WikiLeaks points to US meddling in Haiti

[Joanne98]

Confidential US diplomatic cables from 2005 and 2006 released this week by WikiLeaks reveal Washington's well-known obsession to keep exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of Haiti and Haitian affairs. (On Thursday, Aristide issued a public letter in which he reiterated "my readiness to leave today, tomorrow, at any time" from South Africa for Haiti, because the Haitian people "have never stopped calling for my return" and "for medical reasons", concerning his eyes.)

In a 8 June 2005 meeting of US Ambassador to Brazil John Danilovich, joined by his political counsellor (usually, the local CIA station chief), with then President Lula da Silva's international affairs adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia, we learn that:

"Ambassador and PolCouns ... stressed continued US G insistence that all efforts must be made to keep Aristide from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process … increasingly concerned about a major deterioration in security, especially in Port au Prince."

The ambassador and his adviser were also anxious about "reestablishing credibility" of the UN Mission to Stabilise Haiti (Minustah), as the UN occupation troops are called. The Americans reminded Garcia that then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called "for firm Minustah action and the possibility that the US may be asked to send troops at some point".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/21/haiti-wikileaks

[xchrom]

1. Recommend - still. Still meddling in Haiti. Nt

[FlyByNight]

2. The US has been meddling...

in Haiti for decades.

Consequently, the overwhelming majority of the population has paid a heavy, bloody price for it (as have most other countries in which the US has meddled). Sadly, this is nothing really new.

[DCKit]

3. I guess it's up to the newly Democratized states in South America to get Aristide back, then.

They'll need a lot of U.N. oversight of the elections, as well.