Article from Jamaica Observer. Monday, March 1, 2004: Coup d'etat in Haiti
Eh Din vigorously condemns the role of the US and other imperialist powers in the coup d'etat in Haiti . All the evidence very clearly points to the fact that the US has instigated and backed the individuals and organisations that have overthrown the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The justifications provided by the US are part of and are consistent with the programmes of “regime change” that Anglo-US imperialism is promoting throughout the globe in the name of “democracy” and overthrowing “failed states”. They cover over just who it is that is responsible for the plight of the people and lack of stability in the first place.
A campaign of disinformation has been spread for a while by official circles in the US and elsewhere to demonise the Haitian government. According to this disinformation, Aristide was a violator of human and democratic rights. This covers over the support US imperialism has given to the very criminals in the “opposition” that they themselves have given rise to. This whole scenario has given rise to the pretexts for intervention and before that for cutting economic aid.
The demonisation and accusations of human rights violations has become the big powers' stock-in-trade, along with accusations of “failed states” and other such terms, to justify interference, intervention and annexation. It has been happening in the Caribbean, as well as the Middle East and, of course, Africa , as well as in other parts of the globe. The “legacy” of colonialism in this sense includes the colonialism of our own day, carried out for the “benefit” of peoples who have fought for their independence, and prosperity through their own efforts, but are faced with a practice and logic of “globalisation” by these big powers.
The supreme irony of the coup d'etat in Haiti is that it has been carried out in the name of “democracy” and restoring peace and order. This shows how vigilant the peoples of the world must be, not only about the intentions of US imperialism and the big powers but also about strengthening their independence and relying on the support of the people's forces world-wide.
The people of Haiti are a proud people who have just celebrated 200 years of the victory of their struggle for independence. The working class and people must support their struggle for justice and their right to self-determination and sovereignty today.
Jamaica Observer. Monday, March 1, 2004
The deed is done.
Haiti has been raped.
The act was sanctioned by the United States , Canada and France .
For despite the fig leaf of constitutionality with which these Western powers, and supposed bastions of democracy, have sought to shroud the act, what happened in Haiti yesterday was nothing short of a coup d'etat.
Indeed, having pressured President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into resigning and going into exile, these powers have firmly placed their imprimatur on a politics that rewards violence and a process that abjures principle in favour of narrow ideological positions and personality preferences.
It is a lesson that Caribbean countries, and particularly Caricom states – which may feel a certain cosiness about their democracy – ought to take seriously. For if they thought otherwise, democratically-elected leaders are easily expendable if they, at a particular time, do not fit the profile in favour with those who are strong and powerful.
It is an issue that Caricom leaders must seriously contemplate when they discuss the Haiti issue in Kingston tomorrow. These islands are all vulnerable.
The truth be told, Mr Aristide was never the flavour of the Parisian set, the inside-the-beltway crowd of Washington or the new Canadians. And hardly was Mr Aristide ever going to be the favourite of the types in Haiti who fomented yesterday's coup d'etat, who engineered his previous overthrow in 1991, and who have been the fulcrum of real power in pre-Aristide dictatorships, even if they did not directly hold the reins of Government.
For all his faults and flaws, Mr Aristide represented something very fundamental in Haiti . A possibility. The possibility of the assertion of Haiti 's majority. Its under-class.
Stripped to its core, this, fundamentally, has been what the demonstrations and unrest in Haiti these past several months, have been about. Indeed, no one who has followed the debate, as articulated by the official Opposition, has heard the enunciation of a cogent and coherent position, except the demand for Mr Aristide's resignation.
That demand was superimposed on allegations of corruption and irregularities in the elections of 2000, which were boycotted by the Opposition. The truth, though, is that no one has credibly questioned that Mr Aristide's victory represented the will of the Haitian electorate. And if election irregularities were a substantial part of the reason for Mr Aristide's removal, then the United States would perhaps wish to examine the conduct of its own poll at around the same time that Mr Aristide was facing Haitian voters.
Which, really, is the crux of the matter. Mr Aristide was the legitimately-elected president of Haiti .
But Messrs Powell, de Villepin and Graham, having reneged on their endorsement of a Caribbean Community initiative, under which Mr Aristide undertook to share power with his opponents, deemed that the Haitian president was expendable. The niceties of democracy were thrown out the window, and the matters of principle so vigorously defended by President Chirac and Foreign Minister de Villepin over Iraq were quickly shunted aside. And new Canadians went with the flow.
Having seen the back of Mr Aristide, trampled on the considered position of their friends in the Caribbean, and welcoming a putsch in Haiti , the troika is ready to sanction a UN-backed peace-keeping mission to Haiti to restore order and DEMOCRACY!
There are several lessons here for Caricom, not least of which is the imperative of the region getting its economic act together so that its voice can be heard beyond its appeals for economic aid.
Also, last July, Mr Owen Arthur placed on the agenda the proposal for a Caricom security system. This demands attention.
Mon Mar 1, 2004, WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted as Haitian president on Sunday, told US lawmakers and other contacts by telephone on Monday that he was abducted by US 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. US officials said that after intensive consultation between US 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.