The real "risk of instability" that the politicos are talking about in Haiti is political prisoners freed by the earthquake. The news media continues to report on so-called security concerns, focusing on what they call "looting" but what should be called emergency requisition of resources. And they'd like you to think that so many troops are needed to keep people from fighting over resources. But all accounts on the ground seem to indicate that Haitians have been overwhelmingly peaceful, with perhaps a few scattered incidents. The instability they're worried about is not the people fighting over resources, it's a pro-democracy political movement that they'd like to suppress. The news media is harming Haiti by misrepresenting this security concern, and is allowing politics to get in the way of aide.
By Lacy MacAuley
Over 10,000 US troops are in Haiti right now. That's at least one US soldier for every 100 Haitians. Doing the math, if these soldiers were actually distributing food and water, every Haitian could be nourished. But the military didn't send food and water. It sent soldiers.
That's because our US troops are not really on a humanitarian mission in Haiti. They are protecting the current US-friendly regime of Haitian President René Préval, and seeking to ensure that supporters of the twice-democratically-elected former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, political prisoners, who were freed by the earthquake after being jailed for six years, do not bring Aristide back to power again. That's the real "risk of instability" that Préval is referring to in his speeches.
The news media seems to allow the presence of US troops in Haiti to go unquestioned, and they continue to report on the "risk of instability," focusing on what they call "looting" but what should be called emergency requisition of resources. And they'd like you to think that so many troops are needed to keep people from fighting over resources. But all accounts on the ground seem to indicate that Haitians have been overwhelmingly peaceful, with perhaps a few scattered incidents. The instability they're worried about is not the people fighting over resources, it's a pro-democracy political movement that they'd like to suppress. The news media is harming Haiti by misrepresenting this security concern, and is allowing politics to get in the way of aide.
The safe streets of Port au Prince
"I'm living here in the neighborhood [in Port au Prince]... There is no security. The UN not out. The US is not out. The Haitian police are not able to be out. But there's also no insecurity... You can hear a pin drop in this city. It's a peaceful place. There is no war. There is no crisis except the suffering that's ongoing," said Dr. Evan Lyon with Partners in Health, working at the main hospital in Haiti who was interviewed by Democracy Now earlier this week.
Kirk Noonan, an aide worker with Convoy of Hope, acknowledged in an article with theSpringfield News-Leader in Missouri that there have been instances of looting and of people hurting others. "But there's also just tens of thousands of great people who are doing everything they can without breaking the law ... to eke out survival," he said.
The population of the entire country of Haiti is just under 10 million people, about the equivalent of New York City. Imagine if this tragedy had happened in New York City, would people continue to be civil, or would we see fights and murders? How many stores would have to be "looted" for food in Manhattan?
Even government officials acknowledge that there has been no major unrest. So why so many soldiers? Why all the guns?
What the government means when it says "risk of instability"
I think the answer lies partially in Haiti's 2004 military coup, which overthrew the twice-democratically-elected President Aristide. In a bizarre international incident that has gone largely unquestioned by the mainstream press, Aristide was kidnapped in the night and flown to the Central African Republic. Someone smuggled a cell phone to him, and he was able to call a number of US officials he had a close working relationship with, such as US Representative Maxine Waters. He asked his high-level friends in Washington to tell the world that he had been kidnapped, and that he was being overthrown by a coup.
Did the news media report on this? Almost none did, except for a handful of progressive press, such as Democracy Now. What they did report on was one of Aristide's former officials the following day officially announcing that Aristide had resigned. Oddly enough, that's how it went down in history.
There is plenty of evidence that the US backed the 2004 coup, and may have directed it from Washington. Aristide himself identified the soldiers who kidnapped him as US forces, and reports quote a caretaker who was present at Aristide's residence saying that US troops came to take Aristide at two o'clock in the morning. US officials had also prohibited Aristide from reinforcing his personal security team, contractors with a private US company called the Steele Foundation, in the days just prior to the coup. US diplomatic personnel also refused to send forces to protect Aristide from the rogue regime that was getting closer and closer to the capital. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that some of the leadership of the regime was trained in military techniques in the United States through a special program, then called the School of the Americas, which has trained all sorts of aspirational young military leaders who, oddly enough, wind up leading US-backed military coups.
After the coup, supporters of Aristide, including many people who protested the coup, were hunted down, rounded up, and thrown in the main jail. One of those rounded up was Annette Auguste, Haitian folksinger and pro-democracy activistknown as Sò Anne. Her only crime was singing pro-democracy folk songs. She was seized at her home from US Marines in May 2004. Another well-known supporter of Aristide, Ronald Dauphin, was imprisoned one day after the coup.
These political prisoners stayed imprisoned until the earthquake freed them eleven days ago.
The earthquake brings freedom to political prisoners
As reported this week by Democracy Now, the main jail in Port au Prince was destroyed by the earthquake. There were 4,000 prisoners inside, 80% of whom had never even seen a judge and were not charged with a crime. The prisoners who were not killed in the tragedy fled from the jail. Many of them are now in Port au Prince or taking buses to the countryside, like so many other Haitians who are just trying to escape the death surrounding them in Port au Prince.
Mario Joseph, Haitian human rights attorney for Dauphin and other political prisoners, says that his client Dauphin escaped from the prison. Speaking to Democracy Now, Joseph said:
They say in French, “For some things, bad things are good.” And I think this catastrophe, which did a lot of damage in Haiti, this earthquake, it gave justice to the people in the prison—above all, the political prisoners like Ronald Dauphin. And this will make six years since Ronald Dauphin has been in prison without charges, without ever being charged. Not only Ronald Dauphin, but a lot of other people who are in prison, if they judged them, they would have left prison a long time ago.
...The other thing I can say, in Haiti, we have a symbolic—the palace that went down, the Palace of Justice, the Haitian IRS, and the whole power of the state. This is like a message that was sent, because it wasn’t just the people in prison who were suffering injustice, but the poorest in the country, the excluded in the country. Thus I think it was a clear message.
This is the context in which President René Préval, offers a comment to a reporter writing for Christian Science Monitor, translated from French:
He says that to ensure the security of his people he needs to understand the dimension of the problem. Aid has to be mobilized, coordinated, and well distributed. And finally, he says that he understands the risk of instability - with all the prisoners in Port-au-Prince on the streets (the prison collapsed), an already weak police force of 3,500 needs to be bolstered by external forces.
Exactly what kind of "risk of instability" could result from the jail being destroyed? A threat to the current system of power that Prévalpresides over.
This misrepresentation is slowing aide
This coup is keeping Haitians from getting the aid they need today in Port au Prince.
Whether there is a threat or not, it is entirely unethical for Préval and our US Department of Defense (and the State Department and whatever other intelligence agencies are involved) to let their protection of a shoddy presidency that would like to paint Haiti red, white, and blue get in the way of the very real help that Haiti needs right now.
The rumors of potential instability are harmful because they are inhibiting distribution of aide.
Explaining how the delivery of aide to Haiti's main hospital has been slowed due to security concerns, Dr. Lyons explained to Democracy Now:
One thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that misinformation and rumors and, I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital. Security issues over the last forty-eight hours have been our—quote “security issues” over the last forty-eight hours have been our leading concern. And there are no security issues. I’ve been with my Haitian colleagues. I’m staying at a friend’s house in Port-au-Prince. We’re working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as volunteers. But I’m living and moving with friends. We’ve been circulating throughout the city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials. There’s no UN guards. There’s no US military presence. There’s no Haitian police presence. And there’s also no violence. There is no insecurity.
Don't let politics slow aide
If indeed aide is being hindered by security concerns rather than actual security issues, then our news media is doing Haitians a very, very grave disservice by misrepresenting what the government actually means when it says "risk of instability." If the streets of Haiti are safe, and what the government is really worried about is political prisoners, then the news media needs to be reporting on that. Their misrepresentation is hurting the people of Haiti.
The politics of protecting Haiti's president should not get in the way of providing aide.
Lacy MacAuley is a media relations professional and global justice activist working in Washington DC. She has a degree in International Relations focusing on World Development Studies.