19365: radtimes: US Can End The Killing It Started In Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

See URL for embedded links.
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Bush, Call Off Your Dogs!

http://www.blackcommentator.com/79/79_haiti_dogs.html

US Can End The Killing It Started In Haiti

February 26 2004

In willful ignorance and with every bad intention, the U.S. corporate media
ask the ridiculous question, Should the US intervene in Haiti, or not? The
bloody answer screams back from the Haitian mountains and cities:
Washington has already intervened militarily in Haiti, through its
surrogates' armed invasion from the Dominican Republic.

The Americans set loose the dogs of war, and can rein them back in – if
Washington chooses. Any discussion that fails to acknowledge the U.S. role
in nurturing the several-hundred-man force that has systematically overrun
much of the country, is a conversation divorced from reality.

Peace cannot be built on lies – especially lies told by those who initiated
the war. It is fully within the Bush men's power to stabilize the situation
in Haiti today, right now. It is obscene that Colin Powell feigns
frustration in the current crisis, as if it is a conflict between forces
beyond his control. Men who nominally work for the Secretary of State –
most notably Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger
Noriega – have cultivated the closest of ties with the soldiers and secret
police of the old Haitian regime, and with the flabbier but no less vicious
"political" opposition to Jean-Bertrand Aristide's popularly elected
government. In a February 13 article, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
noted that "the president's Latin American team headed by the State
Department's Roger Noriega and Dan Fisk, along with the White House's Otto
Reich, all but openly support the unseating of an Aristide government."

The Americans are on intimate terms with the thugs that have brought war to
Haiti. As reported in Hidden from the Headlines: The U.S. War Against
Haiti, published by the San Francisco-based Haiti Action Committee, "Groups
of former Haitian military have received arms, training and shelter within
the Dominican Republic with the clear knowledge of U.S. authorities." These
heavily armed bands have attacked police, infrastructure targets and
Aristide supporters along the border areas and deep inside Haiti since the
beginning of the Bush Administration, with not a peep from the U.S. State
Department.

The Dominican Republic has been a safe haven for the disbanded Haitian army
and secret police since 1994. Under the Bush regime, these contra
sanctuaries have operated as military bases – unthinkable absent the
permission of the American-armed Dominican military. This month's invasion
– the final putsch – was launched from these bases. The U.S.-backed units
are "very, very well-armed, some of them are equipped with grenade
launchers," says the Haiti Action Committee's Pierre Labossiere, who
maintains contact with grassroots organizations inside the country. "This
is the strategy that was in preparation all this time in the Dominican
Republic."

The International Republican Institute, whose  website proclaims a mission
of "party building" in Haiti, oversaw and financed the creation of both the
armed "Democratic Convergence" contras and the conspicuously rich and
light-skinned civilian opposition umbrella Group 184. The key
Republican-opposition meetings that led to these formations took place in
the Dominican Republic.

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James B. Foley is more an advisor to the
opposition than an envoy to the government.  Colin Powell praises Foley as
an "old hand at building coalitions for freedom" – a euphemism that, in the
U.S. view, does not include President Aristide. It is possible that Powell
is truly frustrated at his purported inability to persuade the lilliputian
opposition in Port-au-Prince to graciously accept what the Americans are
prepared to offer: an unearned place in the government. Whether the pull
and tug between superpower and servant is a charade or not, one thing is
perfectly clear: The U.S. and their Dominican friends have the power to
call back or neutralize the relatively small bands of Haitian ex-military,
at will. Such action would avert "bloodbath" and "exodus by sea" scenarios
almost instantaneously. The paramount demand of every peace-seeking party
should be: Americans, call off your dogs.

Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters have acted righteously. "It is my
belief that [Group 184 leader] Andr้ 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," said Waters, on February
11. The California Congresswoman this week urged Secretary Powell "to
correct the record and tell the press and the public the truth, namely,
that Andre Apaid's intransigence is the reason that negotiations have not
gone forward."

Rev. Jackson's  February 16 remarks were more pointed:

     "Is the United States concerned about restoring the rule of law and
democratic rule in Haiti, or is this another example of 'regime change?'
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."

The United States is already treating Haiti as a "failed state" (see last
week's ), the term used by a growing number of corporate commentators and
so-called "security experts." States that Washington labels as failed are
consigned to a netherworld where national sovereignty is nullified. The
current issue of Haiti-Progres sees ominous historical parallels to Haiti's
current crisis:

     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'้tat. Mobuto then
arrested Lumumba and turned him over to Tshombe, who had him murdered.
Could this scenario be repeating itself in Haiti today?

Carnival festivities ended on Wednesday in Haiti. The dance of death goes on.

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