Disaster Tourism

[bcholmes]

It occurred to me that this year is an important anniversary of 9/11. And I'm thinking of doing a bit of travel, to mark the event.

On September 11th, 1988, Franck Romain (Mayor of Pòtoprenz, a key figure in the Tontons Macoutes and graduate of the School of the Americas) orchestrated a siege of Saint Jean Bosco, the parish church of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 50 people died and another 70 were injured. It was a significant event in recent Haitian history. Here's one account:

As Fr. Aristide was saying Mass, armed thugs broke down the doors of the church, shooting and slashing their way to the altar, and torching the building, leaving 50 people dead and 77 wounded. "People were clawing at the doors, hiding behind the altar, diving under the pews, anywhere," a survivor told journalist Mark Danner. Those who tried to flee were stoned or clubbed, and Fr. Aristide narrowly escaped with his life. Afterwards [...] the killers bragged about their deeds. On TV, they vowed to finish off Aristide, promising that if he celebrated Mass again in Haiti, only corpses would be present in the church.

Five years later, in 1993, a ceremony was organized to commemorate the anniversary of the St. Jean Bosco massacre. In those five years, Aristide had been elected president, and had been overthrown in a coup in 1991. Aristide was in exile in the United States.

One of the organizers was a man named Antoine Izméry, who defied warnings to stay away from the service. Wikipedia writes:

At around 6am, the church was surrounded by armed men in civilian clothing. Numerous journalists were beaten and detained, and placed under the charge of Jackson Joanis, who headed the Port-au-Prince police's feared "Anti-Gang Unit". While this was ongoing, a group of 10 men forced Izméry outside, and made him kneel before shooting him dead with a single bullet to the head.

Members of the Haitian paramilitary group, FRAPH, are generally viewed as having orchestrated the attack. (FRAPH was founded by a guy named Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, who was being paid $700 a month by the CIA, and meeting with his CIA handler often as much as once a day.)

The man eventually convicted in absentia for Izméry's murder, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, was a member of FRAPH in 1993, and took part in the 2004 coup with Guy Philippe. During the interim government (the one installed by Canada, the US and France), Chamblain was retried, and acquitted.

As I've mentioned, before, the guest house I stay at in Pètoprenz is the former home of Antoine Izméry, and a man that I met there was a friend of Izméry's (and was present at the attack).

(Sorry. Did you think I was talking about that other 9/11?)

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Try being born on 11/9 (your notation, 9/11 ours). German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution) Historical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch) Event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht) Day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall)

[redbird]

It will also be the 25th anniversary of the US-funded coup that overthrew Salvador Allende.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

35th, I think.

And that's what my last link points to.

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

Wow, da hast du Recht. O_O

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

It's also the 102nd anniversary of Ghandi's first nonviolent political action (http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000409.html).

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

When I was at the Nixon museum, they had a display about his tour of South America. They showed pictures of rioters attacking his car. There was absolutely zero comment on why it might be that peasants in South American countries might feel somewhat less than hospitable towards the president of the USA.

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

Certainly the U.S., like practically every other nation, does questionable things. It's not an American thing, its a Human thing whether we like it or not. And its a Human thing with two parts: the giver and the taker.

Governments are not fishers, dangling bait in hopes of catching a dumb hungry fish on the end. The people in those countries are not dumb fish, they are intelligent human beings. They are intelligent human beings who are making the choice to take the money and betray their nations/ governments/people. As silly as it sounds it takes two to tango and very often there is a pool of discontent just waiting to dance.

So while we should condemn our governments for their violent opportunism we need to remember that there is someone native to that nation taking the money and participating in the violence. They aren't all innocents and they aren't all evil. Some of them may really believe its for the best.

As with everything there are two sides to these stories and that perhaps makes them even more tragic.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

While it may take two to tango, one side usually leads.

And the leader and the follower don't have the same power in the relationship. In this case, the US, Canada and France have considerable wealth compared to Haiti (they've gone to great lengths to ensure that that remains true). While certain Haitians are complicit, I think the power imbalance greatly affects where I direct my objections.

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

I guess I disagree with that to an extent. Clearly the bigger nations are greedy bastards and adept at finding people who are greedy and power hungry to carry out their whims at the local level, but those locals rarely are greedy and power hungry because they are poor, which they are, but because they are at heart ruthless, greedy, and power hungry individuals. These individuals are equally adept at luring rich patrons to fund their own schemes.

Of course if the big powers would stop meddling in other nations' business, it would solve most of the problems as would fair economic and trade practices.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

Yes, the 35th. One of my past loves is the daughter of a former Socialist official from Arica, who was kidnapped and tortured by the CIA eight months before she was born. She talks about the PTSD episodes he suffers as a result of this.

There are some people to whom you can never make sufficient apologies. You can only express your shame and sorrow over the evil that was wrought in your name, and work to ensure it never happens again.