18842: Esser: History Repeating: Is A Coup Brewing in Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org

Thursday, February 19th, 2004
History Repeating: Is A Coup Brewing in Haiti?

Listen to:
Segment :
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dn20040219.ra&start=9:33.4
Show: http://www.archive.org/download/dn2004-0219/dn2004-0219-1.mp3   
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The situation in the small island nation of Haiti is growing more
severe by the hour. There are now fears that the
democratically-elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide could be
overthrown in a violent coup d'etat. For weeks, gangs of armed groups
have attacked police stations and other government outposts. More
than 50 people have been killed and the violent insurgency is daily
increasing its weapons supplies. Aristide's official government
forces are ill-equipped to defend against the violence. Haiti has no
army and the national police are estimated at around 3,000 men.
Aristide supporters have clashed regularly with the insurgents and
other opponents of the Haitian president.

In not so subtle statements, US officials have hinted that they want
Aristide gone. But Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced this
week to officially renounce this. But for anyone follwing Haiti over
the years, it comes as no surprise that Washington may well be
involved. What is particularly troubling to veteran observers in
Haitian politics is the fact that some of the leaders of the armed
gangs are men who were at the forefront of the campaign of terror in
the early 1990s in Haiti that ultimately led to the overthrow of
Aristide.

In this period, the Haitian Armed Forces and the right-wing
paramilitary death squad FRAPH, which was supported by the CIA and
other US agencies, were the principal organizations behind the reign
of terror against unarmed civilians that included at least 5,000
murders, 300,000 internal refugees, 40,000 boat people, and countless
tortures, rapes, thefts, and beatings. According to the Haitian
newspaper Haiti-Progres, a man named Louis Jodel Chamblain arrived
this week in the Haitian city of Gonaives-where the armed gangs are
largely based. Chamblain is the former vice-president of the FRAPH
paramilitary death squad.

Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for
life in trials for the April 23, 1994 Raboteau massacre and the
September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist Antoine
Izméry. Chamblain arrived in Gonaives 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.Since arriving in Haiti, Chamblain led the
attack by about 15 opposition commandos against the Hinche police
station on Haiti's Central Plateau a few days ago on February 16.

Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership 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. According to
an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the
Center for Constitutional Rights "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, the leader of FRAPH, is now
living freely in the US-in fact he is believed to be living here in
Queens, NY.

Meanwhile, according to Haiti-Progres, another Dominican
Republic-based paramilitary arrived in Gonaives last week. He is 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 US Special Forces
in Ecuador during the 1991-1994 coup. 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.

One of the main leaders of what is being called the opposition in
Haiti, Andy Apaid, Jr. said recently that "armed resistance is a
legitimate political expression" under a popularly elected government
and that the "rebels" should remain armed until Aristide resigns.
Apaid is not a Haitian citizen. In fact, he is a US citizen. He was
born in New York in 1952. He never renounced his U.S. citizenship and
Haitian law does not allow dual citizenship. Congresswoman Maxine
Waters, who was on this program earlier this week, blasted Apaid and
his opposition front, saying, "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."


• Maude LeBlanc, a reporter for Haiti-Progres. She joins us on the
line from Port au-Prince, Haiti.
• Kevin Pina, an independent journalist and filmmaker who has spent
the past 4 and a half years living and working in Haiti. He joins us
from the Haitian capital Port au-Prince.
• Jean Beliard Lucien, a Haitian journalist who now lives in New
York, where he is the director of Radio Lakay, a Haitian radio
station.
• Brian Concannon, works for the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux,
(International Lawyers Office) in Haiti, where he has spent the last
several years prosecuting crimes committed during the 1991-1994 coup.
Among the cases he has prosecuted are those stemming from the 1994
Robato massacre by military and paramilitary forces in a
pro-democracy neighborhood.
• Raymond Joseph, editor and publisher of the Haiti Observateur, a
weekly Haitian newspaper published in Brooklyn. He is also a
columnist with the New York Sun and is a former reporter at the Wall
Street Journal. After the fall of the Duvalier family, Joseph was
briefly Haiti's envoy in Washington.


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