FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY, Haiti: Ten Years After the September 30, 1991 Coup d’état

Note: Written collaboratively and released in September 2001

From: MKarshan@aol.com

Office of the Foreign Press Liaison, National Palace, Haiti

Email:  mkarshan@aol.com

Telephone: (011509) 228-2058

FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY

Haiti:  Ten Years After the September 30, 1991 Coup d’état

This is not a civil war.  There is no confrontation.  The violence comes from one side alone.  We feel there is a deliberate policy to eliminate Aristide partisans, to break the back of the pro-democracy movement and to terrorize the population.

A Ranking UN human rights official in Haiti, The Miami Herald, April 6, 1994

INTRODUCTION

The September 30, 1991 military coup d'etat in Haiti, the bloodiest coup in 200 years of difficult history is rooted in a continuum of struggle for democratic change in Haiti.  The continuum stretches back from before September 1991, out to today, and into the future.  Although the contours of the struggle change, the objectives have always been liberty and dignity: liberty, of the body and of thought and expression, and the dignity of having the basic materials for human existence: food, shelter, healthcare and education.

This struggle has borne fruit, Haiti's democracy dividend.  Irreversible progress in politics, justice and security has paved the way for fundamental and tangible improvements in the daily lives of Haitians.  The brutal army was dismantled and replaced by a civilian police force, the number of public high schools doubled since 1994. An aggressive campaign to collect unpaid tax and utility bills has generated record revenues for the struggling government, and an extensive land reform program has distributed 2.47 acres of land to each of 1,500 peasant families.  The government has also aggressively pursued an open market approach that has resulted in the development of a competitive and vibrant telecommunication sector and the reopening of the flourmill and cement plant. 

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: 200 Years of Struggle

Haiti's very existence was born of the struggle for liberty and dignity.  The world's first   independent Black Republic, and only successful slave revolt, emerged in 1804 after a long war with Napoleon's France.  Haiti immediately faced a hostile international community that, in some cases waited a full sixty years before recognizing her.  Some countries only recognized Haiti after payment of a crippling indemnity of 150 million francs to France and the former slave owners.  This amount represented close to ten times the country's annual gross domestic product.  The payment of funds borrowed for the indemnity was not completed until 1922.  The burdensome repayment schedules denied Haiti the opportunity for any real economic development in the early years of the Republic.  Haiti was set on a devastating course of borrowing funds to re-pay an ever-growing debt.

Haiti's chronic indebtedness to foreign banks became a pawn in a scheme of    international financing with political repercussions at home.  Short-lived governments changed often in the years leading up to the nineteen-year United States occupation that began in 1915.  The Armed Forces of Haiti was created during the occupation as a "stabilizing," albeit repressive, force in the country.  The link between the new army and foreign financial interests was made clear when the occupiers seized all customs receipts, and used some of the proceeds to pay the salaries of U.S. officers.

‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 1 by Michelle Karshan

Jubilee's Blog the Debt (Member blogs from Haiti)
01 October 2007 

‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 1
by Michelle Karshan

[Michelle Karshan, a member of ONE Partner Jubilee USA and former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide foreign press liason, is fasting right now for Haiti. She blogs her perspective on how Haiti’s struggle with debt and economic recovery was ignored by the international press.]

In May 2007, while in Haiti, friends told me of the rising cost of living. As I spent what seemed like a lot of money purchasing food to cook three meals a day, I wondered how folks were feeding their families even one meal a day at those exorbitant prices.

Michelet, a young man, considerably thinner since 2004, pointed out that he had personally seen a rise in TB in his own neighborhood. He explained that with the increase in the cost of living people could not nourish themselves enough to fend off disease.

Dr. Paul Farmer has so eloquently drawn this connection between infectious disease and poverty, yet the international financial institutions have yet to reprioritize their economic plans.

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide often referred to structural adjustment and the debt as “Economic Terrorism”, because globalization and the way it revolves around creating and keeping impoverished countries impoverished results in starvation, disease, illiteracy and death. And, in the end millions of dollars spent on poverty reduction cannot turn a country around without debt reduction and forgiveness.

Last week, while Haiti and each Haitian there still suffers from the backbreaking debt inherited from the Duvalier regime, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was heard on the airways apologizing for the atrocities and corruption during his administration.

Not coincidentally, his plea for forgiveness came immediately following Switzerland’s announcement that they would extend the Haitian government’s period of time to wage their legal battle to recover the millions of dollars in Duvalier’s Swiss bank accounts.

Haitian President Rene Preval rightly responded to Duvalier’s maneuvers, stating that while forgiveness is good, justice must prevail. Preval made it clear that his government would continue its pursuit of the monies, and that if Duvalier chooses to return to Haiti he will certainly be brought to justice.

It was extremely frustrating working as the Foreign Press Liaison to presidents Aristide, Preval and Aristide again. All the while, the international press ignored the debt that shackled any efforts towards recovery, ignored the U.S.-led embargo against Haiti’s government, and the economic “death plan” Aristide tried to resist. The U.S. Embassy waged a campaign denying that there was any financial embargo and they harassed press who dared to call the embargo an embargo!

The international press, distracting its readers from the real talking points, lay all blame at Aristide’s door, and characterized Haiti as: “spiraling downward;” “a basket case;” “a failed state;” and “a people unable to govern themselves.”

Yet inside the storm, at the eye of the storm, was globalization, the endless debt, the imposed impoverishment of a country up against a proud nation that believes that justice — economic justice — means accessible, universal health care, schools, literacy programs, and the right to work and farm.

It will not be hard for me to begin my fast today. What has been hard is to eat, knowing that more than 8 million people in Haiti cannot eat one meal a day.”

Coup d'etat attack on Haiti's National Palace, December 17, 2001

From: MKarshan@aol.com

Details on the attempted coup d'etat attack on Haiti's National Palace on December 17, 2001

COMPILATION OF PUBLIC INFORMATION THAT WAS RELEASED THROUGH NATIONAL
TELEVISION, THE POLICE SPOKESPERSON, AGENCE HAITIENNE PRESSE, ASSOCIATED
PRESS & HAITI PRESS NETWORK

On December 17, 2001 at 2 am, using the element of surprise, three (3) pickup trucks carrying approximately 30 commandos approached the entryway known as Westgate of the National Palace (which is directly across from ministry offices) and launched a grenade into the entryway before storming the gate and invading the National Palace grounds through the right hand side. The iron gate was damaged from the impact.

The National Palace security personnel were forced to retreat for cover in face of the heavy weapons used by the commandos including an M2 with M50 caliber weapon, which is a ground to air weapon, which was prominently bolted onto one of the vehicles on a bi-pod. Through the M2 was draped a large quantity of M50 caliber linked missile-like projectile ammunition, each which are approximately 5 inches long. An M2 with M50 caliber bullets can reach a radius of 25 kilometers.

Haiti's security units do not have weapons of this magnitude and the overwhelming majority of Haiti’s security forces have never seen weapons of this type or witnessed its sound or impact.

Some of the National Palace security took cover and worked together to plan their strategy for an offensive.

When the vehicles entered the National Palace grounds they started shooting at the National Palace building causing large holes of approximately 2 inches deep in the side wall of the National Palace.

The commandos were wearing green camouflage military clothes identical to the uniforms worn by the Leopard unit of the former Haitian military. There was very heavy shooting and exchange of fire between the commandos and the palace security personnel.

What's Next for Haiti? by Michelle Karshan

What's Next for Haiti?

Haiti Policy Analysts Weigh in Putting the Pieces Together

by Michelle Karshan, published by the Haiti Action Committee

December 16, 2002 - Twelve years ago today, on December 16, 1990, Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected President by an overwhelming majority and inaugurated on February 7, 1991. Seven months later he was ousted in a violent coup d'etat carried out by the military and its sponsors. After three years of resistance by the Haitian people, in which 5,000 died, thousands were tortured and raped, and tens of thousands took to the high seas, the U.S. restored Aristide to Haiti through a military intervention, under international pressure.

Although his supporters wanted his term extended because of the three years that Aristide was forced to spend in exile, President Aristide finished his five-year term on February 7, 1996 and for the first time in Haiti's history a democratically elected President handed power over to the next democratically elected President. President Rene Preval served his entire five-year term without interruption, setting another precedent, and on February 7, 2001, after a landslide election, Aristide was once again inaugurated to the Presidency.

Tom F. Driver, a theology professor at New York's Union Theological Seminary, sums up the last couple of years in Haiti, "Since early in the year 2000, when it became apparent that Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas Family Party would win elections by large majorities, those opposed to popular government in Haiti have been determined to use every means necessary to thwart it. When they could not prevent Aristide's return to the Presidency, they set about to make it impossible for him to govern effectively. When they could not achieve their ends at the polls, they tried to invalidate the elections. When compromise was offered, they rejected it out of hand. Because persuasion will not avail them, they have threatened violence. Their efforts are encouraged, if not engineered, by elements in the United States Government, which has cut off all loans in aid to the Government of Haiti. The administration in Haiti is by no means perfect, but that is not the issue. The issue is legitimacy, all of which lies on the side of the Government and none on the side of the concerted opposition that has been nothing but obstructionist since the year 2000."

In remarks made by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award ceremony a few weeks ago, she revealed that, "Six months ago, a high ranking Bush administration official commented to a member of our board, 'Only when the economic sanctions lead to Florida being flooded with boat people will this administration's policy change.' That statement has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A few weeks ago, over 200 Haitians in a rickety, leaking boat washed up on Key Biscayne Boulevard."