U.S. Opposes the Poor in Haiti at Every Turn

Post-coup interim (one year, seven months and counting) prime minister Gerard Latortue announced that elections would be delayed again--but not the date of installation of a new president.  Meanwhile, more evidence emerges of the many-tentacled role the United States government is playing in keeping the unelected and unrepresentative government it installed in power.

The latest Reed Lindsay article, as published by the Washington Times today, confirms and expands many things already known, including things recently reported by the AHP (and available translated by contacting Mike Levy at mlhaiti at cornernet, dot com).

Lindsay wrote:

Haitians from all walks of life are on the U.S. government payroll, including more than 800 street sweepers, who earn $2 a day through a program financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the prime minister's spokesman, whose $4,000 monthly salary is paid by the agency.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman who asked to remain anonymous said Washington pays "technical advisers" to work in several "key ministries" and the prime minister's office.

"This interim government would have fallen without the United States," said Leslie Voltaire, a Cabinet member under Mr. Aristide who was part of a three-member commission that helped form the interim government in March last year.

"The United States has subcontracted Brazil for security and Canada for economic development. But they're all reporting to Washington. The final decisions are made there," Mr. Voltaire said.

The U.S. government also pours money into its own projects, which even when seeming to help the Haitian poor majority are admitted to be designed to prop up the foreign-installed government.

One of [the Office of Transition Initiatives in USAID,] OTI's aims is to reduce participation in demonstrations supporting Father Jean-Juste. The OTI Web site said the office organized a summer camp for young people in the priest's neighborhood, helping prevent a Lavalas "demonstration from being larger and giving greater legitimacy to the protesters."

Yet with all this aid, the coup government in Haiti and its many wealthy-government backers have not yet been able to ready even minimally legitimate-appearing elections.

Mr. Latortue yesterday confirmed what many had predicted, telling Agence France-Presse that "technical problems" have forced the government to defer general elections set for Nov. 20 by three weeks.

"We have problems. We have considerable delays in the logistics and finalization of the lists of candidates," he said, adding that the presidential inauguration remains fixed for Feb. 7.

It was the fourth time this year that the government had changed the date of the elections.

Bob Maguire, a Haiti specialist at Trinity University in Washington, said a surprise visit to the capital, Port-au-Prince, two weeks ago by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a sign of the U.S. administration's growing concern that just such a delay in the critical first vote was imminent.

"It's painfully apparent that the interim government, which faced steep challenges to begin with, has disappointed," Mr. Maguire said. "The U.S. is clearly staked to these elections and wishes to see them free and fair enough so that the winner can be supported with international aid and other assistance. But the bar may be set rather low in order to achieve this, which does not portend well for the future of Haiti's democracy.

And a final quote, excerpted from the closing of Lindsay's article (which unlike my summary lets the UN tell its side), puts all this support, while repression and persecution conducted by or tolerated by the recipient government, in appropriate context:

"The United States is speaking out of both sides of its mouth," Mr. Voltaire said.

"On the one hand," he said, "Condoleezza Rice is lamenting the imprisonment of [priest and a popular choice for president] Jean-Juste and [last elected Prime Minister] Neptune, but then nothing happens. He remains in jail. With the world looking on, she capitulates in front of this weak government that the United States itself has installed."