Global Policy Forum

Canada Backs a Brutal US Regime in Haiti to Make Up for Countering them on Iraq

By Ron Carten

The reports on Haiti that are trickling out to the public indicate that Haitians are being killed in large numbers, often at the hands of their own police, the HNP (Haitian National Police). A force of 100 RCMP officers is currently in charge of training those police. When Haiti Action Montreal member Yves Engler splashed red paint on Pierre Pettigrew's hands at a press conference on Haiti in June in Montreal, it dramatized the question of Canada's involvement in those killings. Naomi Klein's subsequent interview of Jean Bertrand Aristide in South Africa days later, asking the exiled Haitian president if Canadians had blood on their hands, brings more attention to Canadian involvement in Haiti. We have been involved in Haiti for some time, be it in the field of development, elections, or industry. The 125,000 Haitians living in Canada and many other Canadians familiar with Haiti's struggles over the years have been shocked and angered by an alleged coup in February 2004 that destroyed that country's nascent democracy. Aristide himself has said he was forced out. The CARICOM countries have demanded an enquiry into his departure. Colin Powell denied the US forced Aristide out.

The Director of the Caribbean and Central America Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christian Lapointe, stated from Ottawa that "Rumours to the fact that Canada assisted President Aristide to leave the country are totally unfounded. No help of any kind was provided by the Canadian Embassy or the Canadian Forces." Laura Flynn, a former aid to Aristide, confirmed at a meeting in April in East Vancouver that US special forces went to Aristide's home on February 29, 2004, put him on a plane and deposited him in the Central African Republic. She went on to say that demonstrations calling for Aristide's return are occurring on an almost daily basis in Port-au-Prince. What little coverage the media has been providing on this ongoing crisis confirms the recurring bloody events attending the rule of the interim regime of Gerard Latortue.

I reached Yves Engler in Montreal on the weekend. Engler studied Haitian history at Concordia University and visited Haiti in December 2004, staying with American journalist Kevin Pina. He visited Bel-Air and the Petionville Women's Prison where, among others, he spoke with Annette Auguste, a folk singer known in Haiti as So-Anne, jailed for her support of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party. Engler told the story of Jeremy, a Haitian youth staying with Pina who had been involved in a children's radio station set up by Lavalas. Jeremy's aunt was killed by the HNP when they went to her home searching for him. Another man, Paul Loulou Chery, secretary of the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH), told Engler of how the HNP who were searching for him told his wife at his home that if he didn't show up at the police station the next day she would find his body in the street. Engler is critical of CIDA and other Canadian development agencies working to support civil society in Haiti. Engler referred to a "campaign of CIDA working to create . . . opposition to the elected government." Relating a conversation he had with Francois L'Ecuyer of Alternatives, a Canadian international solidarity organization, Engler said L'Ecuyer told him that all 15 Haitian groups Alternatives was working with were anti-Lavalas. Alternatives, which gets 50% of its funding from CIDA, is one of the most left-leaning aid groups in Canada, according to Engler. The implication is that most of the Canadian development aid in the area of supporting civil society in Haiti is going to, and has been going to, groups that opposed the Aristide government.

Why has Canada been supporting opponents of the democratically elected Lavalas party in Haiti? "The simple reason," says Engler, "is friendship with the US." Other commentators have pointed to the Canadian and French governments' need to support the US position in Haiti after having opposed the US position in Iraq. France has the additional motive of opposing a government that claimed $21 billion in restitution from France for compensation Haiti was required to pay France after Haitian independence. Haiti has a 200-year history of independence. But that history has been marred by US intervention, military rule, and more recently the dictatorships of the Duvaliers. The election of Lavalas in 1991 and its continuing electoral success, the disbanding of an oppressive military, and significant development achievements under Aristide's leadership offered hope for the Haitian people's aspirations. Cynically, Engler pointed out that the first visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to Haiti was that of Paul Martin and it took place after the Aristide government fell. Canada is currently part of MINUSTAH, the UN peace-keeping force in Haiti. Presidential and parliamentary elections in Haiti are scheduled to take place in the fall. Lavalas has said it plans to boycott the elections.

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