16547: (Arthur) U.S. Orchestrates Strike In Haiti: (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

(Charles Arthur notes: This is old now but I don't think it was on the
Corbett list at the time and maybe some people will be interested to read it...For
me it unfortunately buys into the US bad therefore Lavalas Family good line of
thinking, but all the same it it takes the piss out of the newswires pompous
'objectivity' rather well)



U.S. Orchestrates Strike In Haiti: Using The Venezuelan Model
State Department Hopes To Topple Aristide

By YASO ADIODI
The Assassinated Press
January 24, 2003, 9:21 PM EST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Thousands of business leaders, taxi drivers and
doctors held a general strike Friday, clamoring to prevent a better life for
anyone but themselves in the hemisphere's poorest nation.

Cab drivers, not generally considered among the elite struck to protest
rising gas prices. The price for crude has shot up ever since the U.S. began
preparing for war in Iraq. The price of oil has also risen since the U.S. began its
putsch to oust Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Among tactics of coup and
assassination, the U.S. has also disrupted oil shipments.

"Great linkage," said Brian Dean Curran, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, "By
fuckin' up one populist leader's deal, Chavez, we get the cab drivers in the street
to help fuck up another populist's deal. We are not gonna let these guys feed
the poor at U.S. corporate expense. Personally, I'm still upset by what the
Haitians did to the French in 1803. That's why I'm ambassador. Because I can
hold a grudge."

The strike, which affected the two largest cities of Port-au-Prince and
Cap-Haitien, came as a U.S. congressional delegation led by Ethel Kennedy met with
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for more than an hour on Friday.

"It was an important visit to help the Haitian people come out from under the
200 year economic embargo," Aristide wearily told reporters after the
meeting.

The delegation was investigating how the withholding of foreign aid --
prompted by 2000 legislative elections the U.S. supported opposition could not buy
-- has deepened poverty in the nation.

"Damn. We been trying to find another Papa 'Doc' for years now," added
Curran. "But those kind of thugs are one in a million in the third world. It's not
like Washington where every third person is a bloody minded murderer from
defense or state or intelligence."

Aristide has long blamed the vacuum of aid, a tool used by the U.S. to
promote his ouster or better from their perspective, his murder, for stalled
progress in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Since the tightening of the two
centuries old strangle hold on Haiti, there has been growing discontent over
the stagnant economy, crime and rising fuel prices.

"We aren't letting up on the darkies this time," bubbled Curran. "They're
either gonna give up their dream of one square meal a day, or we are gonna grind
them out of existence. And they don't even have trees much less oil. We murder
them simply because we can."

The United States "should give the nod to release the withheld funds," Rep.
Diane Watson, D-Calif., told reporters after the closed-door meeting. But the
Cheney administration wants to withhold the funds until a lighter skinned, more
feloniously minded criminal can be 'elected' by the U.S. to continue to run
it as an American fiefdom without any noise from the slaves.

"We intend to show that despite their little revolution that the Haitian
niggers are not free. They are still slaves. Our slaves," thundered the Assistant
Secretary for Latin American Affairs, Ralph Noriega. "The thought that niggers
should run anything turns my stomach as it does everyone in the Cheney/Bush
administration. As you can see by our stand on affirmative action, we believe
in a level playing field and we intend to level that field with the corpses of
black people and people of color. Bow down your head to us Father Aristide or
we'll put it on the ground for you."

But some strikers disagreed, saying the delegation should look more closely
at Haiti's political climate while like the major media ignoring the fact the
Haitian politics hasn't been discrete from U.S. hegemony in 200 years.

"The delegation is out of touch with reality," said businessman Andy Apaid,
who participated in the strike. "They seem to support one man out of
friendship, and not the Haitian people on the course of democracy and economic
development. But sure send that U.S. aid money. Just wait until one of my business
associates is in power so I can get a taste."

In the wake of the ongoing U.S. coup in Venezuela and price gouging by the
oil companies, gasoline prices have jumped to more than $2 per gallon this month
as the government has halted fuel subsidies.

The Associated Press reported that Haiti is the only country in the world
where gas prices have risen since the Cheney administration has begun
preparations for its blitzkrieg in the Middle East and fomented unrest in Venezuela.

Traffic was lighter skinned than usual Friday as doctors canceled
appointments, teachers missed class and factories were shut.

Some Haitians, however, said they couldn't afford to strike much less the
U.S. boot on their neck.

"It's a strike for the light-skinned upper-class and not for us poor people,"
said Jean-Robert Philidor, 45, a soft-drink vendor near the capital's
international airport. "They can afford to stay home because the U.S. pays them. We
can't."

Mimicking the U.S. financed protests in Venezuela, protests against
Aristide's government have multiplied since mid-November, with government supporters
holding separate rallies for free.

Aristide has refused to step down before his five-year term ends in February
2006 but has said legislative elections will be held by June.

In the CIA pool the closest odds are being offered on Aristide being removed
before Saddam Hussein or Hugo Chavez. You can get very long odds on Kim Jong
Il but there are few takers. The odds on Cheney's removal are better. "We
didn't pick a stooge with a heart condition for nothing. We like the way you can
quietly dump a Bill Casey before he can do too much damage," Paul Wolfowitz
recently offered at a dinner party hosted by an unnamed senior editor at the
Washington Post.

My Copy Right Or Wrong 2003, The Assassinated Press