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World News
3/8/03 - 3/14/04
Sunday 3/14/04
French take over patrols for U.S. Marines in troubled Haiti neighborhood 3/14/04 AP: "A five-member delegation of American and Jamaican officials, including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., met with Aristide late Sunday.
Sharon Hay-Webster, a representative of the Caribbean Community regional bloc who is leading the delegation, said Aristide was likely to leave before midnight Sunday after a meeting with Central African Republic President Francois Bozize… French soldiers patrolled La Saline, a gritty seaside slum like many where Aristide still commands support and where resentment and anger brewed after Marines shot and killed two men in a firefight on Friday.
The Marines said the two were gunmen, though no weapons were recovered. Residents said those killed were not armed or militant."
Al-Qaeda 'claims Madrid bombings' 3/14/04 BBC
Deserter aims to be first veteran to challenge Iraq war's morality 3/14/04 Chicago Tribune
Debunking the Media's Lies about President Aristide 3/14/04 Dissident Voice
Aznar accused of cover-up as Spain mourns its dead 3/14/04 Observer: "Today's general election has been completely overshadowed by Thursday's horrific terrorist attacks on Madrid commuter trains, as Prime Minister José Maria Aznar and his government were accused of a politically-motivated cover-up.
A growing undercurrent of opinion questioning the official line that the Basque separatist terror group ETA is the main suspect and blaming Aznar for holding back information was circulating through Madrid and other major cities last night."
Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons 3/14/04 Observer: "they endured three months of solitary confinement in Camp Delta's isolation block last summer after they were wrongly identified by the Americans as having been pictured in a video tape of a meeting in Afghanistan between Osama bin Laden and the leader of the 11 September hijackers Mohamed Atta. Ignoring their protests that they were in Britain at the time, the Americans interrogated them so relentlessly that eventually all three falsely confessed. They were finally saved - at least on this occasion - by MI5, which came up with documentary evidence to show they had not left the UK; ...The three men said that as far as they could see, there were few if any genuine terrorists at Guantanamo Bay: perhaps at worst, a few mullahs who had been loyal to the Taliban.
They voiced grave fears for the future of Begg and Abbasi, who are due to face trials by American military commissions, saying that their own experience of the Guantanamo interrogation and intelligence gathering process was 'almost a recipe' for other miscarriages of justice."
Haiti's Murderous Army Reborn 3/14/04 Pacific News: "CAP HAITIAN, Haiti--I am the mayor of Milo, a district of about 50,000 people near Cap Haitian. When I was elected nine years ago, at the age of 28, I was the youngest to serve in that office in Haiti's modern history. I've traveled in the United States on speaking tours, telling Americans about how we were building democracy in Haiti under the Aristide government. In late February my district came under attack by anti-Aristide forces and I fled for my life. From where I am now -- hiding in the woods -- I see the old Haitian army is back.
Those they don't kill, they lock up in containers, because they burned down the jails. The kind of containers you put on ships… One has to ask, why is all of this happening? Is this because we used to have only 10 public high schools but now we have over 150? Is it because we made a democracy where people could go in the streets, protest, and be free to say whatever they want? Is it because black people in the country now, people who were poor and always kept out of the political life of the country, they have come out and have been participating in democracy?"
Spain: Video threatens new attacks 3/14/04 The News, Australia: "According to a government translation he said: "We declare our responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two-and-a-half years after the attacks on New York and Washington.
"It is a response to your collaboration with the criminals (US President George W.) Bush and his allies." "
Community & alternative broadcast media under constant opposition attack 3/14/04 Vheadlines: not content with controlling the major media, the white minority opposition sabotages all competitors.
Noam Chomsky: How America determines friends and foes 3/14/04 Vheadlines
Saturday 3/13/04
 Four wounded as protesters clash with Haiti police 3/13/04 AFP: "At least four people were wounded by gunshots on Thursday as police clashed with supporters of Haitian ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide after security forces dispersed demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince."
Extra Judicial Executions in Venezuela 3/13/04 El Universal: fine propaganda from Venezuela's corporate media.
The International Wrong 3/13/04 In These Times: "Those circumstances would be farcical were they not so tragic—and so redolent of Western imperialism. The colonial scenario of masters banishing insurgent subjects to far-flung exile is etched into Western history; Aristide’s treatment is just a contemporary echo. There is little national concern being expressed about the Haitian situation because Aristide’s treatment conforms neatly to the Western narrative about unruly colonial subjects.
For those reasons and more, the CBC’s shrill objections to business as usual in Haiti are particularly welcomed and very long overdue."
US revealed to be secretly funding opponents of Chavez 3/13/04 Independent, UK: "Jeremy Bigwood, a Washington-based freelance journalist who obtained the documents, yesterday told The Independent: "This repeats a pattern started in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when [the US] spent $20 per voter to get rid of [the Sandinista President Daniel] Ortega. It's done in the name of democracy but it's rather hypocritical. Venezuela does have a democratically elected President who won the popular vote which is not the case with the US." "
Aristide flying to Jamaica for 10-week visit -- Haiti fears trip means trouble 3/13/04 NYT
Iraq deal awarded to Blum venture
Feinstein's spouse owns stake in firm fixing energy grid 3/13/04 SF Chronicle: "Perini Corp., a Massachusetts construction company partially owned by the investment firm of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed a $500 million contract Friday to repair southern Iraq's electricity grid."
'Special skills draft' on drawing board
Computer experts, foreign language specialists lead list of military's needs 3/13/04 SF Chronicle
Venezuela: Anatomy of the Third Coup (II) 3/13/04 Venezuela Analysis: "The advance of the third coup in Venezuela already allows us to understand its anatomy. It is perhaps the most sophisticated that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Washington mercenaries have set up since April 2002, and it combines elements from the destruction of Aristide’s government in Haiti, Allende in Chile, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the subversion of real existing socialism in eastern Europe, especially the coup in Romania and the implosion of the German Democratic Republic."
Friday 3/12/04
Four persons injured in pro-Aristide demonstration 3/12/04 Granma: "AT least four persons were injured in a demonstration by supporters of President Jean Bertrand Aristide when the Haitian police fired on protestors demanding the return of the deposed leader.
Various journalists covering the demonstration confirmed that shots were fired and other witnesses stated that both the police and demonstrators exchanged fire, according to Europa press."
Role in Haiti Events Backfiring on Washington 3/12/04 Inter Press: "''The developing world is now challenging the U.S. and France for not being democratic; that is of great long-term significance,'' she added "
HAITI: Aristide's Call for Reparations From France Unlikely to Die 3/12/04 IPS
Canadian authorities arrest, detain Aristide's former security chief 3/12/04 Miami Herald: "With U.S. assistance, the notorious security chief of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was detained in Canada on Friday as U.S. Marines again came under fire on the streets of the Haitian capital… Aristide kept on Jean as chief of security at the National Palace even after Washington yanked his U.S. visa in 2002, over reports by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that that he was involved in the drug trade."
Group to act against rapper profiling 3/12/04 Miami Herald: "Members of the Miami Beach Black Host Committee, a group created by the city's mayor to help improve its rapport with black residents and visitors, say they are deeply offended by the police department's monitoring of rappers and their associates."
Gerard Latortue, Haiti's Illegitimate Ruler 3/12/04 NarcoNews: "Where is Aristide's alleged "resignation letter"? AP's own translation of the supposed "resignation" letter reveals that it was not a resignation at all, not by any legal standard. The text that the US Embassy "translated" from the original Creole as "tonight I am resigning" more truthfully translates to "if tonight is my resignation." What kind of "resignation" is that? (And why haven't AP and other Commercial Media followed up on that story?)"
U.S. Marines Kill Two Gunmen in Haitian Shooting 3/12/04 Reuters
The killers that Washington backs 3/12/04 Socialist Worker: "Noriega’s star has risen rapidly--in part due to his close ties with former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), for whom Noriega served as chief of staff. "Helms didn't just dislike Aristide," said Larry Birns, of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "Helms loathed Aristide, because he saw in Aristide another Castro." ...Pardo-Maurer is deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Just before the coup attempt in Venezuela, Pardo-Maurer met with the top general and coup plotter. "I viewed him as being in the same situations as Col. [Augusto] Pinochet in Chile in 1971," Pardo-Maurer said. During the 1980s, Pardo Maurer was aide to the head of the Nicaraguan contras."
Disarming Haiti may be difficult, experts say 3/12/04 Sun Sentinel, FL: "On Thursday, U.S. Marines raided a house in the capital's southeast section but found no guns, according to Maj. Richard Crusan, spokesman for the Marines in Port-au-Prince. A day later Chilean special forces raided a house and found a shotgun, rifle and pistol."
Venezuela’s CITGO Contributes to Social Programs Thanks to Record Profits in 2003 3/12/04 Venezuela Analysis: For CITGO locations, see www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator.jsp
Embajadores africanos expresan su malestar a Globovisión por contenido de una emisión de Aló Ciudadano 3/12/04 Venpres: "El Grupo de Embajadores Africanos acreditados ante el Gobierno
de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, nos dirigimos a Usted en razón de
expresarle nuestro asombro legítimo y profundo malestar por el contenido de
un programa emitido el pasado día 28 de febrero, en el espacio "Aló
Ciudadano" con motivo de la visita del Presidente de Zimbabwe, S.E. Robert
Mugabe a Caracas en el marco de la Cumbre del G-15… Sencillamente, Sr. Director, a los televidentes de vuestra
cadena se les ha servido un espectáculo burdo e indecente, repleto de
efectos groseros, expresiones despectivas y un sinfín de burlas y gestos de
indudable contenido racista. Conducta que, dicho sea de paso, deja mucho que
desear acerca del talento democrático, los modales y la talla moral e
intelectual de los conductores del citado programa." [Globovisión es una de la cadenas privadas en Venezuela.]
US aid subverted Haiti's sovereignty for a long time 3/12/04 Vive le Canada
New Haitian Prime Minister Says 2-Year Transition Needed Before Free Elections Can be Held 3/12/04 VOA: "Newly appointed Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue says the strife-torn Caribbean nation will need a two-year transition period before free elections can be held."
US Asks for Jamaica's Assurances that Aristide Visit is for Family Reasons, Not Political 3/12/04 VOA
The Siege of the Sierra Club 3/12/04 Znet: ""Without a doubt, the Sierra Club is the subject of a hostile takeover attempt by forces allied with ... a variety of right-wing extremists," said the Southern Poverty Law Center in a warning letter. "They hope to use the credibility of the Club as a cover to advance their own extremist views." "
Thursday 3/11/04
Soviet-era bioweapons under threat: Pentagon 3/11/04 AFP
Try Bush as a Global Pirate 3/11/04 Black Commentator: "Thus, the new “prime minister” of Haiti appears as surprised as the rest of his countrymen when conveyed the title by an “eminent” rump of persons chosen by the occupying power. The man picked for the job on Tuesday, business consultant Gérard Latortue, doesn’t even arrive in Haiti from his home in Boca Raton, Florida, until Wednesday. U.S. Marines believe they have killed Haitian gunmen in battle, but seem unconcerned as to their identities. Half a world away, the constitutional head of state, elected with overwhelming popular support in a process deemed free and fair by the entire international community, is held captive by an African military dictator after being kidnapped by the world’s superpower in cahoots with the former colonial master of his country."
Haiti News 3/11/04 Haiti Support: "Latortue went straight to work Thursday, meeting with interim President Boniface Alexandre to discuss a Cabinet he wants to include retired army Chief of Staff Herard Abraham, in charge of security, and businessman and former Aristide Prime Minister Smarck Michel as planning minister. Abraham supports recreating Haiti’s once-disgraced army, a key demand of rebels who helped force Aristide from office. Latortue said Aristide’s disbanding of the army in 1995 may have been unconstitutional."
KU prof asked to translate Aristide's statement 3/11/04 Lawrence Journal-World, KS: "Aristide, who is now in exile in Africa, has said he was kidnapped and denied resigning his post.
Freeman translated the controversial passage as: "Thus, if this evening it is my resignation which can prevent a bloodbath, I agree to leave ... " "
WASHINGTON V. ARISTIDE 3/11/04 New Republic: "Helms's chief Haiti adviser was Roger Noriega, now assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and the man responsible for the administration's Haiti policy. "Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years," Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, told reporters last week. In fact, in 2002, as U.S. envoy to the Organization of American States, Noriega said Washington could not help build democracy in Haiti while Aristide was in power. "When I met with Assistant Secretary Noriega, I got the distinct impression that the [Haiti] policy of this government is regime change," agreed Senator Bill Nelson of Florida at a congressional hearing in February. In recent months, Noriega has worked closely with National Security Council Latin America envoy Otto Reich, who also has strongly denounced Aristide and leftist leaders in Latin America, and who had contacts with some of the opposition forces who tried to overthrow Venezuelan President Chavez two years ago. Before Chavez was briefly deposed, Reich held a series of meetings with anti-Chavez forces. After the coup, Reich seemed to welcome Chavez's overthrow."
Aristide's allies 3/11/04 Robert Novak: "Republican Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois, not known for incendiary statements, was more effective than the State Department representative at the hearing in describing Jean-Bertrand Aristide: "He was a brutal dictator, allowing children to be sold into slave labor, and if we hadn't gone in there, Mr. Aristide would be dead because the people would have killed him." Weller describes a situation that the Black Caucus overlooks, John Kerry minimizes and George W. Bush ignored for three years." The truth is that Aristide was not even allowed by the US to move against labor practices and rates in Haiti.
Aristide to press charges against French, US diplomats 3/11/04 The News, Pakistan: ""President Aristide has asked me to lodge a lawsuit in France ... for abduction and illegal detention" against French ambassador Thierry Burkard, the lawyer, Gilbert Collard, told AFP. He added that a US lawyer, Ira Kurzban, was to lodge a similar lawsuit in the United States against the US ambassador, James Foley. Kurzban told a news conference in Paris on Wednesday that he planned to file the lawsuit. The US lawyer was on his way back to the United States after meeting Aristide in the Central African Republic, where the ousted Haitian leader has been since being flown out of Haiti on board an aircraft organised by the US government on February 29."
Wednesday 3/10/04
Haiti: Les Colons Sont de Retour 3/10/04 Haiti Progres
HITLER GANO LA GUERRA - Walter Graziano - Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires 3/10/04 Jiribilla: "Quien piense que muchos de los enormes problemas del mundo comenzarían a solucionarse si cambiara el presidente de los Estados unidos, se equivoca gravemente. El presidente actual no es otra cosa que la 'punta del iceberg' de una complicada estructura de poder, urdida cuidadosamente durante mucho tiempo por una reducida elite de clanes familiares muy ricos, verdaderos propietarios en las sombras del petróleo, la banca, los laboratorios, las empresas de armas, las universidades y los medios de comunicación más importantes del mundo, entre otros sectores.
Se trata nada menos de quienes antes y durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial financiaron a Hitler para que tomara el poder y se armara, proveyeron de materiales básicos al Tercer Reich, fomentaron el ideario racista del Führer y encaramaron a la maquinaria nazi en Alemania.
En este volumen, el lector podrá enterarse de cómo esta poderosa elite, en cuyo núcleo se esconden antiguas sociedades secretas, coloca, desde hace muchísimos años, los presidentes de los Estados Unidos como marionetas y corrompe hasta sus cimientos la base misma de los partidos republicano y demócrata."
U.S. Hand In Aristide Ouster
America's Shameful Treatment of Haiti 3/10/04 Northstar Network: by Ron Daniels - "In the end, the violent insurrection that erupted in Gonaive by gangs formerly allied with Aristide provided the perfect opening for the U.S. to oust someone for whom the right wing ideologues had a deep dislike and distrust. As the rebellion spread and heavily armed former death squad leaders, drug dealers and human rights abusers crossed the border from the Dominican Republic, Washington and the international community watched as they captured town after town. Presented with a formula for power sharing and a government of national unity based on a proposal originally crafted by CARICOM, to his credit, Aristide quickly accepted. Even though he would have largely been reduced to a figurehead, he correctly argued that it was time that Haitians learned to move from “elected President to elected President instead of coup d’etat to coup d’etat.” "
New Haitian Prime Minister Arrives, Vowing to Restore Unity 3/10/04 NYT: "Gérard Latortue, the economist and former diplomat chosen by a United States-backed council to lead Haiti out of its political crisis, arrived in the country from southern Florida on Wednesday, promising to reconcile opposed factions and bring peace and prosperity to a nation long wracked by poverty and brutalized by generations of dictators."
"The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation."
Texas Republican Party Platform, 2002, 3/10/04 Theocracy Watch
The intrigues in Haiti's crisis 3/10/04 Trinidad & Tobago Express: "Incidentally, amid all the talk, in and out of the Caribbean region, about help for crisis-ridden Haiti, it is Castro's Cuba that has had in Haiti, for the past three years, more than 500 (five hundred) doctors and nurses spread across the country, providing desperately needed medical attention.
Also in Haiti are Cuban technical experts in various fields, including agriculture, engineering and education, with the latter focused on promoting literacy.
A question of immediate relevance is whether America under Bush, would want in Haiti what America under Reagan had forced in Grenada-getting rid of all Cubans-doctors, nurses, construction workers, or else. In the meanwhile, we await on the emergence of Caricom's case for UN probe into the circumstances of Aristide being out of power."
Port-Au-Prince by Johnny 3/10/04 Znet: "The U.S. Marines stood by and did nothing while the library at the Aristide Foundation was burned. With my own eyes I saw the American Marines stand and watch while rebels cut a woman and shot her. I yelled at them, “Do something!” and they swung their guns around toward me and yelled, “Get back!”
While I hid in a field the American Marines put their hats on the bodies of dead people and posed for pictures with them. It made me sick because in Haiti we respect the dead. The Americans scare me; I don’t believe that they want anything good for the Haitian people because they support the criminals who oppose democracy.
We are fearful of the old army because they are those who killed the street children of Lafanmi Selavi. They killed the peasants in the North who wanted to have democracy and supported Aristide."
Tuesday 3/9/04
African Union Blasts Haiti Ouster 3/9/04 AP
In Haiti, Cuban doctors stayed when no one else would 3/9/04 Dallas Morning News
Miami: Police secretly watching hip-hop artists 3/9/04 Miami Herald
Aristide’s Lawyer: Bush is getting even in Haiti 3/9/04 NNPA: "An attorney for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now in exile, says he believes President George W. Bush sought to finish the agenda of his father by removing rather than protecting the embattled president last week.
“Dick Cheney was the secretary of defense, Colin Powell was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and George Bush, the father, was president at the time of the first military coup against President Aristide,” recalls the attorney, Ira Kurzban of Miami. “Is there a settling of scores in some sense? They thought they got rid of him the first time, but Clinton brought him back. And now they want to make sure, before the November election, that they get rid of him a second time.” ...“There is one issue that is at the core of the problems in Haiti that few people are talking about,” says retired Congressman Walter Fauntroy (D-D.C.), who served for 15 years as chairman of a Bi-partisan, Bicameral Congressional Task Force on Haiti. “In the last 10 years, Haiti has become a major illegal drug transshipment for the Cali, Medellin and Baranquilla drug cartels in South America.” "
California Named After Black Queen 3/9/04 Sacramento Observer: "It is well documented that of the 44 people who founded the City of Los Angeles, 26 were of Afrikan descent. What is amazing and not taught in California schools is that the majority of the founders of San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego were of Afrikan descent, or that Orange County, Beverly Hills and Malibu were once owned by people of Afrikan descent. The Picos, Black Spanish speaking brothers, Pio and Andres, the former twice California governor, owned San Fernando Valley, Whittier and the Camp Pendleton area.
California is in the media everyday. It is incredible most California residents know nothing about the state being named after a Black Woman queen."
S. Africa refused to take Aristide 3/9/04 Washington Times: from the Rev Moon's paper…
US-Haiti by Noam Chomsky 3/9/04 Znet
Monday 3/8/04
U.S. Marines say they killed one gunman at weekend demonstration 3/8/04 AP: "Several witnesses said they saw Aristide militants open fire from the roof of the Rex movie theater across the plaza.
U.S. Marine Col. Charles Gurganus said gunfire broke out on the northeast corner of the plaza and several people were wounded before Marines spotted two gunmen. When the gunmen tried to attack the Marines, the troops shot and killed one of them, he said, adding that he did not know what happened to the other man." Sounds like a page from the Venezuela coup.
"A War Waged on the Aristide Regime" - An Interview with Robert Fatton 3/8/04 Counterpunch
Aristide's removal presents threat to Cuba says report 3/8/04 Rebelion: "Journalist and French writer Thierry Meyssan has claimed that France and United States agreed in the summer of 2003 to a joint plan to prepare a coup d'etat against the ousted president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, due, among others things, to utilize the country as a base of operations to finish off Fidel Castro "within five months".
The other motive was the French reaction to Aristide's decision to demand that Paris refund debt payments contracted with the former colony throughout the XIX century."
Aristide Defiant, to Sue US, France, Over Kidnapping 3/8/04 Reuters
Haitians in U.S. lash out at Hill black caucus ties 3/8/04 Washington Times: "Leaders of South Florida's Haitian community met behind closed doors over the weekend and denounced some members of the Congressional Black Caucus for their ties to departed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
"We have to wonder if some of the Congressional Black Caucus may have profited from their relationship with Aristide," said Carlo Jean-Joseph, an immigration lawyer from Lauderhill in neighboring Broward County."
An Academy Award for Bigotry 3/8/04 Znet: "Indeed, the high priest Caiaphas and his colleagues are such exact, blatant replicas of Suess that I suspect they must be direct borrowings. Moreover, Passion is one of the most manipulative films ever made and, after two hours watching mobs howling in delight at Christ's suffering, it is no wonder that many devout American viewers, like their German predecessors, have left theaters muttering, "I hate the Jews."
The Romans, on the other hand, are shown as noble imperialists. In contrast to the vile Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate is depicted by Gibson as a sympathetic, even saintly figure, tragically trapped between orders from Rome (no more uprisings) and the implacable machinations of the high priests."
"There
is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and
security to all, but especially to Democracies as against despots:
suspicion." -- Demosthenes
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