Breaking CNN - New Haitian PM flies into Haiti from his home in U.S.

[eablair3]

Live at around 2:30 pm PST on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports - the reporter was Harris Whitbeck by videophone:

Video of the the new "Prime Minister" of Haiti, Gerard LaTortue, just arriving in Haiti a few minutes ago by plane from the United States at the Port-Au-Prince Toussaint L'Ouverture airport.

In talking to reporters at the airport LaTortue said that security and disarmament will be his top priorities.

LaTortue also stated he will form a commission to look into reconstituting Haiti's army.

[arcane1]

1. could it be any more blatant?

:puke:

"security and disarmament will be his top priorities"

I bet they will...

[Jacobin]

2. Why am I not surprised?

sigh, just the coup du jour......

who's next? Venezuela? Cuba?

[Chicago Democrat]

4. Venezuela

Already US "aid" is going to fund the opposition. Your tax dollars at work, subverting democracy.

[eablair3]

5. Cuba

If Bush were to win re-election, I don't think it would be out of the question for Bush in his second term, when he doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected, to invade Cuba to "save the people" there, to "bring them freedom", "to liberate them" and "bring them democracy."

It's kind of scary to think what Bush would do if he is re-elected for another 4 years and has the power and doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected again. How bold would they be then?

[IndianaGreen]

17. And the new Cuban Prime Minister will be flown to Havana from Miami

And the anti-Semites of the Cuban-American National Foundation will reverse the laws on religious freedom that Cuba now has. Pre-revolutionary Cuba had Catholicism as its official religion.

[symbolman]

22. Always remember

and spread the word..

Bush CANNOT be "re-elected" as he was NEVER elected in the first place..

I just can't stand the use of that word with the Chimpo :)

[eablair3]

23. thanks for the correction (nt)

[Chicago Democrat]

3. What is this Bullshit "Council of Sages" who picked this

pretender?

JFK2's To Do List:

1) Re-invade Haiti in January 2005 and restore Aristide.

[Fridays Child]

6. LaTortue is currently an "international business consultant in Miami."

(wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

[Judi Lynn]

24. He must have LOVED Miami.

How's THIS for a quote?

For decades, Miami has been the preferred retirement community for Latin America's regurgitated rightwing: when the people spit out the politicians responsible for keeping them in poverty, the ex-rulers are frequently swallowed up by Miami.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/miami102803.cfm

[Robb]

7. Meanwhile, Yvon Neptune, the ACTUAL PM

...gets press like ...Yvon Neptune, a close ally of the former slum priest. :eyes:

[truth2power]

8. On NPR News Hour tonight

I was watching the News Hour and Gwen Ifil interviewed Sen. Chris Dodd and some Repug about the events in Haiti. I can't even remember his name. I think I just blocked it out. It was all I could do to restrain myself from putting my fist through my TV.

Sen. Dodd said the US shouldn't be seen as overthrowing democratically elected governments just because we think they're flawed. The Repug creature said, in substance, that that didn't matter; that we need to move on and get clean water and help for those with AIDS. He said that over and over.

Well, why didn't that sorry sack of sh*t offer some help before, when Aristide was begging for help and the US refused, this according to Dodd. The Repug said Aristide was consorting with thugs and that's why he had to go.

I notice a pattern here. Every time this administration commits some outrage and they're called on it they say it's old news and not worth discussing and we need to move ahead and concentrate on improving conditions for the people we just "liberated". And the outrages go on and on.

And BTW, I just finished reading "Eyes of the Heart", by Aristide. It's a little book, only about 86 pages. Published in 2000. There is no way I can believe that the man who wrote that book had anything but compassion for his people.

And we assisted in his overthrow, both overtly and covertly, IMO. Bush, Cheney, Powell, are monsters. All of them. :puke:

[5thGenDemocrat]

13. The Rethug in question

Was Norm Coleman (R-BlowupDoll) of Minnesota.
John
Watches News Hour every night. Getting so I don't know why.

[Lindacooks]

16. I HATE HIM

I wouldn't be surprised if he was personally involved in Senator Wellstone's 'accident'.

[jmcgowanjm]

9. "The First Free Nation of Free Men"

Haiti was the first free nation of free men to arise within, and in resistance to, the emerging constellation of Western European empire.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00048.htm

[arcane1]

10. and we hate them for their freedom

ironic, isn't it?

[Just Me]

11. Yes, yet another sad day for real democracy,...

,...and the American people are pretty much clueless.

Wake up, America,...the real America that I know!!!

Since I have found many outside my more proactively informed friends horrified at the thought that our leadership is capable of such obvious atrocity,...I have started discussing this situation in more, ummmmm,...let's say, "third party" terms. I don't identify nations. Instead, I ask "what if" questions which specifically include the facts of this situation without reference to a "who's who" identification. The response is immediate. I'll bet you'll never guess that response,...*smile*. Yeah,...they think it's horrible. *sigh* Then, I acknowledge the response is "common sense", with which the other agrees. Then, I ask, "What if the US has done that?"

I'll bet you'll never guess the reaction to my question,...*smile*. Yeah,...our people cannot swallow the possibility that its leadership is that "bad",...because our people are so passionate about being "good".

Wake up, America,...the real America that I know, which wants passionately to do good!!!

[arcane1]

12. that's one of the biggest obstacles we have

so many people are smitten by our civic myths, and have never even tried to view US policy with any sort of objectivity. Once they do, and they wake up, there's no going back to sleep

[Matilda]

19. I read this piece in Common Dreams today.

Gives a very good background, from the horse's mouth, you could say.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0310-07.htm

[Judi Lynn]

27. Thanks for the info. I intend to share it, too, now.

I've heard about Smedley Butler in the last few years, but not enough to know what he experienced in Haiti.

This REALLY helps;

I was a racketeer for capitalism," he proclaimed. "I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of a half dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street."

What are the chances an honest man in the government will step forward again, and take the chances he took to get out the truth?

[eablair3]

28. a couple more links with some interesting info

you may have seen these before, but here are a couple I have stumbled across on Haiti that I thought were pretty decent and relevant, even if a little dated.

From FAIR, 1994, on the demonization of Aristide:
http://www.fair.org/extra/9411/aristide-demonization.html
Pretty interesting to see FAIR's analysis of the media in this one.

Another from around the same time on the background and why the U.S. keeps intervening in Haiti:
http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue18/dow18.htm

And, several on Smedley:
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/war_is_a_racket_033103.htm (same)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer42.html
http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

[gate of the sun]

14. friend of Jeb's

just a guess heard he lived in south florida.

[robertarctor]

15. Norm Coleman?

That's the son of a bitch the GOP foisted into Paul Wellstone's seat after they, ahem, landed Wellstone's plane in the northern Minnesota woods. And that POS Coleman is talking about "moving on"? What a Nazi gasbag coup d'etat committing fuckstick.

[Judi Lynn]

25. If Minnesotans could have simply elected a truly inferior candidate first

perhaps Paul Wellstone would still be with us.

[IndianaGreen]

18. Haiti: US Marines expand operations as Washington assembles puppet regime

Haiti: US Marines expand operations as Washington assembles puppet regime
By Keith Jones
11 March 2004

Having used a “rebel” force led by thugs of previous Haitian dictators to force the country’s elected president from power, the Bush administration is now trying to patch together a constitutional and democratic façade for a new, US-sponsored government—what the New York Times politely calls a “pro-US” regime.

On Monday, the head of Haiti’s Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, was sworn in as deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s successor. This was Alexandre’s second induction as president. On February 29, shortly after American military and diplomatic personnel had hustled Aristide from Haiti, the US Ambassador stage-managed Alexandre’s swearing-in at the home of Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. However, this ceremony was deemed to have lacked decorum, and so Alexandre’s swearing-in was restaged for the television cameras at the National Palace.

The next day, a seven-member committee of “eminent Haitians” that had been set up by the US and French, with United Nations sanction, announced it had selected Gérard Latortue to replace Neptune as Haiti’s prime minister. The committee included just one representative of Aristide’s Lavalas Party.

A lawyer, business consultant, and ex-UN official who served in the brief post-Duvalier government of Leslie Manigat, Latortue has lived in the US since at least 1994. For the past year, he has hosted a South Florida television talk show, which has often served as a soapbox for the right-wing opposition to Aristide.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m11.shtml

[dax]

20. Kevin Pina said on Flashpoints that it is too dangerous for him to report

He said that anyone trying to report out of Haiti is now a target. The opposition troops under cover of the occupation forces are assassinating individuals and performing mass executions as well in the interior of the country of unionists, activists and Lavalas party members and supporters as well as innocent people in the neighborhoods. They are shooting police and destroying government institutions, schools and all the buses that were taking children to schools. A number of children have died and been orphaned. WHERE THE HELL IS HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH NOW??? A priest who is a friend of Aristide said the criminals that were released from the prisons are also committing crimes and the right wing press is attributing all crimes as being from Aristide supporters. A group were herded into an outhouse which was doused with gas and burned. The first day of the coup they herded a group into a container and dumped it into the sea. So where is windansea on this?? is this democracy or maybe a bigger slaughter than 911 done by our government on a poor nation of gentle black people who were denied any help as the Bushies tried to starve them into submission. Just like Chile and Cuba they could not let Aristide succeed because the world would then know that their privatization and corporate control and IMF rule is not your friend-IMF is very pleased with these developments- and France is just tickled because Aristide was just recently pursuing a legitamate demand for the return of the 21 million France charged Haiti for the slaves to buy their freedom. No word on if the 5 million Aristide paid to pay off Duvalier's debts to get a loan from IMF that was never received is going to be paid back.How many times do slaves have to pay for their freedom with blood and money while their children starve? They had hope with Aristide-he built more schools than the previous 200 years combined and was busing children to them. But the elite did not think they should have to pay taxes or a higher minimum wage.cheap bastards -too bad we can't frog march them with Noriega and Bush and the rest into the Hague with any other NAZIS we could round up. I want to be an "enemy combatant" but I am too old and can't shoot well enough! We cannot let this story die. I have written all my congress people but don't expect much from that. I cancelled my sub to Christian Science monitor-they are whitewashing it like everybody else.

[dax]

21. snips from the other thread on this details I talked about...

eablair3 (795 posts) Thu Mar-11-04 07:58 AM
Response to Reply #18

21. gruesome reports and TRAGIC - partial transcript

Edited on Thu Mar-11-04 08:02 AM by eablair3
looks like the repression and murders and killings are on-going. how tragic is this - partial transcript:
_____________

Dennis Bernstein: from the Haitian Press Agency: "Many residents of Cap-Haitian who have sought refuge in Port-Au-Prince are appealling to human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to dispatch an investigation in the wake of reports regarding the fate of several citizens arrested by armed civilians who had taken control of the City of Cap-Haitian on Feb 22. The captives who were arrested following the arson attack against the police station are said to have been locked away for several days inside a container before being dumped into the sea while still inside the container. According to the same reports several police officers and supporters of family Lavalas were murdered. 'Only an investigation conducted by serious and independent organizations could make it possible to assess the veracity of these accusation according to the residents.' Many supporters of President Aristide are said to have been massacred in the city of Saint-Marc the day following the departure (the kidnapping) of President Aristide. Some of the alleged victims including police officers and are said to have been burned alive, according to the reports.

...

Dennis Bernstein: this comes from Jean Stuckey. she is a missionary, and she is quoting a letter of one of her missionaries in Saint-Marc: "As we write this letter a report came from Saint-Marc that people were packed into an outhouse until they could not get in anymore. The door was closed. Gasoline was poured into it, and it was set on fire. The people were forced to stay inside. Things of this nature are happening time and again."

...

Dennis Bernstein: We can't confirm this. It's difficult but joining us to talk a little bit about what's going on on the ground in Haiti is our good friend and special correspondent, Kevin Pina. Kevin, what can you tell us about what's been going on on the ground? We are hearing of shootings by the military. We are also hearing reports of mass murders.

Kevin Pina: They are definitely happening. I can't give you specifics right now. My situation does not allow me to ah ... actually, Dennis, this will be my last broadcast for a while.

Dennis Bernstein: What's going on, Kevin?

Kevin Pina: Well, I just have to say that, ah, the so-called democratic opposition that is now in charge in this country ... and who are in control of this country now, .. they have demonized Lavalas, but at the same time they are committing atrocities on a scale well above that which they ever accussed Jean Bertrand Aristide or the base of Lavalas of committing. It means that I can no longer continue to report directly to you and our listeners from Port-Au-Prince. It means that I have to change my strategy. This is a situation of repression, down right repression. The only thing we can hope is that people will not lose interest. That people will continue to keep Haiti in their hearts, in their minds and in their prayers. People are very, very desperate at this moment. People are dying in the manner in which you said, but anyone who dares to report that, who dares to go against the official line which demonzies Lavalas, which calls them chimeres, which justifies their slaughter, are a target for repression by this new regime which overthrew Jean Bertrand Aristide.

(snip)

Kevin Pina: The repression that's going on right now is not getting out to the world. The kinds of reports that you gave at the head of the program, are coming in ... I mean I can't, .. I could cry if I told you the frequency that they're coming in. And, the kinds of things that I'm hearing. And, now the situation has changed where anyone who would dare say anything, who would dare report that is now in danger.

(snip)

Kevin Pina: The majority of the poor still continue to support their constitutionally elected President. This disinformation campaign led by the United States and France did its dirty job. It overthrew this government in a coup d'etat. We are now seeing that athough they are putting a different face to the world, what's going on behind the scenes is that if you try to report it, if you try to talk about it, you are a target.

(snip)

Kevin Pina: ... We have in place now U.S. rule.

(snip)

Kevin Pina: The press here is controlled by the elite, and they are very close to and buddy buddy to the corporate media. You are not going to hear the truth for a long time in this country.

Dennis Bernstein: Is there anything we can do for in terms of you and how we can continue to support the work that you are doing?

Kevin Pina: Dennis, you know. People can call Dennis and Dennis knows who to point them to. I'm not going to say right now. Yeah, but I'm gonna keep on keeping. Um, listen, what have I done? All I have done is try to give the perspective, a voice to the voiceless, those people who are poorest of this country, who for once had a chance to represent themselves in the political life of this country. Now, that voice is being forced back into its homes, into its hobbles, into its slums, it's being repressed back there. Um, I did no harm. I left more than I took. And, I only hope that history will show that. If people want to know what to do, they should contact you and you know who to put them in touch with Dennis, that's all I can say.

____________

Pina said that no one he has talked to in the Lavalas party knew who the one supposed member of Lavalas was on the so called 7-member Council of Sages.

[eablair3]

26. LaTortue to meet with Guy Philippe - says he helped bring democracy back

from an article about LaTortue leaving Miami to head to Haiti:
_______

Florida neighbors will miss Haiti's new prime minister


snip

He urged Haitians not to try to leave for America.

Before boarding an afternoon flight at Miami International Airport, Latortue told reporters he plans to meet with Guy Philippe, the leader of the rebellion that consumed half the country and sparked the resignation of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"I will speak to him the way I will speak to others," he said. "He is one of the ones who helped bring democracy back to Haiti."

He dismissed Aristide as "a thing of the past as far as I am concerned" and accused the exiled leader of lying to the people and mismanaging Haiti.

snip

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0304/11haitifla.html