There’s a bone in my craw. It concerns the euphoria over the epidemic of democracy in Iraq, Palestine, Ukraine, Lebanon . . .
The bone is called Haiti, perhaps you recall it? Island not nearly as far away, where it should be far easier to achieve noble ends than in distant, hostile regions. Actual Canadian police officers involved, part of a 7,400-strong UN force. Paul Martin visited last fall to show Canada’s “long-term commitment to a strong democracy.” One senior Haitian justice official says a Canadian agency, CIDA, assigned him his post and pays him.
A commander of a police unit from Quebec says what he does in Haiti is “engage in daily guerrilla warfare,” largely by giving “backup” to Haitian police operations in what are routinely called massacres. A month ago, The Globe and Mail‘s Marina Jiménez wrote from there: “More than 200 people have died in street violence in the past three months.”
Consider two recent stories. On February 19, “gunmen stormed Haiti’s main prison . . . and drove away with jailed former prime minister Yvon Neptune” — a supporter of former (elected) president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was spirited off by the U.S. and flown to Africa a year ago. As many as 500 of the 1,200 prisoners, most of whom had never seen a judge, may also have escaped. Witnesses said Yvon Neptune was forced into a car, but he reached UN officials and demanded a return to the (relative) safety of the prison, the site of earlier attempts, he says, to murder him. Five days ago, on the anniversary of the (latest) coup, Haitian police fired on a march demanding Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return, killing at least three protesters.
The connection to democracy? Well, in 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Canadian-educated priest who built a movement working in the slums, won Haiti’s first democratic election with 67.5 per cent of the vote. The U.S.-backed candidate came second with 14.2 per cent. It was called “a textbook example of participatory, ‘bottom up’ and democratic political development.”
He was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in 1991, then reinstalled by U.S. troops in 1994 on condition he scrap his equalizing social policies and implement a brutal “austerity” agenda. He agreed but still built more schools between 1994 and 2000 than had been built between 1804 and 1994. He was re-elected in 2000 with 90 per cent of the vote. A year ago, he was whisked off to Africa.
Why is this instructive? Because Haiti was not a case where the U.S. had to impose democracy. It existed. And the U.S. wiped it out, twice. At the least, does it not raise the question: What is the U.S. motive elsewhere when it says its goal is democratization? I won’t speculate, but don’t you think it makes for an interesting discussion?
It’s a question that also applies — still using Haiti — to human rights, often cited as another motive for U.S. intervention, as in Iraq or Kosovo. A recent stunning (and sickening: it includes photos) study by the University of Miami School of Law’s Center for the Study of Human Rights says, “Life for the impoverished majority is becoming more violent and more inhuman . . . since the elected government’s removal. . . . The police, backed by UN forces, routinely carry out indiscriminate . . . killing operations . . . Prisons fill with young men . . . denied due process. Partisanship and corruption,” it concludes, linking rights to democracy, “occupy the electoral council’s attention, leaving little hope for free and fair elections.”
The point is not that U.S. policy is opposed to democracy and human rights. More that those constitute means, rather than ends, which might be economic, military or ideological. If democracy serves the ends, fine. If not, screw democracy. You might even use democracy to destroy democracy, depending on your other goals. Democracy and human rights if necessary, but not necessarily democracy and human rights.
By the way, I don’t enjoy this role. Columnist Marcus Gee gets to turn hand-springs in The Globe and Mail on Wednesdays (“Admit it: Bush aids democracy”) and Fridays I get to pout. I feel like the neighbour who interrupts a great party to say, Um, some of the cars parked outside are being tagged and towed.
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