U.S. effort to bully Caribbean countries fails
CARICOM rejects new Haitian regime
By Pat Chin
A recent meeting of the leaders of CARICOM--a
15-member trade bloc of Caribbean countries--didn't go the way
the Bush White House wanted it. Despite intense pressure, they
concluded their meeting on March 27 by refusing to recognize
the regime installed recently in Haiti. President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide had been forced from power after a U.S.-backed
destabilization campaign that included the use of armed terror
gangs.
The CARICOM leaders also demanded that the UN General
Assembly investigate Aristide's forced ouster and exile. The
53-member African Union had already made the same demand, and
the Congressional Black Caucus in the U.S. has called for a
congressional inquiry.
Meanwhile, according to a Haiti Sup port Group Web report,
many officials and supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family
Party who were forced into hiding now seem to be regrouping.
Lavalas Sena tor Yvon Feuille has openly charged that, "Lavalas
members are being hounded across the country and even killed."
He denounced the "white American and French colonists' plan" to
marginalize the movement that brought Aristide to power in 1990
in Haiti's first democratic elections and warned that, "Without
Lavalas there is no solution."
According to the Associated Press, "Carib bean leaders are
angry that the Security Council refused their urgent plea to
send international troops to save Aristide ... but speedily
sanctioned a U.S.-led intervention" after he was gone.
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, outgoing CARICOM
head, has faced intense imperialist pressure for granting
Aristide temporary asylum. National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice was the latest official trying to bully the
Jamaican government into submission by calling Patterson to
demand that Jamaica expel Aristide immediately or face dire
consequences.
The threat came only a few days after reports that the State
Department had suspended arms sales to Jamaica, claiming, in
its usual two-faced style, that the ban had nothing to do with
Aristide's presence in Jamaica and that it did not apply to the
country's army and police force but only to private arms
merchants.
Patterson reportedly received tumultuous applause when he
told the gathering, "We may be small in size and we make no
claim to military power but our influence in the hemisphere
[should not] be underestimated.... And I believe that there
cannot be a lasting and permanent solution to the crisis in
Haiti without CARICOM being involved." (Trinidad Express, March
26)
Aristide has rejected refuge in Nigeria. And doubt has been
cast on reports that he'll go to South Africa for permanent
asylum; the South African government has denied receiving a
request.
As Haitians joined the huge March 20 antiwar demonstrations
in New York City and across the country, a spectacle unfolded
in the northern Haitian city of Gonaives that exposes the Bush
administration's connivance with both the political and armed
wings of the "opposition" it mobilized against Haiti's
popularly elected president.
U.S.-installed Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was
flown to Gonaives, the first city taken over by armed gangs,
where he hailed the paid mercenaries gathered there as "freedom
fighters" and thanked them for getting rid of the "dictator
Aristide."
Latortue has set up an interim government that excludes
Aristide's Lavalas Family Party, Haiti's largest political
grouping. He was flown to Gonaives in a U.S. Army "Black Hawk"
helicopter escorted by a second "Black Hawk" and a "Chinook."
He was greeted by a delegation of killers, including former
Haitian Army and police officer Guy Phillipe, in a bid to
bestow legitimacy on the new regime and its armed wing. Special
Representative David Lee from the Organization of American
States looked on approvingly.
Over the past month, since Aristide's forced removal, 3,200
U.S., French, Cana dian and Chilean troops have been deployed
in Haiti. But the bulk of them remain outside of Cap-Haitien,
Les Cayes and Gonaives, where the terror squads have been given
the green light to mount a reign of terror against Aristide's
supporters.
So-called "international stabilization" troops continue to
look the other way while a convicted killer like Louis-Jodel
Chamblain presides over an ad hoc "court" in Cap-Haitien that
tries people accused of everything from theft to being pro
Aristide and metes out summary sentences, including public
execution.
Corpses continue to be found in the bay at Cap-Haitien,
Haiti's second-largest city, according to the Associated Press.
In addition, "dozens of bullet-ridden bodies have been brought
to the morgue in the last month."
Puppet Prime Minister Latortue has criticized Jamaica's
decision to grant Aristide asylum. He also broke off relations
with Jamaica and froze Haiti's CARICOM membership. Latortue was
not invited to the recent summit, and any informal contact with
him was quashed after he praised the U.S.- and French-backed
terrorists in Haiti as "freedom fighters."
Caribbean voices hit U.S.
Rickey Singh, noted journalist for the Barbados-based Nation
newspaper, responded: "It would have been laughable, tragic
really, had no CARICOM country, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and
Tobago, or anyone else, agreed to grant a temporary stay to
Aristide and his family, while the United States continues to
refuse asylum to fleeing Haitian refugees while still
'sheltering' former Haitian political thugs and killers."
The Trinidad Express also weighed in: "The arrogance of the
United States knows no boundaries," declared a March 24 article
entitled "Playing games with Aristide."
"On the subject of Haiti and its deposed President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide," it continued, "we are being lectured
by Dubya and his minions as though we are first-grade school
children. The Americans do not rule us. ... So if we wish to
grant Aristide asylum that's our business, not theirs. And
should they wish that we deport our Cuban doctors and nurses
and cool our relations with Chavez in Caracas because they
believe he is another Castro, that's their concern, not
ours."
A column entitled "Mercy, politics and history dunces" by
Michael Burke for the Jamaica Observer, reprinted in the Trini
dad Express and posted on a Venezuelan website, recalled that
at least nine former Haitian presidents were allowed to stay in
Jamaica for a time, in addition to Venezuela's Simon Bolivar
and a former president of Mexico, General Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna. Cuba's Jose Marti was also there, and a statue of
Bolivar was erected in Jamaica's Heroes Circle in 1967.
Burke recalled that Patterson had "differed publicly with
the USA on the matter of invading Iraq. He further demonstrated
to the world that he could stand up to the USA by calling for a
UN investigation into the circumstances under which Aristide
was ousted from power in Haiti, and despite the USA frowning on
Aristide being allowed here, he has not changed his mind."
Haitians and their supporters demonstrated in Washington,
D.C., on March 20 for human rights in that centuries-long
oppressed Caribbean country. Several human rights groups have
also questioned Latortue's lauding of the death squad
terrorists and have called for their arrest.
Even some Democratic Party legislators, including
presidential hopeful John Kerry, have criticized the
Bush-backed coup in Haiti--but not to demand Aris tide's return
as a matter of principle, based on the Haitian people's right
to self-determination. The critique is merely to gain political
mileage against the Republi cans in the upcoming capitalist
elections.
Reprinted from the April 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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