Yes, the U.S. did overthrow Aristide in Haiti (op-ed / Topeka Capital J)

By Mark Weisbrot
MinutemanMedia.org

President Bush's State of the Union speech was long on "the force of human freedom," which he called "the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul." Yet just 600 miles from Florida, that hunger and longing are being met every day with bullets, beatings, arrests and rape by the unelected, unconstitutional government in Haiti. That government's biggest supporter is the administration of George W. Bush.

One year ago, Washington helped depose the elected government. The populist ex-priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's president, became the first elected leader to be overthrown twice by armed thugs supported by the United States.

The first time was in 1991, after he had served only seven months as the country's first democratically elected president. At the time, the evidence of Washington's culpability was circumstantial: The leaders of the coup were on the CIA payroll. A death squad organization that killed thousands of Aristide's supporters during the 1991-1994 dictatorship was headed by Emanuel Constant, who told the world on CBS' "60 Minutes" that the CIA hired him for the job.

This time, our government's role in the coup was more overt. "This is a case where the United States turned off the tap," said economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Colombia University. "I believe they did that deliberately to bring down Aristide." Sachs was referring to the cut off of funding from the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank from 2001-2003. It was an unusually cruel thing to do: Haiti is desperately poor, with the worst incidence of malnutrition and disease in the hemisphere. <snip>

http://cjonline.com/stories/041505/opi_weisbrot.shtml

Just thought I'd mention that. :)

-Technowitch

www.bugmenot.com

Actually, I have a little BugMeNot plug-in for Firefox. It's great.

reading my home town paper again. It is usually so full of crap that I catch a few little things and then come here for real news. What do you know.

to post about it here. :D

Cite Soleil, a horribly poor slum of 250,000 people, is under virtual lockdown, cut off from commercial traffic. Young men cannot leave for fear of arrest, since the neighborhood is known to support Aristide. People who are shot by police, army or pro-government thugs treat their injuries at home because anyone who shows up at a hospital with a bullet wound can be arrested. Bodies of victims can be seen in the streets, being devoured by dogs and pigs.

you can use http://www.bugmenot.com

to get user names and password.

Part Chilean, at least last December. Don't know their current composition.

... Iran's Mossadeq have been available for a while now. The US was also clearly involved in the toppling of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. The 1973 assassination of Chile's Allende and subsequent installation of Pinochet was clearly a Nixon-Kissinger operation.

There's a lot more ugly post-WWII US history in this vein ...

a long laundry list of US military actions around the world since WWII, many resulting in overthrow of a government, almost always governments whose politics leaned a tad or a lot to the left of the liking of RWer-forces willing to do absolutely anything to rid the world of the scouge of ungodly Communism or anything/anyone a tad left of right.

in a whole lot of other cities, too. So glad these facts are making the rounds and might be pondered by people who have never heard the real story yet:

But it worked, in that it made people's lives even more miserable. The economy shrank, and Washington poured in tens of millions of dollars through USAID, the International Republican Institute and other organizations to forge a political opposition. It was a movement that could never win an election, but it controlled the media and had some heavily armed former military personnel -- including convicted murderers -- who wanted to get back in power.

On Feb. 29 of last year, they got their wish. As their insurrection closed in on Port-au-Prince, U.S. officials told Aristide they could not guarantee his safety -- despite the fact that they managed to secure the airport with just a handful of U.S. Marines. According to U.S. press reports, they told Aristide he was going to a news conference. They took him instead to the airport where he boarded a plane to an unknown location, which turned out to be the Central African Republic.
(snip)

The goal of the present government seems to be to use violence and fear to intimidate the pro-Aristide population, which appears still to be the majority and who continue to demand the return of their elected president. It is eerily similar to the 1991-1994 dictatorship in both its objectives and methods.

But they are making sure that, unlike last time, Haitians do not escape the island to embarrass the U.S. government by washing up -- alive or dead -- on the shores of Florida. The silence here regarding Haiti's torment, in the media and among major U.S. human rights organizations, is deafening and shameful.
(snip)

Thank you for the article.

Not to toot my own horn or anything.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/03/06_banda.html

But the standard media has largely failed to indicate that there's any version of the story, except the official bilge. So I'm always glad to see any indication of cracks in the wall.

By the way, I rememember reading "No Hay Banda" last year. Keep it up!

Heart sank to knees reading that the first _Bush had engineered the first coup. I DID NOT KNOW THIS. I only knew that Bill Clinton had managed to return Aristide to his proper position.

These people are demons. Nothing short of that. Thanks, again.

The Lousiana Purchase was a direct result of the Haitian Revolution, and our country's continued treatment of Haiti has been criminal. We should have been supporting them in any way possible, but racism got in the way of all of that. After all, a truly successful and independent black nation would have created severe problems for the continuation of slavery.

after its citizens gained their independence from slavery. Those elements in our own country which hated them then live on through their own filthy descendents now: people who can't imagine respecting the rights of others.

Thanks for the clue about the Louisiana Purchase. I believe a lot of people could barely stay awake during American History in school, and took away almost nothing, including a sense of curiosity, myself, as well. WE didn't know then how much had actually been left out! No WONDER it seemed so dull, and flat. It was a real white wash, and an insult to all the people who have suffered wildly because of the ruthless behavior of the scum which made a point of trying to grab the reins of power in order to benefit themselves and their ugly cronies, just as it operates today.

Looks as if our real educations have to start after we're out of school and discover how little we really know!