18952: Erzilidanto: Democracy Now! - Listen to show (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

Go to:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/19/1517210

Thursday show

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 Thursday, February 19th, 2004
History Repeating: Is A Coup Brewing in Haiti?

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The situation in the small island nation of Haiti is growing more severe by
the hour. There are now fears that the democratically-elected government of
Jean Bertrand Aristide could be overthrown in a violent coup d'etat. For weeks,
gangs of armed groups have attacked police stations and other government
outposts. More than 50 people have been killed and the violent insurgency is daily
increasing its weapons supplies. Aristide's official government forces are
ill-equipped to defend against the violence. Haiti has no army and the national
police are estimated at around 3,000 men. Aristide supporters have clashed
regularly with the insurgents and other opponents of the Haitian president.

In not so subtle statements, US officials have hinted that they want Aristide
gone. But Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced this week to officially
renounce this. But for anyone follwing Haiti over the years, it comes as no
surprise that Washington may well be involved. What is particularly troubling to
veteran observers in Haitian politics is the fact that some of the leaders of
the armed gangs are men who were at the forefront of the campaign of terror
in the early 1990s in Haiti that ultimately led to the overthrow of Aristide.

In this period, the Haitian Armed Forces and the right-wing paramilitary
death squad FRAPH, which was supported by the CIA and other US agencies, were the
principal organizations behind the reign of terror against unarmed civilians
that included at least 5,000 murders, 300,000 internal refugees, 40,000 boat
people, and countless tortures, rapes, thefts, and beatings. According to the
Haitian newspaper Haiti-Progres, a man named Louis Jodel Chamblain arrived this
week in the Haitian city of Gonaives-where the armed gangs are largely based.
Chamblain is the former vice-president of the FRAPH paramilitary death squad.

Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for life in
trials for the April 23, 1994 Raboteau massacre and the September 11, 1993
assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izméry. Chamblain arrived in Gonaives
last week with about 25 other commandos from the Dominican Republic, where he
has been living since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage
uniforms, and all-terrain vehicles.Since arriving in Haiti, Chamblain led the
attack by about 15 opposition commandos against the Hinche police station on
Haiti's Central Plateau a few days ago on February 16.

Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership was Haitian Justice
Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his
body-guard and a driver on Oct. 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA
Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights "FRAPH
members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an
unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to
kill Malary." Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living
freely in the US-in fact he is believed to be living here in Queens, NY.

Meanwhile, according to Haiti-Progres, another Dominican Republic-based
paramilitary arrived in Gonaives last week. He is Guy Philippe, a former Haitian
police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after authorities discovered him
plotting a coup with a clique of other police chiefs who had all been trained by
US Special Forces in Ecuador during the 1991-1994 coup. Since that time, the
Haitian government has accused Philippe of master-minding deadly attacks on the
Police Academy and the National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as
hit-and-run raids against police stations on Haiti's Central Plateau over the
following two years.

One of the main leaders of what is being called the opposition in Haiti, Andy
Apaid, Jr. said recently that "armed resistance is a legitimate political
expression" under a popularly elected government and that the "rebels" should
remain armed until Aristide resigns. Apaid is not a Haitian citizen. In fact, he
is a US citizen. He was born in New York in 1952. He never renounced his U.S.
citizenship and Haitian law does not allow dual citizenship. Congresswoman
Maxine Waters, who was on this program earlier this week, blasted Apaid and his
opposition front, saying, "It is my belief that André Apaid is attempting to
instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the government for the resulting
disaster in the belief that the United States will aid the so-called protestors
against President Aristide and his government."

*   Maude LeBlanc, a reporter for Haiti-Progres. She joins us on the line
from Port au-Prince, Haiti.

*   Kevin Pina, an independent journalist and filmmaker who has spent the
past 4 and a half years living and working in Haiti. He joins us from the Haitian
capital Port au-Prince.

*   Jean Beliard Lucien, a Haitian journalist who now lives in New York,
where he is the director of Radio Lakay, a Haitian radio station.

*   Brian Concannon, works for the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux,
(International Lawyers Office) in Haiti, where he has spent the last several years
prosecuting crimes committed during the 1991-1994 coup. Among the cases he has
prosecuted are those stemming from the 1994 Robato massacre by military and
paramilitary forces in a pro-democracy neighborhood.

*   Raymond Joseph, editor and publisher of the Haiti Observateur, a weekly
Haitian newspaper published in Brooklyn. He is also a columnist with the New
York Sun and is a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal. After the fall of
the Duvalier family, Joseph was briefly Haiti's envoy in Washington.

Recent Democracy Now! coverage of Haiti:


*   Haitian Prime Minister: "Coup D'Etat Machine in Motion"
*   Rep. Maxine Waters Charges U.S. Is Encouraging A Coup in Haiti
*   Is Washington Backing Another Coup in Haiti?
*   Haiti 1804-2004: Tens of Thousands Mark Bicentennial of Haitian Revolution

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