The Coup Against President Aristide 15 Years Later: The Clintons, the Canadians, and Western NGOs all Complicit in a Never-Ending Tragedy
“It’s almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs.
Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the US preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation.”
– Arundhati Roy (August 16, 2004) [1]
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On February 29th 2004, fifteen years ago this week, following an insurgency by a rebel paramilitary army, U.S. Canadian, and French troops executed a coup d’etat against the democratically elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
This incident was notable in a long history of imperialist interests determined to thwart any semblance of emancipation from foreign control.
From the arrival of Christopher Columbus through the slave trade, military interventions, occupation and U.S. backed tyrannies, far away powers have profited from the sweat and blood of the people of this island community. [2]
Yet, the spirit of resistance has flourished! Following the world’s first and only successful slave revolt, Haiti had established its independence in 1804. A popular uprising in the 1980s would lead to the collapse of the brutal U.S. backed Duvalier regime. And in spite of U.S. and CIA backed actions to sabotage Haitian democracy, an array of grassroots organizations prevailed in their efforts to elevate Aristide, an advocate for the poor, to the presidency in December 1990. [3]
Aristide’s advocacy for the Haitian people and refusal to implement policies favourable to offshore financial interests coming at the expense of his fellow Haitians led to his 1991 ouster by a CIA-backed coup. U.S. President Bill Clinton would return Aristide to Haiti on the condition he would grant amnesty to the brutal Haitian military and implement structural adjustment programs and other reforms demanded by the World Bank and the other instruments of the so-called ‘Washington Consensus.’ [4]
It was defiance of these conditions by Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas Party that led to the 2004 coup. [5]
In the 15 years since, a colonial occupation has asserted itself on the island nation in the name of ‘peace-keeping’ and ‘humanitarian relief.’ A closer inspection however, reveals that what may be portrayed as philanthropic benevolence is in fact a disguise for the continued oppression of a peopledaring to defy white supremacist exploitation.
In recent weeks, Haitians are once again rising in opposition to a U.S. puppet government which ironically better fits the criticisms of corrupt and anti-democratic behaviour than does the Maduro government being condemned by the U.S. and Canada. [6]
This week’s Global Research News Hour radio program marks the 15 year anniversary of the 2004 coup and the consequent undermining of Haitian sovereignty with two interviews.
In the first half hour, Jean Saint-Vil elaborates on the historical and geopolitical context of the coup and the ongoing occupation, notes the ignoble efforts in the country by the U.N. and the Clintons among others, and speaks to both the morality and the wisdom of Western powers changing their relationship with Haitians and respecting their sovereignty.
We next speak with Yves Engler specifically about Canada’s role in the coup and the interests it is pursuing in the country. He speaks about how and why even progressive Canadian organizations are echoing the propaganda and talking points enabling the occupation. He discusses the presence of Canadian Special Forces on the ground in Haiti in the midst of recent popular upheaval there. He also brings up the Quebec engineering firm SNC Lavelin, currently making headlines in Ottawa, and takes note of that company’s involvement within Haiti along with its under-reported role within the architecture of Canadian foreign policy decision-making generally.
Jean Saint-Vil is a Haitian-Canadian writer and activist. He co-founder the Canada -Haiti Action Network and has visited Haiti several times before and since the 2004 coup.
Yves Engler is one of Canada’s foremost Canadian foreign policy critics and dissidents. He is the author of nine books on Canadian foreign policy including Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (2005), which he co-authored with Anthony Fenton, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy (2009), and his most recent, Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada.
(Global Research News Hour Episode 250)
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Notes:
- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17888.htm
- Press for Conversion! (Issue #60), March 2007, pg 3-6; https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-coup-detat-the-destabilization-of-haiti/5323726
- ibid
- ibid
- idib
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/canadian-policy-on-venezuela-haiti-reveals-hypocrisy-that-media-ignores/5669171
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Michael Welch, Yves Engler, and Jean Saint-Vil, Global Research, 2019
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