Tiniore or someone else: I need help with this Haiti issue

[WilliamPitt]

I got your thread, Tinoire, about what is happening. Great info. I am still trying to get my hands around a reason why. Why would the Bushies engineer a coup in Haiti? They do nothing unless there is an angle that helps them. What's the angle here? Embarrassing France?

Can you help? I will be exploding with gratitude. Ditto for anyone else who can help me.

[Renew Deal]

1. There were many threads last night asking this.

Look through GD for Haiti threads. Also look in LBN. There is some there. Tinoire was on the job last night.

[molly]

2. WHOA - I've missed all of this!

[Stephanie]

3. Here is my thread asking for info about this, posts by Tinoire & others

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1174190

[bicentennial_baby]

4. Threads from this weekend

Lots of info here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1179989

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1178317

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1178168

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1177871

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1174190

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1164652

[anarchy1999]

5. Will - call Stan Goff

all the info you need.

also see Amy Goodman, NarcoNews and GuerillaNews, Al Giordano......

Start with Stan, and CounterPunch.org

[anarchy1999]

17. From Tinoire earlier:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1178317

re: Stan Goff

I think if you get to talk with him you will find him to be much like Ritter.

[CWebster]

6. US can't abide that commie liberation theology

or refusal to privatize for international corps to loot, or buddying up to Castro as an alternative to what Kucinich refers to as predatory capitalism.

[MSchreader]

7. France went along with Bush on this one

That unanimous vote in the UNSC made that clear.

I thought of two reasons why Haiti would be important to the PNAC agenda: 1) Haiti provides an excellent base of operations for an invasion of Cuba (the recent anti-Cuba articles in the press seem to indicate that a move against the Revolution is coming). 2) most shipping traffic between Central America/Caribbean and Europe/Africa has to pass near Haiti; if the U.S. wanted to cut off trade between Europe/Africa and Central America/Caribbean, Haiti would be the place to stage a blockade fleet.

Martin

[CaptainClark23]

19. Staging area

Not to question your overall theory, but can you please answer:

"1) Haiti provides an excellent base of operations for an invasion of Cuba"

A Better base of operations than Florida?!

[MSchreader]

22. Check out the map

The northern tip of Haiti is only a few miles from Guantanamo Bay and the eastern coast of Cuba. And all of those areas are in the hands of the neo-Duvalieristes.

Martin

[PVnRT]

41. An interesting point

Encirclement, just like we did to the Soviets during the Cold War.

[Jose Diablo]

48. Then it is a military strategy move?

Makes sense.

Actually though, why would military need Haiti for a overthrow of Cuba. Direct frontal assault is more..uh..direct.

Is Cuba the final objective? Hmmm...no oil in Cuba, Venezuela makes more sense to me.

A threat maybe to Venezuela?

[bigtree]

53. There were reports that Venezuela was going to send a force in initially

[MSchreader]

58. Haiti's a staging area

You can put a lot of Marines on that northern peninsula.

As for Cuba, it doesn't have oil, but it has oil refineries and processes most of the crude from Venezuela that is not shipped to the U.S.

Personally, I think it's a threat to both Cuba and Venezuela.

Martin

[never cry wolf]

57. Can you say squeezed?

If Cuba is part of the goal a two pronged attack and pincers movement could be strategically set up between florida and haiti.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Possibly revisit the first coup that deposed Aristide...

... in the early 1990's. He was re-installed with help from US forces shortly thereafter, but I have heard many leftist historians and analysts (i.e. Noam Chomsky) state that he was reinstalled only after he had been sufficiently "gelded" by the ruling class into abandoning hope of truly progressive reform.

It might be a good place to start, to make sense of the current events. Then again, maybe not.... :shrug:

[Loonman]

9. Aristide

When Aristide
was first elected, and when he was restored to power
in 1991 by Clinton, he was a good leader. Good in
that he stood up for the poor and tried to eliminate
the thug contingent from Haitian politics and life at
large. As time went by, he gained money, influence
and power, and wonder of wonders, he began fostering
corruption and started to chip away at the country's
tiny middle class.

Aristide had run on all sorts of promises, both
to the poor, and to the island at large in terms of
basic services and infrastructure. The money he got,
from taxes and international aid, most likely went
right into his pocket. As of yesterday, Aristide was
the richest man in Haiti. Not wanting to let go of
his power, Aristide rigged the 2000 election(like
somebody else we know).

In Haiti, crime is rampant, and rule of law is
pretty much non-existent. There is a lack of fresh
water, food, clean hospitals, roads, reliable phones,
reliable electricity, you name it, and it's going
wrong in Haiti.

Armed insurrection is usually not the best way
remove a corrupt leader, but the rebels, whomever they
may be, probably had a very good reason, were mad as
hell and would not take it anymore.

How do I know so much about Haiti? I talk to
Haitians. Every single one of them said Aristide is a
crappy president, and if they spoke out aginst
Aristide in Haiti, they would be arrested, killed or
both.

When a leader is democratically elected, it
doesn't automatically assume that he/she is a good
leader. In this case, the best thing that could
happen was for Aristide to resign. Now, maybe things
will begin to improve.

[Bozita]

10. Here's a good quickie history -- 2 minute listen

posted by mac2 in FA/NS:

Haiti n a nut shell by Progressive Radio

Here's link to Progressive Radio commentary about current events.

Link: http://www.progressive.org/radio/radiolink.html#anchorpointofview

Go down to the MP3 piece about Haiti. I

t says it all in a short clip. You won't hear this on CSPAN or FOX.
Congresswomen Lee and Walters were on about it yesterday. Powell and Bush refuse to answer their calls. Previously, they invited them to the White House to talk about it. Now..they like the UN get the cold shoulder. Ya..that's a good way to manage a Dictatorship.

[Webster Green]

11. More good links for Haiti info.......

http://www.flashpoints.net/

http://www.blackcommentator.org/

http://www.haitiaction.net/

http://www.haitiaction.net/HidFrame.html

[madrchsod]

12. the only thing i

can think of is the old standard-follow the money. why did bush withhold funds all these years? Cuban oil? Venezuelan oil? maybe the operation got out of control. gay marriage-which alot of people fell for. now this week what a great statesman george is. it`s the talking point of the week? more question so little answers...
i thought you were going to explode last night.....

[dweller]

13. Occam's razor

next stop, Venuzuela.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x392149

:shrug:

dp

[G_j]

14. I've heard the assertion

that the US does not want a Haiti without a significant army, since that has been our traditional foot in the door.

Here as an article that I first stumbled upon that made me think something was up.


http://www.pih.org/inthenews/021230farmersmithoped.htm

Unjust embargo deepens Haiti's health crisis

op-ed by Dr. Paul Farmer and Mary C. Smith Fawzi
Boston Globe , December 30, 2002

[papau]

20. Police force that did nothing is now in control of rebels - and Colin

says police force will now be "strenghened"

Sure seems they were taking orders from the US from the beginning.

Nor should one forget that the Reason former Pres was "bad" was both lack of police effort to bring law and order, plus lack of spending on infrastructure - the World Bank approved 500 million never got to Haiti because the US blocked the monies.

Meanwhile moving 300 folks with some of the latest arms across the border INTO Haiti would not have been possible without Dom. Rep. being told to look the other way - and who do we think told them to look the other way?

[mac2]

29. The police force and army had been disbanded to prevent

further coups. They were defenseless on every front.

[papau]

31. The Army was disbanded - The police existed and still exist and control

- now - but did not resist rebels before - strange.

[Cooley Hurd]

45. CNN showing video uniformed poilice officer...

...pistol-whipping chlidren in one of the slums, but CNN hasn't said anything about the incident. They've played it as part of a video montage of violence in Port-Au-Prince since the rebels arrived.

[G_j]

35. what did they really mean?

"After the presidential election of November 2000 (widely recognized as free and fair), the funds were to be released, but the Bush administration used its veto power to continue to block release of funds on the grounds that

>>Haiti has not demonstrated an adequate commitment to governing the country in a democratic manner<<

-objections not heard during the long years of dictatorship."

I believe the reason that was given was concerns over local elections. But I read that this subsequently was adequately addressed by the president.
Obviously there was another reason. The blocking of loans and aid then weakened the country to the point of recent events.

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. Could be strategic, to move on Cuba and/or Venezuela, but Aristide's

constant attempts to raise the minimum wage were seen as an imminent threat to US business interests and investors.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. It's that old scorpion story.

You know the one: "Why did you sting me?" "Because it's my nature."

Every few years the US feels the need to flex those Monroe Doctrine muscles. The why isn't as important as the where: the Caribbean has long been held to be America's bathwater, and all the island states just bath toys.

Hell, why wouldn't the Bushistas support a coup? It's cheap (100 or so marines, no likely casualties), it can be done on the fly, former colonial master France is onside (so no exacerbation of the trans-Atlantic rift), it rids the hemisphere of a troublesome leftist regime, and it gives notice to more serious regional challenges to Yankee power, like Chavez and Fidel.

And intervention in Haiti is so habit forming:

1891
Troops
A worker revolt on US-claimed Navassa Island defeated.

1914-34
Troops, bombing
19-year Marine occupation after revolts.

1957-1991
"During the Duvalier family dictatorship -- Francois "Papa Doc",
1957-71, followed by Jean-Claude "Baby Doc", 1971-86, both
anointed President for Life by papa -- the United States trained
and armed Haiti's counter-insurgency forces, although most
American military aid to the country was covertly channeled
through Israel, thus sparing Washington embarrassing questions
about supporting brutal governments. After Jean-Claude was forced
into exile in February 1986, fleeing to France aboard a US Air
Force jet, Washington resumed open assistance. And while Haiti's
wretched rabble were celebrating the end of three decades of
Duvalierism, the United States was occupied in preserving it under
new names.

...

"From the mid-1980s until at least the 1991 coup, key members of
Haiti's military and political leadership were on the CIA's
payroll. These payments were defended by Washington officials and
a congressman on the House Intelligence Committee as being a
normal and necessary part of gathering intelligence in a foreign
country. This argument, which has often been used to defend
CIA bribery, ignores the simple reality (illustrated repeatedly in
this book) that payments bring more than information, they bring
influence and control; and when one looks at the anti-democratic
and cruelty levels of the Haitian military during its period of
being bribees, one has to wonder what the CIA's influence was."
From William Blum's Killing Hope, http://members.aol.com/bblum6/haiti2.htm

1994-96
Troops, naval
Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.

2004
Troops
President Aristide kidnapped by American forces and flown to unwilling exile as marines arrive to "restore order."

[salin]

18. Good article (not on why - but some of the how)

from Taipaitimes (written, I believe, by a Columbia U. professor)

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/03/01/2003100742

[Dover]

21. So who is Group 184?

food for thought

(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

[Oilwellian]

23. Here's a good article

With links to sources.

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4977

[Lone_Wolf]

24. Cheap Labor

These essays put it all into perspective for me. It's mostly about cheap labor for US Corporations based in Haiti.

Noam Chomsky Essay

Husayn Al-Kurdi Essay

[Bozita]

38. Look at THIS! -- $1.07 for a 10.5 hour workday

Jane Eyre (1000+ posts) Sun Feb-29-04 11:21 PM
Response to Original message
18. Baseballs

Nearly all baseballs are made in Haiti. That is why Bush is interested.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/065.html

U.S. companies imported over 2.5 million pounds of baseballs from Haiti between October 1993 and February 1994, long after a military coup overthrew President Aristide. Many of these baseballs are purchased directly by the U.S. government.

A leading producer of baseballs and softballs, Home of Champions, has repeatedly met attempts to organize a union at their plants with illegal firings, according to the labor committee. Workers at Home of Champions are paid $1.07 for a 10.5 hour day. In a letter to President Clinton signed by 24 union presidents, the National Committee called for a total commercial embargo of Haiti, ending the loophole for the assembly industry, closing the border with the Dominican Republic and blocking all air traffic. . .

Despite official support in Washington for sanctions, two new companies - Eddie Haggar of Dallas, Texas and Fisman and Tobin, headquartered in Florida - began exporting from Haiti within the last four months.

Very little of the profit of these export companies actually stays in Haiti. According to AID, 85 percent of every dollar profit from assembly operations goes to the United States.

[Lone_Wolf]

39. The evil side of baseball...

According to Chomsky:

...Haiti, a starving island, is exporting food to the US-about 35 times as much under Clinton as it did under Bush. Baseballs are coming along nicely. They're produced in US-owned factories where the women who make them get 10¢ an hour-if they meet their quota. Since meeting the quota is virtually impossible, they actually make something like 5¢ an hour.

Softballs from Haiti are advertised in the US as being unusually good because they're hand-dipped into some chemical that makes them hang together properly. The ads don't mention that the chemical the women hand dip the balls into is toxic and that, as a result, the women don't last very long at this work.

Read about it here.

[seabeyond]

25. tell me where i am wrong

what i have gathered to this point, and knowing this is info fed, so who is to know, and there is more out there.

i understand that in aristride being put back in there in 91? they didnt follow thru which i knew at the time and a biggie they didnt do was help the infrastructure of an educational system. that would have helped. sristride was known to be taking the money and pocketing it. he was not loved. huge corruption. possible election fraud in 2000. bush didnt send humanitarian aide for whatever reason. but what a waste seeing it went to aristride anyway. one of the rebel leaders has a wife in the u.s. and i saw one report these are drug traffickers, contradiction and who knows.

and the news is saying he resigned not was ushered out in handcuffs, contradiction.

this is my point though, with the info i have gathered and listening to reasoning on bush doing a coup part of the responsibility in being a party, that i dont find in republican party, is not just yelling hate and the most extreme, impeach he did a coup, before we really know what is up

as a business person, as a parent, this wouldnt be a responsible way of handling a situation. wouldnt we rather be a person of reason

i dont know what has happened in haiti, yet i am open to all everyone is saying. and may not be anything, and it may be something. there is plenty on bush for sure.

shouldnt we be factual even if it is clinton didnt finish this job. arent we more believable if we are honest then can be heard when we say, clinton had info on bin laden adn bush didnt follow thru

[Loonman]

26. Aristide took the money and DID NOTHING

Talk to some Haitians about the quality of life under Aristide.

[mac2]

28. And wasn't allowed to.....

[not systems]

34. I heard a radio show that polled Haitian americans...

20% supported Bush's policy.

There was a 50-50 split on removing Aristide with
younger english speakers favoring removal and older
people favoring him staying.

The analysis said older people remember the former regime
so thought Aristide as a improvement.

The younger people looked back on the Baby Doc with
rose colored glasses.

The show was "UpFront with Sandip Roy" on KALW sunday at 3.

I don't think it is archived but maybe somewhere.

[DoYouEverWonder]

50. What money?

the repug Congress refused to give him any.

Add that to keeping the embargo on and how the hell was Aristide supposed to rebuild his country?

[mac2]

30. You are wrong....

and Clinton was mislead by the CIA regarding Bin Laden being where they said, he was. They wanted Clinton to fail.

They called it poltical when he/Gore wanted more security at airports, stop the off-shore money flow to terrorist groups, more money for intellence agents, etc.

[mac2]

27. Search under Haiti on DU and read the posted articles...

There's a short MP3 piece about Haiti that sums it up. Posted above also.

LinK http://www.progressive.org/radio/radiolink.html#anchorpointofview

Go down the page to the article about Haiti.

Black Commentator web site also had good pieces about it. I haven't checked it this morning.

[JCMach1]

32. No, it's about WINNING FLORIDA...

Haiti was in crisis... of that, there is no doubt. I think Bush has engineered to coup to keep the endless images of ships off miami on the evening news. Another massive influx of refugees would be terrible for Bush's chances in Florida. Also, there is real dislike between the
Cuban and Haitian communities in South Florida. You know very well how much influence the Republicans of that constitiuency have over the Bush administration.

[seabeyond]

33. this makes sense

:thumbsup:

[jpak]

40. Yup - This has Rove's slimey fingerprints all over it

If they allowed the crisis to fester they ran the risk of a massive Haitian boat-lift to Florida.

They had to act decisively to nip this in the bud.

These people will stop at nothing to reelect the Chimp.

Democracy? Who needs it...

[Cooley Hurd]

44. What have the Haitian-Americans been saying publicly?

If there's animosity between the Cuban-Americans and the Haitian-Americans, what is the Bush admin's motive? Wouldn't this piss off the Cuban-Americans politically?

[JCMach1]

46. No, the general attitude would be to stop them from coming

I know it doesn't make sense, but that's repugs for you.


Please note, there are also MANY good Democratic Cubans...

[Cooley Hurd]

51. Your right... It makes "repug sense"

Scotty McClellan on now...

[seabeyond]

36. abducted....now on cnn

say in small room, cell phone smuggled into room. talking on phone to i dont know who. saying 20 soldiers abducted him. some place in africa.

[Cooley Hurd]

42. Charlie Rangel said on CNN...

...that Aristide is no longer under US military control. He has access to land lines & Rangel has Aristides' ph # now and gave it to Wolf Blitzer. Wolf says he will call Aristide shortly...

[seabeyond]

43. had to pick up child

so i didnt see that. thanks for info all

[nannygoat]

37. I think it may have to do with Clinton and setting us up for the long

haul in Iraq. First, I think they want Clinton to look bad because this "nation-building" happened under his watch and then they can say "Look, Clinton wasn't successful." Second, something somebody said yesterday on "This week with George Steph" caught my attention. Basically, they were saying, "See you need to stay in for the long haul or look what can happen."

I know these both sound ridiculous and vindictive but remember who we're dealing with (the evil * cabal)--these are some mean, spiteful, vindictive SOBs who don't care what happens to the little people--they just want theirs...

[morgan2]

47. there is a story in

I think the Boston Globe. Its one of the Boston papers, about how Haiti is a large stepping stone on the drug trade from Columbia to the United States.

[Zan_of_Texas]

76. Haiti is a way station in drug trafficking from Colombia

Something like $1 billion goes through there. The annual federal budget of Haiti is something like $300 million.

Drug money reportedly funding Haiti fighting
U.S. says island nation a key stop on cocaine highway

By Gary Marx and Cam Simpson, Tribune staff reporters. Gary Marx reported from Port-au-Prince and Cam Simpson from Washington

February 29, 2004
Chicago Tribune
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0402290254feb29,1,1003444.story>

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- <snip>

But experts and diplomats say several of the top rebel leaders are former military and police officials who are suspected of major human-rights violations while in power and who allegedly have financed their insurgency with past profits from the illegal drug trade. That puts the would-be leaders on similar footing with the government of embattled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who U.S. officials and others say has allowed Haiti to become one of the region's most significant transit points for Colombian cocaine on its way to the United States.

<snip>Over the years, rampant corruption among police also has taken its toll. As residents of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, Haitian police and other law-enforcement officials have become easy targets for bribe-offering drug cartels, American officials said. "They were all on the payrolls," one senior U.S. law-enforcement official said, adding, "There's nothing else to be involved in there if you want money." <snip> Haiti's state institutions have long been weak because of the nation's devastated economy. And its now-crumbling police force and much of its political elite have been tainted by the cocaine trade, according to U.S. officials, experts and others. For two decades, Colombian drug lords have used money and power to turn the island nation into a virtual base of operations, using its isolated beaches and even highways as landing strips to off-load cocaine later shipped to U.S. shores.

<snip>
Bagley said drug trafficking flourished in Haiti until 1994, when 20,000 U.S. troops invaded the island and ousted a military government that three years earlier had forced Aristide into exile. Aristide, who was the island nation's first democratically elected president, was returned to power. The presence of U.S. forces forced Colombian traffickers to switch their shipment route through Mexico. But increased law enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border coupled with bloody fights among rival cartels shifted the trade back to Haiti by 2000, Bagley said.

In a report last September, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration described Haiti as one of the region's "most significant trans-shipment countries" for Colombian cocaine on its way to the United States. The report also said a "significant amount of heroin and marijuana" are smuggled through Haiti. The DEA said Haiti's attractiveness to South American drug lords rests in its strategic location, its uncontrolled borders and lengthy coastlines, along with a "lack of law-enforcement resources." Haiti has no army and its police force has about 3,500 members. "Drug traffickers have a virtual field day in Haiti," Bagley said.

[SoCalDem]

49. We did the same thing in the Dominican Republic

This is a dry run for Venezuela, I fear..

I know about the DR issue, because my father was one of the guys who went in and "changed the government".. It's the pattern they use.. It worked throughout Central America.. Leaders are fragile there because of the poverty.. as long as they play ball with the US, we prop them up.. as soon as they start to think for themselves, we take them out, and install a new one..

My father taught at the School of the Americas when it was in Panama, and a list of the places he went in the middle of the nigth, speaks volumes.. Chile, Dominican Republic, Peru, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela and probably a lot that we never knew..
He was also involved in the Bay of Pigs..

He would get a call , pack his stuff and we would not see him for a month or more sometimes..

Manuel Noriega was one of his "students"..:(

This is the underbelly of our "government"..they one we never show the voters here at home :(

[corporatewhore]

52. imo to send a message to chavez

[RaulGroom]

54. You have to step back to see the big picture

As some others have done, I would lustily recommend Stan Goff's Hideous Dream for a really excellent treatment of Clinton's countercoup and its failings, which laid the groundwork for the current crisis. Loonman is a RW shill, but a lot of what he says is true. It's just he's omitting the context that you will have if you read Goff's book, which is a rollicking good read besides being of critical importance in understanding the Haitian coup.

This isn't something that can be explained well in a post or even a long feature-length article. This is "great game" stuff and we all need to spend some time looking into the situation in the Caribbean theatre; it's complex and volatile, and one it's coming to a head right now.

That said, here's my current understanding of the situation (subject to revision, of course, once I have more facts.)

American dominance of the region has been almost complete since World War II, but in the last decade or so a lot of countries have started to slip through our fingers. Most of the countries are small and not that significant, but all together the problem is starting to loom very large.

The big keystone is of course Venezuela, with Cuba acting as a sort of "university nation" turning out skilled people who have experience working within a socialist structure and exporting them to Venezuela to help build the Bolivarian system, which is emerging as a big threat to basically take over South America in the wake of the failure of the industrial export capitalist system that we had been trying to impose via IMF/WB/WTO.

The U.S. planners obviously feel they have to stop this. Unfortunately for them, since Reagan's Iran/Contra adventure it has become much harder for us to exercise control over the region with our old methods - basically, train and arm a mercenary force and send them in to overthrow the government, a la the Nicaraguan contras, who were recruited and trained mostly in Guatemala and El Salvador (which had already gotten this treatment decades before.)

The other choice is to finance opposition groups in country and get them to do it; the problem is that these types of groups don't generally bring the proper brutality to bear on the population. That's why the Venezuelan coup failed - before you attempt something like what the Venezuelan opposition tried, you have to have a sustained terrorist campaign against the local population so that they will be too weak and frightened to resist.

In Haiti, so close to the U.S. mainland, we were able to pull off the old model and thus had a successful coup. Now we'll install a military dictatorship with some sort of pseudodemocratic fig leaf on top of it, and we can then use Haiti as a recruiting ground for whatever the next invasion is going to be, probably Cuba.

So "cheap labor" is kind of correct. But the "labor" is in fact warmaking - we need dark faces to send to war in the region, and Haiti, completely poverty-stricken, is a perfect place to recruit mercenary terrorists.

It's not so much that Haiti itself is important, but think of it like a game of Risk. You can't take on the big battles until you've attended to the small problems in your position. So you take over Kamchatka or whatever which has one enemy army on it that could never be a threat to you - you do it as a strategic preparation for a larger conflict.

We're merely starting in the places where we feel we'll be most likely to succeed. You don't engage your enemy on his turf unless you have to. You engage him where you have the advantage. Thus we're going to lock down all the easy targets in Central America and the Caribbean while doing our best to destabilize the hostile Bolivarian democracies to the south. Then we take out Cuba, cutting Venezuela off from its source of skilled labor and intellectuals, and then go for the big prize - a U.S.-backed puppet government in Venezuela, with the rest of the region falling into line after that.

This may seem too grand and strategic, but this is how these PNAC folks think. Sort of Sun Tsu meets Charles Manson. Scary stuff, but big-time power politics is not nursery school.

This is why you see all the saber-rattling from Chavez right now. He sees the situation for what it is - I think Hugo may be the sharpest political leader on the planet since the retirement of Bill Clinton. He may actually be smarter than Clinton, but it's hard for me to compare because I don't speak Spanish (yet.) Chavez is trying to make Bush angry enough to make some sort of move before the table is really set, because he thinks (correctly) that Venezuela would have a better chance defending itself today than it will in 2 years with bands of Central American and Caribbean terrorists roaming the streets and killing people.

So that's it in a nutshell. Haiti is just a jumping-off point. Cuba is the immediate goal, with Venezuela the ultimate target.

[never cry wolf]

62. Excellent post RaulGroom

I wonder if the drug trafficing could be a side benefit as well, not only a pool of local mercinaries but self financed as well.

I was going to welcome you to DU based upon your post count but you have been here since August. You should post more, you certainly have something to offer.

[KoKo]

69. Raul has some excellent articles in the DU Archives on Front Page,

if you want to read more of his work. :-)'s He's had quite a few "Front Pagers."

[RaulGroom]

70. I would like to post more

But I have an unhealthy relationship with message boards, so I generally avoid them. If you like my ramblings, though, you can catch them from time to time on my blog raulgroom.blogspot.com or on DU's front page. I hope to have something coming out this week on Dean's departure from the race.

[Suspicious]

63. Thank you.

As the previous poster said, excellent.

[Fleshdancer]

67. that was a very interesting, sad, scary, infuriating post.

So much for the war on terror when there are so many examples of our own government creating it.

What I don't understand is how many times do we have to create terrorists who end up using their "skills" against us before we realize that perhaps this isn't the best solution? OBL anyone? Anyone? Karma? What comes around goes around? It's a freakin' cliche for goddess sake, why can't they get it?

One of the countless problems with PNAC and their game of risk is they are unable to assess and accurately predict human behavior. Pushing a bunch of plastic toys around a big atlas for strategic planning may be cute and fun for these fuckers, but in the real world, people who are trained to kill don't always act as mindless as those plastic toys do.

[JackRiddler]

55. French wire reports Aristide taken at gunpoint

FYI

US troops 'made Aristide leave'
>From correspondents in Paris March 1, 2004
Agence France-Presse
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8833298%5E1702,00.html

HAITIAN leader Jean Bertrand Aristide was taken away from his home by US soldiers, it was claimed today.

A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told
France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out. "The American army came to take him away at two in the morning," the man
said. "The Americans forced him out with weapons."

"It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards. (Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans."

The RTL journalist who carried out the interview described the man as a "frightened old man, crouched in a corner" who said he was the "caretaker of the residence".

Aristide fled Haiti today in the face of an armed revolt. The United States has ordered Marines to the Caribbean state to help restore order.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8833298%5E1702,00.html

[LoneStarLiberal]

56. Lots of Questions, Few Answers

Yes, there is something fishy going on here. As I've posted to other threads here about Haiti and Aristide's overthrow, there's definitely some outside money behind the now-government of Guy Phillipe. You just don't show up at the Dominican border one day in snazzy new uniforms with new comm gear and nice weapons and expect everyone to agree that you're a hard-bitten rebel insurgency fighting for the average Haitian.

To date the only evidence we have of direct U.S. involvement in this overthrow is that U.S. Marines escorted President Aristide out of Haiti. I say escorted because the evidence is still pretty unclear as to whether they were protecting him or arresting him.

To paraphrase what Will said in the original post, where's the bunny? What does the CIA and/or the Bush administration have to gain from ousting Aristide and installing a bunch of former death squad baddies in his place? Where is the financial windfall for this action for the Bush administration?

To the best of my knowledge there are no concrete answers to these questions, only more questions. But if we ask the right questions long enough we will find answers to them.

The whole situation is obviously crooked. But as of today I still don't see anything more than conjecture pointing to U.S. involvement. I think it is just as plausible (because it is also conjecture) that drug interests from South America were behind the rebels.

Let's keep asking questions but don't jump on any old rumor or conjecture that comes down the pike.

[maggrwaggr]

59. Madison Smart Bell article in Harper's Jan2004

And in the January 2004 Harper's:

Letter from Haiti
Mine of Stones
With and without the spirits along the Cordon de l'Ouest
Smartt Smartt Bell

Unfortunately no link. Apparently you have to buy the magazine. :)

Or this from the Atlantic by a different author, about how one of the most notorious death-squad leaders is alive and well in NYC with the help of American "intelligence"

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2004-02-03.htm

[fishnfla]

75. Harpers article a good background read

and first whiff I had that things were in trouble over there. extreme poverty is a major issue

[Suspicious]

60. I wish this issue

had received 1/4 of the attention about a month ago, when a small group of people was trying to heighten awareness, that it is enjoying now - now that Aristide has been, once again, successfully removed from power.

I notice there are many people here who can't imagine a motivation for the U.S. funding and support of this coup. The answer can be pared down quite easily: Aristide was an independent populist leader. From the beginning, it became very clear that he would not toss the Haitian poor on the sacrificial altar for the benefit of global corporate interests and the Haitian elite. Aristide's progressive economic agenda was unacceptable. Not only was it bad for business, it was not an example the U.S. wanted to see spread.

The U.S. backed a violent coup in the 90's to rid themselves of Aristide, which then created the flood of refugees - a problem. The Clinton administration restored Aristide to power, but only under the condition that his government accept US demands for an extremely harsh neo-liberal regime, devastating the country even further. The U.S. veto on the delivery of $500 million in approved aid loans to Haiti from the Inter American Development Bank did not help a great deal, either.

Someone may have posted this previously, but if so, I missed it. It's a worthwhile read.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=5043

[G_j]

61. Dermocracy Now reporting

just caught the basics: former congressman Ron Dellams (sp?) reports that Powell indirectly let Aristide know that he would be killed if he didn't step down, the US would do nothing to stop it. Somehow this had some connection to an interview with Travis Smiley. I wish I had caught more details.

Barbara Lee & Maxine Waters also interviewed, both called this a coup. Discussion that Black Caucus was deliberately stonewalled on Haiti for some time now.


www.democracynow.org

[Isome]

64. So they can point to TWO countries...

Iraq & Haiti, where they've instituted democracy.

[bigtree]

65. A series by Kevin Pina:

Propaganda War Intensifies Against Haiti, October 30
http://www.blackcommentator.com/62/62_haiti_1.html

An increasing barrage of negative propaganda in the US media is softening the ground for an eventual power grab by the Washington-sponsored opposition in Haiti, the Democratic Convergence. In a series of press releases and articles over the past three months, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and journalists have bombarded the press to justify one common theme: violent regime change is acceptable, if not inevitable, in Haiti. The main themes of this media spin cycling through the press today should be more than familiar to those who follow Haiti in the news: politicization of the Haitian police force, Lavalas grassroots organizations cast as armed gangs, and government corruption.
____________________________________________________________________

U.S. Corporate Media Distorts Haitian Events, November 6
http://www.blackcommentator.com/63/63_haiti_2.html

Immediately after Transparency International took its turn trying to beat the Haitian government’s credibility senseless, the so-called independent voices of the US press stepped in to deliver a few more uncritical yet fatal blows. The message of these so-called independent voices was uncannily similar and nearly indistinguishable: Amiot Metayer was a demon created by the devil President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The underlying theme was that the Haitian government deserves to fall because it has brought violence on itself through its own actions. Never mind that the violence against the government is being led by Jean Tatoune, a former member of the CIA-inspired Front for Advancement and Progress in Haiti or FRAPH, who has a history of betrayal where Metayer is concerned.

___________________________________________________________________

The Bush Administration's End Game for Haiti
http://www.blackcommentator.com/67/67_pina.html

Unfortunately, to HDP’s chagrin and angst, Aristide’s popularity among the poor majority of Haitians remains intact. In a backhanded and slanted acknowledgement of this fact Paisley Dodds of Reuters wrote on November 18, “Now opponents say Aristide, who remains the country’s most popular leader, is becoming a dictator.” What Ms. Dodds fails to write is that the “opponents” she refers to include a large helping of white American citizens in the HDP who work, or have worked, for the U.S. government in Haiti.
___________________________________________________________________

Kevin Pina is a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist who has been working and living in Haiti for the past three years. He has been covering events in Haiti for the past decade and produced a documentary film entitled "Haiti: Harvest of Hope". Mr. Pina is also the Haiti Special Correspondent for the Flashpoints radio program on the Pacifica Network's flagship station KPFA in Berkeley CA.


Thursday, February 26, 2004_

05:35 Update on Haiti - Capital Under Seige: Special Correspondent Kevin Pina on the telephone from Haiti describes the situation in Port-Au-Prince and today's developments. Dennis also speaks with Quixote Center director and Haiti Reborn Project founder Eugenia Charles-Mathurin in Washington DC, who expresses the Haitian people's struggle for democracy and survival while the international community stalls and even encourages the approaching humanitarian crisis. http://www.kpfa.org/cgi-bin/gen-mpegurl.m3u?server=209.81.10.18&port=8...

Friday, February 27, 2004

Today on Flashpoints: Today on a special national edition of Flashpoints, we spend the hour on the expanding crisis in Haiti. We’ll feature a live report from our special correspondent Kevin Pina, live in Port-au-Prince, we’ll speak with Representative Barbara Lee of California, co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, we’ll speak with Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and the host of Family Lavalas on Radio Soleil in Brooklyn, along with several Haitian activists. http://www.kpfa.org/cgi-bin/gen-mpegurl.m3u?server=209.81.10.18&port=8...

[windansea]

66. check Reporters without Borders

they have lots of info and sources

Reporters sans frontieres

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 ...

[Isome]

68. And this:

Who are the police and who are the "thugs"?

After 1994, the Haitian military was disbanded, but not disarmed. A small police force—5,000 officers for a country of eight million— was trained with U.S. and international assistance. They are outgunned by criminal gangs and underpaid by the government. Today they are a prime target of the rebels. In Hinche, as in other towns, the rebels' first move was to attack the police station, kill the police, and open the jail.

The opposition speaks repeatedly of "Aristide's thugs" or the chiméres. It is true that Aristide supporters, including "thugs" recruited from the slums, have targeted opposition demonstrators and organizations that have taken anti-Aristide positions, including unions and students. The opposition also claims that the rebels are former Aristide supporters, including members of the "Cannibal Army." This claim is, at best, a misrepresentation and a half-truth, based on the strange saga of the Metayer brothers.

Amiot Metayer was the leader of a criminal gang that called itself the "Cannibal Army." Amiot Metayer and his gang supported the military from 1991-94, but his allegiance was based on profit rather than principle. For a time during Aristide's second term, he professed allegiance to Lavalas.

That allegiance ended when the Aristide government jailed Amiot Metayer for arson in July 2002. His gang broke into the jail and released him and 158 other prisoners in August 2002. After the jailbreak, Metayer and his gang first opposed the government, then supported it again. Last September, Amiot Metayer was murdered.

The gang, now led by Amiot's brother, Butter Metayer, blamed the Aristide government for Amiot's killing, and again threw its lot in with Aristide's opponents. Now the gang has changed its name from "Cannibal Army" to the "Gonaives Resistance Front." This is the gang that took over Gonaives and that now, in cooperation with the former military, is attempting to oust Aristide and take control of all Haiti.

http://www.americas.org/index.php?cp=item&item_id=13759

[windansea]

71. or this from the RW Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1159230,00.html

[bigtree]

73. Rising Stakes In Haiti as Ex-Dictator's Thugs Take Over Opposition

by Jim Lobe
February 20, 2004

The uprising began Feb 5 when a gang – called the Cannibal Army when it was allied with Aristide and later renamed the Artibonite Resistance Front (ARF) – seized the police station in Gonaives, the country's fourth largest city, and subsequently burned and looted other government offices. Several days later, another anti-Aristide gang seized the nearby town of St. Marc, which has since been retaken by government forces.

Tension in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second biggest city, has risen steadily since yet another rebel group – reportedly led by a former chief of the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Louis Jodel Chamblain – seized the Central Plateau town of Hinche after killing the police chief and two of his officers several days ago. A total of more than 50 people have been killed to date. The emergence of Chamblain, who apparently slipped across the border from the Dominican Republic where he has lived in exile for almost a decade, and several other personalities associated with FRAPH, drew calls of alarm from human rights groups both in Haiti and other capitals. FRAPH, the descendant of the feared Ton-Ton Macoutes from the Duvalier dynasty, acted primarily as a death squad for the military after it ousted Aristide in 1990 until the former priest was returned to power by 2,000 U.S. troops in 1994.

Chamblain himself was convicted of involvement in the assassination of Antoine Izmery, a prominent pro-democracy activist, while he was attending a Catholic mass in 1993, after Aristide's return, but as FRAPH leader, he was also implicated in a number of murders that never went to trial. FRAPH was accused by international human rights groups of killing hundreds of suspected Aristide supporters and attacking entire neighborhoods of towns and cities where Aristide was considered particularly popular during the military's reign.

Reports from Hinche indicated that Chamblain is accompanied by Guy Philippe, Cap Haitien's police chief under military rule, and Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune" who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his participation in a 1994 massacre that killed dozens of people in Raboteau. Chamblain is reportedly planning attacks on Cap-Haitien. Chamblain's forces are said to be equipped with machine guns and other weapons that were apparently cached after Aristide's return. The beleaguered 5,000-man Haitian police force – Aristide abolished the Haitian army in 1995 – is no match for such an arsenal, according to reports from Haiti.

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=1995

[Tinoire]

72. Sure will. Tonight Will? I'm at work now and snowed under.

Will come add to this in about 5 hours :)

Peace and.... Mesi Anpil (Thank you very much)

[Tinoire]

74. Was going to PM this to you but your PM is disabled

Sorry Will. This is not the answer to your question but some answers are contained within. This is from my last post to mmm http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1181633 I promise to get back to you tonight.

Labor. Free labor. And a population that must remain ignorant, non agrarian-based (as was their subsistent custom) and indentured- everything Aristide was fighting for it not to be.

Also drug-running/money laundering which is more FRAPH than Aristide.

And racism. Pure and simple racism. I have none of these book-marked but if you look at the statements especially of Jesse Helms over the last 10 years re Haiti, it is so blatant and heart-breaking.

There is no embarrassment for the French in this. They're in it up to their neck. Aristide recently made a $21 billion claim against the French government and was going to take them to the World Court over it. I will find you that document. I book-marked it all at home.

When I get home, I will put thought into an answer for you. As well as one I owe Kiazhero.

Peace

((Isome (1000+ posts) Mon Mar-01-04 12:33 PM
Response to Reply #12

13. Haiti SUED France for reparations.

Haiti SUED France for reparations.

Why? You won't believe it... but look it up and your jaw will drop!

Haiti paid reparations to FRANCE. Why? Because when they won their independence from France, some international crappy agreement required HAITI to repay the FRENCH for the SLAVES they would no longer have. And... HAITI PAID THEM EVERY LAST PENNY OWED.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1181598#1181665))


Aristide was excellent at first but we weren't having any of that. Aristide actually had the audacity to ask the rich and the US owned factories to pay a few pennies in taxes so he could provide a few work benefits & social services in a country where there is no Workmen's comp, no OSHA. That was the first coup in '90 which was backed by the CIA and carried out by School of the Americas-trained Duvalierist officers who were killing people right and left (that's when we had the first exodus of boat people to the US). This was under Bush Sr (hmmmmmmm). Aristide not only had great intentions but he made good on his word. The ONLY people in the US who backed him were the Congressional Black Caucus. Clinton did not really want to deal with Aristide but the CBC forced him to. Negotiations with the terrorist coup leaders took place- the entire time, the US attitude was basically "Aristide, please go away" but the CBC held firm. There were talks at Governors Island (where the coup leaders were treated with all the honor due legitimate leaders) which led to forced negotiations by Carter, Colin Powell and Sam Nunn. The coup leaders in Haiti kept dragging their feet but were eventually told by Powell "Your time us up" & Powell, Carter & Nunn escorted Aristide back to Haiti.

All seems like a great win for democracy until you look at the conditions under which Aristide was retured. He was shackled with every IMF, USAID, NAFTA shackle possible. Taxes could not be raised. The minimum wage could not be raised (I think it was even reduced), utilities & state enterprises had to be privatized, he had to put members of the opposition in his government, tariffs and other controls on imports had to be eliminated. (Do you recognize the stench of the bi-partisan NAFTA here?

Anyway, Aristide went back with his hands to tied that there were promises he had made to the people that he couldn't easily fulfill as tied as his hands were.

So to make a very long post shorter, the intentions were good but the hands were purposefully tied after the first US-supported coup. Despite having his hands tied, Aristide wouldn't quite play ball (even had the audacity recently to demand that France repay Haiti all the money it had extorted from Haiti after the revolution). He recently, again, fought to increase the minimum wage and that is why you, again, see so many business leaders involved in this coup with the same old Macoutes from FRAPH (groupe 184 and Andre Aipad etc).

He didn't rule with an iron fist. Every single anti-Aristide story you hear is emanating from the elite, the business community & the Duvalieristes. They hate him because he stands in their way of exploiting the poor more than they already do. The poor love him. If you want I will publish photos for you of millions of people out in the streets in early Feb showing their support for him.

Every word I have said to you is true.

I lost relatives in each and every one of the coups since 1959. Two of my cousins was gunned down in the streets by FRAPH. 1 perished at the hands of some of the little thugs supporting Aristide (because yes, he does have some riff-raff supporting him but who doesn't). I have no reason to lie to you & swear to you that every word I've written is the way it is. Aristide strove for an enlightened Democracy but there is no room for an enlightened democracy anywhere in the Western Hemisphere and there is certainly no room for an independent Black Republic/Democracy. Towards the end, the poor were very angry at the power games the elite were playing and Aristide either could not or did not restrain certain hooligans from roaming the streets & expressing their dissatisfaction. That is about the only thing I can say he did wrong. I have had conversations with several Haitians in the US whose wisdom & good intentions I trust & they see things the same way. My people are not of the Haitian poor but we have never disrespected them. When the revolution against the French took place, my family was the ONLY one on the island spared and we have always, always dared speak out for the poor who are not animals to be exploited. I have no reason, no desire to lie or to peddle fairy-tales at DU. What I do want for my people is finally, the rightful independence they earned 2 centuries ago and which they still haven't been allowed to experience.

Sorry. I'm at work now and unable to refine this post but that's it in a nutshell. I also apologize for rambling. This, of all issues, gets me very emotional.



Many of your questions are answered in depth int this booklet:
http://www.haitiaction.net/HidFrame.html

Hidden from the Headlines sums up many of the Haitian government’s worthy accomplishments, which the U.S. corporate press effectively whites-out. “More schools were built in Haiti from 1994-2000 than between 1804 and 1994,” the authors point out, “many in rural areas where no schools existed previously.” They also cite progress made in agriculture, public transportation, infrastructure, health care, AIDS prevention and treatment, and defending children’s rights. “Clearly, these programs represent a progressive agenda, initiated under the most trying conditions,” the booklet says.

Chapters covered in the leaflet are:
The U.S. War Against Haiti

Economic Embargo: Targeting the Haitian People

Undermining the Democratically Elected Government

Violent Paramilitary Attacks
A Contra War Against Haiti>

Human Rights:
A Look at the Record>

In this light, it is worth looking closely at some recent human rights cases:
[br />Haiti Today:
A Progressive Social and Economic Agenda>

Resisting Globalization

Education

Defending Children’s Rights

Health Care


====

http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/~pietsch/stop-war/PineSGI4101000224164435010344-100000.html Article I have not had the chance to read but looked good.

[rhite5]

77. Will - Some of this may be duplicates, but there is some good stuff

A snippet from an email received from a friend early Monday morning.
(He's a retired teacher and a leader in the Peace &Justice movement. He spent some time in Haiti last December, traveling there with a P&J group.)
I include the snippet in this post because it refers to a book that he feels is a good backgrounder.

A month or two ago I was reading The Rainy Season, Amy Wilentz' definitive book on Haiti during the immediate post-Duvalier years of 1986-89. It was during this time when Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to be noticed as a potential political force in Haiti, but before he ran for any office. Amy had an anonymous source in the U.S. Embassy then, and at one point she was describing the first Haitian elections, 1987, I think, and a violent incident then where Father Aristide barely
escaped with his life.

I don't have the book in front of me as I write, but I can almost remember the sentence from the well-placed Embassy official about the disappointment that Aristide had escaped with his
life. That is how it has been ever since, for President Aristide with the United States (The Rainy Season is an outstanding place to start if you have any interest in learning about this country which is about to become very familiar to us.)    

(Note: my correspondent has cautioned flatly not to believe anything we see in the media or get from the government on the Haiti situation)
=====================================

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

U.S. political maneuvering behind the ouster
BY RON HOWELL STAFF WRITER Newsday
March 1, 2004

Key names that appear in this article are:

• Roger Noriega, asst U.S.sec of state for Western Hemisphere affairs
• Jesse Helms, Republican Senator from North Carolina (now retired)
• Otto Reich, National Security Council Envoy.

It summarizes the roles they played in relation to the earlier Haiti coup, their motivations, (btw-plenty of racism between the lines), etc.

Opposition names and general speculation about them in the current situation are also in the article:

• Boniface Alexandre
• Andy Apaid
• Guy Philippe
• Louis-Jodel Chamblain
===============================

Haiti Progress (an attractive news magazine distributed in U.S. and Canadian cities. It has articles in French, Creole and English). This website provides a sampling of articles from the magazine.
http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html

The above link is to an article in the Nov. 12, 2003 issue which is a review of the pamphlet Hidden from the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti. That is the same pamphlet Tinoire shows above.

Individual copies or bulk orders of Hidden from the Headlines can be ordered for $1 apiece from the Haiti Action Committee at P.O. Box 2218, Berkeley, CA 94702. For more information, visit their website http://www.haitiaction.net.
===================================

And here is an article published just last week in Haiti Progress Magazine, just a few days before the coup. It provides a clue to just what offers(orders? threats?) were made by the Bush Administration last week, some of which Aristide agreed to apparently in desperation.
http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng02-25.html

As Opposition Grapples for Aristide’s Legitimacy:
Confrontation in the Capital, and Foreign Intervention, Threatens

This issue also provides a backgrounder on the "armed opposition". It is a slightly different list than the one provided by Newsday above.

• Louis Jodel Chamblain
• Guy Philippe
• Ernst Ravix
• Jean TAtoune
• Jean-Baptiste Joseph
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1159809,00.html
Why they had to crush Aristide
Haiti's elected leader was regarded as a threat by France and the US
Peter Hallward --Tuesday March 2, 2004
The Guardian
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And in line with the possible/probable connection to a larger agenda with Venezuela, there is this timely news from the government via ABC:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040302_519.html
U.S. Expresses Concern About Crisis in Venezuela
====================================

I think you might already have this link from upthread:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=4977
==================================

the Feb. 26, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
http://www.workers.org/

While U.S. tries to mask its role
Haitians resist coup attempt
By Deirdre Griswold
===============================

ZNet | Central American And Caribbean
Haiti - Insurrection in the Makingby Yifat Susskind;
A MADRE Backgrounder
http://www.madre.org/country_haiti_crisis.html

February 25, 2004 http://zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5043§ionID=54
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Here's the account of the caretaker, who describes Aristide being brought out in handcuffs and taken away by U.S. Marines.

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=973655