Pierre-Louis also invoked some ill-defined unity as a way to resolve growing conflicts with the Dominican Republic and as a means to develop the country. “Unity means believing enough in the country to come invest,” she said. “There are lots of opportunities for investment. Creating jobs is a priority.”

Her speech had one particularly pious and politically naive remark which will be most remembered: “We have to stop identifying ourselves as Lavalas or as Macoutes and just identify ourselves as Haitians.”

She was followed by Bill Clinton, who repeated the same themes and platitudes he has been saying in recent weeks since his UN appointment: he is optimistic, he sees hope for Haiti, this is a time of opportunity for Haiti, and the nation must not fail.

He had the air of being slightly on the defensive, perhaps because of the demonstration going on outside the hotel. He said a series of things that are demonstrably false.

“There is no UN agenda in Haiti other than to help advance the plans and the aspirations of the government and the people of Haiti,” he said. “I’ll be working with the President and Prime Minister, with multinational donors, non-governmental groups, philanthropists, business people, and I hope with many of you to transform those plans into specific actions. My work is and will continue to be in complete alignment and coordination with the Haitian government in so far as I can do that. I will not manage the UN peace-keepers. Nor will I be involved in domestic Haitian politics.” As the front man for the UN’s military occupation, how can he not be involved in “domestic Haitian politics”?

The Congress’s organizers felt their event was a success. But for most of the poor and working-class Haitian community in the United States and Canada, it was a meeting of some businessmen, politicians and mostly conservative activists, all of whom had the ability to pay the $250 participation fee (not to mention travel and a hotel). The issues addressed were entirely traditional and technocratic, avoiding the key political problems such as the foreign military occupation, the struggle for the 200 gourdes minimum daily wage, the crying injustice for political prisoners and hundreds of inmates who have never seen a judge, the continued exile of former President Aristide, and the neoliberal plan that continues to privatize Haiti’s patrimony.

“It’s basically a glorified business networking conference,”said one participant who wished to remain anonymous.

And others weren’t satisfied. For example, well-known Haitian compas artist, King Kino of the group Phantoms did not attend the conference because he felt that the central role of Haitian culture was not on the agenda. “For the past 20 years, Haiti has produced and exported practically nothing,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s music that keeps the country afloat. How can we have a conference without the participation of people involved in Haitian music? Jamaica is where it is today because of its music.”

Finally, one must wonder if the Haitian government, or perhaps Washington and the United Nations, helped to fund this meeting, especially given the participation of Pierre-Louis and Clinton. Although Congress organizers say it was carried out on a “shoe-string,” the budget was big enough to pay for airline tickets for dozens of guest speakers and for their accommodations at the sumptuous Trump Hotel. Whatever the case, the 2009 Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress did nothing to fundamentally challenge the Haitian government’s neoliberal direction and may have actually helped to reinforce it.

(Some reporting for this article contributed by Francesca Azzura and Kim Ives.)

by Kevin Pina

Without question, the Lavalas political movement opposed the neo-liberal economic model of development that is unfolding in Haiti today. Lavalas militants and spokespersons called International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank dictated structural adjustment the “death plan.” It included eliminating tariffs, selling off State-owned enterprises, keeping the minimum wage low, and relying on the private sector as the motor for economic development.

The major obstacle to the plan of the international financial institutions (IFIs) for Haiti was democracy itself. It took the form of the Lavalas movement, representing the poor majority’s interests, and the president they twice elected, Jean Bertrand Aristide. His government refused to privatize key industries like TELECO, the state telephone company, and EDH, the electricity company. While the IFIs insisted that social programs be cut, Aristide’s government took profits from these State-owned companies to invest in a universal literacy program and to provide millions of subsidized meals for the poor. For the first time in history, Haiti had the beginnings of a safety net in place to insure against widespread hunger and malnutrition. Over the objections of the IFIs and Haiti’s predatory economic elite, the minimum wage for the lowest paid work force in the hemisphere was doubled twice during Aristide’s first and second terms. Not so coincidentally, both of Aristide’s terms were cut short by coups.

This challenge to the IFI program was a major factor in the Feb. 2004 coup that not only ousted the democratically elected president but also drove out more than 7,400 elected officials from municipal and parliamentary posts throughout Haiti. It was an attempt to destroy the movement of Haiti’s poor majority and their right through elections to establish their own priorities for economic development based on the pillars of national sovereignty and social justice. The Bush administration and the Republican Party backed Haiti’s elite in overthrowing the constitutional government and orchestrating the “transition.”

Far from the “popular rebellion” concocted by the corporate media’s well-paid reporters, Haitian democracy’s overthrow in 2004 was a violent affair perpetrated by former military and death-squad commanders on a killing spree. The wealthy elite’s paid minions took to the streets to give the illusion of a “popular rebellion” but they could not take down the government, so the vile dogs of war were unleashed after being nurtured in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Not unlike recent events in Honduras, this coordinated campaign resulted in a president being taken from his home against his will under the cloak of darkness and forced onto a plane as the killing began in earnest to insure the success of the plotters.

The two years following the 2004 coup in Haiti would make the intentions of the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the so-called “international community” clear as glass. They all gave their blessings to the US-installed regime that took power even as it unleashed an unprecedented campaign of summary executions, the gunning down unarmed protesters, and arbitrary arrests. All of this was done in the name of “restoring democracy.” It was a period of gross human rights violations committed under UN aegis that remains successfully cloaked and obscured to this day.

Faced with thousands killed, jailed and forced into exile, the Lavalas movement elected René Préval their new president in 2006. People hoped he would stop the repression, free the political prisoners, and allow Aristide to return to Haiti. What they could not know was that he had already signed onto the cynical project to destroy the poor’s popular movement as preparation for bringing Haiti back into the camp of neo-liberal economic development and the “death plan” they had fought so hard against.

Despite more than $4 billion of international assistance since the 2004 coup, life has only become worse for most Haitians as the predatory elite squeezes as much profit as they can out of a desperate population. With little business investment to speak of, this elite has used their monopoly on the importation of food staples to steal away the more than $1.5 billion in remittances sent annually by thousands of families and friends to their loved ones in Haiti in an effort to keep them alive. These monopolists kept filling their pockets even as protests broke out against the growing misery and hunger in April 2008.

Throughout, the Lavalas movement and the poor kept demonstrating against the coup, demanding justice and that Aristide be allowed to return to Haiti. Their leaders were disappeared as in the case of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine on August 12, 2007, forced to rot away in prison like the still-imprisoned Ronald Dauphin, or eventually succumbed to the ravages of harsh treatment as happened to Father Gérard Jean-Juste on May 27, 2009. Still others were courted by Préval and offered well-paid positions of authority within his government if they would turn their backs on their own history and the Lavalas movement.

Then came the much-delayed senatorial elections in April and June 2009, where the final blow was to be delivered to Lavalas. The Fanmi Lavalas party was excluded from participating on a cooked-up technicality. But the Lavalas waged a massively successful boycott of both rounds of the elections, a clear and collective rebuff of Préval and the international community.

Kill, imprison, exile, divide, exclude, and buy-off as many as you can: this became the strategy to destroy Lavalas and pave the way for Haiti’s re-emergence as a neo-liberal success story in the Caribbean. Still, Haiti’s poor majority are a resilient and hopeful force. They hoped that the election of Barack Obama, the first US president with African blood coursing through his veins, would change the trajectory of US-foreign policy in Haiti since 2004. It did not. They hoped that Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State would make a difference until she visited the sweatshop of coup-backer Andy Apaid to tout the neo-liberal model in June. They hoped that Bill Clinton’s appointment as UN Special Envoy to Haiti would signal a change, but he ignored their pleas at every turn during his two brief visits over the last two months. Instead he spoke of coordinating NGO aid in preparation for instituting the new “death plan” as postulated by UN economic advisor Paul Collier, which is really the same old neo-liberal “death plan” first rolled out under Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative in the 1980s.

The IFIs announced in late June that they had forgiven $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt, most of which was racked up by former US-sponsored dictatorships.

Finally, last week, the Haitian parliament voted in closed session to double the minimum wage to a whopping $3.75 a day or about $0.46 per hour for an 8-hour day. Haiti still has the cheapest labor in the hemisphere off which US manufacturers and their Haitian elite partners can still turn a handsome profit.

This past weekend in Miami Beach we saw Haiti’s former mistress of the NGO sector and current Prime Minister, Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis, take the stage with Bill Clinton to formally announce that the new-old “death plan” has given birth to renewed hope in Haiti. The corpses have been buried and the blood has been washed away so now Haiti can turn the page on the Lavalas movement and those upstarts in the poor majority who had the audacity to think that elections meant they could choose an alternative. Still, this struggle for Haiti’s future is not over, not by a long shot.

It’s only fitting to give Aristide, who remains in exile in South Africa, a few words here. “Pep pa achte libete ak demokrasi nan mache,” he once said. “The people do not buy liberty and democracy at the market.” Some feel that anything is possible with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress. They succeeded on a platform of “Change we can believe in.” The lesson for the world’s poor remains the same: when it comes to the Democratic Party, don’t confuse hope with change, especially if $3.75 is all you’re going to be paid for an 8-hour day.