Canada in Haiti: Waging war on the poor majority
By Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton
Fernwood Publishing, 2005
120 pages, C$14.95
Order from <http://rabble.ca>
REVIEW BY ROGER ANNIS
Two leading activists for the right of the Haitian people to sovereignty have just published an account of the Canadian government's sordid role in the overthrow of democracy in that island country. Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority tells the story of the foreign invasion and violent coup that overthrew the constitution and elected government of Haiti in February 2004. It places the Canadian government squarely at the centre of the coup plot and its aftermath.
Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was kidnapped and forcibly removed from the country by US military forces on February 29, 2004. He now lives in exile in South Africa. Members of his government, including Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and interior minister Jocelerme Privert, have been in jail for more than a year. Much of the infrastructure of national and local government, social services and local economy has been disbanded or left in disarray.
The government's overthrow was carried out by troops from the United States, Canada and France, and a small but well-armed and financed paramilitary force drawn from the disbanded army and police forces of the dictatorships that ruled Haiti prior to its first election in modern times, in 1990. "Since the toppling of Haiti's democratically-elected government", write Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton, "a human rights disaster has unfolded".
Terrible repression has reigned for the past two years at the hands of the national police of the coup regime and a UN-sanctioned foreign military/political occupation force. (The latter numbers 7500 troops from more than a dozen countries.) Several thousand Haitians have died, hundreds sit in prison — most without charges — and untold numbers have gone into internal exile or fled the country. The repression has targeted, above all, the popular base of Aristide's Lavalas party.
The book sketches the history of Haiti and the events since the coup. It zeros in on Canada's role, and much of the information contained is a result of extensive travel, research and interviews.
One of the strengths of the book is the detailed information it provides on the destabilisation campaign that was waged against democracy in Haiti by the governments and pro-imperialist think-tanks in Washington and Ottawa. When Aristide was elected president for a second time in 2000, this time by 92% of voters, the would-be colonisers of Haiti threw up their hands at the prospect of using the electoral process to create a viable and pliant alternative to Aristide and his movement. Plans were set in motion to undo the results of the election and rid the country of Aristide.
Many readers of the book will be surprised to learn of the central and decisive role played by the Canadian government and its agencies in the destabilisation effort. Aid and loans to the Haitian government were sharply curtailed after 2000. Funding of so-called non-governmental organisations in Haiti was directed exclusively at those opposing the government and the Lavalas movement. A propaganda war was unleashed, portraying Aristide's government as violent and repressive.
Another important revelation in this book concerns the role of Canadian NGOs in the destabilisation campaign and subsequent justification of the coup. It cites, among others, the role of the Centre international de solidarite ouvriere, an organisation based among the major trade unions in Quebec; Ottawa-based Rights and Democracy, originally founded by, among others, Ed Broadbent; and the Quebec umbrella organisation l'Association quebecoise des organismes de cooperation internationale.
These and other NGOs present in Haiti are funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
The book takes a searing look at the mainstream media in Canada, slamming it for its silence or misrepresentation on Haiti. "Canadian media may be willing to criticize U.S. foreign policy, but if Haiti is any indication, they are much less interested in criticizing their own state's adventures abroad."
The three countries that invaded Haiti continue to play the decisive role in the running of the country. They appointed a puppet governing council. Canadian government officials, including from Elections Canada, are playing the key role in organising a fraudulent and unconstitutional round of national elections.
Canadian police agencies, including the RCMP, are training the Haitian National Police (HNP), a repressive force responsible for countless deaths in the poor neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, the capital.
The Lavalas party is, for all intents and purposes, banned from running in the election. A party suffering immense violence and pressure, sections of it are fracturing and joining the electoral process. The popular choice of the party for president, Catholic priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste, has been in prison since July 21 of this year and is therefore disqualified from running.
Massive violations of human rights in Haiti by the HNP, the judicial system and the United Nations occupation force have been documented by a series of reputable institutions and studies, including Amnesty International. Indeed, the latest report decrying human rights violations comes from the UN itself — on October 14, the UN official responsible for human rights in Haiti described the situation there as "catastrophic"!
Yet Canada's former minister of foreign affairs, Pierre Pettigrew, dismissed the earlier human-rights reports as "propaganda". Meanwhile, outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin and Quebec Premier Jean Charest made the first visits ever to Haiti by their offices, in November 2004 and June 2005 respectively, in efforts to bolster the coup regime. While there, Martin declared there are no political prisoners in Haiti.
Other governments beg to differ. The coup regime in Haiti is not recognised by Venezuela, Cuba, South Africa, and most Caribbean island governments. The 15-country Caribbean association CARICOM suspended Haiti's membership following the coup and has rebuffed recent pressure from Canada to lift the suspension.
Canada justifies its action in Haiti by a new doctrine called "Responsibility to Protect". It is pressing the United Nations to legitimise the doctrine, under which the "great powers of the world" are free to invade or otherwise violate the sovereignty of countries as they choose. In Paul Martin's words to the United Nations General Assembly on September 16, "Clearly, we need expanded guidelines for Security Council action to make clear our responsibility to act decisively to prevent humanity's attack on humanity. The 'Responsibility to Protect' is one such guideline."
The facts presented by Canada in Haiti are very compelling. The Canadian government stands accused of the forcible overthrow of the constitution and elected government in Haiti. It backs a post-coup regime accused of massive violations of human rights.
Despite the disaster that has since unfolded, the people of Haiti, miraculously it would seem, have found the means to protest in their thousands and tens of thousands for the return of their constitution and duly-elected government. The authors of Canada in Haiti argue that we have a duty to speak out and organise in solidarity with them.
[Reprinted from <http://www.socialistvoice.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 1, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.