Is there a USA/Haiti Conspiracy?

For those who dont' read links:

The U.S. has intervened militarily against Haiti many times over the past 200 years. American forces invaded and occupied the country in 1915, and stayed until 1934, "to support democracy." During that period, the U.S. dissolved the Haitian parliament, imposed a constitution that allowed foreign ownership of land, and re-instituted virtual slavery. In the 1960s, during the Duvalier dictatorship, U.S. marines landed in Haiti with orders to "keep Duvalier in power..." The U.S. continued to support the Duvalier family dictatorship for almost 30 years, training and arming Haiti's army and police, as well as the Duvaliers' personal police force, the feared and hated "tonton macoutes".
The Haitian people finally rose up in 1986, forcing an end to the monstrous Duvalier dictatorship. In response, the U.S. increased military aid to "maintain order", which resulted in increased repression and control, while the CIA worked with Haitian death squads and drug traffickers. The terrorized population reacted to the government violence by fleeing the island. The resulting wave of "boat-people" produced a political crisis for George Bush and propelled his administration into supporting elections in Haiti, expecting that a former World Bank official and friend-of-the-U.S. would win.

According to information leaked to the press, from the mid-eighties onwards, the CIA has run a series of covert operations designed to sideline and isolate Aristide and to back its favoured candidate Marc Bazin. The CIA operation included a disinformation campaign that branded Aristide as mentally unbalanced,

"The story of the CIA's involvement in Haitian elections provides some of the backdrop for the episode earlier this month in which a senior U.S. intelligence official, Brian Lattell, characterized Aristide as mentally unbalanced. The comments were made in a closed-door briefing to member of Congress.

The CIA has made similar allegations in the past about Aristide, based on what officials say is a psychological profile of the Haitian leader. Aristide was elected Haiti's president by a landslide in December, 1990, but was ousted in a military coup after serving less than a year.

The reports label the charismatic priest a violent fruitcake who has been treated in a mental hospital and has used drugs to calm his manic depression.

In a 1992 report widely circulated in Washington, Mr. Latell described a meeting with Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's current military dictator, and praised him as one of `the most promising group of Haitian leaders to emerge since the Duvalier family dictatorship was overthrown in 1986.'

Asked last week about the CIA's involvement in Haiti and the dispute with Congress over covert actions there, Kent Harrington, CIA director of public affairs replied, `Our comment would be no comment on this one.'"

www.fas.org...

"Why is the CIA discrediting a man who is considered the Martin Luther King Jr. of Haiti, where on Dec. 16, 1990, he became the first president elected in free elections? Here is a priest who is a folk hero to Haiti's poor, who founded an orphanage for homeless street kids, confronted the murderous Macoutes and exposed U.S. policy that propped up the hated Duvaliers.

Here is a man who speaks six languages, has a doctorate in philosophy, has written six books, composed more than 100 songs sung in Haiti and plays six musical instruments."

Barbara Reynolds

www.fas.org...

The CIA's negative assessment of Aristide's psychological stability complicated the Clinton Administration's Haiti policy by giving Republicans a rationale for trying to limit the extent of U.S. support for Aristide.

"The US had poured money into the campaign of a former World Bank economist Marc Bazin, who nevertheless ran a distant second. Bazin wanted to expand export industries and encourage foreign investment.

US money was also spent to weaken unions and the popular movements. Via the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development, millions were allocated for so-called democracy enhancement.

Through the NED, the two more conservative of Haiti's three union federations received funding. USAID opposed a minimum wage increase to 50 cents per hour with the argument that it could "lead to capital-intensive, rather than labour-intensive responses to opening of markets".

In 1986, the CIA set up the Haitian National Intelligence Service (NIS), supposedly to gather intelligence on narcotic trafficking. The New York Times, however, quoted a US embassy official that the organisation "never produced drug intelligence".

Patrick Elie, a drug policy adviser to the Aristide government, said that the CIA training provided to NIS agents included training for "wet operations" -- CIA jargon for political assassinations.

[In 1993], the New York Times revealed that many of the leaders of the coup against Aristide had been on CIA payrolls at least up until 1991."

www.greenleft.org.au...

In September of 1993 the New York Times carried an article entitled,

"Key Haiti Leaders Said to Have Been in the CIA's Pay."

Key members of the military regime controlling Haiti and blocking the return of its elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, were paid by the Central Intelligence Agency for information from the mid-1980's at least until the 1991 coup that forced President Aristide from power, according to American officials.

The article quotes President Aristide's spokesman as having said,

"Given what the CIA has done in the past two weeks, namely the attempted character assassination of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that the CIA had been working with his political enemies in Haiti for many years.�

The article indicates that a member of the House Intelligence Committee confirmed the existence of payments to `* * * people in sensitive positions in the current situation in Haiti.

Following these articles, USA Today ran an op-ed entitled, `History Repeats in CIA Smear of Haiti's Aristide.' The op-ed states that,

Aristide, like [Martin Luther] King is perceived as a threat to those who desire the status quo. King's death was preceded by character assassination from U.S. spy agencies. Could history repeat itself?"

The current situation

The latest ominous development is the call, led by the Canadian government but backed by the US in the person of Otto Reich, for the removal of the Aristide government by 2004.

"[C]ode named the "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti," wants regime change in Haiti this year before the Jan. 1, 2004 bicentennial of Haiti's independence, says the French-language article entitled "Haiti to be Under U.N. Control? " The group, which will next meet in April in El Salvador, has been convened by Canada's Secretary of State for Latin America, Africa, and the French-speaking World, Denis Paradis�[and] the U.S. State Department's "Continental Initiatives" representative Otto Reich and Organization of American States (OAS) assistant secretary general Luigi Einaudi"

The "Ottawa Initiative," if true, would complement nicely the calls for Aristide's extra-constitutional removal by the election-allergic Washington-backed Democratic Convergence opposition front. "It will be difficult to create the peaceful conditions necessary for the holding of credible elections in the country with Jean Bertrand Aristide in power," said Convergence leader Evans Paul of the Democratic Unity Confederation (KID) recently. "The electoral experiences with Aristide have all proven disastrous." Disastrous mainly because Convergence politicians remain tremendously unpopular in Haiti."

www.wbai.org...

For current news on the topic see the atsnn article linked here.Link

Why is it that the US ALWAYS interfere wioth people and nations of color? Haiti, Venezuela---most of Latin America for that matter. Africa. WHy? Why can't we just leave these people alone? WHy are we always proping up dictators while preaching democracy?

Ya know, I'm think its THIS country that is the Beast of the Apocolypse in Revelations---or at least the western world.

and upon her forehead was written MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH...that's us.

Tis Aristide's fault. If he were more like Chavez of Venezuela--he would have cut ties to the US as soon as he took office. Instead, he accepted our aid and "friendship". We've done nothing nice for Haiti, so I don't understand why they still cry out to us. Even more I don't understand why Aristide got on the plane. Better to die. Now, he just looks like a power hungry, failed president. He should've took that bullet for his country...then Powell could genuinely call him patriotic.

Wonder how long Chavez can fight us off? He's been in the thick of it since Dubya came to power.

Originally posted by Colonel
Why is it that the US ALWAYS interfere wioth people and nations of color? Haiti, Venezuela---most of Latin America for that matter. Africa. WHy? Why can't we just leave these people alone? WHy are we always proping up dictators while preaching democracy?

Ya know, I'm think its THIS country that is the Beast of the Apocolypse in Revelations---or at least the western world.

Would you consider Serbians and Kosovars white? We interfered there.