Bush, Clinton e i crimini dell’imperialismo USA ad in Haiti/ I militari Usa stringono la morsa su Haiti

Bush, Clinton e i crimini dell’imperialismo USA ad in Haiti/ I militari Usa stringono la morsa su Haiti, Alex Lantier

– Il presidente USA Obama ha comunicato che gli ex presidenti, Bill Clinton e George W. Bush guideranno la raccolta fondi per gli aiuti del dopo-terremoto ad Haiti.

– Un segnale che non è da attendersi alcun cambiamento nella politica degli Usa nei Caraibi, dato che precisamente Bill Clinton e George W. Bush ad definire dal 1993 la politica predatoria USA verso Haiti,

o   che li vide direttamente coinvolti in macchinazioni politiche ed interventi militari, che contribuirono a mantenere ad Haiti povertà, arretratezza e repressione, importanti fattori della particolare gravità degli effetti del terremoto.

– Clinton divenne presidente subito dopo il colpo militare che esautorò il primo presidente haitiano democraticamente eletto, il sacerdote populista Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[1]  Il Colpo venne sostenuto dall’ex presidente Bush padre.

– L’Amministrazine Dem. Clinton attuò un cambiamento di politica tattico; impose sanzioni economiche alla giunta haitiana, che distrussero le industrie di export, inviò i marines, per la 3° volta nel XX sec., per destituire il gen. Raoul Cedras. Reinsediò Aristide, con la sua assicurazione che non avrebbe minato il predominio americano e dell’elite haitiana, e che nel 1996 se ne sarebbe definitivamente andato.

– Aristide se ne andò, successe René Préval (1996-2001), che attuò le direttive FMI (tagli occupazionali, dei servizi pubblici, rovina dei coltivatori di riso. Cfr. documento precedente).

– 2000, il partito Fanmi Lavals di Aristide vince le legislative; l’Amministrazione Clinton non accetta il risultato elettorale, sospende gli aiuti. Aristide torna alla presidenza a nov.; avversato fortemente dal nuovo pres. Usa G.W. Bush. Seguono 3 anni di miseria causata dal blocco degli aiuti int.li ed dall’isolamento voluti da Bush.

– Febb. 2004, i militari USA intervengono di nuovo a seguito delle proteste fomentate dalla elite dominante, ed espellono Aristide.

– La missione di “pace” ONU, di cui il Brasile fornisce il maggior contingente, subentra ai marines ad Haiti; nel 2006 Préval riprende la presidenza, che dovrebbe terminare a fine 2010.

– Préval, prima sostenitore e seguace di Aristide, nel secondo mandato si è sottomesso alle ricette di Wall Street e del FMI.

●    L’inviato speciale ONU ad Haiti, Bill Clinton, sta cercando di fare di Haiti una base per l’industria dell’abbigliamento Usa, con salari da fame. Aprile 2008, rivolte per il pane, che non impediscono però a Préval di bloccare una legislazione che avrebbe aumentato il salario minimo del settore abbigliamento di $1,72 al giorno.

– Gli sforzi logistici USA ad Haiti si concentrano sull’ammasso di decine di migliaia di soldati per reprimere proteste e rivolte di massa contro gli aiuti inadeguati. Il londinese Times: “La capitale di Haiti potrebbe presto precipitare in rivolte, se i 3 milioni di sopravvissuti al terremoto, affamati, assetati e traumatizzati, non ricevono subito aiuti di emergenza”.

– Ad Haiti c’erano prima circa 4 200 soldati americani, aumentati ora a 12 000, in aggiunta ai 7 000 soldati ONU, diretti dal Brasile.

– Hillary Clinton ha appoggiato il decreto per lo stato di emergenza, e il coprifuoco, che del governo haitiano, che nella pratica delega la propria autorità alle forze USA.

I miliari Usa hanno preso il controllo dell’aeroporto della capitale, bloccando l’accesso ai voli umanitari, inviati da Francia, Brasile ed Italia, che hanno dovuto atterrare a San Domingo. Proteste dal ministro Esteri francese (“l’aeroporto di Port-au-Prince … è un annesso di Washington”). Dei circa 200 voli giornalieri nella capitale, la maggior parte sono per i militari americani. Nella casa di risposo ad un solo miglio dall’aeroporto gli anziani stanno morendo di fame.

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–   The Obama administration has announced that former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will head the fundraising for relief efforts in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. In his radio speech Saturday, Obama declared: “These two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and the world. In a moment of need, the United States stands united.”

The message of the Clinton-Bush appointment is indeed significant, but hardly what the White House and the American media have suggested.

–   In selecting his two immediate predecessors, those who have set US policy in the Caribbean since 1993, Obama demonstrates that the devastating human tragedy in Haiti will not bring any alteration in the rapacious role of US imperialism in that impoverished semi-colonial country.

–   For eight years apiece, Clinton and Bush were directly and deeply involved in a series of political machinations and military interventions that have played a major role in perpetuating the poverty, backwardness and repression in Haiti that have vastly compounded by the disaster that struck that country last Tuesday. Both men have the blood of Haitian workers and peasants on their hands.

–   Clinton took office in the immediate aftermath of the military coup which ousted Haiti’s first democratically elected president, the populist cleric Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That coup was backed by the administration of Bush’s father, who saw Aristide as an unwanted and potentially dangerous radical.

–   The new Democratic Party administration undertook a tactical shift in policy. Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the Haitian junta, which destroyed Haiti’s fledgling export industries, then dispatched the Marines to Haiti—for the third time in the 20th century—to compel Gen. Raoul Cedras, the junta leader, to depart. The US restored Aristide to the presidency, after he had given assurances that he would do nothing to challenge the domination of either Washington or the native Haitian elite, and that he would leave office in 1996 without seeking reelection.

–   After Aristide obediently left office on schedule, he was succeeded by René Préval, who served the first of his two terms as president from 1996 to 2001, carrying out the dictates of an International Monetary Fund “structural adjustment” program that slashed employment, cut public services, and ruined domestic rice farmers.

–   When Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party won a clear victory in May 2000 legislative elections, the Clinton administration and the Republican-controlled Congress refused to accept the election and cut off US aid. Aristide himself returned to the presidency after winning a landslide election victory in November 2000, only to face an implacable enemy in the incoming Bush administration.

–   For three years, Haiti was systematically starved by the US aid cutoff and measures taken by the Bush administration to block international aid and isolate the Aristide government. Finally, in February 2004, amid protests fomented by the Haitian ruling elite with covert American backing, the US military again intervened in the country, seizing Aristide and shipping him out of the country to exile.

–   The Marines turned over effective control of the country to a United Nations peacekeeping force, with Brazil providing the biggest troop contingent, propping up a series of unelected Haitian prime ministers until elections in 2006, from which candidates of Fanmi Lavalas were largely excluded. René Préval was elected president for the second time, in a term scheduled to end late this year.

–   Once a supporter and professed political “twin” of Aristide, Préval has long since made his peace with both Washington and the Haitian ruling elite, and his second term has been characterized by slavish subservience to the economic prescriptions of Wall Street and the International Monetary Fund.

Throughout the Clinton and Bush administrations, US demands for adherence to IMF austerity policies were combined with a vicious program of repression against Haitians fleeing the country of their birth to seek refuge and a better life in the United States. In his first campaign for the presidency, in 1992, Clinton criticized the persecution and forced repatriation of Haitian refugees, only to reverse himself and continue those policies unaltered. For the next 17 years—and continuing with no change from Obama—hundreds of refugees have died in small boats seeking to evade the US Coast Guard blockade.

–   Most recently, Clinton has been the official UN envoy for Haiti, backing the corrupt Préval regime and seeking to develop Haiti as a base for a profitable US-run garment industry founded on near-starvation wages.

–   Food riots swept the country in April 2008, but that did not stop Préval from blocking legislation that would have raised the minimum wage of $1.72 a day for workers in the garment factories.

As for George W. Bush, his selection as co-leader of a supposed humanitarian campaign is an insult to the people of both Haiti and the United States. His appointment by Obama is in keeping with the Democratic president’s unflagging efforts since his election, the result of popular hatred of Bush and his party, to rehabilitate the Republicans.

–   An unapologetic war criminal who is responsible for the slaughter of a million Iraqis, Bush’s signature domestic “achievement” was the abject failure of the US government either to prevent the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina, or to mount an effective relief and recovery effort afterwards.

This is the record of the two men whom Barack Obama has selected as the public face of the latest US initiative in Haiti. Bush and Clinton made a series of media appearances over the weekend, including interviews on all five Sunday television news programs, during which they emphasized the need to restore “stability” to Haiti, and the important role that the United States would have to play in that effort.

Bush and Clinton personify the pernicious and reactionary role that American imperialism has played in Haiti for the last century. It is no exaggeration to say that the policies of their administrations have caused as much death and devastation in that country as last Tuesday’s earthquake.

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By Alex Lantier

–   Amid the humanitarian tragedy following the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Washington has concentrated on establishing indefinite military control of the country. Fearing mass protests and riots by desperate Haitians against inadequate rescue efforts, US logistical efforts are focused on massing tens of thousands of troops for use against the population.

–   Speaking yesterday on ABC television’s “This Week” program, US General Ken Keen, who commands the military task force in Haiti, said US troops would “be here as long as needed.” He confirmed there were roughly 4,200 US troops in Haiti, largely in cutters patrolling offshore, and that by today there would be 12,000 US troops in the country.

–   On Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Port-au-Prince at the invitation of Haitian President René Préval. She argued for the imposition of an emergency decree in Haiti, allowing for the imposition of curfews and martial-law conditions by US forces. Clinton explained: “The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us.”

–   The US government is also working with a force of roughly 7,000 Brazilian-led UN peacekeepers. Clinton commented, “We’re being very thoughtful about how we support them.”

–   Brazilian officials publicly commented on the risk that mass rioting could overpower international security forces in Haiti. On Friday, Brazil’s Defense Minister Nelson Jobin had warned that the peacekeepers “could struggle” if there was large-scale protests: “We are concerned about security.” The Times of London commented, “Haiti’s capital could quickly descend into rioting if three million hungry, thirsty, and traumatised earthquake survivors don’t receive emergency aid soon.”

–   US officials are citing contradictory reports of looting in Haiti to justify further US troop deployments. Keen told ABC, “having a safe and secure environment is going to be very important. … We have had incidents of violence that impede our ability to support the government of Haiti and answer the challenges that this country faces as they’re suffering a tragedy of epic proportions.”

–   However, one official with the World Food Program (WFP) told the New York Times: “For the moment, the population is rather quiet. But we are seeing the first signs of violence and looting.” The first signs included scuffles between Haitians as food aid is distributed to the population, and one incident in Pétionville, where police threw an alleged looter to an angry mob, who beat him and then burned him to death.

–   The US military has taken control of Port-au-Prince airport as a key hub of its military buildup, blocking access by humanitarian flights. Humanitarian flights from France, Brazil, and Italy were refused permission to land, and the Red Cross reported one of its planes was diverted to Santo Domingo, the capital of the neighboring Dominican Republic.

–   France’s ambassador to Haiti, Didier le Bret, said France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner had lodged a protest with the US State Department after the US blocked a French flight carrying an emergency field hospital. He added that Port-au-Prince airport was “not an airport for the international community. It’s an annex of Washington. … We were told it was an extreme emergency, there was need for a field hospital. We might be able to make a difference and save lives.”

–   French officials later backed down from these statments. Presidential counselor Claude Guéant said, “The US, who have a very sizeable Haitian community, have decided to make a considerable effort … Now is really not the time to express rivalries between countries.”

However, WFP officials confirmed that US control of Port-au-Prince airport was creating serious logistical problems for aid and rescue efforts. The WFP’s Jarry Emmanuel told the New York Times: “There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti. But most of those flights are for the United States military. … Their priorities are to secure the country. Ours are to feed [people]. We have got to get those priorities in sync.”

–   At Port-au-Prince’s Municipal Nursing Home, barely one mile from the US-controlled airport, 85 elderly Haitians are starving and being attacked by rats. One man, Joseph Julien, has already died. Officials have cited fights over food at a nearby soccer stadium to justify not sending them supplies, despite their proximity to the airport. Nursing home administrator Jean Emmanuel told the Associated Press: “I’m pleading for everyone to understand that there’s a truce right now, the streets are free, so you can come through to help us.”

As of yesterday, US search-and-rescue teams had only dug out 15 people from the rubble.

–   The US military intervention in Haiti is criminal in both form and content. Disguised as a humanitarian rescue operation, its main aim is to build up the necessary firepower to terrorize the masses into accepting a shocking lack of treatment without protest. Even taken on its own terms, the US occupation of Haiti has not taken the opportunities available to it to treat wounded Haitians.

–   This operation recalls the March 1993 US intervention in Somalia, when US forces invaded that strategically-located country, supposedly to help relieve famine. US forces were soon deeply entangled in civil war and hated by the population, leading up to a shoot-out between US forces and civilians in Mogadishu. Current US operations in Haiti are preparing similar confrontations with the population.

The rescue efforts in Haiti are held hostage by a US national security establishment that is completely impervious to popular sympathy for the victims of the earthquake, and unanswerable to the masses—of Haiti or any other country, including the US itself. Instead, as the death toll mounts, there is an unspoken but unanimous agreement in the international media that it is legitimate for the US military to dictate how operations will proceed.

–   Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive confirmed yesterday that the death toll was at least 70,000. However, this counted only confirmed dead in Port-au-Prince and the nearby city of Leogane, which was over 80 percent destroyed in the quake. Bellerive added that the figure of 100,000 dead throughout Haiti “would seem to be the minimum.” Interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” USAID administrator Rajiv Shah said he had “no reason to contradict” estimates of 100,000 to 200,000 dead.

Time is also running out for many of the even larger number of Haitians wounded in the earthquake. Hospitals have been destroyed and medical staffs are overwhelmed by large numbers of patients with crushed limbs and rapidly spreading infections. Deprived of antibiotics and basic medical supplies, doctors are resorting to amputations and are refusing treatment to badly injured patients, whom they do not think they can save.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times at Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, Dr. Georges Lamarre said most of his patients the first night had bled to death, and that he still had no antibiotics or blood supplies: “Up to this moment, there are patients out there we haven’t even touched.”

At the General Hospital, Yolanda Gehry and her baby, Ashleigh, waited four days before doctors could tape up Ashleigh’s head. However, they have not yet treated Ashleigh’s shattered left hand. Gehry commented: “The Haitian doctors didn’t have anything to help us, so we had to wait for the foreigners.”

US officials have made clear that treating Haitian victims of the earthquake is not a US priority. Medical facilities on the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, steaming off Haiti’s shores, will not treat Haitians. The senior medical officer on board, Commander Alfred Shwayhat, told the Wall Street Journal he had plans to “treat 1,000 Haitians if necessary,” but said that he had received no orders to do so. He continued, “If the captain authorizes it, I will take anyone … [the Vinson’s facility] exceeds anything in the civilian sector, bar none.”

Lieutenant Commander Jim Krohne, a spokesman for the Vinson’s captain, explained that the carrier’s mission was “sea-based.” The Vinson later sent two doctors onshore to help treat Haitian patients.

US officials are also warning Haitians that, if they try to flee from Haiti to the US, they will be deported back to Haiti. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: “There may be an impulse to leave the island to come here. You will not qualify for TPS [Temporary Protected] status.” This would allow the US to deport them upon arrival.

Officials in Miami, a city with a large Haitian immigrant population, are watching for signs of a mass flght from Haiti to the US. Democratic Representative Kendrick B. Meek noted, “The entire community is emotionally attached to Haiti, and it’s been rough,” adding that Haitian-Americans form the bulk of the workforce for many major employers in the region. However, officials are preparing prisons for potential Haitian refugees.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would move 400 detainees from the Krome detention facility to an undisclosed location, to free up space in case any Haitians manage to reach US shores.

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