quote:

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Mark Bourque, a retired RCMP officer who was part of a Canadian police contingent helping provide security for the upcoming elections in Haiti, has been killed by gunmen in Port-au-Prince.

Bourque, 57, from Stoneham, Que., is the eighth UN peacekeeper to be killed in Haiti in the past 18 months, and the fourth shooting victim in the past five days.

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While I intend no disrespect of any kind towards Officer Bourque, his family or friends, I must point out that the same Canadian news outlets who are now responding to this tragic death with (justifiably) ample coverage have been virtually silent about the hundreds of ordinary Haitians who have been killed in the same 18-month period that saw the deaths of eight UN peacekeepers.

To take but one example: An August 20th massacre claimed the lives of at least 11 ordinary Haitians at a soccer stadium reported to stand across the street from a UN outpost. 14 members of the Haitian National Police have been charged with involvement in the crime.

Needless to say, there were no expressions of outrage at 'senseless violence' on this occasion by our Prime Minister or other politicians, because the Canadian media totally failed in their duty to inform Canadians it had happened.

In October, 2005, when UN official Thierry Fargat denounced 'a number of cases of torture, massacre, summary executions, arbitrary arrests and
detentions by Haitian officials,' estimates were that at least 800 people had been killed in Haiti in 2005 alone (i.e. not counting those killed between March and December 2004). That number has doubtless grown.

Meanwhile, the Canadian media has refused to report on what has been happening in Haiti (they have known the facts, of course, since the information is easily available on the web or via wire services like AP). Canadians have been told almost nothing about the flawed electoral process, the political prisoners held for months without charge, or the violence and killings.

Almost nothing, that is, except superficial references to 'gangs' active in Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods, and Canada's efforts to 'bring order' to Haiti.

Aren't we seeing here more evidence of the same double standard Romeo Dallaire has denounced in powerful nations' attitudes to African deaths?

I happen to think Officer Bourque's death is, to say the least, a tragedy worthy of note.

Unlike the Canadian media, however, I believe the same thing about the deaths of every one of the hundreds and hundreds of Haitians killed during the last eighteen months in Haiti, as I'm sure many other babblers do as well.

[ 21 December 2005: Message edited by: sgm ]

That said, the comments about him reported in the Globe on Wednesday certainly raise questions about whether he is the kind of man who should have been training Haitian police.

quote:

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Retired Crown attorney Yves Berthiaume remembered Mr. Bourque as a blunt, uncompromising man who wasn't afraid to confront people.

He recalled Mr. Bourque telling defence lawyers that he could charge some of them with a new law on proceeds of crime.

Another time he confronted Antonio Lamer, then a judge on the Supreme Court, about the court's 1985 refusal to hear a case about police powers to seize alleged profits of crime from bank accounts. Mr. Bourque was enraged and years later, as a police officer escorting by then chief justice Lamer, he challenged the magistrate about it.

"I don't know too many police officers who would have done that," Mr. Berthiaume said.

---

That is a common problem with the UN, in the days of UNPROFOR in Yugoslavia the UN peacekeepers watched thousands of people being killed from only a few hundred metres away.

Most of the time UN soldiers lack the direction and orders to actually stop these types of events from taking place. It takes hours if not days for orders to be given by the UN chain of command to stop events like this from happening.

quote:

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Gildan the world's number two T shirt manufacturer is located in Montreal but offshores its production to the caribbean. Recently found to be using sweat shops in these regions, it was given a clean bill of health by Anti Sweat Shop campaigns.

Except that it has now reduced production in those plants and expanded its operations in Haiti with no anti-sweat shop vigilance.

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quote:

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The other candidates gathered only 4 to 5 per cent of support, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Among them is Charles Baker, a respected businessman; officials from past dictatorships; and a former police chief suspected by the United States of drug trafficking.

---

'Respected by whom?' was my question.

Here's the LA Times' take on Baker:

quote:

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Running under the slogan of "Order-Discipline-Work," the 50-year-old businessman has broken with the industrial elite's centuries-old practice of staying away from the political front lines.

A poster boy for the hated bourgeoisie during Aristide's era, Baker has amassed significant support among the impoverished masses by building on an alliance between the business community and the main farmers union forged ahead of last year's rebellion. Once a tobacco plantation owner, Baker has been trumpeting that experience 20 years ago to galvanize support in the countryside.

In the capital, Port-au-Prince, the heavy security at his campaign headquarters speaks to the emotions his candidacy evokes among Aristide's militant supporters, who see him as exploiting his 400 apparel assembly workers, most of whom receive the minimum wage of $1.64 a day. Ten-foot walls topped with coils of barbed wire encircle the new building donated by a well-heeled supporter. Armed sentries man the iron gates, on guard against enemies and vandals.

He said his visibility in the opposition to Aristide "gives me a little bit of credibility" with those who recognized that the ousted leader was corrupt and deceptive.

Asked about his association with the elite, Baker, the only white candidate in the presidential race, said he was proud of his place in Haitian society.

"We have to let the people of Haiti know that rich people are needed by the poor for them to get richer," he said, espousing the trickle-down theory of free enterprise.

---

Or 'Widely disliked sweatshop owner?'

[ 26 December 2005: Message edited by: sgm ]

First, we learn that an Associated Press freelancer reporting from Haiti has been on the payroll of the US government:

quote:

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The Associated Press has terminated its relationship with a freelance reporter in Haiti after learning she was working for a U.S. government-sponsored organization.

The National Endowment for Democracy confirmed Regine Alexandre began working for the organization in October as a "part-time facilitator" between the NED and Haitian groups.

The NED describes itself as a private, nonprofit organization that aims to strengthen democratic institutions around the world, but receives funding from the U.S. Congress.

"AP employees must avoid any behavior or activities that create a conflict of interest or compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately," said Mike Silverman, the news agency's managing editor.

---

quote:

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Haiti's oft-delayed election will be postponed again, election officials said on Friday amid growing demands for the resignation of the troubled Caribbean nation's interim government.

Although Haiti's election council, charged with organizing the vote, has not yet made an official decision, five of the nine members told Reuters it was impossible to have credible presidential and legislative election on Jan. 8 as scheduled.

Election authorities were to meet with political parties and candidates later on Friday to hear recommendations about new dates and to discuss a detailed timetable for steps leading to an election.

"We have to face the hard reality that the elections cannot be held on January 8th and that the necessary corrections should be made to ensure the holding of a credible vote," Max Mathurin, head of the council, said in a telephone interview on Friday.

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Is there any prospect, during this election campaign, of a serious public discussion about what's been happening in Haiti since early 2004?

quote:

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Originally posted by sgm:
Is there any prospect, during this election campaign, of a serious public discussion about what's been happening in Haiti since early 2004?

I hope the answer to that question isn't 'No.'

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
If the political parties actually had any significant differences in policy on Haiti, then we might.

The NDP would rather try to make an issue out of Ralph Goodale's refusal to resign than Canada's complicity in murder in Haiti.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
sgm, thank you once again for keeping attention focused - I'm always so grateful to see your updates.

Reason, after you've read so many posts (I assume you've read the earlier Haiti threads) where contributors like sgm carefully document the suppression or distortion of information coming to us either through the government or in the msm (see sgm's dissection of Jiminez above), how can you say such a silly thing?

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How is it silly to point out that Jack Layton, Paul Martin, and Steven Harper will have have access to information which we do not? Further, some of this information may be of a nature which they are not privy to discuss. It would be foolish to trust any one politician on such a matter as important, and difficult as the application of force on foriegn soil. I will tend to trust the politicians when all from all ends of the spectrum seem to be singing about the same tune.

quote:

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Originally posted by Reason:
Which is foolish? Not to trust our eelected officials at all? Or try to trust them a little bit... Just something we all should take into account.

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You apparently trusted the Liberals when Chretien and Martin said they'd do something about Canada's owning one of the worst child poverty rates in the developed world.

And then in their second term, they start losing track of hundreds of millions of taxpayer's dollars.

quote:

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Originally posted by retread:
.Paying taxes, believing in medicare, public schools and so forth all require trust in the government. Don't trust the government enough and you get anarchy, trust it too much and you get police states. In the case of Haiti, most Canadians (rightly or wrongly) trust it in the same way they trust it on things like public health ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

You apparently trusted the Liberals when Chretien and Martin said they'd do something about Canada's owning one of the worst child poverty rates in the developed world.

And then in their second term, they start losing track of hundreds of millions of taxpayer's dollars.

What does it take for you to stop trusting someone ?.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

And the Liberals have proven their gross incompetence at dealing with all of those issues mentioned above. We're becoming like the USA - a deeply divided nation where fewer and fewer people trust our politicians. And it's the two old line parties that are directly responsible for jaded Canadian perception of their corruption and inability to make a stand of our own on the most basic issues of democracy ie. our aiding and abetting the overthrow of a democratically elected leader in Haiti. Democracy is a sham there as much as it is here.

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Right or wrong in the past, abondoning a country that is in turmoil now is wrongheaded... Of course, the UN ROE's that constrain the peacekeepers there are doing absolutly nothing for the ability to create a secure environment.

I would suggest that the mandate needs to be changed, and ROE's re-written to allow for intervention in serious crime. Further, competant peacekeepers should be sent, some of the countries participating in Haiti are not capable, or trained for peacekeeping missions.

quote:

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Originally posted by retread:
Trust is a funny thing ... for an example of people who really don't trust the government you need look no further than the survivalists who stockpile weapons, medicine and food, expecting the government to devolve into a miltary dictatorship at any time. No idea how they expect to fight against a modern army with the small arms they squirrel away.

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For an example of people who don't trust the government you need look no further than 80% of the population. You really expect anyone to buy such a ludicrous strawperson? I might as well say, for an example of people who insist on trusting the government you need look no further than Stalin--it would mean about as much.

quote:

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Originally posted by Reason:

We do not have all the facts. I make this statement, as the leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, who is notorious for standing against such actions in the past has choosen not to stand against this one now. I ask why?

---

Going back to this premise--I really doubt Paul Martin's government is busily sharing secret facts about Haiti with the leader of the NDP. And Jack, while real good on the environment and pretty dashed good on poverty, health care, urban issues and indeed most domestic policy questions, has been patchy on foreign policy IMO. The NDP stance isn't that much out of character.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:

Going back to this premise--I really doubt Paul Martin's government is busily sharing secret facts about Haiti with the leader of the NDP. And Jack, while real good on the environment and pretty dashed good on poverty, health care, urban issues and indeed most domestic policy questions, has been patchy on foreign policy IMO. The NDP stance isn't that much out of character.

Besides--what possible secret facts about the situation could there be that would make it OK? It's a stupid claim.

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Actually, I find Jack to be fairly astute WRT foreign affairs... Don't agree with him much, but there it is. Secondly, the NDP make up a part of the Official Opposition, so, yes, Jack Layton would automatically be party to any information the PMO is party to... Might get it a bit later then Martin, but he still gets it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
Besides--what possible secret facts about the situation could there be that would make it OK?

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We already have enough information about what's going on there to know that Canada is up to no good.

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Exactly.

We already have enough information about what's going on there to know that Canada is up to no good.

In any event, the politicians probably are less aware of what's happening in Haiti than the Haiti activists are. There's no reason to assume the politicians have their secret arguments that would refute the reliable facts as we know them.

---

quote:

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Secondly, the NDP make up a part of the Official Opposition, so, yes, Jack Layton would automatically be party to any information the PMO is party to... Might get it a bit later then Martin, but he still gets it.

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I honestly don't understand this claim by Reason.

Some time ago, Alexa McDonough responded to a letter on Haiti I'd copied to her as NDP foreign affairs critic. (This snail-mail letter was to Coderre, copied to Pettigrew, McDonough and some other members of the foreign affairs committee: Alexa was the only person to respond.)

I don't have her reply on hand, but I recall her writing of specific matters on which she was still waiting for responses from Pettigrew, after she had written to him some (rather long) time before that.

So I disagree with the claim that the 'Official Opposition' (whatever that term is supposed to mean) eventually and automatically gets whatever information is available to the 'PMO' (again, however that term is being used).

Take a look at some of the language from Alexa's letter to Pettigrew of August, 2005:

quote:

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The UN mission raid of July 6th in the poor neighbourhood of Cite Soleil reportedly resulted in the deaths of innocent women and children. In his recent statement to the Security Council, Jean-Marie Guehenno, the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, said MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti isn't trained for raids such as the one on Cite Soleil, acknowledging that, "the forces we have do not have the kind of very specialized capacity ... that makes absolutely sure that there will be zero civilian casualties in a densely populated environment." This begs the question as to why MINUTSAH carried out the raid if it knew such actions needlessly placed the lives of innocent civilians at risk.

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Obviously, the claim seriously misrepresents Latyon and the NDP's stance toward our policy in Haiti.

Also, as I said above, Alexa's written response to my letter said that, as of last fall, she was still waiting for Pettigrew to respond to her concerns. These are hardly the words of someone who was 'party to any information the PMO [was] party to.'

Finally, I think Reason's remark about Layton with which I started also ignores kinks in the information flow from the opposition to the government.

I read some of the transcripts of the Foreign Affairs committee hearings on Haiti, and noted that, on more than one occasion, when Alexa or another MP would bring up information from the International Crisis Group or some other organization, Coderre and/or Pettigrew would downplay or dismiss it as propaganda: in short, they weren't interested in hearing about facts or interpretations that contradicted the official line.

Again, these are hardly the actions of a government interested in openly sharing information on Haiti with the opposition.

Even if such information-sharing were happening, however, I'd still agree with pogge on this point:

quote:

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The onus shouldn't be on us to trust them at all. They work for us not the other way around. Unless you can make a case that what's going on in Haiti presents some kind of existential threat to Canadian democracy that actually requires secrecy, then trusting them because they have information we're not privy to shouldn't even be on the table.

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Finally, I'd just amend in a friendly way pogge's 'make a case' to read 'make a plausible case.' As someone who followed the missile defence debate rather closely, I believe we should all be especially skeptical about the plausibility of the cases made by those in power when they want us to stop thinking and just 'sign on' because of some existential threat they've conjured to scare us (e.g. a North Korean nuke).

In a democracy, the default position should be 'full information available to all citizens.' Only the most extraordinary circumstances should shift us from that default position.

quote:

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Unfortunately, the evidence in Canada thus far shows that neither the majority of the Canadian media, nor the government itself, believes this should be the default position when it comes to Canadian policy in Haiti.

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I'd suggest the evidence thus far shows the majority of Canadians aren't really interesting in what's happening in Haiti. Both the media and the government treat it accordingly. I doubt much of the media has any more idea than MP's (including cabinet) about what's going on there, and probably as little interest. Won't win votes and won't sell papers ...

Edit: I'm not sure if its the election or just the start of the new year that makes me feel so cynical right now. Though I notice most folks I talk to are pretty cynical about everything political right now too, so it might be the election.

[ 04 January 2006: Message edited by: retread ]

quote:

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Originally posted by retread:
I'd suggest the evidence thus far shows the majority of Canadians aren't really interesting in what's happening in Haiti. Both the media and the government treat it accordingly. I doubt much of the media has any more idea than MP's (including cabinet) about what's going on there, and probably as little interest. Won't win votes and won't sell papers ...

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The politicians and the media don't sit around waiting for the public to become interested in something before they talk about it: they set the public agenda. If the media decide to make a huge issue out of gun violence in Toronto, or insider trading on income trusts, then it becomes a huge public issue. They could do the same with Haiti - they just choose not to.

I'd say it is much more likely that the media and government have no interest in our being interested in it.

quote:

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The commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti has been found shot dead in a hotel room.

The body of Gen Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar was discovered early in the morning in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with a bullet wound to the head.

UN officials said it was likely that he had shot himself.

The Brazilian general had taken over as head of the 9,000-strong peacekeeping force in September last year.

---

An AP report quotes a Brazilian military officer as speaking of a 'firearm accident,' so perhaps details are still emerging.

UN News Centre

I am wondering what nation will take the lead of mission?

quote:

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You're turning the matter on its head.
The politicians and the media don't sit around waiting for the public to become interested in something before they talk about it: they set the public agenda. If the media decide to make a huge issue out of gun violence in Toronto, or insider trading on income trusts, then it becomes a huge public issue. They could do the same with Haiti - they just choose not to.

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I disagree. Most people I meet in real life are more than intelligent enough to have their own interests, and to be cynical about both politicians and the media. How many people do you know who believe anything they see in the media? I could probably count the ones I know on the fingers of one hand. There's a kind of elitist attitude here ... we're smart and everyone are easly led sheep (the really arrogant call them sheeple).

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Retired Crown attorney Yves Berthiaume remembered Mr. Bourque as a blunt, uncompromising man who wasn't afraid to confront people.
He recalled Mr. Bourque telling defence lawyers that he could charge some of them with a new law on proceeds of crime.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by retread:
Most people I meet in real life are more than intelligent enough to have their own interests, and to be cynical about both politicians and the media. How many people do you know who believe anything they see in the media? I could probably count the ones I know on the fingers of one hand. There's a kind of elitist attitude here ... we're smart and everyone are easly led sheep (the really arrogant call them sheeple).

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As result, about 80% of Canadians vote for parties and candidates that want to preserve the status quo. Your cynical and intelligent associates must be among the other 20%, or don't vote at all.

quote:

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Its hard to get people interested in Haiti because its a small country, with no oil or other resources we need, and which has almost no impact on most of our lives. Some of us are interested in it on general principle, most people either have too many close to home struggles, are already burnt out by a thousand other political issues around the world they should care about, or just don't care about things which don't directly effect them.

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quote:

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You meet a lot more different people than I do.

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Maybe. About half the people I meet are FN. As a rule they believe nothing they read in the media. Trust me on this one. Not just friends and family, when I help the provincial NDP at election time, its almost always in areas with a high FN population (we're about 25% of the Sask population).

About a quarter of the people I meet are involved in high tech ... engineers, marketing etc. Probably the most intellectually cynical bunch of folks you'll ever meet - not sure why, since most have pretty good lives, but its true. Maybe because the mass media's reporting of science and technology is almost always mind numblingly wrong?

About a fifth are involved in martial arts and weight lifting. Politics never comes up, so I don't know how they feel about that, but they've long since learned to laugh at anything they read about exercise and martial arts in the media ... I suspect it translates to other things as well.

The rest are random folk, and most don't bother with the news at all, or at least never talk about it. I suspect that means they don't figure they'll learn anything useful from it, but I'll give you that they're more likely to listen to the media.

quote:

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As result, about 80% of Canadians vote for parties and candidates that want to preserve the status quo. Your cynical and intelligent associates must be among the other 20%, or don't vote at all.

---

Well, remember that in Sask the status quo is NDP, at least provincially, and provincial politics is what tends to effect people's lives. But yeah, FN don't vote much. I'm among those trying to change that locally. High tech folks for the most part are happy with the status quo even while being cynical about it. Like I said, I'm not sure why, they have easy lives, at least economically. Maybe they're all bitter because they were laughed at through most of high school? The rest, who knows, too diverse to say who they vote for.

quote:

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You contradict yourself by first defending the masses against the "sheeple" stereotype, and then in the next paragraph going on to suggest that these intelligent, cynical, media-savvy people you apparently surround yourself with don't give a shit about anybody but themselves and their own miserable little lives.

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First of all, do you have kids? If so, how much time do you spend on them? Secondly, come to the reserve for a visit and see what our "miserable little lives" are like. Feel free to tell folks about how they should be more concerned about conditions in other parts of the world. Thirdly, do you actually help out on any particular cause? If not, you should try it. You'll find taking even one seriously eats up so much time its hard to keep track of everything else that's going on in the world.

quote:

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I don't know why you feel compelled to make excuses for the shameful lack of media coverage of what Canada is doing in Haiti. Do you own a newspaper or something?

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I'm guessing the groups of people you have described don't know anything about the war in Iraq, or the federal election, or the bird flu scare, or the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because they don't read newspapers, and if they did, they wouldn't believe what they read. At least, that's your theory.

And so you conclude that if the media reported the truth about Haiti nobody except mindless sheep would pay any attention or believe it.

FN: well, whenever they get around to mentioning us (a few times a year), they're right that conditions are bad and probably getting worse. They inevitably concentrate on few stereotypical details and the analysis goes from superficial to ridiculous. Okay, its a complex subject with no clear solutions, but it doesn't suggest that they're good at that kind of topic.

Science: again, good at mentioning new things when they arise (if you go through the back pages), but their descriptions are almost always incredibly oversimplified and even wrong, scientists are quoted out of context, and their lack of understanding of what they're talking about always means their analysis of what it means for people is way off base.

High Tech: same as above, but mentioned more often, so they're wrong more often.

Exercise: mentioned alot, get a great list of fads. How'd you like the BMI thing used to list Canadians as overweight? The one that doesn't differentiate between muscle and fat, so that almost every professional athlete is either overweight or obese (got to worry about all those chubby NBA players)? Again, great for listing what's out there, details and analysis hopeless.

So, based on what I know, the mass media is good for listing what's out there, and horrible for anything in more depth. I've no reason to assume they do any better on things I know nothing about, so I take what I'd say is a reasonable approach to the mass media, one which most folks do: read the funnies (best part of any paper), read the sports, glance at other articles, maybe even reading a paragraph or two to see if its interesting enough to look up in a more useful source.

There's loads of good sources out there on most topics: read "Nature" for science or "The Proceedings of the IEEE" for engineering, go to a Native-Metis Friendship center to find out about aboriginal issues, read sports physiology mags and talk to successful athletes for exercise, go to a library and check out the stacks of independent weeklies with articles on national or foreign affairs.

quote:

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"Je suis capable d’utiliser la force, je suis préparé pour ça, mais face à la situation du pays et surtout de ce que j’imagine être les intentions de l’ONU, je me refuse à utiliser la force de façon incontrôlée et contre des innocents".

(I am capable of using force, I am trained for this however, in view of the current situationin this contry and of what I imagine to be the intentions of the United Nations, I refuse to use uncontrolled force against innocents)

"Tant que je serai au commandement, cela n’arrivera pas. Il n’y aura pas de violence aveugle"

(As long as I will be at the command, this will not occur. There will be no blind violence)

General Heleno, March 3, 2005
http://www.haitiechange.org/minustha.htm

June 3, 2005, Once again, General Augusto Heleno, the Brazilian Force Commander of the U.N. Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), complained publicly that the repressive actions he is being pressured to direct in Haiti are criminal in nature; he didn’t want to have to answer war crime charges at the International Criminal Court, he added. (Agence Haitienne de Presse 6/4/05 )

June 2005 Heleno asks his superiors in Brazil that he be replaced.

Before dawn 6 July 2005, more than 300 heavily-armed United Nations peacekeeping troops in Haiti carried out a major military operation in Cité Soleil, a densely populated residential neighborhood – one of the poorest comunities in Port-au-Prince and a stronghold of support for Lavalas and ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Eyewitnesses claimed there was not a firefight, but rather a slaughter. The operation was primarily conducted by U.N. forces, assisted by Haitian National Police.

Though the raid received little attention in the world press, local residents say the attack might have been the deadliest carried out by U.N. troops in Haiti between 2004 and 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_July_6_United_Nations_assault_on_Cit%C3%A9_Solei l%2C_Haiti

September 1, 2005, Lieutenant-General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira is replaced by General Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar.

December 9, 2005: Canadian member of RCMP force sent to Haiti, Mark Bourque is killed in Cité Soleil

December 25: Jordanian Soldier is killed by Sniper shot in Cité Soleil

December 29 : AHP reports that foreign sources in Haiti indicate the prime suspects in the recent killing of MINUSTAH personnel to Labanyè's gang (which was identified by the Miami School of Law, Human rights Reports as being linked and protected by Haiti's Sweatshop magnate Andre Apaid)...
....29 décembre 2005(AHP)- Des partisans d'un ancien chef de gang, Thomas Robenson dit Labanyè assassiné l'année dernière, seraient derrière les attaques meurtrières perpétrées contre des soldats de la MINUSTAH, a indiqué jeudi à l'AHP des sources étrangères à Port-au-prince.
"Les dernières attaques contre les casques bleus auraient pour objectif de porter la MINUSTAH à lancer une attaque musclée contre le bidonville de Cité Soleil considéré comme le quartier de tous les risques".

January 5, in the midst of widespread rumours that Haiti's right wing elite will get its wish granted for a massive attack on Cité Soleil, a reliable source informs me that Cité Soleil have been declared off limits to journalists - something will come down this week-end.

January 5:"we are waiting for him to give clear instructions to the troops under his command to cleanse Cite Soleil of the criminals, like they did in Bel-Air....Today, Valdes has two choices in front of him. He can choose to be held responsible for the failure of the elections that he was sent here to ensure the good working of, or he can choose to be responsible for the success of his mission here just because he will be able today and tomorrow, who knows, to make the courageous, the intelligent, and necessary decision to put an end to this climate of insecurity in the metropolitan area...

You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. We think that Minustah' s generals need to make plans to limit collateral damage. But we in the private sector are ready to create a social assistance fund to help all those who would be innocent victims of a necessary and courageous action that should be carried out in Cite Soleil" Reginald Boulos, interview with Radio Métropole, January 5, 2006

January 6 U.N. Security Council meets to discuss Haiti....

January 7 Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar is found dead at Hotel Montana.

(According to several press reports, this death comes in the heal of a heated debate with Mr. Valdes, the Civilian head of the MINUSTAH, the night before).

January 7 Chilian General Eduardo Aldunate Herman replaces Urano (temporarily) - Herman is currently accused in Chile of having participated in mass murders during the overthrow of President Salvador Allende, in 1973-74

See also various virulent verbal attacks of Réginald Boulos and Andre Apaid against the U.N. ..some of them made a few hours before the apparent "suicide" of Urano Teixeira Bacellar...

What's next...?

Some day the truth will come out...and there will be criminal charges laid !

---

The Haiti Information Project has coverage of Bacellar's death.

And if you can bear to look at the gruesome photos, there's evidence of one of the previous UN massacres. [EXTREMELY GRAPHIC IMAGES; YOU'VE BEEN WARNED]

[ 08 January 2006: Message edited by: dru oja jay ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
Here is what the UN News Centre is saying at this time.

UN News Centre

I am wondering what nation will take the lead of mission?

Perhaps this would be a good time for Canadian General to take command of mission in Haiti. Maybe send down some additional peacekeepers before the elections this spring.

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Peacekeepers? Webgear, if you continue to use that word in connection with Canada's involvement in Haiti, I will have to point out again that Haiti is NOT a peacekeeping mission:

1) Canada assisted in overthrowing a democratically elected President and Government which has the overwhelming support of Haitians.
2) Canada has been one of the 'enablers' to bring thugs to run (not govern) the nation
3) Canada is assisting in helping to keep a foreign-imposed 'interim government' in place, which has no mandate or support from the Haitian people
4) The Haitian Police are corrupt criminals who kill supporters of democratically elected President Aristide
5) Canada's RCMP is training these criminals in order to be more effective killers

Mea culpa.

A few quick hits:

Reuters reported on January 25th that Cite Soleil, the largest poor area in Port-au-Prince, will host no polling stations during the upcoming elections:

quote:

---

The teeming Cite Soleil slum, with between 300,000 and 600,000 residents, and other shantytowns in the capital were the bedrock of support for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in February 2004 after an armed revolt.

They may now be a significant source of support for front-runner Rene Preval, an Aristide protege who served as president from 1996 to 2001, as the Caribbean country staggers toward a new presidential election on Feb. 7.

---

In some good news, Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has been released:

quote:

---

Haiti's turbulent political clouds hovered over South Florida on Monday, as an ailing priest in a Miami hospital bed vowed to clear his name and the nation's interim prime minister defended his leadership from his Boca Raton home.

The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, the priest released Sunday from a Haitian prison for medical treatment in Miami, was anxious to return to the Caribbean country to fight for justice, a spokeswoman said after visiting him in the hospital Monday.

---

Finally, the Canadian angle (sort of): CBC Newsworld will be airing a documentary this Thursday evening called 'Haiti: Democracy Undone.'

It's billed as a look at 'the role of the U.S. government in the ouster of President Aristide.' No mention in this brief description of the Canadian role.

That's this Thursday, 10 PM Eastern: set your VCRs.

[ 31 January 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

---

There appears to be blood all over Canada's hands: first because it was on board for the removal of Aristide and second because it is supporting, both politically and financially, an illegitimate government that appears dead set on violently crushing any opposition.

It also has a contingent of some 125 police officers who train the Haitian National Police accused of massacring civilians.

And yet, the fate of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, perfectly situated between Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, sweatshop armpit to Canadian T-shirt manufacturers, the mine pit to Canadian copper companies, is scarcely discussed or covered by Canadian media.

---

quote:

---

Canada betrayed Haiti's democrats two years ago, and we were not alone. The United States also did nothing as President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a democratically elected populist, was hounded into exile by murderous thugs. Meanwhile, Haiti's small but rich elite cheered, along with U.S. Republicans. And France was equally complicit.

[snip]

While in office, Aristide proved a cruel disappointment. He is a fiery populist who fanned rich-poor tension, relied on gangs and tolerated corruption. But the unelected Haitian elite who chased him from office, with the approval and support of U.S. Republicans, was no better.

---

More here.

Martin's no longer in power, but I thought I would include here, apropos of ths Star's claim of betrayal, evidence of just how duplicitous the Canadian government was being at the time.

A March 2, 2004 story in the Globe and Mail (page A2) says the following:

quote:

---

At the United Nations yesterday, Mr. Martin said that Canada was essentially out of the loop the weekend that Mr. Aristide fled the country. The Prime Minister said it appears Mr. Aristide left of his own volition in order to save the country from street battles in the capital.

"If you read Mr. Aristide's letter, it is very clear from the letter that he says he was doing it because he felt it was the best way of preventing bloodshed," Mr. Martin said.

But the Prime Minister allowed that he had no way of knowing whether Mr. Aristide had signed the letter under duress. "I do not have, and Canada does not have, knowledge of what happened in those final hours as Mr. Aristide tried to go," Mr. Martin told reporters at the UN. "So all we can go on is what he actually said in the letter."

---

On February 28th, also in the Globe, it was reported that the same 'out of the loop' Paul Martin was following events in Haiti very closely: "'He's been personally taking a hand in this,' an official said" of Martin's efforts to build an international consensus on the crisis in Haiti (Globe, Feb 28, A2).

Canada was, moreover, making plans to deploy troops to Haiti along with the US--something that is obviously not done with the Canadian government 'out of the loop' on Haiti.

If Canada really had been out of the loop, how did it happen that Denis Coderre was working closely with the US State Department at the time, that plans were being made to deploy Canadian troops, and that Bill Graham--now interim Liberal leader--was joining Colin Powell in a thinly disguised call for Aristide to step down?

Globe, Page A13, Feb 27th:

quote:

---

In an interview with RDI television, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said that it "is perhaps for Mr. Aristide to look at his responsibilities toward his people and say: 'Look, it would be better that ... [ellipsis in original] I leave.'" But he cautioned that it is 'not for us to force him.'

"Whether or not he is able to effectively continue as President is something he will have to examine carefully in the interests of the Haitian people," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington, nearly echoing his Canadian counterpart's remarks as well as recent statements by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

---

Jimenez' story omits mention of Canada's role in pushing out Aristide, speaking only of "US pressure," and the tendency of "Many Haitians [to] blame the United States and France for Aristide's ousting." A fact box accompanying the story on page A8 of the print edition likewise erases the Canadian role in the events of two years ago: "2004: A bloofy rebellion and pressure from the United States and France forces Mr. Aristide out of the country. An interim government takes over and a UN stabilization force restores order."

That second sentence is flatly contradicted by the story itself.

There are a couple of scattered mentions of the Canadian police presence, as well as what looks an initation from UN mission chief Juan Gabriel Valdes to send Canadian troops to Haiti:

quote:

---

Jordanian troops, who don't speak French, will be rotated out of Cité Soleil, and replaced with soldiers from another country, he says. "The Canadian army would be welcome here. We know they are well trained and they know the language."

Mr. Valdes believes the election will give Haitians a chance to start over: "Haitians have to understand that this is their last opportunity to build a political system. Their own fights are not interesting to the rest of the world. They must find a way to live together," Mr. Valdes says with a note of frustration.

---

So, we've effectively helped sabotage Haitians' attempts to 'build a political system,' quietly encouraging the violent overthrow of an elected president we'd helped hobble with punishing sanctions.

quote:

---

++sgm++ posted this:-==- "Of course, the 'rest of the world' does indeed find the fights within Haiti to be of interest. Thus, a fight over 8 disputed Senate seats led Canada to join the US in an aid embargo that starved Haiti of millions of aid dollars between 2000-2004. -==-

---

--==-- The rhetoric of Canadian advisors on the ground in Haiti, leading up to the aid embargo sgm mention, was the rhetoric of "inclusion" and "civil society empowerment".
-=- At the time, I was watching the civil war in a divided Ivory Coast. France was playing one side (northerners mostly Muslim) against the ethnic groups supporting Laurent Gbagbo. Without going into it much, there is a rhetorical similarity to the French ngo's and economic advisors who blab on about 'social solidarity'. It is directly linked to the 19th cen notion of a role civilisatrice for the motherland.
-=- Quite recently it seems, in Haiti especially, these phoney labels for domination and meddling, for divide and conquer interventions, have been exposed in leftwing media. Some NGOs from Canada that explicitly describe their work with the rhetoric of socio-economic empowerment and cooperation are now being accused of simply playing the divide-and-conquer game of the U.S. and Canadian govts and foreign investors. Question: How can a electoral party, federal or provincial, expose the rhetoric used in the global South for what it is when much of its own leadership uses precisely the same rhetoric to describe their own social role at home, e.g., solidarity and empowerment?

The Socialist International, by the way, was heavily influenced by Africans from French West Africa and by the Africanist white European experts on the SIs board of policy, to continue supporting Gbagbo and his party as members in good standing despite this party's use of assassination squads against northern dissidents. So you start to see the rhetoric rot of imperialism infecting the social democratic left leadership in Europe regarding African struggles with the result being that EVERYTHING the social dems and NGOs ends up as part of the Metropolitan Power's strategy of divide and rule.

--==-- Why do I feel we are still far from understanding these dynamics -- even or especially in and around the NDP? Are the mechanisms of no import whatsoever to whatever party comes to life provincially this week-end here in Montreal as the UFP-OP unite?

There's an interesting interview here with activist Patrick Elie which--if I read it correctly--points to some of the racist assumptions colouring elite-dominated perceptions of Haiti (and, I suppose, of other countries) as 'failed states' requiring certain kinds of intervention by the powerful:

quote:

---

A: It's a bit hasty to call Haiti a failed state. Or, if it is a failed state, it is a state that has been failed by a number of very powerful countries, amongst which France and the USA are the two worst examples. It is a country which was never allowed to evolve by itself and from forces within itself. The most recent example was the coup d'etat in the name of protection against President Aristide. I am not defending the policies of Aristide, because this is a moot point. What I am saying is that the man was twice elected freely by his people, and he had a mandate. So, how can you engineer his overthrow and actually participate in it in the name of the duty or the right to protect?

Anyways, you judge a tree by the fruit it bears. What they've done is unleashed violence in this country, unleashed political repression. President (George W) Bush is probably one of the worst presidents that the USA has had, but nobody has suggested that the Canadian army should go secure Andrew Airforce base, have (Bush) forcefully taken from the White House, and sent to Siberia.

If you took polls in other countries after the first Bush presidency, they would all be saying that this guy is very bad. Yet the whole world accepted that the American people re-elected him, and that was that. Why can't it be the same for us? I think it is deeply racist that some countries can decide that if we don't pick right, they have the duty to correct our choice. This is very, very dangerous, and deeply racist.

The reason why I say it is racist, for example when it comes to France, from the left to the right, the whole French political class is united on Haiti. Just today I heard that some ex-French socialist prime-minister came out and said that the Haitian people should vote for a certain candidate. Would they ever do that in an American, Italian, or Japanese election? No. They feel that in their paternalistic, racist way that they can tell the Haitian people who is the best president for them. Haitians are incapable of doing that, it seems.

---

Here's a sample:

quote:

---

Since Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, fled Haiti exactly two decades ago, ending 30 years of brutal dictatorship under the Duvalier family, the country has held four elections. Only one of them was regarded by outside monitors as fair, and none of them resulted in a system in which the politicians answer to the electorate and power regularly changes hands peacefully -- both hallmarks of democracy. Of the 33 candidates vying for thepresidency in this election, the favourite in the polls is René Préval, once a close ally of Mr. Aristide and president himself from 1996 to 2001, between Mr. Aristide's two terms. He carries considerable baggage. In particular, he draws support from the criminals who terrorize Cité Soleil and other shantytowns, and he has long been viewed as a surrogate for the exiled Mr. Aristide. Even his supporters question whether Mr. Préval will have the ability or desire to disarm the marauding gangs who have brazenly kidnapped and murdered people in broad daylight and attacked UN peacekeepers. He has already ruled out military intervention as an option.

---

Furthermore, the editorial's emphasis on the violence of 'gangs' ignores the brazen violence perpetrated by some elements of the Haitian National Police and MINUSTAH forces--both, again, with links to powerful outsiders of various sorts.

Finally, the editorial implies that Preval is wrong to rule out a military solution to the violence in Cite Soleil. Yet, a Jordanian General involved with MINUSTAH has said this :

quote:

---

"There is no military solution to Cité Soleil," says Al-Husban, the Jordanian general.

"The solution could be giving the gangs amnesty and giving more social help. Medicine, food, development projects ....

"It seems the government is not willing to solve the problem of Cité Soleil and they want us to go there and destroy it, to kill all the people there. We will not do this."

---

Thus, the Globe's editorialists treat their readers to a distorted picture of Haiti's past, present and future prospects.

Concluding with a call for continued support and describing Haiti's people as 'long oppressed,' the Globe's well-meaning editorialists seem, nevertheless, incapable of asking a further, obvious question: 'Who has been oppressing them?'

CBC

BBC

Radio Netherlands

quote:

---

Though much of the countryside was calm yesterday, mayhem bubbled even at polling centers in wealthy neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. The chaos was greatest outside Cité Soleil, a gang-ruled slum so volatile that election officials refused to place polling centers there, directing voters to instead cast ballots in industrial buildings on the periphery.

Hundreds of angry Cité Soleil residents marched through streets jammed with UN tanks and littered with burning mounds of garbage, waving their voting cards and pounding on empty ballot boxes to protest voting snafus.

"The bourgeoisie is trying to stage an electoral coup so the poor people can't vote their choice," screamed demonstrator Paul Ery, 45, who is jobless, as are most Cité Soleil residents.

[snip]

Haitian authorities extended voting by several hours. In a desperate attempt to beef up several polling centers where ballots arrived hours late or workers had simply failed to show, officials began pulling volunteers from voting lines and giving them crash courses in helping to run polling booths.

Once doors opened, frantic voters pushed their way around tanks or under the legs of heavily armed UN soldiers in a rush to enter. Some then waited an hour or more in one line, only to be redirected to another line and then another - or to be told their names didn't appear on voting rolls.

"It's a sham," fumed Lithiane Miliace, 51, as she was turned away from a heavily guarded warehouse in Cité Soleil that had opened three hours late with five election workers for 15,500 voters.

[snip]

"I can't believe the chaos," said Jean Guito Duverneau, an exhausted observer for Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council.

Some international observers said yesterday's disarray proved the UN should have had more control in organizing the election. Haitian officials said they could have had more and smaller voting centers had the UN supplied more troops to guard them.

---

AFP on Al-Jazeera.

Prensa Latina.

quote:

---

Port-au-Prince, Feb 8 (Prensa Latina) Top-rated radio stations Metropole and Tropical have unofficially declared René Preval winner of the elections in Haiti with 55 percent lead.

The radio says Preval"s team claims his victory in the capital by 56 percent followed by Leslie Manigat (20 percent), not Charles Baker as many thought and everal neighborhoods like Cite Soleil were celebrating a sure victory.

---

Some will recall that, last year, the Globe was running a regular weekly report on the number of deaths in Iraq, complete with charts and maps that broke down the deaths by area, class of victim, etc.

I suggested that, since DFAIT itself was identifying Haiti as a much more important Canadian foreign policy initiative than Iraq, the Globe's editors might wish to keep their Canadian audience informed at a similar level of detail to that at which Iraq was being reported.

Unfortunately, I did not receive a reply to my suggestion.

I've since e-mailed other letters on Haiti to the Globe as well, including a recent one asking why one of their articles mentioned US/French pressure on Aristide to resign, but omitted mention of Canadian pressure--especially since their own paper reported on such Canadian pressure in Feb/Mar 2004. As far as I know, it wasn't printed.

Here's the New York Times:

quote:

---

Unofficial electoral results that had been carried in by mules, trucks and helicopters from polling centers across the country appeared to give an early lead to René Préval, a former president who has captured the support of this country's desperately poor masses.

The Provisional Electoral Council announced Thursday night that Mr. Préval had won 61 percent of the 15 percent of the votes tabulated, including 67 percent of votes counted so far in the department that includes Port-au-Prince.

While several of his opponents quietly began to move toward conceding, others cautioned that it was still to early to declare a winner, and the political hostilities that have kept this country near the brink of anarchy lingered in the air.

---

quote:

---

-=-Reports of Preval's lead in the early results and possible victory are beginning to show up in the mainstream media.

---

STILL THE TREND :

More results --
Results based on a total of 22% of the votes cast in nine of the ten
departments show that the Lespwa candidate, René Préval, is winning with more than 62%
of the votes cast.

This information was provided by the Provisional Electoral Council vote counting centre at around 8pm local time.

Former president Manigat had 11%, Charles Henri Baker 6%, and Pastor Chavanne Jeune 5%.

Nah. I was going to say that maybe dipshits like pettigrew and martin jr. and their Americcan and French counterparts really did think that Aristide was a "bad man" and that explains this pointless overthrow of the Haitian government on the country's 200th anniversary, only to have his ally Preval win the subsequent post-coup election.

Maybe we've got all of our Quislings installed in various ministries and they'll be able to stymie Preval's ability to do his job.

Or maybe we just wanted to kick them around on their Bicentennial just to show them how weak they are.

quote:

---

The United States on Friday urged Haiti's likely new leader Rene Preval to oppose any return from exile of his ally, ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The move, which avoided unconditional backing of Preval despite his apparent easy win in an election the United States promoted, could immediately undermine the incoming president in the impoverished, unstable Caribbean nation.

. . . .

Preval, who found his strongest support in the same slums that formed Aristide's political base, has not said if he wants to bring the firebrand former Roman Catholic priest back from his exile in South Africa.

The United States sought to pre-empt such a move.

"He wasn't on the ballot. And he is in South Africa, and I would expect that he would stay there," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"We think the Haitian government should be looking forward to their future, not to its past," he said.

Preval's win is discomforting for the United States.

---

It shouldn't be up to the Americans to decide whom the Haitians allow in their country and whom they don't. I can, however, well understand why the American administration official doesn't want Haitians looking at the recent past too closely: if a newly elected Haitian president were, for example, to launch an investigation into the circumstances of Aristide's departure (as the CARICOM nations have called for) the result would be deeply embarrassing for Washington, Ottawa and Paris.

Unfortunately, the deadly realities of powerful nations' policy in the region will make things difficult for Preval, should he be the winner, to steer an independent course: the US, France and Canada have shown just what sort of price they're willing to exact if Haitians choose 'wrongly.'

If the US does continue to undermine a President Preval, even after he's officially declared elected, I guess we'll all have to do what we can to press our government not to follow suit here in Canada.

quote:

---

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Former President Rene Preval could be headed for a runoff in Haiti's first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted two years ago, according to the latest election results issued on Friday.

With about half the votes counted, Preval held 50.3 percent, just barely above the majority he would need to avoid a runoff on March 19. In results released on Thursday, Preval held 61 percent, when only 15 percent had been counted, and appeared on his way to an outright victory.

Another former president, Leslie Manigat, was in second place with 11.4 percent and industrialist Charles Baker held third with 8.3 percent, according to the results published on the Provisional Electoral Council's Web site.

---

Link.

Looks like you can follow the results for yourself here: Link.

[ 10 February 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by thwap:
I was going to say that maybe dipshits like pettigrew and martin jr. and their Americcan and French counterparts really did think that Aristide was a "bad man" . . . only to have his ally Preval win the subsequent post-coup election.

---

quote:

---

Protesters have alleged the electoral commission is manipulating the vote count to prevent leading candidate and Preval, a one-time protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from winning a first-round victory in this battered and poor Caribbean nation.

---

Meanwhile, the riots seem to be getting worse.

The Security Council met this morning for all of 3 minutes (11:20 to 11:23 a.m., according to the official report) to pass this resolution.

Where's the reporting of this very Canadian story in the Canadian media?

Gretzky's wife betting on sports is more important?

To me early results were so high, they dropped over 10 % and none of that, except a few decimal points went to Manigat, and Baker went up 2%.

Now okay there is 30+ candidates, but to me something stinks here. And why is the UN official quoted on the BBC as saying there has been no problem? Is that simply a UN spokesperson saying the election went free and fairly, being misconstrued as saying the ballot counting has been free and fair? Should the UN not be as actively defending election results if there is a question of accuracy of said results?

On the otherside, what do the vote riggers, if it is the case, hope to accomplish? Is Preval hurt by a second ballot? How could the UN/elites on the second ballot even pretend all the votes not for Preval went to Manigat? Or should this be seen as a ploy to undermine the confidence of the electorate within the system (because they clearly haven't gotten the message after yet)?

But again, given that our people were in charge of organizing this election, Canadian newsmedia should have been all over this from the start.

The CBC account is pretty toothless overall.

The BBC version was more detailed, and there's evidence to answer your question about Preval's vote percentage going down without a corresponding increase for his rivals:

quote:

---

Footage broadcast on a local television station on Tuesday night appeared to show hundreds of charred ballots at a garbage dump in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Many of the ballots appeared to be marked in favour of Mr Preval, prompting protests from his supporters at the scene.

Crowds later marched through the streets of the city, chanting Mr Preval's name and decrying the alleged fraud.

An electoral official told Reuters news agency there would be an investigation into the "unacceptable" apparent dumping of ballots.

---

But it has a pointless, tagged-on ending:

quote:

---

BBC Americas analyst Simon Watts, reporting from Miami, says the Haitian authorities seem to be damned whatever they do.

He says they risk sparking more unrest if they conclude Mr Preval is short of a majority - but declaring him an outright winner could look like a fix.

---

quote:

---

The manipulation of the results has been evident and shameless. Two of the members of the Electoral Council have exposed tampering with the vote count. Pierre Richard Duchemin, representative of the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church on the commission body, informed a Haitian radio station that “there has been an insane manipulation of the data, there is no transparency.”

Another member of the board, Patrick Requière, publicly criticized Jacques Bernard, CEP general director, for not consulting with the other members of that agency or of disclosing where he was obtaining the results that he has announced to the press.

This Monday, the presidential candidate Jeune Jean Chavannes, fourth to date in the polls, acknowledged Préval’s win and stated that the situation created is the result of a conspiracy mounted in pursuit of social chaos. Chavannes called for guaranteeing national sovereignty and not bending to base interests as certain people want.

Everyone is pointing to something that is absolutely clear and has been leaked through various channels: Mr. Bernard, general director of the Council, is fulfilling the U.S. mandate of forcing a second round. A number of analysts have taken it on themselves in the last few days to recall that Préval is not the favorite of the White House given his former links with the deposed President Jean Aristide, removed from power by force by U.S. troops and sent into enforced exile.

---

quote:

---

"We've invested an enormous amount of both financial and political resources to helping with the democratic process in Haiti so it's troubling, to say the least, that these allegations have now emerged," MacKay said.

"We knew just from the appearance of the process that the potential was there and that was everyone's worst fear. (But) we're very hopeful and remain optimistic that this is going to be dealt with properly," he told Reuters in a phone interview.

---

quote:

---

Officials in Haiti say they have reached an agreement to declare Rene Preval president, after a vote marred by claims of irregularities.

The announcement was made after urgent talks between government and electoral officials, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Preval has alleged that "massive fraud" denied him an outright victory in the 7 February poll.

The vote triggered massive street protests by Mr Preval's supporters.

"Preval wins with 51.15%," Michel Brunache, chief of staff for interim President Boniface Alexandre, told AP after the talks ended early on Thursday.

"On 7 February the people made a choice. It is a historic day," Mr Brunache said.

Under the reported agreement, some of the blank ballots were subtracted from the total number of votes counted, taking Mr Preval over the 50% threshold.

---

A more detailed account is here.

quote:

---

The front-runner in last week's presidential election will be declared the winner as part of an agreement by leaders of Haiti's interim government to retabulate the votes, a high-ranking official of the Organization of American States said Wednesday night.

[snip]

The agreement was forged after marathon negotiations among leaders of Mr. Préval's Lespwa Party, the interim government, the Provisional Electoral Council, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the O.A.S. and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada, Brazil and Chile. The talks started Monday, after early tallies indicated Mr. Préval would not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, and his supporters paralyzed cities across the country with protests and flaming barricades.

[snip]

International electoral officials said an estimated 8 percent of the ballots cast were missing, at least half of them believed to be stolen or destroyed. Another 7 percent were voided because they were illegible.

But most of the challenges to the vote tally have focused on the estimated 85,000 blank ballots, about 4 percent of the 2.2 million votes cast.

[snip]

International electoral officials acknowledged that poll workers could have improperly recorded unused ballots as blank ballots. In at least two polling places, said one such official, nearly 100 percent of the ballots were recorded as blank.

But the international officials also said they suspected some cases of fraud, saying they found it hard to believe that peasant farmers in rural areas would walk for hours, then stand in line for hours, to cast blank ballots.

---

[ 16 February 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

---

"René Préval has been declared the winner with 51 per cent," said Max Mathurin, the head of Haiti's electoral council, said early Thursday morning on the radio. "We feel a huge satisfaction at having liberated the country from a truly difficult situation."

With 90 per cent of the ballots counted from the Feb. 7 vote, Préval had been slightly short of the 50 per cent margin needed to win.

But under the agreement, which was brokered by Brazil, 85,000 blank votes that had been cast were discounted, giving Préval a 51.15 per cent share of the vote.

The simple majority prevents a March 19 runoff election.

---

quote:

---

...International electoral officials acknowledged that poll workers could have improperly recorded unused ballots as blank ballots. In at least two polling places, said one such official, nearly 100 percent of the ballots were recorded as blank.....

---

quote:

---

Canada sent 160 observers to the election, and Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer and head of the international observers, declared the election to be fair last week.

However, NDP MP Alexa McDonough expressed concern yesterday about this declaration: "I think it is incumbent upon [Mr. Kingsley] for sure to address questions that now arise in the immediate aftermath of his assertions, to the effect that there are ballots that have been found, burned, destroyed, rejected. It's a very, very worrisome situation. There's no question about it."

---

I'm glad Alexa said that, but the NDP ought to speak to this front and centre.

It is highly possible that with Aristide out of the way, the US and France have lost interest in Haiti.

If that's the case, Harper can allow the NDP to investigate this Liberal Party atrocity and pull Canada out of the country (since this election shows our assistance is counterproductive, as does the behaviour of their police) and skewer the Liberals mercilessly.

And yet Terry Glavin wrote a recent column advocating such 'diplomatic'interventions.

The UN and OAS together can't even guarantee fair elections.

OR dont want to.

[ 17 February 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

---

NDP Leader Jack Layton today issued the following statement on the occasion of the election of René Préval as President of Haiti:

“As Leader of Canada’s New Democrats I want to extend congratulations to Haiti’s President-designate, René Préval.

“Haitians have suffered tremendously throughout history, especially in recent years. The NDP calls on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to direct his Minister of Foreign Affairs to carefully review Canada’s role in Haiti since February 2004 and to report his findings to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“President-designate Préval has much work to do in rebuilding his country and lifting his people from abject poverty. He is well positioned to identify, develop and deliver what the Haitian people want and need.

“It is incumbent upon Canada to listen carefully and consult with President-designate René Préval if it is serious about delivering the kind of aid that contributes positively to the betterment of the Haitian people.”

---

Yves Engler also calls on Harper to launch a review of Canada's actions in Haiti here.

quote:

---

In an important foreign policy test, the new Conservative government must come to terms with the shameful legacy of Canada's role in Haiti over the past five years.

This week's Haitian election, with its suspiciously delayed count, its crushed ballot boxes with thousands of completed ballots found at a garbage dump, its banning of the most popular political party and jailing of its leaders, its let's decide in the middle of the night to "reach agreement on a winner," should be an embarrassment to every Canadian taxpayer. We paid for this mess to the tune of more than $30 million.

But, incredibly, the farcical Haitian election is only the tip of another Liberal party scandal.

The governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin used up much of Canada's international good image with their policies toward that Caribbean nation.

[snip]

New Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay should establish a public inquiry into Canada's role in Haiti. This country should support a democratic Haitian government that works to improve the lives of the poor majority. Canada should target its resources through that government in the areas of reforestation, education and health care.

Canada should help Haitians build a democracy that works for them.

---

[ 17 February 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

If you said Leslie Manigat, who got 12% of the vote, you'd not be entirely right. Because Manigat's vote total was actually exceeded by... the blank and null ballots!

quote:

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The blank and null ballots combined exceeded Mr. Manigat's vote by 17,000. The rules for blank and null votes are consistent with previous Haitian elections, so it is hard to call the rules themselves fraudulent. But the scale of the distortion of the vote caused by these rules was both foreseeable and preventable. The same problem has arisen at every election since 1990, most of which were observed by the UN and the Organization of American States, which were active in preparing the elections this time around. The distortion could be sharply reduced with a simple voter education campaign: going into poor neighborhoods, demonstrating how to mark ballots and giving voters an opportunity to practice on sample ballots.

There was money available for such a program - the election cost over $70 million dollars, more than $30 for every vote cast - most of it coming from abroad. The political parties, many of which represented a fraction of one percent of the electorate, received generous subsidies. But no concerted effort was made to help the much larger share of the voters who had demonstrated difficulty with filling out the ballots.Source

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“Haitians have suffered tremendously throughout history, especially in recent years. The NDP calls on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to direct his Minister of Foreign Affairs to carefully review Canada’s role in Haiti since February 2004 and to report his findings to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“President-designate Préval has much work to do in rebuilding his country and lifting his people from abject poverty. He is well positioned to identify, develop and deliver what the Haitian people want and need.

“It is incumbent upon Canada to listen carefully and consult with President-designate René Préval if it is serious about delivering the kind of aid that contributes positively to the betterment of the Haitian people.”

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The quotes here are (my translation of) the original article; I've summarised quite a bit of it because I couldn't be bothered to translate all of it word for word.

On Tuesday of last week, with ballot counting halted at 89% of the vote, Miguel Insulza, the Secretary-General of the OAS, and Juan Gabriel Valdés, the chief of the Haiti peace mission (both Chilean), had a series of meetings, including meetings with René Préval and Leslie Manigat (separately). The goal was to find a formula which would avoid a second round in the election, given the state of violence which was overtaking the country. ("A death in the streets and the massive pro-Preval demonstrations made the international community fear the worst, in a country in which political differences are written with blood.")

Preval was happy to help, suggesting that the spoiled and blank ballots simply not be counted. However, Manigat was furious ("colérico"); he rejected the plan and insisted that "the electoral law and the results must be respected, something which the international community had fought for in a country which had only celebrated clean elections once, in 1994 when Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected the first time".

"Of course, his attitude was not for insitutional purity, but rather for concrete interests. Manigat counted with the support of the business community and, indirectly, of France -- a country with huge influence as a one-time colonial power -- all of who have a historic rancour ("encono") with Preval and everything that smells of Aristide."

So Insulza and Valdés warned the international observers that Manigat could not be counted on to reach a political accord, or to help avoid the second ballot, and that he would be supported by the "Group of the 184" (businesses and social organizations who were key Aristides' fall) and by the "G-9", an accord between minority candidates linked to the establishment who had promised mutual assistance in a second ballot to avoid a Preval victory at all costs.

Consequently, the Insulza and Valdés recommended, international pressure had to be put on the Electoral Council, "the only body which could take a political decision", but helping them in some way with the "legality".

The Council, the article continues, is made up of nine members and a director general, who are "'independents', representatives of "what in Haita is called 'civil society' -- read, business and the establishment -- and not a single member of Aristides' Lavalas Party."

"This Council had already postponed the elections four times, alleging a lack of security. In reality, a diplomatic source said, the Council was doing whatever it could to avoid the elections, given that Preval's victory seemed inevitable."

However, when the government warned that the international pressure was real, the Council opened way for the elections, and the same thing happened with the vote recount. That Tuesday, the government let the Council know that on Thursday the winner would be announced (i.e. Preval) and that it should start looking for a formula to make the announcement within a legal framework.

The Council, under pressure from the Haitian government, from Insulza and Valdés, and the rest of the international community, particularly Brasil, but also Argentina and the US, took the decision to adopt the "Belgian formula" in which the blank and spoiled votes would count, but distributed proportionately amongst all candidates. This was sufficient to make Preval's vote 51.15%, and so he was declared elected.

Meanwhile, Insulza and Valdés went back to meet (again separately, of course) with Manigat and Preval. This time, Manigat left a door open: if the Council just finished counting the ballots and released the figures, then "I will analyze the situation."

It was too late, though:

Update: Haiti forms committee to replace chief

I have no idea what the significance of this is.

[ 22 February 2006: Message edited by: rici ]

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“Haitians have suffered tremendously throughout history, especially in recent years. They have elected a new President who must be given his rightful opportunity to govern. If Canada is truly concerned about the welfare of Haitians and supports the democratic election of Mr. Préval, then Mr. Harper must urge Mr. Latortue to set a firm date for the necessary runoff elections, sooner, rather than later,” said McDonough.

“Mr. Harper must also express concern about the continuing imprisonment of political prisoners, their deplorable conditions of incarceration and lack of fair judicial process accorded them by the Latortue government”.

Harper must urge Latortue to set firm date for Haitian runoff parliamentary elections

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Serge Bouchereau, of the group Resistance Haitienne au Quebec, said that "By agreeing to meet with Mr. Latortue -- a criminal against humanity -- we believe that Mr. Jean Charest has become silently complicit... The people of Haiti want nothing to do with Mr. Latortue, who is an imposed prime minister who was parachuted into Haiti by Washington, Canada and France."

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