Aristide and the "Chimeres"

I don't have much time to type today, but I thought that I'd post this while it was on my mind.

From Znet: "The Crucifixion of Haiti"

While Aristide’s opponents revived and embellished many timeworn accusations about his authoritarian tendencies, his extreme corruption, his involvement in “narco-trafficking” and
so on that were uncritically reported as fact by the mainstream press, perhaps the most serious claim made was that Lavalas had provided arms to gangs and used these “Chimères” to attacks its opponents and quell dissent. Now, like most good lies, there was a kernel of truth to these accusations: Supporters of Aristide had used violence against opposition demonstrations and some were members of criminal gangs. Robert Fatton, a bitter critic of Aristide and his supposed
authoritarian tendencies, gives an interesting interpretation the gangs’ motivations: "Lavalas's Chimères and followers are threatening the opposition because they believe that it is purposefully exacerbating the crisis to generate a chaos that would nurture the return of the military. They fear that CD's ultimate objective is to overthrow Aristide, and they are committed to using violence to prevent such an outcome.”(20) In light of recent events in Haiti, their fears seem to have been well founded. As for Aristide’s alleged support for the Chimères, not a shred of evidence has ever been produced. Indeed, Haiti’s current interim Ministry of Justice has settled for working with the
U.S. Justice Department to find proof that Aristide siphoned money from the state coffers into offshore personal bank accounts, apparently abandoning efforts to link the deposed President to the violence that occurred under his rule.

20. Robert Fatton, Haiti’s Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition To Democracy, 2nd ed., 2002.

The whole article is excellent. But I want to point out the actions of the "chimeres":

Robert Fatton, a bitter critic of Aristide and his supposed authoritarian tendencies, gives an interesting interpretation the gangs’ motivations: "Lavalas's Chimères and followers are
threatening the opposition because they believe that it is purposefully exacerbating the crisis to generate a chaos that would nurture the return of the military. They fear that CD's ultimate objective is to overthrow Aristide, and they are committed to using violence to prevent such an outcome.”

Recall that during the first coup against Aristide, the criminal Cedras regime had targetted this group of people for extermination. There were numerous atrocities, numerous mass graves. Aristide disbanded the unpopular foreign-implemented security forces and gave security over to people he could trust. There's no doubt there were excesses. But who the fuck are we in the West to condemn Aristide, or these people, who KNOW damned well that many so-called "oppositionists" are in fact US-paid subversives attempting to overthrow their government and subjec the Haitian people to more Duvalierist, Cedrasian, imperialist oppression?

This isn't Canada, where our political leaders stay within accepted ranges of dispute. This isn't Canada, with powerful foreign interests openly backing crews of mass-murderers to do their bidding. (Canadians are so asleep, or, like me, so fucking lazy, that the US is able to get everything it wants peacefully from us.) This is Haiti, a country with a population that has suffered terribly, in physical agony, from tiny minorities, often serving foreign interests. Politics is life and death there. We can't expect behaviour like Scandinavian democracies.