Averting Election Theft in Haiti

By Rep. Maxine Waters, AlterNet. Posted February 17, 2006.

A blatant and shameful attempt to steal a presidential election was blocked yesterday in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. This outrageous injustice was being perpetrated by the same forces that have been oppressing the Haitian people for decades.

In the past, Haiti has been ruled by brutal dictators such as Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier. These dictators controlled a brutal army that protected the interests of a small group of wealthy elites and foreign industrialists, while repressing the poor. The people of Haiti have been exploited in every conceivable way. Haitians worked in sweatshops for foreign industrialists, receiving just pennies per day. The elites and the industrialists profited from cheap labor without doing anything to develop the economy or improve the country's infrastructure. Those who protested the exploitation and demanded better living conditions were arrested or killed by the army. The U.S. government trained the army and supported the elites.

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was a priest who came from Cite Soleil, an impoverished region of Haiti, and advocated for the nation's poor. He was democratically elected by the people of Haiti in 1990, representing the Lavalas Party. He was elected on a platform of better working conditions for workers and improvements in health care, education and the quality of life for the poor. The elites hated President Aristide and were threatened by his platform, which required them to use a small fraction of their wealth for the good of the country. He was deposed less than a year later in a coup d'etat by the Haitian army. With the help of a death squad, the army terrorized the population for the next three years until the United States intervened under President Clinton to allow President Aristide to return.

The wealthy elites did everything within their power over the next decade to make it impossible for President Aristide and the Lavalas Party to govern the country effectively or implement policies that benefited the poor. Andre Apaid, a notorious sweatshop owner who holds an American passport, organized the Group of 184 to oppose President Aristide. Although President Aristide disbanded the army after his return, many of the soldiers did not disarm. Instead, they worked with the elites and the foreign industrialists to maintain control of the impoverished population.

The Bush administration worked with the Haitian elites to force President Aristide to step down. The International Republican Institute, which is affiliated with the Republican Party, funneled U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Aristide-haters, and Roger Noriega, President Bush's former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the former chief of staff for Sen. Jesse Helms, conspired with Andre Apaid to organize, train and finance the opposition.

In January 2004, former soldiers and other heavily armed thugs took over several Haitian cities and then marched into the capital, while the Group of 184 staged confrontational demonstrations throughout the country. On Feb. 29, 2004, U.S. Marines and embassy officials entered President Aristide's home and told him to leave immediately or he and thousands of other Haitians would be killed. President Aristide was flown aboard a U.S. plane to the Central African Republic and left there.

After the 2004 coup d'etat, the Bush administration installed an unelected interim government led by Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who came from Boca Raton, Fla. Human rights violations have been widespread since the coup. Amnesty International has documented numerous cases of extrajudicial executions attributed to members of the Haitian National Police, and the interim government has imprisoned hundreds of political prisoners without trials.

The U.S. government promised to help Haiti organize elections in order to restore democracy. The interim government was supposed to oversee these elections. However, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), which had the responsibility for organizing the elections, did not include any representatives of the Lavalas Party, the party that represented the poor majority. The CEP refused to place any polling stations in several of Haiti's most impoverished areas, including Cite Soleil, a home to over 60,000 registered voters. It was a blatant attempt to disenfranchise the poor.

Several of Haiti's political prisoners could have run for office if they had not been in jail. Yvon Neptune, the former Prime Minister of Haiti, and Annette August, a popular Haitian singer, have both been detained illegally for over a year. Both are prominent members of President Aristide's Lavalas Party, but neither was able to participate in the elections.

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest who ran a soup kitchen for poor children, was arrested last July and held without charges for six months. He was released in January only because he was diagnosed with leukemia, and an international outcry demanded that he be able to receive medical treatment. When several of Father Jean-Juste's supporters tried to register him as a candidate for president last fall, they were told that candidates must appear in person in order to register.

Ironically, the Lavalas Party did have a candidate in the presidential election. The interim government certified a local politician named Marc Bazin as the Lavalas' candidate for president. This would be comparable to the U.S. government arresting John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean before the 2004 New Hampshire Primary and then letting the Republican Party choose a Democrat to run against President Bush.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters represents Los Angeles County and is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »