21088: Esser: April 7 public meeting in Brooklyn to expose U.S. role in coup (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Workers World
http://www.workers.org

from the April 8, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper

Dominican Republic used as training, staging area
Washington armed commandos to overthrow Aristide

April 7 public meeting to expose U.S. role in coup
By Leslie Feinberg

An independent Haiti Commission of Inquiry, at a media conference in
the Dominican Republic, has charged that Washington armed and trained
commando forces inside that country which were then used to overthrow
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The commission delivered its preliminary conclusion to a packed room
of close to 100 journalists in Santo Domingo on March 30. It had
investigated what commission member Father Luis Barrios said were
"countless reports."

Some members of the commission had also interviewed Aristide in the
Central African Republic, where they confirmed that Haiti's president
had not resigned, but had been kidnapped by the U.S. government.

The commission will deliver these and other findings at an April 7
public meeting in New York on the coup in Haiti and details of
Washington's hand in the violent "regime change." Tickets for the
event at Whitman Hall, Brooklyn College, are available from the
International Action Center at 39 W. 14th St., Room 206, (212)
633-6646, and from the Haiti Support Network, 1398 Flatbush Ave.,
Brooklyn, (718) 434-8100. More information is available at
iacenter.org and haiti-progres.com.

President Aristide will address the April 7 meeting via a recorded
message. Congress members Maxine Waters and Major Owens, former
Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Haitian labor organizer Ray LaForest
and others will address the meeting in person.

Johnnie Stevens, a leading organizer of the event, stresses, "We're
holding this meeting on April 7 because it's the 201st anniversary of
the death of Haitian liberator Tous saint L'Ouverture. He died in a
French jail after being kidnapped in a ruse by Napoleon's agents.
Just as Napoleon sought to restore slavery in Haiti by starving to
death Toussaint L'Ouverture, so does George Bush want to re-impose
colonial rule in the world's oldest Black republic by kidnapping and
exiling Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

U.S. role exposed

The Haiti Commission of Inquiry was created in 1991 by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark after the first U.S.-backed coup
against Aristide. Clark helped found the International Action Center.

At the March 30 media conference, which took place at the Renaissance
Jaragua Hotel in the Dominican capital, IAC co-director Teresa
Gutierrez told the gathered journalists, "The purpose of this
particular delegation has been to investigate when, where, why and
how the leaders of the so-called rebel forces were able to train and
arm themselves in the Dominican Republic." She added that the inquiry
also pursued how the mercenary forces "were shielded from arrest,
despite being convicted in Haiti and other countries."

The commission report states, "Two hundred U.S. Special Forces
soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of 'Operation Jaded
Task,' with special authorization from [Dominican] President Hipólito
Mejia. We have received many reports that this operation was used to
train Haitian rebels. We have received many consistent reports of
Haitian rebel training centers at or near Dominican military
facilities. We have received many consistent reports of guns
transported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, some across the
land border, and others shipped by sea."

Kim Ives from Haïti Progrès told the media, "In the course of our
investigation here, we met with many Haitians who were forced to flee
Haiti following the coup d'état of Feb. 29. Their testimony gave very
concrete names and faces to the stories of violence which we have
heard that the so-called rebels, trained and assembled in the
Dominican Republic, have carried out in Haiti over the past month. We
were also touched by the tears of refugees who told us of how they
are apprehensive over the fate of their loved ones left behind in
Haiti."

Retired Special Forces Master Sgt. Stan Goff emphasized, "The latest
coup d'état in Haiti was a particularly shameless exercise of U.S.
imperial impunity. It is important to remember that this was also an
attack on the sovereignty of every nation in the region, and
especially that of the Dominican Republic."

Goff concluded that the U.S. exerts "control of the direction of
Dominican political and economic development." As evidence, he cited
the recent restructuring foisted on the Dominican Republic by the
U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund.

U.S. domination of the Dominican Republic has a long history.
Washington installed Rafael Trujillo as ruler in 1930. Trujillo
became so hated as a bloody dictator that he was assassinated in 1961
in what was widely perceived as a CIA coup intended to head off a
popular uprising. In 1962, Professor Juan Bosch, a progressive, was
elected president but was ousted within seven months by the military.

When a revolution to restore Bosch erupted in 1965, U.S. Marines
invaded Santo Domingo--the second time in the 20th century that the
U.S. military had occupied the Dominican Republic.

U.S. imperialism feared another Cuba in Latin America and the
Caribbean. Then-President Lyndon Johnson actually postponed the
buildup of U.S. forces in Vietnam so the Pentagon could channel tens
of thousands of troops to the Dominican Republic.

Part of the inspiration for Che Guevara's famous anti-imperialist
call for "two, three, many Vietnams" was the struggle in the
Dominican Republic.


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