Democracy Now reports that Aristide led away in handcuffs

[deutsey]

Reporter in Haiti says that he has confirmed from two sources (one an ABC cameraman) that Aristide was led away in handcuffs by US troops.

[deutsey]

1. Kevin Pena insists that Aristide was taken away by US troops

Very adament...

[deutsey]

2. Reprisals against Aristide supporters by "rebels"

They have entered Port-Au-Prince....

[deadliving]

3. In other news....

Monkeys were seen flying out of the butts of native flamingo. The latest reports mentioned that local were putting flowers into the barrels of militant rebels. Stay tuned...

[ncrainbowgrrl]

4. lol- well put.

Welcome to DU, btw!

[deadliving]

9. Thanks :-)

I love the diverse nature of the members here.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

7. The only monkeys flying out of an ass here is when the Bush

administration opens its collective mouth. They're the people who brought you the Jessica Lynch story. The bastards lie when they don't even have to.

Too many eyes saw this.

[deadliving]

10. Agreed about the Bush screed

I think this Haiti thing is a bit removed from that though. I pray the innocent are not harmed.

[SammyWinstonJack]

26. The bastards lie even when they don't have to.

Ain't that the truth!

[JaySherman]

6. This is so criminal it's beyond words

Violent overthrow of a democratically elected head of state, using U.S. troops no less. An even clearer and more blatant violation of international law than Iraq. In a sane world the * Administration would be condemned by the interational community, but we all know that won't happen :mad:.

[UpInArms]

8. no words express

how utterly appalled I am.

[deutsey]

11. French Radio also reporting Aristide forced to leave by US troops

Exaggeration, I'm sure. CNN and US mainstream media are the only reliable sources, as everyone here surely knows, but it sure makes for entertaining and distractin' listenin' on left-wing rad-dio.

:eyes:

[htuttle]

12. BBC Report

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3520457.stm

Alone, he negotiated with senior US officials until the early hours of this morning, insisting that he should remain until the end of his elected term in 2006.

Just hours before, he had gone on local television to say that his resignation was "out of the question".

But, the pressure from the international community was too much, and he was escorted to the main airport by US Marines at dawn.

According to one source, he resisted even while going up the stairs to the aircraft alongside his wife and some 40 aides.

[deutsey]

13. What does the BBC know?

What does Wolf Blitzer say?

:eyes:

[ChiefHappyButt]

15. escorted in handcuffs!!!!!!

This is too much.

Where the hell is he and his family? Are they drugging him and manipulating his mind at this moment?

I can't believe this shit.

[Tinoire]

22. His wife stayed behind with him but no one knows where she is know

They flew their children to 'safety' in the US earlier this week. For some strange reason, I think they should get the kids out of the US because this regime used Iraqi children as pawns before. I hope they wouldn't stoop so low but I don't trust the bushistas.

[tedzbear]

45. I love that one line...

"But, the pressure from the international community was too much, and he was escorted to the main airport by US Marines at dawn."

Pressure via a gun to the head by any chance??????

Muhahahahahaha!!!

:bounce:

[Guaranteed]

14. A Democratically elected president, led away in handcuffs. nt

[deutsey]

16. And an undemocratically installed "president" with a huge warchest

to stay in power in November...

We're screwed unless we all wake up and get active.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

17. Would that Bush were next...

Dare to dream.

[jus_the_facts]

18. yes he should be just a number......not a free man......

:evilgrin:

[Valkyrie55]

19. The writing on the wall

When the U.S. government announced earlier in the week that they supported President Aristide as the democratically elected leader of Haiti.....that's when I realized he was screwed!!! In the twisted 1984 politico-speak world of today, if our government fully supports you my advice is RUN!

[Fridays Child]

20. So true! And welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Robb]

21. Oh, that's not at all what they said!

Why do you think they said that??

They've been talking up Boniface Alexandre for a week!

[Tinoire]

23. Welcome to DU.

:toast: Make yourself right at home. You're going to fit right in with those instincts :)

[Crachet2004]

24. Why didn't they just do that helicopter and handcuffs....

Routine to Sadam? It sounds like it would be cheaper.

And what about Aristeide's guard's...just throw bags of money at them? They didn't even fire a shot?

What the hell kind of 3rd world henchmen are they anyway?

He was probably the only one in his whole govt. not working for the CIA.

[WarNoMore]

30. This was part of an interview with Mildred Aristide

on Friday. Amy Goodwin: L. (?)Jodel Chamblain said on Radio Metropole "the fight in Port-au-Prince will not last an hour. Actually, at the moment we already have control inside the National Palace." He was asked "How's that? Because you do not have anybody in there." And Chamblain replied, "That is what you think. Let me tell you something. The people,who are going to help us get him, are already there", of course, referring to Aristide.

[bemildred]

31. Ah, the bodyguards. nt

[Rochambeau]

25. Sorry to disagree but,

Aristide was NOT an angel, not at all !! The international community and his people had lot of hope about him when he came to power and before the first coup against him but now forced to see that he became exactly what he was fighting before !!!
Remember that many of the 'rebels' are his former supporters, the 'Armée canibale', a bunch of murderers, drug dealers and barbarians who were working FOR him before he ORDERED the assassination of their leader who was becoming too greedy and out of control.
I agree, the way to solve the problem is unacceptable but Aristide was a problem, a big one !

[mac2]

28. World Union slavery is what the plan is for his country.

How dare this President be judge and jury. NO UN backing...he's the king of the Continent. This looks very bad for us.

[Matilda]

29. Yes, sadly it seems that he undoubtedly did rig the results

of the last election. Unfortunately, the rebels are far worse than
he, and Haiti is in the situation it is largely because of the
efforts of the IMF and the World Bank, not to mention the support
given in the past to truly horrific regimes.

The Haitians have never been given an even break, and it looks like
they won't get one in the near future, but I don't think the rest
of the world knows or cares.

[dax]

33. The election they blame him for happened before he took office

There was a challenge to some ministers (8) and they wanted a run-off so Aristide made them resign and have a run-off-there is no documented evidence that he rigged the elections. Aristide had lost popularity because of what the US did to him when they made him sign on with the IMF and agree to privatize services and start redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. This latest coup was because he wanted to raise the minimum wage (still less than 2 dollars a day but that's not low enough for the Bush corps...Don't just buy in on the propaganda-Aristide is just another US creation taken out by paras trained and armed by our other state department, the CIA. FACT: US spreads FASCISM to fight everything else-democracy is only acceptable when it is completely controlled by corporations if there appears to be a popular movement growing-it has to be smashed because there cannot be any examples of another way. Haiti was building hospitols and health care that is burning down right NOW because of our government's actions Let us all HOPE that Latin America and SOuth American can form a coalition perhaps with Africa and stand up to the tyranny we are rolling over on and save our people because the slaughter won't stop until then-either they save us or we save them or we all go down.

[Rochambeau]

35. Sorry again but

we have in France many refugees who were supporters or prominents of the Aristide regime and who refused because of that to emigrate in USA but came to France. They are good persons and reliable sources of informations and they ALL say how Aristide did change since he came back after the coup d'etat and how he has adopted the worse abits of his predecessors in his way to rule the country (basing his governing on ultra violent militias (nothing more than kind of Duvalier's Tontons macoutes), corruption, lost of common good sense, political assassinations etc....).
Once again the way USA and France acted in that affair is bad but we must not turn Aristide into the martyr he is not.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

36. BushCo is working real hard at helping to turn Aristide into a martyr...

Inserting armed thugs who represent the monied interests is not necessarily a solution that would yield democratic results.

It's not like this is a democratic revolution. Unlike the one your name-sake helped-out with...(merci, btw...)

[Rochambeau]

37. I do agree,

those who removed him that way did the most to turn him into a martyr but we must not buy that and be very careful or we will "pay the rope that will hang us up" one day or another when the whole thing about Aristide will be documented.

PS: Please don't say 'merci' for the revolutionary war, we owe you so much 'mercis' for a world war or two that you will force me to write a few pages of 'mercis' and I'll finally get the boot out of here from the site admin ! :-)

[windansea]

39. sorry..even Carter saw thru Aristade

sorry but I wouldn't call the guy "democratically elected" based on these reports

re: 1995 election

The Carter Center report on the ensuing election -- written by Carter confidant and former National Security Council advisor Robert Pastor -- documents the disgraceful conduct of the Aristide government and his Lavalas party. "Of the 13 elections I have observed, the June 25 Haitian elections were the most disastrous technically, with the most insecure count," Pastor said in the report. "I personally witnessed the compromise of one-third of the ballot boxes in Port-au-Prince."

According to the report, the election was riddled with graft, fraud and chaos, with widespread irregularities, ballots burned, hundreds of voting stations never opened and tens of thousands of people never able to vote.

The report, issued by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, exposes Aristide's one-party "Lavalas" rule, with its widespread corruption, mismanagement and ballot manipulating, particularly in the June 25 election. Aristide's allies swept local and parliamentary seats in that balloting.

President Carter's critique of Aristide is especially startling, considering the long political association between the two. When Aristide won Haiti's 1990 presidential election, the Carter Center was at the forefront of groups supporting the results

A critical part of Aristide's plan for seizing total power in Haiti has been his illegal and authoritarian command of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) that conducted the fraudulent June election. Sensing trouble in March, Carter visited Haiti and was formally rebuffed by Aristide. Unofficially, he was greeted by hostile crowds and vicious graffiti, all engineered by Lavalas street gangs intent on embarrassing the former U.S. chief executive

http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1248.pdf

and these reports on 2000 election from politics and elections.com


Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won election as president of Haiti again, winning 92% of the vote according to the country's electoral council. All major opposition parties boycotted the election.

Aristide's Lavalas Family Party won all nine Senate seats that were contested, giving it all but one seat in the upper house. Lavalas Family also won 80% of the House of Assembly seats in may, June and July legislative elections. Opponents charge that those elections were rigged to enable Aristide to govern with, effectively, one-party rule.

Aristide was first elected in 1990, ending nearly 200 years of dictatorship. A bloody army coup kicked him out seven months later, followed by a terroristic military government, and than an invasion by U.S. troops to restore Aristide to power.

Opposition activist Evans Paul said ballot boxes were stuffed and tally sheets altered to make it look like a higher turnout. Some polls closed hours early for lack of voters.

more...

http://www.politicsandelections.com/international/hai.htm

[I AM SPARTACUS]

40. has the Carter Center ever investigated sElection 2000...???

...just curious...

[windansea]

42. don't know..thought we were talkin bout Haiti

:shrug:

[I AM SPARTACUS]

49. you brought up the Carter Center...

I'm wondering if it's pot & kettle...

You may not know this...but not everyone in the world, I mean the world outside of the US, feels blessed by the presence of Mr. Carter.

[lostnfound]

44. Note: this commentary is Heritage Foundation stuff, nearly verbatim

Wording is almost identical.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ED081795a.cfm

[JohnOneillsMemory]

47. Pastor's report says the messy elections caused by NO ONE IN CONTROL.

While Pastor does say that he saw ballot boxes 'compromised,' he qualifies this by saying that it was NOT because of one party's intentional corruption of the process.

He says it seemed to be precisely because NO ONE was in control in a disorganized environment which made the process difficult.

That is very different from inferring that Aristide, as winner of the '95 election, made himself the winner. Quite the opposite.

And most of that post is straight from John Tierney at
the Heritage Foundation.

[windansea]

48. you guys are right.....Aristade is a beaut!!!

Reporters sans frontieres...Reporters without Borders

Nearly 30 Haitian journalists have fled abroad in the past three years after being threatened by Aristide supporters and two journalists have been murdered. As a result, Aristide has been put on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide list of 42 predators of press freedom

Haiti - 2003 Annual Report

Impunity continued to hold sway in Haiti. It gave government supporters a free hand to harass and attack the press and opposition. Facing growing opposition, President Aristide's government tried to use fear to hold on to power. More journalists were forced into exile. The investigations into the deaths of Jean Dominique and Brignol Lindor did not progress. On the contrary, their killers continued to threaten the families of both journalists.

At least 40 journalists were physically attacked or threatened in 2002. The Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH) put the figure at more than 60. Some had reported on the collapse of the cooperative savings schemes in 2002, which ruined tens of thousands of small savers and in which the government was allegedly implicated at the highest level. It was amid such scandals that Israël Jacky Cantave of Caraïbes FM was kidnapped in July in what Cantave viewed as a government warning to the press. After Cantave was threatened and forced into exile, a warrant was issued for his arrest for not cooperating with investigators.
The year ended with demonstrations demanding President Aristide's resignation and growing tension, in which journalists paid the price. Seven journalists had to go into hiding in Gonaïves after covering one of the first big anti-government demonstrations. They were threatened by the Cannibal Army, a "popular organisation" led by Amiot Métayer which terrorized this northern town ever since Métayer broke out of prison in August 2002. After initially promising to rearrest him, the government apparently preferred to use him as a blunt instrument against its opponents.
Métayer had been arrested because of his violent attacks on the opposition during a supposedly spontaneous reaction to what was portrayed as an attempted coup d'etat on 17 December 2001. An Organisation of American States (OAS) enquiry published in July concluded not only that it was not a coup d'etat but also that police officers were accomplices to the attack staged on the presidential palace. The enquiry also stressed that the ensuing violence against the opposition had been carried with logistic support from the authorities. Those targeted on 17 December 2001 included some 10 journalists who afterwards went into exile. The increasingly discredited government could try to repeat this kind of operation, in which it poses as the victim in order to have a pretext for cracking down on the opposition and press.

http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=6197

thats just one RWB article...many more here

http://www.rsf.fr/sinequa_en.php3?iFullTextQuery=haiti&iLanguage=engli ...

[Matilda]

43. I stand corrected on my first statement.

It does seem to be an unsubstantiated claim by the right-wing
elite of Haiti.

There's no doubt that Aristide has been doing his best under
incredible difficulties, most particularly the opposition of the
U.S. He has made mistakes, and perhaps the biggest was giving in
to U.S. demands to open up Haiti to free trade. Of course, had he
resisted the end may have come even sooner.

Haitians have endured 200 years of oppression by western countries,
and I don't really see anything changing. It's such a tragedy.

[ParanoidPat]

38. "his people had lot of hope about him when he came to power"....

....."he became exactly what he was fighting before !!!"

And that differs from our current administration how exactly? :shrug: :evilgrin:

[Rochambeau]

41. "And that differs from our current administration how exactly?"

Don't send Marines to the White House, just vote ! ;)
If Boosh cheats again in November...well then... tally ho !!!! LOL

[janx]

27. Help! Is there still info coming from www.kpfa.org on this?

I need the realplayer link--the other one doesn't work very well.

Is there still information coming, or have they stopped for the night?

[Robbien]

34. Democracy Now has links to some of the earlier broadcasts

and by tomorrow will have today's shows up.

You can find them at
http://www.democracynow.org

[0007]

32. Morally repulsive!

[SoCalDem]

46. Who owns that "private plane"? What happened to his "stuff"?

Granted , he was tyrannical, but what happened to the family photo albums, clothes, personal stuff??

Will their stuff be "gone through" like Saddam's palaces??

How did he lose the US support ??


Too many questions :(

[Judi Lynn]

50. For anyone interested in the right-wing program against Haiti

I just ran across a very interesting item in a search which could provide some very interesting food for thought for you:

(snip)

In the last three months Haiti has seen a spate of political assassinations of Lavalas militants, charges of government complicity in the killings by the opposition, and the corporate media’s constant trumpeting of the evils of “Aristide’s Lavalas regime.” These intrigues finally climax into a media circus on November 14th with the opposition Group 184 holding an anti-Aristide demonstration in front of the national palace with a heavy contingent of international press in tow. The much smaller opposition Group 184 is overwhelmed and outflanked by over ten thousand angry Lavalas supporters. Group 184 is forced to withdraw as the Haitian police fire teargas and give orders to disperse in an effort to keep the two groups from clashing. Furthermore, two members of Group 184 are arrested for possession of weapons and are immediately pronounced to be “political prisoners” by the opposition group. Condemnation of the government by the new U.S. Ambassador and the international community is swift as greased lightning. A new round of propaganda begins against Lavalas hammering the theme that freedom of expression is now impossible in Haiti. This media-ready event is touted as further evidence that Aristide is actually a dictator in democrat’s clothing.

Whose Democracy is it anyway?

So who is Group 184 and how have they managed to garner so much media savvy in such a short period of time? How has their leader Andre Apaid been transformed from a reactionary businessman, who forces union organizers off his property at gunpoint, into “Andy” the democratic leader of the opposition? The answer to these questions, as is so often the case, lies in Washington D.C. not in Port au Prince.

Let’s start from the beginning with a Washington D.C. based organization called the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) that has fashioned itself into the arbiter of Bush administration policy towards Haiti. According to Tom Reeves, in an article published last October in Dollars and Sense magazine, “This July, even the departing U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Brian Curran, lashed out against some U.S. political operatives, calling them the "Chimeres of Washington" (a Haitian term for political criminals). The most recent of these Chimeres have been associated with the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP), headed by James Morrell and funded by the right-wing Haitian Boulos family. In December 2002, the HDP literally created from whole cloth a new public relations face for the official opposition, the "Coalition of 184 Civic Institutions," a laundry list of Haitian NGOs funded by USAID and/or the IRI (International Republican Institute), as well as by the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce and other groups.” So who is this mysterious Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) that created the Group 184 and believes it is qualified to intervene in Haiti’s internal political affairs and thereby represent the hopes and aspirations of 8 million Haitian citizens?

Novelist cum journalist, Herb Gold, knows the HDP well. Gold recently joined the negative hit-piece parade against the Haitian government and wrote in the SF Chronicle last October 19, “Of course, there are still folks who love Aristide; Mussolini also has his loyalists. The variety-pack of current issues in Haiti includes fraudulent elections, street violence, an entrenched drug distribution apparatus, and state-implicated murders and disappearances.” What Mr. Gold doesn’t mention is that his presence in Haiti had been conjured by a notable HDP founding board member eleven months earlier to the day. On November 19, 2002 at the opening of the HDP in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Timothy Carney pleads, “There needs to be something done to begin to get this process under way. I think that the seminars that the Haiti Democracy Project has in mind doing in an effort to spark a debate are probably the only thing that can be done given the fact that there aren’t any journalists worth their salt to go down and write about Haiti. Where’s Herb Gold? I hope he is still alive. Yes, he is still in San Francisco.”
(snip/...)

http://www.blackcommentator.com/67/67_pina.html


_Bush's newly appointed ambassador to Haiti, James Foley

A stroll down Clinton memory lane for the Democrats who post at D.U.:
Do you remember this bit of unadorned baloney from yesteryear, when the Republicans tried to pitch fits over a dead guy for whom our last elected President authorized burial in Arlington?
Well, James Foley was in the State Department then, and he tried to "help out:"

(snip) State Department spokesman James Foley acknowledged that Lawrence, during his security clearance process four years ago, indicated that he had volunteered for the merchant marines during World War II.

But when the department's diplomatic security service tried to verify the information with merchant marine sources, no supporting evidence was turned up, Foley said.

``And as the information was 50 years old and did not have bearing on his suitability to serve as a U.S. ambassador, it wasn't pursued further at that time,'' he added.

Foley said the issue was not a matter of a military record but rather one of employment.
(snip/...)

http://vikingphoenix.com/news/archives/1997/mil97133.htm

Thanks, Foley!