Haiti: Was this a U.S. backed coup d'etat?

Great Debates
21

Why oh why would we flip Haiti? I could see good reasons for doing so in other parts of the world, back in the day (Heck, today even). But Haiti? What possible reason do we have for wanting ‘our guy’ in office there? We want to corner the world market on poverty? AIDS imports?

I am sure there was a collective, ‘Ah, fuck’ in the White House when Haiti started going (further) down the tubes. Haiti is all problem, without a pot of gold at the end. To ascribe devious plots by GW for that ‘country’ is pretty laughable.

22

Well, Aristide just talked on CNN, and nobody stopped him. He seems to be feeling terribly sorry for himself, and I couldn’t quite understand his English well enough to follow everything he was saying:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/03/01/aristide.claim/index.html

But they just read his letter of resignation on the Lehrer Report, and a guy said it was his handwriting and style.

Now, to me, evacuating the endangered dictator out of the country =/ engineering the coup, and while it seems that he was indeed made to leave under threat of force, I’m not convinced it was US force rather than local forces. I’m disappointed that CARICOM wasn’t able to get its act together to help with all this; the French and Americans are on the ground now, let’s get the Jamaicans in there too.

It’s pretty mysterious, but right now I’m not inclined to believe Aristide in general. He’s all over the map. And, you know, the whole deposed dictator thing in general–they ain’t known for sterling truth.

23

Now the Aristide is talking directly:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/03/01/aristide.claim/index.html

24

Here’s a more detailed interview from the AP
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040301/D811SQ881.html

He says he was threatened into signing.

Aristide was democratically elected he was not a dictator.

25

Just to throw in my 2 cents while the story continues to develop:

The most plausible reason that comes to mind that the US might have forced Aristide to leave, is that it was simply the most convenient solution to keep stability near American borders. Aristide’s resignation was the scenario that the Bush Admin openly proposed as the most favorable beforehand after all. The lack of US motivation is hardly the issue.

Overall it’s neither too dark, too complicated or unbelievable to me.

Although… heh-heh, there has been a strong Masonic influence in Haiti since their first revolution. :wink:

26

I usually disagree with just about everything Brutus says, and haven’t been shy about saying so on several occasions in the past. This time, however, he’s hit the nail on the head. If anyone wants me to believe that the U.S. somehow engineered this coup, they’re going to have to come up with some plausible reason that the U.S. would want to do so. Brutus is right - the conspiracy theory fails, for lack of a motive.

On preview, I see that far_born is theorizing that the U.S. would want Aristide out in order to create stability “near American borders.” First, Haiti isn’t really on our border. Second, the health and welfare of the U.S. isn’t exactly tied to what’s happening in Haiti. Outside of the Haitian community in Florida, it barely registers. Finally, the takeover of Haiti by armed thugs is almost certain to produce another wave of boat people trying to get to the U.S. from Haiti. Some “stability!”

The lack of motivation is precisely the issue. Without motivation, the scenario is simply nonsense.

27

I agree:

P1) We’ve done this sort of thing in the past, and it hasn’t come to light until later.

P2) There’s no point for the U.S. to do this, and lots of points AGAINST it doing this.

I vote that Aristide is freaked out and pissed off, and is grasping at straws. He interpreted the U.S. telling him “dude, they are so going to kill you, watch out” as a threat along the lines of exactly what we did in South America (essentially, after orchestrating fake coups, having our own ambassador tell the leader to get the hell out). But nope, we were probably just trying to get him to see reason.

The interesting thing is why we didn’t help him out earlier, not why he’s out now. After all, a lot of this seems to be because he disbanded the army, which was a monster even more corrupt than his government was. This was a positive step, especially since Haiti has no plausible need for an army whatsoever except to protect the government from a revolt.

28

It constantly amazes me the depth to which people hate Bush. Its like some kind of mania, and they think that nothing is beyond him. Even getting around the ‘lies’ Bush supposedly told, don’t you think the fact that Haiti is worthless to the US while Iraq has, you know, oil, makes a tiny difference? I mean, if you are going to be paranoid about some deep conspiricy layed on by the evil Bush, at least think it through…what could Haiti possibly have that Bush would want that would be worth the risk to his re-election chances (already hanging by a thread, in case you missed it)??

I still don’t get why people can’t accept that, perhaps Aristide (being a politician for gods sake!!) is not simply talking out his ass in an attempt to win the sympathy vote. I mean, he can appear all noble and downtrodden, bravely telling his story (on CNN guys!! Ya, there is definitely a movement to keep him silent. snort) to the world that he didn’t REALLY want to leave, but was force too, blah blah blah.

-XT

29

Newsday has U.S. officials saying two Admin hardliners made this happen:

The other key official is Otto Reich, an NSC envoy who has ties to the plotters of the attempted Venezuelan coup a couple years back. Noriega was a Jesse Helms protege.

If the (named) sources in the article are right, these guys had plenty of motivation. If they’re right, these guys have been plotting Haiti the way Wolfie and Perle have been plotting Iraq: since well before either country was on Bush’s radar screen.

Today’s column by Jeff Sachs in the Financial Times (London) makes some strong claims:

I don’t know how accurate his facts are, but it’s all checkable.

Meanwhile, all the Administration has to offer is blather about “the reports…do nothing to help the Haitians move forward to a better, more prosperous future.” Thanks, Mr. Press Secretary, but these claims, which are quite specific in nature, need to be responded to with equal specificity. Because right now, quite frankly, you don’t have the benefit of the doubt, nor do you deserve it.

Thanks to Atrios for the links.

30

From here, what it looks like is not so much like the Americans engineered the insurrection and fall from the start, but that they took a good look at the problem of restabilizing Haiti and decided who was the expendable variable in the equation. After all, as late as last week American mediators were trying for a power-sharing compromise that would let Aristide finsih off his term, but both parties said no dice.

JBA had probably already noticed this time around he would not be helped, but maybe he was not expected to be told bluntly: “YOU are the Weakest Link. Goodbye!”
And at that point, unless they pysically dragged him in cuffs or threw him in a trunk, Aristide proved he is no Salvador Allende. (Heck, he isn’t even Hugo Chávez – when they came for him, Chávez’s supporters stepped up and stood their ground; the Haitians were surrendering entire cities and provinces to gangs of armed goons; the fact they announced they were getting set to surround and starve out Port-au-Prince is to me a hint that they were NOT anywhere near powerful enough to mount a true decisive assault.) Was he forced to step down? Oh, I’m sure he would rather have not. In any case he is now safe and sound where he can sound off as much as he wants – so much for the conjectures about “accidents” – which I expect to be partly legit denunciations and partly much dole-making to avoid looking like he ran away.

Lest we forget, the US made Aristide the face of “legitimacy” in Haiti at the beginning of the 1990s – at the time, when he was overthrown by a military coup, the US took him in and put the screws on the generals. I still remember the US-led OAS international force that surrounded Haiti to pressure the Army to restore Aristide to power (Brazilian aircraft carrier doing port calls in San Juan!). So from the beginning, the rule of the Lavalas Party was born under the sign of external patrons calling the shots. But already during the Préval presidency (95-2000), things started degenerating, the chimeres started organizing, polarization increased. Aristide attempted to preempt future coups by firing the whole Army but all that did was increase the unemployment rolls with people who knew how to use guns, so instead of well-organized coups in P-a-P you had rampaging goons all over. Essentially the last couple of years the country was running away from Aristide, he was unable to maintain control, and the Powers (USA + France) determined that (a) propping him up, a.k.a. “international support for the elected(*) government” would only prolong the pain and (b) looking the other way and letting the insurrection go on until the Last Man Standing took the prize could be a humanitarian disaster.

(*as well as a government may be considered freely elected in Haiti)

Anyway the anti-Aristide forces are split between supporters of the former military strongmen that the US drove out, and people who split from Aristide’s own ranks, so it’s hard to see who would the US favor. So far the “official” line is for at least keeping the appearance of temporary permanence of the extant constitutional institutions, e.g. a formal resignation and the Chief Justice sitting as acting president.

Color me jaded, but it’s not like the “democratic” countries of Latin America should be so shocked. Since restoration of constitutional rule, Ecuador has cashiered something like three presidents, Peru had Fujimori, Paraguay and Bolivia had their own impeachments and forced resignations, Argentina had that splendid situation with the 4 presidents in one month. If anything this is something of a signal that “impeachment by rioting in the streets” has become quasi-institutionalized, which is only good when compared to airstrikes on the national palace and mass “disappearances”. Maybe LatinAm should give up on the presidential system and adopt the use of Prime Ministers, so you can seamlessly fire the Government whenever something gets stuck. Heck, it has worked for Italy…

31

[QUOTE=Early Out]
If anyone wants me to believe that the U.S. somehow engineered this coup, they’re going to have to come up with some plausible reason that the U.S. would want to do so. Brutus is right - the conspiracy theory fails, for lack of a motive.

[quote]
Well you should take your beef to the US Admin which publicly called for Aristide to resign. What outcome do you think the US would have preferred better?

32

I have to admit I’m pretty befuddled by this.

I cannot think of Bush’s motive to depose Aristide.

I also cannot think of why Aristide would make the statements he made if they were not true.

I am finding this to be a very bizarre scenario. I hope it becomes more clear.

33

I have no idea of the actual facts, but one plausable scenario is that, after leaving Haiti voluntarily, but at the strong urging of the US, Aristide wants to maintain some power and leverage there.

Rather than saying “I flew the coop”, or perhaps worse, “the US gave me a chance to save my skin, so I took it,” now that he’s safely out of the country, he’s saying that the US coerced him. That way he can seek and probably get sympathy as a US-deposed leader and create real ambiguity about his real status in Haiti.
He really has little to lose by this strategy, and quite a bit to gain.

34

Whatever the reasons are, I can’t say for certain either. But here’s an excerpt from a cnn article
“In Washington, the U.S. State Department suggested Friday that the best way to end the crisis would be for Aristide to step down and transfer power to a constitutionally mandated successor.”

As to why the State Department thought this was the best move, we don’t have to speculate. Their preference was clearly stated.

As for proof, well the whole situation just seems to be “he said she said” at the moment.

35

Billdo probably has it right. It really is bizarre, though. And maybe I was a little too facile in calling the guy a dictator, but he certainly blew the goodwill of the world and over 900 mil in aid.

36

The thing is, I’m not sure anyone could have done any better, and given that, I don’t see how it’s a good thing to basically let the hope of a stable constitutional democracy for yet another generation in Haiti fall to pieces.

As messed up as his government was, Aristede was at least trying to make things better under awful conditions (massive corruption, an economy that has always sucked, and heavy sanctions), and it was pretty far from the sort of brutual dictator the Duvaliers were. The people trying to take over the government are basically a bunch of the worst kinds of thugs who generally objected to the reforms Aristede was making (such as not having the military be such a huge player which is, after all, pretty bad for democracy, and what sort of “dictator” tries to demilitarize?) more than legitimate gripes, and an opposition party that had continually rejected all attempts at negotiation and compromise.

37

I read a number of articles about Haiti over the last year, and from these I gathered that Aristide was a main cause of this awful situation, and particularily concerning corruption, since he choose to rule the country with the backing of armed militias which were plainly brutal and lawless gangs.

The thughs who operated in plain light in Haiti until the most recent developments and the insurrection were Aristide’s. He had forgotten his promises long time ago, and was well on his way to become a new “Papa Doc”. As for why he demilitarized, it’s clearly because he feread a coup like the one which ousted him the first time. But while “demilitarizing”, he was arming thughs faithful to him which weren’t reluctant to use any possible way to terrorize his oponents (and were essentially living on the beast).
Good riddance. I too am extremely rarely on the same side than Brutus on any issue, but in this case, though the USA certainly played a major role in organizing the end of Aristide’s rule, they certainly weren’t depositing a nice democrat, and Aristide certainly isn’t an Allende’s style martyr. The US certainly had an interest in the stability of this area, but they could have acheived this goal by supporting Aristide (who never, AFAIK, opposed the US policies, especially since it’s the US which put him back in power) if it had been possible.

38

Going from “We think such-and-such an outcome would be the best thing for the people of Haiti” to “…and we’re going to hold a gun to someone’s head to make it happen” requires quite a leap.

The government making the first half of that hypothetical statement could simply be stating that, to an outside observer, it would appear that a certain outcome would be best. The government making the second half of that statement would have to have a very strong national interest in producing that outcome.

If someone today said, “Early Out rigged the recent elections in Guatemala,” would the fact that, six months ago, I said that the Guatemalan people would probably be better off with Berger than with Rios Montt, would you accept that as proof that I rigged the elections?

39

I haven’t an opinion on the whole thing, particularly because of the lack of (known) motive but I just find it tells a lot about the position of the US vs the world when it isn’t that hard to believe that the US engineered this.

BTW, one editorial and one article about it here:

http://dominionpaper.ca/haiti/ (with lots of footnotes and cites)

http://dominionpaper.ca/international_news/2004/02/25/media_cove.html

40

Well…what do we get from Haiti? Mangoes? We have no military bases there, no real economic interests and no real threat from them. Why would we care enough to go to any trouble to cause a coup d’etat and install a dictator?