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7033: Slavin on Necklacing & #7011 (fwd)
From: pslavin@unicefusa.org
On Archim's point about Aristide's Palace speech after returning from United
Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 29(?), 1991, my interviews with
Préval Government (let's not forget that under the constitution, the PM serves
as head of government, so comments about an Aristide Government
are....unconstitutional) cabinet ministers just after the coup (who were in
hiding) made it clear that Aristide was also motivated by palace intelligence
of an imminent coup d'etat (pretty good intell). So bringing a crowd of
supporters onto the Palace lawn (within easy eye- and ear-sight of general army
hq) and reminding the army of what happened on January 7?, 1991 (the Lafontant
coup), were parts of a signal that Haiti's people power was on call, 24/7. I've
long argued that Aristide's remarks that day were justified.
Of course one of the many tragedies of this period was that the army (or more
correctly, units within the army) also learned a lot from Jan. 7. Unlike
Lafontant, they deployed killers into the street to put down pro-Aristide
brigades. A lot of us, me included, failed to calculate the affect that
automatic weapons have on unarmed civilians.
Patrick