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February 29, 2004<br><br>
International Action Center Condemns U.S. gunboat diplomacy in
Haiti<br>
STOP THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF HAITI! RESTORE PRESIDENT ARISTIDE!<br>
EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATIONS PLANNED NATIONWIDE<br><br>
Emergency Demonstration:<br><br>
San Francisco, Monday, March 1, 5pm, Powell & Market<br><br>
The International Action Center condemns the forcible overthrow of the
government of Haiti and the removal of popularly elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide by the U.S. and French military. We demand that
President Aristide be allowed to return and that the U.S. withdraw its
occupation troops, agents and terrorist mercenary forces from Haiti's
soil.<br><br>
The departure of President Aristide was far from a voluntary decision for
the "good of the country," as George Bush's mouthpiece in
Haiti, Ambassador James Foley, maintains. No one in the Bush regime cares
about what?s good for Haiti. If they did, they would not have tortured
the Haitian people with years of economic sanctions. They would not have
armed and paid the mercenary death squads that are terrorizing northern
Haiti, murdering political opponents and threatening to turn
Port-au-Prince into a killing field. <br>
President Aristide left Haiti under the guns of a U.S. Naval task force
and thousands of U.S. Marines, with Marine helicopters hovering over the
presidential palace and U.S.-armed mercenaries surrounding the capital.
Haiti's capital is now under U.S. military occupation.<br><br>
With conflicting reports coming out of Haiti, it?s becoming increasingly
clear that the President was kidnapped. The corporate-owned U.S. news
media have been dishonest in the reporting of events, claiming the revolt
against President Aristide was a spontaneous uprising, in the midst of
which hundreds of heavily armed, well-trained commandos just happened to
materialize.<br><br>
The U.S. government has a long and bloody history of overthrowing popular
governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has used both CIA
covert operations and direct invasions. To name just a few - Guatemala in
1954, Cuba in 1959, Jamaica in the 1970s, Chile in 1973 and Nicaragua in
1992, Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. U.S. troops marched into Haiti
in 1888, 1898, 1891 and occupied Haiti directly from 1914 to 1934. The
objective has always been the same: to keep the wealth of Latin America
and the Caribbean flowing into the vaults of Wall Street banks while the
people who produce it remain poor.<br><br>
In 1914 the U.S. Marine Corps seized all of Haiti's gold reserves and
carted them off to the United States. Both France and the U.S. owe Haiti
reparations. The leader of the resistance to the 1915 invasion,
Charlemagne Peralte, was murdered by U.S. troops, tied to a door almost
fully naked and put on display. U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley
Butler later confessed, "I made Haiti a safe place for the First
National City Bank boys to collect revenues in." <br>
The forced removal of President Aristide, who tried to resist some of the
dictates of the International Monetary Fund, marks a blatant return to
that era of open colonialism and gunboat diplomacy. The
banker-politicians and generals in Washington would like to restore that
regime not only in Haiti but also throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean. Haiti is their testing ground. They must be stopped!<br><br>
Today we call on freedom-loving people everywhere to rally to the cause
of the Haitian people and their elected government.<br><br>
No to U.S. occupation! No to mercenary death squads! Restore the elected
government of Haiti! U.S. and France, hands off! Reparations for
Haiti!<br><br>
Emergency Demonstration:<br><br>
San Francisco, Monday, March 1, 5pm, Powell & Market<br><br>
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International Action Center<br>
39 West 14th St, #206, New York, NY, 10011<br>
212-633-6646
<a href="http://www.iacenter.org/" eudora="autourl">www.iacenter.org</a><br><br>
<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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