Reply #14: France

[cal04]

didn't France just help get Aristede out of Haiti?
I'm not surprised

Interesting how Iraq was a U.S.-British led force. This is a U.S.-French led operation. In fact, didn't Aristide say he holds the French Ambassador to Haiti as well responsible for his kidnapping and wants to bring charges?

KIM IVES: Yes. The French were involved in all this pressure and, in fact, were in some ways leading the charge. And I think he also explained to us how he arrived in the Central African Republic was, a call -- the official version is that the plane was in the air and nobody wanted him and they were looking for some place and the Central African Republic was the only place.

AMY GOODMAN: Voyage of the damned?

KIM IVES: Right. The reality was that some arrangements were made through Gabon, and President Bongo of Gabon, which is the leader of the Central African States - thats sort of the dean of those states. And so Bongo called the Central African Republic and said, essentially, listen, you're going to take Aristide. This is what the Foreign Minister explained to us. So, this was done through the U.S., France, Gabon talking. No Haitian officials were involved. Nobody from Haiti was involved. This was a purely U.S.- French Operation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, France probably more than the United States had more to lose from Aristide continuing in the presidency since he was beginning to lay claim to reparations from France for the period of colonialism and slavery.

KIM IVES: This is precisely it. You had the restitution for $21.7 billion, which was on the table, and we saw a lot of rivalries were put aside to get Aristide out -- between the ruling groups in Haiti or the comprador bourgeoisie and the big land owners, who generally are constantly squabbling throughout Haitian history for power, They put aside their differences to get togethe, which we see from Andy Aphead representing the bourgeoisie and Guy Philippe and Jodel Chamblain, And, we saw the France and the U.S. who have also been sort of vying, pushing aside their differences. So you saw this union, unity, come between rivals against Aristide because he represented the people and because he was a representative of the popular will in Haiti.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you account for the thousands of people who came out -- the news reports were in support of the ouster of Aristide, calling for him to be returned so he could be tried?

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/11/1538244&mode=thread&tid=25