15301: This Week in Haiti 21:3 4/2/2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      April 2 - 8, 2003
                         Vol. 21, No. 3

MARCHERS DENOUNCE IRAQ WAR, U.S. MEDDLING
by Charles Arthur, Haiti Support Group

On the morning of 27 March, some 3,000 people marched through the streets of
the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to denounce the invasion of Iraq and
U.S./OAS interference in Haitian affairs. The demonstration began at the
downtown Place d'Italie, proceeded along Bicentenaire, and finished with a
rally in front of the National Palace in Champ-des-Mars. The protesters,
many of them carrying placards and wearing white T-shirts, chanted slogans
against the US government.

In front of the U.S. Embassy, protesters burnt a life size effigy adorned
with a U.S. flag and a papier-mâché mask of U.S. President, George Bush.
Some protesters chanted, "George Bush has turned the US into a rogue state."

A prominent theme on the demonstration was solidarity with Cuba, and one
placard read, "Cuba - Haiti, two peoples united in struggle against the
 U.S."

The National Popular Party (PPN) said it organized the protest to condemn in
the strongest possible terms the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, undertaken
in the face of world condemnation, and to denounce Washington's brazen
meddling in Haitian internal affairs.

PPN leader, Benjamin Dupuy, said the invasion of Iraq, formulated years
before George W. Bush's theft of the U.S. presidential elections in 2000,
aims to take control of Iraqi oil, encircle China, stop the encroachment of
the Euro on the dollar as oil's currency, and provide a beach-head in the
Middle East for further U.S. military attacks against other nations.

Addressing the crowd in front of the National Palace, Dupuy denounced what
he called an alliance between former Tontons Macoutes, the local
bourgeoisie, the Democratic Convergence, the Group of 184 and the Civil
Society Initiative, that aimed to destabilise the government as a form of
coup d'etat. "Lavalas has already made too many concessions," said Dupuy.

A PPN statement advertising the protest said that "on March 19, as the bombs
began to fall on Baghdad, the U.S. State Department's arch-reactionary Otto
Reich, of Iran/Contra fame, led an OAS delegation to Haiti which laid an
ultimatum before the Haitian government to comply with Washington's demands
that the government disarm and arrest its partisans in urban popular
organisations. Meanwhile, the U.S. has sent twenty thousand new M-16s to the
25,000-man Dominican army, and 8,000 U.S. troops are being deployed in the
Dominican Republic as well."

The Haiti Support Group notes that there have been no reports of this
demonstration by the Associated Press, Reuters, The Miami Herald, Voice of
America radio, Radio Metropole, Radio Signal FM, or Radio Vision 2000, even
though in the past much smaller demonstrations by supporters of the
opposition Democratic Convergence have received extensive coverage.

(This text is a slightly edited version of a Mar. 28 press release put out
by the London-based Haiti Support Group.)

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