19822: This Week in Haiti 21:51 03/03/2004 (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 *

                        March 3 - 9, 2004
                         Vol. 21, No. 51

THE COUP MUST NOT STAND
by Ramsey Clark

The Bush administration has worked towards the removal of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office for three years. It
has enforced a unilateral embargo and cut off humanitarian aid to
the poorest country in the hemisphere. It has sought to undermine
support for President Aristide while supporting his opposition.
It has waged a relentless propaganda campaign to force him out of
office. It has meddled in elections in violation of the
constitution and laws of Haiti.

Most recently the U.S. has forced regime change by armed
aggression supporting former Haitian military officers, FRAPH
leaders and criminal elements who entered Haiti with heavy
firepower. Though only hundreds in number they easily captured
Cap Haïtien, Gonaïves, Hinche and Les Cayes, killing the police
who were untrained in warfare, or in defending against commando
units, armed only with pistols.

This small force could never have entered Haiti if President
Aristide, a man of peace, had not abolished the Haitian army, a
praiseworthy act. Unfortunately, this left the country
defenseless against armed aggression.

The international organizations, CARICOM, OAS and the UN should
have acted to protect the democratically elected government of
Haiti. After Costa Rica abolished its army, President Somoza (who
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt called "our SOB") of Nicaragua,
twice threatened invasions of Costa Rica, only to be stopped,
once by the OAS and once by Venezuela.

The U.S. consistently acted to force President Aristide to leave
Haiti, abandon his constitutional duties, repudiate democratic
processes and desert his people to the tender mercies of the Old
Regime. The army, the paramilitary FRAPH, criminal gangs and the
old oligarchy that supported Duvalier terrorism against the
Haitian people with U.S. support for 30 years. When in 1986 Baby
Doc Duvalier was forced to leave, his repressive forces no longer
able to contain the anger of the people, it was in a U.S. Air
Force plane to the French Riviera with millions of dollars wrung
from the sweat of the poor people of Haiti.

President Aristide consistently refused to leave his people, to
resign, to subvert Haitian democracy and constitutional
government under enormous pressure from the Bush Administration.
He was under that enormous pressure for months as violence was
again threatening his presidency as it did in 1991, nine months
into his first term as the first democratically elected president
of Haiti, the first and only country in which a successful slave
rebellion took place. That revolution was begun by Toussaint
Louverture in 1791 and ended under Jean-Jacques Dessalines and
others who defeated Napoleon's legions, 20,000 strong, and win
independence for Haiti in 1804.

In his autobiography published in exile in 1992 first in France,
Aristide wrote, "In Haiti, we are watching the ascent of a
rebellious people who are revolting against slavery. I am only
the reflection, an echo of that movement   they are the principal
actors. I simply try to exist in their dimension, to show love
and non-violence, through and beyond all the difficulties of
life, as the only thing that will enable us to go forward."

President Aristide listed in the final chapter of his
autobiography, "The Ten Commandments of Democracy in Haiti,"
first spoken by him before the General Assembly of the United
Nations in September 1991. The commandments of President
Aristide, the political faith of a priest, scholar and person of,
by and for the poor, included: liberty; democracy; fidelity to
human rights; the right to eat and to work; defense of the
Haitian diaspora; no to violence; fidelity to the human being --
and the highest form of wealth -- fidelity to Haitian culture;
everyone around the same table.

This is the man President Bush has deposed.

If the Bush administration policy of unilateral wars of
aggression, violations of international law and the U.S.
Constitution and regime change is to be stopped before the U.S.
loses its last friend and creates a wave of terrorism that will
engulf the planet for years, the U.S. Congress must investigate:
1. The role of the U.S. in forcing President Aristide from Haiti
2. The support the Bush administration gave in training,
financing and arming the aggression against Haiti
3. The acts the Bush administration took to destabilize social
order in Haiti, to support the old army, the FRAPH and the
wealthy oligarchies
4. The role the U.S. played in President Aristide's sudden
departure from Haiti, contrary to all his public statements, and
his transport to a distant country
5. Any explanation the Bush administration has for its failure to
demand the former military, FRAPH and other violent groups lay
down their arms, arms the U.S. provided, until the eve of the
president's coerced departure
6. Why Washington placed every pressure at its disposal to force
the democratically elected President of Haiti to surrender his
constitutional powers
7. Why President Aristide was kidnapped in fact, even as
Toussaint Louverture was kidnapped to imprisonment in France in
1802 and Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo was kidnapped by
U.S. soldiers to end the Philippine-American War in 1901.

The Western Hemisphere cannot be a safe or happy place until U.S.
military and economic intervention and regime change end, justice
for all is assured, reparations for past offenses to Haiti are
paid and until President Aristide returns for Haiti to serve his
people.

March 1, 2004

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark is the founder of the
International Action Center.

LEADERS DENOUNCE U.S. ROLE IN ATTACK ON ARISTIDE

Caption: Ben Dupuy, at the podium, addresses the packed press
conference held just 48 hours before U.S. troops kidnapped
President Aristide from his home, thus capping the Feb. 29 coup
d'‚tat in Haiti.

On February 27, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, a
panel of activists, journalists and political leaders denounced
the U.S. role in the unfolding coup d'état in Haiti. "The Bush
administration is again engaged in regime change by armed
aggression," said former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark.
"This time, the armed aggression is against the administration of
the democratically elected president of Haiti."

Other speakers included Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the
National Popular Party (PPN), Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the
Archdiocese of Detroit, the Rev. Graylan Hagler of the Plymouth
Congregational Christ in Washington, DC, and Ray Laforest of the
Haiti Support Network (HSN). Roger Irvin, a consultant to the
Haitian government, Kim Ives, a journalist with Haïti Progrès,
Adam Taylor of the Let Haiti Live coalition, and Johnnie Stevens
of the International Action Center also made presentations.

The press conference was organized with the support of the
Washington DC A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition chapter.

STATEMENT FROM THE A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION
February 29, 2004

The A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition
condemns the U.S.-led coup carried out today against the elected
president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as well as the U.S.
occupation of that country. U.S. marines have entered Haiti
tonight (February 29).

Whether President Aristide was actually kidnapped by U.S. forces,
as some sources have reported, or was just presented with "an
offer he couldn't refuse," there is no question that Washington
played the decisive role in this regime change. The coup in Haiti
is reminiscent of similar deadly CIA operations in Iran,
Guatemala, the Congo, Chile and numerous other countries in the
last half-century.

The removal of President Aristide follows more than a century of
U.S. intervention in Haiti, and years of destabilization designed
to bring about the destruction of the Aristide government. This
negation of Haiti's democracy and sovereignty by the U.S. comes
as the country is marking its 200th anniversary of independence
which followed the heroic revolt against slavery and the creation
of the first free Black republic in the Western Hemisphere.

Since the election of Aristide to a second term in late 2000 with
92% of the vote, Washington has maintained economic sanctions
against the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Sanctions
have had the intended effect of wearing down the people and
popular support for the Aristide government by denying food,
medicine and other necessities of life to the population. Haiti's
poverty today is a direct result of centuries of slavery and
exploitation for the benefit of corporate interests in France and
the U.S.

In addition, the U.S. has extended financial and political
support to the so-called "Democratic Convergence," the right-wing
opposition. According to a story in today's Miami Herald, State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said today that the U.S.
"facilitated" Aristide's departure. Ira Kurzban, an Aristide
spokesman in Miami, said he believed "U.S. intelligence agencies
were involved in the ouster. ... This was a major operation by
the intelligence agencies of the U.S."

Congressperson Charles Rangel, a member of the Congressional
Black Caucus, said that the U.S. government is "just as much as
part of this coup d'etat as the rebels, looters or anyone else."
(ABC's "This Week," Feb. 29, 2004)

According to Reuters, U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson
called Aristide's resignation an "American-assisted coup," and
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, demanded to know
where the Haitian leader was being taken one day after he told
her "he would rather die than leave." "When I last talked to him
(Aristide) yesterday, he was not going to leave. He said he would
rather die than leave. And then I wake up this morning and I find
out that my government has landed at his home with Marines. How
did they get him to leave? What did they do? And where is he?"
Waters said in an interview with CNN.

The Bush Administration has arrogantly and illegally embarked on
a policy of "regime change" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and
elsewhere. On March 20, the first anniversary of the start of the
unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, people around the
world will take to the streets in massive numbers. We will
demand: Bring the Troops Home Now and End Occupation from Iraq to
Palestine and Everywhere. We will also be marching to oppose the
criminal role of the Bush administration in ousting the first
democratically elected government in Haiti's history.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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