-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Patrick Bond Sent: 01 February 2001 20:03 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: DEBATE: FW: RE: [CrashList] from the land of Dessalins Bring it on! Must admit that I don't know the new lefty formation. Our lead comrade in Port-au-Prince, who comes to scenes like the 1998 anti-globalisation conference in Edenvale and Dakar 2000 and many inbetween, is Camille Chalmers (an econ prof at State U, and leader of the Papda coalition, parallel to SA's Cansa). Camille was once JB Aristide's chief of staff, and when I laboured a few months in Aristide's Washington office in 1995, it was precisely that concept explained below -- critical, defensive, dogged "support" -- that logically emerged again and again. Is JB opportunist, confused, naive, egocentric? Yes. But he was also smart enough to nurture his left flank and encourage sustained social protest against the IMF, WB and US AID. Smarter, in other words, than anyone I've met in Pretoria. (Send congrats to Stan Goff for a compelling riff.) > From: "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > FEAR AND LOATHING IN HAITI > > Stan Goff > > > In Port-au-Prince I spend three days at Hotel Ife. If I believed in zombiesthat > favored American obsession about HaitiI will have found them here in the doddering, > light-skinned matriarch and her stunned-looking, slow-motion staff. Like every > place in the Caribbean, but especially here, there seems to be a perpetual stalemate > in the battle with decay. Water damage stains the ceilings. The wiring is > precariously exposed. A little spider has found a haven in the corner of the > windowsill, where no dust-rag, no broom ever quite reaches. Electricity is > rationed, available only from 5:30 PM to 4:00 AM. Street noises invade throughout > the night. Motorcycles, evangelists with loudspeakers, little brass bands, roosters > even here in the comparative affluence of Petionville. My walls are painted a > nauseating green. > > The street is my refuge. The inept pretensions of Haitis third-string bourgeoisie, > here in the streets at least, are diffused, swallowed up by the frenetic culture of > survival that animates these byways, the chaos of the pure market, of truly > primitive accumulation. Here is a cornucopia of commodities, fruits, breads, > cigarettes, plastic shoes, cheap watches, steaming food, sold right on the sidewalk > out of bowls and baskets. Here are trash, skiddish animals foraging in filth, and a > wild-west intermixing of foot and vehicle traffic. No set prices anywhere. Every > exchange alternates between belligerence, laughter, feigned pain at an insultan > appearance of extreme tension to the blan, but this is a game that animates the > entire culture, this ribbing and debating, these loud voices with the plosive > cadences. > > The streets of Petionville, the most affluent section of the capital, are named > after heroes of the Revolution for Independence. But the names are selective; > Chavannes, Petion, Rigaud, Oge. Mulattos all. The only exception is LOverture, > the ex-slave general who led the first stage of the Revolution, when slavery was > abolished. Toussaint LOverture was black. But like Aristide today, he was a > conciliator. He never desired nor demanded independence. So the color-obsessed > capital elite rehabilitated him into the good black. > > The rest, the mulattos of the Revolution never wanted to throw off the French, the > blan. They wanted to replace them and grow rich on the sweat of the former slaves. > Indeed, many themselves owned slaves before the Revolution. To this day they > contemptuously call the black peasant the gwo zoteey, the big toe. > > Conspicuous among the names unlisted among the Petionville streets is Dessalines. > After the French duped LOverture and sent him to die in a putrid cell, Dessalines > led the bloody march to independence. > > Class memory is long in Haiti, and Dessalines was feared by the privileged mulattos. > He had the personal power to mobilize the masses. In one engagement, at Crete > Pierrot in 1802, he rallied 900 ex-slave soldiers and civilians to reject surrender > and break out of an encirclement of 16,000 French soldiers, a feat of arms > astounding by any measure in any war in history. > > When the mulattos claimed the land based on the ownership of their white fathers, > after Napoleans legions were vanquished, Dessalines asked them what the former > slaves who led the Revolution would get. The mulattos were champing at the bit to > begin a vigorous and lucrative trade with the French, and other Europeans as well. > > Dessalines, who had seen French perfidy and brutality reassert itself at every > opportunity, shed his shirt to show them the mass of lash scars covering his > coal-black back, and told them with no equivocation, he was done with the whites. > > The mulattos foresaw their anticipated fortunes dwindle to naught. > > While Dessalines massacred the French in Cap Haitien, winning infamy among white > historians, the mulattos plotted. They assassinated Dessalines in 1806 and forbade > his name to be spoken for 40 years. Their subsequent repression of the mass of > former rebels was ferocious. This ferocity was motivated by the one true constant > of almost 200 years of Haitian ruling class historydread of the masses. Dessalines > had to go because he could mobilize the masses. > > It would be a mistake, however, to generalize Dessalines confrontation of the > mulattos into a description of Haitis societal tensions as a color problem. The > black grandons of the north are as avaricious and cynical as the whitest compradeur, > and just as terrified of popular rebellion. > > Haitis struggle is a class struggle, pure if not simple. Color is just part of the > context, the psychology. Look at the Bush cabinet. > > In my walks down these streets named after Dessalines nemeses, I find an internet > cafi of all things. Here is a place where I can check email, surf a bit on the web, > stay connected with my family who I have deserted yet again. > > January 19. A fellow Haiti-phile has forwarded me an article by email about the > confirmation hearings of Colin Powell. The hearings are, of course, a love-fest. > Powell wears white denial as his personal armorthe almost-Black Knight. No one > dares speak the forbiddenMy Lai, Panama, Iraq. No one can acknowledgeon pain of > political suicidethat this man is a brilliant hack, a well-groomed ticket puncher > who will order the annihilation of thousands of innocents, but whose real talent is > hiding the bodies. The obsequious, lily-white Senators ask him about Haiti, this > almost-a-negro and a West Indian to boot, and he doesnt hesitate. He puts Haiti > firmly in its place. > > The Administration of George W. Bush, Powell explains, will tentatively accept the > grotesque capitulation of a wavering Aristide to reschedule the legitimate elections > of several of his own party members in response to a US/OAS campaign of demagogy to > discredit those elections. It is a breathtaking betrayal by Aristide. Powell calls > this acquiescent, nay, submissive posture an appropriate road map to get started,6 > but adds that the Administration can not rule out additional demands. No careful > Clintonesque camouflage from this administration. The colonial relation will be > naked and unashamed. U.S. policy, the Secretary of State-designee explains, always > has been and always will be to keep Haitians from coming to the United States. And > on their knees at home. > > My companion for this trip and a friend for the last four years, Harry Numa, > Secretary of the Pati Popile Nasyonel (PPN)(National Popular Party), is very focused > on the upcoming Haitian presidential inauguration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. I have > copied the post about Colin Powell and shared it with him and other PPN members. > > Is Colin Powell an Uncle Tom,6 one asks me. He and his comrades have just exploded > in a babble of outrage at this imperial arrogance. Is he a token?6 > > Uncle Tom was a phrase of contempt that Malcolm X used to differentiate the house > slave from the field slave,6 I say. Powell has transcended that. He is no longer > just the house slave. He is now one of the masters. He is a brilliant bureaucrat. > Hardly a token. > > Many people regard an Uncle Tom to be someone who is witless, a fool who sells out > his own people, like Clarence Thomas. Powell is no fool. He is ruthless and very, > very smart. Clarence Thomas is an Uncle Tom. Powell is evil.6 > > Heads nod. This is a distinction easily grasped in Haiti, where foolishness and > villainy have shared a lot of spotlights. > > Aristide is a fool, or an opportunist, or both,6 one explains. He has this > tremendous power, and he refuses to use it, even when people threaten him with > violence.6 They believe Aristide is self-interested, potentially even autocratic. > He may see himself as a kind of Haitian Pope. Fanmi Lavalas, his party, is > organized more like a church than a political formation. And the church is where > Aristides roots are. He remains, however, in many ways, a political naif. Hes > never understood the dominant class terror of the people. > > They are referring to Aristides tolerance and capitulation before the > sometimes-violent provocation of something now referred to as the opposition.6 So > I need to understand clearly why the PPN, this growing, highly conscious left > political formation, organizing relentlessly among the gwo zoteey, is defending > Aristide. And they are. Critically, but doggedly. > > As an American, steeped in the narrow rhetorical strategies of a politics of > personalityGore, Bush, Buchanan, NaderI am unaccustomed to looking beyond the > talking head to the social forces that underwrite them. > > Even as we are inaugurating our own de facto regimethe idiot prince, Dubya, and the > court of his father, the immanence gristhe Haitian opposition6 is swearing > Aristide will never sit. February 7th is his inauguration, and they have not only > denounced it as illegal and illegitimate,6 they have formed their own parallel6 > government. Some have claimed that extra-Constitutional means6 will be employed if > necessary. > > Who is the opposition,6 whose latest handle is Convergence Democratique? Its > always French. The name. > > The dominant class speaks French, but all Haitians speak Kreyol. When the dominant > class doesnt want the people to know what its up to, it speaks in French.6 > > Convergence is the latest in a line of opposition6 coalitions. During their failed > attempt to buy the last election, fueled by American dollars from the National > Endowment for Democracy, the dominant formation was called Espace de Concertacion. > The name changed, but many of the people are the same. > > Convergence is a polyglot. Pasteur Luc Mesadieu, a Protestant fundamentalist, > Gerard Pierre Charles, ex-communist turned chief bourgeois idealogue, Serge Gilles, > long-time representative for French political interests in Haiti, Evans Paul, former > mayor of Port-au-Prince whose party the FNCD Aristide cut out of his cabinet in > 1991, Victor Benoit, a perennial political lightweight who associates himself with > every new bourgeois formation he can find, Hubert de Roncerey, Baby Docs Minister > of Social Affairs who in that capacity acted as slave-trader for the Dominican cane > plantations, and fellow Duvalierist, Reynold George, a man once deported from the > United States for involvement in drug trafficking. > > This is whom the free6 press of the United States refers when they cite the Haitian > opposition.6 > > Every faction of the Haitian dominant class, factions who are generally at war with > one another, is represented in Convergence. Their one point of agreement? They are > all opposed to Aristide. > > There have been no smoking guns, but when they threatened violence, the level of > violence escalated. When they threatened bombs, there were bombs. Two alleged > coup-plotting cells have already fled this year to avoid arrest, one to the > Dominican Republic, the other to Ecuador. In no case has the United States > political establishment or the obedient corporate press called for investigations or > expressed an iota of outrage. > > But on January 9th, a small affiliate of Aristides Fanmi Lavalas party, the Ti > Komunite Leglis (TKL) had one chapter that made a veiled threat in response to the > announcement of Convergence that it would launch its parallel government,6 They > produced a list of collaborators,6 some of whose names were patently ridiculous. > Fanmi Lavalas is largely, and regrettably, unstructured. Loose cannons appear with > some frequency. But it was a threat, not terribly specific, with no action taken. > It was a hotheaded and inappropriate reaction to a very real campaign to reverse the > popular will. Still, the shit storm followed from up North. > > Republican Congressmen Benjamin Gillman (NY) and Peter Goss (FL) made headlines with > their joint denouncement. In speaking at the church of St. Jean Bosco, the men > issuing these threats clearly suggested to Haitians that they were speaking for Mr. > Jean-Bertrand Aristide Instead of keeping his promises to President Clinton [to > reschedule elections of previously elected Senators, and other capitulations], Mr. > Aristide is condoning by his silence thuggish acts of violence in his name.6 Of > course, there were no acts.6 But facts have never been obstacles to Republicans. > And there was deafening silence from Gillman, Goss, and all the rest, when weeks > earlier Evans Paul called for Haitian drivers to run down Fanmi Lavalas in the > streets. > > Harry Numa: These attacks on Aristide from Convergence and the right-wing in the > U.S. will continue regardless of what concessions Aristide makes. It is not > Aristide they hate, but his connection to the masses that they fear. He was elected > with 92 percent of the vote. This is a terrible power as they see it.6 Bingo! > > There it is again. The one true constant. > > Harry and many others wish Aristide would use his immense power to respond > decisively to the attacks, but they fear the worst. Aristide could very well be > another Peron. He began as a nationalist and a populist, but under incessant > pressure and with more than a little personal ambition, he is being co-opted. He > will inevitably shift to the right. Indeed, Aristide is already offering an olive > branch to Marc Bazin, former World Bank representative, the U.S. supported candidate > against Aristide in 1991, a member of the subsequent coup regimes cabinet, and the > darling of the U.S. neoliberal establishment. > > Who cares how the Bush Administration will react if he mobilizes the population > against Convergence?6 asks Numa. Convergence and the U.S. want him out, whether he > does or not because he can. We have a saying in Haiti. If you dont say Good > morning to the devil, he will eat you. If you do say Good morning to the devil > he will eat you.6 > > Their harsh criticisms of Aristide aside, they defend him not because of some > personal quality and not based on his program, but because he was chosen by Haitis > majority, unlike Dubya, who seized power through a judicial coup detat. The > population selected him, and when he betrays them, the population can reject him. > We are not defending Aristide. We are defending the peoples right to select their > own leaders. And we are defending our sovereignty.6 > > The PPN people I talk to admit that this fight among politicosfocused for the time > being against Aristideis really a family feud, a tussle among the bourgeoisiethe > land-bourgeoisie, the trade-bourgeoisie, the lumpen-bourgeoisiethat has been set > aside to close ranks against this man who has captured the imagination of the > ominous many. Aristide would quite likely cut deals with them all, were it not for > their terminal fear of his rapport with the great potentiality. > > But the mighty Northern metropole is involved, and its to the hegemon these > plotters will turn in a pinch. So its not just an internal matter, not just Haiti > inventing itself. > > The options are not pretty for Convergence, but the threats are out there. They > have said they will not tolerate this illegal6 government of Aristide. They can > not afford to look like its all a bluff,6 Harry says. Haiti is a backward society, > and machismo matters. Reputations and rumors can have the power of bombs and > bullets. > > The Police Nacionale dHaiti (PNH) are not cohesive in their political loyalties. > If they took sides at all in a fight, they would be fragmented, and many would side > with Aristide. Others, aggressively recruited during the U.S. occupation by the CIA, > might move against. But its a wild card. So a coup might have to be privatized. > A group of re-armed Fraphists perhaps, with the tacit approval of their old CIA > handlers. Of course this kind of putsch is a very risky option. Alleged > conspirators of this ilk are already on the international lam. > > Assassination of Aristide is also very risky. Aristides assassination would ignite > a conflagration. The only way this might work is if they could convince the > Dominicans to intervene. Post-assassination turbulence creates the fear that this > instability will spill across the Dominican border, so the Dominicans have their > pretext to invade. > > Bushs National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, a fellow oil-person who shares > the Bush thirst for Caspian Sea petroleum, and who has promised a Kissinger-like > realpolitik, says this administration will only intervene with direct military force > when there is a clear and compelling interest for the U.S. ruling class. She > advocates having our allies shoulder more of the load in the periphery, a question > of economy of force. Allies like the Dominicans. > > This is consistent with the Powell Doctrine for the U.S. military. Begin with a > measurable objective. Apply overwhelming high-tech force and limit American > casualties to an absolute minimum. Gain control over the press, and give complacent > America its morality play. > > This is no recipe for Haiti. You could bomb the existing infrastructure into an ash > heap and it would leave 75 percent of the country yawning. The international press > can enter Haiti through its porous borders with near impunity. And the last > occupation, beginning in 1994, in which I participated, is an indication of what the > next would be indeterminate, intimidating no one for more than a moment, and a risk > that our own soldiersespecially black soldierswill see more than they ought of our > own governments motives and methods. > > Haiti is slippery. Its hard to get hold of. Sometimes it bites. > > If the Dominicans invade, and Aristide is dead,6 says Harry, then the OAS can be > invited in to relieve them. The U.S. can then play a role of post-crisis > benevolence as it restructures Haiti to suit itself.6 This is mass paranoia if it > is paranoia at all. This strategy, of course, is one the U.S. has employed again > and again. Americans even wrote Haitis Constitution once. > > These transparent pretexts for intervention are not for Haitian consumption. The > average illiterate peasant knows bullshit when she or he sees it, literally and > figuratively. Their experience with both is vast. These pretexts are for us, the > blan, the Americans. We are the real market for political snake oil, for > rationalization, for Manichean simplicity, for denial. > > The vast majority of us watched the theft of our own elections, wrung our hands for > a day, and went shopping. Blan will eat anything. > > Thats not to say that the Haitians cant be distracted, bamboozled, manipulated. A > fair number of people here still believe in werewolves and witches (instead of > Scientology and CNN, I suppose). But their exploitation at the hands of the > dominant classes is brutally direct, unadorned, and unabashed. It doesnt take a > PhD. And the Haitian collective memory about the foreign policy establishments of > the United States is crisp and current. > > No one here needs the data, the dates, the tortured analyses. Many are so confident > of U.S. official pronouncements that they use them like a compass. When the U.S. > Embassy expresses it aims, its like a north-seeking arrowwhich they use to travel > directly to the south. Experience. > > Here in Cap Haitien, where I now sit, one can see the mountains folded, layer upon > receding layer along the northern coast. No people understand the principle of > protracted struggle better than Haitians. Deye mon, gen mon. Beyond every > mountain, is a mountain. Their rebellion has been punished, from home and abroad, > for 197 years. > > Two peasants lead us now on a foot tour of the region around Marmelade. My age > catches up with me, and I beg for the mercy of a halt. If this country were > flattened out, it would be the size of Texas, I think. And some 5 or 6 million > wills are daily forged on these breathless slopes. > > Aristide, the conciliator, may go the way of Toussaint LOverture. Plenty of people > here still name their children Dessalines. New Years Day, 2004, is the > Revolutionary Bicentennial, and its in peoples headsthe work left undone. > > There is a new saying on the street here. Why should we be afraid of one Bush, when > we are 8 million bouches? Bring it on. We can take anything. > > Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution will not be televised6 _______________________________________________ Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
