[Previous entry: "Secessionist rumblings in Zulia state in western Venezuela"] [Next entry: "Refugees Check Out of FEMA Hotels, Protest"]

03/02/2006:

"A basket to carry water"

In a well-ordered world, Gerard Latortue whould now be sitting quietly in a jail in The Hague, preparing to defend himself against charges of treason, terrorism, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and, possibly, genocide.

Instead, on Wednesday last week, he was sitting, immaculately tailored, as always, in a conference room at United Nations headquarters, as the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS) vainly attempted to give a decent burial to US government policies in Haiti.
It was a farce.

Officiating at the obsequies was the Guyanese-born assistant secretary-general of the OAS, chosen, one imagines, because his clean hands distinguished him from a motley gang of bloodstained bureaucrats who have for two years connived at one of the most blatant and infamous rapes of human rights in modern history.
jamaicaobservor.com


The Puzzling Alliance of Chavannes Jean-Baptiste and Charles Henri Baker
Imagine in U.S. politics if Cesar Chavez had suddenly endorsed and collaborated with George Wallace in his Presidential campaign, and the
United Farm Workers had joined racist white plantation owners in their last-ditch effort to maintain total apartheid in the U.S. South. This is not an inappropriate comparison to the recent bizarre alliance in Haiti between Chavannes Jean-Baptiste's powerful and genuinely grassroots peasant organization, MPP (Papaye Peasant's Movement) and Charles Henri Baker, the elite owner of a Haitian garment industry sweatshop. Despite years of fighting U.S. economic polices toward Haiti, from the Creole Pig fiasco under the Duvaliers to the disastrous neoliberalism of the past decade, Chavannes and the MPP now uncritically support openly neo-liberalist and Duvalierist members of the tiny, mostly "blanc" (light-skinned, Francophone), Haitian elite, who are in turn supported by U.S. right-wing groups like the IRI (International Republican Institute), funded by USAID.

Perhaps just as bizarre has been the continuing uncritical support (at least until now) by MPP's U.S. funder, Grassroots International. GI consistently takes a strong stand against what it calls the U.S. "death plan," structural adjustment and the whole World Bank neo-liberal program, yet remained silent for years after Chavannes and MPP became closely linked to precisely the U.S. "death plan" agenda, in their growing support for the successful overthrow of the Aristide government, and their close alliance with opposition groups with a neoliberal agenda and worse.