[IPSM] Canada is Legitimizing Suppression of Haitian Democracy: Filmmaker

[Dru Oja Jay]

http://dominionpaper.ca/accounts/2005/02/20/canada_is_.html

Canada is Legitimizing Suppression of Haitian Democracy: Filmmaker

Kevin Pina slams role of Canadian government, media

by Dru Oja Jay

California-born, Haiti-based filmmaker Kevin Pina recently finished a 
tour of Canadian cities. He was showing his film, Haiti: Harvest of 
Hope, which covers the elections that brought Jean Bertrand Aristide's 
Lavalas Party to power. Crowds of hundreds in Montreal, Ottawa, 
Vancouver and Victoria also saw parts of Pina's forthcoming 
documentary, Haiti: Betrayal of Democracy, which covers the events 
surrounding the events (one year ago as of this writing) which led to 
the removal of an entire elected government and its replacement with a 
military occupation and an "interim government" led by US citizen, 
Florida resident and former talk show host Gerard Latortue.

Pina is also a member of the Haiti Information Project, a collection of 
independent Haitian journalists, and an associate editor with Black 
Commentator.

The day after the Montreal screening, I attend a press conference set 
up by the Montreal organizers. My first question to Pina is "why did no 
other journalists show up?".

Pina is not surprised. "We have the same problem everywhere. If they 
were interested in that side of the story, they'd be reporting about 
it. They're not."

Pina explains that even journalists from Canada who live in Haiti are 
"only interested in the perspective of their government," attending 
embassy press conferences but not Lavalas rallies. As an example, he 
cites the days leading up to the coup of last February 29th, when the 
international press provided comprehensive reporting of an 
anti-Aristide rally. While the largest estimate of attendance at the 
rally was 2,000, the same press ignored hundreds of thousands of 
Aristide supporters. Pina wrote at the time, "not one photo of the much 
larger pro-Lavalas demonstration was ever published in the corporate 
media."

Today, Pina says the Canadian press is neglecting key information about 
Canada's role in suppressing Lavalas, which he says remains "Haiti's 
majority political party", though most of its leaders and key activists 
are in jail, dead, or in hiding.

Peacekeepers complicit with campaign of suppression

Contrary to its reputation as a peacekeeping force, Pina says that "the 
United Nations military forces--the Jordanian, Chinese, Brazilian and 
Chilean military forces-- have been part and parcel of this machine 
that is physically exterminating the majority political party."

Pina explains that while the UN does not, to his knowledge, directly 
commit human rights abuses, it plays a supportive role to the Haitian 
National Police (HNP), who do, according to Pina and his sources.

"The Jordanian forces just recently arrested a man named Jimmy Charles, 
and turned him over to the HNP. The next day, his body was found in a 
morgue. The UN forces are making arbitrary arrests without warrants, 
without cause; they're providing cover for the sweeps of the poor 
neighbourhoods."

Pina says that Canada--particularly the RCMP--is playing a key role in 
whitewashing crimes carried out by the HNP. Members of the HNP, which 
is integrating members of Haiti's feared military forces that were 
disbanded by Aristide, are currently being trained by the RCMP. The 
RCMP is also responsible for vetting former members of the military 
before they join the RCMP.

"[The RCMP are] boasting about training the HNP as an institution, and 
yet they're not accepting any responsibility, particularly when the HNP 
goes into poor neighbourhoods and performs massacres against Aristide 
supporters."

Pina says that Canada has not disclosed the components of their police 
training program. "They claim that there's a Human Rights component, 
but other than that, they're very circuitous."

"They're talking about incorporation of the former military into the 
police force at this point--the RCMP is deeply involved in that, but 
they're not talking about what process is in place to ensure that 
people who committed massive human right violations are not now being 
incorporated into the Haitian police--especially in light of the fact 
that these massacres are taking place in these poor neighbourhoods."

Asked whether there is any tension between the UN forces and the abuses 
of the HNP that have been documented by numerous human rights 
organizations, Pina says that any criticism is tantamount to "lip 
service". "At the end of the day, they will always side with the 
Haitian police, no matter what atrocities they commit."

Role of the UN

Pina says that "the UN lost it's independence from US foreign policy a 
while back." "In the case of Haiti, the UN is a purveyor, an enforcer 
of US foreign policy in the Carribean."

"If you look at who is leading the coalition in Haiti today, it's 
primarily... Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Each of these nations 
recieve US largess, in the form of financial aid and military aid in 
particular." Pina points to Brazil's desire to gain a permanent seat on 
the UN security council. "Many people inside his [Brazilian President 
Lula's] party believe that he is taking this position in order to curry 
favour with Washington," so that Bush won't oppose Brazil's security 
council appointment.

"The international atomic energy has dropped its investigation into the 
possibility that Brazil is producing materials to make nuclear bombs - 
a lot of people are wondering why, given the US' obsession with nuclear 
capabilities in countries like Iran and North Korea."

The coming elections

Canada, says Pina, is "deeply involved" in planning for elections in 
Haiti, and is implementing what he calls "draconian rules" to make it 
mandatory to vote, denying non-voters access to social security or 
government services. "It's similar to what happened in 1982 in El 
Salvador--people were so afraid--if they didn't have the electoral 
stamp on their ID card, they could be pulled aside by the police and 
killed, which did happen in El Salvador."

"Paul Martin, George Bush, Condoleeza Rice--they believe that they can 
maintain this illusion that there is a process of normalization going 
on in Haiti, but Haiti is not Iraq. They may come up with this proposal 
to allow Haitians abroad to vote in the next elections, so that they 
can have pictures of them with the ink on their thumbs and say jeez, 
what success this election was."

"What are they going to do when more than 50,000 Haitians hit the 
streets to protest against the elections and the RCMP-trained police 
force has to open fire on them."

Everwhere he goes, says Pina, people "do not want to legitimize this 
process... they don't want to legitimate that their president was taken 
out."

"They were tutored by the international community about 'one person, 
one vote'. They feel like they played by the rules of the game, only to 
have it stolen from them again."

Pina says that it is impossible to have legitimate elections while the 
majority political party is being forced to hide in the woods, in fear 
for their lives. "Lavalas has made it clear that the conditions do not 
exist for them to participate, and I can't blame them."

"I've often felt that maybe the page should be turned, there's 
tremendous pressure to turn the page on Aristide, in order for Haiti to 
move forward. But the truth is, how can you say that there are 
conditions for elections when you have political prisoners."

"How can I fault Lavalas for not wanting to participate when there are 
massacres being committed against their followers in the poor 
neighbourhoods. How can I fault them when I have personally seen the 
climate of terror that exists in Haiti today?"

"Rightly or wrongly," the majority of Haitians are calling for the 
return of their elected president, says Pina.

"The role of Canada and the other countries in Haiti is to try to 
silence those voices, to prepare for the next election so that they can 
present to the world the facade that the page has been turned."

Pina asserts that the coming elections will provide the illusion of 
choice, but will ultimately create disunity. "There are going to be 140 
parties in the next election--140 parties!--more than 100 candidates 
for president... To me, that's plurality run amok."

"On the surface, seems like Haitians have more choices, but in reality 
they have fewer choices. Who do you vote for for president when there 
are 100 candidates for president and each of them is from a tiny party, 
each of which wants to hold power in order to serve its own personal 
financial and political interests. That's not democracy, it's just a 
facade to cover the coup d'etat of February 29."

Pina, however, is not optimistic that the Canadian government will 
change course. "It gets to a level where they can no longer deny it, so 
they have to spin it. All that's left is to break off a couple of 
[Lavalas] opportunists who will take part in the elections."

Better information

Pina is also pessimistic about the prospects for more accurate media 
coverage of Haiti. On the subject of Canadian media coverage, the 
veteran filmmaker becomes visibly irate, describing Globe and Mail 
correspondent Marina Jimenez's coverage of Haiti as an overt attempt to 
confuse the public about documented facts. In a recent article, Jimenez 
defined the creole word marronage to mean "obscuring reality", going on 
to note that she didn't know if claims about political prisoners were 
credible. In the interview and public apprearances, Pina rebuffed 
Jimenez, explaining that marronage refers to escaped slaves "hiding 
from French masters, creating their own communities," a phrase that he 
says has a lot of resonance with Haitian activists in hiding from 
paramilitary groups and police. He becomes enraged, however, at 
Jimenez's use of the term to "confuse people about the facts," which he 
says are at this point are well established.

(For analysis of Jimenez's coverage, see Yves Engler's "Haiti and the 
Globe," in the February 2005 issue of the Dominion.)

For Pina, the only way to get accurate information is for citizens to 
take responsibility to keep themselves informed. "We who have an 
interest in ensuring that our government represent the values of our 
communities--we have to create our own media. We have to be willing to 
do our own research in order to find out the truth."

The proceeds of Pina's Canadian screenings went to support the Haiti 
Information Project, a collection of journalists providing independent 
coverage of Haitian affairs to independent media outlets around the 
world. The Montreal screening raised around $800.



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