IMO.
The Overthrow of Haiti's Aristide:
a Coup made in the USA
The violent overthrow and forced exile of Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has ripped aside the democratic pretensions of Washington and the other major powers to expose the brutal and predatory character of resurgent imperialism. The actions taken by the US government in Haiti demonstrate the farcical character of its claims that the aim of the US invasion of Iraq was to inaugurate an era of democratization and freedom in the Middle East and around the world.
Aristide's overthrow is the outcome of a bloody coup orchestrated by the Bush administration and aided by the Chirac government in Paris. It was executed by a band of killers drawn from the disbanded and discredited Haitian army and the CIA-backed death squads that terrorized the population under the former military dictatorship that ruled the country in the early 1990s.
Among those leading the armed bands that overran the country are Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former Haitian army officer sentenced to life at hard labor in connection with the 1993 assassination of political activist Antoine Izméry, and Jean-Pierre Baptiste, likewise sentenced to life for his role in a 1994 massacre. Both were leaders of the FRAPH, or Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, a CIA-backed organization that carried out state terror against opponents of the military regime that ruled the country from 1991 to 1994.
Another leader of the armed bands is Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian military who received training from US Special Forces in Ecuador in the 1990s and was then sent back to Haiti, where he became a brutal police chief and sought to organize a coup in 2000. He is suspected of involvement in cocaine trafficking.
These heavily armed terrorists invaded Haiti from across the border with the Dominican Republic. There is convincing evidence that they were trained, financed and armed by Washington, provided with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers and other weapons out of stockpiles originally sent to the Dominican army.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Haiti_Coup_Made_US.htmlThe long-suffering people of Haiti suffered a catastrophic blow in February, 2004 when U.S. Marines kidnapped and deposed democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The U.S., supported by Canada and France, forced him into exile, forbade him from even returning to the hemisphere, and reestablished a despotic interim puppet government backed and enforced by so-called UN peacekeepers and a brutal Haitian National Police...
Why did the U.S. plan and carry out this act of savage banditry against a leader beloved by his people and last reelected in 2000 with 92% of the vote? It was because he cared about the 80% or more desperately poor and disadvantaged Haitians and was committed to improving their lives. He was determined to serve their interests rather than those of his dominant northern neighbor. That policy of any nation, especially less developed ones, is always unacceptable to the predatory neoliberal agenda of all U.S. administrations, the giant transnational corporations whose interests they serve, and in Haiti, their elite junior business partners. The Bush administration, in league with these dominant business interests, intends to return this nation of 8.5 million people, the poorest in the Americas, to its pre-Aristide status of virtual serfdom. To do it they destroyed Haiti's freedom and first ever democracy in its history and turned the country into a killing field."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Haiti.htmlCanada's increasing involvement:
Canada plays big role in propping up Haiti regime
by Tim Pelzer
The Canadian government is taking a leadership role in propping up the U.S.-installed regime in Haiti and keeping Fanmi Lavalas, the party of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from returning to power.
While the Canadian government currently promotes a message of reconciliation and advocates the peaceful reconstruction of Haitian society, it quietly supported the U.S. overthrow of democratically elected President Aristide.
Despite denials from the Ministry of External Affairs, journalist Michel Vastel reported in the Quebec-based magazine L'Actualite that Canadian officials secretly met with U.S., Latin American and French diplomats to plan Aristide's overthrow. He also reported that Canadian and French officials discussed placing Haiti under UN guardianship, similar to Kosovo, in January 2003.
The U.S. funded the country's anti-Aristide opposition that destabilized the Lavalas government. U.S. marines then apprehended Aristide and flew him out of the country and into exile on Feb. 29, 2004.
After the U.S. deposed Aristide, the Canadian government, without uttering a word of criticism of the Bush administration's actions, sent soldiers and police officers to join the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) occupying Haiti. This force, led by Brazil, has been supporting the government's campaign to repress Lavalas supporters, accompanying police raids into pro-Lavalas neighborhoods.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Canada-PropsUp_Regime.html