What Is Washington Up To In Cité Soleil?

"Military experts” might argue that there are no ships available for the 4th Fleet, the actual situation in Haiti proves otherwise and the Latin American countries don’t recognise the US offerings as chocolate ice cream, but exactly as what it is: a bucket of bullshit.

According to the chief of the Southern Command, Adm. James Stavridis, the 4th Fleet will accomplish specific peaceful missions, among others humanitarian operations and medical aid and continues to say that the largest vessel to operate in the region is a hospital ship (U.S.N.S. Comfort).
In September Military Sealift Command hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort (see photo: Thony Belizaire/AFP-Getty Images) could been seen at anchorage off the coast of Haiti near Port-au-Prince, while (officially) on a four-month humanitarian deployment to Latin America and the Caribbean providing medical treatment in a dozen countries.

So the argument of Busch/Cheney, voiced by Adm. James Stavridis, is true? Well, doubtful. The problem with the hospital vessel is that it is not unloading humanitarian or medical aid, it is unloading (building) material for something else .........

The 4th Fleet is not on a humanitarian mission and the Latin America countries have a good reason to mistrust the reactivation of the 4th Fleet, as the US government is expropriating and demolishing the homes of thousands of Haiti's most impoverished by expanding the U.N. military occupation force's outpost in the giant Port-au-Prince shantytown of Cité Soleil.

The infamous US government contractor DynCorp, a quasi-official arm of the Pentagon and the CIA, is responsible for expanding the base named "Konbit pou lape" (Get Together for Peace), which houses the American soldiers of the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) that began with US Special Forces kidnapping President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife from their home and flying them into exile on Feb. 29, 2004.

According to Cité Soleil mayor Charles Joseph and a DynCorp foreman at the site, funding for the base expansion is provided by the State Department's US Agency for International Development (USAID). A very unorthodox use of development aid.

Lawyer Evel Fanfan, the president of the Association of University Graduates Motivated for a Haiti With Rights (AUMOHD), says that about 155 buildings would be razed if the base expansion goes forward.
"They started working without saying a word to the people living there," Evel Fanfan said. "The authorities have not told them what is being done, if they will be relocated, how much they will be compensated or even if they will be compensated."
Most of the buildings targeted are homes, but one is a church.

"They have begun to build a wall around the area to be razed," explained Eddy Michel, 37, an assistant to Pastor Isaac Lebon who heads the Christian Church of the Apostle's Foundation, which serves some 300 parishioners. "They have already built a 10-foot-high L-shaped wall, which cuts us off from the road. Once they complete the rest of the wall, the remaining 'L', we will be completely enclosed and we fear the destruction will begin."
Alarmed residents of the area formed the Committee for Houses Being Demolished (KODEL), which contacted AUMOHD. Evel Fanfan put out a press release and KODEL held a press conference. MINUSTAH soldiers came (stealthily) to the press conference and told the residents to get a lawyer to talk to the American Embassy as the American Embassy is responsible for the work.

"Legally, the Haitian government has not authorized anybody to do anything," said Evel Fanfan. "The Cité Soleil mayor [Charles Joseph] supposedly, between quotation marks, authorized the construction, but there is no paper, no decree, no order which authorizes it."

The involvement of DynCorp is particularly telling. DynCorp International (offering, as its Web site states, "Global Integrated Solutions") belongs to a select group of behemoth corporations like Blackwater, Brown & Root, and Halliburton that exist mainly to carry out US government strategic projects and programs.

Founded in 1946 and based in Reston, Va., near CIA headquarters in Langley, DynCorp was the principal contractor deployed in Colombia to carry out Washington's supposed war on drugs called "Plan Colombia" in 2000. It conducted aerial dusting of supposed coca fields, a practice that resulted in 10,000 Ecuadorian farmers lodging a class-action lawsuit against then DynCorp CEO Paul V. Lombardi in 2001. Lombardi tried to intimidate the plaintiffs, warning them that the "politically charged litigation" was inappropriate after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
DynCorp has been an important "private" player in other US wars around the globe, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia.

In 2002 Uri Dowbenko wrote in his book "Dirty Tricks, Inc.: The DynCorp-Government Connection": "DynCorp (…) has garnered a reputation as a shadowy company with a spooky pedigree, rumored to be a CIA 'cut-out,' or front company, for the Agency's dirty tricks." ... "Using high-level government insider connections, DynCorp provides a range of 'services' one would expect to facilitate fraud and money laundry activities, acting like a virtual conduit between the corporate (private) and government (public) worlds. According to DynCorp, the US Government is its biggest client, accounting for more than 95% of its revenues."

But why the interest of the US government and DynCorp in Cité Soleil?
Of course you guess right!

First, as Port-au-Prince's largest, poorest, and most pro-Aristide slum, it has been a hotbed of anti-occupation resistance for the past four years. Although most of the popular organizations carrying out armed struggle were dismantled in early 2007, unrest continues there, particularly with Haiti's and the world's worsening economic crisis. Hence, military domination of this important northern flank of Haiti's capital is supposed to be critical.

Furthermore, Haiti's bourgeoisie and Washington's strategists have for some years coveted the prime real estate on which Cité Soleil sits. The quadrant has a port, is close to the airport, sits on the main road to the north, and is ringed by factories and the old Haitian American Sugar Company complex (HASCO). Rumours are continually afoot that Haitian and American economic and political powers want to level this shantytown of 300,000 to replace it with more factories, office buildings, and other business development.

As Haiti reels under the devastation brought by Hurricanes Gustav and Hanna as well as ever-deepening hunger, it is ironic that Washington is spending money to expand a foreign military base and uproot Haiti's poorest of the poor, using the MINUSTAH peace mission as cover for their insatiable hunger for more profit.

The US government’s expansion of MINUSTAH's base, outsourced to DynCorp, seems more likely to rile Cité Soleil's citizenry than pacify it. Ergo, it is expanding Latin America’s mistrust to the USA.
Once again, as in its other misadventures around the globe, Washington seems to have, as the Kreyol (Creole) proverb says, "byen konte, mal kalkile": Well counted, but badly calculated.

This is an edited story based upon a September 9, 2008 article by Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté

Source: Haitianalysis
80510

Why are the Russians present in Latin American waters?

In one of my previous diaries I wrote about the Bolivian crisis and Bolivia and Venezuela booting out the respective US ambassadors. This post is about what happened in the previous months, leading to the hateful relationship with the USA en the subsequent presence of the Russian fleet in the Latin American waters.

Having the US administration of Busch and Cheney in mind, the Latin American countries see in them the embodiment of the famous words of Frederick Douglas (1818 - 1895):
“There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.”

US decision to reactivate the 4th Fleet is a matter of concern
The decision of the United States Navy ‘out of the blue’ to re-establish the 4th Fleet in order to have a higher profile in Latin American and the Caribbean waters raised concern in the hemisphere. The 4th Fleet emerged in 1943 during World War II, with the aim of protecting navigation and fighting Nazi submarines. It was deactivated in 1950, after being considered unnecessary by the US military sector.

The Venezuelan and Bolivian governments condemned the US announcement that warships will set sail on Latin American and Caribbean waters as of July 1 and termed it an insult to regional sovereignty. In their opinion, the reactivation of the 4th Fleet may provoke chaos, disorder and violence, and divide nations.

And they were not the only ones, who saw the dangers. Among others President of the NGO France-Libertés Danielle Mitterrand warned against US coup plans. In a letter published by local media, the former first lady, widow of late French President Francois Mitterrand, demanded the current US government to adopt a clear position regarding the Latin American countries.

But spokespersons for the US Navy insisted on saying that the move "is administrative in nature" and does not imply a bigger military presence. While Washington claims that this new navy component will not have "a military purpose, but one of cooperation."

As from July 1, the 4th Fleet will be based in Mayport, Fla., while it will be responsible for more than 30 countries, covering 15.6 million square miles, focusing on the waters adjacent to Central and South America, the Caribbean Sea, its islands, the Gulf of Mexico and an area of the Atlantic Ocean.

Rumours claim that the 4th Fleet has appointed the new George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier and several submarines. The chief of the Southern Command, Adm. James Stavridis, reasserted that the unit "will have never an offensive possibility. It is a promise." (But we all know the value of a Busch/Cheney or for that matter a McCain/Palin promise)

According to the Southern Command, the 4th Fleet renewed operations accomplish five specific missions: responsiveness in the event of natural disasters, humanitarian operations, medical aid, antinarcotics efforts, and cooperation in environmental and technology matters.

However, Venezuelan authorities have doubts about the underlying intention of the move. They think that the United States government seeks to "scare" Latin American countries, as they move to the left, particularly Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Cuba, and more cautiously Brazil and Chile.

In Latin American view, the revival of the navy component is a threat, because the administration of President Bush uses humanitarian tasks to get valuable information in the theatre of operations, such as recognition, communications testing, and salinity testing.

Such assumptions have been dismissed by Adm. James Stavridis, who feels that "hardcore populism" does not endanger his country. "I think that in this region there are different ideas in terms of politics and economy. For the United States, they are democracy, free market, freedom, and human rights. There are other ideas in the region that compete with those, but they are not threats," he said in a recent interview with the Argentinean daily La Nación.

But the treats are there, fresh in everybody’s memory.
The by the USA in conjunction with Spain orchestrated coup d’état in 2002 against the democratic elected president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the recent (diplomatic) intervention in the election of Fernando Lugo as president of Paraguay and the “physical” intervention in the crisis in Bolivia, are sufficient reasons for the Latin American countries to look for some ‘heavy’ friend. You can’t blame them that they turn to Russia (and China) at a moment they obviously can’t trust their neighbour any more. Latin America might be seen in the USA as its back-yard, but as the US doesn’t take care of it properly and with honour, the owners of that ‘back-yard’ have to call upon a faraway ‘barrel-chested friend’.

And here we sit with the consequences of the reactivating of the 4th Fleet.

A new Cold War in Latin American waters?
Two Russian strategic bombers, Tupolev TU-160, landed a week ago 60 kilometres outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas, at the Libertador Air Base, to "carry out training flights" in the region, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence.
A few days before the arrival of the bombers Russia announced that it will dispatch a naval squadron to the Caribbean Sea and a spokesman for its navy, Igor Digalo, said that the vessels "will make a series of exercises, including joint manoeuvres, search and rescue operations, as well as telecommunication tests ", with its Venezuelan ally. The vessels would be the nuclear-powered cruiser "Piotr Veliki" (Peter the Great) and the anti-submarine frigate Admiral Chabanenko and probably anti-submarine aircraft."
"We want to calibrate our defence capacity with our strategic allies, and Russia is such an ally," Chavez said when the TU-160 arrived. Venezuelan Rear Admiral Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas said Venezuelan aircraft and submarines would be involved in manoeuvres with the Russians. "This is of great importance because it is the first time it is being done [in the Americas]," he said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency and local media

Confirming the plans, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said it was not aimed against any third country.
(A same statement as the Americans have made. Who can we trust Bush/Cheney, McCain/Palin or Medvedev/Putin? Let's hope there is an Obama/Biden alternative, so the choice is hopefully more obvious).

Although Argentine and Brazil expressed their concern, Brazil downplayed the announcement, but denoted later that:
The Brazilian Navy will practise a fictitious war to protect the "Blue Amazon"
After discovering huge reserves of fossil oil before the Brazilian east coast, which might make Brazil the number one oil-country in the world, out manoeuvring Saudi Arabia, the Brazilian government, without doubt the reactivating of the US 4th Fleet in mind, launched vast military operations in the so-called "Blue Amazon", the 4.5 million square kilometres of Brazilian sea.

The combined navy and army manoeuvres simulate a war for control of the oil fields, pipelines and refineries on the coast of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo.
With more than 10 thousand operational armed forces and 17 vessels, 40 aircraft and just over 300 military vehicles, the officers expect that the exercises guarantee the security of the riches of the Brazilian sea.
"The 'Blue Amazon’ is as important as the ‘Green Amazon’. No more important, but as important," said Admiral Edlander Santos, commander of the manoeuvres.

During the manoeuvres, the "green country" - composed of Rio de Janeiro, north of Sao Paulo and parts of Minas Gerais and Goiás - will attack the "yellow country" - Bahia and Espirito Santo - to get control over the mega-rich oil fields of Petrover, a fictitious state-owned company of the "green country". The location of the manoeuvres is not random.

According to Admiral Edlander Santos, the manoeuvres also bring answers to any questions involving the defence of the area.
"Will we have the vessels and means to protect the 4.5 million square kilometres?" He asked. "Well let's find out."

The initiative to the presence of Russia in the Latin American waters is as a matter of fact the consequence of a US ‘invitation’.
For Thomas Gomart, analyst with the French Institute of International Relations, the sending of Russian military units "is a double investment for Moscow: increasingly questioning the hegemony of the United States and support for nationalization in the areas of energy”.

What were Busch and Cheney thinking when they ordered ‘out of the blue’ the reactivation of the 4th Fleet, without giving any information to its neighbours, not even its most solid ally, Brazil? What did they expect? Any reasonable thinking person could prophesise the reaction!

80930
**

Bolivia in crisis. Booting out the US Ambassador

Recently some conflicts between Latin American countries and the USA have been escalating due to the (omnipresent) fear for US intervention in the Latin America area, the ‘back yard of the USA’. As you certainly know, the USA has always seen Latin America as its ‘back yard’. And it is the people in this back yard that is very scared at this moment, but also expectant in regard to the US presidential elections.

Without doubt you can say that Latin America in the recent years moved to the left. Socialism, if you like to call it that. But socialism is still a dirty word in de US and obviously little is known about its definition. But don't forget that socialism in Latin America is not more than something between the centre and the left-wing of the democrats in the US. It has nothing to do with communism, it is just a movement centring on the wellbeing of ordinary people. Giving the people, after so many years of corruption and exploitation a piece of the cake.

I will not talk about historical US (bloody) interventions in Latin America, such as Chile, Panama, Columbia, Grenada and many others. No, I just want to stipulate the (recent) interventions during the reign of the Busch/Cheney administration.

Let’s start with Bolivia, at this moment the centre of the conflict.
Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, is basically divided between the western highlands, home to the impoverished indigenous majority, and the rich eastern lowlands, where much of the population is made up of people of predominantly European (primarily Spanish) descent and where all the international corporations are sitting.

The support base of President Evo Morales, the country’s first-ever indigenous president, is largely found in the western altiplano. Meanwhile, several eastern provinces have been demanding autonomy and greater control over the rich farmland and natural gas reserves concentrated in that part of the country, and are staunchly opposed to any agrarian reform.
In the east, 90% of all land is owned by 10% of the large landowners, while in the western highlands, 90% of the indigenous campesinos (peasant farmers) own just 10% of the arable land.

The president wants to give more power to indigenous and poor communities, by carrying out land reform and redistributing gas revenues. That’s painful for the rich landowners and (mainly) Corporate America, which are bleeding the country. The answer to the intention of President Evo Morales is a movement (supported by the landowners and Big Oil) to declare the eastern states autonomous.
The opposition bloc tries to force the government to agree to the restitution to the provinces of a portion of the natural gas tax - 49 million USD - that the Morales administration has diverted to the payment of a universal pension of 26 USD a month to people over 60.

The governors of the lowlands provinces of Santa Cruz in the east, Beni in the northeast, Pando in the north, and Tarija and Chuquisaca to the south have made this one of the key demands in their opposition to Morales.
In response, the government argues that the funds diverted from the provinces for the universal pension are insignificant compared to the more than two billion USD that will be transferred to the provincial governments this year, a sum that is double the 952 million USD transferred in 2005.

The president of Bolivia’s Private Business Confederation, Gabriel Dabdoub, argues that a lack of government policies to foment private sector activity and attract investment has kept away 400 million USD a year in private (foreign) investment.
However, exporters are counting on a new record in sales of industrialised products and commodities, which according to the government will amount to more than 6 billion USD this year, compared to 4.78 billion USD in 2007.

A climate favourable to trade, with heavy foreign demand for commodities like natural gas - of which Bolivia has South America’s second-largest reserves, after Venezuela - oil, minerals and agri products accompanied by high international prices, has led to an increase in foreign exchange earnings in a country whose gross domestic product (GDP) stands at 14.7 billion USD. (Note: ExxonMobil’s annual revenue (similar to the GDP of a country) was USD 405 billion in 2007)

Gas revenues soared from 188 million USD in late 2001 to 1.57 billion USD in 2007, after the Morales administration, which took office in January 2006, forced foreign oil companies to renegotiate the terms of their contracts, thus increasing the royalties and taxes paid by the companies.

Over the past year, the leftwing Morales administration has accused the US embassy in Bolivia of offering its backing to provincial governments in Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca in their crusade for radical autonomy.
The decision to expel US ambassador Philip Goldberg came after major confrontations, such as the Bolivian Foreign Ministry's report that the US ambassador had held a private meeting on Aug. 25 with the rightwing governor of Santa Cruz, President Morales' main political opponent.
The following day, Ambassador Goldberg was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and asked for an explanation. Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca also asked Goldberg to be cautious in his contacts with opposition governors. Nevertheless Goldberg later paid a visit to the opposition governor of Chuquisaca, Savina Cuellar, on Sept. 4, further fuelling the government's annoyance.

So it is no surprise, that Bolivian President Evo Morales has declared the US Ambassador Philip Goldberg "persona non grata", after accusing him of aiding and abetting pro-autonomy opposition groups that are blocking highways and occupying government buildings, reducing the supply of natural gas to Brazil.
"I am not afraid of anyone, not even the empire (the United States)," Morales said when he instructed his Foreign Minister to inform the US ambassador in writing that he was no longer welcome in the country.

But indeed Latin America has all reasons to fear an intervention and even an aggressive active role plaid by the US to create a crisis. May I remind the reader the interference of US diplomats in the coup d’état in 2002 against Hugo Chavez and the attempts to frustrate the last presidential election in Argentina.

According to the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel the autonomy movement is just the landowners and corporations pretext to try to stop a far reaching revolutionary process in this Andean nation. The same is true for Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, Ecuador with Rafael Correa and more recently Paraguay with Fernando Lugo, where US attacks are growing, but fortunately "Latin American people have begun to speak with their own voices," he added.

Latin America has been expecting an American military intervention for some time during this presidential election. At the end it was Georgia, where Busch/Cheney found their confederate, stupid enough to provoke Russia in an attempt to help the GOP to reign another 4 years. But, as said, Latin America, and particularly Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay, were and still are expecting American aggression to be in their area to steamroll the Dems, as all the signs are there.

This is in a nutshell the recent crisis and the reason to ‘boot out’ the US ambassadors of Bolivia as well as Venezuela.
But there is more. The recent presence of Russia in the Latin America area is due to the Busch/Cheney foreign policy of the last few months and the scary (for Latin America) sudden re-installment (after 60 years) of the 4th US Navy Fleet in this area.
Let me talk about this in my next post.

Facts in this post are based upon articles on the websites: WorldPress (a very reliable source regarding the relations between the US and Latin America) as well as Prensa Latina
80510