Saturday, August 28, 2004

The Attica of the Americas

By Justin Felux

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Posted 08/28 | Add a Comment

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  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Justin. OX

    Posted by hugs and kisses from  on  08/28  at  12:00 PM

  2. I can’t help but feel, though, that Aristide was not the man to lead Haiti to “[establish] a stable democracy and an economic system that benefits its own people rather than multinational corporations”. More recently he struck me as just another in the long line of leaders frequently found in Latin America and the Caribbean that promise the world, and then renege on delivery.

    The question, then, is: would the coup have been more palatable had it not been supported by the west? If the leaders of the coup had been true reformers (as opposed to former henchmen), and the event had been roundly denounced by the U.S., France and Canada, would we look more kindly on the overthrow of a democratically elected government?

    Posted by Braz Cubas from  on  08/28  at  02:32 PM

  3. Why would anyone want to deal with a hypothetical like the one posed by Cubas, when we haven’t even begun to rectify the horrors of the reality...of Haiti...wrenched out and paid for...in our name?  Being “struck” this way or that respecting Aristide seems really irrelevant anyway, considering our abominable history with the Haitians...which demands some semblance of justice...before we engage in the pros and cons of a given leader they’ve chosen.  If we are going to limit ourselves to pure intellectual back and forth...why not debate whether or not it’s justified to use the word “genocide” in relation to Haitians.  However, again, that’s NOT
    what I’d call for; I call for a radical reversal of over two hundred years of history AND immediate relief for the people Justin has so eloquently described.  Incarcerated Ox

    Posted by Incarcerated Ox from  on  08/28  at  04:10 PM

  4. This description, “he struck me as just another in the long line of leaders frequently found in Latin America and the Caribbean that promise the world, and then renege on delivery,” may describe some leaders, yes, but it ignores two realities.

    1. Many of these “leaders” are handpicked by the U.S. specifically because they will “renege on delivery.”
    2. Many leaders, like Aristede, Lula, Mandela, and maybe even Castro, find their plans immediately and definitively dashed by the West and often resort to precisely the type of tactics that make it easy for people to dismiss them as individuals “that promise the world, and then renege on delivery.”

    The omnipresent threat of military intervention, the power of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, and the oblivion and/or tacit support of those funding all this with their tax dollars has created a system where even the most sincere “leader” is essentially doomed by definition. Until the system changes, we’ll have a long parade of those “that promise the world, and then renege on delivery.”

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  08/28  at  07:31 PM

  5. Thanks for your article.  ‘The Black Jacobins’ by C.L.R. James about Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Santo Domingo Revolution is a must-read.  I found most interesting how French revolutionaries inspired L’Ouverture.

    In the U.S., prisoners are surplus workers, with blacks the last hired and the first fired since Reconstruction.  A main factor driving America’s incarceration boom has been the restructuring of the nation’s working class after the post-WWII prosperity ended 30 years ago.  Two fronts on this class war are the weakening of unions and the welfare state for people.

    Seth Sandronsky

    Posted by Seth Sandronsky from  on  08/28  at  07:56 PM

  6. When I spoke of the long line of leaders in Latin America, I was referring to the Allendes and Ortegas of the world. People with good intentions who were either unprepared or unable to fulfill their promises (even without interference from the U.S.), or who became corrupted once in power. I think we can all agree that in the case of the Somozas and the Pinochets, the failures were by design.

    My point was not to start a hypothetical argument (though I did a poor job of making that clear), but this: It is true that the U.S. horribly failed Haiti from the moment it reinstated Aristide to power. It is hard for anyone to argue, though, that at the time of the coup, Aristide was leading Haiti in the right direction. Before we condemn or praise the coup, let us wait and see where it leads. Will the new leadership actually think of Haitians and their problems, or just rob the country for their own personal gain? Then we can decide whether the coup was a turning point or just more of the same.Having said that, though, I do agree that radical fundamental change needs to occur in the system for some sort of justice to be achived. The pessimist in me, though, just doesn’t see that ocurring anywhere in the immediate future, so I hope, at least, for baby steps.

    Posted by Braz Cubas from  on  08/28  at  08:54 PM

  7. Allende...without interference from the U.S.? And..."the U.S. horribly failed Haiti from the moment it reinstated Aristide to power”?????  From THAT moment?  Please; these are two fundamentally “problematic” statements.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  08/28  at  09:11 PM
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