Dominican Republic used as training, staging area
Washington armed commandos to overthrow Aristide
April 7 public meeting to expose U.S. role in coup
By Leslie Feinberg
An independent Haiti Commission of Inquiry, at
a media conference in the Dominican Republic, has charged that
Washington armed and trained commando forces inside that
country which were then used to overthrow Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The commission delivered its preliminary conclusion to a
packed room of close to 100 journalists in Santo Domingo on
March 30. It had investigated what commission member Father
Luis Barrios said were "countless reports."
Some members of the commission had also interviewed Aristide
in the Central African Republic, where they confirmed that
Haiti's president had not resigned, but had been kidnapped by
the U.S. government.
The commission will deliver these and other findings at an
April 7 public meeting in New York on the coup in Haiti and
details of Washington's hand in the violent "regime change."
Tickets for the event at Whitman Hall, Brooklyn College, are
available from the International Action Center at 39 W. 14th
St., Room 206, (212) 633-6646, and from the Haiti Support
Network, 1398 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn, (718) 434-8100. More
information is available at iacenter.org and
haiti-progres.com.
President Aristide will address the April 7 meeting via a
recorded message. Congress members Maxine Waters and Major
Owens, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Haitian labor
organizer Ray LaForest and others will address the meeting in
person.
Johnnie Stevens, a leading organizer of the event, stresses,
"We're holding this meeting on April 7 because it's the 201st
anniversary of the death of Haitian liberator Tous saint
L'Ouverture. He died in a French jail after being kidnapped in
a ruse by Napoleon's agents. Just as Napoleon sought to restore
slavery in Haiti by starving to death Toussaint L'Ouverture, so
does George Bush want to re-impose colonial rule in the world's
oldest Black republic by kidnapping and exiling Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide."
U.S. role exposed
The Haiti Commission of Inquiry was created in 1991 by
former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark after the first
U.S.-backed coup against Aristide. Clark helped found the
International Action Center.
At the March 30 media conference, which took place at the
Renaissance Jaragua Hotel in the Dominican capital, IAC
co-director Teresa Gutierrez told the gathered journalists,
"The purpose of this particular delegation has been to
investigate when, where, why and how the leaders of the
so-called rebel forces were able to train and arm themselves in
the Dominican Republic." She added that the inquiry also
pursued how the mercenary forces "were shielded from arrest,
despite being convicted in Haiti and other countries."
The commission report states, "Two hundred U.S. Special
Forces soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of
'Operation Jaded Task,' with special authorization from
[Dominican] President Hipólito Mejia. We have received
many reports that this operation was used to train Haitian
rebels. We have received many consistent reports of Haitian
rebel training centers at or near Dominican military
facilities. We have received many consistent reports of guns
transported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, some across
the land border, and others shipped by sea."
Kim Ives from Haïti Progrès told the media, "In
the course of our investigation here, we met with many Haitians
who were forced to flee Haiti following the coup d'état
of Feb. 29. Their testimony gave very concrete names and faces
to the stories of violence which we have heard that the
so-called rebels, trained and assembled in the Dominican
Republic, have carried out in Haiti over the past month. We
were also touched by the tears of refugees who told us of how
they are apprehensive over the fate of their loved ones left
behind in Haiti."
Retired Special Forces Master Sgt. Stan Goff emphasized,
"The latest coup d'état in Haiti was a particularly
shameless exercise of U.S. imperial impunity. It is important
to remember that this was also an attack on the sovereignty of
every nation in the region, and especially that of the
Dominican Republic."
Goff concluded that the U.S. exerts "control of the
direction of Domin ican political and economic development." As
evidence, he cited the recent restructuring foisted on the
Domini can Republic by the U.S.-dominated International
Monetary Fund.
U.S. domination of the Dominican Republic has a long
history. Washington installed Rafael Trujillo as ruler in 1930.
Trujillo became so hated as a bloody dictator that he was
assassinated in 1961 in what was widely perceived as a CIA coup
intended to head off a popular uprising. In 1962, Professor
Juan Bosch, a progressive, was elected president but was ousted
within seven months by the military.
When a revolution to restore Bosch erupted in 1965, U.S.
Marines invaded Santo Domingo--the second time in the 20th
century that the U.S. military had occupied the Dominican
Republic.
U.S. imperialism feared another Cuba in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Then-President Lyndon Johnson actually postponed
the buildup of U.S. forces in Vietnam so the Pentagon could
channel tens of thousands of troops to the Dominican
Republic.
Part of the inspiration for Che Guevara's famous
anti-imperialist call for "two, three, many Vietnams" was the
struggle in the Dominican Republic.
Reprinted from the April 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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