Text 1471, 190 rader
Skriven 2004-08-27 05:11:00 av Stephen Hayes (5:7106/20.0)
Ärende: Chris_Soc: Canada in Haiti
==================================
* Forwarded (from: CHRIS_SOC) by Stephen Hayes using timEd/2 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from family.chris_soc@family-bbs.net (8:8/2) to All.
* Original dated: Thu Aug 26, 06:32

From: family.chris_soc@family-bbs.net (Chris_Soc)
To: chris_soc3@fmlynet.org
Reply-To: family.chris_soc@family-bbs.net

From: "Steve Hayes" <khanyab@lantic.net>

Message from Fr Michael Graves, Orthodox missionary in Haiti

Dear Friends of Haiti,

   Greetings from Haiti, where we experience
FIRST-HAND the terrible results of the Feb. 2004 intervention and toppling of
the Aristide government. The following is one of the best articles describing
our situation. Since the majority of the public media all over this area
appears to be controlled by the imperialist powers that be, I am circulating
this article which tells the truth about our situation. Please circulate it
far-and-wide if you are able.

   And please pray for us because we are living under
an evil and frightening regime.

   God bless,

        Father Michael in Haiti

Seven Oaks Magazine
Blood on the hands: A survey of Canada's role in Haiti August 24, 2004
Roger Annis

Five hundred Canadian soldiers are returning from Haiti this month. Together
with the armed forces of France and the United States, they took part in the
violent overthrow of the elected government of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in February/March of this year. Since then, occupying troops have
provided backing for rightist gangs who will form the core of the police and
government authority the occupying forces are cobbling together to replace the
Aristide government.

Troops from the three countries began occupying Haiti on February 29, hours
after the United Nations Security Council gave its blessing. Aristide was
kidnapped by U.S. forces later that day and flown out of the country. He now
lives in asylum.

The capitalist media in Canada presented the coup as a popular uprising against
an unpopular regime. Since then, they have kept a discreet censure about
conditions in Haiti under imperialist occupation. New Democratic Party leader
Jack Layton spoke not a word about the ongoing tragedy in Haiti during the
federal election campaign in May and June. Trade union leaders have also been
silent.

The truth urgently needs to be told about Ottawa's crime against the Haitian
people.

A disaster for the Haitian people

Constitutional government in Haiti, won through many years of tenacious
struggle, has been overthrown. Killings by rightist gangs were widespread
leading up to the coup and they have continued during the occupation regime.
Several thousand have died. The rightists target supporters of the Aristide
government and anyone striving to improve social conditions in the country.
Rightists convicted of crimes and human rights violations during previous
regimes have been released from prison and are involved in the killings.

U.S. troops have taken part in the attacks on the Haitian people. An Associated
Press reporter witnessed U.S. marines joining police in firing on a
demonstration of tens of thousands of Haitians on May 18 in Port au Prince. A
dozen people were killed and many more injured. Demonstrators were demanding
the return of Aristide on the occasion of a holiday marking Haitian inde-
pendence.

Following the coup, living conditions in Haiti have gone from bad to worse.
Prices for basic foodstuffs have risen sharply, the minimum wage has been cut
by the new governing authority, and civic services have declined. Flooding this
past May on the east- ern part of the island devastated many villages and
killed several thousand. In the countryside, drought conditions are devastating
the livelihood of farmers and threatening the vital food harvest. Precious
little international aid is being delivered to meet emergency needs.

In a letter to the Toronto Star on July 30, a reader described her dismay with
the head of the Canadian military in Haiti when he described the occupation as
a "success." The letter recounted a recent telephone conversation with a
Canadian aid worker living in Cap Haitien, the second largest city in Haiti.
"Things are so much worse than they were last October, prior to the revolt in
February," reported the worker. "Supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide are still
being hunted down by those who support a new regime.a | Food supplies are low,
electricity is only on for one to three hours daily, garbage is piled up along
the roads, as there has been no collection for many months now, and people
everywhere are sick."

Why imperialism opposed Aristide

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. Average annual income is a few
hundred dollars. Average life expectancy is 49 years for men and 50 for women.
An AIDS epidemic is ravaging the country. Forty-seven percent of the adult
population is illiterate and unemployment is 60% to 70%. The country is
burdened by a crushing debt to imperialist governments and lend- ing agencies.
Gross domestic product in Haiti has declined from US$4 billion in 1999 to $2.9
billion in 2003.

Aristide rose to prominence in the 1980s during the revolutionary movement that
overthrew the Duvalier dictatorship in 1990. He was first elected president
that year with the overwhelming support of Haiti's working people on a platform
of radical social reform. Nine months later he was overthrown by a military
coup. He was elected again in May of 2000.

The masses in Haiti had big expectations in the governments headed by Aristide,
and despite many disappointments with his performance, they continued to place
enormous pressure on his government to stand up to the imperialists and improve
their lot. Aristide established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1996, and he
welcomed hundreds of Cuban doctors and health workers to pro- vide health care
in remote parts of the country. The post-2000 government built new schools and
refused imperialist demands to privatize state-owned services such as
electricity, telephones, and ports.

Aristide angered the French government in April 2003 when he demanded that it
pay $21 billion in reparations to Haiti. France, the island's former colonial
power, had extorted millions of dol- lars in payments from Haitian governments
during the 19th and 20th centuries as punishment for the successful anti-slave
revolt that led to Haiti's independence from France in 1804.

Aristide's governments brought few improvements in living conditions for the
masses. It implemented measures demanded by the imperialists, including
lowering of tariffs that protected local food production, emptying of the
national treasury in order to pay off international lending institutions, and
privatizing some state-owned industries. Nevertheless, the imperialist powers
feared a revival of the mass movement that had toppled the Duvalier
dictatorship, and they were not confident that Aristide would keep the island
safe for continued exploitation.

Canadian imperialists in Haiti

The imperialist intervention in Haiti was a joint venture with rightist forces
that launched an armed rebellion in early February. The rightists were armed
and financed by wealthy Haitians and their backers in the U.S., France, Canada,
and neighbouring Dominican Republic. They were few in number and weak in the
capital city Port au Prince. But pro-government defense forces were poorly
organized and armed, and were politically dis- oriented by the record of the
Aristide government in bowing to imperialist dictates.

In January 2003, Canada's foreign affairs department was one of the sponsors of
an international conference in Ottawa that discussed and laid plans for the
overthrow of Aristide's government. Thirteen months later, according to a
report on the French-language television news network of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, the elite service of the Canadian armed forces was
among the imperialist troops that helped capture and secure the airport in Port
au Prince in the early hours of February 29.

On July 6, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that Canada would send 100 RCMP
to replace the returning soldiers. Police and soldiers from the U.S., France,
Chile, Brazil, and other countries will remain in Haiti, under UN Security
Council approval. A press release from the Canadian government described the
role of the occupation as being a form of assistance to "the transitional
Haitian government in establishing a secure and stable environment, restoring
law and order, and reforming the Haitian National Police."

Canada's troops provide security for the post-coup regime, and the killings
continue. One of the tasks the occupation forces have set for themselves is to
disarm the civilian population.

The Canadian government has convinced many at home and abroad that it is a
friend of peace and democracy and that its armed forces abroad are "p
eacekeepers." This is a lie. Indignation against the crimes of Washington in
Iraq and elsewhere will ring hollow if not accompanied by equal indignation at
Ottawa's par- ticipation in the pillage and oppression of the semi-colonial
world.

Those concerned with human rights, poverty and the oppression of the Third
World peoples have a responsibility to speak out about the situation in Haiti.
We should demand of the Canadian government that it withdraw police and
military forces from that country and halt any form of assistance to the
post-coup authority. Working-class and progressive organizations in Canada need
to support the people of Haiti in opposing the coup-imposed regime and fighting
for the return of the democratically elected government.

Roger Annis is an editor of www.SocialistVoice.com , where this article
originally appeared.
--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk
   Web: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
 Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727

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