Haitian Rebels Say They Won't Disarm Yet

[seemslikeadream]

PAISLEY DODDS

Associated Press


GONAIVES, Haiti - Before a raging fire, rebel fighters in this bleak western town offered metal scraps Saturday to a voodoo war god, portending still more violence for Haiti.

Though rebel leader Guy Philippe has pledged his fighters will disarm, many insist they will not give up their weapons until militant supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide do the same.

Rebels who choose not to show their weapons in public openly admit they have stashed them for later use. And the Gonaives ceremony to Ogun Feray, the war god, indicates Haiti's bloody uprising might not be over.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8124833.htm

[Tinoire]

1. Well just spoke to my mom. They're slaughtering people in the streets

under the watchful eyes of the US & French troops. Gun-fire all night long and everyone is scared out of their wits. Edifices, poor neighborhoods are burning. The supporters of group 184 meanwhile, sleep peacefully in their doberman-guarded mansions.

Rebels my foot.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Tinoire have you seen this issue of The Black Commentator

During the questioning at the Congressional hearing on Haiti, I believe Rep. Delahunt mentioned Stanley Lucas.

May 15,2003
Supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government are convinced that the U.S. has decided to do a "regime change" in Haiti before the world's first Black Republic celebrates its 200th anniversary, in 2004. Frustrated that a three-year, American-led aid embargo against Haiti has failed to topple the popularly elected Aristide, the Bush men are escalating their proxy terror campaign against Lavalas party activists and the island nation's fragile infrastructure, all the while threatening to further strangle the economy.

Worldwide celebrations have already begun in honor of the slave insurrection that defeated Napoleon's armies to establish Haitian independence in 1804. The Bush administration, probably the most symbol-obsessed regime in modern U.S. history, has deployed its diplomatic, military and propaganda resources to prepare an alternative scenario.

"The symbolism of having a populist government in Haiti, that represents the interests of the poor black majority, is intolerable to US foreign policy, especially as all the parallels with the history of US slavery are sure to be drawn," said a well-placed observer who must remain nameless due to the atmosphere of terror in the country. "They want a subservient client in power when the bicentennial comes down. They cannot control Aristide, therefore they must do as they always have in these situations, destroy him and his government by any means necessary."

Early this month, at least 20 commandos attacked a hydroelectric power plant on Haiti's central plateau, killing two security guards and setting the control room afire. It is common knowledge that incursions originate across the border in the Dominican Republic where, according to a Dominican priest known as Father J, members of the former Haitian military regime exercise mafia-like control over a million of their destitute countrymen. Father J has worked on behalf of Haitian human rights issues for the past 25 years. He reports that sectors of the Dominican military protect the Haitian mafia's operations, which fund the paramilitary incursions.

There is evidence that the Republican Party is directly involved in plotting Aristide's overthrow. Stanley Lucas, an International Republican Institute operative based in the Dominican Republic, met with Philippe and his gang on Dominican soil, three months ago. Inside Haiti, the Institute functions as a political support group for the Convergence, a group of small opposition parties on the island

http://www.blackcommentator.com/42/42_issues.html

[Tinoire]

10. No... They attacked the power plant?

Animals. Thugs. What interest would they have in depriving the poor of electricity? This is one of the power plants Aristide had built :(

I have a thread in GD showing some pictures.

Very disheartening. They are systematically destroying the country and undoing 10 years worth of hard work. :(

I read an article tonight in a Haitian paper that Bush had been calling for Aristide to leave for the past 6 months.

Schools, free universities, hospitals, clinics, electricity plants, running water, minimum wage. I guess that was all too much for the sweat-shop owners- people being treated like people and not second-class slaves.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Even John Ashcroft found a way to get some kicks in, as well

Taken from an article linked in your article above:

Ashcroft invented a "terror" connection that few in Miami's Little Haiti have ever heard about, claiming that Haiti has become a staging point for Pakistani, Palestinian and other "suspect" aliens to enter the U.S. Not just the locals, but U.S. State Department diplomats are also "scratching their heads" over the new claim. Consular Service spokesman Stuart Patt told the Miami Herald, "We are asking each other, 'Where did they get that?'"
(snip)

Even the State Department's consular officers and officials are puzzled by his remarks. Jorge Martinez, a spokesman for Ashcroft's office, could not immediately say where the Attorney General got the information. Martinez then directed inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security, and a Homeland Security spokeswoman redirected questions right back to Martinez.
(snip)

This routine REALLY sounds familiar by now. Can't wait until these people leave. They have hijacked our government and its authority.

[Tinoire]

13. Yes... just like Al-Queda in Venezuela

The triborder region of South America has become the world's new Libya, a place where terrorists with widely disparate ideologies -- Marxist Colombian rebels, American white supremacists, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others -- meet to swap tradecraft. Authorities now worry that the more sophisticated groups will invite the American radicals to help them. Moneys raised for terrorist organizations in the United States are often funneled through Latin America, which has also become an important stopover point for operatives entering the United States. Reports that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is allowing Colombian rebels and militant Islamist groups to operate in his country are meanwhile becoming more credible, as are claims that Venezuela's Margarita Island has become a terrorist haven.


http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2003/stern_protean_enemy_foraffairs_070103.htm

9/11: Chavez financed Al Qaeda, details of $1M donation emerge

High-level military defectors reveal new terrorist links between Al Qaeda and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The man who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western hemisphere gave $1 million to the world's most wanted terrorist right after the 9/11 attacks.

http://www.militaresdemocraticos.com/articulos/en/20021231-01.html
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/817209/posts

I wish I could find good links to the mainstream papers where Chavez literally howled and told Bush he was nuts and that there was no Al-Queda in Venezuela. Instead, I found those which are even scarier!

Is this the brave new world? The extremes they are going to are frightening!

[Judi Lynn]

14. Now that takes some real contortion

trying to stretch Chavez, whom they brand a "communist" into a form also embracing Al Qaeda & Bin Laden, who spent so many years WARRING against the Russian Communists.

They've got him in cahorts with completely opposing "movements." How do they explain such astounding short cuts in logic? They claim that their mutual hatred of us, and hatred of our "freedoms" causes them to conspire against us.

Only the dimmest bulbs among us could EVER swallow that bilge. Yet, in case anyone should question them, they have added the threat of censure as being "unpatriotic" if we challenge their behavior and their constant stream of propaganda through our media.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Haiti, another "nation building" project

March 4, 2004—President (democratically elected by the people of Haiti, I might add) Aristide is alleged to have fled his country in the dark of the night.

Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former Haitian army officer sentenced to life at hard labor in connection with the 1993 assassination of politcal activist Antoine Izmerym, and Jean-Pierre Baptiste, also sentenced to life for his role in a 1994 massacre, were both leaders of the FRAPH, or Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, a CIA-backed organization that carried out state terror against opponents of the military regime that ruled the country from 1991 to 1993.

Should one not think what I have stated is true, simply look at the scenario that has taken place. Less than two weeks ago, when the terrorists (what else can a band of thugs attempting to overthrow a government be called? Yikes! Who was it that overthrew Iraq's government?) were killing, pillaging, and making demands, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared: "There is, frankly, no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence that we are seeing." Instead, he insisted, a "political solution" was necessary, based on a deal between Aristide and the opposition thugs and the "power elite."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/030404Kaiser/030404kaiser.html

[Barkley]

5. Tinoire I'm praying for your mom's safety!

Thanks so much for updating us on what's really going on in Haiti.

[Tinoire]

8. Not my mom- my great aunt

but thank you for the warm thought & prayer.

My mom has lived in the states for the last 45 years, emigrated when Papa Doc took power. Most of the immediate family on my father's side emigrated at that time and about 3/4 of my mother's generation/family.

Thank you Barkley. It's so hard to get real news and I am scared for the ones who are there that I loved so much when I lived there for a few years. Thanks

[burrowowl]

6. I hope your family will be alright

and the poor people of Haiti. Damn U$ imperialism and the Frogs helping them!

[Tinoire]

9. Thanks. It's heart-breaking.

The most upsetting is that I don't think the people are going to take this lightly. They just spent an entire year getting ready for the bicentennial of their independence from France and are fresh with the very memorable stories & celebrations of what Dessalines & L'Ouverture did to rid Haiti of the French.

Bush could not have picked a worse time to do this.

Thanks for the good wish. This place warms my heart :)

[politick]

2. I don't find this hard to believe

Are the US marines going to have to fight these thugs now? And why didn't they stop them in the first place? Hmmmm

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. As in Iraq G DUHbya's finding out it's not as easy as it looks

[Tinoire]

12. I fear it's not going to be easy at all

The elite there is scared of the people which is why group 184 hired these thugs. The Haitian poor weren't afraid of the marines from 1915-34 and were slaughtered by the thousands.

France and the US picked a very bad year to do this. Haitians have spent all year celebrating L'Ouverture & Dessalines. Check out this excerpt from Dessaline's Proclamation of Independence and ask yourselves how happy the people must be at the arrival of not just US troops but French troops. And their President whisked away by France. Again. This just doesn't bode well because the people aren't going to take this lying down.

Little factoid. Napolean sent 55,132 troops to Haiti ever saw France again. http://www.discoverhaiti.com/history00_10_1.htm for a very good on-line history of the battles.

==========

<snip>

Fortunate to have never known the plagues which have destroyed us, they can only make good wishes for our prosperity. Peace to our neighbors! but anathema to the french name! Eternal hate to France! That is our cry.

<snip>

Let us swear to the entire universe, to posterity, to ourselves, to renounce forever to France, and to die rather than to live under its domination.

General Jean Jacques Dessalines, 1804. "Live free or die!" (PROCLAMATION OF HAITI'S INDEPENDENCE)

http://www.geocities.com/ndorestant/independ.htm
http://foundspirits.com/jjdessalines.htm

[burrowowl]

15. It would be nice

if Haiti could repeat what they did to Napoleon's troops to Emperor George but I doubt it. I saw in an article where the U$ Marines were accompanying the so-called 'rebels' to fire at Haitians.