HAITIAN LEADER CHARGES
White House behind coup
Solidarity delegation wins access to Aristide
By Sara Flounders and Johnnie Stevens
Bangui, Central African Republic
March 9--U.S. agents abducted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide of Haiti over a week ago and flew him to this
intensely poor former French colony in the heart of Africa in
an attempt to isolate him and keep him from telling the truth
about what has happened in his Caribbean country.
It didn't work. Through his own efforts, and with assistance
from a solidarity delegation that quickly flew in from the
United States, Aristide has been able to tell the world that he
did not resign, as the Bush administration has been claiming,
but was forced to leave Haiti after being threatened by the
U.S. ambassador with death--his own, his family's and thousands
of his supporters. At the same time, U.S. troops were taking up
key positions in the capital and convicted murderers known to
collaborate with Washington were advancing on Port-au-Prince in
command of heavily armed troops.
This gangster-style operation to uproot Haiti's
democratically elected president and install a government under
the heel of U.S. and French imperialism has involved a
full-court press--in Haiti and here in the Central African
Republic.
The U.S. delegation that succeeded in breaking the blockade
around Aristide included three people representing former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark: Kim Ives of Haiti Support
Network and the newspaper Haïtí Progrès,
Sara Flounders of the International Action Center, and Johnnie
Stevens of People's Video Network. Also in the delegation were
attorney Brian Concannon of Aristide's U.S. legal team and
filmmaker Katherine Kean.
At first we were denied access to the Haitian president and
his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide. We went to the Palace of
the Renaissance but were told we couldn't give him a message or
send him our phone number, we could not go in and he could not
come out to meet with us.
Aristide replaced by 'U.S. regime of
occupation'
But after a release entitled "Aristide under lock and key"
was circulated around the world in a massive Inter net and
media campaign by the International Action Center and the
International ANSWER Coalition, the blockade was forced open.
The CAR authorities acknowledged to us that they had been
taking direction from the U.S. State Department and the French
Foreign Ministry.
By the next morning everything was different.
Foreign Minister Charles Wenezoui, who had refused to return
our calls, set up a meeting with our delegation, told us we
could meet privately with President Aristide, and said that
afterwards Aristide would hold a press conference.
At the meeting with the foreign minister, he told us that
the decision to send Aristide to the CAR was made by the U.S.
and France. Not one Haitian had any part in this decision. The
CAR minister was told he must be in daily contact with
Washington and Paris about Aristide, and his government could
not comment on the situation in Haiti.
We then met with President Aristide and Mildred Trouillot
Aristide, who greeted us warmly. Later we attended a luncheon
with them and officials of the CAR, followed by another meeting
with President Aristide. The group discussions were held in
English and French. Kim Ives was also able to speak at length
with Aristide in Creole about his kidnapping.
After our first meeting, Aristide was finally allowed to
hold a news conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs--his
first public appearance since the coup. Our delegation
scrambled to find a working cell phone for him, and he has now
given several detailed phone interviews to the international
media, including Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! program. This
program had first broken the news of his kidnapping during an
interview by Amy Goodman with U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of the
Congressional Black Caucus.
In our conversations and at the news conference, President
Aristide was very forceful about the fact that he had been
kidnapped, and that his government is being replaced by a
U.S.-sponsored regime of occupation. He also said that only his
return to Haiti can bring peace, and characterized the people
who carried out the campaign against his government as
"internationally recognized criminals."
Aristide said he had been lied to by the U.S. ambassador to
Haiti, James Foley, who assured him that he was being taken to
a press conference to talk with international and Haitian
media. Aristide agreed to leave his home on condition that he
could speak to the media and that his home would be protected
from any attack or looting.
The press conference never took place. He was instead forced
onto a plane and taken out of the country. His home was looted
almost as soon as he had left.
'Armed Americans and diplomats' kidnapped
him
The State Department has given the impression that around 4
or 5 a.m. on Feb. 29, Aristide called U.S. officials and asked
for their assistance in leaving the country. But Aristide told
Kim Ives that, in fact, "armed Americans and diplomats" came to
his residence 12 hours earlier and told the 19 security guards
that have functioned as a presidential security detail that
they should abandon their posts. These security guards were on
assignment from the Steele Foundation and are mostly former
members of the U.S. Special Forces. They were told by U.S.
officials that they wouldn't be protected.
President Aristide asserted that these Steele Foundation
security guards basically obeyed the orders from their former
employers--the U.S. military. On Satur day night, they were
flown by helicopter away from the Presidential Palace, leaving
Aristide with no armed protection.
Aristide told Kim Ives that when he was taken to a U.S.
plane early in the morning on Feb. 29, his 19 security guards
were already there. They were all taken--including the
one-year-old child of one of the guards--to the Central African
Republic. After spending 20 hours on a plane flying to a
destination unknown to any of them, the security guards were
then flown back to the United States. The trip prevented them
from revealing the details of the coup until long after
Aristide was out of Haiti.
U.S. moved before aid could reach Aristide
Ives reports that "In the course of the discussions with
President Aristide, it became clear that the timing of the coup
coincided with several international developments that could
have shifted the relationship of forces in the Haitian
government's favor. While the U.S. government escalated
pressure on Aristide to resign in that last week, the
government of South Africa had sent a planeload of weapons that
was set to arrive on Sunday, Feb. 29. Venezuela was in
discussions about sending troops to support Aristide.
"There was also gathering international support and
solidarity for the maintenance of constitutional democracy in
Haiti. African American leaders were receiving increasing media
attention as they denounced the efforts towards a coup. Two
prominent U.S. delegations, one led by members of the
Congressional Black Caucus and another by former U.S. Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, in conjunction with the International
Action Center and Haiti Support Network, were set to arrive
within days.
"We can see that there were various converging influences of
aid about to come. This accounts in large part for the timing
of the coup. It explains why the U.S. had to rush in and remove
Aristide," Ives concludes.
Aristide's situation in the Central African Republic is
tenuous. His aim is to return to Haiti to serve out his elected
term. He is being treated graciously by members of the
government here, but has limited freedom. He has not asked for
political asylum and does not accept being in exile.
The timber and diamonds of the CAR enriched the French
ruling class during a century of colonial rule, but today life
expectancy is only 42 and the vast majority of people enjoy not
one benefit of modern life. On the Oubangui River, which flows
through the capital, people still travel by dugout canoe. The
infant mortality rate is 93 deaths per 1,000 live births.
French troops still remain in the area.
Clearly, if any people have the right to demand reparations
for a history of exploitation and oppression, it is the people
of the Central African Republic--and of Haiti. One of
Aristide's crimes, in the eyes of the imperialist West, is that
he demanded just that.
It is at least two days' travel by commercial plane from the
CAR to Haiti, the first Black republic in the world. There is
one flight a week between Bangui and Paris. The best hotel in
Bangui has no Internet connection, and landline phones often
don't work.
Nevertheless, Aristide has found ways to get the news from
his country. He pointed out to us that U.S. Marines and other
foreign soldiers are now being housed in what was Haiti's main
medical school, effectively closing it down. "Haiti has only
1.5 doctors for every 11,000 people," he emphasized, and now it
will have even fewer.
Our meetings with Jean-Bertrand and Mildred Aristide were
held on March 8, International Women's Day. Johnnie Stevens
informed them of a women's conference being held in New York
that would discuss Haiti's long struggle and what it means to
women. The presidential couple sent their warmest greetings to
the women of the world.
Reprinted from the March 18, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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