Haiti rebels 'backed by drug money'

[Say_What]

Hey AWOL-Boy, you POS, happy now?

<clips>

HAITI'S rebels raised the stakes yesterday by declaring themselves in control of security, refusing to disarm and vowing to arrest the Prime Minister, as suspicion emerged over whether the uprising had been financed by drug money.

US Marines scrambled to protect Prime Minister Yvon Neptune following the threat, and nerves were heightened further by rebel leader Guy Philippe's declaration that he controlled Haiti "on a military and police level".

Philippe said his forces would not yield to pressure to disarm until the chimeres gangs loyal to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide were no longer a threat.

"We won't give back our weapons now," Philippe told supporters after leading a noisy march through the capital Port-au-Prince.

"We have to protect ourselves and the Haitian people until the chimeres are disarmed."

<http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8864023%255E2703,00.html>

[Minstrel Boy]

1. Standard operating procedure

See this thread for more on Haiti, drugs and the CIA:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1186395

[daleo]

2. Were these guys useful idiots?

Does Bushco plan to put this bunch in power, or were they just rubes that were used to help in the Aristide ouster?

[Say_What]

3. Gotta feeling this is gonna backfire on Bush BIGTIME --they armed

these guys, just like they did Osama. Bush sent thousands of M16s to the Dominican Republic 15 months ago.

<clips>

The US lawyer representing the government of Haiti charged today that the US government is directly involved in a military coup attempt against the country's democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ira Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney who has served as General Counsel to the Haitian government since 1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to overthrow Aristide are being backed by Washington.

"I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States," Kurzban told the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. "This is clearly a military operation, and it's a military coup."

"There's enough indications from our point of view, at least from my point of view, that the United States certainly knew what was coming about two weeks before this military operation started," Kurzban said. "The United States made contingency plans for Guantanamo."

If a direct US connection is proven, it will mark the second time in just over a decade that Washington has been involved in a coup in Haiti.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/25/1613200

[htuttle]

4. I believe that there was a 'dual-use' situation going on...

...in that each side was using the other.

Like the situation in Iraq and Mr. Chalabi, the rebels were once again using the US to take out it's enemies. Whatever Bush had in store for Guy Philippe is now moot -- he knew that once he was on the ground, with the guns, with Aristide gone thanks to us, that he would be able to do whatever he wanted, no matter what the Bush administration's wishes.