Aristide was drug lord, U.S. claims

[rawstory]

As seen on The Raw Story, http://rawstory.com

Days before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced out of Haiti, a notorious cocaine trafficker stood before a federal judge in Miami and said Aristide, once his friend, had turned Haiti into "a narco-country."

"The man is a drug lord," Beaudouin "Jacques" Ketant told U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno on Feb. 25. "He controlled the drug trade in Haiti." His country in rebellion, Aristide left four days later aboard a plane provided by the U.S. government.

In recent weeks, it has become clear that federal law enforcement officials in South Florida are putting a lot of stock in what Ketant has to say. The high-living cocaine trafficker has emerged as a central figure in an investigation that has snagged five former Haitian officials and appears to have Aristide in its sights.

<snip>

Observers of Haiti say a combination of forces conspired to increase the cocaine supply and deepen corruption after Aristide was elected in 2000. They include a decision to freeze millions in U.S. aid and a crackdown on Colombian smuggling routes through Mexico and at the U.S. border.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/8973278.htm

###

Don't know how much I believe this, but...

[Jabbery]

1. He also had weapons of mass destruction

Well, he had "plans" to build them, and the intent. The world is better off without Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power. The dictator and his terrorist allies no longer operate rape rooms and torture chambers....

[Voice_of_Europe]

2. Regime change...

So... guess who operates them now?...

Regime change just means that there is ANOTHER regime now..

[seemslikeadream]

11. Who's who of the Haiti Coup - death squad veterans and convicted murderers

Who's who of the Haiti Coup - death squad veterans and convicted murderers




Rebel leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain talks with other rebels at their headquarters in the Mont Joli Hotel in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Saturday Feb. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Pablo Aneli).

Louis-Jodel Chamblain

Convicted assassin and leader of death squads

Chamblain was the number 2 man in the FRAPH death squad which participated in the campaign of terror during the 1991 coup against Aristide.
Terrorising supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family party, the group was blamed for thousands of killings before a US intervention ended three years of military rule in 1994.
"I am scared of what I did, not of what I didn't do," Chamblain told the AP. "I never committed murder. I am not a terrorist. I am not a drug dealer. I am not a criminal."

He was, however, convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for the September 11, 1993 murder of Aristide financier Antoine Izmery, who was dragged from Mass in a church, made to kneel outside and shot.
Chamblain was also convicted for the April 23, 1994 massacre in the pro-democracy region of Raboteau.
A CIA intelligence memorandum implicated him in the October 14, 1993 assassination of Justice Minister Guy Malary who, with his bodyguard, was ambushed and machine-gunned.

According to the CIA memorandum, dated October 28, 1993, and obtained by the Centre for Constitutional Rights, "FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary".
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant was the founder of FRAPH.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20040307T040000-0500_56740_OB ...

Analysis: Haiti's diverse rebels


The exiles' leader is Louis Jodel Chamblain, 50, who fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994.

A former sergeant, he is accused taking part in a number of atrocities during the years of military rule.

He was suspected of involvement in a 1987 election massacre, in which 34 voters were killed and a civilian-run ballot aborted.

In 1993 in co-founded the Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress - Fraph, which sounds like "hit" in French.


The group is accused of killing thousands of supporters of Mr Aristide.

Plots

Mr Chamblain denies involvement in any paramilitary activities and describes himself as a "Haitian patriot".

He returned from exile with another controversial former soldier, Guy Philippe, 35.


Aristide supporters are being hunted down across the north
Trained in the United States and Ecuador, he was a senior security official under President Rene Preval, a civilian elected in 1995.

Now Mr Philippe and Mr Chamblain are allies, and celebrating their capture of Cap-Haitien, the country's second city at the weekend.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3515267.stm


Louis Jodel Chamblain


Chamblain was joint leader - along with CIA operative Emmanuel “Toto” Constant - of the Front révolutionnaire pour l’avancement et le progrès haïtien, (Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress) known by its acronym - FRAPH - which phonetically resembles the French and Creole words for ‘to beat’ or ‘to thrash’. FRAPH was formed by the military authorities who were the de facto leaders of the country during the 1991-94 military regime, and was responsible for numerous human rights violations before the 1994 restoration of democratic governance.

Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain’s leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights: “FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary.” (Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living freely in Queens, NYC.)

In September 1995, Chamblain was among seven senior military and FRAPH leaders convicted in absentia and sentenced to forced labour for life for involvement in the September 1993 extrajudicial execution of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. In late 1994 or early 1995, it is understood that Chamblain went into exile to the Dominican Republic in order to avoid prosecution.

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

The most disturbing figure in the rebel leadership is Louis Jodel Chamblain. He is reported to have led the insurgents’ attacks on Central Plateau towns, including the regional capital of Hinche.

Chamblain was a sergeant in the Haitian army (FAd’H), and a member of the elite Corps des Leopards. He left the army in 1989 or 1990 and reappeared on the scene in 1993 as one of the founders of the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress (Front révolutionnaire pour l’avancement et le progrès haïtien, FRAPH). Known as its number two leader, he had a reputation for violence and action (in contrast to the better known and more media-friendly Emmanuel “Toto” Constant). In the report of Haitian Truth and Justice Commission, there is a statement by Emmanuel Constant that explains that FRAPH’s central committee was composed of himself, Chamblain, Mireille Durocher-Bertin, a lawyer who was murdered in 1995, and Alphonse Lahens (a prominent Duvalierist).

Chamblain was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1993 murder of businessman and activist Antoine Izmery, as well as for involvement in the 1994 Raboteau massacre. He is also implicated in the assassination of Justice Minister Guy Malary, who was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to a 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, “FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary.”

Chamblain escaped to the Dominican Republic in 1994, after the U.S. military intervention in Haiti, and returned to the country in late 2003 or early 2004.

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



Novak's friend Boniface Alexandre


When Caribbean neighbor Jamaica gave asylum to Aristide two weeks ago, an infuriated LaTortue immediately recalled Haiti's ambassador to Kingston. A second return of Aristide as a free man is ruled out. Boniface Alexandre, the Supreme Court chief justice who became provisional president upon Aristide's resignation under Haiti's constitution, is a careful jurist who measures his words -- except when it comes to Aristide. "He cannot come back to Haiti," Alexandre told me. Aristide will return only if it is decided to indict and extradite him, Justice Minister Bernard Grousse informed me.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20040325.shtml

Haiti: Marines patrol and rebels disarm


While Aristide has been replaced by interim President Boniface Alexandre, his real authority in Haiti has come into question, particularly now that rebel forces have entered the city and proclaimed their intention to reinstate the military.

Led by 36-year-old former military officer Guy Philippe -- who Tuesday proclaimed himself the "military chief" in Haiti -- the rebels began taking over cities in the North in early February with the intention of forcing Aristide's resignation.

The rebels and Haiti's political opposition -- though not aligned -- had been calling for Aristide to step down after what has been termed faulty elections in 2000 and widespread allegations of human rights abuses and corruption.

Since completing their sweep of the Caribbean nation, the rebels said days ago that they would put down their weapons at the request of the president, then appeared to modify their stance as Haiti's second coming of the military. Many of the rebels were soldiers in the nation's army when Aristide disbanded it in 1995.

The president was ousted in a military coup in the early 1990s then restored to power in 1994 with the help of 20,000 U.S. troops.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040303-123122-1509r.htm

29 February 2004

Haitian President Resigns, Supreme Court President Sworn In
U.S. deploys Marines as initial contingent of multinational force

Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and departed Port-au-Prince the morning of February 29, resolving the impasse at the root of violence in Haiti in recent weeks, according to the U.S. State Department.

In a February 29 statement, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the United States facilitated Aristide's safe departure and noted that Haitian Supreme Court President Boniface Alexandre has been sworn in as head of state until presidential elections are held.

The statement called on all Haitians to respect the peaceful and constitutional succession, and added that the United States will deploy U.S. Marines as the intitial contingent of a multinational force.

The U.S. will also work with the international community to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing international support for Haiti's transition, the statement said.

Under a plan crafted by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the U.S. and international community "will facilitate the urgent formation of an independent government that will represent the interests of all of the Haitian people."

Following is the text of the statement:




Statement by Richard Boucher, Spokesman


Statement on the Resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti


Jean-Bertrand Aristide has resigned as president of the Republic of Haiti, submitting a letter of resignation before departing Port-au-Prince safely early this morning. At President Aristide's request, the United States facilitated his safe departure from Haiti.
.
In conformity with Haiti's constitution, Supreme Court President Boniface Alexandre has been sworn in as head of state until presidential elections are held. We have been informed that Prime Minister Yvon Neptune will continue to serve as Haiti's head of government until a successor is appointed in the next days, within the framework of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Plan of Action.

We call on all Haitians to respect this peaceful and constitutional succession and to refrain from any actions that will undermine national reconciliation. We urge all Haitians to cooperate with the international community as it supports measures to build a more just society and to help defeat the scourge of poverty and disease.

The decision by President Aristide to resign resolves the political impasse that is the root of the violent unrest in Haiti in recent weeks. Therefore, the United States will deploy a contingent of U.S. Marines as the initial contingent of a multinational interim force. We have been informed that several other countries are prepared to move quickly to join this mission.

During the course of the day we will continue consulting with our partners in CARICOM and the Organization of American States, as well as Canada and France, to seek a resolution of the United Nations Security Council authorizing international support for a peaceful and constitutional transition in Haiti. As envisaged under the CARICOM plan, the international community will facilitate the urgent formation of an independent government that will represent the interests of all of the Haitian people.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/02/mil-040229 ...



André “Andy” Apaid, Jr.,


Last December, after a powwow with the International Republican Institute in Santo Domingo, the Haitian opposition returned to Port-au-Prince to establish the “Group of 184,” a supposedly broad front of “civil society” organizations modeled on similar anti-government coalitions in Chavez’s Venezuela and Allende’s Chile.

The head of the “184" today is André “Andy” Apaid, Jr., also head of Alpha Industries, one of the oldest and largest assembly factories in Haiti.

On Nov. 11, Haiti’s Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert confirmed that Apaid is indeed a U.S. citizen, a rumor which had been circulating since the industrialist’s emergence on the political scene. According to Privert, Apaid was born to Haitian parents in the U.S. and came to Haiti in 1976 as a foreign businessman on a visitor’s visa.

After five years, any foreigner can obtain Haitian nationality by naturalization under the Constitution’s Article 12, but “Andy” Apaid has never done this, according to the government.

Andy is following in the political footsteps of his father. As founder of Alpha Sewing in the 1970s, André senior was a close to dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and remains “a notorious Duvalierist,” according to Eric Verhoogen in the Multinational Monitor (April 1996). Apaid senior headed up the “civil society” (read: bourgeoisie) campaign to support the 1991-1994 military coup against President Aristide, which successfully eased U.S. sanctions on the export of goods from Haiti’s assembly sweat-shops.

“When asked at a business conference in Miami soon after the coup in 1991 what he would do if President Aristide returned to Haiti, Apaid replied vehemently, ‘I’d strangle him!’” Verhoogen wrote. “At the time, Apaid was heading up the United States Agency for International Develop-ment’s (USAID’s) PROMINEX business promotion project, a $12.7 million program to encourage U.S. and Canadian firms to move their businesses to Haiti.”

http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html


ANDY APAID JR.:

The most outspoken leader of the opposition coalition, Apaid is a factory owner born in the United States. His family fled Haiti under Francois Duvalier, or "Papa Doc," who ruled from 1957 to 1971.

Favoring pressed pastel shirts and gold-rimmed glasses, Apaid looks like a Miami businessman but says he is totally Haitian at heart.

"I am just as much a part of this country as anyone," Apaid, in his early 50s, said recently. "That's why I am saying we must choose another path for the country."

But without a constitutional amendment, he will never become president because of his dual nationality. He has rejected the U.S.-backed settlement plan, saying Aristide must leave office.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0204/26haitiwho.html

The most outspoken leader of the opposition coalition, Andre (Andy) Apaid is a factory owner born in the United States. His family fled Haiti under Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled from 1957 to 1971.

Favoring pressed pastel shirts and gold-rimmed glasses, Apaid looks like a Miami businessman but says he is totally Haitian at heart.

"I am just as much a part of this country as anyone," Apaid, in his early 50s, said recently. "That's why I am saying we must choose another path for the country."

But without a constitutional amendment, he will never become president because of his dual nationality.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/01/Worldandnation/Key_figures_in_Haiti_ ...

The Washington-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front and the Haitian bourgeoisie’s “Group of 184” civil society front (G184), led by a U.S. citizen and sweatshop magnate André “Andy” Apaid, Jr. (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 21, No. 35, 11/12/03), have been quick to embrace, foment and urge on the student demonstrations.

So on Dec. 11, about 10,000 students, with the G184 and Democratic Convergence leaders in tow, marched through the streets of the capital. (Bourgeois radio stations inflated the demonstration up to 5 fold). On hand were Apaid, former Haitian Army colonel Himmler Rébu, Convergence leader Evans Paul, writer Gary Victor, the head of the Civil Society Initiative (ISC) Rosny Desroches, and dissident Lavalas senators Prince Sonson Pierre and Dany Toussaint. Later that day on Radio Kiskeya, Toussaint virtually called for a coup by saying that the “international community” was reluctant to remove Aristide from power only because they feared anarchy would result. But, he reassured them, he could “restore order within 48 hours” due to his connections in the police and former army.

http://www.haiti-progres.com/2003/sm031217/eng12-17.html


Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship. (William Blum)



Evans Paul


The Kerry report claims Martinez is the bag man for Colombia’s cocaine cartels, and supervises bribes paid to the Haitian military. According to Miami attorney John Mattes, who is defending a Cuban-American drug trafficker cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, Martinez was paid $30,000 to bribe Haitian authorities into releasing two drug pilots jailed in Haiti after the engine in their plane conked out, forcing them to land in Port-au-Prince.

Martinez claims innocence from his lavish home in Petionville, an ornate suburb where Haiti’s ruling class live, overlooking the slums of the capital. He runs the casino at the plush El Rancho Hotel, that prior to the embargo realized nearly $50 million in business each week, a cash flow adequate to conceal a major money laundering operation.

But the most disturbing allegations have been of the role played by the CIA in keeping many of the coup leaders on the agency’s payroll, as part of an anti-drug intelligence unit set up by the U.S. in Haiti in 1986. Many of these same military men have had their U.S. assets frozen, and are prevented from entering this country because of their role in overthrowing Aristide, and subsequent human rights violations, including torture and murders of political opponents, raising the question—was the U.S. involved in a cocaine coup that overthrew Aristide?

Former Democratic party head and current secretary of commerce Ron Brown headed a law firm that represented the Duvalier family for decades. Part of that representation was a public relations campaign that stressed Duvalier’s opposition to communism in the cold war. United States support for Duvalier was worth more than $400 million in aid to the country, before the man who called himself Haiti’s President-for-Life was forced from the country.

Even Duvalier’s exit from Haiti, in February 1986, is shrouded in covert intrigue and remains an unexplored facet of the career of Lt. Col. Oliver North. Shortly after Duvalier’s ouster, North was quoted as saying he had brought an end to Haiti’s nightmare, a cryptic statement that was never publicly perused by the Iran-Contra hearings.

Francois and his men have a history of involvement in the torture of opponents and death-squad-style murders of Aristide supporters. In one recent incident, attaches mobbed Port-au-Prince City Hall to prevent the capital’s mayor, Evans Paul, an Aristide supporter, from entering his offices.

One person was killed and 11 wounded during the September 8th incident, when the mob opened fire on Aristide supporters. Witnesses say the attack began when attaches dragged two of Paul’s aides from a car, viciously beating an Aristide official. Francois is also considered responsible for the murder of Justice Minister Guy Malary.

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

Another top figure in the opposition coalition, Paul is a former mayor of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, who was in hiding from the brutal military regime during much of his term until U.S. troops arrived in 1994.

Paul, who is in his late 40s, was head of a center-left coalition that nominated Aristide for president in 1990. Paul managed Aristide's successful election campaign but broke ranks after Aristide left him out of his inner circle.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/01/Worldandnation/Key_figures_in_Haiti_ ...

EVANS PAUL:

Another top figure in the opposition coalition, Paul is a former mayor of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, who was in hiding from the brutal military regime during much of his term until U.S. troops arrived in 1994.

Paul, who is in his late 40s, was head of a center-left coalition that nominated Aristide for president in 1990. Paul managed Aristide's successful election campaign but broke ranks after Aristide left him out of his inner circle.

A playwright and journalist when dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled Haiti, Paul was jailed for opposing him.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0204/26haitiwho.html



DENIS CODERRE:



Canada's minister responsible for the Francophonie — of French-speaking countries that include former French colonies like Haiti — was minister for citizenship and immigration in January 2002, which would have put him in touch with Canada's large Haitian community. Coderre oversaw the implementation of a new act to protect refugees and migrants.

A political scientist, Coderre was first elected to Canada's House of Commons in 1997. In 1999, he joined the federal Cabinet as secretary of state for amateur sport and helped establish the headquarters for the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal.

Coderre came to Haiti declaring, "We clearly don't want Aristide's head. We think Aristide must remain in place."

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0204/26haitiwho.html



Guy Philippe: Profile


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

Ernst Ravix



According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on Haiti, dated 7 September 1988, FAD’H Captain Ernst Ravix, was the military commander of Saint Marc, and head of a paramilitary squad of “sub-proletariat youths” who called themselves the Sans Manman (Motherless Ones). In May 1988, the government of President Manigat tried to reduce contraband and corruption in the port city of Saint Marc, but Ravix, the local Army commander, responded by organising a demonstration against the President in which some three thousand residents marched, chanted, and burned barricades. Manigat removed Ravix from his post, but after Manigat’s ouster, he was reinstated by the military dictator, Lt. Gen. Namphy.

Ravix was not heard of again until December 2001 when former FAD’H sergeant, Pierre Richardson, the person captured following the 17 December attack on the National Palace, reportedly confessed that the attack was a coup attempt planned in the Dominican Republic by three former police chiefs- Guy Philippe, Jean-Jacques Nau and Gilbert Dragon - and that it was led by former Captain Ernst Ravix. According to Richardson, Ravix’s group withdrew from the National Palace and fled to the Dominican Republic when reinforcements failed to arrive.

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


Jean-Pierre Baptiste - nom de guerre is Jean Tatoune


Among the rebel leaders was the notorious Jean-Pierre Baptiste, smiling and looking triumphant. It did not seem to matter that Mr. Baptiste, whose nom de guerre is Jean Tatoune, had been freed by rebels last year from a prison where he had been serving a life sentence for his participation in the killings of Aristide supporters in Gonaïves in 1994. Mr. Latortue hailed the rebels as "freedom fighters."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/international/americas/29HAIT.html

Haiti: Perpetrators of serious past abuses re-emerge

Haiti Support Group

The emergence of former paramilitary leaders convicted of past human rights violations as leaders of the armed opposition force is fuelling a conflict that has already taken too many lives, said Amnesty International as the crisis in Haiti continues to deepen.

"At the best of times, the spectre of past violations continues to haunt Haiti," Amnesty International said today. "At this crucial stage, when the rule of law is so fragile, the last thing that the country needs is for those who committed abuses in the past to take up leadership positions in the armed opposition."

On 14 February Louis Jodel Chamblain, a notorious former paramilitary leader, reportedly gave an interview to a Haitian radio station to say that he had joined the armed movement seeking to overthrow President Jean Bertrand Aristide. He was accompanied by a former police commissioner.

In September 1995 Chamblain was among seven senior military and paramilitary leaders convicted in absentiaand sentenced to forced labour for life for involvement in the September 1993 extrajudicial execution of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. Chamblain had gone into exile to avoid prosecution.

Chamblain has reportedly joined forces with the leaders of the armed opposition based in Gonaïves.

Another of the leaders, Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune", is also a former paramilitary leader who was sentenced to forced labour for life for participation in the 1994 Raboteau massacre. He was among the prisoners who escaped from Gonaïves prison during the August 2002 jailbreak of Amiot 'Cubain' Métayer, deceased leader of the formerly pro-government group which violently took over control of Gonaïves on 5 February. Gang
members under Jean Tatoune's direction have been accused of numerous abuses against government officials and supporters, as well as other Gonaïves residents, over past months.

"The Haitian authorities must do everything in their power to arrest these individuals, who have both already been convicted of serious violations," Amnesty International said. "For their part, political opposition parties must condemn the emergence of these notorious figures at the head of the armed movement to oust Aristide, and must do everything in their power to demonstrate their own commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

Background Information

Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Tatoune both belonged to the paramilitary organisation FRAPH, formed by military authorities who were the de facto leaders of the country following the 1991 coup against then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide. FRAPH members were responsible for numerous human rights violations before the 1994 restoration of democratic governance.

The group was at first known as the Front révolutionnaire pourl'avancement et le progrès haïtiens, Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress. The acronym FRAPH phonetically resembles the French and Creole words for 'to beat' or 'to thrash.'

Antoine Izméry was gunned down in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Port-au-Prince on 11 September 1993, while attending mass. The mass was being held to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a massacre committed during an attack on Aristide, then a parish priest, on 11 September 1988 at the St. Jean Bosco Church in La Saline, a shanty town on the outskirts of the capital.

After the 5 February attack in Gonaïves, unrest spread to nearly a dozen towns in the center and north of Haiti. Concerns are increasing about the humanitarian situation in the towns under control of anti-government forces and other areas cut off by the conflict. The first demonstration of the political opposition since the violence began took place in Port-au-Prince on 15 February; demonstrators were confronted by rock-throwing government supporters, and police used tear gas and fired their guns into the air to disperse both groups.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAMR360062004?Open&of=eng-HTI


Public Document
http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/79531/1 /

Jean Pierre Baptiste ("Jean Tatoune") is another FRAPH member convicted in the Raboteau massacre trial and sentenced to forced labour for life.

Others convicted of or indicted for human rights abuses escaped from the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince on Sunday 29 February in the atmosphere of lawlessness that followed the departure of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. AI fears that they may join the rebel forces, thus gaining access to weapons and potentially to positions of influence.

Police and judicial officers, witnesses and human rights defenders involved in past prosecutions may be at risk of reprisal attacks from those they helped bring to justice.

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/hti-100304-action-eng

Even US officials acknowledge that the leaders of the Haitian coup d’etat are “death squad veterans and convicted murderers,” (NYT 2/28/04). Two of these are Louis-Jodel Chamblain and Jean-Pierre Baptiste, leaders of FRAPH (Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress), a murderous rightwing group that was funded by the US for many years and played a leading role in overthrowing Aristide in 1991. FRAPH’s name, according to the Times, is a play on the French “frapper” (“to hit”).

Both Chamblain and Baptiste have been convicted of political murders. Chamblain, a former Haitian Army officer, has been hiding in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Baptiste was serving a life sentence until he recently broke out of jail.

http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/16099/index.php

Mr. Latortue has no democratic mandate. Haitians are bitterly split between Aristide supporters and opponents, and both sides are heavily armed. Clearly, he needs to reach out to those on both sides of this divide who want to move their country forward. But Mr. Latortue aided neither national reconciliation nor his own shaky legitimacy by the unseemly ceremony he took part in last Saturday.

Ferried by American military helicopters to the city of Gonaïves, where the anti-Aristide revolt began, he stood on a stage with killers like Jean-Pierre Baptiste. Mr. Baptiste, who escaped from prison in 2002, is a death squad leader convicted of participating in a 1994 massacre of Aristide supporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/opinion/24WED2.html?th

Jean Tatoune
Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias “Jean Tatoune”, first came to prominence as a leader of the anti-Duvalier mobilisations in his home town of Gonaives in 1985. For some years he was known and respected for his anti-Duvalierist activities but during the 1991-94 military regime he emerged as a local leader of FRAPH.

On 22 April 1994, he led a force of dozens of soldiers and FRAPH members in an attack on Raboteau, a desperately poor slum area in Gonaives and a stronghold of support for Aristide. Between 15 and 25 people were killed in what became known as the Raboteau massacre.

In 2000, Tatoune was put on trial and sentenced to forced labour for life for his participation in the Raboteau massacre. He was subsequently imprisoned in Gonaives, from where he escaped in August 2002, and took up arms again in his base in a poor area of the city. At various times he has spoken out against the government, and at other times in favour of it, but since September 2003 he has allied himself with the followers of murdered community leader, Amiot Metayer, and vowed to overthrow the government by force.
http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng02-25.html



Butteur Metayer


Butteur immediately assumed command of his brother's army, soon renamed the Artibonite Resistance Front. The situation in Gonaives rapidly disintegrated, and some said Butteur's tactics were just as cruel as paramilitary operations in previous years.

The Times of London reported that Butteur's army "left the rotting bodies of dead policemen to be eaten by wild pigs and have taken several other towns in the interior, where they murdered more policemen."

Butteur sometimes sported a Hyatt Orlando golf shirt and bands of bullets across his chest. He challenged Aristide openly during press conferences at the family home.

Aristide, said Butteur and the other rebels, had become corrupt, relying on armed gangs and siphoning money away from the poor, away from schools, giving it to his supporters.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/04/Worldandnation/Haitian_rebel_is_one_ ...

Amiot Metayer's Sept. 22 assassination led to protest rallies in Gonaives that eventually boiled over into rebellion. He had been the leader of the Cannibal Army street gang, which Butteur Metayer says was armed by Aristide's Lavalas Party to terrorize the president's opponents in the city -- a charge Aristide denied.

Metayer was viewed by many people in Gonaives as a Robin Hood who lavished gifts on slum dwellers and his killing angered supporters.

After Butteur Metayer launched the rebellion, former soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic to join the uprising. It was the former troops who gave impetus to the push that put half of Haiti in rebel hands within two weeks.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,112992,00.html

Aristide finally had Metayer arrested last year after months of pressure from the OAS, which demanded he be tried for allegedly burning homes of opponents. Gang members rammed a tractor into the prison to free him in September, and Metayer's bullet-riddled and mutilated body was found days later.

"They took out his eyes. They took out his heart," Latortue said.

Metayer's brother, Butteur, assumed leadership of the gang; he claimed Aristide ordered his brother's killing to keep him from publicizing damaging information about him.

With his death prompting the uprising that brought about Aristide's downfall, Metayer has become a hero in the town. Many feared him. Others saw him as a Robin Hood who lavished gifts on slum-dwelling Aristide supporters.

Thousands of them have fled the city since the Feb. 5 gunbattle in which Metayer's men killed several police officers and torched government buildings.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/03/20/haiti.leaders.ap /

The city of Gonaives, where the slaves finally overcame Napolean's forces and gained independence has been one of the most political cities in the country. In the 1980s, the city was again the center of independence when rebel forces defeated the brutal (U.S. supported) Duvalier dictatorship. The country has experienced 30 coups since gaining its independence. As of February 5, it seems the country is thrown into armed conflict again. Rebel forces began a violent effort to overthrow the Aristide government and take control of the capital. Over 40 people been killed and more than a dozen cities seized by the rebels. Gonaives is now in the hands of what the newly named "Artibonite Resistance Front" (formally known as the Cannibal Army). Led by two brothers, Amiot and Butteur Metayer, the Gonaives chapter of the resistance has received "reinforcements" from neighboring Dominican Republic. The men who have joined the resistance from abroad are largely former military leaders of Haiti, exiled or hiding from histories of torture and abuse. Butteur Metayer told the Associated Press that Louis-Jodel Chamblain, former soldier from Haiti responsible for death squads in the 1980s and atrocities following the 1991 military coup is gathering forces for the resistance as well.

Back in Orlando, Metayer and his sister also have gratitude for another person: President Bush.

"I don't know how to thank him" for encouraging Aristide to get out, said Gertrude Metayer.

http://www.thesnapper.com/news/2004/02/19/NationWorldIssues/Haiti.A.Ne ...



The new Prime Minister of Haiti, Gerard Latortue, waves duirng a visit to his hometown, Gonaives, Haiti on Saturday, March 20, 2004.(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

[0007]

36. Thanks for the great information, seemslikeadream, and the timeline.

We are soooooo screwed.

[seemslikeadream]

39. It's Ray Davies birthday

and I'm in the lounge celebrating (I usually don't have time to hang out there but...well it's Ray. Not a good time to be using such language.

[JoFerret]

13. He made a secret trip

to Prague and met with Noriega.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. And ties with Al Qaeda. Don't forget ties with Al Qaeda.

Believing anybody the Republican Administration doesn't like does NOT have ties with Al Qaeda is UNAMERICAN!!! :crazy:

[seemslikeadream]

18. Al Qaeda strong ties with the Caribbean

[TankLV]

22. What's Al' batting average?

Sorry - couldn't resist a bunkerboy response - "Al Keda"

[struggle4progress]

26. The Bushistas floated exactly this trial balloon about a year ago ...

in a story claiming al-Qaeda operatives were smuggled into the US through Haiti. :puke:

[Darranar]

3. So a COCAINE TRAFFICKER is trusted...

when it comes to drug-dealings?

[zbird]

4. Wonder if Ketant is as reliable as Chalabi.

I have no idea, but with this misadministration, I question everything.

[Gman]

5. Yeah, well Bush raped his infant twin baby daughters

and should be removed from office.

[bemildred]

6. This is good in a way.

It indicates that the Haiti coup is no secure yet.
They would not feel it necessary to attack Mr. Aristide
were he not a threat, and the more they attack him, the
greater the threat one may infer he poses.

[Aidoneus]

24. Indeed

The desperation in this sort of PR is a comfort in that sense.. I think that 5-10K(?) demonstration helped to bring this "finding" about.

[teryang]

7. Karsai and American forces Afghan druglords

Same logic. Aristide didn't even have an Army. How did he control the drug trade?

[bemildred]

8. Bullshit. Mr. Aristide does not like guns.

Do you know of any other "Drug Lords" that do not like guns?

[Octafish]

27. Correct, bemildred.

Before getting into politics, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was shot in the head and lost an eye -- while saying Mass. His sin was preaching "Liberation Theology," which is simply applying the New Testament teachings to political life.

About 13 years ago, I met Aristide. The first democratically elected leader of Haiti in 75 years had just been removed from power by a military junta. He explained to the people gathered for the Cranbrook Peace Foundation dinner that the military -- thugs working for the one-percent of wealthy landowners -- wanted to control the drug trade and all that loot.

Things didn't have to be that way. Aristide indicated that the generals would have put down their arms and returned him to power with "one phone call from President Bush." The phone call never came. Gee. I found it odd at the time that the supposedly anti-drug Poppy Bush would actually back these crooked generals. Today, it's no surprise.

[seemslikeadream]

28. Octafish you were always on to these guys!

We all could hardly wait for another story

Octafish

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



"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Karenina

I feel a RANT coming on...


bobthedrummer

yep


seemslikeadream

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.

Octafish

Here's what a member of Canada's press has to say...

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...


Octafish

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

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy


seemslikeadream

Ricardo Ortega, veteran reporter




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. 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

[seemslikeadream]

29. seems like only yesterday

Interesting photo


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

Octafish
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

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Tinoire

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

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

BOYCOTT IAMS & EUKANABA What’s Wrong With Iams? - Video here

You know, the only thing I never got over in life is I took a young lady to a dance when I was in high school and she left with somebody else. And that's what the Democrats, some, have done to the black community.
We helped take you to the dance and you leave with right wingers, you leave with people that you say are swing voters, you leave with people that are antithetical to our history and antithetical to our interests. I am saying in 2004, if we take you to the party, you going home with us or we're not taking you to the party.
Al Sharpton, September 2003 Democratic Debates
http://www.ericblumrich.com/thanks.html (A+ Flash / Thanks Arcane1)
Robert Fisk\'s photos of civilian victims

Octafish

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


"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy


seemslikeadream

Return Aristide to Haiti: Try Bush as a Global Pirate

Rebel leader Guy Philippe center smiles during a demonstration in Port-au-Prince, Haiti Tuesday, March 2, 2004. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Return Aristide to Haiti: Try Bush as a Global Pirate
By Analysis
Mar 13, 2004, 11:17

March 11, 2004-The Bush men have the Madness Touch. Their very presence warps conventional notions of reality.

Thus, the new "prime minister" of Haiti appears as surprised as the rest of his countrymen when conveyed the title by an "eminent" rump of persons chosen by the occupying power. The man picked for the job on Tuesday, business consultant Gérard Latortue, doesn’t even arrive in Haiti from his home in Boca Raton, Florida, until Wednesday. U.S. Marines believe they have killed Haitian gunmen in battle, but seem unconcerned as to their identities. Half a world away, the constitutional head of state, elected with overwhelming popular support in a process deemed free and fair by the entire international community, is held captive by an African military dictator after being kidnapped by the world’s superpower in cahoots with the former colonial master of his country.

The world searches for terminology to describe the high crimes of the Bush regime in Haiti and the Central African Republic, and of course, Iraq – even as endless additional criminal contingencies take shape in the planning rooms of the Pentagon. The Bush men seem determined to methodically teach the planet that Washington is a threat to the very concept of international order – that they are Pirates.

Evidence that George Bush is leader of a rogue, pirate state accumulates daily, for the world to examine in the raw. Yet the racist cabal (and its Black operatives) seem not to understand that Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide cannot be demonized like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. The nightmare image is seared into the global retina: the frail ex-priest and his wife, kidnapped from their home and delivered to the tender mercies of coup-making African generals.

If the Bush men are on an international consciousness raising mission, they are succeeding. Whatever perverse logic guides their actions – and we have seen such logic at work in the world, before, when small groups of men tested their "will" against the survival instincts of the planet – they are in fact summoning a future "tribunal" whose mandate must expand to match the crimes of the American perpetrators. There will be a response to this avalanche of atrocities that "are so harmful to international interests that states are entitled – and even obliged – to bring proceedings against the perpetrator, regardless of the location of the crime or the nationality of the perpetrator or victim," to borrow the words of Mary Robinson, former United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5615.shtml

[seemslikeadream]

9. Gosh this all sounds so familiar

Oh now I remember. Noreiga, maybe they'll be roomies down there in Fla.



A Haitian man, suspected of being a supporter of Haitian President Jean Bertrand-Aristide, is detained by rebels in the streets of Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Monday, Feb. 23, 2004. Rebels who overran Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien began detaining people identified as supporters of Aristide on Monday and said they would attack the capital of Port-au-Prince soon. (AP Photo/Walter Astrada)

[robertpaulsen]

31. Wonder if Aristide is a disobedient CIA operative as well. n/t

[struggle4progress]

32. I doubt it. The neocons have been attacking him for 20 years. eom

[seemslikeadream]

34. 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.

Share this page with a friend



International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: [e-mail]
En Espanol: [e-mail]
web: http://www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT SITE http://www.mumia2000.org
phone: [phone]
fax: [phone]
To make a tax-deductible donation,
go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org

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


Operation Jaded Task

US Troopers Secretly Land in Dominican Republic
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/02/20/43514.html
The military training operation nicknamed Jaded Task took by surprise Dominican Foreign Ministry.

The US Army started today a training operation in the Caribbean country as part of routine maneuvers of the Southern Command. The landing had been kept so secretly that Dominican Foreign Ministry Hugo Tolentino was reported... by the TV.

As per the first reports, the US troops are training Dominican soldiers on anti-terrorism operations in the north of the island. When the national media started announcing the landing, country's Foreign Minister was having a lunch. Tolentino said that, as chief of the Dominican diplomacy, he should have been formally advised, as personally requested to the Dominican Army and the US Embassy to Santo Domingo.

(snip)

However, the most interesting thing, here, is that the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic did know about the operations. This correspondent had access to two formal communications issued by the US Embassy including details of these activities, during the Communist summit held in Buenos Aires in January. There, the US ambassador to Santo Domingo reported about 10.000 soldiers coming to the Dominican Republic to take part of the training.

Moreover, the communists and other leftist forces in the country made know such documents to the local media in November. According to the denounce, US soldiers can freely enter and leave the country without any kind of permission. Also, they can do it through owned means of conveyance.

(more at link)

[UTUSN]

10. & the Point of the BFEE (Oil/Drug Cartel) Is???????? n/t

[seemslikeadream]

12. 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 WATCH THIS VIDEO


Wumpscut
Totmacher

sie ahnten nichts von mir
von meiner wilden gier
doch als du kamst zu mir
da wurde ich ein tier
kein gedanke an danach
als ich dir die knochen brach

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

tot

fuer mein naechstes leben
schoepfe ich neue kraft
ich bin dem toeten ergeben
in der einzelhaft

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot
tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ein dahinsichen
von gottes hand
ich kann dich riechen
und das denken verschwand

tot tot tot tot tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot tot tot tot tot

ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot
ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot

sag mir was du willst
dass du meine sehnsucht stillst
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
von blut alles rot auf gottes altar

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot glaub mir es ist wahr
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot auf gottes altar


TRANSLATION

Wumpscut - Deadmaker

They didn't expect me
never expected my wild lust
I turned into an animal
No thought about afterwards
When I broke your bones

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Dead

For my next life (life after death in the religious sense)
I get the power I need
I’m a slave to the killing
In solitary confinement

("einzelhaft" (solitary confinment) has become part of the german vocabulary after the terrorist attacks of the Red Army Fraction during the 70's. It's used for people in prison, who are put into complete isolation not just from other people, but from all kinds of information. It's what might be known in the US as "sensual deprivation", a kind of torture-technique to destroy people's self.)

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Wasting away
By God’s hand
I can smell you
And my thought disappeared

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead, dead

I make you dead I make you dead
I make you dead I make you dead

Tell me what you want
That you fill my longing (that you satisfy my desire)
I make you dead for evermore
God’s altar stained from blood so red

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead believe me its true
I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead on God’s altar

[seemslikeadream]

14. 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.

Share this page with a friend

International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: [e-mail]
En Espanol: [e-mail]
web: http://www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT SITE http://www.mumia2000.org
phone: [phone]
fax: [phone]
To make a tax-deductible donation,
go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org

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

Operation Jaded Task

From 2/23/2003:

US Troopers Secretly Land in Dominican Republic
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/02/20/43514.html
The military training operation nicknamed Jaded Task took by surprise Dominican Foreign Ministry.

The US Army started today a training operation in the Caribbean country as part of routine maneuvers of the Southern Command. The landing had been kept so secretly that Dominican Foreign Ministry Hugo Tolentino was reported... by the TV.

As per the first reports, the US troops are training Dominican soldiers on anti-terrorism operations in the north of the island. When the national media started announcing the landing, country's Foreign Minister was having a lunch. Tolentino said that, as chief of the Dominican diplomacy, he should have been formally advised, as personally requested to the Dominican Army and the US Embassy to Santo Domingo.

(snip)

However, the most interesting thing, here, is that the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic did know about the operations. This correspondent had access to two formal communications issued by the US Embassy including details of these activities, during the Communist summit held in Buenos Aires in January. There, the US ambassador to Santo Domingo reported about 10.000 soldiers coming to the Dominican Republic to take part of the training.

Moreover, the communists and other leftist forces in the country made know such documents to the local media in November. According to the denounce, US soldiers can freely enter and leave the country without any kind of permission. Also, they can do it through owned means of conveyance.

(more at link)

[donsu]

15. bushgang has to keep sliming Aristide so no one will look at their

coup d'etat that removed Aristide.

the bushgang did the coup d'etat in america's name. we are criminals.

[progressivebydesign]

16. Ah Bush thinking: Black = Drug Lord.

They knew that would be the easiest sell to the ignorant, racist masses. In their eyes, and the eyes of the average American, it would only work with a Black leader. Typical racist shit... when in fact, certain members of our government are bigger drug dealers than anyone in the world. I always wondered if Poppy Bush was... well.. POPPY Bush. That was the crop of choice for the S&K folks way back when...

[struggle4progress]

19. I don't believe it -- sounds like an effort to distract from another story

One US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that some of the rebel forces supported their activity through drug trafficking. ''That's how they staged the operation. They were more drug traffickers than they were rebels," the official said.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/20/case_of_ex_rebel_leader_looms_over_haiti/

May be further discussion at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=634662

[seemslikeadream]

20. from your link

One US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that some of the rebel forces supported their activity through drug trafficking. ''That's how they staged the operation. They were more drug traffickers than they were rebels," the official said.

To his supporters, Chamblain is a hero, a man who risked his life to help remove the Aristide government, which increasingly had come under allegations of corruption. To his detractors, Chamblain is a vicious assassin. For Haiti, he is a test of a weak and decrepit justice system and a challenge to a fragile peace that sometimes appears held together with duct tape.

''There are strong indications that Haiti doesn't have a justice system," said Robert Fatton, a political science professor and specialist on Haiti at the University of Virginia. ''And Chamblain is the most obvious symbol of that problem."

Before turning into a rebel, Chamblain was a soldier and a paramilitary leader. In the 1980s, he worked with the Tonton Macoutes, state-sponsored militia groups that terrorized government opponents with threats and assassinations. Following a military coup against Aristide in 1991, Chamblain helped run the Front for the Advancement of Haitian People, a brutal militia accused of murdering scores of Aristide supporters.

''He was the operations guy," explained Brian Concannon, a US lawyer who helped prosecute Chamblain after Aristide was restored to power in 1994. ''Chamblain was the one who organized the head-banging."

Those operations included the killing of some 25 people in a slum in northern Haiti and the assassination of a prominent Aristide supporter. Chamblain was convicted in absentia for these crimes. He fled to the Dominican Republic, while several of his coconspirators, including various high-level military personnel, went to jail for them.

[struggle4progress]

21. So why isn't the "interim government" pursuing the death squad thugs?

Amnesty International has recently asked this question.

[jpgray]

23. Oh. Like Reagan, maybe?

Democratically elected leaders are elbow deep in this shit all the time, but we aren't interested in ousting all of them.

edit: And we aren't interested in identifying fewer than that.

[nagbacalan]

25. Sounds like a prime axis of evil candidate.

[Canuckistanian]

30. Why haven't we heard this before? Verrrry interestink.....

Bushco usually jumps on a piece of info like that right away, whether it's true or not.

I guess they needed some time to 'arrange' things.

Say, wasn't Condi obsessed over Aristide 'round about the time before her testimony to the 9/11 commission?

[struggle4progress]

33. Of course, Ketant might just be very p*ssed at the former Haitian gov't ..

since the Haitians arrested him in 2003.

[Rex]

35. No no no...I heard that he was a communist.

Oh wait, we're not doing communism anymore...hmmmm...TERRORIST! I heard (from someone who has no political affiliation with the Bushies so stop saying that!) that he shacked up with OBL's aunt's, cousin's, sister's, mother-in-law's niece!

HA!

[daleo]

37. Didn't Aristide throw babies from incubators?

And wasn't he the guy massing troops on the Florida border. You could see it in the satellite photos. I think he also bought yellowcake uranium from Nigeria to plant a radiological bomb at Yankee Stadium. Plus, he was Hitler's secret lovechild with Mao's second wife, the one in the Gang of Four.

[Matilda]

38. Unfortunately, mud sticks, in some people's minds anyway.

If about 67% of people still believe that Saddam backed the 9/11
terrorists, they'll believe anything it suits them to believe.

It's all quite sickening.