T&T: One question for Aristide aficionados

How many Haitians and U.S. soldiers would you have wanted to die so that Aristide could remain in power?

Aristide has made serious charges against the United States. Already, White House spokesperson, Scott McClellan, has said that the US had taken steps to protect Mr Aristide and his family and that “they departed Haiti. It was Mr Aristide’s decision to resign.” Of critical interest, however, is that unnamed United States officials have been quoted in a Reuters report published in Tuesday’s issue of Newsday that “after intensive consultations between US officials and Aristide on Saturday, he had signed a letter of resignation.” The report itself provokes questions that may need to be answered. Does it not strike as odd that Aristide is reported as having “signed a letter of resignation” clearly only after “intensive consultations,” with the US officials? Were the reported “consultations” designed to have him do just that? Did Aristide draft the resignation letter, or was one drafted for him? If what the officials reported must be held to be true, is their statement not in conflict with that of the United States Ambassador to Haiti, who is quoted in another overseas news report as stating that he had told Aristide’s aides that should he decide to resign “the United States would facilitate his departure”?

In addition, Rep Maxine Waters stated that an Embassy official had told Aristide “that he had to go now — that if he didn’t he would be killed and a lot of Haitians would be killed.” What is any reasonable person to make of the US Embassy official’s statement that Aristide “had to go now”? Was it an implied threat as opposed to what the official saw as a distinct possibility that if Aristide did not leave (and “now”) that he would ke killed, and so would “a lot of Haitians”? The “had to go now” phrase along with that of “and if he didn’t he would be killed” which together appear to be as final as they come, are painfully in conflict with the talk of “intensive consultations.”

My answer? None. Not a one. I do not believe Aristide when he says he was kidnapped. Instead, I believe all those men and women who had previously supported Aristide and either left him or fled for fear of their lives or were killed. I believe the living ones who knew him well and who say that Aristide is not to be trusted. If I think Aristide is a liar and an incompetent whose continued rule would have further damaged Haiti, and I do, it is because I have done the research on Aristide, and read the words of former partisans.

Therefore, when he says the U.S. military kidnapped him and pulled a coup, I say Aristide is lying to save face. He has to justify to himself and to the rest of the world why he turned tail and ran like a little girl when he was confronted with the prospect of being without the wall of his own hired American security, which was in turn protected by U.S. soldiers. While I am under no illusions about what the U.S. government can do, clandestinely, if it sets its mind to, I do not believe that Aristide was significant enough for the government to risk its good name. But then, in the eyes of the world, Saddam Hussen has more of a good name than any Republican U.S. government. Therefore, when all factors are taken into consideration: the testimonials of Aristide's former friends, Aristide's awareness of his undefended position, insufficient American motive (drugs, you say?), Aristide's personal instability and untrustworthiness, simple logic would dictate not a coup but a resignation. No amount of over-heated rhetoric is going to change that.

One last word. I honestly wish that C-SPAN were available to the Caribbean. Why? Watching C-SPAN taught me a profound distrust and distaste for Democrats. C-SPAN revealed to me that Democrats, including the CBC, intellectually are like the Emperor garbed in his new clothes. We all know how that story went.