[A-List] Granma: Haiti vote was set up

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>]

GRANMA February 14, 2006 Editorial

YANKEE GOVERNMENT ORDERS SECOND ROUND. UN BLUE HELMETS REPRESS THE
HAITIAN PEOPLE

AIN translation from Spanish original posted here:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2006/02/14/nacional/artic08.html

After two years of foreign occupation following the coup d'état against
Jean Bertrand Aristide orchestrated by Washington with French
collaboration, long-suffering Haiti held elections one week ago to
proclaim a new president.

There was a good turnout for the elections in spite of some acts of
violence and delays in the polling stations in the poorest districts.
More than 60% of registered Haitians cast their vote in the hope of
change in a country where constant U.S. invasions and successive
dictatorships have cut it off from two centuries of development.

More than 80% of the eight million Haitians live in poverty and a
similar percentage are unemployed, the illiteracy rate is extremely
high, the life expectancy rate is no more than 50 years and diseases
such as AIDS are rapidly expanding.

The recent elections in Haiti were acknowledged by the international
community as a positive step toward stability and peace in that nation.
From the first minute, exit polls gave the victory to former president
René Préval.

The initial results announced by the electoral authorities showed Préval
with a comfortable advantage of 61% of votes cast, many more than those
needed to win the elections in the first round. The Haitian press and
the international media reflected his ample victory.

However, as days passed, the Haitian elections, postponed for months
with U.S. consent, have fallen under the mantle of manipulation and
suspicion. Seven days after the vote, the Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP) has not concluded its work, in spite of being supposed to announce
the results 72 hours after the polls closed.

Surprisingly, on Sunday, the Council president announced to the media
that the votes for Préval had dropped to 49%, while the web page of that
institution reflected 52% in his favor. Yesterday, Monday, the Electoral
Council stated that with 90% of the votes counted, the former premier
and candidate for the Espoir (Hope) Party now had
48.7% of the vote.

The manipulation of the results has been evident and shameless. Two of
the members of the Electoral Council have exposed tampering with the
vote count. Pierre Richard Duchemin, representative of the Episcopal
Conference of the Catholic Church on the electoral body, informed a
Haitian radio station that "there has been an insane manipulation of the
data, there is no transparency."

Another of the electoral judges, Patrick Requière, publicly criticized
Jacques Bernard, CEP general director, for not consulting with the other
members of that agency or of disclosing where he was obtaining the
results that he has announced to the press.

On Monday, the presidential candidate Jeune Jean Chavannes, fourth to
date in the polls, acknowledged Préval's win and stated that the
situation created is the result of a conspiracy mounted in pursuit of
social chaos. Chavannes called for guaranteeing national sovereignty and
not bending to base interests as certain people want.

Everyone is pointing to something that is absolutely clear and has been
leaked through various channels: Mr. Bernard, general director of the
Electoral Council, is fulfilling the U.S. mandate of forcing a second
round. A number of analysts have taken it on themselves in the last few
days to recall that Préval is not the favorite of the White House given
his former links with the deposed President Jean Aristide, removed from
power by force by U.S. troops and sent into enforced exile.

In January, The New York Times published a thorough investigation that
demonstrates the efforts of the International Republican Institute,
closely linked to the Bush administration, and various State Department
officials, to destabilize Aristide's government and expel him from the
country.

In the face of the evident attempt to steal away his victory from René
Préval, a man of much prestige who has taken great pains to serve the
people, his followers - most of them from the poorest barrios of the
capital - have taken to the streets in the last three days demanding
respect for their vote. Thousands of demonstrators protested yesterday
outside the headquarters of the Electoral Council and the government
chanting the slogans: "Préval is president" and "Thief, you don't know
how to count," in a clear reference to the action of the general
director of the electoral body. The protesters accused the CEP of
manipulating the votes and expressed their opposition to a second round,
shouting "We're not voting twice."

The demonstrations on Monday were repressed by the UN blue helmets
stationed in the country, which resulted in several injured and at least
one dead. Violence has returned to that impoverished country after a few
days of post-electoral calm and new confrontations are predicted if
attempts continue to rig the election.

Meanwhile, from Washington and with total cynicism, a State Department
spokesperson stated after a meeting between Bush, Condoleezza Rice and
the UN secretary general that whenever a vote count is challenged it is
important for the parties to come together and cooperate over and above
allegiances in the interest of the country. Nobody knows exactly to
which elections Sean McCormack was referring, as in the Haitian case the
second candidate in the elections did not even gain 12% of the vote.

What is happening in Haiti comes as no surprise. It is not the first
time that the United States has intervened at its whim in the destiny of
that nation, nor the first time that it is barefacedly manipulating the
electoral results in another country to its own advantage.

The international community must demand respect for the majority will of
the Haitian people expressed at the polling stations and that that
suffering nation is not led into a worse period of chaos and violence as
a consequence of the malign interests of the United States and specific
Haitian power groups.

The world cannot allow the imperial power to guide the reins of the
entire planet. The Haitian people, patient but selfless and heroic, will
fight for their rights, let nobody be in any doubt as to that. Full
responsibility for any such outcome will fall on the U.S. government and
the occupying forces that do not hesitate to fire on the people.






--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
   --Bertholt Brecht.