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Comments

• [1] hjs from 11211 September 14, 2007 - 10:44AM

  why haven't the UN forces restored the democratically elected government

  
  
• [2] Randy Paul from Jackson Heights, NY September 14, 2007 - 10:48AM

  This is another example of Colin Powell's fecklessness as Secretary of State:

  Here's Colin Powell less than two weeks before Aristide's departure:

  Mr. Powell called on Mr. Aristide to help defuse the situation by putting in place a political agreement, brokered with other Caribbean nations, to disarm his loyalists, reform the police and welcome political opponents into a new governing council.

  Mr. Powell said the United States would not support Mr. Aristide's removal in a coup.

  "We cannot buy into a proposition that says the elected president must be forced out of office by thugs," the secretary said. [my emphasis]

  Read the first paragraph of that quote again. Five days later Aristide agreed to that plan. The opposition rejected it two days later.

  So let's examine the sequence of events:

  1.) The Bush administration through its Secretary of State - the highest ranking diplomat in the government - proposes a solution for power-sharing developed with representatives of the OAS, Canada, France and Caricom.

  2.) Aristide accepts the proposal.

  3.) The opposition rejects the proposal.

  So what would be the next logical step? One would think that either someone from the the group proposing the power-sharing proposal pressures the opposition or asks for a counter-proposal from them.

  That didn't happen and Aristide was forced out.

  
  
• [3] Patrick from Astoria September 14, 2007 - 10:49AM

  Mr. Robinson perspective of 2004 Aristide is marred by his love for 1994 Aristide. They are by no means the same person. 1994 Aristide was a champion of the poor and promoter of liberation theology. 2004 Aristide was a murdeous thug, concerned only with his position of power. I was in Haiti during the coup, and Mr. Robinson overestimates Aristide support. Aristide was not kidnapped. He voluntarily left to protect his own life from the highly popular rebels.