UN SHOULD INVESTIGATE

The United Nations should conduct a wholly independent investigation into charges made by former Haitian President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, that he was pressured by the United States of America on Sunday to resign, was kidnapped and taken to the Central African Republic and into exile. In turn, the Caribbean Community of Nations (CARICOM) should discuss fully the Haitian leader’s charges and formulate a common position with respect to any approach to the UN on what should be regarded by Caribbean leaders and Caribbean people as a crucial issue. Haiti, there should be no need to remind, is a CARICOM Member State, and its problems ultimately are the concerns of the Region.

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.” Or is the world to believe that they were simply meant to be harmless examples of post Mardi Gras “robber talk”? Or as Lewis Carroll puts it ever so nicely in Through the Looking Glass: “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”