Haiti elections amid bloody repression of poor

[Severian]

Two years ago, Haiti's legitimate, elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced into exile by an armed rebellion. The rebellion was led by rightist figures from death-squad groups and past military regimes. And, it's now clear,the overthrow of the elected president was encouraged by Washington. (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/news2/nytimes7.html)

An unelected government and a UN-sponsored occupation force have carried out vicious repression of Haitian working people, massacring narmed demonstrators and murdering slum residents who are believed to support Aristide's party, Lavalas.

Now the occupiers are finally holding the much-postponed election, (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0207/p01s02-woam.html) and despite the terror Rene Preval, a politician close to Aristide is in the lead. There'll probably be a runoff though.

And even Preval is known for carrying out IMF policies, there is little enthusiasm for him among working people, and he's campaigned low-key...maybe for his own safety? The options for anyone to his left running and campaigning freely, seems pretty well blocked off by the death squads. The other leading candidates are a member of the business elite, a former figurehead of a military government, and a death-squad figure who helped lead the rebellion that overthrew Aristide.

And there are no voting stations in the vast Cite Soleil slum... (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002789036_haiti07.html) and it can be difficult for Cite Soleil residents to leave it to vote elsewhere.

As is documented here:
I should warn you this is a large PDF file. (http://www.law.miami.edu/cshr/CSHR_Report_02082005_v2.pdf) It's very informative, though - a human rights report by a lawyer who visited Haiti, and interviewed everyone from Cite Soleil residents to the sponsors of the death squads, who admitted the most amazing things.

Here's its summary:
After ten months under an interim government backed by the United States, Canada, and France and buttressed by a United Nations force, Haiti’s people churn inside a hurricane of violence. Gunfire crackles, once bustling streets are abandoned to cadavers, and whole neighborhoods are cut off from the outside world. Nightmarish fear now accompanies Haiti’s poorest in their struggle to survive in destitution. Gangs, police, irregular soldiers, and even UN peacekeepers bring fear. There has been no investment in dialogue to end the violence.
Haiti’s security and justice institutions fuel the cycle of violence. Summary executions are a police tactic, and even well-meaning officers treat poor neighborhoods seeking a democratic voice as enemy territory where they must kill or be killed. Haiti’s brutal and disbanded army has returned to join the fray. Suspected dissidents fill the prisons, their Constitutional rights ignored. As voices for non-violent change are silenced by arrest, assassination, or fear, violent defense becomes a credible option. Mounting evidence suggests that members of Haiti’s elite, including political powerbroker Andy Apaid, pay gangs to kill Lavalas supporters and finance the illegal army.
UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most Haitians, are overwhelmed by the firestorm. Unable to communicate with the police, they resort to heavy-handed incursions into the poorest neighborhoods that force intermittent peace at the expense of innocent residents.
The injured prefer to die at home untreated rather than risk arrest at the hospital. Those who do reach the hospital soak in puddles of their own blood, ignored by doctors. Not even death ends the tragedy: bodies pile in the morgue, quickly devoured out of recognition by maggots.
There is little hope for an election to end the crisis, as the Electoral Council’s mandate is crippled by corruption and in-fighting.
U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods, not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of the elected president. Their support for the interim government is not surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked for U.S. government projects that undermined their elected predecessors. Coupled with the U.S. government’s development assistance embargo from 2000-2004, the projects suggest a disturbing pattern.
The Center for the Study of Human Rights conducted an investigation in Haiti from November 11 to 21, 2004, meeting with businessmen, grassroots leaders, gang members, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, human rights groups and police and officials from the UN and the Haitian and U.S. governments, and observing in poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons, hospitals and the state morgue. The Center’s investigators concluded that many Haitians, especially those living in poor neighborhoods, now struggle against inhuman horror. The Center presents this report with the hope that officials, policymakers and citizens will not only understand this horror better, but will take immediate action to stop it.
WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS.

But Washington continues to deport Haitians back into this hell of its own making. (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/13800928.htm)

Comments? Questions? Discussion?

[deak]

US meddling has been at the root of this since the begining, long before Bush and his cronies took office. FRAPH was completely armed and funded by the CIA and commited the worst attrocities against the Haitian people durring and after the original overthrow of Aristide. What occured in Haiti was most likely what the CIA had hoped would happen in Venezuala. I guess any person who attempts to unprivatize industry and national resources, are a threat to the US and must be dealt with even if it means consorting with torturors and death squads (and I'm not even talking about the US army this time ;) ). Again, it's only Democracy if the outcome supports the rich capatalistic agenda of the North.

[Severian]

Reuters update (http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-07T214102Z_01_N07345540_RTRUKOC_0_US-HAITI-ELECTION.xml&archived=False)

Not only are there no polling places in Cite Soleil, the stations nearby opened late or not at all. So people in Cite Soleil got up early, walked long distances, and then had to wait or even not get a chance to vote at all.

They seem determined despite all obstacles. And there haven't been any reports of major violence so far. Maybe using direct armed force to deny the right to vote would be too blatant for the occupiers.



Throngs of voters jammed chaotic polling centers across Haiti on Tuesday, forced to wait for hours to vote in the first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was toppled two years ago.

Balloting began more than three hours late at many stations, infuriating poor supporters of ex-president Rene Preval, a one-time Aristide ally favored to win.

Some accused the government of planning the long delays to minimize the vote in poor areas and so hurt Preval's chances.

"It's a fraud. If we can't vote, Preval won't be elected," said Ysail Joseph, a 75-year-old man who got up at 4 a.m. EST to walk from the City Soleil slum to his polling station but was still there waiting to vote several hours later.
....
There was disappointment for thousands who rose before dawn and marched past rooting pigs, smoking garbage and U.N. armored personnel carriers to a voting station near Cite Soleil.

Unable to vote, they charged up and down the street, waving tree branches and chanting Preval slogans. Voting was slow and chaotic even when the center opened almost 3 1/2 hours late.

Suspecting foul play, some said wealthy Haitians were already casting ballots for Preval's top rival, businessman Charles Baker, while slum dwellers waited.

"We know their fraud. They are trying to give us Baker," said Lucas Charles. "If they give us Baker, we will spend the next five years firing weapons."

[Janus]

Here is an update on the election
Source: BBC News

Haiti's first election since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in February 2004 has been marred by angry demonstrations in the capital.
Voting hours have been extended after some polling stations in the capital Port-au-Prince failed to open on time, leading to angry shoving and stampedes.

Voters are choosing a new president, as well as a 129-member parliament.

The front-runners are Rene Preval, a former ally of Mr Aristide, and Charles Henry Baker, a businessman.

When polling stations failed to open, angry voters tried to force their way in. At least one man was reported to have died in the crush in a Port-au-Prince district, and several others were injured.

Some protesters claimed the delays were part of a concerted attempt to stop people in poor areas from voting for Mr Preval.

The electoral authorities have denied this, and appealed for calm. They announced the end of polling would be extended beyond the scheduled 1600 (2100 GMT).

Rene Lucas, from the impoverished slum of Cite Soleil, said: "If we are not able to vote today we will be in a state of crisis for the next five years".

Thousands of armed UN troops have been deployed to watch over the election process, which has been delayed several times.

Despite the presence of peacekeepers, the country has continued to be blighted by political and criminal violence and instability.

Long wait

Former President Preval, 63, is a long-time ally of Mr Aristide who is popular with the poor.

Mr Baker and former President Leslie Manigat are considered his closest rivals.

Officials results are expected on Friday.

Some of Haiti's 3.5 million registered voters live some way from a polling station.

Auxilien Jean Dieudonna, waiting at a polling station in Port-au-Prince, told the BBC that he had left his house in the mountains at midnight and walked for more than four hours to take part.

"I came to vote for my charismatic leader [Rene Preval] so that he can run my country," he said.

If none of the candidates achieves a 50% majority first time round, the two best-placed candidates will compete in a run-off.

Aristide return?

Mr Aristide was first elected in 1990, but within a year he was overthrown, and replaced by a succession of military governments.

The US, backed by the UN, intervened in 1994 to restore order.

In the elections that followed Mr Aristide was barred from standing, but Mr Preval, his close ally, took nearly 90% of the vote.

Mr Aristide later returned to power, but with allegations of corruption and vote-rigging accompanied by increasing instability and violence, he took a US flight in early 2004 to South Africa, where he remains in exile.

Mr Preval has told the BBC that Mr Aristide may return if he wishes, but that he will not tolerate the violent groups that pledge him allegiance.

Wealthier Haitians have expressed disquiet at the possibility of a president with echoes of Mr Aristide.

So it seems that former president, Preval, Aristide's ally holds support from the poor. His main opponent, Charles Baker and Leslie Manigat and Mark Bazin, seems to gain a majority of their support from the wealthy elite or private sector.

It is very strange that the Lavalas party is accused of corruption and poor governance only by Haiti's elite and yet still retain the support of the poor.

Affter all, when Aristide first tried to introduce reforms in 1991 by raising the minimum wage, increasing literacy, and dismantling corruption and repression, the Haitian elite financed a coup. Having experienced two coups, Aristide isn't unpopular with the entire nation but just the elite.

[metalero]

Severian, the report you quoted is very informative and impressive; It shows the extremely inhuman situation of poor Hatians, something that's been banned from the big media that so eagerly misinformed the world about the coup against Aristide. It really shocked me since it resembled some parts of Colombia, where paramilitaries just butcher and dissapear peasants, forcing many of them to flee to the cities to live in misery. Now, under a very possible reelection of Alvaro Uribe, Colombia is heading into a nightmare of blood, poverty and inequity, becoming a big haiti.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Now, under a very possible reelection of Alvaro Uribe, Colombia is heading into a nightmare of blood, poverty and inequity, becoming a big haiti.

Very possible? I thought it was all but guaranteed. Do you know something I don't?

[Soheran]

The most popular Haitian leaders have been in jail throughout most of the foreign occupation.

Preval was something of an IMF stooge, but his association with Aristide will help him, as will his preferability to his opponents.

The vicious repression of the poor by the occupiers seems to have had the direct and intended effect of stifling any grass-roots attempt to run a real candidate.

[Severian]

^^^^yes, exactly. As well as other forms of organization and resistance.

[metalero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 11:04 AM

Now, under a very possible reelection of Alvaro Uribe, Colombia is heading into a nightmare of blood, poverty and inequity, becoming a big haiti.

Very possible? I thought it was all but guaranteed. Do you know something I don't?
Well, CDL, the working class has been hit so hard by the neoliberal reforms, as well as by the paramilitary terror that it has lost the organization power it used to have. Uribe and the oligarchy are more afraid of the mobilizing power of labor than the guerrilla resistance, that's why the dirty war is emphasized on Union leaders, activist who work with peasant displaced communities, professors, etc. With the current scenario of paramilitaries crimes being washed-out and their structures enforced over administrative and judiciary institutions, colombia faces a turning point to a fascist state. With media manipulation, the money from US to plan colombia, the support from big land-owners and corporations, narcos and paramilitaries, Uribe has finally unified the bourgeoisie. The left is unified into one platform for the first time, but the support from the working class is unclear due to false consciousness and fear. There is a hope for a change in the course of elections, despite media glorification of Uribe. Two years ago uribe lost a referendum to widespread conscious abstention from the working class. But being realistic (I hope not) Uribe is most likely to be reelected. If that's the case I'm hoping the worst, and also a bloody social explosion that will lead to a revolutionary situation.