Nearly 2,000 Haitians have died in the latest hurricane-related flooding. Tens of thousands are homeless, starving, without clean water, and now threatened by waves of disease. What has the Bush puppet government, installed last spring, done? Damn little. Even after the first wave of storms, reports BBC, "The interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, [said that although the] government had drawn up evacuation plans for parts of Gonaives," they had not been put into action." As a result, chaos and suffering rule, stretching the UN and other aid agencies to the limit, while the temporary puppet government is worse than useless: " It is a caretaker administration with little political power and even less control over events in Gonaives." So what has Bush done to help? Pledged a pathetic - even insulting - $60,000.

So. FLA Sun Sentinel: "Charity does begin at home, but the US response to the terrible storm damage in Haiti is so paltry that it's an embarrassment to the world's most affluent democracy. Tropical Storm Jeanne has left hundreds dead and many thousands of people homeless [in Haiti]. Cities and towns were inundated with contaminated water. Gonaives, the nation's third largest city, remains under two feet of water. Where floodwaters have receded, a trail of dead livestock and debris from wrecked homes and buildings has been left behind. Almost 700 people have been killed, and tens of thousands have nowhere to live. More hunger and misery has settled in, threatening to destabilize the fragile country once again. Fortunately, the global community is rushing in to help. The European Union pledged $1.8 million. Venezuela offered $1 million worth of emergency supplies. The United States? Well, the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince kicked in $60,000. That's it."

C4 News: "The UN is sending reinforcements to help keep order after rioting in Haiti among people desperate for aid in the wake of Tropical Storm Jeanne. Desperate survivors have been looting aid trucks and mobbing food distribution points. The word was out that food was being distributed at a school in Gonaives - the town worst hit by the floods from the tropical storm. More than 1500 people are now known to have died in the floods and 1600 are still missing. In some areas food is short as is clean drinking water. So, when UN soldiers handed out supplies at a distribution point they were quickly overhwelmed. It was chaotic. People desperate for food and water fighting to grab what they could." If you will recall, the Bush administration engineered a military coups that ripped the poverty-stricken nation apart just last spring -- a crisis the nation has not recovered from. And now this. Yet another Bush-engineered hell hole.

AP: "U.S. troops delivered food and water to a remote farming town, where reporters saw for the first time Friday the worst devastation from deadly floods that have inundated parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and left Mapou under 10 feet of water..The flooding has left hundreds dead and thousands homeless across the south-central part of Hispaniola island, shared by the two countries. The death toll, impossible to estimate, is increasing daily as authorities find more cut-off villages and towns. "We are trying to get a count but we estimate about a thousand dead" just among the Mapou's 3,500 people, said U.S. Lt. Col. Duane Perry, who commanded Marines as they ferried emergency supplies and aid workers in helicopters Friday."

News24,com: "Thousands of demonstrators called for the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Tuesday during a Flag Day rally that turned violent when riot police fired warning shots and tear gas. As the protesters neared the cathedral, riot police fired tear gas and then warning shots to disperse the crowd, which reacted by pelting government vehicles with rocks. The 15-nation Caribbean Community, which has refused to recognise Haiti's interim government because of the allegations that Aristide has made [that the US engineered the coup], has asked the Organisation of American States to investigate the circumstances of Aristide's departure. Leaders of the Caribbean Community, based in Guyana, wanted the investigation conducted by the UN Security Council, but they dropped the request on the assumption that France and the United States would use their veto powers to halt such an inquiry."

AP: "More than a month after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted and a new government installed, Haitians in this dusty port town of 50,000 are still terrified to venture out on the streets. Here, as in countless other Haitian towns, the battle for control is still being waged, despite the presence of a 3,500-strong, U.S.-led peacekeeping force. 'The person in charge is the person with the biggest gun,' said a young doctor at Les Cayes' Immaculate Conception Hospital, which has treated dozens of people wounded in clashes between pro- and anti-Aristide forces. He refused to give his name for safety reasons. The turmoil underscores the Herculean task ahead of Haiti's U.S.-backed - and broke - interim government as it tries to restore order following an anti-Aristide uprising that left more than 300 dead."

The Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and other human rights groups have demanded a change in U.S. policy towards Haitian refugees seeking protection in the US... The groups charge that current policy violates international law and in most case forces Haitians to return without a chance to voice their asylum claims. Reports US Newsire: "Just Friday, the commission and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center filed a petition with the UN asking its human rights group to investigate the way Haitians are detained in the US and declare that the government's detention policy violates international law. In February, 1,000 Haitians were intercepted at sea and forcibly returned to Haiti; most were not given an opportunity to voice their fear of political persecution and request asylum. More recently, 7 Haitian women were deported - - one was 5 months pregnant -- despite the continued insecurity and political violence throughout the Caribbean nation."

"Leaders of the 15-nation Caribbean Community have rejected Haiti's interim government. CARICOM made the move Saturday in response to interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's reference last week to Haitian rebels as 'freedom fighters.' The organization said 'no action should be taken to legitimize the rebel forces.' Caricom also repeated calls for a U.N. investigation into the departure of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Last week, Mr. Latortue suspended Haiti's participation in CARICOM and recalled Haiti's ambassador to Jamaica to protest Mr. Aristide's arrival in Jamaica. Nearly a month ago, Mr. Aristide resigned and flew to the Central African Republic, where he stayed in temporary exile until heading to Jamaica. He says the United States removed him from power in what amounted to a coup d'etat. The United States has strongly denied the charges."

From Democracy Now!:

RANDALL ROBINSON: I have learned from a White House source that Condoleezza Rice has pointedly threatened the Jamaican Government, telling it to expel President Aristide or face the consequences. The administration wants President Aristide out of the region. As this is a clear measure of how much broad support the president still enjoys as the democratically elected leader of Haiti inside the country, because the U.S. apparently views his mere presence in Jamaica as a threat to their control along with the thugs and the installed government in Haiti. Jamaica has not buckled... He remains, and will for the indefinite future in Jamaica, in spite of these clear threats from Rice made to the government of Jamaica.

JUAN GONZALEZ: The Associated Press reported yesterday that a summary execution of Aristide followers have continued to occur...

RANDALL ROBINSON: The French and American troops are standing by while the summary executions are carried out...

"Jamaica's decision to welcome former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has infuriated Bush administration officials, who say U.S. relations with English-speaking Caribbean countries have reached a new low. Senior U.S. officials refuse to speculate whether Washington will retaliate against Jamaica, which currently presides over the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) regional bloc. But other U.S. officials say that if Aristide's return from Africa to the Caribbean triggers new bloodshed in Haiti and U.S. troops get in harm's way, there would be congressional calls for a strong U.S. reaction against Jamaica."

"A U.S. Marine was shot and wounded in the Haitian capital, the first American peacekeeping casualty since the ouster of the Caribbean nation's president two weeks ago...U.S. troops have been attacked several times and have shot and killed at least six Haitians in the past week. In Aristide strongholds, Marines are seen as an occupation army by militants who believe Aristide's charges that the United States abducted him and forced him to leave the country."

CTV reports: "Under Aristide, the prime minister's position was largely ceremonial. But Latortue's position will be that of a powerbroker [i.e., a US corporate go-between handing out favors, a la Chalabi or Suharto] and has the potential of carrying enough weight [as in instituting a dictatorship] to smooth political divisions [as in eliminate all opposition]. He has indicated he might consider bringing back Haiti's army. Aristide disbanded the military in 1995 after it was blamed for much of the country's brutality."

The Toronto Star: "Deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's legal team is preparing cases accusing authorities in the United States and France of abducting him and forcing him into exile. Aristide insists he is still president of Haiti and will use the courts in his fight to return home, U.S. lawyer Brian Concannon said in Paris after meeting Aristide in the Central African Republic. In the United States, 'there are preparations for a kidnapping case against the American authorities,' Concannon said, without providing further details. Another U.S. lawyer for Aristide, Ira Kurzban, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft asking the Justice Department to investigate the circumstances of Aristide's departure Feb. 29. Aristide also accuses France of working with the United States to force his departure. In France, a lawyer is preparing a complaint for 'complicity in abduction' against four people connected with the Foreign Ministry, Concannon said."

"Lawyers representing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide today are serving Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell with papers asking that the US prosecute the people involved in what they call the kidnapping of Aristide and his wife Mildred, who is a US citizen. The lawyers are invoking the Multilateral Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons...In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Aristide's lawyers said, 'These criminal acts appear to have been carried out by U.S. government personnel acting under the orders of high-ranking United States government officials, including the United States Depute Charge de Mission in Haiti, Luis Moreno, and possibly Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega (Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs), Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.'"

The Black Commentator: "Unlike Donald Rumsfeld's closely held Iraq operation, the rape of Haiti was Powell's hands-on criminal enterprise. On Monday, February 23, Powell caused his spokesman to assure concerned Black lawmakers and world opinion that the Secretary was standing firm against opposition demands for Aristide's physical removal..... What is now perfectly clear is that there was never any U.S. intention for Aristide to remain on Haitian soil. Powell assured the Haitian elite of this fact, and prepped them to reject the Caricom plan, thus presenting the planet with the farce that a gaggle of Third World businessmen were thwarting the will of the United States... Bush and his confederates lied in the faces of massed Black congressional representatives in the days leading up to Aristide's departure."

MSNBC: "In his first public press conference in exile in Africa, Jean-Bertrand Aristide insisted Monday he was still president of Haiti and called for 'peaceful resistance' against what he's described as the 'occupation' of his homeland."

Susan Milligan, writing from Port au Prince, tells how back in November, 2000 - while Bush was stealing the election - the GOP congress pushed through a move to withhold aid to Haiti: "Republicans, most of whom opposed the 1994 US intervention, accused [Aristide] of political violence, corruption, and an inability to work with the opposition. Democrats, some of whom had become friends with Aristide in their fight to restore the democratically elected leader, had hoped to protect Haiti's fragile progress toward democracy." But the GOP won and the incredibly cruel withdrawal of aid from the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation was achieved. Meanwhile, the GOP continued to support the right of US corporations to maintain sweatshops in Haiti - sweatshops that, thanks to the lack of US aid, soon had thousands of new, desperate workers.

Canada.com: "What should have been a jubilant celebratory year for Haiti has instead turned into one of mass killings, political turmoil, and increasing, crippling poverty. With the flight of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, its first democratically elected president, a week ago today, the country's uncertain future hangs in the balance. The question that hovers over this extremely volatile nation, which has experienced 32 coups d'etat, is whether three representatives from the opposition, Aristide's Lavalas party, and the international community can successfully direct the country toward democratic elections. The process is wrought with distrust and power struggles and threatens to be derailed by inhabitants more at ease with settling differences with a gun or machete than by compromise and discussion." The only winners? US corporations operating sweatshops in Haiti who can now ignore Aristide's demands for a minimum wage.

"President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who left a tumultuous Haiti under shadowy circumstances Feb. 29, has delivered an impassioned address 'To the Haitian People and the World' by cell phone to a Haitian journalist in the United States working with a radio station in Berkeley, CA. In the address recorded early Friday, Aristide aims his words at Haitians, urging them to 'stand in solidarity and stop the spread of death'... The address was recorded by a Haitian radio producer known to Aristide for some 20 years and broadcast Friday, exclusively on Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints News Magazine based at KPFA."

"Thousands of outraged supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide poured out of Haiti's slums and into the streets on Friday, marching on the U.S. Embassy to denounce the 'occupation' of their homeland and demand Aristide's return. ...'Bush terrorist! Bush terrorist!' chanted the crowd, many of them waving Haitian flags and wearing T-shirts bearing photos of Aristide, as they passed a contingent of battle-equipped U.S. Marines guarding the embassy."

UK Independent: "South Africa added its voice last night to a growing international chorus questioning the circumstances surrounding Jean-Bertrand Aristide's departure from Haiti and demanded an investigation into allegations that the US forcibly removed a democratically elected president from office. In a thinly veiled attack on the Bush administration, South Africa's Foreign Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said that if Mr Aristide had been prised from power against his will, it would have 'serious consequences and ramifications for the respect of the rule of law and democracy the world over. The 15-nation Caribbean Community, Caricom, has refused to contribute troops to the peace-keeping force taking up positions in Haiti. It called for an investigation into Mr Aristide's removal from power.' Meanwhile, the Haitian consul general in NYC asserts that Mr Aristide is still the country's legitimate president."

From 12/18/03: "Almost 200 years after rebellious slaves drove a humiliated French army from Haiti, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has fired the first shot in a new battle with France. In the months leading up to Jan. 1 bicentennial celebrations, Aristide has launched a controversial campaign to get France to repay its former colony billions of dollars in restitution. And he has already sent Paris a bill, down to the very last cent: $21,685,135,571.48. The Haitian government says the money is the modern-day equivalent of the ransom, 90 million gold francs (originally set at 150 million gold francs) that Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay France. The European power refused to recognize Haiti's independence and threatened to re-enslave the Haitian people if the indemnity wasn't paid."

"Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, exiled in the Central African Republic, is being denied access to a telephone, Miami lawyer Ira Kurzban said Tuesday...Aristide's allegations Monday that he was being held hostage in the Central African Republic have upset officials in that nation. 'He's already started to embarrass us,' government spokesman Parfait M'Bay was quoted as saying Tuesday by the French Agence France Press news agency. 'He's scarcely been here 24 hours, and he's causing problems for Central African diplomacy.'"

"Rebel leader Guy Philippe declared himself the new chief of Haiti's military, which was disbanded by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and pledged Tuesday that rebel forces will disarm. Philippe then said he would arrest Prime Minister Yvon Neptune on corruption charges. 'The country is in my hands!' Philippe announced on Radio Signal FM. ...In Washington, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Roger Noriega said Philippe 'is not in control of anything but a ragtag band of people.' The international military buildup in Haiti will make Philippe's role 'less and less central in Haitian life. And I think he will probably want to make himself scarce,' Noriega told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'We have sent that message to him. He obviously hasn't received it.'"

This report by the Center for Research on Globalization provides extensive analysis of the coup in Haiti and background on the participants, including the U.S. government role.

Jesse Jackson writes: "So much for all that talk about democracy." After forcing the elected president of Haiti into exile by force, "Now [Bush] gets to determine who gets to run Haiti. For Bush it was clear: The Haitian voters had put their faith in and cast their votes for the wrong man, so he had to go. Bush then ridiculously announced that the 'Haitian constitution is working' -- as if words could turn night into day. This coup sends a chilling message to leaders across the world. Turns out all that rhetoric about supporting democracy... is just words, not policy. This administration values governments that protect private investment and stability for U.S. multinationals. Stable dictatorships are preferred to unstable democracies. So it runs up massive trade deficits and maintains cordial relations with the repressive, communist dictatorship of China, while it topples the elected president of Haiti."

On the scene in Haiti, humanitarian aid organization World Vision reports that supply lines cut off in the wake of the "rebellion" have left rural Haitians in dire straights, with food shortages beginning. "Already vulnerable families like those who lost crops during flooding two months ago have nothing to fall back on. Grandmother Suzette Jean, caring for eleven people in her home, says. 'We haven't got any food. We planted rice, but the rains came heavily and flooded our crops. Now we can't find enough to eat.' One community leader living in a rural area 10 miles outside Cap Haitian said, 'Now is the first time we are experiencing this situation, despite the turbulent times we're used to here. Life is impossible.'" We bet Bush denies the reality of any "negative impact" on Haiti from the regime change - just as he denied the negative impact of the violent regime change in Iraq.

Black US leaders spoke out angrily against the Bush Regime's "handling" of the crisis in Haiti. "Democracy has a black eye in Haiti this morning," said Rep Elijah E. Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus "Bill Fletcher Jr., head of the TransAfrica Forum, a policy group focusing on African and Caribbean issues, was particularly critical of Colin L. Powell's role. Fletcher said black officials should not have expected Powell to urge the administration to move more forcefully in Haiti simply because he is black. 'We have to stop believing,' Fletcher said. 'We have to stop thinking that Colin Powell wants to do the right thing. If the brother wanted to do the right thing, he would have resigned.'" But Colin has been in the back pocket of the establishment for decades, especially in covering up the My Lai massacre, and in being Caspar Weinberger's point man on Iran-contra. (See the series on Powell at ConsortiumNews.com)

Bush Crime Family Thug Otto Reich has been busy..."TransAfrica founder and close Aristide family friend Randall Robinson and Rep. Maxine Waters received calls from Aristide early this morning. Aristide told them how he had been kidnapped at gunpoint in the middle of the night by US soldiers and forced to board a plane with blacked out windows that carried him and his wife out of the country. 'He did not resign,' says Robinson. 'There's no question about it. The president called me on a cell phone that was slipped to him by someone He was abducted by the United States, a democratic, a democratically elected president, abducted by the United States in the commission of an American-induced coup. This is a frightening thing to contemplate.'" from an interview with Amy Goodman.

Here's the NY Times propaganda regarding the Haiti coup. "The armed men trying to seize power in Haiti are led by death-squad veterans and convicted murderers, according to American officials and human rights groups... They are also 'thugs,' said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell." Designed to deflect suspicion from Bush/Otto Reich operatives, this spin only confirms the suspicion: thugs, death-squad veterans and convicted murderers are PRECISELY the people the CIA uses to execute its engineered coups. (See http://www.pepperface.com/presswatch/coup.html) Want more proof? In 2001 Bush demanded the right for the CIA to "officially" work with thugs, death-squad veterans and convicted murderers - in the name of "national security," of course!

"Events unfolded quickly on Sunday when an unmarked jet carrying Mr Aristide and his security chief left Port-au-Prince airport. It later emerged that some of about 50 US Marines guarding the American embassy had escorted him to the plane. US state department spokesman Richard Boucher said: 'At President Aristide's request, the United States facilitated his safe departure from Haiti.'" At least they were more polite about it than when they removed Noriega, Bush Sr.'s old partner-in-crime.

News.com Australia reports: "Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide was taken away from his home by US soldiers, it was claimed today. A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out. 'The American army came to take him away at two in the morning,' the man said. 'The Americans forced him out with weapons. 'It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards. '(Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans." The RTL journalist who carried out the interview described the man as a "frightened old man, crouched in a corner" who said he was the "caretaker of the residence."

The NAACP's demand that the US support the regime of the democratically elected leader Aristide was ignored by Bush, who has, since elected, pretended that the NAACP doesn't exist, refusing to meet ONCE with its leaders. Said Kweisi Mfume: "The Bush administration cannot continue to stand idly by while armed thugs roam the streets of Haiti and threaten the democratically elected government of Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. President Bush either in conjunction with the U.N. or unilaterally, must act now. The United States cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the suffering in hopes that it will go away. By doing nothing to prevent a bloodbath our nation becomes a co-conspirator in this human tragedy. Thousands of innocent lives hang defensively in the balance and cry out for help."

"Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide arrived in the Dominican Republic on Sunday after fleeing his country, according to government officials in Santo Domingo. Aristide's plane touched down at the Barahona airport south-east of the capital city, according to presidential spokesperson Luis Gonzalez Fabra. Dominican security chief Carlos Luciano Diaz Morfa told reporters that Aristide disembarked from one of the three planes." Now US corporations won't have to contend with Aristide's annoying policies - like insisting on a minimum wage for US-owned sweatshops, or resisting land giveaways to US developers wanting to turn the least spoiled land into pricey resorts. No wonder Bush blocked refugees from leaving Haiti - gotta have adequate numbers of cheap workers in place.

The Moonie UPI reports: "Haitian activists Friday accused the Bush administration of covertly supporting opposition forces to oust President Aristide from power 'The Bush administration is again engaged in regime change by armed aggression.' Activists at a Friday press briefing outlined what they believe to be a well-crafted plan by the Bush administration to overthrow Aristide. Former Haitian military members, drug dealers and militants were armed and trained in the Dominican Republic thanks to military support from the United States. They... crossed the border into Haiti. It is clear that the rebel forces crossed the Dominican border heavily armed with equipment that even the former Haitian military did not have ... 'We also know that the Dominican government would not have allowed this to happen unless it had clearance from the United States government.'"

It appears that the Haitian crisis will ultimately be proven to be yet another CIA- engineered coup aimed at seizing full control over the nation's assets (resort beaches, cheap labor, proximity to Cuba as Bush gears up for an invasion, should he, God forbid, be re-selected). Aristide, widely demonized in the corporate media, had actually been locking horns with corporate interests in recent years, notably over the failure of US corporations to pay Haitian workers the minimum wage the Aristide government had established. Now Colin Powell is suggesting Aristide just step down and make it easy for the Bush and the Military-Industrial Complex. For more on history of US/CIA in Haiti see http://www.saxakali.com/caribbean/sexton.htm

The US lawyer representing the government of Haiti charged today that the US government is directly involved in a military coup attempt against the country's democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ira Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney who has served as General Counsel to the Haitian government since 1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to overthrow Aristide are being backed by Washington. 'I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States,' Kurzban told the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! 'This is clearly a military operation, and it's a military coup.'"

Here's just one example of US corporate exploitation of Haitian workers (2003): "'They lock the gates on us and sometimes put security guards out in front with rifles to prevent us from leaving,' said Jacqueline...'The supervisors would yell and curse at us to finish our quota. My daily quota is sewing 90 dozen zippers on pants for [the US equivalent of $2 /day]. Jacqueline works for a Cintas subcontractor, Haitian American Apparel Co. S.A. Cintas is the largest uniform rental provider and industrial launderer in North America and has enjoyed 34 years of consecutive growth. Sales in 2002 were U.S. $2.27 billion and profits were $234 million." Meanwhile, "Jacqueline, a 42-year-old mother of four, lives in a one room shack in Cite Soleil with no running water, sewage, or electricity." Why are Bush and his pals interested in Haiti? One reason is that they are "Cheap Labor" Republicans!

"Farmer Jean Eugene gazes wistfully through the tall wire fence that has been built across his Caribbean farmland, shaking his head as he reflects on the bad fortune it represents for his family. Just weeks ago, his fields were rich with corn and vegetables -treasured assets in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. But then the bulldozers arrived. Mr Eugene's crops were ripped from the soil by government contractors and he has been barred from his own land to make way for the construction of an industrial Free Trade Zone (FTZ) that will house cheap-labour factories producing clothes for leading brands including Levi's, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss. This is a crime against humanity, says Mr Eugene, 43, whose elderly father was chased away by armed Haitian police when he tried to access the plot to pick ripened mangoes from a tree. While these big companies are getting rich, we will be struggling to even feed ourselves." Sunday Times, July 6, 2003

Gary Younge writes in CounterPunch, "Deposed in a coup, [Aristide] returned in 1994 with US military assistance. But, in return for political freedom, Aristide was compelled to accept economic enslavement, bound by terms imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. Post-colonial military aggression gave way to the brutal forces of globalization. Before Aristide had even considered fixing the elections, the west had already rigged the markets. Take rice. Forced by the agreement to lower its import tariffs, Haiti suddenly found itself flooded with subsidized rice from the US, which drove Haitian rice growers out of business and the country to import a product that it once produced. When the country fined American rice merchants $1.4m for allegedly evading customs duties, the US responded by withholding $30m in aid."

It is hard to take any "peace plan" ex-Iran contra felons Otto Reich and Roger Noriega had any part in seriously, especially when a renewal of rebellion/coup activity is built right into the scheme. Although Aristide says he will accept the plan, which will force him to share power with the opposition, acceptance will merely defer the inevitable. While the plan calls for an internationally trained and supervised police force and a commitment by Aristide to disarm political gangs and requires that steps be taken toward parliamentary elections, it does not (reports the Miami Herald), call for international peacekeepers to quell a revolt in northern and central Haiti. In these areas, gangs and former soldiers have chased police out of dozens of towns and villages. The rebels now rule Gonaives, the country's fourth-largest city. So though the situation may ease, it would not be surprising to see it "flare" against just in time for the US presidential election.

"The Lavalas party recently described for me what they view as the first phase of Washington's scheme for Haiti. They defined its three major concurrent objectives as: 1) to create an opposition force capable of seizing power, 2) demonize Aristide and Lavalas within and without Haiti and, 3) separate the base of Lavalas from the leadership. If they are correct the second phase is likely to result in an escalation of armed incursions against Haiti with the intention of overthrowing the constitutional government. What does this have to do with Otto Reich [who just showed up in Haiti as the blood began to flow]? Given Otto Reich's history, his current role in U.S. foreign policy and the less than objective slant of U.S. press reporting in Haiti, it adds enough circumstantial evidence to their argument to take them seriously." So writes Kevin Pina, a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist who has been working and living in Haiti for the past three years.

"Congresswoman Barbara Lee directly challenged Colin Powell in a formal letter to him February 12th, after Powell had announced that the US administration is 'not interested in regime change' in Haiti. Said Lee: 'It appears that the US is aiding and abetting the attempt to violently topple the Aristide government. With all due respect, this looks like 'regime change'... Our actions - or inaction - may be making things worse.'. In a press conference Wednesday, Aristide called for peace and a democratic resolution to the unrest ongoing in Haiti. He once again called on the opposition to rationally discuss things with his government so that they can work toward an equitable resolution. Now would seem to be a good opportunity for broad-based social justice groups to galvanize around the critical issue of Haiti. Haitians are desperately in need of popular international support if they are to overcome the latest onslaught."

Anthony Fenton writes, "Congresswoman Maxine Waters issued a press release Feb. 11th, that called on the Bush administration to join her in condemning the 'so-called opposition' that ... is 'attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the government for the resulting disaster in the belief that the U.S. will aid the so-called protestors against President Aristide.' She also took aim at the World Bank and IMF and their 'continuing embargo', which amounts to hundreds of millions of desperately needed funds. Rep. Waters outlined positive measures that Aristide has initiated: 'Under his leadership, the Haitian government has made major investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure... The government doubled the minimum wage, despite strong opposition from the business community... President Aristide has also made health care and education national priorities. More schools were built in Haiti between 1994 and 2000 than between 1804 and 1994.'"

"The prime minister of Haiti has accused the civil opposition of trying to mount a coup as unrest continues to spread. ...An opposition spokesman denied backing the unrest and called for foreign intervention to avert civil war."