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Today's
Stories
March 5 / 6,
2005
Alexander Cockburn
Arnold
vs. the Nurses
March 4, 2005
Frederick Hudson
Caught
in a Cage
March 3, 2005
Pat Williams
"Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old"
Brian Cloughley
Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions
Dave Lindorff
Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan?
Amira Hass
Oslo All Over Again
Greg Moses
In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go?
Lynne Landes
Exit Poll Madness
Nelson P. Valdés
Rapture Takes Leftists
John Ross
Mexico's
Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist
Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
March 2, 2005
Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen
The
"Noble Liars" Attack Syria
Mike Roselle
The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental
Dissent
M. Junaid Alam
Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism
Suzan Mazur
Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah
Jackson Thoreau
Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria"
Michael Donnelly
No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
Website of the Day
The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
March 5 / 6, 2005
The Haitian People Won't Give Up
Disguised
Coup, Hidden Abuses
By
TOM REEVES
February 28, 2005, marked one year since
the U.S. removed at gun point the democratically-elected President
of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide Those who read or listen to
almost any U.S. or Canadian media assume that Aristide was a
dictator who lost his popularity due to corruption and human
rights abuses. Even many "progressive" organizations
in the U.S. mouth these same complaints. Nothing could be further
from the truth. As Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned
physician whose clinic in Haiti treats thousands of AIDS patients,
told me, "Everybody knows that Aristide was bad. Everybody,
that is, except the Haitian poor - 85 per cent of the population."
Most of Haiti's poorest people
continue to demand Aristide's return. On this first anniversary
of the coup, thousands poured out of Bel Aire, the slum behind
the Presidential Palace in Port au Prince, shouting "Arrest
us all," and "Aristide or death." Journalists
present and the spokesman for the UN MINUSTAH force say it was
a completely peaceful march. The Miami Herald reporter on the
scene broke ranks with those who usually cover Haiti for that
newspaper and who regularly blame all violence on Aristide supporters.
He said (March 1) that the Haitian National Police opened fire
on singing, chanting men, women and children, killing at least
two, and wounding many more. In fact, a total of five deaths
and twenty wounded were later verified. The Brazilian officer
representing MINUSTAH, Carlos Chagas Braga, told him, "When
things like this happen, we are in a bad situation. Everything
was going peacefully. We are supposed to support the police.
We cannot fire at them." Later, Brazilian General Augusto
Heleno Ribeiro, the head of MINUSTAH, denounced this and other
similar Haitian police killings as poisoning the atmosphere for
reconciliation which MINUSTAH was working hard to creae. (See
CounterPunch on February 28
for first-hand coverage by U.S. Attorney Bill Quigley.)
Father Gerard Jean-Juste is
well-known for his work among the poor in Miami as well as Haiti.
He was seized by Haitian police, wearing hoods and not identifying
themselves as police, while feeding poor children in his parish
last fall. He was then held in deplorable conditions without
a trial for months before an international outcry helped gain
his freedom in December. Father Jean-Juste was at the palace
demonstration February 28. The Miami Herald quoted him as saying
he saw one of his own parishioners shot. The Herald reporter
said Jean-Juste has been reporting summary execution of Lavalas
members for months. "This time it happened in front of me,"
Jean-Juste said. He might have said, this time the whole world
could see ii.
Haitians and their supporters
around the world held similar marches, without violence, but
mostly also ignored by media: Ottawa, British Columbia, Paris,
Montreal, Boston, New York, San Francisco, among others. In
Ottawa, a representative of the Privy Council came out to receive
a copy of a blistering human rights report that shows police
trained by Canadians committed serious abuses against Lavalas
activists and other residents of poor neighborhoods. Even this
kind of token gesture was not to be found at any of the U.S.
demonstrations. The work of Canadian Haiti solidarity activists
has been much more visible and united than that in the U.S.,
and even the current Liberal government, which has towed the
U.S. line on Haiti, has to take notice of it.
I joined a band of some fifty
souls at the White House on February 28 to protest the U.S. coup
and its brutal aftermath. We marched in a snowstorm, chanting
"Remove Bush, Return Aristide," and "Justice for
Haiti." The group included members of the Jonah House and
several Catholic Workers' houses, groups of pacifists who often
commit civil disobedience against unjust U.S. policies. Other
participating groups included Pax Christi, EPICA an ecumenical
NGO, and Black Voices for Peace. Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton,
who had just returned from Haiti where he witnessed police intimidation
of his host at a Catholic guest house, joined the other demonstrators
to risk arrest by holding the protest along the fence in a space
where demonstrators are usually arrested. Haitians included
Eugenia Charles, of Fondasyon Mapou, who led the demonstration,
and Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine of the September 30 Foundation -
representing victims of repression in Haiti. It's members have
been forced into hiding or exile since a massive campaign to
kill and arrest Aristide's supporters began in the wake of the
coup. September 30 Foundation and Fondasyon Mapou hold weekly
vigils at the Haitian Embassy in Washington. For information,
see www.fonsasyonmapou.org.
Pierre-Antoine, speaking in
Creole through a bull-horn, called U.S. actions "evil,"
denouncing the 33rd coup in Haiti perpetrated by U.S. minions.
He spoke of massacres in the days leading up to the anniversary
of as many as 50 Aristide supporters in several poor Port au
Prince neighborhoods. These are in addition to scores of documented
police raids since September into Lavalas strongholds, accompanied
by the UN "blue helmets, resulting in hundreds of deaths
of Lavalas activists and innocent bystanders - always the poorest
of the poor in Haiti are the ones to die. Rep. Maxine Waters,
of the Congressional Black Caucus, sent a statement to the rally:
"Haiti today is in total chaos. The interim government
put in power by the U.S...is a complete failure....Human rights
violations are commonplace throughout Haiti....(M)embers of President
Aristide's government have been detained illegally, including
former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune...As of February 18, there
were over 700 political prisoners in Haiti's jails...most...without
formal charges."
Also protesting that day along
the White House fence were a hundred or so disabled people,
many in wheelchairs or with walkers, demanding that Bush restore
cuts he has made in Federal programs for the disabled. The disabled
also blocked both White House gates - actions that would usually
bring arrests. Such a confrontation would have been ugly PR
for the President, so both their group and ours were allowed
to tread where demonstrators are usually not allowed. Strolling
between the two groups were occasional tourists - a young couple
who photographed themselves giving us the finger; a band of
white prep school boys, one of whom asked if he could hold a
sign for a moment, that said, "CIA out of Haiti."
Police were everywhere, but like the tourists and the absent
media, they generally ignored us all.
The United States sent marines
to Haiti a year ago to force out of office a government that
even they admit was legitimate and democratically elected.
This was done amid brutal violence committed by former army officers
and others convicted in a Haitian court, with acclaimed international
supervision, of murders and other atrocities during the previous
coup period in the 1990s. The self-styled "rebels"
again committed massacres and rapes across the country, using
weapons which have now been clearly traced to U.S. stockpiles
in the Dominican Republic. The "rebels" were politically
trained and financed by U.S. groups like the International Republican
Institute (IRI), a foundation with major U.S. Republican politicians
on its board.
The U.S. oversaw an unconstitutional
process which installed the puppet regime of Gerard Latortue,
a U.N. bureaucrat who lived opulently in Boca Raton, Florida.
Latortue brought so many of his exile colleagues into the Cabinet,
his government has been called the Boca Raton regime - which
immediately began implementing the most draconian measures of
"structural adjustment" demanded by its neoliberal
bosses at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
This meant vast cutbacks in the already impoverished education,
health and other human services systems of the public sector.
Latortue acclaimed the thugs
from the former army as "freedom fighters," and allowed
them virtual free reign across most of the country to continue
their murders and terror campaigns against Lavalas, the political
party and broad movement of the poor in Haiti that was led by
Aristide. Despite squabbles between the old landed and military
elite and the sweat-shop owners and other business elite, Latortue
allowed the former soldiers to dominate the Haitian National
Police, which conducted regular sweeps of the poor neighborhoods
of Port au Prince. The extreme brutality of these raids - has
been well documented, including the November, 2004, report of
the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) at the University
of Miami. This incredible document, based on investigations
by the prominent Philadelphia attorney, Thomas Griffin, and others,
is the one presented at Ottawa on February 28. It leaves little
doubt that a full-scale terror campaign is going on in Haiti
- by the government, against the people; by the rich, against
the poor; by those trained and funded by the U.S. and guarded
by the U.N., and against the mass movement called Lavalas - the
cleansing flood - that Aristide promised would someday bring
justice for the poor of Haiti.
A U.S. funded coup-d'état.
The removal of an elected President. A puppet regime of the
U.S. decimating the feeble human services of the poorest country
in the world. Massive human rights abuses, including assassinations,
false imprisonment without trials, and targeted murders of impoverished
men, women and children. With the U.N. force, MINUSTAH, headed
by Brazil, finally wavering in its loyalty to the U.S. brokers
who sent them there, the U.S. announced last week it will be
sending more than 1,000 fresh troops to Haiti - ostensibly for
"humanitarian purposes." Yet almost all Americans,
including most progressives, know nothing of any of this.
Who is to blame for the lack
of outcry in the U.S? Surely the mainstream media - the Associated
Press, Fox, CNN and those few media services that cover Haiti
at all - have been manipulated to hush up and cover up the real
story in Haiti. But worse, many so-called progressive media
- as well as some U.S. liberal non-governmental organizations
- have either been silent, or lent their credibility to those
who support the atrocities in Haiti.
One example of an academic
journal with solid left credentials that has failed to cover
the real story in Haiti is the NACLA Report on the Americas.
Depending almost exclusively on a formerly far-left journalist,
disillusioned with Aristide, now working for the Miami Herald
(Jane Regan), NACLA presents its readers with a version of events
in Haiti scarcely different from the Miami Herald or CNN.*
In every story she writes,
Regan repeats the mantras about Aristide's corruption and human
rights violations - mostly unproved and surely pale in comparison
to the current outrage. In the Miami Herald and elsewhere last
year, Regan, interviewed the "rebels" at their headquarters
in Gonaives and Cap Haitien, during periods of some of their
worst atrocities, and portrayed them merely as swaggering (rather
sexy) roughnecks.
In the February 2005 NACLA
Report, Regan continues what can only be called a disinformation
campaign against Lavalas. She repeats the myth widely reported
in the commercial Haitian media (owned by leaders of the anti-Aristide
elite) and repeated without verification in the U.S. media, that
Lavalas launched last fall "Operation Baghdad," initiating
a series of beheadings that Regan says became the most common
form of political murder in Haiti - making Haiti look like Falujah.
Long before Regan's article, it had been shown clearly by well-known
journalist and film-maker Kevin Pina and others reporting to
Democracy Now, Flashpoints Radio and other progressive media,
that Latortue himself used the term "Operation Baghdad,"
not Lavalas, and that the three beheaded police officers were
most likely killed by another faction of the former army within
the Haitian police. No other beheadings have been verified.
But the damage was done, and the image was everywhere: Lavalas
was equated with Al Queda, beheadings and all. This is bad enough
in the corporate media - but for a prestigious and left-leaning
journal like NACLA Report, it is beyond belief.
Meanwhile, Grassroots International,
a Boston-based NGO that has funded grassroots groups as well
as leftist intellectuals in Haiti for years, has stuck with its
sponsored groups, like MPP, a large peasant organization headed
by Chavannes Jean Baptiste, formerly a close associate of Aristide
who was embittered when Preval was chosen over him as candidate
for President in 1995. Jean-Baptiste's group, in the Central
Plateau, helped usher in the "rebels" as they headed
for their early successes last year - despite the fact that the
former military officers, ten years before, had sacked MPP headquarters
and terrorized his family and supporters. Jean Baptiste accepted
a role in the neo-liberal Latortue regime. In April 2005, I
spoke with leaders of the MPP base who told me that many were
upset with Jean Baptiste's actions, but the organization remained
under his tight, charismatic control. Yet Grassroots has continued
to support Jean Baptiste's line, which implies that because Aristide
was corrupt and needed to be ousted, U.S. intervention - however
regretable - could not be actively opposed, and the interim government
showed promise that it would bring progressive change in Haiti.
Surely now, the record must show Grassroots - and even Jean-Baptiste
- that the opposite is true.
As we marched in front of the
White House, a young organizer of the disabled people's movement,
came over to ask us some questions. "I thought Aristide
was the dictator," he said. "I thought things were
getting better in Haiti." When we provided an opposite
viewpoint, his response was, "All these leftist leaders
- they start out well, but they all seem either stupid or corrupt
or both: Bishop, Ortega, Chavez, Aristide. Castro isn't stupid,
but he's a brutal dictator. When will we see some honest leftist
leaders in Latin America?"
This gets to the core of the
problem with a part of the U.S. Latin American solidarity movement
and its allies among progressive U.S. groups and NGOs. The
North American liberal elite feels it can sit in judgment on
the leaders of movements in Latin America who dare to challenge
U.S. hegemony. Never mind that these leaders had the overwhelming
support of the poor in their countries. Never mind that they
had to play world politics and world economics in a sinister
game in which the U.S. held all the cards. As Aristide once
told a group of leftists in Boston, "Who can we go to for
weapons in a struggle for justice? We have to play the U.S.
double-game, too."
Holier-than-thou professional
activists and funders in Washington and Boston can feel their
hands are clean as they sit silently, or quietly cheer, the U.S.
take-over. The left was thus largely powerless to speak out
against another clear example of U.S. imperialism, and to link
it with the rightly deplored events in Iraq. The neo-cons in
Washington must be chortling with glee - much of their work is
being done for them by large segments of the left.
I asked Lovinksy Pierre-Antoine,
after the demonstration, his advice for those leftists who remain
critical of Aristide and sit on the sidelines in the current
Haitian crisis. "Tell them, you cannot pick and choose
who you support in the struggle against U.S. policies. You cannot
occasionally oppose the imperialism of the U.S. You must oppose
every act of aggression and intervention of the U.S., wherever
and under whatever circumstances." It is time for the
Haiti solidarity movement and its NGO and leftist allies in the
United States to take this advice, and speak with one voice against
the egregious example of U.S. imperialism in Haiti.
CARICOM, the organization of
Caribbean states, continues to refuse recognition of the U.S.-installed
Latortue government. They and the nations of the Organization
of African Unity, as well as Venezuela and Cuba, demand a full
investigation of the coup. South Africa goes further to continue
to give safe haven to Aristide, to honor him as the Haitian President,
to demand his return to Haiti now, and to call for a truly free
election next year with Lavalas participating, monitored by independent
observers.
Half the United Nations recognizes
that a coup took place. They demand justice for Haiti. Freedom
loving people in the U.S., Canada and France should support these
demands. It is their job to expose the policies of their countries
and to bring the U.S., France and Canada to task for what they
have done. End the human rights abuses, disarm the former military,
disband the current Haitian police, and provide real U.N. protection
not for the police and a crooked government, but for the people
of Haiti. Return constitutional democracy (and President Aristide)
to Haiti. Let the Haitian people speak, as they did before in
the elections of 1990, 1995 and 2000. This time, finally respect
their will.
*To give full disclosure,
the NACLA Report editors asked me two years ago to write an article
about Haiti, because the editors said they wanted to balance
their coverage. My article was eventually published, scaled
down to a few hundred words, placed at the back of the magazine,
not listed in the contents, and given a title that was the opposite
of my article's emphasis: "The Failings of Aristide."
(NACLA, July/August 2003).
Tom Reeves is a retired Caribbean studies professor
from Boston.
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