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Let Freedom Ring |
Press Window Cracked Revealing Haiti's ProblemsTwo hundred Haitian refugees jumped ship and swarmed into Miami, Tuesday, Oct 29th. The incident, too obvious for a sleepy US press to ignore, gave the public a glimpse into former President Bill Clinton's failed Haiti policy. Thousands of Haitians risk their lives attempting to enter the US illegally every year, making the crossing to Florida in overcrowded boats, but since Clinton's 1994 Haiti invasion, a supposed rescue effort from a military junta intent on oppressing the people, the problems of civil unrest and poverty and continuing flood of "boat people" has been nearly entirely ignored by the formerly Clinton-friendly press. General Raul Cedras had taken control of Haiti's presidency, but not legislative branch, after several military coup plotters had ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, on a somewhat substantiated claim that Aristide had encouraged the ruthless "necklacing" of his political opponents, the placing of a gasoline filed tire around the head and igniting it. Amid complaints that Aristide advocated violence, one television camera had captured him speaking of the "sweet smell of democracy", in an apparent reference to necklacing. Cedras, who had earlier been instrumental in helping the US to set up the free elections that brought Aristide to power, had not been involved in the coup, but accepted a temporary role of president out of fear of civil war, in his words, and he managed to get Aristide out of the country and to safety in the United States, rather than let him otherwise be executed by the coup plotters. The United States demanded Aristide's reinstatement, but Cedras refused, complaining that the anger against Aristide was so great that it might lead to civil war, and Cedras' publicly repeated desire for new internationally supervised elections was met with a deaf ear by the Clinton government. Eventually Aristide was forcibly reinstated by the United States, and Haiti's political problems became even worse, at one point having no civilian government, although under Cedras, a functioning elected parliament had been preserved. Aristide fairly recently won back the presidency in an election boycotted by his opponents, creating even greater unrest, leading to more violence, assassinations, and "boat people". Although Clinton had publicly blamed Cedras for "all of the violence" in Haiti, Clinton is apparently immune from blame for all of the continued violence during his own watch under far more favorable conditions of a lifted international embargo and inrush of foreign aid. -States Liberty Party, October 30, 2002 |
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