You CAN Change the Think Tanks who Talk to City Hall

Last month, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), described by some as a liberal think-tank, issued an article structured as a "report card" of Haitian President Préval. The article made numerous critiques of Aristide, repeating common right-wing claims that Aristide was corrupt and involved in violence. For example, one passage read:

Six years ago, President Aristide appeared to have given up hope of ruling the country with intense energy, constitutional devotion, or a tireless commitment to building democratic institutions. Perhaps due to the attempted coup in late 2001 — or, just as likely, his own insensitivity to inclusive rule—Aristide seemed to manifest a show of lassitude to the rule of law as well as indifference to democratic institution building. He encouraged citizens to use violence when needed to fight the nation’s armed opposition, and civil liberties and political/human rights were in short supply. For all intents and purposes, there was a constitution in name only, something which newly elected President Préval, whom, it should be noted, was a close friend and political comrade of Aristide, promised to change.

As you might expect, the paper drew some criticism from Haiti activists. Today, I got this in my in-box:

There has been an intense dispute on the part of outside critics regarding COHA's piece on Haiti - which was issued on September 14, 2007. Its author, Michael Glenwick stands behind his article and the sharp criticism of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which has now been moved from COHA's website and can be found in COHA's Forum. After closely reviewing the Glenwick piece, COHA's senior officials regretfully concluded that much of the criticism of it - notably the September 21, 2007 critique of COHA's Haiti piece by Joe Emersberger for the Narco News Bulletin - was well-founded. It should also be noted that most of the contributions we received on the subject were opposed to our point of view; this is why we decided to submit the Glenwick article to a protracted review. Today we are replacing the Glenwick piece with a substantially revised version which was authored by COHA Director Larry Birns. This is now COHA's official position on the relative roles of Presidents Aristide and Preval and contains some glimpses of the former president's strengths and weaknesses, including his invaluable contribution to Haitian democracy.

Ever since he came into prominence in 1989, COHA has devoted much of its effort to spotlighting the life and times of President Aristide, stressing Washington's persistently radical and hostile rightwing attitude towards him under both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. From 2002-2004, COHA issued scores of analytical pieces on U.S.-Haitian relations written by Larry Birns, often in conjunction with COHA Research Fellow Jessica Leight. This included a co-authored contribution to Dr. Paul Farmer's "The Uses of Haiti" written in 2003: Mr. Emersberger was good enough to take note and praise this long association.

The first part of the fight is to not let the lies go unchallenged.