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You are
there to win - but the Haitian masses will not let you
by Lionel Jean-Baptiste
Dear Lt. Col. Lapan:
On May 18, 2004, I heard a direct report over internet radio on the demonstration
organized by the Haitian people to celebrate Haitian Flag day. The demonstrators
on the scene were constantly dispersed, harassed and terrorized with the
expressed purpose of defeating their will so that they would not provide
an example of resistance to the illegal occupation and the illegal coup
led by the U.S. The report put together by attorney Marguerite Laurent
reflected the report I heard, a direct feed of live coverage from a reporter
on the scene in Haiti to the radio station. I now have a copy of the tape
of that broadcast.
Your characterization of attorney Laurent's report as inflammatory and
fictitious is quite consistent with your very purpose as the spokesman
for the Multinational Interim Force in Haiti. You and the other troops
currently illegally occupying Haiti are carrying out the policy of the
Franco-American-Haitian Comprador Bourgeoisie of uprooting the Lavalas
movement.
Your bosses first fomented, funded and armed an opposition to a legitimate,
democratically elected government. But not only that, you invaded the
country, kidnapped President Aristide and expelled him from this hemisphere.
Not only that, you gathered the remaining leadership of the Lavalas movement
and imprisoned them. Not only that, you further engaged in a campaign
to terrorize the mass base of the Lavalas movement through killings, believing
that if you did this, then the Haitian people would not dare resist en
masse.
So when the masses of people did dare to take to the streets on May 18,
2004, it must have appeared an illusion to you because you and those you
serve never imagined that this could still happen in the face of all your
terror. Why do you now apologize for breaking up the demonstration and
preventing people from exercising this "democracy" that you allegedly
went to Haiti to protect?
Why did your people seek to break up the demonstration in the first place?
Who do you expect to believe that your soldiers did not forcibly break
up the demonstration up to and including killing nine people in the process?
You talk about press accounts of the demonstration in Haiti, and that
is exactly what I heard: unfiltered accounts from the demonstrators direct
from Haiti. "Your press," though - and I say yours because the rebels,
former soldiers and opposition groups to the constitutional government
you protect and legitimize have terrorized the dissenting press in Haiti
- is and has been filtered since the invasion.
I am not even going to engage you around the arrest of Annette August.
You have painted her arrest as legitimate because it was executed pursuant
to an arrest warrant issued by the illegitimate LaTortue government. Come
on. Her arrest was part and parcel of the Uprooting Policy. You know it
and I know it. Do you think she was born yesterday?
Your purpose as spokesman is to control and mediate all forms of information
that leave Haiti and to best fit the "truth" to the aims of your mission.
You are performing the function for which you were appointed.
But your insistence that we believe your word over eyewitness accounts,
photographic evidence, the sentiments of innumerable Haitians, and the
lessons of world history is more than comical - it presumes a basic naivete
and unfamiliarity with U.S. notions of truth on our part and is a sign
of your obvious disrespect for the intelligence of the Haitian community.
You are there to win. But the Haitian masses will not let you.
Attorney Lionel Jean-Baptiste is the founding partner of the law firm
Jean-Baptiste & Associates, a founding member of the Haitian Lawyers
Leadership Network and a well-known reparations activist in Chicago. Email
him at lioneljb@aol.com. |
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