Haiti Elections and Starvation

[Judi Lynn]

Haiti Elections and Starvation
Cogent Systems Awarded $2.5 Million Contract for AFIS to Support Haiti's Electoral Process
by D. Esser
and Marguerite Laurent
June 05, 2005

Haiti a country that under the current circumstances can not feed it's population, spends millions on "voter-registration", the contract of which conveniently goes to a company in the country from which the original occupying force hails.

In light of the fact that Haiti, under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has managed to hold credible elections that were certified as such by outside observers (with considerably less financial effort), the question is: what are the real motives of this system?

For sure it would provide the U.S. and it's dictatorial puppet regime with far better data on who and where democracy activists are.

A brave new world that entirely disregards the very fact that under the current climate of repression with impunity and massive human rights violations by Haiti's police, the notion of "elections" is all but an illusion. It is the futile attempt by powers behind the occupation, foremost the United States, to coat the suppression and attempted starvation of the popular will with a thin veneer of U.S. style democracy.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=8008

[bemildred]

1. 25 die after Haiti slum raids

Watch "democracy" flower ...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- As many as 25 people were killed in police raids on Friday and Saturday in the slums of Haiti's capital after the government said it would get tougher on gangs, morgue workers and witnesses said.

Clerks at the morgue in the General Hospital said they had taken in 17 bodies on Saturday and three bodies on Friday after the raids in Bel-Air and other Port-au-Prince slums, centers of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A Reuters journalist also saw five other bodies in two different areas of Bel-Air.

Residents said the dead were shot by police and accused police of setting slum homes on fire.

Corporate News Network

[Dirk39]

2. Riven by violence since the ousting of Aristide...

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

"In nations around the world, even those experiencing rapid economic growth, there are millions of children living on the streets, refugees of a system that puts the market before the person. If we listen closely, these children have a message for the new century. Thirteen years ago we opened a center for street children in Port-au-Prince. In 1996, we opened a radio station with our 400 kids. Radyo Timoun (Little People's Radio) broadcasts their music, their news, and their commentaries 14 hours a day. In a world in which a child under the age of 5 dies every 3 seconds, children must speak. In a commentary on democracy prepared by three eleven-year-old girls, democracy was defined as food, school, and health care for everyone. Simplistic or visionary? For them democracy in Haiti doesn't mean a thing unless the people can eat.
Democracy asks us to put the needs and rights of people at the center of our endeavors. This means investing in people. Investing in people means first of all food, clean water, education and healthcare. These are basic human rights. It is the challenge of (any real democracy to guarantee them.
Ironically, in many countries of the South the transition to democracy comes at a time when states are being forced to rapidly divest of resources, saddled with debt, abandoning the economic field to market forces, and playing a smaller and smaller role in the provision of basic human services. They have neither the money nor the will to invest in their people. Today democracy risks being rapidly outpaced by the galloping global economy. If democracy in rich countries and poor ones alike is to be more than a facade, nice in theory, but irrelevant in the face of global economic relationships, our concept and practice of democracy must make a giant leap forward. We must democratize democracy.
Do not confuse democracy with the holding of elections every four or five years. Elections are the exam, testing the health of our system. Voter participation is the grade. But school is in session every day. Only the day-to-day participation of the people at all levels of governance can breathe life into democracy and create the possibility for people to play a significant role in shaping the state and the society that they want.
I recently heard a beautiful story about holding representatives accountable in democracy. In Columbia a member of an indigenous community was elected to parliament to represent his people. On one particularly important vote, the community elders had decided how they wished their representative to vote. The parliamentarian, now far away from his community in the halls of power in the capital, voted differently. Again the elders met and agreed that for defying the wishes of the community he was elected to represent, the parliamentarian should walk many miles through the mountains and then bathe in the freezing water of a sacred mountain lake in order to purge himself. This he did, and balance within the community was restored. Perhaps this technique would not be appropriate elsewhere, but the point is that it is up to each country and indeed each community to search for ways to both keep the peace and protect against the potential betrayal of elected leaders."

excerpted from the book
Eyes of the Heart
by Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Common Courage Press, 2000, Page 35

BBC reports today about the ongoing violence:

Haiti police in deadly gang raids
Police raids in Port-au-Prince
Residents of Bel Air, Port-au-Prince, said police burned homes
A number of people have been killed in police raids in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, after the government vowed to crack down on gangs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4610791.stm

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks to bemildred and Dirk in Germany for bringing great info.

bemildred's link shows we can depend on CNN to slavishly spew _Bushspeak at us, even when it could so easily be avoided. Note their repetition of the Aristide lie, as if we all didn't know the truth of how Aristide left Haiti:

Haiti's interim government, backed by a 7,400-strong United Nations peacekeeping force, has sought to stabilize the impoverished Caribbean country since Aristide fled into exile as armed rebels closed in on the capital in February 2004.

Once again, they're proving they are souless, immoral, idiotic _Bush drones.

They can't adequately convince us the Haitians set their own houses on fire, and burned themselves out, and shot a lot of themselves, however!

Who is to help these blighted, cursed, helpless people after _Bush has decided to murder them? No country seems large or bold enough to call the devil by his own true name.

Dirk, from Germany, the writing by Jean-Bertrand Aristide was exceptional. Thanks for placing it within our range. It's a vision from a clearer, kinder, cleaner world:

Do not confuse democracy with the holding of elections every four or five years. Elections are the exam, testing the health of our system. Voter participation is the grade. But school is in session every day. Only the day-to-day participation of the people at all levels of governance can breathe life into democracy and create the possibility for people to play a significant role in shaping the state and the society that they want.
(snip)

[snot]

4. If you appreciate the BBC as we've known it, PLS go to this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=376080&mesg_id=376080