24355: Hermantin (News)Aristide's kidnap claim persists, despite evidence (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Feb. 26, 2005


HAITI
Aristide's kidnap claim persists, despite evidence
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide still says he was kidnapped
from his country a year ago, but evidence sheds doubt on that assertion.
BY NANCY SAN MARTIN
nsanmartin@herald.com

A year after Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile, he
remains steadfast in his allegation that he was forced out of power in a
''modern day kidnapping'' backed by the U.S. and French governments.

But while the full truth remains unclear, the evidence available points to
his voluntary departure -- certainly under pressure by Washington and Paris
and amid dire warnings that he would be killed if he stayed, yet ultimately
by his decision.

In a short phone conversation with his prime minister, Yvon Neptune, several
hours before his departure from Haiti last Feb. 29, Aristide said he was
leaving the country and offered Neptune the option of joining him in exile,
the former prime minister told The Herald.

Aristide also wrote a letter of resignation on a white card, similar to a
wedding invitation, and faxed it to the U.S. Embassy just hours before he
flew out on Feb. 29, 2004. He handed over the original at the airport, The
Herald was told.

He left his residence with his wife and two suitcases, and was accompanied
onto the plane that flew him to Africa by at least three Haitians and 19 of
his own bodyguards, according to Aristide's public account and Herald
interviews with dozens of Haitian and U.S. officials.

Aristide declined numerous Herald requests for an interview to flesh out his
oftrepeated but never detailed allegations of a virtual coup and kidnapping.
Friends say he has been saving the details for a book he is writing in
exile.

Aristide's presidency began to unravel Feb. 5, 2004, when an armed street
gang known as the Canibal Army seized control of Gonaives, Haiti's
fourth-largest city. The rebellion quickly escalated when it was joined by a
few dozen former army soldiers and members of a brutal anti-Aristide
paramilitary group from the 1990s known as FRAPH.

FEAR OF AN EXODUS

U.S. Ambassador James Foley said that as the rebellion spread he expressed
concern about a possible increase in illegal migration. That kicked off a
scramble at the Pentagon's Miami-based Southern Command to plan for a
possible migration crisis, said Navy Capt. Ed Turner, Southcom deputy
director of operations.

And as Washington pushed for a negotiated, political solution, about 30
rebels seized the northern port of Cap Haitien -- another ''trigger'' for
U.S. concerns, because the port's seizure would hamper the U.S. Coast
Guard's ability to repatriate illegal migrants, Turner added.

That's when the Pentagon sent in a 50-member antiterrorism team -- tasked
primarily to protect the U.S. Embassy.

Soon after the team's arrival on Feb. 23, 2004, ''a U.S. senior commander
approached or was approached'' about security for Aristide's family, said a
U.S. State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``The
issue of protection for Aristide's wife, who is a U.S. citizen also with the
couple's two children, came up.''

The answer must have terrified Aristide. ''U.S. forces said no protection
would be provided,'' the official said.

It was clear that Aristide would have to rely on his private security guards
from the Steele Foundation, a San Francisco-based company.

Within days, Washington began privately to pressure Aristide to step down
and avert further bloodshed.

''By the middle of the week, it was clear to us that Aristide was going to
fall,'' Foley told The Herald. ``The end was guaranteed, but the unfolding
of the end seemed to be fraught with terror. We anticipated a bloodbath.''

ADDRESSING THE END

Foley said his discussions with Aristide about a resignation began in a
telephone chat late on the afternoon of Feb. 28. They spoke twice more over
the next few hours and Aristide finally agreed, Foley said.

Obtaining a formal resignation letter was crucial. ''Just spiriting him out
without any closure would not have made much sense,'' said Luis Moreno,
then-deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission.

The letter, written in Creole, came through an embassy fax between 1:30 and
2:30 a.m. With the help of a Creole-speaking staffer, Moreno said, he parsed
sentence structures and even used a dictionary to ensure proper wording.

Later, Aristide would insist that he had not resigned -- only offered to.
But Neptune said he accepted the letter as a clear resignation. Moreno said
he left the embassy for Aristide's house, to escort and accompany him to the
airport, at about 4 a.m. with six embassy security officials in civilian
clothing.

Aristide told Moreno he would hand over the resignation letter at the
airport and the two got into separate vehicles, Moreno said. At the airport,
an embassy staffer used a flashlight to confirm that the note Aristide
handed over was the same that he had faxed.

Aristide then boarded the plane with his wife, Mildred, two suitcases and
Frantz Gabriel, his palace security chief, Moreno said. Also boarding were
his Steele Foundation bodyguards.

Since his exile began -- first in Central Africa, then in Jamaica and now in
South Africa -- Aristide has stuck to his ''kidnapping'' allegations. He has
said that he remains the president of Haiti because he signed the letter of
resignation out of fear and that his words were later altered.

Neptune, who read Aristide's resignation letter and is now jailed as part of
an investigation into a massacre of Aristide opponents a year ago, told The
Herald that he believed the note -- typed and bearing Aristide's signature
-- was legitimate.

But while Neptune insisted that he believed the president did resign, he
added that he nevertheless has some reservations about Aristide's departure
and would welcome an independent investigation of the events. None is under
way.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Herald staff writers Jacqueline Charles, Trenton Daniel, Susannah A.
Nesmith, Marika Lynch, Joe Mozingo, Michael Ottey and Juan O. Tamayo
contributed to this report.