15524: Arthur on the International Republican Institute in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Charles Arthur writes:

Well, nobody has replied yet to reveal details of the IRI programme in Haiti.
Therefore, all we know is the following two snips, which I think are worth
looking at once again:

a) On 26 January 2001, Mr. Ira Kurzban, general counsel in the United States
for Haiti's Aristide and Preval administrations, who, when discussing US
foreign policy towards Haiti, said, "This past year, our government overtly
provided to the International Republican Institute $3,000,000 in funds not
simply to help opposition parties in Haiti but to “develop” opposition
parties."

b) The following section of an article appeared in the The Washington Post on
2nd February 2001:

The (Democratic) Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the
International Republican Institute, an organization that promotes democracy
that is closely identified with the U.S. Republican Party. It includes former
Aristide allies -- people who helped him fight Haiti's dictators, then soured
as they watched him at work. But it also includes former backers of the hated
Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew
Aristide in 1991 and terrorized the country for three years.

The most determined of these men, with a promise of anonymity, freely express
their desire to see the U.S. military intervene once again, this time to get
rid of Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian army. "That would be the
cleanest solution," said one opposition party leader. Failing that, they say,
the CIA should train and equip Haitian officers exiled in the neighboring
Dominican Republic so they could stage a comeback themselves."