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Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Food Stamps for Good Food | The Nation
Coretta Dudley’s monthly grocery shopping strategy is as finely calibrated as a combat plan. Armed with $868 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (the fancy new name for food stamps), she stops first at FoodMaxx, a discount supermarket in East Oakland, where she stocks up on four weeks’ worth of nonperishables: cases of noodles, cans of vegetables and boxes of the sugary cereals her kids like. She also buys fresh fruit—apples and pears and bananas and grapes—but those will be gone in a week. Then she swings by Wal-Mart for bread, eggs and milk. Later, she’ll hit the family-owned meat market, where she chooses hamburger and cube steaks. Other than $100 she sets aside to replenish the milk, eggs and cheese later in the month, that first multipronged attack will last her and her six children, ages 4 to 16, the whole month. That’s the idea, anyway.
“At the end of the month, we’ll still need something,” she says. “It never fails.”
Almost 500 miles away, in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, Tsehay Gebere has developed her own shopping plan at the Saturday farmers’ market. The lines are long, and the ten-pound sacks of oranges, plentiful at 9 am, will have disappeared by noon. But Gebere, a weekly fixture at the market, has the inside track. She persuades farmer Bernardino Loera to sock away four bags in his van. Forty-five minutes later, she gets back to Loera’s stall and collects her hoarded prize.
Like Dudley, Gebere receives food stamp benefits, for herself and her four children. Like Dudley, Gebere shops at discount supermarkets like Food 4 Less for most of her groceries. But while Dudley buys four bags of fruit every month, Gebere buys at least four bags every week—made possible by the free money she gets at the farmers’ market.
Yes, free money—though the technical name is “double voucher.” The market matches a certain amount of money from a customer’s federal food assistance benefits, essentially doubling the customer’s purchasing power. City Heights was one of the first double voucher markets in the country; there are now more than 160 participating farmers’ markets in twenty states. They reach just a tiny fraction of the more than 43 million Americans receiving food stamps. But their very existence raises questions about SNAP’s identity: is it a welfare program or, as its recent name change suggests, a nutrition program? These questions are the subject of lively debate in USDA offices and advocacy circles, where the idea of giving extra money for fruits and veggies, innocuous as it may seem, is exposing fault lines between traditional advocates for the poor and a new coalition of healthy-food activists.
The underlying premise of the modern food stamp program, shaped in the Kennedy/Johnson years, was that the American poor were starving and in need of calories, any calories at all. But there is now a well-documented overlap between the country’s staggering rate of “food insecurity” (the term used by the USDA in lieu of “hunger”) and its escalating obesity rates. In 2009, 43 percent of households below the federal poverty line experienced food insecurity. And if you’re poor, you’re more likely to be obese. Nine of the ten states with the highest poverty levels also rank in the top ten of obesity rates.
That one can be simultaneously food insecure and obese seems like a paradox. But consider that many low-income neighborhoods have few full-service supermarkets. Grocery shopping in the neighborhood likely means buying at corner stores with limited options for healthy choices. Even if those options do exist, they are not necessarily the rational economic choice for someone on a tight budget. The cost per calorie for foods containing fats and oils, sugars and refined grains are extremely low, but these are precisely the foods linked to high obesity rates. Healthy choices like fruits and vegetables are as much as several thousand times more expensive per calorie.
In a California Department of Public Health survey of eating habits, low-income people said they knew the importance of healthy eating. But they still eat fewer fruits and vegetables than the government recommends, less than the American population as a whole. “People said they couldn’t afford it,” says George Manalo-LeClair, legislation director with the California Food Policy Advocates. “It’s cost.”
At the heart of this whole mess—poverty, hunger and declining health—is the food stamp program. Nationwide, the average SNAP beneficiary received $125.31 per month in fiscal year 2009. If food stamps constitute a person’s entire food budget—as often happens, even though the program is intended to supplement recipients’ own money—that translates to just under $1.40 per meal. If you’re looking to buy something that will satiate you for $1.40, you probably won’t be buying broccoli.
Researchers have long studied whether food stamps contribute to obesity. Previously the conclusion was, probably not. But in an Ohio State University study released in the summer of 2009 the finding was, quite possibly yes. The study found that the body mass index (BMI) of program participants is more than one point higher than nonparticipants at the same income level. The longer one is on food stamps, the higher the BMI rises.
If the link exists—and it is exceedingly difficult to prove a causal relationship between food stamps and any one physical condition—it exposes a weakness in the program. The food stamp program has certainly evolved since the “war on poverty,” but fundamentally it is still operating as though the only health threat facing the poor is insufficient calories.
* * *
The roots of the City Heights farmers’ market date back thirty years, to an incident in 1980 Gus Schumacher calls “the case of the broken pear box.” Schumacher was helping his brother, a farmer outside Boston, load a truck after the Dorchester farmers’ market closed when he dropped a box of Bosc pears in the gutter. A woman passing by bent down and retrieved the damaged fruit, explaining that she was on food stamps but still couldn’t afford fresh fruits and vegetables for her children. Schumacher ended up giving her an additional ten pounds of apples and pears. “People should not be picking fruit out of a gutter,” he says.
A former under secretary in the USDA, Schumacher is now vice president of policy at Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that helped City Heights and similar programs get off the ground. For him, the broken pear box was a revelation: people on food assistance desperately want the products that small farmers like his brother were selling. If those pricey pears could be made affordable for these new shoppers, it could be a win-win for buyer and seller.
City Heights was an ideal community to put Schumacher’s theory to the test. The average income in the neighborhood is around $26,000, as opposed to $63,000 in the county as a whole. The types of fruits and vegetables on offer are tailored to fit the cultural preferences of shoppers, mostly Latino, Vietnamese and Somali. The market’s operators say more than 1,800 customers, 250 of whom are regulars, participate in their double voucher program, dubbed “Fresh Fund.” In a survey of marketgoers, 90 percent said that they include more fresh fruits and vegetables in their daily diet, thanks to Fresh Fund. The market’s small farmers have reaped benefits too. Bernardino Loera, Gebere’s orange vendor, says Fresh Fund dollars account for three-quarters of his sales.
City Heights customers say they love the quality of the market’s produce—“the food is so fresh,” “it’s natural,” “it’s organic.” But it is also surprisingly economical, given the reputation farmers’ markets have for designer produce. Lemons run six for $1 here; at the Albertson’s down the street, lemons were selling two for $1. Other items, like kale and onions, were pretty much equal to Albertson’s offerings. Loera says he adjusts his prices to match what customers can afford. The wares are made even cheaper by the Fresh Fund. Each time shoppers visit the market, their SNAP electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card is swiped, and they receive wooden tokens in $1 denominations they can use at individual stalls. The Fresh Fund is a true match program. Customers can deduct up to $20 per month from their benefit accounts; they then receive an equal amount in Fresh Fund dollars.
In three years, Wholesome Wave and its affiliated programs have secured funds from major philanthropies, including Newman’s Own Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. The group had a $1.4 million operating budget last year, and Schumacher expects $1 million more in 2011. But the real money is federal money—almost $70 billion spent in fiscal year 2010 on SNAP. If just 3 percent went to fruit and vegetable incentives, that would be more than $2 billion to make healthy food affordable at farmers’ markets and grocery stores.
Incentives are already on the radar at the USDA. Later this year, a fifteen-month pilot program in Massachusetts will attempt to apply the double-voucher theory—extra money for healthy foods—to the supermarket, where most food stamp purchases are made. Taking advantage of SNAP’s EBT card, which functions like a debit card, the program will add 30 cents to select recipients’ SNAP balance for every dollar spent on fruits and vegetables—fresh, frozen, canned or dried. The experiment cuts to the heart of nutrition incentives: would a little extra money back change people’s shopping behavior—and how much money would it take to make an impact?
Food stamps have long had a vigorous network of advocates in Washington; the healthy-food advocates are the new kids in town, with backgrounds in public health with emphasis on nutrition. The convergence of the two groups has not been particularly graceful. “I have to say we got off to kind of a rocky start,” says Manalo-LeClair, whose organization has worked with both types of groups. “People were pleased that the food stamp program has the ability to fight hunger, and we haven’t solved that problem. So then they were saying, ‘Are we asking too much to have it do more in terms of preventing obesity as well?’”
To some in the anti-hunger lobby, the emphasis on nutrition is a political Trojan horse, a pretext for cuts or restrictions to the program. “Nine times out of ten, the people in these debates who use the term ‘reform’ use it as a sugarcoated way of just slashing benefits,” says Joel Berg, director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Indeed, the link to obesity has been raised in Congress as a reason not to increase funding for the program. Also, critics worry that it’s a short road from incentives to disincentives: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently suggested banning the use of SNAP benefits for sugary soda, and Schumacher once proposed a surcharge for Coke and Twinkies (he has since dropped the idea). To some, this approach smacks of paternalism, implying that low-income people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. “The right and left said we were being nannies,” says Schumacher.
The people who run City Heights argue that their initiative would actually expand choices for low-income people who want to include fruits and vegetables in their everyday diet. Imagine if everyone on food stamps enjoyed the same choice. What if there was a place like City Heights in East Oakland, where Dudley could get $20 more each month to spend on fresh produce? Is that something she’d be interested in?
“If they’d match me? Yeah…” She trails off, imagining how that would work. “Yes!” she says, getting louder now. “Oh, my God—I would love that!”
Maybe she could buy fruit all month long. Maybe fresh vegetables wouldn’t just be for holidays. For a moment, Dudley adjusts her battle plan to indulge in this new fantasy.
“Twenty dollars a month,” she says. “That would change a lot.”
“At the end of the month, we’ll still need something,” she says. “It never fails.”
Almost 500 miles away, in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, Tsehay Gebere has developed her own shopping plan at the Saturday farmers’ market. The lines are long, and the ten-pound sacks of oranges, plentiful at 9 am, will have disappeared by noon. But Gebere, a weekly fixture at the market, has the inside track. She persuades farmer Bernardino Loera to sock away four bags in his van. Forty-five minutes later, she gets back to Loera’s stall and collects her hoarded prize.
Like Dudley, Gebere receives food stamp benefits, for herself and her four children. Like Dudley, Gebere shops at discount supermarkets like Food 4 Less for most of her groceries. But while Dudley buys four bags of fruit every month, Gebere buys at least four bags every week—made possible by the free money she gets at the farmers’ market.
Yes, free money—though the technical name is “double voucher.” The market matches a certain amount of money from a customer’s federal food assistance benefits, essentially doubling the customer’s purchasing power. City Heights was one of the first double voucher markets in the country; there are now more than 160 participating farmers’ markets in twenty states. They reach just a tiny fraction of the more than 43 million Americans receiving food stamps. But their very existence raises questions about SNAP’s identity: is it a welfare program or, as its recent name change suggests, a nutrition program? These questions are the subject of lively debate in USDA offices and advocacy circles, where the idea of giving extra money for fruits and veggies, innocuous as it may seem, is exposing fault lines between traditional advocates for the poor and a new coalition of healthy-food activists.
The underlying premise of the modern food stamp program, shaped in the Kennedy/Johnson years, was that the American poor were starving and in need of calories, any calories at all. But there is now a well-documented overlap between the country’s staggering rate of “food insecurity” (the term used by the USDA in lieu of “hunger”) and its escalating obesity rates. In 2009, 43 percent of households below the federal poverty line experienced food insecurity. And if you’re poor, you’re more likely to be obese. Nine of the ten states with the highest poverty levels also rank in the top ten of obesity rates.
That one can be simultaneously food insecure and obese seems like a paradox. But consider that many low-income neighborhoods have few full-service supermarkets. Grocery shopping in the neighborhood likely means buying at corner stores with limited options for healthy choices. Even if those options do exist, they are not necessarily the rational economic choice for someone on a tight budget. The cost per calorie for foods containing fats and oils, sugars and refined grains are extremely low, but these are precisely the foods linked to high obesity rates. Healthy choices like fruits and vegetables are as much as several thousand times more expensive per calorie.
In a California Department of Public Health survey of eating habits, low-income people said they knew the importance of healthy eating. But they still eat fewer fruits and vegetables than the government recommends, less than the American population as a whole. “People said they couldn’t afford it,” says George Manalo-LeClair, legislation director with the California Food Policy Advocates. “It’s cost.”
At the heart of this whole mess—poverty, hunger and declining health—is the food stamp program. Nationwide, the average SNAP beneficiary received $125.31 per month in fiscal year 2009. If food stamps constitute a person’s entire food budget—as often happens, even though the program is intended to supplement recipients’ own money—that translates to just under $1.40 per meal. If you’re looking to buy something that will satiate you for $1.40, you probably won’t be buying broccoli.
Researchers have long studied whether food stamps contribute to obesity. Previously the conclusion was, probably not. But in an Ohio State University study released in the summer of 2009 the finding was, quite possibly yes. The study found that the body mass index (BMI) of program participants is more than one point higher than nonparticipants at the same income level. The longer one is on food stamps, the higher the BMI rises.
If the link exists—and it is exceedingly difficult to prove a causal relationship between food stamps and any one physical condition—it exposes a weakness in the program. The food stamp program has certainly evolved since the “war on poverty,” but fundamentally it is still operating as though the only health threat facing the poor is insufficient calories.
* * *
The roots of the City Heights farmers’ market date back thirty years, to an incident in 1980 Gus Schumacher calls “the case of the broken pear box.” Schumacher was helping his brother, a farmer outside Boston, load a truck after the Dorchester farmers’ market closed when he dropped a box of Bosc pears in the gutter. A woman passing by bent down and retrieved the damaged fruit, explaining that she was on food stamps but still couldn’t afford fresh fruits and vegetables for her children. Schumacher ended up giving her an additional ten pounds of apples and pears. “People should not be picking fruit out of a gutter,” he says.
A former under secretary in the USDA, Schumacher is now vice president of policy at Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that helped City Heights and similar programs get off the ground. For him, the broken pear box was a revelation: people on food assistance desperately want the products that small farmers like his brother were selling. If those pricey pears could be made affordable for these new shoppers, it could be a win-win for buyer and seller.
City Heights was an ideal community to put Schumacher’s theory to the test. The average income in the neighborhood is around $26,000, as opposed to $63,000 in the county as a whole. The types of fruits and vegetables on offer are tailored to fit the cultural preferences of shoppers, mostly Latino, Vietnamese and Somali. The market’s operators say more than 1,800 customers, 250 of whom are regulars, participate in their double voucher program, dubbed “Fresh Fund.” In a survey of marketgoers, 90 percent said that they include more fresh fruits and vegetables in their daily diet, thanks to Fresh Fund. The market’s small farmers have reaped benefits too. Bernardino Loera, Gebere’s orange vendor, says Fresh Fund dollars account for three-quarters of his sales.
City Heights customers say they love the quality of the market’s produce—“the food is so fresh,” “it’s natural,” “it’s organic.” But it is also surprisingly economical, given the reputation farmers’ markets have for designer produce. Lemons run six for $1 here; at the Albertson’s down the street, lemons were selling two for $1. Other items, like kale and onions, were pretty much equal to Albertson’s offerings. Loera says he adjusts his prices to match what customers can afford. The wares are made even cheaper by the Fresh Fund. Each time shoppers visit the market, their SNAP electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card is swiped, and they receive wooden tokens in $1 denominations they can use at individual stalls. The Fresh Fund is a true match program. Customers can deduct up to $20 per month from their benefit accounts; they then receive an equal amount in Fresh Fund dollars.
In three years, Wholesome Wave and its affiliated programs have secured funds from major philanthropies, including Newman’s Own Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. The group had a $1.4 million operating budget last year, and Schumacher expects $1 million more in 2011. But the real money is federal money—almost $70 billion spent in fiscal year 2010 on SNAP. If just 3 percent went to fruit and vegetable incentives, that would be more than $2 billion to make healthy food affordable at farmers’ markets and grocery stores.
Incentives are already on the radar at the USDA. Later this year, a fifteen-month pilot program in Massachusetts will attempt to apply the double-voucher theory—extra money for healthy foods—to the supermarket, where most food stamp purchases are made. Taking advantage of SNAP’s EBT card, which functions like a debit card, the program will add 30 cents to select recipients’ SNAP balance for every dollar spent on fruits and vegetables—fresh, frozen, canned or dried. The experiment cuts to the heart of nutrition incentives: would a little extra money back change people’s shopping behavior—and how much money would it take to make an impact?
Food stamps have long had a vigorous network of advocates in Washington; the healthy-food advocates are the new kids in town, with backgrounds in public health with emphasis on nutrition. The convergence of the two groups has not been particularly graceful. “I have to say we got off to kind of a rocky start,” says Manalo-LeClair, whose organization has worked with both types of groups. “People were pleased that the food stamp program has the ability to fight hunger, and we haven’t solved that problem. So then they were saying, ‘Are we asking too much to have it do more in terms of preventing obesity as well?’”
To some in the anti-hunger lobby, the emphasis on nutrition is a political Trojan horse, a pretext for cuts or restrictions to the program. “Nine times out of ten, the people in these debates who use the term ‘reform’ use it as a sugarcoated way of just slashing benefits,” says Joel Berg, director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Indeed, the link to obesity has been raised in Congress as a reason not to increase funding for the program. Also, critics worry that it’s a short road from incentives to disincentives: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently suggested banning the use of SNAP benefits for sugary soda, and Schumacher once proposed a surcharge for Coke and Twinkies (he has since dropped the idea). To some, this approach smacks of paternalism, implying that low-income people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. “The right and left said we were being nannies,” says Schumacher.
The people who run City Heights argue that their initiative would actually expand choices for low-income people who want to include fruits and vegetables in their everyday diet. Imagine if everyone on food stamps enjoyed the same choice. What if there was a place like City Heights in East Oakland, where Dudley could get $20 more each month to spend on fresh produce? Is that something she’d be interested in?
“If they’d match me? Yeah…” She trails off, imagining how that would work. “Yes!” she says, getting louder now. “Oh, my God—I would love that!”
Maybe she could buy fruit all month long. Maybe fresh vegetables wouldn’t just be for holidays. For a moment, Dudley adjusts her battle plan to indulge in this new fantasy.
“Twenty dollars a month,” she says. “That would change a lot.”
"The results are in"
18 million voted, 14 million (77%) said "yes" and 4 million said "no."
It's a mandate for the military to some extent, but the minority is substantial enough to make it clear consensus is not overwhelming — even if there were different reasons for voting yes or no.
One nice aspect of this is that the commission overseeing the referendum is taking critical questions from the press, explaining where there was fraud, assuring that perpetrators will be punished (2-5 years in prison). That's pretty unprecedented, previously the government just ignored allegations of fraud.
My analysis what is problematic with the referendum still stands, and we'll have to wait to see if the case for massive fraud can convincingly be made. Overall, though, I suspect that this referendum, is in its conduct, was generally a step forward for Egypt.
<77% yes, 23% no>
It's a mandate for the military to some extent, but the minority is substantial enough to make it clear consensus is not overwhelming — even if there were different reasons for voting yes or no.
One nice aspect of this is that the commission overseeing the referendum is taking critical questions from the press, explaining where there was fraud, assuring that perpetrators will be punished (2-5 years in prison). That's pretty unprecedented, previously the government just ignored allegations of fraud.
My analysis what is problematic with the referendum still stands, and we'll have to wait to see if the case for massive fraud can convincingly be made. Overall, though, I suspect that this referendum, is in its conduct, was generally a step forward for Egypt.
<77% yes, 23% no>
New Wikileaks Cables Show Extent of US Opposition to Aristide
Not long after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide landed in Haiti yesterday, ending an exile begun in 2004 by a US-backed coup d’etat, Kristoffer Rønneberg at the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten posted online 13 new private diplomatic cables from the US government relating to Aristide and Haiti, from the Wikileaks Cablegate set.
Taken together, they portray the United States as intractably, almost obsessively occupied with marginalizing Aristide and Lavalas, and making sure other nations fall in line. The French government conspired with the US to make his return near-impossible, discussing how to make the logistics of a return flight more difficult and making plain to S. Africa that he must be kept there. There’s also the news that in 2008 current President Rene Preval was trying “co-opt” the Fanmi Lavalas party into his ruling coalition and was flatly opposed to Aristide even being in the hemisphere. Below, a round-up of key passages from the cables…
Four days before Aristide was flown out of the country, the Dominican Ambassador to Haiti said he was “worried” about chaos in the North and but that Aristide was “very clever” and did not ask the Dominicans for any help or the use of a helicopter.
In October 2004, a confidante of the Bahamas Prime Minister said the United States owed the leader “a call from senior USG officials, or the White House, advising him ‘when the United States decided to change direction on Aristide’ and ‘remove him from power.’”
In November 2004, nine months after the coup, Dominican President Lionel Fernandez gave a speech in front of other regional leaders in which he said Aristide commanded “great popular support” within Haiti and called for his inclusion in the country’s democratic future. The US was shocked and outraged, commenting, “The Aristide comment appeared to come out of nowhere. Fernandez had not previously discussed Aristide by name in conversations with us, or with our French and Canadian counterparts…Perhaps the greatest surprise for us was the palace’s presumption that there would be no downside.
On November 6, during a pull-aside at a social event, the Ambassador admonished Fernandez that his reference to Aristide was a serious mistake, one that had the potential of further inflaming a situation already dangerous for the Haitian people and for the international peacekeeping force. Fernandez replied that given popular support for Lavalas, it would have to be part of the situation. The Ambassador was direct: Aristide had led a violent gang involved in narcotics trafficking and had squandered any credibility he formerly may have had. “Nobody has given me any information about that,” Fernandez replied. The Ambassador insisted that no supporter of human rights and democracy could in good conscience allow Aristide and his close supporters back into the situation in Haiti. Fernandez listened and eventually agreed to distinguish between Aristide and Lavalas. He asked for any information on Aristide that the United States might be able to share with him.
Two months later, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela told the US Ambassador there “he believes the USG is wrong on Haiti: “There is no long term solution that does not involve Aristide in some way.” Yesterday during his airport arrival, the Venezuelan Ambassador was the only foreign ambassador present with Aristide.
That same month, Jan. 2005, France and the United States discussed how to keep Aristide from returning home, planning to warn off Caribbean countries and tell S. Africa he must not be allowed to return “on the pretext” that it would hurt their chance for a UN Security Council:
Bienvenu later offered to express our shared concerns in Pretoria, perhaps under the pretext that as a country desiring to secure a seat on the UN Security Council, South Africa could not afford to be involved in any way with the destabilization of another country.. . .2. (S) Bienvenu speculated on exactly how Aristide might return, seeing a possible opportunity to hinder him in the logistics of reaching Haiti. If Aristide traveled commercially, Bienvenu reasoned, he would likely need to transit certain countries in order to reach Haiti. Bienvenu suggested a demarche to CARICOM countries by the U.S. and EU to warn them against facilitating any travel or other plans Aristide might have. . .Both Bienvenu and Barbier confided that South African mercenaries could be heading towards Haiti, with Bienvenu revealing the GOF had documented evidence that 10 South African citizens had come to Paris and requested Dominican visas between February and the present.
And seven months later, a South African official told the French that its government “would not support any effort by Aristide to return…Ntshinga told the French that he would share the French concern about Aristide´s activities with the National Intelligence Agency and ensure that President Mbeki was also informed.”
In August 2005, the Jamaican Labor Minister was chastised for describing Aristide “as a friend in need” after the coup. He said Washington was overreacting. Jamaica allowed him to pass through the country on his way into exile, and had offered the Aristides the option to stay there for a few weeks “for family reasons,” but on the condition that Aristide “keep a low profile” and refrain from making public statements. He stressed Jamaica wasn’t taking an adversarial position to the United States, but was “reminded that the [Jamaican government] acted unhelpfully” during the coup and its aftermath by the Imperial Squire Ambassador.
In the fall of 2008, as rumors swirled that Aristide might leave S. Africa for Venezuela, Haitian President Rene Preval met with the US Ambassador:
President Rene Preval made reference to these rumors, telling the Ambassador that he did not want Aristide “anywhere in the hemisphere.” Subsequent to that, he remarked that he is concerned that Aristide will accept the Chavez offer but deflected any discussion of whether Preval himself was prepared to raise the matter with Chavez.
There is also further in-depth commentary on Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide’s party, with various members (including Yves Cristalin, a presidential candidate in this election who claimed to represent Lavalas) informing the Embassy on what’s happening behind the scenes. Meanwhile Preval, the cable says, was trying to co-opt the party into his political coalition. I quote at length for close observers of Haitian politics:
Despite his disagreements with Aristide, Cristalin said he feels compelled to keep his opposition to Aristide´s return private due to the considerable support for the former President among many segments of the population. [TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] echoed these sentiments in his October 1 meeting with Poloff, noting that he shared Cristalin´s belief that the Executive Committee appointed by Aristide was illegitimate. Like Cristalin, he made an impassioned plea for U.S. assistance so that factions of the party willing to renounce violent demonstrations and forego illicit financing would prevail against other factions of the party.
Embassy sources tell us that President Preval is also actively working to co-opt popular groups affiliated with Lavalas to shore up his support..[TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] told Poloff on September 19 that Preval met “at least weekly” with the leaders of the “Reflection Cell,” including Jean-Marie Samdy, at the National Palace and that Preval had promised the group HTG 58 million (approximately USD 1.5 million) in funds from the PetroCaribe account to distribute to parents in poor neighborhoods for the beginning of the school year in early October. [TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] provided a more plausible account of the agreement, saying that the Education Ministry had agreed to task Lavalas-affiliated “popular organizations” to identify needy families in poor neighborhoods, and that the Ministry would then pay their school fees directly to the school concerned.
Although Aristide is nominally the “National Representative” of Fanmi Lavalas, the party has essentially been leaderless since Aristide left Haiti in 2004, and any attempt to reassert control over Lavalas would be fiercely opposed (albeit privately) by one or another group within the party. From South Africa, Aristide has been either unable or unwilling to resolve disputes within his party or mobilize popular support for Lavalas.
Factions in the party have their reasons for opposing or supporting a greater political role for Aristide in Haiti and in the party. On one side of the divide are elected officials and former government officials who want to unify feuding groups into a disciplined party organization and have the leadership elected by and accountable to the party in Haiti rather than to Aristide. These individuals resent Aristide´s interventions in party matters from afar, and are critical of Aristide´s conduct during his two terms in office. On the other side lie leaders linked to popular organizations who hope that Aristide´s greater proximity will help them revive grassroots militancy, which would then propel them to positions of prominence.
The others cables: The Vatican agreed with the Embassy that Aristide shouldn’t return after the earthquake and said it would communicate that to him. The Dominican Republic was concerned about mass migration of Haitians and Bahamas not optimistic about a peaceful resolution without outside intervention during the last days of the 2004 crisis.
Taken together, they portray the United States as intractably, almost obsessively occupied with marginalizing Aristide and Lavalas, and making sure other nations fall in line. The French government conspired with the US to make his return near-impossible, discussing how to make the logistics of a return flight more difficult and making plain to S. Africa that he must be kept there. There’s also the news that in 2008 current President Rene Preval was trying “co-opt” the Fanmi Lavalas party into his ruling coalition and was flatly opposed to Aristide even being in the hemisphere. Below, a round-up of key passages from the cables…
Four days before Aristide was flown out of the country, the Dominican Ambassador to Haiti said he was “worried” about chaos in the North and but that Aristide was “very clever” and did not ask the Dominicans for any help or the use of a helicopter.
In October 2004, a confidante of the Bahamas Prime Minister said the United States owed the leader “a call from senior USG officials, or the White House, advising him ‘when the United States decided to change direction on Aristide’ and ‘remove him from power.’”
In November 2004, nine months after the coup, Dominican President Lionel Fernandez gave a speech in front of other regional leaders in which he said Aristide commanded “great popular support” within Haiti and called for his inclusion in the country’s democratic future. The US was shocked and outraged, commenting, “The Aristide comment appeared to come out of nowhere. Fernandez had not previously discussed Aristide by name in conversations with us, or with our French and Canadian counterparts…Perhaps the greatest surprise for us was the palace’s presumption that there would be no downside.
On November 6, during a pull-aside at a social event, the Ambassador admonished Fernandez that his reference to Aristide was a serious mistake, one that had the potential of further inflaming a situation already dangerous for the Haitian people and for the international peacekeeping force. Fernandez replied that given popular support for Lavalas, it would have to be part of the situation. The Ambassador was direct: Aristide had led a violent gang involved in narcotics trafficking and had squandered any credibility he formerly may have had. “Nobody has given me any information about that,” Fernandez replied. The Ambassador insisted that no supporter of human rights and democracy could in good conscience allow Aristide and his close supporters back into the situation in Haiti. Fernandez listened and eventually agreed to distinguish between Aristide and Lavalas. He asked for any information on Aristide that the United States might be able to share with him.
Two months later, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela told the US Ambassador there “he believes the USG is wrong on Haiti: “There is no long term solution that does not involve Aristide in some way.” Yesterday during his airport arrival, the Venezuelan Ambassador was the only foreign ambassador present with Aristide.
That same month, Jan. 2005, France and the United States discussed how to keep Aristide from returning home, planning to warn off Caribbean countries and tell S. Africa he must not be allowed to return “on the pretext” that it would hurt their chance for a UN Security Council:
Bienvenu later offered to express our shared concerns in Pretoria, perhaps under the pretext that as a country desiring to secure a seat on the UN Security Council, South Africa could not afford to be involved in any way with the destabilization of another country.. . .2. (S) Bienvenu speculated on exactly how Aristide might return, seeing a possible opportunity to hinder him in the logistics of reaching Haiti. If Aristide traveled commercially, Bienvenu reasoned, he would likely need to transit certain countries in order to reach Haiti. Bienvenu suggested a demarche to CARICOM countries by the U.S. and EU to warn them against facilitating any travel or other plans Aristide might have. . .Both Bienvenu and Barbier confided that South African mercenaries could be heading towards Haiti, with Bienvenu revealing the GOF had documented evidence that 10 South African citizens had come to Paris and requested Dominican visas between February and the present.
And seven months later, a South African official told the French that its government “would not support any effort by Aristide to return…Ntshinga told the French that he would share the French concern about Aristide´s activities with the National Intelligence Agency and ensure that President Mbeki was also informed.”
In August 2005, the Jamaican Labor Minister was chastised for describing Aristide “as a friend in need” after the coup. He said Washington was overreacting. Jamaica allowed him to pass through the country on his way into exile, and had offered the Aristides the option to stay there for a few weeks “for family reasons,” but on the condition that Aristide “keep a low profile” and refrain from making public statements. He stressed Jamaica wasn’t taking an adversarial position to the United States, but was “reminded that the [Jamaican government] acted unhelpfully” during the coup and its aftermath by the Imperial Squire Ambassador.
In the fall of 2008, as rumors swirled that Aristide might leave S. Africa for Venezuela, Haitian President Rene Preval met with the US Ambassador:
President Rene Preval made reference to these rumors, telling the Ambassador that he did not want Aristide “anywhere in the hemisphere.” Subsequent to that, he remarked that he is concerned that Aristide will accept the Chavez offer but deflected any discussion of whether Preval himself was prepared to raise the matter with Chavez.
There is also further in-depth commentary on Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide’s party, with various members (including Yves Cristalin, a presidential candidate in this election who claimed to represent Lavalas) informing the Embassy on what’s happening behind the scenes. Meanwhile Preval, the cable says, was trying to co-opt the party into his political coalition. I quote at length for close observers of Haitian politics:
Despite his disagreements with Aristide, Cristalin said he feels compelled to keep his opposition to Aristide´s return private due to the considerable support for the former President among many segments of the population. [TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] echoed these sentiments in his October 1 meeting with Poloff, noting that he shared Cristalin´s belief that the Executive Committee appointed by Aristide was illegitimate. Like Cristalin, he made an impassioned plea for U.S. assistance so that factions of the party willing to renounce violent demonstrations and forego illicit financing would prevail against other factions of the party.
Embassy sources tell us that President Preval is also actively working to co-opt popular groups affiliated with Lavalas to shore up his support..[TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] told Poloff on September 19 that Preval met “at least weekly” with the leaders of the “Reflection Cell,” including Jean-Marie Samdy, at the National Palace and that Preval had promised the group HTG 58 million (approximately USD 1.5 million) in funds from the PetroCaribe account to distribute to parents in poor neighborhoods for the beginning of the school year in early October. [TEXT REMOVED BY AFTENPOSTEN] provided a more plausible account of the agreement, saying that the Education Ministry had agreed to task Lavalas-affiliated “popular organizations” to identify needy families in poor neighborhoods, and that the Ministry would then pay their school fees directly to the school concerned.
Although Aristide is nominally the “National Representative” of Fanmi Lavalas, the party has essentially been leaderless since Aristide left Haiti in 2004, and any attempt to reassert control over Lavalas would be fiercely opposed (albeit privately) by one or another group within the party. From South Africa, Aristide has been either unable or unwilling to resolve disputes within his party or mobilize popular support for Lavalas.
Factions in the party have their reasons for opposing or supporting a greater political role for Aristide in Haiti and in the party. On one side of the divide are elected officials and former government officials who want to unify feuding groups into a disciplined party organization and have the leadership elected by and accountable to the party in Haiti rather than to Aristide. These individuals resent Aristide´s interventions in party matters from afar, and are critical of Aristide´s conduct during his two terms in office. On the other side lie leaders linked to popular organizations who hope that Aristide´s greater proximity will help them revive grassroots militancy, which would then propel them to positions of prominence.
The others cables: The Vatican agreed with the Embassy that Aristide shouldn’t return after the earthquake and said it would communicate that to him. The Dominican Republic was concerned about mass migration of Haitians and Bahamas not optimistic about a peaceful resolution without outside intervention during the last days of the 2004 crisis.
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