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Make A Donation To Haiti By Reading And Speaking Up About It
By Joe Emersberger
Source: Haiti Analysis
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Please donate the time required to read the books about Haiti that I discuss below, at least one of them, and then speak up about what you learn.
An impressive, and growing, body of work explains how the "international community" (the USA and a handful of allies) worked with the Haitian elite to make a murderous and very successful assault on Haitian democracy as the twenty-first century began. It is an assault that continues today as the generosity that millions of people around the world displayed towards Haitians after an earthquake has been scandalously wasted and even used to bolster the Haitian and foreign elites who run Haiti. Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" thoroughly refutes the lies that were sold, and are still sold, about the "international community's" role in Haiti since 2000. Unfortunately, Hallward's book was written before the 2010 earthquake that killed perhaps as many as 250,000 Haitians, and before Wikileaks' release of US embassy cables. Thankfully, two new books about Haiti - Justin Podur's "Haiti's New Dictatorship" and Jeb Sprague "Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti" - update and greatly expand on Hallward’s work.
The very ugly story these books tell begins in the year 2000 when free and fair elections in Haiti that were widely smeared as "fraudulent" or "deeply flawed". There were legislative and presidential elections in 2000 that resulted in a landslide victory for Jean Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas party. A murderous, low intensity terrorist campaign based in the Dominican Republic gathered momentum against Haiti's government between 2000 to 2004. Deadly hit and run attacks plagued Haiti while the "international community" and the human rights industry looked the other way. As terrorists assailed Haiti throughout these years, the "international community" implemented extremely harsh economic sanctions against Haiti's democratically elected government. At the same time, tens of millions of dollars in assistance flowed to Aristide’s political opponents – many of whom were financing terrorists as Sprague shows in detail. Legitimate attempts by the Haitian government to defend itself against terrorists were denounced as "human rights abuses". NGO's like Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and Amnesty International did a lot to make the sanctions seem reasonable by putting out shoddily researched statements that were heavily influenced by a well-connected anti-Aristide minority in Haiti. The Dominican Republic based paramilitaries inflicted a great deal of damage but were probably incapable of overthrowing Aristide’s government. They were ultimately upstaged on February 29 of 2004 by troops from the USA, France and Canada. US troops shipped Aristide off to the Central African Republic in the middle of the night while Canadian troops guarded Haiti’s international airport. The US and its allies easily brushed off calls for the UN to formally investigate Aristide's claim that he was kidnapped. US troops who were soon replaced by troops from Brazil, China and various other countries - MINUSTAH as the UN "peacekeeping" force in Haiti is called.
A dictatorship under Gerard Latortue (from 2004 to 2006) presided over the murder of thousands of Fanmi Lavalas partisans - at least 4000 murders according to the only scientific study done to investigate the matter. The perpetrators were mainly paramilitary groups and the Haitian police which was quickly revamped (under close US supervision) to include hundreds of the terrorists formerly based in the Dominican Republic. The UN troops (MINUSTAH) perpetrated some massacres of unarmed protestors and bystanders. However, most of the dirty work was done by the revamped Haitian police and their paramilitary allies with MINUSTAH acting in a supporting role.
An impressive, and growing, body of work explains how the "international community" (the USA and a handful of allies) worked with the Haitian elite to make a murderous and very successful assault on Haitian democracy as the twenty-first century began. It is an assault that continues today as the generosity that millions of people around the world displayed towards Haitians after an earthquake has been scandalously wasted and even used to bolster the Haitian and foreign elites who run Haiti. Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" thoroughly refutes the lies that were sold, and are still sold, about the "international community's" role in Haiti since 2000. Unfortunately, Hallward's book was written before the 2010 earthquake that killed perhaps as many as 250,000 Haitians, and before Wikileaks' release of US embassy cables. Thankfully, two new books about Haiti - Justin Podur's "Haiti's New Dictatorship" and Jeb Sprague "Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti" - update and greatly expand on Hallward’s work.
The very ugly story these books tell begins in the year 2000 when free and fair elections in Haiti that were widely smeared as "fraudulent" or "deeply flawed". There were legislative and presidential elections in 2000 that resulted in a landslide victory for Jean Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas party. A murderous, low intensity terrorist campaign based in the Dominican Republic gathered momentum against Haiti's government between 2000 to 2004. Deadly hit and run attacks plagued Haiti while the "international community" and the human rights industry looked the other way. As terrorists assailed Haiti throughout these years, the "international community" implemented extremely harsh economic sanctions against Haiti's democratically elected government. At the same time, tens of millions of dollars in assistance flowed to Aristide’s political opponents – many of whom were financing terrorists as Sprague shows in detail. Legitimate attempts by the Haitian government to defend itself against terrorists were denounced as "human rights abuses". NGO's like Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and Amnesty International did a lot to make the sanctions seem reasonable by putting out shoddily researched statements that were heavily influenced by a well-connected anti-Aristide minority in Haiti. The Dominican Republic based paramilitaries inflicted a great deal of damage but were probably incapable of overthrowing Aristide’s government. They were ultimately upstaged on February 29 of 2004 by troops from the USA, France and Canada. US troops shipped Aristide off to the Central African Republic in the middle of the night while Canadian troops guarded Haiti’s international airport. The US and its allies easily brushed off calls for the UN to formally investigate Aristide's claim that he was kidnapped. US troops who were soon replaced by troops from Brazil, China and various other countries - MINUSTAH as the UN "peacekeeping" force in Haiti is called.
A dictatorship under Gerard Latortue (from 2004 to 2006) presided over the murder of thousands of Fanmi Lavalas partisans - at least 4000 murders according to the only scientific study done to investigate the matter. The perpetrators were mainly paramilitary groups and the Haitian police which was quickly revamped (under close US supervision) to include hundreds of the terrorists formerly based in the Dominican Republic. The UN troops (MINUSTAH) perpetrated some massacres of unarmed protestors and bystanders. However, most of the dirty work was done by the revamped Haitian police and their paramilitary allies with MINUSTAH acting in a supporting role.
Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/make-a-donation-to-haiti-by-reading-and-speaking-up-about-it-by-joe-emersberger-1