Home > Are those dirty US fingerprints on Aristide’s ouster?
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Christian Science Monitor - March 08, 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0308/p09s02-cogn.html
NEW YORK - If the circumstances weren’t so calamitous,
the US-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical.
According to Mr. Aristide, US officials in Port-au-
Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the
presidential residence and that he and his family were
unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an
American-chartered plane standing by to take them to
exile. The US made it clear, he said, that it would
provide no protection for him at the official
residence, despite the ease with which this could have
been arranged.
Indeed, says Aristide’s lawyer, the US blocked
reinforcement of Aristide’s own security detail and
refused him entry to the airplane until he signed a
letter of resignation.
Then Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly
24 hours and knew nothing of his destination until he
was summarily deposited in the Central African
Republic. But this Keystone Kops coup has apparently
not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide used a
cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly
removed from Haiti. The US dismisses Aristide’s charges
as ridiculous. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s
official version of the events is a blanket denial
based on the government’s word alone. In essence,
Washington is telling us not to look back, only
forward. This stonewalling brings to mind Groucho
Marx’s old line, "Who are you going to believe, me or
your own eyes?"
There are several tragedies in this surrealistic
episode. The first is the apparent incapacity of the US
to speak honestly about such matters as toppling
governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial
questions: Did the US summarily deny military
protection to Aristide? Did the US supply weapons to
the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last month with
sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had
been taken by the US military to the Dominican
Republic, next door to Haiti? Why did the US abandon
the call of European and Caribbean leaders for a
political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had
already accepted? Most important, did the US bankroll a
coup in Haiti, a scenario that, based on the evidence,
seems likely?
Only someone ignorant of American history and of the
administrations of the elder and younger George Bushes
would dismiss these questions. The US has repeatedly
sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in
neighboring Caribbean countries. The most recent
previous episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the
first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA
payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups
that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.
Some of the players in the current round are familiar
from the previous Bush administration. Also key is US
Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega - a longtime
Aristide-basher - widely thought to have been central
to the departure of Aristide. He’ll find it much harder
to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels.
In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members
demanded an investigation into the US role in
Aristide’s overthrow, the first Bush administration
laughed them off, just as the administration is doing
today in facing new queries from caucus members.
Indeed, those questioning the administration about
Haiti are being smeared as naive and unpatriotic.
Aristide himself is being accused of dereliction in the
failure to lift his country out of poverty. In point of
fact, this administration froze all multilateral
development assistance to Haiti from the day that
George W. Bush came into office, squeezing Haiti’s
economy dry. US officials surely knew that the aid
embargo would mean a crisis in the balance of payments,
a rise in inflation, and a collapse of living
standards, all of which fed the rebellion.
Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the
media when it comes to asking all the questions that
need answers. Just as in the war on Iraq’s phony WMD,
wherein the mainstream media initially failed to ask
questions about the administration’s claims, major news
organizations have refused to challenge the
administration’s accounts on Haiti. The media haven’t
had the gumption to find Aristide, or even to point out
that he is being held incommunicado.
With a violence-prone US government operating with
impunity in many parts of the world, only the public’s
perseverance in getting at the truth can save us, and
others, from our own worst behavior.
[Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at
Columbia University, is a former economic adviser to
Latin American governments. This commentary originally
appeared in The Los Angeles Times. (c)2004 The Los
Angeles Times.]
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