|
 Upon returning from his three
day trip to the U.S. last week,
President-elect Joseph Michel Martelly
summarized the different meetings
he had during a press conference
last Tuesday, Apr. 26. In his presentation, Martelly
contradicted statements he had
made only shortly ago, such as
about the Haitian Army’s restoration.
“On the matter of the country’s
security, when journalists asked us,
we said that we were going to establish
a force which will be called
the Nation of Haiti’s Territorial Defense
Force,” Martelly said. “It could
cost between $10 to $15 million as
opposed to the MINUSTAH [U.N.
Mission to Stabilize Haiti] which
costs $864 million. We all know
that MINUSTAH was supposed to
be something provisional, isn’t it?” However, just a week earlier,
Martelly had said that he wanted to
create a “modern army.” “We need a modern army,
with a solid corps of military engineers,
ready to respond to natural
disasters,” he said. “MINUSTAH’s
presence on Haitian soil means
there is a need to create a force to
keep peace, unless we want to propose
that MINUSTAH remains forever.” U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth
Merten said on Radio Métropole
on Apr. 27, that the question of
re-mobilizing the Haitian army was
not raised at Martelly’s meeting in
Washington, DC with U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton. In any case, Haiti’s new president,
who will take office on May
14, has made it clear that he aims
to restore the Haitian Army, which
repressed and committed many
atrocities against the Haitian people
during the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship. The idea of reconstituting the
Army has been met with protest in
different parts of the country. Around
the capital and its surrounding regions,
one sees graffiti which reads
“Down with the Ninja Army!”, a
reference to the paramilitary corps of
bourgeois who theatrically dressed
as black-masked Ninjas to terrorize
the Haitian people during the 1991-
1994 coup, which Martelly supported.
Other graffiti reads: “Down
with the bone-breaking (kraze zo)
Army! Down with the subservient
(restavek) Army! Down with the
suck-butt (sousou) Army! Down
with the bourgeois Army!” These slogans indicate that the
population would not be hostile to
a revolutionary army which would
protect the country against foreign
invaders like the U.S. which has
intervened and militarily occupied
Haiti three times in the past century.
Instead, the Army which Martelly
proposes would be an extension of
the foreign occupation troops, like
the Haitian National Guard set up
by U.S. Marines as a proxy force to
guard U.S. interests after their withdrawal
from Haiti in 1934 after 19
years of occupation. Progressive popular organizations
which have opposed both
MINUSTAH’s occupation and the
Haitian Army’s restoration say they
are preparing to sponsor debates
and teach-ins to educate the public
about the true purpose of the project
to bolster the repressive state apparatus
which will only be used to
enforce the ruling class’ exploitation
and repression of the masses.
Meanwhile, during his meetings
in Washington with heads of
international financial institutions,
Martelly said he asked for loans for
economic recovery to remove the
Haitian people from poverty. He
stated naively that Haiti falls in the
category of “insolvent” countries
receiving far more donations than
loans. “At the InterAmerican Development
Bank and the World Bank,
we spoke of the need to restructure
how the aid comes into the country,”
Martelly said. “We also spoke
about the need for Haiti to be able
to borrow more than the $200 million
that they give us each year.
That little bit of money is good,
but it’s not enough to get us out of
where we are. There is no country
on earth which can construct its
infrastructure which will allow the
economy to take off if it doesn’t
have the possibility of borrowing
money. We insisted on this a lot.” The Haitian economist Camille
Chalmers does not share Martelly’s
fantasies about Haiti’s debt and economic
recovery. For PAPDA’s Executive
Director, Haiti is not insolvent.
Haiti continues to service its debts
despite its disastrous situation after
the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.
Most loans are tied to requirements
by financial institutions as part of
an economic policy of domination.
“International financial institutions
are more interested in lending
money than the country requesting
a loan,” Chalmers explained. “The
logic is to use loans to put pressure
on political leaders to force them
to take actions that enhance the
penetration of multinationals, the
country’s dependence and control of
its strategic resources, and privatization
of public enterprises. One
must not get it in their head that
the loans are given to create development
to combat poverty. They
are given according imperialism’s
and its transnational corporations’
agenda for global domination.” At the press conference, Martelly
also spoke of “changing the
system.” What “system” is he talking
about? “I campaigned to change
the system and I guarantee that we
will do everything to change this
system which, for over three decades,
has impeded progress,” he
said. He talks about some sort of
systemic change, but his words are
completely empty of content, especially
when he, at the same time,
advocates restoring the Haitian
army which perpetuated the established
“system” for decades. Some say the “change of system”
of which Martelly speaks is
simply the transfer of political power
from below upwards. Martelly also met with the UN
Secretary General’s representative in
Haiti and head of the MINUSTAH,
Edmond Mulet, on Apr. 27 at MINUSTAH’s
headquarters in Pacot.
The objective of this meeting, supposedly,
was for Martelly to have
a better understanding of the UN
mission. Martelly said he used this
meeting to share his incoming government’s
road-maps for strengthening
the rule of law and security,
particularly strengthening the capacity
of the Haitian National Police
(PNH) and re-establishing the Haitian
armed forces. Other important issues reportedly
raised by Martelly included reviving
the economy, the current political
situation, including the issue
of disputed elected officials in the
second round, the next parliamentary
elections, local elections of 2011,
the constitutional amendments in
progress, and the relocation of the
earthquake victims, who are still living
in tents. For his part, Edmond Mulet
claimed that MINUSTAH’s main
mission is to help guarantee a certain
level of stability and security in
the country, which was important
to attract international investment,
to establish the rule of law, and to
“correct the institutional weaknesses.”
But over the seven years
that MINUSTAH has been in Haiti,
the Haitian people’s political, economic,
and social security has never
improved. It tends to get worse every
day. Clearly, Martelly’s statements
about “changing the system” appear
to be simple demagogy, especially
when he is proposing to reinstate
the Army. Systemic change
would require a complete break
with a mode of production and relations
of production that have existed
in Haiti since its independence
in 1804. It would mean addressing
the on-going struggle between large
landowners (Grandon) and small
farmers, between bourgeois bosses
and their workers, between exploiters
and exploited, between the dominant
and the dominated. The illegal, U.S.-orchestrated
way Martelly came to power and his
background of supporting anti-democratic
coups both strongly suggest
that the “change” he might bring
will not benefit the masses. It will
more surely be an attempt to rollback
the people’s gains since 1986.
After all, Martelly has declared that
Haiti “has been on the wrong path
for the past 25 years,” which was
when the Duvalier dictatorship fell.
Is it a coincidence that Martelly
looks forward to having recently returned
dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier
as one of his advisers? What kind of
“change to the system” will Duvalier
suggest to his protégé? |
