20294: radtimes: Aristide's allies (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Aristide's allies

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20040311.shtml

by Robert Novak
March 11, 2004

WASHINGTON -- When Sen. John Kerry was interviewed on foreign policy in
Houston last Friday by New York Times reporters, he made news by declaring
that as president he "would have been prepared to send troops immediately"
to save Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president of Haiti. The newspaper
published his statement Sunday, the very day that Aristide's Lavalas gunmen
shot more than 25 peaceful demonstrators (five fatally) who were
celebrating his departure. Neither Kerry nor Aristide's other supporters in
Washington have mentioned the carnage.

Why would the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee
vigorously support a tyrant steeped in violence and corruption? Kerry's
rationale is that the people twice elected Aristide (though his tainted
second election was called fraudulent by independent international
observers). An alternative explanation rests with Aristide's gold-plated
U.S. connections. He is close to Kerry's influential friends, the Kennedy
family of Massachusetts, and is the unconditional favorite of the
Congressional Black Caucus.

While destitute Haiti is one of the world's poorest countries, Aristide has
been profligate in spending millions on U.S. lobbyists and lawyers.
Powerful American politicians sit on the board of Fusion Telecommunications
International, which Aristide granted an exclusive concession over the
country's lucrative long-distance market. These favors may partially
explain the remarkable forbearance toward the Haitian leftist by American
liberals.

In his interview declaring for military intervention, Kerry conceded
"Aristide was no picnic and did a lot of things wrong." But Black Caucus
members, during a House International Relations Committee hearing last week
that they forced, were uncritical supporters in demanding Aristide's
return. Aristide's accusations that the U.S. abducted him and sent him into
African exile lack substantiation but have been spread by the Black Caucus
anyway. The Bush administration contributes to the libel by having
maintained a hands-off policy toward chaos in Haiti over the past three years.

Reports filed with the Justice Department by registered foreign agents
reflect spending by the Aristide government of well over a million dollars
a year, an astounding amount for such a small country. This money did not
produce a concerted sales effort to attract U.S. foreign aid funds, but it
did build personal support for Aristide. Black Caucus members have been
frequent visitors to Haiti, where they have been entertained lavishly.

The Kennedy family's connection with Aristide goes through former Rep.
Joseph P. Kennedy II. Both Kennedy and his mother, Ethel, have served on
the board of advisers of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy. Aristide
was a guest at Kennedy's second wedding.

Kennedy also has been listed as a board member of Fusion, which has
exclusive access to the flood of telephone calls placed by Haitian
residents of the U.S. back to family and friends in Haiti every weekend.
Writing in the Boston Globe in 2001, Kennedy said: "I was proud to help
bring more than $1 million in private investment from Fusion into Haiti."

Last week's House hearings were demanded by Black Caucus members. Rep. Cass
Ballenger of North Carolina, the Republican subcommittee chairman, as a
Southern gentleman granted permission to all members of Congress to attend
and speak. Lasting more than five hours, the hearing was an anti-Bush,
pro-Aristide pep rally. Rep. Maxine Waters of California, a regular visitor
to Haiti to confer with Aristide prior to his departure, repeated his
claims of being kidnapped at gunpoint under U.S. auspices.

The White House indicated to Capitol Hill its displeasure with the
International Relations Committee for letting itself become an open forum
for Bush-bashing. For their part, congressional Republicans complained that
Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega put on a woefully weak
performance under badgering by Black Caucus members (with Rep. Donald Payne
of New Jersey claiming that the U.S. government orchestrated Aristide's
collapse).

Noriega responded with nuanced answers. Republican Rep. Jerry Weller of
Illinois, not known for incendiary statements, was more effective than the
State Department representative at the hearing in describing Jean-Bertrand
Aristide: "He was a brutal dictator, allowing children to be sold into
slave labor, and if we hadn't gone in there, Mr. Aristide would be dead
because the people would have killed him." Weller describes a situation
that the Black Caucus overlooks, John Kerry minimizes and George W. Bush
ignored for three years.

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