When people talk about the coup, they talk about it being against President Aristide, they don't recognize that it's also the elected officials from the year 2000 elections that were cancelled. In place of those elected officials are
criminals, gang leaders, former CIA employees that were hiding in the Dominican Republic and armed by the US and used to overthrow the government.

Haiti: The mess after the coup - An interview with journalist and activist, Jean Saint-Vil

When people talk about the coup, they talk about it being against President Aristide, they don't recognize that it's also the elected officials from the year 2000 elections that were cancelled. In place of those elected officials are
criminals, gang leaders, former CIA employees that were hiding in the Dominican Republic and armed by the US and used to overthrow the government.

KEVIN SKERRETT recently spoke with JEAN SAINT-VIL on the current situation in Haiti.
Saint-Vil is an Ottawa-based activist within the Haitian diaspora in Canada. He has
been a featured political analyst on CBC television's (now cancelled) Counterspin,
CPAC's Talk Politics, and CBC Radio's The Current. He is also a radio journalist,
host of CKCU-FM's "Rendez-Vous Haitien" and CHUO-FM's "Bouyon-Rasin."

KS: First of all, the recent devastation of Haiti by Hurricane Jeanne has brought
Haiti back into the media's lens. Of course, the focus is on the humanitarian plight
of those killed and suffering, which is understandable. However, the continuing
struggle over the territory of Haiti, among the armed gangs and ex-military under
Guy Philippe, the small UN military force, and the national police force is never
discussed. What are your comments on what is happening now, and the consequences of
the February 29th coup that brought to power an unelected, US-selected government?

JSV: These things are linked. What's happening right now in Haiti is the consequence
of not having an operating state apparatus. There was no effort to evacuate the
population before the flood, when people knew that flooding was going to happen as a
result of Jeanne passing through this area. Seven days after the events, there has
been no effort to relocate the people affected. Some of the convoys going to
Gonaives are being attacked. And, what is not presented in the news is that one of
the reasons for these riots is that the local authorities are not there. When people
talk about the coup, they talk about it being against President Aristide, they don't
recognize that it's also the elected officials from the year 2000 elections that
were cancelled. In place of those elected officials are criminals, gang leaders,
former CIA employees that were hiding in the Dominican Republic and armed by the US
and used to overthrow the government. You have a situation where the population is
completely left to its own devices, and seeing some of its former torturers who are
now walking side-by-side with UN soldiers, and basically controlling the food
rations after they've spent days without food, without water, etc. So, it's
unfortunate that so many media reports are focused on the sensational images, but
not on the true story of what is happening.

Now people are talking about all the help that Canada and France are sending, but
the doctors that are actually in Haiti are Cuban. And the Cuban doctors that are
there have been there for some time, as there was a program of collaboration between
Haiti and Cuba and there are actually Haitians from the peasant class in Cuba
studying to become doctors, and part of their contract was to come back to Haiti.
So, it's the Cuban doctors that are in Haiti right now that are doing most of the
help.

KS: Let's talk about life in Haiti after the coup. There have been a number of
international human rights delegations to have visited post-coup Haiti, and all of
them - from what I've read - have concluded that the coup government installed by
the US and France (with Canadian complicity) has unleashed a wave of terrible
repression against the population, particularly activists from President Aristide's
Fanmi Lavalas movement. Various reports have suggested that hundreds have been
killed, and thousands are in hiding. Virtually none of this has been reported by the
mainstream media. In general terms, what is your sense of life under the coup
government of Gerard Latortue?

JSV: Everyone is complaining. Even those who participated in the coup, from the
private sector, who financed the coup, some of them if you go on their websites
right now, they are complaining. Of course, they're complaining for all the wrong
reasons. They're complaining because their business is not up and running fast
enough, they're complaining because there's corruption in the government, etc.

But the real nightmare is for the general population. Food prices have gone up
astronomical amounts. In terms of security, people have been killed in significant
numbers. Just this week, I just read that they discovered 14 bodies in Delmas
between Saturday and Sunday. And, it's not making the news here, it's very slowly
filtering out, because the attitude of the French, the American and Canadian media
is that, you know, we've restored peace and stability in Haiti, and those things
don't fit that propaganda image, so you don't hear them talk about it.

KS: What is the latest word on when they are promising that elections will take place?

JSV: Oh, they keep on talking about December 2005. But, already we are hearing
people say that it's probably not going to happen.

KS: Many Canadians probably recognized the hand of US imperialism in what happened,
but were still influenced by the demonization of Aristide in the mainstream media.
It is also the case that what we might call the "left" in Haiti did have its
divisions. How do you view President Aristide, and what he represented politically,
and the different responses to him on the ground in Haiti?

JS-V: I see President Aristide as I see Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, or Patrice Lumumba
of the Congo. Human beings who were given incredible responsibility that they could
only achieve with the collaboration of other people that had the same vision as
them. Unfortunately, like Nkrumah in Ghana, like Lumumba in Congo, Aristide was
operating in an environment where his enemies were powerful and his friends, at
best, confused.

As you just said, there is a powerful minority of the left in Haiti that has
visibility and access and privilege, who opposed Aristide and made those calls of
'dictatorship' and whatever, whereas when you compare what Aristide has done in his
term in office with what the history of Haiti has been, or even, I would dare say
with leaders such as Putin in Russia or George Bush in the United States, Aristide
should be considered an angel when compared with them.

KS: It seems to me, one of the first measures that you have to take in terms of the
'dictatorial' character of a government is, how much freedom of expression and
opportunity to express opposition on the ground. So, let me ask you, how much room
was there for the opposition to maneuver on the ground over the last few years of
Aristide's government?

JSV: The opposition had more room than the government! OK? I went to Haiti in
December. I would wake up in the morning, the first thing you would hear on the
radio - and the radio is controlled by the small business elite in Haiti - would be
criticisms of the government going as far as obscenities. What they were doing was
daily street demonstrations on the main area where people have to go about their
business, they were closing schools, and everything. And that was being encouraged
by the US embassy and the Canadian and the French embassies.

KS: Probably the most important thing I learned when I went to Haiti in April of
this year was the importance of Kreyol, as a language and a culture of the people,
for understanding Haitian politics. In particular, President Aristide seems to have
revolutionized the political culture there by using and supporting Kreyol, something
that the educated and wealthy elite - including some on the 'left' - never did. What
are your comments on the importance of Kreyol to Haitian political life?

JSV: Not only to Haitian political life, but Haitian life, period. Nothing serious
gets done in Haiti other than in Kreyol. People will say, what are you talking
about, all the state documents are in French. Well, that's because those things are
not the serious things. Let's just take an example. An architect in Haiti may speak
French, but none of the masons working to build the house speak any language other
than Kreyol.

So, when President Aristide started out as a priest, he was following the liberation
theology line of the church in Haiti. Because, it's not every priest in Haiti that
speaks Kreyol - in fact, that in itself was a revolution within the church, and
that's why the church split in two. The liberation theologians used Kreyol, and
introduced drums in the church, whereas the elite kept with the clergy that was more
powerful with the Vatican, and they kept French. They even kept Latin for the
longest time. And, of course, they had practices where there were some rich people
in Haiti that had their own pews reserved for them. That was a totally different
Catholic church in Haiti than the church that Aristide was working within. When he
became a politician, he had an advantage over all of these politicians, and that's
why even today, if you ran an election in Haiti right now, he would win again. Even
if you put those 15 parties that the US has put together to create the [Democratic]
Convergence, he would beat them again. And that's why the coup was necessary.
Otherwise they would have had a referendum like they tried in Venezuela, but they
would have lost.

KS: One last question. I wanted to ask about the extent to which you saw solidarity
activists and anti-war activists take up Canada's role in the coup in Haiti. You
spoke at a rally here in Ottawa on March 20th, and I understand that the anti-war
group in Vancouver has taken it up. However, there was a lot of confusion among
many, and so anti-war and anti-imperialist messages remain focused on the occupation
of Iraq. How would you like to see the issue of Haiti taken up by progressives and
activists, who do understand US imperialism?

JSV: I think we started to see some good things happen. Haiti has not drawn
attention like Iraq, or Afghanistan, but of course, the situation in Iraq, you can't
belittle that either. That's a brutal destruction of a people's culture,
civilization and everything, and it's in the news every day. But, I think for
instance that the major demonstration that we had on March 20th, right here in
Ottawa, the anti-war movement at that time realized what was going on in Haiti and
recognized that there was a need to decry the occupation of Haiti, and since then,
there's been some things happening. For instance Canadian journalist Anthony Fenton
has done some amazing work unmasking the role that Canada has played in the coup. ?

For further information on the situation in Haiti, see the collection of material at
Znet (www.zmag.org), as well as San Francisco's Haiti Action Committee
(www.haitiaction.net).

Kevin Skerrett is a trade union researcher who traveled to Haiti in late April of
this year with a delegation of US-based trade unionists investigating the labour and
human rights situation of Haiti following the February 29, 2004 coup that ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.