19625: Pierre Jean: On Aristide's kidnapping and the Steele Foundation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Pierre Jean <pierrejean2004@yahoo.com>

I doubt that former President Aristide is sane at this
point. While the US version of his departure is quite
vague, his own version as reported here in
Port-au-Prince is just as vague. I understand
(although I didn't see it) that he was absolutely
incapable of providing specific answers to Anderson
Cooper about the details of the kidnapping. As you are
aware, Tele Haiti was smashed to pieces and half of
the radio stations have stopped broadcasting for fear
of reprisal by the chime. So I have to rely on
telephone calls and the Web for news.

What is most interesting in the kidnapping affair are
the comments of the CEO of the Steeele Foundation in a
Miami Herald article. The article states the
following:

[beginning of Herald quote]

And Ken Kurtz, chief executive of The Steele
Foundation, the San Francisco security company that
provided bodyguards to Aristide, said they protected
him all the way to Africa.

''We were with him throughout the process,'' Kurtz
told The Herald. ``I can assure you he was definitely
not kidnapped.''

...

It was a convoy of seven cars -- four belonging to
Aristide and three with Moreno. ''He had quite a few
security guys,'' Moreno said.

About 20 minutes before the plane arrived, Moreno
tapped on Aristide's window and asked for the letter
of resignation, Moreno said. Aristide reached into his
wife's purse and handed him the letter.

Kurtz said Aristide's bodyguards -- most of them
veterans of the U.S. Special Forces and the State
Department's VIP security details -- would not have
left the president's side even if ordered to do so by
the U.S. government or Marines.

''We would stop that from happening,'' Kurtz said.
``Our mission is to protect the president from
embarrassment, from kidnapping or assassination. We
take direction only from the president, so anything
that happened would have happened only because of his
direction.''

Kurtz declined to say whether the American bodyguards
were still with Aristide in Africa. He said the
Haitian government, not Aristide, had hired the
company to provide security for other Haitian leaders,
including former President René Preval.

[end of quote]


You can read the whole article at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/8082333.htm



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