Low-Intensity Warfare in Haiti
An Interview with Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
by Mara Delt ****The second of two parts

Last week, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a scholar who has written several books on U.S. foreign policy in Central America, outlined some of the key features of Washington's "low-intensity warfare": engineered elections, economic strangulation, and political destabilization. He explained how many aspects of the strategy employed in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s are evident in Haiti today. He was interviewed by our contributor, Mara Delt.
 

Mara Delt: Looking at Mozambique, where the current U.S. ambassador to Haiti was stationed prior to Haiti, we see it was the same strategy there as well. The opposition there [RENAMO] looks just like the one in Haiti. In fact, they were the "Contras," supported by the old repressive apartheid South African government, which fought the progressive FRELIMO government. That opposition challenged the electoral results in Mozambique in an effort to paralyze that country, and the U.S. froze funds there as well.
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: When I laid out the strategy of low-intensity conflict in my book "War Against the Poor," I talked about how the U.S. had made a transition away from direct support of dictators because it discovered that dictatorial rule could be destabilizing to its economic interests. For example, the dictators in the Philippines and elsewhere were welcome, but when their dictatorial rule became disruptive, then those dictators had to go. That transition then led to a commitment to using elections for undemocratic purposes. That's the way I would describe it. The U.S. would then utilize the elections as a cover for who really rules.

For example, in this stage of low-intensity conflict in El Salvador, you would have elections but the elected government really didn't wield much power. The power was either rooted in the U.S. embassy or the Salvadorian military or whatever. But the U.S. could say publicly: "See, we support democracy, they had democratic elections there, that's why we can militarily back this government." So that's a stage. 

I would say it's continued to evolve so that now elections mean almost nothing. In other words, the political space available to governments is now determined by structural adjustment programs. It's determined by the power of the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the World Bank and those who stand behind them. Basically they say to a country: "This is what you have to do economically." That's all being formalized now through free trade agreements, the World Trade Organization, and other things.

That puts Haiti in a very unusual situation because Haiti has actually carried out an election in which there is popular support for a government to do certain things. And what do the people want that government to do? They want jobs. They want more money going to education and health care, agrarian reform, literacy -- the basic priorities that are the same throughout much of the world.... Haitians have dared to elect a government that has those priorities. The United States simply doesn't accept those priorities because the U.S. priorities, the priorities of globalization, are in fact to assure that you have an ongoing transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and a further consolidation of economic power.

What's happening in Haiti with regards to the elections is very logical within the U.S. strategy. They are trying to discredit the elections themselves by challenging the mechanism by which the elections took place and, at the same time, the legitimacy of those who were elected. The U.S. has created a right-wing coalition that it can claim as an alternative, legitimate voice. Probably, and most importantly, by withholding funds, the U.S., as I said earlier, is setting out to destabilize the political base of this government... This is a problem whenever the government is dependent on outside aid and, if a progressive government is dependent upon these loans coming from the Inter-American Development Bank, it gives the U.S. incredible leverage. Eventually it's trying to create conditions in which there will be a popular uprising against the popular government because the government will have failed to deliver on the things that it really wants to do but is prevented from doing by these international institutions, oftentimes led and controlled by the United States.
 

Mara Delt: Do you often see these movements imploding from these stresses?
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: That's part of the psychological warfare too. An example I would give -- and this is closer to home -- is when there is popular protest in the United States against U.S. foreign policy: for example, the anti-Vietnam war protests, the very strong solidarity movement with the people from Central America. The U.S. government often used what we call agents provocateurs. These agents would infiltrate movements and in many cases would foment violence within non-violent demonstrations. There's a great deal of evidence that this is happening on a global scale in response to the huge anti-globalization movement. You have agents provocateurs moving into non-violent demonstrations and engaging in violent behavior. Then the police come in, beat up the non-violent crowd, but they allow those who engaged in violence to leave.
 

Mara Delt: Then they attribute that violence to the non-violent group. Then where do the national and international human rights groups come in?
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: This is something that human rights groups have to pay very, very close attention to, because, of course, the temptation of any human rights groups is to do a kind of statistical analysis, such as, "There's this many human rights violations, there's this happening here, this happening there" and some of that is obviously very valuable. 

But, it's very important, in my view, for human rights groups to have a fairly sophisticated understanding of what's happening on the ground and why... For example, look at the relationship between the paramilitary groups in Colombia and the Colombian military. The U.S. supplies the Colombian military, which in turn directly supplies the Colombian paramilitaries. Meanwhile, the Colombian military can wash its hands and say, "Look, our human rights violations are improving" and the U.S. can say, "Look, the Colombian military's human rights violations are improving." I think some human rights groups have been fairly sophisticated about seeing that relationship...
 

Mara Delt: Otherwise, the human rights groups can further feed into the opposition and the U.S. destabilization, inadvertently.
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: If they're not careful, that can happen. Do you see this happening in Haiti?
 

Mara Delt: Yes. What makes it so difficult is that the human rights groups only document violations made by the government and not by others. So the story is not balanced. It's not the true picture.
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: I would encourage the Haitian government to be very, very aware that if the United States is engaged -- and I think it is -- in destabilizing the present government of Haiti, then what it most wants is for the Haitian government to have to respond to street protests with violence... 
 

Mara Delt: Back to the Inter-American Development Bank [IDB] loan. Presently, the U.S. has withheld all monies and has influenced the European Union to withhold its funds as well. 
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: I think the key issue that needs to be posed is: who is being hurt by the withholding of these funds and why? Clearly the funds being withheld are not for a repressive police apparatus, they're not for a Haitian military. They're funds that are primarily targeted for the economic infrastructure and just basic health needs of the people. That, in my view, is a form of terrorism from above.
 

Mara Delt: That is what President Aristide is calling "economic terrorism."
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: I think that's very wise, and that's exactly what it is. One of the lessons that people need to learn is that warfare is always deadly. Warfare that is conducted by dropping an unprecedented number of bombs on people is deadly. But, sanctions are warfare too. Even the withholding of these kinds of aid is economic warfare, and I think to call it "economic terrorism" is accurate. It has devastating and very conscious results, very conscious results. This is clearly the intention of U.S. policy in Haiti: to harm civilians in service of trying to influence a government. That's a very clear definition of what terrorism is. 
 

Mara Delt: For the IDB loans, not only is the Haitian government paying interest on these loans, but they are also paying a user's fee for a loan they can't use. 
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: That's got to be illegal!
 

Mara Delt: Very shortly the Haitian government will owe $10 million to the IDB and the IDB was set up to help poor countries. So it's crazy, and it's further depleting the country of any resources that it has. Behind the scenes, the U.S. ambassador is telling people that he won't see a penny released to the Haitian government because of alleged corruption. The Haitian government is saying that they should release these funds and loans because withholding them is deepening the misery of the people. The Haitian government even suggested that a reputable accounting firm could monitor the disbursements of the funds, if that's really a genuine concern. But the US, of course, is opposing that. Once again, they have reaffirmed their position two days ago when the State Department said the government is not doing all the things Aristide promised he would do under the eight points he offered in a letter to President Clinton. One of the points was the elections. The main issue on the elections was the method of calculation for seven senators. That was already resolved months and months ago, but the opposition and the "international community" keeps raising the bar and changing the terms, trying to broaden it and enlarge it, and it's just never going to be fulfilled! Because it's not about a resolution, it's about paralysis.
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: Well, that's it. That is classic low-intensity conflict. For public consumption, you do continue raising the bar and continue putting demands, because the real purpose isn't to negotiate a settlement. The real purpose is to destabilize the Haitian government. That's the strategy. That's what's so maddening. Because the Haitian government may be trying in good faith to respond to any of the issues that have a shred of credibility to them, but even as they do that they find that it isn't enough. It's got to be enormously frustrating for the Haitian government because this is another classic part of low-intensity conflict: there always will be a raising of the bar. 
 

Mara Delt: And there will always be another human rights violation occurring that they're going to cite or build up, or that they are going to create.
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: Yes, because the real purpose is destabilization, not negotiation. 
 

Mara Delt: What about the role of the press? Some just adopt the U.S. State Department position. But I think the Haitian government has lost the support of a lot of progressive press along the way because things have become very confusing. In Nicaragua, when they started discrediting Ortega, did people just fall by the wayside like that?
 

Nelson-Pallmeyer: Yes, and I think there were a lot of legitimate problems with the Sandinistas and Ortega over the last several years, so it made it easier for that to happen. But the Haitian government is in a difficult position too because as the policy from the U.S. succeeds in creating more opposition on the ground and fomenting violence and preventing the delivery of services, more and more contradictions come into play. So the longer it plays out, the more contradictions there are and the more difficulty there is for the Haitian government to respond in viable ways or in creative ways. This squeeze gets tighter and the contradictions get deeper and it just starts to spiral, which is the purpose and the goal of the strategy.... I think that most press behave in ways that are not helpful at all in these settings.