Haiti democracy prevention still coming along nicely

Here's the latest on "democracy" in Haiti:

In February it was announced that Haiti’s Conseil électoral provisoire (CEP) would not recognise candidates from Fanmi Lavalas (FL) in the upcoming senatorial elections. The reason given was that the candidates – listed in two different slates – did not have the signature of the party’s head, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted by the George W. Bush administration in 2004.

FL is in a process of reorganisation that even sympathetic observers have termed "disarray." After the initial failure of the two separate FL slates to gain CEP approval, the factions came together agreeing upon a unified slate. The slate was signed by Emmanuel Cantave – keeper of the party's seals – who has approved FL slates for the past 13 years.

Still, the CEP rejected the list. Its stated objection was that the list lacked Aristide’s signature; giving just days notice, it requested a non-fascimilied signature from Aristide, exiled in Pretoria, South Africa.

You've got to admire the Kafkaesque elegance of that last bit.  So what did our new Secretary of State have to say about this travesty on her recent visit?

CLINTON: The U.S. removed a military dictatorship in 1995, clearing the way for democracy. And after several years of political disputes, common in any country making a transition, Haiti began to see progress. And the national and presidential elections in 2006 really moved Haiti’s democracy forward. What the president and the prime minister are seeking is to maintain a strong commitment to democratic governance which will take another step forward with elections for the senate on Sunday.

To translate from the vulgar Clintonian dialect: 1) "political disputes" refers to the overwhelmingly popular presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which was "disputed" (and continually undermined) by the U.S. and its fifth column in Haiti; 2) Haiti "began to see progress" thanks to the U.S.-backed coup of Aristide in 2004; and 3) the 2006 elections that "really moved Haiti's democracy forward" excluded both Aristide and FL's preferred candidate in his stead (Father Gerard Jean-Juste, thrown in prison on invented charges by the U.S.-backed government in order to prevent him from running), resulting in the ascension of Rene Preval—who understands clearly who's the boss, and therefore merits a pat on the head from Clinton.

Which brings us to today's senatorial elections, in which the U.S./Haitian "strong commitment to democratic governance…will take another step forward" via the calculated suppression of the majority party's ability to run a slate of candidates.  The result?  Fewer than 10% of Haitians even bothered to participate in the charade that so impressed the Obama administration's Secretary of State.

So the centuries-long U.S. project of democracy prevention in Haiti is still going swimmingly.  And anyone who feared that our first black president might be  less sympathetic to the need to smash the democratic aspirations of the first free black nation in the hemisphere can rest assured: Obama will never let race—or anything else—stop him from doing the empire's dirty work.