This past week, the Washington Post reported that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the Bush administration to send troops to Haiti to “reinforce” the 6500-member U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Annan made the request for American “boots on the ground” to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at U.N. headquarters in Manhattan on Jun. 28, the Post reported.

Many in the Haitian bourgeoisie have accused the U.N. troops - led and dominated by Brazilian, Argentinian, and Chilean contingents - of being ineffective and not repressive enough against rebellious slums in the capital like Belair and Cité Soleil, where resistance to last year’s coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide runs deep.

“We want scarier troops,” one senior U.N. official told the Post.

But Rice had said prior to the meeting with Annan that it would be a “mistake” for the U.S. to buttress its U.N. proxies occupying Haiti, although she offered to encourage Canada and France to do so. Washington is reluctant to commit troops to Haiti because the Pentagon is already facing severe troop shortages for its campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, the Post reported that “U.S. and U.N. officials have begun a series of preliminary discussions about a possible U.S. military role in Haiti, including the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the planned U.N. rapid reaction force, according to senior U.N. diplomats.”

Despite being coy about a U.S. troop deployment, Washington has stepped up its rhetoric against Aristide, whom U.S. Special Forces kidnapped from his home and sent into exile on Feb. 29, 2004. In a Jun. 24 article in the Miami Herald, Roger Noriega, a former aid to arch-conservative senator Jesse Helms and now U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, blamed Aristide for “personally stirring the violence” in Haiti.

“We believe that his people are receiving instructions directly from his voice and indirectly through his acolytes that communicate with him personally in South Africa,” Noriega told the Herald. “Aristide and his camp are singularly responsible for most of the violence and for the concerted nature of the violence.”

Noriega also asked the U.N. occupying force to take a more “proactive role” in repressing anti-coup resistance. He asserted that it was “extraordinarily apparent that Aristide and his gangs are playing a central role in generating violence, and trying to sow insecurity.”

He claimed that Aristide had a 15-year “pattern” of using political violence and that this was just “one last stand to terrorize the Haitian people and deny them good government.”

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James Foley reiterated these themes in his traditional July 4 speech in Haiti. He said that the wave of kidnappings, arson, and other crimes gripping Haiti was the work of “terrorists” who had a “silent political partner participating in an even more illegitimate political project, but basically we know what, and who, it involves.” This was a thinly-veiled allusion to Aristide and his Lavalas Family party (FL).

Foley’s remarks caused certain FL opportunists who have been wheeling and dealing with the putschist government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue to jump. Former FL Sen. Yvon Feuillé felt compelled to declare that the Lavalas Family is “a political party which does not recognize anybody who uses violence to attain their goal, no matter what sector they belong to.” He called on Haitians to “cohabit and reconcile ourselves so that we can lay the conditions to have elections in the country.” Noting that in the past two months eligible voters have shunned getting electoral cards (less than 4% of eligible voters have registered), he then called on Lavalas members to procure their electoral cards “between the Jul. 15 and Aug. 30" so as to “show the whole world that you have electoral cards.”

Mario Dupuy of the FL’s Communications Commission, the party’s leading council, denounced the call, saying that “Yvon Feuillé has confirmed once again, although I had no doubt about it, that he is an integral part of the of the Feb. 29 coup d’état and that he carries responsibility for the population’s blood that is spilled each day.” Dupuy said that “Feuillé and company” - a reference to confederates like former legislators Gérard Gilles and Rudy Hériveaux - were “magouilleurs” (opportunists) and that “the population already knows that it is the majority; it has demonstrated that by staying home and not participating in the mascarade of accepting the false and poisonous electoral card.”

In recent weeks, the National Popular Party (PPN) and several FL-affiliated popular organizations have been circulating a flyer urging Haitians to shun the “electoral card trap” so as “not to play into the hands of the Feb. 29 kidnappers” (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 13, 6/8/2005).

by Anthony Fenton

(Second of three installments)

On Jun. 9, Radio Vision 2000, which is jointly owned by Boulos and Andy Apaid, leader of the anti-Aristide and U.S. backed Group of 184 coalition, blamed “unabated” kidnappings on “bandits.”

“It really seems as if armed bandits will not give Port-au-Prince residents a moment's respite,” the radio opined, “because not a day has gone by without a kidnapping being committed in the capital.”

In a later interview with Haiti’s Radio Métropole, Apaid would characterize the violence and kidnappings as “part of a Lavalas plot to regain control.” Apaid refers to the kidnappings as being carried out in a series of “well coordinated waves.”

“I have no doubt that some sectors are doing this for commercial reasons or things like that,” he said. “But most of the violence that we are undergoing today comes from these people that were armed by the former dictator [Jean-Bertrand Aristide]... It is clear that it is the armed branch of the Lavalas party, the armed sectors of the Lavalas party that are sponsoring the violence for the most part. They are the ones that are sponsoring the kidnapping... The kidnapping is mainly a political instrument aimed at reinforcing this terror and bringing despair and discouragement in order to give better political options. Because there is a plan behind all this... The plan is to entertain such violence that should unseat and put everybody in a state of helplessness and discouragement.”

As the ‘kidnapping scourge” reached a crescendo, the high-level delegation led by [U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger] Noriega along with Canada’s special envoy to Haiti, Denis Coderre, and France’s Daniel Parfait. This visit, premised on a show of “solidarity” with Gérard Latortue by the primary “donor” countries, saw an increase in speculation about U.S. troops being sent in. On the show of support for Latortue, Coderre said: “We are here together to send a strong message: We want the elections to take place in time.”

On Jun. 10, the Miami Herald summarized Noriega’s trip: “Noriega calls for the UN to be more 'proactive' in squelching 'a coordinated campaign of criminality' that is undermining efforts to restore peace to this troubled Caribbean nation.” In an Orwellian moment, Noriega said: “The rights of the vast majority of the Haitian people are being violated by the ones who spread violence . . . It's a deadly destabilization plan...”

Showing how Noriega’s sentiments cater to the business elite, the Herald concluded, “Noriega's comments echoed the sentiments of many Haitians who see the peacekeepers as too passive in the face of an onslaught of kidnappings, carjackings and shootouts.”

On Jun. 14, Haitian National Police [HNP] spokesperson Jessie Coicou announced the creation of a “special intervention unit... to combat kidnappings for ransom.” Coicou attended the Montreal International Conference on Haiti two days later and would subsequently get promoted to inspector-general of the HNP on Jun. 22. Coicou also announced the arrests of several individuals in relation to kidnappings, including at least one Haitian police officer and someone supposed to be affiliated with Aristide, who was allegedly “caught while distributing money in Bel-Air to maintain the climate of violence.” After weeks of presuming the guilt of Aristide supporters, the government had finally taken what seemed to be a concrete measure to substantiate any of the claims.

Coicou’s announcements were well-timed to coincide with the conference in Montreal, where security in advance of the October elections was a central topic of discussion. Two days before the conference, the AP speculated that kidnappings and other violence could “undermine” the election process.

During a Jun. 12 interview with virulently anti-Aristide reporter Nancy Roc, Denis Coderre feigned sympathy for the kidnap victims: “I would like to offer my condolences to all the victims of kidnapping,” Coderre intoned. Roc herself fled the country just days later in the face of alleged kidnapping threats against her. The NED-funded pseudo-human rights organization Reporters Without Borders [RSF] would quickly come to her defense, and took a swipe at the exiled Aristide in the process, writing that Roc “blamed the threats on drug-traffickers, linked, she believes, to the Fanmi Lavalas, militias that support ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”

Interestingly, RSF notes how Roc’s employer at Radio Métropole, Richard Widmaier, escaped a kidnapping attempt on Jun. 11. RSF neglected to mention Widmaier’s opinion on the kidnappings, captured in the Miami Herald on Jun. 23: “We have a situation here that is more similar to what you see happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's terrorism... You have guys who pretend to be supporters of former President Aristide, attacking people in the streets, burning cars and kidnapping people.”

An unidentified speaker on a Jun. 15 Haitian Signal Radio broadcast referred to “a very organized sector” that is executing the kidnappings. This was echoed in a Jun. 20 Agence Haitienne Presse (AHP) article, citing a radio director from Quebec, that “the kidnappers are well-organized gangs, formed, among other things, by Haitians who lived in Quebec and in the United States and who were expelled because of their criminal activities. White people living in Haiti could also be part of these criminal gangs.” Signal Radio also warned of an “exodus” of Haitians fleeing the kidnappings and other insecurity.

On the official policy side, where examples of the kidnappings being used as a pretext to increase repression are slightly more transparent, we can turn to Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who addressed the topic of kidnappings, to fellow “trustees,” in Montreal on Jun. 16. “The recent wave of abductions in Port-au-Prince is especially troubling,” he said. “This climate of violence must change in anticipation of the fall elections...Port-au-Prince, where most of the violence has occurred, must be secured. We must study with utmost care the possibility of augmenting military and police contingents...Maintaining security, in addition to having benefits for Haiti's people, is necessary for the holding of free, transparent and democratic elections this fall.”

In a special parliamentary hearing on Haiti on Jun. 14, Pettigrew and Coderre were called upon to discuss human rights in Haiti with other parliamentarians. Coderre must have picked up some counterinsurgency lingo from his friend Noriega, which he deployed in the meeting, volunteering the profound analysis that there is an “urban strategy to try to destabilize the situation.”

Deflecting questions raised by NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough, Pettigrew referred to the kidnappings to illustrate his point about the danger of looking at things in a one-sided way: “When we had the kidnapping of the Canadian women, the Montreal women, two days ago, I had been the first to say that there were security concerns, so I'm not saying that raising them.... I'm talking about absolutism. I'm talking about taking only that part of the picture and focusing on it plays into the extreme elements of [Lavalas] which don't want the rest of the picture... Certainly I think it's our duty as members of Parliament, and for us as the government, to make Canadians well aware of the situation, so that they don't set their foot into a reality that they're not aware of.”

Rather than raise a question that drew from the independent and meticulously documented human rights report by Thomas Griffin of the University of Miami, which the Canadian government and Pettigrew specifically have dismissed without counter argument, slurring it as “propaganda,” McDonough based her question on the most recent International Crisis Group report (ICG), released on Jun. 1. Partially funded by the Canadian government, the ICG report has, in theory, a far greater influence on policy than the numerous independent reports on Haiti. Interestingly, the ICG report is much clearer than Pettigrew or Coderre on the possibilities of transitional government and international complicity in the crime wave, kidnappings, and drug trafficking.

Where the ICG does mention “factions sympathetic to Aristide” as among the “powerful spoilers” who have “much to gain” from insecurity and violence, they also refer to “elements of the business elite, drug traffickers, or other criminal organizations” as having “an interest in delaying elections.”

“Powerful people” have an “overarching long-term objective,” which is to “prevent the creation and development of solid and effective state institutions which would reduce or halt their current activities.”

“Groups linked to criminal activities, particularly drug-trafficking and contraband (in Haiti and abroad) are behind much of the current wave of violence.”

Noting that “the HNP and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have arrested many individuals linked to Fanmi Lavalas,” the ICG emphasizes that “only suspects believed to be close to Lavalas have been detained in combined HNP/DEA operations.” They continue:

“The perceived inaction of international law enforcement agencies with regard to the transitional government has led many in Haiti to believe that their actions are driven in part by political or strategic reasons. The roles of U.S. agencies such as the DEA and CIA, therefore, continue to be controversial.”

Faced with McDonough’s question, Pettigrew deferred to Coderre. Before addressing the ICG report, Coderre, knowing that human rights activists had met recently with Alexa McDonough, was quick to define his position on independent reports, characterizing them as “propaganda reports,” which he also claimed are lying. Coderre presented no evidence and refused to address any of the facts, interviews, photographs, or other damning context, in these so-called “propaganda reports.”

He called the University of Miami report, which he and dozens of members of Parliament have been presented, “disgusting.” He cited allegations of Canadian police misconduct as “baloney.” Turning to the ICG report, Coderre changed his tune: “a lot of the report is good,” he said, and “we should provide some credibility” to it. Coderre seems to believe that “credibility” can come only from the Canadian government or, presumably, Washington, and not from the evidence itself, which he ignores.

While it is unlikely that Coderre himself understands this, aspects of the ICG report are, indeed, credible. Youri Latortue's career confirms a number of the report’s assertions about the Haitian government's involvement in kidnapping and insecurity. There is, however, much missing from the ICG report: Specifically, the extent to which the US/Canada/French-backed regime is involved in kidnapping, drug smuggling, massacre, and arms trafficking. All this, too, is illustrated by focusing on Youri Latortue.

To be continued