Haiti’s new president is a friend of
coup-plotters, fascists, and armed
right-wing groups in his country
and abroad
by Greg Grandin
Second of two parts
(First published by Al Jazeera)
Obama’s push Despite all of Martelly’s
documented troublesome statements and associations, the Obama
administration went to great lengths to ensure that he wound up
running in the election’s second round. Official results in the disputed
first round initially had the
government-supported candidate,
Jude Celestin, placed second, with
Martelly close behind in third. Martelly’s
campaign alleged widespread
fraud and other irregularities. True
enough, but it was not clear that the
net fraud went against him. When
an Organization of American States
“expert” mission was sent in to determine
the actual runner-up, they
selected Martelly by recounting
only a sample of the ballots, without
using any statistical inference.
The 234 tally sheets that they disqualified turned out to be from areas
where Celestin had strong support.
Six of the seven members of
the OAS mission were from the US,
Canada, and France - that is, the
countries that supported the 2004
coup against Aristide. When questioned
by independent experts from
the Centre for Economic and Policy
Research (who actually counted
all the voter tally sheets in their
independent election report), the
mission could not explain its methodology. In fact, the mission’s chief statistical
expert - US statistician Fritz
Scheuren - admitted that the OAS
mission had no statistical basis for
its recommendation: to replace Celestin
with Martelly. Observers noted
that it was also highly unusual
- perhaps unprecedented - for an
election to be overturned without a
full recount. But that is exactly what happened.
The Obama administration
insisted that Haiti’s electoral authorities
accept the OAS mission’s
conclusions and put Martelly on
the ballot. Hillary Clinton made a
surprise trip to Haiti - in the midst
of the Egypt uprising - just for this
purpose. Preval was threatened
with a cut off of US aid and even
with being fl own out of the country
before his term was up - ala Aristide
in 2004 - to pressure him to
weigh in with the electoral council
- even though the council, by law,
is supposed to be independent. Ultimately, the council never
achieved a majority of members to
support putting Martelly on the ballot.
But the council’s spokesperson
publicly stated that it had, and the
election proceeded - with Martelly
running instead of Celestin - with
legal experts unsure whether the
election would have any legal validity. In short, the US government
got its way. Following the deeply
flawed first round of elections,
Martelly supporters launched violent
protests, sometimes attacking
other candidates’ partisans. By the
time they were over, five people
had been killed in the riots. Other
disturbing incidents persisted even
after Martelly was selected for the
runoff ballot. On March 8, for example,
three campaign workers
for Martelly’s opponent, Mirlande
Manigat, were found murdered,
their bodies mutilated in apparent
signs of torture. The killers remain
unknown, as does the motive. Martelly and the army To many observers, the violence
seemed well-orchestrated, and
Martelly conspicuously did or said
little to attempt to reign in his raging
supporters. Journalist Kim Ives has
noted that, during the campaign,
Martelly began organizing something
that looked familiar to the old
system of Tonton Macoute “volunteers”. “For $30, before the election,
potential voters could join the Base
Michel Joseph Martelly,” writes Ives,
“and invest in a pink plastic membership
card, with photo, which
promises many advantages (such
as a job, say) when the Martelly
administration comes to power.”
As Ives notes, during the Duvalier
period, “every Macoute received
a card that afforded him
many privileges, like free merchandise
from any store he entered, entitlement
to coerced sex, and fear
and respect from people in general.” The Macoutes became one
of the most notorious death squads
to wage terror in the region during
the Cold War - no small accomplishment. Considering this history, one
proposal Martelly made on the campaign
trail is especially alarming.
He has promised to reconstitute the
Haitian army, which Aristide disbanded
over fifteen years ago.
The modern Haitian army
was notoriously bloodthirsty. Established
by the US military during
its 1915-1934 occupation of Haiti,
the army has long been denounced
as a prolific human rights abuser.
Since its 1995 disbanding - following
overwhelming support for the
measure in a popular poll - its “veterans”
(including suspected narcotrafficker, Guy Philippe, and Louis
Jodel Chamblain - head of security
for Duvalier since his surprise return
in January) have played a prominent
role in the country’s violent
right-wing. They were involved in
overthrowing Aristide in 2004 and,
in the past, have also engaged in
occasional attacks on police stations,
pro-Fanmi Lavalas communities,
and even the presidential palace
-- sometimes wearing their old
uniforms. When the death squad
named the Front for the Advancement
of the Haitian People terrorized
the Lavalas support base following
Aristide’s 1991 ousting, it too was
headed up by former soldiers -- who
were also funded by the CIA. The Associated Press visited
one would-be “army” camp just
weeks before the second round of
elections, encountering men there
who proudly acknowledged their
role in the 2004 coup. Some had
served in the military during Aristide’s
first exile, when the army
ruled Haiti, killing and raping thousands.
The AP called it “a tableaux
of the pro-military fringe right, a
looming presence in Haiti.” Some of these “soldiers” and
“officers”-in-waiting told freelance
journalists just a few weeks later
that Martelly had visited their camp
during his campaign - certainly an
ominous sign of things to come.
In the past, Martelly has made
other worrying statements. He has
said that, “Haiti needs a Fujimori-style
solution” - a reference to Peruvian
president Alberto Fujimori’s
power grab, when he dissolved
Congress - and called for the outlawing
of “all strikes and demonstrations”
- something his backers
in Washington would undoubtedly
welcome. Greg Grandin is a professor of
history at New York University and
a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. He is the
author of a number of prize-winning
books, including most recently,
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of
Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
(Metropolitan 2009), which was
a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in
History, as well as for the National
Book Award and the National Book
Critics Circle Award. |