22810: Kathleen: bazelais Jean-Baptiste <bazelaisjb@aol.com>, OTHERCARIB@aol.com,

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

     Frederick James Pattemor <fredj@sympatico.ca

From: Kathleen <kathleenmb@adelphia.net>

This "coup" seems to be passing into the Haitian lore via the media as
fact,
much as did the "defrocked priest" during the nineties.  Neither is true,
but
both were/are repeated by media writers.

The facts are these:

 Aristide was not in the palace, but safely miles away in Tabarre.  How
was his
life in danger?
A Reuters correspondent reported going to the palace at the wee hours of
the morning to see palace security outside the palace  running a bulldozer
to
break down the gate to get at the "coup leaders" who were supposedly
hiding in
the Palace basement.  So - how were the "coup leaders" breaking in?  And
how
did they get into the basement?  Again, Aristide and his family were not
there.

    A poll conducted by LE NOUVELLISTE revealed that 70% of all classes
polled
(workers, unemployed, merchants, professionals) believed the "coup" to be
a
"montage" (staged).
As they (and I) were on site to bear witness, it seems that the "plants"
in the
American media on historical Haitian timelines are grace a lobbyists,
rather
than objective purveyors of fact.
At best, the "coup" is debatable, a matter of opinion, not fact.  I would
go so
far as to say it is as wrong as was "defrocked priest."  I was there, in a
Port-au-Prince hotel, when it all went down and later, reading the reports
in
the Haitian press, talking to various witnesses. kb