Notes and Analyses

La impunidad de los grandes terratenientes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:41:00 +0000

Por Joe Emersberger y Jeb Sprague

En esta artículo, Joe Emersberger y Jeb Sprague discuten el documental del cineasta Edward Ellis '"Tierras Libres". El documental explora los asesinatos de campesinos y activistas asesinados por sicarios para tratar de implementar el proyecto de la reforma agraria del gobierno de Venezuela y la búsqueda de sus familias por la justicia dentro de un sistema judicial que aún está controlado en gran parte por la elite nacional.

Por cerca de una década, Venezuela ha sido el foco, y el objetivo, de la cobertura de noticias generales como el escenario de una lucha política que se calienta por el control de los destinos del país.

Pero el desfile de expertos dispuestos a criticar al presidente electo del país y simplificar el conflicto político del país, por lo general ignoran la profunda desigualdad socio-económica que impulsó el presidente Chávez al poder.

La revolución bolivariana ha dado pasos significativos en la mejora de las condiciones para las clases populares del país y promover un bloque regional alternativo, mientras que al mismo tiempo, promoviendo una forma única de la democracia participativa.

Sin embargo, la revolución bolivariana está luchando tanto por sus propias contradicciones y en contra de una larga historia de desigualdades sociales profundamente arraigados, intensificado por la globalización capitalista.

Esto es más claro, entonces, en la zona rural de Venezuela, donde vastas extensiones de tierra permanecen en manos de un grupo pequeño de familias extremadamente ricas.

"Tierras Libres", dio a conocer un documental de este año, cuenta una historia que ha sido prácticamente ocultada por la prensa internacional: el asesinato de cientos de campesinos venezolanos por sicarios y paramilitares de derecha. Los campesinos han sido asesinados por tratar de aplicar la política del gobierno de Chávez de reforma agraria. Los delitos implican fuertemente a ricos terratenientes que se oponen vehementemente a la reforma agraria.

En una escena del documental vemos a una mujer de mediana edad, Doneila, cuyo esposo, Hermes Escalona, fue asesinado en 2003 por hombres armados cuando estaba empezando a trabajar algunas tierras en barbecho en una enorme plantación.

Hablando directamente con el presidente Chávez en su programa semanal "Aló Presidente", programa de televisión, se ve la esperanza en la cara de Doneila cuando Chávez promete "recalentar" los esfuerzos para juzgar a los asesinos de su marido.

No hay justicia para los pobres

De hecho, como muestra el documental, Chávez ordenó a su abogado personal para acudir en su ayuda. Sin embargo, la próxima película ofrece una actualización del caso de Doneila después de su aparición con Chávez en la televisión nacional. Mientras ella sigue apoyando al presidente venezolano, dice, entre lágrimas, que ha llegado a la conclusión de que para los pobres en Venezuela simplemente no hay justicia.

Su hijo explica que después de años de esfuerzo, incluso con el apoyo recibido, el tiempo y los recursos necesarios para alcanzar la justicia en el caso de su padre es una carga demasiado grande emocional y financiera para que puedan soportar.

En otras palabras, el sistema de justicia sigue siendo manipuladas a favor de la Venezuela del 1% (para usar la terminología Ocupar Wall Street) que lo construyó.

Como describió la situación el director de cine, Edward Ellis:

"El sistema legal en Venezuela, a pesar de malas interpretaciones de los medios internacionales, sigue estando, en muchos casos, en gran medida en manos de las clases media y alta. La mayoría de estas personas tienen sus raíces en las estructuras de poder del Punto Fijismo, que quiere decir, el antiguo régimen. La mayoría de los abogados y los jueces comparten los mismos antecedentes culturales y orígenes de clase que los terratenientes y latifundistas. Fueron a las mismas escuelas y universidades, visitan los mismos clubes y beben el mismo whisky, independientemente de si se ponen o no un sombrero rojo en un mitin. Así que lo que tenemos es un sistema dirigido y controlado por el dinero. "

Los asesinatos de campesinos han sido tan completamente ignorados por la prensa internacional que en agosto se envió una petición al Guardian del Reino Unido, periódico ampliamente considerado como uno de los mejores periódicos "izquierdistas" del mundo.

La petición, firmada por Noam Chomsky, John Pilger y otros, le preguntó al Guardián por qué, a pesar de tener un corresponsal en Caracas desde hace años, el tema ha sido ignorado por completo.

Por ejemplo, el Guardian, que nunca ha dejado de informar sobre las críticas al gobierno de Chávez, no informó sobre los asesinatos ni a las manifestaciones destacando el tema, tales como la marcha del 8 de junio 2011 de 10 mil personas a la Asamblea Nacional, que fue organizada por los colectivos campesinos para exigir justicia.

Varias semanas después de que la petición fue enviada, y luego de haber recibido más quejas, el Guardian permitió a Edward Ellis escribir un comentario sobre el tema. Ellis escribió que la impunidad de los ricos terratenientes en Venezuela "desafía el discurso contemporáneo de los derechos humanos, que representa a la judicatura del país, como cautiva de los caprichos de un presidente hambriento por el poder", hombre fuerte "empeñado en acabar con la disidencia política".

Un buen ejemplo del "discurso contemporáneo de los derechos humanos" que Ellis mencionó es un informe publicado en agosto por el International Crisis Group (ICG) sobre el problema de la delincuencia violenta en Venezuela ("Violencia y política en Venezuela"). En su conclusión, el ICG señaló que "la violencia o su amenaza, se han convertido en inherentes al proyecto político del presidente Chávez".

Los asesinatos cometidos por los terratenientes ricos

No importa que, de acuerdo con las cifras proporcionadas en el propio informe de ICG, la gran mayoría de personas que murieron en la violencia política desde 1999 han sido los partidarios de Chávez.

Cientos de campesinos como Hermes Escalona fueron asesinados por tratar de implementar una política que es de alta prioridad para un gobierno ansioso de terminar con la dependencia de Venezuela de las importaciones de alimentos. El hecho de que los propietarios de tierras más ricas, con impunidad, han podido asesinar a cientos de chavistas pone de manifiesto el poder de los ricos y su capacidad para la violencia.

Los adversarios de Chávez están bien posicionados, como gobernadores, alcaldes, legisladores, jueces y jefes de policía, para agravar los delitos violentos en general. El ex Policía Metropolitana de Caracas, por ejemplo, abiertamente colaboró con el breve golpe que depuso brevemente a Chávez en 2002.

A pesar de estos hechos dramáticamente reveladores, es inconcebible que una prominente y bien financiada ONG como el ICG escriba que "la violencia o su amenaza, se ha convertido en inherentes al proyecto político de la oposición de las élites en Venezuela", aunque estaría mucho más cerca a la verdad.

Haciendo caso omiso de hechos importantes y las relaciones sociales y desiguales que sustentan el conflicto político en Venezuela, los medios de comunicación y profesionales de las ONG, invariablemente, reducen un movimiento diverso y amplio de abajo a la supuesta maquinación del presidente del país.

En los cables diplomáticos filtrados por Wikileaks, funcionarios de EE.UU. han destacado la importancia de que las ONG asuman su guerra de propaganda contra el gobierno de Chávez. Al parecer, varias organizaciones no gubernamentales y las instituciones, como Human Rights Watch, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos y la ICG-no requieren insistencia del gobierno de EE.UU. para escribir copiosamente sobre Venezuela de una manera que encubre a la oposición política financiada por Estados Unidos o el papel de las otras elites locales y transnacionales.

Muchos de los integrantes de la prensa internacional y de las organizaciones no gubernamentales parecen compartir las suposiciones de algunos corruptos del sistema jurídico venezolano sobre cuales víctimas son importantes y cuales no son importantes.

Se ha convertido en algo normal leer los informes de los medios de comunicación críticos a las autoridades electas de Venezuela, pero poco se dice del turbio mundo de las redes de la elite y la violencia que impulsan.

Menos todavía se dice de la desigualdad o de los valientes esfuerzos realizados para erradicarla lentamente. Para conocer estas historias tenemos que ir a los pobres de Venezuela y escuchar sus testimonios, como lo hizo Edward Ellis para hacer su documental.

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Joe Emersberger es un escritor que vive en Canadá y opera el sitio web Canuckmediamonitor. Jeb Sprague es el autor del libro de próxima aparición “Paramilitarismo y el Asalto a la Democracia en Haití” (publicado en Monthly Review Press, 2012).

Interview on Anti-War Radio (this Tuesday)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:26:00 +0000

I will be talking about U.S. foreign policy and my forthcoming book (on Haiti) this Tuesday (at 12:30 in the afternoon east coast time) on Anti-War Radio aired in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas.

Interview on KPFT

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:22:00 +0000

Here is the interview I did on KPFT's Human Rights Show, this last Friday (November 25th). This show airs on 90.1 FM in the greater Houston, Galveston, and upper Texas Gulf Coast (and affiliates).

Interview on KPFK

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:33:00 +0000

I was interviewed about my forthcoming book on Haiti on the Sojourner Truth (with Margaret Prescod) radio show on KPFK (independent/listener sponsored radio in Los Angeles and Southern California). The interview can be heard here, it begins at 37 minutes into the show.

New piece on Al Jazeera

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:32:00 +0000

Joe Emersberger and I have a new co-authored op-ed article: "Impunity for Venezuela's Big Landlords." It is published here on Al Jazeera. We have a spanish version and will hopefully be published soon.

Interviewed on KPFA

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 07:19:00 +0000

See here for an interview of Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre and myself on Pacifica Radio's KPFA 94.1FM. We spoke on the Morning Mix Project Censored show which is hosted by Peter Philipps, Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, and Mickey

Huff, Associate Professor of history at Diablo Valley College.

Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:39:00 +0000

Here is the keynote talk (that I recorded on my computer) of Professor William I. Robinson at the 1st "Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Formation" conference in Prague, Czech Republic in September of 2011.

Watch William I. Robinson "Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity in Educational & How-To | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Empire, Global Capitalism, and Theory

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:23:00 +0000

I have a new article here looking at Hardt and Negri's theory of empire and in relation to other works of the 'global capitalism school'. It is published in the journal Current Perspectives in Social Theory. You can read the 20 page PDF of the article by clicking here.

Emergence of the Iraqi Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:24:00 +0000

Here is a three part video I have put together of Yousef Baker speaking about his research on the emergence of a fraction of the transnational capitalist class in Iraq. He will have a forthcoming article on this topic and see here more on his recent MA thesis titled: Beyond the US Empire: The Political Economy of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Participation active des responsables américains et onusiens quant à l'intégration de puchistes à la PNH, selon WikiLeaks (Haïti).

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:03:00 +0000

Par Jeb Sprague

Haiti Liberté: Édition du 10 Août au 16 Août 2011 & CHAN.

Tout au long de 2004 et 2005, les autorités non élues de facto d’Haïti, aux côtés de fonctionnaires étrangers, ont intégré au moins 400 paramilitaires de l’ancienne Armée dans la force de police du pays, selon ce que révèlent des câbles secrets de l’ambassade américaine.

Pendant un an et demi après le renversement du gouvernement élu d’Haïti, le 29 février 2004, l’ONU, l’OEA et des responsables américains, en conjonction avec les autorités haïtiennes de l’après-coup, ont passé au crible la nouvelle force de la police du pays - agent par agent - et ont intégré des paramilitaires dans le but de renforcer à la fois le corps policier et en fournissant une «carrière» alternative aux paramilitaires.

Des centaines de policiers considérés comme loyaux au gouvernement renversé du président Jean-Bertrand Aristide ont été purgés. Certains ont été pourchassés pour être jetés en prison, d'autres pour être exécutés, selon de nombreuses sources interrogées.

Dans le même temps, d'anciens soldats des Forces armées d'Haïti (FADH), dissoutes en 1995, qui étaient rassemblés en une force paramilitaire «rebelle» qui a travaillé avec l’élite d’opposition du pays à renverser Aristide, étaient stationnés - officiellement et officieusement - dans de nombreuses villes à travers le pays.

Dans ce cadre, une brigade de frappe extrajudiciaire a été assemblée à Pétion-Ville. Elle a participé à des raids brutaux (parfois aux côtés de la police), souvent plusieurs fois par semaine dans des quartiers de la capitale en résistance contre le coup d’Etat, ainsi que cela a été documenté dans une étude des droits de l’Homme de l’Université de Miami, en Novembre 2004.

Les dépêches secrètes américaines détaillant le remaniement de la force de la police faisaient partie des 1918 câbles obtenus par l’organisation médiatique Wikileaks et fournis à Haïti Liberté.

Les câbles montrent que les fonctionnaires de l’ONU et des Etats-Unis ont considéré le programme comme un moyen utile pour désarmer et démobiliser les combattants, mais les implications en terme de donner aux paramilitaires auteurs du coup d’Etat des emplois dans l’appareil de sécurité du gouvernement ont été cachées ou ignorées.

Les câbles aussi ont montré clairement que les responsables américains utilisant le procédé d’indicateurs d’alerte («redlines») et de signaux avertisseurs

(«redflags») ont pris un rôle prépondérant dans les «réformes», ont minutieusement suivi le processus de repeuplement de la police d'Haïti. Des millions de dollars ont été recueillis pour le financement de la démobilisation et de l'intégration des FADH- principalement par le biais de l'ONU et des Etats-Unis- mais les responsables se sont également adressés à d'autres gouvernements pour le financement.

Immédiatement après le coup d’Etat, le processus d’intégration a été réalisé par les fonctionnaires du gouvernement soi-disant provisoire d’Haïti

(IGOH), sous la supervision des États- Unis, de l’OEA et de l’ONU. Puis, à partir de Novembre 2004, un système portant sur le long terme, le DDR (Désarmement, démobilisation et réinsertion) de l’ONU, a été mis en place. Une partie de ses tâches comprenait la poursuite de l’intégration continue de certains des paramilitaires dans la Police nationale d’Haïti (PNH).

Les câbles de l’ambassade américaine fournissent les détails de l’intégration des paramilitaires dans la PNH et d’autres agences gouvernementales. L’un des câbles le plus révélateur est intitulé «Les ex-militaires du Nord rendent leurs armes; certains entreront dans la police nationale.»

Le câble du 15 mars 2005 donne un aperçu d'une réunion deux jours plus tôt au Cap-Haïtien en Haïti en présence du Premier ministre de facto Gérard Latortue et du représentant spécial du Secrétaire général pour Haïti, Juan Gabriel Valdès. Les fonctionnaires à un moment donné n’ont supervisé qu’un «désarmement symbolique», où plus de «300 membres des militaires démobilisés d’Haïti à Cap-Haïtien» ont rendu sept armes purement symboliques et ensuite ont embarqué à bord d’autobus vers la capitale.

Les fonctionnaires de l’ONU et de l’IGOH ont placé les paramilitaires à l’École de la magistrature de Portau- Prince, où on plaçait de nombreux autres ex-soldats.

Le câble décrit comment précédemment des hauts fonctionnaires de l’IGOH avaient fait des promesses aux paramilitaires de l’ex-FADH. Certains «des ex-soldats au Cap-Haïtien ont dit qu’ils avaient été informés par le neveu du premier ministre et conseiller à la sécurité, Youri Latortue, et le conseiller politique du PM, Paul Magloire, qu’ils seraient admis dans la PNH», a expliqué le câble par l’ambassadeur américain James Foley. «Pour nous et pour le reste de la communauté internationale cela a un signal avertisseur... »

Mais à la réunion du 13 mars, M. Gérard Latortue «avait clairement exprimé que ce n’était pas le cas», disant aux paramilitaires «que l’intégration dans la PNH serait une possibilité pour certains, mais ils devaient comprendre que tout le monde ne serait pas inclus dans la police. Des ex-soldats non qualifié pour la PNH pourraient être embauchés dans d’autres postes de l’administration publique (par exemple, la douane, les patrouilles frontalières, etc)», a écrit Foley.

Mais les autorités de l’ONU et de l’IGOH voulaient garder une partie de l’ensemble des ex-militaires comme une unité cohérente à préparer pour être intégrée dans la police, révèle le câble. Les fonctionnaires ont remis le dossier à l’UNOPS, une aile de l’ONU qui se concentre sur la gestion de projet et des services d’approvisionnement.

En conséquence, «l’UNOPS a travaillé à la fois pour relocaliser le bureau d’administration [des militaires démobilisés] et les quelque 80 individus de l’Ecole de la Magistrature dans un camp d’anciens militaires dans le quartier de Carrefour en dehors de Port-au-Prince», a écrit Foley. (En Mars 2011, l’auteur a visité un camp d’entraînement des paramilitaire des ex-FADH établi dans la zone de Carrefour).

Les priorités de l’ONU et des responsables américains semblent s’être souvent portées à réaliser des succès symboliques comme la «démobilisation» des paramilitaires. «Le symbolisme du désarmement des ex-militaires et leur départ de la deuxième plus grande ville d’Haïti représentent une percée significative», a conclu Foley dans son câble du 15 mars.

À l’époque, on était en train de loger environ 800 anciens militaires à Port-au-Prince, l’ONU aidant. Sur les 400 anciens soldats intégrés dans la police, en 2004 environ

200 venaient de la 15 ème classe de cadets de la PNH (appelé «promotion» en Haïti), et 200 de la 17 ème promotion en 2005, disent les câbles.

Le numéro 200 n’était pas un hasard. L’ambassade avait dit à l’IGOH que «l’USG [Gouvernement des Etats-Unis] ne soutiendrait pas l’incorporation de plus de 200 anciens militaires de la 17e promotion» parce que «l’USG craignait que l’incorporation des ex-FADH en grand nombre nuise aux mesures de réforme de la Police en cours; donc, ils devaient être étroitement surveillés », explique un câble du 6 mai 2005.

Ce câble révèle aussi la domination de Washington sur la reconstruction du corps de police. Dans une réunion, l’ambassade a déclaré au chef de la PNH Léon Charles que «la pratique de permettre à une catégorie de gens de recevoir des quotas spéciaux pour inscription dans une promotion

(comme cela s’était passé avec les ex-FADH) doit finir», a écrit Foley. Tout soumis, «Charles a exprimé son accord et a déclaré qu’il mettrait fin immédiatement à la pratique.»

Cela ne signifie pas que les exsoldats ne continueraient pas à être intégrés, mais seulement que «des campagnes de recrutement à venir ne feraient aucune distinction à l’égard des anciens militaires, mais n’exerceraient non plus aucune discrimination contre quiconque ayant servi antérieurement dans les Forces Armées d’Haïti», a dit Charles, selon le câble.

Un câble du 5 avril 2005 explique que la promotion de la 16 ème classe des 370 cadets de la PNH n’incluait «aucun de [ceux qui] avaient une histoire d’activité à titre d’ex- membre des FADH .»

Dans un autre câble du 15 mars 2005 intitulé «Le DG [directeur général] Charles fait une mise à jour à propos d’ex- membres de la FADH dans la Police nationale d’Haïti,» les responsables américains ont tracé les grandes lignes du processus d’intégration de nouvelles classes de cadets à la PNH.

Le câble a expliqué : «les fonctionnaires de l’OEA chargés de la vérification de candidature à la police ont rapporté qu’environ 400 des candidats des ex-FADH à l’Académie de police avaient été soumis à un examen pour leur condition physique en date du 11 Mars .»

Les hommes, qui venaient tout juste de servir dans les escadrons paramilitaires dans des régions du pays, étaient en lice pour 200 places dans la PNH. Le câble explique qu’un certain nombre de ces personnes avaient été embauchées dans les mois et l’année d’avant.

Le chef de police Charles a déclaré «que les ex-membres de la FADH de la 15ème promotion qu’on avait mis dans les rues à l'automne dernier [de 2004] seraient de retour en classe.» Il était clair que les fonctionnaires se sentaient un peu inquiets au sujet des nouvelles recrues à intégrer dans la police, alors ils ont décidé que les cadets ex-FADH de la 17ème classe, une fois diplômés, «seraient déployés partout en Haïti sur une base individuelle et non pas comme un groupe.»

Charles a ajouté que parmi les 200 ex-FADH de la 15 ème classe, la plupart «avait été attribuée à de petites garnisons de Port-au-Prince», ajoutant que, «bien qu’ils aient été disciplinés, ils étaient plus âgés et physiquement plus lents.»

Des responsables de l’OEA ont noté que les responsables de la police haïtienne qui étaient à ce moment en train d’aider l’OEA dans son processus de vérification craignaient certains des paramilitaires qu’ils interviewaient: «Le personnel de la PNH qui aidait l’OEA dans le programme de vérification a eu peur d’interviewer certains des candidats des ex-FADH craignant d’être potentiellement ciblés si le jury disqualifiait un candidat.»

Des responsables américains ont déclaré qu’au sein du régime de facto, les principaux acteurs de l’intégration des ex-membres des FADH ont été le Premier ministre Gérard Latortue, le ministre de la Justice, Bernard Gousse, et une poignée d’autres. L’ambassade américaine a cherché à superviser la manière dont les fonctionnaires réalisaient l’intégration, inquiets de l’impact que tout échec pourrait avoir.

«Nous avons soulevé cette question avec eux dans d’innombrables occasions, en soulignant le danger réel pour l’IGOH de perdre le soutien international pour son assistance à la PNH, si le processus d’intégration des membres des ex-FADH dans la police n’était pas conforme pas aux indicateurs d’alerte que nous avions fixés », a déclaré le câble.

Les fonctionnaires de l’ambassade, ainsi que la mission de l’OEA, «surveilleraient le recrutement, les tests, et le processus de formation, y compris une révision des examens écrits, des résultats des tests, et des résultats d’aptitude physique.»

L’ambassadeur Foley a ajouté que «la pression pour amener les exmembres des FADH dans la PNH reste élevée,» probablement une référence à des appels lancés par certains des plus puissants politiciens de droite et de chefs d'entreprise du pays, qui avaient une relation de longue date établie avec les paramilitaires des ex-FADH.

Mais le Chef de la police Léon Charles, a écrit l'ambassadeur américain Foley à l'époque, était «inquiet que d’autres personnes dans la IGOH aient fait des promesses irréalistes aux ex- FADH relatives à des emplois dans la PNH dans le but de les convaincre de se démobiliser.»

Charles «s’inquiétait de ce que le groupe du Cap-Haïtien ne trace un exemple que d’autres pourraient suivre, et a indiqué que l’IGOH pourrait avoir plus de 1.000 anciens soldats à la recherche d’emplois rapidement, y compris les 235 du Cap-Haïtien; 300 de Ouanaminthe; 200 du Plateau Central;

150 des Cayes; 100 de l’Arcahaie, et 80 de Saint-Marc ».

Le second câble du 15 mars conclut «que l’USG était disposé à verser 3 millions de dollars pour le processus de DDR, mais ne pouvait pas libérer les fonds jusqu’à ce que l’IGOH conclue un accord avec l’ONU sur une stratégie et une programme acceptables pour le DDR.»

L’ambassade des Etats-Unis, jouant un rôle dominant, a voulu clairement travailler en accord avec la politique d’un réseau transnational. Des responsables américains avaient aidé à superviser d’autres processus d’intégration, par exemple au Salvador et en Irak, et le programme de DDR a été déployé dans un certain nombre d’autres pays où opèrent les forces onusiennes, comme le Burundi, la République centrafricaine, la Côte d’Ivoire, la République démocratique du Congo, le Libéria, la Sierra Leone, la Somalie, le Soudan, l’Ouganda, l’Afghanistan, le Népal, et les îles Salomon.

Après que Charles ait fourni des informations sur le suivi et les processus par lesquels les groupes paramilitaires des ex-FADH avaient été intégrés dans les forces de police, l’ambassadeur Foley remarquait dans un câble du 5 avril

2005: «Les réponses épisodiques à nos demandes pour des mises à jour sur des enquêtes à propos des droits humains démontrent l’incapacité de la PNH à effectuer des enquêtes internes.»

Pendant leur première année au pouvoir, les autorités de l’IGOH semblent avoir eu beaucoup moins de surveillance dans leur traitement de l’intégration des ex-FADH dans la police. «Jusqu’à présent, le ministère de l’Intérieur et / ou le Bureau d’administration [des soldats démobilisés] ont été en charge de l’identification d’éventuels candidats des ex-FADH à la PNH,» a écrit Foley dans un de ses câbles du 15 mars. Puis il a précisé que c’était les Etats-Unisqui menaient le bal: «Cela doit changer, de telle sorte que les candidats des ex-FADH à la police proviennent du processus de réinsertion / conseils qu’administrera l’ONU (avec le soutien des Etats-Unis à travers l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations).»

Il est clair également, en se rapportant aux câbles, qu’une fois que la MINUSTAH et la PNH confrontaient un segment «renégat» des paramilitaires, les responsables de l'IGOH étaient inquiets de la façon dont cela pourrait saper le soutien auprès de leurs supporteurs de droite, d’autant que beaucoup d'alliés de l'IGOH étaient de la riche classe bourgeoise d'Haïti.

Après plusieurs tentatives pour arrêter l'un des paramilitaires les plus brutaux des commandants opérationnels, Rémissainthe Ravix (qui avait dirigé une faction de l'ex-armée qui s'est avéré finalement être peu coopérative), l'ambassade américaine a noté en Mars 2005 que, selon le chef du personnel du Premier ministre Latortue, «l’action récente de la MINUSTAH contre les renégats des ex-FADH était en train de jouer largement contre l’IGOH.»

Des fusillades ont continué à se produire entre la police haïtienne et une poignée de gangs dans les bidonvilles les plus pauvres de la capitale en 2005, et à de nombreuses reprises la police a ouvert le feu sur des manifestations pacifiques contre le coup d’Etat. «Le 27 avril a été la quatrième occasion depuis Février quand la PNH a utilisé la force de façon meurtrière», a expliqué un câble du 6 mai 2005. L’ambassade a été vexée du fait que «malgré les demandes répétées, nous n’avons pas encore vu les rapports objectifs écrits par la PNH qui articulent suffisamment les motifs pour le recours à la force meurtrière. Tout aussi inquiétants sont les rapports de première main de ces événements sur les lieux mêmes par la PNH. Ils sont souvent confus et irrationnels et ne répondent pas aux exigences minimales des rapports de police.»

La PNH, cependant, a travaillé avec les forces de l’ONU dans la conduite de ces raids meurtriers. Léon Charles a reconnu, d’après le câble du 6 mai, que les troupes de l’ONU avaient comme «pratique courante» de mettre les forces de la PNH, plus légèrement armées, à la tête de leurs unités en entrant dans Cité Soleil, et cela «donnait souvent lieu à des réactions excessives de la PNH qui prématurément faisait recours à l’usage de force mortelle.»

Les câbles de WikiLeaks révèlent à quel degré Washington et l'ONU ont supervisé la formation de nouveaux policiers en Haïti et ont approuvé l'intégration des paramilitaires des ex-FADH qui avaient pendant des années ciblé avec violence les classes populaires d'Haïti et des gouvernements élus démocratiquement.

Jeb Sprague est l'auteur d'un livre à paraître sur le paramilitarisme avec Monthly Review Press. Voir son blog http://jebsprague.blogspot.com/ et les tweets au http://twitter.com/#!/JebSprague

WBAI Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 07:22:00 +0000

Interviewed on the radio station WBAI, New York (99.5 FM) on US/UN supervision of ex-army paramilitary integration into Haiti's police force: begins at 15mins & 30secs.
http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/wbai_110811_210038thurs9pm10pm.mp3

WikiLeaks revela: Funcionarios de EE.UU. y la ONU supervisaron la incorporación de paramilitares a la policía de Haití

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:44:00 +0000

por Jeb Sprague

contra injerencia

A lo largo de 2004 y 2005, las autoridades de Haiti, en colaboración con funcionarios extranjeros, incorporaron a por lo menos 400 paramilitares a la policía, según cables secretos de la embajada de los EE.UU. .

Después del derrocamiento del Presidente Jean-Bertrand Aristide en febrero de 2004, la ONU, la OEA y funcionarios de EE.UU., en colaboración con el nuevo gobierno haitiano , aprobaron —uno por uno— la incorporación de dichos paramilitares con el objetivo de fortalecer a la policía y suministrar trabajo a los efectivos que habían llevado a cabo el golpe de estado.

Al mismo tiempo, fueron purgados cientos de policías considerados leales al gobierno del ex-presidente . Algunos fueron encarcelados y otros asesinados, segun numerosas fuentes entrevistadas.

Aristide fue elegido por primera vez en 1991, pero el primer gobierno democrático de Haití sólo duró siete meses antes de ser derrocado en un golpe de estado militar. El ejército masacró a cerca de 3.000 personas y fueron desplazados alrededor de 300.000 antes de que el gobierno de Clinton restituyó a Aristide a la presidencia en 1994.

En 1995, Aristide abolió el ejército de Haití para prevenir más golpes y parar los abusos que seguían cometiendo los militares. Pero cuando Aristide volvió a ganar la presidencia en 2001 los élites haitianos reunieron a muchos de los ex-soldados en grupos paramilitares para ejecutar otro golpe de estado.

Después de este golpe, los paramilitares establecieron bases militares —oficial y extraoficialmente— en varias ciudades del país. Desde estas bases se desató otra oleada de represión contra los simpatizantes del partido de Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas. Los paramilitares mataran aproximadamente 7.000 personas y cometieron otros abusos, como la violación sexual a miles de mujeres y niñas. Son estos mismos individuos que fueron incorporados a la policía nacional.

Los detalles sobre la "reforma" a la policía se encuentran en los 1.918 documentos (cables de la embajada de EE.UU.) relacionados a Haití obtenidos por WikiLeaks y después entregados a Haití Liberté.

Estos cables revelan que funcionarios de la ONU y los EE.UU. vieron el programa como una manera útil de desarmar y desmovilizar a los paramilitares, pero las consecuencias de engrosar las filas de la policía con hombres violentos que por años violaron los derechos humanos han sido ocultados o ignorados.

Los cables también dejan claro que funcionarios de EE.UU. dirigieron las "reformas", vigilando de cerca cada detalle en el proceso de la recomposición de la policía de Haití.

Se destinaron millones de dólares para llevar a cabo la desmovilización y la incorporación de los ex-soldados —principalmente a través de la ONU y los EE.UU.— pero las autoridades también contaron con financiación de otros gobiernos.

Un cable del 15 de marzo 2005 ofrece un resumen de una reunión de dos días antes en Cap-Haïtien en que participo el ex Primer Ministro de facto de Haití, Gérard Latortue y el Representante Especial del Secretario General para Haití, Juan Gabriel Valdés. Los funcionarios supervisaron un "desarme simbólico", en donde más de "300 miembros del ejército desmovilizados de Haití en Cap-Haïtien" dejaron alado siete armas y luego subieron a los autobuses a la capital.

Los funcionarios de la ONU y IGOH hospedaron a los paramilitares en la Escuela de la Magistratura de Port-au-Prince..

El cable describe cómo ex funcionarios de alto nivel en el IGOH habían hecho promesas a los ex paramilitares FADH. Algunos "de los ex-soldados en Cap-Haïtien, dijo que les habían dicho por el sobrino del Primer Ministro y el asesor de seguridad Youri Latortue y del primer ministro asesor político de Paul Magloire que serían admitidos en la Policía Nacional", explicó el cable por el embajador de EE.UU. James Foley . "Esto levantó una bandera roja para nosotros y el resto de la comunidad internacional ..."

Pero en la reunión de 13 de marzo, Gérard Latortue "dejó en claro que esto no era el caso", y les dijo a los paramilitares "que la integración en la Policía Nacional podría ser una posibilidad para algunos, pero tenían que entender que no todos hiban entrar la policía . Ex-soldados que no estén capacitadas para la Policía Nacional pueden ser contratados en otros puestos de la administración pública (por ejemplo, las costumbres, la patrulla fronteriza, etc) ", escribió Foley.

Pero la ONU y las autoridades IGOH quería mantener algunos de los ex militares, junto como una unidad cohesiva preparado para su integración en la policía, el cable revela.Los funcionarios entregaron el asunto en manos de la UNOPS, un ala de la ONU que se centra en la gestión de proyectos y servicios de adquisición.

En consecuencia, "la UNOPS ha estado trabajando para trasladar tanto a la Oficina de Gestión [de militares desmovilizados] y aproximadamente 80 personas de la Escuela de la Magistratura a un campamento de ex militares en el barrio de Carrefour fuera de Port-au-Prince", escribió Foley. (En marzo de 2011, el autor visitó un campo de entrenamiento de ex FADH plazo en la zona de Carrefour.)

Funcionarios de la ONU y EE.UU. parecen haber prioratizado éxitos emblemáticos como la "desmovilización" de las fuerzas paramilitares. "El simbolismo del desarme de ex militares y dejando a la segunda mayor ciudad de Haití representa un avance significativo", concluyó Foley en su cable del 15 de marzo, 2005.

En ese momento, alrededor de 800 ex militares estaban siendo hospedados en Port-au-Prince, con la ayuda de la ONU.

De los 400 ex soldados integrados en la policía, alrededor de 200 llegaron en 2004 graduadoses de la clase numero 15 de la Policía Nacional (llamada "promoción" en Haití), y 200 de la clase numero 17 en el 2005, segun los cables.

El número 200 no fue una coincidencia. La Embajada le había dicho a la IGOH que "el gobierno de Estados Unidos [EE.UU. Gobierno] no aceptara admitir más de 200 ex militares que se incluyen en la promoción de 17 " porque " el gobierno de Estados Unidos le preocupaba que la inclusión de ex-FADH en gran número, sería en detrimento de las medidas vigentes de la reforma policial, por lo tanto tuvieron que ser sometidos a votación, " explica un cable de mayo 6, 2005.

Este cable también demuestra el dominio de Washington en la reconstrucción de la fuerza policial. En una reunión, la embajada de los EE UU dijo a Leon Charles, jefe de la Policía Nacional, que "la práctica de permitir que una clase de personas reciben cuotas especiales para la inscripción a la clase (como había ocurrido con el ex FADH) tenía que terminar", escribió Foley. Obedientemente "..coincidió Carlos y señaló que la práctica terminaría de inmediato."

Esto no significa que los ex soldados no seguiría siendo integrada, sólo que "...se hacen ninguna distinción con respecto a los ex militares, y tampoco discriminar a nadie para el servicio anterior en las Fuerzas Armadas de Haití", Charles dijo, según el cable.

Un cable del 5 de abril, 2005 explica que en la promoción de la classe numero 16 de 370 cadetes de la Policía Nacional habia "ninguno de [los que] tenía una historia de actividad con el ex-FADH."

En otro cable del 15 de marzo, 2005 titulado "DG [Director General] Charles Actualización sobre Ex-FADH en la Policía Nacional de Haití", Foley explicó cómo el proceso de integración que estaba ocurriendo con las nuevas clases de cadetes la Policía Nacional.

"Los funcionarios de la OEA encargado de candidatos a policías reportó aproximadamente 400 ex-FADH candidatos a la Academia de Policía el 11 de marzo en fase de pruebas de aptitud física", explicó el cable. Los hombres, que habían servido previamente sólo en los escuadrones paramilitares de todo el país, competian por 200 puestos en la Policía Nacional. El cable explica que un número de esas personas habían sido contratados en los meses anteriores.

El jefe de policía Charles, indicó que "el ex FADH de la clase numero 15 quien fueron llevados a las calles el pasado otoño [de 2004] hiban volver a clase." Está claro que los funcionarios se sintió un poco preocupado por los nuevos hombres que traían a la fuerza policial, por lo que decidieron que el ex-cadetes de la clase numer 17, después de la graduación ", se desplegarán por todo Haití en forma individual y no como un grupo".

Charles agregó que, entre los 200 ex-FADH de la classe 15 ", había sido asignado a las estaciones pequeñas en Port-au-Prince", y que, "a pesar de que fueron sancionados, eran mayores y más lentos físicamente".

Funcionarios de la OEA contaron que policías haitianas que ahora estaban ayudando a la OEA en su proceso de selección temían algunos de los ex soldados que estaban entrevistando: "El personal de la Policía Nacional, asistentes a la OEA, temian entrevistar a algunos de los candidatos ex FADH por preocupación de que podrían amenasados si el grupo descalificó a un candidato. "

La embajada de EE.UU. supervisaron muy de cerca cómo los funcionarios haitianos de facto llevó a cabo la integración, preocupados por el impacto de un fracaso. Foley estaba contento que Charles estaba exigiendo a los ex soldados a "los mismos requisitos que los civiles para el ingreso en la Policía Nacional," una política que resulta de "la presión continua de nosotros", escribió en un cable del 15 de marzo. Pero Foley se preocupaba por "presiones políticas y las decisiones de PM [Gérard] Latortue, el ministro de Justicia [Bernard] Gousse, y otros", informó el cable.

"Hemos planteado esta cuestión con ellos en numerosas ocasiones, señalando el peligro que corre la IGOH de perder el apoyo internacional para la asistencia a la Policía Nacional, si el proceso de integración de los ex FADH a la policía no toma en cuenta a las líneas rojas que hemos establecido ", escribió Foley.

Funcionarios de la embajada de los EEUU , junto con la misión de la OEA, insistieron "monitoriar el reclutamiento, las pruebas y proceso de capacitación, incluyendo una revisión del examen escrito, resultados de pruebas y resultados de la aptitud".

El embajador Foley agregó que "la presión para que incluyen ex-FADH en la Policía Nacional sigue siendo alto." Fue probablemente refiriéndose a las llamadas realizadas por algunos de los más poderosos de Haití - políticos derechistas y los empresarios - muchos que habian establecido relaciones con los paramilitares desde cuando eran soldados.

Por otra parte, el jefe Léon Charles "le preocupa que otros en el IGOH habían hecho promesas poco realistas a los ex FADH de puestos de trabajo en la Policía Nacional con el fin de convencerlos de que se desmovilicen", escribió el embajador.

Charles "temían que el grupo de Cap-Haïtien dio un ejemplo que otros pueden seguir, y señaló la IGOH podría haber más de 1.000 ex soldados en busca de trabajo pronto, incluyendo los 235 de Cap-Haïtien, 300 de Ouanaminthe, 200 de la Meseta Central; 150 de Les Cayes, 100 de Arcahaie, y el 80 de St. Marc ".

El segundo cable del 15 de marzo llega a la conclusión "de que el gobierno de Estados Unidos estaba dispuesto a aportar $ 3 millones para el proceso de DDR, pero no puede liberar los fondos hasta que el IGOH llega a un acuerdo con la ONU sobre una estrategia aceptable" La Embajada de los EE.UU., jugando un papel preponderante, fue también franco que pretenden operar de acuerdo con una red de políticas transnacionales - Los funcionarios de EE.UU. había ayudado a supervisar otros procesos de integración como en El Salvador e Irak, y el programa de DDR se ha desplegado en varios otros países, donde las fuerzas de la ONU operar, tales como Burundi, la República Centroafricana, Costa de Marfil, República Democrática del Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leona, Somalia, Sudán, Uganda, Afganistán, Nepal y las Islas Salomón.

Después de que Charles proporcionó información sobre el seguimiento y procesos mediante los cuales los ex paramilitares FADH se integraron en las fuerzas policiales, el embajador Foley comentó en un cabe del 5 de abril 2005: "La respuesta fugaz a las solicitudes de informacion sobre investigaciones de derechos humanos demuestran la incapacidad de la Policía Nacional para realizar las investigaciones internas. "

Durante su primer año de gobierno, las autoridades IGOH parece haber recibido mucho menos supervisión en el la integración de ex-FADH a la policía. "Hasta ahora, el Ministerio del Interior y / o la Oficina de Gestión [de los soldados desmovilizados] han estado a cargo de la identificación de posibles candidatos ex FADH para la Policía Nacional", escribió Foley en uno de sus cables de 15 de marzo. Luego hizo poner en claro la supervisión de Washington: "Esto tiene que cambiar, por lo que candidatos ex FADH a la policía salen del proceso de reintegración / consejería que la ONU (con el apoyo de EE.UU. a través de la Organización Internacional para las Migraciones) se encargará."

Mientras que los ex soldados estaban siendo integrados en la Policía Nacional, cientos de policías que habían sido leales al gobierno de Aristide fueron despedidos, sus nombres y cargos se documenta en una lista hecha por Guy Edouard, un ex oficial de la Unidad Especial de la Guardia del Palacio Nacional ( USGPN). En una entrevista de 2006, Edouard explicó que algunos de estos ex policías y ex agentes de la seguridad del Palacio habían sido "cazados" después del golpe. Además, con el apoyo de EE.UU., Youri Latortue, un ex oficial de USGPN y jefe de la seguridad del ex primer ministro de facto Latortue, había liderado los esfuerzos para "deshacerse de la gente que no le gustaba", dijo Edouard.

Batailas entre la policía haitiana y un puñado de bandas en los barrios más pobres de la capital sigioeron duranted el 2005, y en numerosas ocasiones, la policía abrió fuego contra manifestaciones pacíficas en contra del golpe . "el 27 de abril fue la cuarta ocasión desde febrero, donde la Policía Nacional utiliza la fuerza letal", explicó un cable del 6 de mayo 2005. La Embajada estaba fastidiado de que "a pesar de las reiteradas peticiones, todavía no hemos visto informes objetivos por escrito de la Policía Nacional que explican las razones para el uso de fuerza letal. Igualmente inquietante es que los informes hechos por la Policía Nacional informes son confusos e irracionales y no cumplen con los requisitos mínimos de informes de la policía. "

La Policía Nacional, sin embargo, estaba trabajando con fuerzas de la ONU cuando usaron la fuerza letal. Léon Charles reconoció que las tropas de la ONU tuvo una "costumbre habitual" de poner la PNH en frente de sus unidades a medida que avanzaban en Cité Soleil, y este "resultaba en que la Policía Nacional reaccionaba de forma exagerada y prematura en usar la fuerza letal," segun el cable de 6 de mayo.

En un estudio de 2001 publicado en la revista académica guerras pequeñas y las insurgencias, investigador Eirin Mobekk explica en parte cómo los EE.UU. integro un gran número de ex soldados en la Policía Nacional mientras que Aristide, para impedir los golpes de Estado futuro, disolvió el FADH en 1995. La estrategia de Washington era balanciar el movimiento de Aristide con la nueva fuerza policial.

Una década después, esta política de la EEUU fue resucitada. Asi como Washington reciclo la fuerza militar que llevó a cabo el golpe de 1991, (junto con la ONU y la IGOH) la fuerza paramilitar que participo en el golpe de 2004 tambien fue reciclada dentro de la policia.

Los cables obtenidos por WikiLeaks revelan que muy de cerca Washington y la ONU supervisaro la formación de la nueva policía de Haití y aporbaron la integración de los ex-FADH paramilitares que durante años usaron la violencia en contra los pobres de Haití y los gobiernos elegidos democráticamente.

Jeb Sprague es el autor de un libro sobre el paramilitarismo que publicara Monthly Review Press. Tiene un blog en jebsprague.blogspot.com y tweets como http://twitter.com/#!/Jebsprague
(traducido por Joe Emersberger y Jeb Sprague.)

WikiLeaks Reveal: U.S. and UN Officials Oversaw Integration of Ex-Army Paramilitaries into Haiti’s Police Force

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:47:00 +0000

by Jeb Sprague

[This article will appear this week in the newspaper Haiti Liberté]

Throughout 2004 and 2005, Haiti’s unelected de facto authorities, working alongside foreign officials, integrated at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country’s police force, secret U.S. Embassy cables reveal.

For a year and a half following the ouster of Haiti’s elected government on Feb. 29, 2004, UN, OAS, and U.S. officials, in conjunction with post-coup Haitian authorities, vetted the country’s police force – officer by officer – integrating paramilitaries with the goal of both strengthening the force and providing an alternative “career path” for paramilitaries.

Hundreds of police considered loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few killed, according to numerous sources interviewed.

At the same time, former soldiers from the disbanded Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH), who were assembled in a paramilitary “rebel” force which worked with the country’s elite opposition to bring down Aristide, were stationed – officially and unofficially – in many towns across the country.

As part of this, an extrajudicial strike brigade was assembled in Pétion-Ville. It carried out brutal raids (sometimes alongside police), often several times a week, in the capital’s coup-resisting neighborhoods, as documented in a November 2004 University of Miami human rights study.

The secret U.S. dispatches detailing the police force’s overhaul were part of 1,918 Haiti-related cables obtained by the media organization WikiLeaks and provided to Haïti Liberté.

The cables show that UN and U.S. officials saw the program as a useful way to disarm and demobilize combatants, but the implications of providing coup-making paramilitaries with government security jobs have been hidden or ignored.

The cables also make clear that the US officials – using “redlines” and “red flags” – took on a leading role in the “reforms,” minutely following the process of repopulating Haiti’s police.

Millions of dollars in funding for the demobilization and integration of the FAdH was gathered — mainly through the UN and the U.S. — but officials also looked to other governments for funding.

Immediately after the coup, the integration process was carried out by officials of the so-called Interim Government of Haiti (IGOH), under U.S., OAS and UN supervision. Then, starting in November 2004, a longer-term apparatus, the UN’s DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration) program, was set up. Part of its duties included a continued integration of some of the paramilitaries into the Haitian National Police (HNP).

The U.S. Embassy cables go into detail about the integration of paramilitaries into the HNP and other government agencies. One of the most revealing cables is titled “Haiti’s Northern Ex-Military Turn Over Weapons; Some to Enter National Police.”

The Mar. 15, 2005 cable provides an overview of a gathering two days earlier in Cap-Haïtien attended by Haiti’s de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdès. The officials oversaw a “symbolic disarmament,” where more than “300 members of Haiti's demobilized military in Cap-Haïtien” turned in a token seven weapons and then boarded buses to the capital.

The UN and IGOH officials parked the paramilitaries at Port-au-Prince’s Magistrates’ School, where many other ex-soldiers were being placed.

The cable describes how previously high-level IGOH officials had made promises to the ex-FAdH paramilitaries. Some “of the ex-soldiers in Cap-Haïtien said they had been told by the PM's nephew and security advisor Youri Latortue and the PM's political advisor Paul Magloire that they would be admitted into the HNP,” explained the cable by U.S. Ambassador James Foley. “This raised a red-flag for us and the rest of the international community...”

But at the Mar. 13 meeting, Gérard Latortue “made clear this was not the case,” telling the paramilitaries “that integration into the HNP would be a possibility for some, but they had to understand that not everyone would make it into the police. Ex-soldiers not qualified for the HNP could be hired into other public administration positions (e.g., customs, border patrol, etc.),” Foley wrote.

But the UN and IGOH authorities wanted to keep some of the ex-military together as a cohesive unit prepped for integration into the police, the cable reveals. The officials handed the matter over to UNOPS, a wing of the UN that focuses on project management and procurement services.

Accordingly, “UNOPS has been working to relocate both the Managing Office [for Demobilized Military] and the approximately 80 individuals from the Magistrate's School to a former military camp in the Carrefour neighborhood outside of Port-au-Prince,” wrote Foley. (In March 2011, the author visited an ex-FAdH-run training camp in the Carrefour area.)

UN and U.S. officials appear to have often focused on achieving symbolic successes like the “demobilization” of paramilitary forces. “The symbolism of the ex-military disarming and leaving Haiti's second-largest city represents a significant breakthrough,” Foley concluded in his Mar. 15 cable.

At the time, around 800 ex-military men were being housed in Port-au-Prince, with UN help.

Of the 400 former soldiers integrated into the police, about 200 came in 2004 from the 15^th graduating class of HNP cadets (called a “promotion” in Haiti), and 200 from the 17^th promotion in 2005, the cables say.

The number 200 was no coincidence. The Embassy had told the IGOH that “the USG [U.S. Government] would not support more than 200 former military being included in Promotion 17” because “the USG was concerned that inclusion of ex-FADH in large numbers would detract from ongoing police reform measures; they therefore had to be closely scrutinized,” a May 6, 2005 cable explains.

This cable also reveals Washington’s dominance of the police force’s reconstruction. In a meeting, the Embassy told the HNP’s chief Léon Charles that “the practice of allowing a class of people to receive special quotas for class enrollment (as had happened with the ex-FADH) had to end,” wrote Foley. Dutifully, “Charles agreed and stated that the practice would end immediately.”

This did not mean that ex-soldiers wouldn’t continue to be integrated, only that “future recruitment drives would make no distinction with regard to the former military, but would also not discriminate against anyone for previous duty in the Haitian Armed Forces,” Charles said, according to the cable.

An Apr. 5, 2005 cable explains that the 16^th promotion of 370 HNP cadets included “none of [those who] had a history of ex-FADH activity.”

In another Mar. 15, 2005 cable entitled “DG [Director General] Charles Update on Ex-FADH in the Haitian National Police,” Foley outlined how the process of integration was occurring with new HNP cadet classes.

“OAS officials charged with vetting police candidates reported approximately 400 ex-FADH candidates at the Police Academy on March 11 undergoing physical fitness testing,” his cable explained. The men, who had just previously served in paramilitary squads around the country, were vying for 200 slots in the HNP. The cable explains that a number of such individuals had been hired in prior months.

Police chief Charles, stated “that the ex-FADH from the 15th class who were rushed on to the streets last fall [of 2004] would return to class.” It was clear that officials felt somewhat worried about the new men they were bringing into the police force, so they decided that the ex-FAdH cadets from the 17^th promotion would, upon graduation, “be deployed throughout Haiti on an individual basis and not as a group.”

Charles added that, among the 200 ex-FAdH in the 15^th promotion, most “had been assigned to small stations in Port-au-Prince,” adding that, “although they were disciplined, they were older and physically slower.”

OAS officials noted that Haitian police officials who were now assisting the OAS in its vetting process feared some of the former soldiers they were interviewing: “HNP personnel assisting the OAS with the vetting program were afraid to interview some of the ex-FADH candidates out of concern they might be targeted if the panel disqualified an applicant.”

The U.S. embassy closely supervised how Haitian de facto officials conducted the integration, worried about the impact of any failures. Foley was pleased that Charles was holding ex-soldiers to “the same requirements as civilians for entrance into the HNP,” a policy resulting from “continuous pressure from us,” he wrote in the Mar. 15 cable. But Foley worried about “political pressures and decisions of PM [Gérard] Latortue, Justice Minister [Bernard] Gousse, and others,” his cable reported.

“We have raised this issue with them on countless occasions, pointing out the real danger the IGOH runs of losing international support for assistance to the HNP if the process of integrating ex-FADH into the police does not hew to the redlines we have laid down,” Foley wrote.

Embassy officials, along with the OAS mission, would “monitor the recruitment, testing, and training process, including a review of the written exam, test scores, and fitness results.”

Ambassador Foley added that “the pressure to bring ex-FADH into the HNP remains high.” He was likely referring to the calls made by some of Haiti’s most powerful right-wing politicians and businessmen, many having established relationships with the paramilitaries back when they were soldiers.

Furthermore, Chief Léon Charles was “worried that others in the IGOH had made unrealistic promises to the ex-FADH about jobs in the HNP in order to convince them to demobilize,” the ambassador wrote.

Charles “fretted that the Cap-Haïtien group set an example that others may follow, and indicated the IGOH could have over 1,000 former soldiers looking for jobs soon, including the 235 from Cap-Haïtien; 300 from Ouanaminthe; 200 from the Central Plateau; 150 from Les Cayes; 100 from Arcahaie, and 80 from St. Marc.”

The second Mar. 15 cable concludes “that the USG was willing to contribute $3 million to the DDR process but could not release the funds until the IGOH concluded an agreement with the UN on an acceptable DDR strategy and program.” The U.S. Embassy, playing a dominant role, was also clearly seeking to operate in accord with a transnational policy network — U.S. officials had helped to oversee other such integration processes in El Salvador and Iraq, and the DDR program has been deployed in a number of other countries where UN forces operate, such as Burundi, the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Afghanistan, Nepal, and the Solomon Islands.

After Charles provided information on the monitoring and processes through which the ex-FAdH paramilitaries were integrated into the police force, Ambassador Foley remarked in an Apr. 5, 2005 cable: “The fleeting reply to requests for updates on human rights investigations demonstrate the HNP's inability to perform internal investigations.”

During their first year in office, IGOH authorities appear to have received far less oversight in their handling of ex-FADH integration into the police. “Until now, the Interior Ministry and/or the Managing Office [for Demobilized Soldiers] have been in charge of identifying possible ex-FADH candidates for the HNP,” Foley wrote in one of his Mar. 15 cables. Then he made clear Washington’s oversight: “This needs to change, so that ex-FADH candidates for the police come out of the reintegration/counseling process that the UN (with U.S. support through the International Organization for Migration) will manage.”

While former soldiers were being integrated into the HNP, hundreds of police who had been loyal to Aristide’s government were fired, their names and positions documented in a list put together by Guy Edouard, a former officer with the Special Unit to Guard the National Palace (USGPN). In a 2006 interview, Edouard explained that some of these former police and Palace security officers had been "hunted down" after the coup. Furthermore, with US support, Youri Latortue, a former USGPN officer and Prime Minister Latortue’s security and intelligence chief, had led efforts to "get rid of the people he did not like," Edouard said.

Gun battles continued to occur between the Haitian police and a handful of gangs in the capital’s poorest slums well into 2005, and on numerous occasions, police opened fire on peaceful anti-coup demonstrations. “April 27 was the fourth occasion since February where the HNP used deadly force,” explained a May 6, 2005 cable. The Embassy was vexed that “despite repeated requests, we have yet to see any objective written reports from the HNP that sufficiently articulate the grounds for using deadly force. Equally disturbing are HNP first-hand reports from the scene of these events. These are often confusing and irrational and fail to meet minimum police reporting requirements.”

The HNP, however, was working with UN forces in conducting lethal raids. Léon Charles acknowledged that UN troops had a “standard practice” of putting more lightly armed HNP forces in front of its units as they moved into Cité Soleil, and this “often resulted in the HNP overreacting and prematurely resorting to the use of deadly force,” the May 6 cable notes.

In a 2001 study published in the academic journal Small Wars and Insurgencies, researcher Eirin Mobekk explained in part how the U.S. worked to integrate large numbers of former soldiers into the HNP as Aristide, to thwart future coups, dissolved the FAdH in 1995. Washington’s strategy was to hedge in Lavalas with the new police force.

A decade later, this policy was resurrected. Just as Washington recycled part of the military force that carried out the 1991 coup, it (along with the UN and the IGOH) recycled part of the paramilitary force that carried out violence leading up to the 2004 coup.

The WikiLeaked cables reveal just how closely Washington and the UN oversaw the formation of Haiti’s new police and signed off on the integration of ex-FAdH paramilitaries who had for years prior violently targeted Haiti’s popular classes and democratically elected governments.

Jeb Sprague is the author of a forthcoming book on paramilitarism for Monthly Review Press. He has a blog at jebsprague.blogspot.com and tweets as http://twitter.com/#!/jebsprague

Letter to the Guardian Regarding its Venezuela Coverage

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:48:00 +0000

See here a letter that myself and others have published in The Guardian calling for more attention on the hundreds of Venezuelan peasants that have been murdered by right wing paramilitaries and gunmen hired by wealthy land owners. Read the entire letter here. The full letter with additional signatures is published on Venezuelanalysis.

A Review of Sociologist Robyn Magalit Rodriguez's NEW BOOK Migrants For Export

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Jeb Sprague
Science & Society

Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World, by Robyn Magalit Rodriguez. Minneapolis, Minnesota/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. $67.00; paper, $19.00. Pp. 208.

From government-sponsored nursing classes in Manila to crushed labor strikes at garment factories in southeast Asia, a variety of mechanisms have been developed to manage, promote and coerce Filipino workers as a readily available cheap source of labor around the world. A book of interest for scholars or students of global migration or of the contemporary Filipino/ Filipina experience, Migrants for Export should also be of interest to those studying the state in globalization and in relation to the changing practices and ideologies of state elites.

Rodriguez starts by considering some theoretical issues behind the state and its interaction with migrants, and the historical roots of the novel processes of today’s global market and political economy. She explains how the modern Philippine state developed, first tightly bound to the United States as a colony and later as a component within a global system (yet, still closely aligned with the United States). It is in today’s era of global capitalism that Rodriguez seeks to understand, by way of the Philippines, the exploitive and contradictory nature of the state’s role in migration.

The book’s central argument is that the Philippine state has become actively involved in marketing its citizens to companies and labor-receiving governments around the world for low-wage and closely watched temporary jobs. The practices and ideologies of state elites have become rooted in this process — becoming active migration promoters and managers, such that the “orientation of Philippine officials and government agencies toward overseas employment reveals the extent to which Philippine citizens have become reduced to mere commodities to be bartered and traded globally”(27).

Rodriguez pieces together the puzzle of such a project: how Philippine state agencies, such as the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), for example, utilize the private sector for education and training courses, for which TESDA sets the parameters. Different kinds of self-financed training seminars, paperwork, evidence of skills and other tasks are required for Philippine citizens to be approved for labor migration (33). Rodriguez argues that the Philippine state is reconfiguring citizenshipn in order both to justify its policies promoting the outflow of labor, and to maintain the loyalty of those migrants through “rearticulated ideas of nationalism and national belonging for the purposes of brokering labor” (xxi), accomplished through a “myriad of practices” (xxvii). The state and its functionary strata have become entwined with global capitalist accumulation
to such an extent that managing and promoting networks of transnational migration have become an important part of their own social reproduction, with profitable migratory management companies and large amounts of taxes collected from mandatory remittances.

While facilitating the outflow of workers to transnational corporations and other types of employers around the world, Philippine state elites, through various institutional mechanisms, utilize national rhetoric to legitimize their policies among ordinary Filipinos. Filipino migrants are vaunted in state propaganda as the “new national heroes.” In this way, elites “rely on the reification of national identities and citizenship” (xxv) to legitimize what are in fact highly unequal and exploitive transnational processes. One way to study the class dynamics of power is to look at the difference between elite discourse and mainstream discourse, to understand what elites discuss strategically and what they communicate with a wider citizenry. Rodriguez does well at uncovering such discourse and the reality it obscures.

The goal for top bureaucrats has been to streamline labor brokerage, so that people can be shipped out quickly, put in place and recalled or coerced if they organize collectively or make demands on employers. “The bureaucracy operates like a well-oiled machine facilitating the process of authorization and thereby expediently speeding up the export of labor” (41). Not operating in isolation when they broker labor, state elites work to stave off the protests of workers, while juggling the requirements of employers. “Accordingly, the Philippine state has developed mechanisms by which it not only exports labor but by which it forcibly repatriates workers” (74). While groups like Migrante International are organizing inspiring protests in and outside of the Philippines, the Philippine state has worked to punish and extricate workers who organize labor strikes.

Rodriguez observed one such strike in Brunei. She explains how the Filipino state helped mediate a temporary solution among the workers, the Brunei state, Philippine-based labor recruitment agencies and the Malaysian–Chinese employers (116). The mediation ensured that the workers were pacified, with their demands unachieved. This brings up another very interesting point of this book, covered briefly toward the end: the expanding coordination and similar interests of the Philippine state with other states and institutions. This is valuable, as the vast majority of even critical works on political economy nearly always focus with a realist scope on the differences and conflicts among “nation–states.” Rodriguez observes an ongoing and expanding coordination. She explains: “Philippine migration officials and bureaucrats have increasingly become experts in the global field of ‘migration management,’ working as consultants to other labor-sending countries or playing host to delegations from other countries because of the Philippines’ highly developed migration bureaucracy” (145). Philippine officials work closely with countries in their region such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China, as well as with supranational institutions and government ministries in labor-receiving countries in Europe, the Persian Gulf and North America.

Philippine state officials explained to Rodriguez how memoranda of agreement to ensure exchange of information had been developed with other countries; some Philippine officials were even going to work for other governments to aid the development of their migration programs. Supranational institutions like the WTO and ASEAN meanwhile facilitate and lay out standards, working toward “greater mobility of labor both regionally and globally” (146). It would be helpful here to mention some of the work on transnational class formation, as her work is so relevant to such ideas, for example a discussion of the transnational capitalist class whose interests benefit most from these transnational processes. Although Rodriguez does discuss the work of David Harvey, Saskia Sassen, and William I. Robinson, it would have been nice, at the start of the book, to see more nuanced discussion on theories of the state (and the state in globalization) upon which the author draws. For example, she refers to U. S. Empire and neoliberalism, ideas that could be better explained in relation to the global system, the emergence of transnational elites and the ongoing reconfiguration of state institutions. (It should be said that she develops these ideas somewhat further in a previous journal article.) At a time when many scholars of migration are turning away from political economy, Rodriguez helps us to better understand critically migration in relation to the transnational processes of our global epoch.

JEB SPRAGUE
Sociology Department
Social Sciences and Media Studies Building
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106 –9430
jhsprague@umail.ucsb.edu

Also view Dr Robyn Magalit Rodriguez's web-blog here.

A Review of Sociologist Peter Dicken's Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, 5th Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:13:00 +0000

Jeb Sprague

Journal of Sociology

Widely cited and read by scholars and students of globalization, Peter Dicken’s Global Shift is best known for its concise examination of structures of the global economy. Now in its 5th edition with over 250 newly designed figures and graphs, few texts are as effective in showing the incontrovertible changes undergone in production, distribution and consumption. Written prior to the crisis of recent years, it remains a useful guide for understanding the truly global nature of today’s world economy. However, where Dicken does a remarkable job in dissecting the structure of the global economy, he has little or nothing to say about how the state and economic structure are grounded in broader class and social relations.

Dicken starts, in Parts 1 and 2, by laying out distinct ways in which scholars conceptualize globalization and the importance of technological and networked development, as well as the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) and national states. Part 3 describes shifting economic sectors in the real economy: agriculture, autos, computers, textiles and logistical infrastructure. Included within Part 3 is a chapter on finance, but this is just 29 pages in a 599-page book. This chapter covers the spread of financial services but has little discussion of derivatives (p. 386) and nothing on the role of central banks or stock markets. Most importantly though, for the purposes of this review, how does Global Shift treat the role of social agency?

Toward the end of the book, in Part 4 ‘Winners and Losers’, Dicken reviews some social processes, environmental crises and conflicts unique to globalization. Citing for instance Leslie Sklair (2001), Dicken refers to a dominant social class in globalization, a ‘transnational capitalist class’ as the ‘the owners and controllers of the major corporations’ (pp. 442–3). But in his discussion on TNCs throughout the book Dicken never relates this to such critical theories of class. From Dicken’s approach, TNCs are not grounded in the social basis of capitalist expansion, with systematic and heightened exploitation of lower income communities and the uprooting of local cultures and environments.

Instead, Dicken focuses on the ‘potential impacts’: transferring R&D technology, ties with local businesses and the kinds of jobs they provide (pp. 454–73). These are very useful and important issues to explore, but how might such a realist approach explain the social inequality and conflict that undergirds globalization? By understanding these economic structures from a realist perspective in which states and corporations are thought of as rational unitary actors moving toward their own interests, economic structures are mischaracterized as autonomous and separate from social relations. In this approach a deeper, more critical, understanding of our world is lost. Economic and state structures are theorized untethered from the social relations from which they spring.

Dicken looks at a diverse array of sectors: the development of globalized agro-industries (pp. 347–76), logistical industries (pp. 410–32), and the complex interactions between states and corporations (pp. 232–46). Attentive to the magnitude of changes taking place, he describes immense and unfolding global processes. The book is filled with interesting examples: ‘in the early 1990s, there were only a few hundred thousand subscribers to mobile systems’, yet, as he points out, little more than a decade later there were around 1.5 billion (p. 89). Dicken provides interesting figures on new networks in globalization, pointing out differentiation between marketing networks of fair trade and commercial coffee (p. 351). These are helpful for understanding transnational networks, but what does it say about how these industries operate upon the backs of workers in the field?

Dicken usefully points out the need for understanding the economy through ‘multiple scales’, describing as problematic the aggregation into national-boxes of most ‘statistical data on production, trade, investment and the like’ (p. 13). He helpfully suggests that, to escape these boxes, we can think ‘in terms of production circuits and networks’ that ‘cut through, and across, all geographical scales, including the bounded territory of the state’ (p. 13). Might we also envision social relations, though hindered by many things, as also transforming in globalization?

In theorizing globalization many scholars choose to emphasize the geographic rather than the social basis of change. Dicken, preferring the former as well, observes that while some cities and countries are well integrated with globalization, others are not (p. 89). The ‘least developed countries’ are ‘not integrated into the system’ (p. 39). But here he misses what I believe is more important: that we understand our world best by first emphasizing in explanatory importance inequality between social groups and classes, an approach made all the more important in globalization. Whereas worldwide different groups are operating as bulwarks of global capitalism, such as middle classes living in gated communities, in the ‘third world’ millions are crowded into urban slums, as others are pulled into credit card debt. With global circuits of capital accumulation entwining the earth’s population in concomitant relations, in understanding our material world it is all the more important to emphasize as more determinant (of causal priority) the role of social production, and then, while also important, uneven geographic development.

Dicken provides a valuable explanation of various strategies and tactics that are carried out through TNCs and states, in seeking advantages in the global market: ‘location tournaments’, ‘competitive bidding’, ‘incentivized tax structures’, while at times ‘investment capital may be provided by host government’, with corporate taxes reduced, or as TNCs seek to exploit national differences between states, etc. (pp. 232–46). This manoeuvring, which he has studied in depth (Dicken, 2005, 2007; Dicken et al., 2006), provides the reader with useful ways in which to understand how TNCs and states are operated. But why are these state and corporate structures operated in this way? Who are the agents operating in and through these structures?

We need studies such as Global Shift to be connected with a critical understanding of agency to get at how and why these structures work the way they do. In globalization, for example, if capitalists and state elites are operating through structures in which their social reproduction is tied to or dependent on circuits of global (rather than national) capital accumulation, then, while they still conflict with one another in many ways, they can share to different degrees in overarching transnational practices and ideologies (even as national and regional processes remain).

The point here is that the social basis needs to be integral to any critical understanding of economic and state structures and the changes they undergo during globalization. I realize that Dicken has written in the past on actor network theory (Dicken et al., 2001: 101–5), but, without the proper room here to address this, I see this as a theoretically confused concept, understanding capital accumulation as disconnected from social conflict. While Dicken emphasizes (rightly so) decisive changes in economic structures worldwide, we must ask throughout: how do these changes connect with people? Why and how do these processes and structures connect with different social strata and classes? Such questions go unanswered in Global Shift. This said, for a realist overview of the institutional structures of various industries and networks in globalization, and the institutional manners in which they intersect with states, this book remains a valuable and impressive text. Few have shown the immensity and particularity of global capitalist production so thoroughly.

References

Dicken, P. (2005) ‘Tangled Webs: Transnational Production Networks and Regional Integration’, SPACES Working Paper 2005-04. Geography,

University of Marburg.

Dicken, P. (2007) Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, 5th edn. London: The Guilford Press.

Dicken, P., P.F. Kelly, K. Olds and H.W.-C. Yeung (2001) ‘Chains and Networks, Territories and Scales: Towards a Relational Framework for Analysing the Global Economy’, Global Networks 1(2): 89–112.

Dicken, P., H.W.-C. Yeung and L. Weidong (2006) Transnational Corporations and Network Effects of a Local Manufacturing Cluster in Mobile Telecommunications Equipment in China’, World Development 34(12): 520–40.

Sklair, L. (2001) Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell.

Jeb Sprague

University of California Santa Barbara

New Article on Al Jazeera and teleSUR

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:19:00 +0000

Please read my new article "Haiti's Movement from Below Endures" on Al Jazeera. Mi nuevo artículo también está disponible en español en teleSUR y Rebelión.

Ex-FAd’H Camp near Port-au-Prince (March, 2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:59:00 +0000

Ex-FAd'H LT Jeune Aduen Moniteur stands in front of a Duvalierist flag.

(Photos: Jeb Sprague,2011)

In March of 2011, Isabeau Doucet (a journalist writing for the Guardian & the Christian Science Monitor) and I located the ex-FAd’H (Forces armées d'Haïti--Haiti's former military) camp that was recently covered in an article by the Associated Press. Below I describe some of what I found and related information:

During the years following the 2004 overthrow of Haiti’s elected government, the ex-military has set up a formalized network of training camps around the country.

Thirty to forty minutes from the center of Port-au-Prince, past Carrefour, between the towns of Mariane and Gressier, members of Haiti’s former military (FAd’H) have a hilltop encampment that they call ‘Lambi 12 Grande Saline’. The camp is made up of between a dozen and twenty tents, with a few small wooden and corrugated tin structures.

Leading the troops is Nestor Appolon, who the ex-FAd’H say was a Lieutenant in Haiti’s army. Second in command of the camp is Jeune Aduen Moniteur, described as a former Captain of the FAd’H (pictured above). An older organizer of the men, Eugene Joseph, an ex-FAd’H and “counceiller” at the camp speaks fluent English, is a U.S. citizen, and smiles but refuses to answer when asked if the U.S. military trained him early in his career.

Some important points:

1. This group of ex-FAd’H and their new recruits claim to have been based

at this location for the last 1 ½ to 2 years.

2. They openly claim to be Duvalierists. A Red and Black flag of the Duvalier era hangs in their main HQ tent.

3. Security companies send recruiters often to this ex-FAd’H camp. According to one ex-FAd’H NCO: “They hire many of our men for their [security] companies, so we must always look for others [to join].” My belief is that the leadership of the camp have some benefactors among the business elite and get some sort of kick back payment from security companies after they train and vet new recruits.

4. The Second in Command of the camp asked if we would like to hire a security detachment and that we could have many well-trained men, each with a weapon, for 500 US dollars per man per month.

5. The ex-FAd’H say that similar or smaller camps are also located near Cap-Haïtien (rumoured to be headed by a family member or son of Dany Toussaint), near Jérémie (headed by Guy Philippe), near Croix-des-Bouquets, and half a dozen other locations around the country. Ex FAd’H at ‘Lambi 12 Grande Saline’ say that the leaders of the camps communicate and coordinate with each other regularly.

6. They claim that Haiti’s Ministry of Justice provided them with USAID, UNICEF, and sky blue UN tents (the UN tents at ‘Lambi 12’ are from the Chinese contingent of MINUSTAH). See photos.

7. The ex-FAd’H at the 'Lambi 12' camp say that Haiti’s police chief Mario Andersol will do nothing to hinder their activities.

8. Allegedly, according to well-placed sources, the DEA has “cut deals” with some of the leadership of these camps, as some have been implicated in narco-trafficking (not to mention: numerous killings, armed assaults, etc).

9. The ex-FAd’H at the camp are strongly anti-Aristide/Lavalas but a few said [in response to a question about Aristide’s recent return] that “all Haitians should return to the country,” a widely held sentiment. The ex-FAd’H are strongly supportive of Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly who has for many years held close ties with members of the military and paramilitaries.

10. According to some of the ex-FAd’H at the camp, Martelly, in a campaign stop, visited them. A worker at the nearby Lambi hotel also told us that Martelly visited the ex-FAd’H camp. This has not been independently confirmed by anyone from the Martelly campaign.

11. While some in the camp appear to live in Port-au-Prince or the nearby area, it appears some live with their families full time at the camp. New recruits undergo military training, including martial arts classes provided by a Haitian-American who has trained police and military personnel in the United States. He was present during our visit.

Conclusion: The camps appear to have three core functions: (A) they serve as a chain of recruitment centers for security companies, (B) they keep up the rhetoric and campaign of the right wing in promoting the return of the Duvalierist military, and (C) they provide a useful site for maintaining a reserve pool of armed and trained men to crush any future attempts by the country’s poor majority to organize democratically.

It appeared to me that some among the ex-military are looking to improve their image in the media, as they hope Haiti’s next government will reinstitute the armed forces. It is true that members of the ex-FAd’H have been running camps off and on for years – and, on a few occasions these have been shut down- training young and unemployed men for jobs in security. However, following the 2004 coup this became a much more widespread, formalized, and hard-line rightist network.

For background on the brutality of Haiti’s military, ex-military, and paramilitary forces (which have often functioned symbiotically) see the University of Miami "Haiti Human Rights Investigation" published in late 2004.

As recently as 2007, the main author of that study, Tom Griffin and other human rights investigators found that "Army and various well-known Haitian elites meet on a weekly basis to discuss such matters, often joined by high-level narco-traffickers."

For more context see Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment published by Verso in 2008.

The website Haitiancolors has also posted more. A piece by Isabeau Doucet appears here in Haiti Liberte. All of the photos here are by Jeb Sprague except for the third to last photo which was published by AP, and the final two photos are by Isabeau Doucet.

Also below is a video report that Al Jazeera released a few weeks after my blog post here was published. I have also pasted another video showing the ex-FAd'H marching in Port-au-Prince in September, 2011.

On Martissant, Gran Ravine, and Missing the Proportionality and Chief Sources of Political Violence

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:51:00 +0000

Above: Commemoration of the first anniversary of Gran Ravine's Massacre.
The parents and friends of victims of the July 7, 2006 massacre walked
with tears on the one year anniversary. Photo by Wadner Pierre

Below is a response to a note posted by Michael Deibert (on the Haiti corbett listserv, post 41330) and in regard to some of the misleading reports that he authored looking at political violence in the communities of Martissant and Gran Ravine in the years following the 2004 overthrow of Haiti's elected government. It also responds to an anonymously posted criticism (on the Haiti Corbet Listserv) of the work of human rights investigators Evel Fanfan (AUMOHD) and Tom Luce (HURAH) who have been highly active in Haiti's slums of Martissant and Gran Ravine since 2005.

Michael Deibert has made numerous false claims about myself and others writing about Haiti in recent years. Links to responses to some of these claims can be found here:

http://wadnerpierre.blogspot.com/2009/08/michael-deibert-and-elizabeth-eames.html

I would prefer here to discuss the content of this coverage of political violence.

Accounts of witnesses on the ground and human rights investigators tell a very different story than the articles published by U.S. journalist Michael Deibert looking at the communities of Martissant and Gran Ravine in the years following the 2004 coup. While Deibert did report on some of the violence, he provided little of the overarching context and ignored most of the violence that occurred (especially the attacks carried out by groups aligned with the anti-Lavalas interim authorities). Essentially ignoring the role of Lame Ti Manchèt, the largest and most violent armed group active in the area at that time, Deibert reports next to nothing on the major acts of political violence that they carried out.

In his Aug 2, 2006 IPS article, Deibert at least mentions Lame Ti Manchèt's alleged connection to a corrupt police officer, Carlo Lochard, but he says nothing else about this paramilitary group: (1) the article never explains how the group was the primary source of local violence according to community organizers and human rights investigators active constantly in the area, and (2) it never mentions the major attacks in the area that had already been carried out by Lame Ti Manchèt.

In early 2007 when a Haitian journalist, Jean-Remy Badio, was murdered in the area, in a killing widely-believed to have been carried out by the anti-Lavalas armed group Lame Ti Manchèt, Deibert again ignored in his reporting the wide-scale accusations leveled against the vigilante group. According to AUMOHD organizers and U.S. human rights activist Tom Luce, who worked consistently inside Martissant and Gran Ravine in the years following the 2004 coup, Deibert in his reporting obscured the proportionality and details of the violence that occurred. In reports such as Deibert’s the main cause of violence went unidentified; appropriate detail and background information went inexcusably omitted.

In response to criticism over his misleading reporting on the assassination of Jean-Remy Badio, Deibert has refered to his reposting on his blog a statement on the killing released by the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM). However, ACM’s statement also says nothing about Lame Ti Manchèt’s involvement with the killing, which according to witnesses, family, friends, and several Haitian media outlets were the primary suspects. Deibert’s article forAlterPresse dated Feb 12, 2007, likewise never mentions that the main suspects in Badio’s killing were the members of Lame Ti Manchèt.

Attempting to buttress his claim that Lavalas (and the groups he associates with them) were the major proponents of violence in the area, Deibert has cited a few articles that appeared in local newspapers at the time that covered the alleged violent activities of Baz Gran Ravine. However, according to Luce, Fanfan and others none of the alleged attacks that Deibert refers to caused anywhere near the scale of death and destruction as did the Lame Ti Manchèt assaults that occurred often in coordination with an ex-military/paramilitary wing of Haiti's police force.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Above: A brief video on this attack, see: Tom Luce, Reed Lindsay, Raphael Jean-Labin, Jeremie Dupin, “Gran Ravine Massacre #3,” Human Rights Accompaniment in Haiti (2008), Available Online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PUP7LRL4E8

I would also like to respond to the Haiti Corbet Listserv post of ‘41241 anonymous’ criticizing the work of Tom Luce and his close friend Evel Fanfan, both of whom are well-known to many residents of Martissant and Gran Ravine. One hero of that community, Esterne Bruner, a father of six children, who worked closely with Tom and Evel, was murdered by paramilitary forces when he was organizing local human rights councils in that community.

As with the important work of IJDH, BAI, and AI in Haiti, HURAH and AUMOHD have done a lot to gather data and information on attacks against poor communities in Haiti (& organize for justice). HURAH & AUMOHD's work has especially focused on the communities of Martissant, Gran Ravine, and the Plateau Central. These human rights groups have done invaluable work in documenting assassinations, massacres, house burnings, rapes, etc.

Evel and Tom, and their network, have supported orphans of the violence, such as Widnise Jocelyn, an eight-year-old girl, who lost her mother, father, sister, and godmother during one of the massacre in Gran Ravin carried out by pro-coup gangs supported by elite sectors living in Pétion-Ville. Jocelyn remains in the care of the Gran Ravin Community Human Rights Council (GR-CHRC) established by AUMOHD. For a great deal of time, she was in severe shock based on these events.

The 'anonymous' poster refers to the work of Michael Deibert as providing a more accurate story of what happened in these areas... Here are some of the attacks targeting the majority poor that Deibert and some other members of the mainstream media did not mention, or mentioned only very briefly without appropriate detail, context, or background information:

   -20 August 2005: Massacre at Bernadette soccer field in Martissant conducted by Haitian police and Lame Ti Manchet. An NYT video report put together by Walt Bogdanich and his team shows footage of the attack that were carried out by Lame Ti Manchet attaches backed by police under the illegal Latortue government.
   -21 August 2005: House torchings in Gran Ravine conducted by Haitian police and Lame Ti Manchet.
   -7 July 2006: Twenty innocent men, women and children massacred plus three hundred+ torched homes in Gran Ravine conducted by Lame Ti Manchet.
   -28 September 2006: Human Rights coordinator Esterne Bruner assassinated in Gran Ravine after returning from AUMOHD's office. Lame Ti Manchet is suspected.
   -19 January 2007: Photojournalist Jean-Remy Badio assassinated in Martissant. Lame Ti Manchet is suspected (friends, family, AHP and Le Nouvelliste). Michael Deibert (and Reporters Without Borders likewise) failed to properly attribute the major suspects of this assassination.
   -Throughout this time period: Evel Fanfan received death threats and was forced to get police protection on numerous occasions.

HURAH, AUMOHD, the CHRCs, and other grassroots human rights groups have all along operated with EXTREMELY limited resources. Here is one report: http://hurah.org/history/government-atrocities/gran-ravine-1-index-2005/

These groups also carried out a study of the 2001-2004 violence against rural people - attacks carried out by FLRN paramilitaries and financed by sectors of the elite. The violent war of attrition carried out by rightist-paramilitaries in the Plateau Central received very little media coverage other than some articles in Haiti Progres and the former government paper L'Union (which itself was destroyed by paramilitary forces in 2004): http://hurah.org/history/government-atrocities/

     Fanfan, Luce and others have come together with Nadine and Jan Dominique to support the victims of the Duvalier regimes:
http://www.change.org/petitions/support-victims-of-duvalier-regimes#?opt_new=t&opt_fb=t
      Similarly, the human rights organizations Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) have launched a justice fund here
https://ijdh.myetap.org/fundraiser/bringbabydoctojustice/

More on the killing of Jean-Remy Badio:
     http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2517.html

Haiti: Lame Ti Manchèt Accused of Role in Killing of Photojournalist

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/jeb-sprague/2007/02/chief-lame-ti-manchet-reportedly-escapes-dominican-republic

Chief of Lame Ti Manchet Reportedly Escapes to Dominican Republic
http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article_fr2517.html

Haïti : Lame Ti Machèt accusée d’avoir joué un rôle dans l’assassinat d’un photojournaliste

http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/articulo2517.html

Haití: Lame Ti Manchèt Acusado de Haber Jugado un Papel en la Matanza de un Fotoperiodista

More on Gran Ravine and Martissant.. The 2005 HNP Report on Lame Ti Manchet and the Involvement of Officers Within HNP Ranks

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:32:00 +0000

I am posting here a report that was put together by Haiti's National Police (HNP) on the involvement of some of its officers with Lame Ti Manchèt (the Little Machete Army) during the time of the Latortue interim government in Haiti.

This report, put together by HNP officials, sheds some little light on one attack that was part of a much wider campaign of continual violent joint-paramilitary/police operations conducted throughout much of 2004 and part of 2005 (as a good deal of film evidence and testimonials by witnesses and victims attest). During this time period, following the 2004 coup, an unelected "interim" government worked with sectors of Haiti's elite and security force to crackdown on communities where support for ousted elected government remained strong in the slums of Port-au-Prince. This resulted in the killing, wounding, firing from jobs, imprisonment, and exile of thousands. Numerous studies provided detail on this campaign of violence but focused mainly on what happened in Bel Air and Cité Soleil (Lawyers Guild, Harvard study, University of Miami Study, Lancet, etc).

In Martissant and Gran Ravine, the communities where Lame Ti Manchèt was active, the most thorough human rights investigations were conducted by AUMOHD. Once AUMOHD and other human rights groups began to mount a campaign against the violence in the area, the HNP (and MINUSTAH) were increasingly pressured to reign in the Lame Ti Manchèt crew.

Rudy Kernizan, a leader of Lame Ti Manchèt , was said to have committed suicide when he was surrounded by a PNH squad that was finally sent in to arrest him. Some have said the PNH murdered him. Most of the Lame Ti Manchèt have either died/were killed but some are in jail. Mrs. Kernizan escaped to the DR as I understand it. Below is a police report, ordered by Mario Andresol just after he took charge of the PNH, although Judge Paul Peres let everyone in the police go. Some believed that Andresol was not honest in backing the report, while others said it was the corrupt (and pro-coup) judiciary that let these people off. Below is Tom Luce's translation of the report:

Investigative Report: Involvement of the Haitian National Police at St. Bernadette(Martissant) Park August 20, 2005 (Monday, November 6, 2005)

OBJECTIVE:
Involvement of the Haitian National Police at St. Bernadette(Martissant)Park, August 20, 2005

Source: Complaint from the Inspector General's Office

I- The Facts

On Saturday, August 20, 2005, in carrying out legitimate orders some personnel from different units of the Haitian National Police under the Central Administration of the Administrative Police and the Administration of the Department of the West conducted an operation at Martissant intended to question suspected bandits sought after by the police. Some individuals armed with machetes, sticks, and firearms took advantage of the presence of the police to undertake some revenge which ended in the death of a dozen people.

II- The Investigation

1. Following up on some information received from his informants operating in the Martissant zone, the Director of the Department of the West, Division Chief, Carlo LOCHARD, decided to go forward with an operation at St. Bernadette Park located in the said zone where there was taking place as in every year at the same time, a soccer championship.

2. The objective of this operation was to go into the center of said park, to identify, thanks to the presence of informants, the bandits being sought after and to proceed to question them. In fact the information which the Director of the Department of the West had was that a group of individuals were regularly present (whose names were WILGUENS, SASSON, WIDMAILLE, SARDOU) and very involved in different cases of theft, homicide and kidnapping committed in the metropolitan area.

3. The operation was set for Saturday, August 20, 2005 and the Director of the Department of the West organized a briefing with those taking part with their respective teams, the division inspector Jean Michel GASPARD, Agent IV Jean Floran MATHIEU and Agent III Médard BLANCHARD, respectively identified under their code names, DDO-14, DDO-12 and DDO-13. This briefing centered on the plan prepared for the event.

4. After the briefing the Director of the Department of the West contacted by telephone the Central Director of the Administrative Police, Inspector General Renan ETIENNE, to request the reinforcement of specialized units of the Haitian National Police. The Central Director asked him to make contact with the commandants of the units in question while he, from his end, was going to pass on appropriate instructions.

5. On the day set for the operation the units involved (patrols DD0-12, DDO-13 and DDO-14) gathered in the courtyard of the director's office of the Department of the West for last adjustments. At this meeting there were police officers from SWAT Team 3 and the police inspector, Roody PETION, the man in charge of unit MO-13 from the Corps of Intervention and Maintenance of Order. After having received the last instructions from the man in charge of the operation (police officer Jean Floran MATHIEU), the police officers present went on their way to St. Bernadette Park.

6. The teams deployed were formed as follows:

Patrol DD)-12: officers Jean Floran MATHIEU, Niclès DESTIN, Termy HORAT (driver of a Nissan vechile Patrol 1-0676;
Patrol DDO-13: officers Michelet FILS-AIME, Nackel LOUIS, Médard BLANCHARD (driver of the Nissan vehicle Patrol 074;
Patrol DDO-14: officers Grévy LINDOR, Jean Fednel LAFALAISE, Stevenson CLERSAINT, Jean Michel GASPARD (driver of the Toyota Tundra vehicle 1-0837;
Patrol SWAT-3: officers Djuly JEAN_BAPTISTE, Robinson FORTUNATE, Lucksonne JANVIER;
Patrol MO-14: Officers Roody PETION (driver of the vehicle), Jean Avla LAFLEUR, Guilner LINDOR, Gaudy SALOMON, Edgard PASCAL

7. In the course of the trip the patrol of the sub-station of Portail Léogane (composed of officers Pierre Jocelyn LETELIER, Gaby DUCLAIR and Réginald CIVIL, who used a DAIHATSU TERIOS plate number 1-0614) joined the other units and upon arriving at the grounds the drivers received the order to stay at the steering wheels of their vehicles while the deployment was put in place in the following manner:

Group for entering: patrol MO-14 (officers Gaudy SALOMON, Guilner LINDOR, Jean Avia LAFLEUR, Edgard PASCAL) and patrol SWAT-3 (officers Lucksonne JANVIER, Djuly JEAN-BAPTISTE, Robinson FORTUNAT), under the command of the one in charge of the operation, officer A-IV Jean Floran MATHIEU.

Control of the entrance to St. Bernadette Park: patrol DDO-14 (officers Grévy LINDOR, Stevenson CLERSAINT, Jean Fednel LAFALAISE) under the command of the Division Inspector Jean Michel GASPARD.

Control of the intersection of Boulevard Jean Jacques DESSALIINES-Martissant 1: patrol DDO-13 (officers Médard BLANCHARD, Michelet FILS-AIME and Nackell LOUIS).

Control of Prompt St. (behind St. Bernadette Park): patrol Portail Léogane (officers Gaby DUCLAIR, Reginald CIVIL, Pierre Jocelyn LETELIER)

8. Once the deployment was in place the group charged with entering went to the field where the first half-time of the match was finishing. The man named Reginald MICHEL, one of the informants of the Director of the Department of the West for the zone accompanied them to identify the bandits who had to be questioned. The officers opened the main gate and went in to the applause of the crowd, estimated at more than seven thousand people, who believed the officers were there to provided security for the sports event.

9. Officer Jean Floran MATHIEU went to the MC of St. Bernadette Park through whom he ordered the crowd to lie down while the other officers who accompanied him closed the gate at the entry. At that moment a shot rang out which, along with the clanging shut of the gate and the order given by the officer in charge for the crowd to lie down, provoked a panic among those attending the game who rushed toward the exit.

10. Noticing that it was impossible to leave St. Bernadette Park by the main gate, most of the spectators of the game tried to climb the walls surrounding the field while shots were produced in an exchange between the police and the bandits who were trying to cover their flight and to avoid an eventual arraignment.

11. The shots made inside St. Bernadette Park and the garage next to a school classroom "Republic of Peru" resulted in the death of two people: a presumed bandit who exchanged shots with the officers in the group entering the field and the man so-called Réginald MICHEL, beaten by the bandits who identified him as an informant. No mention was made concerning the weapon which the presumed bandit used who was killed in the exchange with the police.

12. At that moment a group of individuals armed with machetes, sticks and firearms took control of the interior of St. Bernadette Park. This group of individuals, known by the name of " Army of Little Machetes" took advantage of the presence of the police to commit attacks of all sorts on the people who were trying to flee.

13. These individuals chased the frightened spectators, mainly those who in their opinion were bandits or who were connected with them and took advantage of the fact that the police did not intervene to stop their actions, killing a certain number of people among whom were: Nesdou FEVRY, Francky HERNE, Denis JEAN-MARIE, Erinel ALCIDAS, Grégory ODICE, Yvens MELISSE and another individual not identified; the names Enock LAPLANTE, Christome DORCE, Jean Milfort PETIT-HOMME and Patrick BAPTISTE were given as those wounded by machete by these individuals.

14. The one in charge of the operation, noting the inability of the police to take control of the situation, requested reinforcements directly by radio and from the Center of Informatiion and Operations (CRO); three patrols were send to the site of the operation:

-Patrol Side Guards: officers Lycon FRANÇOIS, Anderson CHARLOT, Jean René ESPERANCE, Clébert DORLUS;
-Patrol of the Brigade of the Port-au-Prince station: officers Mégène PIERRE, Ronel JEAN, Hielson ANTOINE, Jerôme DESCOMES
-Patrol of the sub-station of Marché Salomon: officers Camélo FRANÇOIS, Harold POPO, Osnel PREVILOR, Dieuriel SAINT-LOUIS

15. These patrols then came to the Martissant zone and took their respective positions:
-in front of the sub station of Martissant on request of the officers stationed at this post;
-at the entry of the fifth avenue Bolosse near the St. Bernadette passageway;
-at the National gas station situated in front of St. Bernadette church.

16. These patrols did not take part in the intervention, being satisfied to control their respective positions until rain put an end to the operation.

17. The officers who had gone into the park, toward the end of the operation, made a tour in the zone situated behind St. Bernadette Park; this permitted them to discover the bodies of two other persons likely killed by machete by members of the small group called "Army of the little Machete". The one in charge of the operation called the ambulance service from the University Hospital of the State of Haiti to transport the bodies.

18. Next, on Sunday, August 21, 2005 some members of the different units of the Haitian National Police carried out, according to the instructions of the General Director of the Administrative Police, a search operation in the zone called Grand-Ravine during which some automatic weapon loaders, ammunition of different caliber and some combat clothes were confiscated.

19. During this operation a Nissan vehicle, "Pathfinder", colored red, found without a license plate was taken and driven to the Headquarters of the Traffic and Road Police.

20. At this time once more members of the little group named "Army of the Little Machete" took advantage of the presence of the police to get involved: no loss of human life was reported but several houses considered the property of bandits were burned.

III- Conclusions of the Investigation

A- The Planning and Execution of the operation of August 20, 2005

1. The operation of Saturday, August 20, 2005 led by the Haitian National Police had been decided upon with the aim of proceeding to question certain presumed bandits whose presence had been pointed out inside St. Bernadette Park.

2. This operation decided upon as a result of information received by the Director of the Department of the West from his informants presents some weaknesses in both its preparation and its execution. In fact:

-No familiarity with the grounds had been obtained; the possibility of an important increase in the number of spectators of the soccer game had not been taken into account which set in motion an inadequate action;
- the identification of the bandits to be questioned was not detailed for the officers participating in the operation but was left in charge of the informants;
- the briefing carried out by officer Jean Floran MATHIEU, responsible for the operation, was not clear; the mission of the different units involved in this mission which had different methods of operating with regard to their specific missions was not made precise;
-the entire group involved in the operation was placed under the command of an officer of Grade A-IV which constitutes a major handicap for the conduct of this operation, the one in charge had neither the capacity nor the necessary rank for an operation of this extent;
-no planning had been done by the Director of the Department of the West in view of answering in an immediate way to an eventual demand for reinforcement given by the people involved in the operation;
- the chief of Port-au-Prince in whose jurisdiction the operation took place had not been informed of its taking place, nor were the officers of the sub-station of Martissant;
-the hearings of the different people in charge did not allow obtaining the motivation for the operation on August 21, 2005 at Grand Ravine

B- The behavior of the officers engaged in the operation.

1. The police who participated in the operation carried out by the Haitian National Police at St. Bernadette Park, particularly those who occupied the soccer field and its principal entrance are responsible to different degrees for the process that led to the events that followed this intervention:

-after having carried out the entrance they ordered the crowd to lie down even though there was no sign, real or apparent, of hostility on their part;
- they locked the principal gate to the field cutting off therefore any orderly exit by the spectators;
-the police responded in an uncontrolled manner to the shots of the bandits and did so without ascertaining the source of these shots thereby increasing the panic reaction of the crowd and consequently increasing the risk of the number of victims;
-the members of the small group called "Army of the Little Machete" carried out their assault, armed with machetes, sticks and firearms, without the police reacting to stop these attacks, but on the contrary with the police openly collaborating or at least passively complicit;
-no measures were taken by the police with a view to bringing assistance to the spectators at the sports event who clearly were in danger.

The combined actions committed by these police entail:
- an illegal act (point 2-03, Punishment Scale, RDG);
- an error against the good name of the police (point 2-21);
- a very serious professional error (point 5-01)
- a violation of articles 7 and 9 of the Code of Ethics of the Haitian National Police;
- a violation of the General Order 003, relative to the use of force.

In addition, in the framework of the investigation pursued by the Inspector General of the Haitian National Police into the events of August 20 at Martissant, the police who participated in the intervention:

-have denied having used their weapons;
- were unaware of the presence and intervention of the individual members of the small group named "Army of the Little Machete";
- deliberately kept silent about the number of dead bodies resulting from this intervention, which constitutes a falsification (point 2-64, Ethics Code: to make a false deposition in an investigation).

C- Action of the Director of the Department of the West with regard to the events of August 20, 2005

1. The division chief, Carlo LOCHARD, Director of the Department of the West, has admitted being the organizer of the operation of August 20, 2005 at St. Bernadette Park for the reasons cited above. However even though he had received the report of police officer Jean Floran MATHIEU, the one responsible for the operation, and having been fully informed of the events that took place subsequent to the so-called intervention, has failed to

-pursue an inquiry into the circumstances which were crucial in these serious events;
-submit a timely report on the specifics to his superiors (General Director of the Haitian National Police, Chief Inspector General)

which constitutes:
-an infraction of orders (points 4-11 and 4-15, Code of Punishments)
-a professional error (point 5-02)

In addition, by making the decision to put back into active service Division Inspector Jean Michel GASPARD-- the same one who, under an investigation undertaken by the Central Administration of the Judiciary Police, was the object of a report of abandoning his post made by of the one in charge of the sub-station of Port-au-Prince (CAFETERIA)- without reporting this to the General Director of the Haitian National Police who had the prerogative, the Division Chief, Carlo LOCHARD betrayed the confidence of his superior (point 2-66, Code of Punishments)

D- The case of the Central Director of the Administrative Police

The Inspector General, Renan ETIENNE, Central Director of the Administrative police admitted in his hearing to having been informed of the intervention by the Director of the Department of the West who had asked him to put at his disposal two patrols of specialized units of the Haitian National Police, namely one from the Corps of Intervention and Maintenance of Order, and the other from the intervention group of the Haitian National Police to which he had responded positively. Nonetheless all the while knowing of the events that took place in the course of the so-called intervention, he failed to:

- undertake an inquiry into the circumstances which were crucial to these serious events
- submit a timely and detailed report to his superiors (Director General of the Haitian National Police, Chief Inspector General)

He also admitted that on Sunday, August 21, 2005 in spite of the grave incidents of the evening before he passed instructions to the commander of the Group of Intervention of the Haitian National Police to the effect that a team of this unit would intervene in the zone of Grand Ravine. This intervention also resulted in important material destruction and no inquiry was made by the Central Director with regard to these events.

Moreover although the Central Director had received a correspondence from the Commander of the GIPNH covering the report of the one in charge of the team which had acted on August 21, 2005 at Grand Ravine, no transmission of said report was made to the Director General of the Haitian National Police, which constitutes:

-an infraction of orders (point 4-11 and 4-15, Code of Punishments)
- a professional error (point 5-02)

E- Members of the small group named "Army of the Little Machete"

1. The information collected in the framework of the inquiry pursued by the office of the Inspector General is that the members of this little group are bandits who had been on a rampage in the zone and who had been chased out after February 2004. They had fled to different places of the metropolitan zone (notably to Bertin, commune of Carrefour) all the while operating in the zone of Bicentenaire under cover as refrigeration technicians.

2. Among those who committed the attacks at St. Bernadette Park and at Grand Ravine there have been identified:

- Frantz LARAME (alias "Gérald Gwo Lombril"), escapee from the National Penitentiary in January 2004
-Jean Yves GEORGES (alis "Brown"), escapee from the National Penitentiary in January 2004;
- Valdimir PADEAU (alias "KIMO") (tried unsuccessfully to gain admission to the Haitian National Police in 2004);
-Guito SAINT-FORT (tried unsuccessfully to gain admission to the Haitian National Police in 2004
- Jean Denis FAUSTIN
-Carlo BERNADEL (alias "CHOUPITE")
- Steve DIEUSIBON (alias "RODNEY")
-Steevenson GEFFRARD (alis "TIAS AKEEM")
-Luckson LOUIS (alias "Girafe")
-Roland TOUSSAINT (the brother-in-law of officer Roody PETION)
-Evens so called (alias "TETE CHANKRE")
-Eddy so called (base La Foi)
-Sweet so called (committed a murder in the Dominican Republic and then escaped from prison to return to Haiti)
-Kikki so called
- Eliphète, so called
- Abdias, so called

IV- Recommendations on the measures to be taken

Consequently the office of the Inspector General of the Haitian National Police recommends:

1. The dismissal of Inspector General Renan ETIENNE, 11-PP-o1557.
2. The dismissal of Division Chief Carlo LOCHARD, 11-PP-02322.
3. The cancellation of the contract between the Haitian National Police and the officers:

-Jean Michel GASPARD, 11-PP-0734, Division Inspector
-Roody PETION, 95-08-07-04205, Police Inspector
-Jean Floran MATHIEU, 99-12-03-05558, A-4
-Guilner LINDOR, 03-14-05-06264, A-1
- Jean Avla LAFLEUR, 03-14-02-05929, A-1
-Gaudy SALOMON, 03-14-03-06123, A-1
-Edgard PASCAL, 03-14-10-06707, A-1
-Lucksonne JANVIER, 11-PP-0o2483, A-2, (DAP)
-Djuly JEAN-BAPTISTE, 02-13-04-05778, A-1
-Robinson FORTUNATE, 95-06-009-02792, A-4
-Nackel LOUIS, 11-PP-0183, A-3
-Stevenson CLERSAINT, 11-PP-0606, A-2

4. A suspension of 60 days with loss of salary for the officers:
-Médard BLANCHARD, 95-04-17-01221, A-3
-Termy HORAT, 99-12-06-05639, A-2
-Michelet FILS-AIME, 03-14-08-06499, A-1
- Jean Fednel LAFALAISE, 04-15-01-06920, A-1
-Niclès DESTIN, 03-14-04-06158, A-1
- Grévy LINDOR, 11-PP-0993, A-3

5. The transmission of the case to the Government Prosecutor
6. The transmission of the case to the Central Director of the Judiciary Police for the pursuit of the inquiry particularly into the matter of the members of the little group named "Army of the Little Machete", identified by the victims.

7. The establishment of a uniform procedure for the conduct of operations in which units under different central administrations will be brought to work together.

Dr. Gessy Cameau Coicou, MD, Inspector General In Chief, MPH

Petition in the Guardian: Haiti needs the world's support

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:24:00 +0000

Myself and many others have signed this letter to call for an end to the political exclusion of Haiti's movement from below. It is published here in The Guardian.

End Forced Exile

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:02:00 +0000

See here for a petition that was published today in the Miami Herald calling for the Haitian government, the United States, France, Canada, and the United Nations to stop blocking the return of Haiti's first democratically elected president.

Elite Lobbyist Groups Influence Policies in Washington D.C. on Latin America and the Caribbean

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:19:00 +0000

I was briefly on this RTTV piece that aired on January 13, 2011.

Qui est le candidat Michel Martelly ?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:52:00 +0000

Par Jeb Sprague
Haïti Liberté

[Ndlr.] Le texte qui suit est une traduction modifi ée de la version anglaise parue dans l’édition de la semaine dernière (Haiti Liberte V.4. No. 22. Michel Martelly, Stealth Duvalierist. P.9). Il est présenté sous un autre titre.

Dans la presse couvrant la crise électorale en cours en Haïti, le candidat à la présidence Michel « Sweet Micky » Martelly, que le candidat du Parti dirigeant Unité Jude Célestin a dépassé avec moins de 1% des votes avec qualifi cation pour le deuxième tour le 16 janvier, a été dépeint comme une victime de fraude électorale et comme le chef d’un soulèvement populiste contre le Conseil électoral provisoire (CEP) corrompu d'Haïti.

Certains ont mis en question son aptitude à devenir président en montrant du doigt ses bouffonneries vulgaires en tant que musicien konpa au cours des deux dernières décennies, lorsqu'il faisait des remarques avilissantes à l'endroit des femmes et périodiquement, baissait ses pantalons pour exhiber ses fesses.

Cependant, le vrai problème avec Martelly n’est pas sa morale lubrique, mais son histoire odieuse en politique et une étroite affi liation avec les «forces des ténèbres» réactionnaires, comme on les appelle en Haïti, qui ont étouffé chaque véritable tentative que les Haïtiens ont faite au cours des 20 dernières années, pour élire un gouvernement démocratique. Loin d’être un champion de la démocratie, Martelly a été une majorette au service de sanglants coups d’Etat et de régimes militaires auxquels il a peut-être même participé.

Après avoir été diplômé de l’école secondaire et une tentative infructueuse pour étudier la médecine, Martelly a été brièvement enrôlé à l’Académie militaire d’Haïti avant d’abandonner. Il a émigré aux États- Unis avec une femme américaine, où il s’est inscrit à Red Rocks Collège, une institution communautaire à Lakewood, Colorado et a travaillé dans une épicerie locale. En 1986, après seulement un semestre, il a divorcé et est retourné en Haïti.

Affi nités Duvaliéristes

Sous la dictature de Baby Doc Duvalier, Martelly a dirigé une boîte de nuit appelée Le Garage, fréquentée par des militaires et des membres de la petite minorité dirigeante. Lors d’une récente conférence de presse, Martelly a parlé avec nostalgie de l’ère Duvaliériste, quand François «Papa Doc» Duvalier et plus tard son fi ls Jean-Claude «Baby Doc» imposaient leur despotisme par les fusils et les machettes brandi par des Tontons Macoutes, une sorte de Gestapo haïtienne.

Dans un article paru en 2002, le Washington Post a expliqué comment le chanteur konpa fut pendant longtemps « le favori des voyous qui ont travaillé au nom de la dictature de la famille des Duvalier tant haïe, avant son effondrement en 1986 » Mais les médias traditionnels n’ont pas encore souligné ces affi liations passées du chanteur.

Les affi nités duvaliéristes ne devraient pas être prises à la légère. Des groupes des droits de l’homme comme La Ligue des anciens prisonniers politiques et des familles de disparus ont compilé une liste partielle de plusieurs milliers de victimes du régime Duvalier, qui a été publié dans Haïti Progrès en 1987, mais des estimations totales des personnes tuées pendant les 29 ans de cette longue dictature appuyée par les Etats-Unis, sont de l'ordre de 30.000 à 50.000 personnes.

Après la chute de Baby Doc en Février 1986, un mouvement démocratique de masse, longtemps réprimé par les Duvalier, éclata et devint connu sous le nom de Lavalas, ou torrent. Martelly est rapidement devenu un adversaire acharné de Lavalas, en lançant des attaques acerbes contre le mouvement populaire dans ses chansons jouées sur les antennes de radio haïtienne. Martelly a commencé à jouer du clavier comme un «fi ll-in gigger» à Pétionville et à Kenscoff, banlieue est de Port-au-Prince. L'un de ses emplois régulier était à El Rancho, un casino appartenant à Joe Namphy, le frère du général Henri Namphy, qui a été président d'une junte militaire pendant une courte période après le départ de Jean-Claude Duvalier.

La montée d'Aristide et le coup de 1991

Après son élection spectaculaire avec 67% des votes aux élections du 16 décembre 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ancien prêtre de paroisse et leader du mouvement Lavalas, a été inauguré le 7 février 1991 en tant que président démocratiquement élu d’Haïti, mais pour être ensuite renversé par un coup d’Etat militaire, la première fois, le 30 septembre 1991, après seulement sept mois de son terme de cinq ans. Le Miami Herald observait en 1996 que Martelly « a été étroitement associé à des sympathisants du coup d’Etat militaire de 1991 qui a renversé l’ancien président Jean-Bertrand Aristide »

La junte militaire au pouvoir en Haïti entre 1991 et 1994 a été sanglante et brutale. Selon Human Rights Watch, quelque 5.000 personnes ont été assassinées par des soldats de la junte et des groupes paramilitaires, et des milliers d'autres torturées et violées. Des centaines de milliers ont été poussés à la clandestinité et à l’exil. Martelly est devenu le bouffon du coup d’État, applaudissant la junte alors qu’elle était au pouvoir.

Il était un copain du redoutable lieutenant-colonel Michel François, qui, comme chef de la police, a été la principale personne à la tête des bourreaux du coup d’État. Par exemple, selon un rapport de la Commission d’enquête sur le Coup d’Etat du 30 septembre en Haïti dirigée par l’ancien procureur général américain, Ramsey Clark, François conduisait une Jeep rouge en tête de plusieurs bus pleins des soldats qui se dirigeaient vers de grandes foules manifestant contre le coup d’Etat sur le Champ de Mars, devant le Palais national dans la nuit du 30 septembre 1991. (En Janvier 1991, neuf mois plus tôt, un autre coup d’État par Roger Lafontant avait été avorté à la suite de manifestations de masse similaires.) La foule applaudit les soldats, croyant qu’ils étaient venus pour mettre une fi n au coup d’Etat. Au contraire, au signal de François, on ouvrit les fenêtres des bus, alors la police et les soldats ont fauché des centaines de manifestants avec des tirs de mitrailleuses.

Martelly affi rme qu'il a eu son surnom de «Sweet Micky» (c'est aussi le nom de son groupe) lors d'une performance dans une boîte de nuit en 1988, mais c’est un sobriquet également partagé par le colonel Michel François. Le cinéaste et écrivain américain Kevin Piña se rappelle un concert à l’Hôtel El Rancho à Pétionville en Juillet 1993 où le colonel "Michel François, ... qui était aussi appelé ‘Sweet Micky'après le coup d'Etat de 1991 parce que les gens prétendaient qu'il avait un large sourire sur son visage quand il tuait les partisans de Lavalas…saisit la main de Martelly en annonçant à la foule: "Voilà le vrai Sweet Micky ". Et Piña d'ajouter: «C’est la première fois que j'ai entendu Martelly appelé comme tel »

On avait annoncé un concert que Martelly avait organisé à la demande de Michel François et d'autres dirigeants de la junte militaire à titre de manifestation contre Dante Caputo, le représentant spécial des Nations Unies en Haïti qui tentait de déployer des observateurs des Nations Unies des droits humains dans le pays. Au même moment, l’armée haïtienne et les escadrons de la mort de l'infâme FRAPH étaient en train de massacrer des membres de la résistance contre le coup d'Etat.

Martelly a joué un concert gratuit avec l'idée de s’opposer au retour du président déchu d’Haïti et à toute présence américaine sur l’île troublée. Le charismatique Martelly a refusé de céder à la critique de ses affi liations avec des politiciens et des fonctionnaires corrompus. Comme il a déjà eu à déclarer à un journaliste «je n’ai pas à me défendre .... C’est mon droit. C’est mon pays. Je peux me battre pour ce que je crois » (Miami New Times, May 29, 1997). Martelly, connu à l’époque pour ses nombreuses amitiés parmi les militaires, s'expliquait ainsi au Miami New Times: « Je n’ai pas accepté [la demande de jouer] parce que j’étais l'ami de Michel François, je n’ai pas accepté parce que c’était l’Armée. J'y suis allé parce que je ne voulais pas voir Aristide revenir ».

Plus choquant encore, le Père Jean-Marie Vincent (qui a été tué par un escadron de la mort putschiste le 28 août 1994) avait accusé Martelly d’accompagner la police haïtienne durant des raids de nuit meurtriers dans le but de traquer de présumés dirigeants de la résistance Lavalas. « Nous avons des informations que Michel Martelly se déplaçait avec des escadrons de la mort de la police quand ils sortent la nuit pour prendre en chasse et tuer des dirigeants Lavalas», eut à déclarer Vincent au cinéaste Pina dans une interview fi lmée.

Après le retour d'Aristide en Haïti en Octobre 1994, Martelly a passé le plus clair de son temps à vivre «dans un condo à Miami Beach», où il « présentait régulièrement un concert à la Promenade sur Ocean Drive, où son groupe Sweet Micky jouait le compas, une musique rythmique de danse haïtienne », selon le Miami New Times. En 2000, Aristide a été élu à une majorité écrasante pour un second mandat. Mais l’administration Bush, arrivée également au pouvoir à cette époque, a lancé une campagne de déstabilisation, visant à renverser Aristide, ce qui est raconté en détail dans le livre de Peter Hallward, publié en 2007, Damming the Flood. Martelly n'a pas demandé mieux que de devenir un participant à ce coup d’Etat en gestation.

En 2002, l’étau se resserrait autour d’Aristide. D’anciens soldats avaient tenté un coup d’Etat le 17 décembre 2001, et l’embargo sur l’aide américaine faisait ses ravages. Néanmoins, le gouvernement d’Aristide avait lancé plusieurs programmes d’investissement social, y compris des coopératives alimentaires, la construction d’un nombre sans précédent d’écoles, des subventions pour manuels scolaires, et autres mesures, promouvant l’alphabétisation. Dans sa chanson de carnaval en 2002, Martelly a évoqué «des émeutes récentes dans un entrepôt du quai, déclenchées à la suite d’une rumeur que des fonctionnaires du parti d’Aristide volaient de la nourriture d’un programme alimentaire pour les pauvres», a écrit le Washington Post. Bien que la corruption sous Aristide fût pâle comparée à celle sous la junte militaire de 1991 que Martelly avait appuyée, sa chanson carnavalesque toucha une corde sensible.

En 2003, Martelly dépensait en moyenne $150.000 $ à $200 000 pour ses chars durant le carnaval annuel à Port-au-Prince, selon le Miami Herald. Pendant le carnaval où traditionnellement on se moque du gouvernement, Martelly a lancé des critiques extrêmement acerbes et vulgaires à l'endroit d'Aristide. Lors, « Kolangèt manman ou Aristide » a été l’un des refrains de Sweet Micky, peut-être la pire insulte qu'on peut faire en créole, ce qui signifi e littéralement «le colon a baisé ta mère.”

Le putsch de 2004 et ses conséquences

En février 2004, Aristide était chassé du pouvoir une fois de plus. Une équipe des "Seals" (ndlr. une force spéciale de la marine américaine) a enlevé le président chez lui - ce qu'Aristide a appelé «un enlèvement moderne" - et l’a envoyé en exil en Afrique, où il demeure à ce jour. Durant l'échafaudage de ce coup d'Etat, des soi-disant «rebelles», composés d’anciens soldats de l’armée haïtienne et d'anciens paramilitaires de l'escadron de la mort FRAPH, conduisaient des raids en Haïti dans le Plateau Central et dans le Nord, exécutant de façon sauvage des dizaines de partisans d’Aristide, des représentants du gouvernement et certains membres de leurs familles. Wyclef Jean, un ami de Martelly, a décrit les «rebelles» comme des combattants de la liberté qui «se battaient pour leurs droits.»

Après le coup d'Etat, des soldats américains, français, et canadiens ont occupé Haïti et ont mis en place un régime de facto illégal. Comme les protestations contre le coup d’Etat de Février augmentaient, Martelly tint un concert à Port-au-Prince en avril 2004 afi n de contrecarrer les appels en faveur du retour d’Aristide. Le concert était intitulé: «Gardez-le dehors!» En Septembre 2004, la tempête tropicale Jeanne inondait les Gonaïves, une ville du nord-ouest, tuant quelque 3.000 personnes. Gérard Latortue, le premier ministre de facto installé par les États-Unis, fut largement critiqué à cause de sa réponse tardive et ineffi cace à la catastrophe. L'une de ses rares initiatives fut d’organiser une collecte de fonds avec les gens d’affaires haïtiens et américains réunis à la Chambre de commerce haïtiano-américaine. Martelly, qui ne s'était servi de sa musique que pour saper Aristide, fut la vedette du gala de Latortue, ainsi que l'a rapporté le Miami Herald.

En 2006, alors que des militants Lavalas étaient dans la clandestinité, emprisonnés ou assassinés, le régime Latortue tint une élection qui porta l'ex-président René Préval au pouvoir. La base de Lavalas avait soutenu Préval, pensant qu’il allait faciliter le retour d'Aristide, libérer tous les prisonniers politiques du coup d’Etat, et renverser le cours néolibéral de la dictature de Latortue. Mais Préval a trahi ces attentes, créant, au contraire, un gouvernement dominé par des partisans du coup d’Etat et travaillant en étroite collaboration avec l’occupation militaire étrangère qui a été par la suite transférée à l’ONU. De larges couches de pauvres ne tardèrent pas à le vilipender pour avoir failli à permettre le retour d’Aristide ou à redémarrer plusieurs des programmes populaires d’investissement social qu'Aristide avait lancés. En 2009, le CEP de Préval interdit au parti d’Aristide, la Famille Lavalas (FL), de participer aux élections sénatoriales partielles et, plus tard, aux élections présidentielles et parlementaires. La piteuse réponse de Préval après le tremblement de terre catastrophique de Janvier 2010 a accéléré son déclin.

Les Sélections de 2010 et la montée de Martelly

Finalement, le CEP fi xait des élections générales pour le 28 novembre 2010. L’Associated Press rapporte le 10 décembre que la «popularité politique [de Martelly] a décollé dans les semaines avant le vote et semble avoir fait un bond depuis qu’il est apparu qu’il avait été disqualifi é de la course de justesse.» Cette hausse est due à la campagne de haute technologie de Martelly, d'une puissance supérieure à celle de ses 18 rivaux, qu'il a surclassés en lançant des dizaines de milliers de messages-textes téléphonique, demandant aux gens de voter pour lui. Martelly a embauché une fi rme de relations publiques espagnole hitech pour gérer sa campagne et le mettre en vedette. « La fi rme Sola, basée à Madrid, qui a joué un rôle essentiel en plaçant Felipe Calderón du Mexique dans le fauteuil présidentiel en 2006, a dirigé la campagne de Martelly durant les sept dernières semaines, ce qui en dit long pour comprendre comment le musicien, connu pour ses singeries, est devenu un candidat sérieux à la présidence d’Haïti », a rapporté le Toronto Star, le 6 décembre.

Communément, on admet que Calderón a volé les élections de 2006 au candidat de gauche López Obrador, une sale victoire qui a plu à Washington. L’entreprise Ostos & Sola a également contribué à la campagne de Lech Walesa, le pion de l’establishment américain en Pologne. Damian Merlo, directeur exécutif d'Ostos & Sola et dirigeant de la campagne de Martelly, a travaillé sur la campagne présidentielle de John McCain, l'ultra-réactionnaire républicain américain, avant de rejoindre l’entreprise. Toutes ces associations soulèvent des questions sur quelle «main cachée» peut-être derrière la campagne de Martelly. « Aujourd'hui la question qui n'a pas de prix est la suivante: qui est l’homme d’affaires de Miami qui est allé vers Antonia Sola pour retaper la campagne de Michel Martelly» a écrit le Toronto Star. «Sola sourit à la question, avec son charme espagnol. Il ne veut pas trop en dire. «Un ami, un homme d’affaires, nous a présenté Michel aux États-Unis», at- il seulement dit.

La clé de la formule de Sola pour Martelly a été de le présenter comme un «outsider», même s’il avait été le grand initié au sein de la bourgeoisie putschiste qui a renversé Aristide par deux fois. Le 28 novembre, comme il était devenu évident que les élections d’Haïti étaient chargées de fraudes avec en plus négation des droits civiques, Martelly a rejoint 11 autres candidats pour demander leur annulation. Mais plus tard, ce jourlà, selon ce qu'a rapporté Al Jazeera, Edmond Mulet, qui dirige la Mission des Nations Unies pour stabiliser Haïti (MINUSTAH), a appelé personnellement Martelly pour lui dire qu’il était en tête. Sweet Micky, sans même souffl er un mot aux autres candidats du groupe formé de façon impromptue, est retourné dans la course électorale.

Le lendemain, Martelly a nié avoir jamais signé la lettre commune, lue en sa présence lors de la conférence de presse conjointe des candidats le 28 novembre appelant à l’annulation de l’élection. Il a expliqué «son changement de position en disant que sa candidature menait gagnante dans les bureaux de vote où il n’y avait pas eu de fraudes,» a rapporté le Daily Herald de Chicago. «Il a vu toutes les fraudes qui ont eu lieu le jour du scrutin,» a déclaré à IPS un chauffeur de taxi moto, Weed Charlot, en parlant de Martelly. «Mais maintenant, il voit qu’il a des votes et le pouvoir, alors maintenant il va accepter les élections. » Le même jour où il a parlé à Martelly, Mulet a appelé la candidate Mirlande Manigat pour lui dire qu’elle aussi était en tête du vote. Elle aussi a abandonné le groupe des candidats revendiquant l'annulation.

Puis, le 7 décembre, le CEP a annoncé que Manigat était en tête avec Célestin du parti Unité en deuxième place, donc en position pour le second tour. Martelly, qui, apparemment, est arrivé troisième avec un peu plus de 21%, soit environ 6.800 moins de voix que Célestin, a repris la voie des protestations. La colère populaire était déjà forte contre Préval et le CEP pour avoir exclu Fanmi Lavalas (23% seulement des 4,7 millions électeurs haïtiens se sont présentés, selon le CEP). Le mess des élections a été la goutte d'eau qui a renversé le vase. En outre, il y avait la rage contre la MINUSTAH pour avoir tenté d’étouffer que ses troupes à Mirebalais ont accidentellement introduit le choléra en Haïti, où la maladie est maintenant devenue une pandémie. Avec Wyclef Jean à ses côtés prédisant une «guerre civile», Martelly a canalisé la profonde frustration populaire pour attaquer le gouvernement pour lui avoir “volé” une victoire que, prétend-il, devrait être sienne.

Le résultat a été une vague de chaos liée aux élections. «Il est clair que la plupart des actes de violence en Haïti autour de l’élection ont été menées par des partisans Martelly," a dit Ricot Dupuy de Radio Soleil d’Haïti, basée à Brooklyn. «Des milliers de ses partisans ont paralysé la capitale et d’autres villes durant des manifestations qui comprenaient des attaques sur des bâtiments publics », a rapporté Reuters. Certaines personnes sont mortes au cours de fusillades et escarmouches entre partisans de Martelly et ceux de Célestin. À la fi n de Novembre, le journaliste haïtien Wadner Pierre a vu un groupe de partisans de Martelly au centre de vote Batiment 2004 à Port-au-Prince lancer des pierres tout en chantant: «Si vous ne nous laissez pas voter, nous allons brûler ce bâtiment.» Les partisans de Martelly sont responsables de la destruction des bâtiments gouvernementaux dans la capitale et dans la ville méridionale des Cayes. Ils ont aussi agressé des adversaires, tandis que les partisans de Célestin ont été accusés d’avoir tué au moins un membre du secteur de Martelly au Champ de Mars.

L'ancien colonel Himmler Rebu a déclaré sur les ondes de Signal FM en Haïti qu’il avait été témoin de la tactique des troupes de Martelly dans la rue. «C’est rien de simple,” a-t-il dit, un euphémisme créole impliquant qu’il y a des forces cachées en action. En bref, il y a deux mouvements en Haïti aujourd’hui, que certains rapports de presse sont en train de simplifi er de façon trompeuse pour en faire un seul. Il y a les masses Lavalas mobilisées contre des élections frauduleuses et d'exclusion de Préval, contre l’occupation de l’ONU, et aussi pour le retour d’Aristide.

Ensuite, il y a la mobilisation de Martelly, utilisant sa célébrité et celle de Wyclef ainsi que les techniques scientifi ques d'Ostos & Sola, pour coopter la frustration populaire contre Préval dans un effort de se hisser au pouvoir. Pour jeter la confusion parmi les gens, il assimile Préval à Aristide, prétendant qu’ils sont les gouvernements "jumeaux" responsables des «politiques d'échec « de ces deux dernières décennies. En réalité, le triste état d'Haïti aujourd’hui peut être attribué principalement aux coups d’Etat de 1991 et 2004, que Martelly a appuyés. En outre, le pouvoir soutenant Préval - la bourgeoisie putschiste d'Haïti - est également proche de Martelly. Nous assistons [donc] à une féroce rivalité entre deux factions qui se partagent les deux mêmes sponsors: la classe d’affaires d’Haïti anti-Lavalas et les élites transnationales soutenues par les États-Unis, leur appareil d’État le plus puissant.

Comme Martelly l'a expliqué à Georgianne Nienaber du Huffi ngton Post, il est tout à fait d'accord avec l'ordonnance de Washington pour Haïti, soutenant "tout ce qui aidera les exportations ... tout ce qui aidera le secteur privé. « Deuxièmement, Martelly n'appuie pas l'appel du peuple à mettre fi n à l’occupation de l’ONU en Haïti: «Je tiens à dire à la communauté internationale, au corps diplomatique et aux organismes non gouvernementaux que nous avons besoin d'eux," a-t-il dit dans la même interview. En fi n de compte, le candidat Martelly n’est pas un “dark horse” (outsider) [ndlr. un inconnu (politique)], comme le Globe & Mail du Canada le suggère, sorti de nulle part pour se mettre à la tête des «jeunes et des démunis d'Haïti.» Pendant sa campagne, Martelly s'était plu à dire qu’en Haïti, « il s'agit davantage de l’homme que du plan » Si cela est vrai, les Haïtiens devraient avoir de sérieux doutes sur un homme qui a soutenu deux régimes issus de coups d’Etat et qui a utilisé des escadrons de la mort pour réduire au silence la majorité pauvre et étrangler la démocratie qui commençait à naître en Haïti.

Stealth Duvalierism

noreply@blogger.com (Jeb Sprague) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Haiti, Michel Martelly, and the Presidential Selection of 2010
Znet and Haiti Liberte

December 20, 2010
By Jeb Sprague

In the media coverage of Haiti's ongoing electoral crisis, presidential candidate Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, whom ruling Unity party candidate Jude Célestin edged out of Haiti's Jan. 16 run-off by less than 1%, has been portrayed as the victim of voting fraud and the leader of a populist upsurge against Haiti’s crooked Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).

Some have questioned his presidential suitability by pointing to his vulgar antics as a konpa musician over the last two decades, where he often made demeaning comments about women and periodically dropped his trousers to bare his backside.

The real problem with Martelly, however, is not his perceived immorality, but his heinous political history and close affi liation with the reactionary “forces of darkness," as they are called in Haiti, which have snuffed out each genuine attempt Haitians have made over the past 20 years to elect a democratic government. Far from a champion of democracy, Martelly has been a cheerleader for, and perhaps even a participant in, bloody coups d'état and military rule.
DUVALIERIST AFFINITIES

Under the Duvalier dictatorship, Martelly ran the Garage, a nightclub patronized by army officers and members of Haiti’s tiny ruling class.

At a recent press conference, Martelly spoke nostalgically of the Duvalierist era, when François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and later his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" enforced their iron rule with gun and machete wielding Tonton Macoutes, a sort of Haitian Gestapo.

“Today the dog is eating its vomit," lamented Marcus Garcia of Radio Mélodie FM in a Dec. 8 editorial. While "Michel Martelly openly defends the Duvalier regime in a press conference,” the youth who have been duped into supporting him are “without memory of [the infamous political prison] Fort Dimanche-Fort La mort, without memory of the Nov. 29, 1987 electoral massacre,” when neo-Duvalierist thugs killed hundreds of would-be voters.

In a 2002 article, the Washington Post explained how the konpa singer was a long-time “favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship before its 1986 collapse.” But the mainstream media of late has yet to pick up on the singer’s past affi liations.

Duvalierist affi nities should not be taken lightly. Human rights groups such as the League of Former Political Prisoners and Families of the Disappeared compiled a partial list of several thousand of the Duvalier regime’s victims, which was published in Haïti Progrès in 1987, but total estimates of those killed under the U.S.-backed 29-year long dictatorship range from 30,000 to 50,000 people.

After Baby Doc’s fall in February 1986, a mass democratic movement, long repressed by the Duvaliers, burst forth and became known as the Lavalas, or fl ood. Martelly quickly became a bitter Lavalas opponent, making trenchant attacks against the popular movement in his songs played widely on Haitian radio.

THE RISE OF ARISTIDE AND THE 1991 COUP

Following his dramatic election with 67% of the vote in Dec. 16, 1990 elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former parish priest and Lavalas movement leader, was inaugurated on Feb. 7, 1991 as Haiti’s democratically elected president, but then deposed by a military coup, for the fi rst time, on Sep. 30, 1991, only eight months into his fi rst term. Martelly “was closely identifi ed with sympathizers of the 1991 military coup that ousted former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide,” the Miami Herald observed in 1996.

The military junta that ruled Haiti between 1991 and 1994 was bloody and brutal. According to Human Rights Watch, some 5,000 people were murdered by the junta’s soldiers and paramilitaries, and thousands more tortured and raped. Hundreds of thousands were driven into hiding and exile. Martelly became the coup’s joker, applauding the junta while it was in power.

He was friends with the dreaded Lt. Col. Michel François, who, as Police Chief, was the principal director of the coup's executioners. For instance, according to a fact-fi nding report by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark's Haiti Commission of Inquiry into the Sep. 30 Coup d'Etat, François drove a red Jeep leading several buses full of soldiers into large crowds demonstrating against the coup on the Champ de Mars in front of the National Palace on the night of Sep. 30, 1991. (A January 1991 coup d'état, nine months earlier, had been turned back by such massive demonstrations.) The crowds applauded the soldiers, thinking they had come to put down the coup. Instead, on François' signal, the bus windows opened, then police and soldiers mowed down hundreds of demonstrators with machine- gun fi re.

Martelly claims his moniker “Sweet Micky” (also the name of his band) came from a nightclub performance in 1988, but it's a nickname Col. Michel François also shared. U.S. documentary fi lmmaker and writer Kevin Pina recalls a concert at the El Rancho Hotel in Port-au-Prince in July 1993 where Colonel “Michel François, ... who was also called ‘Sweet Micky’ after the coup of 1991 because people claimed he would have a broad smile on his face as he killed Lavalas partisans, took to the stage” and “held up Martelly’s hand announcing to the crowd, ‘This is the real Sweet Micky.’” Pina adds, “That’s the fi rst time I ever heard Martelly referred to as such.”

One concert that Martelly performed at the request of Michel François and military junta leaders was billed as a demonstration against Dante Caputo, the United Nations special representative to Haiti who was attempting to deploy UN human rights observers into the country. At that same time, the Haitian army and the infamous FRAPH death squads were slaughtering members of the anti-coup resistance.

Martelly, known at the time to have many friends throughout the military, explained to the Miami New Times: “I didn’t accept [the request to play] because I was Michel François’s friend, I did not accept because it was the Army. I went because I did not want Aristide back.”

Most shockingly, Father Jean- Marie Vincent (who was killed by a coup death-squad on Aug. 28, 1994) accused Martelly of accompanying the Haitian police on deadly night-time raids to track down suspected Lavalas resistance leaders. “We have information that Michel Martelly has been traveling with death squads from the police when they go out at night to hunt and kill Lavalas leaders,” Vincent told fi lmmaker Pina in a videotaped interview.

After Aristide returned to Haiti in October 1994, Martelly spent most of his time living “in a condo on Miami Beach,” where he “had a regular gig at the Promenade on Ocean Drive, where his band Sweet Micky performed compas, rhythmic Haitian dance music,” according to the Miami New Times.

In 2000, Aristide was overwhelmingly elected to a second term. But the George W. Bush administration, also coming into power at that time, launched a destabilization campaign to overthrow Aristide, which is detailed in Peter Hallward’s 2007 book Damming the Flood. Martelly became a willing participant in that germinating coup.

In 2002, the noose was tightening around Aristide. Former soldiers had attempted a coup on Dec. 17, 2001, and the U.S. aid embargo was taking its toll. Nonetheless, Aristide’s government had launched several social investment programs including food cooperatives, the building of unprecedented numbers of schools, subsidization of school books, and other literacy promotion. In his 2002 Carnival song, Martelly referred “to recent riots at a dockside warehouse here that were sparked by word that offi cials from Aristide’s party were stealing from a food program for the poor,”wrote the Washington Post. Although corruption under Aristide paled next to that under the 1991 military junta that Martelly supported, his Carnival song hit a nerve.

By 2003, Martelly was on average spending $150,000 to $200,000 on his fl oats for Port-au-Prince’s annual Carnival, according to the Miami Herald. During Carnival, in which mockery of the government is a tradition, Martelly aimed extremely sharp and vulgar criticism at Aristide. During that time, “Kolonget manman ou Aristide" was one of Sweet Micky's refrains, perhaps the worst curse one can make in Kreyòl, meaning literally "the slave master fucked your mother.”

THE 2004 COUP AND ITS AFTERMATH

In February 2004, Aristide was driven from power yet again. A U.S. Navy Seal team took the president from his home – Aristide called it “a modern kidnapping” – and sent him into exile in Africa, where he remains to this day.

In the build-up to that coup, socalled “rebels” composed of former Haitian Army soldiers and former FRAPH death-squad paramilitaries, ran raids into Haiti’s Central Plateau and North, savagely executing dozens of Aristide supporters, government offi cials and some of their family members. Wyclef Jean, a friend of Martelly, described the “rebels” as freedom fi ghters “standing up for their rights.”

Following the coup, U.S., French, and Canadian soldiers occupied Haiti and set up an illegal de facto regime. As outcry against the February coup grew, Martelly held a concert in Portau- Prince in April 2004 to counter calls for Aristide’s return. The concert was entitled: “Keep him out!”

In September 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne fl ooded the northwest city of Gonaïves, killing some 3,000 people. U.S.-installed de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue was widely criticized for his ineffective and belated response to the disaster. One of his few initiatives was to hold a fundraiser with business leaders of the Haitian American Chamber of Commerce. Martelly, who had used his music only to undermine Aristide, headlined the Latortue gala, the Miami Herald reported.

In 2006, with Lavalas militants driven into hiding, jailed, or murdered, the Latortue regime held an election which brought former-President René Préval back to power. The Lavalas base supported Préval, thinking he would bring Aristide back, free all the coup's political prisoners, and reverse the neoliberal march of the Latortue dictatorship.

But Préval betrayed these expectations, creating a government dominated by coup supporters and working closely with the foreign military occupation which had now been handed off to the UN. He soon became reviled by large swathes of the poor for failing to enable Aristide's return or to restart many of Aristide's popular social investment programs. By 2009, Préval's CEP banned Aristide's party, the Lavalas Family (FL), from partial senatorial elections and later presidential and parliamentary elections. Préval's weak response to the catastrophic January 2010 earthquake accelerated his decline.

THE 2010 SELECTIONS AND MARTELLY’S RISE

Finally, the CEP fi xed general elections for Nov. 28, 2010. The Associated Press reported Dec. 10 that Martelly’s “political popularity took off in the weeks before the vote and seems to have surged since it appeared he had been narrowly disqualifi ed from the race.”

This surge owes a lot to Martelly’s hi-tech campaign, which outgunned and outclassed his 18 rivals by launching tens of thousands of computerized messages asking people to vote for him.

Martelly hired a slick Spanish public relations fi rm to manage his campaign and break into the spotlight. “The Madrid-based Sola, who played an indispensable role in getting Mexico's Felipe Calderón into the president's chair in 2006, has been running the Martelly campaign for the past seven weeks, which goes a long way toward explaining how the antic-prone musician suddenly emerged as a leading contender for Haiti's presidency,” reported The Toronto Star on Dec. 6.

Calderón is widely considered to have stolen the 2006 election from leftist candidate López Obrador, a dirty victory which pleased Washington. The fi rm Ostos & Sola has also helped the campaign of Lech Walesa, the transnational elite's darling in Poland. Damian Merlo, Ostos & Sola's executive director and Martelly campaign point-man, worked on the presidential campaign of U.S. Republican John McCain before joining the firm. All of these associations raise questions about what "hidden hand” may be behind the Martelly campaign.

Investigating one possible source of financing behind Martelly’s campaign, the Toronto Star pieces adds, “Today’s $50 million question: who is the Miami businessman who reached out to Antonia Sola to be Michel Martelly’s campaign fixer?” The article adds, “Sola smiles at the question, all Spanish charm. He’s not saying. ‘A friend, a businessman, presented Michel to us in the U.S.,’ he says.”

The key to Sola’s formula for Martelly was to present him as an “outsider,” even though he had been the ultimate “insider” with the pro-coup bourgeoisie that overthrew Aristide twice.

On Nov. 28, as it became apparent that Haiti’s election was riddled with fraud and disenfranchisement, Martelly joined with 11 other candidates to call for election’s annulment. But later that day, Edmond Mulet, who heads the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), personally called Martelly to tell him that he was leading, Al Jazeera reported. Sweet Micky, without even telling the other candidates in the impromptu front, jumped back in the race.

The next day, Martelly denied he had ever signed the joint letter read in his nodding presence at the candidates’ joint press conference on Nov. 28 calling for the election’s annulment. He explained “his change of position by saying his candidacy had been leading in polling stations where there had not been fraud,”Chicago’s Daily Herald reported.

“He saw all the fraud happening on election day,” motorcycle taxi driver Weed Charlot told the Inter Press Service (IPS) about Martelly. “But now he sees he has some votes and power. So he’ll accept the election.”

The same day he spoke to Martelly, Mulet called candidate Mirlande Manigat to also tell her she was leading in the vote. She too pulled out of the candidates’ annulment front.

Then, on Dec. 7, the CEP announced that Manigat was leading with Unity's Célestin in second-place, and hence the second-round. Martelly, who apparently came in third with just over 21%, about 6,800 votes short of Célestin, switched back into protest-mode.

Manigat lost in a 2006 presidential run-off, and her husband, Leslie Manigat, briefly ran Haiti in 1988 after coming to office in a military-overseen election that few Haitians and international observers viewed as democratic.

Popular anger was already high with Préval and the CEP for excluding the Lavalas Family (only 23% of Haiti's 4.7 million voters turned out, according to the CEP). The election mess was the last straw.

Furthermore, there was rage at MINUSTAH for attempting to cover-up that its troops in Mirebalais had accidentally introduced cholera into Haiti, where the disease is now a pandemic.

With Wyclef Jean at his side predicting “civil war,’ Martelly channeled the deep popular frustration to attack the government for “robbing” him of a victory he claimed should have been his.

The result has been a wave of election-related mayhem. “It is clear that most of the acts of violence in Haiti around the election have been carried out by Martelly’s supporters," said Ricot Dupuy of Radio Soleil d'Haïti, based in Brooklyn.

“Thousands of his supporters have paralyzed the capital and other cities in protests that included attacks on public buildings,” Reuters reported.

Some people have died in driveby shootings and skirmishes between Martelly's supporters and those of Célestin.

In late November, Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre witnessed a group of Martelly supporters at the Building 2004 voting center in Port-au-Prince throw rocks and chant: “If you don’t let us vote, we will burn this building down.”

Martelly supporters are responsible for burning a number of government buildings in the capital and in the southern city of Aux Cayes. They have also assaulted some opponents, while Célestin backers have been accused of killing at least one Martelly supporter.

Former Col. Himmler Rébu said on Haiti's Signal FM that he had witnessed the tactics of Martelly's troops in the street. "This is not something simple," he said, a Kreyòl understatement that implies there are hidden forces at work.

In short, there are two movements in Haiti today which are being simplifi ed into one. There are the Lavalas masses mobilized against Préval's fraudulent exclusionary elections and the UN occupation, as well as for Aristide's return.

Then there is the bid by Martelly, using his and Wyclef's celebrity and Ostos & Sola's scientifi c techniques, to coopt this movement to bring him to power. To confuse people, he equates Préval with Aristide, pretending they are the twin governments responsible for the "failed policies” of the past two decades.

In reality, Haiti's sad state today can be mostly attributed to the 1991 and 2004 coups which Martelly supported. Furthermore, the power behind Préval - Haiti's pro-coup bourgeoisie - is close to Martelly, and he does not threaten transnational elites promoting further penetration into Haiti by TNCs. We are witnessing a fierce rivalry between political factions which share the same two backers: Haiti's anti-Lavalas business class and transnational elites with the U.S. as their most powerful state apparatus.

As Martelly explained to the Huffington Post’s Georgianne Nienaber, he is very much in tune with Washington’s prescription for Haiti, supporting “anything that will help exports... anything that will help the private sector.”

Secondly, Martelly does not support the people’s call to end the UN occupation of Haiti: “I want to say to the international community, the diplomatic corps, and non-governmental agencies that we need them,” he said in the same interview.

Ultimately, Martelly is not a “dark horse” candidate, as Canada’s Globe & Mail suggests, who has come out of nowhere to lead “Haiti’s young and dispossessed.” He is a man with a long history of service to Haiti’s “Morally Repugnant Elite.”

During his campaign, Martelly was fond of saying that in Haiti “it’s more about the man than about the plan.” If this is true, Haitians should have grave misgiving about a man who has backed two coup regimes that used death-squads to silence the poor majority and throttle Haiti’s nascent democracy.