20927: Esser: US accused of training Haitian rebels in Dominican Republic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Xinhuanet

US accused of training Haitian rebels in Dominican Republic

HAVANA, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States armed and
trained in the Dominican Republic the groups that rose against former
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a preliminary report issued
in the Dominican Republic indicated Monday.

This provisional conclusion was reached by the Investigation
Commission on Haiti, formed by religious persons and lawyers of
several nations and created in 1991 by the former US Secretary of
Justice Ramsey Clark.

"200 soldiers of the US Special Forces arrived in the
DominicanRepublic, with the authorization of Dominican President
Hipolito Mejia, as a part of the military operation to train Haitian
rebels," declared the commission when unveiling the report in the
Dominican capital Santo Domingo.

Priest Luis Barrios and lawyer Briant Concannon, both members of
the "independent" commission, presented the preliminary resultsof the
investigation that contradicted the Dominican authorities which had
previously considered "surrealistic and oneiric" the delivery of US
guns to Haitian rebels in their national soil, as some accusations
stated.

The report said that Aristide reiterated to the commission he
"had not resigned to the presidency of Haiti and was kidnapped
last March 1 by the government of the United States" to remove him of
power in the face of the rebel insurrection.

A member of the commission, Teresa Gutierrez, wondered "how
the rebel leaders could train and arm in the Dominican Republic if
thegovernment of Mejia assured several times to his Haitian
counterpart Aristide that he would tolerate no guerrilla movement" in
his territories.

Barrios said at a press conference that the commission had a
"countless number of reports" proving that the Haitian rebels were
armed and trained in Dominican military camps located in the eastern
locality of San Isidro and the western regions of Haina and Neiba.

They also mentioned that rebel Guy Philippe was detained twice
but "immediately released" in the Dominican Republic, in December
2001 and May 2003, while the insurgent leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain
"was photographed" disguised as a Dominican police.

The most scandalous case was the release of the Haitian rebel
Jean Robert after his followers kidnapped 16 Dominicans to
demand,successfully, his liberation despite his connections to the
murderof the two Dominican soldiers in the northwestern province of
Dajabon on Feb. 14.

The commission that interviewed Aristide in the Central
AfricanRepublic, where he went into exiled after he "resigned," will
present the definitive report to the US Congress, the Dominican
government, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the
Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom), which has not
recognized yet the new Haitian regime.
.