I Heart Democracy. posted by Richard Seymour

So, anyway, quick recap. The US, Canada and France trained some former genocidaires in the Dominican Republic to go into Haiti and stir shit against Aristide. As the DR has some ongoing hostilities with Haiti, the government was happy to oblige (although I assume it had little choice in the matter). Shit fomented, the US handed Aristide his resignation letter, kidnapped him and installed a government composed of ruling class sweatshop owners and mass murderers. Unsurprisingly, they started to overturn rulings against some of their former colleagues and commit some new mass murders with the use of the Haitian National Police and UN forces. Having terminated a democratic government, the UN felt obliged to oversee yet another 'transition to democracy' - ie, kill and intimidate members of the Lavalas party, imprison hundreds, attack Lavalas stongholds and then have an election and see what people decide to vote for. Kind of like those 1990 Nicaraguan elections that Violeta Chamorro won - or indeed the recent ones in which conservative opponents of the Sandinistas replayed footage of the terror from the 1980s to warn of the possible consequences of re-electing a Sandinista regime.

So now Condoleeza Rice has applauded the Haitians for their high turnout. We're supposed to forget, are we, that the US destroyed democracy in Haiti? That they have deliberately made the elections as shambolic as possible to make voting very very difficult (they got practise back home in that shit)? That the very high turnout is likely to put Rene Preval, the hated former Aristide ally, in nominal charge of the country (although there's always the possibility of a fix)? That Preval's appeal is that he opposes the plutocratic clique that the UN have put in charge of the country and particularly opposes the wave of military attacks on pro-Lavalas neighbourhoods. There's every chance of course that Preval will buckle and give way. There is also a chance that he will be able to prevent a cataclysm against the country's poor, that he will cut a deal with someone, embarrass someone, pull an ace or two out of his sleeve. There is no chance whatsoever that he will be allowed to improve the lot of Haitians and if he can't contain their demands with the minimum possible fuss, then one suspects he will go the same way as Aristide.

Of course, I'm forgetting one other possibility. I recall a spurious attempt by some obsequious neoconservative hagiographer of Kissinger to cover up the CIA's crimes in Chile. In rendering 'Track II' of the CIA's planned coup, he explained that what the CIA intended was for a coup to take place against the "outgoing government", then for the congress to be dissolved and the President sent into temporary exile. Then the "interim junta" would call elections at "an unspecified but presumably early date" in which "President Frei could return and run against Haiti". The amazing thing is that this garbled bollocks was presented as if it was supposed to put the CIA in a good light. It is meaningless, of course, to overthrow an "outgoing government" - the target is the incoming government. And why would Frei have participated in elections when he know that the result was meaningless, that he could only win through military coercion? Further, why would Allende run again, knowing that no one would vote for him as it would result in a coup? Oh, count the absurdities yourself. Anyways, if the US is smart, what it could do is overthrow the outgoing administration in Haiti, rebuke it for its atrocious handling of the "democratic transition", explain that Mr Preval has fled to Honolulu for fear of reprisals from some "gangs" or other and start all over again. Brecht's advice to the Stalinalee to dissolve the people and elect another was too genteel. Liquidate the people is what you want to do. Think El Salvador, Nicaragua, Santiago, Cite Soleil and so on. Think Arturo Ui, and the resistible rise thereof. First you terrorise Dogsberry, then the press, then the petit-bourgeoisie, then the workers, then they'll vote how you tell them to.

I Heart Democracy.