JEAN BELIARD LUCIEN
General manager of Radio Lakay, a New York City-based radio station that serves Haitian-Americans, Jean Beliard Lucien said today: “An elected government has been overthrown by an armed rebellion under the watch of the U.S…. This year is the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence. Aristide’s asking France to pay back for money that Haiti was forced to pay for its independence is one of the leading causes of his fall; once he did that, France set out to destroy Aristide’s image…. I have been critical of Aristide, he failed to really root out corruption, but the people who are taking over now are criminals.”
More Information

MICHAEL RATNER
President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ratner said today: “Aristide is still lawfully the president of Haiti. International law does not recognize governments imposed by coup…. Apparently Aristide was forcibly taken out of Haiti — that violates international treaty and subjects the U.S. to proceedings at the International Court of Justice.”
More Information

STAN GOFF
Author of Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the U.S. Invasion of Haiti, Goff just returned from Haiti.

BRIAN CONCANNON Jr.,
Concannon is a human rights lawyer with the International Lawyers’ Office, established by the Haitian government to help victims prosecute human rights cases. He said today: “Guy Philippe, the U.S.-trained self-proclaimed new army chief, was implicated in running drugs, executing suspected gang members, attacking the National Palace and trying to blow up a hydro dam, even before he started killing his former police colleagues. Louis Jodel Chamblain, co-founder of Haiti’s brutal FRAPH death squad, was convicted for several atrocities committed during Haiti’s last dictatorship, in 1991-1994. Both are now living up to their legends, hunting down and executing government supporters, emptying the jails, spraying whole neighborhoods with gunfire….”
More Information

JULIANNE MALVEAUX
Malveaux, an economist and commentator, said today: “The U.S. government held up a World Bank $500 million loan to Haiti for two years. Such actions helped destabilize the government of the populist president who identified with the large number of Haitian people subsisting on a few dollars a day.”
More Information

WAYNE MADSEN,
Author of the recent article “Venezuela Redux In Haiti,” investigative reporter Madsen is available to talk about individuals forming U.S. policy in Haiti. He said: “They include the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega (a one-time staffer for Sen. Jesse Helms and promoter of El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson), U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte (a promoter of Honduran death squads while he was ambassador to Honduras), Iran-contra felon Elliott Abrams (who is now at the National Security Council), and Otto Reich, Noriega’s predecessor who was not confirmed by the Senate and who organized a similar coup in April 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. They are supported in their efforts by the ‘neo-conservative’ elements in the Pentagon, White House, State Department and media who set the stage for the U.S. war against Iraq….”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167