The Great Experiment: A Nightmare for Haitians

Never in the Haiti’s two centuries of storied existence have its people experienced this succession of calamities in such a short period of time, which coincides with the unlawful occupation of country under the fictitious pretext of saving its people from the tyranny of their leaders. 2004: Hurricane Jeanne 3000 dead; 2004-06: MINUSTAH-Latortue regime 4000 plus, 2008: Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike 800, January 12th 2010 earthquake: 250.000 plus and 1.5 million homeless, 2010 cholera epidemic: 1200 and counting. These are tangible evidences that the UN’s Great Experiment (2004-?), whose purpose is at best insidious, poses an existential threat to this little nation, which was liberated at the beginning of the 19th century by rebellious slaves. Untold numbers were asphyxiated with sulfur dioxide and others burned alive by the vengeful French in a chilling forerunner to the 20th century use of crematories by the Nazis. The selfless sacrifices of these freedom fighters on behalf of an entire race could never be erased despite repeated attempts by detractors, even though their achievement seems lost on many of their descendants.
Through treacherous actions of local collaborators, Haitians have lost faith in their illustrious past that once made them the vanguard of self-determination against organized repression and injustice. The handover of the government’s constitutional prerogatives to the foreign-dominated Haiti Reconstruction Project (HRP) by a truncated parliament, acting at the behest of foreign entities and the local elite, fits a pattern of dereliction of duty and political delinquency, if not outright treason. Fortunately history is on our side, because great nations, despite setbacks, always lived up to their predestined purpose. Our indomitable ancestors must be turning in their graves, seeing that their selfless sacrifices are being negated by the vile actions of impenitent collaborators and opportunists whose raison d’être is self-preservation at any cost.
Though no one, particularly Haitians, can accurately predict what will happen next, the smart money is no doubt betting on something more catastrophic happening in the near future, which would be consistent with the trend. It could be a global food shortage that disproportionately affects Haiti and results in a large scale famine (the country currently imports 80% of its food needs) or some unknown mutating virus for which there is no known cure. Yet, Haitian politicians, from René Préval to the 19 presidential contenders in the November 28th elections, oblivious of the looming danger, remain in awe of the empty promises of the Great Experiment which is a nightmare for the people.
Within days of the cholera epidemic and without the benefit of concrete actions, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Préval regime irresponsibly announced that the disease was under control and measures were being implemented to prevent it from spreading. The generic statement, consistent with the pattern of calculated deception, arrogance and unaccountability underlying the Great Experiment, turned out to be premature, seeing that the epidemic is spreading at an alarming rate unseen in the history of treatable diseases. At the very least, the Nepalese contingent, the most likely or circumstantial originator of the disease, should have been repatriated. The occupiers however would not even entertain the idea and, oddly enough, appear indignant at the people’s indignation.
Responding to the public outcry over the epidemic in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city, Vincenzo Pugliese, the U.N spokesman, angrily blamed political actors for instigating the protests. "It looks like the demonstration began in three or four parts in the city in a simultaneous way that means it was planned ahead or organized," said Pugliese in a statement that exemplifies arrogance and apathy in the face of human sufferings. Ironically, Pugliese got it backward, as it is actually the dearth of dedicated agitators that allows this abomination to continue. Therefore, doing away with the occupation is the prerequisite to extricating Haiti from this Great Experiment conceived in the dark rooms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that bears the hallmarks of a planned genocide.
When Colin L. Powell, the former U.S secretary of state, declared in March 2004 that France had the right to intervene in Haiti, his statement was based on our colonial association with the French, which many consider indissoluble. In which case, it would not be presumptuous for us, Haitians, to borrow the first verse of La Marseillaise as a battle cry: “Let’s go children of the fatherland; the day of glory has arrived. Against us stands tyranny. The bloody banner is raised. Do you hear in the countryside the howling of those ferocious soldiers? They have come into our midst to slit the throat of our sons and wives. To arms citizens! To arms citizens! Form your battalions. Let’s march, let’s march, so that the impure blood should irrigate our fields.” The lyrics, which reflect on the invasion of France by the armies of Prussia and Austria (1792) in the aftermath of the French Revolution (1789), illustrate what is actually happening in Haiti.
Indeed, the roar of MINUSTAH’s armored vehicles is terrorizing the population into submission under the assertion “the protesters are being manipulated by enemies of stability and democracy in Haiti.” Unbeknownst to the occupiers, the muffled cries of the victims are resonating in the remotest corners of the globe and the lovers of freedom are attentively listening, as the Great Experiment resembles more a war of extermination than the mission of mercy its architects want the world to believe.

It Is Selection Time; Therefore Time to Vote

The one certainty about the November 28th upcoming legislative and presidential elections in Haiti is that they will be declared “free and fair” by the international community, despite the illegal machinations of Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). In contrast, the November 7th election in Myanmar (formerly Burma) was, for all purposes and intents, declared unfair and undemocratic by the international community, even before the first votes were cast. Two elections with similar dynamic; Haiti and Myanmar’s two largest political parties are excluded in both instances and their leaders, Jean Bertrand Aristide and Aung San Suu Kyi, in exile and under house arrest, respectively. Apparently, free and fair elections, the bedrock of democracy, far from being a universal concept are actually subjective. Based on that reality, wouldn’t it be fair for Haitians to be asked whether they want to be part of this charade?
It is by now an historical fact that voting for the wrong candidate can have terrible consequences for Haiti and its people, the electorate should therefore refrain itself from engaging in an exercise that is being used to suppress its aspirations. Unless the people’s choice, no matter misguided it may be, can be validated and respected, what is the point in participating in a protracted process that is expensive and, most importantly, lacking credibility. Obviously, we are going back to the days when a king, having converted to a new faith, orders his subjects to embrace it, regardless of their aversion to it, or face the harshest of punishments. The analogy being: unless the Haitian people conform to this tyrannical, perverted and discriminatory form of democracy, they will be ostracized from the family of nations and made to suffer the consequences.
It should be noted that the Haitian people are receptive to the notion of electing their own leaders, which is a core democratic principle, as opposed to sticking with their country’s storied history of imposed rule. They have done so on several occasions but their choice was scornfully and violently rejected by the international community. There are apparently no discernible differences between the two political systems, which are inherently narcissistic and based on unaccountability, subjugation, exploitation and exclusion. Hence, voting on November 28th is tantamount to the Haitian people willingly endorsing the tyrannical rule of their tormentors, as it will be all but impossible to get rid of the tyrants except through the ballot box which, in itself, is stacked against their aspirations. Try imagining an armed rebellion against a Gerard Latortue-type tyrant, not sanctioned by the international community. Unlike Guy Philippe, the wannabe generalissimo, who spearheaded the 2004 armed insurrection against the country’s democratically elected government, any would-be liberator will be sitting on the dock at The Hague answering for a plethora of crimes before the International Criminal Court.
Though it may be naïve to expect a modicum of decency from the selected crop of candidates in the upcoming November 28th presidential election, this great little nation deserves better nonetheless. Exceedingly ambitious and correspondingly short on ethical and leadership qualities, this slate of politicians is the embodiment of self-preservation and political expediency and rightfully deserves the labels collaborators” and “puppets.” No one among them can stand up against the politic of organized chaos created by outsiders with the help of the mulatto elite, which allows the international community to present itself as “the savior” rather than the instigator of the cycle of destruction and misery.
Though it has been established that the strain of cholera creating havoc in Haiti is South Asian, U.S medical experts are now concerned about its possible spread to the U.S and other countries, which implies that Haiti may be considered ground zero for the epidemic. Yet, Michel Chancy, the Haitian minister in charge of coordinating a response to the epidemic concluded: “Haitians will always complain; it is part of the culture. They blame everyone and anything from colonialism to international aid agencies.” Basically, the man is saying there is nothing to complain about, and no one asks for his resignation. It shows that despite a succession of calamities befallen Haiti since February 29th, 2004, many of which the doings of the occupiers, Haitian politicians remain active participants in the enslavement of their fellow countrymen.
A perfunctory look at the problems facing Haiti and the slate of candidates clearly show that the elections will not solve anything. Consider the two frontrunners, Myrlande Manigat and Jude Celestin, as examples. Ms. Manigat is an over-emotional woman who angrily refused to participate in a run-off for a senate seat she was slated to win. This, after René Préval was declared the winner in the UN-organized, fraud-marred, 2006 presidential and legislative elections in which her husband, Leslie Manigat, received a little over 13 percent of the vote and denied a run-off. Even the most dedicated feminist should have second thoughts about voting for such an impulsive leader. As for Célestin, how can he convince the Diaspora and foreign investors to come and invest in Haiti when he, himself, saw fit to invest in real estate ventures in the U.S rather than injecting the money into the Haitian economy and helping create jobs?
As per the selective process, one of these two politicians will be president of Haiti on February 7th 2011, and the cycle of apathy, misery and condescension will endure. Aptly, the electorate should desist from participating in this charade until the present situation is reversed.

Democracy or Demographic Project

As early as 2003, many western governments have been mulling the possibility of containing Haiti’s population, which was expected to reach 20 million by the year 2025. Accordingly, they decided that a poor and overpopulated Haiti, historically resistant to the orthodoxy of the western civilization, represented a threat to the western hemisphere, hence a time bomb to be defused. Fittingly, the occupation (2004-?), coming in the year of Haiti’s bicentennial, correlates with this line of thinking which has since developed into a policy to be implemented. The occupation unfortunately ended a period (1986-2004) which would have gone down in history as “The Haitian Renaissance.” Rasin music embodied the Haitian consciousness, Creole or more suitably “Haitian” was recognized along with French as the country’s two official languages and the long-oppressed majority finally started enjoying the rewards of political empowerment.
However, in the euphoria of their newfound freedom, the masses failed to notice the danger lurking in the shadow: a reactionary group, guided and financed by foreign entities and the mulatto elite, willing to undo their political gains. Afflicted with a chronic case of political narcissism and prodded by the international community, these enemies of the people embarked on a near religious crusade to save Haiti from the uncivilized Lavalas hordes. On the other hand, the masses, ignoring the lessons of history, failed to consolidate their gains by not applying victor’s justice against their former oppressors, which proved to be a blunder of monumental proportion. As a result, the Renaissance fizzled under the machinations of the international community and the political economic sabotage from these enemies of the Haitian people.
One of them, Edwige Lalane, a former Haitian diplomat and enabler of the U.N occupation of Haiti, went so far as to advocating the physical elimination of 5% of the residents of Sité Solèy, pop.350.000, whom he deemed incorrigible and uncontainable bandits. Even Joachim Von Ribbentrop, the Nazi’s top diplomat (1938-45) was never that callous, even though the extermination of European Jewry was the Nazis’ stated policy. When Hitler started his denunciation of the German Jews at the beginning of his political career, no one could have foreseen the consequences of his intolerance against a group he felt had no place in his vision of a racially pure Germany. His diatribes won over a majority of Germans nevertheless and the rest is history: crematories, special treatments, concentration camps, final solution and mass exterminations became part of the world’s lexicons.
It is therefore inconceivable that at the beginning of the 21st century, a third rate diplomat and simple minded fascist could advocate the physical elimination of humans he deemed undesirables and not be criminally charged for making terroristic and genocidal threats against humanity. Distorted ideas are more amenable to common folks than simple facts and, once a rationale is ingrained in their psyche, irrationality automatically prevails. This helps explain why Haiti’s current situation, the result of centuries of persecutions by western powers, is invariably blamed on Jean Bertrand Aristide, whom the same Edwige Lalane alleged would cause harm to the country and the international community, if he were allowed to return from the imposed exile in South Africa. And, also Charles Baker’s contention that restoring the now-defunct Haitian Armed Forces (F A d’H) would deter criminality and set the country in the path of development.
As expected, the international community was in accord with Edwige Lalane’s method of dealing with the so-called bandits of Sité Solèy, because on June 6 of that year MINUSTAH soldiers mounted an indiscriminate bombing and land campaign against the area’s residents. The U.N reported 13 deaths, most of them it attributed to collateral damage, while independent sources registered dozens fatalities. Despite the generic press release by MINUSTAH promising an investigation on the circumstances of the untimely demise of the innocent victims, no report were ever released to the public.
For centuries, the Artibonite Valley abutting both sides of Haiti’s largest river by the same name was the breadbasket of the country and a lifeline for millions of Haitian peasants. With the inhabitants of the region presently afraid to use the contaminated river water for their daily chores, including cooking and farming, the cholera epidemic may well suit the designs of Lalane’s Haiti Democracy Project and its backers. The probable cause of the cholera epidemic, a MINUSTAH base manned by Nepalese soldiers, will be ignored in accordance with the U.N standard practice of promising an investigation without ever intending to release any conclusion to the public. Now that the U.S Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta has confirmed that the cholera strain is South Asian, in effect substantiating the Nepalese connection to the outbreak, will the UN repatriate the contingent?
The Haitian government’s response apparently precludes such possibility, if one refers to the statement of Dr. Alex Larsen, Haiti's Minister of Health. "Although these results indicate that the strain is non-Haitian, cholera strains may move between different areas due to global travel and trade." Therefore, we will never know the exact origin of the strain that is causing the epidemic in Haiti” said Dr Larsen. Like Gérard Latortue, Haiti’s prime minister (2004-06), who famously acknowledged not having read the document granting the MINUSTAH jurisdictional power over the Haitian National Police, Dr. Larsen may, one day, admit not having seen this statement that bore his name.
Could Lalane’s “Haiti Democracy Project” be a misnomer for Haiti Demographic Project?

Financing the Reconstruction

In the seven months following the International Donors’ Conference of March 31st in NY, it has become apparent to most Haitians that the promised funds for the Reconstruction Project are subject to international intrigues and the tent cities will be around for decades, unless Haitians extricate themselves from this dependency. Moreover, with the government practically bankrupt, hence deprived of its constitutional prerogatives to formulate economic and social policies, and the disbursed funds going to the battalion of NGOs operating in Haiti, ingenuity rather than dependency may be the only way out of this inopportune situation. Forget about the IMF’s blueprint, which is attuned to creating an unregulated market for multinational corporations to unload their surplus or defective goods in Haiti, a policy which fosters the culture of dependency, hinders the country’s development and exacerbates its misery.
Indeed Haiti is experiencing an economic, social and political dysfunction which can only get worse as long as the culture of dependence on foreign assistance, channeled through foreign-administrated NGOs, is not tackled. Since it is inevitable that a sham election will be held this November and a winner will emerge out of the current crop of candidates/collaborators, the next constituted government should try to make the best out of an awkward situation. As a remedy, an economic emergency must be declared; it will enable the incoming government to recover the lost constitutional prerogatives, set the stage for sustained economic development and hasten the occupiers’ eventual departure.
At the Nazi Doctors’ trial at Nuremberg (1946-47), Karl Brandt, who oversaw a program to euthanize mentally ill Germans, callously declared “It may seem to have been inhuman…The underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves…Such considerations cannot be regarded as inhuman. Nor did I ever feel it in any degree unethical or immoral.” Unfortunately, the U.N occupation of Haiti is based on the same principle: a twisted desire to save a helpless nation supposedly from itself. Accordingly, the thousands of deaths since 2004, the raping of young Haitian women by Sri Lankan soldiers who were swiftly repatriated, the random classification of opponents of the New Order as bandits, the marginalization of the vast majority of the population, and now a plague (Cholera), which has been absent in the country for a century, apparently caused by illegal dumping of Nepalese soldiers’ excrements in the Artibonite River are indicative that the end justifies the means. Since we are regarded by others as a diseased specie, (5.6 million Haitians were inoculated under a U.N-sponsored program three years ago), the Cholera epidemic certainly is not helping matters. Could another round of inoculation be in the work and an apology, if one is ever offered, will come decades later?
Extricating Haiti from this untenable situation necessitates a national consensus that rejects the culture of dependency, through belt tightening, and other fiscal measures. To that end, the next government must circumvent the suffocating control of the colonial authority by adopting an economic program uniquely suited to Haiti’s perilous situation. Such initiative will facilitate the recovery of the government’s lost prerogatives and the country’s sovereignty. Most importantly, this consensus offers a unique opportunity for Haitians to make peace with themselves and neutralize the impenitent collaborators and traitors who engineered the occupation of the country in the year of its bi-centennial, for Haiti is a crossroads and nothing less than its survival is at stake.
To that effect, five things must be done. Firstly: slapping a 10% tax on imports of essential goods and a 20% hike on non-essential goods to generate revenues. This will naturally discourage consumption of foreign goods, encourage local production and help build a nest of foreign currencies reserves, because even affluent countries living beyond their means, eventually get in financial trouble. Secondly: imposition of an indirect tax on the Haitian Diaspora that entails a 5% levy on remittances. Such levy could easily raise 80 to 100 millions of dollars annually, and will also be a remainder to the Diaspora that its never-ending albeit legitimate demand for privileges (dual citizenship) comes with obligations to the fatherland. Thirdly: an enforceable ban on the illegal circulation of U.S currencies outside of the banking system and a strict limit of 1000 U.S dollars that an individual can transfer or carry outside of Haiti for any 6 months period. Presently, many commercial establishments and private institutions of learning only accept U.S dollars as payment for goods, tuitions and books, an aberration which must end expeditiously. In 2002, in one week period, Jude Célestin, one of the frontrunners in the November 28 presidential election, purchased two homes in Dade County, FL. Needless to say, strict currency control could have prevented such occurrence. Fifthly: imposition of capital punishment for economic crimes involving corruption, willful tax evasion and hoarding of goods by speculators. This approach works for China, so why not try it in Haiti, one of the most corrupt places in our planet.
We do not need to conform to the “divide and rule” politic of the occupiers, which is genocidal in nature, as the unsavory events taking place under the New Order illustrate. This parcel of land called Haiti belongs to us, the descendants of Dessalines, not foreign mercenaries and their local acolytes. Time is clearly not on our side, since Haiti runs the risk of having generations of thoroughly indoctrinated leaders seeing the country’s problems through the perspectives of the occupiers.