This week in Haiti
Aristide Bargains People's Vote with OAS Assembly
"Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State," declares the Organization of American States (OAS) Charter in its founding principles.
So it was ironic this week to watch President Jean-Bertrand Aristide bow to "external interference" by submitting his ideas for resolving Haiti's internal political crisis to the 31st OAS General Assembly in San Jose, Costa Rica, like a child handing homework to his parents. (Needless to say, President George W. Bush's clumsy power grab last December was not on the OAS agenda).
Despite a fruitless 3-day visit to Haiti last week, OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria was unable to make any headway in resolving the continuing power struggle between the opposition Democratic Convergence front (CD) and Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party (FL) (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19 No. 11, 5/30/2001). Instead, Gaviria left Haiti on May 31 with a formal letter from Aristide to the Jun. 3-5 OAS meeting offering to reconstitute the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) with opposition appointees within 30 days, to truncate the terms of deputies and senators elected last year, and to hold new parliamentary elections earlier than Constitutionally prescribed. Seven senators, who the OAS maintains should have gone to run-off votes last year, would step down, and the new CEP would hold elections to fill their seats within three months. Under Aristide's plan, new elections would be held for the entire lower house in two years, while other Senators would see two years sliced off their four and six year terms.
While some OAS members supported Aristide's plan, the CD (and by extension Washington) rejected it.
At the OAS meeting, Washington attempted to ram through a "Democratic Charter," which could be used to bludgeon non-compliant states with sanctions and military interventions. "The United States is one of the major backers of a bid to enshrine a definition of democracy that would hold sway on two continents and punish those who violate it," wrote the AP's Michelle Faul in a Jun. 5 dispatch. Haiti would be one of the first targets of the "new, improved"OAS if the "Democratic Charter" is hatched.
Back in Haiti, the CD and even some human rights groups have made a fuss about the long-overdue arrest of former general Prosper Avril (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19 No. 11, 5/30/2001). But it remains to be seen if he will be prosecuted and if other Duvalierist and putschist criminals with outstanding warrants, will also be apprehended, or if Avril's arrest is an exception which has more to do with the political wrangling between the CD and FL.
In a Jun. 5 press conference, Ben Dupuy of the Parti Populaire National
(PPN) analyzed these developments. Here we present large extracts of Dupuy's
remarks.
"Haiti is confronting a false political crisis fomented by an international consortium. We say a consortium and not the "international community" because the international community is the 189 countries which make up the United Nations. The international consortium badgering Haiti is a few big countries headed by the United States and the European Union with a few others. The international consortium has fabricated this crisis from scratch with the help of a traitorous opposition, which it is financing with the sole aim of finishing to impose on Haiti its neoliberal death plan, no matter what. And Washington is doing its dirty work with the assistance of Uncle Sam's Ministry of Colonial Affairs, what they call the Organization of American States...
"Today Washington has resuscitated the OAS, which had died. Everybody forgot that it even existed since it was so lifeless and silent during the 40 years of the Duvalier dictatorships and when all sorts of Pinochets were flourishing in Latin America.
"But what's even worse is that the Haitian people thought that they were recently voting in the three Lavalas cornerstones of Dec. 16, 1990 -- Justice, Participation, and Transparency -- but instead they find they are being put in a trap...
"Just yesterday, the Fanmi Lavalas was saying that the people's vote was not negotiable. Today we hear from Costa Rica that Fanmi Lavalas is bargaining with the people's vote, both wholesale and retail.
"President Aristide, once he came to power, he fired all the CEP members who organized the vote which put him in the Palace and named another CEP which was filled with Macoutes just to please the foreigners. Now he is promising in Costa Rica to fire this CEP and name another which will have even more Macoutes and pocket-patriot bourgeois in it. He has promised in Costa Rica to fire 7 Senators and cut the mandate of all the senators and deputies...
"We say to the elected Lavalas officials that they are fools to get pulled into this game. Later will only be sadder... Because the foreigners also say that this is just the first step. So this is just the beginning, they will want more concessions: mayors, ASEC and KASEC [local representatives]. You better get ready because as long as they don't touch Aristide's 5 years, everything else is negotiable. We'll get out of one false crisis just to fall into another because in the next election it is the OAS, USAID [Agency for International Development], and IRI [International Republican Institute] which will be running the show.
"That is the final goal of Washington: to put Haiti under the aegis of the OAS. Gaviria said in Costa Rica that they haven't yet put an embargo on Haiti. Well, if what we have today isn't an embargo, then I don't know what an embargo is. But the next stage, and that is what the Macoutes are waiting for, is a military occupation of Haiti with the aid of the Dominican military to carry out Sankara-style or Kabila-style assassination.
"PPN says to Washington and all the OAS countries: be careful because taking a snake to school is easy but making it sit in a chair is something else. It seems Washington has forgotten what happened in Somalia...
"We also see that the government acted on a 1996 warrant and finally
arrested that big torturer Prosper Avril, shortly after he had gotten together
with all his chums in the Convergence. If the government wants to do away
with impunity and begin to give the people justice, well we have no problem
with that. But if Prosper Avril's arrest is just some kind of vendetta
in the fight with the Convergence, we will see that. Because today they
enforced a 1996 warrant. But we know that just this past December, there
was a warrant for the arrest of Stanley Théard, who is currently
Commerce Minister. The CIMO [a heavily armed police unit] was looking for
him everywhere. So we say to the Justice Minister and the state prosecutor,
in the big basket which has all the warrants, they cannot choose to serve
some and not others, in this little game going on. Justice, as they say,
is blind. So we are waiting to see what their next move will be. They were
looking for Stanley Théard, and he has an outstanding warrant against
him, pursuant to the report of a [1986 Justice Ministry] Investigating
Commission, which said that he embezzled $4.5 million from the public coffers."
Haitian-American
Sworn in as Spring Valley Judge
by Renold Julien*
Margaret Jourdan, a Haitian-American, was sworn in as the village justice of Spring Valley, NY on June 1. She is the first black woman in the history of Rockland County, a New York City suburb, to serve as a village judge.
Ms. Jourdan, 41, took over from Judge Andrew Stoller, who retired on May 30, before the end of his term. In accepting the post, she gave up her seat on the Village Board.
Spring Valley Mayor Allan Thompson, who is now running for re-election, has appointed his running mate Carl Henry Joseph, also a Haitian-American, as Jourdan's successor on the Village Board. Jourdan has been a Spring Valley village trustee since 1997.
Over 100 people, mostly local Haitian leaders, turned out to the Spring Valley Town Hall where Jourdan was sworn in by New York Governor George E. Pataki. Also present at the ceremony was State Senator Thomas Morahan, Ramapo Supervisor Chris St. Lawence, Congressman Benjamin Gilman, Assemblyman Alexander Gromack, and Haiti's Consul General in New York, Thérèse Guilloteau. Judge Jourdan was accompanied by her four daughters, brothers, sister and her mother.
Margaret Jourdan was born in Port-au-Prince and schooled in the United States.
Spring Valley, located 18 miles northwest of New York City, has a population of about 24,000, much of it Haitian since the 1970s.
* The author is the executive director of Konbit Neg Lakay, a Haitian
community organization based in Spring Valley.
*~