From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Tue Mar 09 2004 - 20:03:21 MST
[Sebby]
...without looking for facts and supporting evidence of wrongdoing, i would say it is usually enough when the peasants rise up against you, and largely support the insurgent guerilla force. people generally don't react with such brave rebellion unless something really really shitty is going on...and for a long time.
...i think i could run Haiti. i could turn that country around completely.
[rhinoceros]
Heh... the peasants revolting and going out with those big forks... how do they call them. It shows that I am a city boy.
That would be something... We had those in the battle of Crete against the Nazis. We heard at school how the Cretan peasants managed to fend off the Nazi parachute troopers for 40 days by running around in the fields and nailing them.
But the picture of Haiti that I obtained after some reading is very different. It involves organized paramilitary gangs, properly armed and funded. With 70 percent unemployment and $1 a day to live on (US sanctions are not unrelated to this), a paramilitary career should be a dreem career for the youth. Besides, Aristide disbanded the Haitian army in 2000, just after he returned to office after a coup, admitting his inability to keep the army under the control of the state against more substantial centrifugal forces. Of course, that meant that he would have to rely on his armed supporters...
Some facts or alleged facts which never made it to the mainstream media can be found in links already posted in our BBS lately, but were largely ignored because of their "noname" or "fruitcake" branding. A pity. I'll expand on some of them while addressing some points made by Casey.
[Casey]
Here's the link to the article where the quote originated:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/02/16/haiti.aristide.ap/
[rhinoceros]
Before going into the "necklacing" issue, I'll stop at a couple of points of this CNN article (an AP report actually).
<begin quote>
until he won a second term in 2000, at presidential elections marred by a low turnout and an opposition boycott.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
In spite of the fact that CNN reports these elections results...
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/election.watch/americas/haiti1.html
<begin quote>
Presidential Candidate: Jean-Bertrand ARISTIDE
Party: Lavalas Family Party (FL)
Valid Votes Received: 2,632,534
Percent of Valid Votes Received: 91.81%
Population: 6,867,995 (July 2000)
Number of registered voters: 3,668,049 (1995)
<end quote>
...which show that the abstention of the opposition, which actually happened, did not amount to much, it passes on any claims as if they were common knowledge.
Well, you might say, this is no big deal because, first, maybe these results are not so clear... who knows what happened there... and, second, Aristide has a lot going against him anyway... no need to be pedantic and stick to one single point.
Hmm... what else does the CNN article say? There is this paragraph:
<begin quote>
International donors suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in aid after his Lavalas Family party -- whose emblem is a fighting cock -- swept flawed legislative elections.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
Googling around I found that the issue of the flawed elections was about 7 senate positions which the opposition claimed that they had won. Aristide balked, but after some pressure and threats he complied -- these senate positions wouldn't change much anyway. That did not apeace the Republican majority in the US senate which went on to block international programs for economic aid to Haiti. They wanted nothing less than Aristide's ousting, and the way they chose for doing that was bringing Hell to Haiti and Haitians, peasants and city-boys alike.
About the necklacing thing, it seems that the Haitian boys have really picked some bad habits. Here is, for example, something that appeared in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3740183,00.html
<begin quote>
Rebels perpetrated similar reprisals Wednesday in Gonaives, burning to death a man accused of being an Aristide hitman in the "necklacing" style: putting a tire over his head, dousing him with gasoline and setting him aflame.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
Is Aristide also one of them psycho-killers, endorsing necklacing his opponents with burning tyres? The report of Aristede saying so openly on TV appeared in Newsweek in 1994 and is now all over the net. As CNN reports it:
<begin quote>
The burning tire, what a beautiful tool! ... It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to smell it," Aristide said September 27, 1991.
<end quote>
[rhinoceros]
Whatever some Haitians do, this behavior should not be acceptable from a leader who was supposed to get Haiti out of this mess. I googled for antilogue and found this:
http://www.fair.org/extra/9411/aristide-demonization.html
Enemy Ally: The Demonization of Jean-Bertrand Aristide
<begin snip>
John McLaughlin provided one of the shriller summaries of the claims on the McLaughlin Group (9/20/94): "Aristide has been charged by eye-witnesses with criminal horrors, including assassination; complicity in the humiliation of the Papal Nuncio...and, most horribly, Aristide's exhorting of mobs to use necklacing, Haitian slang for gang execution with a gasoline-soaked tire put around the neck and set aflame, also called Pere Lebrun." McLaughlin then showed a video clip that he said showed "Aristide inciting a mob to Pere Lebrun with his lunatic sing-song chant."
The assault against the Papal Nuncio, who was suspected of supporting an attempted coup, occurred before Aristide came to power, and Aristide was not involved. As for the alleged "Pere Lebrun" speech, it nowhere mentions necklacing, and seems in context to be referring to the Haitian constitution as a "beautiful tool." Despite the constant repetition of the claim that the spell-binding Aristide "exhorted mobs to use necklacing," there were no documented cases of necklacing from the day of Aristide's inauguration until the day of the coup.
While the old charges linger on (Newsweek, 9/19/94, merged quotes from two different statements into "one angry speech" to make it seem like Aristide had called for necklacing), new disinformation is surfacing -- often based on the flimsiest of reporting.
<end snip>
[rhinoceros]
Read the rest of the aticle if you care enough. The reason I posted this is to point out that we tend to accept things that appear casually in the mainstream media as "common knowledge". More than that, I was not there, I don't know.
[Casey]
Would you have a link detailing your assertion that M-16s are finding their way through the Dominican Republican and into Haitain paramilitay opposition groups?
[rhinoceros]
Oh, I still owe a source for the claim about American guns finding their way to the opposition gangs (suporting the claims that a US sponsored regime change happened in Haiti). Googling for <Haiti M16 Dominican> I got many hits, so I chose the one with the most relevant title.
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/26961_comment.php
One M16 every 20 yards? Overthrowing Haiti
<begin snip>
Fifteen months ago, the Bush Administration supplied twenty-thousand M16sto the Dominican Republic, ostensibly to "defend the border" with Haiti. At least eight thousand US soldiers were also sent, to train and assist.
For the 220 mile border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, 20,000 M16s = 1 M16 every 20 yards!!..a VERY dense border patrol? More likely, it paved the way for an armed coup of a democratically elected government.
Haiti doesn't even have an army.
Differing opinions about Aristide may exist among the Haitians, but the Bush Administration is clearly encouraging the opposition -- led by a wealthy US-born sweatshop owner -- towards a violent overthrow of the government, and has very likely supplied the arms as well.
<end snip>
[rhinoceros]
The article is followed by a barage of reader comments, for and against, lively if not cool-headed.
I have no illusions that we can arrive at an agreement on the issue of the USA feeling free to "set things right" all around the place, even at the expense of the people. I do believe, however that we should always take a look for "the other side", facts or claims which never make it to the mainstream media.
And of course there still remains the issue of the future of Haiti. If the death-squad type warlords are excluded, as they should, nobody seems to have a viable solution.
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