13533: Pina posts article: Should Haiti Declare a "War on Terrorism" against the U.S? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com>


HOPEDANCE

Issue 32 - February / March 2002

URL: http://www.hopedance.org/issue32/articles/pitteli-haiti.htm


Should Haiti Declare a "War on Terrorism" against the U.S?
by Steve Pitteli


On December 27, 1993, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant and his FRAPH (Revolutionary
Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti) death squads began firing
on the Haitian shantytown of Cite Soleil. They then circled the town with
gasoline and burnt several hundred homes to the ground, forcing some fleeing
residents- children included- back into their burning homes at gunpoint.

Two months before this attack, in October, 1993, the U.S. navy vessel, USS
Harlan County was dispatched to Haiti carrying 200 troops to ostensibly pave
the way for previously ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return to
power. As the ship approached the Port-au-Prince wharf, Constant and his men
staged a riot and the USS Harlan was unable to dock. As a result, the
populist President's scheduled return was aborted.

During Constant's three-year reign of terror, his FRAPH death squads
butchered several thousand Haitian civilians. So how is it that one of the
world's leading terrorists is free and living in a nice, two-story home in
the quiet Laurelton neighborhood of Queens, New York?

After the U.S. military entered Haiti in 1994, Constant, who by then had a
criminal subpoena and a warrant for his arrest, escaped an uninspired
"search" by U.S. soldiers and slipped into the U.S. on a tourist visa. He
was eventually captured and placed in the custody of U.S. immigration
authorities for over a year. In 1995, the Haitian government requested
Constant's extradition on charges of murder, torture and arson; however the
U.S. suspended his deportation, claiming that Haitian courts could not
handle the extradition and instead gave Constant a green card to live and
work freely in the U.S.

In truth, it appears that the government's change of heart on the
extradition began after Constant revealed on the television news magazine
"60 Minutes," in December, 1995, that he had been on the CIA payroll during
Haiti's military rule (1991-1994). Constant then sued the U.S. government
and threatened to reveal other CIA missdeeds in Haiti if he was not
released- a strategy that worked in Constant's favor. This list of misdeeds
are believed to include CIA involvement in the 1991 coup that forced
democratically-elected President Aristide out of the country, and that
Constant staged the Port-au-Prince riot in October 1993 at the direction of
the CIA to provide the U.S. with a reason to withhold President Aristide
from Haiti.

Currently, as cluster bombs and daisy cutters fall on Afghanistan, the
United States is a friendly host to terrorist Emmanuel Constant, responsible
for the murders of thousands. The government refuses to extradite him to
Haiti despite substantial evidence of his involvement in death, arson and
torture and despite several requests from the Haitian government. Constant
himself states that FRAPH still operates in Haiti, and he plans to return
soon. The double standard here is interesting and goes unreported in the
mainstream press. The U.S. justifies the Afghanistan war on much the same
premise and may even expand that war to several other alleged
"terrorist-harboring" countries such as Iraq and Syria. To date, the
Haitians have no plans to begin bombing the United States.

Dr. Pittelli is a psychiatrist and post-September 11 convert to political
activism from San Luis Obispo, CA.




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