Haiti Foreign Press Update

Michelle Karshan
Foreign Press Liaison
Email: mkarshan [at] aol.com


1. Aristide Lawyer Calls on U.S. to Probe 'Kidnapping
2. Aristide plans to sue US, France for kidnap -lawyer
3. [African Union says] 'removal' from Haiti 'unconstitutional'
4. Dr. Paul Farmer Ltr to Powell on right to healthcare/training
5. Noam Chomsky on Haiti - US-Haiti, An analysis NEW!
6. AHP News - March 8, 2004 - English translation (Unofficial)
7. Websites to visit



1. Aristide Lawyer Calls on U.S. to Probe 'Kidnapping'
Rueters, March 9 — By Jane Sutton
MIAMI (Reuters) - An attorney for exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand
Aristide asked the U.S. attorney general on Tuesday to investigate what he called the
kidnapping of the president and a coup in Haiti, as a first step to returning
Aristide to power in Port-au-Prince.


Lawyer Ira Kurzban told a news conference he had written to U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft seeking a congressional investigation and the prosecution
of U.S. officials he accused of engineering a coup d'etat in Haiti.
Aristide left his revolt-torn Caribbean country on Feb. 29, urged to quit by
the United States and France as rebels closed in on the Haitian capital. In
exile in the Central African Republic, Aristide has accused the United States of
kidnapping him and forcing him into exile, which Washington has denied.
Kurzban said the United States refused to allow the U.S. security company
guarding Aristide to send reinforcements to Haiti in the days before the Haitian
leader left, and told Aristide that U.S. forces could not protect him unless
he signed a resignation letter.
"They in effect through threats and coercion, forced him to sign a letter of
resignation," Kurzban said.
He said that in the early hours of Feb. 29, Aristide thought he was being
driven from his home in Port-au-Prince to the National Palace but was taken
instead to the airport where he boarded a U.S.-chartered plane.
Once he was held on board "it was a kidnapping," the lawyer asserted.
Kurzban said the U.S. actions violated international treaties covering the
treatment of protected persons, who include Aristide and his U.S.-born wife
Mildred.
In his first public appearance in the Central African Republic, Aristide said
on Monday he still regarded himself as Haiti's legitimate leader and insisted
he had been abducted by U.S. forces.
Washington has denied Aristide's allegations of kidnapping, saying it helped
him leave Haiti but the decision to go was his own. His supporters have
alleged that a resignation letter he signed is invalid as he wrote it under duress.
In France on Monday, a lawyer for Aristide said Aristide planned to sue the
United States and France for allegedly kidnapping him.
Kurzban said that lawyers would consider a lawsuit later once they had
collected evidence.
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, was a champion of Haiti's emerging
democracy when he helped overthrow the brutal Duvalier family dictatorship in
1986. But critics accused him of ruling autocratically and tolerating
corruption. Simmering tensions erupted into an armed revolt in early February.
Copyright 2004 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
--------------------------------
See today's interview with Ira Kurzban, Esq. on Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/09/1518238
=============================2. Aristide plans to sue US,France for kidnap -lawyer
PARIS, Mar 9 (Reuters) Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide plans to sue
the United States and France for allegedly kidnapping him, one of his lawyers
said.

Aristide, who arrived in the Central African Republic a week ago, has
repeatedly accused the United States of forcing him into exile after a rebellion
plunged Haiti into chaos.

Lawyer Gilbert Collard yesterday said he and an American colleague would file
identical suits in France and the United States in the next few days once
they receive full authorisation from Aristide.

''We will file suit against the French ambassador (in Port-au-Prince) and
against the (U.S.) military authorities that carried out the abduction of the
president,'' he told Reuters.

''The suits will target the Bush administration and the French government,''
he said. ''If we get support from some African states, we will also appeal to
the relevant commission of the United Nations.'' Asked whether the lawsuits
could succeed, Collard replied: ''You never know. In a world where you can
abduct a democratically elected president, you have to hope a democratic judge
would find a way to do this.'' At his first news conference in Bangui yesterday,
Aristide appealed for peaceful resistance to what he called the occupation of
Haiti and insisted again he had been abducted.

Washington and Paris have denied his allegation of kidnapping, saying he
agreed to leave Haiti and signed his own letter of resignation.


3. Aristide's 'removal' from Haiti 'unconstitutional' (African Union)
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - The African Union, which groups 53 states on the
continent, has described Jean-Bertrand Aristide's "removal" as president of Haiti as
"unconstitutional," in a statement received by AFP.



"The African Union expresses the view that the unconstitutional way by which
President Aristide was removed set a dangerous precedent for a duly elected
person and wishes that no action be taken to legitimize the rebel forces" in
Haiti, said the statement released by the AU Commission, the body's main decision
making body.
The head of the AU Commission, Mali's former president Alpha Oumar Konare,
arrived Tuesday in the Central African Republic and held an hour of talks with
the exiled former leader of Haiti, officials in Bangui said.
Neither man would comment after the meeting.
Konare "came here to meet president Aristide, gather information and then
report back to the African Union so that it can take a formal position on the
presence of Aristide in Africa and, more specifically, in the Central African
Republic," Deputy Foreign Minister Guy Moskit told AFP.
The French ministry meanwhile announced Tuesday that Aristide signed a formal
letter of resignation from office, refuting his claim that he remains the
country's elected president.
"Constitutional legality was respected. Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned. His
letter of resignation was formally put into effect," said foreign ministry
spokesman Herve Ladsous.
Aristide has been in Bangui since March 1, after he fled his native Haiti
following weeks of unrest.
Officials in CAR have said the Haitian former leader was only passing through
on his way to exile elsewhere, probably South Africa, where Aristide has good
relations with President Thabo Mbeki.
But with South Africa in the midst of campaigning for elections, the country
was unlikely to offer asylum to Aristide until after the April 14 polls, an
African diplomat here has said.
And Pretoria has said it will not take a snap decision on asylum for
Aristide, for which, in any case, it has not received a formal request.





4. Dr. Paul Farmer Writes Secretary of State Colin Powell on behalf of the
right to healthcare and medical training

March 9, 2004

Dear Secretary Powell:

In recent weeks, a long-simmering conflict in Haiti has erupted to trouble an
already troubled world. As an American doctor working in Haiti, I am writing
to air my concerns about the conditions under which health care delivery must
now take place. For weeks, the country's only large public teaching hospital
has been paralyzed by violence and dissent. For years, economic pressure
largely, though not wholly, resulting from an international aid embargo, has left
almost nothing to invest in the care of the destitute sick. For a sense of how
meager the health investments have been, consider the experience of an
American doctor who commutes between a Harvard teaching hospital and a squatter
settlement in rural Haiti. In 2003 the budget of the entire Republic of Haiti,
population 8 million, was less than $300 million. The 2003 budget of a single
Harvard teaching hospital-- and there are two dozen Harvard teaching hospitals--
was pegged at $1.3 billion.

A longstanding dearth of funds for health care and other services coupled
with a rising tide of violence and disarray have led to a terrible humanitarian
crisis in Haiti, a crisis with deep roots. The past two weeks have seen an
almost complete shutdown of services in much of Port-au-Prince. A report from the
Pan American Health Organization, worth citing at length, offers small reason
for optimism:

“The intensifying socio-political crisis in Haiti is having a negative impact
on the health of the Haitian population. Haiti has the highest infant and
maternal mortality, the worst malnutrition and the worst AIDS situation in the
Americas. The general mortality rate was 1057 per 100,000 population during the
1995-2000 period, also the highest in the Americas. A quarter of the children
suffer from chronic malnutrition, 3 to 6% of acute malnutrition. About 15% of
newborns have a low birth weight. Acute respiratory infections and diarrheas
cause half of the deaths in children under 5 years of age. There are
complications in a quarter of the deliveries. The coverage of services is very low:
40%
of the population has no real access to basic health care, 76% of deliveries
are made by non-qualified personnel, more than half of the population has no
access to drugs, and only half of the children are vaccinated.”

The report, filed a few days ago, goes on to signal "disregard for the health
institutions' neutrality and immunity. Several hospitals were the target of
violence. Patients were assaulted in some institutions and the staff providing
care is worried about exercising their duties safely. In some health
institutions, the staff does not report for work on the day of demonstrations. Some of
the patients in need of emergency care do not go to hospitals anymore for fear
of violence. The Port-au-Prince University Hospital, one of the main
hospitals in the country, has been almost at a standstill for weeks, for lack of
personnel."

The report note that "insecurity is highest in Artibonite and Central"
departments. Our own medical and public-health efforts are based in the Central
Department, where I have worked and lived for over 20 years. Just over a week ago,
two of our medical vehicles were commandeered by the heavily armed men who
today call themselves Haiti's "military leaders."

Medical education is also at a standstill. The Central Department boasts no
home-grown doctors; our own medical staff is from Port-au-Prince or Cuba. There
are fewer than 2000 doctors in the entire country and more than 90% of them
are based in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Even there, the urban poor
have little access to modern health care. Haiti produces doctors, but its history
of repeated coups and brutal dictatorships makes it next to impossible for
the country to keep them. Historians report that "In the decade following the
[1957] ascent of Dr. Francois Duvalier to power… 264 physicians graduated from
the state medical school, and all but 3 left the country."

Few would disagree, then, that the training of doctors and the delivery of
services are urgent priorities in the Western world's most impoverished nation.
If we can agree on these two points, it's of concern that two important new
health care institutions are today under siege or worse.

The University of Tabarre recently inaugurated Haiti's newest medical school.
Unlike other faculties in Haiti, this one recruited medical students from
poor families residing in each of Haiti's nine departments. Talented young people
from rural Haiti have previously found it nearly impossible to make their way
to medical school, but this institution seeks out young men and women from
poor families, trainees who declare a commitment to returning to communities
throughout Haiti's villages and towns and slums. Both creating much-needed
opportunities and answering a desperate need, this new facility was dedicated in
December 2003. Taiwan's ambassador to Haiti then spoke of Taiwanese providing the
funding for the "hardware" and the Cuban faculty as providing the "software."

The teaching hospital of the Universite of Tabarre, shared with Haiti’s state
university and its leading private medical schools, opened on February 6 in
the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince. Less than 24 hours after the ribbon was cut,
babies were being delivered in the safety of a modern medical facility-- a
rarity in Haiti, where one in every 16 women die in childbirth.

But good news rarely lasts long in Haiti: a few days ago Haiti’s newest
medical school was turned into a military base for U.S. and other troops, but not
until after it was pillaged and stripped of its teaching materials and books.
What has become of its faculty, in large part Cuban public health specialists
but also counting Haitian, U.S., and European teachers? More to the point, what
will become of its 247 medical students? What will happen to the dean of that
school, Yves Polynice, a Haitian surgeon trained in Germany and now forced to
flee Haiti at a time when trained medical educators, to say nothing of
surgeons, are in such short supply? In summary, what will become of the only medical
school in Haiti whose top priority is developing a cadre of physicians in the
service of Haiti's poor and vulnerable?

Over the past week, medical staff working at Delmas, Tabarre and elsewhere
have been threatened, as have Ministry of Health personnel. "Political reasons"
are cited as the motive for threats to their lives and the possible
destruction of their newly-founded institutions: for in the hemisphere's most
polarized
country, both the medical school and the teaching hospital are projects of the
Aristide Foundation for Democracy. When yesterday violence erupted in
Port-au-Prince, there was almost nowhere to take the wounded.

Whether the presence of foreign troops will achieve a return to order in
Haiti is not yet known. But at the very least, the international forces under U.S.
direction should make these facilities safe for patients and staff. The “
rebels” who present themselves as the revived Haitian Army include men who
intimidate doctors and nurses, deny medical care to the wounded, pillage facilities,
steal scarce supplies and equipment, and are eager, for political reasons, to
wipe out any and all legacies of the Aristide Foundation and the Lavalas
Party. The desperateness of Haiti’s situation transcends politics. Hospitals should
remain open to all those who need care, and no training facilities should be
closed. In the turmoil of rival factions and muddled loyalties that is Haiti
now, the need for medical services provides an indisputable “area of moral
clarity.”

Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D.
Medical Director
Clinique Bon Sauveur
and
Professor
Harvard Medical School
5. Noam Chomsky Must Read! US-Haiti, An Analysis
By Noam Chomsky
Mar 9, 2004, 15:51




Those who have any concern for Haiti will naturally want to understand how
its most recent tragedy has been unfolding. And for those who have had the
privilege of any contact with the people of this tortured land, it is not just
natural but inescapable. Nevertheless, we make a serious error if we focus too
narrowly on the events of the recent past, or even on Haiti alone. The crucial
issue for us is what we should be doing about what is taking place. That would
be true even if our options and our responsibility were limited; far more so
when they are immense and decisive, as in the case of Haiti. And even more so
because the course of the terrible story was predictable years ago -- if we
failed to act to prevent it. And fail we did. The lessons are clear, and so
important that they would be the topic of daily front-page articles in a free press.
Reviewing what was taking place in Haiti shortly after Clinton "restored
democracy" in 1994, I was compelled to conclude, unhappily, in Z Magazine that "It
would not be very surprising, then, if the Haitian operations become another
catastrophe," and if so, "It is not a difficult chore to trot out the familiar
phrases that will explain the failure of our mission of benevolence in this
failed society." The reasons were evident to anyone who chose to look. And the
familiar phrases again resound, sadly and predictably.
There is much solemn discussion today explaining, correctly, that democracy
means more than flipping a lever every few years. Functioning democracy has
preconditions. One is that the population should have some way to learn what is
happening in the world. The real world, not the self-serving portrait offered
by the "establishment press," which is disfigured by its "subservience to state
power" and "the usual hostility to popular movements" - the accurate words of
Paul Farmer, whose work on Haiti is, in its own way, perhaps even as
remarkable as what he has accomplished within the country. Farmer was writing in 1993,
reviewing mainstream commentary and reporting on Haiti, a disgraceful record
that goes back to the days of Wilson's vicious and destructive invasion in
1915, and on to the present. The facts are extensively documented, appalling, and
shameful. And they are deemed irrelevant for the usual reasons: they do not
conform to the required self-image, and so are efficiently dispatched deep into
the memory hole, though they can be unearthed by those who have some interest
in the real world.
They will rarely be found, however, in the "establishment press." Keeping to
the more liberal and knowledgeable end of the spectrum, the standard version
is that in "failed states" like Haiti and Iraq the US must become engaged in
benevolent "nation-building" to "enhance democracy," a "noble goal" but one that
may be beyond our means because of the inadequacies of the objects of our
solicitude. In Haiti, despite Washington's dedicated efforts from Wilson to FDR
while the country was under Marine occupation, "the new dawn of Haitian
democracy never came." And "not all America's good wishes, nor all its Marines, can
achieve [democracy today] until the Haitians do it themselves" (H.D.S.
Greenway, Boston Globe). As New York Times correspondent R.W. Apple recounted two
centuries of history in 1994, reflecting on the prospects for Clinton's endeavor
to "restore democracy" then underway, "Like the French in the 19th century,
like the Marines who occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, the American forces who
are trying to impose a new order will confront a complex and violent society
with no history of democracy."
Apple does appear to go a bit beyond the norm in his reference to Napoleon's
savage assault on Haiti, leaving it in ruins, in order to prevent the crime of
liberation in the world's richest colony, the source of much of France's
wealth. But perhaps that undertaking too satisfies the fundamental criterion of
benevolence: it was supported by the United States, which was naturally outraged
and frightened by "the first nation in the world to argue the case of
universal freedom for all humankind, revealing the limited definition of freedom
adopted by the French and American revolutions." So Haitian historian Patrick
Bellegarde-Smith writes, accurately describing the terror in the slave state next
door, which was not relieved even when Haiti's successful liberation struggle,
at enormous cost, opened the way to the expansion to the West by compelling
Napoleon to accept the Louisiana Purchase. The US continued to do what it could
to strangle Haiti, even supporting France's insistence that Haiti pay a huge
indemnity for the crime of liberating itself, a burden it has never escaped -
and France, of course, dismisses with elegant disdain Haiti's request,
recently under Aristide, that it at least repay the indemnity, forgetting the
responsibilities that a civilized society would accept.
The basic contours of what led to the current tragedy are pretty clear. Just
beginning with the 1990 election of Aristide (far too narrow a time frame),
Washington was appalled by the election of a populist candidate with a
grass-roots constituency just as it had been appalled by the prospect of the
hemisphere's first free country on its doorstep two centuries earlier. Washington's
traditional allies in Haiti naturally agreed. "The fear of democracy exists, by
definitional necessity, in elite groups who monopolize economic and political
power," Bellegarde-Smith observes in his perceptive history of Haiti; whether in
Haiti or the US or anywhere else.
The threat of democracy in Haiti in 1991 was even more ominous because of the
favorable reaction of the international financial institutions (World Bank,
IADB) to Aristide's programs, which awakened traditional concerns over the
"virus" effect of successful independent development. These are familiar themes in
international affairs: American independence aroused similar concerns among
European leaders. The dangers are commonly perceived to be particularly grave
in a country like Haiti, which had been ravaged by France and then reduced to
utter misery by a century of US intervention. If even people in such dire
circumstances can take their fate into their own hands, who knows what might happen
elsewhere as the "contagion spreads."
The Bush I administration reacted to the disaster of democracy by shifting
aid from the democratically elected government to what are called "democratic
forces": the wealthy elites and the business sectors, who, along with the
murderers and torturers of the military and paramilitaries, had been lauded by the
current incumbents in Washington, in their Reaganite phase, for their progress
in "democratic development," justifying lavish new aid. The praise came in
response to ratification by the Haitian parliament of a law granting Washington's
client killer and torturer Baby Doc Duvalier the authority to suspend the
rights of any political party without reasons. The law passed by a majority of
99.98%. It therefore marked a positive step towards democracy as compared with
the 99% approval of a 1918 law granting US corporations the right to turn the
country into a US plantation, passed by 5% of the population after the Haitian
Parliament was disbanded at gunpoint by Wilson's Marines when it refused to
accept this "progressive measure," essential for "economic development." Their
reaction to Baby Doc's encouraging progress towards democracy was
characteristic - worldwide -- on the part of the visionaries who are now entrancing
educated opinion with their dedication to bringing democracy to a suffering world -
although, to be sure, their actual exploits are being tastefully rewritten to
satisfy current needs.
Refugees fleeing to the US from the terror of the US-backed dictatorships
were forcefully returned, in gross violation of international humanitarian law.
The policy was reversed when a democratically elected government took office.
Though the flow of refugees reduced to a trickle, they were mostly granted
political asylum. Policy returned to normal when a military junta overthrew the
Aristide government after seven months, and state terrorist atrocities rose to
new heights. The perpetrators were the army - the inheritors of the National
Guard left by Wilson's invaders to control the population - and its paramilitary
forces. The most important of these, FRAPH, was founded by CIA asset Emmanuel
Constant, who now lives happily in Queens, Clinton and Bush II having
dismissed extradition requests -- because he would reveal US ties to the murderous
junta, it is widely assumed. Constant's contributions to state terror were,
after all, meager; merely prime responsibility for the murder of 4-5000 poor
blacks.
Recall the core element of the Bush doctrine, which has "already become a de
facto rule of international relations," Harvard's Graham Allison writes in
Foreign Affairs: "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists
themselves," in the President's words, and must be treated accordingly, by
large-scale bombing and invasion.
When Aristide was overthrown by the 1991 military coup, the Organization of
American States declared an embargo. Bush I announced that the US would violate
it by exempting US firms. He was thus "fine tuning" the embargo for the
benefit of the suffering population, the New York Times reported. Clinton
authorized even more extreme violations of the embargo: US trade with the junta and
its
wealthy supporters sharply increased. The crucial element of the embargo was,
of course, oil. While the CIA solemnly testified to Congress that the junta
"probably will be out of fuel and power very shortly" and "Our intelligence
efforts are focused on detecting attempts to circumvent the embargo and
monitoring its impact," Clinton secretly authorized the Texaco Oil Company to ship oil
to the junta illegally, in violation of presidential directives. This
remarkable revelation was the lead story on the AP wires the day before Clinton sent
the Marines to "restore democracy," impossible to miss - I happened to be
monitoring AP wires that day and saw it repeated prominently over and over -- and
obviously of enormous significance for anyone who wanted to understand what was
happening. It was suppressed with truly impressive discipline, though
reported in industry journals along with scant mention buried in the business press.
Also efficiently suppressed were the crucial conditions that Clinton imposed
for Aristide's return: that he adopt the program of the defeated US candidate
in the 1990 elections, a former World Bank official who had received 14% of
the vote. We call this "restoring democracy," a prime illustration of how US
foreign policy has entered a "noble phase" with a "saintly glow," the national
press explained. The harsh neoliberal program that Aristide was compelled to
adopt was virtually guaranteed to demolish the remaining shreds of economic
sovereignty, extending Wilson's progressive legislation and similar US-imposed
measures since.
As democracy was thereby restored, the World Bank announced that "The
renovated state must focus on an economic strategy centered on the energy and
initiative of Civil Society, especially the private sector, both national and
foreign." That has the merit of honesty: Haitian Civil Society includes the tiny rich
elite and US corporations, but not the vast majority of the population, the
peasants and slum-dwellers who had committed the grave sin of organizing to
elect their own president. World Bank officers explained that the neoliberal
program would benefit the "more open, enlightened, business class" and foreign
investors, but assured us that the program "is not going to hurt the poor to the
extent it has in other countries" subjected to structural adjustment, because
the Haitian poor already lacked minimal protection from proper economic
policy, such as subsidies for basic goods. Aristide's Minister in charge of rural
development and agrarian reform was not notified of the plans to be imposed on
this largely peasant society, to be returned by "America's good wishes" to the
track from which it veered briefly after the regrettable democratic election
in 1990.
Matters then proceeded in their predictable course. A 1995 USAID report
explained that the "export-driven trade and investment policy" that Washington
imposed will "relentlessly squeeze the domestic rice farmer," who will be forced
to turn to agroexport, with incidental benefits to US agribusiness and
investors. Despite their extreme poverty, Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient,
but cannot possibly compete with US agribusiness, even if it did not receive 40%
of its profits from government subsidies, sharply increased under the
Reaganites who are again in power, still producing enlightened rhetoric about the
miracles of the market. We now read that Haiti cannot feed itself, another sign
of a "failed state."
A few small industries were still able to function, for example, making
chicken parts. But US conglomerates have a large surplus of dark meat, and
therefore demanded the right to dump their excess products in Haiti. They tried to do
the same in Canada and Mexico too, but there illegal dumping could be barred.
Not in Haiti, compelled to submit to efficient market principles by the US
government and the corporations it serves.
One might note that the Pentagon's proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer, ordered a
very similar program to be instituted there, with the same beneficiaries in
mind. That's also called "enhancing democracy." In fact, the record, highly
revealing and important, goes back to the 18th century. Similar programs had a
large role in creating today's third world. Meanwhile the powerful ignored the
rules, except when they could benefit from them, and were able to become rich
developed societies; dramatically the US, which led the way in modern
protectionism and, particularly since World War II, has relied crucially on the
dynamic
state sector for innovation and development, socializing risk and cost.
The punishment of Haiti became much more severe under Bush II -- there are
differences within the narrow spectrum of cruelty and greed. Aid was cut and
international institutions were pressured to do likewise, under pretexts too
outlandish to merit discussion. They are extensively reviewed in Paul Farmer's
Uses of Haiti, and in some current press commentary, notably by Jeffrey Sachs
(Financial Times) and Tracy Kidder (New York Times).
Putting details aside, what has happened since is eerily similar to the
overthrow of Haiti's first democratic government in 1991. The Aristide government,
once again, was undermined by US planners, who understood, under Clinton, that
the threat of democracy can be overcome if economic sovereignty is
eliminated, and presumably also understood that economic development will also be a
faint hope under such conditions, one of the best-confirmed lessons of economic
history. Bush II planners are even more dedicated to undermining democracy and
independence, and despised Aristide and the popular organizations that swept
him to power with perhaps even more passion than their predecessors. The forces
that reconquered the country are mostly inheritors of the US-installed army
and paramilitary terrorists.
Those who are intent on diverting attention from the US role will object that
the situation is more complex -- as is always true -- and that Aristide too
was guilty of many crimes. Correct, but if he had been a saint the situation
would hardly have developed very differently, as was evident in 1994, when the
only real hope was that a democratic revolution in the US would make it
possible to shift policy in a more civilized direction.
What is happening now is awful, maybe beyond repair. And there is plenty of
short-term responsibility on all sides. But the right way for the US and France
to proceed is very clear. They should begin with payment of enormous
reparations to Haiti (France is perhaps even more hypocritical and disgraceful in this
regard than the US). That, however, requires construction of functioning
democratic societies in which, at the very least, people have a prayer of knowing
what's going on. Commentary on Haiti, Iraq, and other "failed societies" is
quite right in stressing the importance of overcoming the "democratic deficit"
that substantially reduces the significance of elections. It does not, however,
draw the obvious corollary: the lesson applies in spades to a country where
"politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," in the words of
America's leading social philosopher, John Dewey, describing his own country in
days when the blight had spread nowhere near as far as it has today.
For those who are concerned with the substance of democracy and human rights,
the basic tasks at home are also clear enough. They have been carried out
before, with no slight success, and under incomparably harsher conditions
elsewhere, including the slums and hills of Haiti. We do not have to submit,
voluntary, to living in a failed state suffering from an enormous democratic deficit.
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5115§ionID=11

6. AHP News - March 8, 2004 - English translation (Unofficial)

A provisional president is installed at the head of the country
------------------------------------------------------------------------




Port-au-Prince, March 8, 2004 -(AHP)- The President of the Court of
Cassation, Mr. Alexandre Boniface, named president of the republic after the
"evacuation" on February 29th of President Aristide, was installed this monday in the
National palace.



Mr. Boniface promised to do his best to put in place the institutions that
can help in the resumption of activities throughout the country.



He condemned the acts of violence perpetrated Sunday against the participants
in a demonstration by the opposition political Platform in which five people
were killed and more than 30 injured.



The provisional president, who affirmed that he belongs to no political
group, said that he has always worked for progress for his country.



He also promised to work for reconciliation of the Haitian nation and for the
establishment of a security plan that would enable the people, he said, to go
about their activities normally.



He thanked the men led by Guy Philippe for having agreed, he said, to lay
down their weapons in order to contribute to the process of security that is
underway in the country.



"These men will have a place in the reconstruction of the country", he
promised.


Until Saturday. the U.S. authorities complained that these individuals had
still not handed in their weapons, even if they were not visible in the streets.


Boniface Alexandre also invited the "armed partisans of Fanmi Lavalas" to lay
down their arms to show that they are part of the solution to the country's
problems.



An emergency humanitarian plan was developed, he said, to relieve the
suffering of the population, aggravated by the political troubles rocking the
country.



He promised new elections, however he did not set any date. According to the
Haitian constitution, Mr. Boniface must organize new presidential elections
within 90 days.



The ceremony to install the new president took place in the presence of a few
diplomats including the Papal Nuncio, Luigi Bonazzi and the head of the OAS
Special Mission to Haiti, David Lee, as well as the leader of the MIDH party,
Marc Bazin, the leader of the RDC party, Eddy Volel and of the MDN party,
Hubert De Ronceray, however the principal leaders of the opposition Platform, such
as André Apaid Junior, Evans Paul, Paul Denis and Micha Gaillard were absent.



The opposition leaders had opposed the nomination of Mr. Boniface as
provisional president, as he had been named as president of the Court of Cassation by
President Aristide.



However in a statement made this Monday, Micha Gaillard declared that his
political coalition never had the intention of taking power, but rather sought to
oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.



The previous day, another senior opposition leader, Victor Benoit, had said
during the opposition demonstration "we are ready to accept whomever they give
us as prime minister provided he is honest".



AHP March 8, 2004 2:30 PM



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some ten thousand supporters of Fanmi Lavalas demonstrate in favor of the
return to power of President Aristide
------------------------------------------------------------------------




Port-au-Prince, March 8, 2004 -(AHP)- An estimated ten thousand supporters of
Fanmi Lavalas demonstrated this Monday in Port-au-Prince to call for
President Aristide's return to power.



The demonstrators marched in front of the National Palace at the moment when
provisional president Alexandre Boniface was being installed in office.



The supporters of President Aristide rejected accusations that they were
involved in the violence that left at least 5 people dead Sunday during a
demonstration by the opposition political Platform.



"These acts of violence were committed by Guy Philippe's men with the
objective of seeking to justify their presence and to provoke a massacre of the
masses", the demonstrators asserted.



Wearing t-shirts and parasols bearing the picture of President Aristide, the
demonstrators affirmed their intention to remain mobilized until Mr. Aristide
returns to power.



At a press conference this Monday in Bangui where he was taken on February
29, the Chief of State who is no longer in office, appealed to Haitians to
"peacefully resist the occupation".



AHP March 8, 2004 2:30 PM



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yvon Neptune denounces the maneuvers of sectors seeking a violent and
anti-democratic outcome to the crisis that is rocking Haitian society
------------------------------------------------------------------------




Port-au-Prince, March 8, 2004 -(AHP)- Prime Minister Yvon Neptune denounced
the maneuvers of sectors that he said are obstinately seeking a violent and
anti-democratic outcome to the crisis that is rocking Haitian society.



In a press release published this Monday, Yvon Neptune presented his
condolences to the victims of the violence that took place the previous day during a
demonstration by the "Democratic Platform".



At least five individuals were killed and more than 30 were injured by
gunfire and blows with bottle shards when armed men attacked the demonstrators.




He urged the national police to arrest the guilty parties regardless of their
political affiliation.



Mr. Neptune denounced the threats and gratuitous, even dangerous accusations
made against him. He suggested this was the product of politicians obsessed
with power.



Several individuals had pointed a finger at Prime Minister Neptune and other
Lavalas leaders during Sunday's demonstration and throughout the past week,
identifying them as targets.



Yvon Neptune indicated that he had decided to remain in office until a new
prime minister is chosen in order to avoid a vacuum of executive authority that
would be created in the event of the absence of both the Chief of State and
the Head of the Government (if he were to resign).



AHP March 8, 2004 12:20 PM



** Former Haitian armed forces colonel Himmler Rébu said Monday that the
demonstration organized the previous day by the opposition political platform
should not have been held because, he said, there is no established structure in
the country to provide security for the crowd.



According to Himler Rébu, the national police should assume its
responsibilities to provide security for the population.



7. Websites to visit:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs http://www.maehaitiinfo.org/
Haiti's Embassy to the US http://www.haiti.org
Haiti Support Group (London) http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/
Haiti Action Committee http://haitiaction.org/
KPFA Radio/Flashpoints
Main Page: http://www.flashpoints.net/
Haiti Coverage: http://www.flashpoints.net/archive/archive-2004-Haiti.html
Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl
AHP News in French http://www.ahphaiti.org