Was Haiti Pres. Aristide "kidnapped" by US?

U.S. Arranging 'Elders Council' to Run Haiti
U.S. Arranging 'Elders Council' to Run Haiti
Mar 1, 9:59 AM (ET) - MyWay.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States scrambled on Monday to create a "council of elders" to run Haiti, organize early elections and disarm rebels after Washington pressured President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to quit in the face of a deadly revolt, a U.S. official said.

"There's going to be a tripartite commission, made up of the opposition, the government and the international community, who will form a sort of 'council of elders,"' said a State Department official, who asked not to be named.

Administration Denies Aristide Kidnapped
Administration Denies Aristide Kidnapped
Mon Mar 1, 2:24 PM ET
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The White House and Pentagon on Monday dismissed allegations that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. forces eager for him to resign and flee into exile.

With U.S. military forces already on the ground in the Caribbean nation and more on the way, chief presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It's nonsense, and conspiracy theories do nothing to help the Haitian people move forward to a better more free, more prosperous future."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also vehemently denied that Aristide had been forced out by the United States, and Secretary of State Colin Powell forcefully denied it as well, saying that Aristide boarded the plane willingly.

McClellan told reporters that Aristide left on his own free will. "We took steps to protect Mr. Aristide and his family so they would not be harmed as they departed Haiti," he said.

Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon news conference, said he was involved in the diplomatic flurry preceding Aristide's departure, and "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw."

"I don't believe that's true, that he's claiming that," Rumsfeld said. "I would be absolutely amazed if that were the case."

An African-American activist says Aristide told him on the phone Monday that he was kidnapped at gunpoint by American soldiers and ousted in a U.S. coup d'etat. Aristide said he was being held prisoner at the Renaissance Palace in Bangui, Central African Republic, said the activist, Randall Robinson.

McClellan said Aristide's aides had contacted the U.S. ambassador to Haiti on Saturday and asked if Aristide would be given protection by the United States if he resigned. The ambassador consulted with Washington, then called Aristide's aides and told them that if Aristide decided to resign, the United States "would facilitate his departure," McClellan said. "And we did."

He said the United States arranged for a plane to fly to Haiti to pick up Aristide. The aircraft arrived about 4:30 a.m., McClellan said. Aristide went to the airport in the company of his own personal security guards, the spokesman said.

Asked directly if Aristide left of his own free will, McClellan said, "Yes."

Powell said flatly, "He was not kidnapped," and criticized U.S. congressmen for saying that Aristide had been kidnapped without checking with the Bush administration first to see what the story was.

"He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on the airplane. He went on the plane willingly," Powell said.

The secretary said Aristide wrote a letter of resignation and only then did the United States bring an airplane to help him leave the country.

Did U.S. Push or Pull Aristide from Power?
HAITI: Did U.S. Push or Pull Aristide from Power?
Marty Logan - IPS 3/3/04

MONTREAL, Mar 2 (IPS) - As rebel leader Guy Philippe declared himself Haiti's "military chief" Tuesday, speculation continued to fly over the U.S. role in deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's flight from power Sunday.

More than one observer suggested that now that the champion of the poor in the western hemisphere's poorest nation was gone, it was time to look ahead to rebuilding -- but first to disarming the various armed factions in Haiti.

On Monday, Aristide told CNN (the Cable News Network) that U.S. soldiers forced him to board a plane that landed in Africa 20 hours later.

"I called this a coup d'etat the modern way, to have a modern kidnapping," said Aristide. "We had to leave and spent 20 hours in an American plane not knowing where they were going with us until they told us 20 minutes before we landed in the Central African Republic".

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell denied that version of events. Aristide "was not kidnapped", Powell said. "We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that's the truth," he told reporters Monday.

Hours after Aristide's flight, the United Nations Security Council authorised a multinational intervention force for the country.

On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he knew nothing more about Aristide's departure, adding, " I hope this time the international community will go in for the long haul and not a quick turn-around . it may take years and I hope we will have the patience to do it".

Tuesday morning a spokesman for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) he did not think the anti-Aristide rebels joined with Washington to depose the embattled leader.

"A lot of people are making the link from the rebels to the United States and saying the United States had a role in him (Aristide) being forced out. Do you make that link?" the CARICOM spokesman, Jamaican Foreign Minister KD Knight, was asked.

"No, I haven't made that link. I've heard that link being made but I haven't made it. We are just going on what's happened on the ground, what's evident to all onlookers, the behaviour of the rebels, the behaviour of the opposition," answered Knight.

CARICOM criticised the world community last week for not sending a military force to Haiti sooner, and Knight suggested Tuesday the group might not recognise a governing authority in Haiti -- one of 15 CARICOM members -- that included the rebels.

The regional body was to meet Tuesday to discuss how to officially react to the events in Haiti.

One non-governmental observer said the international community will likely make no meaningful contribution to the island country, even now that Philippe -- a former policeman and army cadet who fled the country after a failed coup attempt against Aristide in 2001 -- and other known human rights violators appear to have assumed some power.

"The international community, by which we mean in the case of Haiti the United States, France and to a lesser extent Canada, have already made it absolutely clear that they're not going to intervene in any positive way in Haiti," said Charles Arthur, director of the UK organisation, Haiti Support Group.

Instead, the role of the international armed force "will be to protect whatever assets the international community believes it has, which in short will be the main infrastructure of the capital, the embassies, the big businesses, the areas where the rich people live . the basic infrastructure of the country", he added.

"The peacekeeping, the law and order, in a de facto fashion, will be the preserve of whoever is in charge of the Haitian Army and the Haitian police force, which it looks like is going to be Guy Philippe," said Arthur.

But Tuesday, U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher rejected Philippe's claim. "The rebels have to lay down their arms and go home," said Boucher, according to Associated Press (AP).

Arthur argued the world should not mourn the departure of Aristide. "Clearly the United States is the main player in getting him to leave. Whether the left and progressive forces all over the world should be focussing on the issue of the Aristide presidency, I don't think so".

"In my opinion, based on working with grassroots organisations in Haiti over the last 12 years, Aristide hasn't been able to deliver the demands and aspirations of the 85 percent of (the people who are poor) in Haiti. And this is one of the reasons why it was possible for the United States to remove him from power," according to Arthur.

Haitian politics has been blocked since the opposition parties refused to participate following 2000 elections that rights groups and bodies like the Organisation of American States (OAS) declared flawed.

But more than one week ago, and with Philippe and other heavily-armed rebels advancing on the capital Port-au-Prince from the north, Aristide agreed to a CARICOM action plan that would see him stay in office until his term ended in 2006 as part of a power-sharing government with the opposition.

But his opponents refused to accept the strategy.

"I think they (the United States) facilitated his leaving certainly, but I don't think the United States was responsible for his leaving," said Carolyn Fick, a professor of history at Montreal's Concordia University.

"There were negotiations and they put pressure on Aristide but so did the internal situation in Haiti put pressure on him, in spite of his declaration to the contrary," added Fick, author of 'The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution From Below'.

"He's gone but the point is now, where to go. I think that it has to be a civil and political solution. The rebels have not put down their arms. They promised to do so -- they haven't. I don't think they will until they get guarantees. My feeling is that they're going to negotiate for the restoration of the Haitian Army."

According to another observer, "I don't think anybody knows exactly what occurred. It's clear that there was a tremendous amount of international pressure put on Aristide and in the end I don't know what finally convinced him to leave; whether in fact he had been trapped or whether he was convinced simply to leave because his life was at stake and the lives of so many thousands of other people might have been at stake".

Added Leslie G. Desmangles, a professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, "(Aristide) left and the question as to whether he was taken away or whether he left on his own I think at this point is rather moot, because what's important at the moment is that he's gone and that now we have to look forward to reshaping the politics and the government of the country".

That tremendous task will have to begin with basic services. For example, aid group Oxfam said Tuesday "at least 80,000 people in Port de Paix and 60,000 people in Cap Haitien (both in the country's north) have no access to clean water, many others are short of food and the threat of disease due to poor sanitation is growing".

Groups stopped delivering aid because of insecurity earlier this month, and "lack of access to sufficient quantities of clean water combined with the general lack of adequate sanitation could soon lead to disastrous outbreaks of water-related disease", added the Oxfam statement.