27439: Kondrat (statement) US Congress Member calls for Haiti Inquiry (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Kondrat <kondr8@gmail.com>

This statement was found on the site www.truthout.org

    *Congresswomen Waters Urges
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
to Investigate the Coup d'Etat in Haiti*

    By Representative Maxine Waters
    t r u t h o u t | Statement

    Thursday 02 February 2006

    Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35) expressed her
support for a petition that is being filed before the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights. The petition seeks to establish that the Bush
Administration participated in a coup d'etat to overthrow President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically-elected President of Haiti, in
February of 2004, and, in so doing, violated the democratic rights of the
people of Haiti. The Congresswoman's statement follows:

    Two years ago, our government was a party to a coup d'etat in Haiti.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically-elected President of
Haiti, was forced to leave Haiti in a regime change supported by the United
States. President Aristide left the country on February 29, 2004, aboard a
US airplane when US Marines and Embassy officials came to his home in the
wee hours of the morning and told him to leave immediately or he and
thousands of other Haitians would be killed. The US plane took him to the
Central African Republic and left him there.

    This coup d'etat was carried out after groups of heavily-armed thugs had
taken over several Haitian towns, occupied police stations, terrorized the
local population, and entered Haiti's capitol. Many of these thugs were
former soldiers from the brutal Haitian army, and many of them continue to
roam Haiti today with impunity.

    After the coup d'etat, I led a delegation of President Aristide's
friends and supporters to escort President Aristide out of the Central
African Republic and accompany him to Jamaica, where he was reunited with
his family. President Aristide and his family are now living in exile in
South Africa.

    Two years later, the tragic results of regime change in Haiti are clear.
Haiti is in total chaos. The unelected interim government, which was put in
power by the United States and has received unprecedented support from our
government, is both oppressive and incompetent. Violence is widespread, and
security is non-existent. The Haitian police have been implicated in
extrajudicial executions, and the interim government has imprisoned hundreds
of political prisoners without trial. Haitian elections, which are now
scheduled for next Tuesday, have been postponed several times, are fraught
with technical problems, and are unlikely to be free and fair.

    I urge the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the
coup d'etat that occurred on February 29, 2004, and determine the role of
the Bush Administration in this travesty of justice, which denied the
democratic rights of the people of Haiti.

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