Re: [A-List] Haiti Erupts

["Anyutka" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

February 10, 2004
Haiti Unrest Spells Trouble for Aristide, Bush

by Jim Lobe
A spreading and increasingly violent rebellion against Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is destabilizing the Caribbean nation in ways that
could move it to the top of Washington's foreign-policy.

U.S. officials are deeply concerned that the violence, if not quickly ended,
may well spark a new exodus of thousands of Haitian boat people headed for
the United States. Reported plans to interdict refugees on the high seas and
either repatriate them or transport them to hastily built camps at the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - as Washington did in the early 1990s -
are already drawing fire.

While tensions have been building for months, last week's takeover by an
anti-Aristide gang of Gonaives, the country's fourth largest city, has
signaled a major escalation. The gang, which calls itself the Gonaives
Resistance Front, was once loyal to the Haitian president but turned against
him after the killing under mysterious circumstances of their leader last
year.

The takeover set off a widespread looting and burning of government offices
throughout the city. When police tried to retake the city, they were beaten
back in fighting in which at least nine people were killed, including seven
police.

The rebellion spread to St. Marc, another coastal town that has been a
center of anti-Aristide sentiment, Sunday. The Associated Press reported
that at least 18 people were killed in and around St. Marc and Gonaives in
the last four days.

With the growing violence disrupting what remains of economic life, American
officials are worried that tens of thousands of famished people may take to
the seas in rickety boats, much as they did under a military junta that
ousted Aristide in 1991. Only the U.S. military intervention that restored
the exiled former priest to power in 1994 stopped the exodus and persuaded
many of those who had fled the country to return.

The events of the weekend followed a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, January
31 between Aristide and representatives of the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM), which has been trying to mediate between Aristide and the
opposition. Among other measures, Aristide agreed to disarm pro-government
gangs who have attacked demonstrations by opposition forces, particularly
students, in recent months; "reform" the police force; appoint a new prime
minister acceptable to the political opposition; and call new legislative
elections since the current parliament's mandate expired last month.

But the opposition, which has rejected several past offers by Aristide to
hold elections, has shown little if any willingness to negotiate with the
president who returned to power in elections in 2000 that the opposition and
some international observers believe were carried out unfairly.

The opposition has insisted that Aristide first resign as president, two
years before his term is set to expire, but Aristide has refused to do so.
"I will leave here on February 7, 2006," Aristide said last week on his
return from Jamaica. "People must respect that principle, one man, one
vote."

The Bush administration, which has made little secret of its distaste for
Aristide, has called on all sides to forgo violence. Without endorsing the
opposition's demands that Aristide step down, however, it has also called
repeatedly for the Haitian president to undertake major economic and
political reforms. In the absence of such measures, Washington, while
continuing to supply humanitarian assistance, has withheld critical economic
and development aid, and persuaded other donors to do much the same.

Thus deprived of significant economic aid, the hemisphere's poorest nation
has plunged into ever-greater misery. A recent report by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization found that 3.8 million people - roughly half
Haiti's population - "are unable to secure their minimum food requirements."

What economic reforms Aristide has carried out, largely at the behest of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), have actually added to his unpopularity,
particularly among key sectors, such as public-sector workers and poor
people hit hard by the reduction of subsidies for food and transportation,
which had been his strongest constituencies.

Disillusioned with Aristide, many of his past champions, including
grassroots groups, labor unions, and professional associations have joined
opposition, some of which includes forces that flourished during the
Duvalier period and again during the military junta, including the mulatto
economic elite.

As a result, the opposition appears to agree on only one thing: Aristide
must resign. Apart from that common denominator, anti-Aristide forces are
deeply divided with some calling for the U.S. to intervene to ensure
Aristide's departure, and others vowing to fight any such intervention.

The stalemate, however, is clearly provoking both greater violence and
growing immiseration for the vast majority of the country's poor -
conditions that would appear to make far more likely a major exodus.

According to Kathie Klarreich, a long-time, Miami-based Haiti observer, the
State Department has contacted a dozen relief groups in the past month about
possibly running a refugee camp with as many as 50,000 beds at the
Guantanamo naval base. In the 1991-94 period of military rule in Haiti, the
base housed nearly 70,000 Haitians who had been interdicted by the U.S.
Coast Guard before reaching U.S. shores.

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Klarreich noted that fewer than
1,500 Haitians were interdicted in 2003, but that the State Department are
convinced that thousands could begin leaving even this month.

A new interdiction effort, according to Klarreich, risks further
embarrassing the United States, not only because it will demonstrate the
persistent instability in nations that virtually border the U.S. at a time
when the administration is pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan and
Iraq, but also because of the obvious "double standard" it employs with
respect to Haitian refugees.

Current U.S. directives make it virtually impossible for Haitians fleeing
the island to receive refugee status in the United States, and last April
Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that Haitians posed a threat to
national security because their homeland was used as a transit route for
Islamist terrorists. The policy has been used to justify the indefinite
detention of Haitians who somehow reach U.S. shores.

People who may flee Haiti now, according to Klarreich, are fleeing "chaos
created by unruly mobs, a politicized police force, and a resounding lack of
leadership" - all of which should entitle them to refugee status.

The preparations for a Guantanamo camp, however, suggest that the
administration, which no doubt remembers the political costs to President
Jimmy Carter of the 1980 Mariel exodus from Cuba, has no intention of
granting that status to Haitians.

(One World)



----- Original Message -----
From: "bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>
To: "'The A-List'" <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 7:59 PM
Subject: RE: [A-List] Haiti Erupts


> This is a straight up coup attempt.
>
> Q:  Why has there never been a coup d'etat in the USA?
>
> A:  There's no US Embassy there.
>
> Stan
>
>
>