From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Is Haiti next Target for Intervention?
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 02:13:25 GMT


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Is Haiti next target for intervention?

By G. Dunkel

Haiti and Somalia are separated by over 8,000 miles and connected
by some of the deepest poverty that exists in the world today.
They are also connected by similar threats from Washington
policymakers of U.S. military intervention.

While all the bigshots and media lords on the Sunday talk shows
and in the special sections of the Sunday newspapers were
promising "our troops'' would be home soon from Somalia, and
swearing up and down that "our'' motives were lofty and strictly
humanitarian, around the edges you could hear mention of other
concerns and similar situations.

The New York Times mentioned the Sudan, Liberia and Haiti as
countries where the "humanitarian" concerns of the United States
might be focused. It also mentioned Afghanistan, Cambodia,
Yugoslavia, and the Cameroons as potential trouble spots worthy
of consideration.

Jim Bush, a retired captain from the U.S. Navy now with the
Center for Strategic Studies, spoke on the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation's Sunday morning show. He raised Haiti as a pressing
U.S. concern, since it shares an island with the Dominican
Republic and that island lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Haiti is the hot spot closest to the United States,  the one
where U.S. power is the most deeply entrenched. In Haiti, popular
challenges to the brutal military dictators now running the
country with the United States' covert blessing could potentially
attract powerful and widespread support in the African and
Caribbean American communities. The United States is also the
country where most Haitian refugees seek to go.

STRUGGLE IN HAITI CONTINUES

Over a year since a military coup overthrew the first
democratically elected government of Haiti, the struggle is still
not over.  The de facto government still doesn't have
international recognition; it is facing a costly and worrisome
embargo that could be strengthened at any shift in the
international political situation.  It knows it couldn't win any
election that would have even a semblance of fairness.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide might have been deposed from the official
seat of power but he is still president in the hearts and minds
of the Haitian people.

The popular resistance hasn't flagged, even though over 2,000
people have been killed for such crimes as pasting up a leaflet
calling for the unconditional return of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.  The army has surrounded two college buildings in
Port-au-Prince, the capital, in an attempt to physically crush
the student resistance.  As of Dec. 8, the outcome of the army's
operation was still unclear.

Most international observers make their headquarters in the
capital. Outside, the repression has been even more ferocious.
The regime set loose hundreds of unpaid, assistant policemen to
make their living through extortion and corruption.

FREE ANTOINE AUGUSTIN

Near Rival, a community in the north of Haiti near Cap-Haitien,
Antoine Augustin, a leader of the National Popular Assembly (APN)
who was on the staff of Aristide's government was arrested by the
army Dec. 5.

The Committee Against Repression in Haiti is calling for the
release of Augustin, who has committed no crime and who has not
even been charged with any by the authorities.  They are asking
for telegrams to be sent to Gen. Raoul Cedras, Grand Quarter
General, Port-au-Prince or Moise Senatus, Justice Minister.  For
more information, please contact Maude Leblanc (718) 434-8100.

In addition, the Tet Ansanm Organization of New York, New Jersey
and Connecticut has called a demonstration Dec. 16 for people to
assemble 3:00 p.m. at 42nd St & 7th Avenue in Manhattan. The date
marks the second anniversary of Aristide's election.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)



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