Aristide says he was abducted

[Sayhey]

Aristide Tells U.S. Contacts He Was Abducted


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted as Haitian president on Sunday, told U.S. lawmakers and other contacts by telephone on Monday that he was abducted by U.S. soldiers and left his homeland against his will.

Washington immediately denied this, saying Aristide had agreed to step down and leave his country. "It's complete nonsense," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

"We took steps to protect Mr. Aristide, we took steps to protect his family and they departed Haiti. It was Mr Aristide's decision to resign," he said.

U.S. officials said that after intensive consultation between U.S. officials and Aristide on Saturday, he had signed a letter of resignation.

Rep. Charles Rangel and Randall Robinson, the former head of the black lobbying group TransAfrica, said in separate interviews with CNN that Aristide called them from the Central African Republic, where he is in temporary exile.

Robinson, speaking from the Caribbean island of St Kitts, said Aristide had telephoned him on a cell phone on Monday morning from a room in the Central African Republic, where he said he was being guarded by African and French soldiers.

"The president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about 20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put on a plane" on Sunday morning, Robertson said.

"Across the aisle from him and Mrs. Aristide sat the American soldier who apparently was the commander of the contingent. They were not told where they were going, nor were they allowed to make any phone calls before they left the house or on the plane," he said.

He said Aristide had told him the plane made two stops before landing in the Central African Republic and that the Americans had instructed them not to raise the blinds to look out when the plane was on the ground.

"Not until they arrived did the president learn where he was," Robertson said. "He said to me twice before he had to get off the phone, 'Tell the world that it's a coup. That American soldiers abducted (me)."'

Rangel, a Democratic member of the House (of Representatives) from New York, said he heard a similar account from Aristide by telephone. Aristide told him he was "disappointed that the international community had let him down, that he was kidnapped, that he resigned under pressure."

Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California and like Rangel a member of the congressional black caucus, also said she had heard by telephone from Aristide that he had been kidnapped, a spokeswoman for Waters said.


Netscape News (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040301/1349999482.htm&photoid=20040301HAT57D)

His account would jive with independant reports that he was dragged onto the plane by marines.

[pseudobrit]

Netscape News (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040301/1349999482.htm&photoid=20040301HAT57D)

His account would jive with independant reports that he was dragged onto the plane by marines.

This raises the question of what the Bush administration sees of interest in Haiti and why they made this move.

The USA has generally disregarded Haitians and deported their boat people while allowing other Carribean refugees to stay in the states.

Why? In 1804, the slaves of Haiti became the first such population to successfully rebel against their masters and form a nation. You can imagine that didn't fly well in the South, and still doesn't.

[mactastic]

This raises the question of what the Bush administration sees of interest in Haiti and why they made this move.

Did someone discover oil in Haiti?;)

I heard this is the 33rd coup in the 200 or so years of it being Haiti. Not a real good track record.

[Stelliform]

....

[pseudobrit]

I think it would be a bit odd for him to voluntarily resign and then claim he was abducted. If it were his decision, he'd already be past that point and would be looking to move on with his private life in exile.

I guess the real question is: "what really happened?"

[zimv20]

This raises the question of what the Bush administration sees of interest in Haiti and why they made this move.


possibilities:

1. help secure haitian vote in FL
2. keeps marines from fighting yet another irregular force
3. puts him in role as peacekeeper
4. does the US need cheap sugar?
5. does the US need another military base there (i.e. carribbean)?
6. lack of violence may help keep refugee numbers low

or did Aristide simply say something that pissed off bush?

[Stelliform]

.....

[Sayhey]

I don't know if Aristide's version is correct. He has never been the most stable of personalities. It is however entirely possible that the US did indeed force him on to the plane. Heaven knows they cut the legs out from under him in the last week with the State Department's retreat from the principle of support for elected government. Why did Bush do this? Because Aristide is a wild card and a nationalist. The US has never liked such characters in its "back yard." Also given Bush's temperament it could have been just because Clinton helped restore him to power. It does expose all the rhetoric that the Bushies have been spewing forth about democracy. Seems it's not so important if those in power are folks you don't like and can't control. Chavez maybe next.

[zimv20]

it's entirely possible that aristide agreed to flee, as colin powell described, but changed his mind at the last minute and was, er, persuaded to follow through

[Sayhey]

it's entirely possible that aristide agreed to flee, as colin powell described, but changed his mind at the last minute and was, er, persuaded to follow through

I agree that maybe what happened. What I'm really interested in is where the money for the arms for the rebels came from - the US? We have just embraced some very unsavory folks in a new coalition government to replace Aristide. Say what you will about Aristide, but he represented the hopes of millions of dirt poor Haitians and it was through their support that he was democratically elected. Who in this new gang of thieves will speak for them? Seems like Bush is content to go back to the days when the will of ordinary Haitians did not matter.

[Sayhey]

Here is a great article on the situation in Haiti:


Haiti: The Past Is Prologue
By JOANNE MARINER
----
Monday, Mar. 01, 2004

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president of Haiti until yesterday, has ceded power. Pressed to resign by the U.S. and French governments, and facing a threatened rebel assault on Port-au-Prince, Aristide was flown out of the country early Sunday morning.

By the end of the day, the U.S. had already sent the first military troops of a planned multinational force to restore order to Haiti. It marked the third time in less than a century that the U.S. has intervened there militarily.

The last such U.S. intervention, just under than a decade ago, is worth recalling now. There is the striking symmetry, to begin with: In 1994, the United States sent troops to Haiti to facilitate Aristide's return to the presidency; now, it's sending troops because it convinced him to leave.

But there is another symmetry, as well, that merits examination. In 1994, the U.S. had little use for efforts to bring justice to the victims of violent human rights abuses committed under military rule. Rather than assisting in the prosecution of human rights crimes, it preferred to placate the perpetrators: to overlook violence rather than to confront it. Indeed, in several different ways, the U.S. directly impeded efforts to prosecute past human rights crimes in Haiti.

Why is this history relevant now? Because the authors of those past abuses are back. Louis Jodel Chamblain, a former paramilitary responsible for countless atrocities under the military government that ruled Haiti from 1991 to 1994, is a leading commander in the insurgent coalition that fought to oust Aristide. Jean-Pierre Baptiste, a less prominent paramilitary from the same period, is also among the rebel forces.

And a large number of the insurgents -- perhaps the main body of their forces-- are former officers and soldiers of the Haitian army. Responsible for killings, rape, torture and other violent abuses during military rule, the army was disbanded in late 1994, a thoroughly discredited institution.

The Recycled Paramilitary

Louis Jodel Chamblain is, beyond any doubt, the most shocking figure to have reemerged among the rebels. A sergeant in the Haitian army until 1989 or 1990, Chamblain was one of the founders in 1993 of the paramilitary group known as the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress (FRAPH). As FRAPH's second in command, and its operational leader, he had a reputation for violence and action.

"I was never paramilitary chief," asserted Chamblain in a recent interview with the New York Times. "I was the leader of a political organization. FRAPH helped people and brought the Haitian people together."

FRAPH's repressive activities, in fact, helped lead nearly 100,000 Haitians to flee their country. At least 3,000 people were killed during military rule, and many thousands more suffered torture, rape, beatings, extortion, arbitrary detention and other abuses.

The U.S. Role in Impeding Justice

But in 1994, when U.S. forces entered Haiti, they allowed FRAPH members, notorious military officers, and other perpetrators of human rights crimes to escape unhindered into exile. Indeed, the U.S. government pushed hard for the passage of a broad amnesty law that would have officially barred the prosecution of the countless crimes committed under military rule. Failing in that effort, it impeded the prosecution of such crimes by refusing to return incriminating documents that it had seized from military offices, and by granting Emmanuel Constant, an infamous FRAPH leader with CIA ties, protection from deportation in the United States.

Chamblain himself escaped to the Dominican Republic after the U.S. intervention, as did other former soldiers and paramilitaries. Although he was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for a 1993 murder and a 1994 massacre, he never served a day behind bars for his crimes.

Chamblain's case, unfortunately, is rather more paradigmatic than exceptional. Although the Haitian government took some steps to achieve accountability for the abuses committed under military rule, including prosecuting some of the leaders of an infamous massacre, the demands of justice went largely unmet.

The army was disbanded but never fully disarmed, and its worst abusers remained free. Demobilized soldiers organized into groups to defend their interests, and became increasingly alienated, resentful and dangerous. In recent years, as conditions in Haiti worsened, a group of former soldiers began mobilizing near the border of the Dominican Republic in the central part of the country. That group, joined by reinforcements, laid the groundwork for the armed uprising of this February.

Impunity

So now that Aristide is gone, what can be expected next? Guy Philippe, the leader of the rebellion that led to Aristide's ouster, has already stated that he expects his men to be part of the new government. And it would not be surprising for Philippe to pressure that government to issue a broad series of pardons to benefit men like Chamblain.

But if the United States wants stability in Haiti, it should recognize that impunity encourages violence and unrest. In 1994, by letting Chamblain and his ilk off the hook, the U.S. helped sow the seeds of the current crisis. Now that the U.S. is back in Haiti for another round, it should not make the same mistakes twice.

Findlaw (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20040301.html)