January 17, 2011
Life Imitating Art in Haiti?
Pontecorvo's Movie Queimada (Burn!) as
Presage for What May Go Down Next
By Mac McKinney
Is life imitating art in Haiti right now with the return of Baby Doc Duvalier to Port-au-Prince? Is a plan underway to sweep him or, more likely, his faction of the Haitian oligarchy back into power on the wings of revolutionary upheaval in Haiti by co-opting any such movement's leadership? And strangely enough, have we seen this happen before to a Caribbean island-nation in a noted Italian director's movie, not to mention in real life, past or present?
In 1969, the Leftist Italian film director Gillo Pontecorvo, already famous his La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers, 1966), which re-enacted the struggle of Algerians to liberate their country from jaded French colonialism, and for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director as well the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, released yet another anti-colonial film.
It was called Queimada, which was the name of the fictional island the screenplay was set in, but it was released in the United States under the title Burn! and it starred Marlon Brando in one of his most serious, bluntly political roles that he ever portrayed. Perhaps because it was so in-your-face politically, as well as totally devoid of any female romantic interest for Brando that it was a box-office failure in the States, but nonetheless, it was a powerful, poignant movie.
The screenplay is thought to be loosely based on the revolutionary history of both the Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe and of Haiti. Brando plays a British agent-provocateur sent to Queimada to help stir up a slave rebellion against the Portuguese (actually the Spanish by design, which is more historically accurate, but Spain complained bitterly about being represented in the movie), with the ultimate aim of creating a compliant bourgeois state that can be controlled economically by Great Britain. Brando's immediate goal is to befriend the man who turns out to be the island slaves' most natural revolutionary leader, José Dolores (played by Evaristo Márquez) while working behind his back the entire time to implant a latifundist (large landowner) government that will again crush the now freed Black slaves, in effect turning them into peons and serfs this time around. Sound familiar?
Brando's character is actually given the name William Walker, which is a slap at the American penchant for overthrowing Central American governments, since Walker was the adventurous and infamous American filibuster who briefly bamboozled and murdered his way into becoming the president of Nicaragua before being shot. Thus the movie is not lacking in historical wit and irony.
But to relate this movie to what is going on in Haiti, we must recognize that Haiti is in chaos and that revolutionary instincts are quickening as catastrophe after catastrophe continues to inflame masses of angry and desperate Haitians, all the while the oligarchs and elitists watch nervously while being offered bromides by equally anxious American, French and other Western officials, not to mention OAS states and the UN Mission. The popular solution for millions of Haitians is simply to bring Jean Bertrand Aristide back, but he represents the interests of the poor and working classes and the fulfillment of their needs, not the needs of the rich and exploitative, indigenous or international. Consequently we have the spectacle of a brutal and corrupt dictator being allowed back into Haiti and given a government escort, while the most popular president in recent Haitian history is verboten, persona non grata!
Above all, many in the ranks of the bourgeoisie wish to maintain Haiti as a giant sweatshop, so the return of Aristide is the last thing they desire. But are these folks now starting to realize that a violent revolutionary wave may soon sweep the entire island-nation, and that Preval, whom many elitists look down upon, not to mention most other Haitians, has got to go, and along with him, perhaps, the floundering and shredded democratic system that was further abused and humiliated in the recent joke of a presidential election? And why not let a "monitored" wave of revolution, the elite may be thinking, sweep the island while they take a page from history and cinematic art, once again co-opting said movement while proffering the returned ex-dictator, Baby Doc, or more likely, someone whom he can pass the Duvalier mantle to, as " the man of the hour who can restore stability and order ", that tired old Fascist dictator's cliche that was used to empower Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet and many others who took advantage of the masses' miseries to institutionalize new miseries, even if they did bring "order".
Already we are seeing some Haitians being interviewed in the streets who say that things were better with Duvalier, that he can restore order, as non-factual as that may actually be, but the perception is there nonetheless, so the danger is that many Haitians, in their desperation, might fall for such propaganda barrages from the Duvalier camp, and perhaps others of cynical persuasion, including foreign powers.
So, my point here is this: As things continue to fall apart in Haiti, there is a deep need for real revolution in Haiti, and it does not, in the 21st Century, HAVE to be violent. It certainly was not fundamentally violent in many of the Color Revolutions in Europe and elsewhere in recent memory.
Yes, RADICAL CHANGE (getting to the roots of problems) IS NEEDED IN HAITI! But all who want real change should beware of those who will once again attempt to co-opt revolutionary forces in that luckless nation in the service of injustice and exploitation, offering instead only shiny, newly-minted chains for the Haitian people.
Now watch a few scenes from Burn! to allow me to emphasize how revolutionary energies can be ignited when the underlying, tinder-box conditions exist, and then sadly be undremined by those with ulterior motives.
From Burn! :Part 3 of 12:
Part 4 of 12:
Part 5 of 12:
I advise you to watch all parts , 1 - 12 for their geopolitical educational value, for what was going on historically that Burn! only fictionalizes, is certainly still happening now in the world.
Author's Website: http://plutonianmac.blogspot.com/Author's Bio: Besides contributing to OpEdNews.com, I am also an editor. I am a student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind, not through force, but through self-realization and mutual respect. I have also just come out with my first book, a combination of poetry, photography and essays entitled "Post Katrina Blues", my reflections on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans two years after Katrina struck. Go to the store at http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ to purchase. I also have a blogspot blog called Plutonian Mac.
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Opinion: In Haiti, the Truth Is Often Prostituted
On Monday, friends and confidants of Duvalier streamed through the room to greet him. In another version, accomplices and sycophants came to stake their claims.Today, Duvalier was led out of his hotel room by Haitian police, though there was no report as to whether he had been arrested. And people still have no idea why he came in the first place. Theories include imminent death, presidential ambitions and trouble making (on a grand scale).The most popular rumor is about an ill-gotten coalition between himself, President Rene Preval and the also ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to overthrow the foreigners.Monday's procession at Duvalier's hotel of "friends" was an aging, shabby who's who of has-beens and what once was. Phantoms of another era, dragging behind them the ghosts of thousands.It was already a week to remember the dead in Haiti. Now, more.
For her part, Corline knows almost nothing of Duvalier. "I don't know him. I wasn't even born," she says.She was going to school until the earthquake hit. She earns about $15 for every man she entertains. If Duvalier aspires to the presidency, she has one request -- a different job.Corline lives downtown in a tent. A mundane detail these days, with an estimated 750,000 people making their bedrooms in the streets. Few acknowledge that thousands of the people in the tents are not homeless at all.Some rented their houses to make money. Others came to Port-au-Prince from far away, after the earthquake, for aid and reconstruction jobs -- an increasingly implausible plan to better their lives.But before they came, there were hundreds of thousands of others who had the same idea. And over decades they descended on the city. Port-au-Prince was built to contain 300,000 people and now has 1.6 million.After the Duvalier era, Haiti never fully recovered from a system of governance that held power, opportunity and commerce in the palace, and nowhere else.If they wanted to go anywhere in life, first Haitians had to come here. That's meant the slow death of communities in the provinces and the fast-moving overpopulation of Port-au-Prince, which many say contributed to the earthquake's incomprehensible death toll.Urban planners call this "centralization," and its solution "decentralization." Both take generations to do and undo, of which the Duvalier family has already taken two. First the father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and then the Baby.The hope is that before he leaves, Jean-Claude Duvalier will see the consequences for himself -- the city that both his rule and his legacy helped destroy. Today is the first time he has left his hotel. He arrived by plane on a cloudy evening and traveled from the airport, in the dark. Perhaps the police will give him a small tour.Baby Doc was president when he was only 19 years old. He never knew a life outside the palace until he was thrown out of it. His boyhood home is destroyed now. Haitians, too, have been thrown out of their homes this year.And while it's the same sentiment that Preval tried to convey after the earthquake -- "I lost my house, too" -- maybe Duvalier will do more to remember his role in it.This week, Corline heard most of what she knows about Duvalier from her mother. Her mother is 59 and remembers her youth with fondness and nostalgia. This week she said many good things about the days when Baby Doc was still in power."I heard he might do something," Corline says, "for the country. The way they keep talking about him, he might actually do something."Moliere, 33, a young man passing by, says, "If he does something good, I'd die for him."Something. That's the refrain. Anything."We're looking for a solution," says Moliere's friend, Jean Marc. "Anyone with a solution, we're for."Given the conditions, it's no small wonder that old and young people alike often shrug at the idea of a dictatorship. If it turns out Preval is behind the stunt of Duvalier's sudden reappearance here, the textbooks should write it down as the most tragic, conniving plot of all time.For those who remember the murders, the torture, the slow descent into a sea of rubble, which started years before the earthquake hit, Duvalier's presence reminds them: "It could always be worse." They are primed to take on any leader who promises, at least, the status quo.For those too young to know what tyranny looks like, now, when it finally comes, the powers that be can say, "You asked for it."People here like to put the future in the hands of God. But individuals are also harbingers of hope and change -- through compassion, action and, most of all, awareness. For Haiti to move forward, it has to know, too, when it's moving backward.Corline has a young son of her own, born a year ago. He will never, ever know the Haiti she knew as a child. Just as she will never, ever know the Haiti her mother knew. In Corline's mind, 2009 was the good old days. For her mother, it was 1985.
That's one version. In reality, neither year was particularly good. The truest justice is knowledge.
>via: http://ht.ly/3G2hV
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HAITI
Charges filed against ex-dictator
Jean-Claude `Baby Doc' Duvalier
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES, LESLEY CLARK AND TRENTON DANIEL
JCHARLES@MIAMIHERALD.COM
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier was charged Tuesday with corruption, embezzlement and wrongful association stemming from his 15-year rule, his lawyer said.
But Gervais Charles, who has represented the 59-year-old Duvalier in the past, said the charges date to 2008 and the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.
The charges came during a day of high drama surrounding Duvalier, who stunned Haitians when he returned to the country on Sunday.
Judge Gabriel Ambroise and Haitian attorney Reynold Georges arrived at the posh Karibe Hotel about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, as Haitian police officers were asked to secure the premises. A helicopter could be heard buzzing overhead.
Duvalier said nothing as police, guns in hand, picked him up at the hotel and escorted him out the back of the building. Scores of journalists trailed the convoy as he was transported to a courthouse in downtown Port-au-Prince.
Charles called the move ``a scandal.''
Human rights attorneys greeted the news with caution.
``It could be a very good step in the right direction if the Haitian justice system truly pursues this case,'' said Brian Concannon, director of Haiti's Institute for Justice and Democracy. ``It could also be a whitewash if they don't pursue him and find a reason to let him go.''
In Haiti, Duvalier had spent Monday receiving visits from members of the secret police that once terrorized the country, fueling fears that his return would deepen a political crisis sparked by the nation's disputed Nov. 28 presidential elections.
No winner emerged and the streets of Haiti have been roiled by violence as activists try to influence which candidates would engage in a runoff.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the French government notified the United States about Duvalier's arrival in Haiti ``roughly an hour before'' he landed at Port-au-Prince's international airport.
``We don't believe at this point Haiti needs any more distractions,'' said spokesman P.J. Crowley.
``Our focus right now is to help Haiti through this delicate period, have a new government emerge that is credible enough and legitimate enough and viewed positively in the eyes of the Haitian people so that the country, with international support, including the United States, can move ahead with the ongoing efforts to -- to rebuild Haiti.''
Duvalier had spent Monday receiving visits from members of the secret police that once terrorized the country, fueling fears that his return would deepen a political crisis sparked by the nation's disputed Nov. 28 presidential elections.
No winner emerged and the streets of Haiti have been roiled by violence as activists try to influence which candidates would engage in a runoff.
Duvalier's return stirred confusion and protest. The United States and Canada denounced his return, with Ottawa tersely referring to Duvalier as a ``dictator.''
Human Rights Watch estimates that up to 30,000 Haitians were killed, many by execution, between the presidency of Duvalier and his father François ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier before him, from 1957 from 1986. A private militia, the Tonton Macoute, reinforced the Duvalier rule.
The French, meantime, denied complicity in his arrival from France, where he has lived in exile since fleeing a popular revolt 25 years ago.
``This was no plot. We did not know he was coming,'' said Didier Le-Bret, France's ambassador to Haiti. He only learned of the looming arrival once Duvalier boarded an Air France flight from Guadeloupe, the Caribbean archipelago 730 miles away.
Le-Bret said he immediately notified Haiti's foreign affairs minister and prime minister. ``He's not a focal point of the French government,'' Le-Bret said. ``He's a simple French citizen, he's allowed to do what he wants to do.''
In Washington, Florida Rep. Connie Mack, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, frankly told MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'' that, ``we don't know what's going on in Haiti.''
He struggled to elaborate: ``I mean there's been so much corruption in Haiti,'' he said. ``Obviously after the tragic events in Haiti, there was a lot of outpouring of support from this country, from the citizens of this country. But we're not seeing it being managed properly and we're not seeing that we're getting the results that we want.
``And now you've got the former dictator that's come back to the country. You can't tell me that he's back there just to go see some friends. I think he's up to no good.''
The Obama administration also expressed concern and worry that Duvalier's sudden appearance could have ``an unpredictable impact'' on Haiti's delicate political state.
Haiti's government, meanwhile, sought to downplay Duvalier's presence and its impact on the country as it wrestles with who will follow President René Préval's five-year presidential term.
The government announced that a controversial report on the presidential elections will officially be handed over to the Provisional Electoral Council, which will determine which candidates among the three front-runners should advance to a runoff.
José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said Monday that he ``had no opinion'' on Duvalier's visit. Instead, he sought to downplay the impact of the OAS election report, which proposes that popular singer Michel ``Sweet Micky'' Martelly replace Préval's preferred candidate, Jude Célestin, in the runoff.
The report, Insulza said, is based on ``calculations'' and not results.
``It's not in our power to give results,'' he told The Miami Herald. ``We are not publishing any kind of results.''
On Tuesday OAS Assistant Secretary General Ambassador Albert Ramdin briefed the Caribbean Community, CARICOM, on Haiti's political developments.
Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive have disputed the report, saying its conclusions were based on faulty methodology. Insulza defended the findings, and said he was ``in no position to change the report.''
But the focus Monday was less on who would enter the runoff, and more on Duvalier, who returned to the country shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday. Throughout the capital, victims relived trauma as ``Baby Doc'' friends and supporters argued that the country was better during his rule.
``After 25 years, we are nostalgic,'' said an elderly woman, who gave only her surname, Gerard Destin, after a visit to Duvalier. ``He's happy that we were able to see each other again after 25 years. He wants peace, unity and love.''
Ralph Brossard, 53, an urban planner said he, too, was happy to see the dictator's return and hoped that more exiled presidents would follow.
Duvalier's father, Francois ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier, he said, was a witness at his parents' wedding more than 50 years ago.
Still, even he was baffled by the visit and its timing, particularly after visiting Duvalier at the Karibe hotel.
``What's happening is Préval's last stand,'' he said. ``Préval doesn't want to go into exile. This is his last card. I think he made a deal for Duvalier to return.''
Préval has not publicly commented on the return, but those close to him said he was as surprised as everyone.
Bellerive said the passport Duvalier used to leave France was issued in June 2005 by the then U.S.-backed interim government of Gerard Latortue. It expired last year.
It was not known what charges, if any, Duvalier would face. His companion, Veronique Roy, spoke to an Associated Press reporter by phone from inside the court, and asked if Duvalier had been arrested, said, ``Absolutely not.''
She said she did not know why authorities decided to escort him to court and did not expect to be there much longer. ``We are very relaxed, drinking coffee and water,'' she told AP. ``They said they are making photocopies. We don't know why.''
He was being held Tuesday afternoon at the Parquet, the name of a downtown courthouse used for some of Haiti's more serious prosecutions.
Outside, a crowd gathered and changed ``Arrest Préval,'' seemingly expressing their dissatisfaction with Duvalier's detention.
Human rights groups in Haiti and the U.S. had demanded Duvalier's arrest as victims, such as United Nations official Michele Montas, relived trauma from the Duvalier's reign of terror.
``I am outraged, angry and dismayed that this could happened,'' said Montas, a former journalist and radio station owner who spent six years in exile after being jailed for 10 days, then expelled in 1980.
Montas said she had no explanation for her treatment. She said she planned to file a civil action against Duvalier for ``arbitrary arrest, forced exile, torture.''
``What bothers me the most is the fact that so many people seem to have forgotten what happened,'' she said. ``When I talk about Nov. 28, 1980, when our radio station was ransacked, destroyed, when all of the journalists present at the station were arrested -- young people have no notion that something like this could have happened.
``I tell them that the price that we paid for freedom of the press they are enjoying right now was a price paid in blood. Journalists died, they were killed.''