"The question is not whether Mr Aristide is a democrat. It is, rather, a
question that colonialists down the ages would recognise (and Machiavelli,
too): is he "our" democrat? If he ceases to suit US interests, then, elected
or not, he is gone. "
****
Comdrades,
The US is sending its troops to Haiti. The scrable between USA and other
countries may never leave us in our life time!!
Best regards,
Nyar'Onyango
************
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 12:10 PM
Subject: [unioNews] HAITI: Failure of will
> Andy spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should
see it.
>
> To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site,
go to http://www.guardian.co.uk
> <H3>Failure of will</H3>
> Leader
> Friday February 27 2004
> The Guardian
>
>
> Haiti is a small country. But its climaxing crisis raises big questions.
The internal political mess that is both the cause and product of the
uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is matched by an external
diplomatic mess that exposes the pretensions and double standards of the
"international community".
>
> In a speech last year, Tony Blair, leading exponent of the modern concept
of global responsibility, urged nations to act collectively to promote
shared beliefs and so defeat the common threat of chaos. "The values we
stand for - freedom, human rights, the rule of law, democracy - are all
universal values," he said. "But they have to be pursued alongside another
value: justice, the belief in opportunity for all." Mr Blair is right, in
theory. In practice, in Haiti as elsewhere, the words ring hollow. Haitians
surely aspire to all the values he listed. But they are wholly absent from
their lives, not just now but throughout their mostly miserable past.
Universality passes them by. What they possess, in abundance, is chaos. Yet
what, at this moment of dire need, have the powers done about it? Nothing
much is the answer. For all their doctrines and declarations, they have
dithered and debated, ducked and dodged, and danced that old, slow
diplomatic shuffle. Something should be done; on that all agree. Quite what,
and how, and by whom, they have little idea.
>
> Haiti's agony raises a wider question of humanitarian intervention. Rwanda
and Bosnia were seen as cautionary lessons; in future, it was said, such
things would be nipped in the bud. After Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra
Leone, the west has lately begun to think itself well versed in dealing with
such problems. But poor, tiny, impoverished Haiti, has no strategic or
economic importance. It has no strong colonial ties, although France, for
reasons not unconnected to its rivalry with the US, displays a vestigial
proprietary interest. Despite what Mr Aristide says, Haiti has no
terrorists, no al-Qaida cells, as in Afghanistan. In Haiti, there is nothing
to pre-empt save human suffering. In Haiti, there is no glory, only hard,
costly work. In Haiti, there is no oil. So the White House talks of regional
initiatives and UN policemen, even as it bars the refugee door and checks
the Florida polls.
>
> Haiti's agony raises the question of democracy, that much advertised and
endorsed third world panacea, guaranteed to cure all ills. Mr Aristide has
not been a good president. But he was democratically elected. On that basis,
Colin Powell has argued (although he is wobbling) that he should be
supported. This was not the US stance in Venezuela when the elected,
anti-American Hugo Chavez faced a popular revolt; in Georgia, when Eduard
Shevardnadze ruled; long ago, in Chile; or right now, in Yasser Arafat's
Palestine. Yet the US gets by quite happily without democratic interlocutors
in the steppes of central Asia, in China, the Gulf, and even (we dare say)
in Russia. Global democracy is George Bush's proclaimed holy grail. But even
in the US itself, he and others subvert it with corporate cash and
gerrymandering. The question is not whether Mr Aristide is a democrat. It
is, rather, a question that colonialists down the ages would recognise (and
Machiavelli, too): is he "our" democrat? If he ceases to suit US interests,
then, elected or not, he is gone.
>
> Haiti's agony, ultimately, is a question of will. A few companies of
professional combat soldiers could probably stop the fighting, allowing
space for dialogue. But who will send them? And is it now too late? Mr Bush
wants no part of it. His Iraqi interventionist brother-in-arms, Mr Blair,
keeps his head down. The French gesticulate impressively; the neighbours
fret; the UN has a meeting. It sometimes seems that the only truly universal
value is hypocrisy. As Sir John Junor used to say: pass the sick bag, Alice.
>
> Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
>
>
>
> lllll
> QUOTATION:
>
> "All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishments of an African
empire, so strong and powerful as to compel the respect of mankind, but we
in our lifetime can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility
within another generation"
> -<html><A HREF="http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion/afrohero.html">Ancestor
Marcus Mosiah Garvey <i>(1887 - 1940)</i></A></html>
>
> llllllllll
> * //\\//\\ unioNews Newsgroup //\\//\\ *
> * http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion *
> * We're One People *
> * Join the Chorus *
> - African Union Shall Succeed -
> =====================================
> A luta Continua!
>
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