Media vs. Reality in Haiti
by Anthony Fenton; February 13, 2004
Judging by the corporate media’s recent coverage of the crisis in Haiti, one might be led to believe that they are “aiding and abetting” an attempted coup d’etat aimed at the democratically elected Jean Bertand Aristide. On a daily basis, mainstream international media is churning out stories provided mainly by the Associated Press and Reuters that have little basis in fact.
On Feb. 10th, the Globe and Mail, Canada’s main national daily, reprinted an AP article that relied on Haiti’s elite-owned Radio Vision 2000. [1] This article contrasted the recent “violent uprising” in Gonaives, Haiti’s fourth-largest city, with the 1986 uprising that saw the overthrow of the oppressive Duvalier dictatorship. The inevitable conclusion that the Canadian readership is steered toward is that Aristide is, or could be, a dictator, who may or may not deserve what he is about to get. This is hardly the kind of context that will compel citizens to lend support to the embattled Haitians.
The Globe’s paul Knox has been reporting from Haiti since Feb. 11th, and has submitted two stories thus far, neither of which have strayed from the “disinformation loop” which sees the recycling of dubious elite-spawned information by the corporate press corps. [see Pina] The same context as above is given credence - that Aristide faces a legitimate opposition that has every right to support his violent overthrow. Knox quotes Charles Baker, a wealthy factory owner who says: “We are all fighting for the same thing. Aristide has to resign.” [2]
Canada’s other national daily, the National Post [also considered the more ‘right wing’ of the two dailies] has no problem running headlines like the one featured on February 13th website: “Rock-throwing Aristide militants force opponents to cancel protest march.” [3] Nowhere in the article is President Aristide’s press release mentioned, which condemned the obstruction of the protest, and called for the constitutional right of peaceful demonstration to be adhered to.
Interestingly, the corporate media has neglected to mention that the “opposition” to which they refer and repeatedly give legitimacy to, only represents a meagre 8 per cent of registered voters in Haiti, according to a US poll conducted in 2000. According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs [COHA], “their only policy goal seems to be reconstituting the army and the implementation of rigorous structural adjustment programs.” [4] As corporate journalists rely on the opposition for little more than inflammatory soundbites, information that would otherwise be sought to lend their efforts credibility is repeatedly overlooked.
US Congresswoman Maxine Waters issued a press release Feb. 11th, on the heels of her recent visit to Haiti, that called on the Bush administration to join her in condemning the “so-called opposition” and, specifically, Andre Apaid Jr., who is a “Duvalier supporter” that, along with his Group of 184, is “attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the government for the resulting disaster in the belief that the U.S. will aid the so-called protestors against President Aristide.” [5]
She also took aim at the World Bank and IMF and their “continuing embargo” , which amounts to hundreds of millions of desperately needed funds. Rep. Waters outlined the following positive measures that Aristide has initiated:
“Under his leadership, the Haitian government has made major investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure…The government [recently] doubled the minimum wage from 36 to 70 gourdes per day, despite strong opposition from the business community…President Aristide has also made health care and education national priorities. More schools were built in Haiti between 1994 and 2000 than between 1804 and 1994. The government expanded school lunch and school bus programs and provides a 70% subsidy for schoolbooks and uniforms”
Rep. Waters made clear assertions on Aristide’s behalf that are otherwise absent from Bush administration commentary and corporate media deceptions regarding Haiti. Waters completed her statement with an important appeal, which called on the corporate media to “discontinue the practice of repeating rumours and innuendos,” whereby they function as “international megaphones for the opposition. They lie shamelessly on a daily basis.”
Another Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, directly challenged Colin Powell in a formal letter to him February 12th, after Powell had announced that the US administration is “not interested in regime change” in Haiti. Said Lee: “It appears that the US is aiding and abetting the attempt to violently topple the Aristide government. With all due respect, this looks like “regime change”…Our actions – or inaction – may be making things worse.” [6]
In a press conference Wednesday, Aristide called for peace and a democratic resolution to the unrest ongoing in Haiti. He once again called on the opposition to rationally discuss things with his government so that they can work toward an equitable resolution.
Now would seem to be a good opportunity for broad-based social justice groups to galvanize around the critical issue of Haiti. Haitians are desperately in need of popular international support if they are to overcome the latest onslaught. With history as our guide, we should be extremely wary when one side of the US administration’s mouth promotes “democracy and freedom” and a “peaceful resolution” to the situation in Haiti, while out of the other they support the interests of such players as André Apaid Jr. The statements of some US representatives are encouraging. Others are somewhat flaky.
In a conversation today with Congressman Gregory Meeks, his slippery position was made quite clear. Meeks’s “primary concern is democracy” and the promotion of democracy does not entail “taking sides”. This is a familiar position that is being trumpeted, whereby the US supports democracy but is not willing to actively support the democratically elected leader. The Miami Herald made note today that the Congressional Black Caucus, whose position is supported by Meeks, “is calling for an end to the violence in Haiti but not repeating its traditional support of Aristide.” [emphasis mine]
These are some dangerous indications, considering that Haitian towns remain under illegal siege by former paramilitary members, who – according to Pina – “Gathered in the Dominican and are now brandishing brand new M16s.” Pina also made note that the Dominican Republic is known to have recently received a shipment of 20,000 American made M16s.
Since a great deal of the current problems plaguing Haiti stem from dire economic issues, we should now turn to these. In his 1997 book, “Haiti in the New World Order”, Alex Dupuy sums up the US disposition toward Haiti:
“For the foreign policy intelligentsia, the defense and promotion of democracy and the free market serve as the “grander vision” underlying U.S. policy objectives in the new world order…Democracy is not likely to take hold unless its corollaries – a free market economy and a free trade system – are also fostered.” [7]
The logic of the State Department, according to COHA, sees Aristide as “little more than a ‘beardless Castro’”, who was despised by Jesse Helms, a tradition that is being carried on by his “ideological heirs” in the State Department, Roger Noriega and Otto Reich. We should recall that this sort of attitude was prominent over a decade ago, when Aristide was first elected President.
In 1991, Aristide was overthrown by the brutal paramilitary, led by former CIA employees Emmanuel Constant and Raoul Cedras. The massive influx of refugees fleeing Haiti from the brutal FRAPH paramilitary regime, in addition to a groundswell of domestic support for Haiti, forced Clinton to “restore democracy” to Haiti in 1994. Aristide, having his way cleared by US troops, returned to Haiti recognized internationally as its legitimate leader.
Aristide’s return was only made possible when he “embraced the Haitian bourgeoisie and accepted a U.S. occupation and Washington’s neoliberal agenda.” As Noam Chomsky has detailed, “The Aristide government [was] to keep to a standard "structural adjustment" package, with foreign funds devoted primarily to debt repayment and the needs of the business sectors, and with an "open foreign investment policy." [8]
By then, the neoliberal agenda has become entrenched as part of the New World Order, which was designed to respond to “the South’s plea for justice, equity, and democracy in the global society.” This agenda has led others such as Susan George to sum it up as such:
“Neo-liberalism has become the major world religion with its dogmatic doctrine, its priesthood, its law-giving institutions and perhaps most important of all, its hell for heathen and sinners who dare to contest the revealed truth.” [9]
The World Bank predicted in 1996 that up to 70 per cent of Haitians would be unlikely to survive bank-advocated free market measures in Haiti. According to a 2002 Guardian article, by the end of the 1990’s “Haiti’s rice production had halved and subsidized imports from the U.S. accounted for over half of local rice sales.” [10] As Haiti became the “star pupil” of IMF and World Bank, such policies “devastated” local farmers.
Structural Adjustment Programmes [SAPs], which have been forced upon Haiti, have in traditional style promoted the privatisation of state industries. According to Aristide in his 2000 book “Eyes of the Heart”, privatisation will “further concentrate wealth” where 1 per cent of the population already controls 45 per cent of the overall wealth. As for why Haiti would agree to World Bank and IMF measures, Aristide provides context along a “dead if we do, dead if we don’t” line: “Either we enter a global economic system, in which we know we cannot survive, or, we refuse, and face death by slow starvation.” [11]
While keeping in mind that the US effectively controls the World Bank and IMF [12], we should consider Susan George and the Transnational Institutes findings based on extensive research of these institutions: “The economic policies imposed on debtors…caused untold human suffering and widespread environmental suffering while simultaneously emptying debtor countries of their resources.” [13]
George notes how the consequences of this “debt boomerang” which sees rich nations actually profiting from the enormous debt service rendered on the poor, as affecting all of us. While the people in the South “are far more grievously affected by debt than those in the North, in both cases, a tiny minority benefits while the overwhelming majority pays.” [14]
The US administration, the World Bank-IMF couplet, and Haitian elites who stand to benefit from a neoliberal agenda, are all aware that Aristide favours genuine democracy over neoliberal reform. Aristide still stands behind the beliefs that swept him to power as the first democratically elected Haitian leader in 1991. As Kevin Pina told me yesterday, the popular [impoverished] masses who revered Aristide in 1991 “are still willing to fight for him. They are willing to die if it means Aristide can complete his term.”
In Monterrey last month at the Special Summit of the Americas, a Third Border Initiative was committed to by the Caribbean Community and the United States. One of the primary aims of the initiative is to “make sure the benefits of globalization are felt in even the smallest economies,” while coordinating ties that discourage terrorist activities and increase security for the area. [15]

We will only know for certain how this applies to the case of Haiti as things progress – or deteriorate. In closing our conversation yesterday, Kevin Pina asserted the following:
“Haiti desperately needs to establish democratic traditions. How is the pattern of instability supposed to be broken? What’s to stop the next democratically elected President from being asked to step down? If people are falling for these distortions and lies they are doing a disservice to Haiti.”
Citizens of Canada, the United States, and Europe all have a stake in this, to the extent that the fomenting of Haitian instability and continued Haitian misery is being carried out and financed in our names. By falling for the delusional picture of Haiti that is drawn by our corporate media, we are actively violating fundamental human rights along with Haiti’s right to self-determination. Anything that can be done to expose this circulation of lies should be done so with an immediacy that above all appreciates the right of all Haitians to determine their own future.

[1] Globe and Mail, February 10, 2004, “Haitian Insurrection Spreads to several more towns.” A16.
[2] Globe and Mail, February 11, 2004 “Haiti’s ‘peaceful people’ erupt in Violence ”, A16.
[3] National Post, February 13, 2004.
[4] “Unfair and Indecent Diplomacy: Washington’s Vendetta against Haiti’s President Aristide,” January 15, 2004.
[5] Transcript obtained from Haiti’s Foreign Press Liason, Michelle Karshan, February 11, 2004.
[6] From the office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Contact: 202-225-2398
[7] Alex Dupuy, “Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of Democratic Revolution,” p. 7.
[8] See Chomsky’s “The Tragedy of Haiti” in his “Year 501: The Conquest Continues” pp. 197-219.
[9] Susan George’s “A Short History of Neoliberalism” speech, March 1999:

[10] See The Guardian’s “Haiti: proof of hypocrisy”, April 11, 2002:

[11] Excerpts from Aristide’s book at:
[12] Quoting the Brookings Institution’s “U.S. Relations with the World Bank: 1945-1992”: “More than any other country, the United States has shaped and directed the institutional evolution, policies, and activities of the World Bank,” p. 88. The Brookings Institution, incidentally, is a known affiliate of the Haiti Democracy Project, which is friendly with Andre Apaid Jr., and G-184.
[13] See George’s “The Debt Boomerang,” 1992.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Bush II quote, U.S. Department of State website:
US Double Game in Haiti
by Tom Reeves; February 16, 2004
Not quite a year ago, after returning from Haiti, I wrote for Z-net , "the United States government is playing the same game as in Iraq - pushing for "regime change" in Haiti. Their strategy includes a massive disinformation campaign in U.S. media, an embargo on desperately needed foreign aid to Haiti, and direct support for violent elements, including former military officers and Duvalierists, who openly seek the overthrow of President Aristide." Events in Haiti today show how bloody the U.S. game has become.
Even as Colin Powell insists the U.S. does NOT seek "regime change," the attempt to oust the legitimate elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide grows more violent by the day. During the past week, at least 50 people have been slaughtered, and probably far more, in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city - most by those whom Powell and pro-U.S. media call "rebels." The dead include three patients waiting for treatment in a hospital. Many of the 14 police killed had their bodies dragged naked through the street, ears cut off and other body parts mutilated. Gonaives and several small towns remain in the hands of a brutal gang of thugs, with direct ties to the U.S.-recognized and Republican-financed "opposition" - the Convergence and the Group of 184, whose spokesmen are sweat shop owners and former military officers. This "opposition" seeks to distance itself from the violence, yet continue to insist that the "uprising" is justified. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security admitted it's concern by announcing preparations for up to 50,000 fleeing Haitians in Guantanamo - indicating the U.S. is expecting to see carnage in Haiti on a grand scale.
Most recently, as the "rebels" blocked the road from the Dominican Republic and re-took two villages in the north, reinforcements arrived from across the border. According to Ian James of the AP, Feb. 14, twenty armed Haitian commandos, shot their way through the Dominican border, killing two Dominican soldiers. With them were former Cap Haitien police chief and army officer, Guy Philippe, and the head of the Duvalier death squad in the 1980s, Louis Jodel Chamblain. Chamblain was also a leader of the FRAPH, a group of para-military "attaches" during the coup years. A close associate of Chamblain, Emmanueal "Toto" Constant, has admitted its CIA funding and direction. Chamblain was revealed in documents reviewed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York as one of those present during the planning, with a U.S. agent, of the assassination of the pro-Aristide minister of justice, Guy Malary, in 1993. The U.S. refuses to release documents it seized from FRAPH during the 1994 U.S. invasion - presumably to cover up the CIA ties to FRAPH. Philippe and Chamblain were among those from the Haitian opposition, recognized by the U.S. - the Convergence - who organized conferences in the D.R. funded and attended by U.S. operatives from the International Republican Institute (IRI).
All this is new only in its intensity and scope. The brazen coup attempt which resulted in a violent attack on the National Palace, only hours after Aristide had left it, in December 2001, brought only OAS and US demands that the Haitian government pay reparations for damage to opposition property, and that it prosecute those responsible. Aristide complied. Since then, Paul Farmer, Kevin Pina and others have documented many para-military attacks on police stations, clinics and government vehicles, and the largest power station in the country (Peligre), resulting in the deaths of many government officials and others. Some of these attacks clearly involved former military in alliance with paramilitary gangs like the Armee Sans Maman, openly linked to this month's Gonaive violence by the self-styled "Gonaives Resistance Front" and the "National Liberation and Resistance Front." Some also involved jeeps fleeing toward the Dominican border. In none of these documented instances of violence did the U.S. government or any of the U.S.-based human rights organizations cry out - reserving their criticism for the justly deplored murders of three and possibly five Haitian journalists over a period of four years, suggesting Haitian government ineffectiveness at best in the prosecutions, and complicty with the murders at worst.
It is not surprising, then, that Powell has now only demanded that Aristide's government respect human rights! He denounced the blocking by "pro-Aristide militants" of a "peaceful opposition demonstration." Residents threw up barricades because they said they feared violence in Goniave could spread to the capital - though rocks were thrown, no deaths or injuries were reported. Powell said nothing of the extreme atrocities committed daily by what he variously calls "rebels" and "criminals" against police and Lavalas leaders in Gonaives. One wonders what would be the position of the Bush government if a band of criminals in Kansas City had murdered fifty government supporters and police in the name of opposing the war in Iraq, and if national anti-war leaders refused to denounce this, insisting they hold a demonstration in Washington the same week. As Harold Geffrand, a small business owner who was among those manning the barricade against the opposition's demonstration, told the AP, "If those guys get power can you imagine what would happen? They would destroy and destroy and destroy." The Haitian government immediately condemned the blocking of the demonstration and said these acts were not sanctioned by Lavalas or its allies. The demonstration did in fact take place two days later - with about a thousand participants, as did a much larger pro-Aristide demonstration. Both groups were kept separate and guarded by Haitian police. Opposition leaders in the demonstration repeated their "nonviolence," but also their support for the goals of the Gonaives rebellion." (AP, Feb. 15)
The U.S. game in Haiti has always been a double game - public lip service for "democracy" - at the same time giving concrete covert aid to the most violent anti-democratic forces. Powell pressed Aristide to "reach out to the opposition," and insisted chillingly, "It would be inconsistent with our plan to attempt to force him from office against his will." Powell made plain, "We will insist that Aristide stops the violence, restores order and respects human rights." Yet the U.S.-led embargo continues to block tear gas supplies for the Haitian police, leaving police only the alternatives to kill looters and violent demonstrators, hence "violating human rights," in the U.S. eyes; or ignore them - thus failiing to restore order.
Meanwhile, the same U.S. government players who supported the Contras in Nicaragua - Otto Reich and Robert Noriega (See Kevin Pina's excellent series in the Black Commentator) - gave aid and comfort to those who back the Haiti contras, insisting that the right-wing dominated Convergence and it's elite, pro-business partner, the Group of 184, have a veto over any progress toward holding elections in Haiti. Over a year ago, Noriega and Reich were linked to the planning of a secret conference near Ottawa, at which the Francophone nations were urged by U.S. agents present to be prepared to call for direct intervention and a possible U.N. trusteeship in the wake of Aristide's departure after violence escalated in Haiti. The Canadian diplomat, Denis Paradis, who chaired the meeting was sacked when Canada's role came to light.
No wonder, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was caught in the middle. He waffled when asked about U.S. intentions: "I guess the way to respond to that is that, needless to say, everyone's hopeful that the situation, which tends to ebb and flow down there, will stay below a certain threshold and that there's - we have no plans to do anything. By that I don't mean we have no plans. Obviously, we have plans to do everything in the world that we can think of. But we - there's no intention at the present time, or no reason to believe that any of the thinking that goes into these things day - year in and year out - would have to be utilized."
I saw both sides of this double game when I went to Haiti at the time of Aristide's return in 1994. I saw the U.S. helicopter that landed Aristide at the palace and the U.S. soldiers who guarded the bullet-proof box from which he was allowed to speak. I interviewed U.S. officers in the Central Plateau who said they were specifically told to treat FRAPH as a loyal opposition, and not to confiscate large weapons' caches they stumbled upon. Most of the M-1s and M-14s seen in the hands of the Gonaives thugs today have been identified as coming from those Haitian army stockpiles left untouched during the U.S. occupation. A few M-16s, though, have begun to appear in Goniaves as well - identical to those given the Dominican army en masse just a few months ago by the U.S. government, in return for Dominican acquiescence in placing 900 U.S. troops alongside Dominican guards at the Dominican frontier - and for the Dominican agreement never to use the International Court to accuse and try U.S. citizens for war crimes. (Miami Herald, Dec. 6, 2002)
While virtually all U.S. media insist on parroting Powell and the Haitian opposition in referring to the Gonaives situation as a "uprising by the people," they also repeat the mantra that the "rebel leaders" were originally armed by Aristide as his local goons, and that he is therefore responsible for the attacks on his own police. Such half-truths are sprinkled through media accounts. In fact, those responsible for the Gonaives violence are tied to two local gangs - or clans - entrenched in Gonaives for many years. One gang, based in the slum of Raboto, was headed by Amiot Metayer, and called itself recently "The Cannibal Army." The other, based in Jubilee, included Jean "Tatoune" Pierre, convicted of the notorious Raboto massacre of Aristide supporters in 1994. Metayer's group claimed to support Aristide, but when human rights groups pressed the Haitian government to prosecute him for various crimes, he was arrested. Both Metyayer and Tatoune escaped from the Port au Prince penitentiary in August, 2002, in a daring bulldozer prison break. Late last year, Metayer was murdered, with the opposition and Metayer's followers blaming Aristide, but the government pointing at Tatoune's followers and the opposition. Metayer's brother returned to Haiti from the U.S. and joined Tatoune to begin a campaign against Aristide's party, Lavalas, and the government. They are among those who control Gonaives today - along with what the Washington Post (Feb. 10) calls "higher echelons of leadership from former Haitian army officers." Now they have been joined outright by FRAPH/CIA operatives like Chamblain, who was also convicted in absentia for the Raboto massacre.
Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti. Andy Apaid is the notorious sweat-shop owner who speaks for the Group of 184, and who, with Evans Paul, leads the anti-Aristide demonstrations in Port au Prince. Apaid spearheaded a successful campaign last year to block Aristide's attempt to raise the minimum wage. It is about $1.60 per day - lower even than in 1995. Apaid insists the opposition does not condone violence, yet says that "armed resistance is a legitimate political expression" and that the "rebels" should remain armed until Aristide has stepped down. Apaid continues to hold U.S. citizenship, despite having received a Haitian passport, based on a fradulent claim to have been born in Haiti.
The two prongs of the Haitian attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Haiti parallel the two sides of the U.S. double game. One way or the other, the end game is to put in power those more amenable to U.S. policies and to the Haitian elite. It is not surprising that Marc Bazin, long the preferred U.S. candidate for the Haitian presidency, has again been floated in U.S. liberal circles as the "compromise" solution to Haiti's problems! Whether by outright violence or by the strategies of a "coup lite" (like the U.N. trusteeship proposed by the Paradis conference last year or the Caracom initiative brokered by Jamaca and the Bahamas with Powell's blessing) that would ease Aristide out to "avoid a bloodbath," what the U.S. wants for Haiti is what it wants for every country with a leadership not under its control - for Cuba, for Venezuela, for Iran or Iraq: a rose by any other name - "regime change."
The biggest question is why the American liberal establishment goes along with the right-wing Republicans in this - and why even most of the vanishing "left" in the U.S. is either silent or wrings its hands at Aristide's failures. An incredibly effective disinformation campaign in almost all U.S. media is probably the answer: Aristide has been constructed as a tyrant, and hence all opposition to him is justified. Amy Willenz' piece this week in the New York Times is the latest illustration of this. Willenz, who documented the U.S. game since Duvalier in The Rainy Season, reasons that Aristide has betrayed the Haitian people who brought him to power in the first place. To a great extent she is right because Aristide was playing his own "double game" - seeking to keep some shreds of his original platform to bring dignity and equity to Haiti's poor, while having to capitulate to U.S. demands for privatization and structural adjustment in order to hold on to power. Like Powell, Willenz, too, rejects violent regime change. But like Powell, reading between her lines one gets the clear warning. He must go voluntarily, or he will be pushed - no matter what the cost in Haitian lives, and no matter what the Haitian people want.
The time is now to stop the politically correct nonsense on Aristide. The time is now to heed the lone voice crying in the Washington think tank wilderness, that of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), which has consistently exposed the link between U.S. government and right-wing circles and the Haitian opposition, and warned that a contra-style take-over could be eminent. COHA quoted Haitian human rights activist, Pierre Esperance, already in 2002: "I don't know how this situation can last. The country could explode at any time." The time is now to support Rep.Maxine Waters and other brave Black Caucus members in their attempt to counter U.S. government and media half-truths which blame Aristide for everything and cover over U.S. connections to the revival of those who shored up Duvalier and perpetrated the coup a decade ago.
If progressives, at least, do not expose the U.S. double game, and demand support for the democratic government of Haiti, Haiti could succumb to that game. Haitians will have been set back yet again in their two-century struggle for sovereignty and dignity. The U.S. could win its double game in Haiti not in a matter of years, but within weeks.
Haiti Under Siege
by Kevin Pina; Black Commentator ; January 15, 2004
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Money is power and power is money. The Bush administration buys and sells political constituencies every day in pursuit of world domination. Haiti, which recently celebrated its bicentennial as the world's first black republic, is not otherworldly or immune from purchase. Softening the ground for the transaction is the corporate media that blatantly acquiesce to the U.S. State Department's campaign to denigrate the rights and humanity of Haiti’s poor black majority. There is no other way to describe their current campaign to portray the opposition in Haiti as the new "freedom fighters" of the hemisphere, out to topple the repressive “dictatorship” of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

George Bush's earlier attempt to destroy the popular government of the poor in Venezuela only expanded his learning curve in Haiti. The conclusions to both these stories are not yet written.
The Washington-forged opposition grows lighter in color and more brazen with each passing day, while former Haitian military leaders prance hand in hand with Haiti's traditional economic elite, intellectuals and artists. The poor black majority, who cannot read or write and continue to support the constitutional government of President Aristide, has been deliberately made indescribably poorer in an effort to force them to turn against their own interests.

Going to bed hungry is not uncommon in Haiti. The greatest violence here is the violence of hunger and poverty. It permeates and consumes everything in its path. Haiti's phantom "middle class" – the relative few who have something such as an education to cling to – can be easily manipulated against a government that has declared itself to be working on behalf of those who have nothing save for the conviction that tomorrow may yield a better future for their children. This is especially true when the media inside and outside of Haiti do everything possible to make it so.
Disinformation media
The Haitian press, most notably Radio Metropole, Radio Vision 2000, Radio Kiskeya, Radio Caraibe and Tele-Haiti, have shown themselves to be wanton whores in the campaign to sow confusion and panic among the people. They are active players in the U.S. campaign to destabilize Haiti's constitutional government. With total disregard for principles of "objective journalism," they circulate exaggerated reports of violence by Lavalas, turn a blind eye to violence on the part of the opposition, and underreport the size and frequency of Lavalas demonstrations demanding President Aristide fulfill his five-year term in office. They regularly produce and air commercials calling upon the population to "claim their democratic rights" by joining anti-Aristide street actions. Just as in Venezuela, where local elites use their media to spearhead the opposition to President Hugo Chavez, the clear objective in Haiti is to throw the constitution in the trash and force President Aristide to resign.
Never mind that Radio Vision 2000 is owned by the same right-wing Boulos family that funds the Haiti Democracy Project in Washington D.C. Never mind that Tele-Haiti was founded by Andre Apaid, the self-proclaimed leader of Group 184 that was "created from whole cloth" by the Haiti Democracy Project. (See “The Bush Administration’s End Game for Haiti ,” December 4.) Never mind that two prominent journalists of Radio Metropole were funded by the U.S. State Department to tour the United States in mid-January of this year to meet with editorial boards around the country to spread their message of the evils of Aristide's "dictatorship." Ignore the fact that they are a major source of information for the Associated Press, Reuters and France's venerable RFI whose reporters can be seen openly sharing "information" with them buddy-buddy style on any given day. Here’s the way it works: Metropole reports a fabrication; AP and RFI pick it up for their wire services, then Kiskeya and the others report it again in Haiti backed by the credibility of the international press. The positive feedback loop of disinformation for the opposition is now complete.
Partners in crime
On December 3rd the rumor hit the streets of Port-au-Prince that President Aristide would be forced to resign on December 5th. Not so coincidentally, the justification for the latest round of protests against the Haitian government can be traced to December 5th and what Apaid and his minions refer to as "Black Friday." This date was previously etched in the Haitian popular memory as a day of memorial for the victims of a bomb that exploded during Aristide's first campaign for the presidency in 1990 in Petion-Ville. Instead, it has now been displaced with an alleged attack against university students by Lavalas.
”Alleged” is indeed the case. A videotape has been discovered of events at the university that day which appears to refute the description given by Radio Metropole and Tele-Haiti. Both outlets reported that popular organizations aligned with Lavalas broke through a back wall of the university, destroyed computers at the site and then proceeded to break the legs of the university's Rector after he entered the facility. However, the videotape clearly shows that Lavalas militants were outside of the building when these transgressions occurred and that the so-called "students" were in complete control of the facility when the Rector entered. Although they claim that Lavalas militants had burned a hole through a back wall, the opposition "students" can be seen pummeling the police and the press with large rocks and small boulders as they attempt to approach the building. As the Rector proceeds to enter with a police escort, the "students" can be heard chanting "no police" several times from behind the large metal gate, at which time the Rector is heard asking the police to let him enter unescorted. This does not sound like a compound under siege from within, but rather a site under the complete control of those inside. As you hear the crashing sounds of computers in the facility being broken, Lavalas popular organizations members comment on the tape, "Oh my god. They are going to blame us or the police after this is over." Photos have been taken of the "students" who controlled the facility from their rock throwing perch on the balcony, and some sources have said that arrests for questioning are imminent.
The tape irrefutably shows that the only camera crew allowed to enter the facility was Tele-Haiti, while the rock-throwing students kept the other media outside. In that case, how could it be that Lavalas militants were inside and in control of the university facility? One university student who left the campus bloodied may hold the key. "We were attacked by student members of the opposition for being pro-Aristide,” he stated. “After they broke the computers they realized they had gone too far and held a quick meeting. They had cell phones and talked with someone on the outside. Then they brought into the room the faculty member responsible for the computers and he talked for several minutes with someone on the cell phone. I could not tell who it was but he agreed with them."

The Haitian police appear to have been equally confused. The tape allows us to easily identify the faces of the rock throwing "students" casually standing on a balcony above while the police arrest a mere two persons alleged to be Lavalas militants below. Were two persons responsible for the entire damage done to facility? As I watched the tape I could sense that the “facts” had been rehearsed. The “students” shamelessly forced tears as they left the facility blaming the evil Lavalas grassroots organizations for attacking them. To this day the Rector of the university has refused to comment on the incident.
Out of the shadows
Following the claims of "Black Friday" came a torrent of protests against the government from “students” supposedly violated by Lavalas. But Andre Apaid's Group 184 clearly emerged as the true leadership of the demonstrations. December 22 saw a large protest by Apaid’s group calling for the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. These surrogates of Washington's war against the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America, filled the streets with nearly 10,000 people while a smaller contingent of Aristide's Lavalas movement guarded the national palace. Michael Norton of the Associated Press, as well as a heavy contingent of France's press, witnessed this to conclude that it was merely a matter of time before Aristide and his ugly little experiment in democracy for the poor would fail. What they did not know, or could not know, was the depth of the creative resistance of the poor black majority in Haiti. It’s difficult to fault the foreign media’s judgment, however, for money is power and power is money and they can afford their next meal while the impoverished majority in Haiti cannot. In a country as poor as Haiti, this is the difference between knowing what is real and what is false. What non-Haitians must try to understand is that if only half of the negative propaganda about Lavalas were true, particularly that President Aristide no longer enjoys wide support in the country, this government would have fallen long ago.

In the wake of the fabricated events of December 5 the Haitian government and Lavalas endured weeks of clandestine attacks, while the opposition demonstrated under heavy police protection. Then, on December 26, the great silent beast of Haiti’s poor, portrayed as violent and anti-democratic by the Haitian press and their friends in the international corporate media, awakened. Tens of thousands of Lavalas supporters hit the streets with a singular purpose and objective: that Haiti's constitution be respected and President Aristide be allowed to fulfill his five-year term in office.

The real battle had just begun, as Haiti’s long-oppressed millions prepared to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the world’s only successful slave revolution and the first black republic.
Kevin Pina is a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist who has been working and living in Haiti for the past three years. He has been covering events in Haiti for the past decade and produced a documentary film entitled "Haiti: Harvest of Hope ". Mr. Pina is also the Haiti Special Correspondent for the Flashpoints radio program on the Pacifica Network's flagship station KPFA in Berkeley CA.