20312: Esser: The International Wrong (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

IN THESE TIMES
http://inthesetimes.com

3.13.04

The International Wrong
By Salim Muwakkil

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) seems to be the only
governmental body concerned about the Bush administration’s
controversial role in the recent regime change in Haiti.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s duly elected president, charged he
was the victim of a coup d’etat February 29 that was aided and
abetted by U.S. forces. “One could say that it was a geo-political
kidnapping,” he said, or “terrorism disguised as diplomacy.”

Aristide made these charges in a statement broadcast on Pacifica
Radio’s “Flashpoints News” magazine following his arrival in the
Central African Republic, after being spirited away from Haiti by
gunpoint. He said U.S. officials in Port-au-Prince told him that he
and his family were unlikely to survive attacks by armed rebels and
that the Americans said “they will kill thousands of people and it
will be a bloodbath,” unless the family quickly boarded a
U.S.-chartered plane into exile.

In the statement, which was the only communication he was allowed,
Aristide revealed that on the night of the coup, “the national palace
was surrounded by white men armed to their teeth,” and it was clear
to him that “we were already under an illegal foreign occupation
[which was] ready to drop bodies on the ground, to spill blood and
then kidnap me dead or alive.”

This is damning testimony. Bush administration officials dismiss
Aristide’s charges, calling them “nonsense,” and claim he left Haiti
voluntarily. Still, Aristide’s allegations seem increasingly credible
as more information emerges about his abrupt exit and the odd
location of his forced exile (the Central African Republic?). Except
for the CBC, however, few in the United States seem interested.

And that’s odd. After all, shouldn’t all Americans care about charges
that the Bush administration colluded with forces conspiring to
overthrow a democratically elected leader? How much trust can this
administration inspire if it praises democracy in speech while
trashing it in practice?

“I demand that this administration explain how they allowed a
democratically elected government to be overthrown by a group of
heavily armed thugs,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said during a March 3
hearing of the House International Relations subcommittee. Waters was
addressing her remarks to Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of
state for Western Hemisphere affairs, a man long dedicated to
Aristide’s removal.

“Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many
years, and now he’s in a singularly powerful position to accomplish
it,” Robert White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and
Paraguay, was quoted in New York Newsday. White—president of the
Center for International Policy, a Washington-based group dedicated
to promoting U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation,
demilitarization and respect for human rights—said Noriega’s rise was
the result of ties to North Carolina Republican and former Senator
Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide.

Waters charged that Noriega pursued a policy that sought to undermine
Aristide’s government for many years and blasted the Bush
administration for encouraging ties to the Haitian opposition. “I am
especially concerned by the possibility that the U.S. government may
have armed and trained the former military officers and death squad
leaders who carried out last Sunday’s coup.”

Several other CBC members took turns questioning Noriega, often in
aggressive and abrasive ways. They were angered by the Bush
administration’s seeming support for Aristide’s opposition, even
though it includes many unsavory characters. Observers unfamiliar
with Noriega’s history of hostility to Aristide may have felt a touch
of sympathy for him. But Noriega’s diffident responses to urgent
questions about the Bush administration’s Haiti policy were designed
more to deflect controversy than provide real answers.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a founding member of the CBC, said the
group of black legislators backs the call by CARICOM (the 15-member
Caribbean Community) that an investigation into Aristide’s departure
is conducted urgently by the United Nations. “We have made it known
that we are of the view that the United States facilitated a coup
d’etat and we want not just the U.N. to investigate but also the
Congress,” Rangel told the Trinidad & Tobago Express.

Those circumstances would be farcical were they not so tragic—and so
redolent of Western imperialism. The colonial scenario of masters
banishing insurgent subjects to far-flung exile is etched into
Western history; Aristide’s treatment is just a contemporary echo.
There is little national concern being expressed about the Haitian
situation because Aristide’s treatment conforms neatly to the Western
narrative about unruly colonial subjects.

For those reasons and more, the CBC’s shrill objections to business
as usual in Haiti are particularly welcomed and very long overdue.


Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has
worked since 1983, and an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He
is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society
Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in
leadership positions in the black community.


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