http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/12/1552237&mode=thread&tid=25Snip
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Paul Farmer, what is your assessment of situation and also the involvement of the U.S. Government?
DR. PAUL FARMER: In order to avoid sounding conspiratorial, I will just start with a basic fact, and that is the army that was just mentioned that was disbanded in 1995. Why would the Pentagon and Washington not forgive Aristide for disbanding the army? One reason might be that that was an army created by the U.S. occupation of Haiti, so it came into being through an Act of U.S. Congress signed in Washington. And here a lot of Americans probably don't know that. They don't know that we occupied Haiti militarily and set up the structure that was in place there from 1915 until 1990 when Haiti had the first democratic elections, and the population voted overwhelmingly for Aristide. And another point, before making any predictions, is: anybody who is listening to your show or anybody who is watching the situation in Haiti should be asking themselves why is it that the government now in place is the body calling for elections? And why is it that the opposition is saying that we can’t have elections? That's always a big sign, you know, a huge neon sign, suggesting that the people in place know that they'll win in democratic elections, because they have popular support, whereas, the opposition, that is trying to make sure that elections don't happen, know that they can’t win power in Haiti through the modern means, which is through the ballot box. They can win in the old fashioned ways they have almost always propelled Haitian politics forward, which is coups d’etat, having fake elections, etc., that what went on for 180, 190 years, but they can't win at the ballot box. And that’s the basic issue. What's at stake is the preservation of the people's right to choose who they want as their leaders. Unfortunately, I believe that that choice has been eroded by U.S. foreign policy, fairly consistently, especially over the last decade.
AMY GOODMAN: Just going back to the previous coup, 1991 to 1994, when Aristide was removed from power, and the U.S. Government, revealed by investigative journalist Alan Nairn, support of the leading military leader, Emmanuel Constant, on the payroll of the defense intelligence agency, one of the exposes that brought down James Woolsey, ex-head of the CIA, having this paramilitary leader on the payroll, and people learning about it in this country. Now Emmanuel Constant walks free in the United States, protected by the U.S. Government. Can you comment on that, that role then, and that role today?
JEAN JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I think you have aptly said that Toto Constant roams free in the U.S., and, in fact, everybody knows he lives in Queens, and he is unperturbed by what's going on because the U.S. is still protecting him. I think when the United States formed the Gendarmerie d’Haiti, which became the army, it was always the part of this low intensity warfare, used as a proxy, to execute the policies of the U.S. And so Toto Constant and FRAPH, were the paramilitary arm of the army, the arm and feet of the army, and I think the U.S. missed that with the return of Aristide, when Aristide disbanded the army. And the opposition, created by the U.S. - we know it's not only the U.S., but also the European Union - is to always undermine any kind of policy, any progress that Aristide would make in terms of governance, not that we can't always fault Aristide for his lack of knowledge and in terms of being an administrator of the country, but we have to realize, there's an embargo on Haiti since the so-called flawed election. We are not talking about Florida here, but we are talking about the…
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