Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
This conspiracy grows weirder and weirder. The smoke hasn't even cleared from Aristide's mansion, and we're already hearing from Baby Doc Duvalier.
This is starting to look like it's been in the works for years. The neocons and the GOP elite never liked Aristide. Like Clinton, he was an arriviste, so the Republicans in the Senate, led by Jesse Helms, forced the latter to pull the troops out too soon to really restore order in the country. The Center for American Progress quotes a Newsday article which claims that the coup "'is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster – Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.' Noreiga, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade, 'has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it,' said Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay who is now president of the Center for International Policy. Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who was famous for his views on race and 'behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean.' Also 'working hand in hand with Noriega on Haiti has been National Security Council envoy Otto Reich' – a man whose role in sordid covert Latin American operations is so reviled that the President had to recess-appoint him to his post after his nomination was held up in the Senate."
And Jeffrey Sachs, writing in the Financial Times, continues in this vein. "The crisis in Haiti is another case of brazen US manipulation of a small, impoverished country with the truth unexplored by journalists. In the nearly universal media line on the Haitian revolt, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was portrayed as an undemocratic leader who betrayed Haiti's democratic hopes and thereby lost the support of his erstwhile backers. He 'stole' elections and intransigently refused to address opposition concerns. As a result he had to leave office, which he did at the insistence of the US and France. Unfortunately, this is a gravely distorted view."
Duvalier, in the form of his wealthy cronies and the military elite, have never been far removed from this adminstration it seems.
In 2000, Haiti held parliamentary and then presidential elections, unprecedented in their scope. Mr Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas, clearly won the election, although candidates who won a plurality rather than a majority, and who should have faced a second-round election, also gained seats. Objective observers declared the elections broadly successful, albeit flawed.
Mr Aristide won the presidential election later that year, in a contest the US media now reports was "boycotted by the opposition" and hence, not legitimate. This is a cruel joke to those who know Haiti, where Mr Aristide was swept in with an overwhelming mandate and the opposition, such as it was, ducked the elections. Duvalier thugs hardly constituted a winning ticket and as such, did not even try. Nor did they have to. Mr Aristide's foes in Haiti benefited from tight links with the incoming Bush team, which told Mr Aristide it would freeze all aid unless he agreed with the opposition over new elections for the contested Senate seats, among other demands. The wrangling led to the freezing of $500m in emergency humanitarian aid from the US, the World Bank, the Inter- American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The tragedy, or joke, is that Mr Aristide agreed to compromise, but the opposition simply balked; it was never the right time to hold elections, for example, because of "security" problems, they said. Whatever the pretext, the US maintained its aid freeze and the opposition maintained a veto over international aid. Cut off from bilateral and multilateral financing, Haiti's economy went into a tailspin.
All this is being replayed before our eyes. As Haiti slipped into deeper turmoil last month, Caribbean leaders called for a power-sharing compromise between Mr Aristide and the opposition. Once again, Mr Aristide agreed but the opposition merely demanded the president step down - reportedly rejecting even US Secretary of State Colin Powell's requests to compromise. But rather than defending Mr Aristide and dealing with opposition intransigence, the White House announced the president should step down.
Dick Cheney's shadow government at work. I remember writing letters to my senators and congressman begging them to vote no on these Iran-Contra retreads. They get hired anyway and I proceed to forget all about them (except when they make preposterous statements). Then they rear their ugly heads and another crisis explodes and our empire gets a little bigger.
This is starting to look like it's been in the works for years. The neocons and the GOP elite never liked Aristide. Like Clinton, he was an arriviste, so the Republicans in the Senate, led by Jesse Helms, forced the latter to pull the troops out too soon to really restore order in the country. The Center for American Progress quotes a Newsday article which claims that the coup "'is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster – Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.' Noreiga, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade, 'has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it,' said Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay who is now president of the Center for International Policy. Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who was famous for his views on race and 'behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean.' Also 'working hand in hand with Noriega on Haiti has been National Security Council envoy Otto Reich' – a man whose role in sordid covert Latin American operations is so reviled that the President had to recess-appoint him to his post after his nomination was held up in the Senate."
And Jeffrey Sachs, writing in the Financial Times, continues in this vein. "The crisis in Haiti is another case of brazen US manipulation of a small, impoverished country with the truth unexplored by journalists. In the nearly universal media line on the Haitian revolt, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was portrayed as an undemocratic leader who betrayed Haiti's democratic hopes and thereby lost the support of his erstwhile backers. He 'stole' elections and intransigently refused to address opposition concerns. As a result he had to leave office, which he did at the insistence of the US and France. Unfortunately, this is a gravely distorted view."
Duvalier, in the form of his wealthy cronies and the military elite, have never been far removed from this adminstration it seems.
In 2000, Haiti held parliamentary and then presidential elections, unprecedented in their scope. Mr Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas, clearly won the election, although candidates who won a plurality rather than a majority, and who should have faced a second-round election, also gained seats. Objective observers declared the elections broadly successful, albeit flawed.
Mr Aristide won the presidential election later that year, in a contest the US media now reports was "boycotted by the opposition" and hence, not legitimate. This is a cruel joke to those who know Haiti, where Mr Aristide was swept in with an overwhelming mandate and the opposition, such as it was, ducked the elections. Duvalier thugs hardly constituted a winning ticket and as such, did not even try. Nor did they have to. Mr Aristide's foes in Haiti benefited from tight links with the incoming Bush team, which told Mr Aristide it would freeze all aid unless he agreed with the opposition over new elections for the contested Senate seats, among other demands. The wrangling led to the freezing of $500m in emergency humanitarian aid from the US, the World Bank, the Inter- American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The tragedy, or joke, is that Mr Aristide agreed to compromise, but the opposition simply balked; it was never the right time to hold elections, for example, because of "security" problems, they said. Whatever the pretext, the US maintained its aid freeze and the opposition maintained a veto over international aid. Cut off from bilateral and multilateral financing, Haiti's economy went into a tailspin.
All this is being replayed before our eyes. As Haiti slipped into deeper turmoil last month, Caribbean leaders called for a power-sharing compromise between Mr Aristide and the opposition. Once again, Mr Aristide agreed but the opposition merely demanded the president step down - reportedly rejecting even US Secretary of State Colin Powell's requests to compromise. But rather than defending Mr Aristide and dealing with opposition intransigence, the White House announced the president should step down.
Dick Cheney's shadow government at work. I remember writing letters to my senators and congressman begging them to vote no on these Iran-Contra retreads. They get hired anyway and I proceed to forget all about them (except when they make preposterous statements). Then they rear their ugly heads and another crisis explodes and our empire gets a little bigger.
posted by John at 4:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home