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Martelly, a President with Notorious Extremist Connections
He's long had ties to Haitian elites, militarists, reactionary Duvalierists, and his thuggish Tonton Macoute assassins, backing coups, death squads, deep repression, and denial of basic freedoms. Moreover, Damian Merlo managed his campaign, a man connected to former Reagan and Bush II official Otto Reich, notorious for some of the worst right-wing policies of both administrations, including attempting to destabilize and overthrow democratic governments.
As a result, Martelly will quash efforts for progressive change, in lockstep with Washington, Western corporations, and Haitian oligarchs, wanting no interference with their plans for even greater exploitation. Moreover, he's expected to do it by reinstating Haiti's notoriously repressive army, established to serve elitist interests by murdering regime opponents and crushing popular resistance, what UN Blue Helmet occupiers and Haitian police have done since spring 2004.
On April 23, Washington Post writer Lee Hockstader shamelessly called Martelly "a new kind of political figure (promising) rule of law (governance), free public education, jobs, new homes (for Haiti's homeless), and help for poor farmers." In 2002, however, a WP profile said he was a popular "favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship before its 1986 collapse," a history now airbrushed from his resume.
During the Duvalier years, he ran the Garage, a Port-au-Prince nightclub, popular among the worst of Haitian extremists. At the time, he openly befriended Lt. Col. Michel Francois, dictator Raoul Cedras' ((1991 - 1994) secret police chief, and was associated with his death squad repression of Lavalas party members, even participating with them on hunt and kill operations.
In 1994, when Aristide was restored as president, he moved to Miami to continue singing in America. Once the Bush administration launched efforts to oust him after his 2000 reelection, he returned to Haiti as an outspoken critic of his policies. In fact, after his February 2004 ouster, he organized a Port-au-Prince concert under the slogan, "Keep him out!"
According to Haiti Liberte writer Roger Annis, Washington financed his multi-million dollar campaign, backers Martelly called his "friends in the US" to assure his cooperation as president.
City University of New York Professor Francois Pierre-Louis deplored the prospect of him in charge, saying:
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