My 15,000 post "WEEP BELOVED HAITI"

[seemslikeadream]

Over a year and half ago I sat at my computer horrified at the news

of a coup taking place in Haiti. I posted in LBN with a few good

friends, Tinoire and others, every day the tragic news from Haiti.

George Bush DID NOTHING to stop it. Colon Powell betrayed his

own people, he DID NOTHING to stop it. Condi Rice betrayed

her own people and she DID NOTHING to stop it. George Bush was

duty bound to enforce The Santiago Treaty and come to the aid of the

people of Haiti. He DID NOT. He DID NOT enforce a

treaty that his own father had signed in 1991. Once again he had

LIHOP. Some could say he had MIHOP. When you look at these photos

will you see what I see? Do they remind you of another place and

time? I believe Kanye West was right,

George Bush does not like Black People.

Over three and a half years as a member of DU and 15,000 posts, this

is the one that meant the most to me. My only wish would be that

more people had cared enough then to even acknowledge it.

Original post May 26, 2004
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1671438

WHILE I SIT HERE TRYING TO THINK OF THINGS TO SAY


SOMEONE LIES BLEEDING IN A FIELD SOMEWHERE

SO IT WOULD SEEM WE'VE STILL GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO

I'VE SEEN ALL I WANNA SEE TODAY

WHILE I SIT HERE TRYING TO MOVE YOU ANYWAY I CAN

SOMEONE'S SON LIES DEAD IN A GUTTER SOMEWHERE

AND IT WOULD SEEM THAT WE'VE GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO

BUT I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE

SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO

SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY

WHILE I SIT AND WE TALK AND TALK AND WE TALK SOME MORE

SOMEONE'S LOVED ONE'S HEART STOPS BEATING IN A STREET SOMEWHERE

SO IT WOULD SEEM WE'VE STILL GOT A LONG LONG WAY TO GO, I KNOW

I'VE HEARD ALL I WANNA HEAR TODAY

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO (TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO)

SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY (SWITCH IT OFF IT WILL GO AWAY)

TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO (TURN IT OFF IF YOU WANT TO)

SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY (SWITCH IT OFF OR LOOK AWAY)

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

SWITCH IT OFF

TURN IT OFF


thanks phil collins for the words
my heart to the people of Haiti

[stepnw1f]

1. That Just Made Me Furious

I think I needed that...

[malaise]

2. Thanks for this

That's K.D. Knight, foremr Foreign Minister of Jamiaca behind Powell. have you heard David Rudder's "Haiti I'm Sorry".

[seemslikeadream]

40. You are welcome malise and thanks for mentioning "Haiti I'm Sorry"

I have not read it but will now.



Senator Leahy


HAITI -- (Senate - March 04, 2004)


---
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, over the past week, we have all watched the images of killings, chaos, and looting in Haiti. I am sad for the Haitian people. Once again, their leaders and the international community have failed them, and the poorest and the most vulnerable are enduring the greatest suffering.

I am also deeply disappointed with the Bush administration. Over the past several years, this administration ignored the simmering problems in Haiti and hoped they would somehow resolve themselves. That approach obviously backfired. Things have spiraled out of control. We now have a full-blown crisis on our hands, accusations that the administration helped to engineer a


coup of President Aristide, and the deployment of thousands of U.S. Marines into a difficult situation. Bringing change to Haiti will now be a far more dangerous and costly undertaking. Moreover, the U.N. or some other impartial organization will have to conduct an investigation to answer nagging questions about Aristide's departure.
I recognize that many administration officials did not support President Aristide. I can understand that view, as I also lost confidence in him. There is no question that serious allegations of corruption and abuse surround President Aristide and his associates and that these issues should have been dealt with. President Aristide and other Haitian leaders should be held accountable for their actions. Having said that, we should not forget the courage that President Aristide displayed when he first spoke out against the excesses of the brutal and corrupt dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

But this administration did not want to make the effort to help clean up the Haitian Government, build a reform-minded opposition, and restructure the economy.

Instead, the Bush administration simply disengaged. During his first year in office, President Bush reduced aid to Haiti by about 25 percent. Concerned with the growing problems in Haiti, Senator DODD and I sent a letter to USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios in February 2002, urging an overhaul of our foreign aid program to Haiti. The response to our letter was essentially: ``Thanks for writing. We have a limited budget, but we will remain `flexible' in our approach.'' The results of this flexible approach speak for themselves.

To be fair, USAID was under heady pressure to absorb activities that the State Department should have funded. USAID does not deserve the blame for an administration-wide policy failure.

During the last month, United States policy toward Haiti crystallized around the goal of getting rid of President Aristide. For all the administration's tough talk aimed at President Aristide, this White House has embraced corrupt leaders with far less democratic credentials than President Aristide when it has suited its purpose. This episode is yet another reminder of how the contradictory policies and rhetoric of this administration are damaging U.S. credibility around the world.

In some respects, President Aristide's departure begins a new chapter for Haiti. In other ways, it is not clear just how new it is. For the third time in 20 years, a Haitian leader has been forced into exile, and at least for the third time in 90 years, the U.S. military has intervened in Haiti.

What is to show for years of interventions and hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. assistance? Haiti remains one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on Earth, facing a myriad of complex problems. Removing President Aristide will not solve these entrenched problems, but it may provide a way forward.

The United States has compelling reasons to help. Haiti is just a few hundred miles away from our shores, and the social turmoil there could easily spread to the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and elsewhere in our neighborhood. The United States has a long relationship with Haiti and many Haitian Americans live in the United States. Perhaps most importantly, we have a moral responsibility to help a nation where so many have been suffering for so long.

The United States, France, and others must work with the United Nations, the Organization of American States to help fill the power vacuum in Port-au-Prince. The international community must also come up with a substantial aid package to help the Haitian people get back on their feet.

This will be a long, slow process. If we are to succeed in meeting the challenge of recovery and rebuilding in Haiti, the United States and the international community must stay engaged. Most of all, the Haitians themselves must take responsibility, especially the religious and political leaders. But we must take care not to overlook a key group that must be involved in this process--middle-class Haitians who have left the country over the past few decades.

As Garry Pierre-Pierre, editor in chief of the Haitian Times, points out in Monday's Wall Street Journal, involving Haiti's middle class is essential. He writes:


The international community has to bring the country's middle class not merely to the table, but back to Haiti. This middle class has been fleeing Haiti for the U.S., where it has consolidated itself, for the last 30 years. We should look to that group, the Haitian diaspora, educated at the best schools in the U.S. and Canada, to help lead the country out of its perpetual cycle of violence and misery.


I agree with Mr. Pierre-Pierre, and believe that the administration should heed his advice.

We have missed one opportunity after another in Haiti. It is time for us to make the most of this unfortunate situation.

I ask unanimous consent to print the above-referenced letters in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:


U.S. SENATE,

Washington, DC, February 15, 2002.
Hon. ANDREW NATSIOS,
Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, DC.

DEAR MR. NATSIOS: We are deeply concerned with the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Haiti. The political impasse between the Haitian Government and the political opposition has only made a serious situation more dire. As a matter of U.S. policy Haiti is being denied access to monies from the multilateral development banks until the government and opposition resolve their differences. For that reason, the humanitarian needs of Haiti must be met solely from bilateral donations through non-governmental organizations such as CARE, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision.

Violence, poverty, and disease are rampant throughout Haiti. Since the United States is opposing access for Haiti to multilateral monies to address these problems, we believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to ensure, to the maximum extent feasible, that U.S. bilateral humanitarian assistance allocations be maintained at adequate levels. However, that does not appear to be the case. As you know annual USAID/Haiti allocations have been cut in half since FY1999 to $50 million for the current fiscal year. Moreover, the Administration's FY 2003 request is only $45 million. At these levels we are very skeptical that USAID will be able to continue many critical programs, including school feeding programs, public health programs for Haitian children ages 0 to 5, and AIDS treatment and prevention programs.

We strongly urge you to review the overall FY 2003 USAID budget to determine whether additional funds can be found for USAID FY 2003 programs in Haiti. Moreover, we do not support efforts to obligate FY 2002 Haiti monies for purposes other than humanitarian assistance programs.

Thank you for your attention to our concerns. We look forward to working with you in addressing the humanitarian needs of Haiti's seven million people.

Sincerely yours,



Patrick J. Leahy,


Christopher J. Dodd,


U.S. Senators.
--
U.S. AGENCY FOR

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,

Washington, DC, April 2, 2002.
Hon. PATRICK J. LEAHY,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR LEAHY: Mr. Natsios has asked me to respond to your letter of February 15, 2002, concerning the current situation in Haiti and declining U.S. assistance levels. We regret the delay in responding.

We share your concern about deteriorating conditions in Haiti, and are doing our best to help ease the situation within the constraints of current budget realities. Since September 11, 2001, worldwide pressures on overall resources limit our ability to maintain prior year levels for Haiti. We have made up most of the difference using Development Assistance and the Child Survival and Health Programs fund; however, these accounts are heavily subscribed.

Our programs will continue to have a meaningful impact in Haiti through the provision of primarily humanitarian assistance. Approximately 80 percent of the FY 2002 budget and FY 2003 request will go toward health, food aid, and education activities. These programs will still provide health and family planning services to approximately 2.7 million Haitians--mostly women and children--including HIV/AIDS prevention. They will also target food resources in Haiti to children under five and pregnant/lactating women, and will continue to make marked improvements in math and reading achievement test scores for 150,000 Haitian children.

In closing, we are watching the situation very closely and remain flexible on funding options for FY 2002. We welcome a continuing dialogue with Congress on appropriate assistance levels for Haiti as events unfold.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Please let us know when this office can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
J. EDWARD FOX,

Assistant Administrator,
Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r108:./temp/~r108...

[Team44Car]

3. I thought the US was directly behind that coup

[DrDebug]

4. Yes

The US and Canada were behind it (with complicity of the Dominican Republic and France):

Story written by me therefore pasted in full:

Timeline

Preparations
On May 2003, a group of at least 20 paramilitary soldiers—trained and funded by the US — cross into Haiti from the neighboring Dominican Republic and attack a hydroelectric power plant on Haiti's central plateau. Shortly after the attack, Dominican authorities, arrest five men, including Guy Philippe <1>and Paul Arcelin, who they believe are plotting the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government.

Also at this time, there is a US build-up along the Dominican border, where “900 US soldiers patrol jointly with the Dominican army, whom they have armed with 20,000 M16s.” Ben Dupuy, general secretary of the left-wing party PPN, tells the left-wing Haiti Progres, “There is no doubt these guys are true terrorists working with the CIA under Dominican protection.” <2>

Operation

Beginning in Gonaïves with the capture of that city's police station on February 5, the rebellion quickly spread to the nearby port city of Saint-Marc. <3>. Rebels take over cities in northern Haiti and move towards Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, overrunning Aristide's local police forces and vowing to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide <4>

Barbara Lee writes a letter to Colin Powell accusing the United States of intentionally subverting democracy in Haiti:

“I must say, Mr. Secretary, that our failure to support the democratic process and help restore order looks like a covert effort to help overthrow a government. There is a violent coup d’etat in the making, and it appears that the United States is aiding and abetting the attempt to violently topple the Aristide Government.”

http://www.house.gov/lee/releases/04Feb11.htm

On Feb 28, 2004 Jean-Bertrand Aristide informs Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson that he does not plan to resign <5>. The security of Aristide is provided by the Steele Foundation. US officials delay a small group of additional bodyguards from the Steele Foundation on their way to Haiti. <6>

Kidnapping

On February 29, 2004 Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. soldiers escorted on a US-charted to Dominican Republic and then to the Central African Republic. <7>

Colin Powell called the allegations absolutely baseless, absurd. Absolutely false, Luis Moreno, the U.S. Embassy official in Haiti who accompanied Aristide to the airport Sunday, told The Herald. <8>. Luis Moreno came to Aristide's Palace to pick him up at 4 AM and Artistide knew why he was there. <9>According to Joseph Pierre, a concierge at Aristide's residence, whose account is reported in the French newspaper Libération, Aristide is taken away early Sunday morning by US soldiers. <10>

U.S. Invasion

On March 1, 2004, US President George W. Bush announces that the US is sending US forces to Haiti to help stabilize the country. <11>

CARICOM governments denounced the "removal" of Mr. Aristide from government. They also questioned the legality of subsequent American-backed maneouvers to install a new president. The Prime Minister of Jamaica, P.J. Patterson said that, the episode "sets a dangerous precedent for democratically elected governments anywhere and everywhere, as it promotes the removal of duly elected persons from office by the power of rebel forces." <12>

As of April 2004, the United States, France, Canada and Chile have troops in Haiti as part of a force sanctioned by the United Nations.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/2004_Haiti_Coup

Sources:
1. http://www.blackcommentator.com/42/42_issues.html
2. http://www.dollarsandsense.org/0903reeves.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haiti_Rebellion
4. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/023004A.shtml
5. http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5975&fcategory_desc=Haiti
6. http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=6072&fcategory_desc=Haiti
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3524273.stm
8. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti/kidnap.htm
9. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/haiti/account.htm
10. http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5985&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported
11. http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5967&fcategory_desc=Haiti
12. http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2474164

[Team44Car]

5. Why is Canada tied up in this monstrous occupation?

And thank you for the excellent article.
Brief yet covers the bases.

[Team44Car]

9. As I understand it Haiti is controlled by ten or so crime families

who wish to run this country as one big sweat shop
for US markets. What I am not clear on is why they
ousted Aristide. Was he trying to 'Chavez' the country?
I don't know much about him or how he governed.

[DrDebug]

11. Indeed. He 'Chavez' the country

The main problem was that Jean-Bertrand Aristide didn't listen to the IMF and the World Bank and thought that they made life worse in Haiti, however by not implementing the demands of the IMF also implied that the mayor corporation were not satisfied.

There is a very good chapter about Jean-Bertrande Aristide "How Will Rid Me Of This Troublesome Priest" in "Killing Hope" by William Blum which deals with the period 1986-1994, however when Aristide was reinstated as president he continued onto his old socialist path...

You can read an excerpt online at:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Haiti_KH.html

[Team44Car]

13. thank you DrDebug

[DrDebug]

10. We don't know why but the planning of the coup was done in Canada

There is a long website about it. http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca

In short it was planned in Canada by Paul Arcelin who was a professor at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in the 1960s.

Haiti Q & A
The 2004 Coup Against Aristide in Haiti & Canada's Involvement
by Diego Hausfather and Nikolas Barry-Shaw
ZNet, Jun 4, 2005

(...)

In January 2003, Canada hosted the "Ottawa Initiative", a gathering of all the "major players" in Haiti, none of which were Haitian, and reached a consensus that "Aristide must go".

Joint Task Force 2, an elite commando squad in the Canadian Armed Forces, was on the ground in Haiti February 29, 2004, securing the airstrip from which U.S. Marines forced Aristide out of the country.

Canada also contributed 550 Canadian Forces troops to the French and American forces that occupied Haiti after Aristide's ouster.

The Deputy Minister of "Justice" in Haiti, Philippe Vixamar, is an employee of CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and was given his position by CIDA. Vixamar, who has overseen the illegal arrest and detention of political prisoners while setting free notorious human rights abusers, has said "the United States and Canadian governments play key roles in the justice system in Haiti."

(...)

The Canadian government has gone to great lengths to legitimate Gerard Latortue's installed regime. Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew and Paul Martin have both made official visits to Haiti since the coup, and Martin appeared with Latortue at a conference for the Haitian Diaspora in Montreal. Martin et al. continue to echo the interim government's false claims that there are no political prisoners in Haiti.

(...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Haiti_Q%26A.html

[Team44Car]

14. Looks like they are selling their souls for money

a very poor trade I should think

[peacetalksforall]

6. Govt agencies moved in before the coup. World Bank. The French

helped. And they removed a duly elected President and replaced him with paid off criminals who went on a killing spree.

France and the U.S. lied to the world. This was an imperialistic move and the media let them.

Thanks for bringing it back to the consciousness.

The U.S. has a big problem with people who are poor, black, brown, and submissive (such as the Iraqis).

The submissive ones keep quiet and so does the media because they are partners with the monsters, cretins, and profiteers.

[seemslikeadream]

28. THANK YOU SO MUCH DrDebug Truth for the people of Haiti

Thanks again, I don't know what I'd do without you.

:hug:

[DrDebug]

30. *blush* you're welcome

Haiti is one of those forgotten BFEE scandals and that's not right. Especially what the people of that little island had to go through.

July 28, 1915 invaded until 1934
September 22, 1957 Papa Doc Duvalier becomes president and terrorized the population.
Papa Doc Duvalier dies in 1971, leaving his 19-year old son Baby Doc Duvalier as the dictator.
1986 Baby Doc Duvalier is flown to safety by the US
Henry Namphy is elected by a CIA rigged election and then it's coup after coup
7 February - 20 June 1988: Leslie Manigat
20 June - 17 September 1988: Henri Namphy
17 September 1988 - 10 March 1990: Prosper Avril
10 March 1990 13 March 1990: Herard Abraham
13 March 1990 - 7 February 1991: Ertha Pascal-Trouillot

And finally Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes president. The first democratic election!

Sept. 30, 1991 a CIA backed coup deposes him

1993: The chaos gets so bad that Aristide is reinstated

And in 2004 there was another coup.

I mean, the suffering must unbearable. For the past century it has been nothing but military coups.

[auntAgonist]

37. thank you for reposting this, I missed it the first time. n/t

[oblivious]

43. As a Canadian I'm deeply ashamed of Canada's participation in this coup.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I believe it was. hence the reason why we did nothing

[seemslikeadream]

8. Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup

Thanks Team44Car, yes it seems others felt the same way


Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup
PRESS ADVISORY
Monday, April 4, 2004
Media Contact: Dustin Langley 212-633-6646

As Bush Administration Scrambles to Shore Up Appointed Haitian Regime Commission to Present Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup

Date: Wednesday, April 7
Time: 6:30- 9:30 pm
Location: The Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College

Panel to include: Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Major Owens, Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Ossie Davis, Gil Noble, Amy Goodman, Ron Daniels, and other prominent activists and journalists

The Bush Administration is facing a growing crisis over its role in the coup in Haiti and the kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who continues to speak out about his abduction by the U.S. The 15-member organization of Caribbean nations, CARICOM, has refused to recognize the U.S.-installed regime and has called for an investigation, despite intense pressure and threats from the U.S. The 53-member African Union has raised the same demand.

On Wednesday, April 7, the Haiti Commission of Inquiry will initiate a public inquiry of the role of the Bush Administration in the crisis in Haiti. Delegations that visited both the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic will present conclusive evidence that U.S. Special Forces armed, trained, and directed the "rebels" and engineered the abduction of President Aristide.

The preliminary report from the Commission states, "two hundred U.S. Special Forces soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of 'Operation Jaded Task,' with special authorization from President Hipólito Mejia. We have received many reports that this operation was used to train Haitian rebels. We have received many consistent reports of Haitian rebel training centers at or near Dominican military facilities. We have received many consistent reports of guns transported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, some across the land border, and others shipped by sea."

Johnnie Stevens of the International Action Center, a member of the delegation to the Central African Republic, said, "The U.S.-installed Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, has hailed the paid mercenaries as freedom fighters, and had thus discredited himself among the Caribbean nations."

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a desperate bid to lend some credibility to the Latortue government, is now visiting Haiti for the first time. This attempt to put U. S. weight behind the isolated colonial-style regime is a response to its growing isolation. Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center, said, "This visit by Powell is a sign of the Bush Administration’s growing isolation and disarray. The U.S. is desperately trying to shore up a discredited regime in the face of international opposition to the appointed government of Haiti after the stinging rebuke directed at the U.S. by the recent CARICOM meeting." Flounders is a member of the Haiti Commission of Inquiry and was part of the delegation to the Central African Republic, where she visited with President Aristide shortly after his kidnapping.

Kim Ives from Haiti Progres, who was part of the delegation to the Dominican Republic, told the media, "In the course of our investigation here, we met with many Haitians who were forced to flee Haiti following the coup d'etat of Feb. 29. Their testimony gave very concrete names and faces to the stories of violence which we have heard that the so-called rebels, trained and assembled in the Dominican Republic, have carried out in Haiti over the past month. We were also touched by the tears of refugees who told us of how they are apprehensive over the fate of their loved ones left behind in Haiti."

For more information, or to schedule an interview with a member of the Commission, call Dustin Langley at 212-633-6646.

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http://www.iacenter.org/haiti_0407press.htm


Operation Jaded Task

From 2/23/2003:

US Troopers Secretly Land in Dominican Republic

The military training operation nicknamed Jaded Task took by surprise Dominican Foreign Ministry.

The US Army started today a training operation in the Caribbean country as part of routine maneuvers of the Southern Command. The landing had been kept so secretly that Dominican Foreign Ministry Hugo Tolentino was reported... by the TV.

As per the first reports, the US troops are training Dominican soldiers on anti-terrorism operations in the north of the island. When the national media started announcing the landing, country's Foreign Minister was having a lunch. Tolentino said that, as chief of the Dominican diplomacy, he should have been formally advised, as personally requested to the Dominican Army and the US Embassy to Santo Domingo.

...

However, the most interesting thing, here, is that the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic did know about the operations. This correspondent had access to two formal communications issued by the US Embassy including details of these activities, during the Communist summit held in Buenos Aires in January. There, the US ambassador to Santo Domingo reported about 10.000 soldiers coming to the Dominican Republic to take part of the training.

Moreover, the communists and other leftist forces in the country made know such documents to the local media in November. According to the denounce, US soldiers can freely enter and leave the country without any kind of permission. Also, they can do it through owned means of conveyance.

more
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/02/20/43514.html

[Team44Car]

12. Do you know President Aristide?

Last I heard he was in South Africa or Jamaica.
Do you know what he's doing?

[seemslikeadream]

15. Here is the lastest news and LOOK who's what's to be president of Haiti!

Aristide To Stay In South Africa
By Carib News
Sep 14, 2005, 18:25


Jean Bertrand Aristide
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - According to reports, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will remain in his South African exile as plans proceed for the conduct of elections in Haiti.

According to South Africa's foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the upcoming elections will not solve Haiti's problems and Aristide will not return home until peace and stability were restored to Haiti.

The two rival factions of Aristide's Lavalas Family party, the main opposition group since the Haitian president fled the country in 2004 amid an armed revolt, recently agreed to take part in the polls but demanded political prisoners be released.

The Lavalas party wants its jailed leaders, including its presidential candidate Gerard Jean-Juste, released ahead of the elections. Haiti's Interim Government arrested Jean-Juste in July on suspicion he had played a role in the kidnapping and killing of a journalist. He has denied the allegation and has said the allegations, like those against fellow Lavalas leaders, are politically motivated.
more
http://www.caribworldradio.com/cms/publish/article_765.php


"North Texas businessman seeks Haiti's presidency"

By Alfred De Montesquiou

The Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A crowded
presidential field grew more diverse Thursday with the entry of a wealthy North Texas businessman who was born in Haiti. The November vote will be the first since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted after a violent rebellion in February 2004.

The North Texas candidate is Dumarsais Simeus, who owns Mansfield-based Simeus Foods International, a manufacturing company whose customers include Denny's, T.G.I. Friday's and Burger King. Simeus became a candidate on the final day of the registration period. The field includes a wide range of former government officials and a leader of the rebellion that ousted Aristide.

"I am deeply grateful to the people of Haiti for the enormous outpouring of support, goodwill and love we have received," said Simeus, 65. He has said he wants to use his business savvy to help resurrect the economy of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

"In all that I have done, I have always been successful. I'm a perpetual winner, and I will win these elections," Simeus said.

More than two dozen candidates have registered for the Nov. 20 election. More were expected to emerge by the end of Thursday, the deadline to register with the Provisional Electoral Council. Candidates were also registering for legislative seats.

Most registered candidates are officials from past regimes.

Simeus, who lives in Southlake, was born in the village of Pont-Sonde in a two-room shack. His parents sold land to help him attend college in the United States. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Howard University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. His business is Texas' largest black-owned company and the country's largest black-owned food-processing plant, according to Black Enterprise magazine.

This Report Includes Material From the Miami Herald.

https://registration.dfw.com/reg/login.do?url=http...

[Team44Car]

16. North Texas businessman!

surreal is the only word that comes to mind.
At cleast President Aristide is still alive.
I was kind of surprised the US didn't Noriega him
while they were in the area.

[Matariki]

22. Your subject line is deceptive

The article clearly states that Dumarsais Simeus was born in Haiti. He went to school in the US and quote: "His business is Texas' largest black-owned company and the country's largest black-owned food-processing plant".

Just because he owns a business in Texas does NOT automatically make him a bad guy - or a Bush crony.

[DrDebug]

23. According to the Haitian constitution he is not allowed to vote

By Seemslikeadream on another board

It seems the Haitians are going to deny his candidature because per Haitian constitution you must be a Haitian citizen, must never have renounced your Haitian citizenship and taken another, and must have lived IN Haiti for at least 5 years before running. He's relying on a swarm of Washington lawyers to get him elected by filing a suit against the Haitian CEP in the courts and challenging article 135 of the Haitian constitution. He's not even allowed to vote in Haitian elections yet he wants the Presidency? You understand now why Kevin Pina was arrested don't you? The US is going to impose one of their businessmen on the poor Haitians despite their constitution and over their dead bodies. Can't have Kevin Pina's camera messing that all up!

http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessage?topicID=991.topic

He is indeed not automatically a Bush Crony, but he is part of Jeb Bush's Haiti Task Force ( http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2005-08-17-haiti-prez-usat_x.htm ) and he send an open letter to George W. Bush on June 30, 2005 asking to consider sending U.S. troops to provide security in Haiti and he is also part of PromoCapital.

PromoCapital is very interesting indeed.

At least nine of the seventy people named as PromoCapital shareholders and founders were known or suspected financial backers of the 1991 military coup, which overthrew President Aristide and proceeded to slaughter well over 3,000 people. These people had their assets blocked by the US Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control under the Clinton Administration, until 1994.

(...)

USAID in particular has already stated its support for PromoCapital's "Haiti Reconstruction Fund", and are clear that "The departure of President Aristide presents us now with an opportunity to rebuild and move forward."

(...)

PromoCapital is a subsidiary of PromoBank, which was also on the list of "Blocked Entities" re: 1991 coup. For the complete list of PromoCapital "partners", see http://www.dvercity.com/ magazine_haiti.html. There are *many* important lists to be concerned with regarding Haiti, some of which can be heard daily on elite-owned Haitian radio as was told to us in Port au Prince by Prevat Precil, former General Director of the Ministry of Justice under President Aristide. At the time of our meeting, Precil was not yet being subjected to direct persecution. Last week, Precil was sacked by the Latortue regime and has since been forced to flee the country, presumably since he was added to a list. See the Haiti Report, which discusses "ministerial overhauls" and political persecution, as well as the urgent issue of human rights abuses: http://www.haitireborn.org/news/haitireport/

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=5371

[Team44Car]

27. Looks like the worst possible 'choice' for the country

[DrDebug]

29. But probably the best possible choice for the BFEE

And that is more important. The corporations and the Bush administration will probably be happy with him, because he sounds a bit like Berlusconi, another billionaire in charge of a country...



Artist impression:

[seemslikeadream]

24. Au contraire mon ami!

Sounds like bad news...
Americans & the business community are pushing him.


It seems the Haitians are going to deny his candidature because per Haitian constitution you must be a Haitian citizen, must never have renounced your Haitian citizenship and taken another, and must have lived IN Haiti for at least 5 years before running. He's relying on a swarm of Washington lawyers to get him elected by filing a suit against the Haitian CEP in the courts and challenging article 135 of the Haitian constitution. He's not even allowed to vote in Haitian elections yet he wants the Presidency? You understand now why Kevin Pina was arrested don't you? The US is going to impose one of their businessmen on the poor Haitians despite their constitution and over their dead bodies. Can't have Kevin Pina's camera messing that all up!

====



That is very hypocritical of him to say Haiti's current is unconstitutional since he is one of the major supporters of the same people who have put this government in place. He is been in the US for over 40 years, I never heard of him establishing Haitian businesses in Brooklyn, Miami, or Boston. I heard about him from a family friend, then I read about him in Black Enterprise, I did some research on him and find out how he really started his company with help from an African-American businessman, his support of Florida's Haitian Bush Supporters, his dealings with Dennis Restaurant, and his relationship with the Coca Cola Company and the political establishment in Texas, and DC. I wished him more success in his endeavors, but his absence in Haitian affairs sateside and his recent push in Haitian politics have me questioned his intentions. I agree a Haitian who lives overseas should vote, but the idea to become president when you renounce your nationality, this is not an award show, you are becoming an international representation of the largest black country in the Western hemisphere.

==
And here you go... Backed by the Haiti Democracy Project. Need we even look any further?
==

"What a contender!" says James Morrell, director of the Haiti Democracy Project in Washington. "Here is the richest and most successful Haitian around - running to lead a country where nothing works. This has to look awfully good. Here is evidence of someone who can get things done."

===


I have new information on how Mr. Dumarsais Simeus got to become the largest black employer in Texas.

Mr. Simeus met the founder of the Beatrice Foods, the nation's largest minority firm in Howard University, he got a job there, the founder was someone similar to Earl Graves which is believing in creating black wealth through ideas of American Republicanism which is to not pay taxes (Texas, right to work state, tax haven for oil companies) and black meritocracy which is you have to prove to a white person that you can do a job (similar to Colin Powell).

He fell out with the owner of that company, then instead started working for white-owned companies such Atari, a popular video game developer and Rockwell the multanational conglomerate.

He went to Chigaco, where again he met some Black Wealth Power type of individuals who had connections to MVCH, a quasi organization set up to give funding capital to black entrepreneurs, he received a founding grant, a small loan , then he obtained a line of credit from Chase Bank with his grant and some other assets as collateral to purchase Pro-Foods which he then change the name to Simeus Foods which distributes to Burger King, Dennys, and other chained-owned. With the craze of minority suplied type of diversity program of the 1990's, his company and so does his former employer Beatrice which is bigger than Sean John, Def Jam combined, yet not widely known. He wanted to stick up to Beatrice, his former employer by being in direct competition with them. What does that have to do with Haiti? Ask yourself. He runs Promocapital, an MRE (morally repugnant elite) Haitian investment firm that are trying to so-call pushed investments into the country, yet to date the input has been none, his belief in taxing policies where Haiti's meager public funds can not sustain basic social much less paying down the massive debt that the country owes, and its partially cause of the massive poverty. Mr. Simeus has benefited from some of the programs his philosophy is against in the US, he profited from them greatly, yet in Haiti would he reverse his course or try to impose those philosophies in a country that is grasping for air to survive.

==

Our constitution rules Mr. Simeus out. WHAT ELSE SHOULD WE LOOK FOR? The food guy has been in the US for 44 years. He knows all about respecting the law. Why is he disrespecting Haiti? If you guys were really thinking about it, you should take Mr. Simeus' action as an insult and a proof that he's NOT Haitian. WHY DOES HE OBEY US LAW BUT DISRESPECTING HAITIAN LAW? Sometimes, I wonder if some of us just think to think. The truth is so clear.

And then who is Mr. simeus for Haitians and for Haiti for us to violate our own constitution for him? Making a fortune in helping restaurants cook their burgers is no qualification for anything in the public domain. The food guy has been non-existant for the Haitian community since he was born. We are hearing his company is worth millions, we don't even know how many white a$$ he accepted to kiss for that. He's part of the Bush entourage. That alone tells a lot about the doggy attitude he may have in passing the Black meritocratic test.

www.haitixchange.com/hx/f...readPage=5

He's a slippery worm too... Check out this interview:

==
CARL

Has the Bush government ask you to be a candidate ?

DUMARSAIS SIMÉUS

Many people have asked me this question. I can truthfully say no. But I like to give you a straight answer. I have many friends in Haiti, in the US wether in Miami, New York or Boston. I have also in France and in Germany. As you know I do business with many countries.

CARL You are a citizen of the world.

DUMARSAIS SIMÉUS

Well, more or less, (laughing), but I say it with humility. I worked in 25 to 30 countries on this earth. So people, who do business with me always ask me why don’t I consider running for office to become President of Haiti so that I can help my country.

CARL

Do you know George W. Bush ? Have you met him personnally ?

DUMARSAIS SIMÉUS

The answer is absolutely NO .

CARL

Are you a registered Republican ?

DUMARSAIS SIMÉUS

Let me answer it this way. I am so glad you asked me this question. I operate on both sides of the aisle. You could say I am an independent.

I am a friend of the United States and I also support any political party Republican, Democrat, Independent provided that I see they have a vision that is in line with my vision, in terms of what the country of Haiti and also the U.S. needs.

CARL

Do you think that Mr. Bush right now has a good vision for Haiti?

DUMARSAIS SIMÉUS

Well, let’s put it this way. I know from speaking with various people and I am going to give you a general answer. In speaking with people from the Black Caucus, in speaking with people from the Democratic party in general and in speaking with people from the Republican party, they all are unanimous in wanting Haiti to become a better country where there are jobs, where there is education, where there is better governance, where there is a better agricultural industry, etc.

All of them want Haiti to prosper. They all have told me that with the right leadership, they believe a country as beautiful as Haiti, a country that has so much potential, can prosper.

(snip)

www.fombrun.com/article.php/20050908I299

No need to dig much further but if you want me too I will... Haiti just got sold to the largest bidder... Bush country all the way now!

I can't even begin to imagine what the Haitians are going to suffer... Walls and walls of factories coming now!


North Texas CEO wants to be president -- of Haiti

By Jacqueline Charles

The Miami Herald


The walls of Haitian-American entrepreneur Dumarsais "Dumas" Simeus' Mansfield office bear witness to his success -- proud photos, awards and magazine covers recognizing his $100 million food empire in the rapidly growing city.

His humble roots are apparent, too: a framed photograph of a two-room shack with an aluminum roof in the village of Pont-Sonde, Haiti, where he was born 65 years ago.

Those roots have inspired Simeus, a Southlake resident and one of the nation's top black businessmen, in his role as a member of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Haiti Task Force. Now he is taking on the greatest challenge of his life: seeking the presidency of Haiti.


(snip)

"The bottom line is he is a native son of Haiti, clearly born and raised in Haiti, went out in the world to make a success and he has kept constant connection with Haiti," said Rob Allyn, a Dallas-based GOP political strategist hired by Simeus.

The firm has helped engineer victories for candidates in the Bahamas, Indonesia and Mexico, as well as for the George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign in Texas.

www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/...499476.htm

On edit... just looked at the Haitian pages written in French and Creole and people are not happy about "a conservative Republican and Bush crony buying his way into the National Palace". Page after page of NO.

Re the Aug. 17 story CEO seeks new job: the president of Haiti: It would be a coup indeed if Dumas Simeus became president of Haiti. As a Texan, a friend of President Bush's and a wealthy contributor to the Republican Party, the Bush administration could not have a better candidate.

As a U.S. citizen, however, Simeus is barred from becoming a candidate in Haiti's election because he is not and cannot be a Haitian citizen. Article 13(a) of the Haitian constitution states: ``Haitian nationality is lost by naturalization in a foreign country.''

Haiti does not allow dual nationality. In addition, he renounced his allegiance to Haiti as he was required to do to become a U.S. citizen and is therefore barred by Article 135(a) of the Haitian Constitution from running for president. None of this should bother the Bush administration because Andy Apaid, a leader of the coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is also a U.S. citizen. Apaid was funded by the U.S. government through Group 186.

www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ news/editorial/letters/12412197.htm

8/7/05 UN Massacre of Poor in Port-au-Prince. Letter to Dumas Simeus of RepresentAction, et al…


CORRECTION on last e-mail: Date reported for Dréd Wilme’s allege death is July 6, 2005 not 7 as written.

******************************************

– UN Occupation Forces Carry Out Massacre of Poor in Port-au-Prince

– Open Letter to Dumas Simeus of RepresentAction

– The spokesperson of Lavalas activists of Bel-Air denounces the MINUSTHAís “blind operation” in CitÈ Soleil, AHP July 7, 2005 12:05 PM

*****************************************

For Immediate Release:



UN Occupation Forces Carry Out Massacre of Poor in Port-au-Prince

On Wednesday morning, July 6th, at approximately 3:00 AM, UN occupation forces in Haiti carried out a major military operation in the working-class neighborhood of Cite Soleil, one of the poorest in Port-au-Prince and also a stronghold of support for Haiti’s majority political party Lavalas and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Presumably, the purpose of the operation was to crack down on illegal “gang activity”, in particular on “gang” leader Dread Wilme. In actuality, a US trade union and human rights delegation in Port-au-Prince discovered evidence of a massacre conducted by the UN forces, targeting the larger community itself.

According to accounts from many different members of the community, many of whom chose to remain anonymous, as well as from journalists who were on the scene during the operation, UN forces surrounded two neighborhoods within Cite Soleil, Boisneuf and Project Drouillard, sealing off the alleys with tanks and troops.

Two helicopters flew overhead. At 4:30 AM, UN forces launched the offensive, shooting into houses, shacks, a church, and a school with machine guns, tank fire, and tear gas. Eyewitnesses reported that when people fled to escape the tear gas, UN troops gunned them down from the back.

UN forces shot out electric transformers in the neighborhood. People were killed in their homes and also just outside of their homes, on the way to work. According to journalists and eyewitnesses, one man named Leon Cherry, age 46, was shot and killed on his way to work for a flower company. Another man, Mones Belizaire, was shot as he got ready to go work in a local sweatshop and subsequently died from a stomach infection. A woman who was a street vendor was shot in the head and killed instantly.

One man was shot in his ribs while he was trying to brush his teeth. Another man was shot in the jaw as he left his house to try and get some money for his wife’s medical costs; he endured a slow death.Yet another man named Mira was shot and killed while urinating in his home.

A mother, Sena Romelus, and her two young children were killed in their home, either by bullets or by a 83-CC grenade UN forces threw. Film footage of many of these deaths was shared with the US human rights delegation. Eyewitnesses claimed that the offensive overwhelmed the community and that there was not a “firefight”, but rather a slaughter. The operation was primarily conducted by UN forces, with the Haitian National Police this time taking a back seat.

Seth Donnelly, a member of the US human rights delegation in Port-au-Prince, visited Cite Soleil with Haitian human rights workers on Thursday afternoon, July 7th. The team gathered testimony from many members of the community, young and old, men, women, and youth. All verified the previous statements we had received from journalists and other eyewitness accounts.

These community members spoke of how they had been surrounded by tanks and troops that sealed off exits from the neighborhoods and then proceeded to assault the civilian population. The community allowed the team to film the evidence of the massacre, showing the homes — in some cases made of tin and cardboard — that had been riddled by bullets, tank fire and helicopter ammunition, as well as showing the team some of the corpses still there, including a mother and her two children.

The team also filmed a church and a school that had been riddled by ammunition. Reportedly, a preacher was among the victims killed. Some community members allowed the team to interview them, but not to film their faces for fear of their lives. People were traumutized and, in the cases of loved ones of victims, hysterical.

Many community members — again young and old, men and women — spoke highly of Dread Wilme, referring to him as their “protector” or “father”, and expressed fear for the future. One member said that he heard that another UN operation against the community was planned for later Thursday night or early Friday morning.

Multiple community people indicated that they had counted at least 23 bodies of people killed by the UN forces. Community members claimed that UN forces had taken away some of the bodies. Published estimates indicate that upwards of 50 may have been killed and an indeterminate number wounded, and that more than 300 heavily armed UN troops took part in the assault on this densely populated residential neighborhood.

“There was systematic firing on civilians,” said one eyewitness to the killing. “All exits were cut off. The community was choked off, surrounded — facing tanks coming from different angles, and overhead, helicopters with machine guns fired down on the people. The citizens were under attack from all sides and from the air. It was war on a community.”

The Labor/Human Rights Delegation from the United States, sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, had been in Haiti since late last month to attend the Congress of the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH), the country’s largest labor organization, and interviewed hundreds of Haitian workers, farmers and professionals about the current labor and human rights situation in Haiti.

**********************

Simeus is one of the people supporting these atrocities... Below is an open letter to Simeus as wee as the letter Simeus wrote to Bush


AN OPEN LETTER TO DUMAS SIMEUS OF REPRESENTACTION

July 7, 2005

Dumas M. Simeus Chairman & Founder, Simeus Foods International, Inc. Co-Chair, National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians Chairman, PromoCapital USA, the Haitian-American Investment Bank

Dear Mr. Simeus:

It is with great consternation that I read your open letter dated June 30, 2005 asking the president of the United States of North America, George W. Bush to consider sending U.S. troops to provide security to our 'helpless brothers and sisters' in Haiti. You also stated in your letter that you are acting on behalf of Haitians everywhere. Sir, it seems to me that you still do not understand the roots of the problems in Haiti.

First let me tell you that you have not spoken on my behalf. Second, part of the problems of Haiti is and has always been the involvement of US policy makers in the internal affairs of this Caribbean country. US policy makers have never been interested in both the development of democracy in Haiti and the well being of the Haitian mass. They have yet to prove me wrong.

You either do not know the history of the US interventions in Haiti. Or if you knew, you are simply ignoring it. In order to solve a problem, you have to understand the roots of its causes. Dumas Simeus, I emphatically repeat that the US Embassy is one of the major causes of our problems in Haiti.

The majority of the Haitian people have made it clear that they want to be included in the affairs of their country. They want to be considered as real citizens of Haiti but not second class human beings. They want access to health care, education, opportunities, freedom to express, respect of their human rights, and especially respect for their rights to choose their elected representatives. US marines have never come to Haiti to guaranty those rights and to further advance those goals. Instead they always come to maintain the status quo, a status quo that the majority of Haitians have repudiated and will never accept. Furthermore, I would like to enumerate who those 'helpless brothers and sisters' are that you are asking protections for? Nevertheless, I have not heard you lending your voice to those denouncing the despicable, barbaric acts of human rights violations (i.e. illegal and arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without any charge, summary executions, rapes, beatings by the Haitian police while under arrest, etc) being committed by the current de-facto Haitian government. I would like to ask you if you are pleased with what is going on in the popular neighborhoods in Haiti and are you going to send an open letter to President Bush asking him to stop the bombings of innocent civilians in Cite Soleil?

Today instead what we need is a new national and patriotic vision for the country based on respect for one another without any outside interference while recognizing the harm that has been done and still plaguing the society to come up with a new consensus to make Haiti the country we all dream of.

You and I have had a chance to access many opportunities in these United States of America. Otherwise, you and I would have been among one of those fighting for those opportunities and those rights denied to millions in todayís Haiti. Let us not forget that. We do not need any more boots including north-american to trample the aspirations and rights of the Haitian people.

Patriotically,

Jean Yves Point-du-Jour, Transportation Engineer Maryland, USA [e-mail]


********************

From: “RepresentAction” <[e-mail]>

To: jpoint du jour Date: 07/02/2005 6:26:36 AM

Subject: An Open Letter To The President of The United States of America

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (by this Simian Simeus creep)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

June 30, 2005

President George W. Bush The White House Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We have read a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti further reducing the in country personnel and sending them back home as a result of continued and accelerating violence in Haiti. While all of us Haitians and Haitian Americans are very grateful to the United States for its repeated benevolent acts towards Haiti, we are respectfully asking you once more for additional help that only you can provide.

UN Peacekeeping Chief Jean Marie Guehenno recently stated that parts of Haiti are far worse than the violent conditions in Darfur, and that the 1,000 additional troops assigned to Haiti will be insufficient to solve this crisis. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has also stated that only the presence of U.S. troops working side by side with the U.N. will bring about peace and security.

We Haitians and Haitian Americans support the assertion of Mr. Kofi Annan that only the direct intervention of the United States will stem the flow of violence and bring about peace and security for all of its citizens.

As you know, there are at least 6 10 kidnappings daily in the country and citizens are living in a state of terrorism, full of fear and anxiety, afraid even to drive their kids to school.

May I urge you Mr. President, on behalf of Haitians everywhere, to consider direct action and help us provide security to our helpless brothers and sisters in Haiti.

Respectfully yours,

Dumas M. SimÈus Chairman & Founder, SimÈus Foods International, Inc. Co Chair, National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians Chairman, PromoCapital USA, The Haitian American Investment Bank

***************

The spokesperson of Lavalas activists of Bel-Air denounces the MINUSTHAís “blind operation” in CitÈ Soleil

Port-au-Prince, July 7, 2005 (AHP)- Spokesperson of Lavalas activists of Bel-Air, Samba Boukman, denounced Thursday the intervention considered brutal and without discrimination, done the day before at CitÈ Soleil, by the MINUSTAH and the National Police against gang leader Emmanuel (Dread) WilmÈ.

People close to Mr. WilmÈ said there were dozens of people killed, while the MINUSTHA military spokesperson, Elouafi Boulbars, speaks of several people killed, 6 of them only in WilmÈís home. According to the daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste, among the people killed in the gang leaderís home are one of his children and one of his lovers.

Samba Boukman accused the MINUSTAH of violating Resolution 1576 of the United Nations Security Council, by killing members of the civil population during its operations. “Crimes occur regularly in residential neighbourhoods, Samba Boukman declared.

Dread WilmÈ is accused of being involved in several cases of violence registered lately in the capital, notably the murder of another gang leader named Robinson (LabanyË) Thomas who was known to be close to the former opposition.

The spokesperson of the activists of Bel-air said that the MINUSTHA and the National Police have the right to want to arrest individuals whom they accuse of violence, but they should have other ways, different than the armour, to neutralize one man only.

“Using weapons of destruction in a neighbourhood as populated as CitÈ Soleil can only harm the population, Samba Boukman declared, saying that the activists of democracy are determined to mobilize peacefully until the return to democratic order.

Meanwhile, the body of Dread WilmÈ, who was declared dead by UN officials, was still not found over 24 hours after the operations.

AHP July 7, 2005 12:05 PM
www.williambowles.info/ha...sacre.html

Thanks Tinoire :hi:

[Tinoire]

33. Anytime

It's time for the bitter tears of the Haitian chilren to stop sweetening America's morning coffee. Dare we even hope due to the unbeliavable willingness to believe anything and everything the media tells us just because it allows us to sleep better at night... pretending we don't know.

[Tinoire]

32. Incorrect. He's a huge Bush supporter & friend

and serves on Jeb Hash's Haiti Task Force. He's a bad guy, a Bush crony and disqualified from running for the Presidency per Haiti's constitution. The Haitian people are furious about yet another move by the US to keep them in economic slavery so they can subsidize the great American Way of Life.

And both Simeus and the US is so aware of this that they didn't submit Simeus' name until the very last minute and made sure the only US journalist down there with any integrity, Kevin Pina, was arrested by masked police just in time to stop him from reporting this obscenity.

You can read more about this, with links here

[political_invader]

35. These Bastards just don't stop

all they see is $$$$ and have no care for anything else:mad:

[DrDebug]

38. Deja vu: Col. Michel Francois 1991

Col. Michel-Joseph Francois helped topple Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991, then terrorized his country as chief of the police and secret police under dictator Gen. Raoul Cedras; some 4,000 Haitians were killed. Francois fled in 1994 to the Dominican Republic. Though convicted in Haiti of assassinating an Aristide supporter, he was never extradited. When the Dominican Republic deported him for plotting another coup in Haiti, Francois landed in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

U.S. prosecutors arrested Francois in March 1997 and charged him with smuggling 33 tons of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. from his private airstrip in Haiti, while taking millions in bribes from Colombian drug lords. Francois denied the charges and stayed in a Honduran prison until July 1997, when the Honduran Supreme Court turned down U.S. extradition efforts for lack of evidence and subsequently released Francois.

'More from the Exile Files'
The life of ex-despots isn't all jail and frozen assets.

From the Mojo Wire - September 1997

By Jen Sullivan

The notoriously slippery Col. Michel-Joseph Francois helped topple Haiti's elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, then terrorized his country as chief of the police and secret police under dictator Gen. Raoul Cedras; some 4,000 Haitians were killed. Francois fled in 1994 to the Dominican Republic, where he lived off a half interest in his brother's car-wash, yet somehow bought a $400,000 house and sent his kids to an exclusive private school. Though convicted in Haiti of assassinating an Aristide supporter, he was never extradited. When the Dominican Republic deported him last year for plotting another coup in Haiti, the wily Francois landed in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where he runs a modest furniture store and rents a home in another ritzy neighborhood.

That's where U.S. prosecutors nabbed him last March and charged him with smuggling 33 tons of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. from his private airstrip in Haiti, while taking millions in bribes from Colombian drug lords. Francois denied it all and stewed in a Honduran prison until July, when the Honduran Supreme Court nixed U.S. extradition efforts for lack of evidence and sent the killer back to his shop to sell tacky living room sets. If "Sweet Mickey" ever did take the stand, the CIA might blush -- he was associated with two CIA-created and -funded groups, Haiti's National Intelligence Service (SIN) and the death-squad Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH). He also received U.S. military training at the Army's notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, and is widely reputed to have been on the U.S. intelligence payroll. "All that I did," said Francois of the drug charges, "I did according to the norms of my country, not according to the norms of the United States." Don't give us too much credit, Mickey.

Club Panama

Advice to Francois and other CIA-tainted despots: Head for a certain Central American haven, aka "Club Panama." Thanks to its liberal asylum policy and banking secrecy laws, the tiny isthmus nation is now home to a stunning rogue's gallery of exiled strongmen like Gen. Raoul Cedras, who now rules supreme over a computer graphics shop in downtown Panama City -- just upstairs from the Dairy Queen.

Cedras, who seized power in Haiti in 1991, helped execute the usual atrocities -- you know, murder, torture, assassination -- until ousted by the U.S. in 1994. Now he's kickin' it in P-Town, living in an exclusive neighborhood with wife, kids, nanny, and his old bud Gen. Philippe Biamby, who helped him into power and served as the Haitian army's chief of staff. The two are living large on the $79 million that the U.S. government kindly unfroze for them when they left power in 1994; many Haitians believe they stole the money from state coffers. The U.S. also flew Cedras and Biamby to Panama, gave Cedras a rent-free beach villa in Panama, and agreed to lease three homes he left behind in Haiti for $5,000 to $12,000 a month.

http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/infamous.htm

And what happened to Michel Francois. He was charged with Crime against humanity and Torture in Oct 2000 and convicted in absentia for his role in the Raboteau Massacre.

Sadly the new regime installed after the second coup overturned all the other defendants which had not been convicted yet.

On 3 May 2005, the convictions of at least 15 of the Raboteau defendants that took place on November 9, 2000 were overturned in one fell swoop by Haiti's Supreme Court in a murky ruling. But the annulment of the convictions appeared to apply only to those convicted at the jury trial, and not to the other self-exiled defendants convicted in absentia, such as paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant, and the three top leaders of the military dictatorship, Raoul Cédras, Philippe Biamby and Michel François.

http://www.trial-ch.org/trialwatch/profiles/en/facts/p337.html

[Beam Me Up]

17. This is what fascists do on a regular basis. USA is now a subject

population. Our government is not run by us, in our interests, it is run by fascist corporations whose only allegiance is to their bottom line. They are soulless monsters because they do not feel the consequences of their own actions against humanity.

What is Haiti today, what is New Orleans today, what is Bagdad and Iraq today, and so many other countries where the boot of fascism has set its heel, WILL BE OUR FUTURE. As global economics decline and the resource wars heat up and we loose another city or two or three -- this time not to 'acts of god' but to terrorist attacks real and ersatz -- you see how much you can expect our Federal Government to come to the aid of the citizens of the United States.

Welcome to the future.

:mad:

[Team44Car]

18. Yes I can see that now

it's going to be one hell of a fight
taking these bastards down

[fortyfeetunder]

19. We are witnessing our own ethnic cleansing

and no one wants to call the government on it.

NOLA residents have been scattered across the nation. Will they ever be able to return to what was once their home?

I bet not if they are poor. And definitely not if they are Black.

The chilling part of this commentary is should the next calamity hit this country, or any other country where the residents are a people of color, might as well forget looking for help from the United States government.

[auntAgonist]

20. thank you for this thread ..

Your post has me in tears.

recommended btw.

I'm speechless.

[seemslikeadream]

31. Thanks auntAgonist, here's Maxine Waters on the kidnapping of Aristide

It means a lot to me that you took the time to post



Congresswoman Maxine Water's Statement on Kidnapping of Aristide


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


Congresswoman Maxine Waters' Statement on Kidnapping of Haitian President Aristide


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[auntAgonist]

36. the 'bush' administration ..

Is too busy destabalizing the rest of the world to care.

I am ashamed.

:cry:

[H2O Man]

21. A powerful thread ....

with a powerful message. Thank you for serving as a conscience for DU.

[buzzsaw_23]

25. Haiti- Bangladesh- Kinshasha- Falluja- New Orleans

It's all connected.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

26. When people start to list the crimes of the shrub it seems so many forget

Haiti. I haven't.

[seemslikeadream]

39. BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html Watch this 3 minute video





Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Langston Hughes


Thanks for caring OmmmSweetOmmm
I know you haven't forgot

[Peace Patriot]

44. My God, what a great poem by Langston Hughes! He speaks my heart!

He made me cry! For all America's lies, hypocrisy and crimes--the enslavement of Africans, the slaughter of the Indians, the slaughter of the Vietnamese, the slaughter of Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Chileans, Guatemalans, Haitians, Iranians, Cambodians, and on and on, and for all the global corporate predators we have launched upon the world--yet something awesomely beautiful was born here, of flawed men and women with magnificent, enlightened dreams of equality and democracy, and was reborn and improved and spread wider with each generation, and with each immigration of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Langston Hughes caught hold of that dream, in his poem.

But the thing that made me cry is that never, until now, was that dream in any doubt as something that could be made real in this land by the efforts of ordinary people and responsive leaders. Never before have any powermongers and tyrants brought such a dimming of hope. Never before have they brought such an ugly, greedy, murderous, lying, two-faced piety to the destruction of our greatest ideals.

I tend to think in practical terms. My strategy for throwing these tyrants off is election reform. They've gotten hold of our very election system, with secret, proprietary programming code in the new electronic voting systems, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, and if we can only break that power, and return elections to the public venue, and start electing people who actually REPRESENT us, we can get our country back.

But we cannot do it if we lose hope--and that is the thing that the Bush Cartel and its greedy or lunatic supporters most want to take away from us, and from people everywhere. They are trying their damnedest to kill the DREAM of America. The hope, the dream, of equality and justice. The hope and the dream of freedom from tyranny. They are trying to kill our very soul.

Well, if Langston Hughes, living in those harsh times--harshest of all for black citizens--could see past all the ugliness of America to our common dream, then who are WE to lose hope? Hm-m? We must cherish and revive that hope, in honor of all who went before us, who kept the dream alive and had faith in future generations, that we would never let it die.

-------

Thanks, seemslikeadream, for posting Hughes' poem.

[arikara]

34. Thanks for posting this

I haven't forgotten it, but it does get lost with all of the more recent evils perpetrated by our governments. I am shamed and beyond infuriated by the sneaky complicity of my country's government in this coup.(Canada) I heard that it was done because Aristide was going to raise the minimum wage for Haitians and the sweat shops that are western corporations wanted him gone.

We will hold them accountable. People are waking up. It may take some time, but it will happen.

[struggle4progress]

41. Thank you SLAD

:hug:

[seemslikeadream]

46. Thanks to you struggle4progress

I know that you are carrying on the struggle every day

You were lost and got lucky,
came upon the shore,
found you were conquering America,
Spoke of peace,
Waged a war,
while you were conquering America.

There was land to take, and people to kill
While you were conquering America.
You saved yourself, and did God's will,
While you were conquering America.

The ghost of Columbus haunts this world,
You're still conquering America.
The meek won't survive, inherit the earth,
Cause you're still conquering America

hmmmm

Found bodies to serve, submit and degrade,
while you were conquering America.
Made of soldiers and junkies, prisoners and slaves,
while you were conquering America.

America, America, America

Your hands are at my throat,
my back's against the wall,
cause you're still conquering America.
We are Sick, and tired, hungry and poor,
cause you're still conquering America.

America, America, America,

You bomb the very ground,
you feed your own babies,
you're still conquering America
Your sons and your daughters,
May never sing your praises,
while you were conquering America.

America, America, America

Unseal your eyes,
see the distant shore,
while you were conquering America,
Take your rockets to the moon,
Try to find a new world,
And you're still conquering America.

America, America, America

The ghost of Columbus, haunts this world,
You're still conquering America,
You're still conquering America,
You're still conquering America

Tracy Chapman

[al bupp]

42. Just keeping this kicked

Not much to add, expect for saying "good work" to Ms. Dream, and you too Dr. Debug. This outrage must not be forgotten, even amoung all the others perpetrated by the BFEE.

[DrDebug]

45. Haiti was 2nd nation of new world to establish independent government

Back in time
Classic documentary: Introduction to Haiti (1942)

Presents a tourist's view of Haiti: its history, tradition, daily life of the people, Port-au- Prince, Cap Haitien and Henri Christophes' Palace. In Kodachrome. Producer and Director: Mary Darling. Narrator: Milton J. Cross.

Free download at: (approx. 10 minutes)
http://www.archive.org/details/Introduc1942

Excerpts transcribed from the 1942 documentary:

(...)
Haiti is one of the few independent negro nations in the world.

(...)
For these people have something infinitely more precious than material wealth. In a world that is battling the last end of despotism, these citizens of Haiti - like us - are blessed with liberty.

(...)
Haiti was the second nation of the New World to establish an independent government. January 1, 1804 when this was done did not only mark a birth of independence, but an emancipation of slavery

(...)
But it ((the citadel)) serves another ((purpose)), one that he ((Henry Christoph)) did not anticipate: it is a solemn reminder to tourists who climb up to see it with its moss-covered ramp tops that all North America has a lasting debt to Haiti. It stands for the great change at the opening on the 19th century in Europe's additude towards to New World. The end of the fond dreams of American conquest.

The trail of disasters that Christoph and his fellows caused the French persuaded Napoleon that the price of a Western Empire was too great. He decided to sell out. The United States making the Louisiana Purchase from him for 15 million dollars. So for those who use more than their eyes. There is neither stick nor stone nor living thing in all the Republic ((of Haiti)) which does not symbolizes the spirit of our own liberty.

http://students.depaul.edu/~jallonce/History.html

[Just Me]

47. I was here, with you, crying at the loss of hope for the Haitians.

Aristide was their "hope" and the US government participated in the forced removal of that man who cared for his people.

It was awful. I was horrified! :cry:

[DrDebug]

48. Until she spoke

Until she spoke, no Christian nation had abolished Negro slavery.

Until she spoke, no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish slavery.

Until she spoke, the slave ship, followed by hungry sharks, greedy to devour the dead and dying slaves flung overboard to feed them, ploughed in peace the South Atlantic, painting the sea with the Negro's blood.

Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included. Men made fortunes by this infernal traffic, and were esteemed as good Christians, and the standing types and representations of the Savior of the World.

Until Haiti spoke, the church was silent, and the pulpit was dumb. Slave-traders lived and slave-traders died. Funeral sermons were preached over them, and of them it was said that they died in the triumphs of the Christian faith and went to heaven among the just.

This segment was extracted from Lecture on Haiti and edited in its present form by Guy S. Antoine ( http://windowsonhaiti.com ) in July 1998. The speech was delivered at the World's Fair, in Jackson Park, Chicago by the Hon. Frederick Douglass, ex-Minister to Haiti on January 2, 1893 and can be read online at:

http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=678

[Octafish]

49. Baby Doc Bush is helping bring Haiti to the USA.

It's the only explanation for his policies of enriching the comfortable while penuring the middle class and mortgaging the nation's future to the likes of the Swiss and the Red Chinese. The goal is to return the nation and planet to a new feudalism, with himself as Chimperror. Those who oppose him will be killed. The rest will be enslaved. It's up to us to throw a monkey wrench in the works.



Thanks for giving a damn about Haiti and the United States and the entire planet and its people, seemslikeadream. You are the best.

[H2O Man]

50. "Baby Doc Bush" !!!!

Oh, thank you.

[buzzsaw_23]

51. Thanks for keeping this in our conscious

We cannot forget as this presages things to come these things that are already here. And with the hopes for a better day we must remember what was and admit to what is.

"Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves," he concluded. "Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth."

These words lead to a 10-year prison sentence and the stripping of his U.S. citizenship. At his sentencing, Debs famously told the judge:

"Your honor, years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." - Eugene Debs

<...>

The Espionage and Sedition Act is still on the books today.

[Minstrel Boy]

52. To 15,000 more truth-to-power posts

[seemslikeadream]

54. Reps Conyers, Meek of Flordia, Meeks of New York on Haiti

Reps Conyers, Meek of Flordia, Meeks of New York on Haiti
HAITI -- (House of Representatives - March 03, 2004)


---
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House and the American people this evening.

Last night, Mr. Speaker, we were on the floor talking about the recent events in Haiti that has also involved not only our military but our international community, not only as it relates to humanitarian efforts but to the safety of the Haitian people. I just left the Committee on International Relations, the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere where we had witnesses, the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs from the U.S. State Department, Mr. Roger Noriega; and also the Honorable Arthur Dewey, Assistant Secretary of Population, Refugee and Migration of the United States State Department; also other representatives from the State Department. Mr. Speaker, it was quite disturbing hearing some of the testimony that was given to us there on that committee. I am thankful that the chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina, allowed other Members that were concerned about not only the plight of Haiti but also the U.S. involvement in Haiti. I think the events that took place last Saturday evening and early Sunday morning has a lot to do with how we move forward from this point on. Many of us in this Congress feel very strongly about the U.S. involvement in Haiti from this point on, on how safe will it be in Haiti? How safe will it be for the Haitian people? How many months will our U.S. Coast Guard be visually off the coast of Haiti? What kind of commitment will the United States make to Haiti? And also what kind of commitment will the international community put forth as it relates to Haiti?

First of all, I would have to go back. We spoke last night about Mr. Philippe, who has announced himself as the leader of Haiti, the head of the rebel force, using Secretary Noriega's description of him as a thug, that has now taken control of Haiti. He was in Port-au-Prince yesterday, he had a meeting, he talked about him being in charge of Haiti. He said he really looks up to the United States, that he reveres our President, and rightfully so, he should revere our President, because if it was not for a visit by officials from the State Department that will go unnamed at the home of President Aristide and giving him an ultimatum to either leave or be killed, that simple, that he had to make the decision right then and there. Reports say that he made that decision. That decision empowered Mr. Philippe, a known individual not only to Haitians but also a known individual that has carried out terror in Haiti in the past, a 36-year-old young man that is now on the streets of Haiti who has announced that he is going to arrest the prime minister of Haiti. I say that as a backdrop of talking about troop safety.

I think it is important to note in the early 1990s when U.S. troops went into Haiti to not only kick General Cedras out who took Haiti by a coup but to also provide a level of safety to try to build onto democracy, that not one soldier lost his or her life. No one even choked on popcorn. It was that smooth of an operation. I commend Senator Nunn at that time, I commend Mr. Powell at that time, now Secretary Powell, and also the leadership of William Jefferson Clinton.

But now we have a situation that is in question. Some people may say, why are you so concerned? Okay, President Aristide said he felt like he was kidnapped. Some people say, well, he wasn't kidnapped, that's not true. Who's right? Who's wrong? That is not the issue. The issue is that for us to provide the kind of forward progress that we are going to need in Haiti to make sure that Haiti is able to move forth in a democratic way, for us to continue to have the international community willing to be a part of democracy-building in the Caribbean as it relates to other Caribbean islands surrounding Haiti, then we can no longer move forth with a Saturday night policy ultimatum.

This should have not happened, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Speaker, I must say that it brings into question the very safety of troops and also it brings into question good elections in the future. If Haitians that were pro-Aristide and within the party that he was the head of know and feel that the United States played a strong role in his departure by force, and taken from Mr. Noriega's quote, I might add, that he just gave in responding to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) in the committee just a couple of hours ago, the gentleman from New York asked him: Mr. Noriega, is it true that President Aristide was told that he needed to sign a resignation letter before he boarded the plane?

Mr. Noriega responded: It was important to make sure that we have a positive process to a political resolution.

The gentleman from New York asked him again: Is it true that he was asked to sign a resignation letter before he boarded the plane? That answer was: Yes.

And then after that, to give Secretary Noriega some credit, he said that to make sure that we can resolve a good political resolution.

Mr. Speaker, if someone showed up to my house on a Saturday night and shared with me that either I needed to leave with them or I would be killed and my family, I would leave. If they were to ask me, listen, sign your mortgage or your deed over to your property because we are not going to take you unless you do that, I would sign it.

We met with the Secretary-General of the U.N., several Members of this Congress, on Monday. This brings into question, was this an exit of a leader who wanted to leave of his own free will and saying that, hey, come get me, I already have my resignation letter ready and I'm willing to sign it, I want to thank you, America, for helping me and helping my family leave this island? Or was this a resignation under duress? We do not know if the 33rd coup d'etat took place on Saturday night or it was just a misunderstanding.

I must say, I am no fan, and I have said this time after time, Mr. Speaker, of President Aristide. I represent Miami. I represent south Florida. But what I am a fan of is democracy. When these knee-jerk policy decisions are made on a Saturday night, it puts forth a bad light on the United States of America as it relates to how we deal with democracies in South America or in the Americas. This is so very, very important. We are sending the signal to individuals that will arm themselves, known to be outlaws, have been a part of terror groups in the past of Haiti to arm themselves and take cities, if we like it or not. Some may argue, well, the 2000 elections as it relates to Haiti was wrong and it was


flawed. I would say that he was recognized and given credentials by the Ambassador of the U.S., President Aristide was. He was recognized by the United Nations as the President of Haiti. So to even talk about the 2000 elections, and I think that we should not even go there as it relates to our own personal situations. And one thing that I do honor. Never once that I have denounced or said that President Bush is not my President. He is my President. Until November, until we all get a chance to be able to cast our ballots as Americans on how we feel, he will be the President until that point. If he is reelected, he will be reelected. That is just something that we have to live with. But what is important as we move forth from this point and making sure that we stop the violence is that we play with a level hand. Guy Philippe is an individual that has said, once again, that he will arrest the prime minister. The prime minister of Haiti's house has been burned down to the ground. It has been looted and burned down to the ground. He has been living in his office protected by U.S. Marines. Can he leave that office? No. I do not think that that is a safe situation.
I have one other thing before I yield to my colleague here. Secretary Dewey said that there has been over 900 Haitians rescued. The Secretary-General of the U.N. had brought a question to the United States policy as it relates to individuals trying to flee Haiti of fear of persecution. Persecution means that if you return, you are fearful of your life or your family's life, women and children. We have repatriated over 900 Haitians even though the road is littered of bloated bodies that the rebel forces left in the path on their way to Port-au-Prince, never once stopped by the United States of America, never once stopped by the international community but kept marching on. It is that same rebel force that did not agree to any of the diplomatic or political solutions we tried to bring about to bring a peaceful resolution to what was going on in Haiti. Nine hundred were repatriated. The Secretary reported since Aristide has left the island only three have been caught and repatriated. Let me just say this. After the 900 that were brought into the Port-au-Prince dock and sent off to the streets because they were leaving from the south end of the island, not from Port-au-Prince, which is like over 100 miles away, they are walking through a populated area where rebel forces and other folks can see them and their families. Some of them are government workers, some of them are individuals that were pro-Aristide or they never would have left the island in the first place. They were not leaving because of President Aristide. They were leaving because of the violence and the violence and the persecution that they were going to receive. So I would not even try to leave if I knew I was going to go through Port-au-Prince and everyone was going to see me and know exactly where I am. They are now in hiding in Haiti.

I think it is important, ladies and gentlemen, that we look at what we are doing and how we are doing it and if we want to see a peaceful resolution in Haiti, it is important that we put forth policy not on slogan but based on making sure that our troops and humanitarian supporters are safe. So it is very, very important that we understand that as this U.S. Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan, the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding.

(Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I begin by commending my colleague from Florida for the testimony that he has given before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on International Relations. It has been quite a day, quite an afternoon and evening. As a matter of fact, that subcommittee is still going on as we take this special order. I think the gentleman who has perhaps more citizens of Haitian descent than anyone else in the Congress should take this special order in which we can continue to develop the discussion about how we are to deal with this very sensitive foreign policy issue that is made more emphatic because of the fact that it is within the Western hemisphere. This is not thousands of miles away. This is hundreds of miles away from our shore. It is very, very important. I appreciate my colleague's testimony and that of all the members of the Committee on International Relations and the Congressional Black Caucus and others who participated in the proceedings this afternoon in the Committee on International Relations.




Let us begin with the most immediate consideration, that is, the safety of the president of Haiti and his wife, Mildred Aristide. And I want to ask the gentleman from Florida if he can shed any light based on the numerous discussions that went on around this subject this afternoon in terms of where they are and what amount of security is being made available to them at this point.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, from what I understand, I have no firsthand accounts, that they are in a Central African country, that they have French and U.S. guards that are protecting them, including their own private security that President Aristide has had over the last couple of years. So from what I understand, his life is not in jeopardy, and I am glad that the gentleman has brought that up because there are many people not only in the United States but many of my constituents that feel otherwise, and we try to find out that kind of good information and share it with them that all is well so that we can hopefully see some sort of smooth political process in the future.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. And I would like to put on the record at this point that the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Noriega, testified, much to my interest, that at this point the United States, having brought the president and his wife to the Central Republic of Africa, has now taken no responsibility for his security at this point. This is a Francophone country in sub-Saharan Africa that has recently undergone a coup. As a matter of fact, there were two coups, and the last one was successful. It is a very dangerous circumstance because those of us who may have talked to the president or his wife, and I am one of them, they have yet to have met with the president of the country in which they have been brought, that they are apparently under some kind of formal or informal house arrest, that they consider themselves to be in danger.

So I wanted to put everybody on notice in the United States of America, including the President and the Secretary of State of the United States, that they may be in danger even as we speak. We are trying to get phone calls to them to determine what amount of security is being afforded them. It is somewhat disingenuous for the Assistant Secretary of State to tell us that having deposited them in a rather isolated part of Africa of a very small and modest means, this nation, in a country in Africa which is circumscribed by poverty and economic deprivation, which in some reports to me have indicated that there may be elements of civil unrest still going on in the country, that he could testify before a committee of the United States Government that we have no responsibility for the president's or his wife's safety at this point. If this does not set off alarm bells, I do not know what else will.

So if this Special Order convened by the gentleman from Florida does nothing else but preserve the security and safety of the president and his wife in the National Republic of Africa, this will be well worth the time that we have spent here.

It is my position that the United States has every responsibility for the continued security and safety of the president. As a matter of fact, we have been told that the reason that he left Haiti was because his life and his wife's were in danger. Now to take him thousands of miles out of his country and then tell us that we have no longer any responsibility for his security, it is up to somebody else, is totally unacceptable. And I want to put this government on notice right now that we had better get some security over there if it is not already, and this is what I am going to be working on for the rest of the evening and into the morning.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think that is important too. I just


want to make sure that I clarify that, from what I understand from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), that he spoke with President Aristide this evening or earlier, and he did share that he had French, U.S., and personal security individuals; and he is on a French base in this particular country. Hopefully, that security holds up over time and justifiably so.
Going back to what I was mentioning a little earlier, and I know that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) has joined us now for this discussion, but the very safety and how President Aristide was removed speaks to the future security of Haiti. And the gentleman from Michigan is a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. I know that he is fully aware of the temporary protected status that all of us have been fighting for so that we do not put Haitians that are in the U.S. into harm's way just like we have done for other countries that had similar turmoil, be it political or natural disaster. I think it is important that we note that when people are saying why are we worried about how President Aristide left, I am more worried, Mr. Speaker, about the safety of the Haitian people, also worried about our troops that are in Haiti protecting not only U.S. properties but also looking at the issue as it relates to the safety of humanitarian workers; and I think the way that the administration moved on a Saturday night/early Sunday morning with this whole resignation thing or he cannot get on a plane fuels more chaos on the ground in Haiti.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman, as the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, to speak to that.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, let us review the urgency of what the gentleman has described as the designation of a temporary protected status for all Haitians who are fleeing the country. I was not able to raise this personally with Mr. Noriega, the Assistant Secretary of State for Caribbean Affairs; but he said that now that President Aristide has gone, it may be safe for people to return to Haiti. This is probably the most dangerous statement that has been uttered in a congressional hearing certainly this year and maybe all last year as well.

To tell anybody that it is safe to go back to Haiti when there is no government, when the rebel leaders have announced that they are replacing the police and cooperating with the prime minister, people who led the overthrow of the first democratically elected president in the 200-year existence of Haiti, is probably the most incredible utterance of this year or last year. And the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), our ranking subcommittee person on the Immigration, Border Security, and Claims Subcommittee on the Committee on the Judiciary, and I and others on the committee have written Secretary Ridge, asking that he designate temporary protected status to the Haitians that are fleeing. To turn them around upon arriving here from hundreds of miles in an ocean always on very fragile craft, that the first miracle is that it even got to our shores, would be inhumane. And yet this is the policy as we speak tonight.

And so I have to ask the President of the United States to review this standard, especially since this is the only group coming to this country, Haitians, that are instantly turned away in violation of the immigration laws of this country and in violation of the humanitarian laws that control all of us in the family of nations and in the United Nations itself.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for coming down and his being willing to stay and be a part of this discussion.

I know the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) left the Committee on International Relations to come here and join us here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding to me, and I want to thank him for having this important hour. I want to thank the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary and the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus as to all of his insight and his invaluable knowledge.

I just left the hearing; and just piggybacking on the colloquy that was taking place, I just asked one of the witnesses that was brought in who used to be in charge of Haiti University, and I asked him a simple question since I know that part of the administration had brought him here and wanted him to testify since he was their witness, whether or not he thought that individuals in Haiti should receive asylum right now coming into America, whether he thought that the policy that the United States has of turning back Haitians and accepting Cubans was a fair policy. And he quickly and unequivocally said that he thought that that policy should change and it shows absolute discrimination against the Haitian people and that that is something we should be moving in a complete bipartisan manner to make sure that we take care of those individuals, particularly now because of the fact that our hands are virtually tied into what is taking place in Haiti currently.

We need to talk about the security of the people that are on this little island called Haiti, 8 million people. What is going to happen to them? It seems to me that what took place here when we did not compel the individuals to sit down at the table to have a peaceful negotiation, when we knew that the alternative would be that common crooks and criminals would be coming in armed, coming across the border, people who had been banned for life and people who are really Benedict Arnolds because they were traitors to their own country, that they would be coming back to have an insurrection as well as killing innocent men and women on the streets of Haiti, that we should have done something about it. And now with no form of government that is there now, democracy basically we did not uphold, it has crumbled, the people in Haiti are at the mercy of these individuals.

I think that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) clearly pointed out at the Committee on International Relations how he brought both The Washington Post and the New York Times showing this Philippe, who is a known criminal, convicted, is now declaring himself to be the leader and people holding him up as if he is ruling the country, and we saw no place in the paper, nor have I heard of anyone else saying, that they were in charge. We have not heard from the prime minister. We have not seen that the chief justice of the supreme court, anywhere in the constitution, when we talk about democracy, says is supposed to be in charge.




Here is this guy demanding and commanding the police force, telling the people if this guy shows his face he is going to have him placed under arrest. So the people of Haiti are under, apparently, unless the papers are lying, and from what I see, are apparently under the jurisdiction of individuals who are convicted criminals. What they did was come, and now they have opened up and destroyed all of the prisons, where people who are under a legal system, we talk about institutions, but under a judicial institution system, that were convicted by law, they are now walking the streets and the people of Haiti are subject to them.

So I say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), we have to really wonder whether or not the people in Haiti are safe now. I hope that the troops on the ground are changing their position, because I know at one time they were only protecting United States property. So the question is, what about the people?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. If I could reclaim my time from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), I just wanted to make a quick point. I share with Secretary Noriega and others, you would have individuals in the White House saying that, well, I hope that Members of Congress would watch what they say, because they are putting troops' lives and State Department civilian workers' lives at stake.

I must beg to differ, because we did not make the Saturday night visit. We did not bring about the kind of swiftness that our country brought about. We did not allow rebels, I am going to use Mr. Noriega's term, ``thugs and criminals,'' to go through Haiti, taking over cities, burning police departments, pulling pro-Aristide supporters out and executing them in front of their homes. We did not do that as


Members of the Congress. And as it relates to the executive branch, the administration, they did not stop it. All they did was put out a little press release and say ``we condemn the actions of this group. Stop doing what you are doing.''
Not only did we go to the negotiating table, and I commend Mr. Noriega for going over there, I commend the President for saying we are sending the diplomatic corps over there. President Aristide sat down and said, ``Fine, I agree with you. Let us share power.''

The opposition party said no. ``Okay. We will give you a deadline of 5 o'clock.'' Still no. The following day, still no. Then we just kind of walked away.

But then it became a point to where that in this democracy, the biggest democracy on the face of the Earth, the United States of America, went in and told the President of Haiti, as wrong as he may be on several issues, ``You have two choices: One, we can have a plane here to save the lives of you and your family, or you will be killed. And, by the way, if you want the plane, you have to sign this letter resigning as president of the country that you were elected to serve.''

I would say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), I hate to keep going back to that point, because I think that is going to be the cornerstone of how we move forth in Haiti.

Now, you listen to Mr. Noriega, you listen to the President, they start saying, ``Well, you know, we are restoring order and peace.'' But that is not what the Washington Post is saying. That is not what the New York Times is saying. That is not what the Miami Herald is saying. That is not what the Associated Press is saying. That is not what CNN is saying. That is not what MSNBC and any other news organizations are saying.

What they are saying is Mr. Guy Philippe is the leader of the army and he is in charge, and he will say, President Alexandre of the Supreme Court, I will yield to him, but at the same time it is him riding through the streets with armed bandits.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Just quickly, it is not only all of the press, but my constituents who have relatives that live in Haiti, and they are on either side of the fence. Some of them do not like Aristide either. But they do not like these common crooks that are there.

When they call my office, they are telling me they are afraid for their mothers, for their grandmothers, for their uncles, for their aunts who are living there now. The situation is not better than it was before Aristide was forced to get on the plane. In fact, if anything else, it is worse. That is what they are calling my office and saying to me.

Mr. CONYERS. If the gentleman would yield further, I would like to put in the RECORD a communication from Jamaica from Randall White about the meeting of the CARICOM Conference, the more than two dozen nations in the Caribbean, who have sent this communication.

It reads: ``The CARICOM prime minister's press conference ended at about 1330 EST today after meetings which began yesterday and about midday.

``Here are the main points of the press conference.'' This is CARICOM, of which Haiti is a Member.

``A communique is being drafted and will be issued later.

``CARICOM does not accept the removal of Aristide and demands the immediate return of democratic government in Haiti.

``CARICOM leaders have been in almost constant contact with Aristide before his removal and were never given the impression that he wished to resign or to leave Haiti.

``CARICOM demands an impartial transparent investigation by the United Nations into the circumstances surrounding Aristide's removal.

``CARICOM will have no dealings with the so-called government of Haiti.''

Mr. Speaker, I include the communication from Randall White for the RECORD:


The Caricom prime minister's press conference ended at about 1330 EST after meetings which began yesterday and ended about midday today. I must confess pleasure and some surprise at the strength of the response.

Here are the main points of the press conference. A communique is begin drafted and will be issued later.

Caricom does not accept the removal of Aristide and demands the immediate return of democratic government in Haiti.

Caricom leaders had been in almost constant contact with Aristide before his removal and were never given the impression that he wished to resign or leave Haiti.

Caricom demands an impartial transparent investigation, by the UN, into the circumstances surrounding Aristide's removal.

Caricom will have no dealings with the so-called government of Haiti.

Seems like a good strong statement.


That reminds me that in our visit to the United Nations to meet with the esteemed Secretary General, Kofi Annan, it was announced today that they, too, have launched an investigation into this matter.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for reading that, and I will tell you how important CARICOM is to the economy here in the United States. We have what we call the Free Trade of the Americas, and they are a part of the whole hemisphere and economy and everything. We need the Caribbean with us.

Prime minister Patterson of Jamaica put forth a great effort as a neighbor to Haiti of wanting to see a resolution, a peaceful resolution. It was the Bush administration that rode in on the backs of CARICOM saying that we are going to use the CARICOM agreement. That is what the Secretary of State Noriega went down to Haiti to negotiate. Prime minister P.J. Patterson went to the Security Council on Friday of last week saying we must immediately go into Haiti to secure the situation so that we can resolve the CARICOM agreement, which was the political solution.

To his shock and dismay Saturday evening came about, and I will tell you there is no secret, there have been press accounts, that basically President Aristide was told the following: ``One, get on the plane and leave and save the lives of you and your family; or die.''

Now, this is the bicentennial, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) knows, of Haiti, 200 years. On this 200th anniversary, or bicentennial, history is going to reflect that the United States played a hand in what possibly could have been the 33rd coup d'etat of Haiti.

I personally did not want our contribution to be that, especially since Haiti made it possible for us to make the Louisiana Purchase by taking out and beating down Napoleon, who was trying to run the whole world. Haiti went to Savannah to help us gain our independence against the British.

We got all upset with France over Iraq, talking about they do not appreciate our contributions of the past. I will say that the way we are going about it, I will not even say ``we,'' because I do not think this Congress would have even moved in this way, if we had the prerogative to have some say in this, in the way the administration moved.

So, Mr. Chairman, I am glad you put that into the RECORD of the Congress, so Americans will have an opportunity to reflect back on this moment to know that there were Members who were willing to bring this issue to the floor to let them know that history should not repeat itself.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I think that CARICOM really should be applauded, because they really stepped up to the plate. They could have sat back and said just let it be. They could have been silent, as we were, up until that point, because we did not push CARICOM or anything.

We are the largest democracy on the planet. Yet we did not go in there to urge any kind of diplomatic or political solution. It took the nations of CARICOM to step up to the plate and say, ``Look, we do not want mayhem and violence. We understand the history and significance of Haiti. Therefore, we are going to come up with this plan and try to get two people to the table.''

Who dropped the ball? Unfortunately, this administration dropped the ball, because it did absolutely nothing to urge the opposition to come to the table. In fact, by its silence it said, ``You do not have to come to the table,'' which one knew then would lead to a result of what could possibly be the 33rd coup d'etat in the history of Haiti.

When we look at it, the question is, what if

anything could have been done


by Aristide at that time, because he agreed to everything. First the bishops came with an agreement. Aristide agreed to it. The opposition disagreed. No one compelled them to come to the table. Then CARICOM came. Then there was an international group that came. You would have one side there saying we are willing to talk.
I for one had some problems with what was going on, and I thought having some more people involved in government and making sure there is a balance of power, that is what democracy was all about. As I looked at the CARICOM agreement, I saw there were concessions in there that individuals who may have felt they were locked out of government and not able to participate in a democratic process, that they were given, and that was going to be part of the negotiating peace, where they would be given the opportunity to sit in a floor similar to what we have here in the United States of America, in Haiti, so they could have the political debate to argue one side to the other.

Now, for sure, in my estimation, I do not agree with most of the things that the Republicans in our House do, as far as what they are moving. But we do not get into armed revolt. What we do is talk about it and debate on the floor and I have an opportunity to participate. Sometimes I even question the opportunity to participate because we are limited in our rules. But still it is the democratic process. It is the institution that we have. I think that is how problems should be resolved, and that is what we should urge people to do.

I said for a long time that I disagreed with the results that took place in the year 2000, where I believe that we had a President that was selected by the Supreme Court. I disagreed with that. But I thought that the way that we responded when we said okay, I disagree with it, but the Supreme Court is what our institutions say where there a dispute it is to be resolved. So even the fact that I disagreed with what took place and with the decision, I am going to agree with that.

That would be a lesson, an example, for the rest of the world to see, and thereby we should then also encourage other individuals to establish these kinds of institutions and to support them and not undermine them with common crooks and criminals.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I have two points and a question for the chairman. Two points: Number one, President Aristide was recognized not only by the U.S. Ambassador, I want to recap, as the duly elected President of Haiti, but also recognized by the United Nations and the international community as being the President of Haiti. So when we hear these arguments about a questionable election, I do not say history speaks to that as it relates to our diplomatic ties with Haiti.

Mr. Ranking Member, whom I refer to as ``chairman'' constantly, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), I have a question for you: Let us just play ``what if.'' Let us just reflect back, because I was not in the Congress when William Jefferson Clinton was the President of the United States of America.

If there was a Saturday night visit by the Clinton administration to a democratically elected leader, what kind of Congressional hearings would be taking place right now on the Hill? I just want the gentleman to share that. I want the RECORD to reflect that, because I remember being a member of the State legislature a number of hearings for less.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Well, first of all, we want to commend the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger), for doing what he did today. I think it was very important. We will have a transcript of that record, the media was there, and it is an important beginning. But the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and myself, who are the co-chairs of the Haiti Committee, will have a resolution circulating tomorrow calling for an independent examination of this over and above the Congress.




The United Nations will be embarking on the same thing. And so it seems to me that the three things I wanted to add as we conclude, and this is what I think has been the import of this 3-way discussion this evening: one, the safety of the President of Haiti and his wife in the Republic of Africa; two, that we have an immediate meeting with Secretary of State Powell and Ridge about the temporary protected status of anybody that flees from Haiti and comes to our shores; and, three, that we continue the introduction of the resolution that will call for, in addition to any congressional activity in the House or the Senate, an independent examination of the circumstances of the United States in terms of this coup d'etat that has occurred in Haiti.

If there are other items to add, I would be pleased to add them to this list.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that it is important that we try not in our democracy to revisit the kind of action as I understand it has taken place over the last 84 hours. While we are speaking into the record, I want to commend not only the Secretary of the U.N. for his forward progress and concern and in appointing a special envoy to deal with this situation in Haiti. But it is going to be upon this Congress to be able to respond in the way that we should. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot say, Haitians, you stay in Haiti and then on the other hand clog up assistance. We cannot say, because it is all wrapped around Haitians leaving, that is the real issue. Haitians, stay in Haiti. Deal with your own issues, but we will hold up the assistance. I say that again because that is what has happened in the past, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the gentleman's work as chairman of the working group as it relates to Haiti and its issues. But the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) and I celebrate representing a large Haitian American population, and I must say that it is important that we do the right thing in Haiti.

Number one, to make sure our troops are not over there for the rest of their lives. Because if we follow the Bush policy that has been followed in Iraq, we do not know when the clock will run out on that. We do not know how long our troops will be there. If you let some of us tell it, we think we are in charge in Iraq. And every day on the news it is different.

So when I look at this administration, it is a say-one-thing-and-do-another administration. And I hope that the American people are paying very close attention. If you care about Haiti or not, you have to care about the moves that we are making that are going to define the very future of our children's and grandchildren's lives based on the knee-jerk decisions that are being made on a Saturday night.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, as well as the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), when I think about the whole Haitian task force.

Number one, the record should reflect that this is the gentleman's first term in Congress, and he surely has followed right in the foot steps of his mother, Carrie Meek, who long stood fighting for the rights of Haitians and talking about the injustice that Haitians were receiving. And I think that his stepping forward on behalf of the Haitian people is clearly what he has done.

We talked in the hearing about the wisdom that the gentleman has brought to the hearing today and that he brings every Wednesday to the Congressional Black Caucus meeting because the gentleman has this interdialogue with individuals from his community, the largest Haitian community on or in our country. And what the gentleman brings is a different insight. It is an insight that unless you have that kind of interaction, everybody would not know of. And the gentleman has done it in such an articulate manner, and we appreciate it.

I mean, how the gentleman pointed out today, for example, that our policy, we had a problem talking about getting troops there to stop the common crooks from coming, but we had boats there instantly where you can see them from the shore to stop Haitians from coming here. That is why you only see 900 here. That was just very astute of the gentleman, and we thank him for bringing that forward.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join the gentleman from New


York (Mr. Meeks) in that commendation to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek).
Mr. MEEK of Florida. If the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) could yield while I call my mother so she can watch. Both of the gentlemen are saying these wonderful things about me. Go ahead.

Mr. CONYERS. This has been very important; and, of course, it is very clear that this is the beginning of our inquiries into U.S. activities, conduct, action, in front of and behind the scenes with regard to this poor, distraught, economically strapped nation.

We have a much wider obligation than has been employed so far, and I think the Congressional Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus which has joined with us, the Progressive Caucus, the Pacific-Asian caucus, the Native American Caucus, we have all been working together with a number of people. The gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) is in at least one of those caucuses, but there are a number of other people that are coming in to join us because democracy is being tested by what we do and what we say.

It is very important. We met with the CARICOM leaders and its chairman, just before we met in the United Nations; and it was very obvious to them that if this could happen to Haiti, it could happen to them.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Just on that point, because, I think it is important, on the whole western hemisphere because the first statement that we heard from President Chavez from Venezuela is indicating that Venezuela is not Haiti. Because just in April of 2003, there was an attempted coup there, again, threatening democracy; and we stood idly by. And but for the people of Venezuela who decided that they were not going to allow the coup to stand and put the president back, we were silent on that.

Our hands were kind of caught, the administration's hands I should say, because the gentleman is correct. I do not think the Congress would have acted that way, but the administration's hand was caught in a cookie jar. Here we come just a few months, we move from that, and we have the same kind of coup. There is a lot of similarities in that, whereas we seem to disregard the institution of democracy because of the dislike of who happens to be the democratically elected president. What we should be doing is looking to see how we can strengthen those institutions of democracy, how we can be helpful to strengthen those institutions as opposed to saying that the way you do that is to have a coup d'etat which gets rid of government altogether and causes mayhem.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Let me just say this, there is a footprint of drug activity in the Caribbean. So that means that you have well-financed individuals that have guns that have now been green-lighted by this administration, that it is okay. And if I were the prime minister of any country in that area, I would be very concerned.

You would assume that the U.S. would help put a stop to this kind of thing. This is the vacation capital of the Caribbean. They are not used to worrying about coups and all these little different things. But if they watch very slowly over a 4-week period, drug dealers, known criminals, thugs going through Haiti and if you notice as they are starting to progress, they are getting body armor, helmets, fully automatic AR-15s, M-16s.

Mr. MEEKS of New York. Where do they come from?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. They say they came from the Dominican Republic. Also, there was a question about the U.S. selling arms to the Dominican Republic, some of those same arms that ended up in Haiti.

So I am not a man with conspiracy theory here. And take it from my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), this is not the Kendrick Meek Report. This is factual. So we have a lot to be worried about. And like I am saying to Americans, what this administration is doing as it relates to putting our armed services and making the job harder, we could have had peacekeeping troops in there. We could have stopped the violence, and we could have come up with a peaceful solution.

Mr. CONYERS. Under the Special Orders that we will be taking tomorrow evening, I will be able to report to you the whereabouts of young Duvalier, who is reported today to be planning to return to Haiti. And there is a young gentleman evicted from Haiti named Constant in New York.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. He is in my district.

Mr. CONYERS. We have to watch where he is at all times. His record is bloody and long and unsavory. And so I am very glad that both of the gentleman, who have enormous Haitian constituents, are here not just because of their numbers, but because American democracy is on trial in Haiti.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. As we close, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Members of the House and the Democratic leader for allowing us to have this moment to address not only Members of the House, but the American people and that we think long and hard about the decisions that the President is making. We think we should not automatically give instant credibility to Saturday-night decisions.

I am pretty sure there is a strong argument to justify the reason why we went in and we told President Aristide what we told him when we told him. I am pretty sure that there is a strong argument when we said you have to sign this letter of resignation not once, but twice, before you board the plane to save your own life. I am pretty sure there is an argument. But I will tell you as we look on the annals of history of this country and how we treat democracies, like it or not, there has to be a better way. For us to make sure that we assure the safety of those peacekeeping troops that are there, some that are Americans, some that are do-gooders at the United Nations, we need to make sure that we do not put them in harm's way.

Mr. Speaker, I pray and I hope that we do not have any harm come to any of the peacekeepers that are there. I pray and hope that the killings stop on both sides of the ball as it relates to Haitian people.

Mr. Speaker, with that I will close. I am proud to be a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and I hope in the future that we can change some of the mistakes that have been made in the last 84 hours.
http://thomas.loc.gov

[shance]

53. What does one say?

Thank you Slad for doing what those the media are complicit and guilty for not doing.

Thank YOU for caring as deeply as you do.

[Me.]

55. 15,000

Incredible SLaD, especially considering how much beyond excellent research has gone into those posts. I don't have any expertise to contribute on this subject but I always check out what you have to say as it's usually right on the money.