Haiti: Thousands demand Aristide return

The BBC ^ | July 16, 2006

[Stoat]

Thousands demand Aristide return

 

Mr Aristide fled an armed revolt in 2004

Thousands of people have demonstrated in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, demanding the return of exiled former President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Supporters chanted "Aristide or death!" and "Aristide's blood is our blood!" as they marched to the National Palace on the ex-leader's 53rd birthday.

Mr Aristide fled an armed revolt two years ago and is in South Africa.

President Rene Preval had said during this year's election campaign he would consider allowing him to return home.

However, the US has warned this could destabilise the country.

Political prisoners

Saturday's march was largely peaceful although there were some stand-offs with riot police.

The protest was largely peaceful but there were some stand-offs

One of the rally's organisers, Andre Michelet, said: "We voted for Rene Preval to obtain the return of our leader."

Mr Preval won the presidential poll in February to become the first elected leader since Mr Aristide.

Demonstrator Harold Lafaliese told Associated Press news agency: "The international community doesn't want Aristide to come back, so they're pressuring Preval to keep him out."

The demonstration has added to the pressure on Mr Preval, who has also faced a resurgence of gang violence that left 20 people dead in the past week.

Saturday's protesters demanded the release of political prisoners held under the regime of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who took over after Mr Aristide fled.

[Stoat]

You just have to hand it to those wacky Haitians....they just never seem to be able to get enough.

 

 

The BBC, as usual, fails to mention some of the more important and relevant points about a story.  For those unfamiliar with Mr. Aristide, here's a fun thing to do.  Do a web search with the terms "Aristide" along with "necklace" or "necklacing" ...it may be an eye opener.

FrontPage magazine.com Haiti Victim of Clinton's Old Black Magic by Lowell Ponte

(snip)

"Aristide has also endorsed “necklacing” of the kind widely practiced in South Africa by Winnie Mandela. It consists of seizing a victim, forcing an automobile tire filled with gasoline down over their head and shoulders, and then setting the tire and gasoline on fire.

“What a beautiful tool!… It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to smell it,” Aristide said of the necklacing of his critics on September 27, 1991, as witnessed and reported by Associated Press.

Note the above date. Despite knowing of Aristide’s penchant for necklacing critics, and despite knowing that a CIA psychological profile had identified Aristide as “a psychopath,” President Bill Clinton three years later put at risk 20,000 of America’s most elite troops to remove a pro-American Haitian government in order to re-install this murdering psychopath Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti.

“He is compared now with Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, who set up his Tontons-Macoute gestapo-like police to harass, jail and kill his opponents,” wrote Raymond Joseph, an editor of Haiti Observateur.  “Mr. Aristide’s goons are called chimeres (chimeras) and have turned Haiti into a killing field.”

“Aristide, who claims to be a prophet, a messiah, reportedly was bathed in November [2000] in the blood of a dead Haitian by voodoo priestess Marie-Anne Auguste, commonly known as So An,” wrote Yves A. Isidor, who teaches at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

“The purpose of [this blood] bathing…said a senior member of Aristide’s Lavalas Family Party,” wrote Isidor, “…was in an effort to put a curse on then-U.S. Rep[ublican] presidential candidate George W. Bush…. His Dem[ocratic] rival, U.S. Vice President Albert Gore would, hopefully, emerge as the winner of the November election.”  But Aristide’s voodoo magic could not make a winner of Zombie-like Gore as it helped do for Clinton.  "

(snip)

[nopardons]

bttt

[river rat]

Another turd left behind by the Clinton Administrations -- and negotiated by that demented idiot -- CARTER.

Clinton and Carter combined, have caused more misery than any 20 previous presidents.....

Our 1st black president sure screwed up the poor blacks in Haiti and Somalia..

Semper Fi

[Darkwolf377]

If I became Emperor of Earth I'd move all the Palestinians to Haiti. Just 'cuz.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Haiti... Detroit with palm trees and voodoo.

[backhoe]

Haiti, descending into chaos again
various FR links | 02-11-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1075828/posts

[radiohead]

Haiti...Detroit with palm trees and voodoo.

LOL! What's the line from The Untouchables - "We laugh because it's funny, and we laugh because it's true"?

[Stoat]

As usual, our friend Backhoe has the subject covered far better than the MSM   :-)

Thank you for creating that great thread and thank you for posting the link to it.  It provides an excellent backgrounder for everyone, particularly folks who hadn't been following Haiti's recent history very closely.

[Stoat]

Haiti... Detroit with palm trees and voodoo.

(simultaneously nodding and shaking furry stoat head in agreement and sadness)

[Stoat]

If I became Emperor of Earth I'd move all the Palestinians to Haiti. Just 'cuz.

(phoning everyone in my address book and advising them to vote for Darkwolf377 as Earth's next Emperor at their very next convenience)

[ReignOfError]

Hispaniola is a crystal-clear illustration of how much damage generations of corrupt government can do to a country.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic are pretty similar in climate and natural resources. I've been told -- haven't been there myself -- that when you fly over the border between the two countries, you can see the line as clearly as on the map. The DR side is lush and green, while the Haitian side is mud, stripped of anything and everything that can be eaten, burned as fuel or sold.

[Darkwolf377]

...and you haven't even heard my "Taxing Liberals To Stop Global Warming" proposal yet (guaranteed to get the NYT to start publishing 'Global Warming A Farce' headlines)...

...or my "Filling Rio Grande with Syphillic Alligators Who Are Set On Fire" Anti-Illegal Immigration idea...

[Stoat]

Another turd left behind by the Clinton Administrations -- and negotiated by that demented idiot -- CARTER.

Clinton and Carter combined, have caused more misery than any 20 previous presidents.....

Our 1st black president sure screwed up the poor blacks in Haiti and Somalia..

Semper Fi
 

Excellent points, all.  I have known extremely evil people in my lifetime, and I have known well-meaning yet breathtakingly naive and incompetent people in my lifetime as well.  Yet I've rarely encountered people who are made up of extreme elements of all these failings and yet are able to not only look themselves in the mirror every day without embarrassment yet also have the temerity to lecture the rest of us about how it's actually WE who are in the wrong, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary..  I suppose this can happen when you have a person who is psychiatrically imbalanced in some way, and also has millions of similarly delusional people deifying them at every step.

Thinking of this causes me to have even more respect for Presidents Reagan and W, in that they have been able to do truly great things despite being forced, by virtue of their positions, to interact with some of the worst people that have ever walked the earth.  And as you have pointed out, some of those people have also been Presidents.

[Stoat]

Hispaniola is a crystal-clear illustration of how much damage generations of corrupt government can do to a country.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic are pretty similar in climate and natural resources. I've been told -- haven't been there myself -- that when you fly over the border between the two countries, you can see the line as clearly as on the map. The DR side is lush and green, while the Haitian side is mud, stripped of anything and everything that can be eaten, burned as fuel or sold.

Probably not the best analogy in the world, but it brings the rise of Hitler to mind.  When you have a nation that, for whatever reason, is completely without hope and desperate, there is a history of such nations embracing incredibly brutal, psychopathic dictators. 

In Haiti's case, I don't know what the answer is.  How to you bring prosperity to a country that is unimaginably poor, uneducated and without resources?  There's not much to work with.

Very sad.

[backhoe]

Appreciate the kind words, and a Tip O' the Hatlo Hat to you-

[ReignOfError]

In Haiti's case, I don't know what the answer is. How to you bring prosperity to a country that is unimaginably poor, uneducated and without resources? There's not much to work with.

I don't know, either. If Haiti's beaches are anything like those in the DR, I'm sure there could be enough resorts to provide full employment -- but it's a chicken-egg problem. No one's going to create jobs without stability, and it's a tall order to achieve stability without jobs.

Part of the problem is these cults of personality that spring up among desperate people -- the march wasn't for Aristide's party, or his policies, but for the man himself. Haitian politics are defined as pro- or anti-Aristide, just as they were pro-or anti-Taylor in Liberia, and there are still pro- and anti-Peron marches in Argentina, to name just a few.

[Stoat]

...and you haven't even heard my "Taxing Liberals To Stop Global Warming" proposal yet (guaranteed to get the NYT to start publishing 'Global Warming A Farce' headlines)...

Such a combination of events would make me want to visit New York with a video camera.  I would station myself outside the NYT building, on the other side of the street, and film the building as it collapses onto itself after having finally reached a point where it's endless lies and spin can no longer sustain any semblance of structural integrity.. 

...or my "Filling Rio Grande with Syphillic Alligators Who Are Set On Fire" Anti-Illegal Immigration idea...

ROSA: Hey Juan, you gonna cross the river tonight and rob some lazy gringos again?

JUAN: Ummm....no, I don't think so.  Aljazeera TV is having a fundraiser and I wanna see what kind of entertainment they're having.

ROSA: HUH?  WTF you talkin' about?  Little Felipe has been pestering me all day, he don't have the latest Xbox game disk.  You best be moving your brown butt or you're sleepin' on da Italian leather couch tomorrow night....I don' wanna go through another day of him buggin' me.

JUAN: Ummm...Rosa honey, I can't.  The gringos have filled da river with Alligators.  But they aren't regular alligators....they are on fire, and they try to rape you.  Jose came back from the river yesterday and he was burned really bad, and the gator had chewed off his arm and he was raped by the gator too.  And today he is screaming with pain whenever he tries to pee....  I think the gator had the clap.

 

...and you haven't even heard my "Taxing Liberals To Stop Global Warming" proposal yet (guaranteed to get the NYT to start publishing 'Global Warming A Farce' headlines)...

Such a combination of events would make me want to visit New York with a video camera.  I would station myself outside the NYT building, on the other side of the street, and film the building as it collapses onto itself after having finally reached a point where it's endless lies and spin can no longer sustain any semblance of structural integrity.. 

...or my "Filling Rio Grande with Syphillic Alligators Who Are Set On Fire" Anti-Illegal Immigration idea...

[Stoat]

Well-stated...and returning Aristide to power certainly won't motivate any foreign investment in resort properties. No resort developer wants to risk having his staff necklaced under a full moon because they wouldn't bathe in the blood of a particular "enemy of Aristide", as directed by the neighborhood witch doctor.

As is so often the case, these people are their own worst enemies and they are doomed to live in perpetual poverty and brutality as a result.

[Darkwolf377]

JUAN: Ummm...Rosa honey, I can't. The gringos have filled da river with Alligators. But they aren't regular alligators....they are on fire, and they try to rape you. Jose came back from the river yesterday and he was burned really bad, and the gator had chewed off his arm and he was raped by the gator too. And today he is screaming with pain whenever he tries to pee.... I think the gator had the clap.

I have found my Karl Rove.

[Stoat]

I have found my Karl Rove.
 

(((BLUSHING)))))

Too bad the cloning sciences are not further along than they are.  If we could keep cloning a new Karl Rove from his original DNA every 20 years or so, we could ensure that the War On Terror would be continued til completion and our nation could count on having a good President in the White House forever.