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PetroCaribe Rescue

2008-08-17T23:22:00Z

The Jamaica Observer

JAMAICA is one of 18 regional countries which will benefit from a drawdown of approximately US$40 million from a special PetroCaribe fund aimed at helping them deal with global food security and price increases.

Jamaica's minister of agriculture, Dr Christopher Tufton - one of eight members of the technical executive secretariat of the Council of Agriculture Ministers of PetroCaribe meeting in Havana, Cuba - yesterday confirmed that the 18 countries will each have access to approximately US$2 million within weeks to support emergency food initiatives, including fertiliser availability.

"Basically, what is proposed is that in the short term, US$2 million will be allocated to each of the 18 countries which basically gives an advantage to the smaller countries to whom the US$2 million will mean more in value," Dr Tufton told the Observer in a telephone interview following a press conference announcing the proposals in Havana.

"That money will be used to target specific areas of food production and productivity, namely machinery, planting materials and feeds, training and any other critical areas," he added.

He said that in addition, each territory will submit their fertiliser needs and the secretariat will look at procuring fertiliser for the region, as opposed to individual countries sourcing.

"We also complete the terms of reference of how the PetroCaribe Funds will be administered in terms of the criteria, the focus, promoting local production, consumption and trade between member countries and ensuring that it does not conflict with other institutions like Caricom," Tufton said.

"All of this is subject to ratification by the respective countries, and there is a meeting proposed for September in Honduras where an official signing is expected to take place involving the heads of the respective member countries," he added.

Tufton said that while the overall fund is expected to reap some US$500 million by the end of 2008, the funds have just started to accumulate, following its announcement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the PetroCaribe summit in Maracaibo in early July.

The US$40 million, which he said should be available to member countries within a few weeks following ratification of the proposals, was the initial portion.

The fund, announced to the Jamaican Parliament by Prime Minister Bruce Golding on his return from the Maracaibo summit, is an initiative by Chavez to support PetroCaribe member countries in expanding agricultural production and improve food security.

He said that Venezuela would contribute US50 cents per barrel of exported oil, which adds up to about US$760 million per year.

A special meeting of regional agricultural ministers, including Tufton, was held on July 30 in Honduras to start the process of working out how the funds would be allocated. At that meeting Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Venezuela were named to the technical executive secretariat assigned the task of designing and recommending a treaty of food security and the establishment of mechanisms to manage the oil fund. Tufton will return home today.

Danny Glover, Haiti, and the Politics of Revolutionary Cinema in Venezuela

2008-08-15T00:35:00Z

By: Nikolas Kozloff - NACLA

Since the inception of the oil industry in the early twentieth century, Venezuela has had strong cultural ties to the United States. President Hugo Chávez however has sought to change this by cultivating a sense of cultural nationalism in his country. Perhaps the hallmark of Chávez’s new cultural policy is Villa del Cine, a spanking new film studio. Inaugurated in June 2006 amid much fanfare, the $42 million project under the Ministry of Culture aims to produce 19 feature-length films a year, in addition to documentaries and television series. Through this “Bolivarian Cinecittà,” Chávez seeks to spur production of films dealing with social empowerment, South American history, and Venezuelan values.

Chávez himself has long favored such movies: two of Chávez’s favorite films include El Caracazo, directed by Roman Chalbaud, which depicts popular protests and riots against the corrupt government of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989. The second, Amaneció de Golpe (The Coup Awakened) by Carlos Azpúrua, deals with Chávez’s attempted military coup against the Pérez regime in 1992.

By spurring local film production, Chávez and the staff at Villa del Cine hope to counteract the pervasive influence of Hollywood and to promote Venezuelan history and culture. “They [foreign films] inoculate us with messages that have nothing to do with our traditions,” the Venezuelan leader said during Villa del Cine’s inauguration ceremony. Though some foreign films were “enjoyable,” Chávez remarked, most Indians and Latin Americans in them were portrayed as people that were “savage and dangerous, who have to be eliminated.”

“Hollywood sends a message to the world that tries to sustain the so-called American way of life and imperialism,” he added. “It is like a dictatorship.” Venezuela is hardly the first government to subsidize cinematic production. In many European nations as well as Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico, it’s common for authorities to provide state funding for movie making. On the other hand, Villa del Cine has not been immune from criticism. Ironically, some charge that the film studio is promoting Hollywood stars like Danny Glover while neglecting the local Venezuelan film industry. The controversy has put Villa del Cine on the defensive and led to accusations that the facility is playing favorites.

Villa del Cine Seeks To Counteract Hollywood

While researching my latest book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), I traveled to Villa del Cine, located outside of the Venezuelan town of Guarenas. The government had spent lavishly there, and the facility included two film studios, audio and video equipment, warehouses and an administrative building with areas for post-production, animation, costumes, casting, and food service.

I sat down to speak with Lorena Almarza, Villa del Cine’s idealistic director. A former student of social and political psychology, Almarza became particularly interested in culture as a means of encouraging community organization. Growing up in the western city of Barquisimeto, she familiarized herself with the writings of such theorists as Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freyre. Meanwhile, she frequented local film clubs and became interested in cinema. “Later I went to Caracas to study psychology in the Central University,” she remarked. “I started to work as an usher. After that I began to organize film festivals.”

Once Chávez came to power, Almarza worked with the state-run Bolivarian schools, helping to bring movies to children and provide manuals explaining how students might interpret images and psychological profiles of different characters.

When I asked Almarza to talk about her work at Villa del Cine, she explained enthusiastically that she was proud to be part of an “experimental” state project. Historically, the Venezuelan authorities had provided minimal resources towards cultural promotion. But the Chávez government established a distributor, Amazonia Films, as an alternative to commercial networks.

Since opening in 2006, Amazonia has acquired films from Latin America, Europe and Asia. Amazonia officials have also started to provide support to independent film producers with cost reductions of up to 35 percent. Instead of merely providing minor funding towards incipient film production, the state has now created incentives so as to increase film production and to enable moviemakers to acquire their own equipment.

The new Minister of Culture, Francisco Sesto, began to encourage the creation of audio-visual cooperatives. The idea was that filmmakers would bring their proposals to the table and Villa del Cine would decide if the government was interested in promoting the project. “It’s all about the transformation of the state,” she says, “and how people might become participants in the development of film through their own art.” So far, Villa del Cine has shot on location in all twenty-four Venezuelan states and in 2005-2006 the studio filmed 357 productions.

Almarza has overseen the production of TV series documenting educational developments under Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution. But Villa del Cine has also shot films about Indians and music, and in 2007 the studio planned to commence work on some fictional films. The authorities also hope to spur the creation of a network of community movie theaters. In 2006, 80 new theaters were created and authorities seek to build yet more that could show films produced at Villa del Cine.

Ultimately, Almarza and her staff hope that films made at Villa del Cine will be shown at most any Venezuelan shopping mall along with the usual Hollywood fare. Venezuela cannot compete economically with Hollywood, but Villa del Cine seeks to provide alternatives to globalized homogeneity. As Almarza explained to me, film serves as useful tool in the “battle of ideas.”

Enter Danny Glover

As I sit with Almarza at Villa del Cine, I turn the discussion towards African-American actor Danny Glover, co-star of the Lethal Weapon and Dreamgirls movies. A long-time civil rights activist and critic of the Bush administration, the actor is chairman of the TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group for African Americans and other members of Africa's diaspora.

The Hollywood celebrity, who considers Chávez “remarkable,” has been a frequent visitor to Venezuela. In January 2004, TransAfrica Forum sent a delegation of influential artists, actors, activists and scholars to Caracas to meet with government officials. Glover, who accompanied the delegation, expressed his excitement at the social changes taking place in Venezuela. The actor remarked that the U.S. media's portrayal of Venezuela had “nothing to do with reality."

Glover added that he was in Venezuela "to listen and learn, not only from government and opposition politicians, but to share with the people, those who are promoting the changes in this country and we want to be in contact with those who benefit from those changes."

Glover and others later presided over the inauguration of a new "Martin Luther King, Jr." school in the coastal town of Naiguata. The area is home to large numbers of Afro-Venezuelans. The school inauguration was the first official Venezuelan recognition of the importance of the slain civil rights leader. What’s more, the government launched a photo exposition to honor Dr. King.

Speaking at the event, Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Álvarez declared, "The visit by members of the TransAfrica Forum represents a struggle that goes beyond the figure of Martin Luther King; his struggle, his ideas and the African-American social movements inspired by him. This is a struggle aimed at defending people's rights, not only in the United States, but in the hemisphere and the world."

Glover, clearly touched by the occasion, commented, "This isn't Danny Glover the artist. I'm here as a citizen, not only of the U.S., but a citizen of the world. We understand fully the importance of this historical moment." Chávez later honored the late Dr. King during his radio and TV show Aló, Presidente!. Glover and others were invited on air to participate.

Glover’s support for the Bolivarian Revolution continued into 2005. In July of that year, the Hollywood entertainer returned to Venezuela, this time accompanied by singer Harry Belafonte. Once in Caracas, Glover attended the ceremonial launching of a new TV news station called Telesur, a network that has received key financial support from Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay.

Glover was impressed with the new media initiative but criticized the station for not having any people of African or indigenous descent on its advisory board. Chávez himself called in to the inauguration shortly after and said to Glover, in English, "Danny, I am with you."

A few months later, Chávez traveled to New York to address the United Nations. During his visit, the Venezuelan leader made an appearance at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in Manhattan’s Upper West Side where he praised U.S. icons such as Martin Luther King. The forum for Chávez’s speech was called, “Social Forum on Poverty and Justice in a Globalized World,” and was attended by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover.

Glover’s Venezuela Ties

Recently, other progressive Hollywood celebrities have paid visits to Venezuela. Just last month, actor and writer Tim Robbins toured Villa del Cine; the actor is reportedly contemplating the idea of initiating some type of film project in Venezuela. Robbins, who is known for his political activism and opposition to the Bush White House, praised Chávez’s film installation for its support of novel film directors. Robbins has been joined by Kevin Spacey and Sean Penn, two other Hollywood stars who have paid recent visits to Villa del Cine.

Glover however has gone farther than the likes of Robbins, Spacey or Penn in declaring his support for the political changes occuring in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. Indeed, the veteran civil rights activist has even signed on to Telesur as a member of the TV station’s advisory board.

In May 2007, Glover attended an International Communication Conference in Caracas with noted journalists, media executives, and intellectuals. The two-day event, which was open to the public, held interesting roundtable debates. Some of the topics included were: “Impunity and power of major media outlets,” “The responsibility of national governments,” “The use of radio and TV airspace as a public asset,” and “Social ownership of the media.”

Glover remarked that in the U.S., the issue of media control and citizen participation in the media was off the table. “People (in the United States) don't participate in a dialogue that allows them to see that they have the power of information,” he said. “We see the positions that the media take, and people should take that power back and make themselves the architects of the media.”

At the end of the conference, participants agreed to promote the creation of independent, community-based alternative media outlets as a counterbalance against the corporate media. In a manifesto approved by Telesur’s advisory council, participants declared that radio and television were an “asset for humanity,” and should be administered by national governments, not by corporations. Furthermore, national governments should use their authority to revoke, concede, or renew licenses in accordance with their various constitutions. The participants applauded recent decisions taken by Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay to reclaim public air space.

The Myth of Toussaint

Glover’s relationship with the Chávez government goes deeper than Telesur, however. During my interview with Almarza, the Villa del Cine Director, she remarked, “We have a very fraternal relationship with Glover. He came here to Villa del Cine in 2006. He’s interested in developing some film productions.”

Since that interview, Glover’s ties to Villa del Cine have taken off. Chávez’s film studio has funded Glover’s new epic film, Toussaint, about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1746-1803), one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France. The film represents Glover’s directorial debut; the star will also co-produce the movie.

Together with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint L'Ouverture was one of the principal leaders of the Haitian rebellion at the end of the eighteenth century that struggled against the revolutionary French as well as Spanish, British, and Napoleonic forces. Toussaint liberated black slaves not only in Haiti but all across the island of Hispaniola (today, the island is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

When Toussaint concluded a ceasefire with Napoleonic forces, which were determined to reestablish colonial rule and reimpose slavery, the Haitian revolutionary was betrayed, apprehended and deported. He died in France in 1803. Toussaint’s lieutenant Dessalines, an ex-slave just like Toussaint, continued the rebellion. Haiti finally declared its independence from France in January 1804. The impoverished Caribbean colony was the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic.

Political Controversy Swirling Around Toussaint

Unfortunately, for Glover, controversy has recently swirled around Toussaint, which will be filmed entirely in Venezuela (and not in Haiti, for security reasons). Connie Mack, a U.S. Republican congressmember from Florida, blasted Glover for cutting "a sweetheart movie deal" with Chávez. Such complaints are practically pro forma for Mack, who has been a vocal critic of Chávez’s Telesur. However, Mack has been joined by various Venezuelan filmmakers, who have raised a number of objections to the Glover film.

In 2007 the National Association of Film Makers and the Venezuelan Chamber of Film Producers criticized Glover for using political contacts to secure the funding package without a bidding process. The filmmakers called such methods "demoralising and detrimental to future generations of Venezuelan movie-makers." Claudia Nazoa, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Feature Film Producers (known by its Spanish acronym Caveprol), said, "What worries us is this trend for neo-colonisation by international figures who come to talk of their support for Chávez's government—and leave with money for their projects."

In 2007, Venezuela provided $18 million to fund Toussaint, and this year the authorities kicked in an extra $9 million. Venezuelan directors complain that the budget for Glover’s film matches the entire state budget for domestic films from 2003 to 2008—a sum they say could “finance 36 Venezuelan films.” Culture Minister Sesto called it "naive" to think the movie industry would be out $18 million, since the money did not come from Villa del Cine's operating funds but were part of an "additional credit.” He added, "The funds earmarked for this movie will be invested exclusively in Venezuela ... creating jobs and providing excellent experience for our national film industry.”

Thaelman Urgelles, a Venezuelan director, remarked to Inter Press Service that “we don’t have anything personal against Glover and it even seems good to expand our relations with the movie industry, but the quantity of money is excessive [and] it fails to consider the efforts of Venezuelan moviemakers who can’t even get $450,000 to make a film.” Urguelles added that normally filmmakers only obtained funding after competing in competitive bids and sometimes had to dig into their own pockets.

Even Diego Rísquez, the director of Villa del Cine’s Francisco de Miranda (see below), has remarked that funding Glover’s film was “an error, a lack of reflection, it puts all the eggs in one basket.” The director added that Spanish, French and Italian directors had come to Venezuela to film, and even Steven Spielberg had made part of Aracnophobia in the Andean nation. Unlike Glover however, those directors had brought international capital into Venezuela.

Iván Zambrano, President of Venezuela's National Association of Cinematic Authors or ANAC, said he had questions about how government money invested in Glover’s film would be spent. "They say that the artists will be 30 per cent Venezuelan and 70 per cent foreign," he said. "We want to know how this co-production will work and whether [the money that the government is investing] will include paying the artists. If you have Hollywood actors charging Hollywood salaries, then the budget will go on just two or three actors."

Chávez has said that he would like to break Hollywood’s tight stranglehold over the film industry by creating Villa del Cine. Yet ironically, though the film shall include African and Haitian actors, high profile Hollywood stars have also been billed for Toussaint. The film will star Don Cheadle, Angela Bassett, and Wesley Snipes.

"In a country with rampant poverty, a catastrophic health crisis and 14,000 violent deaths a year, President Hugo Chávez gives away our money for his friends to play with," said L.A.-based Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz. The Venezuelan filmmaker’s 2005 kidnap drama Secuestro Express was a local hit but also angered Chávez's government for its hard-hitting portrayal of sociopolitical malaise in Venezuela.

Villa del Cine Defends the Project

Representatives of the government wasted no time in hitting back at the Venezuelan filmmakers. Sesto declared that the Ministry of Culture would no longer recognize Caveprol and ANAC. According to Sesto, the filmmakers at these organizations were not “legitimate representatives of universal cinematography. They represent themselves; they are small groups with a monetary vision.” Sesto added that by funding Toussaint, Venezuela had the opportunity of joining the “major leagues” of cinema.

Some Venezuelan filmmakers complain that Villa del Cine will only produce films that fall in line with Chávez's socialist ideals, an accusation which Glover denies. The veteran actor has remarked that Toussaint won’t be left-wing revisionism but rather a critical movie dealing with a part of the hemisphere's past that has been "essentially wiped out of our historic memory."

Villa del Cine adminstrators claim that political pressure doesn’t figure into their decisions. "We are looking to make good films, no matter what the script. We really want writers and directors to come to us with their ideas. If they're good, we'll support them," Villa del Cine executive director Marco Mondarain told the BBC.

During my interview with Almarza from Villa del Cine, she said that Chávez had never intervened in the studio’s affairs. Almarza had never spoken personally to the Venezuelan president, though she and her colleagues at the Ministry of Culture had met with Chávez as a group. In 2007, says Oscar Murat, a project co-ordinator at La Villa del Cine, the studio “received various different proposals and of the ones which won commissions, none was linked with politics.”

Chávez, Miranda and Haiti

Despite the denials, it’s clear that a movie dealing with Caribbean slave revolt dovetails with Chávez’s frankly anti-imperialist political outlook. "This film [Toussaint] will form part of our ideological canon against Metro Goldwyn Mayer [MGM]," said Venezuelan congressman Simón Escalona. Outside of Venezuela, high-profile figures are pleased with Glover’s project. Haitian President René Preval told the New York Daily News that “we had the first successful anti-slave rebellion in this hemisphere. It’s our contribution to humanity. If Glover can take this story to the big screen, we will be happy.”

For Chávez, the Haitian independence struggle has key symbolic meaning. In March 2007, the Venezuelan leader traveled to the Caribbean island nation. Chávez timed his arrival in Haiti for maximum political and historic effect. “We know that March 12, 1806 [two years after Haiti became a republic] exactly two centuries ago and a year … a very great Venezuelan cried out for independence,” he said. “And it is here in a revolutionary boat with a revolutionary crew that the Venezuelan flag was hoisted for the first time. Francisco de Miranda, as you know, was that great Venezuela, and the reason for our visit is linked to what he did way back then."

Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816), considered by some to be a forerunner of later South American independence figures such as Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), was a soldier who fought in the American and French revolutions. In addition, he played a key part in events leading to Venezuela’s declaration of independence from Spain in 1811. The revolutionary was captured by Spanish colonial forces and spent the last days of his life as a prisoner. He died in a military fortress in Cádiz.

Within the National Pantheon of Caracas, where Bolívar lies in state, there’s an empty tomb awaiting Miranda’s body. A group of Spanish scientists has tried to determine whether certain remains in the fortress indeed belong to Miranda. The scientists have extracted DNA from bones in the fortress and will compare the genetic material to Miranda’s descendants in order to reach a final determination.

Not surprisingly, Chávez has expressed personal interest in the investigation. Though obscure, Miranda is one of Chávez’s favorite historical personalities. In the run-up to the December 2006 presidential election Chávez hailed his followers, nicknamed Miranda’s electoral “battalions.”

In 2006, Villa del Cine celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of Miranda’s return voyage to Venezuela by producing a film about the exploits of the late eighteenth-century hero. The film, Francisco de Miranda, glorifies the struggle of the intrepid revolutionary and draws attention to his dream of a united South America. After opening in 35 of Venezuela’s 400 movie theaters, the film did quite well at the box office and surpassed Hollywood blockbuster Superman Returns during the summer 2006 season.

Historical Symbolism of Venezuelan-Haitian Solidarity

Chávez has long emphasized historical symbolism in his political rhetoric, and his speech in Haiti proved no exception. Addressing the Haitian public in 2007, the Venezuelan leader remarked, “We are very conscious of what the Haitian people are—a people who were able to defeat empires and free their country well before the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean—a heroic people and also a ravaged people over the past two centuries. You must also know that Bolívar passed through here … in 1816 when in Venezuela … all appeared lost in the battle against Spain.”

The Venezuelan leader went on to discuss the important political connections between the Haitian Revolution and the Venezuelan independence struggle. Bolívar arrived in Haiti on Christmas Eve, 1815 after being expelled from Venezuela. Fortunately Haitian President Alexandre Pétion (1770-1818) welcomed Bolívar and his freedom fighters and provided them with shelter, guns, ammunition and a printing press.

Four months later, as he was about to depart from Haiti en route to Venezuela, Bolívar asked his benefactor how he might repay Haiti's generosity. Pétion replied that the best thanks Haiti could receive would be the liberation of all slaves residing in the Spanish colonies. Bolívar later honored his debt to Pétion by freeing the 1,500 slaves his family owned in Caracas. He also printed a proclamation, on Pétion's very own printing press, abolishing slavery in Venezuela. The proclamation, however, only applied to black slaves who enlisted in Bolívar’s army. It wasn’t until 1854 that slavery was finally abolished in the country.

“All of this [history] has to do with why I am here today,” Chávez said while addressing the Haitian people. “Today I feel I am paying part of our historic debt to Haiti. And I say this, after more than 8 years in government, this is the first time I visit Haiti. I should have come here earlier.” Chávez’s choice of words couldn’t have been more symbolic: to this day, Venezuelan children are taught in school that their country owes a “historic debt” to Haiti for helping Bolívar.

Bolívar’s Political Significance

It’s no accident that Chávez would go out of his way to bring up Bolívar while visiting Haiti. In Venezuela, it is almost mandatory for political leaders to make historic allusions to Bolívar, the “Great Liberator” against Spanish rule. Bolívar, Chávez has said, was a socialist like himself, was stridently opposed to the United States, and was also determined to build a classless society. What’s more, the Venezuelan leader has argued, Bolívar’s dream of uniting Latin America represented a threat to oligarchs and imperialists, thus awakening the ire of the United States.

Chávez has no doubt taken some historical liberties and embellished his causal intellectual ties to Bolívar. The Liberator never talked about class struggle per se, though he did pursue progressive social legislation by issuing decrees for the establishment of schools for boys as well as girls. Bolívar also deplored the misery of indigenous peoples and ordered the conservation of forest resources.

But Bolívar was perhaps most forward looking when he spoke of the necessity of integrating Latin America. It was Bolívar, early on, who understood that the region had no future unless it confronted both Europe and the United States as a unified bloc. The United States, Bolívar once famously declared, seemed “destined by providence to plague America with misery on behalf of freedom.”

Chávez has said that he will not rest until Venezuela is liberated from the “imperialist and anti-Boliviaran threat.” He frequently draws comparisons between Bolívar’s struggle against the Spanish Empire and his own political confrontation with the United States, which Chávez habitually refers to as “The Empire.”

In Venezuela, Bolívar is revered as a God-like figure and his popularity continues to soar. Indeed, a popular religion based on the fertility goddess of María Lionza has appropriated Bolívar as one of its central ritual figures. The faith is based on indigenous, black, African, and Catholic roots, and priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of the Liberator is channeled through a medium who coughs when Bolívar is present since Venezuela’s most distinguished native son had a debilitating case of tuberculosis. Meanwhile, religious altars of the faithful generally feature a portrait of Bolívar.

In addition, Venezuela’s currency, main squares, and universities bear the Liberator’s name. His sayings are taught in schools, broadcast on the radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Chávez almost reverentially has referred to his political movement as a “Bolivarian Revolution.” Chávez has renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has reportedly left a chair empty at meetings to honor the Liberator. Chávez supporters, or chavistas, have dubbed the areas they politically control as “liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic” and adorn offices and homes with portraits of the Liberator. Chávez has promoted so-called Bolivarian Circles, local grassroots groups at the local or barrio level, which lobby the government for important grassroots resources.

Furthermore, Chávez champions Bolívar’s idea of a unified South America and echoes the Liberator’s words during his televised speeches. Chávez also likes to appear on television with a portrait of Bolívar near at hand. Riding along Caracas highways, one may see repeated instances of murals juxtaposing portraits of Chávez and Bolívar. In Caracas, a key historic landmark is Bolívar’s native house. Located along downtown streets crowded with informal vendors, the house is often full of visiting school children.

Taking his picturesque concept of history to yet greater political heights, Chávez is now intent on proving that Bolívar was poisoned by corrupt oligarchs and did not succumb to tuberculosis. The Venezuelan leader asserts that in Bolívar’s day, tuberculosis was not lethal enough to cause death in a few scant weeks. As evidence to support his claim, Chávez points to one of Bolívar’s letters in which the Liberator discusses his future plans. Bolívar wrote the letter shortly before his own death in the coastal Colombian town of Santa Marta.

“Some say he [Bolívar] was very ill and knew he was going to die, and he wanted to die by the side of the sea and he died happy, and Colombia was happy and Venezuela was happy,” Chávez said in a long speech. “How the oligarchs fooled us, the ones here, the ones there. How the historians who falsified history fooled us.”

The Venezuelan leader recently convened a high commission, led by his Vice President and composed of nine cabinet ministers and the Attorney General. Their mission: exhume Bolívar’s remains, which lie in a sarcophagus at the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas, and conduct scientific tests to confirm Chávez’s contention—that diabolical assassins murdered Bolívar. “This commission has been created because the executive considers it to be of great historical and cultural value to clarify important doubts regarding the death of the Liberator,” Venezuela’s Official Gazette said.

But even Chávez’s most stalwart supporters say their leader may have gone too far this time. “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Alberto Mueller Rojas, a retired general who works as a presidential adviser on international affairs and military matters. “Why should I care? Bolívar died. If they killed him, they killed him. If he died of tuberculosis, he died of tuberculosis. In this day and age, this doesn’t have any significance.”

Perhaps not surprisingly given the political importance that Chávez has attached to Bolívar, Villa del Cine is reportedly planning to produce a film about the Great Liberator. The movie will be adapted from the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez's historical novel about Bolívar entitled The General in His Labyrinth.

The book, which was originally released in 1989, tells the story of the last days of the Great Liberator as he departs the Colombian city of Bogotá for Santa Marta on the coast. Venezuelan authorities have paid out a handsome $2 million for the rights to the Márquez book, which is reportedly Hugo Chávez’s favorite novel. Almarza, as director of Villa del Cine, is clearly enthusiastic about taking on the project. “Bolívar is a world figure and belongs to all Venezuela,” she remarked.

In addition to The General in His Labryinth, Villa del Cine has also produced Libertador Morales. The film centers on a Simón Bolívar-quoting motorcycle-taxi driver seeking social justice.

Honoring Venezuela’s “Historic Debt’ to Haiti

Chávez’s recent trip to Haiti and his emphasis on vital historic symbols is taking place against a volatile political backdrop. In 2004, observers say that Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped with the connivance of Washington. When a new government took power in Port-au-Prince under Gérard Latortue, Chávez snubbed the Bush administration by refusing to recognize the regime, which the United States, Canada, France and the European Union all recognized as the new government.

In Venezuela, Chávez decried the participation of Latin American troops in the United Nations’ “stabilization mission” sent to Haiti and even offered refuge in Venezuela to exiled President Aristide. The former Haitian President, who blames the U.S. government for his downfall, likens his own story to that of Toussaint who was betrayed and brought to France. Aristide currently resides in South Africa.

In 2006 Haiti elected René Préval, who had served as Prime Minister in Aristide’s first administration and as President from 1996 to 2001. Though Préval hinted that Aristide might return to Haiti, he has not provided a time frame for the exiled leader to come back. Speaking in South Africa Aristide criticized the 2006 election, calling it a "selection" in which "the knife of treason was planted" in the back of the Haitian people.

Some Haitians hope that Chávez might help to ease the way for Aristide to return some day. When the Venezuelan leader visited Haiti in 2007, cries of “Chávez” could be heard throughout the streets of the capital. At the Port-au-Prince airport, Haitians arrived minute after minute and chanted "Chávez, Chávez, it is you whom we seek ... President Préval needs your help to return Aristide." Meanwhile, the demonstrators denounced UN peacekeepers for using overwhelming military force to suppress violent gangs.

In an effort to strengthen the historic bond between Haiti and Venezuela, Chávez has created a $20 million fund for Haiti to provide humanitarian aid and to develop joint cooperation projects. The money will pay for health care, education, housing and other basic necessities sorely lacking in the Caribbean nation of 8 million. Haiti will also benefit from Chávez's Petrocaribe initiative, which provides petroleum products and other aid to needy Caribbean countries to help them counter rising energy prices. Recipients are offered deferred payment and long-term financing for fuel shipments.

Never one to neglect rich historic symbolism, Chávez remarked during his visit that it was time to encourage the “union of our republics. It is an old project of Miranda's and Bolívar's … of Pétion's and of Louverture's—all those who dreamed of a great nation, of a free nation…The President of the United States is the representative of the cruelest empire,” Chávez added, “the most cynical, criminal and murderous which has ever existed. He represents the project of colonial domination. Whereas we, I say this humbly but with dignity, represent the Bolivarian project to liberate our nations.”

Following their historic meeting, Chávez and Préval commemorated the occasion by placing flowers at Port-au-Prince's monuments to Pétion and Bolívar.

Nikolas Kozloff, a NACLA senior research associate, is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008).

Haiti: Democracy Versus the People

2008-08-14T00:35:00Z

By: Slavoj Zizek - New Statesman

A new account of Haiti's recent history shows how the genuinely radical politics of Lavalas and its leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, proved too threatening to the country's wealthy elite and their foreign backers.

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment Peter Hallward, Verso, 480pp, £16.99

Noam Chomsky once noted that "it is only when the threat of popular participation is overcome that democratic forms can be safely contemplated". He thereby pointed at the "passivising" core of parliamentary democracy, which makes it incompatible with the direct political self- organisation and self-empowerment of the people. Direct colonial aggression or military assault are not the only ways of pacifying a "hostile" population: so long as they are backed up by sufficient levels of coercive force, international "stabilisation" missions can overcome the threat of popular participation through the apparently less abrasive tactics of "democracy promotion", "humanitarian intervention" and the "protection of human rights".

This is what makes the case of Haiti so exemplary. As Peter Hallward writes in Damming the Flood, a detailed account of the "democratic containment" of Haiti's radical politics in the past two decades, "never have the well-worn tactics of 'democracy promotion' been applied with more devastating effect than in Haiti between 2000 and 2004". One cannot miss the irony of the fact that the name of the emancipatory political movement which suffered this international pressure is Lavalas, or "flood" in Creole: it is the flood of the expropriated who overflow the gated communities that protect those who exploit them. This is why the title of Hallward's book is quite appropriate, inscribing the events in Haiti into the global tendency of new dams and walls that have been popping out everywhere since 11 September 2001, confronting us with the inner truth of "globalisation", the underlying lines of division which sustain it.

Haiti was an exception from the very beginning, from its revolutionary fight against slavery, which ended in independence in January 1804. "Only in Haiti," Hallward notes, "was the declaration of human freedom universally consistent. Only in Haiti was this declaration sustained at all costs, in direct opposition to the social order and economic logic of the day." For this reason, "there is no single event in the whole of modern history whose implications were more threatening to the dominant global order of things". The Haitian Revolution truly deserves the title of repetition of the French Revolution: led by Toussaint 'Ouverture, it was clearly "ahead of his time", "premature" and doomed to fail, yet, precisely as such, it was perhaps even more of an event than the French Revolution itself. It was the first time that an enslaved population rebelled not as a way of returning to their pre-colonial "roots", but on behalf of universal principles of freedom and equality. And a sign of the Jacobins' authenticity is that they quickly recognised the slaves' uprising - the black delegation from Haiti was enthusiastically received in the National Assembly in Paris. (As you might expect, things changed after Thermidor; in 1801 Napoleon sent a huge expeditionary force to try to regain control of the colony).

Denounced by Talleyrand as "a horrible spectacle for all white nations", the "mere existence of an independent Haiti" was itself an intolerable threat to the slave-owning status quo. Haiti thus had to be made an exemplary case of economic failure, to dissuade other countries from taking the same path. The price - the literal price - for the "premature" independence was truly extortionate: after two decades of embargo, France, the old colonial master, established trade and diplomatic relations only in 1825, after forcing the Haitian government to pay 150 million francs as "compensation" for the loss of its slaves. This sum, roughly equal to the French annual budget at the time, was later reduced to 90 million, but it continued to be a heavy drain on Haitian resources: at the end of the 19th century, Haiti's payments to France consumed roughly 80 per cent of the national budget, and the last instalment was only paid in 1947. When, in 2003, in anticipation of the bicentenary of national independence, the Lavalas president Jean-Baptiste Aristide demanded that France return this extorted money, his claim was flatly rejected by a French commission (led, ironically, by Régis Debray). At a time when some US liberals ponder the possibility of reimbursing black Americans for slavery, Haiti's demand to be reimbursed for the tremendous sum the former slaves had to pay to have their freedom recognised has been largely ignored by liberal opinion, even if the extortion here was double: the slaves were first exploited, and then had to pay for the recognition of their hard-won freedom.

The story goes on today. The Lavalas movement has won every free presidential election since 1990, but it has twice been the victim of US-sponsored military coups. Lavalas is a unique combination: a political agent which won state power through free elections, but which all the way through maintained its roots in organs of local popular democracy, of people's direct self-organisation. Although the "free press" dominated by its enemies was never obstructed, although violent protests that threatened the stability of the legal government were fully tolerated, the Lavalas government was routinely demonised in the international press as exceptionally violent and corrupt. The goal of the US and its allies France and Canada was to impose on Haiti a "normal" democracy - a democracy which would not touch the economic power of the narrow elite; they were well aware that, if it is to function in this way, democracy has to cut its links with direct popular self-organisation.

It is interesting to note that this US-French co-operation took place soon after the public discord about the 2003 attack on Iraq, and was quite appropriately celebrated as the reaffirmation of their basic alliance that underpins the occasional conflicts. Even Brazil's Lula condoned the 2004 overthrow of Aristide. An unholy alliance was thus put together to discredit the Lavalas government as a form of mob rule that threatened human rights, and President Aristide as a power-mad fundamentalist dictator - an alliance ranging from ex-military death squads and US-sponsored "democratic fronts" to humanitarian NGOs and even some "radical left" organisations which, financed by the US, enthusiastically denounced Aristide's "capitulation" to the IMF. Aristide himself provided a perspicuous characterisation of this overlapping between radical left and liberal right: "Somewhere, somehow, there's a little secret satisfaction, perhaps an unconscious satisfaction, in saying things that powerful white people want you to say."

The Lavalas struggle is exemplary of a principled heroism that confronts the limitations of what can be done today. Lavalas activists didn't withdraw into the interstices of state power and "resist" from a safe distance, they heroically assumed state power, well aware that they were taking power in the most unfavourable circumstances, when all the trends of capitalist "modernisation" and "structural readjustment", but also of the postmodern left, were against them. Constrained by the measures imposed by the US and International Monetary Fund, which were destined to enact "necessary structural readjustments", Aristide pursued a politics of small and precise pragmatic measures (building schools and hospitals, creating infrastructure, raising minimum wages) while encouraging the active political mobilisation of the people in direct confrontation with their most immediate foes - the army and its paramilitary auxiliaries.

The single most controversial thing about Aristide, the thing that earned him comparisons with Sendero Luminoso and Pol Pot, was his pointed refusal to condemn measures taken by the people to defend themselves against military or paramilitary assault, an assault that had decimated the popular movement for decades. On a couple of occasions back in 1991, Aristide appeared to condone recourse to the most notorious of these measures, known locally as "Père Lebrun", a variant of the practice of "necklacing" adopted by anti-apartheid partisans in South Africa - killing a police assassin or an informer with a burning tyre. In a speech on 4 August 1991, he advised an enthusiastic crowd to remember "when to use [Père Lebrun], and where to use it", while reminding them that "you may never use it again in a state where law prevails".

Later, liberal critics sought to draw a parallel between the so-called chimères, ie, members of Lavalas self-defence groups, and the Tontons Macoutes, the notoriously murderous gangs of the Duvalier dictatorship. The fact that there is no numerical basis for comparison of levels of political violence under Aristide and under Duvalier is not allowed to get in the way of the essential political point. Asked about these chimères, Aristide points out that "the very word says it all. Chimères are people who are impoverished, who live in a state of profound insecurity and chronic unemployment. They are the victims of structural injustice, of systematic social violence [. . .] It's not surprising that they should confront those who have always benefited from this same social violence."

Arguably, the very rare acts of popular self- defence committed by Lavalas partisans are examples of what Walter Benjamin called "divine violence": they should be located "beyond good and evil", in a kind of politico-religious suspension of the ethical. Although we are dealing with what can only appear as "immoral" acts of killing, one has no political right to condemn them, because they are a response to years, centuries even, of systematic state and economic violence and exploitation.

As Aristide himself puts it: "It is better to be wrong with the people than to be right against the people." Despite some all-too-obvious mistakes, the Lavalas regime was in effect one of the figures of how "dictatorship of the proletariat" might look today: while pragmatically engaging in some externally imposed compromises, it always remained faithful to its "base", to the crowd of ordinary dispossessed people, speaking on their behalf, not "representing" them but directly relying on their local self-organisations. Although respecting the democratic rules, Lavalas made it clear that the electoral struggle is not where things are decided: what is much more crucial is the effort to supplement democracy with the direct political self-organisation of the oppressed. Or, to put it in our "postmodern" terms: the struggle between Lavalas and the capitalist-military elite in Haiti is a case of genuine antagonism, an antagonism which cannot be contained within the frame of parliamentary-democratic "agonistic pluralism".

This is why Hallward's outstanding book is not just about Haiti, but about what it means to be a "leftist" today: ask a leftist how he stands towards Aristide, and it will be immediately clear if he is a partisan of radical emancipation or merely a humanitarian liberal who wants "globalisation with a human face".

Slavoj Zizek is the author of "In Defence of Lost Causes" (Verso, £19.99)

Rwanda Accuses Top French Officials in 1994 Genocide

2008-08-08T00:23:00Z

Democracy Now

In a detailed report, the Rwandan government is accusing France of being complicit in the “preparation and execution” of the 1994 genocide that killed some 800,000 people. The report released by the Rwandan Ministry of Justice Tuesday accuses top French officials, including former prime minister Dominique de Villepin and the late former president Francois Mitterrand, of playing a major role in the genocide. We speak with investigative journalist Linda Melvern, author of two books on Rwanda. Melvern testified in July 2007 before the Rwanda commission investigating France’s role in the genocide. [includes rush transcript]

Linda Melvern, investigative journalist and author. She testified in July 2007 before the Rwanda commission investigating France’s role in the genocide. She is the author of two books on Rwanda: A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide and Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. She joins us on the line from Britain.

ANJALI KAMAT: France has dismissed as an “unacceptable falsification” a Rwandan report accusing it of being complicit in the “preparation and execution” of the 1994 genocide that killed some 800,000 people. The report released by the Rwandan Ministry of Justice Tuesday accuses thirty-three French politicians, officials and soldiers, including former prime minister Dominique de Villepin and the late former president Francois Mitterrand, of playing major roles in the genocide.

A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Romain Nadal, called the report biased. He said it “contains unacceptable accusations against French politicians and military officials.”

Rwanda has long accused France of training Hutu militias and providing diplomatic cover for their crimes. This detailed 500-page report is the product of a two-year inquiry by an independent Rwandan commission.

Rwanda’s Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama issued the report and said his country would try to press charges in an international body.

THARCISSE KARUGARAMA: This should be clear that this report is not just going to lie down, put into some store somewhere. It’s a report that’s going to be used. It’s a report that is going to help in bringing to justice, or in making attempts, very serious attempts, to bring to justice, people that were involved in committing genocide in this country.

ANJALI KAMAT: Rwanda cut diplomatic ties with France two years ago, soon after a French judge accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of provoking the genocide by conspiring to assassinate former president Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994.

Linda Melvern is an investigative journalist and author. She testified in July 2007 before the Rwanda commission investigating France’s role in the genocide. She is the author of two books on Rwanda: A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide and Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. She joins us now on the line from Britain.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Linda Melvern.

LINDA MELVERN: Thank you very much. Thank you.

ANJALI KAMAT: Can you lay out what the report says? What are the main accusations against France?

LINDA MELVERN: I think, perhaps, the training of the Interahamwe militia. I think this is—this is very detailed evidence from witnesses. And, of course, one must bear in mind that some of these witnesses have been convicted of genocide; they’re former Interahamwe leaders and perpetrators of genocide. But they claim that they were trained by French military officers in Rwandan military camps.

The primary means of killing at speed in this genocide was the mobilization of Rwanda’s unemployed youth into a militia called the Interahamwe, an estimated 30,000 young men taken from the streets and trained to kill at speed with agricultural tools and indoctrinated with a racist anti-Tutsi ideology. Now, these former Interahamwe leaders say that they were in part trained by French military officers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you name names? Can you talk about the French leaders, past and present, who they have pointed the finger at, who they are saying are responsible?

LINDA MELVERN: Well, this pointing the finger at individual political figures in France is problematic. The French policy towards Rwanda had been largely decided by Francois Mitterrand, the French president, in his second term. And it is worth remembering that the France’s own inquiry into this in 1998 determined that Francois Mitterrand had been in overall control of the policy and that it had been completely unaccountable—and I think that this is one of the most important points of all—that this policy had been completely unaccountable to either Parliament or the French press and that French politicians had not been adequately informed. And the Senate recommended better control by Parliament over military operations.

And I think that this is the aspect which makes it so difficult to know who made the decisions in—you know, whether it’s the Ministry of Cooperation, whether it’s the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It does seem that overall control rested with Francois Mitterrand and through a network that was traditional in France, when it came to French Africa policy, through a network of military officers, politicians, diplomats, senior intelligence operatives, and I must say French mercenaries were involved, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: French Defense Minister Hervé Morin rejected as intolerable allegations that Rwanda said the French military played an active role in the ’94 genocide. Also named was Alain Juppé. Can you talk about his significance?

LINDA MELVERN: Alain Juppé, as foreign minister, would have been involved, particularly, I think, not in the policy towards Rwanda, but the policy as enunciated by France in the Security Council of the UN. And it was on this aspect that I gave testimony to the Rwandan commission. I had written a book about the UN, a fifty-year history, and I was in New York in April 1994 filming the book for a series for BBC, for Channel 4 Television, called UN Blues. And so, I was outside the Security Council in April 1994.

French policy at that time was to insist that what was happening in Rwanda was a civil war and that what was needed in Rwanda was a ceasefire. In the first three weeks, four weeks of genocide, it is extraordinarily surprising that there was hardly any discussion at all about the genocide that was by then under way. It started on April the 7th. The entire focus of Security Council discussion, as insisted upon by the French, was to discuss civil war and the necessity of a ceasefire.

At the time, there were French officers embedded in the elite army units in Rwanda who would have known, I am sure, what was happening. It had happened before. Genocide had been part of political life in Rwanda ever since 1959. So, to deny knowledge of it—and it’s not only France in this—is particularly serious, because the decision making by the Security Council at this stage determined what happened. The force commander of the UN and his estimate that 5,000 troops could have prevented the spread of genocide was not discussed by the Security Council because of the insistence that a ceasefire take place in a civil war.

ANJALI KAMAT: And, Linda Melvern, why, in your analysis, was France propping up the Hutu militias?

LINDA MELVERN: I’m sorry. Would you repeat the question?

ANJALI KAMAT: Why, in your analysis, do you think that the French officials and the French government was supporting Hutu militias in Rwanda?

LINDA MELVERN: France, from the beginning, from the very beginning, when military links were forged in the early ’60s, France had favored the Hutu cause. The fact that there was an apartheid regime in Rwanda with discrimination against the minority Tutsi was seemingly ignored. The French believed that because Rwanda was ruled by the majority people, the Hutu, then it was a democracy. President Juvénal Habyarimana had been overwhelmingly elected, 96 percent, in this strictly controlled country. The fact that the minority Tutsi were discriminated against, as I said, was ignored.

In 1990, by that time, there were up to one million Rwandan refugees in neighboring states, refugees who had fled the country during murderous anti-Tutsi campaigns, during which time thousands of people had been killed. In order to force a return home for these refugees, a rebel army was created. This was Africa’s largest refugee problem. And the rebel army that was created, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, invaded Rwanda from neighboring Uganda in October 1990. The French saw this as aggression by an Anglophone country, Uganda, against a Francophone country, Rwanda. They did not see the RPF fighting for stateless refugees. They saw the RPF as part of a plot by Yoweri Museveni in Uganda to take over a part of Francophone Africa, and for that reason they supported the Habyarimana regime.

For the three years of civil war, without French military help, then the dictatorship would have fallen. It was French military help that kept Habyarimana in power. And he was, by all accounts, although this is very difficult to prove, he was friendly with Habyarimana. These two men, Mitterrand and Habyarimana, were friends. They spent time together. Their children spent time together. Habyarimana had a flat in Paris. So it was a very close relationship, apparently.

The fear—and this comes through in documents that have been released from the Mitterrand archives—certainly Mitterrand feared that what he called a Tutsiland was going to be created. And once Rwanda was lost to Anglophone influence, then French credibility on the African continent would suffer a blow, he believed, from which it would never recover.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Linda Melvern, an investigative journalist who’s written two books on Rwanda. Kenneth Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, said the timing of this report is no coincidence, coming as international pressure is mounting for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to move its attention to atrocities committed by Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front—Kagame, of course, the president of Rwanda. In the aftermath of the genocide, estimated 30,000 Hutus are believed to have been murdered then. Do you think this is playing a role?

LINDA MELVERN: I do not see the release of this report as a sort of tit-for-tat, as part of a diplomatic spat. It’s far too serious for that. This is a European army being accused of human rights abuses in Africa, and I think that it needs careful consideration by international human rights groups. And, yes, I do know, obviously, of the claims made by the French judge that President Kagame in fact was responsible for triggering the genocide. I’ve read that report. But it’s not part—this is not part, as far as I can see, of the same story.

What is needed here is the release of a lot of information. We need to investigate, to dig deeper and find out what happened. We don’t know who, in fact, assassinated Habyarimana on April the 6th. It’s incredible that two African presidents were assassinated that night over the skies of Kigali, and there’s been no international inquiry. If you can imagine, two European presidents being assassinated, there would have been an immediate inquiry. The Security Council promised on April the 7th there would be an inquiry into the assassination. Lieutenant General Dallaire promised the people of Rwanda in the first days that there would be an inquiry. And there has not been. And I think that there are Western governments, particularly France, possibly the US, and certainly Belgium, that have information about this assassination and this missile attack on the plane, and yet are not releasing it. The Rwandan report is separate from that. Each part of this needs careful investigation—each part—whether it’s Operation Turquoise, whether it’s alleged RPF human rights abuses, whether it’s the assassination of Habyarimana. We know so little.

ANJALI KAMAT: Finally, Linda Melvern, what do you expect will happen next? What is the Rwandan government going to do with this report? And what does this bode for the future of French troops in Africa and French-Rwandan relations?

LINDA MELVERN: Well, I think that French-Rwandan relations can only worsen at this time. The timing is interesting. It’s August. You know, most of the French government—most French people are on holiday, you know, the tradition in France to take August off. So we haven’t yet had a coordinated response from the French government. And as I say, this is a report of 500 pages. It’s very dense. It has a lot of detail. It has times and dates and places. And I think it will take time for there to be an adequate response at all to it.

I’m an investigative journalist. I cannot predict the future, and I have no idea where, legally or internationally, this report can go. All I can say is that I find the accusations, particularly during Operation Turquoise, to be so serious that I cannot believe that there isn’t an international human rights organization that would not want to very carefully look at them.

AMY GOODMAN: Linda Melvern, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalist—her two books are called, well, the first, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, and Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide—speaking on the phone to us from Britain.

Lovinsky Pierre Antoine's Kidnapping: One Year Later, Still a Mystery

2008-08-06T10:25:00Z

Haiti Liberté

August 12, 2008 marks the first anniversary of the kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, 53, a tireless human rights and anti-imperialist activist who was the national coordinator of the September 30th Foundation.

Lovinsky was kidnapped around 10 p.m. after dropping off a human rights delegation that he had been chaperoning around Haiti (see Haiti Libert?, Vol. 1, No. 4, Aug. 15, 2007).

On August 14, 2007, 36 hours after his disappearance, Haiti Libert? called Lovinsky's cell phone, which was answered by one of the kidnappers (see Haiti Libert?, Vol. 1, No. 15, Oct. 31, 2007). The kidnapper made it clear that he knew Lovinsky's political reputation well. "I know him better than my toe-nail that I wash every morning," the kidnapper said. "I know him better than my eyeball that I wash every morning... He is a guy who has tried to put people like me in prison."

The conversation strongly suggests that Lovinsky's kidnapping was politically motivated, especially since the kidnappers never really tried to collect ransom from his family. It remains unknown if Lovinsky was killed or is still being held somewhere alive.

The Haitian government has shown a singular lack of interest in investigating or publicizing the disappearance of this prominent Haitian leader. An international movement, comprising prominent people like actors Danny Glover and Vanessa Redgrave and Selma James, the widow of author C. L. R. James, has issued numerous calls rebuking the government for its reluctance and inaction in investigating Lovinsky's fate.

Today we publish two of the latest calls. The first is a motion passed in the British Parliament on July 1. The second is a letter to the Brazilian government from Eusi Kwayana, a Guyanese political leader who played an important role in winning Guyana's independence from England in 1966.

*Resolution by British Parliamentarians concerned with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and Wilson M?silien*

July 1, 2008

EDM 1935, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

That this House is extremely worried that there is still no news of disappeared Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine who fought for justice for the victims of the 1991 and 2004 military coups against elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide; recognizes that the world owes a debt to Haiti, the first country to abolish slavery in 1804, decades before the US and Europe, and that Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine represents this long revolutionary tradition; notes that many people are accusing the Haitian and UN authorities of not doing enough to find Mr Pierre-Antoine; welcomes the concern expressed by US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, actors Danny Glover and Vanessa Redgrave, Secretary General of Pax Christi International, Claudette Werleigh, and the Amnesty International report which also warns of threats to the life of Mr Pierre-Antoine's colleague Wilson M?silien; commends the weekly vigils held in Port-au-Prince, London, Los Angeles and San Francisco for keeping Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine in the public eye; and calls on the Government to use its influence to urge the Haitian and UN authorities to double their efforts to locate Mr Pierre-Antoine and ensure the protection of Mr M?silien.

Signed by: John McDonnell, Colin Burgon, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Alan Meale, Linda Riordan, Alan Simpson,

*Letter to the Government of Brazil Concerning the Safe Return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, by Mr. Eusi Kwayana, a Distinguished Elder from Guyana*

20 May 2008

His Excellency Mr. Antonio Patriota, Ambassador to the US 3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 90008

Her Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella, Consul General of Brazil 8484 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Your Excellency,

It is time, after nine months of uneasy anxiety, that some authority charged in the name of the international community with responsibility for security in Haiti, advise the international community, that is, the international public, of its findings in regard to the scandalous kidnapping or disappearance of Haitian citizen and patriot, Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

The date of Mr. Pierre-Antoine's disappearance is well established. It is also known that he had been helping human rights delegations from two countries the USA and Canada, countries with famous courts and parliaments.

Please do not misunderstand this appeal. It has great hope in the United Nations as a peacekeeping agency and much hope in the evolution of democracy in Brazil, which holds a leading position in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. My disappointment is therefore considerable. Every son and daughter of Haiti deserves the protection of the law and of special international arrangements. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is a son of Haiti, one who is well-known in the region and is becoming better known in the world. His international reputation is a standard of judgment of the peacekeeping force. Their reputation will rise or fall with his fortunes. In the present day world news of violations is highly saleable.

The world knows of no position by the official agencies in Haiti, whether domestic or international, on this important instance of inhumanity. When this matter was raised from the floor at a Conference on Haiti's children at a University in San Diego, USA, the Ambassador of Haiti to the USA made a spirited response. Not only did he establish the non-involvement of the government of Haiti in the kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, but he effectively defended the government, assuring the audience that it had no hand in the unfortunate affair. No one had even suggested that it had. He said that Mr Pierre-Antoine was probably a rival candidate of some other person and hinted that in such circumstances disappearances have sometimes occurred. I do not have a record of his statement before the gathering, and I am open to any correction he or any other party may wish to offer.

All the Ambassador was able to do was to vindicate the Haitian government. But Mr. Pierre-Antoine's lawyer was present and rose to rebuke the government for its silence and its alleged failure to exercise its national responsibility.

The government of Haiti being ruled out as complicit in Mr. Pierre-Antoine's absence, the hemisphere to which Haiti has always been central turns its searchlight on that multinational force considered to be of vital assistance to a historically crippled domestic government, and on the leadership of that force, the Republic of Brazil, a major hemispheric partner. Their presence there leads the uniformed to presume that they are there to supply the kind of expertise and clout which cannot be expected of the government in Haiti's present circumstances. In these times of secretly employed but widely known intrusive surveillance, satellite observation on land, sea and air, clandestine wiretapping and other equipment useful in both offence and defense, there is a credibility gap. The public is not inclined to believe that a few thugs in Haiti have so completely baffled the humane capacity of the leading States of the hemisphere.

This matter of the disappearance of Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine must therefore be taken to the bemused population of the hemisphere and the world at present waiting with impatience for some word of encouragement from the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces.

These forces must be aware of the kidnapping and disappearance of Haiti's first Prime Minister, Toussaint L'ouverture. The French regime of that time, a regime of soldiers, treated Toussaint's fate with a silence similar to that with which Mr. Pierre-Antoine's kidnapping is now being treated. Is this French model the model for the UN troops and its officials?

Questions rush to mind. The hemisphere certainly and the international community wish to know what task force has been set up to track the disappearance of Lovinsky and other persons, regardless of their political attachment, who may be less well-known but in similar circumstances.

It is possible to have wrong notions about what happened to Lovinsky. It is possible to make statements and then find the need to revise them. Is it possible in an age such as this, known for invasive surveillance, for criminal secrets to be so well-kept?

In the military context of a peacekeeping force, silence for two weeks on the part of the Commanding Authority may be advisable, after it has made an initial statement of concern assuring the public of its active pursuit of the offenders. Silence for three weeks may be cause for concern, yet understandable if it had given the necessary assurances. Silence for nine months becomes its opposite, and is no longer silence but an eloquent confession of incapacity, or worse, lack of concern.

If a citizen of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's prominence and popularity can be "caught up in the air": then the fate of the unknown citizen in Haiti under the aegis of the United Nation's force is not an enviable one.

Questions persist: When did the authorities first hear of this kidnapping? What specific steps have they taken? Who is keeping Pierre-Antoine's wife and their children informed? Are there no suspects? Is the kidnapping seen as self-inflicted? Have the suspects, if any, evaded the UN's multi-national capacity? Were there secret landings of aircraft unknown to the official guardians? Was he spirited away in a small boat and have all suspects been called in? Has Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine been rendered? Where are the international media, famous for increasing effectiveness? Have state and media conspired not to investigate the fate of this man? Is he held by the forces of law and order, and if so where are his rights? If he is held, on what allegations or reasonable suspicion? Was this man, who was well known for his committed to non-violence and aimed to become a senator, suspected of planning to blow up the parliament?

Your Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella,

I ask you to transmit this letter to your government in Brazil without delay. Out of respect for President Lula as an elected Head of State the author shall release it to the international media in the Region and in all continents not before the end of the second day of its dispatch to the Head Consulate Officer of Brazil in Los Angeles.

Yours sincerely,

Eusi Kwayana

Pétionville Mayor Threatens School with Eviction

2008-08-05T10:30:00Z

By: Kevin Pina - Haiti Liberté

SOPUDEP is a private non-profit school in Haiti that has served the poorest and most vulnerable children of the community of Petion-Ville since 2001. The children who attend SOPUDEP school would never have a chance at an education save for this wonderful project. Most of them also receive their only hot meal every school day through the school's Hot Lunch Program. Given the latest rise in food prices and the hardship this has caused Haitian families, the Hot Lunch Program is an indispensable component SOPUDEP's work in the community.

For several months now, a variety of characters have appeared at the school to demand they vacate the premises. Some falsely stated they were descendants of the original owner but mostly it was an attempt to pressure the school by disrupting its normal operation. On Monday July 28, 2008, the Mayor of Petion-Ville, Lydie Clark Parent, delivered an eight day eviction notice to SOPUDEP to vacate their school premises. This action is NOT legal as SOPUDEP has a 12-year lease on the property that expires in 2012. The school's rights under this contract were ultimately respected by the Mayor's office and the government of Latortue in 2004-2006 and has subsequently been recognized as valid by the Ministry of Education and the Pr?val administration.

On Tuesday, August 5, 2008, the SOPUDEP school will begin the procedure to file an injunction against Mayor Lydie Clark Parent and ask the court to uphold their binding 12-year lease at their current location. In an effort to show Mayor Parent and the Haitian court the importance of the SOPUDEP school, they ask that all people of goodwill and solidarity please write a letter expressing their support for the school and its more that 450 students. These letters will be critical to showing the wide-spread support SOPUDEP school has throughout the world in the coming days and weeks. Please take five minutes of your time as soon as possible and help save this wonderful resource for Haiti's poorest children in Petion-Ville, Haiti by writing a letter on their behalf today.

Background

Lionel Wooley was an assassin for the regimes of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier. In exchange for killing opponents of these repressive regimes in Haiti, he was allowed to steal the property of his victims and claim them as his own. In late 2000, Lionel Wooley died in exile in Miami and the government expropriated the properties he had stolen. Most were returned to the surviving members of the original victim's families but a few had no known descendants. Among these few properties was a dilapidated mansion, burned and pillaged by an angry local community after the departure of Baby Doc. It is situated in the hills of Petion-Ville behind the Montana Hotel .

The property passed through Mayor Sulley Guriere of Petion-Ville, to SOPUDEP whose membership actively participates in the National Literacy Project. Although the literacy campaign is designed for adults 30-60, SOPUDEP was deeply affected by the number of school age children who attended classes as well. They were mostly children of the poor whose parents could not afford to send them to school and could not find a place for them in the over crowded classrooms of the already overwhelmed public schools system. For this reason SOPUDEP made a decision to turn the property into a school for the most vulnerable and poor children of Petion-Ville. The SOPUDEP team hired a lawyer and began the legal process for acquiring a long term lease of the property in 2000 as well as restructuring their organization to meet the requirements of the Haitian government to operate the school. SOPUDEP was given a 12-year lease on the property that expires in 2012 and was provided accreditation by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education to conduct a school at the facility.

Their initial enrollment totaled 160 but has now grown to over 480 as of the 2007/08 school year. It stands as a beautiful example of transforming a gruesome legacy of the past into a symbol of hope for the future.

Since its founding, the school also added a government funded hot lunch program to supplement the diet of their students and staff. For many it was their only meal of the day. When President Aristide was ousted in 2004, funding for the program ceased. That same year the school suffered threats of attack from militia groups and unelected officials. Thankfully, no harm was inflicted on them. SOPUDEP struggles each month to pay its staff and continue the hot lunch program that was reinstated in March of 2008. SOPUDEP is a wonderful example of a community initiative founded more on courage and love than money. They try not turn down any poor child of the community for lack of funds.

For further information about SOPUDEP school please visit the school's website at www.SOPUDEP.org or hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs4095

Urgent Action Requested

We must act quickly if this precious resource is to be saved and the rights of SOPUDEP's school protected. Please forward this alert far and wide. Please write a letter to:

1. Demand that this illegal attempt to seize SOPUDEP's school property by the Mayor's office in Petion-Ville stop immediately.

2. Demand that the legal rights of this important institution be respected according to the 12-year lease negotiated with the Haitian national government in 2000.

3. Demand that all acts of intimidation and coercion by the Mayor's office in Petion-Ville to seize the SOPUDEP school halt immediately.

Instructions for Letter Campaign

For organizations: Please write a letter on your official letterhead, scan it and email it as an attachment (.pdf is usually the easiest). For individuals: Please write an email or include attachment (.pdf, .doc) Email your letters to the school's director, Rea Dol. She will make copies and hand deliver them. Email your letters to:

Madame Rea Dol, Director SOPUDEP School

savesopudepschool2008@yahoo.com

SAMPLE LETTER

Honorable Lydie Clark Parent Mayor of Petion-Ville

Dear Madame Parent,

It has come to my attention that on July 28, 2008 your office issued a 8 day eviction notice to the SOPUDEP school located in Morne Lazarre. As a supporter of this important institution I demand that their rights be respected and the school be allowed to continue without further intervention.

The SOPUDEP school has a 12-year lease on its current location that has been respected by previous administrations at the local and national level in Haiti. They have worked closely with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education to insure that SOPUDEP school conforms to all the codes necessary for operating the school.

In closing, we are aware of statements you have made in the past concerning the importance of helping the poor in Haiti and the community. We ask that you recognize the value of the service provided by the SOPUDEP school to Petion-Ville's poorest and most vulnerable school age children. Please respect the legal rights of the SOPUDEP school and honor the 12-year lease negotiated with the government in 2000.

Sincerely,

SOPUDEP Legal Defense Fund

SOPUDEP school has contacted an attorney in Haiti who is familiar with the case and is willing to represent them. He has requested a retainer fee of $530.00 US that the school is currently unable to pay. There may be other legal expenses as the case makes its way through the daunting Haitian legal system. Please consider making a donation to the SOPUDEP Legal Defense Fund. Please go to SOPUDEP.org for details about sending your contributions. All contributions should earmarked "SOPUDEP Legal Defense Fund." You may also make donations towards the school's General Fund, the Hot Lunch Program, and the Textbook Fund and join the SOPUDEP school team in continuing to serve their community.

For further information please contact:

Haiti via email (French or Kreyol only): Madame Rea Dol, Director SOPUDEP School, savesopudepschool2008@yahoo.com

In the U.S.: Kevin Pina, kp@teledyol.net, 510.991.7622

Haiti's Ex-Military Rears its Unrepentant Head

2008-08-04T10:28:00Z

By: Sarah Hamburger - Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)

On July 29, approximately 200 former members of the Haitian armed forces took over several old military buildings in Haiti. The ex-soldiers were protesting the disbandment of the Haitian Army and the fourteen years of back pay they allege the government still owes them. The army was disbanded in 1995 by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown in 2004 by a coup organized in part by former military members. The pay the soldiers demand covers the time after the 1995 disbandment to today. The soldiers claim that since the president's actions were illegal, they still were technically employed by the government.

One of the seized facilities is in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city. The building is now used as the ministry offices for foreign affairs and the government's national heritage bureau. Another former military building was taken over in Ouanaminthe, a town that borders the Dominican Republic. Officials at the scene of the Cap-Haitien takeover reported no violence. In fact, the uniform-clad men waved a white flag as they approached to signify they were unarmed. However, it was reported that in Ouanaminthe the ex-soldiers donned pistols and clubs.

U.N. peacekeeping troops (MINUSTAH) stationed in Haiti since Aristide's overthrow in 2004 did not intervene in the takeover of the military buildings. The Haitian government, however, issued a statement that it would not tolerate the illegal occupation of government offices. Tensions arose the night of the takeover when civilian supporters of the soldiers threw rocks and heckled the peacekeeping and police forces. On July 30, the U.N. peacekeepers and the Haitian police surrounding the occupied buildings began to negotiate the soldiers' surrender.

Later that night, the ex-soldiers removed the military uniforms they were wearing and surrendered, boarding several school buses that removed them from the scene. The surrender came after nearly an entire day of negotiations with government officials including Interior Minister Paul Antonine Bien-Aim? and ex-Army Col. Jean-Claude Jeudi. At this time, it is unclear what concessions, if any, the negotiations entailed.

The events of the July 29 and 30 remind Haiti and the international community of the continued necessity for the more than 9,000 U.N. forces present in Haiti. Though the seizure by the disgruntled ex-military men lasted only 24 hours, it symbolizes the ongoing violence that has plagued Haiti for decades, namely since the fall of the brutal Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. His administration's corruption and oppression have been replaced by chaos and violence, leaving Haitians wondering which is worse. The Preval government must decide whether to reinstate the military forces as part of a reconstructed armed forces or to continue its reliance upon U.N. supplied troops. It is unlikely, however, that a country with such a historically unstable political system as Haiti's will be saved simply by reinstating the armed services. Ex-soldiers, after all, executed the 2004 coup that launched the country into one of the most violent periods in modern Haitian history. Few would deny that reactivating the military would likely be one of the worst possible choices for the woebegone Caribbean nation currently suffering from crushing poverty due to the global food crisis and unremitting violence at the hands of street gangs.

Editorial: Freedom of the Press, What They Don't Teach You In Journalism School

2008-08-02T00:56:00Z

By: Diana Barahona - NarcoSphere
The United States has one of the highest levels of press freedom in the world. We know this because four different press freedom organizations say so. The fact that all four receive generous funding from the U.S. government doesn’t seem to matter.

Fidel told Frei Betto in an interview that he considered freedom of the press to be nothing more than freedom of ownership, and this is true: money is power, and the U.S. press has the power to choose our political leaders for us. Just ask Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Ralph Nader, and they will tell you how they were disappeared from the 2008 presidential race as quickly and definitively as any Soviet leader who fell into disfavor with Stalin.

The current definition of freedom of the press was developed by the monopoly press, with the support of the state, and the tortuous logic goes like this:

Governments, although they are well intentioned, tend towards corruption and abuse.

An independent press is necessary to inform the public about this corruption and abuse.

Independence is assured by not receiving any money or subsidies from the government.

To maintain this independence, the press must be commercially successful.

Therefore, the more commercially successful the press is, the freer it is.

A communications text written by professors at Cal State Long Beach defines democracy in an equally crass way when it proposes this argument: If democracy means distributing the greatest amount of goods to the greatest number of people, and advertising facilitates this distribution, then advertising is democracy (yes, the text actually says this).

Here’s the reality of the situation, which you would be unwise to speak of in a journalism class:

The transnational corporations control the state.

The big media companies are transnational corporations.

Therefore, the big media companies control the state.

What are the consequences of a state controlled by transnational corporations, among them the media giants? First, the media buy laws that enable them to become more consolidated and accumulate more capital. Second, the media will support the state as long as it is obedient to the transnational capitalist class. Third, if a leader manages to become head of state and decides that his loyalty is to the people who elected him, the media will wage war without quarter until that leader is gone.

The Rise and Fall of Reporters Without Borders

Journalists Jean-Guy Allard, Salim Lamrani and Maxime Vivas have written all there is to write about Reporters Without Borders. The facts are there for anyone interested in reading them. I would just like to add two philosophical points to the discussion of this government- and corporate-sponsored group.

The first is that although RSF has close links to the U.S. government, it also receives money from France, the European Union, the United Nations (until recently), from billionaire foundations such as Soros’ Open Society Institute and Taiwan. It is also receiving money from other sources, but who calls the shots?

Given the rise of a transnational capitalist class and the creation of supranational institutions such as the WTO, the EU, the IMF and World Bank, and the WEF, sociologists are struggling to create a new definition of imperialism. Many people still believe in U.S imperialism because it was the United States that lead the worldwide transformation that is globalization. However the overthrow of President Aristide in 2004, although lead by the United States, was actually a collective effort among the elites of four countries (five if you count the Dominican Republic), and it was one in which RSF, international media and NGOs played an important propaganda role. A transformed UN deployed troops after the coup to restore stability, not to restore constitutionality. Other imperialist actions are taking on a transnational character as well.

One way to resolve this problem is to conceptualize a transnational state, which was proposed by William I. Robinson in <u>A Theory of Transnational Capitalism</u>, among other works. From there, one can hypothesize a kind of imperialism practiced by this state – not as a unified monolith, of course, but a state in formation which already has powerful institutions at its disposal.

This is one reason for the revival of interest in the ideas of Antonio Gramsci. The transnational state, like the nation-state, reproduces itself in civil society; hence, the amazing proliferation of NGOs created or transformed to serve transnational capital, as well as the buying off of existing NGOs. This is a long, imprecise explanation for my hypothesis that RSF serves neither one country nor several, but the transnational state.

My second point is simpler, and it is that one of the propagandistic weapons RSF employs is to accuse leftist Latin American presidents of provoking political polarization. This is just one of its tactics that demonstrates the class character of its work. Polarization is a social phenomenon that occurs when two opposing classes are in conflict. It is only related to press freedom because the capitalist press is acting as a protagonist in the class struggle, committing sedition on behalf of powerful economic interests, of which it is one, but enjoying total impunity in the name of freedom of the press. The only way for a leftist president to avoid increasing polarization is to cease the class struggle. But RSF takes the position that the right to self defense exists only for capital.

The minute a journalist starts to write a story he is making choices colored by his biases. In the face of transcendental events, there is no such thing as impartiality. If a journalist hasn’t picked a side consciously, he or she is already on the wrong side.

Diana Barahona recently earned a BA in journalism from California State University Long Beach (CSULB), where she was disruptive, disrespectful and had an agenda, according the chair of the journalism school. She is now studying sociology at CSUF.

IDT, Aristide, and the Haiti Democracy Project: A Defamation Suit is Contemplated

2008-07-29T10:58:00Z

By: Kim Ives - Haiti Liberte

In recent years, Haiti seems to insert itself into every U.S. presidential election. Refugees, military occupations, and sweatshop legislation have all become campaign issues.

This election year, Haiti has entered the fray even before the Republican and Democratic conventions. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined IDT, a New Jersey-based telecommunications company, $1.3 million for not disclosing its 2003 - 2004 long-distance phone contracts with Haiti. During that time, the FCC claims that IDT paid Teleco, the Haitian national phone company, an illegally low rate for long-distance calls that it handled between Haiti and the U.S.

James "Jim" Courter, IDT's CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, was a leading fundraiser for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Following the negative publicity generated by the FCC's fine, Courter quit the McCain campaign. "Mr. Courter did not desire to see a personal business matter, wholly unrelated to the senator's presidential bid, to detract from the core issues facing the American people," an IDT spokesman said.

Courter was a New Jersey Republican congressman from 1979 to 1991 and a former Republican gubanatorial candidate for that state. He had raised over $100,000 for McCain and was one of the campaign's 20 national finance co-chairmen. According to Portfolio magazine, the IDT Political Action Committee has given the McCain campaign $84,850 in 2008.

Portfolio magazine published two articles last week on the fine against IDT and Courter's resignation from the McCain campaign. Both were written by Lucy Komisar, a freelance journalist hired by the Washington-based Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) to "investigate" IDT's dealings with Haiti. The Haiti Democracy Project, which calls itself an "independent research group," is bankrolled by Haiti's notoriously reactionary and corrupt Boulos family and run by former U.S. government ambassadors, functionaries, and spooks. The HDP was one of the principal cheerleaders of the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in which he was kidnapped from his home by U.S. Special Forces soldiers and flown into exile. The HDP specialized then, as it does now, in disseminating disinformation about Aristide and his government.

Komisar had already done a number of HDP-sponsored "exposes" purporting to "prove" Aristide's corruption in his alleged deal with IDT. The company paid Teleco only 8.75 cents per minute for long-distance calls as opposed to 23 cents a minute, an FCC established rate which other U.S. carriers like AT&T were paying. IDT paid its fees to a Turks & Caicos company which Komisar calls "Mount Salem." That company, she alleges, sent 5.75 cents to Teleco and 3 cents to Aristide.

To buttress this charge, Komisar asserts that "Adrian Corr, a Turks & Caicos lawyer who was legal counsel for Aristide at Miller Simons O'Sullivan and who ran Mount Salem, confirmed that Aristide owned the shell." This statement is the lynchpin of Komisar's story.

There are only three problems. One, Adrian Corr was never Aristide's legal counsel. Two, Aristide never owned a shell company named Mount Salem. Three, Corr never "confirmed" to Komisar what she attributes to him.

"I certainly did not tell her that I was Aristide's lawyer," Corr told Haiti Liberte. "That's completely false. I don't know what drug she was smoking that day. And I certainly never told her he owned Mont Salem," the correct name of the company Corr represents. ("She didn't even get that right," Corr commented).

"I have never acted for Aristide nor have I set up any shell companies to siphon money for him, as is alleged in [her] story," Corr concluded.

Corr is now exploring whether to bring a defamation suit against Komisar and Portfolio, which is published by CondeNast. "I've had to refer this to libel lawyers in New York, New Jersey and the United Kingdom as well," Corr said.

Ira Kurzban, Aristide's lawyer, also denounced Komisar's Portfolio articles. "Mr. Corr did not and does not represent President Aristide and President Aristide had no interest in or knowledge of any company - "shell" or otherwise" - set up in the Turks and Caicos for any purpose," Kurzban wrote in a letter responding to Komisar's articles. "Mr. Corr never set up Mount Salem, any "shell" company, or any other company for President Aristide."

Kurzban is also contemplating a defamation suit against Komisar and Portfolio.

Noting that "Ms. Komisar was paid by the Haiti Democracy Project" to carry out her IDT investigation and that the HDP "was serving as the political arm in the United States for the coup against President Aristide," Kurzban wrote that "these repeatedly false stories of corruption against President Aristide are part of a continuing disinformation campaign against the President that began when he first took office in 1991."

IACHR Denounces Haitian Government for Political Persecution of Yvon Neptune

2008-07-23T16:05:00Z

By: Joe Emersberger - HaitiAnalysis

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has made public a 60-page denunciation of the political persecution that Yvon Neptune, a former Prime Minister of Haiti, has endured at the hands of the Haitian government for the past four years. "From the beginning, the State failed its obligation to protect Mr. Neptune's right to be heard by a court competent to hear the charges against him, as well as to an effective recourse," the IACHR ruled. It concluded that Haiti has violated 11 different provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights by imprisoning Neptune and keeping the case hanging over his head two years after his release from prison. Whether such high profile and detailed criticism (first made public in June) will finally end Yvon Neptune's legal battles remains to be seen.

The IACHR's binding decision was that the Haitian government must immediately serve an appeals court order that would help end Neptune's four year legal nightmare, but six weeks after the IACHR ruling, the order remains unserved. The IACHR also gave Haiti a year to pay $95,000 USD in costs and damages to Neptune, and two years to drastically improve prison conditions in Haiti. The Haitian government's silence and inaction has prompted Neptune to cautiously speak out about his precarious legal situation.

Yvon Neptune served as Prime Minister of Haiti from 2002-2004 in the democratically elected government of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide. After Haiti's February 29, 2004 coup d'état, the unelected Interim Government of Haiti (IGH), backed by the UN Security Council, assumed power for two years and imprisoned hundreds of political opponents, especially officials and supporters of the Famni Lavalas (FL) party founded by Aristide. It also stacked the judiciary and police with its loyalists.

Neptune's plight began on June 27, 2004, when he turned himself in to the police after hearing on the radio that an arrest warrant had been issued against him. He was accused of participating in the "La Scierie Massacre," an alleged attack by Lavalas supporters in the La Scierie neighborhood of St.Marc. Two years after the arrest, the Haitian Appeals Court prosecutor conceded that there was no credible evidence of Neptune's involvement. Nevertheless, Neptune would spend 25 months in prison, including nearly a year in the National Penitentiary which is notorious for its appalling conditions. The case against Neptune collapsed further when subsequent investigations, including one by the United Nations, concluded that the "La Scierie Massacre" was in fact a battle between two armed groups, with casualties on both sides.

In July of 2006, two months after a democratically elected government finally took over from the IGH, Yvon Neptune was granted provisional release for health reasons. The presidential election of 2006 was won by Rene Preval in a stunning rebuke to those who backed the coup of 2004, including the UN Security Council. Like Neptune, Preval was a former Prime Minister under Aristide. Repression against Lavalas eased after the election, but the impact of the IGH continues to make itself felt.

The charges against Yvon Neptune remain in force to this day because the Preval administration has refused to serve a Haitian appeals court order that finally dismissed the case in April of 2007. The Preval government told the IACHR that it does not have the power to serve the appeals court order (without clearly specifying who did have the power). The IACHR dismissed the government's argument out of hand. "Officials serve appeals court orders every day." explained Brian Concannon, Yvon Neptune's lawyer before the IACHR, "The government could easily do that tomorrow."

While Yvon Neptune continues to be hounded for his noninvolvement in a debunked "massacre", he is better off than his codefendant, Ronald Dauphin, who is still in prison after four years, with no trial scheduled.

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, another prominent Lavalas activist who became a political prisoner under the IGH, did not have charges against him dropped until June, more than two years after Preval's election.

Why have Lavalas activists been persecuted years after an election that should have put an end to their troubles? A compelling explanation was offered by US journalist and filmmaker Kevin Pina who lived and worked in Haiti for years:

"After initially boycotting the elections, Lavalas finally supports Preval's candidacy in 2006 with clearly stated objectives in mind. First and foremost was to stop the relentless political repression and persecution they suffered after Aristide was ousted in February of 2004. Secondly, they wanted to free all of the Lavalas political prisoners..., lastly but equally important, was their call for the return of Aristide from exile. None of these demands have been fully realized because Preval was eventually saddled with what the UN and the international community tout as a 'coalition government'. This concept of 'coalition' forced Preval to abandon the demands of his electorate...."

Under pressure from the US and its allies, Preval's government appointments included prominent supporters of the coup and the IGH - people like Raymond Joseph, who remained Haiti's ambassador to the US, Maggy Durce, Minister of Commerce, and Marie-Laurence Jocelyne Lassegue, Women's Condition Ministry.

There were also major problems with the elections that were finally held in 2006. Aside from the widespread repression of Lavalas supporters and leaders, compelling evidence of fraud intended to block Preval's victory emerged during the presidential election. A shortage of voting centers, especially in Lavalas strongholds, also imposed major sacrifices on Haiti's poorest voters. At the presidential level these barriers were overcome by Preval's name recognition and the sheer determination of his supporters - who staged massive protests when evidence of fraud surfaced. However, at the legislative level the repressive tactics of the IGH deprived Preval of significant parliamentary support. In fact, Preval was forced to mount a remarkably low key campaign in order to avoid violence against his supporters - something lesser known candidates could not afford to do.

Brian Concannon has argued "IGH holdovers in the executive branch may be less important than the ones in the judiciary." His point is underscored by the fact that Judge Cluny Pierre Jules, who played major role in the persecution of Yvon Neptune, is an IGH appointee who remains on the bench, as does Judge Peres-Paul, responsible for the imprisonment of Father Gerard Jean-Juste.

Aside from IGH appointed judges, the vehemently anti-Lavalas Haitian human rights group, the National Network for the Defense of Human Right (RNDDH), relentlessly pursued Yvon Neptune. Led by Pierre Esperance, RNDDH has received over a hundred thousand dollars from the Canadian government since 2004 while it was still known as the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR). The funding requests to Ottawa explicitly budgeted for the prosecution of Yvon Neptune and his codefendants. During an earlier period NCHR was funded by the US government through its New York office. In March of 2004, the IGH formally agreed to arrest anyone that Pierre Esperance's group denounced as a criminal. The warrant issued against Yvon Neptune listed all the allegations that RNDDH made against him. RNDDH not only opposed Yvon Neptune's provisional release in 2006, it even objected to special medical provisions which were made for him while he was incarcerated. RNDDH did not reply to a request made by HaitiAnalysis for a comment on the IACHR ruling. However, an RNDDH representative was quoted in the July 11 issue of The Nouvelliste, a Haitian Newspaper, stressing that the IACHR did not rule on the truth or falsehood of the allegations made against Yvon Neptune. However, RNDDH have never produced a formal report substantiating its allegations against Neptune and others, or even a list of the names of the alleged victims in St. Marc, despite requests made the head of the UN Human Rights Commission in Haiti

By telephone, Yvon Neptune told HaitiAnalysis that he found the IACHR ruling "encouraging" but that he "would not venture to guess" why the Preval administration has still not served the court order dismissing the case. Neptune recalled a "strange" and "misinformed" public statement that Preval made in September of 2007 in which the President claimed that the Haitian Senate would fulfill its responsibilities over the case. Neptune explained that under the Haitian constitution the Chamber of Deputies must first decide if allegations against a high public official are serious enough to warrant referral to the Senate which then functions as a special court to try the case. If the Preval Administration finally serves the appeals court order dismissing the case against Neptune then the State Prosecutor or any of the plaintiffs could possibly choose to appeal to Haiti's Supreme Court. They would have five days to do so or the case would be closed for good.

Asked if a shift in Preval's loyalties has taken place since the election of 2006, Neptune acknowledged that "many facts raise serious questions" about Preval's commitment to the people who elected him. However, Neptune hastened to add that he cannot answer those "serious questions" with any degree of confidence. Neptune stressed that he has been very isolated from public life even after his release from prison and that he can only use media reports to judge Preval's actions. Is the lingering repression against Lavalas leaders aimed at keeping Aristide out of Haiti? Neptune's answer is that there are certainly people "within the machinery of government" who would resort to that.

Brian Concannon believes that Haiti is slowly rebuilding but that the damage done by the IGH to the judiciary and police will take five to ten years to repair. Asked if the IACHR's decision will finally prompt the dismissal of the case against Yvon Neptune, Concannon replied "I would be surprised if the government does not at least serve the order soon. Then again, I am surprised they didn't do it 15 months ago."