‘there is some misperception by those who follow the press that the government is itself repressive in El Salvador (when in fact the violence is) from the extreme right and extreme left and the smallest part (of these killings come from the army and security forces)’ John Bushnell US Department of State
The promulgation that US de facto proxies within third-world are tacitly centrist; the victimizing of exilic administrations as being discombobulated by the radical maneuvers of polarized factions, disclaiming responsibility for the melees of peasant-class paramilitaries ‘ those same attack squads marching to the orders of officer-corps appropriated by the Bourgeoisie and foreign interests ‘ was once the modus operandi of the State-commissars of the US. As evidenced by the commandeering, moral-propagation and outright sponsorship of the poli-cultural sanitizing of Haiti by the Foley-Reich-Latortue-Boniface-Annan-Powell-Bush clique; a broad front of repression yielding murders, rapes, politically motivated arrests, assassinations and most recently, the imprisonment of Father Jean-Juste of Cazeau, this is no longer the case.
The lead quotation is found in the transcript of a House Appropriations Committee circa 1980 during an investigation into the sanctioned murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. The scant criticism of the falsely labeled liberal press was hardly aimed at tarnishing the soiled reputation of bubble-gum media. On the contrary, it is of the many proliferations of State-rubric for the information ideologues to follow. The government of El Salvador was at the time (and presently one might add) a dove to the US; a puppet regime installed reactionary to armed guerilla movements of the day; a geographical and symbolic blockade to the somewhat USSR-influenced Cuban Focista spreading throughout Latin America.
As for the media, ‘there were expressions of shock and distress, there were very few expressions of outrage by supporters of Romero. There were no statements of or quotations suggesting that the murder was intolerable and that the guilty must be brought to justice'(Chomsky, Herman ‘ Manufacturing Consent). Juxtapose the former with the murder of priest Jerry Popieluszko in Poland. The outpour of condemnations, imperatives for thorough investigations ‘ insinuations that his murder be linked to top brass, from the mainstream was profound: Front page editorials, multi-fold reports and vehement letters from the editor in the New York Times, Washington Post. The fanfare was astounding; the key differentiation being whether one was a victim in a client or enemy state; the essence of victim-worthiness or unworthiness. It is within this apparatus that the media-machine makes its determinations, wields public opinion, legitimizes factional strife and in contemporary context, legalizes Imperialism.
As effective as the symbiosis of State and Media has been, a troubling turnaround in discourse is best exemplified in analysis of Haiti post February 29th, 2004. The 1970’s cold-ward double speak of Washington bureaucrats has been replaced with bold directness and eerie poignancy. No longer is it necessary to guide the hand of the nation’s editors. The propaganda is being transcribed bureaucrat-mouth-to-editor-hand. At times, especially the past month or so, we’re hearing it from the horse’s and his ponies’ mouths.
September 30th marked the 13-year anniversary of the CIA / IRI / USAID / OAS / Haitian Elite coup of 1991. The events of February 29th 2004 are best described as 1991’s boomerang succession. Under siege, terror and colonization, the valiant men and women of Haiti’s most underprivileged slums (Delmas, Cite Soleil, Martissant, Bel Air et al) held mass demonstrations throughout, demanding a return to both Democratic process and their estranged leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide. The da Silva led UN ‘Peacekeeping’junta (MINUSTAH), in conjunction with elite-Praetorians and National Police responded with bullets, arrests and Himmler-type shakedowns persisting to the present. Peaceful protestors were repeatedly fired on, beaten and maimed. The party line of substantiation was drafted from the dungeons Iraqi-occupation-justification; the protestors, alleged Arisitide ‘militants,’had beheaded 3 members of the National Police Force. Much evidence is now arising that these beheadings were in fact done by members of FRAPH and similar makoute for the leaking of the long-planned raids to slum residents (even the house hand has been known to have a conscience).
This thuggery has since left 30+ dead and hundreds incarcerated. As boorish and disingenuous as this all seems, the boot-licking, morally repugnant elite and their US / UN strongmen exhibited cooling sophistication in the frame-up arrests of 3 former Lavalas Parliamentarians. The aforementioned trio were mid-debate surrounding the recent surge of ‘violence’at a local radio station Radio Carribbe, when a garrison of UN storm troopers and plain-clothes paramilitaries took siege of the building. The charges were as felonious as the de facto Latortue / A paid regime itself: Senators Yvon Feuillé and Gerard Gilles, and former Deputy Rudy Hérivaux were taken into police custody, without warrant, after accusations from government officials via elite-owned radio syndicates that they were the masterminds behind the popular uprising of September 30th (they joined the legitimate Prime Minister Yvonne Neptune former Interior Minister, Jocelerme Privert and famed grass-roots activist and Folk singer, So Anne).
On Wednesday October 13th, Father Jean Juste, a longtime humanitarian and Lavalas supporter was surrounded by a detail of masked, armed men and subsequently arrested; this during his daily habit of providing Cazeau’s orphaned and emaciated children with free meals. It is widely accepted and known that the armed paramilitaries conjoined to US / UN / Haitian Elite dogma are in fact the same felons of the 1991 affair, the fratricide therewith and its boomerang succession, here and now. Father Jean Juste was forced into hiding at that time. It appears that the black-lists have changed little. Quite coincidentally, the distinguished radio show ‘Flashpoints,’with Dennis Bernstein, managed to contact Father Jean Juste as the goons were making the arrest. Below are excerpts from the transcript.
Bernstein: So they came to your church and arrested you while you were feeding the children?
Jean-Juste: Yeah.
Bernstein: Why are they arresting you?
Jean-Juste: I don’t know yet, I don’t know yet. They thought I was Accessing (inaudible)
Bernstein: Are the children o.k.?
Jean-Juste: Yes, the children are o.k. I sent all of them home. I was supposed to say mass at 4:30 for my people, that’s all
Bernstein: And why did they say they’re arresting you?
Jean-Juste: Nothing, The police say they are doing their job.
Bernstein: Are you physically o.k.?
Jean-Juste: I have to go sir I’m wounded [barely audible], it’s o.k.
As with a litany of similar politically motivated arrests, the charges and justification for doing so will change as rapidly as the Barons of Petion-Ville swap German-made vehicles. At the time of his shackling, the unscrupulous Minister of Justice alleged the Priest being involved in weapons trafficking of some kind. This same charge was applied to the aforementioned Parliamentarians who were bamboozled into publicly debating the occupation on air. Father Jean Juste will rot in excrement and isolation along with a column of like-minded cadres who aspire to institutionalize rather than euphemize Democracy.
Father Jean Juste’s arrest is symptomatic of the de facto regime’s prime strategy: Eliminate all political dissent, sanitizing the landscape of a once socially vibrant country, in preparation for phony elections scheduled to happen next year. In addition to police-state tactics, psychological warfare has been integral; beginning with the kidnapping of President Aristide and now with the arrest of Father Jean Juste.
It is less than probable that the mainstream media stateside will even bat and eye at this blatant injustice; especially now, Haiti being re-instated to the Neo-liberal’s hemispheric club of tyranny. Client State: Haiti — Unworthy Victim: Father Jean Juste. Far less than foreseeable is a reaction from an always acquiescent, subservient and reactionary Haitian Catholic Church. Those brothers of the cloth contaminated with Liberation Theology are seldom the recipients of Vatican praise, support or recognition for that matter.
What the humanitarian should find most troubling is not the acts of terror themselves; rather the rhetoric broadcast by puppet Lartortue, puppeteer Powell and grand puppeteer Bush & Cheney; Ideologies to which there may be no contemporary precedent.
‘These are the old Aristide elements and some criminal elements who are trying to take advantage of the situation,’said Secretary Powell specific to the pesky protestors demonstrating September 30th, before and beyond. He went on to state that the US nor the UN will allow these ‘elements’to ruin the process of Democracy in Haiti.
‘(The) U.S.-backed government would give a muscular response to opponents of the regime,’said Minister of Justice Bernard Gousse on State / Elite run radio in Port-Au-Prince responding to the ‘criminal elements’throughout.
‘The real problem in Haiti is that the international community is so screwed up and divided that they are letting Haitians run Haiti,’said Luigi Einaudi of the OAS on the topic of Aristide’s purported demise and Haiti’s ‘failed state.’
The bureaucratic verbosity of the Cold War era is obviously no longer necessary. All but a few ‘progressive’voices within the mainstream have been either filtered-out or co-opted. The Neo-Con putschists and their Uncle-Tom overseers no longer find it necessary to achieve centralism. After all, a kidnapped president, 3500 murders, hundreds of arrests, countless rapes and mutilations are but good ol’ Yanqui justice to ‘screwed up’criminals’in need of a ‘muscular’response.
JG is formerly the lead Emcee of the politically leftist Hip-Hop duet, Over The Counter Intelligence (JG & HavikenHayes). They are most recognized through their support of various grassroots organizations throughout the country; most notably The Coalition of Immokalee Workers — The Taco Bell Boycott. They were and still are of the best known Indie-Hip Hop groups nationwide. JG has since embarked on a solo career. He has written songs, articles and editorials specific to the oppression of the Haitian Global Village; most recently, the 33rd coup in Haiti’s 200 year history. He has recently released an album entitled ‘boomerang politick,’ which protests the US putsch in February of this year. The EP is exclusively available via his website www.insurgentjg.com and at IMIX Bookstore in Los Angeles.
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