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Reply #74: I meant the links which actually indicate Aristide stole the election. [View All]

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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-22-04 12:00 AM
Response to Reply #73
74. I meant the links which actually indicate Aristide stole the election.
Edited on Sun Aug-22-04 12:11 AM by JudiLyn
I"ve seen the links you posted.

On edit:

Here's another link:
The latest chapter in Haiti's long agony began with mid-year parliamentary elections in 2000. The constitution requires runoffs when a majority of the total vote is not achieved. The counting method had not been challenged by the opposition or OAS observers beforehand. But afterwards, a US government-financed International Republican Institute operative instigated a challenge of the counting method, providing a pretext for international challenge of the election and an opposition excuse to boycott the December presidential election in which Aristide would certainly have been returned to office.

Fanmi Lavalas offered to rerun the contested elections that fall. The opposition rejected that obvious solution. But the Democratic Convergence — 4-5% of the electorate — which included parties so small Haitian journalists call them "particles," had found a means to occasion US interference and paralyze Aristide's government. It has since refused to negotiate unless Aristide resigns, and has stopped the Electoral Commission from holding elections by refusing to name members. The DC cannot elect a government but it would rule — however, if only by frustrating rule.
(snip/...)
http://www.peaceactionme.org/march4slavick.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A VERY interesting link on Aristide's election:
My last visit to Haiti occurred in April and early May of 2000. I left there only a week or so before what later became known as the "flawed" elections. Preval was still President, but Aristide was to run again for election in December. When I got home from that trip, I told everyone who asked me about Haiti: "The United states is going to do everything in its power to prevent Aristide's election. But it probably will not succeed because he is so overwhelmingly popular with Haiti's impoverished majority. Therefore, what they will do is everything they can think of to make it impossible for him to govern."

We are now watching the climax of that strategy. The May, 2000, parliamentary elections were challenged on a technicality, declared to be "flawed," and made the pretext for the few people opposed to Aristide to boycott the presidential election later that year, which in turn became the basis for saying that his presidency was not legitimate. In the summer of 2000 the International Republican Institute helped cobble together a political coalition of splinter parties that became known ever after as "the opposition." From the start, it adopted what it called "zero option," which meant that it would not cooperate with Aristide in any way as long as he was in office.

Yesterday (March 1) John Kerry became the first U.S. politician that I have heard who described the US role in Haiti correctly. He said that the US, by telling Aristide consistently that he had to come to terms with the opposition, had in effect empowered them to refuse all compromise. I can't remember if Kerry mentioned it, but the other thing the US did on the political front was to block loans to Haiti by the InterAmerican Development Bank that had been intended mainly for health and education.

It is now clear, as some of us suspected all along, that the US was also engaged in covert operations to prepare for the use of arms against Aristide and for the return of the Haitian Army (FADH), which Aristide had disbanded, against the wishes of the US Government, in 1995 in the most popular move he ever made as President. The recent insurgency is equipped with powerful weapons, has used a land and sea strategy, was trained in the Dominican Republic, is headed by the same military and paramilitary criminals who worked with the CIA in 1991-94, could not have taken place without US Government knowledge, and shows every sign of being an intentional part of US strategy.
(snip/...)
http://www.witherspoonsociety.org/2004/driver_on_haiti.htm
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