Make no mistake, we are witnessing a coup taking place on the island nation of Haiti. The forced departure of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was something that the Bush administration has been trying to do for years. It saw the opportunity, and wham, it took it. Now it has installed a puppet as Prime Minister and tries to install a president to its liking. This is what American democracy means: the power to impose U.S. imperial will on a sovereign nation.
Several years ago, writers for the Haiti Progrès newspaper wrote, “The destabilization campaign against the Haitian government is being led by the Bush faction of the U.S. bourgeoisie, which is arch-reactionary and hostile to regimes which even pay lip service to a progressive agenda, as Aristide once did. Two conservative retreads from the previous Bush administration, Under Secretary of State for the Americas, Otto Reich, and Ambassador to the Organization for American States of the OAS, Roger Noriega, are spearheading the campaign to uproot Aristide, whom they charge as becoming an illegitimate president of a pariah state, even as other OAS states stand by, wringing their hands at the plight of the besieged president.” That’s from the book Haiti: A Slave Revolution published by International Action Center.
Haiti Progres newspaper published this article in October, 2002. They warned that the elements of the Haitian bourgeoisie would ally themselves with their very rivals, the land-rich grandons [landowners], and the latter would bring forth the same forces that held sway under the Duvalier dictatorship. Lo and behold, within days of the coup d’etat against Aristide, who emerges, but Gérard Latortue, a man who served as ambassador in the short-lived military-backed government of Leslie Manigat, back in 1988. Manigat was overthrown by General Henri Namphy, some six months after his term began. Now a face from that government is installed as PM, and what are his first words? “Bring back the army.” He has called Aristide’s disbanding of the army unconstitutional.
We’re now watching the re-emergence of Neo-Duvalierists who want to reinstate the power of the Macoutes. The Bush regime calls this democracy. But the Haitian people have another idea. They have seen the U.S. come in before, using words like “democracy” and saw instead occupation and humiliation. Haiti is facing dire times as the grandons and the bourgeoisie launch another war of exploitation against the Haitian poor, and that’s what it’s all about – who will profit from the exploitation of the Haitian peasantry, who shall rule. The U.S. seems determined to make sure that the Haitian people will have little say in the matter. That’s why they sent Aristide into a forced exile, the man who won some 85% of the Haitian people’s vote. Down with U.S. meddling. Let the Haitian people govern themselves. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noelle Hanrahan for Prison Radio.
