People Before Profit blog

Priests arrest spotlights Haiti repression

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:39:00 +0000

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Roman Catholic priest, pro-democracy activist, former Lavalas government cabinet minister and defender of the poor was arrested by Haitian police on Oct. 13, becoming the latest victim of the unfolding wave of repression that is washing over the country.

Police surrounded the Church of Saint Claire in the poor neighborhood of Petite Place Cazeau in Port-au-Prince, where Jean-Juste is pastor, and arrested him on the relatively trivial charge of disorderly conduct. Bystanders reported that police beat and then dragged Jean-Juste through shattered glass and placed him into a waiting police car. Police then shot into the assembled crowd, wounding three children who had been waiting for a parish food distribution.

“When we saw the police start to hit the priest with their guns, we started to yell for help,” said Erseline Louis, 14, who was shot in the leg. “They started firing their guns and I was running to hide when I got shot,” she told the New York Times.

Jean-Juste has publicly demanded that the U.S.-installed government allow deposed President Jean-Betrand Aristide to return to the country to finish his presidential mandate, which expires in 2006. He has also condemned the violent repression unleashed by the current regime in Haiti, headed by former Miami businessman Gerard Latortue.

William P. Quigley, a law professor from Loyola University in New Orleans who is in Haiti to advise Jean-Juste’s lawyers, said that Jean-Juste has still not been brought before a judge as required by law, and is being kept in inhuman conditions. Furthermore, while the police said Jean-Juste was merely brought in for disorderly conduct and for questioning, the justice minister said he was arrested for importing weapons, even though no arms were found, and for inciting the recent violence that has rocked the country.

Jean-Juste denies that he engaged in any criminal activity and said that his arrest is a desperate ploy by the government “to frighten people into silence who they believe do not support them.” He joins the growing list of Haitians who have been jailed by the new government, including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, the former minister of interior and the former mayor of Port-au-Prince. According to Quigley, none of them have been given trial dates.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell demanding that he intervene to ensure Jean-Juste’s safety.

A human rights monitor based in Haiti, who wished to remain anonymous, told the World that the repression “has really intensified” over the last several weeks. Government forces and former members of the disbanded military are arresting, killing and “disappearing” more people than ever, she said.

“The international community, the Haitian and international media, and Haitian and international human rights organizations are responsible for what is happening right now,” the monitor said. “They have made it clear that they will not condemn violations of human rights and, as a result, the government and the irregular armed actors working with it know that they can carry out any violence against the population without any interference.”

She said Haitians perceive the United Nation’s peacekeepers as an occupying force because of their unwillingness to provide security to average Haitians and their acquiescence to many human rights violations committed by the government.

Speaking of the regular police raids into neighborhoods known for their support of Aristide and his Lavalas Party, she said, “The UN hasn’t been entering into the neighborhoods with the police, but has been resting at the outside. This is a problem because the most serious abuses occur inside the neighborhoods.”

She remarked that there is some armed resistance to the repression but is unsure to what extent and its level of organization. “I am hearing people say, ‘I am going to die anyway so I might as well die defending a cause.’”

Many Haitians, she said, see the current period as worse than the period of the 1991-1994 coup. “Then the government was not recognized by the international community, whereas now it has full diplomatic recognition, is being supported militarily, and is receiving bilateral and multilateral aid.”

The author can be reached at tpelzer@shaw.ca.

China moves to reduce rural poverty

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 06:22:00 +0000

At the first-ever China Poverty Eradication Award ceremony on Oct. 17 — the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty — China announced with great pride that the poor population in the country’s rural areas had decreased to 29 million from 250 million in 1978. Now, the government said, only about 3 percent of rural people are impoverished, compared to 30.7 percent in 1978. China’s total population is 1.3 billion.

However, as the newspaper People’s Daily points out in its account of a quarter century of anti-poverty achievements, much remains to be done. If the current standard for extreme poverty — an annual income of less than 625 yuan ($75) — is raised by just $24, the number of impoverished Chinese would rise to 90 million.

In the mid-1980s, a government-sponsored, large-scale poverty relief project was organized throughout the country. A “National Program for Poverty Relief” initiated in 1994 was followed in 2001 by the “Development Outline for Village Poverty Relief 2001-2010.”

The national government’s allocation of special poverty relief funds has grown to about $1.5 billion a year from $121 million in 1980, for a total allocation of nearly $13.9 billion. Last year, local governments also put up some $363 million for the campaign.

In recent years the drive to end rural poverty has received renewed impetus as emphasis by the Communist Party and the government has shifted from the earlier all-out effort to develop eastern China to building up the western and northeastern regions. The stated goal of the effort is “to build a well-off society in an all-round way” by 2020. In recent years 15 east coast cities have aided 11 western provinces and regions with financial support and cooperative projects. Non-governmental organizations are increasingly being encouraged to join in the effort.

At the Oct. 17 ceremony, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu urged all citizens to participate in the nationwide government-led poverty relief programs, and pledged that the government will continue to guide, encourage and support both individuals and organizations that join the campaign.

Among the 18 institutions and individuals recognized at the ceremony were activities like Project Hope to help poor children attend primary school, Project Happiness to help poor mothers, Project Spring Bud to help girls who have dropped out of school, and The Glorious Cause, to help private businesses in underdeveloped areas. Also recognized were 90-year-old Bai Fangli, who used his pension and the money he earned riding a pedicab to provide financial aid to poor university students, and a Zhejiang Province businessman who donated $600,000 to the project.

Among the anti-poverty programs’ achievements:

• Between 1986 and 2003, almost 4.5 million acres of farmland was added, and almost 75 million people gained access to clean drinking water. By 2003, almost 83 percent of villages in poor areas had access to roads, electricity, telephone, and radio and television broadcasts.

• School conditions in poor rural areas are much better, and the dropout rate among school-age children has been cut to 7.8 percent.

• Agricultural training classes have helped poor farmers learn to grow traditional crops more productively, and to switch to new, more economically productive crops. Poorly educated farmers are helped through innovative methods, such as incorporating crop growing techniques into local folk songs and illustrating such techniques through cartoons.

Among regions receiving special attention have been the southwestern province of Yunnan, where the provincial government invested close to $363 million in anti-poverty projects last year, helping 400,000 poor people obtain food and housing. However, despite the efforts of the central and provincial governments, Yunnan is still home to the largest poor population in China, because of unfavorable geographical conditions as well as slow economic development. Last year the province set a goal to invest another $544 million to help resettle half a million people living in below-subsistence conditions within five years.

Central and local governments have also prioritized Tibet, allocating over $36 million to energy, water conservancy, road construction and drinking water projects that benefited tens of thousands of Tibetans. Going beyond basic food and clothing, programs are now focusing on social and economic development in agricultural and pastoral areas as well as overall improvements in living standards.

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

Elections, democracy and Afghanistan

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:28:00 +0000

News Analysis

In its drive to show the world — and the American people — that Washington can bring “democracy” to areas where it’s deemed lacking around the globe, the Bush administration has set great store by the presidential election in Afghanistan, finally held Oct. 9 after two previous delays. What happened there has implications for the projected January balloting in Iraq, and should be an issue in our Nov. 2 elections as well.

On the surface, according to the mainstream media, many aspects of the process were successful. Despite the widespread violence and insecurity, voter registration exceeded all expectations, with over 10 million Afghans signing up (some reportedly more than once). Women, though only marginally better off under interim president Hamid Karzai’s government than they were under the fanatically oppressive Taliban, nonetheless formed 43 percent of registered voters. Turnout was high. The incidence of anti-election attacks was much less than anticipated. Despite the charges of fraud brought on by irregularities, including failure of an ink-marker system, Karzai’s principal rivals — most based in the all-pervasive warlord gangs — backed down from their threatened boycott and said they would accept the results of a United Nations investigation.

Though it will take as long as three weeks to count all the ballots, the U.S.-installed Karzai, once a consultant to oil transnational Unocal, is expected to be declared the winner.

But a deeper look reveals many questions about the real content of the democracy the Bush administration is pushing, and many challenges in the way of a democratic and peaceful future for the Afghan people. To pick just three:

Warlords, Taliban and Al Qaeda: As much as 40 percent of the country is controlled by the re-emergent Taliban in the southeast, and feudal warlord fiefdoms dominate most of the rest. Outbreaks of fighting are frequent among heavily armed former Northern Alliance allies.

Washington gave birth to both warlords and Taliban — the former having been built up by the U.S. as mujahedeen leaders in Washington’s proxy war against the national-democratic People’s Democratic Party government, and the Taliban having been fostered after the mujahedeen gangs fell into chronic civil war following destruction of the PDP government. Al Qaeda, still present along the Afghan-Pakistan border, has similar origins. Prospects are limited that most Afghans could safely vote against the forces dominant in their area.

Opium and the economy: Under conditions of continuing violence and the pervasive devastation from 25 years of fighting, Afghanistan’s economy continues to be dominated by the opium trade. Opium poppies have long funded the warlords, the Taliban and probably also Al Qaeda. In 2003 the drug trade constituted over half the country’s national income, and the opium grown in most Afghan provinces made up three-quarters of world production. Though Karzai has announced an all-out campaign against it, desperately poor small farmers grow opium poppies because it pays far more than anything else they could grow, and because the lack of effective central government keeps them from getting help to shift to socially productive crops.

The continuing oppression of women: Though women were 43 percent of registered voters, they make up 60 percent of the population. Only 10 percent of women are literate. Despite the lip-service given women’s rights since the Taliban were driven from central government three years ago, the warlords of the former Northern Alliance continue the often violent feudal and tribal oppression of women. Even Karzai is reported to have encouraged men to let their womenfolk register by telling them, “later, you can control who she votes for.”

In sum, to claim that the holding of the Oct. 9 presidential election has put Afghanistan on the path to democracy is to fall under the spell of that particular brand of ideological opium peddled by the Bush administration. Only a clear-headed, grassroots-oriented, United Nations-led reconstruction policy can begin to help the Afghan people overcome the terrible devastation inflicted on them by successive U.S. administrations, and return to the path to peace, independence and democracy they embarked on so briefly nearly a quarter century ago.

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

Haitian regime escalates repression

Fri, 08 Oct 2004 06:13:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — According to an American filmmaker and journalist living in Haiti, the country’s U.S.-installed government is intensifying its repression of supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Speaking via telephone from Haiti to a Sept. 30 meeting here, Kevin Pina stated that the regime that helped depose Aristide has arrested and detained “an incredible number” of people on false charges. It has especially targeted those who are demanding Aristide’s return to office.

Earlier that day, Haitian police had fired on thousands of unarmed demonstrators in Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, who had marched and called for a return to constitutional order. An unknown number were killed and injured.

Calling these developments the “next level of repression,” Pina said that, initially, the regime headed by Gerard Latortue was conducting police sweeps through poor neighborhoods and arresting all young males. “Now they are arresting labor leaders, clergy and church people.” He also stated that there are numerous reports of police and paramilitaries assassinating Aristide supporters, including burning some alive.

Asked about the whereabouts of Aristide’s cabinet, Pina said that most cabinet ministers are either in jail, in hiding or in exile.

Pina said that the U.S.-sponsored coup against Aristide has angered people. The opposition movement that overthrew the Lavalas government earlier this year is not homegrown but was nurtured by the U.S. government. Contrary to what the international press has reported, the Aristide government was supported by the majority of the Haitian people. He said there has been a campaign to demonize Aristide and cast him as a repressive dictator.

“When I read the international press, I’m not sure that I’m living in the country they are describing,” Pina said. Prior to the coup, he said, Haiti’s impoverished majority felt empowered for the first time.

Describing the Sept. 30 demonstration, Pina reported that up to 15,000 people marched, “and if police had not attacked protesters the march could have easily swelled to 50,000.”

“As pro-Aristide protesters marched past the city’s main prison,” he said, “police opened fire on the crowd, killing and wounding several people. Police then placed the bodies in a nearby truck. Then a car passed by and opened fire on the Port-au-Prince police, killing three officers. Angry protesters then burned the police vehicle.”

Pina also reported that the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) — a human rights group — is helping to foster the climate of repression by making false allegations that Aristide’s Lavalas Party is organizing armed attacks against opponents and committing crimes.

“They [the NCHR leaders] are very destructive, spreading rumors but offering no evidence to back up their claims.” Unfortunately, he said, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch get much of their information about the country’s human rights situation from the NCHR.

Describing the horrible human toll wrought by Tropical Storm Jeanne as “a nightmare, compounded by tragedy,” Pina remarked that prior to the storm the country had been prepared for such a disaster. The Aristide government set up a disaster relief network across the country, “But the events of February 29 [the day of Aristide’s ouster] destroyed all of this.”

Pina, who has lived in Haiti since the early 1990s, spoke to the meeting at the invitation of Stop War and the Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Committee. His most recent documentary, “Haiti: Harvest of Hope,” describes the rise of Aristide.

The author can be reached at tpelzer@shaw.ca.