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Old tricks, new dog
Interview with Claudette Werleigh
Navassa Island - Haiti's Malvinas?
Hurricane George appeal
Pinochet and Constant
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HAITI BRIEFING
Number 31 December 1998
It is common knowledge that the United States uses covert operations and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to destabilize and even overthrow progressive governments, and to subvert democratic political movements throughout the Americas and beyond. Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, Chile in 1973, and Nicaragua during the 1980s, are just some of the better known examples.
More recently, the CIA has admitted that its intelligence 'assets' in Haiti included Toto Constant, who was the leader of the FRAPH death squad, and, according to a leaked CIA memo, planned the 1993 assassination of Justice Minister Guy Malary. The refusal to return Haitian Army and FRAPH documents taken by US troops in 1994 can only be interpreted as an unwillingness to reveal more about US involvement in the 1991 coup d'état, and the terror campaign that followed.
The use of violence and repression is though only one strategy utilised to enhance US interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a recent interview with Haiti Briefing, Ben Dupuy, a spokesperson for the National Popular Assembly, drew attention to other techniques pioneered in Nicaragua and now being used in Haiti. After pointing to the similarities between the US-organised Contra in Nicaragua, and the FRAPH in Haiti, and the use of both to create a debilitating sense of insecurity, Dupuy compared the US-led process of building opposition party coalitions in both countries:
"In Nicaragua it took the form of uniting the extreme right and former Somocistas in a coalition of reactionary forces that won the election in 1990. I think they are trying to implement the same strategy in Haiti by creating a kind of platform of different organisations that include the party of the Duvalierist, Roger Lafontant, who staged an unsuccessful coup against Aristide in January 1991. It (the coalition) will put forward candidates in forthcoming elections, but I think they will have trouble finding a presidential candidate like Chamorro."
The Nicaraguan National Opposition Union (UNO) that defeated the Sandinistas was designed and sponsored to the tune of $30 million by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a foreign aid programme founded by President Ronald Reagan and funded by the US government to 'promote democracy abroad'. In Haiti, a NED subsidiary, the International Republican Institute (IRI) has been active in so-called 'democracy enhancement' since 1995. This April, after months of organising meetings and conferences, its efforts bore fruit when 26 small right wing, Duvalierist, and what have been described as "ex-Lavalas opportunist" political parties formed the Haitian Conference of Political Parties (CHPP).
The IRI has offices in 15 countries including Albania, Angola, Nicaragua, Russia, Serbia and South Africa. Its web-site boasts that in Nicaragua in 1996 it helped to register 300,000 new voters who "provided a convincing margin of victory" for the right wing Liberal Alliance and its presidential candidate. It no doubt hopes to repeat this 'success' in Haiti where it vows to continue "reinforcing dialogue among the parties, increasing their level of cooperation and collaboration", and, in case Haitians object to this interference, will also continue "progressively diminishing its direct presence and making its direct interventions increasingly more discreet."
Dupuy characterised the activities of the IRI as an attempt to "peddle a 'democracy' that is not a real popular consultation but an exercise in propaganda and advertising in which they transform the electoral process into one between those who have money and those who don't."
The IRI is just one of a number of organisations that will receive money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) which is engaged in a ten-year programme entitled 'More Genuinely Inclusive Democratic Government.' In its submission to the US Congress for funding for Haiti for the financial year 1999, USAID requested some $170 million, of which $38 million will be allocated to 'Democracy'.
Other recipients of the 'Democracy' funding include the International Criminal Investigations Training and Assistance Programme, an institution founded by the FBI in 1986, and run by the US Justice and State departments, which is training the new Haitian police force; the US law firm, Checci and Company, which is running the judicial reform programme; and the America's Development Foundation (ADF), which since the late 1980s in Haiti has channelled funds from USAID and NED to right wing trade unions, conservative media outfits, and apologists for the 1991-4 coup regime, and now concentrates on "strengthening democratic values and processes" among civil society organisations, and 'helping' newly elected councillors and mayors.
Working alongside the IRI and ADF in the task of 'grooming' Haiti's nascent democracy, and also receiving USAID funding, is another organisation, Associates in Rural Development, known in Haiti as Asosye. The particular focus for Asosye is the system for decentralised local democracy based on municipal and rural councils and assemblies. This system was created by the 1987 Constitution in an attempt to provide a counter-weight to the excessive control exerted by the central government in the capital, but elections for these positions have yet to be run in full.
Asosye is well-placed to bring its influence to bear over these potentially important local offices as it is no less than a reincarnation under a different name of the widely-discredited, 'democracy enhancement' project, known as PIRED. During the early 1990s, and particularly during the three year coup period, PIRED pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into popular organisations, labour unions, peasant groups, foundations, and human rights groups. PIRED also promoted the US refugee asylum processing programme, through which at least 60,000 grassroots militants were interviewed extensively about their activities, enabling the US government to create a detailed database of the democratic movement which many speculate has been used for more than immiration matters. A spokesperson for a platform of Haitian NGOs and popular organisations said he believed Asosye will use this information to buy off local grassroots leaders across the country.
The importance of the local councils and assemblies is linked not only to their potential to control political and economic developments independently of the central government, but also because, according to the Constitution, they are empowered to choose the members of the Electoral Council that is tasked with organising electoral contests at all levels.
For Dupuy, the Electoral Council is the key to the looming struggle for political power at the national level between, on one side, the new anti-neoliberal party of former President Aristide, and on the other, the OPL, the party currently in a majority in the Parliament, and the new right wing coalition, the CHPP. "The OPL and the coalition realise that if they do not control the electoral machinery then they are out of business."
Former Prime Minister under President Aristide, Claudette Werleigh, told Haiti Briefing that she saw the presence of the US-funded agencies in the countryside as part of a medium to long term strategy. "I would not be surprised if there are people who are asking them for their help. They say they offer a service and when people don't have the basic infrastructure or money I can understand that people don't even see the dangers that you or I do."
Some Haitians do however see the danger. The leader of the Anti-neoliberal bloc of MPs, Jasmin Joseph, said "IRI encourages impunity. It is an agent of US imperialism." Independent MP, Alix Fils-Aimé called for the IRI to be ejected from the country, and referring to its role in creating the CHPP, said, "You cannot have democracy with anti-democrats."
In July supporters of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas broke up a conference organised by the IRI in the town of St. Marc. In September popular organisations invited to an IRI meeting in the city of Aux Cayes walked out when they were asked to fill out questionnaires detailing their political activities and affiliations. They denounced the "dubious methods of the IRI" and demanded its expulsion from the country.
Sources: Haiti Info, Agence Haitiene de Presse, Haiti Progrès, USAID 1999 Congressional Presentation, Update on IRI Activities in Haiti.
Claudette Werleigh was Foreign Minster of Haiti during the momentous years 1993-94 when UN troops intervened, bringing an end to military dictatorship, and restoring the elected government.
In November 1995, she was appointed Prime Minister after her predecessor clashed with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide over the privatisation of state-owned enterprises. Under Werleigh's leadership, the government halted the privatisation process demanded by the Bretton Woods institutions. In response, the International Monetary Fund suspended promised loans, sparking a political crisis that was only partially resolved when the new President, Rene Preval, took office in February 1996.
Preval appointed a new Prime Minister, and his government undertook to implement a neo-liberal economic strategy in return for massive loans from the international financial institutions. However, opposition to this strategy in the Parliament, and from the new anti-neo-liberal party of former President Aristide, has created a political deadlock that has left Haiti without a functioning government for the last eighteen months.
Since Prime Minister Rosny Smarth resigned in June 1997, several candidates nominated by President Preval as a successor have been rejected by elements within the Parliament. In addition, five ministries are leaderless, the results of Senate and local council elections in April 1997 have not been recognised, and further elections for another third of the Senate and all the Deputies in the Lower House of Parliament have been postponed until some time next year.
Now out of political office, Claudette Werleigh has looked on with exasperation and growing despair as the Lavalas coalition has splintered, the Parliament has fallen into disrepute, and the electoral process has come to a complete standstill.
"The deadlock has gone on too long but I think that it will only be broken when there is the political will to do so on the part of the political parties involved. There is conflict between institutions (the legislature and the executive), and there are conflicting political and personal interests. Until we realise that the people are suffering and put these interests to one side, then the situation will go on."
Werleigh is critical both of the lack of leadership provided by President Preval, and the lack of popular participation in the political arena. "I think that the President, who has the authority to make political institutions work properly, should call on all the parties involved to find a way out. He has had discussions, but the results have never been made public. I think it is time that concentration on that little political group ends, because it is not only the parties that are concerned with what is going on, there is civil society too. Although the people are so fed up that they might say 'let's get rid of Parliament altogether', I do believe that there should be a way for people to participate in the resolution of the crisis."
The widespread antipathy towards the electoral process, reflected in a paltry 5% turnout in the last elections in 1997, leads Werleigh to believe that a continuation of the political crisis could cause serious damage to Haiti's democratic fabric. "The government is telling people that, despite the deadlock, the situation is not too bad - they say that inflation is under control, and that the gourde is maintaining its value against the US dollar - but the people are finding it hard to feed themselves...I am afraid that the people don't feel concerned with elections, they don't feel that the Parliament makes any difference. Maybe we will go back to a time without a Parliament and, while at the moment there is no threat of dictatorship from Preval, that would be a bad message to the country for the future."
Werleigh's hopes rest with the people and their organisations. "If the people could participate (in devising a strategy), we could develop a consensus." She envisages a "more permanent role for grassroots and labour organisations, not only to say what they want but also what they have experienced in their field. I am sure, for example, that the MPP and Tet Kole peasant movements know about the situation in the areas where they work, for example about which properties are lying unused, and together with agronomists they could work (on a strategy) and feed into, and participate, in government."
Asked whether she thought this form of popular participation was possible, Werleigh contrasted her experiences working with grassroots organisations, notably during the years 1976-87 when director of the Catholic development organisation, Caritas, with those as a government minister.
"I have seen the incredible tasks that poor, illiterate, people have been able to achieve in the field of social and political analysis. I am convinced that we could do something using radio, not only to inform people but to provide training. I believe it would be possible in three to five years to educate everybody to primary school level. Not like at the moment where children receive an education that they might not be able to make use of right away, but something more focused on what they need to survive and develop."
As Prime Minister in 1995-96 she tried to get such a scheme off the ground but was thwarted by the lack of understanding and will on the part of the rest of the government apparatus. As a result of this experience, she says she "realised that our actual structures are not geared for participation, they are not for the people. It is a top-down, not a horizontal system. I believe that change in Haiti can only come when we change the actual structures. We have tried one way for two centuries, but now we are the poorest country in the Americas with the most malnourished people in the Americas It is time to try something else."
Earlier this year a dispute over ownership of an uninhabited, two-square mile island located 35 miles west of the southern tip of the Haitian mainland, flared into a diplomatic incident and ignited nationalist opinion across Haitian society.
The island of Navassa has been claimed as an integral part of Haitian territory in every Haitian Constitution since independence in 1804. But in 1857, a US entrepreneur seized the island and proclaimed it US territory under the US Guano Islands Act of 1856. This law unilaterally decreed that the US could take possession of any uninhabited island covered with guano (bird-droppings), which was used to make fertilizer and gun-powder during the 19th century.
Records found in the Public Records Office in London detail correspondence on the subject in 1858 between the British Ambassador in Haiti and the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Malmesbury. A British Navy ship had visited the island and found 60 employees of the Philadelphia Guano Company working there and claiming it as a US possession. However, in letters to London, the British Ambassador states that "Navassa was undoubtedly a possession of Haiti."
A British adventurer failed with a proposed deal with the Haitian government to exploit the guano deposits, and the US company continued to monopolise the resource until it went bankrupt in 1901. In 1917 the US built an unmanned lighthouse on the island to warn ships sailing to and from the newly opened Panama Canal.
Since then, Navassa has been ignored by all but Haitian fishermen who visited to harvest fruit and vegetable crops. But in August this year a team of scientists from the US Centre for Marine Conservation made a study of the island, and declared they had found at least 25 plant and animal species unique to Navassa. Alerted to the existence of the island, a US businessman, seeking to capitalise on the growing demand for organic fertiliser, has claimed the island under the 1856 Guano Act.
Radio phone-ins and commentaries in Haiti buzzed with indignation at this latest affront to Haitian sovereignty. Haiti's Foreign Minister declared "Navassa is part of Haitian territory", and Archbishop Willy Romelus said, "They cannot come and seize our land just because they think they are powerful. It's not might that makes right, but international law."
Thank you to our supporters who donated money to the appeal launched by the Lambi Fund of Haiti in the aftermath of the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Georges. We have sent a cheque for £400 to the Lambi Fund which will be added to the £11,000 raised in the US.
In November, Lambi Fund director, Julie Meyer, wrote to thank the contributors in the UK: "We have been able to provide some immediate assistance to communities with which we have been working, as well as to begin to lay plans for longer-term reconstruction.
Though the effects of Hurricane Georges in Haiti were never well-publicised and the even more devastating Hurricane Mitch in Central America has overshadowed Georges, conditions are dire in Haiti. With huge crop losses and infrastructure destruction, peasants - Haiti's backbone - will have a very difficult time cleaning fields, rebuilding irrigation ditches and re-planting, at the same time worrying about feeding their families in the short term.
Your contribution is just one small part of a heroic effort under way in Haiti to rebuild rural communities. With an ineffective central government, peasant and women's associations are more crucial than ever in providing organisation and coordination for this effort. Thanks for giving us the means to work alongside these groups."
Two Haitian human rights organisations have declared their solidarity with the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship by supporting the move to extradite the General from London to Spain. At the end of November, the two organisations wrote to Home Secretary, Jack Straw, asking him to make a "political decision that would once again demonstrate to the world the greatness of the British nation...which had fought the abomination of Nazism."
In Haiti, the Pinochet affair has been followed with great interest. Numerous victims and families of victims of Haiti's dictators are waiting to find out if they will be able to bring charges against Jean-Claude Duvalier, in exile in France, and General Raoul Cédras, now living in Panama.
Meanwhile, another notorious human rights violator, Toto Constant, the leader of the FRAPH death squad, continues to enjoy the protection of the US government which has blocked moves for his return from New York to face trial in Haiti. In October, a New York City Council committee voted to put pressure on the US government to deport or detain Constant. Michael Ratner, lead attorney for the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said in testimony to the committee on International and Intergroup Relations, "In my view, Constant is our Pinochet." He added, "Basically, we have here living with us a terrorist, a torturer and a murderer, and we should do no less than the Spanish are trying to do and the British are trying to do with Pinochet."
Unless otherwise indicated all articles are copyright of the Haiti Support Group.
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