a941: Comment by CIP research director James Morrell on current lobbying in the US for the Aristide regime (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Comment by CIP research director James Morrell on current lobbying in the US
for the Aristide regime
Posted February 25, 2002  - www.ciponline.org
Updating comment by Morrell
There is nothing inherently wrong in Americans representing foreign
governments. All depends on context.
During 1992-94, the distinguished former member of CIP's board of directors,
former representative Michael D. Barnes, represented the government of Haiti
in the struggle to return the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to
office. Barnes's law firms received hundreds of thousands of dollars from
the Haitian government in exile during this period.
The investment was cost-effective, as judged by the results.
During this period, CIP worked alongside Barnes in disseminating information
about the cause of Haitian democracy. We were with President Aristide at
Governors Island. CIP itself received no funds from the Haitian government.
All its Haiti work was funded by foundation and individual donors, including
the Ford Foundation, Arca Foundation, and Winston Foundation for World
Peace.
During that period, President Aristide turned to American congressmen,
ambassadors and think-tanks from a position of great disadvantage, as a
civilian president brutally ousted by a military putsch. He initially
confronted a Bush administration that was at best indifferent to his cause.
Today Aristide is president of Haiti. He has been involved in excluding the
opposition from parliament by deliberate, illegal miscount of the results of
the May 21, 2000 election (see the author's "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws
of Victory"/Publications & Commentary, and the OAS election observers'
report /Archives/June-August 2000 /OAS 9.htm). He was personally involved
against the election commissioner  (Archives/June-August2000/manus3.htm)
when that gentleman refused to certify the fraudulent results. He bears
responsibility for systematic pro-Aristide mob violence against the
political opposition and for the partisan actions of police. He has impeded
the investigation into the murder of the country's most prominent
journalist, Jean Dominique. (rsf2.htm)
The fact that another former congressman, Ronald V. Dellums, fully as
distinguished as Michael Barnes, is now representing Aristide does not
relieve us of the duty of inquiring into the real circumstances of
human-rights practice in Haiti. These indicate that the context has
completely changed. While Barnes and CIP represented Aristide as the
wrongly-ousted president, Dellums represents an arbitrary leader ruling by
violence and fraud, whose purpose with foreign lobbyists is to avoid any
power-sharing with the opposition. A review of the first-round tally sheets
of the May 21 election suggests that non-Aristide candidates could have won
a significant proportion of the seats if the second round had been legally
held (see the author's presentation to the Latin American Studies
Association, August, 2001/Archives/June-August2001/lasa.htm).
In this context, we find the payments to Dellums and other Haitian
government lobbyists altogether germane to an informed assessment of the
situation. And we stand by our comment that using foreign lobbyists to avoid
domestic reform is cynical.