Hti: Is this why Aristide wants back in?

Is Caricom willing to cover Aristide's arse to this extent? If so, what's in it for them? This is an excerpt; read the rest.

"Parents of Haiti, wake up," he said, in remarks to the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce. "I don't understand what has become of the moral values of this society," he went on, complaining about the lack of cooperation in denouncing the traffickers.

Eight months later, and barely a month after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide abandoned power and fled into exile, federal prosecutors in Miami are investigating his alleged drug ties. An indictment on drug charges could be only months away, according to Bush administration and Justice Department officials.

In addition, Florida courts have recently witnessed a series of drug indictments against major traffickers in Haiti, as well as a senior Haitian government official. Court documents and interviews with several U.S. officials reveal that drug trafficking in Haiti, which has served as a conduit for Colombian cocaine for many years, rose after the election of Aristide in 2000. U.S. officials became increasingly concerned about the degree of drug corruption in Haiti and the high levels it had reached within the government.
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"It is just a totally different world," Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Younjae Kim told a Miami court Oct. 21 in a hearing involving one of the Haitian trafficking suspects. "The level of corruption goes from a lowly patrolman all the way to the top of the Haitian National Police."

Officials at the DEA, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Justice Department are now asking if it went higher than that.

Senior-level discussions in Washington were held to consider the pros and cons of a drug indictment last year, officials say.

But the Bush administration was concerned that a drug indictment might derail Washington's political leverage with Aristide on policies affecting key U.S. interests, especially Haiti's continued cooperation in restricting the illegal migration of Haitian refugees.

Officials also recognized that as a sitting head of state, Aristide enjoyed immunity from prosecution under well-established international legal doctrine.

In the end, officials ultimately concluded that they did not have "a clear-cut" case against Aristide, despite plenty of circumstantial evidence. But a series of incidents and arrests in the last eight months has may have altered that picture.