This time, the people of Haiti may win

[CHIMO]

In 1915, the US Marines invaded Haiti, occupying the country until 1934. US officials rewrote the Haitian constitution, and when the Haitian national assembly refused to ratify it, they dissolved the assembly. They then held a "referendum" in which about 5% of the electorate voted and approved the new constitution – which conveniently changed Haitian law to allow foreigners to own land – with 99.9% voting for approval.

The situation today is remarkably similar. The country is occupied, and although the occupying troops wear blue helmets, everyone knows that Washington calls the shots. On 28 November an election was held in which the country's most popular political party was excluded; but still the results of the first round of the election were not quite right. The OAS – under direction from Washington – then changed the results to eliminate the government's candidate from the second round. To force the government to accept the OAS rewrite of the results, Haiti was threatened with a cutoff of aid flows – and, according to multiple sources, President Préval was threatened with being forcibly flown out of the country – as happened to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

Now, Aristide has been issued a diplomatic passport by the government, and is preparing to return. But Washington does not agree, as US state department spokesman PJ Crowley made clear this week. He was also asked if the US government had pressured either the Haitian or South African governments to prevent Aristide's return. He refused to answer; I take that as a "yes".

The United States has been the prime cause of instability in Haiti, not only over the last two centuries, but the last two decades. Although Haiti is a small and poor country, Washington still cares very much about who is running it – and as leaked WikiLeaks cables recently demonstrated, they want a government that is in line with their overall foreign policy for the region. In 1991, Aristide Haiti's first democratically elected president was overthrown after just seven months in office. The officers who carried out the coup and established the military government, killing thousands of innocent Haitians, were subsequently found by the New York Times to be in the pay of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/10/washington-denial-us-haiti

[angstlessk]

1. The money comment...

Now, Aristide has been issued a diplomatic passport by the government, and is preparing to return. But Washington does not agree, as US state department spokesman PJ Crowley made clear this week. He was also asked if the US government had pressured either the Haitian or South African governments to prevent Aristide's return. He refused to answer; I take that as a "yes".

[Billy Burnett]

2. But his political party has been banned from the last few elections.

This last election Famni Lavalas was banned from the election by Hil's Provisional Electoral Commission.

[Peace Patriot]

3. "The OAS – under direction from Washington...changed the results...". That ain't the half of it.

"The OAS – under direction from Washington – then changed the results to eliminate the government's candidate from the second round. To force the government to accept the OAS rewrite of the results, Haiti was threatened with a cutoff of aid flows – and, according to multiple sources, President Préval was threatened with being forcibly flown out of the country – as happened to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004." --from the OP

Something even more ominous was going on with this U.S. change of the results in the Haitian election and we have yet too see the full picture or implications. But here it is, thus far: The regular OAS election monitoring group has a very good reputation, and is one of the key organizations (the other is the Carter Center) that have helped, not just monitor, but set up "best practices" election systems in Latin America. This has made possible a political revolution, with leftist governments elected in country after country where the minority rightwing or fascist dictatorships once ruled.

The U.S. began chopping away at Latin American election integrity in Honduras. Neither the OAS nor any reputable election monitoring group in the world would touch that fraudulent martial law election, which occurred even while coup protestors were being jailed, beaten, tortured, raped and murdered. Clinton had to bring in groups like John McCain's "International Republican Institute" (a U.S. taxpayer funded fascist propaganda group--which sent Mad Tea Party types to insult and bully Honduran voters) to smear some democracy cosmetics on the Honduran coup. Most Latin American countries have refused to recognize that election.

Next up, Haiti: For Haiti, Hillary put together an election monitoring group, under the "OAS" name, comprised of six people from the U.S., France and Canada--the U.S., notorious for its brutal interference in Haiti; France, Haiti's former slavemaster; Canada, with a rightwing/corporate government that rides in the wake of U.S. bullying in "third world" countries to great corporate profit--and one Jamaican, to recount Haiti's first round presidential election.

Their recount was so inadequate as to be fraudulent, and CEPR has called for a complete re-do of the Haitian election, not only in the face of this U.S. fraud but also to redress the wrong of excluding Haiti's majority party from the ballot.

SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT of Haitians DIDN'T VOTE in the election that the U.S. allegedly 'recounted,' which means that the three main candidates split about 25% of the voting base among them. None of them has any legitimacy as a major candidate--not Preval's candidate, Jude Celestin, nor Hillary's probable candidate, Mirlande Manigat ("capitalism with a friendly face"), nor some mafia/entertainment character ("Sweet Mickie" Martelly) whom Hillary pushed ahead of Celestin, so that Manigat would win.

The Fanmi Lavalas party, Aristide's party, is the party of the great majority of Haitians. Their voices were not heard--neither in the fraudulent first round nor in the fraudulent recount.*

Now what I want to know is, who authorized Clinton to use the OAS name in this way--and is this a portent of future direct U.S. interference in Latin America's elections? Are we going to have John McCain counting the votes in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries with leftist majorities and leftist governments?

Why were no Latin American countries included on this "OAS" election monitoring group in Haiti? Where was Brazil (which has UN peacekeepers in Haiti)? Where was Venezuela (which has one of the best election systems in the world)? Where were all the Latin American experts, who do this work for the OAS, and hail from many countries? Why were there six personages from "first world" countries--and, in terms of Haiti, the worst that could be chosen--and one Jamaican?

This is bad enough, as to Haiti. But it is even worse as a PRECEDENT. The U.S. picking its own election fraud team and calling it the "OAS"?

This has got to be stopped.

----------------------

*(I just learned how the Lavalas party was excluded. They submitted a list of candidates, approved by their party head Aristide (in exile in South Africa--after being brutally ousted by the Bush Junta in 2004) and met all the requirements to be on the ballot. But then, the Electoral Council invented a requirement out of thin air, at the last minute--the head of the party had to SIGN the list IN PERSON. Since the U.S. puppet government wouldn't grant Aristide a passport to return to Haiti, there was no way for them to meet this requirement. What. A. Crock!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_general_election,_2010–2011 )

[Peace Patriot]

4. Oh, for Chrissake! Hillary is worse than Condi!

Really, this is too much. I thought Condi was the all-time champion of elbow breaking and kneecapping in Latin America. But Hillary has topped her...

--

"The OAS – under direction from Washington – then changed the results to eliminate the government's candidate from the second round. To force the government to accept the OAS rewrite of the results, Haiti was threatened with a cutoff of aid flows – and, according to multiple sources, President Préval was threatened with being forcibly flown out of the country – as happened to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004."

Threatening to starve children?

Threatening to cut trucked water supplies to a million Haitians still living under tarps?

Threatening a huge homeless population with more cholera?

Christ Almighty! She might as well have threatened to send smallpox blankets!

NO WONDER Preval was mad! I've been trying for days to figure out what pissed him off so much (that he finally issued the Aristide passport). This is it! She was going to force her fake "OAS" election bullshit down his throat or take it out on the Haitian people!

Preval is not a "good guy." He is reputedly very corrupt. And he has been toadying to every U.S. command up until now. And, honestly, I thought the U.S./Preval dispute was about this unseemly stackup of U.S. corporate vultures salivating over the $9 billion in 'reconstruction' aid that Bill Clinton is controlling. I thought maybe they had aced out the local rich elite. Something like that. But this is much, much worse--threatening to cut off aid in a massive human displacement crisis like this, and then threatening to throw him out of the country--as if he were just another Haitian to throw over the fence! Incredible!

Well, credit to Preval! He stood up for Haiti! Seriously!

:applause: :bounce: :applause:

[bhikkhu]

5. Blatant US manipulation of Haiti's internal politics -

You'd think after everything that has happened we would for once stand back and just stop. I've said before on other things - the big revelation of the Wikileaks cables is the level of corruption and malfeasance in the US State Department, and this is just one more example of it.

Once the culture of an organization has reached a certain level of corruption, it almost doesn't matter who runs it; whatever it says is lies, whatever it does is wrong, whatever it attempts to do just spreads its own stench farther...I have some small hope that between Bill Clinton (who has admitted the damage and errors of his administration in Haiti) and Obama, who has a good vision of the flow of history, something bad might be averted, and perhaps there will be just a little peace, just a little prosperity left for the Haitians.