Supporting a Leftist Opposition
to Lavalas:
The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center and the Batay Ouvriye
Bb Jeb Sprague
the narcosphere, Nov 18th, 2005
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/
For many activists, academics, and labor
historians in the 1980's the AFL-CIO became referred to as the
AFL-CIA. Founded in 1961 the American Institute for Free Labor
Development (AIFLD) was the AFL-CIO's foreign organizing wing
for Latin America and the Caribbean. Along with its counterparts
in Africa, Asia, and Europe, AIFLD was used to undermine leftist
trade movements, support dictators such as the Duvalier's and
back military coups in Chile and Brazil.
Throughout the Cold War,
the CIA heavily infiltrated AIFLD, as discussed in Phillip Agee's
1984 whistle blower Inside the Company: CIA Diary. Agee fingered
Serafino Romauldi as being involved in AIFLD throughout the 1940's,
50's, and 60's as a known CIA asset heading up AIFLD at one point.
In 1984, with 'Baby Doc' Jean-Claude Duvalier's consent the Federation
des Ouvriers Syndiques (FOS) was founded as a conservative pro-business
union with the assistance of AIFLD.
Following the departure of
'Baby Doc,' the State Department feared radical labor unrest in
Haiti so it increased funding for the FOS. In June of 1986, the
State Department, at a White House briefing for the chief executive
officers of major corporations, requested AIFLD's involvement
in Haiti because "of the presence of radical labor unions
and the high risk that other unions may become radicalized".1
Members of Duvalier's secret police and the Tonton Macoutes heavily
infiltrated the FOS.
The National Endowment for
Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) provided funding, often funneled through AIFLD,
to Haitian unions such as the Conféderation Autonome des
Travailleurs Haïtiens (CATH) and the FOS. According to Thomas
Carothers in his 1994 article, "The Ned at 10", the
National Endowment for Democracy "believed that democracy
promotion was a necessary means of fighting communism and that,
given sensitivities about U.S. government intervention abroad,
such work could best be done by an organization that was not part
of the government."
During the first 7 months
of the Aristide administration (before the Cédras coup),
CATH under the sway of Auguste Mesyeux held a campaign of demonstrations
against the government known as the Vent de Tempête (Wind
of the Storm). This was the first attempt to put pressure on
the Aristide government, mounted by a U.S. funded union. In March
of 1992, following the first coup against Aristide and a brief
suspension of funding, AIFLD reactivated its $900,000 program
supporting conservative unions in Haiti. Beth Sims in her 1992
policy report "Populism, Conservatism, and Civil Society
in Haiti," writes "CATH was once a militant, anti-Duvalierist
federation", but in 1990 a conservative wing took over with
backing from AIFLD.
Following increasing criticism
over its international organizing activities the AFL-CIO disbanded
AIFLD and its counterparts, and created in their place the American
Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), more commonly
known as the Solidarity Center, in 1997, supposedly giving a new
face to its international organizing campaigns. The Solidarity
Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was launched with
the goal of "work[ing] with unions and community groups worldwide
to achieve equitable, sustainable, democratic development and
to help men and women everywhere stand up for their rights and
improve their living and working standards."2 Attempting
to wipe away its dirty Cold War history, the AFL-CIO had grouped
together its former four regional institutes, including AIFLD,
under one roof.
As pointed out in Harry Kelber's
six-part series, the "AFL-CIO's Dark Past," the Solidarity
Center employed many past AIFLD members such as Harry Kamberis,
a former Department of State employee who had been involved in
fighting leftist unions in South Korea and the Philippines.3 The
Solidarity Center also funneled over $154,000 to the Confederation
of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), a right wing union, which led a strike
in 2002 attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government
of President Hugo Chavez. Between 1997 and 2001 the NED provided
$587,926 to the Solidarity Center. Kim Scipes, an Assistant Professor
of Sociology at Purdue University and a leading critique of the
Solidarity Center, argues that while "considerable evidence
that AFL-CIO foreign operations have worked hand in hand with
the CIA, or that AFL-CIO foreign operations have benefited U.S.
foreign policy as a whole or supported initiatives by the White
House or the State Department" it has been a top ranking
group within the AFL-CIO that have guided foreign operations,
refusing to report on their operations to rank and files members.4
The murky tradition of subverting democratically elected governments
during the cold war would continue on with the Solidarity Center.
The Solidarity Center (ACILS)
would approach labor organizing in Haiti from a different angle
than its predecessor, AIFLD. During much of 2000 and 2001 the
Solidarity Center refused to operate in Haiti. Yonnas Kefle, the
labor attaché at the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, from
February 2000 to October 2001, explains, "I tried to involve
the Solidarity Center but they refused to work in Haiti at this
time."
With USAID funding as its
primary income source for its projects in Haiti, the Solidarity
Center, by 2004, had restarted operations in Haiti, cooperating
with a union that had strong leftist credentials, the Batay Ouvriye.
In 2003 the Solidarity Center
engaged in a NED-funded study of labor conditions in Haiti; analyzing
the history of the domestic labor movement, women in the work
force, rural labor codes, and the debate over reforming the aging
labor codes.5 The study utilized Solidarity Center interviews
with the Batay Ouvriye that predated to 1999. The study failed
to critically analyze the role of USAID and the U.S. in supporting
sanctions against the Haitian government in 2001, which was a
prime factor for the shortfall of payments to the public workforce
and leverage used towards the Free Trade Zone Initiative. The
study, entitled "Unequal Equation: The Labor Code and Worker
Rights in Haiti," while putting forward many important points
in regards to the antiquated labor codes, relied heavily on interviews
with the Batay Ouvriye, the formerly Duvalier sponsored Federation
des Ouvriers Syndiques (FOS), and the formerly AIFLD-supported
Conféderation Autonome des Travailleurs Haïtiens (CATH).
Batay Ouvriye in Kreyòl
translates roughly as the "worker's struggle." Since
1994, Batay Ouvriye has been associated with organizing sweatshop
workers and others in Haiti, where some of the most exploitative
and low wage garment industry jobs exist in the entire Western
Hemisphere. Not a formal union, the Batay Ouvriye calls itself
a "workers organization." Originally initiated as an
office space in Port-Au-Prince for organizing workers in 1994,
the Batay Ouvriye Federation was founded in May of 2002.
Organized upon anarcho-syndicalist
principles, the Batay Ouvriye has had a clear ideological line
of advocating for the control of industry and government by federations
of labor unions through the use of direct action, such as sabotage
and general strikes. Ideologically opposed to working with or
under any form of government, the Batay Ouvriye has focused its
attention primarily on organizing workers in the garment industry.
Syndicalism has long existed as a revolutionary political strain
in the Caribbean as discussed in Frank Fernandez 2001 book "Cuban
Anarchism." Running contrary to it's own ideology the Battay
Ouvriye leadership in 2004 began accepting monetary aid and oversight
from a foreign government, the United States, and it's foreign
labor operative, the Solidarity Center.
So what would the Solidarity
Center want with a radical syndicalist union in Haiti? How could
the Solidarity Center justify to its State Department and USAID
oversight the funding of such an organization? The Solidarity
Center's support for the Batay Ouvriye seemed a far cry from it's
predecessor AIFLD's approach in working with conservative unions
such as the CATH and the FOS.
The Batay Ouvriye had numerous
victories in organizing against multinationals, which were exploiting
Haiti's cheap labor. In the weeks before the February 2004 coup,
the Solidarity Center and Batay Ouvriye's sub-grantee Sokowa were
deeply involved in a campaign against Grupo M, a company that
sold to U.S.-based companies Levi Strauss and Sara Lee. In December
2004, 300 workers at the Codevi Free Trade Zone in northeastern
Haiti had been out of work for six months as a result of their
attempts to form a union. As Batay stated in an October 1st statement,
that "amongst others.$3,500" was channeled to Sokowa
by the Solidarity Center to help the fired workers.
Throughout 2004, the Sokowa
Union underwent a labor struggle in the Grupo M factories in Haiti
and the Dominican Republic. While Sokowa sought much-needed wage
increases for its workers, Groupo M threatened to close down its
CODEVI free trade zone. Work stoppages were held in response
and a campaign to pressure Grupo M into negotiation, in which
the Workers Rights Consortium and the Solidarity Center were successful
contributors. On February 5, 2005, Sokowa and Grupo M negotiated
a contract. In a March 2005 report, Charles Arthur of the Haiti
Support Group, a key Batay Ouvriye backer in Europe, stated, "The
US Solidarity Center is co-coordinating some low-key pressure
on Michael Kobori, Levi's Global Code of Conduct director, to
let him know of concerns relating to Levi's non-action on increasing
orders."6
But for all its good work
in organizing in the garment industry, one important theme separated
Batay Ouvriye from the majority of popular organizations in Haiti.
Batay Ouvriye was adamantly and ideologically opposed to any cooperation
with the Aristide government, or for that matter any leftist or
populist government that was democratically elected. With its
backing for the Batay Ouvriye, the Solidarity Center was able
to kill two birds with one stone. (1) The Solidarity Center was
able to claim the credentials of supporting a legitimate labor
struggle to organize workers in Haiti's miserable garment industry.
(2) While simultaneously supporting a group that adamantly
opposed and organized against the largest and most popular party
of the poor in Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas, a pariah for Haiti overseers
at the U.S. Department of State.
The U.S. Department of State
has oversight on all "democratic enhancement" funding,
which is funneled through USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives
into groups such as the Solidarity Center. Gerry Bart, head of
the Haiti desk at USAID's main office in Washington, D.C., explains
that "it's kind of a negotiation between USAID and the State
Department The democratic assistance money comes from the State
Department."
Following the 2000 elections
and 2001 inauguration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
Convergence Démocratique (an internationally financed and
trained coalition of opposition political parties) pressured the
OAS and the international donor community into engaging in sanctions
against the elected government of Haiti. While the Aristide administration
continually complied with OAS requests, the sanctions held, having
a long lasting and harsh effect upon the national and local economies.
The capability of the government to pay the wages of its public
workforce and come through on many of its goals fell through.
By April, 2002, doctors from
the main Port-au-Prince hospital went on strike, and by May teachers
went on a one-day strike for more than 13 month's back pay. These
13 months corresponded closely with the cut off of international
aid in 2001 to the government. The Bush Administration, using
its veto power on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDV) board
of directors, blocked the release of already-approved loans for
health care, education, and water. $500 million in development
assistance and $146 million in loans for water, health, and education
were cut off.
The Aristide administration,
inheriting a poverty-stricken country burdened with international
debt, was forced to take the blame for the effects of the austerity
measures that had been pressured, and some would argue imposed,
upon it. Emerging economies, such as Argentina's, suffered tremendously
from the institution of economic reforms backed by the international
financial community. This was a common theme in neo-liberal economic
reforms carried out during the 90's, with long lasting effects
on much of the developing world. While the Lavalas government
was able to resist many of the "reforms" which were
being forced on it, this became increasingly difficult in 2001
with the discontinuance of foreign aid to the government, which
had long depended on aid for much of its budget.
While the capability of the
Haitian government to function properly declined because of these
cuts, social unrest increased and international groups such as
the Solidarity Center and others began to criticize the Haitian
government on a number of issues. Many of the accusations that
Solidarity Center made against the Haitian government were problems
that stemmed from the actions of their own funding source, USAID
and the United States government. Through collecting on out-dated
debts to past dictators, pressuring the Haitian government towards
the maintenance of low wages, privatization, the firing of half
of Haiti's civil servants, and then pushing for the cut-off of
nearly all international aid to the Haitian government, the United
States and institutions such as the World Bank subjugated the
poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to what it called "financial
responsibility" and "fiscal austerity measures."
While it was not uncommon
for leftists to criticize Aristide, Preval, or Lavalas for cooperating
with international reforms, Batay was different in that they refused
to coalesce behind the elected government when it faced an openly
coordinated and heavily financed campaign of political destabilization
led by the U.S. government and other international donors. The
international donor community, along with the United States, heavily
financed the opposition to Aristide's government, most notably
organizations within the Convergence Démocratique and Group
184.
At "training sessions,"
funded and organized by the International Republican Institute
(IRI) in the Dominican Republic throughout 2002, 2003, and early
2004, an opposition to Aristide's government was coordinated and
formulated plans to organize, protest, and campaign against the
government. Meanwhile a small group of rebels, with connections
to the Group 184, CIA, and the death-squad Front pour l'Avancement
et le Progrés Haïtien (FRAPH), came out of the Dominican
Republic to invade Haiti in January of 2004. With the sovereignty
of Haiti under attack, soon after the 2004 coup, the Batay Ouvriye
was itself on the U.S. bank roll.
In September 2005, Mario
Pierre, a representative of the Batay Ouvriye in New York City,
explained that he knew nothing about U.S. funding for his organization.
He stated: "The Batay Ouvriye does not receive any funding
from the U.S. government." When asked if the Batay Ouvriye
might have a leadership or a group of organizers that made these
decisions and could be questioned about them, he stated: "The
Batay Ouvriye has nothing like that. We have no leaders."
Batay Ouvriye has presented
itself as a utopian worker's alternative to Famni Lavalas, the
majority political party of the poor in Haiti. Utilizing the
example of the Free Trade Zone constructed along Haiti's border
with the Dominican Republic, Batay Ouvriye argues, as have others,
that the Aristide administration sold out, betraying the popular
movements that had voted it into power. As Haïti-Progrès
stated in July 2003, the first of seventeen free trade zones was
being constructed "near Haiti's northeastern border town
of Ouanaminthe, development of what was once the most precious
farmland in this barren, hungry corner of the country."
Few observers realized the
immense constraints the international community had placed on
Haiti in the Debt-For-Development Initiative that was being pushed
hard by the U.S. Department of State. The only alternative the
government of Haiti had was to continue on, with an unadjusted
sky rocketing debt. World Bank officials have explained that the
government's inability to pay was compounded by the withdrawal
of international aid to the government. While the "international
community" ripped apart Haiti like a wild pack of cheetahs,
the Aristide government came under increasing domestic criticism.
An underlining dichotomy
in Batay's message was their claim at being a democratic organization,
representing "small workshops, shantytowns, and peasants,"
yet opposing all elected government and all elections. A mystery
has been the role of its leadership. While its members claim to
have no leadership or central structure, from numerous communiqués
and interviews, it is obvious that a central leadership does exist
within Batay Ouvriye, although an unelected and arguably unaccountable
leadership.
In a March 2004 meeting held
in Port-au-Prince between Batay Ouvriye and a group of journalists
and NGO representatives, a de facto leadership of the Batay emerged.
Speaking primarily was Didier Dominique, alias Paul Philomé,
a prominent spokesperson, and Yvonne Castera, alias Yannick Etienne,
a frequent traveler to the United States. A third unnamed spokesperson
from Batay Ouvriye stated that he was "close with Evans Paul."
Evans Paul a leading figure of the Convergence Démocratique
and a founder of the Konvansyon Inite Demokratik (KID), was a
prime backer of the ouster of the Aristide government in February
2004. Batay Ouvriye's "workers" who sat in on the meeting,
according to a member of the Quixote Centre Delegation "were
not permitted to speak to us one-on-one nor voice their opinions
independently of Batay's supervision or prompting during the meeting."
Overseeing the meeting was a representative of the Solidarity
Center, a U.S. citizen, Jeff Hermanson.
The Batay Ouvriye, while
claiming to be a workers movement, has always stood against elections
and the democratic process. Much like the Convergence, the Batay
Ouvriye, instead of waiting for elections, chose to call for the
resignation and downfall of the Lavalas government. While the
Aristide administration won the vote overwhelmingly in the 2000
election, Batay Ouvriye claimed that the Lavalas administration
was an "occupation" government and that the "elections
were one step backward." In explaining their opposition
to the Lavalas government, Philomé stated in the March
2004 meeting that "we had worked to denounce all of the plans
that the Fanmi Lavalas government had, we denounced them and fought
to make sure those plans were not successful, and we also took
positions so the government can leave the country because we felt
that the Aristide government was a government that accepted impunity
for the factory owners, and they also were accepting and signing
all sorts of contracts even though it was bad for the country."
Either by mistake or by design,
the Batay Ouvriye played a role in destabilizing the elected government
in Haiti and, following the coup, helped to facilitate the creation
of a fractured left. Many of their low-level organizers, like
Mario Pierre, were not aware until September 2005 of the U.S.
funding for their organization.
USAID is the primary funding
source for the Solidarity Centers activities in Haiti. As Sasha
Kramer pointed out in her October 2005 article, "The Friendly
Face of U.S. Imperialism: USAID and Haiti," supporting alternatives
to Lavalas is an important first step in further destabilizing
the popular movement's widespread support. Through its sponsored
camps, Kramer documents how USAID has worked to "undermine
existing community programs in an attempt to de-legitimize the
demands of the Lavalas movement in the eyes of the international
community. This strategy is exemplified by USAID's description
of their activities in Petit Place Cazeau."7
The assault upon Lavalas
and the popular movements in Haiti, movements now rooted in the
history and folk songs of the Haitian poor, was a long-term encirclement.
It holds significant similarities to what happened prior to the
first coup against Aristide in the early 90's and late 80's.
The ubiquitous web of funding, grantees, and sub-grantees, while
often aimed at legitimate problems in Haiti, has had the obscured
role of reinstating the rule of the elite over the island nation.
Aid funding is ambiguous by nature, having multiple goals and
outcomes. By propping up and supporting small sectarian movements,
the USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) and the U.S
Department of State, which has oversight on all "democratic
enhancement" funding at USAID, aims to destabilize the larger
popular movement as a whole.
Following the February 2004
coup, while the Batay Ouvriye inked a money arrangement with the
AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, unions that backed the ousted government
such as the FAENNE and worker's from the bus drivers union were
forced into hiding, being murdered and assassinated by the death
squads of the newly U.S.-installed de facto government of Gérard
Latortue.
In a July 2005 statement,
the Batay Ouvriye attempted to justify its working with the AFL-CIO's
Solidarity Center, while openly acknowledging the AFL-CIO's murky
past. The authorless statement from the Batay Ouvriye explained
that the AFL-CIO's funding "apparatus is controlled, in the
final analysis, by the ruling classes in the United States...
Since these 'solidarity' practices have reached the point of developing
relations with grassroots workers organizations, we are faced
with the obligation of managing them, while they inevitably attempt
to manipulate these relations variously in order to recuperate
them. So, it is up to us to correctly handle these relations in
the working class' interest and on a permanent basis."8 Somehow
the Batay Ouvriye's leadership felt that only it could best manage
U.S. labor funding.
The Batay Ouvriye has failed
to respond to questions concerning its U.S. funding source and
relationship with the Solidarity Center. In an attempt to control
the damage done by the uncovering of its relationship with a Department
of State and USAID funded organization, David Wilson, an organizer
for Batay Ouvriye's U.S. backer "The Grassroots Haiti Solidarity
Committee", released an article on November 11th, 2005.9
Wilson's article continues to ignore the refusal of the Solidarity
Center and Batay Ouvriye to account for all the funding that has
been provided. A website and a November public forum in New York
City have since been organized by the Batay leadership and it's
supporters to continue the cover up of this funding relationship.
Paul Philomé, a leader of the Batay, also recently signed
up using his alias, Didier Dominique, to speak at the 2006 World
Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, undoubtedly to continue Batays
attempts at portraying itself as a "revolutionary" force
in Haiti.
When asked why the Solidarity
Center did not work with pro-Lavalas unions, a member of the Solidarity
Center, who wished to go unnamed, used the term "revolutionary
ideologues" to describe the unions who backed the democratically
elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Ben Davis, head of the Solidarity
Center's operations in the Caribbean and Latin America during
the February 2004 coup, refused to comment. Currently he is working
as an 'in country representative" for the Solidarity Center
in Mexico City.
Currently the Senior Program
Officer for the Americas at the Solidarity Center is Samantha
Tate, a National Security Education fellow and a Fulbright fellow
from 1999-2001, who researched Indonesian child labor and media
organizations following the fall of the Suharto dictatorship.
Refusing public accountability, Tate, along with the Solidarity
Center's grant management department, will not comment on the
amount of funding provided to the Batay Ouvriye or when and how
their relationship began.
In September 2005, Tate,
an employee of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, contacted my academic
department chair at California State University of Long Beach,
attempting to isolate and discredit this research.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Jeb Sprague is a freelance journalist
and a graduate student in History at California State University
of Long Beach. An expanded and footnoted version of this article
will appear in his thesis covering the destabilization and overthrow
of democracy in Haiti, 2000-2004. Contact him at Jebsprague@mac.com
1 http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0403n
ed-haiti.php
2 http://www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?conten tid=409
3 http://www.laboreducator.org/darkpast.htm
4 http://www.monthlyreview.org/0505scipes.htm
5 Unequal Equation: The Labor Code and Worker Rights in Haiti
6 http://www.labournet.net/world/0503/haiti1.html
7 http://counterpunch.org/kramer10142005.html
8 Sur l'AFL-CIO, Son Rôle Nationalement et Internationalement,
la Crise Actuelle par rapport aux Intérêts de la
Classe Ouvrière
9 David Wislon, "Haitian Labor Group Confronts US Lavalas
Backers"
Supporting a Leftist Opposition to Lavalas: The AFL-CIO's Solidarity
Center and the Batay Ouvriye | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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