19679: erzilidanto: Answers to certain media questions about Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

Immediate Release
From: Haitian Lawyers Leadership
Date: March 2, 2004


1. Why did the Bush administration consider the removal of Aristide to be a
U.S. national interest?

Aristide had eliminated the Haitian army, which traditionally protected the
interests of the right wing business elites in Haiti. Their interests are U.S.
big business interests. Also, Aristide refused to fully implement Washington's
neoliberalism economic policies when he returned to Haiti in 1994.

Also, Haiti's cheap leverage force, whether actually used
or not, can be used as a threat against other labor forces. Chinese or
Koreans unionize then all you need is the threat to move to cheaper labor of
Haiti to put their demands in check and save millions of dollars.

2. In your opinion, what was the involvement of the United States in the
removal of Aristide? (possibly discuss how the U.S. withheld humanitarian funds
and why, etc.)

U.S. financed the first 1991-1994 Coup d'etat against Aristide. Returned him
after three years to stem the flow of Haitian refugees landing in Florida,
incarcerated in  the offshore US penal colony known as, Guantanamo Bay, et. The
U.S. continued their destabilization campaign against the Haitian peoples'
struggle towards development by forcing Aristide, as a condition of return, to
give asylum to the Coup leaders and integrate high FADH and FRAPH officials back
into the new civilian police. These corrupt people led to more corruption and
made it even more unwieldy for Aristide to clean up past corruption, or
develop a Haitian justice apparatus to quack down on corruption and bring people to
justice.

Then the U.S. promptly begins to try to turn the new innocent police recruits
against Aristide.  The U.S. rep running the center quit because of the
interference. U.S. did not want eliminated the old Haitian army it held under its
thumb to do its bidding.

Guy Philippe, for instance, trained by the U.S. Special Forces in 1994 in
Equator was put in, by Aristide, as Chief of Police of the North at U.S.
insistence. Guy Philippe later led 3 Coup attempts. The first one against the Preval
Administration and two, one in 2000 and in 2001 against Aristide. Many people
died. U.S. is also implicated in these previous Guy Philippe attempts. The fact
that Guy Philippe could not have freely entered Port-au-Prince, despite the
opposition, without the U.S. marine's first removing Aristide is testament to
Aristide popularity and solidarity with the Haitian people. The U.S. conducted
the Coup D'etat against Aristide on February 29, 2004 themselves.

Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Tatoune, both of FRAPH, and part of this
so-CNN-called "rebel force" are convicted of massacres during the first (1991-1994)
CIA-sponsored Coup D'etat against President Aristide.

The U.S.  played a pivotal role in helping Louis Jodel Chamblain flee Haiti
and get asylum in the Dominican Republic. All three - Chamblain, Tatoune and
Guy Philippe - are CIA assets who refused, like Toto Constant, to be subject to
Haitian criminal laws and its courts of justice and get away with this because
of their U.S. intelligence and diplomatic connections.

900 U.S. soldiers patrol the DR with the Dominican Guard. Yet, on February 5,
2004, convicted murderers, Chamblain and Philippe managed to cross the border
into Haiti with U.S. weaponry such as M16s, M60s, armored vehicles, grenade
launchers, etc....

The United States DEA charged Guy Philippe as a drug trafficker. Today he
walks side by side with U.S. Marines in Port-au-Prince while the Constitutionally
elected Haitian President is flown out of Port-au-Prince under heavy U.S.
coercion, if not outright gunpoint by U.S Marines.

Toto Constant, FRAPH founder, whom the U.S. gave asylum to in Queens, NY,
while indefinitely detaining his Haitian victims on Guantanamo Bay and other INS
holding pens, is now reportedly back in Haiti.

Guy Philippe and his gangs' first order of business after they were escorted
into Port-au-Prince by U.S. soldiers were to "liberated" 2000 prisoners -
murderers and felons in the Haitian National Penitentiary, including Proper Avril,
and unleashed them onto Haitian society.

Today the disinformation about Aristide's lack of popularity and lies about
Haiti being more corrupt under Aristide/Preval/Aristide then under the old
Duvalierist guard which is now back, is fairly visible, and, in graphic, bloody
technicolor. But it's too late. All the small successes of Haitian democracy
since 1990 have been trashed in one fell February 29, 2004-U.S. Coup d'etat swoop.

Aristide built more schools in Haiti during his term then has been built in
the entire of Haiti's history under the old guard now retaking power thanks to
ten years of U.S. destabilization, then outright Coup D'etat because they
could not win without February 29th's shock and awe, dead-of-night campaign,
against Aristide and his innocent wife. Who is keeping the marginal flame and
movement towards structural peace alive now in Haiti?

Aristide eliminated the old army, helped bring illiteracy rate from 85% down
to 48%, improved the health system, built public parks, started to
decentralized power by establishing local governance through town meetings and local town
governance, more so than any of the old guard for the almost 200 years it was
in charged. This done despite U.S. embargo, obstructions, extortion which
forced Aristide to pay IMF/World Bank $30 million in loan interests due from old
dictatorship governments. Loans that where never requested back from the
Duvaliers (now in golden parachute retirement on the Riviera, or Raoul Cedras in
Panama, and Guy Philippe, the real beneficiaries of U.S. aid in Haiti.)

In addition to the fact that the old Army was not demilitarized and was
shadowing Aristide every move. The Haitian people's daily struggles were made even
harder by the U.S. financing of opposition groups to Aristide who relentlessly
challenged his legitimacy and exercised, with the help of the IRI, USAID,
NED, U.S. Embassy, OAS and the European Union, a virtual defacto veto against any
the legitimate Haitian government policies, plans and reforms.

Most notably they blocked every effort to hold parliamentary elections, even
though this tiny opposition, according to COHA and US own polling, make up
less than 4% of the Haitian electorate.  Despite all this, President Aristide was
able to keep his popular support, so his opponents simultaneously ran a media
disinformation campaign fabricating that Aristide had lost popular support
and that those who supported him where "thugs." That is equivalent to saying
that a little less than 8.5 million Black people are thugs.

The Haitian people have been brutalized, beaten and devastated by U.S. power
for a century, beginning in 1914 when the U.S took over from the French, by
"helping" to refinance "for Haiti" the 1825 French indemnity and then invaded
Haiti for missing payments to protect U.S. Bank interests, fleecing dry the
Haitian national gold reserves.

France, of course, is helping the U.S. to depose Aristide because he has
requested that 22 billion dollars back.

3. What type of relationship do you believe exists between the Democratic
Platform and the rebel army?  There is nothing "democratic" about the old guard.
They are oppressors, who practice social exclusion and apartheid akin to the
KKK. And, simply refused to be subject to paying taxes or put under any Haitian
law. The group 184 was created in a meeting in the Dominican Republic, which
gives shelter, arms and training camps to ex-Haitian soldiers and FRAPH
murderers. Guy Philippe has said publicly, the Haitian business elite financially
supports him.

4. How involved do you believe Aristide was in the various pro-Aristide
groups that used violence against Haitian opposition groups (such as the chimeres,
etc.).

Haiti was not demilitarized when Aristide returned in 1994. Old enemies of
the people were allowed to keep their guns and have a space in Aristide's
government. It was impossible then for Aristide to tell certain Lavalas opportunists
to put down their guns when FRAPH/FADH was still armed. Then, the jostling
for turf just went underground but was nonetheless alive and well. Aristide
tried to negotiate some of these people out of Haiti and some into harmless
position. The corruption continued. Besides corruption was endemic before Aristide
took over leadership. No democracy in the world does not have corruption in it
- as we well know in the U.S. But Aristide problems where exacerbated since
the Haitian people didn't have a justice system capable of holding powerful or
mooned prisoners.  Amiot Metayer, for instance, a Lavalas hero, was eventually
put in jail. But, he broke out and resented the punishment and turned joining
Jean Tatoune, convicted of massacre in Amiot Metayer's own Gonaive and further
complicated the governments quack down.

Mrssrs. Butler and Amiot Metayer were obviously always playing off both sides
and were simply mercenaries. Aristide cannot be blamed for people's criminal
predilections. For, no one who is a real revolutionary for Haitian justice and
empowerment would EVER throw their lot in with murderers like Guy Philippe,
Jean Tatoune, Louis Jodel Chamblain, or the old Duvalierist guards. Period, no
question marks.

All this slaughtering happening in Haiti today could have been prevented if
the U.S. had really wanted to help democracy back in 1994 and given the Haitian
people, the police help President Aristide asked for to demilitarize the
whole of Haiti, and if the U.S. had just supported, or simply did not obstruct the
Constitutionally elected President and Haitian governments. Now the old guard
with the U.S. guns, has won the fight that's always been going on....  The
people are back in hiding. Democracy is dead in Haiti, flown out when the U.S.
took away Haiti's peacekeeper.

To date, President Aristide has survived 14 assassination attempts. Today,
because of U.S./Euro control in Haiti with their FRAPH/FAHD enforcers; because
of their neo-colonialist, pre-emptive regime-change policymakers and diplomats
throughout the world, President Aristide's safety as well as the safety of the
majority of Haitian people, both in the U.S. and in Haiti, are right now in
serious jeopardy.

Marguerite Lauren, Esq.
Chair, The Haitian Lawyers Leadership
March 2, 2004