Haitians survey the wreckage

Looters in Port-au-Prince can be shot on sight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3496852.stm

As politicians and the international community battle to prevent Haiti from sliding further into chaos, the BBC's Claire Marshall looks at how Haitians from all sections of society are trying to piece together their shattered livelihoods.

Robert Cheron's hand feels around the handle of the pistol strapped at his waist.

Looters in Port-au-Prince can be shot on sight
His tightly curled black hair is wet with gel and biceps bulge out from under his body armour.

His brow furrowed and beaded with sweat, he leans against his gleaming four-wheel drive and squints down the road through blue-tinted shades.

Other cars are parked nearby.

These are Haiti's elite.

They are business owners, waiting for an armed police escort to come so that they can return to their looted factories to look at the damage.

From the article:

There is a great divide between rich and poor in Haiti but, with all this destruction, it seems that a new awareness is permeating the upper classes.

Now that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is gone, they believe that they have a responsibility to take Haiti forward.

As Robert says: "We used to just take care of our family business. But now we need to take care of the country."

"We have to involve ourselves more. You can't just let the country be run by anybody."
(snip)

It should be interesting to know if anything has penetrated their insulation and protection from the very poor from whose labor they derive their wealth.

What a laughable, pathetic joke. This picture says it all:



Note that those are single family homes. If I can find better pictures for you, I will post them.

On September 30, the third anniversary of the military coup that overthrew
the elected government of Haiti in 1991, jubilant crowds marched peacefully
to celebrate the restoration of democracy, encouraged by the official U.S.
declaration that the right of peaceful demonstration would be protected by
the 20,000 troops who had entered Haiti on September 19 under an agreement
between former President Jimmy Carter and General Raoul Cedras. That was,
in fact, one of the major goals of the U.S. intervention to restore
democracy, the press reported. The demonstrators were attacked, beaten
bloody, and scattered by armed gunmen. "The bodies of dead Haitians keep
piling up," one Western diplomat said, just as they had the day before when
a grenade exploded at a celebration of the return of the elected mayor of
Port-au-Prince. U.S. officials complained "that Haitian police could no
longer be trusted to enforce law and order," the press reported, "but would
not say if US forces would assume responsibility." "It would be very
difficult to rely on the police to provide security given the fact they
haven't provided any security so far," U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley
Schrager said, apparently surprised that the U.S.-trained police are acting
as they have always done in the past.

U.S. combat troops were in the streets in force, but not to protect the
demonstrators. "Instead," John Kifner reported in the New York Times, "the
tanks, armored vehicles and even two firetrucks were deployed along Avenue
John Brown leading to the wealthy suburb of Petionville, as if they were
trying to protect the homes of Haiti's affluent, light-skinned elite should
the poor of the slums and shantytowns try to charge uphill." "The only
conceivable reason for this deployment appeared to be to protect commercial
establishments and prevent any crowds from going up the hill toward the
homes of the elite."

U.S. military spokesman Colonel Willey "said the troops were positioned to
form `a cordon so Haitian police could work on the inner perimeter'." And
work they did. Haitian police joined with the paramilitary (FRAPH) gangs
attacking the demonstrators, using their trucks for "loading up the armed
men in civilian clothes by the Fraph headquarters" and then helping to
scatter the demonstrators, "exchanging high-fives with the gunmen or giving
them rides in their pickup trucks."

A U.S. military convoy did approach the site of the first attack on the
demonstrators, where "at least eight bodies" were counted by journalists.
But, Kifner continued, they "quickly drove off, as did others that
followed," making it clear that U.S. forces "would not provide protection
to the marchers" so that terror could proceed unhampered. U.S. forces "were
nowhere near the announced route of the march, from the Basilica of Notre
Dame where a requiem mass was celebrated for the more than 3000 people whom
human rights groups say were killed during military rule, to the city
cemetery." The troops are following White House orders. Explaining the
continuing atrocities under U.S. military occupation, commanding General
Henry Shelton informed the press that he had been instructed by his
superiors in Washington that "it is not our policy to intervene in
law-and-order matters per se; that is a Haitian matter." The problem, he
said, is that Haitian police are "not trained in riot control." The "level
of civility that is here," he explained, "is provided by the police and the
military, which is under the control of General Cedras." And by the
inheritors of the Tontons Macoutes, who are to be controlled by the Haitian
police with whom they exchange high-fives as they perform their common tasks.

FRAPH members interviewed by Wall Street Journal correspondents Helene
Cooper and Jose de Cordoba said they had no problems with the Americans
troops. While the attacks on the demonstrators are underway, one said,
"U.S. soldiers riding by on their `Humvee' armored vehicles wave cheerfully
to FRAPH members, who wave back." At the September 30 anniversary march,
the WSJ report continues, "those Humvees, along with tanks and other
armored vehicles, staged a massive show of `presence' with the intention of
containing the pro-Aristide demonstration to downtown, and addressing what
appears to be the U.S.'s principal fear: that mobs of President Aristide's
supporters will go on a rampage against wealthy Haitians and supporters of
the military regime." Back in Washington, Deputy Defense Secretary John
Deutch "said US troops would use force to stop violence only when their own
safety was assured," though it seems that exceptions will be allowed if
"wealthy Haitians and supporters of the military regime" might be
endangered by "pro-Aristide mobs."

1999 (History just seems to repeat itself)

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/leninist-international/1999-September/004929.html

===========================

The Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs observed after the coup:
"Under Aristide, for the first time in the republic's tortured history, Haiti seemed to be on the verge of tearing free from the fabric of despotism and tyranny which had smothered all previous attempts at democratic expression and self-determination." His victory "represented more than a decade of civic engagement and education on his part," in "a textbook example of participatory, 'bottom-up' and democratic political development". (Quoted, Chomsky, op.cit., p.209)

Aristide's balancing of the budget and "trimming of a bloated bureaucracy" led to a "stunning success" that made White House planners "extremely uncomfortable". The view of a US official "with extensive experience of Haiti" summed up the reality beneath US rhetoric:

"Aristide - slum priest, grass-roots activist, exponent of Liberation Theology - 'represents everything that CIA, DOD and FBI think they have been trying to protect this country against for the past 50 years'," he said. (Quoted, Paul Quinn-Judge, Boston Globe, September 8, 1994)

Before deciding to run for office, Aristide had observed: "Of course, the US has its own agenda here", namely: maximising its returns on investments. "This is normal, capitalist behaviour, and I don't care if the US wants to do it at home... But it is monstrous to come down here and impose your will on another people... I cannot accept that Haiti should be whatever the United States wants it to be." (Chomsky, op.cit., p.211)

A Haitian businessman told a reporter shortly before the September 1991 coup: "Everyone who is anyone is against Aristide. Except the people." (Quoted, Farmer, op., cit, p.178)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=5064

In the wake of outrage over this incident, US soldiers were hastily given new orders, allowing them to stop violence by the security forces, to make arrests and to seize weapons. When US military police paid calls on Haitian police stations, crowds of people turned out to jeer their temporarily helpless oppressors. But the Americans could not be everywhere, and as soon as they left the scene, the crowds would melt away. When thousands of pro-Aristide marchers turned out to commemorate the third anniversary of the Cédras coup, American troops were out in force -- but not along the marchers' route. As gunmen belonging to the paramilitary organization FRAPH fired on the marchers, killing a number of them, the US troops were stationed along another street, at right angles to the route of the march. "The only conceivable reason for this deployment," said the New York Times, "appeared to be to protect commercial establishments and prevent any crowds from going up the hill toward the homes of the elite."

http://www.indigocafe.com/geoffwisner//abuses4.html


Is it any wonder Stan Goff got so sick of this transparency when he was there?

Meanwhile the poor: