A-Infos (en) NED Republicans Build an `Opposition'

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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                        * HAITI PROGRES *
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"
 
                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
                        May 13 - 19, 1998
                         Vol. 16, No. 8
 
                              * * *
 
     "This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
     newsweekly. For information on other news in French and
     Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
     (fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <haiticom@blythe.org>
 
                              -----
_________________________________________________________________
 
             NED REPUBLICANS BUILD AN `OPPOSITION'
_________________________________________________________________
 
                                *
 
     After the Second World War, Washington entrusted most of its
overseas political engineering to the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), which carried out its mission through shadowy covert
operations involving bribery, infiltrations, assassinations, and
coup d'etats. But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S.
government began to phase out the strong-arm dictators and
military juntas which once guarded its rebellious neo-colonies
and instead introduced democratic facade governments set up
through elections which were financed, overseen, and controlled
from the banks of the Potomac.
 
     In this context, former Republican President Ronald Reagan
founded the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1983 to be
a new bipartisan agency to sway the course of politics in other
countries. Much like its covert cousin, the CIA, the very visible
NED sees its mission as "planning, coordinating and implementing
international political activities in support of U.S. policies
and interests relative to national security," according to the
1985 NED annual report.
 
     To carry out that mandate in Haiti, the NED -- or more
specifically, its Republican tentacle known as the International
Republican Institute (IRI) -- has worked diligently over recent
months to assemble the Haitian Conference of Political Parties
(CHPP), a hodge-podge of 26 "opposition" groups, which was formed
on April 16 but only announced on May 5.
 
     Most of the parties in the CHPP are extreme right-wing
Duvalierist offspring which have been largely dormant since the
1991-1994 coup d'etat. The most infamous include the rabidly pro-
putschist ALAH of former deputy Reynold Georges, the PARADIS of
Vladimir Jeanty, the URN of the late Tonton Macoute chieftain
Roger Lafontant, and the PAN of expatriate Duvalierist radio
announcer Serge Beaulieu. There are also "moderate" neo-
Duvalierists like the MDN of former Duvalierist Social Affairs
minister Hubert de Ronceray, the MKN of former Duvalierist Health
Minister Dr. Volvick Remy-Joseph, and the MODELH-PRDH of former
Gen. Henri Namphy's Justice Minister Francois Latortue.
 
     Also present in the front is the RDNP of Leslie Manigat, the
former president who Namphy installed through a military-run
"election" and then, 8 months later, uninstalled through a coup.
 
     The CHPP seems centered around the man who has been
Washington's principal pawn in Haiti since he was loaned by the
World Bank to act as dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier's Finance
Minister in 1982: Marc Bazin and his Movement for the
Installation of Democracy in Haiti (MIDH).
 
     In the Dec. 16, 1990 presidential election, Bazin was Jean-
Bertrand Aristide's distant runner-up, thanks mainly to the
millions of dollars in backing he received from the NED. His
electoral coalition at that time also included the MNP-28 of
Dejean Belizaire and PANPRA of Serge Gilles, who are also both
CHPP members. Bazin also acted as Prime Minister during most of
the military coup, enlisting the generous collaboration of
Gilles, Belizaire, and their parties.
 
     Finally, the "left balance" to the lop-sided CHPP comes from
the Democratic Unity Convention (KID) of Evans Paul, known also
as "Konpe Plim," the former mayor of Port-au-Prince and a leader
of the National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD), which
sponsored Aristide's 1990 run. Paul -- the consummate opportunist
-- was forced to join the CHPP on his own, since his usual
partner, Turneb Delpe of the PNDPH, the only other significant
party left in the old FNCD coalition, prudently demurred from
joining the CHPP. Delpe said he would continue to work for "a
national conference which is really its own master," a ludicrous
project which he has championed for months to assemble all the
Haitian parties and "particles" around a table to "talk out" a
solution to the country's political impasse.
 
     Another FNCD component, the Haitian Workers Committee (COH)
demanded from KID a "clear and formal explanation" for its sell-
out which might "lead the country directly into a civil war which
would play right into the hands of the imperialists."
 
     Meanwhile, Paul tried to put the best face on his historic
now-overt alliance with Duvalierist parties by saying, in a May 6
statement, that his participation in "certain meetings arranged
by IRI" was no different than numerous other "political
formations" and "truces" he has entered into in recent years. "To
put into practice this attitude of political openness, the KID
will participate in May in a mission organized by the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) to South Africa." The NDI is the
Democratic Party arm of the NED. Clearly Paul wants to convey
that he is for sale to both Republicans and Democrats.
 
     Of course, the principal target of the CHPP is Aristide and
his party, the Lavalas Family (FL), which is heavily favored in
presidential elections in 2000 and legislative elections
scheduled for this fall. The CHPP's "Declaration of Principles"
calls for a new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to "hold
elections which must insure political alternation."
 
     Most tellingly, in a CHPP "Birth Certificate" issued after a
Feb. 12, 1998 plenary, called on all the parties to "explore"
eight points of convergence which include how to reform the CEP,
insure "liberty of movement" of parties and, most importantly,
"the maintenance of a working relationship with the IRI and the
harmonization of IRI's program with the agenda of the political
parties."
 
     Students of recent Latin American history cannot but notice
the striking similarity of CHPP to the National Opposition Union
(UNO), the front which the NED designed and sponsored to defeat
the Sandinistas in the Feb. 25, 1990 presidential elections in
Nicaragua. By this formula, Washington uses "low-intensity"
warfare to punish and discourage the population, and then it
offers an alternative. In Nicaragua, the war was waged by CIA-
sponsored "contra" guerillas; in Haiti today, it is the zenglendo
criminals, who often were previously dictatorship enforcers (see
Haiti Progres, Vol. 16, No. 6, April 6, 1998).
 
     Even if the CHPP never does develop any political weight,
NED strategists may hope that the "threat" of IRI's unified
opposition front will force Aristide to negotiate with, and
thereby legitimize, Gerard Pierre-Charles, the leader of the
Organization of People in Struggle (OPL), which has been favored
until now by the NDI. (Not surprisingly, Pierre-Charles dubbed
the CHPP "a very positive initiative".) In the minds of U.S.
Republi-crat political engineers, it's a "win/win" situation.
Then again, they usually miscalculate everything about Haiti.
 
     For example, there is the declaration of the Popular
Assembly of Port-au-Prince (APLP), a local branch of the National
Popular Assembly (APN). "There are a bunch of Macoutes,
putschists, and opportunists like Konpe Plim who are banding
together under the banner of the IRI to say: the Lavalas
government has failed," said the APLP statement. "We would like
to clarify that the present government is not Lavalas. President
[Rene] Preval has said he belongs to no party.... For some time
now, the OPL changed its name [from the Lavalas Political
Organization] to the Organization of People in Struggle.
Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, an OPL leader, has clearly said that he
is no longer part of the Lavalas... The Lavalas power of Dec. 16,
1990 had as its agenda to bring justice, rule with transparency,
increase national production, and put honest people in the state
enterprises so that they could serve the masses. That is not what
we have seen since Preval and the OPL have governed the country.
So they aren't Lavalas. That is just confusion created by 26
Macoute, Duvalierist, and opportunist parties so they can try to
get back into power and establish another dictatorship."
 
     All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS
     ENCOURAGED. Please credit Haiti Progres.
 
                              * * *
 
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