Blum added, "After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he would not help the poor at the expense of the rich, and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving literally starvation wages."
The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Organization of American States (OAS) put together a package of neoliberal reforms and managed to get Haiti to agree to it. The reforms called for the suppression of wages, reduction of tariffs, and the selling off of state-owned enterprises. The reforms were meant to "create a capital friendly macroeconomic environment for the export-manufacturing sector" and they did little for the country's rural population, which represented the activities of 65 percent of the Haitian population.
As a member of the Marin Interfaith Task Force on Central America, George Friemoth described in a Spring newsletter how the U.S. blocked a $146 million loan from the IDB:
"The loan had been approved by the IDB, signed by the Haitian government and intended for critically needed health care (AIDS), education (basic literacy) and public works (potable water and impassable roads). Last year, in order to avoid losing the contracted loan, Haiti paid $10 million on the loan it didn't receive.
The IDB loan is part of a blocked total aid package of $500 million earmarked for Haiti by international financial institutions. This is the same $500 million that the international community determined to be necessary for Haiti in 1994 when democratic rule was restored with President Aristide's return from exile. For the last eight years, the US has managed to effectively block funds to the Haitian government while permitting $70 million to flow to the Convergence and, through USAID, to NGOs that support the Convergence."
The [Democratic] Convergence, a coalition made up of roughly 200 groups, led by a former Aristide supporter and a product of a USAID program, formed. Its purpose was to "fund those sectors of the Haitian political spectrum where opposition to the Aristide government could be encouraged."
The International Republican Institute (IRI), associated with the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, provided financial support to the Convergence.
In 2000, it was reported that this organization composed of "current or former Republican Party officials, Republican officeholders, or members of Republican administrations" received about $3 million annually from Congress (and millions more from private interests in the U.S. and Haiti).
In May of 2000, the Lavalas party of President Aristide swept the parliamentary elections winning over 80 percent of all the seats. The U.S. cut off funding for presidential elections hoping to force postponement of the constitutionally mandated election. When postponement did not happen, the U.S. encouraged opposition candidates to boycott the election.
Facing mounting opposition from forces seeking to foment a coup, Aristide forced seven of the eight Haitian senators to resign and told the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) new elections would be held within six months.
In November 2000, Aristide ran unopposed in Haiti's presidential elections and
won 91.5 percent of the vote. The U.S.-supported Democratic Convergence Party
opted to boycott the election and claimed it was rigged instead of
participating in the election. USAID commissions polls taken before and after the
election indicated that many of the figures were accurate but these polls were
suppressed by the U.S.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
