The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 68/No. 12           March 29, 2004  
 
 
Washington threatens Jamaica
and elected head of Haiti gov’t
(front page)
 
BY PATRICK O’NEILL  
With U.S. and other imperialist troops patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince and other Haitian cities, Washington has cobbled together an “interim” regime to replace the elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The Haitian leader was shanghaied by U.S. armed forces and flown out of the country to the Central African Republic on February 29 as ultrarightist forces took over much of the country.

When Aristide denounced his forced exile by Washington and announced his plans to travel to Jamaica, a neighbor of Haiti, U.S. officials issued warnings against both the Haitian leader and the Jamaican government, implying that they should be blamed for any “instability” in Haiti caused by imperialist occupation troops or the rightist groups. Aristide was under armed guard throughout his exile in the Central African Republic. Speaking out from that country, he condemned his treatment at the hands of U.S. officials and soldiers, and called for “peaceful resistance” to the U.S.-led occupation.

In a March 13 phone interview with New York Times reporter Michael Wines—the authorities did not allow an interview in person—the deposed president spoke about the February 29 events.

As rightist forces advanced on the capital, Aristide said, U.S. ambassador James Foley and other officials had told him “it was a matter of hours—either I leave, or there will be bloodshed.” The Haitian president was then taken to the airport, where he was “surrounded by military well armed…. It wasn’t necessary for them to say a word.” He said he felt he had no choice but to get on the U.S.-chartered plane.

“They put you on the plane, they left with you, and they flew 20 hours without telling you where you were going,” he said. That day, the U.S. Marines began arriving in Haiti.

According to the Times, Foley asserted that Aristide’s trip to Jamaica and his “return to the Caribbean would risk further destabilizing Haiti by emboldening his followers to resist the transition to a new government.”

Foley then added, “It must be said that Jamaican authorities are taking a certain risk and a certain responsibility.” The Haitian leader’s presence, he said, risked “destabiliz[ing] a very fragile and suffering country at the very moment when the international community is just beginning to lay the foundation and the new Haitian government is just beginning to be formed.”  
 
U.S.-led patrols target working people
Aristide’s supporters in Port-au-Prince have been the main target of the occupying forces’ patrols. According to a March 13 Reuters report, the Marines “have fought half-a-dozen gun battles with suspected Aristide militants since they landed here hours after the former president left the country on Feb. 29.” In the first two weeks of March they shot dead several people in Port-au-Prince, including a taxi driver who failed to stop at a roadblock. The Haitian police have killed a number of people as well.

Reuters reported that on March 7 up to 10,000 people, mostly residents of the slums and other Aristide backers, demonstrated in Port-au-Prince to denounce the occupation and demand the restoration of the elected president.

Although the occupying forces are “multinational,” it is the U.S. Marines that are heading most of the probes into the working-class areas of Port-au-Prince.

Army Gen. James Hill, head of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters March 10 that more than 2,400 troops are on the ground as part of the so-called Multinational Interim Force commanded by U.S. officers. They include 1,600 U.S. Marines, along with 516 French, 328 Chilean, and 52 Canadian soldiers, with 400 more arriving within the week.”

The foreign troops, said Hill, are conducting “presence patrols” with the Haitian national police to begin disarming anyone without a weapons permit.

Hill said the troops are “establishing the required conditions for the arrival of a more robust UN-led multinational force.”

U.S. officials have kept the military leaders who toppled the elected government at arm’s length. In a March 6 visit to Port-au-Prince, General Hill said that Guy Phillipe, the most prominent coup plotter, “is still in the city and we are still looking for him to lay down his arms.”

In the capital city the rightist forces that carried out the coup have stepped aside for the U.S.-led forces. The rightists remain in control of a number of other cities.

Army Maj. Richard Crusan told reporters that “Special Forces from the U.S. Southern Command in Florida arrived at rebel bases of Cap-Haitien, on Haiti’s north coast; the western city of Gonaives; and possibly other locations across the country.”

Washington organized a seven-person “council of wise men” as a fig leaf to give the appearance that Haitian forces were organizing a new government. The council, made up in its majority of opponents of Aristide, announced in early March that it had “chosen” Gérard Latortue as prime minister to replace Yvon Neptune of Aristide’s Lavalas Family Party, who stayed on to help with the transition.

“I come with all my impartiality, with no political party,” Latortue told reporters on his arrival in Port-au-Prince. Echoing U.S. officials, he said disarmament of the conflicting forces would be a priority.  
 
Flew in from Florida
Latortue, a businessman, left Haiti in the 1960s during the U.S.-backed dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier. He returned to serve as foreign minister in the civilian government of Leslie Manigat, established in 1988 in the aftermath of a popular uprising that ousted Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. After just four months in office Manigat was overthrown by a right-wing military coup.

The new prime minister said he would appoint Herard Abraham, a former general, as head of Haiti’s security operations. “The move is “likely to placate armed rebels, many of whom were members of the Haitian army before it was disbanded by Mr. Aristide,” the New York Times reported.

Abraham has called for the reconstitution of the Haitian armed forces, disbanded by Aristide in 1995 as a favor to Washington. U.S. officials have stated that they oppose reestablishing the army, and that Washington will instead build up the national police and coast guard, which collaborates with U.S. Coast Guard efforts to detain Haitian refugees at sea who are trying to reach U.S. territory.

According to media reports, the former Haitian army officers who played a prominent part in the revolt released a number of their henchmen in the hours following Aristide’s departure. Among those released, reported the Chicago Tribune, were former military officers Hebert Valmond, Jean-Claude Duperval, and Carl Dorelien. All had been jailed for their part in the reign of terror under the generals’ regime imposed after a 1991 coup against the first Aristide government. In 1994 some 20,000 U.S. troops intervened and reinstalled Aristide on Washington’s terms.

Guy Philippe and Louis-Jodel Chamblain, the most prominent military leaders of the recent coup, had been convicted of crimes by Haitian courts under Aristide’s administration. Philippe was exiled after the exposure of his role in several attempted coups against President René Preval, an Aristide supporter who governed from 1996 to 2000. Chamblain was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1993 murder of a Haitian businessman. A Haitian court also found him responsible for the 1994 killings of about 25 Aristide supporters in a seaside slum in Gonaives, Haiti’s fourth-largest city. John Kerry, the all-but-official Democratic Party candidate in the 2004 presidential race, has tried to score points against his Republican opponent on the Haiti situation, saying that unlike President Bush he would have “sent an international force to protect” Aristide, according to the March 7 New York Times.“I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period,” said Kerry, criticizing U.S. president George Bush for withholding aid from Aristide and then pressuring him to leave.

“Look, Aristide was no picnic, and he did a lot of things wrong,” said Kerry, echoing the White House. However, he said, not backing the regime with U.S. troops sends “a terrible message to the region, democracies, and it’s shortsighted.”

General Hill stated March 10 that the role of the U.S. troops is to secure key sites in Port-au-Prince, assist with the delivery of “humanitarian assistance,” and participate in “the repatriation of any Haitian migrants interdicted at sea.”

A February 29 Associated Press dispatch from Miami stated that 336 Haitians had been taken into custody the day before, “bringing to 867 the number of Haitians returned in the past week to the strife-torn Caribbean nation.” The report added, “the Coast Guard is patrolling the waters around Haiti with ships and aircraft.”  
 
 
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