US senators hail Patterson for hosting Aristide

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Observer Reporter
Wednesday, March 31, 2004



Two US senators have commended Prime Minister P J Patterson for hosting ousted Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family and requested that Jamaica continue to extend her hospitality to the family, a statement from the foreign ministry said last night.

The senators - Tom Harkin and Christopher J Dodd - also praised Patterson for his "steadfast support of Haitian democracy", the statement said.

In a joint letter to the prime minister last Friday, the senators wrote, inter alia, "We were heartened by your willingness to host President Aristide and his family in your country during this difficult time. Your steadfast support of Haiti's democracy is also to be commended."

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20040330T230000-0500_57941_OBS_US_SENATORS_HAIL_PATTERSON_FOR_HOSTING_ARISTIDE.asp

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1. bravo harkin and dodd

now lets impeach bushco for it's illegal business in haiti.

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2. Indeed, it's nice to know there is a bit of integrity left somewhere

in the vast wasteland inside the beltway.

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3. Senator Chris Dodd's statement on Haiti

HAITI -- (Senate - March 02, 2004)


GPO's PDF
---
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to address, if I may, the subject matter of Haiti and the events that have occurred there over the last several days, now going back a week or more, in that country, that beleaguered nation only a few hundred miles off the southern coast of Florida.

On Sunday morning, as we now all know, the democratically elected government, the President of Haiti, was forced out of office. The armed insurrection, led by former members of the disbanded Haitian Army, and its paramilitary wing called FRAPH, made it impossible for the Aristide government to maintain public order, without assistance from the international community--international assistance that was consciously withheld, in my view.

President Aristide left Haiti on Sunday morning aboard an American aircraft. President Aristide reportedly has

GPO's PDF
gone into exile in the Central African Republic, where I am now being told he is not allowed to communicate with others outside of that country.
Members of the Black Caucus of the other body, and others who had an opportunity to speak with President Aristide yesterday, have publicly restated his claim that he was forcibly removed from Haiti by U.S. officials.

I quickly point out that Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have emphatically denied that charge. Such an allegation, if true, is extremely troubling and would be a gross violation of the laws of the U.S. and international law. Only time will tell. I presume there will be a thorough investigation to determine exactly what occurred from late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, regarding the departure and ouster of the President of Haiti, President Aristide.

Over the coming days, I believe an effort should be made to reconstruct what happened in the final 24 or 48 hours leading up to President Aristide's departure so we can resolve questions of the U.S. participation in the ouster of a democratically elected leader in this hemisphere.

Let's be clear that whether U.S. officials forcibly removed Aristide from Haiti, as he has charged, or he left voluntarily, as Secretary of Powell and others have stated, it is indisputable, based on everything we know, that the U.S. played a very direct and public role in pressuring him to leave office by making it clear that the United States would do nothing to protect him from the armed thugs who are threatening to kill him. His choice was simple: Stay in Haiti with no protection from the international community, including the U.S., and be killed or you can leave the country. That is hardly what I would call a voluntary decision to leave.

I will point out as well, if I can--and I know that international agreements are not always thought of as being terribly important in some people's minds. But in 1991, President Bush, the 41st President, along with other nations in this hemisphere, had signed the Santiago Declaration of 1991. That declaration, authored by the Organization of American States, said that any nation, democratically elected in this hemisphere, that seeks the help of others when they are threatened with an overthrow should be able to get that support.

Ten years later, the Inter-American Charter on Democracy was signed into law, a far more comprehensive proposal, again authored by the Organization of American States, the U.S. supporting. The present President Bush and our administration supported that. That charter on democracy stated that when asked for help by a democratically elected government being threatened with overthrow, we should respond.

President Aristide, a democratically elected President made that request and, of course, not only did we not provide assistance, in fact we sat back and watched as he left the country, offering assistance for him to depart.

I cite those international agreements because we think of our Nation as being a nation of laws, not of men. These agreements either meant something or they didn't. The Santiago Declaration and the Inter-American Charter on Democracy, apparently both documents mean little or nothing when it comes to supporting democratically elected governments in this hemisphere--not ones that you necessarily like or agree with or find everything they do is in your interest, but we do adhere to the notion that democratically elected governments are what we support in this hemisphere.

When they are challenged by violent thugs, people with records of violent human rights violations, engaged in death squad activity, in the very country they are now moving back

into and threatened, of course, successfully the elected government of President Aristide, then I think it is worthy of note that we have walked away from these international documents signed only 3 years ago and 10 years ago.

There is no doubt, I add, that President Aristide has made significant mistakes during his 3 years in office--these last 3 years. He allowed his supporters to use violence as a means of controlling a growing opposition movement against his government. The Haitian police were ill trained and ill equipped to maintain public order in the face of violent demonstrations by progovernment and antigovernment activists. Poverty, desperation, and opportunism led to wide government corruption.

President Aristide, in my view, must assume responsibility for these things. But did the cumulative effect of these failures amount to a decision that we thought we could no longer support this democratically elected government? If that becomes the standard in this hemisphere, we are going to find ourselves sitting by and watching one democratically elected government after another fall to those that breed chaos and remove governments with which they don't agree. They are being told by the Bush administration now that the Haitian Government was a government of failed leadership. That is a whole new standard when it comes to engaging in the kind of activity we have seen over the last several days.

Having been critical of President Aristide, I point out that he was elected twice overwhelmingly in his country. He was thrown out of office in a coup in the early 1990s. Through the efforts of the U.S. Government and others, he was brought back to power in Haiti. Then he gave up power when the government of President Preval was elected. During those 4 years, President Aristide supported that transitional government. He ran again himself, as the Haitian Constitution allowed, and was elected overwhelmingly again, despite the fact the opposition posed little or no efforts to stand against him.

There was a very bad election that occurred in the spring of 2000, in which eight members of the Haitian Senate were elected by fraud. Those Senators were removed from office. Six months later, President Aristide was elected overwhelmingly again. It is the first time I know of in the 200-year history of Haiti as an independent nation where a President turned over power transitionally peacefully to another democratically elected government. Whatever other complaints there are--and they are not illegitimate about the Aristide government--there was a peaceful transition of democratically elected governments in Haiti. That never, ever happened before. What has happened there repeatedly is one coup after another--33 over the 200-year history of that nation.

Whatever shortcomings they may have had, President Aristide provided for the first time in Haiti's history a democratically elected government transitioning power to other people peacefully. I will also point out that he abolished the military and the army, an institution that did nothing but drain the feeble economy of Haiti of necessary resources.

Haiti did not have a need for an army. There were no threats to Haiti. In retrospect, he may regret that. But the army, in my view, was a waste of money in Haiti, served no legitimate purpose, and President Aristide should be

commended for abolishing an institution that had been the source of constant corruption and difficulty on that nation.

Blame for the chaos does not rest solely on the shoulders of President Aristide. The so-called democratic opposition bears a share of the responsibility for the death and destruction that has wreaked havoc throughout Haiti over the past several weeks.

The members of CARICOM, with U.S. backing, put on the table a plan calling for the establishment of a unity government to defuse the political crisis. The opposition rejected this proposal on three different occasions, despite the fact that President Aristide said he was willing to have a government of unity, to give up power, to share governmental functions with the opposition. The opposition said no on three different occasions, despite the fact that the nations of the Caribbean region urged the opposition to avoid the kind of transition that we have seen over the last several days.

A hundred or more Haitians already have lost their lives. Property damage may be in the millions. Given the direct role the U.S. played in the removal of the Aristide government, it is now President Bush's responsibility, in my view, and moral obligation to take charge of this situation. That means more than sending a couple hundred marines for 90 days or so into Haiti. Rather, it means a sustained commitment of personnel and resources for the

GPO's PDF
foreseeable future by the U.S. and other members of the international community that called for the removal of the elected government.
If the Bush administration and others inside and outside of Haiti had been at all concerned over the last 3 weeks about the fate of the Haitian people, perhaps the situation would not have deteriorated into near anarchy, nor would the obligation of the U.S. to clean up this mess now loom so large.

We are now reaping what we have sown. Three years of a hands-off policy left Haiti unstable, with a power vacuum that will be filled in one way or another. Will that vacuum be filled by individuals such as Guy Philippe, a former member of the disbanded Haitian Army, a notorious human rights abuser and drug trafficker, or is the administration prepared to take action against him and his followers, based upon a long record of criminal behavior?

It is rather amazing to this Senator that the administration has said little or nothing about its plans for cracking down on the armed thugs who have terrorized Haiti since February 5.

Only with careful attention by the United States and the international community does Haiti have a fighting chance to break from its tragic history. In the best of circumstances, it is never easy to build and nurture democratic institutions where they are weak and nonexistent. When ignorance, intolerance, and poverty are part of the very fabric of a nation, as is the case in Haiti, it is Herculean.

Given the mentality of the political elites in Haiti--one of winner take all--I, frankly, believe it is going to be extremely difficult to form a unity government that has any likelihood of being able to govern for any period of time without resorting to repressive measures against those who have been excluded from the process.

It brings me no pleasure to say at this juncture that Haiti is failing, if not a failed state. The United Nations Security Council has authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Haiti to stabilize the situation. I would go a step further and urge the Haitian authorities to consider sharing authority with an international administration authorized by the United Nations in order to create the conditions necessary to give any future Government of Haiti a fighting chance at succeeding. The United States must lead in this multinational initiative, as Australia did, I might point out, in the case of East Timor; not as Secretary Defense Rumsfeld suggested yesterday: Wait for someone else to step up to the plate to take the lead. It will require substantial, sustained commitment of resources by the United States and the international community if we are to be successful.

The jury is out as to whether the Bush administration is prepared to remain engaged in Haiti. Only in the eleventh hour did Secretary of State Colin Powell focus his attention on Haiti as he personally organized the pressure which led to President Aristide's resignation on Sunday. Unless Secretary Powell is equally committed to remaining engaged in the rebuilding of that country, then I see little likelihood that anything is going to change for the Haitian people. The coming days and weeks will tell whether the Bush administration is as concerned about strengthening and supporting democracy in our own hemisphere as it claims to be in other more distant places around the globe. The people of this hemisphere are watching and waiting.

I yield the floor
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4. THE SITUATION IN HAITI -- (Senate - March 04, 2004)Harkin

THE SITUATION IN HAITI -- (Senate - March 04, 2004)Harkin


THE SITUATION IN HAITI -- (Senate - March 04, 2004)


---
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.

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