Who Will Determine the Result of Haiti's Elections?

The U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Haïti, Timothy Michael Carney, appealed for the ongoing investigation into the Grand'ravine massacre, perpetrated during a soccer match sponsored by USAID, to be completed.  

Pointing out that his government has already released enormous sums to professionalize the PNH [Haitian National Police], the diplomat expressed hope that all individuals implicated in these be brought to justice and punished according to the law.

The very fact that the U.S. government shill has to make this pretense of reprimanding a violently anti-poor organization it shaped and armed ("enormous sums to professionalize the PNH") is our hope and our shame.  Our hope, because if all people were fully aware of their governments actions in Haiti, those actions could not continue.  Our shame, because so few people do know.

I say now, the test of Telesur's true fealty to the people of América will be its reporting on Haiti.  If Brazil's government can keep on leading the occupation, with support from other Latin American countries, then Telesur will not have been bringing its viewers theh whole truth about the attack on democracy there. Meanwhile, the sham elections look more shameful by the day as they approach (well, actually a date has not been set yet).

To date, only a very small percentage of voting cards have been distributed to the voters.  

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Electoral Council member Rosemond Pradel indicated last week that voters might have to use their registration receipts in order to vote.

Will the poor who made a huge effort to register to vote be able to after all?  But no...

Provisional Electoral Council member Patrick Féquière rejected on Monday allegations that potential voters could vote in the upcoming elections by presenting the receipt they received when they registered for the national identification card.

According to Patrick Féquière, the electoral decree makes no mention that voters can vote using the registration receipt.  

" One must vote with the national identification card", declared Mr. Féquière, adding that allowing people to vote using their receipts could facilitate fraud at election time.

The majority of cards manufactured by a Mexican company in Mexico itself has yet to arrive in Haiti.  

Distribution of the cards that were available was "momentarily" halted recently due to irregularities encountered at that time.  

The 34 countries that took part last week in the 4th Summit of the Americas in Mar Del Plata, in  Eastern Argentina, promised to support the electoral process underway in Haiti to enable the country, they said, to have a legitimate government on February 7, 2006.

This leaves the identification card, already heavily criticized on privacy and liberties grounds, a possible and even likely system of exclusion from and control over the vote by the simple expedience of officials deciding who, and in what areas, receives cards.

The Haitian people, having twice had their most popular elected leader removed from power with foreign intervention, would be expected to turn away from any show of elections under the coup government.  But again Haitians show greater paitience, strength, and commitment to democracy than their wealthier oppressors.  Will they be able to again win power nonviolently? I fear the answer lies not in Haiti but in the United States, Canada, Brasil, France, and elsewhere that ignorance outstrips illiteracy; where cheerful lies and grave omissions pour into people from their personal screens like stupor-inducing wine.