March 2, 2009 - No. 44

Fifth Anniversary of Coup d'Etat in Haiti

Freedom and Justice for Haiti!
Canada Out of Haiti!

• Calendar of Events
• Foreign Occupation Troops Out of Haiti! Freedom and Justice for Haiti! - Canada Haiti Action Network
• Foreign Occupation Increases Suffering - Roger Annis, Green Left Weekly
• The Lessons of Haiti - Yves Engler
• The Rebirth of Konbit in Haiti - Kevin Pina, Haiti Information Project
• Haiti: Racism and Poverty - John Maxwell, www.haitiaction.net

United States
• Stop Deportations of Haitians! Legalization Now! - Voice of Revolution
• U.S. Discriminatory Practices Towards Haitians - Stephen Lendman, Global Research

Fifth Anniversary of Coup d'Etat in Haiti

Calendar of Events

This year, on the fifth anniversary of the coup d'état in Haiti, member organizations of the Canadian Haiti Action Network and others are organizing public meetings and a cross-Canada tour of U.S. journalist and filmmaker Kevin Pina, including screenings of his latest film Haiti: "We Must Kill the Bandits". The film focuses on the aftermath of the 2004 coup and shows how Aristide's forcible removal from power was an attempt by Canada and the "Friends of Haiti" in the international community "to destroy the Haitian people's movement for change through violence." According to Pina, "the history, scope, and trajectory of the popular movement of the poor in Haiti, known as Lavalas," represents no less than "the spirit of people's in the Caribbean and Latin America to determine their own destinies. The attempt to destroy Lavalas, led at first by the administration of Paul Martin and continued today through Stephen Harper, is anything but benevolent. It represents the crassest form of altering the political landscape of another people through intervention marked by murder, false imprisonment and forced exile."

For details of screenings and other events, click here.

Foreign Occupation Troops Out of Haiti!
Freedom and Justice for Haiti!

- Canada Haiti Action Network, January 24, 2009 -

Statement on the fifth anniversary of the overthrow of elected government in Haiti

This February, the Haitian people will commemorate the fifth anniversary of a seminal date in their long and proud history. But it won't be a celebration. They will mobilize in angry protests to condemn the overthrow of the elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. They will also condemn the decades of foreign domination that has brought the country to ruin; made all the worse since 2004.

The illegal coup of 2004 has had an extremely negative impact on Haiti's social fabric -- breakdown in government services, including education and health care; increased poverty; decline of agricultural production; increased violence by pro-coup gangs and by foreign military forces and the Haitian National Police; an increase in emigration of educated Haitians; and heightened tensions within families as a result of all of the above.

Haiti's crippled economy was dealt further blows when a series of hurricanes struck the island last summer. Several thousand died and agricultural production was dealt a heavy blow. The city of Gonaives, the fourth largest in Haiti, still lies under several feet of dried, rock-hard mud.

Some $100 million was pledged by foreign governments in relief following the storms. Almost nothing has been received. This follows the pattern of the past five years whereby the United Nations and participating countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars each year on their 9,000-member military mission while spending next to nothing on social and economic development.

Canada supported the overthrow of the government of President Aristide and thousands of other elected officials in 2004. Troops from the U.S., France and Canada joined with Haitian rightists to consolidate that illegal act. The three big powers got a stamp of approval from the United Nations Security Council. An appointed regime of human rights violators ruled Haiti from 2004 to 2006 and ran the country into the ground.

Today, a 9,000-member foreign police and military force, including the aforementioned Big Three, patrols the country with the endorsement of the UN Security Council. These powers have a preponderant role in the financing of the Haitian government and thus in its policy decisions.

The Canadian government and its Canadian International Development Agency say they are providing $110 million per year to assist Haiti. But little of that money reaches ordinary Haitians. Most of it is used to prop up institutions of foreign domination, including NGO's and propaganda agencies that supported, or were silent in the aftermath of the 2004 coup.

Political persecutions dating from the 2004 coup are continuing. These include:

* Ronald Dauphin, still imprisoned after five years.

* Political rights leader Lovinsky Pierre Antoine who was "disappeared" on August 12, 2007 and whose whereabouts remain unknown. Incredibly, his case was not even mentioned in the 2007 report of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

One of the ideological pillars of the 2004 overthrow in Haiti was the doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect." The doctrine is increasingly used today to justify military intervention against many of the world's poorer countries -- from Venezuela and Cuba to Sudan and Zimbabwe. Thus, the lessons of Haiti have an added importance for the world's people.

Haitians are fighting to retake the sovereignty of their country. Just one month ago, on December 16, tens of thousands marched and rallied in Port au Prince and in other cities across Haiti to reaffirm their opposition to foreign occupation.

The Canada Haiti Action Network will hold public events in at least seven cities across Canada to commemorate the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti, featuring speakers or films. In late March, we are sponsoring a delegation of trade union activists to Haiti for one week. We continue to assist in sending medical supplies to health providers. We invite you and your organization to join us at anniversary events -- become a co-sponsor. Join us in the work of our projects. We encourage local and national media to join us in examining the conditions in Haiti today.

WE DEMAND:

* Reparations to the Haitian people for all the damage of the past five years caused by foreign occupation.

* An investigation of the raids by United Nations military forces into Cite Soleil on July 6, 2005 and December 22, 2006. The UN stands accused by residents of "massacres" that cost dozens of lives. To date, not a single international human rights group has undertaken a serious investigation of the community's allegations.

* Free all political prisoners, including Ronald Dauphin. End the grisly overcrowding in Haiti's prisons.

* The United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) must conduct an independent investigation into the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

* An independent inquiry into Canada's role in the overthrow of Haiti's elected government in 2004. This inquiry must release the full documentation of the "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti" meeting held in Meech Lake, Quebec on Jan 31-Feb 1, 2003 that sketched plans for the overthrow of Haiti's government. It must conduct a comprehensive assessment of Canada's aid programs in Haiti, including the extensive involvement in Haiti's persistently dysfunctional justice system and national police service.

For the Canada Haiti Action Network and its local chapters,

Roger Annis, Vancouver 778 858 5179
Chris Semrick, Nanaimo 250 616 7009
Regan Boychuk, Calgary 403-479-8637
Macho Philipovich, Wpg 204 783 2571
Niraj Joshi, Toronto 416 731 2325
Stuart Neatby, Ottawa 613 293 9480
Nik Barry Shaw, Montreal 514 225 5984
Tracy Glynn, Fredericton 506 458 8747

Foreign Occupation Increases Suffering

- Roger Annis*, Green Left Weekly, February 13, 2009 -

Five years ago, on February 29, 2004, Haiti's popular, elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown by a right-wing paramilitary rebellion that received essential material and political backing from the United States, France, Canada and neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of Haitians will commemorate this event with angry protests at the end of this month, directing their anger at the foreign occupation authority that took control of their country and has brought it to ruin.

An apparatus of the UN Security Council, known by its acronym MINUSTAH, has played a dominant role in the affairs of the country since 2004. It is the only political/military mission in UN history to intervene in a member country without the assent of its government or major political forces.

MINUSTAH consists of 10,000 military, police and administrative personnel. It spends some U.S.$600 million per year, double the annual budget of Haiti's national government.

Brazil plays the leading role in the military side of the UN operation.

On December 16 of last year, tens of thousands of Haitians marched across the country to protest MINUSTAH's heavy-handed police and military patrols. The rallies condemned its failure to direct its resources towards tackling the country's crushing poverty.

Country in Ruin

Conditions at every level have worsened in Haiti since 2004. Poverty and hunger are rising. Agricultural production is weak and suffered further blows following a succession of four hurricanes this past summer.

Malnutrition is widespread and starvation appeared in some pockets of the country after the storms. Unemployment is estimated at 80%.

Half of Haiti's children do not attend school. Half of its 9 million people have no access to medical care. The medical situation would be a whole lot worse but for networks of clinics operated by the Cuban government, Zanmi Lasante (founded by Dr Paul Farmer and his Partners in Health project) and Doctors Without Borders.

The Haitian people are running out of patience. Demands and protests are growing for the mission to end.

Another measure of this popular anger was the visit to Washington by President Rene Preval in early February. He met with the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the first foreign leader to do so. He called on her government and international financial institutions to assist Haiti with $100 million in immediate aid.

"Political stability has been restored," he said, "but what is necessary is the creation of jobs."

Preval also said he wants an end to the U.S. policy of channelling all its aid money to Haiti through non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It should instead go directly to the sovereign government, which Preval says can do a better job in most cases.

This is an explosive issue in Haiti, not only because so much NGO money is wasted on foreign salaries and bureaucracies but also because NGOs have been used by the big powers as a weapon against Haitian sovereignty.

Most of the largest international NGOs operating in Haiti supported the overthrow of Aristide in 2004, or they acquiesced through silence.

Human rights agencies such as Amnesty International and the Washington-based Human Rights Watch were largely silent during the foreign- appointed regime of human rights violations that ruled Haiti from 2004 to 2006 and were responsible for thousands of Aristide supporters being jailed, exiled or killed.

Political Confrontations Growing

Préval's claim that "political stability has been restored" in Haiti since his election in February 2006 is belied by recent events.

In early February, the Provisional Electoral Council that oversees elections in the country announced that it had rejected all 17 candidates registering on behalf of Fanmi Lavalas for a senatorial election scheduled for April 19. The party was founded by Aristide and colleagues in 1996. The election is to fill 12 of the Senate's 30 seats.

The council cited inadequacies in the paperwork filed by candidates. Following its announcement, it vacated its offices and locked the door in anticipation of angry protests.

Political divisions within Lavalas have caused two slates to be submitted for the election.

A Return by Aristide?

Fanmi Lavalas was barred from the 2006 election by virtue of the widespread political repression under the 2004 to 2006 regime.

Conditions were somewhat improved a few months later when a flawed election to the Parliament was held, but the repression had taken a heavy toll on the party's capacity to respond to the political openings that followed Preval's election.

In popular quarters, many voices are insisting on a return of the ousted president to the country, meaning also a return to the progressive reforms that his administrations had initiated or attempted.

Aristide lives in exile in South Africa. Speculation swirls in Haiti and among the 2 million Haitians living abroad as to whether and when he could return to the country.

His personal security would be vulnerable. The foreign powers would do their all to block a return, because it would unleash a torrent of popular welcome that would put a lie to their claims that he was an unpopular leader whose "removal" in 2004 was welcomed by the majority.

A return by Aristide would set up expectations among the masses that would be difficult to meet, given the hostility of the foreign powers and the fact that they have their hands all over the purse strings of the Haitian government and state.

Boston Forum

A public forum in Boston on January 27 highlighted the problem of respect for Haiti's sovereignty that, according to participants, lies at the root of Haiti's poverty and underdevelopment.

One of the panelists, Brian Concannon of the Oregon-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), explained in an interview that it's difficult for the big powers to assist with improvements to the judicial system in Haiti because of their support to the 2004 coup and the widespread political persecutions that followed.

They have no credibility with Haitians when they try to lecture Haitian judges or police officials about respect for laws and human rights.

The IJDH works in partnership with the most important human rights offices in Haiti, the Office of International Lawyers (Bureau des avocats internationaux).

Concannon is hopeful that the new administration in Washington will end the blatant policy of intervention in recent years that led to the coup of 2004.

But he adds that more far-reaching change is needed. "The U.S., in particular, must end the long, sad history of interference in Haiti's political affairs. That's the starting point for a change in Haiti that we can believe in -- respect for the sovereignty of the country and the political choices of its people."

Paul Farmer, author of The Uses of Haiti and founder of the renowned Partners in Health (PIH), told the Boston meeting, "Of the ten countries in which I work in the world, the policies of privatisation and of directing aid and charity funds to private, rather than public, agencies are taken to their furthest extreme in Haiti."

"Over the past eight years in the U.S., for example, the great majority of assistance to Haiti went through the private sector -- NGOs, church groups, etc. Very little went to public sector agencies

"Of course, it's hard to know what Haitians governments would do [if foreign funding went directly to them] because they must constantly worry about being overthrown by some violent coup."

PIH's partner in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, has a network of medical clinics that reaches one million people in the remotest parts of Haiti.

Actor Matt Damon spoke to the meeting about his visit to Haiti in September 2008, following the hurricanes that had struck. He was invited by Haitian-born international music star Wyclef Jean for a tour of the devastated regions of the country.

He called the poverty he witnessed, "Almost indescribable. Extreme poverty -- people living on $1.25 per day or less -- with a natural disaster -- the hurricanes -- piled on top.

"This is not a way that human beings should have to exist."

Damon said Haiti needs "a Marshall Plan," referring to the massive reconstruction of European countries following World War II.

* Roger Annis visited Haiti in 2007 as part of a human rights investigative delegation. He is a coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action Network and its Vancouver affiliate, Haiti Solidarity BC. A broadcast of the January 27 forum in Boston can be viewed on the website of Partners in Health.

The Lessons of Haiti

- Yves Engler*, February 27, 2009 -

Haiti can teach you a lot about the harsh reality of social affairs.

From the grips of the most barbaric form of plantation economy sprung probably the greatest example of liberation in the history of humanity.

The 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution was simultaneously a struggle against slavery, colonialism and white supremacy. Defeating the French, British and Spanish empires, it led to freedom for all people regardless of colour, decades before this idea found traction in Europe or North America.

Unfortunately, Haiti's history also demonstrates how fluidly Europe (and North America) moved from formal colonialism to neo-imperialism. Technically "independent" for more than two centuries, outsiders have long shaped the country's affairs.

Through isolation, economic asphyxiation, debt dependence, gunboat diplomacy, occupation, foreign supported dictatorships, structural adjustment programs and "democracy promotion," Haiti is no stranger to the various forms of foreign political manipulation.

A Very Canadian Coup

Most recently, the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was destabilized and then overthrown on February 29, 2004 by the U.S., France and Canada, which ushered in a terrible wave of political repression and an ongoing UN occupation.

As we approach the five-year anniversary of the coup, there are three important lessons to be learned from this intervention. First of all, the Canadian-sponsored "responsibility to protect" doctrine, which many want to encode in international law, is little more than a cover for imperialism. Liberal Party officials justified cutting off aid and invading Haiti by citing a "responsibility to protect" the country, yet the intervention further devastated an already impoverished population.

Peacekeepers as Class Warriors

The second lesson is that "peacekeepers" can be used to wage a brutal class war. In the two years after the coup, UN troops regularly provided vital support for the Haitian police's violent assaults on poor communities and peaceful demonstrations demanding the return of the elected government.

UN forces also participated directly in this violent political pacification campaign, launching repeated anti-"gang" assaults on poor neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince. The two most horrific raids took place on January 6, 2005 and December 22, 2006, which together left some 35 innocent civilians dead and dozens wounded in the densely populated slum of Cité Soleil (a bastion of support for Aristide).

In April 2008 UN troops once again demonstrated that their primary purpose in the country was to defend the status quo. During riots over the rising cost of food they put down protests by killing a handful of demonstrators. (Kevin Pina's film Haiti: The UNtold Story, which will be shown across the country in the coming weeks, documents the chilling brutality of UN forces.)

Haiti as Laboratory for Complicit NGOs

Finally, Haiti provides an example of how self-described "progressive" Western government-funded NGOs function as an arm of imperialism. A sort of NGO laboratory, Haiti is a highly vulnerable society where NGOs have a great deal of influence. By one estimate, Haiti has the most development NGOs of any country per capita and the vast majority of the country's social services are run by domestic or foreign NGOs.

Their influential position in Haiti provides a clear window into Western government-funded NGOs' worst tendencies. Many NGOs joined the Bush administration, Ottawa and a handful of armed thugs in calling for the removal of Haiti's democratically elected president in 2004. After repeatedly complaining about human rights violations under the elected government, these groups (Development and Peace, Rights and Democracy, Oxfam Québec, Alternatives etc.) ignored or denied the massive increase in human rights violations that took place in the aftermath of the coup.

A January 2008 federal government-funded report published by Alternatives (Québec's biggest proponent of the World Social Forum) provides an eye into NGOs' colonial attitude vis-a-vis Haiti: "In a country like Haiti, in which democratic culture has never taken hold, the concept of the common good and the meaning of elections and representation are limited to the educated elites, and in particular to those who have received citizen education within the social movements." According to Alternatives, Haitians are too stupid to know what's good for them, unless, that is, they've been educated by a foreign NGO. (For a detailed account of government-funded NGOs role in Haiti see Press for Conversion's three recent reports or Damming the Flood by Peter Hallward.)

In trying to reason with these groups, one discovers that information or rational argument does little to sway groups receiving millions of dollars from the Canadian government for work in Haiti. Maintaining a progressive agenda in a country considered "high priority" by the power brokers in Ottawa is extremely difficult.

And with the intervention into Haiti -- unlike say the invasion of Iraq -- on few people's political radar, these NGOs felt limited grass-roots pressure to abandon their government benefactors.

Unlike in Canada, Western government-funded NGOs are widely criticized in Haiti. Most progressive-minded Canadians see NGOs as part of the solution to global poverty yet where these groups are "helping" out the situation is quite different. Across the country's political spectrum, Haitians have been highly critical of development NGOs' role in undermining the country's government.

A couple months ago the left-wing newspaper Haiti Progrès called NGOs in the country a "mafia" and on February 5 the country's president, René Préval, called on Washington to stop channelling its assistance through NGOs.

This weekend, on February 28, thousands of Haitians will once again demonstrate against the coup, expressing their opposition to the responsibility to protect, UN peacekeepers and Western government-funded NGOs.

* Yves Engler is the author of the forthcoming The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy and other books. If you would like to help organize a talk as part of a book tour in May/June Please e-mail: yvesengler[at]hotmail[dot]com.

The Rebirth of Konbit in Haiti

- Kevin Pina, Haiti Information Project, December 17, 2008 -

Thousands of Haitians demonstrated throughout Haiti on December 16, 2008. The date commemorated Haiti's first free and democratic elections in 1990 that signaled the birth of the Lavalas political movement.

The U.S., France and Canada worked to oust the democratically elected government of Haiti in 2004 in a coup that was purposely cloaked in a so-called domestic rebellion. To this day an uncritical international press, that was itself culpable in hiding the truth behind the ouster of popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, continues to parrot ridiculous assertions about the reality behind his overthrow and the intense campaign of political repression against his Lavalas movement.

During 2004-2006, thousands of Haitians were murdered by the police, jailed or forced into exile. What emerged was a wholesale campaign of violence waged against Lavalas that was largely maintained through the silence of human rights organizations and the international press. The unfortunate truth is that the police and their operatives in the Haitian state were often aided and abetted -- at first, by U.S. Marines, Canadian Special Forces, French Foreign Legion and later by UN forces in Haiti. The ultimate purpose and intent of this violent campaign has been all too clear: to mutilate Lavalas and alter, through violence, Haiti's political landscape.

Tuesday, Dec. 16, was the 18th anniversary of Haiti's first free and democratic elections that gave rise to the Lavalas movement which catapulted Aristide into the presidency in 1990. Thousands of Haitians took to the streets throughout the country to commemorate that day and to demand the return of Aristide, who now lives in exile in the Republic of South Africa.

They also demanded an end to the UN occupation, the release of all Lavalas political prisoners who still remain behind bars, and an end to the rampant profiteering by Haiti's predatory wealthy elite that has resulted in growing misery and hunger. The event stood as a stark reminder to those policy makers who were behind the coup -- and those who continue to maintain order based upon its outcome -- that the Lavalas movement in Haiti is far from dead.

This reality raises several important questions. The first question is to those who supported the coup and the violent campaign against the Lavalas movement: Can you honestly say that Haitians are better off today than they were before the coup on Feb. 29, 2004? Did you really expect the intervention to improve Haiti when, in fact, all indicators are that Haitians are suffering today from levels of malnutrition and infant mortality that are considered high even by Haitian standards?

And for everyone concerned about Haiti today: As the presidential elections approach in 2011 and Lavalas reorganizes as a serious contender, once again representing the poor majority, will democratic elections be realized? Or will Haiti have to endure this endless cycle of foreign intervention all over again? Can real democracy prevail even as powerful interests, from foreign governments and Haiti's wealthy elite to a plethora of non-governmental organizations, risk losing their investments in altering the political landscape and turning the page on the Lavalas movement?

If history is any indicator, the current supporters and apologists for the cynical nation-building and social engineering project Haiti has become in the international community have dug their tentacles deep into the flesh of Haiti's body politic. As an indicator of just how deep, the president of the Haitian Senate, Kely Bastien, said earlier this week that the majority of Haiti's national budget -- provided by the international community -- is managed by non-governmental organizations.

Still, they should know that the concepts of self-determination, freedom and liberty in Haitian culture run deep to the bone. Konbit, the concept of Haitians working for the benefit of Haitians, is not dead in Haiti. It quietly resides in the consciousness of the Haitian people and waits for the right moment to awaken.

Yesterday's commemoration of Dec. 16 is but one of several reminders that Haitians have not forgotten what it is like to run their own country and tend to their own affairs. Contrary to popular belief, Haitians were not always forced to live off charity and rely upon the largess of foreign patrons.

For most Haitians, their dream is that this nightmare will soon come to an end and, for better or worse, that they will once again be free to rise and fall based upon their own strengths and efforts. That simple freedom, which many of Haiti's patrons claim for themselves and take for granted, is the wellspring of dignity and self-sufficiency for any people. It is the real message of Dec. 16 in Haiti.

Haiti: Racism and Poverty

- John Maxwell, www.haitiaction.net, October 31, 2008 -

The people of Haiti are as poor as human beings can be. According to the statisticians of the World Bank and others who speculate about how many Anglos can dance on the head of a peon, Haiti may either be the second, third or fourth poorest country in the world.

In Haiti's case, statistics are irrelevant.

When large numbers of people are reduced to eating dirt -- earth, clay -- it is impossible to imagine poverty any more absolute, any more desperate, any more inhuman and degrading.

The chairman of the World Bank visited Haiti in October, 2008. This man, Robert Zoellick, is an expert finance-capitalist, a former partner in the investment bankers Goldman Sachs, whose 22,000 'traders" last year averaged bonuses of more than $600,000 each.

Goldman Sachs paid out over $18 billion in bonuses to its traders last year, about 50 percent more than the GDP of Haiti's 8 million people.

The chairman of Goldman took home more than $70 million and his lieutenants -- as Zoellick once was -- $40 million or more, each.

It should be clear that someone like Robert Zoellick is likely to be totally bemused by Haiti when his entertainment allowance could probably feed the entire population for a day or two. It is not hard to understand that Mr. Zoellick cannot understand why Haiti needs debt relief.

Haiti is now forced by the World Bank and its bloodsucking siblings like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to pay more than $1 million a week to satisfy debts incurred by the [U.S-installed dictators the] Duvaliers and the post-Duvalier tyrannies. Haiti must repay this debt to prove its fitness for "help" from the Multilateral Financial Institutions (MFI).

One million dollars a week would feed everybody in Haiti even if only at a very basic level -- at least they would not have to eat earth patties. Instead the Haitians export this money to pay the salaries of such as Zoellick.

But Zoellick does not see it that way. According to the World Bank's website the bank is in the business of eradicating poverty. At the rate it does that in Haiti the Bank, I estimate, will be in the poverty eradication business for another 18,000 years.

The reason Haiti is in its present state is pretty simple. The United States, Canada, and France, who all consider themselves civilized nations, colluded in the overthrow of the democratic government of Haiti four years ago. They did this for several excellent reasons:

- Haiti 200 years ago defeated the world's then major powers, France (twice) Britain and Spain, to establish its independence and to abolish plantation slavery. This was unforgivable.

- Despite being bombed, strafed and occupied by the United States early in the past century, and despite the American endowment of a tyrannical and brutal Haitian army designed to keep the natives in their place, the Haitians insisted on re-establishing their independence. Having overthrown the Duvaliers and their successors, the Haitians proceeded to elect as president a little black parish priest who had become their hero by defying the forces of evil and tyranny.

- The new president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide refused to sell out (privatize) the few assets owned by the government (the public utilities mainly);

- Aristide also insisted that France owed Haiti more than $25 billion in repayment of blood money extorted from Haiti in the 19th century, as alleged compensation for France's loss of its richest colony and to allow Haiti to gain admission to world trade;

- Aristide threatened the hegemony of a largely expatriate ruling class of so-called 'elites' whose American connections allowed them to continue the parasitic exploitation and economic strip mining of Haiti following the American occupation.

- Haiti, like Cuba, is believed to have in its exclusive economic zone, huge submarine oil reserves, greater than the present reserves of the United States

- Haiti would make a superb base from which to attack Cuba.

The American attitude to Haiti was historically based on American disapproval of a free black state just off the coast of their slave-based plantation economy. This attitude was pithily expressed in Thomas Jefferson's idea that a black man was equivalent to three fifths of a white man. It was further apotheosized by Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan who expostulated to Wilson: "Imagine! Nig---s speaking French!"

The Haitians clearly did not know their place. In February 2004, Mr. John McCain's International Republican Institute, assisted by Secretary of State Colin Powell, USAID and the CIA, kidnapped Aristide and his wife and transported them to the Central African Republic as 'cargo' in a plane normally used to 'render' terrorists for torture outsourced by the U.S. to Egypt, Morocco and Uzbekistan.

Before Mr. Zoellick went to Haiti last week, the World Bank announced that Mr. Zoellick's visit would "emphasize the Bank's strong support for the country." Mr. Zoellick added: "Haiti must be given a chance. The international community needs to step up to the challenge and support the efforts of the Haitian government and its people."

"If Robert Zoellick wants to give Haiti a chance, he should start by unconditionally canceling Haiti's debt," says Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. "Instead the World Bank, which was supposedly established to fight poverty, continues to insist on debt payments when Haitians are starving to death and literally mired in mud."

"After four hurricanes in a month and an escalating food crisis it is outrageous that Haiti is being told it must wait six more months for debt relief," said Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA Network.

"Haiti's debt is both onerous and odious," added Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners In Health. "The payments are literally killing people, as every dollar sent to Washington is a dollar Haiti could spend on healthcare, nutrition and feeding programs, desperately needed infrastructure and clean water. Half of the loans were given to the Duvaliers and other dictatorships, and spent on Presidential luxuries, not development programs for the poor. Mr. Zoellick should step up and support the Haitian government by canceling the debt now."

"Unconditional debt cancellation is the first step in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Haiti," according to Nicole Lee, Executive Director of TransAfrica Forum. "There is also an urgent need for U.S. policy towards Haiti to shift from entrenching the country in future debt to supporting sustainable, domestic solutions for development."

The above quotations are taken from an appeal by the organizations represented above.

Further comment is superfluous.

United States

Stop Deportations of Haitians! Legalization Now!

- Voice of Revolution, February 27, 2009 -

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning to deport 30,000 Haitians, many of them having lived here for years and with children or spouses that are citizens. ICE is organizing to round-up the people involved and detain them in prison camps in Miami. ICE has already put 598 in these camps and has forced 243 people to wear electronic ankle bracelets. The Haitians are being criminalized and deported with many having committed no crime.

On hearing of the deportation orders, activists in Miami immediately organized a protest. They are demanding an end to arrests and an end to deportations of Haitians, the right to work and the immediate release of the hundreds of Haitians and other immigrants held in detention centers across the country. The detention camps have horrendous conditions yet Haitians and others are being forced to stay for prolonged periods.

It is especially inhuman and cruel and unusual punishment to force tens of thousands of Haitians home at this time, when people in Haiti are contending with conditions where they have "no homes, no employment, no food." The storms and hurricanes that hit Haiti were the equivalent of 10 Katrinas and the recovery has been just as slow, as the U.S. acts to insure Haiti's debts are not canceled, reparations are not paid, and now even the remittances from Haitians in the U.S. will be eliminated as tens of thousands are deported. We say NO! No to deportations, legalization for Haitians and all immigrants Now!

Activists also bring out the double standard of the government that allows Cubans who reach the U.S. immediate citizenship, while Haitians and all other immigrants are denied legal status and are being deported by the tens of thousands. In both cases the actions of the government are designed to harm the struggle of the Cuban and Haitian peoples for their rights, including their right to chart their own path of development free from U.S. interference.

Fifth Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup Against Haiti

U.S. imperialism has guaranteed that Haiti has remained one of the poorest countries in the world. From the days when Haitians rose up and eliminated slavery -- while slavery still existed in the U.S. -- the imperialists have never forgiven the Haitian people. They imposed ruthless dictators, like the Duvaliers. More recently the U.S. was behind the coup in Haiti in 2004 that ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and forced him into exile. The U.S.-dominated financial institutions, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have continued to refuse to cancel Haiti's debts, even in the face of the massive storms. The U.S. and France, the colonizer before the U.S., have both refused to pay reparations for the crimes and devastation both imposed on Haiti.

Yet the people of Haiti march on undaunted, resisting imperialism and its slavery and fighting for their national and social rights. In December numerous demonstrations took place demanding that all foreign powers get out of Haiti, that Aristide return and reparations be paid now. On February 28, the fifth anniversary of the coup, yet more actions are taking place.

Voice of Revolution salutes the Haitian people and their contributions to the struggle against imperialism and demands immediate reparations, canceling of the debts, and an end to deportations!

* Voice of Revolution is published by the U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization

U.S. Discriminatory Immigration Policies
Toward Haitians

- Stephen Lendman, Global Research, February 27, 2009 -

It's a familiar story for Haitians -- last in, first out for the hemisphere's poorest, least wanted, and most abused people here and at home. Most recently it was highlighted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announcing the resumption of over 30,000 deportations to a nation reeling from poverty, repression, despair, the devastation from last summer's storms, and occupation by UN paramilitary Blue Helmets -- since 2004, illegally there for the first time ever to support and enforce a coup d'etat against a democratically elected president, at the behest of Washington.

On December 9, ICE resumed deportations after halting them in September following summer storms that battered the country leaving 800,000 people without food, clean water, other essentials, and for around 70,000 their homes.

ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas announced: "We fully expected to resume deportation flights when it was safe. And we made a determination that it was appropriate to (do it now) based on the conditions on the ground....The individuals being returned have final orders of removal and the necessary travel documents" -- even though advocates say things are worse in Haiti, not better.

BBC called the situation "eye-popping," and the Miami Herald said it was "the worst humanitarian disaster (for) Haiti in 100 years" leaving:

- Gonaives, Haiti's third largest city, uninhabitable;
- most of the nation's livestock and food crops destroyed as well as farm tools and seeds for replanting;
- irrigation systems demolished;
- collapsed buildings throughout the country; 23,000 houses destroyed; another 85,000 damaged; 964 schools destroyed or damaged;
- conservatively about $1 billion in storm damage;
- the threat of famine, especially for children and the elderly;
- 2.3 million Haitians facing "food insecurity," according to USAID, reeling under 40% higher prices than in January;
- inadequate sanitation and clean water;
- the widespread threat of disease; and
- overall millions lacking everything needed to survive who in normal times struggle to get by.

In December, Director Randy McGorty of Catholic Legal Services for the Archdiocese of Miami said:

"After dealing with this administration on Haitian issues for eight years, I'm forced to conclude that its policy toward Haiti is based on racism. It's shocking. People (lack everything and) are starving. This callous disregard for human life is inexplicable. Many deported Haitians simply have no communities to return to. It is disappointing that the Bush administration would even consider sending people back to this incredibly fragile nation....(Haiti's) humanitarian crisis....continues and worsens."

(South) Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center's (FIAC) executive director, Cheryl Little, said: "We are attempting to do whatever we can to convince government officials to change their minds on this. It's an outrageously inhumane act."

On January 26, FIAC urged new DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to "immediately stay the inhumane deportations and to seriously consider granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians already in the United States." On December 19, former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff denied the Preval government's TPS request. As a result, Haiti won't cooperate, so ICE is making Haitians get their own travel documents (including passports) and assist in their own deportations.

Throughout 2008, around 1000 occurred in total. After a near-three month suspension (from September 19-December 9), they resumed slowly, but picked up noticeably after Obama's inauguration. According to FIAC, men like Louiness Petit-Frere are affected, deported on January 23: "Here ten years with no criminal record, he leaves his U.S.-citizen wife behind along with his mother and four siblings, all (with) legal status....One of his brothers, U.S. Marine Sgt Nikenson Peirreloui, served and was injured in Iraq."

In 2008, Obama campaigned vigorously for South Florida's Haitian vote. Now he's betrayed it the way he's abandoning millions of distressed households by providing little in real relief compared to trillions in handouts to Wall Street and the rich.

After Congress established TPS in 1990, Washington granted 260,000 Salvadorans, 82,000 Hondurans, and 5000 Nicaraguans protection, then extended it on October 1, 2008. It lets the Attorney General grant temporary immigration status to undocumented residents unable to return home due to armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions." Besides El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, past recipients included Kuwait, Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Montserrat, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Angola. Six nations still have TPS, but all face expiration in 2009 unless extended.

Haitians never got it, yet granting it is the simplest, least expensive form of aid so Port-au-Prince can concentrate on redevelopment while Haitians in America help through remittances back to families. In 2006, they sent $1.65 billion, the highest income percentage from any foreign national group in the world.

In 1997, the Clinton administration granted Haitians Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for one year. Currently about 20,000 Haitians qualify for TPS, a much smaller number than for other recipient countries.

Nonetheless, deportations are proceeding with 30,299 on "final order of removal" status, meaning an immigration judge ordered them out. About 600 are in detention, 243 others are electronically monitored, and all 30,000 will be removed by an administration as callous to the poor as previous hard-liners under George Bush. In America, everything changes, yet stays the same, even under the first black president.

Some Background on Haitian Immigration to America

Haitians began arriving in South Florida about 50 years ago, but were denied the same rights and treatment as more favored immigrants like Europeans. Fleeing repressive dictatorships hardly mattered during years under "Papa" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier or when military dictatorships ran the country.

In September 1963, the first boatload claiming persecution arrived but were denied asylum and deported. Decades later, it's the same. After a 1991 coup deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians fled to America. Most were intercepted at sea and sent home while around 300 were detained at Guantanamo because tests showed they were HIV positive.

Conditions at the camp were deplorable. Treated like prisoners, they were held behind razor wire in leaky barracks with bad sanitation, poor food, and little medical care even for the sick and pregnant women. After protests and a hunger strike, crackdowns were severe, many were imprisoned, and Clinton White House justification was no different than today. The DOJ claimed Haitians had no legal rights under the Constitution, federal statutes, or international law. Wrong.

International law protects asylum seekers, Haitians as much as others.

Article I of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines one as:

"A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country."

Refugee-seeking persons are "asylum seekers." Post-WW II, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created to help them. To gain legal protection, individuals must:

- be outside their country of origin;
- be afraid of persecution;
- be harmed or fear harm by their government or others;
- fear persecution for at least one of the above cited reasons; and
- pose no danger to others.

In the 1980s, Haitians fared no better than earlier. From 1981-1990, 22,940 Haitians were interdicted at sea, yet only 11 qualified for asylum compared to tens of thousands of Cubans who automatically get it if they reach South Florida.

After the September 1991 coup against Aristide, the OAS's strong condemnation forced the first Bush administration to soften its policy slightly, but not much. By November 11, about 450 Haitians were in detention while the State Department sought a regional solution, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees arranged for several Latin countries (including Belize, Hondorus, Trinidad, Tobago, and Venezuela) to provide temporary safe havens. Still hundreds were forcibly returned and thousands more interned at Guantanamo.

By May 1992, citing an inflow surge that month, president Bush ordered all Haitian boats interdicted and peremptorily returned without determining if their occupants were at risk of persecution. Repatriation continued until Bill Clinton offered to process arrivals at a regional location, but only as it turned out for three weeks because the flow was much greater than expected. Thereafter, refugee processing was suspended with arrivals offered regional "safe havens" but no option for U.S. refugee status.

In October 1998, under the newly enacted Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA), eligible Haitians (who filed asylum claims or entered the U.S. before December 31, 1995) were allowed to live and work in America permanently without applying for an immigrant visa in advance from overseas.

However, under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), aliens arriving in America without proper immigration documents are immediately processed for removal. If they fear persecution, they're kept in detention until an asylum officer determines the threat's credibility. In 2005, 1850 interdicted Haitians were sent to Guantanamo. Only nine got hearings and of those, one man got refugee status.

Under the 2002 Homeland Security Act, at least five separate agencies handle Haitian migrants:

- the Coast Guard for interdictions;
- Customs and Border Protection for apprehensions and inspections;
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detentions; and
- DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) for asylum and removal hearings.

Earlier and more recent policies highlight how Haitians are mistreated. On October 29, 2002, fleeing poverty, not repression, 212 Haitians arrived in South Florida, hoping for asylum and safety. Instead, they were rounded up, handcuffed, held in detention, and treated like criminals in gross violation of international law. Families were separated from children, husbands from wives, and siblings from each other, but it wasn't an isolated incident.

Unknown to most Americans, the Bush administration had a secret Haitian policy that took affect in late 2001. It authorized the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now DHS/ICE, to detain all South Florida arrivals regardless of their asylum eligibility.

The result was dramatic, insensitive, and immediate. The Haitian release rate for those passing interviews dropped from 96% in November to 6% between mid-December and mid-March 2002. Even Haitians granted asylum weren't immediately released.

On February 25, 2004, days before the second February 29 coup, the U.S. State Department urged U.S. citizens in Haiti to leave. In addition, George Bush said all interdicted Haitians would be returned and those reaching shore would be held prior to deportation, regardless of their protected status.

Detention conditions then and since are appalling and for women dangerous with reports of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape. Men and women both are subjected to frequent strip searches, lockdowns, nightly sleep interruptions, and often denial of needed medical care.

Official Haitian policy under George Bush and currently under Obama is:

- deny asylum seeker status;
- summarily return arrivals without screening their claims;
- detain others under harsh conditions prior to deportation;
- deny Haitians their rights under international law; and
- now expeditiously deport over 30,000 refugees to desperate poverty and storm-ravaged conditions in a country under repressive military occupation.

Haitian and Cuban Policies Contrasted

Except for the Aristide and first Preval administration years, Haiti has a history of some of the worst regional repression. So did Cuba until Castro overthrew Batista and transformed the country politically and economically. For decades, refugees from both countries sought asylum in America. Yet Cubans and Haitians get vastly different treatment.

Under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act (as amended), a "wet foot/dry foot" policy applies under which interdicted asylum seekers are returned home, but those reaching shore are inspected for entry, then nearly always allowed to stay -- in contrast to Haitians getting no equivalent treatment even after "the worst humanitarian disaster in 100 years" leaving the government unable to handle the overwhelming environmental and human fallout. TPS would help, but neither the Bush or Obama administration offered it, so Haitians are left on their own.

It's an old story in America. White Anglo-Saxons and most Europeans are welcome. For poor blacks, Latinos (except for Cubans) and most Asians, far different standards apply, none harsher than for Haitians despite dangers, poverty, and devastation at home, risks they take at sea, and rights international law grants them -- ones America disdains or observes as it wishes.

In its 1996 Annual Report, the OAS' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that America's Haitian interdiction and repatriation policy violated the following provisions of the American Declaration of the the Rights and Duties of Man:

- the right to life;
- liberty;
- security of person;
- equality under the law;
- resort to the courts; and
- to seek and receive asylum.

Conditions worsened under George Bush, especially after the February 2004 coup. Since January 20, the Obama administration is continuing the worst of his predecessor's policies. This from America's first black president who governs the same as white ones. Around 30,000 Haitians will be among the first to learn how harshly firsthand.

* Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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