Condemn US-engineered coup in Haiti
Support people's right to self-determination!
The International League of Peoples' Struggle condemns the Bush government for engineering a military coup to overthrow the elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. According to Aristide, the chief of staff of the US embassy came to his house and told him that if he did not leave he would be killed and many people would also be killed. He was then escorted by 20 US special forces to the plane which would take him out of Haiti in what Aristide called a 'modern way of kidnapping.'
Bush and Powell are of course vehemently denying all this. But Bush and Powell have been caught lying before the whole international community about the WMDs in Iraq. There is no reason to suppose that they are not lying now. In a statement issued Saturday night and authorized by President Bush, the White House blamed Mr. Aristide for "the deep polarization and violent unrest that we are witnessing in Haiti today."
Whatever are the lies and impertinent claims of the US authorities, the issue that stands out above all is that the US has violated the national sovereignty of the people of Haiti and territorial integrity of Haiti by publicly calling for the overthrow of the Aristide government and deploying covert US agents to engineer the coup against the duly-elected president of Haiti.
US congresswoman Maxine Waters has accused Undersecretary of State for Latin America Roger Noriega of being behind the troubles there. Noriega was a senior aide to former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee was a backer of longtime Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier and an opponent of Aristide.
Why does the US hate Aristide so much?
He was responsible for the overthrow of the murderous Duvalier family, staunch puppets of the US in Haiti. When he was restored to power in 1994 after being forced out of office by US backed military thugs, international aid was promised Haiti on condition that Aristide privatized state enterprises. Aristide did not privatize. Aristide also restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, an arch enemy of the US.
While in office Aristide headed an administration that was acknowledged to be Haiti's least bloody and most democratic. He stopped most street-corner drug sales, eliminated lawless rural sheriffs, stopped paychecks to phantom government employees, reduced the bureaucracy by 20 percent, raised the minimum wage and worked to eliminate police extortion.
Who are the so-called opposition that the US has used to overthrow Aristide?
These include death squad members and torturers of the FRAPH, a CIA creation which had once forced Aristide from power and wreaked havoc in Haiti while they were in power. One such FRAPH leader is Louis Jodel Chamblain who was convicted of killing Antoine Izmery, a pro-democracy activist, and for murders associated with the infamous 'Raboteau Massacre'. Another is Guy Philippe, a US-trained soldier in the Haitian army, who has led three coup attempts against Aristide in the last four years.
US imperialism is bound to reap a whirlwind from what it has sown in Haiti as what it is facing in Iraq. The people must be allowed to determine their own destiny free from the interference of outside powers especially the US.
We call on the people of the world to condemn this latest blatant act of interference of the US in effecting a 'regime change' because it does not follow the US neoliberal policy. The US has hated the Aristide government for supposedly setting a bad example to other poor countries in seeking an independent development from the imperialist system. We call on the people of the world to support the national independence of peoples and countries and the struggle against imperialist aggression and domination and for national and social liberation. #