Press Release from Congresswoman Barbara Lee on Haiti

[seemslikeadream]

For Immediate Release Contact: Stuart Chapman

March 3, 2004 [phone]

Congresswoman Barbara Lee Questions Bush Administration Officials at International Relations Subcommittee Hearing

Lee Calls for Independent Commission to Investigate Bush Administration’s Haiti Policy

Washington, DC – At a heated Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere hearing today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) questioned a panel of Bush Administration officials about the Administration’s role in the coup d’etat carried out last week against the democratically-elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A member of the International Relations Committee, Lee called for the hearing last week, and with the events over the weekend, the hearing took on an immediacy and urgency.


In particular, Lee grilled Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, who is widely considered the mastermind behind the Bush Administration Haiti policy. Lee challenged Noriega about the State Department’s failure to respond to her suggestions in a February 12 letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, which would have staved off a coup.


Lee also asked Noriega why Aristide would willingly leave Haiti on Sunday morning without a definite place of asylum provided. During the next day, Aristide would be flown around the world until, finally, the Central African Republic (CAR) provided temporary asylum. At present, Aristide is reportedly under guard in the CAR.


Lee also accused the Bush Administration of supporting and sanctioning the overthrow of the Aristide Government by blaming Aristide for the opposition’s refusal to negotiate. Secretary of State Colin Powell last week called the opposition rebels “murderers and thugs,” but later backpedaled to the point that the Administration issued a statement, last Saturday, that said that “the long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's making.”


Lee summed up her disgust with the Bush Administration’s actions by accusing Noriega and the Bush Administration of “aiding and abetting” the overthrow of the Aristide Government. “Regime change takes a variety of forms, and this looks like a blatant form of regime change to me,” Lee told Noriega.

http://www.house.gov/lee/releases/04Mar03b.htm

[goodhue]

1. Right On!

[SoDesuKa]

2. Noriega's Victory

Roger Noriega has been planning Aristide's overthrow for many years, according to press reports:

The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.

That official is Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade as he climbed the diplomatic ladder in Washington.

"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wopol013691845mar01,0,4730210.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

[seemslikeadream]

3. Congresswoman Maxine Water's Statement on Kidnapping of Aristide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2004 Contact: Ron Dungee
[phone]


Congresswoman Maxine Waters' Statement on Kidnapping of Haitian President Aristide


"I spoke to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide by telephone this morning and he told me that did not resign. He said he was kidnapped by American military and U.S. diplomats and military officials and was being held in the Central African Republic.

"Mr. Aristide said that Luis G. Moreno, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, came to his home in the wee hours of the morning with other diplomats and with U.S. Marines. He said he was told to leave and leave now or he and many Haitians would be killed.

"He told me, 'The world must know it was a coup. I was kidnapped. I was forced out. That's what happened. I did not resign. I did not go willingly. I was forced to go.'

"Mr. Aristide told me he was being held under guard in Central Africa's Palace of the Renaissance and felt like he was in jail.

"I also spoke with President Aristide's wife, Mildred. The first thing Mildred said was, 'The coup d'état is complete. It has been completed.'

"I talked to the president and his wife for about 15 minutes. He was anxious to get the word out that he did not leave voluntarily, that he was kidnapped, that he was forced out.

"President Aristide told me he had not been abused, but he sounded angry, stressed, determined; really anxious that people know he was kidnapped, that he did not go willingly, that he was forced out.

"I am deeply saddened that the United States government appears to be complicit in the overthrow of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. The Bush Administration refused to lead an international peacekeeping force to end the violence in Haiti and allow President Aristide to finish his term in office; then the Administration forced him out of the country in the dark of night.

"Last Thursday, the Congressional Black Caucus had an emergency meeting with President Bush, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell. We laid out a very clear case for intervention and asked the president to lead an international effort to keep the peace, stabilize the volatile situation and preserve the government of Haiti's first democratically elected president.

"I have visited Haiti three times since the first of the year and was able to provide first hand information about what was going on in that country. I explained that the so-called opposition was a conglomeration of former supporters of the dictatorial Duvalier regime. Andre Apaid, an American citizen in charge of the Group of 184 started this coup three weeks ago. Guy Philippe, who was exiled to the Dominican Republic after he tried to stage a coup in 2002 was leading a band of exiled military criminals, thugs and murderers-some convicted in absentia for killings they committed in ousting Aristide from office when he was first elected. These were the people pursuing a coup d'état to return Haiti to the corrupt dictatorial rule of the past.

"The CBC asked the president to intervene immediately to stop the bloodshed in Haiti. Scores of Haitian people had been killed and thousands of others held hostage as Philippe and his army of thugs seized town after town as they advanced toward Port-au-Prince. We pointed out that the obstacle to a peaceful solution was not Aristide. I was in Haiti when Aristide signed off on a peace proposal worked out by CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) and others in the international community. It was the opposition that rejected the proposal and refused to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

"However, we did not go to the White House to ask for help in Haiti solely for humanitarian reasons. We went there because the United States government was actively involved in the creation of this crisis and had an obligation to do something about it. For several years, the United States blocked $145.9 million in development loans to Haiti by the Inter-American Development Bank. These loans were supposed to fund health, basic education, rural road development, potable water and sanitation programs. Blocking those loans further impoverished the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Our government prevented the money from going to Haiti until the Congressional Black Caucus intervened last year.

"We tried to impress upon the president that the situation of Haiti was extremely critical and immediate action was needed. We did not need a massive military presence in Haiti and it did not need to be a lengthy occupation. All we asked was that the United States and other countries provide immediate assistance to Haiti to strengthen the Haitian police so that they could restore law and order. We could have been in and out in a short period of time, but the president asked for more time to think about it. He was holding out for a political solution to the crisis.

"Now we know the political solution for which he was holding out.

"The thugs and military criminals have accomplished their mission of deposing Aristide with the overt approval and support of the Bush Administration. Now, other members of the Aristide Administration are seeking asylum in other countries.

"This should have been prevented and could have been prevented if the Bush Administration had acted to help stabilize the situation in Haiti

http://www.house.gov/waters/pr040301.htm

[JohnOneillsMemory]

4. Just another example of US Christian compassion, God Bless America.

sarcasm off.

I just heard on NPR an interview with someone representing
the Committee to Re-defeat the President...Bush*, that is.

I'm glad I don't have TV. But NPR is playing the audio from his ads and it's making me sick.

[seemslikeadream]

5. We now have a huge mess on our hands - Senator Chris Dodd

HAITI -- (Senate - March 03, 2004)


---
Mr. DODD. Secondly, on an unrelated matter, I was alarmed but not terribly surprised to pick up the morning newspapers and to read what I thought might happen. I did not wish it to happen, but I thought it might happen in the island nation of Haiti.

Over the past weekend, I warned, as others did, if we did not step up and try to support a democratically elected government, albeit a flawed one but a democratically elected government, we would end up reaping what we sow. And we are doing just that.

In the headlines this morning we read things such as: Haiti rebel says he is in charge and has taken over down there. The man's name is Guy Philippe. This is a person who has a dreadful human rights record. These are people who ran death squads and are involved in the drug trades. They are now taking over. Anarchy apparently is reigning in the island nation of Haiti.

Parts of this article state the country is in my hands, this so-called rebel leader says. Although American officials denounced the armed rebels and said they should have no role in ruling Haiti, the American forces did not take any action to counter them at all. They have now taken over in that country and are apparently in charge down there. Anarchy is reigning. There are bodies in the streets of Port-au-Prince.

What I feared might happen if we did not stand up and support a democratic government--and again I will say a flawed one, but when the United States decided we were going to put a foot in the back of this elected President and send him out of the country, we warned the vacuum would be filled by the worst elements. In fact, I read over last evening and this morning that Baby Doc Duvalier, the worst oppressive leader in that country, and his father, wants to come back to Haiti under this new operation that is going on down there.

I am terribly disappointed the administration failed to step to the plate. I knew it was going to be difficult, but if we cannot support democratically elected governments--and again I will repeat, whatever problems Aristide had, they were not a few; they were many.

Nonetheless, he was chosen by the people of that country on two different occasions, overwhelmingly so. If we are unwilling to stand and back democratically elected governments in this hemisphere and give a wink and a nod to those who replace governments that have been duly elected, we will see a repetition of what occurred in Haiti elsewhere. We are seeing it in Caracas, Venezuela, because we are endorsing the notion that when we don't like leaders in certain countries, we will ignore the chaos that can result from changing of government other than through the normal means of elected government. That is something that can happen, and it has happened.

So I rise to express my deep disappointment that once again the administration, in this hemisphere, is just failing terribly, and Haiti is a classic example of failure. We now have a huge mess on our hands.


I pointed out the other day, 30 percent of the population of the Bahamas is now Haitian. Thirty percent of that country is now occupied by people who have fled Haiti because of the repression and economic conditions in that nation. Twenty percent of children never reach the age of 5 in Haiti. The average income is $250. It is a poor Black country, and as a result I don't think we give it the kind of support we should have been giving it.

In fact, over the last 36 months we embargoed any assistance directed to the Government of Haiti. What kind of a country do we live in today that turns to a nation only 300 or 400 miles off our shore, with people living in desperate conditions, with the highest rate of AIDS in the hemisphere, and we have virtually nothing to say to them. Here we have today, once again, these impoverished, poor people down there, who had to live under dreadful governments over the years, finally get one they elect democratically, and because we don't like it, it is a failed leadership in our view, we walk away from it, and now you have thugs running the place again. It is not all our fault but, Mr. President a large part is. I am terribly disappointed about what has happened, and I wanted to rise this morning to express those sentiments.
http://thomas.loc.gov/r108/r108.html

[seemslikeadream]

6. Another Rep. with courage Mr.Conyers on Haiti

PROTECT HAITIAN LIVES -- (House of Representatives - March 02, 2004

GPO's PDF
---
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Blackburn). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 60 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, this Special Order is taken in a spirit of deep sadness and regret about the events that are going on in the nation of Haiti. We have come here this evening to recommit ourselves to the proposition that the United States has a responsibility to prevent the loss of life and the continued deterioration of the nation of Haiti. The present administration's inaction has undermined democracy and security in Haiti, and it is our responsibility to make sure that this does not get any worse.

So we, Members of Congress, call upon the administration to protect Haitian lives by restoring order, upholding the rule of law and disarmament across the country. The current state of affairs in Haiti is chaos. The rebels who were empowered by our inaction must be held accountable and not allowed to benefit from their violence. Humanitarian aid must flow to Haiti immediately. A humanitarian corridor with supplies of food and water and medical equipment must be established to provide assistance to the beleaguered Haitian people. Humanitarian aid must flow to Haiti immediately. We must support the formulation of a donor conference so the people of Haiti can finally get the kind of assistance that they so desperately need and so properly deserve.

This administration is misinterpreting and failing to honor the spirit of the Haitian constitution. Where is Article 149 in the transitional government talks?

So we as Members of Congress call upon this administration to follow the rule of law and the Haitian constitution. In it, Article 149 of the 1987 Haitian constitution clearly outlines the process by which the interim president is appointed and it includes the ratification of the legislature. Due to the unwillingness on the part of the political opposition party's willingness to participate in elections, there is no legislature to confirm the interim president; and, therefore, the recently sworn in president is, unfortunately, regrettably not ruling pursuant to the Haitian constitution.

On Sunday President Bush said, ``The Haitian constitution is working.'' How does he believe just because he said it that that could make it true? The President forgets that when they fail to respond to the opposition's rejection of the U.S. brokered peace plan that they had in fact repudiated their own plan for peace. It was just on Monday of last week that Secretary of State Powell said ``The United States will not support the overthrow of a democratically elected government by thugs and criminals.''

For the administration to remain mute while the constitutional process was thwarted and then to pressure President Aristide, the one who was compromised to resign, is in no way in line or in accordance with Haiti's constitutional process.

Moreover, now that the administration has created this constitutional quagmire in Haiti, it is reprehensible to claim that the constitution is working.




Our administration is jeopardizing the lives of countless numbers of Haitian asylum seekers by enforcing immediate Coast Guard interdiction without an opportunity for a fair asylum hearing.

Members of Congress call on the Bush administration to extend temporary protected status to Haitian asylum seekers because returning to Haiti will pose a serious threat to their personal safety.

To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate Haiti under section 244(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act so that the nationals of Haiti present in the United States or reaching our shores may be granted temporary protected status. This would mean that both Haitians who are present in the United States and those who may be fortunate enough to make it to shore will not arbitrarily be sent back to Haiti until the country is stable.

This administration's neglect of Haiti and the intentional, systematic dismantling of the Haitian social, economic, and political circumstance which culminated in the current political instability and provided the environment for a coup d'etat.

As Members of the Congress, we call on our leaders in Congress to hold joint public hearings between the House Intelligence Committee and the International Relations Committee on the Bush administration's role in undermining a democratically elected government in, of all places, the western hemisphere. The United States should not have allowed the opposition in Haiti without a legislative popular mandate to veto the possibility for peace in Haiti. Now there is mayhem and on-the-spot executions and other atrocities which are taking place daily.

Why did the United States not send in a force to reinforce the police when a political solution was still possible? Why did the United States only act after that possibility, along with President Aristide, was removed? Why have the rebels not been arrested? Were their actions not illegal? How did the leaders of the insurgence, some of whom are the most notorious torturers and death squad members, return to power? Louis Jodel Chamberlain is a former military leader who led a brutal paramilitary group that backed the most recent of Haiti's coup d'etats in 1991. The other, Guy Philippe, is a charismatic former soldier once loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who fled Haiti 3 years ago after being accused of drug dealing and of treason.

What are we to say to history? How will we account for this tragic set of circumstances that have now surrounded this poor beleaguered nation? As of today, the United States Coast Guard has repatriated 902 Haitian refugees to Port-au-Prince despite the escalating and continuing violence there. A handful of Haitians only have met the ``credible fear'' standard required for asylum. They remain on Coast Guard vessels and are being assessed by asylum officers from the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Coast Guard

GPO's PDF
have said that Haitians picked up at sea who indicate that they are afraid of returning to Haiti are given interviews with asylum officers on Coast Guard cutters. Haitians are not individually asked if they have a fear of return, nor are they necessarily spoken to individually where they may have a chance to say why they left. Homeland security says that when people are afraid, they find a way to convey that. I do not know whether any of the Coast Guard officials who first encountered the Haitians speak French or Creole. If Haitians do not express fear somehow, then they are given an interview with asylum officers who either speak French or Creole or have interpreters. Thus far, three Haitians have been found to possibly have a credible fear of persecution. Those who are deemed to be economic migrants have been turned over to the Haitian Coast Guard and were disembarked in Port-au-Prince. The last repatriation was today when 21 refugees returned to the Haitian Coast Guard. No new refugees have been picked up by the United States Coast Guard since Friday; and as far as is known, the repatriations will be ongoing despite the terrible insecurity in Port-au-Prince.
I have been unable to get information on the current control of the Haitian Coast Guard now that the government in effect ceases to exist. It seems that the United States Government is still treating the Haitian Coast Guard as an official agency under legitimate command of the Republic of Haiti.

And so, my colleagues in the Congress, we are now called to an immediate task to make right, to correct the terrible wrong that has been visited much by our inaction upon the 8 million inhabitants of this small country. We have a duty to persist. It is not over. We will investigate, we will protest, we will evaluate, we will persuade, until the majority of the American people are convinced that we cannot leave this wrong, which is a wrong for which we must be responsible, to go uncorrected. That is the pledge I leave my colleagues with on this evening.
http://thomas.loc.gov

[seemslikeadream]

7. Political Crisis in Haiti House Committee Hearing C-SPAN3 2pm et

This was an incredible hearing and transcript won't be available for 3 months but here is what we caught of it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1189042&mesg_id=1189042

The hearing can now been seen at www.C-SPAN.org

[PDX Bara]

8. Barbara Lee

My representative and I am so proud and happy to be in her district. She made proud before by not being a lemming in supporting the rush to war.

[Say_What]

9. Welcom PDX Bara

Welcome to DU from a fellow Bay Arian :hi:

[PDX Bara]

10. Thank you, Say_What.

I'm new at this and I couldn't find my a record of my first reply so this is my second try at responding to your welcome. You are a good example of why I decided to finally sign on after lurking for an embarrassingly long time. I have found the level of intelligence of most of the posters to be extraordinary and even if I don't ever fulfill that description myself, I truly enjoy seeing it in others. Also enjoy seeing the support you have for each other when a shoulder to lean on or cry on is needed. What a special kind of family you all are! :)

[UpInArms]

12. welcome to DU PCX Bara!

:hi:

Wish Barbara Lee was my rep -

She definitely speaks for me.

[seemslikeadream]

14. Welcome PDX Bara

Thanks for posting for the first time here. :hi:

[PDX Bara]

16. Welcome PDX Bara

Thank you, seemslikeadream. I hope I haven't gotten myself kicked off the board already with my "creative name description," but I have been using that name for a while in my conversations with my friends.

[newyawker99]

19. Hi PDX Bara!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[beanball]

11. The honorable Barbara Lee

is another example of America not using its best and brightest,Congresswoman Lee would make a much better governor than Muscle headed Arnold,she is bright,articulate,and patriotic(didn't vote to put our men and women in harms way).Some of the right wing media morons condemned her for not voting for war,she proved her vote was the correct one,no blood on her hands,can't say that about the Shrub and his minions.GIVE THEM HELL BARBARA.

[PDX Bara]

13. Arnie

Probaby my bad but I have a name for our Repug purchased governor: "Guvna Gristlebrain!"

[lumpy]

15. Rep.Lee also called for and stressed for

an immediate investigation of the Aristide deposition from office by the US. The chairperson (whoever) adamently tried to squelch a reply to a question she put forth. Her time was up, finally he took advice from a colleague and let the witness answer the question. She is not easily put down, bless her heart. I saw only part of the hearing, but I am convinced Aritide's deposition was a deliberate move by Bushco to disrupt the democratic procedure in Haiti as bleak as it may have been. Another corrupt attempt by the Bush administration to wield political power over other nations in the name of democracy and that overused word "freedom".

[seemslikeadream]

17. Please watch video at C-SPAN

www.c-span.org
Political Crisis in Haiti House Committee Hearing
Starting at
3:13:23 with Robert Maguire from Trinity College Director, Programs in Int'l Affairs, was very informative

3:21:40 Hangel introduces Jeffery Sachs Earth Institute at Columbia Univ. Director, incredible testimony MUST SEE!

[eablair3]

18. thanks - archived online

I noticed the hearing from yesterday is avaialble online there, thanks for the info.

http://www.c-span.org/videoarchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,

look for the link to "House Hearing on Haiti Situation"