22803: Fenton: RE: FWD: 22784: Justin: Re: 22777: VISHNUSURFRe: 22774: Wharram: Re: Hermantin #22764 US aids Arisitide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Anthony Fenton <apfenton@ualberta.ca>

I wonder if Philippe still stays in touch with Cedras. He must have gotten
some pointers from him as he was staging his several coup attempts
2000-2004:

Suspected Haitian coup leader deported to Panama
162 words
21 December 2001
Agence France-Presse
English
(Copyright 2001)

QUITO, Dec 21 (AFP) - Former Haitian police commissioner Guy Philippe,
accused of masterminding a coup by the Port-au-Prince government, will
be deported to Panama, Ecuadoran police said Friday.

Philippe was detained Tuesday while attempting to enter Ecuador, at the
request of the Haitian government.

He claims to have been traveling between the Dominican Republic and
Panama on Monday when about 30 armed men stormed the National
Palace in a six-hour

coup attempt that resulted in 10 deaths.

Philippe remains under protective custody in Quito until an open airline
seat can be reserved, said Ecuadorian police commissioner Victor Hugo
Olmedo.

He was also denied political asylum. Philippe claims he is being framed
in the coup attempt because he denounced irregularities during the 2000
elections. "I saw them with my own eyes," said Philippe.

Ecuadorian authorities revoked Philippe's visa upon arrival at the Quito
airport and placed him under arrest.

Panama will not accept alleged Haitian coup plotter.
230 words
21 December 2001
EFE News Service
English
(c) Distributed via COMTEX News.

Panama City, Dec 20 (EFE) - If Ecuador expels a suspected Haitian coup
plotter to Panama, his location before heading to South America, Panama
will deport him, Panamanian officials said Thursday.

Guy Philippe, the Haitian ex-police chief accused of plotting to overthrow
the Haitian government, arrived in Panama from the Dominican Republic
on Tuesday and left the same day for Ecuador, Panamanian Foreign
Minister Jose Miguel said.

Panama is currently home to two exiled Haitian coup leaders, former army
Gen. Raoul Cedras and Col. Phillipe Biamby, who ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.

Philippe has denied any involvement in Monday's failed coup attempt and
instead alleged that is being persecuted for denouncing irregularities in
the last elections, which election observers sharply criticized.

On Monday, several dozen heavily armed men stormed the National
Palace, but security forces were able to qualm what Aristide labeled a
coup attempt.

Several attackers died in the assault, and Haitian police are still seeking
the remaining gunmen.

Philippe's attorney told the press in Ecuador that his client is a legal
resident of Ecuador and cannot be deported.

The Ecuadorian government on Wednesday announced its intention to
deport Philippe, after he was accused of conspiring against the Haitian
government.

According to the foreign ministry, Philippe arrived in Quito Tuesday from
Panama, carrying an investor's visa.

Ex-Solider Details Haiti Coup Plans,Names Co-Conspirators
433 words
20 December 2001
05:43 pm
Dow Jones International News
English
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)--An ex-soldier on Thursday admitted he
attacked Haiti's National Palace in a coup attempt, saying the
conspirators also included a former army colonel and two former police
chiefs who fled the country as suspects in a previous coup plot.

Former Sgt. Pierre Richardson was captured with a bullet wound in his
leg after Monday's assault on the presidential palace, stopped on a
highway to the neighboring Dominican Republic, police said.

Richardson, the only palace attacker caught so far, spoke a day after one
of those he implicated, former Col. Guy Francois, was arrested and
accused of helping plan the assault.

When police presented Richardson to reporters at a police station
Thursday, he said there were 23 or 24 attackers who stormed the palace
in an attempt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was
unharmed.

"It was a coup d'etat," Richardson said. "The plan was to enter the
National Palace."

His comments contradicted the accusations of opposition leaders, who
claimed the government staged the attack as a pretext to crack down on
dissent. After police retook the palace, Aristide supporters sought
vengeance, burning offices and homes of opposition leaders.

Richardson said he attended meetings in the Dominican capital of Santo
Domingo to plan the attack. He said two who fled to Dominican Republic
last year after being accused in a coup plot also were present: former
police chief Guy Philippe of the northern city of Cap-Haitien, and former
police chief Jean-Jacques Nau of Delmas, just outside Port-au-Prince.

"Guy Philippe told us that former Col. Guy Francois would organize a
backup for us in Haiti," Richardson said. But when the group began the
attack, no backup force materialized, he said.

Philippe has denied involvement. In October 2000, he sought refuge in
Dominican Republic along with seven others accused of plotting a coup.
He later moved to Ecuador, but he flew back to Dominican Republic two
weeks before Monday's assault, Dominican officials said.

After the attack, he returned to Ecuador, where he was being held by
immigration police Thursday while he appealed a decision to deport him
to Panama, the country from which his flight had arrived.

Haiti asked Ecuador to extradite Philippe on Thursday. Philippe,
meanwhile, told reporters in Quito: "How am I going to mobilize troops?
By remote control?"

Five attackers were killed Monday, and the rest escaped, authorities said.
But based on the number of attackers given by Richardson, as many as
18 suspects could still be at large.