18706: erzilidanto: The comeback of the old anti-democratic Haitian guard (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

They are back: The comeback of the old anti-democratic Haitian guard by Ezili
Danto

********
La Sosyete:

Look who is also on the board of the Haiti Democracy Project!!

Another one of our "friends." A former U.S. Ambassador, no less. Tim Carney,
who served as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti in 1998 and 1999.

(See, February 13, 2004 Bloomberg.com at:
http://quote.Bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aadmqn06jDlU&refer=top_world_news).

Here are some paragraphs of the  "news" according to a February 13, 2004
report at Bloomberg.com:

``We do not want Haitian boat people washing up on our shores again,'' Carney
said, referring to the period in the 1970s and 1980s when some 50,000 and
80,000 Haitians, fleeing poverty and repression under the rule of Jean-Claude
``Baby Doc'' Duvalier, arrived by boat in Florida.

``We're clearly looking at the last days of Aristide in office,'' said
Carney, who serves on the board of the Haiti Democracy Project, a Washington-based
advocacy group. ``The challenge is how to do it, how it can happen in such a
way that you can have a minimum amount of chaos and blood and devastation.''
(Emphasis Added, the Bloomberg article, in its entirety, is attached below).

So, my Haitian peoples, setting aside, for the moment, the fact that that
comment makes our Black people sound like some dead fish littering and stinking
up a pristine Temple.  That we are not human beings with flesh, blood and
dreams as those on Mr. Carney's pristine shores. Setting that little racist,
callous and cold-blooded remark aside, let's, my Haitian peoples, review the facts:

It's February 16, 2004 and we have:

A former U.S. Ambassador, Mr. Tim Carney, one of the First Worlders so-called
"democracy builders" openly attempting to use the current Gonaive/Hinche
crisis to further the virtual media coup - that is to replace the Constitutional
government of Haiti without going through elections.  We have a former U.S.
official sabotaging the mass electorate in Haiti with this thinly veiled advocacy
of regime change and open disrespect for the Haitian people's 5-year mandate
to Aristide - open disrespect for the rule of international law and for the
will of the Haitian people.

It's February 16, 2004 and we first had:

The virtual or media Coup D’etat, whereby the world's unsuspecting public
where told, ad nauseum two blatant lies 1). The majority in Haiti no longer
supports the freely elected Haitian president and 2). The media slant which, in
effect, amounted to the criminalization of all supporters of Aristide as "thugs".
This done to prepare us for the return of the bloody military Haitian army
and old FRAPH paramilitary. Thus, U.S. policymakers and insiders are solidly
continuing, with no apology, despite the current carnage this policy has wrought,
their long-standing U.S assault on Aristide, and, therefore, on Haiti's
fledging democracy, rule of law, and the 1987 Haitian Constitution.

We have:

Foreign sponsorship of what the Internationals are calling, "human rights
groups," but who are, in fact, very narrow special interests groups in Haiti,
unable to win freely at elections, that have resorted to fomenting violence,
chaos and impasse in Haiti these last four years because of their political
bitterness, incompetence, impotence and/or frustrations.

We have:

This U.S./Euro sponsorship of "NGOs" in Haiti with their "Executive
Directors" forging forth an anti-democratic campaign while the pro-democracy Haitian
mass electorate, that duly voted and won the 2000 Presidential election, are
suffering under a bitter and barbaric U.S.-led funding embargo.

We have:

The European Union co-financing Initiative de la Societe Civile (ISC) group.
Both FONHEP and FNH are members of the ISC. All members of the ISC are also
members of the Group of 184. (See, Haiti Support Group)

We have:

The European Union giving a $890,374 GRANT directly to Fondation Nouvelle
Haiti and Rosny Desroches. We know Andre Apaid, Jr. heads Fondation Nouvelle
Haiti and Rosny Desroches heads of the Fondation Haitienne de l'Enseignement Prive
(FONHEP).

We know it's a co-financing. So we still don't know the entire amount these
groups are actually getting to do the killings and mass misinformation campaign
they are now carrying forth. But we know the duration of the contract was
from 21/12/2001 to 21/12/2003.

We have no information yet about automatic renewals, if any. But we do know
these "human rights, media, education, and political parties groups" are
getting foreign funding that's MORE, perhaps double, triple (who knows yet?) more
than the European Commission's contribution of 773,000 Euros (roughly US$890,374
at depending on the exchange rate).

We know that the IRI and NED are the other primary funders of these
opposition groups intended to counter the Aristide government.

How much exactly did it take, over these last ten years, for the IRI, the
Jesse Helms' and the U.S./Euro right wing to sow the seeds of division, push at
the already existing fissures and cracks in our Haitian society? How much so
that a mere ten years after the Haitian people, through poured blood, go rid of
them, they are now back in full force?  We got rid of the likes of Jodel
Chamblain and Guy Philippe. But the Dominican Republic and the U.S./Euros have
since coddled them. And now, after their so-called "civilian wing" had prepared
the terrain with blood, this well-trained military has been unleashed on us
again to finish up the violent overthrow and return the rule of force to Haiti.
Who will the U.S./Euros let loose to torment us next in our weakest moment: Toto
Constant?

How much U.S./Euro right-wing-dollars did it take to help bring Haitian
people's pro-democratic movement to the Gonaive, and now, Hinche FRAPH/Haitian
former military takeover?

How much did it take to bring back the old Haitian guard like this? How much
to buy Black overseers and imperial agents like Apaid, Deroches, Boulos, Nadal
and the other Black opportunists (Category Zeros) who head the 14-
organizations under the so-called "Initiative de la Societe Civile (ISC) group. How much
to  train and equip the right-wing paramilitaries, who are the armed wing of
this US/Euro-funded "opposition" in Haiti?

We know its been planned for quite a while. We've seen the rippling muscles
and foreign sneakers on those young Haitian men roaming Gonaive and beating and
pulverizing, in their drug haze, the already dead bodies of the civilian
policemen they've killed. Who provided the drugs, the guns, the clothes, the food,
the camps for building those muscles up, the extensive war training, the
planning? Who paid for it? How much did it take to start this balkanization of
Haiti?

It will take some years to get the real Greg Palast/Noam Chomskyest story.

But, we-Haitians already know, for a fact, that sometime in December, 2003,
after a meeting with the International Republican Institute in Santo Domingo,
the Haitian opposition returned to Port-au-Prince to establish the "Group of
184," a supposedly broad front of "civil society" organizations modeled on
similar anti-government coalitions in Chavez's Venezuela and Allende's Chile. (See
the Haiti Progres article on that topic and see also, Haiti Progres, dated
July 16, 2003, http://www.haitiprogres.com/2003/sm030716/index.html . )

We know, for a fact, that the head of the "184" today is André "Andy" Apaid,
Jr., also head of Alpha Industries, one of the oldest and largest assembly
factories in Haiti.
We know that Apaid, born of Haitian parents in Miami, is U.S. citizen who has
never renounced his U.S. citizenship. He came to Haiti in 1976 as a foreign
businessman on a visitor's visa. He later obtained a Haitian passport by faking
a Haitian birth certificate. (See, Haiti Progres article, which states
Haiti's Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, confirmed that Apaid is indeed a U.S.
citizen.)

We have the fact that: Andre Apaid, Jr., was born in Miami and never
renounced his U.S. citizenship. Said Andre Apaid, Jr, heading the foreign funded
Haitian so-called "opposition" does not even qualify to hold an elected office in
Haiti. Instead he is a U.S. citizen allegedly openly violating the Neutrality
Act, who is also alleged to have committed fraud, because he was born in Haiti
in but falsified a Haitian birth certificate in order to illegally get hold of
a Haitian passport.

We know, for a fact, that a former OAS official, Orlando Marville, is spewing
all sorts of hatred and emboldening violence, chaos, death and devastation in
Haiti with his writings and columns, especially with articles such as "Haiti:
When Will It End"  (on the Corbett List, #18107) and published online under
The Nation, Barbados, Jan 25, 2004 .

It's frightening for us Haitians to see, how people like Mr. Orlando
Marville, who have held diplomatic post of great influences in regional bodies charged
with the mission to assist Haiti with development of peace and security,
development of respect for Haitian law and democracy, have such little respect for
the Haitian people's will, not to mention such little regard for facts and
details about the opposition and Haiti's crisis.  Just frightening.

See,  http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1181#1181 - where Ezili
Danto writes about how the OAS's and the mainstream media's willful blindness,
of the violence, devastation, chaos and political impasse in Haiti, sponsored
by these anti-democratic groups, has furthered empowered said 2% to 4%
undemocratic few, within the Haitian population, to directly or indirectly create the
atmosphere where their co-horts killed, burned, maimed and destroyed in the
last few months with total impunity, building the foundations for this outrage
we have in Gonaive today.

We know that, as in 1994, once this crisis is over, the U.S. and the Euros
will ask the Haitian people to forgive, give asylum and safety to Apaid, Group
184, Convergence, Jodel Chamblain and Guy Philippe, etc., and their other
murderous Haitian military and new San Manman para-military co-horts.

We know too, from our experience with these tragic Black opportunists, that
we cannot build a democracy on the foundation of injustice.

We cannot reconcile with injustice.

We know it doesn't work.

For, it will later, as now, be used against us and rear itself back
up like the FRAPH people who went free before, who ate up our divisions in
exile, training and waiting, and, are now back to torment and finish us off,
once again.

We know the role of the mainstream media in the days before Gonaive and how
their reports continually pressed, even though it was not factual, that
Aristide had little support in Haiti and their criminalization of all supporters of
Aristide as "thugs".  We know that the world's media slanted their coverage to
minimize Haitians' support for their government .  (
http://www.sfbayview.com/010704/motherofliberty010704.shtml ) And that that was a form of psychological
warfare to weaken and discourage the pro-rule of law advocates in Haiti and
the U.S. and embolden its anti-democratic-refuse-to-go-to-election,
foreign-supported "opposition."

We know of the constant CONFUSION which makes the right-wing brains of the
mainstream and opposition media simply unable to distinguish between the 2000
Presidential elections which were uncontested and the 2000 Parliamentary
elections.

Remember Lydia Polgreen's  January 2, 2004, New York Times' article on the
Bicentennial  and the retraction New York Times had to print?

Remember the AP/Reuters constant hammering about "students" when they were
either Lavalas supporters or opposition operatives but definitely not "students?"

For instance, Renel Victor was pro-Lavalas and not a student. Yet, André
Apaid, was among the first to rush to the Haitian hospital to claim the body of
Renel Victor, claiming the death of this "student" "proved "the need for the
elected government to resign when in FACT, Renel Victor, the tear gas canister
victim, was not an Apaid demonstrator whatsoever?  Au contraire, said, Renel
Victor's wife.

For instance, AP/Reuters kept referring to anti-Aristide, Maxime Desalmour,
as a "student", even though Desalmour had actually graduated from the
University in 1993-94 according to a Haitian press service.

We Haitians know, that this  same sort of fabrication of "news" favorable to
the U.S. sponsored "opposition's" political agenda, this kind of destabilizing
and misinformation strategy, was used in Venezuela, where the elected
government was faced with so-called  "unions" just as the Haitian government was/is
faced with these so-called "human rights groups," these so-called "students"
and  these so-called "political parties." When, in essence, they were mostly all
a cover for the return of the old, anti-democratic and bloody Haitian
guard/French bourgeoisie and their FRAPH and Haitian military operatives.

Louvoi Petit, a pro-Lavalas demonstrated, was stoned, thrown into a sewer and
killed before the international cameras by the opposition's thugs, but since
those cameras came to Haiti looking for Lavalas thugs, this was minimally
reported.

Similarly the mainstream press, went willfully blind, for instance, when the
Apaid group stole Maxime Désalmour's corpse, from a funeral, to conduct their
violent and therefore illegal demonstrations.

We know that Radio Métropole is the most powerful and influential radio of
the Haitian bourgeoisie. We know that although most Haitians speak Kreyol. Radio
Metropole  broadcasts almost exclusively in French and many foreign
journalists rely on it for their dispatches.

AP/Reuters/New York Times/Wall Street Journal/Washington Post keep to their
script. The slant was/is to create and sustain the psychological warfare
campaign to oust Aristide. Everything else is beside the point.  (
http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1181#1181 )

We know that the government of France, Haiti's very old colonial ruler,
financially supports Radio Métropole. Haiti Progres, reports that: "On the "Politics
" page of Métropole’s website (www.metropolehaiti.com) is an advertisement
thanking the French embassy for its "assistance."

(See, also, Ezili Danto's posts about how mainstream press fabrications
embolden the minority opposition to commit more violence in Haiti and led to the
return of the Haitian military, the "opposition" criminals and murderers our
people are now facing.    :
http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1181#1181  )


We know the role of USAID as it implements the U.S. embargo on funding
against the Constitutional government of Haiti while funding all anti-Constitution
groups in Haiti.

According to the Haiti Support Group, "...the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) allocated US$3,050,000 (just over three million
dollars) to "civil society, the media, human rights organizations and political
parties" for its "Government" and "Democracy" program in Haiti in the fiscal
year 2003 (year ending September 2003).

We know USAID has a long-term commitment to Haiti's underdevelopment and
containment-in-poverty. With its wretched assembly plant economy, where all
capital generated in Haiti are summarily exported out of Haiti, USAID has had a net
zero effect on Haiti's development, if not a retardant effect.  (See also the
recent report of Council of Hemispheric Affairs' (COHA) which also outlines
the role of the IRI, NED, USAID, etc. in Haiti, at
http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.03_Haiti_Ari
stide.htm ).

For, as the National Labor Committee reported back in 1996: "Alpha Sewing is
owned by the Apaid family, led by André Apaid, a notorious Duvalierist. When
asked at a business conference in Miami soon after the coup in 1991 what he
would do if President Aristide returned to Haiti, Apaid replied vehemently, "I'd
strangle him!" At
the time, Apaid was heading up USAID's PROMINEX business promotion
project, a $12.7 million program to encourage U.S. and Canadian firms
to move their businesses to Haiti...." (
http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/archive/Haiti/0196/index.shtml )

The sort of projects USAID supports in Haiti are designed in Washington, not
Haiti and USAID's primary goal is to construct and sustain what makes up the
"favorable business conditions" needed for U.S.-led businesses to make big
profits in Haiti. The point is, the rule of law, enforcement of the minimum wage,
justice, payment of taxes by the tragic Haitian bourgeoisie, and transparency
and participatory democracy affects their bottom line. The rule of "The people
, By the people, For the people," outside the U.S., affects big businesses'
bottom line. For, if there is no chaos, political impasse or violence in Haiti,
how would the profit-over-people-right-wing-since-slavery-days-ilk be able to
take advantage and continue to fleece dry the Haitian people and resources?

 Fact is, authentic participatory democracy, with some modicum of
transparency and justice, which is where Haiti's peoples want to take their currently,
under siege, electoral democracy, certainty would not provide a good
USAID-US/Euro "business climate. " (See,
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/295.html on "Haiti sweatshops: Your taxes at work - pushing wages down", by Julia
Lutsky, dated March 23, 1996 for details.)

And finally, this author knows, for a fact, that while in Haiti for the
bi-centennial celebration at the Montana hotel, some of us ran into Luigi Einaudi,
the second representative, currently in command at the OAS and he summarized
two things for us-Haitians. He said, outright in front of this author, a
foreign journalist and two others present, that, inter alia, the purpose of the
NGO's are to subvert Haiti's authentic civil society and, Mr. Luigi Einaudi, also
clearly said,  "The international community is so screwed-up and divided that
Haitians are running Haiti!"
http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1165#1165 ; http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1144#1144 ;
http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1149#1149 . This, was before Gonaive. Thus,
explains a bit why the Constitutional government in Haiti had to face this
U.S-Euro sponsored military opponent in Gonaive today.

To sum up, it's absolutely terrifying for us Haitians to see, how people like
Orlando Marville, Tim Carney and Luigi Einaudi, who have held or are
currently holding diplomatic post of great influences and power over the livelihood of
Haitians, how they are using their influences, networks and talents against
Haitian democracy and rule of law. Just chilling.

So, la sosyete, there is absolutely nothing hidden about the U.S., OAS, IRI,
European Union, France, Canada or the old Haitian guard's intentions for the
mass electorate and public in Haiti.

We are to remain in perpetual underdevelopment because that bolsters their
bottom line profits.

We are to remain simply overworked, underpaid laborers for U.S. investors
like Apaid and his Alpha Industries/Alpha Sewing. That is our role.

And we aren't allowed to try to get out of "our place" in this globally
racist profit-over-people equation.

Back in 1990 we had the audacity to try.

Between 1991 and 1994, the old guard, that tragic Haitian elite and their
armed wings, killed us like flies. Threw us into Marronage for three years. And,
when all that didn't work, the U.S., who was implicated in the 1991 Coup
against Aristide, returned a hamstrung and
mis-educated-for-three-years-in-Washington-Aristide to Haiti. And, through their actions (no demilitarization of the
old guard, giving asylum and amnesty to the Coup leaders, integrating the old
army into the civilian police), the U.S./Euros basically sent the message to
the old guard that they should be patient. The old guard bided their time.

The comeback of these murderers and fascists have been well engineered.

Today they're back.

Today we, the Haitian people, abroad and especially at home, are paying for
that tiny little affront to the right-wing-worker-enslavers, those right-wing
"democracy builders."  Those right wing, no-social spending-o
n-a-Haitian-economy folks.

Today, some of the Raboteau (Gonaives) victims are in hiding, once again,
pursued by their former drug dealing and FRAPH/PNH Jodel Chamblain and Guy
Philippe-like tormentors.

Today Olivia Nadal's role in the Piatre Massacres can't be tried because the
Gonaive courthouse is ransacked and under Gonaive is under the control of
Nadal's old FRAPH/ PNH commissaire friends!

Yet, despite all this. Despite all this, Aristide is a still, notwithstanding
all his failings and horrendous mismanagement of the Haitian people's trust
and confidence; notwithstanding the corruption in his administration, in spite
of himself, Aristide is still a symbol of the movement from right wing
oppression to empowerment of the Haitian working poor, the Haitian peasant farmer,
the Haitian urban factory worker.

In spite of himself, Aristide is still, as of this date, a symbol of the
first achievement of the Haitian mass electorate towards self-rule since Dessaline
was assassinated back in 1806.

But, La Sosyete:

Listen to former U.S. Ambassador, Jim Carney, talk about how to get rid of
this symbol and electoral democracy (Aristide) in Haiti." Carney says:, -  The
challenge is how to do it, how it can happen in such a way that you can have a
minimum amount of chaos and blood and devastation.'' (See article, below.)

Mr. Jim Carney, a former ambassador to Haiti, reportedly said, in the
Bloomberg article: "We do not want Haitian boat people washing up on our shores
again.''

I say, the Haitian people would respond, Mr. Carney, "We, the mass electorate
in Haiti, do not want right-wing reactionaries from the U.S./Euro power
citadels washing up on Haitian shores again. Tell Canada, the U.S. and the
Europeans to keep their  so-called "financial aid" that never has gone towards
developing needed Haitian reforms but to give jobs and foreign aid monies to their
own foreign nationals working in Haitian. Tell them, for us-Haitians, Mr.
Carney, that Haitians, living abroad,  have sent more money to Haiti than the U.S.
government has given Haiti in financial aid these last four years at least.

Tell them, Haitians of the Diaspora send, each year, over $850 million
dollars to Haiti, which represents almost twice as much as the $400,000,000 yearly
Haitian government's national budget.

This financial investment in our former homeland represents much more than
what Haiti received in foreign aid from the U.S. Would the U.S. treat their
Jewish citizens this way who invest in Israel? No.

We Haitians of the Diaspora do not appreciate it that, under cover
organizations ,identified as "Human Rights Groups" and "political parties" (with no
electorate foundation whatsoever) that the internationals in Haiti are funding
groups who burn, pillage and devalue our investments in Haiti.

We do not appreciate it that you are making our work to help our parents,
friends, children and relatives in Haiti move towards democracy impossible.

We want respect and protection for our investment, just as you protect
Disney, Wal Mart and Apaid's investments in Haiti.

Those in the know report that the savings held by Haitians living in the
United States- approximately 15 billion dollars US- rest in U.S. bank accounts
alone. Why not let Haiti live. Stop fomenting violence and impasse in our country
please. Let us continue to repatriate to Haiti some of our financial wealth,
skills and talents without also having to counter your retardant forces
fomenting violence and destroying our hard-earned-income, not passive-earned-income
investments in Haiti.

Please, Mr. Carney, tell the neocons and right wing reactionaries that
Haiti's traditional isolation and containment-in-poverty and the virtual forced
labor in Haiti by U.S. big businesses is coming to an end, is over.

The Haitian people will no longer go into hiding, en mass, as they did during
the U.S.-sponsored 1991-1994 coup.

We will not accept the rule by force or foreign meddling in Haitian affairs
whose sole purpose is to fleece the nation dry, have it working at even below
the Haitian minimum wage, (already the cheapest labor force in the world) in
factories such as the National Labor Committee reported about in 1996, where,
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), the chemical that toughens
the glove Apaid's company was contracted by U.S./Euro companies to make, also
takes off layers the skin off its unprotected Haitian workers.  Or, in
foreign factories, where the dust from the production of such products as Apaid's
"Vinyl-Coated Super Comfort Seams-Rite" gloves gives many poor Haitian workers
respiratory problems.

Yes, those are the sort of jobs and treatments these right-wing "businessmen"
and morally "pragmatic" politicians want to keep perpetual in Haiti. (See,
the National Labor Committee report at:
http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/archive/Haiti/0196/index.shtml )

But, Mr. Carney, as we Haitian gather up and bury our dead all over Haiti,
calling on our people abroad and at home to mobilize for the fight we cannot, in
this bi-centennial year lose. As we Haitians call on the ancestors to help us
stop this U.S-Euro sponsored balkanization of Haiti (with drug money and the
tacit, if not actual cooperation of the Dominican Army as a U.S. proxy); as we
struggle to stop the balkanization of Haiti, we-Haitians wish you to know,
Mr. Carney that if the U.S. would take its support away from these assassins and
if Disney, Wal Mart, JC Penney, and Apaid Industries would treat and pay
their Haitian workers in Haiti, the same way they must, by law, treat and pay
their workers in the United States, Europe and Canada, you wouldn't, Mr. Carney,
see any of us-Haitians washing up on "your" various shores again.

Ezili Danto
*****


U.S., Caribbean Allies Press Haiti on Peace Proposal (Update1)

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and its Caribbean allies together urged
Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide and his political opponents to accept a
mediated peace process, offering financial assistance and police support to help
carry it out.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, after talks in Washington with
representatives of Canada and the 15-member Caribbean Economic Community (Caricom),
called on Haitians to accept Caricom's ideas for settling Aristide's political
fate.

``Both sides need to come together and find a political solution, a peaceful
political solution, using the Caricom proposal,'' Powell said as Haiti faced a
series of violent street protests. Dozens have died over the past week of
confrontations in Haiti.

The violence comes a decade after the U.S. used a show of military force to
return Aristide to power after a coup threatened to derail democracy in a
country where the population of 7.5 million lives on an average of less than $2 a
day.

Powell, speaking to reporters after today's talks, said the Caribbean
grouping and Canada agreed to offer unspecified financial aid, along with an
expansion of their police forces already in the country, if the sides work toward
implementing Caricom's ideas, which include disarming groups responsible for
fomenting the current violence.

Details of the policing and financial aid offer were not discussed at today's
meetings, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

`Boat People'

Despite Powell's efforts to have Caribbean nations take the lead in resolving
the problem in Haiti, the U.S. almost certainly will need to get more deeply
involved, said Tim Carney, who served as U.S. ambassador to Haiti in 1998 and
1999.

``We do not want Haitian boat people washing up on our shores again,'' Carney
said, referring to the period in the 1970s and 1980s when some 50,000 and
80,000 Haitians, fleeing poverty and repression under the rule of Jean-Claude
``Baby Doc'' Duvalier, arrived by boat in Florida.

``We're clearly looking at the last days of Aristide in office,'' said
Carney, who serves on the board of the Haiti Democracy Project, a Washington-based
advocacy group. ``The challenge is how to do it, how it can happen in such a
way that you can have a minimum amount of chaos and blood and devastation.''

Warning Against Coup

Powell repeated U.S. opposition to any attempt to remove Aristide by coup.

``We will accept no outcome that is not consistent with the constitution,''
he said. ``We will accept no outcome that in any way illegally attempts to
remove the elected president of Haiti.''

The U.S. in 1994 dispatched 20,000 troops to Haiti after Aristide was ousted.
They and another 2,000 from other countries were about to enter Haiti when
the military coup leader, Raoul Cedras, agreed to step down.

Jamaican Foreign Minister Keith Desmond Knight, who led the Caribbean
delegation at today's talks, reiterated Caricom's opposition to any coup against
Aristide while making clear that did not translate into political backing for
Aristide himself.

``This should not be construed as uncritical support for the president of
Haiti,'' Knight said. ``It is for democracy in Haiti.''



To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Basken in Washington at
pbasken@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor of this story: Glenn Hall at
1966 or ghall@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 13, 2004 16:59 EST

*************