20153: radtimes: Interview with Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

From: statelists@STATE.GOV
Subject: Interview with Dan Raviv of CBS Radio

   Released on March 9, 2004

   Interview with Dan Raviv of CBS Radio

   Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State

   Washington, DC
   March 9, 2004

   (10:15 a.m. EST)

   MR. RAVIV:  I want to ask you about Haiti.  I want you to tell our listeners
   what is our main interest in Haiti; frankly, why do we care whether things
   are quiet or violent there?

   DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE:  First of all, we care because this is a
   neighbor, and difficulties in our region can spread over and affect us.

   But more broadly, we are all part of the human family, and anybody
   suffering, I think, causes us all some degree of suffering, so we care a
   lot.

   MR. RAVIV:  There is that special U.S. interest that when things are very
   bad there, tens of thousands of Haitians might jump on boats and come to the
   U.S.  I mean, that is a focus.

   DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE:  Well, it is, indeed, a fact.  But many of those
   who jump on boats to try to come to the U.S. also perish trying to cross the
   water, and that's a humanitarian tragedy that we must not have.

   MR. RAVIV:  And when President Aristide, or former President Aristide, pops
   up in his African exile and renews the accusation that U.S. Marines
   kidnapped him, he was forced to leave by the U.S., what's your reaction?

   DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE:  Well, I think it's absurd.  His own bodyguards,
   The Steele Foundation, were on the plane with him with all of their weapons,
   and they've said it was not true; he was not kidnapped; they wouldn't have
   allowed it.

   MR. RAVIV:  Do you think there's a chance that he's going to come back in
   the future, back to Haiti?

   DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE:  Not with what I've seen in the streets of Haiti
   celebrating his departure.

.