Right-wing thugs revel in Bush's Victory (Haiti)

[Imperialism Inc.]

Right-wing thugs revel in Bush's Victory
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=6613

Bernstein: We continue our reporting on the situation in Haiti, a situation that the mainstream, just about every reporting agency in this world has chosen not to report on. Most recently, Brazil moves to expand the 'coalition of the killing' in Haiti.by expanding and sending in more troops. This appears to be a very interesting collaboration between Brazil and the United States. A significant story, unprecedented, I believe, in this region about collaboration between the UN really, an illegitimate police force and in some cases convicted death squad activists. The attacks against the pro-democracy, pro-Aristide communities continued unabated, including two massacres by the Haitian police just last week. Yesterday and today reports continue of Haitian national police backed by units of the UN, carrying out massive sweeps, continuing the murders, arbitrary arrests and detentions, aimed at eliminating Lavalas.President Aristide's political party. The regime, the U.S. disinformation structure is definitely gearing up to support the continued repression and the continued isolation of the duly elected President of Haiti, President Aristide. The isolation, the separation between him and his people, and of course the demonization. We are delighted to have Kevin Pina back in the studio.

Pina: You have no choice, you can't lament, you've got to keep going forward, and you know I think people forget that, yeah, we're stuck with four more years of the Bush administration, but so is Latin America, the Caribbean, and Haiti, and you can imagine that this has emboldened every right wing idiot in Haiti now. So, it's not just the Haitian police being assisted by the UN eliminating Lavalas, but you've also got the morally repugnant elite, the 150 families who have golfing buddies in the Republican party, who are now emboldened by Bush's election. And you can expect that they're going to pick up their activities as well, to participate in this upcoming, I believe, what is tantamount to genocide in Haiti right now.


--
Pina: Well, it's funny you know, after Bush's election the other night, fireworks went off in some of the wealthy areas of Petionville up in the hills. The very next day, of course, the United Nations and the Haitian police were back at it again in slums like Bel Air and Cite Soleil, in Grand Ravine and Martissant. It's been almost daily now that they enter those communities; I understand that in Bel Air now the majority of the population don't even dare venture from their homes, they're so afraid that they or one of their loved ones will be caught up in one of these sweeps, because most of them are Lavalas supporters and the police know that, so the sweeps are indiscriminate. Anyone in the street can get picked up and caught up in these dragnets and get put face first on the ground, and never knowing whether its going to be as it was last Tuesday, October 26th, where 13 young men were put face down on the ground and each one had a bullet pumped into the back of their head.

--
Pina: No, we don't have record of that, but you know that the U.S. backed government immediately said that they thought this was Lavalas who dressed up in police uniforms and performed this action.to kill their own brothers and sisters to blame it on the government; you hear this kind of nonsense all the time, but the truth is that now we've got really solid evidence and witnesses and family members coming forward now and giving so many details of the uniforms, of the police cars that were used. The United Nations weren't there but you've also got to remember that there have been 100 Royal Canadian Mounted Police who have been instructing the Haitian police since Aristide's forced ouster February 29th; and that the United Nations has taken responsibility for retraining the police force, and what has that meant? That's meant integrating the former military - the killers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 - into the , wholesale. I'll give you an example: before Aristide's departure there were 10 department commanders in the Haitian police force. Two out of the ten were former military; today, they are 100% former military, and any police who were suspected of having any sort of sympathy with Lavalas have been systematically purged, driven into hiding, false accusations given against them, in order to basically cleanse the ranks of the Haitian police and now it has become, virtually, the Haitian military, again. While at the same time all of this is happening under the control, under the aegis, under the guidance, if you will, of the United Nations mission.

[rkc3]

1. And so it begins, another foray into Central/South America.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. What I want to know is

What is so damned important about Haiti that we have to keep overthrowing its democracy movements? They don't have any oil. Or much of anything else.

[JAbuchan08]

4. It's was a third world country with an elected govt. silly!

We don't like those governments unless we "count the votes" ourselves.

[AP]

5. Cheap labor for US textile companies.

Disney, which owns ABC, apparently does a lot of business with a textile factory there (making pyjamas).

Other American companies which make money off cheap Haitian labor: WalMart, JC Penneys, Kelly Reed, Hanes...


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/US_Haiti_Connection.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. I mighta guessed... eom

[AP]

8. As a NC'ian, you might be able to appreciate why cheap textiles are so

importatn to the RW. They destroy unions in the US and create huge profits for large companies.

[Imperialism Inc.]

7. Cheap Labor is right,

From the article above.


Pina: It's been undergoing not just police actions by the Haitian police from the outside, backed up by the United Nations, externally, but internally its been under heavy destabilization efforts by some of the same people who were in opposition to Aristide and Lavalas. I think there was an article in the New York Times about a week ago, where it portrayed the situation in Cite Soleil as, really, 'inter-gang violence,' gangs that had been with Aristide that turned against Aristide versus gangs that have remained loyal to Aristide. Well, people don't understand that people like Apaid - Andy Apaid, who's one of the largest sweatshop owners in Haiti, who's part of the Group of 184, which was the so-called "opposition" to Aristide.it's public relations arm is in Washington, D.C., something called the Haiti Democracy Project, which is funded by a right-wing man named Reginald Boulos , the Boulos family, which is very intimately involved in Cite Soleil. Both Andy Apaid and Reginald Boulos have pumped tremendous amounts of money into Cite Soleil to actually buy gangs to turn against Lavalas to then battle the pro-Lavalas gangs so that the press can sit back and say 'well, our fair and balanced reporting is to say that inter-gang violence between those who used to support Aristide and those who no longer support him,' without reporting the money that's being dumped into Cite Soleil by Boulos and by Apaid who, obviously, are two of the main backers of the coup against Aristide that overthrew February 29th, before he was taken out by force by U.S. Marines.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup

Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup


PRESS ADVISORY
Monday, April 4, 2004
Media Contact: Dustin Langley 212-633-6646

As Bush Administration Scrambles to Shore Up Appointed Haitian Regime Commission to Present Conclusive Evidence of U.S. Role in Kidnapping and Coup

Date: Wednesday, April 7
Time: 6:30- 9:30 pm
Location: The Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College

Panel to include: Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Major Owens, Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Ossie Davis, Gil Noble, Amy Goodman, Ron Daniels, and other prominent activists and journalists

The Bush Administration is facing a growing crisis over its role in the coup in Haiti and the kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who continues to speak out about his abduction by the U.S. The 15-member organization of Caribbean nations, CARICOM, has refused to recognize the U.S.-installed regime and has called for an investigation, despite intense pressure and threats from the U.S. The 53-member African Union has raised the same demand.

On Wednesday, April 7, the Haiti Commission of Inquiry will initiate a public inquiry of the role of the Bush Administration in the crisis in Haiti. Delegations that visited both the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic will present conclusive evidence that U.S. Special Forces armed, trained, and directed the "rebels" and engineered the abduction of President Aristide.

The preliminary report from the Commission states, "two hundred U.S. Special Forces soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of 'Operation Jaded Task,' with special authorization from 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."

Johnnie Stevens of the International Action Center, a member of the delegation to the Central African Republic, said, "The U.S.-installed Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, has hailed the paid mercenaries as freedom fighters, and had thus discredited himself among the Caribbean nations."

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a desperate bid to lend some credibility to the Latortue government, is now visiting Haiti for the first time. This attempt to put U. S. weight behind the isolated colonial-style regime is a response to its growing isolation. Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center, said, "This visit by Powell is a sign of the Bush Administration’s growing isolation and disarray. The U.S. is desperately trying to shore up a discredited regime in the face of international opposition to the appointed government of Haiti after the stinging rebuke directed at the U.S. by the recent CARICOM meeting." Flounders is a member of the Haiti Commission of Inquiry and was part of the delegation to the Central African Republic, where she visited with President Aristide shortly after his kidnapping.

Kim Ives from Haiti Progres, who was part of the delegation to the Dominican Republic, 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'etat 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."

For more information, or to schedule an interview with a member of the Commission, call Dustin Langley at 212-633-6646.

Share this page with a friend

http://www.iacenter.org/haiti_0407press.htm

US Troopers Secretly Land in Dominican Republic
The military training operation nicknamed Jaded Task took by surprise Dominican Foreign Ministry.

The US Army started today a training operation in the Caribbean country as part of routine maneuvers of the Southern Command. The landing had been kept so secretly that Dominican Foreign Ministry Hugo Tolentino was reported... by the TV.

As per the first reports, the US troops are training Dominican soldiers on anti-terrorism operations in the north of the island. When the national media started announcing the landing, country's Foreign Minister was having a lunch. Tolentino said that, as chief of the Dominican diplomacy, he should have been formally advised, as personally requested to the Dominican Army and the US Embassy to Santo Domingo.

(snip)

However, the most interesting thing, here, is that the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic did know about the operations. This correspondent had access to two formal communications issued by the US Embassy including details of these activities, during the Communist summit held in Buenos Aires in January. There, the US ambassador to Santo Domingo reported about 10.000 soldiers coming to the Dominican Republic to take part of the training.

Moreover, the communists and other leftist forces in the country made know such documents to the local media in November. According to the denounce, US soldiers can freely enter and leave the country without any kind of permission. Also, they can do it through owned means of conveyance.

more
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/02/20/43514.html