The Great Fear of Haitian Self-Government

by Mark Weisbrot

Published on Monday, January 24, 2011 by The South
Florida Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-haiti-oped0123-20110123,0,6161454.story

Distributed by Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/24-12

The controversy over the return of the infamous
dictator, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, to Haiti, is
in many ways a distraction. Certainly it is important
that he stand trial for crimes against humanity,
including the murder and torture of opponents. But
there is another crime being committed against Haiti
right now: foreign powers are trying to rob Haitians
once again of their democratic rights. More than 200
years after Haiti liberated itself from slavery and
from France, the rich countries still seem to have a
Great Fear of Haitians governing themselves.

It was obvious from the beginning of the disaster one
year ago, when the United States took control of the
air traffic into Haiti and immediately filled up most
of the available landing slots with planes carrying
soldiers and military equipment. Their great fear of
looting and crime in the aftermath of the earthquake
never materialized, but many people lost their lives
and limbs in the first week after the earthquake that
could have been saved, if doctors and medical equipment
had been the first priority.

The "international community" has made a mess of the
relief effort that is shameful by any standards. Some
ninety five percent of the rubble has still not been
cleared. Little has been done in the way of sanitation,
according to Doctors Without Borders, helping to spread
the cholera that was apparently brought by the UN
occupying troops - causing 3600 deaths from a disease
that is normally relatively easy to treat and prevent
from spreading.

Most of the people who lost their homes in the
earthquake are still living under tarps where the
ground beneath them turns to mud when it rains - they
couldn't even give them tents. The "international
community," which dominates the Interim Haiti Recovery
Commission - didn't want to pressure Haiti's landowners
to accept what would be done in any other country,
including the United States:  taking available land,
with compensation, for the necessary shelter.

But this same international community has not been shy
about pressuring the Haitian government to accept its
choices for the presidential run-off election. This
despite the fact that the OAS team of "experts" used an
arbitrary method to throw out 234 tally sheets and
change the result of the election.

But we have no idea what they would have found if they
had subjected all of the tally sheets to the same test
(there was no statistical inference reported). And
there are more than 1300 tally sheets (about 12 percent
of the total) that were missing or quarantined by the
electoral authorities. If these were included, it
appears that Jude Celestin - the government's candidate
and the one that the OAS proposes to exclude -- would
have come in second, and would proceed to the run-off.

In other words, Washington and its carefully selected
allies are telling Haiti what the results of their
election should be. Of course, the election was
illegitimate to begin with because the country's most
popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, was excluded
from appearing on the ballot. Mostly as a result of
this exclusion, only about a quarter of Haiti's voters
went to the polls. This compares to a 59 percent
turnout in the 2006 presidential election, and even
larger percentages in the past. There is no voter
turnout this low in the last 60 years of presidential
elections in this hemisphere, including Haiti.

Fanmi Lavalas is the party of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown by the
"international community" in 2004. Their Great Fear is
that if the election were to re-run - as it obviously
should be - this arbitrary exclusion, which is
analogous to banning the Democratic party in the United
States, might be called into question. A free and fair
election, with the Haitian people choosing who they
want, could occur.

That is what the "international community" - which is
really Washington and its closest allies - cannot
accept. And that is why they have been pushing so hard
for Haiti to allow foreign governments to determine the
results of their election. (c) 2011 The South Florida
Sun-Sentinel 

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate