Aristide & The Endless Revolution

NICOLAS ROSSIER’S GIFT TO FUTURE GENERATIONS

By Jack Random

There are stories so profound yet so neglected by mainstream media, they deserve to be told again and again, as an elder in an indigenous culture passes stories from generation to generation.

East Timor, the saga of a Pilipino massacre sanctioned by the American government, is such a story. American sponsorship of Osama bin Laden and his band of Islamic militants is such a story. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, America’s man in South America (and the reason Henry Kissinger is a fugitive war criminal) is such a story. American sponsored coups in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Columbia and Venezuela are similar stories but perhaps none packs the symbolic power of Haiti and its deposed leader Jean Bertrand Aristide.

What these stories share is the combination of horror and disbelief. They have been so effectively removed from the database of common knowledge that those who refer to them as examples of American duplicity are summarily dismissed. In a land that professes love of freedom, justice and democracy, it cannot be so, yet it is so.

Consequently, stories such as the rise and fall of democratic leader Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti must be presented in a compelling narrative. It must present a broad and comprehensive view, drawing from both sides of the conflict. It must be as unbiased as possible yet still tell the truth.

Filmmaker Nicolas Rossier has achieved these essential qualities in his documentary "Aristide and the Endless Revolution." He has cast a wide lens in chronicling the modern history of this nation of former slaves from the emergence of minister Aristide as an advocate for the poor in the 1980s to the bloody aftermath of his overthrow in 2004.

Painted in rich colors, we are reminded that before Aristide, Haiti was mired in hopeless corruption and poverty under the brutal dictatorship of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier and their merciless henchmen, the Ton Ton Macoutes. Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas (blood of the people) party rose to power by giving the people hope but he incited the rage of colonial powers (France in particular) by asserting the right of reparations: "the right to recuperate what you have stolen from us."

Rossier draws upon numerous voices – activists, diplomats, members of congress, writers, ambassadors, and administration members – on both sides of the Aristide ledger to flesh out the powerful narrative, including interviews with Noam Chomsky, Kim Ives of Haiti Progress, Representative Maxine Waters, former ambassador James Foley, Danny Glover and some rare and extensive conversations with the infamous Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State.

Using live footage from the streets of Port au Prince, the story unfolds with the 1990 election of Aristide, the CIA sponsored coup of 1991 under the elder Bush administration, the restoration of Aristide by the Clinton administration and his subsequent betrayal, the false accusations of election fraud and subsequent embargo of 2000. We watch helplessly as Haiti is starved to death, bled dry, as Haiti’s elite refuse to pay taxes and the Aristide government is drained of all resources. It was then that Aristide demanded reparations from France in the amount of $21 billion for a theft that occurred under Napoleon. It was a bold and desperate move and one that likely sealed his fate. There is no principle on earth that frightens the established powers more than reparations. It is the great equalizer and the hope of all exploited nations.

The coup of 2004 was so blatant it defies belief. A democratically elected leader was abducted at gunpoint and deposited in central Africa. What has followed in the wake of Aristide’s overthrow is a nation in anarchy, oppression, mass murder and lawlessness, culminating with the massacre of civilians in Cite Soleil by the United Nations peacekeepers.

In the end, we are confronted with a conspiracy of the most powerful nations and world institutions against one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere.

Shame where is thy blush?

"Aristide and the Endless Revolution" should be added to the list of required films (along with Hearts & Minds, The Education of Little Tree, Black Robe, Slaughterhouse 5, Paths of Glory, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Battle of Algiers) in every high school in the western world.

Jazz.

[Note: The film will be shown at the African Diaspora Film Festival in New York and will make its European debut in Amsterdam in June.]

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS WORK HAS APPEARED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, COUNTERPUNCH & THE ALBION MONITOR. SEE RANDOM JACK [http://jazzmanchronciles.blogspot.com].

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