Lawlessness Underscores Haiti Challenge

[seemslikeadream]

STEVENSON JACOBS

Associated Press


LES CAYES, Haiti - More than a month after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted and a new government installed, Haitians in this dusty port town of 50,000 are still terrified to venture out on the streets.

"The person in charge is the person with the biggest gun," said a young doctor at Les Cayes' Immaculate Conception Hospital, which has treated dozens of people wounded in clashes between pro- and anti-Aristide forces. He refused to give his name for safety reasons.

"The police are too frightened to go out, so we have to do their jobs for them," said Silias, wearing an old camouflage ball cap, a soccer jersey and a gold watch. "We're fighting for our country."

Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29. Three days before his ouster, vandals looted the police station, stealing guns, freeing more than 100 prisoners and forcing most officers to flee, Avril said. Several businesses were ransacked in Les Cayes, some 110 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital.

It's like living in a prison for many people," said Darline Domercant, an aid worker for Terra Les Hommes, a Lauzanne, Switzerland-based nongovernment group cares for malnourished children. "Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow."

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Powell's boys in charge now

[seemslikeadream]

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

April 7: 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.

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

[madrchsod]

2. i thought they were free

from the terror of aristide`s corruption and things are fine now. the people are happy and secure since we helped to free them by offering aristide a free plane ride to africa. i get so many things wrong,these days

[seemslikeadream]

3. Don't worry be happy

Powell said he couldn't send the marines to help Aristide but now it's a different story