Aristide
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Media Lens Alert: “Not Very Interesting” – Haiti, New Orleans And Media Hypocrisy
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media September 16, 2008 On September 1, the press began warning that “the storm of the century” was about to hit New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav “bore down nearly three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city”. (‘It’s the storm of the… Continue reading
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Book Review: Democracy versus the people By Slavoj Zizek
Peter Hallward writes in Damming the Flood, a detailed account of the “democratic containment” of Haiti’s radical politics in the past two decades, “never have the well-worn tactics of ‘democracy promotion’ been applied with more devastating effect than in Haiti between 2000 and 2004”. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Haiti – The Traditional Predators
11 September 2006 — Media Lens Human Rights, Media Silence And The Lancet Kidnapping Aristide In a series of alerts in 2004 we examined media coverage of events surrounding the military coup that forced Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile on February 29, 2004. Continue reading
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The media’s complicity in suppressing the reality that is Haiti today By William Bowles
Whilst the world rushed to the aid of the victims of the Tsunami and the leaders of the ‘free world’ pontificated on how humanitarian they are, children, in all likelihood, hundreds of children are being exterminated by death squads, aided and abetted by US/UN occupation forces in Haiti. But if you wanted to find out… Continue reading
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Blaming the Victim By William Bowles
Underlying the coverage of Haiti is a common theme that views all poor countries as incapable of managing their own affairs, intrinsically corrupt and pathologically unable to deal with western ‘democratic ideas and institutions’. The message is clear (if embedded), ‘You had your chance when we ‘gave’ you your independence and you blew it’. Without… Continue reading
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Haiti as a ‘Failed State’ and the US programme of ‘destructive engagement’ By William Bowles
The overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti is the latest example of the power of the corporate media to influence – through its presentation of events – the outcome. Over the past several weeks, Aristide and his supporters have been consistently portrayed as ‘gangsters”, drug dealers, out-of-control mobs and… Continue reading
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The imperium rampant or merely rampaging? By William Bowles
A fitting requiem to Jean Bertrand Aristide that goes to the very heart of the crisis of capital that threatens to overwhelm us all. For it is only when the power it wields can be viewed as legitimate that it can maintain its supremacy. Continue reading
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Haiti: Confusion in the Ranks By William Bowles
The only ‘evidence’ that supports the DV’s assertion that he fled is what the US government have said. So for example, Aristide’s ‘resignation’ letter was written on US government (embassy) stationary [1]. It was my understanding that Aristide phoned Randall Robinson, not the other way as the author states. How he got hold of a… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Alert: Bringing Hell to Haiti – Part 2
Jean-Bertrand Aristide told the Associated Press yesterday that he was forced to leave Haiti by US military forces. Asked if he left on his own, Aristide answered: “No. I was forced to leave. Agents were telling me that if I don’t leave they would start shooting and killing in a matter of time.” Continue reading
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Haiti: Gangster (F)RAP(H) By William Bowles
No matter that the corporate media have done their best to cover up the outrage that has been committed against the people of Haiti, things have a way of working their way out into the light of day. The telephone conversation between Randall Robinson of the TransAfrica Forum and Jean Bertrand Aristide has blown the… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Alert: Bringing Hell to Haiti – Part 1
The media is good at repeatedly broadcasting footage of armed gangs roaming in trucks, and of quoting senior officials. But the absence of meaningful context and informed analysis – and above all the unwillingness to question the official version of events – means that it is often literally impossible for viewers to make sense of… Continue reading
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HAITI: ‘Textbook’ Imperialism By William Bowles
The tragedy that is Haiti unfolds once more in this, the 35th? coup since the world’s first black republic was founded in 1804 and once more the US role in the removal of Jean Bertrand Aristide is patently obvious to anyone who cares to dig deeper than the headlines that have flooded out of ‘propaganda… Continue reading
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HAITI: Rhetoric Versus Reality By William Bowles
So what else has changed in the following 179 years? Not very much and predictably, the media is doing a hatchet job on Haiti’s Aristide. A piece by Andrew Gumbel in Saturday’s Independent (21/02/04 p. 21) is pretty typical. Headed “The little priest who became a bloody dictator like the one he once despised” is… Continue reading
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National Endowment for Democracy: At It Again in Haiti! By William Bowles
The National Endowment for Democracy that ‘celebrated’ its 20th anniversary this year has a long and less than illustrious past. It’s dead hand has descended on a number of countries over the past two decades including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela (currently also on-going) and of course Haiti. Continue reading
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Media Dumps on Aristide By William Bowles
Haiti, yet another US foreign policy disaster area, Western press coverage has been predictably less than forthcoming over the deteriorating situation. Indeed, trying to find out anything meaningful at all about the current situation has proved to be extremely difficult. Aside that is from what has become a de facto methodology of reportage of events… Continue reading
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Haiti – Regime Change By William Bowles
Whilst the US tells the world of its desire to see freedom and democracy in Iraq, it’s busy starving Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere into submission by enforcing a complete embargo on economic aid through its control of the IMF, World Bank and the International Development Fund, unless the Aristide government bows… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 