Haiti cops shoot at crowd

[seemslikeadream]

24/03/2005 19:41 - (SA)

Cite Soleil, Haiti - Gunfire erupted on Thursday at protest outside Haiti's capital of several thousand people calling for the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and at least one man was killed and another wounded, witnesses said.

The protest started peacefully in the seaside slum of Cite Soleil with marchers waving photos of Aristide, who was ousted from power last year, and chanting "Aristide forever!"

Several gunshots rang out as the demonstrators approached the local police station, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. The origin of the gunfire was not clear and police officers immediately dropped to the ground but did not open fire. No injuries were reported at that point.

Police opened fire on crowd

Five to 10 minutes later, some 3km away on the road leading to the international airport, shots broke out again, wounding one man in the arm and killing another.
more
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1681131,00.html

[latteromden]

1. Things are just getting bizarre in this world lately... so much

unrest, more than normal, it seems.

[plasticsundance]

2. One of the most underreported stories

The US coup in Haiti, and the illegal ousting of Aristide. The US made Haiti more of a mess, and in typical fashion the American public are banned from witnessing the aftermath of its government actions and policies.

[Matariki]

3. Bush Family in Haiti

Bush Senior in office - military coup ousting Aristide
Clinton in office - US military intervenes and restores Aristide to office.
Bush Junior in office and Aristide gets kidnapped.

You figure it out.

I say it's cocaine running. Amongst the 'leaders' of the coup were known drug runners. B* Family conveniently has one of their sons positioned on the Florida border - much more important now that the other son is no longer on the Texas border. Coke goes from south america to Haiti to florida now.

These people are such fuckers. The poverty and suffering in Haiti is tremendous and now, thanks to these bastards it is even worse.

[seemslikeadream]

4. BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html 3 minute video



Let America be America Again


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Langston Hughes

[struggle4progress]

5. Haitian police open fire on pro-Aristide march

<snip> Thursday's protest, one of the largest in recent weeks, started peacefully in the seaside slum of Cite Soleil with thousands of marchers chanting "Aristide forever!" and waving photos of the deposed leader.

Several gunshots rang out as the demonstrators approached the local police station, which was guarded by dozens of black-clad, heavily armed Haitian officers, including some positioned on the roof with their rifles trained at the crowd. A small group of UN civilian police was also present.

Protesters said the shots were fired by an anti-Aristide street gang trying to break up the march. The gunfire sent protesters fleeing down side streets and into buildings, but didn't apparently injure anyone. Police officers immediately dropped to the ground and aimed their rifles into the crowd but did not fire.

Shortly after, several black-clad police began shooting as a group of protesters reached a main avenue leading to Port-au-Prince's international airport, killing one man, witnesses said. Associated Press reporters saw police firing into the air and toward protesters. <snip>

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/03/26/2003247859

[chlamor]

6. RE:Post #3 & Narcotics

Trade winds dictate the route and refueling points for narcotics trafficking in this region. Haiti is a refueling point due to its position in relation to those trade winds. The cargo coming from various points in S. America to Miami needs a secure haven where inspections are controlled. Haiti is such a place. It is a transit point. Ask Guy Phillipe.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Guy Philippe

In 2000, Haitian authorities said they had discovered Philippe was plotting a coup with a group of other police chiefs. Philippe fled to the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

Haitian and U.S. authorities say that Philippe was involved in drug trafficking while he was police chief in Cap-Haitien, as well as during his exile in the Dominican Republic, although he has never been officially accused of any drug crimes.

The Haitian government has accused Philippe of organizing an attack on the police academy in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, in July 2001, and another attack in December 2001 on the national palace. The Organization of American States investigated, but was unable to find out who was behind the attacks.

Philippe was thought to have been in exile, but in February 2004, he appeared at a news conference at the side of one of the leaders of the anti-Aristide rebels.

His rebel group, the National Front for the Liberation of Haiti, is largely made up of former soldiers who lost their jobs when the military was demobilized.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/haiti/philippe.html

Guy Philippe
Guy Philippe is a former member of the FAD’H (Haitian Army). During the 1991-94 military regime, he and a number of other officers received training from the US Special Forces in Equador, and when the FAD’H was dissolved by Aristide in early 1995, Philippe was incorporated into the new National Police Force.

He served as police chief in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Delmas and in the second city, Cap-Haitien, before he fled Haiti in October 2000 when Haitian authorities discovered him plotting what they described as a coup, together with a clique of other police chiefs. Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of master-minding deadly attacks on the Haitian Police Academy and the National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as hit-and-run raids against police stations on Haiti’s Central Plateau over last two years.

http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng02-25.html

The leader of the insurrectionary forces, Guy Philippe, age thirty-five, trained by the United States as an army officer in Ecuador. He was integrated into the new Haitian National Police in 1995 and his first command post was in Ouanaminthe, on the northern border with the Dominican Republic. Later, in about 1997 to 1999, he served as police chief for Delmas, a large urban district on the north side of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. During his tenure there, the UN/OAS International Civilian Mission learned that dozens of suspected gang members were summarily executed, mainly by police under the command of Inspector Berthony Bazile, Philippe’s deputy.

On October 18, 2000, Haiti’s prime minister announced that Philippe and other officers were plotting a coup d’etat. Before they were arrested, however, the men escaped over the border to the Dominican Republic.

http://www.flashpoints.net/Haiti_Rebel_Leaders.html