18786: This Week in Haiti 21:49 02/18/2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                      February 18 - 24, 2004
                         Vol. 21, No. 49

AS HINCHE FALLS:
FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION LOOMS OVER HAITI

Haiti this week started to look a lot like the Congo in 1960.

That was when the U.S. and Belgium, the Congo's colonial master
until June 1960, fomented a rebellion against newly elected Prime
Minister Patrice Lumumba. The rebellion, which not coincidentally
flared in the oil and mineral rich Katanga province, was led by
Moise Tshombe, a wealthy plantation owner who was backed by
10,000 Belgian troops.

Lumumba unwisely invited in United Nations "peace-keepers" to
fend off the attack. Instead of helping him, the UN forces
disarmed Lumumba's troops, thus aiding Tshombe's rebellion.
Meanwhile, the CIA helped Col. Mobutu Sese Seko seize power in a
September 1960 coup d'état. Mobuto then arrested Lumumba and
turned him over to Tshombe, who had him murdered.

Could this scenario be repeating itself in Haiti today?

On Feb. 17, Haiti's former colonial master France craftily
offered to send troops to help quell a patchwork rebellion which
it has helped foment. Over the past three years, for example,
French diplomats, in violation of all diplomatic protocols
against meddling, have funneled money to Haiti's principal
opposition radio station, Radio Métropole, and chaperoned Haitian
opposition leaders on trips and in marches around the country,
while constantly and sharply scolding the Haitian government
despite President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's unending, unilateral
concessions to his intransigent adversaries. France also
orchestrated the European Union's funding of Haitian opposition
groups to the tune of almost $1 million last year.

Haiti is "on the edge of chaos" French Foreign Minister Dominique
de Villepin smugly asserted in a Feb. 17 press conference. He
said that Aristide "over the years has let things degenerate" and
asked, with almost unbearable irony,  "that all Haitian officials
think only of one thing: Haiti and the Haitian people who have
suffered for too many years."

France is "ready to act" with other countries, Villepin said,
assuring that it was "absolutely" possible to quickly organize an
international intervention force because "we have the means and
many friendly countries are mobilized." France has 4,000 troops
stationed in its Caribbean colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Such an intervention would, of course, desecrate Haiti's 2004
bicentennial commemorations and effectively neutralize the
Aristide government's demand for $21.7 billion in restitution for
France's post-colonial blackmail of the isolated, fledgling
republic.

It was unclear at press time whether France was acting
independently or as a surrogate for Washington in what is
generally recognized, between those rivals, as the latter's
backyard "pond." U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who seemed
to welcome Villepin's remarks, stated Feb. 13 that Washington
"will accept no outcome that ... attempts to remove the elected
president of Haiti," which Beltway insiders interpreted as a
rebuke of arch-reactionary underlings like Roger Noriega,
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
whose spokesmen had suggested earlier last week that Aristide's
removal might be a solution (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 21, No. 48,
2/11/2004). However, the underlings may represent the dominant
current of thinking of the Bush administration, in which many see
Powell as a token. Powell's comments may also be completely
disingenuous and diversionary.

The same is true of his Feb. 17 declaration that Washington has
"no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police
forces"to Haiti, an assertion the historical record belies, the
Pentagon's woes in Iraq and Afghanistan notwithstanding. Haiti's
National Popular Party (PPN) has long warned that the Dominican
Republic's 25,000-man army, a close Washington ally, could be
used as a proxy intervention force into army-less Haiti. Such
warnings gained credence this week as Dominican politicians and
officials started to make declarations about assuring their
nation's "self-defense" against an "invasion of Haitians."

On Feb. 16, President Hipolito Mejia ordered Dominican troops
massed along the 250-mile border to seal off all traffic between
the two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola.
Dominican foreign minister Frank Guerrero Prats urged governments
to "act with urgency to combat a worsening situation that could
be detrimental for the entire region," language which has ramped
up intervention speculation. Dominican presidential candidate
Eduardo Estrella of the Reformed Social Christian Party said that
the Haitian crisis was "very grave, posing unforeseeable
consequences on our country."

Two Dominican soldiers were shot dead Feb. 14 near the northern
border town of Dajabon. Dominican authorities suspect the killers
were Haitian "rebels," who ironically have been using Dominican
territory as a training ground and safe-haven after guerrilla
strikes over the past three years.

Treading near Lumumba's pitfall, Aristide in a Feb. 16 press
conference obliquely called for international "technical
assistance" to put down the rebellion, because, if the rebels
attack the capital, "the police might not be able to stand up to
this kind of attack."

"I hope the international community will move forward more
quickly so as to prevent others from being victims of these
terrorist weapons," he said. It was unclear what sort of aid he
is seeking and from whom.

But it is clear that bonafide terrorists are lining up against
the government. This week, the Gonaïves "rebels," which are
thought to number no more than 100 out of a city of 200,000, were
joined by Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former vice-president of the
Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a CIA-
supported paramilitary death-squad which killed and disappeared
many of the 5,000 victims of the 1991-1994 coup d'‚tat.

One of those victims was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He
was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and
a driver on Oct. 14, 1993. In an Oct. 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence
Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights, one
reads that "FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and
Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the
morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary." (Emmanuel
"Toto" Constant, FRAPH's leader, now enjoys de facto political
asylum in the U.S. and is living in Queens, NY.)

Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor
for life in trials for the Apr. 23, 1994 Raboteau massacre (see
Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 39, 12/13/2000) and the Sep. 11, 1993
assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izméry.
(Unfortunately, the Malary murder trial was botched by government
prosecutors.)

Chamblain led the attack by about 15 opposition commandos against
the Hinche police station on Haiti's Central Plateau on Feb. 16.
Departmental police chief Maxime Jonas and his bodyguard were
killed in the first moments of the attack. After a firefight of a
few hours, the police exhausted their ammunition and were allowed
to flee. The assailants then opened the prison's doors, as they
have done in all their attacks, and burned the police station. At
press time, the "rebels" still control the city. But the police
and armed government supporters have blocked the road leading to
Hinche at the town of Mirebalais, some 35 kilometers south.

Chamblain arrived in Gonaïves last week with about 25 other
commandos from the Dominican Republic, where he has been living
since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage
uniforms, and all-terrain vehicles.

Another Dominican Republic-based counter-revolutionary plotter
who arrived in Gonaïves last week was Guy Philippe, a former
Haitian police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after
authorities discovered him plotting a coup with a clique of other
police chiefs who had all been trained by U.S. Special Forces in
Ecuador during the 1991-1994 coup (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18,
No. 34, 11/8/2000).

Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of
master-minding deadly attacks on the Police Academy and the
National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as hit-and-run
raids against police stations on Haiti's Central Plateau over the
following two years.

Like Chamblain and Philippe, most of the "rebels" are former
soldiers from the Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH), which Aristide
disbanded in 1994. But the dissolution was disorderly, and most
of the soldiers made off with their weapons.

As the "armed opposition"'s terrorist leadership has become
clearer, so has its commonality with the opposition's melee-
provoking Democratic Platform, based in Port-au-Prince. Gilbert
Leger, a lawyer and opposition member told the AP: "We're still
dealing with pacific, nonviolent means, but let me tell you, we
have one goal. We do support (rebel) efforts." (In truth, most of
the opposition's demonstrations are not "pacific" and have turned
violent due to their illegal and provocative march route changes,
rock-throwing and other tactics.)

Similar statements came from Group of 184 leader Andy Apaid, Jr.
who said that "armed resistance is a legitimate political
expression" under a popularly elected government  and that the
"rebels" should remain armed until Aristide resigns.

In a Feb. 14 press conference, Ira Kurzban, the Haitian
government's general counsel, denounced leaders like Apaid who
"have not hidden their attempts to incite violence and have even
condoned it in past public demonstrations where innocent people
were brutally killed and where calls were made to overthrow the
government."

Kurzban called on the U.S. government to investigate whether
Apaid, who is a U.S. citizen, is in violation of the Neutrality
Act, which prohibits U.S. nationals from working to overthrow
foreign elected governments. "In organizing efforts to overthrow
the democratically elected government of President Aristide and
in suggesting that those who are using violent means should not
immediately cease their activities, Mr. Apaid is continuing to
violate the Neutrality Act," Kurzban said. "He should be
investigated by the US Department of Justice and, if the evidence
warrants, be properly brought to justice."

Kurzban also reviewed how one of Apaid's companies was fined
about $50,000 in 1999 for telecommunications fraud under Haitian
law.  "Now it appears that Mr. Apaid may have also committed
fraud to obtain a Haitian passport," Kurzban said. Apaid, born in
New York in 1952, never renounced his U.S. citizenship. Haitian
law does not allow dual citizenship. "Mr. Apaid's public
relations machine in the U.S. has painted a very different
picture of Apaid's character, but I want people in Haiti and the
U.S. to know the truth about people who call themselves
responsible leaders and at the same time break the law."

Congresswoman Maxine Waters also blasted Apaid and his opposition
front this week in a Feb. 11 statement. "It is my belief that
André Apaid is attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and
then blame the government for the resulting disaster in the
belief that the United States will aid the so-called protestors
against President Aristide and his government," she said.

Waters also praised Aristide "progressive economic agenda" of
investing in agriculture, public transportation, health care, education,
and
infrastructure. She called on the State Department to "use its
influence to help stabilize Haiti, provide assistance for health,
education and infrastructure development" and on the mainstream
press to "discontinue the practice of repeating rumors and
innuendos and begin to spend quality time learning the truth and
writing the truth about what is really going on in Haiti."

Jesse Jackson also put out a Feb. 16 statement supporting and
similar to Waters', in which he appealed "to the U.S. to abandon
its policy of aiding and abetting attempts to overthrow the
Aristide Government and, instead, use the resources, power and
diplomacy of the United States to restore order in Haiti."

"Is the United States concerned about restoring the rule of law
and democratic rule in Haiti, or is this another example of
'regime change?'" he asked. "Opponents of the Aristide Government
rejected calls for a democratic election, and now are unleashing
a violent attempt to seize power they could not win through
elections.  Inaction by the U.S. State Department amounts to
sanctioning the opposition forces. We therefore appeal to the
Secretary of State to uphold our nation's democratic principles,
and withdraw all political and financial support to those seeking
to overthrow President Aristide."

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Please credit Haiti Progres.

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