GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
For Immediate Release
Friday, February 27, 2004
GREENS: THE U.S. MUST BACK HAITI'S DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT, NOT REBEL THUGS; MUST END THE AID EMBARGO AGAINST
HAITI
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As rebels threatened Port-au-Prince and France urged President Aristide's resignation, Greens called
on the Bush Administration to reverse its hostility to the embattled Aristide government, withhold military
interference, and end the embargo against Haiti. Greens also urged international action to ensure the safety of Haiti's
democratically elected government and humanitarian aid and shelter for the Haitian people in the face of a bloody
rebellion and refugee crisis.
"The Bush Administration's near silence should be recognized as an endorsement of the paramilitary street violence that
threatens the legitimate Aristide presidency," said Michele Tingling-Clemmons, co-chair of the Black Caucus of the Green
Party of the United States. "It's no secret that Mr. Bush wants to see Aristide deposed, especially in light of reports
of the millions of dollars authorized by the White House to arm the Haitian insurgents"
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide angered the U.S. government after his 2000 election, when he resisted demands that
state-run industries be privatized and other neoliberal reforms, and instead doubled the minimum wage and concentrated
Haitian federal funding on public education and health care.
Greens note that the opposition Democratic Convergence Party, which supports the rebellions, represents Haiti's business
elite with international corporate connections, and that the leadership of the rebels is drawn from criminal gangs and
former military officers responsible for the reign of terror from 1991 to 1994. During this time, the CIA-funded death
squad FRAPH killed 3,000 Aristides supporters.
"Bush is supporting the antidemocratic opposition, as he did the failed coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela, but more cautiously and surreptitiously this time," said Rick Tingling-Clemmons, who serves on the steering
committees of the D.C. Statehood Green Party and the national party's Black Caucus, and who also noted that the
opposition has never represented any more than 20% of the Haitian people, according to the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs. "The Bush Administration wants to open up Haiti to privatization of state-run businesses and public resources
and to sweatshop exploitation of Haiti's people. Bush rejects Aristide's populist reforms, so he is maintaining the
international aid embargo initiated by former Senator Jesse Helms in the last days of the Clinton Administration."
"Greens condemn these policies, we reject the frequent media depiction of President Aristide as a tyrant and portrayal
of the drug-traffickers and thugs behind the rebellion as heroes of democracy, and we demand the restoration of aid and
recognition of Aristide's government, whose validity was confirmed by the Organization of American States," Rick
Tingling-Clemmons added.
"The U.S. and French responses are especially shameful because they mirror a 200-year-old racist and colonial attitude
towards Haiti, ever since former slaves ousted their French masters," said Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the Albany County,
New York Green Party. "The U.S. isolated Haiti out of fear that Toussaint L'Ouverture's 1804 revolution would inspire
slaves in the U.S. to revolt. The Bush Administration has again isolated Haiti, for its economic independence and
resistance to U.S. corporate demands."
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party Presidential Nomination Convention & Candidates http://www.gp.org/convention/process.html
Media credentialing for the convention http://www.gp.org/forms/media/
The Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org 1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404 Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN Fax 202-319-7193
Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean: statements on the crisis in Haiti http://www.epica.org/
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