Back to Haiti

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Well the stories are flying, the denials are flying, but one thing is certain - Haiti is in a shambles. Aristide still claims that he was ousted by the US, and the US denies the charge. In an interesting twist, Reuters (3/02/04) reports France is 'Protecting' Aristide in C. African Republic. It is interesting that Reuters chose to put quotes around 'protecting'. So if the US took Arisitde to the Central African Republic, they have apparently turned him over for "protection" to the French.

France said Tuesday it was "protecting" former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in his temporary exile in the Central African Republic but insisted it did not control his movements there.

Aristide has alleged he was forced to quit the former French colony against his will by the United States, with whom France has worked closely on the Haiti crisis. The allegation has been dismissed by Bush administration officials as nonsense. "At present, I would say he is being protected rather than imprisoned," French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told Europe 1 radio.

Meanwhile, there have been other devlopments. The US is sending a vanguard force of approximately 1500-2000 troops to Haiti. Runmsfeld noted that this was a short term deployment of a larger international force of approximately 5000. Ironically he stated "Rumsfeld said the interim force "will probably be less than 5,000 total," with Americans representing "a small fraction of that."" (Rumsfeld says 1,500-2,000 US troops to go to Haiti, Dunham, Reuters, 3/01/04). That "small fraction" is onl;y 40% of the estimated forces.

Then in breaking news Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the (former) deposed dictator of Haiti is hoping to return to Haiti. Duvalier has been living in exile in France, and claims he has no political aspirations in returning to Haiti (Duvalier Wants to Return to Haiti Soon, Reuters, 3/02/04). Of course the fact that members of his regime helped accomplish the coup of Aristide probably doesn't mean that a "reunion" is in order.

Which must circle us back again to US involvement in this latest debacle. According to Neil Elliott from the Mineapolis Star Tribune (2/28/04/04), the US has been funding opposition to Aristide through the (US) taxpayer supported USAID. In his article U.S. must let real democracy govern Haiti:

One doesn't have to wander far from the Associated Press wires to find abundant information about the United States' enthusiastic long-term "intervention" in Haiti. The so-called "democratic convergence" that has dogged Aristide's elected government is, in fact, a tiny group of malcontents who are working with elements of the Bush administration to turn Haiti into one vast sweatshop zone.

Having been soundly rejected in every election in which they've run against Aristide's grass-roots "Lavalas" party, they've used millions of U.S. tax dollars to organize street demonstrations, buy up radio and television stations, and, most recently, field a vicious army of thugs, styling themselves the "Cannibal Army," who have attacked police stations and set about occupying Haitian cities.

All this has been funded from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the guise of its falsely so-called "Democracy Enhancement" program. USAID has long been notorious for channeling money to the tiny pro-business elite and its armed goons. It was USAID money that helped a CIA agent persuade Emmanuel (Toto) Constant to organize the murderous FRAPH in 1991. That terrorist organization was responsible for some 5,000 murders in the wake of the military coup that removed Aristide from his first term as elected president. Constant now lives as a real estate agent in Brooklyn, thanks to the protection of the U.S. State and Justice departments.

Elliott goes on to reference the CIA sponsored junta in 1993. Then President Clinton dispatched none other than Colin Powell to negotiate the withdrawl of the "Cannibal Army" which is the core of the current rebel group. My things do have a tendency to repeat themselves do they not?

An interesting insight into the dynamics of 1993 (and perhaps into the events of 2004) is Paul DeRienzo's 1994 articel Haiti’s Nightmare: The Cocaine Coup & The CIA Connection, which reinforces some of Elliott's report, but gives some interesting reasoning behing "why."

It was a day before the scheduled return of Haiti’s exiled president Jean Betrand Aristide, and it was clear that the October 30, 1993 deadline for a return to democratic rule in the western hemisphere’s poorest nation could not occur. Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest who had been elected nearly three years before with 70 percent of the vote in Haiti’s first free election, was speaking to a packed session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In a dramatic move, Aristide told the diplomats that the military government of Haiti had to yield the power that was to end Haiti’s role in the drug trade, a trade financed by Colombia’s Cali cartel, that had exploded in the months following the coup. Aristide told the UN that each year Haiti is the transit point for nearly 50 tons of cocaine worth more than a billion dollars, providing Haiti’s military rulers with $200 million in profits.

OH NO!!! Not the CIA and drugs again!

In a timely piece of remembering, John Kerry (yes that John Kerry) was in charge of a subcommitte on drug trafficing and international terrorism, and was part of the investigation into the murky affairs of Haiti.

Kerry had developed detailed information on drug trafficking by Haiti’s military rulers that led to the indictment in Miami in 1988, of Lt. Col. Jean Paul. The indictment was a major embarrassment to the Haitian military, especially since Paul defiantly refused to surrender to U.S. authorities. It was just a month before thousands of U.S. troops invaded Panama and arrested Manuel Noriega who, like Col. Paul, was also under indictment for drug trafficking in Florida.

Which is perhaps one reason why Kerry has been so vocal in his statements that Bush has "empowered" the rebels in Haiti, which has led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government.

I suggest a thorough reading of both the Elliott and DiRenzio artices. I think they provide a broader explanation into both the historic turmoil in Haiti, and into what may very well be happening again.

Posted by rowan at March 2, 2004 09:35 AM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |