20224: radtimes: Why Doesn't Bush Follow International Law in Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Why Doesn't Bush Follow International Law in Haiti?

by Sean Gonsalves
Cape Cod Times
http://capecodonline.com
Posted 3/9/2004

The op-ed below asks the simple question: Why is the Bush Administration
assisting known mass murderers who oppose democracy instead of assisting a
democratically elected government? To make matters worse, Bush is now
sending in only a handful of U.S. troops to clean up the enormous disaster
Bush created.

Do as we say, not as we do

A self-described conservative who I regularly correspond with e-mailed me
last week to discuss, among other things, the situation in Haiti. He said
U.S. policymakers should not have sent any troops to the beleaguered island
nation.

Furthermore, he argued, America should take a hands-off approach in dealing
with Haiti. Unfortunately, such noble sentiments of self-determination for
the Haitian people are a day late and a dollar short.

According to Brian Concannon Jr., a human rights lawyer with the
International Lawyers' Office, "Guy Philippe, the U.S.-trained,
self-proclaimed new army chief, (has been) implicated in running drugs,
executing suspected gang members, attacking the National Palace and trying
to blow up a hydro dam, even before he started killing his former police
colleagues."

Then there's Louis Jodel Chamblain, co-founder of Haiti's brutal FRAPH
death squad who was convicted for atrocities committed during Haiti's last
dictatorship (1991-1994). Both are now living up to their reputations as
world-class thugs, hunting down and executing government supporters,
emptying the jails, "and spraying whole neighborhoods with gunfire."

These are the democracy-loving folks we are now doing business with, while
trying to persuade the rest of the world that American intervention is
really all about extending democracy and human rights.

Now, if you look at the coverage given the recent coup in Haiti by our
"liberal" media, it's incredibly soft on the Bush administration.

Nothing less than a complete congressional and media investigation into the
ouster of Aristide will do for a people who claim to cherish liberty.
Investigate what exactly?

First of all, Aristide himself, after insisting he would not step down as
president of Haiti for the past month, claims he was forced to resign and
leave Haiti by U.S. and French authorities - a claim at first ignored by
our "free" press until several conscientious congressional reps held a
press conference reporting Aristide's complaint.

Secondly, it should be a cause of concern that U.S. policymakers not only
encouraged the coup but also withheld crucial aid that would likely have
prevented Haiti from losing its first democratically-elected president.

Economist and political commentator Julianne Malveaux points out that the
U.S. government held up a $500 million World Bank loan to Haiti for two
years. "Such actions helped destabilize the government of the populist
president who identified with the large number of Haitian people subsisting
on a few dollars a day," Malveaux says.

Free-lance investigative reporter Wayne Madsen also points to something
studiously ignored in the "liberal" media; namely the policymakers behind
the scenes.

"They include the State Department's assistant secretary for Western
Hemisphere affairs Roger Noriega (a one-time staffer for Sen. Jesse Helms
and promoter of El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson), U.S.
ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte (a promoter of Honduran death squads
while he was ambassador to Honduras), Iran-contra felon Elliott Abrams (who
is now at the National Security Council), and Otto Reich, Noriega's
predecessor, who was not confirmed by the Senate and who organized a
similar coup in April 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias."

And finally, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional
Rights, reminds us: "Aristide is still lawfully the president of Haiti.
International law does not recognize governments imposed by coup."

I have a couple of questions: Why are American, French and U.N. officials
not siding with international law?

And how do such political developments help us in the "war on terror,"
given the example it shows the world in which we are willing to
preemptively strike a nation that has no WMD and then claim it was done in
the name of democracy, while we support a coup in our own backyard that
opposes a liberation theologian-turned-president and sides with Haitian
gangsters?

Sean Gonsalves sgonsalves@capecodonline.com