What is going on in Haiti?
In March 2003, I had read an article in the New York Review of Books on Haiti by Peter Dailey reviewing Robert Fatton Jr.'s book Haiti's Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy. The review describes the murder of journalists and other human rights abuses, massive unemployment (80%), and the split of the Fanmi Lavalas ("Lavalas Family"), Aristide's ruling party, as a result of personal struggles for wealth and power. It painted the fall of the popular Aristide the Priest to the corrupt leader. So when I started reading reports of an uprising against Aristide in Haiti I was not surprised. I was quite surprised however when western governments started to side with the rebellion's demand to exile Aristide. Afterall, he had been elected democratically. The US had ostensiblly intervened, under Clinton, to re-enstate Aristide. As usual the situation is more complex that meets a superficial reading.
Kim Ives, editor of the Haitian newspaper, Haiti Progres, talked with Aristide while he was in Central African Republic and reported to the radio program Democracy Now! (check it for Haiti updates: Amy Goodman just flew with Aristide to Jamaica). According to Ives, the "rebels" are most assuredly U.S. financed, headed by:
Guy Philippe - former U.S. Special Forces-trained Police Chief – trained in Ecuador under their guidance
U.S.-trained police chief. He had been a soldier, was taken to Ecuador during the coup where he was trained by U.S. Special Forces, and brought back with a group of 11 others ('the Ecuadorians'). They attempted a coup under the Preval administration. He's also been accused of drug dealing in Panama and Ecuador.
Jodal Chamblain - number two of the FRAPH death squad created at the suggestion of the C.I.A., funded by the C.I.A., responsible in large measure for the -- for a majority of the 5,000 killed and disappeared in Haiti during the 1991 to 1994 coup d'etat.
John Tatoune came up from the underclass of Gonaives and was also a FRAPH head involved in the 1994 Raboteau massacre
Ives recounts how the US and France drafted a resignation letter for him, how the US ambassador, James Foley, tricked Aristide into depart from Haiti. Other interesting facts mentioned by Ives include how Aristide was working on claiming USD$21.7 billion from France for reparations for colonialism and slavery.
The new prime minister LaTortue, brought from Florida, among the first things he is said to have to restore: the Haitian military. He is the former Foreign Minister of Leslie Manica of a neo-devaluerist sector - the president who was installed by the military in 1998 after the election massacre of 1987.
And who in the Bush administration might be behind this support to Aristide ousting: Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. (Excerpts from Newsday staff writer, Ron Howell March 1, 2004:
"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.
White, now president of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, said Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide who had behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean before retiring from the Senate two years ago. Noriega's involvement with Haiti dates back more than a decade. In the early 1990s he was an adviser at the U.S. mission to the Organization of American States. Between 1994 and 1997, he served as a senior staff member on the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations. Then, in 1997, he went to work for the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations as a top aide to Helms.
Helms was passionate in his dislike of Aristide and tried mightily to stop President Bill Clinton from sending troops to restore Aristide to power in 1994 after his violent ouster three years previously. In an attempt to forestall that military action, Helms released a now-discredited CIA report purporting to show Aristide was "psychotic."Helms found a like-minded official in Noriega, who fed the senator's hostility toward Aristide, said Robert Maguire of Trinity College in Washington.)
In March 2003, I had read an article in the New York Review of Books on Haiti by Peter Dailey reviewing Robert Fatton Jr.'s book Haiti's Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy. The review describes the murder of journalists and other human rights abuses, massive unemployment (80%), and the split of the Fanmi Lavalas ("Lavalas Family"), Aristide's ruling party, as a result of personal struggles for wealth and power. It painted the fall of the popular Aristide the Priest to the corrupt leader. So when I started reading reports of an uprising against Aristide in Haiti I was not surprised. I was quite surprised however when western governments started to side with the rebellion's demand to exile Aristide. Afterall, he had been elected democratically. The US had ostensiblly intervened, under Clinton, to re-enstate Aristide. As usual the situation is more complex that meets a superficial reading.
Kim Ives, editor of the Haitian newspaper, Haiti Progres, talked with Aristide while he was in Central African Republic and reported to the radio program Democracy Now! (check it for Haiti updates: Amy Goodman just flew with Aristide to Jamaica). According to Ives, the "rebels" are most assuredly U.S. financed, headed by:
Guy Philippe - former U.S. Special Forces-trained Police Chief – trained in Ecuador under their guidance
U.S.-trained police chief. He had been a soldier, was taken to Ecuador during the coup where he was trained by U.S. Special Forces, and brought back with a group of 11 others ('the Ecuadorians'). They attempted a coup under the Preval administration. He's also been accused of drug dealing in Panama and Ecuador.
Jodal Chamblain - number two of the FRAPH death squad created at the suggestion of the C.I.A., funded by the C.I.A., responsible in large measure for the -- for a majority of the 5,000 killed and disappeared in Haiti during the 1991 to 1994 coup d'etat.
John Tatoune came up from the underclass of Gonaives and was also a FRAPH head involved in the 1994 Raboteau massacre
Ives recounts how the US and France drafted a resignation letter for him, how the US ambassador, James Foley, tricked Aristide into depart from Haiti. Other interesting facts mentioned by Ives include how Aristide was working on claiming USD$21.7 billion from France for reparations for colonialism and slavery.
The new prime minister LaTortue, brought from Florida, among the first things he is said to have to restore: the Haitian military. He is the former Foreign Minister of Leslie Manica of a neo-devaluerist sector - the president who was installed by the military in 1998 after the election massacre of 1987.
And who in the Bush administration might be behind this support to Aristide ousting: Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. (Excerpts from Newsday staff writer, Ron Howell March 1, 2004:
"Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he's in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, said last week.
White, now president of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, said Noriega's ascent largely has been attributed to his ties to North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative foe of Aristide who had behind-the-scenes influence over policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean before retiring from the Senate two years ago. Noriega's involvement with Haiti dates back more than a decade. In the early 1990s he was an adviser at the U.S. mission to the Organization of American States. Between 1994 and 1997, he served as a senior staff member on the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations. Then, in 1997, he went to work for the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations as a top aide to Helms.
Helms was passionate in his dislike of Aristide and tried mightily to stop President Bill Clinton from sending troops to restore Aristide to power in 1994 after his violent ouster three years previously. In an attempt to forestall that military action, Helms released a now-discredited CIA report purporting to show Aristide was "psychotic."Helms found a like-minded official in Noriega, who fed the senator's hostility toward Aristide, said Robert Maguire of Trinity College in Washington.)
posted by André Levy @ 1:34 AM
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