By Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
The plot to control Haiti has gone from the absurd to the ridiculous. The return of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier to Haiti in the midst of a flawed election is truly shocking. The Duvalier dictatorship was absolutely brutal, and there is extensive documentation of the human rights violations suffered by the Haitian people during his reign. I was pleased to hear that the authorities had taken him into custody, and I urge that he be tried for his crimes. Nevertheless, Duvalier’s return raises serious questions about who in Haiti facilitated his return and what his supporters expect to gain by bringing him back.
Duvalier’s return comes in the midst of a desperate attempt by President Rene Préval to maintain control of Haiti by ensuring the election of Jude Celestin, his chosen successor. President Préval did this by appointing a Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) that was biased in his favor, which refused to allow candidates from over a dozen political parties to participate in the elections. Among those excluded was Lavalas, Haiti’s largest political party and the party most popular among Haiti’s poor. The result was a deeply flawed election that generated widespread and sometimes violent protests among the Haitian people.
Had the elections truly been inclusive, the most likely result would have been the election of a President who represented the impoverished majority of the Haitian people. This would have been contrary to the interests of the rich and powerful business elites of Haiti, whose main goal has always been the exploitation of the Haitian people as cheap labor. It is these wealthy Haitian elites who benefited under the reign of the Duvalier regime and who would no doubt benefit if he were to return to power.
Additional confusion was created by the Organization of American States (OAS), which attempted to salvage these flawed elections by issuing a report based on flawed methodology. The OAS did not conduct a full recount, but instead examined a sample of only 919 of the 11,181 tally sheets from voting booths across Haiti, threw out 234 of these tally sheets, and then concluded that Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly should advance to a runoff, along with Mirlande Manigat, in place of Jude Celestin. The OAS report concluded that Martelly defeated Celestin by a margin of only 0.3 percent of the votes reported on those tally sheets that the OAS chose to count. This would mean Préval’s candidate, the candidate who is most likely to be trusted by the elites, would be eliminated.
