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THE SITUATION IN HAITI -- (Senate - March 04, 2004)
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Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes this morning to address the issue of Haiti and the events that occurred there over the last few weeks. Haiti, a country, as colleagues know, is just off the coast of Florida. Sunday morning, the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to leave office and his country on a U.S. aircraft. The armed rebellion, led by former members of the Haitian army, which I point out to colleagues was disbanded by President Aristide in 1994, and members of the paramilitary rightwing group called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide government to maintain law and order.
Unfortunately, President Aristide had little choice but to leave office, as the U.S. and international community made it very clear to him they would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs and convicted murderers who had taken over most of the major cities in Haiti and terrorized and killed many people.
I point out to my colleagues that President Aristide's departure is hardly a voluntary decision to leave. I had several communications with President Aristide, high-ranking members of our administration, and other Members of Congress over the weekend.
On Monday, I had a very lengthy conversation with President Aristide, who had called me from the Central African Republic. I was very disturbed about reports that were circulating that he had been forcibly removed from the President's palace, put on an aircraft, and flown out of Haiti. Some of this now has been talked about in terms of whether or not he was at gunpoint or how was he forced out.
The administration is taking the position that he voluntarily resigned and got on the aircraft and they flew him out of the country. There are others who are saying that perhaps he was forced out at gunpoint.
After my long conversation with President Aristide on Monday afternoon, I am convinced of at least three things. One, President Aristide was not put in handcuffs. He was not marched at the end of a rifle and told to get on the airplane or they would shoot him. No, that did not occur. So in that contextual framework he was not ``forced,'' ``abducted,'' or ``kidnapped'' out of the country.
On the other hand, during the late afternoon of Saturday, after I had spoken with him, in the evening hours of that same Saturday, he was contacted by our ambassador in Haiti who, according to Mr. Aristide, told him he had basically three options: He could stay in Haiti and be killed and thus precipitate a bloodshed that might cost thousands of lives because we would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs and the killers; secondly, he could leave with bloodshed, that is, he could leave after precipitating a crisis that might cost thousands of lives; or he could leave without bloodshed.
Confronted with those options, if a President such as Aristide, who is democratically elected, leaves, is that voluntary? As Congressman Rangel said yesterday in a hearing: Under a threat to his life, Mr. Aristide had little choice but to sign a resignation letter. I would have signed one, too, Congressman Rangel said.
That is the essence of what happened. Our Government basically left Mr. Aristide, a democratically elected President, with no options. Either leave with bloodshed or leave without bloodshed, but in either case he was leaving.
As President Aristide told me, he had an obligation to the Haitian people. He did not want to see bloodshed. He did not want to see thousands of innocent people killed. So, therefore, under that kind of duress he was forced to leave.
I was asked why the United States did not honor the Santiago treaty in 1991 signed by the United States, which clearly states that any government democratically elected in the Western Hemisphere that seeks the support of other Organization of American States member nations, when threatened with an overthrow, will be assisted? That agreement was signed by the first President Bush in 1991.
I point out a couple of things. When President Aristide was first elected in 1990, he served for a total of about 8 months, from about January through August of 1991, and then was overthrown by a military coup.
What did the first President Bush administration do? Absolutely nothing. They let the military take over and
throw out a democratically elected President, at the same time that the first President Bush was signing the Santiago Resolution saying we would come to the assistance of a democratically elected government in our hemisphere if they were threatened with an overthrow.
Then President Clinton came to office the following year and we restored President Aristide to office. He had about 1 year left, because he agreed that the 3 years he spent in exile would count toward his 5-year tenure. Under the Constitution of Haiti, a President cannot succeed himself. Mr. Aristide agreed that he would abide by the constitution.
So when he came back to Haiti, he served about 1 more year and then elections were held in 1995 and he did not run, of course, because the Constitution would not let him do so. During the year he was back in Haiti, he did one significant thing. He disbanded the Haitian Army, the army that had been used for probably as much as 100 years to repress and suppress the people of Haiti. The Army had been used by one dictator after another to suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Haitian people.
After he had done that, he called me up. I remember that phone call very well when President Aristide called and said he was soon to leave office and had decided to disband the Haitian Army. I remember him telling me he did it for a couple of reasons.
President Aristide told me that Haiti did not need a military. The military had been used to repress the people. No one is going to invade us. He said they wanted to be like Costa Rica, that did not have an army and they did not need one.
Secondly, he said the military in Haiti did nothing but repress people. The military had been using up about half of the GDP of Haiti to pay for these military thugs.
Well, guess who is leading the insurgency against Aristide now? Former leaders of the old Haitian military, many of whom had left the country, at least one of whom had been Chamblain. He had been convicted in absentia because he fled the country. He had been
convicted of at least two murders, one of Guy Malary, who was a Justice Minister assassinated on the steps of the justice building in broad daylight by Mr. Chamblain and his thugs.
Mr. Chamblain, who was convicted in absentia of murder, is now one of the rebel leaders in Haiti. Guy Philippe who we keep seeing on television, is also a rebel leader. Amnesty International said he had turned a blind eye to many extrajudicial killings and murders committed by police under his command.
Well, I hope and trust that we do not support these people. I noticed in the hearing the other day in the House, Mr. Noriega, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere, said we did not support the violent overthrow of that man, referring to Mr. Aristide.
Well, I am sorry, Mr. Noriega, you are wrong. The United States aided and abetted, in more ways than one, the overthrow of a democratically elected government. We need some investigations.
What happened to all of the arms that we sent to the Dominican Republic in the last couple of years to patrol the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti for drug smuggling? Reports are coming out that many of these arms we sent down there are now in Haiti in the hands of these killers and thugs: flack jackets, helmets, rifles, night vision goggles.
I don't know if it is true or not, but I am saying there are many reports that these arms we sent down there are in the hands of the armed insurgents, former members of the former Haitian military. How did they get their hands on these arms?
As Richard Holbrooke, our former Ambassador to the United Nations, said on a Sunday morning talk show, these individuals have a long history of murder and terror when they were members of the Haitian military. He said they have a long history of involvement with our intelligence services in the United States.
This needs to be investigated.
The New York Times today reported that the political crisis in Haiti is deepening. Prime Minister Neptune has declared a state of emergency and has suspended many of the rights to the Haitian people guaranteed by their constitution.
The Bush administration withdrew its support from the Aristide government because it said it was a ``government of failed leadership.''
I guess we get to decide whether a democractically elected government is failing or not. And if we don't like them, we have the right to go ahead and let armed thugs take over that government.
I tell you, the Bush administration has a lot to answer for, and will have a lot to answer for because of what has happened and what is happening in Haiti today.
President Aristide is gone, forced out of office, and the Bush administration continues to sit on the sidelines and wring its hands while innocent people in Haiti continue to be killed.
I call on the administration to truly make a commitment to stabilize the security situation in Haiti by first instructing the Multinational Interim Force to collect the weapons used by the rebels who said they would disarm. If this vital step is not taken now, we are only setting ourselves and the Haitian people up for another disaster. The mandate is clear. The Multinational Interim Force should immediately disarm and arrest these thugs.
The failure to disarm the disbanded Haitian military and the paramilitary forces called FRAPH in 1994 after President Aristide had come back to office has been one of the root causes of ongoing political violence in Haiti.
We know who these thugs are and we have the mandate to arrest and turn them over to the Haitian authorities. We have arrested Baathists members of Saddam Hussein's party. We have arrested them and turned them over to the Iraqi courts. We also did this in the Balkans. Why can't we do it in Haiti? We cannot go out and arrest Mr. Chamblain, convicted of two murders? Why don't we go out and arrest him and turn him over to the Haitian courts to stand trial?
Let us show the Haitian people we are committed to ensuring that the democratic process works--not just in Iraq, not just in the Balkans, but also in Haiti as well.
The Bush administration can no longer sit on the sidelines. It is my hope the Bush administration shows the same dedication and commitment to supporting the new interim
government as it did to stand by and actively destroy President Aristide's duly elected democratic government.
What has happened in Haiti should be a blight on the American conscience--the poorest country in this hemisphere, the poorest of the poor, struggling decade after decade under brutal dictatorships, repressive military regimes, finally becoming free in 1990, only to have its President overthrown in a coup. What signal are we sending to the Haitians? I guess if you are poor and you don't have oil and you are not strategically important, we don't care what happens to you. We will let the thugs take over. We will let the few wealthy elite rearm the military to protect them and to keep them in power.
I saw a newspaper article late last week which pointed out that this Congress had appropriated $18 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. It went on to say how $4 billion of the money that was appropriated for Iraq was for clean water and sanitation--$4 billion of our taxpayers' money going to one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Iraq. Iraq is not a poor country. This is a very rich country with oil reserves. It is either the first or second in the world in oil reserves. Yet we are taking $4 billion in taxpayer money to build a water and sanitation system. Why can't we build clean water and sanitation systems, roads, hospitals and schools in Haiti? To me, that is the moral imperative of what we should be doing in our hemisphere--not trying to destroy democratically elected governments.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r108:./temp/~r108pbR1mO
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