Thoughts on Haiti

Whether covertly or indirectly (and the events of the recent weeks have "covert action" written all over them), the United States is now presiding over a turkey shoot, a coup whose "rebels" are killing Aristide supporters at will, a betrayal on par with the betrayal of the Spanish Republicans in their fight against Francisco Franco, and a huge, loud, bloody rejection of leftist leadership in the hemisphere.

One could grant all of the allegations against Aristide, rumors and facts, those that have been floating around for years (he's self-obsessed, irrational, brutal to his opponents) and those that are fairly recent (he's wrecking the economy) and those things, if all true, still wouldn't justify the U.S. supporting a coup led by the old Duvalier regime's death squad leaders. And guess what? Baby Doc is going back to Haiti. That's right. He feels safe now. Things have changed for the better, he says.

Here's what the WSWS's Bill Van Auken says today about these better days and heroic coup leaders:

Led by former death squad members and soldiers linked to previous coup attempts, the well-armed thugs quickly took over the barracks facing the National Palace and declared their intention to reconstitute the Haitian Army. This corrupt and brutal force—a legacy of the first US occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934—was disbanded by Aristide in 1995. According to some reports, the army’s former commander, General Herard Abraham, is preparing to return from exile in Miami to resume his post.Among the first acts of the right-wing gunmen was the storming of the penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, freeing some 2,000 prisoners. Apparently, the main aim of this action was to liberate a number of notorious killers from previous dictatorships, including Prosper Avril, who headed a military junta that ruled the country from 1988 to 1990 and was convicted on charges of illegally imprisoning and torturing political dissidents. The action also provided a fresh group of recruits for the terror squads from among the criminals who were let loose.Guy Philippe, a former army officer and police chief who was charged with drug trafficking and conducting summary executions, is a leader of the “rebels.” On Tuesday, he proclaimed himself Haiti’s “military chief” and announced his intention to arrest Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who has remained effectively imprisoned in his office. Other members of Aristide’s cabinet fled Haiti, seeking asylum in the neighboring Dominican Republic.In a telling indication of the political forces unleashed by the US-backed coup, Haiti’s former “president for life” Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who has lived in exile in Paris since 1986, announced that he intends to return to Haiti as soon as possible.

And, in greater detail:

The “rebels” include such elements as Louis Jodel Chamblain, who led the Tontons Macoute death squads during the waning years of the Duvalier dictatorship in the 1980s and then returned as one of the heads of the Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, or FRAPH.The FRAPH, a paramilitary group formed under the military regime that took power when Aristide was first overthrown in a US-backed coup in 1991, received financial support and political guidance from the US Central Intelligence Agency and is blamed for the murder of at least 3,000 Haitians.


Aristide maintains he was forced into exile. The important point for me is that even if he was not forced to resign in some immediate manner (and I can't imagine under what other circumstances he would have left office), the larger, material forces were bearing down on him, and those forces were contingent arms of both American and Hatian elites.

Much of the information concerning the role of the CIA, and the U.S. in general, in perpetuating elite rule in Haiti was buried back in 1994, during the height of the original coup. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting detailed it back then:

Some major media -- including the Washington Post, New York Times, CBS and NBC -- did pick up on Allan Nairn's reporting in The Nation (10/24/94) about U.S. ties to the Haitian death squad FRAPH. But an interesting pattern was noted by Village Voice press critic James Ledbetter (10/18/94): Most outlets covered Nairn's revelation that FRAPH leader Emannuel Constantwas a paid informant of the CIA. But Constant's statement that he was encouraged to form FRAPH by the U.S. military intelligence attache, who wanted a "balance" to forces seeking the return of ousted President Aristide, was reported only "sporadically," Ledbetter noted. And Constant's charge that this same U.S. intelligence official, along with the top-ranking CIA officer in Haiti, were both present in Haiti's military headquarters the day that Aristide was overthrown, was almost totally ignored.This pattern suggests that the mainstream press is not ready to fully discuss U.S. intelligence involvement with the forces that the U.S. military is supposedly in Haiti to displace. It's OK to admit that the CIA is getting information from unsavory organizations, but looking into whether those unsavory organizations were set up by the CIA? They'll leave that to The Nation.

I'll make no arguments or conclusions about this situation just yet, other than the obvious fact that the forces ousting Aristide are about a hundred times more brutal and are connected to about a thousand times more money than Aristide himself ever has been. Whatever the pretext, it's obvious that this is a class war.

New Marxism Essay

From Michael D. Yates, in the new Monthly Review, an impressive plea for working-class internationalism (what's that???) in the struggle against capitalism--a struggle Yates judges to be alive and well, and very, very necessary.

Gay Marriage: Too Much Happening

Still no more essays attacking same sex marriage in a face-to-face format. Meanwhile, Jason West got charged, and more and more mayors are performing the ceremonies or declaring their intent to do so.

I feel like I have a responsibility to write an essay entitled "How Not to Argue about Same Sex Marriage," but I can't be that objective. I am missing the essential necessity for heteronormativity in this conversation. If Al Simpson can get it, if my mother can get it, if Dick Cheney, in his more private moments, can get it, why can't [fill in the blank].