THE EDITOR, Sir:
WE AS Jamaicans should be proud of the deportment of our honorable Prime Minister in his capacity as chairman of CARICOM especially for his firm stance on Haiti, strongly voicing within the international community his opposition to the unconstitutional removal of Haiti's democratically elected President.
I want to also commend radio programmes such as Hot 102's Breakfast Club and Nationwide for not leaving this story but daily championing in much the same way as our Prime Minister, the Haitian cause especially given the Haitians' inability at present to question or influence the direction that their county takes.
Haiti is no simple tale of a corrupt regime collapsing under the weight of popular anger and bad management as the Americans and their allies would want us to believe. A glance at events of the last couple of years suggests that the fall of the Aristide regime was a foregone conclusion at the entrance of President George W. Bush and his right wing republican colleagues with their grim record of utilising official and covert channels to destabilise uncooperative governments in the Western Hemisphere.
The Bush administration's actions were clear in their suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars in credit lines and aid to Haiti citing allegations of fraud in Haiti's 2000 election and their permanent blocking of the release of $400 million in already-approved loans from the Interamerican Development Bank as well as pressing the IMF, World Bank, and European Union to cut off crucial lines of credit with Haiti. Haiti was also brutally taken to task for its external financial obligations, emptying its coffers in July 2003 to pay $32 million in debt service arrears.
MODUS OPERANDI
The modus operandi of the Bush administration was unmistakable: Their next steps were clear, fund an opposition, report every clash as repression against the population, arm pliable thugs and mercenaries in exile, embargo the government, precipitate acute crisis, play up the discontent of a hungry population, and then happily lead the charge for military intervention on humanitarian grounds.
The armed rebel groups leaving daily carnage in the streets of Port-au-Prince are CIA-backed thugs. They include the infamous Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a soldier who led death squads in the 1980s through the mid-1990s and was convicted in absentia for his involvement in the murder of Antoine Izmery, a well-known pro-democracy activist as other noted villains such as the Ton Ton-Macoutes, the gunmen who viciously supervised repression under both father and son Duvaliers' dictatorships until 1986. They also include members of the disbanded Haitian army that held power for three years following the coup against President Aristide in 1991, and the FRAPH death squads that mowed down the ranks of democratic civil society during that period, leaving over 3,000 dead and thousands more in exile.
The campaign of violence that has finally ousted Haitian President Aristide; the ease with which the American-backed thugs have upended a civilian regime, sets a dangerous precedent and should be cause for great concern among CARICOM leaders.
I am, etc.,
SEAN THOMAS
Laquane30d@ns.jamaicagleaner.com
Social Sciences Student
UWI, Mona
Via Go-Jamaica
