September 15, 2004

Interview With Denis Paradis on Haiti Regime Change

Interview Conducted September 11, 2004

Despite Paradis contradicting what he himself told Vastel, which was also, according to Vastel, corroborated by the French government, Paradis denies that regime change was discussed in January 2003.

I will be following this up soon with an analysis of the "Responsibility to Protect" to which - as you will see - Paradis refers repeatedly, like a mantra. Clearly, it is a corollary to the emerging Failed State Doctrine that has "evolved" in the broader post-9/11 Bush Doctrine and the 'war on terror,' which the Canadian state is fully committed to waging.

A: On August 6th Michel Vastel was on CBC radio going over the details of an interview that he had conducted with you in 2003. I would like some background information from you directly, if possible, regarding the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti meeting.

P: Yes, what do you want to know?

A: I know who was there [U.S. state department, French officials, OAS representatives...] I know that, according to Vastel, UN tutelage was discussed at the time, and, whether or not that was discussed, that is exactly what has come about, as well as Aristide’s departure and the apparent return of the armed forces in Haiti.

P: That was not discussed in those terms at all. The idea of having this Ottawa meeting was to kind of find ways to help the Haitian people. So we didn’t invite there either the opposition or the ruling party; we did it with what we can call the “friends of Haiti” and we took the lead in Canada for that meeting, but it was more of a “think tank”, a think tank looking at ways to help Haiti, to help the people of Haiti. And as you might be aware, we were not sending money anymore to the government of Haiti, but to non-profit organizations, NGOs. The idea behind this meeting was kind of a ‘think tank meeting,’ ‘what we can do.’ There was one thematic that went under the whole meeting also; there is a report that at the behest of Kofi Annan; Canada put together a group of experts and they did a report which is called “The Responsibility to Protect”, it is the responsibility of the community, when a State fails to give security of its people, when the security at many point of view, is it not the responsibility of the international community to protect these people? It goes a little bit against the full autonomy of a country, but everything has to go through the United Nations…After that, I would say that the thing went faster, and as everybody’s aware Aristide left. But the idea at the time was kind of more of a ‘think tank’ to find ways to help the people of Haiti.

A: I’m wondering about this ‘friends of Haiti.’ Back in 2000, Madeleine Albright hosted a meeting under this name at which then Minister for Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy was in attendance. You *were* parliamentary secretary for Axworthy at the time?

P: Yes.

A: Did you attend that meeting?

P: No. I’d been to Haiti in 2001 for the first time in my life at the invitation of the Ambassador. I spent a week at the ambassador’s place. After that when I became Minister of State for Africa, Latin America and Francophonie, there’s no country in the world that I visited which I didn’t speak to the president or minister for foreign affairs about Haiti; everywhere. So I always continued to make the international community aware…I said I visited many countries in Africa where poverty is very much there. I said to everybody, poverty in Africa is poverty in dignity; don’t look after the dignity and poverty in Haiti.

A: You discussed the context of Bamako Declaration which itself is a form of ‘tutelage.’

P: After [inaudible, ‘so and so’]… became Secretary General of La Francophonie – [which consists of] 54 countries around the world – more countries there than in the Commonwealth. The Bamako declarations talked democracy, good governance, it talked about human rights, and I said if there’s one place around the planet where those three principles seem to be not there [laughs] it’s in Haiti. So, at the time, Francophonie is more Paris, African countries. Canada is ‘number two’..I really did push in every meeting with the different ministers of Francophonie from around the world, and said that ‘maybe Haiti is far from you, but you wouldn’t believe how much help they need, and how much support the people of Haiti need. I would make the difference between the people of Haiti and the government of Haiti, which was two different worlds according to me.

A: Going back to 2000: Economic embargo began more or less in 2000, over what had been called ‘flawed elections. I’ve looked into these pretty closely and it seems the whole basis of Haiti’s so-called “failure” is based around these OAS declarations that these were flawed elections, when there were really only 7 out of 7000 seats that were disputed, and it wasn’t even a major dispute; but this was the basis for the economic embargo that ensued and that contributed a great deal to Haiti’s ‘problems’’ and the government of Haiti’s problems. Canadian ambassador Kenneth Cook and [Conrad Tribble at] US Embassy have said that ‘if there were an election held today, Lavalas would win.’ They’ve both said this months after Aristide was gone. And, within one month of February 29th, there were roughly a thousand Lavalas partisans who had been murdered, while Canadian forces, US forces were there; the commander of CF in Haiti evaded questions concerning the testimony of morgue employees in Port au Prince, and would not address or deny specific atrocities. None of this has been getting in the news and yet it has been going on , and this is very, very disturbing.

P: What’s going on in Haiti is very disturbing. I was told at the time that Haiti was one of the big places where the drugs were going through, before going to the United States, for example. It was a ‘black tornado’ for the drugs. There are kind of many kinds of interests there, and, but…the level of poverty is so high, and the rich are so rich there…I visited a few rich places there, the rich are so rich, I’d never seen anything like that…but the poor is unbelievable. But when we talk about, and the discussion we had, for the think tank…when we talked about going for democracy in Haiti…Should we start by democracy? We said, for example, people need education, they need hospitals for when they are sick. They don’t have anything, they don’t have water, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have anything at all. Even if you send a kid to the school during the day, if this kid doesn’t eat at all, has got problem finding water to drink, there’s no toilet anywhere, how can this kid learn something at school? So, where do we start? I do think that the example I was giving, is that it’s always easier to find money when you want to go to war rather than when you want to go to help to combat poverty. And the example I was giving, was when Canada wanted to go to war in the past we didn’t have money in Canada…so some people arrived with imagination, creativity, and they made what we call the victory bonds. This method of financing the war was not [previously] there. But the imagination, creativity brought the victory bonds, which every municipality or government today is using to fund itself. I said, How come we don’t find this kind of creativity today when its time to fight poverty; it was kind of the purpose of that “think-tank” to find new ways…I had many discussions, for example, with the OAS, people in Washington, and with our representatives at the World Bank and some other organizations; people are kind of saying today that we lack of means, new means…there’s some methods used in the past that sometimes did work but seem not to work anymore….But we have to find some other way to settle problems like Haiti or Rwanda, or some other things. Canada is the best placed country in the world to put together those kind of initiatives.

A: Right, now, the problem is, like you said, ironically, this has been a military intervention that has thus far done little for the Haitian people. You spoke of hospitals. One of the first things the United States Marines did was to occupy the new medical school that Aristide’s government had built, and they [now the UN] continue to occupy it to this day. There have been some 300 medical students that have been unable to resume classes. The literacy program that Aristide’s government had set up has been trashed by the Latortue regime. Thousands and thousands of public officials have been thrown out of work, and there’s thousands of children who are no longer going to be able to go to school; the price of rice has gone up, the cost of living has gone up generally, these are all things that have happened since the change of regime, however you want to put it. This has been a total failure on humanitarian and economic grounds…

P: Yes, but I do believe that it’s possible in that country to have a kind of an honest government, or honest people driving the island there. The big problem is, whoever you put there right now or it seems that everybody the rumours also went on that he put I don’t know how many millions of dollars aside while these people were dying. There were strong rumours about that a couple of years before he left. We have to find ways where, and people there, the people of Haiti are more important than those people who want to put money in their pockets, and that’s the big challenge that we have there. We have tried for example, and I think maybe it should be done with the help of people of Haiti who are in Montreal or Toronto, or New York, or elsewhere, who flew away. Maybe some would be ready to go back and rebuild the country. At the time it was called ‘l’etelle desante.’[sp?] I do believe that there is a bright future for Haiti, but first what you need is honest people to govern the place. And, there is no money that would come from the World Bank, or European Bank. The European Bank, I was told, had something like $500 million Euros ready for Haiti, but they will only drop it there if there is the kind of confidence that the money will serve the poor, the really poor people. And from what we’ve seen, when Aristide was there, it was not too evident that this money was going to the poor people or was being used for the poor people. Where do we start, you know?

A: The literacy program and the fact that more schools were built while Aristide was President in the last three years than in the previous 100 years, is an example that what little money was going to the government was being used to help benefit the poor.

P: Yes but, personally, I mean, it’s good to have schools, but I repeat that if you send a student that if he wants to pee he does it in the street, he doesn’t have anything to eat, gets sick. It doesn’t work if you don’t have the basics.

A: The only meals that thousands of these children were getting per day, was at these schools that Aristide set up through this Ministry of Literacy, and now that has been abolished. So these children are unable to eat because Aristide’s advancements have been withdrawn. That’s the thing. Basically, you’re saying that the three thousand or so people…

P: What I’m saying is that there were strong, strong rumours that Aristide had diverted a lot of millions of dollars outside the country, and I think it’s a crime to do that in a country poor like Haiti.

A: Well, there’s no evidence of that as far as I’ve seen. "Rumours" yes, but the evidence on the other side such as, in September 2000 “friends of Haiti” meeting with Madeleine Albright, one moth later, in October 2000 there was a coup attempt by Guy Philippe, who later on ended up being one of the leaders of these “rebels” that came in from the Dominican Republic. Paul Arcelin, who was his “colleague,” met with Pierre Pettigrew on February 5th in Montreal and then later admitted in the Montreal Gazette that he’d been plotting to overthrow Aristide for two years with Guy Philippe. Even though they had previously denied this several times, he admitted this. There was an effort that was being supported by the U.S. government, as members of the Dominican military have attested that Philippe was incorporated into the Dominican military, that he was financed by the IRI and NED, and that he was staging these coup attempts in order to destabilize Aristide. So many things are adding up and there has been a tremendous cover-up of human rights abuses. Mr Paradis, thousands of people have been murdered, have been falsely arrested, and are currently being imprisoned. The former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune is being imprisoned currently on charges that he has not been brought before a judge for. All of these things are happening while so-called stability and ‘proper governance’ are being “returned…”

P: I understand what you’re saying. Speaking about imprisonment, I have several jails in my riding and the guy responsible here was responsible some jails at the time of Aristide in Haiti also, and he was telling me that maybe half of the people that were in jail in Haiti, we’re talking a couple of years ago now, didn’t have any file on them; they couldn’t find why they are in jail; so they were putting them out because they didn’t know why they put them in. Unbelievable, but, you’re right, we have to start from somewhere. My own feeling after all of this is that the only way with this is with the UN, the United Nations, and with the participation of those Haitians that flew away from Haiti, and that maybe should be invited to go back to Haiti and help reconstruct the country.

A: So you think it’s o.k. for these people right now to be murdered?

P: No, it’s never ok for people in any kind of fight to be murdered. For sure, it’s not o.k.

A: Why is this not being reported by the media?

P: I don’t know, you just taught me this. I saw that under the international community, from the people that are there, that this had stopped from the time that it happened under Aristide. But it seems that according to what you are saying, it’s not stopped, it’s continuing.

A: What about the United Nations authorizing the intervention one day after Aristide left, on the basis of this resignation letter which was later shown to be not a resignation letter by the State department translator. Aristide himself said he only signed it if he were to avoid a bloodbath and we’ve now learned that a bloodbath ensued after he left, so if it wasn’t a resignation letter and that’s what the UN was basing their approval on, what are your thoughts on that?

P: What I do think is that, I do believe that the report that has been ordered by Kofi Annan, called “The Responsibility to Protect,” is the best place where it should apply is in Haiti, so I do think that it’s the responsibility of the international community to do its best. Into that, they don’t say that it’s a military occupation that’s needed, that’s the last thing that’s needed. I don’t know if you’re aware of that report, if not, you should get a copy from DFAIT. It’s called “The Responsibility to Protect.” It says that when we’re in a situation like Haiti, for example, people should try to settle the whole thing with the government, and, its graduated, after that if it doesn’t work, you move to phase two, three, and the military thing is only the last resort, but they don’t exclude the military taking over a country where the state failed to protect its people. You have around the world some leaders that are in this situation. It’s a new concept, it’s not really been spread around the world; I’ve discussed it in many countries…people seem more and more inclined to say that its not right when you see things that are happening just like in Haiti, to say that under the ‘big principle’ of state sovereignty, you let these people die or live in conditions where their leaders…it’s impossible. So, it’s the responsibility of the international community to act and I do believe that even if you say that they passed a resolution at the UN the day after Aristide…even if Aristide didn’t leave at the time, they should have asked the UN to take the case of Haiti further.

A: On the 26th of February, three days prior to Aristide’s “departure,” there was an emergency meeting in the UNSC, where CARICOM urgently asked for intervention to protect Aristide. That was an example of when they could have stepped up and assisted the government, and then proceeded from there. It’s clear now that the intentions were the opposite.

P: But, I’ve seen some leaders of neighbouring countries…it’s true what you were saying, because Caricom, there’s all sorts of local political games being played in this part of the planet…I’ve seen Latin American leaders that were almost crying when speaking about Haiti. They were saying, ‘Canada do something please, do something at the UN; it’s impossible to leave our brothers like that.’ It’s a pity what’s going on there, it’s a pity. What is the real solution? My own point of view is that the real solution will only come with the international community getting together. Not with, for example…Canada in the past has sent many RCMP guys there…Imposing outside values on the Haitian people…is not the way to do it.

A: Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?

P: I’m not saying that. It’s been over a year since I was with foreign affairs…so I’ve kind of not as much involved.

A: Did your getting removed from Secretary of State or getting backbenched have anything to do with this?

P: No, it’s part of the game. We have fewer Quebec Liberal MP’s now…I was junior minister.

A: On August 6th Vastel said that there was a consensus that ‘Aristide should go’ at this Ottawa meeting, he says this is the French government who suggested that there should be a “trusteeship” like there was in Kosovo. He said this was not an intervention, but their “responsibility to protect.”

P: Exactly the book I was telling you about, we discussed this book, “The Responsibility to Protect” with the other participants.

A: What about the ‘Aristide should go’ part?

P: No, no. Like I’m telling you, just read the book, “The Responsibility to Protect” and the last thing, the last resort, the last thing that you would apply, is something like was that there should be a trusteeship by the United Nations, taking over of the government there by the international community. But it’s the last resort, and we surely did not discuss something at this first meeting we had [laughs] which was called the ‘last resort.’

A: But this Aristide should go part; Vastel was very clear on that, and he got this information…

P: I know Vastel very well…

A: …not only from your interview…

P: This group led by Canada suggest that Aristide should be ‘put out.’ That was never discussed there.

A: He’s saying that’s what you told him…

P: He was not at the meeting; I was at the meeting. It was never discussed there.

A: You told him this though…

P: Not at all…

A: He recorded the interview…

P: No, no, no. I know Vastel, he is one of my neighbours here…

A: Even two years after the fact he is still asserting that this is the case.

P: Not at all. You’re mixing two things. When Vastel wrote his article in L’Actualite, what he wrote was not too bad, but people when they made the title out of it, that was the problem

A: Again…

P: The people that do the montage…

A: But on CBC radio just last month he repeated this. He said he got it not only from you but the French government as well.

P: Yeah, I don’t know what the French government is telling Vastel, but I’m telling you not only was I at the meeting, I organized that meeting, and there was no question of overthrowing Aristide, not at all.

A: He also attributed a certain comment to you about the way Haitians govern themselves? If we treated our animals the way Haiti…

P: Oh yeah, I said something like that. Absolutely.

A: Quoting: “"If Canadians treated their animals as the Haitian authorities treat their citizens, they [Canadian authorities] would be jailed."

P: Exactly.

A: Isn’t that racist?

P: Not at all. No, it’s the responsibility to protect. When a government is treating its people like the government of Haiti was treating the Haitians, it makes no sense.

A: About this responsibility to protect…Aristide was democratically elected in 2000. Nobody has disputed this. In 2002, there was a Gallup Poll commissioned by USAID that showed an overwhelming number of people supported Aristide. In January of this year, there was a gigantic demonstration, where hundreds of thousands of people were supporting Aristide. He still had popular support. You talk about the Haitian masses. He still has the popular support of the Haitian masses. How does this ‘responsibility to protect’ justified in that context?

P: If you’ve been to Haiti you’ve seen the poor condition in which Haitians are living and anyway from what I’ve seen personally there, I think that if there is one place where the principles of this ‘responsibility to protect’ would apply around the world, it’s Haiti.
Elections, you’ve seen all the contestations, the radio stations being killed, one guy being killed, all sorts of things are happening there. But, isn’t it the role of the international community to make sure that the people can survive in a country , can have an economic well-being,? That’s the poorest country in the world, right in the middle of the Americas, right in the middle of the Americas! And right there you’ve got one of the poorest countries in the world, sharing the same island with the DR, and look at the two…one side is green, clean, the other side, people are dying. If you’re telling me that it’s acceptable that a government treat 8 million people like they were treated in Haiti, I say no to that.

A: It’s the people that should decide. 65% of the people voted for Aristide.

P: Again, I refer you to this report “Responsibility to Protect.” If a State is recognized not to be able to protect its people, isn’t it the role or the responsibility of the international community to protect those people?

A: Well, no, not according to the UN Charter.

P: No, according to the sovereignty of the state that we have known up until now. But it’s evolving around the world.

A: Yes, this failed state doctrine, if you will, is seeing lots of dialogue, it doesn’t make it right, especially when the international community as is clear in the case of Haiti, brought about the very failure that they claim they have the responsibility to protect...

P: Anyway, we can discuss this forever, you got my point.

A: Yeah, but the logic of it is, if its ‘the responsibility to protect’ then why have [an estimated] 3000 people been murdered since February 29th?

P: Anywhere there is murder it is unacceptable.

A: This many people were not being killed before the coup. There were [something like] 70 deaths up to the coup, and some 3000 murders since.

P: Maybe you’re aware of new information that I’m not aware of. I don’t know, I can’t comment on something that I am not aware of. But I’m telling you one thing: the only move that I was involved in, or that Canada was involved in, was to help the people of Haiti. So, there is nothing behind that except that, and they continue to need help, they continue need our support; for the rest of my life I will do my best to help the people of Haiti.

A: Ok, now, if you’re willing to help them, if 3000 or so people have been murdered, and if thousands of others have been displaced or are internal refugees, wouldn’t you think that this calls for an immediate investigation by Parliament given Canada’s central role…

P: I don’t know where you’ve gotten your information; I have not read anything about that yet…

A: I can give you several websites to check out human rights reports; there are lots of them, and they’re all independent of one another, and they are all very consistent.

P: That kind of mass murder, imprisonment, torture, those kinds of things, as you can see from my comments I’m not in favour of that., I’m a guy of democracy, human rights, so it’s completely unacceptable, so I shall take information with our Foreign Affairs Department on that.

A: There’s a lot of information about systematic repression of Aristide supporters, and if this is the case, which it clearly appears to be, shouldn’t there be an investigation in the part of Canada’s parliament. Considering also that…

P: Should there also be an investigation by Parliament as to how much money Aristide stole from the people?

A: Sure, but that’s hardly the issue now…

P: We shall maybe investigate a lot of things. Nothing is working there, nothing is working…

A: There’s no evidence that Aristide did steal, none has been produced, but there is evidence…

P: It seems that there is as much evidence on one side as there is on the other. What I’m looking at is the well being of the people of Haiti, that’s what I’m interested in. I think that those Haitians that live outside of Haiti should be more involved, should be a part of the solution, and where they’ve been educated elsewhere and can help out their people that stayed there. I think that’s the solution.

A: In purely abstract terms that sounds like a "good" solution, but in practical terms, real terms, like I said the literacy program was trashed, agricultural programs…

P: I don’t understand why the literacy program has been trashed. You’re telling me things…I’ll be taking time to find out about that out from our Foreign Affairs people…

A: You say you will go to the Department of Foreign Affairs…

P: In October, I’ll try to find out about the situation in Haiti…

A: Thank you for you time.

Denis Paradis is the former Secretary of State for Latin America, Africa, repsonsible for La Francophonie. Paradis hosted the late-January 2003 "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti" meeting. Paradis E-mail: paradd@parl.gc.ca