Saturday, August 21, 2004

Terrorism and U.S.-Latin American relations

Last night I had the pleasure and honor of being invited by StopWar.ca to make a presentation, entitled, "Haiti: Fighting White Supremacist Terrorism: Before Napolean I, Beyond Bush II". The presentation focused on the fact that the history of terrorizing people on the American continent is something that really begins in full force with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, and that this has specifically targeted non-whites.

Unfortunately, the current definition of terrorism finds that it's only terrorism when it affects Europeans. This has damaged peoples appreciation about the sources and roots of violence in modern society and the history of it. So, I made an effort to present the situation in Haiti in its larger context, in the context of violence that has been waged specifically against African peoples, starting with the arrival of Europeans on the American continent in 1492, and explaining how the struggle that we see currently going on in Haiti is directly related to this struggle that is ongoing throughout Latin America.

The people involved in this struggle seek to take their countries out of the control of the tiny elites - mostly European-rooted elites - whether it is in Panama, Peru, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic, in order to arrive at societies that are based on justice, and a peace that is sustainable. I hope that I have been able to contribute to the spectrum of knowledge that we as activists need to have on order to save ourselves from the sure destruction of the world that the rulers - the Bush Administration and 'family' - are bringing us to.


There's a good history in this ZNet interview with author Jean Saint Vil of how Haiti got to be what it is today - up to and including the surprising (to me) involvement of Canada.

With regards specifically to the situation in Haiti, Canada did not play a passive role, as some people might try to grasp from what they're reading in the news. Canada was actually quite active. Few people realise that in January of 2003 there was a meeting in Ottawa that was called by the Canadian foreign affairs department, and high officials from the US, Latin America, dubbed the "Ottawa Initiative in Haiti". The subject of the meeting as reported by Michel Vastel in L'Actualite of March 15, 2003 was "Aristide Must Go" and 'it's not the Haitian opposition asking for it, but foreign ministers of Western democracies, at the invitation of Canada'.

That was a full year before the coup took place.

...When you look at the geopolitics of it, the position of Haiti in relation to Cuba, and we know the mentality of Baby Bush and his dream of toppling [Venezuelan President] Chavez, and [Cuban President] Castro, and the fact that when you're in Haiti you can see Cuba. Now of course they already have Guantanamo so it's not as if they're not already well situated. In between Haiti and Cuba is where the boats travel to get to the Panama Canal, and that's the major drug route.

We all know that the so-called 'war on drugs' is a fake war in that the US, the DEA actually controls this whole thing to fund, for example, the Contras in Nicaragua, and this so called uprising in Haiti by funding the Haitian paramilitaries for at least two years while they were in the Dominican Republic.

So there are a number of reasons why having full access and control of a puppet regime in Haiti would be useful for the US not merely for the sake of Haiti to have the sweatshops operating, or for multinationals to use the Africans in Haiti, to make t-shirts and assembly line electronic production. That's not the main issue; it's also as a strategic position to help them achieve what they want to achieve in the rest of Latin America.

...Basically, the essence of the message of my presentation yesterday is that the populations that have paid the price for the slave trade are now being prepared to silently and obediently accept to also pay the price for the so-called 'free trade", and the message I was trying to bring to the audience is that the anti-war movement cannot continue to function without an active and close-touch collaboration with the very populations that are suffering from these policies.

You should read this whole article if you are unsure of what is happening in Haiti.

And speaking of Haiti...the tainted prison consultant who was hired to work on the Iraq prison system under U.S. occupation, was hired to do the same for Haiti under the U.S. puppet government.

That article has a note about the strange treatment of a female pro-Aristide activist prisoner versus the treatment of a known murder, Jodel Chamblain. And in another, later article, we find the outcome of Chamblain's incarceration...

In what may be the government's most despicable act yet, a sham trial in Port-au-Prince acquitted Jodel Chamblain of the murder of a prominent Haitian activist in 1993. Chamblain, the second in command of the death squad known as FRAPH, has been described by former CIA employees as a "ruthless, cold-blooded killer."

...Every event leading up to Chamblain's trial indicated that it would be a sham. Prime Minister Gerard Latortue referred to him and his thugs as "freedom fighters" several months ago. When Chamblain surrendered in April, the puppet government's Justice Minister, Bernard Gousse, described him as "noble" and said he could be pardoned "for his great services to the nation." The "great service" Gousse referred to was the rampage Chamblain and his rebels led across Haiti in the months leading up to the coup on February 29. During this so-called "rebellion," Chamblain and his men committed acts of unspeakable cruelty, including rapes, murders, and torture.

...The other charges Chamblain will be facing deal with his involvement in the infamous Raboteau Massacre, in which FRAPH and the former army killed over twenty people. Some were tortured and forced to lie in open sewers. Others were shot as they fled. In March, the judge who convicted Chamblain of the massacre was beaten by some of Chamblain's allies in retaliation. Brian Concannon, one of the lawyers who helped prosecute the case, recently lamented the fact that many of the people who had risked their lives by speaking out are now in danger: "we were able to convince people to take a gamble on democracy, we convinced people to testify in open court ... the victims very courageously took the gamble, and now they're looking like suckers because the people they put in jail are now out, and in power, and are threatening them."

...Chamblain's acquittal is the strongest evidence thus far (as if we needed any more) that Haiti's puppet government is crooked, illegitimate, and cares nothing for human rights. Killers such as Chamblain and the rebel leader Guy Philippe are getting off without a hitch. Guy Philippe even plans on being President one day. The government apparently doesn't find these men as threatening as the elderly community activist, Annette Auguste, who was arrested on Mother's Day, apparently for her dissident political views. The same is true for Aryns Laguerre, a teenage cameraman for a children's television station, who was also arrested for no apparent reason. This is the nature of the regime that has been installed by the United States. Its enemies are journalists, doctors, literacy teachers, community activists, farmers, and human rights workers. Its allies are men like Jodel Chamblain, who will likely continue to reap rewards for doing the government's dirty work.

Well, that's how you efficiently deal with revolutions.

Previous posts on Haiti
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