FROM HONDURAS TO HAITI …
From illegal oligarchy-military coups (Haiti – 1991 and 2004; Honduras - 2009) to manipulated, undemocratic & repressive “elections”, Honduras and Haiti have much bad stuff in common.
BELOW:

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DON'T HONOR TAINTED ELECTION
By Brian Concannon Jr. & Ira Kurzban
Miami Herald (http://www.miamiherald.com), Dec. 11, 2009
Late last month, Haiti's government took the undemocratic and dangerous step of excluding 15 political parties, including Haiti's most popular party, Fanmi Lavalas, from parliamentary elections scheduled for February and March 2010.
The decision threatens not only Haiti's democracy and stability, but billions in foreign investments financed by taxpayers in the United States and elsewhere.
The Obama administration, along with the United Nations and the Organization of American States, needs to step up and head off this disaster by refusing to finance the electoral charade.
The February/March elections are important because one-third of Haiti's Senate and the entire House of Deputies are at stake. Fanmi Lavalas' participation is important because the party is by far Haiti's most popular. It has won every election it has contested, including 90 percent of the seats in the 2000 parliamentary elections.
Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (PEC) claimed that a mandate sent by the party's exiled leader, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from South Africa, is not authentic. In fact, Fanmi Lavalas presented an original mandate, authenticated by a Haitian notary that complies with Haitian law. Aristide sent a fax of the mandate directly to the PEC, and confirmed its authenticity in a radio interview.
The PEC not only lacks a good reason for removing Fanmi Lavalas from voters' ballots, it also lacks the constitutional legitimacy to do so. The Council is a Provisional Council hand-picked by Haiti's President, René Préval, not the independent Permanent Council required by Haiti's 1987 Constitution.
CREDIBILITY IN DOUBT
The PEC tried the same thing earlier this year, and got away with it. The Council disqualified Fanmi Lavalas and other parties from elections held in April and June for 11 Senate seats. When the disqualifications were first announced, the United States, the U.N. and the OAS denounced them as undemocratic.  The U.S. Embassy warned that the exclusion would ``inevitably'' raise questions about the election's credibility.
But the PEC called the international community's bluff and kept the excluded parties out. The international community blinked by not only accepting the flawed elections, but paying for them, too: International donors supplied $12.5 million, 72 percent of the election's cost.
ELECTION BOYCOTTED
Haitian voters, knowing a fraud when they see one, boycotted. The PEC's official participation rate of 11 percent for the April elections was low enough, but most observers put the real figure at 3 percent to 5 percent.
By dropping their principled objections to the April election's flaws, the international community gave the PEC a green light to keep excluding the government's political rivals. This light is still green: the United States, OAS and U.N. let last week's exclusion pass without public criticism or any threat to withhold the $18 million promised for the February voting.
All three have invested billions of dollars in Haiti over the last few years. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti costs $600 million a year, and the U.S. Agency for International Development contributed $287 million this year to Haiti. U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton is working hard to convince private investors that Haiti is a good place to do business.
All these investments may be wiped out by the PEC's exclusion plan. Experience in Haiti and elsewhere demonstrates that preventing citizens from challenging government policies through the ballot box inevitably will lead to challenges outside the ballot box.
If the Council does not change course, President Préval's allies may control Parliament, but Haiti's streets will be filled with angry protestors confronting U.N. troops and blaming the United States for supporting yet another undemocratic regime. Social unrest will stall development projects and scare investors.
Americans and Haitians deserve a better return on their money spent to stabilize and develop Haiti. The Obama administration can guarantee a better return by immediately cutting off all funding for the electoral charade and insisting that it will neither finance, nor recognize, elections that are not fair and inclusive.
(Brian Concannon Jr. served as an OAS election observer and U.N. human rights officer in Haiti and currently directs the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Ira Kurzban was U.S. legal counsel for the Haitian governments under presidents Préval and Aristide from 1991-2004.)
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PROJECT SUPPORT NEEDED
Legislative elections will be held in February and March 2010.  Once again, the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council is trying to eliminate Family Lavalas and other more or less progressive political parties.  The voting rights and participation of the majority population will be violated if the Lavalas Family party and other party or grouping of political parties do not participate.
The Haitian not-for-profit organization BAI (Office of International Lawyers, a partner of the USA-based IJDH) is asking for funds to help grassroots organizations to better organize and assert their right to participate and vote in upcoming elections.  The BAI will use funds in initiatives aimed at ensuring the voting rights of citizens and the right of political parties to participate in elections. This fund will not be used under any circumstances, for electoral campaign expenses or political party financing.
TO DONATE & FOR QUESTIONS
The IJDH (Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti) has 501c3 status in the USA.
Donations can be sent by check to IJDH, PO Box 745, Joseph, Oregon, 97846.  Write "grassroots election advocacy" on the memo line. Donations can also be made on our website, www.ijdh.org, by clicking the donate box at the top of the right-hand column. To ensure that on-line donations are earmarked for election advocacy work, it would be best to send us an email stating that to brian@ijdh.org.
Brian Concannon
Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
PO Box 745
Joseph, OR 97846
541-432-0597
541-263-0029 (cell)
Brian@ijdh.org
Skype: Brian.Concannon
www.IJDH.org
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HUMAN RIGHTS DELEGATION TO HONDURAS
January 24-31, 2010
Since the June 28th oligarchic-military coup against the government of President Zelaya, Rights Action – along with other North American activist and solidarity groups – has been working hard to support the extraordinary anti-coup, pro-democracy movement.
Now that the November 29th “elections” are over, this delegation will overlap with the January 27th “formal transfer of power” from President Zelaya to the incoming President-elect Pepe Lobo.  Anyone following the situation in Honduras knows ‘free and fair’ elections were not held on November 29th, President Zelaya is still effectively jailed inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa (capital city), and the “transfer of power” looms as another key date in this long-term struggle against the oligarchic-military regime.
More than an educational delegation (anyone who comes will learn a huge amount about the background context that led to the military coup, about the courage and spirit of Honduras’ peaceful pro-democracy movement and about the nature and repression of the oligarchic-military regime), this will be a human rights accompaniment and observation delegation.
We will have serious discussions with interested persons about the nature and goals of this delegation, before people decide to join or not. If you are considering joining this delegation, we urge you to read through our series of Honduras Coup Alerts, found at www.rightsaction.org.  To join: info@rightsaction.org
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RIGHTS ACTION - For more information & questions:
Annie Bird, 1-202-680-3002, annie@rightsaction.org
Grahame Russell, 1-860-352-2448, info@rightsaction.org

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