20464: radtimes: Return Aristide to Haiti: Try Bush as a Global Pirate (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Return Aristide to Haiti: Try Bush as a Global Pirate

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5615.shtml

By Analysis
Mar 13, 2004

The Bush men have the Madness Touch. Their very presence warps conventional
notions of reality.

Thus, the new "prime minister" of Haiti appears as surprised as the rest of
his countrymen when conveyed the title by an "eminent" rump of persons
chosen by the occupying power. The man picked for the job on Tuesday,
business consultant Gérard Latortue, doesn't even arrive in Haiti from his
home in Boca Raton, Florida, until Wednesday. U.S. Marines believe they
have killed Haitian gunmen in battle, but seem unconcerned as to their
identities. Half a world away, the constitutional head of state, elected
with overwhelming popular support in a process deemed free and fair by the
entire international community, is held captive by an African military
dictator after being kidnapped by the world's superpower in cahoots with
the former colonial master of his country.

The world searches for terminology to describe the high crimes of the Bush
regime in Haiti and the Central African Republic, and of course, Iraq –
even as endless additional criminal contingencies take shape in the
planning rooms of the Pentagon. The Bush men seem determined to
methodically teach the planet that Washington is a threat to the very
concept of international order – that they are Pirates.

Evidence that George Bush is leader of a rogue, pirate state accumulates
daily, for the world to examine in the raw. Yet the racist cabal (and its
Black operatives) seem not to understand that Haiti's President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide cannot be demonized like Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The
nightmare image is seared into the global retina: the frail ex-priest and
his wife, kidnapped from their home and delivered to the tender mercies of
coup-making African generals.

If the Bush men are on an international consciousness raising mission, they
are succeeding. Whatever perverse logic guides their actions – and we have
seen such logic at work in the world, before, when small groups of men
tested their "will" against the survival instincts of the planet – they are
in fact summoning a future "tribunal" whose mandate must expand to match
the crimes of the American perpetrators. There will be a response to this
avalanche of atrocities that "are so harmful to international interests
that states are entitled – and even obliged – to bring proceedings against
the perpetrator, regardless of the location of the crime or the nationality
of the perpetrator or victim," to borrow the words of Mary Robinson, former
United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

Crime in full view

The Bush men repeatedly overreach in their quest for world hegemony,
perceiving that the domestic price for dealing death and humiliation to
darker peoples is cheap. A poll shows that only one-third of Floridians are
opposed to U.S. actions in Haiti. The terrifying odyssey to which Mildred
Aristide – a Black First Lady and American citizen! – has been subjected
does not resonate in a society that, nonetheless, agonizes over the
prospect of Martha Stewart doing a short stretch in prison. Yet outside the
white American bubble, the Aristides' ordeal is seen as the toying of a
mouse by a cat: brutish, cruel and – because Bush is not a cat, but a man –
evil. Black America is reminded of the nature of the all too familiar beast.

"If you tell Charlie Rangel that my wife and children are gonna die unless
I go with you, that is a kidnapping," said the Harlem Congressman at a
taping of the local television program, Like It Is. Rangel framed the issue
as a no-brainer at congressional hearings on the Haiti coup:

"The Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, says that 'at common law,
kidnapping is the forcible abduction or stealing and carrying away of a
person from his own country to another.' On Saturday night/Sunday morning
the United States Government engineered the forcible removal of the
lawfully elected President of Haiti from his own country and arranged that
he be carried away to another."

When the victim is a head of state, and his country is the booty, the crime
is piracy on a superpower scale.

Piracy is not strictly a crime of maritime or aviation hijacking.
International law began as a collective response to piracy. Legal scholar
Louis Sohn wrote that "the first breakthrough" in punishing international
crime "occurred when international law accepted the concepts that pirates
are "enemies of mankind" and that piracy is "an offense against the law of
nations." Mexican General Santa Anna routinely referred to the
slave-holding Texans as "land pirates."  The Bush regime flouts "the law of
nations" as a matter of policy – an all but self-proclaimed pirate state.

Betrayed and utterly disrespected, the Caribbean community of nations
refused to take part in the U.S.-led occupation of Haiti. Caricom is
"extremely disappointed'' at the involvement of "Western partners'' in the
removal of Aristide, said Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.  Having
invaded Grenada in the lesser Antilles in 1983, the U.S. now shows an
appetite for the greater Antilles, as well. The Pirates have returned to
Caribbean waters with a vengeance. "The situation calls for an
investigation of what transpired and we believe that it should be done
under the auspices of some independent body such as the United Nations,''
said Patterson, speaking for 14 Caricom countries. (Haiti is also a member.)

Pirates are no respecters of national sovereignty, by definition. "I
imagine that [Caribbean heads of state] are very much aware that if it can
happen to Aristide, it can also happen to them or any other small country,"
said veteran Jamaican journalist and educator John Maxwell. This is
doubtless the message that Secretary of State Colin Powell and his boss
intended to transmit – a threat to once again violate "the law of nations."

The 53-nation African Union, whose member states are regularly hectored by
France, Britain and the United States to respect the rule of law, this week
joined Caricom in calling for a UN investigation of Aristide's ouster,
which "set a dangerous precedent for duly elected persons."

"The African Union has decided to undertake immediate consultation with
both CARICOM and eventually the United Nations in order to discuss the
conditions for a quick return to constitutional democracy" in Haiti, said
the AU.

A matching set of conspirators

Buoyed by the continental support, Aristide's lawyers began preparing a
broad legal counter-assault, based on the assumption that, although the
Bush Administration rejects the rule of law, most the rest of the world
does not. In recognition of the American-French imperial partnership,
Aristide teams drew up a list of defendants in both countries. According to
Australia's Herald Sun newspaper, chief Aristide lawyer Ira Kurzban charges
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and Luis Moreno, the deputy
chief of mission of the US Embassy, were behind Aristide's February 29
removal and forced him and his wife into exile in the Central African
Republic."

In Paris, Aristide counsel Gilbert Collard charged four luminaries with
"complicity in abduction'': Thierry Burkard, France's ambassador to Haiti;
Yves Gaudel, the former ambassador; envoy Regis Debray; and Foreign
Minister Dominique de Villepin's sister, Veronique. She and Debray visited
Aristide in December to demand his resignation, said attorney Collard,
indicating the French end of the conspiracy was in full swing prior to
Haiti's bicentennial celebrations.

To cover all the legal bases, Ira Kurzban also sent U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft a formal request for an investigation of the Presidential
couple's abduction, noting that Mildred Aristide is a U.S. citizen.

Captors claim to speak for Aristide

The rush of activity came on the heals of bizarre events in Bangui on
Sunday and Monday, as the Central African Republic's military government
attempted to simultaneously act as French client, prison warden, and
gracious host – an impossible task for a gaggle of coupsters.

Reporters were told to expect a Sunday press conference featuring President
and Mrs. Aristide. Instead, heavily armed soldiers burst into the
conference room demanding the cameras and recorders be turned off. Then
Mrs. Aristide was brought in and made to sit in a corner in silence,
looking "very distressed," according to a CNN reporter on the scene.
President Aristide never appeared. "A Government spokesman read a
statement, supposedly from President Aristide, in which he thanked the CAR
for their kindness. Mme. Aristide was then taken away," said the CNN guy,
who filed only one report describing the madness before his network
sanitized the whole affair.

On Monday morning President Aristide was allowed to hold a press conference
at the Central African Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which he
gave details of the "political kidnapping" by the United States and
declared, "I am the democratically elected president and I remain so. I
plead for the restoration of democracy'' in Haiti.

"Aristide spoke with reporters despite a pointed, public request by Foreign
Minister Charles Wenezoui that he avoid talking about Haitian politics or
unidentified "friendly countries," the Associated Press reported. "Aristide
said he had been 'well looked after' by his Central African hosts,
backtracking on his lawyers' statements that he was 'a prisoner' in Bangui."

But a prisoner he clearly was. In a 30-minute interview with Pacifica's
Democracy Now! program, Aristide said the U.S. "preferred the Haitian
people to move from coup d'etat, to coup d'etat." Nevertheless, "I pay
tribute to the government of Central Africa for the way they welcomed us.
It was gracious, human, good, and until now, this is the kind of
relationship which we are developing together. I thank them for that once
again." Then he was told to get off the phone. "Now, time is gone.
Unfortunately I need to stop because they just asked me to leave."

The real news emerged after Aristide met with a delegation of supporters
that had been turned away the day before. The group included
representatives of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark's International
Action Center,  the Haiti Support Network, Aristide lawyer Brian Concannon,
and Kim Ives, a Creole-speaker with the publication Haiti-Progress. Ives
offered this extraordinary account of the March 8 conversation:

"In the course of the discussions with President Aristide, it became clear
that the timing of the coup coincided with several international
developments that could have shifted the relationship of forces in the
Haitian government's favor. While the U.S. government escalated pressure on
Aristide to resign in that last week, the government of South Africa had
sent a planeload of weapons that was set to arrive on Sunday, February 29.
Venezuela was in discussions about sending troops to support Aristide.
There was also gathering international support and solidarity for the
maintenance of constitutional democracy in Haiti.

African American leaders were receiving increasing media attention as they
denounced the efforts towards a coup. Two prominent U.S. delegations, one
led by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and another led by former
U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, were set to arrive within days. We can
see that there were various converging influences of aid about to come.
This accounts in large part for the timing of the coup, it explains why the
U.S. had to rush in and remove Aristide."

So, did the Bush men lie so badly in the aftermath of the coup because they
were forced to plot in haste? Or is it that they don't really give a damn
about public opinion? New York Rep. Charles Rangel tends to think the
latter: "Regardless of the question their response will be, 'What
difference does it make? We got rid of Aristide.'"

The traveling President of Haiti

The confusion regarding South Africa's willingness to grant asylum to
Aristide stems from disinformation straight from the lips of Colin Powell –
the best liar in the administration, given the material he has to work
with. In the days after the abduction, Powell and his subordinates
attempted to depict South Africa as reluctant to accept Aristide, as if he
were an international albatross. The Haitian President, of course, had had
no intention of leaving Haiti and, therefore, never thought to ask any
nation for asylum before being bundled away to Bangui.

Danny Schecter, the respected News Dissector of the web site of the same
name, reported that it was Colin Powell who tried to book Aristide to South
Africa.

ANC leader Pallo Jordan, chairman of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs
Committee sent me an article he's written which offers some information not
published in the US. Here are some excerpts:

"While the plane was on the tarmac, Colin Powell made a number of
phone-calls, one to President Mbeki, requesting asylum for Aristide. No one
in the South African government leaked the information about that request
to the media….

"It is equally clear that the pleas of Caricom notwithstanding, Washington
chose to assist the rebels to get rid of Aristide, first by inaction, then
by shipping him out of the country. Secretary of State Powell will forgive
us for regarding his assurances to the contrary with profound skepticism.
It's a mere twelve months ago that he was giving us equally impassioned
assurances of US good intentions. Today we all know that he either misled
us or told us deliberate lies."

On Wednesday, March 9, the African Union as a body embraced Aristide. The
Associated Press filed this curious report, which we will explicate,
momentarily:

The organization representing 53 African nations should arrange the
long-term asylum plans of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a South African official
said Wednesday after meeting with the exiled former Haitian leader.

South Africa Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad told The Associated
Press that the African Union should arrange asylum plans for Aristide, who
arrived in the Central African Republic on March 1. He flew from Haiti the
day before on a U.S.-provided jet.

"He's already here and the question of whether he is going to another
African country, it's an African Union decision,'' Pahad said without
elaborating….

The AU said it would accept Aristide receiving asylum in Africa, but it did
not say in which nation he might ultimately settle. Central African
Republic officials have said Aristide may stay in this country, if he asks.

In addition to the ridiculous reference to the "U.S.-provided jet" – as if
the Americans had arranged an aerial chauffer service for Aristide! – the
AP reports that "South Africa was the country most often mentioned as his
destination, a U.S. official said." In fact, Powell and the other Bush men
were the only people claiming, falsely, that Aristide had been seeking
refuge in South Africa.

There is nothing strange going on whatsoever between Aristide and his close
allies in the South African government. It is the U.S. that wants to "park"
Aristide somewhere, to create the impression of a permanent fait accompli
in Haiti. Aristide has purposely made his plans vague because he insists
that he is still President of his country, and in all likelihood he will
avoid the appearance of having come to rest by traveling the globe in
pursuit of a just outcome. Every junior diplomat understands the way this
game is played – certainly, Colin Powell does, which is why he worked the
phones so hard attempting to arrange a permanent-looking exile for
Aristide. And this is why South Africa speaks very carefully on the
subject, understanding that the Americans are waiting to exploit any slip
in language.

The African National Congress government of South Africa has no reason to
fear domestic fallout from association with Aristide, who is at present
Black Enemy Number One of the racist superpower. That's a badge of honor
among the ANC's base. Only Americans believe American nonsense.

TRUTH Act

Black Congresspersons Barbara Lee (D-CA) and John Conyers (D-MI) on Monday
introduced the TRUTH Act,  an acronym for The Responsibility to Uncover the
Truth about Haiti. "The Bush administration's efforts in the overthrow of a
democratically elected government must be investigated," said Lee. "All of
the evidence brought forward thus far suggests that the administration has,
in essence, carried out a form of regime change, a different variation than
it took in Iraq, but still regime change." The bill calls for a bipartisan
(five each from both parties) TRUTH Commission modeled on California Rep.
Henry Waxman's Weapons of Mass Destruction panel. "The American people and
the international community deserve to know the truth," Rep. Lee explained,
"and this bill will offer the opportunity to investigate the long-term
origins of the overthrow of the Haitian government and the impact of our
failure to protect democracy." Lee and Conyers want to know:

Did the U.S. Government impede democracy and contribute to the overthrow of
the Aristide government?

Under what circumstances did President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resign, and
what was the role of the United States Government in bringing about his
departure?

To what extent did the U.S. impede efforts by the international community,
particularly the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, to prevent the
overthrow of the democratically-elected Government of Haiti?

What was the role of the United States in influencing decisions regarding
Haiti at the United Nations Security Council and in discussions between
Haiti and other countries that were willing to assist in the preservation
of the democratically-elected Government of Haiti by sending security
forces to Haiti?

Was U.S. assistance provided or were U.S. personnel involved in supporting,
directly or indirectly, the forces opposed to the government of President
Aristide?

Was U.S. bilateral assistance channeled through nongovernmental
organizations that were directly or indirectly associated with political
groups actively involved in fomenting hostilities or violence toward the
government of President Aristide?

The TRUTH Act is supported by 23 other members of Congress. It closely
resembles a seven-point line of questioning compiled by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark (see "The Coup Must Not Stand," English
translation, March 3). The similarities are not surprising, since the broad
outlines of the crime are visible to the entire world. "The U.S. Congress
must investigate," said Clark, "if the Bush administration policy of
unilateral wars of aggression, violations of international law and the U.S.
Constitution and regime change is to be stopped before the U.S. loses its
last friend and creates a wave of terrorism that will engulf the planet for
years."

Jesse Jackson saw the same "U.S.-engineered coup against Aristide" observed
by everyone else on Earth – with the exception of those hopelessly damaged
by cognition-crippling racism. Most of the facts are clear and agreed upon
by "both sides," said the civil rights leader. "Nothing more is needed to
establish that the Bush administration was directly implicated in a coup of
the elected government of Haiti. The only disagreement is in the details:

"Was the CIA, which had long ties to the leaders of the rebels, aware of
the planned rebellion before it was launched? Did it assist or 'nod' ' to
the rebels when asked? Did it know of the flow of arms to the rebels? If it
knew, did it do anything to intercept or impede that flow, or to warn the
Haitian government or the regional allies?

"It is vital that Congress hold hearings on what the CIA and the State
Department and the Defense Department knew and how they acted on that
knowledge.

"But even without any further evidence, there is sufficient agreement on
the facts to establish that this administration aided and abetted the coup
against Aristide. And now it is working to put back in power the very
Haitian elites that its ideologues had supported from the beginning."

Kerry and Kucinich views

Senator John Kerry is making some of the right noises on the Haiti issue,
and calls for investigations into Aristide's overthrow. According to last
Sunday's (maliciously biased) New York Times: Had he been sitting in the
Oval Office last weekend as rebel forces were threatening to enter
Port-au-Prince, Senator John Kerry says, he would have sent an
international force to protect Haiti's widely disliked elected leader [!],
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period," Mr. Kerry
said on Friday, expressing astonishment that President Bush, who talks of
supporting democratically elected leaders, withheld any aid and then helped
spirit Mr. Aristide into exile after saying the United States could not
protect him.

"Look, Aristide was no picnic, and did a lot of things wrong," Mr. Kerry
said. But Washington "had understandings in the region about the right of a
democratic regime to ask for help. And we contravened all of that. I think
it's a terrible message to the region, democracies, and it's shortsighted."

Kerry knows all about the Bush regime's Latin America and Caribbean team. A
number of the current coup-makers were deeply involved in Reagan- and Bush
Sr.-era arming of Nicaraguan contras, fattening military dictators and
protecting cocaine dealing by both, back when Kerry chaired the Senate
Committee on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, in the Eighties.
For a time it seemed as if the Kerry Commission might vigorously pursue the
CIA-crack cocaine scandal, but he eventually lost interest.

Dennis Kucinich, as we have come to expect, runs a much better line on
Haiti, but he will not become president. Kucinich also calls for an
investigation into Aristide's removal.

"But that investigation should not be left in the hands of the Bush
Administration. I don't trust the Bush Administration, and I don't think
you do either. That investigation must be undertaken by the United Nations,
the OAS, and the Caribbean community. And I would further suggest that that
investigation extend to the roles that the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund played in creating the framework for failure….

"We must all be mindful and very, very aware of the attempts that will be
made – as they were in Iraq – to install the Haliburtons and the Bechtels
as the "rebuilders" of Haiti. There may not be oil, but there will be cash.
And whenever there is, you know who will be the first ones to cash in. If
the United States is in control, that means George Bush is in control. And
we've seen over and over again what that means."

The truth is that whether George Bush or John Kerry is "in control,"
American foreign policy structures are designed to undermine popular
movements and governments at every point of contact. George Bush did not
create the Haitian (or Venezuelan, or Argentinian, or Bolivian) miseries –
he simply added a more demonic layer of horror. These U.S. foreign policy
"structures of subversion" are institutionally connected to the Democratic
Party and organized labor, and must be dismantled, root and branch.

Trojan Horse endowment

The National Endowment for the Democracy is a slick, 1983 Reagan
administration invention, a "reform" purportedly designed to make U.S.
foreign policy more transparent in the wake of Seventies revelations of
massive CIA subversion of foreign governments and political movements. As
William Blum put it in his 2000 book, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's
Only Superpower," "the idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what
the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate
the stigma associated with CIA covert activities…. It was a masterpiece. Of
politics, of public relations and of cynicism."

"Trojan Horse" is an apt description of the NED which, rather than curtail
CIA activities, created (yet another) institutional link between the
political subversion arm of the U.S. government and the Republican and
Democratic parties, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-affiliated Center for
International Private Enterprise, and the AFL-CIO, which divide among
themselves most of the NED's budget. Although $35 million is an
unimpressive portion of the federal budget (George Bush proposes to double
the amount this year), the NED has proven a highly effective mechanism for
hands-on American manipulation of the politics of targeted nations. In
Venezuela and Haiti, it has empowered and emboldened murderous,
fascist-minded elites. Blum explains how it works:

In a multitude of ways, NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign
countries by supplying funds, technical know-how, training, educational
materials, computers, faxes, copiers, automobiles, and so on, to selected
political groups, civic organizations, labor unions, dissident movements,
student groups, book publishers, newspapers, other media, etc. NED programs
generally impart the basic philosophy that working people and other
citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class
cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the
economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market
economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of
foreign investment are emphasized.

The NED took American intervention in the domestic affairs of foreign
nations out of the shadows and made it respectable – a brilliant political
coup. Most sinisterly, the Trojan Horse NED subverts the AFL-CIO and the
Democratic Party, acting as a "point of contact" between these institutions
and covert U.S. operatives (although unionists and Democrats will deny
this, and some may actually be oblivious to the company they keep) and with
corporate agents bent on further exploitation of foreign lands. In Haiti
and Venezuela, this American public-private-labor project became
inseparable from coup-making.

As relentlessly coercive, bipartisan (Clinton Democrats – Bush Republicans)
U.S. "free trade" policies strangle the internal economies of Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean, the NED buttresses or, if need be, invents local
political groupings that facilitate the American corporate assault on
national institutions and sovereignty – a true Trojan Horse.

In the case of Haiti, the International Republican Institute component of
the NED, under the slogan "party building," almost single-handedly
constructed the "civil society" political "opposition" that now advises the
U.S. occupiers in Port-au-Prince (and nurtured the armed elements in their
Dominican Republic sanctuaries, as well). But it was Bill Clinton who put
Jean Bertrand Aristide in a structural straightjacket on his return from
exile in 1994, as Noam Chomsky explains in this week's Zmag, by forcing the
leader of the poor to "adopt the program of the defeated US candidate in
the 1990 elections, a former World Bank official who had received 14% of
the vote.

As democracy was thereby restored, the World Bank announced that "The
renovated state must focus on an economic strategy centered on the energy
and initiative of Civil Society, especially the private sector, both
national and foreign." That has the merit of honesty: Haitian Civil Society
includes the tiny rich elite and US corporations, but not the vast majority
of the population, the peasants and slum-dwellers who had committed the
grave sin of organizing to elect their own president. World Bank officers
explained that the neoliberal program would benefit the "more open,
enlightened, business class" and foreign investors, but assured us that the
program "is not going to hurt the poor to the extent it has in other
countries" subjected to structural adjustment, because the Haitian poor
already lacked minimal protection from proper economic policy, such as
subsidies for basic goods.

It is clear that the Clinton Administration/World Bank/International
Republican Institute position was that the poor – the vast bulk of the
population – were so profoundly marginalized economically as to count for
nothing. Aristide represented, from this point of view, no one. "Civil
society" became a euphemism for the tiny elite – a number of them
fantastically wealthy – who despite their riches were pampered, coddled and
guided through the NED-financed "party building" enterprise, better
described as a nation-destroying project. Haiti is a ruin.

During recent years the AFL-CIO wing of the NED public-private-labor
partnership in Haiti appears essentially inactive. The only project posted
on its Solidarity Center site is publication of a report that "describes
and analyzes the shameful state of worker rights in Haiti." This is
probably for the best, given the AFL-CIO's record in Venezuela, where NED
money funded a labor alliance with filthy rich fascists bent on
establishing a rightwing dictatorship.

In his March 2 Znet article, "What Is the AFL-CIO doing in Venezuela?"
Alberto Ruiz points to continued AFL-CIO funding of the Confederation of
Venezuelan Workers (CTV), whose leadership sided with the oligarchy in the
2002 attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez. "The embarrassment
suffered by the AFL-CIO over its pre-coup assistance to the CTV has not
deterred it from continuing to aid the CTV subsequent to the coup. In
response to a FOIA request by the Venezuela Solidarity Committee, documents
have surfaced which demonstrate the AFL-CIO has continued to support the
CTV up through the year 2003 – again with NED monies."

The NED was poison when first concocted in 1983. It is a morally and
politically corrupting abomination that subverts not only foreign
governments and movements, but also the AFL-CIO, the Democratic Party, and
the American body politic.

Point number six of Congresspersons Lee and Conyers TRUTH Act asks the
question: "Was U.S. bilateral assistance channeled through nongovernmental
organizations that were directly or indirectly associated with political
groups actively involved in fomenting hostilities or violence toward the
government of President Aristide?"

The answer is: Yes, funds from the National Endowment for Democracy
financed hostility and violence against Aristide's government, and are
funding coup-plotters in Venezuela.

We cannot even begin to make Haiti or anywhere else in the world safe for
human development if we fail to confront U.S. government structures that
subvert national independence. The National Endowment for Democracy sucks
American civil society into its vortex of global subversion. It must be
dismantled, root and branch.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/81/81_cover_haiti.html

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