US Sponsored Coup d'Etat: The Destabilization of Haiti by Michel Chossudov

[Dirk39]

Double standards

The White House has called into question Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's "fitness to continue to govern his country". According to the official White House statement released one day before Aristide's departure for the Dominican Republic:

"His failure to adhere to democratic principles has contributed to the deep polarization and violent unrest that we are witnessing in Haiti today... His own actions have called into question his fitness to continue to govern Haiti. We urge him to examine his position carefully, to accept responsibility, and to act in the best interests of the people of Haiti"

Now should we not apply the same standards to President George W. Bush who has lied to the American people, violated international law and waged a criminal based on a fabricated pretext?

This article was written in the last days of February 2004 in response to the barrage of disinformation in the mainstream media. It was completed on February 29th, the day of President Jean Bertrand Aristide's departure in exile.


The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Aristide on February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation.

The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in early February. It constitutes a well armed, trained and equipped paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l'avancement et le progrès d'Haiti (FRAPH), the "plain clothes" death squadrons, involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide

The self-proclaimed Front pour la Libération et la reconstruction nationale (FLRN) (National Liberation and Reconstruction Front) is led by Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian Armed Forces and Police Chief. Philippe had been trained during the 1991 coup years by US Special Forces in Ecuador, together with a dozen other Haitian Army officers. (See Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, 24 February 2004).


Haitian rebel leader Guy Philippe

The two other rebel commanders and associates of Guy Philippe, who led the attacks on Gonaives and Cap Haitien are Emmanuel Constant, nicknamed "Toto" and Jodel Chamblain, both of whom are former Tonton Macoute and leaders of FRAPH.


Former FRAPH leader Louis Jodel Chamblain (Left)

The whole article:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[MasonJar]

1. I consider Georgie incapable of running our country. But where

would we send him? The whole world despises him.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks so much for this well-researched article.

It's excellent. Also, helpful to finally see photos of two of the fiendish U.S. supported true fiends in the Haitian dilemna, LFC, and Guy Philippe.

Here's another article which has been shared by a DU'er in another forum:

(snip) March 1, 2004

Haiti as Target Practice
How the US Press Missed the Story
By HEATHER WILLIAMS

Now that bodies are littering the streets of Cap Haitien and Port Au Prince, major print news outlets have seen well enough to send a handful of cameramen and correpondents to send back news of the crisis. Even so, the campaign of violence that has finally ousted Haitian President Aristide has been investigated and reported to the American public with appalling indolence. The official reasoning appears to be that if Haiti is the hemisphere's eternal basket case-a dismal repository of poverty where there is no future-- how on earth could its past possibly matter?

But those who view Haiti's current violence as merely one of an eternal humanitarian crisis in temporary overdrive miss the story. It is no simple tale of a corrupt regime collapsing under the weight of popular anger and bad management. A cursory glance at events of the last fourteen years suggests that the fall of the Aristide regime was a foregone conclusion at the entrance of President George W. Bush and the installation of a cabal of appointees with a grim record of utilizing official and covert channels to destabilize uncooperative governments in the Western Hemisphere. What is immediately ominous about the current crisis in Haiti is the likely prospect that leaders of armed groups making a final assault on the capital will play important roles in a post-Aristide order. Such armed groups include the Tontons Macoutes, the gunmen who viciously supervised repression under both father and son Duvaliers' dictatorships until 1986. They also include members of the disbanded Haitian army that held power for three years following the coup against President Aristide in 1991, and the FRAPH death squads that mowed down the ranks of democratic civil society during that period, leaving over 3,000 dead and thousands more in exile. What is also now worrisome about this crisis is what it likely indicates about the intentions of the U.S. State Department and security apparatus elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Now that Aristide's government, protected by a flimsy police force and a smattering of civilian gangs, has collapsed, quiet references in news stories and opinion pieces suggest that editors are wishing that perhaps they had a few more questions along the way about what indeed was going on in Haiti. Notably, until mid-February of this year The New York Times instructed its readers, for weeks on end, with no evidence whatsoever, that the armed groups referred to generically and occasionally quite sympathetically as "rebels" represent a home-grown anti-Aristide opposition. For weeks the New York Tinmes used AP and Reuters dispatches to present the Haitian crisis as one simply of domestic protest and unrest. It wasn't until February 15 that the NYT's own reporter, Lydia Polgreen bothered to mention that the group marching on Gonaïves known a the Cannibal Army was led by "sinister figures from past," including the infamous Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a soldier who led death squads in the 1980s through the mid-1990s and was convicted in absentia for his involvement in the murder of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. Also unexplored by the same reporters were reports that the groups terrorizing Gonaïves had come from across the border, from the Dominican Republic. Given this knowledge, it is curious that no reporter then bothered to inquire how these groups obtained ample caches of brand-new M-16s, M-60s, armor piercing weapons, all-terrain vehicles, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers-equipment far beyond the reach of the Haiti's own impecunious security forces.
(snip)

The point is not that the public has been lied to by the government. Governments lie, particularly this administration. The point is that even those on the left who are indignant about systematic misinformation elsewhere have not bothered to jog their memories on Haiti to smell the sulfur emanating from this episode,. The press apparatus reporting on the Caribbean is either too broken or too racist to remember that Haiti's anguish is connected to forces quite beyond poor judgment or even bad will by President Aristide. The ease with which armed thugs have upended a civilian regime, eliciting only murmurs of disquiet from onlookers abroad who ought to know better is cause for worry. Surely zealots in charge of U.S. foreign policy have taken note. If it's this easy to destabilize Haiti , Cuba will unquestionably appear a more viable target for direct intervention in the not-so-distant future.(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/williams03012004.html