Welcome back to the Caribbean Mr. Aristide

[malaise]

Haiti is your home and no foreign power has the right to kick you out of your own country.
Time to rebuild Haiti.

[suffragette]

1. Glad to give you rec #1

[Dappleganger]

2. Let's hope he is here to stay

w/out anymore interference.

[malaise]

3. The good news is that the Obama administration

backed off and let him go home. They wanted him to wait until after the election but they did not attempt to stop him.

[EFerrari]

6. Obama called the SA president to ask him not to let him fly out.

Maybe they didn't want to do more than that.

SA paid for the flight.

[malaise]

8. Well let's thank the South Africans then

Damn!

[EFerrari]

10. I don't know much about SA.

But they have been under a lot of pressure.

Maybe it's a good thing that American pressure doesn't always win out. :)

[malaise]

11. Zuma was an ANC activist

A real street fighter. He's not popular with the West anyhow.

[EFerrari]

14. Well then, I expect President Chavez to praise him fulsomely

any minute now.

lol

[eleny]

4. KR!

[EFerrari]

5. Amy Goodman has been with him all day and this is how she left

the reception when they finally got home.

?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF3XCCKACR3QDMOA&Expires=1300487975&Signature=oKYb4bxIRiacsfouncJpxcPD0U8%3D

Lots of interesting stuff at Sharif Kouddous's Twitter account:

http://twitter.com/#!/sharifkouddous

[malaise]

7. Thanks a million for the links

Lovely :fistbump:

[EFerrari]

9. It's so wonderful to see a GOOD story about Haiti in the news

for ONCE. :toast:

[malaise]

13. We have some good news stories since

over 100 of their university students are finishing their degrees at University of the West Indies in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. They lost hundreds of faculty and students as well as university buildings.

[EFerrari]

17. That's excellent news. n/t

[sabrina 1]

12. P.J. Crowley, former asst. to the Sec. of State

tweeted yesterday that 'what Haiti does not need is the return of Aristide right before the elections'.

The U.S. were behind the coup of Aristide, removing the people's choice illegally for which there has been no accountability.

Wikileaks cables reveal without a doubt who has kept Aristede from returning to his country and as most of us suspected, it is U.S. policy to deprive the Haittian people of their democratically elected president.

Our foreign policies are simply shameful. I hope he is safe from U.S. influence in Haiti. I am very concerned that he may not be.

[EFerrari]

15. He isn't safe. Haiti is an occupied country.

All the more credit to him and to his wife for taking their family back. People like the Aristides don't grow on trees, that's for sure.

[sabrina 1]

20. Yes, he is a very courageous man.

We don't seem to like people of courage and integrity in this country. We can only hope that two coups of the same man might make a third too risky as our image has taken a real hit considering all the revelations the 'new media' has exposed regarding U.S. foreign policy.

[EFerrari]

21. The government tends to ignore Latin American and the Caribbean

when the Middle East is hot.

With the ME exploding this year, that might be just the window our neighbors in this hemisphere need to consolidate and expand the democratic advances they made while BushCo was obsessed with Iraq and ignored the region.

I hope so.

[sabrina 1]

26. Very true. While what happened in Iraq was a crime of mammoth

proportions, it did give Latin America a chance to grow democratically. Hopefully you are right. And there is far more coverage of foreign news now than there was then. I imagine few Americans knew much if anything about the Venezuelan and Haittian coups back then.

As Hillary said 'we are losing the information war and are having trouble getting our message across'. That can only be a good thing, imho.

[malaise]

16. The US kicked Aristide out of his own country

Fugg P.J. Crowley - I hope they ban him from his homeland one day.

[leveymg]

18. I was part of the effort in '92 to get the OAS to return him to Haiti. Passed him in the hall

at OAS HQ in DC back then. He was moving quickly with his entourage.

Still is. Finally, finally will Haiti be allowed its own leadership . . . ?

[malaise]

19. You're a good person

:hi:

[leveymg]

22. It's been interesting

in the "belly of the beast" (Washington). Back at you :hi: :thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

23. Why do you think DC let him go home?

Too much on their plate already?

[malaise]

24. Yah think?

:D

[EFerrari]

27. A complete economic collapse, the Middle East rising,

multiple meltdowns in Japan, labor marching in the MidWest.

The only thing not on Obama's plate is an alien landing and it's only March!

[leveymg]

28. For decades, the most benign thing the US has done in the world is

to be distracted.

A reckon we also have far less influence and "soft power" around the world. We're kinda like Britain in the late 1940s, empire falling apart, and trying to adapt, but still so big and clumsy we step on people.

[EFerrari]

29. Here's hoping we settle in to the new role with some grace.

lol

[leveymg]

30. Actually, I think Obama has danced pretty well during recent rounds. I'd give him

decent marks if I were judging the show.

But, he makes me nervous, as do Gates and the other "adults." They are capable of (and have demonstrated) a frightful aptitude for great harm in the world. Mistakes rarely go unrewarded in Washington.

[EFerrari]

31. That's pretty much how I feel, too. n/t

[malaise]

33. He's better than Bush and Cheney but that can't be hard n/t

[leveymg]

25. He's gone back a couple times. We're all just riding the waves.

[Kurovski]

32. K&R. (nt)