Haiti: Uncovering U.S. Involvement in Aristide Coup

[struggle4progress]

9 April 2009
By Judith Scherr

A congressional bill that would create a truth commission to explore the U.S. role in the 2004 regime change in Haiti is languishing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee with only 12 co-sponsors. But Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Calif.) H.R. 331 has sparked hope among some Haitians who think the bill might pass under a friendly Obama administration and bring needed change to the indebted island nation ...

Aristide “left the country with our assistance, which he requested,” Mari Tolliver, spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, told In These Times in August. (Karl Duckworth, spokesperson for the State Department, said that he could not comment on the U.S. role in Aristide’s departure, as the Obama State Department is doing a “complete evaluation of all the areas to see where we will be on issues.”)

Aristide tells a different story. He says that a rag-tag band of some 200 rebels strong-armed poorly equipped police stations in several Haitian towns, but posed no threat to the capital, the president or the central government. Aristide says American officials forced him to board a plane whose destination was unknown ...

TransAfrica Forum’s Lee puts it this way: “When Aristide was removed, water projects stopped, education projects stopped, healthcare clinics shut down. It wasn’t just about removing a leader, it was about destroying a real democracy. And that really needs to be accounted for.”

http://www.voltairenet.org/article159651.html

[Bacchus39]

1. I am sorry but I imagine that some of those same sponsors were the ones pleading with Bush

to intervene, including Barbara Lee of course as a CBC member

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/26/congressional_black_caucus_bush_must_stop

REP. MAXINE WATERS: Yes, of course we can. We met with President Bush after we initially had a meeting with Secretary Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Basically, the message was there’s an impending bloodbath in Haiti. The thugs and ex-military people who have come in out of exile are armed, and they have taken over Gonaives and they have taken over Cap Haitien, and they have boldly said to the press they’re going to move into the capital. One leader, so-called thug leader, said they were going to come and arrest the president. Others said they were going to take over Port-au-Prince. We believe if we come in with their rifles and guns, that La Velas will try to defend the city and the capital with their guns and machetes, and it’s going to be a bloodbath. I told the president yesterday this is an emergency, and something has to happen NOW. I reminded him that those of us who watched what happened in Rwanda did not want to ever see again an opportunity to save lives, and not really do something about it. It’s really in our hands. The United States is guiding this policy, and they’re they have decided to wait it out. They want Aristide to run. They want him to leave. He’s accepted the peace plan. The opposition has thumbed its nose at the peace plan. They’re closely aligned with Noriega in the State Department. They wish that Aristide would leave, if not, they’re prepared to play this dangerous game of letting these thugs get to the president, in an effort to get rid of the president. It’s a game that can be stopped tad if the president wants to do it.

[subsuelo]

4. And ...?

:shrug:

[Bacchus39]

6. well, they asked for US involvement did they not?

Aristide asked for foreign troops to be sent as well. it just didn't go down as Aristide supporters planned though.

[struggle4progress]

8. It seems clear enough to me: Bush II first set out to make Haiti's economy scream,

then armed the thugs that had be previously driven out and sent them back to depose Aristide a second time; he had been deposed previously under Bush I. Before the thugs arrived, Powell called Aristide, told him the thugs were coming, and told him flatly that the US would not help him. The US then worked hard to ensure that no international security aid was available -- even though (as one of your links below reports) only a handful of soldiers would have been necessary. US troops kidnapped Aristide in the middle of the night and flew him off to the Central African Republic, where another coup had recently installed a new government. The new Haitian government consisted largely of Floridians

It was clear at the time that this was a coup organized by the US: it fit a long-established interventionist pattern, the hatred of US neoconservatives for Aristide had been clear for decades (even in the period when he was a priest), and the Bushes had toppled Aristide previously

Dem Now - Aristide confirms to Maxine Waters that he was kidnapped
Mon Mar-01-04 01:47 PM
... Maxine Waters just spoke to Aristide who said he is under guard and surrounded by military in a palace in the Central African Republic. Aristide said it was a coup and kidnapping by Americans. The phone connection then went dead according to Waters ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=392083

Delegation Supportive of Aristide Blocked From Visiting Or Speaking With Him in Central African Republic
Sun Mar-07-04 04:51 PM
... "We asked to go in to visit President Aristide and were told we could not. We asked if he could come out to see us, and we were told no. We asked if we could send in a note or our phone number, and we were told no. The official then told us that he had spoken with the Minister of Defense and that Aristide was not allowed to receive visitors" ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=405752

Top U.S. officer tells Aristide to keep quiet
Fri Mar-19-04 05:29 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=432891

Thousands rally for Ariside return
Sun Jun-20-04 06:16 AM
More than 5,000 supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched through Haiti's capital, calling for his return and accusing the U.S. government of forcing his departure ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=633829

Haitian Police Open Fire on Thousands of Marchers Call Return of Aristide
Tue Mar-01-05 05:59 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1275185

Ousted Haiti president wins honorary fellowship
Tue Mar-01-05 06:13 PM
... Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has been made an honorary research fellow at the University of South Africa ... "Mr Aristide was unlawfully deposed as president of the Caribbean island of Haiti in February 2004. He is now the guest of the South African government in Pretoria," said Professor Pityana ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1275220

Floridian wants to become Haiti president
Tue Mar-08-05 12:40 AM
... Samir Mourra, who helped organize protests against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in south Florida during that regime, has been campaigning in Haiti ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1292329

Citing Aristide ties, Haiti bars U.S. attorney from entering country
Tue Mar-08-05 12:38 AM
... Haitian authorities at the Port-au-Prince airport refused to let Miami attorney Ira Kurzban enter the country ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1292320

Congresswoman Waters Demands Senate Investigate (Bolton) Arms Shipment
Fri Apr-29-05 02:19 AM
... Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35) released a statement denouncing last year's shipment of thousands of weapons to Haiti by the U.S. Government, in violation of a 13-year-old arms embargo on Haiti, and demanding that the United States investigate why John Bolton allowed these weapons sales to occur while serving as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1431835

Haiti rules U.S. citizen can seek office
Wed Oct-12-05 12:51 AM
... A Haitian-born U.S. businessman may run for president, Haiti's highest court ruled Tuesday ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1843211

[Judi Lynn]

12. Beautiful links. Hope to read them later today. Thanks for taking the time to post them. n/t

[Bacchus39]

2. funny how the story has changed now, the current claim is that the rebels were not near P-a-P

but...

MILDRED ARISTIDE: OK. The situation is quite critical. The thugs and the FRAPH and the military, who are heavily armed in the north, are sending messages repeatedly on the airways in Haiti, that they stand ready at any moment to storm Port-au-Prince. And here in Port-au-Prince, the population has erected–I am looking out the window—lots of barricades along the streets to prevent an attack. Security is at a heightened situation, but the president’s resolve is very strong, as he indicated yesterday and through to this morning that what is important in this moment for Haiti, in terms of the future of Haiti, is to establish the stability and the political stability that Haiti has never had, and for there to be a continuity of governance from one president to the next.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/27/special_broadcast_haitian_first_lady_mildred

[subsuelo]

5. who made that claim?

and besides, isn't that the point of a truth commission to reveal the facts?

[Bacchus39]

7. magbana was saying it here just a few days back

you could look at some of the recent Haiti threads, you'll find it. magbana also said that foreign troops were already present. Chilean, US, French I think was claimed. not according to the account I posted. Aristide asked for foreign help and said just a few dozen troops should be able to dissuade the rebels from the capital

[magbana]

9. Bacchus, haven't you figured out by now that the info I have

about Haiti doesn't come from newspapers or other media sources? And, I know you would like to suggest that I make it up, but you'd be wrong. So, rummage through media reports all you want. I know what I know because I got/and still get the information firsthand from the people involved. When I say something about Haiti, you can take it to the bank.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Anyone with half a brain cell knew you know what you're talking about from the first. n/t

[Bacchus39]

13. OK, I won't believe what Aristide says then, no problem n/t

s

[struggle4progress]

14. That's fine, but it still leaves the problem of trying to understand what actually occurred:

all the evidence I've seen doesn't support the version that Bush II fed to the corporate media back in 2004 but supports instead something like what I outline in post #8 above

[Bacchus39]

15. your timeline is after the interviews I posted

both Aristide and his wife and the CBC desparately wanted US intervention. and if I am "wrong" then Aristide his wife and Maxine Waters were wrong in their interviews with Democracy now.

[struggle4progress]

16. If you have any coherent theory of the February 2004 events, you're not explaining it clearly

February 25, 2004
Haiti’s lawyer: US Is Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries, Calls For UN Peacekeepers
By Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill
Democracynow.org
... Several of the paramilitary leaders now rampaging Haiti are men who were at the forefront of the US-backed campaign of terror during the 1991-94 coup against Aristide. Among the paramilitary figures now leading the current insurrection is Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former number 2 man in the FRAPH paramilitary death squad. Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for life in trials for the April 23, 1994 massacre in the pro-democracy region of Raboteau and the September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izméry. Chamblain recently arrived in Gonaives with about 25 other commandos based in the Dominican Republic, where Chamblain has been living since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage uniforms, and all-terrain vehicles ... http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/25/haitis_lawyer_u_s_is_arming

26 February 2004
Caribbean Community Wants U.N. Peacekeepers in Haiti
U.S. will back force to support a political agreement, says Negroponte
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- The nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) asked the U.N. Security Council on February 26 to authorize the immediate deployment of a peacekeeping force to Haiti in order to stop the violence and allow time to reach a political solution to the country's ongoing crisis ... http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/02/mil-040226-usia02.htm

Volume 124 >> Issue 8 : Friday, February 27, 2004
Powell Suggests Haitian President Carefully Consider Leaving Office
By Christopher Marquis
The New York Times -- WASHINGTON
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell distanced himself Thursday from Haiti’s president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying the embattled leader needs to make a “careful examination” of whether he should step down ... Aristide, in a television interview on Thursday, said he would not resign, and his Miami-based representative, Ira Kurzban, called Powell’s remarks “disgraceful” ... Powell’s comments were the most pointed indication yet from a Bush administration official that it views Aristide’s determination to serve out his term as an impediment to a peaceful resolution of a three-week-old uprising that has claimed the lives of about 70 people and left the northern half of the country in rebel control ... http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N8/978_long_4.8w.html

AFP: Aristide Didn't Resign...
Posted by Al Giordano - February 29, 2004 at 5:23 pm
According to Agence France Press: A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out. "The American army came to take him away at two in the morning," the man said. "The Americans forced him out with weapons. It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards. (Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans..." http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2004/02/afp-aristide-didnt-resign

Aristide's moment of decision: 'Live or die'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Phil Davison
Wednesday, 3 March 2004
... Mr Aristide disputes this portrayal of events. "They were telling me that if I don't leave they would start shooting, and be killing in a matter of time. They came at night ... There were too many. I couldn't count them," he said from Bangui, Central African Republic. Other witnesses have supported Mr Aristide's claim. An elderly caretaker at the residence described similar events while yesterday an American missionary added his weight to claims that the Haitian leader was forced out. Father Michael Graves, an Orthodox missionary from New Jersey who has preached in Haiti for 18 years, told The Independent from Port-au-Prince: "I have spoken to many witnesses who said the President was kidnapped. Police officers at the Presidential Palace said that he was escorted out at gunpoint. They forced him to sign something - this evidently is the statement they have that they say is his resignation." A senior bodyguard of Mr Aristide also said the former president was forced to leave the country early on Sunday by heavily armed foreign soldiers. The security man, 35, is in hiding in Port-au-Prince for fear of his life. He said the soldiers were "white, I think American, but to be honest they could have been Canadian. I couldn't really tell the difference. They were in tropical civilian clothes but wearing flak jackets and carrying assault rifles." He told his story through a mutual friend and said he was sure he would be assassinated by the victorious Haitian rebels, if found ... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/aristides-moment-of-decision-live-or-die-571906.html


Published on Monday, April 5, 2004 by Agence France Presse
Powell Rejects Probe Into Aristide's Departure as Haiti Sets Vote
US Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected calls for a UN probe into the departure of former Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide, as the troubled country's interim administration announced elections for next year ... http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0405-06.htm

[Bacchus39]

17. my theory

just as the CBC and Aristide and others wanted back in 1994 I believe, in 2004 they wanted the US to intervene. Just as the CBC went to Clinton, they went to Bush. Bush sent in some military to protect the embassy and then to secure Port-au-Prince. However, the US told Aristide that the forces were not being sent to protect him. He must go or stay at his own risk. He went.

The intervention didn't happen as the CBC or Aristide wanted it to.

[struggle4progress]

18. Aristide ALREADY thought the US was intervening: he assumed the armed thugs were supported by the US

Links I have already posted make that much clear, and there seems to be some evidence supporting that view

[Bacchus39]

19. well, then I guess demanding the US intervene further was a mistake

at least from Aristide's and the CBC's point of view.

[magbana]

20. Based on what I know, you are right on target. I'd like to add a few things

-A shipment of arms from South Africa to support Aristide was due in Port-au-Prince on March 1, and this speeded up the plan to kidnap Aristide.

-It was Luis Moreno, Deputy Ambassador of US Embassy in P-au-P who CALLS so-called "rebel" leader Guy Philippe(obviously he had him on speed dial) late on February 28 to tell him not to head for P-au-P, becausse "we got it from here." Moreno was Aristide's "escort" in the kidnapping later in the wee hours of February 29.

-Aristide's personal security was provided under a State Dept. contract (it was the first of its kind and was/is used extensively in Iraq). The contract was held by the shadowy Steele Foundation and, of course, EVERYTHING about Aristide was going directly to the US Embassy.

-(this is for Bacchus' questions about CBC asking for US help in Haiti) Of course, the CBC and others wanted the US to come to Aristide's aide leading up to the coup, because this is de rigeur when the head of state is in your hemisphere,is democratically-elected, and you have "helped" him in the past. The CBC knew the US was wanted to remove Aristide in a coup, but publicly calling for US assistance to Aristide was about the only pressure it could apply. Of course, when the story about former congressman, Ron Dellums, receiving a call from Colin Powell asking him to convey to Aristide that Guy Philippe would be in P-au-P on Sunday, Feb. 29, and would kill him AND the US would do nothing to help him, the CBC knew exactly what was going down. But, this did not negate the need to continue to call out the Bush administration for not helping Aristide in order to rally support from CARICOM and other countries.

[Bacchus39]

21. he should've asked Venezuela and Cuba for support then

I am sure they would have provided it.

[struggle4progress]

22. The Steele Foundation appears to have been firmly in the US Administration's pocket at the time:

Iraq: Global Security Firms Fill in as Private Armies
by Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle
March 28th, 2004

A group of American construction executives was traveling in a convoy down a palm-lined highway 30 miles north of Baghdad one January day when gunfire and rocket-propelled
grenades suddenly exploded everywhere.

Private security agents riding with the convoy fought off the attackers in a hail of gunfire.

Two of the agents died, as did an unknown number of guerrillas.

The bloodshed was not publicly reported at the time, and the agents' employer, the Steele Foundation of San Francisco, drew a cloak of discreet silence over the incident ... http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11263

[Bacchus39]

3. Haiti Capital Braces For Attack

Haiti Capital Braces For Attack

Port-au-Prince is on edge with flaming barricades up across the city and armed masked men patrolling the streets as the Haitian capital braces for an assault by armed gangs opposed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We go to Haiti to hear a report from the streets of Port-au-Prince.


The Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is on edge. Armed masked men patrol the streets and flaming barricades are up across the city. Fearing an imminent attack, Haitians loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have built ramparts around the presidential palace. The number of Haitians fleeing the country has escalated. The Coast Guard says it has intercepted 546 people at sea over the past three to four days.

In a live interview on CNN yesterday, democratically-elected Haitian President Aristide said he would not step down saying “I will leave the palace on Feb. 7, 2006, which is good for democracy.” Aristide called for a small international force to be deployed to the country saying as little as “a couple of dozen” soldiers could prompt the opposition to stand down.

Opposition leaders say they are preparing an assault on the capital and former Haitian police chief Guy Philippe says he hopes to complete a takeover by Sunday.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/27/haiti_capital_braces_for_attack

[Judi Lynn]

10. Good luck to Barbara Lee, THE courageous Congresswoman who dared to stand

against _Bush impending bloodbath in Iraq.

I wonder if he finally got as much blood as he wanted to spill after telling so many lies, sending so many helpless people to the grave. One corrupt, filthy person should not be allowed to have that much unchecked power. By showing Congresspeople they can be killed any number of ways, it was easy to bend almost all of them to his will. All except for the late Paul Wellstone and the living Barbara Lee, knock on wood.

Excellent quote from the article:

“When Aristide was removed, water projects stopped, education projects stopped, healthcare clinics shut down. It wasn’t just about removing a leader, it was about destroying a real democracy. And that really needs to be accounted for.”

[subsuelo]

23. Anyone read the book "Damming the Flood... " ?

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Damning_Flood_review.html

(I haven't... I'm thinking of picking it up. I wonder what others thoughts are)

[magbana]

24. YES, Subselo. It is an excellent, thorough, and documented account

of the coup. i highly recommend it.