20029: Esser: Are those dirty US fingerprints on Aristide's ouster? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com

Commentary
March 08, 2004

Are those dirty US fingerprints on Aristide's ouster?
By Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK - If the circumstances weren't so calamitous, the
US-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
from Haiti would be farcical. According to Mr. Aristide, US officials
in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the
presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to
survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane
standing by to take them to exile. The US made it clear, he said,
that it would provide no protection for him at the official
residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged.

Indeed, says Aristide's lawyer, the US blocked reinforcement of
Aristide's own security detail and refused him entry to the airplane
until he signed a letter of resignation.

Then Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours and
knew nothing of his destination until he was summarily deposited in
the Central African Republic. But this Keystone Kops coup has
apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide used a
cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from
Haiti. The US dismisses Aristide's charges as ridiculous. Secretary
of State Colin Powell's official version of the events is a blanket
denial based on the government's word alone. In essence, Washington
is telling us not to look back, only forward. This stonewalling
brings to mind Groucho Marx's old line, "Who are you going to
believe, me or your own eyes?"

There are several tragedies in this surrealistic episode. The first
is the apparent incapacity of the US to speak honestly about such
matters as toppling governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial
questions: Did the US summarily deny military protection to Aristide?
Did the US supply weapons to the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last
month with sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had been
taken by the US military to the Dominican Republic, next door to
Haiti? Why did the US abandon the call of European and Caribbean
leaders for a political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had
already accepted? Most important, did the US bankroll a coup in
Haiti, a scenario that, based on the evidence, seems likely?

Only someone ignorant of American history and of the administrations
of the elder and younger George Bushes would dismiss these questions.
The US has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in
neighboring Caribbean countries. The most recent previous episode in
Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs
on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that
toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.

Some of the players in the current round are familiar from the
previous Bush administration. Also key is US Assistant Secretary of
State Roger Noriega - a longtime Aristide-basher - widely thought to
have been central to the departure of Aristide. He'll find it much
harder to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels.

In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members demanded an
investigation into the US role in Aristide's overthrow, the first
Bush administration laughed them off, just as the administration is
doing today in facing new queries from caucus members.

Indeed, those questioning the administration about Haiti are being
smeared as naive and unpatriotic. Aristide himself is being accused
of dereliction in the failure to lift his country out of poverty. In
point of fact, this administration froze all multilateral development
assistance to Haiti from the day that George W. Bush came into
office, squeezing Haiti's economy dry. US officials surely knew that
the aid embargo would mean a crisis in the balance of payments, a
rise in inflation, and a collapse of living standards, all of which
fed the rebellion.

Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the media when it
comes to asking all the questions that need answers. Just as in the
war on Iraq's phony WMD, wherein the mainstream media initially
failed to ask questions about the administration's claims, major news
organizations have refused to challenge the administration's accounts
on Haiti. The media haven't had the gumption to find Aristide, or
even to point out that he is being held incommunicado.

With a violence-prone US government operating with impunity in many
parts of the world, only the public's perseverance in getting at the
truth can save us, and others, from our own worst behavior.

• Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia
University, is a former economic adviser to Latin American
governments. This commentary originally appeared in The Los Angeles
Times. ©2004 The Los Angeles Times.


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