Haiti

EUGENIA CHARLES-MATHURIN, eugenia@haitireborn.org

MALINDA MILES, www.haitireborn.org
Co-Director of Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center, Charles-Mathurin said today:

“The United States has helped create this opposition to destabilize and undermine Haiti’s nascent democracy…. The U.S. is the only party which can bring to the negotiation table these groups which include members of the CIA-linked FRAPH death squads and the former brutal army of Haiti, FAD’H, which killed over 5,000 people from 1991-1994…. President Aristide, the constitutional president, has pledged that he would step down from power when his term comes to a close. In accordance with the Haitian Constitution, he cannot run again. His commitments have been met with escalating violence by opposition members.” Malinda Miles, also co-director of Haiti Reborn, is currently in Haiti.

The Five Questions are:

1. What is at stake?

2. Is this a battle for control of narco-trafficking?

3. Do Aristide defenders want foreign intervention or not?

4. How can Washington justify its economic embargo policy any longer?

5. Who is financing the paramilitary coup operations?

Of course, tonight’s report also offers links and clues to some answers, and additional questions as well.

Now, we turn the questions over to you. Narco News copublishers are invited to offer answers in The Narcosphere:

narcosphere.narconews.com/

Or you can send your comments to publisher@narconews.com

Opposition leaders have told Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that they are having a hard time committing to the proposed power-sharing agreement, which has been accepted in principle by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The problem, they say, is that their radicalized followers are adamantly opposed to allowing Mr. Aristide to continue in office, even in a titular role.

Before invading a country, it is appropriate to answer several questions. What type of social and political organization is to be established? Will the means (intellectual, financial, military, administrative) for this policy be sufficient? How long will it be necessary to remain in the country? How many soldiers are to be sacrificed? What will be the criteria of success? What level of success must be achieved for retreat to appear morally justified? George W. Bush finds himself in big trouble with the American electorate today for having failed to ask these questions about Iraq a year ago (and for having invoked the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction).