March 02, 2004
by Ayanna Gillian
The URL of this article is:
http://www.rootswomen.com/ayanna/articles/02032004.html "We were in direct communication with President Aristide on Saturday afternoon and nothing that he said to us then would that he said to us then would have led us to believe that his resignation was imminent," Mr. Patterson told journalists during yesterday's post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.If we are to call ourselves sovereign nations, and deserve, even for a moment in our sorry histories the right to call ourselves independent, we must answer the call of Haiti. CARICOM must fight to reinstate President Jean Bertrand Aristide!! Throughout our histories as Caribbean nations we have neglected Haiti in favour of keeping our bellies full and our backs safe. We have cowed in the face of the U.S, and Europe and paid lip service to the beacon that Haiti has been, the only true light shining in the West. This Coup is not about the removal of a corrupt leader, (though he may have been) and it is not the quelling of civil war, (which I sincerely doubt will be achieved). This is a blatant, arrogant attack on democracy and the sovereignty of the entire Caribbean and by extension the entire world.
We sit here and feel that the plight of the world cannot touch us and that we are somehow safe in the hazy cocoon of breeze and sand and sex. But this is now in our backyard, as it has always been though we refused to see it. The international media would like to attempt to pull this one off, just as they attempted to do in Venezuela and just as they did in Georgia and countless other states. But the whistle has been blown and the cover is shot. If there has been no other time that we in the Caribbean must stand together and present a united front against this atrocity it is NOW. The outcome of this CARICOM meeting must send a strong signal to the United States and her cronies: the Caribbean will not take this one sitting down. We must demand a full reinstatement of President Aristide and fully expose the role of the U.S in the coup that ousted him.
The international community will certainly not be our allies in this. They have never been friends of Haiti and have sought since her glorious independence to crush any spark of political and economic power displayed by African people. Haiti has paid for not 'knowing her place' and is still paying for it. Why should we believe that the fate of any other black sovereign state would be any different? The Euro-American powers have clearly shown that they have no regard for our sovereignty, for our independence and for our capacity to govern. As we think on Haiti, we must remember Grenada and Venezuela; we must remember Cuba and Panama, we must think on the so-called 'fishing dispute' between Barbados and Trinidad, we must think of the rampant drug trade in Jamaica and political instability and poverty in Guyana. None of us are safe. We never have been and will not be unless we stand now!
No other conclusion is acceptable. The U.S with its forked-tongued, macabre vision of democracy has fueled civil war in Haiti, supported, armed and encouraged a bloody paramilitary faction with no legal or legitimate claim to power, masterminded a coup, kidnapped and ousted a democratically elected and constitutionally recognized President and is now attempting to fool the world again and come out with its hands clean. We must sound a clarion call that will be heard worldwide. We have presented a weak front for too long and allowed CARICOM to be used as a pawn and taken for a joke. We must state unequivocally: This was a U.S masterminded coup. The appointment of The Haitian chief justice, Boniface Alexandre is illegal and unconstitutional and we do NOT recognize it.
REINSTATE ARISTIDE! WE WILL ACCEPT NO QUARTER.
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