In Haiti, Powell Reassures Interim Leaders

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53014-2004Apr5.html

In Haiti, Powell Reassures Interim Leaders

By George Gedda
Associated Press
Tuesday, April 6, 2004; Page A14


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 5 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell gave assurances Monday of full U.S. support for Haiti's interim government but said politically motivated private armies should lay down their weapons.
<snip>


Caribbean leaders have refused to participate in the U.S.-led international force, angry that the U.N. Security Council refused their urgent plea to send troops in time to save Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader.

Powell rejected proposals by some of Haiti's Caribbean neighbors for an inquiry into the circumstances of Aristide's sudden departure five weeks ago. They alleged the United States coerced Aristide into leaving.

"I don't think any purpose would be served by such an inquiry," Powell said. "Haiti was on the verge of a total security collapse."



..more..

André “Andy” Apaid, Jr.,




Last December, after a powwow with the International Republican Institute in Santo Domingo, the Haitian opposition returned to Port-au-Prince to establish the “Group of 184,” a supposedly broad front of “civil society” organizations modeled on similar anti-government coalitions in Chavez’s Venezuela and Allende’s Chile.

The head of the “184" today is André “Andy” Apaid, Jr., also head of Alpha Industries, one of the oldest and largest assembly factories in Haiti.

On Nov. 11, Haiti’s Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert confirmed that Apaid is indeed a U.S. citizen, a rumor which had been circulating since the industrialist’s emergence on the political scene. According to Privert, Apaid was born to Haitian parents in the U.S. and came to Haiti in 1976 as a foreign businessman on a visitor’s visa.

After five years, any foreigner can obtain Haitian nationality by naturalization under the Constitution’s Article 12, but “Andy” Apaid has never done this, according to the government.

Andy is following in the political footsteps of his father. As founder of Alpha Sewing in the 1970s, André senior was a close to dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and remains “a notorious Duvalierist,” according to Eric Verhoogen in the Multinational Monitor (April 1996). Apaid senior headed up the “civil society” (read: bourgeoisie) campaign to support the 1991-1994 military coup against President Aristide, which successfully eased U.S. sanctions on the export of goods from Haiti’s assembly sweat-shops.

“When asked at a business conference in Miami soon after the coup in 1991 what he would do if President Aristide returned to Haiti, Apaid replied vehemently, ‘I’d strangle him!’” Verhoogen wrote. “At the time, Apaid was heading up the United States Agency for International Develop-ment’s (USAID’s) PROMINEX business promotion project, a $12.7 million program to encourage U.S. and Canadian firms to move their businesses to Haiti.”

http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html


ANDY APAID JR.:

The most outspoken leader of the opposition coalition, Apaid is a factory owner born in the United States. His family fled Haiti under Francois Duvalier, or "Papa Doc," who ruled from 1957 to 1971.

Favoring pressed pastel shirts and gold-rimmed glasses, Apaid looks like a Miami businessman but says he is totally Haitian at heart.

"I am just as much a part of this country as anyone," Apaid, in his early 50s, said recently. "That's why I am saying we must choose another path for the country."

But without a constitutional amendment, he will never become president because of his dual nationality. He has rejected the U.S.-backed settlement plan, saying Aristide must leave office.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0204/26haitiwho.html

The most outspoken leader of the opposition coalition, Andre (Andy) Apaid is a factory owner born in the United States. His family fled Haiti under Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled from 1957 to 1971.

Favoring pressed pastel shirts and gold-rimmed glasses, Apaid looks like a Miami businessman but says he is totally Haitian at heart.

"I am just as much a part of this country as anyone," Apaid, in his early 50s, said recently. "That's why I am saying we must choose another path for the country."

But without a constitutional amendment, he will never become president because of his dual nationality.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/01/Worldandnation/Key_figures_in_Haiti_ ...

The Washington-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front and the Haitian bourgeoisie’s “Group of 184” civil society front (G184), led by a U.S. citizen and sweatshop magnate André “Andy” Apaid, Jr. (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 21, No. 35, 11/12/03), have been quick to embrace, foment and urge on the student demonstrations.

So on Dec. 11, about 10,000 students, with the G184 and Democratic Convergence leaders in tow, marched through the streets of the capital. (Bourgeois radio stations inflated the demonstration up to 5 fold). On hand were Apaid, former Haitian Army colonel Himmler Rébu, Convergence leader Evans Paul, writer Gary Victor, the head of the Civil Society Initiative (ISC) Rosny Desroches, and dissident Lavalas senators Prince Sonson Pierre and Dany Toussaint. Later that day on Radio Kiskeya, Toussaint virtually called for a coup by saying that the “international community” was reluctant to remove Aristide from power only because they feared anarchy would result. But, he reassured them, he could “restore order within 48 hours” due to his connections in the police and former army.

http://www.haiti-progres.com/2003/sm031217/eng12-17.html
The Haitian Media: A Mouthpiece for Elites

The media outlets in Haiti will report any falsehood that has the effect of demonizing Aristide and his supporters. For example, when the "rebels" were surrounding the capital of Port-au-Prince, the radio was reporting that Aristide had fled days before he had actually left the country. This was an attempt to demoralize Aristide supporters who were preparing to resist the thugs. More recently, Guy Philippe told a mob of his supporters he had discovered small coffins which contained dead babies. He said President Aristide had sacrificed the babies in a "black voodoo ceremony." Haitian radio reported the story as a fact.

Andre "Andy" Apaid, the spokesman of the leading anti-Aristide group (Group 184), is the founder of Tele-Haiti. Tele-Haiti and the various radio stations owned by the ruling elite frequently air commercials inciting Haitians to overthrow the government. Apaid isn't even a Haitian citizen; he is an American citizen who owns sweatshops in Haiti. He is notorious for evading his taxes, supporting the Duvalier dictatorship, and forcing union organizers off his property at gunpoint. Working conditions in Haitian sweatshops are absolutely brutal. An employee for a subcontractor of Cintas, an American corporation, describes her working conditions: "They lock the gates on us and sometimes put security guards out in front with rifles to prevent us from leaving. The supervisors would yell and curse at us to finish our quota. My daily quota is sewing 90 dozen zippers on pants for 80 gourds (~$2 USD) . . . The factory gets so hot it is like working in fire. Inside the air is so hot and full of dust that I can't breathe, so I would put my handkerchief around my nose and continue working."

Thanks in part to Haitians being worked like beasts of burden, Cintas scored $234 million in profits in 2002. It is no wonder wealthy elites like Andy Apaid and those who own the Cintas subcontractors have no love for President Aristide. Aristide's administration has increased tax collection and doubled the minimum wage, an action that some say was "the straw that broke the camel's back" in the minds of Haiti's elite. To put it simply, Aristide worked to give Haiti's poor a bigger slice of the already very small economic pie, and that was unacceptable. It also flies in the face of the popular notion in the media that Aristide didn't accomplish anything while in office. Most reports will say something to the effect of "People hoped Aristide would bring them out of poverty, but today Haiti is more poor than ever." The New York Times referred disparagingly to "the mess left behind." Statements like this seem to carry the assumption that Aristide is personally responsible for Haiti's economic fate, which is frankly ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the notion that Aristide has attempted nothing to improve the country's problems. People who say such things are not doing their homework. In order to understand why Haiti is so poor, one must first understand Haiti's history and the impact that racism and colonialism have had on the island nation.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Felux0314.htm

Haiti sweatshops: Your taxes at work
by Julia Lutsky
This article was reprinted from the March 23, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.


No matter where you turn these days, the Walt Disney Company is already there telling you just what you and your children need most: T-shirts, pajamas, plastic sunglasses, all adorned with Mickey Mouse, Pocahantas and other Walt Disney logos.

If you suspect Disney might be making a tidy profit, a recent report confirms this beyond your wildest imagination. Take, for example, the Pocahantas pajamas you see at Wal- Mart for $11.97. They are made by workers at L.V. Miles, an assembly plant in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. L.V. Miles, under contract to the Walt Disney Company, pays each worker about $3.33 a day.

In one day, then, 20 workers earn $66.60, and together they produce 1,000 pairs of pajamas. That is $11,970 worth of pajamas for $66.60. Less than seven cents per pair goes to pay the workers who produced it. And the remaining $11.90? Disney CEO Michael Eisner was paid $203 million in salary and stock options in 1993.

A recent report, "The U.S. in Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 cents an Hour," says, "If a Haitian minimum wage worker worked full-time, six days a week, sewing clothes for Disney, it would take her approximately 1,040 years to earn what Michael Eisner earned on one day in 1993," and notes that although L.V. Miles pays the minimum wage, it further subcontracts work to shops that pay even less.

The report was written by Eric Verhoogen, a labor researcher for the National Labor Committee (NLC), a human rights group funded primarily by labor unions. When he traveled to Haiti in August of last year, Verhoogen visited a sample of the approximately 50 assembly plants operating in the country and found contractors producing everything from Pocahantas pajamas to industrial gloves for U.S. companies like Wal- Mart, JC Penney and K-Mart.

http://www.pww.org/archives96/96-03-23-2.html

not enough attention is being payed to this.

Washington, D.C.: It is my understanding that, by not supporting Aristide in Haiti, the U.S. is in violation of a treaty requiring all Western Hemisphere democracies to support each other in the event of the coup attempt. Has the White House stated an opinion on this? It would seem to me that we have effectively gutted any such document and effectively weakened all other unpopular democractically elected officials in South America.

In addition, I find it an interesting stance for this White House to take. Now we are effectively in the business of judging how "good" an elected leader is and not focusing on the "elected" part. This seems like it probably involves much "nuance." I also am somewhat disconcerted that the U.S. posture here downplays the importance of democracy. Promoting open and free democracies has been out foreign policy for decades. While Aristide may have been ineffective and corrupt, he was fairly elected, correct? Do you think this shift, as seen in our response in Haiti and our continued support of Marshariff, are signs of a long term shift away for a "Democracy or Bust" attitude?

Peter Slevin: You make a good point. There is, indeed, a document on democracy in the hemisphere that the Bush administration endorsed. The fact that the United States, in the person of Secretary of State Powell, gave a push to Aristide, has not gone down well among other countries in the neighborhood.

The 15-nation Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, refused to send police or peacekeeping troops, in protest.

The larger picture you mention? Foreign policy is idiosyncratic; always has been. Aristide was democratically elected, but the Bush administration was prepared to let him be driven out by the armed rebels and unbudging political opposition.

Powell has told aides that he saw no other way forward for Haiti.

It provides another intriguing case study in the ongoing effort to evaluate democracy and how the Bush administration understands it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A34428-2004Mar5¬Found=true

HAITI -- (Senate - March 02, 2004)


GPO's PDF
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Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to address, if I may, the subject matter of Haiti and the events that have occurred there over the last several days, now going back a week or more, in that country, that beleaguered nation only a few hundred miles off the southern coast of Florida.

On Sunday morning, as we now all know, the democratically elected government, the President of Haiti, was forced out of office. The armed insurrection, led by former members of the disbanded Haitian Army, and its paramilitary wing called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide government to maintain public order, without assistance from the international community--international assistance that was consciously withheld, in my view.

President Aristide left Haiti on Sunday morning aboard an American aircraft. President Aristide reportedly has

GPO's PDF
gone into exile in the Central African Republic, where I am now being told he is not allowed to communicate with others outside of that country.
Members of the Black Caucus of the other body, and others who had an opportunity to speak with President Aristide yesterday, have publicly restated his claim that he was forcibly removed from Haiti by U.S. officials.

I quickly point out that Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have emphatically denied that charge. Such an allegation, if true, is extremely troubling and would be a gross violation of the laws of the U.S. and international law. Only time will tell. I presume there will be a thorough investigation to determine exactly what occurred from late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, regarding the departure and ouster of the President of Haiti, President Aristide.

Over the coming days, I believe an effort should be made to reconstruct what happened in the final 24 or 48 hours leading up to President Aristide's departure so we can resolve questions of the U.S. participation in the ouster of a democratically elected leader in this hemisphere.

Let's be clear that whether U.S. officials forcibly removed Aristide from Haiti, as he has charged, or he left voluntarily, as Secretary of Powell and others have stated, it is indisputable, based on everything we know, that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the United States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who are threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a voluntary decision to leave.

I will point out as well, if I can--and I know that international agreements are not always thought of as being terribly important in some people's minds. But in 1991, President Bush, the 41st President, along with other nations in this hemisphere, had signed the Santiago Declaration of 1991. That declaration, authored by the Organization of American States, said that any nation, democratically elected in this hemisphere, that seeks the help of others when they are threatened with an overthrow should be able to get that support.

Ten years later, the Inter-American Charter on Democracy was signed into law, a far more comprehensive proposal, again authored by the Organization of American States, the U.S. supporting. The present President Bush and our administration supported that. That charter on democracy stated that when asked for help by a democratically elected government being threatened with overthrow, we should respond.

President Aristide, a democratically elected President made that request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance, in fact we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for him to depart.

I cite those international agreements because we think of our Nation as being a nation of laws, not of men. These agreements either meant something or they didn't. The Santiago Declaration and the Inter-American Charter on Democracy, apparently both documents mean little or nothing when it comes to supporting democratically elected governments in this hemisphere--not ones that you necessarily like or agree with or find everything they do is in your interest, but we do adhere to the notion that democratically elected governments are what we support in this hemisphere.

When they are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity, in the very country they are now moving back

into and threatened, of course, successfully the elected government of President Aristide, then I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these international documents signed only 3 years ago and 10 years ago.

There is no doubt, I add, that President Aristide has made significant mistakes during his 3 years in office--these last 3 years. He allowed his supporters to use violence as a means of controlling a growing opposition movement against his government. The Haitian police were ill trained and ill equipped to maintain public order in the face of violent demonstrations by progovernment and antigovernment activists. Poverty, desperation, and opportunism led to wide government corruption.

President Aristide, in my view, must assume responsibility for these things. But did the cumulative effect of these failures amount to a decision that we thought we could no longer support this democratically elected government? If that becomes the standard in this hemisphere, we are going to find ourselves sitting by and watching one democratically elected government after another fall to those that breed chaos and remove governments with which they don't agree. They are being told by the Bush administration now that the Haitian Government was a government of failed leadership. That is a whole new standard when it comes to engaging in the kind of activity we have seen over the last several days.

Having been critical of President Aristide, I point out that he was elected twice overwhelmingly in his country. He was thrown out of office in a coup in the early 1990s. Through the efforts of the U.S. Government and others, he was brought back to power in Haiti. Then he gave up power when the government of President Preval was elected. During those 4 years, President Aristide supported that transitional government. He ran again himself, as the Haitian Constitution allowed, and was elected overwhelmingly again, despite the fact the opposition posed little or no efforts to stand against him.

There was a very bad election that occurred in the spring of 2000, in which eight members of the Haitian Senate were elected by fraud. Those Senators were removed from office. Six months later, President Aristide was elected overwhelmingly again. It is the first time I know of in the 200-year history of Haiti as an independent nation where a President turned over power transitionally peacefully to another democratically elected government. Whatever other complaints there are--and they are not illegitimate about the Aristide government--there was a peaceful transition of democratically elected governments in Haiti. That never, ever happened before. What has happened there repeatedly is one coup after another--33 over the 200-year history of that nation.

Whatever shortcomings they may have had, President Aristide provided for the first time in Haiti's history a democratically elected government transitioning power to other people peacefully. I will also point out that he abolished the military and the army, an institution that did nothing but drain the feeble economy of Haiti of necessary resources.

Haiti did not have a need for an army. There were no threats to Haiti. In retrospect, he may regret that. But the army, in my view, was a waste of money in Haiti, served no legitimate purpose, and President Aristide should be

commended for abolishing an institution that had been the source of constant corruption and difficulty on that nation.

Blame for the chaos does not rest solely on the shoulders of President Aristide. The so-called democratic opposition bears a share of the responsibility for the death and destruction that has wreaked havoc throughout Haiti over the past several weeks.

The members of CARICOM, with U.S. backing, put on the table a plan calling for the establishment of a unity government to defuse the political crisis. The opposition rejected this proposal on three different occasions, despite the fact that President Aristide said he was willing to have a government of unity, to give up power, to share governmental functions with the opposition. The opposition said no on three different occasions, despite the fact that the nations of the Caribbean region urged the opposition to avoid the kind of transition that we have seen over the last several days.

A hundred or more Haitians already have lost their lives. Property damage may be in the millions. Given the direct role the U.S. played in the removal of the Aristide government, it is now President Bush's responsibility, in my view, and moral obligation to take charge of this situation. That means more than sending a couple hundred marines for 90 days or so into Haiti. Rather, it means a sustained commitment of personnel and resources for the

GPO's PDF
foreseeable future by the U.S. and other members of the international community that called for the removal of the elected government.
If the Bush administration and others inside and outside of Haiti had been at all concerned over the last 3 weeks about the fate of the Haitian people, perhaps the situation would not have deteriorated into near anarchy, nor would the obligation of the U.S. to clean up this mess now loom so large.

We are now reaping what we have sown. Three years of a hands-off policy left Haiti unstable, with a power vacuum that will be filled in one way or another. Will that vacuum be filled by individuals such as Guy Philippe, a former member of the disbanded Haitian Army, a notorious human rights abuser and drug trafficker, or is the administration prepared to take action against him and his followers, based upon a long record of criminal behavior?

It is rather amazing to this Senator that the administration has said little or nothing about its plans for cracking down on the armed thugs who have terrorized Haiti since February 5.

Only with careful attention by the United States and the international community does Haiti have a fighting chance to break from its tragic history. In the best of circumstances, it is never easy to build and nurture democratic institutions where they are weak and nonexistent. When ignorance, intolerance, and poverty are part of the very fabric of a nation, as is the case in Haiti, it is Herculean.

Given the mentality of the political elites in Haiti--one of winner take all--I, frankly, believe it is going to be extremely difficult to form a unity government that has any likelihood of being able to govern for any period of time without resorting to repressive measures against those who have been excluded from the process.

It brings me no pleasure to say at this juncture that Haiti is failing, if not a failed state. The United Nations Security Council has authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Haiti to stabilize the situation. I would go a step further and urge the Haitian authorities to consider sharing authority with an international administration authorized by the United Nations in order to create the conditions necessary to give any future Government of Haiti a fighting chance at succeeding. The United States must lead in this multinational initiative, as Australia did, I might point out, in the case of East Timor; not as Secretary Defense Rumsfeld suggested yesterday: Wait for someone else to step up to the plate to take the lead. It will require substantial, sustained commitment of resources by the United States and the international community if we are to be successful.

The jury is out as to whether the Bush administration is prepared to remain engaged in Haiti. Only in the eleventh hour did Secretary of State Colin Powell focus his attention on Haiti as he personally organized the pressure which led to President Aristide's resignation on Sunday. Unless Secretary Powell is equally committed to remaining engaged in the rebuilding of that country, then I see little likelihood that anything is going to change for the Haitian people. The coming days and weeks will tell whether the Bush administration is as concerned about strengthening and supporting democracy in our own hemisphere as it claims to be in other more distant places around the globe. The people of this hemisphere are watching and waiting.

I yield the floor
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r108:17:./temp/~r108iX7d5G ::

we need a full ivestigation!

Unless you hire Blackwater Security, contractors to the Empire.

Looks like Powell is reprising his role of squelching investigations, as well (think My Lai).

"I don't think any purpose would be served by such an inquiry," Powell said. "Haiti was on the verge of a total security collapse."

These guys wouldn't recognize irony if a 50 ton ball of it fell on their head.