"Over the last twenty years, Lavalas has developed as an experiment at the limits of contemporary political possibility. Its history sheds light on some of the ways that a political mobilization can proceed under the pressure of exceptionally powerful constraints." (Damming The Flood, P314)
In 1957 when Francois-Claude Duvalier won Haiti's rigged presidential election, he formed his own militia the Tonton Macoutes. The Macoutes were used to protect Francois from the Haitian Army. They played an essential role in assisting the Army in protecting Haiti's tiny class of elites from the vast majority of the population while this elite, the US and International Community (IC) exploited them.
When Francois ("Papa Doc") died in 1971, he passed Haiti's presidency along with his Macoutes down to his son Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") who declared himself president for life and was no less brutal than his father. By the 1980s Jean-Claude's brutality drove Haitians to rebel. Haitians unified and formed the Lavalas Movement (Lavalas means flood or avalanche). The Lavalas Movement grew quickly and in 1986 was able to topple Jean-Claude's dictatorship. The US, Haitian elite and IC replaced Jean-Claude with an interim government made up of civilian and military leaders. The interim government continued to use the Army to oppress the majority of the population. The US being a pillar of Democracy insisted that there be an election.
Haiti's 1990 election was supposed to be a show election, an election providing an external semblance of democracy but with no actual possibility of ensuring any change from business as usual in Haiti. The US, elite and IC spent millions promoting their candidate, Marc Bazin. Unexpectedly, and largely unnoticed, the leader of the Lavalas movement Jean-Bertand Aristide threw his hat into the race. In 1990 Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president. The night of Aristide's victory was one of pure exuberance. Poor neighborhoods across Haiti erupted with joy. For the first time in the country's history they had a say. However, perhaps because the Lavalas movement was based on the rejection of the Duvaliers', rather than an embrace of Lavalas principles, it fractured quickly. Even small changes to the system were unacceptable to Haiti's elite. Aristide's refusal to do the elite's bidding and his enactment of policies that would make small yet real changes to Haiti's grossly unjust division of wealth and power led the elite along with their International cohorts to put an end to Aristide's leadership. They had Haiti's Army oust Aristide just 7 months into his presidency and replaced him with a new murderous junta led by General Cadras.
Once this president began to interfere with the interests of the elite, its army got rid of him in the usual way. What was most unusual about Aristide, however, is that in 1995 he then found a way to get rid of this army in its turn. By the time it won the decisive elections of 2000, Aristide's party threatened to overwhelm both the military and the parliamentary mechanisms of the elite resistance and was finally in a position to push through moderate but significant political change. Deprived of its traditional instrument of repression, Haiti's elite and its foreign allies now had to develop a more indirect more humanitarian strategy of containment. (Damming The Flood, P311)
Before the 2000 election, Aristide created a new, more disciplined political party the Fanmi Lavalas (FL). In the election, FL won 72 of 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Of the 17 senate seats that were up for election, FL won 16. Remarkably, Aristide removed Haiti's tiny, parasitic class of elites and its International backers standard instruments of containment: the Haiti army and control of Parliament. The Fanmi Lavalas government was in a significantly stronger position when Aristide started his second term then in his first term. Haiti was on the precipice of real social and political change. Facing the threat of "Popular Democracy" FL's opposition developed new strategies and waged a relentless campaign to destroy the Lavalas Movement.
The success of the FL opposition's new strategy is as impressive as it is discouraging. The opposition recruited members from every segment of Haitian and IC societies: "first-world diplomat, IFI economists, USAID consultants, IRI mediators, CIA analysts, media specialists, ex-military personnel, security advisors, police trainers, aid-workers, NGO staff [...]." (P312) These anti-Aristide agents damaged and weakened the FL Government internationally and domestically (the targets of this campaign were international & domestic supporters and sympathisers) by turning viscous, fact-less smears (many of which originated with members of the US' ultra-rightwing) into conventional wisdom. This was then used to undermine FL domestically which due to both economic and political pressure applied both from within and externally was already weakened. They managed to overthrow Haiti's most progressive government and make it look like the people rebelled against the FL administration because it had turned into a violent corrupt Duvalier-like dictatorship.
"They managed to disguise a deliberate and elaborate political intervention as a routine contribution to the natural order of things. Ten years after his triumphant return from exile in 1994, Aristide's enemies not only drove him out of office but into an apparently definitive disgrace." (Damming The Flood, P312)
To crush the possibility of any change to Haiti's rigid class system that would give Haiti's poor a more equal and just life the elite and its IC backers used a "predictable but highly effective strategy."
The strategy included:
1) Starving the government of funds by withholding all aid and international credit. This included requiring the Lavalas government to make scheduled repayments for the loans they never got. This left the cash-strapped FL administration no choice but to enact unpopular policies, such as cutting social services and government jobs, and failing to enact promised programs;
2) Targeted and applied economic pressure to FL supporters by denying them aid and credit. This further impoverished them while the opposition provided financial incentive to join their anti-Aristide crusade;
3) Casting doubt on the election's legitimacy, this included: the equation of Aristide with Duvalier and Cedras; buying off opportunistic members of the movement; recruitment and support of anti-Aristide members within the security force; having paramilitary cohorts attack the government & its supporters which forced FL to take defensive measures which were then portrayed as proof of the government's intolerance of dissent; mischaracterizationof opposition to FL as diverse and inclusive and its members as heroic victims of government oppression. We've seen this used in other countries like Sandanista-led Nicaragua: death squad leaders became freedom fighters, elite sweatshop owners became members of civil society, the owners of opposition newspapers became the "sole" voices of democracy;
4) The opposition took special care to recruit members and groups from the left so that the Administration was attacked by both the left and right; they used the media that was largely owned by the opposition to promulgate anti-Aristide propaganda constantly repeating that Aristide is corrupt, unwilling to compromise and authoritarian.
After a few years of this intensive campaign the average media consumer was ready to accept that a small group of thugs, convicted murderers and death squad leaders could topple Aristide's Administration. The complicit International press portrayed members of the paramilitary as heroic rebels. And to this day, that is how the "official" story goes.
There is no denying that under the pressure of such aggression, Aristide and the Lavalas organization made a number of damaging compromises and mistakes. To refuse the demonization of Aristide does not require his deification. Nevertheless claims that Aristide was too messianic, or that he encouraged violence, or that he was authoritarian or intolerant of dissent, are not just far-fetched -- they are almost a literal inversion of the truth. If his government deserves to be blamed for anything, it is for being too tolerant of an opposition that sought to replace it, too conciliatory in its relations with foreign powers that sought to overthrow it, too complacent in the face of a media that criticized it, too hesitant in relation to soldiers who attacked it, to too lenient with opportunists who sought to abuse it. (Damming The Flood, P312)
This is not to say that FL was faultless. The opposition was able to push Aristide into a corner. It could be reasonably argued that Aristide compromised too much, was at times indecisive and there were cases where he failed to back up his supporters with the vigor and determination that they deserved. That the most frequent attacks against Aristide aren't only false, but the exact opposite of the truth in many cases, makes sense when considering the timing of much of the new intensified disinformation campaign. The Bush administration and campaign were the masterminds behind swiftboating of Senator Kerry.
"Even the best of our political leaders,' regrets Patrick Elie, [...]" Aristide lost sight of the "profound feeling of independence that animates the majority of Haitians. It has only ever been the elite who have been willing to cave in to foreign pressure. We need to trust the people's determination to fight for their rights. (Damming The Flood, P313)
Hallward agrees with many of Aristide's major decisions: Aristide was right to run for President in 1990; he was right to engineer his return to Haiti in 1994 which enabled him to demobilize the Haitian Army in 1995; he was right to form a new more unified political party Fanmi Lavalas.
Hallward also points out some of Fanmi Lavalas' shortcomings. The FL's movements quick rise to power and popularity in many ways worked against the Party which was largely made up of inexperienced politicians. FL was too inclusive, too moderate, too indecisive and too undisciplined. Aristide often negotiated too quickly and too rarely mobilized his supporters to fight for more progressive policies. Aristide didn't take full advantage of the enormous political mandate he had. It is unclear if Aristide grasped the intense hatred his opposition had of him and the FL movement. Their goal was the complete destruction of him and his movement. Aristide continued to negotiate when it was clear that the opposition was waging an all out war against him. He continued to the very end to try to work with the opposition.
"How much of this responsibility can be fairly attributed to a government that was unavoidably dependent on foreign aid, that remained profoundly vulnerable to foreign intervention, that presided over a precarious and unstable political system, that had little practical control over its economy or bureaucracy and virtually no control over its own security -- these are questions that are likely to divide analysts of the Aristide era for the foreseeable future."(P313)
Hallward points out that in the face of massive repression, the Lavalas movement "opened the door to a new political future." (P314) He warns against comparing the movement to other better funded, more supported movements. "Over the last twenty years, Lavalas has developed as an experiment at the limits of contemporary political possibility. Its history sheds light on some of the ways that a political mobilization can proceed under the pressure of exceptionally powerful constraints." (Damming The Flood, P314)
Aristide started his second term with a government that was on the verge of bankruptcy and no support from the IC. Yet he was able to make significant improvements in Haiti's education, health and the justice system. Aristide's government was not the fruition of what the FL movement could achieve; it was a glimpse into the possibility of a profound change to Haiti's unjust and unfair social and economic system that is a direct legacy of slavery and colonization.
Despite unprecedented opposition, FL continued to win elections when allowed to participate. Haitians made clear their choice by continuing to vote for FL in spite of intense repression. FL has won landslide victories in every election (1990, 1995, 2000, 2006) in which they were allowed to participate. Hallward was encouraged by these victories. He had hope (he wrote the book in 2007) that members from different factions of FL would unite and put an anti-imperialist in office in 2010.
"The fact that Lavalas also remains bitterly divisive is a consequence above all of the fact that it was the only large-scale popular mobilization ever to address the massive inequalities of power, influence and wealth which have always divided Haitian society; that Lavalas has so far managed to do little to reduce these inequalities says less about the weakness of the organization than it does about the extraordinary strength, today, of the forces that preserve inequality." (Damming The Flood, P315-16)
Preval was Aristide's prime minister during his first term. Preval didn't run as FL for his second term in 2006. However, he won because of FL support. The people expected Preval to allow Aristide to return from Africa where he remains in exile. Aristide needs a new passport to return to Haiti and Preval has refused to issue one. In a wikileaks memo, it is noted that Preval is now a neoliberal. And the Lavalas have been excluded (either by imprisoning candidates or, as now, by outright banning of the party from participating in elections) from every election since Aristide was kidnapped in 2004.
Here is a recent essay by Peter Hallward Haiti 2010: Exploiting Disaster (PDF) Peter Hallward
"In many ways Lavalas is today less an organisation than an idea and a
memory..."
In the election of 2010, as in the last four presidential elections in Haiti, everything will depend on whether this unity and this consciousness are strong enough to prevail over the vast and diverse array of forces drawn up to oppose them. The earthquake has sharpened and accelerated the basic political choice facing Haiti: either renewal of the popular mobilisation in pursuit of equality and justice, or long-term confirmation of the island's current status as a neo-colonial protectorate.
tout moun se moun
(every human being is a human being)
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
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Thank you NY brit expat for editing! RunawayRose will do the last Damming The Flood Book Diary next week: Appendix Hallward's Interview with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Our next book is Travesty in Haiti. Please leave comment if you would like to join us reading, writing the diaries.
Excellent review of Damming The Flood: Bursting the Dam of Containment by Justin Podur
Sources We Like
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News Update:
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- 11 Months Later: Will Help Ever Arrive?
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Spend a moment with the reality of Haiti’s earthquake survivors today. Eleven months after the earthquake, so little has changed. Haitians who have been living out in the open are beginning to lose patience, as we saw through the angry protests in the street last week.
- Haiti Election Fiasco: Chickens Come Home to Roost
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How did the "right people" get to be in charge in Haiti? The US supported a coup against democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. UN troops have been there ever since, maintaining the "order" brought about by the US-supported coup. One of the electoral council's most controversial decisions was to exclude the Fanmi Lavalas Party of former President Aristide. Senator Lugar and 45 members of the House criticized this, but the administration was silent. That represents continuity with the Bush administration's support of the coup against Aristide in 2004.
- Violence in Port-au-Prince
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Although the long-term goals are not shared with the recruits, it would seem that Célestin and Préval are recreating the 2004 post-coup situation that led to the MINUSTAH assault on the poor of Port-au-Prince. We have discussed it in more detail here and there. In short, they will create a situation whereby the authorities will claim that the heavily-armed MINUSTAH troops must restore order. Those soldiers will need little encouragement. They are bitter that the Haitian poor have not taken a liking to them. In keeping with occupations everywhere, the occupying forces and the subjugated population are headed for open conflict. Ignorance and arrogance combine to make the MINUSTAH troops foolish pawns in a deadly game.
- Would-be Haitian contractors miss out on aid
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Of the 1,583 U.S. contracts given so far in Haiti totaling $267 million, only 20 — worth $4.3 million — are going to Haitian-owned companies. And an audit this fall by US AID's Inspector General found that more than 70 percent of the funds given to the two largest U.S. contractors for a cash for work project in Haiti was spent on equipment and materials. As a result, just 8,000 Haitians a day were being hired by June, instead of the planned 25,000 a day, according to the IG.
- Haiti cholera: UN peacekeepers to blame, report says
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- US set to resume some deportations to #Haiti
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- Haitian Candidates Reject Recount
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- Protests turn violent in Haiti
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- As Haiti Waits for Calm, US Sen. Patrick Leahy Urges Obama to Freeze Aid
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- Sarah Palin visits Haiti under tight guard
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- As Haiti Waits for Calm, US Senator Urges Freezing Aid
And the coup in Haiti continues
"Our rulers, notes Aristide's prime minister Yvon Neptune, still 'want a democracy without the people,' but rather than simply exclude them from politics today's goal is instead 'to reduce the people to puppets or clowns.'" (Damming The Flood, P XXXIII)
Mantra from Aristide's 1990 campaign:
"Alone we are weak, together we are strong; all together we are Lavalas, the flood [yon se`l nou feb, ansanm nou fo, ansanm nou se Lavalas]."
Aristide Damming The Flood, (pg. xxxiv)
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The International Republican Institute: Promulgating Democracy of Another Variety |
U.S. Gvt. Channels Millions Through National Endowment for Democracy to Fund Anti-Lavalas Groups in Haiti Amy Goodman interview's Anthony Fenton about the US funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) |
November Election in Haiti: The Silent Coup: The Silent Coup in Haiti P.1 of 2 9/19/2010 interview conducted by Darren Ell, with Concannon, Ives, and others . It covers the state of the Lavalas movement, the Nov 2010 election and more. -- P.2 |
The Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti, By KEVIN PINA 10/11/04 covers: Aristides second term; the 2000 election which was initially applauded by the IC as Haiti's best election, but was soon delegitimized by the "democratic opposition," the US, and IC. It covers the destabilization program & the coup. |
What’s At Stake in Haiti’s December 3, 2006 Elections: the ASEC System |
Haiti: No Leadership — No Elections (U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) |
"Beat the Dog Too Hard" Haiti's Elections, By MARK SCHULLER covers election day and the empty streets and polling places. |
IJDH-Elections IJDH has the best election coverage around there are links to new and old articles and there are reports that explain Haiti's election system. They do amazing work. |
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Today is Haiti diary book day : Current book is Damming The Flood: Haiti, Aristide, And The Politics Of Containment, by Peter Hallward:Conclusion: You can see our book list is here.
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This is our book list so far:
- Any suggestions? We are looking for books, articles, websites where we can get accurate information about Haiti. Please share any information.
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- I found one The World Traveler - Haiti page.: This website has excerpts from books including The Uses of Haiti and Damming The Flood and other books that we are reading. It also has an extensive list of articles-excellent information
- Change Haiti Can Believe In
- Amy Goodman led a panel discussion about US-Haiti policy, Haiti's history, and what we can do to assist Haitians in their fight for justice -- The panel includes Paul Farmer Co/Founder of PIH, Brian Concannon Found of IJDH, Mat Damon, State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry. You can watch the whole program, or if you are short on time pick a 10 minute segment to watch. This video especially the parts with Brian Concannon are a large part of what got me so interested in helping put a stop to my governments oppression of Haitians.
- Haiti Dreaming for More Than $3 a day Watch
- this is an excellent short video about how neoliberalism has destroyed Haiti's farm economy and what can be done differently.
- Life and Debt
- this award winning documentary about the impact that US neoliberal trade policy has had. It focus' on Jamaica but applies doubly to Haiti. This is a Must See. It is sometimes available on Youtube.
- Edwidge Danticat on US immigration detentions 60 minutes
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- Haiti: Toto Constant Talks About CIA vs. Aristide
- this short video has clips from a 60 minute interview with Emmanuel Toto Constant who worked for the CIA and was the leader of the vicious death squad FRAPH. The full interview is not available. I purchased the transcript from CBS News but they have strict copyright rules and would not even sell me the actual video. If anyone has it please share.
- Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now! responds to Clinton being appointed as UN envoy to Haiti Jeremy Scahill sums up Clinton's vicious Haiti policy in about 2 minutes. I love this video.
- For additional video, click here
NGOs that work hard and make a difference but they need support. Too much money is going to large ineffective NGOs:
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The Aristide Foundation for Democracy (AFD) was created in 1996 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the first democratically elected president of Haiti) with a simple principle in mind: "The promise of democracy can only be fulfilled if all sectors of Haitian society are able to actively participate in the democratic life of the nation."
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Doctor Without Borders MSF are treating 80% of Haiti's cholera patients. MSF is pushing other NGOs to step up efforts in containing the epidemic.
Cholera In Haiti: MSF Calling On All Actors To Step Up Response
While Cholera Spreads, Slow Deployment of Relief is Major Concern
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Haiti Emergency Relief Foundation (HERF):
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for political prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – are funneling needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. They are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support. All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.
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Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
Mission
We strive to work with the people of Haiti in their non-violent struggle for the consolidation of constitutional democracy, jus tice and human rights, by distributing objective and accurate information on human rights conditions in Haiti, pursuing legal cases, and cooperating with human rights and solidarity groups in Haiti and abroad.
IJDH draws on its founders’ internationally-acclaimed success accompanying Haiti’s poor majority in the fields of law, medicine and social justice activism. We seek the restoration of the rule of law and democracy in the short term, and work for the long-term sustainable change necessary to avert Haiti’s next crisis.
"IJDH is simply the most reliable source for information and analysis on human rights in
Haiti." — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
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Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti: |
Diaries:
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Sunday is Haiti diary book day. Here is the Book List
Volunteers?
UPCOMING DIARIES
Tuesday:
Thursday:
Sunday: RunawayRose
If you would like to volunteer to contribute a diary to continue this series, please leave comment below. Norbrook has created a Google documents file with the source code for the first version of the diary with the NGO list. allie123 created a Google doc for the new series Justice, Not Charity. However, because we are cutting back to 2 or 3 diaries a week we will be adding a focus and new information to each diary now.
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The icons of this diary series are courtesy of the html artist known on Daily Kos as
Pluto.