27191: Wharram (news) Sprague on Haiti: More on the Making, and Keeping, of a Coup (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Bruce Wharram <bruce.wharram@sev.org>


    the narcosphere
Sprague on Haiti: More on the Making, and Keeping, of a Coup
By Benjamin Melançon,
Posted on Wed Jan 11th, 2006 at 08:15:26 AM EST
The ostensibly radical organization Batay Ouvriye is taking $100,000 from
the U.S. government after calling for Aristide's overthrow and while
remaining silent on the crimes of the coup government, Narco News
co-publisher Jeb Sprague reported in Haïti Progres:

    Both before and after the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'État in Haiti, Washington
infiltrated "democracy promotion" programs (also known as "democracy
enhancement") into almost every sector of Haitian civil society: political
parties, media, human rights groups, student groups, vote monitoring
organizations, business associations, and labor organizations.

    Recently declassified [U.S. State Dept.-funded] National Endowment for
Democracy (NED) documents reveal that a "leftist" workers' organization,
Batay Ouvriye (BO), which promoted and called for the overthrow of the
constitutionally elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was
the targeted beneficiary of a US $99,965 NED grant [for its 2005-2006
activities] routed through the AFL-CIO's American Center for International
Solidarity (ACILS).

Read it all at HaitiAction.net