RE: [A-List] Haiti Erupts

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

Jim Lobe does not know what he is talking about.  He reads the NYT then
says what they say, albeit with a smattering of internet research on the
Google News.  And his is the liberal take, at least noting that Aristide
was elected and that his ouster is an unconstitutional demand.  (He
would be re-elected today in another landslide, by the way, if elections
were held.)

The elections were not flawed in any way, shape, or form.  In fact the
majority on the KEP that oversaw the elections was from opposition.

This whole "flawed-elections" story was a Yugoslavia-style innuendo
campaign (You'll note they never specify HOW they were flawed.) by the
US, the subservient OAS, and the "opposition," who are NOT disaffected
Aristide supporters, but a collection of elites, and who now have an
armed wing, trained and deployed from the Dominican Republic, and
consisting of many pre-Aristide ex-military.  Aristide's support from
"grassroots groups, labor unions, and professional associations" ended
after the 1990 election, when this petit bourgeois strata - anxious to
dump the macoutes (Duvalierist semi-feudals) that they are now realigned
with - combined with the peasantry and urban slum-dwellers (Aristide's
REAL base, who are not welcome in grassroots groups, labor unions, and
professional organizations) to defeat Bazin (the compradors' choice).
When Aristide failed to hand out the candy to the petit-bourgeoisie,
they immediately began organizing against him.  Thatr was put on hold
when Cedras began to punish them for their Aristide affiliations during
the de facto period from 1991-94, and the "opposition" to Aristide was
taken up as soon as another election was organized, resulting in the
split between the FL and OPL (read peasants/slum dwellers vs. "civil
society" types ready to fall onto the imperial tit).

This is not about Aristide, who no one claims is perfect (which is
utterly irrelevant).  This is about Aristide's base, and this would
never have gotten this far without massive financial, training, and
advisory support from some of our spooky friends that hang out in Santo
Domingo hotel lounges.

Lobe needs to develop a class analysis.

St. Marc was re-taken yesterday.  About half a million PRO-Aristide
supporters were in the street in Port-au-Prince for the last two days
(ignored by the media, but I've seen the pix).  A contact that got back
in from PAP yesterday evening said that the masses are "crystal clear"
about what is going on.

Haiti is Venezuela during the coup attempt there, but without the army
that Chavez had.

The "laboratory" lives, but so do the masses.  This ain't over.