From remote stronghold, Haiti fugitive seeks political power
From remote stronghold, Haiti fugitive seeks political power
David Mcfadden, Associated Press
Updated 12:15 am, Tuesday, September 6, 2016
PESTEL, Haiti (AP) Fishermen gathered eagerly at a rickety wooden pier to welcome a boat carrying Haiti's most divisive and provocative political candidate.
The crowd quickly cleared a path as Guy Philippe stepped to shore and began shaking hands and slapping backs. More people emerged to see the man whose face adorns campaign posters on one-room shacks in a community isolated from the rest of the country by forested mountains and rutted roads.
Philippe is reviled by some Haitians as a leader of the 2004 rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He is wanted on decade-old drug-trafficking charges by U.S. authorities. And last week, a Haitian judge questioned him about a deadly May raid on a police station after he rebuffed previous subpoenas.
Yet Philippe appears to be revered in the rural Grand'Anse region of southern Haiti. Many already call him "senator" as he seeks to win a seat in a runoff election scheduled for Oct. 9 a victory that would give him immunity from arrest and prosecution in his homeland as well as political power that he has long craved.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/From-remote-stronghold-Haiti-fugitive-seeks-9204420.php#prev
[center]
Guy Philippe, during the coup to overthrow Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
He and his paramilitaries were outfitted, armed, trained in the
Dominican Republic, then surged across the border and lay waste
to Haitian citizens on their bloody way to destroy Aristide.
Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain, who lead death squads
in Haiti in earlier days. Chamblain was a member of the horrific
Tonton Macoute, which terrorized the Haitian population under
the orders of the monstrous, US-supported dictator, Papa Doc
Duvalier.
Both Philippe and Chamblain were trained by US Special Forces
in Ecuador, back in the 1990's.
Guy Philippe, in the middle.
Louis Jodel Chamblain
Emmanuel Toto Constant [/center]
The following article is a transcript from Democracy Now, an interview with Haiti's attorney done right before the unforgivable, bloodthirsty coup in the plan to overthrow President Aristide, despised by the US right-wing, and the George W. Bush US military:
Haiti's Lawyer: U.S. Is Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
February 25, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/25/haitis_lawyer_u_s_is_arming