This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited (UK) on December 1, 2010.
The “election” in Haiti shows once again how low Washington’s standards are for democracy in countries that they want to control politically. And there is no doubt who is in charge there. There is a government, to be sure, but since the elected government in 2004 was overthrown, and even more since the earthquake, it is the “international community” that calls the shots – Hillary Clinton’s code for the U.S. State Department.
The election was a farce to begin with, once the non-independent CEP (Provisional Electoral Council) decided to exclude the country’s largest political party from participating – along with other parties. Fanmi Lavalas is the party of Haiti’s most popular political leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It has won every election that it has contested. Aristide himself remains in exile – unable to return since the U.S.-sponsored overthrow of his government in 2004.
Imagine holding an election in the United States with both the Democratic and Republican parties prohibited from participating. If we look at other troubled elections in the world – Iran in 2009, or Afghanistan more recently – Haiti’s is even less legitimate. It is perhaps most comparable to the recent election in Burma.
But the United States government paid for this election, and was determined to go ahead with it and get the usual suspects to endorse it. The pleadings of 45 Democratic Members of Congress, who sent a letter to Hillary Clinton on October 7 asking for a real election with all political parties included, were ignored. So too, were the objections of President Obama’s Republican foreign policy mentor, Senator Richard Lugar.
By Sunday, the day of the election, twelve of the eighteen presidential candidates – basically every prominent presidential candidate except the current government’s choice, Jude Celestin – publicly called for the elections to be annulled. They were backed by thousands of demonstrators in the streets.
The elections turned out to be even worse than expected. There were widespread reports of people being unable to vote because they were not on the voter lists, incidents of ballot stuffing, and other irregularities.
Despite all of this, the Organization of American States issued its statement on Monday:
“the Joint Mission does not believe that these irregularities, serious as they were, necessarily invalidated the process.” No wonder the leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean met last February and decided to create a new regional organization without the United States and Canada.
Haiti, of course, has bigger problems than a bogus election. And in fact that was a complaint heard on the ground – why was money being wasted on an electoral circus when people do not have access to drinking water, and the country is in the midst of a cholera epidemic? The latter crisis seems to have been pushed off the world’s radar screen by the election, despite the fact that the United Nations has been able to raise only around 10 percent of the $164 million they need to treat what is estimated to grow to 400,000 cases of cholera in the next year.
And then there is the unbelievable failure of the reconstruction itself. Nearly a year after the earthquake, less than 2 percent of the rubble has been cleared, and less than 10 percent of the 1.5 million people made homeless by the earthquake have shelter. Most of the rest are living under tarps, with the earth beneath them turning to water and mud when it rains – the international community could not even get them tents.
But the bogus election matters because, if allowed to stand, it will confer an illegitimate government on Haiti. For most of its existence and until quite recently, Haiti was ruled by illegitimate governments that relied heavily on violence to maintain power. Aristide was the first democratically elected president, in 1990. He was overthrown seven months later but eventually re-elected in 2000. Because his government was legitimate and did not have to rely on violence, he abolished the army – which was the main instrument of political violence. Washington never forgave him for this, and organized an international cut-off of aid to the country, while pouring tens of millions of dollars into the opposition, thus toppling the government.
In April of 2009, an election that also excluded the largest political party drew a boycott of about 90 percent of the electorate. Participation in this latest election appears to have been higher (although lower than the previous presidential election), but it will not be seen as legitimate. This has already increased social unrest. There is no longer a Haitian Army, but there is a badly-trained national police force and a UN military force (MINUSTAH) that is widely seen as an occupying army and notorious for its violence and human rights abuses. Its standing has fallen even further as it appears to be the source of the cholera epidemic.
Haiti needs a government that can contribute to the reconstruction of the country, its public health, and the institutions necessary to promote economic development and employment. An illegitimate government won’t meet any of these needs, and brings the risk of increasing political violence.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.