17555: FW: HAITI TALKING POINTS: (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From: "Robert Benodin" <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>
>
>HAITI TALKING POINTS:
>1. Haiti is a historic friend & ally to whom we owe attention. Haitian
>sailors under the French helped Americans blockade Savannah against the
>British in the crucial battle during our Revolution. We did not recognize
>Haiti's independence for some 14 years solely because it was the first
>Black Republic (and the second nation in our hemisphere to become
>independent after the US in 1804. January is the 200th anniversary of
>Haitian independence). And to compound our grievous actions, the US Marines
>under Wilson occupied & ruled Haiti for 19 years from 1915 to 1933 until
>FDR ended the occupation. In the elite Union Club in Cape Haitian, once the
>colonial capital, the pictures of all Haitian presidents & liberators are
>posted high on the main wall, and right smack in the middle is a portrait
>of Haitian liberator-hero Franklin Roosevelt! I wept when I saw it years
>ago.
>
>2. For almost 30 years US presidents-Dems & Repubs-gave tacit & active
>support to the Duvalier oppressive dictatorship: the Eisenhower
>Administration foolishly sent a  US Marine Mission  to Haiti in early 1959
>(when I was Embassy Public Affairs Officer) to 'train the Haitian Army': an
>unmitigated disaster for the Haitian people by then terrorized and
>immobilized by murderous dictator Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier. The then US
>Ambassador opposed the mission but was overridden by the State Dept.
>
>3. The US in 1990 recognized the presidency of a poor progressive parish
>Priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide who was carried into office in the largest
>free & open electoral landslide-80% of the popular vote-in Haiti's 200-year
>history. (I was an OAS official election observer in Cape Haitian.) Within
>months a military junta seized power in a coup d'état and Aristide-three
>times almost assassinated by the army-was saved from death by the American
>Ambassador. The Clinton Administration gave Aristide refuge and financial
>support for almost three years, and then threatened the colonels with an
>invasion of 22,000 soldiers. The colonels left for exile; Aristide was
>reinstalled by the United States as president of Haiti and completed his 3
>years under protection & tutelage and military aid of the US. Forced
>constitutionally to leave office (Haiti's rule is ONE five-year term)
>Aristide installed his protégé as president and manipulated the nation for
>5 years like a puppet master, awaiting his ability to run again in the late
>90s. Every democrat held the highest hopes for this progressive liberal
>priest, but his second term quickly became one of secret police,
>oppression, murder, torture, kidnapping. Major media figures were killed.
>Last week thousands of students protested in the streets and were fired on
>by the police and Aristide supporters (Fanmi Lavalas). Haiti is
>economically a basket case; the US has withheld millions in aid; the OAS is
>distancing itself from Aristide. The US Ambassador was quoted last week as
>saying officially: 'Haiti has reached a crossroads.' The word is that even
>Charlie Rangle and Major Owens of the Black Caucus are now disaffected from
>Aristide.
>4. Policy: months ago President Bush forced the President of Liberia,
>Charles Taylor, from office by simply stating publicly that he had to leave
>before a peacekeeping force would land. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the once
>poor progressive priest is now a multimillionaire living in a mansion,
>married and driving Haiti to anarchy and civil war--800 miles from the
>Florida coast. The United States of America made Aristide president. The
>United States saved his life. The United States reinstalled him as
>president behind the threat of an occupation of 22,000 troops. The US made
>Aristide and it is time to unmake him! He has betrayed liberal democracy;
>fattened on our money, oppressed & killed his own people, & antagonized the
>OAS & even France rarely disturbed morally by bloody dictators. Statements
>on the senate floor by you, senators Dodd & Corzine & others would go far
>to alert the traumatized Haitian people that the US remembers its historic
>friends, even if they are the poorest nation in the hemisphere. A civil war
>is approaching in Haiti and its bodes ill for both Haiti & the United
>States. Sincerely,
>
>Professor Robert R. Klein, Rutgers University, Newark (ret.)
>White House Staff, President Lyndon B. Johnson
>Policy Aide & Chief Speech Writer to NJ Gov. Richard J. Hughes
>US Foreign Service Officer: Haiti, D.R., Mexico, India
>Chief Administrator Passaic & Mercer Counties
>Supervisor NJ Civil Rights Division
>Democratic Candidate NJ State Senate
>10 Ramson Avenue, West Trenton, NJ 08628
>t-609-883-3253; E-Mail: BobKleinPIP@aol.com
>