24350: Severe(pub) LA Times Story on Aristide's Fall 3/1/05 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Constantin Severe <csevere@hotmail.com>

Doubts Linger on Aristide's Exit

A year after Haiti's leader fled, some charge he was deposed by the U.S.
Others say he resigned for lack of protection from rebels.


By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — It's been a year since Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled
Haiti's presidential palace on a U.S. jet, but a question still nags many
people here and in Washington: Did he jump or was he pushed?

Almost immediately after landing in Africa, where he remains in exile,
Aristide began alleging that he was "kidnapped" by U.S. Marines and that he
was forced to resign in a U.S.-led "coup d'etat." Several members of
Congress contend he was ousted, and there is a new call in the House of
Representatives to investigate the U.S. role in Aristide's Feb. 29
departure.

Lingering concerns that Aristide's conservative opponents and the Bush
administration colluded to depose him have hindered Haiti's recovery,
fueling violence by some of his supporters. Many of his political allies
refuse to take part in new elections unless he returns.

Several people with detailed knowledge of the pre-dawn scramble to get
Aristide out of the country said he accepted the offer of a U.S. plane when
Washington made it clear it would not send forces to protect him from a
rebel onslaught. Afterward, they said, he cast the chaotic departure as a
kidnapping.

"I can tell you unequivocally that he was not kidnapped," said Kenneth
Kurtz, chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based Steele Foundation,
the security and risk management company that was guarding Aristide at the
time.

U.S. Ambassador James B. Foley handled the negotiations between Aristide and
then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. He said Aristide had willingly
accepted the U.S. offer to fly him into exile.

"When we came through with the offer of safe exit in an airplane, we gave
him an alibi for the scenario he's been using ever since," Foley said. "We
clearly walked into a trap. But I think we did the right thing…. Had we not
intervened, there would have been a meltdown and a bloodbath."

Yet questions linger about how much pressure Foley applied to Aristide, who
now lives in South Africa.

Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who spoke with Aristide by telephone
several times the night he fled, said the president told him about five
hours before he left that he felt "like a prisoner" and that Western
diplomats were warning him that unless he left, thousands could die in a
clash of his armed supporters and advancing rebels.

Citing concerns about American pressure and "circumstantial evidence" that
the U.S. may have helped incite the rebellion against Aristide, Rep. Barbara
Lee (D-Oakland) submitted a bill to Congress on Feb. 17 calling for an
investigation.

"The American people and the world deserve to have the facts surrounding any
U.S. involvement in what was, in effect, a coup d'etat," said Lee, adding
that she has had no direct contact with Aristide on the issue.

Violence broke out in Haiti in early February 2004, but opposition to
Aristide had been building for months as the man once regarded as the
nation's hope for democracy increasingly became seen as an autocrat.
Frustrations had grown as national elections were delayed and Parliament
ceased to function. Protesters took to the streets complaining of human
rights abuses by the government.

After armed gangs seized police stations in several cities, diplomats from
the U.S., Canada, the Organization of American States and the 15-nation
Caribbean Community, or Caricom, tried to promote a power-sharing
arrangement between Aristide and the mainstream political opposition. The
so-called Caricom plan would have allowed Aristide to serve the remaining
two years of his term.

On Feb. 23, 50 Marines arrived in Haiti on what was described as a mission
to protect the U.S. Embassy. In a recent interview at his residence, Foley
said the Marines were preparing for two scenarios: to evacuate Aristide
should he choose to leave or to help protect U.S. property and citizens
should the rebels make good on threats to seize the National Palace.

On Feb. 24, Aristide called for international troops to halt the rebellion
and warned that Haitian boat people would flood U.S. shores if aid wasn't
offered.

"He was trying to trigger an international intervention to save his
presidency," Foley said. Powell had already told Haitian officials there was
"no enthusiasm" for military intervention.

The same day, opposition leaders rejected the power-sharing plan. By the
next day, France's foreign minister was blaming Aristide for the crisis. And
on the 26th, Powell said it was unclear whether Aristide would be able to
"effectively continue" to lead Haiti.

Andre Apaid, a prominent businessman and leader of the Group of 184, which
opposed Aristide, said the U.S. stopped pressuring his group to endorse the
power-sharing plan.

"Until Thursday night [Feb. 26], the Americans were holding me by the neck
and shaking me into accepting the Caricom plan," Apaid said. It was only the
next day, when Aristide's street gangs began a spree of looting that held
the capital in terror, that the pressure ceased.

"I believe the people in Washington began to see why we couldn't accept
this, that it was not right, that they were pressing the wrong people," he
added.

Members of Congress who contend Aristide was deposed, among them Reps.
Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), allege that
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and Foley failed to push
Aristide's opponents to accept the Caricom plan because they wanted to force
his departure. Both diplomats have denied that.

"We did not support the violent overthrow of that man," Noriega told a House
international relations subcommittee a few days after Aristide's departure.

"It was the policy of the administration to support President Aristide
finishing his term and to promote compromise with the opposition," Foley
said.

U.S. rhetoric against Aristide continued to escalate. On Saturday Feb. 28,
the White House said that "the long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr.
Aristide's doing," and "his own actions have called into question his
fitness to remain in office."

According to Foley, a long night of negotiating began with an 8:30 call from
Aristide saying he was ready to leave. Throughout the process, Foley said,
the discussions were cordial and the president, a former Catholic priest,
was "his serene self."

By 4 a.m. on Feb. 29, the No. 2 official of the U.S. Embassy had arrived at
Aristide's home with five Marines. Within half an hour, the group departed
for the airport, where a white, unmarked plane sent by the U.S. arrived
about an hour later. After handing over a resignation letter, Aristide left
at 6:15 a.m.

But after arriving in the Central African Republic, Aristide phoned Waters.
"The world must know it was a coup. I was kidnapped. I was forced out.
That's what happened. I did not resign. I did not go willingly," Aristide
said, according to Waters.

Waters later told journalists that Aristide left after U.S. diplomats
threatened to have the Steele Foundation security force withdrawn, leaving
him exposed to the rebels. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Kurtz, Steele's chief executive, dismissed those allegations as "absolutely
false."

Although he was not in Haiti at the time, Kurtz said he had discussed the
events with his clients and with employees who were guarding Aristide. He
said his contract with the Haitian government was neither subject to U.S.
government approval nor vulnerable to political pressure.

"Whether it's Foley or Powell or whoever, they have no influence over our
provision of services," he said. "Our orders and communication came directly
from the Haitian government."

To Aristide's claims that he was surrounded by Marines and compelled to
board the aircraft, Kurtz said that could not have happened, that his
employees would have intervened to protect the president from coercion. "The
decision to leave Haiti was a decision made by the president of Haiti at the
time," Kurtz said.

Although there were at least 30 people around Aristide in his last hours at
his home, on the drive to the airport or aboard the plane, most were U.S.
military, diplomatic or private security personnel bound by confidentiality
agreements. Attempts to interview them were unsuccessful.

Former Prime Minister Neptune, now jailed on charges of complicity in
slayings of Aristide opponents, conceded that he was not in Aristide's inner
circle and was unfamiliar with details of the contract with Steele.

But in an interview at the prison where he has been held for eight months,
Neptune said he had been "informed by people in a position to know" that the
palace security team was told by American officials that "if the agents got
into difficulty, they couldn't count on U.S. soldiers to help them out."

Aristide's contention that he was kidnapped still clearly irritates the U.S.
ambassador. Calling the claim "one of the more remarkable feats of
ingratitude" he has encountered, Foley said he would welcome a congressional
probe to dispel the "myths" surrounding Aristide's exile.

Neptune blames Washington not for abducting Aristide but for undermining him
with economic sanctions after tainted elections in May 2000. He cast the
president's departure as the result of the international community's failure
to rescue him.

It was Neptune who read Aristide's resignation letter at a news conference
two hours after the president departed. In the note, Aristide said he was
leaving because "the constitution should not drown in the blood of the
Haitian people."

Neptune said he believed the letter was genuine and added that Aristide
never denied writing it. He speculated that Aristide's concern for his
American wife and two daughters might have driven him to "compromise with
himself."

"I would rather die than leave my country, but I don't have the right to say
he should feel the same," Neptune said.

"I'm not defending the person of Aristide but the principle of democracy
accepted by the Haitian people," he said. The international community's
failure to ensure that Aristide completed his term, he said, "sets back
Haitian democracy by 15 years."