Thousands rally for Ariside return

[struggle4progress]

More than 5,000 supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched through Haiti's capital, calling for his return and accusing the U.S. government of forcing his departure.
<snip>

Protesters, many wearing T-shirts and caps with photos of Aristide, chanted "George Bush kidnapped Aristide," and "Mobilize for Aristide to return!"
<snip>

More than two dozen U.S. Marines patrolled the march route Friday, and there were no reports of violence. Haitian riot police also were on hand.

Protesters said new presidential elections would not be legitimate if Aristide didn't come back and serve out his term. Aristide has said he wants to return one day but has said the conditions must be right.

"We can never go to elections without Aristide being returned," said Johnny Daris, 21, a mechanic among the marchers.
<snip>

http://www.etaiwannews.com/World/2004/06/20/1087702490.htm


And from the American press ...


Haiti wants Aristide back -- to stand trial

As deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was departing the Caribbean for South African exile last month, he vowed to return to his homeland.

Haitian justice authorities also want him to return -- to face trial for alleged drug trafficking, money laundering, misuse of public money and expropriation.

"We are investigating these misdeeds, and if we have evidence of his wrongdoing, we will seek to extradite him," interim Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said. "The investigation is continuing, and I don't want to jeopardize it, but I can say we are making progress."

Aristide's Miami-based lawyer, Ira Kursban, said his client steadfastly rejects such allegations as "totally false and politically motivated." Noting that only the United States recognizes the interim Haitian government, Kursban described the inquiry as "an investigation designed to smear President Aristide that is directed by the U.S. Embassy in Haiti."
<snip>

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_045d50d88197328900bb.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. Case of ex-rebel leader looms over Haiti

Case of ex-rebel leader looms over Haiti
Justice uncertain after surrender
By Steven Dudley, Globe Correspondent | June 20, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Louis Jodel Chamblain turned himself in to Haitian authorities in April for his alleged role in assassinating more than two dozen people by calling a press conference and publicly declaring his innocence.

ADVERTISEMENT

''I'm handing myself over to be a prisoner so that Haiti has a chance for the real democracy that I am fighting for, for the real justice for which I have always fought," a tearful Chamblain, a former army sergeant and rebel commander, told reporters who had gathered as police waited outside for him.

The case against Chamblain is only one of the myriad challenges facing Haiti's new US-backed government, which has taken over this Caribbean nation since the Feb. 29 ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Rebels, many of them former military personnel who faced charges during the Aristide government, remain in control of several provinces, especially in the north of the country. Some have been accused of drug trafficking, others of corruption and insubordination.

One US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that some of the rebel forces supported their activity through drug trafficking. ''That's how they staged the operation. They were more drug traffickers than they were rebels," the official said.

more
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/20/case_of_ex_rebel_leader_looms_over_haiti/

[seemslikeadream]

2. Chamblain was the number 2 man in the FRAPH death squad

Rebel leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain talks with other rebels at their headquarters in the Mont Joli Hotel in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Saturday Feb. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Pablo Aneli).

Louis-Jodel Chamblain

Convicted assassin and leader of death squads

Chamblain was the number 2 man in the FRAPH death squad which participated in the campaign of terror during the 1991 coup against Aristide.
Terrorising supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family party, the group was blamed for thousands of killings before a US intervention ended three years of military rule in 1994.
"I am scared of what I did, not of what I didn't do," Chamblain told the AP. "I never committed murder. I am not a terrorist. I am not a drug dealer. I am not a criminal."

He was, however, convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for the September 11, 1993 murder of Aristide financier Antoine Izmery, who was dragged from Mass in a church, made to kneel outside and shot.
Chamblain was also convicted for the April 23, 1994 massacre in the pro-democracy region of Raboteau.
A CIA intelligence memorandum implicated him in the October 14, 1993 assassination of Justice Minister Guy Malary who, with his bodyguard, was ambushed and machine-gunned.

According to the CIA memorandum, dated October 28, 1993, and obtained by the Centre for Constitutional Rights, "FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary".
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant was the founder of FRAPH.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20040307T040000-0500_56740_OB ...

Analysis: Haiti's diverse rebels


The exiles' leader is Louis Jodel Chamblain, 50, who fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994.

A former sergeant, he is accused taking part in a number of atrocities during the years of military rule.

He was suspected of involvement in a 1987 election massacre, in which 34 voters were killed and a civilian-run ballot aborted.

In 1993 in co-founded the Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress - Fraph, which sounds like "hit" in French.


The group is accused of killing thousands of supporters of Mr Aristide.

Plots

Mr Chamblain denies involvement in any paramilitary activities and describes himself as a "Haitian patriot".

He returned from exile with another controversial former soldier, Guy Philippe, 35.


Aristide supporters are being hunted down across the north
Trained in the United States and Ecuador, he was a senior security official under President Rene Preval, a civilian elected in 1995.

Now Mr Philippe and Mr Chamblain are allies, and celebrating their capture of Cap-Haitien, the country's second city at the weekend.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3515267.stm


Louis Jodel Chamblain


Chamblain was joint leader - along with CIA operative Emmanuel “Toto” Constant - of the Front révolutionnaire pour l’avancement et le progrès haïtien, (Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress) known by its acronym - FRAPH - which phonetically resembles the French and Creole words for ‘to beat’ or ‘to thrash’. FRAPH was formed by the military authorities who were the de facto leaders of the country during the 1991-94 military regime, and was responsible for numerous human rights violations before the 1994 restoration of democratic governance.

Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain’s leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights: “FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary.” (Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living freely in Queens, NYC.)

In September 1995, Chamblain was among seven senior military and FRAPH leaders convicted in absentia and sentenced to forced labour for life for involvement in the September 1993 extrajudicial execution of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. In late 1994 or early 1995, it is understood that Chamblain went into exile to the Dominican Republic in order to avoid prosecution.

http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng02-25.html

The most disturbing figure in the rebel leadership is Louis Jodel Chamblain. He is reported to have led the insurgents’ attacks on Central Plateau towns, including the regional capital of Hinche.

Chamblain was a sergeant in the Haitian army (FAd’H), and a member of the elite Corps des Leopards. He left the army in 1989 or 1990 and reappeared on the scene in 1993 as one of the founders of the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress (Front révolutionnaire pour l’avancement et le progrès haïtien, FRAPH). Known as its number two leader, he had a reputation for violence and action (in contrast to the better known and more media-friendly Emmanuel “Toto” Constant). In the report of Haitian Truth and Justice Commission, there is a statement by Emmanuel Constant that explains that FRAPH’s central committee was composed of himself, Chamblain, Mireille Durocher-Bertin, a lawyer who was murdered in 1995, and Alphonse Lahens (a prominent Duvalierist).

Chamblain was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1993 murder of businessman and activist Antoine Izmery, as well as for involvement in the 1994 Raboteau massacre. He is also implicated in the assassination of Justice Minister Guy Malary, who was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to a 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, “FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary.”

Chamblain escaped to the Dominican Republic in 1994, after the U.S. military intervention in Haiti, and returned to the country in late 2003 or early 2004.

http://www.flashpoints.net/Haiti_Rebel_Leaders.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Will Haiti's death squad thugs ever be brought to justice?

:(

[seemslikeadream]

4. Go America. Just GO! GO AWAY!

Tinoire
Go America. Just GO! GO AWAY! / My response to your powerful post


But these light-skinned people, descendants of the Old Colonials, and their darker skinned "house niggers"

living in these houses

and riding these very rare horses in Haiti on jump courses most Upper-class Americans can only dream of

thought it was worth it

to send School of the Americas thugs like these to kill our own countrymen

and bring the Ton-Ton Macoute Republican/DLC-loving tortures back.

These people, very dark-skinned as you can see, disagreed.

This boy will die from it

This girl, still alive, dreams of a better world
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Mariejo%20Mont-Reynaud,%20Palo%
Be afraid America. We will gracefully carry our burden but we shall expose your shame once again, just as in 1804.
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Andre%20Boulmier,%20Meyrin%
because our children, too, have a right to dreams & rightful expectations of a decent life
http://www.sakapfet.com/photocontest/2003/images/entries/Jermain%20J%20Merola,%20Jacquet%
We shall not forgive you or the evil bogeymen you bought

We shall not forget the boys you slaughtered

all in the name of Americans and Haitian collaborators who live in homes like this

So take your ass-hole

Take your DLC

Take your God-damned imperialistic military

And get the fuck out of my country

No need to fly your Stars and Stripes

because we have our own flag of which we are sufficiently proud, & which means things through its colors which give you NIGHTMARES

& a constitution that REALLY meant something and liberated South American countries from 'subsidizing' your way of life

Haiti, not America, was the first "Free" Republic in the Western Hemisphere but it galls America, built on the blood & sweat of slaves, to acknowledge that a bunch of slaves whooped imperialistic ass.

18 May, 2004 denouncing the US occupation of Haiti
Tens of thousands of Haitians took to the streets on May 18 to call for the return of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and for an end to the country’s foreign military occupation.
Haitian police units backed up by U.S. Marines fired in the air and into crowds, killing at least one demonstrator. Saintus “Titus” Simpson, 23, of Delmas 33 was shot in the head, spilling his brain, as demonstrators approached the central Champ de Mars square.

Marguerite Laurent of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership cited sources saying that at least four people died. “One Haitian woman seized the fourth body that fell next to her and refused to give it to the Marines,” Laurent reported. “She removed all her clothes to show she had no weapons while Marines surrounded her at gunpoint. She cursed in Kreyol, calling on the revolutionary ancestors and shouting “Liberte ou lamo!” (Liberty or death!) She picked up the body herself and put it on her bare back, daring the Marines to kill her also while she carried it away.”

<snip>

The night before the march, U.S. helicopters flew and hovered low all over the city, Washington’s now common form of psychological warfare in Haiti.

<snip>

http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng05-19.html

good that you're back I've missed you

[Matilda]

10. Seemslikeadream, I love your posts.

You take so much care, and give so much information.

I thought it was probably all over this time, but I'm glad the
people of Haiti are not rolling over, although I fear much more
blood will be shed.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Thank you so much Why Haiti? Why Now? Three words: Cuba, Venezuela, Oil.

but it's so so hard to decide what to leave out.

Why Haiti? Why Now? Three words: Cuba, Venezuela, Oil.

by J. Damu
Sumitted to portside, March 2, 2004

Black people across America and throughout the world, in fact all people who love and honor democracy and social justice, have to be outraged at what was surely the cloaked in darkness gunpoint kidnapping of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide by U.S. militarists, this past Sunday, February 29.

We must speak as one to denounce this latest "lebensraum" (living space) foreign policy of the Bush administration, which is beginning to resemble more and more that of the German nazi era.

Despite this moral outrage committed against the long suffering people of Haiti, the first anywhere to successfully rise up against their slave masters, an act of defiance for which they've never been forgiven, the questions asked by many protestors, as hundreds streamed from San Francisco's underground rail system to demonstrate against Bush's latest crime, were, "Why Haiti?" and "Why now?"

SNIP...

The removal of Aristide has been a long simmering coup in the making that dates back at least to the Clinton presidency and the refusal of Congress to release promised funding to the economically devastated island. However the timing and execution of the Haitian coup has to be placed within a regional and world context. The coup, or extra-democratic process, which brought George Bush to the White House, allowed him to hand over U.S. foreign policy decision making, as it effects the Western hemisphere, to naturalized U.S. Cubans dedicated to the overthrow of the Cuban revolution.

Their policies, although geared to the overthrow of Fidel Castro and socialism in Cuba, converge neatly with U.S. designs to destabilize the Caribbean and Central-South American region and insure U.S. supremacy and access to Venezuela's all important oil.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/WhyHaiti_WhyNow.html





HAITI COUP:INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN THE US AND HAITI


“The U.S. has been a strong supporter of all of these issues. So okay, where is this whole mechanism now? Why hasn’t it be into place? As far as I can tell, the only thing we have is the 15 CARICOM countries who have called for respect for democratically elected leaders and have not acknowledged the present unconstitutional government in Haiti and Venezuela.

“Where are the Brazilians? Where are the Argentineans? Where are the Mexicans? Where are all these other countries? Many which are led by people who it is hard to say are U.S. puppets. Where are they? Why haven’t these mechanisms been put into play in this case?”

Perhaps the silence is the result of economic blackmail – Internal Monetary Fund debt, European Union pressure, or U.S.-imposed sanctions are reason enough for these countries to turn a blind eye to the sovereign nation across the water.

“There is considerable information that the international banks, under orders from the United States, blocked aid to Aristide’s government. They said that they were doing this to leverage change after a ‘questionable’ 2000 election. The question arises, though, as to whether this is an appropriate source for leverage.”

http://www.sfbayview.com/040704/haiticoup040704.shtml

[Mika]

12. seemslikeadream, support Cuba's sovereignty & be branded "extremist"

Best not to mention Cuba in a supportive way, unless being painted as an extremist leftist, even on DU, is OK with you. ;-)


Mr Kerry, Tear down the wall!

---

Kerry's stated policy on Cuba:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8848574.htm

Under Kerry Cuba will remain under US sanctions

Under Kerry we will still be travel banned unless our travel is deemed politically worthy by US gov jackboots

[DesolationRow]

5. I thought the GOP was all ga-ga about victim's rights?

But now they want to try the victim instead of the criminals? The whole situation there makes my soul ache in a way no other Bush-America insanity does. There are no vast material resources there. Only people. In a way, we can all at least partially understand greed, but this is just smashing people down because they happened to stand up.

wtf? Wtf? WTF??

Needing to find a bright side, it is good to see that the people are still standing up and fighting back.

[Just Me]

7. Perhaps, their definition of a "victim" is as narrow as their true goal,..

,...power and money,...which corrupts the justice consistent enforcement of the "rule of law" would bring to this world.

Power and money are at the top of their list of priorities. "Victims' rights" is merely a campaign ad with no substance, whatsoever.

[Judi Lynn]

6. It's been said before. Slave owner appeasers, apologists, and lovers

couldn't allow a success story for Haiti, when the people who were PROPERTY rebelled against their oppressors and took their lives back.
After all, the owners lost their investment!

What could be worse? Those slaves had no respect for the ones who wanted them to serve them, and ONLY them faithfully every day then die when their usefulness was over.

The solution of the demons among us has been to smash them down every time it appeared they were close to being able to hope again. Can't have that. Pry their leaders out of their arms, and insert the foulest, most corrupt toads we can hire, and their buddies, and give them the keys to the island, with our blessings, and, of course, heavy armament.

[struggle4progress]

8. We really need to exorcize those demons. eom

[Darranar]

9. But... but... he was a dictator!

:eyes: