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