Security Council meets on US resolution on Haiti (Aristide Resigned?)

UNITED NATIONS, Mar. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States on Sunday called on the United Nations Security Council to authorize the immediate deployment of a multinational force to keep peace in Haiti after the resignation of its President Jean Bertrand Aristide earlier in the day.

The 15-council started emergency closed-door consultations at 6pm (2300 GMT) to discuss a draft resolution circulated by the United States, which is among the so-called friends of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Haiti.

The draft, obtained by Xinhua, says the Multinational Interim Force would stay in Haiti for two months to "contribute to a secure and stable environment in the Haitian capital and elsewhere in the country."

The draft, which does not mention the strength of the force, calls on UN member states to contribute urgently personnel, equipment and other necessary financial and logistic resources to the force.

snip .....

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/01/content_1337759.htm

Media emails:
Here are some of the media email addresses I use quite often. If enough people send emails demanding the truth, they may be compelled to report if they feel their credibility is threatened. Remember to be professional as possible. Being courteous yet demanding and to the point will be more powerful than screaming and cursing.

Meet the Press
Newsweek
Keith Olbermann
Washington Post MSNBC Main
Chris Matthews
<http://www.cnn.com/feedback> CNN's feedback link page

If the U.N. supports this resolution then it has officially lost all relevance and become a nothing more than a tool of the neocon imperialists. If anything, a resolution should be passed condemning this act of terrorism, not enabling it.

And, frankly, the Bosnian intervention. This is precisely the rubber stamping of "White Man's Burden"-style neo-imperialism that was feared.

What began as tragedy has been repeated as farce.

I was out there marching and yelling against Iraq over a year ago. This, in many ways, is even more outrageous. They can't even fall back on the "He was a dictator b.s. now.

So he turned to armed gangs and has only survived this long because he did so out of, well, necessity.

It was becoming an embarassment to the "free world" and that's why this coup was permitted.

I'm sorry to say, but this day was fated to be since a full decade ago.

From an imaginary handbook of the CIA:

1. bribery (usually works)

2. assassination (effective)

3. fix the elections (perfected abroad, being perfected at home)

4. Embargo the country for years, then claim the country has WMD

5. When there are no WMD, complain the leader was a very bad man.

6. If the country is a democracy and has barely a police force, much less WMD: supply weapons to opponents, fund opposition media, embargo the country weakening an already-weak infrastructure, refuse to allow humanitarian aid already designated to be released to the country, then (apparently) march the elected head of state off in handcuffs.

This is not about Aristide, nor was Iraq about Saddam.

It's about the U.S. fantasies of complete, utter world dominance.

sorry but I wouldn't call the guy "democratically elected" based on these reports

re: 1995 election

The Carter Center report on the ensuing election -- written by Carter confidant and former National Security Council advisor Robert Pastor -- documents the disgraceful conduct of the Aristide government and his Lavalas party. "Of the 13 elections I have observed, the June 25 Haitian elections were the most disastrous technically, with the most insecure count," Pastor said in the report. "I personally witnessed the compromise of one-third of the ballot boxes in Port-au-Prince."

According to the report, the election was riddled with graft, fraud and chaos, with widespread irregularities, ballots burned, hundreds of voting stations never opened and tens of thousands of people never able to vote.

The report, issued by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, exposes Aristide's one-party "Lavalas" rule, with its widespread corruption, mismanagement and ballot manipulating, particularly in the June 25 election. Aristide's allies swept local and parliamentary seats in that balloting.

President Carter's critique of Aristide is especially startling, considering the long political association between the two. When Aristide won Haiti's 1990 presidential election, the Carter Center was at the forefront of groups supporting the results

A critical part of Aristide's plan for seizing total power in Haiti has been his illegal and authoritarian command of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) that conducted the fraudulent June election. Sensing trouble in March, Carter visited Haiti and was formally rebuffed by Aristide. Unofficially, he was greeted by hostile crowds and vicious graffiti, all engineered by Lavalas street gangs intent on embarrassing the former U.S. chief executive

http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1248.pdf

and these reports on 2000 election from politics and elections.com


Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won election as president of Haiti again, winning 92% of the vote according to the country's electoral council. All major opposition parties boycotted the election.

Aristide's Lavalas Family Party won all nine Senate seats that were contested, giving it all but one seat in the upper house. Lavalas Family also won 80% of the House of Assembly seats in may, June and July legislative elections. Opponents charge that those elections were rigged to enable Aristide to govern with, effectively, one-party rule.

Aristide was first elected in 1990, ending nearly 200 years of dictatorship. A bloody army coup kicked him out seven months later, followed by a terroristic military government, and than an invasion by U.S. troops to restore Aristide to power.

Opposition activist Evans Paul said ballot boxes were stuffed and tally sheets altered to make it look like a higher turnout. Some polls closed hours early for lack of voters.

more...

http://www.politicsandelections.com/international/hai.htm

countries but refuses to speak out about the ones right here in the US. Something stinks. If Aristide isn't popular then why in the hell do they need to involve UN member states, which by the way don't mention the strength of the force required. Could it possibly be that the elite want to make sure Aristide does not return to power like Chavez in Venesuela after the people rose up.

"The draft, which does not mention the strength of the force, calls on UN member states to contribute urgently personnel, equipment and other necessary financial and logistic resources to the force."

on Florida. Just one of a great many articles:

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/16/election.carter/

If Aristide isn't popular then why in the hell do they need to involve UN member states, which by the way don't mention the strength of the force required.

They have. The US is leading the force, and will send 2000 Marines for starters. Canada and France will also send large numbers. They will not be under UN control, but a UN force will replace them in three months. Aristide may or may not be popular - that's irrelevent, because he hasn't been democratically elected. Without the intervention, Aristide would have had to leave anyway when the rebels captured Port-au-Prince.

the corruption of our voting system here in the US just this past Summer. It seems to me he is more interested in questioning election fraud in other countries other than his native one.

...not exactly decrying electoral fraud.

Oh! but you wrote "Carter did speak out"...not that Carter described sElection 2000 in terms of electoral fraud...

direct Aristade quote

""Yes, we have less (support) than we had in
1990 ... but I think the 30,000 gangsters want
to keep me in power against the majority of
the Haitian people," Aristide said. "And if you
compare the millions Dollars I have and what
the one who comes behind me can get —
there you will see a huge margin of
difference."

http://www.oplpeople.com/message/1034.html

And some of the posts are in french. I would be curious to know what those long posts say. It is also curious that this message board that you are citing originates in France. Is this disinformation?

sorry but I wouldn't call the guy "democratically elected" based on these reports

re: 1995 election

The Carter Center report on the ensuing election -- written by Carter confidant and former National Security Council advisor Robert Pastor -- documents the disgraceful conduct of the Aristide government and his Lavalas party. "Of the 13 elections I have observed, the June 25 Haitian elections were the most disastrous technically, with the most insecure count," Pastor said in the report. "I personally witnessed the compromise of one-third of the ballot boxes in Port-au-Prince."

According to the report, the election was riddled with graft, fraud and chaos, with widespread irregularities, ballots burned, hundreds of voting stations never opened and tens of thousands of people never able to vote.

The report, issued by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, exposes Aristide's one-party "Lavalas" rule, with its widespread corruption, mismanagement and ballot manipulating, particularly in the June 25 election. Aristide's allies swept local and parliamentary seats in that balloting.

President Carter's critique of Aristide is especially startling, considering the long political association between the two. When Aristide won Haiti's 1990 presidential election, the Carter Center was at the forefront of groups supporting the results

A critical part of Aristide's plan for seizing total power in Haiti has been his illegal and authoritarian command of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) that conducted the fraudulent June election. Sensing trouble in March, Carter visited Haiti and was formally rebuffed by Aristide. Unofficially, he was greeted by hostile crowds and vicious graffiti, all engineered by Lavalas street gangs intent on embarrassing the former U.S. chief executive

http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1248.pdf

and these reports on 2000 election from politics and elections.com


Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won election as president of Haiti again, winning 92% of the vote according to the country's electoral council. All major opposition parties boycotted the election.

Aristide's Lavalas Family Party won all nine Senate seats that were contested, giving it all but one seat in the upper house. Lavalas Family also won 80% of the House of Assembly seats in may, June and July legislative elections. Opponents charge that those elections were rigged to enable Aristide to govern with, effectively, one-party rule.

Aristide was first elected in 1990, ending nearly 200 years of dictatorship. A bloody army coup kicked him out seven months later, followed by a terroristic military government, and than an invasion by U.S. troops to restore Aristide to power.

Opposition activist Evans Paul said ballot boxes were stuffed and tally sheets altered to make it look like a higher turnout. Some polls closed hours early for lack of voters.

more...

http://www.politicsandelections.com/international/hai.htm

responded already to them.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m01.shtml

The “political opposition,” organized in the Group of 184 and the Democratic Platform, is dominated and controlled by the privileged classes of Haiti, which harbor a pathological hatred for Aristide. This stems from Aristide’s identification during the waning days of the Duvalier dictatorship with the strivings of the workers and poor people of the Western Hemisphere’s most impoverished country, where the richest one percent of the population controls nearly half the wealth.

Whatever Aristide’s subsequent corruption and capitulation to international finance capital, Haiti’s wealthy elite has always seen his presidency as tainted by this association. They are seeking not merely Aristide’s ouster, but a settling of accounts with Haiti’s oppressed masses.

Whether this takes place imminently or in a more protracted process in the months ahead remains to be seen. One of the principal demands of the death squad leaders is that the Haitian Army be reestablished, presumably with them at its head. Historically, this institution, disbanded by Aristide in 1995, has served as a brutal instrument of internal repression, dedicated to defending the wealth and power of the country’s ruling families.

There were reports Sunday that a 2,200-strong US Marine expeditionary force could land in Haiti within hours. Whether this will take place, and what precise mission the force will carry out, has yet to be clarified. That Washington is prepared to carry out such an intervention, however, conclusively exposes the duplicity of the Bush administration’s earlier attempts to pose as an arbiter between Aristide, Haiti’s ruling elite, and the right-wing terrorists.

but you didn't really respond the first time...except to ask if Carter had spoken out about US election which he has

it looks as thought the UN will step in after a multinational force restores order...and hopefully ensure fair democratic elections...perhaps you would prefer a bloodbath between pro and anti Aristade gangs?? thats what was about to happen

You forgot to add the part where WE stepped in first and physically removed by gunpoint,a democratically elected president from his country. Your heartwarming desire for fair elections in HAITI is duly noted, but I think you'll find the majority on this board are far more concerned about fair elections HERE.

this thread was about Haiti right?? and I showed you quotes and reports by people like President Carter that clearly show Aristade was not "democratically" elected...if you want to talk about selection 2000 start a thread on it...don't change the subject just because I expose Aristade for what he is...a thug posing as a populist

Frankly, the attempt to misinform us is pointless - we've already seen through the propaganda.

Many people, sadly, have not.

off of Lavalas. Reviewing the posts, it seems about as reliable as citing opinions on Free Republic as documentation. To be fair, OPINIONS on any board...

I sampled some of the posts, including the French. It seems that they are all opinions and sorta-essays without documented links or sources. They're not all rabid anti-Aristide, or solely anti-Arisitide, but they never seems to support him.

I noted one passage in an essay that seems interesting:

<snip...>
...l'objectif de M. Apaid et ses pairs, c'est la première fois depuis très longtemps que le secteur des affaires, la classe considérée comme la plus fortunée (!), en un mot les riches, se porte directement et aussi hardiment au-devant de la scène politique en Haïti, un pays où les pauvres constituent près de 90% de la population. La dernière fois, c'était en 1957, lors de la bataille électorale, longue de plus d'une année, qui a abouti à l'arrivée au pouvoir de François "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
<snip...>

Rough translation: with Mr. Apaid and his group, it is the first time in a long time that the business sector has carried themselves into the political scene. The last time preceded the arrival of Papa Doc...

Reporters sans frontieres



Nearly 30 Haitian journalists have fled abroad in the past three years after being threatened by Aristide supporters and two journalists have been murdered. As a result, Aristide has been put on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide list of 42 predators of press freedom

Haiti - 2003 Annual Report

Impunity continued to hold sway in Haiti. It gave government supporters a free hand to harass and attack the press and opposition. Facing growing opposition, President Aristide's government tried to use fear to hold on to power. More journalists were forced into exile. The investigations into the deaths of Jean Dominique and Brignol Lindor did not progress. On the contrary, their killers continued to threaten the families of both journalists.

At least 40 journalists were physically attacked or threatened in 2002. The Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH) put the figure at more than 60. Some had reported on the collapse of the cooperative savings schemes in 2002, which ruined tens of thousands of small savers and in which the government was allegedly implicated at the highest level. It was amid such scandals that Israël Jacky Cantave of Caraïbes FM was kidnapped in July in what Cantave viewed as a government warning to the press. After Cantave was threatened and forced into exile, a warrant was issued for his arrest for not cooperating with investigators.
The year ended with demonstrations demanding President Aristide's resignation and growing tension, in which journalists paid the price. Seven journalists had to go into hiding in Gonaïves after covering one of the first big anti-government demonstrations. They were threatened by the Cannibal Army, a "popular organisation" led by Amiot Métayer which terrorized this northern town ever since Métayer broke out of prison in August 2002. After initially promising to rearrest him, the government apparently preferred to use him as a blunt instrument against its opponents.
Métayer had been arrested because of his violent attacks on the opposition during a supposedly spontaneous reaction to what was portrayed as an attempted coup d'etat on 17 December 2001. An Organisation of American States (OAS) enquiry published in July concluded not only that it was not a coup d'etat but also that police officers were accomplices to the attack staged on the presidential palace. The enquiry also stressed that the ensuing violence against the opposition had been carried with logistic support from the authorities. Those targeted on 17 December 2001 included some 10 journalists who afterwards went into exile. The increasingly discredited government could try to repeat this kind of operation, in which it poses as the victim in order to have a pretext for cracking down on the opposition and press.

http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=6197

thats just one RWB article...many more here

http://www.rsf.fr/sinequa_en.php3?iFullTextQuery=haiti&iLanguage=engli...

""Yes, we have less (support) than we had in
1990 ... but I think the 30,000 gangsters want
to keep me in power against the majority of
the Haitian people," Aristide said. "And if you
compare the millions Dollars I have and what
the one who comes behind me can get —
there you will see a huge margin of
difference."

is supposedly from an AP interview...I don't have lexis nexis and could not find it

...call me a skeptic...