April 17, 2008 at 05:39:38

Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" - Part II

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 5 of 9 page(s)

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-- in the short term, forming a pseudo-government of exclusive elitist members with plenty of foreign money and military power backing them; a campaign of anti-Lavalas organization aggression, especially in their slum area strongholds; and manipulating the electoral process to divide and conquer the opposition.

-- in the longer term, integrating Haiti into a stable neoliberal regional order; adopting "untrammeled privatization" and structural adjustments; increased reliance on foreign aid for elitists' interests, not poor Haitians; further reliance on co-opted NGOs; increased supervision of security forces; and more. These measures would reinforce class barriers and let Haitian industrialists and foreign investors get on with their imperial project.

Efforts in that direction began immediately, as in 1991 overt armed resistance was quickly suppressed, and putschists aimed to target their enemies as harshly as they dared. They dared plenty, and things turned ugly fast. Innocent victims were fair game while high-profile FL figures or anyone seen as a threat were hunted down and either fled or were jailed. Many went into hiding. Others reached exile.

Throughout the country, rebel thugs got free reign to terrorize and kill, did plenty of both, and did it openly in the streets. Hundreds ended up dead or missing. The state Port-au-Prince morgue was swamped with bodies, far more than it could handle, and on March 7 had to dump or bury 800 corpses - many with their hands tied behind their backs and bags placed over their heads.

Bodies turned up everywhere, in the streets, washed up on beaches, abandoned to pigs as food, and volunteers were still collecting them around Cite Soleil through the end of 2005. Anyone associated with Lavalas was fair game, but that could be anyone because its support was so strong and still is.

US Marines controlled the capital and within days 2000 foreign troops joined them - not to protect the public but to "soften up 'hostile' neighborhoods by clearing away their last remaining defenses" to defend against rebel attacks. Killings were commonplace to wipe out resistance, create an atmosphere of fear, and solidify the new ruling government's authority.

Democracy was nowhere in sight, and its establishment was farcical on its face. This was the process:

-- on February 29, Haiti's Supreme Court chief justice, Boniface Alexandre, was sworn in as in as interim president ignoring the constitutional requirement for the legislature to ratify his appointment and that he became an illegitimate coup d'etat appointee;

-- on March 3, a temporary "Tripartite Council" was nominated - comprised of one unauthorized Lavalas representative, the opposition, and the international community to assure the group was pro-elitist;

-- the "Council's" job, in turn, was to appoint another one - a seven-person Conseil des Sages (Council of the Wise) made up of nearly all anti-Lavalassians;

-- this group then chose an acceptable prime minister and imported a Floridian (for the past 20 years) for the job - Gerard Latorture, a neoliberal economist and former UN functionary who could be relied on as a loyal elitist ally. Like no other recent official in the job, Latortue held absolute power for the next two years, his government excluded all FL supporters, and he achieved wondrous results for his backers:

-- Haiti's literacy program was abandoned immediately;

-- subsidies for schoolbooks and meals were canceled;

-- agrarian reform was reversed allowing former landlords to reclaim their land;

-- income tax collections (from the elites) were suspended for three years;

-- price controls and import regulations were ended to benefit agribusiness, harm local production, and Haitian businessmen raised food prices up to 400%;

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