Administration too quiet in wake of Haiti upheaval
By JESSE JACKSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
3/3/04
So much for all that talk about democracy.
President Bush dispatched Marines to Haiti to secure order -- after his administration forced the elected leader of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, into exile. Now the administration will determine who gets to run Haiti.
For the Bush administration it was clear: The Haitian voters had put their faith in the wrong man, so he had to go. President Bush then ridiculously announced that the "Haitian constitution is working," as if words could turn night into day.
The U.S. government never liked Aristide. The neo-cons loathed him as a messianic dreamer who believed in redistribution of wealth. The ideologues of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank disdained him. The CIA's covert operators viewed him as an ideological adversary. The Haitian elites enlisted lobbyists from both parties to undermine him. The Haitian military, which he disbanded, despised him. The Papa Doc death squad murderers loathed him for stripping them of power.
So when the Haitian "opposition," led by that same elite, fed the thugs, former death squad killers, gun-runners and drug dealers that formed the armed rebellion against Aristide, the United States did nothing.
The toppling of a democratically elected president -- however flawed his administration -- should not be treated as business as usual. We need congressional hearings to probe the administration's role in this.
Was the CIA connected to its former agents who were leading the rebellion? Were the neo-cons who run Latin America for the State Department signaling the Haitian opposition that the United States wouldn't stand by Aristide? Did Bush hold off any assistance to Aristide in order to force his exit?
This coup sends a chilling message to leaders across the world. Turns out all that rhetoric about supporting democracy as a centerpiece of U.S. policy is just words, not policy.
This administration values governments that protect private investment and stability for U.S. multinationals. Stable dictatorships are preferred to unstable democracies. It runs up massive trade deficits and maintains cordial relations with the Communist dictatorship of China, but topples Haiti's elected president.
As we learned in Florida four years ago, Bush is all for elections, but only if they come out the right way.
Jesse Jackson is a Democratic Party activist based in Chicago.
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