Many of Montana’s leaders have already displayed a compliance for Washington’s dictates. This past compliance makes them
ideal candidates as subordinatesfor Washington’s continued imperial domination of Haiti once Henry outlives his usefulness and is removed from power.
The NED-funded organizations in Haiti are creating a consensus among sectors of Haiti’s political class. This apparent consensus will be sufficient to convince foreign leaders – some of whom may be sympathetic to the plight of everyday Haitians – that Haitians truly want assistance under the GFA. The addition of support from “Human Rights” organizations like the RNDDH, OCAPH, the Bureau des Droits Humains en Haiti, and Defenseurs Plus will further cement this illusion of consensus.
The U.S. government does not fund organizations whose interests oppose their foreign policy goals. And one of the U.S. governments primary current foreign policy goals in Haiti is to form a partnership under the Global Fragility Act.
Those who advocate for Haiti ought to recognize that organization in and outside Haiti who receive funding from the U.S. government via the NED or other imperialist organizations must be viewed as captured. Their interests either correspond with, or do not challenge U.S. interests.
With this in mind, we discover that very little has changed among Haiti’s small middle and intellectual class since Aristide’s time in power. Or the methods organizations like the NED implement to capture sectors of Haiti’s middle and intellectual classes.
In a 2008 article,
Nik Barry-Shaw described the consequences western-backed NGOs had on Haiti’s middle and intellectual class in Haiti leading up to the 2004 coup against Aristide:
"The tremendous resources disposed of by these organization cannot but have a massive impact on the political scene, operating as they are amidst such extreme deprivation. If you want to get your daily bread, why bother building a powerful socio-political movement to press your demands on an impotent state?
The waning desire for transformative social change competed with other, more particularistic interests for the heart of the middle class. As Robert Fatton Jr. explains: "In a country where destitution is the norm and private avenues to wealth are rare, politics becomes an entrepreneurial vocation, virtually the sole means of material and social advancement for those not born into wealth and prestige.” Ironically, the political representatives of the middle class ultimately did the most to advance the neoliberal compromises forced on Aristide.
These sectors subsequently turned to … generous funders of "civil society" from the North."
We must also scrutinize the claims of the middle and intellectual class who receive funds from the NED and other Foundations based in the United States and other CORE group countries. We must also be prepared to reconsider the narratives that the leaders and representatives of these NED-funded institutions present regarding marginalized or villainized individuals or organizations inside Haiti.
We must interrogate these NED-funded institutions and their various reports, Manifesto, and plans for Haiti because they in some way serve the interests of U.S. imperialist policies in Haiti.
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