The Dominion - Anthony Fenton

Elite Insecurity

Martin Lukacs — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:06:37 +0000

Ten thousand to guard summits in Huntsville and Toronto

VANCOUVER—The buzzword at the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Toronto and Huntsville—both inside the boardrooms and on the streets below—is “security.”

According to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, the summits will provide “an important opportunity to address issues of vital interest to global and national security.” Such issues include the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the broader War on Terror and the perceived threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, all in the interests of charting a secure course for global capitalism in the 21st century.

While the way forward for counterinsurgency operations in Central Asia and the Middle East is discussed on the inside, on the outside security forces will employ tactics that have become standard fare at international summits. G8/G20 security forces will keep protesters behind an “unscalable” security perimeter, likened to an “urban combat zone” by a Toronto Star journalist.

Security operations are being touted by officials as “bigger than anything Canada has seen before.” Speaking at a meeting of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Toronto, Constable Ed Boltuc, spokesperson for the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit (ISU), said the scale of security will surpass the Vancouver Olympics, previously the largest domestic security operation in Canadian history.

“There’s going to be a massive—absolutely massive—presence of police and security on the ground like you’ve never seen before,” said Boltuc.

The Globe and Mail reported in April that more than “10,000 uniformed officers and 1,000 private security guards” will comprise a “small army [that] will descend” on Huntsville and Toronto from June 25 to 27.

The security perimeter will reportedly include two three-metre fences and five levels of security screening. According to the Council of Canadians, protesters in Huntsville “will be facing a $6 million galvanized metal fence that will stretch 15 kilometres around the summit site,” while in Toronto, “it is expected that the convention centre will be surrounded by a four-metre-high steel and concrete fence, with military helicopters overhead and sharpshooters on rooftops.”

According to an RCMP inquiry posted on merx.com, pedestrians in the designated areas may be subject to magnetometers, walk-through metal detectors, X-ray scanners and hand-held metal detectors. The private security contractors, who will “perform pedestrian screening in designated areas,” must have either NATO Secret Security clearance or a security clearance approved by the Canadian Public Works and Government Services Canada.

For the three-day event, the federal government has already allocated at least $179 million for the operations of the RCMP, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Department of National Defence, Industry Canada, and CSIS. Also expected are “several specialized police units—SWAT teams, intelligence analysts, motorcade escorts,” while “soldiers and spies will also work behind the scenes.”

According to the Supplementary Budget Estimates tabled by the Conservative government earlier this year, “This funding will support planning and operations related to policing and security at the G8 summit and to cover the costs of initial planning and preparations for the G20 summit,” indicating that the costs may be much higher.

The full amount may never be known. Addressing the question of security costs on its website, the ISU states, “It would be inappropriate to speculate on what the costs will be prior to the event...security plans can and will be adjusted right up until the end of the event.”

The police and media have begun drawing distinctions between “good” and “bad” protesters in an apparent attempt to preemptively demonize more radical demonstrators.

In an article earlier this month highlighting NGOs that will be taking a more “diplomatic” approach to protesting the summits, The Globe and Mail contrasted them with another group, Resist Toronto G20 Summit 2010: “On the group’s Anarchist Forum, one member advised visitors to bring ear plugs as police will ‘be using the sound cannons,’” the article states. “A member from Quebec City solicits contacts with ‘militant organizations in Toronto.’”

The Globe and Mail reported that “police are already reaching out to protest planners and monitoring websites on which they are planning their events.”

“It’s not keeping tabs; it’s not unlike policing a city normally,” said G8/G20 spokesperson Michelle Paradis. “You know the people who are expressly bent on wreaking havoc.”

Typically, protesters who are construed as “wreaking havoc” are labelled “anarchists.” A draft of the Canadian Forces Counterinsurgency Operations Manual states, “The most potentially dangerous form of insurrection is that of the anarchist group which sets out to eliminate all political structures and the social fabric associated with them.”

Christine Jones of the Canadian Peace Alliance warned the police against utilizing agents provocateurs, as they have done at past demonstrations. During protests against the 2007 Security and Prosperity Partnership in Montebello, Quebec, police agents provocateurs were caught on video. More recently, Montreal police were videotaped attempting to infiltrate an annual march against police brutality.

Chief of Toronto Police William Blair said security forces are preparing for the worst. “If protesters want to come to Toronto and do that, I’ll facilitate that,” Blair told reporters. “If they want to cross that line, and start breaking windows and damaging property and putting people at risk, then there will be a different response from the police.”

In another evocatively headlined article, “The summit of all fears,” The Globe and Mail warned of “wild protests,” while the Toronto Star invoked the spectre of “throngs of screaming protesters confronting police officers in riot gear,” and quoted an unnamed resident who stated, “Everyone knows that these conferences create very, very large protests...All it takes is 10 or 20 very violent protesters to turn the area into a war zone.”

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network has voiced its concern about the scale of militarization. In a press release, they stated: “The Canadian government is going to militarize Toronto for the G20 summit by bringing in...troops and thousands of metres of fencing to disrupt the lives of people in the city.”

UPDATE: Since this article was written, more information on security costs for the G8 & G20 summits have revealed the total security price tag to be between $833 and $930 million, as opposed to the original $179 million predicted in March, a 465 per cent increase.

Anthony Fenton is an independent researcher and journalist based in Pitt Meadows, BC. Fenton can be reached via WebofDemocracy.org.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

Peacekeeping fighters

Metro Toronto Convention Cenre 1

The Future of Warfare

dawn — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:01:53 +0000

Canadian counterinsurgency manual reflects US-Canada "synergy"

Capping a sweeping transformation that began in the late 1990s, the Canadian Forces recently issued their first counterinsurgency (COIN) operations doctrine, which will help Canadian soldiers prepare to fight the wars of today and the "foreseeable future," alongside its chief ally and the sole global superpower, the US.

In development since 2005, the COIN manual was authorized by Chief of Land Staff Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie in the waning days of the Bush administration. It was not formalized for another two months—six weeks after the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Obama's administration has sent clear signals, through political appointments and holdovers (such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates), that the US military and national security apparatus' transformation toward fighting smaller, "irregular wars" begun under Bush will continue apace.

Only a week before Bush left office, Gates, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Director of USAID, Henrietta Fore, co-signed the US Government Counterinsurgency Guide. Neo-conservative historian Eliot Cohen, who oversaw the Guide's creation, wrote in its introduction:

Insurgency will be a large and growing element of the security challenges faced by the United States in the 21st century...Whether the United States should engage in any particular counterinsurgency is a matter of political choice, but that it will engage in such conflicts during the decades to come is a near certainty. This Guide will help prepare decision-makers of many kinds for the tasks that result from this fact.

According to Lt. Gen. Leslie, the Canadian Army is "at the cutting edge" of Western armies readying themselves to fight 21st-century wars.

"The paradigms of the past based on the Cold War have changed a great deal. We have demonstrated beyond any doubt that we can adapt our doctrine and training quickly in order to meet scattered, complex operations focused on counterinsurgency missions," Leslie told a Senate defence committee meeting in March.

Shifts in Canadian policy adhere closely to those of her allies, like the US, the UK and other NATO partners. These governments are at the forefront of institutionalizing COIN principles and practices in military culture, across the "whole-of-government," and, eventually, within the "whole of society."

Based on the "comprehensive approach," the Canadian COIN manual represents a synthesis of two recent US Army Field Manuals: Counterinsurgency (FM 3-24); and Stability Operations (FM 3-07).

In 2007, after over one-and-a-half million downloads, the US Army COIN manual was published in print by the University of Chicago Press and received wide media coverage. The subsequent US Army Stability Operations Manual, published in early 2009, has also been widely distributed. By contrast, the Canadian manual is not yet publicly available. A copy of the Canadian COIN manual was obtained by The Dominion from the Department of National Defence.

Writing in the Canadian Military Journal last fall, Leslie defined the comprehensive approach as the "ability to bring to bear all instruments of national and coalition power and influence upon a problem in a timely, co-ordinated fashion." This definition aligns with that of the US Army, as found in the Stability Operations Manual:

A comprehensive approach...integrates the co-operative efforts of the departments and agencies of the United States government, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, multinational partners, and private sector entities to achieve unity of effort toward a shared goal.

The concept of "unity of effort" is drawn from classical counterinsurgency theory and doctrine.

In 1966, John J. McCuen wrote in The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War that, "Unity of effort...is extremely difficult to achieve because it represents the fusion of civil and military functions to fight battles which have primarily political objectives."

As the Canadian manual foregrounds, today's insurgencies remain inherently "a political problem."

"The nature of operations today and in the future will resemble the Three Block War construct—one that demands that soldiers interact with many different players other than their own armed forces, and undertake non-traditional tasks," wrote Leslie in the Canadian Military Journal.

In October 2003, [then Chief of the Land Staff and Lt. Gen. Rick] Hillier made the Three Block War scenario "a guiding concept for the Canadian Army."

Hillier's support for the Three Block War was one of the reasons he was selected to be Chief of Defence Staff in 2005. According to then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, "[Hillier] advocated a concept called the 'three-block war,' to describe the [military's] mission...This was not a rejection of our peacekeeping tradition, but a revision to suit tougher times, and I supported it."

Martin's government dovetailed the Three Block War approach with the broader institutionalization of the "whole-of-government" (or 3D: Defence, Development, Diplomacy) foreign policy approach in its International Policy Statement of 2005. This trajectory has continued, with minor modifications, under the minority Conservative governments of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

That Canada should shift its foreign and defence policies in concert with the US comes as no surprise given their close historical relationship, even if the level of integration is often downplayed by the mainstream media. "No two militaries are more closely united than those of the United States and Canada," said US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins in 2007.

With counterinsurgency practices and principles on the rise under the Obama administration, an increasing level of "COIN-synergy" exists between the two militaries.

"We are learning from others. I happen to know General David Petraeus, who is very good man. You will find that some of our recent philosophies closely match his and those of the US Army and our friends and allies," Lt. Gen. Leslie told the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in March.

Gen. Petraeus is likely the person who contributed the most to the resurrection of a new "counterinsurgency era" in the US. He oversaw the drafting of the US Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual in 2005 and 2006, and supervised its implementation during "the surge" in Iraq in 2007.

As Commander of US Central Command, Petraeus currently oversees both the Iraq and "AfPak" wars. Many followers of Petraeus have risen to prominence within Obama's cabinet; others have gone on to become "experts" in private think-tanks and appear regularly in the US media as proponents of counterinsurgency war.

Petraeus visited Calgary this week for a "social" meeting with Canada's top military brass. Partly a public relations exercise, the meeting saw Petraeus and Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk, who once served in Iraq at the same time as the US general, donning cowboy hats as they attended the Calgary Stampede. There, according to Petraeus, they discussed "the way forward for the next two years" in the COIN fight in Afghanistan.

Petraeus was subordinate in rank to Natynczyk when the Canadian general was Deputy Commander of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq in 2003-04. At the same time, Petraeus commanded a small number of Canadian soldiers in Iraq on a low-key NATO mission to train Iraqi soldiers, according to declassified documents obtained by The Dominion via Access to Information.

The clearest embodiment of COIN's institutionalization and the Canada-US "comprehensive approach" can be found in the US Army and Marine Corps COIN Center. Established at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2006 by Petraeus and US Marine General James Mattis, it was from the COIN Center that the US Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24) was drafted.

The COIN Center's pamphlet describes its purpose as "facilitat[ing] the development of a culture that enables us to more effectively adapt as a whole government when called upon to deal with future COIN or COIN-like threats."

Canada is identified in the pamphlet as a key COIN-partner of the US in the "COIN SITREP reports" that Lt. Col. Daniel Roper, Director of the COIN Center, publishes periodically.

"Each country needs to institutionalize it in a way that works for them," Roper told The Dominion. "But I see some pretty impressive collaboration at the inter-agency level in Canada, with people of cross-functional expertise trying to grapple with some issues; some similar things that we're doing."

Since General Leslie signed off on the COIN manual last December, the COIN Center and Canada have collaborated on more than 20 exchanges, including "COIN Leader Workshops" and "COIN Integration" meetings.

Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) met with the COIN Center for discussions about "US-Canada COIN synergy" five days after Leslie wrote in his issuing order for the new COIN doctrine that it is "complementary to our allies."

In April, the US COIN Center "visited military installations and think-tanks in Canada to inculcate the Canadian military establishment with COIN doctrine and best practices."

During one presentation with top officials from Prime Minister Harper's government, the COIN Center found that "policy advisors were most interested in how the merits of [Canada's new Afghan COIN] strategy could be explained to the Canadian public and Canadian political leadership."

Figuring out ways to sell the COIN campaign to a skeptical Canadian public has been a key aim of the Canadian government and military, and Canada's COIN manual emphasizes the goal of "creating and maintaining the legitimacy of the campaign." One of the central figures steering the Canada-US COIN-synergy is Lt. Col. John Malevich, who joined the COIN Center in November 2008 by way of a newly created exchange program between the two countries. He is currently the Deputy-Director of the COIN Center and recently gave a series of COIN lectures in Canada.

Reached via telephone upon his return to Ft. Leavenworth, Malevich told The Dominion that the biggest assets that he brings to the COIN Center are his scholarly background in asymmetric warfare and first-hand COIN experience in Afghanistan.

Prior to joining the COIN Center, Malevich was a member of the Strategic Advisory Team—a team of military advisors set up by General Hillier to provide direct advice to top Afghan cabinet ministers. He was later seconded to the Afghan Independent Electoral Commission, where Malevich says he "came up with their operations plan and their security plan" for the presidential elections scheduled for August 2009.

"When I speak, these guys give me a pretty good respect and they're pretty grateful to have this help...they're very grateful to have Canadians among them and grateful for the contribution we've made in Afghanistan," said Lt. Col. Malevich of his colleagues at the COIN Center.

Col. Roper, who says he's been to Canada "four or five times" to discuss COIN, told The Dominion that by having Malevich "institutionally embedded" in the COIN Center, "The Canadian Army benefits from having a full-time person working in here with full access to everything we've got and recognizing [when] he stumbles upon something here that, hey, he knows somebody in the Canadian Army that might benefit from that; he can very quickly share that information."

Invoking Gen. Charles Krulak, the US marine who coined the term "Three Block War" and who, in 1997, predicted the importance of "transnational movements" to 21st-century warfare, Roper said that today, "what we're looking at are transnational insurgencies."

Partnering as closely as possible with key allies like Canada is seen as crucial to conducting what some COIN experts call "global counterinsurgency."

According to Malevich, one of his key roles is "bringing [US COIN] expertise up to Canada and bringing it into the Canadian military culture."

Such a level of COIN integration has never been undertaken before, and it is difficult to foresee the possible implications for Canada's military culture, which inevitably spills over into broader society.

"The better the people understand the pros and cons and the risks [of COIN], the more informed a decision they can make," says Roper.

In her introduction to the University of Michigan Press edition of the US Army Stability Operations Manual, Janine Davidson acknowledges that, “[There] are those who see the new doctrine as another dangerous step on the slippery slope toward imperialism.”

Davidson dismisses those critics, writing that they "seriously misunderstand the purpose and role of military doctrine"—because the military doesn't set the policies that send them to occupy other countries.

On the other hand, influential COIN advocates such as Eliot Cohen have argued that the US needs to establish an "Imperial Army," the likes of which Canada is increasingly becoming appended to.

Anthony Fenton is an independent researcher and journalist based in Pitt Meadows, B.C. This article is based on a book he has been researching and writing with Jon Elmer. Fenton can be reached at fentona@shaw.ca

Tim Horton's opening Ceremony, Kandahar, 2006

The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized

dawn — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:45:42 +0000

Ottawa’s democracy promoters target Venezuela

As the country closer geographically, economically and militarily to the US than any other, Canada has often seen her foreign policy aspirations circumscribed by the whims of the world's lone Superpower.

Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.

Successive Canadian governments, beginning with Paul Martin's Liberals and gaining momentum under Harper's Tory minorities, have pushed full steam ahead with efforts to expand Canada's democracy promotion efforts globally. Canadian leadership in the regime change and military occupation of Haiti (2004-present) gave rise to a renewed emphasis on Canada as an emerging power, an idea fomented by the Harper government.

Democracy promotion is seldom discussed in the Canadian public sphere, even though it has been the subject of a multitude of federal-level conferences, reports and parliamentary hearings over the last five years. Over that same period, Canada has increasingly been integrating its instruments of democracy promotion with those of the US.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama quietly pledged to increase funding for the controversial National Endowment for Democracy (NED), despite scaling back the rhetoric used to describe continuing US aims to promote global, Western-style democracy. Obama has already fulfilled this pledge.

His Omnibus Appropriations Act allocates $115 million for NED's operations, increasing by $35 million the amount requested by Bush for 2009. All told, the requested 2009 budget for US democracy programs is the highest ever, at $1.72 billion. By contrast, Canada spent upwards of $650 million on democracy promotion in 2008.

The NED was formed in 1983 as a new tool to advance US foreign policy and business interests around the world. Nominally independent, NED receives the majority of its budget from Congress and each of its grants must be approved by the US State Department.

“One of the NED's first major successes...was helping to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua,” wrote journalist Bart Jones in his authoritative biography of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to Jones, a couple of decades later, “the NED was rapidly infiltrating [Venezuelan] society in a way reminiscent of the Nicaragua experience.” Channelling money and resources to opposition NGOs has been a prime strategy of the NED in Venezuela.

Following a short-lived coup d'etat against Chavez in April 2002, Venezuelan-American attorney Eva Golinger and investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood obtained a treasure trove of documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. These documents, released in conjunction with Golinger's 2004 book, The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela, exposed the NED's active role in the attempted subversion of Venezuela's democracy.

One of several Canadian NGOs whose activities are complementary to those of the NED is the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL). Established by the Mulroney government in the 1990s, FOCAL is almost entirely dependent on government funding and is accountable to parliament.

A 2004 evaluation of FOCAL conducted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) stated:

Stakeholders from every sector, and from the academic community in particular, indicated that FOCAL is already perceived as 'the right arm of the government,' echoing the perspective and beliefs of its funding bodies, rather than a truly independent, non-governmental organization.

"The US has been using Canadian and European foundations more frequently in recent years to filter funding to Venezuelan and other NGOs, and political parties that promote their mutual interests," said Golinger, whose most recent book is The Imperial Web: Encyclopedia of Interference and Subversion. "It's a way of covering up US meddling and making the sources of foreign funding for political objectives more difficult to detect. Canada has been a major ally of the US in this respect, particularly in the case of Venezuela."

Negative perceptions of the US indicate the necessity of “shifting responsibility for the [democracy] campaign to more local actors or other Western allies,” wrote Raymond Gastil, one of the theoreticians behind the US shift to democracy promotion, in 1988.

Although far from the first such instance, Canada began to adopt this notion of “responsibility” towards Venezuela in January 2005. DFAIT invited the head of a key opposition group in Venezuela, Sumate's Maria Corina Machado, to meet Ottawa lawmakers and officials, as well as to give a briefing on political rights in Venezuela.

Machado openly supported the 2002 coup against Chavez. In 2004, she was charged with conspiracy to commit treason for allegedly using NED funds to campaign against Chavez in a recall referendum organized by the opposition.

According to records obtained by The Dominion via an Access to Information request, in 2005 FOCAL's chairman, John Graham, joined Machado for a high-level meeting Washington, D.C. In attendance were former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Roger Noriega. “An exchange of ideas as regards the relationships between the civil society and the governments for the strengthening of democracy in the region,” was the stated purpose of the meeting.

Shortly after Graham’s meeting with Rice and Machado, the NED approved a $94,516 grant for FOCAL to carry out democracy promotion work in and around Venezuela.

Using the NED funds, FOCAL was to commission a series of papers and organize a number of meetings in Ottawa, Venezuela and Ecuador "to discuss how to better collaborate in promoting an informed civil society that can strengthen democracy in the region."

But after Harper's Conservatives took power in early 2006, FOCAL abruptly cancelled the activities that were supposed to take place in Venezuela.

"After discussing this project with various people...[we] came to the conclusion that it was not in anybody's interest to organize such an activity while being financially associated with the NED,” reads a heavily censored memo sent by DFAIT official Flavie Major in July 2006.

"Since the project was originally drafted, the internal context in Venezuela has shifted, as has the domestic context in Canada, which could potentially alter the priority and focus of Canada's engagement in Venezuela," states a separate document obtained through a US FOIA request.

An example of the changing political context in Venezuela is the 2006 draft of the Law on International Co-operation, which limits the ability of local NGOs to receive funding from foreign governments. Although the law has yet to be enacted, Western-backed NGOs and their donors have launched a campaign to “push back” against what they describe as a “backlash” against democracy promoters in the region.

By late 2006, the Conservatives proclaimed that democracy promotion was a “fundamental part” of Canadian foreign policy objectives and “an eminently worthy and intrinsically Canadian endeavour.” One indication of the Conservative's commitment was seen in the appointment of a former NED board member as a top advisor to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

In late 2007, the Canadian government gave the NED $198,168 to produce a major report, which was entitled "Defending Civil Society: A Report of the World Movement for Democracy." The report attacks Venezuela for its efforts to limit Western-funded manipulation of its internal politics:

Venezuela’s would-be caudillo Hugo Chavez has a peculiar notion of democracy. His ‘Bolivarian revolution’ appears to be based on Chavista [sic] monopolizing the country’s political institutions, from an absence of parliamentary opposition to a hand-picked judiciary. In these circumstances...civil society provides the only countervailing power to the Chavista state and to Chavez’s Castroite aspirations.

DFAIT seems to have based their own talking points on Venezuela around the NED’s line. In an e-mail statement to The Dominion, a spokesperson for Canadian Minister of State for Latin America Peter Kent wrote: "Hugo Chavez has a history of weakening democratic institutions. Minister Kent is committed to furthering the government's Americas strategy, which is dedicated to promoting and enhancing democracy, freedom and the rule of law."

When asked to substantiate a claim about Chavez’s anti-democratic tendencies, Kent’s spokesperson stated: "Hugo Chavez has a history of concentrating power in the Executive which has undermined democratic institutions in Venezuela. Since taking office a decade ago, we've seen the politicization of the judiciary and harassment by government officials of the state-controlled media and NGOs."

One of the ways that Canada has tried to avoid drawing attention to its support for the Venezuelan opposition and collaboration with the NED is by carrying out activities outside of Venezuela and co-ordinating them through embassies. Indeed, such methods have a theoretical basis that Canada helped design.

In conjunction with the NED-linked Council for a Community of Democracies and the US State Department, in April 2008 DFAIT contributed $70,000 in financing to the publication of A Diplomat's Handbook for Democracy Development Support.

Canada has one of the few foreign services that trains diplomats in democracy promotion. The US Foreign Service Institute has already ordered at least 400 copies of the handbook, which aims to provide diplomats with “encouragement, counsel and a greater capacity to support democrats everywhere.”

“We have over many, many years and will continue to work with the United States in this regard in advancing our common goals, certainly to the benefit of both countries and to the benefit of the world in general,” said Canada's Consul-General in New York, Dan Sullivan, during a launch event for the handbook in early 2008.

One example of the handbook in action is Canada’s funding of the Venezuelan NGO Justice and Development Consortium (Asociación Civil Consorcio Desarrollo y Justicia). This group, which also receives funding from the NED, has made a name for itself by working to unite reactionary opposition movements throughout Latin America.

In November 2007, DFAIT gave the Justice and Development Consortium $94,580 "to consolidate and expand the democracy network in Latin America and the Caribbean" at an assembly held in Panama City in the spring of 2008. This meeting, co-hosted by the Canadian Embassy in Panama and the NED, attracted prominent members of (often NED-funded) opposition movements in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It was convened in response to "the usher[ing] in [of] a new era of populism and authoritarianism in Latin America."

Flying in the face of the North American interpretation of Venezuelan democracy is the latest report by the non-partisan Chilean Latinobarometro, which shows that 79 per cent of Venezuelans polled are satisfied with their democracy.

"Venezuela has a poor image in the rest of the world...but the perception of Venezuelans is positive,” states the report. “They say they like their democracy as it is now, or, at least, much more than the citizens of other countries like their democracies which, by contrast, are not criticized by the outside world for lack of freedom and harassment of institutions.”

Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Chile are considered Canada’s strongest allies in the region and are also countries where people’s support for their government tends to be lower than it is in Venezuela. The subversion of Venezuelan democracy and the laissez-faire attitude towards the regimes of Felipe Caldéron in Mexico, Alan Garcia in Peru and Álvaro Uribe in Colombia demonstrates that building popular democracies is not the sought-after end result of democracy promotion activities.

The governments of Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Chile have already entered into Free-Trade deals with Canada and each receives high levels of Canadian outward foreign direct investment, particularly in the extractive sector.

Canadian trade with Venezuela is second only to trade with Brazil in South and Central America. Venezuela is the tenth-largest provider of Canada's considerable foreign oil needs. In 2008, Canada imported $1.36 billion worth of Venezuelan crude. The North Atlantic Refinery in Newfoundland, home of Premier Danny “Chavez” Williams, refines the oil.

Anthony Fenton is an independent researcher and journalist based in British Columbia. He has travelled to Venezuela several times. Some material in this article is drawn from a forthcoming book on Canadian foreign policy. He can be contacted at fentona[at]shaw.ca.

FOCAL document

Canada will Represent Israel in Venezuela: Minister

dawn — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Canada extends diplomatic representation from Cuba to Venezuela

VANCOUVER–During a recent trip to the Americas, Canadian Minister of State for Latin America Peter Kent confirmed that Canada will represent Israel's diplomatic interests in Venezuela.

Following Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip in January, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled Israeli diplomats from the country. Chavez called the assault a Palestinian "holocaust."

"The President of Israel at this moment should be taken to the International Criminal Court together with the President of the United States," said Chavez in a statement on January 6.

On January 14, as the air and ground invasion into Gaza continued, Venezuela cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.

President Chavez was hailed as a hero in the Arab world for standing up to Israel. Similar diplomatic moves were subsequently made by Bolivia and Ecuador.

Israel waited almost two weeks before responding. On January 28, Israel expelled Venezuela's diplomats.

"We're proud that the State of Israel that exists today, led by these criminals, made this decision," said Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro.

On the same day that Israel barred Venezuela's diplomatic corps, the Jerusalem Post reported that "Israel's interests in Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy."

A Canadian official has since confirmed that Canadian diplomats will represent Israel at the Israeli Embassy in the upscale Altamira district of Caracas.

"Canada has agreed to represent Israel's interests in Venezuela," wrote Kent in an e-mail response to The Dominion during his trip to the Caribbean on February 17.

Kent added that Canada is also "currently doing this for Israel in Cuba."

Kent did not respond to a follow-up query seeking clarification on when Canada began representing Israel's interests in Cuba.

Canada was the only member of United Nations Human Rights Council to vote against a January 12 resolution condemning Israel for its invasion of Gaza.

The resolution, put forward by the Cuban government, called on Israel to "bring an end to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people and to the excessive use of force."

UPDATE:

"In Venezuela, we are currently defining what services will be offered through the Canadian Embassy," wrote Eleanor Johnston, Kent's Senior Special Assistant, in an e-mail to The Dominion after this story went to press. "Canada has been asked by Israel to represent that country's interests in Venezuela and has agreed to do so."

Johnston also confirmed on behalf of her "colleagues in policy" that Canada has been providing Israeli citizens in Cuba with consular services since 1973, and that this service is provided on a cost-recovery basis.

Anthony Fenton is a researcher and writer who lives near Vancouver.

Canadian Embassy in Venezuela

FOCAL Blasted for Ties to Mining Industry

dawn — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:25:28 +0000

Indigenous leaders pull out of mining workshops in Guatemala

METRO VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–Last winter, indigenous Guatemalan community organizers declared their intention to boycott the "Economic Opportunities and Indigenous Development" workshop sponsored by the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL), calling the workshops a "public manipulation."

According to a statement released in English through the Toronto-based group Rights Action, FOCAL informed the participants that the workshop was being funded by two Canadian mining companies, Goldcorp and Skye Resources, as well as two Ottawa-based lobby groups, the Mining Association of Canada and the Prospectors and Developers' Association of Canada.

According to the indigenous groups' statement, upon reviewing the "content and the intentions of the workshop" they were concerned by “the fact that the workshop was financed by the entities responsible [for] the damages to and exploitation of our natural resources."

The activists further decried "permanent attempts by the state and transnational companies to publicly manipulate our struggles."

The presence of foreign mining companies in Guatemala is a source of continual tension between the Guatemalan government, indigenous people, and the organizations that have attempted to mediate between them.

The workshop was organized in order to address the "lack of participation of Indigenous Peoples in the decision-making processes that affect their territories and development," said FOCAL in a statement prepared for The Dominion.

According to FOCAL, the aim was "to create the necessary conditions for a tripartite dialogue between indigenous representatives, government and the private sector." The group added that "the private sector should help finance these types of events as a show of commitment to their learning process regarding these issues."

"FOCAL respects the decision of some indigenous participants in Guatemala to withdraw their participation from the event. However, we feel that those who withdrew lost the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with governments and the private sector – a dialogue that could have served to highlight the importance of indigenous rights and the necessity for the private sector to consult with Indigenous Peoples."

"The whole purpose of this workshop was to bring stakeholders together, to discuss the issues in a constructive, transparent manner [and] it's disappointing to us that any group would choose to avoid that kind of opportunity," said Goldcorp spokesperson Jeff Wilholt in a telephone interview with The Dominion.

Wilholt referred to the boycott as a "disturbance" and claimed, "There was some doubt as to who walked out, and why."

Juan Tema, a community member from Sipakapa, San Marcos, was invited to the workshop by the Indigenous Development Fund of Guatemala (FODIGUA), an NGO that works closely with the Guatemalan government and who partnered with FOCAL for the workshop.

Tema rejected assertions that FOCAL was only seeking to create a space for dialogue. He boycotted the workshop along with the other indigenous participants, who numbered close to two dozen.

"FOCAL is not making space for dialogue," he said. "FOCAL is attempting to open inroads for transnational companies by trying to create the mentality in indigenous people that our economic growth and development will come from mining. FOCAL works for the transnationals, convincing the people that mining is good – saying that they are facilitating ‘dialogue’ is a lie. In order to open real spaces for dialogue here in Guatemala, we don't need FOCAL – FOCAL just makes our struggle more complicated."

Tema questioned the motives behind FOCAL's supposed mediatory role.

"They are trying to convince communities that are threatened by mining exploitation not to say no to mining projects, using a discourse that makes their objectives totally obvious to anyone present," he said. "FOCAL is not an independent organization, as they claimed. That is a lie. FOCAL is dependent on transnational companies."

Rolando Lopez, from the Association for Integral Development Maya Ajchmol,(ADIMA) in San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Marcos, was also invited to the workshop by FODIGUA. In an e-mail sent to The Dominion, Lopez echoed Tema's remarks.

"For us, leaving the conference was not losing an opportunity, it is a demonstration of our non-conformity with the attitudes of the institutions and functionaries of the government, for their failure to respect the decisions of indigenous peoples and communities," he wrote.

Tema called on all actors to "respect the position of the people as represented through the consultas." In a consulta – a community referendum – entire (often indigenous) municipalities vote for or against mining activities in their territories. Thus far, there have been 29 consultas in Guatemala, in which an estimated 550,000 people have participated. All of the consultas have strongly rejected mining activity.

Goldcorp's Wilholt called the consultas "very old, recycled kinds of charges that we've addressed time and time again in the past."

Consultas have been declared legal but are not binding by the constitutional court in Guatemala, a ruling which leaders from Sipakapa are fighting at the Interamerican Court on Human Rights in Washington, DC.

Why FOCAL decided that last winter was an appropriate time to initiate dialogue between communities that clearly reject mining activities and mining companies who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of indigenous decision making processes is unknown.

Goldcorp “has already been violating our individual and collective rights as indigenous communities for many years. Communities have come forward with petitions and proposals to the government and the company but we have received no answer from either. For this to come from them is really too late... It is only to suffocate our struggle," said Lopez.

Since its establishment in 1994, FOCAL's chief funders have been the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). In 2004, an internal evaluation conducted by the two agencies observed that FOCAL is seen as "the right arm of the government...rather than a truly independent, non-governmental organization."

This was not the first time that FOCAL has found itself in the middle of controversy. In 2004, FOCAL supported the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, an event which led to the murder, arbitrary arrest, and disappearance of thousands of Aristide's supporters during two years of interim government rule and UN occupation.

FOCAL has also carried out controversial work in Venezuela funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, a group which attorney Eva Golinger has suggested was complicit in an attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez in 2002.

Anthony Fenton is a researcher and writer who lives near Vancouver.

Marlin Mine

Growing Insurgencies, Irregular Warfare, part II

dru — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:33:57 +0000

Development Aid as Counterinsurgency Tool

TORONTO, Mar 23 (IPS) - A soon-to-be-completed Canadian Forces counterinsurgency field manual foreshadows the type of interventions that the military in this country is preparing for the coming decades, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS.

Gone is the era of major military powers fighting the tank battles or aerial dogfights that defined warfare during the 20th century.

The new military environment is often urban-based warfare against fighters operating amid, and often with significant support from, local populations.

This type of insurgent warfare has marked the period since the end of the Cold War and has been underlined by attempts to control populations in so-called "failed states" operating without a central government, not the defeat of armies or the strict acquisition of territory.

Insurgencies are animated by "ideas for social change" and therefore the response necessarily "involves much more than simply military action," the manual states.

"It is a multi-agency approach -- military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological and civic actions -- that seeks to not only defeat the insurgents themselves, but the root causes of, and support for, the insurgency," it says.

Increasingly, development aid is being used as a key weapon to advance the military's counterinsurgency campaigns.

As the head of the army Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie recently told journalists in Vancouver, the Canadian Forces work "hand-in-glove with the folks from the Canadian International Development Agency [as well as] reinforce the diplomatic activities and efforts of Foreign Affairs."

In the language of the Department of Foreign Affairs, this integration is known as the "3-D approach" -- defence, diplomacy and development acting together to further Canada's "interests" in the world.

Canada has showcased this new foreign policy posture in Afghanistan, in what MP Michael Ignatieff called "a paradigm shift" and Canada's top soldier, Rick Hillier, has described as "a glimpse of the future."

In a comprehensive policy review tabled before Parliament in 2005, the Department of National Defence boasted that "the ability to respond to the challenge of failed and failing states will serve as a benchmark for the Canadian Forces."

Counterinsurgency is by no means new and the lessons of history's irregular wars -- the United States in Vietnam, the British in the Malay, Canada's Northwest Rebellion -- are as relevant as ever. Yet, according to the manual's lead author, this is the first time that Canada has formally drafted a counterinsurgency field manual for training its soldiers and officers.

In an interview with IPS, Maj. D.J. Lambert, director for army doctrine, described the manual's focus on a "comprehensive approach."

In order to effectively defeat the local uprisings, "the military is working hand-in-hand with other agencies, with a unifying theme and a unity of purpose and, ideally, effort," Lambert said.

The most recent report by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on plans and priorities declares that the agency "will set core policy directions for Canadian development assistance in a manner that is consistent with Canada's foreign policy."

CIDA identifies three "countries of strategic importance for Canada" -- Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq. In each instance, Canada is among the top-five donor countries. Each of the three priority countries is experiencing deepening crises of human security, foreign occupations and -- particularly in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan -- growing insurgencies.

A significant portion of CIDA's funding in each of these countries is earmarked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to assist in training police cadets.

The RCMP's director general of international policing, David Beer, testified before a parliamentary committee late last year that more than 34,700 Iraqi police were trained under the Canada-backed training programme in neighbouring Jordan.

Beer added that, "approximately 10 per cent" of the recruits trained by Canada have been killed in service in Iraq.

The security apparatus in all three countries has been roundly criticised by human rights groups for widespread abuses.

After having received virtually zero Canadian aid during the 1990s, Afghanistan has, since9/11, become Canada's largest recipient of development money.

According to CIDA, by the end of the current fiscal year (2006-2007), "Canada will have invested nearly $600 million [$517,482,000US] since the fall of the Taliban." Over a 10-year period beginning in 2001, Canada will have committed nearly $862 million US in development aid to Afghanistan.

While only a fraction of the military spending, Canada's aid contribution to Afghanistan represents a significant element of CIDA's $2.5billion annual budget.

Canadian Forces have administered dozens of aid projects with CIDA throughout Afghanistan under the auspices of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The PRTs are units comprised of soldiers, aid workers and civilian contractors.

"The PRT's are very much a realisation of good counterinsurgency principles, with co-operation and shared intent across the different agencies," said Lambert in a telephone interview.

The PRT model was first developed by the US during Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2002. It has since been extended across Afghanistan and was recently applied as a model for the George W. Bush administration's 20,000-troop "surge" in Iraq. The Bush administration has referred to the Iraq PRT's as "powerful tools in achieving our counterinsurgency strategy."

As Canada's draft manual notes: "It is unlikely that the conflict will be suddenly ended with a major military victory against the insurgents." Instead, "typical measures of effectiveness are numbers of violent incidents and the level of popular support for the government."

By all accounts, those benchmarks continue to deteriorate in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A widely cited US intelligence report about Afghanistan released in early 2007 showed a spike in suicide attacks from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. Roadside bomb attacks more than doubled from 783 to 1,677 and direct attacks using small-arms and grenades increased almost threefold to 4,542 from 1,558.

A report this week by the Senlis Council found that support for the Taliban has "rocketed" in the last year and half, while 80 per cent of respondents in southern and eastern Afghanistan -- the heart of NATO's counterinsurgency fight -- expressed worry about feeding their families.

*This story is part two of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions.

Guarding a Meeting

Provincial Reconstruction Team Carrying Bags of Flour

Is Military Using Hamilton in Six Nations Standoff?

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:58:32 +0000

Officials "not aware" of military involvement in Six Nations crisis, but won't deny reports

Protesters are occupying a housing development on Haudenosaunee land near Caledonia. photo: OCAP

A military force of unknown size and capacity seems to be operating out of the Hamilton airport, according to information gathered by the Dominion. The deployment of military forces would be a major escalation in the standoff between Native protesters and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). The OPP has tried once, though unsucessfully, to remove demonstrators occupying a housing development that Six Nations Kanienkehake (Mohawks) say is illegal under Canadian, Haudenosaunee and international law.

During an interview, an airport official initially confirmed that Canadian Forces were at the airport as "back up support." Mary Beth Horvath, Marketing/Commuications Coordinator for the Hamilton Airport, first told the Dominion that Canadian Forces were not "using it [the airport] as a staging ground. I haven't heard it regarded in that term."

When she was later asked to confirm her report, Horvath repeated that "there is some backup support there." When asked to specifically to confirm if Canadian Forces were on site, Horvath responded that "I don't know if, again, I don't know to what extent or to what, so I'm not, I really don't want to be quoted on that because I'm not there to actually see it, physically."

[Update: A Caledonia resident who asked not to be identified, told the Dominion he saw an unmarked grey van traveling in his neighborhood, blocks away from the standoff, with eight Canadian Forces personnel aboard. "They looked like Rangers," the source said.]

Horvath referred the Dominion to two other officials, neither denied that Canadian Forces were operating from the Hamilton Airport.

"I know nothing about that," said Haldiman County Official Bill Pierce when asked about a military staging ground at the airport.

Dave Rector, a spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police, said "I am not aware of the presence of any Canadian armed forces."

Eyewitness and press reports have confirmed that RCMP are assisting the OPP, and some reports cite the Hamilton Airport as the Federal police force's staging area. An RCMP spokesperson confirmed that the RCMP is playing a supporting role, but would not comment on any specific locations or activities.

As of this writing, the Dominion could not find any officials willing to deny the deployment of military to the airport.

Federal Involvement?

The deployment of the military would mark the involvement of the Federal Government, signaling a departure from what officials have repeatedly insisted is a Provincial matter.

The last time Canadian Forces were deployed against Native demonstrators was during the 1990 Oka crisis, when Kanienkehake citizens occupied land that was slated for a golf course development. The land had been stolen a century earlier by the Catholic Church, and a century of Kanienkehake protests had not changed the situation. Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa invoked the National Defense Act, requesting "military aid to the civil power". The deployment of the Canadian army ended with one dead soldier and two related civilian deaths. Reports of torture and unjustified tactics earned Canada the condemnation of the International Federation of Human Rights and a place on Amnesty International's list of human rights violators.

Provincial officials requested the deployment of Canadian Forces--specifically, the elite Joint Task Force Two--during the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff, but were officially denied. According to court testimony by police officers, police took flack jackets to a firing range and fired guns at them in order to create the appearance that police had been shot by the small group of Natives occupying the site. Internal police video showed commanders stating the need for a "disinformation and smear campaign" against the Native occupiers. With 77,000 rounds of ammunition shot by police, the deployment of armored vehicles, and the use of a land mine against a truck driven by one of the demonstrators, Gustafsen lake has been cited as the largest paramilitary deployment in Canadian history.

In his book Canada's Secret Commandos: The Unauthorized Story of Joint Task Task Force Two, Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese wrote that officially, JTF2 "wasn't deployed to the standoff."

"But civilian police officers privately confirm that JTF2 operators were at the siege, helping them in covert intelligence gathering as well as determining the lay of the land in case the entire unit was needed for an assault on the native encampment," Pugliese wrote. "Some of the native protesters also insist that it was members of JTF2, and not the RCMP, who engaged them in a gun battle in early September."

Federal officials have denied that the current standoff at Six Nations has anything to do with land. "This is not a lands-claim matter," Deirdre McCracken, a spokesperson for the Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice told reporters. McCracken also said that the blockade "has nothing to do with the federal government."

The presence of Canadian Forces on the ground, if confirmed, will be a stark change from the government's stated policy.

» The Dominion: Home On Native Land

» Wikipedia: Oka Crisis

» Everything2: Gustafsen Lake Standoff 1995

Canadian Politicians Travel to Haiti on Eve of Elections

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 07:30:18 +0000

Meeting Plans 'Confidential'

[Corrected, April 24, 5:20 PM EST - (details)]

A delegation of Canadian parliamentarians arrived in Haiti on April 20 as Haitian voters prepared to participate in run-off elections slated for April 21st. Members of the Liberal Party, who engineered Canada's involvement in the leadup and aftermath of the coup d'état that threw the island nation into chaos in February 2004, are not among the high-level delegation. The trip was authorized by the new Foreign Affairs Minister of the Conservative government, Peter MacKay.

New Democratic Party MP Alexa McDonough, the NDP's former leader and current foreign affairs critic, is part of the Canadian delegation to Haiti. Anthony Salloum, assistant to McDonough, could not provide specific details of the trip. In a message acquired by the Dominion, the itinerary for the trip was said to be "confidential." According to the email, members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs' itinerary included "tentative meetings with Preval's team, [meeting with] Latortue, [visiting] polling stations, NGO's, MINUSTAH [United Nations forces in Haiti], visits to a 'penitencier,'" but specifics were not available.

McDonough's spokesperson did confirm that she has scheduled a screening of the documentary film "Aristide and the Endless Revolution" upon her return to Ottawa. The controversial but critically acclaimed film contests the version of events in Haiti offered by Canada, the US, and France - the leaders of the February 2004 invasion of Haiti. According to the film, the US whisked elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide into his second forced exile in as many times he had held office. Evidence also suggests that Canadian troops secured key locations in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince during the coup d'état.

A source close to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) operations in Haiti told the Dominion that visiting dignitaries in Haiti are limited to the areas where "things are working a little bit."

"They're brought wherever people want to show them things are working reasonably [well]," the source said.

In the Haitian elections, thirty Senate seats and ninety-seven Chamber of Deputy seats are up for grabs. Haitian President-elect Rene Preval awaits the news that will determine how his popular Lespwa coalition of parties fared against a largely foreign-backed opposition representing Haiti's minority classes.

Without a majority in Parliament, Preval will be under severe pressure to stray from his mandate to eradicate poverty, end repression, free the hundreds of political prisoners, and give Haiti's impoverished majority a say in the country's affairs. Foreign donors and Haiti's elites are pressuring for structural reforms and eventual privatization under the tutelage of international financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and Inter-American Bank.

With voter turn-out for run-off elections traditionally low, and with a high level of foreign and Haitian elite support for opposition parties, it is plausible that Preval's Lespwa coalition will lack a majority in the upcoming parliament. On April 19, Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva quoted Preval as saying, "Without support from Parliament, there is not much a president can do."

The head of Elections Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, leads an international elections monitoring mission in Haiti (IMMHE), a position that he has held for overseeing recent elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The IMMHE works closely with the International Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES), a controversial US organization that receives funding from the US State Department and USAID. Kingsley sits on the IFES Board of Directors. The Chairman of IFES is William Hybl, a former Bush appointee to the UN and former advisor to President Ronald Reagan, who also sits on the board of directors of the International Republican Institute (IRI). Both the IRI and IFES are widely believed to have helped destabilize Haiti's democratically elected government by supporting the largely elite-based opposition that agitated for Aristide's ouster prior to his overthrow in 2004.

On April 21 the Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee held a demonstration demanding Kingsley's resignation. A press release said that "Kingsley's appalling silence in the face of grave human rights violations and political repression throughout Haiti's election process demonstrate a profound partisan bias that is simply unacceptable."

"His performance is a disgrace, and he should resign immediately."

Referring to the April 21st run-off and February 7th elections as "profoundly flawed," the committee decried Kingsley's failure to address well-founded accusations of fraud and ballot manipulation. They write that a recent IMMHE report on the February elections "completely ignores these accusations and minimizes the importance of the burning ballots." It hails the election as a "laudable democratic exercise." The protesters are also calling for the release of Haiti's political prisoners.

The Canadian government has played a leading role in Haiti's "transition" under UN-led military occupation, pouring millions of dollars of funding into programs that support Haiti's right-wing and former opposition to Lavalas. Canadian-based transnationals such as Gildan Activewear, own and contract out sweatshops in Haiti. According to a CIDA spokesperson, at least one other Canadian-based textile company is currently considering moving to Haiti where conditions are favorable due to Haiti's low wages, tax holidays, and favorable trade and labor conditions.

Critics of Canada's role in Haiti have long encouraged politicians to acknowledge the reported abuses that have been carried out by the interim government and UN forces. UN forces include at least 100 RCMP officers and an undisclosed number of Canadian Forces and possible Special Forces. A Canadian has commanded the 1,700 strong UN police contingent since it's inception under the MINUSTAH umbrella in mid-2004. At least five of the RCMP are devoted to intelligence gathering and surveillance.

Declassifying Canada in Haiti: Part II

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 21:33:28 +0000

Did Canada have plans to support another military coup in Haiti?

Documents provided by the government under the Access to Information act were heavily censored, and 25 days-worth of documents were omitted without explanation. View all the documents acquired by the Dominion.

According to classified memos obtained by The Dominion through an Access to Information Act request, Canadian officials speculated about working with Haiti's dreaded former military in the weeks before the coup d'état that removed elected President Aristide and thousands of elected officials.

Eighteen days before the military intervention, Canadian Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Cook wrote of the paramilitary groups that had entered the country days earlier from the Dominican Republic:

There is clearly a military hand in the planning of current anti-government insurrectional events but it is very difficult to say [what] the potential for bringing together a significant force based on the former armed forces [is]. To date it is not considered likely but if someone like Senator (former Major) Dany Toussaint with support of Col. Himmler Rebu were to intervene the scenario would be quite different.

The heavily censored memos acquired by The Dominion leave some doubt as to Cook's intent. In the context of Cook's other comments blaming Aristide for the crisis, however, the Ambassador seems to be suggesting that Haiti's former military, led by Dany Toussaint, could be used to put an end to the crisis. The subsequent (post-coup) integration of former military personnel and officers into the Haitian National Police under the oversight of Canada's RCMP lends further credence to this interpretation.

Variously, Toussaint had been alleged to have involvement in narcotraficking, ties to the CIA, and a possible role in the murder of radio journalist Jean Dominique. In the 1980s, he received training at the Fort Benning, Georgia "School of the Americas." In 2001, then Republican Congressman Porter Goss wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell that Toussaint is "credibly linked by a number of US government agencies to narcotics trafficking in Haiti."

Interviewed two days after the coup against Aristide, Toussaint referred to paramilitary leader Guy Philippe as "a brave man who has worked for his country." Phillipe is known for his own ties to narco-trafficking, his alleged involvement in murders and at least two previous coup attempts against Aristide, as well as his affinity for former President Ronald Reagan and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Both Philippe and Toussaint would run for President in 2006, garnering few votes. Both Toussaint and Himmler Rebu agitated with the US- and European-funded "Democratic Platform," demanding the ouster of Aristide.

The former military that Cook refers to is widely acknowledged to be responsible for massive human rights violations, including murder, torture, political repression, and overthrowing a previous democratically elected government. The Haitian military was created during an American military occupation of Haiti during WWI, and disbanded by then-President Aristide in 1994.

Again invoking the "responsibility to protect" (R2P, see part I) theme, Cook describes the situation in Northern Haiti. According to his intelligence sources, "Cap Haitien has become the scene of much violence, stores and banks are closed as are gas stations. The city is for all practical purposes isolated... A solution will have to be found to avoid a humanitarian crisis." Several paragraphs are then censored, followed by: "This is a complicating factor in any consideration of options for a stabilizing police presence here."

Extensive censorship raises as many questions as are addressed by the documents. 25 days of requested documents--from Feb 20 to March 15--were simply omitted without explanation.

Cook's references to the use of military force to remove Aristide, however, fly in the face of the official story. Nine days after Cook's memo, Canadian ministers Graham and Coderre were telling the press that Canada was seeking a peaceful settlement to the crisis, which was largely instigated by Canadian-, US- and European-funded groups within Haiti. Those countries backed the unelected government after it was imposed, and avoided acknowledging evidence of widespread political repression and human rights abuses.

The limited historical perpective available two years after the coup also raises serious questions about the use of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine. Rather than avert a crisis, foreign military intervention in Haiti became the backdrop for a major escalation of atrocities, with thousands killed, hundreds jailed for their political views, and thousands more forced into hiding after the coup.

Was Canada an early backer of a coup against the democratically elected government of Haiti, led by the dreaded former military? New documents raise new questions.

Declassifying Canada in Haiti: Part I

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 00:05:49 +0000

Canadian officials planned military intervention weeks before Haitian coup

Classified memos obtained by The Dominion through an Access to Information Act request raise new questions about the extent of Canadian participation in the 2004 coup against Haiti's democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Nine days before the February 29 coup that removed Aristide and thousands of elected officials, then-minister Denis Coderre told the Canadian Press that "it is clear that we don't want Aristide's head; we believe that Aristide should stay."

In the same report, then-Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham claimed that Canada was seeking to pressure Aristide to adopt a series of measures to give the opposition more power in government.

Nine days earlier, on February 11th, Canadian Ambassador Kenneth Cook sent a memo marked "Confidential" to the Privy Council Office and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, with a subject heading "Meeting with US Ambassador." Its contents suggest that Canada was planning for the removal of the Aristide-led government while officials publicly claimed to be attempting to reach a peaceful agreement.

Cook wrote:

The situation we face is not only one of a struggle for power, it involves a humanitarian crisis and the potential to permanently change the course of Haitian history. President Aristide is clearly a serious aggravating factor in the current crisis and unless he gives dramatic early signs that he is implementing the CARICOM road map then the OAS, CARICOM and possibly UN will have to consider the options including whether a case can be made for the duty to protect.

Large portions of the memo, which discusses specific plans for military intervention, are blacked out. Of the period requested, February 5 to March 15 2004, Feb 20 to March 15 were omitted without explanation.

The "duty to protect" is another term for the controversial Canadian-sponsored "responsibility to protect" (R2P) doctrine, which was adopted as international doctrine without a vote by the UN General Assembly at the UN World Summit in September 2005. Countries like Cuba and Venezuela have strongly opposed the doctrine, saying that it gives powerful countries freedom to intervene when they determine a state to have "failed."

Notable Canadians involved in the drafting of the R2P doctrine were Michael Ignatieff and Lloyd Axworthy. In his writings, academic-turned-politician Ignatieff has praised the US as an "Empire Lite," and supported the US-led war on Iraq. Axworthy was Canada's foreign affairs Minister in 2000 when economic sanctions were levied against Haiti's democratically elected government.

The R2P doctrine developed a framework for "threshold criteria for military intervention," under the guise of "humanitarian intervention for human protection." Under the core principles devised in this doctrine, "the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect."

Two "precautionary principles" of R2P stand out. First, that "the primary purpose of the intervention...must be to halt or avert human suffering," and second, that military intervention must only be used as a last resort, "Military intervention can only be justified when every non-military option...has been explored."

In this case, substantial evidence suggests that the crisis that Ambassador Cook used to invoke the R2P was itself instigated by the US State Department and other US and Canadian agencies. The US, Canadian, and European Union-funded "civil society organizations" though lacking in popular support, continually demanded that Aristide step down and that their representatives be granted key positions in government. US, Canadian and French diplomats insisted on opposition support for any power-sharing agreement. Some critics claim that the three governments knew that the opposition would not accept any agreement other than one that gave them control.

According to many reports, the intervention itself, justified in memos by the R2P doctrine, had the effect of multiplying and aggravating the humanitarian crisis. An April 2004 human rights report prepared by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) found that "the multinational force of 3,600 soldiers... was not functioning to protect supporters of President Aristide or prevent killings, kidnappings, and arsons directed at this supporters."

The NLG met with the Director of the State Morgue in Port au Prince, and reported that "The Director admitted that 800 bodies were 'dumped and buried' by morgue on Sunday, March 7, 2004, and another 200 bodies dumped on Sunday, March 28, 2004. The 'usual' amount dumped is less than 100 per month."

A March 2005 Harvard University Law School report, "Keeping the Peace in Haiti?" contended that the UN military force, MINUSTAH, "has effectively provided cover for the police to wage a campaign of terror in Port au Prince's slums." Having discovered evidence of a mass grave, the human rights delegation found MINUSTAH officials aware but unwilling to investigate the "clandestine gravesite." Canadian UN police (UNPOL) Commissioner David Beer, while ackowledging that grave sites were "a point of contention," said that the grave "was not an active case being investigated."

According to other government documents acquired by The Dominion, Denis Paradis organized a January 2003 meeting "in the spirit of the responsibility to protect." The secret, high level roundtable was dubbed the "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti." Details of this meeting were leaked in a March 15, 2003 edition of l'Actualité, by reporter Michel Vastel. Vastel wrote then that the theme "Aristide must go," along with the possibility of a "Kosovo-model" trusteeship over Haiti, were discussed by members of the Canadian, French, and US governments, along with representatives from the Organization of American States (OAS).

In an effort to control the damage of the media leak, the Canadian government issued a release denying that regime change or a trusteeship were discussed at this meeting.

Documents acquired by the Dominion in a Access to Information Act request reveal that Canada was long planning a military intervention in Haiti.

Event Cancelled Due to PMO Gag Order: Organizers

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 01:50:11 +0000

"Canada's Role in Afghanistan," a panel hosted by the University of Calgary's Center for Military and Strategic Studies (CMSS)," was cancelled due to Prime Minister Harper's recent decision to place major limits on the media's access to ministers, organizers say.

CTV reported that the Prime Minister's Office issued an order restricting interaction with the press to discussions of the "five priority areas identified in the [Conservative] campaign."

"In order to keep a grip on such events (those that distract from priority areas), PMO will approve of all ministerial events," the order allegedly said.

A CMSS spokesperson told The Dominion that "only David Sproule, Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan, was able to attend the panel. Therefore, we decided to cancel it."

The CMSS spokesperson affirmed that it is their belief that the decree made by Harper's office led to the immediate unavailability of the other speakers, which were to include Omar Samad, Afghanistan's Ambassador to Canada.

At press time, the Foreign Affairs department had not responded to requests for information about Samad's cancellation.

Anthony Fenton

» CTV: Harper tightens leash on his ministers: report

Canada's Military-Media Complex

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:03:29 +0000

What's the difference between government, defense contractors and media?

Corporal Tracy Scott inspects a vehicle entering Kabul's Camp Julian. Institutional connections between government, the defense industry and the media often pass unexamined, argues Fenton. photo: Paul MacGregor, Combat Camera

The lines separating Canada's government, military, media, and private defense contractors are, if not imaginary, then ill-defined.

The case of the new Minister of Defense Gordon O'Connor is illustrative. A veteran of the Canadian Forces, he was a tank squadron commander and is now a retired Brigadier-General who spent eight years as a lobbyist for some of Canada's largest military contractors. In his words, he was "helping defense companies navigate complicated government procurement rules." He ended his career as a lobbyist only to run for public office. He won a seat and became a Member of Parliament in June 2004. He then became the Conservative Party's Critic for National Defense and was a member of the Standing Committee on National Defense and Veterans Affairs.

When he was new to the House of Commons in November 2004, O'Connor's lobbyist past was scrutinized by journalists. At the time he flatly denied that his work as a military lobbyist could pose a potential conflict of interest in his role as defense critic. "I don't decide who wins and loses contracts," said O'Connor at the time. Now that's he's Minister of Defense, he will decide who wins and loses contracts.

O'Connor has made it clear that the Conservatives will only be following through on policy objectives that were established under the Liberals. "I'm pretty confident that our platform and the previous Liberal [policy] will blend quite well," O'Connor recently told the press.

The transformation of Canada's military was well underway before the Conservatives took power, but there are indications that the Conservative Government will outdo the Liberals. Military spending under the Liberals was already at its highest level since World War II, with additional spending of $12.8 billion promised by in 2004. The Conservatives will add at least another $5.3 billion to this. They will also be expanding the Canadian forces by 13,000 soldiers, 8,000 more than the Liberals had planned, all geared at allowing Canada to play "a more aggressive role in fighting terrorism."

The military's new direction involves greater emphasis on interoperability with US and other militaries committed to "the long war." Chief of Defense Staff, Rick Hillier, makes frequent appearances in the press, appealing for more money for the military. On February 25th, the second headline on Mike Blanchfield's National Post article was Hillier's assertion: "we need money."

A few days after Hillier's exhortations, the Globe and Mail and CTV published the result of a poll, showing 62 per cent of Canadians opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan.

The Globe and Mail's February 25th cover story announced a potential Prime Ministerial visit to Afghanistan. The Globe cites the anticipated trip–the first by a Canadian Prime Minister since Canada has occupied Afghanistan–as "a means of asserting support for a revitalized Canadian military." Top military brass, including Hillier, are quoted as being excited by the prospect of a "heartening," and "encouraging" visit that would certainly "be a major boost to the soldiers' morale." the Globe describes the purpose of the Canadian troop presence in Afghanistan, "to support the Afghans and help rebuild their infrastructure."

The article shifts focus to remarks made by Hillier in his keynote address at the Conference of Defense Associations (CDA) annual general meeting the previous day. The CDA describes itself as the "oldest and most influential advocacy group in Canada's defense community." According to the Globe, Hillier "made a passionate pitch for greater Canadian public support for the Afghan mission, saying the objectives are worth the costs and risks."

The CDA's sister organization, the Canadian Defense Associations Institute (CDAI), hosted a seminar on February 23rd, entitled "NATO in Transition: The impact on Canada" that also made headlines. Many high-ranking military officials, politicians, and diplomats were in attendance, including Minister O'Connor.

The CDAI's board of directors includes Jack Granatstein, and Hugh Segal, a Senator and former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who is today a close advisor to PM Harper's "transition team." Granatstein, a well known and prolific revisionist historian, is an advocate for Canada's increased global military presence.

The headline of Granatstein's Globe op/ed, written in response to the negative poll, in which 62% of Canadians opposed sending tropps to Afghanistan, conveys the singular message of recent Afghanistan coverage: "Wake up! This is our war too; We must accept reality: Our Afghan mission is very much in our national interests and in the interests of democracy." Noting that "Canadian anti-Americanism is at a record peak in 2006," Granatstein appeals to Canadians "to recognize what is at stake and to support their government and their soldiers in advancing their country's--and the world's--interests." Granatstein's column appeared in the February 28th edition of the Globe right below Margaret Wente's. Wente sits with Granatstein on the Advisory Council of another prominent lobby group, the Canadian defense and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI). CDFAI's donors include General Dynamics, the sixth largest defense contractor in the world, and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Among other connections, the chairman of the Globe's parent company BCE's board, Richard J. Currie, is also a director on the board of CAE, one of Canada's largest defense contractors. In the BCE boardroom, Currie sits with other directors representing the defense and energy lobbies, like billionaire James Pattison, a close friend of George Bush Sr. and a board member of the Ronald Reagan Foundation.

The most striking thing about corporate media war coverage in Canada is the omission of the majority view.

Immediately after publishing a poll showing that 62 per cent of Canadians opposed the Canadian occupation in Afghanistan, the Globe (among others) did not seek out any of the majority of Canadians to justify their views. With near exclusivity, both the Globe and the Post seek only the viewpoints of military officials, politicians, embedded reporters, and pro-military think tanks. Reading the country's "national" newspapers, one is scarcely aware of the numerous anti-war organizations, all of which have spokespeople across Canada.

While media support for war and marginalization of anti-war views is long-standing, so are the devastating effects of war and occupation that rely on public support. An online poll conducted by the Globe after the initial poll, indicates that the nationalist appeals geared at winning Canadian public opinion are having their impact. A week after the original poll, the Globe reported that out of 32,499 online respondents, 53 per cent support Canadian troops leading NATO combat missions in southern Afghanistan.

Anthony Fenton examines the ill-defined lines separating Canada's government, private defense contractors, the military and the media.

Le Canada en Haïti

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 05:31:44 +0000

Qui a orchestré le renversement de la démocratie?

25 août 2004 -- Pour ceux qui cherchent à comprendre les motifs de la plus récente intervention du Canada en Haïti, il semble qu'il n'y ait pas de meilleure place pour commencer qu'avec celui qui est au centre de la controverse Canada-Haïti, le député québécois au parlement fédéral Denis Paradis.

Au cours d'une récente entrevue diffusée sur les ondes de la CBC, dans le cadre de l'émission «The Current», le journaliste Michel Vastel, qui a interviewé Paradis plusieurs fois, a déclaré ce qui suit:

«Denis Paradis [...] a été en Haïti durant l'année 2000. Il a été scandalisé par la situation que vivent les Haïtiens et il a décidé de faire du problème haïtien une cause personnelle. Denis Paradis a décidé d'avoir une session de remue-méninges avec les principaux acteurs en Haïti.» (6 août 2004)

Or, il n'y avait pas un seul Haïtien parmi les «acteurs» de cette «session de remue-méninges». Il est très édifiant de retracer le chemin parcouru avant cette réunion par Denis Paradis, ancien bâtonnier du Québec, considéré autrefois comme «le meilleur diplomate canadien sur la question des Amériques».

Si l'on revient à 2000, l'année des «élections entachées de nombreuses irrégularités» en Haïti, Paradis se trouvait être le secrétaire parlementaire du ministre des Affaires étrangères, Lloyd Axworthy.

En mai 2000, il y a eu des élections en Haïti. L'Organisation des États Américains (OÉA) avait d'abord déclaré le processus «libre et équitable» mais quelques mois plus tard elle est soudainement revenue sur sa décision, disant que les élections avaient été «entachées de très nombreuses irrégularités». Pourquoi ce revirement?

En septembre 2000, Madeleine Albright a organisé la première rencontre des «amis d'Haïti». Selon le réseau CNN, l'objectif de cette rencontre était de «faire pression sur Haïti afin de renforcer le processus démocratique avant la tenue des élections présidentielles et législatives de novembre». Il s'agit d'élections qui, selon toutes les prévisions, allaient être une victoire raz-de-marée pour Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

À ce stade, l'OÉA avait révisé son appréciation des élections: il ne s'agissait plus selon elle de simples irrégularités où seulement 10 résultats sur 7 000 étaient remis en question à cause de divergences dans le dépouillement du scrutin, mais «de très nombreuses et graves irrégularités».

Sur cette base et sans autre preuve, l'administration Clinton avait déjà «promis d'imposer des sanctions économiques à Haïti si elle ne changeait pas sa façon de faire», comme le rapportait une dépêche de CNN. C'est à ce moment-là que Luis Lauredo, l'ambassadeur des États-Unis à l'OÉA, a annoncé que son gouvernement allait commencer l'étouffement économique d'Haïti en envoyant «presque toute l'aide bilatérale [...] par le biais d'organisations privées et non gouvernementales, contournant ainsi le gouvernement haïtien». Clinton a empêché qu'Haïti reçoive de l'aide et des prêts internationaux, politique qu'a poursuivie à son tour l'administration Bush. En quatre ans, plus de 300 millions $ en aide et prêts furent bloqués; le budget annuel du gouvernement haïtien est à peine supérieur à 400 millions $.

Les raisons données pour justifier les actions radicales de Clinton contre Haïti ne sauraient être prises au sérieux. En effet, durant les années 1980 une succession de dictateurs ont détenu les rênes du pouvoir en Haïti et l'assassinat des dissidents était chose courante, mais aucune sanction ne fut imposée. Des millions de dollars américains sous forme d'aide sont parvenus en Haïti à l'époque sans entraves. Il est évident pour quiconque connaît le moindrement la politique étrangère des États-Unis que les décisions de Clinton s'inspiraient de la volonté non pas de maintenir la démocratie, mais de contrôler Aristide. L'administration Clinton l'affirme à toutes fins pratiques lorsqu'elle dit: «La joie ressentie [face aux élections] s'est transformée en son contraire face au manque de volonté des autorités haïtiennes d'aborder le problème des graves irrégularités au lendemain des élections.» Ainsi parlait Luis Lauredo, l'ambassadeur des États-Unis à l'OÉA.

Axworthy (et vraisemblablement Paradis) ont néanmoins mis tout le poids du Canada en appui aux plans des États-Unis d'acculer Aristide vers une impasse, avec comme objectif de le remplacer.

En janvier 2002, le simple député Denis Paradis fut promu au poste de «secrétaire d'État pour l'Amérique latine, l'Afrique et la Francophonie». Il fut responsable des relations pour le Canada avec l'Amérique latine, l'Afrique et les 56 membres de la Francophonie, dont le Canada, après la France, est le membre le plus influent.

Personne n'est surpris de savoir que le terme «francophonie» a des origines coloniales. Le ministère des Affaires étrangères du Canada écrit lui-même:

«La Francophonie ne date pas d'hier! En fait, le terme «francophonie» a été inventé en 1880 par un géographe français, Onésisme Reclus (1837-1916), pour définir l'ensemble des personnes et des pays utilisant le français à des titres divers. Comme c'était le cas avec les grandes puissances d'autrefois, le passé colonial de la France a servi de base pour tisser des liens surtout économiques, mais aussi sociaux et culturels entre la France et ses nombreuses colonies au cours des derniers siècles.»

En décembre 2002, lors du rassemblement des 56 pays membres de la Francophonie, à Lausanne en Suisse, Paradis a proposé «la création d'une agence de surveillance pour mettre fin aux violations des droits de la personne dans les nations francophones regroupées au sein de la Francophonie». Il précisé sa pensée en disant: «Il y a 8 millions de francophones en Haïti. S'il y a un endroit sur la planète où les termes démocratie, bon gouvernement et droits de la personne doivent s'appliquer, c'est assurément en Haïti.»

Avant la rencontre de décembre, Paradis avait soulevé à la Chambre des Communes la possibilité d'invoquer, dans le cas d'Haïti, la déclaration de Bamako (faite par les pays membres de la Francophonie réunis à Bamako, au Mali). Se référant à la rencontre qui allait avoir lieu en Suisse, Paradis a dit: «Nous avons proposé un mécanisme permettant l'application rapide de la déclaration de Bamako en cas de problèmes avec des pays francophones spécifiques.» Et pour ne pas laisser de toute quant à ses intentions, il a ajouté: «Lorsque la déclaration de Bamako et ses principes sont mentionnés, je pense à Haïti. C'est un endroit où Bakamo pourrait être vraiment significative pour ce qui est de la démocratie, des droits de la personne et du bon gouvernement.»

Paradis a vu dans la déclaration de Bamako une occasion de formaliser l'intervention «contre les États qui ne satisfont pas à ces normes».

Dans son entrevue à l'émission «The Current», Michel Vastel raconte qui étaient présents en janvier 2003 et quelle était la nature de la rencontre appelée «Initiative d'Ottawa»:

«La France, la Francophonie, l'Union européenne, le secrétaire d'État américain, ont envoyé ce qu'ils appelaient des «fonctionnaires de haut rang» [Otto Reich et Luigi Einaudi de l'OÉA]. Représentant l'Amérique latine, il y avait le ministre des Affaires étrangères du Salvador. Il s'agissait uniquement de trouver de nouvelles idées. La rencontre a eu lieu au lac Meech, vous connaissez l'endroit, la dernière semaine de janvier 2003. Encore une fois, toute l'information que je vous donne provient de Paradis et du gouvernement français. Il y a eu un consensus à l'effet qu'«Aristide doit partir». Mais comment y arriver? C'est le gouvernement français [...] qui a suggéré qu'il y ait une administration sous tutelle, comme au Kosovo. Ce n'était pas une intervention, ont-ils dit, c'était la responsabilité de protéger.»

Dans un article paru dans l'Actualité, Michel Vastel cite Paradis: «Si les Canadiens traitaient leurs animaux comme les autorités haïtiennes traitent leurs citoyens, on les mettrait en prison». «En Afrique, j'ai vu la pauvreté dans la dignité, raconte Denis Paradis. En Haïti, il n'y a même plus de dignité!»

Paradis conclut que la communauté internationale ne voudrait pas attendre la fin du mandat d'Aristide, qui se terminait en 2005. «Même si les Nations unies ne souhaitent pas que ce genre d'intervention conduise à une occupation militaire, celle-ci pourrait être inévitable jusqu'à ce que des élections aient été organisées», écrit Michel Vastel.

Provoquer au su de tous et dans l'enthousiasme le renversement d'un gouvernement élu démocratiquement était un peu fort pour le gouvernement libéral. Le trop zélé Denis Paradis a donc été éclipsé. Après la publication de son entrevue avec Michel Vastel, il a rapidement été relevé du «dossier Haïti», mais les plans pour renverser Aristide suivaient leur cours, bien qu'avec quelques mois de retard. Le poste de secrétaire d'État pour l'Amérique latine a ensuite été éliminé et Paradis est redevenu simple député. Des rencontres ont eu lieu par la suite, comme celle au Salvador réunissant, selon Vastel, «un fonctionnaire de la Maison Blanche», Marc Lortie, du Canada, ministre adjoint pour les Amériques, et d'autres «amis d'Haïti».

Selon Paul Martin, l'engagement du Canada en Haïti était la chose «moralement responsable» à faire. Il affirme qu'Haïti était un «État échoué» et que le Canada et d'autres «amis d'Haïti» étaient intervenus juste au bon moment pour y rétablir la paix et la stabilité. En juillet 2004, Martin s'est adressé à ce que le Globe and Mail a qualifié de «rencontre exclusive» «avec l'élite des médias» en Idaho. La rencontre était interdite à la presse et au public, mais la transcription du discours du premier ministre contient le passage suivant sur Haïti:

«Bref, tout comme les entreprises doivent améliorer leur gouvernance, les pays doivent faire de même. L'amélioration de la gouvernance au sein des États fragiles, déliquescents ou en voie de l'être passe par l'édification d'institutions publiques efficaces. Pour rétablir la stabilité dans les États fragiles, il faut souvent recourir à une intervention militaire. [...] Nous en avons été témoins en Haïti. Il y a près de 10 ans, le Canada, les États-Unis et d'autres pays sont intervenus [...] Le fait demeure qu'aucun d'entre nous [...], qui étions parties prenantes dans l'affaire, n'a investi suffisamment de temps et d'efforts pour mettre ces institutions sur pied. Nous voici donc de retour, dix années plus tard, aux prises avec le même problème et le même désordre. Cette fois-ci, par contre, nous devons rester jusqu'à ce que la tâche soit bien accomplie.»

Confrontés à la réalité sur le terrain, les propos de Martin prennent une toute autre signification.

Le 29 juillet, le lieutenant-colonel Jim Davis, commandant du contingent des forces canadiennes en Haïti, admettait qu'au moins 1 000 corps ont été ensevelis dans une fosse commune à Port-au-Prince, un mois après «le rétablissement de la stabilité». Davis ne nie pas les affirmations de témoins oculaires concernant un massacre de partisans d'Aristide perpétré par les forces occupantes le 12 mars. Selon ces témoins, les forces internationales ont mené une attaque dans un taudis de Port-au-Prince et tué des dizaines de personnes. Elles auraient mis tous les corps sauf deux dans des ambulances. Des forces françaises, américaines et canadiennes étaient stationnées en Haïti lorsque cela s'est produit. Les troupes françaises devaient s'en tenir à des règles formelles d'engagement: elles ne devaient pas tirer à moins d'être attaquées. Les forces d'occupation canadiennes et américaines n'étaient pas soumises à de telles restrictions.

«Je ne nie pas que de ces choses se sont produites», admet le lieutenant-colonel.

* * *

Le Canada s'est fait complice de la désinformation de l'OÉA au sujet des élections en Haïti. Il a été l'hôte de rencontres pour planifier le renversement d'un gouvernement démocratiquement élu. Il a illégalement occupé le pays et a été complice en toute connaissance de cause du meurtre d'Haïtiens opposés au coup d'État. Durant plusieurs mois, le gouvernement libéral de Martin a fait la sourde oreille aux requêtes d'Aristide qui demandait «quelques dizaines» de gardiens de la paix. Or, le jour où Aristide fut escorté hors de son bureau par les soldats américains, le Canada avait 500 soldats sur place pour occuper le pays et forcer Aristide à partir.

Ces actions ont été menées ouvertement, mais l'opposition à l'intérieur du parlement canadien a été pratiquement inexistante. Lorsqu'interrogé, le chef du NPD, Jack Layton, s'est contenté de dire que son parti «avait des questions» au sujet de la situation des droits humains; Layton était d'accord que les troupes canadiennes soient envoyées là-bas.

Le Globe and Mail, les journaux de CanWest et la Presse Canadienne n'ont cessé de répéter les allégations de l'OÉA que les élections ont été «entachées de très nombreuses irrégularités» tout en omettant de mentionner le financement des «groupes d'opposition» par les États-Unis.

On n'a pas reproché à Paul Martin d'avoir repris à son compte la rengaine de Madeleine Albright sur «l'État échoué». L'élite canadienne semble être très à l'aise avec ces pratiques de plus en plus ouvertement coloniales du gouvernement.

Mais la participation du Canada avant l'occupation se limite-t-elle aux «mesures diplomatiques» nécessaires pour renverser Aristide?

Le 5 février 2004, Pierre Pettigrew a rencontré le supposé chef rebelle, Paul Arcelin. Arcelin a été arrêté en même temps que son «protégé», Guy Philippe, pour avoir ourdi un coup d'État contre Aristide en 2003. Pourquoi Pettigrew, dont la circonscription à Montréal compte bon nombre de membres bien en vue de la diaspora haïtienne, acceptait-il de rencontrer un comploteur notoire?

Durant une entrevue exclusive après le coup d'État avec Sue Montgomery du Montreal Gazette, Arcelin a révélé que lui et Philippe avaient «passé quotidiennement 10 à 15 heures ensemble à comploter contre Aristide. [...] De temps à autre, nous traversions la frontière à travers les bois pour comploter contre Aristide, pour rencontrer les dirigeants de l'opposition et des régions afin de préparer la chute d'Aristide.»

Le 5 février, Arcelin a expliqué comment il «a expliqué la réalité d'Haïti» à Pettigrew. C'est ce même jour que ses collègues paramilitaires ont pris d'assaut les Gonaïves. Le témoignage d'Arcelin contredit celui du bureau de Pettigrew, qui minimise l'importance de la rencontre dans une entrevue donnée au Globe and Mail, prétendant que «la rencontre faisait partie «de la politique de la porte ouverte» du ministre envers la communauté haïtienne de sa circonscription et ne changeait en rien la politique canadienne. Mais Arcelin, dont la belle-soeur, Nicole Roy-Arcelin, a été députée conservatrice, prétend avoir tiré parti de ces «liens politiques pour rencontrer Pierre Pettigrew» et que, en ce qui concerne la politique canadienne, Pettigrew «a promis de faire rapport au gouvernement canadien de ce que je lui ai dit».

Il vaut de noter que Pettigrew était introuvable durant la crise mais qu'il est maintenant ministre des Affaires étrangères et qu'il a récemment rencontré Colin Powell pour discuter de la «situation» haïtienne.

*Traduit de l'anglais par Le Marxiste-Léniniste.

Pour ceux qui cherchent à comprendre les motifs de la plus récente intervention du Canada en Haïti, il semble qu'il n'y ait pas de meilleure place pour commencer qu'avec celui qui est au centre de la controverse Canada-Haïti, le député québécois au parlement fédéral Denis Paradis. Par Anthony Fenton

Canada in Haiti

Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:09:43 +0000

Who Engineered the Overthrow of Democracy?

Around 2,500 Haitians demonstrate for the return of Aristide in Cap Haitien on August 14. Canada’s role, Fenton writes, may have gone well beyond diplomatic complicity. During the US-Canadian-Franco occupation, thousands of pro-Aristide activists have been jailed or murdered. photo: Haiti Information Project

For those seeking to understand the roots of Canada's latest intervention in Haiti, there appears to be no better place to begin than the central figure of the emerging Canada-Haiti controversy, Quebec MP Denis Paradis.

In recent interview aired on CBC's "The Current", journalist Michel Vastel, who had interviewed Paradis numerous times, had the following to say:

"Denis Paradis...had been in Haiti in the year 2000. And he was shocked by the state of the people over there, and he decided, he almost made it a personal goal about the problem of Haiti. Denis Paradis wanted to have a brainstorming session with the players in Haiti." (August 6th, 2004)

In this "brainstorming session," it turns out, "the players" did not include a single Haitian.

It is instructive to explore the path that Denis Paradis, once considered the "top Canadian diplomat for the Americas," and former head of the Quebec Bar Association, tread preceding this meeting.

Back in 2000, the year of Haiti's so-called "deeply flawed elections," Paradis was Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy.

In May 2000, Haiti held an election. The Organization of American States (OAS) initially declared the procedure "free and fair", but reversed course suddenly a few months later, reporting the election as having been "deeply flawed". Why the change?

In September 2000, Madeleine Albright convened the first "friends of Haiti" meeting. The purpose of the meeting, according to CNN, was to "pressure Haiti to strengthen democratic procedures in advance of presidential and legislative elections in November." That is, the elections that everyone knew Aristide was going to win in a huge landslide.

By this point, the OAS had updated its view of the elections: from minor irregularites, where 10 out of 7000 overall positions were disputed due to tabulation discrepancies, to "serious irregularities and deficiencies."

On this basis, and without providing any further evidence, the Clinton administration had "already vowed to impose economic sanctions on Haiti if it [did] not change its ways," as one CNN report put it. It was at this point also that Luis Lauredo, U.S. ambassador to the OAS, announced that the U.S. government would begin the economic strangulation of Haiti by sending "nearly all bilateral assistance... through private and nongovernmental organizations, thus bypassing the Haitian government." Clinton blocked Haiti from receiving international loans and aid, a policy that continued with the Bush Administration. In four years, over $300 million in aid and loans was blocked; the Haitian government's annual budget is just over $400 million.

The reasons given for Clinton's drastic actions against Haiti cannot be taken seriously. While a series of dictators were in power in Haiti in the 1980s, and the murder of dissidents was a regular occurrence, no such sanctions were imposed. Indeed, millions in US aid flowed freely. For anyone with even a tenuous grasp of US foreign policy, it is clear that Clinton's motives lay not in maintaining democracy, but in maintaining control of Aristide. Indeed, the Clinton administration's rhetoric emphasizes exactly this: "The elation [of the elections] has turned sour as a result of the unwillingness of the Haitian authorities to address the serious irregularities and deficiencies arising in the elections' aftermath"-so said Luis Lauredo, US ambassador to the OAS.

Nonetheless, Axeworthy (presumably with Paradis in tow) threw Canada's weight behind the US plan to back Aristide into a corner, with the eventual goal of replacing him.

Denis Paradis was elevated from the backbenches in January 2002, to "Secretary of State for Latin America, Africa and La Francophonie". Paradis was responsible for Canada's relations with Latin America, Africa, and the 56-member La Francophonie, where Canada, next to France, is the most powerful member.

Fittingly, the term 'francophonie' has colonial origins. According to Canada's own Department of Foreign Affairs:

"La Francophonie was not born yesterday! In fact, the term "francophonie" was coined in 1880 by French geographer Onesisme Reclus (1837-1916) to designate the community of people and countries using French for various purposes... As was the case with all the great powers, France's colonial past served as the foundation that tied France-primarily economically, but also socially and culturally-to its many colonies throughout the centuries."

In December of 2002, Paradis introduced the idea for "the creation of [a] watchdog to clamp down on human rights abuses in the Francophonie grouping of French-speaking nations, some of which have been accused of serious violations," during a gathering of the 56-member La Francophonie group of countries in Lausanne, Switzerland. Said Paradis, "There are eight million French-speakers in Haiti. If there is a place on the planet where the words democracy, good governance and human rights should apply, it's surely in Haiti."

Prior to the December meeting, Paradis had raised the issue of employing the Bamako Declaration (made in Bamako, Mali, by La Francophonie member-countries) in the case of Haiti in the House of Commons. Referring to the upcoming meeting in Switzerland, Paradis said "We have proposed a mechanism, enabling the implementation of Bamako, which will allow us to quickly apply this declaration where there are problems with specific Francophone countries." Ominously, Paradis added, "Whenever the Bamako declaration and its principles are mentioned, I think of Haiti. This is a place where Bamako could be truly meaningful in terms of democracy, human rights and good governance."

Paradis saw in the Bamako declaration an opportunity to formalize intervention so as to "take action against states who fail to meet those standards."

In his interview with "The Current", Michel Vastel went on to describe who participated and what the nature of the January 2003 "Ottawa Initiative" meeting was:

France, La Francophonie, the European Union, the [U.S.] Secretary of State sent two what they call "high ranking officials" [Otto Reich and the OAS's Luigi Einaudi]. And, for Latin America there was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for El Salvador, and the idea was to just search for new ideas. So the meeting took place at the Meech Lake resort, you know the place, the last week of January 2003. It lasted three days over an extended weekend. Once again, all information that I'm giving you is coming from Paradis and from the French government. There was a consensus that 'Aristide should go.' But, how do you do that? This is the French government...who suggested there should be a trusteeship like there was in Kosovo. That was not an intervention, they said, that was their responsibility-all these countries-to protect.

In Vastel's l'Actualite article, Paradis is quoted as saying: "If Canadians treated their animals as the Haitian authorities treat their citizens, they [Canadian authorities] would be jailed," and "In Africa I have seen poverty with dignity... but in Haiti there's not even dignity."

Vastel continues: "Therefore, [Paradis] concludes that the international community wouldn't want to wait for the five-year mandate of President Aristide to run its course in 2005." Quoting Paradis, Vastel writes, "Although the United Nations wouldn't wish for the intervention to lead to a military occupation... that might be inevitable until elections can be held."

Enthusiastically and publicly leading the overthrow of a democratically elected government was a bit much for the Liberal government. Consequently, the overzealous Paradis soon faded into the background. After his interview with Vastel was published, he was quickly removed from the 'Haiti file,' while the plans to overthrow Aristide proceeded, albeit a couple of months behind schedule. The position of Secretary of State for Latin America was subsequently eliminated, and Paradis has since been banished-once again-to the Liberal backbenches. Subsequent meetings took place, such as the one in El Salvador; involving, according to Vastel, "a White House official" and Canada's Marc Lortie, deputy Minister for the Americas, as well as other "friends of Haiti."

According to Paul Martin, Canada's involvement in Haiti was the "morally responsible" thing to do. He has also said that Haiti was a "failed state," that Canada and other "friends of Haiti" intervened at just the right time to restore peace and stability to Haiti. In July, Martin addressed what the Globe and Mail referred to as an "exclusive gathering" of "media moguls" in Idaho. The gathering was closed to the press and the public, but the transcript of Martin's speech noted the following about Haiti:

In short, just as companies have to improve their governance, so do countries. Better governance within fragile, failing or failed states means building effective public institutions. It is true that fragile states often require military intervention to restore stability...we saw this in Haiti.

Almost 10 years ago Canada, the United States and some other countries intervened...The problem is that none of us...though all of us were involved, stayed long enough nor did we take the time and effort...to build these institutions. So 10 years later, here we are, back with the same problem and the same mess, but this time, we have got to stay until the job is done properly.

Measured against the reality on the ground, Martin's claims take on an altogether different meaning.

On July 29th, Lt. Colonel Jim Davis, Commander of the Canadian Forces contingent in Haiti, acknowledged that at least 1000 bodies had been buried in a mass grave in Port au Prince, within one month of "restoring stability." Davis also would not deny the eyewitnesss testimony that spoke of a massacre of Aristide supporters committed by occupying forces on March 12. According to the eyewitnesses, international forces staged an attack in a Port-au-Prince slum, killing dozens of people. These international forces reportedly took all but two bodies away in ambulances. At the time, US, French and Canadian forces were stationed in Haiti. French troops had explicit rules of engagement: they were not to shoot unless they were attacked. Canadian and American occupying forces had no such limitation.

Said Davis: "I do not deny that these things have happened."

* * *

Canada made itself complicit in disinformation about the Haitian elections circulated by the OAS, hosted meetings to plot the overthrow of a democratically elected government, illegally occupied the country, and knowingly participated or was complicit in the murder of Haitians opposed to the coup. For months, Martin's Liberal government ignored Aristide's requests for "a few dozen" peacekeepers. On the day he was escorted out of office by US troops, however, Canada had 500 soldiers available to occupy the country and enforce his departure.

These actions have been carried out openly, but opposition within Canada has been scarce or nonexistent. When asked, NDP leader Jack Layton has simply said that his party "has questions" about the human rights situation; Layton agreed that Canadian troops needed to be sent.

The Globe and Mail, CanWest newspapers, and Canadian Press have actively repeated the OAS allegations that elections were "deeply flawed" as fact, while failing to mention the US funding of "opposition groups".

Paul Martin has not been criticized at all for his use of Madeleine Albright's "failed state" rhetoric to justify "responsible intervention". Canada's elite, it seems, is quite comfortable with its government's increasingly overt colonial practices.

But was Canada's pre-occupation involvement limited to the "diplomatic steps" necessary to remove Aristide?

On February 5, 2004, Pierre Pettigrew met with the self-styled rebel leader, Paul Arcelin. Arcelin had been arrested, along with his "protege" Guy Philippe, for plotting a coup against Aristide in 2003. Why was Pettigrew, whose Montreal riding is populated by many prominent members of the Haitian diaspora, meeting with a known coup-plotter?

During an exclusive post-coup interview with the Gazette's Sue Montgomery, Arecelin revealed that he and Philippe had "spent 10 to 15 hours a day together, plotting against Aristide...From time to time we'd cross the border through the woods to conspire against Aristide, to meet with the opposition and regional leaders to prepare for Aristide's downfall."

Arcelin also describes having "explained the reality of Haiti" to Pettigrew on February 5th, the same day that his paramilitary colleagues entered and took over the city of Gonaives. Arcelin's testimony conflicted with that of Pettigrew's office, who downplayed the meeting in an interview with the Globe and Mail, claiming that "the meeting was part of the minister's 'open-door policy' to the Haitian community in his constituency, and did not affect Canadian policy.,Aeu But Arcelin, whose sister-in-law, Nicole Roy-Arcelin is a former Conservative MP, claims to have taken advantage of these "political connections to meet with Pierre Pettigrew." And, concerning Canadian policy, Arcelin says that Pettigrew "promised to make a report to the Canadian government about what I'd said."

Interestingly, Pettigrew was nowhere to be seen during the crisis, but is now Foreign Affairs Minister, and recently met with Colin Powell to discuss the Haiti 'situation.'

Who Engineered the Overthrow of Democracy?

Anthony Fenton digs into Canada's role in the overthrow of a democratic government in Haiti, and the players involved. His investigation raised questions. Among others: was Canada's involvement to diplomatic enabling, or have Canadian troops been directly involved in the hundreds of political assassinations that followed the coup?

Impressions from Haiti

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 00:58:50 +0000

Haitians at a post-coup Lavalas protest signify their support for Aristide's completion of his five year term as president. Later on at the same demonstration, several attendees were shot. photo: Haiti Information Project

PORT-AU-PRINCE—It has only been a month since Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by US and French forces, but Haiti has been quickly disappearing from news headlines. This, despite widespread reports of human rights abuses at the hands of a "militarized police force" and an illegal occupying force made up primarily of American, French and Canadian soldiers.

I recently met with dozens of people in Haiti who are currently hiding from the police or the occupying forces, fearing for their lives. These people are predominantly Aristide supporters or former elected officials of Aristide's governing party, Famni Lavalas. Roughly forty such people are having their names read daily on elite-owned radio stations, as part of a "hit-list" that calls for the "arrest" of these people. The well-understood implication is that arrest is a euphemism for "execution" or "disappearance".

Meanwhile, in the mainstream media it has been reported that the Bush Administration has recently "expressed optimism about the situation in Haiti" where the atmosphere is apparently "calming down" as the new Haitian government seems to be "getting up and running." This is the same Haitian government - flown into Gonaives on March 20th in US Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters - that praised the convicted murderers in Gonaives as "freedom fighters" in front of Canadian representative to the OAS David Lee and numerous members of the foreign military occupation as well as mainstream journalists.

On of the most striking experiences of my recent trip to Haiti was observing the willingness of Haitian "civil society" (the US-funded Democratic Convergence and Group of 184), the US and Canadian Embassies, and the interim Haitian government, to look foreign observers in the eye, and lie. And lie they do, denying that a coup took place, denying that Aristide was anything but a corrupt dictator, and denying that human rights abuses are taking place on a wide scale in the aftermath of the events of February 29th.

OAS and CARICOM employees I spoke to (who wished to remain anonymous) wryly asked: "if the US has nothing to hide, why don't they just allow an investigation to take place" into the departure of President Aristide? CARICOM, the African Union, along with the Congressional Black Caucus and the NDP of Canada are calling for just such an investigation. The Department of State, the Bush Administration, Paul Martin's Liberals, the US, and the UN's Kofi Annan all refuse to agree to an investigation, despite the mountain of evidence that demonstrates the case of Haiti as the latest in a long line of imperial destabilization and counterinsurgency campaigns on the part of the US. Indeed, simple observation of the public record shows a systematic campaign on the part of the US to destabilize the country by blocking aid, while channelling funding to a wealthy but unpopular opposition.

From my recent trip to Haiti, every indication suggests that the scene there is very similar to Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1980s, under Reagan. At the heart of US-funded campaigns of terror in the region was a contempt for those who dared to pursue genuinely democratic policies in the region. This racist contempt runs deep, and the attitude has naturally carried itself forward into the 21st century. Commensurate policies are being rigorously pursued by the inheritors of Cold-war policy - John Negroponte, Roger Noriega, Otto Reich, Colin Powell, George Bush and many others in Haiti most recently, but also in Cuba, El Salvador and Venezuela.

Several demonstrators were shot and at least two were killed at the March 11 pro-Lavalas demonstration. photo: Haiti Information Project

Anthony Fenton shares his impressions from a ten-day trip to post-coup Haiti