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It was yet another
media fraud. The international media portrayed it as though "rebels" were
rising in arms against the government. What actually happened was a military
coup organized from the US embassy.
John-Bertrand
Astride, a Catholic priest, influenced by liberation theology, was the first
elected president in 200 years of Haitian history. He had been re-elected in
2000 with over 90% of the vote. Haiti itself is a tiny country comprised of half
the island of Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic accounts for the other half).
It is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and the fourth poorest in
the world with a literacy rate of just 50%.
Ever since Bush came
to power he has been nursing armed squads of the old savage Duvalier regime.
Comprised of former military and police officers, professional assassins and
their criminal gangs which fled Haiti, when Astride came to power in 1994,
these, like the contras of El Salvador, were trained by the CIA in both the US
and the Dominican Republic.
It was these armed
‘squads’, with sophisticated US weapons, that entered Haitian early February,
and were called by the western media as "rebels" and "insurgents".
The US media portrayed Astride as some megalomaniac against whom the Haitian
population had risen in revolt. It is these terrorist lumpen squads that had
entered the country and went on the rampage in town after town. Simultaneously
the US stationed 2,000 marines in three ships off the coast of Haiti. US troops
also entered the country in the name of providing "security". Unlike
Iraq, in this case the other imperialist powers quickly ganged up, with France
and Canada sending their own contingent of troops (France was the old colonial
power in Haiti). Once again the servile UN swiftly authorized the formation of
an international security force comprising the aggressors. All this in a matter
of three weeks!!!
Till 1994 Haiti had
been ruled by the murderous and genocidal Duvalier dictatorship and his son,
Papa Doc. It was the murderous officers of that old regime that were now leading
the armed gangs. The "rebellion" was portrayed in the international media
as a prelude to a bloodbath of inhuman proportions. Thus as the "rebels"
closed in on the capital and surrounded the presidential palace, the foreign
troops saw to it that there was the least possible resistance and, on Feb.28
dismissed the President. Astride was packed off on a plane to Africa and the US
embassy appointed the Chief Justice as the new President, ignoring even the
Prime Minister.
Later Astride
recounted what happened on that fateful day. He says a large number of armed men
—"white" as well as Haitian — came to the Presidential palace in the dark of the
night, kidnapped him, extracted a resignation from him with threats of death and
bloodbath, whisked him off to the airport and put him on a plane without
disclosing the destination . He stated: "during the night of the 28th of Feb.
2004 there was a coup d’etat. One could equally say it was geopolitical
kidnapping. I can clearly say it was terrorism disguised as diplomacy……. The
28th of Feb. at night, suddenly American military personnel who were already all
over Port au Prince descended on my house in Tabarre to tell me that … the
foreigners and Haitians terrorists alike, who are loaded with heavy weapons,
were already in position to open fire. And right then, the Americans precisely
stated that they will kill thousands of people and it will be a bloodbath; the
attack is ready to start, and when the first bullet is fired nothing will stop
them and nothing will make them wait until they take over, therefore the mission
is to take me dead or alive….".
The backbone of the
Haitian economy consists of plantations, sweatshops and export processing plants
owned largely by US, French and Canadian firms and a handful of local
compradors. No doubt the Americans will bring back the maniacal rule of the Papa
Docs and their assassins. Haiti is yet one more case of the US military going on
the rampage, unwilling to tolerate even a liberal ruler. What they demand today
is total puppets.
Can the people of the
world stay quiet to these blatant acts of aggression and destabalisaion of
regime after regime with full UN complicity? Not a single government of the
world has condemned the blatant aggression in Haiti. This shows when the
imperialists are united the rest stay quiet. But, this silence is only an open
invitation for more aggressions, conquests and occupation of countries around
the world. That the comprador and servile governments stay quiet is natural, it
is the people of the world that must loudly condemn and oppose such crude and
barefaced acts of aggression against countries around the globe.
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