[Previous entry: "Life After Racism"] [Next entry: "Even a Tyrant is Entitled to Due Process"]

07/09/2004:

"Haiti in Chains"

The Black Commentator
Haiti is a prison ruled by psychopaths, an angry wound in the body of the African Diaspora inflicted by pirates at war with civilization, itself.  It is the festering evidence of the Bush men’s true intentions for the region and hemisphere, a nightmare and a warning from the North to the South: don’t even pretend that you are free.

Since February 29, when the United States and France forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife into an odyssey of exile, Haiti has endured the dictatorship of an elite so tiny and morally depraved that its survival is dependent on indigenous criminals and foreign soldiers. The U.S.-installed government of Gerard Latortue – a rabble fronting for butchers and thieves – now seeks legitimacy in the ranks of the Caribbean Community, Caricom, the 15-nation regional body from which Latortue recklessly withdrew in the aftermath of the coup.

At a summit meeting this week in Grenada, Caricom’s leaders withheld recognition of the Haitian Gangster State, opting instead to send a delegation to explore restoration of relations in the future. According to reports earlier in the week, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and the Bahamas pressed for immediate recognition of Latortue’s regime, while a smaller bloc, led by St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralf Gonsalves, sought to ostracize the U.S. puppet.

"The Heads or no group of Heads can go and meet Latortue, and, if they go, they would not be representing me," said Gonsalves. "Latortue was installed by the Americans, you do not have democracy in Haiti today and there is no level playing field, therefore whoever wants to recognize Haiti can, but the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will not recognize the Latortue administration."

The final compromise calls for Haitian readmission to Caricom based on certain “conditionalities,” including an early return to a constitutional government in Haiti, establishment of a bi-partisan electoral council for competitive local, national and presidential elections, and the disarming of armed bands.

Every Caribbean leader knows that the Latortue regime cannot possibly adhere to such conditions, since it is in a state of war with the majority of Haiti’s people – the mass constituency that chose Aristide as their President under the Lavalas party umbrella. Caricom’s face-saving formula seeks to preserve the dignity of the organization while allowing member states to attempt to make their peace with the United States – the overwhelming presence at the Grenada meeting. Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson was ready to compromise, having borne the full fury of U.S. wrath at his decision to temporarily harbor Aristide after his release from the Central African Republic. full article