http://www.counterpunch.org/terrall08282008.html
Counterpunch.com
August 28, 2008
"All the Time We are Hungry and Now We Have No One"
Return to Port-au-Prince
By BEN TERRALL

As I flew from JFK to Port-au-Prince Airport on August 11, a fellow journalist handed me the front section of that day’s New York Times with a laugh. My friend pointed to a passage in an article about Russia’s war with Georgia that had prompted her bitter chuckling.

The piece quoted Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad of the United States, who charged that the Russian foreign minister had told Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice “that the democratically elected president of Georgia ‘must go.’” Khalizad described the Russian’s comment as “completely unacceptable.”

Of course, Washington’s posturing as a beacon of peace and freedom has become increasingly more ludicrous as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue with no end in sight and Bush explains that we do not torture while testimony to the contrary accumulates around the globe. But the U.S. role in supporting the February 29, 2004 rightist coup in Haiti makes the hypocrisy of Khalizad’s statement especially galling.

By Yves Engler

Over the past century, a line has divided the left around the world. On one side sit “progressive forces” willing to support imperialism and war, usually in return for a “seat at the table” or some other perk of power. The most discussed example of Left support for imperialism was at the beginning of the First World War when most parties of the Second International sided with their own ruling class and governments in the slaughter that followed. On the other side of the Left divide, are those individuals and organizations that take a principled position in favour of real democracy for all the world’s people and oppose imperialism and colonialism in all its forms, especially when it is their ruling class involved. Some might say the former is the “pretend Left” and the later the “authentic Left.”

So what sort of Left is there left in Québec? To help answer this question the case of Haiti is instructive.

Human rights activists under fire in Haiti
HIP - Port au Prince, Haiti - Amnesty International released it's third human rights alert this month on behalf of community-based human rights advocates in Haiti. It comes five months after the abduction of psychologist and human rights leader Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine last August 12.

Wilson Mesilien, the interim coordinator of Mr. Pierre-Antoine's group the September 30th Foundation, was recently forced into hiding. Mr. Mesilien and his family left their home for an undisclosed location on December 19 after receiving numerous threats according to Amnesty International.

Human rights defender forced into hiding in Haiti
December 27, 2007
HIP - Port au Prince, Haiti - A human rights worker whose colleague was abducted last August has been forced into hiding after receiving new threats. Wilson Mesilien has been serving as the interim head of the September 30th Foundation, a human rights organization based in Port-au-Prince. He assumed the role of interim director of the organization after the abduction and disappearance of the it's founder Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine over four months ago.

HAITI LIBERTE - "Justice. Verite. Independance."
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
December 19-24, 2007
Vol. 1, No. 22
AN INTERVIEW ON WBAI
PETER HALLWARD: MAKING SENSE OF THE 2004 COUP

Haiti: Leading Human Rights Activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine Missing for Four Months
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Remain Silent
By Joe Emersberger
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/Issue48/article2935.html
December 13, 2007
Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a prominent Haitian human rights activist, disappeared on the evening of 12 August, 2007. He is co-founder of the Trant Septanm (“September 30”) Foundation, an organization originally formed to help the victims of the 1991 coup in Haiti.

Any individual working for an aid organization is required to pass this exam
and a B+ or higher must be achieved to attain "left wing" status.

Please write 500 words answering each of three of the following questions.
1) Do people really feel better when their elected government is destroyed
by democracy promotion rather than subversion?
2) Should it be called "aid" or "aiding and abetting" when you give a

AHP News www.ahp.org
'UN Operation in Cite Soleil leaves at least 10 killed, dozens others injured during the night of Thursday December 21'
UN spokesperson [Sophie Boutaud] de Lacombe claims the operation was aimed at apprehending kidnappers in Bois Neuf and bringing them to justice. However local residents say the victims were ordinary citizens whose only crime was that they live in the targeted neighborhood. Detonations could be heard for miles. De Lacombe denies that a UN armored vehicle was seized by bandits.
Some radio stations in the capital have been justifying the attack in Cite Soleil by the fact that local residents had set fire to a UN tank that had been abandoned by UN soldiers who had fled.
In addition to the dead and injured, residents report very serious property damage and there are concerns that a critical water shortage may now develop because water cisterns and pipes were punctured by the gunfire.

Discrediting the Lancet Study on Haiti
A lesson in acquiring the attention and respect of the corporate media
by Joe Emersberger
October 02, 2006
ZNet
Some of the best work from Medialens reveals how the corporate press shields the powerful from their most formidable critics. High level UN administrators Hans Von Sponeck and Denis Halliday; former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter; leading epidemiologist Les Roberts were all ignored even as Medialens readers flooded the BBC, UK Guardian, and the London Independent with emails asking why. [1]
Prominent dissidents such as Noam Chomsky and Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter fared even worse. The more impressive their achievements the easier they are to trash. The Guardian's hatchet job on Chomsky by Emma Brockes is an extreme example. It was so clumsily done that it generated a huge backlash and, eventually, a retraction.[2]
How then, did an obscure, left leaning author from the UK obtain instant access to the corporate press from which to attack a human rights study about Haiti published by the prestigious UK medical journal, The Lancet? [3] Days after the study's publication, the AP, Toronto Globe and Mail, and the UK Guardian were all uncritically quoting Charles Arthur. To slightly rephrase a question the David Peterson pursued on his blog: Who is this guy? What does he have that Chomsky, Ritter, Halliday and others didn't have? Why were his arguments and motives not scrutinized by the journalists who handed him a megaphone?[4]

The Lancet
September 2, 2006 - September 8, 2006
SECTION: Pg. 864 Vol. 368 No. 9538 ISSN: 0140-6736
LENGTH: 7694 words
HEADLINE: Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households
BYLINE: Athena R Kolbe a MSW; Royce A Hutson a, * Dr PhD, roycehutson@wayne.edu
BODY:
Reliable evidence of the frequency and severity of human rights abuses in Haiti after the departure of the elected president in 2004 was scarce. We assessed data from a random survey of households in the greater Port-au-Prince area.