Power Shift In Haiti Puts Rights at Risk

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page A01


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 6
(snip)

The call came within hours of Aristide's pre-dawn resignation, and warned Gilles and her staff to watch their backs. She does not know who was behind the threat, as both Aristide supporters and their political opponents have reason to feel threatened by her work.

But Gilles suspects members of the triumphant rebel army, some of whom have been convicted in absentia of political killings in recent years and whose crimes she has described in reports. The caller's number is stored in her cell phone, but she does not know where to deliver the evidence in a country where the elected government has vanished in the face of a rising armed threat, carried out by men determined to restore the army to its traditional place at the top of Haitian politics.

(snip)

Thousands of prisoners have been set free across the country, including former military officers serving time for political killings and many others who say they were wrongly jailed by the Aristide government. Meanwhile, armed civilians from the wealthy hilltop neighborhoods of the capital patrol slums loyal to the president in luxury sport-utility vehicles. Although an exact count has yet to be performed, human rights workers say the number of reprisal killings carried out since Aristide's Feb. 29 resignation could be in the dozens.

"It's hard to think of a more abrupt and complete reversal of the progress we made," said Brian Concannon, a U.S. lawyer with the Bureau of International Lawyers who has helped Aristide's government prosecute groundbreaking human rights cases in recent years. "What has happened is disastrous."

Complete story at....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36889-2004Mar6.html

Enough said..

Save America!! Vote Bush Out!!!!

Have you ever been to Haiti? It is a filthy trash-heap of a place.
Aristide was nothing if not a self-absorbed theocrat interested only in keeping himself comfortable. He was/is a thug. Good riddance.

to decide a country's government.

A year ago Bush* said that the Iraqis resistance were terrrorists, yet the Haitian rebels are supported by United States funding, even though there was some low-rent democracy in Haiti. Nice effort at diplomacy.

When all is said and done, I hope that administration can't get passed the "Golden Gates" because they brought carnage to so many innocents in the World.

This article does a good job of explaining why the Haitian poor support Aristide and why the elites want him gone.

The part about the literacy program was especially interesting. Education of the poor is always a threat to those with the power and money. I would be surprised if those programs will be allowed to continue under the new 'government'.

This really is a must read article. Thanks for posting and a :kick:

It has the weirdest tone to it.