Misery in the Name of Democracy:The US Works Elections in Iraq...and Haiti

[Clara T]

Published on Friday, December 16, 2005 by the CommonDreams.org
Misery in the Name of Democracy: The US Works Elections in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Haiti
by Yifat Susskind
 
The Bush Administration is touting Iraq's December 15 election as a giant leap forward for freedom guaranteed to ignite fervor for democracy across the entire Middle East. But closer to home, the Administration has discovered that democracy has created a monster and that the monster is democracy. In Latin America and the Caribbean, popular movements are demanding that the United States' "gift to the world" make good on its promise of majority rule. That would likely disrupt a system-otherwise known as "free-market democracy"-that has benefited a small elite and worsened poverty for most people. The possibility has so alarmed CIA Director Porter Goss that he recently labeled the spate of upcoming elections in Latin America as a "potential area of instability."

<snip>

Haiti

Two weeks ago, Haiti postponed its presidential election for the fourth time in five months. With the vote now set for January 8, the Interim Government (installed by the US after it helped overthrow Haiti's democratically-elected President, Jean Bertrand Aristide, in February 2004) will hold on to power past its February 2006 deadline (just imagine if Hugo Chavez tried that). Regardless of when elections are held, conditions in Haiti make a mockery of democratic process. Yet the Bush Administration has demanded that elections go forth.

Secretary of State Rice has hailed Haiti's election as "a precious step on the road to democracy." But look closely. Haitians are being denied the right to vote: only a few hundred registration and polling sites have been created to serve eight million people (compared with 10,000 provided by the deposed Aristide government) and some large, poor neighborhoods-with few government supporters-have no registration sites at all. Haitians are being denied the right to campaign: the government's potential challengers have been jailed on false charges or no charges. And Haitians are being denied the right to organize: in September, the government outlawed political demonstrations in violation of Haiti's constitution; and anti-government protesters have been repeatedly attacked by the Haitian National Police. The Bush Administration fueled this repression by sending $1.9 million worth of guns and police equipment to Haiti just in time for election season.

<snip>

As in Haiti, democracy in Iraq is to be mainly a procedural matter, demonstrated by periodic elections regardless of political chaos and widespread violence against candidates and voters alike. And as in Venezuela and Bolivia, the government that is produced by the elections will be entitled to the label "democracy" only as long as it follows a US policy script.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1216-21.htm

[sonofliberty]

1. welcome the 4th Reich.... um ....... nazis.......um well you know. n/t