19716: Esser: In Haiti, reminders of coups past (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com

In Haiti, reminders of coups past
Juan Gonzalez

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2004

How do you prove or disprove a military coup by your own government
against a legally elected foreign leader?

Political overthrows do not get confirmed at White House conferences.
Ask the Guatemalans.

It took decades for the truth to come out about the 1954 CIA-backed
coup against the government of President Jacobo Arbenz.

The Bush administration spent all day yesterday denying the stunning
allegation from several top black leaders that U.S. soldiers seized
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide over the weekend and
escorted him into exile in Africa.

California congresswoman Maxine Waters began the firestorm after
talking by telephone with Aristide in the Central African Republic.
Waters relayed claims from Aristide that he had been "kidnapped" by
American soldiers.

White House officials immediately labeled it a fabrication from a
desperate fallen leader.

Our soldiers tried to protect Aristide - after armed rebels and a
growing opposition movement forced his voluntary resignation - to
prevent more bloodshed, we were told.

But Waters wasn't buying the White House story. She blasted key Bush
officials, whom she claimed are leaders of the "hate Haiti" group in
Washington. They are some of the same officials who were also
uncomfortably close to another recent coup attempt - in Venezuela,
two years ago, against Hugo Chavez.

Waters specifically singled out U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Roger Noriega. A former chief of staff for North Carolina Republican
Sen. Jesse Helms, Noriega is now in charge of all Western Hemisphere
policy. After a 1991 Haitian military coup that ousted Aristide the
first time, Noriega's boss, Helms, became the most zealous opponent
of returning Aristide to power.

Noriega did all the negotiating the past few weeks between Aristide
and the opposition in Port-au-Prince.

Another key figure has been Otto Reich, who now serves as President
Bush's top national security adviser for Latin America. In the 1980s,
Reich, an extreme right-wing Cuban, was part of Lt. Col. Oliver
North's secret Nicaraguan support group within the government.

Two years ago, Reich and Noriega were both involved in meetings with
the opposition groups aiming to topple Chavez in Venezuela.

Like Aristide, Chavez initially rode to power with massive electoral
support from his country's poor, then met strong opposition from both
the upper classes of his own country and the Bush administration. In
April 2002, after a violent confrontation between pro- and
anti-Chavez protesters, a group of Venezuelan generals ousted Chavez.

Back then, the White House rushed to announce that Chavez had
"resigned," and Bush officials blamed Chavez for bringing the
troubles on himself. But a few days later, Chavez managed to get a
telephone call out to his supporters, and the world learned that he
had not resigned but had been arrested and imprisoned by the military.

Once the news broke, Chavez supporters poured into the streets to
defend their president, and the coup plotters fled.

Now Aristide is making an eerily similar claim. Only this time it's
American troops accused of removing a legally elected leader.

"The terms of his resignation were dictated to him," said Rep.
Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who also spoke to Aristide by telephone.
"It's a coup. Those are the magic words."

While the press investigates the claims, expect ordinary Haitians to
pay the price.
.