23491: Kerry Comments Fuel Violence in Haiti, Report Says (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Kerry Comments Fuel Violence in Haiti, Report Says

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200410%5CNAT20041018a.html

By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
October 18, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The Republican National Committee is pointing to a BBC
report blaming Sen. John F. Kerry's comments earlier this year for inciting
recent violence in Haiti.

According to Sunday's BBC report, Kerry, in March, said that as president
he would have sent U.S. troops to Haiti to protect Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
who was ousted in February. (Aristide says he was kidnapped; the Bush
administration says he was removed for his own protection.)

According to the BBC report, Brazil's U.N. general, Augusto Heleno, said
Kerry's comments have offered "hope" to Aristide supporters and have
incited unrest in areas loyal to Aristide.

Aristide supporters believe that if Kerry wins the November election,
Aristide may return to lead Haiti, the BBC report quoted General Heleno as
saying. The general said such beliefs are "completely unfounded."

According to the BBC, the Brazilian government has requested more U.N.
troops to keep order in Haiti, where violence has escalated in recent days.

A March 7, 2004, report in the New York Times quoted Kerry as saying that
if he had been president as rebel troops massed outside Port-au-Prince, he
would have been prepared to "send troops immediately" to protect Haiti's
elected leader, Jean-Bertrande Aristide.

"Look, Aristide was no picnic, and did a lot of things wrong," the
newspaper quoted Kerry as saying. But the Bush administration "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."

According to the newspaper, Bush campaign aides dismissed Kerry's remarks
as political.

"We believe that President Aristide, in a sense, forfeited his ability to
lead his people, because he did not govern democratically," National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a mid-March television interview.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and other members of the Black Congressional
Caucus have waged a furious campaign in defense of Aristide and against the
Bush administration.

.