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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Government Secrecy : International Relations |
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President Aristide Says 'I Was Kidnapped', 'Tell the World it is a Coup' |
Current rating: 0 |
by Democracy Now
(No verified email address) |
01 Mar 2004
|
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He said that the American embassy sent the diplomats; he referred to them as, to his home where they was lead by Mr. Moreno. And I believe that Mr. Moreno is a deputy chief of staff at the embassy in Haiti and other diplomats, and they ordered him to leave. They said you must go NOW. He said that they said that Guy Phillipe and U.S. Marines were coming to Port Au Prince; he will be killed, many Haitians will be killed, that they would not stop until they did what they wanted to do. |
Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was "kidnapped" and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. "He's surrounded by military. It's like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped," said Waters. She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristide's US security.
TransAfrica founder and close Aristide family friend Randall Robinson also received a call from the Haitian president early this morning and confirmed Waters account. Robinson said that Aristide "emphatically" denied that he had resigned. "He did not resign," he said. "He was abducted by the United States in the commission of a coup." Robinson says he spoke to Aristide on a cell phone that was smuggled to the Haitian president.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Congressmember Waters, can you tell us about the conversation you just had with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide?
MAXINE WATERS: I most certainly can and he’s anxious for me to get the message out so people will understand. He is in the Central Republic of Africa at a place called the Palace of the Renaissance, and he’s not sure if that’s a house or a hotel or what it is and he is surrounded by military. It’s like in jail, he said. He said that he was kidnapped; he said that he was forced to leave Haiti. He said that the American embassy sent the diplomats; he referred to them as, to his home where they was lead by Mr. Moreno. And I believe that Mr. Moreno is a deputy chief of staff at the embassy in Haiti and other diplomats, and they ordered him to leave. They said you must go NOW. He said that they said that Guy Phillipe and U.S. Marines were coming to Port Au Prince; he will be killed, many Haitians will be killed, that they would not stop until they did what they wanted to do. He was there with his wife Mildred and his brother-in-law and two of his security people, and somebody from the Steel Foundation, and they’re all, there’s five of them that are there. They took them where-- they did stop in Antigua then they stopped at a military base, then they were in the air for hours and then they arrived at this place and they were met by five ministers of government. It’s a Francophone country, they speak French. And they were then taken to this place called the Palace of the Renaissance where they are being held and they are surrounded by military people. They are not free to do whatever they want to do. Then the phone clicked off after we had talked for about five--we talked maybe fifteen minutes and then the phone clicked off. But he, some of it was muffled in the beginning, at times it was clear. But one thing that was very clear and he said it over and over again, that he was kidnapped, that the coup was completed by the Americans that they forced him out. They had also disabled his American security force that he had around him for months now; they did not allow them to extend their numbers. To begin with they wanted them to bring in more people to provide security they prevented them from doing that and then they finally forced them out of the country. So that’s where his is and I said to him that I would do everything I could to get the word out. …that I heard it directly from him I heard it directly from his wife that they were kidnapped, they were forced to leave, they did not want to leave, their lives were threatened and the lives of many Haitians were threatened. And I said that we would be in touch with the State Department, with the President today and if at all possible we would try to get to him. We don’t know whether or not he is going to be moved. We will try and find that information out today.
AMY GOODMAN: Did President Aristide say whether or not he resigned?
MAXINE WATERS: He did not resign. He said he was forced out, that the coup was completed.
AMY GOODMAN: So again to summarize, Congressmember Maxine Waters, you have just gotten off the phone with President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who said he believes he is in the Central African Republic.
MAXINE WATERS: That’s right, with French speaking officers, he’s surrounded by them and he’s in this place called the Palace of the Renaissance and he was forced to go there. They took him there.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you going to do right now?
MAXINE WATERS: I’m going to get to the State Dept to find out what do they plan on doing with him. Do they plan on leaving him there or are they planning on taking him to another country? We are going to tell them we would like to see him. We are prepared to go where he is NOW and that we are demanding that we are able to see him and go where he is. And to negotiate what will be done with him.
AMY GOODMAN: Did he describe how he was taken out? We had heard reports in Haiti that he was taken out in handcuffs. Did he…
MAXINE WATERS: No he did not say he was taken out in handcuffs. He simply said that they came led by Mr. Moreno followed by the marines and they said simply “you have to go!” You have no choice, you must go and if you don’t you will be killed and many Haitians will be killed. We are planning with Mr. De filliped to come into Puerto Rico. He will not be alone he will come with American military and you will not survive, you will be killed. You’ve got to go now!
AMY GOODMAN: How did President Aristide sound? What was the quality of his voice?
MAXINE WATERS: The quality of his voice was anxious, angry, disturbed, wanting people to know the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: Did he say why he had not made any calls since early on Sunday morning; that people had not been in touch with him for more than 36 hours. Certainly this plane was equipped with a telephone?
MAXINE WATERS: OH, I don’t think they were able to make any calls from the plane. They were only allowed to make calls once they landed. And I think the only call that they had made was to her mother who is in Florida and her brother. But they were not allowed…they had no access to telephone calls… to a telephone on the plane.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the next step…what are you going to do? What do you think the people in this country should being doing about this situation in Haiti?
MAXINE WATERS: First of all I think the people in this country should be outraged that our government led a coup de’tat against a democratically elected President. They should call, write. Fax with their outrage, not only to the State Dept. but to all of their elected officials and to the press. We have to keep the information flying in the air so people will get it and understand what is taking place. And for those of us who are elected officials we must not only get to the President, we must demand that he is returned to claim his presidency if that is what he wants. If you can recall what happened in Venezuela when Mr. Chavez was…they tried to force him out and they had someone step into the presidency and he had not resigned his presidency and he got it back. I did not have that conversation with President Aristide but we must meet with him and we must talk with him and be prepared to protect him.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Maxine Waters I want to thank you for being with us again. Congress member Waters has just spoken with President Aristide who she says said he was kidnapped and is now with his wife and surrounded by security in the Central African Republic.
* * *
RANDALL ROBINSON: The president called me on a cell phone that was slipped to him by someone - he has no land line out to the world and no number at which he can be reached. He is being held in a room with his wife and his sister's husband, who happened to be at the house at the time that the abduction occurred. The soldiers came in to the house and ordered them to use no phones and to come immediately. They were taken at gunpoint to the airport and put on a plane. His own security detachment was taken as well and they were put in a separate compartment of the plane. The president was kept with his wife with the soldiers with the shades of the plane down and when he asked where he was being taken, the soldiers told him they were under orders not to tell him that. He was flown first to Antigua, which he recognized, but then he was told to put the shades down again. They were on the ground like this for two hours before they took off again and landed six hours later at another location again told to keep the shades down. At no time before they left the house and on the plane were they allowed to use a phone. Only when they landed the last time were they told that they were in the central African republic. Then taken to a room with a balcony. They do not know what the room is. Outside they say they are surrounded by soldiers. So that they have no freedom. The president asked me to tell the world that it is a coup, that they have been kidnapped. That they have been abducted. I have put in calls to members of congress asking that they demand that the president be given an opportunity to speak, that he be given a press conference opportunity and that people be given an opportunity to reach him by phone so that they can hear directly from him how he is being treated. But the essential point is clear. He did not resign. He was taken by force from his residence in the middle of the night, forced on to a plane, and taken away without being told where he was going. He was kidnapped. There's no question about it.
AMY GOODMAN: How does he actually know, Randall Robinson, how does president Aristide know that he is in the Central African Republic?
RANDALL ROBINSON: He was told that when he arrived. That there was some official reception of officials of that government at the airport when he arrived. But, you see, he still had and continues to have surrounding him American military.
AMY GOODMAN: You spoke with him and Mildred Aristide up to 10 times a day in the last days before they were removed from Haiti. How did president Aristide sound when you spoke with him today?
RANDALL ROBINSON: They sounded tired and very concerned that the departure has been mistold to the world. They wanted to make certain that I did all that I could to disabuse any misled public that he had not resigned, that he had been abducted. That was very, very important to him and Mrs. Aristide explained to me the strange response to my calls on Saturday night. I had talked to her on Saturday morning and him on Friday. But when I called the house on Saturday night, the phone was answered by an unfamiliar voice who told me that the president was busy, a response that was strange and then when I asked for Mrs. Aristide, I was told that she was busy, too. As she told me then, even that early on, before they were taken away and before the soldiers came, they had been instructed they were not allowed to talk to anyone. So, that is - she said that was the reason she explained this today, a few minutes ago - why she was not able to talk to me and he was not able to talk to me when I called the house object Saturday evening.
AMY GOODMAN: Who did they say was the person that you had actually spoken to?
RANDALL ROBINSON: No, but that it was not someone who worked at the house because they know my voice when they hear it and they respond to it because I call so many times. This was something new, a new person, a new voice, with a new kind of tone. That is when we began to be concerned that something was amiss.
AMY GOODMAN: I will ask you the same question I asked Congressmember Waters who also spoke with president Aristide. The issue of whether president Aristide resigned. Did he say he did or he didn't?
RANDALL ROBINSON: Emphatically not.
AMY GOODMAN He said he did not resign?
RANDALL ROBINSON: He did not resign. He did not resign. He was kidnapped and all of the circumstances seem to support his assertion. Had he resigned, we wouldn't need blacked out windows and blocked communications and military taking him away at gunpoint. Had he resigned, he would have been happy to leave the country. He was not. He resisted. Emphatically not. He did not resign. He was abducted by the United States, a democratic, a democratically elected president, abducted by the United States in the commission of an American induced coup. This is a frightening thing to contemplate.
AMY GOODMAN: And again, Randall Robinson, you said you spoke to president Aristide by a cell phone that was smuggled to him?
RANDALL ROBINSON: Yes and I cannot call back because I have no number and the only way they can call out is by cell phone because they have not been provided with any land lines.
AMY GOODMAN: Did they say how long they will be staying in this place that they are, the palace of the Renaissance, they say they believe in the Central African Republic?
RANDALL ROBINSON: I haven't been told anything. I told her that last night I spoke to senator Dodd's foreign policy person Janice O'Connell called me to say that she had learned from the State Department that he was being taken to the Central African Republic and she had also been told by the State Department that they had refused, that the south Africans had refused asylum. I told her that I didn't believe that that was true because the South African foreign minister - [Noise] Hello?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, Randall, Robinson, we hear you.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Because the South African foreign minister had called me from India Mid-afternoon on Sunday and she asked how I was doing and I thought I was going to be doing much better, and I told her so. And I said because I'm sure that president Aristide has arrived in South Africa. She said no, he hasn't arrived here. We haven't heard anything from him. We don't know where he is and then we became really alarmed. She said there's been no request for asylum. So, you see, the State Department is telling an interested public, including members of the congress, that South Africa refused asylum. The State Department knows better. They know that President Aristide was not allowed to request asylum from South Africa or anybody else because he was not allowed to make any phone calls before they left Haiti, during the flight, and beyond.
AMY GOODMAN: Anything else you would like to add from your conversation with president Aristide on this smuggled phone that he got hold of after many hours incommunicado and now saying he believes he is in the central African republic with the first lady of Haiti, Mildred Aristide?
RANDALL ROBINSON: The phrase that he used several times and asked of me to find a way to tell the Haitian people, he said tell the world it's a coup, it's a coup, it's a coup.
© 2004 Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/ |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
Comments
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US Allegedly Blocked Extra Bodyguards |
by Juan O. Tamayo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
|
The Bush administration blocked a last-minute attempt by Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to bolster his bodyguards -- mostly former U.S. Special Forces members -- fearing he wanted them to organize and lead a counterattack against the rebels who threatened his presidency, knowledgeable sources said Sunday.
U.S. officials also forced a small group of extra bodyguards from the San Francisco-based Steele Foundation to delay their flight from the United States to Haiti from Sunday to today -- too late to help Aristide, said the sources, who are close to Aristide.
The Steele Foundation, which despite its name is a private executive-protection firm, has long held the contract, approved by the U.S. State Department, to provide Aristide's personal security detail. Most of them are veterans of the Special Forces and the State Department's VIP protection service.
Calls to the Steele Foundation Sunday went unanswered, and State Department officials declined to comment.
Aristide's Steele guard rose from about 10 to about 60 in 2000 after an apparent coup attempt the previous December, according to Herald reports.
But it had dropped to around 20 to 25 as of recent weeks, the sources indicated.
EMBASSY ACTION
The sources said that after the Haitian government had recently contacted Steele to provide a large group of extra bodyguards, U.S. Embassy officials in the Haitian capital contacted Steele representatives and warned them off.
Reports floating around the capital in recent weeks had Aristide asking Steele to help professionalize his security forces.
Other reports indicated he wanted them to organize and command a counterattack against the rebels.
Haiti's National Police -- a force of 6,000 that had shrunk to 4,000 -- virtually evaporated in the face of a rebel force estimated at a few hundred since the uprising against the president began Feb. 5. Aristide abolished the army in 1995.
''The embassy took it as if the Steele guys were going to go after these guys,'' said one source, who would not confirm whether Aristide had indeed intended to have the new bodyguards prepare his forces for a counterattack.
The smaller group of bodyguards that was scheduled to go Sunday ''was just additional protection, not a number large enough to go after these guys,'' the source added.
Most of the Steele Foundation's contracts to protect foreign dignitaries -- it also provides security for Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- must be approved, officially or indirectly, by the U.S. government.
Government officials in Haiti and Washington told The Herald in early 2002 that Aristide was paying $6 million to $9 million a year for the 60 or so bodyguards, a considerable sum for the hemisphere's poorest nation.
PROTECTION UNIT
The contract also called for a ''weapons package'' for the guards worth just under $1 million, one of the officials said at the time.
Ken Kurtz, a managing director of Steele, confirmed that his firm provides Aristide's ''presidential protection unit,'' but declined to comment on the reports that it had been expanded or any other ``operational questions.''
Aristide's reliance on foreign bodyguards reflected the political crisis facing the controversial president, toppled in a military coup in 1991, restored after a U.S. invasion in 1994 and then reelected in 2000. ''The government of Haiti, like any government after a violent incident such as happened, would be interested in improving security,'' Kurtz told The Herald.
2001 PALACE ATTACK
On Dec. 17, 2001, two dozen heavily armed men had attacked the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, killing two policemen and two passersby.
The apparent coup attempt allegedly was led by Guy Philippe, a former police commissioner in northern Haiti.
Aristide was not in the palace at the time.
Philippe escaped into exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic, but returned last month at the head of the Haitian Liberation Front, a rebel group of some 50 to 60 former soldiers who captured Haiti's second-largest city, Cap Haitien, last Sunday.
© 2004 Knight-Ridder
http://www.miami.com/ |
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The Fire This Time in Haiti was US-Fueled |
by Jeffrey Sachs
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
|
The Bush Administration Appears to have Succeeded in its Long-Time Goal of Toppling Aristide Through Years of Blocking International Aid to his Impoverished Nation
Haiti, once again, is ablaze. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is widely blamed, and he may be toppled soon. Almost nobody, however, understands that today's chaos was made in Washington -- deliberately, cynically and steadfastly. History will bear this out. In the meantime, political, social, and economic chaos will deepen, and Haiti's impoverished people will suffer.
The Bush administration has been pursuing policies likely to topple Aristide since 2001. The hatred began when Aristide, then a parish priest and democracy campaigner against Haiti's ruthless Duvalier dictatorship, preached liberation theology in the 1980s. Aristide's attacks led US conservatives to brand him as the next Fidel Castro.
They floated stories that Aristide was mentally deranged. Conservative disdain multiplied several-fold when then-president Bill Clinton took up Aristide's cause after he was blocked from electoral victory in 1991 by a military coup. Clinton put Aristide into power in 1994, and conservatives mocked Clinton for wasting America's efforts on "nation building" in Haiti. This is the same right wing that has squandered US$160 billion on a far more violent and dubious effort at "nation building" in Iraq.
Attacks on Aristide began as soon as the Bush administration assumed office. I visited Aristide in Port-au-Prince in early 2001. He impressed me as intelligent and intent on good relations with Haiti's private sector and the US. No firebrand, he sought advice on how to reform his economy and explained his realistic and prescient concerns that the American right would try to wreck his presidency.
Haiti was clearly in a desperate condition: the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, with a standard of living comparable to sub-Saharan Africa despite being only a few hours by air from Miami. Life expectancy was 52 years. Children were chronically hungry.
Of every 1,000 children born, more than 100 died before their fifth birthday. An AIDS epidemic, the worst in the Caribbean, was running unchecked. The health system had collapsed. Fearing unrest, tourists and foreign investors were staying away, so there were no jobs to be had.
But Aristide was enormously popular in early 2001. Hopes were high that he would deliver progress against the extraordinary poverty. Together with Dr. Paul Farmer, the legendary AIDS doctor in Haiti, I visited villages in Haiti's Central Plateau, asking people about their views of politics and Aristide. Everybody referred to the president affectionately as "Titid." Here, clearly, was an elected leader with the backing of Haiti's poor, who constituted the bulk of the population.
When I returned to Washington, I spoke to senior officials in the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and Organization of American States. I expected to hear that these international organizations would be rushing to help Haiti.
Instead, I was shocked to learn that they would all be suspending aid, under vague "instructions" from the US. Washington, it seemed, was unwilling to release aid to Haiti because of irregularities in the 2000 legislative elections, and was insisting that Aristide make peace with the political opposition before releasing any aid.
The US position was a travesty. Aristide had been elected president in an indisputable landslide. He was, without doubt, the popularly elected leader of the country -- a claim that President George W. Bush cannot make about himself.
Nor were the results of the legislative elections in 2000 in doubt: Aristide's party had also won in a landslide.? It was claimed that Aristide's party had stolen a few seats. If true -- and the allegation remains unproved -- it would be nothing different from what has occurred in dozens of countries around the world receiving support from the IMF, World Bank, and the US itself. By any standard, Haiti's elections had marked a step forward in democracy, compared to the decades of military dictatorships that America had backed, not to mention long periods of direct US military occupation.
The more one sniffed around Washington the less America's position made sense. People in positions of responsibility in international agencies simply shrugged and mumbled that they couldn't do more to help Haiti in view of the Bush veto on aid. Moreover, by saying that aid would be frozen until Aristide and the political opposition reached an agreement, the Bush administration provided Haiti's un-elected opposition with an open-ended veto. Aristide's foes merely had to refuse to bargain in order to plunge Haiti into chaos.
That chaos has now come. It is sad to hear rampaging students on BBC and CNN saying that Aristide "lied" because he didn't improve the country's social conditions. Yes, Haiti's economic collapse is fueling rioting and deaths, but the lies were not Aristide's. The lies came from Washington.
Even now, Aristide says that he will share power with the opposition, but the opposition says no. Aristide's opponents know that US right-wingers will stand with them to bring them violently to power. As long as that remains true, Haiti's agony will continue.
Jeffrey Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Copyright © 1999-2004 The Taipei Times.
http://www.taipeitimes.com |
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US troops 'made Aristide leave' |
by AFP
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
|
HAITIAN leader Jean Bertrand Aristide was taken away from his home by US soldiers, it was claimed today.
A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out.
"The American army came to take him away at two in the morning," the man said.
"The Americans forced him out with weapons.
"It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards.
"(Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans."
The RTL journalist who carried out the interview described the man as a "frightened old man, crouched in a corner" who said he was the "caretaker of the residence".
Aristide fled Haiti today in the face of an armed revolt. The United States has ordered Marines to the Caribbean state to help restore order.
AFP |
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State Dept. Denies Leader Was Forced Out of Office |
by DAVID E. SANGER and CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
|
The Official NY Times-Supplied mea culpa
Compared with the witness of numerous others, the shape of the US coup becomes apparent.
WASHINGTON, March 1 — President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asserted Monday that he had been driven from power in Haiti by the United States in "a coup," an allegation dismissed by the White House as "complete nonsense."
Mr. Aristide, who relayed his accusation by telephone from the Central African Republic to news organizations and members of Congress, contended that he had been kidnapped and forced to leave Haiti at gunpoint.
"The allegations that somehow we kidnapped former President Aristide are absolutely baseless, absurd," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
While American officials insist that they did not force Mr. Aristide to resign, they acknowledge that they made it clear to him that they could not protect him if he clung to power, and that they offered to give him safe passage out of the country if he would leave by dawn on Sunday.
American officials say their ultimate goal is to help put in place a transitional government and to prepare the ground for new legislative and presidential elections.
Instability in Haiti could result in a new flood of refugees to Florida as well as accusations that American decisions to cut off aid to Mr. Aristide's government led to a slow strangulation of the country. The cutoff was aimed at putting pressure on Mr. Aristide, who was accused of electoral fraud in 2000, to adopt political and human rights reforms.
On Monday morning, Mr. Bush held a meeting of the National Security Council to develop a plan for a multinational peacekeeping force to take over in a few months from the small force of marines who have been sent to Haiti. The Pentagon says 1,500 or so marines may be sent for the short term, though Mr. Powell said the number would be hundreds, rather than thousands.
France and Canada have pledged to help supplement a multinational force with police officers. The administration is also discussing contributions from the Caribbean Community, primarily Jamaica, and from Brazil, Chile and Argentina, officials said.
In an effort to make their case, the White House and the State Department recounted the sequence of events of Saturday evening that ran from increasingly urgent interchanges between Mr. Aristide and the American ambassador, James B. Foley, to Mr. Aristide's decision that evening to sign his resignation, and then his rapid move to the airport, escorted by his own guards.
One difficulty faced by the administration was explaining how it moved so quickly from its declarations a week ago that Mr. Aristide was the legitimately elected leader, to a determination that he had to go.
A week after the current uprising began, Mr. Powell said the administration did not favor changing Haiti's government. In the following days, as he and others sought unsuccessfully to cobble together a peace deal, administration remarks became increasingly more pointed, with a strong suggestion on Thursday that Mr. Aristide should leave, in the best interests of the Haitians.
By Friday, France and other nations had called for him to go, and a White House statement on Saturday night — after a meeting of Mr. Bush's top foreign policy advisers — questioned his fitness to govern.
It is unclear if Mr. Aristide ever saw that statement, but by the time it was issued, around 6 p.m. in Washington, Mr. Foley was already deep in conversations with Mr. Aristide.
"There had already been some hints he was getting ready to go," one administration official said, noting that last week, when Mr. Foley asked Mr. Aristide to send him an e-mail message, Mr. Aristide said his computer was already packed.
As Mr. Foley and the embattled Haitian leader spoke, Mr. Aristide's security force was already in a parallel conversation with security experts at the American Embassy about whether the president and the security officials could safely stay in the country, and what assistance Washington could provide.
"We conveyed the sense that the security situation was breaking down, that there had already been infiltration of the city by the rebels, and that if there is fighting in the city, we will not be in a position to guarantee the president's safe departure," a senior administration official said in an interview.
"Our actions saved his life, and saved the life of his wife, and in the course of that saved hundreds of other lives," the official added. "Had he not gone, it would have generated a cycle of violence that would likely have been uncontrollable."
Mr. Aristide went to Mr. Foley with questions. If he left, he asked, what would happen to his property and assets, including those outside the country? Could he bring some top cabinet members with him? In another conversation by phone, the official said, Mr. Foley told Mr. Aristide that "if he wanted us to guarantee his safe departure, he better make up his mind soon."
He did. The resignation letter, written in Creole, was dated Saturday. Mr. Aristide told Mr. Foley he was worried that news of the resignation would leak, and that he would never make it to the airport.
When he traveled to the airport early in the morning, he was accompanied by Luis Moreno, the deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy, and a couple of diplomatic security agents, a State Department official said. They had arrived at Mr. Aristide's home and he and Mr. Moreno had exchanged pleasantries.
Mr. Moreno noted that he had been involved in coordinating refugee policy toward Haiti at the State Department when the Clinton administration sent troops to reinstate Mr. Aristide.
"I'm sorry this had to end his way," Mr. Moreno said.
The official described Mr. Aristide's reply as almost wistful: "That happens in life. That's the way it ends sometime."
That account is very different from the one provided Monday by members of the Congressional Black Caucus after they emerged from a meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan at the United Nations: They said they believed that Mr. Aristide had been removed by "a coup."
"Unlike the reports coming out of the State Department, President Aristide says it was a coup, that he felt he was kidnapped, that he was told by the United States authority that they could no longer protect his life," said Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York.
Randall Robinson, former president of the research and policy group TransAfrica, said on CNN that he, too, had spoken to Mr. Aristide, and that Mr. Aristide said he and his party had been escorted out of Haiti by 20 G.I.'s "in full battle gear" who remained with them on the flight to Africa, where they were kept under a military guard.
But Secretary Powell, who until last week was one of Mr. Aristide's most vocal supporters in the administration, said the Haitian was re-writing history that was not even 48 hours old.
"He was not kidnapped," Mr. Powell said. "We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that's the truth."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
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In phone call arranged by Jesse Jackson, Aristide says he was forced to flee |
by ELIOTT MCLAUGHLIN
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
|
ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) - Jean-Bertrand Aristide claims he was forced to leave Haiti by U.S. military forces, according to a telephone interview with the exiled Haitian president Monday.
Aristide was put in contact with The Associated Press by Rev. Jesse Jackson following a news conference, where the civil rights leader called on Congress to investigate Aristide's ouster. When asked if he left Haiti on his own, Aristide quickly answered: "No. I was forced to leave.
"Agents were telling me that if I don't leave they would start shooting and killing in a matter of time," Aristide said during the brief phone interview that was interrupted at times by static.
When asked who the agents were, he responded: "White American, white military.
"They came at night . . . There were too many, I couldn't count them," he added.
Jackson said Congress should investigate whether United States, specifically the CIA, had a role in the rebellion that led to Aristide's exile.
Jackson encouraged reporters to question where the rebels in Haiti got their guns and uniforms.
"Why would we immediately support an armed overthrow and not support a constitutionally elected government?" Jackson said.
Aristide, who fled Haiti under pressure from the rebels, his political opponents, the United States and France, arrived Monday in the Central African Republic, according to the country's state radio. He has claimed that he was abducted from Haiti by U.S. troops who accompanied him on a flight to the Central African Republic.
The White House, Pentagon and State Department have denied allegations that Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. forces eager for him to resign.
© The Canadian Press, 2004
http://www.cbc.ca |
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TransAfrica Forum Urges Congressional Investigation into Aristide’s Ouster amid Claims that the U.S. Forced the Haitian President to Leave |
by TransAfrica Forum
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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TransAfrica Forum President Bill Fletcher Jr. expressed grave concern that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide reportedly was forced to leave the country by the U.S. administration. He is calling for a Congressional investigation into the circumstances that led to Aristide’s abrupt departure from Haiti. TransAfrica Forum is one of the nation’s foremost policy and advocacy organizations focusing on Africa and the Caribbean; the organization issued the following statement today:
President Aristide’s departure from Haiti is a tragic statement on the ability of sovereign nations to rule under constitutional democracy. Whether the U.S. administration has forcibly removed Haiti’s president is not clear, but the combination of a de facto U.S. blockade lasting several years and other recent developments set in motion the crumbling of Haiti’s constitutional democracy. These factors include U.S. backing of sections of the civilian and armed opposition. While President Aristide’s own serious errors may have contributed to the problem, the Bush administration’s doctrine to follow its lead or be removed seems to be at the core of the current crisis.
TransAfrica Forum remains opposed to the unconstitutional removal of President Aristide from office. The Bush administration outlined in its September 2002 National Security Strategy Doctrine, that it maintains its right to remove opponents anywhere. Through its on-going assistance to elements of the opposition, and its refusal to crackdown on right-wing Haitian terrorists in the U.S. and cutoff sources of training and weaponry for the armed opposition, the administration has undermined democratic rule in Haiti.
Despite President Aristide’s significant concessions to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, the White House seemed unrelenting. The role played by Secretary of State Colin Powell is particularly troubling. Secretary Powell could have pressured Haiti’s civilian opposition to ensure a political compromise. Instead, he leaned on President Aristide who had already demonstrated willingness to compromise.
Secretary Powell also failed to convey to the military opposition that a coup would be rejected by the U.S., and met with diplomatic, political and economic isolation. Instead, the opposition was given no incentive to compromise.
While President Aristide was reinstated by the United States in 1994 without the supports to ensure democracy would flourish, he made significant errors that undermined his own efforts at transforming Haiti. A full accounting of the situation in Haiti must address why President Aristide lost important sections of his own base and why key political allies turned against him.Something broke down in the organized relationship between President Aristide and his supporters. While he clearly retains impressive support in Haiti, Aristide’s own political actions, human rights abuses, and alignment with gangs all undermined his efforts to build Haitian democracy.
Democracy can only flourish when regular people wrestle control over their lives and work to reshape their own conditions and futures.
Finally, this situation reminds people of conscience in the U.S. that their actions or inactions directly impact U.S. policy. The failure of a greater outcry and demand for support for Haitian democracy and self-determination provided the conditions under which U.S. malevolent intentions and activities could be realized.
In light of the current circumstances, TransAfrica Forum urges:
* President Aristide should be restored to power and be permitted to fulfill the remainder of his term in office.
* The ouster of President Aristide, a de facto coup, should not be condoned.
* An immediate Congressional investigation should commence to determine the role that the U.S. played, directly and/or indirectly, in supporting the civilian and military opposition movement.
* A multilateral force, not controlled by the U.S., should be deployed to stabilize the situation and immediately disarm the military opposition.
* The Bush administration should commit to an emergency economic development package to rebuild the Haitian infrastructure.
* Free and fair democratic elections should be permitted without the interference of the U.S. or its allies.
* One standard of treatment for all refugees should be in place. Haitian refugees should receive admission to the U.S. and be supported during this period of crisis.
* Rescind President Bush's unprecedented directive to the U.S.
Marines to thwart all efforts of Haitian asylum seekers to reach our shores.
Copyright © 2004 TransAfrica Forum
http://www.transafricaforum.org |
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Haiti as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story |
by Heather Williams
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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"The fact that the group in charge of Haiti policy today in the State Department has been literally gunning for Aristide since before his initial election as a champion of democracy in 1990 has been left all but unmentioned by the US press."
Now that bodies are littering the streets of Cap Haitien and Port Au Prince, major print news outlets have seen well enough to send a handful of cameramen and correpondents to send back news of the crisis. Even so, the campaign of violence that has finally ousted Haitian President Aristide has been investigated and reported to the American public with appalling indolence. The official reasoning appears to be that if Haiti is the hemisphere's eternal basket case-a dismal repository of poverty where there is no future-- how on earth could its past possibly matter?
But those who view Haiti's current violence as merely one of an eternal humanitarian crisis in temporary overdrive miss the story. It is no simple tale of a corrupt regime collapsing under the weight of popular anger and bad management. A cursory glance at events of the last fourteen years suggests that the fall of the Aristide regime was a foregone conclusion at the entrance of President George W. Bush and the installation of a cabal of appointees with a grim record of utilizing official and covert channels to destabilize uncooperative governments in the Western Hemisphere. What is immediately ominous about the current crisis in Haiti is the likely prospect that leaders of armed groups making a final assault on the capital will play important roles in a post-Aristide order. Such armed groups include the Tontons Macoutes, the gunmen who viciously supervised repression under both father and son Duvaliers' dictatorships until 1986. They also include members of the disbanded Haitian army that held power for three years following the coup against President Aristide in 1991, and the FRAPH death squads that mowed down the ranks of democratic civil society during that period, leaving over 3,000 dead and thousands more in exile. What is also now worrisome about this crisis is what it likely indicates about the intentions of the U.S. State Department and security apparatus elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Now that Aristide's government, protected by a flimsy police force and a smattering of civilian gangs, has collapsed, quiet references in news stories and opinion pieces suggest that editors are wishing that perhaps they had a few more questions along the way about what indeed was going on in Haiti. Notably, until mid-February of this year The New York Times instructed its readers, for weeks on end, with no evidence whatsoever, that the armed groups referred to generically and occasionally quite sympathetically as "rebels" represent a home-grown anti-Aristide opposition. For weeks the New York Tinmes used AP and Reuters dispatches to present the Haitian crisis as one simply of domestic protest and unrest. It wasn't until February 15 that the NYT's own reporter, Lydia Polgreen bothered to mention that the group marching on Gonaïves known a the Cannibal Army was led by "sinister figures from [Haiti's] past," including the infamous Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a soldier who led death squads in the 1980s through the mid-1990s and was convicted in absentia for his involvement in the murder of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. Also unexplored by the same reporters were reports that the groups terrorizing Gonaïves had come from across the border, from the Dominican Republic. Given this knowledge, it is curious that no reporter then bothered to inquire how these groups obtained ample caches of brand-new M-16s, M-60s, armor piercing weapons, all-terrain vehicles, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers-equipment far beyond the reach of the Haiti's own impecunious security forces.
Was the story too dangerous to investigate? Was the situation indecipherable? Was the prospect of a weak regime giving way to another in the hemisphere's poorest country just not a story worth the time and effort? The tragedy of this episode is that much of it was abundantly transparent. Running a sixty-second web search on any of the principals involved leads one to a fetid two-decade history of CIA and U.S. ultra-right subterfuge in Haiti. The fact that the group in charge of Haiti policy today in the State Department has been literally gunning for Aristide since before his initial election as a champion of democracy in 1990 has been left all but unmentioned by the press. Also forgotten is the fact that members of the armed groups burning their way through Haiti's cities today include groups that, (according to myriad sources including sworn testimony before Congress by U.S. officials, reporters, and reports of Haitian recipients of covert aid,) were funneling drugs to the U.S. while in the pay of U.S. intelligence agents.
The point is not that the public has been lied to by the government. Governments lie, particularly this administration. The point is that even those on the left who are indignant about systematic misinformation elsewhere have not bothered to jog their memories on Haiti to smell the sulfur emanating from this episode,. The press apparatus reporting on the Caribbean is either too broken or too racist to remember that Haiti's anguish is connected to forces quite beyond poor judgment or even bad will by President Aristide. The ease with which armed thugs have upended a civilian regime, eliciting only murmurs of disquiet from onlookers abroad who ought to know better is cause for worry. Surely zealots in charge of U.S. foreign policy have taken note. If it's this easy to destabilize Haiti , Cuba will unquestionably appear a more viable target for direct intervention in the not-so-distant future.
At least four lines of inquiry were left nearly untouched in the last four weeks of reporting of Haiti.
First, no one bothered to ask who the rebels were and why they were advancing on major cities. If in fact they represented a broad opposition, as reporters readily implied or stated openly, why were the rebels unable to furnish the barest credible details of their demands, their civilian bases of support, and their connections to leaders of civil society groups? Despite literally weeks of lead time, no Haitians in positions of authority, no public figures, and no Haitian intellectuals living here or on the island emerged in press stories as sources of reliable information. Haitians who were quoted in news stories tended to be taxi drivers presumably shuttling skittish reporters from hotel to dinner, or randomly-chosen opponents of Aristide on the street. Predictably, such individuals expressed generic discontent with the government. Thus, even though a number of more respectable political opponents of President Aristide were claiming that armed groups outside the capital were not acting on their behalf, the story by default became a spurious tale of an embattled people challenging a repressive and incompetent government. Stories closer to the truth supported by evidence were likely never taken up because such messiness would necessitate a greater number of column inches than editors were going to allot to Haiti.
The second instance of media negligence was the near-universal acceptance of the idea in the English-language press that Aristide's government had lost all popular legitimacy due to reported irregularities in the 2000 parliamentary elections. This is an extraordinary leap given the monkey business plaguing U.S. elections of the same year. According to Tom Reeves, the admittedly poorly-attended elections were not the stuff of grand vote larceny. "All sides," he wrote in a very fine article last fall in Dollars and Sense, "concede that Aristide won the presidential ballot with 92 percent of the voteThe sole disagreement is over run-off elections for seven senators from Aristide's part who obtained pluralities but not majorities in the first round. The seven senators eventually resigned, making way for new elections." Nonetheless, these electoral "abuses" were grounds for the Bush administration and pliant international partners in Europe to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in credit lines and aid to Haiti. Allegations of fraud were used to permanently block the release of $400 million in already-approved loans from the Interamerican Development Bank. The IMF, World Bank, and European Union were also pressed to cut off crucial lines of credit. Meanwhile, Haiti was brutally taken to task for its external financial obligations, emptying its coffers in July 2003 to pay $32 million in debt service arrears. As a final blow, Haiti's ability to conserve any remaining foreign reserves was foreclosed by agreements signed with the U.S. government under President Clinton in 1996. These obliged Haiti to abolish tariffs on U.S. imports in the name of what was curiously called "free trade" but was in fact commodity dumping by U.S. exporters. Under threat of huge fines, Haiti was obliged to accept the import of foodstuffs priced far below the cost of production. (Direct subsidies to U.S. farmers since the mid-1990s have averaged over $30 billion a year.) In a nation where the majority of the population works in agriculture, this all but shut down production in the rice-producing northwest of Haiti, as well as among livestock producers throughout the country. Under these conditions, it stands to reason that no government could dodge the discontent of the population.
The third line of neglected inquiry was the question of who the injured "opposition" was in Haiti, on whose behalf this official bloodletting took place. According to Stan Goff, whose thorough article appeared in on this Counterpunch site on February 9 of this year, the fifteen-party anti-Aristide coalition known as "Convergence" includes "every faction of the Haitian dominant class, factions who are generally at war with one another." Despite anemic support from the voting public (never approaching even 20 percent in opinion polls conducted even by the U.S.) what apparently they were able to converge on was three million dollars a year in funding in from the International Republican Institute, a Republican-party backed arm of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Finally, no one has asked questions about the wildly partisan officials in U.S. State Department now running U.S. policy in the Caribbean and Latin America. These include such Blast-from-the-Past supporters of Reagan era highjinks in Central America as Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, and (before his ignominious departure last summer) John Poindexter. The most visible in recent weeks on Haiti has been Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, a man who has had Aristide in his gunsights for over a decade. As senior staff member for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate, and advisor to Senator Jesse Helms and John Burton, he was party to a three-year campaign to prevent to defame Aristide and prevent his return to power; all the while CIA-backed thugs left carnage in the streets daily in Port Au Prince. In his capacity in the State Department since 2003, and for two years before that as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the OAS, he has aggressively advertised his intention to oust Aristide a second time. For example, in April of last year, speaking at the Council of the Americas conference in Washington, he linked U.S. policies in Haiti to those in Venezuela and Cuba. He congratulated the OAS for overcoming "irrelevance in the past years" by adopting the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Article 20, he said, lays out a series of actions to be takenin the event that a member state should fail to uphold the essential elements of democratic life. He added the "President Chavez and President Aristide havecontributed willfully to a polarized and confrontational environment. It is my fervent hope," he added ominously, "that the good people of Cuba are studying the Democratic Charter."
Given the inability of Haitians at present to question the direction of whatever succession takes place in the coming weeks, the question of how fully Noriega and his fanatical friends will control U.S. foreign policy in the Americas is crucial. Secretary of State Colin Powell has been cravenly circumspect in his statements on Haiti, straddling the line between encouraging Aristide to step down and discouraging those who would involve the U.S. extensively in any transition effort or state-building mission. What Powell's late entrance into the situation suggests strongly is that Latin America and the Caribbean are considered so insignificant that Noriega and his half-cocked cronies are generally left to play with matches until the fire alarm goes off. In this case, Florida voters were that alarm. Undoubtedly higher-ups in the White House were a bit uneasy at the prospect of thousands of Haitians fleeing chaos being thrown back into the sea by the US Coast Guard in an election year. But the modus operandi of Noriega and company is unmistakeable: fund an opposition, report every clash as repression against the population, arm pliable thugs and mercenaries in exile, embargo the government, precipitate acute crisis, play up the discontent of a hungry population, and then happily leave it to internationalist liberals to lead the charge for military intervention on humanitarian grounds. So with President Aristide neutralized now, it's time to look elsewhere, maybe west across the sea to Cuba.
Heather Williams is assistant professor of politics at Pomona College.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ |
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Urgent Action Needed: Haitians are being slaughtered. |
by Marguerite Laurent, Esq. Chair, Haitian Lawyers Leadership
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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Our Black people in Port-au-Prince Haiti are being slaughtered. The duly elected President kidnapped by U.S. Marines and flown out of the country at gunpoint and is being held hostage in the Central African Republic under U.S and French guard.
Yesterday, it is reported that, under U.S. marine escort the former FRAPH/FAHD thugs rolled into Port-au-Prince.
Aristide's private residence has been trashed.
The Prime Minister's residence has been trashed.
The first order of business for these U.S. supported death squad leaders and (Guy Philip, Jean Tatoune and Louis Jodel Chamblain) harden criminals was to go to the National Penitentiary and forcibly break out all the 2000 prisoners there.
Now these murderers have more murderers to help them terrorize Haiti.
Practically every building Aristide and the Haitian people built these last 10 years are being burned down and destroyed. Meanwhile the U.S. troops, French troops, Canadian troops are protecting their own edifices in Haiti. No one is protecting the more than 850 million investment per year hard working Haitians of the Diaspora have invested in the security, development, shelter and nurturing of their relatives, children and family in Haiti.
Last night these opposition thugs ran through the slums of Belaire, La Saline and Cite Soleil, well known for its support of the elected President, who is now a hostage of the U.S., and indiscriminately fired, killing countless numbers, according to an independent reporter in Port-au-Prince.
The Lavalas Party has been threatened and warned to remain quiet and not denounce the Coup D'etat and abduction of Aristide, his wife, a brother in law and two security people from Haiti. Not to tell the people President Aristide did not resign freely but at U.S. gunpoint and forced on an airplane against his will.
The oppression and REPRESSION of democracy is as follows: Dissenters, specifically Lavalas officials, are being told if Lavalas demonstrates in Haiti and protests or defend their right to free speech and association, or for the return of Aristide and against the opposition and their Jean Tatoune/Guy Philippe/Louis Jodel Chamberlain triumvirate, then presumably the international community, that is, U.S/ France/Canada along with the opposition they broker for, will make sure that the Lavalas party is not allowed to participate in any upcoming elections!
Moreover, Prime Minister, Yvonne Neptune is technically a prisoner in his office. US/Euro soldiers surround the Prime Minister's building. He cannot leave his office and his home has been ransacked.
>From these reports, it appears any good works towards justice in Haiti that had flickered has been destroyed in one fell, U.S.-Coup D'etat swoop yesterday. Supposedly a Triumvirate has been created, made up of 1). One member of the International Community, 2) One member of the so-called opposition and 3) One member of Lavalas. It is reported, this Triumvirate will, in turn, pick a 9- or so, member council to work towards elections and governance. The Supreme Court Justice has been appointed President of Haiti and it is rumored the former Haitian army head, Herald Abraham is back in office calling all former army soldiers back to their post!
According to some on-the-ground observers, Former Haitian military are right now walking side by side with U.S. Marines and French and Canadian troops in Haiti.
So many laws have been broken; I am not sure where to begin.
l. It is against the U.N. Charter, the OAS, The CARICOM charter to violently overthrow a constitutionally elected President;
2. It is against all these above-mentioned charters and international law and U.S. federal law to kidnap and take hostage, not only a President of a sovereign country but his U.S. citizen wife and the brother and two security guards. If this operation goes up Bush, if he had anything to do with this covert operation and abduction, we are talking about High Crimes and Misdemeanors, not to mention that impeachment resolution should begin to be drafted right now.
3. The 2004 US/French invasion of Haiti. It is against international law to enter a sovereign country without an invitation. All the foreign troops, French, U.S. Canadian, etc. who invaded Haiti on February 29, 2004, to conduct and maintains this crime-against-humanity-debacle are in violation of international law and treaties and Haitian sovereignty.
4. Secretary Colin Powell, Roger Noreiga, U.S. Ambassador Foley and all those directly or indirectly supporting the reign in Haiti of convicted criminals, like Jean Tatoune, Guy Philippe, and Jodel Louis Chamblain and all their other terrorist, and an unelected, platformless opposition, may be charged as accomplices in the killings and slaughter of the Haitian people being murdered right now in Haiti by these ex-soldiers and death squad leaders and possibly now, their new prisoner recruits from the National Penitentiary.
5. The cover-up and/or current dismissal by the major news media and press of President Aristide's abduction and forced resignation is violates all journalistic ethics and code. It appear as a part and parcel of the State Department's psychological warfare to repress free speech against this dastardly deed not only in the U.S. but also in Haiti. For instance the fact that Guy Philippe an accused DEA drug trafficker and accused Coup Detat leader under both Preval and the Aristide administration, is today traveling with his own embedded AP reporter is akin to Bin Ladin traveling around with his own embedded AP reporter. It's evidenced certain mainstream media's outrageous and a depraved indifference to the sufferings of the Black people of Haiti. It is almost as racists and deplorable as that guest yesterday on George Stephanopoulos' ABC news show who said the United States has a stake in Haiti "because we have to control the flow of refugees and disease" into the U.S.
The media's treatment of the vast majority of Haiti's People plight and struggle to live free and establish democracy is unimaginably callous and non-factual, mainly playing into deep racists fears and stereotypes. Another instance of reporting verbatim, without verification, state department positions is what we read today, March 1, 2004, the New York Times about Haiti. The New York Times reports that, for instance, South Africa refused Aristide asylum. Yet, President Aristide talked this morning via telephone to Maxine Waters, Randall Robinson and Charles Rangel. He said he want the Haitian people and the world to know that he did not freely resigned. It was a Coup D'etat. U.S. Marines who came to his house with Morino, a U.S. representative to the U.S. Ambassador Foley and told him they were withdrawing his U.S. security details, that he had to leave or face Guy Phillip who was being escorted into Port-au-Prince by U.S. soldiers. Congresspersons, Waters, and Rangel and Randall Robinson, all three, confirmed that the President and Mrs. Aristide said they were forced on an airplane, at gunpoint, with U.S. and French soldiers guarding, that eventually landed in the French/US defacto protectorate known as the Central Republic of Africa. President Aristide said he was not allowed to call anyone, much less call South Africa, or any nation and ask for asylum. He reiterated he did not resign and that he was being held hostage surrounded by French and U.S. soldiers in a place called the Chateau De Renaissance, in the Central Republic of Africa.
Call your local Congressperson. Call the White House. Call Secretary of State Collin Powell and the Haiti Desk at the State Department. Ask that the U.S. withdraw all support for these opposition thugs and secure the safe return of the Constitutionally elected Haitian President and Mrs. Aristide to Haiti.
Marguerite Laurent, Esq. Chair, Haitian Lawyers Leadership
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/hac3_1_4.html |
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Report from Haiti: School Threatened by Opposition Thugs |
by imcista via kp and indybay IMC
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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With an international force protecting embassies, Haitians are being slaughtered as death squads take over the capital.
This just in from Port-au-Prince: The SOPUDEP (Organization for the Socioeconomic Development of Petionville - http://www.haitiaction.net/News/jmSOPUDEP.html) school, which provides a free education and hot lunch program for over 400 of the poorest children in the community, is being threatened. Opposition thugs and former military have spread word through the neighborhood that they are planning to attack and burn the school very soon. The administration and staff take this threat very seriously and many of them have already gone into hiding until the situation changes. |
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Haitian Rebels Enter Capital; Aristide Bitter |
by TIM WEINER and LYDIA POLGREEN
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
02 Mar 2004
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Michael Kamber/Polaris, for The New York Times
The bound hands of one of four men identified by witnesses as supporters of the deposed president who were found shot dead on Monday. A multinational peacekeeping force is expected to take over eventually.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 1 — Armed rebels swept into this capital on Monday and occupied the national police headquarters, staking a claim to power as United States forces kept watch at the international airport and the presidential palace.
A wave of dancing, cheering people following the rebel leaders flooded the boulevard to the palace minutes after the police headquarters was occupied.
No clear leader took charge. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, was sworn in on Sunday as the leader of a transitional government until elections in 2005. Under Haiti's Constitution, the legislature is supposed to ratify Mr. Alexandre's succession, but there is no legislature, owing to the breakdown of the government.
The deposed president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, landed in a temporary exile in the Central African Republic. He said he had been overthrown by the United States, a charge dismissed by the White House as "complete nonsense."
President Bush convened a meeting of the National Security Council on Monday to discuss a multinational peacekeeping force to take over within a few months from United States marines who landed here on Sunday.
France and Canada have pledged to help police Haiti. The United States is also discussing contributions from Caribbean nations, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said an international force could install a "responsive, functioning, noncorrupt" government.
He said the armed rebel leaders include "individuals we would not want to see re-enter civil society in Haiti because of their past records, and this is something we will have to work through."
At least four men identified by witnesses as supporters of the deposed president were found shot dead on the edge of town, three of them bound at the wrists.
The rebels, followed by throngs of cheering supporters, also occupied the former headquarters of the Haitian Army, vowing to revive the military, a force known for brutality. Several rebel leaders are former members of the Haitian Army and affiliated death squads.
The army overthrew Mr. Aristide in 1991 and ran a violent junta until 1994. United States armed forces reinstated the president, who then disbanded the Haitian military.
Now that he is gone, the army may be back. In the rebels' ranks at the old army headquarters was Paul Arcelin, 60, who identified himself as a former ambassador to the Dominican Republic and "an adviser to the Haitian Army."
"This is our headquarters," he said. "The army has come back. We don't need peacekeepers."
Mr. Powell told CNN: "We have ways of talking to the various rebel leaders. And I am pleased that at least so far they said they are not interested in violence any more, and they want to put down their arms."
They did not put down their guns.
Two rebel leaders, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former death-squad member and convicted assassin, and Guy Philippe, a former police chief, did thank the United States for moving to secure Haiti after the fall of Mr. Aristide.
"We're grateful to the United States!" Mr. Chamblain shouted through the window of his truck en route to the presidential palace.
Mr. Philippe said: "The United States soldiers are like us. We're brothers. We're grateful for their service to our nation and against the terrorists of Aristide."
These men, whom Mr. Powell characterized last week as "thugs," and a few hundred of their followers are for now the domestic face of national security in Haiti.
Several truckloads of the national police, the ineffectual force formed by Mr. Aristide after he dissolved the army in 1995, joined Mr. Chamblain's caravan after exchanging hugs and handshakes with the rebels.
Mr. Philippe vowed that the Haitian Army would rise again. "We are going to remobilize the army, constitutionally," he said. "We are going to make a new Haiti."
Mr. Chamblain drove down to the capital from the town of St.-Marc this morning in a caravan of about a dozen vehicles, stopping at two national police stations, where he was embraced. Mr. Philippe drove down from GonaĂŻves, where the uprising against Mr. Aristide began Feb. 5.
Many rebels wore surplus United States military garb. One sported a souvenir Drug Enforcement Administration baseball cap. They all carried assault weapons, carbines and handguns.
As they entered the heart of Port-au-Prince, heading up Martin Luther King Boulevard, other trucks and vans joined them, including one with a sign reading, "Liberation Front — Armed Forces of Haiti."
The procession grew like a river fed by rivulets in a heavy rain, ending in a small sea of humanity at the presidential palace. By the palace gates stood Americans wearing the uniforms and insignia of marines and the State Department's diplomatic security service.
Col. David Berger, head of the Marine contingent based at the airport, said the capital was "definitely not a hostile environment."
Mr. Aristide's home in the suburb of Tavarre was sacked overnight. A grand piano lay amid the rubble.
Joy at his departure was hardly universal. Jackson Thomas, 32, who lives in La Saline, a tough slum where Mr. Aristide's strongest support lay, said: "It's a violation of our Constitution. This president was elected for five years. It feels like we don't have any friends in the international community."
Historians and folklorists of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, are fond of citing a Haitian proverb: "The Constitution is made of paper; the bayonet is made of steel."
There is another political force here: the unarmed opposition, a broad but very loosely knit group dominated by wealthy and politically sophisticated people, including former Aristide supporters.
Some of their leaders said they had met with the American ambassador on Monday afternoon. The American Embassy had no comment.
Charles Baker, a well-to-do businessman, said the unarmed opposition, under the guidance of the United States, was trying to form an unofficial ruling coalition, an unelected council of elders to run Haiti.
The unarmed opposition has maintained publicly, since the uprising began Feb. 5, that while they shared the goals of the armed rebels in ousting Mr. Aristide, they had no taste for their methods and no real contact with them.
It might prove difficult, not to mention dangerous, to exclude the armed rebels from that council.
After streaming into the capital, the leaders of the armed rebels and the unarmed opposition gathered at a hotel called El Rancho, some sipping beer, others strutting in camouflage gear past the swimming pool.
The upper-class opponents of Mr. Aristide made uneasy talk among themselves. The sweaty soldiers and rebel leaders exchanged hugs and grins. The men with the guns seemed to be in charge.
The new faces of leadership included a well-spoken man near the pool at El Rancho, with an M-4 assault weapon strapped around his neck, who gave his name as Faustin. He said he was an industrial engineer educated in the United States.
"Right now it's very euphoric; everybody's happy," he said. "But behind that happiness, look out." He said he had killed former Aristide supporters in the streets of Port-au-Prince in the last month, and would kill again in the name of the new government if so ordered.
"I'm not a loose cannon," he said. "I report to someone. But I won't tell you who."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
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