Haitian Revolt

Why should we foot the bill for their problems? That makes no since. Giving money to the Haitians is like pissing into the wind- eventually it comes up to splash back in your face. Haiti is a hellhole (I've been there and can testify, it is the armpit of the world) and will always be a hellhole because there is and never will be any rule of law there. It is not our fault the Haitians live in abject poverty. No need to waste blood and treasure on a place that has little or nothing to do with our national interests. The only thing we want to prevent is the illegal immigration of folks infected with TB and HIV into south Florida. Clinton blew a billion in Haiti and no one knows where it went! So Woofer, you are dead wrong there. Interesting, Haiti has such a bad repuation that the cruise ship my wife and I went cruising on referred to a stop at a Haitian island as Blah-Blah Island, Hispanola.

As for the Mexican situation, we should get serious about border security and seal off the border completely. A big wall, the U.S. military on the border and a strict policy (one attempt at illegally entering the US to live and you will be banned from pursuing citizenship or a green card.) would take care of that huge problem, but I know that our politicians (except for Tom Tancredo) don't have the balls to counter this invasion of our sovereign territory.

 

I swear to God, in a former life, you were a Dickens character.

 

it went to the "sugarcane for palaces" program.

 

Really? I would place hiim more along the lines of something out Samuel Clemens, or actually, Mel Blanc.

 

Theodore Dreiser

 

This is just a reapeat of the US policy that we have seen in Guatemala,Chile , Iran in the 50's, Iraq in the 50's, Venzuela, recently.

Who cares about democracy. If we don't like the democratic government overthrow it. Here we see the same ol same ol. Try to starve the people into overthrwoing the government. Embargo them, make them suffer, fund brutal conra types to oppose the government. Employ the Orwellian Organization called the "Institute for Demcoracy" to overthrow the democracy.

We were really pissed off when Aristide who is a bit on the left replace Baby Doc and Papa Doc who we cheerfully supported for about 50 years.

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Haiti's lawyer: US Is Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries, Calls For UN Peacekeepers
By Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill
Democracynow.org

The US lawyer representing the government of Haiti charged today that the US government is directly involved in a military coup attempt against the country's democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ira Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney who has served as General Counsel to the Haitian government since 1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to overthrow Aristide are being backed by Washington.

"I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States," Kurzban told the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. "This is clearly a military operation, and it's a military coup."

"There's enough indications from our point of view, at least from my point of view, that the United States certainly knew what was coming about two weeks before this military operation started," Kurzban said. "The United States made contingency plans for Guantanamo."

If a direct US connection is proven, it will mark the second time in just over a decade that Washington has been involved in a coup in Haiti.

Several of the paramilitary leaders now rampaging Haiti are men who were at the forefront of the US-backed campaign of terror during the 1991-94 coup against Aristide. Among the paramilitary figures now leading the current insurrection is Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former number 2 man in the FRAPH paramilitary death squad.

Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for life in trials for the April 23, 1994 massacre in the pro-democracy region of Raboteau and the September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izméry. Chamblain recently arrived in Gonaives with about 25 other commandos based in the Dominican Republic, where Chamblain has been living since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage uniforms, and all-terrain vehicles.

Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his bodyguard and a driver on Oct. 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights "FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary." Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, was the founder of FRAPH.

An October 1994 article by journalist Allan Nairn in The Nation magazine quoted Constant as saying that he was contacted by a US Military officer named Col. Patrick Collins, who served as defense attaché at the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Constant says Collins pressed him to set up a group to "balance the Aristide movement" and do "intelligence" work against it. Constant admitted that, at the time, he was working with CIA operatives in Haiti. Constant is now residing freely in the US. He is reportedly living in Queens, NY. At the time, James Woolsey was head of the CIA.

Another figure to recently reemerge is Guy Philippe, a former Haitian police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after authorities discovered him plotting a coup with a group of other police chiefs. All of the men were trained in Ecuador by US Special Forces during the 1991-1994 coup. Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of master-minding deadly attacks on the Police Academy and the National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as hit-and-run raids against police stations on Haiti's Central Plateau over the following two years.

Kurzban also points to the presence of another FRAPH veteran, Jean Tatun. Along with Chamblain, Tatun was convicted of gross violations of human rights and murder in the Raboteau massacre.

"These people came through the Dominican border after the United States had provided 20,000 M-16's to the Dominican army," says Kurzban. "I believe that the United States clearly knew about it before, and that given the fact of the history of these people, [Washington is] probably very, very deeply involved, and I think Congress needs to seriously look at what the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency has been in this operation. Because it is a military operation. It's not a rag-tag group of liberators, as has often been put in the press in the last week or two."

Kurzban says he has hired military analysts to review photos of the weapons being used by the paramilitary groups. He says that contrary to reports in the media that the armed groups are using weapons originally distributed by Aristide, the gangs are using highly sophisticated and powerful weapons; weapons that far out-gun Aristide's 3,000 member National Police force.

"I don't think that there's any question about the fact that the weapons that they have did not come from Haiti," says Kurzban. "They're organized as a military commando strike force that's going from city to city."

Kurzban says that among the weapons being used by the paramilitaries are: M-16's, M-60's, armor piercing weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. "They have weapons to shoot down the one helicopter that the government has," he said. "They have acted as a pretty tight-knit commando unit."

Chamblain and other paramilitary leaders have said they will march on the capital, Port-au-Prince within two weeks. The US has put forth a proposal, being referred to as a peace plan, that many viewed as favorable to Aristide's opponents. Aristide accepted the plan, but the opposition rejected it. Washington's point man on the crisis is Roger Noriega, Undersecretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs.

"I think Noriega has been an Aristide hater for over a decade," says Kurzban, adding that he believes Noriega allowed the opposition to delay their response to the plan to allow the paramilitaries to capture more territory. "My reaction was they're just giving them more time so they can take over more, that the military wing of the opposition can take over more ground in Haiti and create a fate accompli," Kurzban said. "Indeed, as soon as they said, 'we need an extra day,' I predicted, unfortunately, and correctly, that they would go into Cap Haitian (Haiti's 2nd largest city) and indeed the next morning they did."

The leader of the "opposition" is an American citizen named Andy Apaid. He was born in New York. Haitian law does not allow dual-nationality and he has not renounced his US citizenship. In a recent statement, Congressmember Maxine Waters blasted Apaid and his opposition front, saying she believes "Apaid is attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the government for the resulting disaster in the belief that the United States will aid the so-called protestors against President Aristide and his government."

"We have the leader of the opposition, who Mr. Noriega is negotiating with, who Secretary Powell calls and who tells Secretary Powell, you know, 'we need a couple more days' and Secretary Powell says 'that's fine,'" says Kurzban. "I mean, there's some kind of theater of the absurd going on with this opposition where it's led by an American citizen, where they're just clearly stalling for time until they can get more ground covered in Haiti through their military wing, and the United States and Noriega, with a wink and nod, is kind of letting them do that."

Kurzban says that because Aristide's opponents rejected Washington's plan, "the next step clearly is to send in some kind of UN peacekeeping force immediately."

"The question is," says Kurzban. "Will the international community stand by and allow a democracy in this hemisphere to be terminated by a brutal military coup of persons who have a very, very sordid history of gross violations of human rights?"



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Another article on Haiti and the US role in overthrowing Aristide.
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Haiti at brink again - U.S. owes help
By Randall Robinson
Updated Feb 16, 2004, 9:24 pm Email article

Randall Robinson
(FinalCall.com) - Ten years ago, I risked my life by embarking on a hunger strike. It was a desperate attempt to change America’s Haiti policy. In the 28th day of my fast, President Clinton announced that the U.S. would pursue a more just Haiti policy.
Shortly thereafter, a U.S.-led multinational force reinstalled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a military coup. Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Aristide had won in a landslide, and I was proud to stand with the Haitian people—and him.

Today, Aristide, who stepped down at the end of his first term and was reelected to the presidency in 2000, is under attack again. Political unrest is rocking the poverty-stricken nation, including protests both for and against the president. And a summit of Caribbean Community representatives has begun a series of meetings to resolve the crisis. They have met with Aristide opponents who accuse him of trampling on civil rights and are demanding he step down.


Again, I stand with this leader and his right to complete his five-year term. And again, I urge the U.S.--the world’s most powerful democracy--to resolutely embrace Haiti’s democratically elected president.

How has Aristide, who was so loved and revered, ended up the focus of calls for his ouster?

Aristide may have failings in his ability to negotiate the vicious power divide between Haiti’s economic elite and its broader masses, but U.S. policy has created an environment in which it is impossible for him to succeed.

As in Iraq, the U.S. has, in Haiti, pursued policies and formed allegiances that violate the sanctity and inviolability of the ballot box, while attempting to deliver the future of an entire nation and people into the hands of a specially selected, unelected few.

U.S. financial, political and military support for Haiti remained strong while the Duvalier family dictators and their successors were in power. However, the U.S. attitude soured with the election of Aristide, who’d been an enormously popular Roman Catholic priest working among the poor and against the brutality of Haiti’s dictators.

Aristide’s criticism of U.S. support for Haiti’s dictators won him the eternal distrust and ire of certain U.S. policymakers. As president, his adherence to principles—when wealthy Haitians and the U.S. expected greater "flexibility"—only deepened his foes’ opposition to him.

Haiti’s U.S.-trained Army overthrew Aristide in 1991. Public pressure pushed the U.S. to lead a multinational effort to restore Aristide’s government in exile in 1994. But when Republicans, who’d vehemently opposed the restoration, won control of Congress, they moved to isolate Aristide.

They successfully pushed legislation to finance the training of those who opposed Aristide’s grass-roots Lavalas movement and to withdraw U.S. assistance to the Haitian government. Later, the Bush administration forced the Inter-American Development Bank to deny Haiti hundreds of millions of dollars in already approved loans for safe drinking water, literacy programs and health services. They began giving aid that normally would go to the Haitian government to nongovernmental organizations, some of which were run by wealthy anti-Aristide Haitians.

Most troubling, though, has been U.S. encouragement of Haiti’s opposition in its refusal to participate in elections that the government continues to call for, but which the opposition knows it will lose.

The U.S. has actually taken the position that there can be no legitimate elections in Haiti if the opposition doesn’t participate, and that if elections do go forward without the opposition, the U.S. won’t accept the results. This reflects terribly on what America stands for as a nation, particularly in these times.

It is because of the opposition’s rejection of elections that Aristide has "failed to hold elections;" new parliamentarians have not been elected, leaving vacancies in the parliament; and with a nonfunctioning parliament Aristide is "ruling by decree," the suggestion being that he has "usurped the powers of government for his own dictatorial purposes."

So, yes, there are now those who demonstrate because the government has been unable to "make life better." But the broad masses of Haitians want no coups. They want democracy to work, stability for their families, and the president to complete his term.

The U.S. must live up to the standards required of the world’s most powerful democracy and support the Haitian government call for elections, whether or not some elements of the opposition participate.

The U.S. and Haitian Constitutions provide for the stability of the state with specified terms of each president. The Constitution must be the final authority in the U.S., in Haiti, and in all democracies—or anarchy will prevail.

The opposition in Haiti calls for the overthrow of the democratically elected government. The U.S. must unequivocally condemn and distance itself from these proponents of insurrection and refuse to recognize a government that seizes power.

The U.S. must take these steps if it genuinely wants to support democracy and promote stability in Haiti. Not to do this is bad for America. The rest of the world must see the U.S. as more than the embodiment of economic and military might, but as the embodiment of such inviolable principles as justice, equity and consistency. These intangibles are, in fact, key to the real and lasting security that all Americans crave.

(Randall Robinson is founder and former president of TransAfrica, a foreign policy organization. Now a writer, he lives in the Caribbean.)

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You so negative
Never will be?
what happen to that CAN DO spirit and beleif in AMERICA

We Americans CAN DO anything

Rocket River
boy, you sound down right unpatriotic!!!

 

Damn Socialists! Oh...wait...

 

Eugene Ionesco

 

Return of the Thugs
The Haiti Redux
By SAUL LANDAU

One of my students asked me about the current unrest in Haiti. "Reading the news accounts," she offered, "I can't figure out who stands for what. And what role is US policy playing in the ongoing events?"

I, too, find it difficult to extract meaning from the news accounts. Newspapers and wire service reports ran headlines about "Rebels Occupying Haiti's Second and Third Largest Cities," without identifying the rebels or explaining what they stood for.

Other than their expressed hatred for and desire to overthrow the elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, I found in the news reports not the barest trace of Haitian history that would help people get a context for the current conflict.

For example, 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize the first black and second oldest republic in the Hemisphere. In the early 1790s, inspired by the French Revolution, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave, led an uprising and overthrew the French masters.

In 1862, almost sixty years later, Abraham Lincoln finally recognized Haiti. In 1888, the United States began its habit of intervention when US forces responded to the Haitian authorities' seizure of a US ship that had landed illegally. In 1891, US troops landed "to protect American lives and property ...when Negro laborers got out of control."

Woodrow Wilson deployed the Marines in 1914 and again in 1915 "to maintain order during a period of chronic and

threatened insurrection." They remained as an occupation force under Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1934, FDR ended the two decades of occupation by turning the reins of government over to a clique who looted the country until in 1956 Francois Duvalier (Papa Doc), staged a military coup and declared himself president for life.

Papa Doc created a brutal dictatorship backed by the Tontons Macoute, a Haitian Praetorian Guard. Upon his death, Jean Claude or Baby Doc Duvalier replaced his father until his overthrow in 1986. Both mouthed the anti-communist line, brutalized their own people and received US support.

In 1990, Haitians overwhelmingly elected as President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a populist Catholic priest. He served nine months before a military coup, led by General Raoul Cedras, backed by the CIA, ousted him and instituted three years of military rule: political violence against all opponents and looting.

President Clinton procrastinated. Finally, in 1994, he dispatched troops to reseat Aristide as president. But Clinton limited the military's goals. He did not order the troops to disarm members of the illegal military gangs or train new security forces to protect Haitians in the countryside, where paramilitary thugs harassed the farmers.

Aristide's most prominent enemies and flagrant human rights abusers -- fled to the United States or the Dominican Republic. But they had stashed weapons on the island and waited for the opportune moment. Human rights violators like Col. Emanual Constant, a former CIA agent, walked confidently through the streets of Queens, New York. Some former army and Tonton Macoute officials have returned and "joined" the "opposition."

The media has identified Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former army officer and member of FRAPH, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, during the post-1991 military coup. But little has been reported about the nature of the atrocities committed by this "leader" of the rebels.

Although such hooligans more than cloud the political "opposition's" legitimacy, large numbers of Haitians do feel disappointed with Aristide. The three year wait before Aristide resumed his legitimate place as president, seemed to have changed him and the inchoate, populist Lavalas Party he leads. By 1994, following the Pope's order, he had shed his collar. The secular Aristide no longer showed the same assurance. The exile years had taken their toll.

By the late 1990s, those democratic and progressive minded people around the world who saw him as "the deliverer" also felt disheartened. Aristide's religious charisma seemed to dissolve in frustration. First, the man who had vowed to build a new, developing Haiti, free of corruption, got IMF'd.

He refused to privatize the public's wealth as The IMF and World Bank -- and US loan agencies demanded. Aristide had seen what these policies had done to the desperately poor in the third world. His refusal to obey led the dictates of the imperial financiers led to his punishment and to his inability to accomplish even minimal reforms.

The cynical "expectations" went side by side with a double standard on which to judge Aristide. While the Colombian government on the western side of the Caribbean received increased US aid for bad behavior, Aristide was held to standards that no third world country could have maintained. Washington offered meager resources and then deemed his effort to improve police training inadequate. When violence occurred, the details somehow became obscured, the perpetrators unnamed and the blame fell on Aristide.

Neither news stories nor editorials asked the obvious question: What resource-starved, infra-structurally underdeveloped and politically chaotic third world country could accomplish economic development, social order and political stability in a few years?

In 1989, I interviewed Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley. I asked him what reforms he would make now that he had regained political power (he won as a Democratic Socialist in 1972 and 76, was defeated in 1980 and won a third term in 1989, no longer a socialist, but a supporter of IMF policies).

He laughed scornfully. "My budget has no flexibility," he said. "The DEA offers a $29 million grant to burn ganja [mar1juana] fields. I have a choice: use the money to open the roads blocked by Hurricane Andrew or raise teachers' pay and keep the schools open. I can't do both. No agrarian reform. No health care." He shook his head. "Political power without money in the budget is an illusion."

He invited me to accompany a joint Jamaican Defense Force-DEA who planned to raid a ganja plantation on the island's western side. The helicopters landed, the troops and DEA agents jumped out and, as if in real combat, unleashed their flame throwers on the ample crop. Within twenty minutes the soldiers and agents began to giggle uncontrollably as they inhaled the fumes of their labor.

Watching the event, the extended family whose livelihood had just gone up in smoke, did not share the celebration. The Member of Parliament who had also accompanied the strike force lectured them: "This is what happens when you grow illegal crops."

"What else can we grow?" asked the grandfather of the clan. "With the roads destroyed we cannot get crops to market. With ganja, the airplane comes," he pointed to the landing strip in the middle of the burning field, "takes the crop and gives us cash. Now what?"

The MP lost his pot-induced ebullience.

"Well, maybe you could start up a small factory or something," he responded weakly.

"Dis imperialism, mon," a dread locked young man opined.

"Huh?" I said.

"California ganja growers take over Jamaican market," he said. "America balance of trade improve."

Back in Kingston, the DEA agents and JDF officers invited me for a drink. I declined. Manley would have his $29 million and raise teacher pay to keep schools open. What a price he was paying! He resigned shortly afterwards a tacit admission of political impotence.

Place the current rioting in Haiti in this political and economic context, one missing from mainstream reporting. Add the explicit or implicit twisting of news reporting to make Haitian civil strife appear to be Aristide's fault.

The media should have smelled the proverbial "destabilizing rat" when reporting that on December 5, 2003 50 armed men broke into the university in Port au Prince and began to provoke students and professors. Aristide backers responded by demonstrating. The armed unit attacked. One pro-Aristide man let loose a sling shot and connected with the head of an anti-Aristide militant. But onlookers, mostly students, bore the brunt of the ensuing violence.

On January 12, the anti-Aristide gang organized a protest march in the capital Port-au-Prince. Reports from non-US sources maintain that some students joined this demonstration after receiving cash incentives or promises to get tickets for foreign travel.

US dailies did not mention this information. Instead, the media focused on Aristide's inability to answer "security concerns," while anti-Aristide officials in the Bush Administration like Assistant Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega and Otto Reich, Presidential envoy to the Americas, promoted a policy of embargo against the Aristide government. Noriega carried an old vendetta from his former boss, retired North Carolina Senator (R) Jess Helms, who despised Aristide's disobedience.

The chaos that reins in Haiti, is far from spontaneous. Thugs who illegally seized power and raped Haiti from 1991-94 have returned to the island to join with people who have legitimate grievances.

Aristide may have overestimated his own support, relied on a weak police force and underestimated the treachery of his foes. But Aristide's mistakes or even character flaws do not invalidate his legitimacy as an elected president of Haiti, the poorest country in the Hemisphere.

Reasonable political sense, I told my student, dictates that we should support Aristide's offer to compromise with the political opposition and put down the ruffians who want full dictatorial power reminiscent of their illegal rule 1991-4.


Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit: www.rprogreso.com. His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published by Pluto Press. His new film is Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard Place. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org

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First you get the sugar,
Then you get the power,
Then you get the women.

 

Aristide Bows to Pressure, Leaves Haiti
Multinational Force, Including U.S. Marines, Ready to Restore Order

By Kevin Sullivan, Scott Wilson and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 29, 2004; 1:45 PM


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 1-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, faced with an armed rebellion and pressure from the United States, left Haiti early Sunday morning under American escort. President Bush ordered U.S. Marines into Haiti as the first contingent of a multinational force to be dispatched later.

Meanwhile, looting, shooting and burning swept the capital city, leaving bodies in the streets and plumes of black smoke rising into the sky, even as an interim president, the current chief justice of Haiti, was sworn in.

Bush, arriving back at the White House from Camp David just after 1 p.m, told reporters that he had "ordered the deployment of Marines as the leading element of an interim international force to help bring order and stability to Haiti.

"I have done so," he said, "working with the international community. This government believes it essential that Haiti have a hopeful future. This is the beginning of a new chapter in the country's history. I would urge the people of Haiti to reject violence, to give this break from the past a chance to work, and the United States is prepared to help. "

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the administration planned to consult with allies about seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution that would authorize international support for a peaceful and constitutional transition of power.

"We have been informed that several other countries are prepared to join this mission," Boucher said.

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James Foley said Aristide was escorted to a U.S.-sponsored flight around 6:30 a.m. Sunday by U.S. security forces, an act underscoring significant involvement by the Bush administration in Sunday's rapidly unfolding events.

Much rumor but few facts circulated about the destination of Haiti's first democratically elected president.

Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince was anything but peaceful.

Thousands roamed the streets, taking over banks, setting fires, shooting at journalists and others and hurling rocks. A number of bodies were seen in the streets.

Black smoke rose into the air near the presidential palace and from elsewhere in the city. Helicopters were evacuating diplomats from their residential enclaves in the city.

The swearing in of Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre, who is constitutionally in line to be president, was delayed because no judge could make it through the town to do so.

No one was visibly engaged in any attempt to stop the violence.

In a statement this afternoon, Boucher said that Aristide submitted a letter of resignation before departing Port-au-Prince safely.

"At President Aristide's request, the United States facilitated his safe departure from Haiti . . . We have been informed that Prime Minister Yvon Neptune will continue to serve as Haiti's head of government until a successor is appointed in the next days, within the framework of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Plan of Action," a plan developed last month that calls for the appointment of an iterim council.

"During the course of the day we will continue consulting with our partners in CARICOM and the Organization of American States, as well as Canada and France, to seek a resolution of the United Nations Security Council authorizing international support for a peaceful and constitutional tran sition in Haiti," Boucher said.

Prime Minister Neptune said Aristide resigned to avoid bloodshed in the face of an armed revolt. Neptune said Aristide gave him a choice of staying or leaving and that he chose to stay. Neptune called Aristide's resignation a "sacrifice . . . I know it is not what the vast majority of the people of Haiti wished would happen."

Alexandre, the chief justice, his hands shaking, said "I must confess this will not be easy for me. I do this because the constitution demands it. Politics is not my best aspect..I count on you, the Haitian people, to help me build a new Haiti."

The administration had already made preparations to join a multinational force with 2,000 Marines in the event of a political settlement.

Aristide, a hero of Haitian democracy in the 1980s, left 24 days after the start of a bloody uprising by armed rebels determined to unseat him.

The United States has been steadily raising pressure on Aristide during the uprising. In a statement Saturday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan directly blamed Aristide for the current crisis, saying "this long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's making."

He urged Aristide to "examine his position carefully, to accept responsibility, and to act in the best interests of the people of Haiti."

Hours earlier, James Foley, the U.S. ambassador here, had accused Aristide of allowing pro-government gangs to "burn, pillage and kill" in his defense.

Aristide, a former parish priest, first took office in 1991 but was ousted in a coup months later. He was restored to power by a U.S. invasion in 1994, and then re-elected in 2000 for a second term that he had, until now, said he would serve out until its conclusion in 2006.

Aristide's government has existed in a continuous state of crisis , opposed as autocratic and illegitimate by critics at home and abroad.

The latest, and worst, crisis reached a peak on Feb. 5, when rebels seized Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city. By Saturday, rebels controlled half the country and were threatening a direct assault on the capital of Port-au-Prince.

An international delegation, as well as the Bush administration, pressed for a truce and political settlement. But while Aristide agreed to share power, his opponents insisted he step down.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last week signaled the administration's desire for Aristide to step . His comments were endorsed obliquely by President Bush, who said the United States was prepared to participate in a multinational military force in Haiti "dependent on a political settlement."

 

Well we have another US backed coup. Remember how the usual crowd tried to act like this type of thing, Chile, Iran, Guatemala etc. is ancient history. We had the failed Veneizuela coup roughly a year ago and the Bush gang is still working on that one.

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Are those dirty US fingerprints on Aristide's ouster?

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK – If the circumstances weren't so calamitous, the US-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical. According to Mr. Aristide, US officials in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane standing by to take them to exile. The US made it clear, he said, that it would provide no protection for him at the official residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged.
Indeed, says Aristide's lawyer, the US blocked reinforcement of Aristide's own security detail and refused him entry to the airplane until he signed a letter of resignation.

Then Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours and knew nothing of his destination until he was summarily deposited in the Central African Republic. But this Keystone Kops coup has apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide used a cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from Haiti. The US dismisses Aristide's charges as ridiculous. Secretary of State Colin Powell's official version of the events is a blanket denial based on the government's word alone. In essence, Washington is telling us not to look back, only forward. This stonewalling brings to mind Groucho Marx's old line, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"

There are several tragedies in this surrealistic episode. The first is the apparent incapacity of the US to speak honestly about such matters as toppling governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial questions: Did the US summarily deny military protection to Aristide? Did the US supply weapons to the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last month with sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had been taken by the US military to the Dominican Republic, next door to Haiti? Why did the US abandon the call of European and Caribbean leaders for a political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had already accepted? Most important, did the US bankroll a coup in Haiti, a scenario that, based on the evidence, seems likely?

Only someone ignorant of American history and of the administrations of the elder and younger George Bushes would dismiss these questions. The US has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in neighboring Caribbean countries. The most recent previous episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.

History of Haiti
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1492 - Christopher Columbus lands, claims the island for Spain, and names it Hispaniola, or Little Spain.

1697 - Spain cedes western part of Hispaniola to France in the Treaty of Ryswick. St. Domingue becomes one of France's most important territories thanks to its sugar, rum, coffee, and cotton exports.

1791 - Jamaican-born "Boukman" launches slave rebellion leading to a war against St. Domingue's colonists and, later, Napoleon's army - assisted by Spanish and British forces.

1801 - Former slave Toussaint Louverture commands armies that conquer Haiti, abolishes slavery, and proclaims himself governor-general of an autonomous government over all Hispaniola.

1804 - General Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares himself emperor of Haiti, the hemispere's second Republic, on January 1, 1804.

1806 - Dessalines is assassinated.

1807-20 - Civil war racks the country dividing it into a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled south. Jean-Pierre Boyer reunifies the country and becomes President of the entire republic in 1820.

1821 - President Boyer invades the other half of Hispaniola, Santo Domingo, following its declaration of independence from Spain. The entire island is controlled by Haiti until 1844, when Santo Domingo gains independence as the Dominican Republic.

1838 - Boyer obtains official independence from France for 150 million francs. Most nations including the US shun Haiti for almost forty years, fearful that its example could stir unrest in other slaveholding countries.

1862 - The United States grants Haiti diplomatic recognition sending Frederick Douglass as its Consular Minister.

1915 - US invades Haiti following black-mulatto friction, which it thought endangered its property and investments.

1934 - US withdraws troops from Haiti, but maintains fiscal control until 1947.

1956 - Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier stages a military coup and is elected president a year later.

1964 - Duvalier declares himself president-for-life and establishes a dictatorship with the help of the brutal Tontons Macoute paramilitary force.

1971 - Duvalier dies in office after naming his 19-year-old son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier as his successor.

1986 - Widespread protests against "Baby Doc" lead the US to arrange for Duvalier and his family to be exiled to France. He is replaced by Lieutenant-General Henri Namphy, who heads a new National Governing Council.

1987 - A new constitution is approved by the population in a March referendum. General elections in November are aborted hours after they start with dozens of people shot by soldiers and the Tonton Macoute in the capital, and scores more around the country.

1988 - Leslie Manigat becomes president in military-controlled elections in January. Manigat is ousted by General Namphy four months later. In November, General Prosper Avril unseats Namphy, and installs a civilian government under military control.

1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide is elected president in a landslide victory.

1991 - The army overthrows Aristide in a coup led by Brigadier-General Raoul Cedras, forcing the president into exile in the US. Hundreds of people are killed within weeks of the coup, triggering sanctions by the US and the Organisation of American States.

1993 - UN imposes sanctions after Cedras refuses to step down as promised in an accord that called for his early retirement, the creation of a new civilian police force, and Aristide's return.

1994 - US President Bill Clinton declares all diplomatic initiatives exhausted, and announces that the US, with 20 other countries, is forming a multinational force. This prompts the Haitian military regime to give up power. Aristide returns with his government-in-exile.

1995 - Aristide supporters win parliamentary elections. Rene Preval, from Aristide's Lavalas party, is elected president in December.

1999 - Preval announces that parliament's term has expired and begins to govern by decree.

2000 November - Haitians elect Aristide president again. Opposition parties boycott the election over disputed parliamentary elections six months earlier.

2001 July - Armed men attack three locations, killing four police officers, sparking fears of an uprising.

2001 December - Gunmen try to seize the National Palace in an apparent coup attempt. 12 people are killed in the raid.

2002 July - Haiti is approved as a full member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

2004 January - Bicentennial celebrations are marred by violence and protests against President Aristide's rule.

2004 February - Protests intensify into an uprising. Rebels seize a number of key northern towns, including Gonaives and Cap-Haitien, on their way to the capital. Aristide goes into exile. Boniface Alexandre, chief justice at the country's Supreme Court, is sworn in as interim president.
STAFF
Some of the players in the current round are familiar from the previous Bush administration. Also key is US Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega - a longtime Aristide-basher - widely thought to have been central to the departure of Aristide. He'll find it much harder to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels.

In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members demanded an investigation into the US role in Aristide's overthrow, the first Bush administration laughed them off, just as the administration is doing today in facing new queries from caucus members.

Indeed, those questioning the administration about Haiti are being smeared as naive and unpatriotic. Aristide himself is being accused of dereliction in the failure to lift his country out of poverty. In point of fact, this administration froze all multilateral development assistance to Haiti from the day that George W. Bush came into office, squeezing Haiti's economy dry. US officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a crisis in the balance of payments, a rise in inflation, and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion.

Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the media when it comes to asking all the questions that need answers. Just as in the war on Iraq's phony WMD, wherein the mainstream media initially failed to ask questions about the administration's claims, major news organizations have refused to challenge the administration's accounts on Haiti. The media haven't had the gumption to find Aristide, or even to point out that he is being held incommunicado.

With a violence-prone US government operating with impunity in many parts of the world, only the public's perseverance in getting at the truth can save us, and others, from our own worst behavior.

• Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a former economic adviser to Latin American governments. This commentary originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times. ©2004 The Los Angeles Times.

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Sure Glynch it is always our fault.



Why do you live in a country you hate so much?

DD

 

Which European leaders were involved on the Haiti issue and called for this compromise?

This is Spring 2004 and the last notable coup attempt against Chavez was in Spring 2002. It appears that you have <i>lost a year</i>.

<a HREF=http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june02/venezuela_4-12.html">UPHEAVAL IN VENEZUELA (April 12, 2002)</a>

 

Sure Glynch it is always our fault

No it isnt. Just another. "Why do you hate America response. " by Dakota.


The sad thing is that he doesn't do this type of non-thinking in jest.

Clinton acted fairly responsible with Haiti. Not every Aemrican presidency has run around overthrowing democracies.

 

This is Spring 2004 and the last notable coup attempt against Chavez was in Spring 2002. It appears that you have lost a year.

Mango, this is the type of tiny little "error" that you specialize in finding if you don't like the overall thrust of a post as you think it discredits arguments somehow.

Mango, you really should try not to miss the forest for the trees.

However, playing your little ocd type game. You should note that I said "roughly a year". This meant I wasn't bothering to look it up, but was going on memory. My argument was this policy of encouraging cooups against democracy we don't like is not "ancient history" In this context whether it was one or two years doesn't matter.

If you must, have your little "victory".

?