Baby Doc Returned to The Land of Dessalines

As far back as the late 1990’s, it has been rumored that Jean-Claude Duvalier, the exiled former Haitian president, who was overthrown by a popular revolt on February 7, 1986, would return to Haiti. As usual, the incessant rumor was met with excitement, scorn or ambivalence depending on the political philosophy of the recipients. Therefore, when the exiled former president-for-life landed at Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport on January 16th, no one saw it coming, at least the media and the general population. Just like January 12, 2010, most Haitians alive today will remember where they were on January 16, 2011 upon learning that the worn-out rumor had finally materialized. Fittingly, speculations were rampant because the government seemed as baffled as the general population about Baby Doc’s unannounced arrival, which many see as a destabilizing factor. In that regard, the Préval government exhibited the consistent inertia for which it is renowned whenever the need for political will arises.
Besides the joyous reception of his supporters, many Haitians called it a sick joke; others were ambivalent and still others furious at what they believed was a calculated attempt by the international community and René Préval at distracting the beleaguered population. France, through its ambassador to Haiti, Didier Lebret, categorically denied being in the loop, although Baby Doc Duvalier could not possibly have boarded an Air France plane without the knowledge or consent of the French authorities. Nevertheless, the former president, a Haitian citizen, did not need the approval of anyone or entities to return to the land of Dessalines in light of the fact that no criminal or civil charges were pending against him.
Unsurprisingly, it did not take long for the plantation mentality to show its ugly head. Amnesty International’s Special Advisor, Javier Zuniga, was authoritative in his lecture. “The widespread and systematic human rights violations committed in Haiti during Duvalier’s rule amount to crimes against humanity. Haiti is under the obligation to prosecute him and anyone else responsible for such crimes," said the self-righteous ombudsman. Though many Haitians who suffered under Baby Doc may understandably be reluctant to let go of the past, Zuniga must have forgotten that any prosecution of Duvalier remains an internal matter between Haitians. Moreover, while Zuniga is campaigning against impunity or unaccountability, he might want to look at Gérard Latortue, Haiti’s prime minister (2004-06), whose despotic rule, historians would agree, surpassed that of Baby Doc. Without a doubt, the organization is squandering any residue of credibility it has left by being selective in its generic use of “crimes against humanity” for insidious purposes. Seeing that “crimes against humanity” can be prosecuted in any jurisdiction and Jean-Claude Duvalier lived in France for almost 25 years, Zuniga is barking up the wrong tree.
Meanwhile the fate of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the other exiled former president, remains in political limbo. His repeated requests to renew his passport were turned down by the Haitian government, a clear indication that the 2004 edict of Condoleezza Rice, then-US National Security Adviser, prohibiting the return of Aristide anywhere within the confines of the Western Hemisphere still stands. This selective application of the 1987 Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, which specifically forbids the exile of any Haitian citizen under any circumstances, is detrimental to the “rule of law” in Haiti, which is widely acknowledged as the missing component in the country’s treacherous road to stability.
In the euphoria or shock over the mysterious return of the exiled former president in Haiti, Haitians failed to notice the obvious. Duvalier is apparently afflicted with a serious illness, possibly terminal, and his return may be a humanitarian gesture by the powers-that-be for services rendered. Bear in mind, he had an expired passport issued by Latortue regime (2004-06) and could not have left France had the French authorities decided otherwise. Nostalgia is a human characteristic but reality is divine. It is absurd for anyone to think that Jean-Claude Duvalier is politically relevant after a 25 year hiatus from power. Though Haiti’s protracted agony makes the option of autocratic rule very appealing, Baby Doc is far from being the ideal candidate, given that his rule (1971-86), unlike that of Papa Doc (1957-71), was devoid of a political philosophy.
Almost sixty-six years after Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin (1945) and fifty-eight years after the death of Joseph Stalin in Moscow (1953), the aspiration to a political renaissance of thousands of Neo-Nazis and Neo-Stalinists is being thwarted by realities in Germany and Russia. Like Neo-Nazism and Neo-Stalinism in Germany and Russia, Duvalierism is a dying political philosophy in Haiti; its supporters, nostalgic and irrelevant.
Those clamoring for the prosecution of Jean-Claude Duvalier were incidentally complicit in his having escaped justice 25 years ago on the ground that his voluntary departure was necessary to avert a bloody rampage by the Tontons Macoutes, an absolute nonsense that was accepted as gospel. As Baby Doc Duvalier said at his press conference “thousands of his supporters were necklaced with burning tires; their homes ransacked and torched”; in other words, justice has already been served. Impunity must indeed be eradicated in Haiti but applying justice must be comprehensive and not limited to one individual, no matter the gravity of the crimes he is accused of, as the country would gain nothing from this cycle of politically-motivated prosecution or revenge. Undoubtedly many are rejoicing, as the current situation validates their contention of Haitians needing supervision.

Time for Haiti to Withdraw from the OAS and the U.N

At the beginning of the Cold War (1945) until its end (1991) the western powers, preoccupied with stopping the Soviet juggernaut, abandoned the principle of direct rule of less advanced nations in favor of nominal independence. With the exception of France and the US, the leading western powers refrained from direct military interventions in the Third World throughout that period and institutionalized a policy of organized chaos as an alternative. Naturally any country that stretches its autonomy away from the western world’s economic and political umbrella finds itself confronting economic sanctions or embargoes, indigenous armed rebellions, military coups and other stratagems calibrated to bring it back into the fold. In Africa, particularly, even countries that toed the line did not fare any better in terms of economic, social and political development, which remained subordinate to the interests of the western world.
Fast forward to the aftermath of the Cold War (1991) and the policy became more disturbing. Sparing down their costly military expenditures following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the western nations adopted a novel approach to interventions in the Third World: having these countries police themselves. As Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, retreats into introspection and China, an emerging giant unsure of itself, dares not challenge the west’s political supremacy, the unrestrained power of the Security Council is invariably used by the western powers to implement the New Order. Thus Third World nations, which could eventually be victimized under the same policy, are defending the world against “the threat to international peace and security” in Haiti as decreed by the western-dominated Security Council. The policy, which should be dubbed “Domination by proxies”, is absurd and highlights the temerity of its architects and many participating nations. Presently, dysfunctional luminaries such as Benin, Burundi, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala, Madagascar, Nigeria and Niger are not only protecting the free world against the “Haitian threat” but also helping built Democracy and the rule of law in Haiti.
Founded upon the inalienable right to self-determination, incidentally a core principle of the United Nations Charter, Haiti became the most prominent victim of that policy in the year of its bi-centennial (2004). That year, an armed rebellion against the democratically elected government of that country, instigated by Canada, France and the U.S, was used as rationale for the designation of Haiti “a threat to international peace and security” by the UN Security Council under the repressive Chapter VII, which authorizes military actions against the offender.
Almost 7 years into this fateful decision, the so-called threat is being dealt with in the form of a protracted and deliberate process of steering the Haitian state into oblivion. An army of foreign-funded and administered Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) has practically taken over the administration of the country with the tacit approval of the current government. Haitian women and children are facing the gun barrels of the occupiers daily while thousands of their fellow compatriots have died or are dying from an imported cholera epidemic that seems to have fallen below the radar of both the U.N and the government’s priorities. Needless to say, the panacea to Haiti’s problems under the UN occupation (2004-?) remains as elusive as the western world’s unending quest to subjugate the population by sheer intimidations and institutionalized terror.
Roger Noriega, Assistant U.S Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs (2003-05) and primary coordinator of the policy, which led to the February 29, 2004 invasion of Haiti, was unapologetic for his role. Despite the thousands of deaths resulting from the endeavor, he would later declare nonchalantly and condescendingly “We (the U.S) are glad to see Aristide (the deposed president) gone. Haiti is better off without him. Though we had no right to change presidents in Haiti, that doesn’t means we cannot make logical decisions as to what is best for the country.” Having made a logical decision for Haiti, Roger Noriega is now a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, probably improving his infallible judging ability and devising ways to deal with similar threats to world peace and security.
The commission appointed by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN General Secretary, to probe the origin of the cholera epidemic and the OAS technical team’s recommendation that the November 28, 2010 election results be partially overturned are palpable instances of Haiti being a plantation. Ki-Moon’s decision was taken without the authorization of the Haitian government and not one Haitian health expert was assigned to the panel, an ominous indication the presumptive culprit, the Nepalese battalion attached to the MINUSTAH, will be exonerated. As for the OAS technical team’s edict, it probably came with a warning to Préval that he’ll be held accountable for a recurrence of last December riots, in the event his candidate refuses to accept it.
The fact that Haiti has been on the right side of justice, hence on the wrong side of tyranny, apparently justifies its designation as a threat to world peace and security. A new approach to dealing with its tormentors is needed, if the country were to overcome the two centuries of methodical harassments that have made it a laughingstock. Forfeiting its membership in the OAS and the UN is the prerequisite to Haiti achieving that goal, since most Haitians cannot in good conscience countenance these organizations’ responsibility in the subjugation of their country.

UN Policy in Haiti Rooted in Historical Precedents

In a clear and bold act of imperial and deviant paternalism, the Haiti Democracy Project was established at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC on November 19, 2002. Then-Assistant-Secretary General of OAS (Organization of the American States) Luigi Einaudi, presciently declared “ Haiti was fast approaching a point where diplomatic means would no longer contribute to solve the crisis”, a remark that drew little attention to the web of deceptions being weaved. Soon thereafter, a coalition of 184 civic organizations led by André Arpaid, a US-born industrialist, was created. That group played a critical role in bringing down Haiti’s democratically elected government through terroristic and other devious tactics that facilitated the February 29, 2004 invasion of the country and its occupation by U.N forces ever since.
Few people reacted with consternation in 2006, when Edwige Lalane advocated the physical elimination of 5% of the residents of Sité Solèy, pop.350.000. The former Haitian diplomat and member of the Haiti Democracy Project deemed these Haitians “incorrigible and uncontainable bandits.” Almost 5 years since his abhorrent statement and 7 years into the U.N occupation, it is insulting that this provocateur would position himself as a nationalist by calling Haiti “an occupied country.” Like many of his companions de route, this pseudo-intellectual had no clue of the intents and objectives of the Project, which were the institutionalization of the power of the Haitian elite and suppression of the people’s aspirations by legitimate force, the term used in ousting recalcitrant Third World leaders. Excluded from the group’s innermost deliberations, these absolute idiots nonetheless thought they were doing the Lord’s work. Hence, Lalane’s repositioning himself as a nationalist and advocate of good governance must be seen for what it is: the crocodile’s tears of a naïve and impenitent collaborator, not a mea culpa of a patriot.
In 1797 during the interregnum years of the Haitian revolution (1791-1803), which subsequently produced the only successful slave revolt in world history, the U.S city of Baltimore, Maryland, passed an ordinance declaring “all slaves imported from the West Indies between 1792 and 1797 to be "dangerous to the peace and welfare of the city" and ordering their masters to banish them. This particular ordinance, among many others, can be seen as the genesis of the modern-day notion of Haiti being “a threat to international peace and security”, an insulting characterization which the members of the intelligentsia generally supported with their silence on the occupation.
Today, Haiti is shattered under the weight of historical precedents, a burden trust upon her by the legacy of her fight to be free, as history reveals the unmistakable ties that bind her past and the present: an adulterous relationship between her disloyal children and the western world. As a Haitian saying goes “memm nan lanfè gen moun pa” to which the correct translation would be (even in Hell, one is certain to find a benefactor). In an interview with the Swiss newspaper “Le Temps” last December, Ricardo Seitenfus, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the OAS in Haiti, was contemptuous of the U.N occupation of the country, an offense for which he was unceremoniously fired.
Here are some of his comments: “The Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804 (the year of their independence): a crime of lèse majesté for an anxious world. The West (was) then a colonial, slave-holding and racist world that based its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So, the Haitian revolutionary model made the great powers afraid.” “Haiti is also paying the price for being so geographically near to the United States which waited until 1865 (sic,1863) to recognize its independence.” “The UN mission in Haiti is to freeze the government and to transform Haitians into prisoners of their own island.” These were not the quotes of a conspiracy theorist but an insider account of a high ranking diplomat who was privy of the most sensitive deliberations concerning Haiti within the group tasked to implement this newest attempt at a Final Solution to the Haitian problem. Nevertheless, the impenitent collaborators obediently follow the script, which explains the April, 2010 decision by Haiti’s illegal Parliament to surrender the government’s constitutional prerogatives to the foreign-dominated Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC).
Despite the thousands of deaths since 2004, excluding those of the January 12, 2010 earthquake, the unenviable status of “Most dependent independent nation in the world”, as articulated by Maura O'Connor, the imported cholera pandemic and possible end of Haiti as a nation-state, the political class and the intelligentsia steadfastly believe in the infallibility of the masters’ dubious experiment. Between Mother Nature’s expansive help (earthquakes, hurricanes and a dying ecosystem) and the obscurantism of its leaders, Haiti is indubitably headed toward a sad and undeserved fate. Ultimately millions of Haitians, at least the incorrigible and uncontainable bandits, could be eliminated or forced to emigrate to Africa, abandoning the land, bequeathed to them by their valiant ancestors, for their tormentors to enjoy and plunder.
Slavery, as an institution, may be buried deep inside the bins of history but its premises, subjugation and exploitation of so-defined “inferior peoples”, endure. Haiti’s situation is proof that more remain to be accomplished. As proud descendants of those who dealt the first blows to this ignoble and insane institution, it is incumbent upon us, Haitians, to finally eradicate it as a political philosophy or degenerate human behavior. Only then, we will be able to say proudly and unequivocally “Mission Accomplished.”

Promoting Democracy: A New Form of Colonialism

One incident that escaped the attention of the public in the week following Haiti’s November 28th general elections was the role of the European Union-financed Election Observation Council, whose premature release of incomplete results ahead of those of the Provisional Electoral Council provoked the riots when the official results were announced on Dec, 7th. Bear in mind that the Election Observation Council’s (EOC) results, which showed Michel Martelly leading the pack, were based on observation of voting patterns, not actual votes, in 1500 polling sites out of 9000, an indication that the outcome could have changed with the tally of the vote. Notwithstanding the widely reported irregularities, the EOC decision is consistent with the marginalization of the Haitian state and its institutions under the occupation 2004-? The organization’s members should be investigated by the Haitian authorities, and the data they used thoroughly examined for proof of subversive activities.
That said, was the international community’s swift endorsement of the elections, despite the documented irregularities, based on a predetermined decision to disregard the tally of the CEP? Why would the international community finance these elections and concurrently create an alternate structure independent of the official supervisory body? These questions epitomize what is going on in Haiti where the constitutional prerogatives of the government are usurped by the international community, acting as self-appointed guarantor of stability and protector of constitutional rights of Haitians. This paternalism violates the doctrine of self-determination and sovereignty enumerated in the Charter of the United Nations, the international body whose Security Council acts as guarantor of peace and security in our world. The UN Security Council-mandated occupation of Haiti under Chapter VII, which deals with threats to peace and security, surely invalidates its ability to foster stability in that country.
This paternalism is linked to the discredited notion of white supremacy inherited from slavery, which presumed Africans and their descendants to be developmentally and intellectually inferior to other races, therefore perpetually in need of supervision. This preconceived and twisted logic helps explain why the situation in Haiti parallels that of Côte d’Ivoire, wherein a disputed election is used by the international community as basis for unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign UN member. Acting as landlords of a plantation, the European Union and the Security Council are threatening Laurent Gbagbo, that country’s president, with a future appearance before the ICC (International Criminal Court) for refusing to hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the presumed winner in the U.N-supervised and fraud-marred presidential election.
Instead of taking a principled stand against the threat and vilification of one of its members, the African Union got on the bandwagon and also demanded that Gbagbo step down. Nigeria, the regional superpower with ethnic, religious and sectarian issues of its own, the result of British imperialism, is leading the pack; its president Jonathan Goodluck has offered asylum to Gbagbo, provided that he turns over power to Alassane Ouattara. Seeing that the power of the masters dwells in the absolute obedience of their servants, Laurent Gbagbo, like Liberia’s Charles Taylor before him, could end up on the dock at The Hague for having defied France, the former colonial master and the U.N.
The EU and the U.N declarations, allegedly based on Gbagbo’s non-adherence to democratic principles, should warrant the same measure against Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, dubbed Europe’s last dictator, for his blatant subversion of Democracy in that country. Unfortunately for Democracy and its virtuous principles, such ultimatum only applies to Sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti, homes to a generic version of humans that must be supervised since they represent a threat to world peace and security. Prodded by the Ivorian government to remove its mission (UNOCI) from the country, the Security Council responded by extending the mandate for another 6 months. The Ivoirians are in fact lucky, because Haiti’s mandate (MINUSTAH) is routinely renewed for a year.
Back to Haiti and the fraudulent elections which saw the surprise emergence of Michel Martelly as a serious contender and powerbroker. Why did Martelly ask for the annulment of the vote only to reverse himself a day later? He was apparently in contact with the E.U-financed destabilizing agents whose premature release of voting patterns, which contrasted with the official tally of the CEP, caused the country to erupt in riots. Like Préval in 2006, Martelly is the Manchurian candidate in these elections, ostensibly harmless but totally dedicated to preserving the status quos. The popular discontent over his ineligibility in the second round is a misplaced sense of connection from an electorate despondent over the apathy of the country’s politicians that resembles outright hostility toward the people’s aspirations. With the postponement of the definitive results stipulated by the international community, the constitutionally-mandated run-off will not be held as scheduled and the Haitian Constitution once more swept under the feet of the occupiers.
The slanderous accusations of genocide and mass graves in Côte d’Ivoire further erode the credibility of the United Nations and could have unintended consequences for peace and stability in that country as is the case with Haiti (2004-?). With the Security Council, the foremost undemocratic institution in our world, promoting Democracy in Africa and Haiti, something sinister must be in the offing. Out of these nonsensical interventions in Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire, madness will inevitably follow and the victims, Haitians and Ivoirians, hold responsible for choosing obscurantism over enlightenment.