Convicts Rule Haiti Town, Executions Plague Another

[Tinoire]

Convicts Rule Haiti Town, Executions Plague Another

By Michael Christie

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - The northeast Haitian town of Fort Liberte lives up to its name for 150 murderers, rapists and thieves freed from the local jail. They run the place.

<snip>

Most of Fort Liberte, a small town on the pockmarked road to the Dominican Republic border from the northern port of Cap-Haitien, is in the hands of escaped convicts, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Stores are shuttered and the streets are empty.

"The town is virtually deserted. There is no market. Many houses have been burned. Prisoners control most parts of the city," said U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.

Far to the southwest, in the seaside town of Les Cayes, armed rebels who helped oust Haiti's first democratically elected leader carry out public executions, unchallenged by police or foreign troops.

<snip>

Neither the French soldiers nor the police have taken any action to free Aristide supporters illegally detained by the rebels, or to confiscate weapons.

<snip>

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VJDPCJJGPK2CYCRBAEZSFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=4638215&pageNumber=1

[burrowowl]

1. Unfortunately

all this is typical and has been for 200 years.:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
When will we ever learn!? Gone to graveyards everyone, when will we ever learn?

[tlcandie]

2. I'm late clicking on this because the state of affairs there is just so

depressing :/ How many people are there still alive? I mean this can't just keep on keeping on with innocent people staying alive to tell the truth of the matter. :cry:

What a truly insane world we are living in when assassinations, murder, lying, stealing, cheating...whatever, is an 'in' thing to do while ruling or taking over a country.

Humans have sunk to an all time low and I'm not sure if we can make it back up from this hell which we are living.

[eablair3]

3. I just hope to see an investigation into who armed these thugs

I have no doubts that it was the CIA/DIA. And, for the U.S. not to know who armed them this is criminal. Of course, if the U.S. armed them, then it would explain why it doesn't want an investigation and why the U.S. is not concerned with arresting any of these criminals.

The CIA armed these same coup perpetrators in the past. So, I have little doubt that the criminals that went on a killing and murder spree leading up the U.S. coup this time were again backed by the U.S.

Some links on past CIA coup activities in Haiti in the past that have been uncovered:

http://www.hopedance.org/archive/issue32/articles/pitteli-haiti.htm

http://haitireborn.org/campaigns/toto-constant/background.php

http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/constant.htm
________________

another synopsis of the past concerning the activities of FRAPH and it's terror and initimidation campaign in Haiti in the early 90s:

This policy of intimidation was, by and large, a success. Aside from murdering opposition figures, the leadership of peasant groups, trade unions, grass-roots and neighborhood organizations was decimated. More significant, the FRAPH campaign created a climate of terror, with hundreds of thousands going into hiding or fleeing the country. The terror was directed, in large part, by FRAPH founder Emanuel "Toto" Constant who then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher conceded, was a CIA-paid informant during most of this period. Nor did Constant's relationship with the spy agency end with the return of Aristide's constitutional government. "Are the American Embassy and FRAPH strolling hand-in-hand?" queried a headline in Port-au-Prince daily Le Nouvelliste. It certainly seemed that way.

Shortly after a rally at the U.S. Embassy, at which Constant, struggling to be heard over cries of "murderer," unsuccessfully attempted to transform himself into a viable political candidate, and FRAPH into a legitimate opposition party, Constant disappeared. In January, U.S. officials ridiculed reports on Haitian Creole radio stations that Constant had been seen walking around Washington. In fact, the reports were true. On Christmas Eve, Constant was admitted to the United States on a tourist visa, a circumstance for which no credible explanation has ever been given.

When taken into custody, Constant announced he was suing the United States government for $50 million and that he "was a paid agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, which knew of his activities and did not discourage them." While in jail, Constant called the producers of "60 Minutes," claiming that he had founded FRAPH at the urging of defense intelligence and had had regular meetings with the CIA station chief in Haiti, John Kambourian. Constant's increasing volubility proved to be all the incentive the State Department, as well as other agencies Constant implicated, needed to settle. Among the conditions of Constant's parole was his silence about his relations with the CIA. He has since settled in Cambria Heights, in Queens, New York.


http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/news/nws88.htm

[seemslikeadream]

6. From a great thread started by Octafish in GD

Haiti: Drugs, Thugs, the CIA, and the Deterrence of Democracy


There's a reason the BFEE wants Aristide out of Haiti:
He interferes with the Bushco Division of Drug-running.

HAITI: DRUGS,THUGS, THE C.I.A., AND THE DETERRENCE OF DEMOCRACY

SNIP...

After the October 30, 1993 deadline to restore duly-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide passed unrealized, observers reported an increasing sense of fear and despair. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the 1991 bloody military coup which ousted Aristide. Few Americans are aware of our secret involvement in Haitian politics, nor the impact those policies have had on the US.

Some of the high military officials involved in the coup have been on the CIA's payroll from "the mid-1980s at least until the 1991 coup..." According to one government official, "Several of the principal players of the current situation were compensated by the US government."

Further, the CIA "tried to intervene in Haiti's election with a covert- action program that would have undercut the political strength" of Aristide. The aborted attempt to influence the 1988 election was authorized by then-President Ronald Reagan and the National Security Council. The program was blocked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a rare move.

Next, a confidential Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) report revealed that Haiti is "a major transshipment point for cocaine traffickers" who are funneling drugs from Colombia and the Dominican Republic into the United States. The DEA report also revealed that the drug trafficking, which is bringing one to four tons of cocaine per month into the US, worth $300-$500 million annually, is taking place with "the knowledge and active involvement of high military officials and business elites."

CONTINUED...

http://www.netti.fi/~makako/mind/haiti1.htm

Haiti’s Nightmare: The Cocaine Coup & The CIA Connection

Edited on Sat Mar-20-04 04:39 PM by seemslikeadream
Aristide’s electrifying accusations opened the floodgate of even more sinister revelations. Massachusetts senator John Kerry heads a subcommittee concerned with international terrorism and drug trafficking that turned up collusion between the CIA and drug traffickers during the late 1980s’ Iran Contra hearings.

Kerry had developed detailed information on drug trafficking by Haiti’s military rulers that led to the indictment in Miami in 1988, of Lt. Col. Jean Paul. The indictment was a major embarrassment to the Haitian military, especially since Paul defiantly refused to surrender to U.S. authorities. It was just a month before thousands of U.S. troops invaded Panama and arrested Manuel Noriega who, like Col. Paul, was also under indictment for drug trafficking in Florida.

In November 1989, Col. Paul was found dead after he consumed a traditional Haitian good will gift—a bowel of pumpkin soup. Haitian officials accused Paul’s wife of the murder, apparently because she had been cheated out of her share of a cocaine deal by associates of her husband, who were involved in smuggling through Miami.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3524444.stm

The U.S. senate also heard testimony in 1988 that then interior minister, Gen. Williams Regala, and his DEA liaison officer, protected and supervised cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then Haitian military commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers in return for landing rights in the mid 1980’s.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/415.html



Haiti's drug links are thought to date back to "Baby Doc" Duvalier
Haiti's drug money scourge

Easy money

At the same time, the rebels who ousted Mr Aristide have also been linked to the illegal drugs trade.

One of the rebel leaders, Guy Philippe, allegedly had his US visa revoked because of involvement in the drugs trade when he was police commissioner of the north coast city of Cap-Haitien.

Another prominent rebel, Jodel Chamblain, is known to have been close to Michel Francois in the early 1990s, when he was one of the leaders of the Fraph paramilitaries.

He has also been sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of a businessman and the 1994 killing of Aristide supporters.

Sympathisers of the former president have also alleged that the rebels who took control of Haiti in February 2004 were directly financed by drugs money, but there has so far been no proof of this.

The American news sources all have been making out like Aristide's the bad guy. Here's what our friends to the south (of Detroit) are saying:

New Haitian Prime Minister praises rebels


By MARINA JIMENEZ
From Monday's Globe and Mail

GONAÏVES, HAITI — In a visit rich in symbolism, Haiti's interim leader held his first rally this weekend in the city of Gonaives, where he paid tribute to the self-styled ''freedom fighters'' who ousted former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Gerard Latortue, a native of this gritty port city north of Port-au-Prince, was appointed Prime Minister after Mr. Aristide fled into exile Feb. 29. He praised the rebels, a ragtag street gang formerly known as the Cannibal Army, but he also reminded them of their promise to surrender their arms.

"People said the people of Gonaïves were thugs and bandits. But I know you are freedom fighters," Mr. Latortue, a 69-year-old economist, told the crowd of 3,000 gathered in the city's main square. He asked for a minute of silence for gangster leader Amiot Metayer, whose death sparked the rebels' Feb. 5 attack on a Gonaïves police station -- the beginning of the uprising.

There remains a virtual power vacuum in Gonaïves. The unofficial police chief is a young man named Wilfort Ferdinand, also known as T-Will, who wore a white suit and thick silver chain at Saturday's rally. His deputy is Billy Augustin, a 23-year-old with broken front teeth who worked in a Target discount store in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., until eight months ago, when he came to Haiti, bought a 9mm handgun and became commander of "the soldiers." After sharing the stage with Mr. Latortue at Saturday's rally, T-Will and Mr. Augustin surrendered a grand total of 10 weapons, mostly inoperative M-16s and rifles, at a restaurant off the city's main road. Schoolchildren and boys on bicycles were among the host of fly-swatting local residents who crammed into the restaurant to catch a glimpse of the scene.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040322.wxhaiti22/BNS...

Troops spread out from capital


Rebels won't disarm until pro-Aristides do

By Paisley Dodds, Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- French troops Friday began deploying to northern Haiti as U.S. troops fanned out to the east and the south, pledging to provide security to deliver food, medicine and other essential supplies disrupted during last month's rebellion.


In February, drug lord Beaudoin "Jacques" Ketant was sentenced to 27 years for money laundering and moving 41 tons of Colombian cocaine through Haiti to the United States. He told a Miami court that Aristide "turned the country into a narco-country."

Ira Kurzban, then a Miami attorney for the Haitian government, dismissed the allegations, calling Ketant "a lying, convicted drug dealer."

Aristide had accused the rebels of funding their uprising with money from the sale of illegal drugs.

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2030595,00.html

In memory of Ricardo Ortega


Thanks, oasis! Been busier than a crooked bean counter at Hastert's GAO of late.

Here's a compelling essay on the passing of a real journalist, shot dead while covering the BFEE-led coup:


In memory of Ricardo Ortega

by Daniel Estulin
(Tuesday 09 March 2004)

"You may feel that there is an implication that loss may actually be sought, although not perversely, not for its own sake. A loss is a reality displaced; reality is a rehearsal for dream. Regret is a fulfillment rather than an accident."

This is the last time we saw him alive, an average size man with a microphone, gazing out from the screen, meeting our eyes, but unable to recognise them, to help and to comfort because he is only a photographed figure and cannot see beyond the flat world which contains him. He is alive because he moves and because he speaks, because he was alive when the film was taken; but also dead—photographed people always are, already a memory.

SNIP...

Ricardo Ortega was pronounced clinically dead on March 7, 2004. It was supposed to have been his last afternoon as himself, as Auden said of the day Yeats died: "he became his admirers". He became a memory; disappeared into his name. It is one of the mysteries of death that it should seem to make so little difference to all but those close to the person. What has changed? There will be no more reports, interviews, books, jokes, walks, talks from that source. But what if the life and its memory we lost is already deep and rich, enough for our lifetime? What more do we want? Most will not be able to meet the person, the reporter, the journalist, the foreign correspondent they probably should not have met anyway. Such deaths are like the deaths of acquaintances we have not seen for ages, would never have seen again. A scarcely perceptible shift in what was already an absence. Except for us, in Spain, this man was ours. This person was not a person for us, not merely a reputation either. His name stood for habits of decency, ways of looking and thinking; they altered the colour of mind of those who watched and listened to him. This life of his cannot be changed by his death. Time in this context is a matter not of the clock but of chance and temperature.

I start with these mementoes because I am about to talk about what was to become a short while later, a fictional and a metaphorical death, and I want to give physical death its due—a mark of piety towards what is actually irreplaceable, un-transferable in those lives now gone.

Like the rest of us, people die at least twice. Once physically, once notionally; when the heart stops and when forgetting begins. The lucky ones, the great ones, are those whose second death is decently, perhaps indefinitely postponed. But I want to shield Ricardo from this untimely, terrible death, which momentarily was forced on him by his executioners. I will weave him into this essay, thus his death could only be unmasked as a fiction, as a fragment of faith. Death reveals that there has been no life, only a dream of life.

CONTINUED...

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/5467 /

BTW: The western press blames "Aristide supporters" for the gunfire that claimed Mr. Ortega.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1164642,00.html



37 year old Ricardo Ortega, a veteran reporter for the Spanish television station Antena 3, seen in this undated tv image, was shot and later died while covering the conflict in Haiti, Sunday March 7, 2004. Gunmen opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters demanding that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide be tried for alleged corruption and killings by his armed militants. At least 5 people including Ortega were reported to have been killed. (AP Photo/EFE)



Medical workers attend to television journalist Ricardo Ortega at the Canapevert Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, March 7, 2004. (Reuters/Daniel Morel)



The bodies of three other people, including Spanish correspondent Ricardo Ortega, for Antena 3 of Spain, lie in a makeshift morgue in the Canapevert Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, March 7, 2004. (Reuters/Daniel Morel)



Workers at the Canapevert Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, carry the body of Spanish carrespondent Ricardo Ortega of Antena 3 of Spain after he was shot to death by ousted Haitian dictator Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who armed, trained and financed the terrorists to help him perpetuate the dictatorship of the proletariat.. (Reuters/Daniel Morel)

US and France Kiss and Makeup, Haitian Democracy Dies


by Justin Felux
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 6, 2004


Leave it to the New York Times to turn the bloody overthrow of a democratically elected President into a veritable love story. In an article published on March 3rd entitled "U.S. and France Set Aside Differences in Effort to Resolve Haiti Conflict" the newspaper of record reported that "the joint diplomacy over Haiti is a dramatic example of how the longtime allies can set aside differences, find common ground, play to their strengths and even operate in an atmosphere of trust." The story goes on to weave a tale so charming and rosy that one would never guess scores of people were being needlessly slaughtered in the background.


Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, described Aristide's ouster as being the result of "perfect coordination" between the U.S. and France. In addition, "Mr. Bush telephoned Mr. Chirac to express delight over 'the excellent French-American cooperation in Haiti' and to 'thank France for its action.'" Colin Powell and Dominique de Villepin also managed to mend fences during the crisis: "During the Iraq crisis, Mr. Powell and Mr. de Villepin each felt betrayed by the other. . . But that was then. The Haiti crisis has required Mr. Powell and Mr. de Villepin to consult regularly by phone, sometimes more than once a day."


Am I the only one who finds this disgusting? They should have taken it a step further and described the way Colin's heart would begin to race when he picked up the phone and heard Dominique's voice on the other end. Colin never felt comfortable having to constantly worry whether or not Dominique was still mad at him. They could also describe how Dominique longed for the days when he and Colin used to be friends, and how he could scarcely remember the last time they smiled at one another. Ever since they got into that fight about Iraq their relationship hadn't been the same. Colin seemed so cold and distant.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Felux0306.htm

Thanks for caring so much, seemslikeadream!


Here's an excellent recap of what's going on for those who haven't understood as well as you and the many DUers who care so very much. Third World Traveler is an EXCELLENT resource on many issues of interest, BTW:

Trials of Haiti

by Tracy Kidder
The Nation magazine, October 27, 2003

EXCERPT...

All over Haiti, you see boys and girls carrying water, balancing plastic buckets on their heads as they trek long distances up and down the hillsides of Port-au-Prince or climb steep footpaths in the countryside. Many of the water-carriers are orphans, known as restavek-children who work as indentured servants for poor families. Contaminated water is one of the causes of Haiti's extremely high rate of maternal mortality, the main reason there are so many orphans available for carrying water. "Sanitation service systems are almost nonexistent," reads one development report. Many Haitians drink from rivers or polluted wells or stagnant reservoirs, adding citron, key lime juice, in the belief that this will make the water safe. The results are epidemic levels of diseases such as typhoid, and a great deal of acute and chronic diarrhea, which tends to flourish among children under 5, especially ones who are malnourished. Hunger is rampant. "Haitians today are estimated to be the fourth most undernourished people on earth, after Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia," the World Bank reported in 2002. The cures for many water-borne ailments are simple. But in Haiti, it's estimated (almost certainly overestimated) that only 60 percent have access even to rudimentary healthcare. In the countryside, the vast majority have to travel at least an hour, over paths and main roads that resemble dry riverbeds, to reach health centers, which not only charge fees that most can't afford to pay but also lack the most basic provisions.

Last winter, I visited the centerpiece of Haiti's public health system, the University Hospital in Port-au-Prince. It was founded in 1918, during the time when American Marines occupied and essentially ran the country. It's a large complex of concrete buildings in the center of the city, and it seemed to be open when I arrived. My Haitian guide and I strolled over toward the pediatric wing. It seemed unnaturally quiet. No babies crying. Inside, the reason was obvious. There were no doctors or nurses or patients in sight, only a young male custodian, who explained that the doctors had recently ended a strike but that the nurses had now launched one of their own. Strikes at the hospital are frequent; this one had to do with current political strife.

"Where did the sick children go?" I asked my Haitian guide.

"They went home." She made a face. "To die."

We walked past rows of empty metal cribs, and then, turning a corner, down at the end of a long row of old metal beds with bare, stained mattresses, we saw a lone patient. A girl Iying on her side, very thin in the arms and legs, with a swollen belly. Her mother, standing beside the bed, explained that the girl had been sick for a long time. The doctors said she had typhoid. When the strike began, the mother and daughter had simply stayed, because the mother didn't know what else to do. But a doctor did stop in now and then, and had left behind some pills. At the hospital, the morgue, at least, was functioning. I looked into the one reserved for victims of diseases, mostly diseases that could have been prevented or cured. The door was made of corroded metal, like the door to a meat locker. The room inside was filled with trays on racks, stacked horizontally, several bodies per tray, the majority children, the little girls still in their dresses, bows in the hair.

Diarrhea alone kills sixty-eight Haitian children out of every 1,000 before the age of 5. Did many of the people in the morgue die because of dirty water? I asked the medical director.

CONTINUED...

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

Tinoire (1000+ posts) Sun Mar-21-04 09:15 PM
Response to Original message

18. The drug-dealing FRAPH has full immunity to do as they like :(

Edited on Sun Mar-21-04 09:16 PM by Tinoire
Port-au-Prince, March 19, 2004 -(AHP)- The Comité des Avocats pour le Respect des Libertés Individuelles (CARLI) (Committee of Lawyers for the Respect of Individual Liberties) said Friday it was deeply preoccupied by the impunity of some of the people who committed exactions on the population during the military coup of 1991.

According to CARLI, these individuals, of whom Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Pierre alias Jean Tatoune, are a real threat to Haitian society.

<snip>

CARLI's executive secretary, Renand Hédouville, said that, when talking about human rights, no crime should go unpunished. The perpetrators of the 1991 coup massacres who are still walking the streets in impunity should be brought before a court of law, Renand Hédouville said.

He also asked that those who 'mysteriously' escaped prison should be sent back to jail.


<snip>

Guy Philippe's men are still active in Artibonite, the North, Northwest, Plateau-Central and Northeast where they are accused of perpetrating serious exactions on the local population.

AHP 19 March 2004 3:45 PM

http://www.ahphaiti.org/eng.html

===


NCHR asks that Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Tatoune be sent to jail and says an investigation was opened on the case of Lavalas activists who were apparently drowned in a container at Cap-Haïtien

Port-au-Prince, March 19, 2004 -(AHP)- The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) has asked Friday that FRAPH leader, Louis Jodel Chamblain, and Jean Pierre alias Jean Tatoune be arrested and sent directly to jail, as both of them should be sentenced to life for their participation in slaughters against the Haitian people.

This call by the NCHR comes about 22 days after these 2 confirmed criminals were accused of participating in the murder of many police officers and civilians during the fighting which led to the overthrow of President Aristide.


<snip>

In Port-au-Prince, many sectors state that most human rights organizations had stayed shut on these 2 men's actions when they lead the opposition's fight at the Gonaïves and other regions of the country to overthrow President Aristide.

<snip>

The NCHR coordinator announced there would soon be an investigation on the case of Lavalas activists who were killed at Cap-haïtien on February 22 when Cap-Haïtien went down to the rebels. The victims were apparently locked in a container before being drowned at sea.

An investigation is also underway on the bloody events at St-Marc before and after President Aristide's departure. Guy Philippe's men killed supporters and opponents of President Aristide as well as many other citizens at Petit-Gôave and Cayes.

AHP 19 March 2004 2:05 PM

===

Citizens held prisoners at sea on a boat from the Haitian coast guard could be in serious trouble
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<snip>

Port-au-Prince, March 19, 2004 -(AHP)- Many members of the political organization Fanmi Lavalas and police officers who were arrested on Friday, March 13 at Port-au-Prince are held prisoners at sea on a boat from the Haitian coast guard at Bizoton (South of the capital).

Among others, there are division commissioner Jacques Anthony Nazaire, who was one of the managers of security for President Aristide; SMCRS manager, Paul Keller, police officer Pétion Ospide and a former pro-mayor of Port-au-Prince, Harold Sevère.

One of these prisoners, Anthony Nazaire, who suffers from a handicap to an arm after the December 17, 2001 attack on the national palace left him with serious injuries, is allegedly in serious trouble, the AHP learned.

<snip>


http://www.haitienmarche.com

Octafish (1000+ posts) Mon Mar-22-04 11:45 AM
Response to Reply #18

22. Friends of the BFEE: Liars, Thieves, Drug-runners, Murderers...


...Sounds like home. And, believe me, the BFEE wants to base America on the Haitian business model.

Great post, Tinoire. Thanks for putting some names on the Bush "Friends List."

Here's a bit of background from one who knows why this is worth caring about:


Haiti at brink again - US owes help

By Randall Robinson

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS – Ten years ago, I risked my life by embarking on a hunger strike. It was a desperate attempt to change America's Haiti policy. In the 28th day of my fast, President Clinton announced that the US would pursue a more just Haiti policy. Shortly thereafter, a US-led multinational force reinstalled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a military coup. Haiti's first democratically elected president, Mr. Aristide had won in a landslide, and I was proud to stand with the Haitian people - and him.

Today, Aristide - who stepped down at the end of his first term and was reelected to the presidency in 2000 - is under attack again. Political unrest is rocking the poverty-stricken nation - including protests both for and against the president. And a summit of Caribbean Community representatives has begun a series of meetings to resolve the crisis. This week they are meeting with Aristide opponents who accuse him of trampling on civil rights and are demanding he step down.


Again, I stand with this leader and his right to complete his five-year term. And again, I urge the US - the world's most powerful democracy - to resolutely embrace Haiti's democratically elected president.

How has Aristide - who was so loved and revered - ended up the focus of calls for his ouster?

Aristide may have failings in his ability to negotiate the vicious power divide between Haiti's economic elite and its broader masses, but US policy has created an environment in which it is impossible for him to succeed.

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0123/p11s01-coop.html


This was all on a great thread started by Octafish in GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1257891

[Jacobin]

4. Another "successful"coup by this administration

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

5. Thank you so much Tinoire for EVERYTHING

Here's some things from another thread:




By Michael Christie

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - The northeast Haitian town of Fort Liberte lives up to its name for 150 murderers, rapists and thieves freed from the local jail. They run the place.

Three weeks after a multinational force landed in Haiti to restore order after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was driven into exile by an armed revolt and U.S. pressure, lawlessness remains the rule in parts of the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Most of Fort Liberte, a small town on the pockmarked road to the Dominican Republic border from the northern port of Cap-Haitien, is in the hands of escaped convicts, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Stores are shuttered and the streets are empty.

"It's been three weeks since the Multinational Interim Force arrived in Haiti, but the rule of law has yet to be re-established in the north," Joanne Mariner, deputy director of the group's Americas Division, said in a report on Monday. (Additional reporting by Ibon Villelabeitia in Port-au-Prince)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=463821...

In rebel-held Haiti, police outnumbered and outgunned by rebels who hold c


And the rebel leader serves as de facto judge. Louis-Jodel Chamblain sits cross-armed at a wooden desk beneath an almond tree at the police headquarters his fighters torched.

Chamblain was co-leader of a paramilitary death squad convicted in his absence to two life sentences in jail for his part in a 1994 massacre of Aristide supporters and the 1993 execution of Aristide financier Antoine Izmery.

Chamblain returned from exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic to lead a band of former soldiers and ragtag recruits who have jailed dozens of people accused of everything from petty thievery to fighting for Aristide.

Chamblain said he decides on minor offenses but is holding suspects for serious crimes until courts reopen – a promise met with skepticism by rights groups.

"You know what the sentence is for a thief?" Chamblain jokes to a terrified 15-year-old accused of stealing an empty oil drum. "Being shot down."

Looters emptied the World Food Program warehouse of 800 tons of food the day after the rebels took over, and there are fears that could happen again. Wednesday's scheduled shipment of 1,550 tons of food will be the largest to the north since the crisis began, World Food Program spokesman Alejandro Chicheri said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040323-1601-haiti.html





Louis Jodel Chamblain, right, is seen during a meeting on Nov. 23,1993 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Witnesses said about 50 rebels led by Chamblain descended Monday Feb. 16, 2004 on a police station in Hinche and killed three officers before police fled the city of 50,000, about 70 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince. Chamblain is a former soldier who once headed the feared paramilitary group FRAPH _ the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti _ which killed and maimed hundreds of Aristide supporters under military dictatorship between 1991 and 1994. (AP Photo/Daniel Morel)

And this lovely photo and article from JudiLyn



Jessie Helms as a VOODOO Doll

The senator from North Carolina finds a way to attack Planned Parenthood while hiding his well-known penchant for pro-life politics.

By Mat Honan

March 23, 1999

Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) got his panties in a wad yet again last week. It seems that the good senator was incensed to discover that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding what Helms strongly suspects to be voodoo in Haiti. Since we have our own voodoo connection of sorts, the MoJo Wire decided to take a closer look at his suspicions.

Helms' alarm bells apparently started going off when, while perusing the 1996 International Planned Parenthood Foundation annual report, he read about "a campaign to reach voodoo followers with sexual and reproductive health information ... by performing short song-prayers about STDs and the benefits of family planning during voodoo ceremonies." As would any conscientious senator (especially one who uses prayer breakfasts with Jerry Falwell as political fundraisers), Helms fired off a letter to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, demanding that the funding be stopped. In doing so he made it clear that he is hiding his well-known penchant for pro-life politics behind a wall of voodoo (italics ours):

"On February 3, the wrote to the Committee requesting permission to proceed withy the obligation of funds for population control programs ... It is no secret that these programs are far too often wrongheaded and wasteful. Nevertheless, if the Administration insists on funding these programs I shall not stand in the way, so long as you agree to the following conditions: 1) that no funds be obligated to any affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) in Haiti, including PROFAMIL; and 2) that no funds be provided directly or indirectly to any group whose programs include producing material intended to be used in a voodoo ceremony ... A.I.D. is funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft."
(snip)
Sources within the State Department, who asked not to be identified, told the MoJo Wire that funding for the IPPF in Haiti was discontinued, partially but not wholly, due to Helms' concerns. However, USAID claims that the eliminated funding was simply part of a larger family-planning program that had already run its course.
(snip/...)

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/1999/03/voodoo.html

(Note the article was published exactly 5 years ago. What hath God wrought?)

Note to seemslikeadream:

Your contribution on Haiti matters has been wonderful. There's no way people would ever have the time to find so many photos, conveying so much a sense of what is happening there. Louis Jodel Chamblain looks everybit as bad as one would expect for a man who plays for our right-wing interests. Obviously there's NOTHING he won't do to gain a sense of power. Living a good life, being a decent person flew out the window a lot time ago when he learned we have interests here who need someone in countries like Haiti to help them keep the citizens paralyzed with fear.

I hope he's enjoying the hell out of his life now, and that the people who employed him to kill, main, and terrorize his fellow Haitians will have to face some higher authority sometime, somewhere, if not here and now in our lifetimes.

[lostnfound]

7. I will write another letter to my congressmen & an LTTE about this..

More signs of the effects of US 'stabilizing' a country.

With the 9-11 hearings going on, many of us are spending much time trying to glimpse a bit of truth between the lies. I've been listening almost all day at work to the hearings.

But Haiti is heavy on my mind. I've started reading 'The Uses of Haiti'..very enlightening so far. And I hear that the chairman of TransAfrica will be here giving a talk in a couple of weeks about Haiti, which I hope to attend.

Seems like the best hope would be if Kerry gets elected we could pressure him into re-restoring Aristide but without the unreasonable economic stranglehold put on him the last time.

Hmm..if that could be accomplished, I can dream a little further and imagine Haiti as a focus for a 'fair trade' campaign, a test case for the improvements of fair trade. As progressive groups try to coordinate their efforts, such things might be possible.

[Judi Lynn]

8. More on that arms shipment from S.A. we heard about & discussed here

which had been expected to arrive in Haiti before President Aristide was kidnapped:

Leon still waiting for response on Haiti arms

March 24 2004 at 02:09PM



Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Wednesday that he had written another letter to President Thabo Mbeki regarding a consignment of arms sent to Haiti in the dying hours of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's regime.

Leon said he had to date received no answer to his previous query regarding the dispatch in February of a South African Air Force Boeing 707 to the Caribbean island state loaded with 150 R1-assault rifles, ammunition and assorted equipment.

"This is the most extraordinary thing in a constitutional democracy. If it wasn't for a journalist and a newspaper in Jamaica, we would never have known about this deployment," Leon told a press conference in Johannesburg.

The DA leader said he had taken legal advice on the matter from an advocate in Cape Town who advised him that the flight to Haiti amounted to the employment of the Defence Force as contemplated in the constitution as well as in the new Defence Act, and that government, by not reporting this deployment to parliament within the stipulated 14 days, was in breach of the law.
(snip/...)

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=6&art_id=qw1080130142942B265&set_id=1