Required Reading: Canada in Haiti
Dawn Paley
(Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority. Fernwood Press, 2005. Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton)
For a long time, I thought Canada's role in world politics was more or less benign. Although I was aware of the colonisation of Indigenous nations and the genocide against Native peoples within what is now called Canada, I assumed that outside our borders, Canada had little influence.
Not until studying the crisis in Haiti have the ramifications of Canada's role in the domestic politics of other nations - through military intervention, international "development" aid, and otherwise - have become so clear to me.
A new book by Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton called Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority is an in-depth account of Canada's role in Haiti, examining, as they put it, "the relationship between the country that ranks highest in the Americas on the United Nations' Human Development Index, Canada, and the hemisphere's lowest ranking nation, Haiti."
As it turns out, this relationship is complex and unequal, pitting the government of Canada, in collusion with the U.S. and French governments, against the democratically-elected government of Haiti. The scandalous silence in the mainstream media has meant that the political price for Canadian interventions in Haiti have remained low, or as the authors deem it, "insignificant." "This book is meant to provide the information on Haiti that the mainstream press has been attempting to deprive people of," explains Fenton, a Vancouver-based writer and activist.
The majority of the book explains the events that have taken place after the February 29, 2004 removal of democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, when U.S. soldiers "escorted" him out of the country, with Canadian troops "securing" the airport in Haiti's capital city, Port Au Prince. Engler and Fenton report that since then, 500 Canadian soldiers joined the UN forces backing the interim Haitian government, a government hand-picked by the U.S., France, and Canada.
More assistance towards the installed regime has come from Canada in the form of RCMP officers who are training the Haitian National Police, as well as through various non-governmental organisations operating with funds from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Engler and Fenton note that "without exception, documents obtained from CIDA reveal that organisations ideologically opposed to Lavalas (Aristide's party) were the sole recipients of Canadian government funding. Civil society groups supportive of Lavalas simply did not receive development money."
Although Lavalas is, without a doubt, the most popular political party in the country, the mainstream media have followed CIDA in their unwillingness to acknowledge the grassroots majority mobilising around Lavalas and demanding the return of Aristide. This has left many Canadians who are active around other issues, like resisting the war in Iraq, at a total loss when it comes to understanding the crisis in Haiti.
Fenton, an active member of Haiti Solidarity B.C., explains that "one thing that we have been confronted with from day one, as activists working around the struggle in Haiti, is like this automatic wall of 'I didn't know' that people put up when we talk about Haiti." He continues, "Now we have this book . . . these people can no longer say 'I didn't know.'"
A Canadian public that is well-informed about Haiti is the only constituency that can force the Canadian government to end its support for the illegal occupation of Haiti.
In the coming months, presidential elections are scheduled to take place in Haiti, supervised by Elections Canada. Aristide, whom the people have already elected numerous times, remains in exile. Lavalas and his party, remain divided as to whether to support or boycott the elections. The Canadian mainstream media remain mostly silent, and when they do speak, it's usually to reinforce the expressed views of the Canadian government.
Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority is a hard-hitting, in-depth look at Haiti that penetrates the fa‡ade of Canada's role as "peacekeepers." It's probably not going to appear on your reading lists for Canadian Studies 101, but this book should be required reading: it calls on all Canadians to better understand the actions of the Canadian government in the outside world.
Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority is available at the Peoples' Co-op Bookstore. The authors, Anthony Fenton and Yves Engler, are planning a cross-Canada book tour in October.
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