This past Sunday the Grand Rapids Press ran their year in review edition. On the front page of the opinion/editorial page they had a segment called "winners and losers". One of the "losers" listed was Haiti. The exact text was:
The violent clashes in Port-au-Prince since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted haven't cast Haitians in an angelic light. But thousands dead or missing in catastrophic floods - was a plague really necessary?"
A more appropriate question would be "was a US supported coup really necessary?" While the coup against President Aristide was reported on by the corporate press, virtually none of them reported on the U.S.'s role in backing the insurrection there. According to the media watchdog group Project Censored, U.S. involvement in the destabilization of Haiti was one of the top twenty five unreported stories of the year.
Background
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the candidate of the grass roots Lavalas party, was elected as president in 1990 only to fall victim to a U.S. supported coup the following year and was not returned to power until 1994. His return, orchestrated by the Clinton administration, was conditional upon his acceptance of an IMF loans and an "Economic Recovery Program." This program, which ran counter to Aristide's original social agenda, imposed budget reforms that reduced the size of Haitiâs civil service and ultimately led to the collapse of Haiti's state system. Aristide was re-elected in 2000, winning an amazing 92 % of the vote in an election declared to be fair and free by the Organization of American States. After the 2000 election the U.S. stepped up efforts to strengthen the political opposition in Haiti, using organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy to funnel money to groups opposed to Aristide. At this time, these opposition groups were training and planning the 2004 coup, using the Dominican Republic as a base, with training and monetary aid provided in part by the U.S. When the coup happened, rather than aiding the democratically elected Aristide, the U.S. refused to send in troops to restore order until after the coup had been successful. Aristide was forced to leave the country, leaving Haiti in the hands of coup leader Guy Philippe, a man with a known record of serious and egregious human rights abuses.
Corporate Press "Blames the Victim"
The corporate press presented the U.S. government version of events with very little critical evaluation of actual events on the ground. Aristide was presented as somehow "undemocratic" despite the fact he had been elected several times in fair elections with majorities that no U.S. President has ever come close to. Numerous articles and editorials appeared in mainstream news sources referring to Aristide as a "violent and corrupt autocrat" and a "failed leader" and falsely reporting that the majority of Haitians were happy to see him gone. The fact that Aristide was a former Catholic priest who had disbanded the Haitian Army while the leader of the rebels, Guy Philippe, had a record of leading death squads was ignored while the corporate press praised Haiti's turn toward "democracy." The mainstream press coverage often was tinged with a subtle racism, often seeming to blame the Haitians for being ungovernable or somehow inherently violent. This is evident in the Grand Rapids Press snippet from Sunday asking "was a plague really necessary?" as if coups and political violence are "normal" for Haitians, something they deserve. Seldom did the press coverage take into context the long and sordid history of external manipulation and exploitation of Haiti by foreign countries, including the United States. So when the GR Press runs a line about how the coup "haven't cast Haitians in an angelic light", it is emblematic of the mainstream media's refusal to look at the "less than angelic" external forces that have victimized Haiti over the last 200 years.
Since the coup in early 2004 Haiti has been almost completely ignored by the mainstream press, despite continuing violence there and the destruction of the grassroots network that brought Aristide to power. While still occupied by foreign "peacekeepers", the illegitimate government of Boniface Alexandre has presided over the persecution of former Aristide and Lavalas organizers and supporters. Meanwhile, the Haitian economy has been further "liberalized", much to the detriment of the Haitian people.
Alternative news sources on Haiti:
