US accused of training Haitian rebels in Dominican Republic

[seemslikeadream]

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).

HAVANA, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States armed and trained in the Dominican Republic the groups that rose against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a preliminary report issued in the Dominican Republic indicated Monday.

"200 soldiers of the US Special Forces arrived in the DominicanRepublic, with the authorization of Dominican President Hipolito Mejia, as a part of the military operation to train Haitian rebels," declared the commission when unveiling the report in the Dominican capital Santo Domingo.

Priest Luis Barrios and lawyer Briant Concannon, both members of the "independent" commission, presented the preliminary resultsof the investigation that contradicted the Dominican authorities which had previously considered "surrealistic and oneiric" the delivery of US guns to Haitian rebels in their national soil, as some accusations stated.

Barrios said at a press conference that the commission had a "countless number of reports" proving that the Haitian rebels were armed and trained in Dominican military camps located in the eastern locality of San Isidro and the western regions of Haina and Neiba.

They also mentioned that rebel Guy Philippe was detained twice but "immediately released" in the Dominican Republic, in December 2001 and May 2003, while the insurgent leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain "was photographed" disguised as a Dominican police.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/30/content_1390551.htm