Language

Pressure Brazil; Reed Lindsay's latest

Submitted December 1, 2004 - 9:41 pm by Benjamin Melançon
The only reasons we have to want U.S. troops to be in Haiti instead of Brazilian ones would be to stretch U.S. empire too thin to invade another country and to isolate the United States diplomatically.  Neither goal has anything to do with the interests of the Hatian people.

What we should be doing is pressuring Brazil to stop supporting police raids against Aristide supporters, both individual arrests and shooting sprees in the slums, and to take a stand against the paramilitaries.

The current governement of Haiti is unelected, illegal, and illegetimate, and I don't think it would last without U.N. support.  But a common Haitian opinion is that the U.N. does nothing.  Brazil itself was pleading for help, for other countries to send troops, NPR reported on October 16.

I feel guilty about not following up on my own overview of the coup, but here's actual original reporting from the J-School's most celebrated: Reed Lindsay's latest article on Haiti is in the November 30 Washington Times.  I don't know if it's been edited or in what ways, so forget about details of presentation.  Look what he does to lead readers of this extremely right-wing newspaper to an understanding of the situation in Haiti:

Violence has wracked the capital, Port-au-Prince, since Sept. 30, when several thousand Aristide supporters staged a demonstration that was broken up when police fired into the crowd.

...

"The government has done nothing in the areas of job creation, production, public works," said Jean-Claude Paulvin, president of the Haitian Association of Economists.

...

Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has criticized the international community for not supplying enough troops and money to quell unrest and to revive the economy.

About 4,500 soldiers and 1,200 police officers have joined the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, short of the promised 6,700 soldiers and 1,622 police. U.N. officials say these goals will be reached by the end of the year.

But promises of international aid have proved largely empty.

...

Mr. Latortue has accused Aristide supporters of trying to destabilize the government. Leaders from Mr. Aristide's Lavalas party say they are being persecuted to ensure they will not participate in elections slated for next year.

Some hard-liners are calling for an even tougher stance.

"Shoot them and ask questions later," said Jean Philippe Sassine, the Latortue-appointed assistant mayor of Port-au-Prince.

"Right now our country needs security. Unless you clean up the bad people, the gangs, there will be no progress. It will be a massacre, people will die. But let us do it, or it will be worse."

Former soldiers who control much of the countryside, and who have turned a Port-au-Prince apartment complex into a temporary military base, warn they will take matters into their own hands if the government does not allow them to wipe out the Aristide supporters. The ex-soldiers are calling for the restoration of Haiti's military, a force known for its corruption and brutality that Mr. Aristide disbanded in 1995.

"If the government doesn't take responsibility, we will take it," said ex-army Sgt. Remissainthe Ravix, a leader of the former soldiers.

...

"There is no solution to Haiti's problems without Aristide," said Mark Bazin, a former World Bank economist who was Haiti's prime minister from 1992 to 1993.

Read Lindsay's whole article.

Anyone who wants a relentless stream of articles about Haiti can e-mail Marguerite Laurent at
Erzilidanto (at symbol) aol.com.  You don't even have to say you want to be on her information clearinghouse list, and you'll be on it.  At least that's what happened to me.

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