Friday, November 04, 2005

Subverting democracy

The Centre for Media Alternatives - Quebec has an interesting article on Canada's involvement in Haiti, featuring in particular this gem:
The ground is also being prepared for the privatization of Haiti’s state enterprises, a policy vigorously opposed by the Haitian people. The Interim Cooperation Framework (ICF), a document outlining the priorities of the “transitional government” and the donor countries, touts “private sector participation” in state enterprises and makes clear the anti-democratic nature of these reforms: “The transition period . . . provide[s] a window of opportunity for implementing economic governance reforms . . . that may be hard for a future government to undo.” Canada helped draft the ICF and has donated $147 million in support of it.

While it's tough to take a side in the apparent debate between this article and one from Rabble (criticized by the CMAQ) as to just how blameworthy the Aristide administration is, it should be glaringly obvious that there's plenty of blame to go around regarding Latortue and his international backers. And that's doubly so if the goal of the caretaker administration is to permanently undo the will of Haitians before they get another chance to go to the polls.

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