18449: radtimes: Support Jean-Bertrand Aristide! No CIA Coup! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

From: "Action Center" <actioncenter@action-mail.org>

International Action Center
39 W 14 St #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889
Email: iacenter@action-mail.org
Web site: http://www.iacenter.org

The International Action Center Statement in support of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
The International Action Center denounces any intervention by the Bush
Administration against the legally elected government of Haiti and its
President, Jean-Bertrand Arstide. We condemn the financial embargo of this
Caribbean country by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
There's nothing spontaneous about the current disturbances in Haiti. Former
army officers that served the decades-long Duvalier family dictatorship are
playing a leading role in these bloody events. Behind the ex-Tonton Macoute
torturers killing people today in Haitian streets is undoubtedly the CIA.
One of Reagan's ambassadors to the Duvalier regime--Ernest H. Preeg--is a
director of the misnamed "Haiti Democracy Project" that seeks to overthrow
President Aristide.

None of these elements are strong enough by themselves to return eight
million Haitian people to colonial servitude. Their aim is to provoke
military intervention against the Haitian government, possibly under
disguise of a United Nations "humanitarian mission."

Unlike the liar in the White House, who stole the 2000 U.S. election from
African American voters in Florida, President Aristide was overwhelmingly
elected twice--in 1990 and 2000.

Two hundred years ago the Haitian people established the second oldest
republic in the Americas. For six decades--until the U.S. Civil War--the
U.S. Government refused to recognize the Haitian Republic, which resulted
from the only successful slave insurrection in history.

The reason why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is
that it made so many other countries so rich. It was Haitian sugar--the
product of slave labor--that fueled the industrial revolution in Britain
and France. Without Haiti there would have been no French Revolution.
French bankers and big business alone owe Haiti at $21 billion in
reparations for a forced loan that took Haiti 120 years to pay off. Over
the past few centuries, the Haitian people have also been punished for
having the audacity to overthrow their slave masters.

This heroic country opened its arms to Bolivar, supplying the liberator
with two ships and supplies needed to overthrow Spanish colonial rule. The
only thing that Haiti asked in return was freedom for all the enslaved
people in Latin America.

The United States Government has repeatedly intervened in Haiti. U.S.
marines robbed $500,000 from the National Bank of Haiti in 1915. These
stolen monies were then deposited in the National City Bank--now part of
the trillion dollar Citibank octopus. A U.S. Marine officer assassinated
the noble Haitian leader Charlemagne Peralte. At least another 3,250 people
were killed.

In the words of James Weldon Johnson--NAACP leader and author of the Black
National Anthem--the U.S. occupation of Haiti "...seized men where it could
find them, and no able-bodied Haitian was safe from such raids, which most
closely resembled the African slave raids of past centuries. And slavery it
was, though temporary."

These crimes demand reparations. Instead the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund have cutoff aid to Haiti.

The International Action Center demands: Hands off Haiti! Stop the
financial embargo of this heroic country!