The Central Intelligence Agency created an intelligence service in Haiti in the mid-1980's to fight the cocaine trade, but the unit evolved into an instrument of political terror whose officers at times engaged in drug trafficking, American and Haitian officials say. American officials say the C.I.A. cut its ties to the Haitian organization shortly after the 1991 military coup against Haiti's first democratically elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Three former chiefs of the Haitian unit, the National Intelligence Service, known as S.I.N. from its initials in French, are now on the United States Treasury Department's list of Haitian officials whose assets in the United States were frozen this month because of their support for the military leaders blocking Father Aristide's return to power. Analyses Are Criticized
The disclosure of the American role in creating the agency in 1986 comes amid increasing Congressional and public debate about the intelligence relationship between the United States and Haiti, the richest and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Supporters of Father Aristide contend that the C.I.A. is undermining the chances for his return with analyses skewed by a misplaced trust in his military foes.
The agency paid key members of the junta now in power for political and military information up until the ouster of Father Aristide in 1991. A review of the C.I.A.'s activities in Haiti under the Reagan and Bush Administrations, based on documents and interviews with current and former officials, confirms that senior C.I.A. officers have long been deeply skeptical about the stability and politics of President Aristide, a leftist priest. C.I.A. Help for Aristide
No evidence suggests that the C.I.A backed the coup or intentionally undermined President Aristide. In fact, the agency has acted to help him at times, for example through a program that is now training bodyguards to protect him should he return to Haiti from his exile in the United States.
Though much of the C.I.A.'s activity in Haiti remains secret, the emerging record reveals both failures and achievements in recent years.
Having created the Haitian intelligence service, the agency failed to insure that several million dollars spent training and equipping the service from 1986 to 1991 was actually used in the war on drugs. The unit produced little narcotics intelligence. Senior members committed acts of political terror against Aristide supporters, including interrogations that included torture, and threatened last year to kill the local chief of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
On the other hand, United States officials said, one senior Haitian intelligence officer dissuaded soldiers from killing President Aristide during the 1991 coup. The C.I.A. also helped to save the lives of at least six Aristide supporters after the coup, evacuating them in a late-night rescue that involved the Navy's elite SEAL unit, officials said.
The C.I.A. also had a mixed track record in analyzing the fall of the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986. The agency's analysts did not foresee the political violence that led to the collapse of elections in 1987 and the 1991 coup. But the analysts, contradicting the White House and the State Department, correctly predicted this year that the Haitian military would block President Aristide's scheduled return in October.
Members of the Congressional panels that oversee the C.I.A. say the agency's intelligence-gathering helped American policy makers bewildered by the political chaos that followed the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, including a series of military coups, and by Father Aristide's overwhelming victory in the December 1990 election. Lawmaker Cites C.I.A.'s 'Bum Rap'
"The problems of Haiti are problems of policy, not intelligence," said Representative Dan Glickman, a Kansas Democrat who heads the House intelligence committee. "In some cases, intelligence gets a bum rap. From the interviews we've had with the agency, I don't get any feeling that our goal was to preserve military dictatorship in Haiti."
But Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who received extensive briefings from the agency, asserted last week that the C.I.A.'s view of Haiti was distorted by its ties to the Haitian military. "A lot of the information we're getting is from the very same people who in front of the world are brutally murdering people," Senator Dodd said.
One crucial source of information for American intelligence over the years, according to two Government officials, was Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, who leads the Haitian armed forces. The officials said he provided the United States Government with reports critical of Father Aristide. The officials did not provide details from those reports. Nor did they say whether the general was paid.
In 1957, Francois Duvalier rose to power in Haiti. A corrupt dictator, he consolidated his power with the aid of a 10,000-member gang known as the Tontons Macoute.
Four years later, he was threatened by a C.I.A. covert operation in which the agency supplied arms to opponents plotting a coup, according to a 1975 Senate report. The plot failed.
On his death in 1971, Mr. Duvalier bequeathed his regime to his son, Jean-Claude, who received nearly $400 million in American economic aid until a popular revolt toppled his Government and he fled the country in February 1986.
Shortly afterward the C.I.A. created the Haitian intelligence service, S.I.N. The agency was staffed solely with officers of the Haitian Army, which was already widely perceived as an unprofessional force with a tendency toward corruption. The stated purpose was to stem the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine through Haiti, a crucial transit point for drug traffickers. Money for Agency Despite Aid Curb
The United States would gain information on the Haitian military by creating the unit; the Haitian military would obtain money, training and equipment from the C.I.A.
In intelligence parlance, it was a "liaison" relationship. The C.I.A. does not normally report to Congress on such relationships, citing the sensitivity of other nations to disclosures of secrets. That reduces the role of Congressional oversight.
S.I.N. received $500,000 to $1 million a year in equipment, training and financial support from the C.I.A., United States and Haitian Government officials say. The money may have sent a mixed message, for Congress was withholding about $1.5 million in aid for the Haitian military regime at the same time.
By late 1988, the agency decided to "distance itself" from the intelligence service, a senior United States official said. But the ties continued until October 1991, just after the Sept. 30 coup against Father Aristide, he said.
A 1992 Drug Enforcement Administration document described S.I.N. in the present tense, as "a covert counternarcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the C.I.A. at post."
The Haitian intelligence service provided little information on drug trafficking and some of its members themselves became enmeshed in the drug trade, American officials said. A United States official who worked at the American Embassy in Haiti in 1991 and 1992 said he took a dim view of S.I.N.
"It was a military organization that distributed drugs in Haiti," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It never produced drug intelligence. The agency gave them money under counternarcotics and they used their training to do other things in the political arena." U.S. Drug Official Gets Death Threat
"The money that was spent to train these guys in the counter-narcotics field boggled the mind -- half a million to a million a year," the official said. "They were turning it around and using it for political reasons, against whatever group they wanted to gather information on."
In September 1992, the work of United States drug-enforcement officials in Haiti led to the arrest of a S.I.N. officer on cocaine charges by the Haitian authorities.
A few days later, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief in Haiti, Tony Greco, received a death threat on his private telephone line in the American Embassy. The caller identified himself as the arrested intelligence officer's superior, United States Government records show. Mr. Greco immediately left Haiti and has not returned.
Three former chiefs of the Haitian intelligence service -- Col. Ernst Prudhomme, Col. Diderot Sylvain and Col. Leopold Clerjeune -- were named by the United States Treasury Department in a Nov. 1 order for seizure of their assets in the United States. The document named 41 people "who seized power illegally," helped anti-Aristide forces or "contributed to the violence in Haiti."
Haitian officials say those S.I.N. officers persecuted Father Aristide's supporters and used their C.I.A. training to spy on them.
"They were heavily involved in spying on so-called subversive groups," an exiled member of the Aristide Government said. "They were doing nothing but political repression. Father Aristide was one of their targets. They targeted people who were for change."
Between 1 A.M. and 3 A.M. on Nov. 2, 1989, Colonel Prudhomme, who headed S.I.N. and held the title of chief of national security, led a brutal interrogation of Evans Paul, the Mayor of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, according to a sworn deposition taken from Mr. Paul in connection with a Federal lawsuit filed against senior Haitian military officers in 1991 in Miami.
Colonel Clerjeune also was present at the interrogation, which left Mr. Paul with five broken ribs and internal injuries, the Mayor said.
Mr. Paul, who opposed the military regime, was arrested by soldiers, beaten and taken to the police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, where the beatings continued, according to sworn statements. When Mr. Paul lost consciousness, he said, he was revived by soldiers holding a flame from a cigarette lighter under his nose.
"Prudhomme himself never touched me," Mr. Paul said in an interview from Haiti. "He played the role of the intellectual, the man who searched carefully for contradictions in your account -- the man who seemed to give direction to the whole enterprise. He wanted to present me to the world as a terrorist."
"He seemed to have so much information about my life, all the way from my childhood," the Mayor said. "It was if he had been following me step by step."
Last summer, Mr. Paul met his interrogator again. Colonel Prudhomme was part of the military delegation led by General Cedras at talks mediated by the United Nations in July at Governors Island in New York. The accord reached at that meeting called for General Cedras to step down by Oct. 15 and allow Mr. Aristide to return on Oct. 30. The military reneged on the accord.
But S.I.N. also produced a success story: Col. Alix P. Silva, who led the Haitian intelligence service from 1986 to 1988. In 1988, Colonel Silva compiled a list of 18 senior Haitian military officials whom he said should be cashiered for unprofessional conduct, corruption or cocaine trafficking. At the head of the list was Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril, who seized power in a 1989 coup.
Forced into hiding when General Avril took power, Colonel Silva resurfaced after the 1990 election, in which Father Aristide won 67.5 percent of the vote in a field of 10 candidates. The colonel then served as Deputy Commander in Chief of the army under General Cedras, who betrayed President Aristide by ousting him in September 1991.
It was Colonel Silva, current and former American officials say, who persuaded Haitian soldiers not to shoot Father Aristide on the night of the coup. Although briefly a member of the Cedras junta, Colonel Silva was among a handful of Aristide supporters who were evacuated shortly after the coup in a clandestine flight from Haiti that was coordinated by the C.I.A. and a team of Navy commandos, the officials said.
Though derring-do may be part of the C.I.A.'s image, the agency's most important task is helping American leaders understand what goes on in the world. Its intelligence analysts, not its spies, hold sway in Washington.
The agency's leading analyst of Latin American affairs, Brian Latell, traveled to Port-au-Prince in July 1992 and recorded his trip in a three-page note that he later shared with members of Congressional intelligence committees. He met with General Cedras, who he said impressed him as "a conscientious military leader who genuinely wishes to minimize his role in politics."
That impression, Father Aristide's supporters say, contributed to the faith placed in General Cedras by United States policy makers, a faith broken when the general abrogated the Governor's Island accord.
Mr. Latell also reported that he "saw no evidence of oppressive rule" in Haiti. Rights Report Tells A Different Story
"I do not wish to minimize the role the military plays in intimidating, and occasionally terrorizing real and suspected opponents," the analyst said, but "there is no systematic or frequent lethal violence aimed at civilians."
That conflicts with a State Department report for the same year, which said, "Haitians suffered frequent human rights abuses throughout 1992, including extra-judicial killings by security forces, disappearances, beatings and other mistreatment of detainees and prisoners, arbitrary arrests and detention and executive interference with the judicial process."
Mr. Glickman, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, defended Mr. Latell's work and said that no institutional bias afflicted the agency's reporting on Haiti.
But he said he had questions about "this whole counternarcotics involvement of the agency" and what good, if any, it achieved in Haiti.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, November 14, 1993
Tuesday, October 26, 1993
Haitian Radio Host, Backer of Aristide, Is Killed in Miami
A popular Haitian radio broadcaster and local community leader who supported the ousted Haitian President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was killed on Sunday night in the parking lot of a school here.
The victim, Dona St. Plite, was leaving a fund-raising event he had headed to benefit the children of Fritz Dor, a Haitian-born radio personality who was also killed in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, in 1991. In all, three Haitian radio show hosts have been killed since 1991, and all of them have been Aristide supporters.
No suspects had been arrested in the St. Plite case.
"It is too early to tell what the motive is," said David Magnuson, a Miami police spokesman. "We are talking to a number of people who were in the parking lot of the Edison Middle School, where the shooting took place."
But some Haitians here said Mr. St. Plite's name appeared on a hit list of Aristide supporters that had circulated in Miami over the weekend. "It is obviously a political murder," said Rolande Dorancy, who heads the Haitian Refugee Center here.
Ms. Dorancy's name was on at least one version of the hit list, which also named Father Aristide, his Cabinet and exiled pro-Aristide journalists. The hand-written document says, "This is a list of people in Haiti, Miami and Canada who must be executed before the 30th of October." That is the date agreed to by the Haitian military leaders for Father Aristide's reinstatement.
Mr. St. Plite was host of a popular radio show on WKAT-AM that featured guests, call-ins and French and Creole music. Arnie Premer, the manager of the station, said Mr. St. Plite also owned a driving school and was planning to open a used car dealership.
The third radio personality who was killed, Jean Claude Olivier, was shot in 1991. According to Assistant State Attorney John Kastrenakas, both of the men convicted in the two 1991 cases were hired killers.
Source: New York Times
The victim, Dona St. Plite, was leaving a fund-raising event he had headed to benefit the children of Fritz Dor, a Haitian-born radio personality who was also killed in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, in 1991. In all, three Haitian radio show hosts have been killed since 1991, and all of them have been Aristide supporters.
No suspects had been arrested in the St. Plite case.
"It is too early to tell what the motive is," said David Magnuson, a Miami police spokesman. "We are talking to a number of people who were in the parking lot of the Edison Middle School, where the shooting took place."
But some Haitians here said Mr. St. Plite's name appeared on a hit list of Aristide supporters that had circulated in Miami over the weekend. "It is obviously a political murder," said Rolande Dorancy, who heads the Haitian Refugee Center here.
Ms. Dorancy's name was on at least one version of the hit list, which also named Father Aristide, his Cabinet and exiled pro-Aristide journalists. The hand-written document says, "This is a list of people in Haiti, Miami and Canada who must be executed before the 30th of October." That is the date agreed to by the Haitian military leaders for Father Aristide's reinstatement.
Mr. St. Plite was host of a popular radio show on WKAT-AM that featured guests, call-ins and French and Creole music. Arnie Premer, the manager of the station, said Mr. St. Plite also owned a driving school and was planning to open a used car dealership.
The third radio personality who was killed, Jean Claude Olivier, was shot in 1991. According to Assistant State Attorney John Kastrenakas, both of the men convicted in the two 1991 cases were hired killers.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, October 20, 1993
WHAT'S BEHIND WASHINGTON'S SILENCE ON HAITI DRUG CONNECTION?
At stake in the U.S. confrontation with the Haitian military regime is a cocaine smuggling operation that earns millions of dollars for Haitian military officials while dumping tons of the deadly white powder on American streets. Yet while the country debates the merits of armed intervention in Haiti, the Clinton administration has remained mum on the Haitian "drug connection."
A confidential report by the Drug Enforcement Agency obtained by Pacific News Service describes Haiti as "a major transshipment point for cocaine traffickers" funnelling drugs from Colombia and the Dominican Republic into the U.S.-with the knowledge and active involvement of high military officials and business elites.
The corruption of the Haitian military "is substantial enough to hamper any significant drug investigation attempting to dismantle" illicit drug operations inside Haiti, the report states. Echoing the report's findings, exiled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide recently blamed the military's role in the drug trade for his ouster.
Despite extensive DEA intelligence documenting Haiti's drug role, neither the Clinton administration, nor the Bush administration before it, have ever raised that role publicly. Now critics of U.S. policy on Haiti, including one Congressman, are questioning that silence, suggesting it reflects de facto U.S. support for the Haitian military and a reluctance to offer unqualified support for Aristide.
"I've been amazed that our government has never talked about the drug trafficking...even though it is obviously one of the major reasons why these people drove their president out of the country and why they are determined not to let him back in. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits that are having disastrous consequences for the American people," says Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).
Larry Burns, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, claims, "From the moment Aristide was overthrown two years ago, Washington has equivocated on whether it wanted him back or not..." To secure the military "as an anchor to Aristide's sail," Burns charges, Washington "turned a blind eye to the corruption charges, and pretended that it could be reformed through professionalization and U.S. training."
A senior administration official at the National Security Council dismisses the charge but when asked why the administration has failed to publicize DEA allegations of drug trafficking, the spokesman had no comment.
The DEA first established a Country Office (CO) in Port-au-Prince to assist the Haitian government with its anti-narcotics activities in November 1987. Throughout Aristide's brief tenure in office, DEA agents worked closely with Haitian military narcotics services, investigating an illegal cocaine network estimated to be moving some $300-$500 million worth of cocaine into the U.S. per year. Although the DEA office was shut down after the 1991 coup, it reopened in the fall of 1992. But soon after DEA intelligence prompted the arrest of a member of Haiti's ClA-linked National Intelligence, DEA local agent Tony Greco received death threats from a man identifying himself as the National Intelligence member's boss.
A Congressional source familiar with the DEA's history in Haiti told PNS that Greco had also "connected (Lt. Colonel Michel) Francois to the drug trafficking operations in Haiti." Francois, the current chief of police, is alleged to be behind the current campaign of terror.
What disturbs Rep. Conyers is that none of this information ever reached the public. "By turning a deaf ear to what is obviously a prime force behind Aristide's ouster, we raise questions about our own involvement in drug activities," Conyers says. He is currently investigating how it is that the ships and aircraft necessary to sustain such a large operation evade detection and interdiction, while the U.S. government has managed to spot, stop and turn back almost every ramshackle boat carrying refugees.
Indeed the DEA report shows that after the 1991 coup sent Aristide into exile, there were virtually no major seizures of cocaine from Haiti as compared to nearly 4,000 pounds seized in 1990.
Michael Levine, author of "Deep Cover" and a decorated DEA agent with 25 years of experience fighting drugs overseas, says what's going on in Haiti is "just another example of elements of the U.S. government protecting killers, drug dealers and dictators for the sake of some political end that's going to cost a whole bunch of kids in this country their lives.
"I saw the drug traffickers take over the government of Bolivia in 1980, ironically with the assistance of the CIA, and we (the DEA) just packed up our office and went home."
Source: Global research.ca
A confidential report by the Drug Enforcement Agency obtained by Pacific News Service describes Haiti as "a major transshipment point for cocaine traffickers" funnelling drugs from Colombia and the Dominican Republic into the U.S.-with the knowledge and active involvement of high military officials and business elites.
The corruption of the Haitian military "is substantial enough to hamper any significant drug investigation attempting to dismantle" illicit drug operations inside Haiti, the report states. Echoing the report's findings, exiled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide recently blamed the military's role in the drug trade for his ouster.
Despite extensive DEA intelligence documenting Haiti's drug role, neither the Clinton administration, nor the Bush administration before it, have ever raised that role publicly. Now critics of U.S. policy on Haiti, including one Congressman, are questioning that silence, suggesting it reflects de facto U.S. support for the Haitian military and a reluctance to offer unqualified support for Aristide.
"I've been amazed that our government has never talked about the drug trafficking...even though it is obviously one of the major reasons why these people drove their president out of the country and why they are determined not to let him back in. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits that are having disastrous consequences for the American people," says Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).
Larry Burns, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, claims, "From the moment Aristide was overthrown two years ago, Washington has equivocated on whether it wanted him back or not..." To secure the military "as an anchor to Aristide's sail," Burns charges, Washington "turned a blind eye to the corruption charges, and pretended that it could be reformed through professionalization and U.S. training."
A senior administration official at the National Security Council dismisses the charge but when asked why the administration has failed to publicize DEA allegations of drug trafficking, the spokesman had no comment.
The DEA first established a Country Office (CO) in Port-au-Prince to assist the Haitian government with its anti-narcotics activities in November 1987. Throughout Aristide's brief tenure in office, DEA agents worked closely with Haitian military narcotics services, investigating an illegal cocaine network estimated to be moving some $300-$500 million worth of cocaine into the U.S. per year. Although the DEA office was shut down after the 1991 coup, it reopened in the fall of 1992. But soon after DEA intelligence prompted the arrest of a member of Haiti's ClA-linked National Intelligence, DEA local agent Tony Greco received death threats from a man identifying himself as the National Intelligence member's boss.
A Congressional source familiar with the DEA's history in Haiti told PNS that Greco had also "connected (Lt. Colonel Michel) Francois to the drug trafficking operations in Haiti." Francois, the current chief of police, is alleged to be behind the current campaign of terror.
What disturbs Rep. Conyers is that none of this information ever reached the public. "By turning a deaf ear to what is obviously a prime force behind Aristide's ouster, we raise questions about our own involvement in drug activities," Conyers says. He is currently investigating how it is that the ships and aircraft necessary to sustain such a large operation evade detection and interdiction, while the U.S. government has managed to spot, stop and turn back almost every ramshackle boat carrying refugees.
Indeed the DEA report shows that after the 1991 coup sent Aristide into exile, there were virtually no major seizures of cocaine from Haiti as compared to nearly 4,000 pounds seized in 1990.
Michael Levine, author of "Deep Cover" and a decorated DEA agent with 25 years of experience fighting drugs overseas, says what's going on in Haiti is "just another example of elements of the U.S. government protecting killers, drug dealers and dictators for the sake of some political end that's going to cost a whole bunch of kids in this country their lives.
"I saw the drug traffickers take over the government of Bolivia in 1980, ironically with the assistance of the CIA, and we (the DEA) just packed up our office and went home."
Source: Global research.ca
Sunday, July 25, 1993
Attack on Cape Town Church Keeps a Rattled Nation Edgy
Twelve worshipers were killed and more than 50 were wounded by gunmen during an attack on Sunday night at St. James Church near Cape Town.
Absurdly, the first notion that came to Kara-Anne Harris on Sunday night as the killers kicked in the door of St. James Church and blasted worshipers with automatic-rifle fire and grenades was that they were after the Russians. If St. James is a symbol of anything, it may be a kind of openhearted evangelical hospitality, extended to squalid black shacktowns of nearby Khayelitsha township and to homesick fishermen from visiting Russian trawlers.
There were 140 of the seamen sitting with the multiracial congregation at the 7 P.M. service, listening happily to a duet of the gospel tune "More Than Wonderful," when the gore and splinters of pews began to fly. "I wonder if it's because we have Russians in our church," Miss Harris remembered thinking for a moment, before recalling the end of the cold war and chiding herself, "Oh goodness, that would be old." This war, she realized, is against her, people like her, and their half-realized dream of South Africa's future.
The attack, which left 12 worshipers dead (including 3 of the hapless Russians) and more than 50 wounded in the cozy Cape Town suburb of Kenilworth, was the most horrific in the eight months since the opening of a mysterious terrorist war on white suburbia. Except that the killers were black and very efficient, little is known for certain about their identities or motives, leaving white South Africa to its fearful speculations: black militants, hired guns, rogue police or perhaps, as the Rev. Ross Anderson surmised, some diabolical "blood lust" beyond politics.
The killing of people at prayer stunned South African whites with a fresh premonition of the carnage they expect en route to the country's first universal elections next April. But if, as many assumed, the carnage was intended to frighten South Africa off its course of negotiated change, it seemed likely to have just the opposite effect. Negotiators laboring over a constitution say each massacre is another reminder that only a credible, elected government stands a chance of restoring order.
St. James is a congregation more of the future than of the past. It has welcomed worshipers of all races for all of its 25 years, even when the mixed-race residents known as coloreds were being forcibly expelled from the neighborhood in the years of apartheid. The congregation Sunday included whites and blacks, and parishioners of mixed race and Indian heritage. Since President F. W. de Klerk renounced segregation three years ago, the neighborhood and the church have grown more diverse: Miss Harris, a 21-year-old student of English and drama, said her church youth group is two-thirds nonwhite. "It's a place where I feel at home," said Lorenzo Smith, a parishioner of mixed race whose wife died of a shrapnel shard to the heart even though he was sprawled on top of her in the aisle.
The church belongs to a breakaway Anglican denomination that split with the Church of England in the last century and now practices fervent, missionary evangelism. The onslaught Sunday night followed the pattern of other killings in attacks that have laid waste to a golf club, a family steak restaurant, commuters driving their children to school and a hotel bar. A black man in blue overalls burst through the door of the modern pentagonal church and sprayed the pews with an R-4 automatic rifle, the standard military weapon in South Africa and its black homelands.
Then a second assailant stepped up and rolled a grenade beneath the pews -- "like he was bowling," Sean Savage recalled. It exploded under a row of Russian sailors, blowing the legs off one of them and leaving a small crater in the blue carpet. Someone lofted a second grenade into the back rows. This being gun-saturated South Africa, few among the 1,300 worshipers were surprised when one of their number pulled a pistol from the holster tucked in his blue jeans and fired back. He chased the killers out and watched them peel way in an old green Mercedes Benz.
The church today looked like it had been hit by a blood storm. Blood smeared the pews and puddled on the carpet alongside a prayer book cleanly pierced by a single bullet. Outside, survivors filled the vacuum with theories. The leading candidate was the black radical fringe. Some of the earlier attacks on whites have been claimed by the guerrilla wing of the Pan Africanist Congress. Anonymous callers today both asserted and denied responsibility in the name of that organization.
This suggested, painfully, that the church might have been selected because of its outreach in the wretched township of Khayelitsha. An English missionary at St. James was shot in April while organizing a soccer game for children in the township. Others observed that the church -- English-speaking, multiracial -- would be a natural target for white Afrikaner fanatics or malcontents in the state security forces. Still others mused that the church was chosen, as terrorist targets often are, simply to announce that anyone, anywhere is vulnerable.
The images of blood-smeared Bibles may drive more whites to emigrate or seek the solace of the white separatist fringe. But among the parishioners of St. James, the fear was countered by resilience and resignation, some talk that God had ordained them to stay, and a much-discussed appreciation that this is what township blacks face routinely. Pastor Anderson, an intensely calm 35-year-old who last month turned down a minister's job in Raleigh, N.C., said he would do the same if the offer came today.
Jenny Johnston and her husband, Owen, said the subject of emigration had come up again. She said she was still haunted by "the smell of ammunition and damaged bodies," and was terrified for her three children, but was not yet willing to leave. "Even after last night's disaster, this is my country," she said.
Source: New York Times
Absurdly, the first notion that came to Kara-Anne Harris on Sunday night as the killers kicked in the door of St. James Church and blasted worshipers with automatic-rifle fire and grenades was that they were after the Russians. If St. James is a symbol of anything, it may be a kind of openhearted evangelical hospitality, extended to squalid black shacktowns of nearby Khayelitsha township and to homesick fishermen from visiting Russian trawlers.
There were 140 of the seamen sitting with the multiracial congregation at the 7 P.M. service, listening happily to a duet of the gospel tune "More Than Wonderful," when the gore and splinters of pews began to fly. "I wonder if it's because we have Russians in our church," Miss Harris remembered thinking for a moment, before recalling the end of the cold war and chiding herself, "Oh goodness, that would be old." This war, she realized, is against her, people like her, and their half-realized dream of South Africa's future.
The attack, which left 12 worshipers dead (including 3 of the hapless Russians) and more than 50 wounded in the cozy Cape Town suburb of Kenilworth, was the most horrific in the eight months since the opening of a mysterious terrorist war on white suburbia. Except that the killers were black and very efficient, little is known for certain about their identities or motives, leaving white South Africa to its fearful speculations: black militants, hired guns, rogue police or perhaps, as the Rev. Ross Anderson surmised, some diabolical "blood lust" beyond politics.
The killing of people at prayer stunned South African whites with a fresh premonition of the carnage they expect en route to the country's first universal elections next April. But if, as many assumed, the carnage was intended to frighten South Africa off its course of negotiated change, it seemed likely to have just the opposite effect. Negotiators laboring over a constitution say each massacre is another reminder that only a credible, elected government stands a chance of restoring order.
St. James is a congregation more of the future than of the past. It has welcomed worshipers of all races for all of its 25 years, even when the mixed-race residents known as coloreds were being forcibly expelled from the neighborhood in the years of apartheid. The congregation Sunday included whites and blacks, and parishioners of mixed race and Indian heritage. Since President F. W. de Klerk renounced segregation three years ago, the neighborhood and the church have grown more diverse: Miss Harris, a 21-year-old student of English and drama, said her church youth group is two-thirds nonwhite. "It's a place where I feel at home," said Lorenzo Smith, a parishioner of mixed race whose wife died of a shrapnel shard to the heart even though he was sprawled on top of her in the aisle.
The church belongs to a breakaway Anglican denomination that split with the Church of England in the last century and now practices fervent, missionary evangelism. The onslaught Sunday night followed the pattern of other killings in attacks that have laid waste to a golf club, a family steak restaurant, commuters driving their children to school and a hotel bar. A black man in blue overalls burst through the door of the modern pentagonal church and sprayed the pews with an R-4 automatic rifle, the standard military weapon in South Africa and its black homelands.
Then a second assailant stepped up and rolled a grenade beneath the pews -- "like he was bowling," Sean Savage recalled. It exploded under a row of Russian sailors, blowing the legs off one of them and leaving a small crater in the blue carpet. Someone lofted a second grenade into the back rows. This being gun-saturated South Africa, few among the 1,300 worshipers were surprised when one of their number pulled a pistol from the holster tucked in his blue jeans and fired back. He chased the killers out and watched them peel way in an old green Mercedes Benz.
The church today looked like it had been hit by a blood storm. Blood smeared the pews and puddled on the carpet alongside a prayer book cleanly pierced by a single bullet. Outside, survivors filled the vacuum with theories. The leading candidate was the black radical fringe. Some of the earlier attacks on whites have been claimed by the guerrilla wing of the Pan Africanist Congress. Anonymous callers today both asserted and denied responsibility in the name of that organization.
This suggested, painfully, that the church might have been selected because of its outreach in the wretched township of Khayelitsha. An English missionary at St. James was shot in April while organizing a soccer game for children in the township. Others observed that the church -- English-speaking, multiracial -- would be a natural target for white Afrikaner fanatics or malcontents in the state security forces. Still others mused that the church was chosen, as terrorist targets often are, simply to announce that anyone, anywhere is vulnerable.
The images of blood-smeared Bibles may drive more whites to emigrate or seek the solace of the white separatist fringe. But among the parishioners of St. James, the fear was countered by resilience and resignation, some talk that God had ordained them to stay, and a much-discussed appreciation that this is what township blacks face routinely. Pastor Anderson, an intensely calm 35-year-old who last month turned down a minister's job in Raleigh, N.C., said he would do the same if the offer came today.
Jenny Johnston and her husband, Owen, said the subject of emigration had come up again. She said she was still haunted by "the smell of ammunition and damaged bodies," and was terrified for her three children, but was not yet willing to leave. "Even after last night's disaster, this is my country," she said.
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, June 15, 1993
Human Rights and Universal Responsibility
The key to creating a better and more peaceful world is the development of love and compassion for others. This naturally means we must develop concern for our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate than we are. In this respect, the non-governmental organizations have a key role to play. You not only create awareness for the need to respect the rights of all human beings, but also give the victims of human rights violations hope for a better future.
It is mainly the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes who are opposed to the universality of human rights. It would be absolutely wrong to concede to this view. On the contrary, such regimes must be made to respect and conform to the universally accepted principles in the larger and long term interests of their own peoples. The dramatic changes in the past few years clearly indicate that the triumph of human rights is inevitable.
I, for one, strongly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Every individual has a responsibility to help more our global family in the right direction and we must each assume that responsibility. As a Buddhist monk, I try to develop compassion within myself, not simply as a religious practice, but on a human level as well. To encourage myself in this altruistic attitude, I sometimes find it helpful to imagine myself standing as a single individual on one side, facing a huge gathering of all other human beings on the other side. Then I ask myself, 'Whose interests are more important?' To me it is quite clear that however important I may feel I am, I am just one individual while others are infinite in number and importance.
བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Source: The Government of Tibet in Exile
It is mainly the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes who are opposed to the universality of human rights. It would be absolutely wrong to concede to this view. On the contrary, such regimes must be made to respect and conform to the universally accepted principles in the larger and long term interests of their own peoples. The dramatic changes in the past few years clearly indicate that the triumph of human rights is inevitable.
I, for one, strongly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Every individual has a responsibility to help more our global family in the right direction and we must each assume that responsibility. As a Buddhist monk, I try to develop compassion within myself, not simply as a religious practice, but on a human level as well. To encourage myself in this altruistic attitude, I sometimes find it helpful to imagine myself standing as a single individual on one side, facing a huge gathering of all other human beings on the other side. Then I ask myself, 'Whose interests are more important?' To me it is quite clear that however important I may feel I am, I am just one individual while others are infinite in number and importance.
བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Source: The Government of Tibet in Exile
Thursday, June 10, 1993
Toll in Liberian Massacre Doubles; U.N. Opens Investigation
Medical workers in Liberia said today that 547 bodies had been buried after a massacre of civilians on Sunday and that the death toll could reach 600. The interim Government has ordered two investigations into the killings, at Carter Camp, a farming area near Harbel, and officials said the Government forces did not do enough to stop the massacre. Survivors and the Government say that Charles Taylor's rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, carried out the killings.
On Wednesday, the President's office authorized the Defense Ministry to investigate the "alleged negligence of soldiers leading to the infiltration of rebels and the massacre of more than 400 men, women and children by Charles Taylor's rebels." Mr. Taylor's group has repeatedly denied responsibility and says a West African intervention force and the Government militia are to blame. Health workers at Harbel, 40 miles east of Monrovia, said most of the dead were women and children. They said more bodies had been found in the Du River and along its banks.
The international force captured the Harbel area from the rebels in February and controls it nominally, but the Government militia was guarding Carter Camp on the night of the massacre. The intervention force was sent to Liberia in 1990 by the Economic Community of West African states in an attempt to end the civil war. In addition to the Defense Ministry investigation, the interim President, Amos Sawyer, ordered a military advisory board to investigate the killings, and the United Nations special representative to Liberia, Trevor Gordon-Somers, arrived Wednesday to make his own investigation.
UNITED NATIONS, June 10 (Reuters) -- The Security Council has condemned the massacre in Liberia and warned that the killers will be held accountable. In a statement Wednesday, the Council "warns that those found responsible for such serious violations of international humanitarian law will be held accountable for such crimes." The statement did not explain how the killers might be punished.
The statement asked Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to begin a "thorough and full investigation" of the massacre, including "any allegations as to the perpetrators, whoever they may be." Mr. Boutros-Ghali's special envoy, Trevor Gordon-Somers, had arrived in Liberia Wednesday before the statement was announced, and the Council urged all parties to cooperate with him to negotiate an end to the three-year civil war, which has left tens of thousands dead.
The statement was delayed a day because West African nations wanted a mention of Charles Taylor, head of the rebel group accused by witnesses and the Government of carrying out the killings.
Source: New York Times
On Wednesday, the President's office authorized the Defense Ministry to investigate the "alleged negligence of soldiers leading to the infiltration of rebels and the massacre of more than 400 men, women and children by Charles Taylor's rebels." Mr. Taylor's group has repeatedly denied responsibility and says a West African intervention force and the Government militia are to blame. Health workers at Harbel, 40 miles east of Monrovia, said most of the dead were women and children. They said more bodies had been found in the Du River and along its banks.
The international force captured the Harbel area from the rebels in February and controls it nominally, but the Government militia was guarding Carter Camp on the night of the massacre. The intervention force was sent to Liberia in 1990 by the Economic Community of West African states in an attempt to end the civil war. In addition to the Defense Ministry investigation, the interim President, Amos Sawyer, ordered a military advisory board to investigate the killings, and the United Nations special representative to Liberia, Trevor Gordon-Somers, arrived Wednesday to make his own investigation.
UNITED NATIONS, June 10 (Reuters) -- The Security Council has condemned the massacre in Liberia and warned that the killers will be held accountable. In a statement Wednesday, the Council "warns that those found responsible for such serious violations of international humanitarian law will be held accountable for such crimes." The statement did not explain how the killers might be punished.
The statement asked Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to begin a "thorough and full investigation" of the massacre, including "any allegations as to the perpetrators, whoever they may be." Mr. Boutros-Ghali's special envoy, Trevor Gordon-Somers, had arrived in Liberia Wednesday before the statement was announced, and the Council urged all parties to cooperate with him to negotiate an end to the three-year civil war, which has left tens of thousands dead.
The statement was delayed a day because West African nations wanted a mention of Charles Taylor, head of the rebel group accused by witnesses and the Government of carrying out the killings.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, April 11, 1993
A Black Leader in South Africa Is Slain and a White Is Arrested
Chris Hani, the leader of the South African Communist Party and the most popular militant in the African National Congress, was shot and killed in the driveway of his home today, casting another anxious gloom over the country's transition to majority rule. The police said they had arrested a 40-year-old white man, identified as Januzu Jakub Waluz, whose car license number was taken down by Mr. Hani's neighbors as he fled the racially mixed neighborhood. They declined to say if he was known to have any political affiliation. The Sunday Times of Johannesburg, in a story prepared for its Sunday issue, said the suspect was a Polish immigrant with violently anti-Communist views and "close links" to a militant white nationalist group, the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. Blow to Negotiations
The assassination of Mr. Hani is a staggering blow to the African National Congress as it tries to negotiate the end of white rule. With his credentials as an anti-apartheid guerrilla leader and his charismatic appeal to angry young blacks, Mr. Hani gave the congress credibility among its most disaffected constituents. Before being elected General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1991, Mr. Hani was the chief of staff of the congress's military wing, Spear of the Nation. He remained on the congress's governing board, and took part in the political negotiations on the transition to majority rule as part of a congress-led alliance. Judging by public opinion polls and by votes at congress conventions, Mr. Hani, 50, was second only to Nelson Mandela in popularity among blacks, and he was on most short lists of candidates to eventually succeed Mr. Mandela, the 74-year-old president of the congress. Without Mr. Hani, it will be harder to sell any compromise in the black townships and to galvanize young voters for the first all-race elections, expected to take place in about a year. Call for Suspension of Talks One congress militant, Harry Gwala, called tonight for suspension of the talks in which the country's political factions are trying to agree on the mechanics of a new democracy. But his demand was not echoed by more mainstream congress leaders.
Mr. Mandela issued a statement full of grief but containing no hint of recrimination. He appealed "with all the authority at my command" for followers to remain calm and forgo reprisals. Tonight, state television interrupted its programming for Mr. Mandela's brief tribute to Mr. Hani, an unprecedented move that underscored the Government's eagerness to defuse tensions from the killing. To many white South Africans, Mr. Hani has long symbolized the militant Bolshevism they feared would come to power on Mr. Mandela's coattails.
President F. W. de Klerk, who has often used Mr. Hani and the Communist Party as favorite bogies, said the killing would "undermine the work of people of good will from all political persuasions who strove for a peaceful future." "He and I were at opposite poles of the political debate," Mr. de Klerk said. "But we were both prepared to resolve the problems of our country through the process of peaceful negotiations." The campaign for black equality in South Africa has left a trail of carnage, including the deaths of several anti-apartheid campaigners under suspicious circumstances. But this was the first assassination of a black leader of such popular standing.
The killing appeared to leave the Communist Party bereft. No other black Communist has Mr. Hani's stature, and among the party's white leaders only Joe Slovo, 66, and ailing, is so widely respected. Mr. Slovo, who holds the largely ceremonial post of party chairman, has been an important member of the A.N.C. negotiating team, where he has developed a reputation as a master of compromise. The Communist Party has an emotional cachet, especially among young blacks who enjoy the horror the party causes among whites, but it has little organization and, since the demise of Communism in Europe, almost no financial backing. Mr. Hani had said the party would campaign in the coming elections as part of a bloc with the African National Congress and other allies, not as an independent party.
Some moderates had suggested that if an African National Congress government had run into trouble, Mr. Hani might ultimately have been tempted to lead the disgruntled against it. But in recent months he worked to shore up the congress's fractious militant wing, and set out to assert control over so-called self-defense units, armed gangs that have often run riot under the banner of the African National Congress. In the last week Mr. Hani had been promoting the creation of a township "peace corps" to curb violence in the townships. "He had the credibility among the young to rein in the radicals," Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.
Mr. Hani was killed when he returned to his home in a racially mixed subdivision of the predominantly white suburb of Boksburg, southeast of Johannesburg, after driving to buy newspapers. The African National Congress said he had given his two bodyguards the day off. Fired Four Shots According to a neighbor who watched the killing, interviewed by The Sunday Times, the killer emerged from a red Ford, walked up to Mr. Hani as he locked his car, and fired two shots into his chest. He then leaned over the body and fired two more shots into Mr. Hani before fleeing. The neighbor memorized the license number and called the police, who stopped the car and found the suspect with two pistols.
Mr. Hani had survived two assassination attempts in the early 1980's, when he was a top official in the congress's underground anti-apartheid army. Mr. Hani was born Martin Thembisile Hani on June 28, 1942, in the black homeland of Transkei. Studied Classical Literature He studied classical literature, and contemplated becoming either a Roman Catholic priest or a lawyer before turning to the anti-apartheid struggle. He joined the African National Congress Youth League in 1957, and two years after the congress was banned in 1960, Mr. Hani slipped out of the country to enlist in its armed wing. He served as chief of staff, the No. 2 post in the organization, from 1987 until 1992. In 1983 he took part in the suppression of a mutiny by guerrilla dissidents in training camps, but denied in later years that he joined in the arrests, killings and torture that followed. He also fought alongside black rebels against white rule in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
Mr. Hani had been a member of the congress's governing National Executive Committee since 1975. When the congress voted in July 1991 to renew the executive committee, Mr. Hani drew more votes from the party's local leaders than anyone else. Mr. Mandela, as president, was automatically on the committee and was not on the ballot. Mr. Hani's near cult following among the poorest blacks is demonstrated by the fact that several squatter camps have been named in his honor. Along with Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the congress, and Thabo Mbeki, the head of the international department, Mr. Hani was considered a leading candidate to take over eventually from Mr. Mandela. Mr. Mandela himself, in an interview this year, included Mr. Hani among those he considered qualified to preside over the congress.
But when Mr. Hani agreed in December 1991 to replace Mr. Slovo, who has cancer, as leader of the Communist Party, many in the A.N.C. felt he had ruled himself out for the top job. Although Communists have always been prominent in the congress, no Communist has ever held the top job. Mr. Hani knew that the Communist Party alarmed white South Africans, but he reveled in the notoriety. "Every time they bash us, we get more and more support among the workers and the poor in this country, especially among the black population," he said in an interview last year. He is survived by his wife, Limpho, and three children.
WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) -- The State Department deplored the killing of Mr. Hani today, saying it showed the need to move ahead with multiparty talks in South Africa.
"The assassination of Chris Hani is a deplorable and troubling event," the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said in a statement. "It underscores the urgent need to end violence in the country and to push ahead with the negotiations which will create a democratic South Africa."
Source: New York Times
The assassination of Mr. Hani is a staggering blow to the African National Congress as it tries to negotiate the end of white rule. With his credentials as an anti-apartheid guerrilla leader and his charismatic appeal to angry young blacks, Mr. Hani gave the congress credibility among its most disaffected constituents. Before being elected General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1991, Mr. Hani was the chief of staff of the congress's military wing, Spear of the Nation. He remained on the congress's governing board, and took part in the political negotiations on the transition to majority rule as part of a congress-led alliance. Judging by public opinion polls and by votes at congress conventions, Mr. Hani, 50, was second only to Nelson Mandela in popularity among blacks, and he was on most short lists of candidates to eventually succeed Mr. Mandela, the 74-year-old president of the congress. Without Mr. Hani, it will be harder to sell any compromise in the black townships and to galvanize young voters for the first all-race elections, expected to take place in about a year. Call for Suspension of Talks One congress militant, Harry Gwala, called tonight for suspension of the talks in which the country's political factions are trying to agree on the mechanics of a new democracy. But his demand was not echoed by more mainstream congress leaders.
Mr. Mandela issued a statement full of grief but containing no hint of recrimination. He appealed "with all the authority at my command" for followers to remain calm and forgo reprisals. Tonight, state television interrupted its programming for Mr. Mandela's brief tribute to Mr. Hani, an unprecedented move that underscored the Government's eagerness to defuse tensions from the killing. To many white South Africans, Mr. Hani has long symbolized the militant Bolshevism they feared would come to power on Mr. Mandela's coattails.
President F. W. de Klerk, who has often used Mr. Hani and the Communist Party as favorite bogies, said the killing would "undermine the work of people of good will from all political persuasions who strove for a peaceful future." "He and I were at opposite poles of the political debate," Mr. de Klerk said. "But we were both prepared to resolve the problems of our country through the process of peaceful negotiations." The campaign for black equality in South Africa has left a trail of carnage, including the deaths of several anti-apartheid campaigners under suspicious circumstances. But this was the first assassination of a black leader of such popular standing.
The killing appeared to leave the Communist Party bereft. No other black Communist has Mr. Hani's stature, and among the party's white leaders only Joe Slovo, 66, and ailing, is so widely respected. Mr. Slovo, who holds the largely ceremonial post of party chairman, has been an important member of the A.N.C. negotiating team, where he has developed a reputation as a master of compromise. The Communist Party has an emotional cachet, especially among young blacks who enjoy the horror the party causes among whites, but it has little organization and, since the demise of Communism in Europe, almost no financial backing. Mr. Hani had said the party would campaign in the coming elections as part of a bloc with the African National Congress and other allies, not as an independent party.
Some moderates had suggested that if an African National Congress government had run into trouble, Mr. Hani might ultimately have been tempted to lead the disgruntled against it. But in recent months he worked to shore up the congress's fractious militant wing, and set out to assert control over so-called self-defense units, armed gangs that have often run riot under the banner of the African National Congress. In the last week Mr. Hani had been promoting the creation of a township "peace corps" to curb violence in the townships. "He had the credibility among the young to rein in the radicals," Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.
Mr. Hani was killed when he returned to his home in a racially mixed subdivision of the predominantly white suburb of Boksburg, southeast of Johannesburg, after driving to buy newspapers. The African National Congress said he had given his two bodyguards the day off. Fired Four Shots According to a neighbor who watched the killing, interviewed by The Sunday Times, the killer emerged from a red Ford, walked up to Mr. Hani as he locked his car, and fired two shots into his chest. He then leaned over the body and fired two more shots into Mr. Hani before fleeing. The neighbor memorized the license number and called the police, who stopped the car and found the suspect with two pistols.
Mr. Hani had survived two assassination attempts in the early 1980's, when he was a top official in the congress's underground anti-apartheid army. Mr. Hani was born Martin Thembisile Hani on June 28, 1942, in the black homeland of Transkei. Studied Classical Literature He studied classical literature, and contemplated becoming either a Roman Catholic priest or a lawyer before turning to the anti-apartheid struggle. He joined the African National Congress Youth League in 1957, and two years after the congress was banned in 1960, Mr. Hani slipped out of the country to enlist in its armed wing. He served as chief of staff, the No. 2 post in the organization, from 1987 until 1992. In 1983 he took part in the suppression of a mutiny by guerrilla dissidents in training camps, but denied in later years that he joined in the arrests, killings and torture that followed. He also fought alongside black rebels against white rule in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
Mr. Hani had been a member of the congress's governing National Executive Committee since 1975. When the congress voted in July 1991 to renew the executive committee, Mr. Hani drew more votes from the party's local leaders than anyone else. Mr. Mandela, as president, was automatically on the committee and was not on the ballot. Mr. Hani's near cult following among the poorest blacks is demonstrated by the fact that several squatter camps have been named in his honor. Along with Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the congress, and Thabo Mbeki, the head of the international department, Mr. Hani was considered a leading candidate to take over eventually from Mr. Mandela. Mr. Mandela himself, in an interview this year, included Mr. Hani among those he considered qualified to preside over the congress.
But when Mr. Hani agreed in December 1991 to replace Mr. Slovo, who has cancer, as leader of the Communist Party, many in the A.N.C. felt he had ruled himself out for the top job. Although Communists have always been prominent in the congress, no Communist has ever held the top job. Mr. Hani knew that the Communist Party alarmed white South Africans, but he reveled in the notoriety. "Every time they bash us, we get more and more support among the workers and the poor in this country, especially among the black population," he said in an interview last year. He is survived by his wife, Limpho, and three children.
WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) -- The State Department deplored the killing of Mr. Hani today, saying it showed the need to move ahead with multiparty talks in South Africa.
"The assassination of Chris Hani is a deplorable and troubling event," the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said in a statement. "It underscores the urgent need to end violence in the country and to push ahead with the negotiations which will create a democratic South Africa."
Source: New York Times
Sunday, April 4, 1993
Haiti's Security Forces Allow March by Aristide's Backers
For the first time since a September 1991 military coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian military and the police today allowed supporters of the exiled President to march in the capital.
Watched by six observers from the United Nations and Organization of American States, a group of 10 Roman Catholic priests led 300 people in a religious procession with political overtones for some 500 yards. "We believe this is a major victory," said the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a leading supporter of Father Aristide. "For the first time we have been able to walk out freely and express ourselves," said Father Jean-Juste.
The marchers sang hymns and recited prayers most of the way, but at the end of the procession, about a third of the participants broke into chants of "Aristide or death!" while activists scattered leaflets calling for his return. No uniformed soldiers or police were visible at any time.
Father Jean-Juste said plans for a mile-long march across the city center were canceled because of threats and because senior church authorities refused to authorize the procession.
Source: New York Times
Watched by six observers from the United Nations and Organization of American States, a group of 10 Roman Catholic priests led 300 people in a religious procession with political overtones for some 500 yards. "We believe this is a major victory," said the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a leading supporter of Father Aristide. "For the first time we have been able to walk out freely and express ourselves," said Father Jean-Juste.
The marchers sang hymns and recited prayers most of the way, but at the end of the procession, about a third of the participants broke into chants of "Aristide or death!" while activists scattered leaflets calling for his return. No uniformed soldiers or police were visible at any time.
Father Jean-Juste said plans for a mile-long march across the city center were canceled because of threats and because senior church authorities refused to authorize the procession.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, March 31, 1993
Haiti's Ruling Elite Reach 'Decisive Moment'
As expectations rise for a solution to this country's political crisis, so is the anxiety among Haiti's small but powerful elite. From the swank restaurants that hug the mountainsides around the capital to the air-conditioned mansions of the rich, the swagger of nearly 200 years of dominance is giving way to recrimination, introspection and vows of defiance in the face of renewed determination by the international community to restore Haiti's exiled President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
For many of the wealthy, their fierce opposition to Father Aristide's return is justified by what they say is the exiled leader's penchant for class struggle. Although international human rights groups have criticized Father Aristide for appearing at times to justify the use of violence by his supporters, they say there were few actual cases of politically motivated attacks during his tenure. From his exile, moreover, Father Aristide has repeatedly rejected the politics of revenge.
At least as powerful as these fears, many of the elite admit, are feelings of guilt over the 18 months of repressive violence and its untold hundreds of victims, whose lives have been the price of the ouster of Father Aristide. Also lurking in their thoughts is the fear that any lasting settlement of this country's perennial instability will require a lessening of deeply rooted privileges that economists say has made the gap between rich and poor in Haiti as large as anywhere in the world. "What you have here is a powerful bunch of people with incredible privileges," said an economist with a long career in international development who arrived recently to produce a study of the Haitian economy. "They enjoy duty-free imports, they pay no taxes and labor costs them next to nothing. I have never seen any place quite like this in the world and changing it will not be easy."
One young pharmaceutical wholesaler added: "The elite of this country must admit that it has failed at its task for over 40 years. We may dislike Aristide, but how do we explain that we have never provided for education for the people, or seen to it that even their most basic needs are met?"
A similar view was expressed by a veteran journalist with Le Nouvelliste, a conservative paper that, partly because of Haiti's widespread illiteracy, is mostly read by the well-to-do. "We have played badly, and it is time to accept the fact that if the country has reached this state of affairs, it is our responsibility," the journalist said. "The problem here is that the truly wealthy live so separately from the rest of the population that the reality of the country is not within their grasp."
For Dante Caputo, the United Nations mediator who has been negotiating a solution to the crisis, the differences in the way the wealthy few and the rest of the population perceive Haiti's crisis has been at the center of the difficulties in navigating a path for Father Aristide's peaceful return.
Diplomats say the wealthy and their allies in the military must be protected against vengeance attacks, while the poor must be allowed the freedom of expression and the benefits of Government largess that since the country's foundation in 1804 have been the exclusive franchise of the rich. "In the next few days we will see if the Haitian society can be made aware of the need for a fresh beginning, a clean break from the past," Mr. Caputo said, adding that negotiations over the country's future had reached a "decisive moment."
Mr. Caputo, a former Argentine Foreign Minister, was forced to cancel a consultative meeting with members of the country's Chamber of Commerce last week when it became clear that it was intended more as humiliating demonstration of their rejection of Father Aristide than a sincere exchange of views. With over 200 businessmen gathered in a hall shouting angrily even before he arrived, Mr. Caputo abruptly called off his appearance.
Diplomats say they are confident that a settlement is within reach despite sentiments like these. But held in reserve as leverage just in case, they say, is the prospect of a disastrous crash of the Haitian economy, which many feel is imminent. With no settlement, or with stiffer sanctions as the price for the elite's failure to cooperate, one foreign economist said this country "will soon be hanging dead from a noose."
Still, there are those who resist. "We are the sons of the soldiers of the independence of this country," said Serge Beaulieu, a radio broadcaster whose populist style and radical conservatism appeals to many here. "We are going to fight, maybe we will die, but we will fight."
Source: New York Times
For many of the wealthy, their fierce opposition to Father Aristide's return is justified by what they say is the exiled leader's penchant for class struggle. Although international human rights groups have criticized Father Aristide for appearing at times to justify the use of violence by his supporters, they say there were few actual cases of politically motivated attacks during his tenure. From his exile, moreover, Father Aristide has repeatedly rejected the politics of revenge.
At least as powerful as these fears, many of the elite admit, are feelings of guilt over the 18 months of repressive violence and its untold hundreds of victims, whose lives have been the price of the ouster of Father Aristide. Also lurking in their thoughts is the fear that any lasting settlement of this country's perennial instability will require a lessening of deeply rooted privileges that economists say has made the gap between rich and poor in Haiti as large as anywhere in the world. "What you have here is a powerful bunch of people with incredible privileges," said an economist with a long career in international development who arrived recently to produce a study of the Haitian economy. "They enjoy duty-free imports, they pay no taxes and labor costs them next to nothing. I have never seen any place quite like this in the world and changing it will not be easy."
One young pharmaceutical wholesaler added: "The elite of this country must admit that it has failed at its task for over 40 years. We may dislike Aristide, but how do we explain that we have never provided for education for the people, or seen to it that even their most basic needs are met?"
A similar view was expressed by a veteran journalist with Le Nouvelliste, a conservative paper that, partly because of Haiti's widespread illiteracy, is mostly read by the well-to-do. "We have played badly, and it is time to accept the fact that if the country has reached this state of affairs, it is our responsibility," the journalist said. "The problem here is that the truly wealthy live so separately from the rest of the population that the reality of the country is not within their grasp."
For Dante Caputo, the United Nations mediator who has been negotiating a solution to the crisis, the differences in the way the wealthy few and the rest of the population perceive Haiti's crisis has been at the center of the difficulties in navigating a path for Father Aristide's peaceful return.
Diplomats say the wealthy and their allies in the military must be protected against vengeance attacks, while the poor must be allowed the freedom of expression and the benefits of Government largess that since the country's foundation in 1804 have been the exclusive franchise of the rich. "In the next few days we will see if the Haitian society can be made aware of the need for a fresh beginning, a clean break from the past," Mr. Caputo said, adding that negotiations over the country's future had reached a "decisive moment."
Mr. Caputo, a former Argentine Foreign Minister, was forced to cancel a consultative meeting with members of the country's Chamber of Commerce last week when it became clear that it was intended more as humiliating demonstration of their rejection of Father Aristide than a sincere exchange of views. With over 200 businessmen gathered in a hall shouting angrily even before he arrived, Mr. Caputo abruptly called off his appearance.
Diplomats say they are confident that a settlement is within reach despite sentiments like these. But held in reserve as leverage just in case, they say, is the prospect of a disastrous crash of the Haitian economy, which many feel is imminent. With no settlement, or with stiffer sanctions as the price for the elite's failure to cooperate, one foreign economist said this country "will soon be hanging dead from a noose."
Still, there are those who resist. "We are the sons of the soldiers of the independence of this country," said Serge Beaulieu, a radio broadcaster whose populist style and radical conservatism appeals to many here. "We are going to fight, maybe we will die, but we will fight."
Source: New York Times
Thursday, March 11, 1993
THE CIA'S HAITIAN CONNECTION
Although the Clinton administration insists it is making every effort to return ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, covert connections between Haiti's military junta and the CIA may be helping to keep the regime in place.
Confidential government documents obtained by the Bay Guardian show that the CIA helped establish and finance Haiti's powerful National Intelligence Service, which played a key role in the 1991 coup and continues to provide paramilitary muscle for the anti-Aristide dictatorship. As recently as February 1993, a confidential congressional report described the NIS as "working closely" with the CIA.
The documents-along with interviews with members of Congress, senior administration sources, and a high-ranking member of Aristide's cabinet-in-exile-raise troubling questions about Clinton's policy toward the tiny, impoverished Caribbean nation and provide strong evidence to support critics who claim the United States is giving little more than lip service to the cause of Haitian democracy.
Among other things, the Bay Guardian has learned:
Haitian Lt. Col. Joseph Michel Francois-the reputed kingpin behind the military junta-was trained at a clandestine U.S. Army combat facility known as the "coup school," whose alumni also include jailed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and former Salvadoran president Roberto d'Aubuisson.
Paramilitary death squads controlled by Francois and Frank Romain, the former mayor of Port-au-Prince, are carrying out what some critics call a systematic attempt to wipe out Aristide's base of support, making it difficult if not impossible for the ousted president to reclaim political power. The death squads, known as attaches have been linked to roughly 4,000 murders since the coup.
Former Haitian officials and congressional sources link Francois and the NIS to a massive drug-smuggling and money-laundering operation that sends at least a billion dollars worth of cocaine a year to the United States. Aristide's attempt to crack down on the drug ring may have helped spark the coup-and since the military junta took power, cocaine exports have soared.
In fact, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operative who was investigating an NIS officer allegedly involved in drug smuggling had to flee Haiti in 1992 after receiving death threats on a private telephone line with a secret number known only to a few top government officials.
At least two senior members of Congress, Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. Major Owens, both New York Democrats, told the Bay Guardian they have enough reason to suspect CIA involvement in the Aristide coup that they are calling for a full congressional investigation.
HALF HEARTED EFFORTS
As the crisis in Haiti drags on and the military junta refuses to relinquish power, critics have charged that the United States is making only token efforts to restore Aristide to office.
Larry Burns, an analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Relations, pointed out that the United States has not fully participated in the United Nations embargo of Haiti (unlike most other countries, the U.S. has exempted its own companies in Haiti from the embargo). It's also curious, he told the Bay Guardian, that the Clinton administration has failed to make a public issue of the military regime's role in drug trafficking-a tactic that the Bush administration used extensively to discredit Panama's Manuel Noriega.
"You would think that the White House would want, as one of its major points, to pin the drug tail on the military donkey in Haiti," Burns said. "It would be their best opportunity to rally the American people to a pro-Aristide position. Yet they never used it."
White House Deputy Press Secretary Don Steinberg told the Bay Guardian that "there's nothing halfhearted about our administration's commitment to returning democracy to Haiti and Aristide to power."
"We sent military trainers to Haiti, we've supported the embargo, and we've fully supported the Governor's Island accords," which were supposed to lead to Aristide's return, Steinberg said. "This administration has not for a second coddled Francois or Cedras." Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras heads the military junta.
But Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said he was worried that the administration's silence on the military's connection to the drug trade would only embolden the junta and tighten its grip on power.
"We have turned a very deaf ear to what is obviously a moving force," he said. "It leads you to wonder if our silence is because we knew this was going on and that our complicity in drug activity may parallel the accusations that were raised about our involvement in drug activities-that is, our government and the Central Intelligence Agency's-during the Vietnam conflict."
Although they admit they have no hard evidence, both Rangel and Aristide's exiled interior minister, Patrick Elie, told the Bay Guardian they see shadows of the ClA's hidden hand behind the September 1991 coup, which overthrew Aristide after only seven months in office.
"I don't have a specific answer as to whether the CIA was involved," Rangel said. "But I do know that our feelings against Aristide were made pretty clear before the coup."
Rangel was referring to the Bush administration's open backing of former World Bank official Marc Bizan against Aristide. But in a show of popular support that caught the Bush administration by surprise, Aristide received 67.5 percent of the vote, while Bizan captured only 13 percent.
Elie told the Bay Guardian that the relationship between the CIA and Haiti's National Intelligence Service went far beyond mere cooperation.
"In fact," he said "the NIS was created by the Central Intelligence Agency. It was created by it and funded by it."
Elie, whose job included oversight of the NIS, launched an investigation shortly after taking office that revealed that the CIA had covertly given the NIS $500,000-twice what the U.S. government was providing Haiti overtly for drug interdiction.
He said that although the NIS was supposed to be used to combat drug smugglers, "in fact, all the NIS has done has been political repression and spying on Haitians."
Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirm that the NIS operates with CIA assistance. According to a confidential DEA document titled "Drug Trafficking in Haiti," presented to members of Congress in February 1993 and obtained by the Bay Guardian, the NIS "is a covert counter-narcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the CIA."
On Sept. 26, 1992, the report states, the DEA itself was driven from Haiti when its main agent was forced to flee the country after receiving death threats. DEA attaché Tony Greco received the threats on his private line in the U.S. embassy, "given out to only a few trusted individuals," the memo says, within a week of his providing information that led to the arrest of a NIS officer for drug trafficking. "The unidentified threat," the report states, "came from an individual who claims to control many Haitian soldiers in the narcotics distribution trade."
Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus task force on Haiti, told the Bay Guardian: "I worry about the CIA having had a role in the overthrow of the Aristide government. The Congressional Black Caucus has joined with congressman Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) in calling for a full-scale investigation. "
Bay Guardian phone calls to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., were not returned. Steinberg said he knew nothing about possible CIA involvement in the coup and was "hearing about it for the first time." He refused to comment on the allegations of drug smuggling.
THE SCHOOL OF COUPS
Rangel, who has traveled several times to Haiti and is close to the deposed administration of Aristide, told the Bay Guardian that although Cedras heads the junta, Francois, who is also Port-au-Prince's chief of police, wields the real power.
Francois, Rangel said, "has been targeted as being directly responsible for the recent murder of [Justice Minister] Guy Malary," who was dragged out of church, beaten, and killed on Oct. 14.
Michel Francois learned some of his skills right here in the United States. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA), which Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch in Columbus Georgia, described as a "combat and counterinsurgency training facility for soldiers from Central and South America and the Caribbean."
White House spokesperson Steinberg didn't deny that Francois had attended the Army training school. "But just because he graduated from SOA doesn't mean he has U.S. government intelligence connections," Steinberg said. "A lot of people graduate from that school."
Bourgeois said SOA was founded in 1946 and operated in Panama until it was kicked out in 1984 as part of the canal treaty. It was reestablished in Ft. Benning, Ga.
"In Latin America," he said, "it's known as La Escuela de Golpes, the school of coups," because of the achievements of some of its 55,000 graduates, including d'Aubuisson; Noriega, who is serving 40 years in federal prison for drug trafficking; Gen. Hugo Banzer, who ruled as Bolivia's dictator from 1971 to 1978; and Hector Gramajo, Guatemala's former defense minister who helped oversee years of
brutal repression in that country and was the guest speaker at SOA's graduation in December 1991.
On March 15, 1993, the United Nations Truth Commission released its report on El Salvador and, Bourgeois said, "about 75 percent of the officers cited in the most serious massacres, including the killing of six Jesuit priests, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the rape and murder of four U.S. nuns, were SOA graduates."
Bay Guardian calls to SOA were not returned.
DRUG MONEY
The coup and resulting embargo may have left thousands of Haitians dead and created terrible hardship for many thousands more, but it's apparently been quite profitable for the drug traffickers.
According to a Feb. 10, 1993, memo from one of Conyers' congressional staffers, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Guardian, "the wholesale value of Haiti's drug industry on the U.S. market is now equal to $1 billion a year, which equals the entire revenue of Haiti's population of six million.
"Haiti has become the second most important transshipment point, after the Bahamas, for cocaine shipments from Colombia to the U.S.," the memo states.
The DEA's "Drug Trafficking in Haiti" document also says that Haiti is believed to be a main center for laundering of drug money.
One of Elie's key tasks was to have been overseeing the drug interdiction efforts, and he had developed an extensive program that included close cooperation with U.S. agencies. But the program was barely off the ground when the coup drove him into hiding in Haiti-and five months later, into the United States. (He has since fled the U.S., fearing for his life, and called the Bay Guardian from an undisclosed location because he was told there is a $750,000 contract on his head. Three pro-Aristide radio broadcasters have been murdered in Florida.)
"While I was in hiding," he said, "I monitored Michel Francois over the airwaves directing the landing of a [drug smuggling] plane right in the middle of Port-au-Prince. I immediately notified the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince. I was in touch with the CIA main agent there at the time, and I gave him the time and date of that landing.
"I don't know if he did anything with it. Since the coup, despite our repeated attempts to continue this collaboration with the U.S. as the legitimate government of Haiti, we were met with stonewalling."
Elie's account is supported by the memo to Conyers, which stated that after the coup, "all those jailed for drug-trafficking have been released and...Michel Francois has personally supervised the landing of planes carrying drugs and weapons."
And a September 1992 State Department report titled "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Mid-Year Update" noted that "although President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was planning new policies and institutions to combat narcotics trafficking, his ouster...crippled narcotics control efforts in Haiti."
Meanwhile, observers say, the violence continues-targeted largely at the popular organizations that helped bring Aristide to power. As part of the reign of terror, death lists are being posted in small Haitian villages, Liam Mahoney, an independent human rights monitor in Haiti, told the Bay Guardian by phone on Nov. 3.
The military regime so far has ignored the Governor's Island accords that on Oct. 30 called for Aristide's return to power, leading some to speculate that the junta wants to completely destroy Aristide's power base before they allow him to return-if they allow him to return at all.
"If something is not done soon, there will be no Aristide supporters left," said Rep. Owens. "They will all be destroyed."
Source: Global research.ca
Confidential government documents obtained by the Bay Guardian show that the CIA helped establish and finance Haiti's powerful National Intelligence Service, which played a key role in the 1991 coup and continues to provide paramilitary muscle for the anti-Aristide dictatorship. As recently as February 1993, a confidential congressional report described the NIS as "working closely" with the CIA.
The documents-along with interviews with members of Congress, senior administration sources, and a high-ranking member of Aristide's cabinet-in-exile-raise troubling questions about Clinton's policy toward the tiny, impoverished Caribbean nation and provide strong evidence to support critics who claim the United States is giving little more than lip service to the cause of Haitian democracy.
Among other things, the Bay Guardian has learned:
Haitian Lt. Col. Joseph Michel Francois-the reputed kingpin behind the military junta-was trained at a clandestine U.S. Army combat facility known as the "coup school," whose alumni also include jailed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and former Salvadoran president Roberto d'Aubuisson.
Paramilitary death squads controlled by Francois and Frank Romain, the former mayor of Port-au-Prince, are carrying out what some critics call a systematic attempt to wipe out Aristide's base of support, making it difficult if not impossible for the ousted president to reclaim political power. The death squads, known as attaches have been linked to roughly 4,000 murders since the coup.
Former Haitian officials and congressional sources link Francois and the NIS to a massive drug-smuggling and money-laundering operation that sends at least a billion dollars worth of cocaine a year to the United States. Aristide's attempt to crack down on the drug ring may have helped spark the coup-and since the military junta took power, cocaine exports have soared.
In fact, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operative who was investigating an NIS officer allegedly involved in drug smuggling had to flee Haiti in 1992 after receiving death threats on a private telephone line with a secret number known only to a few top government officials.
At least two senior members of Congress, Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. Major Owens, both New York Democrats, told the Bay Guardian they have enough reason to suspect CIA involvement in the Aristide coup that they are calling for a full congressional investigation.
HALF HEARTED EFFORTS
As the crisis in Haiti drags on and the military junta refuses to relinquish power, critics have charged that the United States is making only token efforts to restore Aristide to office.
Larry Burns, an analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Relations, pointed out that the United States has not fully participated in the United Nations embargo of Haiti (unlike most other countries, the U.S. has exempted its own companies in Haiti from the embargo). It's also curious, he told the Bay Guardian, that the Clinton administration has failed to make a public issue of the military regime's role in drug trafficking-a tactic that the Bush administration used extensively to discredit Panama's Manuel Noriega.
"You would think that the White House would want, as one of its major points, to pin the drug tail on the military donkey in Haiti," Burns said. "It would be their best opportunity to rally the American people to a pro-Aristide position. Yet they never used it."
White House Deputy Press Secretary Don Steinberg told the Bay Guardian that "there's nothing halfhearted about our administration's commitment to returning democracy to Haiti and Aristide to power."
"We sent military trainers to Haiti, we've supported the embargo, and we've fully supported the Governor's Island accords," which were supposed to lead to Aristide's return, Steinberg said. "This administration has not for a second coddled Francois or Cedras." Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras heads the military junta.
But Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said he was worried that the administration's silence on the military's connection to the drug trade would only embolden the junta and tighten its grip on power.
"We have turned a very deaf ear to what is obviously a moving force," he said. "It leads you to wonder if our silence is because we knew this was going on and that our complicity in drug activity may parallel the accusations that were raised about our involvement in drug activities-that is, our government and the Central Intelligence Agency's-during the Vietnam conflict."
Although they admit they have no hard evidence, both Rangel and Aristide's exiled interior minister, Patrick Elie, told the Bay Guardian they see shadows of the ClA's hidden hand behind the September 1991 coup, which overthrew Aristide after only seven months in office.
"I don't have a specific answer as to whether the CIA was involved," Rangel said. "But I do know that our feelings against Aristide were made pretty clear before the coup."
Rangel was referring to the Bush administration's open backing of former World Bank official Marc Bizan against Aristide. But in a show of popular support that caught the Bush administration by surprise, Aristide received 67.5 percent of the vote, while Bizan captured only 13 percent.
Elie told the Bay Guardian that the relationship between the CIA and Haiti's National Intelligence Service went far beyond mere cooperation.
"In fact," he said "the NIS was created by the Central Intelligence Agency. It was created by it and funded by it."
Elie, whose job included oversight of the NIS, launched an investigation shortly after taking office that revealed that the CIA had covertly given the NIS $500,000-twice what the U.S. government was providing Haiti overtly for drug interdiction.
He said that although the NIS was supposed to be used to combat drug smugglers, "in fact, all the NIS has done has been political repression and spying on Haitians."
Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirm that the NIS operates with CIA assistance. According to a confidential DEA document titled "Drug Trafficking in Haiti," presented to members of Congress in February 1993 and obtained by the Bay Guardian, the NIS "is a covert counter-narcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the CIA."
On Sept. 26, 1992, the report states, the DEA itself was driven from Haiti when its main agent was forced to flee the country after receiving death threats. DEA attaché Tony Greco received the threats on his private line in the U.S. embassy, "given out to only a few trusted individuals," the memo says, within a week of his providing information that led to the arrest of a NIS officer for drug trafficking. "The unidentified threat," the report states, "came from an individual who claims to control many Haitian soldiers in the narcotics distribution trade."
Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus task force on Haiti, told the Bay Guardian: "I worry about the CIA having had a role in the overthrow of the Aristide government. The Congressional Black Caucus has joined with congressman Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) in calling for a full-scale investigation. "
Bay Guardian phone calls to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., were not returned. Steinberg said he knew nothing about possible CIA involvement in the coup and was "hearing about it for the first time." He refused to comment on the allegations of drug smuggling.
THE SCHOOL OF COUPS
Rangel, who has traveled several times to Haiti and is close to the deposed administration of Aristide, told the Bay Guardian that although Cedras heads the junta, Francois, who is also Port-au-Prince's chief of police, wields the real power.
Francois, Rangel said, "has been targeted as being directly responsible for the recent murder of [Justice Minister] Guy Malary," who was dragged out of church, beaten, and killed on Oct. 14.
Michel Francois learned some of his skills right here in the United States. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA), which Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch in Columbus Georgia, described as a "combat and counterinsurgency training facility for soldiers from Central and South America and the Caribbean."
White House spokesperson Steinberg didn't deny that Francois had attended the Army training school. "But just because he graduated from SOA doesn't mean he has U.S. government intelligence connections," Steinberg said. "A lot of people graduate from that school."
Bourgeois said SOA was founded in 1946 and operated in Panama until it was kicked out in 1984 as part of the canal treaty. It was reestablished in Ft. Benning, Ga.
"In Latin America," he said, "it's known as La Escuela de Golpes, the school of coups," because of the achievements of some of its 55,000 graduates, including d'Aubuisson; Noriega, who is serving 40 years in federal prison for drug trafficking; Gen. Hugo Banzer, who ruled as Bolivia's dictator from 1971 to 1978; and Hector Gramajo, Guatemala's former defense minister who helped oversee years of
brutal repression in that country and was the guest speaker at SOA's graduation in December 1991.
On March 15, 1993, the United Nations Truth Commission released its report on El Salvador and, Bourgeois said, "about 75 percent of the officers cited in the most serious massacres, including the killing of six Jesuit priests, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the rape and murder of four U.S. nuns, were SOA graduates."
Bay Guardian calls to SOA were not returned.
DRUG MONEY
The coup and resulting embargo may have left thousands of Haitians dead and created terrible hardship for many thousands more, but it's apparently been quite profitable for the drug traffickers.
According to a Feb. 10, 1993, memo from one of Conyers' congressional staffers, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Guardian, "the wholesale value of Haiti's drug industry on the U.S. market is now equal to $1 billion a year, which equals the entire revenue of Haiti's population of six million.
"Haiti has become the second most important transshipment point, after the Bahamas, for cocaine shipments from Colombia to the U.S.," the memo states.
The DEA's "Drug Trafficking in Haiti" document also says that Haiti is believed to be a main center for laundering of drug money.
One of Elie's key tasks was to have been overseeing the drug interdiction efforts, and he had developed an extensive program that included close cooperation with U.S. agencies. But the program was barely off the ground when the coup drove him into hiding in Haiti-and five months later, into the United States. (He has since fled the U.S., fearing for his life, and called the Bay Guardian from an undisclosed location because he was told there is a $750,000 contract on his head. Three pro-Aristide radio broadcasters have been murdered in Florida.)
"While I was in hiding," he said, "I monitored Michel Francois over the airwaves directing the landing of a [drug smuggling] plane right in the middle of Port-au-Prince. I immediately notified the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince. I was in touch with the CIA main agent there at the time, and I gave him the time and date of that landing.
"I don't know if he did anything with it. Since the coup, despite our repeated attempts to continue this collaboration with the U.S. as the legitimate government of Haiti, we were met with stonewalling."
Elie's account is supported by the memo to Conyers, which stated that after the coup, "all those jailed for drug-trafficking have been released and...Michel Francois has personally supervised the landing of planes carrying drugs and weapons."
And a September 1992 State Department report titled "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Mid-Year Update" noted that "although President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was planning new policies and institutions to combat narcotics trafficking, his ouster...crippled narcotics control efforts in Haiti."
Meanwhile, observers say, the violence continues-targeted largely at the popular organizations that helped bring Aristide to power. As part of the reign of terror, death lists are being posted in small Haitian villages, Liam Mahoney, an independent human rights monitor in Haiti, told the Bay Guardian by phone on Nov. 3.
The military regime so far has ignored the Governor's Island accords that on Oct. 30 called for Aristide's return to power, leading some to speculate that the junta wants to completely destroy Aristide's power base before they allow him to return-if they allow him to return at all.
"If something is not done soon, there will be no Aristide supporters left," said Rep. Owens. "They will all be destroyed."
Source: Global research.ca
Friday, February 26, 1993
2,500 at Rally in Haiti Urge Return of Aristide
A funeral Mass today for victims of last week's ferry disaster turned into the largest demonstration in support of the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide since he was was overthrown as President in September 1991.
About 2,500 people attended the two-hour service for the 600 to 900 people who perished when the ferry Neptune sank on Feb. 16. At least a dozen times, people chanted "Aristide or death!" Representatives of the military-backed Government did not attend. Despite efforts by the head of a United Nations human rights mission to maintain calm, several demonstrators were arrested outside the cathedral after scuffling with bystanders shouting anti-Aristide slogans.
Bishop Willy Romelus, a prominent Haitian clergyman who gave the funeral oration, was attacked when he left the cathedral and was rescued when a half-dozen members of the United Nations delegation jumped between him and the attackers.
Source: New York Times
About 2,500 people attended the two-hour service for the 600 to 900 people who perished when the ferry Neptune sank on Feb. 16. At least a dozen times, people chanted "Aristide or death!" Representatives of the military-backed Government did not attend. Despite efforts by the head of a United Nations human rights mission to maintain calm, several demonstrators were arrested outside the cathedral after scuffling with bystanders shouting anti-Aristide slogans.
Bishop Willy Romelus, a prominent Haitian clergyman who gave the funeral oration, was attacked when he left the cathedral and was rescued when a half-dozen members of the United Nations delegation jumped between him and the attackers.
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, February 2, 1993
Thousands Are Fleeing Togo After New Spate of Killings
Women carrying children on their backs trudged along the beach today toward Ghana, joining an exodus of thousands fleeing new attacks by soldiers. Soldiers loyal to Togo's leader, Gen. Gnassingbe Eyadema, are accused of killing hundreds of political opponents to keep him in power. Six people were killed over the weekend, in an area known as an opposition stronghold, in the latest outbreak of violence. About 100 troops and paramilitary police also ransacked central Lome and nearby suburbs today.
President Eyadema, who has ruled this West African nation since 1967, agreed in 1991 to let opposition parties install a transitional Government, but then blocked its efforts to take power.
Source: New York Times
President Eyadema, who has ruled this West African nation since 1967, agreed in 1991 to let opposition parties install a transitional Government, but then blocked its efforts to take power.
Source: New York Times
Saturday, December 19, 1992
German Parliament Ratifies Treaty for European Union
Germany ratified the treaty on European political and economic union today, becoming the 10th of the 12 European Community nations to do so. The Bundesrat, Parliament's upper house, unanimously approved the treaty after just two hours of debate. The Bundestag, the lower house, approved it on Dec. 2.
All 12 European Community nations approved the treaty in the Dutch town of Maastricht last year, but each country's parliament or voters must ratify it before it can take effect. Still undecided are Denmark, whose voters have already refused once to ratify the treaty, and Britain, where fear of a loss of sovereignty appears high.
Source: New York Times
All 12 European Community nations approved the treaty in the Dutch town of Maastricht last year, but each country's parliament or voters must ratify it before it can take effect. Still undecided are Denmark, whose voters have already refused once to ratify the treaty, and Britain, where fear of a loss of sovereignty appears high.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, December 2, 1992
Guerrilla Group Vows More Attacks on South Africa Whites
A small black guerrilla faction warned today that its attack on a golf club on Saturday night marked the beginning of a new campaign against white civilian targets, evidently aimed at disrupting a compromise on South Africa's political future. But the Government and the leading black organization, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, fiercely condemned the attack in King William's Town, which left two couples dead and 17 people wounded at a wine tasting where much of the town's white gentry had gathered.
The Government and the congress planned to meet on Wednesday for a new round of talks to fix a target date for elections. But some South Africans fear that a sustained campaign of terrorism against whites, if it materializes, could weaken the Government's ability to surrender power. "There will be more attacks of this nature with more frequency, especially in white areas," Johnny Majozi, information officer of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army, told the South African Press Association from Harare, Zimbabwe. "We would like to remind white South Africans that there is a war going on inside the country and they should not be surprised."
The attack, believed to be the worst political violence against white civilians since President F. W. de Klerk took office in 1989, has horrified and alarmed whites. It was the kind of indiscriminate violence that has become commonplace in black communities, but has left whites untouched. The Conservative Party, which opposes Mr. de Klerk's dealings with the black majority, called for a police crackdown and said the attack was the work of "terrorists permitted to operate freely in South Africa by a Government that has lost the will to govern." So far, the theme has not been picked up by more mainstream whites. "My guess is that this poses no short-term threat to the transition," said John Kane-Berman, director of the South African Institute of Race Relations. "But if attacks like this continue and the Government is unable to stop them, it helps to erode the Government's support base and its room for maneuver."
The Azanian Peoples Liberation Army is the guerrilla wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, which broke away from the African National Congress in 1959 to pursue a more militant ideology rooted in black consciousness. In contrast to the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress has insisted on keeping an active military wing. Until recently, it refused to negotiate with the white Government. In the 1970's and 1980's the guerrilla wing of the African National Congress waged a sporadic underground war, briefly including attacks on sporting events and shopping malls. The congress suspended its guerrilla war after Mr. de Klerk legalized it in 1990. Although small in numbers, the Pan Africanist Congress has attracted considerable support among disaffected young people in the black townships with its militant stance. Recently leaders of the militant group have met with Government officials and said they were willing to join the multiparty negotiations on a new political order. It was not clear why the organization's armed wing would simultaneously try to undermine the talks, but it has a history of bitter internal divisions.
Benny Alexander, the secretary-general of the Pan Africanist Congress, issued a statement after the King William's Town killings, declining to comment on the origins of the assault but protesting the "international hullabaloo around the attack purely because white people have died."
Source: New York Times
The Government and the congress planned to meet on Wednesday for a new round of talks to fix a target date for elections. But some South Africans fear that a sustained campaign of terrorism against whites, if it materializes, could weaken the Government's ability to surrender power. "There will be more attacks of this nature with more frequency, especially in white areas," Johnny Majozi, information officer of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army, told the South African Press Association from Harare, Zimbabwe. "We would like to remind white South Africans that there is a war going on inside the country and they should not be surprised."
The attack, believed to be the worst political violence against white civilians since President F. W. de Klerk took office in 1989, has horrified and alarmed whites. It was the kind of indiscriminate violence that has become commonplace in black communities, but has left whites untouched. The Conservative Party, which opposes Mr. de Klerk's dealings with the black majority, called for a police crackdown and said the attack was the work of "terrorists permitted to operate freely in South Africa by a Government that has lost the will to govern." So far, the theme has not been picked up by more mainstream whites. "My guess is that this poses no short-term threat to the transition," said John Kane-Berman, director of the South African Institute of Race Relations. "But if attacks like this continue and the Government is unable to stop them, it helps to erode the Government's support base and its room for maneuver."
The Azanian Peoples Liberation Army is the guerrilla wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, which broke away from the African National Congress in 1959 to pursue a more militant ideology rooted in black consciousness. In contrast to the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress has insisted on keeping an active military wing. Until recently, it refused to negotiate with the white Government. In the 1970's and 1980's the guerrilla wing of the African National Congress waged a sporadic underground war, briefly including attacks on sporting events and shopping malls. The congress suspended its guerrilla war after Mr. de Klerk legalized it in 1990. Although small in numbers, the Pan Africanist Congress has attracted considerable support among disaffected young people in the black townships with its militant stance. Recently leaders of the militant group have met with Government officials and said they were willing to join the multiparty negotiations on a new political order. It was not clear why the organization's armed wing would simultaneously try to undermine the talks, but it has a history of bitter internal divisions.
Benny Alexander, the secretary-general of the Pan Africanist Congress, issued a statement after the King William's Town killings, declining to comment on the origins of the assault but protesting the "international hullabaloo around the attack purely because white people have died."
Source: New York Times
Saturday, November 7, 1992
Liberian Rebel Is No Friend of Democracy, Nigerian Says
The military leader of Nigeria opened a regional meeting on the fighting in Liberia today by denouncing the Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor.
"Taylor must now be seen by the whole world for what he really represents, said the Nigerian head of state, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. "He does not represent democracy. He does not believe in the freedom of choice that is the God-given right of the Liberian people."
Leaders of 8 of the 16 countries in the Economic Community of West African States gathered here to discuss imposing an economic blockade on Mr. Taylor and proposals for a cease-fire to end his drive on the Liberian capital.
Source: New York Times
"Taylor must now be seen by the whole world for what he really represents, said the Nigerian head of state, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. "He does not represent democracy. He does not believe in the freedom of choice that is the God-given right of the Liberian people."
Leaders of 8 of the 16 countries in the Economic Community of West African States gathered here to discuss imposing an economic blockade on Mr. Taylor and proposals for a cease-fire to end his drive on the Liberian capital.
Source: New York Times
Friday, October 2, 1992
New Fighting in Liberia
Heavy fighting broke out today between rival militias on the outskirts of Liberia's capital, prompting a West African peacekeeping force to rush troops to the area. Residents of Monrovia said fighters belonging to a rebel group led by Charles Taylor had attacked a mission school housing members of the five-nation peacekeeping force, which arrived in 1990 at the height of the country's civil war. They also attacked a rival militia controlling an important bridge across the Po River, nine miles from Monrovia.
Source: New York Times
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, September 30, 1992
Ousted Haitian Chief, at U.N., Denounces Vatican
The Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the ousted Haitian leader, denounced the Vatican at the United Nations today, calling it the only state in the world to recognize the Government that overthrew him.
In an address to the General Assembly the radical Catholic priest, deposed exactly one year ago after becoming Haiti's first freely elected President, also called for a tighter economic blockade against the Caribbean country, which has one of the lowest standards of living in the world. "What a scandal!" he cried from the speakers rostrum to applause and cries of support from Haitians packing the Assembly hall's public galleries. "Rejected by all the states of the world, these criminals are still recognized by the Vatican, the only state to bless the crimes it should have condemned in the name of the God of Justice and Peace. What would have been the Vatican's attitude if Haiti was inhabited by whites?" he said. "What would have been Pope John Paul II's attitude if Haiti had been Polish?" 'George Bush Must Go!'
Noting that the Pope will be visiting the nearby Dominican Republic next month, Father Aristide expressed doubt that the Pontiff would he also stop in Haiti to make an effort to settle the strife there. As he spoke, a big crowd of mainly Haitian demonstrators, estimated by the police to have reached 10,000 at its peak, rallied outside the United Nations to support the ousted leader, chanting: "No Aristide! No peace!" and "George Bush must go!"
The demonstrators marched peacefully over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United Nations, waving their fists in the air, carrying placards and chanting for peace in Haiti. Some carried coffins drapped with banners saying "Stop racism" and depicting President Bush with a red tongue and horns, reflecting the demonstrators perception that the United States, like most other countries, is loosing interest in Haiti and is no longer pushing vigorously for Father Aristide's return. "I want democracy," said Rosette Elien, a 40-year-old Haitian from Brooklyn. "Bush is not for democracy."
Among the speakers at the demonstration was Jon-Christopher Bua, a spokesman for Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who said that if elected the Democratic candidate for President would reverse President Bush's policy and allow fleeing Haitians to apply for political asylum in the United States.
This was Father Aristide's second address to the United Nations, which still recognizes him as Haiti's legitimate head of state. And the applause delegates gave him was still warm and friendly, though the chances of his returning as Haiti's President are smaller now following the collapse of two agreements the Organization of American States thought it had negotiated to allow his return. 'Crime Against Humanity'
The O.A.S. also imposed a trade embargo on Haiti after Father Aristide was overthrown by military units supported by a business class frightened of his radical reformist ideas. But the United States subsequently exempted American-owned companies on the island from many of its provisions to enable them to continue manufacturing and preserve some employment there.
Father Aristide called for that blockade to be tightened further, saying that despite criticism that it would only make Haiti poorer still, "the Haitian people again say yes to the embargo." He called the coup that unseated him "a crime against humanity" and described present-day Haiti as a country where "blood runs, corpses pile up and repression grows greater."
Like last year, Father Aristide's address was a colorful, theatrical affair, in which he vaunted his attachment to the radical liberation theology. While popular among impoverished Roman Catholic classes in Latin America, those views have put him out of favor with the conservative Vatican.
Source: New York Times
In an address to the General Assembly the radical Catholic priest, deposed exactly one year ago after becoming Haiti's first freely elected President, also called for a tighter economic blockade against the Caribbean country, which has one of the lowest standards of living in the world. "What a scandal!" he cried from the speakers rostrum to applause and cries of support from Haitians packing the Assembly hall's public galleries. "Rejected by all the states of the world, these criminals are still recognized by the Vatican, the only state to bless the crimes it should have condemned in the name of the God of Justice and Peace. What would have been the Vatican's attitude if Haiti was inhabited by whites?" he said. "What would have been Pope John Paul II's attitude if Haiti had been Polish?" 'George Bush Must Go!'
Noting that the Pope will be visiting the nearby Dominican Republic next month, Father Aristide expressed doubt that the Pontiff would he also stop in Haiti to make an effort to settle the strife there. As he spoke, a big crowd of mainly Haitian demonstrators, estimated by the police to have reached 10,000 at its peak, rallied outside the United Nations to support the ousted leader, chanting: "No Aristide! No peace!" and "George Bush must go!"
The demonstrators marched peacefully over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United Nations, waving their fists in the air, carrying placards and chanting for peace in Haiti. Some carried coffins drapped with banners saying "Stop racism" and depicting President Bush with a red tongue and horns, reflecting the demonstrators perception that the United States, like most other countries, is loosing interest in Haiti and is no longer pushing vigorously for Father Aristide's return. "I want democracy," said Rosette Elien, a 40-year-old Haitian from Brooklyn. "Bush is not for democracy."
Among the speakers at the demonstration was Jon-Christopher Bua, a spokesman for Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who said that if elected the Democratic candidate for President would reverse President Bush's policy and allow fleeing Haitians to apply for political asylum in the United States.
This was Father Aristide's second address to the United Nations, which still recognizes him as Haiti's legitimate head of state. And the applause delegates gave him was still warm and friendly, though the chances of his returning as Haiti's President are smaller now following the collapse of two agreements the Organization of American States thought it had negotiated to allow his return. 'Crime Against Humanity'
The O.A.S. also imposed a trade embargo on Haiti after Father Aristide was overthrown by military units supported by a business class frightened of his radical reformist ideas. But the United States subsequently exempted American-owned companies on the island from many of its provisions to enable them to continue manufacturing and preserve some employment there.
Father Aristide called for that blockade to be tightened further, saying that despite criticism that it would only make Haiti poorer still, "the Haitian people again say yes to the embargo." He called the coup that unseated him "a crime against humanity" and described present-day Haiti as a country where "blood runs, corpses pile up and repression grows greater."
Like last year, Father Aristide's address was a colorful, theatrical affair, in which he vaunted his attachment to the radical liberation theology. While popular among impoverished Roman Catholic classes in Latin America, those views have put him out of favor with the conservative Vatican.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, September 27, 1992
THE WORLD; Aristide Seeks More Than Moral Support
WHEN he confidently strode to the podium of the General Assembly one year ago bearing news of democracy's triumph after nearly two centuries of bloody failures, Haiti's first elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was the toast of the United Nations. This week, as Haiti's deposed President, overthrown in a military coup no sooner than he had returned home, Father Aristide will stand before the same audience to plead that the world not forget his country's tragedy.
He will surely be greeted with hearty applause, but it is much less certain that he will get anything beyond moral support. Diplomats say there is little chance that anything but the use or serious threat of force can now dislodge a Haitian army that has bloodily secured its hold on the nation while gorging itself on drug money and contraband since the coup last Sept. 30. Such a rescue seems remote. If anything, as time has passed, the world consensus against taking action on Father Aristide's behalf has hardened. For different reasons, likely defenders seem not to want to get involved.
At the United Nations, increasingly stretched by compelling crises from Yugoslavia to Somalia, most diplomats agree there is little chance that the body will take up Father Aristide's expected call to actively work for his return. Nor is the Organization of American States as indignant as it once was. Having announced plans for a 500-member observer mission to Haiti, the O.A.S. is now ploddingly assembling a corps of 18.
As for the United States, since shortly after the overthrow -- when Secretary of State James Baker echoed President Bush's famous "this aggression will not stand" statement about Iraq -- little consideration has been given to backing up American principles in Haiti with American muscle.
Virtually all observers agree that facing down Haiti's ill-equipped and undisciplined 7,000-man army would take little in the way of force. Recently, an adviser of the provisional Government of the army-backed Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin repeated Father Aristide's longtime complaint when he said that "all it would take is one phone call" from Washington to send the army leadership packing. Certainly in Haiti, it is keenly recalled that the United States played a critical behind-the-scenes role in forcing out the last military leader, Col. Prosper Avril, setting the stage for the democratic elections that Father Aristide won in a landslide.
Father Aristide has undoubtedly been frustrated that other nations have found ways to avoid effectively rallying to his cause. Mexico, for example, has invoked deep-seated opposition to American or even multilateral intervention by the O.A.S. in a member country's internal affairs. The European Community has failed to even slow its trade with Haiti.
Indeed, supporters and opponents of Father Aristide agree, nothing more threatening than a leaky and ineffective embargo, quickly imposed on Haiti after the coup, has ever been seriously contemplated, which reflects Washington's deep-seated ambivalence about a leftward-tilting nationalist whose style diplomats say has sometimes been disquietingly erratic. Father Aristide rose to popularity on the wings of his calls for redemption for the hemisphere's poorest and most oppressed people and on stinging speeches that often depicted the United States as a citadel of evil and the root of many of his country's problems. His salutations have long invoked the name of Charlemagne Peralte, a leader of the Haitian resistance to the United States' occupation early in the century, so he himself recognizes the trickiness of calling for stronger American measures.
Despite much blood on the army's hands, United States diplomats consider it a vital counterweight to Father Aristide, whose class-struggle rhetoric during his nearly eight months in office, threatened or antagonized traditional power centers at home and abroad. For months Washington has mixed almost rote-like public statements of the need to restore Haitian democracy with private comments that confess its unwillingness to take on the military. "He wants us to get rid of his enemies for him so that he can have a free hand to mop up, and we're just not going to do that for him," a senior official said in a comment that has been repeatedly echoed in American diplomatic circles.
For Father Aristide there remains only the slim possibility that a new effort at mediation by the former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, who was recently recruited by the O.A.S. for the task, can revive diplomatic efforts to restore him to office. Failing that, Father Aristide's backers can only hope that a people who have so far remained quiescent, will rise up again, as they did in 1986 to cast off the Duvalier family dictatorship, and reclaim the right to choose their leaders. "It is possible that the international community fails to find the instruments to help us and even that our civilian Government fails," said Father Aristide's Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir. "But time cannot help these gorillas, and given time, the Haitian people cannot lose."
Source: New York Times
He will surely be greeted with hearty applause, but it is much less certain that he will get anything beyond moral support. Diplomats say there is little chance that anything but the use or serious threat of force can now dislodge a Haitian army that has bloodily secured its hold on the nation while gorging itself on drug money and contraband since the coup last Sept. 30. Such a rescue seems remote. If anything, as time has passed, the world consensus against taking action on Father Aristide's behalf has hardened. For different reasons, likely defenders seem not to want to get involved.
At the United Nations, increasingly stretched by compelling crises from Yugoslavia to Somalia, most diplomats agree there is little chance that the body will take up Father Aristide's expected call to actively work for his return. Nor is the Organization of American States as indignant as it once was. Having announced plans for a 500-member observer mission to Haiti, the O.A.S. is now ploddingly assembling a corps of 18.
As for the United States, since shortly after the overthrow -- when Secretary of State James Baker echoed President Bush's famous "this aggression will not stand" statement about Iraq -- little consideration has been given to backing up American principles in Haiti with American muscle.
Virtually all observers agree that facing down Haiti's ill-equipped and undisciplined 7,000-man army would take little in the way of force. Recently, an adviser of the provisional Government of the army-backed Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin repeated Father Aristide's longtime complaint when he said that "all it would take is one phone call" from Washington to send the army leadership packing. Certainly in Haiti, it is keenly recalled that the United States played a critical behind-the-scenes role in forcing out the last military leader, Col. Prosper Avril, setting the stage for the democratic elections that Father Aristide won in a landslide.
Father Aristide has undoubtedly been frustrated that other nations have found ways to avoid effectively rallying to his cause. Mexico, for example, has invoked deep-seated opposition to American or even multilateral intervention by the O.A.S. in a member country's internal affairs. The European Community has failed to even slow its trade with Haiti.
Indeed, supporters and opponents of Father Aristide agree, nothing more threatening than a leaky and ineffective embargo, quickly imposed on Haiti after the coup, has ever been seriously contemplated, which reflects Washington's deep-seated ambivalence about a leftward-tilting nationalist whose style diplomats say has sometimes been disquietingly erratic. Father Aristide rose to popularity on the wings of his calls for redemption for the hemisphere's poorest and most oppressed people and on stinging speeches that often depicted the United States as a citadel of evil and the root of many of his country's problems. His salutations have long invoked the name of Charlemagne Peralte, a leader of the Haitian resistance to the United States' occupation early in the century, so he himself recognizes the trickiness of calling for stronger American measures.
Despite much blood on the army's hands, United States diplomats consider it a vital counterweight to Father Aristide, whose class-struggle rhetoric during his nearly eight months in office, threatened or antagonized traditional power centers at home and abroad. For months Washington has mixed almost rote-like public statements of the need to restore Haitian democracy with private comments that confess its unwillingness to take on the military. "He wants us to get rid of his enemies for him so that he can have a free hand to mop up, and we're just not going to do that for him," a senior official said in a comment that has been repeatedly echoed in American diplomatic circles.
For Father Aristide there remains only the slim possibility that a new effort at mediation by the former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, who was recently recruited by the O.A.S. for the task, can revive diplomatic efforts to restore him to office. Failing that, Father Aristide's backers can only hope that a people who have so far remained quiescent, will rise up again, as they did in 1986 to cast off the Duvalier family dictatorship, and reclaim the right to choose their leaders. "It is possible that the international community fails to find the instruments to help us and even that our civilian Government fails," said Father Aristide's Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir. "But time cannot help these gorillas, and given time, the Haitian people cannot lose."
Source: New York Times
Sunday, September 13, 1992
A Bloody Ambush Jolts South Africa Toward New Talks
THE contest for the future of South Africa seems, even on good days, like a duel of schizophrenics. Both the white Government and the African National Congress are torn by conflicting impulses of civility and confrontation. Last week, on a very bad day at a razor-wire checkpoint near the town of Bisho, each side put forward its belligerent half. The outcome was grimly predictable, and sufficiently chilling that now, mercifully, the conciliatory halves may have their turn.
Within the African National Congress, the divide is between the romantic militancy born of the liberation movement that the congress was during its 30 years of banishment, and the prudent pragmatism of the governing party that the congress hopes to become. These are not simply rival factions but rival instincts that coexist to some degree in many congress leaders.
Last week the Bastille-stormers were personified by Ronnie Kasrils, a thickset, kinetic white Communist who fought in the congress's armed underground in the days when ordinary political avenues were foreclosed. The occasion was the sort of "Leipzig option" mobilization that Mr. Kasrils had long promoted, only to be overruled by the pragmatists. But as frustration mounted in the black townships, the congress's mood had swung toward militancy. Top leaders of the congress endorsed a march aimed at occupying Bisho, the campus-sized capital of the ostensibly independent black homeland called Ciskei, and toppling its military dictator.
As the main column of marchers marked time at the border, Mr. Kasrils was assigned to lead a breakaway group in a flanking maneuver. The group sprinted toward the city center through a gap left -- temptingly, and no doubt deliberately -- in the fence, and straight into an ambush by several hundred machine guns of the Ciskei army.
The white Government of President F. W. de Klerk has its own split personality. There is the Rubicon-crossing, apartheid-disavowing, make-nice Government that craves the world's respect, and that promises majority rule. And there is the Red-baiting, divide-and-rule, make-war Government that shudders at the prospect of rule by the black majority; this is the Government that tolerates (if it does not actually orchestrate) the police torture, vigilante murder and homeland despotism that keep that majority from coalescing.
On Monday, while the make-nice Mr. de Klerk was occupied at a conference on the fine points of federalism in the forthcoming nonracial South Africa, his make-war surrogate at the Bisho border was Brigadier Oupa J. Gqozo, master of Ciskei. Mr. de Klerk supplies the brigadier with guns and comforts and advisers; the brigadier, in turn, does all he can to rattle the African National Congress in a region that has traditionally been its stronghold. When Mr. Kasril's young following charged through that inviting gap in the fence, Brigadier Gqozo's soldiers opened fire with abandon.
In simpler times, the consequences of such a massacre would have been clear-cut: worldwide opprobrium heaped upon Mr. de Klerk, calls from South African white liberals for sanctions against the regime, perhaps a surge of fresh martyrs to the barricades.
But these are more ambiguous times. Although, in fact, little has changed on the ground -- the black majority is still impoverished, separate and disenfranchised -- perceptions have changed profoundly. By disowning the ideology of racial oppression, Mr. de Klerk has persuaded much of the world to judge him in ordinary political terms rather than moral absolutes. By entering the political realm, the African National Congress has conceded that it will no longer be judged solely on the justice of its grand cause; it will be judged on its fitness to govern.
Neither side admits to being even marginally in the wrong at Bisho. Mr. de Klerk, at a press conference Wednesday, never even suggested that firing thousands of rounds without warning into a crowd that is fleeing in panic might constitute excessive force.
Source: New York Times
Within the African National Congress, the divide is between the romantic militancy born of the liberation movement that the congress was during its 30 years of banishment, and the prudent pragmatism of the governing party that the congress hopes to become. These are not simply rival factions but rival instincts that coexist to some degree in many congress leaders.
Last week the Bastille-stormers were personified by Ronnie Kasrils, a thickset, kinetic white Communist who fought in the congress's armed underground in the days when ordinary political avenues were foreclosed. The occasion was the sort of "Leipzig option" mobilization that Mr. Kasrils had long promoted, only to be overruled by the pragmatists. But as frustration mounted in the black townships, the congress's mood had swung toward militancy. Top leaders of the congress endorsed a march aimed at occupying Bisho, the campus-sized capital of the ostensibly independent black homeland called Ciskei, and toppling its military dictator.
As the main column of marchers marked time at the border, Mr. Kasrils was assigned to lead a breakaway group in a flanking maneuver. The group sprinted toward the city center through a gap left -- temptingly, and no doubt deliberately -- in the fence, and straight into an ambush by several hundred machine guns of the Ciskei army.
The white Government of President F. W. de Klerk has its own split personality. There is the Rubicon-crossing, apartheid-disavowing, make-nice Government that craves the world's respect, and that promises majority rule. And there is the Red-baiting, divide-and-rule, make-war Government that shudders at the prospect of rule by the black majority; this is the Government that tolerates (if it does not actually orchestrate) the police torture, vigilante murder and homeland despotism that keep that majority from coalescing.
On Monday, while the make-nice Mr. de Klerk was occupied at a conference on the fine points of federalism in the forthcoming nonracial South Africa, his make-war surrogate at the Bisho border was Brigadier Oupa J. Gqozo, master of Ciskei. Mr. de Klerk supplies the brigadier with guns and comforts and advisers; the brigadier, in turn, does all he can to rattle the African National Congress in a region that has traditionally been its stronghold. When Mr. Kasril's young following charged through that inviting gap in the fence, Brigadier Gqozo's soldiers opened fire with abandon.
In simpler times, the consequences of such a massacre would have been clear-cut: worldwide opprobrium heaped upon Mr. de Klerk, calls from South African white liberals for sanctions against the regime, perhaps a surge of fresh martyrs to the barricades.
But these are more ambiguous times. Although, in fact, little has changed on the ground -- the black majority is still impoverished, separate and disenfranchised -- perceptions have changed profoundly. By disowning the ideology of racial oppression, Mr. de Klerk has persuaded much of the world to judge him in ordinary political terms rather than moral absolutes. By entering the political realm, the African National Congress has conceded that it will no longer be judged solely on the justice of its grand cause; it will be judged on its fitness to govern.
Neither side admits to being even marginally in the wrong at Bisho. Mr. de Klerk, at a press conference Wednesday, never even suggested that firing thousands of rounds without warning into a crowd that is fleeing in panic might constitute excessive force.
Source: New York Times
Monday, September 7, 1992
The Bhisho Massacre: the day 29 people died
Bhisho, the administrative capital of the Eastern Cape, was once the capital of the Ciskei, a so-called homeland of South Africa. It gave its name to a massacre that happened there on September 7 1992 when Ciskei strongman Oupa Gqozo's troops opened fire on an ANC march heading into the capital. Twenty-eight protesters and one soldier died. Hundreds of others were injured.
At that time, negotiations for South Africa's non-racial constitution had broken down amid accusations that the ruling National Party was fomenting "third force" violence in black townships. Another stumbling block was the refusal of Gqozo to participate in negotiations and undertake to give up the homeland's "independence". The meeting at the stadium in Bhisho was organised by the ANC to protest this, to demand free political activity and an end to state violence and repression in the Ciskei.
About 80 000 people - including Chris Hani, Cyril Ramaphosa, Steve Tshwete and Harry Gwala - marched from King William's Town to Bhisho, chanting "no more slavery".
Disastrous miscalculation
Determined to peacefully occupy Bhisho and force Gqozo's resignation, Ronnie Kasrils, a stalwart of ANC protests, led a section of the marchers through a gap in the razor wire erected to contain them. In his autobiography Armed and Dangerous: My Undercover Struggle with Apartheid, Kasrils writes: "By not charging in their [soldiers] direction, by giving them a wide berth, we would avoid confrontation." The organisers and the demonstrators believed that with the eyes of the world on them, Gqozo's troops would not dare open fire.
But this was a disastrous miscalculation. Ciskei troops opened fire, ostensibly on the orders of Gqozo.
Recounting it later, Kasrils writes: "One moment I was running, my comrades with me. The next instant, without warning, the soldiers opened fire." Kasrils hit the ground, but bullets cut into the crowd following him. Petros Vantyu, his bodyguard, was one of those hit by the gunfire. "As I began to crawl towards him, the gunfire broke out again, as angry and prolonged as before, and I froze where I lay. The sinister whirr of projectiles overhead, followed by four dull thuds, made me realise with horror that they were firing grenades as well."
Deadlock breaker
An official investigation revealed that the first fusillade lasted one-and-a-half minutes, while the second lasted a minute. More than 425 rounds were fired. At the end, bodies lay scattered in pools of blood along the line of razor wire erected to contain the marchers.
Gqozo denied giving the order to fire. He accused ANC demonstrators of opening fire first, killing a soldier. He said his troops had acted with restraint. Then-president FW de Klerk said at the time that the massacre resulted from the ANC's failure to observe march conditions agreed with Ciskei authorities. "I did not start mass action, the ANC did. It is a fallacy, an unsubstantiated lie, that my government was involved," he said.
But Nelson Mandela differed with him. "The creation of a climate for free political activity, including in the homelands, is an important condition for us to return to the negotiating table. An enormous responsibility rests with the South African government to create that climate."
In the end, massacres in Bhisho and Boipatong, where 49 people were killed, acted as deadlock-breaking mechanisms. Key players in the negotiation process were forced to rethink their strategies and options. The spiral of violence gave way to the reopening of talks and South Africa once again resumed its journey towards democracy and freedom, which culminated in the country's first democratic elections in 1994.
Source: Buffalo City Metro
At that time, negotiations for South Africa's non-racial constitution had broken down amid accusations that the ruling National Party was fomenting "third force" violence in black townships. Another stumbling block was the refusal of Gqozo to participate in negotiations and undertake to give up the homeland's "independence". The meeting at the stadium in Bhisho was organised by the ANC to protest this, to demand free political activity and an end to state violence and repression in the Ciskei.
About 80 000 people - including Chris Hani, Cyril Ramaphosa, Steve Tshwete and Harry Gwala - marched from King William's Town to Bhisho, chanting "no more slavery".
Disastrous miscalculation
Determined to peacefully occupy Bhisho and force Gqozo's resignation, Ronnie Kasrils, a stalwart of ANC protests, led a section of the marchers through a gap in the razor wire erected to contain them. In his autobiography Armed and Dangerous: My Undercover Struggle with Apartheid, Kasrils writes: "By not charging in their [soldiers] direction, by giving them a wide berth, we would avoid confrontation." The organisers and the demonstrators believed that with the eyes of the world on them, Gqozo's troops would not dare open fire.
But this was a disastrous miscalculation. Ciskei troops opened fire, ostensibly on the orders of Gqozo.
Recounting it later, Kasrils writes: "One moment I was running, my comrades with me. The next instant, without warning, the soldiers opened fire." Kasrils hit the ground, but bullets cut into the crowd following him. Petros Vantyu, his bodyguard, was one of those hit by the gunfire. "As I began to crawl towards him, the gunfire broke out again, as angry and prolonged as before, and I froze where I lay. The sinister whirr of projectiles overhead, followed by four dull thuds, made me realise with horror that they were firing grenades as well."
Deadlock breaker
An official investigation revealed that the first fusillade lasted one-and-a-half minutes, while the second lasted a minute. More than 425 rounds were fired. At the end, bodies lay scattered in pools of blood along the line of razor wire erected to contain the marchers.
Gqozo denied giving the order to fire. He accused ANC demonstrators of opening fire first, killing a soldier. He said his troops had acted with restraint. Then-president FW de Klerk said at the time that the massacre resulted from the ANC's failure to observe march conditions agreed with Ciskei authorities. "I did not start mass action, the ANC did. It is a fallacy, an unsubstantiated lie, that my government was involved," he said.
But Nelson Mandela differed with him. "The creation of a climate for free political activity, including in the homelands, is an important condition for us to return to the negotiating table. An enormous responsibility rests with the South African government to create that climate."
In the end, massacres in Bhisho and Boipatong, where 49 people were killed, acted as deadlock-breaking mechanisms. Key players in the negotiation process were forced to rethink their strategies and options. The spiral of violence gave way to the reopening of talks and South Africa once again resumed its journey towards democracy and freedom, which culminated in the country's first democratic elections in 1994.
Source: Buffalo City Metro
Saturday, August 8, 1992
U.N. Chief Asks Council to Send 30 More Observers to South Africa
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommended to the Security Council today that 30 United Nations observers be sent to South Africa to help existing groups in defusing violence and creating conditions for further negotiations toward "a democratic, nonracial and united" country. He also recommended the creation of undetermined number of operation centers at the major "flashpoints" around South Africa where violence is most likely to occur. The Secretary General said "there is desperate need" for these centers, staffed 24 hours a day and capable at all times of "acting immediately to defuse incipient problems."
The report also urged the immediate release of all political prisoners. This could contribute to "improving the political climate, creating trust and burying the unhappy past," Mr. Boutros-Ghali said. The Secretary General's report was based on the findings of his special envoy, Cyrus R. Vance, who with a small team of specialists from the United Nations Secretariat visited South Africa from July 21 to 31. Mr. Vance's trip was authorized by the Security Council, which had expressed its concern at the break in the negotiations between the white minority Government of South Africa and the African National Congress over a new nonracial constitution.
The new report took note of what the Secretary General called the longstanding capacity for violence by the various political groups in South Africa, he called for "a series of investigations" into the army, the police, Spear of the Nation, the Azanian People's Army, the KwaZulu police and certain private "security firms" and others that, he said, contribute to the violence that "is so central to the lack of trust in the political life of the country." Such investigations, the Secretary General said, would be undertaken by the Commission of Inquiry into Public Violence and Intimidation headed by Justice Richard Goldstone. "Should the Commission need further financing for its expanded work," the Secretary General said, "I would urge the Government to be forthcoming."
Mr. Boutros-Ghali disclosed that he sent seven observers to South Africa last week after Nelson Mandela, the head of the African National Congress, requested them to witness the demonstrations connected with the work stoppage called by the congress. President F. W. de Klerk made it clear that he had no objection to objective observers, Mr. Boutros-Ghali said, and on arriving, they observed the mass action in 11 different parts of the country. The seven joined three United Nations observers already in South Africa.
The Secretary General said the experiences of the 10 observers monitoring last week's demonstrations "could serve a valuable purpose in defining the tasks" of the 30 additional observers he is recommending. He said missions similar to that carried out by Mr. Vance should be "undertaken on a quarterly basis" or more often if the situation warrants, with reports provided to the Security Council.
Source: New York Times
The report also urged the immediate release of all political prisoners. This could contribute to "improving the political climate, creating trust and burying the unhappy past," Mr. Boutros-Ghali said. The Secretary General's report was based on the findings of his special envoy, Cyrus R. Vance, who with a small team of specialists from the United Nations Secretariat visited South Africa from July 21 to 31. Mr. Vance's trip was authorized by the Security Council, which had expressed its concern at the break in the negotiations between the white minority Government of South Africa and the African National Congress over a new nonracial constitution.
The new report took note of what the Secretary General called the longstanding capacity for violence by the various political groups in South Africa, he called for "a series of investigations" into the army, the police, Spear of the Nation, the Azanian People's Army, the KwaZulu police and certain private "security firms" and others that, he said, contribute to the violence that "is so central to the lack of trust in the political life of the country." Such investigations, the Secretary General said, would be undertaken by the Commission of Inquiry into Public Violence and Intimidation headed by Justice Richard Goldstone. "Should the Commission need further financing for its expanded work," the Secretary General said, "I would urge the Government to be forthcoming."
Mr. Boutros-Ghali disclosed that he sent seven observers to South Africa last week after Nelson Mandela, the head of the African National Congress, requested them to witness the demonstrations connected with the work stoppage called by the congress. President F. W. de Klerk made it clear that he had no objection to objective observers, Mr. Boutros-Ghali said, and on arriving, they observed the mass action in 11 different parts of the country. The seven joined three United Nations observers already in South Africa.
The Secretary General said the experiences of the 10 observers monitoring last week's demonstrations "could serve a valuable purpose in defining the tasks" of the 30 additional observers he is recommending. He said missions similar to that carried out by Mr. Vance should be "undertaken on a quarterly basis" or more often if the situation warrants, with reports provided to the Security Council.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, June 17, 1992
Boipatong massacre
The Boipatong massacre took place on the night of 17 June 1992 in the township of Boipatong, South Africa.
Armed hostel inmates shoot and hack their way through the Black township of Boipatong, leaving forty-six people dead and scores injured, including women and children. The ANC withdraws from Codesa negotiations.
Source: SA History Online
Armed hostel inmates shoot and hack their way through the Black township of Boipatong, leaving forty-six people dead and scores injured, including women and children. The ANC withdraws from Codesa negotiations.
Source: SA History Online
Sunday, June 7, 1992
Meetings With Aristide Emphasize Human Rights
Amid reports of discussions of a new hemispheric initiative for resolving the Haitian political standoff, American human rights experts have begun meetings with Haiti's deposed President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to discuss weaknesses in his human rights record and help devise plans to smooth his eventual return.
Participants said the meetings have involved detailed discussions of what Father Aristide's critics call human rights abuses during his nearly eight-month tenure in office, as well as talks about internationally brokered peace plans in other badly torn countries like El Salvador, which the human rights experts said could provide useful models for Haiti.
American diplomats have said that Father Aristide's insistence that Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's military commander, be either immediately imprisoned or exiled for having presided over the coup against him has been an obstacle to international diplomatic efforts to secure the exiled President's return.
The human rights experts, from private groups, said they hoped to persuade Father Aristide of the wisdom of deferring the question of General Cedras's fate, while allowing international monitoring to help assure order in the country and provide for his own security. Under such a plan, the question of punishment for soldiers who overthrew Father Aristide last September, as well as those involved in abuses since then, would be handled by an independent monitoring agency to be established under international supervision.
Although they described the discussions as useful, participants said that Father Aristide refused to say that there had been any specific human rights problems during his tenure or to endorse a gradual approach to restoring him to power that would defer the question of punishment for the army leadership.
Neither Father Aristide nor his Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir, responded to requests for comment. But participants in the discussions said Father Aristide complained that by seeking a solution that did not involve the immediate removal of General Cedras, Washington was trying to "stick me with a Pinochet," a reference to Chile's former military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. General Pinochet, who has stayed on as armed forces chief, has a tense relationship with the civilian Government of President Patricio Aylwin.
The meeting's participants said that Father Aristide wondered aloud whether he could avoid being assassinated under such a plan. "It was an interesting exchange of views, but we didn't come to any understanding ultimately," said Kenneth Roth, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights organization. "He didn't relinquish the demand for the immediate punishment of some individuals in the army, and that insistence, rather than allowing an independent process to take place gradually, perpetuates a stalemate."
Participants in the meetings also expressed frustration with what they described as Father Aristide's failure to address widespread assertions that his statements as President had repeatedly seemed to condone mob-style violence. Human rights experts said that Father Aristide gave little ground beyond the general pledges he has made in the past to reject popular violence.
Another participant cited a speech by Father Aristide to Haitian students in which he praised the presence of a mob armed with gasoline and tires -- which are often used in the vigilante justice Father Aristide's critics have suggested he condoned -- outside a courthouse where a notorious former Interior Minister was on trial.
A senior American official, speaking of what he called Father Aristide's lack of candor on human rights questions, said, "It is a very serious problem, and I don't know what to do about it."
Another official, saying that many people in Haiti already have "little confidence in what he says," called on Father Aristide to issue some "good, stiff declarations about popular justice and some direct acknowledgement that he had some responsibility for certain things that went wrong."
Source: New York Times
Participants said the meetings have involved detailed discussions of what Father Aristide's critics call human rights abuses during his nearly eight-month tenure in office, as well as talks about internationally brokered peace plans in other badly torn countries like El Salvador, which the human rights experts said could provide useful models for Haiti.
American diplomats have said that Father Aristide's insistence that Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's military commander, be either immediately imprisoned or exiled for having presided over the coup against him has been an obstacle to international diplomatic efforts to secure the exiled President's return.
The human rights experts, from private groups, said they hoped to persuade Father Aristide of the wisdom of deferring the question of General Cedras's fate, while allowing international monitoring to help assure order in the country and provide for his own security. Under such a plan, the question of punishment for soldiers who overthrew Father Aristide last September, as well as those involved in abuses since then, would be handled by an independent monitoring agency to be established under international supervision.
Although they described the discussions as useful, participants said that Father Aristide refused to say that there had been any specific human rights problems during his tenure or to endorse a gradual approach to restoring him to power that would defer the question of punishment for the army leadership.
Neither Father Aristide nor his Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir, responded to requests for comment. But participants in the discussions said Father Aristide complained that by seeking a solution that did not involve the immediate removal of General Cedras, Washington was trying to "stick me with a Pinochet," a reference to Chile's former military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. General Pinochet, who has stayed on as armed forces chief, has a tense relationship with the civilian Government of President Patricio Aylwin.
The meeting's participants said that Father Aristide wondered aloud whether he could avoid being assassinated under such a plan. "It was an interesting exchange of views, but we didn't come to any understanding ultimately," said Kenneth Roth, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights organization. "He didn't relinquish the demand for the immediate punishment of some individuals in the army, and that insistence, rather than allowing an independent process to take place gradually, perpetuates a stalemate."
Participants in the meetings also expressed frustration with what they described as Father Aristide's failure to address widespread assertions that his statements as President had repeatedly seemed to condone mob-style violence. Human rights experts said that Father Aristide gave little ground beyond the general pledges he has made in the past to reject popular violence.
Another participant cited a speech by Father Aristide to Haitian students in which he praised the presence of a mob armed with gasoline and tires -- which are often used in the vigilante justice Father Aristide's critics have suggested he condoned -- outside a courthouse where a notorious former Interior Minister was on trial.
A senior American official, speaking of what he called Father Aristide's lack of candor on human rights questions, said, "It is a very serious problem, and I don't know what to do about it."
Another official, saying that many people in Haiti already have "little confidence in what he says," called on Father Aristide to issue some "good, stiff declarations about popular justice and some direct acknowledgement that he had some responsibility for certain things that went wrong."
Source: New York Times
Saturday, May 16, 1992
South Africa Talks in Deadlock; De Klerk Confers With Mandela
Negotiations on South Africa's future deadlocked today, prompting President F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress, to meet to try to devise a solution. After the two leaders met with their advisers and then for more than an hour with each other, Mr. Mandela said they would report the outcome on Saturday. He described their meeting as "substantial," the South Africa Press Association reported, but did not say what they had decided. A resolution of the impasse would pave the way for the creation of a transitional government that would draft a new constitution extending political equality to blacks.
The cause of the deadlock was the inability of one of five working groups created by the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, as the negotiating forum is called, to agree on one of the proposed guidelines for a new constitution. The disputed point is the size of the legislative margin of approval for constitutional provisions covering regional issues. The dispute, which erupted in invective between the Government and the congress, blocked the presentation of progress reports by the four other working groups on the country's future. But Mr. Mandela told journalists that it would be naive for anybody to think that there would be no deadlocks in the negotiations. "While there is a will to address problems, there is hope those problems will be solved," said Mr. Mandela, who sounded noticeably more relaxed than his subordinates did earlier today. "We are confident that in the weeks or months that lie ahead we will be able to make good progress," Mr. Mandela said before meeting with Mr. de Klerk.
The convention, which opened last December in a mood of enthusiasm, created the working groups to consider aspects of the transition and submit their plans to the current meeting. But as the second full session of the convention confronted real issues today, the good will soured. The Government and the congress accused each other of derailing the talks, and some smaller parties took sides, splitting the convention nearly down the middle. "The Government continues to lack the will to negotiate seriously," charged Chris Hani, the head of the South African Communist Party, a congress ally. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha railed against what he called the "A.N.C.-Communist-Marxist school of belief" that "a winner takes all and grabs the power." Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the African National Congress, said at a news conference that he saw very little chance that agreement would be reached on the convention floor. "We have become convinced that the South African Government didn't come to today's working group meeting with the clear intent of signing an agreement," Mr. Ramaphosa said.
The Government delegation said the failure to agree on one point should not obscure what its negotiator Tertius Delport called "substantial and very important progress" on other fronts. The Government side proposed that the convention consider the reports of the other working groups, leaving the unresolved issue for discussion later. Mr. Delport cautioned against haste. "We're not dealing with the question at which time the Sunday school will start," he said. "We're dealing with the future of our country." But Mr. Ramaphosa rejected a piecemeal approach and said the entire package must be considered. He and other congress officials accused the Government of trying to postpone the eventuality of majority rule. "We do not want to be caught in a position where the transition goes on forever," said Mohammed Valli Moosa, a negotiator for the congress.
The disagreement involved the margin of approval that would be needed for constitutional provisions dealing specifically with regional issues. The African National Congress says it should be 70 percent of the votes in a elected constitution-making legislature; the Government has held out for 75 percent. These two key participants reached virtual consensus on other proposed guidelines, but the 5 percent gap has stalled unrelated issues that were scheduled for discussion and approval at the negotiations. Their inability to close the modest 5 percent difference reflected in part their exasperation after hours of negotiations, and also their unwillingness to appear to their constituencies to be giving too much ground. The regional issue is a delicate one. The governing National Party and some of the other 18 political parties and organizations in the talks believe that the interests of minorities, including whites, can be better protected if power is decentralized down to the regional level, even though whites do not form the majority in any region.
The National Party also wants the new Parliament to have a second chamber, called a Senate, whose members would be elected regionally rather than nationally. The African National Congress and the Government had already compromised on the margin by which a constitution-making body should enact legislation. The congress initially proposed a two-thirds majority, while the Government wanted 75 percent. They agreed upon 70 percent for most constitutional provisions and 75 percent for the bill of rights, but differed over the regional issues. Each side also introduced further conditions. The Government said its proposed Senate should have equal authority in approving the constitution, giving it a potential veto over what the first chamber drafted.
And the African National Congress said that if the constitution-making body could not pass its provisions by a sufficient majority, after six months the unresolved issues should be put to a public referendum. The congress and the Government have agreed that the transition take place in two stages, with an appointed executive council supervising the government during the initial stage. They also agreed that an interim legislature elected by universal franchise should draft the new constitution.
Source: New York Times
The cause of the deadlock was the inability of one of five working groups created by the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, as the negotiating forum is called, to agree on one of the proposed guidelines for a new constitution. The disputed point is the size of the legislative margin of approval for constitutional provisions covering regional issues. The dispute, which erupted in invective between the Government and the congress, blocked the presentation of progress reports by the four other working groups on the country's future. But Mr. Mandela told journalists that it would be naive for anybody to think that there would be no deadlocks in the negotiations. "While there is a will to address problems, there is hope those problems will be solved," said Mr. Mandela, who sounded noticeably more relaxed than his subordinates did earlier today. "We are confident that in the weeks or months that lie ahead we will be able to make good progress," Mr. Mandela said before meeting with Mr. de Klerk.
The convention, which opened last December in a mood of enthusiasm, created the working groups to consider aspects of the transition and submit their plans to the current meeting. But as the second full session of the convention confronted real issues today, the good will soured. The Government and the congress accused each other of derailing the talks, and some smaller parties took sides, splitting the convention nearly down the middle. "The Government continues to lack the will to negotiate seriously," charged Chris Hani, the head of the South African Communist Party, a congress ally. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha railed against what he called the "A.N.C.-Communist-Marxist school of belief" that "a winner takes all and grabs the power." Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the African National Congress, said at a news conference that he saw very little chance that agreement would be reached on the convention floor. "We have become convinced that the South African Government didn't come to today's working group meeting with the clear intent of signing an agreement," Mr. Ramaphosa said.
The Government delegation said the failure to agree on one point should not obscure what its negotiator Tertius Delport called "substantial and very important progress" on other fronts. The Government side proposed that the convention consider the reports of the other working groups, leaving the unresolved issue for discussion later. Mr. Delport cautioned against haste. "We're not dealing with the question at which time the Sunday school will start," he said. "We're dealing with the future of our country." But Mr. Ramaphosa rejected a piecemeal approach and said the entire package must be considered. He and other congress officials accused the Government of trying to postpone the eventuality of majority rule. "We do not want to be caught in a position where the transition goes on forever," said Mohammed Valli Moosa, a negotiator for the congress.
The disagreement involved the margin of approval that would be needed for constitutional provisions dealing specifically with regional issues. The African National Congress says it should be 70 percent of the votes in a elected constitution-making legislature; the Government has held out for 75 percent. These two key participants reached virtual consensus on other proposed guidelines, but the 5 percent gap has stalled unrelated issues that were scheduled for discussion and approval at the negotiations. Their inability to close the modest 5 percent difference reflected in part their exasperation after hours of negotiations, and also their unwillingness to appear to their constituencies to be giving too much ground. The regional issue is a delicate one. The governing National Party and some of the other 18 political parties and organizations in the talks believe that the interests of minorities, including whites, can be better protected if power is decentralized down to the regional level, even though whites do not form the majority in any region.
The National Party also wants the new Parliament to have a second chamber, called a Senate, whose members would be elected regionally rather than nationally. The African National Congress and the Government had already compromised on the margin by which a constitution-making body should enact legislation. The congress initially proposed a two-thirds majority, while the Government wanted 75 percent. They agreed upon 70 percent for most constitutional provisions and 75 percent for the bill of rights, but differed over the regional issues. Each side also introduced further conditions. The Government said its proposed Senate should have equal authority in approving the constitution, giving it a potential veto over what the first chamber drafted.
And the African National Congress said that if the constitution-making body could not pass its provisions by a sufficient majority, after six months the unresolved issues should be put to a public referendum. The congress and the Government have agreed that the transition take place in two stages, with an appointed executive council supervising the government during the initial stage. They also agreed that an interim legislature elected by universal franchise should draft the new constitution.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, May 3, 1992
300 Americans Evacuated After Coup in Sierra Leone
American military planes evacuated more than 300 Americans to Germany today in the aftermath of a military coup in this West African nation.
Most of the 270 Americans flown to the Rhein military airbase in Frankfurt in an initial flight were staff members from the United States Embassy, and the spouses and children of diplomats, according to a senior diplomat at the mission who insisted on not being identified.
A second plane with 57 people aboard carried United States Government workers, their families and a missionary group, said Col. Ron Maples, a spokesman for the United States European Command.
Source: New York Times
Most of the 270 Americans flown to the Rhein military airbase in Frankfurt in an initial flight were staff members from the United States Embassy, and the spouses and children of diplomats, according to a senior diplomat at the mission who insisted on not being identified.
A second plane with 57 people aboard carried United States Government workers, their families and a missionary group, said Col. Ron Maples, a spokesman for the United States European Command.
Source: New York Times
New Junta in Sierra Leone Replaces Leader
Military officers who toppled the President of this West African nation arrested their leader today and replaced him with the junta's second-in-command, officials said. The informants, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 22-member ruling council arrested Lieut. Col. Yayah Kanu and replaced him with Capt. Valentine Strasser.
Several Cabinet ministers and party officials who had served under President Joseph Momoh were also reported arrested, and the state radio said the junta had ordered officials of the deposed Government to surrender or face serious consequences.
Middle-ranking officers who led the coup on Wednesday said they had not been paid for three months and had nothing to eat while fighting rebels near the border.
Source: New York Times
Several Cabinet ministers and party officials who had served under President Joseph Momoh were also reported arrested, and the state radio said the junta had ordered officials of the deposed Government to surrender or face serious consequences.
Middle-ranking officers who led the coup on Wednesday said they had not been paid for three months and had nothing to eat while fighting rebels near the border.
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, April 28, 1992
'Fight With Us' Against Military, Ousted Haitian Urges Americans
Raising a fist in salute to more than 2,500 cheering Haitian students at Brooklyn College, the deposed President of Haiti, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, extolled his faith in the youth of his country yesterday and said he was certain that they would "rally the resistance so that Haiti will become a democratic country once again."
Then, addressing Americans, Father Aristide, whose Government was toppled by the Haitian military last September, said, "We need you to fight with us in the same way we saw Americans fight in Nicaragua." Earlier, in remarks to 200 members of the Baptist Ministers' Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, Father Aristide reportedly called for a stepped-up embargo of Haiti and said he believed that Washington should take stronger action to force the Haitian military to give up its hold on political power. "He said they have given beautiful statements," said the Rev. V. Simpson Turner, the president of the ministers' conference, referring to the support voiced so far by Washington officials. "But he said what's needed is action." Any Criticism Is Muted.
In a telephone interview yesterday, though, Father Aristide had no criticism of the Bush Administration. He did not believe, he said, that United States or other foreign troops should be sent to Haiti, as some supporters in New York have suggested during his visit here. He said he believed that the Administration was doing everything it could and that he was "sure they will see the result of what they are doing."
The United States cut aid to Haiti and imposed an economic embargo shortly after the Sept. 30 coup. Administration officials said last week that they were considering further steps against the military Government, including tightening the embargo. On May 18, the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of American States are to meet in the Bahamas, with Haiti the most urgent matter on their agenda.
After four days of meetings in New York that went for the first time far beyond talks with Haitian-Americans, Father Aristide is to spend today seeing journalists and members of his government in exile before leaving for Boston on Wednesday. He came to New York from Washington on a visit of several weeks that journalists and diplomats who follow Caribbean affairs say was partly an effort to insure that the issue of Haiti's political turmoil remains in the public eye. Suggests Internal U.S. Pressure
Mr. Turner said Father Aristide urged the Baptist ministers to "pressure our Congressmen" and city officials so they would insist that the Bush Administration not relax and begin to accommodate the Haitian military.
Father Aristide began his New York visit with a breakfast Friday with business and labor leaders, then went to City Hall to talk with Mayor David N. Dinkins and members of the City Council. On Saturday, he drove to a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to address a regional meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and that evening attended a $150-a-plate dinner in Queens that was organized to pay for the visit. On Sunday, Father Ariside spoke privately with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and then strode onto a stage in Central Park, where he was cheered by tens of thousands of Haitian exiles.
Speaking of Mr. Cuomo, Mayor Dinkins and of Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat who represents Harlem, Father Aristide said: "Those people are so good by the way they welcome us here. We are proud to be their friends."
Fritz Longchamp, who speaks for Father Aristide's exile government at the United Nations, was at the ousted President's side yesterday. He said the Haitian leader had sought a broader audience on his visit because "there is a sense of urgency in Haiti. "He wants to go back to Haiti with the full support not only of the U.S. Government," Mr. Longchamp said, "but of the American people."
Source: New York Times
Then, addressing Americans, Father Aristide, whose Government was toppled by the Haitian military last September, said, "We need you to fight with us in the same way we saw Americans fight in Nicaragua." Earlier, in remarks to 200 members of the Baptist Ministers' Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, Father Aristide reportedly called for a stepped-up embargo of Haiti and said he believed that Washington should take stronger action to force the Haitian military to give up its hold on political power. "He said they have given beautiful statements," said the Rev. V. Simpson Turner, the president of the ministers' conference, referring to the support voiced so far by Washington officials. "But he said what's needed is action." Any Criticism Is Muted.
In a telephone interview yesterday, though, Father Aristide had no criticism of the Bush Administration. He did not believe, he said, that United States or other foreign troops should be sent to Haiti, as some supporters in New York have suggested during his visit here. He said he believed that the Administration was doing everything it could and that he was "sure they will see the result of what they are doing."
The United States cut aid to Haiti and imposed an economic embargo shortly after the Sept. 30 coup. Administration officials said last week that they were considering further steps against the military Government, including tightening the embargo. On May 18, the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of American States are to meet in the Bahamas, with Haiti the most urgent matter on their agenda.
After four days of meetings in New York that went for the first time far beyond talks with Haitian-Americans, Father Aristide is to spend today seeing journalists and members of his government in exile before leaving for Boston on Wednesday. He came to New York from Washington on a visit of several weeks that journalists and diplomats who follow Caribbean affairs say was partly an effort to insure that the issue of Haiti's political turmoil remains in the public eye. Suggests Internal U.S. Pressure
Mr. Turner said Father Aristide urged the Baptist ministers to "pressure our Congressmen" and city officials so they would insist that the Bush Administration not relax and begin to accommodate the Haitian military.
Father Aristide began his New York visit with a breakfast Friday with business and labor leaders, then went to City Hall to talk with Mayor David N. Dinkins and members of the City Council. On Saturday, he drove to a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to address a regional meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and that evening attended a $150-a-plate dinner in Queens that was organized to pay for the visit. On Sunday, Father Ariside spoke privately with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and then strode onto a stage in Central Park, where he was cheered by tens of thousands of Haitian exiles.
Speaking of Mr. Cuomo, Mayor Dinkins and of Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat who represents Harlem, Father Aristide said: "Those people are so good by the way they welcome us here. We are proud to be their friends."
Fritz Longchamp, who speaks for Father Aristide's exile government at the United Nations, was at the ousted President's side yesterday. He said the Haitian leader had sought a broader audience on his visit because "there is a sense of urgency in Haiti. "He wants to go back to Haiti with the full support not only of the U.S. Government," Mr. Longchamp said, "but of the American people."
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, April 7, 1992
Ivory Coast and South Africa To Establish Diplomatic Ties
Ivory Coast and South Africa said today that they were establishing full diplomatic ties. Ivory Coast is the first black-ruled African nation to accord Pretoria full diplomatic recognition since President F. W. de Klerk began scrapping apartheid laws two years ago.
Communication Minister Auguste Miremont said Ivory Coast's decision was in response to Mr. de Klerk's moves, which won the backing of the white electorate in a referendum last month.
Source: new York Times
Communication Minister Auguste Miremont said Ivory Coast's decision was in response to Mr. de Klerk's moves, which won the backing of the white electorate in a referendum last month.
Source: new York Times
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